Edith: The Favorite
He would never admit it but hidden deep in his heart was the fact that Edith was his favorite child. She was the only one that liked him as a baby and in a very small way it flattered him- she was the only one that ever seemed to need him. Just as Mary had hated it when Robert held her, Edith couldn't bear to be held by anyone besides her papa. Still Edith was not an easy child. She was always sickly- something she eventually grew out of but there were countless evenings that he sat up with her in her bedroom, telling her stories as she drifted in and out of fevers, giggling at him between fits of coughing.
One night after his father died, Robert knew he wouldn't be able to sleep. He stayed up, drinking and staring dumbly at the pile of papers on the estate that he would have to go through at some point. At the same time, Edith had been suffering from a bout of bronchitis and had been having trouble staying asleep. He had been staring out the window, glass in hand, giving himself a moment to cry as he stared out over the estate- the estate he was now master of. That moment also happened to be when he heard rather small footsteps behind him but he didn't know exactly who it was until a scratchy voice somewhere near his elbow tentatively said, "Papa...?"
He sniffed and slowly looked down at her. "Hello, Edith. Couldn't sleep, my dear?"
The poor thing opened her mouth to speak but a series of coughs escaped instead. Robert set the glass down. "You know, I can't sleep either." he said, swooping her up into her arms. "Does your throat still hurt?" Edith nodded and though his poor girl was quite ill he chuckled. "We'll see if we can find some tea. That might help, hmm?" They did find some and Edith went to sleep shortly afterward. He had carried her back up to her room when all the brandy he had been drinking finally hit him. He shut his eyes for what he thought was a moment but when he opened them again it was morning.
Robert was saddened when Edith became a teenager and suddenly began taking her childish rivalry with Mary very seriously. This made her crave more attention from her mother and she neglected her father a bit. Though, Robert was ashamed to confess, as the girls got older he related to them less and less and he inadvertently neglected Edith. Occasionally she would seem so sad that he felt he had to question her about it. And though she wouldn't tell him exactly what was wrong, she still let him hold her while she cried over some problem he knew he probably wouldn't understand.
Patrick's death, strangely, pulled Edith out of her sibling rivalry- which Robert was grateful for. Holding her and knowing that she was as equally upset over Patrick lessened his grief the smallest bit. He would admit that he was closest to Edith but never that she was his favorite...not outwardly, at the very least.