This chapter is Christmas with the Bransons from Sybil's point of view, so we've skipped forward a couple of weeks. Just so the timeline is clear, Sybil finds Larry cheating in the first week of December. That same day, she and Matthew exchange e-mails and one call to arrange the swap between December 14 and 21, but instead of leaving on the 21st, Sybil stays another week to be with Tom and meet his family on Christmas Day.
Sybil
It had been a whirlwind couple of weeks, leading up to Christmas Day, but easily the best in Sybil's life. Her second night in Dublin, after emerging from their love cocoon following Sybil's revelation and after having finished off what Tom called their "Magic Eight Pack," the newly formed couple went out to a very late dinner and headed over to Matthew's flat to pick up Sybil's things. Matthew himself wouldn't be coming back to Dublin until after Christmas, having gone straight to Manchester to be with his mother after his week in London. Even so, Tom and Sybil didn't feel a need to bother with the pretense that Sybil would be sleeping anywhere other than Tom's bed during the remainder of her time in Ireland.
As her holiday, originally just one week, stretched to two, they continued to explore the city and each other. They took several long drives so Sybil could see some of the Irish country side. They hadn't talked much more about the future, but in Sybil's mind the decision was made. And the longer she was in Ireland, the more of it she saw, the more convinced she was that this was where she wanted to be. She knew that Tom was not entirely comfortable with the idea of her transplanting her whole life for him, but Sybil didn't see it that way. In her mind, the move was entirely selfish on her part. Her life in London was nice enough, but the idea of picking up and starting somewhere new suddenly thrilled her, and if it brought her closer to the man she loved, all the better. Whether or not they would be moving in together, though, was still an open question.
The only low point had been the phone call to her mother to explain that she'd not be coming home for Christmas. Cora was alarmed that Sybil was spending the holidays with people she hardly knew and worried that the end of her long relationship with Larry Grey had pushed her to rebound into the arms of a stranger. Sybil reminded her mother of who had pushed her into Larry's arms in the first place. There was yelling, which Sybil wasn't terribly proud of, but the conversation eventually came back to a good place, Sybil's happiness becoming more and more apparent the longer they talked. Things ended in what Sybil called a truce. She would join the family at the annual Downton New Year's Ball with her new beau, Sybil told her mother, and Cora would see for herself then what a wonderful person he was. Listening to that part of the conversation, Tom would have preferred that Sybil not build up expectations too much and told her as much at the end of the call, but Sybil knew her mother. She didn't think it wouldn't take long for Cora to take a shining to him, especially when he made her wayward baby girl so happy. Tom having also heard the Larry portion of the call, Sybil was forced to come clean about what exactly had brought her to Dublin. She'd expected some anger or disappointment, all she got was Tom shrugging his shoulders and pointing out to her that without Larry being an ass they might have never met.
So it was that they, as full of love for one another as two people could be, came to Christmas Day. Christmas with the Bransons.
Knocking on the door to his childhood home, Tom confessed to Sybil that he had never showed up to Christmas dinner with a girl. She was actually glad that he hadn't shared that detail with her ahead of time or her nerves, which were already on the edge on the drive over, might have been pushed over the cliff and might have forced her to insist that he turn around.
Too late for that now.
He kept telling her to relax, clearly amused at how nervous she was. Sybil couldn't help it, though. This was a first for her too. Given that Larry's family had been in her life as long as she could remember, she'd never been introduced before. Plus there was the timing of the thing.
Hello, Mrs. Branson, I'm Sybil. I'm in love with your son, whom I officially met 10 days ago. Oh, and I'm moving here.
They had both questioned the absurdity, the weirdness, of how they'd come together individually, but once they had come together, it made sense. They knew it would be hard to explain, but they were in love. Surely, anyone who loved them would see that. Standing here now, though, on what felt like a precipice they were about to jump off of, she wasn't so sure.
Will they accept us? Will they accept me?
Sybil panicked.
"Maybe we should come up with a story?" She said, unable to keep her worries from spilling out of her mouth any more.
"A story?"
"Something that doesn't sound as crazy as, 'We met a week ago, and now she's moving to Dublin.'"
Tom smiled, apparently still not concerned this would be an issue. Of course, because we're with his people first.
"You can read her your lovely letter to me," he suggested playfully.
"I'm serious, Tom."
"You think I'm not?"
She rolled her eyes.
"What story could we possibly make up that we could stick to? Besides, Matthew and your sister would know the truth. Honestly, for the last couple of years, Mam's been convinced I'm going to die a bachelor. She'll probably throw you a party just for being here."
Sybil didn't respond. She knew she was being silly, but this was the moment where they would let others in. Would their little world, not two weeks old, hold up?
Tom filled in her silence, vocalizing what was really bothering her. "Or is it something else you're worried about?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your family?"
"Well, I do want to avoid fighting with them. I want them to like you."
"They will. And if they don't right away, they'll come around."
"I'm just trying to make things easier for us."
"You can't think it's better to lie! Don't disappoint me, Sybil, not now that we're here."
"That's a bit harsh!" At this Sybil turned around, arms crossed and pulled tight against her, trying to keep her anger at bay. She knew she was making too much of things, but her nerves had taken hold and wouldn't ease their grip. This wasn't how she'd wanted this day, of all days, to start. It was a fight they were bound to have, but did her courage have to fail her here, at his mother's doorstep? She felt Tom come up behind her and wrap his arms around her shoulders, trying to put her at ease.
"Do you remember in the book, when they leave for Ireland, and on the boat they talk about whether or not they'd ever go back to Highclere?"
"Yes, so?"
"So, imagine if they had, and she had asked him to buy a set of tails to wear to dinner to, as you say, make things easier—the suffragist who stood up to her parents and married the chauffer, suddenly wanting him to conform so her family would have an easier time pretending he wasn't who he was." He turned her in his arms and held her face so she would look at him "Wouldn't that have been disappointing?"
She rolled her eyes and felt a pout forming, which made him smile. "I suppose," she said finally. "So what's your point?"
"This here. What we have. How it happened. It's ridiculous, but it's who we are. I don't want to have to hide it from anyone, and I don't want you to want to hide it." Tom lowered himself so they were seeing eye-to-eye and set his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout, making her laugh in spite of herself. "Everything is going to be fine."
She took a deep breath, "Are they going to like me?"
"They are going to love you because I love you."
She couldn't help but blush. He straightened up and pulled her closer.
"You know what that was, Sybil?"
"What?"
"Our first fight."
"It was, wasn't it," she said, now fully smiling again. "I think we should make up right now."
And he went in for a deep kiss, which of course had to be when his mother, clearly harried form cooking, finally go to the door. Bloody perfect.
"Still in the honeymoon phase, are we?" Sybil's nerves, put at ease by him less than a minute ago, suddenly started bubbling up again.
He disentangled himself from Sybil and moved to hug the small, stout woman. "Hi, Mam."
"Hello, my dear, still needing a hair cut, I see." She went to muss his hair, as if he were still a boy, but he easily ducked her reach.
"You going to start with that already. I haven't even walked in the door. Aren't you excited I've brought a girl for you?"
"For me? I've got four and one to spare. Why don't you stop with the joking and introduce us properly." She turned to Sybil with a bright, expectant look on her face.
Tom pulled Sybil toward him again and put his arm around her. "Mam, this is my girlfriend, Sybil Crawley. Sybil, this is Claire Branson."
Here we go, she thought. "It's wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Branson."
Claire stepped forward and took Sybil's hands in hers, pulling them out to the sides as if to better size her up. "Well, aren't you the most beautiful thing."
Sybil blushed and looked bashfully between Claire and Tom.
Claire squeezed her hands before letting go, saying, "Oh dear, it's no good to be bashful with this lot. Come in, come in."
They stepped through, and almost immediately Sybil could hear the din of kids running around the house and grown-ups talking over each other. This was it. This was going to be her family.
XXX
A couple of hours in, stepping out of the loo upstairs, Sybil discovered her favorite room in the Bransons' house. It wasn't a room exactly. Claire Branson loved photographs, and over the course of her life, she'd hung what seemed like hundreds in frames big and small in the long hallway upstairs. Sybil had spent the last 20 minutes slowly making her way through them all, starting at the far end of the hallway, next to the master bedroom, where Colin and Claire Branson's wedding portrait hung. From there, the pictures documenting the lives of the couple and their growing family, progressed chronologically down the hallway toward the top of the staircase through all manner of family milestones involving all of their six children: Kieran, Sarah, Lily, Caitlin, Maura and, of course, Thomas or "Tommy" as they all, to his clear annoyance, still called him.
Sybil was nearing the end of the hall, looking at a photo of Tom as boy with his father, when she heard Mrs. Branson come up behind her.
"There you are, my dear," she said. "I was afraid you'd gotten lost."
"Oh no," Sybil replied, somewhat embarrassed, "I was just enjoying your collection of family pictures. They're all wonderful, although I think this is my favorite." She pointed to the one she had just been looking at. A young Tom, maybe 6 or 7 years old, was standing in front of his father, who had his large hands on his son's small shoulders. They were standing next to an antique car, and while Colin Branson was looking straight at the camera, Tom had his head turned to the side and was looking up at his father with a broad smile.
"My Colin. He was a handful as a husband, but a wonderful father," Claire said with a sigh. "And that boy never knew a hero greater than his Da."
"I'm sure his death was extremely difficult for all of you," Sybil said quietly. "I'm very sorry."
"Those were some sad days, hardest of all on Tommy, poor boy." Claire gave Sybil and warm smile. They both looked back at the picture for a moment, then she turned back to Sybil. "Well, no use loitering about with this many mouths to feed."
"Can I help with something?"
"What do you think I came after you for?"
They both laughed and headed back downstairs to the kitchen, where Claire was putting together what had the look of a massive dinner. And Claire's "many mouths to feed" was right. There would be 14 of them all together at Christmas dinner. Tom had gone through the whole family tree on the drive over from his flat. Kieran, the oldest, would be there with his wife and three teenage boys; Sarah lived in Galway with her husband, son and daughter but didn't make the trip this year; Lily, divorced, would be there with her two daughters; Caitlin, who had married an American and had two boys, would be in Boston to spend the holiday with his family; and Maura would be along late, after her nursing shift, with her husband of two years. No kids for them so far. Sybil didn't know how she would ever keep all of them straight.
As she walked in, Sybil saw that the kitchen and dining room were a hotbed of activity with Lily rolling out pie crusts on one counter and her daughters, Aisling, who was 6, and Kelly, who was 9, helping Liz, Kieran's wife, chop vegetables across the room. Claire pointed Sybil to a potato peeler and a stack of potatoes next to Liz and the girls and returned to fussing over her roast in the center island.
All the boys, Tom included, had gone to the park to play football. As they were leaving, Sybil quietly pointed out to Tom what she saw as an unfair distribution of labor, but he quickly noted that when they got back, the boys would be in charge of setting the table and then cleaning up after dinner.
"You'll see at the end of the night, with the mess we make, that the girls actually get off easy," he said with a wink. He had offered to stay back with her, of course, but she had insisted he go. She didn't want to be babysat all day.
Sybil had just started peeling when Aisling slid off from her perch on a stool and walked over to inspect what she was doing.
"Would you like some company?"
Sybil smiled and replied, "Sure, but should you check with you mum, to make sure it's OK?"
The little girl rolled her eyes, "Oh, all right. Mam, can I talk to Uncle Tommy's girl or do I have to keep chopping?"
Lily looked over her shoulder to them, smiling. "You can take a break, I suppose, but only if you're not bothering Ms. Crawley."
"Oh, it's no bother," Sybil said quickly.
"So you are Uncle Tommy's girlfriend, aren't you?"
Sybil blushed, "I am."
"And are you going to get married?"
"Aisling!" The girl's mother, grandmother and aunt all cried out in unison.
"Well, I'm only asking because he's never had a girl here for Christmas with us before, and he said it was because Christmas is only for family, so if she's here, he obviously means to make her family." Sybil wanted to laugh at Aisling's obvious exasperation. Besides, the young girl was being perfectly logical. Sybil could admit to herself that her own mind had come to a similar conclusion.
Before Sybil could think of how to respond, Lily spoke up, "What Uncle Tommy and Miss Crawley mean to do is none of your business."
Turning back to Sybil, Aisling said, very matter-of-factly, hands on hips as if to stress her point, "Well, I think you should marry him because he's nice and he's fun."
"I do agree with that," Sybil said, smiling.
Aisling continued, "He took me and Kelly to the fall fair at school last month, and even Da didn't want to go to that."
"That was very nice of him." Sybil looked down at Aisling and her persistently expectant expression. She crouched down so they were on the same level and said quietly, as if sharing a secret, "I'll tell you what, I'll give you an answer if you promise to keep it a secret." This pleased Aisling very much, and both her mother and grandmother rolled their eyes at her excitement.
Sybil put her hand over her mouth, moved to Aisling's ear and whispered, "I do want to marry him."
Aisling immediately started to jump up and down, obviously thrilled with the knowledge. Seeing her mother and grandmother's eyes on her, though, she put on a faux serious expression, lifted her nose into the air and sauntered back to her post next to her sister. She turned back to Sybil and pointed to Kelly as if asking permission to share her news. Sybil nodded, and Aisling immediately whispered Sybil's confession to her sister. Of course, unlike Sybil's, Aisling's whisper was such that the rest of the room heard it along with its intended receiver, causing all the grown up women in the room to laugh and Sybil's cheeks to redden just a little.
Sybil caught Claire's eyes on her and felt comfort in seeing her warm smile. Feeling rather freed by having basically just announced her intentions to the women in Tom's family, she turned back to her potatoes with a smile. Her back was turned to the rest of the room, so Sybil missed when Claire turned to Lily, smiled even wider than she had for Sybil and lifted up her hands to show that her fingers were crossed.
XXX
With dinner finally ready, the Branson clan crammed themselves into the dining room and sat down to dinner about 7 p.m.
Kieran stood up and clinked his glass with his fork to get every one's attention.
"Let's take a moment, as always, for Da," he said, raising his glass. "To Colin Branson."
The motley crew, Sybil a proud member for the last nine hours, raised their glasses and said, "Hear, hear!"
"And we acknowledge all others who couldn't be with us tonight as well those who could but wanted to spare themselves from mam's cooking." The last garnered snickers from his boys.
But Claire, not backing down an inch, quickly spoke up, "You're the one who keeps coming back every year, aren't you?"
With a smile, satisfied that he'd ribbed his mother enough, he turned to the kids' table in the corner, "Now Aisling's still the youngest, so she gets to lead the blessing."
Aisling, very excited about her duty, jumped out of her chair as Kieran sat back down. She cleared her throat dramatically and recited:
"May you always walk in sunshine.
May you never want for more."
Here she stopped and lifted her arms so the rest would join in for the last line.
"May Irish angels rest their wings right beside your door. Cheers!"
Sybil's cheeks warmed and she felt tears pooling in her eyes, feeling full of love, not just for Tom, but for everything in his orbit, all of the things, all of the people, he would be giving her.
Sybil felt Tom's hand find hers under the table, and she looked over at him. He leaned over and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek. Moving his lips to her ears, he whispered, "Merry Christmas."
She waited for him to pull back so she could look him in the eyes when she responded.
"Merry Christmas."