Chapter One Hundred And Thirty Eight

Sins Of The Father

When the telephone on the desk in the drawing room rang, echoing shrilly through the empty house, Tom nearly jumped out of his skin. Almost invariably, at least until now, on the few occasions when that had happened here at Skerries, he had been the caller and so had never heard the telephone actually ring. Truly startled, for a moment he just gaped at the instrument as it continued to ring insistently. Then, setting down his pen on the blotter, he reached forward, picked up the receiver and answered in his customary, precise manner; just as he did when seated at his desk in his office on Talbot Street in Dublin.

"Branson".

"I assume you've remembered?"
Tom recognised the voice immediately.

"Oh, to be sure".

"Where we agreed then. And don't be late".

"I won't be".

Tom heard the click of the receiver being replaced at the other end of the line, did likewise and then ran his fingers through his hair. Sybil would have recognised the gesture immediately, what it betokened; that he was nervous. And, indeed he was. More than he would care to admit. Even to himself.

Now, as he stood to watch them go, the sunlight once again caught the gleam of gold in his hair; the fair one in a dark-haired family. When aged all of five years he had asked his mother about that and why it was so, she had simply laughed, pulled him close, ruffled his fair hair and said he was a changeling.

Of course he knew nothing of the baby boy lost at six months old to the diptheria and thereafter the visit to the nuns at the Convent of Mercy in nearby Skibbereen; of the child brought back here and raised by the Ryans as one of their own, along with their two girls and boy.

Knew nothing too of the unexpected legacy which arrived shortly after that; from a distant cousin who'd died in America, or so Fitzmaurice the solicitor in Cork had said. Seated that blustery March day in the dark panelled office on St. Patrick's Street, Mr. and Mrs. Ryan glanced nervously one to the other. Surely this couldn't be right. There must be some mistake.

Apparently not.

The old gent had reassured both of them that there was no mistake, none whatsoever, even when Jimmy insisted that he'd never heard of a cousin called Frank who had gone out to Chicago. The monthly payments into an account opened for the Ryans by Mr. Fitzmaurice at the Munster and Leinster Bank Ltd. on South Mall began soon afterwards. Thereafter, when Miss Maeve from the big house took such an interest in young Fergal, if the Ryans ever suspected the truth, they never said.

Shading his eyes from the brightness of the midday sun, the boy raised his hand in farewell, now watched in silence from beside the farmhouse as, pulled by the little mare which he had so admired, the blue and red trap rattled away. As it rounded a corner in the lane and disappeared out of sight, he at last turned and walked slowly back into the farmhouse.

Inside the heavily beamed, low-ceilinged room, the air was thick with the smell of burning peat which caught at the back of the throat and made one's eyes water. Hanging from a long chain and a hook a kettle was singing merrily in the hearth while standing at the kitchen table a greying dark-haired woman was cutting thick slices of bread from a loaf. At the sound of the boy's footsteps on the flags she turned.

"And where have you been?" she asked sharply. "Miss Maeve's been 'ere".

"Course I knows". Standing her gaze, the boy now hitched his thumbs under his braces and waited.

"Head cold is it?"

"No"

His mother nodded sharply.

"Well then..."

Hastily he pulled off his cap.

"Sorry Ma".

No matter how often Fergal told himself that he was no longer a boy, with a few simple words, his mother managed to demolish the illusion with no trouble whatsoever.

"So if you knew, where were you then?"

Without waiting for an answer, his mother nodded again, but this time towards a pair of brightly polished boots which stood gleaming by the hearth.

"Just like she promised. Good as new. She's always been good to you, has Miss Maeve. Don't be asking me why now but she's ever be having a soft spot for you".

At that Fergal grinned.

"Collecting the eggs and seeing to the milking like you asked me to Ma ". He pointed towards a bowl of eggs and a brimful pail of milk standing by the door. "And then I were talking to the other one who stayed outside. The one with the little boy. A real proper lady for sure. She's nice, even though she's English".

"That'll be the wife of the new owner of the big house, Miss Maeve's cousin".

"I saw Miss Maeve too, when she left to be sure".

"Well I hope you remembered to mind your manners and thanked her kindly for your boots".

"Yes Ma" Fergal sighed heavily.

"Well don't just be standing there. Wash your hands and then lay the table. Your father and brother will both be in shortly". Having finished cutting the bread, his mother crossed to the range, lifted the lid of a pot, inspected the contents and gave a stir to the rabbit stew which bubbled within.

"Yes Ma" he said wearily again.

Fergal was fifteen.

Almost a man grown.

At least that was how he thought of himself to be sure.

And that being the case, he did so wish that his mother didn't talk down to him; would realise just how old he was and stop fussing him, treating him like a child. Since his two sisters had got married and left home, with Seamus his brother out working in the fields with Da, after Fergal was twelve and had left school, it was even worse, as Ma did her very best to keep him close with her, about the farm.

Not of course that Fergal was tied to his mother's apron strings, far from it. For, apart from going to Confession and attending Mass, the daily demands of the farm took up most of his time: helping Da and Seamus with the sowing and the harvesting of the barley, the planting and digging of the potatoes and the turnips, the haymaking, gathering the eggs, feeding and looking after the animals, mucking out the byre and the stable, milking the cows, harnessing the horses for work in the fields and for trips to market and to the occasional local fair, along with a whole host of other tasks.

When he could manage to get away from the farm, Fergal spent his time with two or three of his boyhood pals from the one room National School down in the village and, when the chance presented itself, becoming very much better acquainted with the local colleens. And given his natural ability in playing the fiddle, something which ensured that now as he grew older Fergal was much in demand at céildihs, dances and at weddings, there was more than ample opportunity for the latter.

Moreover, the colleens didn't treat him like a child.

Far from it. Something about his blue eyes and his endearing, lopsided grin or so they said, let alone the size of his mickey. Especially that Hannah O'Sullivan. Initial chaste kisses had led to innocent fumblings and then to increasingly heated kisses and far less innocent fumblings which took place in a variety of out-of-the-way locations, all contrived with one aim in mind so as to be all well away from the prying eyes of their vigilant parents. Last night these had culminated in a lively encounter with the amply proportioned Miss O'Sullivan in the old stable behind O'Conner's bar, which had cost both of them their virginity. Not that Hannah seemed to mind. Fergal certainly didn't. He smiled broadly and hoped that the encounter would soon be repeated. A moment later and his smile faded. Jaysus! If Ma ever got to hear about it, why, she'd skin him alive.

Tonight though would be spent rather differently and sadly, the undoubted buxom charms of Miss O'Sullivan, enjoyable as they were, would have to wait as during this last year, like several others of his older friends, Fergal had found a new interest: playing his part in helping kick the British out of Ireland.

Fergal's smile returned.

They didn't treat him like a child in Sinn Féin either.

To begin with they let him run errands and take messages for them. After all, the British soldiers paid little regard to a fifteen year old boy on a bicycle. More recently they'd let him shin up that telegraph pole and cut the wires just before the train had been ambushed down at Skerries Road.

And tonight, when Da and Ma blithely assumed he was with Liam Casey and Tomas Kennedy in the back room of O'Conner's bar practising his fiddle, in fact, for the third time in as many weeks, Fergal would be several miles away; in the cellars beneath the blackened, burnt out shell of what until recently had been Fermoy House, learning how to fire a Smith and Wesson .45 revolver.

A handful of miles further on and, back at Skerries, as the trap trotted up past the old stables all seemed to be ordered pandemonium, with soldiers running backwards and forwards, hither and thither, hurriedly loading boxes, crates, kitbags and all manner of equipment into three waiting lorries. From the barked calls and shouted orders both Maeve and Sybil overheard, it appeared that, unexpecredly, the troops billeted down at the stableblock were preparing to move out; a fact confirmed shortly thereafter by an officer who was standing by an armoured car close to the front steps leading to the house, awaiting their arrival. As Maeve brought the trap to a stop beside the broad flight of steps, the officer saluted smartly and then helped Sybil, holding Danny tightly in her free arm, descend from the box.

"Thank you" said Sybil disinterestedly, actually paying little heed to what the officer was now saying and catching only but the gist of what he was telling her; about an order received unexpectedly earlier today from military headquarters, that the troops billeted here were to move out immediately, back to their barracks in Cork. A moment or two later and the officer had saluted again, rapped smartly on the roof of the cab of the armoured car and, with the vehicle already moving, jumped deftly onto the running board.

With Danny holding her hand, Sybil stood beside him on the bottom step, watching as the lumbering armoured car moved slowly down towards the stables. For her part, Maeve seemd rather more interested with what had happened earlier that very morning.

"Millie is such wonderful fun, don't you think?" She laughed, apparently entirely unmoved by what was now taking place here round about them.

Sybil said nothing, considered that her own thoughts on the selfish, stupid and vacuous Millie Anstruther were best left unspoken.

"I'm so very sorry he's not well". Maeve now nodded at Danny, who Sybil had said was running a slight temperature.

"A slight chill. Nothing more. There was a breeze down there by the harbour in Kinsale. I'm sure he'll be fine, just as soon as I get him inside and off to sleep" replied Sybil evasively. She picked Danny up, rocking and shushing the little boy in her arms. Not that there was any truth at all in Sybil's comment about the breeze; none whatsoever. Nor was there anything wrong with Danny. All Sybil wanted was for Maeve to be gone so that she could then find and tell Tom about what she had seen.

"But will you be all right? I mean, after all the soldiers have gone?" Maeve now glanced in the direction of the fevered activity taking place down by the stables, then at the mostly shuttered windows of the neglected house, at the bare, black branches of the trees and the barren, empty fields which lay beyond the ha-ha. "I mean... out here, on your own? Won't you both feel frightfully afraid?"

"Not at all. We'll be perfectly OK" said Sybil choosing to make use of the word she had first heard used by her American grandmother when she had come over to Downton for Matthew and Mary's wedding earlier in the year.

"Really?"
"Yes, really. Thank you so much for taking us down into Kinsale, but now, if you will excuse me..."

And without waiting for Maeve to reply, without further ado and without so much as a backward glance, Sybil walked unwaveringly up the steps and into the hall, closing the heavy front door firmly behind her, the sound reverberating through the empty, silent house.

Maeve grimaced, flicked the whip along the mare's back and set off away from the house, down past the stables and along the overgrown, rutted drive. A few moments later, she pulled hard on the reins and brought the trap to a sudden stand down on the edge of the woods below the house, sat and waited.

When Tom failed to come out into the hall to meet her, after all he could hardly not have seen them arrive back here at the house from Kinsale, Sybil immediately went in search of him. Not that she was unduly perturbed. The door to the drawing room stood open and but a single glance told her Tom was not there, noticed too that the fire had burnt down almost to ash. Then she saw the scribbled note lying on his desk.

"Something's come up unexpectedly. Back soon. Don't worry.

Love Tom"

Reassured, having remade the fire, Sybil now went upstairs to feed and change Danny before settling him down for his early afternoon nap. A short while later she came out onto the landing and as she did so, distinctly heard Tom call her name.

"Tom, darling, where are you?"

His reply was indistinct, but seemed to come from the other side of the house. Mystified, Sybil crossed the landing and but a few moments later found herself in the corridor at the end of which lay the door leading to the staircase which led up to Tom's childhood bedroom.

"Tom?"

Again a muffled reply.

Sybil walked along the passage as far as the door which to her surprise she found stood open.

At the foot of the staircase Sybil paused.

"Tom? Are you up there?"

There was no reply.

With a mounting sense of trepidation, Sybil now set her foot on the staircase and began slowly to climb the treads. A moment or so later, at the top of the stairs, Sybil paused.

"Tom? Are you in there?"

There was no reply.

The silence was palpable; almost eerie in its totality. Sybil knew Skerries to be a damp old place, but up here standing once more on the threshold of this abandoned, long-forgotten room, the chill in the air which she now felt came from something else.

Beyond the small grimy window with its broken and cracked panes, the sky suddenly darkened and a scattering of raindrops peppered the glass. Pushing the door open wide, Sybil stepped inside the room and gasped at the sight which now greeted her.

Tom was pacing backwards and forwards; to and fro, to and fro. Then, suddenly, he stopped and glanced at his wrist watch. Of course, in high summer, here out on the terrace, the air would have been heavy with the scent of honeysuckle and roses, with what remained of the pergola swathed in pendulous globes of purple lilac and beneath which it would have been both cool and shady. Now the branches were black and bare and the autumn winds had piled a thick bank of dried leaves beneath the broken, rotten timbers.

In the distance made hazy and indistinct by sea mist, he glimpsed the Old Head of Kinsale, but here, even though it was late October, with the terrace being south facing, the fading warmth of the autumn sun yet lingered, spiralled drowsily upwards from off the weedgrown flagstones.

Tom closed his eyes, thinking back, remembering and, once again, albeit this time only in his mind, green gilt eyes met dark blue as they had done on that long gone summer's afternoon. He felt again the palms of her hands cupping the smooth skin of his face. A boy's face. A boy on the cusp of manhood. He felt her soft lips brush against his, the tip of her tongue probing, seeking unfettered entrance to his warm mouth.

"I know you want me," she said huskily. Her voice was little more than a whisper, soft, beguilingly so, her tone seductive, and her desire for him all too apparent. At twelve years old, he blushed easily and did so now; blushed scarlet with embarassment.

"Maeve, I... I don't know... what to do ..." he stammered.

"Then let me help you, Tommy. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's only love".

There was a sudden gust of wind and from somewhere far off, above the roar of the waves breaking on the seashore down below the house, there came a pattering of rain drops which served to jerk Tom back to the present. Then he heard the sound of scurrying footsteps, turned and saw Maeve walking hurriedly towards him across the terrace.

"Tommy!"

He nodded and then smiled wanly.

"I knew you'd come".

"I had little choice".

"Don't be like that".

"Well, you said you had something important to discuss and in private. What is it that you can't say to me in front of Sybil?"

"Indeed I did. Shall we?" Maeve smiled and with her open hand indicated the cast iron seat beneath the remains of the pergola.

Like the rest of the garden, the flagstones had long been neglected. Whether one was loose, whether it was a patch of moss Tom never knew, but for one startled moment he wondered if Maeve had simply contrived it so. For, as they walked towards the pergola, whatever the cause, somehow, she lost her footing, flung her arms about his neck in an attempt to stop herself falling. A moment later and she had pulled his head down, her lips greedily seeking his, her tongue probing insistently, just as they had done all those years ago.

"No! Enough! Stop it!" Tom yelled contemptuously.

Roughly he pulled himself free of Maeve's encircling arms, tore her joined hands from the back of his neck, pushing her away from him with such force that she almost lost her balance for a second time on the uneven surface of the flagstones of the terrace.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I would have thought that was obvious, even to you. Or do you need me to draw you a picture? I'm trying to seduce you, Tommy" laughed Maeve.

"And I would have thought that just as obviously, you would have realised that I'm no longer twelve years old". Tom stepped several paces back from her. He wiped the back of his hand savagely across his lips trying to expunge the taste of her from his mouth.

"If you haven't yet grasped it Maeve, I love my wife. We have a son whom we both adore. Can't you understand that? Any of it? Besides which, Sybil's carrying our second child".

"Does any of that matter?" asked Maeve tonelessly.

"Of course it matters! Just what the feckin' hell do you take me for?"

"You talk of love. What about my love for you? I love you Tommy! You must know that. I think I always have. Ever since that day down there in the cottage on the beach. You can't have forgotten, surely? I know I haven't," she said softly. Maeve moved closer; looked up at him pleadingly through her long lidded eyes.

"No, I haven't forgotten ..."

She had said they had about an hour, no longer.

Time enough.

Time enough indeed.

Down on the foreshore below the house, just above the seastrand, within the crumbling walls of the long abandoned fisherman's cottage, it was both snug and quiet. Inside the dim interior, on an improvised bed, which they had contrived from out of a tarpaulin spread over a heap of long abandoned fishing nets, made slightly more comfortable, but only just, by the addition of their discarded clothing, the young boy lay naked, sprawled across the girl, his head resting between her breasts. Although his eyes were all but closed, he was not asleep, just sated, and drowsily content. The girl ruffled his soft fair hair with her fingers.

"Well, you're a young man now and no mistake".

"Hm?" He raised his head to look at her with a young boy's unconcern. And as he did so, a pair of dark blue eyes gazed down into green.

"I love you Tommy. I always have".

Tom looked aghast.

"Love me, Maeve? No! That you never did. Delude yourself as much as you like, but you don't fool me! What passed between us that day, all those years ago, that was never love. It was lust, nothing more. One thing more, what I did then, I did in all innocence. As for you, why, I suspect it had rather more to do with getting back at your own father than any feelings you may have later convinced yourself you had for me. After all, who paid the highest price for your few moments of pleasure? Answer me that!"

"Innocence? Don't pretend you didn't enjoy it as much as I did, Tommy! I seem to recall that you were as much a willing partner in what we did as was I!" Tom blushed furiously. "You talk of loving your wife? Why throw your life away? You no more belong with her than she belongs with you. You belong here ... with me. Can't you see that?"

"What I see sickens me" said Tom.

"Sickens you? Don't be such a hypocrite! It doesn't become you Tommy!"

"I didn't mean..."

"After what we did that afternoon, down there in the cottage on the beach. Of our own free will? You of all people dare to talk to me of who paid the highest price for what we did. I did, Tommy. I did. I was sent away from here".

"Sent away..." began Tom.

"Yes".

"But why?"
"Why do you think? After Papa caught us, after what my brothers then did to you..."

Tom nodded, swallowed hard. Even now, after all this time, the memory of that savage beating he had endured first from his uncle and then at the hands of his two cousins still haunted him. He had told Sybil of what had happened, but not what had occasioned it. He was still too ashamed.

"A moment or two ago, I asked you if you still remembered what it was like for you. So do you?"

Tom flushed crimson, the colour flooding through his face like a spill of red wine staining a damask tablecloth.

"Yes" he said at length. "Yes Maeve, I remember. I remember all of it. After all, how could I ever forget it even if I wanted to? And down the years, I've tried my damnedest to do just that".

He turned on his heel and ducked out from beneath the pergola with Maeve trailing swiftly after him.

"So don't you even want to know what became of him?" Maeve's voice was rasping, terse, and harsh.

The abruptness of her question stopped him dead in his tracks. Tom spun round hard on his heel.

"Became of whom, Maeve?"

"The child born of so much love".

"What the hell are you talking about? What child?" Tom's eyes narrowed and he felt an icy prickle of fear touch the base of his spine.

"Why your son of course".

Tom looked bewildered; tried to make sense of what he was hearing.

"Danny's with his mother. He's up at the..." he said lamely.

"I don't mean your little brat by that slut. I mean your child by me".

Maeve's words hit Tom with the full force of an express train; the colour all but drained from his face.

"My what?"

"Don't play the innocent with me Tommy!"

"I don't believe you".

"Yes you do," she said brusquely.

"You're lying" he said softly.

"I'm not. You know I'm not, Tommy".

A silent unbidden tear slid down her cheek and in that instant Tom knew that Maeve spoke the plain, unvarnished truth.

Moreover, in acknowledging this simple fact, his world was changed irrevocably, and forever.

Author's Note:

A ha-ha is an architectural feature to be found in the grounds of country estates - which while preserving an uninterrupted view from the house of the landscape beyond, serves to prevent livestock gaining access to the gardens.