My Dearest Child
Author's Note: I loved the final episode of Downton Abbey, especially the brief scene between Robert and Edith concerning his pride at being her father. That prompted this brief one-shot that is set 10 years in the future. Think of it as a 2016 special! Lady Edith is my favourite character and many of her life experiences remind me of some of my own. So, though I do not own Downton Abbey, I do hope you enjoy this brief composition and please do review it!
19th April 1935
"Milord Grantham, you must come quickly!" The voice of his son-in-law bellowed over the telephone.
"Bertie, why, what's happened?"
"It's Edith. It's Edith. She's dying." The Marquess of Hexham sobbed, entirely distraught by the news he relayed.
The Marchioness' father's hands let the receiver fall from his grip and felt his mind travel back to the day when Sybil was taken from him. That had come in the middle of the night like a breath of air with no warning or reason. Edith, his beautiful, fiendishly clever, strong daughter of forty-four years was dying? No, it could not be. Bertie had to be mistaken.
Robert grasped for the handset and said, "Bertie, what do you mean? Edith cannot be dying. She was perfectly well two days ago when we last spoke."
"She was coming back from London, from the magazine's office," Bertie began, but paused when his tears overwhelmed him, "when…when she was pushed and fell against the kerb. The doctor said she has gross internal bleeding. There is no way to save her and she has only hours. I only arrived an hour ago from Brancaster. Nanny is bringing the children who will be here soon. They'll be on the 5:35pm train. You can make that from Downton, surely? It would be good for them to be with their grandparents."
"Uh, yes, indeed," Robert replied, glancing at his pocket watch, "we will be on that train. Where are you, Bertie?"
From Bertie's end of the phone, the Earl of Grantham could hear a tired scream, which was no doubt Edith in a different room. He had to shut his eyes to block out a father's pain upon hearing his second daughter's agony.
The pain her father felt was evident in her husband's voice too, "We're at the house in Mayfair. She fell near Regent's Park and was taken to the college hospital."
"Well, why is she not still there? If she is in pain, surely they can do something for her there?"
Bertie chuckled sadly, "She insisted. She wrote a cheque for the hospital to provide her with a nurse and to send her to Hexham House in an ambulance. You know what she's like when she's determined. And, she was determined to die in familiar surroundings."
"Very well. If that is what she wants. We'll be there in a few hours with the children and the rest of the family. We'll bring Mary, Tom and Henry and possibly Sybbie depending on Tom. The others are too young."
"As you wish. Now, I must get back to her, Robert. We'll send someone to meet your train."
Robert sighed, "Please don't trouble yourself. Just be with her, son. She needs you. We can get a taxi from the station."
Bertie acquiesced to his father-in-law's request and set the phone down to go back into his wife's room and hold her as she left him. It was going to be a long night during which Edith would weaken and eventually slip away while her family could only stand at her bedside and spectate. At least, in a few hours he would not be alone by her deathbed, her family and their children would be here.
When the Marquess returned to his wife, the nurse was just removing the needle from her arm, now peppered with needle marks from the many necessary injections she had received to sustain her life until all her family could arrive from Yorkshire and Northumberland. All Bertie could do was watch as Edith's eyes opened after the pain subsided for the time being and she smiled faintly at him.
"That's better, my love," she moaned, "now that you're back."
Bertie moved to the bed and sat next to her frail form, "You've never mastered flattery, sweetheart, now's not the best time to start."
He kissed her chastely on the lips, stroking her hair though it was matted with sweat. Even after ten years of marriage, all of which had not been wedded bliss, for when Bertie's mother had passed away six years ago he had shut himself away and their relationship had been strained and the more recent schism between them had occurred just two years ago when Edith miscarried what would have been their fourth child together. Then, they had strayed close to divorce but after an explosive row, both had clung to each other and vowed once again to be close to each other.
"I spoke to your father. They're coming along with the children from Brancaster. You'll see them soon." Bertie uttered succinctly, unable to form longer sentences while looking at Edith's fatigued form.
"I'll wait. I promise. I'll hang on. I'll wake up." Edith vowed before falling fast asleep.
"You had better, because I'm not finished being your husband."
A few hours later, after Edith had regained consciousness, much to her fraught husband's relief, they heard their doorbell followed by their butler, Docherty, moving to answer the door.
Bertie placed a kiss to Edith's forehead, as he did each time he left her bed, and went to greet his wife's family, preparing himself with every step to face their anguish.
Before he could greet the arrivals from Yorkshire, he was swarmed by a host of children. His children that had so many of their mother's features. There were four sets of miniature arms that wrapped their way around his waist.
"Hello, darlings," Bertie whispered, bending down to hug them, "are you all alright?"
"Where's mummy?" They chorused, Nanny having told them as their train was arriving at King's Cross that they had been on their train adventure because mummy was sick and wanted to see them but that daddy would see them soon at the London house.
"She's upstairs. She's resting and you can all see her soon, but I'm sure you're all hungry, so why don't you go and ask Mrs Goddard to give you all some ice cream."
Once Nanny had ushered the brood, including Cousin Sybbie, away from the adults, no one uttered a word. The gravity of the situation punched everyone in the face. There wasn't an eye in the vestibule that had no red streaks to it or shoulders than were not hunched. The thought of another Crawley sister felled before time was too tragic for anyone to find the words and the irony that if anyone could have found words to describe the situation it would have been Edith herself now too sick to conjure up the ideal thing to say to her family.
In attendance, now staring at Bertie, were the Earl and Countess, Mary, Henry, Tom, Rosamund, Isobel and Dickie.
Mary, in her typical confident manner, though she felt anything but confident, strode towards her brother-in-law and embraced him, "How is she, Bertie? Can we see her? I can't believe it…any of it!"
Her husband moved beside her and clapped the Marquess on the back and shook his hand, "I don't think any of us said a word on the train. It's too shocking and sudden."
"I just never expected to feel this again. Not after Sybil. Not twice."
Everyone looked to Tom after Cora's statement and while she turned into her husband's arms to recommence her crying that had held up while the children were present, remembering her suffering after Sybil's unexpected death burst into tears.
"Thank you for coming so quickly," Bertie said, releasing himself from Mary's hold, "she's been waiting for you, hanging on so she can say her final goodbyes. It therefore falls to me to prepare you. She is in tremendous pain, though the nurse is doing what she can to relieve her. She is pale and she won't linger for much longer. She's slept some since I spoke with you but if she sleeps now, she'll never come back to us, so please, please do not let her sleep. She has to stay awake long enough to see you all; it was her wish, and trust me, if she slips away before she wanted to, she'll haunt you for letting her go."
While Bertie laughed, trying to give his heart respite from the pain it was enduring, the others tried to join in but none said what they were all thinking. If only Edith could haunt them, for at least then, some shard of her would still be theirs and with them.
"So, all that remains is to go up to her, then." Tom pronounced.
He had been taciturn since discovering his sister-in-law's fate. Naturally, his mind went straight back to the night when his precious Sybil was taken from him and the family stood round their bed. He had lost half of his heart that day and knew the torment that awaited Pelham yet cursed him nevertheless for knowing the happiness of a decade with his bride and a true family with the love of his life. All that had been ripped away from Tom and while Sybbie was a balm for his broken heart, the bleeding injury had never been permitted to close and the open wound was gushing blood anew at facing the same tragedy from the other side of the bed so to speak.
"I think it best for me to go up with Lord and Lady Grantham first."
"Bertie, my good fellow," Robert said, trying to keep the bite of annoyance out of his voice, "do stop this formality! It has not been necessary since the day you married my daughter and now, when she is likely to be gone in a matter of hours, it is preposterous. So, please, do call us all by our Christian names."
Bertie could only nod his assent and gesture for Robert and Cora to follow him upstairs to their child's deathbed. Following their departure, Rosamund, Isobel and Dickie removed themselves to the drawing room, no doubt to avail themselves of Bertie's brandy.
"Well, we should…go to the children?" Henry proposed, looking at his wife who looked like she was about to have a coronary and his business partner and friend who merely looked livid.
"Yes, we should send Nanny away and have them with us. They'll have questions and mama, papa and Bertie should not have to be the ones to answer them."
Both men agreed with Mary's idea and went to fetch the children from the kitchens downstairs, resolved as they were to have them in the dining room, which was out of the way but close enough to hear someone's presence in the hallway.
Upstairs, Bertie, Cora and Robert were just about to enter the room where Edith lay dying. Cora just had to take a few seconds to compose herself. Once they entered and the rattled parents saw their child dying for the first time, Bertie went immediately to sit by his wife.
"Love," Bertie whispered, gently rubbing his wife's shoulder to get her attention, "your mother and father are here to see you."
"Bertie…" Lady Pelham moaned.
"Edith, darling," Cora crooned as she approached, pulling her husband with her by his hand, "I'm here now. We've come, just as you asked, and we're all here."
"Mama," she responded quietly, opening her tired eyes and smiling gently, "hello. I'm sorry you had to come all the way to town just to see me."
"Oh my darling girl, you don't need to apologise for that. We're so happy we made it. So glad that we have this chance to see you before, before…"
Usually, Robert Crawley was an articulate man, ever in command of the English language, but when face-to-face with his daughter on her deathbed who was using her last words to her parents to apologise to them, no less, he was rendered speechless!
"It's alright, papa. I know. I am just sorry you have to bury another daughter. I love you though and I'm proud to have been your daughter. Even though I know I shamed you at times and was difficult, I was always glad I was your daughter because you loved me in spite of my faults and mistakes. Not that Marigold is a mistake. Telling you about her and trying to conceal her was the mistake."
Cora gushed, "Well, we have never been anything but proud to be your parents and actually, never more so than on the days when we found out we had a grandchild in Marigold. She is an angel to us because she is your daughter. That pride you feel in her is no less than the pride we have in you, Edith."
"Your mother has never spoken a truer word in her life," Robert agreed, "and you have given us such beautiful and wonderful grandchildren that have all the best of you and Bertie. It is we who need to thank you and tell you how much we will miss you because we shall, every day of what remains of our life, my sweetest, loveliest, dearest child. Life may not have been kind to you in the past or now, but you have weathered it and survived and become a wife, mother, Marchioness. You are all I wanted in a child and what you are, darling Edith, you are my dearest child."
Both Crawleys took the moment to embrace their child and cling on to her for as long as they could at their last opportunity to hold her. Once released, Edith looked at her parents, who had just whispered their love for her whilst she was curled against them, and called them in her dwindling voice.
"I love you too and I have one request to make of you before you go."
Robert and Cora answered together, "Anything."
With a brief glance to her husband, whom she could see was desperate to feel her in his arms again, she whimpered, "Please, for me, look after Bertie. I know he'll be alone without me and the children can be a handful because they're too much like me. Please, go back to Brancaster with him and my body and stay there with him for a while. Help him with the children and everything else. Be his family."
Now weeping freely, both of her parents nodded and left the room, just as Bertie pressed his lips to Edith's with salty tears flowing as one river down both their cheeks.
"I don't need your parents to accompany me to Brancaster, love."
Edith smiled as they broke their kiss and looked into the eyes she adored, "Oh, Bertie, of course you do. You and the children need time to work out how life without me will work and there will be tantrums, nights of crying, nightmares, depression and sleeplessness. You will be all the children have left but you will have no one to turn to. I learnt from Tom and Sybil that that is what happens when your wife dies. You are the Marquess of Hexham and you cannot take the children off to America. You have to stay in the North and do your job and be a father to our children. You will fall apart and have bad days and I want you give you what you need to find your feet, but my parents need to be there for you to do that, my love."
"Whatever you think is best." Bertie conceded with the same phrase he used often in his marriage when his wife was right.
Edith managed a small chuckle at that remembrance of happier times and placed one more kiss on her husband's lips before asking, "May I see Mary now?"
Bertie nodded and carefully laid her fully back on her bed, "I'll fetch her."
When he descended the stairs and no one was there, he stopped to listen for voices. It seemed after a moment's listening that Henry, at least, was with the children in the dining room. Deciding to strike out there, Bertie crept up to the door and pushed it open so he could peek through into what seemed like another world.
Henry was there with Bertie and Edith's eldest son, eight-year-old Arthur, on his lap apparently telling him a story about his cousins, George and young Matthew Talbot, and the time when George thought that it would be appropriate to parade his younger brother about the house during a party for the tenants in nothing but a suit made out of mud. Sitting around Talbot and Arthur were Marigold, now well on her way to becoming a beautiful young lady at thirteen years old and Edith and Bertie's two younger children. At six and two years of age respectively, Caroline and Edmund, whom Bertie had named trying for the male name that was closest to Edith's, were sitting on either side of their Aunt Mary listening to the story attentively. Bertie espied Tom Branson sitting next to his own daughter, now a true ingénue at fifteen years, neither speaking nor listening but recalling old stories of the late Sybil Branson.
"I hate to interrupt story time," Bertie spoke, pushing the door open fully, "but I am here to escort Mary upstairs."
When it was apparent that their only and favourite aunt was abandoning them, Edmund and Caroline squeezed her between them and began to sob. Mary was about to speak up but she was beaten to it.
"Now, now, my dears," their doting father murmured, "let Aunt Mary go. Mummy wants to see her. The sooner she goes up the sooner you can."
"But why can't we see mummy now?" Caroline pouted against her aunt's leg.
Bertie knew that when Caroline pouted he could not refuse her anything because she looked precisely like her mother, but he would today, for her mother's sake, "Because, my treasure, mummy is saving the best for last, so she wants to see you and your brothers and sister after everyone else. While everyone's with mummy, why don't you and the others, and Sybbie, ask Docherty to give you some paper and pencils and you can draw mummy a picture?"
"Yes, daddy, I want to do that. Come on, Ed!" Caroline bellowed, pulling her brother away from Mary.
When the youngest went, the oldest children accompanied them, aware enough that the adults needed to speak away from juvenile ears. Bertie beckoned Mary away and left Henry and Tom together with a nod to both.
"Where are mama and papa?" Mary asked her brother-in-law as they ascended the stairs.
"They came back down some minutes ago and have presumably taken some time for the two of them to recover or are where the rest of the family are. Incidentally, where is that?"
"They are in the drawing room, probably finishing your bottle of brandy between them."
Bertie did not continue their conversation as they neared the door to Edith's bedroom, instead waiting for Mary's invitation to open the door. Once given he said he would not intrude on her time with her sister. In truth, he did not care for sisters' privacy, but knew that he could not cry again in front of the ever indomitable Lady Mary.
"Edith. It's Mary."
Both sisters held each other's gaze as neither knew what to say. They had done better in their friendship since Edith's wedding but neither was prepared for Edith's death and to say goodbye.
"How are the children?" Edith asked.
"Well. George is a very bad influence on Matthew and they drive Nanny spare but boys will be boys I tell her. They enjoy having Bobby Bates as a brother-in-arms. Father and Bates are sure that eventually Bobby will be George's valet but Anna and I are sure that by that time, valets will be a long-gone tradition."
Both sisters laughed together and Mary went to sit beside Edith and took her hand in her own. Once her laughter subsided, she asked, "What happened, Edith? How could all this come from a fall?"
"I didn't just fall, Mary," Edith tsked, "I was pushed and fell hard into a pile of scrap metal beside the road. Anyway, what's done is done and this situation is the consequence and I don't want to spend the last encounter I have with my only living sister going over the minutiae of my accident."
"In a short while, I'll be the only living Crawley sister at all, won't I?" Mary whispered hoarsely in a moment of exceptional sentimentality.
"You will and that's what I want to talk to you about," Edith acknowledged, "you need to do us proud because I'll see Sybil soon and we'll watch over you, the Crawleys, the Talbots, the Bransons and the Hexhams but we need you to hold up the fort for us down here. Sybbie is going to need you as she becomes a woman and my Marigold, my poor girl, you'll be all she has of me. Please, Mary, find a way to reach my daughter. She knows you best of all and she'll try to take care of Bertie and her brothers and sister. I don't want her to lose her youth like that, because of me. As my sister, be like a mother to her. Show her Downton and remind her of where she spent her earliest years. She's the only one of my children who lived at Downton. She's closer to George than she is to her siblings. Ever since we told her, she's grown more distant from Bertie and her siblings, so, please, don't let her be alone as she loses her mother."
"Hush, hush now. Don't waste your strength," Mary soothed, scooping her sister up into her arms, "and don't worry. I'll see to Marigold and she'll know Downton again. She'll never be alone in the world and though I was always a 'bitch' to you and I made it my mission in life to see you alone and miserable, I will see Marigold happy and she will always have me and George."
Edith smiled and murmured, "Who'd have thought that we'd be friends…ever?"
"Well, be sure to tell Sybil it was all her fault, because if she had been here I'm not certain it would have ever happened." Mary insisted.
"I'm sorry I'm leaving you so soon, you know, and believe it or not, I do love you, Mary and I'm glad you have Henry and your boys."
"I love you too and I will miss you more than you'll ever believe." Mary replied, trying in vain to stave off her tears.
"Will you go and fetch Tom and Sybbie?"
Mary nodded and squeezed her dying sister one last time before she left the room to find her husband.
In a few minutes, she heard a knock at the door and weakly gave permission for her brother-in-law and niece to enter. Edith could not believe her strength was waning so quickly and knew she had to find some reserve of power within herself so she could fulfil her dying wish and say goodbye to her loved ones before she passed away so they would not feel the void as they had in the aftermath of Sybil's death.
"Sybbie…come here to me." Edith invited her only niece while gesturing for Tom to sit beside her bed on the armchair Bertie had had moved into the room once she had shared her plan to see her family members before she died.
"Yes, Aunt Edith."
"Tell me the truth, sweetheart," Edith ordered gravely, "are you thinking of your mother today…with me like this?"
The poor girl nodded and Edith saw her eyes begin to water. When Tom moved to comfort his daughter, her aunt stopped him by just moving her hand.
"And what are you thinking about her?"
"I can't remember her and I don't know her. I've heard all the stories about her and how special she was and how amazing and how she was the love of papa's life but I feel guilty that I'm going to miss you so much more than I miss my own mother." She bawled, throwing herself into Edith's open arms.
The grunt that fell from Edith's lips caused her attending nurse and Tom to stand up and move towards her.
"It's alright. I'm as well as I can be and this sweet girl needs a hug from her aunt."
"I'm so, so, so sorry, Aunt Edith," Sybbie wailed, trying to extricate herself from Edith's embrace, "I didn't mean to hurt you."
"Sybbie love, I'm alright. Don't give it another thought. And let me tell you something and mind you remember it. Your mother, my sweet sister, would not have any problem with how you're feeling or what you've just admitted. She'd be so proud of you and the young lady you've become. You have known me for fifteen years and you did not know her at all and now I am dying earlier than we'd all like and we're all finding our own way to deal with that. Now, you and your father here," Edith looked at Tom, noticing he was crying but smiling at her for what she was telling Sybbie, "will have to remember me and all we've shared and done since you were small. My little boy, your Cousin Edmund will not remember much of me – if anything – and I need someone to be in charge of telling him stories about his mummy. I was hoping to leave that job in your care, Sybbie. You're old enough to know what memories and parts of me you want Edmund to have, just like you know what you have been told about your mother and what parts of her you know because of your father, your grandparents, Aunt Mary and I have told you. Will you do that for me, darling?"
"Yes, yes, I promise, auntie." Sybbie continued to cry into her aunt's breast, knowing it as the one that she lay against after her mother died and where she had sought comfort all her life.
"Good girl," Edith said with a smile, wiping off her niece's tears, her injuries soothed by Sybbie's term for her that she hadn't used since she was a little girl, "now will you let me have a moment with your father but tell your Uncle Bertie to come up shortly?"
Sybbie nodded and kissed Edith's cheek before leaving her aunt and father alone together.
Once the adults heard the door shut and Sybbie's footsteps grow faint, they smiled at each other.
"She's so like her mother. She feels everything so keenly and detests it when she can't help. She'll never be able to resist lost causes, Tom, and I'm just sad I'm one of the ones that will teach her that they always end in tears."
"She'll miss you something terrible. You've been so important to her and she's grown to need you. Thank you, Edith, for loving her and not being afraid to show her a bit of maternal love. Only you were brave enough to do that and her childhood has been all the better for it."
"You don't have to thank me for loving her, Tom," Edith replied, a smile caressing her lips, "she's Sybil's last accomplishment and my only niece. You've done so well with her, much better than any of us, even Mary, your favourite, expected. Don't argue with me. Mary is and has always been everyone's favourite and I did mind, but I haven't for many years because had she not been, I wouldn't have had any happiness at all."
Tom respected his dying sister's wishes, especially seeing as in the wake of Matthew's crash, Mary had become his favourite, for he had started to view her as his responsibility.
"You've been asking everyone who comes in here favours, haven't you?" Tom asked.
Edith nodded.
"Then, I wonder, since you have not actually asked me one…yet, if I might beat you to the punch and ask one of you."
The dying woman chuckled at Tom's violation of the parameters of her slow demise, but forgave him as it had always been his way to disagree with the status quo of her world and do what he felt was right, no matter how drastic (for example, attempting elopement with an earl's daughter in the dead of night!).
"You may as well." Edith said playfully.
"Say hello to my Sybil for me and tell her I love her and have never been able to find someone like her. Let her know how I've tried for Sybbie and give her my thanks for bringing Sybbie and all of you into my life."
As Tom began to weep as his request drew to a close, Edith joined him and beckoned him over to pull him into her comforting embrace as much for her own need as for his. Neither heard the bedroom door open and shut.
"Well, isn't this a fine turn of events," Bertie exclaimed as he beheld the tableau before him, "my dearest wife beckoning her brother-in-law into her bed for a last tryst before she leaves the world!"
Had both not known Bertie's whimsical nature, and seen the quick wink he shot at Edith, they would have fretted over their highly improper state.
"Yes, dear, I asked Sybbie to fetch you so I could show the truth of my life. I am in love with Tom and have been all the days of my life and will love him in death too until the day – the far, far off day – when he joins me in heaven. Oh no, sorry! I made a mistake. Said the wrong name…how terribly embarrassing! I meant to say I am in love with Bertie…"
Both men sniggered at Edith's play for humour even as her situation grew sadder and her death crept closer. It was testament to how brightly her light shone that enveloped all who loved her that even on her deathbed she could use her sharp wit and good nature to give succour to those who would soon be in mourning for her.
"I'll leave you now, Edith," Tom said farewell, kissing her clammy forehead with a brother's affection, "with my love and my thanks."
He gripped Bertie's shoulder briefly as he passed him on his way to the door and left the lovers together for a time.
"Sybbie said you wanted me, my love. Are you well enough?" Bertie asked, quickly sidling over to the bed and lying down upon it so he could place his arm about his wife and hold her close.
"I am," Edith replied breathlessly, "but I can see that I do not have time to see all my family this way, else I will not see those whom I want to see in my very last moments, for I will already be dead. So, I need you to write some letters for me and deliver them once I am…once I have…"
"Alright, alright, don't trouble yourself. I'll do it once it's over." Bertie finished.
His wife kissed him soundly, but continued, "Once we've done that, I'll see you and the children together before we send them downstairs for the last time."
Bertie breathed a sigh of relief. He knew she would wish to spend the last moments of her life with him and their family but when she started her thought, he got the impression that she wanted their young family around them as she died. He would have granted her anything, any wish, any sum of money if it brought her one second of happiness in the time she had left to her, but putting their children through the torment of watching life flow from their beloved mother was not something to be given lightly. He would have, but Bertie never would have forgiven himself for allowing them to have the experience. It would have taken every last shred of courage and good sense he had within him. Thankfully, the misapprehension was indeed that and his good wife only wanted his company at the end, which was how he felt it should be, for he could never tell her in front of childish ears how he loved her or what was in the innermost sanctum of his heart and he could never bring himself to shed tears in his children's company.
"I'll write them for you." Bertie promised and sealed it with a searing kiss, into which he poured all his love for the woman who had captured his heart so many years ago.
Edith felt as though some devilish creature was sapping her strength straight from her soul and her body was being drained of everything that it had. She privately predicted that she would not live out the next couple of hours but in her own opinion that was for her to know and her family to find out.
Without the correspondent of the letter present, the three letters she dictated to Bertie to write took only half an hour of her remaining life.
"Bertie?" Edith called over to her husband at the bureau, her voice far weaker now.
Instantly, her husband flew to her side and held her pallid cheek in his hand, "What is it? What can I do?"
She breathed, "Bring the children. Quickly."
Witnessing her last stores of strength diminish was agonising, but watching her determination to see her children one last time override her own need to give in to her inevitable death was awe-inspiring. He flung himself out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Henry Talbot came out of the dining room to discover what the commotion was about.
"Please, Talbot," Bertie begged, already darting back up the stairs, "bring the children up!"
As Bertie turned the corner, he saw the other man flit back inside and call for the Pelham children to come with their aunt and him to see mummy. Their daddy, however, at this moment, could not bear to miss a second more of their mummy's life.
"They're coming, sweetheart, they're coming!" Bertie gasped, flinging himself down beside Edith to reassure himself that in the brief time he was absent from her she had not left him without a word.
She nodded and clasped his hand in her own frail one.
Without a knock or warning, mummy and daddy's room was overrun by children. Between Bertie and Henry, the children were prevented from jostling Edith to excess and were positioned strategically on the bed so each could see and hold parts of their mother without adding to her physical pain.
"Hello, my darlings," Edith coughed out, "it's so lovely to see you. I've been waiting for you such a long time."
"I'll leave you, Bertie, but if there's anything you need…"
"Just my wife and children now, Henry, thank you." Bertie replied, his heart breaking as he watched his wife bid farewell to her children.
Once Talbot was gone along with Mary, Bertie returned his full attention to his family and watched as the children who, with the exception of Edmund, knew they would not have a mummy after today and were inconsolably sad.
"Please don't leave, mummy, I won't be bad anymore and I'll listen to Nanny whatever she tells me and I won't go further than the park, just please don't go!" Caroline whimpered, truly believing that all her mother needed to remain with her was a bit more convincing.
Once her brothers joined in, Bertie stepped in to help Edith whose quiet voice could no longer subdue their boisterous brood into silence.
"Children! Stop this, please," Bertie commanded, but kindly as he ever did, "and listen to mummy. There is no use asking her to stay. Mummy does not want to leave us but she is sick, just like Sybbie's mummy and can't stay here."
"But I'm going to always be with you, all of you," Edith said with a particular glance to Marigold, "and no matter where you are or what happens once I'm gone, I'll always be your mummy. You are all such precious gifts and I'm so proud of all of you and don't ever forget that. Don't be afraid to talk about me but also, don't get lost in the memory of me, children. Just live each day as it comes and one day my not being there will hurt much less than it does right this minute and it will all be alright."
All the children recognised their mother's favourite phrase, which she once said had become her favourite saying because of daddy and them. The promise of a better tomorrow, however, did not mitigate the harsh reality of today when their mother was dying and they were watching her fade.
As the three youngest applied to their daddy to help them give mummy a cuddle, Marigold just watched her family fall apart and dive into sorrow in front of her. She had been quiet as a young girl and she had stayed so. Whilst her mother was eloquent and could always say the right thing, she never found the words that went deep enough to match what she felt inside. Her heart was being torn in two and boiled in acid this night but all she could do was feel and watch. As her daddy manoeuvred her siblings about so they fit the oldest and youngest under one arm and Caroline under her mummy's left, she caught her mother's eye and sensed something inside her that was pulled tight, break and snap into a million splinters.
Edith knew her eldest daughter was somewhere deep within herself exploring her own feelings and figuring out where her place lay in the mess splayed out before her. Marigold was a quiet, tidy child that liked everything in its own place and done properly, something many of the adults in her company thought ironic. So, when the prospect of a death in her immediate family presented itself, she was out of her depth.
"Marigold," Edith drawled, "come here. It'll be better. I promise."
As the girl approached, Edith whispered, "Don't worry so much, my love. Let what is about to happen happen and you will be the healthier and the happier for it. You're so grown up, but when your mother dies you are a small child…no matter how old you are."
Bertie gagged on his own tears then, recalling Mrs Pelham's death and how he had needed to be held by Edith, not as though he were her husband but her child.
"Your role in all this mess is to be my daughter, and a child. No one is expecting or will think any differently of you to look after daddy or these munchkins. That is grandma and Donk's job. They are coming back home with all of you once this is done to take care of you all for me. My job passes to them and eventually daddy when he's feeling better," at her daughter's terrified expression when she intimated something was ailing her last living parent, Edith could have hit herself in the head if she had the energy, "no, no, nothing's wrong with daddy, but he needs time to miss mummy just like you. I do not want you to have to look after my children as anything more than their older sister, Marigold, do you hear me? I don't want that to be your future."
"Yes, mummy," Marigold said through fast-flowing tears, "I'll do as you say. I love you and I'll miss you."
"And I'll miss you too, my girl," Edith said, pressing a kiss to her daughter's beautiful hair, "but I need you to fetch your Aunt Mary now, because it is time for all of you to go downstairs."
Marigold nodded and in a flurry of purple flew off to bring up her aunt to take them all back down to the rest of the family.
"And goodbye, my precious girl." She heard just before the door shut behind her, which only caused more tears to rise up.
As Bertie pulled each one of his lovely children away from Edith, she kissed them on the head and told them she loved them and said goodbye to them using their own endearment: Marigold was her precious girl, Arthur was her golden boy, Caroline was her special angel and Edmund, whom she would only know as a baby, was her miracle lad.
By the time she had finished kissing and loving her children, Mary and Marigold were back to take the children downstairs where their grandparents were waiting to see them and remove the nurse so that the Marquess and Marchioness of Hexham could say goodbye as they wished in the privacy of their own bedroom.
"Edith, I'll ask you one last time, then I promise I'll let it – and you – go. Please, please just get better."
The woman, now nearing death's embrace, smiled sadly at her bereft husband's plea, and replied, "I wish I could, my love, but our time's up. We had a good run of it though, didn't we?"
Bertie nodded, "Indeed, we did, and I'm so glad and thankful that Mary got us together at the Ritz when you were in London, else I would never have spent such perfect years with you, nor would I have such perfect children."
"The children are not perfect," Edith interrupted, the drive and force in her personality all but vanished, "and just because they'll be motherless, don't you spoil them. We have delightful children, my darling, and they are so precious to me. I will miss them."
"And they will miss you, dearest, but I promise to do my best not to spoil them. I would never undo any of your hard work and the children are that…your hard work and they have so much of your goodness, generosity and beauty. Thank you for giving me such gems and the last ten years of your life and know, sweetheart, that I will miss you and love you for the remaining years of mine."
Edith held her husband's lapel softly between her stiff fingers and exerted what energy she had remaining to bring his lips down to kiss hers.
"I love you, my darling." Bertie whispered against his wife's lips.
The Marchioness of Hexham did not reply. She merely slipped away, out of reach, sound in the knowledge that her children and family were around her and she had her husband's heart firmly and safe in her keeping.
Lady Edith Pelham fell away from the world, leaving behind a husband who would safeguard multiple northern estates against the tithes of the modern world so Arthur, who became Marquess of Hexham in his thirty-first year had a home and livelihood to share with the next Marchioness, born Adelaide Bates, to pass down to their own son. Their children would include the future of the late Marchioness' magazine in her daughter, Caroline, who made a name for herself as the first female editor and proprietor in British publishing, Edmund, who took the cloth and settled down in Ripon after being invested as Dean of Ripon Cathedral. Marigold, the only one of the Pelham children who never wed, did as her mother instructed and concentrated on her schooling, believing that an erudite woman would come into her own, as her mother had, during the changing world. Marigold Crawley, as she was always known at her Aunt Mary's insistence, returned to Downton when she was sixteen and took lessons from Mr Molesley, who was taken on as private tutor to the Crawley, Talbot and Branson children. At eighteen, Marigold told her aunt that she wanted to make her own way in the world and was accepted into Norland College. Upon receiving her diploma with the highest honours, Marigold moved into 3 Belgrave Square during wartime and looked after the Duke's children, all three of whom were devoutly fond of their nanny and took great pains to ensure that when their cousin, the Princess Elizabeth, had her children, their former nanny, the illegitimate daughter of an earl's dearest child, would be given position in the royal household and would raise the next ruler of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.