A/N: This fic was written for brenna-louise, for reasons I suspect she will understand. Bits of it are a couple of months old and I had thought they were going to turn into another piece, but they never did and now I'm so very glad because they worked ever so well into this one.
Many thanks to meetmeinstlouie for allowing me to borrow a beloved line of hers ("He loves being married") from All The Difference. And to ChelsieSouloftheAbbey for graciously agreeing to let me borrow the notion of Charles reading A Visit from St. Nicholas.
Thank you, lovely readers, for your support. Hope you enjoy and please drop me a line or two by way of review!
xx,
~ejb~
Theirs will never be a marriage of fifty years. They will most certainly see their tenth wedding anniversary, with a fair chance of making it to their fifteenth and perhaps, if God smiles upon them, even to their twentieth. But no matter how many are the years left to them they will, in fact, have spent a lifetime side by side.
They do not have the blissful naïveté of youth on their side. They have not been, as was her dream from the time she was but a wee slip of a girl, married for the better part of their lives.
And yet, in a sense they have, for she has watched him move from youthful swagger and a footman's livery to seasoned, smooth, practiced ease in the uniform of the butler. He has seen the once-sleek lines of her girlish figure soften and round out with the oncoming years, the deep auburn of her hair become interwoven with streaks of a lovely silver-white. He's watched her grow from tentative and timid to quietly assured, commanding when called for and gracious under fire. In the scope of their lives she has not long been his in name or by law, but he has owned her heart almost from the outset.
They did not come together during the years when a family would have been a possibility for them. The subject has come up, naturally, over the course of their time together, though more as an acknowledgement of fact than anything else. For her there was a fleeting sense of something akin to mourning that settled in just a few months after the wedding, but it was not deep and it did not last long. She felt the loss of opportunity like a child feels the loss of a tooth - it signifies a parting of ways with something long familiar. But just as the child quickly comes to anticipate with great excitement the maturity associated with growth, so she concluded with a kind of giddy elation that far from indicating that their marriage lacked anything, it meant they were free to devote themselves wholly to one another, their affections undivided.
From his vantage point it had been enough to watch the young Ladies grow, to scoop them up after the occasional spill, to bandage the odd skinned knee, to play Father Christmas and read A Visit from St. Nicholas to them. Enough to hold their children in the final years of his tenure, to dry baby Sybbie's tears and to ruffle Master George's hair when the boy and his mother would venture below stairs to visit him in his pantry. And he'd felt enough like a father to some of the footmen and hallboys and valets over the years - to William and Alfred and even Thomas Barrow - to satisfy his paternal curiosities. He had observed Elsie's influence upon the lives of the young maids, particularly Anna, with a kind of hushed reverence. She needn't have borne children to lead her girls with a firm but gentle hand, a careful balance of care and discipline. And she needn't have borne children to carry the weight of their burdens - those of Miss Baxter, and of Ethel Parks (he did not miss the sadness about her in the days after the young maid-turned-prostitute gave up her little son) and, once more, especially of Anna - like a mother carries her children forever in her heart, loving them in spite of choice or circumstance. How he wished - still wishes - he could have gone to her then, and held her close and let her cry until the tears ran dry. He berates himself at times. If he's done so for Lady Mary - on more than the odd occasion - how much more should he have offered his shoulder to her?
But it all is of no consequence, not any longer.
He is a husband now. He has a wife. He, who was married for so long to the Abbey, to the Granthams, to serving them with dignity, polish and gentility, is now wedded to the woman he worked alongside for decades. More than that, he is retired. If he had been told two years ago that he would find himself in this position, his heart would likely have stopped! He had always sworn most insistently that he'd die in harness and yet somehow, in the moment of truth, there had been no question in his mind that retirement was the natural progression for him, and shortly thereafter for her as well. For them.
He has a wife, and they have a home. He and she together. Evenings that had long been spent alone, in a narrow single bed far too small for his frame and with but the poor company of the day's paper, now are filled with the melodious voice of his wife singing softly as she does the washing up, and her presence beside him on the settee as she ducks under his arm, snuggling into his side.
He loves being married. Loves it. He hadn't even been aware of all that his life was lacking until he opened his heart and his arms to her. She is his perfect complement, the other half of his soul, lighthearted where he is somber. She is soft curves to his sharp edges and sweetness when he is dour. When he is with her, she brings forth a lightness from deep within him that he wasn't aware he possessed. He looks to the future with optimism and expectancy that he'd never been able to see before he glimpsed it through her eyes.
oOoOoOo
And on this particular evening after supper, after the dishes are washed and put away, he indulges his desire to be near her simply because he can. As she folds the dish towel he steps up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and brushing his lips against the impossibly soft skin just behind her ear.
"Sing to me, Els," he says, his voice husky. "Something we can dance to." Surprised by his request she turns in his arms, and his eyes when she looks into them are so full of love - with just a hint of vulnerability, as if he actually thinks she might refuse him - that a lump forms in her throat.
She presses the tip of her index finger to the cleft of his chin, swiftly following her touch with a brush of her lips against the same spot. "Dear man," she says softly, returning his loving gaze with one of her own. "Of course I will."
They move into position as she thinks, closing her eyes against the sensation as his palm comes to rest in the small of her back. His free hand encloses hers and he brings both their hands to rest on his chest, her palm covering his heart.
She smiles up at him. "I know just the tune. Da would sing it to Becky and me when we were just wee lasses."
"Traipsing about the heather," he teases with a slightly crooked grin, the one that makes her knees go weak.
"Try mucking out the cow barn and carrying pails full of milk," she replies, stretching up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "Not a great deal of time for traipsing. But in the evenings, after the livestock were put up and supper was over, Da would set us in his lap, Becky on one knee and I on the other, and sing to us until our eyelids were heavy."
He treasures these moments, when she offers glimpses of the girl she was. He imagines her running through the pastures, her wild hair streaming behind her, or carried aloft on the shoulders of her da, squealing with laughter, both of them with eyes atwinkle. She has her father's eyes.
She begins to sing, and he closes his eyes for fear she'll see the tears that gather in the corners of them.
Flow gently, sweet Afton, amang thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise.
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds thro' the glen,
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,
Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear,
I charge you, disturb not my slumbering fair.
Her voice, rich and clear, rings of ancient waters and balmy evenings and living with both feet planted firmly in the present. He supposes that's what she does for him: gives purpose to his lifetime of solitude in the service of others. Those years had to be in order to bring he and she to this moment. He understands it all now, here, with her soft form pressed against his chest, her sweet breath on his neck.
A lifetime of solitude in the service of others, and now life is this. Moving together, two into one, as they dance in the kitchen by the light of the oil lamp. He bows his head, resting his forehead against hers. Her hand that was holding his comes up to trace the contours of his face. A day's worth of stubble feels rough against the pads of her fingers and he leans into her touch as she continues to sing and he guides them, lazily now, the pretense of dancing all but forgotten.
How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,
Far mark'd with the courses of clear winding rills;
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft, as mild Ev'ning sweeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.
There is more to the song, but as his head drops into the crook of her neck and he begins to nip at her the words fall by the wayside. She feels the way the fingers of his left hand trace the length of her spine while his right drifts to her hip, his thumb beginning to draw circles there absently. She weaves her fingers into his hair and now she understands. It is right now; it is fitting that she had to watch from a distance with a wall around her heart all those years, wondering and longing for moments like this. He smells of soap and aftershave, and with her head pressed against his chest she can hear his heart begin to beat faster when she moans in response to the feeling of him sucking at the hollow at the base of her throat. Time has no meaning and years fall away as she melts into him.
He'd come badly off a horse once, at the age of nine, whiling away an afternoon at the stables alongside his father. His collarbone was broken, the healing process long and painful, and he has had a fear of falling every day hence. And perhaps that was part of the reason it took him such a long time to acquiesce to his feelings for her. Falling is by its very nature the loss of control after all, and where control is forfeited, dignity is soon to follow.
He cups her chin in his hand, tilting her face upward until their eyes meet, and he realizes he'd got it wrong all those years, that this is falling - his heart into her heart, his dignity into her hands, their bodies one into the other - and there is nothing at all to fear. Control is given freely between them, relinquished; shared. Their identities are subsumed by one another, he into her and she into him until a resulting entity, they, emerges. One day he and she will return to the earth, to the dust from which they were formed, but they will remain, for theirs is a love that reaches back in time, into all that they were before they met; to generations before them ... and forward as well, to days when bodies will fail; when hair now sprinkled with silver will turn white as snow and minds once sharp become shrouded.
His lips finally meet hers and she sighs into his mouth, exhaling a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She hums, a happy little sound in the back of her throat. She hums when I kiss her. She hums … heaven help me. Her lips open under his and he deepens the kiss, and it is his turn now to wax poetic.
'Thy lips, O my bride, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.'
He wonders idly as he draws her bottom lip between both of his whether the fragrance of Lebanon could possibly have smelt as sweet as she. Hers is the scent of lavender and clean linen; of blue sky, he is certain.
Blue. That hue figures into so many of his thoughts about her, he realizes with a smirk as he begins to work open the buttons at her throat, fingering the powder-blue fabric.
She can feel the quirk of his lips against her own. "Penny for them," she says, stepping back to take him in. She doubts she will ever tire of the sight of him in shirtsleeves, particularly when, as today, the shirt is white and the sleeves rolled to the elbows.
"Have I mentioned that this blouse is my favorite out of all the ones you wear? Makes your eyes even bluer."
She smiles, nipping at his lips once more before she answers. "Aye, that you have. More than once, in fact."
"Mmm," he rumbles by way of reply, his lips and teeth working their way over the column of her throat, traveling south, the tip of his tongue outlining the hollows of her collarbones.
She gasps sharply. "Charles … bed."
He steps back from her and takes her hand, and as she watches his appraisal she is caught short of breath. Oh yes. The years spent waiting have proven worth the while in a single glance.
He leads her up the stairs. Clothing is shed swiftly, exposed skin mapped with hungry mouths and deliberate fingers.
She pushes him back, rises over him, bridges the final gap between them.
"Elsie, love," he breathes, grasping her hands, twining their fingers.
"I know, a gràidh," she murmurs, lowering her mouth to his. She does, and she tells him without words in the scrape of her teeth, the arch of her neck and the writhe of her hips. He is spellbound, completely at her mercy, powerless to do anything but watch her move above him until he is certain he will shatter if he does not slow her down.
In one swift motion he overturns her and she yelps as she finds herself suddenly beneath him. "Easy, love," he soothes, dropping his head to lap at the base of her throat.
"Charlie, I need—" He cuts her off with a kiss. He knows, and he moves slowly, holding her hips, touching her just there. What a fool he was to dread retirement, when its greatest benefit has been in affording him the time with which to make a thorough study of her, head to toe, inside and out.
They break almost simultaneously, great heaving gasps of breath and clutching at one another. She pulls him down on her; he stays despite his concern over crushing her when she silences him with a kiss. It is only just gone eight, but they are in for the night, yet another luxury afforded them by time and circumstance.
Wanting to see her, he shifts them after a time. She pillows her head on his chest, kissing him there, over and over and when she stops it is because sleep has claimed her. He listens to her breathing, his heart thrilling when she sighs happily. He alternates wrapping her curls around his fingers and trailing said fingers up and down the length of her spine. He cannot stop touching her. He will never stop.
He thinks as he holds her in the dark, turning over in his mind the details that brought them together and coming to an important conclusion.
It seems that to so many people, happiness is contingent on love plus something: children, wealth, possessions, lavish holidays abroad. They have none of these, and they never will have. And yet they share a secret: there is no greater joy than that of he and she, of they two and the love they share alone together in their little cottage outside of the village. Where true love abides, its roots grow deep. It does not look to other sources for fulfillment, but reaches inside itself, thereby growing deeper still.
Sometimes, sometimes ... for the very lucky ones, love is enough.
oOoOoOo
She was his.
And he was hers.
And this was their world.
- Michael Grant
A/N: Couple of sources I need to cite:
*Elsie's song is Afton Water/Sweet Afton (I have seen it written both ways) by Robert Burns.
*"Thy lips, O my bride ..." is Song of Solomon 4:11 (ERV here; it's closest to what they'd have read at the time). There are a few among us who can't seem to resist the use of this particular book of the Bible in Chelsie fic. :)