Lady Grantham was still in bed when Sarah slipped into her room. The shutters had been left open, and an obstinate sun sneaked its watery rays through the clouds, and every gap in the curtains. Unable to hear the sound of her own footsteps on the carpet, hardly feeling the weight of her hand on the doorknob, Sarah felt like a mere shadow on the wall.
Cora was curled up on her side, facing the far wall with the covers pulled up to her neck; the only visible part of her was her long hair, tied back in a messy ponytail and spilling over her pillow. Despite all appearances, however, she wasn't sleeping. The door gave the tiniest click as it closed behind Sarah, and the spell was broken.
Cora glanced above her shoulder, rolling over to lie on her back. Her eyes, fully open and bright with unshed tears, stood out in a face that looked all the whiter in its frame of dark hair.
"Pardon me, Milady," Sarah said. "It's quite late."
Cora blinked.
"Yes, of course... Mrs Patmore must think me terribly ungrateful, shunning her food like that."
She forced a smile, but it flickered like a candle in the wind and blew away. Her usually soft voice was slightly hoarse, either from thirst or from all the screaming she had done the day before.
Old habits die hard. In spite of her reason for being here in the first place, Sarah was fighting down the impulse to ask if she could get her something – milk and honey, perhaps – to soothe her sore throat when somebody knocked on the door she had just closed.
Sarah immediately retreated into the background as the eldest daughter came in and replaced her at Cora's bedside.
"Good morning, Mama," Lady Mary said with uncharacteristic gentleness. "Papa sent me to see if you were awake yet. Dr Clarkson will be arriving at ten."
Cora nodded absently, her eyes already wandering away.
The knot that had taken up residence in Sarah's stomach tightened a bit further. That was the first she heard of a doctor's visit. Somebody down the pecking order had obviously made a blunder, and yet she couldn't find it in herself to care, let alone be angry, because the only thing that mattered to her right now was that this was obviously not a good time to talk. The doctor would come up to see Lady Grantham in half an hour at the very most and she hadn't eaten anything, hadn't even had her morning tea yet...
Then again, how could there ever be a good time for what Sarah was planning to do?
She couldn't see Lady Mary's face from where she stood, but there was no missing the way she shifted from one foot to the other, in contrast with the usually impeccable posture she would have learnt from her governess.
"You needn't worry too much," she carried on. "As he said yesterday, you will be back on your feet fairly quickly. This is a mere follow-up."
The sadness in the girl's voice was unmistakable, but she also sounded quite confused, as if she didn't know what she was supposed to make of Cora's obvious fragility.
"Yes, of course."
Sarah couldn't fault Lady Mary for trying to comfort her mother, but she was wide off the mark. She would have known better than to speak of Cora's condition as if it were a mere physical inconvenience if she had been there when Cora had asked for her baby, if she had seen the look on her mother's face...
"I'll be back to keep you company later."
"Thank you, dear."
As soon as Lady Mary was gone, Sarah turned her gaze back to Cora. An uncomfortable silence fell over the room as she instinctively waited for instructions that wouldn't come. The countess would normally have spoken by now, if only to dismiss her until further notice, but of course there was nothing normal about her that morning.
This wasn't the lady Sarah used to know, lying in that bed like an empty husk; this was the same woman she had left – though abandoned was closer to the truth, really – yesterday; the defeated, broken stranger who had reared her head after all the fight had been wrenched out of Cora.
There would be no harrowing screams today, no bruising grip on her hand, but her lady's silence told her everything she needed to know and much more.
"I had such a nice dream," Lady Grantham said suddenly, and the quiet sound of her voice almost made Sarah jump. "I didn't want to wake up."
She was looking straight ahead, at nothing in particular, and certainly not at her maid.
"But I did, and I couldn't go back to sleep. But still – I was trying to pretend that it was true, that nothing had changed..." She sighed. "Of course, reality always catches up sooner or later, doesn't it?"
It always did. Sarah knew it better than anyone. And of course, she had been the one to drag the countess back to that bitter place she had been trying hard to escape. As if she hadn't done enough already.
"I'm terribly sorry, Milady."
And she was. She had probably never been as sorry about anything in her whole life.
Now would be the time to talk, and get this weight off her chest... And yet, now that the time had come, there seemed to be a thousand things Sarah would sooner tell Cora, things she had no right to say. She wanted to say that she was sorry for leaving her yesterday and that she wouldn't do it again; she wanted to tell her that she understood that Cora had loved her unborn baby, even if Lady Mary didn't; she wanted to tell Cora that she had a right to grieve for the child she had lost, even if all the world saw was a missed opportunity.
As pathetic as it seemed, Sarah would have wanted to try and make Cora feel even marginally better, and trampling over whatever remained of her heart seemed like the worst possible way to achieve that.
And yet, confessing was the morally right thing to do, and Sarah desperately wanted to; she longed to rid her guilty conscience of its intolerable burden. It was foolish of her to hope that she could somehow spare Cora anyway. There can be no right time to break the heart of the woman you loved and betrayed, throwing your life away in the bargain.
She was preparing to do just that when Cora turned her doleful eyes on her.
"Thank you."
Lady Grantham's silence had been crippling; Cora's gratitude was worse. The way she looked at Sarah now reminded her of the look in her eyes when she lay on the floor of the bathroom, of the look in her eyes after Sarah had tried to pull her hand away. As if she had nothing left but her.
This wasn't just a wrong time; it was the worst possible time.
"I'll be right back with your tray, Milady."
Cora opened her mouth, but Sarah pretended not to notice. She could well imagine that her Ladyship wasn't about to ask for an extra slice of bacon. She hadn't eaten since yesterday's luncheon, and there was simply no way she could afford to skip another meal.
"I'm sure you must be thirsty. I'll bring you some water, and tea, and toast too. You'll need your strength."
Sarah was already gone before Cora had a chance to answer, amazed at her own audacity.
She must only hold on a little longer. The miscarriage may have played havoc with Cora's plans, but from what she had heard, it couldn't be much longer before the countess formally dismissed her. In the mean time, she would be there for Cora. It was the least she could do.
Sarah had no say in the matter, or Cora would never have attended the garden party. It was much too soon for her to host such an event, too soon for her to be anywhere but resting in the comfort and privacy of her rooms. She hadn't granted her body and mind the necessary time to heal...
Of course, cancelling at the last minute was unthinkable, but Sarah could at least have persuaded Lady Grantham to stay in bed where she belonged if the whole family hadn't been irrationally concerned about what their guests – they had invited anybody who was anybody really – might have to say about her condition... Even Cora herself, who had spilled the beans upon seeing the incredulous look on Sarah's face, obviously hadn't needed much persuading. In the end, it seemed that nothing mattered as much to the aristocracy as keeping up appearances.
And so Cora's aching flesh was there, hidden under layers of deceptively pure white, but her thoughts were in a place Sarah dreaded to think of. The grounds were swarming with people, family and acquaintances who would drop by every now and then to have a chat with her, but she looked so lonely in her grief.
"People mustn't think I'm really ill", the countess told her when Sarah came to see her, unable to keep away any longer. The wan smile on her lips faded away as her eyes stared off into the distance.
One of her gloved hands was cradling her sore, empty stomach. Sarah had to look away, do something – she wrapped the blanket over Cora's legs – to distract herself from her own thoughts. "But you are", she wanted to answer. "You are ill. I made you."
"But are you sure you have everything you need, milady?" she asked instead.
"Dear O'Brien..." Cora said, and reached for her. Her hand slid down Sarah's sleeve, her thumb drawing circles on the back of Sarah's hand before her fingers curled around her wrist, squeezing it briefly.
"How sweet you are," she said. She sounded like she meant every word.
In her eyes, Sarah could see that look again. The look that confused and rattled her, that smashed all her defences and turned her into a helpless thing whose only wish was to love and keep Cora safe at all costs. A look that made no sense in the eyes of a woman who would be giving her the sack any day now.
Sarah averted her gaze and walked away, barely aware of where she was going. She didn't believe that she could feel any worse than she did then, but she was sadly mistaken.
Of course, she felt sorry for Cora. The countess hadn't deserved to have such a terrible thing happen to her, even if she was a hypocrite and a snob who held no respect for her servants and plotted in secret to get rid of them. What really mattered to Sarah, however, was the unforgivable sin she had committed. Had it been just a bruise, or even a broken wrist, then she could have forgiven herself. This... was completely different. Sarah may not have been all sweetness and light – a nasty piece of work, some would say – but manslaughter wasn't something she had ever contemplated adding to her list of misdeeds. And that applied to Cora's unborn child as well as to anyone else. In the end Sarah's suffering had everything to do with herself and little to do with Cora Crawley as a person.
Until suddenly it had everything to do with Cora.
Sarah had barely left the shade of the tent when she heard somebody call her name. The Dowager Countess of Grantham materialized out of nowhere, rushing toward her in a flurry of white lace and beige linen. Smiling at her pleasantly, she certainly did not look the part of the bird of ill omen. While appearances have a way of being deceptive, they are sometimes also downright cruel.
It was then, with the dowager countess looking at her benignly, patting her arm in passing, with the August sun warming her back through the black of her dress, with a light summer breeze caressing her face, that Sarah finally saw a fundamental truth. It was then that she finally understood that Cora wasn't – had never been in fact – the villain in their story; she was.