A/N: Last week's episode got me thinking about Elsie's reaction to Ethel's story, and how it might have been influenced by something from her own past. I was even going to write about that, but I'd been sidetracked by a request of a smutty nature, for which I'd fallen much too easily.
It came back to me after watching the newest episode. So there you go. (Spoilers all the way, naturally.)
She creaks the door open and bites her lip, her heart breaking at the sight of a silhouette not bigger than a doll cut out of the frail Chinese paper, hunched over at the bedside. This is a private moment, yes; she shouldn't be here, no.
She cannot bear to be anywhere else.
Stepping across the threshold, she can feel the push and pull of propriety and heartbreak, everything she feels—everything she isn't allow to feel—crushing down at her, a giant weight pressing at her constricted throat, at the fingers that shake as she reaches out to touch cool, cool skin, shivering under her touch and over the tears.
How many people has she already touched tonight? She's not really comfortable with physical closeness, with the intimacy that comes with knowing another person's deepest fears, with seeing them crumble. She doesn't want this, doesn't need this. Seeing the people she works with, lives with, fall apart, makes them vulnerable, and she usually chooses not to make them feel like she is gaining some power over them. She doesn't cherish the power, doesn't need to be any more in control than she already is.
But every single one of them needed her to, she supposes.
And it's not over yet, not until she does what she wants and needs to do.
Her fingers tighten ever so slightly, thumb brushing against skin and silk. "Can I get you anything?" Her voice is small, but sure, there's no use for it trembling and faltering now. Somebody has to stay strong in all this. And if she must be the one to carry the burden tonight, so be it.
(She suspects secretly she's not the only one in this house: but she's the only one here, at this precise moment, feeling the rise and fall of an unsteady breath under her hand.)
"Get her back," she hears a whisper, and her heart breaks some more. "Can you do that? You always look like you could do anything if you put your mind into it."
Oh, how she wishes that was the case. "Not nearly anything. Never this. However much I might have wanted to."
"Have you ever—" she starts with a sudden lash of bitterness across her lips, and pauses, eyes never leaving the motionless figure spread out gently on the bed, like a creature from a fairytale, too painful to believe in. "No, of course you haven't. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."
"Don't apologize to me," she says pointedly, moving in closer and putting her free hand on the other shoulder, just as cold and shaking as the first one. "This isn't about me." She swallows, fights against the lump of propriety and rules clotting her throat. "I can't tell you I understand everything—but I believe I had come as close to it as possible. It was a long time ago. I haven't thought about it for many years, not until very recently." She remembers a young woman in tears, a car taking her baby away. Not until we live in a very different world.
There is no car in this room, but a baby is lost, being hauled further and further away from her mother, crying silently like a lady should.
She could probably go on, tell her everything. Tell the story of a young woman, so loved, so cherished, whose one mistake brought so much misery upon those who cared for her; the story of a baby never born; the story of lives affected and hearts broken. The one story she'd kept hidden from everyone, perhaps even from herself for most of the time.
She could, yes, but she knows she shouldn't. After all, she said it herself: this is not about her.
And so, she says nothing, but tightens her fingers and pulls gently, one hand coming up to brush against a lock of dark hair that has come loose from a braid. She says nothing, except for what her body conveys. I am weeping myself. With you. I cannot begin to comprehend your pain, but I will do my best to ease your way through it.
Because we both care. Because we are both mothers, one way or another.
Because we have both loved and lost.
Time passes, and everything stays still. Her fingers move almost against her will, stroking, soothing, smoothing across hair and skin and silk, and a half-dried path made by pain and guilt. It's not your fault. It isn't anyone's fault, but you shouldn't feel bad for being angry. I know I am. Angry and helpless and so, so small in the face of it all.
Time passes, and it doesn't become any easier. She knows it never will—but it will become bearable, less distinct, over the weeks and months and years. There will be sights, sounds or smells that shall never again make any of them smile, the things associated with the darling child that is no more, the moments when memories shall whip across all their hearts and tear through the barely healed scars again.
But there is yet the wee girl in the next room, so fragile and innocent, so in need of love.
She has never had that comfort. She hopes Cora recognizes it as such.
And she knows Cora will be alright, in the end. She's stronger than all this; the lady of this house, the wife and mother: and now, a grandmother, too, although she probably hasn't had the time to wrap her mind around that fact yet. She will be alright, despite the gash spreading across her heart. She will walk through the fire. She will survive.
Her fingers slip away from the no longer trembling shoulders, skim across the crown of Cora's dark, troubled head one final time. She takes a step back, and another, giving her lady the space she needs, stepping away into shadows. She did what she could. The moment is gone. The only thing left is the silence.
The only thing left to do is to mourn.
"Mrs. Hughes."
"Your ladyship?" The formality is back, as it should be. (Yet she will never regret being here, with her, the way she has.)
"You should get some sleep. We will need you tomorrow." I will need you, is what Lady Grantham doesn't say, but she can hear it nonetheless.
"And you, my lady."
She closes the door.
The End