She arrives home early in the evening, tired and dusty from the train and the carriage. All she wants is to wash and to sleep. Her heart already aches with the lack of Charles' presence. Her mother has made or plans and so she cleans herself up as good as she can, changes with the help of a worn out looking Levinson and joins her family for a strained evening meal.
Anne is looking drawn and pale, John is silent as he always is and Mother is shooting daggers at anyone trying to say or do anything she doesn't approve of. Elsie doesn't have an appetite after being jostled about for hours, but she takes a bit of food from the platter held out to her by a footman she's never seen before.
"Where's Frederick?" She asks. She sees Anne getting ready to answer, but Mother interjects: "He's left."
Elsie nods. She had come to that conclusion herself.
"He's gotten married." Anne adds, eager to speak to someone.
"I say!" Elsie almost exclaims and she is amused by it herself. She's taken over some of Daisy's expressions in the weeks she's stayed with Beryl.
"Daughter of McLaggen." John gives a bit more information. "They'll be taking over the shop when the time comes."
Elsie nods and picks up her glass. She feels her mother's eyes bore into her, unsettling her.
Surprisingly John continues to talk. Normally he is a quiet man, prone to moods of long dark silences, but today he seems happy. Pleased with himself even.
"I've this morning received word from Lord Grantham..."
Elsie presses her napkin against her lips to keep herself from reacting too strongly. Mother looks up sharply.
"The girl's only just returned!"
It sounds like an accusation. John looks at their mother with a frisson of disdain. "Telegrams are delivered quickly and efficiently. Lord Grantham's is not different."
Elsie swallows hard. Unable to look anyone in the eyes. A hush falls over the room, but not for long, because John produces the telegram from his pocket and reads it aloud, his voice carrying through the room.
"Bates. Asked your sister. She accepts. Hoping for your blessings. Downton"
The sharp intake of breath from her mother, the giggle from Anne, the big smirk on John's face: it all contributes to Elsie's fierce blush and she worries her lip, a habit she's had since she was a child and she has been scolded for it more than she cares to remember.
"What's all this?" It's an outcry from the other side of the table. Mother is flustered and clearly outraged.
"Charles has asked me to marry him and I've accepted his proposal." Outward she is as cool as she can be with her flushed cheeks. Composed. Calm even.
On the inside she is screaming. Her blood is racing, she hears it thunder in her ears. It drowns out her mother's objections, her brother's attempts to calm her.
Charles has asked her to marry him and she has accepted and he has asked for her hand - though unconventionally, which she had not expected. She feels detached from what is going on in the dining room, is unaware of the looks between servants, of Anne shrinking back in her chair, the piercing voice of her mother.
Tonight she'll write Charles to go ahead with the reading of the banns in Downton's quaint little church. She'll ask John to speak to the vicar in their parish church.
"I'll ask you to calm yourself only once." Charles tells his cousin in a ice cold tone. "You've made your position quite clear. You are against it. Well sir, there is nothing to be done about it. The wedding will go ahead. You can rest assured your inheritance won't be touched, Miss Hughes has confided. You have made her so uncomfortable, pushed your unkindness so she felt the need to share that with me! I am extremely disappointed with you."
He bellows and Thomas hardly flinches. The young man just sits across his desk, looking bored, smoking his cigarette. Filthy habit. Charles doesn't want to know about the boy's other habits. He just wants to live a quiet life. He wants to take care of Downton and it's tenants. To love Elsie until the end of his days, to make his bride happy and cherish her.
"Do not expect anything from me." He says and finally sees a flicker of what may be fear in the eyes of his cousin. The boy has had it too easy all his life. His conniving ways and steady income from the estate have made it possible for him to live the life of frivolity and Charles worries for Downton's future when it will get into the young man's hands.
Unfortunately there is nothing he can do. There is no way he can divert his title and estate to Daisy - who is young and naive and frankly just a slip of a girl, but if she were to marry well…
"You cannot do this to me." Thomas' voice cuts through his meanderings.
"Cannot do what?" He asks.
"Cut back my allowance!"
"I never said anything about your allowance." Only because it is not within his power to stop the flow of money that goes from his banker to Thomas and then straight towards ill advised evenings and things Charles simply doesn't want to be confronted with.
"I'm going to London. Kindly have Gillingham open the house for me." Thomas speaks in an arrogant tone, expecting to be listened to.
"You can stay at your club, I'm not opening the house just so you have a place to stay." Charles picks up an envelope from the stack that had just been brought in.
"What?!"
"I am not discussing this matter any further. If you want to go to London you can go to your gentlemen's club, if you don't want to be present for the wedding, that is your prerogative, but I am through talking to you this morning. I'll bid you good day, Thomas."
He ignores his cousin as the boy storms out of the study.
Dearest,
Your letters arrive so promptly every other day, I never once fear you will not show up at the church for our wedding. Mrs Turnbull* tells me you have made exquisite plans for the day and I am in admiration for you managing to conduct our wedding from so very far away.
The miles are felt most painfully when the evening falls and the house is quiet and I know you to be sitting with your sister, probably working on your needlepoint, chatting and I am jealous, for I miss your voice, your ideas. To discuss the events of my day with you is my greatest wish and I am a grateful man for the near future will hold just that.
Just short weeks from now it will not be letters that befall me, but your presence and I will do everything in my power to be worthy of you. You will be pleased to hear that Thomas has decided to stay at his club instead of joining us for the festivities, though it will look odd, I'm well aware. I doubt he'll be missed though.
Only a few days separate us now and I am counting the hours until we'll be together again,
Forever yours,
Charles
*sources tell me 'Turnbull' is Isobel Crawley's maiden name
