Chapter One

Arrival at Kingstown

Of course, the constantly scavenging flock of white, black tipped seagulls, wheeling raucously beneath the lowering storm-laden clouds, and all but invisible high above the mist shrouded slate grey waters of Kingstown Harbour, had seen it all before. Far below the soft plump feathered bodies of the ever circling birds, there unfolded the daily constant ebb and flow, the flotsam and jetsam of a microcosm of humanity on board the vessels traversing the infinitely changeable - sometimes benign and calm, sometimes rough and storm wracked - silvery waters of the Irish Sea. So, the beady eyed gulls took no particular interest or note of the black hulled, twin stacked steamer now slowly approaching the outer reaches of the encircling granite walls of the harbour.

In the pearl grey light of an early morning in June 1919, the RMS Munster, registered to the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, after a calm, singularly uneventful two and a half hour voyage across the Irish Sea from the Admiralty Pier at Holyhead, nosed gently midst a small fleet of fishing smacks and other diminutive craft, into the safety of the calm waters of the harbour and moored at the Carlisle Pier in Kingstown.

From their unrivalled vantage point, high up on the promenade deck of the sleek 2,640 ton steamer, Sybil Crawley and her fiancé Tom Branson stood and watched the detailed and orderly preparations being put in hand to disembark them and their fellow passengers, and land their luggage and other cargo onto the quayside.

Midst a thunderous roar, accompanied by the metallic slithering of heavy greased chains, two enormous anchors were run out from the bows of the ship, thereafter falling almost simultaneously into the murky depths of the harbour and, in the process, sending up two enormous spouts of filthy dirty sea water; heavy tarred mooring ropes, as thick as a man's arms were, with an air of almost casual indifference born of long years of experience, cast down by members of the ship's crew to be caught by the time-served stevedores waiting on the quayside, while from almost directly above where Tom and Sybil were standing there came a deep, booming blast from the ship's whistle as the vessel was finally made fast to the large cast iron bollards lining the edge of the quay.

Sybil put her hands to her ears in a vain attempt to try and shut out the cacophony of sounds now assailing her from all sides.

"What? What did you say, Tom? Carlisle Pier?"

Laughingly, Tom nodded.

"Yes, that's what I said. Carlisle Pier", he yelled, if only to make himself audible to her above the discordant din unfolding about them, swiftly assuring Sybil that the pier was not another of Sir Richard's devilish works, being named instead after a former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

While the preparations associated with the disembarking continued, the dissonance of associated noise gradually died away, allowing Tom to speak normally and continue with his explanation.

"Of course, we don't call it that. See, us Oirish have never had any respect for our betters, milady!" chuckled Tom, deliberately thickening his accent. He winked at Sybil who, laughing at his playful silliness, gently batted his chest. "No, to those of us that live here, in Kingstown, in Dublin … it's the Mail boat Pier and, I suppose, it always will be".

By now, while Tom and Sybil and their fellow passengers continued to wait patiently on board, a crowd of anxious but happy onlookers had gathered on the granite setts of the quayside, gazing up at the passengers lining the rails of the Munster, no doubt seeking familiar faces, ready to welcome home family and friends. Occasionally, as recognition suddenly dawned on various individuals, both on board ship and amongst those on the quayside, joyful shouts of greeting rang out and caps, hats, hands, and arms were all vigorously waved.

With no-one to greet them, nor to reproach or reprimand her for what they would undoubtedly have considered Sybil's inappropriate familiarity with a man in public, let alone the unsuitability from their perspective of the young Irishman with whom she had fallen so hopelessly in love, Sybil leant comfortably back against her handsome fiancé, enjoying the intense physical intimacy of the moment and let the spontaneous frivolity, the untrammelled happiness of the scene unfolding about and below them, wash over her like a soothing balm. And if by some miracle, her haughty sister Mary had been transported from the cloying, stultifying confines of Downton Abbey to the open promenade deck of the Munster riding here at anchor alongside the appropriately named Carlisle Pier in Kingstown Harbour , Sybil would have revelled in her sister's no doubt vocal and censorious disapproval. That the relationship between Sybil and Tom flew in the face of the social conventions of the time and everything the aristocratic Crawleys stood for no longer bothered her … not one whit.

For his part, Tom, standing behind Sybil, his chin nestled snugly against her shoulder, his arms clasped tightly about her waist, began to point out to her various local landmarks.

He chose to make a start with the ugly, crown topped, obelisk, built to commemorate the building of the harbour, and the visit of George IV back in 1821.

"Take a good look, my love. It won't be there for much longer. Not when we get our independence. And then, then I'll see to it that it's replaced with something far more elegant, far more fitting, far more graceful – to mark your arrival here on Irish soil!" Tom nibbled affectionately at Sybil's right ear, and then covered her cheek with soft kisses. As she turned instinctively in his arms towards him, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her passionately, while just above them, a solitary passing seagull screeched its seeming approval of the intimate scene taking place below its outstretched snow white wings.

Gently breaking apart, Tom slipped his hands back around Sybil's slender waist and, while a fussy self-important little engine belonging to the Dublin and South Eastern Railway whistled and marshalled the crimson red coaches of the Dublin train on the quayside beneath the slate roof of the wooden train shed on the pier, Tom continued with Sybil's introduction to the sights of Kingstown visible from the gently heaving, scrubbed, sea bleached deck of the Munster.

There was the colourful cast iron bandstand standing on the long stone ribbon of the East Pier, the soaring spire of the church of St Michael and that of the Mariners'. With a mock solemnity, and in sonorous tones worthy of Mr Carson, Tom gravely informed Sybil that the latter had been built to "care for the spiritual needs of seafarers. Not that I t'ink many of the sailors bother with it. I'm sure they prefer the more er … intimate hospitality on offer in some of the more disreputable lodging houses and rundown tenements in other parts of the town" chuckled Tom.

And when Sybil rolled her eyes and, with an equal mock display of feigned innocence, enquired blithely of him precisely what kind of hospitality that might be, Tom merely grinned, then glancing about to ensure no-one was in the immediate vicinity, gently slapped her bottom, and kissed her soundly once again, telling her that that was no fit question for a lady to ask of a gentleman.

Giggling, Sybil promptly retorted that he was no gentleman and she, by consorting with him, no lady, Tom laughed out loud and promptly changed the subject. He had, Sybil had by now come to realise, an infuriating, albeit endearing, knack of doing precisely that, if only out of a misplaced sense of propriety for her sensibilities or out of sheer devilment - she could never decide which it was, perhaps a bit of both - whenever something arose in the course of their conversations which at that precise point in time he did not feel appropriate or wish to discuss any further – whether or not, as he often did, he voluntarily returned to the subject then under discussion at a later date.

"And over there, Sybil, my love, that's the clock tower of the Town Hall. And that, that's one of the hospitals. They call it the Kingstown Lying-in Institute. And there's George's Street and beyond that …"

Now that the relatively short sea crossing from Holyhead was all but over, at last Tom seemed finally to have regained his boyish enthusiasm, his infectious good humour, his easy manner, and his normal equilibrium. For, if the truth be told, if only to Sybil, so conscious was she of the slightest change in him that, while the Munster ploughed on resolutely across the Irish Sea, for much of the voyage Tom had seemed somewhat pre-occupied.

Sybil wondered if it was simply down to a queasy stomach – after all, he had told her that he was not a particularly good sailor. And if it was not that, then perhaps it was an understandable, albeit uncharacteristic, attack of nervousness on Tom's part brought on, maybe, by the imminent prospect of meeting once again with his family after so many years' absence in England, and also, given the particular uncertainty of the present times, of introducing Sybil to them as his future wife; an English born lady, and a Protestant to boot.

For despite Tom's earnest assurances to the contrary, Sybil suspected that Tom's Catholic family might be just as hostile to their impending nuptial union as her family had been, and indeed, for all his apparent acceptance of the situation, for him seeing no profit in a quarrel with her and Tom, her own imperious father was still. And when all was said and done, in a society and world but recently torn apart by war and revolution, Robert Crawley had looked for constancy to the one thing in his life – Downton apart – that gave him certainty: his wife and children; only to find that his youngest daughter was running off to God knew where, to God knew what, and marrying the family chauffeur.

After all, from what Sybil had read in Freeman's Journal, in old copies of the nationalist Irish Independent (even though the latter had been hostile to the Easter Rising) and also from what Tom had told her during several lengthy talks on Irish politics in the garage back at Downton, ever since the failure of the Rising and its brutal suppression, for most of the indigenous population, hostility to the English, which to them was second nature, was increasing in virulence, and it was only a matter of time before this once again spilled over into violence. Where that might lead, and what form it might take, none could, she thought, say with any degree of certainty. But, that apart, it was all too clear that the English, in particular the landowners and the army, had long out stayed their welcome here in Ireland – had they ever enjoyed one in the first place.

And yet, as Kingstown hove into view, and as the Munster steamed slowly onwards, drawing ever closer to his Gaelic homeland, if anything, during their frugal meal on board in the third class saloon and in their turns around the deck, Tom had seemed slightly distant with her and, for him, uncharacteristically inattentive to attending to her every need. Thereafter, he had made some excuse to briefly slip away from her. Given her training as a nurse, Sybil wondered idly, and without too much concern for him, if for Tom the combination of their recent meal, a sudden slight swell in the sea, and his own undoubted lack of sea legs, had proved too much for him, and seeking to spare her and himself embarrassment, Tom had needed to find somewhere private to be sick. If so, Tom need not have bothered – after all in the course of her duties as a nurse during the war, she had seen much worse than men - Cousin Matthew included - vomiting up the contents of their own stomachs.

But then, during his momentary absence, a steward had come looking for "Mr Branson" with a telegram from the ship's wireless room. On his return, Sybil mentioned the appearance on deck of the steward to Tom, who said merely it must have been another Mr Branson he had been seeking. After all, said Tom affably, Branson was a common surname in Ireland. Didn't Sybil remember that her own grandmother had said there was "… a family called Branson, with a place not far from Cork"? And seeing that Tom obviously had nothing further to say on the issue, indeed saw it of no consequence, Sybil let the matter drop. But she did not fail to notice that Tom seemed, ever more pensive, even dejected, lost in a world of his own.

Thereafter, from the comfort and vantage point of a steamer chair on the promenade deck, Sybil had sat and watched Tom for some time as, but a few feet from her, he leant over the polished teak rail, gazing down into the dark leaden waters of the Irish Sea, seemingly seeking to lose himself in their unfathomable depths. Never in all the time had they known one another had she seen Tom so tense, so preoccupied.

And, when, at last, she could stand their physical separation no longer, Sybil threw off the travelling rug Tom had wrapped about her legs, abruptly stood up and closed the short distance between them in a few brisk steps, encircled Tom with her arms, laying her head gently on his back, and asked what it was that was troubling him. Whatever it was, Sybil assured Tom, he would feel better for sharing it with her. When Tom failed to respond, Sybil placed her hands firmly on his shoulders and turned him to face her. And then, when he continued to gaze downwards towards the deck, she placed a hand under his chin and tenderly raised his face towards her.

"Hello, my darling". Try as she might, Sybil could not prevent a sudden inward gasp of breathe, seeing the obvious pain etched across Tom's features, across the tear-stained face she loved so well.

"Tom? What is it? Is it serious? Oh, my darling, it is. Tell me, please, where are you? I've never seen you like this before".

"In answer to your question … in a world that's disappearing, I am afraid". Tom shook his head sadly, burying his stricken face against her comforting shoulder, while Sybil gently caressed the back of his head, twining her fingers in his short blond hair.

Tom then seemed to recover himself somewhat. Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he managed a weak smile, then mumbled something else about losing several friends on the sister ship of the Munster, the RMS Leinster, which having been torpedoed just outside Kingstown Harbour barely a month before the end of the war, had sunk very quickly with an appalling loss of life. That, reflected Sybil ruefully, was something Tom had never mentioned to her before.

But then, he had not, had he, until several months after the incident, chosen to tell her about his cousin, shot dead in Dublin by the British Army in the aftermath of the Easter Rising. And despite, indeed perhaps because of the explanation he had now just given her, notwithstanding how much they loved each other, how close they had become, how much they implicitly trusted each other, Sybil surmised that what Tom had told her, while no doubt true, was not the whole truth; was not what was really troubling him. There must be, Sybil thought, so much which as yet they did still not know about each other. Things of the past …