Martha struggled with the door, pushing it open slowly and finding no butler - no odd little man who had been assigned to the Dower House. She pushed it open further, poking her head inside, and heard, quite distinctly, the sounds of shouting. Of anger. Of fury.
He was at it again. Her spine stiffened in some strange alarm at the observation, for he'd quieted before she'd left. He and Cora had slammed doors and left Martha and Harold staring at one another only hours before. And now, as she squinted inside the dim light of the foreign house, she heard the maelstrom whirring again...this time, though, even more violently than before. She wedged herself around the door, not opening it completely as if she did not want to let out the evils - it had become a Pandora's box made of English antiques, wainscoted walls, family crests five hundred years old. Martha pushed through, and she closed the door quickly behind her. Just as though she had been waiting for her, Landry immediately scurried over and took the hat box from Martha without a word, leaving her with her a queer look. A terrified look. Martha knew that look.
She blinked at the maid, eyeing her as she shuffled away, and then furrowed her brow as she peered into the darkened hall that echoed the sounds of Isidore's anger. Martha drew in long, slow breaths and listened, listened to words like reputation, and thief, and liar. She stepped closer toward the drawing room, and she heard him louder, and like ashamed, and betrayed, and disgust. The words flew around the hall, crashed against the thick golden frames of some Crawley ancestors that Martha cared little for. Isidore's words turned everything around her darker shades of gray and black, the very air turning acidic as she breathed in deep. Oh, and how Isi was shouting, shouting, shouting.
This was different. Somehow, she knew that this anger was different from before. She wasn't sure what made her realize it, but she knew. It was different from before. And it was worse.
She walked slowly toward the drawing room door, and she kept her eye on the escaping crack of light. She walked toward it, that solitary light, and then walked faster as the sound of Isi's voice rose. She lifted her arm toward the door, she reached her hand out for the knob, and just as her fingers brushed the glass, light tumbled over her, and a quick suction of air moved one of her red curls. The door had been jerked open before her, and she stumbled as Isidore tore out of the drawing room, nearly crashing into her. He didn't notice her as he pushed past her and continued deeper into the foyer, shouting, shouting, shouting all the while.
"- did you hear her, Harold? Do you know what's she's done? What that Crawley bastard has done! Landry! Taylor! Someone call the God-damned carriage!"
"But Father, you shouldn't call them on it." Martha moved aside as Harold was soon after him, walking past her from the drawing room as well. He followed his father into the foyer. "It'll make things worse than they already are. Which is pretty bad, you know. You should stay here."
Martha only shook her head, furrowed her brow, watched as Isi stormed to the front door and as Harold followed. "What is it? Isidore? Harold?"
Isidore had on his coat. But not his hat.
"Don't make it worse for her."
Martha took a step toward Harold. "For her? For Cora?"
"Worse for her? Worse for her!"
She looked at Isidore now, and she shook her head. "What's happened?"
"Well yes. She's only ever wanted to fit in, Father. She's only ever wanted to be accepted. I think you should just leave her be. It's done."
Martha still shook her head. "One of you tell me what's happened-"
"Damn her!" Isidore spun on his heel and Martha froze as he bore down on Harold. Her heart leapt up into her throat. "Damn Cora, and damn that Crawley bastard!"
She could see Harold physically recoil. Martha wasn't sure she could do much more than stare. Her heart beat too hard, strangling her where it had wedged itself.
"She had the God-damned gall to stand there and scream it at me - scream it at me! When I knew it! I fucking knew what she'd done when she disappeared from here! Oh, Grantham couldn't find them, huh? He didn't find it odd when my daughter came down alone, huh? Her eyes on her lap in the carriage, as if she were ashamed. She should be ashamed! She should be God-damned ashamed. I am ashamed of her. Damn her! She let that bastard -" Here Isidore ripped a hat away from a hook near the door and opened it, the winter wind making the hall instantaneously colder.
"Don't! Father..." Harold took a step past him and nearly threw his arm at the door, consequently barring Isi from passage. "It'll ruin her. You know it will." He shut the door with a thick clack of the latch.
But Isidore seemed angrier now than before, Harold's short statement seeming to have stirred the flames. Isidore was seething, and Martha watched with wide eyes, her hair standing on end, as he shook a thick finger in the face of their much shorter son. "As God as my witness, Harold, I shall never forgive it. I will see that bastard's face in every enemy I possess. And I will kill him." Isidore shoved past Harold now, and marched toward the smoking room. He shouted as he stomped, and the house rattled with the volume of his voice. "As God as my witness, ikh vet teytn im! I will kill him! A messa mashee!"
Martha flew back at his words, the Yiddish she did not understand, the English she did - she flew back, her heart now struggling to beat in her throat, her lungs suddenly hard as stone. Oh, Cora. Cora. Cora. My baby. She looked to the stairs, and back toward her son and the fast-escaping back of her husband. A door slammed.
What had happened? Oh, what had happened? What had happened?
She began to climb the stairs, her heart trying to thump, thump, and pound, her skirt bunched in her small hands. The fourteen stairs were suddenly fourteen thousand. The door to Cora's room, the room down the hall, was six hundred miles away. She rushed, and rushed, and rushed, but Martha couldn't seem to get there quickly enough.
Until, at last, she did.
As quickly as she'd come up the stairs, as quickly as she'd raced down the hall, she couldn't bring herself to open the door. Do it. Do it! she forced. She was never afraid to face anything. Martha had never been afraid, not ever, of facing anything - any doubt or challenge was met with a stiff lip and confidence that it too would soon pass. But this. Oh, but this. Her baby, her girl, her beautiful daughter...she could hear her crying, alone, in her room. Martha's heart, which had been lodged in her throat, fell down into her stomach. Cora.
Grasping the coolness of the doorknob, it cold even through her gloves that she'd not yet taken off, she turned it and slowly pushed open the door. She peered first into the dark green room, peered first in order to prepare herself, in order to fortify herself for she was not sure what she'd find. She peered, and just as she feared, her eyes found her, found Cora, a balled, crumpled, and sobbing bright spot of French blue on the brown bed.
She only watched her for a moment, only watched her, before, at hearing another burst of anger from below - a shout and the crash of something that was not theirs - she went fully into the room and closed the door behind her.
"Cora."
She did not reply. She did not look up. She continued to sob. Sob. Her shoulders were shaking with such force that Martha felt as if she should wrap herself around her child to steady her.
"Cora," she said again, stepping closer, "What's happened? What…" she sighed, her shock wearing away and dire curiosity taking its place. "What in God's name, Cora? Your father is in a fit! An absolute conniption!"
Only more sobbing. Sobbing, desperate, painful sobbing.
"What happened -"
"- He doesn't love me." Choking."He doesn't love me. He doesn't love me."
Martha shook her head. "Of course he loves you, Cora. He's angry, and full of hot air - but what's -"
"The money. He only wants the money. He's only ever wanted the money...oh, God. He's only wanted me for my money -"
Martha fell quiet, her daughter's name falling from her lips but not making a sound. Oh. Oh...
"And I...I told him afterwards. I said it. I told him, and he just looked at me…" Cora lifted her head, her hair a mess around her, her pale eyes wild with tears. "After we...oh! He just looked at me, Mother!"
Martha began to breathe a little faster, forcing those stone lungs to move. It hurt. Every breath hurt, for she was beginning to understand, Martha was beginning to understand what happened. She sat on the bed near her child.
"Like it was a shock to him, like I'd never given any indication, like I...oh God! I just...gave myself away! I just gave myself to him. I did it! And I made him do it! For...for him...for me...for, for...to be with him. And now..." Her sobs, slowly subsiding, churned into a distress. "Oh. Oh! What's wrong with me! Oh God, what's wrong with me!
"Cora…" Martha reached a hand toward her, but Cora was now frenzied.
"My virtue." Her voice was laced with panic. "I gave him my virtue." And then, she began to cry again, looking around the room and then at her hand that propped her upward, the diamond glistening in the dying light around her. "Oh, my God! I -"
"- Cora," Martha maintained an even voice; she reached her hand out once more, and touched her daughter's shaking shoulder.
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God. What have I done?" She gave a small gasp, and Martha grasped her shoulder more firmly in reply. "How could I be so stupid? Deep down I knew - somehow I knew he didn't and yet -"
"You didn't know." Martha lied, furiously so. She pulled Cora more upright, bringing another gloved hand to her daughter's other arm. "Don't blame yourself. Don't. It's him. It's that fortune hunter. It's him! He is the one who wooed you, who made you believe."
Cora shook her head, her tangled curls moving in front of her face. "He doesn't love me. He's never made it seem like he did! He doesn't love me..."
Martha was now squeezing Cora too tightly, she knew, but she'd squeeze her harder still. She drew closer, and she peered down into her face, forcing out her words. "Stop. Stop it. You don't want his love. He's not good enough."
Cora looked up at her, and she shook her head again with a frown.
"And you won't marry him." Martha pulled her closer. She let Cora cry into her shoulder, into her chest, and she whispered as she caressed her hair. "You won't. You won't. You won't. "
But Cora began to calm and she resisted, slightly, by drawing her head away from her mother; she furrowed her brow. Her tear-matted lashes blinked as if she were trying to stop her tears. "What?"
"You don't have to marry him," Martha repeated. "It doesn't matter -"
"But I do...the contract..."
Martha dipped her head lower, a touch lower, and peered at her daugher eye-to-eye. "It's just paper, Cora," she stressed. "Easily torn. Easily broken. It's only some made-up document by some snobby English lawyer."
"And I...but...my virtue." New tears welled in Cora's eyes. "I've lost my virtue." Martha hated the way Cora's lip trembled at her words. She hated the way her voice had whispered it. She hated the way her heart ripped at the shame in her daughter's features. Her beautiful daughter.
"You look at me. You look at me and you listen," Martha took her child's beautiful face in her hands, she took it and she held it tightly, the thumbs of her gloves soaking up the wetness from her cheeks. "You have not lost your virtue. You have not!"
The words brought on a new set of sobs, and she began to shake her head in Martha's hands, she began to shake it furiously.
"You have given yourself to this boy because you loved him. Because you want him to be happy. Because you want him to save his home, the place he's so proud of. You've given yourself to this boy with little thought of yourself, with little thought of the consequences for you, with little thought of anything but him. You've done it for that boy." She moved Cora's face up to hers again, for it had begun to dip down toward her lap, tears silently spilling. "That's selflessness, girl." She held her face tighter. "It's charity, and generosity. It's kindness...Cora, it's love." Cora began to cry aloud then, sniffing, and blinking up at Martha's own eyes, that had now begun to burn. "Oh, my beauty. You have not lost your virtue. You are made of nothing but virtue."
She let her cry more. She let her daughter cry in her hands and then fall to her lap, and Martha covered her with her own body, holding tightly to her, speaking into her ear.
"You don't have to marry him. We'll tell Landry to come right now. We'll have this ugly room packed up in an hour -"
She felt Cora move beneath her.
"I mean it. Say the word, and we'll be gone by morning. Never to be heard from again."
There was silence, next. No tears. No heavy sighs. Just Cora, quiet and still beneath her, and Martha quiet in return.
After a long moment, Cora again moved slightly.
"I don't want to go."
Her soft voice was muffled in the quilt, and Martha knitted her brow, unsure she'd heard her correctly. She readjusted herself, sitting up, Cora sitting up after her and looking at her. Her brow was stiff, her eyes sure, but somehow sad.
"What?"
"I don't want to go," she repeated. "I want to marry him." And once again, tears. Soft, painful, tears. "I'm in love with him." Cora frowned as she said it, shaking her head one last time. "I love him. I love him."
And as she fell again to the bed, her cries no longer silent, Martha pulled her into her lap and covered her again with her beating, bleeding heart.
My baby.
The short winter day had finally burned away to darkness, and Patrick stood at the windows of the library, the curtains still drawn open. In the quiet that surrounded him, he stared onto the black lawn, clouds obscuring any signs of the stars. He felt it appropriately suiting, this cloudy, ink-dark night; indeed it was disturbingly suiting after what had transpired this afternoon. His hand, sightlessly and seemingly of its own volition, found the decanter of whiskey on the table, and he brought his eyes to it. It sparkled warm in the firelight from behind him, inviting him to take a drink. So, giving in with a silent sigh, he removed the stopper and poured. After all, there was no one here to stop him. Violet had gone up ten minutes ago. Rosamund and Painswick, tired from their travels, had gone up shortly after Violet had retrieved them from the York station. It was only Robert here with him now - just Robert - and he certainly wouldn't stop him from having a drink. In fact, pausing to turn and peer over his shoulder at his son, he thought the boy would need the assuagement of the whiskey more so than he. He poured another glass.
"Robert," he held the drink out toward where his son sat on the divan.
But Robert kept still.
"Son."
Alas, nothing. A quiet nothing.
Patrick looked back toward the lawn and took a long sip from the glass in his right hand. "It isn't over," he heard himself say. "We can sell land. Sell art." He took another sip. A gulp. "No. No it isn't over yet."
"No." Robert's voice stirred the silence and Patrick turned back to him. He took two steps toward him and offered the glass. Robert still did not take it.
"And Levinson may be more favorable to a smaller amount. An allowance, perhaps. He may indeed be more willing to settle with a slightly smaller amount. Though - " he sighed heavily now and sat, with both glasses of whiskey, on the sofa opposite Robert. Patrick stared into the jumping flames, his eyes becoming rather mesmerized by the irregularity of movement, the patternless way the flames roared and leapt in the hearth. The way they did as they pleased. He finished his glass of whiskey. "I fear he'll end the engagement, damn the consequences. I'm only glad your mother wasn't here to witness the thing. His rage."
Robert stayed silent.
"I don't know how we'll explain it." He paused again, and he dipped his eyes from the flames into the drink he'd poured for Robert. "I'm not sure how we'll explain to anyone the abrupt cancellation of the marriage. But then they'll all know why. They'll know it was over the money. Especially when we sell."
"We won't sell."
Patrick knitted his brow and brought his eyes to his son. "What's that you said?"
"I said we won't sell." Robert didn't look away from the fire. "We won't need to sell. The money is ours."
Patrick stared intently at his son, unmoving, nearly unblinking. "I don't understand."
"The marriage will take place. Mr Levinson has no choice but to allow it -"
"Of course he has a choice. The girl is his daughter; he has every right to see her married to whomever he chooses. And what do you mean the money is ours?"
He watched as Robert dropped his head, his elbows anchored to his knees, supporting his bent frame.
"Robert -"
"Consummation of the union, Papa. We've…" his voice trailed away, and Patrick watched him crane his head back toward the flames and then down again. "We've validated the contract. It stands. Legally, in the terms explicitly stated by Barnes, her inheritance is ours."
"The terms explicitly stated?"
"Carnal knowledge. Upstairs, after her father arrived. I...consummated -"
Patrick felt his mouth fall open, and he let his arms go nearly slack by his sides, the empty glass in his right hand tipping completely parallel to the floor. He leaned, very closely toward the sofa opposite - toward his son who kept his eyes trained on the fireplace. "What?"
"The money is ours. I've...We have consummated the -"
"- A union cannot be consummated unless you are in fact a union, Robert. A matrimonial union. What you've done is…" Patrick paused and lowered his voice. He couldn't be hearing this correctly. He couldn't be understanding what Robert was saying. "Robert what have you done? How…" Thoughts jumped, like the flames he had only just admired, in his mind. "Dear God, Robert. Dear God!" Patrick rose from the cushion, spikes of uncertainty and sudden understanding stabbing him, and whiskey spilling as he threw out his left arm. "You've had her?! You've taken the girl?! Robert! He could contort the truth! To void the contract, Levinson could twist what you've done. You do realize that, I hope. He could twist it - say you've forced yourself on his daughter and then succeed in both breaking the contract and killing your chance of securing any well-bred girl for maybe the rest of your existence -"
Robert was quiet. "- And if I have forced myself?"
"Don't be bloody ridiculous! You haven't forced yourself on anyone. Anyone who knows you would find the accusation utterly preposterous."
"And yet it was quite simple to speculate that it is what Mr Levinson would say."
Patrick had paced back to the table and set the glasses down on a tray before now spinning back around to his son. Robert looked up toward him, still bent, but his head was high. "Yes. It was simple," Patrick replied. "It was simple to say what Levinson would do to protect his daughter's reputation abroad. To ensure her character is not marred by what she's done; to hide the facts of his daughter's promiscuity."
Robert's shoulders straightened at the word, his brow furrowing slightly, unsure. "Her promiscuity?"
Patrick's muscles twitched, anger flooding his veins. How could he be so dense? How on Earth could the boy be so blind as to what had happened, as to what others had said. "Oh, bleeding hell, Robert!" he shouted. "Can't you see it? Last summer - the various times she'd escaped the watch of a chaperone. The way she laughed, traipsing into this house, your coat slung around her figure, her white dress drenched. The things we've learned from Winifred Glynn -"
"-Winnie Glynn?" Robert's brow still furrowed, his voice rose slightly at the name.
"You remember how she'd mentioned Miss Levinson's intimacy with Raynham while she was here before, how she mentioned your being alone with the girl twice in only a matter of weeks. But now we've learned of just how intimate she was with Raynham - did you know? Hmm? Did you?" He paused for a response, but did not receive one. Robert only held his narrowed gaze firmly on Patrick who was beginning to rave about the library. Robert's shoulders were straight and broad, and his chin was high. Patrick got the distinct impression of indignance from his son, but he was much too furious to care. "He'd invited her to Granger Park, intent on proposing. He'd been alone with her at the Simsburys' ball. And I've learned that, apparently, you, too, had been alone with her at the Simsburys' ball! Oh, damn it all, Robert!" Patrick marched closer to his son. "To top everything properly off, you were caught kissing at the folly! In plain sight of everyone! Robert! Can't you see it!"
Robert was no longer bent at his waist but sat up straight and on edge. His voice was a gravelly shout, but on fire. "Winnie Glynn has told you this?! You believe Hymoth's meek daughter? The boring girl who can barely string together two amusing words?"
"She told Rosamund weeks ago in London, and Rosamund has told me."
"Rosamund?!"
Patrick glared down at Robert now, his heart hammering against his ribs. Angry. Angry. At what, he wasn't even sure of anymore - the situation at hand: losing Downton, his family dependent on this American girl and her father, his son foolishly letting himself be blinded by his naivety. "But now we see that it doesn't matter who's said it, for it appears to be fact. What you've done together proves it. If she'll throw herself at you for a title -"
"She didn't. Don't say that. She didn't throw herself at me for a title."
"No need to defend her, Robert. Let's pray that she will make good on what she's done. Let us pray that her father will not retaliate -"
"But I will defend her!"
Patrick stared for a moment, dumbfounded. "Son," he said at length. He studied the crease in his son's forehead. He studied the way his jaw was set, tight, on the joints. He saw the way his hands had balled tightly into fists. And he knew...oh, he knew. Robert was more than just unhappy. Robert felt...he felt guilt. "Robert? Are you...you are. You are upset. You are upset with yourself." He paused. Robert did not move. "Did you not hear me? Do you not understand that she is merely a common woman? Her people do not have the moral make-up that we have. Her people do not have the moral integrity. If she's done this with you, for the matter of a position, she's done this for other things as well. With other people as well."
"She hasn't -"
Patrick drew in a breath, irritated beyond what he could articulate. Every beat of his pulse pumped out new anger and frustration. Every beat of his pulse convinced him that she'd done this on purpose, that there was some sort of ulterior motive behind this. No well-respecting woman would do this. He didn't understand. He couldn't understand. "Because she told you?" He managed at last. "You know she hasn't because she seemed hesitant? Because she knew how to play the part?"
"No." Robert's fists balled tighter.
"Because she managed to blush when you revealed her? Because she trembled at your touch?"
"No!" Robert stood in one movement from the couch. "It's because I hurt her!"
Patrick was silenced.
"For God's sake, Papa! I hurt her! She bled! She cried beneath me! She made me swear...oh, God!" Patrick watched his son push past him, shoving him slightly as he stormed toward the hall. He had just about made it to the door when he turned back, and looked squarely at Patrick. His eyes, Patrick noticed, were red. "She loves me. She did it - allowed me to...to take her because she loves me, Papa. She's fallen in love with me. I've allowed her to fall in love with me with no intention of falling in love with her. That moral integrity you speak so highly of - there is none of it made up in me." He paused and lifted his chin higher. "But you are correct in one thing, and one thing alone: she isn't like you or me. She isn't selfish like you or me."
There was silence. Silence everywhere, all around him and within. Patrick could think of nothing, nothing at all to say to this. Or at least, not quite. "I see. Well -" A pause; a quiet, uncomfortable beat. "Then perhaps we'll have her money after all."
Robert only stared at him, expressionless. Stared at him for what seemed forever until, wordlessly, he turned and left Patrick alone.
And for the first time since May, for the first time since his meeting with Barnes, since looking down at his son, his heir, and telling him that everything - everything - would be lost...for the first time in months, Patrick felt hopeless. He felt loss. And he felt sorrow.
Because of Downton.
The water was no longer warm. At this point, it was no longer even tepid, but a sickly cold lukewarm that stuck to her skin in tear-shaped droplets, rolling down her naked knees that peeped up out of the now murky tub. She watched the trail each drop made, the lines that traced down her legs, the droplets that lingered on the knobs of her skinny knees as they knocked against one another. She sighed when they suddenly looked different to her, when her narrow knobby knees seemed in just a moment so much older, so much uglier than she'd known them to be. An unwelcome thought, a curiosity of what he had thought of them entered her mind, and pushing it away, she closed her eyes.
Without sight, everything else she tried to ignore was amplified. The way he'd felt over her, heavy but warm; the very dull ache of difference she felt between her legs and in her belly; the burn of her eyes and soreness of her throat from crying. She'd never cried so hard. Never. Twenty years of mediocre feelings and spoiled happiness had not prepared her for the hurt she felt. Not the physical ache - there was no real physical ache, no - not compared to the pull at her heart.
His face appeared in her mind: his round chin, his blue eyes, his soft tufts of chestnut curls atop his head. She saw his smile in the dim light of the drawing room at the Simsburys', Cupid and Psyche, in their framed splendor, peering down at the way he'd waltzed her around the room, the way they'd nudged the small side table and laughed. She saw him arguing with her over the merits of cricket in the greenhouse, his hair dripping wet as he shook it vehemently in his impassioned opinion. She saw the way he'd wrapped his jacket around her, the way he'd pulled it tight beneath her chin, his eyes set on his working hands, but her eyes on his face - his nose, the line of his lips and the corner of his mouth, his long lashes matted with rain water. She saw him and saw him and saw him, over and over and over again, and her heart began to hurt. It hurt, and yet...oh and yet it sang. She loved him.
Cora pushed out a slow breath from her nose, and drawing up her legs, slipped gently beneath the surface of the cold water.
"In the midst of the awful stillness with which such a burst of feeling, coming as it did, from the two most renowned warriors of that region, was received, Tamenund lifted his voice to disperse the multitude.
"'It is enough,' he said. 'Go, children of the Lenape, the anger of the Manitou is not done. Why should Tamenund stay? The pale faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red men has not yet come again. My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of Unamis happy and strong; and yet, before the night has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans.'"
That was it, then. Robert stared at the ivory page, the candlelight flickering over it and making it seem much happier than the story really was. That was it.
With a heavy sigh Robert closed the book and thumbed the claimed bookmark, the thing that had no purpose any longer that he'd finished. He thumbed it and stared at the word written there, the curve of the C and thinly drawn tail of the A, the little bundles of forget-me-nots scribbled happily around it. Dipping his brow and twisting toward his bedside table he made to replace the novel atop the other - its leathery green cover and golden ivy shining in the dance of his single flame. But he did not. He did not replace it. Instead he took in another breath and leaned back against his pillow, opening the book once again. He turned the pages slowly, carefully, nearly reverently until he reached the beginning again. The beginning again. So that he could restart.
His tired, aching eyes found the title and then underneath the words 'Chapter One' printed boldly across the page. He followed along, tracing his gaze against the double lines beneath the print and to the first set of words, the words of Shakespeare that opened the novel, the epigraph that set the theme in motion; he read again the seemingly unthreatening thread throughout the story of a cultural struggle, a treacherous return to family, and of a lovely, brave...but doomed sentimental heroine. He held the novel tighter in his grasp:
"Mine ear is open and my heart prepared;
The worst is worldly lost thou canst unfold:-
Say, is my kingdom lost?"
Downton.
Robert let his head fall against the wood of his headboard, and he closed his eyes.
Cora.