Dashing Away with the Music Sheets, She Stole My Choir Away

by Rosa Clearwater

Charles Carson has always been the director of voice studies at Downton Academy. Not only that, he's always had a clear system for vocal studies at the private school. Precision and propriety, those two words have been his mantra since day one. This is his world and he always has complete control - that is, until his bosses bluntly inform that times are changing and so must he.

1. Prologue

A/N: Hi there! Welcome to "Dashing Away with the Music Sheets, She Stole My Choir Away"!

Disclaimer: I, do not own any of the songs, characters, and basically anything that seems familiar in this story. That includes the choir songs, the Downton Abbey characters, and more.

I hope you enjoy this little choral adventure. This will be mainly Chelsie-focused, but there's definitely going to be interactions with and cameos from other characters :) I'm also willing to consider requests. Also, there definitely was some inspiration from chelsie fan's "Downton Academy". Seeing that there was such a beautiful series gave me the confidence to actually post this. So, thank you, chelsie fan :)

And, finally, while most of this has been written up, I can be flexible - it just depends on what the request is. Furthermore, I love all the characters I'm incorporating into this. So, if anything comes off as character bashing or if anyone gets neglected, please know that that wasn't my intention.

_._

"I'm afraid there is nothing we can do, Mr. Carson," Violet Crawley had spoken with an attitude that broke no argument. Her normally sharp gaze did hold an unusual hint of disdain to remind him that, even though she also didn't care for the situation, it was out of her hands. "We did not have enough time to find a suitable replacement, but with the chorale studies at this academy at the immense level that they are, we unfortunately required the extra assistance. You can hardly believe expected to manage 200 students alone."

"Of course, you're quite correct. And, I'm sorry if this I am speaking out of turn, but - why wasn't I consulted before she was hired?"

"Mr. Carson," He stiffened at the somewhat tone borderline patronizing tone coming from Martha Levinson. "You were out of the country on a choir tour, eight hours behind us I might add, and we were running out of time. And we now, thankfully, have a decent fill-in for the rest of the semester. Since it won't take Mrs. Butte that long to recover, I'm sure your world won't come crashing down in the course of fifteen weeks.

He took the words in silence, refusing to let these particular remarks bristle him.

"Now, Mr. Carson, would we have liked to have properly consulted you?" Robert Crawley tried to chime in - seeing as how he was one of the founders of the school. "You know as well as I-"

Yet, being a founder didn't matter much in this particular setting.

"Yes, 'proper consultation' is always nice. It's also often a luxury. Was there an appropriate time to have 'properly consulted' you? Not in the slightest." Martha cut him off, not interested in platitudes or reassurances.

Violet arched an eyebrow at this. Robert deflated a little. And Cora glanced at the door, hoping this little meeting would soon end.

In essence, Mr. Carson was not the only person who currently had issues with such nonchalant and blunt words coming out of the American's mouth. However, said American did hold control over the rather large amount of the money that kept Downton Academy running. So everyone did what they did best:

They picked their battles wisely.

"... Indeed." "Of course." "I suppose this is true." "As always, you're right, Mrs. Levinson."

And with that, it was only a few more minutes before that horribly awkward meeting came to an eventual, and unfortunately dismal, conclusion:

A stranger named Elsie Hughes was going to be invading his sanctuary for the next fifteen weeks.

And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

_._

A/N: Short and sweet, but there's definitely more to come!