AN: These two chapters are based on scenes I wanted to see after Sybil's death. This one was inspired by Cora's line 'let's not go through it all again' when talking about arguing over Sybil's death with Robert. This is what I imagine the first decussion was like, set immediately after the last scene of 3.05.
Cora walks up the stairs in the same graceful manner her mother had taught her to all those years ago before she was a wife. Before she was a mother. She wishes she could ascend the stairs in a way that expresses the turmoil of her mind and the empty aching of her heart. But she can't. She wants to laugh at the irony, right now when she wants to be the heart wrenching mother she's become a true Countess and finally made her mother-in-law proud. She hears the familiar voice and heavy steps behind her, the sounds used to belong to her husband. But now belong in the body of a man she doesn't know. A traitor in their mist.
He can't help but notice, from his position half way down the stairs, how perfectly she walks; the sway of her hips. Her mass of dark hair contrasts perfectly with her porcelain white neck. However, it also contrasted against her coal black dress. She turns when she reaches the top to face him, in any other circumstance he would have been pleased he was the subject of her gaze. But not today. Today he knows she's only stopped so she can confront him. Confront him on the gallery where any servant may walk at any moment. She wants them all to hear. They hadn't talked it through yet, not together, but then, Sybil had been alive not twelve hours previously. Cora is beyond angry, of that Robert is sure, she's dying inside. He knew she was dying inside because he was too. He reaches out his hand to her only to watch her take two steps backwards.
"Cora, please, I'm sorry." She feels her eyes fill and and swears she stops breathing as her blood freezes, 'sorry', only 'sorry', how can a murderer only be 'sorry'?
"'Sorry' is that all? Our youngest daughter is dead, our first grandchild has no mother and you're just sorry. It figures really, you judge everything all wrong, always." Robert stares at her, he can't ever remember her shouting like that, never. But what really holds his gaze is her eyes. Where he used to find startling blue orbs that had never failed to captivate him, he now saw only grey spheres stein a sunken face, dark circles shrouding their circumference. In just a few hours Cora looked as close to death as his daughters corpse.
"I suppose you're saying that I judged Tapsell on his knighthood and how fashionable he is, rather that on whether he knew Sybil or not. Whereas, Dr Clarkson, with his list of medical mistakes knew her better?" Cora starts, did Robert just shout at her? It's been a good few years since he has shouted at her and even when he had it somehow hadn't been so harsh sounding, but then maybe it was becomes in the past when they'd argued they had been petty argument compared to this one.
"Not just that. You judged women, you judged me before you chose a wife,to see if I had enough money to save Downton." Cora pause in her narrative as she watches his face fall. Nothing, she thinks, could have hurt him more than that. Her heart doesn't ache as it used to when the tears fill his eyes. It seems her heart is unable to feel when it comes to the traitor stood before . She knows that's why she said it, to break him at the only moment she'd be able to break him- when the sight doesn't break her. "And as for Dr Clarkson's list of mistakes. He don't want to give us false hope with Matthew and as for Lavinia, that disease moves like lightening. But then, you wouldn't know that, you never had it."
The tears continue to coarse down his face as yet more hurt surges through his heart. It's not just Cora's new, alien, attitude towards him that hurts, he'd expected that after the events of the previous night. It's the lack of emotion she conveys as she throws venom through his heart with her tongue that really hurts. The lump in his throat rises, the half a slice of toast he had for breakfast tasting sour in his mouth.
"So, you blame me?" His voice comes as a murmur against the lump. Cora looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time since the traumatic event the night before. His face is pale and he looks ill with the guilt that rests on his shoulders. She swallows down her next hurtful remark because she can see he's sorry, really sorry. She can see he sees himself as a murderer too. But, it doesn't quite mean she can forgive him. However, it does change, or remind her, that perhaps blame doesn't totally lie with the man before her.
"No, not entirely, I blame myself somewhat. I blame myself for standing right here last night as the only person present who'd actually been through childbirth and not standing up for what I thought. What I knew. I had informed myself when I'd been pregnant of all the difficulties involved, yet, I stood here and listened to you talk about something you knew nothing about. And , I suppose that because I love you and didn't want to upset you, I didn't fight hard enough. I stood back and loved, honoured and obeyed you as I vowed I would the day we married." No lame lifts from Robert's shoulders as he hears her take some of the blame for the disaster, it only makes him feel guiltiest. Listen to Cora, of course he should have listened to her, but then it was easy to see that now after the shocking events.
"So, what do you blame me for?"
"I blame you for bringing Tapsell here and not even considering Clarkson's view. But, most of all I blame you for not trusting me. We've been married thirty two years and yet you stood here last night and ignored what I had to say as though I didn't exist. You looked at me and didn't see the woman who may know what she was on about seeing as she'd given birth to your three children. No, last night I was just a woman, an obstacle in your way. You'd set your wheels on the tracks that would led to Sybil's death and I do t think I could have changed that, even if I had fought harder." He leans against the wall as she turns away from him, his vision of her a shadowy mist as she turns and walks to her room. Her black shadow gets smaller and smaller, an insignificant spot in his vision. He slides to the floor head in his hands, back pressed against the wall. He thought he'd cried as much as was possible the night before but it seemed not. The difference was, he supposed, the night before he'd lost Sybil and had grieved for her. Now, he was grieving for his wife too. She was gone, a stranger to him. In many ways the forever is worse. Sybil was gone, never to return. But Cora was right there, she was always going to be within arms length of him, yet too far away to grab. His heart crumbled for the second time in less than twelve hours.