Chapter Four
Return To The Past
Dartmoor, south-west England, July 1921.
In extent some two hundred and fifty square miles of bleak, open moorland, a grim and foreboding wilderness; wet for much of the year and often lost from sight midst eerie, swirling banks of damp, grey mist. A wild, empty, primeval landscape of brooding granite tors and desolate peat bogs some of which such as Fox Tor Mires reputed to be bottomless, the grave of many an unwary traveller; sprinkled with a cluster of prehistoric remains of stone circles, menhirs and burial chambers, a scattering of isolated farms and a clutch of small villages and presiding over all, the grim bulk of the prison at Princetown.
Seated at his spartan desk in his bleak cell, with a blanket around his hunched shoulders, for the umpteenth time gazing mournfully out through the barred window of his cell at "that little tent of blue which prisoners call the sky", having blown again on his fingertips to try and warm them, Tom picked up his pen to write another letter to his wife in distant Yorkshire.
Dartmoor Prison,
Princetown,
Devon
My dearest dear,
Words cannot express how much I miss you. I...
Heavy footsteps sounded in the passage outside his cell door. With sweat beading his brow, shivering, Tom half turned, praying that they would pass on by and continue along the stone-flagged passage. His prayer remained unanswered as but moments later, the footsteps came to a stop; a key grated and then turned in the lock and the door to his cell swung open...
"Tom, darling, wake up, please..."
County Cork, Irish Free State, July 1924.
The green Cubitt 16/20 Tourer positively purred along the road. With Sybil seated in the rear of the motor and with Tom in the driver's seat sporting both goggles and leather gauntlets, it was, she thought, just like a return to old times; a warm summer's day, sitting here on the back seat and being driven sedately along in the Renault on the way to Ripon. Then suddenly, out of the blue and quite unexpectedly, the motor lurched, violently.
Old times? Sedately? Ripon? Well, actually, no. Not at all. Not now. Not with two young children seated either side of her. Glancing first at Danny and then at little Saiorse, Sybil smiled and shook her head in amusement. The country road they were driving along now led not north to Ripon, but south from Cork; towards Kinsale and to what, if anything, three years after it was set alight and burnt out by the IRA, still remained of Skerries House.
Following his return to the Irish Independent and now known and respected as one of its most senior journalists, with a week's holiday owing to him, although Tom had said he was not at all sure how he felt about the idea, at Sybil's suggestion, a few days ago, having packed their suitcases, they had taken the train south to Cork from Dublin's Kingsbridge Station, much as they had done back in the summer of 1920.
However, this time, with considerably more money than before, instead of staying at O'Keefe's, the modest establishment belonging to the garrulous, well-meaning widow of the same name, they were to stay at the red brick Metropole Hotel on Mac Curtain Street.
Tom had rented the Tourer from a garage which lay just off the Lower Glanmire Road, the owner of whom, a Mr. Kelly, he knew well from the time he had spent in Cork four years earlier. A couple of months ago, from a letter Mr. Kelly had written to Tom at the Independent, it transpired that recently, in circumstances which were not entirely clear, Kelly had come into possession of Tom's old army motorcycle and which now, having learned of Tom's whereabouts, wanted to restore to its rightful owner. Hearing that Tom proposed travelling down to Cork, the two men had agreed to meet so as to make the necessary arrangements for the carriage of the motorcycle by the Great Southern and Western Railway back up to Dublin.
Of course Tom was delighted; he had not laid eyes on his beloved motorbike since hiding it beneath a tarpaulin down an alleyway on the night of the burning of Cork; in fact, he had never expected ever to see it again. Oddly enough, although she herself had proposed this trip south in an effort to finally lay the ghosts of the past, Sybil was not so sure. She could still vividly remember that last morning at Skerries when Tom had set off for Cork on his motorcycle and then had failed to return. So it was that when Tom went to meet Mr. Kelly to see his motorbike, as well as to enquire about the hiring of a motor for a few days and for which Mr. Kelly had offered him a good price, this time, taking no chances whatsoever, Sybil insisted that she and the children accompany him.
In the aftermath of independence, at least on the surface, the Bransons found Cork to be remarkably unchanged by the departure of the British. True, several of the street names had been altered although this in itself was not unusual. Street names had been changed before both here and elsewhere, in the Free State and across the Irish Sea in England and undoubtedly they would be so again in the future.
However, some of the more recent changes reflected the creation of the Free State: for example what had previously been King Street on which their hotel was situated was now Mac Curtain Street in memory of the former Lord Mayor shot dead in March 1920 in front of both his wife and son. While the reconstruction of the City Hall over on Albert Quay had not yet begun, with, after a lengthy battle, compensation having been paid to their owners, the rebuilding of the burned and looted shops on Patrick Street such as Roches Stores, Alexander Grant, Cash's and many others continued apace and here, as elsewhere in the Free State, while they all still bore the royal cipher, for despite independence, George V was still Head of State, the post boxes in Cork, were now no longer painted red but green.
"Feckin hell!" yelled Tom loudly as he now slewed the vehicle forcefully to the left to avoid yet another pothole.
"Tom! Language, please!" reprimanded Sybil loudly from the rear of the motor.
"Sorry!" Tom sang out cheerfully and managing at the same time to sound thoroughly uncontrite.
Beside his mother young Danny giggled and bounced enthusiastically up and down on the leather seat.
"Go on Da! Go faster, Da! Da, go faster!" implored the little boy excitedly and at the same time clapping his hands enthusiastically.
"Daniel Robert Branson! Will you please sit still!" admonished his mother. She ruffled his hair and shook her head. If darling Mary mistakenly believed that children became easier as they grew older, then she was in for the rudest of awakenings. Not, of course, that Mary was as involved in the bringing up of young Robert as Sybil had been with her and Tom's two. Little Robert, named for his grandfather the earl of Grantham, Matthew and Mary's young son, was now aged all of three years.
"Darling, that's what Nannies are for," had explained Mary wearily once more to Sybil when for the umpteenth time her youngest sister had suggested yet again that she ought to become more involved with the upbringing of her offspring. Sybil sighed; it was clear that some things would never change.
Danny 's excitement seemed to be highly contagious as now his Da also chuckled delightedly. Just like influenza, thought Sybil, doing her very best to keep a straight face. Then, just as unashamedly, her young son giggled again; gave his mother another cheeky grin. Honestly, two peas in a pod! Although Danny's hair, fair when he was born and for a year or so thereafter was now beginning to darken, the little boy was so like his father, not only in his looks but in his interests; anything mechanical absolutely fascinated Danny and he did love it so when his father was driving and then hit the accelerator. However, where they lived now, in Blackrock, there was, thankfully, very little opportunity of that; especially if Sybil was riding in the family motor as well, which, almost invariably, was the case.
Blackrock lay on the south side of Dublin and it was here, after his release from prison and their return to Ireland, that Tom and Sybil had bought their first house, a modest, stucco plastered, three storey Victorian villa in Idrone Terrace, where they had created a blissfully happy home, within both sight and sound of the sea and but a short walk from the railway station enabling Tom to be at his desk in his office on Talbot Street in Dublin in little over half an hour.
However, despite his Ma's ever watchful eyes, fortunately, at least for little Danny, going out for a jaunt in the motor with his "Uncle" Ruari behind the steering wheel often proved just as much fun as going out for a run with Da. Now aged nineteen Ruari, Ciaran and Aislin's eldest son, the shy, good looking, dark-haired boy whom Sybil had taught to dance all those years ago in his father's barn at Christmas 1919, was now an apprentice engineer working for the Great Southern and Western Railway Company at its Inchicore works in Dublin. More to the point, just like Da, when he got behind the wheel of a motor, Uncle Ruari also liked to drive fast.
Some time ago, through the good offices of his Uncle Tom, Ruari had acquired a wreck of a Wolseley which, following the death of its elderly owner way back in 1914, had been left to moulder and decay in an outbuilding in Raheny.
With his uncle's help and many hours of loving work of his own, at long last, Ruari had now restored it to running order. Out at Ruari's father's farm on the Clontarf Castle Estate, seated on top of a long bench in the old barn, little Danny had dutifully played his own part in all of what had been required; had helped in repairing Uncle Ruari's old motor by, when being asked to do so, handing Da his tools and then just as carefully replacing them in Da's wooden toolbox when they were no longer needed.
So, now, with the motor repaired, young Danny knew that a summer Sunday trip out to the farm at Clontarf on the north side of Dublin Bay meant a chance of "going for a spin" in the Wolseley along with both Da and Uncle Ruari. Usually they went over Howth on the coast and, once there, sitting down by the harbour, young Danny was always treated to a glass of lemonade while Da and Ruari drank ginger beer. And, sometimes, in passing, while they were talking, they mentioned somebody called O'Brien, who apparently was dead and who, for some strange reason Danny could not fathom, always made both Da and Uncle Ruari laugh.
There was something else too which Danny did not understand too.
The Sunday afternoon trips out to Howth in Ruari's motor only ever happened if, beforehand, Da had dropped off Ma and little Saiorse, Danny's cry baby sister, at the house by the sea to pay a visit to Granny Branson; returning later to collect all of three of them and then run back up to the farm in time for tea and some of Aunt Aislin's delicious Barmbrack.
Now, although Da had never said anything to him about it being a secret, Danny knew instinctively that when, before tea, they went back to collect Granny Branson, Ma and Saiorse from the little house by the sea, he should say nothing to them at all about the trip out to Howth in Uncle Ruari's motor.
Danny chuckled.
He loved his Da so very much and his Uncle Ruari too; would have told you too, if of course he had known the word and more importantly what it actually meant, that he rather liked the idea of being part of a conspiracy.
However, if Ma had asked Danny directly about where they had been on Sunday afternoon, then, of course, he would have told her; not that she ever did. After all, Danny had been brought up to know that telling lies was wrong and he decidedly did not wish to go the way of Matilda "who told such Dreadful Lies, It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes" and who had ended up being burned to death.
A birthday present from his Uncle Matthew and Aunt Mary, at the time, Sybil had thought Hilaire Belloc's "Cautionary Tales For Children" might frighten Danny. However, given the fact that he was undoubtedly his father's son and therefore possessed from birth of a sense of humour equally as unpredictable as that of both Tom and his Uncle Matthew, when read to him at bedtime, young Danny had found the fate of poor Matilda and her ten naughty companions to be absolutely hilarious.
Danny's favourite tale and indeed that of Tom too was the one about George, "Who played with a Dangerous Toy, and suffered a Catastrophe of considerable Dimensions". Following the explosion of young George's "Immense BALLOON", bought for him by his doting Granmamma, this particular story told then of the accidental demise of a goodly number of the domestic staff of a very large house.
After he had read it to his young son for the very first time, ever thereafter Tom referred to it as "The Downton Abbey Tale". When, subsequently, he read it aloud to little Danny, Tom took fiendish delight in renaming all the servants who had been blown to smithereens so as to match those who were still in service at Downton and whom he disliked, including Thomas Barrow. The end of the tale Tom also altered, adding in a couple of lines of his own:
"And so, while All the others Sadly died,
Most Happily, Branson the Chauffeur survived".
It was only several years later, having now learned to read for himself, that to his great surprise, young Danny found that his beloved Da's repeated spirited rendition of the story of George and his "Immense BALLOON" was not quite as Hilaire Belloc had penned it.
And, as to the reason why Sybil never asked where Danny had been, if he had had a lovely time, the answer was in fact quite simple; she already knew all about the Sunday afternoon trips out to Howth in the bright yellow Wolseley... from none other than young Ruari himself and so, had no need to ask. Knew too that the "breakneck" runs were nowhere near as fast as little Danny imagined them to be; the Wolseley simply didn't have that turn of speed.
Then, in later years when Danny was older, aged eight or thereabouts, having pestered his father for ages and only after having sworn him to utmost secrecy Tom had then agreed to teach him how to ride it, glimpsed from an upstairs window, Sybil knew too all about those slow speed rides on Tom's old British army motorcycle; up and down the narrow lane which lay at the back of their house in Idrone Terrace in Blackrock.
While, of course, this all lay in the future, unsurprisingly, as the years both came and went, despite the decidedly innocent plotting and scheming of both her menfolk, there was very little that went on concerning her family that Sybil did not actually know about; a truism if ever there was one.
In the Tourer, little Danny now giggled again and, seated on Sybil's other side, Saiorse began to whimper.
"It's all right, darling". Sybil hugged the little girl tightly to her. "Da will drive more slowly now. Won't you, Da?"
"Sorry, love," called Tom over his shoulder and sounding contrite while, at the same time and invisible to Sybil, sporting a decidedly unabashed lop-sided grin. "For sure, independence certainly hasn't improved the state of the ruddy roads down here in the south. They were as bad as this when I was using the 'bike! Jaysus!"
The motor lurched again; Sybil grimaced, gave a quick tug to her hat and hugged both of the children tightly to her.
"Tom, darling, please!"
The speed of the Tourer now slowed noticeably.
"Good turn of speed though! Fifty miles an hour tops! When I spoke with him on the telephone, Matthew said he envied me!"
"Yes, well Matthew would, wouldn't he?" Sybil shouted, endeavouring to make herself heard over the constant noise of the slipstream. Evidently she had been, as she now saw Tom nod his head. His hair dishevelled by the wind, briefly he turned to glance at her before returning to concentrate his gaze on the road ahead.
"And?" called out Tom, realising intuitively that Sybil had something else to say to him upon the subject now under discussion.
"Darling, you know Matthew's always been the same; in fact, ever since you taught him to drive and on your recommendation bought that Crossley in York not long after he and Mary were married!"
"So it's all my fault then?" chuckled Tom loudly. "Jaysus! I thought we were over all that long since!"
"Over all what?"
"Of course, I blame Branson!" laughed Tom and mimicking his father-in-law's voice to perfection.
Sybil giggled.
"Darling, I'm not blaming you for Matthew's love of speed. All I'm saying is that you know just as well as I do how Mary feels about it, especially with what happened just after little Robert was born when he put the Crossley through that gate and into that hay rick on the far side of the estate".
In the immediate aftermath of the happy birth of his son, Matthew's near head-on collision with a traction engine had now passed into the annals of Crawley family history.
By his own freely-given admission, Matthew had been distracted, musing contentedly over the events of the past twenty four hours which, with Dr. Clarkson in attendance, had seen Mary give birth to Robert James Crawley weighing in at a healthy 8lb 7oz. Thereafter, pressing estate business had taken Matthew over to West Fell Scar.
A beautiful late summer's day, absolutely delighted with the birth of his son and heir, grateful that Mary had come through the whole business with flying colours as Matthew himself termed it, the reforms in the management of the Downton Abbey Estate he had instituted at last beginning to show results, the putative earl of Grantham had hit the accelerator.
The narrow country road which led over to West Fell Scar and along which Matthew had been driving was such that, had he seen it, would have provided G. K. Chesterton with the inspiration for his well-known poem "The Rolling English Road" as it twisted and turned its way across the slopes of Lower Whernside Ridge. His mind understandably on other things, paying no attention whatsoever to the speed at which he was driving, Matthew headed swiftly on. When his business over at West Fell Scar was completed all he wanted to do was to return home to Mary and their baby son as quickly as possible. Matthew grinned broadly; his much loved brother-in-law Tom had been decidedly right about this family lark.
Now, had it not been for the cloud of steam and smoke, suddenly clearly visible above the hedges further on down the deeply banked lane, Matthew would have run straight into the lumbering, snorting traction engine slowly proceeding the other way. As it was, at the very last minute, alerted to the presence of the oncoming Fowler steam engine and its heavily loaded trailer labouring up Deepdale Lane, with no time whatsoever to apply the brake, Matthew had wrenched the Crossley violently to the left. The motor had careered through a wooden gate and into the field beyond, ending up with the front end of the Crossley buried in a hay rick. Fortunately, other than some minor scratches and dents there was no real damage to the motorcar and thankfully none to Matthew either; except that was, to his pride.
When next the Bransons were over in England from Ireland, for the happy event of young Robert's christening, on learning exactly what had happened at first hand from Matthew himself, overcome with concern for his best friend, forgetting where he was, seated at the dinner table in Downton Abbey,Tom's comment had been pithy and to the point.
"Jaysus! Yous might have been killed, yous feckin eejit!"
All conversation round the dining table had ceased immediately.
There followed a moment's pause of absolute silence; this was ended by the aristocratic voice of none other than the Dowager Countess herself.
"And what, pray, is a feckin eejit?" asked Violet drily.
Tom flushed red, the earl of Grantham's mouth gaped and a shocked Carson found himself pouring wine into a non existent decanter.
"Carson, are you all right?" asked Robert turning in his chair.
"Forgive me, my Lord. I have been singularly inattentive". The elderly butler scowled at Tom and began mopping up the wine spilled over the top of the mahogany buffet. Sybil thankfully now came to her embarrassed husband's assistance.
"An Irish term of endearment, Grandmamma," she said quietly.
"Oh, is that what it is? Really?" observed Violet coolly, managing at the same time to sound thoroughly unconvinced.
"When Edith mentioned in one of her letters about learning how to fly… apparently, out in Egypt, she met up with some Austrian chap who flew during the war, Matthew said he wouldn't mind doing the same. Mama said Papa nearly had a fit. I think he had visions of the two of them taking it in turns wing walking and looping the loop together somewhere in the skies over Downton during the Statute Fair! God knows what Granny would have to say about such a thing!" Sybil laughed and then, in a perfect emulation of her grandmother's querulous voice, added: "The family, must never be a topic of conversation".
Tom chuckled, the sound of his laughter all but drowned out by the rushing noise of the wind.
"Why, ever since Matthew and Mary stayed with the Roystons down at Godalming last autumn when Matthew had a chance to pay a visit to that blasted racing circuit out at Brooklands where he met up with Count Zborowski, Mary says he's been even worse. Apparently, Matthew's said something about asking the count to stay at Downton later this year. From what she said in her last letter, I know Mary isn't at all pleased".
"Zborowski? I wouldn't mind meeting him myself!" yelled Tom. "Great chap from all accounts. Knows life! When's he coming up to Downton?"
"Mary didn't say. I suspect never; not if she has anything to do with it! And, for God's sake, don't tell Matthew anything about your motorbike otherwise he'll be wanting one of those as well!"
"Too late, darlin'! I've already told him!"
"Oh Tom! What on earth for?"
Sybil shook her head in disbelief. Honestly, men!
Tom laughed again and blared hard on the horn as in a flurry of flapping wings a frightened pheasant took flight and soared over the hedge to safety in a field beyond the winding road.
A few miles further on and at last they now reached the point where the drive that had once led up to Skerries House turned off the road. Here, glancing at Sybil for reassurance, Tom slowed the motor almost to a crawl and having passed between the two weathered stone gate piers that marked the beginning of the drive, turned cautiously onto what was little more than a narrow, grass-grown, muddy track.
The Tourer edged slowly forward, the tangle of undergrowth brushing against both sides of the motor, the branches of the trees hanging low; much as they had done a lifetime ago, or so it seemed now, when, on a long gone summer's afternoon Maeve had driven her pony and trap along the drive after meeting them both from off the train at Skerries Road in the aftermath of the ambush.
The motor moved on at a snail's pace beneath the overarching trees until what seemed but a comparatively short while later, suddenly, they found themselves out of encroaching, silent woods and drawing to a stop in the sunshine on a wide grass grown stretch of rutted gravel.
For Tom, the very last time he had seen Skerries House had been on that chill, cold Saturday morning of 11th December 1920, when he had ridden away on his motorcycle bound for Cork. As for Sybil, the last view had been on a pitch black, starless January night and from the rear seat of the motor driven by Matthew; the whole house by then an inferno of soaring flame.
Having helped Sybil and the children out of the motor, Tom now turned to stand in quiet disbelief gazing at the scene of desolation before them, to where the gaunt, blackened, roofless ruins of the great house reared silent and sinister. At the top of the front steps, devoid of its doors, the main entrance led nowhere; lacking both frames and glazing, smoke stained window casements marched mutely across the blackened stonework of the front façade and looked sightlessly down upon the living.
Since the night of the fire, the wheeling years had run their round, the seasons had come and gone but even now the acrid smell and stench of burning still pervaded the ruins. Indeed, the passage of the intervening three years had done little to mask the horror of what had happened here. In the all pervading silence, the constant scream of the sea-birds nesting on the cliffs and the roar of the waves breaking on the shore below the house were clearly audible.
Then from somewhere, apparently in the vicinity of the old gardener's cottage, a door banged shut and heavy footsteps crunched on gravel.
Author's Note:
Built originally to house French prisoners captured during the Napoleonic Wars and still in use today, Dartmoor Prison is probably the best known of all English prisons. Eamonn de Valera was imprisoned here in 1916 in the aftermath of the Easter Rising.
"That little tent of blue..." comes from "The Ballad Of Reading Gaol" by Oscar Wilde.
Dating from the early 1920s, the Cubitt 16/20 Tourer was an English motor car designed and built by the short-lived (1920-25) Cubitt Company based at Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. The 16/20 was a family car and considered good value for money.
That part of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 which provided for the retention of the monarchy caused much resentment in the newly established Irish Free State. In particular, the Oath of Allegiance to the Crown, required to be taken by those elected to the Lower House of the Irish Parliament and by Senators to the Irish Senate, became a key issue in the Irish Civil War of 1922-23.
For Mrs. O'Keefe, see Chapter 121 of "Home Is Where The Heart Is".
Opened in 1897, the red brick Metropole Hotel in Cork still stands on Mac Curtain Street. Edward VII is reputed to have taken tea here in 1903.
Raheny is a suburb on the north side of Dublin.
Built in the 1840s, with spectacular sea views, Idrone Terrace, Blackrock still exists.
For Tom's adopted family in Clontarf, see both "Home Is Where The Heart Is" and "The Rome Express". See Chapter 101 of the former, entitled "O'Brien's Revenge", in which Sybil teaches young Ruari how to dance.
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) was an Anglo-French writer. Published in 1907, his "Cautionary Tales For Children" are hilarious.
Renowned for the creation of his fictional priest-detective Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer. "The Rolling English Road" is probably the best known of all his poems.
Opened in 1907 and measuring 2.75 miles in extent, Brooklands, built near Weybridge in Surrey, was the world's first purpose-built racing circuit.
Count Louis Vorow Zborowski (1895-1924) was an English racing driver and motor car designer. One of his racing cars was called "Chitty Bang Bang" which later inspired the book, film and stage musical Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. Sadly, he was killed in a crash at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in October 1924, so Mary may be worrying unnecessarily about him paying a visit to Downton.