Chapter Ninety Three
August In December
On reaching the front door of the house, Sybil paused, as if but for a moment, she thought she saw the faintest glimmer of lamp light flicker between the chinks of the thick curtains of the parlour, but then realised her weary eyes were deceiving her; put it down to what she thought must be the dying glimmer of coals in the hearth or else the reflected brightness of the stars in the night sky.
After all, no-one was in; Ma was in Rathmines with Donal and Niamh and the motor was not standing where it had been on the last few nights when Tom had reached home before her. So, that being the case, he had obviously not yet returned from Dublin; indeed, as she suspected, would probably not be back for some time.
Behind her, the mist from off the sea thickened, rolled in from the strand, damp, salty tendrils of it now even eddying into the porch of the house, where in the foggy darkness, in her haste to be safe inside out of the fog, away from the unpleasant memories it engendered, Sybil's gloved fingers fumbled clumsily with the catch of her handbag. The newly mended clasp was one of Tom's less successful repairs, but it was either a question of tolerating the capricious vagaries of the clasp or else suffer the ignominy of having no handbag at all; there was simply no money for a replacement.
Then, while she struggled with the recalcitrant clasp, from somewhere within the silent house, in the darkness beyond the front door, Sybil heard a noise. Mesmerised, she immediately stopped what she was doing, and listened intently. Whatever it was that was causing it, the noise seemed to be coming from close to where she was now standing and took the form of a rhythmic and repetitive muffled series of thumps interspersed with pauses. There it was again: thump, pause, thump; nothing else, simply that. Indeed, as she listened, Sybil thought the noise sounded strangely familiar, but for all that, its cause remained elusive, was one which she found she could not identify.
After a hurried breakfast and equally perfunctory goodbyes before they had both left for work, Tom had been the first of the two of them to leave the house that morning on his way to meet with someone in Malahide, to the north of Dublin, otherwise, had he had been going into his office down on Talbot Street, he would have been able to run Sybil into Dublin. Now that would have made the likes of Annie Neary and Constance Phelan sit up and take notice; arriving at work in a motor driven by Tom.
After all, Sybil was only too well aware that when, on occasion, he had come to meet her at the hospital, having for themselves seen just how handsome Tom was, several of the nursing sisters at the Coombe had congratulated Sybil on her good fortune in marrying him; had, on more than one occasion, well out of earshot of matron, and also of Sybil herself, or so they had thought at the time, openly discussed his manly physique, wondered what he was like in bed, as a lover. Of course, had she been minded to do so which of course she was not, Sybil could have told all of them the plain, simple truth; that this was one time where all their imaginings were but a pale shadow of the reality. However that was something Sybil kept locked in her heart.
So, in the morning, with Tom driving out to Malahide, Sybil had taken the tram down into Dublin as usual. Had she, she wondered, forgotten to secure a window that was now banging to and fro in the wind? Possibly; but, as she listened, Sybil realised that there was no breeze; the air was utterly still. She could remember distinctly carrying the ash bucket from the kitchen out into the yard, and emptying it into the dustbin, then hearing the grandfather clock in the hall ponderously striking the half hour, realising the time, had hurried back inside so as to make herself ready to catch the next tram down into Dublin. In her haste, had she left the back door open? Had, she wondered nervously, someone broken into the house?
Eventually, the catch on her handbag snicked open, only for Sybil to find herself now fumbling within the bag itself, hunting for her key, while all the time, beyond the front door, the same rhythmic noise continued unabated: thump, pause, thump. At last, after a worrying few minutes, in which she wondered if she had somehow mislaid it, with the recalcitrant key now found and held tightly in the fingers of her gloved hand, nervously, Sybil inserted it into the lock and turned it. The latch clicked and, pushing open the front door, she stepped inside into the small tiled hall, and, at the same time, the odd, unexplained noise ceased altogether.
But before she could give thought to that, Sybil realised that not only had she stepped inside to warmth, but also to lamp light, to a delicious savoury smell, and to the equally unexpected, but very welcome sight, of Tom's hat and overcoat hanging from one of the row of hooks just inside the front door. A moment or two later, and their owner, in waistcoat and trousers, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, appeared in the doorway of the back kitchen.
"Thought I heard the front door go" lilted Tom lazily, leaning nonchalantly against the jamb of the door to the kitchen. "Supper's almost ready. I was just doing a spot of ironing too". His blue eyes sparkling, he grinned broadly at her, and reaching out, gently drew Sybil forward into his strong arms in a warm embrace.
"God, love, but you're absolutely frozen!"
For a moment Sybil said nothing, but blinking back tears of happiness, was content just to be held tightly in Tom's loving arms.
Ironing!
Of course; she, of all people, should have realised. That was what the sound had been; the thump of the sad iron from the range hitting the towel covered surface of the kitchen table. No wonder it had sounded so familiar; after all, she herself had been taught how to iron, making use of a table in the laundry at Ripon Camp Military Hospital during the war. As the matron had said to her at the time, her inexperience didn't matter; practice would soon make her perfect and without further ado had indicated a veritable pile of freshly laundered sheets and pillowcases, all in desperate need of ironing. Why, if Sybil thought about it, even now, several years later, she could still smell the soap suds; feel the cloying dampness, and the heat from the stove with its bank of sad irons.
"Tom! Darling! But how on earth ... You're home. Where ... where's the motor? You haven't crashed it, have you?"
At her question, he had jabbed a thumb; grinned at her lack of confidence in his ability to drive safely.
"In all the years we've known each other, have you ever known me to crash a motor?"
Sybil shook her head.
His grin widened perceptibly.
"No. Of course not Tom". Sybil's brow furrowed in confusion. "Well ... only out at the farm on the road to Howth, but on reflection I suppose that really doesn't count, does it?"
Tom shook his head.
"No, it doesn't".
"So, where's the ..."
"The motor?"
Sybil nodded.
"You remember old Mrs. Doyle down the road, offered me the use of her old stable as a makeshift workshop, after I repaired that water pump of hers, down below the spinney, at the back end of August?"
"Yes, of course". Sybil smiled.
After all, how could she, indeed, how could either of them, ever forget the pump below the spinney, or more importantly the hayloft above the old stable. Sybil felt herself flush at the very remembrance of it, and of what had happened after on that Saturday morning when she had taken Tom his lunch; nothing fancy, just some bread and cheese, an apple, a costrel of cider. Until then, Sybil had never tasted cider, so maybe what had followed had had something to do with the heady effect of the sweet tasting, amber coloured liquid.
Old Mrs. Doyle was a friend of Ma's and lived about half a mile down the road from their white walled house. Widowed, bed ridden, aged nearly seventy; she lived in an imposing red brick villa, which had obviously seen better days. Her domestic staff, now reduced to a cook and a parlour maid within, and the elderly Josiah Potts without, who did his aging best to attend to the garden, fast deteriorating into a tangle of brambles and thorns, one day in August, the pump down below the spinney from which Potts drew his water for the garden, had ceased to function. Ma, then still in Lettermullen, on hearing of this from Mrs. Doyle, had, by letter, suggested that Tom be asked to have a look at the pump, to see if he could effect a repair, temporary or otherwise; which was how it came to be that on a hot morning in late August, Tom was dowsing himself in water from the spout of the newly repaired pump.
Sybil had come upon him unawares. The very sight of Tom stripped to the waist, the bare muscles of his back rippling in the sunlight, his skin glistening with sweat, bending over the water trough, cooling his head under the stream of crystal clear water cascading from the spout of the pump down below the spinney behind Mrs. Doyle's stables was an image that Sybil would always remember.
That hot August morning, when she saw him, Sybil's thoughts drifted back immediately to what had occurred shortly before they were married, out at the Rainbow Pool beyond Ciaran's farm. Then, totally unselfconsciously, Tom had stripped and dived naked off a rocky ledge into the cool waters of a pool, completely unaware that Sybil was sketching him from the opposite side of the water. In fact, he still knew nothing about it; the sketch lay safely stored away at the bottom of Sybil's trunk at the end of their bed.
The orchard was drowsy with the heat of late summer, the air heavy and still, silent save for the humming of all manner of insects, the drone of the bees in the hives below the grassy bank, beside the path which led downwards to the stream. While Sybil picked her way delicately beneath the branches of the apple trees, unconscious of her approach, her footsteps muffled by the soft, mossy greensward, Tom put his head under the spout of the pump while he worked the handle. The coldness of the water cooled his skin, trickled down into his hair. At the very last, Tom had looked up, and seeing Sybil, basket in hand, approaching him from under the trees, had smiled his endearing lopsided grin.
After they had found a place below the heavily laden boughs where Tom could sit and eat his lunch, having unlaced his boots, he had taken them off, along with his socks, and Sybil had done likewise with her shoes and stockings. Lying back, with his head pillowed comfortably in her lap, laughing and giggling, Sybil had fed him morsels of cheese and bread, passing the costrel of cider between them.
The meal over, a silent message had passed between them, and, wordlessly, barefoot, like two village lovers, taking her hand, while she leaned against his shoulder, his fingers entwined with hers, Tom had led her to the old stable, where, equally silently, they had climbed the ladder which led upwards to the hayloft.
Once there, Sybil had pushed Tom down into the sweet smelling pile of hay and quickly stripped him of his trousers and underpants, while his nimble fingers soon made short work of the buttons and hooks of her own clothes. Thereafter, pleasurably naked, sitting astride him, she had leant down to kiss him, before lowering herself upon him, their two bodies settling instantly into a gentle and mutually pleasurable pace, until a short while later, she had achieved her release, and moments later, Tom his own, spilling himself deep inside her.
"So, old Mrs. Doyle asked me to marry her and I said yes, assuming that is, you agree to a divorce".
"Marry you? Divorce?"
"I thought as much. Sybil, you haven't been listening to a word I was saying, have you?" Tom grinned.
"Mea culpa" laughed Sybil.
Author's Note:
As some of you may realise, the title of this chapter was inspired by the title of Dan Stevens' film "Summer In February". The story revolves around a love triangle and the Newlyn School, a colony of artists, established down on the Cornish coast in the years before the Great War.
Sad irons, "sad" in this case meaning heavy or solid, were irons used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the base of the iron being a solid block of metal, heated on a range or stove. As one iron cooled, it could be quickly replaced by another removed from the source of heat, the cooling iron taking its place.
In 1915, during the Great War, a large military camp and hospital were both built to the south and west of Ripon in the West Riding of Yorkshire, close to the site of the fictional Downton Abbey.