Ch 9- Pieces of You

"He's an exceptional daddy. He didn't think he could do it and my is he just perfect." Ghost Elsie whispered, her heart melting at the sight of her beloved cuddling their little girl as they slept.

There had been a storm that night and so Elspeth had seen every need to crawl into bed with her dad as he read, asking him if he'd ever been afraid of the storms.

Ghost Elsie smiled deeply, brushing Elspeth's hair out of her face as she sucked her thumb, caressing Charlie's cheek with her other hand. Elsie bit her lip, leaning her head down against both of theirs and blowing a kiss. Neither of them stirred but both could feel her presence and calmed in their sleep, her name on the tips of their tongues.

"My love and my baby."

Elsie beamed, happy about all they were accomplishing as a family without her, and even prouder of how Elspeth was growing. Charlie would never guess she was watching from so nearby and was taking increasing pride in the job he was doing in fathering their child.

"Thank you so much, for being the best pieces of me: the both of you."

"Elsie." Charlie whispered in his sleep.

"Mama." Elspeth mumbled, clutching her father's pajama top as Elsie faded away.

….

"Daddy!" Elspeth cried, coming down the stairs.

Carson sighed, hearing his little girl's voice ring throughout the corridor.

"Daddy!" She cried, rushing to him.

"Elspeth my love." He sighed, exasperated when he came into the hall. "What has daddy told you about speaking so loudly?"

"Sowwy." She giggled, putting her hands behind her back.

Carson's heart smiled, her adorable little pout looked just like his Elsie's. He paused a moment, pretending to be cross with her, then quickly picked her up and lifted her in the air, causing her to laugh so joyfully that he was reminded how great a gift she was.

"Now what is it my little love?" He asked, kissing her cheek and settling her into his arms.

"Daddy there's a man upstairs."

"Oh?"

"I answered the door."

"And what did I say about answering the door without me present?"

"But daddy Thomas was there, I promised I wouldn't do it alone!... Anyway…"

Elspeth didn't know how to tell her father this. Part of her was upset, another part intrigued.

"Whose this mysterious man at the door?" He asked, holding her close.

"I don't know but he's asking for my mummy."

Carson's face went white as a sheet.

…

"I'll get it, I'll get it!" Elspeth had exclaimed.

Thomas cleared his throat, getting in front of the little girl.

"Pwease!" She cried. "Then piggy back ride?"

"Alright." He sighed, pretending to be displeased. "You may get the door Elspeth. But only because I'm RIGHT here."

Elspeth answered excitedly, expecting the post, or a townsperson or even a random Lord (many of Lord and Lady Grantham's guests were very kind to the butler's precocious little girl). Instead, Elspeth met the gaze of a kind but unfamiliar bearded man about her father's age. She tilted her head in confusion as Thomas watched curiously, wondering how this would go.

"Hi." She squeaked.

"Hello." The man smiled kindly, getting on his knees. "And who might you be?"

"Elspeth Carson."

The man smiled, knowing who she was the moment he looked in her little eyes: the resemblance was undeniable. He never thought in coming here, that it would be so easy to find her. He found himself both upset and enchanted by this encounter at once.

"Your voice is funny." She remarked, thinking she'd heard the lilt somewhere before. He chuckled.

"I'm from Scotland wee one." He said, wondering how she didn't already know that. "I'm here to see Elsie Hughes, can you please find her for me?"

Elspeth gasped, her little eyes growing wide as saucers.

"Daddy! Daddy!" She screamed, turning around and running for the green baize door.

"You'll have to excuse her sir, she's a little excitable around strangers." Thomas stepped in. "What's your name again?"

…

"Joe Burns." Carson reflected.

"Whose that daddy?" Elspeth asked.

"I must go up." He said nervously, it was obvious he was panicking. "I'll leave you with your Auntie Beryl."

"No! Daddy I wanna go."
"I don't think this is appropriate for you to…"

"But he knows my mummy."

Charlie sighed. "Elspeth I… fine you may accompany me."

Charlie had a lot to say to Joe Burns: some of it he didn't want Elspeth to hear, it was far too distressing. But, he figured the little girl would be his ambassador in some sense. She looked so much like Elsie, after all. Charlie nervously went up to the sitting room where Thomas had left Mr. Burns with a cup of tea and biscuits.

"Mr. Burns." Carson said, coming into the room.

Joe stood and greeted Charlie, who sat down uneasily across from him. Carson placed his little girl on his knee, finding he felt much more at ease with her in his arms than he would've otherwise. Elspeth didn't know what was going on. It hadn't happened in a while and he hated when it did: when he had to explain Elsie's death, when he came across someone who didn't know.

Joe simply thought that her husband was cross about his unexpected arrival and not allow her to see him.

"I didn't know Elsie was married, or had a little girl." He smiled. "It's nice to meet you Mr. Carson, I take it?"

"Yes. I'm Carson, the butler. This is my daughter, Elspeth."

"You're the image of your mummy at that your age." Burns said.

Elspeth giggled, the comment making Carson ache. He couldn't be reminded of the fact any more than he already was. Burns continued.

"Where is the lovely Mrs. Carson?"

Elspeth paused, knowing better than to say her mother had never been a Carson, but in that moment something about the thought gave her a moment of pause in a way it hadn't before. Carson bristled at the question, finding comfort when his little girl took his hand.

"Mr. Burns…" Carson swallowed hard, this entire meeting painful for him. "Elsie…" It hurt to say the name. It made his heart squeeze so tight he thought he'd drop dead. He took a deep breath, willing his body to recover at once for Elspeth's sake and her sake alone. "Mr. Burns I'm sorry to inform you, she passed away several years ago during Elspeth's birth."

He hoped that would be a sufficient explanation as to what had happened, and that he would refrain from further questioning. Charlie was surprised to find a look of utter devastation playing across the man's face. He resented it a little. Sure he'd known her, grown up with her: but he didn't have the right to feel devastated. Charlie was still just as devastated as he'd been the moment he said good-bye. It was a feeling he'd connected with intimately, following a deep period of brooding after Elsie's death that had overtaken his heart, body and soul. It was something he'd never get over, and something he'd always be very possessive of. It belonged to him, and no one else in quite the same way; after all, he'd been her best friend, her lover, and her betrayer.

His devastation had marked her for death.

Joe was shocked, he'd come here to marry her and when he arrived, been greeted by a vibrant little girl in her image. The last thing he ever expected was to be informed she was dead. Joe found himself startled, crushed and barely capable of speech.

"I-I had no idea: Mr. Carson I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Y-you knew her as a lass then?" He moved on, not wanting to converse more about her demise.

"That's right." His voice cracked, he thought he was going to cry.

Elspeth studied the man's face carefully, noting his upset.

"Do I really look just like my mummy?"

Joe stared back at Elspeth, the resemblance chilling him to the bone. There she was before him: Elsie at five.

"Yes lass you do: the image."

Mr. Burns swallowed hard, now distressed that he'd come. He felt badly for his friend, and foolish that he'd come. But he couldn't feel worse about anything than the fact that this child should loose her mother before she'd had the chance to know her, and yet have the curse of looking exactly like her.

Elspeth smiled, realizing the way he said lass sounded exactly like the woman who visited her in her dreams.

"What brings you here, Mr. Burns?" The visit was making Carson feel sick and he wanted with everything in him to simply get on with it.

Burns paused, realizing he couldn't tell the woman's widower that he'd come there to ask for her hand in marriage.

"Passing through." He lied, pouring himself some tea.

"Oh?"

"Yes, yes. To London and I remembered she lived here… I try to keep in touch with my childhood friends and it'd been many years."

Carson didn't believe him, but with Elsie gone and his daughter present he figured there wasn't much a point in challenging him.

"I'd never have gone with him anyway Charlie." Elsie whispered.

In fact she'd run from Joe at a young age because deep inside she knew Charlie was out there and waiting for her. She'd situated herself behind the sofa on which her love and baby, sat.

"You know I love you like you are part of me." She continued. "And I would've died empty, had I never found you."

In that instant Carson could hear her voice clear as a bell. For a moment, his heart stopped. He shook his head, trying to shake her voice out of it.

Carson's head was spinning and was grateful that it soon came time to escort their guest outside.

"You're part of me Charlie." Ghost Elsie pointed out. "What's so hard to understand about the fact that you can still hear me?"

"Good-bye!" Elspeth cried cheerfully, her feet atop of her father's.

She liked to walk atop her father's feet. It was a game he'd started with her when he was teaching her to walk, a game people only seem to play with fathers. Now that he was busy saying goodbye to her mother's friend, Elspeth somehow found it the most convenient time to grab her father's hands and jump on his feet. Carson played along for a moment and then lifted her off.

"Elspeth, go downstairs and tell your Auntie Beryl it's alright to ring the gong. Can you do that?"

Elspeth nodded quickly and ran off, so excited to be given an important job that she forgot about her fascination with her mother's guest. What she hadn't known was that fate had almost had a very different plan. This was not the first time Mr. Burns had come to Downton. In fact he'd been there several years prior, not long before Elspeth was conceived. He'd sent a letter, a little over a year before the child was born. As a result, he and Elsie had met at a fair and gone to dinner together, an activity that had made Carson scathingly angry.

"B-but he can't marry you. I'm going to marry you!" Carson gulped, devastated as he watched her get ready.

Elsie sighed, turning from her place looking in the mirror. She paused for a moment and got up to kiss him. "Charlie Carson. I promise I'll never belong to any man but you."

Carson almost shuddered, remembering the way her doe eyes stared up and into his as she said it. He should've done it then, that night: gone off and married her. Burns' visit had not threatened Charlie's standing in the contest for Elsie's heart. Both were in love past the point of there being a contest. But the man's question had put a considerable rift in their trust for each other.

'Will you marry me?'

Joe Burns had traveled miles to ask a woman who was almost a stranger to him to spend the rest of her life in his care. He was ready, right then. But Charlie still needed his time.

Carson, puffed up his chest, unconsciously feeling threatened by the much smaller man who'd taken an action he'd been unwilling to: marry her, right then.

'It's not his fault, it's yours.' Something in his mind pushed, but Charlie wouldn't accept it.

It wasn't just the pregnancy, you see, that had put a rift between Carson and Mrs. Hughes. She was deeply hurt that she got a serious proposal from a near stranger, when the love of her life could've married her but chose to the security of his career first.

'If I'd been pregnant by Joe, he would make it right.' She'd spat once.

The claim crushed him even to this day, and she hadn't even meant it: she'd simply reacted out of her own pain. Elsie never would've been pregnant by Joe, for she didn't love him enough. Elspeth had been made out of deep love, and a need for one partner to better understand the other, something that could only be reconciled now in the child.

Joe felt ill at ease, being left alone with Carson and sensed his anger the moment he sent his daughter away. He'd had no idea she was married when he saw her last. He couldn't believe his embarrassment: he'd proposed to a married woman. Why hadn't she told him?

"Good day Mr. Burns." Charlie escorted him out. "I'm sure she would've appreciated your coming." He couldn't bring himself to say her name.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Carson. I'm so sorry for your loss. She was a wonderful woman."

Carson paused. He'd been about to say: 'She never would've gone with you. Not in a million years.' But refrained. Instead he found himself calmed by the other man's words.

"Thank you, Mr. Burns. I appreciate the sentiment. She was a wonderful woman indeed."

…

Beryl rang the gong herself and quickly went to work finishing the rest of supper.

"I'm hungry!" Elspeth cried, clutching her surrogate mother's skirt. "Can I please have something? Please, auntie!"

"No, you know we don't eat for another hour or more." Daisy tried to instruct.

"Daisy don't be so sharp with the lass!" Beryl accused. "She's little and she's fussy. You can have a cookie, but just one!" Beryl handed the little girl a single sugar cookie. "Now go and find Miss Baxter, hum? And after you bring her to me you can help with the potatoes."

Daisy sighed, frustrated about the fact that she was expected to help with Elspeth and yet got yelled at every time she disciplined the little girl.

Elspeth bit into the cookie, munching happily and hoping to run into Miss Baxter, who was new in the house and very fun to play with.

"Miss Baxter!" She called.

Elspeth froze when she saw Cora's bell ring on the board, and knew instantly that her new friend was now otherwise occupied. In her moment of pause, the little girl realized that she was all alone in the hall and her mother's abandoned sitting room door caught her eye. Knowing it was a bad idea; she tiptoed to the door and snuck inside, accidently leaving the door ajar.

The little girl looked around amazed, wondering what it would be like to walk in any time she liked and find the mother she'd never known sitting there, waiting with open arms. Elspeth dropped to the floor and looked around fast, surveying her surroundings.

"Mummy I miss you. I met your friend today…" She whispered, knowing she wasn't supposed to talk to her mother. But she'd been just loud enough.

Baxter had come to the kitchen without Elspeth, which sent Beryl off to look for her. She'd quickly found the child in Elsie's old sitting room, talking to herself.

"I love you so very much, m'lass." Came a voice that caused Elspeth to clap.

"Oh mummy there you are, I hear you."

Elsie was of course there in spirit, but she didn't appear to Beryl who watched the child with saddened eyes.

"Oh my lord." The cook whispered sadly to herself, her heart on her chest, distressed for the little girl she'd raised. "Elspeth." She cleared her throat.

"Auntie what?" Elspeth asked, getting to her feet and rushing to see the cook.

Mrs. Patmore tried her best to hide the tears that pooled in her eyes and got on her knees.

"Elspeth, you know I… there's nothing I can do, I could never replace your mummy but I love you and I'm here for you."

Elspeth smiled and hugged her aunt tight. "I love you too."

"Come on love." Beryl picked the girl up. "It's time for cooking."

"Okay." Elspeth closed her eyes and laid her head on her neck.

Beryl ran her fingers through the child's hair as she sighed. Elspeth was happy: it felt nice to be hugged by her loving aunt when she missed her mummy so much. She held on to Beryl tight, watching as the image of her mother followed them, smiling bright. Elsie stopped just as they were about to turn into the kitchen and waived, signaling that she could follow no further.

"Ni mummy." Elspeth whispered impossibly quietly, but Beryl heard.

It was then she decided she had to get help for the little girl, whether Carson liked it or not.