Dinner had been, for want of a less dramatic word, a disaster, thought Edith glumly. It was the first time Grandmama had dined with them since Sybil's wedding, and with both of her sisters absent from home with their respective husbands, she had been the sole focus of her grandmother's punishing wit and her deficiencies the sole topic of conversation. She had retired early, pleading a headache, although she did not think that anyone had believed her. Sleep had not come, however, and she had tiptoed downstairs to the library, hoping that a book might help to soothe her. Edith paused on the threshold, hidden behind the half-closed door as her mother's melodious voice met her ears.
"For once, I agree with your mother," Mama sighed heavily. "We must do something about her, Robert."
"I agree, but what? She hasn't Mary's beauty, or Sybil's ease of manner." Papa sighed deeply. "We always knew it was going to be difficult to get Edith settled."
Edith gasped softly, hot tears starting to prick her eyes. She blinked furiously, forcing herself to attend to her mother's reply. "What about Sir Anthony Strallan? His wife died five years ago and there's no heir for Locksley still."
Her father made a muted sound of agreement and Edith choked down another noise of surprise. "He is older, I suppose. He may be willing to overlook Edith's… oddities."
"Exactly," Mama replied with satisfaction. "It's time she had her own establishment, before she is quite on the shelf. I shall write to Mrs Chetwood. When we are next in Town…"
Edith could listen no longer; she closed her eyes, her throat suddenly possessed of such soreness that it was difficult to breathe. Turning away, salt stinging her eyes, she groped her way back to the hall. The tears had not yet begun to fall. That was good. If she were to run into one of the servants on her way back to the hall, she could easily feign the approach of a cold. She could not - would not - cry, not in front of people. Edith was perfectly aware that she looked fragile enough - so small, so soft, so young. Allowing people to confirm their impressions by such a shameful display of emotion would be unbearable. Instead, she ran, her slippered feet pattering like a mouse's along the hall, her mother's thoughtful plans for pushing her into the arms of this unknown ogre echoing in her ears as she made for her favoured childhood hiding place.
Fortunately, she managed to gain the peace and solitude of the folly, and the safe, all-encompassing arms of its ivy-trellised bower, before she lost all composure. The icy fingers of the wind scratched her cheeks as the tears ran down them, and Edith briefly regretted her hasty exit from the house, which had not permitted of the obtaining of outdoor clothes. She curled up on the corner of the bench which afforded her the most privacy and the greatest amount of shelter from the thickening snow, drew her knees, covered in mauve silk, up to her soft, round chin, and cried.
Some ladies, in the midst of fits of heightened emotion, are fortunate enough still to keep their good looks. They glow and look radiant and cause all gentlemen within a fifty mile radius to rush to their aid. Not so Lady Edith Crawley.
When smiling, on a sunny day, with a good following wind and a flattering gown, she might just have attained the epithet 'taking.' In unhappiness and a gown originally made for her much more striking older sister, she was fully aware that she looked frightful. At the present moment, however, she could not care less.
This part of the garden had become well known to her, during her two-and-twenty years of life. It had been her place of escape, when Mary had been cruel or Granny had been brutal, or Mama had been indifferent. Edith had always been, in the words of her grandmama, difficult and prone to unworthy emotions. Awkward, she meant. Bookish. Possessed of a pervading sense of unease in company. And, most recently, highly reluctant to reply with quiet thanks and shy deference to all those people who had swarmed around her in the weeks since her younger sister's marriage, to reassure her that one day, surely, there would be a man somewhere who would want poor, plain Edith for his wife.
It wasn't that she was jealous of Sybil, not at all. She loved her younger sister - who would not, when Sybil was so sweet and kind-hearted? - and her new brother-in-law, Captain Tom Branson of the 95th Rifles, was amusing and engaging and generous enough that, throughout his courtship with Sybil, he had not minded - had even occasionally seemed to welcome - the frequent presence of her sister as chaperone. If there were jealousy, however, then it was not born of any unkindness between she and Sybil. No, it was simply… Sybil was pretty, and Edith was not. Sybil had a husband who was affectionate and intelligent, whose eyes glowed whenever she was near, and Edith… Edith could not recall a time when any man had ever looked at her in that way. Sybil would know bliss and Edith knew that she would be forever alone.
And now, to have Mama and Papa plotting and scheming to marry her off - to get her off their hands as if she were something shameful, some sordid inconvenience… Edith shuddered. It was more than she thought she could bear.
Shy by nature, Edith had always found books easier than people, and her reading - of poetry, of novels, of plays - had developed in her the spirit of a romantic. She had early come to the conclusion that, having very little to recommend her to members of the opposite sex, if she were ever to be married, it would likely be for convenience - the convenience of the House of Grantham and her future husband, that was. Her own wishes, she had reflected sadly, were unlikely to play any part in the making of such a match. Here lay the rub. Every fine feeling, every latent longing for love and tenderness rebelled against the prospect. Living her life alone would not be very comfortable, to be sure - a spinster was, and always would be, an object of pity and ridicule to the world at large - but even more uncomfortable was the prospect of being married off merely to satisfy some unknown man's need for heirs on the right side of the blanket.
That, it seemed, was her parents' plan. Edith scoffed to herself. Well, good luck to them! It would be a labour worthy of Hercules himself to find a man willing to marry Edith Crawley.
At that, Edith drew herself up sharply. Now that smacked strongly of self-pity. There was, she had come to the conclusion, only one real solution to her difficulties. She was, after all, not without resource. Her father made her a good allowance each month and Edith, less extravagant than Mary and less charitable than Sybil, had saved a good deal of it. Certainly enough to get her away from Downton. She would go to London and throw herself on the mercies of her Aunt Rosamund.
The childless relict of a wealthy nabob, Aunt Rosamund lived a life of comfortable solitude on Curzon Street, and in her aunt, Edith had found something of a champion. If only she could make her way to London, then Edith thought she might be able to persuade her aunt to allow her to stay, as her companion, perhaps. If she were removed from Downton, then perhaps Mama and Papa might forget their plan of marrying her off. If she did not so often intrude upon their notice, perhaps in time they would come to see her as less of a blot upon the family name.
Edith sighed and lifted her head from her knees, roughly scrubbing at her cheeks to extirpate the tear tracks which lay there. Her decision made, she rose from her bench and prepared to return to the house, brushing the wrinkles out of her skirts and smoothing her unruly red-gold curls back into some semblance of order. A good cry had done her the world of good.
Now it was time to begin making plans.
Said plans found her, some five and twenty minutes later, in the stables. It still lacked some five minutes to nine and William, the junior groom, was still awake. "Ready the phaeton for me, please, William," Edith ordered, trying to keep her voice steady and calm. She did not generally give orders to the servants. Ordinarily, there would be nothing noteworthy in her ordering the phaeton. Tom's courtship with Sybil had been long indeed, and much of it conducted from Tom's own phaeton, where it had amused him to teach both of his gentle companions the rudiments of driving. Edith, to her own surprise as much as anyone else's, had proved a quick pupil, and she could handle the horses with skill and care.
William blanched. "The phaeton, m'lady? But the snow - "
"I shall be perfectly all right." Edith paused. "I wanted a short drive before retiring." It was such a patently ridiculous excuse that, inwardly, she cringed. Mary might have been able to carry it off, but not silly little Edith.
William hesitated and then straightened his shoulders. "I - I don't think his lordship would like the idea of it much, m'lady."
Edith bit her lip and then tipped her chin back in her best impression of Mary at her most imperious. "And I should not like to have to report you to Carson for disobedience, William. I am ordering you to ready me the phaeton."
William hesitated a moment longer, but the threat of Carson's wrath seemed to work some magic charm over him. With no further complaint save a slight sigh, he turned to fulfil his young mistress's request.
And so Edith found herself on the road towards London. For fully half an hour, the phaeton bowled along quite merrily, Edith driving at a speed that would have induced Captain Branson, had he been present, to scold her most soundly for irresponsibility. Edith knew this, and could not bring herself to care. After the stifling atmosphere of the Abbey, and more particularly the unhappiness of that evening, it was nothing short of bliss to speed along the lanes, lantern swinging from its post, the horses' harnesses jingling with the motion of the vehicle.
She was driving so quickly that she did not see the curricle coming the other way, at a far more sedate pace, until it was far, far too late.