DISCLAIMER: I don't own Downton Abbey and I make no money from this work.
About four weeks after they had moved in together, Dorothy burst into Edith's bedroom with a fashion magazine in one hand and a pair of silver kitchen scissors in the other. Edith was sat at her writing desk reading a letter from Sybil, but abandoned it when she saw that Dorothy had that certain gleam in her eye. Edith had come to love and fear that gleam over the last month. It always meant that something exciting but quite possibly terrifying was about to happen. She had had it when they had decided to go on to a bottle party in the wrong end of Kensington and ended up being driven home by the son of the Marquis of Kent. Dorothy had vomited into her handbag so as not to cause any mess in the back of the new car, while Edith had sat in the front and repeatedly said "Oh please don't tell Granny, please don't tell Granny." Of course, they couldn't actually remember any of this – the son had told them the next day when he had returned Dorothy's scarf. Edith had discovered that memory-loss was a side-effect of living with Dorothy Madison.
"Well?" Edith asked expectantly, a smile already pulling at the corners of her lips.
"I'm going to cut your hair." She said.
"Are you?"
Dorothy rushed into the room and spread the magazine out on the desk. It was open on a page with a pretty model showing off the latest bob haircut. Next to it was a list of instructions on how to copy the style yourself. "You see! Look how easy it is…" Dorothy had her wheedling voice on. She stuck out her bottom lip and pouted.
Edith laughed. She could resist Dorothy's charms and she wasn't about to let her have her way just because she could make a pretty sad-face. She had grown up with Sybil, who was even more effective at it than Dorothy, and Edith had grown completely immune after years of being on the receiving end of quavering lower lips and pleading eyes to get the last slice of cake. "Why don't you cut your hair?"
"Because I'd look like a male toad with short hair, darling." Dorothy replied.
"What makes you think I wouldn't?"
"Bone structure. You've got just the right sort of face. And you always pin your hair up, so you've practically bobbed it already. I'm just making things more… official." Dorothy began to pull the pins out of Edith's hair and brush it through. "Just look how nice it would look… I wouldn't do it right up to your ears, just to your jawline…"
Edith watched in the mirror as Dorothy pulled her hair up so it looked like she had cut it. Part of her was still thinking that this was a very bad idea, but the rest felt that nervous thrill of excitement that accompanied one of Dorothy's grand plans. She thought about Mary mentioning Paris haircuts and claiming she might get one, with no intention of ever doing anything so radical to her appearance. She was too used to being beautiful to risk it, but Edith wasn't. Edith was used to fading into the background – not dark enough to be striking like her sisters and not blonde enough to be pretty like Dorothy. What would bobbing her hair do that would be worse than feeling invisible? Even if it looked terrible she'd be noticed in a crowd, and remembered afterwards. She touched the locks of hair that had dropped over her shoulder. It was nothing special. Not much to worry about really. "Can I have the scissors please, Dorothy?"
Dorothy handed them over and watched as Edith took a hunk of hair in her hand and held it out till it was pulled straight. Then, with a decisive snip, it was gone. The hair – it was no longer anything to do with her – fell onto her lap and Edith looked down at it. Without a second thought she brushed it away and gave the scissors back to Dorothy, a large smile on her face.
"Do the rest. Do it just like you said, to my jaw." She watched as Dorothy snipped and cut and consulted the magazine, and in the mirror a new girl emerged before her. Edith watched this girl who was her and not her, and felt strange. This girl was bold and daring and cut off all her hair just because she wanted to. This girl wouldn't sit crying in her bedroom because she had been passed over – yet again – for Mary. This girl took charge of her own life.
"Didn't I tell you how wonderful you'd look, darling?" Dorothy asked, practically bouncing up and down with excitement when she had finished. "Just look at you jaw line!" She pulled a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one. Edith envied the ease with which she did it – it was a habit that Dorothy looked like she had been doing all her life, whereas Edith still had to bite back a cough during the first pull. "Want one?" She asked, exhaling a trail of smoke.
Edith nodded, running her fingers through her new hair. When she had the cigarette in her mouth she watched herself smoking in the mirror. It looked right now. It suddenly suited her just as much as it did Dorothy or Vanessa.
"Gosh, darling, you are the absolute image of the Modern Girl!" Dorothy said, pointing to a double-page article about this phenomenon. It was the term the papers had coined for these new, radical girls who drank and smoked and danced and wanted to have a good time. Edith would never have included herself in this bracket before – Dorothy was the Modern Girl while she was the friend along for the ride – but suddenly she felt like one too. She inhaled again and breathed out slowly, her head somewhere else entirely. Sybil had always been ahead of her time, and she probably always would be. The world was beginning to alter, but not yet enough to accommodate all of Sybil's hopes and dreams. Mary had been perfect forher time, but now that time had passed. The war had put an end to her particular idea of the world, and Edith knew that she realised she had been left behind by the new youth. But Edith had never felt quite comfortable. Until now. She was a Modern Girl, and this was her time.
"Right, where are we going tonight?" She asked.