Chapter One Hundred And Forty Eight

Farewell To The Past

Everyone in the family had been absolutely appalled, devastated beyond belief by the awful news from Ireland.

Edith who had been abroad at the time, on receipt of the telegram informing her of what had happened, had telephoned home to Downton from distant Constantinople, having travelled there on board the Orient Express.

Utterly distraught, she had said that she was returning home immediately. Not that Robert could see why. Brans… Robert corrected himself, Tom. Tom was dead. And nothing any of them could do would change that; any of it. Certainly not Edith returning home post haste, via Vienna apparently, from somewhere metaphorically speaking east of Suez.

That there was every likelihood that the Black and Tans had been involved in the brutal murder of Tom and the other prisoners at Allihies came as no surprise to anyone.

At Downton, when the immediate horror of what had happened had passed, despite his misgivings, this time Robert himself wrote to Churchill demanding that those who had perpetrated this vile act be brought to justice and tried for their participation in the crime.

When it finally came, the reply from the Colonial Secretary, was a mastery of obscuration and understatement, what Robert called "smoke and mirrors" designed with one aim in mind: to prevent the truth of this matter ever becoming known and thereby preventing those who had carried it out from ever being held to account.

As the Colonial Secretary noted there was "...no proof whatsoever as to who had carried out this act of violence" and in that Churchill was right. Whoeverhad done this had seen to that. For, despite the recovery of certain personal effects belonging to the prisoners, including Tom's watch, from the lockers of the Tans killed in the ambush near Bandon, all "...was circumstantial". There could be "... doubtless other legitimate reasons to explain how these items came to be where they had been discovered..." Churchill even went so far as to suggest that Sinn Féin might be implicated "... since Mr. Branson was equally critical of their activities, as he was of the British Army. And may I remind you, as you will doubtless already be well aware and as already has been communicated to your son-in-law Captain Crawley on his recent and ill-judged visit to Ireland, that Sinn Féin was involved in the recent destruction and violence in Cork".

Matthew shook his head. Sinn Féin had nothing to do with what had happened in Cork but since it was widely rumoured that Churchill himself was responsible for the creation and the deployment of the Black and Tans, was it then any wonder then that he would seek to distance them from involvement in this and other acts of wanton brutality committed over there in Ireland which were now being laid firmly at their door?

"What possible other legitimate reasons can Churchill have in mind?" asked Robert incredulously.

"I wondered about that myself" said Matthew who, with his legal background to the fore, now calmly raised the prospect that the items might well have been placed where they had been found so as to implicate in this act those who were now dead; those whose reputation for brutality and violence over there in Ireland could be conveniently harnessed to bring this awful incident to a close.

"Of course, you saw what he wrote further down the page?" Matthew looked up at his father-in-law.

Robert looked questioningly again at Matthew.

"What, especially?" he asked gruffly.

"Here..." Matthew looked back at the letter from Churchill. "That...those presumed to be implicated in this matter".

"I don't see..."
"Tom was no apologist for the excesses of the Tans and neither am I. However, in my opinion, Churchill's comment very much gives the lie to what is being said about all of this; conveniently implicating a group of men who are themselves now dead. That the very fact of their complicity in this is being accepted as fact and is being taken so with deliberate intent to deceive and that this statement is as close as Churchill dare come to admitting that someone else was to blame for all of this and not those killed in the ambush at Bandon".

"Who then?"

"Who knows? Others in the Tans, members of the Auxiliaries. He is equally dismissive of the reported sighting of the army lorry in the vicinity of the mineshaft". Matthew quoted aloud again from Churchill's letter.

"... an eye-witness who cannot now be found... may never even have existed... there is nothing whatsoever to connect the forces of the Crown to this matter".

Churchill concluded his letter by stating that in the circumstances as"... His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, I beg you to note that nothing further can be done in this regard".

"There may be honour amongst thieves but none among politicians" observed Robert quietly.

And there, sadly, the matter now rested.

Following her return to Downton, Sybil had written weekly to Ma to tell her all her news and when Saiorse had been born, had sent her a clutch of photographs showing not only the little girl but also pictures of both little Danny and herself. In reply, Ma had said that of them all, her favourite was the one showing Danny sitting on Sybil's knee gazing at his baby sister as she slept in her mother's arms. Sybil wrote too to Aislin and in the replies from both her and Ma kept up to date with all the news of Tom's adoptive family. She even received a delightful letter from Ruari who was now fifteen and hoping to become an engineer but who was like everyone else in the family, heartbroken over the disappearance of his Uncle Tom.

Then, when had come the grim news of what had happened at Allihies, Sybil had taken it upon herself to write to Ma and let her know as gently as possible what had occurred. Yet, oddly enough, Ma did not seem unduly distressed; wrote back to Sybil reminding her of the fireside chat they had enjoyed when Sybil had first arrived in Ireland. Had anything happened to convince Sybil that Tom was indeed dead? When Sybil had written in reply to say that in answer to Ma's question, no nothing had happened but that her family thought she was being foolish to cling to the notion that somehow Tom was alive and would return to her, Ma had simply told her to bide her time.

A month after the dreadful news from Ireland had reached Downton, it was Robert who first raised the idea of holding a memorial service for Tom in the parish church. With Sybil's agreement, he duly summoned Reverend Travis to the abbey to discuss the proposal, whereupon the matter hit an unforeseen snag.

Seated in the Library, choosing his words with care, Reverend Travis explained to both the earl and countess of Grantham that he did not consider it right and proper to hold a service of any kind for an Irish lapsed Catholic in a church which since 1534 had forsworn all allegiance to the Pope in Rome.

Whilst appreciating His Lordship's laudable intentions in the matter under consideration, despite the deceased having been the earl of Grantham's son-in-law, what was being proposed was wholly without precedent and, in the view of Reverend Travis, totally inappropriate. Naturally, he would give the matter some careful thought but in all Christian conscience, he could see no way around the issue which was to him intractable.

Curious to relate therefore that what was apparently incapable of resolution was indeed settled and all within the space of twenty four hours. What decided the issue was that, on hearing the Reverend Travis was, in Cora's own words, proving difficult, Violet invited the said reverend gentleman round to the Dower House for afternoon tea.

Exactly what it was that Violet then said to Reverend Travis over a pot of the finest Ceylon tea, cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches, scones served with clotted cream and jam and slices of Battenberg and fruit cake, she never divulged. Indeed all she would ever say on the subject was that there were always means by which one's objective might be achieved.

Oddly enough something of what had been said surfaced when Archdeacon Haines from York Minster called on Cousin Isobel at Crawley House and remarked in passing that Reverend Travis had observed pithily to him that when, as might be expected, the Dowager Countess of Grantham finally reached Heaven, the Almighty would have a fight on His hands.

Below stairs, until Captain Crawley received the terrible news of what had happened at Allihies, no-one had believed that, given time, just as when Mr. Branson had been kidnapped by the IRA in Dublin, he would not re-appear in due course. But, as the days passed into weeks, then a month, then another and this still did not happen, gradually everyone became resigned to the fact that this time there was to be no reprieve.

And then when what had been long suspected was confirmed in the letter written to Captain Crawley by Lieutenant Bentley from the Victoria Barracks in Cork, a heavy air of Stygian gloom descended upon the domestic staff at Downton. Along with Mrs. Hughes, several of the housemaids, even those who had not been in service at Downton when Tom had been chauffeur, went about their daily duties red-eyed.

Despite Mr. Carson's disapproval, all below stairs had heard the tale of "The Lady and the Chauffeur"; how the youngest daughter of the House of Grantham had married the family's erstwhile chauffeur. And, to Emily Parish, all of sixteen years old, the youngest of the new arrivals in service at Downton, the whole story sounded like a fairy tale come true, albeit not with a fairy tale ending.

"Why, Mr. Branson, he sounds if he were just like them knights of old. Winning the hand of his lady!" Emily had gushed, starry eyed, resting her chin in her hands and gazing upwards at the ceiling, one evening during supper in the Servants' Hall. Silently, Mrs. Hughes motioned silently to Emily to remove her elbows from the surface of the table. Emily blushed; immediately did as the housekeeper had indicated

At Emily's remark, Thomas, who, somewhat surprisingly, had found himself to be no less affected by the new of the Irishman's death than anyone else had guffawed loudly. Even in the present desperately sad circumstances, the very thought of Mr. Branson, sporting his chauffeur's goggles, leather cap and gloves, wearing the suit of ancient armour which stood in the entrance hall of the abbey, charging about the estate, not on a magnificent white horse, but in the Crawley family's old Renault, winning the hand of the beautiful Lady Sybil attired in her nurse's uniform no doubt and in the process, slaying a fire breathing old dragon this time in the guise of the earl of Grantham, really was too funny for words.

Not that Thomas himself noticed, but his laughter now drew a sharp look from Mrs. Hughes. Even so, where the suffering of others was concerned, Thomas himself was not completely callous. After all, ever since the war, not that he would ever have admitted it to anyone, Thomas had always had a very soft spot for Lady Sybil and, if only Tom Branson had not been so much a ladies' man, albeit with eyes only for Lady Sybil, which was how Thomas still thought of her and not Mrs. Branson, then Thomas himself might have stood a chance with the former chauffeur which now put him in mind of one never-to-be-forgotten summer's day, at least as far as Thomas was concerned, he had the damndest luck.

On his way back from the village, Thomas had taken a short cut through the Downton woods and, unobserved by the chauffeur, had come upon Mr. Branson completely unaware. It was hot and the Irishman had stripped to the waist. His chauffeur's jacket lay across a nearby tree stump and on top of it, his waistcoat, shirt and vest. Braces hanging, barefoot, he was washing himself down under the old pump at the back of his cottage.

Keeping out of sight among the trees, spellbound, Thomas had stood and watched, silently willing the chauffeur to remove yet more of his clothes. However, a moment or two later and quite unexpectedly, a rabbit had darted out of the wood and straight across the patch of grass at the rear of the cottage. Startled, the chauffeur had stopped what he was doing and looked about him. Then, satisfied that all was as it should be, having towelled himself dry with his vest, picking up the rest of his discarded clothes, he had disappeared back inside his cottage, leaving Thomas, who had now withdrawn further into the trees, to silently curse and fume at the bloody rabbit which put such a final and unforeseen end to the footman's very own private peep show.

But the memory of what Thomas had seen that day remained with him; the sight of that fine, muscular physique, let alone those deep blue eyes and that oh-so endearing, lop-sided grin. Here, Thomas groaned silently, felt a familiar twitch in his groin. If only… Still, there was no point in dwelling on what might have been. Instead, to mask the depth of his own unspoken grief, he now rounded on the hapless Emily.

"God Almighty! Mr. Branson wasn't bloody St. George. Indeed far from it" exclaimed Thomas stabbing in his misery with his fork at a piece of potato. Not, of course if Tom Branson, whether or not in the guise of St. George had ridden on horseback, or indeed, and just as unlikely, had driven in the Renault, to the rescue of Thomas Barrow, the former footman would have refused the Irishman's assistance. Indeed, far from it.

At Thomas's reproach, Emily had looked crestfallen. Tears welling in her eyes, she stared mournfully down at her plate of stew.

"Thomas! That is quite enough from you! While this is a Christian household, there is no need whatsoever to invoke the assistance of the Almighty in the manner in which you have chosen to do and I will not, as you know well, tolerate in my hearing either blasphemy or swearing".

"Sorry, Mr. Carson" said Thomas promptly, although the footman's tone did not suggest any contrition on his part; in fact, quite the reverse. However, Thomas realised there was no point in getting the old boy's dander up and needlessly so over one decidedly dead Irish chauffeur. However, if the former footman's apology had been at the very best perfunctory and at the worst non-existent, the old butler seemed not even to have noticed.

"However", continued Mr. Carson, "had the late, lamented Mr. Branson been a saint, which is something which I very much doubt, while I will also not speak ill of the dead, I would venture to suggest, Thomas, that St. Patrick would have been a far more suitable guise for assumption by His Lordship's son-in-law". Mr. Carson now held up his hand in a manner that brooked no opposition.

Thomas made to reply, but then thought better of it and wisely remained silent.

The Memorial Service for Tom, held at St. Mary's, brought together the Crawley family and their domestic servants for the first time at the parish church since May of the previous year when Matthew and Mary had been married and Tom had been Matthew's Best Man. Unlike then, there was no denying that this time, the service was a mournful and sombre affair.

When Sybil had written to tell Ma of the intention to hold a Memorial Service for Tom at Downton and asked if she would like to attend, Ma had replied by return to ask what was the point of holding a service for someone who both she and Sybil knew to be alive. Not that Sybil had given that as the reason for Ma's refusal to attend to her parents; said, when Mama had tactfully asked if it was a question of the cost of the passage and offered to send her the money, that, given what happened, Ma was too distraught and did not feel up to making the crossing.

"Well, rest assured, darling, I will ensure that afterwards, she is sent a copy of the Order of Service" said Mama and with that Sybil had to be content.

With all hope that Tom would return now gone, even if in her heart she still clung stubbornly to the belief however ridiculous it would seem to all the rest of the family that he was still alive, Sybil had said to Mama that she would obviously have to take stock for the future. What was in no doubt was that when Saiorse had been weaned, Sybil said she intended to resume working as a nurse. Maybe, she would even go abroad to work. At the prospect of that, Cora had visibly blanched.

Last year, explained Sybil, a fellow nurse and friend from the Coombe in Dublin had done just that and had gone out, to East Africa no less; to Nairobi in distant Kenya to work in the hospital attached to a mission station at Kikuyu in the White Highlands. Perhaps, she herself would follow suit. And, if that was what she decided to do, then so be it. After all, since the war, the world was now a changed place and what would once have seemed impossible, even deemed unacceptable, was no longer the case.

That being so, Sybil had said she would not leave her two children behind at Downton to grow up accustomed to a way of life of which Tom would not have approved. After all, eventually, when they grew up, Danny and Saiorse would have to make their own way in the world. And, even if the outmoded - Sybil had pointedly stressed the word - way of life as it was lived here at Downton managed somehow to survive, it would be singularly wrong to have the two children grow up accepting a life of privilege. So, wherever Sybil went, her two children would go too.

When Cora had told Robert, what Sybil had said, predictably enough the earl of Grantham's initial response had been to wince at the very mention of the word "weaned"; wondered if his dyspepsia and the twitch in his left eye might reoccur. Thereafter, his next reaction, to the startling revelation that Sybil was contemplating going abroad and taking her two children with her, was one of absolute disbelief. Indeed, Robert had been utterly incredulous.

And, as for... Outmoded? Why, that made him sound as if was some kind of aristocratic dinosaur, as if everything he cared so passionately about would all soon pass into history but then, given what had happened to most of the country houses and the landed estates over there in Ireland, was that really so inconceivable? After all, look also at what had happened in Soviet Russia.

Robert made his feelings on the subject very plain once again but a few days later; when, apart from Sybil, who had taken the early morning train to York to make further enquiries of someone who Cousin Isobel knew and who had connections with the mission station at Kikuyu, all of them were seated in the Library taking afternoon tea.

As he glanced surreptitiously from one to the other, sitting here in front of the fireplace on this April afternoon, Robert could see that all of them were utterly disconsolate; the joie de vivre seemed to have gone out of each and every one of them. Bemused, in spite of himself, for a moment Robert sat silent; let his thoughts wander back to the very first time, here in this very room, he had clapped eyes on Tom Branson.

"Ah, come in, Branson isn't it?"
"Yes, milord".

"And what are your interests?"
"History and politics".

At this now fond remembrance, Robert permitted himself the luxury of a wry smile. History, politics and, as things had turned out, my youngest daughter! Not that he minded. Not any more. There was no doubting what a thoroughly brave, fine, intelligent principled, upstanding young man, Brans… Robert mentally corrected himself again… Tom… undoubtedly was.

That he had loved Sybil desperately, that she in turn had adored Tom, there was no longer any doubt. Nor, either, that despite the initial, apparent disparity in their respective backgrounds that the two of them were so entirely suited, the more so, if only in Robert's estimation, when Tom's true antecedents had become known. Not that Robert would ever understand how it was the Irishman had been able to turn his back on what Robert saw as his birthright; although, with Skerries House now reduced to a gaunt, blackened shell that no longer really mattered.

Even so, Robert found himself wondering just how it had come to pass that from where Tom had started, here in service at Downton as the family chauffeur, to eventually becoming his son-in-law, had the softly spoken Irishman become so very much a part of all their lives, not of course that Robert cared to admit it, but his own included. Tom, who was now so much very admired, so much respected and above all, so very, very deeply loved, not only by Sybil, but also by Cora, Mary and Edith.

Even, Robert suspected, loved by his own mother, the Dowager Countess who, these past few months following Tom's death, had seemed quite unlike her normal self. For the present at least and probably for the immediate future, the spark appeared to have gone out of Violet completely. She seemed entirely abstracted; for once looked every one of her eighty odd years. Unobserved, Robert saw that Cora, Mary and Edith were ashen, their eyes red from weeping, while his son-in-law Matthew looked distracted, utterly bereft. Even Isis seemed to sense that all was not as it should be; lay at her master's feet and from time to time looked up at Robert with mournful, reproachful dark brown eyes.

"Honestly, I don't know what's got into Sybil. When I offered to send Farrar down to the station to meet her off the afternoon train from York, she said she preferred to walk back up to the abbey. I would have thought that she…" Robert began.

"Yes, you might. Robert, at times, you can be remarkably stupid" observed the Dowager Countess over the rim of her tea cup.

"Thank you, Mama. But I still don't see why…"

"No, of course you don't".

"Then why won't she let…"

"She needs time…"

"Time? To do what, precisely?"
"Why, to be on her own; to help compose herself, to come to terms with…"

Here Violet's usually composed voice faltered. She stopped what she was saying, swallowed hard, glanced out of the window at where the branches of the trees in the park were now coming into leaf and then silently shook her head.

Of all of them sitting here, with the possible exception of Mary, Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, alone recognised the enormity of what had happened; the aching void that there now was in Sybil's life.

To begin with, like the rest of the family, Violet recognised that she, too, had opposed the marriage between darling Sybil and dearest Tom and for very good reasons. A pairing as unlikely as that of Rome and Carthage or of Athens and Sparta, which would, Violet was only too well aware bring in its wake every manner of heartaches, but never of the kind that had now occurred. It was all so terribly, terribly sad. Whether Sybil would ever truly recover from her loss was open to question. Violet had her doubts. Not that she thought darling Sybil would be reduced to the state of Queen Victoria who had, it was said, remained completely inconsolable for forty years from the equally unexpected death of her husband, the late Prince Consort in 1861, until her own death in 1901.

"Because she has lost her husband, the love of her life" concluded Cora quietly.

She smiled sympathetically across at her mother-in-law and was rewarded by the warmth of the old lady's smile, which was something Violet rarely bestowed, even upon her American daughter-in-law with whom, now all these years later, she had finally reached some form of accommodation.

There were some things which people could do nothing about; an accident of birth was one of these. While Violet recognised that Cora could not atone for having been born on completely the wrong side of the Atlantic, she also now appreciated that if, unlike the marriage of her youngest grand daughter to the former chauffeur, that of her own son to his American heiress had not begun as a love match, that Robert and Cora too had eventually reached their own form of understanding; now cared for each other very deeply and that in turn her American daughter-in-law had come to love her Irish son-in-law greatly.

"Well, yes, of course…" Robert flushed. It was no secret that he was extremely uncomfortable discussing such matters, either in private and the more so in public, where, in his view, such matters should never be aired, even when only members of his own family were present. "Of course I recognise that Sybil and Tom were…" Robert sought desperately for an appropriate word to convey what he was trying to say. "… close" he concluded lamely. The instant the word was out of his mouth he realised that he had blundered.

"Close?" Mary almost spat the word. She set down her teacup with a rattle in its saucer. Matthew laid a restraining hand on his wife's wrist but Mary was having none of it; brushed it aside.

"Mary, I don't think your father intended…" began Matthew. He stopped in mid-sentence seeing the look he now saw in his wife's eyes; knew what it betokened. Like all the Crawleys, Matthew had come to appreciate what a truly fine, upstanding man Tom Branson had been. He missed his brother-in-law more than he could say.

"I didn't mean…"
"No, Papa, you never do!"
Robert shifted uneasily on his seat and looked helplessly at his eldest daughter.

"Mary, I genuinely didn't intend to…"
"Papa, Tom and Sybil were absolutely devoted to each other. He loved her so very deeply and she absolutely adored him. Between them they had found something so very rare and precious, that only a handful of married couples are lucky enough ever to find".

Here Mary smiled warmly at Matthew and, while not accustomed to displays of affection in public, she now sought and grasped hold of her husband's hand. The gesture did not go unnoticed by Violet who smiled and nodded her head approvingly as indeed did Cora.

"So, when Sybil arrives back here later this afternoon from York, are we all agreed that whatever she has decided, whatever she chooses to do, now or in the immediate future will have our unequivocal support?" asked Cora gently.

She glanced slowly round the assembled family members seeking confirmation of the fact; indeed, almost daring anyone to disagree with her succinct appraisal of the niceties of the present situation. But, no-one dissented, not even Robert and who, like everyone else, simply nodded his head in agreement.

"Good," continued Cora crisply. "I'm so glad that's settled".

"What time does darling Sybil's train arrive?" asked Violet, ever practical.

Author's Note:

The White Highlands of Kenya is an area situated in the central part of that country; so called because at the time (1921) a large number of white settlers had established farms and plantations in what was then British East Africa.