For wildmagelet It's A Gift Post 2/2
Title: The Second Daughter
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters: Edith, Mary, Sir Anthony Strallan. Background Mary/Richard and Mary/Matthew.
Rating & Warnings: PG and none.
Format & Word Count: Fic; 3037 words
Summary: The war has transformed Edith Crawley in more ways than one. But how will she spread those shaky new wings?
Author’s Notes: Written as a gift for wildmagelet for Winterval at pulped_fictions.
The Second Daughter
Edith knew she’d had her idyll, what might have been termed her very own Indian summer. She also knew she should be grateful for it; there were so many now who would never have the chance to experience any such thing. Yet gratitude, like much else these days, seemed far beyond her.
As did discussing this with anyone else. How could she ever admit that her confidence and contentment had coincided with the years of war? A time when God was clearly absent from his heaven and all was completely wrong with the world; a time when no right-thinking young lady could possibly contemplate any such thing.
At least she had rejoiced when it was over, that was one charge that did not lie heavily on her conscience. But overriding that relief was the memory of being needed. Of having a role. Sweetest of all, was discovering she finally had a voice to make her own family sit up and take notice. When you were one of a large number of forceful women, it was far too easy to be relegated to a place at the back. Or allow yourself to be.
“Such a nuisance,” Mary used to say bitterly, whenever the succession crisis was discussed, “being born an inferior son.”
“But much better than being born an inferior Mary,” Edith would think in turn.
Still, here she was: Lady Edith Crawley. Second daughter to the Earl. Briefly, a force to be reckoned with.
And now?
Now she wandered aimlessly down Downton’s long corridors seeking to make herself useful again. To find an occupation, a routine, the independence she could embrace with open arms again. All the while marvelling how little there was to actually do in a day, once she’d dispensed with paying calls, writing letters and having a dress fitting or two. It felt like a waste of the mind she’d only recently discovered.
A waste of her heart as well?
While she’d no idea how to go about getting what she wanted in one way, she knew she didn’t want to end up as the spinster aunt, an afterthought at the dining table and when it came to the Christmas invites. She wanted a family and a husband of her own - with the emphasis on ‘own’ when it came to the latter. Not one who’d been handpicked as suitable by her parents.
She began to understand how Sybil must have felt. But Sybil’s life wasn’t what she sought either. People interested her far more than causes, and ideals counted for little in the face of the cruelty and savagery she’d seen at first hand. Besides, throwing everything aside as Sybil had done seemed like rashly burning all those boats that you might well need later on.
What kind of person was she then, this Edith Crawley?
A quiet girl, not quite pretty or plain. Somewhere in between; like she was somewhere in between her two vibrant sisters. Easily hurt, easily resentful and even more easily overlooked. She’d always tried to compete with the elder sister that everybody looked at, because she couldn’t think of anything cleverer to do. But now she knew, with utter certainty, that she didn’t need to any more. The blood beat just as fiercely in her veins as in those of anyone else, if not more.
So she would not sit down quietly and wait for life to visit her again. Because it might not.
The newspapers seemed to be full of how the world was changing, of how women were replacing men who’d never come home again at work, but her mother looked at her aghast when she suggested helping Cousin Isobel (“Surely you’ve had more than enough of that sort of thing to last a lifetime?”), while apparently finding no irony whatsoever in aiding Isobel’s latest ventures herself.
Even her father was no help. Strangely subdued these days, spending solitary hours locked away in the library with Isis at his feet, he’d no suggestions at all. Apart from saying she might consider talking to his tenant farmers and seeing if any help were required there.
“They’ve all lost men. Young men who can never be replaced. There will be something you can do, I’m sure. Even if it is only to try and comfort their widows.” His face had darkened as he’d spoken, the sympathy for others that he always felt showing through. And she was sorry she’d asked.
She could hardly tell him why she rejected that idea out of hand. What had happened at Drakes’ farm was the beginning of the idyll - and the guilt that went with it. The kiss that had told her what it was like to feel wanted in her own right; girlhood vanishing for ever in a single moment. Followed by the utter shock and shame of Mrs. Drake’s letter, which still didn’t quite silence the excitement that had made her lie awake at night and dream romantic dreams like a love-struck girl. But also like a woman.
Had that in turn left her vulnerable to Patrick Gordon?
No, she told herself firmly. He might have been Patrick. And she could never have turned her back on the man she’d once dreamed of marrying while suffering the agony of seeing him engaged to her sister. Who didn’t give a damn, except for what that marriage would mean for Downton and to their father. Yet if the war had taught Edith anything, it was that bricks and mortar counted for little against the lives of people.
Her feet had taken her towards the drawing room. She hesitated because Mary would either be there or closeted somewhere upstairs with Anna. It was hard to tell, these days, who was the paler out of maid and mistress, but somehow Anna was by far the fiercer, the more determined of the two.
Anna was fighting her fate. Mary seemed resigned to it.
Edith reminded herself she was done with hesitating and went in. The elegant figure of her sister was in a chair by the large window, an unopened book of what looked like curtain samples upon her knee. Another one was lying on the table in front of her.
“Looking for something?” Mary barely moved her head, her gaze fixed somewhere outside the window on the trees, shining golden and red in their late autumnal colours.
“I was thinking of taking the car out for a drive. I wondered if you might like to come.”
Mary turned to look at her slowly, the dark eyes expressionless. Edith was aware again of the surprising solidarity and the much more familiar chilly distance that had lain between them since Lavinia’s death and Sybil’s leaving. Did they both envy the sister who had had the courage to follow her heart or silently fear for her?
“Sometimes I wonder why we ever bothered replacing Branson,” Mary gave the half-amused smile that appeared frequently of late, as though at a joke only she could see. “When we have you around, always so keen to get behind a wheel.”
The words were acidic but they lacked any real bite. Mary going through the motions again.
Edith tried to choose her own carefully in response but she and Mary had always aimed to wound, not to offer uncertain olive branches.
“It might do you good to get out,” she said. “You don’t even ride much these days.”
Silence.
“It’s a nice thought but I am somewhat preoccupied as you see.” Mary spoke at last, smoothing out an invisible crease in her dress. It was the latest fashion with the new length skirt. “I must speak to the furniture suppliers today because the gate leg table was scratched, and Richard wishes me to choose some red velvet curtains for the main reception room.”
“You don’t seem to be looking that hard.”
“Well, that’s where you are wrong.” Mary opened the book, seemingly at random, and flicked quickly over the samples with her long fingers. “Damask, I was thinking, to match the roses ordered for the formal gardens. Scarlet’s too bright and crimson too obvious. It would never do to be obvious.”
“He rang today, didn’t he?” Edith watched her sister’s bent head. “Is he coming down again?”
“Don’t you have anything better to do than eavesdrop? But of course I’m forgetting,“ Mary produced the half-amused smile again, “you don’t.”
And you don’t have anything better to do than jump when the phone rings, or make an excuse to leave the room whenever Papa or Cousin Isobel mentions Matthew and how he seems a little better in spirits now. How they want him to start coming to Downton again. Edith looked at Mary’s thin figure, the white collarbones showing clearly above the neck of her fine dress, and thought how strange it was that the overpowering envy she had once felt was now all but replaced by irritation and pity.
“Don’t,” Mary said.
“Don’t?” Edith was startled.
The dark eyes met hers. Hard and weary.
“We deserve each other, he and I,” Mary said simply. “Now let me be.”
Edith tried to remember all the times she’d hated Mary, and it wasn’t hard because there were so many, but she also remembered the last time she’d seen her sister and Richard together, standing side by side in a deliberate stance of togetherness, and one which unequivocally stated that there was no joy here for either of them. He’d reached for Mary’s hand and she’d allowed it, letting hers lay there in his, quite lifeless. Edith had known what Mary was doing - trying to get away from Richard without another confrontation, trying to hold on until it was time for him to return to London once more.
Trying to find another reason to delay the marriage. But time and excuses had run out on her and there was only one last Christmas of freedom left. One last chance to see Matthew and wonder at what might have been.
She started to say something and changed her mind. Instead she nodded and turned to go.
“Edith.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t leave angry.”
“But do leave?”
Mary smiled. A real one this time.
Finally escaping outside and muffled up with coat, gloves and scarf against the penetrating chill, Edith ignored the disapproving stare of the new chauffeur - oh, Branson, you are missed in many ways! - and started up the engine. It was only once out on the road that she realized she had no idea where to go, only the need to be outside of Downton’s confining walls for a little while. She turned left and then automatically left again, heading away from town and out towards the country where she could clear her mind and blow away the self-doubt cobwebs.
She put her foot down, and as the car sped forward she was reminded of the night she, Mary and Anna had gone in pursuit of Sybil.
For some reason, she found herself inclined to rail against the world and the boxes it put people in. Was it simply because she had no idea how to go about doing what she wanted and break out of hers? She also wanted to cry: for Mary, for Sybil and for herself. Even for little Anna. Which was quite ridiculous: Mary had only herself to blame for her troubles, Sybil was almost certainly wallowing in romantic, rustic bliss with her Irishman, if Bates was innocent then justice was bound to be done and she herself had nothing whatsoever to cry over.
Nor anyone to care or cry for her, if it came to that?
Edith Crawley, blending in with the wallpaper, as usual.
Damn it.
A car horn blared shrilly. Loudly. Frighteningly near. She looked up to see a flash of silver, a blur of a windscreen and another face, all white and round with mouth wide open as if shouting a warning. Too late, she realized she’d drifted over to the other side of the narrow road, and wrenched hard on the steering wheel.
Tyres squealed, seemingly from both cars, and she was half-dragged sideways out of her seat as the car bounced alarmingly and sank, tyres sinking deeply into the rain-softened verge. The shadow of a tree loomed up ahead of her, but the engine choked once, spluttered and ground to a stalling halt.
Edith’s hat fell off and caught her painfully on the bridge of the nose on the way down.
“Go easy on the brakes, m’lady.” For an instant she heard Branson’s voice in her head. “Treat them like they’re your friend with a gentle squeeze, not an enemy you want to crush.”
Shakily, she took her foot slowly off the pedal which she’d ground to the floor. She retrieved her hat and sat there listening to the pounding of her heart.
The sound of a slamming door and running steps. She wound down the window and braced herself.
“I say, are you…?” The voice, alarmed but familiar, ground to an uneven halt, much like her car had done.
She peered up, through something of a blur, at the round, good-natured face of Sir Anthony Strallan. Which was currently white with anxiety and the shock of recognition.
She thought of a thousand things to say and chose none of them.
“Hello,” she said weakly.
“Are you all right?”
“Quite all right, thank you. Are you?”
“Yes, yes, fine.” The words were sharp, cutting her off. Colour was flooding back into his face, and she thought he might be more annoyed over the fact that it was her than anything else.
They hadn’t spoken for years. He tended to avoid most social gatherings, which had been in short supply during the war anyway, and on the rare occasions she had seen him she’d kept well away and suspected he’d done the same. Besides, what could she possibly say, after all this time? I’m so sorry you were caught in the crossfire between my sister and me?
She did know he hadn’t married again. He was still referred to locally as the widower, Sir Anthony Strallan.
“I’m most dreadfully sorry. It was entirely my fault.” She swallowed, wishing her heart would slow down. “Your car…?”
“Is fine.” He waved a hand, dismissively, but she remembered how he’d loved his car. The pleasure he’d taken in showing it off to her that one time. “Good God, I thought for a minute you were going to hit that tree!”
“Well,” she smiled rather stupidly, “I didn’t.”
“No. You didn’t.”
They stared at each other again, his cheeks two bright red patches. His eyes were blue, which she’d forgotten. She was reminded of how there was always this large chasm between what she wanted to say with words, and what she could actually say with them - a struggle between brain and heart, sometimes - and one of the most appealing things she’d discovered about Sir Anthony was that he had similar difficulty.
He was also kind, unpretentious and she’d hurt him bitterly although she didn’t quite know how. There was guilt over that and over the fact he’d originally been something else to compete with Mary over. Before she discovered that she genuinely liked this man who missed his wife so much.
“I see you learned to drive,” he said, and this time he smiled and there was no sharpness in his voice at all.
“Yes. I really enjoy it.” She gave a shaky little laugh. “Normally! My mind was on other things today.”
“We ought to see about getting you off this verge and on to the road again.” He cleared his throat. “If you wouldn’t mind stepping out for a moment, I could perhaps see if it’ll start for you, Lady Edith.”
She had her hand on the door handle when she stopped. “If you don’t mind guiding me,” she heard herself say, “I could see if I can back it up and we can go from there.”
“Why… of course.” He sounded surprised, taken aback even, but there was something else in there.
Was he impressed?
“I drive tractors as well these days, you know. And I’ve never put one of those in a ditch.”
She didn’t know what had possessed her to say this but she was glad she had because it made him smile.
Even his face was less red. He did look older but then she must as well. In fact, she must look a complete fright with her hair coming down all over the place. She tried to push it back with an unsteady hand.
“It’s very good to see you again, Lady Edith,” he said suddenly. “Even in such, erm, unfortunate circumstances.”
“I’m glad it was you I nearly bumped into as well,” she said, and that seemed to be the right thing to say too as his smile broadened.
Looking at him as she prepared to turn the key, she knew there was nothing about him to give her sleepless nights, to make her heart race, and the old Edith, who’d have settled for any man who paid her attention, had long since gone. Transformed into a young women who didn’t know how to stretch her shaky new wings. But she’d once liked this man very much and watching him now, frowning as he looked at her mud-covered left wheel, she thought she could again. At the very least, she’d like to make peace with him.
What was to stop her inviting him to Downton? Papa wouldn’t mind and Mama would be thrilled, for all the wrong reasons. Sir Anthony might refuse, of course. There again, he might not.
The Edith he’d known would have said nothing and waited forever for someone to see beyond Mary to her. She hadn’t the words to write letters for horribly injured men to their wives and families, nor any to comfort them as they sat waiting for injuries both seen and unseen to heal. She’d sat back and let life come to her, rather than make her own mind up.
This Edith Crawley was tired of waiting. She might only be the second daughter but that didn’t mean she had to settle for second best.
“Sir Anthony,” she said firmly, “I’ve something to ask you.”