Chapter One Hundred And Forty Six
Stranger On The Shore
Weighing in at a healthy 8lbs. 5ozs. and so therefore somewhat lighter than Danny had been, Sybil's baby was a girl, born on 3rd March 1921 in the peaceful and tranquil surroundings of the Cottage Hospital at Downton and with Dr. Clarkson once again in attendance. Saiorse's birth proved to be trouble free and with none of the alarm that had surrounded Danny's entrance into this world.
That, of course, had occurred in the immediate aftermath of the fire which had threatened to engulf Downton Abbey, involving a mad dash to the hospital in the early hours of that February morning, in the family's Renault, with darling Tom at the wheel, his hair singed and dressed in a change of clothes hurriedly loaned to him and hastily borrowed from one of the gardeners and a couple of the estate workers who had been helping to fight the fire.
At a family dinner a couple of weeks later, shortly after young Master Daniel Branson had dutifully made his way safely into this world and not long before Matthew and Mary were married, when the Dowager Countess had made a wry observation about Tom's distinct lack of sartorial elegance, asking if it was an Irish tradition, not changing for dinner, it had been Matthew who had sprung instantaneously to mount a spirited defence of his friend. Matthew had then gone on to remind the assembled company that it was what a man said and did that mattered far more than how he dressed.
"Well said! I wholeheartedly agree," Isobel had enthused.
"Yes, well you would, wouldn't you!" had observed Violet tartly and raising her eyes to the ceiling.
"Mind you, Tom" had observed Matthew with a chuckle, when rather fortuitously Carson had momentarily stepped out of the dining room to attend to a minor contretemps below stairs involving Thomas and Alfred. "Do you remember how you were attired when you drove Sybil down to the Cottage Hospital in the Renault?"
"In borrowed clothes and boots, to be sure!" laughed Tom.
While Robert had grimaced and followed his mother in seemingly suddenly finding a fascination with the decorative plasterwork of the dining room ceiling, Tom had chuckled and grinned conspiratorially at his best friend and future brother-in-law.
Matthew likewise had smiled and then went to say that the sight of the old butler's face, on seeing dearest Tom seated at the wheel of the motor dressed, his face streaked with both smoke and soot, dressed only in a flannel vest and corduroy trousers, had been a true spectacle to behold.
"I really thought old Carson would have a fit. Why, it was almost worth Downton catching fire just to see it!" had continued Matthew with a smile and setting down his glass.
Notwithstanding what had happened to O'Brien, Cora at least had managed to see the funny side of her English son-in-law's jest; not so Robert who nearly choked on his glass of dessert wine, while Violet had proceeded to ask caustically if that was what passed for humour in Manchester. Thoroughly unabashed Matthew had merely winked happily at Tom and then grinned broadly at Sybil seated directly opposite him across the dinner table.
"You were incredibly brave, Tom" had complimented Isobel; only too well aware that from just before the fire ever since Matthew had asked Tom to be his Best Man, her son and the former chauffeur had become close and were now the best and firmest of friends.
While some might have looked askance at the two of them and wondered just what a well educated, middle class solicitor from Manchester and a republican socialist from Dublin, a former chauffeur revealed but lately as the unwilling heir to a neglected country estate in the far south of Ireland, could possibly have in common, Isobel herself was not so narrow minded.
It was not hard to see why the two men got on so famously. After all, that both Matthew and Tom were essentially outsiders here at Downton was true enough but there was also something else. Each was an only child and that when a boy Matthew had longed for a brother, Isobel knew was true enough. However, that Tom had done so too, Isobel had only discovered to be the case from Sybil but recently. This apart, both Matthew and Tom recognised in the other a kindred spirit. Each was gentle, kind, loyal and deeply loving.
"So brave!" had echoed Edith her eyes glistening and her complimentary words about Tom spoken with such obvious heartfelt emotion that Robert had been given to wondering seriously whether he should have a quiet word with Carson about limiting the amount of wine served to her at dinner.
For her part however, Sybil had merely smiled at her sister's heartfelt approbation of Tom. She was very well aware that Edith had never forgotten what Tom had done for her, indeed done for them all over there in Dublin, in the aftermath of the bombing of the Shelbourne Hotel. To then to be led to safety by him across the roof of this very house, at the height of the fire, on a freezing cold night, the leads slippery with ice; was it any wonder that Edith had come to regard darling Tom almost in the guise of her very own Irish guardian angel?
"Yes, he was. Very brave" had agreed Mary enthusiastically. There was no mistaking the sincerity in her voice either.
"Darling Tom!" This now from Cora, who had smiled warmly at her handsome Irish son-in-law.
"Like I said before, a very good man to have about you in a crisis" had observed Mathew and raising his glass in genuine salutation. At which point everyone else, even the Dowager Countess, followed suit.
Ducking his head, embarrassed by the praises being heaped upon him, Tom had blushed scarlet to the roots of his fair hair; looked down at the table, fiddled with the studs in his cuffs, in fact did anything but meet everyone's gaze. For all his cocksure bravado, Sybil knew that in reality, ironically enough, Tom was very much like her own father, an intensely private person; someone who did not like a fuss being made of him in public.
In private?
Well, that was an entirely different matter! At the very thought of that, Sybil grinned inwardly. She could well attest to that too, but the "fuss" she made of Tom in private, was not something to be voiced around a dinner table.
"It was nothing," Tom had said quietly; his self-effacing modesty being entirely in keeping with the honourable man Sybil knew him to be.
Sybil named their little girl Saiorse which, as she explained patiently to her mother a couple of days later, meant "freedom". It was one of several Irish girls' names that she and darling Tom had considered and of which Sybil was certain he would have approved. All things considered, it seemed singularly appropriate given the latest news from across the Irish Sea, where the bloody struggle for Ireland's freedom continued unabated and much as before: the usual sad litany of brutality, of arson, bombings, kidnappings, killings and murder. Dear God, thought Sybil, when would it ever end?
Sometimes a hard sacrifice must be made for a future that's worth having.
Tom's words. Once Sybil had believed implicitly in the truth of them. But now no longer; for her the struggle for Ireland's freedom had come at too great a price.
Several days later, with Sybil back in her old bedroom up at the abbey., seated beside her bed, with Mary and Edith standing behind her, Cora had smiled happily; said once again that Saiorse was both apt and a lovely name.
"… although Heaven knows quite what your dear father will make of it… Not because of its meaning, darling, I assure you!" Cora patted Sybil's hand gently. "But I'm certain he'll undoubtedly struggle with pronouncing it".
Mary had smiled too.
"Don't worry Mama; Matthew and I will be much more traditional in our choice of name for this little one". Now some two months pregnant, very happily so and if the truth be told all but delirious at the prospect of becoming a mother for the first time, Mary folded her hands and rested them protectively over the gentle swell of her belly.
"I'm sure you will!" Cora beamed; two grandchildren and delighted at the prospect of a third. If only darling Tom…
"With your two and with Mary now expecting as well, I do begin to feel quite envious" offered Edith.
"Well, darling, perhaps if you travelled less, then maybe you might find…" began Mary cattily.
"Mary, please" warned Sybil softly.
Her eldest sister flushed red, then nodded; fell silent. Mary did not want an argument with Sybil. Not that Sybil's gentle, unspoken rebuke stopped Mary wondering privately what on earth it was that had prompted Edith's sudden passion for all things archaeological.
With Danny in the day nursery upstairs under the watchful eye of the nurse engaged by Cora to look after him at least until Sybil was once more up and about again, having been fed, Saiorse was now sleeping peacefully in her cot at the foot of the bed.
Having given birth to her daughter but a matter of days ago, both exhausted and emotionally drained by all that she had been through ever since Tom had vanished in the aftermath of the burning of Cork, Sybil found herself drifting somewhere on the hazy, indeterminate border that exists between sleep and wakefulness. Not surprisingly, she was bone weary, dead tired and had been in no mood whatsoever to be subjected to Mama clucking after her like a mother hen or to listen to Mary and Edith bickering; had more or less ordered them all out of the room. And now at last, here in the peace and quiet of her old bedroom, Sybil felt her eyes grow heavy.
Meanwhile, down at Home Farm, the youngest of the Claybourn children was eight year old Sam and who, like all of his siblings had been told never to play with matches, now chose to disregard what he had been told. What made things infinitely worse was that Sam and his young friend Luke Alcocke did so in the hay barn at Home Farm. As a result of which, up at the house, the very last thing Sybil heard as she drifted off to sleep was the frantic ringing of a bell. Perhaps it was that and nothing more which now carried her back to Skerries and the night of the fire.
There was no denying the fact; despite what they intended doing all the IRA men had been unfailingly courteous. Even as several of them began liberally dowsing the panelling of the drawing room and then the morning room with petrol and smashing windows of both so as to create a draught that would fan the flames, with Danny on her knees, Sybil sat on a chair in the darkened hall of Skerries Housel well wrapped against the cold night air eddying in through the broken windows. Moving backwards and forwards about her others in the group were doing as she had instructed them and removing from the house those personal items which she had asked to be saved; among them crockery and provisions from the kitchen, a few paltry sticks of furniture, all the bedding and clothing from their bedroom, the photographs including that of Tom and his parents and from upstairs in the attic room, Tom's childhood trunk.
All were taken and carefully placed in the old gardener's cottage which stood at a safe distance from the main house, just beyond what once had been the walled kitchen garden. In the cottage one of the men lit a lamp and kindled a fire in the grate of the sitting room so that there was somewhere warm for Sybil and Danny to spend what remained of the night. What became of either of them thereafter was a matter of indifference to the IRA.
Moments after Sybil, with Danny in her arms, had been led through the pouring rain and to the comparative safety and improvised shelter of the former gardener's cottage, there was a tremendous roar and whoosh of flames as Skerries House was now set ablaze, the noise clearly audible from the cottage. For Sybil, with painful memories of what only but a year ago had almost befallen Downton Abbey, made all the more raw by the part darling Tom had played in leading all of them to safety, the here in County Cork the blackness of the January night turned into a searing inferno of roaring flames what for over three hundred years had been the ancestral home of the Bransons was put to the torch.
"Oh my God, Sybil!" cried Mary white faced and appalled by what she and Matthew were now witnessing; staring in disbelief through the driving rain at the fiercely burning mansion. No-one within the house could possibly have survived the raging inferno it had become. There was nothing that could be done and even at this distance, despite being seated some distance away in the Crossley, both Matthew and Mary could feel the intense heat from the fire.
Within the derelict cottage, hugging Danny tightly to her, Sybil felt utterly numb, not so much because of the destruction of Skerries, but because the burning of what hereabouts the locals referred to as the Big House served to sever yet another link with Tom. War and revolution had conspired together to destroy both the life they had shared and the future they tried to build. Without Tom there was nothing left for her here; neither in the south nor back in distant Dublin despite Ma's tearful, kindly meant entreaties that she return home to Clontarf. The memories there were too intimate; too raw. Everywhere she went would of necessity bring reminders of Tom. But, if she no longer had a life here in Ireland, England was no longer home to her either.
And yet...
That very first evening here in Ireland, sitting quietly by the fireside in the front room of the house in Clontarf among the many things Ma had told Sybil was that it was a long held belief that if two people loved each other as deeply as Tom and Sybil so clearly did, that over the years they were together an invisible link was forged between them. That if parted, should one of them chance to die the other would receive some tangible manifestation of the breaking of that link.
So, in the days and weeks that followed after Tom had vanished, Sybil contented herself with the fact that she had received no such sign. She was certain that if the worst had come to pass, she would know in her heart that he was dead. Now, despite all that had happened, even now Sybil refused to give up hope, clung to what to everyone else was an irrational belief that everything would be all right and that one day Tom would come home to her.
Above the roar of the flames, the crash of falling masonry, there came, she thought, a gentle tap at the cottage door. With Danny in her arms and her shawl over her head, Sybil crossed to the door and lifted the latch. Standing outside in the pouring rain a man lifted his hat.
"I do beg your pardon, but do you know what has become of the... My God! Sybil!"
Equally disbelieving of the evidence of her own eyes and ears, Sybil saw, standing before her in the pouring rain, her much loved brother-in-law, Matthew Crawley.
Sybil remembered little of that mad dash in the motor through the rain swept night. On arriving back at the Imperial Hotel in Cork, a room was hastily made available and she and Danny were put straight to bed. Then, at her tearful, urgent entreaty, the following morning after breakfast, leaving both Mary and Anna to care for Sybil and little Danny at the Imperial, Matthew had made the very sad journey out to Skerries to see about retrieving some of the items which had been spared the flames and left in the cottage.
At the entrance to the drive Matthew had found himself stopped briefly by a uniformed police constable, but the pass he had been given by the military authorities in Cork, not that during the daytime it was strictly necessary to show it, seemed to do the trick. The constable had saluted and let Matthew pass. Now, as not twenty four hours since, the Crossley once again nosed up the neglected drive. In daylight, seeing the woeful state of the surface, Matthew took care to take things much more cautiously; wondered just how it was that last night he had avoided smashing the suspension of the motor.
The Crossley slid out from under the overgrown trees and Matthew brought it to a gentle stop along side the front steps of the house. Steps that now led…nowhere. What until a short while ago had been Skerries House was now nothing more than a gaunt, gutted, smoking shell. The massive chimney stacks and the exterior walls still stood, their stonework blackened and scorched but the roof had fallen in and the windows and doors were all gone.
Matthew clambered out of the Crossley, stood on the weed grown gravel and looked about him; the morning air was yet heavy with the acrid stench of burning and here and there the gutted ruins of the house still smouldered. Away to his left he saw the stable block where all those years ago Tom and Sybil had first met as children. That still stood but, as he looked about him, Matthew saw too just how neglected the whole place was: the derelict outbuildings, the overgrown lawns, the neglected gardens. Well, none of that would ever change; not now.
It was then that he heard the sea and realised that he had not appreciated just how close to it the house must have stood. Last night, with the wind and the rain, let alone the incessant roar of the flames he had not heard it at all, but now in the stillness of that January morning he heard the sound of the waves as they broke upon the shore of the small bay of which Tom and Sybil had spoken in their letters.
He made his way over to the cottage and as he did so, it was now that he saw the young lad. He was standing with his hands thrust deep into his pockets and silently gazing up at the ruins of the house. He looked to be about sixteen and as Matthew drew level with him, he felt his heart skip a beat. The facial resemblance to dearest Tom was quite startling.
Once he had got over the initial shock, Matthew had cause to reflect that scattered throughout the length and breadth of England Wales and Scotland there were doubtless many by blows fathered by the sons of the local Big House. Why should things be any different over here in Ireland? With his solicitor's delight in retaining facts, Matthew now remembered that Tom had said he had two cousins, both of whom had been killed in the war. Well then, there was the answer and no doubt the mother had been a local girl; wondered if the boy knew of his parentage and thought it unlikely. Not that Matthew was in any way minded to be censorious. During the war, many of the Tommies serving over in both Belgium and France, elsewhere too no doubt, had formed attachments with local girls, some with all too predictable consequences.
"She was going to come and live back here," said the boy without once taking his eyes from the smouldering ruins.
"Who was?" asked Matthew gazing up at the burnt out house.
"Why, Miss Maeve of course. Said that now her cousin was dead, she would be coming back to live here, at the Big House".
Matthew felt his heart lurch. Not that the boy had meant anything by it. How could he? After all he didn't know how Matthew stood in relationship to Tom, but to hear him referred to as dead was almost too much to bear. Matthew nodded; recalled that Tom had made mention of another cousin, a girl; presumed she must be the woman of whom the boy had been speaking.
"She'll be staying in Cork," announced his young companion continuing the conversation.
"In Cork?" asked Matthew.
"Yes, she lives over on North Mall. Who are you?" asked the boy abruptly changing the subject.
"Until last night my… my sister-in-law lived here with her little boy".
The lad nodded.
"Ah, the English lady? The one with the dark hair to be sure?"
"Yes that's right".
"Her husband… he was killed; the night Cork burned for sure".
Matthew's heart lurched again.
"How do you know that?" he asked cautiously.
"Miss Maeve told me; when I went over to tea".
"When exactly was this?"
"The week before Christmas".
"Are you certain of that?"
"Course I am. Miss Maeve gave me a present, she did. She told me then that her cousin had been killed".
Matthew nodded abstractedly.
"I've some things to fetch from the cottage". He pointed towards the gardener's cottage. "Would you mind helping me?"
"If you like" said the boy.
"What's your name?"
"Ryan. Fergal Ryan".
"You?"
"Captain Crawley. And while you do, you can tell me more about your Miss Maeve" said Matthew.
The Crossley purred back through the streets of Cork.
Having dropped off the few things at the hotel which he had retrieved for Sybil from Skerries, then having made several telephone calls, Matthew told Mary that he was going into town. Urging him to be careful, Matthew nodded, kissed her lightly and then he was gone. Having paid a visit to the Cork and County Club, which like the Imperial stood on South Mall and where Matthew had arranged to meet another of his contacts in the military, thereafter having waited over an hour for the chap not to turn up, not in the best of moods, Matthew caught the tram down into the city and then out towards Blackrock on the other side of the river.
It was decidedly odd, thought Matthew; the help that he thought he could have counted on in his search to find out what had become of Tom, relying admittedly on the strength of past favours which Matthew himself had decided to call in, had simply not materialised. The officers up at the Victoria Barracks whom he had visited had all listened courteously to what Matthew had to say; had promised to see what they could do but had not been at all hopeful. A couple of others were out of town, in fact might just as well have been in purdah since no-one seemed to know where they had gone or when they were expected to return and now the chap he had arranged to meet with at the Cork and County Club had simply failed to show up. Matthew was left with the definite impression that he was being played for a fool. This apart, it seemed none of them knew anything and did not want to become involved.
The tram rattled along through the streets of the city and for Matthew it brought back memories of when, long before he had ever heard of Downton Abbey, then just a humble practising solicitor, he had travelled from home on the tram into Manchester almost every day, to his firm's office on Deansgate. Here in Cork, seated in the packed lower saloon, glancing out of the window, Matthew could see that the damage done to the city was far worse than he had imagined; was not just confined to the centre. Even so, people seemed to be trying to make the best of things and carry on with their daily lives.
Like Tom, Matthew was an intensely private person, the more so because of his innate English reserve, but now in a desperate attempt to try anything which might lead him to find out what had become of his missing friend, Matthew threw this and his customary caution to the winds. And in so doing, did something he had never done before; engaged people, complete strangers, in conversation here on the streets of Cork.
Not that it did him any good. For, to his dismay he soon found that given what had happened, people in Cork were very wary of strangers and an upper class English gentleman who sought to talk to one and all soon aroused suspicion if not down right hostility; Matthew being met for the most part with sullen silence, being told to feck off or bugger off back to England.
On the tramcar, as it wended its way past the burnt out buildings on St. Patrick Street and thence over the bridge across the River Lee, although he was unaware of it at the time, Matthew's repeated attempts to engage passengers on board in conversation soon attracted the attention of the British military in the form of intelligence officers in plain clothes who were riding the tram system alert and listening out for any signs of trouble.
Once across the river, Matthew got off the tram and walked the rest of the way past the imposing bulk of St. Mary's Church along Pope's Quay and beside the river as far as North Mall on which stood the house belonging to Tom's cousin. There, Matthew knocked smartly on the front door of the house he had been told belonged to her; noticing as he did so that the blinds were drawn down. A moment or so later the front door was opened by an elderly butler. Matthew gave his name and explained that he wished to speak with Miss Branson on a personal matter. When Matthew learned what had happened, that Tom's cousin had been killed in the shooting at the Imperial Hotel, he was absolutely horrified. Clearly the boy he had met out at Skerries knew nothing of what had happened and it seemed reasonable to assume that Sybil did not know anything about it either.
Not that Matthew could have known it, but Fergal was indeed singularly unaware of what had happened to his mother. After the debacle of the incident at the Imperial Hotel and with other members of the IRA gang either dead or else fled, since that day Fergal had stayed close to the farm. Once he would have scorned the very idea, but there was something to be said for minding one's own business and not becoming caught up in the violence now sweeping Ireland and, for the time being at least, Fergal wanted no further part in it.
As he walked briskly back to catch the tram, Matthew was mulling over in his mind how best to break the disappointing news to Sybil; that he had been singularly unsuccessful in learning anything of note as to what had become of Tom. Then there was the matter of Tom's late cousin. From the letters Sybil had written to Mary, Matthew knew that there had been a falling out between Tom and his cousin but over what he knew not. More importantly, how was it, when apparently both the army and the police had been continuing with their enquiries into Tom's disappearance had his own cousin known with such certainty that he was dead? Matthew was so lost in thought that he did not see the motor until it drew right along side him on Pope's Quay.
"Captain Crawley?" Matthew turned swiftly in answer to hearing his name.
"Yes".
"If you would be so good as to come with us sir".
"Just who the devil are you and what do you want of me?" demanded Matthew of the man now standing directly in front of him. He froze instantly, fell silent as he felt the muzzle of a pistol pressed hard against his damaged spine.
"Now, captain, do as you are told and you won't get hurt. Understand?"
Matthew nodded his head, found himself then being bundled unceremoniously into the back seat of a motor and driven off at high speed through the thronging streets of Cork and to an unknown destination.
In the dimly lit room here in the Victoria Barracks, having perused the file in front of him, Percival now pursed his lips, placed the palms of his hands together, rested his elbows on his desk and gazed intently at Matthew.
"Well, Captain Crawley, I trust that we now fully understand one another. I must say since your arrival here in Ireland, you have been very busy, making a thorough nuisance of yourself".
"Nuisance?" echoed Matthew.
Percival smiled grimly.
"Enquiries here, enquiries there. Always asking questions. If you will permit me the liberty of saying so, quite frankly I am rather surprised at you. As the son-in-law of the earl of Grantham, I would have thought that you would have realised that over here in this benighted country we have a full scale insurrection on our hands".
"Major, I and doubtless many others too are very well aware of what is happening over here, thanks in part to the articles published in the Irish Independent written by my missing brother-in-law".
"Indeed?" The truth is somewhat different than how he chose to represent it".
"Perhaps" said Matthew coolly. "But I somehow doubt it. After all truth, like God, is not always on the side of the British".
Percival smiled a thin smile.
"Spoken like a Shinner. Well, believe what you wish. Little good it will do you. Make no mistake, Captain Crawley, we will crush them, rest assured of that. We know all about your late brother-in-law... and his wife. Even so while our resources are considerable, they are also are finite. Accordingly, the fate of one missing Irish journalist who was highly critical of our policies, is not our concern. So, I must insist that you now refrain from what you have been doing".
"And exactly what have I been doing?"
"As I said, making a nuisance of yourself. So I must now insist ..."
"Insist?"
"Require then. That you give me your undertaking to cease your present... activities. Failure to do so on your part could have serious consequences both for you... and for your family".
"Are you threatening me?" asked Matthew quietly.
"Threatening? No. I am merely asking that you appreciate the realities of the situation".
"And what, precisely, are the realities of the situation?"
"Accept, as have the military authorities and indeed the civilian police, that regrettably your brother-in-law died in the burning of Cork; killed may I say by the actions of his own people. After all, as Sir Hamar Greenwood has publicly stated it was the citizens of Cork who set fire to their own city".
"No-one seriously believes that and neither do I".
"Whether or not certain disaffected, ignorant sections of the populace choose to cling to some fanciful notion that a section of His Majesty's forces was somehow responsible for what occurred..." Percival shrugged his shoulders dismissively. "In any event you can do nothing further here. I therefore suggest most strongly that you leave Ireland immediately and return home to England, along with your wife and sister-in-law".
"And what if I choose to stay?"
Percival grimaced; shook his head.
"That would be very unwise; for all of you. After all, as I am sure you are aware, County Cork is now under martial law. Go home Captain Crawley and leave us to look after Ireland. There is a Great Western steamer leaving Penrose Quay at 5.30pm this evening. Be on it. All of you".
Percival picked up the telephone.
A minute or so passed and a corporal entered the room; he snapped to attention and saluted.
"Corporal be so good as to escort Captain Crawley back to his hotel".
"Thank you for your kindness, but no escort will be necessary" said Matthew stiffly.
Percival shook his head.
"No kindness intended. A necessity, I assure you; after all, Cork is a dangerous place. Left to your own devices, who knows just what might happen to you".
In the chill January night air, standing at the rail, on the aft deck of the steamer, Sybil stood watching as the lights of Cork slowly faded to mere pinpricks of light and then vanished out of sight altogether; she was still standing there staring westwards into the darkness and towards Ireland when, a short while later, Matthew and Mary both came up on deck to find her and take her down to her cabin.
Mary slipped a comforting arm around Sybil's shoulders, while, going down on one knee in front of her, Matthew enfolded his youngest sister-in-law's hands in his own.
"Sybil, I pledge you my solemn word, I won't rest until I find out what has happened to Tom".