The feather, the shamrock, the rose and the thorns
Getting out of the car, back from the hospital where she was working flat out tending the wounded of this dreadful war, Lady Sybil Crawley wasn’t particularly anxious to get in to change for diner, to swap her nurse uniform for an evening gown.
Casually flipping through the book Branson had laid on the Renault’s front seat, she came across the strange item he was using as a bookmark. White, elegant, seemingly light and trivial; but she knew these appearances were deceptive, and wondered why the devil did Branson not discard it. But the lad often did strange and seemingly odd things, and she was only mildly surprised by this. However, reminding the symbolism attached to this item, she felt sorry for him:
“So these horrible harpies did give a white feather to you too?”
“Yes” he simply answered. “But don’t make such a face! I couldn’t care less… If only they could have known to which extent! This is not my war, neither is it my king. It’s not even really my country…”
“Ireland, again…”
“Ireland, yes. Again, yes. Or rather still than again. Would it have been a matter of defending Ireland and the Irish, I then admit I would have been facing a moral dilemma…”
“Which moral dilemma?” she asked. “Fighting us? Fighting the English, I mean?”
“I was rather thinking… I mean… well, I am making a distinction between what’s personal, and the rest” he explained a bit confused. “Considering the personal side… you lot here, I like you. Well, maybe not Miss O’Brien who, oddly, is maybe part Irish… But I mean… against the English occupier, generally speaking, then I wouldn’t have any moral dilemma. No, in fact I meant something else. I meant I would have to leave this place. And there are… certain things… that tend to keep me here…”
Sybil didn’t answer. But it seemed that, while making a distinction between the “personal” and the “rest”, he couldn’t completely distance himself from it. Especially as she knew what the “very personal” included, and which was one of these “certain things” holding him back in Downton. And she realised she didn’t know if she should feel relieved or embarrassed. Flattered or annoyed.
She felt she had to take the conversation back on less slippery ground; less slippery to them at least, if not to just anybody:
“But fighting the English… in these times of war, it would be tantamount to joining the opposite camp. Allying with Germany and Austria against us. It would be seen as treason!”
“By people from your side, maybe” he observed. “But I suppose everything is a matter of perspective.”
“You don’t really seriously consider Irish nationalists would join the enemy, not you! You wouldn’t have done that!”
“As a matter of fact” he answered, “it might have been considered, had circumstances been different… but the Kaiser’s expansionist leanings bode ill for whomever is precisely seeking their autonomy, and Austria-Hungary’s attitude towards nations included within the empire under its heel isn’t any better than England’s and your king’s behaviour towards Ireland… Thinking about this, how curious and even ironic that it’s often countries and men so much alike who declare war on each other, don’t you think? But we won’t fight for another king or emperor. We are republicans and independantists, we certainly don’t aspire to be subsumed within an empire, under some crown’s yoke, nor to be colonised by foreigners. It’s even precisely what we are trying to put an end to: what use would it be to replace a tyrant by another tyrant?”
“Tyrant” she repeated, “you go on at a fine rate…”
“You’re not aware of that because you’re a member of the leading and powerful side, and on two counts: you’re English, and a member of aristocracy ; monarchy and imperialism are, forgive me this simile, your family’s shop business. But I can assure you that from the average Irish people’s point of view, the picture is not the same at all.”
“But are you even sure that’s the average Irish’s point of view, and not just that of a minority you’d belong to? Look,” she granted, “I admit that some things are unfair to the Irish. But really! Going so far as to call it a tyranny…”
“Yet it’s really how I see it since last Easter” he answered abruptly. “How we see it.”
“There is… There is so much anger in you.”
“No, you think?” He retorted with biting irony. “Really wonder why…”
“I… I’m not pretending there’s no reason to, I assure you I’m putting myself in your place.”
“In my place?” he cried out. “Oh really, you’re putting yourself in my place? You certainly think you do, granted, but in truth no one from your world did ever really put themselves in our place. How could you?”
And here we were again! After the situation in Ireland, he had now switched to his other warhorse, the gap between the rich and the poor. And to his struggle against the aristocratic system.
“No one among you lot," he went on, "can understand how it feels to see that for a very small number of people everything is possible, every dream is attainable, but that for us there’s always a threshold, an upper limit one will see not to let us pass. It’s like being in some low-ceilinged room, and constantly hitting it as soon as trying to stand up straight instead of bowing. You lot are living upstairs, where you can have an unrestricted view over the most beautiful parts of the park, with no ceiling to crush you and plenty of light coming through the windows. And when you’re downstairs, you’re just passing, just visiting; how could you have a real idea of how it feels to remain confined there with no other prospect in life… for all your life…”
“You’re being unfair!” she cried out. “Maybe it was true a few years ago, but I now see much more than I did back then. And don’t believe I don’t know how frustrating it is to see crucial and fundamental things out of reach! You are complaining, but at least you are entitled to vote! Entitled to work, with or without a wife’s permission, entitled to be considered as an adult in your own right, entitled to-”
“Entitled to go get killed for a country that’s not mine, for a king I don’t acknowledge and who oppresses me?”
“Have you been called up?” Sybil asked in a half whisper, feeling her blood freeze for no apparent reason.
“Not yet.”
Too absorbed in his own anger, he didn’t notice the hint of a slight sigh of relief she quickly managed to cover up.
To try and calm down, he stared at the ground and at the tip of his shoes, breathed deeply in then out, in again, then he lifted his head, rather looking straight ahead of him than towards Sybil.
“Yet I would have thought you’d understand…” he said in a bitter tone of voice tinged with disillusion.
“I’m trying, but…”
“Try harder!” He fiercely cut her off. “I mean…” he went on in a markedly subdued voice, “out of you lot, you can most probably understand: merely because you were born a girl you can’t express your opinion through the ballot box, you’re being denied any possibility to be personally represented, to weigh on your country’s decisions by electing the MPs... You have found a job you like, all the better, but just imagine you didn’t like it… which else could you practice? Of course you’re aware that career options aren’t many for women, especially women from your background: I suppose it’s unthinkable that Lord Grantham’s daughter may become a maid, or a laundress, or a schoolteacher, or a factory worker, or a seller, or a cook…”
“Or a chauffeur!” she said catching his eye.
“Or a chauffeur” he repeated in a half-smile. “Yet if you’re as a natural as your sister, you’d have a hard time finding a place anyway” he pointed out with a hint of mischief. “But more seriously, do admit that career options seem very limited for you.”
“Oh yes,” she confirmed with an amused lilt in her voice, “earls’ daughters really are an oppressed class!”
“You may make fun of it, but I know that deep down, from this point of view you can see what I mean by ‘upper limit’, this threshold you’re not meant to pass, even though you think - no, you know you should be allowed to, you know there is no logical nor natural reason you’re being denied it, while it’s granted to others…”
“What a fine orator!” she teased. “You really should go into politics…”
“Don’t make fun of me, please… It’s not easy to talk about what’s so deep inside. And when you’re taking it that lightly…”
“I’m not taking it lightly…” she hastily assured. “I swear. And I even admire your being brave enough to do so. It’s just that… I sometimes don’t know what to tell you when you’re that serious. And I don’t want to quarrel with you. I therefore try to-”
“You do what people from your class do” he sharply cut her off. “Above all: no raising of your voice, and no truly serious talking point, hence the banter, the joking… and changing the subject for lighter topics. Anything to avoid real matters!”
“How can you say that about me? You know it’s untrue! You know that since you arrived in Downton, you and I have been discussing genuinely serious matters, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation, in the first place. You know I’m generally speaking my mind, and even too often, to Mary’s liking.”
“With all due respect to Lady Mary, I’m not convinced her example in that very matter is to be followed. Anyway, I’m not pretending you don’t speak your mind, I know you do. That’s not the kind of sincerity I was referring to.”
“I should hope so!” she cried out. “I am sincere!”
“Saying what you think is one thing” he stated. “But maybe it’s time you learn to say what you feel.”
He then became silent and stared at her, waiting for her to say something. Anything. A foolish hope that she would open up at last, or at least that she would let him know she hadn’t forgotten about his proposal. Maybe even that she was seriously thinking about it? And, who knows, that she accepted it ?
But nothing came out. She didn’t say anything of that sort. Nothing at all. Nothing about her emotions. Her opinions, yes, she always had her mouth full of fine and fancy words about that; but her feelings…
But she was too rattled, or too hurt, or too ill-at-ease for that. Maybe she was also far too panic-stricken. Or quite simply she didn’t know how to do so: she hadn’t been taught that.
Disappointed once more, Branson left with a rest of anger, his hopes dampened, one more crack in his wounded heart, and intact resentment towards the king, the English, and the class enemies.
While doing so, he nevertheless found the strength to tell her:
“But I’m quite sure you can’t learn that from Lady Mary!”
THE END
I’m sure this text is still full of mistakes (syntax, grammar, present continuous or not, use and place of adverbs, choice of vocabulary, and so one). Please don’t hesitate to point them out to me, so that I can correct them and get better at writing in English.