November 1895
The chugging of the train, usually background noise that lulled Cora into a content sort of fugue, only churned up an anxious dread as they neared the York train station. The one bright spot, the one joyful anticipation, was seeing the girls again. She had missed her girls, painfully so, during the week they had been gone. Though it had been a relief to be away from Downton, a relief to be away from all the grief of the last two months, she couldn't fully escape the longing she felt when thinking of them. And think of them she did, always, even as Robert and the beauty of a London fall conspired to take her thoughts outside of herself. She had only begun to push off the shroud of mourning she had been bound up in when they'd received the telegram.
Papa seriously ill. Stroke. Come home at once.
Cora tucked her chin to her chest. The tears that had suddenly sprung up were too heavy to blink away, and they found release over the peaks of her cheeks. Rather than move and alert Robert to their presence, she let them fall, watching as they turned the lap of her lavender dress a spotty purple. She wasn't sure he would notice anyway. Tense and quiet as he was, he had already retreated inward, spending the duration of their journey in contemplation.
Hastily wiping away the evidence of her own sorrow, Cora reached to her side, laying a soft hand on Robert's arm. That he flinched shouldn't have surprised her, given the glaze of his eyes as he stared out at the passing scenery. That he didn't look to her shouldn't have bruised her already tender feelings, given his need to remain stoic, but it did, and Cora pulled away quickly.
She felt a chasm between them as she slouched further away, leaning into the opposite shoulder of the velvety bench they sat on. Cora sighed as deeply as her corset would allow, her thoughts turning more and more melancholy the longer Robert remained mute beside her.
A hand on her own startled her, and she jumped slightly, jerking around to see Robert's eyes on her own. Looking through her, they came to focus on her face slowly. His lips twitched upward from the frown they were in and he squeezed her hand gently.
"I'm sorry, darling. I haven't been a very good traveling companion for you." Robert's eyes wrinkled at the sides tiredly. "I just keep thinking…".
"I know, Robert." Cora responded, placing her other hand on top of his, cocooning it, anchoring it to her.
They spent the rest of their time in the train touching one another but quiet, brooding. Robert contemplating the future, the duty quickly rushing up to him. Cora's mind trained on the past, how raw their loss still felt.
Cora winced and slowed her steps. Her effort to keep up with Robert tugged at the sore spots within her body, the spots that still hadn't fully healed from the ordeal of childbirth. The front doors of Downton swallowed him as he rushed through and she wordlessly nodded at Carson as she passed him in the drive. His low 'milady' seemed especially somber to her ears.
The stillness that greeted her in the great hall overexposed the lack of activity that a day at Downton usually boasted. Even the errant servant scurrying by seemed to go from one place to another without a sound, truly becoming one of the shadows. A chill raised goosebumps on Cora's flesh, despite the stifling heat that the enormous fireplace was throwing off.
Alone and left behind, Cora climbed the stairs, wanting nothing more than to lie down. Once at the door of her bedroom, she hesitated, a larger desire pulling her further down the hallway. Now that she was home, now that she was so close, she could not be away from her daughters one moment longer. Bursting through the door with a renewed spirit, Cora stopped abruptly once in the room, looking around. The sweet faces of her girls were no where to be found in the room; it was empty, save for the furniture and toys that were arranged in neat order. About to step back out, Cora sucked in a breath, holding it. The bassinet that had been set up so many weeks ago, waiting the arrival of the newest little Crawley, was still in its place, still waiting, though its intended rested now and forever in a colder bed in the church cemetery.
Unable to resist, Cora went to the tiny cradle and stroked the frilly ring of lace that circled the frame. She hadn't been in the nursery since the day before the baby had been born. She had assumed the servants would have been instructed to dismantle the no longer needed bed but here it was, reminding her of her loss, of her failure. Tormenting her.
The night, or rather morning, came back to her then, as it had so many times since she'd lived it. The breaking of her water four weeks too early. The reassurances from Dr Clarkson that there was still a chance. The laboring for hours and hours without getting anywhere, as if her body, though being twice experienced, had never brought forth a child before. Cora had known from the first contraction, the way it cut into her with severity and urgency instead of the annoying discomfort of early labor, that this time was not the same as the last two. She knew as the pain trapped her, as she pushed and pushed and sweated and bled. She knew when finally she felt the baby slip free from her her body and there was no sound.
Stillborn. Violet had whispered it to her maid but Cora had heard.
I want to see. Cora's own voice, echoing in her head now as it had in the shocked quiet of the room that early morning.
Violet had protested, though her voice was void of its usual authority and thus rendered lame as Cora stretched out her arms, insisting. Dr Clarkson placed the bundle, sturdier than she had imagined, into her waiting hands. A girl, he had informed her. And then she had been looking down into the porcelain face, perfect in every way, eerily serene.
Cora imagined her now. She would be plumped by the time that had passed, pink and alert and looking up at her mama as Cora peered into the bassinet that would have held her.
A floorboard creaked behind her just as she pressed a hand to her belly, no longer extended with the roundness of pregnancy, balling it into a fist and pushing into the space her baby once occupied. Of course it was Robert. He had an uncanny knack of finding her when she least wanted to be found. He didn't speak, the sound of his breathing shallow behind her.
"I thought they would have put it back in storage." Cora finally said, gesturing to the empty cradle.
No answer, just an inhale and exhale, before Robert replied. "Papa is dead."
Cora sat in the drawing room clasping her hands together. She was past the point of yearning to lay her head down and falling to the fatigue of the long day. Quite the opposite, her body now hummed with a nervous, jittery energy. She would be tempted to bounce her leg or get up and pace but Rosamund's watery sniffles and Robert's own face, already pinched with the weight of responsibility, kept her rooted to her seat, saying nothing.
She chanced a look at her mother in law sitting rigidly on the sofa, already dressed in black. Her spectacles were perched at the end of her nose as she contemplated the notes in her lap. Funeral arrangements. No less than four hours after the passing of her father in law and Violet was planning his burial. Cora marveled at the woman, but not with awe. She recalled her own mother, inconsolable for weeks after her father's death. Looking up to Robert once again she shuddered, unable to imagine her own state of mind if something should happen. She wouldn't be shrewdly plotting the placement of lilies on the church alter while his body laid lifeless upstairs, that was for certain.
Feeling suddenly queasy, Cora tore her eyes away from the inhabitants of the room. A dark figure at the door caught her attention. Carson titled his head slightly and Cora rose, gathering her skirts and walking to him, glad for the distraction.
"Milady, I'm sorry to disturb the family." Carson apologized sincerely.
"It's quite alright, Carson." Cora said kindly. "Is something the matter?"
"Cook is wondering if the family will be taking dinner." Carson replied.
"Oh my, it is past that time, isn't it?" Cora declared, noting for the first time the darkness outside the windows of the drawing room. "Why don't you tell her to put together something light. We can do a sort of buffet."
"Very good, milady." Carson nodded and slipped back out of the room.
Standing in the farther corner of the room, Cora studied Robert once again. He hadn't moved from the spot he had taken by the fireplace, hands holding the mantle. If they were alone, she would go to him, lean into his back and wrap her arms around his waist just so that he felt her near. He needed comfort, though he would never ask for it or say it, she knew he needed it.
His shoulders stooped with the need of it. And she, she desperately needed to give it, to mother something besides a ghost.
But his mother, she would never approve of such displays and Cora did not want to cause any more upset. Hesitantly, she returned to the spot on the divan that she had occupied, touching Rosamund's hand briefly. Her sister in law grasped hers hastily in return and continued to dab at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. Over her bowed head, Cora smiled wanly at Marmaduke, who returned it gratefully, looking as awkwardly out of place as she felt.
It struck her then, holding Rosamund's hand, staring at the taut lines of Robert's suit jacket. He was an earl. Robert was now the seventh earl of Grantham. And she his countess. It suffocated her a moment, the weight of these titles. Of course she knew that one day they would take on these roles, but she had imagined a day further in the future, when they were grey and aging, not now, not in their youth.
"Milady, dinner is on the buffet if anyone should want." Carson suddenly stood before her, addressing both her and Violet, a first, as though he weren't sure whose reign he belonged to.
Violet, however, had no such insecurities. "Oh, I don't recall requesting dinner be served."
A ruddy rash began to creep up Carson's neck as he shuffled, searching for something to say. Cora got to her feet holding a hand out, letting Carson off. "I asked Carson to have cook put out some little things. I thought…"
"You thought?" Violet questioned, her voice high and clipped. "And what, exactly, did you think? That I am suddenly too feeble to run the house?"
"No, no!" Cora stuttered, feeling her own face grow flush from the scrutiny. Every eye was on her now. She chanced a look at Robert, her eyes widening, begging wordlessly, but he slowly turned away and she floundered under the steady gaze of her mother in law.
"I see," Violet said, "you thought that now you are Countess and have become an expert on how things are done."
"I just wanted to help," Cora said quietly.
"You should go to bed, Cora." Violet said, her words more of a command than a suggestion. "You're still recovering after all."
Cora nodded absently, feeling an idiot and fled the room before the stinging behind her eyes could produce any tears.
"Mama, was that necessary?" Robert sighed.
"I didn't see you defending her." Violet retorted before her attention returned to the papers in front of her.
Robert opened his mouth to say more but then closed it, because of course she was right. He had remained by the fire, unwilling to come to his wife's defense, though she did not deserve the tongue lashing. Perhaps it had been some sort of notion of filial duty that stole his words, though Violet had never needed his protection or aide. Cora did. Strong as she was, she needed him on her side, especially now.
Robert coughed, his mouth run dry, as he realized he hadn't wanted to defend her. He blamed her. She had taken from him his last moments with his father. If she had an ounce of the strength that he thought she possessed he wouldn't have had to bring her to London. She had fallen so deep into a dark mind after the baby, he had been lost as to how to help her. He had taken her away and his father had died. If he had been here, at Downton, where he belonged everything could have been turned out different.
If she had been strong, perhaps even the baby would have survived.