Names

He hadn't come along to her sitting room this evening, which was a little odd. Over the past few years it had become a habit, something that occurred occasionally, and then frequently, to the point where she looked for him after dinner when the upstairs was all settled and the downstairs were having a last cup of tea or drifting off to their beds. It didn't happen every night that he turned up with sherry or a half bottle of wine, or sometimes even without anything but the desire for her company. But he came more often than not.

Things had been different since Christmas. With the change in their relationship came a change in expectations. Somehow what had merely been a habit became an imperative. They wanted to see each other, for a few minutes on their own, at the end of every day. In a working world where they saw each other all day but had no private moments to be the couple they now were, this time was almost vital. They needed it to immerse themselves in this new chapter of their lives as both together - with each other - and apart - from everyone else. Since Christmas, unless there was some irregular function upstairs that required the butler's presence, he had not missed one of these late evening trysts. She couldn't wait much longer. They had, as usual, a full day ahead of them tomorrow.

Well, something must have come up with the family and she couldn't begrudge his absence, if that were the case, because that was, after all, his job. Best to go off to bed and hope to catch up tomorrow. Still, she was a little wistful about it. She'd enjoyed his company for years, but now there was a different feeling to their after-hours sherry, a comfortable if rather benign intimacy that yet held the promise of greater things on the horizon. And the promise of a kiss as they parted at the stairs, if there was no one else around - his rule.

She turned off the light in her sitting room and closed the door. In the passage, she glanced automatically at his office as she walked by it, the door closed and...a thin ray of light emanating from the space along the bottom. She paused. If he were upstairs, there would be no reason for a light to be on in there. An impatient little sigh escaped her. It might be someone making a phone call, but they ought not to go in there without Mr. Carson's permission and she had certainly warned off one or two of them about making late-night calls - to anyone. No matter who was in there or why, she had to investigate, so she knocked abruptly and then turned the handle and walked in.

"Mr. Carson!"

There he was, behind his desk, leaning back in his chair, a glass of wine in his hand, the light she had seen coming from his reading lamp.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked, with no little surprise. Here she thought he'd been delayed by the family and he was only steps away from her in his own office.

He glanced over at her and then his gaze dropped to the glass in his hand and the swirling wine within it that seemed particularly fascinating. "Just having a quiet moment," he replied in a voice devoid of inflection.

There was nothing inherently wrong with what he was doing, but Mrs. Hughes was troubled by this whole picture. He seemed too quiet, too subdued. And why wasn't he looking at her? She moved into the room and closed the door behind her. "Is everything all right, Charlie?" she asked solicitously, approaching him slowly. No one else had mentioned any upset upstairs. And he had seemed fine at dinner. Well, perhaps a little restrained. But no one could be in high spirits all the time, and he tended toward a calmer disposition in the evening when all the tasks of the day had been completed.

He twitched at her words, but he didn't look up. "Everything is fine," he said tonelessly.

"What is it?" she asked, softening her voice and reaching over to put a comforting hand on his arm. For a moment it almost seemed that he might move it out of her reach, but he didn't, and she slid her fingers over his forearm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He seemed unnaturally stiff.

She didn't really know what to do. He was looking away again, across the room, but the expression on his face was a blank one. She put her head to one side, studying him, and after a long moment, he glanced at her, unable to ignore her attention. "It's nothing to trouble you with," he said, a little abruptly, and then his eyes moved off again. And then he put the glass down on the desk and stood up, dislodging her hand from his arm and edging away from her a little toward the other corner of his desk.

"It's late. You should probably be off to bed." He did not look at her as he said this.

She couldn't remember having seen him behave this way before and had no idea what had precipitated it, but leaving him to stew like this was not even a possibility. "I don't think so," she said firmly. "Not until I know what's on your mind."

He remained resolutely silent.

It was the most frustrating situation. "Charlie," she said, reaching out to him again. But this time he took a step away quite deliberately.

"Are you ... angry with me?" She quickly reviewed the day for overt transgressions and nothing leapt out at her.

"Why would I be angry with you?" Still he did not look at her, but there was something in the way he said this. It was as if ... as if there was an answer to that question and that she should know it.

She sighed. "What is it?" Impatience edged out the softness in her words.

And now he turned to her, his eyes smouldering as she had often seen them in the past few weeks, but it was not passion she saw there. It was ... what? She wanted to know, desperately, but...

"I'm afraid I don't read minds, Charlie Carson," she said, with more exasperation than perhaps she meant. "So if there's something troubling you, you'll have to spell it out for me."

It had been disturbing when he wouldn't meet her eyes, but now it was even more unsettling that he was staring at her so intensely. She'd become accustomed to seeing a fathomless love in those eyes, but it wasn't love that was whirling there now.

"I have asked you not to call me Charlie..."

"Oh, not the name thing again." She heaved a sigh and decided she wasn't going to stand around here and argue with him all night. She pulled over the second chair and sat.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked somewhat aggressively.

"Exactly what I said. Haven't we done this already?"

"May I finish?" he asked icily.

She bit her lip and jerked her head a little to indicate he should continue.

"I have asked that you not use that name, but you have chosen to do so anyway, and I accept that you and I view these things differently. You ... call me what you want to, and I continue to address you as I prefer to do so."

"Although that's not my preference," she put in, and then, at his glare, she subsided again.

"So neither of us is entirely happy. If it were only that, however, we could call it a draw and continue to coexist peacefully. But we are not operating on a level playing field."

With some effort, she restrained herself from rolling her eyes. "I didn't go to Eton, Mr. Carson, so you'll have to explain that to me, too." He hadn't gone to Eton either, but it seemed to her that some "old boys" truism about playing fair or something not being cricket was about to get hauled into the conversation, not that she could see the relevance.

He seemed to be having difficulty putting his concern into words. He shifted uneasily, looked away, flexed his hands, all signs of agitation. This bothered her. She didn't like to see him discomfited. But if he would only just spit it out. "For goodness sake, just say it!" she urged him.

His eyes came up swiftly to hers then and she saw a current of anger in them. "I don't like that you call me Charlie in public, but I don't complain about it," he said, and the studied neutrality of his tone had disappeared, replaced now by a rather more heated note. "Meanwhile, not only do you make a fuss over me addressing you formally, but you also have enlisted just about everyone else in the house in making fun of me when I do!" There. He'd said it. And, having done so, he stared defiantly at her. And she realized, almost peripherally, that the flash in his eyes was hurt. And she didn't like that at all.

"What do you mean you don't complain about it!" she exclaimed, her shock at his accusation putting her on the defensive. "You do complain about it, just not in words. What about all that eye rolling and those dark looks and glares? Don't tell me you don't communicate your feelings to everyone who's got eyes to see!" She crossed her arms and looked away, experiencing a surge of unfamiliar and unpleasant emotion.

"By addressing you as Mrs. Hughes, I am trying to maintain an atmosphere of professional decorum in our place of work. It is how things have been for years..." he raised his voice slightly over the contemptuous "Hmmpf!" that that remark elicited from her, "...and it has worked perfectly well as part of the effort to maintain the order and discipline that is a necessary part of domestic service. You violate that code by addressing me informally in formal situations and, more, by making it a matter of amusement for the staff that we differ on this, all of which diminishes the tone of this house and undermines my authority!" His eyes were round with anger now, but that other element, the jagged edge of hurt, was written all over his face.

They were both glaring at each other.

With a tremendous effort of will, he swallowed the impulse to say more. He broke eye contact with her, looking round the room, and inhaling deeply to restore some semblance of calm. Still not meeting her eyes, he said, in a quieter voice, "This is a matter of our public interactions only. I am not challenging you on what you call me in private."

She wasn't ready to back down. "You're still calling me Mrs. Hughes in private. When's that going to change?"

It almost set him off again. "That's not the issue here. It's ... not right, yet, for me to use your Christian name. When it is, I will."

This evoked a sigh of exasperation from her. "So until we've uttered the magical words I do, that's impossible for you? Do you think you'll turn into a frog if you do?"

"You're making fun of me again," he said crossly.

"Do you see me laughing?" she retorted. "You take yourself too seriously, Charlie. I think you should just relax about a few things."

"I think you should let me decide for myself how I want to feel about things."

Silence descended upon them and so did a physical stillness. Neither of them moved until, after a minute or so, he made a small impatient sound and went over to sit in his chair. They were closer together now, as she had pulled her chair up to the side of his desk. But he made sure to sit at right angles to her so that they were not looking at each other. And then the stillness returned.

He was still angry, as much at himself as with her. He wished she hadn't come and found him tonight. If he'd had longer to work on the irritation and ... hurt he'd felt earlier, as they sat down to dinner and he noticed, not for the first time, the hidden smiles and smirks of several of the staff when he called her Mrs. Hughes and she smiled collusively with them, ... then this confrontation would not have occurred. He might have been able to raise the subject with her in a more dispassionate way sometime tomorrow, or the day after or... No! Would he ever have been able to contain his ... hurt at her making merry at his expense? How could she treat him like that? He didn't know how to recover from this wound.

Mrs. Hughes had a fairly phlegmatic disposition. She did not often rise to provocation or permit her emotions to get the better of her. Had anyone else presented her with the sullen and sulky manner she had met in him tonight, she would have gotten to the bottom of it in straight order, coolly and without recriminations. But he got right under her skin in a way no one else ever had and she had completely lost her composure. The novelty of it was unsettling enough. Far worse was what had happened because she had done so. She had hurt him by letting herself be distracted by her emotions of surprise and guilt, and by ignoring the substance of his complaint in her haste to defend herself from the emotional framework in which he had made it. She had only meant to tease him into a more relaxed relationship, and had drawn the others in as allies in her cause when she failed in this quest on her own. She ought to have realized that there was a great difference between her playful pokes in one-on-one exchanges with him and her leading a combined assault by any combinations of the staff, or anyone else for that matter.

"I'm sorry."

She was startled. "What are you apologizing for? I'm the one at fault here."

He shook his head. "No. You're right. I take myself too seriously. I ought to loosen up a little." He spoke heavily, with resignation. She'd teased him before about his reluctance to operate in the modern world. Perhaps this was another element in the inexorable march to modernization.

The sight of his slumping shoulders, the whole air of dispiritedness enveloping him, pained her."Oh, ...," oh, what should she call him in this moment? "... Charlie. I'm sorry, but this really isn't a moment for Mr. Carson. Charlie, I'm sorry. And you're right. I have no business telling you what to do or how you should feel. And I was ... doing what you said, with the others, only I didn't think of it that way. I won't do it again." She reached out to him, wanting desperately to touch him, to wipe the hurt from his eyes, to smooth away the distress in his wounded countenance. But now she felt self-conscious about it and her hand hovered for a moment and then fell. The movement caught his eye and he turned to her.

"Look," he said, sounding very tired, "I don't want to go back to ... before. I enjoy this new level of ... intimacy, I suppose you'd call it." He held his hand out to her and she took it.

She got up then, and went to his side, sliding her hand along his neck and pulling his head against her. Anticipating some resistance to this display of affection, she was surprised, and then relieved when he leaned into her, and made a quiet sound of pleasure when she ran her hand through his hair.

"Well," she said softly. "We've never had an argument like that before."

"I don't ever want to have one again." His voice, spoken into her, was muffled.

Strange. They'd clashed a lot over the years over matters both great and small, and managed to negotiate a resolution, or at least a truce, without all this emotional turbulence. But things had changed over the past year or so. Mr. Carson had grown increasingly uneasy with any disharmony between them on even the smallest issue. And she, clearly, was growing less capable of maintaining her even temper when at odds with him. Was that the effect of love? How could something so wonderful have such an ill effect?

She patted his head. "I don't think that's the last difference of opinion we'll have, Charlie. But I agree with you, this isn't the way I want to resolve them." Now she put a hand under his arm and gently urged him to stand up. He withdrew from her reluctantly, but he did so. And then he was standing beside her, frowning a little, but far less tense than he had been only moments ago.

"We're going to have to re-learn how to express our differences," she said.

He wasn't pleased by this, hoping, perhaps, that they could just avoid conflict altogether. She knew that wasn't possible, and thought he did, too, even if he didn't want to think about it right now.

"There's one advantage to our new situation, Mr. Carson," she said, eliciting a reluctant smile from him at the formal address.

"What's that?" he asked sceptically.

She slid her hands along his chest and leaned up to kiss him. He hardly stirred except to move his lips against hers. When, after a long moment, they pulled back a little, she smiled at him.

"Making up is going to be a lot more enjoyable."