My Beauty, My Baby*

Cora had been looking for Sybil for some time before Anna told her that her daughter was in the attic. This information only perplexed Cora for the family rarely went to the top of the house and when they did so it was to visit a sick member of staff. The large storage space - the attic proper - was the preserve of the servants, sent there to deposit items that no one wanted but which were too valuable to toss out, or to resurrect some object that had long been consigned there. Cora couldn't remember the last time she'd been there.

As she climbed the stairs - the seemingly endless backstairs that led to both the servants' quarters and the storage room - Cora wondered what had taken Sybil up there. Perhaps she'd had an argument with Tom and wanted to get right away from everyone. Cora had seen her fiery son-in-law an hour ago as she glanced out of one of the library windows. He was striding off into the light rain, tramping one of the gravel paths that traversed the estate, heading away from the house. Cora suspected he was also heading away from Robert. She sighed a little at this. Robert had ceased to berate Tom over the political activities in Ireland that had led to his forced exile in England. And he had stopped reminding Tom that he was only at liberty because of Robert's intervention in London. And two days had passed without his rebuking Tom for leaving his pregnant wife behind in an unsettled country while he saved his own skin. But there was no mistaking the contempt in Robert's eyes every time he looked at his son-in-law. Cora had not approved of Tom's actions either, but he and Sybil were at Downton now, and safe, and she didn't see the point of dwelling on his social and political transgressions.

Sybil had stood steadfastly by her husband through Robert's diatribes, although Cora had noticed a hint of dismay in her daughter's eyes when Tom had confessed the extent of his involvement in the violent events that had driven him from Ireland. She thought they'd smoothed things out there, but perhaps there was still some irritation. Or perhaps Tom was being difficult in the face of family pressure to remain at Downton at least until the child was born. Cora's innate pragmatism worked both ways. She wanted Robert to get over his anger and move on, but she also wanted Tom to recognize the impracticality and unlikelihood of the baby being born in Dublin, as he desired.

Still, the young couple had not looked troubled - with each other anyway - when Cora had last seen them together at lunch. But she supposed their marriage was at least as likely to have rough spots as anyone else's. And yet the attic was a strange place for Sybil to take refuge when there were so many more pleasant possibilities for solitude within the Abbey.

The attic door was ajar and when she looked inside, Cora's bewilderment over Sybil's choice of retreat was not lessened. Electric lights had been installed here, as elsewhere in the house, a decade ago, but only three dim bulbs lit the attic, a reflection of limited utility in a space that seldom saw visitors. It took Cora a moment to get accustomed to the gloom and then to find Sybil. Her daughter was in the middle of the room, seated on top of the dust sheet that covered an old bed that for some reason had not been dismantled. If she had heard her mother's footstep on the stairs, Sybil gave no notice of it and indeed seemed lost in thought, her gaze fixed on some distant shore, rather than on any finite object within the room itself.

"Sybil?"

Sybil turned at once, not startled, just responsive. And smiled as her eyes fell on her approaching mother. "Mama." There was a warmth in her voice that told Cora that while her appearance might have been unexpected, it was not unwelcome.

"What are you doing up here?" Cora asked, picking her way across the cluttered, low-ceilinged room to the young woman's side. She couldn't help but glance around as she did so. The old furniture draped in sheets, the dusty old trunks - the sight of it all sent a little shiver up her spine. There was an eeriness to discarded things. And then she was face to face with her daughter and very real concerns about Sybil's peculiar behaviour crowded out the spookiness of the almost-abandoned room. "You shouldn't be climbing all those stairs!" she admonished, assuming the role in which she had spent much of her life - that of a mother. "You're eight months pregnant!"

Sybil rolled her eyes in good-natured exasperation. "Mama," she said patiently, "I am young and healthy and pregnant. I'm not old and fragile and arthritic like Granny."

Cora laughed. "I won't tell her you said that!" she said, with a twinkle in her eye.

"I'd appreciate that!" Sybil said, matching her mother's sparkle. And then she added, in a more sombre tone, "I just wanted some quiet time to think."

Cora's hands swept the attic. "And you couldn't find a more congenial place for that than here?"

This restored a smile to Sybil's face. "Not for what I wanted to think about." She patted the space beside her on the bed and Cora, always ready for an adventure, joined her there.

"I'm about to become a mother," Sybil said. "Once I've given birth, I can never be a child again."

This sober sentiment prompted Cora to reach out to her daughter, cupping her cheek in a gentle, loving hand. "You will always be my child," she said softly.

Sybil leaned into her mother's touch. "I know that. But you know what I mean. When you give birth, you become responsible for another human being for the rest of your life. You lose something you've always had, a freedom and lightness always taken for granted." She turned her shining eyes on her mother and Cora saw there the openness and compassion with which Sybil had been born and which had blossomed so dramatically as she had reached maturity.

"I don't regret its passing," Sybil went on. "I'm not mourning it or anything." Sybil had embraced change with more enthusiasm than anyone else at Downton, upstairs or down. "But I wanted to immerse myself in that carefree sensation just once more, before I let go of it forever."

Sybil's unbridled zest for life had always drawn her mother, who saw it as a welcome contrast to the determinedly dispassionate behaviour of everyone else at Downton. Hearing these words spoken with such feeling, and such conviction, swelled Cora's heart with pride. But she was puzzled by one aspect of this declaration. "You're reliving your childhood here?" she asked, her eyes sweeping the room again. She might have thought the nursery or even the estate grounds more conducive to such memories.

"Well, here among other places," Sybil said. "The rain this afternoon made me think of it."

"How did the attic play a part in your childhood?"

"Mary brought me up here sometimes, on rainy afternoons."

Cora hadn't known what answer to expect, but this wasn't it. "To frighten you?" she asked, and she felt a flash of irritation with her eldest daughter at this. She'd known that Mary was a torment to Edith, but had never worried about Sybil in that way.

"No," Sybil said firmly, dismissing such concerns with a look. "I'm not Edith, Mama. We came up here to play, of course."

Cora looked about once more, not seeing what was apparently so obvious to Sybil, and then turned to her daughter for an explanation.

Sybil laughed and her whole demeanour came over with a childish enthusiasm. "Oh, we had wonderful times here! We took great voyages on trains and boats we made by moving the furniture about. This old bed was the ship that took us to China. Mary knew the route. She'd learned it from Carson and an old atlas he had."

Despite herself, Cora smiled at this.

"We went to South Africa, too, to help Papa fight the Boers. Mary was a captain like Papa. I was a corporal."

"That sounds like Mary!" Cora said, shaking her head.

Sybil only smiled. "I didn't mind. We had the whole thing sorted by Tuesday, and brought Papa home with us to cheering crowds and a parade." She paused. "I can't say I think much of that business in South Africa in retrospect," she added reflectively, her perception of the Boers' war to remain independent perhaps now tempered by her experiences in Ireland.

"Don't tell your Papa!" Cora whispered conspiratorially.

"I won't!" Sybil readily agreed. "We also opened the trunks and dressed in the old clothes we found there, playing at being grand ladies. Oh! We dressed for balls and for our weddings to charming gentlemen!"

"That sounds like fun!"

Sybil's smile strained a little. "Silly, really."

"You were children," Cora said, amused by the girls' antics.

"But even for children it was silly, Mama. That's all we could imagine our futures to be - dancing at balls and calling on each other in our great houses and marrying handsome - and rich - men. How frightfully narrow."

Cora heard the disdain in Sybil's voice, but she was less troubled by such sentiments. "Well, that's how it was," she said frankly. "Even still is, for women of a certain class."

"I know," Sybil said, and then reached out to take her mother's hand and to hold it tightly. "And I don't mean to demean you or Granny or anyone else by it. But...I want so much more, Mama. For myself and ... if I have a daughter... for her, too."

Cora did not take offense easily and certainly not from Sybil who was so conscious of the feelings of others. Instead, she only gripped Sybil's hand in return and said, "Of course you do!"

Sybil seemed to want to shake off this slightly serious turn to their conversation. "We went through your things, too," she said mischievously.

"Mine?"

"Your trunk." She pointed to one of the brass-bound steamer trunks that stood nearby.

Cora stared at it for a moment and then turned to her daughter with a look infused with infectious fun. "My goodness, I haven't been in there in years!"

Together they scrambled off the bed, Sybil somewhat more awkwardly than her lithe mother, but enthusiastically all the same. Their object was delayed for a moment while they rustled under other dust sheets to find things they could sit on - a chair for Sybil, a crate for Cora - which they dragged over to the trunk. Sybil watched with conspiratorial delight as Cora undid the snaps and hauled open the lid.

At the very top was a long deep box, awkwardly closed. Cora gave Sybil a look of anticipation and then pulled the cover off. "My wedding dress," she said in a quiet voice, just the thought of it resurrecting so many memories. The dress itself was wrapped in tissue paper that was crumpled at the edges, torn in places, and awkwardly folded in others. Cora cast a suspicious look at her daughter.

Sybil smiled sweetly and simply shrugged. "I know, Mama. We used to open it up and pet it. The silk was so soft."

Cora laughed, ready to forgive the childish transgressions. "I'm surprised Mary didn't put it on and parade up and down the attic!"

They both laughed at that. Mary knew so few boundaries.

"I'm surprised, too," Sybil said. "But she didn't." She reached past Cora to stroke the silky folds. "It really is a lovely dress. So elaborate."

Cora observed her daughter out of the corner of her eye. She wondered if Sybil were thinking about her own wedding, the very modest affair in Dublin at which Lady Sybil Crawley had worn her best dress - not a wedding gown at all - and had only her sisters there, of her own family, to wish her well. Her own absence from that event - in deference to Robert's views - still rankled Cora. Sometimes it was hard to make the right decision.

"Well, the Crawleys are a great family, Sybil. I had to dress the part."

Sybil shrugged. "But Papa wasn't the Prince of Wales. And even then..."

There was Sybil's innate egalitarianism struggling to the surface again. Cora was never put off by this, not as Robert and his mother were, but she did always make an effort to see both sides. "I'll grant you that the English aristocracy - and the American wealthocracy - live in luxury. But surely everyone is allowed an indulgence once in a while and a wedding day is one of those occasions."

Sybil was not in a mood to argue. "Fair enough," she said spiritedly, still caressing the dress.

"Did you ever get beyond my gown?" Cora asked, wondering what else she had secreted away in this long-forgotten treasure trunk.

"Oh, yes," Sybil said eagerly. They both refolded the tissue paper, more neatly this time, and fitted the top back on the box.

"Ugh, this is heavier than I remember!" Cora declared, lifting it out of the way "I can't imagine wearing it!"

They both laughed at that. By the time she had settled herself on the crate again, Sybil was digging deeply in the trunk.

"We went through everything," Sybil went on. "Most of the bits of paper meant nothing to me. I was too young to appreciate what was written on them. And Mary thought the letters were boring. But she liked to play with your dance cards. She would say that when she started going to balls, hers would all be filled up, too!" She handed Cora a stack of cards tightly bound together with a ribbon and a packet of letters.

"I can see someone was here," Cora said, frowning a little at the two bundles. "I tied them neatly with a bow. And they were all in order of the dates of the balls." She began picking at the untidy knot, trying not to tear any of the paper in the process. "Oh, I can't see properly here. Let's go back to the bed." Sybil paused only to grab a small box and then followed her mother to the more comfortable spot beneath one of the lights. They snuggled together, Sybil looking on with excitement as Cora worked at the ribbon.

"So, with whom did you dance?" Sybil asked, as the knot came free and she reached for the first few. "Anyone I would know?" She said this jestingly and then began to examine the cards. "Lord Rosebery? Mama! A Liberal Prime Minister!"

"Well, he wasn't Prime Minister yet," Cora told her. The memory of the sad-eyed peer who had abandoned politics after a brief and unsuccessful premiership, and who had experienced so much personal grief, brought Cora a moment of sober reflection. "It was just before his wife died and he was such a delightful man. She was a Rothschild, so he didn't have any prejudices where my family was concerned. He loved her very much and was broken-hearted at her death. And he was a very devoted father. His son Neil was killed in Palestine during the war." She sighed. "Lord Rosebery's still alive, but in such poor health. No one's seen him in years."

Sybil, whose capacity for empathy knew no bounds, briefly put a hand over her mother's. Then she glanced at the dance card in her other hand and her eyes widened in shock again. "Oh my goodness! Mama! Randolph Churchill! Did Granny know about this?"

"I wouldn't be married to your father if she did!" Cora countered. "I think she'd hold it against me even now, so don't spill my secret!" They both burst into peals of laughter.

Sybil had shaken off most of the social and political prejudices that her father and grandmother embraced, but she was familiar with them all. Her mother's association with such distinguished political men astounded her, the more so for the particular inclinations of the individuals involved. " But... Randolph Churchill!"

"I know," Cora said, slightly sheepishly. "He was already crazy, but ... I met him when I first came over, a very young woman in a very foreign world. He was older anyway and just being kind, dancing with me. His wife was an American so he was more forgiving than most of my social gaffes. And even if he was a political troublemaker, he was a wonderful dance partner. And for me, that's all that mattered!"

Turning over card after card, Sybil said, "You were very popular."

"Well, my money was." Cora said this lightly, absently, but it caught her daughter's attention.

"Didn't that bother you?"

But Cora only shrugged. "It was how it worked, Sybil. American money for an English title, estate, and society."

"And love?"

A wistful expression came over the mother's face. "You hoped for love, of course. If not in the moment then...eventually."

"You loved Papa."

"I was in love with him, yes."

"Why?"

"Do I really have to tell you?"

Sybil had heard the story before, many times. But somehow she heard it differently at the different stages of her life and it seemed important, in this moment, for her mother to tell her again. "Sometimes the reasons we fall in love aren't obvious to others," she said.

"You mean Tom for you."

"Yes. Tell me how it was with Papa, Mama."

Cora paused thoughtfully, remembering, and she couldn't help but smile at herself. "I blush to say it because it sounds so vacuous, but he was handsome, especially in that uniform. And charming, too. And...," For a moment Cora lost herself in that world decades ago when she had come to England, at her mother's insistence, to find a husband among the English aristocracy. It had not been her own idea and if she'd had a fraction of the wherewithal and self-confidence that she had later she'd have resisted the pressure. But she was far from unhappy with the way things had worked out. That they had done so was in large measure her own doing, for she had set her sights on the Viscount Crawley and had loved him, if not at first sight, then fairly shortly thereafter, and not just for frivolous reasons. "And...he spoke to me respectfully, as though I were an intelligent person."

Here was a glimpse into her parents' past that Sybil had not known. "But you are an intelligent person, Mama."

"Well, I don't know about that..." Modesty as one of the foremost virtues of a desirable young woman had been drilled into Cora long ago and, finding it an admirable characteristic, she had never rejected it.

"Mama!" For Sybil, modesty had its place in not unduly trumpeting one's accomplishments, but it could go too far.

"But most of the other young men just assumed that all young women were foolish and flighty and couldn't sustain a conversation about anything of consequence."

A small sound of exasperation escaped Sybil. "That hadn't changed that much, among men of our class, when I came out," she said. "Larry Grey," she added drily, rolling her eyes.

"Well, the fact that I didn't know much about England or English society only contributed to impressions of me," Cora went on. "I was only eighteen years old, after all. But your father didn't mistake ignorance for stupidity. And he made an effort to make me feel comfortable. He was...what I thought an English gentleman should be."

"Was he in love with you?" Sybil knew the answer to this question. They had never made any pretense about this, her parents. But she wanted to hear it again.

"No." Cora didn't mind admitting it. It was the truth. "But I was lucky. He wanted to love me and it happened."

Sybil just shook her head. "I can't imagine marrying a man who wasn't in love with me."

Cora shrugged. "I had the optimism of youth and my dreams were realized. I was lucky."

Troubled by this roulette of love, Sybil sought a distraction and found one in the packet of letters which she eagerly scooped up. "Are these love letters from Papa? From later, when he did fall in love with you?" She untied the ribbon and began to flip through the envelopes.

"No. I keep all the letters your Papa has written to me, and everything else from him, close to my heart. In a box in my room." They exchanged sweet smiles over this. "I imagine those are mostly from my mother, full of instructions on how to behave, and my father, asking if I'm happy - I am sorry you never met him, Sybil." She added this with a wistful sigh. Her father had died before her youngest child was born.

"What about this one?" Sybil held out an envelope addressed in a fine, bold hand.

Cora glanced at it and giggled. "That's from Harold. He only ever wrote me once, under duress from Mother, to tell me that he was only writing to get her off his back, and never to expect another one!"

"And?" Sybil demanded, her eyes sparkling at this anecdote of the uncle she had never met.

"Harold is a man of his word!" Cora declared. "That's his only letter. Ever."

They spent some time laughing over Grandmama's endless directives and then moved on to the photographs.

"Harold," Cora announced, waving a picture of a very well-dressed young man standing between a lovely young woman and a horse whose neck was draped in roses. "With one of his girlfriends." Cora rolled her eyes. "In his horse-racing phase. I hope someday you'll get to meet him," she added, not sounding optimistic.

"Granny?" Sybil asked almost in disbelief, holding up a sepia-toned picture of a middle-aged woman with piercing eyes and a regal bearing, wearing one of the ugliest of formal dresses.

Again Cora giggled. "Oh, my. That dress was even worse than it looks. Green! Green is not Mama's colour!"

At length, Cora gathered up the cards, and letters, and photographs and put them back in the trunk. She placed the box with the wedding dress in it over them again and shut the lid with a resounding bang. "These are my remembrances of the past, not yours," she said, returning to Sybil's side and leaning over to brush the hair back from her beautiful daughter's face. Impulsively she bent to press a kiss to Sybil's forehead. Then she straightened and looked around the room again.

"Well, I've never been to China. Or South Africa. But...," and now she looked at Sybil with a profound sense of mingled anticipation and satisfaction, "...three times in my life I've given birth. Motherhood has been the greatest adventure of my life, Sybil. And I hope it will be as wondrous for you." She leaned in again and Sybil obligingly bowed slightly that her mother's lips might bless the top of her head.

Drawing back, Cora found herself looking into the eager face of a capable young woman, from whose eyes shone the ever-present wonder of a child. "I love you so much," she said, her words spoken quietly but fiercely.

"I love you, too, Mama."

At the door Cora paused once more to look back. "My beauty, my baby," she said softly, her heart overflowing, and then left Sybil to her own memories.

*A/N. These words, spoken by Cora as she sits at the bedside of her dead daughter, have always touched me.