A/N: Oh it's been so long since I've posted! Internetless days and difficulties writing are to blame.
Thank you Dee for not letting this fic seep into the Twilight Zone:
"My beacon's been moved under moon and star - Where am I to go now that I've gone too far?"
I hope you'll all like this! Reviews are appreciated as per usual.
Charles is warm by her side, comfortable. She can imagine holding a grandchild the way she is holding little Hazel and she wonders if maybe one day she still might. She's been so preoccupied with the idea of 'real' children - carried in her womb for nine months, brought into the world through hours of hardship, fed from her breast - she had almost forgotten about her care for William, the way Charles tried to teach Alfred and his disappointment when the boy had his heart in the kitchen instead of the dining room. But he had taken it with such grace and he had shown such an interest, had supported him so much.
She leans against him a moment, the baby waking up, blinking drowsily.
"Oh… hello…" Elsie says, her voice suddenly higher than usual. She runs the back of her finger over the impossibly soft cheek of the newborn. The baby starts moving her head, burrowing against her breast. She alters the way she has her hold on the child and addresses the woman across from her:
"She's awake and I think she needs a feeding… I don't know… I mean…"
The woman puts down her knitting and rummages around in her large bag, pulling out a bottle with a rubber nipple. "Would you mind, dear?"
Elsie takes the bottle and is reminded of lambing back in Argyll - where sometimes ewes would reject their lambs and she and her sister would feed them with sheep's milk in a bottle like this.
She doesn't know what's in this bottle, doesn't think it right to ask. She hoists up the baby a little and holds the tip of the bottle under her lip. The little rosebud mouth opens, and Hazel starts suckling hungrily.
"So, you've four boys and three girls?" she tries to make conversation - Charles is engrossed in the sports section of the newspaper, the woman's husband is reading a book (she cannot see the title, it could be anything).
"One of my boys went to France."
It's enough explanation. "So did two of ours. One came back only to die here."
"I am so sorry."
The two women eye each other in sympathy. The loss of someone near and dear in the most futile of ways connects deeply.
"Your other boys are both in Robin Hood's Bay?" Elsie asks after a few moments have passed.
"No, oh no. Hazel's father was always a bit of an odd duck. Never really finding his way. He is not a happy man, you know, in general. A bit of a brooder, really, but being with Marianne has been good for him. But now with the baby? He cannot care for her. I'm sure he thinks he can, he always thinks he can do anything my Reg can," the woman looks at her husband fondly, "But it's a special man who can be authoritative and kind at the same time."
"How did you two meet?" Elsie asks. Hazel is a slow drinker - possibly because the sensation of the artificial nipple is so different from the real thing.
"Oh, heavens…" The needles stop clicking; the woman looks like she is getting well and truly settled to tell her story:
"I'd been Head Housemaid at Riddlesden Hall for two weeks when I met Reg in church. A local farmer's son. He was so different from the footmen I was confronted with all day, every day. He was absorbed in his work. He knew the rules and he lived by them, but he always spared a kind word. I fell in love with him because of his voice, because his back would be so straight and he looked so strong. And that kindness that seemed to be buried so deep within him, but was actually right there under the surface. You'd only needed to scratch."
First Elsie gets cold at the woman's story and then she flashes hotly.
She is sitting across from her other way. Had she married Joe - had Joe been like Charles, someone to inspire love in her, passion, a burning need.
"After a year of furtive glances and the occasional touch of the hand, he'd come forward and asked me to step out with him. Silly man, he was so worried I'd turn him down! I may not have been very… expressive in my encouragement of him but I loved him so deeply, I couldn't imagine my life without him. I didn't know much about farming, let alone dairy farming, but it's really just like any other job: there are slow times and busy times and there are times things get rough and times you sit back, happily, looking at your life's work."
"A dairy farm?"
"Yes, we started out with nine Jersey cows and we've fourteen now."
She checks on the baby. The bottle is more than half empty now and Hazel has fallen asleep again. Before Elsie's been able to get her wind up. She isn't quite sure what to do. She is a little overwhelmed by the woman - who is still nameless - and her stories; the newborn in her arms such a soft, sweet weight that makes her heart pound awkwardly (not painfully; not now she has heard that children are alike in that you love them, care for them, want what's best for them).
But she is also unafraid of tackling things head on and thus she hands back the bottle and carefully, so very carefully, lifts the baby to lay her upon her shoulder. She is being handed a cloth to drape over her shoulder, so if the baby spits up, her back won't be covered in it.
Ripon comes into sight and Elsie hands back the baby to her grandmother.
"Goodbye, Hazel," she says, keeping a tight reign on her voice that seems to be stuck in her throat. She doesn't want to admit that in three hours' time, her heart has been stolen by a newborn child and that she has trouble letting go. Charles bends over the baby, runs the tip of his finger over the button nose.
"Goodbye, Hazel. You have been a very lovely companion. My wife will miss you."
He knows her too well and she doesn't know how to push back the tears that threaten to fall.
"Well, you can always come and visit us on the farm, we're only on the outskirts of Ripon, half an hour from the station."
Elsie laughs then, relieved and intrigued at the same time that this woman who is still nameless and who doesn't know her name either would extent such hospitality.
"I'd like that," she accepts the offer.
After all, her days are her own, to be filled with her own wants and needs. There are no bells to answer, no invoices to check. Only her husband to look after. It will be nice to have friends; friends who do not share their history, but are part of their present.
"How about you seek us out next week."
The woman's husband is writing something down on a piece of paper and it turns out to be an address. Charles carefully puts it away in his wallet. The train slows and stops. Elsie pops out of the train and takes their suitcase whilst Charles helps the couple with their many things. The woman is being welcomed by a tall, younger woman holding a young child by the hand and a baby in her arms. There are kisses and cries of joy. Hazel is being shown off, tears fall. Elsie watches them and waits for her husband.
When he comes, he picks up their suitcase and takes her by the hand, leading her to the bus that stands waiting. She climbs in, sits by the window and presses her head against his shoulder.
They are home and it's exactly how they've left it. Except that there's a small bunch of pretty flowers in a vase and a note from Anna to welcome them back. The mail - what little there is - is on a neat stack on the corner of the table. The plants are all looking healthy and well-cared for.
There's another note, a scribble in Mr Bates' bold handwriting, something about Anna and him calling on them in the next few days. The house smells like home. There are the photographs of many of her past charges on the buffet, their wedding photo hangs framed over the sofa.
Home. She picks up the mail and goes through the letters with practiced swiftness. There's one from her sister (who probably has received her postcard by now), one from a befriended Housekeeper. One from Gwen, and Elsie smiles, because she can feel what news the letter brings and she thinks how maybe in the future this house too will hear the sound of small feet running, the angry cry of hunger.
She puts the letters back, removes her hat, her coat, her shoes. Their suitcase stands in the hall while Charles is checking around the house and she waits for him. She unbuttons her dress one button too low - exposing the dusky rose-coloured satin of her brassiere. She is lifting her skirts to unhook her stockings from her garters; she slides them down her knees, her calves, carefully slips them off her feet.
The door opens and she finds her husband standing on the doormat, looking so pleased to be home, to see her and she is in his arms in two small steps, kisses him fiercely.
"Take me to bed, Mr Carson…" she whispers urgently into his ear.
He happily obliges.
