Elsie watched the sun set and the darkness gradually engulf the room as twilight took the place of the afternoon. The sound of crickets in the bushes was absent, a very unusual thing to happen and silence reigned over the atmosphere that was usually bustling with the various voices of a day coming to its end. Whether it was the sudden silence in her heart or whether silence had really invaded the cheerful area, Elsie couldn't tell but she felt the emptiness that haunted within her and the spot in her heart where a place was cut out forever.
She remembered the day she received the letter, two days back. A letter she dreaded all her life. Becky's death. Elsie always knew that the younger woman had a lesser life expectancy. The doctors had assured her of it. Her condition presented a possible failure of the heart which made itself more clear and evident as the years of the sweet yet childish woman grew. She was fifty two years of age. Elsie knew the day would come but she never imagined what effect it would have on her. She gave her life for her sister. Sacrificed the enticing prospect of having a family of her own. Of bearing children that she could watch grow up, because of her sister. It was never out of a sense of duty but out of love. Elsie couldn't bear to picture her innocent and cheerful sister in a cold, grey institution behind closed walls. She couldn't bear to see the light in the younger woman's "different" face die into a smoke of loneliness and sorrow. It was because of her that Elsie sold her parents' farm, sent her sister to a friendly care home, packed her bags and left for England.
Elsie remembered her long journeys in trains, watching the landscape change gradually as she descended from the highlands of Scotland to the much different England. The terrible moment of saying good bye to her dear sister. She remembered how she cried on her first day of work as housemaid, so quietly that her colleague in the adjoining bed would not hear. She remembered how she rose rapidly to position of head housemaid and then housekeeper. She was glad of her promotions for then she knew that she had enough finances to support her sister without much worry.
Every month on the 15th a letter from Lytham St. Annes arrived for Mrs Elsie Hughes at Downton Abbey and from the moment the letter was placed in front of her at the servant's hall, most often at breakfast, she turned into a different person. She would often be worried or frustrated. Many a maid would have their heads blown off as she unleash her Scottish temper much without her notice. Mr Carson would wear a timid face as he tried not to get in her way, never succeeding of course, and Mrs Patmore decorating her face with a highly surprised expression. What surprised her was not the tirade of highland temper. It was typical to Elsie Hughes, but how suddenly it came and always at the same time of the month. Had Elsie been younger, the inquisitive Cook would have discarded it as a sort of female situational mood swings but without that prospect open, she could only guess.
Many an evening she would spend crying in her sitting room, silently as always. Wondering how to pay off the surcharge for late payments. The final date for the payment was the 15th and Elsie got her salary on the 20th. A gap of five days always got the better of her. She walked around the house like the very icon of stability and composure, her head held high, her lips pursed and her chatelaine swinging slightly at her graceful step. But inside, she was a hurricane of emotions, whirling around in her mind and exploding in her heat. She remembered the many years that passed by and how she struggled to tell Charles about Becky. By then, Elsie had expected her fate. She could never retire. She had to work as long as she was allowed to by anyone. She didn't even try to wonder for how many more years the Grantham's would employ her. But the days beyond it remained unclear for her. She had her options open. She would move away from Downton and find another job. Any job. There would hopefully be a pension from the Estate and that would be it. She only hope that Becky would die first, utterly out of devotion ad never out of ill will. For she knew that if she died first, life would be good as over for Becky too.
That was one of the reasons she walked the corridors in a daze during the days of her cancer scare. She couldn't figure out anything. She remember she told Mrs Patmore about the expense that would be entailed if she really had cancer. The well-meaning Cook whipped up her humour, even though being quite dry, to cheer her on. But by then the kind hearted Cook didn't know that Elsie had calculations flying around her mind. Wondering how she could pay for both her medical expenses and also for her sister. She didn't even try to imagine what it would be like for Becky, if had been true, if cancer took her. Every time it surfaced she pushed it away.
She felt so guilty when she told Charles about Becky. They were colleagues for twenty years and with all what she knew about Alice Neal and Charles' past, she felt ashamed for not letting it out to him. But when she finally did, she felt a heavy weight slide off her chest. But soon as it was gone, a heavier weight filled her heart. Of whether this would change and alter things between them irreversibly. But for once, fate decided to be kind to her.
She shattered completely when she opened the letter. She fell on her knees in the middle of the kitchen, crying loudly. So unlike the usual Elsie who always bottled up her emotions. She felt Charles' arms engulf her from behind and gently lift her up to her feet, making her lean against the kitchen table. She cried into his chest for hours that she didn't care to count. She had lost her own flesh and blood, her only family. Her dear little sister who would go chattering in her simple language about butterflies and flowers was silenced forever. Her voice shall never again vibrate from her lips and ring in Elsie's ears. Suddenly she felt alone, despite the strong arms of her loving husband wrapped around her.
She didn't remember most of the train journeys to and from Lytham St. Annes. Only Charles holding her close to him, so tightly. The funeral service was simple with very few people. And Becky was buried, far away from the cold hills that they cold home. Far away for the mountains and the fields. But among the grasses that spoke of the sea. Very different. Much like her. Coming back home, Elsie felt absolutely numb. Charles left her to her thoughts, realising that she needed space.
Ever since then, she watched out of the window, watching the sun go down. Contemplating on her sister and on her own life. How she went on from being a wild haired farm girl, to a scurrying maid and a confident housekeeper. Then finally her dream, a loving wife.
The half light and half darkness of twilight was slowly sliding off the sky and the gentle shades of darkness subtly descended bathing the room. But light refused to be defeated so easily. Through what remained of the light of the day, she watched across the room to watch Charles, snoring softly, comfortably on the arm chair. Despite her few tears she couldn't but help smile at this sight that greeted her from across the room. Life was not especially kind to the two sisters. One a cheerful and always happy sweet soul who never knew life to its fullest. The other a serious eyed, calculating and careful woman with a heart that could love beyond boundaries hidden beneath her. But they both got their own kinds of happiness. The first lived a much better life than what destiny had planned for her. Happiness knocked the second on the door, twenty years late yes, but finally.
Her eyes still lingered on the half silhouetted form of her sleeping husband. She never believed in fate or destiny. Because she always changed it. She refused to let fate hold the pen to write the story of her life for her. There was still more to it, she thought, and she knew within her heart that her hard earned happiness could indeed last forever.
With that final thought, at the end of what was an era, Elsie Carson got up from her seat and walked through the darkness to her husband. She would wake him and begin a fresh page in an entirely different chapter in her life.
And as always, she was ever ready to challenge fate.