Chapter Text
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It had been such a lovely, loving holiday, Edward mourned, coming back to reality with a thud. But now they were back from Christmas at Downton and facing the coldness, not just of winter, but also of the students gathered around.
There were stares and whispers.
Far more sneering stares and whispers than he'd expected; certainly far more than they usually got.
"I still think if I'd've had another week, she'd've kissed me," Clarey Bates groused from close by his left side, voice smooth and sweet as honey.
Clarey'd become inured to the staring, of course: used to it since most of the past disrespect of their fellow students had been thrown at him. Thus, he paid little heed and remained focused on his latest efforts of conquest.
"I could feel her leaning toward me just before her granny came up and gave me a New Year's peck instead. But she'd've kissed me. I know it."
Edward Talbot wasn't quite so oblivious, however, noting the hardened eyes and increased buzz of gossip. Still, dutiful as always, he kept up his end of the conversation with his friend, giving a short laugh that sounded false even to his own ears.
"YOU'd've kissed HER," he corrected, soldiering to keep both his nerves and his jealousies in check.
"Then, when you'd done, she'd've felt she had to slap you. Or, worse, tell her father, and then there'd have been fun." His voice was light, even though the pulse pounded in his head.
Once again Talbot scanned the quad, seeing two boys pointedly turning away so they wouldn't cross paths. He'd been afraid that what had happened over holiday would cause a problem.
What was lightly forgotten at Downton wasn't forgotten here.
Yet Clarey focused on the Girl, not the rumpus.
"She did seem to like me well enough to kiss," the taller boy objected. "Even if she liked you more." He pulled a face. "Annoying as that always is."
It had happened before, heaven knew--where girls came up to talk to Clarey using it as an entree to talk to Edward, getting his friend's hopes up. (He was, after all, far the easier target with whom to talk.)
"No, by the end of it, she preferred you to me. Definitely. That smile of yours makes women go mad," Edward teased, keeping his voice perfectly normal and not looking Clarey in the eye as he did it, so he didn't blush.
(And still scanning around them, noting who was whispering and turning away.)
"We do what we can," Clarey joked back, keeping his tone mild, knowing very well what Edward was thinking and trying to reel his friend back from anxiety to stand safely by his side.
For Clarey knew everything about Edward, more perhaps than he ought. For instance, he knew Edward didn't like girls, though he didn't understand it. Felt a bit awkward when it seemed his friend actually liked Him.
But they were too good of friends, too close really, to make a break of it over one difference. (One? The boys had so many differences much more drastic than that. Though, of course, they weren't illegal....but when had Clarey ever cared about foolish rules?)
From across the quadrangle, two young gentlemen approached, seemingly intent on passing by with no harm. Clarey blew a soft burst of air through his lips.
"Edward," Robert Pelham nodded curtly to his cousin.
"Robbie," Edward Talbot nodded back, using the childhood diminutive as a subtle poke at his pride.
Leaving Clarey standing there without a greeting was frustrating but typical.
Today, though, Edward was surprised Robbie bothered with even him.
This year the family, including the Pelhams, had gathered for George Crawley's announcement of engagement, but there'd been a bit of a blow up between old Lord Grantham and one of his honored guests.
Edward knew how his sycophant cousin viewed any mistreatment of 'honored guests.'
Robbie and his friend swept by after the brief exchange,
Pelham adding a sniff before whispering something, then giving a braying laugh.
Yet the chilly little greeting left Edward relieved; it could be worse. Much worse.
If it was only whispers and standoffish-ness, they'd be fine.
"Every action has a reaction," Edward murmured.
"Surely he wouldn't take their side against the rest of your family," Clarey returned, keying in to the problem. "Tosser."
The young man Robbie was with, David Winthrop, was heir to a duke as well as incredibly handsome. Edward knew Robbie might well be persuaded by such charisma and rank.
"He acts as though this is the court of Henry VIII, not college," Clarey grumbled. "A lot of them do."
Edward huffed quietly at his friend's attempted humor. It hadn't been easy before this to live in a place where rank and privilege ruled. And in the south, too, where northerners were pilloried.
Now they were facing something even more difficult.
Still...facing it together, the two of them.
Clarey, rangey and blonde and exhuberant; reckless at times at his own expense. Cheeky.
Edward, a bit shorter; dark hair and green eyes like his father, mind even sharper than his mother's; introverted, not because he didn't like people, but because he could be a bit too empathetic sometimes. An overthinker.
These two opposites, raised together from nursery on, were best mates.
Together they'd survive whatever the storm.
---
Meanwhile in another part of the university entirely, his sister was going to a tutorial.
And the princesses themselves couldn't have walked more regally down the hallway than Violet Elizabeth Talbot could.
She was attending college to acquire knowledge, after all, not socialize with some of the silly chits around her. Even here among the blue stockings, Violet found the girls far too apt to be distracted by the vagaries of life.
Not that Violet didn't enjoy vagaries (they might even be a more primary incentive to be here than mere knowledge, if pride allowed her to admit it)....she just knew to enjoy them thoroughly in her more private moments, then get on with the more mundane, necessary parts of Life.
"Did your family enjoy Christmas?"
A cheerful, out of breath voice came low and beside her--Eugenia, known as Gennie to her friends. And some how, in spite of herself, Violet Talbot was one of her friends.
"Of course," Violet answered, adjusting the books in her arms and pausing.
Then as the other girl waited her out, "There was a bit of a disagreement about one of my cousins, but my grandfather took care of it." She smirked. "As I'm sure you've already heard."
Gennie cackled gleefully. "Heard he lectured old Lord Haverby. Josie is in a snit."
"Josephine is frequently in a snit," Violet drawled. Josie Haverby was one of the students in the same college, but was in no way someone to whom Violet would give the time of day.
"My family has a bit of a history of not keeping social boundaries intact," she admitted, though, just to be fair.
That much was true, what with her uncle Tom having been the chauffeur. And it seemed that everyone who was anyone had that bit of personal information at hand.
(Meanwhile Violet herself was preparing to do almost the same thing. However, not for an acquaintance such as Eugenia Haviland would she ever admit it. Let the secret remain until she and Johnny were fully prepared to venture forth.)
"Yes, you being friends with those two Bates boys. I know," Gennie blathered, pulling the names out of the air as though out of Violet's own thoughts.
"But to actually MARRY someone like that? Your aunt must have really loved your uncle to cast everything aside. Your cousin, too, though she's not really a lady, so the fall's less."
Seeing Violet bristling, Gennie hastened to add. "Of course, your grandfather would be perfectly right to have family in his home, even extended family. It's just....well, they'd never be invited to the Haverbys, so that's why Josie's in such a snit they had to eat with them at all.
"Personally, I think it sounds wonderfully independent and modern. It's just not how things are usually 'done.'"
Violet Talbot knew how things were done. She'd been raised knowing how things were 'done.'
And having grown up watching guests' reactions to her uncle, Tom Branson,
having watched and considered and weighed as Sybbie made her unexpected match,
she knew what 'mismatched' lovers faced. Especially in a situation such as college--where status in the 'pack' made things rather 'kill or be killed.'
Once across the Rubicon, there was a reaction. A very strong and continuing reaction, the tiny ripples of which played out unexpectedly and persistently as the days and decades went on. (Only within Downton walls would one be completely safe from it--hence her discretion & delay.)
Gennie was merely repeating what she herself had said a hundred times in the past, so Violet didn't hold it against her friend.
She merely continued walking confidently on.
---
The boys, meanwhile, were entering assembly.
Robert was older than his cousin yet behind a class, having delayed college to do National Service first. He felt that doing so was only what was honorable and right.
For 'honor' and 'right' and, yes, 'social rank' were all important to Robbie Pelham.
The pendulum swings, so it must swing back, the young man reasoned.
During the war, things had to give way somewhat to license. Now it must be sorted into the proper hierarchy, and one must again follow the rules of the game.
That was one of the reasons he'd spoken to Edward--his internal sense of rules & manners demanded it.
Like the stories his grandmother had read them as children, during their hour with her.
Grandmother Pelham was a stalwart, better even at holding the ramparts of civility and propriety than his father and mother.
Shame Marigold seemed to go the way of the moderns, marrying some American--wealthy at least, educated--but still.
Robbie blamed the war.
"That cousin of yours, Edward wasn't it?" David asked as they ducked in the doors.
Robbie nodded, not bothering to mask his puzzled expression.
"Quite good at his books. Perhaps we can rope him and get him to help the two of us along."
"I suppose," Pelham said, voice carefully polite but thin. David was his chum, HIS ally.
Besides the Winthrops were friends with the Haverbys, the same people with whom his grandfather Crawley had the row.
Surely David would know Edward wouldn't split with the family.
(Although perhaps he'd do a favor. Always a little too helpful, Edward was. A bit too kind.)
"I can always ask," Robbie promised, sure both that he could leverage his cousin's good nature....and that Edward would never make the grade with the heir of a duke.
David smiled. "Good."