A/N: So here we are, finally at the end of this story - I must express my thanks to everyone who has read it and left feedback of one form or another - its been great hearing what you think. The epilogue is rather self-indulgent, and probably not what people were imagining, but its something I've wanted to write for a long time. If you're interested, I will be writing more about their life in Manchester in my other story, Behind Closed Doors (shameless plug there !). Anyway - I hope you enjoy this !

Part two follows right on from Part one, so if you've not read it, please think about doing so - I posted the first part when the alerts weren't working - also this part has been rather longer in coming than I thought.

"Larry's doing what ?"

Sybil stared at her sister, horrified.

"He's standing as Oswald Moseley's candidate in the Poplar by election."

"Larry's mixed up with the Fascists ?"

"He's a bit more than "mixed up" with them. Moseley's even taken him over to Germany to visit Chancellor Hitler, apparently. He's one of their biggest financial donors," said Edith.

"Good God."

"His father must be spinning in his grave," said Cora. "He was such a decent man. I do feel for his poor mother, though. How awful."

"I can't believe it," said Sybil, still stunned by the news.

"I can," said her husband bluntly.

"Did you know ?" she asked.

"I knew he was sympathetic to Moseley, but I didn't know he was supporting them financially."

"Why didn't you tell me ?" she demanded.

Tom just shrugged. "It didn't seem important. We hadn't seen him since that benefit years ago when he got drunk."

"Oh yes," said Mary. "Where we had the jazz band from London."

A memory floated back unbidden into Sybil's mind, something she had not thought about for over ten years. She's been so disgusted with Larry that evening, she's not really paid much attention to his jibes at Jack's colour and Tom's Irishness. It had somehow seemed no more that she would have expected from Larry and she had dismissed it as him being his usual unpleasant self. But now in hindsight, it seemed more sinister.

Her recollections were interrupted by the door to the drawing room opening gingerly. Niamh appeared, followed by Aoife and the boys.

"We've just come to say goodnight," said Niamh as she walked over to drop a kiss on her father's cheek. The children bade goodnight to their various relatives, Peter being told by his father for the umpteenth time that no, he couldn't try a cigar.

"I don't know why you want to," said Aoife pulling a face, "smoking tastes disgusting."

"And exactly when have you been smoking ?" asked Sybil.

Aoife's mouth dropped open a little, realising that in her haste to crow at her cousin, she had forgotten that absolutely nothing got past her mother.

"She's tried cigarettes in the old garage at Downton," said George, ever eager to get his cousins into trouble with their parents.

"Only because you gave them to her," Niamh leapt to her sister's defence. "You encouraged her !"

"She didn't need any encouragement !"

"Wait a minute," said Mary, "George - have you been smoking in the garage ? How long has this been going on ?"

George shot his cousin a disgusted look and looked mutinously at his mother.

"Everyone does it at school nowadays. It's nothing."

"It most certainly is something," said Mary. "Your father will talk to you about it tomorrow morning." She looked pointedly at Matthew, who raised his eyes in resignation. Clearly, they had been here before.

"Oh, honestly Mama, I'm not a child anymore…."

"Go to bed, George."

"Papa !"

"Do as your mother says," Matthew echoed sternly, " and we will have a discussion about this tomorrow."

An uncomfortable silence settled on the room, broken only when Niamh announced they should go too and shepherded the younger children upstairs. No-one commented on George's behaviour, not wanting to add to the discomfort of his parents. It was not the first such scene they had witnessed.

"Niamh's turning into a real beauty," said Cora, changing the subject with a little forced cheeriness. "Are there any young men on the horizon ?"

Sybil rolled her eyes, thinking of the number of times she had found a stray teenaged boy drinking tea in her kitchen after offering to walk Niamh home from school.

"Goodness, there's a whole flock," she smiled, "and she isn't interested in any of them. She's far too caught up with getting into medical school. She did go to the pictures with one of them once. I thought Tom was going to have apoplexy when he found out."

"She didn't ask his permission ?"

At this, Sybil laughed out loud.

"Oh goodness, no. She informed us she was going ten minutes before he turned up on the doorstep. Tom was so taken aback all he could do was to insist she was back before nine o'clock."

Cora looked at her daughter with a mixture of shock and bewilderment. The idea that a young woman would not even bother defying her parents, but simply ignore them was beyond her comprehension, as was Sybil's finding it amusing.

"I don't see how you can find that funny, darling," she said. "What would people say if they knew she'd gone out unchaperoned ?"

Sybil shook her head.

"It doesn't really matter, Mama. She's not interested in making a good match, or getting married. She wants to be a doctor and that will take all her time and energy for the next five or six years."

"But surely she wants to get married at some point ?"

"I'm sure she does - but she will find her own husband. Someone who understands her," she said, unconsciously looking over at Tom, deep in discussion with Matthew.

Cora sighed.

"Things have changed so much since I was a girl," she said. "Sometimes I think I hardly recognise the world we live in."

"Would you want to go back to the way things were then ?" asked Edith.

"Oh, I don't think so," said Cora briskly. "Life is so much more exciting now, don't you think ? "

Before long the adults followed their children up the staircase to bed. Back in their room, Sybil noticed that the bedclothes had been turned down and her hasty efforts at remaking the bed had been straightened out by a more professional hand. She blushed a little, wondering what stories were currently circulating around the table in the servants' hall. She and Tom prepared for bed in a comfortable silence, weaving around each other as they undressed. She carefully hung up her dress and automatically retrieved his trousers and jacket from where he'd flung them whilst he pulled on his comfortable old white undershirt. Early in their marriage, her parents had presented him with a pair of silk pyjamas every Christmas, much to his embarrassment. He had considered them unmanly and flatly refused to wear them, so they accumulated year after year in the bottom drawer of their wardrobe. Eventually, Cora gave up. Sybil finally dug them out when she was pregnant with Michael and wore them herself, finding them a comfortable alternative to her voluminous maternity nightdress. She didn't want Tom to wear them - she loved the rough softness of the wool undershirt when she lay with her cheek on his chest. It was an extension of him; feeling silk under her skin would have felt wrong. It was not who her husband was.

As usual, he was in bed before she was, his glasses on and his nose is his book. But tonight she could tell without having to think about it that he wasn't reading. He hadn't turned a page in the five minutes it had taken her to brush her hair and put Pond's cold creme on her face. He looked up as she walked to her side of the bed, moving the bedclothes for her and putting his book on the bedside table. It was a sure sign he had something on his mind and wanted to talk to his wife.

"What were you and Matthew talking about ?' she asked, wondering if that was it.

"Oh, nothing much," he gave her a fleeting smile, "he was asking my opinion of what Dublin was likely to do in the trade talks. He's been in Westminster this week."

"Matthew's far more diligent than Papa ever was," she said, shuffling under the blankets, "he's got a better grasp of politics, anyway."

"I think he enjoys it. He's a still a lawyer at heart," he smiled.

"I suppose so," she said. She turned out her light and rolled over to face him. He hadn't moved.

"What is it, Tom ?"

He didn't even bother denying that something was troubling him.

"I ran into Teddy Considine the other day."

"From the Irish Times ?"

Tom nodded.

"He's over here covering the trade talks, but he's just come back from Germany. He says its inevitable that they will annexe Austria."

She tucked one hand under her chin, waiting for him to continue.

"There's going to be another war, Sybil. Not in the next few months, maybe, but soon.'

He turned to her then, sliding down underneath the covers to come face to face with her.

"It won't be like the last one. You know what's been happening in Spain. It won't just be on the battlefields. It'll come into people's homes."

"Not here, surely ?"

He nodded.

"If Britain gets dragged into it, which it will, they'll be bombs falling in London. And Manchester."

He watched as her eyes grew wide and dark with fear.

"I've been thinking," he continued, "and if it does happen, you and the children should go home."

She gave a small, involuntary frown at first as she missed his meaning. It took her a minute to realise he was talking about Dublin.

"What about you ?"

"I'll stay here."

"No. We're not going anywhere without you."

"Sybil - Ireland will remain neutral. You'll be safer there,"

"So will you."

"I can't leave. It would be running away."

"And what would we be doing ?" she asked sharply.

"That's different."

"Why is it different ?" she said, hoisting herself up on one elbow to look down on him. "What about our neighbours in Manchester and all the other families in this country ? My family ? They don't have anywhere else to go !"

"If war breaks out, Matthew will talk to your mother about going back to America."

"And has he consulted Mama about this ?" she scoffed, "because I very much doubt she will go. She will see it as her duty to stay here."

"Please, Sybil, I just want you and our kids to be safe."

"And they will want you to be safe. I'm not leaving without you. You stay, we all stay."

"Sweetheart…."

"The girls won't want to go anyway. Niamh's already got her heart set on a London hospital….."

"There are medical schools in Dublin."

"She doesn't want to go to Dublin. Their lives are here, Tom, all their friends….."

"If there's a war, that life won't be there anymore"

"She's almost an adult, Tom. We wouldn't be able to stop her."

"Maybe not," he said, "but what about Michael and Aoife ? They're both young enough to adjust. And I rather like the idea of at least one of my children sounding like me, " he tried to placate her by smiling.

"What's the use of him sounding like you if you're not there to hear it ? He needs his father, Tom. They all do."

"If there's a war, I'll be needed here. People will need to know what is going on."

"You'll be needed ? " she suddenly raged, "I'm a nurse. Don't you think they'll need nurses if there's a war ? They'll need me more that they'll bloody well need you !" She turned over on her back abruptly and stared at the ceiling.

"And if the very worst does happen and they come here, and the likes of Larry Grey take over, you won't even have a job. Given what you've put into print about the Fascists, the first thing they'll do is put you up against a wall and shoot you. Then how much good are you going to do ?"

He voice caught a little and she angrily wiped away a tear that had escaped, despite her best efforts.

He reached up to turn her face back to his, going to brush her face with the backs of his fingers, but she took his hand in hers and held it tight.

"A long time ago, you told me that sometimes a hard sacrifice must be made for a future that's worth having. Your team have all seen war in Spain. They are all younger than you and none of them are married, let alone have any children. You fought for Ireland from England, surely can fight for England from Ireland ? We won't be separated from you, Tom. Not if there's a war. If you want us to go then you'll have to come with us."

He sighed, recognising his own words and understanding the choice she laid out before him. She was right. He was not indispensable to the paper. But he was to his family. His conscience still muttered that he would be running away, but that was the sacrifice she was asking of him. He'd once asked her to give up her whole world. And she had done so without once looking back.

"Has it been ?" he asked her softly, "worth having ?"

"Of course it has," she answered without hesitation. "Every minute of it. Being your wife has been the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Every waking minute?" he laughed gently, reminding her of a time even further back.

"Every waking minute," she affirmed, her face serious in agreement.

He pulled her close to him and rolled on his back so that she could rest with her head on his chest.

"I won't leave England without you," she said without looking up. "If we go to Ireland, we go together, as a family."

He was silent for a few minutes, then bent and kissed the top of her head.

"We don't need to decide just yet."

She tightened her grip on him.

"I mean it, Tom."

"I know you do," he conceded. "Alright," he sighed, "if it becomes necessary and that's what it takes….."

He felt her grip relax a little and he reached over with his free hand to switch his light off. They fell into a comfortable silence in the near darkness, with only the ever-present street light outlining the curtains at the window and slipping towards the end of the bed at an odd angle.

As she lay in bed, Sybil thought how Edith's wedding tomorrow would put the final full stop to the story of the Crawley Girls. It was as if Edith giving up her name would consign the final traces of their pre-war selves to memory and they would only exist as Mrs Branson, Mrs Gregson and the Countess of Grantham. Sybil found she hardly ever thought of the Great War. When it was over, her life had become a series of firsts; her first time as wife and a lover, her first real job, her first child and her first experiences as a mother. From then on there was always something new to look forward too - Tom's next assignment, their second child, their next home, the children's school. There was simply no time to look back. She'd reached the age of forty without even realising it. Every waking minute…suddenly she could remember being that girl in the archway at York so vividly. She could even conjure up the smell; damp stone, a pungent, earthy smell that made her think of church services in winter. Tom had been so earnest and she had panicked. She hadn't meant to hurt him, but she knew immediately she had said the wrong thing and had gauchely tried to cover it up, but had only made it worse. Her panic had got he better of her when he said he was leaving and she had spoken without thinking, but that had been the right thing to do. I should have learnt that lesson earlier, she thought to herself as she lay in his arms. An even earlier memory emerged - an August day when she was a girl fancying herself a woman and her hand unaccountably in his, his grip strong and sure, even then. He'd been going to ask her something, and she realised that to this day she'd never asked him what it was.

"Tom," she whispered, in case he was asleep.

"Hmmmm" he grunted sleepily back at her.

She turned over and leant on his chest, lifting up her head so she could see his face.

"What were you going to say to me, that day war broke out ?"

"What ?" he frowned at her, his brain foggy with drowsiness.

"When you took my hand. You said "I don't suppose…" and then Mrs Hughes interrupted us."

Tom looked at his wife as if she had lost her mind.

"Darling, that was nearly twenty-five years ago. I can't remember."

"Well, you were going to say something," she said, a little annoyed at his dismissive tone.

"I don't think it was anything very important," he said. "I was probably going to say the first thing that came into my head to stop you leaving."

She considered this and rejected it as not good enough.

"It sounded like you were going to ask me to do something."

"I was probably going to ask you if you wanted to go for a walk"

"Hmpfh. I can't believe you don't remember."

She felt him roll his eyes in the dark.

"Sybil, love, can we please just go to sleep ?."

But she was too put out to sleep. After a while she felt the rise of his chest become deeper and more regular as the sound of his breath settled into a familiar pattern. Alone, she let her mind open up to the prospect of another war and felt a coldness settle deep within her. The last war had stayed on the continent; young men went to it and came back as strangers, eternally separated from those who had not shared the experience. But she and her family had been safe, a curse as well as a blessing when that safety could not encompass everyone she loved. As Tom had said, this war would come to them; it would invade their homes and their lives in real and material ways that the Great War did not. If it happened, she vowed she would not sit on the sidelines whilst her husband and maybe even her daughters lived through it without her, separating them more completely than the Irish Sea ever could. She held Tom tighter, making him grunt in his sleep and shift his position. She suddenly felt very small in this large, unfamiliar bedroom. She fancied she could feel the earth turning inexorably beneath her and she wished them back in their familiar room in Manchester, or even back in the tiny bedroom of their Dublin flat, where they had shut out the world and its opinions and created one of their own.

But the world would move on regardless, and this time not for the better. She found his hand and slipped hers into it, thinking again of the girl in the sprigged cotton dress at the garden party. The war had changed everything for that girl; now, for possibly the first time in her life, Sybil found herself afraid of the changes that were coming. She and Tom had fought the world to be together and for the life they wanted and she was not going to let the world rip their life apart any more than she could help it. One thing she was certain of - whether in Ireland or England, they would face whatever happened together. The one thing that never changed was the feeling of his hand in hers. And it never would.