Chapter One Hundred And Thirty One

Two Is Company, But Three's A Crowd

Having made her fond goodbye to Will, Sybil walked briskly round the station building and out into the sunshine of the forecourt. There, midst a scene of chaos, which only now was slowly beginning to be distilled into some semblance of order, she came to a sudden and an abrupt stop, when, distinctly, above all the hubbub and the noise, amid the seething throng of civilians and soldiery, she clearly heard a woman cry out, but for all that, in a refined, well spoken English voice.

"Tommy!"

From her unseen vantage point, with undisguised interest, Sybil watched as the same slim, fair-haired, elegantly dressed young woman whom she had glimpsed at the end of the platform now moved gracefully towards Tom, wending her way purposefully between all those who were still milling about the station forecourt.

Maeve.

It had to be her.

After all, there was no-one else it possibly could be.

Sybil saw her come to a stand in front of Tom who, unsurprisingly was still seated where she had left him, saw the elderly doctor make his own farewell. Tom's cousin must then have said something about Danny, who was still seated in the lap of Mrs. Mahony, as Tom glanced at the little boy and then nodded his head.

Still keeping out of sight, Sybil edged closer to stand in the shadows beside an empty army lorry.

"Maeve!" Tom quickly made to rise and sat down again just as promptly, overcome both by the effect of the morphine and the throbbing pain in his left arm and shoulder.

"My God! Tommy! You poor, poor dear! What on earth's happened to you?" Not waiting for him to answer, Maeve immediately seated herself on the bench next to Tom and placed a comforting arm about his bare shoulders, while at the same time smothering his face with kisses.

"I got shot! That's what!" offered Tom weakly.

"So I can see. Oh, my darling, how positively awful for you! Is it serious?"
"I'm told not. Apparently, I'll... I'll mend... given time!"

"Does it hurt very much?" Gently cupping his chin, Maeve searched his face.
"It did.. it still does, but... but less so now after... after I had...had an injection... of morphine. It's worked... worked wonders, but... it's made me... made me feel... a bit light-headed". Tom stifled an involuntary yawn.

Maeve nodded her head sympathetically.

"Darling boy, we should get you back to the house as soon as possible. Now, where's your wife?" Not waiting for an answer, Maeve breezed on. "Do you think you can manage to walk over to the trap? Or should I bring it across? It's not far, Tommy. It's just there, by the gate. I'm so very sorry I was late. I was stopped by the army on my way here". Maeve glanced briefly about her. "And now I can see the reason why".

Then, still with her arm around Tom's shoulders, she let her eyes rove once again over his manly physique.

"My goodness! How you've grown, Tommy. Filled out too. And, as handsome as ever", laughed Maeve, pinching his cheek, and ruffling his hair while Tom blushed and grinned.

"Of course I've... filled out, Maeve. I'm not... not the unwanted waif you knew at Skerries". Tom yawned again.

"You were never that, my darling. At least not to me; as well you know", said Maeve huskily. Tom blushed furiously.

"I didn't realise things... down here... were this bad, Maeve". Tom blinked his eyes again, shook his head and spread his right hand expansively, indicating the aftermath of the ambush on the train.

"I did try to tell you, my darling, in my letters, how awful everything was" said Maeve gently.

"Yes, you did, didn't you. Mea culpa!"

Tom smiled, ducked his head, looked shyly sideways at his cousin.

"Fitzmaurice... he said..."
"Said what?"

"That... that you've recently become engaged".

"Fitzmaurice says too much".

"So... it's not true then?" Tom sounded perplexed.
"Let's just say I have had a proposal of marriage and I'm actively considering it!" laughed Maeve.

"All right, all right, I won't... won't press you. I'll say no more about it".

"Tommy, darling. If I do decide to accept him, you'll be the first to know".

"That's as it should be". Tom smiled.

"And as for you, not only married, but now a father too!" Gently Maeve prodded Tom in the ribs. "And so soon! My Tommy, you're a fast worker! But then you ..."

Tom blushed furiously once again.

"Maeve!"

She laughed.

"All right, I didn't mean to embarrass you, darling boy. But, it's so difficult to think of you as a man grown, Tommy!"

"You're for... forgetting. I'm not still twelve years old, Maeve! I have a birthday... every year! Remember!"

Maeve laughed a merry tinkling laugh and sensing Tom's discomfort, promptly changed the subject, steered it into calmer waters.

"And where's ... where's your wife Tommy? She's not ... not been hurt, has she?"

"No, thank God. You remember... I wrote and told you... she was a nurse?"

Maeve nodded.

"Well, she's somewhere hereabouts, helping with the injured. She's ..." At that precise moment, Tom half turned to see Sybil now walking purposefully towards them. "Here she is!"

At the sight of his wife, Tom grinned with undisguised pleasure, but was equally quick to notice that, as Sybil came into his line of vision, her eyes had narrowed, as if to shield them from the brightness of the July sun. Only Tom knew better. Quickly, he beckoned her forward.

"Sybil, darling, this is my cousin, Maeve".

"Why Tommy, she's absolutely enchanting!" Smiling warmly, Maeve jumped to her feet and swept Sybil into a tight, perfumed embrace.

Reluctantly, Sybil allowed herself be held and be kissed effusively on each cheek, although Tom saw that Sybil did not return the compliment. A moment or two later and Maeve gently relaxed her hold on Sybil; stood back, looked thoughtfully at her for a moment.

"You're too kind", said Sybil. There was something ever so slightly off-key in her voice, which made Tom eye his Sybil cautiously. Her tone was so matter-of-fact, unemotional. Suggesting what? Annoyance? Had she found Maeve's welcome over familiar? Surely not. Disapproval then? But if so, why?

Just then, Maeve saw the bloodstains on Sybil's borrowed apron.

"Goodness! You're not hurt too, are you?" she exclaimed, obviously aghast.

Sybil followed her gaze.

"No, not at all. This blood isn't mine. It …" Sybil's voice trailed off into disconnected silence. She untied the soiled apron, pulled off the equally borrowed head scarf, dropped them both neatly on the bench and then reached for her discarded coat and hat.

Maeve looked at her sympathetically, then laughed nervously, the same merry tinkling sound as before. It reminded Sybil instinctively of the time she had accompanied Bridget Murphy, another of the nurses at the Coombe, to the Catholic church of St. Nicholas on Francis Street back in Dublin; Maeve's laugh mirroring the sound of the bell rung at the elevation of the Host.

"And your father's the earl of Grantham?"

Sybil nodded silently; settled her hat firmly back on her head.

"My, my, Tommy, you have done well for yourself!"

"Maeve, please!" implored Tom.

"It's all right, Tommy. Your little secret's safe enough with me". Maeve patted Tom's good right arm in a gesture of reassurance, then assuming the air of a fellow conspirator, glanced furtively about her at the ordered chaos now unfolding. "There's no-one paying us the slightest attention or to what we're saying, Tommy. Look about you; they're all far too busy doing what … what needs to be done".

Sybil was an exceptionally good judge of people and, almost invariably, her first impressions proved right. Freed from the enveloping warmth of Maeve's encircling arms, as she buttoned up her coat, silently, Sybil appraised her husband's cousin.

Ever since Sybil had become aware of Tom's true antecedents, he had always been rather evasive when it came to discussing Maeve; chose to portray her as much a victim of her father's brutality, as Tom had been himself, as someone who, since the death of her two brothers was desperately in need of his protection. Even so, Tom had shown a very marked reluctance to make this trip south down here to Cork.

Now, having met her for the first time, Sybil was disposed to take a far less charitable view of Maeve.

If what Tom had told her was to be believed, then his cousin had been able to come to terms with the deaths of her two brothers during the Great War; until but recently, she had stoically endured the bullying of a brutal, domineering father, suffered the demands of a manipulative, possessive mother, let alone managed to survive what was now beginning to unfold down here in County Cork. All of this being so, then it was Sybil's considered opinion, now that she had met her, that Maeve was more than perfectly capable of looking after herself and no more in need of protection than was Sybil's own grandmother Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham.

With that prescient thought foremost in her mind, with a practised eye, silently, Sybil now considered the demonstrative, fair-haired woman standing before her in the battle-scarred, debris-strewn forecourt of the station at Skerries Road.

In an instant, Sybil took in each and every detail; the silver gilt fair hair, the heavy-lidded cat-green eyes, the close-lipped smile, the dimples at the corner of her mouth, the slimness of her waist. Sybil had been prepared to dislike Maeve on sight and in that, she was not to be disappointed. There was, she decided, something about Maeve which, instinctively, she did not like; although exactly what that was precisely, she could not say, at least, not then.

Maybe her dislike had something to do with the knowing smile that she had seen play about the corners of Tom's cousin's sensuous mouth as he had introduced her to Sybil.

Perhaps it stemmed from the possessive, proprietorial air Maeve seemed naturally to assume over Tom; the way she had cupped his face with her hands, hugged him to her, called him "Tommy darling, Tommy dearest".

Conceivably, it also had something to do with the way the woman's eyes had roved insolently over Sybil's slender body; with female intuition realising that she was obviously expecting another child; something which Sybil had not yet vouchsafed to anyone, not even to Tom.

Possibly, it had rather more to do with the fact that in greeting Tom, in kissing him fully on his lips, openly, and in front of his wife, Sybil sensed that Maeve seemed to be remembering something both agreeable and pleasurable. A secret shared between the two of them? Perhaps. But if so, what?

"Sybil?" Hearing him speak her name and unexpectedly sharply too, Sybil quirked a raised eyebrow and looked questioningly at Tom, but before she could say anything, Maeve spoke again.

"I was just saying", she said cheerfully, standing Sybil's thoughtful gaze, "that young Tommy here always was one for the girls, but I expect you know that already!" Glancing across at Tom, Sybil saw her husband flush scarlet to the roots of his hair.

"Maeve, please", pleaded Tom. Once again, Sybil heard the unmistakable note of entreaty creep into her husband's voice.

"Why Tommy Branson, you do surprise me! That's not the Tommy I remember. Just when and where did you become so bashful?" asked Maeve with another tinkling laugh.

Given the fact that she was Tom's wife, to ask him such a question in front of her, even in jest, bearing in mind that Maeve scarcely knew her, was, thought Sybil, exceedingly impertinent; the laugh, which followed hard on the heels of Maeve's impudent enquiry, Sybil, liked even less.

Whenever she had asked Tom to tell her more about his cousin, now that she thought more about it, Tom had always seemed markedly reluctant to speak of Maeve, even though she had apparently been the only member of his late uncle's family ever to show him any kindness for the short time he was living down at Skerries. To Sybil this had always seemed somewhat curious. For her part, she had never forced the matter with Tom; knew that the scars inflicted upon him, both physically and mentally, at the hands of his uncle, ran too deep; had put his reluctance to speak of Maeve down to Tom not wanting to discuss anything, or to talk about anyone, connected with Skerries House. But now, on meeting Maeve for the very first time, Sybil was not so sure; wondered if Tom's reluctance to discuss his cousin perhaps hinted at something else; something best left in the past.

If she remembered rightly, Tom had indeed been twelve when he came to live at Skerries; Maeve was five years his senior; she would have been … seventeen. The maddening thing was that Maeve was unquestionably right. For, from the photograph Sybil had seen of him standing on the front steps of Skerries House, even as a young boy, Tom had been undeniably handsome.

In the distance, a whistle sounded heralding the approach of a military relief train from Cork while at the same moment, they all felt a smattering of raindrops. Half naked, Tom shivered. Placing his jacket about his shoulders, glancing up at the sky, Sybil saw that it had turned a threatening, inky black and from somewhere in the distance, there came the first, faint, ominous rumble of thunder. Maeve too glanced upwards at the rapidly darkening sky.

"Oh, heavens! Some things down here never change, do they, Tommy?" Sybil saw her smile at Tom and wondered briefly, then dismissed it as an uncharitable thought, if it really was the weather, which she had in mind. Maeve laughed, the same tinkling laughter as before. "Come on then. We'd better try and reach the house before the storm breaks". She paused, turned, once more surveyed the scene now unfolding in the station forecourt and spread her gloved hands expansively. "What with all this going on, as I said to Tommy, I had to leave the trap by the station gate. I think I told you, didn't I, in my letter; about the lack of a permit for the motor?"

Sybil nodded her head slowly, said nothing.

Then, now having thanked Mrs. Mahony profusely for looking after little Danny, with Maeve having briefly commandeered the services of a none too willing British soldier to help with the Bransons' small amount of luggage, with Danny once again safe in her arms and with Tom leaning on her for much-needed support, his jacket draped about his shoulders, wearing his cap at a slightly jaunty angle, they walked slowly across the gravel of the station forecourt to where, between the shafts of a dilapidated trap, a horse stood tethered to a gate post. A few moments late, with the soldier having stowed their luggage in the trap, they were all safely seated.

"Ready?" asked Maeve cheerfully.

"As ready as I'll ever be" opined Tom glumly; his head rested comfortably on Sybil's shoulder, her free arm placed reassuringly about him.

From off her seat on top of the box, Maeve smiled knowingly down at them all, as with a practised snap of the wrist, she flicked the whip lightly along the back of the roan mare and a moment or two later the dilapidated trap was in motion, bouncing and swaying, off down the lane that led to Skerries House. Behind a hedge bordering the station two boys, who had stayed hidden during the ambush on the train and remained so until the trap had passed off down the lane, now slid away on their bellies, keeping low and out of sight until they were well clear of the railway.

As the trap trotted briskly away from the station, Tom felt himself beginning to drift. His eyes now half-closed, just before sleep claimed him, he took one last look at the fast receding scene of the ambush.

The sight of a black clad priest kneeling on the blood stained stones of the station forecourt, administering the last rites to someone fatally wounded in the attack on the train, recalled to Tom's mind the haunting words of a couplet from the Misere which he had sung as a choirboy at St. Mary's:

Libera me de sanguinibus
Deus, Deus salutis meae

With the arrival of the relief train, the area around the station was now a distant flood of khaki with British soldiers everywhere. Along with blue clad constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary, buzzing like angry bees, the soldiers swarmed over both the station and stricken train. Pairs of stretcher-bearers continued to run backwards and forwards across the station forecourt, carrying the bodies of both the dead and wounded; while, at the point of bayonets, several badly beaten and bloodied men, presumably prisoners, were being herded into back of waiting lorry, their passage into captivity being accompanied by savage blows from rifle butts.

Although Tom would not yet admit it, even to himself, Sybil had been right. Was Ireland's freedom really worth the terrible price which was now being exacted? Was there even a price to be paid for innocence in this brave new world?

Across the wide expanse of the rapidly darkening sky, a white-winged, black tipped gull swooped low overhead, so it may have been its cry and nothing else which Tom now heard, still drifting as he was on that indistinct border that exists between consciousness and sleep. But it seemed to him that borne on the softness of the summer breeze, there came faintly to his ears another sound, one which he and Sybil had heard but once before, at the farm out on the Howth road: of keening, which now, as the trap rounded the next corner in the lane, dwindled into silence and then finally faded away.