A/N: This epilogue was originally going to begin with the second scene. However, I decided to include a short 'missing scene' which I dedicate to wslowry who said she'd like to see it, in gratitude for all her kind words of encouragement. Of course that also goes to all of you who have reviewed and messaged me and I'm pretty sure that I've contacted everyone who has an account to express my thanks (probably numerous times!). There were times when I feared that I might have bitten off more than I could chew with this 'step' storyline, but the feedback kept me on track and I'm particularly touched that some chose to share their personal experiences of having separated parents. Thank you to everyone, even if you haven't commented, for sticking with it and I hope that you enjoyed a different perspective of Tom and Sybil's story.
Eighteen months later
From the cool shadows of her ancestral home, Edith stood and watched the bride and groom pose for photographs on the sloping lawn. Feeling weary in the sticky, humid heat of late summer, she had asked Michael to watch Esmé, who was persistent in her efforts to appear in each frame, regardless of whether or not the presence of bridesmaids was required.
A ripple of laughter could be heard and she saw Sybil crouch down to speak earnestly to her niece before Josh held out a hand to gently lead her away. He was taking his best man duties very seriously; nobody could fault him for his diligence. Tom had asked him to keep an eye on the younger cousins and as they all looked up to him with awe, it wasn't proving too difficult a task.
Footsteps approached from the open library door behind her. As soon as she heard the clearing of a throat behind her, she knew who it would be.
"Hello Kieran" she said, taking a quiet, resolute breath and turning around with a smile more welcoming than she felt. He looked different of course – he'd filled out his skinny teenage frame, with faint lines around his eyes and mouth, a smattering of grey hairs emerging through the dark. He was one of those men who had grown into his looks, more handsome than she remembered from the classroom, before that day. She had felt his presence during the service and knew with a sixth sense that he had spotted her, but she avoided looking across towards the right hand side of the congregation, concentrating instead on quieting her daughter and listening to the vows.
Tom and Sybil had eschewed tradition by marrying in a civil ceremony inside the house. Granny had been horrified of course, but Sybil was never one to be swayed by the opinion of others if it collided with her own. The downside was that ultimately, Mary was in charge of Sybil's wedding, now that she was the General Manager for the Estate. Privately Edith felt that it served Sybil right and she'd wisely kept her distance from the inevitable heated discussions which had taken place. Mary seemed to believe that single-minded perseverance would eventually wear anyone into submission. Such a ridiculous argument over where the top table should be placed – Mary should have known that Sybil would never let her win. She had witnessed Sybil instructing Tom and Josh to help her move it again only this morning.
Kieran held her gaze for a brief moment before turning his head towards the bride and groom.
"Our daughters make lovely bridesmaids together, don't you think?"
Edith followed his line of vision, relieved to be spared the ordeal of making further eye contact.
"Yes, they all look very pretty" she agreed.
"Three beauties, I'd say." Kieran glanced back at Edith's swollen stomach. "And another one to come, I see."
"It's a boy actually"
He flashed a fleeting smile. "Well, I'm sure he'll be a handsome devil"
Edith gave one of those awkward half-grimaces in acknowledgement and then recommenced her self-conscious stare elsewhere until Kieran cut in once again.
"I got your email by the way."
She swallowed hard. "Yes well I felt it was best to clear the air before we met."
His voice softened. "I never told anyone, you know. Not even my wife knows what happened."
Edith could feel her face begin to flush and mentally chided herself for such an effortless reaction to old news. "Neither did I until a couple of years ago. Then Sybil probed so I told her. But she's the only one."
Kieran brushed a hand across his face and emitted a short laugh interwoven with a hasty cough. "Right, well I'm glad I didn't know that when I first met her. But Sybil and I get along grand so it's fine. Anyway, we were just kids messing around weren't we?"
"I don't know what came over us!" She swung around and met his scrutiny head-on. "I didn't even think of you like that. I never had!"
Deeply worn crevasses emerged at the corners of his eyes as a slow smile spread across his face and he cocked his head to one side. "No, nor me, but maybe it was just meant to be?" He waved a hand around in the air and glanced towards the piercing blue sky. "The stars misaligned and brought the wrong Branson brother and the wrong Crawley sister together for a day. We made mistakes so that Tom and Sybil didn't have to."
He sounded so sincere that Edith screwed up her nose in surprise. "Do you really believe that?" she asked.
"Not really" he admitted with a little shrug and looked at her again, the sparkling blue of his eyes prominent within the shade, his smile unrelenting. "In fact, I don't regret a thing" he said gently, an edge of silk to his tone and Edith couldn't be certain whether the baby then chose his moment to move, or if her stomach simply fluttered with exhilaration.
Two years later
Sybil heaved the washing basket onto her hip and pushed open the kitchen door. Josh was sitting at the table, his head bent in studious concentration as he wrote a thank you letter to Mary, Matthew and George for his recent 10th birthday present. Sybil would have gently suggested he did so regardless, but every visit was accompanied by an instructive note from Eddie – to keep me on my toes, Sybil always thought, to remind me who's ultimately in charge.
She could hear Tom singing that Robbie Williams song again through the baby monitor, the one written for his own baby girl. Tom had taken Millie upstairs to change her nappy, but wholeheartedly enamoured with their daughter, he often took the opportunity to play or sing to her. At only seven weeks old, her contribution was minimal but satiated with a full stomach, she could now smile and jerk her limbs almost on cue.
For all your days and nights
I'm gonna be there,
I'm gonna be there,
yes I will.
Tom's voice rang out clearly, swamping the low volume radio which she kept on most of the day. Josh raised his head and Sybil rolled her eyes to make him smile. She liked to tease Tom about his sentimentality but in all honesty, her heart was constricting with love. Maternal devotion had hit her hard, the mixture of adoration and fierce protection which her friends and sisters had described, was sometimes so overwhelming it left her close to tears. On weekends like this, when Josh was with them, she almost felt compelled to lock the doors and pull the curtains closed - to keep them all cocooned together, fearful that a passing apocalypse might sweep one of them away. By mid-week however, the reality of solely caring for a young baby took hold and in contrast, the idea of waving in strangers off the street for adult conversation seemed strangely appealing. She was quite certain that she would want to return to work in some form, once her maternity leave was over. But even getting dressed was a challenge some mornings at the moment. She couldn't imagine being responsible for anybody's health while so sleep-deprived and emotionally milk-laden.
Josh lay down his pen, folded the paper and then slipped it into a nearby envelope, licking it with concentrated attention before thumping it closed with a clenched fist.
"I'll write the address on it for you, your job is done." Sybil said and he responded with a grateful grin.
"Can I take my new bike down the park?" he asked eagerly, frowning at Sybil's instinctive hesitation. "You both said I could go on my own when I was ten!"
"We said we'd think about it when you were ten. Look, I'll just take this washing upstairs and see what Dad says." She smiled indulgently. "I don't know what he's doing up there all this time."
"Cuddling Millie I expect, he's so soppy" Josh declared and Sybil gave an anxious glance in his direction, wondering yet again if he was feeling displaced by his sister's presence. They had tried very hard to involve him, to indulge him with attention and unexpected gifts. But it was difficult when well-meaning friends appeared, showering the new arrival with microscopic attention while barely giving her elder sibling a second glance.
"I bet he was exactly the same with you" she said and was relieved to see a lop-sided grin emerge.
"Yeah, Mam says he was always singing to me. She said sometimes she had to turn the monitor off 'cos he didn't shut up!"
Sybil offered a sly glance. "Anyway… she began "…I heard you singing to her yesterday, so tuneful devotion seems to run in the family."
Josh looked momentarily bashful. "She seems to like it, she smiles at me and kicks around like this…" He lifted his feet from the ground and began to swing them about, punching the air with balled fists and shaking his head like a geriatric head-banger. It diffused any earlier tension and Sybil laughed out loud.
"Well let's hope that Millie takes after her father and brother rather than me in the vocal department, eh? Right, I'll be back in a minute."
As she climbed the stairs, she could see the soles of Tom's feet. He lay on the nursery floor, his head resting on a hand, tickling the baby's tummy while she writhed around with delight on a blanket. Officially called Amelia, but nicknamed Millie since her second day, she had arrived two weeks late, at which point Sybil had felt so encumbered and exhausted that she was tempted to reach up and try to pull her out herself. The first month had passed in a somnolent daze of feeds, excretions and curious visitors, including her own parents who had wisely chosen to stay in a local hotel, combining sightseeing in central Dublin with short daily visits to see their granddaughter.
Their home was in Tallaght, nowadays a south west suburb of the capital and ideally located for Sybil's job at St Luke's Hospital in Rathgar. If they put their foot down and the traffic was light, they could reach Kilkenny in little over an hour. It enabled Tom to attend parents' evenings and any other essential weekday functions, although mostly they only saw Josh at weekends. Despite Tom occasionally lamenting not being able to have him over on a school night, Sybil was secretly content to keep her logistical distance from Eddie. An uneasy truce reigned, but Kilkenny was her territory and Sybil was determined to maintain a domestic and social environment of her own. That's not to say that they didn't all make a concerted effort to keep things harmonious. At Josh's end of school year concert, with Millie due any day, she, Tom and Eddie had sat side by side in the audience, a situation which made Sybil feel strangely grown up. And Eddie had surprised her by gifting Millie a pretty outfit with not an touch of pink in sight, causing Sybil to feel unusually benevolent towards her.
The first year back in Ireland had been difficult for Tom, who managed to obtain a couple of days' a week employment at UCD but had to supplement it by teaching History in a local higher education college. Gradually his reputation rose until he now worked almost full time, spending every Wednesday working on his first book EU Expansion – How the west was won over. Funding from the Welsh Assembly had continued after he guaranteed to fulfil their remit; Tom travelled to present a paper in Cardiff three times during the first year after their relocation. Its success paved the way for a similar research, this time from the Irish Government alone.
Their trips to Wales were less frequent than before but Sybil had paid a visit on her own the previous spring. By next Christmas, Gwen would temporarily have three children under three – even observing the chaos provided by the first two had made Sybil feel exhausted. 'Your baptism of fire!' Gwen had joked to her then pregnant friend, not even realising that number three was already on her way.
Eleri was frailer nowadays and a succession of short-lived volunteers from the befriending scheme meant that she placed Sybil on an even higher pedestal than before. However, she now had constant companionship in the form of Samson, who was enjoying a comfortable retirement spent mostly on Eleri's lap. Sybil's tentative suggestion for his rehoming wasn't well received at the start – Eleri's poverty laced childhood meant that cats were for chasing mice and there was no room for the sentimentality of pets. But she had proved good company for Samson, who no longer had to deal with an owner's long absences during the day and who had discovered an unexpected liking for cake. Sybil thought that he had looked substantially fatter the last time she saw him – he generally gave her an expression of disdain she was sure she deserved following her desertion. Occasionally she worried about which of the two might go first. The thought of Samson being moved on to yet another home seemed cruel, but for the time being they lived in harmony, surrounded by cake crumbs.
Sybil stood still at the top of the stairs until Tom raised his head and grinned.
"She's trying to roll – look!"
"Tom, she's seven weeks old, that's impossible."
"I didn't say she was having any success, but she's definitely trying, watch these legs." He leant forward to blow a raspberry on Millie's stomach. "Yes, you are the cleverest girl in the world…" he glanced at Sybil with a smirk before resuming his adoring observation. "After your mother of course."
With an indulgent smile, Sybil placed her basket of washing on the floor. "Josh has just asked me if he can cycle to the park on his own."
Tom frowned. "Oh I'm not sure about that."
Sybil waved her hand in the direction of the baby monitor and mouthed 'He can hear us'
Lifting their daughter over his shoulder, Tom stood up and nodded with his head for Sybil to follow them into their bedroom. Millie craned her neck so that her mother was within her line of vision and broke into a smile of such instinctive joy that Sybil's heart swelled and droplets of milk inadvertently leaked into her bra.
"I'm going to stand over here..." she said firmly, leaning against the window, while Tom sat on their bed "…or she's going to smell the milk and want to feed again. She should be able to go another half an hour at least."
Tom rubbed his forehead in contemplation. "I know we said we'd think about letting him go once he was ten, but I'd just be happier if he went with someone else for the time being. He's still quite naïve at times and he doesn't know all the kids around here like he does in Kilkenny."
"I agree." Sybil nodded. "Maybe next time I could arrange for Niall to meet him there, but they're away this weekend." Josh had struck up a friendship with the son of Sybil's colleague Sally and the two had spent a number of afternoons together during Josh's weekends in Tallaght.
"That's a good idea. He'll have some independence but we'll know he's with someone."
"So have you got time to take him down there for a while?" Sybil smiled as Millie turned her head at the sound of her mother's voice, squinting in an effort to bring her dark shadow into focus.
"Not really to be honest." Tom pulled a face. "I've got to work on this paper, I'm delivering it the week after next, remember? And I've already promised that I'll play some basketball in the garden with him later, I can't do both I'm afraid."
"Okay" Sybil took a step forwards and hesitated. "By the way, I'm sorry to mention the 'C' word again in August, but have you given any more thought to going to Downton for Christmas?"
"Not really, to be honest. It's entirely up to you."
"Well I know it's Millie's first Christmas and everyone wants to be with her but we did spend the last one with your parents."
"Fair enough. Can you take a look at the flights? Ideally I'd want to spend some of the Christmas period with Josh, but I don't mind going over to England a few days beforehand."
"Thank you" she said gently and walked over to bestow a grateful kiss. The festive logistics always proved tricky and Eddie had so far refused point blank to let Josh spend Christmas Day away from Kilkenny. Until recently this had irritated Sybil who felt it was selfish and unjust, but since having a child of her own, she was beginning to appreciate Eddie's dilemma in not wanting to be parted from her son on such a special day.
Millie began to squirm in Tom's arms, detecting the possibility of a nearby meal and Sybil backed away. "Give me a few minutes gorgeous girl and then I'll feed you, I promise."
Back downstairs in the kitchen, she grabbed the nearby notebook on which she wrote her list of daily or weekly tasks. The days of effortlessly remembering them without tangible evidence seemed to have vanished since Millie's birth. Look at flights DUB-LBA or MAN? she wrote, smiling with satisfaction. She would travel over to Yorkshire on her own with Millie mid-term, but looked forward to an opportunity to spend time with both of her sisters over Christmas. Mary and Matthew lived in a separate wing of the Abbey from their parents, but opportunities to see them were always plentiful while she was there. Mary had transformed the profitability of the Estate and her father had long since admitted that she had a far shrewder eye for business than him. By the time she felt that enough progress had been made that she could consider taking a significant period of time off, Mary's fortieth birthday had passed. After soul-searching discussion, she and Matthew decided not to try for another child. George was now six, delightfully confident in adult company without appearing precocious and showing an unexpected aptitude for playing tennis.
Edith and Michael had moved to a larger house in the Hertfordshire suburbs with their two children, something which suited Edith's freelance writing perfectly, but which Mary found derisory. "It's so middle class..." she sneered when the subject was first raised, appearing to forget that her youngest sister already lived in Irish suburbia, happily accommodated in a property far smaller than Edith's. "...so predictable." Only Granny seemed to find Mary's comments amusing and the cold shoulder she received from the remainder of the family left her subsequently silent on the subject. She had even visited Edith…once.
At nearly thirty-eight, Sybil didn't think she would have another child. Admittedly it was still very early days – her six week post-natal check may have provided her with a full bill of health, but pregnancy discomfort and the pain of labour remained highly prevalent in her mind. More importantly however, it felt right for Josh that his sister was on an even keel with him. They didn't want him to feel pushed out of an ever expanding second family, unable to compete with bonds established between younger siblings who would be closer in age.
Written reminders in place, she turned to face an expectant Josh. "Dad and I would prefer you to go with the park with someone else for the time being. Like Niall."
His face twisted with frustration at the news. "But he's not here this weekend!" he lamented and Sybil felt stirrings of sympathy.
"I know, I'll try and sort something out for next time, I promise."
"I don't see the point in you buying me a bike for here if I can't get to use it!"
She watched his sulky expression and a vision of his future teenage-self flashed before her eyes.
"Okay then, I'll take you" she conceded and was gratified to see him switch immediately to elation.
"Yeah? Oh thanks Sybil. Can we go now?"
Sybil raked her hand through her hair, she hadn't even run a brush through it yet today. Somehow there was always something or somebody else requiring her immediate attention nowadays.
"Well I need to feed Millie" She glanced at her watch. "A bit anyway, just to keep her happy. But then we'll go. I'll time your laps round the park on my phone, how's that?"
"Great!" Josh exclaimed, already heading towards the back door. "I'll go and get it from the shed!"
In the great see-saw effect of family life, once Millie was satisfied, Tom's agitation grew. "Oh now I want to come too" he said with a mournful expression and Sybil rolled her eyes with simulated frustration.
"Then come!"
"I really need to get this paper finished this weekend…"
"Walk to the park with us, watch Josh do one lap and then come back again. I need to pop to the shops afterwards anyway, we've got hardly any milk. We'll come home later, you can get on."
"Good idea!" he declared, reaching for his shoes.
"You are such a procrastinator and so easily distracted!"
Tom glanced out of the front door and noting that Josh was already waiting impatiently on his new bike by the gate, pulled Sybil towards him with one hand while expertly holding a sleeping Millie in the other. "Only by you. I'm otherwise a model of discipline and concentration" he whispered and pressed his lips down on hers with some force. For a short while they stood entwined, Sybil felt her heartbeat quicken and the first indication that she might now be ready for bedroom activities to recommence. Then Millie broke wind and they moved apart with a laugh, watching their daughter's slumbering face of satisfaction.
Sybil pushed the pram up and over the front step and Tom gently lay the baby down inside before pulling the door closed behind them.
"Okay Josh, let's go!" he called and his son responded with a satisfied thumbs up.
All four together, they set off.
THE END