Chapter Twenty Nine
"Crawley of Mesopotamia"
Tom's highly amusing retelling of the exploits of both Danny and Robert at Downton, from the summer before last, reduced all of them to tears of laughter. Afterwards, during dessert, as they had done through out dinner, they continued chatting happily about what they would do when they finally reached Florence, about their children, and, given both the continuing Depression and the worsening political situation here in Europe, their hopes and fears about what the future might hold in store for all of them. Thereafter, one of the matters under general discussion, became somewhat more personal, at least for Tom.
"... and I can assure you all, that if ever darling Tom starts flagging in that regard, then it really will be the time for me to call in the undertaker, or else perhaps take a younger lover, just like Ethel Thompson!" Sybil laughed out loud, while Tom flushed to the very roots of his hair.
"Sybil!" growled Tom good-naturedly.
"And we all know what happened to Ethel Thompson!" observed Matthew wryly.
"Indeed we do! So you'd better be watching your step darlin'!"
"Hardly an appropriate subject for the dinner table, darling" said Mary.
"No, I suppose not" opined Matthew, looking suitably abashed by his wife's comment.
Still blushing furiously, Tom grinned broadly at Sybil.
"Tom, darling, for Heaven's sake! Don't be so bashful. We've been married thirteen years, have three delightful children, so I would say that rather speaks for itself, don't you think? Unless of course, you're going to tell me that I found them all under the nearest gooseberry bush! So, for the record, that side of things, ladies and gentleman, has always been very satisfactory".
"Only satisfactory? Oh but surely, old chap, from what you told me, I thought your prowess was only surpassed by Valentino!" quipped Matthew entering into the playful ribaldry at his brother-in-law and best friend's expense and with a sly wink at Tom while Mary and Edith both giggled.
"Thanks, Matthew, thanks a lot!" Tom glowered miserably at Matthew, assumed a feigned air of disinterest, turned and glanced out of the window into the blackness of the night, to find, unsurprisingly, there was nothing to see except, staring back at him, their own, five, slightly distorted reflections.
"Well, to be fair to Tom, rather more than satisfactory!" giggled Sybil.
How times had changed thought Tom. He could hardly imagine having had this kind of conversation round the dining table at Downton in the days of his late father-in-law, but, now, caught in the act of sipping the last of his dessert wine, at Sybil's open affirmation of his sexual prowess, Tom now all but choked, spluttered noisily, set down his glass, again flushed scarlet to the roots of his hair and fiddled, seemingly absent-mindedly, with one of his monogrammed gold cuff links which had been a present from Sybil back in 1929 to mark his promotion to Deputy Editor of the Irish Independent. Sensing Tom's discomfiture, Sybil kissed him lightly and playfully on the cheek. For all his seeming bravado and nonchalance, at times, Tom could be both decidedly bashful and shy, delightfully so.
"Thank you for the compliment darlin'!" He ducked his head endearingly.
"Well you haven't shown any signs of flagging yet, so I suppose you'll do, at least for the present!" whispered Sybil.
"I'm very pleased to hear it milady – on both counts!" Tom chuckled.
"Mind you, perhaps I've just been stringing you along darling. Maybe I've been having a torrid affair with Dr. Mulrooney at the Rotunda!"
"Sybil, you little minx!" hissed Tom. "However, if you have taken a lover then I'd much prefer it was Dr. Mulrooney than any other doctor at the Rotunda".
"And just why is that?" asked Edith from the other side of the table.
"Because from what I've heard, he's like Thomas Barrow. That is to say, definitely not a ladies' man" explained Tom quietly.
"Oh!" Edith blushed.
"Well, even if that is true, he's a very fine doctor all the same" observed Sybil.
At the sudden and unexpected mention of the butler of Downton, Matthew and Mary had exchanged meaningful glances, neither of which went un-noticed by Tom.
"And?" he asked with the raise of a quizzical eyebrow.
"And what?" asked Matthew.
"Thomas Barrow" said Tom pointedly.
"Well..." began Mary nervously, placing a cigarette into the end of an ebony holder. She paused, waited until the young steward, Jules, had finished serving them their coffee, before letting Matthew take up the tale of the errant Mr. Barrow.
"You know of course that he takes himself off each year to the fleshpots of Berlin?" asked Matthew.
Tom nodded.
"So I've heard tell". Tom curled his upper lip in disgust.
"Why Berlin so particularly?" asked Sybil.
"Apparently there are numerous bars and clubs which provide for men of his... er... particular disposition" explained Matthew hesitantly.
"Not for much longer, if the National Socialists seize power" observed Edith pithily.
"Do you really think they will?" asked Tom.
Edith nodded her head.
"Friedrich thinks so. And I tend to agree with him. I expect you know this already Matthew, but the Nazis are now the largest party in the Reichstag and just like Dolfuss in Austria none too fussy about the methods they use in pursuit of their aims. They hate homosexuals, just as much as they hate the Jews, their political opponents, in fact anyone who doesn't conform to their view of society. And the sad thing is, is that the Germans are turning to them in their droves simply because of the promises Herr Hitler has been making about restoring German greatness, overturning the Treaty of Versailles..."
"Quite so". Matthew interjected, clearly as impressed by Edith's acute understanding of what had been happening in Germany in the last few years as he had been by Tom's acute assessment of the political situation in Europe which he had voiced to the earl of Grantham on the platform back in Calais.
"But you were saying, ... about Mr. Barrow?" asked Sybil.
Matthew smiled.
"Yes, indeed. Well, last year, when he returned from Berlin at the end of the summer last year, Mr. Barrow was sporting a truly spectacular black eye. When I asked him about it, he said that he'd walked into the proverbial lamp-post, which of course may well be true, but knowing his... er... tastes in certain matters, maybe that wasn't quite the whole story".
Mary grimaced.
"If it wasn't for the fact that he is such an excellent butler, then I would have insisted that we let him go a very long time ago. Of course, he's not a patch on Carson, but then no-one could ever replace him, at least, not as far as I'm concerned".
"And just how are Mr. and Mrs. Carson?" asked Sybil sipping her coffee.
"Oh, they're still running their guest house over on the coast, at Whitby and doing very well by all accounts. I write to them from time to time, birthday good wishes and the like" said Mary. "Mind you, when he retired, we half expected Carson and Mrs. Hughes... But as it turned out he'd always retained a certain affection for the lady who is now his wife".
"What was her name again, before she married Carson?" asked Sybil.
"A Mrs. Elspeth Macdonald, although as with Mrs. Hughes, Matthew and I suspect her title was brevet rank".
"And how exactly was it they met?" asked Edith
"Well, apparently, she and Mr. Carson had known each other for years, and had corresponded regularly. Anyway, she was housekeeper to the Taggarts and when it became obvious that Allenbank was to be sold and that she would be left without a position, with Mr. Carson himself having decided to retire, he took himself off up there to Callander and proposed. She accepted him on the spot and the rest you know" finished Mary.
During dinner, and as Sybil could not and did not fail to notice, at Tom's especial prompting, Edith told them more about her time spent out in Iraq, the "Cradle of Civilisation" as she termed it, the excavations in which she had been involved, especially at the site of Nineveh and her work with the late Gertrude Bell helping to set up the Baghdad Antiquities Museum. She spoke of the steamers on the Tigris, the bridge of boats across the river, the piles of washed wool and mud bricks laid out along its banks to dry in the sun, of the hustle and bustle on Al-Rasheed Street, of the Zawraa Cinema, of the groves of date palms, and of the evening call to prayer as the sun set over the domes and minarets of the city.
"And then there are the bazaars. They are truly wonderful, with their hundreds and hundreds of sellers but seemingly no buyers. There are all kinds of trades being carried on, cobblers, tailors, jewellers and coffee grinders to name but a few, and then there are others working in the doorways and in the open fronts of the shops".
"There, what did I tell you? Crawley of Mesopotamia!" Tom laughed.
"Perhaps!" Edith smiled at her brother-in-law.
"By the way, what you were saying earlier to the boys, did you really climb all the way up to the top of that pyramid? They were very, very much impressed". His eyes sparkling, Tom grinned, and then began his second helping of dessert, obligingly ordered for him by Edith who smiled happily at him as she watched him tuck in. Darling Tom! He had always had such a sweet tooth.
"Why, of course we did, Tom. Yes, I did happen to notice just how impressed they all were!" Edith laughed.
"Bravo!" exclaimed Tom. "I'm very much impressed. Well done! Of course, I wouldn't have expected anything less of you". Sybil watched as Tom grinned broadly at Edith who in turn smiled at him, flushed with pleasure at Tom's fulsome, open praise.
"Very much impressed about what, darling?" asked Mary who had been engrossed saying something to Matthew and so had missed Tom's question.
"Before supper, Edith was telling the boys about how she had climbed all the way up to the top of the Great Pyramid at... Where was it again, Edith?"
"Giza. It's about ten miles from Cairo, out in the desert. Did you know, there's an avenue of acacia trees that stretches for over six miles, all the way from Cairo to the pyramids. The Sphinx is there too".
"Ah, yes, the enigmatic Sphinx" observed Matthew dryly.
"We?" asked Mary who was far more interested in who it was had accompanied Edith to the top of the pyramid than in whatever it was Matthew had just mentioned.
Edith's eyes narrowed perceptibly at Mary's deliberate emphasis.
"Yes, that's what I said Mary. We... Friedrich and myself".
"Oh, Friedrich".
"Yes Friedrich. Why, who else did you think I meant?"
Mary shook her head dismissively and for her part, Edith chose, wisely, to let the matter rest.
"Mind you, it was a very, very long haul right up to the top. Of course, we were both exhausted when we reached it, but the views from the top were absolutely marvellous. We watched the sunset and a party of Bedouin tribesmen riding out into the desert".
"It sounds absolutely marvellous" said Matthew.
"Darling Tom wouldn't have liked it at all" said Sybil peremptorily.
"Why ever not?" asked Edith.
"He suffers from vertigo, or so he told me" said Sybil stony faced.
"Vertigo? Well there's a surprise. As I recall it you were perfectly fine when we took the boys up Downton church tower at the back-end of last summer" observed Matthew.
"It was a surprise to me too. In fact it still is. After all, Tom was perfectly all right when we went walking in the Wicklow mountains after we returned to Ireland. However, he tells me it's geographic" said Sybil flatly.
"What is?"
"His vertigo".
"Geographic vertigo? Why, I've never heard of that before" laughed Matthew.
"That's because it doesn't exist!"
Tom raised his eyes to the ceiling, shook his head in mock disbelief.
"Mind you, I think, on balance, for all its delights, I rather preferred Luxor to Cairo. When you're there, why, it's like being in another world. It took us a devil of a while to get there. Of course, I hadn't learned to fly then" continued Edith.
"Of course" said Mary evenly. She lit another cigarette.
"We had to catch the train southwards from Cairo at half-past six in the evening and reach Luxor at half-past eight the following morning. And trains in Egypt… well, they're rather rudimentary. Nothing at all like this!" Edith glanced slowly around the carriage at their present luxurious surroundings.
"Some of the trains in Ireland are rather… primitive too". Tom turned to Sybil.
"Yes, I am still here. I thought you'd forgotten all about me" she observed pithily. Tom grinned good-naturedly.
"To be sure! Darlin' do you remember when we went by train to Clifden, not long after we were married?"
Sybil nodded. She smiled. Tom knew just how to restore her good humour. After all, how could she, how could he, ever forget that return journey from Clifden to Galway? Even now, the recollection it evoked caused colour to flame across her face.
Matthew grinned.
"Pleasant memories?"
"Very!" Sybil nodded, smiled a knowing smile at Matthew who chuckled. Knowing Tom and Sybil, he had a reasonably shrewd idea just what those pleasant memories might well encompass.
Sybil squeezed Tom's thigh playfully beneath the table. Primitive or not, that had not stopped either of them from making love in that cramped, musty carriage on the return train to Galway. In fact, if she remembered it correctly, it was she who had initiated the proceedings on that damp, misty afternoon and it was on that self-same journey too that she had told Tom she was expecting their first child; she, smiled again recalling how excited Tom had been; now saw him grin, and then, unable to help himself, also flush at the fond remembrance the memory evoked.
"Why Tom, darling, you've gone rather red. Are you sure you're all right?" asked Sybil archly.
"Probably too much mustard on the roast beef old chap" suggested Matthew and with a low chuckle. Tom glared at Matthew, who merely grinned broadly and raised his glass in mock salutation.
"And what makes… where was it again, Edith?"
"Luxor".
"What makes Luxor so fascinating? More of your broken pots I assume?" Mary raised an expressive eyebrow, continued toying with the spoon in the saucer of her coffee cup.
"Oh, it's much more than that, Mary. It's the site of ancient Thebes - you know, the temples, the avenue of sphinxes".
Mary looked blankly at Edith, while smoke from her cigarette spiralled languidly into the air.
"No, I don't" she said. Despite the ancient lineage of her own family, history had never been Mary's strong point.
"No matter. We stayed there when we were excavating at Thebes, at the Winter Palace Hotel. That of course made something of a change to our customary tents, but then it was really for the best. You see there was an outbreak of sickness among the workers at the excavations and I'd only just learned I was … well you know". Edith flushed, smiled shyly at Tom, while, unnoticed Sybil observed their continuing exchanges over the rim of her coffee cup.
"While he was excavating, Howard Carter posted his announcements about his discoveries in the Valley of the Kings on the notice board of the Winter Palace?"
"Really?" Sybil smiled sweetly at Edith, feigning an interest she did not have.
"Yes indeed. After the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen, the press and a lot of foreign visitors stayed there too".
Tom nodded his head, continued, thought Sybil, to be hanging on Edith's every word.
"What you were saying, Matthew, about the pyramids? Yes, it was rather marvellous. However, going inside the pyramid, well, that was rather more daunting, a lot of the time spent crawling on your hands and knees. There are lots of very narrow ledges and passages, before you finally reach the very centre of it".
"Not for me, I fear. I suffer from claustrophobia" said Matthew.
"Really?" asked Tom , cocking an eyebrow.
"Yes, really. Unlike your vertigo!" said Matthew emphatically.
"And you know, Cairo is absolutely wonderful too. The colours there are so vibrant. Even if you've been to Damascus..."
"Which of course, unlike the rest of us, you have" said Mary setting down her coffee cup.
Edith nodded, ignored the obvious sarcasm.
"The glow from the city when you are up on the Citadel, all those domes and minarets, far more than ever there are in Baghdad, all sparkling in the sunlight... And at sunset, when the sun goes down, it's incredible to think that some of what you see before you has been there for thousands of years. And somewhere down below there are orange and lemon groves. Sometimes you even see wild hawks fly past you and along with all the motor traffic, there are camels, buffaloes and cows in the streets".
"Buffaloes and cows? In the streets of a city?" asked Mary. She sounded horrified.
Again Edith nodded her head.
"They use them to pull their carts and ploughs and there are fields quite close to the edges of Cairo" she added by way of explanation.
Mary shook her head in utter disbelief.
"Well I never".
"Then of course there are the goats and the sheep".
"Why it sounds just like Downton on market day!" laughed Matthew.
"Except of course, we don't have buffaloes and camels in Downton" said Mary flatly.
"You don't?" asked Tom. He sounded incredulous.
"No, we don't. They aren't..." began Mary, saw too late the corners of Tom's mouth twitch, realised he was acting the fool.
At that, Mary smiled fondly across at him, reflecting that years ago, in Dublin, back in 1919, on the grand staircase of the Shelbourne Hotel, when having rescued Tom from the decidedly unpleasant attention of constables of the local police, she had told him then that she would enjoy having him as her brother-in-law. And, all in all, she had been proved right; in fact, decidedly so. Mary had come to love and respect her Irish brother-in-law enormously, fully appreciating the worth in him. Of course, it had been exceedingly gratifying to learn that Tom was not a peasant, was in fact a scion of Irish gentry stock. This apart, darling Tom had proved to be exactly what Sybil had always said he was: gentle, kind, dependable, honourable and trustworthy; deeply loving of Sybil, a loyal husband, a wonderful father to his own children, and a much-loved uncle to her own three. Just this evening, little Rebecca had said to her mother how she "loved Uncle Tom". All this apart, back in the '20s, Tom had proved himself of inestimable worth to Matthew in his continued battles with Papa over the modernisation of the Downton Abbey estate. Apart from being his best friend, Mary knew that like her, very quickly Matthew had come to realise Tom's true worth, to value his judgement, and loved him like brother. At that point, Edith's words broke into Mary's reverie.
"... and I'm sure the children would just love it all. I know Max did. We took him with us last year, when we sailed to Egypt. Again we stayed at the Winter Palace Hotel. Of course, it was very convenient for Friedrich, working at the German Archaeological Institute ,and with Max along, well, staying in camp was simply out of the question. And there are donkeys too. The white ones often wear blue necklaces. Out in Egypt they use donkeys to carry all manner of things, not just people".
"It's much the same out in the far west of Ireland, Edith. I remember Ma's sister telling me that they used them for taking produce to market, for taking milk to the creamery and for collecting turves from the peat bogs". Tom smiled.
"But no camels" said Mary woodenly, doing her best to keep a straight face.
"No, no camels!" Tom chuckled.
"And speaking of the people, the native women out there in Egypt and Iraq all hide their faces behind thick veils".
"Perhaps some of the Europeans should follow suit!" said Sybil tartly.
Edith laughed.
"I don't think I'd ever get used to that. I like to see a woman's face" said Tom.
"So I've noticed!" said Sybil. Again Tom took no notice, instead grinned broadly at Edith. Scraping his dessert dish, he licked his spoon and then his lips.
"Edith, this is absolutely scrummy! What did you say it was called again?"
"Do you want me to order you another helping?"
"Well, if you don't mind..."
Beside him Sybil shook her head in silent disbelief. Honestly!
Author's note:
The trial of Ethel Thompson and her much younger lover Freddie Bywaters, for the murder of Ethel's husband Percy, took place at the Old Bailey in London in December 1922. The case became something of a cause célèbre. Although there was no direct evidence linking Edith to either the planning of the murder or the deed itself, both she and Freddie Bywaters were convicted and hanged in January 1923.
Whether or not they were married, or ever had been, housekeepers in country houses were usually referred to as "Mrs.".
The Zawraa Cinema in Baghdad, which still exists today, was one of earliest to open in Iraq.
Opened in January 1907, the Winter Palace Hotel at Luxor, still stands. Overlooking the River Nile, it remains as luxurious as when it was first built.