Cora couldn't figure out what to do with her hands. For the last two days she struggled with the suddenly restless appendages. They clasped together, they bunched within the folds of her skirts, they tapped out jittery music on hard surfaces. And after too many questioning looks from her mother or Violet, she would go to the library and they would write. Pages and pages of letters to Robert that she could not send. More difficult than keeping the finality of her non existent pregnancy from the girls, a pregnancy they had never known about anyway, was keeping the tone at Downton light and normal after the news about Robert. If she could be thankful about anything, it was that at least it had happened when the house was full. Rosamund and Marmaduke had planned to stay through the new year and Violet had all but moved in, and so when Cora felt herself overwhelmed, when her mind churned fully with the words of the letter she received that morning, she had been able to excuse herself from the group knowing one of them would take the girls attention off of their missing mother.
The letter shook in her hands as she carefully rested it in her lap and smoothed out the creases. Her empty stomach lurched and she let out a shaky breath before reading the words once more.
10 December 1900
My lovely darling,
Your last letters have been so short, or so sparse in their regularity, that it makes me fear things are not well. I worry so about you and I wonder if we shouldn't employ James's help now. Things will just get more difficult for you to manage as your condition progresses and all of your strength should be put towards remaining healthy and delivering our little miracle.
I've dreamt about the baby, and dare I say it's a boy in my dreams! Not that I won't love any child, you must know I will, but in these visions it is a 'he' and he is beautiful, like his Mama!
Please take very good care of yourself. I must close this as we are getting ready to move positions. I think perhaps this final push might be the turning point we need. How I long to get out of here and back to you before our little one makes his appearance in the world. Tell him that his papa orders him not to come early! This may be the last letter I am able to write before Christmas so let me wish you a very happy Christmas dearest! Kiss the girls for me and whisper I love you's to the baby from his Papa.
your devoted,
Robert
Cora lifted the letter, pressing it tightly to her chest and closing her eyes. It's how Martha found her minutes later, sitting on her bed, unmoving, the tears falling down her face in a steady flow of misery. Martha sat down wordlessly beside her and pried her tense fingers off of the letter before Cora let go.
"You didn't tell him about the misdiagnosis?" Martha questioned softly.
Cora shook her head vigorously, "Violet thought it would be too harsh to tell him through a letter."
"She was probably right," Martha conceded.
Cora turned suddenly, her face contorted in grief, "Don't you see? I did this! If I had told him the truth like I wanted to, this wouldn't be happening!"
"I don't understand," Martha said bewildered.
Cora stood and snatched the letter from Martha's hands, waving it furiously, "You read it! He was worried about me! He was thinking about me and the baby! He was careless and now he is missing because he was preoccupied...because of…" Cora's voice wavered and finished in a whisper, "me."
Gasping into the hand that had covered her mouth, Cora's corset suddenly felt three notches too tight as her sudden fit of crying left her breathless. She was only marginally aware of sinking slowly to the ground, like a feather floating gently down, when Martha's arms came around her, sinking as well.
"Milady?" The bedroom door opened cautiously, Mrs Hughes peaking from behind it. When her eyes lowered, and she took in the sight of Cora clutching her mother, both women a heap of skirts on the floor, she frowned sympathetically. "I'm sorry. I was walking by and heard shouting. I'll leave you."
"Thank you for checking, Mrs Hughes," Martha said quietly over Cora's shoulder. "Perhaps you could let Lord Grantham's mother know that Lady Grantham is indisposed for the time being at that I'll be down later."
"Very good, Mrs Levinson," Mrs Hughes replied, turning to leave.
"Oh, and Mrs Hughes," Martha called, "could you send up Lady Grantham's maid with one of the sedatives Dr Clarkson left?"
"No…" Cora interrupted, pushing out of her mother's arms and gingerly wiping the tears from her face before turning and offering Mrs Hughes an embarrassed smile. "I'm fine, Mrs Hughes, please do not bother."
"Mrs Hughes, please get Jenkins, with the sedative." At Mrs Hughes's hesitation, Martha's face grew hard with determination. "Please do as I ask. Lady Grantham will be angry with me, not with you, but I'm her mother so I can take it."
"Mother…" Cora sighed, "I do not need to be drugged."
"You need proper sleep or you are just going to keep unraveling at the seams. Proper rest and proper food. Rest now, and when you've had a nice sleep you can eat." Martha instructed in a stern voice, one that Cora knew well. The argument was effectively over in Martha's opinion.
As both woman stood from the floor, Martha touched Cora's arm. "You may need all of your strength in the coming days, my girl. Not taking care of yourself is not going to bring him home."
Cora nodded, furiously wiping at the tears that welled upon her lashes again. What remained unsaid, that he may never come home, hung between them as clear as if the words had been given a voice.
Robert wiped the sweat from his brow, tipping his head back for a moment as the strong sun beat down on him. The muscles running along his shoulders protested at the new angle of his neck and he twisted it carefully, working out the aches. The movement made him sway slightly, the combined effects of too little water and too much back breaking work in the suffocating heat.
"Are you alright, milord?" Bates asked quietly from beside him.
"Yes," Robert replied in an equally low voice. "It's Gob bloody awful hot out here!"
"You two over there!" A man Robert had come to know as General De Wet hollered at them while guiding his horse closer. "You are to be digging, not talking!"
"Yes sir!" Robert and Bates answered, picking up their shovels once more and striking the dirt.
Robert waited until the general was reprimanding another prisoner before letting the scowl pull down his face. He shuffled to the left, the cuff of his chains abrading the skin of his ankle harshly. His back screamed with every heap of dirt he heaved out of the hole they were creating, his parched throat as dusty as the air around him. As the metal of his spade struck the earth, he cursed under his breath. He had tried keeping track of the days when they were first captured, but as one grueling day passed into another, he had lost count. It seemed like a week, though he couldn't be entirely certain. Thinking about it made his chest clench hard. Cora would have been told by now. Word would have reached her and he prayed she hadn't been alone when the war office sent someone to the house.
Most likely they would tell her he was missing, or captured, and picturing her face as she heard the truth caused him to push the shovel angrily into the dirt. He grunted, the only way to let the building fury in his body escape under the watch of the Boers.
"I need to find a way out of here, Bates." Robert growled.
He wasn't sure the other man heard him until he replied, "Just say when, milord, and I will be right behind you."
The library was eerily quiet, each of its occupants having run out of safe things to talk about. Cora hadn't said much at all, leaving the small talk to her mother and Marmaduke. Rosamund had made half-hearted attempts in the beginning of the evening, but her red-rimmed eyes and her warbled sighs were an indication of how hard Robert's absence was also affecting her. Cora knew the woman loved her brother, but every time Marmaduke caressed Rosamund's hand in concern, or leaned close to brush his lips against her cheek, she felt the bile rush up her own throat in a flash of hateful resentment. She needed his hands and his lips to calm her fears, but he wasn't there and it was breaking her heart, piece by piece.
The sound of the front door opening and shutting and the pert echo of fast footsteps reached them, breaking through the thick atmosphere and every one of them seemed to sit up to attention, waiting. Violet pushed through the door, still in her traveling clothes. Cora and Rosamund sprang to their feet, as though controlled by the strings of a puppeteer.
"Please say you have more information." Rosamund begged her mother, going to her and clinging to her arm. Violet looked at her daughter for a moment, before gently shaking off her hands and walking slowly to Cora.
Cora wrung her hands together, taking a deep breath. Her mother in laws face was pale, the whites of her eyes spidered with red veins. She had been crying on the train, her handkerchief was still within the grasp of her hands. I will not fall apart in front of them, Cora repeated the mantra to herself though she felt the trembling begin. Violet took her by the elbows and guided her back into her seat and looking only at her spoke.
"Shrimpy was able to finally speak with Lord Kitchener's assistants. To the best of their knowledge, Robert was captured by the Boers that ambushed his unit. They would have taken him to one of their prisoner camps. Shrimpy is staying in London for the time being and will cable us as soon as he knows anything else." Violet explained, her voice strained as she delivered the news.
Cora's breath stuck in her chest as she tried to digest what Violet had told her. She couldn't process it. He wasn't dead, which left her weak with thanks but he was a prisoner and for one second she imagined what that could mean for him before her mind shut down on those thoughts.
"You must be exhausted Mama," Cora responded flatly. "Did you eat on the train?"
Violet frowned, concern etched in the lines on her forehead. "I'm fine, dear."
"What are they going to do for him? He's the Earl of Grantham! They can't just let him rot in some prisoner of war camp!" Rosamund demanded, finally finding her voice.
Violet shot her a warning look, "Rosamund, please…".
"No!" Rosamund yelled, startling everyone. "Shrimpy must do more! And where is James? Why isn't he in London calling in the favors owed to him? I'll tell you where he is...packing his bags and waiting for the body to be sent back."
"Rosamund!" Violet hissed.
Cora swallowed convulsively around the tightening in her throat. "I think I'm going up," she whispered. Martha rose quickly to her feet, going to Cora's side but her daughter shook her head.
"Cora…" Rosamund said, instantly regretting her outburst.
"It's alright. I'm alright. Just tired." Cora's attempt at a smile felt more like a grimace and she looked away from the pitying, worried faces that watched her leave the library. None of them knew, none of them understood. Rosamund loved her brother and Violet would mourn her son terribly, but Robert was her whole world, he held everything within him for her, and if he died, she didn't know what she would do.