The Confession

It was another moonlit night, one where the air was so clear and the sky so vast it almost hurt your senses to take it in. Deep inside the house, Carson twisted the small key in the lock of one of the silverware cupboards, as he always did, then pulled it out and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. Normally he would have turned and walked automatically to his next stop - the wine cellar - to do a nightly inventory of the claret, whites, port and dozens of other bottles. But something held him in place. Like the weight of some invisible hand on his broad shoulder, holding him in contemplation.

He was resting the tops of his fingers on the edges of the lower cupboard, his wrists hanging down below them limply. He stared at the lock, noticed the rust around the edges along the wood. In all the cleaning he and the others of the house did, the scrubbing and picking microscopic dry muck out of every corner, they could never get everything. Especially rust. That was inevitable. Things aged. He was ageing.

He'd been seeing reminders of his years for the last few days, in the dates on the wine bottles he was asked to bring up, in eavesdropping on the footmen and finding out the newest recruit was a tender 22, and in looking into his perfectly polished mirror every morning. The same old face staring back, wizened and old. Was he wiser than he had been when he was 22? Carson couldn't say for sure. He could assume the authority of a wiser being in practice, but in his snatches of quiet meditation, usually in the evening, he saw the uncomfortable truth. He had missed out. He'd made mistakes.

It had never bothered him before, these minuscule confrontations with himself. They were easily brushed aside in favor of his daily routine and responsibilities. Recently, though, the searing truth of his regret was getting to him. And strangely, a growing part of him was glad to stop ignoring it. This part of him knew he could act. The mirror might show an old man, he would think, but I'm alive. I'm still alive.

"Penny for your thoughts, Mr Carson?"

The familiar voice startled him out of his reverie. He looked up and gave a short, curt smile. Mrs. Hughes. The woman who had been occupying his thoughts these last few days. It was only now that he was realising how much he thought of her. He had nearly lost her once, and even then taken for granted that she would be here till the end of her days. That cancer scare. He pushed the memory away.

"Oh it's nothing of any importance," he said, looking down at his black shoes and the tiled floor, then back up at her. He took a breath and straightened his back. "Finished for the night?"

"Just about," she answered. She took a step towards him, relaxing into the easy conversation of their responsibilities. "I've asked Kathleen to clean out the store cupboard since it's been a few weeks. I think it'll give us a chance to finally do a proper inventory of the new canned goods we've started getting in."

"I do wonder about those canned vegetables," Carson said.

"I know!" she said, raising her eyebrows. "Mr. Fenwick says they're just as fresh as any of the produce you'd get at the market, but I'll be the first to say they don't taste like it." She sighed. "Ah well. We'll give it a try anyway. It's good to be able to stock up."

"Nice to have things that don't go old," said Carson, looking at the floor. He let the statement linger.

"Yes," Mrs. Hughes replied politely. Then she cocked her head. "You don't like things getting old?" She smiled at him. It was a common encouraging expression she made, half in jest, half expectant for more details.

"Huh!" Carson said, not surprised she'd caught the double entendre. "Who does."

"No one, I suppose." She shrugged. She wouldn't get any more out of him on the subject. She rarely did. "Well, I suppose I'll head up to bed."

He nodded.

"Good night Mr. Carson." She turned and started to walk away.

Say something for God's sake. A rush of electricity hit Carson like bricks, a motivation unlike any he'd felt before. Was this him? Was it something else? Something was telling him to speak up. Now.

"Mrs. Hughes?"

She stopped and turned to face him.

"Yes?"

"I uh… are you feeling particularly tired at the moment?"

She looked surprised.

"Well, I …."

"Because I was wondering…"

She raised her eyebrows again, and turned her head.

".. Well it's just that I was thinking of taking a walk in the gardens. Full moon is out, so it's well lit, and quite warm. Thought I'd get some fresh air. Would you care to… join me?" He said the last two words, "join me," more quietly than the rest, as if under his breath. But by golly did she hear them.

She looked at him and thought for a moment. Then she answered.

"Well it's late, but I suppose some fresh air would be nice. I could do with a bit of air."

They stood there, awkwardly.

"Good!" said Carson. "Let's go out the back then."

"I've got a key," said Mrs. Hughes.

"Splendid."

They walked down the corridor, Carson first with Mrs. Hughes following behind. They had walked together countless times before. On the way to a town event with the household, around the house to discuss matters of service, and talked together in the gardens when there was a gathering. And nearly every night they sat and talked in either of their allotted sitting rooms, nursing small glasses of port or red wine before heading off to bed. But it was rare for them to go out of the house for the sole purpose of talking to one another, and it had never happened at night.

Carson needed to be out of the house to say what he needed to say. He needed to not have the burden of the walls, the notebooks, the keys, and the cleaning rags stacked around him. He wanted fresh air, sky and trees. The gentle breeze on his face and soft scent of roses. Things aged. He was ageing.

But I'm still alive.

He lifted the latch on the heavy wooden door and pushed it open, then ducked as he made his way out. He held the door open for Mrs. Hughes and she closed it behind her. The sky was heavy with stars, thousands of pinpricks of light splashed across the sky, framing a fluorescent moon. It was breathtaking. Most nights weren't this clear, certainly not in grey Yorkshire. The pulsing cheep of crickets filled the air around them, and was joined by the sound of crunching gravel as they walked along the path. They said nothing to one another for a while. They were comfortable enough in each other's company to feel they didn't need to fill the moments of silence between them. Fifteen years of working closely together, watching people die during a world war, firing people, arguments, a cancer scare, will do that to you. They walked about half a foot apart, Mrs Hughes holding her hands in front of her waist as she often did, her iron keys jangling rhythmically with each step. Carson kept his hands behind his back.

"It's lovely out here tonight," Mrs. Hughes said softly.

"Yes it is." Carson looked up at the sky. "Quite impressive."

Mrs. Hughes felt the compulsion to ask him again, about his thoughts. If he was alright. Most quiet and introverted people kept a wall around them. Mr. Carson had a fortress. She knew she had to be sensitive. She'd learned that much over all these years. Sometimes it was fine to pry. Other times it would get her nowhere. It was never that she would get him visibly upset him with her questions, but she frequently met dead ends. "Still waters run deep," her father used to say. That was in reference to her mother, who was like Carson in a way. Quiet, devoted to tradition, loyal. And an enigma. Her father had loved her mother, a serious woman. Mrs. Hughes never felt she had ever truly understood her mother, but she suspected her father had. She wanted to ask Carson about what was troubling him, and what had been troubling him for what seemed like the last few weeks. But she knew to say nothing. It was important to let him speak first.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. Their footsteps on the gravel gave tempo to the pulsing sounds of the garden around them - the crickets, a light wind, the evening song of a few birds.

Then, finally, Carson spoke again.

"I've been... a bit troubled recently."

Mrs. Hughes looked up at him, then down at the ground. "Oh?"

"Yes."

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

"Do you know why?"

"I think I do. I am, essentially, bothered by the fact that I'm getting older. I suppose that's natural. I AM getting older."

"You're not the only one," she quipped.

He looked at her for the first time. "Thank you, Mrs. Hughes. But you never seem older to me."

She gave out a short laugh and rolled her eyes. "That's kind of you to say, but I know what I see when I look in the mirror each morning. Every year it all looks a little worse for wear."

"Don't say that."

"I know. I shouldn't. I'm grateful that I have my health. We've both got a lot to be grateful for."

"Yes. You're right."

"We're here in Downton. We've got good jobs, descent enough employers. The staff aren't always Grade A material but we do our best with what we've got."

"Indeed."

"And you and I make a good team."

"I can't deny that," said Carson.

Mrs Hughes felt some satisfaction at having livened Carson's mood over the prospect of getting old. That's one way that she knew she helped the staff: lift their spirits, remind them of what they had that was good in life. Sometimes she needed reminding too of course. But even then, she knew that something had been missing all this time. She wondered. Does Mr. Carson ever-? No, he couldn't. She couldn't bear to let herself contemplate the possibility, even for a moment. There was potential for great pain if she ever went there.

"I just wonder, how long this will all continue," he said.

"Working at Downton?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's hard to say. Perhaps another ten, maybe twenty years at most. At least for you and me."

"I can't imagine staying here for longer than another five years," said Carson.

Mrs. Hughes looked surprised. She half imagined he would take his dying breath in Downton, but now he seemed to suggest he wanted to leave.

"I'd have thought you'd want to be in Downton for longer than that," she said.

"I thought that for a long time too. Recently I've been thinking about it differently. But …"

"What?"

"Well this is the part that's difficult to say."

"Oh. Well. Take your time."

"No, no. I can say it. It's, uh… "

He paused. For a few seconds his mind went blank. What had he meant to say? Carson kicked himself. The farce of old age. Then it came back to him like a flash of light. The words he'd been churning over and over in his mind these past weeks.

"I've realized that I could, believe it or not, live without Downton Abbey. I could live without service and the salary and the family upstairs, and I could live without the liveries, the routine and even the great honour of being in service. But when I look ahead, to my getting older still, to leaving this place and moving on with life. Well. There is one thing that I cannot imagine living without." He paused.

"What's that?" Mrs. Hughes asked, looking up at him.

Carson stopped walking, and so did she. He looked down and saw the moonlight illuminate her face, casting away her wrinkles and the dark shading under her tired eyes, making her look 20 years younger, but no less beautiful than she always did.

"You."

That word. It punctuated the air around them. All those weeks of thinking, grappling, the years of ignoring his feelings, had finally been brought to a head with one, simple word. He looked into her eyes, sparkling in the light. They grew wide.

"What?" She looked startled, almost ashen. Her mouth fell open.

Carson's heart pounded.

"I know I'm old. Past my best years. I'm not much of anything, really -"

"Oh Mr. Carson, don't," she said.

"No, it's true. I've made mistakes in my life. I've let it… pass me by." He looked down at her hands, still holding one another at her navel, and more tightly than ever. She lowered her eyes to his chest, saw him lift up one of his large hands to rest it on her hands, followed by the other. His touch felt electric, and warm. This was much more than just a friendly pat. She slid her hands into his own, accepting the gesture and grasping it back. She didn't have to say anything. She didn't know what to say.

He looked down at their hands, intertwined, holding each other fiercely. Could this mean…?

"I've never told you, how I felt," he said.

She couldn't bear to look into his face. She bit her lip, stunned by what she was hearing.

"But all these years, I've cared about you a great deal. More than anything else here at Downton. More than the work and the duties. I thought it was a partnership at first. But now I know it was more than that or even friendship, for me at least. Mrs. Hughes, you're the person I want to grow old with." He chuckled lightly to himself, and she looked up. They locked eyes. "I know I'm old already. But…" He whispered it again. "You're the person I want to grow old with. That's what I know now."

"Mr. Carson," she said, whispering back. "Oh, Mr. Carson." She looked down at his hands, large and strong, grasping her own. She rubbed her hand over his. All these years of civil relations, and now they seemed to hold each other so tightly, as if their fingers were making up for the drought of contact. "I've wanted that too. I didn't know how to say it."

She released a hand to wipe her eyes, and sniffed. "And there I was thinking you kept everything wrapped up so tightly inside. You're far better than me at saying what you feel."

"Do you feel the same way?" he asked, hopefully.

She smiled and sniffed again. "Well what do you think?"

He looked at her.

"Yes. I do. I…"

The sound of the crickets had all but disappeared. Even the moon seemed like it was just another distant star, struggling to reach them with its pinprick of light. They were far away, in another realm. He reached up and grazed her cheek with his fingers, pushed a stray hair back over her ear. She closed her eyes, letting the feeling wash over her like a dream. Carson leaned forward, his cheeks flush, his eyes slowly closing too. He was entering the dream with her. For a split second he was looking at the keyhole from the silverware cupboard again, except this time, the rust was slowly disappearing. No, now it was gone. It was polished clean, and beautiful.

He pressed his lips against hers and felt the air, the garden and the sky envelope them. There was nothing else around, only them. They stayed like that for a few moments, for what seemed like a lifetime. Then they both pulled away, slowly, opened their eyes and looked at one another. An older man looking at an older woman, yet suddenly decades younger.

"I love you," she whispered.

He kissed her again.