Chapter Three
Questions and Answers
It was still raining when, about fifteen minutes later, Sybil heard familiar footsteps crunch on the ballast outside their third class compartment. A moment or two later, a smiling, and despite the appalling weather, a surprisingly dry, Tom clambered up from the side of the line, pulled open the door, and, watched by an admiring Sybil, deftly swung himself back inside the carriage. Much to Sybil's intense surprise, Tom was sporting a smart steel ribbed black umbrella, with a cane handle, which, she surmised, had kept him relatively dry from the incessant rain.
The umbrella, Tom nonchalantly informed her, had been temporarily loaned him; by the sole occupant of a First Class smoking compartment from further up the train, apparently a Dublin bound city gent, or as Tom termed him -"a ruddy foreigner from England". The umbrella had been loaned on the strict understanding that Tom would let the chap know what, if anything, he found out about what had happened and that Tom, in turn, would return the umbrella to its rightful owner when they reached the end of the line at Westland Row station. Sybil, Tom felt certain, would be glad to hear that they would be under way again very shortly.
Having vigorously shaken out the rain soaked umbrella through the still open window of their compartment, Tom furled the brolly, propped it in a corner, pulled up the droplight, fastened the leather strap and slammed shut the door.
"Miss me?" he asked of Sybil, turning his head toward her with a merry twinkle in his eye. Tom sighed contentedly, made himself comfortable, settled back on the seat next to her and pulled her close. At times, thought Sybil, Tom could be so infuriatingly pleased with himself. So, with the photograph temporarily forgotten, Sybil decided it was time to have a little fun.
"And give me one good reason why I should do anything as ridiculous as that?" asked Sybil, assuming a condescending air of mock disdain. "After all, you're just an ignorant Irishman and, in case you hadn't noticed, this … ruddy … foreigner" - she punctuated each of the three words with a sharp jab to Tom's solar plexus with her index finger - "had other things to attend to".
"Ouch, hey, stop that, it that hurts", yelled Tom in playful indignation.
"It's intended to" said Sybil, trying desperately, and then failing, to keep a straight face.
"Who taught you that little trick? Not Mary or Edith?" asked Tom grinning back at her. He had long since failed to accord either of her sisters their titles.
"No, neither of them" giggled Sybil. "It's quite surprising … what one learns at nursing school, how to deal with difficult male patients. So, what's good enough for … how was it you once termed my charges at Downton … randy officers, wasn't it … is most certainly good enough for the likes of you! So, don't say I haven't warned you, Mr Branson".
"All right, all right", laughed Tom. "You win. Shall we declare our own Armistice? I can see you've been busy. I'm very, very much impressed" said Tom, taking stock of the now tidied state of their compartment.
Sybil settled back against the hard unyielding upholstery, with Tom's warm protective arm held tightly around her. She snuggled closer against him, enjoying the intimacy of the moment, inhaling the clean scent of his masculinity, his musk mixed with carbolic soap and … There was something else. Not engine oil, she had smelt that on him many times before. But, this time there was something else, a faint odour about him that she had smelt somewhere before, that she knew she should recognise, but at that precise moment couldn't quite identify …
"Tom, love … what's that … whatever is that smell?
"Cordite, or something like it I expect … from the explosion" said Tom, as calmly and as casually as if he had been talking to her about changing whatever it was he changed on the Renault in the garage back at Downton. Sybil thought fleetingly of Edith - who with her knowledge of motors would have known precisely of what it was she was thinking.
"Explosion?" Sybil sounded utterly appalled. In fact, she was appalled. More than that, she was horrified. Abruptly, she pulled away from Tom, causing him to turn and regard her quizzically.
Ignoring his look of faint amusement, and putting her training as a nurse to good effect, Sybil began a gentle, but thorough, search of him. Cupping Tom's face with her hands, gently, through his clothes, she felt his upper body, his shoulders, arms, elbows, chest, taking hold of his hands with her own, searching for the smallest sign of any injury. Much as Tom had done to her when they had been thrown off their seats when the train came so unexpectedly to a sudden stop. She had, she recalled, done the same many times to wounded soldiers in her charge, but never had that contact produced the feeling, which her close physical contact with Tom produced in her now. But, ironically, it was that reflection which stirred in her memory where she had smelt the odour, which she could now smell on Tom. It had been when she had been cutting off the uniforms and clothing of soldiers caught in shell blasts.
"Satisfied?" asked Tom with a merry twinkle in his eye. "Or do you want me to undress, Nurse Crawley?" he said softly.
Sybil flushed. The very thought of Tom …
"So, what … what happened?" Sybil asked, trying to avoid Tom's searching gaze, and at the same time frantically, grabbing hold of his arms.
"Well. You remember why we were delayed leaving Kingstown … the late-running troop special?"
Sybil nodded dumbly.
"Well, some blasted fools, presumably from somewhere close to Booterstown - it's the next station up the line from here - made an attempt, not a very good one mind you, to blow up the railway bridge just north of here. Apparently, those involved weren't that used to handling explosives, the charge went off after the troop special passed through and most of the blast - I walked up the line to have a look at the damage - went down and not up, so there's not that much harm done. I once told you that I don't condone violence. And while I want the British and their army out of Ireland as much as anyone, and the sooner the better, for all our sakes, something like this, if it had succeeded, would have led to reprisals and needless loss of life on both sides. The sad fact is, I'm sure it won't be the last time that something like this happens. In fact, from what I've been hearing, I expect things will get a great deal worse before all of this gets sorted out".
Sybil seemed not to be paying the slightest regard to what he was saying, continuing to touch him, to reassure herself that he was uninjured.
"Sybil, love ...," said Tom. Firmly, but gently, he grasped hold of her wrists with his hands. "I'm not made of china. I'm fine, really I am," he said softly, sub consciously echoing her words to him from but a short while ago. "See, no harm done".
"No harm done? But when I think ..." Her voice faltered.
"Then don't think" said Tom, pulling Sybil close to him and kissing the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair.
Through a veil of softly falling tears, Sybil gazed up at Tom, at his well-loved face, her fingers gently grasping, kneading, and plucking at the lapels of his jacket in her continuing attempt to assure herself that, despite his very real presence here alongside her, he was truly all right.
"You said ... you said ... you adored me". Her voice was very faint, indistinct, in fact little more than a hushed whisper.
Tom nodded. "So I did. And I meant it. Each and every word".
Sybil stifled a deep sob.
"And I you. Tom ... love, you mean everything to me. Oh my darling. I don't think I realised, just how much ... until you mentioned ... The thought of you being caught up in that explosion ..."
"Hush now" said Tom, a faint grin playing about his lips, which gradually broadened into a smile.
"Don't make fun of me". Sybil pouted, batting Tom's chest with the palms of her hands.
"I'm not, my love. Truly, I'm not. I was just thinking ..."
"Thinking what?"
"About the complete incongruousness of it all".
"How so?"
"Well, just think. All those years we spent at Downton; the arguments, the furtive discussions, the silly misunderstandings, then realisation slowly dawning for both of us, finding out how each felt about the other?"
"You mean, about how ... how we loved each other. Use the word Tom, it's not one of which to be ashamed. I felt sure you of all people would realise that". Sybil smiled weakly at him.
Tom grinned back at her.
"Touché my love. I'm certainly not ashamed of the word, my darling, as well you know. All right then. Finding out how we loved ... love each other. There we were, despite all the draw backs, surrounded by all that Downton had to offer us; each other, all that beauty, all that privileged way of life - well, at least for some milady". Tom chuckled.
Then he became serious again. "And until the war came along, all of us, you, your parents, Mary, Edith, Mr. Carson, Mrs. Hughes, all of us below stairs, yes, even me my love, all of us safely cocooned from the world outside the estate. And here we are now ... I mean, just look at us ..." Tom glanced expressively round the dimly lit compartment "... in a filthy dirty, third class carriage on the Dublin and South Eastern Railway. In the middle of the Irish countryside, in the pouring rain, in the aftermath of an explosion, and it is only now that we both finally realise what we mean to each other".
Sybil glanced about her, at their shabby surroundings. "Yes, my darling, I do begin to see what you mean!" she conceded. And then it was Sybil's turn to laugh.
A moment or two later and there came a long shrill blast from the engine's whistle, there was a slight jolt, and the train began to inch forward at a snail's pace, resuming its interrupted journey. It passed slowly over the damaged bridge. Despite the rain, the strong smell of cordite still hung in the sodden air. A group of rain-soaked gangers from the railway company, watched over by armed officers from the Royal Irish Constabulary, and, from below the arch of the bridge, down on the road, by soldiers in an armoured car, began the slow task of clearing away the debris and making good the damage resulting from the failed explosion.
A short while later, albeit somewhat later than intended, the train, wreathed in steam and spray from the incessant rain, rolled in under the iron and glass arched roof of the station at Westland Row, and drew gently to a stop alongside Platform 1, in the heart of the bustling city of Dublin beside the Liffey river.