Chapter 12
"I can't believe I am letting her down like this," said Elsie as Charles packed her hospital bag.
"My darling, you have got to have this operation and get it done with so you can have more time with all four of the kids."
He let it hang in the air.
"All four of the kids," she said with a smiled.
Charles nodded with a hum. "And it is not as if no one is going to go and meet her."
"Thank god for our Anna," she said with a brave smile and he nodded.
Their daughter was a good choice he believed. The more he thought on it, the more he believed it. While her taste in men left a lot to be desired he knew she was a good and sensible girl.
She had her head screwed on and while she was going to struggle no doubt to keep her emotions in check, he did not think he could blame her for that. She was going to do them proud and it was an emotional situation.
But the fact remained that when their daughter came back into the fold it should be them who were greeting her for the first time.
Neither of them could shake that feeling but there was nothing to be done.
They had done what they could and no one could say fairer than that.
X x x
There were those alive in the world who would quite cheerfully bet their last pound on the fact that Lady Mary Crawley did not have a heart.
The it girl of her day, there were far too many people who would judge her – it was not as if there was no one to judge her against.
Her sister Lady Edith for all her wealth had decided that she would follow the usual route for a girl who went to Ripen Grammar – go to university, study a 'proper subject' – English in her case – and then get a job. Edith was a writer for Private Eye magazine – or she would be once her internship was up. Through her place there she hoped she was going to be able to keep people abreast with the political news of the day, with a satirical twist.
As for her sister Lady Sybil, she had decided to the throw away her heritage completely and though still in the beginnings of her career, she was determined to become a doctor – and one who would work solely for the NHS no matter how hard things got.
Private might be where the money was – but it was in the NHS where the patients who really needed help were.
And so that was where she was going work.
Thus with one Crawley sister going into medicine and the other looking forward to trying make a name for her in the news forum an political writer, it was no great surprise that when people heard that model Mary Crawley was going to the south of France for a vacation form her hectic schedule, there were those who laughed.
Luckily for Mary Crawley she had never given a rat's arse about what those type of people thought.
And she did have a heart; there were two people who knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
One of them was her cousin many times removed Matthew just back from his latest tour of duty.
Of late, the reasons she had been cancelling engagements was not too sun herself but to sit by his bedside as he tried to find a way through the PTSD which had been troubling him ever since he had got home.
And the other person was her best friend since before she could remember – Anna Carson.
After she had been designated as the one to go and see her sister instead of her mother, Anna had rang two people: John and Mary. John had said he was more than happy to pack up work for the week if he could get the annual leave and go down to London with her but Anna wondered if she needed a girlfriend with her instead of her boyfriend this time.
It was a different vibe between her and Mary and she felt as if she was going to hold it together slightly more with her rather than John which was what she needed to do.
While she had many question of her own, and she was going to get answers to as many as she could – for if she had not become a PA then surely she would have become a detective as her father was fond of saying - her parents had made it clear they wanted her to give more answers than she asked questions.
She was not to put her sister under any pressure.
When she had gone to Mary and told her what was before her, her friend had not had to be asked if she would go with her. She had asked what time they left. Anna could not help but think they were the best kind of friends to have.
"What is it like to have a sister?" she asked as the two of them made their way down to London from Yorkshire, sitting opposite each other on the train.
"Well; it entirely depends on whether you have a sister like Sybil or a sister like Edith," Mary said dryly as she flipped through Vogue.
Anna could have predicted that answer.
The Crawley sisters she knew for a fact loved one another. She had seen it with her own eyes. When they were down on their lucky then the other two were going to come their sister's aid. But that did not mean they were not going to snipe at each other in between.
She hoped that she and Shelagh were going to be like that without the fighting.
She knew they were not going to do each other's hair and gossip about boys from the first.
But this was still a good thing.
And she had to focus on the good things in life.
"If I know you, you are going to end up with a sister like Sybil." Mary said kindly as the silence begun to drag on. Quite asides from anything else Mary could not imagine Anna fighting with any one the way she fought with Edith.
She just wasn't built that way. She didn't have the energy to put into something like that.
She did not think she was ever going to be any ones fool but if there was one thing Mary knew about Anna it was that she was kind.
And as much as she could she didn't judge.
That was not to say Anna was not a women of strong morals for she was – and Mary had to wonder if she ever thought about the decision that her mother had made and questioned it – but the last thing she would do was wallow.
It was done and there was no changing the past.
The future however – well, they could do something about that.
X x x
Evangelina had offered to come over if that was what Julienne and Shelagh wanted but in the end they had chosen to meet Anna alone, at their house, the afternoon tea plan shelved for now.
This was the start of something new. But it was also something private.
Shelagh had to admit to a moments disappointment when he had heard neither Elsie or Charles were going to come once she had got off the phone and begun to digest that she really had just hear the voice of a man she was biologically related to for the first time. She had never heard what one of her blood relatives sounded like before – not once in her life.
But she was a nurse and she knew this operation had to be done as soon as it could be. She certainly felt no anger because of it.
The sooner she had the op done then the sooner Elise could start her course of treatment and god willing the sooner she was going to be in remission.
She wanted that for Elsie more than anything. If they were ever going to get a chance to meet and may be get to know each other then she needed her birth mother to be healthy. She certainly want to add any pressure to a woman who was unwell. She didn't want her travelling when she was not well enough too….
And if the two of them were not meant to be… then she wanted her to recover for the sake of these three new siblings of her.
They needed their mum.
All she had seen of her family so far were pictures which she had been sent.
The pictures had arrived by first class delivery the day after she had spoken with her father on the phone.
At first she had wondered if it was another letter from her mother when she had seen the Yorkshire stamp mark but as she opened it she found out she was wrong.
Just so you know who is coming.
Anna x
That was all her sister had said in their first communication.
It seemed silly in some ways but she was so glad she had had the foresight to send them - she hadn't realised that she had wanted to know her face before they met.
She had opened the envelope they had been sent in to see Anna's face first. Her first impression was how pretty she was with her wide smile, open eyes and blonde hair. There seemed to be something kind about her – maybe she just wanted it to be there but she did not think so. There was something about Anna you could trust.
Then she had turned to the next one and found a picture of Anna with two men, all three of them in terrible Christmas jumpers and one of them obviously under much duress.
Thomas and William.
Then she had looked through the other pictures.
One of her parents smiling in the sunshine at a big old house, another of the two of them enjoying a picnic with who she presumed were friends.
Her parents faces. These were her parents faces.
Mum and dad before going out for their twenty fifth anniversary meal!
She wondered who had chosen the pictures as the next one was of Anna and an older gentlemen who had Shelagh had no doubt was her boyfriend.
A quick looked over the pack told her the man's name was John Bates. Anna had carefully labelled each one…
Her sister had neat writing.
The two of them looked as if they were happy together and Bernie prayed John was a good man. Her younger sister – which was a bizarre thought - deserved a good man.
She did not know Anna from Eve yet but she knew that.
Then she had looked on. There were pictures of Anna out for a few drinks with the girls and Bernadette automatically recognised Mary Crawley.
She was not one for gossip magazines but there were some faces you just knew even if you did not read them. She wondered what the connection there was.
Thomas was obviously the older of the two, she thought as she turned to another picture of her three siblings together, sitting in a pub. William still had a bit of growing into himself to do but her eldest brother was a man.
So she could finally place them all in a line.
She had looked across at a picture of herself on the mantel piece, then at the picture of Thomas, Anna and William.
The four of them had been born out of the same love.
Just one of them had been born too early.
The doorbell ringing broke her out her thoughts.
X x x
"You know you are meeting your sister not going in to a jungle. The worst that happens is that she does not want to be part of the family."
Mary Crawley only realised how that sounded once she had let the words out of her mouth.
She turned to Anna to say sorry but already her friend was shaking her head, telling her not to worry. In her own special way, the PA understood her boss was just trying to calm her nerves.
But she was right – until Anna remembered her mother's heart could break, and the fact either one of she or Shelagh might be caring the breast cancer gene… asides from that, Shelagh rejecting her was the worst that could happen.
At last the two of them were there in the little street in Poplar. As they drove down it Anna wondered if this was where her big sister had been brought up or if this was a recent move for the family.
"Well – here goes nothing." She sighed as she looked out the window.
"If she does not want to know you then she isn't worth knowing," Mary reminded her firmly. As cold and blunt as she could be, Anna valued having he best friend with her more than she could say.
Anna nodded her head as she tried to believe that, getting out of the taxi on to slightly unsteady legs. She turned to pay but Mary had got the fare already.
"Thank you."
"Rubbish – my treat," she said brightly and only slightly teasingly.
Number 26. That was where they – her sister and her family - lived and there was a 26 on the door in front of her.
She had dreamt of this day since she was a very little girl. She had always wanted her sister back – and now she was with in hugging distance and it just felt bizarre.
Mary gave her a nod and that was apparently the all it needed for her to walk up to the door and knock on it.
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