A/N These next three Chapters are all one big story. For those who do not know, Donder (aka Donner or Dunder) means 'Thunder' and Blitzen means 'Lightning'. You can't really have Donder without Blitzen. I think it's pretty obvious who Blitzen will be.
Spoiler alert re: Santa Claus, you have been warned.
Donder- [Carson]
December 23rd, 1917-
There had been rumblings for weeks; storm clouds gathering on the Yorkshire horizons. The staff of Downton Abbey had grown accustomed to skittering past his open door and studiously avoiding eye contact. But two days before Christmas, the sky cracked open and thunder bellowed through the downstairs halls.
"I don't want to hear any more of your excuses! You've had two months…We had an agreement, sir! …Well a lot of good that's going to do me!" Mr. Carson's voice boomed through the downstairs. He slammed the phone down and fumed. One of the new kitchen maids had made the mistake of looking up as she scurried by. She was standing, staring in the open door of his pantry like a deer caught in headlamps. "Why are you standing about? Get back to work!" He slammed the door in her face so hard the bells in the servant's hall shook.
He regretted his words and actions immediately, but knew he'd only make matters worse if he went out into the servant's hall now. This is a disaster. What was he going to do?
Predictably, a few hushed minutes later a knock sounded on his door. He answered in a low and penitent voice. "Come in, Mrs. Hughes."
She did not enter, but cracked the door and waved a hand with a white napkin into the room. "Is it safe? I come in peace."
He laughed when he saw it, in spite of himself. "Then I suppose it is safe."
She closed the door carefully behind her. She looked warily at the man before her. Mr. Carson was acting as manic and flustered as he had been immediately before his collapse earlier in the year. She was deeply worried. "You're working yourself into a fit again, Mr. Carson. We cannot have that."
"I am not working myself into anything. I only lost my temper. I shall apologize to the girl later. Which one was it?"
"I'll not tell you. Any attempt to apologize will only traumatize her further, I fear."
"I am heartily ashamed. Was it really so bad as that?"
"It was. You've been growling around here for weeks. Now, what is this all about?"
"It's about a shipment of…supplies I was expecting for Christmas. The order kept getting postponed and now I've been told that it's not coming at all."
"And it's ruined Christmas?"
"It might. It's certainly one more concession we've had to make for this blasted war."
"Need I remind you that we cannot have everything exactly as it was?"
"That does not mean we should not try, Mrs. Hughes."
"No. But, nor should we blame ourselves if we fail."
"But we should not just accept our failures. I will not let this war and the Germans…" He held up his hand to stop her predictable response. "And, before you ask, no one has invited the Germans for Christmas. But then, they are not known for going only where they are invited."
Elsie Hughes knew when to retreat. His sour look told her that this was not the time to pursue this matter any further. He was only likely to work himself into a lather again. "Well, you stay in here for a bit and wait for the Germans. I shall see if I can coax the maids out from their hiding places." She paused briefly at the door. "But please do try to be a little easier on them, Mr. Carson. This is the first Christmases away from home for many of them."
"I am aware of that, Mrs. Hughes." He rumbled lowly as she left. "Painfully aware."
-00-
December 24th, 1917
Mr. Carson had been true to his word and was interacting more gently with the staff, but the change did not cheer Mrs. Hughes one bit. He seemed broken somehow. Though many thought him a humbug, she knew for a fact that Mr. Carson loved Christmas. He loved the decorations and the food and, above all, the traditions. Mrs. Hughes had often seen him beaming like a child when they first lit the Christmas tree. In past years, she would stand outside his pantry just to listen to him humming Christmas carols as he polished the silver. There were no carols this year, though there was still plenty of polishing to be done.
Of course, the occupants of Downton had made many concessions with the advent of war, but so far, Christmas had escaped relatively unscathed. Some familiar faces were missing, but all the most important traditions remained intact on Christmas Day. Mr. Carson took great pride in this fact. He was trying not to dwell too much on his impending failure, but a new wrinkle had been made known to him and his temper was building again.
"And now, Lady Sybil is expected to work the evening shift on Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day." He rumbled to Mrs. Hughes as he tried to relax, at her insistence, with a cup of late morning tea.
"We are all expected to work on Christmas, Mr. Carson." She reminded him gently, not liking the direction this was going.
"But Acting Sergeant Barrow needn't have put her on the evening shift."
"It was her time in the rotation, Mr. Carson." The smug Thomas drawled as he sauntered into the room. "You wouldn't have me embarrass her by giving her special treatment, would you? She's been very clear about that."
"And if you changed the rotations one day early or late, would anyone really have noticed, Acting Sergeant?" Carson pointed out, his hackles almost visibly rising.
"Well, that would be cheating, Mr. Carson." Thomas flopped into a chair near Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes. He looked towards the far end of the table. "Daisy, be a love and fetch us a cuppa', would you?"
The girl jumped up immediately to fetch Thomas a fresh cup.
"Sit down, Daisy!" Mr. Carson bellowed. "The Acting Sergeant knows perfectly well where the cups are kept and he can pour his own tea."
"Really, Mr. Carson, I don't mind. I…"
"I said, 'sit down', girl." An abashed Daisy sank back into her chair.
"Mr. Carson, should you not like to finish your tea in your pantry?"
"I see no reason for that, Mrs. Hughes." Mr. Carson said, his eyes locked on Thomas.
"Well, I do." He heard the cold threat of danger crackle in her voice. When he looked at her, her eyes flashed an almost imperceptible warning. She was still smiling, but he knew that could change in an instant.
Carson's surrender showed in the slump of his shoulders. Reluctantly, he took his tea and retreated to his pantry. Thomas smiled triumphantly.
"Excellent idea, Mrs. Hughes." Thomas teased, as he remained sitting and made no move to fetch his own tea.
"Thank you, Sergeant. I'd be more than happy to bring you some tea…" She smiled saccharinely.
"That would be lovely, Mrs. Hughes."
"…when Hell freezes over. So if you wait for me to fetch it, you'll be waiting a very long time. And, in future, I'll thank you not to order about my girls for something when you can get off your duff and fetch it yourself. They are not in the Army Corps and they are not under your command. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Mrs. Hughes." Thomas replied, red to the tips of his ears with indignation. To add insult to injury, Daisy and her companions were now giggling at him from their end of the table.
Mrs. Hughes found Mr. Carson sitting in front of his fire, staring into it, the tea quite forgotten. On the table beside him lay a bag of peppermint sticks.
"Oh, I'd meant to ask if you were able to find the peppermints for this year, I know how difficult it proved last year." She tried to cheer him up with a compliment. "That could not have been an easy task."
"It has proven an impossible task, Mrs. Hughes. This bag is all I was able to procure."
Suddenly, it all made sense. "That was the shipment you were looking for?"
"It was. I bought up sugar rations for two months to meet Mr. Cox's price. The plan was to have them delivered two months ago. I didn't want to cut it too close, for obvious reasons."
"Frankly, it's a small wonder you were able to find any at all. One bag will be enough for most of the Downton staff."
"But not enough for the extra staff or the nurses or the soldiers."
"Goodness, you were thinking of providing for them all?"
"As you said, they are all away from home. Downton is their home this Christmas and those who call Downton home hang stockings. Come Christmas morning, those stockings contain mixed nuts, dried fruits, oranges and peppermint sticks."
"Well, three out of four is not bad, all things considered."
"What's the bloody point of the bleeding orange without the peppermint?"
She could hardly believe the conversation they were having. Mr. Carson was acting as though there wouldn't be bread or tea. "Now, I know this is important to you, Mr. Carson, but there is no need to swear."
"I beg your pardon, but, yes, it is important to me. You've no idea how important. There has been an orange and at least one peppermint stick in every stocking hung at Downton for the past fifty years, or more. You mentioned the new staff, most of them still no more than children, who are away from home for the first time." He stared harder into the fire as she took the seat opposite him, still trying to understand why he was taking this so hard. "Did Santa Claus visit your home as a child, Mrs. Hughes?"
She had not expected this and struggled to answer. "What? Santa Claus? Yes, I suppose…that is, we hung stockings."
"We did not. Oh, my family exchanged gifts, but my father couldn't abide the idea of Santa Claus. To him, Christmas was about a baby in a manger, not a fat elf in a red suit."
"Can't it be about both?"
"Not according to my father. My first Christmas at Downton…" he stopped here, unsure of how to proceed.
Mr. Carson remembered back almost fifty years. His first Christmas at Downton had seen Charles Carson an angry and disillusioned boy. He had not been allowed to work in the stables, but had been forced to work in the house. His mother had died less than three months beforehand and he felt his father had abandoned him. When old Mr. Tate had insisted that Charles hang a stocking, he had pulled off the dirty, hole-riddled sock he was wearing and tacked it above the fire place defiantly. He had expected a lashing for him impertinence, but it had not come.
The next morning, Charles had not even bothered to look at the mantle place, but went straight to his work, hauling bundles of wood up to the common rooms. At breakfast all the staff were trading and haggling good naturedly for their favorite nuts or dried fruits from the stockings. Charles sat at the far end of the table from Mr. Tate and Mrs. Delaney and ate his porridge silently. 'Charles', Mr. Tate had called down the table. 'You've not collected your stocking.'
The boy looked up at the mantle and saw a lone sock hanging there. He could tell from where he sat that the sock was not the one he had hung the night before. 'That's not mine.'
'Are you sure?' Mrs. Delaney asked. 'I thought it had your initials on it.'
An astonished Charles Carson walked up to the stocking and saw that it did, indeed have 'CC' sewn crudely onto the toe, as his mother had done for all of his socks before he left for Downton. Trying not to betray any emotions, Charles took the stocking back to his place at the table. He emptied the contents in front of him; a handful of nuts and dried fruits, an orange, two peppermint sticks and another clean, new sock with his initials sewn onto the toe. He considered the new pair of socks for a while before turning his attention to the stocking contents.
Charles knew he liked peppermint, so he picked up the sticks first and untied them. He looked around to see if others were enjoying their candy so early in the day. He didn't know if that was acceptable behavior, even on Christmas. To his astonishment, most people were shoving their peppermint sticks into their oranges. Seeing his confusion, Kevin, the second footman had patted him on the shoulder and said, 'Here, lad, I'll show ye' how it's done.'
Charles had watching in awe as Kevin slammed the orange onto the table top and began to roll it around. 'First, you have to release the juice inside. Now you.' Charles had mimicked him, feeling the firmness of the orange change under his hand.
'Then, you use your thumb to pull just a bit of the peel off at the top of the orange.' He demonstrated the technique and Charles copied him. 'Now, bite the ends off one of the peppermint sticks. You see those holes? They act like a dozen tiny straws.' Charles nodded eagerly. Now he understood.
'Now, just cram that stick into the orange and, hey, presto! Orange juice, through a peppermint straw! It can be a little messy, but that's why we don't have this every day.'
All around the table, the staff were enjoying their Christmas treat. Young Charles Carson had done as he was shown and sipped tentatively at the peppermint straw. The cool, sweet mint and the sharp acid of the orange made an odd, but refreshing pairing. For the first time since arriving at Downton, the boy smiled.
"Mr. Carson?" She had waited patiently for his explanation, but Mrs. Hughes' patience was at its end. They both had work to do today.
"I'm sorry, it's just…" He could not tell her about his first Christmas, but there was something he could tell her that might explain how much this meant to him. "I heard Daisy speaking to one of the new hires a few weeks ago. They were talking about Christmas. Daisy was looking forward to it and the other girl was skeptical that we would be able to observe it at all. Daisy told her that Santa Claus would make sure that everyone got something special as he does every year at Downton. Daisy told the girl about the oranges and the peppermint."
"Daisy is nearly twenty, she cannot honestly still believe in…"
"That is what the new girl said and she laughed. But then she stopped laughing when Daisy said, 'You'll see.' The new girl said, 'I hope you're right. Wouldn't it be nice?'" Mr. Carson looked Mrs. Hughes directly in the eye. "That girl wanted to believe Daisy, she wanted to believe in Santa Claus. For one day, they all want to be children again instead of young men and women forced to grow up before their time."
He sighed and tried to laugh off the sentimentality. "I know it sounds silly, Mrs. Hughes, but this isn't about a peppermint stick or an orange." or a pair of socks. "This is about being included in the traditions of a home; belonging to a family. This is about hope, which is in precious short supply these days. Christmas is about hope. I just wanted to give them that."
She looked at him sitting there, a man she had known for fifteen years, as though she were looking at a stranger. His unfathomed depths still caught her unawares. But his noble intentions were no excuse for his behavior. Softly, she said, "You've been thundering around here like an ogre, terrorizing everyone because you wanted to give them a happy Christmas?" He nodded with his head hung low. "You do see the flaw in that logic, do you not?"
"I'm flattered that you think logic even entered into it."
"On second thought… clearly, it did not." She heard a bell ring in the servant's hall and knew they would be interrupted soon. "I wish you had told me sooner. Mrs. Patmore and I might have been able to track down the candy, but we were busy finding enough oranges. I didn't think you'd get peppermints for everyone, but we didn't see a reason not to get oranges for everyone."
"I should have asked for help sooner, but I thought Mr. Cox had what we needed."
"Here's what I suggest. Let me see who I can reach at this short notice and what I can find. You are going to forget all about this. In the meantime, I think you should serve a penance."
"Penance?"
"You should revive an old Downton tradition that you've neglected."
"What have I been neglecting?"
"Something I think Daisy enjoys even more than the stockings; the poem. We may have a shortage of sugar, but we'll never be short of words."
"Do you really think…?"
"Mr. Carson, you're wanted upstairs," Anna called cautiously through the door.
"Thank you, Anna." He responded. "And, thank you, Mrs. Hughes. I shall give your suggestion careful consideration. I appreciate your help with the other matter, but I do not expect a miracle."
"If no one expected miracles, Mr. Carson, they'd never happen." She quipped. "May I use your phone?"
He gave her a quizzical look, and headed out the door. "Of course."
After he had gone, she closed the door behind him. She picked up the phone and signaled the switchboard. "Ripon 0439, please…Martin? Elsie. We need to talk."
-00-
Christmas Eve dinner was a quiet affair, upstairs and down. The whole house seemed to be holding its collective breath, waiting for they knew not what. After the Servant's dinner was over, Mr. Carson stood and cleared his throat. "Mrs. Patmore has made some cocoa and cider for the soldiers and nurses to celebrate Christmas. You are all invited to join them. The drinks will be served in the Grand Hall starting in a quarter of an hour." Happy murmurs spread up and down the table, but Mr. Carson was not done speaking. "I shall be reading a Christmas poem for those of you who wish to participate. Those of you who do not are still welcome to help yourself to refreshments."
-00-
"I am glad you've decided to read the poem, Mr. Carson. I know it will be such a treat for the staff, and an excellent way to make up for your gruff behavior of recent weeks."
"It isn't much, but it will have to do." Mr. Carson stood beside his desk, looking down at the yellowing newspaper cutting. "I really should find a better copy of this."
"I'd have thought you'd have memorized it by now."
"Mostly, but there are a few tricky parts. I always put the reindeer in the wrong order."
"No one will know the difference." Then she sighed heavily. "I am sorry that I could not solve your peppermint problem, Mr. Carson."
"I appreciate the attempt, Mrs. Hughes. If it is a problem that even you could not solve, I do not feel so bad failing myself." They smiled at each other, feeling suddenly awkward, as though something more needed to be said. They both jumped as the phone on his desk rang loudly, breaking the moment.
"Downton Abbey, this is Carson the butler speaking…one moment please." He held the receiver out to her. "It's for you."
"Well, we may have given up on our miracle too soon. You go on up and start your poem. I'll follow shortly."
-00-
He had not expected so many of the house occupants would want to hear him read, but the Grand Hall was full. Mr. Carson had pulled up a chair with his back facing towards the main door. A line of wheel chairs faced him, arched slightly. Behind these were some random chairs pulled from other rooms in an impromptu and makeshift seating pattern. Mr. Carson longed to rearrange the chairs in a more orderly fashion, but eventually forced himself to accept the chaos. It would not do to get grumpy over chairs when he was trying to spread holiday cheer.
In front of the row of wheelchairs the younger staff and nurses sat directly on the floor. Mr. Carson saw Daisy and her new friend chatting happily to his left. The other patients and nurses and doctors were scattered about in the chairs or up the staircase. Lady Sybil stood with her fellow nurses. The rest of the family was on the two couches, one of which had been turned to face the proper direction.
They were all finally settled and Mr. Carson could delay no longer, but then he looked up as the doorway to the servant's stairs opened. Mrs. Hughes stepped through and gave him a huge smile and a nod. Mr. Carson knew she had delivered a miracle. He nodded back and then looked down at the poem before him.
"A Visit from Saint Nicholas, by Clement Clarke Moore." His voice easily filled the large room.
"'Twas the night before Christmas,
when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."
TBC…
A/N- I debated posting the full poem, but realized that there were some people who might not know it. I assume if you didn't want to read it, it was easy to skip.
For those of us who grew up with the animated version with the singing mice, it's pretty familiar. If you don't have 'Even a Miracle Needs a Hand' in your head by now, you have no idea what I'm talking about, so never mind.
Tomorrow…Blitzen