Ch 1- Gone Another Way

"Carson? Whatever are you doing?"

Carson smiled, putting pen to paper. He didn't turn his back to look at the little girl who sat on his office floor scrutinizing her doll very carefully. Mary, an unusually precocious child who at five years old already thought she was Lady of the house, was spending the afternoon in his care. Her Mother was out of the house and her nanny at her wits end both because of the young girl's admittedly bratty behavior and because her younger sisters, Edith and Sybil (three years and three months old respectively) had been taken ill with bad colds.

Most people were reluctant to take on little Lady Mary. She was smart, confident, and very outspoken for her age. But unlike many people (nanny especially), Carson saw that Lady Mary could be a very sweet child, and he enjoyed her company. Like her parents, he'd discovered long ago that if you really knew her, you would understand that her heart was good. Mary appreciated this understanding with the butler and as such, the two were very close. He doted on her, and she behaved for him in a way she did not for anyone else.

"Hmmm?" He asked.

"You're writing something, what is it?" She asked carefully.

"It's an advertisement m'lady."

"For what?" She asked, her curiosity unceasing.

"A new housekeeper." He chuckled, amused by her questions.

"Well what happened to the old one?"

"She got married." He explained, sighing softly but the child couldn't tell.

Carson was secretly a little jealous of Mrs. Tate, who'd left Downton to wed very suddenly and had not given the proper notice, leaving the house in a state of disarray. He secretly also wished to marry but did not dwell on it much. He was a butler; it was his trade and even though he wanted a wife he liked life at Downton and didn't expect to leave it, especially for someone who he didn't think would ever come along.

In the past, he'd had several…flirtations…affairs…relationships? No. None of those words were quite right to describe what he'd had. All he knew was that he'd been in love once, and that the mere thought of her name, well it…

"Carson. I'm starved." Little Lady Mary uttered suddenly, pulling him out of his wandering, pain-filled thoughts.

He was grateful. There'd been several women in his past, but, thinking much about this particular girl always put a great weight on his heart, one he couldn't shut out without first attempting to shut out all emotion entirely. It'd been something like seventeen years, and even now, she had the power to make his heartbreak so completely that at times it practically reduced him to a machine of a man. Truthfully, he thought she'd ruined him for other women.

"Well m'lady, it's after lunch and several hours before dinner. I must go into town to place the advertisement, and that means you must come with me. How about we get some ice cream, hmm?"

"Really?!" She was delighted.

"Yes. I don't think your mother and father would mind."

"No, but nanny would!" She said excitedly.

Carson shot the child a half-hearted smile. He didn't want to encourage her to be disobedient toward anyone, but in the nanny's case he thought it only fair. She was a mean old lady who cared for the Crawley girls but did not like them, and in Mary's case well…she practically invited the strong-willed child to challenge her.

"May I tell Edith?!" Mary continued, taking Carson's hand as he led her out of the office. Mary was excited; knowing her three year old sister would likely cry when she discovered she'd not been offered any ice cream.

"No!" He said sternly.

…

"Carson?" Mary asked from her place atop his shoulders where she was busy enjoying her ice cream cone.

"Yes m'lady?"

They'd just come from the small town's even smaller bakery, which doubled as a candy store and on a good day, tripled as an ice cream shop. There, he'd planned on treating her but she'd surprised him when she opened up a little coin purse she'd had hidden in her pocket and insisted on treating them both.

"Carson were you ever in love?"

He stopped suddenly, wondering what would prompt the young child to ever ask anything of that sort, especially about him and so randomly when they were in route to the newspaper office. He was deeply confused and took her off his shoulders, leading her over to a nearby park bench where he sat down with her.

"M'lady I hardly think that's an appropriate question…"

"Carson I am sorry." She pouted a little, feeling badly for her indiscretion. Being five and very precocious she didn't yet understand why this was inappropriate.

"M'lady I must inquire, whatever made you think to ask me that?"

"Well we were talking of Mrs. Tate and how she got married." She reminded innocently.

"Oh I see. Indeed we were."

"Yes. That's it. Carson."

"Hmmm?"

"I think you should be happy like she is."

"You don't think I'm happy m'lady?"

"You know what I mean!"

He smiled. "I appreciate your concern."

"Of course!" She exclaimed. "You're Carson! Mama and Papa and I think quite a lot of you!"

"Thank you m'lady." He was honored to hear it. "What about Lady Edith?"

"She doesn't think, you shouldn't mind her." Mary explained, narrowing her eyes at him.

After a moment, the two got back up and proceeded to make their way to the newspaper office.

"Carson?" The child asked again. She was holding his hand, but walking a bit behind him. "What was her name?"

He didn't answer for the moment and looked straight ahead as they walked, barely believing the audacity of the child.

"Her name was Elsie." He explained graciously, biting his lip. "And that's enough of that for today m'lady."

Carson paused. The nanny was right: sometimes, little Lady Mary did go to far, but unlike her, he understood she didn't mean to hurt him. Carson took a deep breath, wishing he were back in Scotland, seventeen years before. He knew he never should've left her there. It was a failure on his part that bothered him more with each passing day. More than anything though, it crushed him that she'd simply stopped writing back, right after he'd proposed marriage.

…

"Elsie when are you going to get another proposal like that?" Her mother scolded.

Elsie Hughes' eyebrow went up sharply in response to her mother's question. Not wanting to answer right then, she pretended to ignore her and stared back at the paper, focused on the want ads as she continued to nibble on the pencil she held tightly in her left hand. The young woman, who'd never married and had made a life for herself in service, was in between jobs because the old lady in the last house she worked in had passed away. As a result she'd come home to Argyl to visit her family. It was the first time in over a year.

"Elsie are you listening to me?" Her mother pressed.

"Oh? Oh! Oh mother. I'm just looking at the advertisements there are a lot of promising things this morning!" She smiled.

"Elsie I don't mean to press you, but Joe's a good man, he does well. He can save you." She emphasized. "If you married him, you'd never have to work again."

Elsie sighed. She was torn about Joe and his proposal. There were a lot of times over the last seventeen years when she'd fiercely lamented not going another way. What her mother didn't realize was that there was only one other path for her oldest daughter other than service, and that that path, a lovely man named Charlie with piercing blue eyes, had packed his bags and headed back to London seventeen years earlier, never to be heard from again.

In young Elsie's mind, Charlie had been that savior her mother spoke of. She'd loved him with all her might and he'd simply gone missing. One day, he'd simply stopped writing her back and she'd never found out why. Now at thirty-four, she was considered an old maid, even though she didn't feel that way herself.

Right after she'd come home she'd received a wedding proposal from Joe Burns, a farmer who she'd know while growing up. He'd done well for himself and had yet to marry. He was nice enough, handsome enough, and certainly successful enough… Her mother had thought he was the finest of catches and certainly the best Elsie could do, but to her, he was simply no match for Charles Carson a man who'd become a kind of enigma into her and faded into the dust, but whose memory still lived on in her heart in a way that was gut-wrenchingly painful at times.

"Elsie!"

Elsie jumped, blinking as she looked back at her mother.

"You're a lovely, independent woman Miss Elsie Hughes." Her mother smiled, changing her tone completely. "And I respect that…but I just, I'd like for you to have a better life, and a family of your own and…"

She didn't say it, but Elsie understood she also wanted her to have a foolproof way to take care of her mentally challenged sister Becky when they were older and without a doubt Joe could provide that.

Elsie sighed, unsure of how to explain to her mother that she was not interested in the well off farmer up the road because her heart was still betrothed to a traveling performer with piercing blue eyes whom she had not seen in nearly two decades.

She'd put down the newspaper on the table and turned her full attention to it, rather than her mother. She'd lied to her when she said the ads were promising: for the most part they were a far cry from it. But then there was this one, at the bottom right hand corner of the page that caught her eye.

"Yorkshire." She whispered under her breath. "Downton, address inquires to Lady Grantham…hmmm."

Elsie thought it sounded nice, and just what she needed too. She'd never been the head housekeeper before, but she knew she had the skill to do it and that it would be just the career advancement she needed to support herself, to provide for Becky in the future, and best of all, give her the stability she needed to turn down Joe's proposal. She quickly went to work writing out a letter and small resume to send, hoping to hear back expediently.