S5 spoiler warning!
Sir Anthony had arrived late to the ceremony. He also intended to leave early, he didn't want anyone to notice he was even there. But he still thought he ought to be there. Honouring all those young men who had been put into their graves much too early. When he, himself, had survived to a life that wasn't really a life.
It is so wrong when the young go before the old. It is so wrong when those who want to live die before the ones who have lost their wish to live, Anthony thought.
He saw Lady Edith in the distance. He had been prepared that she would be there, but it still made his heart beat faster. She was more beautiful than ever. He wondered if she had finally been able to forgive him, now that she was a well known writer and journalist.
She had the little girl, Marigold, sitting in her lap. The orphaned girl who had been living with one of Lord Grantham's tenants before Lady Edith took her in.
Sir Anthony had heard the story about the little girl - that Edith had grown fond of the girl and adopted her, giving her a much brighter future and the possibility to grow up together with Edith's niece and nephew at Downton.
It was so like Lady Edith with her kind heart to do a thing like that!
...
Sir Anthony hadn't meant to stare at the little girl, but there was something so familiar about her that he couldn't help himself. He looked at her, enchanted, for a full five minutes.
It seemed that the little girl could feel his eyes upon her, because suddenly she turned her head and looked straight at him with a puzzled expression. Sir Anthony wanted to look away, but it was too late, the girl had already noticed that he was looking at her. So he just gave her one of his warmest smiles.
The little girl smiled back at him. That was the exact moment when it all dawned upon him. The girl had precisely the same smile as her mother, shy and friendly. In that moment Sir Anthony knew it all beyond a doubt. This child wasn't an orphan. She was sitting in her own mother's lap.
Marigold was Edith's own child. And Sir Anthony knew exactly why she couldn't acknowledge that. The only thing he didn't know in that moment was who the father was. But it was obvious it was someone Edith couldn't marry.
...
Sir Anthony realised he couldn't stay there any longer. It wouldn't take long for Edith to wonder whom her daughter was smiling at. So he gave the little girl one last friendly smile before he turned away and started walking back to Locksley, tears streaming down his cheeks.
...
Lady Edith turned around just in time to see Anthony's back as he walked away. "Oh, no, not again", she thought. She was barely able to keep her tears back for the rest of the ceremony.
AN: Thank you for reading!
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I think Anthony ought to be at the memorial ceremony, so I put him there.
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I have seen all of S5 now and I'm happy that Edith has got her little girl back. I also love Carson's proposal. Ten times better than Matthew's in CS2011.
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I wonder if I will be able to finish my story 'A Sudden Interest in Pigs'. A lot has happened in S5 that has kind of jumbled up my plans for the story.