All the Words We Never Say (And All the Things We Mean by Them)
*Author's Note: SPOILERS FOR SEASON FIVE. The lines of actual dialogue are taken from episodes 5.2 and 5.6. They are not my own, but rather belong to Mr. Fellowes.*
No one could ever accuse Charles Carson of being a man lacking in style, dignity, decorum, or sense of ceremony.
Upstairs, he has carefully crafted himself into a man of few-but-eloquent words, as well-spoken as he is well-carried, a testament and an honor to the house he serves.
Downstairs, he is more loquacious, but still prides himself on the precision and dexterity of his speech. He knows how to inflect the proper amount of seriousness or reprimand into his tone to usher wayward servants back into line, knows how to imply his opinion while using the most neutral of words, knows the proper labels for almost every item, person, and situation underneath his purview (almost).
He is a man who knows how to express himself without hesitation or any true effort at all.
Except when it comes to her.
He does not think that it has always been this way, though he cannot be sure—but he knows, with a deep and unsettling certainty, that it has been occurring more and more frequently these past few years.
Though he still takes pride in his ability to trounce emotion with logic, there are moments when they are in-sync, perfectly happy, and he wishes that he could express how this makes him feel—he wishes he even knew the word to express what this is, in the first place. It's the easy way she makes his tea, the way he never fails to marvel at the pert precision of her hand as it gives the teacup handle a clockwise quarter-turn before presenting it to him, so that it's always ready to be taken up by his right hand without fuss or fumbling. It's the way they can sit in silence and breathe deeply after a hectic night of this dinner or that holiday party, content in knowing that they're still in their prime. It's the way she smiles, secretly and warmly, when she thinks he doesn't notice (and he thinks it means that she feels the same way about these moments as well). It's the camaraderie that is much deeper than that, much solider and longer lasting.
Sometimes, he does have words to perfectly express how he feels—and yet somehow, she steals that away, too. When he is angry, when he chooses his words with biting certainty, when he is righteous in his indignation or his disappointment, when he knows that he is the injured party and completely not at-fault, she can make the foundation of his certitude crumble like the walls of Jericho. The stars fall from her eyes and he suddenly knows that those weren't the words he wanted to use at all—he wanted softer words, gentler words, words that still encompass what he feels now and yet also hold what he feels always, always running beneath the surface of every other feeling and action (words he still can't bring himself to say, even in the dark and secret places of his mind).
Sometimes, he does have words, but fear keeps them caged in his throat. Still, he feels such a need (yes, a need, something deeper and more urgent than desire, something that has begun to frighten him with its intensity) to express these words and their companion emotions, so he finds other words to replace them—words that his tongue can say without fumbling, words that feel natural and unassuming, words that still hold weight and meaning, but only to the two of them, words that they have been using for years but have suddenly given new definitions to.
"I'm not comfortable when you and I are not in agreement," he informs her. (I don't like being upset with you, I don't like the way your eyes forget to shine and I don't like knowing that I'm the reason for it, my happiness is yours, as is my unhappiness, and I like being the one who makes you smile).
"You're very flattering. When you talk like that, you make me want to check the looking glass to see that my hair's tidy." She's smiling again, a minx of a smile because she likes treading the line of impropriety from time to time, just because she knows it ruffles his feathers—and because she understands the undertones of what he's truly saying (she understands and she accepts them, and takes them just a breath of a half-step further—you do make me smile, and more).
"Get away with you." He feigns admonition, but teasing still edges his tone. (Don't ever stop talking like that, smiling like that, teasing like that, don't ever stop being the shining light that fills this dreary room, don't ever stop reminding me exactly why I feel this way about you).
Those dancing blue eyes tell him that she understands the true meaning of these words, too.
A few days later, when they are observing Mrs. Patmore's potential new cottage, he walks through the rooms and contemplates how it would feel if the situation were reversed—if he and she were looking at this place, looking at it as a place to live, to build a life together.
"You ever thought about your life in retirement?" He asks.
"Who says I'll live to retire?" She answers. (It's too scary to contemplate, she means, and he hopes that she means scary because she can't imagine sitting at a breakfast table without him by her side).
The next question has already begun to form on his tongue, but he keeps it there for a while—all during the journey back to Downton, throughout the rest of the afternoon's chores, he searches for a way to pose it. It is a sensitive question, the most important he's ever asked this woman, and the words must be just right. Not too evasive, yet not too forward, weighted but not-too-heavy, phrased so that it rolls easily off his tongue, keeping hidden the hammering heart in his chest, while not keeping it too hidden.
Lady Edith's disappearing act gives him an excuse to be in her office just before the dinner gong, and he tells himself that he must ask it now or forever keep it in his chest, for time is slipping away, and he wants to make it look as if this is something he's just discovered, not something he's thought about long before Mrs. Patmore ever even thought of looking at cottages.
"Do you think that we should, uh, invest in a property together?" He asks. (Should we, could we, plan for a life outside this place—a life together? He begs). He is slightly surprised by how timid he sounds, despite the great amount of rehearsing he has given the line. But at this point, one must overlook the delivery and focus solely on the words.
"What on earth do you mean?" She says it. She means it. (Please don't break my heart, please mean exactly what I hope you mean).
"I was thinking: if Mrs. Patmore can do it, then we might buy somewhere jointly—as a business venture, mind—spruce it up and share the rental income." He keeps his tone brusque, efficient, business-like (he doesn't have the right to imply anything else, doesn't have the courage). He sees a slight deflection in those deep blue eyes, and her flash of disappointment gives him hope. So he adds:
"We'd have a tidy sum by the time we retired." (We, together, as it should be, perhaps as it was always meant to be—we, retired, together, with a cottage and some semblance of the life that we gave up when we went into service all those years ago).
The stars are in her eyes again, though she doesn't so much as break a smile, and his own heart sings (because it means that she feels these things, too, feels them and wants them and hopes for them as he does).
"Go and ring that gong." She gives a slight flutter of her hand in his direction, turning away. (Right now, we're still here, in this life, and right now, in this moment, it's enough—wonderfully, quietly, enchantingly enough).
They haven't changed the words they say to one another (not really, not yet), but the meanings behind them have changed. We and us mean something more, retirement means when we finally have the chance to just be ourselves, not our positions or our daily habits, just ourselves together, alone, and the future doesn't mean a scary, lonely landscape, but rather a thrilling adventure that neither has truly been able to go on before (love, isn't that supposed to be the thing that men and kings have lived and died for, the thing that breathed life into the greatest of poems, the elusive questing beast that all people seek and so few find, the grand purpose of it all?). For now, the change in meaning is enough.
But he knows this woman, and he knows that someday, it will not be enough.
And someday, he vows to himself, it won't have to be enough.
Someday, he'll find a way to say the meanings aloud, to say the words that tumble across his tongue like a dazed man in a desert, say them with the same ease that he polishes silver and pours wine, to express all the inexpressible that she creates within him. Heavens Almighty, he'll read every sonnet, every sappy love story ever written, if it will give him the words he needs—it will be a grand undertaking, no doubt about that, but was there ever a woman more deserving of such gestures than the quiet and lovely one who has quite literally stood by his side through thick and thin?
Absolutely not. He knows, feels those words with every fiber of his being. Those two words fuel his determination—he will say all these things and more to her, he will fill his mouth with words and give them to her like honey, until they make her face shine and her eyes dance and her heart tremble, until she knows beyond all shadow of doubt exactly how and what he feels.
But for now, this slow awakening continues at its infantile pace, measured and hesitant and searchingly learning. She sits next to him at dinner, her cheeks still glowing with a bonny flush that makes his own mouth curl into an involuntary smile, as she avoids his gaze (and he knows it's not because she's angry, but rather because if she looks at him, she'll start grinning again, giving away their secret, and neither one wants that—after all, haven't they given enough of their lives, can't they have one thing between them that's solely theirs?).
For now, they don't use any words at all. They don't need to.
Though, he silently decides, if this moment needed a description, it would simply be called promise. There's so much contained within the simple happiness of her smile, in knowing that he's the reason for it, in knowing that he's somehow turned a scary word (future) into a greatly-anticipated treat.
The future. It is a thought that used to cause him great distress as well. But now, like her, he greets the concept with a hopeful smile and a fluttering heart.
But now, in the present, he must learn the words. He must learn to say them, without trembling or tripping over them. Until then, he allows his hands to talk, as he quietly pours her another glass of wine (we've cause to celebrate). His hands never falter, never fumble in showing how they feel—the way he tenderly pushes the glass back to her, the way his fingertips rest just a second longer than necessary (I wish your fingers could reach out, hold mine, I wish they could show you more). Her lashes twitter slightly (because, of course, she's understood), and she looks away, almost-blushing again.
He knows that she can't say the words yet, either. But he also knows that she'll let her hands talk, too—hands worn by time and hard, honest work, hands that have trembled with fear and clenched in rage and clapped in delight, hands that still mesmerize him with their skill and dexterity—later, when she's making his tea as they sit in his office. And as always, she'll give the cup of tea a quick little quarter-turn, a response to the tenderness his hand is showing now. And perhaps her fingertips, too, will stay just a beat longer than necessary, as if to say, I know, and soon. Soon, my dear.
Soon.
What a lovely word. What a lovely meaning.