"Mrs. Hughes, do you have a moment?" Carson said from his office as he watched her walk quickly past his door. He'd been starring at the hallway for the past hour waiting for her to dare to walk by him. He knew it probably wasn't a good time, but when was it ever really.

"I'm afraid I don't Mr. Carson." Mrs. Hughes called continuing on her way to her sitting room. If only she could get inside and close the door before he got to her she might be able to avoid what she knew would only be a painful conversation.

Carson jumped up from his desk and headed after her only to catch her as her door slammed in his face. Waiting a moment he weighed his options. He could leave her be now and find another time, there would surely be another time to talk. Or he could push forward and face her wrath. Of course what right did she have to be angry with him for barging in, he was the one she'd been lying to for the past twenty odd years. He was the one she was pushing away and hurting by her deception. As his anger fanned into a flame he opened her sitting room door and stepped inside quickly shutting the door behind him.

"Mr. Carson!" She yelled, outraged that anyone would dare enter her sitting room without her permission. "I'm very busy right now, please leave."

"No." He said flatly sitting down in a chair by her table. She could yell at him all she liked but he knew as well as she that she couldn't physically force him to leave but his advantage of being near the door meant he could easily physically force her to stay, though he hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"Please Charles. Anna is sleeping and I've only a short amount of time before she wakes up."

"Then I will make this brief, why did you lie to me?"

"I don't know what you mean." She said turning back to her ledgers.

"Elsie Hughes I swear to God above if you do not answer me straight I will throttle you! Why have you been telling me you've been going to Scotland all these years?"

She was silent.

"Did you go to Scotland after it happened like you told me or did you just lie then as well?"

She was still silent.

"Do my feelings mean nothing to you? Did you never think I might want to go to Ipswich with you?

"Your feelings, you want me to consider your feelings! You left me alone in Ipswich to deal with it all. You left me alone to bury our child! How do you think that made me feel?! I stopped considering your feelings at about the same time you stopped considering mine."

"That isn't fair! We decided together that I should leave and try to get my job back at Downton."

"You shouldn't have left me." She said flatly trying to deflect the truth of his words. She had told him to leave, that his job at the fish factory was horrible and that if there was a way he could be butler again he should grab it, even so she hadn't really expected him to leave her, not like that.

"And what was I leaving Elsie? Hm? Tell me, a wife who couldn't stand to look at me, who cried every time I touched her. Who was miserable and who blamed me for everything! I was going to stay with you because it was the right thing to do but you…you pushed and pushed and finally I left. It might not have been the right decision but you were killing both of us."

"You weren't even there when she was born. I lay in that cold surgery all alone. I dressed her little body in her gown and I watched as they lowered her to the ground."

"You never sent word to me. If you had told me I would have come running. You cant blame me for doing what you asked and then not magically knowing what was happening. I'm only human Elsie. I was trying so hard to keep things together, to keep us together but it was a one sided fight. I just wish you had let me in. Had told me, at any point."

"I don't know what to say Charles."

"I think we should get divorced, officially."

"What?" she whispered, trying to hold in her tears.

"I married you because I loved you-"

"You married me because I was pregnant-" she countered.

"No dammit!" He shouted, slamming his hand against her desk. "I married you because I loved you, I gave up everything I had and worked a miserable job I hated because you were pregnant and because I loved you. I wanted to stay and try again. I wanted to have that life but you pushed and pushed and pushed so I gave up on all the things I wanted with you. I contented myself to work beside you, to see you every day, to fuck you whenever the mood struck you but no more. Its all been for naught, I don't know what I mean to you but it certainly isn't anything resembling someone you love. I'm going to the village today to speak with a lawyer to draw up divorce papers. No one here knows we are married and no one will hear that we've divorced. I cant keep up this charade, I'm done with you Elsie Hughes. I'm well and truly done."

"What happened when you got to the doctor?" Anna asked later as Elsie sat on the bed holding her. She'd spent a fair amount of time that evening crying but now she dried her tears as she looked after one dear soul who still cared for her.

"Well he told us that the baby didn't have a heartbeat any longer. He didn't know why, though he suspected that she might have wrapped her cord around her throat. I was getting closer and closer to my time and he said babies do a lot of movement at that point, who knows really. He told us we had two options, they could to surgery and take the baby out which would be very risky for myself or I could wait until my body was ready and deliver her."

"Oh Mrs. Hughes, that's awful. What did you do?"

"Well I went home and cried and cried. Mr. Carson tried to comfort me but I was so angry with the world, with myself for letting him down-"

"I'm sure he didn't think you had let him down."

"No I'm sure he didn't either but at that point my mind could have told me I was a leprechaun and I'd have believed it. I banished him from our bed, for almost a week the poor man had to sleep on the tiny couch we had. I couldn't let him touch me, I could hardly even look at him. Finally one day I told him to go back to Downton and try to get his job back. We both hated Ipswich and without the baby we really didn't need to stay. He tried to tell me he didn't want to leave me. I still hadn't decided what to do about the baby but I knew I couldn't face him being there either way. We fought for several days about it before he finally left. Once he was back at Downton I went down to the surgery and had them take the baby out. I named her Charlotte, it was Charles' mothers name. I buried her there in Ipswich. Charles kept sending me letter after letter asking how I was, if I needed him there. Telling me he missed me and he wanted to come back. I wrote to him that I was going to visit my sister in Scotland for a while but then I would come back and try to get my job at Downton back."

"Did you go to Scotland?"

"No, I stayed in Ipswich and let my sorrow swallow me whole."