Chapter Seven
Secrets And Lies
"So, would you like to tell me, just what could possibly be worse than my own sister having a child born out of wedlock?" demanded Mary imperiously. She had stood up, and even now, was walking backwards and forwards the full length of the salle d'attente, trying to regain control of her emotions, could not believe what she had just heard.
Edith bit back a stinging retort.
There were, she thought, very many things far worse than "the present deplorable situation" as Mary had just described it - after, of course, darling Tom and Matthew had both left the salle d'attente in search of their eldest sons, in order to walk with them down to inspect the engine of the waiting train.
In the circumstances, and in an attempt to try and pour oil on troubled waters, perhaps wisely, Edith now forbore to make the obvious observation that one of those very such things was, after enjoying a night of sexual abandon, the next morning having a decidedly dead Turkish diplomat found in one's own bed.
"Your other sister marrying the family chauffeur?" Sybil quipped, in an attempt, a mistaken one, or so it seemed, to lighten the present difficult situation.
However, Sybil's attempt at levity backfired spectacularly, in fact deflated faster than the R101 had done over Beauvais, for Mary shot her a venomous look, and then returned immediately to the fray.
"Dear God! Edith, you do realise, don't you, that the newspapers back home will have a field day if ever any of this ever gets out! Couldn't you have thought of the family? Couldn't you think of Mama? Or, can't you think of anyone else? Other than yourself that is!" Mary pressed her fingers to her temples. By now she was starting to develop a headache to match that of Edith herself.
"Oh Mary! Will you please stop pacing the room and sit down! If only you knew! I do that all the time". Edith sighed heavily.
"Really? Knew what? Pray, do enlighten me!" Mary's ever expressive eyebrows twitched. Surprisingly, she did as she had been asked and sat down heavily on the bench alongside Sybil.
"Don't sound so quite so intrigued, Mary. I can assure you this is something you won't want to hear about! Either of you!" Edith snapped, shaking her head from side to side.
At her elder sister's' words, Sybil's head reared. Before her very eyes, the prosaic, utilitarian surroundings of the salle d'attente of the Gare Maritime in Calais vanished, the intervening years rolled back as if they had never been, and in her mind she found herself seated once again, on a bed, in a lamp lit bedroom, at the top of Ma's homely little house in Clontarf.
"Don't look so expectant my love", Tom had said. "This be one secret you'd rather I didn't share with you!" It was then, that for the very first time, he had told her of the Bransons of County Cork, of Skerries House, and of Maeve.
"So, are you going to tell us? Or, do you intend continuing playing cat and mouse instead?" demanded Mary, whose temper was rapidly approaching "Hurricane Force" on the Beaufort Scale
Sybil said nothing; instead searched Edith's face for any hint of what it was she seemed so desperate, and yet so reluctant, to impart, but found no hint whatsoever of what was to come.
"So then, very well. I expect both of you remember last Christmas, when I left Downton... rather earlier than was anticipated?"
"Earlier than anticipated?" echoed Mary. "That's putting it mildly! Yes, of course I remember. I'm sure Sybil here does too. In fact, I expect all of us remember that. What of it?" Mary eyed Edith contemptuously. "You left, as I recall it, without even saying goodbye, while we were all out, at the shoot. Mama was dreadfully upset about it... when we came back to find you'd packed and gone. We learned about your "midnight flit" first from the children".
Edith said nothing.
"From the children!" repeated Mary, as if learning of Edith's unexpected departure from Downton first from the children was a social disaster on a magnitude which somehow equated to the financial crash of 1929 or else the loss of the R101 over here in France.
Edith still said nothing.
"When I asked Barrow, he said you'd had a telephone call. Long distance apparently, or so he said. Other than that the caller spoke with a German accent, he could tell us nothing more. I believe Barrow is rather familiar with the German accent... from his annual trips to the fleshpots of Berlin". Mary grimaced.
"Yes, it was long distance" confirmed Edith seemingly now regaining the use of her voice.
"From Vienna, no doubt?"
"Yes, from Vienna".
"So your Austrian lover snapped his fingers and you went running. Was that it?"
"Mary! Don't be so insensitive!" Sybil sounded appalled".
Edith reached forward, clasped Sybil warmly by her hand.
"Thank you" she mouthed silently.
Edith turned back to Mary.
"The call was from Friedrich, yes. But not for the reason you think!"
"Oh, really?"
"I may be many things, but I'm not a fool. So don't treat me as if I am one".
"Not a fool?" This time it was Edith's turn to echo her sister's words. "Oh Mary, really. If only you knew!"
"Knew what?"
"Why I left Downton so hurriedly".
"We've already established that" said Mary dismissively.
"No, we haven't" said Sybil calmly, sensing, and with rising apprehension, that there was something chilling here. Something, which as yet, Edith hadn't told them; was finding difficult, if not impossible to discuss.
"Very well then, if it wasn't Fritz or whatever his name is, who summoned you back to Vienna, why did you leave?"
"His name is Friedrich. And, no, Mary, he didn't summon me. Our relationship isn't like that. Nor, I'm sure does darling Tom ever summon Sybil". Edith glanced across at her younger sister, as if seeking confirmation of what she already knew to be the case.
"Summon me? Tom? He wouldn't dare!" laughed Sybil. "In fact, he wouldn't know how!"
Edith smiled broadly, turned back to Mary.
"There now! So, does Matthew ever summon you?" asked Edith loftily.
Mary's nostrils flared.
"No, of course not!" she snapped.
"Then why would you expect my relationship with Friedrich to be any different to that between you and Matthew?" asked Edith softly.
Mary realised when she was beaten.
"I don't" she said lamely. "So then, why did you, leave so suddenly?"
"Oh Mary! You know, at times, you can be so incredibly stupid!" Edith's eyes glistened with tears. Well then, let them come she thought bitterly.
"Do stop saying "Oh Mary" in that anguished tone! While I may be many things, Edith, stupid isn't one of them. If Frit... Friedrich didn't call you back to Vienna, why was it that you left Downton so suddenly last Christmas, without even saying good bye?"
During the increasingly heated exchange of words between his mother and her elder sister, young Max had so far said nothing, but it was now that he suddenly chose this moment to draw attention to himself. He tugged gently at his mother's arm, and as she turned to ask him what the matter was, Sybil saw the look Edith gave the young boy. It was a look of pure, unconditional love, saw the tears in Edith's eyes, and in that very instant she knew why it was that Edith had left Downton at Christmas without saying goodbye.
"Was ist, mein Liebling?"
Max then asked something of his mother in German, of which the only word Mary caught was "Gräfin", obviously a reference to her.
Edith shook her head.
"Nein", she said gently, ruffling his sandy hair. "Noch nicht. In ein paar Minuten".
Whatever it was that Max had asked his mother's reply seemed to satisfy him. Edith glanced at Mary and Sybil, realised some form of explanation was called for.
"He was asking me if I was all right, why I was so upset, when the train was leaving".
"And what did he have to say about me?" asked Mary coldly.
"He asked..." Here Edith faltered, glanced at her son, and was instantly warmed by the sight of Max's smile. That seemed to give Edith the strength to answer Mary's question.
"He asked me why... why you were so angry... so nasty" Edith said.
Edith's voice contained no trace of bitterness or rancour, only deep resignation and a weary sadness, borne of a lifetime of regret, of always playing second fiddle: firstly to a beautiful, imperious elder sister, and then, as well, to a younger sister, who had always been braver than she, prepared to fight for what she wanted, to defy her family and flout social convention, to achieve her heart's desire. First Sybil and then Mary had both married the men they loved; each had three children. As countess of Grantham, Mary also had wealth and an unrivalled social position, while over there in Dublin, working as a nurse, Sybil had achieved her dream of simply being just ordinary.
And, reflected Edith, she too, now had what she had always wanted: a life filled with purpose, now made complete with the knowledge that there was someone who loved her as much as she loved him. For Friedrich loved her desperately, had asked her to marry him, and in their love for one another, together, they had made this handsome little boy. Impulsively, Edith hugged her son to her in a fierce embrace.
Like Sybil and Mary, to all intents and purposes, Edith had achieved her very own heart's desire, but with one singular difference: in her case, it had all come at an appalling cost. For in the very minute of its realisation, her own dream had been shattered beyond repair. But did that now give her the right to destroy her own sisters' happiness, for that was what she would most surely do, if she now told them the whole, awful truth.
Author's Note:
The R101 was a British airship. In October 1930, while en route to Karachi, (then part of British India) it crashed during a storm, coming down near Beauvais in Picardy, in northern France. The disaster killed nearly all those on board. While over eighty years later the reasons for the crash remain a matter of dispute, the loss of the R101effectively put an end to British airship development.
The Bransons of County Cork, Skerries House, and Maeve, all appear in my other story, "Home Is Where The Heart Is".