Chapter Forty Four
A Terrace With A View Part I
Having bathed languidly in a vast echoing bathroom complete with marble columns, in a roll top bath the size of which he had never seen the like, set on lions' claws feet, and which would, he thought, have served for the Bacchanalian orgies of a Roman emperor, then shaved before an ornate mirror of similarly large proportions, after his ablutions were over, given all that had happened in the last twenty four hours, perhaps understandably so, Tom Branson had been in a more than usually contemplative mood.
The villa containing the bathroom - there were in fact four others, all equally luxurious - which had been lent to the Crawleys and their immediate family for the next few weeks belonged to the Ashingtons who, when they were back in England, resided at their place, Latimer Hall down in Norfolk. George Ashington, who had been at school with Matthew, was at the British Embassy in Rome although in exactly what precise capacity it was he was serving there remained unclear.
In fact, to be scrupulously truthful, the villa was actually the property of George's elderly parents, Sir Anthony and Lady Cecilia Ashington who spent most of their time in Eaton Square up in London. However, with George and his wife Louisa both availing themselves of the convivial hospitality offered to them by the Honourable Sir Patrick Ramsay KCMG Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Hellenic Republic in distant Athens, this summer the Villa San Callisto, lying close to Fiesole in the hills overlooking Florence to the north east, had been placed, gratis, at the disposal of the Crawleys.
Now smartly dressed in his dinner jacket, black trousers, white bow tie and tuxedo, by anyone who cared to look for him, for the last half hour or so Tom Branson would have been found sitting quietly on his own on a marble bench on the lower terrace of the villa. Here, up in the hills above the city, the evening air was still warm; heavy with the scent of orange blossom, honeysuckle and jacaranda. Glancing about him at his immediate surroundings, he smiled wryly; the villa certainly lived up to its name. From the Greek kallistos meaning the "most beautiful", set in its own immaculately maintained terraced gardens, midst tall, dark cypresses pines, a riot of aromatic, colourful, highly scented flowers, surrounded by olive groves and vineyards, the magnificent property nestled in a natural cleft in the Fiesole Hills.
Perhaps equally understandably, with all their troubles now firmly behind them, Tom had been taking stock, reflecting especially on all that had come to pass during the last thirteen years, principally, although not exclusively, after all that would have been too self indulgent, on his own exceeding good fortune and that of those he cared about most deeply. More particularly about his marriage to Sybil whom he adored so utterly and completely, their three happy, healthy children whom he loved beyond measure and, God willing, with another expected early next year, and with both Sybil and he in positions at which they both excelled, while his own adopted family back in Ireland, Ciaran, Aislin, Ruari, Padraig and all the rest continued to prosper.
On the other side of the Irish Sea, over in England, the previous year, on becoming earl of Grantham, Matthew, his much loved brother-in-law and best friend, had finally taken over control of the Downton Abbey estate. After twelve unremitting years and more of hard work and investing all his money in what, at one time, had seemed to be a sinking ship destined to go down in as spectacular fashion as the Titanic, Matthew now firmly had the place by the tail. With Mary by his side, even if, as Tom knew only too well their relationship had temporarily hit rather a rocky patch on account of what, Matthew assured him, was some silly misunderstanding over a French countess living in Geneva, along with their three children, the immediate and foreseeable future of Downton looked to be well assured.
Then there was Edith of whom Tom was inordinately very fond. In the intervening years while Tom and Sybil had been raising a family pursuing their careers and Matthew and Mary had been doing likewise and setting Downton on the road to recovery, Edith had been carving out a successful career for herself as an archaeologist and now it transpired had what she had always wanted and Tom had always secretly wished for her. If not yet quite her husband, from what Edith had told Tom, Friedrich von Schönborn was someone who evidently cared passionately about her, who loved Edith as much as Tom loved Sybil, and by whom she had a child, young Max, to whom she was understandably devoted. It was the cruellest of ironies that the child she had so desperately wanted, to all appearances when born a normal, happy, healthy little boy should have been stricken with an incurable disease unwittingly passed on to him by his own mother.
And both Cora and Matthew's own mother Isobel continued to thrive, relishing their roles as grandmothers to an ever increasing brood of grandchildren. Quite what Cora would have to say about Max and the circumstances of his birth was anybody's guess but Tom had no doubt that she when eventually she learned of his existence as undoubtedly she must, she would rise to the occasion and welcome both the young boy and his aristocratic Austrian father with open arms.
True, down the years on the balance sheet of life there had, reflected Tom, been debits too; the death of the Dowager Countess, that of dear Ma, and most recently Robert were, he supposed, only to be expected in the scheme of things; part of life's rich tapestry if losing someone loved could be counted as such. But all three of them had lived full lives. The death of his own parents, while he had been just a child, lost in the wreck of the SS. Hilda off the French coast in November 1905, had been an entirely different matter. Neither of them had been old; their lives cut short well before time. Then, although it was now all a distant memory, there had been the cruelty and suffering he had endured as an orphan, principally at the hands of his vicious cousins, William and Christopher, down at Skerries House.
The remembrance of this set Tom thinking inexorably about Maeve; how she too had abused him; the incest committed by her with her brother Christopher and the child born of that illicit union. God, he hadn't thought of his cousin Maeve in years and now here was this odd business about whom Sybil had told him she had seen back there on the platform at Modane. Usually, she had an unfeigned good memory, both of people and of places and which had often served her well in her work at the Coombe. But this time, no. For sure, she must be mistaken. After all, it couldn't possibly have been Fergal she had seen. Someone who bore an uncanny resemblance to him maybe, but that was all. That had to be the sum of it for sure.
On the whole, therefore, life was exceedingly good.
So, there Tom sat, thinking on all of this while, at the same time, gazing down on the breath taking view now spread out before him.
Spanning both sides of the broad and presently deceptively placid waters of the River Arno, linked together by a latticework of bridges, among them the Ponte Vecchio lined on both sides by houses and shops and immediately downstream of it the Ponte Santa Trinità, which according to Edith was said by some to be the most beautiful bridge in the world, there in the valley, basking in the pale glow of the evening light, lay Florence.
Famed the world over for its beauty, its architecture and its art treasures, from Tom's lofty vantage point the city spread out below presented itself to him as an assortment of towers, a dazzling mixture of colours, of ochre, yellow and white painted buildings, of fine churches such as the Basilica di San Lorenzo and of ornate palaces among these the Pitti which had once been the ducal seat of the Medici, all nestling beneath a veritable jumble of red clay tile roofs, bisected by a maze, a warren of narrow streets like those to be found in the Oltrarno among them the Borgo di San Jacopo and the Via de' Bardi Lungarno, often, to the amazement of the unsuspecting traveller, suddenly opening out into wide squares such as the Piazza della Signoria and, dominating all, the huge bulk of the Duomo, the truly enormous Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Flore, the cathedral church of St. Mary of the Flowers.
Although it was much larger and much more magnificent, the terracotta coloured masonry dome of the Duomo reminded him instantly of the green copper dome of the Four Courts back in Dublin, this very year now restored to something of its previous glory after being all but destroyed some ten years since in 1922 at the outbreak of the Irish Civil War. This particular remembrance put him in mind now of Michael Collins with whom Tom had met down on Winetavern Street at the southern end of Richmond Bridge, beside the Liffey river, on the very morning the new Irish Army had commenced bombarding the Four Courts; thus beginning the civil war which had convulsed the Free State and in which barely two months later Collins himself had been killed, shot dead, when the military convoy in which he was then travelling had been ambushed down near Cork.
"Ah, Michael, what would you have made of all this, for sure?" he asked softly.
Tom's voice quivered with emotion and, at least for the moment, he fell silent reflecting on all the death and destruction that had ensued back in Ireland first in the Irish War of Independence and then thereafter during the Civil War to achieve, when all was said and done, in the end, but a limited independence from Great Britain for the twenty six counties which made up the Free State.
After all, for the time being at least, indeed for the foreseeable future, the two countries and their affairs remained inextricably linked and, however much the Free State might try and push its status as a British dominion, it was obvious to anyone with eyes to see that as such it played the subservient role; this despite the fact that in February of this very year on becoming President of the Executive Council de Valera had now abolished the Oath of Allegiance to the Crown, the Senate, university representation in the Dáil and appeals to the Privy Council. Yet despite all this, King George V remained Head of State, the six counties of Northern Ireland remained inextricably part of the United Kingdom, Great Britain still controlled the Treaty ports of Berehaven, Queenstown and Lough Swilly in the south, and even British coinage was still legal tender in the Free State.
So, had it all been worth it?
Tom was ready to concede that once he might have thought differently but now, silently, he shook his head. He had always detested and hated violence and as he had told Michael Collins back in Dublin on the very morning that the shelling of the Four Courts had begun, sometimes the price demanded for such a nebulous concept as "freedom" came at too higher cost in the terms of lives lost.
"I thought I might just find you here". Sybil's sweet voice broke into Tom's sad reverie.
He had not been expecting her; knowing full well that when he left the villa to walk down here to the lower terrace, despite all that he had said to her, despite all his heartfelt words of reassurance, that she had nothing to prove to anyone, least of all to Edith's fiancé, Friedrich von Schönborn whom they were all to meet for the very first time this evening, Sybil had remained completely unconvinced and for once was at pains to take especial care over her appearance.
She had also been uncharacteristically undecided too as to what she should wear; knowing full well that as countess of Grantham Mary was intent on doing her very best to dazzle and impress in order so as to outshine Edith. In this regard, Sybil was very aware that, for all her seeming bonhomie, which had been especially to the fore after the three boys had thankfully rejoined the Rome Express at Modane, Mary, had not forgotten that photograph, the one which Edith had produced yesterday for their mutual inspection on the train from Calais while they were en route to Paris.
This had shown Friedrich, Edith and young Max all seated together on the terrace at Rosenberg in the Austrian Alps and with Edith wearing a gown by Mayer and a magnificent set of diamonds: tiara, necklace and ear rings, given to her by Friedrich to celebrate the birth of their son. Compared to the brilliance of the jewels worn by Edith in the photograph, the tiara which the Dowager Countess of Grantham had left to her eldest granddaughter in her will, looked, thought Mary, positively cheap; akin, almost, to the theatrical prop worn by the actress playing the part of Lady Bracknell in the production of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Ernest" staged last autumn at the Theatre Royal by the Scarborough Amateur Dramatic Society, the success of which had been widely reported across Yorkshire in the local press.
As a result of all of which, earlier this evening, it was hardly surprising, he now conceded, that Sybil had been completely at sixes and sevens over what she should wear. Understandably, her wardrobe was in no way as extensive as that of her sisters. After all, back in Dublin, Tom and she attended few formal functions and those that they did such as lectures given by the various debating, literary and political societies to which they belonged were not the kind that demanded that their members wear full evening dress. Furthermore, following the death of Robert, with Matthew now earl of Grantham, dinner at Downton had become a much more relaxed affair both in terms of attire and sometimes even with the older children in attendance.
Nonetheless, he knew that Sybil liked fine clothes and Tom being Tom, despite his observation that there was no need to gild a lily, could deny her nothing. So, for this trip abroad, one Saturday morning, a month or so before they had all sailed from Dun Laoghaire for Holyhead and England on board the SS. Cambria, leaving the three children in the capable care of Ciaran and Aislin out at the farm on the Clontarf Castle Estate,Tom had driven Sybil back down into Dublin, taking her first to Arnotts on Henry Street and then round the corner to Clerys on O'Connell Street, telling her to buy whatever she needed for their forthcoming trip to Italy.
While Mary would have been decidedly sniffy about shopping for clothes in a departmental store, Sybil had no qualms whatsoever. Taking Tom at his word, by the time they walked out of Clerys onto O'Connell Street later that afternoon, with aching feet and a sorely depleted bank balance, Tom was loaded up with a variety of boxes, making him feel very much like he was once more a chauffeur. Indeed, as he remarked to Sybil, all that he was lacking was his livery. And, if Tom hadn't known the difference between crêpe de chine and tulle when they stepped inside Arnotts, then he most certainly did now, However, remembering how it was Sybil had proceeded to show her gratitude to him later that night, pulling off her nightgown as she rose above him in their bed, murmuring that one good deed deserves another, he smiled broadly; fell to wondering if it had been then that their fourth child had been conceived.
However, this evening, having promised her that he would return shortly, when Tom had walked down the main staircase of the villa and made his way down here to the lower terrace, despite having several evening gowns from which to choose, Sybil had still been undecided as to which one she would wear.
At the foot of the main staircase, on hearing happy, laughing, youthful voices, Tom had paused, looked up and smiled; saw Danny and Robert being chased by Simon and Bobby, the two younger boys bare foot and in their pyjamas, Danny waving in the air what looked suspiciously like Oscar, Simon's teddy bear, all running round the gallery, darting in and out of a series of different rooms. Little Rebecca had been put to bed long since by Nanny Bridges; though God knew how she was managing to sleep. As he watched the antics of the four exuberant boys, in an attempt to quell their rumbustious boisterousness, Tom now saw nanny, looking decidedly fraught, come bustling self importantly out of a bedroom onto the landing in hot pursuit of the errant boys.
"Master Daniel! Master Robert! Master Simon! Master Bobby! Just what on earth do you think you're all doing?"
But answer came there none.
Tom grinned.
Saiorse, he knew to be in with Edith and Max but, as for Matthew and Mary, for some time now they had both been conspicuous by their absence. He knew too that like he and Sybil, Matthew and Mary loved each other desperately and thought it a singular shame that either of them had let such a silly misunderstanding over the intentions of a third party cause them to doubt each other. Tom smiled and hoped that their absence upstairs boded well and that they had now sorted out their differences.
Now, at the delightful and unexpected sound of his wife's sweet voice, Tom turned his head, breaking into a broad smile as soon as he saw her. A vision of loveliness, almost ethereal in the evening light in her sleek, body skimming stylish Vionnet evening gown of pale blue embroidered silk net which served only to accentuate her softly swelling curves. Pregnancy suited her, Tom thought. Now, entranced, he watched her silently as Sybil moved fluidly, softly purposeful, weaving among the slender dark, pencil shaped cypresses pines, wending her way across the lawns with cat like deliberation, towards where he was now standing.
Author's Note:
At the time of the story, while the Ashingtons are fictitious, the Honourable Sir Patrick Ramsay KCMG (1879-1962) was indeed Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Hellenic Republic (Greece).
For Tom's own and adopted families in Ireland see both "Home Is Where The Heart Is" and "The Rome Express" and the former for the death of Tom's own parents.
For Tom, Michael Collins, and the destruction of The Four Courts, see "Reunion". The building did indeed reopen in 1932 but while externally it now looks much as it did before its destruction in 1922, sadly there was no money then or since to pay for the recreation of its once magnificent interior.
The changes made by de Valera to the constitution of the Irish Free State all took place in February 1932. By the 1930s, the relationship between Great Britain and the Free State was as described.
The Theatre Royal in Scarborough still exists.
Launched in 1920, by the time of the story, the SS. Cambria belonged to the London Midland and Scottish Railway and sailed continuously on the route between Holyhead and Dun Laoghaire. She was scrapped in 1949.
At the time of the story, Arnotts and Clerys were both famous department stores in Dublin. While Arnotts, albeit taken over by Selfridges earlier this year, continues in business, Clerys closed its doors for the last time in June 2015.
Madeleine Vionnet (1876-1975) was one of the leading French couturiers in Paris between the wars (1919-39) and known for her designs that accentuated the female form. Doubtless Tom would very much have approved!