Chapter Sixty Five
Illiteracy In Kansas
"And you said Sybil bought her wedding dress in Dublin?" asked Cora now trying desperately to steer the conversation into calmer waters.
"Yes; although not exactly a dress - you'll see what I mean when Sybil sends over the photographs from Ireland – it was a simple two piece outfit in powder blue with a very fetching hat" explained Mary.
"Well far be it from me to disparage a bride ...," said Violet.
"But you're going to anyway" said Mary quietly.
"Not at all, Mary dear; all I was going to say was that from your description of it, poor Sybil's choice of wedding dress sounds so awfully middle class. A posy of wild flowers for a bouquet you say? It all sounds so frightfully tawdry".
"Oh granny! Really! Don't be such a snob".
Violet bristled.
"A snob? Me?"
"As it happens, Tom picked the flowers for Sybil's posy himself, from somewhere special to them both out on his brother's farm," explained Edith. "What was it called Mary?"
"The Rainbow Pool. Sybil told me. She said it was absolutely enchanting; that it held special memories for them both".
"Sybil looked lovely, didn't she Mary?" enthused Edith.
Mary nodded vigorously.
"Yes she did; absolutely radiant".
"And Ciaran gave her away" said Edith. "He was splendid, standing in for Papa".
"Ciaran? Who is Ciaran?" asked Violet, mangling the unfamiliar Irish name in her, admittedly brave, attempt to pronounce it.
"Tom's eldest brother" explained Edith.
"Does he have a position?" asked Violet.
"If you mean does he work for a living granny, then yes he does," said Edith.
Violet raised her eyebrows.
"As what precisely?"
"As a tenant farmer, on the Clontarf Castle Estate.
"Good gracious; whatever next? An Irish tenant farmer giving away an English earl's youngest daughter at her wedding. What on earth is the world coming to?
"I quite agree Mama" observed Robert.
"Well, you've only yourself to blame," said Cora tartly.
"If you'd been there, Papa, as you should have been you could have given Sybil away yourself!" snapped Mary.
At her words, Mary saw her father glance out of the Drawing Room window as though something out in the park had suddenly attracted his attention; but not before she saw, his eyes glisten with tears. He does care about Sybil after all thought Mary. However, she did not intend to let her father off that lightly, not after the needless distress caused to Sybil by his absence and that of Mama too from their youngest daughter's wedding.
"Tom looked very handsome too; he was extremely dapper in his new suit" added Mary.
Cora smiled.
"I don't doubt it".
"And as we said, Mama, both of them were so very pleased to receive your telegram, and your letter too granny" added Edith.
"Well, it's nice to know I can manage to do something right" observed Violet sharply.
"Mama, Tom loves her so very much," said Mary softly.
"And Sybil absolutely adores him" added Edith.
Cora's smile broadened considerably at that.
"I'm so very glad to hear what you've both just told us," she said, her voice all but breaking with emotion. Edith heard her father emphatically clearing his throat.
"And the reception, it took place in the church hall?"
Edith nodded.
"Sybil and Tom were very grateful for the hamper you sent over. It came in very useful at the reception".
"Hamper? What hamper?" asked Robert with barely concealed annoyance. "Cora, I thought I made it perfectly plain ..."
"Yes, Robert, you did. Very plain" hissed Cora. She flushed.
"Evidently not plain enough!"
"Robert, please ..."
"I thought we agreed ..."
"No, we didn't" snapped Cora.
"Obviously not" said Robert.
"And then in the evening, while Tom and Sybil went ahead in the motor, we all travelled out in the waggonette to the farm" explained Edith.
"In a waggonette?" Violet sounded appalled.
"Yes granny. It was great fun. Really, it was. We and the children were singing songs most of the way there".
"Fun? Singing songs? With children? In public?"
"Yes granny. Why ever not? After all, I sang here for the soldiers during the war," exclaimed Mary enthusiastically.
"Yes, I remember. How could I ever forget?" said Violet shaking her head. "Am I to understand it that you are both now considering careers on the London stage at the Gaiety Theatre?"
"We might be" said Edith archly.
The Dowager Countess shot her granddaughter a waspish look, while for her part, Mary chose to pay no attention whatsoever to granny's evident disapproval of what both Edith and she had just related.
"What was the name of that song we liked, Edith?" asked Mary
"Green grow the rushes, oh!" laughed Edith.
"Yes, that's right!"
Both Mary and Edith smiled broadly at the shared remembrance of that never to be forgotten journey, along the meandering lane that led to Ciaran's farm deep in the countryside of County Dublin.
Thereafter, their deliberately lively description of all the goings-on at the céilí before the arrival of the army caused Violet to shake her head in absolute disbelief yet again. Her opinion of the proceedings did not alter, not even when Mary and Edith explained that the dancing and the reels were much like those which took place at Craigside, the home of Lord Alfred Douglas Strathfern, Papa's cousin, up in the Scottish Highlands.
"And you say all this took place in a barn? Why, for Heaven's sake? Of course, through a mutual acquaintance, I had heard that the Vernons had leased out the Clontarf Castle estate, but surely something could have been arranged?"
"It was granny, by Tom's family and friends".
"Mary dear, that's not what I meant. It all sounds so positively frightful," said Violet pursing her lips.
"It sounds rather like some of the get-togethers held out in the Mid West which one of my cousins, who then lived in Kansas, wrote and told me about when I was a young girl" said Cora with a genuine smile.
"You do surprise me," said Violet.
"Why?" Cora asked evidently mystified. "Don't you think we Americans know how to enjoy ourselves?"
"Not at all" said Violet. "It just surprised me that you cousin from ... Where was it again?"
"Kansas" supplied Cora helpfully.
"Kansas" repeated Violet, somehow managing in the process to make the very word Kansas sound singularly unpleasant. "Not at all; I was just surprised that someone from that part of America even knew how to write".
Now it was Cora's turn to grimace. She turned to Mary.
"And the reception was held in a barn at Tom's brother's farm?"
Mary nodded.
"Yes, his brother Ciaran's a tenant farmer on the estate. His landlord was most accommodating".
"So you're quite serious then. The reception was held in a barn?" Violet sounded horrified.
"No granny, the reception was held in the church hall. It was the céilí which was held in the barn".
"What did you call it again?"
"A céilí".
"And it was that, whatever it is, which was held in the barn?" asked Violet still seemingly unable to comprehend what it was she was hearing.
Mary and Edith nodded their mutual assent.
"Wasn't it all terribly uncomfortable?"
"Not at all granny; it was great fun".
"Well, Edith, dear, obviously your idea of fun differs markedly from my own. It all sounds rather like Noah's Ark to me".
"Granny, there weren't any animals in attendance" said Mary, unable to hide her exasperation with their grandmother's evident inability to comprehend a social gathering held in surroundings other than those of a house of the size and opulence of Downton Abbey.
"Are you certain?"
"Yes, quite certain".
"I think that's debatable, given what the Irish have been up to lately" said Robert to no-one in particular, raising his eyes heavenwards and subjecting the moulded plasterwork of the Drawing Room ceiling to yet another minute inspection.
"For your information, Papa, everyone we met at the céilí was most courteous to us, with the exception I might add of Captain Stathum and the British soldiers under his command, who turned up uninvited and arrested Tom's brother-in-law".
"No doubt they had their reasons" said Robert drily.
"Perhaps" said Mary. "But not to behave the way they did. It was outrageous".
"It was quite deplorable," said Edith
"I quite agree," said Violet.
"You do?" asked Edith, clearly unable to contain her obvious surprise.
"Indeed I do. To turn up at a wedding uninvited, even at one held in an isolated barn somewhere in the remote fastness of Ireland, is quite unacceptable," said Violet primly.
"Oh granny!" Mary and Edith chorused, shaking their heads together in collective disbelief.
"Why? Did I say something wrong?" asked the Dowager Countess.