Tuesday evening
Her outburst weighs heavily on her the rest of her workday. She keeps thinking how life in service used to be, about how both Beryl and Elsie were taught to keep their hearts armour-plated. They learned to never let anyone come close. But over time they have found out there will always be little holes in the iron that let the light in. Cracks that let the love out. Elsie has the evidence of this in her bed every night. Beryl will be holding it in her arms soon.
Before her friend left that afternoon, Elsie had emphasised how happy she is Beryl will be a grandmother soon and how wonderful it is for her to have that role at the farm. That she doesn't begrudge her this happiness in the slightest.
"You just wished you could have it, too," Beryl had concluded and she had taken Elsie's hand in hers squeezed it gently. "You know Daisy would really like you to visit, don't you?"
"I hope she'll forgive me for shutting her out."
Beryl had laughed at that. "She'll be happy to see you, don't you worry about that. You and Mr Carson come over for Sunday lunch; Mr Barrow and Miss Baxter can keep this raft afloat."
Knowing Charles would appreciate drowning a yorkie in gravy - he's not had a proper roast since he's retired - she had accepted the invitation. Beryl left Elsie to her own devices after that.
During her walk back to the cottage Elsie kept thinking about everything she had told Beryl. She was happy to have gotten it off her chest, even if she did still feel moderately ashamed. She breathes a little easier now Beryl knows, but she is apprehensive about telling her husband everything she has discussed with her friend earlier. He might not understand, not at the fundamental level Beryl does. Women understand that because of their limited choices, the decisions they make have consequences that can still be felt many decades later. To be safe means to choose either marriage or a life in service. There was nursing, for those who could stomach it and the mills. Nothing much else to keep a girl from the workhouse.
Elsie had decided she was going to go into service; she was going to try and get as far as possible with it. Even if Joe was half-heartedly courting her.
Joe Burns had been a very nice man, but he had not swept her off her feet and she had not wanted to live her life on a farm. She was young, not twenty yet and already her apron and cap were decorated with lace. Her laundry was being sent out. Her prospects were very good. Being a maid seemed a far better choice than marrying a farmer. She wouldn't have to mop up the dirt that would constantly plague the floors or cook cheap and plain meals for a man who wouldn't appreciate them.
She had chosen ambition over the weather controlling her earnings. Now, forty-odd years later she can't remember if she even considered having a family with Joe. If she had given the possibility of having children a thought.
Probably not.
She has arrived at the cottage and she pushes open the front door and steps inside.
"Only me," she calls as she puts down her basket and takes off her hat. Charles appears in the doorway.
"There's half a roast chicken in the basket," Elsie says. "And two iced buns for a treat."
"Good evening," he replies with a smile. He steps towards her and helps her with her coat. She kisses him.
"Have you had a good day?" she asks.
He takes the basket and she follows him into the kitchen. She watches him as he unpacks the basket.
"Nothing very exciting," he starts and puts the chicken in the oven. "Been to the library. Had a swift half at the pub about an hour ago. Received a letter from Mr Bates."
"From Mr Bates? Is everything alright?"
Charles turns to Elsie. "He asked me for some advice." He raises his eyebrows. "Why shouldn't everything be alright?"
Elsie shrugs. "No reason. Just… he doesn't write to you very often and Anna told me that they had a bit of news. So I… well. Never mind. I best set the table."
She takes the tablecloth from the drawer and lays it neatly on top of their kitchen table. She smoothes out the wrinkles from where it's been ironed. She takes the plates from the rack, pulls the cutlery from the drawer. As she puts everything down, she wonders why Mr Bates would write to Charles for advice.
Just as she is about to ask her husband, he opens the oven door and the smell of roast chicken wafts through the room. Only then Elsie notices her stomach is growling. She missed tea at work, preferring to stay in her Parlour, trying to make sense of her ledger and of her feelings.
"Sit down," Charles says, "I'll take it to the table and carve."
She watches him as he carefully takes the tray over to the table and sets it down neatly on the cork coasters Elsie laid out. He is looking very handsome. Well-rested and tan. He smiles at her before picking up the knife and gets started on picking apart the bird.
Very domestic. Just two middle-aged people in their cottage, having their evening meal together. Something Elsie never thought she would have - especially after Becky's care had to be increased. But here she is. With her loving husband.
He makes a plate for her and she takes it from him. His hand barely shakes at all. Elsie knows that tomorrow it will. That what she will discuss with him tonight will change things between them. It will disturb their delicate balance and she doesn't like it. She's never liked an atmosphere.
"How was your day?" Charles asks and she is a little startled by it.
"A party from the National Trust arrived early and we had to rethink their luncheon," Elsie says.
"Arriving early is very bad manners. Lady Mary can't have liked that," Charles replies.
Elsie smiles. Of course his mind would go to Lady Mary first. "She wasn't there to greet them. His Lordship showed them around the house."
"Do you know why they were there?"
"Not really. They came to see Lady Mary in her capacity as the steward. But neither Mr Barrow nor Andrew have said anything about it. "
"We'll have to wait and see," Charles says, sounding as much the Butler as he did when he was still serving.
Elsie nods. There's nothing else they can do.
Tuesday night
"Charles?"
"Hmm.."
"Are you asleep?"
She knows he isn't. He is as wide awake as she is. She can tell. There's so much she has learned about Charles over the past year. She knows how his breathing evens out just before he drifts off. How his body radiates heat the first hour he's asleep. She knows he can move mountains on five hours of sleep, but that he is worthless when he's had less.
"No." His voice sounds clear in the dark room and Elsie braces herself as he turns on the electric light on his side of the bed.
"We've been having a difficult few weeks, haven't we," she says, trying to ease herself into the conversation, blinking to get used to the sudden brightness. Charles turns over towards her.
"I know it's because I've been an old curmudgeon, as you put it. And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…"
"That's not it," Elsie breaks into his train of thought.
"Isn't it?" he says, genuinely surprised.
Elsie shakes her head, as far as it's possible when lying in bed. She touches his cheek. "No. It's me.."
"Do you… ahem… want to… erm… tell me about it?" Charles gently coaxes and Elsie loves him so much for it. She hates that she has to go through with it now she's made an overture.
"You see, that's part of it. I don't particularly want to tell you about it, but I do need to."
"You are worrying me. Are you ill? Because if that is the case, you do need to tell me." Charles's tone brooks no argument. Elsie shakes her head again.
"No. I'm well enough for an old woman. I might creak a bit, but I'm not ill."
"You are not old and you do not creak," Charles gallantly offers. Elsie smiles at him. Dear, sweet man, she thinks, my shoulder cracks continuously and my skin… But she hasn't time to indulge in loving thoughts about her husband. She needs to tell him about everything that's been bothering him now she has plucked up courage.
"Remember when I asked you if you had ever wanted to go another way? Have a wife and children? It was before the war, so…"
"I remember," he says and he reaches out to touch her cheek. His fingertips feel warm and tender. He moves his hand to her hip, steadying her.
"I said that sometimes I did. And that's true. I think most people think about how different their lives might have been if they had taken a different path," she continues.
"I suppose so."
Elsie watches Charles closely. She sees how his hair is graying more and more. There are little wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Some from worrying, some, she hopes, from smiling. She loves him so much, it hurts sometimes.
"I've been thinking about barely anything else lately," she says.
Charles frowns. "What do you mean?"
"Since I learned about Daisy's… situation… I've not been able to shake this feeling… there's been this emptiness inside me." She bites down on her lip.
"What emptiness?" He sounds bewildered.
"Before that happened, I didn't regret the choices I've made in life," Elsie whispers, "But now Beryl goes out a few times a week to help Daisy and she tells me about the little crib Mr Mason has taken down from the attic."
Elsie puts her hand on Charles's. "Mr Mason is courting Beryl so gently and she calls him by his first name. They talk about how their lives will change once the baby arrives. They'll have that experience to share and a baby to dote on… I've been so jealous of both of them…"
Confessing it to Charles is so much harder than it was to Beryl. Finding the right words is difficult. She wants him to understand what she means, even if she doesn't completely understand it herself.
"In a few weeks I'll be forced to retire. And then… I'll just be… an ornamental wife. I'll not bring anything to you, to our life together. I'll be useless."
"You will not be ornamental," he says, his voice thick. "You'll never be useless to me."
He kisses her lips.
"But I'll be nobody. You will always be Mr Carson, from Downton Abbey. Everyone in the village knows you and they respect you. You're being asked for committees all the time. I'll be a burden to you."
"You will not be a burden, Elsie!" Charles sounds very determined. "I love you. You are my wife. You don't have to be any more."
"And is that enough? For you, perhaps it is. But for me? I am worried I won't know what to do with myself. Read the papers and go to the library, that sounds very nice, but it's only a short part of your day."
She turns to her back. Charles scoots a little closer.
"The cottage needs to look tidy and you're never satisfied with how I do it," he says, and Elsie can tell he is trying to lighten the mood.
"That's true."
"When Beryl retires, she'll have everyone at the farm to look after. She'll be a part of her own family and I… I'm jealous of it. I am jealous that my only friend will have something that I'll never have part in. When we go to church and we see Mr Mason together with Andy and Daisy and there's her round little bump I can't breathe."
Elsie has been very proud that she's kept it together so far, but tears are starting to slide down her temples and into her hair.
"I know it's silly. I know it is. I have always known we'll never have that and it didn't matter, because it's the choices we've made and the opportunities we've had… But now I can't stop thinking about how different my life would have been if we had found each other earlier. When there was still a chance we would… "
"Have a family of our own," Charles finishes Elsie's sentence when she can't go on.
She nods, unable to look him in the eye.
He strokes her cheek, and pulls her closer to him. There's a loaded hesitation before he starts speaking:
"I've always told myself that it's useless to have regrets and that it doesn't do to dwell on things you cannot change. We've found love too late," he says and Elsie stifles a sob. Charles leans in to wipe away a tear.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs.
"I'm sorry too," Charles answers and he he kisses her, his hands cradling her face and she reaches for him, feeling the stubble coming in.
They hold on to cheeks and hands and they kiss as if it can take away the pain - because he may not have said it in so many words, Elsie feels he shares some of her grief. She can taste the salt of her tears and the peppermint of their toothpaste on their tongues.
Charles's hand leaves her cheek and pulls at her nightgown insistently and she lets him. He unveils her unceremoniously, with quick, almost rough movements. He doesn't hurt her - indeed not. She is being swept up in it. The urgency. The need to make it all alright again. To make them whole in that one way they've never had with anyone else.
The eiderdown slips to the floor and Elsie lies naked on the crumpled sheets, her body illuminated by Charles's bedside lamp. He kneels between her legs and he leans over, kissing her hip, the hills and valleys of where her ribs are behind that protective layer of skin and flesh. He licks the underside of her breast with the tip of his tongue. His hand is on the gentle curve of her belly under her navel.
Her fingers grasp Charles's hair as his hand slides down from her lower belly into the sparse pubic hair of her vulva. His fingers open her up, gently, softy, the way she likes him to. Her eyes close and she is panting as he touches her. Her plaintive moans echo in the room; her lower back rises off the mattress. Just before she is about to shatter, he settles over her. She wraps herself around him, welcoming him inside. He sighs, with pleasure or relief, Elsie can't tell. They move together, the way they have learned this past year, but spurred on by quiet sorrow about things that will never be.
There's pleasure and comfort. His skin against hers, his breath whispering over her hair. The scent of him and how familiar making love to him is. His fingers digging into her hips as he manoeuvres her exactly where he wants her. He is moving her incessantly, there's an urgency to it and as she can feel herself getting nearer towards completion she realises:
Her barren body is not useless. It is still able to give and receive, to be an equal partner in the worship between husband and wife. That love is so much bigger than she ever thought was possible.
That she can still be a place for Charles to come home to.
A/N: How's that for a beast of a chapter! I hope you liked it.