A/N I'm sorry for the sporadic posting, stupid work again. The irony of the last sentence of the last chapter was not lost on me. Tomorrow not that far away, but apparently my next post was...
The rain had carved Edith's hair into dishevelled strands but she didn't care. She went to the Middle Temple ladies room and dried it with a couple of the hand towels. She examined her smiling reflection in the mirror. She looked different, didn't she? She certainly felt different; alive and aware. Beautiful, too. Perhaps this was how Mary felt all the time, no wonder her head was the size of a house.
Her mind had been pre-occupied with thoughts of him during the whole journey across London. His blue eyes looking up from between her legs. Flipping pancakes at the kitchen counter whilst whistling a happy tune. The ease with which he teased her about last night, about her silly blushes and whispered words. Sex had always been an incredibly awkward topic for Edith, it still was, but here was a man she felt comfortable with, eventually they might be able to discuss the details of the intimate act without her turning the colour of a telephone box.
Perhaps she'd been a goner from when she saw him in the office at Snaresbrook. A votary of Strallan, a convert from the very first moment. It didn't really matter because her ordination was certainly complete now. In her mind's eye she saw a large house and children, walls covered in her paintings and his books, pink ribbons and paint pallets, red robes and shirts masquerading as overalls. A whole future with a man who had promised her nothing, less than nothing.
Edith knew she should be looking into the mirror with trepidation. She'd taken a path littered with dangers. If the woman looking back at her, smiling, was happy and confident it was only because she'd gotten lucky. Luck was temporary, just as Anthony had said he must be temporary too.
He didn't kiss like it was temporary, either on her lips, or her breasts or between her legs. He'd put paid to any thoughts she might have harboured that the lust she felt for him was not reciprocated.
Perhaps she could convince him, in spite of age and cynicism and ruthless careerism and all those other stupid reasons he'd parroted, that whatever was between them was worth a chance.
Making her way down the rickety old staircase she spied the top of Matthew's head. He was thinning on top but his face was as boyish as ever.
"There you are! We were about to give you up for lost."
"We?"
"Look Sis, I bumped into her and she insisted on coming." He gestured towards the end of one of the long benches.
Middle Temple Hall was all dark wooden surfaces and endless coats of arms with gold leaf emblems, roaring lions and soaring birds. The ceiling beams were ribbons of wood, with jagged wooden stalagmites plunging downwards. In spite of its grandeur it was warm and inviting, a place not of violence but of quiet wisdom. It felt violent now. The ceiling shrunk downwards and the pointed wood threatened to score down the centre of her back. It was an ugly and cold place and Edith would rather be anywhere else in the world. She gave up a day and night with Anthony for this, she ground her heel into the gnarled floorboards.
At the end of Matthew's pointing finger sat Mary. Straight backed and poker faced examining her precisely applied mauve lipstick in a hand mirror. She glanced up and grimaced in their direction, presumably she believed her facial expression passed for a smile.
"I don't believe this!" She hissed under her breath.
"I couldn't very well not bring her."
"Oh, shut up."
It was necessary to literally grit her teeth otherwise Edith would gladly have punched Matthew in his stupid boyish face. Seeing Mary usually required days of mental preparation. Time was needed to build up a fortress of character defences so that her entire spirit was not decimated by her sister's constant sniping.
"Mary, what a surprise." Edith kept her voice high and even.
There was no attempt at familial affection from the preening creature at the table, she didn't even stand up. Mary snapped the hand mirror closed, "It's surely not that much of a surprise. I am a barrister. I work three streets from here and I see Matthew far more than you. You are the surprise. Or rather, the two of you are, I didn't even know you met for lunch."
"Just from time to time." Matthew was sheepish and trying to placate. Edith wanted to tell Mary it was none of her damned business who she had lunch with.
"Yet I've never been included. If I hadn't bumped into you at court today I still wouldn't be included, but there you go. Shall we order?"
The water wouldn't need ice, the chill from Mary's side of the table would do the job quite nicely. Matthew put his hand on her sister's and she yanked it away, leaving him staring at his own lonely appendage on the wood, bereft of hers. Their relationship remained unacknowledged, a secret practically everyone knew about. She'd thought Matthew was in on the decision, the dart of sadness which shadowed his features suggested otherwise.
To her horror Mary and Matthew both ordered starters and mains. Any hope for a quick sandwich and an even quicker goodbye was lost in an instant.
Mary engaged in her favourite topic of conversation: herself. She yammered on about her latest trial triumph. She spoke more loudly than was necessary so as to catch the attention of the bespectacled elderly barristers sat either side of them at the long tables running the length of the hall. Edith barely listened. She stirred a drizzle of cream into her carrot soup and thought of Anthony's gentle hands.
Mary pushed her chicken main course around her plate with her cutlery as she and Matthew argued about the trial they were due to start next month at the Bailey. Mary prosecuting, Matthew defending.
Edith made significant revisions to Anthony's portrait in her mind. It was almost finished, but last night had changed the way she saw him and the way she saw herself. Suddenly what she had intended to present to the world was thoroughly inadequate.
A snippet of conversation bought her back.
"Mary! It's bad character and you've made no application. Any suggestion that it's not is pure rot." Matthew's eyes shone with joy, he loved an argument, and he loved arguing with her sister. Perhaps they were perfect for one another.
"It goes to the heart of the case."
"A violent comment made three years ago." He banged the table with the heel of his hand as punctuation: Three! Years! "Is not – I'll repeat, lest you fail to comprehend my view – not at the heart of the case."
Anthony had taught her a little something about bad character. She'd read three articles he'd written about it and she sketched through two days of argument between Bates and Gregson on the question before having to set down her tools and listen to Anthony's considered judgment.
She interrupted Mary's response, "what's the charge?"
Mary's head jerked to her, as if annoyed to find her there, she scowled and Matthew answered, "grievous bodily harm."
"Was the violent comment made to the victim?"
Matthew's lip quirked, "nope."
"Well then, it's not at the heart of the case is it? You'd never get it in through the gateways because it's not probative to a matter in issue and it's patently not in the interest of justice to admit it." Enjoying the look of horror and confusion on her sister's face, Edith took her time cutting, skewering, chewing and swallowing her final piece of delicious chicken, "frankly, Mary, if your case is built on that I'd say you're sunk."
Matthew snorted and laughed, nodding in her direction, "what she said."
There would be a marvellous retelling of this story when she saw Anthony again. All that useless knowledge she'd picked up from him, which he'd insisted on imparting and she'd greedily absorbed, eager for whatever he was willing to give, had actually come in useful. Mary looked as though she wanted to scream and cry at the same time. The waiter took away their plates and Edith smiled and shrugged, it was a scene from her favourite legal movie – what, like it's hard?
"How do you – I don't –"
"She's been spending time with one of the judiciary's finest minds."
"Ah – yes." Mary arched a perfectly tweezed eyebrow, "your little picture, of course, I'd forgotten."
There was a time when she could have let it slide, when she would have done. The small insult would sting like a paper cut and she'd ignore it like one, an irritation not to be complained about. Mary belittles Edith: it was so ordinary it was almost expected. Not today. This was an achievement and this painting would be every bit as brilliant as she knew it could be, as Anthony knew it could be.
"It's many things Mary but a 'little picture' isn't one of them. It's going to hang in the St John's College library for the rest of time, alongside a Yeo and an Emsley. John's has several Singer Sargent's, not to mention hundreds of pictures dating back centuries. Soon it will have an Edith Crawley too. You think it's little because it doesn't matter to you, but what you think about something is not its defining characteristic. I know it's hard for you to understand but there is a world which exists outside the rigid confines of your life and it does not revolve around you."
Beside her Matthew cleared his throat, "well, I –"
"My-my –" Mary pushed her chair back, the scrape of the legs on the hardwood floors echoing around the hall. Languidly she crossed one long leg over the other, "what an impressive speech. You really do believe that it matters, don't you?" She exhaled a practised titter for effect and Edith wanted to retreat. She was thirteen years old and found herself in check, out matched and out played. "I defended a man last week accused of three counts of fraud. If convicted he would go to prison for over ten years. He was acquitted, because of me." Mary pointed a painted finger at her own chest, just in case anyone had forgotten who that might be. "That matters, Edith. Another picture of another old, white man in a College full of old white men couldn't matter less. It speaks volumes about your little" she curved her lips around the word and shaped it into an arrow, spitting it straight through the air, "- life, that you think it's something to crow about." She stood, "coffee?" Before either of them could answer she'd taken herself off to the counter.
The morning – which felt like years ago, decades even - had been a glorious awakening of who Edith really was, the culmination of weeks spent in the company of the first person who genuinely understood her. It had been hopeful; wonderfully so. It took Mary less than three minutes to strip it all away. Edith was nothing. A swift breeze would finish it, she was miniscule parts and they would dissipate into the air of the hall as if she'd never existed.
Matthew's voice was just audible over the ringing in her ears, "she doesn't mean it, you know, she's stressed out because of the trial. It's all a front - all bravado."
"Matthew, tell me, does she pay you to constantly defend her? I don't think it's bravado. I think she enjoys it."
Abruptly he pushed his chair away and joined Mary at the coffee counter. They spoke in loud whispers, Matthew jabbing his finger and pulling his hand through his hair. An obvious lovers' tiff. Edith traced the divots and dents in the old table and thought of all the things she should have said in response to Mary's vitriol.
A black coffee was set down in front of her, steaming and bitter.
"It's been pointed out to me that perhaps I was somewhat harsh."
"I was too."
"Look -" Mary took the next seat over, her pale knee bumping Edith's own, "you're the only sister I have left and I doubt we can get on better, but I'd like to give it a go."
"Well, how could I refuse when you have such enthusiasm for the idea?!" They laughed then, neither of them meaning it, hollow sounds in the hollow hall.
"So we'll get brunch or something, just the two of us, no using Matthew as a crutch."
"I think wherever Sybil is, she'd like that idea." Edith was less certain how she felt about it.
She absolutely wasn't waiting until tomorrow. The day had been tortuous. First Mary, then a seven hour shift with Daisy. No one should have to suffer them one after the other. She wanted Anthony's soothing voice to chat away the irritations. Contemplating an evening without him – well, she couldn't contemplate such an evening; she wouldn't. Turning the key in the door with one hand she rustled around in her bag for her phone with the other. It was a wholly unsuccessful endeavour. She ended up half in her flat, half out, holding the phone tightly under her dipped chin, willing the line to connect. The door slammed shut behind her and she dropped her bag where she stood with a sigh.
It hit her then: the smell. The various scents were incredible. Her eyes darted to the hob, where a couple of pans simmered quietly and then down to Anthony. He sat at her small kitchen table, his arm stretched across a copy of one of the more voluminous Harry Potter tomes. He marked his place with a scrappy piece of paper and gave her the most dazzling smile she'd ever seen, "hello. I –"
He stopped at the sound of his ringing telephone. He stood and headed for his jacket, holding a finger in the air, pausing their conversation, "sorry, I don't know who that could possibly be."
The shock of finding him right where she wanted him - needed him - wore off and she looked down at the phone in her hand.
"Don't bother, it's me." He looked puzzled and she waved her iphone in the air before disconnecting.
He smirked, "Great minds."
"Or foolish ones." But she didn't really think this was foolish. He was here and just the fact of his presence was like a warm embrace melting away the mundane horrors of her day. "How did you get in?"
"I met Thomas on his way out to Liverpool for the weekend. I told him I was here for a sitting."
"You met Thomas?" She'd hoped she'd be there as a buffer, she couldn't help but grimace, "how was that?"
"Did you tell him about last night?"
"No. I haven't seen him. I told him about the kiss."
"That explains it then."
"Oh God, explains what?"
He went to the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine, "when I said I was here for a sitting, he said, 'is that what the straights are calling it nowadays?' And then he winked at me in a fashion which would put a lady of the night to shame."
"Suggestive comments within seconds of meeting you. That sounds like Thomas."
The cork made a pleasant sound as it slid free of the neck of the bottle and he poured two generous glasses. She didn't really drink wine. Edith tried to ignore the disappointment in her stomach.
"I know you don't normally drink this stuff, but you like sweet wine and this is a Riesling, which is sweet but appropriate to drink with a meal." He held the glass out, "give it a go." Disappointed transmuted into happiness, it was silly, the effect of the little things.
Her fingers closed over his and they stood stock-still in the middle of her flat for a moment, staring at one another, the glass raised between them, each toasting the other. Almost imperceptibly he brushed his index finger across the knuckle of her thumb and then he let go. Her heart raced a mile a minute. The first time he'd touched her in hours and it felt like the first time he'd ever touched her. Her skin fizzed.
The wine was excellent, "it's good, very good."
"I made burritos."
"I like burritos."
"You love burritos."
"Yes." She ran her index finger around the rim of the cool glass, "The man making them isn't bad either."
His lip quirked, and the crooked smile spread across his face. His blue eyes were intent on hers. Then they darted to her lips, a moment of treachery, giving away his thoughts just before he spoke them, "I'm going to kiss you now."
They shouldn't, yet they should. They must. Her whole body screamed with it. Edith put down her glass and inched towards him. His arms wrapped around her shoulders as if they were stars in a classic Hollywood film, her head cradled against him. There was a pause, a moment to fall into his blue eyes, a pinpoint in time of pure anticipation. He smiled, his hair dancing across his forehead and then there were his lips and hers and nothing else.
He pulled away, and spoke, gratifyingly glassy eyed and husky, "I have tomorrow off. Mr Gregson was complaining -"
"-as ever."
"Quite. Anyway, he was complaining about not having enough time and so on. So I sent the Jury home for a long weekend. Mrs Hughes called it a 'judicial bunk'."
"A judicial what?!" He let her go and reached for the wine.
"Bunk. That's what the clerks call it, apparently, when Judges don't really want to sit and find an excuse to send the Jury home and take the day off."
"Is that what you were doing?"
"I wanted to spend a long weekend with you. I even bought supplies." He nodded his head to the corner. His ubiquitous battered brown hold-all sat there, the end of a toothbrush poked tellingly out of the side. "Terribly presumptuous of me. Feel free to tell me to go home. I will if you ask it, I should, it's bad of me to come here like this. It's not fair on you. I'm not - "
"Anthony" she interrupted with a broad smile, "you're babbling. I'd love to spend the weekend with you."