I don't own Downton Abbey or these characters. Reviews and feedback welcome.
"Do you see anything?" Edith asked her brother in law, whose upper body was currently hidden behind the raised bonnet of the family's Renault. She looked up at the mid-October sky, her lips pursed in mild concern. The weather as they left Downton had been uncommonly pleasant for the time of year, but the sky had grown grey and steely as they drove, and a biting chill began to seep into the wind. She nervously adjusted the collar of her coat and went around to the front of the vehicle.
Henry stood up straight, his shirt sleeves rolled up and his arms smeared with dirt and grease. He picked up a rag off the engine block and wiped his hands, to little effect. He nodded. "It's the timing belt gone, I'm afraid."
"Can you repair it?" Edith asked.
"Oh, I could certainly repair it," Henry said, "if I had another belt. But this—" he gestured with his foot at a metal toolbox he had pulled from the car's boot, and which now sat on the roadside next to the lifeless vehicle, "doesn't have one. We're going to have to hire a truck to tow it back."
"Well, that's that, then," Edith said, and leaned back against the side of the car next to Henry. "Papa won't be happy. He'll probably blame me. He's never got used to me driving."
Henry reached into his jacket, slung over the car's door, and found his cigarette case. "We can tell him I was behind the wheel, if it helps."
"Certainly not," Edith said with a playful grin. Henry offered her a cigarette and she shook her head. "I run my own magazine, own a flat in London and soon I'll be a marchioness, of all things. I should think driving a car wouldn't be too much to swallow."
Henry lit his cigarette and nodded. "Meanwhile, unless you have any ideas, we're faced with rather a long walk."
"Hmm. Not with those clouds. It'll be raining on us in an hour or so."
"You can tell that?"
"You pick these things up when you live in the country," she smiled. They regarded the glowering sky together. "This is a fairly busy road. Someone will come along soon enough and we should be able to catch a lift."
"Well then, we wait it out. Don't suppose you brought a pack of cards?"
She grinned. "I think I left them in my wardrobe, next to my spare timing belt."
"Ah." He laughed. "Well played."
They watched the scenery in contented silence. As the weeks had passed since Mary and Henry returned from their honeymoon, Edith had come to love her brother in law. Having grown up outside the clasping strictures she and Mary had known, he was freer with his emotions and his loyalties, and the guileless, direct way he had reached out for her friendship won her trust. He spoke to her as an equal, listened to what she had to say and, alongside Tom, stood up for her to the rest of the family. They found they had an easy, unforced camaraderie, two outsiders who looked on their relations with a mixture of love, exasperation and amusement. That morning, Mary and Mama had gone to visit Isobel and Lord Meton, leaving Edith with a morning to herself. She mentioned over breakfast that, with her days living at Downton coming to a close, she felt like taking a drive around the estate, knowing Henry would likely ask to join her, which he promptly did. They'd been having a jolly time, racing down the winding lanes and chatting, before the car's engine started emitting an alarming chorus of knocks and thumps, after which the wheel froze under Edith's hands and she barely managed to wrestle the vehicle onto the side of the road. The car's hull was still warm against her back as she leaned on it with Henry, enjoying the murmur of the wind over the fields.
"You know," he said slowly, "since we have a moment or two, there's something I thought I might mention."
"Oh?"
"Mary's told me. About …"
He let the thought trail off and she nodded. There was no need for further explanation.
"And I suppose, since we're family now, I ought to tell you just once that I admire you for what you've done."
Having determined not to react when the conversation began, Edith couldn't help turning to Henry with a look of wonderment on her face. "My word. I can honestly say you're the first person who's said that."
"I mean it," he said, exhaling a puff of smoke. "You were in a dreadful situation. The child's father — that is, Mr. Gregson — vanished, and there you were. Lots of women in your place would have just had the child and got it out of their lives forever. You took the harder path. You fought to have Marigold in your life, on your terms, or as near as you could manage. I gather it wasn't easy. Probably there are things you'd do differently if you could. Still, when the time comes, I hope I'm half as tenacious a parent as you've proven to be."
Edith turned and gazed down the length of the road, ostensibly looking for an approaching car but actually hiding her trembling lip from Henry. No one, apart from Bertie, had ever spoken to her in such terms, about an episode in her life that, for all the love she felt for her daughter, still made her heart race with remembered anxiety and shame. She hadn't dared to entertain the idea there might have been something admirable in it.
"It's lovely of you to say that," she finally whispered.
"Not at all." He stubbed the cigarette out on his heel and tossed it into the road. "And I suppose, since we've come this far, I ought to tell you that I know what happened on the morning that Bertie broke it off with you."
"Mary told you that?"
He nodded. "At first she would only say she ruined your life, without explaining how, or why. I thought she was being overly dramatic, honestly. I love her to pieces but she does like to wallow in it now and then."
For a brief instant, Edith wanted to ask him, Why do you love my sister? It was neither idle question nor veiled attack. Growing up in Mary's shadow, she'd observed with a mix of awe and helpless envy the way her sister used her looks, her charm and her indomitable poise and self-assurance to lure in men, including not a few at whom Edith herself had cast a longing eye. But once brought into Mary's orbit, why did they stay? Once the physical attraction faded and the guises and gambits became familiar, how did her sister inspire kind, honorable men like Henry and Matthew to love her?
"Finally I got it out of her," he went on. "She was reluctant to tell me about Marigold, but in the end she was remarkably candid about the whole thing."
"I wonder." Edith shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, wishing she had accepted one of Henry's cigarettes, or that a car would pull up and bring this conversation to an end. The events of that morning, from Mary's preening satisfaction as she forced Edith to reveal her secret to the agonizing spectacle of Bertie walking away from her across the lawns, away from her and out of her life forever, as she thought — these visions lingered unpleasantly in a quiet annex of her thoughts, emerging to cloud her dreams and taint even her walking moments with twinges of panic. Even now, anticipating a future happier than any she would have ever dared hope for, Mary's taunting smile would appear in her mind's eye without warning, and she would feel her temples itch with sweat and her heart begin to race. Surely this happiness, this glorious destiny with which life had unexpectedly blessed her, was all an illusion — surely it would all come crashing down for good, as it had each and every time before?
"There's more to her than what she shows you," he said. "As I've said, your Mary is not my Mary."
Edith drew a deep breath. "So who is your Mary, exactly?"
Henry looked down the road, away from Edith's gaze. "She's kind," he said. "Loyal. Quite tender and considerate, actually. Still completely convinced she's right about anything and everything, of course. But somehow she makes it seem endearing."
Edith offered a wobbly smile. "She sounds nice."
"Edie." He turned to face her squarely and looked her in the eyes. "Most of what has passed between you two is ancient history, as well as being none of my business. But I made it clear to her that when it came to things like … that morning, I was no longer on her side. She had to do better by you, because you're now my sister as well."
"Yes, she told me when I came back from Brancaster," Edith said, unsure whether to feel relieved or disappointed. "I suppose I'm not entirely surprised that the impetus came from you."
"It didn't." He was poised to say more when his eyes were drawn to the road. "I say, there's a car."
Edith turned and saw a panel truck coming over the rise in the distance. Henry stood out in the middle of the road and waved his arms. A moment later they could make out the driver returning the wave and slowly pulling off to the shoulder.
Edith watched as the truck closed the distance to them. A part of her wished this conversation had never taken place, while an equal part was cursing that it was about to end. She had a few fleeting moments before the truck arrived and they would be on the road back to Downton.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"What?"
"When you said it didn't come from you?"
"Oh." Henry gestured to the truck as it covered the final yards and slowly crept up behind the Renault, his mind already elsewhere. "She talked about something you said to her on our wedding day. I don't remember the exact phrase but it seemed to leave an impression."
The truck stopped with a ratcheting of gears. The driver, a middle-aged man with a weathered face and a cloth cap, poked his head out the window. "Hallo," he said. "Need a lift?"
"Yes, we do," Henry said, coming over to the driver's door. "The timing belt's packed up."
"Well, that machine's not going anywhere, in that case," said the driver. "Beautiful car, though. Anyroad, there's room here for you and your missus."
"Oh no, she's not—"
"He's my brother," Edith broke in with a genial smile, and went round to open the passenger door.
A/N: I know nothing about cars and so don't know if the Crawleys' car would have had a timing belt, or whether it failing would result in what I depict here. It's a story, y'know?