For as much as Edith criticized and judged Mary, the probability that she would cause a scandal was far greater than her sister.
Caught between trying to please her parents and learning who she really was as a person, Edith vacillated between strict conformity to her parents ideals and heinous acts of rebellion. Her need for attention ultimately resulted in consistently picking romantic partners unavailable to her.
The first of course was Cousin Patrick, who was destined to become Mary's husband. As much as she had claimed to love Cousin Patrick, and did love Cousin Patrick, she later realized she was not in love with Cousin Patrick. She just couldn't understand how carelessly Mary was willing to forget him. For Edith, Mary's callousness served as a symbol of her sister's inability to understand the possibility of power that Patrick represented, never mind the clear preference her parents held for both Patrick and Mary over Edith.
Before, during and for many years after the war, a woman of their station could only hope to marry well and help their Lord husband maintain an estate, just as their mother had done before them and Nanny had done before her. While marriage was confining in its own right, having a man with a title and land gave a woman freedom. And Mary was so close to that but didn't care that she had lost it, while it was presumed Edith would never have the opportunity, and wanted it desperately. Poor Edith indeed.
Edith's sexual awakening had come with the farmer, John Drake. She was fortunate that Mrs. Drake had cut their ties before anything could progress further. Edith has been incredibly selfish and foolish to have entertained Mr. Drakes advances. Not only was he unsuitable for his profession and lot in life, but also because he was married. Moreover, before she had gotten carried away in the outright flirtation and attention he was paying her, she had been in the process of developing a friendship of sorts with Mrs. Drake. She didn't understand at the time, but as the daughter of Lord Grantham, she had had the opportunity to improve the image of the family. Instead, had Mrs. Drake truly told anyone what she saw, she could have embroiled the family in scandal once again.
Edith ignored the lack of morality in her actions at the time. No, the first time Edith started to consider this notion of 'bad' was the first time Lavinia Swire kissed her.
Edith had found herself entertaining Lavinia one afternoon when Mary had stolen Matthew away, which was all too often. It was after seeing Mary and Matthew together one day that Lavinia had took the confort Edith offered and made it more. Edith had placed her hand across Lavinia's arm, her thumb rubbing the place where it sat. Edith hadn't realized just how close they were and Lavinia had turned her head just enough that their lips had touched in a manner that was entirely inappropriate. But Edith didn't pull away. She probably should have, but she didn't. In fact, she had only just grasped what was happening, when Lavinia pulled away with a blush and ran.
At first, Edith has chalked it down to Lavinia's schooling; she had attended boarding school and who knew what was acceptable there. Furthermore, late at night, when Edith was alone in her room, her thoughts constantly drifted to the softness of Lavinia lips as her fingers drifted across her own mouth.
A week later, when Lavinia had tried to apologize, Edith brushed it off. She liked Lavinia. Like her, Lavinia had been overlooked; she too had become second place to perfect Mary. Finally, Edith had someone who understood. It seemed inevitable that they would drift together.
Perhaps that was why next time the two were alone and tension so thick it could be cut with a knife developed, it was Edith who pressed her lips to Lavinia's. Once again, Mary had cut into Lavinia's relationship with Matthew, pushing his wheel chair and drawing his attention.
Edith could feel Lavinia's frustration viscerally. So when the opportunity presented to relieve some of that frustration, she took a chance.
This time, the kiss was not brief. Instead, both women were left gasping with bruised, swollen lips.
It just devolved from there. Passionate kisses on afternoon walks quickly became passionate lovemaking in the dark recesses of the night.
No one knew for sure what was happening between the two. In fact, most were only two pleased that the two women were getting along if they bothered to pay attention at all. Mary only once questioned Edith's need to constantly bore poor polite Lavinia once, before realizing that keeping Lavinia distracted could only work in her favor. The only one who had an inkling of what was happening was Anna, for it's rather difficult to hide bruised necks and overly ruffled sheets from one's maid. But she never questioned anything aloud, only looked at Edith with eyes that were both pitying and slightly disgusted.
Out of panicky guilt and slight self-hatred over her affair with Lavinia, Edith had thrown herself once again at Sir Anthony after he returned from the war. Anthony had always been kinder than most to her, the sole person to never place her second to Mary. For once, she didn't feel like a consolation prize. When Anthony looked at her, he saw her clearly and as she truly was. She didn't know exactly who that was, but he did. Edith had been so desperate not only to be understood, but for an escape. If anything, Anthony was to her ticket out.
Too bad she couldn't recognize the type of person he truly was: a coward. Her relationship with Anthony finally did put her at the center of a scandal. Not only had she tried to trap a much older man, but she had failed spectacularly. Left at the altar and publicly humiliated. She couldn't even do this right.
Surprisingly, writing had brought almost as good a release as Lavinia had. Her work and those moments with Lavinia were the closest Edith had ever felt to being real. In this sense, her failed engagement to Anthony had succeeded.
Edith had been through enough that she would be left to her own devices. That was a power in itself.
To come to find out that people actually cared what Edith, the overlooked middle daughter of a country lord, had to say brought about a heady feeling. Finally, Edith was removing the layers she had built up to protect herself and was discovering who she was.
So when Michael Gregson began flirting with her and demanding her attention, Edith truly was surprised. For once in her life, she wasn't looking to a romantic partner to fill the loneliness in her life. She was starting to find contentment in being alone when Michael went and ruined all her progress.
She had tried resist him, truly, but when his commitment and loyalty had reached heights that no other person had, Edith could resist no longer. To Edith, moving to Germany, the most hated race in the world, just so he could be with her, was the most grand gesture of loyalty a person could make. Never mind the fact that it was his betrayal of his wife that caused Michael to have to make this gesture in the first place.
Now here we are. Edith is once again alone and what's worst: she's pregnant. She is closer to scandal than she has ever been. Unlike her previous choices, there's no hiding this. All of those times she had skirted the line of morality had finally caught up with her.
It was fortunate then that Granny and Aunt Rosamond had taken pity on her and had proposed their idea of going to Switzerland as it would delay the inevitable.
Edith would go to Bern with Rosamund and hide the truth from her family for as long as she could. But as she agreed to the plan, Edith was scheming.
Traveling abroad was the sensible way to begin, but she could never give up her wanted child from the man she loved. Rosamond and Granny just didn't know that yet. They would only find out months later as Edith laid out the rest of her plan. Rather than leave her child in Switzerland while she returned to her spinster life in England, Edith had resolved to keep the child and raise him or her herself in Europe. She had heard of the growing writers movement in Paris and hoped to check it out on the first leg of their trip. Once the child was born, she could return there and make a life for herself as a writer, in the company of other writers, who seemed much more progressive than those in England. Rosamund would make the excuses for her and while she would keep in touch with Mama and Granny, she doubted they would ever visit, nor she them. Only once her child was old enough would she even consider returning to England with some grand story of a poor friend from abroad who had died and left her their only child, her ward. Hopefully, by then enough time would pass that people would forget about Michael Gregson and his relationship to Lady Edith Crawley. She would make her own income off of a few book deals written under a pseudonym and would finally be free to be the person she wanted.