Chapter 25

Mr Carson could have kept on looking at his Housekeeper forever but she suddenly looked down from where her gaze was fixed and looked into his eyes. There was an unreadable expression painted across their blue depths. Happiness mingled with sorrow. Joy swirling around longing. One could not point one feeling out. Her eyes were a vicious current of emotions that Mr Carson most willingly got himself caught in. But in a matter of seconds he felt embarrassed to hold her gaze for too long and he looked down at his hands.

Mrs Hughes carefully watched the Butler becoming flustered. She dared to dream that he reciprocated her feelings. He just thinks it's improper to keep staring at a woman, she thought quite harshly and looked away.

Sensing the awkward silence he cleared his throat and spoke, "It's a fine Margaux tonight Mrs Hughes. But I'm afraid it's not up to its usual standards since it had been kept open for too long. Nevertheless I can assure you it won't disappoint," he smiled at the end, but not looking directly at her.

"Thank you Mr Carson," she replied gently and folded the girl's dress neatly placing it on her desk while he poured the wine. She watched him pour effortlessly with a practised hand. She wished everything else was so effortless for him as was wine. Carefully closing the decanter he looked at her expectantly and she rose from her chair at her desk and joined him on the opposite end of the table.

"What do you think?" he asked after she had taken a sip.

"Very good," she replied. That was all she had to say about wine almost every day. She noticed but couldn't elaborate the finer details of the wines as he did. But one thing she truly enjoyed, watching the glow of fascination in his eyes as he explained to her about exclusive French grapes and signature vineyards. Of hidden flowery tones and the traces of nuts. It was a minute world that she alone would not have cared to notice but when he took her attention so vigorously in his hands and led her along a path that she never cared to notice, she lived a little more than she imagined she could.

"There's a hint of violets. And truffles too. Mind you if this had been from a freshly opened bottle, the violets would have been very significant. I'm afraid the cigar smoke had ruined the finer notes to a significant extent," he stated taking another sip. She watched as he savoured the wine, as if he was looking for the lost violets. She couldn't help but smile. He always had an eye for the finer details in "things" like silver, wine and the many other things in work he had made his life. But a finer eye for people, emotions in particular was something she was yet to identify if he possessed.

He noted her silence. She was never silent unless something was running across her mind. He was no great judge of people but he had worked long enough with her to know that. And her frightening temper this morning probably had something to do with the contemplative Elsie Hughes that was left behind after the fire breathing Dragon.

"Mrs Hughes, if I maybe so bold were you upset about something all morning?" he inquired gently knowing she can be capricious at times.

"And why, might I ask, did you become so bold as to ask to inquire about it?" she asked amusedly, hoping that a sharp cross question would end the conversation for good. She certainly couldn't discuss Becky tonight, not after the letter from morning. And she certainly could not afford to have him judge her for decisions regarding her sister by him. Not today, not in this fragile state of mind she was in.

"Mrs Hughes, you were virtually eating the footmen and maids alive. And that is something that I usually do," he explained, trying to lighten the mood. And of course not mentioning the several time she had been terribly cross with him since morning.

At this she laughed. She certainly was a volcano since morning. Viciously active. And then mildly active after Lady Sybil's unexpected intervention.

"I did get cross with you several times, didn't I?" she smiled shyly as she spoke, now ashamed that she had allowed her personal feelings to affect her work.

"Not that I minded it very much Mrs Hughes though I feel I must add that at certain times it did seem very unfair of you. But were you worried about something? And if you don't mind my imposing upon you I could lend a friendly ear to whatever it is," he said, knowing he was threading on thin ice.

"Life Mr Carson. Like it is for all of us. Just life," she replied softly and quietly, breaking their gaze and looking at the far corner of the room.

Charles Carson, though how insensitive he was presumed to be in the last three decades or so, still knew that her answer was the product of a vexed mind as well as one cleverly crafted to make him abandon the matter. Her faraway look told him there was more to her whirlwind of emotions than "just life" as she phrased it. More particularly "just." It was always life that kept on bothering every single person within these walls and beyond but it was never "just" life. It was always something specific. Something so close to one's heart. He watched as she turned the wine glass around on her palm by its stem. Wrinkles were appearing on her fair fingers, time was passing, he noticed. Time was flying by. And it doesn't wait. It will never wait.

"Quite the sentimentalist we have here, don't we?" he remarked without thinking. A thought that didn't occupy a single space in his mind, a passing one that bluntly escaped his attention, till he had involuntarily spoken it out loud. Mrs Hughes looked at him sharply, having swiftly turned her head towards a Butler who was internally cursing himself.

"I didn't mean it Mrs Hughes. And certainly not as a harsh insult which you might have interpreted it to be," he quickly added, knowing that he had well and truly being misjudged.

"It's alright Mr Carson," she said in a strong but tender voice that made him look at her in surprise. Certainly not the response he expected it to be. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. His direction of conversation was going terribly wrong, and definitely not taking the path he wanted it to take.

She understood that he was just trying to make casual conversation. A skill, she had long noted, that he didn't seem to possess in the slightest. It did hurt her a bit, the tone with which he spoke out the comment from earlier but his actions betrayed that he had stumbled on words blindly. Several silent minutes passed by the two heads of the household who were trying to steer an emotional conversation onto a more comfortable ordinary ground. Emotion, they both thought weren't part of them, but the bitter reality they hated to face was the fact that they were both forced to bury it. Wickedly, alive, gasping for breath. Yet secretly wishing that some stroke of luck, if not for Providence, would unearth what was buried before it had died a brutal death.

To be continued…

Thank you everyone for your reviews. I really can't say how happy they have made me! I'm not very sure about the outcome of this chapter. But I hope you would like it. And I will definitely try to write a better one next. And so sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. A few things came up. See you soon with the next chapter!