First Come, First Serve

Chapter 6

…

Robert had forgotten how much he hated ballrooms and courting since the day Cora left for America. That he had an even harder time now, having to look for a bride in New York when his lips had tasted the sweetness of heaven for one second, didn't surprise him. He attended every event and gathering that Sir Howard secured them invitations to with Mr Lowell's help. He attended them because he knew he had no choice. To survive he needed a rich bride to come with him to Downton.

Robert was lucky that his grim face was not taken as the depressed state he actually was in but as a mysterious English trait of the fascinating son to an Earl. The women seemed to be more interested in him here than in London. But Robert couldn't even appreciate it. He mourned his love for Cora. He mourned the short moment of bliss they had. He knew he couldn't be happy again after having held Cora as his if even for a second.

"Lord Downton, may I introduce my daughter? This is Nellie. She is a sweet young girl and she just so loves to dance!" Mr Walton pushed his daughter right at Robert. Robert had given his best to converse with this man earlier this evening because Sir Howard had told Edwin how big the daughter's dowry would be. It took Robert a second to register the blunt hint to court the girl.

"Would you like to dance with me, Miss Walton?" Robert slightly bowed as he held out his hand.

Nellie smiled brightly, exposing the gap between her front teeth. At least, she really liked to dance and wasn't merely a puppet of her father's play. The music was cheerful and Robert guided her onto the dancefloor. He noticed that she was indeed a good dancer. She followed his guidance and swayed easily in his arms.

"And you are really from England?" she inquired in a sugary voice. She smiled cheekily up at him as if she was telling a joke and waited for his reaction.

"I am."

"Is England nice? My mother wants to take me there next summer and I've never been there before. I wouldn't know what to expect." Her strawberry blond curls bobbed in sync with the music.

"For me, it is very nice but after all, I've lived there my whole life, so I guess my England is your America. I am sure you will enjoy it." He had no idea if she would like it. The idea that she would maybe see England earlier than next summer appeared in his head for the first time. Nellie seemed an easy girl.

"Do you like the countryside?" he inquired.

She beamed up at him. "Of course!" Her voice was loud and high. She would have to learn to tune it down, Robert thought. He wondered how old she was, so childlike seemed her cheers. If she was old enough, he would talk with her father. What good was there in deferring the inevitable? Maybe Nellie was his chance. Maybe Nellie would be his future.

It proved she was turning twenty in September.

"But a child through and through," her mother said.

Nellie was Downton's future.

…

Edwin was getting annoyed. His father had made this mission out to be much more exciting than it actually was. The girls he had to dance with weren't the ones he liked. And the dancing was irritating in itself. His high hopes every evening were met with disappointment and frustration. The girls were boring and stupid. The two or three times he tried to steal a kiss in a dark corner behind a thick column or in the shadow of a terrace the girls had reacted appalled. One of them had even smacked his cheek. Never before had he been struck by a girl. He was too embarrassed, though, to complain about it by his father or by Robert.

His father might not say but Edwin wasn't so stupid not to sense that his success was underwhelming. Father had ensured him that the rich people would throw their daughters at him immediately. They saw how the people did it with Robert. It was exactly how Father described it, just that it was only Robert who got lucky. The girls stood waiting in a row to get to know Robert. With Edwin, one or the other reluctantly danced but they left him alone after he had stepped on their toes one too many times during the polka. Edwin felt his father's frustration.

And it wasn't better when Robert was on his way back. In a whirlwind that made Father envious, Robert got engaged to Nellie Walton. They were the talk of the town. And Mr Walton even paid for Robert's ticket to make his way home across the sea early to properly take care of the wedding arrangements. After all, the wedding should already take place this September, right after Nellie's birthday.

Father hissed into Edwin's ear, "The Waltons must really need it if they force the pace like this. I don't want to know which dark secrets Robert marries there."

But Edwin saw the pure envy in his father's eyes. He would be elated and proud over the top if Edwin had secured this match. But Robert was the one marrying Nellie Walton, so Nellie Walton suddenly was a meagre choice by Father's standards. Edwin and his father tried their best to forget the many zeros behind the sum of her dowry.

"New week, new luck, Edwin." They got into the carriage on their way to a big dinner party at the Reyes'. "And don't forget! Be posh! And mention our horses. Girls love horses."

"But Robert wasn't being posh!"

"Not but Robert wasn't behaving like a FOOL!" Father shouted.

Edwin was quiet. Horses, he thought. He had to stick to horses. Maybe that was what Robert had done.

…

She sweated. Oh, she didn't know labour was such a wet business. Sweat and tears, and then the liquid pooling at her feet. A part of her was glad it was finally time to deliver the baby she had waited many months for. But another part of her was scared by the agonising pain that came with the waves of contractions. Why had no one told her that it was this painful?

It was good that John wasn't home. The fewer complications the better.

The first contraction hit her when she was talking with Lucy. Lucy was rearranging some pins in Cora's hair when she brought her something to drink up to her room. It was a particularly hot day and Cora was parched no matter how many glasses of water she drank. Lucy was putting every lose curl of Cora's hair up because it was so warm. On the side, she was telling Cora all the news she had heard of.

"Oh, and then about the Lords that had been guests here! I heard one of them is engaged now to the Waltons' daughter. Yes, Lord Downton and Nellie Walton are getting married! This September already! Mr Walton made sure of that!"

"What?"

"I thought you wouldn't know. I just heard it from the newspaper boy. He said Lord Downton is already on his way back to England to prepare the wedding."

All the air left Cora's lungs. But she had told him after all. She hadn't thought he would go about it so quickly but she told him to find someone else. That was how it had to be. Now he was gone, would probably never set foot onto American soil again.

Despair overcame her. He left her behind. He took the fastest track home. He left her. Now, she had to spend the rest of her life in the certainty that she had to fight alone. That love wouldn't guide her life but pragmatism.

And then it hit her.

"Argh!"

"What is it?"

A strange force pulled at her insides, squeezed the muscles in her abdomen, permeated her back with dull pain. A flash of heat lit her up. She held her hands like a shield over her belly.

She spoke before she realised the meaning of the words, "It's coming."

It's early. That was all she could think about while they were waiting for the doctor. It shouldn't be coming now already. The doctor had said it wouldn't be there for another two weeks. Maybe something was wrong. Cora tried to suppress every contraction that rolled over her mercilessly anyway. She sent fearful looks to Lucy but her maid spoke in a soothing tone and didn't seem bothered by the change in plans. It calmed Cora's nerves a trifle but not entirely.

And then the doctor came. He told her there was nothing wrong. Sometimes labour sets in two weeks before the time. As he spoke, Cora felt the warm stream of liquid run down her legs. Now something was wrong. But again, the doctor calmed her down. When a woman's water broke, it just meant that it started for real.

The labour was long and it came in stages. It stretched on and on every time, Cora thought now the baby had to pop out. It was hot and humid in the room, and the pain seemed to be endless. At first, Cora felt bad for screaming at the whole room – the doctor, Lucy, the nurses; everyone included – when a particularly bad contraction drove her mad. But soon she couldn't care less. Her vocal cords were raw already but the pain forged its way out of her body through the power of her screams. No one could do anything about it; she least of all.

The day had passed in its entirety nearly when Cora finally heard the craved words.

"Oh, I see a head! Keep pushing!"

When they fished him out of her and her body went limp after the torturous day, they were all met by a surprise. It was not over.

The hours passed. More stages of labour. And more. They had nearly reached midnight when the doctor said, "You did it, Mrs Lowell. Now, it's really all done and over. You can finally get some sleep."

But no matter how exhausted she was, Cora couldn't sleep. Her hand locked tightly around the nurse's wrist as she made her promise to keep the babies at Cora's bedside. All night long, Cora got lost in the tiny, scrunched-up faces of her miracle twins.

…

Eugene and Helen were growing gloriously. They had come out of her body as such tiny bundles that Cora couldn't believe these chubby babies were the same ones just ten days older. How perfect they were! She always held at least one of them in her arms, even though everyone told her to leave them with the wet nurse. Cora couldn't let go of them. She had fought to get them into this world. It was the least they could give her to let her stay with her babies as long as she liked, which was all day and all night. The nights she often had to spend alone nevertheless. The twins slept more calmly with the wet nurse. Cora only padded down the hallway to the nursery when she was particularly insomniac. But during the days she just left no room for argument. She spent her days with the babies and even watched the wet nurse nursing first her son and then her daughter. Cora didn't want to miss a single moment in her children's lives.

Both, Eugene and Helen, had been born with a dark fluff of hair. When Cora held one of them, she dreamily brushed her hand over the fine hair and felt the suckling motion of their tongues through the soft part of their skulls. They were so soft and vulnerable. Their bodies pliable, little vessels of life. So much life in so little, helpless bodies. Their protection suddenly became the centre of her life. Cora had been wrong before. Her life wouldn't be guided by pragmatism. It would be guided by the devotion to her children.

John was happy about the twins.

"It's good one of them is a boy," he simply stated when he came home for the first time after the birth. Cora didn't hear more of him but maybe his voice was just drowned out by the soft coos she made for the baby in her arm. John wrote letters to their families, letting them know of their offspring. Cora was holding Eugene. John was taking care that the wet nurse would come and made sure she could start two weeks early. Cora was holding Helen. John was back at the office, working. Cora was holding Eugene and Helen. John was coming back home for the visit of Cora's parents. Cora was standing at the cribs, singing to her babies. Martha and Isidore, wanting to see the twins, had to come up to the nursery because Cora was too engrossed to come down and welcome them properly. John was shaking his head. And Cora was rocking her twins, humming softly.

"She does love the babies," they said about her as if she was mad. But she was just a mother.

Isidore took her into his arms in a minute she didn't hold one of the babies. He pressed a kiss into her hair.

"What a joy, my dear Cora! They look just like their lovely mother," he whispered.

For the first time, Cora tore her eyes from the twins. Tears brimming in her eyes, she looked up at her father. She felt he understood her. Understood the abundance with which she loved her babies. He looked at her the same way he had looked at her when she had proudly given him the first letter she had written, scrawly and hard to decipher. It was a love letter to his parenthood. Not particularly because of the content, it only contained the few words she had learned to write and it barely made sense, but because without thinking she had chosen him as the addressee of her first letter. Here for you, Father. I wrote you a letter. She had squealed when he had lifted her off the ground and squeezed her in his arms. The Thank you he had whispered into her hair still stuck there years later. And now, the abundant love her father had once received was directed at her own children. Here for you, my darlings. All my love. Just for you. She threw her arms around her father's neck.

"Thank you!" she whispered into his greying beard, her face buried in his neck.