From the moment Edith began to speak, the atmosphere of the house began to change. No one had truly realized how much weight the fears for the strange, youngest daughter of the Crawleys' had affected the household until they were put to rest.
In an instant, all the staff and family were willing to perform any task asked by the shy, stoic girl. Ask for a book from the top shelf of the library? Mr. Carson would quickly help. Ask for pencils and paper to draw on? Mama would buy her a whole art set. Ask to see the servants' quarters? Strange, but the housekeeper hesitantly arranged for Elsie to give her a tour. Even Papa would let Edith sit on his lap while he filed out his estate books when she asked, which she did whenever she could.
"My little estate keeper," Papa would chuckle as his little girl continued to stare intently at all the documents, asking questions that were surprisingly insightful for one so young with no experience with estate work. Or any work for that matter.
Of course, not everyone was pleased with the shift in the status quo. Mary hated the change. Sure, before Edith had taken some attention, but only ever in a way that made her shine brighter as the ideal, elder daughter. Now everyone, Mama, Papa, Carson, everyone was obsessed with doing what Edith wanted. Papa even told her to run along, that he was too busy for her, when he literally had Edith sitting on his lap! Edith deserved the cold shoulder she gave her. And the hidden toys. And the blame for that broken plate. It's not like she spoke up for herself anyway, and Papa believed her so she definitely deserved it. Stupid Edith.
But the shift didn't last long, and soon the attention of the once youngest child shifted to the newest member of the family. Lady Sybil Cora Crawley entered the world on a beautiful late spring morning in 1895 with pain and fear that neither she nor their mother would make it. Such was the fear that no one but a few cold hearted people dared express any disappointment for the lack of an heir. Even Granny waited until Mama and baby Sybil were out of danger to express an opinion of any kind.
Sybil was a beautiful baby, just like Mary. Dark curls, fair skin, and rosebud lips smiling up at her parents. An immediately lovable and calm baby despite the chaos of her entry into the world, and everyone in the house instantly fell in love with the little girl.
Edith could hardly blame them for focusing on Sybil. Especially after her shaky entry into this life. She was the very reason Edith decided to start interacting with the world, and every smile, laugh, and tottering footstep gave her renewed vigor to try. But it didn't change the fact that it hurt to be forgotten again as the strange, middle daughter, stuck between a sweet little sister and a cold older one.
It was remarkable how cold a child not even in her tweens could be. Mary was already beautiful as a young girl and creating her reputation as the haughty aristocrate that everyone jumped to please. Already Granny favored her as a mirror of herself. Mama and Papa were focused on her future as the oldest. Carson treated her like his own child, letting her get away with things Edith could never dream of, and this bleed over into the other servants.
Mary wanted something, she got it with a "will that be all?" Mary didn't act like a lady, she had the attitude and poise to pull it off. Mary broke the rules, that was alright. If anything, Edith was likely to be blamed because everyone believed the bold beauty over the shy wallflower who was quickly forgotten when sent to her room or her books and sketch pads were taken. It didn't help that Mary's hissed insults of "stupid", "forgotten", and "least favorite" had expanded to include "ugly". Stupid, ugly, Edith.
"Darling," Mama comforted her. "You are beautiful. It might not be as visible now, but you're just as pretty as your sisters. You just need to grow into your looks."
Yes, grow into them. That would probably have comforted the real Edith, but she knew better. If everyone else looked exactly like their actors, she wouldn't have been concerned. No matter how the stylists of the show tried to make Laura Carmichael the ugly sister, they did not succeed. Plain, maybe in the beginning, but even then it was hard not to see her true looks which only became more apparent as the seasons went by.
But when Edith looked in the mirror she didn't see a young Laura Carmichael. She saw lanky arms and legs, a pinched pale face with freckles and a long forehead, and wild strawberry blonde hair that made her look scruffy and adopted no matter how often Papa claimed it came from her Granny and Aunt Rosemund. How this could lead to anything other than the ugly wallflower the show claimed Edith was, she didn't know.
At first, Edith brushed this aside. She wasn't a vapid person. It hurt to be called ugly, but she could compensate in other ways. She could be the smart one, the artsy one, the brave one, the business one, anything else would be just as good as simply being the pretty one. Except, it wasn't true. She wasn't a working woman in the twenty-first century. She was an upper class girl in the nineteenth century where one of the only things she could do was marry well, and for that she needed to be pretty.
Every year she saw Granny and Mama cringe at her increasingly graceless looks. Mama's continued insistence she learn all "ladylike arts" such as embroidery, needle point, singing, dance, poetry, the classics, and such to a degree that she never demanded of Mary despite her ambitions for her to marry well. Granny's unsubtle comments across the table that a large dowry would do wonders for those lacking refinement, much to Mary's pleasure, made her want to sink under the table every time. Of course, Mary would get an even higher dowry despite her "lack of need" for it as the eldest Crawley daughter.
In fact, every year it seemed that more and more people overlooked her because of her appearance. And as Sybil grew from a sweet baby to a happy toddler to a spirited little girl just as pretty as Mary, even more focus was divided from Edith to the more promising girls. Even Mama, who held a special place in her heart for her strange little girl, rarely spent any time with her that was not consumed with worry for her future and attempts to make her nature more palatable to her future suitors.
It hurt to see, and to know that, even in the future nothing would change unless she forced it too. The only saving grace she had was the few people who enjoyed the company of the quiet, ugly girl or at least pretended too out of pity.
The first of these was Elsie who, she was rather embarrassed to admit, she had not recognized until her premonition to housekeeper had been finalized and she had been instructed to call her Ms. Hughes. From the day she had first shown her around the servants' quarters, Ms. Hughes had been one of the few to keep track of the quiet Crawley daughter. Always the one who remembered to bring her tea when she was swamped in books in the library. Always the one to fetch her from the gardens sketching when she hadn't heard the dressing gong. Always the one to believe her when Mary laid another missing book or broken vase at her feet.
No other servant was willing, or able, to stand up to Carson and his preference towards Mary like Ms. Hughes did, and each time she went in with a sharp tongue and withering glare for her sake. Whether it was actually for her own need for order and truth or an actual fondness, Edith was afraid to know, but it never failed to warm her heart that at least one of the servants had chosen her as their favorite.
Everyone liked to pretend it wasn't the case, but every staff member had a favorite. The older crowd tended to favor Papa and Mama or even Granny. Mama's lady's maid obviously favored her and Papa's valet and the stable and kennel workers favored him. Sybil had entranced nearly all the nursery workers, a good half the younger upstairs workers, and one could bet even Ms. Patmore was swayed by her charm with the number of times her favorite dishes were served. Then there was Mary who basically got the rest including the untouchable Mr. Carson much to Edith's jealousy. Not that Edith wasn't appreciative of Ms. Hughes' and she suspected a few gardeners' loyalty, but it was hardly the army of doting adults her sisters had. All because they were pretty.
One person who didn't even seem to notice the difference in appearance between the girls was their father. While he too was more focused on Mary's future than her own, at least he didn't worry about her because she was "lacking". Instead, he continued to let her sit on his lap while he did his estate work. He even began to explain it to her as she showed more and more of an interest and offered to let her ride with him out on his rounds when she was old enough to control a pony. Edith wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of horses, big hulking beasts that they are, but she wanted to know about Downton and to increase the time she spent with her Papa. He was one of the only people who genuinely, foolishly thought she was smart and sweet and pretty.
The only other person who had wholeheartedly expressed those feelings was her baby sister Sybil. Try as she might, Edith still had a hard time separating the fictional world she knew the people around her from with the reality before her. Papa was still in some ways Lord Robert Crawley who would nearly bankrupt his family with pride. Mama was Lady Cora Crawley, a kind fictional mother who may one day have a miscarriage she didn't know how to stop except by somehow framing her trusted lady's maid. And Mary… Well, Mary was always Lady Mary, a pretentious, bullying cow who liked to think she could have the world eating out of her palm at a glance and was maddeningly right most of the time.
But Sybil was different. Of course, in the beginning all she saw was the young woman who wore scandalous fashions to dinners, ran off with a chauffeur, and would eventually die in childbirth if she didn't stop it. But day by day, she became more than that. She became real as she refused to calm for anyone but her, as she tottled after her as soon as she could walk, and the connection was cemented as soon as she said her first word that wasn't just repeat syllables. "Edie!"
From then on, the cries of "Bil" and "Edie" echoed through the Abbey. Sybil followed her sister daily from nursery to breakfast room to garden to library, only separating for lessons, Edith's "boring" estate time with Papa, or when forced too. At times, Sybil acting as her constant shadow was frustrating. Especially as she was tasked with being responsible for her as the older sister in ways Mary never was. But most of the time it was just nice to have somone so positive and hopeful in her corner.
If Edith wanted to study medicine, farming, business, law, architecture, fashion, warfare or anything else she thought would one day be helpful, Bil would try to too. If she read tasteless science fiction and horror novels, Bil wanted too as well. If she ever tried her hand at a cooking or crafting project, Bil would be jumping behind her cheering her on. To Sybil, she was the smartest, sweetest, funniest friend in the world because of her blunt observations and modern ideals. Who knows if at age four any lessons would stick, but if they did Edith expect a lot more than a frock with pants as her teenage rebellious phase.
That's how life progressed at Downton through the nineteenth century. But as the clock chimed midnight on December thirty first, welcoming in another century, more change and more guests would also be welcomed into their little world. For soon, Cousin James Crawley and his son Patrick would come to Downton Abbey.
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