AN: Thanks to everyone for the reviews! This is a pretty short chapter in terms of this story, but the next ones will be pretty full/action packed so this kind of needed to be on it's own.
20 November 1900
Dear Martha,
Let me assure you everyone is fine, or as close to fine as one can be in the circumstances we find ourselves. As a mother, I can only imagine that seeing the envelope to this letter with my return address had you tearing at the glue.
I do think, if you have the ability to, you should come to Downton. As soon as you are able to. Cora is recovering...physically, but she needs someone, someone that she trusts and that she can speak plainly with, and I am afraid she does not see me as that person. I know what you are thinking, and yes, I know, it is a situation of my own making and we can quibble about it when you arrive, but arrive you must.
She's been very strong. Perhaps there is more iron in her American blood then I gave her credit for, but circumstances are conspiring to break her and she needs a confidante. She needs her mother.
I hope to see you soon. Whoever thought those words would be a sentiment I experienced.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham.
From her place along the wall, Violet could shift her attention back and forth from the sleeping girl on the bed, who lightly snored on as Doctor Clarkson examined her, to her mother, who sat tense and erect on the end of her chair. Cora bit her bottom lip bloodless, her eyes never leaving the ministrations of the doctor as he checked for fever and listened to the child's breathing.
Violet allowed herself to sag a moment into the sturdiness of the wall while everyone's attention was otherwise occupied. The last few days had been a dizzying assault on her senses and she had been rendered a little breathless by the blows they had been dealt. Dr Clarkson had only to spend a few minutes with Sybil that first night to declare Dr Jefferson's diagnosis erroneous. How he had confused an ear infection with typhoid fever continued to baffle Violet, but what infuriated her, what made her see red, was his incompetence with Cora. She had felt chilled when Dr Clarkson revealed Sybil's true affliction. As soon as he had administered medication to her granddaughter, she had rushed him down the hall, thinking of how hot Cora had felt when she had left her, thinking of the fate of her son's possible son. In low tones, between Sybil's room and Cora's, Violet had explained that Cora was with child, that she had sat by Sybil's side for days, that she was infirm now. The terse line of Dr Clarkson's jaw jangled Violet's nerves. She had hovered while he examined Cora, her breath hitching and then exhaling in relief when he told them she wasn't suffering from typhoid, just exhaustion.
"Lady Sybil is much improved," Dr Clarkson told them quietly, packing his supplies and jolting Violet from her memories. "The fever's down significantly. I'd say a few more days and she'll be climbing trees once more!"
"Thank you Dr Clarkson," Cora said flatly, one side of her mouth quivering up in an attempt to smile, missing the mark, her eyes as flat as her voice.
She had been that way for days now, sitting vigil by Sybil, saying little, her face as expressionless as a statue. It unnerved Violet, and though she was certainly not one for lengthy diatribes on one's emotions and inner feelings, even she knew that Cora could only swallow down her grief and heartache for so long. What she was doing was as unhealthy as if she had cried in her room all day.
Cora rose, leading the doctor out of the room and Violet followed behind, for once, with nothing to say. They had reached the Great Hall, Cora's eyes glazing over and looking somewhere in the vicinity of the doctor's knees as she waited while he struggled into his overcoat. Violet thought to walk him out, hoping to get a moment alone and inquire as to his opinion on Cora's state, when the doctor turned to her daughter in law.
"Lady Grantham, I feel that I owe you a sincere apology." Dr Clarkson looked troubled as the words left his mouth.
"Whatever for, Dr Clarkson?" Cora asked, shaken from her earlier stupor.
Dr Clarkson licked his lips, hesitating. "You see I was in desperate need of someone to fill in while the army required my services. And I feel that had I more time, I would have checked Dr Jefferson's references more thoroughly. His qualifications. I would have, if only…"
"If only what, doctor?" Violet prodded.
"Well he came so highly recommended from someone who said they were a close friend of her Ladyship's." Dr Clarkson rushed on, chancing a glance at Cora.
"What friend?" Cora asked.
"Mrs Coolidge."
"Antonia?" Cora drew out the syllables of the woman's name, her brows knitting together as she shook her head. "She knows this man?"
"She said she had mentioned him to you and so I was careless, thinking he had your blessing." Dr Clarkson explained.
"She never…" Cora trailed off, her head falling low in disbelief for a beat before bringing it up again, a hardness changing the blue in her eyes. "I want that man removed from the hospital, immediately Dr Clarkson. Gone. Today. His incompetence has...has…"
Cora's words faltered, as did the fire that briefly stirred her anger. She felt a quaking begin in the bottom of her chest, her body building up to an onslaught of tears she wasn't sure she would be able to suppress.
"If you'll excuse me," Cora muttered before turning on her heel and fleeing as quickly as her legs would carry her up the stairs.
The knock on her door was not entirely unexpected, and though her tears had never actually fallen, though she had only achieved dry, pained gasps after closing herself up in her room, Cora did not want to be disturbed. It was altogether too much and she longed to find a piece of respite, though she hadn't a clue where it would come from.
"May I come in?" Violet's voice contained a funny quality, something Cora had never detected in it before. A timidness aimed at her, as though she would skitter off like a frightened deer. Instead of comforting her, it exacerbated the rawness inside her.
"I suppose you are going to tell me I told you so?" Cora asked bitterly, wickedly satisfied at the hurt expression on her mother in laws face.
"Do you really think I would garner any satisfaction in that now, when you are so clearly distressed already." Violet asked softly, walking deeper into the room.
The kindness the older woman was trying to show her, the care, was more destructive to the shaky hold she retained on her emotions than if she had come in with recriminations and blame. Cora knew she could not give in, she could not let it come out or she would be consumed by her sorrow this time. She turned away from Violet, her eyes closed and
she counted silently to ten, inhaling deeply through her nose, until a pretense of calm was achieved.
"I have to write Robert." Cora said suddenly, her voice hoarse from the tightness in her throat. The thought of her husband and his bitter disappointment keeping her up the past few nights.
"And what would you say?" Violet asked kindly, still making her way slowly into the room, closer and closer to where Cora was. "That a charlatan doctor mistook anemia and stress for pregnancy and there never was a baby?"
Cora covered her mouth with her hands, trying to count to ten once more, Violet's words echoing in her mind. There never was a baby. There never was a baby. How could this have happened? How was she to get past this, because in her mind, in her heart, it had been as real as any of her children. And now it, and the hope it had carried, was gone. Not lost, not dead, just gone, like a phantom that never was.
"You cannot tell him, Cora." Violet said, finally standing next to her, reaching out carefully and taking Cora's hand in hers. "You cannot. Not while he is fighting, while his life hangs in the balance."
The idea of lying made Cora cringe, but she knew what Violet said was true. She could not tell him while he was in Africa, a world away, danger at every turn. She squeezed Violet's hand hard, crushing it, hanging on to it like a lifeline and nodded her ascent to continue the lie, even if she was sure that to go on pretending would kill her.
