When they reached the car, Bernes held out the passenger door for Edith who hesitated. "Would it be so terrible if, I - I've always wanted to sit in the front?"
"Well.. we seem to be good at breaking the rules," Bernes closed the door and opened the one to the front seat, next to the driver.
"Do you know, I think I would quite like to learn how to drive - I think I'd be rather good at it," Edith remarked when they were both in the car.
"My my, who would've thought the Lady Edith had such deviation in her -"
"Well I don't see how it's so blasphemous - a woman wanting to drive. I have two arms and two legs alike the next man who's survived the war."
"Oh - I did forget! I'm talking to one of the writers for The Sketcher." Bernes chuckled, a clump of dark hair fell to the side of his face with the movement.
"You read the column?"
"I confess, I was curious after seeing your name on the back of Mr Carson's morning paper..." His eyes were half closed with amusement, a grin tugging at his mouth as he studied the road ahead.
"You don't! How odd to think - all the time - the chauffeur's reading my own writing!"
"It's allowed, you know. And don't look so surprised - there's a lot more where that came from."
"What do you mean?" Edith demanded.
"The maids love it."
"The maids? Who else? Mrs Patmore?"
"I wouldn't be flabbergasted if she did. You see this is the thing with magazines like The Sketcher, M'lady - usually, they're published for public domain."
"Oh! Don't tell me how magazines work."
"They like to think of one of you upstairs as so forward-thinking. I suppose it gives them hope." Bernes shrugged his shoulders and looked at her.
"You make me sound like a liberal... Oh - concentrate on the road," Edith ordered, disgruntled. However, she was pleasantly surprised at him having asked no questions about the fact he was taking her to Loxley.
Ten minutes later Edith found herself outside Anthony's door. She held her breath and rung.
Jones came to the door, "I'm sorry Lady Edith, but Sir Anthony remains placid towards your visits, and is currently occupied. He usually takes to bed at this hour I'm afraid," with a nod, the butler closed the door firmly. Edith huffed in frustration.
She was not going home yet. Edith walked around the back of the house, towards the garden gates and peered up at the windows, a light was on upstairs. She needed to get into that room, nothing in Edith would let her turn back. Not now. She needed to see him, she didn't even know why, but all she knew was that she did.
She tried the gate, and to her surprise it flung open.
Now that Edith had access to the garden, she noticed that there was a short wall that ran from the garden to the side of the building (the side of the building that she needed to get to), there was also a mature wisteria climbing up the window of the living-room which had a good ledge from the top.
It wasn't impossible. Edith pulled of her shoes and tiptoed to the wall. She tried her weight on the thick branches of the wisteria, it would hold.
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