Miss Kenton 10 years later reflecting on her relationship with Mr Stevens. AU and a one-shot.
I don't have enough fingers on which to count the things which seem to annoy you, James Stevens. Chairs left abandoned without pushing them back under the table; carpets with odd corners peeling back over; books not put back in the correct place, the list goes on. Of course they irritate me too- why make extra work for ourselves when it could be easily avoided?- but only superficially. For you those trivial irritations are just the tip of the iceberg; indeed, I've often wondered how you manage to remain so calm when you must be under such perpetual aggravation.
Gentleman callers, I've heard you say, irritate you. Well, you've never said so directly, but I've heard you say many times that they're not allowed and I know anything against The Rules that comes to pass you find abhorrent. I remember quite clearly you entreating me to ward them off- both from myself and the housemaids- at all costs, as if they were some strain of the plague. They're not all that bad, Mr Stevens, I remember thinking at the time, I wonder you were never one yourself. Of course in retrospect I'm supremely thankful that I didn't say it to you or else, I fear, I would have quickly become your pet irritation.
Though, naturally, I did anyway, in time. We used to have such furious fights, do you remember? Youth, came up a few times, Inexperience too. You used to smile so pompously, as if you were so high and mighty and it used to vex me into oblivion. Of course you know that, that was exactly why you did it and that used to make me all the more mad, at which point I would usually storm off to calm down somewhere. I told myself you were intimidated by me, that you were jealous of me. Quite silly, I know; but be thankful, I'm only proving your point that I was just a frivolous woman, a frivolous woman of youthful inexperience, no less.
But then, it seemed I was different from the rest: I stood out among the sea of annoyances. Well, looking back now it's very clear that I was, but even then I somehow got that notion. It would have been very presumptuous of me, but I knew it, I was certain. The irritation you suffered at my hands was entirely different from when one of the footmen was late or the housemaids got a bit cocky. I saw it creep up from your neck in a subtle red flush from your neck as we fought and it felt wonderful to know, however much you tried to, you couldn't hide that I did have an effect on you. I couldn't quite pinpoint why it was, at first, that knowing I could really get to you was so important to me, I only knew it was. And then, when I finally realised, I couldn't quite believe it.
I had heard you before- and this I remember as if it were yesterday- say that you found persons going from post to post looking for romance particularly irritating. And, you see, I desperately didn't want you to think that I had done as much. I cared what you thought of me, despite all of the occasions on which I had directly declared otherwise. Because I hated you, James, and- as I do now- loved you in equal measure. I couldn't bear to think that you thought ill of me for loving you.
Of course, you- obtuse man!- didn't have a clue that I felt for you in that way, I needn't have worried about you discovering the thoughts I secretly harboured at all. So we bumbled on like idiots, blundering foolishly around each other with the usual niceties and rubbish like that. A couple of times it nearly drove me out of my proper mind but I stayed sane, dusting away until I'd practically eroded the furniture in order to distract myself.
There had to be a breaking point though; there always is. That afternoon in you parlour was what did it. The red flush beaming from under your collar: you wanted to be anywhere other than there with me staring at you, refusing to back down. Tell me you're glad I didn't now, otherwise these last ten years would have been quite a waste. You were standing there, calm as dawn but I got the sense you were about to explode. I bowed my head once my arms were draped around your neck. The sound of your breathing was heavy, and I listened to it mingle with mine.
There are things that irritate you enormously now. Our children, for instance, never fail to find new ways; they're resourceful that way, like their mother. Ellen knows it makes you cross when she jumps out of the hidden door in the library to surprise you, but knows you dote on her too much to tell her off. I think Catherine and Jack will probably do the same as soon as we let them go around the main house on their own and I know Harriet will. I know that self-loathing streak in you is irritated by the fact that our children seem to be so wonderful, no matter how many faults we display ourselves.
I hope yo believe me, James. I didn't find you because I was looking for romance. I admit, that afternoon, I did come looking for you, but that's not what I'm talking about. I didn't look for romance. I only looked up, with my arms around your neck, and felt it staring back at me. And kissed it soundly.
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