A/N: And here we have my attempt at a cottage fic. Of course there are a tonne of Series 5 spoilers here, so please tread carefully. The title comes from the rather aptly named poem Rent by Jane Cooper. Please enjoy.
Attending The Spaces Between
She spreads the papers out on her desk when she returns from speaking to Madge. There isn't many of them, a few descriptions and a picture or two. Still, it's only been a day and she's surprised Mr Carson found these few so quickly. It makes her smile a little to wonder if maybe he's been thinking of something like this for longer than he let on.
Of course, it's more likely that Mrs Patmore gave him these; the properties she rejected.
He didn't say anything when he gave them to her this morning, other than to explain that they didn't have to pick from these at all, but that perhaps if she looked she might tell him what she liked and disliked about each and they would have something to work from for future searches. Unless they agree on one of them, of course.
She looks back down at them, the three properties all very different; a small cottage with a single bedroom upstairs and the benefit of a large sitting room and good size garden; a three room house, just up the way from the village school - a good choice if they were to rent out to families. And the last, one of the farm houses that was converted several years back into a guest house. It's a little more than the others, but with another small cottage (two bedrooms and smaller rooms but gardens that extend around to the fields) placed a step back behind it and included in the sale, the idea is to keep the guest house running indefinitely and make income from that even after they retire.
She sighs, settles herself in her chair. Picks up the guest house pictures, clipped together in a small stack. The house itself is lovely, reminds her of her childhood home, it's the sort of place she always expected to retire to, moving back to Scotland with May; her sister has been telling her for years that she has a place there on the farm.
She doesn't think they can afford that one, even with all of their savings combined. It's a wonderful thought though, although she isn't sure that she wants to work more after she retires. She'll keep it aside, let Anna and Mr Bates take a look at the details if Mr Carson agrees. It's just the place for a young couple, she thinks.
The other house, at the end of a pretty little row of them is perhaps more what they should have in mind. It will rent well, there's no doubt of that. It's in a good position and recently renovated with a new roof and indoor plumbing, which no doubt pleases Mr Carson. The thing of it is, she can't imagine retiring there. Can only see them selling it, when they finally leave service, splitting the rental and sale income and going their separate ways with it.
Which is perhaps what Mr Carson has planned for them anyway.
Still, it's the small cottage that has caught her fancy. Cosy, it needs some work but that's doable. There are plenty enough men they can get in and have the place set up in a month or two. And a cottage, close enough to the Abbey that she could visit and expect visitors but not so close that she'll be tripping over the family and staff every time she steps out the front door...it's the idea of such a cottage that has kept her from agreeing to May's offer. A small cottage and the person she - perhaps hopelessly, perhaps not - wishes to share it with.
She strokes a finger along the photograph. She doubts any of the pictures do the properties justice and she'll have to take a look at them in daylight with Mr Carson on their free afternoon at the end of the week, but...she can see herself there, them there, happy and content when neither of them wants to work any longer.
Of course if this truly is, as Mr Carson put it, a business venture then she'd be best to forget about thoughts like that. She can't purchase a property because of visions she sees that will never come to pass. It would hurt too much, she thinks, to reach retirement and have to sell that dream or worse, continue to allow others to live in it.
"Mrs Hughes, I wondered if I might have a word?" Mr Carson's voice at the door, the clearing of his throat first, makes her jump but she swings her chair around and waves a hand for him to enter.
He shuts the door behind him, tugs at his waistcoat. She's not sure if this is a new quirk he's developing or if it's just that he's been doing it in front of her more these days, but she does find the gesture rather endearing. As she does the small frown and pout he frequently follows it with.
He does so now and she feels her lips rise into a soft smile. "How can I help you, Mr Carson?"
"I was wondering if you've had a moment to look at the properties?"
"As a matter of fact, you're just in time. I'm looking at them now." She beckons him closer, turns back to her desk. He stops up behind her, close enough that when he leans over to point at the guest house, she thinks she can feel his warmth along her shoulders.
"What did you think of that one?"
"It's a lot to take on." She answers. If she leant back now, she would be pressed against his chest.
"I think we could manage it, Mrs Hughes." He quirks an eyebrow at her and she turns to face him.
"Ah, but do we want to? I always imagined retirement as a time to wind down, Mr Carson, to do the things we've not had time or chance for." She tips her head at the photographs. "Here we'd still be waiting on people in the guest house."
"So you have thought of retirement after all." She purses her lips at him, he knows full well she had been teasing him that day. "But it would be our house." He argues, although he looks rather pleased with her answer.
"I'm not sure that would make much difference, now."
He holds her eye for a moment longer, before looking back at the papers. "And the house nearby the school?"
She looks at it again, it really is the right sort for an investment she supposes. It makes good business sense. "I don't think we'd have trouble finding a tenant for it." She worries her lip.
"But?" He asks, she can feel his eyes on her again. She keeps hers on the little picture, shakes her head.
"No, there's nothing. It makes sense, really. If we're to find the highest return for our investment before we retire, a family property will provide us with that."
"And after we retire?" She does look at him then, he seems less pleased than she thought he would that she is thinking this through properly. Isn't it he who usually argues that she doesn't always consider decisions sensibly, the way she should?
"I suppose we could sell it, or continue to rent it out. Use the income to rent property of our own." She is talking herself into it, now. A business venture he said.
He reaches for the final property, the cottage and she notices that his shoulders have slumped, almost touching her now as he leans over. "Well then, you'll no doubt have thought this one too small to make us much, and you're right of course."
She is, there isn't much monetary value in a single bedroom cottage. That doesn't stop her from wanting it.
She catches his wrist before he can lift the details away, the picture with them. "Perhaps we should still see it?" He looks at her in surprise but she ignores him, brushes a finger across the little windows in the picture. The arch of ivy over the door. "The bedroom sounds quite large, perhaps it can be separated into two if a tenant can't be found?"
He still looks surprised, but she notices that his shoulders have uncurled a little.
"Yes. Perhaps you're right."
He leaves then, steps away and tells her he will make the arrangements for their half day. He thinks she is correct about the Guest House and so they won't bother with that one. She doesn't tell him about Anna and Mr Bates just then, but she will.
He takes the details with him but she keeps the photographs, props them up on her desk, the cottage at the front of the small stack.
It's whimsy driving her, sentimentality. She will reign that in before Thursday afternoon. She knows well enough how he dislikes that. Perhaps the house will grow on her when she sees it, walks around inside of it. Perhaps the cottage is cold and impersonal, there might be damp and poor lighting. It might look nothing like she imagines at all. That would certainly make it easier to stop thinking how close she is to that ideal future.
-e-c-
On Thursday she meets Mr Carson by the back door after lunch has been cleared away. She has left instructions with Madge on what rooms need airing out this afternoon and has told Anna as well just in case.
She has thought on it some more these last few days and she still feels as though her very being is fighting an unwinnable war amongst itself. Half of her remembers the years that she has known this man, and the rational well reasoned proposals he has brought to her during them, the times that he has pushed her away and kept a professional distance between them, even dismissed their friendship as being anything more than collegial. Cannot imagine that he can mean anything more with his suggestion than what he said; an investment.
The rest of her is the part that reached out for his hand in Brighton, that felt and remembers the slide of his palm against hers, the way his fingers curled around her own and squeezed tight, in full view of the others along the beach. That hears when he compliments her, when he tells her in his way that she is important to him, that she matters. That thinks this is another of his messages to her, hidden in proper language and terms that won't break the balance between them if she does not want what he's offering.
It's enough to send her mad, and in the few days she's had alone with the thoughts she thinks she might already be half there.
After all, already she is considering if the absence of an invitation for Mrs Patmore to join them means anything more than that Mr Carson does not honestly value the cook's opinion in this.
"I thought we might stop for tea after we've seen the properties."
"That would be lovely." She tells him, stepping through the door he holds open.
She imagines she feels his hand against her back for a second, but the feeling is fleeting and then he is walking beside her along the path, talking about the weather and how lucky they are that it has held today.
Quite, quite mad.
-e-c-
He has arranged for them to visit the house first and they collect the keys from Mr Elliott at the grocer's shop. There is no mention of Mrs Patmore having seen the property and Mr Carson seems well acquainted with the man. Perhaps he really has been thinking along these lines for a while.
The thought makes her smile even as they approach the house.
"So you like this one then?" He asks from her left, holding open the small gate at the edge of the front garden.
"I've not seen much of it yet " She says, stepping past him. She wonders at his tone, he sounds disappointed. Does he not want her to like this one? "This view of it's not all that different from the picture."
"You were smiling."
He unlocks the door and pushes it open, gestures for her to enter before him. She stops halfway through, places a gloved hand on his raised arm. "Perhaps I was just enjoying the afternoon, Mr Carson."
She carries on into the house, thinks she should probably begin paying attention now that they're here.
The rooms are a good size, serviceable. The kitchen is to the back with an arch doorway through to the sitting room.
Upstairs she takes in the three rooms, two of a good size and one that she suspects could be used for storage if not as a small child's room.
There isn't too much work to be done; perhaps a new layer of paint on the door frames, better wallpaper in a few if the rooms. It won't cost them much more than the purchase price and they could perhaps have a tenant by Christmas.
She takes a walk outside, looks across the gardens, she can see the school building from here.
When she returns to the sitting room, Mr Carson looks at her curiously. She knows she should say that it is perfect, that she should tell him they will make an offer - with his agreement of course.
Instead she nods her head at him, turns for the front door.
"Shall we see the cottage then?"
"Don't you want to discuss the house?" He asks, following on behind her.
She waits for him to lock the door. "I thought we might save that for a discussion of them both over tea?"
By then, when the cottage is out of her head, she might be able to bring herself to voice the things she should say.
He looks at her strangely, eyebrow raised but says simply. "If you wish, Mrs Hughes."
She smiles at him, resists the temptation to touch his arm again. Her heart flutters in her chest; on to the cottage then.
-e-c-
This was a bad idea. Of all of the terrible, ill thought out ideas she has had these last few years this is perhaps the worst yet.
Why she thought that she would be able to walk into this cottage, with Mr Carson beside her no less, and then walk out again unaffected she doesn't know. Only knows that she is affected. Greatly.
The cottage is...the cottage is perfect. From the stone fireplace to the single bedroom that is big enough to divide but that she can imagine filling with a wood-frame bed, wardrobes, a dressing table and an armchair.
She can imagine filling all of the rooms in fact, upstairs and down, just as she thought she would when she read the details.
In a year, perhaps two, she can see herself moving into this cottage, with him of course; far worse than not retiring here would be retiring here alone, she thinks.
She leans forward, bracing her hands against the kitchen sink, looks out through the little window to the garden, to where Mr Carson is crouched by a cut-down rose bush.
This too is something she has imagined, without the suit he wears and with the scent of fresh bread cooling on the table, soup bubbling on the stove. She would tap on the window and he would look up, smile. Clap his hands together as he stands to dislodge most of the dirt, but not wipe them against his trousers, not Mr Carson. He might try to steal the corner off the loaf and she would slap his hand away. Shoo him out to wash up while she dishes their lunch out.
Her chest aches, enough that she presses a hand to it. She raises the other to the window. Taps against it. He looks up, stands with his hat tucked beneath his arm and smiles. She returns it, turns away before he can see the tear that slips down her cheek.
The other bad ideas, they have had consequences; lies she has told, panic and anxiety that cannot be healthy for anyone. But she cannot begin to consider what the consequences of this mistake will be.
-e-c-
They take tea in the tea room they have always preferred. It is not the one they visited with Mrs Patmore. Here the serving girl, Mary knows their orders. Settles them in a seat by the window so that they might watch the village move around them as they drink and talk.
Mr Carson pulls out the details of the two properties after the first cups of tea have been poured, the little slice of sponge cut in half and shared between them.
She waits for him to speak, keeps her tea cup in hand, lays the other in her lap to avoid picking up the cottage picture.
"What did you think then, Mrs Hughes?"
"They both had their attributes, of course. The house is very rentable I suppose, and the cottage," she pauses, clears her throat with a sip of tea, "the cottage needs less work than I had imagined."
She looks up and Mr Carson is frowning at her, turning his cup exactly one quarter clockwise and then back again on its saucer.
"But which do you think we might consider purchasing?"
She looks at him properly then, allows that second half of her to try to read his body language, the expression on his face. Hopes that she might see something that will allow her to suggest the cottage, to expect that in a few years they will marry and retire together. He is a terrible liar, but he might be a great actor. She has no way of knowing and no matter how she tries to see this time, she cannot find anything to read in him.
So the house then, and she'll write to May this evening, accept the offer of a room at the farm if she doesn't make enough from this venture to take a place of her own there.
She could stay here, likely should but she thinks by then she won't be the first of the current staff to move on and she can always come and stay in whatever guest house Anna and Mr Bates decide to run.
She rests the tea cup back on the saucer, folds her hands atop the table to hide the fine trembling of them. She had been so sure, when he first made his suggestion, surprised but delighted to think that she had been right, that he was beginning to see her as a woman and not just the housekeeper. Something more than a friend.
"As a business venture?" She asks, one last hope that she might still be right about him.
He hesitates, just a moment before clearing his throat. "Yes, of course."
Of course. How silly she is, to think that sentiment might play a part. She closes her eyes, reopens them and nods. "Well, then. Unless you think we might find another like it, we should put an offer to Mr Elliot for the house."
There is silence from him, but she doesn't dare to look up. Plays with her spoon against the tablecloth until she thinks she might be able to face his pleased expression without a visible sting.
His fingers settle over her own, stop her movements and surprise at the bold gesture - such an intimate touch in public - has her looking up.
He does not look pleased, quite the contrary, she has not seen him so downcast since...since her health scare.
"And if it wasn't?"
She blinks, leans forward a little, a silly notion that she might catch more of the quietly spoken words if she does. That they might make some sort of sense. They do not, and he says no more.
"I don't understand." She says eventually. He has not removed his hand from hers and she takes a chance, turns hers up so that her palm is pressed against his, his fingers curl around her own as they did on the shore.
"If this was not just a business venture?" He seems to make a decision then, taking in a deep breath, his free hand stroking at his waistcoat. "If I were to say that I am considering retiring in a few years, if you might see yourself retiring as well, with me you understand, then would your answer change, would you wish to choose a different property?"
So many questions in that. She cannot believe he has asked any of them. But still, would she be his companion, married for the convenience or would he see her as his wife, and all that that entails?
She may, with her question to him, break apart everything. But there is a chance that she might not and for that reason she must ask it. He is still holding her hand.
They deserve to live a little if they want to.
"Do you love me, Mr Carson?"
His mouth falls open, his cheeks reddening and at any other time, that would be a sight to send her into quiet stitches.
"I-ahem, that is-I mean, Mrs Hughes-"
She ignores him, continues. "Because your answer to that question would have me considering our venture in quite a different way."
She picks up her teacup again then, swallows the cool tea as she pretends that her heart is not pounding hard enough that she thinks she might hear it, if she could hear much over the rush of blood in her ears.
The silence holds for a long time, too long for her not to worry. If this is it, she can at least say she gave it a good shot.
She does not need to be loved by him to ever be happy in the future, to build a life for herself after retirement, but she does know she would be infinitely happier with him than without, that having his love would be something precious to nurture for as long as they were able.
She watches his face, but he is looking down at the table and all she can see properly are his eyebrows drawn close together, deep wrinkles building between them.
He reaches out and touches the cottage photograph. "I imagined us in front of the fire." He says, and that she hears so clearly through the noise in her ears.
The tight knot of anxiety begins to loosen, hope springing up again.
"I could see us sitting on a small settee there, beneath blankets in the winter. Discussing the books we were reading, or whether we should make a trip into Ripon later in the week." He looks up at her and she notices how red his ears are before their eyes lock. "I imagined other things."
She swallows. "I saw you tending the garden, complaining when you came in because the flowers wouldn't follow your instructions half as well as your footmen do." A moment and then; "I saw us happy there, Mr Carson."
He smiles then, not so wide as she had imagined at the cottage, but still brightly behind the mindful control.
"You understand that I can't answer you now, Mrs Hughes, not while we're both in service to the house?"
She does, of course; he may feel it, in fact she is sure now that he does, but he won't say it until they are both free to act on it. It wouldn't be proper, and he is and will always be the very proper Mr Carson.
"I do, Mr Carson although I think you've answered me well enough."
She allows a smile of her own, hopes the size that it wants to be is reflected in her eyes. That he can read her own love for him there.
"Your thoughts then, on the property?"
She reaches for the teapot, fills their cups again, taps a finger against the cottage details. "I think that one has the most potential, Mr Carson. A great deal of it in fact."
He nods, squeezes her hand. "Then we'll make an offer when we finish here."
And just like that, as they begin to discuss how much they can offer and what they might expect to earn from it for the first few years, their future is settled.
She smiles gently at him, apropos to nothing but her own thoughts.
End.
I don't want your rent, I want
a radiance of attention
like the candle's flame when we eat,
I mean a kind of awe
attending the spaces between us-
Not a roof but a field of stars.
So...what did you think?
ETA: December 26th 2014: The cover image for this story was painted for me by the amazingly talented Brenna-Louise as my Chelsie Holiday Exchange gift. Isn't she just wonderful? She captured a moment from both their imaginings in this story perfectly. Thank you!