Although he shouldn't really have been out of bed, Mr Carson rushed to Mrs Hughes' bedroom along with Ella and Henry and was startled by what he saw. Mrs Hughes was far whiter than he had been and was covered from head to toe in sweat. The fever had taken a very fast grip of her and her breathing had become very laboured, as she coughed and wheezed for breath. Whilst she was awake, the fever had made her somewhat delirious and incoherent.
'How long do you think she's been like this?' Mr Carson asked as he propped himself against the door frame.
'It's very hard to tell, but it's certainly got a strong hold of her. Ella we need more ice and cold cloths,' he ordered as he put on his serious doctor's head. He needed to concentrate greatly if he was to save her life.
'Is there anything I can do to help her?' Mr Carson asked.
'No Mr Carson, but thank you; the best thing you could do is go back to bed and rest.' Henry replied as he set about trying to lower Mrs Hughes' temperature.
'I'm not leaving her now,' Mr Carson said as he moved himself on to the bed and sat beside her, as she had done for him the previous night.
When Ella returned with another bowl full of ice cold water, she allowed herself a small smile when she saw them together, with Mr Carson grasping Mrs Hughes' hand and with nothing but fear on his face.
'Ella, I need to go out and get more supplies as I won't have enough to last until morning. I need you to keep up the cold compressions and when possible try to get her to drink plenty of fluids. This is really advanced Spanish Flu, my darling, which means that the sickness will probably start soon enough.' He explained quietly to his wife.
'But she will be alright, won't she?' Ella whispered back as she pushed the tears from her eyes.
'If we can see her through the night, then it is likely she will survive.' Henry explained, although he wanted to be honest with Ella and tell her to prepare herself for the worst, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. Instead he kissed her before heading out of the house.
Ella sat in the chair next to her mother and began mopping her face and neck with the cold water and silently prayed like she had never prayed before. She couldn't bear to speak, because she knew that if she tried then she might start to cry. Before long her bowl of ice water had gone and she needed to get more, but hated the idea of leaving her mam.
'Don't worry Ella, I will stay with her,' Mr Carson said as he took the cloth from Ella's hands and began pressing it against Mrs Hughes' face and if the circumstances been different, then they both would have realised that he'd called her Ella and that it had happened so naturally.
'I'll be back as quickly as I can.' Ella replied as she left the room, her heart racing and her body aching.
Mr Carson sat and stared at the woman in front of him and held so much love and fear in his heart that it pained him to see her in this way. He wasn't used to seeing her so weak and being the one needing him to hold her hand. She had always been the one supporting him, the one that kept him grounded and the love of his life for so many years and the thought of losing her pierced his heart and made him ache for her.
'Please, Dear Lord, let her be alright,' he whispered. 'I would never be able to manage without you Elsie Hughes; you mean more to me than you will ever know, a silly old man who has spent these last twenty five years loving you. You have to beat this, if not for my sake then for Ella's; she's a wonderful young woman and so much like you, I see that now. I see so much of who you are in her and I know that she loves and adores you as much as I do.' He said, thinking he was quite alone, but Ella had been listening in the background and found the stoic man's declaration of love so beautifully touching that it brought tears to her eyes.
She entered the room with the fresh bowl of water and ice and took the cloth from Mr Carson and handed him a clean one. At first she gave him no indication that she had heard what he had said, although he believed she had. Finally she began to open up to him about everything she felt and things she had never shared with anyone else.
'Elsie means the absolute world to me too Mr Carson, the absolute world and I love her so very much. When I first found out the truth about my real parentage I was devastated I won't deny it. I felt as if I had been brought into the world surrounded by lies and deceit and I am ashamed to say, that after a few days I grew angry at them all for what they had done.' She whispered as a few stray tears twisted their way down her face. 'I couldn't understand how Elsie could possibly have ever loved me after she was…well after she was violated in such a cruel way. I thought that the reason she didn't want to raise me, the reason she didn't want to be my mother was because she hated me and I thought that my parents only took me out of guilt or a sense of duty for what Papa's brother had done; but Elsie made me see that that wasn't true and I really do know that now.'
'She does love you Ella and I think I've known her secret all along in many ways and I don't think she has a hateful bone in her body.' Mr Carson replied.
'No I think you are right Mr Carson, but she certainly has a lot of love in her heart and not just for me. She is very much in love with you Mr Carson and I think you need to tell her that you love her too. What you said earlier, when you thought no one was listening, was absolutely beautiful and she needs to hear that.' Ella said as she wiped her cheeks with her hand.
'And you wouldn't mind us being together?' He asked, a little surprised by her candid response.
'Mind, Mr Carson? Certainly not; I would be absolutely delighted. I can't think of any two people in this world who are more deserving of each other than you two are. I love you both very much Mr Carson and have always thought of you as second parents to me.' She replied, just as Henry arrived with some more medication, which stopped their conversation, but everything Ella had said to him, gave Mr Carson plenty to think about.
He silently made the promise to God, that if he saved her then he would tell her how he felt, regardless of whether or not she rejected him, he would tell her and he kept this prayer going throughout the night.
Mrs Hughes condition got considerably worse in the late evening as she began to vomit, just as Henry had said would happen, but the force of her retching and coughing caused her to start coughing blood. Ella, Mr Carson and Henry didn't speak to each other at all throughout the night. They were all too exhausted and petrified to even try. Occasionally Mr Carson would give Ella's hand a quick comforting squeeze, which she valued and appreciated more than anything, and was what got her through the night, until, eventually, Mrs Hughes stopped vomiting in the early hours of the morning. Her temperature was still high, but not as high as it had been.
Henry listened to her chest, checked her temperature and her blood pressure and was relieved by what he found.
'Well I think I'm safe to say, that as long as she doesn't relapse, we are over the worst of it now; she should be absolutely fine in a day or two.' He said.
'Oh thank you God!' Ella exclaimed with exhausted delight. 'I'll stay with her until she wakes.' She added and both she and Mr Carson didn't move from their positions, although two sleepless nights in a row had fairly taken their toll on Ella. Eventually as she sat clutching her mother's hand, she drifted off into what looked like an uncomfortable sleep. She was sat in the chair at the bedside with her head resting on the bed at her mother's side.
Mr Carson smiled as he watched both mother and daughter sleeping peacefully and thought about how alike they looked. He felt so privileged to be part of their lives and to be part of their secret, as well as the fact that Ella wanted him to, effectively, become a part of that secret as her step-father. Whilst he loved all four of the Crawley girls as if they were his own children, he had never thought that any one of them would have thought of him as a second parent or father figure; so to hear Ella describe as such made him feel more loved than he imagined possible.
His fond thoughts turned to sad ones though, as he thought about what their lives could have been like together. Had he known about Mrs Hughes pregnancy and her secret all those years ago, he would have happily married her and taken Ella as his own daughter. He'd fallen in love with the Scottish beauty as soon as he had seen her enter the servants' quarters twenty five years ago and felt guilty that he had ever allowed anything bad to have happened to her and deeply wished that he could have changed things for them all. But God had given them all a second chance to be together and he knew he would have been a fool not to grab the chance with both hands.
As he sat and thought about all of their possibilities as man and wife, he didn't notice that Mrs Hughes had stirred. She laid for a few seconds and watched him, at first a little dazed and confused as to why he was in her bedroom, but then as she came round more she smiled at the sight of him and Ella beside her.
'What are you doing in here?' She croaked, her throat feeling like it had sharp barbs and broken glass sticking in her.
'Taking care of you; you gave me quite a scare.' Mr Carson said with reserved delight.
'Likewise,' she responded as she then brushed her hand through Ella's lose honey coloured hair. 'Have you both been here all night?'
'We haven't left your side,' Mr Carson replied as he tenderly kissed her hand, as he had done a few times previously, but then he did something quite bold and out of character, which would have taken Mrs Hughes quite by surprise had she the energy. He bent close to her and then placed a soft, chaste kiss to her lips, something she had longed for, for so many years, and she allowed her hand to cup his cheek briefly.
He then pulled back from her slightly and looked into her blue eyes and whispered, 'don't ever scare me like that again.'