Oneshot. Spoilers for S2E6.
He had said he would stay until an adequate replacement was found. She would like to know if she would be allowed to determine precisely what an adequate replacement for him would be; because then, she suspected, he would have to stay forever.
She knew he was leaving to look after Lady Mary; nothing in the promise of a higher salary or more comfortable quarters held any sway over him; he was too noble for that by far. Even before this, Elsie would have sworn on her life that Lady Mary could look after herself well enough. What she was loathe to admit was that, based on recent evidence, she was beginning to doubt whether or not she, Elsie, could look after herself. Without him.
And the funny thing was that these days she spent most of her time in between walloping him and kissing him. When he calmly and resolutely talked her into telling her Ladyship about Ethel; when now, he had marched in here proud as anything and told her- just as calmly- that he'd been offered a job. At first she'd thought he must be pulling her leg, but Charles was not the type to joke about this sort of thing. Or indeed about much. His laughter was a rare thing, she realised in these shocked moments when the world seemed hysterically to be spinning around her. She did not know what to say, apart from hasty blurted-out contradictions, so she remained tongue-tied and half listening to him.
When he'd left her alone in her pantry, alone with the great echoing that was her head, she calmly took up the chair by the table, resting her wrist upon it, and waited for the outcry of emotions to wash over her.
First, she was angry. How dare he leave her? How dare he? She had stayed for him, when she'd had a proposal of marriage, never mind an offer of a silly little job with Lady Mary- she thought the wretched girl's name with even more contempt than usual. It was abundantly clear to her now that it had been him she'd stayed for, of course it had. How could he walk away from her this easily?
But perhaps it wasn't easy for him. No, it almost certainly wasn't, and she felt the requisite swoop of pity for him and for the impossible position he had been put in. He loved Downton Abbey. He loved Downton Abbey, if not her. If not her as she loved him.
There was a terrible rawness in her throat all of a sudden, left with the unguarded fact. She loved him, and she hadn't told him, and now he was going to leave her. She doubted very much if she could change his mind, he did not like to go back on his word; even if he hadn't given Sir Richard a reply, she knew that the fact that Charles hadn't flatly refused him was well nigh a binding contract in the ridiculous, sweet man's eyes. Goodness, she hated how wonderful he was.
It was half in her mind to get up, pursue him down the hall, take his hand and reach- well, probably jump- up and kiss him, not caring who saw, so long as it persuaded him to stay with her. She sat there still for a few moments, aware of exactly how her arms and legs would need to move to do just that.
But she didn't. She stayed exactly where she was, head bowed, tears on her cheeks, wrist resting on the table beside her.
End.