Chapter Twenty Five
The Past Is Myself
It happened just after the Number 31 tram had come to a sudden and an unexpected stop on North Strand Road, just beyond where the Newcomen Bridge spanned the Royal Canal. Apparently there was some problem with the electrical supply, but given the lateness of the hour, there were few passengers on board and all seemed to take the news with equanimity, given the fact that such occurrences were happening all the time these days.
They had been sitting chatting about which was worse, Tom having to tell Edmund Kelly what had happened to his much prized motor, or the prospect of afternoon tea at the Shelbourne Hotel and sitting and making polite conversation with both Edith and Mary.
"... and faced with the prospect of afternoon tea with Lady Mary Crawley, or being sent up the line to the most exposed salient on the Western Front, I expect most men would prefer to go over the top!" laughed Tom rolling his eyes in mock horror. The words died away on his lips and all of a sudden he fell strangely silent.
Bemused, Sybil glanced across at him. Tom was sitting bolt upright, staring across the gangway. He appeared to be looking at the row of colourful signs opposite him and which lined the space just above the windows on both sides of the tram, advertising a wide variety of household products, as well as cigarettes, and tobacco. Only Sybil knew Tom was seeing something else, far beyond the confines of the interior of the tram. After all, she recognised that look on his face; had seen it before, several times now, but on this particular occasion she thought that she knew the cause. She squeezed his hand tightly.
"Tom, what is it, love? What do you see? Tell me".
"Oh, it's nothing, really".
"Really? I know you, remember?" She smiled softly.
"Well, I ... I was just thinking ..."
"Yes, love, I know". She slid her arm around his hunched shoulders. "I know what you're thinking about".
"You do?" He looked ashen, searched her face; looked questioningly at her.
She nodded.
"Yes of course, I do, Tom. That young boy. What else could it be? It was a terrible thing to see happen, but it doesn't do for you, or me, or anyone else, to dwell on that kind of thing".
Yes, he thought. The young boy...
Tom was surprised at Sybil's matter-of-fact response. Was it, he wondered, an example of the British aristocracy's famous sang-froid? Tom thought it unlikely. For although, when the mood took her, or she felt the occasion so demanded, Sybil could turn on aristocratic haughtiness as quickly as other women turned on a tap, he knew equally well that in no way could Sybil be called cold hearted; indeed that she was quite the opposite; both tender and deeply loving. His surprise must have registered on his face, because evidently realising that her words must have sounded rather harsh, even brutal, she relented somewhat.
"The death of young ones is always to be pitied" Sybil said staring into space, and obviously quoting from memory.
"Yes, but I ..."
She silenced him by placing a forefinger gently across his lips.
"But nothing, Tom. I never told you, you never asked me, but when I was training at Ripon, I saw many awful sights. I saw things you can only thankfully guess at. I saw bodies so badly mutilated they were scarcely even human anymore. I saw men die horribly on the operating table. Which is why my love, your jibe about bringing hot drinks to randy officers stung so much. But I learned, very early on in my nursing, that I had to stay detached, to distance myself from becoming too involved, from dwelling on such things... in order to keep my sanity. Call it callous if you will, but I would say it was more a case of self-preservation. That doesn't mean I don't care, I do. And, most especially I care very deeply ... about you my love". So saying, Sybil reached up and gently caressed his cheek with her gloved hand, and with her touch, Tom found himself remembering back to when she had done just the same, in the garage at Downton, on a long gone evening.
And, once again Tom also found himself marvelling anew at the young woman sitting next to him on the slatted wooden seat of the tramcar. Of course, Stathum had meant it kindly enough, when he had called Sybil a marvellous girl and Tom had taken Stathum's remark in good part, even if he thought the British officer to be an arrogant, patronising sod. After all, Sybil was so much more than just a marvellous girl; he could attest to that. Tom grinned broadly, but his reverie was particularly short lived for it was just then that the aberrant thought struck him: Stathum ... Now why the devil did that name sound so familiar? Or did it? He shook his head and once more Tom's thoughts, predictably enough, returned to Sybil.
It was only natural for her to have assumed that he had been thinking about that awful business of the young boy out at the farm on the Howth road. Only of course he hadn't; hadn't been doing that at all...
His eyes were wide open, but unseeing - at least in the conventional sense of the word. For, as if it was just yesterday, instead of a lifetime ago, and here in the most unlikeliest of settings, with Sybil sitting close beside him, in a brightly lit tramcar, on a street in the very heart of Dublin, in the gathering dusk of a summer's evening, Tom had found himself suddenly assailed by the unmistakeable smell of freshly tanned leather, mixed with the pungent aroma of horse sweat, of straw, and manure. But this time, there was to be no blissful gap in memory.
He was no more than twelve years old...
Tom was hiding up in the hayloft above the stables at Skerries, lying full length on his stomach, peering through a crack in the floor. Below him, he could see his two cousins searching the empty stalls one by one.
"Where's the little bastard got to this time?" asked William.
Tom saw that he had picked up a pitchfork, was now jabbing viciously into the piles of straw in each of the stalls.
"God knows, but he can't have gone that far" said Christopher.
Tom could hear his heart pounding in his chest and every now and then it seemed to skip a beat. That apart, he was beginning to experience severe cramp in his left leg from lying still for so long. If only he could...
The boy came back into the stables from the yard outside.
"There's no sign of him out there ..."
A cloud of hazy dust motes, followed in their wake by a single wisp of straw, spiralled slowly and softly downwards to the stable floor.
The boy glanced upwards at the ceiling and grinned.
"Got you, you little sod" yelled William triumphantly, as he turned and ran towards the ladder leading to the hayloft.
Somewhere a bell clanged, and instantly the image dissolved into nothing. There was then a sudden jolt, and the tramcar slowly resumed its interrupted journey out to Clontarf.
The letter, when at last it came, was postmarked"Salt Marsh"; the writing, on both the envelope and within elegant, yet at the same time thin and spidery. So the old girl ... Miles corrected himself ... dear Aunt Maud ... has actually deigned to honour me with a reply. Back in the privacy of his quarters, Miles tore open the envelope with almost feverish haste, and pulled out the several sheets of paper which it enclosed.
"The Old Hall, Watersreach, Salt Marsh, Crowland, Lincolnshire ..."
Yes, of course, he had forgotten. But, come to think of it, just like the haughty Lady Dedlock in "Bleak House", Aunt Maud did dwell in some damp, godforsaken, marsh ridden part of the country. Slowly, and with increasing impatience, Miles began to leaf through the letter in its whole interminable entirety. With scant interest, he passed over Aunt Maud's good wishes, her lengthy and tedious news about distant and immediate members of the family, of friends both at home and abroad, condolences over the death of his godfather here in Ireland, until at last he finally came upon what it was he was looking for .
"Now, my dear boy, as to Lady Sybil Crawley. Surely you must have heard ..." I haven't you old bat, thought Miles, otherwise I wouldn't have written to you in the first place. He read further. "And, since I suspected her grandmother's version of events was not quite the whole story, I made some discrete enquiries. The fact is ..." It was then that Miles's jaw dropped several inches.
Well, that explained everything. No wonder the earl and countess of Grantham would not be coming over to Ireland for their youngest daughter's wedding. And, nor did Miles blame them, given what Aunt Maud had written and told him. How on earth could Lady Sybil have done such a thing? Become engaged to ... As for that chap, Mr. Branson. Miles shook his head in utter disbelief. No wonder he had been so guarded about his military service. In service more like. God Almighty! And no wonder he knew so much about motors. Of course he would ... the bloody little chauffeur!