Chapter Ten
"A Right Bloody Mess"
A short while later, and Tom and Bobby had rejoined Matthew along with the other children on the platform outside the salle d'attente. On seeing his brother-in-law walking towards him, Matthew smiled, winked, and then nodded his head emphatically towards the door of the waiting room.
"Diplomatic secrets! The League of the Crawleys is still in plenary session! Why, it's worse than the three weird sisters meeting on the heath in Macbeth. But don't ever tell Mary I said so!" Matthew chuckled.
"My silence is easily bought. Shall we say a few games of billiards ...!" laughed Tom.
"Da! Da! Can we go and see the engine now, please?" begged Danny.
"Please father, may we?" asked Robert standing eager and expectantly by his cousin's side.
Tom glanced at Matthew, saw him smile, then nod his head slightly.
"All right boys!" agreed Tom with a laugh.
Leaving Bobby under the watchful eye of Saiorse, who had decided that she most definitely did not want to join her elder brother and her cousin in looking at the engine, and with nanny left in charge of both Simon and Rebecca, accompanied by their fathers, but to be truthful only in the loosest sense of the word, Danny and Robert now set off down the long platform. The two boys zigzagged on ahead, weaving an exuberant, high spirited passage through the mêlée of passengers waiting to board the train and towards where, at the far end of the station building, at the head of the carriages, a tall, dark column of smoke could be seen pillaring into the clear azure blue of the afternoon sky.
While the two young boys continued to race pell-mell ahead of them, the two men strolled along at a far more leisurely pace, Tom taking the opportunity thus presented to explain to Matthew what he thought he had overheard when he was in the public toilet with Bobby.
"... although, mind you, I dare say, I suppose I could have been mistaken".
"Well, either way Tom, I don't see there's very much we can do about it, at least not now anyway. After all, you can't be certain that the chap who nearly fell over the two of you was one of those you believe you overheard. And if they don't even then board the train..."
Matthew shrugged dismissively.
"I suppose you're right".
"Well, even if I'm not, they haven't, as far as I am aware, committed any crime, so all we can do is see what, if anything, transpires. And even if you are right, given what I had to say in the speech I gave in Geneva at the League of Nations, they could just as easily be interested in me rather than Edith and her young boy. By the way, I was very much impressed back in there, with, how shall I term it, your appreciation of the European situation".
Tom grinned broadly.
"Why, thanks Matthew!"
"It's a right bloody mess, Tom. And I very much fear it's going to get a whole lot worse, mark my words. Much worse indeed, with a significant and probably violent lurch to the Right, in Austria, and elsewhere too. Edith and her chap von Schönborn are right to be worried".
"It's the way things went in Italy, under Mussolini, back in '25 and, sadly, Matthew, I doubt it will be any different either in Austria or for that matter in Germany. There are rumours that she's starting to re-arm, but then, I expect you know that already. And, the situation in Hungary under Horthy is just as bad, ridiculous even: a rump of a country, now landlocked, ruled over by a former admiral. I ask you!"
Matthew nodded, smiled gently at his friend. Even now, all these years later, it still amazed him how it was that his late father-in-law, God rest his soul, hadn't been able to see the great worth in his Irish son-in-law right from the very start of Tom's relationship with Sybil. Matthew could only assume that Robert Crawley simply hadn't wanted to do so; that at the time, in 1919, back before the Flood, the old social distinctions had blinded the late earl of Grantham to the qualities which Tom Branson undoubtedly possessed.
"As for here..." Tom now spread his hands expressively, looked about him, and shook his head in seeming disbelief'
"You mean France..." began Matthew.
"Indeed I do! France is an absolute mess, what with all the financial scandals and political instability. And, and as for the tin pot monarchies in the Balkans..." Tom shrugged in disgust.
Matthew nodded again.
"And to be perfectly frank, Matthew, I don't see the republic in Spain lasting either". He shook his head vigorously as if in negative confirmation of everything he had just said.
Evidently very much impressed, Matthew nodded his own agreement yet again. He knew from their discussions at Downton, that Tom was very well informed on a whole host of matters: his job demanded that he be. But, it wasn't just that. Tom Branson was widely read too, with, art, history, literature, and politics being just some of his many and varied interests.
Of course, Mary and Sybil knew that when the Bransons came over to Downton, which they did infrequently, then Tom and Matthew discussed all kinds of things after dinner during their seemingly interminable matches of billiards. Both of the men explained away their lengthy discussions to their wives by saying they always had such a great deal to catch up, which in part was true. But also, both had come to enjoy each other's company enormously.
"That, my dear chap, if I may say so, was a very succinct assessment of the political situation here in Europe. I'm very, very much impressed. You, my friend, should seriously think about going into politics!"
"That's what Sybil tells me. What she I keeps on telling him me! That's what many of our friends in Dublin, in Ireland, say as well! Tom grinned.
"And? Don't you fancy the idea?"
Tom laughed a hollow laugh.
"Thank you for that vote of confidence, but I think not. No offence Matthew, while there may be honour amongst thieves, there's none whatsoever in politicians!"
Ruefully, Matthew nodded his assent.
"They get on well together, those two, don't they?" Matthew nodded his head approvingly in the direction of their two rapidly disappearing sons.
"Rather like us then!" Tom smiled contentedly at his friend.
"Indeed! You know, Tom, I was just thinking..." Matthew grinned.
"About what?"
Matthew nodded his head emphatically back in the direction of the station waiting room where presumably Mary, Sybil, Edith and Max were still seated listening to whatever else it was that Edith had to impart to her two sisters.
"So, what do you think?" Matthew paused, and then laughed.
"Well, I have to say that in the particular circumstances, that was very diplomatic of you, Matthew, to suggest that we... take the boys down to see the engine", chuckled Tom.
"And, given the particular circumstances, I thought... er... that the Crawley girls might want to be on their own. In any event those two", Matthew nodded again this time in the direction of both Danny and Robert running down the platform in front of them, "are at the age where they might start asking awkward, even embarrassing questions. So, it seemed like a good idea to keep them out of the way... at least until the dust has settled! Mind you, I somehow suspect it will be a while before Mary recovers from the shock of it all! In fact, I also suspect that, metaphorically speaking, she's presently in orbit somewhere around Neptune!"
Tom laughed.
"I don't suppose Sybil is that far behind her either, although knowing her as I do I think she'll take a rather more pragmatic approach to the situation than Mary. Mind you, it's not often that Mary's rendered speechless!"
"Although she often says she is, when in fact she's quite the reverse!" quipped Matthew.
Tom chuckled, and then nodded his head.
"Sybil's pretty much the same. But as for that..." he jabbed his thumb in the direction from whence they had just come, "well, if you don't mind me saying so, it was worth hearing the news, just to see the look on both their faces! But who'd have thought it, eh?"
Matthew shot his friend an amused glance.
"God knows what our esteemed late father-in-law would have said!"
Tom nodded.
"Let alone the late Dowager Countess. Do you think Cora has any idea about it at all?"
"I very much doubt it" said Matthew. "As you know, she left Downton for Southampton two days before we all caught the train up to London. If she did know, she didn't let on and kept very quiet about it. And that, my dear friend, as well you know, isn't really Cora's style. Anyway she's now somewhere in the mid Atlantic on board the Majestic and can't be contacted".
"You could always send her a telegram!" Tom nudged his friend affectionately in the ribs.
"Somehow, Tom, I really don't think that would be a very good idea, do you?" Matthew shot the Irishman another amused look.
"No, I think you're probably right" reflected Tom.
"In any case, Cora's mother isn't very well, she's been ailing for some time now, so I think it's for the best... Now, where have the boys got to?"
"There they are" said Tom directly and pointing in the direction of two indistinct shapes faintly visible through the steamy murk ahead of them, and now standing by the side of the locomotive.
As the two men walked slowly towards their two young sons, Matthew suddenly stopped, stood still. Tom did likewise.
"What..." began Tom, but his friend forestalled him.
"You know I'm sure I've heard of Friedrich von Schönborn before; during the war that is. While I was over in France, I got chatting to a couple of our lads with the Royal Flying Corps. They'd had the misfortune to come up against von Richtofen and his pals, but, now I come to think of it I seem to remember them mentioning an Austrian air ace, over on the Eastern Front. I'm almost certain the name they mentioned was von Schönborn. Apparently, he'd even been decorated by the Emperor Karl himself no less".
They resumed walking.
"The one who died in exile, on Madeira? The emperor, I mean?"
"The very same. I suppose it could be the same von Schönborn" said Matthew thoughtfully.
Tom nodded.
"Perhaps, and if you say so, but don't look to me for confirmation of the fact, Matthew. My own war service was decidedly undistinguished, as well you know!"
"Apart from your meticulously planned attack with the contents of a silver soup tureen!" chuckled Matthew.
"Well, yes, apart from that! And I don't know about the meticulous planning. After all, it ended in abject failure. Just as well I suppose! Mind you, Danny was all ears when Sybil told him about it, a few months ago, wanted to know what it was I'd put in the pot!"
"Did you tell him?" Matthew chuckled.
Tom grinned.
"Certainly not! I didn't want to give him the wrong kind of ideas!"
Author's Note:
Mussolini had been in power in Italy since 1922, establishing a Fascist dictatorship in that country in 1925.
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (1868-1957) was a former admiral in the Austro-Hungarian navy and served as Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1920 until 1944.
Spain had become a republic, and for the second time, in 1931.
RMS Majestic, launched in Germany in 1914 as the Bismarck, was a beautiful transatlantic liner, which after the end of the Great War was acquired by the White Star Line, and her name changed.
Until April 1918, when it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to form the Royal Air Force, the Royal Flying Corps was the air arm of the British Army.
Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (1892-1918) a German fighter ace of the Great War, known better as "The Red Baron".
Emperor Karl I (1887-1922) last emperor of Austria-Hungary (1916-18) and as Charles IV last king of Hungary (1916-18) has been described as "the only decent man to come out of the [Great War] in a leadership position [who] sincerely wanted peace ... [but] no-one listened to him". After his second failed attempt to regain the throne of Hungary (in 1921) the Allies exiled Karl, his wife Zita, and their seven young children to Madeira, where, sadly, the former emperor died of pneumonia in 1922, at the early age of thirty four.
Beatified by Pope John Paul II in October 2004, it is likely that the last emperor of Austria-Hungary will soon be declared a saint.