A/N Warning. This chapter is… bad! Really. Bad. I've changed the ending three times before I thought: well I could continue after this, maybe, perhaps. There is too much dialogue (and I didn't take the real dialogue from the scene in the Christmas Special) in it and it makes no sense. Thank you for your attention and I am sorry that you have waited for this so long and that you won't be happy with this. (but I've warned you) (and writing Mrs. Patmore while I think of Sister Evangelina DOES NOT HELP ;))
She sat in her sitting room alone for a moment after he had left her. They had shared one last tender kiss and he had promised to come back later when everyone else was upstairs in their rooms, getting ready for the night after this eventful day. He had promised to hold her, to keep her company, to talk about this change in their relationship, to find out what it meant for them.
Elsie's thoughts revolved around what had happened in her sitting room, her little refuge, within the last half hour. Absentmindedly her fingers touched her lips. A kiss, another one, three kisses from a man she had known for so many years. Who had been part of her life for such a long time, had seen her move into this house, encouraged her to work for this sitting room, had seen how she had made it her home. She looked around, studied the pictures on the walls that decorated her little sanctuary, the place in this big house she proudly called her own. They showed her family, parents, friends, long forgotten memories only remembered by a single photograph or painting. She once thought that having her loved ones around her everyday, in these frames, on top of the mantelpiece and next to her ledgers, would make her feel save, at home, loved. How little did she know what being loved really meat and that although the people depicted on this little black and white prints were her family by blood, her real family was here, in this house, surrounding her every day, loving her in a different way but giving her so much more support.
They are all the family I've got. She understood what he had meant by this, now. How could she have been so blind all these years and not see it, deny what it was? Why had it taken so long for her to realize that she was more than a housekeeper to them, for him? Elsie took a small, framed picture from the top of her bureau and turned it in her hands until it caught enough light to illuminate the photograph sufficiently. It showed three children, all in their Sunday best, two girls and a very young boy. Elsie stood in the middle, her older sister at her right. Her brother sat on a stool, his legs too short to reach the ground so they had moved continuously while the picture was taken, making them appear blurry in the shot. Her fingers carefully touched the glass, moved across the young boy's face, across her sister's bright smile. Arthur had died a few weeks after the picture was taken. He had been on the fields, trying to help Da when the horse shied and buried him underneath its heavy body. His legs were crushed and he had died from the blood loss. After that, things were different. The picture was the last memory of family Elsie had. Fresh tears threatened to well up. Fortunately a knock on the door woke her from this hurtful memory.
"Come in", she called, while putting the picture back on its place next to her stationary. When she turned around Beryl stood in the doorway holding a tray with tea and biscuits.
"May I come in?"
Elsie smiled at her, the only female companion she had in this house, yet the one person she had never thought would become a friend one day. And now here they were, sharing a cup of tea after a day at a country fair.
"He was in here for quite a long time." Beryl Patmore remarked after she had put down the tray. "Is something the matter?"
If anyone else had asked this question, Elsie would simply have given "no" as an answer, but the cook did not want to know whether something was wrong or which problems they had discussed. The smirk on her face gave her away immediately.
"From the look on your face I gather you already suspect something so there is no use in answering this question now. You would not believe me anyway and the rest is non of your business Mrs. Patmore."
The eyes of the older woman widened. "My my."
Elsie rolled her eyes. She had already said too much.
"Well then how about a cuppa?" Mrs. Patmore had already started to pour the tea into their cups and Elsie added spoonful of honey to hers.
"Mr. Carson told me you wanted to discuss something with me?" She took a sip but the beverage was still too hot to drink it.
"Well yes. He gave me this before we left." Beryl handed her a small handwritten note and Elsie immediately knew what it would say without even reading it. Wordless she returned the note. After all the things she had witnessed Mr. Tufton do at the fair in Thirsk, she felt guilty now that she had not told Mrs. Patmore right away what she had seen. On top of that, her guilt was mixed with anger when Elsie thought about the falseness with which this man tried to lure Mrs. Patmore away from her respectable position, her independent life here at Downton.
"Well what do you say?"
Elsie had problems finding the right words. "I should have told you…", she started, worrying her lip like she always did in such situations.
"Tell me what?" Mrs. Patmore put down her cup, a bit too forcefully so that some of the tea spilled onto the saucer.
"I've seen him do things at the fair. He was touching other women, had his hand on their…", she hesitated for a moment, trying to find an expression that sounded nicer than the one she initially had come up with in her anger. "…bottom."
Mrs. Patmore's eyes widened.
"And when he was pulling in the tug o' war I saw him chewing the mouth off of some poor woman." Elsie finished, relieved to have said it aloud. But the guilty feeling was still there along with her anger.
"While I was cheering him on?" The shocked face was so unlike Mrs. Patmore.
Elsie nodded. She had probably ruined he cook's hope of a different life now, although she was certain that whatever Mr. Tufton had to offer could not possibly be good enough for a woman like Beryl Patmore. If the cook had asked for Elsie's opinion on the man she would have told her that this guy was not worth it, not at all! But she had not asked, instead Elsie had observed her, secretly, witnessed things she then kept to herself. And now she was paying the price for not being honest and open with Mrs. Patmore right away. Sometimes withholding information in an effort not to hurt a friend's feelings was simply wrong, Elsie thought. She desperately hoped that Beryl would not leave her room immediately and never talk to her again.
"Where was I all of that time?" she asked. "Why didn't I notice?"
"Oh I don't know. I am so sorry." Elsie wanted to reach out, take one of Mrs. Patmore's hands like she had so often done with one of the maids. She wanted to show that she cared, that she was sorry, that she owed an apology. But the cook covered her face with both hands, took deep breaths and Elsie had to close her eyes for a moment to calm down. She had only seen the cook cry once. During the war. When Lord Grantham had told her that her nephew had been shot for cowardice. And she was not sure whether she could deal with this again right now. Not after all the problems she had already faced today. But when she looked at Mrs. Patmore again, Elsie realized it was not sobbing she heard, it sounded more like giggling.
Taking her hands away from her face, the grin on the cook's face was unmistakable. "Oh thank you Mrs. Hughes! I tried so hard to find an excuse to never see this man again."
"What?" Elsie had never been so confused. What was the older woman talking about all of a sudden?
"Oh the more he talked about how he liked his eggs fried and his pancakes flipped the more I wanted to get away from him."
It slowly dawned on Elsie that she had completely underestimated the woman sitting in front of her, ignored for a few minutes that it was Beryl Patmore not a silly young kitchen maid, naïve enough to believe that marrying was the ultimate goal in a woman's life.
"And now I have something to tell him in case he dares to come back! But how could he lead a poor woman on like that?"
Elsie shook her head, tried to get the last of her anger and worries out of her mind after the sudden revelation. This day was so full of surprises, had so far been so unexpected that she had no other chance than to join in Mrs. Patmore's jolly mood. "But you've heard him. He loves to be in love." She rolled her eyes once more and when Beryl started to laugh out loud, Elsie could not keep her straight face. Tears streamed down her cheeks after several minutes of laughter. Never had she cried for so many different reasons in one day. Out of breath, Mrs. Patmore wiped away her own tears and took a sip of her tea.
"Cold." She giggled.
"Again?" Elsie took a few deep breaths to calm down and then put a hand around her cup. "Indeed." It was not even lukewarm.
"What do you mean by again?" Mrs. Patmore was her old self, inquiring always curious self again.
A smile crossed Elsie's face. "Like I told you before. It is non of your business." Although this time she did not really mean it. But as long as she was not sure what she should call this new relationship between her and Charles Carson, she would not say a single word. Not even to Mrs. Patmore.
"This sounds very suspicious Mrs. Hughes." The cook took a biscuit from the plate in the middle of the table.
"I don't know what you mean." Elsie took a sip of her tea although it was cold. She needed to stop talking, stop giving hints. With every word she said, she gave herself away.
"Elsie Hughes. You cannot hide things from me and you know that." The biscuit was placed onto the tea-stained saucer where it absorbed the spilled liquid immediately. "Well, just to let you know, whatever it is that's between you and him, you deserve it."
Elsie wanted to protest, say something, stop Mrs. Patmore from analysing her private life but the only thing she managed to do was to open her mouth before the cook continued with her speech. "And I think you know this too. So don't worry about it. I won't say a word."
And she could only hope that this promise was kept.
Thank you for all your kind words and for following this story. It should have ended two chapters ago... but well... I continue :) Please tell me when to stop!
