Cora healed well from her surgery, and, as Dr. Wagner had hoped, there was some slight nerve recovery. He stayed on to work with her afterwards, and she developed enough control of her urges that, by the time he left in November, he thought infection would be of minimal concern.
Her spirits improved as well. She was often still sad and wistful, but she could smile, and sometimes even laugh, and Robert delighted in making her do so. He was determined that she would be happy, and thus he showered her with gifts and attention and promises that he would give her whatever she liked. He ordered a wheelchair for each floor of the house and made himself available to carry her up and down the stairs whenever she wanted, and he promised her that when the weather was warmer and the garden in bloom in the spring, he would take her outside for long walks.
But Robert did not breathe a word to anyone of what else the recovery in her nerves made him hope for. He knew better than to mention it to his parents: he imagined that his mother was privately breathing fire over Cora's forced infertility, and his father had begun to drop veiled hints that Robert would need to find another means of producing an heir. When the Levinsons came for an extended visit, both Violet and Patrick suggested to him that perhaps it would be easier if Cora went home with her mother. If his parents knew it could be possible for Cora to have a child, he suspected that it would not concern them at all to be told that the process would likely kill her.
He was even more frightened to mention it to Cora. If she knew her body could be capable of intimacy and pregnancy, he feared her hunger for a baby would far overcome his warnings about her health, and if such a beautiful creature begged him to take her to bed, he was not sure his own resolve would hold out.
For he did still find her beautiful, very beautiful. And he desired her just as much as before—perhaps more so, now that he had no way to relieve his desperate want for her. He would lie next to her at night, his body aching with need for her, as he tortured himself with memories of their first months together and how glorious it had felt to be inside of her, until, once she was asleep, he would rise and deal with his need alone in the washroom.
There was no question, however much he wanted her, of acting on his desire. He had decided as soon as Wagner had first spoken that no heir could be worth Cora's life. He would wait another thirty years for it to be safe. Cora, he told himself repeatedly, was infinitely worth a thirty-year wait.
His decision to keep his wife in the dark about her body's possible abilities was confirmed in early December, when he asked her, as he carried her up the stairs one afternoon to change for dinner, what she should like for Christmas.
"What would make you happy?" he'd asked. "Name anything you like it, and you shall have it."
She'd said she'd think on it, but when he returned to her room to fetch her later, he found her a weeping mess.
"Darling, what is it?" he asked, sinking to his knees in front of her chair. "Does something hurt? Are you ill?"
She shook her head and reached for his hand, and he held hers tightly, his heart racing as he waited for her to tell him what was the matter.
"I want to make you happy," she sobbed at last. "I've always wanted to make you happy, and I can't!"
How wrong it felt to see her fret over his happiness. "Darling, you do make me happy," he said earnestly, reaching up to stroke her hair. "I'm happy every time you smile. I'm happy every time you draw breath—I was so happy when Wagner said you'd live that I didn't know what to do with myself."
She shook her head again. "No, Robert. Not like that. I can't make you happy in any of the ways a wife should. It's not just the–the intimacy. It's—when I married you, I knew how much you wanted a son and an heir, and I wanted to give you that because I wanted to know I'd made you happy!"
The words stabbed him like knives, and he pulled her into his arms. "Oh, my sweet girl," he breathed, kissing her temple before she dropped her head against his shoulder to cry some more. "Please don't worry about me. You can't help any of this, and I am happy with you."
His mother, on the other hand, was not happy. Violet had been kind to Cora since her accident, far kinder than she had ever been previously, almost as though Cora were not worth the energy required for waspishness. Yet she had given Robert enough hard glances, and made enough "surely you know this can't last" comments when they were alone, that he knew precisely where his mother stood on the issue.
"You carry your wife around like some sort of doll," Violet said suddenly, a few days before Christmas.
He was sitting next to her in the drawing room after dinner, watching Cora laugh at something his sister's husband had said. She'd had, he thought, a good day, as she'd watched the tree decorated in the great hall, and her pleasure had given him a good day as well. He tried to ignore his mother, determined that she would not ruin his mood.
But of course, she was not to be silenced. "I'm not certain what we bought those wheelchairs for," she went on, giving a wheezy, humorless laugh. "She's barely in them, what with you hauling her about."
Robert sighed. It was true that he had grown very fond of carrying Cora. At first it had seemed merely practical: why lift her out of the dining room chair to set her in a wheelchair, then push her the few feet to the drawing room, only to lift her out again and onto a sofa, when he could just carry her between rooms? But he had soon found himself carrying his wife much longer distances throughout the house when it certainly would have been easier to push her, and he had been forced to concede that he liked to have her in his arms. He enjoying cradling her body close to his, he liked the way she leaned her head against his shoulder, and, he admitted to himself, it made him feel like something of a knight in shining armor to know that she needed him.
But of course he would not tell his mother any of that. "It's easier to carry her, Mama. Why bother with her chair to get her between the dining room and the drawing room? And I think she prefers it this way." From the small sigh she often gave as she settled against him, Robert suspected that Cora enjoyed being held nearly as much as he liked to hold her.
"Hmph," Violet said. "I'm sure she does like to have the Viscount Downton wait on her like she's the Queen of Sheba. You rather spoil her, you know."
He felt his muscles tense at the suggestion that Cora, whom he had seen shed so many tears over her condition and who had been so strong through the painful recovery from the operation, could be spoiled. "I'm not sure I see how a woman who doesn't have the use of her legs could be spoiled, Mama. Doubtless she thinks we're all a bit spoiled for being able to walk about the house on our own two feet."
"Don't be angry, Robert. You know I care for Cora deeply. I do!" she said in response to his raised eyebrows. "But that's why I wanted to speak with you about the New Year's house party. I think it's quite all right for it to still go forward, but I wonder if perhaps it might be best for Cora to stay upstairs? It's only that a party may not be quite right for her at the moment."
They both heard Cora laugh again on the other side of the room. "She seems to be enjoying Rosamund and Marmaduke's visit," Robert said, a note of warning in his voice.
"Yes, but is she…quite right for a larger party?"
"What do you mean, Mama?" He thought he knew quite well what his mother meant, but he intended to force her to spell it out.
"I mean, after all these months of seeing no one but family, she might find it intimidating to be amidst so many strangers."
"We discussed it a few nights ago. She's looking forward to it, likely for the reason you state."
"But don't you think, Robert, that our guests might find it…awkward that we had a cripple at the New Year's party? Cora's presence might not be quite…appropriate."
And there it was. Cora was to be hidden so as not to embarrass the family. "I can't imagine any social gathering at Downton where my wife's attendance was inappropriate," he said sharply.
"Perhaps that isn't the right word," Violet hedged. "My only concern is for the family, and the impression it might give…"
"The impression that horseback riding can be dangerous? The impression that she suffers patiently? The impression that we've faithfully taken care of her? Which of these impressions are you afraid to give?"
His mother sighed. "I only contend that it's not very proper to exhibit a cripple at a formal house party."
"Mama," he said, his teeth clenched, "please do not let me hear you refer to Cora that way ever again, and please note that you may expect her attendance at any event held in this house."
She sighed again. "You must know this cannot go on forever. She will need to return to America, and—"
"If Cora wanted to return to America, she would have gone back with her parents when they left last month." How his heart had rejoiced that she had made no mention of wanting to return with the Levinsons. She no longer, it seemed, wished for him to separate from her.
"Did you hear about Beatrice?" Violet asked, and he turned his head sharply toward her at the sudden change in subject.
"What about Beatrice?" He had not had any recent letters from his cousin James or his wife. In fact, Robert had tried not to think of James at all since Cora's accident, not liking to remember that he would pass the estate to his cousin someday instead of his son.
"Beatrice is with child. I had a letter from Eleanor," she said, spitting out James's mother's name. "Positively gloating, of course."
"How wonderful for Beatrice and James. My best congratulations." He tried not to think that he and Cora would likely have made a similar announcement by now, tried not to imagine her unbroken, with a growing belly…and of course, he failed utterly. Let it be a girl, he begged silently. A son would mean that the child was his eventual heir, and while he knew that was inevitable, he did not think he was ready just yet to meet the boy who would receive his own son's inheritance.
"Of course, you must not think that James imagines himself to have fathered an heir to the title," Violet continued with a laugh. "Heavens, no. I think he knows better than that."
"But it would—"
She ignored his protest. "I imagine James knows very well that you'll remarry. I don't think he could possibly be under any illusions that Cora's childlessness will be yours as well."
"Then as usual, my cousin has misunderstood the situation greatly," he snapped, rising to join Cora and the Painswicks. "Please excuse me."
