Author's Notes: Well, Edith is showing her shiny spine. Shall it stand up to continued badgering? Shall the Crawleys learn things? Let's see.
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. 3: 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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The Dowager Countess of Grantham entered Edith's office like a great sailing ship of war drifting into dock. Lumbering, yet graceful, and standing tall on pride alone while it yet had intelligence sufficient to know that its days of glory were numbered. Knowing, however, and admitting are very different things. She'd been a crack frigate in her day, and if iron hulls and burning coal had put paid to her fearsome might, well, she didn't have to let anyone else know she was aware that she was no longer the fiercest thing on the waves.
"Edith, you're looking very well."
The first words out of her grandmother's mouth, of course, set poor Edith's already frayed temper on edge.
"What does it say that every one of you always sounds surprised by that?"
"That we have failed you egregiously and blamed you for doing so."
As so often happened around her grandmother, Edith found herself open-mouth and staring, with no response whatsoever to whatever had just come out of Violet Crawley's mouth.
"Is there an offer to sit down oncoming, or shall I also turn around and excuse myself from your presence?"
"Granny…. What on earth do you want?"
Then Edith listened to the rarest of sounds on the planet earth.
"I would like to apologize."
She'd only heard it twice before in her memory.
"I was wrong."
It couldn't last, of course.
"No do please close your mouth, Edith, you look ridiculous."
Edith closed her mouth and, after a moment, gestured weakly to the armchair opposite herself as she sat down. She cast about for something to say and finally gave up and went for the most obvious.
"Should I call for some tea, Granny?"
"It would be much appreciated. It is around that time, isn't it?"
Edith hummed noncommittal and, with reluctance, rang the bell. Given the staffing situation she wasn't surprised when Midori popped in. Asking for a tray for tea and communicating with her eyes that their usual arrangements should be reordered, Edith settled back into her seat and reminded herself this wasn't the schoolroom and Granny was a guest in her home.
"The weather has been dreadful. Far more February than April."
"Yes, it's delaying the spring planting a little, but it looks like the worst is behind us."
That was at least safe. If they could do nothing else, they were English. There was always the weather to complain about. Several more minutes were devoted to the chill rain, the late frost, and some problems Edith had needed to sort out with a harvester that had gotten water into its petrol tank.
"Gracious, you didn't do that yourself; I trust?"
"No, Granny." Edith resisted the urge to laugh. "I drive, I am not a mechanic."
She would never mention the fact that she'd learned to both change a tire and oil. Both were simple necessary things that her husband thought came along with learning to drive. That said, they had gotten admitted distracted while both under the Rolls at once that first time… and forgotten to lock the door. Poor Waters… God willing, he'd come back from the war. God willing a bit further, she'd be able to look their chauffer in the eyes again.
"You miss him dreadfully, of course."
Edith's head snapped up as longing cut through her like a knife at her grandmother's words. To her surprise, her grandmother met her eyes with nothing but sympathy. Edith struggled with seeing such kindness in her grandmother's face. It wasn't that she never had, it was just… rare.
"It's only proper. I missed your father dreadfully and worried terribly when he was in South Africa, and your mother was beside herself."
"You don't mention Grandpapa."
"Our marriage was different, Edith." The simple acknowledgement surprised her. "I will always miss him, as he was my husband and a dear friend, but I don't think there's a single person in the county without some unfortunate mental peculiarity who could doubt that you and Sir Anthony love each other."
"Well, that's rich! Papa thinks Anthony is some villain who turned me against my family for nefarious purposes."
"While I have no doubt that your husband knows what the word nefarious means, I sincerely doubt he could successfully stretch himself to fulfill the definition." Violet Crawley sniffed. "And I love my son, Edith, but your father is not the most intelligent of my children - and I never did have much to work with."
"And you wonder why our family is falling apart?"
Midori arrived with the tray at precisely the most awkward moment, as expected. Also as expected, and to Edith's relief, she said nothing and gave no indication she'd heard anything. She simply drifted in like a swan alighting on a lake. Settling the tea on the table, she inquired if the lady needed anything else, then swanned right back out as she was dismissed.
"That is a rather dangerous young lady to have about a house." Lady Violet finally observed, lips pursed but eyes unreadable. "One seldom sees such decorative maids outside of a bachelor establishment."
"Midori's more my secretary than my maid." Edith shrugged, unbothered. "And I needn't worry about her 'decorative' status with Anthony."
"I didn't say she was dangerous to you, dear, but you do have at least one unmarried sister who visits regularly, and as the first married you have a responsibility to help your sisters in their own search for a comfortable situation."
"You expect me to help Mary find a husband?" Edith goggled even as she poured the tea. "Granny, can you imagine what she'd do if I suggested it?"
"Mary won't take any husband she doesn't pick for herself, and more the fool she is for it." Violet huffed and being intelligent, made no move to acknowledge that her estranged granddaughter had slipped and called her by the fond appellation she'd once regularly heard from the blonde. "No, I was referring to Sybil. She had a very successful debut, but she's not doing anything with it."
"Well, the war has most men unavailable."
"There's always Larry Grey."
"I find any healthy young man currently billeted west of France suspect." Edith huffed and turned away from the unexpected sympathy in her grandmother's gaze. "How do the scones hold up?"
"Not at all rock-like. Your cook has my compliments, but the Strallans have always set a good table." Lady Violet paused and Edith just sat, wondering what would happen. "Edith, we both know it is a rare event, so let us not stretch this out. I was wrong not to intervene, or to… notice how unusual relations were between you and Mary. I am sorry I allowed it to grow into the… monstrous conflict it grew into. I am sorry I offered you no protection, and no support when you asked to go to school."
Edith swallowed against the frog suddenly lodged in her larynx. Sipping her tea to dislodge it she tried to think of what to say. When she did… she wasn't sure she wanted to. She did anyway.
"I don't just need you and Mama and Papa to be sorry, Granny. Being sorry changes nothing."
"Then what do you need? A question long overdue, I suppose."
"Better late than never?"
"An appalling saying." The dowager sniffed. "Punctuality isn't a requirement of British citizenship for nothing."
Despite herself, Edith smiled. It faded quickly. When she looked up to meet her grandmother's eyes, she was surprised to find no expectations there. Just a patience that one normally did not attribute to Lady Violet Crawley.
"Granny, I need to know you won't do it again. That you'll… that you'll respect the fact that I no longer owe you anything, or answer to you in any way. That - that it's all gone to ashes and anything new we build isn't my duty to maintain." Edith refused to cry, but she blinked rapidly. "If this is - if I'm going to let any of you back into my family, I'm not going to be responsible for making sure everyone else is happy. Not anymore."
"But we shall be responsible for you."
"Just how your behavior affects me." Edith countered but felt the words piling up and slipping away. Agitatedly, she set her teacup down and paced to the mantle. "I don't know how to say it, Granny. I - when I write it all down it's clear. Now you're here looking at me and I just…"
The clock on the mantle ticked angrily into the silence, marking off seconds until Edith decided none of it was worth it. That she didn't want any of them back. That all she wanted was Anthony and what she had, not the fiction she'd been denied. Wasn't that better? Wasn't it safer?
"Mine was never a happy family."
Edith looked from the clock to her grandmother and found Lady Violet had risen to come, slowly and carefully, to stand beside her while leaning on her cane.
"A baronet of decent means but considerable ambition, your great-grandfather resented having three daughters and no-one to carry on the title he'd built up from his father's knighthood."
"You almost never talk about great-grandpapa or your sisters."
"Well, we only really became sisters when we were, oh, say, around forty?" The pert response dripped in self-derision, which surprised Edith into silence again. Lady Violet obligingly filled it. "You see, it seemed entirely normal to me. That you and your sisters would compete. I was pleased how fair your father was. You were all to get the same dowry. You had the same governess. He made you spend time together. I thought it was… quite leaps and bounds forward. Better than I had done, as I only had the one son and the one daughter and, obviously, they couldn't share as much as sisters could."
"You thought it was better that Mary was always picking on me and Sybil could do no wrong?" Edith accused, then backtracked. "Not that Sybil was bad. I love Sybil, but…"
"Your great-grandfather had a kind of… system in the nursery." Lady Violet explained with a wrinkle of her nose. "You see, he only paid for one slot of any sort of lesson at a time, and if you wanted it, you had to be the best at it. I managed to mostly keep my piano lessons, but I lost the drawing lessons and dancing master to your Great Aunt Margaret. My sister Susan died before her debut - and, of course, Margaret had to name her daughter Susan even though I'd specifically told her I wanted to name your Aunt Rosamund that."
Violet waved a hand.
"Nevermind. I'm still rather bitter about the dowry situation."
"Dowry?"
"Yes, you see, my father had a set amount of money available for all of his daughters. Whoever married first and best would get the bulk of it." She sniffed. "When your Great-Aunt married a Marquis, I was left with less than expected. Your grandfather was too honorable and too… dear to back out over it when he found out, but it remains that it was a disappointment to the family."
Edith stared at her grandmother in shock.
"Well?"
"Why didn't you say anything about this, Granny?" She finally managed. "I… I don't know what to say. That's horrible."
"Well, yes, I'm afraid that it rather defines one's relationships in our class." Violet's lips thinned. "Your paternal great-grandfather was, of course, an utter dear until you needed him to stand up for you. Then he came all over like wet tissue paper if it crossed his political ambitions."
"Are you going to explain that."
"No, it was something your grandfather told me in confidence from his childhood, and best left forgotten." Lady Violet swallowed and, to Edith's shock, there were tears in her eyes as she finally turned and looked directly at her granddaughter. "Edith, child, I'm not excusing how you were treated. I am saying that… you will often find in life, as you get older, that you can never do right by your children. You can only do your best, and when that fails, do better."
Edith thought of her son, the baby now napping upstairs, and her heart lurched. How would she live with the day she couldn't hold him in her arms and protect him? What would she do if she had to do it alone, not for the length of the war, but forever?
"Would…" Edith stumbled on the words, and for a moment, didn't know what to say. Then, honestly, she did. "Would you like to meet your great-grandson?"
Her grandmother's smiles, so rarely given and so arduously earned, had never looked so bright as the one she was offered then.
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Carson could have offered heaven a prayer of gratitude when the Dowager showed up in such a fine mood. Her sharp tongue was still present but offered up kindly enough by any standard applicable to Lady Violet Crawley. She didn't even have a word of displeasure for William - still eager to enlist - wearing such an unpleasant expression during serving.
"You're in a fine mood, Mother."
"My great-grandson is a delightful child."
Carson should have known it was a trap. Standing awkwardly to the side, as was his duty, Carson manned the wine and silently watched and listened. What else was he to do? At least the Lady Mary was dining on a tray for the evening. Poor dear had a sprained ankle.
The earl's fork froze mid-lift from his plate to his mouth. Lady Cora, however, had the more dramatic response. Carson wished, for a moment, that Mrs. Hughes might have been present, as unorthodox as it was. At least he'd have gotten a sympathetic look out of the whole dreadful ordeal.
"Mother, this is too much!" The countess' fork hit her plate with a ringing chime that had Carson wincing for the china. "I have spent days thinking of the best way to approach her, then my own husband sabotages-."
"Now, Cora-."
"Sabotages!" Cora doubled down. "The first time I've even been in my daughter's presence in a year. Now, after you specifically said that we were to give Edith her space and you thought it was a terrible idea to approach her-."
"I said it was a terrible idea for you or my son to approach her. I said nothing of myself. Also, Cora, you might throw silverware in the wilds of the United States, but in Britain, we conduct ourselves with more decorum."
"Since when?" Lady Cora gritted out in challenge. "How is it that I am always the one at fault socially when you are the one whose entire circle of acquaintance is composed of wretched old women so horrendously unpleasant that the only social company, they can seek out is their own?!"
Lady Sybil squeaked, met her father's eyes, and then stood up suddenly.
"Mama, I'm not hungry, may I go check on Ma-."
"Yes, Sybil, go eat with your sister."
Lady Sybil fled. Had Carson been able to rip his eyes away from the exchange going on at the table he might have noticed her heading downstairs rather than up. As it was, his eyes were riveted on the confrontation.
"Well?" The Countess demanded and the Dowager sniffed in response.
"I will not dignify that with a response."
"A fine answer when you've been confronted with the truth!"
"Now, Cora-."
"Don't you now Cora me, Robert!" The lady stood up and it was only William's youth and reflexes that juggled the tray he was carrying into Carson's hands while he reached out to catch the chair before it fell backwards onto the floor. "I married you despite my father's disapproval. I fought to marry you because I loved you and wanted to make a future with you. I've loved and supported you for thirty years despite your mother's constant disdain and every moment interference or condescension I faced even though it is my father's money that is keeping this bastion of the great English Aristocracy afloat, and I won't do it anymore! When you've stood up to your mother and can stand to admit you were wrong about Edith like the rest of us have, then you can 'now, Cora' me as if I was still twenty and you know more of the world than me. But until you've sorted it out, don't bother!"
"Cora! That is - Cora?!"
Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, stared helplessly between his mother - who looked distinctly satisfied - and his wife's retreating back as Lady Cora strode from the dining room and, in a complete lack of decorum, yelled for O'Brian rather than ringing for her maid as was proper.
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Edith couldn't stand to eat in the dining room alone. She took dinner in the nursery with her son instead, at the little table, with her son in her lap where she could feed him from her plate as well as his own and cuddle him properly. With her nose tucked into her son's wheaten curls and his blue eyes looking up at her brightly Anthony both seemed farther away and much closer.
At six in the evening Midori went home. She didn't board at Loxley as she'd done at Strallan House. Instead, she walked the mile's distance to the little cottage she'd been settling her mother into while Edith was bidding goodbye to her husband and dined there most evenings. When she didn't, Edith was grateful for the company. Though Midori had gone to charity schools on scholarship and been removed from them before she'd graduated, Edith had been embarrassed to find she still had more of a formal education than she did. Oh, she wasn't nearly so widely read, and she didn't speak any of the Continental languages, but the fact remained that her education had at least been structured.
Given Edith was only taking a tray up to the nursery and didn't need to be waited on, she usually dined while the servants did. As such, it was no surprise that young Charris ended up answering the door, her eyes wide as she hesitantly peeled open the Nursery and peeped her auburn head inside.
"L-lady Grantham is here to see you, Lady Strallan, and hopes she's not intruding but she brought luggage."
Edith gaped for a moment, missing the opportunity to prevent her son from shoving his hands into a heap of mashed potatoes and gravy. A moment later and both the heir to Loxley's face and Lady Strallan's blouse were covered in the same.
"Oh, Phillip, really?" Lost as to what else to do after the day she'd had, Edith stood up with her son in one arm and a napkin in her free hand. "Oh, send her in, Charris!"
Edith stared, nonplussed, as her mother swept into the room wearing a graceful traveling dress and familiar hat and every sign of distress.
"Edith, forgive me, but I can't do this any longer. I am so sorry. I pray you never know how sorry I am that I - oh."
Edith awkwardly mopped at her blouse and her son's face, wishing that she suddenly didn't feel like she'd just flubbed Schubert on the piano after begging for a week for her mother to listen to her play. Phillip, of course, let his Mama clean him up but was entirely overwhelmed. First, Mama sent him to the nursery suddenly because that strange lady was there again. Then, people kept coming and going and his routine was disrupted. Now, there was another stranger in his nursery staring at him. He did the only thing any properly shy lad could do: he buried his face in his mother's blouse against the comforting softness of her bosom.
Then, because there was gravy present, he started to lick her shirt.
"Oh, darling, stop!" Edith laughed despite herself, adjusting her grip on her son. "Gentlemen do not lick people."
"G'avy! Mama! G'vy!"
"Yes, and we all love Mrs. Bernard's gravy, but let's only eat what's on the plate." Edith murmured as she adjusted her grip on her son and caught Charris' eye. "Could you please run and fetch me another blouse, Charris? I can handle our sticky young master."
"Let me get you some water."
Edith stared at her mother as the Lady Grantham peeled off her gloves, set them on a side table, and then paused as she looked around and didn't find what was expected. Edith was hit by a sudden memory of her mother wiping her face with a flannel as she cried, using the pitcher and basin from the nursery.
"There's a sink in the water closet behind that door at the back of the room." Edith offered weakly and sat down again in her chair, exhausted and confused and suddenly, miserably bereft of the one person she felt she desperately needed.
Lady Grantham appeared a moment later. Cora's sleeves had been rolled up and she was brandishing a towel in one hand and a wet flannel in the other. When her mother got to where she was sitting, Edith reached out and took the flannel before her mother could try and make use of it.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." Cora bit her lip, and her next words almost tore Edith's attention from where she was washing her son's face with exaggerated care even as he cheerfully shoveled green beans in his mouth, a wary blue eye fixed on the stranger in their midst. "I - I doubt you feel as if you are, though."
Not knowing what to say and exhausted, Edith held her silence and mopped at her blouse.
"It's alright not to say anything I - I will listen to anything you have to say. Anything, Edith, but for now I would like to talk, if that's alright?"
Edith nodded, but they were interrupted by the door opening and Midori entering rather than Charris. Edith caught her sea-green eyes and shook her head at the single raised black eyebrow she was offered. Midori immediately relaxed, nodding, as she set the folded blouse on the as yet unused hobby horse Anthony had gotten two days after their son was born, and raised her hands silently.
"Thank you." Edith passed her son gratefully to the other woman, ignoring his squeal of indignation and pressing a loud smacking kiss to his cheek. "Phillip, be a good boy for Midori and finish your dinner. I'll be right back."
"Ooh, mushy carrots!" Midori offered up with excessive enthusiasm as she sat down in the abandoned chair and picked up the little silver spoon and dipped it into the bright orange purée. Distracted by the colorful food and his own good nature, Phillip didn't immediately cry for his mother.
"We'd best hurry." Edith muttered, plucking up the blouse and catching her mother's eye as they made their awkward withdrawal from the nursery; Cora with her eyes lingering on the little boy currently attending to his dinner. "Here, please, just across the hall."
Edith's boudoir at Loxley house was a bit… cobbled together. It had also followed her from Strallan House, or at least the furniture had. She liked it all the better for it.
Every piece had meaning for her. The vanity set and some of the furniture was modern; a belated wedding gift from her Aunt Rosamund. The carpet, however, was a beautiful thing of brilliant colors and intricate patterns that Anthony had bought during his tour on a trip to Budapest. He'd offered it to her as a gift when she'd found it carefully wrapped in the Strallan House attic. Almost every wardrobe and table came with a different style and period, chosen from the London House or Loxley's attic. It was eclectic and a bit strange, but she thought the harmony of it was wonderful, and the blushing peach color of the walls and drapes always made her feel warm inside.
"Oh, how lovely!" Her mother looked around, and if she blinked a bit at the juxtaposed styles, she smiled clearly at the small tapestry hanging along one wall and the full bookshelf and the beautiful silver vanity set open on her dressing table. "It suits you wonderfully, Edith."
"Thank you." Mama, hovered on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it. "What on earth's happening? Charris said you showed up with luggage?"
"And O'Brian, I'm sorry." Edith stared in shock as her mother swallowed, visibly nervous. "If - if it's entirely too much to ask I'll understand. I can open Grantham House, or stay with friends for a while. I just can't listen to your father go around in circles any longer."
"About what?"
"About you Edith, and the apology we owe you!"
"You've apologized before, Mama," The words tumbled out, more from exhaustion than from frustration. "In letters, you tried at that wretched garden party, you had poor Uncle Harold write me and if he didn't turn it into a confusing mess, I don't know who did. You wrote to Anthony for goodness sake!"
"And I shouldn't have. This is between us, and it was dreadful and interfering of me and unfair to try and involve him."
"It was also useless." Edith's temper flared. "Anthony isn't some jailer holding me hostage or Bluebeard with a new young bride, for God's sake! Mama, he is literally the only person in my life who's stood up to for me who isn't a servant, and fat lot of good that did them or me given they can be dismissed!"
"I know, Edith, darling I know!" Cora plead at that point and Edith, uncomfortable stepped back.
"Why - why don't you sit down while I get out of this. We try and keep his finger painting restrained to actual paint, but gravy does in a pinch."
Edith didn't know why she was speaking. Nerves moved her tongue. She didn't want to talk about Phillip to her mother. She shut her mouth and walked into the bathroom that existed between her boudoir and the bedroom she should be sharing with her husband. A few moments later she'd donned her clean blouse, washed her chest off, left her corset cover and soiled blouse soaking in the sink. She found her mother sitting in front of the empty heart, her hands gripping each other as she waited.
As the light from the only lamp lit in the room barely touched her mother's face it deepened the normally fine lines around Cora Crawley's mouth and nose. A few strands of silver, usually invisible in her dark hair, gleamed brightly and apparently. Edith blinked in surprise as her mother's age, usually so well-hidden, was utterly on display.
"Why now?"
"Darling?"
Edith lowered herself into the chair opposite her mother, settling into the large leather armchair Anthony usually favored when they spent the evening together here, reading or listening to music before bed. If bed didn't call them more directly, anyway. The smell of pipe smoke and peppermint embedded in the upholstery threatened to undo her, but she shoved it to the back of her mind.
"Why do you want to be my mother now? Why is it so important to have me in your life now? You spent most of my life happiest when I was invisible. Why am I so important?" Edith felt the words pour out, and with them, the suspicion. "If it's so you can be a grandmother, I want you aware that it is going to take a lot more - a lot more everything, time included, before I trust you with my son."
"According to your grandmother she was dandling your son on her knee earlier today."
"Granny was never my mother."
"She was barely your father's mother."
"It's a family tradition, then!"
Cora winced and let out a breath, her lips thinning as Edith caught the first spark of her mother's temper behind the kindness and distress in her blue eyes.
"Don't be flippant, Edith, this is important."
"Forgive me, Mama, I'm not used to being important."
Cora's reply, which might have been sharp enough to give Edith some emotional traction, visibly died on her lips. Tears rose to her eyes. Edith felt panic bubbling up inside her. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. They were supposed to be angry. There was supposed to be yelling like Papa was always - she could handle that. She could fight it.
"You're right."
"Don't just agree with me like that makes it alright, Mama!" Edith swallowed. "Why, why, was I never good enough?"
There was a pause as Cora fumbled for her handkerchief and Edith gritted her teeth. To her surprise, her mother looked up and spoke. If she had to strain to hear it, as she went on, the countess' voice grew stronger if no less grieved.
"At first, I was too tired and hurt. I - everything went wrong in labor, Edith. I'd had such an easy time with Mary. With you I - I panicked." Cora swallowed. "You had to be turned a little and I wasn't following the midwife or doctor's instructions. I know I wasn't, and I can see that now. That I made it worse."
"So, you blamed me because labor hurt? My son weighed ten pounds!"
"Oh no, darling, really?"
"Yes, but that's hardly the point! We both had husbands who supported and loved us and yours had never buried a wife! Why wasn't Papa there to help you, if you had so much trouble?"
"He was!" Cora's own temper flared. "Edith, you don't understand the difference between eighteen-ninety-five and nineteen-sixteen, for God's sake! It's an entirely new world now, and – and you and Anthony, you aren't normal!"
"Well, the truth will out I sup-."
"And that's not a bad thing, Edith!" Cora stood up and then shocked her daughter, turning before she sat and leaned forward, her hands gripping each other. Her knuckles ivory even in the golden lamplight. "Edith, your father and I aren't like you. I'm not like my mother. I know I can do whatever I wish, but what I wanted was what was right and I had everyone telling me that I was wrong! That it wasn't done to have a baby with you all the time. That that's what servants were for. That I had caused all of Mary's griefs with my coddling and that it was my fault!"
Edith was shocked into silence by the strangled, low-voiced wail in her mother's voice at that, but Cora wasn't done.
"I am so happy you will never go through that, Edith. That you have Anthony and that he understands you and that, despite every single person who I know thinking the man was banality himself, he apparently feels no more need to do what's expected that you do. That he's given you the strength to take that independence inside you and not just bring it out as a desperate last resort but use it, even against me." The brunette insisted, gripping her daughter's limp hands tightly. "Whatever else has happened, no matter what else, in the last year I've realized how happy he's made my little girl. That he's protected and cherished you, Edith darling. That means the world to me - especially knowing how I failed to do the same."
Edith hovered for a moment, unable to speak, and then found tears tumbling from her own eyes. The words voice that came out of her mouth then wasn't Lady Strallan. It wasn't a confident woman who, in the last two years, had been Anthony's rock as he'd struggled and fought his way through going from a landed gentleman to a man at war. It wasn't the woman who'd carved a place for herself amongst her husband's older, established, intellectual and educated friends in London. This wasn't a woman who'd hosted Cambridge fellows and some of the most influential men in Intelligence at tense late night suppers or last-minute gatherings arranged around quicksand schedules. This wasn't the woman who'd often come home to Loxley alone for tenant teas or Christmas and Easter celebrations. Who'd shouldered planting schedules and haggled with wholesalers on the phone. This wasn't a woman who'd stood by her husband and juggled the myriad agricultural, financial, and social duties of estate management while he grappled with a war so bloody it was slaughtering Edith's entire generation.
"But Mama, I don't have him!" Edith sobbed, suddenly grasping Cora's hands back. "I don't, he's not here. Ma-mama, my husband's - he could - Mama."
For the first time in more than a decade Edith fell into her mother's arms. It was less about trust than being at the end of her emotional tether, but Cora succeeded in wrapping her arms around Edith and holding on tight. For once, after years of failure and confusion, Cora was doing precisely the right thing for her second child and she held onto it with everything she had.
XXXXXXX
"I do hope you know what you're doing."
Isobel Crawley ignored the scathing look that the Dowager Countess of Grantham gave her and continued to walk, her on long stride matched to the other woman's circumscribed gate.
"It must be a refreshing thing to have hopes that are not misplaced."
"Really, though, aren't there enough problems and stresses without intentionally stirring up trouble?" Isobel had no intention of stopping. "I mean Edith has legitimate reasons to want space and separation from her parents and Mary. What could you possibly achieve by exacerbating tensions between your son and his wife?"
"I'm more interested in the fact that my great-grandson apparently knows you better than he knows his actual grandmother."
Isobel refused to acknowledge the look and rummaged in her handbag.
"I'm sure that I had some peppermint in here. It's Pip's favorite, you know."
"Are you trying to choke the child."
"His father will dissolve one in a cup of milk." Isobel shot the older woman a sharp look. "I was a nurse, and I am a mother, you realize."
"Yes and having a son yourself I would have thought you'd realize that sometimes the best way to motivate a boy to wisdom is to exacerbate their foolishness."
"I don't follow you, Violet."
"On the contrary, you following me is why we're having this inane conversation. It is, in case you've mistaken your location, my garden we're currently in."
Isobel sniffed and said nothing. As she thought, the temptation to revel in her own genius was too much. The Dowager sniffed, then began to impart her wisdom. Or, at least, explain the supposed purpose behind her current cruelty du jour. Isobel held her smirk internally; for all of her wit and her wisdom, Violet Crawley wasn't hard to decoy out.
"Robert was always dreadfully stubborn as a boy." The older woman complained and sank regally onto a nearby bench, Isobel settling companionably beside her. "It was forever getting him into scrapes and then, of course, he was too pigheaded to fix any of the messes he made. Did I ever tell you about the time he got into a brawl with three other boys at one of my garden parties?"
"No, you haven't."
"Robert was fourteen and should have known better."
"A defining feature of fourteen-year-old boys."
"Quite." The older woman cleared her throat. "Sir Anthony got himself tangled up in it as well."
"I hesitate to imagine even a young Anthony enjoying the sort of squabbles and scrapes boys get into. He's such a levelheaded man."
"He's a terrible pedant who plays the fool to avoid his social duties." Violet sniffed in response, but her expression didn't reflect the harshness of her response. "He is, however, a more than adequate husband to my granddaughter. I can forgive a myriad of sins in a man who makes his wife happier for having wed her. Rare as it is."
"They really are terribly good for each other." Isobel smiled, happily thinking of a few visits. "I was so pleased when Edith continued to receive Matthew and I, despite the family troubles. She and Anthony were very gracious to host me in London. It makes my visiting Matthew ever so much easier when he gets leave."
"Yes, we've heard something about that recently. A young lady was involved, though I did not recognize her name."
Isobel cleared her throat and went on, refusing to be drawn. Matthew had asked for her discretion. He asked for so little and he was in such danger.
"What happened at that garden party that brought Anthony and Robert to blows, and how old were they?"
The dowager's look suggested that Isobel couldn't expect a long reprieve, if any, but she permitted the subject change.
"Well, as you know, Strallan has a habit of looking older than Robert – I blame the previous Lady Strallan's unfortunate losses – but he's actually a bit younger."
"Yes, three years?"
"Twenty-eight months. Robert was fourteen at the time and being quite the little cock-of-the-walk."
"I can't imagine where he would get a quality like hubris."
"His father, of course."
"Certainly."
"All young boys are wild animals to some extent, but at least they are charming animals when they're young. In their middle years they're positive little savages. Boarding school was established by polite society for a reason, and I believe it was the preservation thereof."
"Oh, that is terribly harsh."
Isobel struggled not to smile back, secretly agreeing. Matthew, sweet as her darling was, had been horrendously trying at thirteen despite being away at school by then. She would savor the day his own son was thirteen or fourteen and she could watch the look on her dear boy's face as she produced his school marks and her correspondence with his headmaster to share with her grandchildren.
Which she would have. Matthew was going to be fine. God wouldn't take him from her. Please, God Almighty, Gentle and Good…
"A fine metric to judge the truthfulness of a statement, isn't it?" The Dowager turned the silver handle of her cane and leaned slightly, her eyes drifting across her roses and into the past. "As I was saying, Robert was fourteen and Anthony a bit shy of twelve. Well, the lad was always a beanpole and Robert… a little late to his growth."
Isobel smiled at the image of Lord Grantham as an adolescent late bloomer. It was almost as charming as picturing Edith's husband at that stage where particularly tall boys grew like Clydesdale colts: all overlarge hands and feet, long, knobbly-kneed legs, and a lack of coordination in their limbs. It was a charming picture and she felt one Edith would be very likely to see repeated in about a decade's time.
"What did the boys spat over?"
"Oh, it wasn't either of them."
"Then what happened? You said they fought."
"Well, Robert went to Eton – of course."
"Oh, of course."
"But the Strallans prefer Harrow and having just spent his first year there, the lad was very proudly wearing his pin. One of the other little miscreants attending with his parents to keep Robert company decided to see if he could goad Robert into something – and, to absolutely no surprise whatsoever, it was quickly discovered he could."
"How does Anthony factor into it?"
Violet waved an airy, dismissive, and inherently dishonest hand.
"Robert's friend got him to misquote and misinterpret something I'd said earlier in passing to Lady Strallan. Nothing of any consequence and – had they been older – they would have understood that. Not doing so, of course, offense was taken."
"And Anthony was such a dear he had to defend his mother's honor."
To Isobel's surprise, however, she looked over and found that her companion's expression had softened. There was amusement in her eyes. There was also, however, a distinctly motherly fondness.
"Oh, no. He was then, and is now, far too smart for that." Violet Crawley actually smiled to herself. "You see, after Robert had said his unfortunate piece, eleven-year-old Sir Anthony said, very clearly of me that…"
"Well, don't keep me in suspense!"
"As everyone present knows your mother's quality as well as mine, Bobby, I shall take your words in the spirit a woman of her quality had to have meant them."
"That – oh! The imp." Isobel, despite herself, coughed slightly on an incredulous laugh. "How completely deniable. Not to mention polite."
"Well, there's a reason that I didn't say anything when my daughter-in-law was allowing him to squire Edith about without a chaperone. I've doubted a great many things about Anne Strallan, but I never doubted that she'd raised her son to be a proper gentleman. Mind you, I was sadly disappointed in the elopement, but compared to other outcomes, it is minor enough to overlook with only irregular censure. You'll also note I never doubted why the man was commissioned where he was during family dinners." The Dowager sniffed and then shook her head almost fondly. "Robert, of course, took it the worst way possible and immediately blew up and hit Anthony square in the face. Robert's friend hied off so he wouldn't end up thrashed for making such an ungentlemanly spectacle of himself."
"And Robert…"
The sigh said everything, but the sparkle in the older woman's eyes said more.
"Give me a lever long enough?" Violet quoted wryly. "According to Carson's predecessor once Anthony got a shoulder off his feet it was just a matter of leverage and my son ended up in the pond. Their fathers gave them what for, of course, but I had to carry the indignity of taking my son to offer a direct apology to Lady Strallan the next day."
"Oh? What did she do?"
"She was perfectly, dreadfully, graceful about it." Isobel could all but taste the sour grapes in the older woman's voice and she laughed aloud at her next words. "Of course, her idea of punishment was to send the two boys out to pick apples all day – and then feed them turnovers. By the time I got my son back he couldn't stop going on about what a "jolly fun" mother Lady Strallan was."
"Well, I think she sounds like an utter delight."
Isobel offered up her brightest smile to the black glare she received.
"Why am I not surprised?" Violet drawled. "Sometimes you strike me as rather similar."
"What a lovely compliment, thank you!" Isobel purposefully preened and then went on in the most annoying tone of good cheer she possessed. "Anyway, what has this to do with Robert?"
"I would think it quite obvious, even to you."
"You're the one who's always going on about not having time to spare, so why don't you just get on with it?'
The Dowager Countess made clear the great indisposition this was with a pointed sigh, then spoke as she stood up, clearly ending their visit and the conversation that had gone with it.
"As I very clearly illustrated, Mrs. Crawley, it's quite impossible to teach my son anything."
"Well, that's rather harsh!"
"So a wise individual sets matters up so that he teaches himself."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"What… do you remember?"
It took a full day to get around to it. Edith had been reluctant to disturb the strange peace, the comfort, she'd found in her mother's unexpected presence. Midori, Mrs. Walsh, everyone at Loxley shared her fear for the master of the estate. They knew how she felt and were sympathetic to it.
They were also, however, people who relied on Edith and her husband for their income and survival and Edith had not been raised to show weakness in front of the staff. Not merely because of her mostly hidden distrust of servants, but because one owed something to those who relied on you for their position and protection. One did not burden them. Even Midori, who was as much friend as servant, couldn't provide that kind of support; not the least because of her youth.
Cora, however, had seen a beloved husband off to war and waited for Edith's father during the last Boer War. She fretted still that he might succeed and take himself off to the front. That he might not come back. Lady Grantham understood her daughters' fears and knew what she, before all else, needed. So Edith was left feeling incredibly comforted by the warm embrace and support of her mother even as a part of her suspected it. So, in the end, it was late in the evening the next day that they managed to really talk about everything that had driven them apart.
"Everything, nothing? I was a child, Mama." Edith sat in her lounge pajamas in the library to talk.
She couldn't stand to have her mother in her boudoir of the evening. For Anthony and Edith her boudoir was their evening retreat. For the first two years of their marriage the library was the room they spent the most time in, but the routine of it was different. The library was the main stage of their life, in a way. They hosted there. They even ate there occasionally, at very informal moments or when Anthony had to work on something through the meal.
Of a normal evening, however, dinner was taken in the dining room at Loxley or Strallan House. This was after their son was fed and – given his tender age – tucked into his crib for the night. After dinner, an hour or two would be spent in the library together and then both would commence with their evening routine. A long soak in a hot tub, for Edith, and less drawn out ablutions for Anthony (excepting those situations where they chose to conserve water and combine baths). Anthony usually took one last look into his study, going over this or that, and then put his books to bed for the night. By that point, Edith's own routine was over, and in lounge pajamas and dressing robes, they settled into her boudoir to read and chat, or listen to the gramophone he'd given her on her last birthday.
Edith wasn't ready to let anyone else into that time or space. Not when only a week ago she'd shared it. Not when she'd just gotten her first letter from her husband on the front. Assurances of his safety, his words of love, all of it just… brought the reality crashing down. Her husband was at war.
"I know, I know." Cora bit her lip and rubbed her hands over the thighs of her evening dress. With Cora there, Edith had dressed for dinner, and they'd eaten in the dining room. Midori had served them in a strangely comfortable little bubble of femininity and both women had discussed what it was like when the only man in the house wasn't even in short pants. "What I mean is… I suppose…"
"Yes?"
"What do you want to know, Edith?" Cora tried again. "I don't even know where to start, and you have the right to know whatever you want. Please, just – just ask so we can get started finding a way back to each other properly."
"Why did you let Mary treat me the way she did? What started it? What was it? Did – did you just love her more? What was wrong with me?"
Edith watched her mother swallow the instant urge to deny or justify and was surprised at how tired her mother looked as she spoke. Cora Crawley was always the image of grace and beauty in her mind, but… there she was. Being very unbeautiful in her suffering, for Edith to see.
"There was never anything wrong with you, Edith, but there was something wrong with Mary."
"Well, I could have-."
"I don't mean it as a joke, Edith! I mean… when my firstborn daughter, who I did love and do love very much, was your son's age I had people telling me that she was broken, and I should just send her away! After all, I already had a replacement, and it was my fault anyway."
"You said that earlier, Mama." Edith bit her lip and hesitatingly took one of her mother's hands in hers. "Could you explain – really explain?"
"People of your father's class, here in England, had – and still have, though not so strongly – a sense of how to do things. Anything that deviates from that is looked down on, mocked, or treated as a disaster waiting to happen, Edith. You've felt some of that yourself, but at least you're English." Cora swallowed and looked up, her blue eyes pleading for understanding. "I married when I was a year younger than you were when you eloped. I gave birth to Mary in my second year of marriage after worrying for months that I was barren because I hadn't instantly conceived the way everyone around me demanded I must – and I was determined to prove that my way was better."
Edith nodded encouragingly, and after a false start reached out and took her mother's hand. Cora squeezed it gratefully.
"I nursed Mary. I sang her to sleep at night and had her cot in your father and I's bedchamber."
"Anthony and I did that with Phillip, for the first few months."
"Be glad you weren't talking to your Granny, then. I heard nonstop complaints and orders to stop it from her. She did nothing but badger us, but thankfully we were at your father's posting and it was all by mail. When you were born your grandfather was in his last illness and we were at Downton. There was no escaping your Granny's constant hounding. Then you were born and I was so sick and Mary just – just exploded I had your grandmother and all of these experts a thousand years older than me telling me I'd – I'd caused your sister's disordered mind with my coddling."
Edith felt ill. She also felt the sudden desire to race over to the nursery and clutch Pip to her breast and never let her baby go.
"What kind of wretched quacks were Granny and Papa hiring?"
"The most expensive and highly ranking kind, of course! Dreadful, titled old fossils. I'll never properly trust your father's opinion on medical matters again, you know. Never. I want you to understand, Edith, that there was never anything wrong with you. What was wrong was our doing, your father and I."
Edith desperately pulled a handkerchief out of her silk robe's deep pocket and passed it to her mother, who was now quietly weeping as she spoke. Realizing her own face was wet and twisted into a grimace, she retrieved a second from the drawer in one of the room's tall standing wardrobes. After a moment, the countess composed herself and went on.
"I kept telling myself I'd – I'd manage things with you shortly. That I'd show you how much you were loved as soon as I didn't feel so sick from the birth. Then it was after I'd learned enough from the experts to mother you properly. Then, it was as soon as we'd saved Mary from being sent to some dreadful asylum."
"They wanted to send Mary away?" Edith started. "No-one ever told me that!"
"Of course not, it was a dreadful secret. Can you imagine what would have happened had anyone known?" Cora looked up, shaking her head. "It's no excuse for how we treated you, Edith."
"No, it's not." Edith agreed, but she was caught helplessly in the horrible thrall of an image.
Before her eyes she saw her son, gripped in her own arms, wailing and trying desperately to hold onto her – screaming for his Mama – while he was pulled from her grip and snatched away, bundled off into some wretched, fetid, damp darkness. Some gothic horror of a building. The sort of place where the unwanted and broken children of society were sent to die; quietly, deniably, and under the false aupices of charity and kindness.
"So, you see, we did exactly what you accuse us of. We sacrificed you for Mary." Choked, Cora bit her lip and reached for her estranged daughter. "And I am so, so sorry, darling!"
"Why was it so different for Sybil?" Edith asked, though she let her mother embrace her. "What about Nurse Nelly? She was so horrid. I had my own nurse before then, didn't I?"
"She was also the one who saved your sister from herself." Cora rubbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. "She came in and taught her how to manage herself – or so we thought. It – it really doesn't matter. She stopped those horrible fits – tantrum doesn't really cover it, darling – and saved Mary."
"Did you ever once stand up to her about me? Why didn't you just keep us separate?"
"We did at first, but Mary made so much more progress and at first you looked so happy playing together!" Cora made a strangled noise. "It just seemed so innocent! You giggling and Mary acting like a little general and…"
"And?"
"That's all we saw for a while, then when we started to realize we were only seeing what Nelson wanted us to see… It was too late. Mary was so dependent on her, and on you, and she was so dreadfully expensive and she'd threaten to leave and she never kept a single record we could use to try and recreate what she was doing when we weren't there…"
Edith began to get a horrible, shifting feeling. Quicksand couldn't twist so badly beneath your feet as feelings could suck you down and into the quagmire of yourself. As a child it was nearly impossible to look at her mother and not rage, but Edith wasn't merely her mother's child now. She was Phillip's mother and Anthony's wife and while she knew all too well her parents had failed and made terrible decisions… she wasn't inclined to simply this into one decision.
Cora was still speaking, however.
"We did our best. We refused to let her hit you. I never let my children be hit, not by anyone. And it is woefully insufficient, but we always insisted you have your own space and your own time once we realized how much time you and Mary were spending locked in the nursery together."
Edith racked her brain and found… she could remember times where things had shifted. Maybe when she was about five or six? When she'd been allowed and even escorted around the grounds. Where her love of long walks, of reading books in sheltered nooks and crannies about the estate, had started. Sometimes her father had taken her on these walks himself, though Edith didn't believe it had been a frequent occurrence. Usually, a servant took her out and Mary spent time with their parents. It was never Nurse Nelly, however.
"And Sybil?"
"I'd realized by then that the immobility of it all was wrong. That parents have to parent so that's what I did." Cora swallowed. "I kept telling myself, as I watched you and Mary and saw how different Sybil was that – that I had time to fix it. That Mary was better, that I would dismiss Nelson, and that then I'd have time and space to be the right kind of mother to you, but by then…"
"By then what?"
Cora stared at her, and Edith was shocked by the defeat she saw there. Not the weariness anymore. Not the hurt. But her mother, bolder than her father, and braver in a quiet way, that almost anyone Edith had known… was standing before her, white flag in hand, asking for mercy.
"You were so independent. You didn't trust me, and when you did reach out for me, I didn't know how to – how to handle it and when I did it was always wrong." Cora explained. "You were always so afraid when you chose frocks so – so I thought if I picked them for you then you would gain confidence, but it just made it worse. Then Mary would always need things and we still thought we had to keep her calm, no matter what. There was always just something - So I just put it off again. Edith, I don't know what else to say. I'm sorry."
"You did. Say that I mean. You are." Edith swallowed and reached out, squeezing her mother's hands again and biting her lip and asking her final question. "What do you want, Mama?"
"I want another chance to be the mother you deserve."
"And Papa?"
Cora Crawley's eyes were sharp and hard.
"Your father can earn his own chance this time, I think."