Author's Notes: As said in the summary. I've decided to post this story in sections. Part 1 is complete and deals with Edith and the Crawley family beginning to reconcile. The natural progression of Edith's marriage is also seen, but a show-level 2 year time skip has occurred.
General Warnings: Because this story is set during the early part of the 20th century, be prepared to occasionally run into period typical ableism, lack of good mental health care or even understanding of the concept, childcare concept we would find appalling, classism, sexism, and victim blaming. Not to mention different concepts of things like consent. I will try to post specific warnings per chapter.
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: Mentions of past emotional abuse. Adults with childhood emotional disorders processing the damage done by them; to themselves and others. General bad family dynamics being sorted out. Lots of feels. Separation from loved ones via war.
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"Guess who I met on the train home?"
"Bitzy Preston-Brown?" Sybil offered, perking up. "She said she was coming to stay with her Grandmama in York about now, and did you see what she's done with her hair? It's terribly modern."
"I would say it's just terrible."
"Unfortunate." Cora softened her husband's assessment as Robert shook his head.
"I don't know what her parents were thinking." Lord Grantham huffed and Cora tried to hide a smile at her husband's offense at how someone else's daughter had cut their hair. "I wouldn't have it in my house."
"I don't think you have to worry about that, Papa." Sybil smiled. "I said it was modern, not that I liked it."
Robert was visibly relieved, and Cora smiled, shooting her baby a look for how she was teasing her poor Papa. Sybil smiled back and Cora took a breath. She was about to change the subject when her eldest went on with suspiciously calm aplomb, not even looking up from the fish course.
"I saw Bitzy in London – and, yes, her hair was dreadful - but not on the train. I shared a compartment from Leicester north with Edith."
Silence fell across the room and Cora felt her entire frame lock up in shock. Guilt, longing, hurt, and several other emotions welled up inside her. She pushed them aside and focused her attention where it belonged.
"Your sister, Edith?" Robert beat her to it, flushing even as he asked for confirmation.
"Lady Edith Strallan."
"And she didn't march off in high dungeon, declaring to the world how we wronged her?"
"What were you doing in Leicester, Mary, that's not on the usual route home?"
Cora had to admit, Sybil did ask the important questions rather than the obvious ones. That said, Cora detected a note of something in her youngest's tone.
"Lady Evans' maid accidentally purchased the wrong ticket for me." Mary huffed.
"Wait, you were alone?"
"Yes, Papa, your adult daughter dared to arrange a perfectly safe train ride unaccompanied on her way back from an equally safe fortnight in London with friends." Mary's wit was as sharp as ever as she glared. "It all went very well until the mix-up with the ticket. Fortunately, Edith was there and offered to help. Which, I might add, would not have been necessary if you gave us allowance for such things like a train ticket in an emergency."
"Had you been traveling with Anna that wouldn't have happened at all. She would have gotten you the correct ticket. How does one even accidentally send someone to the wrong place? You have to tell them the tickets you want." Robert was not amused.
"I doubt it was the accidental sort of accident." Mary drawled. "Christina has always had the worst sense of humor. At least she's got useful connections. Anyway, that's not material."
"Then what is?"
"How is your sister?" Cora interrupted, and when Robert looked towards her, she sent him her most quelling look. He wilted and looked away like the wise husband he needed to be in that moment. "What was she doing in Leicester?"
"That was where she had to take leave of her husband." All trace of humor fled Mary's face and Cora was surprised at the softly regretful look that rested there instead. "They're sending Major Strallan to France."
"What?!"
Robert's jaw all but hit his plate and William, who was attempting to offer him a dish of prawns, had to dance backwards to avoid his host wearing the silver platter as a hat.
"They're sending Strallan to - he's a Major now? What on Earth is the War Office thinking?"
"That we're running out of men in the Intelligence division that speak fluent unaccented German, I imagine, Papa." Mary's response to her father's outburst, to the silent shock of the entire table, was sharp and censorious. "And given the desperate state that sending a forty-six-year-old baronet, with a wife and infant besides, indicates, I think we should all perhaps spare less of ourselves for outrage than we would for worry about what that means and what they might be asking poor Strallan to do."
Chastened, Robert sat up straight. He noticed William and waved him on. Cora watched her husband aggressively cut and chew his fish and took a helping of prawns. She didn't have to think hard to know what was going through her husband's head. Not when she knew his frustrations so well; not to mention her own relief. The very inaction that plagued Robert was a relief to her every day.
Then there was the situation at Loxley. Not to mention Strallan House. Cora had been miserable enough at being turned away from the door. Her poor husband had been physically ejected from Loxley's Hall by servants. Worse yet, the housekeeper had done it. Mrs. Hughes was right; that woman was a dragon!
"Is she alright?" Cora asked instead. "How is Edith holding up?"
She needs her mother. Cora wanted to shout it. She wanted to have a fit of her own. It would do her little good, however. Tears had no effect on walls and Edith had proven as intractable as granite in her anger this time. Every time before, Cora thought with deep regret, they'd been able to talk her into seeing things reasonably. Now, two years had passed since she'd seen her daughter.
"Did she have the baby with her?"
Mary looked at her mother, her expression softening.
"She's beside herself about Sir Anthony going to the front. They - watching them - him leave, I mean. She… they truly love one another."
Mary sounded almost confused and Cora stifled a sigh. She'd hoped Mary, in all the progress she'd made in managing herself without lashing out in the last two years, would no longer sound upset or confused by the very idea someone could love her sister.
"Of course, she does!" Sybil huffed. "I've said it before you know. If you think about it, really think, they're well-suited."
"Yes, well, two people that boring…" Cora began the insult in her head and waited for her daughter to finish it, but Mary surprised her in the most hopeful way possible.
"I'm beginning to see that." Mary turned back to her meal, going on briskly with only a quick glance at Cora; as if she was embarrassed to speak well of her sister. "She did have the baby with her."
"Strallan couldn't afford a nanny?"
"I think we both know Strallan can afford far more staff than he keeps, Robert."
Cora's dry comment prompted her husband to look away, chastened. Normally Cora would have felt bad for saying such a thing. For reminding him that even with her fortune Downton had to remain understaffed to devote most of the income to maintaining the larger estate. This time? Satisfied, Lady Grnatham caught Mary's eye and implored her to go on. Mary obliged, though with her own form of chastisement.
"Edith doesn't trust nannies. She even changes Phillip's napkins herself!"
"I know, isn't it hilarious!" Sybil beamed out enthusiastically, laughing along with Mary. "You have to be careful though because little boys will- erm…"
Robert was giving his youngest a very stern look, but Cora couldn't muster it within herself to be angry. She decided that this time, she was going to take charge of the situation. Allowing everyone else to do so had done her no good before, had it?
"We know you've been going to see Edith when she's at Loxley, Sybil. That's fine." When Robert shot her a look Cora kept her focus on Sybil and put him off in the best way possible. Twenty-plus years of marriage had taught her a lot related to the management of her husband. "Everyone figured it out in about a week. Nobody wants to get in the way of you seeing your sister, just because things are… difficult for the rest of us."
Her husband, neatly reflected on the silver urn of flowers before her, visibly chewed on that. As Cora expected, Robert's expression passed from offense, to confusion, to embarrassment, and settled on neutrality. Sometimes it was best to give him a reason to hold his peace and let her husband believe it was his own decision. Not to mention convincing him it was the only way to save his pride.
"Oh." Sybil stared at her mother in shock, then accepted it as the happiest possible option. "Thank you, Mama, and you Papa!"
"Erm, yes." Robert cleared his throat. "I… we didn't want to pressure you, Sybil, or make Edith think you were a spy or some such thing, you know. But a word. A word now and then about her wouldn't go amiss."
The next course came in and everyone did what was necessary to settle their plates as Cora retook control of the conversation as she turned back to her two daughters.
"The baby's alright?"
"Oh, yes, he looks just like Strallan. Same eyes - his hair's nearly white."
"He was more than ten pounds when he was born. It was up in London, but since we were visiting Aunt Rosamund so Papa could talk to his friend at the Admiralty when it happened, I got to sneak out and visit just after. He was so big!" Sybil added gleefully. "And he's just the sweetest baby. Edith calls him Sunshine because he's just - he's all giggles and cuddles. Well, mostly. He was waking her up every two hours to feed him for the first couple of months, and not giving her that much longer afterwards. He just started sleeping through the night about three months ago and Edith and Anthony would have staged a celebratory parade if they weren't so exhausted. Anthony sent his sister a terribly funny letter complaining she was hiding from babysitting duty in Africa – her husband's there with the diplomatic corps – and so I get favorite aunt status by default!"
Cora blinked against her sadness at not knowing any of this herself. At the fact her own daughter hadn't wanted her there for her pregnancy. At the fact that any questions she had and any help she needed had to have come from some other source. At the fact that she'd never once held her grandson. That her baby had felt the need to hide all of this from her.
You made your bed, Cora, and if you don't want to lie in it, remake it! Her mother's voice kept replaying in her head. Offer the girl a real apology and move on. Cora had told her mother that she'd tried. That she'd gone to Loxley and been rebuffed. That she'd written and it had all gone unanswered. Being told to try harder didn't help when you were being refused the opportunity.
"Did you learn to drive at all?" Robert scowled as a thought occurred to him. "Branson had to have known."
"He did, and I told him not to worry about it." Cora cut in, not the least bothered by the lie. She'd just have to get to Branson - or send Sybil - and reinforce the story before Robert could put his nose in. "Really, Robert. Is this what you're worried about?"
Her husband looked offended, but Sybil cut in neatly.
"And I really did learn to drive, Daddy. I showed you, remember?"
Reluctantly, her husband smiled.
"You did."
For all that he'd been against it at first, Cora had found Robert's amusement and enjoyment of having his daughter drive him about for a day - and only that - had been sweet. It had been one of the highlights of a year that would go down in history for anything but joy. A year that had stretched into two and now threatened to go on interminably with the war that carried it.
"Anyway," Robert took up the conversational reins, sitting up straighter. "I imagine Edith will… behave more properly with Strallan gone. I won't debate what she might or might not feel for the man, but you can't argue that he's set her against us."
Cora looked curiously towards her daughters. Mary and Sybil both knew more than they did. She couldn't deny that what her husband said made perfect sense. Edith's rebellions had been minor - excepting that wretched letter - for the entire span of her life before she'd handed her journals to Anthony Strallan. It made sense to think that, without him there encouraging it, Edith would want to leave her anger aside and reconcile. Edith had always wanted their approval. Surely she'd want their support now.
"Being civil for one train ride North in the presence of a servant – and she has the most preposterous maid, Mama! Anyway, being civil in front of her child does not sound like an invitation to reconciliation to me, Papa." Mary cautioned, but Robert wasn't having any of it.
"Well, she'd hardly come out and say it. I mean, you'd have to prompt her."
"Me?"
Cora and Sybil matched Mary's incredulous expression and Robert huffed.
"Not only you, Mary. Sybil as well. You can go tomorrow. Pay a visit and thank her for helping you out with the ticket and, I don't know, hint her on a bit."
Cora caught her husband's eyes and felt warmth fill her at his expression. He had his pride, and her husband deserved that. Didn't all men? He was still doing what she'd wanted so much - what she'd asked him to do so many times. Yes, let's bring out family back together.
"Mama?"
Mary was predictably unenthused. Cora offered up a sunny smile of her own and caught Sybil's eye. Her youngest looked rather cautious but wasn't protesting.
"I think it's a lovely idea. Take some of Mrs. Patmore's biscuits, or maybe a cake over as a thank you for sorting out things with your trip home." Cora's words were sweet, cheerful, and utterly final. "I'll arrange it all tonight."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
At a year old, Phillip was nearly weaned, but he'd been having a difficult day. They were all having a difficult day. One following a rather harrowing night.
Who knew that two years of sleeping in bed beside your husband would ruin you for sleeping alone? Edith had barely gotten two hours sleep the night before between her own restlessness and her baby's sudden decision not to sleep through the night. Fussy and unhappy and just realizing that calling for Dada wasn't working like it should, Edith hadn't been able to blame her son. She'd had a good cry or two herself.
Then there was the estate. Anthony had done all he could to arrange things with Nichols before he left so things could carry on without placing too great a burden on her, but that didn't mean that the job didn't need doing. Edith had fielded the two questions directed her way with great relief for her husband's eagerness to share all of his passions with her; the estate included. They had been small problems, and both were things she could now count herself familiar with thanks to Anthony's happy tutelage.
There was also the household. They'd lost their footman to the Army and one of the maids to nursing. Thankfully, Loxley was a smaller house than Downton, but that left them down to two maids -one awfully young-, the housekeeper, and their cook. Mrs. Walsh and Mrs. Bernard were godsends, but Morris' death a few months before had left them without a butler, and Anthony wouldn't hear of replacing the man. At least not right away.
So, it was no surprise when it was Mrs. Walsh who answered the door, and then showed their guests in with that particular manner she had. The one that offered welcome to the guests while making an implicit offer to the house's mistress that she'd throw them out if so desired. An air that was all the more disturbing because the woman was a bare inch under six-feet tall, a stern Welsh accent, and was built like she had once held a secret yearning to play rugby. It was an interesting sort of entrance to make to a house, made more interesting by the fact that Edith currently had her son latched onto one exposed breast.
"Lady Strallan, you - oh gracious, you're indisposed, one moment." The housekeeper turned around, but Edith was already mid-scramble with her free arm for the throw behind the sofa. "Lady Sybil, Lady Mary, please take a moment here in the hallway-."
The ludicrousness of the situation struck Edith. She let out a sharp bark of laughter. Then she winced as Phillip, not the least happy with her moving about, latched on hard with his teeth in response. Wincing, she tweaked her son's foot.
"Be nice to Mummy!" His hold loosened and, after a bare second's exhausted and rather rebellious assessment, Edith made her mind up. "Mrs. Walsh, they're my sisters and Sybil has seen worse. Send them in please!"
Sybil came in grinning, but Mary's eyes widened and her face flushed at the sight of Phillip's bare little feet sticking out from under the knitted throw.
"Pip, guess who's come to visit us?"
Her son wasn't moved, he just sucked with a little more energy and whined, kicking his feet and tugging on her opened blouse. Edith reached under the throw with both arms to reposition him a little, and stroke his back. Sybil frowned.
"We've had a rough morning." Edith swallowed and offered up what she hoped was a semi-decent attempt at a smile. "And that is not a Royal plural. I mean my son and I have had better mornings.
"Poor darlings." Sybil came over and sat beside her sister, not even pausing, and wrapped her arms around Edith's shoulders. Well, one arm. The other came around her front briefly before reaching around to pet at Pip's back underneath the blanket. "Just a napkin?"
"He got hiccups after breakfast and all his cereal came right back up." Edith caught Mary's look and felt her lip twisting into a sneer. "What, spinsterhood no longer sounding like a fate worse than death?"
"I don't know, Edith. You're the one who's married and reproduced, so you tell me?"
Edith snorted at Mary's challenge. She was too tired to register that she found it amusing rather than hurtful. With some wriggling and Sybil helping to readjust the throw, got her son to switch sides. Mary watched the whole exchange with barely concealed disquiet. Edith smiled and meant it, if not nicely.
"Losing what I have now would be a fate worse than death."
Mary's look in return was strangely respectful. Edith was too tired to care.
"I know why Sybil came, Mary, may I ask why you're here?"
She waited for a sarcastic comment and didn't get one.
"Mama sent me. She wants a reconciliation and, for some reason, didn't believe me when I told her that I was the worst possible ambassador at large for the mission."
"Mama was always blindingly optimistic at the worst times."
"Oh, entirely."
"This is what you're going to agree on?" Sybil demanded, idly petting her nephew's toes and making him twitch. "Mary, do you need to wait in the car?"
"Whatever has poor Branson done to earn your ire lately?"
Sybil flushed but put her chin up, looking at Edith quailingly even as Mary's lips actually twitched at Edith's response.
"As if your presence is sunshine and roses."
"Let's just say some of us have the capacity for expression that doesn't have to be either deadly poisonous or unctuously sweet, Mary." Edith wasn't having it, not in the library she and Anthony had spent some of their sweetest moments in courtship and marriage in, not on today of all days. "Now, Mama wants us to play nice. That's a fine sentiment, but I think I've made myself clear on things in the past. What do you say we move on?"
"Edith."
"Sybil."
"Edith, really." Sybil protested, looking between her and Mary expectantly. "You're in the same room, the two of you, and no blood's been spilled, and nobody's been horrible. Well, no more than anyone with an English sense of humor anyway. Can either of you give me a good reason we can't at least talk about it?"
Her son, full now, and sleepy and not in the mood for talking, released his hold on his mother and went limp in the way of small babies, curling into her lap and tugging at the waist of her skirt as he whined protest at the noise.
"Mrs. Walsh?"
The housekeeper, bless her, hadn't gone for tea. She'd just stepped outside the doorway. Waiting and anticipating that she'd be needed.
"Yes, my lady?"
"Please help me with Pip for a moment."
A moment later and she'd settled her son into her housekeeper's very competent arms. Her son, dressed only in his nappy, kicked about a little and whined sleepily as he settled into place. Edith, quite proficient at it now, fixed her camisole, fastened up her nursing corset, buttoned up corset cover and blouse, and stood, letting the throw fall back to the sofa. Reaching her arms out, she took her son back and settled him against her shoulder.
"Sybil, Mary, I'm sorry but I'm exhausted and I miss my husband." Start and end with the truth. "Today is a very bad day to ask me for favors. Try again later, after both my son and I have had a nap."
For a split second she watched as Sybil visibly calculated her chances of success. Mary, meanwhile, looked less upset than curious in her surprise. Edith didn't have the patience to figure out what any of Mary's civil, decent behavior over the past two days meant. Thankfully Sybil's calculations did not take overly long and her little sister was rising to her feet, arms out, for a hug.
"I'm so sorry, Edith. You must be beside yourself with worry."
Edith refused to break down and ground her teeth as she felt her lower lip began to wobble. Some aggressive blinking halted the tears. Steady the buffs, just like he would say.
"I hope you never know." Edith leaned into the embrace and let Sybil cuddle and pet at her, and then at her son, stroking Phillip's platinum curls.
"Poor darling's exhausted too."
"It appears neither of us are very good at sleeping when Daddy is gone." Edith laughed weakly. "I'm hoping he'll at least help me with that by sharing my nap. I'm not lying, I really am going to go right up to bed."
"Do that. We won't give you any grief, will we, Mary?"
"Far be it from me to deny Edith her beauty sleep." Mary offered, then tacked on. "At least now that it seems to be making an impact?"
Edith could have offered several answers to that. In the end, she settled on the one that came most naturally. It would have appalled her parents, governess, grandmother, and society the most for sheer rudeness?
"Mary, get out of my house."
That was just a bonus.
Edith just had to figure out why that, of all things, made Mary smile.
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"What's gotten into you?"
"I'm not angry when I look at her anymore, Sybil."
Sybil looked at her eldest sister as if she'd grown another head, trying to parse exactly what Mary even meant with that comment. Yes, she knew Mary had changed a great deal in the last two years. In some ways, Sybil thought Mary had managed to grow even more than Edith had, and Sybil had spent two years watching, in dribs and drabs, as her insecure and miserable middle sister grew into a brilliant, confident, happy wife and mother. The kind of person who you simply enjoyed being around and who Sybil had always known was just underneath the surface.
Mary was a little different. Sybil had spent the time directly after Edith's departure having more and more trouble managing Mary. Or rather, managing her response to Mary being Mary, as her parents had spent a lifetime describing her habit of lashing out at Edith.
Feels different when it happens to you, doesn't it?
She and Mary had fought before, of course, and she and Edith fought. It's what sisters, especially sisters born as close together as they were, did. The difference, Sybil thought painfully, was support. Sybil had always been able to count on a certain amount of equity. If she complained, her parents listened. If someone, even Mary, did her some wrong, it was addressed.
Sybil had always accepted, if far less than her parents and grandmother had, that Edith, well, earned Mary's behavior by lashing out at Mary for this or that. Because that's how it had always been described. Mary is being herself, and if Edith reacts poorly to it, then it's Edith's fault that Mary responds.
When Mary lashed out at Sybil, she'd finally understood how Edith felt. Worse, she'd seen how different the response was. Her father had visibly flailed, attempted, and then failed to punish Mary. Not because Mary was beyond punishment - she wasn't. Instead, Sybil had watched punishment drive Mary to another level of anger and her father crumble in the face of that.
It was only then that Sybil had finally realized how terrible things were. Not just because Edith had spent years treated inequitably, had her looks and hopes mocked, and become Mary's scapegoat. All of that was a dawning horror. What had really stuck Sybil, however, was the realization that Mary's childhood tantrums and the fear and threat of losing her to them had taken control of her parents. Sybil still wasn't sure how much her parents realized the impact it had had on them yet.
Granny does.
That was the one shining light in all of it, and the beginning of Mary's own journey. Sybil wasn't about to deny that her Granny had actively taken part in some of the nastier behavior towards Edith. However, she also saw that her grandmother had more distance from it than they did, and in general Granny gave everyone the sharp side of her tongue.
She also was as hands-off as you'd expect a mother of her class to be. How much did she ever know about what went on in the nursery in Papa and Aunt Rosamund's day? I wonder if it ever haunts her…
"What in the world does that mean, Mary?" Sybil pressed, interested in seeing if she could get an answer as much as in what it might be.
The trip to Bath had done Mary a world of good. She'd hardly come back cured. There were still days when everyone in Downton feared the sharp edge of Mary Crawley's tongue, but those days were not nearly as often as they'd been before Bath. They weren't even as often as they were before Edith eloped.
Mary's a knife now, not shrapnel. If she cuts you, at least you know she's doing it on purpose. At least you probably know it's related to something you did and not the weather on Tuesday or Mary's monthly visits leaving her delicate and waspish.
"It means precisely what I said. Looking at Edith doesn't make me angry anymore."
"You're telling me that you used to get angry just looking at Edith?"
"Well, yes, in a way." Mary flapped a hand. "Look, it's not important."
"If you felt the need to tell me about it, I'd say it probably is, Mary."
Her sister glared and sat back against the upholstery. Sybil caught Tom's eyes in the mirror. He raised his eyebrows and nodded. She smiled. He's right, keep on her, but go gently.
"I think that's great, Mary. I just want to understand."
Mary made a face, but the glare vanished. Then Sybil restrained a sigh as Mary very definitely changed the subject. So much for an investigation; that's her Final tone.
"I'm sure that's nice." Mary raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "What are we going to tell Mama and Papa when we get home?"
"What?"
"Well, I doubt either is going to be happy with her having thrown us out without discussing a reconciliation."
"Considering Mama's got her heart set on it, it will hurt." Sybil fretted, then sighed. "But it might be good for Papa."
"How, exactly?"
"He's convinced it's Anthony who's kept Edith away from us." Sybil huffed and raised her eyebrows. "What? Don't look at me like that! We both know it's ridiculous."
"I don't. I don't know the man at all."
"Then let me tell you. Mary, if Edith wanted to be Queen of Mars, Burroughs would have to change all of his stories because Anthony would manage it for her if she asked."
"Must you be gushingly romantic."
"He adores her. Utterly and completely." Sybil didn't let up.
"Well, that's sickening."
"You're the one who said they loved each other yesterday. You must have seen how they are!" Sybil's eyes widened as realization hit her. "Oh, goodness. If they were saying goodbye, you really must have seen how they are!"
Mary looked highly uncomfortable and Sybil grinned wickedly.
"They tried to clean each other's back molars right there by the train, didn't they?"
"It was positively indecent, do stop acting gleeful about it." Mary protested. "Also, you're not even married! Where did you learnt to speak about such things."
Sybil looked positively smug, and Mary narrowed her eyes. Sybil went on.
"You know, the servants make a point to knock very firmly and repeatedly now at Loxley. There's no telling what might be going on behind a closed door."
"That is disgusting." Mary huffed. "And to think I have a fast reputation. Edith eloped, had a baby not even a year afterwards, and I have a worse reputation? I think we all know what they were doing on those drives!"
Branson made a noise very much like stifled laughter in the front seat. Sybil didn't bother to stop herself. She giggled. Wildly.
"Sybil, really, I'm serious! This isn't funny!"
"No, it is hilarious. You do realize this means you're more of a prude than Edith is now, don't you Mary?"
Her sister looked appalled.
"You're going to have to find someone more shocking than Edith to elope with."
"Or someone older." Tom, who apparently couldn't help himself, interjected and got an outraged look from Mary that had him sinking down a bit in the front seat. "Sorry, m'lady."
"Don't you dare apologize!" Sybil went back to laughing, gasping for breath to speak. "That was brilliant."
"It wasn't half-bad but let's not have a repeat of it, Branson?"
"Of course not, my lady."
"Thank you." Mary, reluctantly, ignored the mildly humorous slight and turned back to her sister. "Still, Sybil, stop. Honestly, we should be thinking of Papa and Mama."
"Mama and Papa are grown adults and can manage their own concerns." Sybil's level response left Mary's eyebrows trying to kiss her hairline. Sybil just put her chin up and raised her own in response.
"What?"
"That was surprisingly practical of you, little sister. Are you sure you're feeling well?"
Sybil batted at Mary's hand and Mary smirked as she kept shoving past the flailing and managed to put her hand to Sybil's forehead. Sybil endured it with little grace. Branson kept glancing into the mirror to better appreciate the sisterly tiff.
"I'm feeling entirely well!"
"Really? In that case why aren't you trying to cure all the world, not to mention the family's, ills?"
"I dearly want everyone to be happy and a proper family, but before that happens, I think we're going to have to admit we weren't one before." Sybil replied, not budging an inch and Mary felt the need to tear her eyes away from that too perceptive, unmercifully kind, gaze. "If I've learned anything it's that a person can open all the doors they like, but it's up to everyone else to walk through them."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Well?"
"Edith threw us out." Mary walked into tea at Downton with absolute confidence and dropped those four words like a gauntlet. "I do hope you don't mind we haven't changed, Granny."
"Not at all, standards have already slipped this far, why not go all the way to perdition while we've the time and motivation?" The Dowager drawled. "I fail to see any road dust, so I am assuming you do not mean you were literally tossed out on your ear - or any other part of your person. If only your father had been so lucky."
"Mother!" The earl chided, his expression perturbed as he welcomed his youngest and eldest daughter into the room, having made a rare appearance at afternoon tea with his wife and mother. "Sybil, could you elaborate for your sister?"
"Edith was tired and we did drop by unannounced only the day after her husband went off to war." Sybil buttered a scone. "I think it's entirely reasonable that we should have left when we did so she and the baby could go down for a nap. Mary's just being dramatic."
"Oh, am I?"
"Yes!"
"Did she or did she not say, "Get out of my house.", Sybil?"
"Yes, but she was smiling when she said it!"
"Girls," Cora interrupted, looking caught between concern and amusement. "Perhaps you could tell us what Edith said before she asked you to leave?"
"I'm going to assume you had time for at least some discourse before you were escorted off the premises?"
"Yes, Granny, we did."
Sybil looked at Mary and when it was clear that her sister was going to ignore her in favor of frowning at the variety of sandwiches on offer, she huffed and turned to her parents. Offering an encouraging smile, she settled in for what she thought would be a perfectly reasonable conversation. After all, it was just a bit of mediation, wasn't it?
"And?" Robert huffed, leaning towards his youngest daughter with what might have been eagerness in another man; an earl wouldn't admit to it. "You said she was upset with Strallan gone, but that was likely just the first shock. Surely you pointed out that now she's free to see us?"
Mary made a small scoffing noise before taking a dainty bite of a sandwich composed of sharp cheese and fine pate of some sort. Given war shortages she decided not to wonder what kind of pate it was. It tasted… chickenish? She trusted Mrs. Patmore's, but it was probably best not to look closely.
Robert's look in Mary's direction was not returned. In fact, Mary's dark eyes were suddenly examining the golden threads wound through the saloon drapes. Robert frowned and turned back to his youngest.
"Edith misses Anthony, Papa. They have a very happy marriage." Sybil stressed this, looking as stern as possible for a young lady in a frock with a fair amount of lace trim who was addressing a somberly dressed father. "If we're going to make any progress here, I really think you have to acknowledge that."
"Robert." Cora chided, putting her hand on her husband's knee as he huffed out a disbelieving breath, then turning her own attention to Sybil. "I'm sure she does miss her husband and must be terribly worried."
"Who wouldn't be amidst this dreadful foolishness?" Violet broke in to ask, her expression torn and unhappy. "You'd think these men in Parliament and the Admiralty would know better. Perhaps if they devoted eighteen years of their lives to raising children, they'd spend the lives of those boys less freely."
"Mother! That's-."
"Perhaps we should have the Nannies appears to parliament instead of the mothers, since most of the men there are of a class where that is who raised them." Cora added and her mother-in-law shot her a narrow-eyed look.
"I still think we should remember everything Strallan's done-."
"Oh, hush, we're talking about Edith, Robert."
"But you just-."
"Robert." Cora's soft voice distracted her husband and Sybil watched her mother turn to look at her father, who shot his wife a look of outraged exasperation, but calmed when she patted his knee and offered up a little understanding smile. Firmly in charge of things, much to her daughters' relief, Cora Crawley went on. "Sybil, Mary, what your father and I want to know is if you made any specific inquiries about our reconciling with Edith and what she said in response."
"Edith's not interested in a reconciliation."
"That is not what she said!" Sybil protested and Mary shot her a look.
"Really?"
"You know what she said, Mary, and what she meant."
"Enlighten us, then!"
"Edith just wants to know that…" Sybil, who launched into her sentence with confidence, fumbled as she tried to hit her stride under her parents' expectant gaze. Clearing her throat and casting around for inspiration, her eyes caught sight of a list left forgotten on a side table and lit up. "That you have a plan!"
"A what?" Robert Crawley looked boggled, but not alarmed.
"A plan." Sybil beamed. "You know, what are you and Mama's plans to - to go on better than you started?"
Lady Grantham's eyes lit up at this rather American turn of phrase and idea. Leaning forward she wrapped her hands around each other but was firmly grasping the concept. To her left, her husband still seemed grappling with the curious statement. To her right, the Dowager was watching with a vulture's patient, and somewhat bloody-minded, focus.
"You see, Edith's happy and secure now - at least, she was before Anthony left to go to war - but the point is that Edith's happy as Lady Strallan and she wasn't as Lady Edith." Sybil laid out with a flourish. "She doesn't want to go back to being unhappy, so she needs to know how - how you plan to handle things from now on so that won't happen."
"She wants to know how we mean to go on from here?" Lord Grantham weighed the idea in his mind and nodded, perking up slightly as he turned it over in his mind and found it a reasonable question. "That's fair enough, I suppose. Hardly complicated, though, we'd go on as we ought to - as family."
"I believe you tried that, Robert, and it was not as simple as advertised."
Violet's sarcasm took the wind out of her son's sails quite neatly.
"Well, true, but - still." Robert turned towards his youngest daughter. "Things are better now. It can't be that hard to work something out. You just need to tell Edith… Oh, that we'll go on better than we did before."
"Tell Edith what?" Sybil shot back, clearly piqued. "That's not a plan, Papa, that's a sentence."
"And not the most thought-out sentence, either."
Mary was desperate enough for escape that she couldn't stand the tension any longer.
"Really, Papa, I think it's obvious what Sybil means. You've put an incredible amount of thought into appealing to the Army. You could at least put the same into Edith's mess if you are sincere, that is. Think of it as practice; a good battle plan and all that."
Violet raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips in thought, but Cora looked decidedly worried as her eldest stood gracefully from her seat.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have Anna draw me a bath before dinner."
XXXXXXXXXX
Anthony, ever in favor of modernity, had installed a push-button bell on Loxley to go along with the door knocker. It both rang a bell down in the Servant's Hall in the basement and attached to an decorative chime and ringer in the front hall itself. At the same time this was done, soon after their marriage and at much persuasion from her husband, Edith had determined that she would do a little redecorating despite her general love of Loxley as it was. With that in mind and realizing what she really wanted in the way of a retreat, Edith had set eyes on what the staff generally referred to as the "china room".
Anthony's grandmother had been frightfully fond of oriental knickknacks. Some of these were fascinating pieces of some value. Many were, honestly, just random things she'd either found or been sent over the years by relatives aware of her fondness for such things. Located in a slightly awkward corner between the formal saloon, the library, and hall, the China room was very well placed and had once served as a sort of records annex behind the library before Grandma Strallan had overtaken it for her collection and the records room was moved to the third floor.
Now?
Edith took it over as her own. She began by moving out almost all the knickknacks. Most went into boxes and into the attic, though a few pieces had been distributed about.
She'd moved a lovely carved cinnabar box onto the library mantle and put the unsightly box of matches that always lived there away. A gorgeous Japanese lacquer box, that glowed with gold dust and delicately picked out cranes and reeds, she moved up to her boudoir and tucked her hair pins and things into. A particularly cheerful green stone Buddha became her favored paperweight.
As for the furniture, after much debate, Edith had decided to truly redecorate and not merely go into the attic looking for furnishings already present. The mismatched collection of shelving was removed. So were the frayed Afghan rug and the glass exhibit cases.
As the flooring had suffered over the years and needed replacing, a geometric inlay of different colored wood was added. The walls were decorated in a rich, deep, blue paper marked with thin silver lines. In front of the smooth black marble of the already present fireplace and mantle, Edith had arranged three chairs in dark blue leather that had the sculpted appeared of seashells, or perhaps morning glories. A matching sofa, low and overstuffed, sat between them on a very modern black, blue, and white rug.
Two desks stood, taking up the other side of the room. One, located facing the door, was a smooth thing of hurled walnut polished until it was like glass. Sleek, and accented with chrome, it arched up and over and the many hidden compartments and drawers so sleekly fitted that only their chrome pulls gave them away. Edith hadn't ordered that, but Anthony had every reason to believe she'd adored her present from the emphatic thanks he'd received in private. She had chosen the deep bucket swivel chair that went behind it.
Underneath the window, made of darkly stained oak, was a sturdy and well-made secretary desk of the sort with a roll top and a very practical matching office chair. Several sleek chrome lamps with dark cream shades stood about the room. A Tiffany lamp stood on the larger desk.
"We've gotten the rents ledger properly organized, and the correspondence system set up." Edith ticked off her list as she sat behind her desk, biting her lower lip absently as she examined what was left. "The calendar for this month and next's estate events is established, and Nichols went over the farm calendar with me as well."
"I've got your social calendar in hand, my Lady. It's mostly goings on for the tenants, charities, and the war effort and the like." Midori offered from the secretary desk, flicking back and forth between two different date books. "We should have everything between tea and dinner properly clear for writing, three days a week."
"And the morning clear for my son and estate business?"
"Yes."
"Oh good."
Edith, unlike her husband, could not manage to be highly organized while looking perfectly cluttered. It was one of the reasons she stayed out of his study. She felt her fingers twitch to start putting it in order when she walked through the door unless otherwise distracted. She needed organization and what the staff were now referring to as The Lady's Office reflected that.
Speaking of her Sunshine, Edith turned and felt her lips twist in maternal delight as she looked at her son. Mr. Hayes, the carpenter, had been applied to for a baby cage that Edith liked better than the models available in the shops. To her eye many seemed restrictively small for a baby that was walking, and some had bars that looked disturbingly wide enough for a little skull to be pushed through. As always, Mr. Hayes rose brilliantly to the challenge. Neat panels of crossed wooden bars that handily clipped together at the sides were produced. With eight panels in total the cage could expand quite large and be set up in the larger public rooms or four panels could be clipped together over the rug in the office as it currently was.
After a terribly difficult week without his Daddy, Phillip was calming down a bit. He still tended to get out of sorts if separated from his Mummy for too long, but today? Edith was feeling a little better, as was her son. She still missed Anthony dreadfully and the nights were the worst but keeping busy made things easier. Pip had helped with that, playing with his soft toys and blocks in his pen and then napping on a pile of faded cushions underneath the knit blanket, as he currently was.
Of course, with everything in order and her son sleeping, that was when the bell rang. Edith shared a brief glance with her companion and watched as the younger woman rose to her feet with quiet grace. Phillip immediately began to wake and fuss at the noise.
"Mrs. Walsh is assisting Mrs. Bernard in the Kitchen. Allow me."
"Thank you." Edith sighed but couldn't help wishing again that they could do something about the butler situation as she rose to pick up her son, who was now standing unsteadily and reaching up towards her with pleading hands. "We weren't expecting visitors."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Lady Mary Crawley stood awkwardly in front of the door to Loxley House and wondered if God wasn't punishing her. She tried to shift her weight a little, but her ankle throbbed, and she reached up to put more of her weight on the door. She bit her lip and sighed in relief as the door opened, and then her world tilted sideways.
Lady Mary blinked once at the perfection that was Chen, standing in front of her in Loxley's open front door. As the delicate oriental servant swept her eyes up and down Mary, the lady wondered what had gone wrong with the world. Blue-green eyes traced up and down Mary's soiled and muddied clothing, then up at the torn sleeve of her jacket and the scarf bandaging her arm. Perfectly winged black eyebrows arched up with droll expectation.
"May I help you, Lady Mary?"
Mary summoned her considerable pride and looked down what suddenly felt like an over-large nose at the young Asian woman.
"I obviously need help. I do not suppose you or your employer could be troubled to offer it?"
She actually had the gall to take a moment to consider it!
"I shall inquire."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"My lady?"
"Yes, Midori, who was at the door?"
"Nobody important." Midori drawled, and if her eyes were sparkling cheekily and leaving Edith wondering what in the world had happened. Usually when Midori looked like that, she'd been twitting Stewart over something, but that wasn't a current option. "Just your older sister."
"What in the world does Mary want?"
"Assistance."
"With what?"
"Well, she looks like she took a tumble off of her horse." Midori tilted her head speculatively. "Then tangled with an angry barbed wire fence. How long shall I keep her waiting?"
"Midori, that's awful."
Midori dimpled sweetly and Lady Strallan let out a slightly snorting laugh.
"Oh, go let her in! Then bring up the kit, and - and telephone Downton."
"Yes, my Lady."
XXXXXXXXXXX
Limping in out of the rain to gain a seat in the chilly formal saloon didn't make that much of an improvement in Mary's morning.
"Stop looking at me like that! You know how the army requisitioned horses!"
"Yes."
"And I just couldn't bear it and it was dreadful. I need to ride. It lets me - anyway I found a very likely two-year-old and I've been training him."
"I'm sure you have, Mary."
"Stop that! It was all going very well until we startled that covey."
"Near the estate border."
"Yes, I was far closer to Loxley than Downton by that point, so I thought I'd just… walk over and use your telephone."
"Reasonable."
"Entirely! I mean, I wasn't that familiar with the paths, but I knew the one through the woods and across the stream would lead right up through the orchard to your front door in time, and I thought it was the shortest way."
"You turned left instead of right at the fork in the path, didn't you?"
"How was I to know it was a deer path?" Mary Crawley demanded indignantly. "I was doing fine until I stepped on that badger!"
One did not become a mother without learning how to do a bit of doctoring. Edith was hardly an expert, but she knew the basics. As such, she'd gotten Mary into the formal saloon, as it was the closest room to the front door. Then she'd sent Midori off to fetch a dressing robe so they could get Mary out of her muddy riding habit. Mrs. Walsh appeared at this point, with her granddaughter in tow. The fourteen-year-old maid brought hot water, soap, a flannel, and a towel.
Midori returned with the ugliest quilted robe that Edith had ever seen. Edith would later find that Midori had made a brief search of the back guestroom wardrobe (which was full of abandoned articles from guests spanning a full generation) to find it. It was a kind of baby-mess brown with salmon-colored flowers running through it. Mary had looked so revolted that Edith had been unable to contain her amusement any further as she'd helped her sister into it, and then she'd sent the servants out - and her son with them - and now this was where they were.
"How did you step on a badger?" Edith was laughing so hard she could barely see where she was smearing iodine on the cuts and scrapes on her sister's arm.
"Ouch! Be careful, Edith!"
"You're the one who stepped on a badger!"
"The sett collapsed under my foot, and I landed on it! The rain must have weakened it, or it was dug by a wretchedly incompetent badger." Mary complained.
"A badger of normal incompetence wouldn't do?"
"I don't know! All I know is my boot is entirely ruined."
"It really is." Edith looked at the scratches and gouges in the boot. "At least it held up to its teeth, though! What happened to your wrist? It wasn't the badger?"
"No, the wretched little beast left me alone when I stumbled away." The brunette huffed. "That's when I turned my ankle, though."
The ankle that was now elevated on a hastily found ottoman and was swollen to twice its proper size.
"I hurt my wrist when I tried to get into your stable and out of the rain for a bit." Mary looked at her quizzically. "Sir Anthony didn't keep any horses? I know he had a hunter or two before the war."
"No, I'm afraid we couldn't pass any off as necessary breeding stock and they were requisitioned. We've thought about moving up a couple of milk cows from the home farm, just for the house, to make it less of a walk, but there didn't seem much point." Edith realized what had happened. "Oh, the door's chained! You tried to shove your hand through the gap, didn't you?"
Mary gave her a positively venomous look.
"I thought I might find a horse blanket or something. I was soaked through! Now what are you going to do if - I don't know, I die of lockjaw!?"
"Well, I promise not to charge you with trespassing or attempted breaking and entering."
Edith burst out laughing again as her sister made a noise like a particularly indignant kettle. With a brief knock at the door, Midori entered. Edith watched the very calculated grace of her entry and had to swallow an unladylike snort. Her maid/secretary was barely nineteen and had decided to act like it. Lady Strallan decided she had no urge to stop her from needling Mary. After a lifetime of Mary rubbing her looks in Edith's face, well, watching Mary have to deal with the same kind of internal reaction was hilarious.
"Charris is keeping Master Phillip entertained in the nursery, Lady Strallan."
"Very good, Midori."
"Did anyone call home for me?" Mary demanded.
Midori didn't even look towards the agitated brunette, and instead fixed an apologetic look at her employer.
"I got through to the Abbey, Lady Strallan, and despite my insistence that Lady Sybil would be the best choice, it appears the Earl and his wife are coming to pick up Lady Mary."
"Oh."
"Thank God. Are they bringing the doctor?"
"I did not inquire."
"You're dismissed, Midori, thank you." Edith rushed to intervene before her right hand could bait Mary into saying something that started a real fight and turned back towards properly cleaning and bandaging Mary's arm.
"What a horrible creature. Why on earth did you hire her?"
"Mary, I'm happy to save you after you go around weasel stomping but leave my people alone."
"Weasel - it was a badger!" Mary was appropriately indignant.
"Same family."
"What?"
"Mustelids." Edith explained. "Weasels, badgers, otters - they're all related, and don't look at me like that. You came to my house!"
"Where I received such elegant and gracious treatment – and a zoological lesson!"
"I should be serving the poor badger tea and sympathy." Edith shot back. "He's the one that had something several times his weight step on him and destroy his house!"
Mary's face screwed up.
"Well, aren't we confident now." Her sister's voice oozed chilled malice. "One has to be, I suppose to allow a woman that looks like that to live under her husband's nose. Especially when I know you can still look into a mirror, Edith."
The usual flare of hurt followed, but Edith refused to bow to it. She wouldn't exchange barbs with her sister. She wouldn't let Mary drag her down. Not in her own house. Not in the home Anthony had welcomed her into and shared with her. Not with her son playing with a maid upstairs, safe and happy, while his father was off doing God knew what and in what kind of danger…
"Mary, I know you cannot understand this, but I have the unequaled confidence of a husband who loves me. I am willing to be civil with you. I'm willing to help you, because it's only decent, but that doesn't mean I'm going to tolerate your presence if you intend to insult me, and if you say a word about my husband ever again then you can sit outside in the rain and catch your death for all I care."
"That would make you happy, wouldn't it, Edith, if I died?"
"Mary, your life or death has nothing to do with my happiness." Edith stood up. "I think it best if-."
A sterner rap at the door and Mrs. Walsh's voice.
"The Earl and Countess Grantham, Lady Strallan."
"Mary, what on earth happened?" Robert Crawley strode into the room and didn't know where to look.
It was awkward enough being shown into Loxley by the housekeeper he'd last seen when the harpy had shoved him out of the door. He'd hardly been about to grapple with a servant, or a woman! So, what choice had he had, in that moment of shock, save to step back and have the door slammed in his face? If only the women on his family would stop ganging up on him and acting as if he'd lost some kind of brawl, the sting of it might fade with time.
"I fell off my horse, Papa, I would think that obvious."
"Then she stepped on a badger and tried to break into our stable." Edith added, drawling, and ignoring her sister's glare. "However, now that you're here, I'm sure you'll want to take her off to have her seen to properly. I doubt I got those scrapes on her wrist entirely clean."
"Stepped on a - what?"
Cora had walked into the room and fixed her eyes only briefly on Mary before looking at Edith. Her eyes flicked back towards Mary, and Robert had to admit he also stared, at this peculiar pronouncement. All of his daughters got into odd scrapes, but…
"How on earth did you step on a badger?"
"The sett collapsed!" Mary complained. "It was not my fault and it never got through my boot. Papa, can we just go home?"
"Of course, darling, we've already called Dr. Clarkson to meet us there. Your poor ankle!" Cora bit her lip and stepped forward then but turned as she did so. "Edith, how are you?"
"I'm well, Lady Grantham." The stiff reply sent a frisson of emotion up Robert's spine, straightening it. "I think Lady Mary's right, though, and it would be best to have her looked at."
"Are you honestly going to address your mother like that? Edith, is that all you have to say to us?"
"Yes, it is."
Robert gaped at his daughter. Between servants and Strallan himself, Robert hadn't stood face-to-face with Edith since that wretched Garden Party. Now?
His middle daughter looked different and yet… so very much the same. She stood perfectly straight, not just as a matter of well-trained posture, but in the way of a person who wasn't trying to fade into the background. Her brandy-brown gaze tilted up and met his this time, instead of skittering away, and though she was pale… she was direct in every way.
"Edith, please, dear this isn't how we wanted this meeting to go." Cora intervened as Robert gaped at Edith, his temper building as he was confronted with a situation, he had no idea how to deal with and found distressing. "Let's try again."
In that instant, two things happened. Edith visibly hesitated, her eyes cutting towards her mother and some of the iron she was wearing in her skin cracking. Meanwhile, quite apart from his brain, Robert Grantham found his mouth moving.
"Yes, let's try this without Strallan here to poison you against us. What were you thinking, Edith, letting him -."
"That is enough!"
Silence.
Robert gaped as Mary and Edith stared at each other, both having spoken at once. It was, unsurprisingly, Mary who gathered herself up first. Hauling herself onto her one good foot, dressed in an appalling dressing robe, his eldest held the back of her dainty chair and hoisted herself to her feet.
"Mama, Papa, I want to go home." Mary gritted out. "Whatever you and Edith want to resolve, you can do it when I don't need a doctor, for goodness' sake!"
"I couldn't agree more." Edith quickly added, looking unhappily relieved to do so. "Is your car out front?"
"Yes," Cora's response was carefully contained, "thank you for helping your sister, Edith. We do appreciate it."
Robert watched as the grown woman, the lady, in front of him visibly struggled with what to say to that, and finally shook her head as she walked over to the door, opening it to reveal the oversized housekeeper waiting in the hallway.
"Mrs. Walsh, would you please show Lord Grantham and his party out?"