1 July
Smoke curled around the heads of the two men who sat on the porch at the back of the house. The mid-morning sunlight spilled through the screens that enclosed the area and highlighted the grey hairs that each sported to varying degrees. They rocked in comfortable chairs, a table between them on which there sat an ashtray, smoking paraphernalia, and a small glass of good Scotch for each.
"I'd say you were even more surprised than you let on, mate," Patrick observed around the stem of his pipe.
The ends of Isidore's mustache twitched with mirth. "I was surprised by all of you being in my library – but even more surprised by Martha's ability to keep it a secret for so long! The woman can rarely keep something from me for a few hours, let alone several weeks!" He laughed, the sudden boom startling a bird in a nearby tree, the squawk and sound of beating wings accompanying his laughter.
Patrick sipped his scotch and chuckled, shaking his head. "I think she can keep secrets better than you give her credit for."
"Well, you're right, of course, Pat." Isidore blew out a long and winding stream of smoke from his cigar. Grinning, he tapped the cigar on the edge of the ashtray. "But this sort of secret – for fun – she's not good at keeping those at all."
"I'm glad she did, Iss." He puffed on his pipe, leaning back in the rocker and stretching lazily. "Birthday surprises can be amazing," Patrick murmured, closing his eyes and smiling at the memory of his own birthday in December.
Catching his friend's expression, Isidore laughed. "So I gather." When Patrick sat up straighter and threw his friend a questioning glance, Isidore picked up his glass. "And I'm glad you convinced Violet to come along. It couldn't have been easy for you." Raising his eyebrows, he took a long drink of alcohol, the ice clinking melodiously.
"No. But she knew how much it meant to me – and to Cora and Robert – to be here. She's complained a great deal, but I've been trying to get her to see how a change can be nice." He chuckled. "And of course attempting to show my appreciation at every turn."
Isidore smirked at this but, wisely, said nothing.
"How on earth did you three convince me to come with you on this harebrained excursion?" Violet picked up the edge of a bikini bottom between the tips of her thumb and forefinger with extreme distaste, her face contorted into a grimace.
Plucking the offending garment from Violet's hand, Martha put it back down on the display table, a similar distasteful expression crossing her features. "You said you didn't have a swim suit. So we're going to make sure you have one." She shook her head and pointed to the discarded bottoms. "But not that one, Empress."
As Rosamund held up various suits to her slight frame and Cora wandered toward maternity underwear, Violet let out a heavy puff of air in exasperation. "Martha, I don't need a suit; this is ridiculous."
Martha stepped in front of the other woman and waved a finger in her face. "Didn't you say that you enjoyed swimming?"
"Yes, but –"
"And didn't you also say that Patrick loves swimming too – and has his own suit?"
"Yes, but –"
"Didn't we show you the amazing pool – and hot tub – that Issi and I had put in last year?" Martha's hands went to her hips.
Pulling her brows together even more, Violet huffed again. "Yes! But –"
"Then it stands to reason that you need a swim suit! Besides," Martha threw out as she watched Violet's aggravation deflate with a long sigh of defeat, her hand passing over her brow with sudden fatigue, "we wanted to leave those two 'mates' to have some catching up time. We have to amuse ourselves somehow. Seemed a shopping trip into the city was just the ticket. Didn't you want to come shopping, Violet?"
Violet removed her hand from her face and gripped her handbag tighter, pursing her lips. "I did. But I never thought you three would make me buy a bathing suit."
Martha grinned. "Not just buy one – you have to try them on too. And show us how they look." She smirked, quickly picking up different suits in what she guessed to be Violet's size.
Starting to back away, Violet put one hand out in front of her, waving it in a stubborn gesture of defiance. "No. Absolutely not! I will not subject myself to that. I couldn't possibly!"
"Come on, Empress! We want to help you pick out the right ones!"
Martha's plea drew the attention of Rosamund, who sidled over, her head cocked to the side. "What's this, Martha?" She turned to her mother. "Mama, you have to show us; or else how will you know which Papa would like best?" Raising a teasing eyebrow, she added a couple of suits to the growing pile on Martha's arm. The two began walking toward Violet.
She stared at them both in shock, her mouth opening and closing ineffectually. Then she shook her head. "You're both mad!"
Having backed her into a dressing room cubicle, the pair of them just grinned and held out a large number of suits in a variety of styles and colors.
"Might I help you ladies today?" Came the pert voice of a saleswoman who seemed to appear from nowhere into the dressing room area.
Martha smiled at her. "No, no. We're got everything covered." She made a shooing motion with her hand, not caring one whit about the slightly crestfallen look on the woman's face.
Bracing her hands on the sides of the dressing room doorframe, Violet shook her head more vehemently. "No. I won't be parading around in front of strangers in various bathing suits. I don't care what you say, Queen of Sheba!" She set her jaw and her blue eyes snapped. "I'll try them on, but I won't be coming out of this room."
"We'll guard the door. I'll even pay off the saleswoman to ensure that we have total privacy back here. It's not like the place is busy anyway, Violet." Martha drew the name out into three long syllables as she was wont to do when annoyed with the other woman. She rolled her eyes while pushing past Violet to drop the garments on the bench along one wall of the room.
"Goodness, Mama, you act as if we asked you to walk around the shop in your undergarments. You don't have to be so dramatic. It's just us." Rosamund, passed another couple of suits around her mother to Martha.
Violet blinked several times, looking rather dazed. "But you might as well have asked me to do just that."
Martha traipsed out of the stall and pushed Violet gently backward into the room. Ignoring her comment, she closed the door. Then she called out in ringing tones, "I do hope you've waxed, Empress!"
Loud grumbles issued from behind the door and mixed with Rosamund's laughter. But they could hear too the sounds of Violet getting undressed, the grumbles unceasing.
Robert bounded from one side of the aisle to the other, like an excited puppy, picking things up and pointing at them, throwing many of them into the cart seemingly at random. "Did you realize they had so many items especially for babies? It's incredible!"
Marmaduke chuckled and shook his head. "What's incredible is how you're making me feel as if we are at a 3-D film rather than in a shop. Slow down, Robert, you're giving me a headache!" But he chuckled again good-naturedly and fished a few boxes out of the cart, peering at the labels. "I can't imagine you'd need even half of this rubbish. Does Cora even know that you're getting any of this? Didn't she leave you with a list?"
Looking slightly uncomfortable for exactly fifteen seconds, Robert shrugged. "I don't think she realizes how many things we need to be truly prepared! There's just so much to buy and do!" He grinned widely, brandishing a breast pump to gesture around the store.
"Robert, uh, you might want to let Cora pick which one of those she wants." Marmaduke's eyebrows lifted even as his lips curled with mirth.
"Er – perhaps you're right." Realizing what he was holding, Robert had the grace to blush slightly before replacing the pump on the shelf. His grin returned as he turned to the cart and waved a hand at everything. He'd piled the cart so high the contents looked in danger of toppling with the smallest shift in the center of gravity. "But these other things – we need them, Marmaduke!"
His face shone with such happiness, that Marmaduke merely shook his head again and smiled. "I just think you're going to have enough stuff to fill up your nursery and several other neighborhood nurseries besides. I mean, don't you have order cards in your hand too? For those things you wanted but they have to order from the warehouse?"
Robert nodded, his face and eyes still bright, the look of a child in a candy store.
"Well, are we done at least?"
An expression of shock crossed Robert's face. "We haven't looked at baby clothes yet!"
As he pushed the cart, following behind his brother-in-law and continuing to shake his head, he muttered under his breath, "What in the bloody hell they'll need two prams and an additional changing table for is beyond me."
Rosamund, Violet, and Martha made their way to the maternity part of the department store, several carrier bags heavier apiece. "Cora?" Martha called out once they were within hearing of her daughter.
Cora turned and smiled at them. "I'll only be another few moments." She handed the saleswoman a number of crisp bills and waited until she received her change. "Oh, Mother, please – I can carry a few bags." Rolling her eyes as Martha picked up the bags and added him to her own on her arm, Cora slipped the change into her handbag and let out a sigh as they all began walking toward the exit together.
"Tired, darling?" Martha asked, not having even acknowledged her daughter's protestation from before.
Giving her a small smile, Cora nodded and ran her hands over her baby bump. "I am, Momma, but I'm more hungry than tired. Can we stop and eat soon?"
Martha paused to lean over and kiss Cora's cheek. "That was what I was about to propose. How about you two? Hungry?"
"Starved," Rosamund replied. "Should we get the men too or leave them to fend for themselves a while longer?"
Violet lifted a brow. "Won't they be done by now? They're in a baby store, for goodness sake. How long could they be?"
Opening the door to the outside, Martha began to laugh.
Marmaduke's eyelids snapped open at the clink of several hard plastic hangers clattering against one another and the side of the cart. "Good grief," Robert said. "Were you asleep?"
The rocking chair let out a low squeak as Marmaduke heaved himself out of it. "You've been quite a long time looking at baby clothes, Robert." He glanced at his watch. "And it's getting on past lunch time."
"Oh," Robert replied with a furrowing brow. "Cora will be ravenous at this point. I'm surprised they haven't rung us yet to tell us it's time for lunch."
"I expect they will at any time now. Are you finished with the clothes? We should go ahead and get the rest of the items ordered, shouldn't we? Get on line to pay for all this?"
"Yes, yes, you're right." Robert cast a longing look around the store. "There are still things I didn't get to."
Marmaduke began pushing the cart toward the cashiers. "Get a catalog then. I'm sure there's still time to get things sent to the Levinson's house, if not Downton."
"I suppose you're right," he said with a sigh.
As they waited for the next available cashier, Marmaduke turned to his brother-in-law with an expression of great curiosity. "You weren't quite as enthusiastic about getting things for the baby a few months ago. What changed?"
Robert shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know, really. I suppose since I've been able to actually feel the baby move, it makes everything more… real. And I want the baby to have everything it could possibly need or want."
Chuckling again, Marmaduke inclined his head toward the heaped up cart. "I think you've got everything covered, Robert."
"I hope so." He grinned and greeted the cashier with his handful of order slips.
"Come on, Violet, let me see…." Patrick attempted to push her hand away from the bag she'd indicated containing the new bathing suits.
"I really can't think how they talked me into these foolish items." Putting the bag into a bottom drawer and standing in front of it with her arms crossed, guarding the bureau from her husband, Violet muttered, "Except to shut up Rosamund and the Queen of Sheba."
Patrick chuckled and kissed her cheek. "You'll have to admit, though, you needed a suit, seeing as you didn't bring one."
She rolled her eyes, tapping the fingers of her right hand on her left arm in annoyance. "Must everyone point that out?"
Squeezing her upper arms gently, he grinned and placed a small kiss on her pursed lips. "Yes. We must. Who else is going to remind you that you are indeed fallible – at least, at times – if not your loving family?"
Violet snorted derisively. "Loving? Exasperating is more like it."
Smiling widely and stepping away to begin changing for dinner, Patrick ignored her comment. "I can't wait to see your new things, darling."
A tiny smirk twitched at the corners of Violet's mouth, and she lowered her eyes with a slight blush. She had to admit that the suits the three of them had settled on had a certain way of highlighting all her best features – the features that Patrick also happened to find most appealing about her.
She would never say so, but she was looking forward to showing them off to her husband.
Martha put down her empty wine glass and looked around the table, smiling, surveying her family, their guests for the next few weeks.
"Momma?" Cora stretched out in the dining chair, apparently not very comfortable after the long meal.
"Yes, Cora?"
"What do you have planned for this evening?" A grimace crossed her face as the rest of the family turned to Martha for the answer.
Chuckling, her mother reached over to pat her hand. "Darling, don't you worry. This was the extent of my planning – dinner. I know that most of you are still rather tired, and I figured an early night for those who wanted might be welcome."
Marmaduke nodded and rubbed his eyes. "I know I could use an early night, Martha."
Watching her husband subsequently yawn, Rosamund grinned. "Poor devil," she murmured. "He's not used to a full day of shopping and driving." She laughed. "It's a big difference to his days behind his desk at the office."
"You can say that again," he chuckled.
Isidore glanced around, noticing that not everyone's eyelids were drooping. "I did think, though, Martha, that for those who wished, we could fire up the hot tub."
Martha leaned forward and clapped her hands together, her face shining. "What an excellent idea, Issi! Who's with us?"
Turning his head, Patrick looked at his wife with a half-expectant grin. After his day of lounging around with Isidore – not to mention a long nap that afternoon before the rest of them returned – he was wide awake, and a long soak in the hot tub with his incredible wife sounded the perfect topper for the day.
But Violet gazed back at him in slight shock, her mouth open, blinking at him and shaking her head. Patrick began to pout. Watching this exchange, Martha announced, "Alright, Issi and I are going to get the hot tub ready and get into our suits. Anyone who wants to join us, come down when you're ready. I think everyone remembers where the hot tub is. And if everyone's tired and wants to sleep, well, that's fine too."
While Violet and Patrick exchanged looks, Cora, Robert, Rosamund, and Marmaduke all rose, kissing the parents' cheeks and saying their goodnights. "Goodnight, darlings," Martha said, waving as they disappeared, heading to their respective rooms. Then she turned to Patrick and Violet, getting up as Isidore pulled out her chair for her. "How about you two?" Her brows rose, and her lips twitched with mirth, almost certain she could guess exactly where each of the pair stood on getting into the hot tub.
Isidore took Martha's hand and laughed aloud. "Martha, leave them be." Tugging her out of the room, he tossed behind him, "See you two either in a little or in the morning."
After they'd disappeared, Patrick faced Violet, disappointment written on his features. "Violet, what's wrong with relaxing with our friends? You don't seem like you're overly tired, and I would like to sit with my beautiful wife."
Violet huffed. "We can sit anywhere, Patrick. I can't think of anything more vulgar than sitting in a hot tub with the Levinsons."
"Bah," Patrick said, drawing his brows together. "Fine. You do as you wish. I'm going up to change and then spend time with my friends."
"Patr-" Before she could get this whole name out, he'd dropped his napkin on the table and left the room. He hadn't sounded angry. Only disappointed. Violet thought his disappointment was worse. She bit her lip and sat there, staring at his discarded napkin.
Eventually, she stood, making her way slowly upstairs. Tapping softly at the door, she walked in, noticing the closed bathroom door. She sighed and sank down into a chair, her hand over her face. Violet could honestly think of few things she wanted to do less than spend the next few hours in a hot tub with Martha and Isidore. However, she kept seeing Patrick's visage in her mind, realizing that she'd promised him she would try to enjoy herself. That she would try to do things she wouldn't normally do. And she wanted to make him happy. She also –
"Violet," Patrick said as he opened the bathroom door, dressed in navy swim trunks. "I'll be back in a few hours. Have a good evening."
He sounded very formal. Violet gazed at his bare chest with its silvery hair, then at his back as he left her behind yet again.
Sighing once more, she looked down at her hands in her lap, picking up her last thought: she also realized she owed Isidore and Martha a lot for how well things had gone between her and Patrick the past six months. Getting up, feeling as if her body weighed far more than it did, she opened the bottom drawer and retrieved the carrier bag containing the suits. She twitched them out and stared at them both, resigned. Tossing one of them aside, she found a small pair of scissors in her toiletries and clipped the tags from the other.
When she finally made it downstairs, wrapped in a dressing gown and in ballet flats, carrying a fluffy white towel, Violet heard laughter issuing from the open doorway leading to one of the several screened in porches of the Levinson house. As she walked in, her eyes bulged nearly out of her head. "What in heaven's name…?" she breathed, taking in the scene before her.
Soft light flooded into the floor to ceiling windows from the outside lights around the house, one highlighting the fully stocked bar in one corner. In the opposite corner of the room was the hot tub. From the house tour that Martha had given them before, Violet remembered it being a fairly standard, albeit luxurious, hot tub. Now, however, it was lit up in garish blue and green lights, and water spurted in fountains at various points around the edges. A sound system, with large speakers mounted about the room, pulsed out music that, to Violet, seemed incredibly obscene, although, to their credit, not terribly loud. She assumed Martha didn't want to wake the children if they were sleeping. Their laughter was much louder.
Stepping a few more paces into the room, Violet noticed that the three in the hot tub sat very close together, Martha nearly on Isidore's lap. She breathed a silent sigh of relief to see that Patrick kept a distance that assured at least a modicum of decency to himself, if not the rest of the trio. All had nearly empty martini glasses in their hands – and none seemed to notice the newcomer.
Violet cleared her throat, her head tilting back proudly as her arms remained wrapped around herself. It was only when she approached the very edge of the tub that Martha looked up and grinned, waving. "Violet!" she cried out as she hopped off Isidore's lap. "You decided to join us after all!"
The suit Martha wore make Violet's jaw drop. It wasn't that Martha was in any way out of shape or unattractive, it was that Violet heartily disapproved of anything with not only leopard print, but sequins. And it was a two piece. The only positive thing that Violet could even imagine saying for the suit was it complemented Martha's skin tone.
"Let me get you a drink, Empress!" Neatly emerging from the hot tub, Martha draped a towel around herself just so she wouldn't drip too much on the floor, and sauntered over to the bar.
Catching Patrick's approving, pleased expression, Violet closed her mouth with a quiet snap and followed Martha to the bar. "What is this playing?" she inquired. She couldn't countenance to call it "music."
"Pitbull." Martha nodded and shook up a fresh martini.
Violet cocked her head. "Pit…bull…?" The name seemed to leave a bad taste in her mouth.
"It's just for fun, Empress. Harold left some of his cds in here, and we were listening to them. Some of them have a nice beat." She put the full glass aside and made up a new batch of martinis. Violet stared. "Refills," Martha explained.
"No, no, no," Violet said, shaking her head. "I know that. It's just I feel like I've fallen through the looking glass."
Martha laughed and patted the other woman's arm. "I find that when things like that happen, it's best simply to let things unfold. You followed the white rabbit to America." She pointed to Patrick. "And now the Red Queen – of Sheba –" she let out another peal of laughter at this – "is gonna show you a good time."
"That doesn't make one ounce of sense!" Violet gaped at her as she pressed the martini into her hand.
Shrugging, Martha filled up her own glass and took that and the shaker to start back to the hot tub. "I blame the heat and the gin. Now disrobe, get in the hot tub, and drink up, Empress Violet. A little party never killed nobody." She shot Violet a cheeky wink before taking a sip of her martini and sashaying back to the tub to refill the men's glasses.
"God help me," Violet muttered, locking eyes with her husband, who beckoned to her, a wide smile on his face. Taking a deep breath, she slid off the robe and slippers, went over and slipped into the water on the other side of Isidore, and began sipping her – very strong – drink. With the buzz of the alcohol, the warmth of the churning water, and the feel of Patrick's arm wrapped firmly about her waist, his eyes sweeping appreciatively over her figure in the new suit, Violet finally started to relax.
Although she wished they would change the "music."
The lamp on Robert's bedside table still glowed in the otherwise darkened room when Cora woke sometime after midnight.
"Robert?" she queried, slowly turning over onto her back and rubbing her eyes.
Without moving his eyes from the page, he murmured, "Darling, do you need anything?"
"Water," she answered, licking her lips.
Turning a corner of the page down, Robert turned to her and smiled, leaning over to press a kiss to her cheek before pouring her some water as she sat up to drink it. "Do you feel a little more refreshed, sweetheart?"
Cora nodded. "The past couple of days have done me in, and I know I need to have another good long sleep tonight, but…." She grinned at him. "I was having a marvelous dream."
He took the empty glass from her and put it next to him, picking up his reading material once more and finding his place. "Did you, love? That's nice," he said with a smile, perusing the page in front of him once more.
"I did," purred Cora, sidling closer to him and brushing her fingers over the hair at his temple, then moving them down his arm. "We were…." She lifted herself up a little to whisper into his ear, with warm, hissing breath, what they'd been doing in her dream.
Robert shuddered a trifle. "Cora, that tickles," he said absently, his gaze intent upon his reading.
"Did you even hear me, Robert?" she asked. She repeated the salacious tidbit against his temple, but got no response.
At the noisy shifting of his wife in the bedclothes, he finally looked up, bewildered. "Cora, is something wrong?"
"Robert!" Cora sat straight up on the bed, face a blend of confusion and exasperation. "I tell you my very scandalous dream, all set for us to make it come true, and you can't even pay attention?" Her hands rested on the top of her bump, and she tilted her head at him, her brow furrowed.
"Oh, uh, I'm sorry, my darling. I was a bit engrossed in my reading." He looked down sheepishly.
Snatching the material out of Robert's hand, Cora stared at the cover incredulously. "Robert Crawley, a baby catalog is more exciting than your wife?"
"You gave me a paper cut," he muttered, sucking on one fingertip petulantly.
With a huff, Cora tossed the catalog off the bed. "I'm surprised at you. For one thing, I'm very horny and need help and I'd like to be with my husband. And for another thing..." She paused, taking a deep breath. "For another thing – you were looking at baby things without me!" At this she burst into tears.
"Sweetheart, Cora, please, no, don't cry. You know how overeager I get about things sometimes. I'm sorry, please, we'll look at it together later, I promise." Robert wrapped his arms around his wife, who was still stiff with hurt feelings and sobbing onto his shoulder. "It'll be alright. I'm sorry." After a moment, when Cora seemed to have calmed down, he whispered, "If it makes anything better, what I did catch of that dream sounded incredibly enticing." He pulled back a little, cupping her wet cheek, thumb brushing gently over the tears there. "Like you."
Cora began to grin, swiping at her other cheek. "Even now?"
Robert's look softened. "Always."
Pulling him closer, Cora kissed him soundly.
In the back of his head, remembering the cart piled high with baby items, Robert thought, Bollocks.
