AN: This is rather sad, very sad but I tried to reduce the angst a little, I struggled for some time as to whether to write it or not and then stuggled to write it. Reviews would be wonderful, and I promise a happier one shot on Wednesday.
Cora stands beside her two daughters and her son-in-law as she waits for her granddaughter to return. They stand in silence, there are no words they all know, that can smooth the emptiness in Cora's heart. It is funny she thinks, she'd prepared herself for this all her life, she knew he'd probably go first but somehow she's not ready, she's not ready to move to the Dower House and live alone. She hears the thumping footsteps, extra loud due to the aching silence around her and turns to her granddaughter, the exact image of her mother. Losing Sybil had been a trail for her, but she'd got through it with Robert by her side, now, she was going to have to suffer alone.
"Grandma, you'd better go to him." She dimly registers the squeezing of her hand by the girl before her, the young woman who had managed all her mother had not, a trained nurse, ready at any moment. Cora just wished it wasn't this one. Her purple skirt swings lightly as she walks, the colour already a reminder that it will be the one she wears in a few months time, although she wonders in the back of her mind if she'll make it through the months of wearing black. She walks to his dressing room door, he'd persisted on spending his last days in there, 'I don't want to disturb the wonderful memories of our bedroom for you my darling,' had been his reasoning. As she turns the knob she plasters a smile on her face and takes a deep breath, pushing the tears back.
As she enters the room she tries her best to ignore the bottles on his bedside table or the shallowness of his face. Instead she keeps her gaze trained on his eyes, that despite him being moments from leaving this world still shine as brightly as they did the first time she had seen him. She sits gently on the edge of his bed and takes his hand, he raises it to his lips and kisses it. She fights against the tears forming in her eyes and smiles.
"I love you, always." She hears herself say the words and can't quite comprehend that it will be the last time she does so.
"I love you too." His voice is clear and rings in the room. A tear escapes his eyes and she leans forward and kisses it away before gently pressing her lips to his. They say nothing else, just watch each other as his life slowly slips away from him. When his eyes close she disentangles her hand from his and leaves the room. A black cloud, dense and poisonous appears from nowhere and lowers itself over her, suffocating her. She swallows attempting to push the poison away but it surges forward until she chokes leaving fresh bile in her throat, acidic and rough. She enters her bedroom to pick up the black shawl already laid out on her bed and heads out. As she approaches the landing she hears the end of her family's conversation as they stand huddled where she left them.
"Mary is right," she hears Tom's voice, "George is ready, Lizzy will be by his side and all will be here to help them. We, each of us have each other to turn to in their grief. It's Cora we need to keep an eye on and support."
"Yes," comes her eldest daughters strong reply, "I know what it is like to lose someone you've loved for ten years. Mama and Papa have been in love for over sixty." She hears the last word as she descends the stairs, none of them noticing her until she is halfway down. The word ''sixty" pounds in her ears and she begins to run, grateful when she finds the front door open, Mr and Mrs Bates stood beside it, both reach into their pockets and pull out black armbands which they place upon their arms, their hands clasped together, each had vowed to stay until his lordship passed. The sight of their hands linked makes her shiver and she turns her back to the house the dark cloud circling in viscous swirls around her head, after one quick glance at the towering turrets, her husband's home. Her late husband's home. The darkness descends, choking her again and runs for the lake, the tears she was controlling dropping like raindrops onto the lawn.
When she arrives in her tranquil spot. The spot she always comes to when she needs time alone she allows the tears to coarse freeing down her cheeks. She knows she has to cry, she has to get that over with, then she may turn to her memories without trouble, and laugh at all the fun times she enjoyed in her married life. She cries so hard and so noisily, desperate to lift the gas from arounf her, in disperses and lists above her head as she cries more and more but it's still dense, dark and dense, she wonders if it will ever turn a colour that is calmer than black or if it will ever disappear. Her crying drowns out the heavy footsteps behind her. She only notices her privacy has been intruded upon when the intruder takes his seat beside her, his old age and disability making this tricky. She looks up into the greying face of Mr Bates, a large book between his hands.
"His lordship said this was where I might find you when the dreadful day came." Cora gulps, of course he would have known. The lake wasn't just a sacred spot to her, it was their sacred spot. It was after all where he had declared his love for her all the many years ago. "It seems he knew you well, but then I already knew that. He asked me to give you this." He hands her the huge, bulging book. On the front are the words: Our Love, Our Life." Cora looks up at her companion, what is this? "It's a scrapbook of your marriage. Robert, if you'll allow me to call him that-" she nods her agreement and he continues "created it all himself, apart from a few of the more detailed paintings which your daughters assisted him with. It documents all the profound moments of your marriage."
"He never told me." She looks with new purpose upon the book before her, how on earth had Robert kept such a thing from me she muses, and how very thoughtful.
"He wanted it to be his last gift to you. He wanted a way for his favourite memories and his love for you to still exist after he was gone, so when you were lonely-"
"I could look through it and remember." She opens the book and flicks quickly through the pages, she notes that each has a title, the words 'wedding' and 'Mary's birth' catch her attention. She notes that's every page is full, some have photographs on, others paintings and letters pasted to them. Water begins to slip from her eyes again and she hears the rustle of leaves beside her as Bates stands to leave. "No, don't go."
"M'lady, it's quite a private scrapbook."
"And, you were his best friend. You and I knew him better than anyone. I think that's why he asked you to give me this, so we could share our memories. As you said, he knew me well, therefore he knew the best way for me to handle my grief was to remember him, talk about him. It's what we did with Sybil." She's relieved when Bates repositions himself beside her and she spreads the scrapbook over both their laps.
She opens the first page tentatively and finds the words Our Season scribbled across the top of the double page. On the page is a collage of tickets and dance cards as well as a blue ribbon. The latter she fingers fondly with a little shake of her head.
"I thought I'd lost this but it appears Robert removed it from my dress. Rather like him now I think about it." She laughs and is somewhat amazed at the sound, laughing on a day like today. It was strange, the darkness, the loud of grief was hovering over her but it was some distance from her head as a patch of sun seemed to enlighten her, she decided to endeavour to make the most of it, knowing that the murderous cloud wouldn't spare her for long.
"Does it have any significance?"
"Yes, it was a ribbon on the dress I was wearing the first time we danced." Bates' finger points to a sketch nestled within the tickets that Cora had yet to notice. "This, he once told me, is his first memory of you and your 'intoxicating blue eyes.'" Cora blushes at the statement, Robert must have been a little worse for drink when he told Bates that particular comment.
"Yes, he was quite the flatterer. Look," her hand rubs over some writing in Robert's hand and she reads it quickly, in was another one of his flattering comments from their season. "Another similar moment when he flattered me. He made all these ridiculous comments in an attempt to woo me. He needn't have bothered I was already in love with him." The last few words ring in her own ears after she says them, she finds it difficult now to remember her life before Robert, before being in love, it must have been quite empty she fears. She turns the page and Proposal is printed at the top of the double page. Cora's gasps at the painting that fills the whole double page, it depicts the library at Grantham house, where he had proposed, and two figures, clearly supposed to be them, are sat on the settee just as they had done all those years ago. There's a single section of writing in one corner.
"Robert drew the picture, although I think the girls helped with the figures and the painting."
"It's beautiful." Her voice cracks slightly. Bates points to the writing in the corner.
"And, this is what he said?"
"Yes, he was irritatingly unaware of his own charms and my love."
"Well, you know what they say, love is blind." She smiles half heartedly, not wishing to tell Bates that wasn't the reason for Robert's blindness, he didn't love her then. She turns the page and when she sees the title: First Kiss, she quickly turns the page, not wishing to share something quite that intimate with Bates. The word Wedding springs out for the page, in the centre of which sits a lot of writing, Cora quickly scans it and smiles while Bates looks at it with a mild expression of confusion.
"What is the importance of this writing? He's chosen pride of place for it over all these lovely pictures."
"It was what I said to him when I arrived at the altar. I asked him, 'Will I do?'" Without warning tears score down her cheeks, the dark cloud lowering over her head as memories of him stood beside her, smiling at her fill her vision and grief overtakes her. Her heart keeps pounding but in that moment she wishes for it to seize and let her fall, fall while she thinks of only Robert. She is distantly aware of Bates rubbing her shoulder and removing the scrapbook so not to get her tears on it. She leans against him inadvertently, his hand a comforting reminder of the soft ones she lost and she is relieved that he doesn't pull away, when she regains herself some time later and she continues the darkness still only a short distance off, closer than it was before, hanging in a cloud over her head. "To which he answered 'you're the most beautiful woman I know, of course you will do.' This hadn't been what I meant so I anxiously told him that he knew that wasn't what I meant, I was asking if I'd make a good Countess because I was aware how much his mother would have liked him to jilt me. To which he replied that it was not his mother's life 'but mine, and I want you in my life Cora.' It was the first time I let myself hope that my love wouldn't be unrequited after all."
"He loved you even then you know." Cora doesn't answer Bates' statement not wanting to break whatever falsehood Robert had told him. "When Robert and I were fighting, all the men used to tease him when it came to receiving and reading our letters. Most of our letters were from parents or siblings. His were from you and he kept every single one of them. We all assumed he married for love, the way he blushed over your letters and locked them away so we couldn't get to them were strong signs. It came as rather a shock to us all when he announced that his marriage had essentially been a business deal. I quickly realised though, that the real issue had been his own naivety. He'd love you when you married, if not before, he just did not recognise the feeling and with his mother so disappointed that he'd chosen you, it's not surprising. He was probably convinced it wasn't possible for an Englishman to fall in love with an American." Cora smiles at his fond memories.
"We ought to be getting back. But, thank you Bates, thank you for sharing your memories. Can we meet again tomorrow and I will show you some more of the scrapbook. I'd rather not go through it alone."
"Of course m'lady. You don't believe me when I say he loved you at your wedding though, do you?"
"No, perhaps it was the start of it, but he didn't love me."
"Turn to the last page of the scrapbook." Cora does as bade and on the inside back cover read the words: Final Words. She stares for a moment at Robert's elegant scrawl worried about what she might find within, before she starts to read. What she reads is the following:
My dearest Cora,
The occasion on which you receive this scrapbook is probably the most heartbreaking of your life, and in a quilty kind of way I hope it is. I know if it was the other way around and I was the one left to mourn my loss I'd be unable to do anything. I hope therefore, that this scrapbook has reminded you of the pleasanter occasions of our life together.
You often used to tease me, as Elizabeth does Mr Darcy, about the first look or the first touch that made me fall in live with you. The truth is, as I've always told you I don't know what it was. However, Sybbie once asked me a slightly different question, she asked 'When was the first time you said something to Grandma that you truly meant, something that wasn't just a comment to flatter her?' I replied almost immediately with the answer: 'at out wedding.' When I said that I needed you in my life I meant it. That definitely came from the heart. I loved you then. You blew my breath away as you walked down the aisle towards me, you always blow my breath away. When you asked if you would do, I was angry. I was confused as to how such a wonderful woman could be so unsure of herself. You exceeded the phrase 'Will I do?' The moment you were born, you were astoundingly amazing when I met you and you're even more so now. What I did to deserve you I shall never know.
There's little left to say, as words can not express how I really feel. A man once asked me why I bothered with Downton, telling me I was just one man in a small world I simply told him that to some people I am their world. I was your world Cora, as you are mine.
I love you, forever and always, your husband, your heart, your love, your life.
Robert
Cora hears the rumble of the thunder from her throat and the loud rain that hammers down her face as the dark, murderous cloud doubles in size and rips apart above her head. Robert was gone. Gone. And with him all his final thoughts, the things he never said. The things she always imagined him saying, that he loved her from the beginning written on the page for her to read but he was gone. Instead she was left to not enjoy this revelation but mourn it. Mourn for love. She should have known, Robert did, he always had said the issue with great love was that it made the separation so much harder. All her memories, all her love, gone with him. For what felt like forever. The thunder growls again and the storm at her eyes increases. In the fog she is dimly aware of an arm around her and the gentle rock of her body from one side to the other, like a mother nursing a baby. The dark cloud rumbles over her head, she knows it will never leave, never grow less dense, paler with time, but it won't go, never. And in many ways she hopes it won't. The cloud, the darkness symbolises her great love, a love that could conquer all, and often seemed to, a love that made her feel the most important person in all the world, to lose that would be a failing. She absentmindedly twirls the ring, with the almost identical inscription as the words written at the end of his letter around her finger. Never, she muses, will I quite be myself again, the hollow, raw and bleeding place in her heart silently thumps in agreement.