"Mama?" Charlotte rapped on Cora's bedroom door, having just taken a message from the gardener. Eleanor's wedding was in three days, and he'd been up at the house to discuss the flowers, but her ladyship had been nowhere to be found. Charlotte had spoken with the man instead, promising to relay his information and his questions. "Mama, are you here?"
"Yes," a sleepy voice called back. "What is it?"
She'd not expected her mother to be asleep in the middle of the day, and the discovery, on top of the other oddities she'd observed recently, alarmed her. She pushed open the door.
"I'm sorry to wake you—I didn't know you were sleeping. Cuthbert's been by."
"Did he need to see me?"
"He'll come back later…are you all right?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Cora said quickly…too quickly, in Charlotte's opinion.
"It's not like you to nap in the afternoons."
Cora gave her a smile that did not seem to quite meet her eyes. "It's only the wedding, darling. All the preparations have been tiring. Here, help me sit up and tell me what Cuthbert said."
Charlotte moved to the other side of the bed, sliding an arm beneath Cora's shoulders and slowly beginning to raise her. But before she had moved her very far, her mother drew in her breath sharply, her hand squeezing Charlotte's shoulder hard. Cora's eyes were closed, and she turned her head away, as though she were afraid she might be ill.
"Mama?"
"Lay me back down, please."
Frightened, Charlotte eased her back down onto the pillow and took her hand. "Mama? Are you sick?"
"No, darling." Cora opened her eyes. "Just a dizzy spell…"
"A dizzy spell?" She'd never known her mother to complain of those before.
"Yes, I ought not to have sat up so quickly. I just need to lie down for a few more minutes. Tell me about the flowers."
"No," Charlotte said, surprising herself with her firmness. "Not until you tell me what's wrong with you."
"Darling, there's nothing wrong with me—"
"Yes, there is. You're always up here resting—probably sleeping—and now you've told me you're dizzy, and you were almost ill there, weren't you?"
"Darling, I—"
"Don't lie to me."
"Charlotte!" Her mother's eyes flashed at her impertinence, but Charlotte merely shook her head, her fear spurring her on.
"I know there's something wrong, Mama. Papa may believe you're only tired because of the new chair, but I don't think so—you've had that for weeks; you've had time to build your strength. And I know you were ill a few weeks ago with O'Brien, and you've almost done it again. Please tell me what's wrong."
In the silence that followed, Charlotte realized how tightly she had gripped Cora's hand and tried to force herself to loosen her hold…but her mother was holding on equally firmly. "Please, Mama," she whispered, the fire going out of her. "I'm scared."
After a moment, Cora said, so quietly Charlotte almost didn't hear, "I have an infection.*"
"Where? What's happened?"
"I'm not sure—it's in my bladder, or my kidneys, or somewhere else internal."
Charlotte tried to ignore the knotting in her stomach, determined that there must be an easy answer. "Have you seen Clarkson? What can he do for it?"
"Nothing. And no, I haven't seen him. There's nothing to be done. Either I'll recover, or I…won't recover."
"Then how do you even know you've got an infection?" Charlotte demanded, seizing on the possibility that Cora might be wrong.
"Because it's…likely. It's normal, if you're paralyzed."
"But you and Papa always said that couldn't happen to you, because—"
"We said it was much less likely, after the operation I had. Not impossible. And I've got symptoms—as you've noticed."
"You're only tired, and you were only dizzy for a moment—"
Cora gave her a sad, pitying smile that somehow frightened Charlotte more than any of her words. "A few minutes ago you were quite sure I was ill."
Charlotte said nothing and stared down at her mother's hand, still entwined with her own.
"There's more to it than fatigue and one dizzy spell, love," Cora went on gently. "I've been nauseous for weeks, and lightheaded at times. And strangely warm on occasion, which I assume must be a fever. I've had odd pains in my stomach, too, and there's…even a bit of swelling. It's not noticeable with my corset—I'm not even sure it's noticeable to anyone else without my corset—but I can feel it. I can't think what else that all might be."
Charlotte couldn't either, and she felt as though she could not breathe. Her throat seemed to be closing in on itself, but she managed to squeak, "Why didn't you tell us?"
"Because I didn't want it to be true…because I didn't know how to say it…because of this, darling."
Charlotte felt her mother reach up to brush her thumb over Charlotte's cheek, and she realized the tears that had been swimming just below the surface had finally slipped out. "Mama," she gasped, and her voice was so strangled that it sounded strange to her own ears.
"Oh, my baby." Cora stretched out her arms, and Charlotte moved to lie next to her, laying her head on her mother's shoulder and holding on to her tightly as she wept.
"Don't go, please," she heard herself beg desperately, even as she admonished herself that of course there was nothing her mother could do, and useless pleading would only add to her pain.
"Darling," Cora breathed, pressing kisses to Charlotte's head. "Darling, we don't know for sure."
Charlotte knew she was the stubborn one, the defiant one, the one who ought to insist on a glimmer of hope. But at the moment she was too frightened at the thought of a life without Cora, and all she could do was cry. Her mother's death had always been something that was supposed to happen when she was old herself, older than Cora was now. After she'd had time to raise her own children. Not now, when she was barely twenty. Certainly not now.
"We also don't know that I can't recover," Cora murmured.
"But you haven't," Charlotte sobbed. "You haven't."
She wanted her mother to argue with her, to tell her that she felt better this week than she had the last, and Cora's silence in response only made her cry harder.
Charlotte was not sure how long it lasted, only that at last, she ran dry of tears, her eyes swollen and her nose blocked. "I want you," she said thickly, propping herself up on her elbow, "to see a doctor." Cora's own eyes were reddened as well, she noted with guilt as she gazed down at her. "Today. I'll run down to the village and fetch him."
But her mother caught her arm, her voice taking on that rare firmness that Charlotte knew could not be ignored. "No. I don't want your father or your sister to know before the wedding—there's nothing Clarkson can do today that he can't do next week, and I won't have a cloud hanging over Eleanor's marriage."
Charlotte closed her eyes, feeling her lip begin to tremble again at the thought of the wedding. At the thought of her own wedding, at which she was suddenly sure there would be no mother of the bride.
"Please, darling," she heard her mother say. "I would certainly rather you didn't know now either, and I know I'm asking a great deal for you to keep this hidden for a few days, but…please…for Eleanor's sake. For my sake."
She felt Cora's hand gently cup her cheek, and she nodded.
*This is just a reminder that this is the pre-antibiotic era, so infections were very dangerous. Either you recovered naturally from them, or they killed you. There was no effective infection treatment.