Crawleyfan

Oh, oh! That girl. That girl! Violet had spent as much time helping Cora as she had her own daughter! 

Violet shook her head, huffing. After all of the hard work Violet had put into helping her, Cora was bound and determined to do whatever it was she pleased. And just as Violet had begun to think she might prove a success after all! How cruelly used Violet felt! How inconsiderate a thing that Cora revealed herself to be what Violet thought she was all along, since the day they’d been introduced: 

A spoilt brat. 

Indeed, the assessment Violet was ashamed she’d made so quickly, and even tried to reform in her mind thinking it too uncharitable, was in fact correct all along. Of course, Violet was rarely wrong. Her instincts served her very well, and while perhaps Cora was not a child, Violet found her spoiled beyond hope. Spoiled and used to getting her own way, every silk and feather trapping somehow owed to her instead of duly earned. No one’s feelings of propriety mattered one bit compared to what Cora may want. 

Violet grumbled, irritably, and rearranged herself in her chair and tried again for the pen. She worked to calm herself, pushing the image of her young daughter-in-law’s indignant expression far from her foremost thoughts.

After all, she knew that she couldn’t be blamed entirely. That woman, Mrs Levinson, was more to blame than Cora. Cora was only just twenty-one. Who knew anything of life at that age? Violet breathed out steadily, calming herself further, trying again to dip the nib of her pen into the ink. That was true, anyway; it was the girl’s mother who was mostly to blame for the work Violet now had to accomplish. But even Violet was aware of her limitations, and miracles stood firmly outside of even her own capabilities. 

And it annoyed her beyond measure. 

Still trembling, Violet managed with limited mess to write out the replacement for the fish course for tomorrow’s dinner, consciously pushing away echoes of Cora’s haughty retorts to her reprimands. 

I have saved this home. Violet frowned at it, dipping the pen again. 

Why should I care about the scullery maid’s feelings? She shook her head at it, tensing as she touched the nib again to the jar’s lip. 

I need not defend my marriage to you. 

“Oh!” Violet nearly threw down her pen. “That girl!” She blotted, agitatedly, at what she had accomplished and huffed. She hardly noticed the noise of her sitting room door opening as she gathered the papers and stacked them for the housekeeper, but noticed she did. And she could easily tell who it was. 

“Mama?”

Ah. So she’d sent him here as ambassador, but little good it would do. Violet ignored Robert’s call to her as he came further inside. She kept her back to him as his footfalls drew nearer; instead, she pulled the list of room assignments for their guests from beneath the incorrect menu. 

“I did wonder where you’d gone. I looked for you in the library.” 

She resisted the temptation to retort something about hoping, indeed, that no one could find her. If she’d wanted to be found, she’d be in the obvious places. 

“I suppose you’ll know why I’m here.”

Of course she knew. It took very little imagination to understand why Robert was standing behind her now, so she did not answer. 

“May I please speak with you?”

“No,” she replied neatly, at last. “You may not.”

This seemed to give him pause, and she heard him try to recover. “No?”

“No,” she said again. “Unless you’re here to apologize, I am really very busy. Especially now as I’ve so much to do on my own.”

“Apologize?” Robert’s voice went higher, as if what she said surprised him. “Mama, I’ve come to speak with you about Cora. About the argument you’ve had.”

“Oh?” Violet laughed dryly. “Is that what she’s called it?”

“She says she lost her temper,” he said over her. “And I can assure you that she did not mean to embarrass nor to upset anyone.”

“You certainly paint a pretty picture of her,” Violet chuckled in her throat. “She’s chosen her champion well.”

“Mama, please. You must know that Cora is quite upset.”

“Yes, I assumed she must be,” Violet blinked down at her own writing. “After all, she isn’t completely without sense or good manners—even if her first inclinations leave much room to be desired.” 

“Oh, come now,” she heard him groan behind her. 

“You on the other hand–” It was here that Violet’s irritation turned her toward her son—her silly, sentimental, simpleton of a son. “What has possessed you?”

He stood straighter, shoulders broader. “What?”

“No,” she cut her hand through the air. “I won’t repeat myself for I’m sure I know the answer.”

“Do you? Because I certainly do not. I haven’t the slightest idea of what you’re accusing me.”

She shook her head at her son, who was now frustrated and pink-faced—a child being caught out. “Don’t pretend ignorance because it suits you, my boy. I’m older and wiser.” 

Robert’s face went from pink to red. She heard him stutter a breath, but she straightened in her chair and went on.

“And while I can find a way to forgive Cora’s poor judgment, I cannot begin to understand yours.” She followed his gaze as he shook his head away from her, huffing and puffing his arguments that she ignored. “You–you–who have lived here all your life and know better than to behave in this way–”

“Behave in what way, Mama? Please, do enlighten me— ”

“I won’t–”

“Won’t?”

Violet spoke louder. “For I refuse to be vulgar!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mama!” Robert laughed, exasperatedly, his head swinging about and his voice bouncing around her sitting room. It enraged her. “Even you must admit that there isn’t anything vulgar in love.”

“No—“ Violet’s voice escaped her in a small noise. She felt as if the air she’d been just about to use had stopped short, and she blinked at Robert.

Love?

Love!

Oh. 

Oh.

She felt as the tension between her shoulder blades eased, gently. And when she looked better at her son, she found he was more astonished than she. Of course, she thought, as the soft warmth of maternal affection stirred in her breast for this silly, darling son of hers. 

For, of course–of course!--he loved his wife. Her son, who worried over servants’ rooms and tenants’ lambs and neighbors’ head-colds, of course fell in love with his wife. And it should have made Violet glad, and in a way it did. 

It did.

“No.” She turned from him, who was still silent and blinking, and back to her desk. She picked up her pen. She sniffed and drew in a short breath. “It is not. But we’re at an impasse, Robert, and it is pointless to continue.” Violet’s hand easily dipped her pen back into its ink. “Now, go. I have much to do before our guests arrive.”

“I–”

No. She’d not mentioned this room had been hers. He only knew it had been because he’d slept in it before, back when it was still decorated as she had had it. Back when her paintings still hung on the walls, her books still sat upon a shelf, her pillowcases still bore her initials and not his own. All the little details she’d left behind her when they married.

No, he hadn’t slept here the most recent time he’d come, when he’d stayed during Harold’s trial. That journey had been full of engaging in trying conversation with his brother-in-law, sharing a night cap with his mother-in-law, thinking of his wife across the sea. Nor had it been the time before that, shortly after they’d become Earl and Countess, their three girls at Downton with Nanny, who’d somehow persuaded Cora that eleven, ten, and six were ages far too young to go so far. She’d frowned more than smiled that trip, Martha parading them about, boasting. But Cora had kept mum.

Robert lifted his chin and looked at her anew as she crossed from the washroom and to the mirror. 

Neither of those other times had they stayed in here. None other time than the first—before their daughters were born, before they’d even made a year of marriage…before he’d told her he loved her. 

They’d stayed in this room then, their first winter, when her father had died.

Did she think of that now, he wondered. Did she think of it while she rubbed the hand cream into her palms, her head low? Did she think it was bittersweet, this repetition of history? 

They’d slept here, in her girlhood room, when her father had died, and now. 

Now when her mother was dead, too. 

The slim clock against the wall ticked quietly in the sleepy silence. The sound of a jar being closed again, and then replaced—the tinkle of glass on glass. The creak of the chair moving from her little weight. And Robert watched her. He watched the way she softly sighed, stood, and untied the dressing gown from her waist. He watched her quietly pad across the room, and he watched as she sat upon the edge of the bed. 

And his eyesight saw her as she was now—older, thinner, her hair beginning to gray though he knew she covered it with dye. 

And suddenly, he thought of Martha. Martha, and how he knew she dyed her own hair, too. Right up until the end. “I hope you don’t think I mind,” he’d said once to Cora. “After all, I’ve gone gray myself.” But Cora had huffed, shrugged, and waved him off the subject. He thought of it now, as he gazed at his wife in the lamplight. He thought of how she had noted only this morning that she and her mother never seemed to have anything in common. And yet, Robert thought, you do.

The bed sheets rustled when Cora looked over her shoulder at him, and Robert realized she’d felt the weight of his staring. He offered her a quick smile, and she sighed one back at him before settling beside him beneath the covers. 

She spoke nearly immediately, too, as she was wont to do when he knew her thoughts were heavy. She spoke of reminding Baxter to double-check her jewelry case, of sending her shoe to the cobbler when they returned home, of the list of people she’d need to send thank yous to. People at home who had sent her their sympathy. And he let her go on and on as he switched off the lamp, rested his book on the table beside him. He let her talk for he knew she must. 

“I feel rather guilty,” he heard her confess at last, her voice light in spite of her sentiment as she shuffled down into the bedding. “Harold’s had to do so much on his own.” 

Robert nodded. “Hmm. But not all. You have been here.” 

“Not really.” Her hand pulled the sheet that covered her chest. He saw as she bunched it in her palm. “Not in the ways that help.” 

“Darling, you were here as soon as was possible.”

“I know, but it did complicate the arrangements for the funeral. And of course I’m grateful to be here now, but I’ve been little more than a guest.”

“Cora–”

“I think Harold spent more time at the service today introducing me to Mother’s friends than accepting their condolences.”

“I’m sure that isn’t–”

“It’s a shame we have to go home tomorrow, before Harold’s met with the lawyers and Mother’s estate isn’t settled and I’m named an executor, but how can I really help fulfill her wishes if—“

Robert turned more fully toward her then, as her voice began to tumble more quickly into emotion than it had yet to do. He looked down at where she lay beside him, her hand clutching at the sheet they shared, her dyed hair scratching against the pillow as she shook her head. His gaze silenced her, until, breaking away again, she drew in a breath.

“I feel rather guilty,” she repeated quietly, her eyes still not meeting his own–her eyes looking up at the ceiling she must have looked upon as a girl…a lifetime ago.

And the ache Robert felt earlier tripled. 

He sighed, deflated into the space beside his wife, and took her soft hand into his own. 

She said nothing as he did so, but he knew she would not. He knew her well, and her quiet was enough for him.  

The slim clock ticked, the sleeping house creaked, and the feathers beneath his head rustled against his ear when he lifted his chin to speak.

“We can stay, should you like. Book a later crossing.”

“No.” Cora’s hand moved against his own, ever so slightly, her finger tracing against his thumb. “Better not. For Mary.”

Robert felt himself stiffen. “Henry is a cad. What did he mean, writing to Mary that way?”

“I suppose he thought it better to be honest.”

“Nonsense.” Robert frowned. “It was purely selfish, I’m sure. Confessing a dalliance does little more than upset everyone involved.”

He heard the way Cora moved against her pillows. “I’ll admit, I did wonder when it would end.”

Robert drew away from Cora, and he peered down at her. “End?” He waited for her to meet his gaze. “What on earth do you mean? You don’t think they’ll divorce?” 

“No,” she shook her head. “I mean their pretend play. They’ve not been happy for years.” 

“It’s not been years—“ 

“Robert.” He felt her fingers brush his thumb again, but just barely, for it was a sensation as familiar to him as breathing. Her voice was lilting and sweet. “What did they think was going to happen? They’ve hardly seen one another.”

“They’ve written.” 

“A letter is no substitute for holding someone’s hand.”

She was right. He knew she was right. And he sighed. “Mm. No. No it is not.”  

“No,” she echoed quietly, and they slipped away into silence again, the slim clock ticking. The house creaking. And Robert’s heart beating against his chest. He didn’t want to think of his daughter, an ocean away, unhappy and alone. But he did. And the longer he thought, the further away he drifted from this room. The further away he drifted from Cora, too … until he heard the touch of her lips in the quiet. 

“I wish I’d missed her more.” 

He blinked back to this space, beside her, and he turned his head to her. She’d been so quiet, he thought he misheard. He didn’t understand.

“What?“

“When Mother was alive.” He remained still as she whispered this to him, her voice bare and almost unlike herself. Almost. But it was her—the hidden, small part of her she never let escape. “I should have missed her more. And now…”

“Oh, my darling,” Robert held her hand more tightly. “You’ve had a tiring day. That’s all. There’s no need for that sort of talk.”

“But it’s true. I should have. She loved me, in her way. And I,” she sighed next to him, and the sound was fragile, as if she may break. “Hope she knew that I did love her.”

Robert exhaled. How had he let it happen? Even lying here, in this dark, pink room that had once been hers, the life that solely belonged to her had been swallowed up by his. Even now, aged and experienced, his thoughts had returned them to England, to Downton, far away from where Cora’s heart broke now. And he ached. “Perhaps we should stay.” 

“No.”

“It can be done, Cora. Rebooking the crossing. It can be done quite easily. And Harold won’t mind.”

“No.” Cora closed her eyes. “No.” Her voice was thick. “I should be home. With Mary. Not here.” 

“Cora—“

“And Mother would agree. She’d say to go to Mary.” 

And she was right, he thought, as her mouth trembled down into a tight frown. As she shook her head, her dark hair tangling against the pillow. She was right, he knew, as she began to very quietly weep. 

Robert sighed, and letting go of her hand, he pulled Cora into his arms. She chuckled, sadly, and let him hold her close.

“You’re right. I think she would say to go,” he whispered over the sound of her shuddering breath, the creaking house, and the slim clock ticking in the room he knew had once been hers. 

He felt her nod against his chin. “Yes,” he heard her say. “She was a good mother.”