"One way or another, everyone goes down the aisle with half the story hidden." Lady Violet Crawley.

...

"Edith, my dear, there is something I want to tell you."

Edith didn't know what she expected it to be. Probably some reproach for how stupid she had been to get herself in the family way. Her granny had summoned her to her house for tea, and she was happy to get away from Downton and all the risks of a disclosure there. Enough people knew about her predicament as it was.

So the next thing her granny said came as a total surprise to Edith.

"I once had to give up a child. And I have regretted it ever since."

Edith was stunned. What was this?

"It was before I married your grandfather, although I had met him and was seeing him from time to time. But I saw other men also, I was only twenty-one and I loved to have fun. So I met this man, who was already married. I didn't know anything about love at the time, not of the physical side of it, but he sure did..."

Violet was lost in thought for quite a while. She was smiling in a way that Edith found slightly disturbing.

So Edith didn't know what to say about it all. Her granny? Surely not?

"I only tell you this because I don't want you to make the same mistake. I didn't want to say it in front of Rosamund, but if you want this baby, we must find a way for you to keep it. This whole idea about going to Switzerland...Well that's where I went. I gave my child away to be adopted by some locals there. It is probably better at yodeling than at speaking English by now."

She was quiet for quite some time again.

"It was a little boy. The older brother of your father and your aunt. Though none of them will ever know about each other. I'm telling you this because you need to know, but you must promise you won't tell anyone else. I gave that child up because my mother insisted upon it, but I wasn't forced to do it. I just wanted so badly to become the Countess of Grantham."

Edith didn't know what to say. But she knew now that she had her granny's support if she would insist in keeping her baby.

And Lady Violet was a powerful ally to have.

...

An: Just an idea I got from watching the spoilers for 4:8. I haven't watched the actual program, so I may have got some things wrong.

Violet said those words about half the story when she heard that Mary insisted on telling Matthew about Pamuk.

And, as my signature says, I do love Edith!