Disclaimer: All recognizable works belong to BBC, Julian Fellows, the wonderful actors and actresses who brought Downton Abbey to life, and a number of other people. This work is produced for entertainment only and no profit is made from it.
Warnings Ch. 1: Bullying and victim blaming.
Two Days Later…
Mary was, by some blessing, off with Matthew. Whether anything would come of the proposal now that Mama was expecting, who knew? Edith couldn't bring herself to care amidst all of her nervousness over Anthony. Last year, when she'd sent that wretched letter, she'd just wanted her sister to hurt for once. To know how it felt to have others mock and belittle her. She'd just wanted to see Mary suffer some consequence for once in her life.
Too much to hope for.
Now all Edith could think about was that she might have just destroyed herself this time. What was she thinking giving her diaries to Anthony? Showing him she was paranoid and strange because she put them in silly codes. Moreover, letting him see what was in them. All of her worst thoughts. The most humiliating things her sister had done to her. The most miserable things she'd done in response. She'd even written about that horrid letter in there and everything leading up to it and after it.
"Edith, darling?"
Edith started violently and looked up. Sybil was smirking a little behind her hand from her perch in the chair opposite their mother. Her sister's blue eyes danced playfully. Unfortunately, Cora Crawley didn't share the playful expression.
"Edith, you're awfully pale. Are you sure you should be going out motoring?" The countess frowned. "Where is Sir Anthony taking you again? You mentioned he'd changed plans at the last minute."
"We're going to a factory he's invested in, mother. They produce mechanized farm equipment. Harvesters and the like." Edith replied automatically, feeling just slightly better at the very real and solid reason that he'd wished to change plans. "He thought I'd be interested in seeing a tour of their facilities."
In truth, Edith did find the idea of seeing how such things were made fascinating. It was just impossible to concentrate on the idea of it after he'd had the diaries for two days. It was also much less, well, romantic than a picnic on Loxley's grounds. Did he not want the same things she did? Had she… well, changed how he saw her? He probably thinks you're a wretched little girl now. He's already so much older. He'll read those diaries and just as Mary said he'll know you and-.
"That's hardly appropriate for a young lady, is it?"
"I think it's lovely. Edith's always liked to know how things work." Sybil came to her defense. "Besides, why shouldn't a lady like to know whatever she wants?"
Edith tried for a smile for Sybil in response and swallowed, preparing to offer up her own defense. Her mother beat her to it. Not surprising, really, given her nerves. It had taken forever for Anna to get her dressed; she just couldn't decide on what to wear. She never could manage a response that satisfied her parents anyway.
"And he's picking you up terribly early. It's not even ten." Cora clucked. "What would Granny say?"
"Something horrible, I'm sure, she has to survive on the tears of the innocent when Mary's claimed all the virgin blood for her baths, you know."
"Edith Violet Crawley!"
Edith winced as the words slipped out of her mouth and her mother turned a rather shocked and disappointed expression on her middle child. Edith, however, was saved by Sybil's loud choking on her tea. Help came from the unlikeliest of sources.
"Sir Anthony Strallan is here, my lady, shall I show him in or-."
"I'll meet him outside Carson, thank you!" Edith was on her feet, sprinting for the door as fast as her tallest boots would allow, tossing a wave as she went. "Sybil, goodbye, Mama, don't put yourself out! Dr. Clarkson said be mindful, given your age!"
"Edith, wait-!"
Edith ignored her mother and Carson's soft harrumphing at her behavior and made good her escape. Poor William looked confused when she snatched her coat and hat from him without allowing him to help her into them. Then she was on the steps and looking down at where her beau - oh, please let him be - was standing by the Rolls as if he'd expected her to come to him all along, propriety be damned.
The car's top was up. Yorkshire weather at its finest; she felt her hair frizz as soon as she stepped outside. The thick film of mist drizzling steadily down from the heavens attached itself to her clothing. She clutched her coat more tightly to her chest.
"Here, lets get you in."
Not a comment about her coat, to her surprise. Edith knew and honestly liked the man's slightly anxious nature. Somehow he managed to fuss over her without it ever feeling like doubt. This time, however, he just hustled her gently into the passenger's seat, with her coat and hat still in her arms as he shut the door and moved back around to his side. William didn't even have time to step down and assist. He'd barely gotten the umbrella open when they began pulling away.
The tightly woven cotton of the long, but light, summer coat whispered softly over the lawn of her dress. Edith hadn't wanted anything that would show dirt easily, given their location, but she'd desperately wanted to present herself well. She'd wanted to be pretty, but was all too well aware of how very far from that she was. All she had to do was glance at one of her sisters for a reminder, and if she ever doubted that she could just ask. Any member of her family, save Sybil, would be quick to point out the truth. Sybil would just try and be nice about it.
Stop wallowing, Edith! Edith berated herself, though the sound of it inside her head was remarkably like her grandmother. What man invites a woman into his company so that she can be nervous, morose, and pitiful?
"I - I want to thank you, for thinking of - of me on an outing like this, Sir Anthony." Edith pushed herself to smile. "I really do find it interesting. Manufacturing, I mean. All the working parts and how things are made."
"I know you do, which is why I have to apologize, Edith."
"Y-you do?"
Rabbits could not freeze so well when gripped by sudden terror.
By this time they'd driven a fair ways from the Abbey and she noted, to her surprise, that they were not heading in the direction of York. Rather they were on the road to Ripon. She looked at him in confusion. As she did, Anthony directed the car smoothly into a little lane. Edith wasn't familiar with the farm paths of most places, but she knew those around Downton well. Long walks and rambles were an excellent excuse to avoid relatives or be too late for dinner on particularly bad days.
This particular ramble was small. Just a pair of ruts that dipped off the road, it entered a break in the line of trees, and then ran along maybe twice the length of the car before slipping out again to rejoin the road. It was used to permit very wide farm traffic to pass, and as a safety feature that had naturally developed over time near a blind corner. There was a similar corner on the road to the hospital, though the proximity of a small creek made the same solution impractical.
Located as it was with a field along one side and a thick line of trees to the other, on a sunny day it might have cast Edith into shadow and rendered Anthony nearly impossible to see with the light at his back. On a dreary day, it softened everything in darkness, and made his eyes seem particularly bright and blue. Though Edith didn't know it, her hair burnished to copper in the dim light and her eyes were pools of shadow.
"Is everything… are you angry with me, Sir Anthony?" Edith swallowed and then, before she could help it, a tide of words poured out. "I am sorry I inflicted those journals on you as I did. You must think I am-."
Anything else Edith might have said was lost as something happened she'd spent rather more time imagining than was remotely proper for a young lady. She had not, of course, believed it might occur. After all, Sir Anthony Strallan was nothing if not a gentleman. He'd been utterly appropriate during every step of their courtship so far. What he did next was by no means gentlemanly.
Edith suddenly found herself pulled across the front seat, hat and coat still wrapped up in her arms. His own hat had been discarded at some point into the backseat, and Edith had the barest moment to note she could smell peppermint on his breath before he leant down and his lips brushed gently over her own. The last thing she saw before her eyes slid shut, and the last thing she thought, was that surely Anthony Strallan had the bluest eyes in Britain.
The exchange went on for well more than a minute, to Edith's shock. First, just the tender press of his lips over hers. Then, slowly, his lips began to move and she followed. Shyly, at first, then with growing confidence as he hummed softly and one of his big hands stroked reassuringly along her lower back. Eventually, to her shock, his mouth opened a little under hers and they exchanged careful little tastes of each other until her teeth clicked against his and she pulled back and opened her eyes in surprise.
"You taste like sweets!"
Edith blurted out the accusation and flushed cranberry at her words even as she looked up into Anthony's face and watched him flush just as dark, a boyish, guilty half-smile tugging up one side of his mouth.
"Guilty as charged." He acknowledged, and Edith realized in surprise that they were both breathless and his arms were still around her. He patted his coat pocket. "Peppermint?"
"N-nonno?"
"Not really the time, I suppose."
He loosened his hold slightly, but he didn't release her entirely. Instead, she found her slightly crushed hat set upon that dash as he kept his left arm around her back and curled his right hand around both of her own.
"Lady Edith, forgive my forwardness, but… well, after reading your journals - the thoughts you wrote about after our night at the concert, I felt that it would be the best possible way to demonstrate that I - I shared them."
Edith's eyes flew wide and she was sure she went redder than beetroot as she realized, too late, just what he was referring to.
"Oh, God! What you must think of me!"
She'd been extremely frank in her wondering and fancies when she'd written in her diary that night. Something Edith had felt emboldened to do by the sheer delight of the evening. One where she'd felt so beautiful and wanted and grown up. It did not help that Edith was perhaps the most aware of her sister's in regards to the actual procreative act, though she didn't realize it.
Anthony was now aware of it. Edith had recorded quite a bit of her own shock, titillation, and humor in her diary over after she'd read The Perfumed Garden for the Soul's Recreation. The translated book featured a rather dreamy oriental garden motif on its title page and Lord Grantham had entirely missed the fact that an old friend from the Boer war was twitting him when he handed it over for his edification after making a comment about the Crawley family's lack of sons. As such, he'd dismissed the book as "indulgent oriental poetic nonsense" and cheerfully handed it over to his middle daughter as soon as he'd returned from the club. Sixteen-year-old Edith had read it so much the binding was failing, and it was currently tucked away in the false bottom of her bureau.
"I think that I am an exceedingly lucky man, to have a wonderful, beautiful young woman hope that I would kiss her." Anthony countered, squeezing her hands and then bringing them up to press a kiss to her fingers. "And I do not want to hear you ever doubt that."
"I - Sir Anthony-." Edith huffed out a laugh, not sure where to look but drawn back to his eyes as she bit her lip.
"I think it may be time for us to abandon our titles. With your permission fo course, my lady?"
"You're not shocked at - at everything I wrote, S- Anthony?"
"I am shocked by a great many things, but that does not make me displeased. If you wish to know if reading them make me feel less fortunate to have your regard, I would have you know that is not possible."
"Even if some of it is…" Edith's voice dropped to a slightly squeaky whisper. "Terribly wanton?"
"Edith," His eyes danced down at her despite the overly serious tone of his voice, "perhaps some knowledge should wait until marriage, but as your father has already shown a tremendous progressive streak in your reading material-."
Edith started to giggle.
"To my considerable benefit-."
She tried to cover her face, but he wouldn't give her hands back.
"I feel it only right to inform you that a man likes nothing better than a wanton wife, as long as it's only him that she wants."
"You needn't have any fear of that, Anthony. You're the only man who's ever looked at me and the only one I've ever felt like… you make me feel…" Edith finally freed one hand and reached up to wipe a relieved tear away as it attempted to make the trek down the side of her nose. "I must look a terrible fright."
"You're beautiful." He repeated with simple confidence, a warmth and happiness across his gentle features that was so much like the wonderful, almost boyish excitement he showed at times and yet so much deeper that Edith could only smile back at him in relief. "I feel I shall need to repeat this often, so do listen dear girl. You. Are. Beautiful."
Edith flushed and bit her lip, then looked up at him through her lashes.
"And you're wonderful. You truly didn't mind - didn't think I was forward to give you my diaries?"
"I think you're a brilliant woman, Edith, and incredibly brave."
"Because I gave you my journals?"
Anthony sobered at that, settling back slightly and removing the arm he'd left around her shoulders, taking both her hands in his and settling in as if he intended to speak for a while. Outside the car, pattering against the top, the rain picked up.
"Edith, it is not often that a man or woman twice your age has the sense to know that one of the foundations of marriage is knowledge of one another. All too often marriage in our class are dictated only by compatible pedigrees and bank accounts, and they end in abject misery for all involved."
"I should introduce you to Cousin Shrimpy and Cousin Susan."
"We've met. Your, uh, data is valid."
Edith wrinkled her nose at his tone, but could do nothing else. She'd chosen that particular marriage for a reason. There were others she could have mentioned, but none quite as listlessly miserable.
"What I mean - and forgive my rambling-."
"I like your rambling, Anthony."
"Edie, that puts you in rarified company."
"Good company, then, and such a nice change!" Edith teased and was surprised when the smile slid off of his face.
"Yes, that - that is one thing I wished to speak to you about, but I'm making an absolute hash of it. Who's surprised?" He sighed then, and she smelled peppermints on his breath, along with the soft scent of his pipe coming from his light linen suit. "Edith, I - now I've quite lost my place."
"You could start by telling me, well, why we're here and not headed to the factory?" Edith flushed but offered up a hopeful smile. "Unless it was a ruse to hide away and kiss me all day?"
"It was a ruse, but with slightly more honorable intentions, if only just."
"What do you mean?"
"I - Edith." Anthony turned in the seat further, and brought her hands up higher, closer to his chest. It occurred to Edith that she'd forgotten her gloves entirely, and his were sitting forgotten with his hat in the back seat. "Edith, I won't insult you by pretending to doubt anything written in those journals. So I know you - you share my wishes in regard to marriage. What I need to know is - is do you want me to propose because you wish to be my wife, or do you simply hope to escape your family?"
Anthony watched with dawning horror and a sinking heart as tears rose in Edith's eyes. Of course, it was his fault. He'd spent all night decoding, then simply translating, but first of all - reading. Then the day after he'd done the same, reading and rereading those journals as he did something few men would have have the chance to do - truly understand the most private thoughts of the woman they loved. Sadly, in the days that had passed that way, Anthony Strallan had gotten precious little sleep between the new knowledge, the revelatory aspect of quite a bit of it, fretting over what he'd learned, and then coming to a variety of decisions.
And now he might have destroyed it all by being his clumsy self.
"How, how could you ask me that?"
"Because you've been… Edith, your family is not what it should be. I couldn't - I couldn't bear to think I was tying you to a sad old man twenty-five years your senior only because you justifiably need to escape that…" He offered up quietly as she pulled her hands back, leaving his achingly empty and hanging helplessly in the air between them as she scooted further across the seat. "Edith, I know you cannot see it, but I can. You are an incredibly talented, vibrant, and - yes - beautiful young woman. You will only grow into these things more as time passes and I will only grow older. I don't want you to be chained to a regret-."
"The only thing I have regretted is that I didn't see you as more than our neighbor sooner!" Edith countered. "Or that our families always kept such distant company."
"Yes, but you've seen so little of the world."
"I've seen enough to know that I love you!"
It was the most beautiful, and most furious, accusation a woman had ever thrown at him.
"Oh, thank God!"
The words were out of his mouth, and all he'd intended to do was reach for her. To take up her hands again. Perhaps to… Anthony wasn't sure as, by that point, he was operating entirely on nerves, a three day excess of both tea and coffee covered by an morning's overindulgence in peppermint candy, and pure masculine instinct. He wasn't sure which of those things he should blame when he found his arms around her, pulling her close, and kissing her again.
"Sweet one," he breathed against her lips, trying to find words to articulate what she meant and stumbling onto an endearment in the process. One quite appropriate to a man somewhat infamous for his sweet tooth. "you are… you are the very dearest thing in my life. I love you."
She sobbed softly, melting into his embrace and suddenly Anthony found himself with a lap full of lovely young woman. Her fingers were in his hair and her arms around his neck. It was, on the whole, entirely agreeable. When he traced his tongue along the crease of her lips and she gasped, he dared to slip inside and see if she would reciprocate. She did, and several long minutes were lost in exploration, until a flash of lightning jarred them both back to the present.
"Three-thousand." Anthony counted by rote, mumbling into the disarranged strawberry blond curls beneath his lips. "Three miles away. The other side of Downton, near the village I believe."
"I do hope the storm doesn't get worse."
"One cannot control the weather, but one can hope." Anthony mastered himself enough to gently nudge her out of his lap, gasping and flushing when the slow drag of her thigh over him produced a barely-contained rush of feeling.
"Oh, did I hurt-."
"No, nono, quite… quite the opposite." Anthony flushed darker as he stumbled over a truthful statement he by no means intended to make, then cleared his throat, dragging one of her hands up to kiss and rather desperately hoping she'd stop staring down into his lap and the rather noticeable bulge in his trousers. "Edith, will you do me the honor of being my wife?"
That did the job. Edith looked up. It was several more moments of kissing before Antony Strallan managed to free his lap of woman again. When he did, they were both gasping, and his tie was horribly loose. Still, he could not bring himself to mind, and it was not as if he didn't intend on suggesting further misbehavior, if not of quite the same sort…
"Edith, come now, we must stop for a while. There are things we have to discuss."
"Oh, now? Must we?"
"Yes - Edie." Anthony did his best to speak firmly, keeping careful track of her hands even as he smiled, helplessly complimented by her clear desire for him. He'd hoped she'd come to want him as a man, beyond his company. Knowing that she did was a heady thing. It had been last night, reading her awkward, somewhat confused desires in her journals. It was more so now with her so responsive and so close. "Edith, really, behave yourself."
"You started it!"
"I did, and I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself."
"I don't believe you." She stole another kiss.
"Don't know how I'll hold my head up in church." He mumbled against her lips before firmly nudging her away. Edith laughed at him, and he grinned back, not able to keep up the barest facade to go along with the insincere statement.
"The point is, we have some decisions to make. You have some decisions to make, really."
"Such as?"
"Well, as I see it, there are three options before us now."
"And they are?" Edith waited expectantly.
She'd really thought she knew Anthony very well. She knew his interests. She even shared many of them. She'd learned so much about him over the course of the last year. From where he'd gone to school - Harrow - and university - Cambridge, Kings, Modern Languages - to his travels - a year in Austria studying Engineering and travels all around the continent - and even his brief time in uniform. He'd written a paper on cyphers and, through connections in diplomacy and his sense of duty, ended up serving a year in Army Intelligence quite against his nature. A strange sort of service that came and went without the usual trappings.
She knew his mother had fostered in him a love of literature and music. That his father had been just as avid a reader, though also a man of the country like his son. Edith knew Anthony was very close to his younger sister, for all that they were different in personality. She even knew that, occasionally, Anthony was asked by the State department for unofficial help in diplomatic matters; mainly due to his language skills. He'd spent a month in Germany not too long ago, after all.
What she'd only dared to imagine in the very barest of ways, however, was that underneath his affable and sweet exterior there was something considerably more passionate. Edith had hoped, of course. She'd caught the way he looked at her occasionally and thought it more than chastely friendly. She'd imagined that the eagerness and passion he showed his interests might extend… elsewhere. All of that, however, was supposition, not knowledge.
The smell of pipe smoke now lingering about her person and the taste of peppermint on her lips was evidence. Anthony Strallan, the dullest man in Yorkshire, had hidden depths. Depths that included the feel of his hands cupping her bottom and squeezing, then pressing her down onto the warm bulge in his lap. At least before he'd gasped and quickly hustled her right back onto the seat in a manner that was just not sporting at all.
To say Edith was curious about the choices he was about to give her was to make a truly British understatement.
"Three options, yes." He repeated, clearing his throat and raising his hands to tick them off. "Well, first, we have the accepted option."
"That would be?"
"We drive on to Loxley and have a lovely picnic Luncheon. After which, I take you home and ask your father for permission to wed. We tell your parents that the factory was a ruse to hide a rather romantic proposal I had planned in the gardens, but when the weather undid my plans, we ate together in the library and I proposed there with the books."
Edith beamed.
"That is a very good option."
"That option, however, shall also leave us with other matters to contend with." He cleared his throat and his expression became serious. "Namely, your parents' reaction. Which may include any number of cruel or dismissive comments. The stress of wedding planning. Your mother's condition being brought up as a reason to delay the wedding considerably to save her that stress. Our feelings being dismissed, and whatever cruelty your sister attempts to inflict on us as revenge for your letter to the Turkish ambassador."
Edith's happiness extinguished like a wet lamp and she bit her lip, looking out one of the windows, noting it had fogged up between the cool rain and their body heat.
"You - you read about my letter to the embassy."
"I did, and it was wrong of you to do so, as well as cruel and foolish, just as you wrote later."
Edith winced, feeling her eyes tear up before he crooked a finger under her chin and brought her face up.
"Darling, sweet one, look at me." He leaned down slightly to equalize their heights and she reached out and found his free hand with both of hers. "Yes, you did something wrong. You are young. You were mistaken. However, it was also a total failure on your parents' part to spend years tacitly encouraging if not outright participating in your sister's continued abuse of your looks, intelligence, and hopes. One reaps what one sows in life sometimes, and Lady Mary has spent a great deal of time being cruel."
"She still… I shouldn't have done it. The rumors affect Sybil and I as well and - and it was shameful."
"It was." He kissed the tip of her nose and she blinked at him as he shrugged. "However, I would raise a few points that you didn't consider in your journals."
"What do you mean?"
"The letter you sent to the Turkish Embassy arrived at a place that knew Mr. Pamuk and knew him well."
Edith looked up at Anthony, confused, as the older man settled in and began to explain in a quiet, slightly pedantic, voice that set her immediately at ease and stoked her curiosity.
"Mr. Pamuk was not part of the official diplomatic party. He was involved in no negotiations. He was invited to no political or diplomatic talks, meetings, nor filed any paperwork. He used a form of name uncommon in his native country during his travels."
"What? Why would the embassy let him do that?"
"I'm getting there, Sweet One." He stole another quick kiss. "In short, the only things Pamuk did on his trip across Europe and during his time in London was to spend a great deal of time and money indulging in sensual pursuits. All with a somewhat deniable name attached to these actions."
"Well, the latter is obvious from his conduct at our house." Edith huffed. "Quite ignoring Mary's encouragement, she was his host's daughter and he called Mr. Napier his friend, but clearly pursued the same girl that Evelyn Napier fancied for his future wife. A gentleman does not do poach."
"Exactly." Anthony raised his eyebrows. "Now, why does one send a young man who is a clear political liability into a delicate political situation?"
Edith's mouth worked for a moment, then she sat back and allowed her brain to catch up. It was a question she had not asked herself. Why bother, when every time she thought of the man she focused instead on her outrage, anger, and frustration with her sister? That rarest of all things: a chance to win against the family favorite.
"You don't, unless… he's done something worse at home?"
"Got it in one, dearest." Anthony nodded, his eyes sharp and proud over a slightly silly smile. "Mr. Pamuk is the son of a powerful and wealthy man. One of many sons. His father was at wits end after his daughter-in-law - the offspring of another wealthy and powerful Ottoman noble - managed to produce the requisite witnesses to divorce Mr. Pamuk for adultery. Which, I should add, required that they actively catch the man in the act as a group."
"How wretched!" Edith blurted out even as the pin dropped. "Anthony, you mean that he was sent to Britain to get him out of the way!?"
"Precisely." Anthony nodded. "Where he was instructed to keep his nose clean and prove he was worthy of the effort to bring him back into the fold. Instead, he indulged in every vice he could. Do you know what he died of?"
"Everyone said it was a heart attack."
"Yes, but one brought on by a great deal of cocaine. Something that also likely explained his publicly reckless and erratic behavior."
"How do you know - oh, your friends in the diplomatic corps?"
"Yes, I asked Archie to look into things."
"Your sister's husband?"
"Yes."
"Then - then he didn't just fancy Mary. He was - if he was taking some kind of narcotic…" Edith sat and processed that, growing more upset by the moment. "Do you think - I mean, he might have - you don't think he hurt Mary, do you? I assumed- she always just takes what she wants and -."
"I do not know." Anthony replied somberly. "Nobody knows what went on in that room save your sister."
"Oh God, Anthony, if I ruined her and she was innocent, then-."
"Nobody is denying what you did was wrong, Edith, but I think it's a far cry from treating your older sister as some poor innocent when she's systematically sought to hurt you since early childhood. Let Mary handle her own life, I think." He brushed a hand over her cheek. "Sweet one, we're growing distracted, but let's finish this. Edith, you sent that letter to the Turkish Embassy. A place where Pamuk was seen as a burden, not an asset. Why make it public when they wanted the whole thing to go away?"
Edith stared, her mouth opening and closing.
"But the Ottomans were making such noise about looking into it?"
"Were they?" Anthony raised his eyebrows at her.
"Well, yes, everyone was talking about it!"
"Was there any official inquiry after the letter?"
"N-no, that was all done within a few days after his death."
"It was never reopened?'
"No."
"Did the Diplomatic Corps or anyone within our government arrive to question Mary or speak to your father?"
"No." Edith shook her head, frowning. "But, Anthony, everyone was talking about it and-."
"Rumor, nothing more." Anthony shook his head. "Edith, my love, Mary has two or three good friends among society her own age who she treats well and regard her highly. She knows a great many who will never cut her off because nobody in our circle cuts someone off lightly if they live and die for social engagements. That does not mean Mary's habit of being cold, distant, and dismissive has made her friends."
Edith stared at him a long moment, soaking up what he was trying to say. Some of it made sense. Edith knew a number of woman who, over the years, had either begun quarrels with Mary because they were jealous of her beauty and the attention she receive, or who Mary had begun quarrels with because she felt slighted by older social hostesses.
"You're saying that Mary's… reputation was primed for a fall?"
"No, I'm saying that when people are itching to take you down a peg, you are bound to be the subject of vicious rumor eventually. Everyone makes mistakes. In Mary's case, there was something of a queue forming as they waited for her to make one."
Edith looked away.
"I gave them the ammunition to shoot her with."
"What's done is done."
Anthony looked tired for a moment, and older than his years as he sighed.
"Your sister is also entirely too trusting of men simply because they fancy her. Evelyn Napier was quite happy to pass on the fact that you wrote the letter to her, and yet nobody questioned how the information got out of diplomatic circles to begin with."
Edith's jaw dropped.
"But he's - he seemed like such a nice man. Surely you don't believe he-."
"Nice does not mean cautious. He repeated it to his mother and his mother was apparently very free with it, as she didn't fancy your sister for a daughter-in-law."
It took Edith a long moment to untangle the spinning web of her thoughts. It did make sense, in a way. She'd always assumed her letter had been enough and that, as everyone said, the Turks had spread the information far and wide to slander Mary and because they were angry over Pamuk's death and suspicious of how it happened. However, it had never become a political scandal. In fact, it had made small enough waves in that resoundingly male establishment that Mama, Granny, and Mary had successfully kept it from Papa all this time.
How could they have done that if it was constantly on the edge of becoming a political disaster? The idea that the rumors were just that - vicious rumors - and all revolved around the general desire to take Mary down a peg made sense.
A month ago Edith might have felt exalted by that. Now it made nothing better. Edith had been the one who'd handed every other jealous, angry, petty woman in society the power to harm her sister and degrade their entire family's reputation and she'd done it all for reasons as bad as any of Mary's and without any of the excuses made for Mary's behavior. Edith felt a wave of shamed exhaustion as she tried and failed to draw anything good from the whole mess.
"Are you alright, sweet one?"
"No, but I did it to myself so I rather have to handle it, don't I?" Edith swallowed. "Are you - you aren't angry with me?"
"For being human? No. Edith, had you had anyone in your family to properly confide in and had your sister lived a life with actual rules and repercussions this would not have happened. I would hope, in the future, you would have - well, you would speak to me rather than doing anything rash. Or at least, we might do it together." He offered her up one of those sweet, crooked smiles. "We are becoming distracted again."
"Yes, the - the choices." Edith swallowed. "The first is to marry the way everyone expects and… endure my family however long it takes. What is the second choice?"
"The second choice is like the first, only less onerous." Anthony kissed her fingers before tapping his jacket pocket and Edith heard the soft crinkling sound of paper shifting. "Our second option is that I send this telegram to Archie's cousin. He's a bishop, you know."
"I did not know."
"Now you do. Anyway, Edie, I send this telegram and we take a ride around Ripon. Then we go back and tell your parents that I blurted out my proposal here in the car-."
"It has honesty going for it."
"Doesn't it? Anyway, I tell them I proposed in the car after my romantic proposal was rained out. Made a hash of it. I ask your father for permission. Then I remain the tone deaf individual they all think I am and imply that with the expense of his growing family a small wedding, held sooner might be better and I've already applied for a special license."
"Mother will point out that, as your second marriage, a small wedding would be more tasteful. Just to smooth things over." Edith giggled and reached up to straighten his tie, only to end up toying with it. "With how we must look, of course, she'll think there are other reasons to rush."
"Quite." Anthony's ears had gone terribly red. Edith felt a moment's wicked impulse and gave into it, letting her face fall into thoughtful lines.
"Should we?"
"Should we what?"
"Let them think that there are reasons." Edith snaked the hand he'd allowed freedom up and ran it under the left side of his waistcoat, feeling the warmth of his chest through his vest and shirt. "I mean, given what Mary's already done Mama may just give us all up for wantons and tell Papa. Then we can rush down the aisle properly. I wouldn't care what was thought, as long as we were married."
Anthony looked at her in shock and she blinked innocently at him. He glared lightly. She leaned against his chest to giggle.
"Absolutely not. I haven't gotten into a fist fight with your father since we were eleven."
"Who won?"
"I ducked him in the lake, but he blacked my eye, so it was a draw. Anyway, barring that detail which we are not mentioning again, what do you think of the second option?"
"We'll still have to worry about Mary. I'll be a nervous wreck the whole time. What's the third option?"
"I put the car back into gear and we drive to Ripon where Stewart is waiting."
"Waiting with what?"
"My luggage and some things for you that were hastily purchased by my housekeeper yesterday." Anthony offered up a shy, crooked smile. "Then we go to Scotland and marry in Gretna, followed by a honeymoon at a little place I own in Cornwall."
Edith blinked.
"And my parents?"
"We'll telegram." Anthony replied cheerfully. On the surface a polite, slightly obtuse sort of cheer, but Edith was beginning to pick up the subtlety behind her husband's expression. This was definitely malicious cheer. "We could be back in time for the Garden Party, if you wished, or avoid your family altogether once we're married."
"Avoid - what do you mean?"
"I mean," And Edith found she couldn't stop her jaw from dropping open at the casual way Anthony turned her worldview upside down yet again, "that there is absolutely nothing I need or want from your father save for his second daughter. If you don't want their company, I can do without the bother."
"But - but Loxley and Downton are neighbors."
"Yes, they are."
"The houses are less than four miles apart."
"Utterly ignoring neighbors and relatives who live less than five miles from you is one of the bedrocks of English culture."
Edith let out a breathless, watery laugh, her mind blank as she tried to imagine it.
"Just - just like that?"
"Edith." The sheer gravity of his tone drew her eyes to his and she found all humor bleeding away; its dying gasp the limp way her hands hung as he took them into his left again and tugged her closer to against his side, never breaking eye contact. "In this moment, I want to know what you want. If you want to try and repair everything with your family, we can. If you just want to be done with them, I shall do whatever it takes to be done with them. What is important to me is your happiness. Edie, sweet one, what do you want?"
There was a long pause, and then Edith found that the truth tumbled out of her lips in a way she'd never even managed to write it before; clear, concise, and leaden.
"I want them to love me like they love Mary and Sybil." Edith chocked slightly on a sob. "But that's not going to happen and I - I'm not sure it's worth what it takes to try anymore."
It felt good to have finally said it.
"Then what will be be, my love?"
"Oh, Anthony, let's run away together!"
After a brief, hard kiss, Edith Crawley found herself a little chilled without his warmth. It was not the warmest of summer days. Wriggling into her coat, she watched as her fiancé settled himself back into the driver's seat and began to put the car into gear. It was only then that a thought occurred to her.
"I - Anthony?"
Her shy question drew his eyes back towards her and Edith offered him a sheepish smile.
"Not to sound… greedy but… did you by any chance… bring me a ring?"
Anthony Strallan blinked at her slowly, and a deep red flush slowly crept up his neck before he cleared his throat.
"Ahem… I'm afraid I… packed it in my things, darling, in my rush… I'll give it to you on the train. Properly of course! I mean, with a proper proposal. I'm making a hash of this, aren't I?"
Like most people, Edith Crawley came into the world crying in fear and bewilderment at her situation. Unlike most, she could tell everyone she'd started her life with tears of joy and warm laughter as she answered his question with a kiss.
Spratt watched his employer with the nerves of a well-trained Lion Tamer. Being the sort of man who risked mauling daily, he was not fearful in his demeanor. That only whetted the appetite of predatory beasts. Instead, he was peaceful and slightly above himself, as a good butler should be. Beneath his faultlessly stiff and starched collar, the man was sweating.
Ten minutes before he was to escort his lady to the Dower House's door so that she might go to the Abbey for afternoon tea with the countess and her granddaughters, and their faultless routine was already deviated from. At that time, he'd gone to the door and found a lad waiting with a message from Loxley. An unusual thing, as Sir Anthony only occasionally made calls - though he'd certainly made more in the last year - and when he did he was enamored enough of technology to usually use a telephone. (Not that they had one at the Dower House, thankfully.) There was no reason why his message couldn't have been relayed from Downton itself.
But the message had been hand-delivered. Sir Anthony ran a small, bachelor residence and, as a rule, only kept a single footman. A single rather massive footman.
It had been that rather-too-doughty chap who'd dropped it off. Making a point to put it directly into Spratt's hands and emphasize how important it was for the Dowager herself to see it immediately. In such crassly carrying tones, it should be added, that the Dowager herself was sure to hear it from the sitting room.
There was nothing else for it. He'd carried the note in. Now? It was a full half-hour past when the Dowager Countess should have left for tea. Instead she sat, reading and rereading the multiple page missive left for her in Sir Anthony's impeccably clear, copper-plate handwriting.
"How bad is it?"
Spratt, who was standing just outside the door to the sitting room, near where the servant's stairs came up, looked backwards to find Cook standing just within the stairs, her expression grim. He peeked back into the room and watched as Lady Violet Grantham removed her handkerchief from its place hidden in her blouse, folded it over twice, smoothed it on her knee, and stowed it again. Then he watched her pick up, fold the pages of the letter carefully, sorting them into order as she did so, and return them to the envelope, which she put away with great care in her reticule. Turning back towards the cook, Spratt swallowed.
"It is exceedingly bad."
The bell began to ring and, steeling himself, Spratt went into the lion's den.
"Granny! We were starting to worry-."
"Sybil, go get your father, what I intend to say I do not intend to repeat. Where is your mother?"
"Oh, the - the tea didn't sit well with her so she went upstairs to… Granny?"
"Good, leave her be. She has a mother of her own to handle this, though goodness me that I should want to hear from Martha Levinson." The Dowager lowered herself regally onto the sofa, surveying the two chairs facing it at an angle with a frown. "William, fetch another chair." She pointed regally directly across from her own. "Place it there."
Confused, the footman moved to obey.
"Mary, sit there."
"Granny, what on earth has gotten into you?"
"A question I could ask you as well, however, I do not believe this is the time or the place, nor have I the qualifications to derive an answer."
Mary, shocked and not at all happy with that response, took her seat in confusion. Dread twisted in her stomach. Granny knew about Pamuk. Surely there could be nothing worse that had brought this on? Not unless it was about Matthew's proposal, and the baby, and everything else. They'd already talked about that.
"Granny, surely you do not intend to involve the entire family in my business with Matt-."
"I do not."
"Then what is this about?"
"When your father and sister return."
Silently fuming and deeply worried Mary took her seat. She did not have to wait long. Very shortly her father was striding into view with a familiar sort of bewildered confidence. Sybil, looking more curious than taken aback, came in and sat obediently where she was pointed. The earl did the same, likely out of habit.
"Mother, what's wrong? Are you well?"
"I have been better." Imperiously raised eyebrows everyone in the family knew to fear followed and Mary braced herself for some terrible scolding. "Robert, where is Edith?"
Mary blinked and let out a laugh. Relief flooded through her. It's nothing to do with me. Realizing, gleefully, that her grandmother would surely be an ally in putting Edith properly in her place and paying her back for that tawdry, cruel letter, Mary leant forward.
"She's off at some agricultural manufacturing plant that Strallan's invested in, Granny, and entirely without chaperone again." Mary smirked. "Surely the courtship every young lady dreams of."
"Come now, Mary, this is Antony Strallan we're talking about." Papa wrinkled his nose and sighed. "Do try and be kind, even if it is somewhat ridiculous. Allow your sister whatever happiness she's taking from this. We all know it won't go anywhere once he's gotten to know her a bit better. The man's dull, but hardly stupid."
"Robert?"
The deceptively mild tone of Lady Violet's voice froze Lady Sybil in her seat and drew her back upright as she was in the motion of pouring her father a cup of tea. Mary, for her part, felt a terrible snake of alarm slither up her spine. None, however, had quite as satisfying a reaction as the Earl himself.
Lord Grantham, who had turned to ask something of his butler, froze mid-motion. Then he stopped, turned back, and blinked at his mother in alarm. Hunching just slightly in his chair, the man's eyes widened just a bit in a surprisingly boyish expression of nervousness. The man wasn't sure what he'd done to make his mother angry, but he was absolutely certain he'd done something.
"Yes, mother?"
"I'm curious. Are you implying that your daughter is unmarriageable because she is unpleasant or simply that only a stupid man would desire to marry my granddaughter? Because that is an interesting thing for a parent to say about their child."
Robert's face reddened in surprise and embarrassment.
"Neither, mother. That's - what I mean is that Strallan is a great deal older and more experienced than Edith. He's my age. A schoolgirl crush - well these things happen, but he surely wants more - well, company closer to his own age. Edith's hardly the sort one wishes to spend a quiet evening alone with? And then, what's he got to interest a young woman?"
"I don't know, Robert, what do you suppose interests a young woman? He has been conversing with Edith regularly for a year. What do they speak of? As her father, I am sure you have asked."
Robert, who had never had much success in conversing with his neighbor about anything other than estate business and did not make a point to take interest in Edith's activities, drew a blank. Mary rallied to help her father and leaned forward. She didn't lack courage and was willing to face her grandmother. Besides, on an entirely calculating front, her father's approval was more important.
"Oh, I don't know? Farm equipment and things written by dead poets?" Mary wrinkled her nose. "Come now, Granny, if nothing else can you imagine anyone wanting to spend their twilight years with Edith hanging over them, begging for attention?"
"Mary, you have been the center of attention in this house since the day you were born, and when you are not we are all made to hear of it. Do think before you speak. It will be novel at first, but with practice you might even progress to thinking before you act. I'm sure that now you understand the importance of that."
Mary's jaw dropped open as a lance of hurt went through her and she looked frantically back and forth between her grandmother and father. Surely Granny wouldn't tell Papa!
"What do you mean by that, Mother?"
Lady Violet ignored him and Mary twisted her hands in her lap. She opened her mouth to do anything to just regain control of the situation, and then snapped it shut as Sybil frowned at her. Frantically, she cast her eyes around for help and only found Carson's bemused gaze hovering over her. The terrible snake coiled around her spine gained an icy friend.
The Dowager was not done. With ominous calculation, she meticulously drew out her reticule. From the beaded drawstring bag, she withdrew a thick envelope of the sort usually used for weighty documents. Then, with a kind of ceremonial air, she opened that envelope and drew out several pages of neatly folded stationary. A familiar stationary at that. Sir Anthony at his most formal; something Mary only recognized from days during her childhood when her father had allowed her to sit in his lap and "help" him with estate business.
"I have had quite the letter from Sir Anthony." She withdrew her spectacles and settled them on her nose. "Well, a short letter and several pages of extracts from what I can only conclude is some extraordinarily riveting reading."
"A letter? Why on earth would he do that?" Robert flailed, reaching out towards the papers. "He lives less than four miles away and was here to pick up Edith this - ouch!"
"I thought you'd learned better than to grab in the nursery, Robert."
The earl, looking indignant at the finger-slapping, sat up straighter. Lady Violet seemed rather satisfied by his petulant expression. Unfolding everything with a snap that just happened to eerily coincide with the last of the distant thunder from the fading storm, the Dowager began to read.
"Dear Lady Grantham,
If you are reading this, then Lady Edith has done me the great honor of agreeing to be my wife."
"What in the - has he forgotten who he should be asking for permission?!"
"Robert, hush."
"But, Mother, I-."
"Robert, sit down."
Mary watched, quite unable to think of a thing to say, as her father sank back into his appointed chair and her grandmother carried on reading.
"If you are reading this, then Lady Edith has done me the great honor of agreeing to be my wife. However, she has also chosen not to share this moment in our lives with her family. We have decided to go to Scotland. While this might cause some turmoil on your end, I cannot find it in me to regret it as I should.
Frankly, I find it a relief. It will be some time before I can stand to be in the same room with your son without taking offense past the point of gentlemanly behavior in regards to his various failures as a father. Hopefully, by the time Edith is better disposed to her family, I shall have mastered my temper."
"What in the world? Does Sir Anthony have a temper?" Sybil muttered, looking towards Mary and leaning forward, her voice low. "What did you do?"
"I didn't - Edith's the one who ruins everything! I-." Mary began only to have Sybil shoot he ran exasperated look while the earl, red faced, tried to rise from his seat again.
"Mother, what - give me-."
"Sit. Down."
Robert Crawley sat once more, his expression hopelessly confused and unhappy as his mother went on, her tone a colder, harder, steel than anything Carnegie produced.
"We shall likely return from our honeymoon in three or four weeks if we do not linger in London after. If Edith wishes, perhaps we shall see you all at the garden party in August. Any and all contact will be at my lady wife's discretion for obvious reasons.
You once told my mother that it is the duty of a parent of Our Class to moderate, manage, and maintain the dignity and honor of their house through their children and their actions. That it was not for the peerage to coddle and cosset their children. As such, I suppose the extracts that follow should surprise me less.
Sir Anthony Strallan, Bart"
The first sheet of paper whispered with the soft swish of a burial shroud as it was folded and set aside. The others rustled like dead leaves beneath an adder's belly as Lady Violet drew them forth and brandished them at her son.
"What in the world is going-." Robert began, his temper rising and then doused beneath his mother's cold tones, leaving him in a state of highly offended confusion.
"It appears that Edith has opted to share her diaries with her future husband. Let's see what she wrote." The Dowager looked around the room. "Carson, you've been with the family a great while. You may stand as an impartial witness, if you please."
Mary looked up and watched as the butler stepped forward, nodding uncomfortably to Granny as he took up a place by the mantle, flanking the earl. Mary was suddenly, unaccountably reminded of one of Matthew's more theatrical retellings of a trial he'd been part of. Few high court judges could have managed the same amount of magisterial malice projected by her grandmother as Lady Violet looked down her nose at the paper before her.
"When Mary cut off Edith's hair when the girls were just starting to join the dinner table did you or did you not reduce her punishment to two nights eating in the nursery?" The Dowager looked up, her eyes on her son. "After, of course, telling me that you'd punished Mary very severely?"
"Granny, what are you talking about? That was years ago!" Mary was outraged. "Besides, if Edith had kept her mouth shut and not mocked me after that tiresome old colonel treated me as if I was a stupid little girl in front of everyone-."
"Oh, for God's sake, Mary please stop making everything Edith's fault!" Sybil burst out. "Can't you understand what's happened? We could lose Edith!"
"Oh, and that would be such a great loss?"
"I see the value you place upon your family, Mary, is equal only to the value you've placed upon yourself."
Mary swallowed against sudden, furious tears as the Dowager's wit was turned fully against her.
"Mother!" Robert Grantham had clearly had enough. "First of fall, I demand an explanation. Second of all, not in front of the staff!"
"Robert, we are aristocrats, our entire lives are lived out in front of the staff. Stop deluding yourself that they don't know more about what goes on in this house than you do." Lady Violet huffed. "Now I am waiting for an answer, or shall I ask Carson?"
Robert puffed up like a bullfrog and his mother ignored him, raising an eyebrow and tapping her cane once upon the floor.
"Mother, Mary and Edith are my children and it ultimately my authority and none other that determines their just punishment."
"Well, Robert, can you look me in the eye and tell me you feel the punishment just?"
"Mother, we both know that Edith and Mary have different needs, and it was just hair-."
"A lady's hair, Robert, is her crowning glory and for a thirteen-year-old girl, I can assure you, she likely felt as if her looks were permanent marred."
"It's not as if anyone would notice!"
The comment pulled itself out of Mary's mouth automatically, seeking defense. Yes, she'd hurt Edith when she'd cut her hair. She shouldn't have done it and she'd known she shouldn't have done it, but Edith also knew not to make her angry! Everyone told Edith not to make her angry. It's how it had always been.
"Stop looking at me like that!" Mary hissed at her sister as Sybil scowled her way.
The earl's uncomfortable look in her direction at that moment, Sybil's disappointed eyes, and even the Dowager's stony glare had nothing on the barely audible sigh that slipped from their butler's lips. As usual, the slightest whiff of shame produced a flare of protective anger within Mary.
"Stop acting as if anyone's shocked, Granny!" Mary flapped a hand. "You've said much the same about her looks! You all do it, just like me, and even when you don't, you let me do it, so stop acting - acting above it all!"
In answer Lady Violet lifted the papers and went on, turning to her son as if Mary hadn't spoken.
"Robert, did you and your wife allow Mary to take the dress that Edith had worn to her debut and wear it herself the very next night to another ball in her sister's presence?"
"Mother, she'd - she'd already worn it once and-."
"I'll take that as a yes. Every girl alive wants to hear how much more handsome her older sister is in her debut gown than she is, Robert, fine choice." Somewhere in France a guillotine fell with almost as much force as those words. "I need not ask about any of the incidents of publicly degrading Edith's looks. As Mary's observed, we've all done it."
"Exactly!" Mary felt that terrible, twisting feeling in her gut that came with powerlessness and clenched her fist at the hypocrisy of it all. "Sybil, when have any of them not known precisely how I was treating Edith? Papa, tell them she deserves it! Edith asks for it with always - always whining and pushing!"
Sybil merely looked between them all, her expression lost. Setting the letter down in her lap, Lady Violet Crawley curled both hands over the top of her cane and looked at the assembled members of her family for a moment, as if surveying a particularly unpleasant dead creature washed up on the beach during a regatta.
"Well, I do hate to be in a position to do so, but I must agree with Edith." The Dowager set the papers aside and rose, turning and heading for the door. "As appalling and utterly inappropriate as an elopement is, if I was her, I wouldn't want any of us at her wedding either. Even if it is to be over an anvil."
"Mother!" Robert spluttered and then stepped forward and picked up the letters, shuffling through them in bemused anger. "How did - what in the world is this about?"
"This?" The Dowager huffed. "Robert, this is about this family being once again on the very edge of humiliation and public embarrassment because of your parenting!"
"How did Strallan-."
"Edith gave him her diaries. She told me yesterday." Sybil cut in. "It's why she was so peaky. She was nervous."
"Why on earth did she do that?!" Robert was flabbergasted.
Lady Violet turned and looked at Mary along with Sybil. Mary threw her hands up.
"Don't turn to me. I wouldn't tell her to do such a thing. I'd have burned them first."
"Edith stopped journaling after Mary humiliated her over it and all of you took Mary's side because you were embarrassed." Sybil answered, her voice steady but her expression torn. "Edith started writing again a few years ago. She puts them in code so Mary cannot read them."
"Which is utterly ridiculous as I can't imagine a thing in her life anyone would care to read about!"
"On the contrary, it seems everything Edith writes fascinates someone." Lady Violet drawled.
Mary froze in shock. She met her grandmother's eyes, pleading with her to stop. What she found in them, however, was a deep well of regret, something else she couldn't identify, and absolutely no mercy whatsoever.
"Cat got your tongue, Mary?"
"Mother, for God's sake, will you please explain all of this?" Robert Grantham wasn't the most perceptive of men, but it was clear that more was afoot than his normally obedient middle daughter's reckless behavior and Anthony Strallan's apparent decision to shock the county. "What else has Edith written?"
"Carson, please excuse yourself and clear the hall." The Dowager turned and walked back into the room fully, having apparently exercised a woman's prerogative. Looking at Mary, then Sybil, she nodded to herself. "Sybil shall stay. It is time all of this was discussed properly within the family. We've had far too many secrets, it appears, and it is very much time that you began to understand the situation Robert."
"Well, I'd jolly well like that as apparently I'm completely in the dark!" Robert waved the papers of Strallan's damnable letter in his hand, gesturing his mother back to the sofa and pacing uncomfortably. "Girls, do you have any idea what this is about?"
Sybil shook her head and Mary, looking between Carson's retreating back and her grandmother's implacable expression, froze.
"Mary?"
Turning, she looked into her father's eyes. Confused, but ultimately… trusting. The one person who, before everyone else in the world, loved her completely. Who held her future in the palm of his hand, and complete power over every aspect of her life. The person who, before all others, she'd wanted to make proud.
Clamping a hand over her mouth to hold in whatever wild noise or sob wanted to break forth, Mary shoved the door open and sprinted past Carson, rushing wildly away. Following on her heels were the Dowager Countess' final words on the matter.
"Let her go, Robert, it's as good a time as any for Mary to find out that there are some things you can't run away from; chief amongst them, yourself."