AN: Thank you everyone who has reviewed, followed and favorited this story. I've never written Edith before in any great length, so I hope my treatment of her character in this story is something that rings at least a little true to her fans and doesn't anger anyone!
Edith laid curled on her bed, her tears long dry, leaving an uncomfortable stiffness on her cheeks where their paths had trickled down. Her conversation with Violet still dominated her thoughts. Her very perceptive, shrewd grandmother, who had only to spend the length of a dinner in her company before she had sorted out the whole ruse. The woman wouldn't give away her secret, but she had been clear on what she thought the plan should be, and her suggestion was more of a dictum than she let on.
Blessedly, Violet hadn't wanted to know many of the details, only what her course of action was. After many hushed conversations with her mother, they had come to an agreement. It was one she could live with, she thought. A large part of her desperately wanted to keep the baby, perhaps the last piece of Michael that would be left to her. Mostly, however, Edith was terrified. Terrified of the stares that would follow her if the truth were known, terrified of the whispers behind raised hands that would echo around her, terrified of the disappointment, or worse, disgust that would pass over her father's eyes should he find out. Her mother was optimistic that there was a way to keep the child, but Edith couldn't figure how.
Her grandmother had listened to her quiet plotting out of their plan with raised eyebrows and pointed chin and Edith's confidence in the rightness of it withered under Violet's unblinking scrutiny. She finished in a halting rush, glancing at the older woman through lowered lashes, until her grandmother only had to say her name as a preamble, in a cautiously reprimanding sort of way, and Edith knew she didn't approve one bit.
A gentle knock roused her from her memory of the afternoon. The door creaked open and her mother peered into the room, quickly sliding through the door and shutting it behind her. Edith sat up on the bed at her mother's arrival, and Cora settled on the edge of the mattress, studying Edith's face.
"What did your grandmother have to say?" Cora asked hesitantly.
"Can't you guess?" Edith snapped, immediately feeling guilty for the sharpness of her tone.
"I have many different guesses as to what she said." Cora replied evenly.
"I'm sorry, Mama," Edith began. When Cora shook her head and cradled her hand in her own, Edith sighed. "She thinks I should take Aunt Rosamund and go to Switzerland. She says this should stay in the family."
Cora pulled back, "Your other grandmother is your family. And besides, I've already written her. It's done. The arrangements have been made."
Edith swung her legs over the side of the bed, sitting by her mother's side. "I wonder if maybe she's right." At Cora's hurt look, she rushed on. "Only that it might be better to go where no one knows me. Being with grandmama, I'm sure to run into someone that knows people here."
"Edith," Cora reasoned, "everything has been settled. Would you really rather go to Switzerland? At least in America you'll be with grandmama and we can guarantee that you have the best care. You can have more control over the outcome. I want you to take the time between now and the birth to really think, not be forced into some decision by people who mean well but will not have to live with the consequences as intimately as you will, should you decide wrong."
Edith remained silent, mulling over her mother's words. The little girl in her, the one always looking for ways to please, wanted to acquiesce to her grandmother's wishes, wanted to defer to her wiser opinion. Going to America did seem chancy.
Cora placed a comforting hand on Edith's arm, "Ultimately, darling, it's your decision. You are not my young girl to mold and boss anymore. You are a grown woman in charge of your life. You know my thinking on the whole thing. If you'd feel better going to Switzerland than I'll write your grandmother and I'll join you and Rosamund when it's time."
Edith threw her arms around her mother, really and truly believing, for the first time, that she had an ally. Cora would stand by her, whatever happened.
"No," Edith said, resolution strengthening her voice. "I'll go to America."
October 1922
Edith rolled her tea cake in her mouth apathetically while watching her grandmother. The woman ate as she did everything else, with a hurried, overwrought sort of enthusiasm that did not aid in her companion's digestion. Edith's attention was turned from Martha, as it often was, to the walls of the drawing room. If eating in Martha's company did not produce nausea, the decoration of the room surely could. It was a dizzying array of sharp colors and ornate fabrics. Every space was occupied by some expensive brick brack, making her nervous when walking by a table, should the movement cause something to fall off of its perch. Edith wasn't well versed in artistic periods, but even her novice eye could tell that the room was a gauche mishmash of Rococo, Italianate and Louis XIV. It was a startling contrast to the pastel hued, sedate drawing room she was used to, and not for the first time, she went through her grandmother's Newport home in wonder, unable to imagine her elegant, tasteful mother occupying the space with any sense of comfort.
She had been in America a little over a fortnight and along with a growing sense of homesickness, was the growing baby, finally making its presence known with tiny tickles of movement and the new roundness of her body. Feeling the bulge of her belly, Edith recalled seeing Sybil, and then Mary, at various stages of their pregnancies and the longing she had as their bodies changed from the children they were baring. Finally joining them in motherhood, she only felt lost and apprehensive, another Crawley sister destined to birth a child who would not only lose one parent, but most likely both.
"You're awfully quiet. Feeling okay?" Martha asked, swallowing her coffee in a large gulp. It was odd to Edith, the American need for observing a tea time, trying to emulate their English counterparts, but serving coffee instead. Edith studied her grandmother and again marveled at the difference to her mother. Only the eyes were somewhat similar, startling in their color and expressiveness.
"Yes," Edith replied, "I was just thinking…"
"About?" Martha inquired, leaning forward, inviting her to go on.
"Whom Mama takes after?" Edith revealed, momentarily shocked at her own forthrightness. Perhaps it was Martha's bold manner or being so far from Downton or the hormones, but Edith felt a sort of freedom in her grandmother's ostentatious home.
Martha let out a snort. "Your mother and her father were two peas in a pod." Rising from her seat, Martha went across the room, to her gilded desk tucked in the corner and took what looked to be a frame off of it. Coming back to Edith, she placed the picture in her hands.
"Your mother, aged five, and her proud papa." Martha declared before sitting back down and taking up another sandwich.
Edith stared at the old photograph, realizing she had never seen a picture of her mother that young before. Dowton was full of photographs of her mother past the age of nineteen, but none of her life prior to living in England. The girl in the picture was a miniature version of the woman she knew, her features smoothed and rounded, dressed in a pure white, lace pinafore, the sleeves pluming out over her thin arms. Dark cascades of perfect curls hung to her waist, a giant bow atop her head keeping the strands off her face. She sat on the lap of a man with an angular face, a shock of dark hair topping his head. His legs jutted out, looking long and lean in the black suit he wore. He was incredibly handsome, this serious looking man with his arm firmly clasped around the waist of the little girl in his lap. Her grandfather.
"Isadore called her his 'Cora-belle'." Martha glanced somewhere into the room as though looking at a distant scene playing out over Edith's shoulder. "He wouldn't speak to me for months after your parents married."
"Grandpapa didn't approve?" Edith asked, incredulous. It was the first time she heard of discontent from someone other than the dowager over the marriage.
Martha sighed and gave her an indulgent smile, "He was furious at me for securing the match. He had indulged the trip because your mother seemed eager for adventure and he didn't think anything would really come of it. Little did he know the urgent need for American dollars at the time. She was courted by quite a few titled debtors. I thought I was going to have to beat them away with sticks. It would have been comical if their desperation hadn't been so pitiful. Of course, she was also a lot prettier than the horse-faced, milkweeds that lined every ballroom from York to London. Your grandfather very much hated the idea of giving his little girl to a fortune hunter."
"How did you do it?" Edith wondered quietly.
"Do what?" Martha asked.
"Give up your child. To a family you didn't know an entire ocean away." Edith could feel the familiar tightness clamp her throat.
"It was a slightly different circumstance, dear." Martha patted her leg comfortingly. "Once your mother turned eighteen, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone made a bride out of her. I wanted the best for her and I trusted your father. There was an earnestness to him. He was too young at the time to see beyond the dollar signs but everyone else with a set of eyes and common sense could see he was smitten with Cora. So I knew in the end he'd finally realize it too."
Edith blinked back the tears that sat on the brim of her lids. Her emotions were becoming harder to reign in. Her short time in America had only served to confuse her more when she thought of what to do once the baby was born. Martha was so open about her condition, as though the pregnancy and the unborn child were a blessed event and not something to be concealed and then handled. It almost made her forget that she should be ashamed.
"Mrs Levinson, a Mr Fanning is here to see you," Her grandmother's butler announced, walking briskly into the drawing room.
"Oh yes! I almost forgot!" Martha exclaimed getting up quickly, brushing the crumbs from her mouth and hands.
At Edith's questioning look, Martha explained, "A dealer from Sotheby's. He's coming to appraise some of the pieces here. Your uncle wants to renegotiate the terms of our insurance policy or some such nonsense."
"Oh," Edith responded. Any other thought she had dissipated into the ether as Mr Fanning walked in. He immediately met her eye, his handsome face breaking into a genial smile, flashing his perfect teeth. Edith felt a flutter in her stomach that had nothing to do with the child growing there and though there was a moment that her heart clenched, feeling guilty for her attraction as she thought of Michael, she couldn't help the genuine smile that spread across her face in return.
