"Idiot boy." Cynthia took a long draught of her drink. "It must be hereditary. There's no other explanation."

Edith frowned at her. "Well, it's true!" Cyn protested in an undertone, gesturing over at where Marigold was curled up on the sofa under one of her mother's cardigans. She'd fallen asleep somewhere between the third and fourth gin, and Edith didn't have the heart to wake her and usher her to bed. Her face was red and swollen from sobbing, her hair was dishevelled and she'd run a ladder in her stockings. "Just look at this mess, if you need the proof. Men are… incomprehensible, darling, and the sooner we all get used to it, the better." She tutted. "Just look at Geoffrey."

"Oh? What's he done now?"

Cynthia shrugged. "Oh, you know, the usual. It always seems that when I think I've got used to a chap being irascible and irritating all the time, suddenly he reveals a speck of decency and sends me all the way back to square one." She spread her hands out emphatically. "You see? Incomprehensible."

When Edith made no reply save a faint 'mmm', Cyn frowned. "And what about you, darling? Holding up?"

"Oh, yes. I'm fine."

Cyn did not look like she believed one word of it. "I see. Can't be easy, though, having your daughter fall for the nephew of the man who jilted you. And now, well, it does rather seem like… history repeating itself, doesn't it?"

From any other employee, Edith wouldn't have stood such insubordination. But Cynthia was different. She and Edith had struck up a fast friendship almost from the first day Cyn had been hired, and found common ground in their romantic failings: Cynthia had plunged headlong into marriage straight out of university - to one of her former lecturers, no less - and endured four years of unhappiness before the bullying clot had provided her with enough evidence for a divorce.

"Trying not to think about it, to be honest." At Cynthia's disbelieving snort, Edith protested, "Really, I am! I don't matter, Anthony doesn't matter. The only important people here are Marigold and James."

"Well," said Cynthia admiringly, "I've said it before and I'll say it again: you're a saint, Edith Crawley." She shook her head rather sadly. "And there's just no fixing that."

One week later, Edith and Anthony met - by appointment - in Hyde Park. "How's James?" asked Edith, as they walked arm-in-arm towards Speaker's Corner.

"In his body? Mending, or - starting to, anyway." Anthony let out a breath. "His heart? Shattered. Marigold?"

"Positively wretched," Edith agreed. Marigold had gone back to duty the morning after her visit to James in hospital, despite Edith's protestations, and seemed to be busy trying to drown her feelings in work. It was going just about as well as could have been predicted - which was to say, not at all.

Anthony stopped in the middle of the path, and tilted his head downwards to peer closely into Edith's face, as if by so doing, he could read her soul. Sometimes, in her youth, Edith hadn't been at all sure that he couldn't, so preternaturally attuned to her emotions and thoughts as he had appeared to be. Now, she recognised that talent for what it really was: Anthony was simply a very sensitive man, who paid close attention to his surroundings, and was an extremely good listener. He not only heard what people said, but what they didn't say, too. At a dispassionate distance, Edith knew precisely why her younger self had found that so magical; her family were, after all, not known for their extrospection. "And… you, my dear? I hope that all of this hasn't… dredged up memories you'd… rather forget?"

Edith smiled faintly. "I'm quite all right." At Anthony's doubtful look, her smile widened and became just a touch exasperated. "Only… worried about Marigold, and caught up with work, which doesn't make things any better."

"Damn Jim," Anthony bit out under his breath.

Edith chafed his elbow with her hand fondly. "Whatever are we going to do with them, hmm?"

"Singing a rather different tune, aren't you?"

She shrugged. "I was worried about the worst happening," she countered crisply. "Well, it has happened. Or… nearly the worst, anyway. And, you know, it hasn't made Marigold fall out of love with him. If anything, it's made it all worse." Softly, she admitted, "I ought to have realised that it would."

"So… what are you suggesting?"

"I don't know." Edith brushed a loose strand of greying-blonde hair out of her face with more than necessary force. "I just… don't think that it will do either of them any good not to see each other any more. Not James, and certainly not Marigold."

"I see." Anthony's voice held no expression whatsoever and as he spoke, he looked out over the park - the formerly serene green parkland now churned up for vegetable patches and, in the distance, gun emplacements.

"Why?" Edith's shoulders stiffened suddenly. "Do you think differently?" She sniffed. "Be honest - even if you didn't put him up to it, I suppose you still think the young clot behaved perfectly properly, under the circs.?"

Anthony shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. "I… haven't quite decided. On the one hand, it seems that all James has accomplished is the unhappiness of two young people. On the other… I… I do believe that a woman deserves a husband who can take care of her." At Edith's derisive snort, he protested, "You did ask for my honest opinion. I'm old-fashioned, remember?"

"Mmm, yes." But she was smiling at him, rather affectionately, albeit grudgingly. "Positively prehistoric, if you ask me."

Anthony's lips twitched and Edith's hand squeezed his arm again. "It's only his fingers, Anthony," she wheedled. "What are fingers, for God's sake?"

"He still can't feed himself, you know," Anthony said abruptly. "Not with anything other than a spoon, anyway. He can't write. They're still not sure about the sight in his left eye."

"And which bit of that is going to stop him from loving his wife? Or his children?" Edith's voice was sharp, and it was as if the words were being pulled from her without conscious thought, firing questions at Anthony without giving him time to reply. "Or… should he just live the rest of his life alone? Is that what you want for him, Anthony? Is it what Diana would have wanted for him?"

Anthony's mouth went rigid. "It isn't up to me, is it?" His voice was clipped and brittle, everything perfectly, aristocratically enunciated. It was always a sure sign of temper in him, that. There was another thing that had been a novelty, when they had first courted. In other men - and in Edith herself - anger was signalled by a loss of control: shouting and throwing things, going red in the face, becoming violent. In Anthony, anger was a tightening of everything: his body, his speech, his face. All his usual warmth seemed to get sucked away, deep inside him, leaving the surface positively glacial.

"No," she shot back, "but frankly I think you've set a bloody poor example for the boy!"

Anthony did not reply. Edith's shoulders were shaking as she inhaled and exhaled quickly, shallowly - with suppressed rage or suppressed tears, he could not tell. At length, she murmured, shakily, "I… I apologise. That - that was uncalled for. I know you… you only did what you thought was best." You were just wrong, that's all, my dear.

Anthony's arm curved hesitantly around her. When Edith did not flinch away, he reeled her in, squeezing her shoulder gently. "I'm sure Jim thinks the same."

"Well, I don't." She looked up at him, looking suddenly twenty years' younger and vulnerable with it. "Please, Anthony. You must see that I'm right. Otherwise… otherwise, there's no hope for any of us."

"May I come in?"

Flight Lieutenant Chetwood looked up hazily at the pretty older woman who had just entered his room. "Hello." His face creased into a slow frown. "Have we… met before? I'm… terribly sorry, I had a procedure this morning and… I'm on rather a lot of morphine, just now." His lips turned up at the edges into the ghost of a smile. "Terrific stuff."

Edith returned the smile. Well, the boy certainly had his uncle's awkward charm, with a touch of RAF mischief. No wonder Marigold's smitten. "We haven't, but… you know my daughter. Very well, as I understand it."

James's face turned positively grey at that and for a moment, Edith worried that he would be sick. "Lady Edith," he exhaled at length, and it seemed that this had gone some way towards pulling him out of the drug-induced haze. Whether he would remember any of it later, well, that was another matter entirely. "Is… is Marigold…?"

"She's heartbroken." Edith sat down at the bedside. "Pleased with yourself?" No point sweetening the pill, as her grandmother would have said.

"No." James swallowed. "That's the very last thing I am."

Lady Edith lifted a wry eyebrow. "Your uncle told me once that the two of you were nothing alike. Apparently he was wrong."

James winced. "So it seems. Not that that stopped him from giving me the most thundering scold about it all."

Edith blinked. Goodness. She hadn't expected that. What had Anthony been scolding him over, if he wasn't sure that James had done the wrong thing?

James would have told her, if she'd had the courage to ask. He thought, at this moment, that he'd probably take those words with him to his grave. "Do you realise what a bloody fool you've made me look? I stood up in her mother's office and swore to her that you wouldn't hurt her daughter, and now look at this mess! She looked as if you'd shattered her, James!"

"And you'd know, I suppose!" Poor response, perhaps, but James had always known he'd been cursed with his mother's temper.

His uncle's eyebrows flew up into his hairline. "Yes," Uncle Anthony bit out quietly. "Yes, I would. And believe me, it's not a thing you'll be proud of, in the years to come."

"I'm not proud of it now," he protested. "But - but it was the best thing for her. You of all people must be able to see that."

And then Uncle Anthony had dragged his good hand across his face in exhaustion and sighed as if he were letting out his dying breath, and murmured, "I don't know, Jim. I don't damn well know any more."

"She does deserve better." James said it clearly, baldly. "I know that. I've always known it, deep down. I was fooling myself to suppose that I could ever…" He stopped, chewing at his lip - just about the only undamaged bit of him there seemed to be. "I am sorry, for any distress I've caused."

"When your uncle jilted me," Edith said, rather coldly, "I don't think I stopped crying for a month. It's never stopped hurting me. So, yes, you have caused her distress. And, no, I don't believe she will ever forget you, or stop loving you." She shrugged. "In any case, it's far too late for your uncle and I. But it isn't too late for you and Marigold."

He hesitated - Edith saw it, in the tremble of his still-childish chin and the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes - and then the impassive mask dropped down again. "I'm terribly sorry. I'm rather tired. Would you mind?"