A/N: It's been quite a while since the last update to this story. This chapter was probably the hardest I've ever written for this story and it was rewritten several times over till I was finally quite happy with how it turned out. Along the way real life intervened a lot, especially academic timetables and exam schedules all being messed up with the ongoing pandemic. Thank you for staying with this story and my sincere apologies for the long wait for this chapter. And even though I may not have been able to reply to all your lovely reviews individually, please know that your kind words are much appreciated and they encourage me to continue this. And I'll try my best to publish the next chapter as soon as I am able to. Hope you like this chapter. Thanks again and hope you all are keeping safe and doing well. Best wishes and good luck!


Chapter 41


New Year's Eve


Mr Carson finally managed to get most of the staff back to bed for a few hours of sleep after all the celebrating, including a fairly inebriated Mrs Patmore. He relished the strange silence that had settled upon the corridors and halls downstairs, save for the occasional sounds of merriment drifting in from upstairs. He kept two footman still up, ready to assist him upstairs and he planned to give them time off later on – there would be very little for them to do at this hour anyway. A peculiar feeling of contentment filled him when he listened to his own footfalls on the hard stone floor. He had always loved solace, even though there were times when it felt very draining on the soul. But he liked the quiet and the tranquility, a time to be alone just with his thoughts. A time to organise in his mind his thoughts and ideas that the hectic daily routine of his work didn't allow much time for.

Mr Carson, jerked his head to a side when he felt a strong gust of cold wind hit his face, and bite into the warmth of his cheek. He noticed the door to the backyard wide open. The night peeped in through the open door and the wind whipped in through it. Grumbling beneath his breath, he made his way to the door, annoyed with whichever reckless soul who had left it open. He took a step outside to make sure that everything was in order when he noticed a sight which made him both curious and endeared.

Just outside the door, still sheltered by the roof, Mrs Hughes was standing against the wall, her face looking up at the glorious winter sky that stretched out far above them. A shawl draped haphazardly over her shoulders and her arms crossed in front of her. She was lost in thought and he noticed the distinct sound of low humming. Her face looked so serene in the silvery moonlight and he watched her for several minutes without making a sound. The sight ahead of him was too perfect for him to disturb. The stark contrast of her black draped figure against the snow covered setting, the soft flakes of snow floating down from the heavens and framing her like a picture captured in time (only it was all alive and very real much to his surprise), the way her eyes were turned towards the sky and the enchanting smile ghosting upon her lips.

He could have watched her, he could have watched her forever. If he had a wish he would have requested for this moment to be frozen in time so that he could watch her. But a feeling of guilt settled in his stomach as he realised he was intruding upon a private moment of hers. A moment for her to just be herself and not the Housekeeper insistent upon efficiency and precision.

He called out her name in a low voice, almost a whisper. Somehow it felt wrong to disturb the peaceful silence in the atmosphere around even though it was just the two of them.

She looked at him, her eyes wide in surprise, as if he was the very last person she would have expected to see in that moment. He smiled at her, and without a word he stepped to her side and looked up at the sky which she was observing so intently before. He felt her eyes scan his face in an attempt to read him, the thoughts in his mind. He looked back down at her, and then she smiled. A somewhat nervous smile, though why the feeling was induced he couldn't tell for certain. He smiled back at her, the cold air and the falling snow enveloping them like in a bubble, like the snow globe with the tiny dancer that sits on a shelf in the nursery, a red lipped smile painted forever on the porcelain face. The seconds ticked by very slowly as if time itself was not willing to move, lest it misses this moment between them. He observed the nervousness melting away from her smile and a beautiful calmness settle into it.

She broke the gaze and turned her eyes towards the deep blue sky. Or was it black, he wondered. Nevertheless a glorious shade. He watched the sky too hoping he too could read what she saw upon its inky surface. It was strange, this intimacy, after always being so surrounded by lots of other people. Their lives were after all so intricately woven, perhaps even tangled, with the lives of those around them that this solitude, this moment just for themselves seemed so ethereal.

"I thought you'd already gone up Mrs Hughes," he said, his voice as soft as he could muster, his gaze still resting upon the vast sky where snowflakes reeled in welcome of the New Year, a year that was still a new-born infant peacefully asleep.

He heard her low laugh, a sound that he would have missed if not for the piercing silence of the surroundings.

"Just thought I'd have a moment for myself," she said softly, wrapping her arms tighter around herself as the wind suddenly picked up a bit more speed.

A strong feeling of guilt invaded him and he apologised stumbling upon the words as they came out like an avalanche as he felt increasingly flustered, "I'm so sorry for... um… for disturbing you. I suppose…um… I ought-"

"Please don't apologise Mr Carson," she cut him short, laughing. "It's alright," she added with a warm smile that curled her lips and shone in her eyes.

"But it's-"

She interrupted him, "It's perfectly alright Mr Carson, believe me." After a moment's pause, where her eyes drifted away to the snow upon the ground, she added, "It's rather nice actually."

Charles allowed himself a sense of humble pride at her words and a broad smile burst into life on his face. He noted how she looked at him through her eyelashes, her smile now one of an adorable shyness.

"Lady Sybil was very happy," Charles commented remembering the young girl's delight at wearing matching coloured dresses with her doll again on New Year's Eve in addition to Christmas Day.

"Yes, she was," Elsie laughed softly and glanced at her feet.

"I heard her saying she'd try to persuade you to make dresses for her doll for next Christmas and New Year's Eve too."

"Well, I'm not her doll's seamstress and that's that," Elsie rolled her eyes. "You didn't help either Mr Carson, it's because of you I had to make two dresses instead of one, in case you couldn't remember that properly," she narrowed her eyes accusingly at Mr Carson.

"You would have done it anyway if she had asked for it herself," Charles retorted knowing very well how fond the Housekeeper was of the youngest Crawley daughter.

"Well-,"

Charles cut her short, "There is no 'well' about it Mrs Hughes. I know you would. You can't deny that."

"I suppose you're right," Elsie gave in and chuckled, picturing in her mind the adorable, pleading smile of Lady Sybil.

"She's got you wrapped around her little finger."

"Not at all and certainly not as much as Lady Mary has you wrapped around her little finger," Elsie raised an eyebrow at him. At Charles' disagreeing expression she continued. "Well I don't go treating Lady Sybil like she can do no wrong."

"Let's not get into that again," Charles chuckled. "You and I are bound to disagree Mrs Hughes."

The wind picked up speed and slowly whipped around them. The sound, a low howling. Elsie held a hand out and watched a snowflake melt on her palm into a drop of water which trickled down to her wrist, before dripping on to the ground.

Charles watched her, witnessing a rare side to her, the look of concentration on her face mixed with a hint of wonder and delight as she watched the melting snowflake. Her expression mirroring the enthusiasm and wonder of a young child.

"Yet another year gone by," Elsie sighed and wiped her hand with a handkerchief she pulled out from inside the cuff of her sleeve.

"Yes, and another new one just beginning," Charles replied as he tucked his hands in his pockets against the cold. "Funny isn't it, how it goes on and on, one year after another and another and then another."

"It's just the way life is Mr Carson," Elsie chuckled, amused by his sudden philosophical remark. "The way it has been since forever. Surely you of all people would appreciate the static nature of it."

"The passing of the years maybe a very orderly process with a familiar pattern but not the changes that each year brings with it," he argued with a thoughtful tone in his voice, his expression a solemn one with his lips pursed into a severe line and his brows knitted.

"I suppose that is what makes life so fascinating. The changes and all the possibilities that each passing year brings with it," Elsie countered, facing Mr Carson with that determined expression she always had on when she disagreed with him.

"And the loss of everything that was familiar and the contentment and the comfort of that familiarity," he resisted.

"Surely, you'd find at least some of the changes exciting."

"Exciting is not quite the word I would use."

Mrs Hughes sighed and crossed her arms tighter around herself.

"Neither you nor I can hold back the past Mr Carson. We simply have to accept the future."

Charles raised his eyebrows at the melancholic note with which she spoke her words. Elsie Hughes was very rarely prone to be melancholic and it was even harder to imagine her uttering a statement about the future with such a melancholic note. Shades of nostalgia might make a shy appearance in her conversations every now and then but melancholy – almost never.

A shadow clouded her blue eyes that appeared black in the darkness. A shadow, not quite of sorrow but more one of a perhaps a deep nostalgia, he guessed. She looked away from him, not back at the sky but aimlessly into the distance ahead of her. She didn't seem to mind the shawl as it slipped off from her right shoulder and draped over her elbow.

"I'll miss her when she grows up Mr Carson," she remarked interrupting the silence. Her voice almost as soft as a whisper in the tranquil cold night.

Her words softened the rigid look with which he watched the night. He turned towards her just in time to notice her discreetly wiping the corner of her eye with her forefinger. A tear he presumed though he couldn't see very clearly.

"Lady Sybil would grow up one day, just like all the other little girls. Only…" she paused to gather her thoughts. "Only she'll grow up to be like one of those grand ladies, with their delicate movements and all those practised phrases. And… well… I suppose I'll miss the little girl that she is now. Unruly and, and quite carefree as matter of fact. Absolutely terrified of nightmares, excited about Christmas presents and always on the lookout for chocolate cookies. I know it's silly of me to say so, so don't you dare try to make fun of me for speaking it out loud."

Elsie adjusted her shawl to cover her right shoulder where it had fallen off.

"I don't think it's silly of you Mrs Hughes. You are very fond of her and of course she adores you too, anyone can see that."

"Anyone?" she laughed and added in a self-deprecating tone. "I really am going soft in my old age then."

"Well," Mr Carson began but paused as he shuddered. "It's very cold out here Mrs Hughes," he commented rubbing his hands together.

"I'm used to it Mr Carson," Mrs Hughes replied, smiling at him. "I've seen winters much worse when I was young."

"Oh," he cleared his throat and shifted from one foot onto another. "I imagine there must have been a lot of snow."

"I'd say more than 'a lot'," she laughed softly into the quiet winter night. "It would snow through day and night for weeks on end."

"Were you fond of the snow?" Mr Carson asked, with a sudden curiosity. It wasn't often that Mrs Hughes spoke of her past let alone her childhood, even the tiniest of details.

"I wasn't fond of the snow. Not exactly," she drifted away for a couple of seconds, her mind lost among the sands of a buried past. "I was used to it and I liked it, I suppose."

She did like the snow. As a very young girl, it would give her a few stolen moments of happiness when she would imagine she was a princess in a distant, magical land. The snowflakes were the souls of fairies or a princess who turned into one in the tales she wove for her little sister. But failed crops lost in an early frost, arguments in the kitchen over money lost, the smell of whiskey and the shattering sound of broken plates tainted the still air of the winter nights. The stomping of large boots upon the wooden floor and the careless slamming of the front door as their father left for the pub, their mothers soft sobs late into the night when she thought her daughters were asleep. Becky couldn't understand, but Elsie knew as she laid awake, with Becky curled up against her fast asleep, and listened to the sobs that unknown to her mother drifted to the rafters of the old farmhouse.

"Must have been a very white Christmas," Mr Carson remarked picturing in his mind the Scottish landscape in the height of winter.

"Oh yes," Mrs Hughes nodded. "It was."

Of course there were happier times of endless smiles and cheerful laughter, of warmth and colour and brightness. A new dress on Christmas day sewn by her mother. Not the bright shades that she secretly wished for, but it was new nonetheless and she was happy. Little wooden toys that her father had whittled and painted for them – Becky delighted that she got three, one was actually for Elsie but she let her have it. She'd do anything to make her little sister smile, even when the rest of the world was unkind.

"It's quite likely we'll catch our deaths if we stay out here for any longer," Elsie said as a shiver ran through her. "And it's quite late I think."

Charles glanced at his pocket watch. "It's almost two o'clock."

"Hasn't the celebrations finished upstairs?"

"No, not yet. I kept two footmen up to see to matters upstairs and I'll give them the day off tomorrow."

"What about you?" she asked, her eyebrows furrowed with concern as she observed the tiredness in the shadows and lines on his face. "You must be exhausted."

"Won't be the first time I've gone without sleep," he smiled wearily. "You go upstairs Mrs Hughes. Try to get some sleep."

"But… what about—"

"Oh go on Mrs Hughes. Don't worry about me," he reassured her.

"If you're sure…"

"Of course," he nodded.

Mrs Hughes tightened the shawl around herself and turned towards the door.

"Well…" Elsie sighed and looked up at the sky speckled with white snowflakes drifting in the wind, at the bare trees that loomed in the distance like ghosts. Facing him, she smiled. "A happy new year to you Mr Carson."

"A very happy new year to you too Mrs Hughes," Charles smiled back at her and stepped away to hold the door open for her.

And as quietly as a delicate snowflake landing upon a solitary leaf, the winter night smiled.

To be continued…