Chapter One Hundred And Thirty Nine

The Scent Of Lilies

The attic bedroom was just as Sybil remembered it, but for the fact that the lid of the trunk, Tom's trunk, now stood open.

Disbelieving the very evidence of her own eyes, Sybil walked slowly forward across the wooden floor, the heels and soles of her shoes leaving crumbling prints behind her in the dust. At the side of the trunk she knelt slowly down and looked within.

At first glance the contents of trunk appeared to be as they had been before: the piles of Tom's childhood clothes, neatly folded, were still there, along with the games of chess and draughts, the jigsaw puzzles and all his toys, chief among them the yacht which appeared in the photograph of Tom and his parents. Sybil glanced round, yes, that still stood on the nightstand beside the stripped bed. The diary was in here too, but …

Sybil shook her head in disbelief.

The leather bound diary was indeed still here but not in the place where she had left it and it was all too obvious that since her visit, someone else had been in here. Sybil now found herself asking who it could have been for, other than Tom and her, there was no-one else now living here at Skerries. True, as had been the case for sometime and as had been arranged, ever since the departure of the remaining servants the two girls came in every day from the village to clean, to see to the blacking of grates, the lighting of the range and the fires, along with bringing in a variety of provisions. However, they never came up here; they had no cause to do so.

All the rooms in this part of the house were shut up long since. Not long ago, Sybil had overheard both Deidre and Siobhan talking in the kitchen about how they thought Skerries to be in their own words "a creepy old place". Sybil grimaced. Such stupidity only served to vindicate her English grandmother's opinion on the foolishness and silliness of Irish female servants. So, there was no likelihood whatsoever that either of the two girls would have ever dared to sneak upstairs into this part of the house, delve into places where they had no call to be, pry into what did not concern them, let alone find their way into this abandoned room, and then rummage through the contents of this long forgotten trunk.

Someone had evidently been up here, but who?

It was as Sybil reached forward and picked up the diary that she now saw for the very first time the bundle of letters tied up with a faded scarlet ribbon. She had not seen them before and some sixth sense told her that when she had opened the trunk before, they had not been in here. Whether or not that was indeed so, really mattered not, but Sybil was unable to prevent herself gasping out aloud when she recognised the script on the uppermost envelope. Before her very eyes, Tom's firm, bold hand marched across it, the ink fresh and unfaded. And no wonder, for the letter was postmarked but a matter of weeks before they had left Dublin to travel down here to Skerries.

As she reached forward and picked up the diary and the bundle of letters, a strong gust of wind threw a flurry of heavy raindrops against the broken, cracked and grimy panes of the window while somewhere behind Sybil a board creaked and now, above the keening of the wind, there came as once before the unmistakeable sound of a child sobbing. At that, Sybil's own nerve failed her. She slammed down the lid of the trunk and fairly bolted as fast as her increasing bulk would permit, down the narrow staircase and back to some kind of sanity.

Heedless of the rain, beneath the over arching branches of the trees, Maeve sat rigid atop the box of the stationary trap lost in angry thought, annoyed at least in part with herself that she had so over played her hand. But time was running out and she could no longer afford to dissemble. Had it not been for that damned entail, then as Fitzmaurice had confirmed to her months ago, with William and Christopher both now gone, the estate would have devolved to her, but there had been no way of setting it aside. Of course, but for the war none of that would have mattered. With Papa dead, they could, all three of them, have gone on as before and, in due time, some understanding could have been reached... about what to do concerning the future.

However, as things now stood, she had gone along with darling Tommy's ridiculous Socialist nonsense for quite long enough; assumed, blithely enough, that when he came down here to Skerries, she would be able to make him see sense, to talk him out of selling the estate and at the same time end his marriage to that English slut. However, neither proved to be the case. That was a mistake on her part. After all, she should have remembered that Tommy always had been one for sticking to his blasted so-called principles but that he was so hopelessly in love with, so devoted to and so wed to his haughty English wife, now that had indeed come as a surprise! So then, other arrangements would have to be made to ensure that she regained Skerries, both for herself and for her son and from her conversation earlier that morning down in Kinsale with Captain Miles Stathum, Maeve now knew just how that might best be achieved. That said, if that buffoon really believed that she and he had some form of understanding, that the price of his assistance in the matter would be marriage, well let Stathum think what he liked; much good it would do him. When all was said and done, men were such bloody, trusting fools. With one exception, Maeve despised them all.

The chapel at Skerries stood apart and at some distance from the main house and it was here, in an attempt to escape the worsening weather and to try and collect his thoughts that Tom found himself shivering with cold, slumped in a rickety pew some time after parting angrily from Maeve on the terrace. He had spent several dismal hours tramping the local lanes around Skerries in a desperate, unsuccessful effort to collect his thoughts and as a result he was now soaked to the skin; his clothes mud spattered and wet through. Not that he minded; he had been wet like this once before, when, as a boy, having run away from Skerries and on his way to Dublin, alone and friendless, he had been caught in a thunderstorm and had to take refuge in a barn before being chased away by the farmer who owned it and who had threatened to set his dogs on Tom.

Of course, Tom knew that Sybil and Danny must now be back up at the house, but with what Maeve had told him, he needed time to think, to consider what he should do, what he must say. Anything, anything at all to spare Sybil pain. Whatever it cost him, he had to let her know, tell her the truth, given the fact that he had no doubt, none whatsoever, that his cousin would do as she had threatened and tell Sybil herself; heard again Maeve's parting shot.

"You know me Tommy; I warn once and I don't bluff!" So saying, her head had reared; the green eyes narrowed and glittered.

Jaysus!

Tom shook his head in utter disbelief. Not that he doubted the truth of what Maeve had told him. After all, why would she lie about something like this? There was no escaping the fact that what she had told him had to be true. That the boy, almost a man grown now, was living hereabouts seemed likely. Maeve had inferred as much, which must mean that she knew where he was, was perhaps in contact with him. Whether the lad knew Maeve was his mother was debatable. It seemed unlikely.

That one moment's indiscretion all those years ago should have led to this. Something that jeopardised all that he held most dear. Tom was utterly appalled. That Maeve had led him on, well, that was true enough; in his defence, he had been just a boy himself, on the edge of manhood. But for all that, for all his nervousness, to be truthful, Tom had not altogether found his first experience of the pleasures of the flesh to be entirely distasteful. Indeed quite the contrary. That was until they had been caught by his uncle, Maeve's father. Tom winced, consciously grasped his left shoulder; upon his back he still bore the marks of the thrashing he had received at the hands of his uncle, the injuries he received that night caused by what ever it was his uncle Jacob had laid first hands upon with which to beat him down there in the cottage on the shore.

At the time, for all her protestations of love, Maeve had made no attempt to intervene, to stop her father from thrashing Tom within an inch of his very life. Not that he supposed it would have made much difference if she had sought to do so. But why she had not done so, still mystified him, even now.

And then, when they learned what had happened, with Maeve confined to her room, her two brothers, William and Christopher, had been no less vicious to Tom, Christopher especially so; helped by a friend they had thrashed him too, down in the stables and it was in the aftermath of that savage beating at their hands, that, by the light of lanterns in the stableyard of Skerries House that Tom and Sybil had first met.

That from the very start, his uncle and aunt had bitterly resented being saddled with the cost of providing unexpectedly for another child had been clear enough, which was why, Tom assumed, he had been taken away from his school in Dublin. But, to begin with, once the novelty of his unexpected arrival had worn enough, his cousins had paid him little further regard, other than to make him the butt of their torments. For, even before being caught in flagrante with Maeve, that neither William, nor indeed Christopher had ever much cared for Tom, was true enough.

Thinking back, Tom realised now that both his cousins had been scared to death of their father Jacob who at every turn sought to belittle them, treated them both with open contempt and took obvious delight in doing so. In their unhappiness, when they had nothing else with which to occupy themselves, the two of them took out some of their misery on their hapless, orphaned younger cousin upon whom they had proceeded to play all manner of cruel practical jokes, treating him as being of no account whatsoever. Not that any of this excused their conduct. Nothing ever could. Odd, Tom thought, that he had not reflected upon all of this until now.

And, there was something else too.

While the elder of the two boys, William, was more often than not lost in a world of his own and when his father was away, spending much of his time in the company of the young under keeper, Christopher and Maeve seemed inseparable; always in each other's company, always together.

Within, the chapel was cold and damp; the air smelt musty no doubt from long years of disuse. Heedless of his wet clothes, Tom sat with his shoulders hunched, resting his chin in his hands. Above him he heard the rain drumming incessantly on the roof and from somewhere there came the sound of a steady drip; presumably from a leak. Paving the floor were slabs and on the walls memorials to Tom's forbears, many of which were crumbling and mouldering into decay. But mixed with the smell of decay, Tom now smelt something else; the overpowering scent of lilies. Mystified, he rose wearily to his feet and now went in search of the source, his boots squelching noisily as he walked.

He found it moments later. A large spray of lilies placed in a vase on the floor beneath a plaque sited on the wall immediately above; the most recent memorial to have been placed in the chapel. However, this did not, as might have been expected, commemorate Tom's late uncle who had died the previous year, shortly after Tom and Sybil had arrived here in Ireland. In fact, from Tom's admittedly cursory inspection of the chapel, there appeared to be no memorial to him whatsoever. Not that Tom minded. But then, nor was there any tablet, at least that he could see to Maeve's elder brother William either: William, who had enlisted in Cork at the beginning of the war as a captain in the Royal Munster Fusiliers and who had been killed at Gallipoli in April 1915. That he had won the M.C. in leading an infantry charge on a Turkish machine gun position, an action which had cost William his life, did not alter Tom's low opinion of him. Another who all these years later with realisation now dawning, Tom saw as definitely not a ladies' man and which probably explained William's unlikely friendship with Alec Jameson the then young under keeper on the Skerries estate.

As for William's younger brother Christopher, commissioned as a lieutenant into the same regiment as his late brother, he had joined up late in 1916 and had been killed on the Marne shortly before the end of the war. Of course, with there being no conscription here in Ireland, there had been no need whatsoever for either of Tom's cousins to join up, to take part in what some were now calling "the show"; a damned fool term Tom thought to describe something which by the end of the war had resulted in upwards of well over three million British military casualties, dead, wounded and missing.

After Tom ran away from Skerries he had heard nothing of how either of his male cousins fared until their deaths had been reported in the Cork Constitution. Then, quite unexpectedly, out of the blue, Tom had received a letter from Maeve, informing him of the death of her father; the beginning of a desultory albeit lengthy correspondence which, given the situation here in Ireland had continued in a circuitous, secretive fashion until Tom and Sybil had travelled down to Cork.

That there was no memorial to Maeve's father, Tom could well understand. After all, there had been no love lost between them and it was presumably at the behest of her father that Maeve had been sent away from Skerries to give birth to Tom's child.

Quite how all these years later, Maeve had found his whereabouts, that he was about to be married, Tom never knew, although that his cousin had contrived to do so did not surprise him. After all, he knew only too well and to his cost that if Maeve wanted something badly enough, she usually managed to contrive things so that eventually she got what she wanted. In this regard, it also would have come as no surprise to Tom whatsoever to learn that Maeve had engaged the services of a private detective to track him down.

During all of the several lengthy letters she had written to him, Maeve had told him little further about her brothers, other than that both had been killed in the war; made mention of the fact that Christopher had married, but that the marriage had been of brief duration and that it had failed. There had been no children.

And somewhat surprisingly, it was Christopher who was commemorated by the most recent memorial erected here in this otherwise long neglected chapel. Sisterly love apart, for Tom assumed Maeve must have overseen and paid for the tablet, it seemed a singularly pointless thing to have done, especially when there was no money, or so Maeve herself had said, with which to effect repairs to the roof of the house.

For a few, brief moments, while the rain continued to sound on the roof of the chapel, unminding of his wet clothes, Tom stood silent, looking dispassionately before him at the carved granite plaque on the wall which commemorated his late cousin.

Surmounted by what Tom assumed must be a British Army regimental crest, below which was a head and shoulder profile of his cousin in uniform rendered in relief, a brief inscription beneath that described him as "the second son of the late Sir Jacob Branson J.P. and his wife Clarissa of Skerries House, County Cork..." then gave his date of birth and then the date of his death. When Christopher had been killed, he had been aged just twenty six. Given what Maeve had told him, Tom was not surprised that there was no mention of his cousin's wife. Beneath the inscription was what, from the letters of which it was composed, Tom took to be a word or phrase rendered in Greek.

"Φιλάδελφοι"

Of course, Maeve had always been closer to Christopher than her elder brother but to Tom it still seemed singularly odd that no memorial had been erected in here to William. Maybe the fact that his body had never been found, which sad fact Maeve had mentioned to Tom in one of her letters, was the reason for what otherwise seemed a wholly inexplicable omission.

As for the enigmatic letters at the end of the inscription, while their presence presumably had something to do with Christopher's love of Ancient Greece - he had gone on to read Classics at Trinity College in Dublin - their meaning was entirely lost on Tom. He assumed they must have some significance, jotted the letters down in his pocket book for future reference at which Tom smiled. Sybil had laughingly once called him a collector of trifles and so indeed he was.

Realising he could put off his confrontation with Sybil not a moment longer, chilled to the bone, miserable and weary, Tom rose slowly to his feet, walked the short distance to the door, lifted up the latch and trudged off out into the darkness, the wind and the rain.

The chill stab of fear which Sybil had felt in the forsaken attic room proved thankfully to be but ephemeral. A short while later, standing at the top of the main staircase of the house, she was angry with herself for being so scared by something which could only have been caused by nothing more than a trick of the wind. She turned and walked the short distance to their bedroom to look in on Danny. Having satisfied herself that he was still fast asleep, Sybil washed her face and made every effort to compose herself.

Her rumbling stomach now reminded her sharply that she had not yet eaten, so in order to remedy this she immediately went downstairs to the kitchen, was surprised to find it empty and then remembered that it was the girls' afternoon off. A delicious savoury aroma assailed her nostrils and she saw the pot on the range and lifting the lid she inspected the contents – a delightful stew which had been prepared for her and Tom's supper. For now, she fetched bread and cheese, along with a pitcher of milk from the larder. Tom always laughed at how thickly Sybil cut her slices of bread, had suggested on more than one occasion that any of her leftover slices could be sent to Dublin to help in the rebuilding of the General Post Office on Sackville Street.

It was while she was sitting eating that, through the veil of falling rain, she saw, across the yard his beloved motorcycle which, sheeted over with a tarpaulin, stood in its customary place over by the wall. In his note Tom had given her no indication as to how long he would be away from the house, presumably not that long and he could not have gone far, which no doubt explained why he had evidently chosen to walk instead and not take his motorcycle.

Her frugal luncheon soon over, feeling suitably refreshed, Sybil went back upstairs to their bedroom, collected both the diary and the bundle of letters, marched briskly down the main staircase and into the drawing room.

Even though it was still early afternoon, with the coming of the storm, the sky had darkened considerably. Stinging, staccato blasts of rain sprayed noisily against the windows of the drawing room, while at the edge of the ha-ha on the far side of the long-neglected front lawn the bare branches of the trees were being tossed this way and that by savage gusts of wind in a wild, black, seemingly endless skeletal dance. Sybil shivered. Then, having mended the fire, she sat down in the leather wing armchair and began quietly to read through the diary.

On occasion, depending on the direction of the wind, the fire here in the drawing room often failed to draw properly and this was one of those times; the wind howled in the chimney, the fire smoked, the coals in the hearth glimmered but faintly, giving very little by way of warmth, the air in the drawing room seeming both dead and stale.

Now, several hours later, still seated by the fireplace, curled up in a ball on her chair, fingering the plain gold band, the ring which since her wedding had never once left her finger, Sybil shivered. She was chilled to the bone, in fact to the very core of her being. Earlier, in her misery, she had found herself so overcome that she thought she was going to be sick; had gone down on her knees, her hands protectively atound her distended belly and sobbed a veil of bitter tears.

So the numbness she felt now had nothing at all to do with the fire failing to draw properly; had everything to do with what she had since discovered which both appalled and horrified her. She felt sick to the very pit of her stomach. Resting open across her knees was the diary from the trunk in the attic room, the earlier entries in Tom's childhood hand faded and blotched with his own tears; the later entries written in a different hand entirely and those now blotched with Sybil's tears, the letters also.

She glanced over at the window and saw that it was still raining. Save for the sound of the grandfather clock ticking in the hall, while she had been reading, even though it was not yet five o'clock, outside it had begun to grow dark. Wherever it was that Tom had gone, he would surely be back soon. Standing up Sybil did as she usually did at this time of the day, lit both of the lamps in the drawing room and then walked out into the hall and lit the one which stood at the foot of the staircase.

But a moment later, she heard the main door of the house open.

She spun about to see Tom standing in the doorway, his face flecked with rain, his cap and clothes soaking wet, not that he seemed even to notice. The haunted, hunted look she saw on his face caused her to catch her breath; saw too that he had been crying and at that, if only for the moment, all thought of what the diary, let alone the bundle of letters, had revealed to her, was forgotten. Her heart went out to him.

"What on earth… Where have you been? Tom, you're soaking wet! You'll catch your very death!"

As was her want in moments of crisis, Sybil immediately became practical and it was with all the imperiousness of a Crawley and in a tone such as she had at times used to many of her charges both in Ripon Military Camp Hospital and at the convalescent home established at Downton during the war, one that brooked absolutely no opposition, that she now ordered Tom to follow her down to the kitchen. This he now did, leaving a trail of puddles pooling on the stone flags of the hall.

Below stairs, heaving a sigh of relief that it was indeed Deidre and Siobhan's afternoon off, once in the warm kitchen Sybil ordered Tom to strip. At that, despite his present, woebegone state, she saw a ghost of a smile twitch at his lips. Sybil shook her head.

"Honestly! Men! Now Tom, do as I say. I'll be back directly!"

Sybil was as good as her word, returning a short while later with an armful of fresh clothing from upstairs and a towel from the linen cupboard which lay just along the passage from the kitchen and was one of the few of the former offices down here in the basement which they still used. She found that Tom had done more or less as she had instructed him. He had stripped to the waist, taken off his boots and socks and was seated by the range, albeit still wearing his damp trousers. As she came into the kitchen, Sybil saw him shiver. At that she raised her eyes heavenwards.

"Those too!" she ordered crisply pointing to his trousers. "Here!" So saying she tossed the towel at him. "When you're dry, put these on". She indicated the fresh clothes which she placed beside him on the kitchen table.
"Sybil, love, I…" he began. Tom shivered again, his cheeks pinched with cold, his numbed fingers fumbling uselessly with the buttons of his trousers.

"Here. Let me. Stand up". A moment later and she had stripped Tom not only of his trousers but also his underpants.

"Sybil!" Tom flushed, clasped his hands protectively over his groin.

"Just when did you become so bashful, Mr. Branson?"

"Syb... I've something I have to tell..." he began, tears starting in his eyes, his teeth beginning to chatter uncontrolably. She regarded him thoughtfully for an instant, nodded her head, before briskly beginning to help him towel himself dry.

"Whatever it is, Tom, it can surely wait. Now, let's get you dry first, otherwise you'll catch your death of cold".

Tom nodded slowly, grateful not only for the warmth afforded him by the briskness of her towelling, by the closeness of her too, but also by the fact that he had not yet had to bare his soul before her; someone whom he utterly adored and whom knew he must also now wound so terribly with what he had to tell her, would destroy all of what they had fought to achieve together.

Thereafter, while Sybil busied herself about the kitchen first gathering up Tom's wet clothes from where he had dropped them on the floor, arranging them on the kitchen maid, hauling it up into position, making a large pot of tea and setting the stew to heat, Tom dressed and then sat by the range where he continued to warm himself. Standing at the Belfast refilling the kettle, casting a backward glance over her shoulder, Sybil was relieved to see the colour at last returning to his cheeks.

"Better?"
"Much" he said laconically.

"I'll fetch Danny" she said; anything Sybil thought, to try and make what would have to be said as easy as possible, both for Tom and for her.

A short while later, seated at the kitchen table, with Danny chewing on his little fist, now seated contentedly on his knee, Tom now tried again.

"Sybil... I..."

"Eat first, talk later" she said, now ladling a generous portion of steaming stew and potatoes onto his plate.

Thereafter, save for Danny's contented gurgling and the howling of the wind outside, they ate in companionable silence, exchanging the odd pleasantry but nothing more and, all too soon, at least for Tom, the meal was at an end.

"Now, what was it you wanted to tell me?" asked Sybil at last setting down her knife and fork on her empty plate and pushing it away across the surface of the table.

Tom did likewise. He swallowed hard. This was it. There could be no going back.

"Maeve…"
"What about her?" asked Sybil, her face as impassive as that of Queen Victoria on the monarch's statue outside Leinster House in distant Dublin.

"She asked to meet me. She said she… she had something to tell me. Something she couldn't say in front of you".

"Oh? And what was that?" asked Sybil trying to keep her voice level.

"That… that she… that I…" Tom's voice wavered, then ceased altogether. He buried his hands in his face and began to sob uncontrollably.

"If… if only you knew…"

"That years ago here at Skerries, you and she were lovers?"

Tom's head snapped up in alarm. He nodded, blushed red.

"It only ever happened that one time, down there in…"
"… the cottage on the shore?" Sybil raised an inquisitive brow but her voice was entirely free of censure.

"My uncle… he caught us together… that's why he… That's why my cousins did what…"
Sybil nodded.

"I see…"
"Jaysus! What ever must you think of me…"

"Tom, at the time you were scarcely more than a boy. And, even knowing your nature I doubt..." She paused. "I know that most of what happened was not of your own making".

"But how do you…"

"How do I know? I could say call it a woman's intuition, but that wouldn't strictly be true, or indeed fair".

"It's not just that. What we did, Maeve and I. She later had a child. A boy. And I'm his father" Tom said brokenly.

"Yes, I know" said Sybil quietly. She contrived a dry cough.

"You know? But how?"

"Because I've met him".
"Met him? Where?"

Sybil nodded.

"Earlier today. Where doesn't matter. At least not for now. But meet him I did. Whether Maeve contrived it, intended it so, it really makes no difference. That's what happened…" Sybil shrugged her shoulders dismissively.

"There's something else I have to tell you, Tom, but I think for now, that can wait. There's something I want to show you".

For his part, Tom looked totally bewildered by Sybil's calm reaction to the startling news he had just imparted to her; that as a boy he had fathered an illegitimate child on his cousin. Of course, he knew only too well that there was no love lost between Maeve and Sybil; the spat over breakfast this morning, however trifling, had been but another in a long line of similar incidents.

Knowing Sybil as he did, Tom had expected her to be appalled by his revelation, to berate him, to be outraged, to be shocked, to be upset, to scream and to shout. After all, by birth she was a Crawley and when roused to anger, hot-tempered and possessed of a withering line in aristocratic sarcasm, to which Tom could readily attest, having at times over the last year or so been on the receiving end of each.

So, with what he had just told her, Tom had imagined Sybil reacting in every kind of way other than the manner in which she had; sitting here at the kitchen table, listening calmly and quietly to what he had to relate by the soft glow of lamplight while outside the wind buffeted the house and rattled the windows.

He now looked questioningly across at Sybil, who, recognising Tom's absolute confusion, his sense of utter disbelief, now merely smiled, held out her hand to him.

"My darling, come with me. I promise you it's nothing bad, really."

When he still made no attempt to move, encumbered with Danny, Sybil leaned forward, firmly grasped hold of Tom's wrist with her free hand and led them both gently forth from the warmth of the kitchen.

Author's Note:

The Royal Munster Fusiliers was a infantry regiment of the British Army with its depot in Tralee. Formed in 1881, it was one of five Irish regiments disbanded upon the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922.

The Cork Constitution was an Irish newspaper much favoured by British Army officers. It ceased publication in 1924.

The statue of Queen Victoria, which originally stood outside Leinster House, has had a much chequered history. Considering it inappropriate to have the figure of a British queen overlooking what, by now, was the seat of the Irish Parliament, in 1947 it was moved first to the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham and thereafter and more recently, in 1987, much further away to stand in front of the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney in Australia.