Boxing Day
"I'd advise you to tread carefully in there, her Ladyship's been feeling a little light-headed."
Elsie kept her voice low so as their brief conversation- if it could indeed be called that- would not be heard by the party in the room she had just left.
"Dunn't she always?"
"I hardly think, Miss O'Brien, that this is the time for remarks like that!"
The younger woman narrowed her eyes a little in what was not enough of an overt glare to earn a reprimand, but which sufficiently conveyed her distaste for what the housekeeper had said. Elsie straightened her back and made a mental note to work on confidence during disparaging stares and covert glaring.
"Just make sure you keep the smelling salts close at hand," she instructed.
"Of course I will. I'm not completely incompetent, you know."
"I am sure tha-..."
"Is there a problem, ladies?"
Elsie had not heard his approach but was making no complaints about it. The appearance of Elsie's husband seemed both to infuriate Miss O'Brien and knock the wind out of her sails.
"No Mr Carson," she answered with a forced meekness, "I'm just abut to attend to her Ladyship."
Charles nodded firmly to her and indicated with his head to Elsie to follow him. She did so gratefully up the stairs towards their rooms. The sinking four o'clock sun caught in her eyes as they reached the level of the window. Charles waited until they were well out of earshot of the door before speaking.
"They've told her Ladyship, then?" he asked.
Elsie nodded, the memory of the incident making her want to chew her lip as she did when agitated.
"And his Lordship," she confirmed.
"How did they take it?"
Elsie decided to play the optimism card.
"It could have been worse."
"As bad as that?"
They finally reached the floor of their own room.
"Oh Charles, it was terrible!" She surprised herself by verging on wailing it, "You'd think her eloping would have been the biggest shock by far, but no! No, a baby is by far worse than that!"
As she was clearly in full flow- with accompanying gestures- he thought it best to hold the door open for her, else she do herself an injury. She threw herself unceremoniously onto the sofa she let out something between a sigh and a huff and glanced over the back of the sofa at him, standing meekly by the door, clearly waiting for her to calm down.
"I'm sorry my dear," she told him, indicating to the seat next to her to show that it was safe to come near her "What do you think?"
Charles sighed.
"I see your point," he told her.
Elsie raised an eyebrow.
"But?"
"But I can also see why his Lordship would have reason to be worried. After all, consider that Mr and Mrs Branson are surely living on very limited means. He is doubtlessly wondering how they will manage their living arrangements, how an education for the child might be afforded and, what probably weighs most heavily in his mind, if the child is a boy, whether or not they will inherit the estate."
Elsie closed her eyes tightly as if trying to dislodge herself from a bad dream.
"I hadn't even though of that," she told him.
He brushed the strand of hair that had come loose due to to her distractedly pressing her hand into her forehead out of her eyes. The gesture seemed to ground her a little more firmly. Her teeth began instinctively on the inside of her lip.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Sometimes I wish you'd only worry for yourself instead of for the rest of the house."
Her amused inhalation on breath acted as a laugh.
"I'm the housekeeper; it's what I do. But for now I'm only going to worry about the fact that we forgot to make ourselves some tea downstairs. Again."
"Worry about it later."
"Daisy?"
Daisy span around. It was only William, thank goodness, leaning against the kitchen door in the grey evening light.
"What are you doing in the dark?" he asked her.
"Just getting a glass of water," she indicated to the sink she was standing over, "I couldn't sleep."
"Me neither."
Leaving the door, he took a seat at the servant's dining table. Although most of the most of the times she had seen him since yesterday he had been just as he ever was, in quiet moments like this there was a steely difference about him. It could have been an air of trouble. There were so many things, she supposed, that must have happened since they had seen each other, things of which she had no idea.
"Is it awful there?" she asked.
The brief look he gave her before he altered his expression to a less stern one told her that this was perhaps the wrong thing to have said.
"Sorry!" she back-tracked hurriedly, "You probably don't want to talk about it; it was stupid of me. Forget I asked."
He was looking back down at the table.
"William?"
When he lifted his head, didn't look angry but very tired and old; older than she'd ever seen him. He rubbed on of his eyes as he spoke.
"Yes, Daisy," he told her, "It's pretty bad. I've seen some pretty terrible things."
She listened to him in silence, there was nothing she could thing of to say.
"I was in a trench not far along from the one that Matthew, Mr Crawley, was in when the shell hit. No one in it made it, didn't stand a chance. A hundred meters further to the right and it would be me dead, not him. His mother wants to see me tomorrow."
"Mrs Crawley?"
He nodded.
"I'm not sure what I'll be able to say to her, I don't even know if she knows how close I was when it happened."
He heaved a sigh. It was this more than anything that made her see how different he had become. Though it had never struck her before, she realised that she had never seen him sigh like that. Only grown men like his Lordship or Mr Carson did that. She looked at him with great concern. He obviously saw this.
"Don't worry about me, Daisy," he told her.
A shrill little laugh of disbelief escaped her.
"How can I not?" she wanted to know, "You're my friend."
He raised his eyebrows a fraction.
"Are you sure you aren't better friends with Harry these days?"
She shook her head quickly.
"Harry and I are just friends."
It took him a moment to fully digest what she meant by that, but once he had it was hard not to beam at her.
"Don't worry about me, Daisy," he told her firmly, "Because I'm going to go back there with a strong reminder of what I'm fighting for in the first place."
Her heart suddenly felt as if it was tethered to an enormous balloon. She threw a shy glance at him across the table. She couldn't help grinning when she saw the look on his face.
"Not interrupting anything, am I?"
They both shot to their feet at Mrs Hughes' voice.
"No, Mrs Hughes- I mean, Mrs Carson. We were just... I mean I was just getting a glass...-"
Daisy trailed off. Not only was the housekeeper looking nowhere near as stern as her voice had first sounded, but she was standing there, like Daisy was in her nightdress.
Elsie smiled at the scene before her.
"Can't sleep, William?" she asked.
The young man, for that was undoubtedly what he was now, shook his head. She smiled sympathetically. He had changed a lot since she last saw him and more than his hair being shorter and his being taller. At least, she reflected, he was still getting on well with Daisy. The girl, in his absence seemed to have realised what she was turning her nose up at. She cast a fleeting thought back on the last young couple she had turned a blind eye to, now somewhere upstairs having today announced that they were going to have a baby. Well, at least they were happy.
"Ignore me," she told them finally, "I'm just making some tea."
By the time Sybil eventually disentangled herself from her family she was looking decidedly dishevelled. As soon as she had let him know that she could manage them by herself, Tom had done what any sensible lad would have and excused himself to go to bed. The trouble, she now informed him, had come not towards the end of the goings-on downstairs, but near the middle. The trouble, not all that surprisingly, had come from Granny.
"She's just being difficult," Sybil assured him, her head still in the wardrobe as she had insisted on sending the servants to bed as she now managed without a lady's maid, "I'm sure she quite enjoys it."
He laughed.
"I can believe that."
Leaving the wardrobe, she got under the covers and lay down next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Was it true what you told papa?"
"What? That his new driver is being sloppy when checking the brakes?"
She giggled in spite of herself.
"No," she replied and trying to impress upon him the seriousness of the required discussion, "You know what I'm talking about."
Yes, he did. He stretched his arm around her shoulder.
"That we are stable enough to support our baby? I wouldn't lie to him or to you about something like that."
She cast wary look.
"No, but you'd exaggerate."
Her tone was slighting accusatory, but it did not anger him.
"True."
There was a pause.
"I love you, Sybil. We have just about enough money for the first year, but there's more coming in."
She still looked unsure.
"We will be fine. I promise you."
More if you would like. I'm a bit nervous with writing for these characters that I'm not as used to, please tell me how I'm doing with them: should I keep going like this or stick to what I know? Please review!