AN: In this story I'm assuming that Elsie Hughes arrived at Downton to fill the post of housekeeper, without having worked there before.
He had never asked, so she had never said anything. Her position made it natural anyway. It was important to keep up the appearance of a stern and stoic matron. She was the housekeeper, after all, and in order to do the position justice, one had to show the required strength and hard backbone from the first day.
One couldn't allow oneself to show weakness.
In the beginning, she had been very private, almost bordering to shy, or so it felt like to him. She retired to her parlour early, and then up to bed just after the maids. He had been the one to initiate something more than a mere professional relationship, more than brief encounters in the hallway, a few pleasantries during meals and strictly no-nonsense meetings regarding house affairs. Her work ethics, on the other hand, was something he marvelled at. The firm but gentle hand with which she shepherded the maids, her way with numbers (he couldn't help but notice how fast the invoices was taken care of nowadays), and her voice, carrying through bedrooms and halls without shouting or high pitched vocals.
But he found himself wishing that her lips would turn just a tad more upwards, that her eyes would shine a little bit brighter. The sadness he thought he could sometimes spot hidden in the blue orbs, was not worrying him directly, but more a thing nagging in the back of his head.
It had started with a particular difficult visit from some distant cousins of Lord Grantham from the South. The week had been a trying one on all the staff, but he knew she had felt the pressure the most. He noticed it in the way her hips swayed just half an inch more to the side when she walked, how the keys jingled more aggressively, how her lips was pressed together tightly. The sadness he had observed gone, replaced by a silent frustration and deep irritation. It was all there in the clenched teeth and furrowed brows.
She needed to take out some steam. Open her pipe, so to speak.
Two glasses of red wine and a plate of biscuits were laid out when she entered his office. A few casual remarks and three sips of wine later, Mr. Carson didn't know what had hit him. The woman in front of him was talking like he had never heard her before. Frustration put to words in rolling sounds. Although he would have been bothered by the content, he was quite shocked by the outburst (he hadn't expected one just so fierce, though he afterwards realised he should have seen it coming. The woman had a mind of her own, as he very well knew) and taken aback by the Scottish lilt that seeped trough her words, almost making it hard to follow her trail of thoughts sometimes. Almost. Just when she had become short breathed and didn't have any more words, did she realise what she had said, and blushed profusely.
"It is a human right to voice ones mind every once in awhile, Mrs. Hughes," he simply commented.
And their friendship was born.
The nightly chats had quickly become a habit. Wine or tea, his or hers. It occurred to him that her eyes indeed shone just shade brighter, her smile – the real, genuine one – a truly beautiful thing. However, as the weeks and months faded into years, he began to notice a pattern. Every autumn, about a month before the anniversary of her arrival at Downton, she would quietly slip into herself, her countenance a bit paler, her food less touched. After the third time it didn't come as a surprise, he had in fact planned around it. She would come to his office, her eyes downcast and dull, asking for two days off out of the schedule. It would be granted, of course, she did a week's worth of work in just a couple of days, who was he to deny the housekeeper some very well deserved time away from keys and polish and linen rotas?
Besides, she always seemed better, more herself again, when she returned.
After the fifth time he had worked up the courage (and curiosity) to ask. What did she have to do on this particular date?
"Where?" he asked
"Scotland," she answered simply.
"To visit your sister?" he knew she had a sister somewhere up North with whom she corresponded.
She sighed audible.
"No, I don't visit my sister," she lifted her head, looked straight at him, taking a deep breath.
"I go to put flowers on my husband's grave"
He blinked. Husband?
She had seen his silent question.
"He died a month prior to my arrival here. "
He was not surprised, it made sense.
"Quite suddenly. A stroke, while he was out working on the fields. I had to get away."
He nods, trying to digest the information and coming up with something sensible to say.
"I'm so sorry." The few words will have to do, he thinks.
"Well," she smiles sadly, "life goes on, and I was very fortunate to come here so shortly afterwards. It helps a great deal to have something with which to occupy ones mind."
He could relate to that.
"You helped a great deal."
He holds his breath. Really?
"Why didn't you mention anything?"
"You never asked, and I didn't think it necessary. The past is in the past."
True enough, but he would like to know more about her, he realises.
"How long were you married?"
"Just shy of thirty years."
Thirty years ago, he thinks, he was on the stage, singing and dancing. He tries to imagine a thirty years younger version of Elsie Hughes, all flushed cheeks and long eyelashes. Doesn't find the thought altogether unpleasing.
"Any children?"
Her eyes glace over and he realises his mistake.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realise…" he tries to weave his way out, save her from painful memories. Spare them both.
She shakes her head fervently, holds up a hand to stop him.
But he has seen it. The silent tear that has escaped the confines of her eye, trickling down by her nose.
Tonight he could push boundaries, he would do it for her. Anything for her. She had opened up, and he had been too quick.
He gathers her in his arms, cradles her head in his jacket. Strokes her back carefully.
Tonight she needs this. All this grief carefully hidden deep inside. He had found the key for her, the one she thought she'd never have to use again. The one key she didn't want to count along with the others.
He had found the key and helped her unlock the door, now he would her lead trough it.
All of it.