Chapter One Hundred And Thirty Six
Kinsale Town
Knowing just how sensitive Tom was speaking about what had happened to him as a boy at Skerries, Sybil resolved to say nothing to him of what she had found in the abandoned room at the top of the house; indeed, she avoided venturing into that part of the mansion at all; thought best to leave the past undisturbed. And, at least for the time being, nothing happened to suggest that Sybil should do otherwise than she had determined.
There was no repeat of the sobbing she had heard. At night, when they were both lying in bed, if Sybil awoke, apart from the soft moan of the wind, all she heard was the sound of Danny's gentle breathing and, with her head pillowed on his chest, the beat of Tom's heart.
Late summer had drifted down into early autumn and, having at last made arrangements for her mother to be cared for in the house on North Mall, Maeve was now, thankfully, living over in Cork.
Despite all that was happening in Ireland, letters still managed to get through to Skerries from Downton: from Mama telling chattily news of both family and friends, but while delighted at the prospect of another grandchild, clearly worried for both Tom and Sybil. Mary wrote too, her latest letter spoke of the improvements to the estate which Matthew had begun to put in hand, not without some degree of opposition from Papa, said also that she and Matthew were thinking of trying to start a family. Tom's observation on this had been especially succinct.
"Well they'll have to do more than think about it!" he said, his hand resting gently on Sybil's belly while at the same time glancing over at Danny as he slept.
Then, just the other day there had been a postcard, from Athens, from Edith, who had found a new fascination with all things archaeological and had taken herself off to Greece for an extended tour.
"I am sitting writing this on the steps of the Parthenon..."
Bully for you, thought Sybil, as she sat belowstairs in the kitchen peeling a seemingly never ending number of potatoes.
Unaware of the decayed state of Skerries, let alone its isolation, unable to comprehend what was happening to some of those houses where she had once stayed years before, Granny's letter had been full of practical advice for Sybil, about running a country house, allowing of course, for the general uselessness of Irish servants "... for which, my dear, you will simply have to make some form of allowance".
Servants? What servants?
In the kitchen, having at length now finished peeling the potatoes, Sybil slammed the sad iron down onto the next pillowcase and continued with her mountain of ironing.
With virtually all of the house and most of the offices below stairs now shut up, the remaining members of the domestic staff, butler, housekeeper, cook and both of the parlour maids had been let go. In their place, a couple of girls now came up daily from the village to see to all the heavy work, including the blacking of grates, the lighting of fires and the bringing in of provisions on a weekly basis; while such things as food in tins, candles, coal, oil for the lamps and other necessities such as soap were delivered by a carrier from Cork.
As she had done in Clontarf, Sybil now saw to both the washing and the ironing, causing Tom to remark that instead of resuming her career as a nurse, she ought to consider opening a laundry. With Tom more often than not back late at night, Sybil also undertook most of the cooking, this not without a sense of trepidation on Tom's part who, observed ruefully one evening when Sybil had placed before the two of them a somewhat overdone beef pie, that she would beat the IRA hands down in any race to be the first to set fire to Skerries House.
During the day, if Tom was out, Sybil spent her time alone with Danny, fed and washed him, sat and played with him and so long as the weather remained fine, took him for walks outside the house. Not of course that they went very far; Danny's chubby little legs easily tired, as indeed did Sybil's as her pregnancy advanced. Sometimes they walked as far as the old stables where, on one occasion, Sybil asked a friendly disposed soldier that if he ever came across Private Will Atkins of the Staffordshires would he pass on Sybil's best wishes. She never knew if he did, unaware that Will was now dead.
The departure of Pugh, the old butler, from Skerries truly had marked the end of an era.
As with Mr. Carson at Downton Abbey, the running of Skerries House had been the concern of Mr. Pugh for more years than anyone could remember. However, he clearly did not approve of the new master and had made his feelings only all too evident that first morning when Tom had been well enough to come downstairs to take breakfast in the gloomy dining room. At the time, apart from the drawing room, the dining room was the only other of the main rooms which was then still in use.
Sybil thought the room to be thoroughly depressing; cluttered as it was with heavy, old-fashioned furniture, its walls lined with a series of dark landscapes as well as several more portraits of past members of the Branson family who, from their sour expressions, seemed just as disapproving of their successors in title to the Skerries estate as those hanging in the hall, especially the most recent; looking down haughtily upon the handful of their descendants seated round the massive dining table.
Like Carson at Downton, here at Skerries, Pugh had been a stickler both for proprietary and for what he considered proper. And since the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Branson of Dublin with their uncouth brat in tow, Pugh's rarefied sensibilities had been most decidedly ruffled.
Exactly just how rarefied and just how ruffled can only be imagined, but on that particular morning when Tom came down to breakfast for that first time, by the repeated and simple expedient of a succession of audible, loud sniffs Pugh marked his profound disapproval with the whole deplorable situation, as he himself saw it. And, by dint of several more sniffs, Pugh managed to convey just what he thought of a young child's presence here at breakfast, when as an infant he should have been in the nursery; let alone that of Mrs. Branson herself who, as a married woman, ought to have breakfasted upstairs in bed.
Nevertheless, it was only too obvious to the elderly butler that this particular young couple, so decidedly unconventional in all their ways could in no sense be expected to conform and do what any other self respecting members of the Anglo-Irish gentry would have done in any given set of circumstances. Although he could not now recall where he had first heard the story, not that he was one to listen to gossip, there was even a rumour that Mrs. Branson was a scion of the English aristocracy, the youngest daughter of an earl or some such nonsense; not that the old butler gave the tale any credence himself.
After all, no self-respecting member of the aristocracy be they English or indeed Irish would have permitted themselves to arrive at Skerries in such benighted and straightened circumstances as to be lacking both a valet and a lady's maid, with next to no luggage, she with an infant in her arms and he stripped to the waist, as well as being in a heavily bandaged state. Honestly, what on earth had the world come to?
Of course, Tom and Sybil were singularly unaware of the old butler's private pontifications, but while continuing with his usual duties at breakfast, Pugh reflected upon the fact, which was common knowledge to those who then still remained below stairs, that the same Mr. Branson, who had just inherited the estate simply because young Mr. William and Mr. Christopher had both had the misfortune to have been killed during the war, had immediately put the house up for sale. Therefore, those few staff which still remained in post at Skerries would very shortly find themselves in the unenviable position of having to begin seeking new situations; himself included.
An entirely deplorable prospect, mindful of which, the aged butler sniffed heavily once again. When all was said and done, just precisely where on earth was he to find comparable employment and at his age? After a lifetime spent here in service of the Bransons at Skerries, to be thrown out of this house with no where else to go, it simply would not do. As a result, Pugh no longer cared if for once he let his guard down and thereby showed his own feelings on the matter in hand. So, with this in mind, just as audibly as before, the butler sniffed again when the ghastly child seated there on his mother's knee at the dining table gurgling happily then let out a sudden and decidedly loud belch.
Pugh's low opinion of the Bransons did not improve, not even after he and Mrs. Treves were offered employment with Maeve at her new house on North Mall, positions which they both accepted with alacrity.
Now, on this bright late October morning, having been staying with friends nearby overnight, Maeve had bowled up unexpectedly to the house in a borrowed trap while Tom and Sybil were having breakfast. Seeing Maeve arrive, it was Tom who had got up to answer the front door.
Since the departure of Pugh and the rest of the staff, Tom and Sybil made do with using just the drawing room, into which they had moved a small table and a few chairs, along with a desk at which Tom could write. With no prospect of a buyer in sight, if they had to be here at Skerries over the winter, then the fewer rooms they had to heat the better. Fortunately, a week or so ago, by dint of sheer perseverance, Tom had managed finally to solve the problem of the lack of hot water in the bathroom adjoining their own bedroom – a pair of dead rats decomposing in one of the pipes, so, provided the range was kept lit, that least put an end to the need of having to lug hot water upstairs in cans.
Sybil was not at all enamoured at seeing Maeve, would have preferred it if she kept well away from Skerries and once the customary greetings had been made, would cheerfully have taken herself off downstairs to the kitchen along with Danny. Only, of course that would have left Tom alone with Maeve which was something Sybil was determined to avoid at all costs.
So, with fresh tea poured, with Maeve now seated with them at the table, Tom and Sybil sat and listened while she waxed lyrical in describing in some detail the ongoing problems she had been facing of late: furnishing the house on North Mall, finding other suitable staff, let alone engaging nurses to care for her mother and whom the doctor had told her was unlikely to last much longer. Not that any of this seemed to have restricted Maeve's own social whirl, with her flitting chatter of dances and receptions.
Although it was no longer really her concern, the derelict state of the house here at Skerries provided Maeve with her next topic of conversation.
"Honestly, Tommy, I'm surprised at you. If you are serious about trying to sell this house, then you really ought to engage some workmen to do something about it. The whole place really is in a frightful state. Going to wrack and ruin. And the drive is even worse than I remember. You saw what it was like when you arrived? Well, yes of course you did. Over grown and ruts all over the place".
Tom shook his head; said nothing.
After all, at the time of their arrival he had been drifting pleasantly on a sea of morphine. So hardly surprisingly, the rutted state of the drive leading through the woods up to the house had not especially registered with him; indeed, thankfully not much had. After all, to find himself back here, after all these years, at the scene of so many unhappy memories from his own childhood, despite the comforting presence of both Sybil and Danny, brought back unimaginable pain to Tom. So, even if he had not been drugged, he doubted very much if a few potholes in the surface of the drive would have been the first thing on his mind.
As it was, now that the necessary papers had been signed, with the house put up for sale, once it had been sold what became of it thereafter, whether the drive was repaired or not, was of no earthly interest, either to him or indeed to Sybil. Not that Maeve seemed to realise, or indeed even notice, Tom's evident lack of interest in what she was now recounting.
"Mind you", continued Mave and running on just as before, "part of that is the fault of the army. Perhaps… Perhaps if you were to ask the officer in charge down at the stables; after all, he's such a dear, then he might just see his way to setting some of his men to work filling in the worst of the holes. What do you think, Tommy?"
In all of this, Tom now permitted himself the luxury of a brief smile. To hear a British army officer referred to as a dear really was too funny for words. However, not even waiting for Tom's reply, while Sybil continued bouncing Danny on her knees to try and keep him amused, Maeve continued with her litany of woes.
"I know most of it's now shut up and I suppose it doesn't matter as much as it once did, but in the winter, the roof leaks like a sieve and some of the windows are so swollen with damp they can't be opened. Whether the soldiers could do anything about it... As for the rose garden, well you remember how it used to be, don't you Tommy?"
Sybil saw Tom shift uneasily on his seat.
"Yes" came his monosyllabic reply.
"Well, it's a complete wilderness and as for the kitchen garden, well, Ryan's boy did what he could to try and keep it going. After all, it provided vegetables for the house. But as for the hothouses, why, they're in a wretched state".
"I don't think we can ask the army to repair the roof. Anyway, isn't it rather up to Tom? Or have you forgotten that Skerries now belongs to him?" asked Sybil quietly. At that, Maeve's head reared and her green eyes narrowed.
"No of course not! I was merely suggesting that he..."
"Thank you for your concern" said Sybil calmly. She had decided she would end this nonsense now. "But I assure you, it's really not at all necessary. Tom will decide if and when, what, if anything, is to be done by way of repairs. In any case, if this place sells, then maybe that won't even be necessary".
"Perhaps". Maeve eyed Sybil cautiously over the rim of her teacup, turned her head and glanced out of the window to where a group of soliders had lined up on a rough patch of grass, once a lawn, opposite the front of the house, before climbing into an army lorry.
Sybil now permitted herself a decidedly wry smile at which point, Tom's eyes met hers. He grinned back and nodded his head. As with so many things, they thought alike.
"At least with the soldiers down below, the Essex Regiment garrisoned in Kinsale overlooking the harbour and a detachment of Black and Tans billeted in the old police barracks a couple of miles up the road, all in all, I feel reasonably safe while I'm back here at the house. Don't the two of you two get terribly lonely, out here all by yourselves?"
"Didn't you?" asked Sybil.
"Well, I have my friends..."
For his part, Tom said nothing by way of reply, merely arched a surprised eyebrow at Maeve's comment about the British soliders garrisoned nearby. Back in Dublin, from what he had heard tell, the Black and Tans were a brutal, lawless, unsavoury band of thugs; little more than paid mercenaries, recruited at the behest of Winston Churchill, who were acting with impunity and subjecting the local Irish population, especially those down here in the south of the country, to little short of a reign of terror, all under the pretence of maintaining law and order.
As for the Essex Regiment, one of its company commanders, a Major Percival, had a particularly unsavoury reputation and was, according to both word of mouth and from posters being circulated by the IRA, responsible for running what they chillingly called the Essex Battalion Torture Squad; was rumoured a couple of months ago to have captured two high ranking members of the IRA's West Cork Brigade. If the stories circulating about Percival and his uniformed sadists were even half true, including pulling out prisoners' fingernails with pliers, then God help the poor two IRA men.
Maeve set down her tea cup in its saucer with a clatter and a rattle. "Tommy, your silence speaks volumes. I take it then, you don't approve?"
Tom paused, stopped buttering his toast, his knife poised in mid air.
"I don't approve of violence; from any quarter, Maeve. You should know that. And from what I've heard tell, the Black and Tans, like the Auxiliaries, are a murderous, nasty bunch; in fact, little better than armed, uniformed thugs. As for the British army…"
Maeve didn't let him finish what he was saying. Instead, she cut him off.
"All they are doing, Tommy, like our army, is trying to keep order. Did you know that Fermoy House was burned just last week?"
Tom shook his head, shrugged his shoulders.
"Am I to assume that you think that ought to mean something to me, Maeve?"
"Fermoy is but six or so miles from here, Tom. The Knowles, those who owned it, were friends of mine. The garden there was quite heavenly".
Tom said nothing. After all, what could he say? Instead, he resumed buttering his toast.
"And then,of course, back in July, Lieutenant Bryce Ferguson was killed at the County Club, on South Mall in Cork".
"The very same man who, but some weeks before, addressed constables of the RIC at Listowel Barracks and encouraged them to implement a shoot to kill policy against members of the IRA?"
"So what if he did?
"Maeve, Ferguson's exhortation was nothing short of incitement to murder!" growled Tom.
His cousin shook her head in exasperation.
"Oh,Tommy! Really!"
"And as for the army, for your information, when we arrived here. Sybil and I both witnessed an example of the British army "trying to keep order" as you so quaintly put it, at Kinsale Junction".
Fully occupied with Danny, Sybil merely nodded her head by way of confirmation of what Tom had just said.
"And who was it who ambushed your train, shot you in the arm, Tommy? Tell me that!"
Tom shook his head wearily.
"All I'm saying, Maeve, is that violence just makes things worse".
"Tell that to the IRA who attacked that army lorry in Barrack Street just last week!" Maeve's green eyes flashed. It seemed to Sybil for all Maeve's professed love of Tommy as she insisted in calling him, that nevertheless she derived some kind of perverse pleasure in goading Tom, trying to make him lose his temper; Tom who was the gentlest person Sybil knew.
"Will you try and write today?" she asked, attempting to steer the conversation into calmer, less troubled waters.
Tom sighed, then nodded.
"Yes, I want to finish that piece on land reform. What about you, love? What will you do?" he asked, sipping his tea and eating a mouthful of toast and marmalade.
"Well, it's such a beautiful morning, I thought I might take Danny outside and sit on the grass, at least while the sun lasts".
"Perhaps you'd like to run down with me into Kinsale in the trap" suggested Maeve wholly unexpectedly. Sybil wondered if it was an attempt to make amends. If so, she could well do without it.
"Oh, I don't think that I…" she began.
Tom nodded at her enthusiastically.
"Capital idea! Yes, indeed. Why don't you, love? You could do with a change of scene. See some more of the countryside hereabouts".
"But what about you?"
"Oh, I'll be all right. I've plenty to do. As I said, I've the article on land reform to finish and Fitzmaurice's clerk is supposedly bringing over the last of the leases for me to sign".
Tom grinned and then looked approvingly at his cousin.
"Despite all that's going on, it'll be perfectly safe, Sybil, I can assure you of that. I've some shopping to do in Kinsale and a couple of social calls to make" added Maeve with a smile.
Seeing that she was outnumbered, Sybil capitulated.
"Well, then, that would be... lovely", she replied.
"I can then have you back here for a late lunch, before it gets too hot for your boy". Maeve's face betrayed nothing of her innermost thoughts. Unobserved by either Tom or Sybil, occupied as they were with Danny, inwardly, she smiled a knowing smile.
As they trotted down into Kinsale although it was only just before eleven in the morning, the sun was already warm and the breeze which blew towards them came straight from off the ocean; because of which Sybil smelt the sea long before she actually glimpsed it. Now, as they crested a rise in the lane, she saw for the first time beyond the roofs of a huddled mass of cottages and houses, the Atlantic Ocean sparkling in the autumn sunlight. Moments later Maeve had brought the trap to a gentle stand in the small square, opposite the slate hung Market House with its louvered cupola topped by a small weather vane.
Kinsale was certainly not Ripon, although quite what Sybil had expected it to be, until she had seen it for herself that very first time, if asked, she could not have said.
In reality, it turned out to be little more than a huddle of thatched cottages and slate roofed houses clustered around the church of St. Multose; a small fishing port lying at the mouth of the River Bandon, situated on the south east coast of Ireland, washed by the waters of the Atlantic and dominated by the large military barracks of which Maeve had spoken, which stood on a bluff above the town overlooking the sheltered harbour below.
Sybil looked about her, thought that in the heat of summer, the narrow, winding, shaded, cobbled streets of the little town must make the place seem deceptively inviting; considered however that in winter, when the swirling mists and howling gales rolled in from off the sea, it must be an entirely different matter. No doubt then, everyone closed their doors, shut tight their windows and stayed snug inside, huddled by their peat fires.
And with what was beginning to unfold here, as elsewhere down in the south of Ireland, the inhabitants of Kinsale, whatever the weather or the season, now had another reason to keep fast behind their bolted doors and shuttered windows. A reminder of this came forcefully to Sybil when, just as Maeve was clambering down from off the trap, led by an officer on horseback, a detachment of British soldiers from the barracks marched smartly past in a cloud of dust, As the soldiers rounded a corner and disappeared out of view, Maeve now nodded her head in the direction of the building immediately beside them.
"That's where they held the Coroner's Court back in 1915, after the Germans sank the Lusitania off the Old Head of Kinsale".
Sybil also nodded, being presently occupied adjusting Danny's cotton sun bonnet. In the years immediately before the war, her American grandmother, Martha Levinson, had booked passage and sailed on board the Lusitania several times. And, who had not heard of the sinking of the great liner off the coast of Ireland, whose loss, was said by some, to rival even that of the Titanic on which Sybil's father's cousin James and his son Patrick had perished, both of them drowned in the freezing cold waters of the North Atlantic.
"Will you be all right? I've several purchases to make, some letters to post at the Post Office and a pair of boots to collect from the cobblers. I promise I shan't be very long. I'll be back by twelve. Take the trap down to the harbour if you like. It's that way". Maeve indicated the direction of the harbour vaguely with a waft of her gloved hand.
"Don't worry, I'll be fine, thank you. For the time of the year, it's still quite warm. Yes, I might just do that" said Sybil. She smiled down at Maeve and then watched as Tom's cousin crossed the little square and disappeared in the direction of the Fish Market.
A few moments later, Sybil did as Maeve had suggested and trotted the trap slowly down through the narrow, twisting streets as far as the small harbour. There she sat watching the fishermen mending their nets, pointed out to Danny the boats at anchor. However, Danny seemed rather more interested in a pair of seagulls which had alighted on the chimney pot of a nearby house and a small grey donkey standing patiently in the shafts of a little cart. Not that young Danny remained interested for long in either the seagulls or the donkey as a young woman wearing a straw hat bedecked with a sprig of brightly coloured plaster fruits who passed close by them instead claimed his attention.
Just like your father, thought Sybil and momentarily gave herself over to daydreaming; to idly wondering who the girl might be that one day would capture her young son's heart and who he would eventually marry. Not that in her own heart Sybil considered any girl would ever be good enough for Danny, wondered if every mother of a young son thought that way about her boy and decided that on balance they probably did.
Close by a black dog sought shade beside a pile of lobster pots where it flopped panting in the dirt. But, apart from the girl in the straw hat and a couple of grizzled men, evidently locals taking their ease on a bench outside a bar in the autumn sunshine, there were few people about and of those that were, most seemed intent on minding their own business and gave but scant regard to the young woman and child seated on the box of a blue and red painted trap.
Somewhere a clock chimed a quarter to the hour. Sybil slowly turned the trap about and set off back up the way she had come. It was as she trotted into Market Lane that, some way off, standing alone beneath the awning of a draper's shop, she saw a British officer in the uniform of the Essex Regiment.
Given the nature of the times, a British officer standing anywhere on his own was unusual and it was this fact which first drew Sybil's attention to him. He looked as though he was waiting for someone and, although his face was in shadow, Sybil realised that there was also something familiar about him. As she pondered just what that was, a moment later she saw he had been joined by a woman, who to her surprise, Sybil recognised as none other than Maeve herself. Unaware that Sybil had seen her, Maeve proceeded to stand openly chatting with the officer in the street, who moved briefly forward into the sunlight.
And, it was then, with a complete sense of shock, Sybil realised why it was the officer had looked so damned familiar. It was was none other than Captain Miles Stathum; he who had overseen the arrest of poor Peadar at the cèilidh held after Tom and Sybil's wedding and who also had done his best to try and destroy Tom's reputation as a journalist, Stathum, who some believed, had been killed under the wheels of a train at Galway station in the autumn of last year. Sybil grimaced. Well, it seemed that Stathum had experienced a joyous resurrection, or else he led a charmed life. Either way, those reports of his death had been false. Sybil slowed the trap to a stand, waited and watched.
For her, the sight of Stathum stirred unpleasant memories, had put her unwillingly in mind of a foggy night over there in the far west of Ireland which she would sooner forget. Of course, there had never been any tangible proof that the man who died so gruesome a death under the wheels of the speeding express in Galway station had indeed been Stathum; far from it.
As Sybil and Tom both knew, there were several conflicting accounts of what had happened that night, the only common denominator being that all of these asserted that the victim had been male. And there had been the suggestion that Stathum had left Ireland before the incident had occurred. That Sybil knew to be demonstrably false. It was Stathum she had seen on the platform at Galway that night; of that she was absolutely certain. That Stathum might well have left Ireland thereafter, now seemed distinctly likely. But, whatever the truth of the matter, here he now was. Just how did Maeve know Miles Stathum and what was the odious bastard doing here in Kinsale? There was something chilling here, something which Sybil knew instinctively had to do with Tom. A moment later and she saw Stathum reach forward and brush Maeve's windblown hair out of her face. And with that single gesture, for Sybil the penny dropped. Then, while she was still coming to terms with what she had just witnessed, accompanied by Stathum, Maeve disappeared inside the draper's shop.
After the two of them had vanished out of sight, while Sybil sat and pondered but a short while later Maeve came out again, this time on her own, her shopping and whatever else it was she had come here to do in Kinsale evidently now accomplished. From her vanatage point, unseen, Sybil watched as Maeve set off in the direction of the Market House.
A short while later, unaware of what Sybil had observed earlier, now hearing the clipclop of hooves and the rumble of wheels, Maeve turned and waved happily to Sybil as the trap clattered back into the little square.
"Tommy said you knew how to manage one of these!" Maeve laughed as Sybil brought the trap to a halt beside her.
A moment later she was clambering up onto the box of the trap and chatting of nothing in particular. Handing over the reins, Sybil nodded, said nothing by way of return, her thoughts in a complete whirl. She must tell Tom about all of what she had seen and as soon as possible. Moments later and the trap was bowling back out of the little town and on the way to Skerries. However, before their return to the house, ahead of them there remained, frustratingly for Sybil, a couple of social calls which Maeve had said she had to pay.
Author's Note:
The various incidents of violence referred to above all actually happened. On account of the alleged existence of its Torture Squad, both Major Percival and the Essex Regiment had a particularly grim reputation. These days, Kinsale is a pretty little place and much visited by tourists. The Coroner's Inquest into the loss of the Lusitania did indeed take place in the Market House which now serves as the town museum. The bodies of some of the victims of the disaster are buried nearby in the churchyard of St. Multose.