"Are you going to tell me what the problem is then?"
Carson doesn't look up from the wine list he's perusing.
"I don't know what you mean."
Beryl doesn't bother to hold back her incredulous grunt.
"Right and I'm Princess Mary."
He does look up at her then, at least, through those big bushy brows that are forever unkempt.
She flashes him a winning grin, bats her eyes.
He harrumphs and returns to his list.
"That's all right then. I'll invite myself to sit since you're fixed on being so rude."
She can see his lips purse at that, that vein in his forehead thumping away as it always does when he's vexed. She knows her friend, knows the very last thing he'd want to be is rude or improper.
She sits across from him, folds her hands in her lap, waits.
Eventually, he sighs.
"What is it, Mrs. Patmore?"
"Well," she pretends to think, tapping her chin. "I've been here all of a week, helping Mrs. Johnson with this bloody great dinner, and for the entirety of that time all I've seen is you stomp around, bellow at the hallboys, and shut yourself in this pantry."
To her surprise his brows unknit slightly, his expression open and earnest.
"And is that so out of character?"
She considers this.
"Well, not entirely, I s'pose, but it is a little different, Mr. Carson. It's just, well, I've never seen you look so worn around the edges, so down. At least not since..."
She trails off, wrings her hands.
Neither of them has to say what she means. Since Elsie left. Since he'd walked around in a fog for weeks, alternately fuming at and icy cold toward everyone in his path.
He leans back in his chair. Suddenly even more grateful that Mr. Thompson has allowed him to co-op the Butler's pantry.
He considers telling her for a moment, this dear friend of his, of theirs. Certainly, she would want to know Elsie is near-by, accessible. He shouldn't deny her that, really, it's cruel. And besides, he feels almost fit to burst. He is astonished to find he'd rather like to tell the whole sorry tale to someone, and it might as well be Beryl as she's here and willing.
"Well, I suppose it could owe to the fact I've…bumped into her."
"You never did!"
And he's grateful she doesn't ask who because he doesn't think he can manage Mrs. Burns without spitting it.
He nods solemnly.
"I did."
Beryl blinks once, twice. Of all the things she'd expected him to say, this was not one of them.
Of course, she knew Elsie was in Scotland, she even had a vague idea of where, but the woman had virtually disappeared of the face of God's green earth when she'd left. Not a single letter. Not a peep. Beryl had been nursing that hurt herself for a while, one could see it in the blistered ears of her kitchen maids.
"Well, I never. What was it like?"
Carson furrows his brow. How on Earth is he to explain the multitude of emotions and feelings his been through in the last week, from seeing her standing in her sister's kitchen, so fetching in her practical attire and rolled sleeves, a spot of flour on the tip of her nose, to his burning realization that she'd left them, him, to become this new person, this pie-baking farmers wife, with the endearing thickened brogue and pink cheeks.
Same sad blue eyes though. Same heaviness about her smile.
"Odd." He finally settles on.
"Oh, I've no doubt. What did she say?"
He tries to think.
"Not much really. I don't think I gave her much of a chance, to be honest. I was so shocked, Mrs. Patmore. Shocked and hurt."
They are equally surprised by his frankness. He can't look in her eyes and she does him the courtesy of averting her gaze as well.
"I would've been the same," she offers. "Not sure where she gets off disappearing like that. Never writing."
Carson gives her a weak smile. Pats his legs. Leans forward again.
"So, that explains my sorry mood, which I should apologize for, I suppose- "
But Beryl cuts him off with a wave of her hand, a sniffle.
"Was she well?"
Carson doesn't want to dwell on the circles he'd seen under her eyes or the hollowness of her cheeks.
"Seemed to be."
"Well enough to write, then," she says, and his heart breaks a little for the tears that fall on her folded hands, for he understands them perfectly, has shed a few himself.
He sighs.
"Maybe we shall simply have to accept that we did not know Mrs. Hughes as well as we thought, Mrs. Patmore. Perhaps not well at all."
He is speaking as much to himself as to her and he watches as she nods, swallows thickly.
She notes the tension in his face abating, his pulse no longer beating through his skin.
"Perhaps not," she finally agrees.
When she sees a woman in the village that Friday that looks so much like Elsie she's taken aback, she knows instantly it must be the sister Mr. Carson has told her about, when pressed, when she demanded further details from him and he'd reluctantly given a few, this is the maniac biker.
She's taller than Elsie, certainly, looks like a bloody giant to Beryl, and perhaps a little thinner through the hip, but she's the sister, Beryl's sure.
Beryl watches as she speaks to a woman at the door of the village tea shop, she's got a basket with her, is smiling and chatting amiably. Blessedly, there's no bike in sight.
Beryl trots just a bit closer, begins making a slow show of looking in the shop windows as she goes, gets close enough to hear their lilting conversation.
"Aye, if I can pry her out of that farmhouse we will be there. You know how stubborn she is though. Bloody mule."
The two women laugh, and Beryl bites her cheek because she's also quite familiar with the ass in question.
"Oh, the fair will be great fun. Come for the dancing if nothing else. She'll have no shortage of partners now, I'm sure. Especially with those folks up at the castle. There's bound to be a few strangers in the crowd." The other woman, the not-sister says, and there's a levity to it that Beryl doesn't quite understand.
"I suppose not. Well, at least between Arthur and your John we will have her fixed for two. She'll have to stay more than a moment."
The not-sister nods emphatically.
"I'll see what I can do then," the tall woman says, "to remind her that she used to have fun, be fun, once. When we were lasses."
Not-sister looks a bit sad when she replies.
"Right you are, Glenna."
Glenna smiles back the same sad smile and Beryl begins to wonder in earnest what she's missing here. Was there something wrong with Elsie? Had something terrible happened? She'd probably never describe Elsie as fun, per se, but she had a fair bit of wit about her, a biting humor. Had she lost that here in her homeland? Had something taken it away?
Beryl is torn between worry for her once-friend and indignant hurt that she clearly wasn't friend enough to confide in, to even speak to.
"Bless you, Bess. I'll haul her out by her hair if I have to. I'll see you tomorrow." Glenna says, and both women give a laugh before Glenna turns on her heel, brushes past Beryl without a second glance.
"Excuse me?"
Beryl startles, looks over to the woman in the doorway of the tea shop, Bess, as she addresses her.
"Can I help you with anything? Are you lost?"
Beryl shakes her head no, then takes in the woman's face. Her greying hair is knotted neatly, her wide green eyes seem earnest in their inquiry.
"Actually, I couldn't help but overhear about a fair..."
—
Beryl keeps her knowledge about the fair to herself for a few hours, deciding the best way she might broach the subject with Mr. Carson.
She understands his hurt, she does, truly, because she feels it herself, but she also understands that none of them can go on like this. She can tell that beneath his brooding and blustering, whatever interaction he'd had with Elsie has broken his heart just that bit further, and they can't leave it like that. No, he needs one last meeting, a happy memory. It will do them all a world of good.
And, if she happens to be presented with the opportunity to tell off Elsie herself? Well, that'll just the cream on top, won't it?
She doesn't know how she'll convince him to give the staff a night off, to go to the fair himself without the help of Mary Queen of Scots, but she means to try.
Squaring her shoulders, she knocks firmly, once, and then enters the pantry.
—
"Absolutely not," he says.
He is pacing the worn wooden floor now, and Beryl watches him with a raised brow.
"Why not? The lot of them will be dining away that night. What harm could it do?"
He looks at her sideways, continues pacing.
"I think we could all use a little break, don't you? Some fresh Scottish air?"
She studies the way his brow stitches when she mentions the Scottish air but doesn't comment.
"Is there some particular reason you'd want to avoid it, Mr. Carson?"
They haven't spoken candidly of Elsie since that first day, in fact, he had withdrawn even further since then. Beryl hadn't realized how much the tenor of his voice was a part of the background noise she associated with her job until it had ceased almost entirely.
"No, of course not." He says quickly, straightening himself to his full height, looking down his nose at her.
Beryl doesn't flinch, doesn't move from her seat. She tries to channel Elsie's resolute determination when dealing with him. She waits, raises an eyebrow expectantly, gestures for him to continue.
"I— "he says, finally. Looks away. Back at her. "Very well, you and the others may go, but I will stay behind here. Hold things down."
She looks at him incredulously.
"Hold what down, exactly?"
He flutters his hands about.
"You know. Things."
She arches a brow. Plays her ace.
"You mean to tell me that you intend to let your staff, comprised of many unmarried men and women, attend a country dance— a foreign one at that— without any sort of supervision?"
He blusters at that.
"Well, I— they will have you!"
Oh, he must be desperate, she thinks.
"Oh no, I'll not be going if you don't. What would I have to say to those twittering fools? I'm twice their age and four times most of their wits. No, if you stay, I stay, but I do think it cruel to deny them a bit of fun when we've all worked so hard and pulled off such a fabulous dinner without a hitch."
He sighs and she can see she's getting to him now.
"Go on, just talk to his lordship. If he says no, we will say no more about it. If he says yes, well, we might have a very nice evening indeed. A way to wish Scotland a fond farewell."
She can see the gears turning in his mind, weighing his options, the costs.
"Fine," he says finally, and Beryl feels a little shock of delight run through her that she's actually gone and done it — won an argument with Himself, even if she half-knows it's still because of her in the long run.
"Excellent." She says, standing. "Let me know what he says, though I'm confident it will be yes, and then we will have a fine evening tomorrow, I'm sure."
Beryl bustles out of his pantry before he can change his mind. A nervous smile lights her features as she returns to the kitchen. Now she only hopes Glenna's able to harness her own mule.
