A/N: I've always been fascinated by how alike Mary and Elsie are and I've always wondered about their early relationship. I've also always felt so sorry for Mary because of all of the pressure placed on her. This story should be around 4 chapters with an epilogue! :]
"Oh for heaven's sake, Lynn, how difficult can it be to sew a simple button onto a dress?" Elsie Hughes ran a hand over her face and waved toward the door to dismiss the housemaid in front of her. She had had quite enough of incompetence among the young staff this week and would be perfectly content to avoid seeing any of them again until the next day. Thankfully the after-dinner festivities seemed to be winding down. With that thought in mind she pushed her door to a close and took a deep breath.
Blessed silence. And then a knock on the door. This had to be a bad joke.
"What is it?" She recognized that her voice was a bit harsher than was appropriate.
A dark head of curls peeked around her doorframe. "If this is a bad time I can certainly come back later, Mrs. Hughes."
She cringed a bit. She hadn't meant to sound so quite so snippy and certainly not to the one person that she had no problem with at the moment. "I'm sorry, Mr. Carson. Please, do come in."
"I just passed a very upset housemaid in the hall. Is everything alright?"
She sat down and motioned for him to do the same and cocked her head slightly when he remained in the hall. "Perfectly. Now what can I do for you?" She forced a smile.
"I was just dropping in to say that I'm finishing up for the night and I wondered if you'd like to have a cup of tea with me?"
For the past few years several nights a week Charles had gently knocked on her door, poked his head in, and asked her to join him for tea. She would never admit this, of course, but she found that she was far more disappointed than was appropriate on the nights when he didn't stop in.
"A cup of tea is exactly what I need after this day, thank you." She sighed and waited for him to join her.
He pushed the door the rest of the way open to reveal a handful of tea tray, blushing slightly at her expression.
"A bit sure of my answer, then?" Her voice was sarcastic but her eyes were smiling.
He raised his eyebrows, "Well, if you hadn't wanted my company I felt sure that you'd ask me to leave the tray."
She smiled and began to pour as he sat down beside her and felt the tension start to leave his body. It always did when he was around Elsie.
"Is there anything that I can do?"
She met his gaze with confusion, "I'm sorry?"
"Your day, you implied that it had been unpleasant."
"Oh," she took a sip of her tea, "it's nothing that I can't handle. Just a day full of a million little problems. It keeps me on my toes."
"I see." He handed her a biscuit which she gratefully took.
"And you? No fires to put out that you couldn't handle, I trust."
"Not today, at least. Though," he hesitated just a bit, "I did notice that Lady Mary seemed a bit down at dinner tonight."
Elsie didn't quite succeed in hiding her scoff. "Well I'm sure that whatever the problem, she'll be fine."
"She's at a difficult age now, trying to figure out who she is, what she wants for her future. I think the responsibility weighs a bit too heavily sometimes."
"Oh, Mr. Carson, really. Lady Mary is hardly unique in that growing pain. We all go through a period of finding ourselves when we're young."
She caught the sincere distress in his eyes and felt her heart swell a bit. She thought the girl was a bit silly and a great deal pretentious, but she did love to see the softer side of the man in front of her. He nodded distractedly and took another sip of tea. "Yes, no of course. Well, I'm sure you're right."
"She doesn't need you worrying over her, Mr. Carson," His face hardened a bit and she continued quickly, "but she's a lucky girl that you do."
He smiled warmly, a silent thank you passing between them.
.
.
.
She was nearly finished going over Carson's schedule for the staff's half-days [he could never seem to remember everyone's requests on his own, bless him] when she heard a commotion in the kitchen, most likely the staff standing because a member of the family had, for one reason or another, seen fit to grace them with their presence below stairs. She sighed and stood, making her way to the kitchen expecting to see her Ladyship. She was caught, then, considerably off-guard at the gangly, though undeniably beautiful, 15-year-old in front of her.
"Lady Mary! You should have simply rung. What can I do for you?"
The girl took a step forward, out of earshot from those at the table. "Actually, Mrs. Hughes, it's you that I wanted to speak with. In private if at all possible."
Elsie was rather impressed at her own composure as it was taking everything within her to hide her confusion. "Of course, Lady Mary. We can speak in my parlor." She nodded at the staff to sit as she turned, hearing Mary close behind.
Once they were inside the room Elsie remained standing, per protocol, and offered Mary a seat, which she took. "Oh, please, Mrs. Hughes, do have a seat. I'd like to speak with you about a personal matter and it's making me nervous to see you hovering."
Elsie nearly bit her lip and braced herself to be spoken down to by a child. "As you wish, milady."
Mary waited until Elsie was seated, seemingly struggling for the right words. Well, I'll be. Lady Mary at a loss for words. Will wonders never cease?
"Mrs. Hughes, I'm sure you know that for a woman of my social standing there are certain...decisions that must be carefully made. There is a certain way of doing things that affects not only myself but the future of this house."
"Yes, milady."
Elsie smiled internally at the girl before her. She was only fifteen years old for heavens sake and here she was talking about "women of social standing" and "decisions affecting the house." Her smile quickly turned to genuine pity. She had heard whispers that Lord and Lady Grantham were already making arrangements for Mary's match, an engagement, of course, in which Mary had absolutely no say. Though she was loathe to admit it, she did share the girl's fierce independence and couldn't imagine having that taken away by tradition.
"Mrs. Hughes it won't be a terribly long amount of time before I'm due to be married. Do you understand?"
Elsie was slow and careful in her answer, "I do understand that that is what tradition dictates, milady."
"And as a woman who will serve as the Lady of this house someday it's important to me to make sure that, as a woman, I'm capable of maintaining the independence that I currently hold."
Elsie nodded, noting to herself that it didn't seem that Lady Mary enjoyed any real independence at all, which received a sigh from Lady Mary. "Mrs. Hughes, I won't have any man come into my home and dictate to me what I will and will not do. I won't have a man telling me what to think and I won't have a man telling me how to behave." Elsie smiled, the first genuine smile she had offered all day.
Mary's voice softened almost imperceptibly as she continued, "But I don't completely despise the idea of marriage, obviously. I do enjoy good company in whatever form it comes. Besides, I don't suppose I could remain unmarried...I'm not the spinster type. That's why we have Edith, after all."
Gone was the smile. Elsie rolled her eyes and nodded. "Yes, milady."
Mary shifted in her seat. "Mrs. Hughes. There are women, of course, who run their homes very pleasantly. They're married, of course, but there's no real doubt as to who the backbone of the family truly is."
Elsie laughed a bit. "Yes, milady, I do believe you're right."
"I won't run my home or my marriage any other way, you see."
"No, milady, I can't image that you would. Begging your pardon, though, I don't know what exactly I have to do with any of this. Your marrying days are still quite a ways ahead of you. Surely your mother would be happy to speak with you about any doubts that you may have."
Mary rolled her eyes, a gesture eerily familiar to Elsie. "I'm not completely desperate, Mrs. Hughes, I have no interest in sitting down for a heart to heart with my mother."
Elsie looked down into her lap and smiled.
"The kind of woman I want to be is nothing like my mother. My mother backs my father's every thought. She loves him, very much, she does. But she lives her life for him. That isn't the way I plan on living my life."
"I do think that's very noble of you, Lady Mary."
Mary sighed and did absolutely nothing to hide her frustration. "Yes, well, thank you, Mrs. Hughes, but I didn't come here seeking approval."
Elsie's back stiffened. "Why exactly did you come, milady?"
Mary studied her hands with ferocious intensity for only a moment before gathering herself and looking directly at Elsie. "I came to you for advice, Mrs. Hughes."
Elsie felt as if she'd been thrown into an alternate universe with no explanation whatsoever. "Advice?"
"Yes. Advice." Elsie did enjoy the fact that it seemed to pain the poor girl so much to have to ask for it. "You see, Mrs. Hughes, you seem to have completely mastered the art of female independence."
Elsie almost spit out the hours old tea she had taken a sip of to hide her amusement. "I've done what now, milady?"
Again the eye roll came. "Oh, don't feign ignorance, Mrs. Hughes, you know exactly what I'm referring to. There's not a person under this roof that wouldn't take an order from you, my father included, and yet you're so subtle about it that at the end of the day every man in this house goes to bed thinking that he's gotten his way."
Elsie stared at the girl without moving. She was sometimes amazed that she was only fifteen-she had a lifetime's worth of cheek. She didn't know if she should be flattered or deeply offended, but she settled on feeling oddly proud and immensely amused. "Lady Mary..."
She was interrupted before she could finish her thought, "I only want you to give me some advice...and maybe let me spend a bit of time with you."
"A bit of time with me?"
"I know you have a job to do and I wouldn't want to get in the way, though I don't imagine I'd be in the way anywhere in my own home, do you?" Elsie took a deep breath at the girl's airy condescension, "I just thought that I could watch you with the staff a bit," her eyes sparked into a mischievous smile, "and with Carson."
"What does Mr. Carson have to do with anything?" She was beginning to feel more than a bit uncomfortable with this conversation.
"Mrs. Hughes. I've known Carson my entire life. I can read him like a book. I can tell you with complete and utter certainty that there are exactly three people in this universe that can tell Carson what to do without any question whatsoever. One is my grandmother, the second is me," she beamed a bit with pride, "and the third, you know as well as I do, is yourself."
"I know no such thing." Even as the words left her mouth she could feel herself blushing.
"I won't be in your way, Mrs. Hughes, I truly won't." She paused for a moment and then sighed, "Papa's informed me that I'm to start spending a bit more time with Cousin Patrick. He thinks it will be good for me." Her shoulders sagged momentarily as she continued, "If Patrick is who I'm going to be stuck with I'd like to start laying down the law immediately. I don't like leaving room for confusion."
Elsie studied the girl's flawless face. She still had the skin of a child but the determination in her eyes had been borne through a life of restraining herself, molding herself into exactly what she was supposed to be, the perfect little Lady. Elsie couldn't do anything to change that, but she could grant a simple request. She didn't see how spending time with Mary was going to teach her anything, but for some reason unknown to Elsie she couldn't bring herself to tell her no.
She sighed deeply, "You're welcome to spend as much time with me as you'd like, Lady Mary. Anytime."
She absolutely beamed, looking every bit the little girl that she was. "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Hughes. You won't be sorry, really."
"No, milady, I'm sure I won't be." Elsie sent up a silent prayer of thanks for her ability to lie through her teeth.
Before either of them could say another word there was a knock at her parlor door that didn't wait for an answer.
"Lady Mary, I'm sorry! I wasn't aware that you were downstairs."
Mary stood on tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, watching him blush furiously, obviously thrilled at the affection. "I was just leaving, Carson. Mrs. Hughes was just giving me a bit of advice." She smiled back at the housekeeper, "I'll leave you two to it then."
"Yes, milady." Carson waited for her to leave and turned to Elsie.
"What was that about?"
She sat back down in her chair and rubbed a hand across her forehead. "I wish I knew, Mr. Carson. I do with that I knew."