Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Kortrijk, 2^nd October 1930

My dearest Edith,

You told me once about a soldier named Gordon who stayed at your home during the war. We were having tea at my old apartment, and you had biscuit crumbs in the corner of your mouth. I can remember it now: the way the sunlight streamed through the window and painted your hair the most precious gold, the pained twitch of your eyebrow. I think about that story now, and I hesitate to write this letter. Even then, years removed from that incident, the story about the soldier and the unknowns that clung to him still haunted you, and I loathe to think this will cause you a similar kind of pain. Perhaps that’s why every attempt at writing to you so far has ended up in shreds… Yet, worse than the idea your face falling as you read these words, is the one of you hearing them from some solicitor or other. And so, I hope that the fact that they come from a friendly hand may, at least in some part, ease whatever pain or sorrow you might feel.

In all my previous attempts, I always stumble about how to write this next part. The words seem clunky, almost false. Let me get them out of the way immediately, then, and hope that in the following paragraphs I can manage to provide something close to a fulfilling explanation: this is Michael Gregson writing, and I want to tell you that I’m alive.

With everything I know about you, as well as your previous experience dealing with people who claim to come back from the dead, I can only imagine your preoccupation upon reading those words. Like I said, I will try to briefly explain what I surmised happened since we last spoke. Enclosed with this letter are what I hope will be sufficient proof of the veracity of my words, as well as the name and contact of my solicitor.

The last time we spoke was in the Fall of 1923. I wrote you a letter during my first night in Munich, telling you the journey had gone well and that I was settling in alright. To recount to you what happened next would be too sordid and unpleasant, so I’ll stay with the basic facts: I could not keep my mouth shut and attracted the attention of the wrong crowd—the brownshirts, they call them. They took me and beat me and then left me half gone in some dark corner of Munich. Truth be told, I still cannot recall those weeks very well.

You see, I was very injured after that. I took quite a beating to the head, which affected my memory quite severely. For a long time, I could hardly remember my name, let alone those of the people I loved. Some good Samaritan must have found me and taken me to the hospital. I was there for quite a few weeks, recovering and trying to remember. I had no documents or identification on me, and no acquaintances in Munich. Eventually, my body started to get better, but my mind didn’t. We were well into 1924 by this point. I still did not know who I was and hardly had a penny to my name.

Due to the nature of my injuries, the hospital discharged me to a convalescence house by Lake Constance, in hopes that the peace of the countryside would be fruitful for my recovery. There, I met and befriended a Flemish gentleman named Adam. I ended up staying in Lake Constance until Christmas. During my stay, I began recovering some aspects of my life slowly started returning; the Doctor who oversaw my case would talk to me at length, and he encouraged me to begin writing, and it must have worked, because I began to slowly unravel some of the mystery: I managed to recall big things, like my given name and the town I grew up in, but smaller things too, like the fresh daffodils my mother used to bring every Sunday during Spring. There was no rhyme or reason to what came back and what didn’t, but I did remember your—or shades of you, in any case: the floral notes of your perfume, the blue dress you wore when we dined out the first time, my excitement at receiving a letter from you. I did not know who you were, but I knew that I loved you.

I was discharged around Christmas, and Adam offered me a bedroom in his home back in Belgium. I’ve been with Adam’s family ever since. His family residence is in Kortrijk, where I spend most of my time, but he’s a bit of an explorer and he claims to enjoy my company, so we’ve been a bit all over Europe since then.

I kept on waiting for a big reveal, for the thing that would make my mind unlock and bring everything back from the shadows. I traveled partially in hope that one day I’d see or smell or hear something that would trigger everything else. Eventually, though, I had to accept it would not happen and move on; that is, let myself build a life right where I was, and try to enjoy it as best I could. I began teaching English when I was home, and eventually even started writing for the local English publication every now and again.

And then, one day, late in the Summer of 1925, as I was perusing the news from across the Channel, I saw your marriage announcement. There was a photo of you, and I knew. I remembered you. I understood that you were the women I had slowly been remembering all along.

The memories would still take a while to come back in full. It was a couple years longer before I could fully understand who you were and what we were to each other. Even now, I know there are things I do not remember; but that’s the twist, isn’t it? How do you know how much you have lost, if you don’t remember it in the first place?

I thought about writing to you, though. Several times. In fact, I have more than a handful of letters in my desk drawer that I don’t think I will ever send. At first, I kept them to myself because I did not even know who to send them to; once I did, I kept thinking that I did not want to disturb your peace, to intrude myself upon your life. I see you in the paper occasionally, and you seem happy and fulfilled, with the brightest future ahead. Before all of this happened, I had hoped I would be the one to give it to you, but I am so glad you found it, nonetheless.

Even now, I hesitate to send this letter. In the end, the only reason why I am going through with this is because, now that I finally know enough to know who I am, I’ve finally initiated the process of returning to the land of the living. It turns out that declaring someone undead is a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare, but it’s been unfolding steadily and it should be done in the coming months. As the benefactor of the bulk of my inheritance, you will undoubtedly be contacted. Do not worry, I do not intend on taking back anything of what I freely entrusted you with, and I only intend to claim a portion of the money. My solicitor should contact you in a few weeks, but I do hope this letter reaches you before then, so that you may hear it from me first.

To end, I want you to underscore that you do not owe me anything. Memories are precious things to me now, and I hold the ones I have of you with particular fondness; but life has moved on for both of us and our paths have diverged. Though it was through no wish of my own, I do recognize that I abandoned you, and knowing your sensitive, loyal and loving nature, I can only begin to imagine the pain my sudden absence caused you. As such, I am writing to ask you for your collaboration, but I do not expect your forgiveness.

I would like to see you again. Someday. If you can ever find it in yourself to face me again… In many ways, I am not the man you remember either; I understand if you’d rather keep our acquaintance in the past.

I’ve rambled on for too long, I think. If you have any questions—which I am sure you do—do contact my solicitor for any and all explanations. I’d be delighted if you were to write to me, but do not feel beholden to an answer.

I hope you’re well, my darling, and I wish you the greatest fortune and happiness.

Humbly,

M.G.

Chapter Text

“Edith?” Bertie’s voice echoes. She hums in response, too struck for anything else, still eyeing the letter in her hands: the sharp shape of the ‘a’s, the round dots of the ‘i’s. Edith searches for some kind of familiarness and is unsure if she finds any. “Edith? My darling, are you alright?” His chair scrapes the floor, and Edith can feel him moving around her. “My God, you’ve gone quite pale. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Bertie’s hand lands on the nape of her neck, warm and familiar, safe, and that at last makes her look up. She wets her lips, willing herself to say the words, but can only manage, “I think I have.” She’s never been much of a jokester, so she fails to make her tone light and playful in the way such sentence requires. “I-” She looks down again. It’s a bulky letter, the pages heavy in her hand. She had begun reading the opening paragraph in frightened confusion, and it quickly gave way to outright terror as she went on, her brain going somehow going both haywire and grinding to a halt. She struggled to keep reading the pages in her hands, her eyes running through the phrases in such of the one that would reveal all of it to be a joke—a cruel prank, the sort that even Mary was never unkind enough to play on her, but still only a prank.

She looks up at Bertie, at the confusion and worry in his eyes. He always has such a gentle glance; it always works to melt her, make her feel safe. But the papers are heavy in her hands, and it doesn’t quite work this time round. “Here,” she says, handing the papers to him. He takes them carefully, unaware of how cold and empty her hands feel the moment she lets go. She didn’t even get to finish the letter, but she’s not sure she wants to. The situation is already cruel enough without following it through to the end. “This person is claiming to be Michael Gregson. I- I have no idea how- I feel-”

She rises before she can finish the words, the bile that’s been piling up in her stomach finally climbing to her chest, acrid and bitter in the back of her throat. It’s only a few steps from the dining room to the powder room, and she kneels by the basin and lets go, but nothing comes out other than the horrid sounds of her retching. Whatever bits of food she managed to get to before she opened the letter stay down in her stomach, but she retches again, her throat convulsing around an invisible force.

“Shh, it’s alright.” Bertie’s voice is in her ear suddenly, calm and reassuring. One of his hands gathers the locks of hair that fell onto her face, the other finding her arm. “I’m right here, darling. You’re alright.”

She struggles to breathe. Her knuckles hurt from how hard she grips the porcelain, and the ache pulsates when she finally succeeds at urging herself to let go and lean back. Sh doesn’t recall ever feeling quite this sick, with the way her heart is still drumming in her ears, its quick beat pulsating through her head. She feels sweaty and clammy even though nothing actually happened, and she’s thankful for Bertie’s presence, for the way he cradles her when she leans back and rests her forehead against the side of his neck.

“What…” Bertie is cautious, clearly afraid of tipping her off again. But she knows what he’ll ask, knows that he must ask it, so she keeps her eyes closed and hums for him to continue. “What did the letter actually say?”

“I didn’t manage to finish it,” she admits, trying to keep her breathing steady. “I skimmed it, waiting for the punchline, but I couldn’t find it and…” She lets her words trail off, not bothering with following the story to the end when they both already know the outcome. “But the author did say he was Michael. Quite clearly, in fact,” she adds sourly.

Bertie is still careful when he asks, “Did it look like his handwriting?”

Edith shrugs. How should she know? Sure, they traded a few letters, especially at the beginning—she’s sure she’ll find them in some dark corner of one of her vanity’s drawers at Downton, where she hid them when the grief got too bad—but they met in person for the most part. Edith remembers, back then, how eager she was for anything that would get her out of the Abbey, and later, how willingly she went anytime Michael asked her out for a coffee or a meal. Now she can’t recall much of his handwriting, can’t recall anything other than its neat traces, the letters surprisingly sharp for someone who was only ever gentle to her.

“Do you…” Bertie pauses, hesitant, his hand stilling from its gentle caresses on her back. “Do you want me to have a look?”

Something in her chest unlocks, softening. Bertie has his sharp edges, but they’re few and far between, and well-cushioned by his naturally gentle and soft disposition. When she was younger, Edith dreamed of her knight in a charming armor, handsome and brave, ferocious and careless, who would sweep her off her feet steal her away with no care for propriety or anyone’s concerns. Is it telling, she wonders sometimes, that she ended up with someone so unlike her youthful fantasies, someone gentler than she ever knew how to be?

“Would you?” she asks, letting go of him to seat up, so she can see his face. Bertie’s features are twisted in concern, but his eyes are attentive, pondering.

Bertie nods. “Only if you want me to,” he insists. “I- I’d say we could also throw it into the fire and forget about the whole thing entirely, but I don’t think it likely that you could just let go of it without a second thought. Or me, for that matter,” he adds, before she has a chance to interrupt him.

Edith frowns. “What do you mean?”

For the first time since the situation started, Bertie’s features give away to something he’s feeling for himself, rather than for her: Edith can’t totally tell what it is, some odd mixture of concern and resentment.

“Well, if it is him-” He pauses, pursing his lips in the way he’s prone to when he’s trying to figure out the best words to use. “I suppose, even if it doesn’t mean anything for us, there’s always Marigold, right? If it is him, don’t we have a duty to him? To her?”

Edith feels the now familiar acrid taste rise in her throat again. Golly, she hadn’t even gotten that far, too swept up in her own confusion and anxiety to remember her daughter. Her daughter—beautiful and smart and brave, who started slipping up and calling Bertie ‘Papa’ when they were teaching Peter the word, who goes out with him every other Thursday for their ‘special afternoon’ of window shopping and playgrounds and sweet treats. During her and Bertie’s engagement, the only thing that had worried her was the fear that Marigold would take badly to all of it, or that Bertie would not adapt to a child he didn’t ask for. He had said he was alright, but would he bond with her? Would he treat her differently than his own children, when they had them? But they had taken to each other easily enough; one day, not long after they returned from honeymoon, Edith woke up late to find them building Marigold’s new train set in the library, so engrossed in each other they didn’t even notice her. It didn’t take long, afterwards, for their trio to feel like a family, for her to feel like her daughter had someone other than her—perhaps not a father like she deserved, but someone fatherly, nonetheless.

Yet, if it is Michael, her Michael—not an imposter, not someone trying to trick her or trying to blackmail her over one of the many skeletons in her closet—; if it is Michael, and he is still as she remembers him; if it is Michael, and he’s alive after all, and her child is not an orphan like they all thought- Shouldn’t they have a chance with each other?

God, what will it mean for her family? At some point after Michael’s death, Edith had stopped believing she’d ever have one, much less one where she would feel as happy and cared for as she does with Bertie and their children. For such a long time she hoped and dreamed and waited for Michael’s valiant return from the unknown, until she had no other choice but to let go and live her life for herself and for their child. Her childish, misplaced fantasies had been locked away, and she had grown up.

No, she decides. It’s impossible for it to be Michael. Michael had been gone and then he’d been dead, his body found after being buried under concrete and ash for longer than he deserved. His solicitor had said so; the courts had said so. Whoever it is, whatever their claims, it can’t be more than a mean, cruel trick on her and her family. And, by God, will she unmask them and make them pay.

11^th October 1930

Dear Mi-

11^th October 1930

Dear Sir

15^th October 1930

Dear Michael,

It astonishes me tha-

“Knock, knock.” The words sound in unison with the actual knocks, and Michael looks up from his work in time to see the door open.

Adam balances a tray on his hands as he reaches backward with his foot to close the door again, the lock clicking into place with a sharp sound.

“You’ve been holed up in here for hours. Mila sent me up with your tray.”

Michael looks down at the page his, his writing cut out mid-word. He could keep going still, get back to the story—or so he tells himself. Truth be told, he’s been holed up in the study for the better part of the day now, writing so that he can distract himself, keep his hands busy, with questionable success. He’s growing tired of keeping an ear out for the mail, or for the tell-tale ringing of the telephone. It’s been well over a week now, and if in the first couple of days it was easy to wait, easy to picture the letter slowly making its way across the Channel and through the well-trodden roads of England, it got harder the days afterward, as the pressing awareness that the letter had probably already grew. He feels so powerless, still. To bury his head into his writing had felt like the only sane choice.

“Well, let’s see it then,” Michael says, pushing the typewriter to the left so he clears some space for the tray. “Keep me company?”

Adam nods as he moves to the drink’s stand to pour himself two fingers of scotch. He sits down on the plush armchair on the other side of the desk with his glass in hand and takes a sip with a satisfied sigh.

Mila is always too nice for his own good, and the tray she sent is filled generously: a large bowl of soup, two thick slices of bread, still warm, some shredded chicken from luncheon, and cheese. A glass of wine and a glass of juice, which Michael reaches for first.

“I think you have to start thinking of returning to your routines, less you want Mila to set up an intervention,” Adam says, in that gentle accent of his. He masters English better than most Englishmen Michael has met, but even with such mastery, the trappings of one’s mother tongue remains. He’s always found something comforting about that fact.

Michael reaches for the bread and breaks a piece apart. He chews on it slowly, buying himself a few precious seconds. “Perhaps you’re right,” he admits. There’s a part of him that wants to say more. Over the years, he and Adam have grown close enough that airing his troubles would not be too much, and Adam already knows enough about the situation regardless. But such matters still feel too tender to be aired out, especially when his glass of wine is still sitting in his tray, full. “Tell Mila she can rest assured I will try to be on my best behavior from now on.”

Adam leans back into his chair, his lips unfurling into a slow smile. “You do not need to pretend with me,” he says easily. “With any of us, in fact. We are here to support you.” Adam drums his fingers on his thigh, a telltale sign that he’s mulling his words over. “I think I would have heard of it by now, but I assume you have not received an answer to your letter?”

Michael swirls the soup around with his spoon slowly, tendrils of smoke rising slowly from the surface. “I did not expect to.”

“I often find that expectation and hope are two different beasts, and the latter one might be the one that stings the most.”

Michael smiles despite himself. “I like that,” he says, eyeing the typewriter as he twists the words around in his head.

“Well, never mind the words,” Adam says after a few seconds. “What I am saying is that I do not fault you for hoping.”

This time, Michael cannot find it in himself to look up from his soup, sadness blooming in his chest, sharp and debilitating. The realization of who Edith was, of what she meant to him, had been a slow one, and by the time he had figured it out, it had been far too late. He didn’t blame her—couldn’t even consider it. He had tried to move on when dear Lizzie had lost her mind; how could he blame Edith for doing the same when he was, for all effects and purposes, properly dead?

On his desk, safe in the top drawer, he keeps a photograph of her. It was something that came in a spread on Summer fashion soon after her wedding. In the photo, Edith looks radiant and vibrant, even in the dampened black and white of the printing. She looks happy, the warmth of it spreading through her features and pose, and Michael questions if, with all the baggage he carried, he ever managed to give her a fraction of that happiness during their brief time together. The thought always settles over his chest with a clawing coldness, the kind that makes him believe that tearing a heart out of someone’s chest is not just a metaphorical picture after all.

“I think, in this case, all hoping does is make you a fool,” he remarks at last, finally taking the spoon to his lips.

Chapter Text

M-

I tried writing a proper letter, but the words would not flow. I’d will pen to paper, and I’d press it hard enough that the page would break, or that so much ink would flow, everything would smudge before I could write out a proper word. And yet, even after all that, I would still end up failing to find the words.

I received a letter from you last week. Or, rather, a letter from someone claiming to be you. It broke me in a way I didn’t know I could still be broken.

It brought me right back to the months I spent waiting for a word from you: a telephone call, a letter, a telegram, a smoke signal. Something, anything that would tell me it was safe for me to hope. That there was something at the end of that road worth hoping for.

Giving you up—all of you, both the reality and the dream of you—has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The hardest, for sure, had it not been for the long months where I gave Marigold up; of course, nothing will ever compare to the pain of losing her, of choosing to let her go—and nothing will ever hold a match to the shame I still feel for agreeing to it in the first place. I wonder what you’d say, if you knew; I don’t think you’d be able to find words that would sting harder than those I already tell myself— There are still a million ways in which you could break me, though. And Marigold… She is the most precious, most wonderful, most clever girl. We never got to talk properly about our future and our children, but you would like her, I think.

I haven’t opened my journal to write to the ghost of you in a long time. I return to it now because your ghost is the only version of you I have and know. Michael—dear, wonderful Michael—I am so scared. I am angry at this person who dares pretend to be you, and I’m so scared that it’s not a pretender at all. What shall I do if it is true that you really are out there, and that it was your hand that wrote to me after all? How could I have let you go when you were there all along? If I’d just looked harder…

How can I just let you go again, when I never chose to do so in the first place?

My life is beautiful now, with Bertie, and Marigold, and dear Peter. I love them so dearly, so fiercely. And daring to hope again hurts too much.

I don’t know what I’ll do if it really is you. I don’t know how I’ll carry on. I don’t know how I’ll live with myself, knowing you were out there and you were lost and hurting and I looked away. That I almost killed your daughter, that I gave her up to be brought up by strangers. Just the thought of it makes me sick. I don’t know what to do.

Dear Michael, I loved you. I love you, still, in many ways—I think I always will. But (and I know it makes me a horrible person to say it) I’ve built a life beyond you, and I don’t know if it’ll withstand having you back again. I’m terrified at the prospect of having to find out.

(How cruel does a person have to be, to claim to love someone and still wish them dead?)

It’s been four months since the letter.

In many ways, it feels like nothing happened at all. She still has her luncheons, the club meetings she’s expected to attend, the occasional piece for the magazine. She still has Marigold and Peter, and afternoons spent watching them play, and mornings filled with laughter and mischief. She still has Bertie, who still kisses her just as warmly, who still reaches for her at night and holds her with a hand around her waist. Everything perfectly the same, perfectly mundane and lovely. Edith ought to be thankful.

But- It’s been four months, and not a day goes by where she’s not aware of the letter. Her world has tilted just so, and everything shifted with it, her perception forever altered. But then the world kept on turning, as if nobody noticed it changing at all. Nobody except her.

No, that’s not a fair thing to say. Mary, for one, has been more diligent than Edith had expected: reaching out to Murray, hosting them at Downton so they can all hear the news together. Keeping her face blank when Murray tells them the letter appears to be legitimate, stopping Edith later that day to say how sorry she is, the words more genuine than Edith ever expected. And Bertie, too, has been kind and patient as Edith has twisted herself inside out, trying not to panic as more news arrived: Murray had reached out to Michael’s solicitor; Murray had gotten someone to investigate and look further into the matter; the letter and its contents keep growing more and more legitimate with every stone turned.

The slow but steady income of news seem almost like a cruel, through-the-looking-glass encore to the months she spent waiting for news of Michael: back then, she spent her days praying for news and getting none; now, the news come even without her wishing, and they all point in a direction she would once have given anything to have. There’s a limbo-like sensation to it that she recalls feeling back then, her life at once standing still and in total upheaval.

Christmas and New Year go by, the season coming and going with unremarkable ease. Tom and Lucy get roped in to the goings-on, but Mary thinks it better not to tell Mama and Papa—especially Papa—which Edith is inclined to agree. They keep quiet. Their mother eyes them suspiciously a few times, but Mary brushes her off in that easy, nonchalant way of hers, and Mama buys it, at least for the time being.

“My dear, you don’t seem like yourself,” Aunt Rosamund remarks during tea the day after Christmas, and Edith chokes on the liquid, barely managing to recover without making a fool of herself. “Is everything alright with… dear Bertie?” she lowers her voice at the end of the question, and Edith tries not to fold under her watchful gaze.

“Everything’s perfectly fine, Aunt Rosamund,” she says, smiling languidly. “Peter had a cold last week, though. We think we may be coming down with something too.”

Of all people, Rosamund is perhaps the one she fears the worst. Rosamund, who supported and reprimanded her in equal measure, who Edith knows did more for her than any of them ever expected to. She feels like a child as she stands in front of her again, Michael lingering heavy on her mind, but she forces herself to play her part. If nothing else, she’s much better at it now.

But even the festivities are long past now. It’s been four months, four months of reading that God forsaken letter, searching it for traces of Michael; four months of that slight unease between her and Bertie; four months of hoping and praying—and hating herself for it at every turn—that something would come up that would give them reason to believe differently.

As the Winter rolls on, snow giving away to heavy rains, the air cold and moist, she knows she can’t simply keep on waiting. She can’t stay still and watch as Spring rolls on, the world blooming with color while her panic grows sharper. If everything seems to point in one direction, then there’s only one thing she can do now: go there and see for herself.

There’s a quiet uneasiness between them. Edith looks up from her notebook and across the table at Bertie, who is busy pretending to be engrossed in his book. She has felt him looking at her when he thought she was busy plenty of times and has been repaying in kind.

Their journey across the Channel is a comfortable one. The temperature inside the wagon is pleasantly warm, making one forget the rain and fog outside that would freeze them down to their bones in an instant if they were to stand in it. The tea on her mug was perfectly sweet when it was poured, though Edith would wager it has now gone too cold to be pleasant. She can imagine herself and Bertie on this journey on any other occasion, wasting the hours away trading gossip and stories, perhaps playing some cards. If there’s something she adores about being with Bertie is how easy it is, how at ease he makes her feel.

But ever since the letter, something has fractured, subtly but certainly. The fracture is something, Edith realizes, that she had not been prepared for: in her house, growing up, the fights she witnessed—between her parents, between her and Mary—were all snarky quips and glances over the shoulder, if not outright explosive and mean. It had left her ill-prepared for her marriage to Bertie. Granted, they luckily had never argued much, but when they had, Edith would wait for the other shoe to drop. It took her some time to understand that there was never anything to drop: Bertie is not one to raise his voice or opt for unkind comments; he will always, she realized, treat her with lovingness, even in conflict. And he does not enjoy dwelling in discomfort: he’ll simply address a subject head on if he can, choosing it over letting things simmer on to a boil. Edith is still not quite able of matching him in his approach.

This time, though, even Bertie is at a loss—perhaps afraid or unsure of how to approach the subject, maybe both. And Edith had not been brave enough to tackle it herself. She’s been letting it fester between them instead, preferring to pretend the smell simply wasn’t there.

They’re going right into the source of it now, though. It feels foolishly reckless—more than the occasion already is—to go into it without a shared plan.

Edith puts the notebook down on the small table between them, placing the pen against the fold and letting the cover fall over it. She takes a sip of her tepid tea, grimacing at the overwhelming sweetness, and then coughs as she puts it down.

“Darling.” Her voice is vulnerable, fragile. As it stands, Edith doesn’t know how to make it otherwise.

Bertie looks up immediately, letting his book close without bothering to place his bookmark, a small quirk that endears and frustrates her in equal measure.

“Yes?”

Edith watches him carefully, taking note of his slight frown, his hesitation as his eyes meet hers. It had always been so much easier to let Bertie take the lead in these kinds of uncomfortable situations.

“I know… we haven’t talked about this. Not properly.” She looks down at her hands, at the crimson leather that covers her notebook. “Is there anything you’d like to say, though?”

Bertie flushes—a slight thing, easily missed by those that don’t know him—and purses his lips, uncertain. “I…” He trails off. Edith tries to be comforted by the fact that at least she’s not the only one having trouble finding the right words, but she half-wishes Bertie would, just so it wouldn’t be so hard. “There’s been plenty I’ve thought about saying, but… I’m afraid I would be unkind to you. I’d never want that,” he adds in a rush.

“Oh.” There’s a pressure in her throat, a vicious thing, like a vine is twisting itself around it.

She had not once faulted Bertie for leaving when Mary told him the truth, back when they first got engaged. Later, when he took her back, she had been fearful, always on the lookout, waiting for the moment when it would finally be revealed that he wasn’t as accepting as he wanted to make her think—as he believed himself to be, even. But the months passed, and the years, and nothing ever happened that made Edith think Bertie held some deep resentment for the fact that she had given herself to Michael before she gave herself to him. In time, the fear had dissipated, until she could not remember it at all.

But she feels it again now, mean and punishing. Perhaps she deserves it.

She gathers herself, forces her spine to stay straight and her shoulders nice and relaxed as she says, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m the one who brought us into this mess. The least I can do is hear you out.” She reaches out, fighting against the urge that tells her to keep her hands to herself, and lays one on top of Bertie’s. “Please, let me be here for you too.”

Bertie looks down at their hands, and his semblance softens in that way of his that never fails to make something inside her melt too. “You are,” he says, covering their hands with his free one, so she feels his warmth through her palm and through the back of her hand, sincere and unthreatening, something she could easily recoil from if she so wished. “And I don’t think it’s fair to say that it’s your fault. To be honest, I don’t even think ‘fault’ is a useful way to frame this whole… situation. I can’t- I can’t fault a man for wanting to be alive.” He steals a look at her and wets his lip, hesitant. “And I can’t fault him for wanting to see you. If I were him, I don’t know if I would manage quite as much grace.”

It's not… It’s not what she expected to hear, that’s for sure. Edith looks down at the table, the smooth, polished wood and her notebook on top of it. There’s a faint heat on the tips of her ears, embarrassment and flattery tangled up with her anxiety, making her falter.

“We don’t even know if it’s really him. It could still be an imposter.”

Bertie’s look is soft, if a little pitiful—the kind she had been avoiding so far—but he doesn’t go as far as voicing it. “Entertain me for a moment, then.” Bertie’s still hesitant, but his words are clear, the way words tend to get when they’ve been thought and mulled over for way too long. “If he is alive, if it truly is Mr. Gregson- What will you want to do?”

Edith doesn’t know how to tell him that she doesn’t know. That in all the days that passed since that Godforsaken letter arrived, the only possibility Edith hadn’t let herself entertain, was the one where it was all true. She is braced for the pain. She is ready to arrive in Kortrijk and find no trace of Michael at all. She’s even ready to maybe run into some gentleman, instead, an old friend she might have once met at a soirée, who had just been playing with her all along.

She has grieved Michael many times now—in his silence, in his disappearance, in Marigold’s orphanhood, and finally in his death—and she knows that is something she can survive.

But the possibility of his aliveness… Of seeing his twinkling eyes or his gentle smile, of hearing the warm tenor of his voice… She thinks that might just unmake her.

That’s not the things she should be thinking about, though. It is not right to think that, not when Bertie is in front of her and has stood by her, not when she loves him so. How can she contemplate the way her heart might flutter at the sight of a man, when the one she wants and loves, the one she chose, is right here? Is she really as wicked as that?

“I don’t know, Bertie.” She can’t keep the desperation from her voice, the way it cracks on his name. “I- I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair.” She glances at their hands, at how Bertie is yet to recoil from her. She wonders what the nail will be that will finally break their coffin. “I know this is an awful thing to say, to- to think, even. He’s Marigold’s father, he’s my- He was my-” But what was Michael to her, really? What was she to him? What right does she have to claim him as anything? “I keep wishing it won’t be him,” she admits in a rushed whisper. She tries to breathe, wills her lungs to fill up as she continues, “But, if it is- If it is him, please know I will not act harshly. I won’t do anything without your approval first.” She can’t quite manage to meet Bertie’s eyes, so she focuses somewhere over his left shoulder, at the sliver of grey sky through peeking through the window behind him. “I remember Granny saying many times that people like us do not have the luxury of having unhappy marriages. But I won’t blame you if you want things to change.”

She closes her eyes as she finishes speaking, breathing deeply through her nose as she wills the wetness behind her eyelids to dissipate. It won’t do to cry, not when they’re surrounded by people, not when Bertie’s the one who deserves her attention and care, not the other way round.

“Darling-” There’s something broken and devastatingly sincere about the way Bertie calls to her, and Edith’s already turning to look before she even realizes. Bertie’s eyes, she thinks, are not unlike what she imagines her own to be: wet and glassy but trying to keep it to themselves. They must look like such a sorry pair to anyone who happens to pay them any attention. “How could you ever think-?”

“It’s not that I think you judgmental or punishing,” Edith hurries to assure him. “But we both know this is not what you signed up for. I already carried enough baggage before all of this, and you took it on all the same. But you didn’t agree to this, and I don’t want you to think you have to pretend. Not with me.”

Bertie's semblance cracks into something determined and fierce. It's the sort of expression Edith does not often see, not on Bertie.

"That's not what I'm worried about," he says, holding onto her hand tighter. "I don't... I couldn’t care less about what sort of 'baggage' you bring." His distaste for Edith's choice of words is quite clear, and Edith feels the heat run from her ears to her cheeks. "I accepted your past and I accepted you, and I meant it." He inhales in a sharp breath, and Edith knows him well enough by now to know he's trying to keep himself from getting carried along with his emotion and raising his voice. "And though I would never condemn you for your mixed emotions regarding Mr. Gregson, I would think it very reprehensible if I felt them too. So, I am choosing to operate on the belief that we will discover that Mr. Gregson is indeed alive, and that all his claims will be found to be true." He pauses, for a moment matching the way Edith's breath got stuck in her throat by Bertie's words. "And in that case, we'll need to know what to do. Are we to approach him if we find him? Would you want to?" He lowers his voice to a bit more than a whisper as he continues. "And if he remains a person of honor, should he be told about Marigold?"

Edith had always planned on telling Marigold the truth at some point. Too many people know already for her to be the one to be left out, and though Edith is yet to figure out the right moment or the correct way, she knows her girl deserves to know—to know who she is, where she comes from. She should have a choice to reclaim her name and her legacy if she so wished. But now... If Michael knew, then all the things he wrote in the letter about Edith owning him nothing would no longer be true. Edith can still remember him, still knows how honorable he is. If he is still himself, then she is sure he would want some kind of proximity, to keep a relationship of sorts, even if he accepted that it wouldn't be an explicitly fatherly one. The truth of Michael's return would become impossible to hide, from herself or everyone else.

"If we tell him-" The words, they’re the first time she's allowing herself to entertain the possibility of Michael being alive. "He'd have to be a part of our lives. There would be no burying it again." There's fear in her voice, a frightened wavering in her words. "And with your mother and your position-"

"No, don't-" Bertie's shoulders slump, and he pats the back of her hand once before letting go. "I can't think of Mother when we already have all of this to contend with. Let's... Let's take one step at a time."

Edith stares at him, looking for answers; she finds none, but nods still. "Then that's what will do. One step at a time." Her mind grasps onto Bertie's words and runs with them, finding some sort of ease. "This trip... This is not so Michael and I can meet. This is just to figure out the truth. Let's- Let's keep our distance and tread slowly."

"And then we can figure it out once we know what we're dealing with," Bertie finishes, picking up the end of her thought in a way that never fails to make her heart soar.

Edith smiles at him—thin and tired, but it's the best she can manage—and reaches for his hand again. They're sitting opposite each other, and he’s too far for her to kiss him; she holds him instead, and hopes he feels it all the same.

They arrive in Kortrijk late, with the night heavy around them and the cold seeping in through the motor’s walls, leaving them freezing. Bertie watches the town pass by through the window, not catching much in the darkness, but enjoying the foreign sights. He’s never travelled much, not even when Peter would try and persuade him to come along, preferring to stay home and continue with his old routine. He hasn’t changed much since Peter died and he and Edith got married, but he tries to enjoy the opportunities for some newness when they come.

It's not a long ride, from the station to the hotel. Bertie pays the driver, thanking him in broken French to spare them both from his nonexistent Dutch, and follows Edith out of the car, where the porter is focused on unloading their luggage.

They’re shown to a pretty bedroom on the second floor, freshly cleaned and with a lingering floral scent. Light and noise come in through the windows on the opposite wall, which shows them a nice view of the busy street below. Not too long after, a maid comes by with a generous tray of soup and cold meats for their dinner. They eat mostly in silence, tired and weary from the journey.

When their bodies finally hit the bed, it doesn’t take long for them to fall asleep.

Chapter Text

The winter in Kortrijk is not too different from the ones Bertie grew up with at Brancaster, but something about it feels more severe. He and Edith bundle up in their coats the next morning, feeling only somewhat rested, and exit the hotel with no certainty of where, exactly, they’re going.

“I have the return address from the letter,” Edith says over breakfast, showing him the open page of her notebook, where she had copied it down. “And the one for his solicitor’s office. But I’m unsure if that is the best place to start when we mean to keep our distance.”

Bertie attempts to find the streets on the map. They’ve unfolded it so much that it now covers three quarters of the small table. “Well, the solicitor’s place is not too far away, I don’t think.” He points the street to her and then circles it out when she hands him her pen.

“I had a look before we came. I think the other one should be a bit further out.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “But I don’t think it matters much. Not while we don’t figure out what to do.”

Her voice is casual, almost nonchalant, but Bertie can see the tension around her brow, the way her face is closed in an expression that Bertie’s learned people usually dismiss as displeasure, but that tends to reveal something much more vulnerable.

They only have two days in Kortrijk—they already had to move enough commitments around to find the time to come, and neither of them would be keen to delay their journey back. It would probably have helped to have come up with a sturdier plan beforehand, something more effective than merely going out looking for Mr. Gregson without wanting to draw attention to the fact that they’re doing so in the first place, but Bertie’s not sure either of them are ready for more. Better to tread carefully and keep their wits about them, then dive headfirst into such a delicate situation.

When they step outside, the quiet peace of the café is quickly drowned out by the noises of the town, busy with its own affairs. Unlike London or Paris, there are not many other people like them—tourists with no real place to go—around. They end up strolling by the riverside, and Bertie indulges her when Edith’s eye gets caught on a pretty shawl on a window, because it’s good to see something other than worry on her face. At lunch time, they find a table at a small, homily-looking restaurant, where they both look out of place despite being in their most practical travel clothes.

It starts drizzling in the afternoon, the rain tiresome and intermittent, but not enough to dissuade them. Edith purposes they walk further out, closer to where they suppose Mr. Gregson is living, and Bertie acquiesces, following her pace, which is, at once, both determined and hesitant.

“This reminds of a place we went once when we were girls,” Edith comments as they walk through the green fields along the Lys, the overgrown grass almost glistening with the rain. “I can’t remember where. Down in Norfolk, I think, but I may be misremembering. But this weather reminds me of that.” Out of the corner of his eyes, Bertie can see a smile stretch on her face, nostalgia glowing in her eyes. “I remember Sybil skimmed her knees on some rocks and it bled a lot. She cried so much that Mama needed to lie down afterwards. Who would’ve known everything she’d grow up to do.” She inhales deeply, almost sniffling. Neither she nor Mary talk about Sybil much, at least not within Bertie’s earshot, but Edith always carries a particular shade of longing when thinking of her.

And then, surprisingly, she adds, “I can see Michael here. He liked the countryside. Before he left, he said he would like to enjoy his time away to write a novel. I can see him doing that here.”

Bertie tries not to let his shock come through, grateful that Edith seems so lost in thoughts and memories. In all their years together, she has rarely talked of Mr. Gregson, and never voluntarily. She never denied Bertie when he asked about him—about their time together, or the one time he wondered aloud if Edith could see anything of Mr. Gregson in Marigold—but she never offered any information herself. Bertie would never be able to guess what went on in her mind, but he respected the privacy she clearly sought to have around the subject, so he never pried much. The revelation, then, this crumb of insight so freely given, feels precious—a fragile thing or a gift, Bertie can’t be sure.

They leave the riverside to make their way closer to the streets, which soon start filling with people finishing their jobs, couples out for an afternoon stroll, groups of kids enjoying their afternoon freedom. Bertie enjoys watching them all, hearing the bits of Dutch that reach his ears. They pass by a small bakery, and his nostrils fill up with the smell of the afternoon batch, fresh and sweet, enticingly so-

And, suddenly, Edith halts.

He looks at her, confused, and steps aside, bringing Edith’s pliant body with him, so that the old lady behind them can continue her course.

“Darling, are you alright?” he asks, trying to make her look at him. She’s gone pale, her skin pasty and sickly, her gaze lost in the far distance.

Bertie follows her gaze to the square on the other side of the street from where they’re standing. Children are running around, full of happy shrieks and laughter, adults lingering nearby, some observing, some chatting. Edith’s gaze is a bit further away, caught on one of the benches, and the moment Bertie sees him—despite having no evidence or photographs to base his conclusions on—Bertie knows exactly who he is looking at.

Michael Gregson. Sitting on a bench in Kortrijk, eyes focused on something on his lap—and very much, undeniably alive.

Until now, Bertie had never been sure about what he expected. Edith had never been too forthcoming with details, and other than the odd remark from Robert about an expression Marigold has or a gesture she makes—comments that he knows were very much not meant for his ears—Bertie had always been left in the dark. Yet, despite having no expectations, he still finds himself surprised: the gentleman he sees appears older than he expected, hair that he can imagine once having been a nice, rich auburn brown, now starkly intersected with greys that twinkle in the mild winter sunlight. He seems gentle, too; careful and considerate in a way most men Bertie has met would never bother being.

The thing he is looking at in his lap, upon further inspection, turns out to be a sketchbook: Michael Gregson’s gaze lingers between it and the park, his right hand moving on the page with fluidity, long arcs intersected with firmer, smaller jerks. He sits with one ankle braced on the opposite knee so he can support his sketchbook, and there’s a sense of peace to him that Bertie did not expect at all.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” he asks at last, forcing his eyes to move from Michael Gregson to Edith, who is still frozen by his side, her hand loose on his arms. Her eyes are glistening, though if from how long she’s spent without blinking, or from unshed tears, Bertie cannot tell.

In a hoarse, emoted voice, she answers, “Yes.”

And to that, Bertie has absolutely no idea what to say.

Until now, all he had was his resolution to bear this storm as well as he could, to follow the evidence and not let himself be one more thing for Edith to worry about. For months, his mind had been entertained with all sorts of concerns: from Edith’s emotional state and what he could do to help her, to his mother and the county, to what Bertie should do with all of it. He had thought about Marigold: about how, if she had a father after all, a real one, and if said father could love her as she deserved, then Bertie owed it to her to let him occupy his due place. Selfishly, he had even thought about what would mean for him and his place in her life. He had thought about his marriage, and what kind of marriage it would be in the aftermath of Michael Gregson. He had thought, and he’d reflected, but in all that time, he never even began to imagine this: the moment when the presence of Michael Gregson would go from a likely possibility to an undeniable reality.

He should’ve been smarter about this, he thinks. Bertie had been so focused on the future that he had forgotten the steps between now and then. He had forgotten to prepare for this, for Edith’s frozen state beside him, for what he would feel like when the truth finally unraveled.

Across the square, Michael Gregson is distracted from his sketch by a young girl walking towards him. She’s slim and tall, likely not older than fourteen or fifteen, dressed in a simple green dress and a heavy grey cardigan, carrying what looks like an ice cream cone in each hand, despite the coldness of the day. Michael Gregson smiles as she approaches, and puts his sketchbook aside, on top of a dark messenger bag Bertie had failed to notice until now. He accepts the cone she hands him with a smile and moves to the side, giving her space to sit. The girl comments something, a teasing smile on her face as she speaks, and Michael Gregson’s smile opens into a laugh, his face going from pleasant to downright handsome—charming where Bertie has always just been awkward.

“I can’t believe-” Edith sounds breathless, like something is pressing down on her chest and making it hard for her to speak. “I don’t think I ever actually believed-” He hears her swallow and turns just in time to see a tear rolling down her cheek, quickly followed by a couple more. She cries quietly, no sounds to it beyond the hitch in her breath. “I never actually believed he was alive.” The hand that had hung limp around Bertie’s arm tightens suddenly, so viciously he can feel the impression of her nails on his skin. “I didn’t let myself believe. I couldn’t-” But she never actually finishes her sentence, jaw closing tightly before she presses her face into the sleeve of Bertie’s jacket, though her eyes stay fixed on where Bertie now knows Michael Gregson sits.

Bertie watches her, at a loss for what he can do, before he can’t avoid it anymore and turns to watch Michael Gregson again. A car passes by, obscuring the sight for a few long seconds, and then Michael Gregson is revealed to them again. He’s now in conversation with the young girl, using a small spoon to eat his ice cream as they talk. There’s a familiarity between them, obvious in the way they lean into each other, in how the girl laughs with a wide smile, toothy and amused. This moment, Bertie realizes, when his and Edith’s world and lives are being turned upside down in a way they will never be able to turn right again, is just another afternoon for Michael Gregson. He sits and talks, perfectly unaware of them standing just a few feet away from him, shocked to their bones under a random store’s canopy. From the letter he sent, Bertie knows that if he became aware of them, his world would come to a halt too; but for now, he’s blissfully ignorant of their presence, and his world carries on just as it has so far.

“Should we…” Bertie wonders aloud, now, too, unable to look away from Michael Gregson and check Edith’s face. “Do you want to go talk to him?” They had said they would keep their distance, that this trip was just so they could have some clarity, but he’s not sure if any of it is still valid now that they’re here, existing in the same space as Michael Gregson.

“I can’t.” There’s something in Edith’s voice that makes the statement more than a figure of speech, as if an actual, tangible force is keeping her by his side, unable to step across the street. “I don’t- I can’t,” she reiterates.

Bertie nods, leaning his head into hers for a second, just so she knows he’s there and that he will follow her lead. “Alright, then.” Hesitantly, not sure if he should, he adds, “Do you want to leave?”

This time, there’s no reply, but Bertie knows her well enough to know the answer all the same. So, he stays put, letting Edith lean into him, trying to keep still and not give into the urge to wipe her tears or tell her everything will be fine—he’s not sure he even believes that himself.

He tries to ignore the passers-by who give them odd or judging looks, focusing instead on what’s happening across the park: the kids playing on the swings, the girls rushing each other in the corner, the nanny who screams at a boy after he pinches his brother. On the bench, Michael Gregson and the girl continue to talk; they finish their ice cream, and the girl takes their napkins to the trash can; when she rejoins him, Michael Gregson lets her take his sketchbook and look through it. Hands free, he looks around at leisure pace, waving at someone on the other side of the square whose sight Bertie fails to catch.

He's unsure for how long they stood there when a small, round woman, dressed in a plain grey frock approaches the duo: Michael Gregson nods at whatever she says, taking the sketchbook back from the girl and putting his things way whilst the woman—the nanny, or perhaps simply a maid—turns back to the park. By the time Michael Gregson rises, slinging his bag over his shoulder, the nanny is back with two children in tow: a small one, younger than Peter, hitched on her hip, and a boy who looks around twelve. Michael Gregson greets the toddler with a light pinch on their cheek and laughs at something that Bertie fails to catch.

As they walk towards the far end of the park, away from where Bertie and Edith stand, the older girl, the one who was talking to Michael Gregson, assumes the lead of the group; the nanny follows behind, looking up when the toddler points out something on the branches above their heads. At last, there’s the boy and Michael Gregson, and only now does Bertie notice the cane in his hand, which he leans on heavily as he walks, limping noticeably as he follows the rest of his group. Bertie wasn’t expecting it, and from the way Edith tenses up beside him, neither was she. A new development, then; something to show that the years have indeed passed, that the man they’ve been watching, no matter how much he might resemble the one Edith remembered, has had the years pass him by as well. In retrospect, perhaps the can isn’t such a surprising development: in his letter, Michael Gregson had indeed recounted how he suffered a severe beating.

They’re long gone by the time Edith straightens up, and Bertie finally allows himself to move and look at her. She’s patting the corner of her eyes dry with her handkerchief, her face no longer as pale, but still just as shattered. The only time Bertie had ever seen her like that had been that fateful morning at the Abbey, when Mary revealed the truth about Marigold just as he and Edith were ready to announce their engagement: she had looked broken then, her expression fractured as if her whole world had just collapsed on her, which Bertie supposes captures whatever she is feeling now accurately enough.

For his part, Bertie does not know how he feels. Until now, he had been all questions and no answers; but now he has just spent over an hour on a random corner in Kortrijk, holding his wife up as they both watched the man she once loved be alive: sketching and laughing, surrounded by people who clearly know and trust him. Whoever that man is, Bertie is having a hard time believing that he might be a bad one.

And that, of all things, is answer enough for him.

Chapter Text

Michael can hear Adam singing on the other side of the wall that separates their adjoining rooms as he unpacks. In other occasions, he’s been known to let his suitcase sit untouched at the bottom of his bed, taking pieces out only as he needed them, but he finds it a welcome distraction today. It’s not a gruesome task: he’d packed light—too light for May, he had feared, though the sweltering heat that greeted them when they reached London earlier suggests he could’ve gotten away with packing lighter still.

“Knock, knock,” Adam says as he steps into his bedroom through the adjourning door. Michael never knew Adam to be one to compromise on comfort, and the hotel he got for them shows exactly that: a lavish entrance, an elevator up to the top floor, generously sized rooms overlooking Kensington Gardens. “I hope you are finding everything to your liking.”

Adam sits down at the feet of the bed without hesitation or invitation. After all their years together—long nights sipping scotch and talking, quiet confessions and revelations, the companionship of travelling around Europe on the hunt of whatever beautiful thing caught Adam’s eye—they’re allowed at least this much intimacy with each other.

“I have no complaints, you know that,” Michael says, finishing hanging his shirts and stepping close to the open windows overlooking the park. The breeze that greets him is not nearly enough to compensate for the heat of the day, but it is nonetheless pleasant. Looking out, Michael can remember one of the things he’d always appreciated about London: how one can be in the middle of one of the busiest streets in Europe one moment and surrounded by a greenery of peace and quiet the next. Over the years, Michael has heard plenty of people remark on the busyness of the city, its incessant noise and overwhelming crowds, but Michael had never been able to relate much.

Looking away, he finds Adam reclining back on his arms, watching him with a curious look. “Does it feel different, being back here at last?”

Adam had crossed the Channel to England a couple of times since Michael came to live with them, but Michael had always chosen not to join him: an irrational decision, perhaps, especially when his doctor kept remarking that being in a familiar place could be beneficial for his memory. Something about it had always put him off, though.

“You know what, I keep expecting it to,” he answers at last, leaning against the window frame. From here, the Gardens are mostly a sea of green trees, but he can still see a couple at the end of the street, a man walking his dog not too far way. These are the scenes, he thinks, that made up the background of his life once upon a time. Yet the familiarity he was expecting to feel—the way one sighs in relief and recognition once they arrive home after a long day—eludes him entirely.

Adam smiles good-naturedly when Michael tells him so. “I told you, you can’t approach this with the eyes of a poet. It’ll break your heart.” There’s only a light hint of teasing as he speaks. Michael can feel a smile stretch on his face.

“I thought a broken heart was the pre-requisite of the poet,” he quips in the same tone.

Adam chuckles. “Touché.” He rises and stretches, and comes to stand before Michael, close enough that he can grab one of his hands. “Are you alright, my friend?”

Michael knows he’s been a fortunate man: born to parents who loved him, with access to enough money to get him on a path where he could make more. Spending his early adulthood surrounded by writers and artists, all of them passionate and reckless in equal measure. Finding love—not once, but twice. Even after taking a beating that should’ve ended him, that left him dying in some dark, nameless corner, he had been fortunate enough to be found, to be taken to people who dedicated themselves to putting him back together.

None of that, though, comes even close to how fortunate he feels for the fact that Adam chose to take him under his wing and gave him friendship when he had nothing to himself, not even his name.

“I am.” Despite it all, he is. To believe otherwise would be mad of him.

“And you’re still determined to keep your distance?”

Michael can feel the corner of his mouth quirking up in a smile. He should’ve known to expect this question. “I told her I wouldn’t bother her, and I intend to honor my word. She has already done more than enough.” He still questions it, if the person he remembers as Edith is the real version of her, if he can expect accuracy from the holed tapestry of his memories. When he first wrote to her, he had decided to assume that he could rely on his mind to remember Edith well enough, and as such, he had not expected her to make it hard, to make the process any more grueling than it needed to be. And in that, at least, he had been right: Edith had not fought the inheritance dispute, had given what he asked for and more; the papers had all been signed in a timely manner, so that Michael could now be presented to court just a few months after the process had been filed. “It’s not fair that I should come and intrude myself on her life after all these years.”

Adam nods. “As a man, I know what you say is right,” he starts, “but as your friend, I don’t find your argument of fairness quite as compelling.”

That, at least, makes Michael laugh. “Yes, I don’t believe you would.”

But Adam is still eyeing him seriously, with a sternness he so rarely shows. “I mean it. There’s nothing fair about this whole affair. I would never blame you if you acted for yourself first.”

Michael nods, covering Adam’s hand with his free one. “I know you wouldn’t, but I would. Edith deserves to live happy and free more than I deserve…” He pauses, unsure of how exactly he’d like to finish the sentence. He’d like to say that all he’s looking for is closure, but he’s never been a good liar, particularly not to himself. “It wouldn’t be right,” he settles on at last.

“If my knowledge of the human condition is worth anything, I do believe an encounter could prove beneficial to more people than you, but I won’t do you the disfavor of arguing about this,” Adam says, stepping back at last. “Now, shall we go get dressed before we miss our dinner reservations?”

As they prepared for the trip, Adam had pestered him endlessly about what sort of places Michael remembered visiting in his prior life, until Michael had declared defeat and accepted his idea of an evening at the Ritz.

“Very well.” He moves to where he left his black tie out as he unpacked, but there’s an inkling in the back of his mind he can’t quite ignore. “Before we do, though, I just want to say… I’m well aware that none of this would have happened without you.” He turns to Adam as he speaks and talks with as much candor as he can muster. “We both know I wouldn’t be more than a beggar if it hadn’t been for your kindness all those years ago, and I don’t take it lightly that you still extend it to me now. I’ll never be able to repay you for all you’ve done, but I do hope you know that none of it goes unappreciated.”

Adam smiles, the big one that makes wrinkles at the corner of his eyes more pronounced, and steps forward to plant a kiss on Michael’s temple. “That might all be true, but luckily for you, I don’t view friendships as a business deal.” He keeps an arm on Michael’s shoulders as he speaks, his touch warm and reassuring. “It’s about… trust and companionship, about having people to lean on. About not going through this life alone, I suppose.” His smile softens but is made no less sincere for it. “And in that department, my friend, I believe you have given me quite as much as I have given you.”

Even with all of Michael’s preparation, the court session ends up not meeting his expectations: the session itself is shorter than he expected, but the room is packed with more people than he had envisioned. Adam had warned him that it would happen, that a case like his was bound to attract some attention and gossip, even without accounting for the fact that Michael’s name would be a well-known one in London. Once the judge leaves, Michael spends longer than he had been ready for shaking hands with people who want to welcome him back, accepting their well-wishes, being as nice as he can even to the ones he knows are only there out of self-interest, rather than true sympathy.

He feels depleted when he and Adam finally step out of the courthouse: the session started early in the afternoon, but the sun is considerably lower in the sky now. At least, the humidity and heat of the past couple of days has waned somewhat, and an almost pleasant breeze greets them as they step out onto the sidewalk.

“I’ll be honest: even when I warned you to expect a big crowd, I did not imagine something quite this size. Your surprise me, my friend,” Adam remarks after a few minutes in silently walking.

Michael hums, too tired for words, wondering if it would be too rude to skip their celebratory dinner plans and simply have a quiet evening in his room. The thought is enough to make him grimace: once upon a time, he had been the kind to work all day and still find energy for some big dinner with friends and acquaintances, where the conversation would flow until the early hours of the morning. Moments like this make him realize how far from that person he is.

“It surprised me too,” he answers at last, sounding old and tired.

Adam hums and doesn’t insist, picking up on Michael’s mood and letting the topic go just as easily as he picked it up.

They keep walking, and Michael tries not to feel too embarrassed by their slow pace, by how the world seems to be operating at a speed too fast for Michael to catch up. Despite Adam’s teasing remarks, he had not been the kind of fool to expect that the grave voice of a judge would signify a fundamental change in him, that his perception would gain a new color. But being in London might just do it for him: its fast pace, the dense mass of people on the sidewalks, the peculiar sense that he is walking along roads that he should know but can’t recall; or perhaps it’s the other way around, it’s how everything is familiar except him.

“Would you mind too much if I cancelled our plans tonight?” He would probably be able to push through, if he were to try. He spent most of the day sitting, and he knows that a rich drink over a richer conversation never fails to uplift his spirits. But for today, at least, he thinks he’d like to dwell in some self-commiseration, lick his wounds and try to come back refreshed the next morning.

“I do mind, but just this time, I’ll allow it,” Adam says, his good-naturedly tone lessening the sting of his words. “You go rest and set your head straight, and we’ll celebrate tomorrow.”

Michael looks at him and smiles. “Thank you.” He knows his face shows how tired he is, but the smile, at least, is sincere.

“By the way,” Adam remarks as they approach the hotel, “I think you would like to know that your beloved and her husband were in the audience today.”

Michael doesn’t miss his next step, but it’s a near thing, and he needs to lean more heavily on his cane to keep walking straight. “Were they?” he asks, trying not to sound too eager. For once, he can’t even bother with reprimanding Adam for calling Edith ‘his’ anything.

Adam hums. “They stepped in just before it started, and they were among the first to leave. But they were there.” When Michael turns to him, it’s to find Adam’s calculating look, the one he has when he thinks he knows better than everyone else. “Do with this what you will, but I thought you should know.”

The day after his court appointment, Michael is greeted with grey and gloomy skies, the threat of rain heavy in the air, almost close enough to touch. He tries not to pay it too much mind, tries not to dwell on the way the excess humidity makes his body ache, and readies himself for the day. He and Adam only have a couple more days in town, and he knows Adam will be keen to enjoy them—once he’s up, that is.

He leaves Adam a note saying he’s gone for a walk. If he’s lucky, and if his skills at evaluating London weather still hold, he should have a couple hours until the rain starts, so he crosses the street and starts making his way down to the entrance of Hyde Park. A nice walk through the Park, maybe along the Serpentine and up to Kensington Gardens, feels like a good way to start the day—his first as Michael Gregson properly. He remembers enjoying mornings like this once upon a time, stopping at intervals for a quick sketch or, if the muses were on his side and gave him a sudden bout of inspiration, for some writing.

As he enters the Park, it’s easy to let his mind go. Here, walking down the well-trodden paths, he doesn’t need to think much. For the first time since he arrived in England, the prickling of something familiar runs through the back of his mind, a light shiver making the back of his neck break out in goosebumps. He wouldn’t be able to put his finger on it he tried, but something in his body knows: he’s been here before. It makes him stop for a moment, close his eyes, breathe it in. Adam accuses him of being sentimental and he’s right, but Michael believes there are moments that deserve it—and this is certainly one of them.

He walks past fellow morning wanderers, past a few dog-walkers, past a person sleeping on a bench and, not too far down, two young men laid out on a blanket on a strip of sunlight, studying. There are a few children around, their shrieks sometimes loud enough to reach his ears.

As he walks west towards Kensington, there is an opening in the clouds, and the sunlight that greets him is pleasantly warm, akin to a gentle hello. As he sees a few benches coming up, the Peter Pan statue hanging not too far in the distance, he decides he might as well rest for a bit—his knee is starting to protest, and he wouldn’t mind a bit in the sun.

He has a look around as he places his bag down, noticing the three children playing not too far in the distance, one of whom is trying to jump rope just a bit too vehemently; a nanny and a man stand watching them not too far away. Something in his mind tingles again, and he can feel his arms breaking into goosebumps, the way it tends to do when he’s trying to remember something. He frowns and rises, trying to get a better look, and as the man turns more fully to answer a question from the older child, realization dawns.

Unlike the other times, the tingling wasn’t a lost memory from a past life returning; it was a warning, the evidence of the life he lost laid plain.

Michael takes a deep breath, willing himself to keep his wits about him. He shifts his weight, recalling his need to rest, letting the stab of pain remind him that he swore he would let it be: he wouldn’t interfere, he wouldn’t intrude where he wasn’t invited.

The arguments sound logical in his head, all the reasons why he should just keep on minding his own business perfectly clear; and yet, he puts his bag back on his shoulder and walks forward, stepping from the stone path and onto the grass as gracefully as he can.

He’s allowed something reckless, he wagers. Something stupid. Something he will regret, instead of living with the regrets of the person he once was.

“Mr. Pelham! Mr. Pelham,” he calls as he approaches him, and then he remembers himself and corrects, “Your Lordship.” By the time he’s finishing the sentence, Pelham—Edith’s husband, he forces himself to acknowledge—has already turned towards him. His expression, at first of puzzled curiosity, opens to something approaching surprise, though his furrowed eyebrow tells Michael he’s still mostly confused.

Michael can’t blame him. He’s not sure of much either.

Up close, Pelham seems more… unremarkable, than Michael would’ve guessed. The only other times he had seen him had been in some magazine spread or another, which was usually more focused on Edith’s fashion than her husband, though Pelham was often lingering next to her, dressed just as impeccably, diligently playing his part. In the flesh, though, Michael is less sure of his previous assessment: Pelham is dressed in a mid-range suit, his shoulders slightly slumped in a way that tells Michael he didn’t grow up with a nanny or tutor correcting his posture at every turn. There’s nothing remarkable about his features, other than perhaps a lingering sweetness about their overall configuration.

“Your Lordship,” he addresses again, finally coming to a standstill at a respectful distance from Pelham. He leans more heavily on his cane, trying to ease his leg from the strain his fast approach put on it. “I’m Michael Gregson.” He’s not sure where he means the conversation to go, but he’s here now and he should say something. “I apologize for the mistaken address. I forget myself, sometimes,” he tries for a sympathetic, conspiratory smile, and hopes his expression lands somewhere close to it.

“I- Well-” Michael can’t fault him for his bewilderment. He waits patiently as Pelham clears his throat and tries again. “I- Of course I know who you are,” just as he finishes speaking, a light flush of embarrassment covers his cheeks. “I mean, I know of you. After… you know.” He shakes his head, as if willing himself into focus. “I- It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gregson,” he settles on at last, extending a hand for Michael to shake.

Michael resists the urge to wipe his own palm on his trousers before he takes it, hoping his hand isn’t too clammy on Pelham’s own.

“You too,” he says, not sure if pleasure would be the right word, but knowing that he’s certainly somewhere near it. Curious, perhaps; or maybe tempted, the possibility of being at least this close to Edith irresistible once presented. “I- I didn’t mean to catch you by surprise.” It’s an honest enough statement, he figures. Or maybe it’s the other way round, and they’re both surprised that Michael is there, that they are meeting. “My friend Adam told me you were at the courthouse yesterday. I didn’t get to thank you then, so please allow me to extend my gratitude now, Your Lordship.”

Pelham looks at him and frowns, a hint of displeasure catching in the corner of his mouth. “No, no, please- please call me Bertie.” There’s seriousness in his eyes as he says it; there’s something there, something heartfelt hidden in the words, even though Michael would be hard-pressed to understand it.

“Bertie, then,” he accepts easily, playing along. “Still, my gratitude is just as sincere. For your presence yesterday, and for all your cooperation before then. Please extend my gratitude to Edith.” He forces himself to say it, to say her name, to let his tongue curl around the syllables. He reminds himself that they’re nothing new—God knows he and Adam and Mila have talked about Edith at length, that his companions have listened to him with the patience of a priest—but something feels different about saying it to Pelham. Still, he does it. He’s not one for euphemisms, has never been, and if there’s one way in which age has hardened him, it’s that one. He has less patience now—less aptitude, too—for pretense.

Pelham opens his mouth slightly and then closes it, trading whatever words he had for a nod. “I will.”

Michael smiles and looks out into the grass expanding beyond them, at the children playing just a few feet away: the Nanny carries an older toddler on her hip, who is chattering away whilst carefully watching the world around them with the kind of wide-open eyes only children have; next to them, sitting down on the grass, two girls now play with dolls and sticks. From this distance, Michael can’t hear the words exactly, but he can hear their voices rising and falling as they move the figures, playing out some kind of story to themselves.

“Are they yours?” He takes care to keep his tone impersonal and curious; to not let Pelham notice the way he’s trying to do the math in his head. One of the girls seems definitely too old, so she may be Edith’s sister’s, but the others could potentially fit.

Pelham smiles, his should relaxing with the motion, the kind of fondness seeping to his face that loving parents always have. “Peter is,” he says, pointing to the toddler. “He turned three a few months ago. That’s Caroline, Mary’s youngest- Edith’s sister, I mean, I don’t know if you recall…”

“I do,” Michael confirms, smiling and trying to let his own posture relax. He can’t know if being with him is as much of an effort for Pelham as Michael is finding it, but if there’s a moment for pretense, it’s this one. There are questions on the tip of his tongue, and the strident need to get down on his knees and beg, to let himself scream out in rage at all that he’s lost, all that he’s missed. These sensations tend to lie more dormant nowadays, but he supposes that being in London—and being here, in this moment in particular—would bring them back to the surface. But Michael knows these things are not for Pelham’s ears, knows for sure that he doesn’t deserve them. So, he plays along. Clearly, Pelham is trying. And Michael brought this on to himself—the least he can do is meet him halfway.

“Yes, of course.” Pelham nods again, very quickly. There’s a kind of nervous current that seems to be running under his skin, keeping him on edge even though he does not appear as startled as before. “Of course you do. Anyway, that’s Marigold,” he finishes, pointing to the older girl, who seems to sense the attention being on her and looks up, smiling widely at Pelham before catching sight of Michael and her expression closing off to something more timid. “She’s…” Michael looks at him, puzzled, when Pelham takes too long to finish his thought. “She’s our ward,” he finishes at last, and his shoulders are no longer relaxed, his eyes moving between Michael and the girl with the rapidness of a trapped animal. “That is, the Crawley’s adopted her a year or so before Edith and I met. She and Edith grew very attached, so we took her in when we got married.”

Michael looks at the girl, Marigold, who’s gone back to playing with her cousin, and feels something of a smile crack on his face. He now knows what it is like to be lost—truly adrift, only keeping from drowning by sheer luck—and he knows how it is to be found. Nowadays, he always feels a thread of kinship when he finds others who have been in a similar situation. Hopefully, though, Marigold won’t grow up to remember it; with a bit of luck, all her memories shall be happy ones. “That’s kind of you,” he remarks sincerely.

Pelham shrugs, as if embarrassed. “I’m the lucky one, truly,” he says, not a hint of pretense on him. “Besides, I don’t know if I would call it kind. It was just… right. To have done otherwise would have been the unkind thing, really, but I don’t know if that makes me worthy of the compliment.”

Michael eyes him, puzzled. Pelham makes no sense: he’s met anxious and fidgety Lords in the past, sure, but not like this. There’s something else to Pelham, a kind of sincere modesty that is not meant for people like him, and it’s only as Michael watches the way Pelham sways distractedly on his feet while he watches the children play, that he remembers that Pelham should never have been here at all. Pelham’s inheritance of the Hexham title had been the sort of bewildering news that had reached as far away as Kortrijk, even before Michael started paying attention to any of them.

Pelham’s the one playing pretend, he realizes—or not playing it, at least not right now. From what he’s seen in the past, Pelham knows how to play his role when he needs to and does it fairly competently. But he’s not acting right now. Right now, he’s just- Bertie.

“Well, anyway, I don’t mean to take much of your time,” Michael says, the urge to leave suddenly overwhelming. He should have never approached Bertie, and the least he can do now is to let the meeting come to an end without a fuss. “I saw you as I was passing by and I couldn’t resist extending my gratitude in person, but please rest assured I have no intention of intruding on your life from here on out.” Send Edith my love, he wants to say, but he’s not a cruel man. Not to others, at least—he’s learned how to live well enough with words tearing at him from the inside.

“That’s quite alright,” Bertie says, shaking his head. “After everything you’ve gone through, the least we could do is smooth the way. I’m sure I speak for both of us when I say you have nothing to thanks us for.”

It’s kind of him to say it, Michael muses; with every second gone by, Michael’s awareness that Bertie might just simply be a kind person grows stronger. “I thank you nonetheless,” he says. “And I bid you goodbye now.”

He tips his hat and doesn’t wait for Bertie’s startled look to fade before turning around and walking away, his cane tripping him slightly every time it gets stuck too deeply in the dirt. He gets on, though; wobbling all the way, but at least he’s got somewhere to be.

Northumberland, 17^th July 1931

Dear Michael,

I’ve attempted writing this letter many times now. There are many parts of this which I am struggling with—the fact that I even get to write to you at all surely among them—but I think that the thing that makes me struggle the most is that… I can’t find the right place to start. I don’t know what the right thing to say is.

The memory of you has faded over time—not for lack of attachment, but simply in the way memories are so cruelly prone to—but I can still see you, encouraging me to simply begin. You were always so fervent in your praise, as in your encouragement. After a lifetime of thinking I was falling behind, it was easy to hold my head high when I was with you. And perhaps because of that, because of all the ways in which you taught me to be proud and brave, the first thing that comes to mind when I start writing to you is… I’m sorry. It’s not an elegant way to start a letter, but I keep stumbling on it, and I think it needs to be said. With you, this is the place I start from.

I’m sorry. For many, many things, but for now, I’ll start by apologizing simply for making you wait so long for a reply. At first, it was doubt and perplexity that held me back. But even once I concluded it truly was you, I still kept my distance. I didn’t know what to say or what to think, and I let that get in the way of doing the right thing.

Bertie told me about your encounter the morning after your court appearance. Is it wrong of me, if I admit that I’m somewhat jealous that he was the one you crossed paths with, instead of me? I know I have no one else to blame but myself—that day at the courthouse, I was the one who decided to leave, I was the one who wasn’t sure if I could face you—but I still feel the bitterness rise in my chest.

I hesitate to continue… I wonder if I should stop here and write to you anew, give you something unplagued by all my doubts and asides… But I’ve never felt fully seen until I met you, and selfishly, a part of me aches to know if you can still hold all of me. If this is too much and you will turn away before you get to the end, or if you will stay. I’ll keep writing, just on the off chance that you will.

From what I’ve gathered, you’ve gone back to Kortrijk. It seems like you’ve built a nice life there, that you are with people who love you. I’m so glad—glad that you were not alone all these years, at least not entirely.

Still, I’ve been wondering if you have any plans of coming back to London at some point, now that you are entirely free to do so. I know, of course, that you are not planning to take back your place at the magazine, but perhaps you’d like to see how things are; I’m sure me both me and our editor, Mrs. Haynes, would be happy to receive you. Nonetheless, and regardless of the business, I would so enjoy meeting up if you ever find yourself on this side of the channel again. I think that’s what I wanted to say the most in this letter: if you are ever close by, do let me know. I’d gladly travel down to meet you wherever you are.

And if you ever find yourself wandering up North, please know Bertie and I would be happy to host you—along with any of your companions. Please consider this an open-ended invitation, should you ever want it.

For now, I say goodbye, and I hope keenly that you will find it in yourself to write back to me again.

Yours,

Edith Pelham

Chapter Text

Thursday, 30^th July 1931

Dearest Edith,

I must be quick today, as we’re about to leave for the South for a few weeks, but your letter came in this morning’s post, and I wanted to be sure to answer it before I left. Please do not take my brevity as any kind of unpleasantness, especially because do I so treasure hearing from you.

To be short: Adam and Mila have been discussing going for a little escapade in London in the Fall, possibly late in October. I have yet to decide if I’d like to accompany them, but I’d be very keen to do so if it would mean seeing you. They’re planning on spending one week or so in London and then possibly doing a small tour of the South, before crossing the Channel back home. I don’t think I’d accompany them for all that time, but I would be happy to go with them for the first leg, nonetheless.

I’ll write to you more once I’m back. I’m sure we’ll have a more settled idea of our plans by then, too, so we could arrange something, if you continue to wish to do so.

I must go now, but before I do, let me reiterate how much it meant to me to hear from you.

I’ll write more soon.

Yours faithfully,

M.G.

Late September at the Abbey is always a particularly lovely time, with the Fall’s crispness already hanging in the air, but the weather still warm and pleasant. Every year, they around that time for George’s birthday—and, if their schedules didn’t align earlier, a belated celebration of Sybbie’s as well—and Edith always has a lovely stay.

Or she does normally. Right now, Mary is staring daggers at her from behind her glass, making enjoyment a bit more of fantasy than a present reality. “So, you’re going? You’re really meeting up with him?” Edith meets her eyes and stares back, waiting for Mary to be done with whatever it is she wants to say. “Do you think that’s wise?” she finally asks, and the only reason why Edith doesn’t take her words to her heart is the tone she says them in, like her cautiousness is genuinely heartfelt.

“We do,” Edith says simply, making sure to include Bertie in her response. Perhaps the fact that she feels such a need in the first place should be a sign to think everything through more carefully, but Edith prefers to reason that if both her and Bertie think it right, then it must be right. Bertie is one of the most correct people Edith knows, righteous almost to a fault. She trusts that. “We figured that things have changed now. Especially for-” Her throat closes up before she can speak her name, but her eyes give her away: Marigold is still playing across the garden, where the makeshift football field had been set up. She looks happy. “The least we can do is find out what kind of man he is now. It’s our duty to do so.”

The words are originally Bertie, not hers, but she’s said them so many times now—in her head, mostly, or sometimes written down in her journal—that she’s made them hers. She had not expected it, the fervor with which Bertie had argued for Michael’s right to be a part of… She’s not sure exactly what, yet. All she knows is that Bertie came back from Kortrijk with a renewed fervor, acting as Michael’s loyal advocate even though he’s the last person anyone would expect anything from—Edith among them. It seems like something he saw in Kortrijk had seemingly changed him, something that continues to escape Edith her entirely—then again, in that moment, in that stretch of time in which they stood under the canopy watching Michael, Edith’s world was reduced to the precise coordinates of where he sat, everything else lost and far away. A bus could have hit her, and she would have been none the wiser. She wonders if she should feel guilty that she was so focused on Michael at that moment that she missed whatever Bertie was feeling entirely, but she simply can’t find it in herself to be. Michael was there. Even now, she has trouble seeing beyond that.

Mary’s expression is still mostly a doubtful one, so Edith takes a sip of her cocktail, the tangy flavor lingering on her tongue, and pretends to look around at the rest of the party.

“Well, given that Mr. Gregson was always an honorable enough man- What? Even I always said so,” she defends, when Edith stares at her again, unable to hide the bewilderment from her face. “Point is, I don’t expect him to have changed much. And if that is the case, then your plan is to…” She gives Edith a played upon look of confusion, which Edith is having none of. “Play happy family?” she wonders at last, her sneering tone giving her feelings away. “Even if we forget all the ways in which this is bound to go wrong, need I remind you of Mrs. Pelham?”

“We haven’t figured out all the details yet.” Edith sniffs, feeling awfully young and foolish. Time hasn’t taken away Mary’s ability to get under her skin, even though they both have learned how to manage it a lot better; it strikes her every time, the way a well-built sentence can make her feel like her walls are crumbling down like fine sand. “Honestly, we’re only going to have-”

She stops herself when she notices Tom approaching them: he’s carrying his jacket folded on his shoulder, his sleeves still up, hair windswept from the ball game. Mary catches her look and they both step aside, making space so Tom can step in between them seamlessly.

Instantly, Edith can feel her shoulders relaxing: just this much space—and the solid, compromising barrier of Tom between them—is enough to make her head clearer.

“You weren’t about to have a row, were you?” he asks, eyeing them knowingly.

“Of course not,” Mary says immediately, picking at a blade of grass on Tom’s shoulder. “We’re reformed now, don’t you remember?”

“I do, but I also know you,” he says easily.

“Well, I feel like a barely know you these days.” Mary’s words are somewhat petulant; it’s a tone Edith knows well.

Still, the change of subject is a welcome one, so Edith decides to embrace it wholeheartedly. “Yes, how come we can only manage to meet up for a quick dinner every other month? Surely our schedules must line up more often than that.”

“I think it will be easier now that Matthew is a little older and we can travel more easily,” Tom wagers, not rising to their bait. Edith looks at the picnic blanket laid out a few feet away from them, where Bertie, now joined by Mama, has been entertaining Peter and little Matthew whilst the older kids play among themselves. “And I know Lucy wouldn’t mind a weekend away, so we could even try and arrange something up North.”

“Don’t keep it to yourself if you do,” Mary comments. “Though we’re still to see what Edith’s schedule will be like now that Mr. Gregson is around.”

So far—and to the great surprise of everyone involved, she imagines—Edith has found Mary to be her big—if only—confidant in this whole affair. Time and again, both she and Bertie turned to Mary for help or advice. And Mary had taken it in stride, calling Murray for help, offering the Abbey whenever they needed a neutral place to meet, and keeping her thoughts mostly to herself the whole time. She had even come down to London for the court appointment, bringing Caroline along for a few days in the big city; and though, in the end, Edith preferred to face the fire with only Bertie by her side, it had been nice to have her there—the kind of feeling Edith had long ago conformed herself with knowing she would never get from her sister. How sweet it had been, to be proven wrong.

Still, once Edith had returned from her impromptu visit to Kortrijk and they all decided to stop denying what was staring at them right in the face, they all quickly agreed that there was no reason to keep Tom in the dark. Mary had been the one to tell him and, given their busy schedules, Edith is yet to truly sit down and talk it through with him. She wonders what he makes of all of it, being mostly fed information by Mary of all people.

“Don’t be unkind,” Tom reproaches, even as he turns towards her with a quizzical frown. “What does she mean?”

Edith sighs, looking out into the sunset as she answers. “Bertie and I decided it is best if we take the lead on this whole… situation. So, we sent Michael a letter inviting him out if he happened to be in London again.” She doesn’t dare to turn to look at him. “Turns out, that couple that took him in, the Laertes, are coming over for a couple weeks, so Michael decided to join them. We’re going to meet him in London at the end of next month.”

Tom hums; Edith can imagine the face that accompanies that sound, that thoughtful frown of his, caring and sincere.

“Do you feel ready for that?” His considerate tone is almost enough to disarm her, to make her shake her head, hang it in shame and admit that she has no idea of what she’s doing.

“What other option do we have?” she asks instead, meeting his eyes and trying not to flinch.

In another life, things would be different. Edith can’t help how she wonders about it, sometimes, as she falls asleep: though she would never wish to be separated from Marigold, sometimes, in the darkness, her inhibitions lowered as she lets sleep lull her, she thinks about how things would be if her pregnancy had never happened. Edith would still get the magazine, and she’d still meet Bertie, and their courtship would be so much easier, so much sweeter. And then Michael’s letter would still come, and Edith would have to decide how to cope with it without getting to hide behind the excuse of the daughter they share. It’s been nearly a year since the fateful morning that letter arrived, and Edith still can’t decide if their responsibility for Marigold is more of blessing or a burden.

Tom nods, swaying in place, his eyes losing themselves in the landscape. “I suppose- I wouldn’t be able to give it up either,” he says, his tone low and private, as if he’s confessing something precious. Upon her confused look, he explains, “Letting go of seeing Sybil again. It wouldn’t matter how it was that she was coming back, or how much she might have changed. I would still choose to have that.”

Tom loves Lucy. He loves her in that full-bodied, sincere, complete way Edith knows well enough from loving Bertie, and she knows him to be happy with his life. Yet, his words remain, and there’s a sacred honesty in them, in his longing for his lost love, so violently cut short.

“I don’t think there’s any use in pondering over fantasies like that,” Mary says, though something in her voice undermines the harshness of her words. “But... I suppose I wouldn’t, either. Not if it were Matthew.” She turns her sharp gaze to Edith, one eyebrow rising elegantly as she asks, “Is he your Sybil? Your- Matthew?”

They all let their gazes fall into the distance as they ponder, and Mary’s words rattle inside her head, begging for an answer.

Edith is happy with Bertie, and being by his side has given her the happiest years of her life. Their romance wasn’t a whirlwind one like Mary and Henry’s, burning too brightly too quickly, leaving a sad trail of destruction in its wake; Edith doesn’t long for Michael in the way she knows Mary to still long for Matthew, and hasn’t done so for many years. Her life has moved on, found a new pace, in a way she’s not quite sure her sister’s will ever do. Thus, if anything, she supposes, her and Michael’s love would be something like Tom and Sybil’s: intense, passionate and romantic, the kind to defy convention and beg for freedom. And she had been ready, just like her sister before her, to leave it all behind: to move to a new country, adopt a new homeland, all just so she could be with the man she loved.

Except- Unlike Sybil’s, her new life never even got to start. All too suddenly, her love was gone, and then he was dead. In his wake, all Edith was left with were the ‘what if’s: questions and fantasies piling up on each other whilst their daughter came alive in her belly, until she was pilled under all of it, barely able to breathe. It had taken years to bring that wall down, to let the sunlight in and move on, accepting that unknowns were all that she was ever going to get.

That, and Marigold. Her daughter- their daughter, hers and Michael’s, whom Edith had birthed through tears of pain, who she had nursed and nurtured, from whom she was parted from; but Marigold, at least, Edith managed to get back. So much pain still lies in those first years of Marigold’s life, the kind that makes it hard to look back and reminisce in peace, but Edith knows that, from then on, Marigold has taken on life with fervor: smart and perceptive, strong and courageous, and ever so present, able to make herself known even when using few words, never letting anyone forget her or make her fade into the background.

Edith feels her eyes find her without even having to choose to do so, intrinsically drawn to where she is now sitting down on the grass by herself, face up to watch the birds, her feet moving back and forth. Edith looks at her and automatically takes in all the little details she already knows: it’s easy to see herself in Marigold’s curls, in the little frown of distaste she gets when Peter is annoying her, in her proclivity to prefer her own company to others’ as she goes about her daily life. It’s easy to see others too: to see Mama in the way Marigold grips a pen, to see Papa in her expression of surprise; to hear her chortling laugh and see Sybil and the joyous, carefree laughter she used to have when she was Marigold’s age. And as she lets herself look, as Marigold’s face breaks into a wide smile as a small bird flies close by, she sees Michael. She sees him in the way it was always so easy to do when Marigold was a baby, but that Edith had willed herself to lose; she sees him in the brown of her hair, in the curve of her smile and the dots in her ‘I’s, in the mischievous twinkle in her eyes. They’ve never crossed paths, never even got the chance to meet, and yet he lingers, plain and obvious for anyone to see.

Edith wills herself to find her voice, even if only to admit, “I don’t know what he is.” It’s as honest an answer as she has, and she forces it out, through the thickness in her throat and the weight in her chest. Ever since Michael’s letter, her life had been a turmoil of emotions: fury and fear, anger and confusion, and so, so much doubt. Through it, Edith had focused on the easy part, on getting answers and achieving some sort of clarity. She had focused on Marigold, on what it would mean for her. There were only two moments—those in which Michael was in front of her, almost close enough to touch—during which Edith had allowed herself to be selfish, to wallow in what it would mean for her, to feel the shards of her broken heart piercing in her chest and not hurry them away. All those unknowns, those castles of fantasies, calling to her from across time and converging into where Michael suddenly stood, miraculously alive despite it all. “The thing is-” she continues, “I do want to find out.”

Edith struggles to recall the last time she wavered so much about what to wear for a dinner out. It’s a struggle that had begun much earlier—as she packed for London the night before, actually. At that time, Edith had resolved her query by simply taking too many dresses with her, ignoring the fact that all that would result in is her being confronted by this precise choice again later.

Compared to tonight, even her wedding dress appointment was easy: at the time, the seamstress had been ready for her with dozens of embroidery patterns on hand, sketches of silhouettes for her to check, some cuttings from recent magazines taped to the wall for inspiration. Edith had been led to a choice more than forced to make one, and it had all been for the better, for she could not have been happier with her wedding dress. Now, though… She eyes her closet with distrust, every dress seeming either too simple or too grand, and she’s keen on not looking either tonight: she wouldn’t want to disrespect Michael and his friends by not making the effort to look pleasant and appropriate, but similarly, this is not the evening to show off—something she had grown increasingly used to, as looking the part is as much a facet of her current role as playing it.

She stands for too long in her underclothes, her skin growing cold, until she at last shrugs and reaches for the orange dress, the one with swirl patterns in deep, navy blue. It’s an old one: the last time she recalls wearing it, she’s pretty sure it was with Michael. If Edith allows herself a moment of candor, she can acknowledge that that’s why she’s reaching for it: hoping that maybe that sparkle of familiarity will play in her favor, will make Michael look at her and see someone he used to know—maybe Edith will feel like the girl she once was, too.

She had not envisioned wearing it again for an occasion such as this when she sent it along one of her latest batches of old dresses to get refitted or repurposed—give it a bit more silhouette now that the 1920s are well and truly behind them; widen the waist to fit her hips, made larger after two pregnancies; adjust them hem and the neckline to make it stylish in the new era. The end product is one she enjoys seeing in the mirror, the fabric and feel of the dress familiar even after so long. She looks at her reflection and wonders what she would pair it with, back then: a beaded orange necklace to match, perhaps one of the hairbands she enjoyed wearing at the time. Instead, she pairs it with a shorter necklace her mother had gifted her after her wedding and a discreet pair of earrings; she changes the hair band for a large, flower-like pin that sits nicely on top of her curls. When she’s done, she’s not sure if she looks like herself yet. But time is running out, and she supposes she looks nice enough, so it’ll have to do.

Chapter Text

From Bertie’s understanding of London geography, it wouldn’t have taken them more than twenty minutes to walk from the flat to the bar, but Edith insists on them taking a cab anyway. The driver hums something under his breath that gets lost in the general cacophony of London as he drives; he and Edith sit side by side in the backseat, their hands loosely tangled between them.

“You look lovely,” he comments, watching her in profile as she watches the city pass.

Edith’s face is stretching onto a smile before she even turns to him. “Thank you.” She reaches out with her free hand, and swats firmly at a bit of dust on the shoulder of his jacket. “You look nice as well.” She leans in for a kiss—brief and superficial, not enough to smudge her lipstick or make the driver look twice at them—and settles into her seat, her eyes once again lost on the streets outside.

Bertie tries to keep still, to not let himself grow fidgety like he’s always been prone to. Age has made dwindling his bad habits easier, but in moments like this, when he feels so completely out of his depth and doesn’t want to lean too hard on his companions, it gets away from him. He curls his free hand on a fist in his lap and busies himself with observing the unevenly shaved back of the driver’s neck, the way Edith’s curls curve into her updo, the buildings passing by outside.

When the car comes to a standstill just a few paces away from the headquarters of the magazine, he can hear Edith taking a deep breath and sighing whilst Bertie pays the driver and exits the motor. He offers her a hand, and Edith turns her hold into a proper one once they’re both standing on the street, her skin warm even through the layer of her glove.

“This is it,” she says, forcing her shoulders down, her gaze sharpening into one of determination. She smiles, nervous but trying to pretend not to be, and Bertie matches it. “Come on, then. Audrey told me it’s a bit down the street.”

It’s a surprisingly busy night, even for London: there’s plenty of couples out and about, as well as a few groups of young people; the square down the street appears bright and lively. Edith stops by a door just a few steps from the square, checking its sign carefully before she pushes it open, which Bertie immediately makes sure to get so she can enter the bar properly.

Inside, the atmosphere is vibrant, warm yellow lights hanging from the walls and the ceilings, the hum of chatter and glass muffled by the sweet jazz playing on the gramophone.

“Good evening, sir, ma’am. May I take your coats?” It’s not often that Bertie goes places these days that call him “sir” instead of “my lord”, his visits always announced in advanced. That alone—and the anonymity it implies—is enough to loosen something in him.

“We’re meeting with some friends.” Bertie informs the waiter as he takes Edith’s coat along with his.

“Of course. Please, feel free.” He extends his hand in permission, and Bertie nods at him before following Edith, who is taking measure of the room with a sharp glance.

“Oh, this is nice. I can see why Audrey likes it.” There’s a sly smile coloring her knowing tone.

Bertie takes in the room, the deep reds and oranges decorating the walls, the scattering of tables around them. The place is filled up nicely given the time: not too crowded, but clearly popular. Beyond the sitting area, a darkened dance floor looms, a handful of round tables finishing the room off. All in all, it feels like an indulgent room, the kind where one can let time disappear and simply enjoy themself if they let it.

Edith smiles at him over her shoulder and Bertie steps forward so that he can take her hand. He could kiss her now—not quick and dry like in the taxi, but properly, the promise at the start of an evening of indulgence—but that’s not what they’re here for, and the knowledge of that keeps him in place, his spine standing straight and at attention.

He gives himself a couple of seconds, lets the moment die down before he looks away, frowning into the room. “Do you think we’re the first to arrive?”

He feels Edith look around and knows she has found them by the way she stiffens next to him. Bertie tracks her gaze to a six-person table towards the corner of the room. He can barely see Michael with the way the broad shoulders of Adam Laertes obscure him from sight. Edith doesn’t speak or look at him before stepping forward, moving to the table in sure steps, somehow concealing all the worry and anxiety she must surely be feeling.

It's the woman who sees them first, rising instinctively to greet them, her movement alerting the men; they look up, and then their chairs scrape on the floor as they follow her lead and rise.

“Good evening,” Mr. Laertes, who is standing the closest to them, says. He is tall and burly, even more so up close. There’s a hint of stubble on his face, but it’s clearly on purpose, everything else about him looking polished and proper, from the combed back blonde hair to the neat bowtie around his neck.

“Hello,” Bertie says, reaching forward to shake his hand. He is expecting Mr. Laertes’ grip to be tight, squeezing Bertie’s bones in that knuckle-crushing way some men seem to take pleasure in, but Mr. Laertes is perfectly polite, his squeeze sure but peaceful. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m Bertie, and this is Edith.” He figures that, this way, he gets himself out of any awkward ‘my Lords’ anyone might feel tempted to extend towards him tonight.

“Of course.” There’s a clear accent to Mr. Laertes’ voice, but he speaks with ease. “This is my wife, Mila, and you can please call me Adam.”

Bertie steps aside to greet Mila, who is tall and slender, her complexion a few shades darker than her husband’s, more Mediterranean than English Rose. Seen together and from a distance, Mila and her husband must make a striking couple.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Edith turn to Adam just as he turns to Mila, taking her hand in his as they exchange pleasantries, the seconds stretching around him as he anticipates what he knows is to come. Still, there’s no stretching that can stop time entirely, and soon the greeting is over as Mila is steps aside so Bertie can greet him.

Bertie doesn’t let himself hesitate as he turns towards Michael.

“Bertie,” Michael says, his name seemingly comfortable on his tongue, as if it has always belonged there. “It’s great to see you again, how do you do?”

“Michael,” he greets, taking his hand and shaking it, firmly and impersonal, just like he’s meant to. “Very well, thank you. How about you? I hope the journey wasn’t too rough.”

Seeing Michael at the park all those months ago had been beyond unexpected, but perhaps not more so than the actual experience of seeing him up close: in the courthouse, Michael had stood with his back to them the whole time; until the moment in which Michael suddenly materialized in front of Bertie, all he’d had to go on had been that day back in Kortrijk which, with the way his traitorous mind had been seemingly intent on painting Michael as some sort of charming prince, had started to feel not quite real.

However, when one is standing just a few steps away from him, Michael Gregson is almost painfully real. Bertie finds himself tracking all those details again: how the greys in his hair seem more pronounced, how the wrinkles on his face become clear and undeniable. There’s a large scar that runs from his right temple to the top of his ear that Bertie hadn’t noticed from a distance, but he doesn’t recall Edith ever mentioning any kind of disfigurement, which leads him to believe it is likely also a product of Michael’s violent encounter in Germany. Most notably, though, is his age, his maturity. Bertie had always been aware that Michael was older than Edith—which necessarily meant that he was older than Bertie—but he hadn’t been able to grasp quite what that meant until they were standing face to face and Michael’s maturity over him became undeniable.

“We were very well treated.” Michael smiles, and the motion seems to come easy to him, the corners of his eyes crinkling with it. He looks like he is someone who smiles a lot.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Bertie steps aside, readying himself for what he knows will come after, as if Edith’s nerves are somehow being transferred onto him even without them so much as glancing at each other.

Edith takes his place almost immediately, her posture seemingly relaxed, but her face—or perhaps the years they’ve had together—betrays her, letting Bertie in on how nervous she must be. The way she looks at Michael is almost alarmed, her skin white from nerves. Her gaze climbs from his shoulder and up his neck, until it finds his, her lips softening around something between a gasp and a sob.

“Edith.” Michael’s voice is clear, and yet something about it gives way to his emotion, makes Bertie look away from his wife and at him. He’s not sure he was ready for it: though there were only hints of emotion in his voice, his face does not manage to hide any of it, and Bertie is struck in place, watching the matching gasp stuck in Michael’s lips, the way his eyes seem that much brighter under the warm light of the place.

“Michael.” Edith’s voice isn’t much beyond a whisper, like she’s just as astonished at having him in front of her after all this time as she would’ve been if he had just appeared with no warning. “I-” Her voice fails, and she doesn’t attempt to try again.

Just like before, time stretches, all of them stuck in place, except this time Bertie is unsure how long they simply stand there. Michael lets out a disbelieving laugh, finally offering his hand to her, and Edith takes it almost cautiously, as if he will turn to smoke the moment she touches him.

“I’ll be honest,” she speaks at last, her voice thick with emotion. “Now that I’m here, I don’t quite know what I’m supposed to do.”

Michael smiles, so wide it reaches his eyes, the corners crinkling with it. “That’s quite alright.” He speaks so softly, so warmly, even Bertie finds himself struck by it.

Adam coughs, the sound sharp as glass. “I think we can start with a drink, perhaps,” he offers gently, not like someone who’s trying to intrude, but rather to offer a guiding hand.

Edith laughs, spontaneous and surprised, louder than it would’ve been if the sound hadn’t been startled out of her. “I’ll gladly accept it.”

Adam pulls the chair next to him for her, and Bertie lets his motions spark his, turning to sit Mila before taking the empty chair to her right. As he faces the room, he struggles to figure out how much time has passed since they entered the bar—he feels rattled to his core, and only now do the muscles of his lower back start to loosen from the stress of this impeding reunion.

He’s still figuring out how to breathe when a waiter approaches their table with the menus. He hands them to Bertie with a courteous head bow. “Would you like to order now, or should I come back?”

Bertie accepts the menu distractedly; he looks down at it, and the letters are already blurring; he knows he won’t be able to give it any of his attention. “I’ll just have a Sidecar,” he says, promptly handing the menu back. Across from him, Edith juts out her chin. “We both will.”

The waiter nods and lifts his head slightly, looking at their fellow companions. “Do you need anything else, sirs?”

“Everything’s perfect.” Adam’s face opens into an easy smile after the words; it makes Bertie almost believe him.

The waiter disappears as quietly as he had come; as he does, the atmosphere around the table shifts, turning thick once again.

For most of his life, Bertie struggled to make conversation or small talk, always finding his own efforts awkward and clunky. It had taken Peter dying and Bertie suddenly finding himself in shoes he was never meant to fill to, more or less, snap him out of it: if he were out at a dinner party and the conversation turned uncomfortable, he had to be capable of leading it to safer ground, and so he learned. Looking at it now, he can say that the keys to keeping a pleasant enough conversation going do not surmount to much more than a bit of confidence, keeping a few easy questions up one’s sleeve, and some genuine listening.

That all seems meaningless now; he’s not sure he has a trick for “meeting your wife’s not so dead past lover”.

They’re still sitting there in silence by the time the waiter comes back; Bertie thanks him with a nod and raises the glass to his lips, letting the familiar taste of the alcohol lull him into a false sense of security.

Edith, thank God, is made of sterner stuff than him. “Well, I suppose one of us should start,” she says after taking a sip herself. “And the only place I can think of is by saying thank you. I truly am glad we could arrange this.”

Bertie can’t help himself: he glances towards the head of the table and finds Michael looking at Edith as if enthralled; he’s more composed than he was a few moments ago, but his eyes are still sparkling, entranced.

“It’s nice that we all get to meet each other,” Mila says, following Edith’s lead. “Before you arrived, we were just commenting on how lovely the weather is. We were expecting rain and muddy streets, but it’s quite warm.”

Edith smiles. “Up in Brancaster we were having some heavy rain. It was a joy to arrive in London and find it blessedly dry.” It’s almost funny, that they decide to discuss the weather of all things. Bertie doesn’t think he’s ever been as grateful for being English.

He takes a quick sip of his drink. “Is the Autumn very severe in Kortrijk?” He might as well follow Edith’s lead—must follow it, really, if he wants to avoid putting too much of a burden on her. The situation is delicate enough as it is.

So, he squares his shoulders more firmly and turns towards Adam when he takes his turn answering the question. He knows how to do this part, Bertie recalls to himself: he knows how to make easy conversation, how to avoid making a delicate situation turn into a downright uncomfortable one, and he doesn’t doubt his conversation partners will be keen to do the same. Everything is already so perilous; none of them will be looking into tipping the scales any further without at least getting used to them being so uneven in the first place.

Adam talks about the Autumn in Kortrijk with clear fondness, and Mila interjects to tell a quick story of their children when he’s done. Bertie and Edith take turns asking about their family, answering the questions they ask in return.

For the most part, Bertie manages to keep his eyes in place: he steals glances at his wife every couple of minutes, curling his fingers on his glass to keep the urge to reach out at bay, wishing they were sitting side by side so he could quietly slip an arm around her. It pains him to see her so tense, her eyes constantly straying to Michael, but only for a second or so at a time, clearly berating herself for it. He wishes he could tell her it ‘salright. He isn’t even sure it would be a lie, not when he can see how much it is costing her.

Michael, for the most part, stays quiet, humming or adding a comment here and there, but mostly content to listen to them. Yet, Bertie finds himself looking at him more often than he should, tracing the gentle lines of his smile, the tender corners of his eyes. He’s handsome, but he doesn’t carry himself in the way Bertie has come to expect from handsome men: there’s no force in it, no urge to prove his manliness. He seems perfectly content with his gentleness, and there seems to be genuine pleasure in listening to Mila and Adam talk, in hearing them share their stories and anecdotes even though he surely knows them all already. His gaze, too, wanders often, catching on to Edith, and he takes longer than her to look away.

At some point, though, Edith starts to soften, to let the conversation distract her as her body gets used to sharing space with Michael’s once again. At some point, when Bertie’s eyes catch on Edith once again, he smiles when he sees her thoroughly enthralled by the adventure Adam is sharing with them, one timidly arched brow betraying her curiosity.

Bertie smiles, his chest loosening just so.

It feels like the weather has cooled ten degrees when they step outside. Edith closes her coat properly, looking up to notice how there’s no hint of sunlight anymore. They were inside the bar for fifty minutes at best, but at this time of year, that is enough to plunge them into darkness. She takes a breath of the cold air, tries to let it soothe her heart, willing it to go back down from her throat to her chest; it’s to no avail. It’s been fifty minutes, but she’s having a hard time understanding what that means exactly: she feels rattled, and her skin feels itchy, and she’s can’t quite remember how to keep her head high and her back straight. Her old governesses would be ashamed.

“Shall we get on, then?” Bertie asks, his arm curling around her waist for a brief moment.

Adam and Mila voice their assent, and Bertie starts leading the way down towards the theatre for the play Mila and Adam will be attending, though they quickly fall into a different formation: Michael and Adam take the front, setting a slow pace, talking between themselves in a low voice, no need for a guide after all. Bertie lets himself fall into step behind them, his hands slipping into his pockets as he walks, whilst Edith finds herself matching her steps to Mila.

“I think this must be quite an odd evening,” Mila comments as they turn the corner. She blushes, her smile turning somewhat embarrassed as she catches Edith’s eye. “Sorry! I forgot myself; I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

The apology seems genuine, and Edith finds herself relaxing despite it all. “You are right, of course,” she comments. “I’m having a hard time remembering what normal conversation is supposed to be like.”

Mila smiles gently. “Adam and I were uncertain if being here would be more helpful or trouble,” she reveals, talking quietly. She’s a good head taller than Edith, and there’s a raspy tone to her voice that she finds almost soothing. “He was convinced it would be good to let you all ease into it, but I’m not sure if it isn’t preferable to simply get on with it.”

“Well, I think this was definitely the English way to do things,” Edith comments, the dryness of her tone reminding her somewhat of Mary. “My sister thinks we’re taking too big a step,” she admits; the night has left her rattled which, in turn, seems to be lowering her inhibitions. It’s not a totally unpleasant feeling. “I obviously don’t agree, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be proved right.”

“I believe my sister would be the same,” Mila shares, unbothered by Edith’s candidness. “Personally, I think I would have done the same as you.”

Mila turns, facing ahead to where Michael and Adam continue walking side by side. They walk slowly, and from this up-close, Edith can conclude that Michael’s cane is more for support than for looks, his arm visibly flexing underneath his jacket every time he puts it down. She watches him move and remembers the scar on his face, remembers the words he wrote over a year ago, and feels something ugly and sickening unfurling in the pit of her stomach, threatening to spill the meagre contents of her stomach onto the sidewalk.

“Was he-” Her throat closes before she can get the words out. Edith forces herself to take a deep breath through her nose, wills the tears away, and tries again. She needs to know. “He really was very injured, wasn’t he?” She can’t look at Mila as she talks. All she can focus on is Michael’s cane tapping on the floor and then lifting, the sound too muffled for her to hear, but somehow reaching her, all the same.

“He was,” Mila says, voice plain and softer still.

“H- How?” Edith asks, looking up at Mila. Despite trying to swallow back her tears, she’s sure some of them must still linger in her eyes. She must look embarrassing, almost crying in front of a stranger, but Mila seems unfazed.

“It’s not my story to tell,” she says, firmly enough that Edith understands Mila won’t give away more than she thinks proper, no matter what Edith might say. “But yes, he was very injured. Both mentally and physically. And a lot still lingers.” She pauses, frowning as she thinks, and Edith wills herself to be quiet and wait. “Of course, I didn’t know Michael before, so I can’t really compare. But I was a nurse during the war, and afterwards too, for a time, and I’ve seen how these kinds of violence can change a person.” She turns to look at Edith and tilts her head. “He will be different. Whatever it is you remember of him… He’s still the same person. And he will be different. Nobody can go through something like this and not come out changed.”

Edith nods, looking down, trying to process the words. There’s something knowing in Mila’s tone that makes her want to ask, but that would be too invasive. She thinks of Michael instead, of what she’s seen of him so far: thinks of his sketchbook in Kortrijk, of his easy smile when he saw who she now knows to be Mila’s oldest daughter; she thinks of his day in court, how rigid his spine had been as he watched the judge guide them through the ceremony; thinks of his face when they finally greeted each other, the softness in the corners of his eyes. Through all of it, Edith had seen and felt the familiarity of him—like a small, harmless flame had been lit up inside her. But if she looks closer still, she begins understanding what Mila is saying: in all those moments, he always waited for other people to approach him first; he’d chosen quietness where he once might have chosen sharing. There’s a cautiousness, an urge to hang back and watch, that she doesn’t think was there before.

“Is he still in a lot of pain?” she asks, forcing herself to stop staring at Michael’s slight limp. No matter her reasons, it surely isn’t polite of her to continue looking.

Mila leans her head. “Sometimes,” she answers, after a long pause. “His physical injuries were extensive, and even though it’s all scars now, they can still bother him occasionally. Mentally… He’s alright now, for the most part.”

Edith nods, looking down at her feet to keep herself from continuing to prod. She understands Mila will not answer her as thoroughly as she’d like, will keep walking the careful line between honesty and privacy that she has carved out.

“I mean it, Edith,” Mila insists, and Edith looks up to find her watching her with dark, deep eyes, whose emotion she struggles to understand. “He is better. Don’t make his pain be all that you see.”

Edith nods. She looks ahead, her eyes landing on Michael’s face as it stretches into a smile. He looks so much like the man she loved that her heart almost thumps out of her chest.

“It isn’t,” she says, not wanting to explain that she’s too selfish for that. When she looks at Michael, the pain she sees isn’t his; it’s her own, and the ache of all they could’ve been.

There’s a small line leading up to the theatre when they arrive. They wait with Adam and Mila for the few minutes it takes for them to approach the doors, and as they part, Edith lets Adam kiss her hand goodbye and accepts the kiss Mila plants on her cheek, along with one supportive squeeze on her arm. She falls back to Bertie’s side as they stand on the side of the street; her, her husband and Michael, now left to their own devices.

Bertie coughs and straightens up, trying not to look off-balance as he says, “Shall we, then? We wouldn’t want to miss our reservations.”

Michael nods. “Lead the way.”

Michael eats and drinks and smiles, and he thinks he does a good job of pretending to be alright throughout the night. Bertie has taken them to a nice restaurant, with good food and better wine, where the servers all call him “My lord” and bow before leaving the table. It makes Michael suddenly aware that he’s actually back in England, the scope of what that means finally breaking under his skin.

Still, no matter the charms of the restaurant or the delicate balance of the flavors on his fork, it is still not enough to break through the heavy tension between all three of them. Without Adam and Mila there to soften it, the air becomes stifled and uneasy, even with all three of them attempting to make some kind of small, polite conversation as the courses come and go.

At the end of dessert, Bertie puts down his spoon and rises, a third of his plate still remaining. “I apologize,” he says, putting down his napkin. “I just remembered I have to make a phone call. Please excuse me.”

Michael glances at Edith in time to catch her baffled expression and then turns to watch Bertie walk towards the entrance in hurried, stiff steps. He closes his eyes and chuckles to himself, unable not to be somewhat charmed by the situation, unsubtle as it may be.

“It’s kind of him,” he comments, turning his eyes to Edith, at last properly free to do so.

Edith still looks puzzled, something akin to uncertainty coloring her expression. “Yes,” she says at last, turning towards him. She relaxes in her chair for an instant, before quickly straightening her back. “He’s a kind man,” she comments, eye fleeting between Michael and Bertie’s vacant chair.

Michael doesn’t know how to tell her that he’s starting to understand that; at the moment, he doesn’t bother trying. He would rather occupy whatever precious moments they may have to talk about something other than Edith’s kind husband.

“Edith,” he starts, his voice surer than it should be, particularly when Edith’s eyes flee to him, wild and wide. “May I- May I still call you Edith?” he checks, suddenly remembering himself.

Her face softens and she nods. “Of course. Of course, I- I know I haven’t been acting like myself tonight, but please don’t think you have to act any differently because of it. I hope you’re not too taken aback by my disposition.”

“I’m not,” he promises. “And I believe you are well within your right to feel shaken. For all intents and purposes, you thought I was dead. Nobody prepares you for a situation like this.”

Edith laughs, a low, private sound. “You can say that.” Her gaze moves down to her fork as she grazes it gently against the pudding still left on her plate. “But I do feel it isn’t fair to you, that I feel so… shaken,” she says, repeating his word with an upturned corner of her mouth. “Especially after all you’ve been through-”

“No, don’t think like that,” he insists, the feeling powerful enough that he can’t feel wrong for cutting her off. “I know I’m not in a position to demand much, but please don’t let my pains be all you see when you look at me. I wouldn’t be able to bare it.”

For some reason, Edith chuckles. “Mila said something similar when we were talking earlier.” Michael can’t say he’s surprised; Mila has a nasty, protective streak. He’s only glad Edith doesn’t seem too put off by it. “But that’s not what I meant. When I think of what happened, I- It doesn’t feel right that I get to feel like this when I wasn’t the one going through it.” Her gaze is serious, a pleading glint shining in her eyes. “I think of you and Munich and those months- And they were terrible months, don’t get me wrong. But I was perfectly safe at the Abbey, and you were almost dead, and all so that I could be married to you. It doesn’t seem right.”

Michael aches. “If I may,” he starts, his voice is rough, “I wanted to marry you too. No matter what it took, I wanted it.”

It’s the moment he’s been waiting for, Michael realizes. After being lost for so many years, after spending so long remembering, he’s here. He had hoped it would be the case—had dreamed about it, even—but he realizes now he never actually thought it would happen. Not like this: not him and Edith alone, sitting face to face, eye to eye at last. He’d always imagined it would be too crowded for them to properly face each other; or maybe Adam would be there, or Bertie, even. Always something that would keep it from being the reunion they deserved, something tarnishing it just so.

Michael has spent the evening tracking Edith’s moves, committing the details of her to memory, cataloguing the differences between reality and the fragile images in his mind. He just couldn’t help himself: she seems so real up close, everything he once held dear suddenly coming to life; and yet, something keeps throwing him off his game, keeps him feeling like he’s balancing on a perilous tightrope. He can’t quite put his fingers on it, but he knows it’s there: that the years have passed for her too, that she is not the young woman he fell so desperately in love with once upon a time. He’s always been a sociable enough person, but on this occasion, he’s completely, utterly lost.

“And I’m really glad you agreed to meet me,” he says finally. “You don’t know how much it means to me, getting to- to sit down with you, to have a nice dinner, after everything that happened.”

He means it. He had been honest when he told her she didn’t owe him anything, that he wasn’t holding her up to any expectations she hadn’t asked for. Whatever obligation she had towards him—if there were ever any—had vanished a long time ago. But can he be blamed for wanting to be with her again?

Even before he remembered, the lingering traces of Edith had been happy ones. He knew he could think of her, and the tips of his fingers would tingle, the edges of his worry softening. She was something soothing, something joyous, the brightness of her only dimmed by his anger, his frustration, at being unable to give the remnants any substance.

But then he did remember, and all too quickly, the sweetness of Edith became drowned by his guilt: guilt over all his promises, over everything he was unable to deliver. Guilt over leaving her, over all the ways in which she might have suffered with his sudden disappearance. Edith, so loyal, so loving and earnest, left in the cruelest way. He dealt with his guilt in the best way he knew how: bottled it up and forced himself to keep it from touching her. Especially given that she had moved on; she’d looked so happy—the feeling so transcendent, so painfully easy to see, that even the grainy newspaper photographs had been able to capture it.

Right now, he’s having trouble understanding how to keep everything inside him where it belongs, how to keep all those ugly, melancholic, gnarly feelings from prickling her.

Edith looks down, touching the tips of her fork against the flesh of the pudding that’s still left on her plate. It’s an awfully tender moment, he thinks, entranced by the vulnerability of it.

“I’m glad I’m here,” she says at last, looking up, her serious gaze at odd with her words. Michael doesn’t feel put off by it, though. The least he can do is let Edith be, let her express herself fully, even when it seemingly doesn’t make sense. She licks her lips, looking at him with a frown for one long instant. “Not that it wasn’t hard, at first. I was-” She hardens, her eyes inscrutable as she continues. “I was angry. I refused to believe it.” Michael thinks it should pain him, hearing her reveal so plainly that she would rather he be dead after all, but he can’t find it in him. Even her harsh honesty feels like a gift, the knife twisting in his chest only further proof that at least this much is real. “And then I was so scared. I never- I’d moved on, you know. I had gotten over the loss of you, but I- I never stopped loving you. I felt so guilty. I love Bertie so much, but I had never stopped loving you, so where did that leave me?” She chuckles unhappily, but her eyes move to lock with his, the same unreadable look on them.

Michael doesn’t dare look away, though he feels as if she is challenging him to: her jaw is put out petulantly, and that’s how he realizes that though her words are undoubtedly honest, there’s something self-sacrificing in the way she had voiced them. As if she wanted to shock him, to force him to look away from her, to let her know she had crossed a line.

He thinks of Lizzie, instead. If Edith’s memory had been an uncomfortable, frustrating mystery, his memories of Lizzie had return quietly. They had been unassuming, unintrusive: he’d just wake up and she would be there, the little details of her, of the life they shared, slipping back into place as if she had never left in the first place.

He’d never talked much about Lizzie to Edith. He hadn’t known why—if out of loyalty to Lizzie, or out of loyalty to Edith—but he’d always tried not to talk about her much when they were together. He would fool himself that he had made peace with it long ago, that there was no sense in dragging up the past. If only he knew, then, how much of his life in the coming years would be spent trying to make the past return.

He’s no longer that young, that foolish. “I never told you this,” he says quietly, figuring that if Edith wants him to think her ugly, he can at least let himself be fully honest, “but when we- during the time we were together, I would still worry about Lizzie sometimes. Rationally, I knew that the person I had married was gone. But there’s always a little devil in your head that whispers otherwise, that would tell me that she could come back one day. And what would happen, then? How would I face her? How would I tell her that I had moved on, that we were no longer married? That I couldn’t manage to wait long enough?”

The last time he had seen Lizzie had been a couple of weeks before he left for Munich. It was early morning and the sun had barely risen on the horizon. The nurse that showed him to her room was a newish one: she had been hired a year or so ago, and in the handful of times she and Michael had crossed paths, she always gave him that smile and touched his hand before showing him to Lizzie’s room. Michael had always tried to be politely distant as he smiled back and thanked her.

Inside the bedroom, Lizzie had still been in bed, awake but unresponsive from the drugs, her eyes blinking with an eerie slowness. Michael had sat in the chair by her bedside and told her that he was leaving, that he didn’t know when he’d be back. He’d stared down at her hand whenever he mentioned Edith’s name, looking for the wedding band he knew wasn’t there—Lizzie wasn’t allowed any jewelry in the ward, and her wedding band had sat quietly in his bedside drawer ever since the nurses had taken it from her.

“I’m sorry,” he had said in the end, after they had sat in silence for so long his ears were ringing with it. His eyes felt wet, and he had to close them tight to keep from crying in front of her. “I’m so, so sorry,” he had repeated desperately, slipping out of the chair on to the mattress next to her, holding onto her hand desperately. He hadn’t cried in front of her in years, figuring that if there was any of Lizzie still remaining in this impassive body, that she shouldn’t have to deal with him like this.

He’d done a half-arsed job of drying his eyes by the time he left. Before exiting the bedroom, he’d kissed her hand and kissed her forehead, whispering sweet nothings into her skin both times. He hadn’t said anything else, because he didn’t know what else to say, but he lingered by the door before he left: Lizzie’s head had turned towards him and for a moment their eyes had crossed. Michael had watched her and hoped this wouldn’t be the last time she was touched by someone who loved her. He’d left the building with barely a nod in anyone’s direction, had gotten in his car and driven away.

He’d ended up stopping not even twenty minutes later as a wretched sob had broken through his body, and he’d ended up stranded for another twenty minutes, sobbing desperately into his tightened fist, the tears flowing from wells he believed had dried long ago.

He wills himself to focus back on Edith, on how her challenging look had given way to confusion as Michael spoke, and has now twisted into something like concern the longer they sit there in silence. Michael wonders what kinds of secrets his face is giving away without his permission.

“What I mean is, complicated feelings are part of the situation,” he concludes at last. He takes a sip of the wine—an exorbitantly expansive bottle, no doubt, the texture rich and deep on his tongue. “I could never think less of you for having them.”

Edith nods, the movement oddly slow, as if she’s processing his words in real time. “It does feel like that. Complicated, I mean.” Her right hand is resting on the table, and the fingers quiver as she thinks. “But I am glad we’re doing this. I hadn’t realized it, I think, how very glad I am, not until this very moment.”

There’s a sudden burst of heat within him, the kind that runs through him when he’s overwhelmed by emotion. The naked sincerity in Edith’s eye is almost too much to bear, and he cracks: he reaches for her hand, feeling her startle under his touch, but not attempt to escape. Belatedly, remembering that they’re still in public and this is still England, he moves his grasp up to her wrist, but he doesn’t let go; under his touch, Edith’s muscles relax. If there are any such things as miracles, Michael is sure this is one of them. “I am too,” he says, keeping the rest of it to himself. “And, who knows,” he adds instead, “maybe we’ll get to do it again sometime.” He makes sure to keep his tone light; an invitation, and nothing more.

Edith nods, surer this time, and her expression opening into a small smile. “I think I’d like that.”

The balance shifts, the ground underneath them steadying at last. Michael takes his hand away, and Edith goes back to her pudding. He asks her about the magazine and listens to her briefly recount how it has been to manage it with sincere interest. He’s always been proud of what he built with The Sketch, and he truly had trusted that Edith had what was needed to take charge of it, if she ever needed to—not that he had thought she would ever need to when he’d made that decision. There was an inner strength in her that he’d loved since the moment she came into his office and threw the evidence of his marriage into his face; it had been something she was only beginning to understand when they met, but he can now see that it had sprung into something steady and strong.

The waiter has just cleared their dessert plates away when Bertie returns. He seems lanky as he walks towards them, the sight uncanny when he’s dressed in such an expensive, well-pressed suit, and completed by the antsy flush coloring his face. He takes his seat with furtive glances at both of them, but the waiter is back before they know it, accepting their orders for coffee without a fuss.

“I understand your companions are staying for a few weeks,” Bertie says, his face morphing into something plainer, the kind of polite interest that years working with the public have made Michael well-acquainted with. The transformation is fascinating to see. “Will you be accompanying them?”

“We still have a few more days here in London,” he explains, accepting Bertie’s attempt at light conversation without a fuss. He’s already done enough tonight—already done enough, in general. Michael has always tried not to be ungrateful, and he isn’t planning on stopping now. “I’ll stay with them for now, but they have plans to go down to Bath afterwards, for which I don’t think I will be accompanying them. I have a couple of business to settle, so I’ll probably just stay a couple of days longer and then head back home.” Home. How odd it feels, all of a sudden, to call somewhere else home when he’s standing smack in the middle of London, the city he once called home for over thirty years. The feeling sits heavily in the pit of his stomach, disconcerting. “How about you?” he forces himself to ask. If nothing else, it should stop the both of them from looking at him for at least a few moments.

They don’t linger for long in the restaurant once the meal is done. Bertie pays without Michael ever seeing the bill, and then they all step outside, where the air has gone colder still. Edith closes her coat tighter around her, standing on the street with a complicated look, and Michael takes the opportunity to reach into his coat for his gloves.

“Are you going to meet Mila and Adam again?” Edith asks, covering one gloved hand with the other against her chest, as if attempting to protect them from the cold.

Michael shakes his head. His hair has started loosening up from the pomade, and he can feel a strand brushing against his forehead. “We didn’t make any plans, so I’ll just head back to the hotel.” He doesn’t tell them about how tired he feels, or how his muscles are aching, how his leg is pleading for some reprieve.

It’s something he’s gotten better at dealing with over time: a few months into his stay in Kortrijk, after a particularly long day with the children, Mila had turned to him and sternly said that there was no virtue in suffering for the sake of it. “It’s a terrible thing, what happened,” she had said, always empathetic even when being harsh. “And it’s unfair that you must deal with it for the rest of your life. But you’re the only one who knows your body. If you need something, you have to say it.” And so, slowly—and always aided by Mila’s stern reproaches—Michael had learned to go up and rest when his body was asking him to, had learned to not keep his prosthetic on just for the sake of appearance when his leg was asking for relief. Yet, to this day, it still leaves him disgruntled, how much his body and mind have changed; how much of his life is ruled by their needs now, and how unreliable those are. He once had been forty years old and perfectly capable of withstanding a night of partying followed by an early morning at the office; people would comment on it at times, always amazed at how easily he was able to bounce back. But that had all been beaten out of him on a long, cold night in Munich, and Michael has been left to pick up the pieces ever since.

“Would like me to call you cab?” Bertie offers, already moving to step back into the restaurant to go talk to the maître d’.

Michael is all too quick at shaking his head. He glances up at the clear sky—or as clear as it ever gets in foggy, muddy London. “There’s no need. It’s such a lovely night, and the walk will do me good.” If Mila were here, her hand would be aching to hit him in the back of the head, the way she does with Adam when he says something particularly stupid. But Michael knows the air will do him good, even if his body might be less than pleased.

“Where are you staying?” Edith asks.

“Just off Convent Garden,” he replies, already readying himself for what he knows is coming when Bertie and Edith cross glances.

“Let us accompany you, then,” Bertie says. “We’re not too far away.”

Michael doesn’t even attempt to fight them. They start making their way down the street, the sidewalk broad enough for the three of them to walk side by side, Edith standing between him and Bertie. Neither of them attempts to talk, but for once, it doesn’t feel stifled; merely as if their all tired or merely lost in thought, savoring the night in their own way. As they walk, Michael closes his eyes for an instant, feeling Edith’s warmth next to him, and he can almost picture a time long gone.

He lets himself step behind the merry couple when the sidewalk narrows, and wrestles with himself over whether to say anything at all when he notices the distance between him and them growing larger, even when he tries to quicken his step. Surprisingly, it’s Bertie who notices and stops walking, a hand reaching out to stop Edith as well.

Even in the dark, he can see their twin blushes well. “I hadn’t noticed-” Edith starts, but Michael shakes his head.

“It’s no trouble,” he says, catching up to them quickly.

They stop to check for cars before crossing the street, where the sidewalk is once again large enough for the three of them, though Michael is the one who gets slotted in the middle this time round; it makes him awfully self-conscious. The pavement is more uneven than before, too, making it harder to keep a steady pace.

“Anyway, how is your family doing?” he asks Edith, in a pitiful attempt to bring some levity to the once again stifled air. “I hope your children are doing alright.”

“Oh, everyone is well,” Edith says, a gentle smile warming her expression. “My parents are discussing going to America for a few months. I think some part of Mama does miss it and sees no reason not to go now that Papa is retired.”

“Though we shouldn’t use that word in front of him,” Bertie jokes, and Edith laughs. Whatever it is that they are referring to, Michael can’t hope to know, though it does work to break the stifling tension that had been growing again.

“I’m not with them as often, though, as you can imagine. My calendar is full enough, and Brancaster isn’t close by.” There’s a complex mix of emotions playing out on her face. Michael can still recall how much everyone at Downton Abbey could grate on Edith’s nerves, her sister first among them, but they had all nonetheless been heartwarmingly close. Despite all the time that has gone by, the bittersweetness on Edith’s face is painfully familiar.

“But the children are doing well,” Bertie interjects, easefully picking up where Edith trailed off. “We recently hired a new governess for Marigold, and she seems to have taken a liking to her.”

“Yes, I’m glad we got rid of the last one,” Edith says with a dark look in her eyes. At Michael’s curious glances, she sobers up and explains, “She was too strict. Marigold loves learning, but she was starting to want to get away. Mrs. Copeland would complain that Marigold was simply too stubborn, that she needed to be disciplined. But she’s a gentle girl, you see? It was weighting on her.”

Michael hums. He had never been around children much until moving in with the Laertes, and between them and their friends, he thinks he has seen all type of children: the bossy, demanding ones; the petulant ones; the funny ones; the sensitive ones. But he’s rarely seen a child who gets more well-behaved through strict discipline rather than empathetic understanding.

“And she’s very good with Peter,” Bertie adds. “She has decided that he will learn the whole alphabet. He’s only three, mind, but she’s persistent.”

Michael hums, but his mind has attached itself elsewhere. “Peter Pelham,” he says aloud, trying it out. “Why is it that that name sounds so familiar?” he directs his question to Bertie, whose face clearly goes from surprise to amused fondness.

“My cousin,” he says promptly. “He could be quite… notorious, in his youth. I wouldn’t be surprised if he graced the pages of The Sketch a couple of times.” He chuckles, and then his face clears into something more longing. “He died a few years ago. It was quite sudden. I inherited the title from him, actually.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael says sincerely, before realizing how it may sound. “About your cousin, I mean-”

Bertie laughs good-naturedly, waving him off. “It’s quite alright. It was a big shock to everyone involved, myself included.”

“Had you already met, by then?” Michael finds himself suddenly eager to build a clearer timeline. The bits of information that comes in the papers only provided the gross contours of the picture, but he suddenly realizes he can start filling in the details. “It must’ve been quite the transition.”

“It was a stressful time, all around,” Edith says, and the mysterious gaze Michael had seen before, in the restaurant, is back. “There were a lot of things happening. We had known each other for about a year and had gone on a few dates-” She stops herself, glancing at Michael as if embarrassed, so Michael tries to maintain his most welcoming expression. They all know what they are to each other, after all.

“But it all worked out, in the end. Once Mary got us to come to our senses,” Bertie interrupts, giving them both a smile.

“Dear old Mary,” Edith says promptly, with a small eye roll, and they all chuckle.

The silence settles between them again, the air tranquil once again. “Well, that’s me,” he says after a couple of minutes, pointing to the lit-up hotel entrance across the street. “Thank you for the company. And the evening. I am- I truly am very grateful.” There’s more he could say, but doing so wouldn’t be very English of him. Besides, right now, he’d rather just go up to his bedroom and have a nice warm bath along with a cigarette and a generous glass of scotch.

“It was a pleasure, Michael,” Bertie says, extending his hand, which Michael takes earnestly. He’s having a hard time detecting any trace of malice or hostility in his words or expression. As has been the case from the very first moment, Michael finds himself having a hard time getting a good read on him, Bertie’s seemingly genuineness throwing him off at every turn.

Michael turns to Edith when they let go and finds himself at a loss against the naked emotion on her face. “I-” She tries, but she doesn’t seem to be in a better state than him. “May I write to you?” she asks suddenly, the words as if blurted out of her.

Michael tries to tamper down the smile that wants to open on his face. It makes him feel fifteen again, making his way home after holding hands with Jane Winhall during mass. “I’d like that very much,” he says, his voice soft and tender.

 “I will.” Edith nods. “I will,” she repeats it quietly, as if more to herself than him.

He offers his hand, and shakes Edith’s once offers her, their hands kept from touching by the fabric of their gloves.

“Well, goodnight, then,” he says, tipping them his hat.

He turns around at once, checking the quiet street before crossing it in an awkward, hurried step. All of a sudden, he finds he can’t be with them anymore, that he needs to be in the privacy of his bedroom at once.

Yet, once he’s safely inside the hotel, he turns around before the door closes fully behind him. He keeps it open with the tip of the cane, watching as Edith and Bertie ealk down the street, watching their backs as they disappear in the dark night.

He feels like crying. The night was a success—the best possible outcome he could have asked for—and still, he feels like crying. Edith is happy, he reasons with himself: he’s seen it for himself, now, how happy and rich her life has turned out, how fulfilled she is in it. He should be happy, content.

Yet, all he feels is the vast abysm in his chest growing wider, threatening to drown him at last.

Chapter Text

Northumberland, 8^th November 1931

Dear Michael,

It still feels surreal that I get to write those words again. I’m sitting by a window, looking out at the rainy fields as I write—the rain has stopped, for now, though it has hardly let up in the past week—and I find myself wondering if all of this has been but a dream. A tantalizing, confusing dream; how miraculous that it is not.

I hope you managed to settle whatever business had been asking for your attention in London, and that you arrived back home with some sense of completion. I know I surely have. There is plenty still to be said, to be addressed, but we now have enough time for those things, if we so wish. How extraordinary it is that we have been granted more time, that we now have the luxury of choice.

I know our evening together was one of heightened emotions. I’m still finding myself going through it, picking out its strands slowly. I’m so glad we got to have a quiet chat, and I’m endlessly grateful for your candidness. I had forgotten, somehow, how honest you had always been with me, how you never once told me something that you did not believe to be true. I wonder what to do with it now. I feel so guilty, still. I understand that you believe I should perhaps be gentler with myself, but I don’t think I know how. There’s so much still unsaid…

But I shouldn’t burden you with this. It’s intriguing how, even in a letter, even after so long, I still find myself compelled to be utterly candid with you. To let my mind and my hand roam free and let whatever wants to come out onto the page do. Still, I don’t know if I am one of those people that believes that anything good comes from unbridled, unmeasured honesty. Caution, after all, also has its virtues. I’m not sure Bertie would agree with me on this; I feel like he’s more like you in this sense. And perhaps I shouldn’t even say that, but there it is now.

I hope you write back and let me know what Kortrijk is like in the Fall, if it offers a more forgiving landscape than rainy, dreary old England. Just yesterday, I was attending a local farmers’ meeting, and the weather was dreadfully wet; my feet kept sinking in the mud as we were shown the fields. We paused for a bit by the sty and then, all of a sudden, before any of us could react, one of the pigs hops over the fence and runs right at me. I fell into the mud with a pig on top of me! The farmer was so terribly embarrassed. Everyone fussed over me all afternoon and I didn’t quite know how to tell them that all I wanted to do was go home and have a warm, cleaning bath. As I finally slipped into the water hours later, feeling cold and dirty, I found myself thinking of you, of how you would have reacted had it been you. Bertie has always enjoyed being outdoors and crawling in the mud, much to his mother’s chagrin, so I know he’d take it with a good laugh. Personally, I can’t quite feel the same good-naturedness about it.

That said, Northumberland is obviously beautiful. A part of me had always believed I belonged to Downton too much to ever be able to fully fall in love with any other place, but Brancaster made it quite easy. I love the hills; I love how crisp and fresh the air feels. It never takes much walking to feel like one is deep in the forest—and one’s problems often seem quite small from there. Maybe you’ll get to see it someday.

I must say goodbye, now. Peter should be waking up from his nap soon, and Bertie and I promised the children we’d go for a walk if the rain held up, which seems to be the case.

I hope you’re doing well, and that I will hear from you soon.

With love,

Edith

Kortrijk, 24^th November 1931

Dear Edith,

Please do not think too ill of me if I reveal to you that I laughed during your story! Take it as compliment to your writing that you were able to paint such a vivid and amusing picture. Nonetheless, I do commiserate. Just the other day, the twins—who have become quite the pranksters lately—manage to catch me off my guard and I half-fell into the creek that runs through the back of the yard. Mila was furious, and I was quite wet, and Adam thought the whole thing hilarious. (Later, he did fall into the creek, so all in all, justice was restored.)

It was wonderful to read about your feelings towards your new home. As you know, I grew up in a quiet town in the Midlands and never had much opportunity to get to know the North all that well, so I found your descriptions of it quite enthralling. If you ever feel like writing more about it, I’d be very pleased to read.

Over here, the Fall is fully in motion, with the first signs of the coming Winter already in sight. Generally, the seasons here are never too severe—it’s a nice place to be, all things considered. And I have plenty to keep me busy, with my lessons and the kids. They all attend the local school—except Nicolas, who is still too young—but they are free most afternoons, so there’s plenty of time to get up to no good.

Like you, I find myself thinking back to last month often. The chance of seeing you again, of being with you and getting to hear how you were, had been one that I had thought about for so long; but there was no amount of thinking about it, I realize now, that could have truly prepared me for the real thing. I often find myself wondering if I said everything I wanted to say, if I took as much advantage of the brief time we had together as I could. Not that I know what any of that means, exactly; there’s too much to say, but none of that easy to put into words… Your reminder that we have time felt particularly poignant.

I was especially touched to read that you still find me someone you can trust in. Trust, I’ve come to understand, is a fickle thing, one that needs to be tended to with care and attention. The years we’ve been apart surely do not constitute the kind of attention something like trust requires, but it touched me to see that they have not managed to erode it altogether. I, too, trust in you, and strive to be as honest as I know how. I understand that the standing we’ve come to find ourselves in is an odd one, but I do mean it when I say that I would like to have in you my life—however and only as much as you would like to have me.

I hope to hear from you soon. Let me know what your upcoming plans for Christmas are—I never got round to witnessing the season at the Abbey, which I know was always one of your favorites.

Faithfully,

M.G.

Northumberland, 15^th December 1931

Dear Michael,

Your letter arrived just in time! We’re meant to leave for Yorkshire in a couple of days, so I almost missed it.

I am, of course, very excited to go back home to gather with my family for Christmas. As you said, Christmas truly is one of my favorite times of the year, and I’m happy to be making the journey South again this year. It’s just a pity we won’t be able to stay for the New Year: Bertie takes his duties seriously, of which the New Year’s Eve gathering for the tenants is one of the most important ones, so we’ll have to return soon after the festivities so we can get everything settled in time.

I, too, found myself chuckling at the tale you shared, so I suppose I can’t fault you much for your own reaction. I hope it isn’t too deep a creek! It reminded me of a time last Summer, when us and the children went for a gathering at the…

Kortrijk, 29^th December 1931

Dear Edith,

We’ll be well into January by the time you receive this letter, so let me start by wishing you, and your family, the happiest of New Years. I recall you sharing that your and Bertie’s nuptials were on New Year’s Eve, so I imagine the date must hold a particularly special place in your heart now.

We’ll be leaving for Antwerp tomorrow morning, to gather with one of Adam’s cousins and her family for the festivities. It’s something we’ve only started doing in the last couple of years, but it always makes for quite a merry celebration. I don’t know if you have ever been to Antwerp, but it’s possible one of my favorite places…

Northumberland, 14^th January 1932

Dear Michael,

A belated happy New Year to you and the Laertes from all of us!

We ended up having a lovely festive season. It snowed at Downton over Christmas, which always makes it look and feel particularly magical, especially with so many children around to enjoy it with. I always find it interesting how me and my sisters grew up constantly butting heads with each other—pardon the expression—but the children all get along so nicely! I suppose the distance must help nurture the love, as well as keep any bad feelings from festering for too long.

On somewhat more bittersweet news, Mary’s oldest, George, was very proud to share that he is to go off to school in September. It’s still a few months away, but it threw us all out of the loop. Somehow, I had forgotten that he was turning 11 already. I believe I am not alone when I say that the day he was born, and the tragedy that followed, are still quite present in all of our minds, and it seems strange to think that it’s been so long since then. Mary claims to be well with the news, and I trust her to know her own mind; if it were me, though, I know I’d be devastated. Bertie and I have occasionally talked about sending Marigold to a girls’ school—she is an avid learner, and in this changing world, I do wonder if it wouldn’t be the best for her if she were to be among her peers—but it breaks my heart every time, so we just keep putting it off.

Speaking of Marigold, my family…

They all gather in the small library after dinner, men included. Myles is quick to get everyone their drinks and coffee, and then the door closes smoothly behind him, leaving them in the warm comfort of the room. It is one of the rooms Edith’s was proudest of: this cozy corner in the small library, along with the more informal dining room, which she converted out of an older drawing room, had so far been her two biggest projects at Brancaster. They had been an attempt at bringing the castle closer to what she had grown used to at the Abbey; she had absolutely dreaded the idea of having every meal at the long, rigid table that graced Brancaster’s dining room.

Tonight, though, they pile in the small library after a hearty meal in the formal dining room. Mrs. Pelham had joined them for dinner, but she was quick at making her departure once the meal was over, something which she and Bertie traded relieved looks over as she left.

Edith watches from her place on the couch as Bertie and Tom linger by the fireplace with their cups, talking about some business that Edith has no interest in. Her mother is seated to her right, leaning over the armrest to talk to Lucy. To the side, Papa and George are bent over a game of chess—apparently, they had gotten into a fierce competition over the past week, which had made Edith raise a curious eyebrow at, since she can’t recall her dad ever having been interested in the game. Sybbie is sitting beside her Donk, her head resting on his shoulder as she watches them play. Mary was unable to get away; Edith is surprised by how much she notices her absence.

She looks up as she hears the door open, and finds herself smiling as Marigold peers in, “Mama, can we stay with you for a bit before bed?”

Edith chuckles, taking notice of Caroline peeking over Marigold’s shoulder. “Does Nanny know you’re here?”

“Yes,” Marigold confirms, already coming into the room, Caroline close behind. They’re both in their nightgowns, though Marigold’s hair is still uncombed. “She’s putting Peter down. She said I could come and check, and that she would come get us in fifteen minutes.”

Edith nods. “Alright, then.”

Caroline closes the door and makes a beeline for Mama, sitting between her and Edith. “Sleepy, darling?”

Caroline shakes her head vehemently. “No,” she says through a yawn.

“And here she is, the birthday girl,” Lucy says, looking at Marigold, who is leaning against Bertie with a happy smile. “What are the plans for tomorrow?”

Marigold’s smile brightens even more. She usually doesn’t enjoy being the center of attention, but Edith knows she had been excitedly awaiting her birthday for weeks now. “Pa is taking me and Caroline and Sybbie and George to the museum in the morning,” she says, looking up at Bertie for a confirmatory nod. “And then Mama says we can have tea outside if it doesn’t rain. I wanted her to go to the museum too, but Pa says we need to let mom rest, so she’s staying home with Peter and Matthew.”

“It’s very important that you are gentle with your mother while she’s carrying your little sibling,” her Mama intervenes, smiling happily at Edith.

Marigold nods diplomatically. “I know,” she says. “Miss Granger has explained it to me. She says the baby is like a little seed, and for it to grow and be strong, we need to let Mama rest.”

It had taken Edith a while to connect the dots: just like with her previous pregnancies, she had been blessedly free from adverse symptoms at the beginning, and it was only when she associated the lingering ache in her breasts with the softening curve of her stomach that the thought entered her mind. By the time she returned to London so her specialist in London could confirm it, she had been well into her second month of pregnancy. The Doctor had been optimistic about her prospects and not overly concerned about her age, so Edith has tried to take it easy as well. When she went to Downton for Christmas, there was already a noticeable curve in her belly that only her larger dresses would be able to mask, and she decided she couldn’t bother with it.

In truth, so far, this has been the most tranquil pregnancy has ever been for her. With Marigold, she had been so worried and blue about everything she hardly enjoyed it; with Peter, though she tried to ignore it, there was a gnarly guilt clawing at the back of her mind, and she spent most of the time worried that something would happen that would take away all the happiness she had. Now, though, she can rest easily. Everything feels more settled, more mundane—even the pregnancy itself. Rather than an overwhelming sense of doom or expectation, she feels tranquil. Her family, too, is happy about it: Bertie was absolutely overjoyed when she shared her suspicions with him; Peter took a while to fully grasp the concept, but now understands that there is a baby in her belly, and though he seems mostly uninterested in it, he sometimes leans to kiss it after kissing her goodnight; and Marigold was absolutely thrilled, taking it as an opportunity to learn as much as she could about the subject. Edith had choked on her tea when she had asked, But Mama, how did a baby get in you in the first place? and had never been more grateful for Miss Granger’s presence then in that moment, when she tackled the subject with her usual unfussiness and rigor.

“How do you know the baby’s name?” Caroline asks, bringing Edith back from her reverie.

“What do you mean, darling?” Edith asks.

“I know that new babies can’t speak. So how do you know its name?” she clarifies, looking at Edith with a serious look.

A quiet chuckle goes around the room, though Edith tries to keep her face straight as she answers, “It’s the parents that pick the baby’s name. It was your mother that chose your and your brother’s names.”

Caroline squints, absorbing the information. “So, when the baby comes, you’ll give them a name too?”

“Exactly,” Mama confirms, trailing a hand through Caroline’s braid.

“And it can be anything? Like Jane?”

Edith opens her mouth to confirm it, but Marigold cuts in, “No, silly!” Edith looks up with a stern look, which Marigold cowers under but isn’t deterred by. “It has to be something special, something unique. Like… Andromeda!”

Papa lets out a hearty laugh. “I see someone has been studying her constellations.”

“Darling, we are not naming the baby Andromeda,” Edith says firmly. At Bertie’s somewhat interested look, she repeats assertively, “We’re not.”

“Tell you what, why don’t you write down in a list the names you like, and we can go through them together?” Bertie suggests, patting Marigold’s head.

“Alright!” She jumps from her place and half-runs to the desk, eager to get started. Edith looks away from her in time to catch her mother looking away with a tender look on her face, and her chest tightens.

Her parents were supposed to go spend the Summer in America, in order to be back home in time to see George off to school. Yet, the moment Mama learned about her pregnancy and that she should be due at the beginning of the Summer, she immediately postponed it. Edith had tried to reason with her—she was already on express orders to take it easy, and this hardly was her first pregnancy—but her mother would have none of it. In the end, Edith couldn’t find it in herself to fight any harder: it was still a sensitive wound, how Edith had gone through her first pregnancy with her mother none the wiser. And it’s not like it would be so bad to have her nearby.

“Should I do girl names or boy names?” Marigold asks, sitting down by the coffee table and looking around with an excited look. Caroline unfurls from her seat and drops down into the floor so she can peer into the open notebook.

“Why don’t you make a page for each?” Tom suggests, looking down amusedly.

Marigold nods and starts writing. She bites her lower lip in concentration, the way Edith still does to this day. “Uhm, how do you spell Cassiopeia?” she asks, looking up.

Through a collective laugh, Edith says, “We are not naming the baby Cassiopeia,” but nobody listens. Bertie is already moving to sit down next to her, spelling the word to her and nodding when she gets it right. He looks up with a mischievous smile and then leans to whisper something in Marigold’s ear that makes her nod vehemently.

In her chest, Edith’s heart feels very tight.

Edith sends the Nanny off with sleepy Caroline when she comes by to pick up the girls and, later, she’s the one to take Marigold to bed. Her daughter was excited about having everyone around, excited about her lists, and Edith didn’t have it in her to cut it short. Not when everything felt so soft and perfect. Now, almost an hour later, Edith finds herself combing Marigold’s hair, readying her for bed.

“Mama?” Marigold asks, voice growing softer from sleepiness.

Edith looks up and locks eyes with her in the mirror. “Yes, sweetheart?”

Marigold appears intrigued, her brow furrowed in thought. “Were you in Granny’s belly before you were a baby?”

It startles a surprised laugh out of her, which she quickly tries to tamper down. Luckily, none of the other children stir. “I was, yes,” she confirms, putting the hairbrush down.

She starts separating the hair as Marigold asks, “Were you there with Aunt Mary?”

“No,” she says, still smiling. “Aunt Mary was there first. Then she was born, and then it was me.”

Marigold nods, but Edith steals a glance at the mirror to see her still deep in thought. “Miss Granger taught me that babies are made when a man and a woman love each other very much. That they can make a special magic, and that magic sometimes puts a baby in the woman’s belly.” She retells everything matter-of-factly, unaware of Edith’s embarrassment. “Did Donk and Granny do that magic to put you and Aunt Mary in her belly?”

Edith loves her daughter very, very much, but she would give anything to be anywhere else right now. “They did, yes,” she says, trying to keep her face as straight as Marigold so effortlessly does.

She finishes the braid and ties it off, patting Marigold’s shoulder once she’s done. “To bed, now.” She goes to pull the covers for her to lie down and then pulls them up around her, patting them down around Marigold’s body. “Do you want a story?” she asks, because it may be late, but it’s also the night before her birthday, and she knows Marigold is partial to her books.

“Yes,” Marigold says, turning on the bed so she’s lying on her back. “But, Mama…” She starts, her voice once again questioning. Edith looks down at her and smooths out the few hairs that have already slipped the braid. “Was I- Was I also in my mother’s belly before you met me?”

Edith feels something freezing up inside her, the air hauntingly still.

“What do you mean, darling?” she asks, and she hopes Marigold can’t tell how scared and tight her voice has gotten.

“Well, it’s something I’ve been thinking. If a baby comes from the special magic that a man and a woman make when they love each other, then was that what happened to me too? Did my real mom and dad love each other and make that special magic?”

By now, Marigold knows the loose contours of how she came to be with Edith and Bertie: she knows about the Drewes, knows that they took care of her when she was younger, and she knows that Edith loved her very much and so she adopted her, so they could be together. But Edith had always tried not to linger much on anything before then, and Marigold had always seemed perfectly content with what she knew. Now, though, Edith looks down at her daughter and wonders if there is something she missed along the way, something Marigold has been trying to find the words for.

“They did, darling,” Edith says. It is not easy to find her voice in that moment, and it’s harder still to keep it steady and calm, but she tries, hoping the shadows of the night will hide the rest of it away. She always knew it would be hard, but she never realized how much. “Your- Your parents, your…” She’s stumbling all over the words. She pauses for a moment, forces herself to get her head on straight. “Your real mom and dad loved each other very much. And they loved you very much. And they would be so proud and so happy of how smart, how beautiful, how wonderful you are.”

As she started corresponding with Michael, she had hesitated to mention much about Marigold at first; she’d feel weird and guilty when she found herself about to write her name, so she would avoid doing it. It was only as she read his description of the Laertes’ kids’ antics and realized how much Michael cared for them, how much of a place they occupied in his life, that she realized that she wanted it for Marigold too. On her last letter, she spent most of it telling him about her: how excited she was for her birthday, how much she had loved Anne of Green Gables, how attentive she was towards Peter. She wanted Michael to know her; she wanted him to love her too.

Below her, Marigold finds her hand on the cover and holds it against hers, as if measuring the size difference between their palms. “Do you know what their names were?”

Edith is at a loss. She wonders if Bertie should be here instead, if he would be able to fence her questions more effectively, and feels guilty at considering that at all.

“Don’t worry about it now, dear,” she says, leaning down to kiss her forehead. She doesn’t like not answering Marigold’s questions—she looks at the world with such keen interest, such sharp eyes—but she thinks she can’t be faulted for doing it just this once. “It’s getting late. What would you like me to read to you?”

Marigold hands her the book from her bedside table and lays down again, turning on her side, her eyes fluttering closed. She looks so much like Michael when her face is relaxed: it had always been easy to see Michael in her when Edith would allow herself to, but after getting to see Michael again from up close, the resemblance is no longer something she can avoid. How can it be that, without having ever met each other, Marigold has so many of his expressions, of his mannerisms? How can he linger in such a way?

Edith opens the book in chapter four, where Marigold’s watercolored bookmark rests. She reads in a low voice, aware of Caroline snoring away in the next bed. Despite the conversation, Marigold is fast asleep before Edith finishes the fifth page. Still, she keeps going. She reads the whole chapter, and when it comes to an end, she puts the book back in its place and looks down at Marigold’s relaxed face, feeling her chest rise and fall through blankets.

Bertie had been right all along, she realizes: a part of Edith has never stopped wondering how it would’ve been if she’d come clean sooner. Sure, everything had worked out in the end, and she managed not to ruin Bertie and Marigold’s relationships with her lack of action. But still, she knew that taking so long to tell Bertie the truth, though understandable, wasn’t forgivable. She had owed him better, then, and they both knew it.

Now, she’s left wondering if perhaps she doesn’t owe Marigold something better too.

Bertie loves nights like this. How wonderful that they’re such a simple thing, too: just him and his wife, sitting across each other at the dining table, the food warm and filling. His mother, as is customary of hers, had preferred a light supper in her quarters; their children were up in the nursery, probably finishing their meals; and so, it was just them, enjoying the quietening of the day together.

Or, at least, it would’ve been, under other circumstances. For the past few weeks, Edith has been withdrawn, lost in thought. Bertie knows his wife, and he can tell that something has shifted. He’s not sure what; he only knows that she came out of Marigold’s birthday weekend with a new look in her eyes, pensive and quiet. He had been worried, at first, but all things considered, Edith seemed fine, so he let it be. She will come to him when she’s ready.

Somehow, he knows today is the day. Her previous aloofness has now given way to a kind of fierce determination, the glimmer in her eyes sure and certain. Besides, he’s sure he’s not the only one who noticed the day on the calendar: a year ago today, they stood on a corner of a street in Kortrijk, their whole world shifting and settling again just so.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something,” she says at last, once dessert is served. It’s their most private moment during the meal, as Myles is dismissed during the course.

Bertie looks up and smiles. “What is it, darling?”

Edith catches his eye and, for a moment, it’s only the two of them, Edith smiling at him warmly, intimatly. Bertie had always hoped he’d get to have something like this, but he never truly believe it would come true—it so rarely seems to do, for simple men like him. Or like he was, rather. He’s still taken aback sometimes, at how he should get to be this lucky.

Whatever conversation is about to unfold, he knows Michael Gregson will be at the center of it. So, Bertie enjoys the moment while it lasts, and then he lets it go. He’s never liked to make things harder than they need to be.

“Last month, when my family was here, I went to put Marigold to bed that first night,” Edith starts, firming her shoulders as if readying for a fight. “And… For the first time, she asked me about her parents. Her real parents.” Edith grew serious as she spoke, and as she comes to the end of her sentence, there’s a heavy expression on her face. Sorrow, and longing, and a deep sense of failure, if Bertie were to guess.

“Oh.” It’s a useless, meaningless word. He struggles to know what else to say.

Edith nods. “I tried to brush it off, but if she’s anything like me, I know she’s still wondering about it. And it made me realize that I want to be able to give her the answers she’s looking for, and to reassure her that she has nothing to be ashamed of.” Oh, Bertie realizes, but this time he keeps it to himself. There’s no use in wondering aloud if it is Marigold’s shame she is worried about, or hers. He’ll be equally invested in either case. “And-” She pauses to take a deep breath. “And I want her to know who her father is. I want them to be able to choose if they want to be in each other’s lives.”

“Of course.” Bertie says it all too quickly, without pausing to give himself a moment to think. It’s always been an impulse of his, something old age hasn’t managed to quell out of him entirely. He pauses to take a sip of his wine before continuing. “That makes sense,” he adds, still struggling to parse through his now racing thoughts. “You know I would never stop you from inviting Michael to be a part of her life.”

Edith nods and smiles, her shoulders relaxing, and Bertie finds himself relaxing with her. The renewed frown that pops into her face again a moment later confuses him. “Are you alright with this, then?”

“Of course.” The words are easy to say because they’re true. Bertie knows they are. He doesn’t understand why his chest is feeling so tight, then.

Edith does not seem pleased, though. “I know how this whole situation has made me worried and stressed. And you have been… Honestly, you have been better than I could ask for. And I want to be able to do that for you too.” Bertie can see her worry, can hear the pleading tone in her voice.

It forces his smile out of his face, forces him to pause and breathe. He takes longer than usual to answer, to straighten his thoughts into something he can make sense of. What he finds is not something he likes, but he shares it, nonetheless. “When… When you said that Marigold was asking about her parents,” he starts, unable to meet Edith’s eyes, “it made me realize that a part of me had started thinking of her as… Well, as mine. I know I’m not her father,” he adds quickly, because he doesn’t want Edith’s pity, he doesn’t want her to look at him with that look. “And you’re right that Michael deserves a choice, and Marigold deserves that too. We all have a right to know where we come from, I suppose. I just-” He doesn’t quite know how to say it, how to even explain it. He never even met Marigold as a baby; she was well into her childhood when he came into her life. But he had enjoyed bonding with her, and he likes the way she calls him ‘Pa’, enjoys the warmth that spreads in his chest whenever someone asks about his life, and he gets to mention that he has two children. They do all of it even though they both know it holds no real weight. Perhaps that’s why he loves it so much: because they know it’s not real and choose to do it anyway.

But if Michael enters the picture… So far, Bertie has held no ill-will towards the man. Everyone has looked at him strangely for it, as if trying to crack his surface and find where he’s hiding his anger and resentment. He doesn’t quite know how to convince them that there isn’t any to be found. Edith’s love for Michael had been a fact from the moment they met, and not one she tried to keep from him: she took him to the apartment that was once his, where his taste and paraphernalia still linger all over; she took him to Michael’s magazine and told him about how they met. Even though Edith had never been forthcoming about the specifics, the fact of Michael and the effect he had on her life were never something she kept to herself.

Throughout the past year and change, Bertie has felt lost and confused, has felt worried, but he has never felt threatened or insecure—despite everyone seemingly expecting him. He knows Edith loves him, her love as obvious to him as the air in his lungs that keeps him alive. But now, with the idea of bringing Michael into Marigold’s life so heavy and imminent, he can’t help but feel all those things people kept expecting him to. Because Marigold is someone Michael can take away. That Bertie couldn’t even fault him for taking away: she is his daughter after all. Bertie would struggle to fault Michael if he decided he wanted to be an active part of her life, if he wanted her in his permanently. And who is Bertie to stand in the middle of it?

Lord. Peter had always called him soft, had often remarked that he would let people walk all over him if they asked nicely enough. It had been a bit of a pot calling the kettle situation that had never failed to amuse him, but Bertie wonders what he would say now, if he saw how selfish he can actually be.

“Bertie?” Edith prompts. Bertie meets her eyes, having gotten so lost in thought he’d missed her finishing her dessert and settling back into her chair. There’s a worried frown on her face.

“Apologies.” He shakes his head, forcing himself to focus. “I lost track of myself for a moment. I think you’re right in wanting them to meet, truly,” he reaffirms.

“I believe you.” Edith says it sincerely, but Bertie can see she won’t be willing to let the subject go so easily. She’s always been more stubborn than him. “But there’s something that worries you, and I don’t want you to keep it from me. Let me be here for you too.”

Bertie looks down at his half-eaten dessert. It was a lovely panna cotta, velvety and smooth, one of their cook’s best. “It’s quite selfish of me, really,” he warns her, stealing a look at her face. “I just… I wonder… If Michael becomes part of her life, I don’t know what that would mean for me. He might not want another man, a strange man, raising his daughter. And I wouldn’t fault him for it.”

Edith blinks, startled for a moment, and then her expression turns angry. Bertie opens his mouth to apologize, but Edith beats him to it, “You’re not a stranger. You’re not some… some random person off the street,” she states, her tone sure and determined, her glance firm. “You’re my husband. You’ve been in Marigold’s life since she was two years old. And that is something to me, and something to her too, I’m sure. I want- I want to give Michael a chance, I want to give him a choice, but it’s a choice about what he wants. He won’t get to choose what your role in Marigold’s life is. I won’t let it.”

She’s fierce, his wife. Bertie had known that from nearly the first moment, had realized that there were more strength and ferociousness than she let others see. But he can see it now, and he’s not sure he’s ever felt as cared for as he does at this precise moment.

“Alright, then,” he acquiesces, having a hard time coming up with any kind of rebuttal.

Edith smiles, all sure of herself. “Good.”

They call for Myles soon after, letting him know they’re done and that they’ll be moving into the small library for their coffees—or, in this case, Bertie’s coffee and Edith’s tea, as she has started noticing that coffee now gives her heartburn during the night.

“Lord, I feel huge already, and we’ve still got months to go,” she protests as she sits down in what used to be Bertie’s preferred armchair, but that Edith has now claimed since it sits higher than the couch.

“I think you look wonderful.” She does, and it’s not only that sharp, ugly, possessive urge that he gets at seeing her with his child that makes him say that. Pregnancy has made her resplendent, glowing almost, and he likes the softness of her body, likes the way it feels under his hands when she asks for him at night, likes how sensitive she has grown in the past couple of months.

Edith looks at him and smiles knowingly, taking the compliment easily.

Myles comes to serve them their drinks and, once the door is closed behind him, Bertie lets himself settle on the cushions and finally return the conversation from earlier. “So, how were you thinking of doing it?”

Edith sighs and stirs her tea instead of answering him immediately. “I was thinking we could invite him over in April. Your mother is still planning on going down to visit her cousin, right?”

It’s a fair assumption: Mother always goes down to Bath around April for a month-long stay, leaving them alone for a few weeks. It’s the most they ever have the house to themselves, and as much as Bertie always enjoys getting to be around Edith with no one else around, he really wouldn’t want his mother to meet Michael Gregson anytime soon. The mere thought of her even knowing all that has been going on is enough to chill the blood in his veins. “I know she’s planning on it, yes.”

“We could invite him then. For a week, maybe two?” she suggests, but she gives Bertie no time to answer before carrying on. “Before any of that, though, I do believe there is something else we should do.” She closes her eyes for a deep breath and then fixes Bertie a resigned look. “I believe it’s time we told my parents.”

Bertie pauses, letting the decision sink in. It has all the makings of a disaster. “Are you sure?”

Edith shrugs, more defeated than flippant. “I wasn’t, not until now. But if Michael is to be any part of Marigold’s life, then it stands to reason that he will also be a part of ours. And, when it comes to him, I’ve already kept enough from my family. It… doesn’t feel right to do it again.”

It’s sound reasoning. Having grown up in a house where his parents spent most of their time in silence, with no other family other than his cousin and his aunt—both of which Mother had always thought worse than vermin—Bertie sometimes finds himself caught out by the closeness of the Crawleys, even after all this time. He likes it and has come to revel in it, but it’s so markedly different from his own upbringing. As far as he’s concerned, the longer Mother is kept in the dark, the best. The whole ordeal will already be unpleasant enough as it is.

“I trust your judgement,” he says, sliding along on the couch so he can reach a hand to find Edith’s wrist hanging from the armchair. The proximity makes him feel more confident, as if Edith somehow makes the ground steadier under his feet. “Do you think they’ll react well, though? I don’t want you worrying, not right now.” He glances down at Edith’s belly, knowing she’ll catch his meaning.

He looks back in time to catch her pointedly rolling her eyes. “I’m already worried, darling,” she says, brushing off his concerns. Edith has moaned plenty about everyone thinking she’s so fragile now just because she’s with child, and Bertie hasn’t escaped the rampage. “But… I imagine Papa will be angry. He’ll probably try to convince us that we should drop the whole business,” she adds, barely keeping from rolling her eyes. “Mama will be more worried about me than anything else. She’ll insist that we can wait until the baby is here, at least.”

“We can, though,” Bertie points out quickly. He tells himself he’s not doing it for selfish reasons. “I understand why April would be best, but we can wait. I’m sure we’d find another time.”

Edith looks at him, searching for something; Bertie is unsure of what, so he doesn’t know what to morph his face into. He’s sure he looks quite ridiculous throughout her close inspection. At last, she nods and looks away, leaving Bertie uncertain of whether she found whatever it was she was looking for.

“I know we could wait, and it would probably be the most proper choice. It’s just that- I know it makes no sense, but I feel that if I wait too long, I’ll simply… explode.” Her face is pained and tense, but not accusatory. It reminds Bertie suddenly of that dreadful morning all those years ago, after Mary said too much and Bertie chose to walk away. “It’s like all the things I’ve felt are suddenly bubbling up inside of me, and I don’t want them to one day just burst out without my having any say in it.”

Bertie nods. “Alright.” He doesn’t need Edith to spell it out for him any further; he knows that if there is one thing Edith’s experience with Michael—his disappearance, her pregnancy, everything—were marked by, was an utter loss of control. “April it is, then.” He smiles, and Edith’s relaxes, dislocating his hand from her wrist so she can move and lace their fingers instead. “You know I love you, right? And that I can’t help admiring how you insist on doing the right thing, even when it’s hard. I’ll be right here the whole time.”

“Oh, shush,” she commands, moved, and they both laugh as Edith’s eyes well-up; pregnancy always make her emotional. “I love you, too.”

Chapter Text

Kortrijk, 10^th March 1932

Dearest Edith,

Let me start by wishing my sincerest congratulations! A new child is always such a joyous occasion. Mila and Adam’s twins were just newborns when I arrived here in Kortrijk, and I feel very fortunate to have watched them grow up. And there’s also little Nicolas, of course, who I believe shouldn’t be much younger than your Peter, and who I’ve had the honor to witness since birth.  I’m sure Marigold and Peter must be thrilled about their new sibling. I hope you have been feeling well during this journey. Do extend Bertie my best wishes.

Now, I can’t be too long today, but I just received your letter, and I wanted to be sure to answer it as soon as possible. Firstly, thank you so much for extending me such a kind invitation. I have been considering visiting England for a longer stay—to acclimate myself to it, if you will—and I’d be very honored to stay with you at some point during my journey. I haven’t actually started making any plans, though, so I can’t give you a more precise answer right now, but I believe April should be doable.

I’ll write again once I have a more concrete answer. I’m also sending the Laertes’ routing information along in case you wish to telephone call and talk things more directly, or if you have any pressing questions, though I don’t know how successful you’d be in such venture!

Do take care of yourself until then.

Faithfully,

M.G.

Edith and Bertie arrive at Downton to find it surprisingly warm, as if Easter chose to bring with it a small glimpse of the Summer to come. George and Caroline are playing outside when they arrive, and Marigold and Peter are all too eager to join them the moment they escape the confines of the motor.

“Mama and Papa are not here yet?” Edith asks as Mary laces their arms, walking them inside.

“Not yet. They had some plan or other, I forget,” she says, with a dismissive gesture. “They said they’d make sure to pick up Aunt Rosamund before coming over.”

Edith almost falters in her step. It’s a small miracle Mary misses it. “Aunt Rosamund has chosen to come for Easter after all?”

Mary hums, unconcerned. “Something or other about being tired of being all alone in France. I’m positive it actually involved some gentleman, but Mama won’t confirm my suspicions.”

Edith settles on the couch in the library, thanking Parker when he comes to pour her tea. Through the windows, she can see Bertie chasing the kids around, all of them laughing. He’s always happy to go along with their plays and games, to roll around in the dirt and play in the grass, unaware—or perhaps simply unconcerned—about the notions of propriety Edith had instilled in her since childhood. She’s sure he gave Mrs. Pelham many a headache in his youth, but Edith is glad for it; it makes them more balanced parents.

 “You’re very pensive,” Mary remarks, turning on the desk to look at her with prying eyes.

Edith rolls her eyes. “Merely tired,” she says, making herself sit up straighter.

“Is everything alright?” Mary asks, letting go of her prying and replacing it with a concerned frown. It’s an oddly warming sight. “With the…” She gestures to her belly.

Edith nods. “Everything is fine. My midwife says it’s normal that I am tired. She wouldn’t call me old to my face, but I’m sure that’s what she was hinting at.” She can’t help rolling her eyes again. “Anyway, I have an appointment in London next month, just to be safe.”

Mary’s face relaxes, but she still makes sure to add, “Well, if there’s anything you need, let me know.”

Edith smiles. She watches the kids playing a bit longer and then rises to go pick up a novel from her mother’s shelf, figuring she can do with a bit of light reading to pass the time. She ends up dozing off instead—which Mary tactfully doesn’t comment on—and only waking up when the children raucously come back inside, covered in dirt and sweat. The Nanny runs after them and tries to rush them upstairs before they can fully enter the library, but it’s perfectly fruitless, especially when the children spot the afternoon tea spread already waiting for them.

“You can let them be,” Mary tells Nanny, after watching the children for a long moment. “But just this once,” she adds sternly to the kids.

Edith privately smiles to herself. Granny, she can’t help thinking, would never allow such thing, but Mary, it seems, can’t help but grow softer in her old age.

Edith ends up not waiting around for her parents and her aunt. The travel wore her out, and she still feels somewhat sleepy, so she ends up choosing to go for a short nap before having to change for supper. At some point, she opens her eyes at the sound of the bedroom door opening, only for Peter to toddle in only in his under clothes, clearly having escaped Nanny in the middle of getting changed. Edith knows she should berate him, or at least call for Nanny to let her know where he is, but she’s still half out of it and all she can muster is adjusting her arm and the blanket when Peter crawls into bed next to her, closing her eyes when he does the same, both of them contentedly worn out by the day.

Later, changed and refreshed and ready for a meal that tastes like home, she comes down to find Mary and Mama alone in the drawing room, cocktails in hand as they converse.

“Edith, darling!” Mama says, rising to meet her. Edith lets herself lean into her embrace for a moment; pregnancy makes her softer, and she knows she’s nervous about the talk she must have with her parents later. “You look wonderful.”

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly, accepting the cocktail Parker hands her and taking a seat next to Mary, settling down to dutifully answer her mother’s prying questions.

“Isn’t Tom coming?” she asks at some point, when everyone has come down and she notices his absence.

“They decided not to. Sybbie wasn’t feeling well, apparently.”

“Is everything alright?” Edith checks, making a mental note to call him when she gets home.

Mama looks away, checking around for something, before leaning in and saying in a lower voice, “She’s feeling unwell,” her mother says pointedly, watching her intensely, as if conveying something through her gaze.

Edith frowns, mouth open to ask for clarification, but the penny drops before she manages any words. “Oh.” She closes her mouth, letting the fact settle into her mind uneasily. “Already, though?” she asks, making sure to keep her voice low. She takes the final sip of her drink and swallows it through a tight throat. Sybbie is yet to turn twelve! Surely, she can’t have grown up so fast… But, then again, George will be leaving for school in a few months; Marigold is well on her way to double digits, and barely a head shorter than Edith herself. Golly, she really is getting old.

“Well, neither you or Sybil were much older,” her Mama remarks, sitting back and moving the subject along swiftly.

Edith sits back, tuning them out. She has started feeling the baby in her belly, and she brings a hand down as they kick, feeling their small strength against her palm. Despite her best efforts—she’s surrounded by her family, for God’s sake, about to have dinner followed by what will surely be a painful talk—her mind travels to Marigold, to Michael. There’s nothing Edith has treasured more in her life than getting to watch Marigold grow up; there’s nothing that, to this day, she reproaches herself more, than the months she abandoned her with strangers in Switzerland, where she chose herself and her fears over her own baby. Somedays, she looks at Marigold and wonders what that time was like: how the Schroeders felt watching her say her first words, take her first steps, start exploring the world on her own. She’ll never be able to get that precious time back, and that pain is a sharp one, even after all the years she’s had to watching her and seeing her and knowing her.

All Michael has is the absence. Perhaps not even that, since he doesn’t even know there’s something to miss in the first place. Edith is terrified with what she’s about to do. She’s well-aware this is just the first step into the beginning of a long, winding road and, if her history is anything to go by, Edith knows she’s sure to grow more fearful, more avoidant, the longer she walks on it. Yet, just like that night when she finally mustered up the courage to tell Bertie that she wanted to bring Michael properly into their life, she knows she’s doing the right thing. Just like she did that dreadful night when she woke up with smoke with her lungs and made up her mind that she could not bear to spend a minute longer without her daughter. It’s an odd kind of certainty, somehow made firmer by the fact that she knows everyone else will be against it.

Well, not everyone else. She looks up, her eyes finding Bertie, standing across the room entertaining Aunt Rosamund. She’s not alone in this—hasn’t been, for even one moment. Bertie has been there, by her side, every step of the way. Edith knows she’s not nearly as worthy of it as Bertie seems to believe, but she is selfish, and she’ll take all his love and devotion for as long as he’s willing to give it. She’ll let him hold her up when her knees are quivering, will let him convince her to do the right thing when she’s faltering, and will continue trying to love him just as fiercely as he’s been loving her.

The conversation turns out to be just as nerve-wracking, just as disastrous, as Edith expected—her parents are nothing but predictable, after all. Edith sits in the library with her back tall, Bertie perched on the arm rest next to her with a hand on her back, Mary watching silently from the other end of the couch. Papa’s face does something complicated and confusing before he finally manages to speak, “But… are you sure?”

Edith looks to her side and trades a brief glance with Mary, her mind going too fast to have the time to even assimilate that this is something they just do now.

“I am. We are,” Edith says, meeting her father’s gaze, slowly moving her eyes to assess her mother’s and Aunt Rosamund’s expressions. Bertie squeezes her shoulder.

“Still, we should at least talk to Murray,” Papa says, getting up to start pacing again, as he’s been doing ever since the conversation started. “We can have him-”

“We have talked to Murray,” Mary says, sounding impatient. They had been through it all already, and Edith was careful to be as thorough as she could about the hard facts. “He’s been involved from the beginning. You can talk to him, but he won’t tell you anything we haven’t already shared. And Edith and Bertie have met with him.”

Edith can feel her heartbeat quickening. She hadn’t really gotten to that part yet, and wasn’t sure she was going to, but it seems like the choice is out of her hands. Classic Mary. “We have,” Edith says, regaining her composure as all eyes land on her again. “We went down to London for his court appointment in May, and we had dinner with him last October.”

“Last- October?” Papa squeaks, clearly incensed.

“How long, exactly, has all this been going on?” Aunt Rosamund speaks up for the first time, eyeing them with sharp eyes and the kind of all-knowing, all-seeing glare Edith always associates with her grandmother.

Edith swallows, refusing to cower under her stare. “I first received his letter about a year and a half ago.”

“A year-”

“Quiet, Robert,” Mama says, looking at her father sternly. It’s enough to stop him in his tracks, so that he stands in the middle of the room, breathing heavily, face flushed. Her mother turns back towards her, face still fierce but softening. “Now, Edith, I can’t say that this isn’t a shock, as I’m sure it was for you as well. I’m glad Mary was there to help you through it,” she adds with a warm smile. “What I’m now wondering is why you’re telling is today. Why now, after you spent so long keeping it between yourselves.”

Edith looks at her mother, suspicious that she can likely already guess the answer. Her Mama had always known them better than anyone, at least as long as they allowed her to see the truth. Edith searches her expression, not really sure of what she’s trying to find, but seeking it, nonetheless. She’s ready for her father’s theatricals, for Aunt Rosamund’s arched eyebrow, but she needs her mother to be there for her.

“We…” She trails off without even managing to get the sentence started.

She looks up at Bertie, seeking reassurance. He smiles, squeezing her shoulder again, and takes it off her hands. “Edith and I have decided to invite Michael into our lives more fully. We’ve… realized that we don’t feel comfortable with things as they currently are. Michael has done nothing wrong, after all, and doesn’t deserve to be kept in the dark about… certain matters.” Bertie speaks clearly and calmly, the way that never fails to make people love him, the reason why he’s so well-regarded by both his peers and by his tenants. It’s easy to believe him, to be swayed by his calm certainty. “We don’t yet know what will happen or what Michael’s desires will be, but we chose to tell you now because we know that this will be a trying time for all of us.” He pauses, and then confesses, his placid exterior cracking, “We could really use your support.”

Nobody says anything for a long moment. It is Edith who breaks it, the urge to speak suddenly unbearable, “I didn’t want to keep you in the dark.” She moves her gaze from Aunt Rosamund to her father, to Mary, until she finally faces her mother. “I am tired of secrets.” Will she understand what Edith is trying to say? She truly hopes so. It is as best of an apology as she knows how to make.

That night, Bertie lays in bed, sleep eluding him as the hours tick by.

He’s never had a hard time falling asleep at the Abbey, the quiet of the countryside and the heaviness of the blankets always pulling him right under, but the comforts he’s always taken for granted seem unable to work their magic this time round. Next to him, Edith tosses and turns, cursing about not being able to find a good enough position and stealing Bertie’s pillow to herself in the process.

“Well, I suppose it went as well as we could’ve asked for,” Bertie finally concludes. He doesn’t know how long it’s been, but through the uncovered edge of the window, he can see that the sky outside is still dark and deep.

He knows Edith is awake, but she makes no sound acknowledging his words. Bertie closes his eyes, trying to chase the darkness into something resembling slumber.

“I know it did,” Edith finally speaks. Bertie opens his eyes, glad that they’re talking. “It’s not like I expected any of them to be happy about it. Having Aunt Rosamund here really didn’t help though,” she adds in a mumble.

Bertie grimaces, his face turned towards the window, so she won’t be able to see it. It had made his skin crawl, the way Rosamund would turn her gaze between them, her eyes cold and carefully assessing—or perhaps Bertie’s anxiety-riddled brain made them seem as much. No matter; now is not the time for that particular train of thought.

“But they don’t understand,” Edith continues after a while. She speaks quietly, and Bertie can’t quite make out her tone. “They don’t understand why we would risk it, why I would want to bring Michael into it. I managed to turn things around after everything, I have a good life, so why would I risk it all now?”

Bertie hums. “Because it’s the right thing to do,” he says plainly.

Edith shuffles, turning towards him. Bertie mimics her, until they’re lying on their sides facing each other. “Do you really believe so?” she asks, and now Bertie can make out the glimmer of desperation in her tone. “Because part of me thinks so too. But then… Then there’s this other part, and it keeps whispering that the only reason why I want this is because I want- Well, Michael. That I haven’t let him go after all. And I’m having a hard time not believing it,” she adds in a whisper, shifting again so that she can curl on herself a bit more.

Bertie hopes the room is dark enough that she can’t see much of him, hopes that his face remains neutral enough if she is. He breathes, in and out in a steady rhythm, letting Edith’s words sink in. He’s failing to be surprised by them—just like on that dreadful morning, when Mary spoke the truth about Marigold’s parentage into the open, and Bertie could feel the pang of hurt, but not the surprise. The signs had been clear then, and they are clear now: he had seen it that day in Kortrijk, when Edith had been watching Michael as if he was a miracle; he had seen it as he returned to the table that night they’d gone out for dinner; he had seen it in Edith’s rushed request if she could write to him. In a way—in that self-flagellating way Peter had always teased him for having—Bertie even understands: it is one thing to let someone go in death; it is another thing entirely to do so in life.

“I- I’m sorry,” Edith says, the words not more than a whisper into the inches of air between their lips. “I know it’s a dreadful thing to say. I love you, I do, but I understand if you don’t believe me anymore.”

“Of course I believe you,” Bertie says quickly, perhaps a tad too snippily. He’s rarely quick to anger, but he’s filled with it all of a sudden: Edith doubting her feelings about Michael is something he can cope with—he truly hopes so, at least—but he won’t have her doubt what they feel for each other. “Question your feelings for Michael all you want, but please don’t question mine for you. Do not question our relationship. I love you just the same as I have always loved you, and I’ll always believe you when you tell me you do too.”

Edith snorts, the sound carrying the shadow of a disbelieving laugh. “You…” But she never gets around to completing her thought. She reaches for his hand instead, lacing their fingers and holding him in a desperate grip. “Please promise me you truly mean it. That you won’t change your mind about this.”

“I won’t,” he says firmly, already feeling the anger leave his body just as quickly as it entered. He decides to try to break the tension a little, smiling as he remarks, “I hold nothing but nicest regards for Mr. Gregson, but I won’t give him the power to get between us quite that easily.”

Edith chuckles too, the sound a bit wet, and shuffles closer to him. Bertie holds her and breathes, in and out in a steady pattern. Edith has always had the power to make him feel remarkedly powerful and self-assured, even at the beginning, when he was being his usual standoff-ish self. She’d never shied away from it, never met it with anything but her own awkwardness and charm. It is easy, then, to emulate those feelings now, to flippantly remark that Michael Gregson is not a thorn in their side and make it sound believable enough; to let Edith lean on his strength, when her own is faltering.

Except- it’s impossible to notice, the way Michael Gregson looks at Edith. He doesn’t do a good job of hiding it, and Bertie has always been a perceptible person. And, on the days when his insecurities get the best of him, he struggles to believe that their love can be strong enough to withstand such look. He can feel the doubts creeping in, slowly crawling up his arms and around his chest, trying to hold him back from reaching for Edith, trying to convince him that the best he can do is to stand back and let destiny run its course.

For the rest of their stay, Michael Gregson becomes the central topic of each and every conversation. As nobody wants to address it, it then naturally follows that that is the only thing any of them can think about, even as they eat their Easter roast or enjoy some pre-dinner cocktails and gossip about the neighbors.

It doesn’t take long for Bertie to realize that if, on the one hand, he can be oddly understanding of Michael’s presence in his and Edith’s marriage, he has a hard time making peace with his presence in everyone else’s minds.

It doesn’t help that none of the Crawleys are ever too good at keeping their thoughts to themselves: Rosamund corners Edith after breakfast for a conversation Bertie isn’t private to and then spend the rest of the day sending impenetrable glances their way; Robert finds Bertie after luncheon, claps him on the shoulder with a heartfelt, “My dear chap,” and then proceeds to spend fifteen minutes attempting to convince him of Edith’s virtues and of the greatness of their union.

“Robert,” Bertie says firmly, once he feels the conversation has gotten completely out of hand. His ears feel warm—from embarrassment or annoyance, he’s unsure. “I love Edith. I love Marigold, too. None of it has changed, nor will it.” It’s easy, he finds, to speak firmly and assertively Robert. It’s only when his eyes meet his, and Bertie sees the plain worry in them, that he softens. “I’m always very touched by how highly you think of me. I ask you to please extend that courtesy to Mr. Gregson as well. As far as I know, from the brief times you met him, he was perfectly respectable. So, please, give me and give Edith the benefit of the doubt, and try to do the same for Mr. Gregson. No one is here to ruin anything.”

He questions it later, why he always finds it so easy to defend Michael, even when these days, more often than not, there’s an ugly part of his mind that tries to trip him up with fantasies of Michael’s hand in Edith’s, of Edith reaching for his face with the same heat that she does to Bertie. But he’s spent a lifetime living with his mind—and, occasionally, Peter—speaking traitorous thoughts in his ears, and he’s well-versed on how to deal with it. The fact is, he likes Michael well enough, and he surely wishes him no harm. More importantly, he loves Edith and he wants her to be happy. He wishes everyone else would simply understand that—that there is little Bertie wouldn’t be willing to consider when it comes to making Edith happy—and stop sending him pitying or worrying looks.

He knows what he’s doing. He hopes so, anyway.