Days had passed since Mary had confided in her parents about her plans regarding Henry, and since then, nothing noteworthy had happened at Downton.
Soon, days had turned into weeks and now, Christmas was suddenly upon them. The heavy snow that had fallen when Cora and Robert returned home from America had not ceased or even just lessened slightly. Thus, the abbey lay buried deeply in layers of snow. Life was seemingly frozen in space and time for the Crawley family and everyone else on the estate. The servants only barely managed to keep enough snow off the driveway for them to reach the house safely each day and for groceries and mail to be delivered, but nothing more. There was just too much snow everywhere, with more falling almost constantly. It truly was tiresome work for the servants with no end in sight.
The Crawleys had decided to keep with tradition and have their Christmas lunch without any of the servants there to serve them — they were all gathered downstairs in the servant's hall to have their own Christmas celebration. This tradition not only made it possible for all the people downstairs to enjoy some of the festivities, but also for the family to have some time among only their family without a servant watching their every move and minding their every word. They were all used to it, of course, and they knew when to say things and when it was better to just hold one's tongue, but especially a time like Christmas should not be spent watching one's every word.
One after the other, the family gathered in the drawing room, already catching glimpses of the table set in the dining room. Through the half-open doors, one could see the table almost bending with the sheer amount of food on it. At Mary's request, Mrs Patmore and Daisy had truly gone all out that year with their meal preparations.
Robert and Cora had not only wanted all of their children with their spouses and their grandchildren to be there, but they had also invited the extended family to spend the holidays with them. The abbey was once again filled with so much life, so many people were staying at once, and they both loved the quiet buzz the many guests made. It was a welcome distraction from everything else.
So, apart from Isobel and Dickie, Maud Bagshaw was also there, sitting next to her daughter on one of the settees, while Bertie was talking with his mother nearby. Baby Peter was contentedly cooing on his grandmother's arm before she had to hand him over to the nanny when Cora invited everyone to go through to the dining room.
Shortly thereafter, everyone was seated comfortably, simply admiring the food in front of them for a little while. Cora looked around with vigilant eyes, trying to ascertain what they were thinking as they all gathered around. She quickly came to the conclusion that most of them were possibly wondering what dish to start with once Robert had made his customary speech.
And sure enough, soon after everyone had settled down, the Earl rose from his seat and waited for his family to all look at him.
"Another year passed, and what a year it has proved to be. I am immensely grateful that we are all gathered here today and get to celebrate this special day together as a family," he said, raising his glass to toast everyone, but most especially his wife. "Without prolonging this unnecessarily, I only want to wish you all a very merry Christmas, indeed!"
Cora was looking up at him with that twinkle in her eye that he so adored, raising her glass for a toast along with everyone else. But her concerned gaze never left her husband of almost forty years.
Robert sat back down, waiting for everyone around him to put something to eat on their plate before doing so himself. He had to take a second for himself, simply sitting there, concentrating on his breathing as he kept looking over at the empty seat to his right.
Robert had been most insistent that this seat stays empty that year, and Cora could not deny him that wish, no matter how unconventional it was. His mother had sat in this seat for more than thirty years — ever since his father had died, and now suddenly she wasn't. He simply did not think it right to have someone else next to him, he had said. Not yet, anyway. None of their guests had mentioned anything about it after taking their assigned seats, and for that the sickly hostess was immensely grateful.
Even Cora had to admit it was more than odd not having her mother-in-law look at her from across the table in admonishment or, albeit rarely, even in approval. Many evenings in this room had been spent in silence, especially in the first years of her marriage to Robert, and pointed looks in her direction had always been a speciality of Violet's. But, despite all her harsh remarks and outright cold demeanour, Cora had got to know the person hiding underneath all that. She had come to realise that Violet always had her reasons for everything she did. Ultimately, all her mother-in-law ever wanted was for her son to be happy and live a good life, she wanted that for all of them. Violet had always wanted only what was best for her children and grandchildren. However, her vision of what was best was sometimes quite far from what everyone else had in mind. Still, Cora could not help but admire her late mother-in-law for her dedication to this, to their family.
Seeing her husband gaze so longingly at an empty seat had her heart grow heavy. He looked just like a forlorn child at that moment. As if he were standing on his own in the middle of nowhere with no sense of direction. It did not last long, though. Merely until he noticed that their guests were already about to start eating while his plate was still glaringly empty.
Cora granted him a small, encouraging smile when he turned his head again and reached his hand for the bowl of roasted asparagus that stood in front of him.
Everyone was engrossed in polite conversations around the table — everyone apart from Robert and Cora. They both sat opposite each other, simply enjoying their meal and basking in the buzz of their large extended family surrounding them on Christmas Day.
After some time, though, all the surrounding hum died down when Edith spoke up from her end of the table: "Mary tells us that Uncle Harold got married while you were in America. Is that true? I thought he was merely engaged to her?"
Lord and Lady Grantham turned their heads in their daughter's direction.
"Yes, he arranged the whole ceremony and following wedding lunch in a matter of just a few days, with some help from your father and Madeleine. She is marvellous, such a sweet and kind-hearted woman," Cora said, thinking back to those last days she spent in America among her family.
"That was incredibly nice of him. Though I still find it odd to think of our uncle Harold as a married man," joked Mary light-heartedly.
Those who knew Harold shared a laugh — it was, after all, quite surreal.
"Actually, we have been meaning to ask. Do we know the woman he married? Because her name did ring a bell when he wrote the telegram, but we can't quite seem to place her," added Edith inquiringly.
Robert and Cora thought for a moment until he replied: "I think you do. She spent quite some time with Harold during Rose's season in London a few years ago. Initially, that was upon her father's request, but they both enjoyed each other's company, it seems."
Cora then added: "She is Lord Aysgarth's daughter. She and her father were on a trip to America. They stayed in Newport for a while upon arriving in the States and one day, their paths crossed Harold's. They stayed in contact and exchanged letters, then met again and so on."
"So that is why her name was so familiar. I think I remember her, she was a charming young woman, wasn't she?"
"Yes, and a beautiful bride, too. I think I have a photograph of Harold and her on their wedding day somewhere in my room. I will go and fetch it later," Cora smiled before returning her attention to the food on her plate.
While individual conversations sparked up around the table, Cora and Robert fell into silence again. Her husband looked pensive, barely touching the food he put on his plate. But suddenly, he smiled slightly while pushing two peas around with his fork.
"What is it, Robert?" she asked softly, only for him to hear. Her face looked concerned when he looked up at her from his plate.
"Oh, I just remembered something. It's nothing, my dear," he replied, finally forking the peas and eating them.
The concern dropped from her gaze, and smiling at him, she said: "It's never nothing to me. What did you remember?"
Robert took another sip from his wine glass, collecting his thoughts. "Do you recall the Christmas three or four years after Sybil was born? When we went against my mother's wishes and had Mary and Edith eat Christmas dinner with us in here for the first time?"
Cora frowned, trying to recall the specific occasion he had remembered and think of what could have possibly made him smile. However much she tried, she couldn't remember the specifics of the first Christmas their elder two daughters had spent with the family instead of with their nanny. She should be able to remember that occasion, shouldn't she?
Seeing her slight confusion, Robert elaborated further: "Mama was so against it from the start, insisting that Mary and Edith were way too young to be allowed to have dinner with the rest of the family. I think she was afraid they would start a fight or run around while they were supposed to keep sitting in their places, or maybe she wanted to keep with tradition and only have the girls join in once they turned 10. I do not exactly remember why, but she threw quite the fit when we requested it."
Cora thought for another second before her face lit up and she remembered quite vividly the scene her husband had begun to describe.
"Oh, how could I forget that? Of course. That argument lasted over a week and none of us would budge. Your mother refused to talk to me for the entirety of that week, saying that the American in me was badly influencing you. If I remember correctly, she said that I made you lose all sense of what is good and proper for the Viscount and future Earl of Grantham," Cora grinned at him.
The Earl and Countess both shared a slight chuckle at this. It was always Cora's American heritage and her influence on him that was to blame whenever either of them dared to disagree with something Violet said. In truth, Cora often had to remind Robert about what was proper and what was not. At least while he was still Viscount Downton. That changed drastically and suddenly when his father died and he became the Earl. From one second to the other, the occasionally quite cheeky Viscount turned into the traditional, almost stuck-up Earl, but Cora supposed that had to do with the sudden responsibility put on her husband's shoulders at a rather young age. She still loved him, though, no matter how hard-headed and stuck in his traditional ways he sometimes was. Becoming a grandfather had done wonders to release the uptight persona he had taken on and let out more of the Robert she had first fallen in love with, and she was so incredibly thrilled about that. Robert would have never so comfortably played on the ground with his daughters the way he was now with George, Sybbie, and Marigold.
Neither of them realised that the surrounding chatter had ceased again, everyone now listening to them as they recalled those days so many years ago together.
"Oh yes, Mama always blamed you when really it was all me. You were more English than I was at times," Robert smirked as he forked another piece of meat. "But still, we got our way and the girls did join us in the end. Mama's expression was pinched the entire evening as if she was waiting for something to happen, almost willing something to go wrong just so she could say "I told you so". I remember how on edge we both were, waiting for the girls to break into another silly fight." Robert could not suppress the low chuckle as he remembered the exact expression on his mother's face so many years ago. Cora liked to see that jovial side of him, it had been almost buried deep within her husband the past weeks. Maybe remembering his mother was what he needed, after all. Maybe talking about her helped him.
She smiled brightly when she replied: "But they never did. They were so well-behaved the entire night, even I was surprised."
"Indeed. I don't think we ever saw them as well-behaved as that Christmas Day. They even shared their new toys with the other."
The couple was suddenly transported back to reality when Edith and Mary broke into fits of barely suppressed laughter at their end of the table.
"If only you had seen us while you were gone in America, you wouldn't have believed your eyes!" exclaimed Mary in between sets of giggles at their parents' obvious confusion.
"Do we even want to ask?" replied Robert sceptically, an amused undertone taking some edge off his worried and confused look.
"Maybe we'll tell you someday, but not now," added Edith, equally as shaken by laughter as her elder sister.
"I remember that night now, I hadn't thought about it in a long time. What made you remember it now?" Cora then asked her husband when Edith and Mary had calmed themselves down again, and everyone resumed eating.
"I think that was the first Christmas I finally felt I had a family of my own, when I wasn't just my parents' son and heir any more. It was the first Christmas I truly enjoyed as a husband and a father above everything else. And this, right here, is no different. Right now, I don't feel like an Earl, but instead, I feel like I am the luckiest husband, father, and grandfather on earth who gets to spend Christmas with his family," he explained. After a pause, he added slowly: "I also remembered because that was the first time I ever heard my mother apologise to you, saying she had been wrong about something. That did not happen often, after all."
Robert looked at her, tears glistening in his eyes, staying unshed. Whether they were tears of sadness or joy, Cora could not tell. But she was incredibly moved by this either way. He easily remembered that, after all these years, and it seemed as if it meant a great deal to him that she had indeed apologised.
"It's true, that did not happen often, but I know that she always meant it when she did. We had formed an understanding, your mother and I."
"I miss Grandmama," Edith said suddenly. She was looking at the table in front of her, her brown eyes tearing up as well.
Mary reached her hand out to her sister, taking her hand in hers and squeezing it gently on top of the white tablecloth. The two sisters looked encouragingly at each other, both on the verge of crying, as the rest of the family just looked at this rare display of affection between the two of them.
Cora and Robert were pleasantly surprised and quite amazed at this — but above everything else, they were incredibly moved.
"So do I, Edith," Mary said.
Cora watched Robert swallow the lump in his throat before he said: "I think we all miss her terribly, Edith."
She reached for his hand above the table, nodding in affirmation at his statement, while he looked at his sister.
Rosamund had been unusually silent the entire evening, but she had listened intently and smiled fondly when Robert had recounted that Christmas decades ago. But now, Rosamund sat there next to Cora, silent tears marking her aged face when she replied in a shaky voice: "I truly think we do. And Mama would have loved to know that she would be remembered so fondly on a day like this, in a room as splendid and familiar as this, by people like us."