Sarah sits at the edge of her bed, as she has done every night for nearly a month. She is idle, neither freeing her hair from its pins nor plucking at her rows of laces and buttons to make ready for bed. Her hands are busy only with each other, the fingers twinned absently around one another; her shoulders, usually so rigid, are sloping down, and her head is bowed. Elsie can guess at the sort of thoughts that are weighing it down.
It isn't uncommon, everyone knows it even if they're all too proper to come out and say it. There have been hundreds of maids over the ages, she is sure, who felt precisely as Sarah feels now and had perhaps about as much hope as she does.
The poor thing.
Elsie shifts across the space between them, her mattress pitching slightly, and she comes to rest with her front pressed flush with the lady's maid's back. Sarah twitches a little in surprise, but makes no move to acknowledge the housekeeper.
"There, now."
Elsie's hand fans out between Sarah's shoulder blades, which stand sharp even under layers of somber black and stiff corseting. She leans closer still, gently presses dry lips to the tender curve of Sarah's neck and breathes deeply.
"There, my darling girl, there's no need to hide in here."
Sarah smells of soap and new cloth and-faintest of all- the memory of some French perfume, and Elsie curls an arm around the younger woman's waist and draws her back. Sarah is trembling, the last vestiges of Miss O'Brien crumbling away.
She is tired, and she has served the Lady for so many years; Elsie can only imagine what sort of knotted, thorny thing she must be harboring in her heart after so long.
Under her palm, Sarah's stomach heaves and Elsie is close enough to hear her breath catch in her chest.
"Here to me, dear, come on."
Elsie sits back against the headboard of her narrow bed and Sarah follows, her face tilted down. With soft sounds and gentle hands Elsie guides her to her side, guides her until her head is tucked beneath her chin and Elsie's arm can comfortably encircle her shoulders.
Sarah sobs silently, body heaving, as she fists her hands in the cloth of Elsie's dress. The older woman wonders, sadly, if this is a skill all working class women learn. When had Sarah learned?
Please, please not so early as I did.
Elsie pulls the pins from Sarah's hair and lets it spill over everything, lets it tangle around her wrist and fingers. She drapes her free arm over the younger woman's waist and rubs at her back. Sarah curls closer to her, allowing herself to cling just this once.
Elsie kisses Sarah's hair, her brow, the curve of her cheekbone, the miserable little twist of her lips, and strokes her hand over the back of head. She does not tell Sarah that everything will be well in the end, or that she ought to forget the Countess, or that she will always have her because the first is a lie, the second an impossibility and the third rather beside the point.
Elsie Hughes says nothing, for she is not one to deal in false comforts.
Instead she holds Sarah until she's cried her fill for this single evening, and lets her go when she comes to herself, all damaged pride and tear-stained cheeks. Elsie can understand the terrible, terrifying void pride can leave in its wake, and lets Sarah slide off the bed to tend to her mental battlements in the comfort of her own room.
Sarah surprises her, though, when she reaches into Elsie's dresser to retrieve the extra nightgown she keeps there for her. Wordlessly she plucks at the buttons of her dress, shimmies out of it until it's pooled around her feet. Sighing, she turns and looks at Elsie with red-rimmed eyes, gestures to her corset.
"Well? The damn thing will hardly undo itself, will it?"
And so Elsie rises to attend and be attended to. They return to Elsie's bed and slide beneath the blankets, face to face in the dark, legs tangled. Elsie keeps one hand cupped over the back of Sarah's head as she eases tentatively into sleep, comforted by the warmth and softness of another.
Sarah mutters something that might be thank you or perhaps good night, and Elsie smiles.
This is just a place where I'm sticking my O'Hughes Tumblr drabbles- only vaguely in order for the time being, so please bear with me. As usual, none of places or characters belong to me.
