Chapter Fifty One
With This Ring …
"Well …" said Sybil softly, her eyelids now heavily laden with sleep, "I suppose … I suppose it would have to be when you slipped this on to my finger". Languidly, yawning broadly, she now held up her left hand, gazing almost wonderingly at the plain, slim gold band that now adorned the fourth finger. Plain that was saving for the inscription engraved upon it. Three simple words: "Gach Nóiméad Airdeallach" – "Every Waking Minute".
Just beyond the end of their double bed, and heralding the beginning of a new morn, the start of the first day of their married life together, the faintest glimmer of the pale grey dawn stole its fingers furtively and unbidden through the window into the room round the edges and between the narrow chinks in the thick curtains. The soft early morning light caught the reflected fire from the burnished gold of Sybil's wedding ring, making it both glisten and sparkle.
"I'm sorry that I couldn't afford something more worthy of you, my love" mumbled Tom apologetically. He stretched languidly, yawned, and then enfolded her tightly in his strong arms once again, nuzzling the scent of her hair, his face burrowed against the back of her head.
"Don't be silly, Tom. It's just perfect" said Sybil drowsily, herself now all but fast asleep. "Yesterday was absolutely perfect too. A beautiful day, one I will never forget …"
"Me, neither" said Tom sleepily. And, but a moment or two later, despite the comparative lateness of the hour, wrapped in each others' arms, both of them fell fast asleep.
After the early morning mist had finally burnt away, the day of Tom and Sybil's wedding had dawned bright and sunny, with fleecy, white clouds scudding across the azure of a brilliant blue sky.
While Sybil had remained behind with Ma at the little house in Clontarf, Tom had spent the previous night, his last as a single man, lodging with Emer and Peadar down in Glasthule, along the coast, just south of Dublin. For their part, Ciaran, Donal - who was to be Tom's Best Man - and Peadar, had earnestly assured Sybil that between them, by hook or by crook if necessary, they would ensure that Tom was at the church in Clontarf, bright and early the following morning, well in time for the wedding ceremony.
However, the lingering intensity of the passionate kiss with which Tom had bade her adieu at the tram stop over on the sea-girt esplanade just along from Ma's house the previous evening, had left Sybil in no doubt whatsoever that he would be needing no assistance at all to ensure that he was at the grey stone church in Clontarf the following morning; this despite a last minute light hearted threat made by Tom himself, before he left her for the tram journey into Dublin and then out to Glasthule, that he might yet stowaway with Alcock and Brown on their next trans-Atlantic flight or else join the explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett somewhere in Brazil.
For her own part, Sybil had promptly retorted that of course, Tom was as much a free spirit as she was, could therefore do as he jolly well pleased; as for herself, well, he should realise that Sybil hadn't quite yet decided where exactly she would be the following morning.
She had, she said slowly, and choosing her words very carefully, "almost made up her mind, but not quite". At that, Tom nodded and broke into a broad grin, an unmistakeable acknowledgement of the fact that he recalled her saying those very same words to him, on a long gone evening in the garage back at Downton. However, continued Sybil, Tom could rest assured that, if no-one came along with a better offer to tempt her, and if nothing else made claim upon her very valuable time, then she might, just might, condescend to be at the church in the morning to marry him after all; he would just have to wait and see, adding that no less a personage than Mary herself had once said it was a woman's prerogative to be unpredictable. At which point, Tom said he was quite prepared to wait for her, forever if need be. And then it was Sybil's turn to smile in remembrance.
At that very moment, Tom had encircled Sybil in his arms, pulled her close to him in a heartfelt, tight embrace. Instinctively, as on so many similar previous occasions, careless, heedless of who was there to observe them, Sybil's arms had gone up round his neck, pulling Tom's head down towards hers, their lips meeting in a deep kiss; an intimate act which, this time, provoked a boisterous, raucous cheer and much banging on the windows from several young lads seated inside on the slatted seating of the lower saloon of the waiting tramcar. Blushing furiously, very reluctantly, they pulled apart, at the very same time that the conductor, eager to be off and away, rang the bell, and but a moment later, Tom had boarded the tram.
Of course, they had said goodbye on almost a daily basis, ever since their arrival in Ireland, when they left each other each morning at Nelson's Pillar and went their separate ways to work; Tom to the offices of the Independent on Talbot Street, and Sybil over to the Coombe. But, on this particular evening, seeing the tramcar pull away, with Tom standing on the bottom step waving to her until it rounded a curve and vanished out of sight, even knowing that in but a matter of hours she would not only see him again, but would shortly thereafter become his wife, nearly broke Sybil's heart. And, she was to recall this moment vividly, when later, and in markedly different circumstances, she found herself saying goodbye to Tom in the waiting room of an isolated railway station in County Cork.
When it had become only all too obvious that neither of her parents had the slightest intention of coming over to Ireland to attend Sybil and Tom's wedding, in the absence of the earl of Grantham, and without being asked, Ciaran had kindly stepped into man the resultant breach and gamely offered to give Sybil away. Sybil suspected that Tom must have said something to Ciaran, but he denied having anything to do with it, and Ciaran himself politely refused to discuss the matter. However, with the service to begin at eleven thirty in the morning, Ciaran assured Sybil that he would be at Ma's for eleven o'clock to escort Sybil on foot the short distance to the grey stone church on Seafield Road.
Apart from Ciaran, Donal, Emer, their spouses, and their children, the only others expected to be present at the short ceremony were Mary and Edith, who were being driven over to Clontarf in a car and by a chauffeur from the Shelbourne Hotel. There would, of course, be many more attending the evening reception being held in the long stone barn out at Ciaran's farm on the Clontarf Castle estate. That, from what little Sybil had managed to glean from Tom about the planned festivities, was likely to prove a rather more raucous affair. And although Sybil had told them she was confident she could manage on her own, both Mary and Edith insisted in arriving at Ma's house in plenty of time so as to be able to help Sybil with her hair and in getting dressed.
Irrespective of whatever the fashion magazines such as Harper's Bazaar taken, along with Vogue, for many years by her mother, and The Queen patronised by her Aunt Rosamund had to say about and suggested as appropriate attire for a bride, ever practical, Sybil had decided on a serviceable new two piece suit of powder blue, a white blouse, and picture hat with a short veil in which to be married, the colour and style of which had been kept from Tom. After all she was marrying away from home, and Sybil felt that her choice of wedding attire entirely became the modest, quiet affair she and Tom had planned, given after all what might have been, had her parents approved of her choice of husband and had they been being married in the local parish church at Downton.
And, when Tom had persisted in asking her questions about her choice of wedding attire, Sybil had told him to mind his own business; said that he had been coy about the reception out at Ciaran's farm, so she too was entitled to her secrets. Nevertheless Sybil had managed to make Tom blush scarlet when she blithely announced that since she hadn't been able to decide what to wear, she intended marrying him in just her silk underclothes.
Besides which, both Sybil and Tom had far better things on which to spend their money, be it that which they were now both earning for themselves or the money which Papa had given to Sybil so grudgingly by way of a dowry. As for the latter, Tom had told Sybil that it was for her, and her alone, to decide upon what that particular sum should be spent, thus provoking their first serious disagreement, Sybil retorting that Papa had given the money, amounting to several hundred pounds, to them both, and that they should decide jointly upon what it should be spent.
However, in the end their disagreement proved short lived and singularly pointless. For, given her father's blunt refusal then to come over to Ireland for their wedding, despite their straightened financial circumstances, both Sybil and Tom resolved not to touch a gift given so obviously out of aristocratic duty - noblesse oblige as Tom termed it - and not out of any real sense of filial affection for Sybil herself. Consequently, Lord Grantham's reluctantly bestowed dowry was therefore accordingly placed in a deposit account in the names of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Branson, but newly opened with the Bank of Ireland on College Green opposite Trinity College here in Dublin; and there the earl of Grantham's money duly remained untouched for some considerable time.
The thorny problem as to where Tom and Sybil were to live after their marriage was swiftly resolved, at least for the time being. Ma's elder sister, who lived over at Lettermullen on the far west coast of Ireland in Connemara, County Galway, was ailing, and not expected to live. Immediately after Tom and Sybil's wedding, Ma intended travelling over to nurse her sister for what she realised might well turn out to be a protracted visit. In her continuing absence, Ma said she would much prefer it if the house in Clontarf served some useful purpose and so remained occupied.
In all the circumstances, and also because Tom and Sybil desperately needed somewhere suitable to live, with the complete approval of Ciaran, Donal, and Emer, it was readily agreed that the newly-weds could have Ma's house for as long as they had need of it. Initially, Ma refused to countenance taking a penny off them in rent, until, with Tom's wholehearted agreement, Sybil suggested a sensible compromise whereby they would pay Ma a certain specified sum each month, which she could then put aside for them both to be used, at some time in the future as a deposit towards the purchase of their own home.
Not of course that Tom or Sybil had the slightest intention of ever taking any of the money back from Ma. After all, the monthly sum involved was so small that it meant that they would still be able to set aside far more towards a deposit for their own home than if Tom and Sybil had had to pay to rent a flat somewhere in one of the suburbs of Dublin. As to whether or not Ma realised that the two of them had contrived to outwit her, even if she realised it, Ma herself never said.