AN: thank you all so much for your support! I'm so glad that people like this story enough to follow it ect. Right, so I have lots of ideas now, and it just comes down to how much I can put down per chapter. So without further adieu, I give you this.
The week with Edith was lovely. Margaret missed John, but to have her cousin near so close to the end of her confinement was a comfort and a blessing. As the final month jitters grew, so too did Edith's assurances that "all would be well." It had been with Sholto hadn't it? Furthermore, she did her best to assure Margaret that what she feared was normal, and it had happened since the dawn of time.
"I was all nerves and fidgets," she explained as they sat together on the sunny veranda of her fashionable north London home. "I didn't have you to ask either, my dear."
"I know," Margaret shrugged, sipping the last dregs of her sweet tea, "I just—well, it's just this is all so new for me, especially since a year ago I had assigned myself to a life of spinsterhood."
Edith chortled at this and Sholto, who had been curled up beside her with a glass of his own, startled and dripped sticky tea on his mother's skirt.
"Mama," he said after she managed to mop up the little droplets left on her petticoat, "will aunty Margaret have a boy so he can be my brother?"
"A little cousin mayhaps, but if it is a girl she will do just as well." Sholto wrinkled his nose and shook his head vehemently.
"No! No girls! Papa says girls make ladies, and ladies make t-r-o-u-b-l-e!" He threw his hands up and stuck out his tongue, a supposed impression of his father. Both women laughed, but were there interrupted by the father in question, brows knit and eyes troubled.
"Edith dear, will you come here for a moment? Sorry Margaret—," he addressed her now, "we shall just be a second."
"Edith, taking her queue, followed her husband out with instructions for Sholto to remain seated with his second cousin until his mother's return.
When the pair did arrive back, Edith's face held a look of palpable relief, though there was a nervous little jump in her jaw.
"Whats wrong?" Margaret demanded, "John?"
"No," Edith replied, "your mother in law, Hannah Thornton, has taken ill. She had an affliction of the nerves. I believe they call it "having a stroke.""
"But she is still..." Margaret could not bring herself to finish the sentence.
"Yes, alive, dear," Edith replied. "John has just sent word from Milton but he said to stay put. He has called for doctors from London, and requires that you call for her sister who is in town."
"I did not know she had a sister," Margaret was perplexed, mentally running over her wedding guest list.
"One, apparently," Edith replied, "a miss Julia Bowd."
"I wonder why we did not have her at the marriage," Margaret mused for a moment. "Anyways, where did you say she lives? I must get her as soon as I can and we will be off to Milton. I hope that her being summoned is not a horrible sign."
"I think not," Edith replied calmly, "but here, my dear husband took down the address. She lives just down the street from where we went driving the other day. You remember?"
"Yes," Margaret nodded, "though an official dwelling number would do well."
"Oh oui!" Edith stood and ushered Sholto into the house, "I will do just that!"
Margaret, alone now, was left to contemplate her mother in laws fate, and she wondered at the twinge of pity she felt rise into her throat. She would not have been seen to care about the elder Mrs Thornton a year ago, though she always had kept a place in her heart since her tender treatment of her late mother. John would be very upset, she knew, and so when Edith returned, she ordered a maid to pack her bags and took off towards this unknown woman in the Lennox's plush carriage.
When she reached the residence, she found it to be a small but well manicured home with a large garden and a well tended hedgerow. A serving boy came to meet her at the door, and she followed him into a small but cozy sitting room where she awaited her aunt in law.
The woman in question came down in good time on her valet's arm, wearing a concentrated frown in her wrinkled face, so much softer and kinder than the tired lines that covered Hannah Thornton.
"I am Julia," she said in a slow drawl, being led to sit beside Margaret on the settee. "You must be my nephews wife."
"Yes," Margaret was surprised at her pale blue gaze, though she was sure the woman was blind.
"Well then, it must be a case of my sister," Julia Bowd replied, "she wants me in Milton?"
"Why... yes," Margaret could barely explain without having this woman's sharp mind at hers, "she has had an affliction of the heart and John asked me to come and get you."
"I see," she smiled fondly at this, "he has always been kind to me. So I am to go with you as my nursemaid?"
"I beg pardon?" Margaret asked.
"I am, as you should know, blinkered blind, and I cannot board a train led alone a coach on my own. I could ask my maid Lucy to come along, but she would need time to prepare as she is visiting her mother in the country. I will have Edgar, my valet come, as I see there is no time."
"No, I don't think so either," Margaret shook her head, for no ones benefit but her own.
"I sent a wedding gift," Julia Bowd mused, "I wonder if you got it. It was a little thing for the house, a vase Lucy picked out for me."
"The one with the delft blue painting on it? Yes, it sits on the mantle in our parlor."
"I do hope the ceremony was good, for I was tied up here dealing with an illness. So, Hannah wants me to come home then," Julia motioned for her valet to come hither, and took his arm. "Very well. I will have Edgar prepare my things and I will meet you down here tomorrow morning. Does that suit you?"
"Very well," Margaret replied, "Good day Miss Bowd. It was a pleasure to meet you."
"And you, dear," Julia smiled.
With that Margaret left the house and went on her way back to Edith's. There she sat with her cousin for a long while, nothing much to do but wait. She really did hope that Mrs Thornton would be alright, if not for her sake than for John's. She had begun to feel the baby kick quite strongly, and she put one hand on her stomach as if to quiet it. Perhaps it knew its grandmother was in peril, too.
"What a queer feeling," she commented at Edith's concerned gaze, "it is as if it wishes to come out right now and take a run in Hyde Park."
"They do that, you know," Edith's eyes grew merry once more, "with my little Sholto I was quite sure that he would never be tamed."
"Yes," Margaret said with an air of tiredness that Edith could not miss, "I've asked John this, but do you think I will have a boy or a girl?"
"There is a fifty percent chance of either, I suppose," Edith shrugged, "but I hope you have a girl. That way, if your mother in law does not improve you may name it for her. That would please John, I think."
"Oh I cannot imagine that!" Margaret exclaimed, "I do so hope she recovers. John would be inconsolable and I want my child to have at least one grandparent left to see it. Beside it does not seem too urgent. Maybe Mrs Thornton has asked for her sister out of a desire to see her, not because she is failing."
"I hope you are right," Edith replied, "but that is an issue for the morning. Get some sleep and we'll go from there."
AN: Short chapter but many ideas coming out of it. R&R for more soon!