AN: So my original plan was 21 chapters (this one and then one more), but I decided the way I'd divided up events didn't really make much sense, and three chapters would be better. (End result is that this chapter is more of a transitional chapter than a dramatic one-apologies for that!) So the word count hasn't gotten vastly longer, but there will be one more chapter. Since I still want to finish the story by the end of next week, I'm hoping to make this a double update week and publish the next chapter in a few days. (Monday is a holiday in the U.S., so I should have a bit more time.)
Late September 1913
"I wish there'd been time to put your legs up a bit more in the last few days, milady," Baxter said as she unwrapped Cora's calves and feet. "But the swelling's gone down a bit."
Cora had sensed that without looking. Days of parties and guests that had culminated in Charlotte and Matthew's wedding yesterday had meant that she'd neglected herself, and she'd not bothered to take time to sit with her feet up or let Baxter work her ankles. Gravity, lack of exercise, and pregnancy had now swelled her legs and feet, and she could sense it even in her paralyzed state—her vague awareness of her legs had made it miserably clear that something was very wrong, an awkward discomfort that she was not capable of fidgeting away from.
But the bride and groom had departed this morning, and the houseful of guests had left after luncheon, and Cora had gone upstairs at tea time to recline on the chaise, where Baxter was now fussing over her. The maid had suggested wrapping cabbage leaves against her skin, promising that it would reduce the swelling, and after an hour's time, Cora was significantly less puffy, with a tingling sense of relief in her body.
"Do you feel better, milady?" Baxter asked now, pressing her fingers lightly against Cora's left leg to examine the remaining swelling. "Can you sense it?"
Cora nodded. "Yes, I can, and the leaves did help—thank you."
"It's an old remedy for pregnant women, but in my experience it does have some merit," the maid said. "As does massage with lavender."
Cora had not bothered to ask Baxter—or any of the women she'd interviewed—how much experience she had with pregnancy, thinking it a very temporary situation, and assuming her own would be quite different from most ladies' anyway. Yet it had become quite clear quite quickly that Baxter knew what she was doing.
She moved now to the dressing table, where she poured a bit of the oil she'd brought from the village onto her hand, then turned back to Cora. "Would your ladyship mind if I sat on the chaise? I'd sit on the floor or on a stool, but I don't want to pull your feet downward."
Cora shook her head. "Of course not. Sit wherever you're comfortable."
Baxter took a seat at the opposite end of the chaise, settled Cora's feet into her lap, and began to massage the oil into her left foot.
"Thank you," Cora said softly, leaning against the hot water bottle the maid had placed between her back and the chair. Her spine had become steadily stiffer and achier as her belly had grown, and although she would not have admitted it, she was quite frightened at the thought of how she might feel in a couple months' time.
"Did you learn all this from your previous ladies?" she asked, pulling her thoughts away from the rest of the autumn.
Baxter gave her an odd look. "Why do you ask that, milady?"
"You seem very familiar with looking after expectant mothers, so I assumed you'd seen other ladies though their pregnancies. Have you not?"
Her maid smiled then. "Ah, your ladyship only assumed…I was hoping I hadn't accidentally led you astray in my interview," she said. "The fact is, milady, I've only ever served ladies of a certain age, and unmarried ladies. No one both married and young enough to have a child."
"Then how did you…"
Baxter smiled again. "I come from a large family, milady. There were always babies on the way."
It suddenly seemed that there were always babies on the way here, too, with Eleanor pregnant at the same time as her mother—she'd been correct in her suspicion and was expecting her own baby at the end of March. The thought made Cora want to burst with happiness. And now Charlotte was wed as well, and perhaps there would even be a third baby in the family soon.
"I suppose Miss Charlotte is nearly to London by now," Cora said, half to herself and half to Baxter. While Eleanor and Evelyn had taken the more traditional honeymoon route of France and Italy, Charlotte had hinted to Matthew that she was longing for something more exotic. Their destination remained a secret to her, but Cora and Robert knew that the couple was heading for Greece and then Turkey.
"Anna said that they were going to the Mediterranean, but that it was all to be a surprise for Mrs. Crawley."
Cora shook herself mentally at the strange sound of her daughter's new title. She wasn't sure what felt more odd—that Charlotte was now a Mrs., or that her last name had not changed. "Yes, Mr. Crawley is taking her to first to Athens, then to Corfu, and then they're going to Constantinople."
"Oh, how wonderful!" Baxter exclaimed, and for a moment Cora wondered if she had ever been out of England. Few servants ever traveled more than fifty miles from their birthplace, although lady's maids and valets often had the privilege of accompanying their employers on holidays. "Do you know where she will celebrate her birthday?"
"Her birthday?" Cora's brow furrowed as she tried to think when she might have discussed this detail with her maid.
"I believe Mrs. Crawley told me that she would be twenty-three on the eighteenth of October."
"The twenty-second, but yes, she'll be twenty-three."
"I beg your pardon, milady," Baxter said quietly. "I must have jumbled the date."
Cora waved the error away. "It's no matter. Anyway, I think they'll still be in the Greek islands then." She sighed. "I can hardly believe they're both gone and married."
"I'm sure you can't, milady, but at least you do have another one on the way."
Cora smiled, caressing her belly. "Yes, Baxter, there is that." She closed her eyes, feeling her body relax in response to the touch she could not feel. "His lordship and I ought to discuss names," she said after a moment. "We haven't yet."
"Have you anything in mind, milady?"
"Perhaps…Mary," she said softly. "I've always thought Mary was a pretty name."
She heard the maid murmur her agreement, and Cora let herself rest then, her head against the back of the chaise. The next thing she knew, she was blinking awake at the sound of her bedroom door opening, disoriented and surprised to realize she'd slept.
"I'm sorry, Baxter; I hadn't meant to doze off," she said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
"It's quite all right, milady," Baxter said quietly. "I was glad to see you were relaxed."
"And you probably needed that nap," she heard Robert say, and she turned to see him approaching her. Ah—so that was whom she'd heard come in. "I'm sorry I woke you, sweetheart." He kissed her hair, then stroked her cheek with the back of two fingers. "I just came up to see if you were all right. Would you like me to move you to the bed when Baxter's finished with your legs so you can sleep some more?"
"I'm nearly done, milord," Baxter said softly, and Cora looked down to see she'd finished massaging with the oil and was now making slow circles with her right ankle—an ankle that was considerably smaller than it had been originally.
"What time is it?" she asked.
"About seven," Robert said. "Carson should ring the gong soon."
"Then I'll dress and go down to dinner," she said, feeling more awake by the second. "I want to have dinner with you, and I'm feeling much better now." She smiled at her maid. "Baxter's done wonders for my legs."
"I'm glad, darling. And thank you, Baxter," he said, nodding to the other woman as the gong sounded in the distance. He bent and kissed Cora again, stroking her belly lightly. "I'll change and then come back to take you downstairs."
By the time Robert returned, Baxter and a nurse had dressed Cora in one of the loose evening gowns that had been made to accommodate her pregnancy and seated her at the dressing table, where Baxter was arranging her hair. She was beginning to think that she looked rather silly dressing for dinner with her six-month belly, but Robert seemed to love everything she wore. His eyes met hers in the mirror as he stepped into the room, and she saw him smile.
"Darling, you look beautiful," he said, and she read his desire to kiss her, frustrated by the presence of her maid. "Absolutely beautiful."
Cora returned his smile. "Have you thought about names at all?"
"Names? For the baby? No, I haven't."
"Well, let's talk about it tonight. I've been thinking of a few. Baxter and I thought Mary was nice."
"Yes, that's certainly very pretty," he said as he took a seat in a chair.
"Or Sybil," she went on, sensing his lukewarm feelings. "And I like Edith, too, but I'm not sure I want another E, so that's probably out."
"I agree with you on both—Sybil's nice, but no E or C names."
Cora fell silent, watching Baxter finish pinning her curls. She knew Robert was still worried for her and worried about the birth, but he had been so excited about the baby in the last month as they'd felt its kicks and movements together, and she'd expected far more enthusiasm about names. Did he dislike all of her suggestions? Or had his heart been set on something else?
"Perhaps…perhaps we could name her after your mama?" she offered as Baxter fastened a string of sapphires around her neck. "A little Violetmight be nice." And in truth, she would not mind naming her baby after her mother-in-law. As much as Violet had objected to their continued marriage after Cora's accident, the dowager countess had been good to her in later years.
Robert scowled. "Cora, we are not naming this baby after my mother. We'll name it anything you like, except for Violet."
He clearly hadn't been harboring a secret desire to honor his mother. "Well, then," she said quietly, hoping he might suggest a name of his own. Yet the silence stretched on as Baxter finished with her jewels and passed her a pair of gloves. "Thank you, Baxter," she said, dismissing the maid. "That will be all."
"Do you have a name in mind?" she asked, almost sharply, as the door shut behind Baxter.
Robert did not answer for a moment. "I do, in fact," he said softly. "I know exactly what I'd like to name this baby. You won't like it, but there's not a question in my mind that it's the right name."
"I won't dislike it," she promised. "Tell me, please."
"Cora."
"Yes, what? What do you want to call her?"
"No, that's it—I want to name the baby Cora."
"No," she said immediately, instinctively. It felt far too prideful to call a child after herself. "No, I don't want to use my own name."
"And why not?" he asked calmly. "Why shouldn't we name her after her lovely mama?"
"Because…because…because it's…arrogant, I suppose. I don't think I quite… That is, if we name her after someone…surely there's someone more…deserving. It doesn't seem right to name her after me."
"More deserving? Darling, you were willing from the beginning to give your life for hers. You haven't blinked at carrying her, despite the fact that it's difficult and dangerous for you. And all this is on top of how strong I think you've been to spend nearly a quarter-century in a wheelchair. Of course you're deserving of having a baby named after you."
She blushed. "I–I'm just not sure I…"
"Please, Cora." He stood and joined her at the mirror, resting his hands on her shoulders and bending down to kiss her temple. "I adore you, and I so want to give this baby your name. Please, darling, let us do this."
It seemed almost childish to refuse, especially in light of how little Robert asked for, and how much he did for her.
"All right…if it matters so much to you, then I don't mind."
He kissed her again. "Thank you, love…are you ready to go down?" She nodded, and he lifted her.
"What names did you have in mind for a boy?" he asked as he carried her down the back staircase outside her bedroom.
"I hadn't really…thought about that," she told him, although in truth, the suggestion that perhaps this baby was a boy had occupied her thoughts daily.
"You're hoping for a girl." It was a statement, not a question.
She knew that deep down, Robert still longed for a son, but… "I worry about upsetting everything if there's a male heir after all these years. Charlotte, and now Matthew…"
"Charlotte has Matthew's money," he said, and his tone was not unkind or unsympathetic. "She'll live quite well on that, and her daughter's portion wouldn't be ungenerous."
"Yes, but…it seems so unfair to take away the inheritance she's expected all her life." Cora knew that Matthew's own finances were more than adequate, but she could not quite imagine Charlotte as never more than an upper middle class solicitor's wife.
"I don't disagree, but that's how it is for every heiress whose mother later has a son. It's how it would have been for Queen Victoria if she'd had a brother."
"It might not be a boy," she said, hoping fervently that it was not.
"No, but we ought to consider names all the same."
Almost frightened that even thinking of male names could somehow make the child in her belly a boy, Cora had shut them out of her mind. "We could try to think of some tonight, if you don't have any you're sure about," she said.
"I don't, but we've got months, and I can think of something else I'd much rather do tonight." They had by now stepped into the great hall, where they were within easy earshot of servants, and so he whispered it instead.