Part III

The happy couple continued on to Florence, where the weather and amusements seemed divinely selected for the honeymooners. Only one thing marred the festivities. Edith had noticed it the day they had disembarked at Livorno. Anthony had been napping for the last half of the journey, and when he woke he was still so pale and fatigued that after they checked in at the hotel Edith tucked him into bed and bade him sleep through the night. She had simply thought it the strain of travel; after all she had married an older man, and had been gratified to see that he had been much refreshed the next day. Yet Florence had had to be taken at a much slower pace than their previous weeks of honeymooning, Anthony tiring sooner and requiring frequent naps. Edith tried to tell herself it was the Italian heat, but even their wedded nights had begun to wear him out earlier, and when, just into their second week in the city, Anthony barely ate any lunch and then, with several apologies, retired to his bed for yet another afternoon nap, Edith admitted to herself that there was something definitely wrong.

That evening over dinner, which Anthony was having in bed and Edith was having on a small table in their room, she confronted her husband.

"Anthony, I know there is something wrong," she asserted, in a voice that fully declared she would not be put off.

He gave her one of his half smiles. "Yes my sweet one, I suppose I must confess to you at last, I am...afflicted."

A certain gloom and a pronounced weariness sagged his features. Edith waited.

"I've been trying to ignore it, to hope that it would go away…as it has before. It comes and goes, you see."

Edith nodded encouragingly.

"Well, I didn't want to spoil our honeymoon my dear, and as I say, it has gone before..." he paused, gathering his thoughts. "Do you remember when you came to Locksley House, because you heard I'd been ill?"

"I thought that might be it," Edith confirmed.

"Yes, well, you see, I had been struggling with it for a few weeks. By the time you arrived I was coming out of it."

"What is it?" Edith inquired anxiously.

"I'm not quite certain. Dr. Clarkson can tell you the specifics. Something to do with my kidneys I gather."

"You said it was a family illness," Edith remembered.

"Quite right," he concurred, "My father had it, and my grandfather as well."

"Well, is it serious?"

"Not yet," his eyes slid downward, "but in the end…my father suffered a great deal…" He shook off the memory, turning to Edith's worried expression. "Oh my dear, don't look at me like that. I've been seeing a specialist in London about it for a few years, and he has hopes that some new treatments will make it very bearable. I've been taking something that has made these last few episodes quite minor." A yawn obscured the last of the phrase. "Yet I still get quite fatigued," he said apologetically.

"Why didn't you tell me about this before?" Edith demanded.

"I didn't want to worry you, my dear. Especially if this treatment works and it is no longer a concern."

"Well, we're going home," Edith decided.

"Oh no my dear—even if I need to stay in bed a bit, you can continue to enjoy yourself."

Edith shook her head. "I want to get you home and get you well."

Anthony smiled at her determination, and resigned himself.

So the Strallans returned to Locksley House.

On their second morning at home, Dr. Clarkson came to check on his patient. Edith waited until the examination was over, then caught the good doctor as he came down the stairs.

"Lady Edith," he greeted her. "Forgive me-Lady Strallan," he corrected. "Allow me to congratulate you," he said gallantly.

"Thank you, Dr. Clarkson," Edith accepted the compliment. "Would you mind giving me a few minutes before you go? Perhaps some tea?"

He nodded and followed her through into the morning parlor, thinking to himself how Lady Edith had changed, from a sharp, solitary young girl to the mature, gracious hostess—the wife—she now was. He sat down, giving voice to these opinions.

"May I say how much being Lady Strallan suits you. You seem very much at home here at Locksley," he said kindly.

She smiled appreciatively, as a footman poured out the tea.

"I hope your honeymoon was pleasant," he chatted, taking his teacup.

"Most pleasant," Edith almost blushed, but sobered quickly. "However, it was shorter than planned."

"Yes," said the doctor seriously, "Sir Anthony wished that I should explain his disease to you."

Edith nodded at the footman, who slipped through the door, then she turned her attention to Dr. Clarkson. He repeated, in medical terms, much of what Anthony had told her; that it was a hereditary disorder having to do with his kidneys, and that they were consulting a specialist in London.

"And what do you think are the chances of the success of this new treatment?"

Dr. Clarkson sighed. "Well, to be honest with you, I can't say, Lady Strallan. There seems to be good evidence that this treatment will work, but I wouldn't want to get your hopes up. The treatment might be good enough to eradicate the disease altogether, or it might simply prolong the inevitable and ease the pain of the disorder."

Edith smiled grimly. "Spoken like a physician," she remarked.

He returned the expression. "You don't have too much to worry about at present. The disease should be little more than it is now—fatigue, dehydration, and vulnerability in turns—for several years."

The tea was finished and the doctor gathered his bag and rose to go.

"Doctor," Edith's voice was strained. "How old was Sir Anthony's father when he died?"

"I believe he was just over sixty," Dr. Clarkson replied gravely.

Edith nodded with equal gravity.

"But I have every reason to believe that his son will outlive him. He has far more to live for," he concluded.

Edith smiled graciously and bid him goodbye, extending him an invitation to dine at Locksley House the following week. He accepted and took his leave.

Edith watched his car pull out of the drive and sighed. She climbed the stairs and knocked gently on the bedroom door before sliding inside it.

From the bed, Anthony looked at her with large, tired eyes. Silently she climbed in beside him, and placed her head against his chest.

By and by Anthony's health improved and slackened, new treatments came and went, some worked and some didn't, and Anthony had his good days and his bad days. Edith took it all in stride, engaging him during his good days of youthful energy, and nursing him in his days of weakness and fatigue. She found it ironic that what he had worried most about was his arm, but that that had really not been any kind of bother. With each passing year Anthony became more adept with his one arm so that his life was only slightly less than normal. When their daughter Margaret was born, he was able to cradle her in his good, strong arm, and to feed her porridge and read her books. And never once did Edith regret.

As the years passed, Anthony's bouts of illness became more severe, and his activity waned, but the Strallans still led a happy family life. With the advent of the wireless, Anthony became an occasional local reporter, his crisp refined voice just the sort radio required. Edith wrote for the wireless, not only journalistic pieces, but radio dramas as well, and it was a common family evening to sit and read through the mysteries and romances together. Margaret would thrill, and Anthony would chuckle at the absurdities of the melodrama.

And then the war came. Anthony was asked to step in to perform what diplomatic duties his health would allow, and Edith and Margaret (fifteen and insisting upon being called Meg) volunteered in any way they could. Edith turned down an offer as a correspondent, but instead she and Sir Anthony ran a kind of boarding house and school at Downton Place for children and mothers displaced by the Blitz. Yet Anthony was far less active during the second world war than he had been during the first. Age was catching up with him, and with it, the illness reared its ugly head once more.

Amid all her service, Edith helped her husband through terrible bouts of fever, pain, vomiting, and infantile weakness. And yet there were still quiet evenings in the library, when the war and the world were forgotten, when Edith and Anthony talked and laughed and cuddled—Anthony's embrace just as ardent if not just as strong as it had ever been.

Eventually Anthony had to take to a wheelchair.

"This is what I was afraid of," Anthony quipped one afternoon as Edith wheeled him from the dining room to the library, "shouldn't have married an old codger like me."

Edith smiled and kissed him on the cheek. "But this old codger is so divinely handsome, how could I resist?" she teased.

And Anthon could only chuckle and submit.

And then the war was over. Anthony and Edith rejoiced again, along with all others who had seen the hells of two world wars, who had seen the finest of two generations killed and maimed and harrowed by the battlefield.

Yet the Strallans' happiness was short lived. Almost as though waiting for peace, Anthony's illness took a wicked turn. It was worse than any before it. Anthony suffered greatly, though he strove to keep it from his wife, just as she tried to keep her piteous weeping from him. Yet he heard, and he knew, and he saw the sadness in her eyes and to him that was worse than all the physical agony of the illness.

Dr. Clarkson made regular visits to examine and treat his patient. After one such examination, Edith slipped into the bedroom. She caught the doctor's eye on his way out, and read the unspoken diagnosis there. When she met her husband's eyes, he voiced the awful truth.

"Well, my darling, this is it," his voice was weakened by the illness, yet firm in its purpose. "I'm dying, Edith."

Edith shattered, sinking onto the bed, tears streaming unbidden from her eyes. "You can't be," she sobbed, "I won't let you."

She buried her head in his lap and wept softly until his soft caresses lulled her to sleep.

As Edith slept, Anthony watched her. He loved her so very much and every moment was so precious to him. But the heartache and strain he was causing was apparent. Her lovely face was still in sleep, but lined with anxiety. Her heartbroken sobs, those unconcealed from him, haunted his ears, and the scared, sorrowful eyes that quivered on the brink of tears burned into his soul. His own tears slid down his wrinkled cheeks. How many more weeks would Edith have to suffer? The old guilt flooded into Anthony's throbbing soul, an old man marrying a young woman, condemning her to a life of suffering long before her time. He thought of the glowing young woman he had taken out driving so many years before; had her youthful heart wished for such sorrow? With a younger man she would still be living a happy, active life with many years ahead of them both. Instead she wept every day for the dying old man who would soon leave her to years of loneliness.

This line of thinking tortured Anthony's hours of sleeplessness as the illness reprieved him for yet another week. He clung to every breath, every moment of their final days together. Every time she smiled something in him fought to survive, and every time he she cried he cursed himself for tormenting her. In the end, the darkness won, and Anthony determined to finally make the sacrifice that he had failed to make so many years before.

Edith slept fitfully as her husband whispered, "I love you forever, my life. Be happy for my sake, and never doubt that I love you." He moved to across his pillow kiss her, and she reached sleepily to clasp his hand, pulling it towards her to rest against her heart.

And in the morning, he was dead, his long fingers still entwined in hers.

"Hang there like a fruit, my soul,

Til the tree die!"—Cymbeline, Act V, Scene V

A/N: I may shortly create a companion collection of short pieces which fit into the narrative of Edith and Anthony's married life as I have created it here. Should this collection ever come to fruition, it shall be called "Branches" in keeping with the tree metaphor of this story.

As a postscript: do not seek any medical verisimilitude in Anthony's illness. I am far from a doctor and have taken poetic license with human physiology.