Married several months, Tom and Sybil fell into the rhythm of their life, rising early and working long days, each in the profession they aspired to. The doctors and nurses at St. Ultan's weren't honestly sure they expected Sybil, a married woman, to last as long as she had, but hewas a more-than-capable nurse and even the most difficult patients bent to her kind smile and sure touch. It was the rare mother who pulled a babe back into her arms declaring that no British nurse was going to examine her child. When this did happen, Sybil usually learned that that the child's father or uncle or grandfather had been killed in the Rising or executed at Kilmainham Gaol. Sometimes she let matters lie; if the woman seemed to wobble in her resolve, Sybil would tell a version of how she came to be in Ireland, or her husband's work at the newspaper, his cousin's death in the Rising, until eventually the mother could not imagine that she had only minutes previously recoiled from this kindly, British nurse.
In this state of well-deserved exhaustion the last weeks of July became the first weeks of August and then that month, too, passed from the present tense to the past. As the first week of that month, September, drew to a close, the tinder box fully exploded as the British launched an unofficial government policy of reprisals. Two hundred British soldiers looted and burned commercial buildings in Cork following an attack on members of the Royal Shropshire Light Infantry. The soldiers had been on their way to church. Five days later the Dáil was outlawed by the British and the Sinn Fein headquarters were raided by the police. Mick Collins escaped the raid, just, and both sides held their breath to see what came next.
As they sat down to Sunday dinner with Tom's family that week, his mother wasted no time asking the question that had been in the back of each of their minds, but which both had been too scared to verbalize.
"Tom, do you think it's safe for Sybil to remain in Dublin?"
Mrs. Branson the elder asked the question not out of antagonism, as she might have in the first weeks after her son and his aristocratic bride arrived, but out of genuine concern. She asked as a mother, knowing how she would worry if any daughter of hers were in such throes.
"I believe so, yes." Tom spoke defiantly.
"Sybil, dear, what news from your parents? Are they worried?"
What news of her parents? She had not received a letter in almost a month, come to think of it, and that one had been full mostly of news of Bates (he would go to trial in early days of the New Year) and of Mary (still officially mourning Lavinia, she had succeeded in delaying yet again her marriage to Sir Richard – spring of 1920 seemed the most likely date). Her mother asked little of life in Dublin and Sybil offered less. She had written with news of her position at St. Ultan's, of course, but included details of neither the salary nor the working conditions. Certainly she hadn't mentioned that she was working for a leading suffragette and strident nationalist. Her parents were aware the situation in Ireland was dangerous, but ignorance was bliss as far as the exact dangers were concerned.
"My parents are well. I believe they do worry some, but not terribly."
"I should think they worry. Why, I can't imagine how much I'd worry if my daughter lived across the Irish Sea!"
Sybil laughed.
"I suppose I've never mentioned, then, that my mother is American! Her own mother lives in New York, so I think Mama is glad it's only the Irish Sea that separates us and not the whole of the Atlantic!"
"So tell me, dear, have you ever crossed the ocean?"
Sybil was happy to regale her mother-in-law and the rest of Tom's family with stories from her visits to New York and the two crossings she had made. She described the city as she remembered it nearly a decade earlier, although she was certain much had changed. She tried to mimic her mother's speech, which drew laughs from those around the table, particularly her husband and his mother, and spoke of her American ways.
"I'd be very glad for the opportunity to visit America again, Mrs. Branson, not that I expect to, of course. I believe the women have greater freedoms. American women are soon to have the vote, you know. The same as the men."
Her mind wandered to the night in June that Tom had greeted her excitedly at the hospital.
"I have news, milady!"
"What is it, Tom?"
"The United States Senate has passed an amendment to their Constitution giving women the same right to vote as men!"
"Tom, that's wonderful! Think of it, my grandmamma finally able to vote."
"Well not quite, Sybil. It must first be ratified by the state legislatures. But soon, no doubt."
Sybil had been disappointed that the year before, when British women won suffrage, that it only applied to those over 30. She knew how her country had become increasingly dependent on the good opinion of the United States as the war ended, however, so she hoped that perhaps England might soon allow women the same right as men.
Her mother-in-law's voice brought her out of her head and into the moment. Sybil turned her attention to the conversation at hand.
"Would you really still cross the ocean, dear, after what happened to those poor people on the Titanic?"
Sybil was struck initially by the similarity of the question to one Tom had asked her previously. She became quiet thinking of that April morning when the telegram arrived bearing news of James's and Patrick's disappearance beneath the North Atlantic waves. It felt so long ago. Whether or not Mary would have wed Patrick – and Sybil believed she would have done – they never would have met Matthew or Cousin Isobel or lived so much of the drama that had enveloped the years before, during, and now after the Great War. Why, she might never have become a nurse. Strange how the fates intermingled that way, she thought.
"I believe we can't be afraid to live our lives. But what happened was terrible. My cousin – my oldest sister's fiancé in fact – was. He and his father, both. They never recovered the bodies."
Mrs. Branson and Tom stilled. If Mrs. Branson was surprised, Tom was stunned. He knew about Patrick and James Crawley, certainly, but Sybil had never told him that Mary was engaged to Patrick! How might it all have been different if Mary and Patrick had married? A proper lady of society, no scandal to sully his name, Tom realized Sybil would not have been able to purchase her silence and he was grateful, Tom was ashamed to admit, but grateful that events had unfolded as they had. He sat there, not wishing his surprise to show while his mother clucked her sympathies.
"It was a long time ago. I probably shouldn't have mentioned it."
Mrs. Branson seized the opportunity to return to her original line of questioning.
"Whether your parents have written of their worry, I must say that I am worried. And I'm not at all certain that it's entirely safe for an English lady such as yourself to be in Ireland right now. I understand you'll both likely not agree with me, but I think you two should discuss…should discuss what to do in case any thing happens. You're both mixing with people as likely as not to end as political prisoners."
It was a fair argument, for Tom's work certainly involved regular and extended contact with the Irish government, IRA men, and all sorts of others who might just as soon meet their end at Kilmainham jail, to say nothing of Sybil working for probably the best known female nationalist of them all. Her worries heightened and the legitimacy of them increased, to say nothing of the urgency, the following week when Mick Collins announced the formation of 'The Squad,' IRA men who targeted police detectives for assassination. Mrs. Branson's message that Sunday was more direct.
"Sybil, dear, if anything happens to Tom I'd like you to come live with me until or unless you return to England. You needn't say anything, either of you, but please do not argue. I can't sleep right knowing the two of you refuse to acknowledge what might happen."
Tom nodded, grateful that his mother had stated things so plainly – and that she would accept Sybil into her home if the worst – or even only bad – came to pass. Their agreement rendered, Mrs. Branson turned her attention to Sybil's nursing.
"How is the hospital, Sybil?"
"I suppose it's as well as a hospital can be. Of course the women and children we see are the poorest and they suffer so from illnesses which afflict them needlessly, but that they don't have access to clean water and proper sanitation. With access to water and even a bit of food, I believe many of them wouldn't be ill as they are at all. I understand that Sinn Fein's objective is freedom for Ireland, but I do think it a shame that they've insisted social reform be set aside until freedom is won."
Mrs. Branson raised her eyebrows. Sybil had struck her from the beginning as an intelligent young woman. Certainly she existed on a separate political plane from most any other of her countryman, to say nothing of her class, to be living in Dublin and working as a nurse at a charity hospital. Still, listening to Sybil speak was to hear an echo of Tom with a higher pitch and a British accent. She marveled that they should have found each other as they did and could well imagine that running off with the chauffeur was only the last in a long line of exploits that must have left her family aghast.
"Well said, milady," Tom responded, with a wink.
Later that night as they readied for bed Sybil asked if his mother was right to worry so.
"I hope not, but it's impossible to know what can happen in war. If the situation becomes especially desperate, we can think about you visiting Downton until it's more settled. But let's not worry on that now."
He kissed her then, as much to still whatever response she might have made as because he loved her. For the truth was he worried nearly as much as his mother, possible more, and had thought for some weeks that she may well need to request a visit home if the situation devolved. She would fight leaving him, he knew, and it was an argument he was not ready to have, at least not yet.
After the bloodshed of September, October was a quiet month. Tom ranged far and wide across the city and even traveled by train once or twice to report on the guerrilla warfare that was increasingly common throughout the country. Sybil did worry for him, but if the war had taught her anything, it was how to go about living while worrying on events far beyond your control.
Two months before Christmas she asked one night, "What shall we do for Christmas this year, Tom?"
"I imagine we'll have a small tree, exchange presents, and attend mass. What else would we do for Christmas?"
"Nothing, I suppose. I've never been away from my parents at Christmas. I imagine it will feel quite strange."
"It will be lovely, Sybil, I promise. I'll even make you my famous Christmas pudding."
"You have a famous Christmas pudding?" She laughed.
"Laugh now, but you can bet on it."
"But we shall be together for Christmas?"
He realized she had worried over his comment about visiting Downton for some weeks now.
"Yes, milady, we will celebrate Christmas together and see what the New Year brings. Then, if we think it will be safer for you in England, we can think about that."
"I believe I've looked forward to our first Christmas together since the year I spent a fall stitching your initials onto handkerchiefs. I couldn't tell which surprised you more, that I had a gift for you or that I knew your first initial!"
She laughed.
"I should have been surprised if you didn't have a gift, milady, for I'd gone to the trouble of getting a copy of the Ireland book so to have something in return. You were my friend, of course; it never occurred to me you wouldn't have a present for me, even if I was only the chauffeur."
"Do you know I kept that book between my mattresses for the year, right until I left for York?"
"I did know. Anna told me. She gave me a right scolding that I wasn't to get you any more presents that might give me away. She told me she should have told Mrs. Hughes that day!"
Anna had never mentioned this to Sybil. She must have found the book when she did the beds one week. My God, how different their lives might have been if she told Mrs. Hughes. For passing letters was one thing, but that book. She smiled thinking of it.
After a beat when Sybil still hadn't spoken, Tom said in a quieter voice, "She scolded me on Christmas Day and that was when I knew you were in love with me the same I was with you. I knew then I'd stay at Downton until you were ready to run away with me. I think Anna's scolding is the best Christmas gift I ever received, yours included!"
"Would you really have left, Tom?"
"Might have done. The Rising was only a few months later, and what was I doing, polishing the hood and tinkering with the engine. But I knew, I knew, if I stayed that eventually you'd admit you were in love with me."
"You always were rather full of yourself!"
Even if what he said was true, Sybil could stand for him to be right. Was she really so transparent?
"Don't argue, milady. It's late. Let's go to bed."
She wanted to argue, really she did, but the alternative, of lying in his arms close enough that she could feel his heart beating, was enough to convince her to lay down her disagreement. She laced her fingers through his and allowed him to lead her from the parlor for the night.