London, 1927

"Miss Crawley? Mr Edmonds will see you now." Miss Shaw's voice was difficult to hear over the clack of typewriters and the talk of the other employees, but her disapproval, as ever, was clearly audible.

Nervously, Edith rose and smoothed out her skirt, raising her other hand to check her hair. It was not a matter of routine for her to be called to Mr Edmonds' office in the middle of the week. Her column appeared on Fridays, and he would meet with her on Mondays to discuss its reception. A summons on a Thursday was highly unusual, not to say inconvenient. The letter had arrived only that morning, following hot on the heels of her young niece Sybil, absent from school with a severe summer cold. Edith had been forced to wait for Tom to arrive home from the office at lunchtime and collect his daughter - and of course he had been late. Then she had had to leave Elinor with Helen at short notice, Signora Rossi being in attendance at her daughter's wedding, and since Edith had far better things than luxuries such as taxi cabs on which to spend her relatively small income, she had had to catch the bus part of the way and run the rest. Thus, her expression upon entering her employer's office was one of mingled anxiety and harassment.

The office was wide and spacious, but seemed rather less so, owing to the huge piles of paper - copies of the latest editions of competing newspapers and prospective articles - which littered the floor and almost every other available surface. Edmonds himself, a plump grey-haired man in his fifties with an admirable moustache, sat behind his desk, smoking a cigarette, but he rose at her entrance. "Ah, Lady Edith, good afternoon." Unlike his secretary, Mr Edmonds was more than aware of Edith's background, but always seemed to express a faint confusion as to how to treat her. He was the epitome of the eager newspaperman, always on the lookout for a story, with a keen eye for literary talent. When writing at the Sketch had no longer been… viable, he had been the first to offer her a position at the Post, first as an occasional contributor, and later as a regular columnist. He opened his cigarette case and offered it to her, but Edith declined half-smilingly.

"You wanted to see me, Mr Edmonds?"

Her editor coughed awkwardly and Edith sensed the first hints of trouble brewing. "Was there a problem with my last article?" she persisted. Sometimes, letters of complaint would flow in slowly, meaning that an article that had appeared a success at first could later be chalked up as a mistake. Her outspokenness on many subjects had made her one of the Post's most controversial writers, but she could not see how her latest work - an ebullient effusion of praise for Mr Lindbergh's transatlantic flight from New York to Paris - could have occasioned any complaints. Edmonds shook his head. "Not at all. I like a woman who says what she thinks and so, it seems, do the readership."

Edith ducked her head, blushing. Edmonds was married and happily so, but that did not stop him from allowing himself a little gentle, harmless flirtation with her every now and again. "Thank you, sir."

He waved his hand impatiently. "Not at all. But, look here, Lady Edith… Damn it all, this is awkward." He stood and turned to pace the office, a deep frown creasing his brow. "My secretary saw you yesterday on her way home. She says you were accompanied by a little girl and that the little girl called you her mother." Edith suppressed a sigh. She might, she realised dispassionately, have known. Miss Shaw had never taken to her and would, of course, jump at any chance to do her a bad turn.

He spun with uncharacteristic decisiveness to face her. "Is this true, Lady Edith?"

Edith swallowed, hoping that this was not leading to where she had a horrid suspicion it was. She could lie; she had grown good at that, hateful though it might be. Edmonds might even be able to persuade himself that he believed her. At last, however, she bowed her head and murmured, "Yes, I'm afraid it is." Immediately, she hated herself - such a response might imply that she was unhappy to be a mother, and that wasn't true at all. Whatever the circumstances of Elinor's birth, Edith would not have been without her for all the tea in China.

Edmonds sighed and passed a hand over his face. "And you are unmarried?"

Edith smiled bitterly. Michael had not been able to offer her marriage and she did not believe, having had several years now to think about it, that he would have wished to even if it had been in his power. And Anthony… A tremor crossed her face and she swallowed, glad that her head was still bent down. How tremendously silly it was of her, to still mourn a thing that had never been attained!

She chanced a glance upwards to find Edmonds watching her closely, and nodded shortly. He closed his eyes in a brief gesture of disappointment. "I'm sorry, Lady Edith… You know what I'm going to say?"

Edith nodded again, dully this time, feeling a sinking sensation in her stomach. "Of course. If the readership finds out, I doubt that my clever articles will be enough to distract their attention from the irregularities of my personal life. I quite understand, Mr Edmonds."

"I am sorry," he repeated and he looked it, too. Edith couldn't be angry with him - Mr Edmonds was, at the end of the day, a businessman and it wasn't his fault that society was hypocritical and cruel. "Send out a final article on Friday, as usual, stating your departure from the paper. I shall pay you for this month, of course - and for the next two. I'll be sad to see you go, but…" He trailed off, and disguised his embarrassment by turning away to stub out his cigarette. "Perhaps I could ask around for you? I have contacts at other papers - there may be work available."

Edith smiled weakly and shook his hand. "Thank you, Mr Edmonds. You've been very kind. I would appreciate that very much." But she knew that there was very little hope; any newspaper magnate worth his salt would ask Edmonds why his star columnist was leaving and her employer - former employer - was a terrible liar. No one would be eager to take on someone with Edith's baggage, no matter her talents as a writer.

But things were not entirely hopeless, she tried to persuade herself as she left the office of the Post for perhaps the last time. Five years ago, the prospect of unemployment - or, indeed, of any form of employment at all - would have terrified her, but things had changed now. She was a mother, with a flat and a life of her own - and she had had plenty of knocks in the intervening years to toughen her up. Edith silently took stock of her finances. She still had some money saved from the French translation job she had done for a friend of Tom's last month; Sybil had been wrong - at least one of the two skills she had acquired from their governess had been useful. If the worst came to the worst, she could always find similar work again, and since taking a course in shorthand and typing last year, most types of secretarial work were open to her as well. Perhaps Tom would know of any openings anywhere - she would ask him the next time they saw each other. At least she had no need to worry about food; Signora Rossi, her matronly Italian neighbour, had arrived in London three years ago with an adolescent daughter in tow and very little English. Edith had supplied the deficiency for both of them, and received payment in kind - Italian lessons for Elinor and a kind friend and sometimes-housekeeper for herself.

They would manage, she decided. Above all, Elinor must not know. Four and three-quarters was too young to be worrying about family finances, no matter how grown up her daughter tried to be, or how honest Edith usually attempted to be with her. She smiled almost grimly. When she got home, she would treat Elinor to tea out - a last luxury before the hard work of economising and job-searching began.

There was, at least, a roof over their heads. The little flat in Bloomsbury had been a marvellous find; Michael had rented it for them, his limited conscience at least recognising that it would be in extremely bad taste to bed his mistress in the very house to which he had brought his wife as a new bride. There were two bedrooms, a little kitchen and bathroom and a sitting room which doubled up as Edith's study in the daytime and the dining room at night. When he had left, Edith had taken over the lease herself, reasoning that it would be far easier to deal with the ghost of Michael than to find another flat as cheap and as suitable as this one.

She unlocked the flat door, feet aching and cheeks flushed from the brisk walk, and fixed a contented smile on her face, ready for the inevitable noisy welcome she would receive. She was not disappointed - her small, blonde daughter at once abandoned the pencils and paper she had been busying herself with and ran to hug her, little hands clutching around Edith's waist. "Mummy!" Easily, her mother swung her up to balance her on one hip and kiss her cheek. "Hello, my darling. Have you been good for Helen?"

Edith's friend, Helen Worth poked her head out of the kitchen. "As good as gold," she reassured Edith. "We've been drawing, haven't we, Elinor?" Edith was her daughter close, and felt it when Elinor nodded her head enthusiastically, brushing her reddish-gold curls against her mother's cheek. "I've drawn you a picture, Mummy," Elinor explained seriously.

"Really? For me? May I see?" Edith inquired. Elinor nodded and squirmed to be put down. Her mother obliged and wandered over to Elinor's makeshift desk to observe the drawing. While most young girls her age would draw houses, or animals, Elinor had, in her own inimitable style, made a somewhat clumsy attempt at drawing Edith's typewriter. Edith chuckled and brushed a hand over Elinor's curly head. "Well," she smiled, "I think that that rather deserves a treat, don't you? Why don't you go and wash your hands and find your coat, and then we can go out for tea?"

The delight on Elinor's face was enough to wash away any guilt Edith might have felt at the admittedly needless expense. She rushed out of the room like a tiny whirlwind and Edith turned to face Helen, the smile fading from her face. Helen watched her anxiously. "What did Mr Edmonds want?" she asked.

Edith sat down with a sigh of relief. "He'd found out about Elinor." She would have continued, but Helen's all-too-quick gasp of sympathy and understanding reassured Edith that any further explanation would be superfluous. "What will you do?" Helen murmured after a while, and Edith smiled to realise that her friend was far more worried about her situation than she herself was.

Helen lived on the ground floor, in a flat which doubled as a studio; she was a photographer and thus, while used to relying on her own wits to make a living, was entirely unused to dealing with employers and the attendant miseries which a reliance on them could bring. Edith shrugged. "Look around for something else, I suppose. I'm not in dire straits just yet, don't worry. I've some money saved and there's always secretarial work."

Helen nodded. "Well, I've got old Sir Jeremy Dent's daughter booked in for a sitting tomorrow morning. He may have got rid of another secretary by now - they never last more than three months. I could drop it into the conversation, if you liked."

Edith laughed, although the prospect of becoming a secretary to the impossibly fastidious and unmanageable Sir Jeremy, a noted member of the Royal Society, was not in the least bit appealing. "Thank you. But you know - " They were interrupted by the sound of Elinor's return, and soon mother and daughter were wandering along the street, heading towards the nearest Lyons' teashop. But an idea had struck Edith while she had been talking to Helen. Sitting in the top drawer of her desk was a half-finished manuscript for a novel - a thrilling mystery, a country house, a dashing baronet… Perhaps now was the time to set her mind to completing it.

Edith smiled. No, things were far from hopeless.

A/N: Hi. I think this fic needs a little bit of an explanation, so here goes...

When I first started writing this, it didn't occur to me that it was turning into a social commentary until it was already well on the way there. I didn't write it with the intention of forcing these characters - whom I love very much - into unlikely, unrealistic situations, and I hope that I haven't. I merely wrote what I felt could be Edith's life, a few years on from the failed wedding to Anthony. And slowly, I realised that, even though this is just a fanfic, I was so interested in it because the circumstances I was writing about were ones to which I could relate.

Of course, things have got better now. Single parents are not, for the most part, turned into social pariahs - whatever the problems with existing views on them. A family is unlikely to disown their daughter for getting pregnant out of marriage, unless they are extremely strict. A single parent is less likely to be viewed as immoral or sexually deviant than they used to be. But there is still some way to go.

And that's why I'd like to dedicate this story to single parents everywhere. They are wonderful, under appreciated, brilliant people. They go out to work; they run their households; they care for their daughters and sons and try to raise them to be well-rounded, productive adults; they wreck their health, sanity and social lives for the sake of their children - and they do it for the most part unthanked and uncomplaining. If they're lucky, they have brilliant support networks of family, friends and neighbours to help them through the difficult times. But not all of them are lucky.

To the majority of society, they are a problem to be solved - stereotyped as useless, incompetent and scrounging. To their little (and not so little) ones, they are heroes - endlessly cheerful, fiercely protective and determined that their children will not feel the bite of their sometimes difficult circumstances.

My own mother is one of these heroes.

This story isn't going to be a glorification of single-parenthood; it's going to show it honestly, with all its joys and troubles. But I suppose what I really want to say here is very simple: parenting, done properly, is always going to be tough. Doing it alone is ten times tougher.