Downton Abbey Fanfiction

¤Thirty-one¤

Hey!! Just a reminder that you must have read 'The Bates's Irish Adventure ' to understand all of this chapter .

Thank you for reading! !

Three weeks later
The Library, Downton Abbey

Relations had much improved between Robert and Cora. The latter was currently reclined on the chaise long, idly tracing patterns on her swollen abdomen. Meanwhile, her husband was engrossed in 'A Tale of Two Cities' (no matter how many times he read it, he never grew bored). They were calm and relaxed in comfortable silence. The afternoon sun shone through the window highlighting the couple and warming the Lady's toes. Cora looked deep in thought. Her gentle ministrations across her stomach ceased, in favour of the rhythmic tapping on the chaise that always accompanied her in the midst of serious contemplation.

"Robert?" She queried, softly drawing him out of the fictional world he was so emursed in. He paused and inclined his head in her direction. "Yes darling?" Came his reply. Wedging a bookmark into the novel and shutting it carefully, he placed it on the mantlepiece. "I have been thinking..." his wife began, "maybe it would be best if I had the baby in London. What do you think?" He rose his eyebrows slightly, surprised at her suggestion. "Why?" Cora pursed her lips, eager to contain her temper which now threatened to flare. Although screaming at him about the dangers of childbirth at her age and throwing Sybil's death into the mix, wouldn't have been unreasonable in her eyes, she was all too aware of the still fragile state of her marriage. Her craving for peace between them both far outweighed her temptation to shout.

Cora swallowed her bubbling anger and smiled. "I'm not as young as I used to be Robert. I would like to have the baby in London because I would be closer to specialists and well, I would feel safer. I still want Dr Clarkson to deliver her though. " Robert nodded, understanding her fears. He dare not go against her wishes regarding Dr Clarkson, despite the complications bringing him to London would cause. Although George's birth had gone perfectly, and he imagined Marigold's did too, the traumatic vision of his youngest daughter struggling to breathe haunted him every time childbirth was mentioned. No matter what Dr Clarkson said about the unlikelihood of Sybil's survival even if they had taken his advice first, the guilt that he prevented even the slightest tiniest chance of his daughter living was a scar on his soul that would never heal. But the worst part was that he ignored Cora's opinion, which was exactly what had pushed her into Mr Bricker's arms. It could be the cause of another death. He wasn't taking any chances. He quickly tried to banish the vision of Cora's coffin from his mind and turned his attention back to her last comment.

Suddenly he frowned, "her?" Cora laughed -a sound he was sad to note, that he had not heard in quite some time- "well, I've come to think of the baby as a her. I've been thinking about names too, only girls names though." Robert stood and walked to his wife's side. It reminded him of when she was pregnant with the girls, except then they wished for a boy. He kissed her hand and smiled. "What names have you come up with so far?" She took his hands and placed them over her stomach. Her eyes twinkled as she looked at him. He hoped that the baby would share those bright sapphire orbs, he hoped that the baby would only have their mother's traits. He could not bare to be forced to raise a miniature Mr Bricker. "Charlotte, Veronica, Martha, Lydia... maybe something else, what do you think?"

They had concidered calling Edith, Charlotte, and it would have suited her to be named after an author. But that year Cora's aunt Edith died, a woman whom Cora shared a more mother - daughter relationship with than she shared with her actual mother. So it was decided to honour Auntie Edie by naming their second child after her. Of course, the moment Violet discovered that this child was to be named after family members as opposed to random names or fictional characters (the Josephine in Mary's name is after the Josephine in Little Women), she practically demanded that her name be included. And so it was.