Chapter the Twenty-First: In Which Edith and Anthony Take Advice

Anthony arrived home from work rather earlier than expected, one evening shortly after Sybil had moved out, to the faint smell of carbolic and a still-drying damp patch just outside the dining room door.

"Oh, you're home," Diana sighed with relief from the drawing room door, "thank goodness. We've had such an afternoon, my dear."

"Why?" Anthony asked, passing hat and coat off with a grateful murmur to Stewart, who had appeared as if by magic at his shoulder. "Where's Edith?"

"Upstairs in bed, resting," Diana replied. "She had a - a funny turn, just after tea."

"A funny turn?" Anthony echoed, his voice suddenly urgent. "What sort of funny turn, Di?"

"She was sick, all over the floor. Quite helpless, poor darling. So we got her up to bed - Mrs Skelvey dosed her with something that smelt thoroughly foul - and she hasn't been unwell again. I did wonder about telephoning Mama, or Mrs Cox but…" She shrugged. "Edith didn't want any fuss." She shook her head half-scoldingly at that. "Now who does that sound like? Honestly, Anthony, passing all your rotten habits on to your wife like some nasty communicable disease - "

But it was no use: her brother had already hurried for the door. Upstairs, he knocked softly at the bedroom door - "Edie?" - and heard, with relief, his wife answer, somewhat croakily, "Come in."

He didn't need telling twice. Inside, he found Edith propped up in bed, in nightgown and wrapper, glass of water on the bedside table, and book open on her lap. She still looked rather pale and blotchy, despite the smile she tried to offer him, and Anthony went to her at once.

"Darling? Is everything all right?" Anthony knelt down by the side of the bed, reaching up to stroke her cheek. Her face was cool to the touch, he noted with relief - no sign of fever. "Diana says you were unwell? Sick?"

Edith sighed. "Oh, it was the most embarrassing thing - not like me at all! We'd only just finished tea. Luckily I managed to get into the hall - getting it out of the carpet would have been horrid. Poor Mrs Skelvey."

"Stuff and nonsense - she's only concerned. Diana too - she was all for telephoning Mama or Mrs Cox, Lord knows why." Frowning a little at her tired expression, he added, "I hope the boys haven't been making wretched nuisances of themselves?"

"Not at all." Edith's smile was lopsided. "They've been as quiet as church mice - probably a reaction to seeing their poor old auntie bringing up her last meal all over the tiles! I feel such a fool."

"I'll telephone Charlotte," Anthony decided, lifting her hand to his mouth to kiss. With reports of this horrid 'flu circulating, he definitely wasn't inclined to take any chances. Who knew if vomiting were a symptom or not?

"Just for a silly tummy upset?" Edith tutted. "She'd laugh you off the line, and quite right, too. I'm feeling miles better - I promise."

"Well," Anthony replied, rather doubtfully, "if you're sure. I wonder what caused it - surely nothing Mrs Skelvey made?"

This seemed, to Edith, to be a rather dangerous line of questioning, as it went and she hastened to reassure him. "No, of course not. It's… probably just a bug - I was out shopping this morning and had a cup of tea at a Lyons'. Now I think of it, the milk perhaps did taste a little off." She squeezed his hand. "I'd hate to pass it on, though, if I were to be ill again in the night. Would you mind terribly sleeping in the dressing room tonight?"

Anthony shook his head. "Of course not - as long as you promise to call for me straight away if you start to feel rotten again? I don't suppose you're dining tonight?"

"No, Mrs Strallan is not, sir," interrupted Mrs Skelvey firmly from the door, as she entered with a tray. "She is going to stay tucked up here, and have a clear night without being sick again before we risk her stomach with any more food. Water and barley sugars will do very nicely until then."

Edith smiled at Anthony. "See? I'm being very well looked after. Do apologise to Diana and the boys for me, won't you?"

"Buck up, old man," Archie encouraged, not unkindly; Anthony was standing at the fireplace, good hand braced on the mantlepiece, pipe clamped thoughtfully in his mouth, staring into the smouldering coals. Brooding, Diana would have called it - in her absence (all the excitement of the day having worn her out) her husband was inclined to be slightly more charitable than that. "Edith's fine - a little unpleasantness, but no harm done, and she'll be right as rain in the morning. You'll see."

"Mmm," his brother-in-law murmured noncommittally.

"Nothing else on your mind, is there?" Archie wondered shrewdly, refilling their port glasses. After-dinner was, after all, in his experience, the best time for these sorts of chats.

Anthony turned and joined his brother in the other fireside armchair, accepting the glass of port. "I don't know. Paris, perhaps."

"Ah. I did wonder, when Di was campaigning so hard for it." Archie sat back in his chair, crossing his hands over his stomach. "No shame in… changing your mind, old man."

Anthony shook his head. "No, Edith deserves the trip away. I did promise her, a few months ago."

"She wouldn't want to think that she was pushing you into a corner." Glancing at his brother-in-law from under his lashes, Archie added, "Think she cares for you rather too much for that. If you were to ask me."

Anthony smiled faintly, tiredly. "Does she really?"

"Absolutely - no matter how much you witter on about convenience and mutual usefulness and all that rot." Archie tutted. "Honestly."

Anthony drained half his glass in one burning swallow. Far too tempting an idea to lean into, the idea that Edith could possibly see more to him - to this marriage - than a quiet, peaceful place in which to live out her life. "You and Diana - far too optimistic for your own good, both of you. Hardly the sort of attitude the Foreign Office would want to encourage, I'm sure."

"Damn them," Archie shot back, cheerfully. "This is important. Don't let… biting into one rotten apple, ages ago… put you off the whole orchard - d'you catch my drift?"

"That rather presupposes that the, ah, second apple in question wants to be - No, wait, that sounds thoroughly vulgar." Anthony pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, when Edith and I… settled things between us, she told me quite frankly that she didn't want 'romance or silliness'. I agreed to those terms, and it's worked frightfully well, for both of us. Hardly fair to start… trying to remark the boundaries now, is it?"

"Perhaps she wouldn't mind some remarking of the boundaries herself." Archie rose to his feet and clapped Anthony on the shoulder. "I hear Paris is terribly romantic - if it's to be Paris, after all. No harm… testing the waters, now, is there? Anyway, goodnight, old man…"

Upstairs, changed into his pyjamas, Anthony dismissed Stewart and gently opened the connecting door into the main bedchamber. In the dim light from the dressing room lamp, he could just about make out the lines of Edith's face, turned peacefully towards the door as she slept.

He paused for a moment, only watching over her, and then, slowly, turned away.

"I wonder," Di said, looking closely at Edith over the rim of her teacup, "whether I oughtn't to send Archie on ahead alone, and then go over to Paris with you two next week. I don't like the idea of leaving you here on your own in the daytime - what if you were ill again? You're looking so frightfully pale, my dear."

"I'm fine," Edith reassured her. It was the next morning and, Mrs Skelvey not yet having pronounced Edith fit to rise from her bed, Edith and Diana were taking their tea together in Edith's bedroom. "And you've yourself to look after, never mind me. There's nothing wrong, honestly - "

"Hmm. Well, I suppose I can at least trust that Anthony will take good care of you when he's here." Diana hesitated. "When we met, my dear, I said that Anthony was besotted. I hope you know, I was being quite, quite serious."

Edith flushed. "Anthony's… quite possibly the kindest, loveliest man I've ever met. But we both wanted very particular things from this marriage and - Diana, I told him I didn't want romance or silliness." To her surprise, Edith found her eyes suddenly hot and prickling with emotion. "Perhaps it… came as a relief to him - we've been such good friends - "

"But not a relief to you?" Diana pressed sympathetically and handed over her handkerchief. Her head tilted to one side as she watched her sister-in-law blow her nose. "Well, Anthony's always been oblivious. Six of my school friends were all head over ears for him together at one point and I don't think he even noticed. Shy, that's his problem - can't fathom why anyone would find him an object of attraction. But not even Anthony can fail to notice someone's in love with him if she carries on playing the adoring wife the way you do - not for very long, anyway." Diana squeezed her shoulder. "It'll all come right, my dear - just you see if it doesn't."

Especially now that I'm here!

"So, what's this I hear about France?" Charlotte asked Edith.

Edith sighed, slipping down from the examination table and readjusting her skirt. The redoubtable Mrs Skelvey was sitting in the waiting room, chatting with Sybil and fussing over one of Clara's dogs, having decided that while Mrs Strallan was probably well enough to leave the house to consult with her doctor, she was not well enough to do so alone. As soon as they'd walked through the front door, Mrs Skelvey had demanded that "the doctor confirm whether Mrs Strallan ought to be gallivanting over the Channel or not."

"Well, Archie and Di are going over - for the Peace Conference, you know? And I think Anthony would like the time off work and…" She blushed. "Paris is meant to be a rather… romantic place, isn't it?"

Charlotte raised a dry eyebrow. "And here I was, thinking that romance was the thing that happened before conception."

"So you think it's more likely than not, then?" Edith murmured, a little hesitantly.

"As I said when I examined you last, all the signs are consistent with early pregnancy, yes - and getting stronger by the day, by the looks of things." Charlotte looked at her over the tops of her spectacles. "No bleeding, I assume?"

"None. And I've been tired and a little sore." Even without yesterday's unpleasantness, Edith thought she might have been looking for a reason to have Anthony sleep in the guest room; she seemed to be in a perpetual state of discomfort, for no apparent reason, just now. Only, apparently there was a reason. A terribly, terribly nice reason. "Sick, too, the day before yesterday, after tea - horribly - and queasy again in the mornings since then. As my doctor, do you think Paris is a bad idea, then?"

"Not at all." Charlotte made a note in Edith's file and flipped it shut, checking, "You are sailing there, aren't you - not, say, swimming?"

Edith smiled at the joke. "Yes, next week."

"Then that's perfectly fine. Honestly? My advice would be to go and have a marvellous time - relax, let Anthony relax… and," Charlotte added cheerfully, "for goodness' sake, tell the poor man he's about to become a father…"

"So," said Dr Hunter, swivelling around on his chair to stare at Anthony, "Paris."

"Paris," agreed the patient, shifting uncomfortably in the heavily padded armchair. "I think Edith would like to go."

Hunter nodded slowly. "Much as I admire and respect Mrs Strallan… we ought to consider whether being in France again, potentially in association with those of a… Teutonic persuasion… is a good idea for you."

Anthony shrugged. "Well, we won't know until I go, I suppose. We aren't visiting in any… official capacity, in any case."

"Nevertheless, if you encounter any difficulty, would you honestly be comfortable telling Mrs Strallan?"

"You know she's aware of Neuve Chapelle." It was hedging, avoiding the question, and Anthony knew it. Hunter did too, by the dry look he shot him as he opened his cigarette case and lit up.

"Yes - and for what it's worth, when she came with you after that last bad attack, she seemed to know what she was about well enough, too." Hunter gestured with his cigarette as he pressed, "But is she aware enough that she'll have predicted the possible consequences of a visit to a city you last saw when you were fresh from the trenches, with a serious wound?"

Anthony closed his eyes against the memory of the morphine-haze and the nightmares. "I don't know. I… honestly don't know."

Hunter's voice was gentle. "Then I'd suggest at least raising the idea with her, before you go. Fair's fair, Anthony."

"The boys despatched off to Locksley, Diana and Archie out for a last London hurrah before they cross the Channel tomorrow…" Anthony shot his wife a wide-eyed look of astonishment and lowered his voice with the air of a man about to impart a great secret. "Don't look now, but is it possible that we actually have the house to ourselves?"

Edith closed her eyes in appreciative amusement. "Apart from Stewart and Mrs Skelvey and the maids - yes."

"Lord, I'd almost forgotten that it was possible."

"Anthony, can we - "

"Darling, I'd like to - "

They both stopped, smiled a little at the coincidence, and then Edith made a 'you first' gesture.

"Can we talk about Paris?" Anthony asked.

"What about it?"

"Nothing concrete, only… I had an appointment with Dr Hunter today - nothing urgent, just a routine check-up - and… he mentioned the possibility, which I've been… tossing over myself for the last couple of days… of - well, of…"

Edith's eyes were full of kind understanding. "Of certain aspects of this trip running the risk of… bringing back bad memories?" she wondered.

"That obvious, is it?"

"Only to someone who… knows you well, I think." Edith shifted to sit next to him on the sofa. "We don't have to, you know. Go to Paris, I mean. I - I'd never want to… to push you to do anything you aren't ready for."

"Will it help at all, do you think, to… carry on avoiding it?" Anthony wondered. "Pretending the - the shellshock i-isn't there? That this - this shadow in my head doesn't have the ability to go on and on darkening our doorway for the rest of my life? For the rest of your life?"

Edith's hands shook. "I don't think we do pretend. I don't, anyway - or try not to."

"But - and I don't say this to make you feel guilty, or anything of the sort - but if there was a chance of a husband without any of this - "

Edith was already shaking her head, cutting him off. "I don't play those sorts of 'what if' games, Anthony, and I don't think you should either. You were injured and unwell, my darling - is there anyone who fought in this horrible bloody war who wasn't? It's a tragedy that you had to fight at all, it's even more of a tragedy that you were hurt, but I see you - all of you, Anthony - and I c-care for every part that I've seen. I chose you." Inwardly, Edith shrugged. Perhaps now was as good a time as any. Deliberately, she lifted her hand from her lap, reached for Anthony's - and settled their linked hands over her tummy. "And my darling, I absolutely and categorically chose this."

Anthony blinked, wide-eyed, up at her. "The sickness. The tiredness." His mouth opened and he let loose a sudden, surprised bark of laughter. "Lord, why didn't I guess?" His hand spread wonderingly out over her belly. "But you're all right?"

"Fit as a flea. I hardly dared to hope myself, until Charlotte confirmed it." She leaned forwards and kissed the top of his head, keeping her mouth there afterwards. "My dear, if there are shadows, then let this be just a little light in the darkness?"

Anthony's arm pulled her suddenly, tightly against him. "The very brightest of lights, I assure you - all save you, of course, my dearest girl." He leaned back to look down at her again, and Edith did not think she had ever seen such an adoring expression in her life as the one that had spread across her husband's face. "A child, Edie…" His voice cracked and he fished for his handkerchief to mop ineffectually at his watering eyes. "D'you know, when I imagined this happening, I promised myself I'd at least try not to blub? Sorry, m'dear."

Edith laughed and kissed him. "Blub as much as you like, as long as they're happy tears. There's been quite enough sadness, I think."

"But you'll be all right?" His jaw firmed and he looked down at her tummy. "If - if we go to Paris?" He shrugged. "I'd - I'd like to show the little one how - how Mama and Papa deal with their troubles. By - "

"Facing them together?" Edith finished for him. "I quite agree. Shall we make a deal, then? The first time I feel unwell, I shall tell you, and we shall come home. The first time you feel unwell, you will tell me, and we shall come home. All right?"

"Perfectly all right." He stared wonderingly at her. "Heavens. Edie, we're going to be parents." Hesitantly, he lifted her left hand and kissed her wedding ring. "My dearest, thank you."

"Whatever for, Anthony?"

He didn't answer for a long time. When he finally did speak, it was with the reverence of a priest reciting a prayer. "Edith, my sweet one… you have given me back my life."

AN: Writing has been more of a struggle than usual recently, friends. A couple of months ago, my beloved maternal grandmother died suddenly and completely unexpectedly, and since then our whole family has been bereft. She was one of my favourite people in the world - over the course of my life, we only ever disagreed on two subjects: the monarchy and avocados (she was pro both). My creative well has been, not to put too fine a point on it, drained - not just because of grief but because it suddenly struck me that so many of the people I write have seeds of her in them. If you have loved Diana's mischief and sparkle, Anne's adoration of her children and grandchildren, or Mrs Cox's warm, no-nonsense care for pretty much everyone, then you have known and loved my grandmother, too. Slowly, I am coming back to my stories, in which no grief is permanent or insurmountable, those who love each other never have to part forever, and the old seem blessed with immortality. A silly pipe-dream, of course - but, gosh, what a lovely one.