Summer 1931
"It feels strange, walking out here, so carefree," Cora sighed as they strolled across the lush green lawn. It had been a while since it had last been trimmed. The longer reeds bowed and bent in the breeze; they created a soft bed for them to tread on, making it almost seem like they were walking on clouds. Or maybe that was just her warped conception of things.
Finally, after months and months on end of eating raw liver almost daily to manage her chronic condition, she had given in to Doctor Clarkson's vehement insistence she should try this new form of treatment. It had changed everything for her. Before, just the mere sight of liver on her plate, sometimes even just the smell, had made her want to vomit — there was only so much liver a single person could stand to eat daily for a prolonged amount of time. This new tablet made of extracted liver was much easier to stomach, and even just this slight enhancement had given her back most of the energy she had been lacking before. At the moment, it was only all too easy to forget she had ever been sick, so her outlook on things had changed once again. She had a new appreciation for even the smallest things, and so these daily walks with Robert had once again become the highlight of her days.
"But not unwelcome?" he asked, glancing down at her briefly.
"Well, I'm not quite sure."
At this, Robert could only muster her strangely as they kept on walking without having a real destination. He would have thought she would enjoy having her old life back now that she was not feeling so nauseous all the time from eating such large quantities of what he found to be one of the grossest things that could ever land on a plate. He did occasionally enjoy the odd liver pâté, but that was always cooked through before it even came close to being served to them. Liver, the way she had had to consume it daily, fresh and raw; it had disgusted him beyond belief and he had not even been the one who had to eat it.
"Oh, I'm not referring to the treatment. No, that is more than alright. This new tablet Doctor Clarkson has prescribed is working wonders," she hastened to explain when she felt his curious eyes on her as they were walking along the path near the rose garden. "But I mean it feels strange to walk out here without a care in the world when, had things only turned out differently, we would have been busy preparing for a grand birthday dinner around this time of year."
It took him a while, but finally, it sunk in and he understood what she was referring to.
"18 years, can you believe it? He would have celebrated his 18th birthday this summer. Do you ever wonder how our lives would have unfolded if the floor had not been slippery from the dropped soap that day?"
Silently, they walked for a little while as Cora guided them over to a bench standing in between two rosebushes in full bloom, their big petals seeming ablaze coloured brightly orange and red. Only when they were sat did she reply.
"I wonder about that all the time, especially now. I wonder how different all our lives would have been, I wonder if Matthew had stayed and still married Mary. I wonder what kind of person he would have been. And I wonder if maybe we cursed it all when we decided on names before he was born. You know what my mother used to say even before Mary was born, naming a child before birth is a sure harbinger of tragedy. I hate to admit that she might have been right."
Her gaze dropped into her lap where she fiddled with her gloved fingers.
"Don't forget that your mother was superstitious to a degree any sane Brit would find amusing. I don't think deciding on potential names had anything to do with what happened that day. It was just a tragic turn of events, and nobody is to blame. It was a miracle in its own right that you fell pregnant again so long after Sybil had been born. God knows, we did not exactly behave in a way that prevented it in the years between," he chuckled. When he noticed her downcast eyes, his hand stretched out to take hers. He was relieved to hear her chuckle at that last comment.
"We really should not have been so surprised, should we?" she laughed, the sound as clear as bells filling the air.
"No," he snorted, joining her heartily in her amusement while revelling in her obvious delight. He could never grow tired of hearing her laugh, never. "And we haven't really stopped, either," he added cheekily while playing with a rose trailing into his lap.
That earned him a jovial slap to his wrist, along with an expression of feigned outrage and shock, before she broke into another fit of laughter.
A little while later, both of their laughter now muted, she asked: "What do you think he would have looked like?"
Without needing to think about it, Robert turned to her and replied: "I don't know, honestly. I just hope he would have inherited your nature. Your kindness and compassion, your resilience and your intelligence."
"You speak as if you were a heartless grouch of a man who gives up at the slightest inconvenience. Need I remind you of the fact that you employed Bates as your valet when nobody else of your station would have so much as given him a second glance and even supported him as he was being tried for murder, or that you made the survival and prosperity of this estate your life's mission? It was your mother who said that you are far kinder than she ever was and I have yet to meet a more forgiving and genuine man among our peers. Not even Bertie can compare in my eyes."
"Well, if this is how you want to play this then I hope he would have inherited your beauty, you cannot argue with that."
"Oh, Robert!" she exclaimed, hiding her wide smile and reddened cheeks beneath the brim of her hat.
Comfortable silence settled over them as they listened to the birds singing all around them, while the warm summer breeze provided a welcome alternation to the heat that had had all of England in its relentless claw for weeks now.
In the distance, they suddenly heard laughter, children's laughter.
A bit off, just outside the library on the wide green lawn, they saw their grandchildren running around, followed by Parker carrying a heavy load by the looks of it. Curiously they watched as their butler began to set up the wooden logs for a game of leisurely cricket with the help of George while the girls kept passing the ball to another.
"It's always nice when they all visit, that way they get to play together," Robert remarked happily. "I just know that Peter is going to love playing cricket with George when he's old enough, and George will be glad to have another playmate. It is nice that the girls join him, but he always tells me they're not really good at it. He only plays with them because it is great fun, he keeps saying."
"You know, after I slipped and it happened, I kept thinking of what I took from you. You had always wanted a son. And I know it was not just because of the title and to appease your mother. You were perfectly content knowing James or rather Patrick would one day inherit it all upon your death. It would have all been tidy."
"You did not take anything from me, Cora. You slipped and fell, that is all. And I have been so very happy with you and our wonderful girls. Look at this lovely family we have, at our grandchildren."
"But the girls were always mine. I got to take them out to go dress shopping, I got to spend time with them doing embroidery, and I got to watch them learn to sing, dance, and play the piano. You were always an outsider. I know you love them with all your heart, and I know that is not a given in the world we live in. But you never really knew who our daughters were, you have always been on your own until Matthew arrived and you got to show him the way things are done here."
He gulped. It was true, now that he heard her say all this. Even though their daughters had been taught by their governess for the most part, Cora had still spent much more time with all of them than he had. There had even been a time when he himself had thought that he had no idea who his daughters truly were, back when James and Patrick had died. They had all reacted so peculiarly. He remembered how puzzled and troubled he had been when he told Mary about the tragedy of that ship sinking and she reacted so coldly and distant.
Cora squeezed his hand. "I always wanted to give you a son. I wanted to see you teach him the ways of business, wanted to see the two of you go on your rounds. I wanted to see you teach him how to play cricket so that he could one day join your team for the annual match. I wanted to see you take him to get his first suit made. I wanted you to experience all these things that I got to do with our girls, all the things you had missed out on."
Again, he had to gulp. Hearing her list all these things he would have done certainly hit him hard and got him all dewy-eyed.
"But Cora, I did not miss out on anything. Doing all the things you just said with our son would have been a great privilege and I would have done it all with the greatest pride, but I have not missed out on any of those things. When he arrived, I took Matthew with me on my rounds and taught him the way the house and the estate are managed and he quickly began to partake, doing it better than I likely ever have. I got to teach George how to play cricket and look at how much fun he is having with his cousins." At last, Robert let go of the rose in his right hand to motion towards the squealing children in the distance. "And one day, when he is old enough, he will join our team and play for the house in the annual match. It also won't be long until he needs his first suit. Henry will likely not be here for that and as much credit as I want to give Mary for being there for George at all times, she cannot take him to the tailor alone. I will take that as the experience you say I never had."
Robert was still looking out into the distance, watching the children play as the branches on the trees swayed in the breeze and the birds sang their peaceful song. Cora, however, had turned her focus from the jolly troupe near the house to her husband on the bench next to
her, looking at him with her blue eyes wide in wonder.
When she did not reply, he turned to look at her encouragingly. "You see, I did not miss out on anything. I was and still am content with the life we have had. It would have been nice, to have three daughters and a son, but it simply was not meant to be for us."
Then, he let go of her hands and searched the inside pocket of his forest green suit. Shortly thereafter, he had a small box in his grip and gently put it in her hands.
It was a small snuffbox, one of the smallest he owned. It had been one of the first she had ever given him after he had disclosed that he intended to collect them. It was a simple one, plain and silver with little to no embellishment.
Her curiosity piqued, she gently pried it open, expecting to find snuff in it. Instead, she took out 4 tiny photographs along with a folded sheet of paper. Surprise clearly written all over her features, she looked up at her husband. In reply, he only motioned for her to look through the small stack of paper in her hands.
One by one, she looked at the photographs. They were portraits of them. One of her which had been taken in Venice on their honeymoon and then one of each of their daughters when they were young, all well-worn around the edges and well-thumbed from the many times he must have taken them out to look at them through the decades. It made her smile, she never would have thought Robert would be such a sentimentalist. He never ceased to amaze her.
And then she got to the folded piece of paper. After carefully returning the photographs to their box, she turned to this. It was just as well-thumbed as the photographs and looked even worse for wear from repeated folding and unfolding and it was crinkled in different places, as if it had been exposed to liquids.
Small, in the upper right corner, he had scribbled two names in pencil: Helen and Edward.
Then, bigger and right in the centre of the paper, he had very shakily written and underlined another name in black ink, Edward Isidore.
Tears were threatening to fall when she looked back up at him and she recognised deep emotions on his face as well.
"The day it happened, I wrote that down and then put it in here to be kept with the rest of you. His name was the only thing I had left of him, of our boy that never was."
Cora kept staring at the paper she held in her hands and the names written there. She remembered the day they had first discussed possible names for this miracle that was to be their fourth child. That he had written down her father's name as their son's second name made her heart beat more quickly, they had never discussed that. But Robert always knew how much her father had meant to her and how badly it had affected her when he had passed so young and so suddenly.
Slowly and most carefully, she folded the paper and put it into her husband's snuffbox before handing it back to him wordlessly but showing immense gratitude.
As he had stowed away the small box in his pocket again, she whispered solemnly and so very gently: "Yes, our boy that never was. Edward Isidore."
Just as she uttered his name, a fresh gust of wind billowed up a few fallen rose petals from around them and whisked them away. To Cora, it was almost as if the wind not only picked up the petals but also the name as she whispered it; as if the breeze carried it away up to the heavens above and she felt a strange wave of peace and serenity wash over her.
Suddenly, the thing she had been agonising over for so long seemed a smidge easier to bear, this self-inflicted burden no longer weighing so heavily on her mind. She took this flurry of rose petals as a sign that one day, she would get to meet their son and so would he, and that this union would be all the sweeter now that she knew they had both found peace with the way life had unfolded for them. Somewhere, he was waiting for them alongside Sybil and Matthew, a thought that gave her great comfort. Their little boy, their Edward. He was in the best company, waiting patiently for them. She no longer had any doubt about that.
