Mystery of Life

Chapter 3 The Journey to Scarborough

At the Train Station

Finally, they were at the train station and yet it was only mid-afternoon. So much had happened that one day did not seem long enough to have encompassed it all. And they still had to travel to Scarborough and….

His Lordship came with them to the station, as did the Bateses.

"It's my last duty as best man," His Lordship declared. "I must say, I've never enjoyed the role more." Of course, he hadn't been a best man for years. The passage of time might have dimmed his recollection just a little. But there was no denying that he was in an exuberant mood. "Enjoy yourself," he urged the Carsons. "Every minute of it. And don't give a single thought to Downton. We'll chug along smoothly enough and be very glad to have you back when you return."

"It's been a wonderful party," Anna told the happy couple. "I daresay it will go on for a few more hours yet."

"Mrs. Patmore has promised us leftovers for dinner," Bates added.

"Upstairs, as well as down," His Lordship intoned, and then smiled.

The train pulled in and the Carsons – Mr. and Mrs. – offered their final thanks to their stalwart supporters.

"Your tickets, Carson," His Lordship said, handing them over.

Carson glanced at them and then looked back again sharply. "My lord," he said, taken aback.

But Robert Crawley only grinned. "Enjoy yourself, Carson." And then he withdrew.

"First class," Bates noted. "I thought as much. Well." He hooked his cane over his left arm and extended a hand to Mr. Carson. "Our warmest wishes go with you," he said.

"Thank you, Mr. Bates," the groom responded, conveying in a deep look and a firm handshake more than he could manage in words.

And then, after Anna had given Mrs. Carson a quick hug, they too departed.

Charlie turned, beaming, to his bride. "Well, Mrs. Carson, let me escort you to our compartment."

"With pleasure, Mr. Carson."

They addressed each other so just a little tongue in cheek, enjoying their new status, though only Elsie's name had changed. But their mock formality covered an awkwardness, too. Neither of them were quite at ease, despite a lot of mental practice on both sides, in breaking a habit of decades.

Elsie, he said to himself. Yes, yes, when it feels right.

Charlie, she told herself. I don't know why I'm hesitating.

Even at so small a stop as Downton Station there was a porter to take their luggage – a very modest set for they did not have very much to bring and were only going for a week. With that put away, the man moved off, jingling the tip Charlie had given him, and they were alone.

On the Train

"I've never travelled first class," Elsie said, leaning back into the comfortable seat.

"Nor I."

"I think I could get used to these posh ways!" she laughed and he joined her indulgently.

"Well, Mrs. Carson, I will give credit where credit is due. The reception could not have been better if it had been held in the Great Hall of Downton Abbey. I bow to your call on that one. It was the right decision."

Elsie was more than pleased that he should say so. They had wrangled over it and she'd thought the cause lost. "I'm glad you were satisfied. I know you have your standards."

"Bah! Standards!" He gestured dismissively. "Your reasoning was sound. I thought a great event had to be celebrated in a great place and the Abbey is the finest place I know. But you were right. The schoolhouse allowed us to be … us. And I've begun to appreciate that that is more than the sum of the butler of Downton Abbey plus the housekeeper."

She was amused by this. And touched. "Thank you, Mr. Carson." She said his name this time unthinkingly, naturally, and didn't notice. And then was swept away with details of the day again. "Mrs. Patmore outdid herself."

Well, there was no disagreeing with that. "She did. And Daisy, too. It looked like a banquet set for King Henry VIII!"

They both laughed at that.

"Who were those people from the village?" Elsie asked, remembering them.

"Mates," he said, repeating what he had said in the reception line.

She gave him a look. "Mates. What do you mean by that?"

He shrugged. "I grew up with them. All five of them. We were best mates when I was a boy. Well, with the lads. But I knew the girls, too."

Elsie marvelled at this. It was a hidden corner of her Mr. Carson, one she had never given a thought to in thirty years. "You've never mentioned them."

"You lose touch," he said, with a bit of a sigh. "I parted from them when I went to the grammar school in Ripon. Oh, I saw them. I still see them when I go to the village, and pass the time of day with them. But…." He met her gaze. She was looking at him with open curiosity. He was a little abashed. "You don't get much time off in service. And then I became the butler quite early on and … the butler…."

"You were too good for them."

"It's not that. We were on different roads. It was hard to … find a point of intersection. But this seemed like a moment when it was possible. I wanted them there. It was … right." He paused. "What are you smiling about?"

"You. I'm glad you had the wherewithal to do such a thing."

"Of course, it was a bit awkward for them, what with the family right there. At first, anyway. Once they'd had a bit of champagne in them…."

"I saw you laughing with them."

"They were teasing me about marrying so late. About having such elevated standards." He laughed at that.

"Elevated standards! The housekeeper!"

"You're quite a catch, you know." His voice changed as he said this, shifting from the casual, easy manner that was how they were together, the teasing banter, to something new and compelling. A little shiver of excitement ran up Elsie's spine. There was a gleam in his eye that made her blush. She moved quickly to brush it away.

"Perhaps we might have them over sometime," she said. Imagine that. Having Mr. Carson's friends over for a meal!

But he shook his head. "They wouldn't come."

"They came today."

He tossed his head a bit in uncertainty and then changed direction. "What possessed you to ask Mr. Bates to give you away?"

"I didn't," Elsie said promptly and relaxed into ease again. "He offered, the lovely man. And I can't tell you how glad I was that he did. I felt my knees buckling as I stood at the back of the church. Without Mr. Bates, I'd never have made it down the aisle."

"What?!"

"It was only nerves. Don't look at me like that, Mr. Carson! Can you tell me that you weren't standing there before the altar with your knees knocking together?" What she remembered of him, of her glimpse of him from that eternity that separated them at far ends of the church, was that he'd looked as solid as Gibraltar. But had he been?

"I wasn't nervous," he said. "I was so … so brimful of anticipation, I thought I would burst!"

Anticipation. The mere word stirred her with tremors of excitement.

Mr. Carson. She'd said it again and again. It fell from her lips so naturally, so automatically. Mr. Carson.

Mrs. Carson. Mentally he gave himself a shake. They ought to be Charlie and Elsie. He opened his mouth to say her name. Elsie. And found himself going another way.

"Scottish dancing is quite … uninhibited."

She laughed at the careful way he said that. "The reeling, you mean. I suppose it was asking too much to expect all you staid Englishmen to participate, but for a true Scot, it's hardly a celebration without a bit of reeling."

"I thought Lady Mary was very good at it," he said stoutly.

"Lady Mary is an expert!" Elsie had never seen Lady Mary reel before and was thoroughly prepared to give that woman her due and more besides. "She was the best one there. And see how Dr. Clarkson came alive! And then Anna. Oh, she stepped lively!"

"And Mr. Molesley," Charlie said, with a touch of acerbity.

"Oh, Mr. Molesley." Elsie shook her head. "I did worry that he might get carried away with himself. They say he was like a wild man at Duneagle. But he kept himself in hand today."

"I saw him chatting with the school principal, Mr. Dawes. I wonder what that was about?"

"Well, it's no matter to us, whatever it was."

"What do you mean?" He thought that a peculiar thing for her to say.

"Downton and all its secrets and responsibilities and problems have vanished for us," Elsie declared. "We've a whole week ahead of us with nothing to worry about."

She spoke quite firmly and almost immediately felt a bit of a twinge. Because it wasn't quite true that there was nothing to worry about.

They changed trains at York and found their first-class carriage heading for the coast just as plush. After a while, their animated exchanges died down and they contented themselves with random comments on the passing scenery. The train was wending its way across the North York moors and that compelling vista mitigated the need for conversation.

"I confess I'm a little tired, what with waking so early this morning," Elsie remarked, and then wondered at herself. She had risen before sunrise almost every morning of her life. This morning was the anomaly in that she'd had no duties calling her from her sheets and had, in fact, had quite a leisurely wake-up.

"Did you now," Charlie said in a teasing tone. Then he relented. "As it happens, I was awake much of the night, fussing over details." He leaned toward her in a conspiratorial manner. "If truth be told, I was up wondering whether His Lordship could be trusted with the ring."

Elsie's right hand went immediately to the band of gold on her left hand. "Not trust His Lordship?"

"Well, he doesn't attend to details very often," Charlie said, in his own defense.

"Oh, Mr. Carson."

There was it was again. He was beginning to wonder if they would be like Anna, who never called her husband anything but Mr. Bates in public. But what about when they were alone? Or in bed? He blushed at that thought. And covered up with action.

"Here." He extended his arm that she might lean into him comfortably. "It has been a day of wonders. You can shut your eyes for a bit. We've still a ways to go."

She nestled against him easily enough. There now, she told herself. It's not that difficult. But the comfort of his arm did not quell the activity of her brain. In the quiet that descended upon them, her mind drifted to what lay ahead. And she was not alone in such thoughts.

C * C * C * C * C *

He tried to focus on practical details. Collecting the luggage at the station in Scarborough. He would need to tip the porter and, for a moment, he scrabbled in his pocket, to make sure he had some change still, that he hadn't given it all to the man at Downton. He hadn't. Coins for tipping had been on his list of preparations.

They would be able to walk to the hotel. It wasn't far. Or they could splurge and take a cab anyway. His Lordship had insisted – no corners cut, all expenses paid, and don't hesitate to indulge yourselves. But just because generosity was extended to you, did not mean you had to take full advantage of it.

They had a room overlooking the sea. He had made sure of that. The wild North Sea. The coast – any coast – was exhilarating. And for them, the sea was evocative of their stroll on the beach at Brighton, two years ago, when she had taken his hand so as to steady his foolish apprehensions about getting wet.

Well. It would be up to him, tonight, and every night this week, to still her apprehensions. Ever since their frank conversation, months ago now, about the nature of marriage, Elsie had seemed herself again. But her concerns about being intimate with him were real and he doubted that they had been wholly assuaged. Reassurance had gotten her to the church and through the wedding ceremony. But was she really so sanguine about the consummation to come? He would have to manage it carefully, balancing his desire for her body with consideration for her feminine sensibilities. She was relying on him to take charge.

He wasn't apprehensive. He considered what was to come part of the sacred bond – heart, mind, soul, and body. Within marriage it was allowed not only to desire one's wife, but also to act in fulfilment of those feelings that in another context might be considered vulgar. Within marriage they were beautiful. He wanted to hold her, touch her in intimate places, be one with her in the ultimate act of physical union. He wanted to enjoy it and he wanted her to enjoy it, too. He had prepared for it as best he could, which was not very much, but believed he would be guided right in the moment by his feelings and instinct.

If anything, it was impatience that troubled him. He would have to control that. But … he did not want to control anything. Was this not, now, finally, the moment when he might indulge that long-suppressed impulse, instinct, passion?! Buried in the bag he had brought was a present for her, a nightgown he had had made especially for her. He so looked forward to giving it to her, something new for a woman who seldom had new things, something to make her feel beautiful, as the wedding dress had done. He had seen it in her eyes all day. She had gloried in the silken folds of that gift from the women downstairs at Downton. He hoped she would take as much pleasure in the rather simple nightdress he had for her. A new nightdress for their new life together. He longed to see her in it. And out of it. The two – in and out – came together automatically every time he considered the nightgown. The thought still shocked him, but only for the blink of an eye. For it was not in the least shocking now. They were married and all things were possible between them. And he wanted them all.

He'd not done it before – it - never been with a woman. And he'd taken pride in that, believing in the value of purity in marriage. But then the years had gone on and he hadn't gotten married. Celibacy became a habit, the reality of purity a virtue to be celebrated. Even if it were not, there simply weren't that many opportunities. In the village, one might find a willing girl, but the repercussions in terms of employment and, worse, the possibility of having to marry her, were severe, and who wanted to marry a girl who would so compromise her virtue? People thought the theatre a wild place where immorality prevailed. This was true of individuals – Charlie Grigg came immediately to mind – but it wasn't the case overall. Oh, one fell in love easily in that heady atmosphere, but it led more often to marriages that did not last than to the furtive encounters imagined by those who had never traversed the halls. His own courtship of Alice Neal had unfolded within the bounds of strict social rules. And even Grigg, having stolen her from him, married her. And once Charlie had returned to Downton and to a career in service, both the requirements of the job and the dearth of likely partners had closed the door to marriage.

There was always London and in the course of his employment at Downton Abbey, he had gone to the city often enough. But opportunities there were unworthy of a man in his position, not to mention unsafe. Let other men stoop to that, if they must, and pay the consequences. He had standards, although, admittedly, standards were a poor substitute for immediate and even brief gratification.

He had to laugh. No interesting women at Downton! How could he think that with Elsie Hughes sitting right there at the very table he ate at three times a day? Yet he knew the answer to that. She was interesting and she'd had his attention almost since the day she'd arrived. But he hadn't been attracted to her, had not fallen in love with her at sight as he had Alice. And for the longest time he hadn't been able to see her that way because he could conceive of love, that kind of love, only as he had known it with Alice – that sudden, headlong immersion that might only be possible in youth. No, his relationship with Mrs. Hughes – Elsie! - was one that had grown incrementally over years, grounded first in professional respect, then fellowship, and then in a deepening friendship. She had gradually become so much a part of him that he hadn't noticed, until a few shocks clarified things. Only then had he seen her beauty. And now their marriage and the physical union ahead of them were only the culmination of that project years in construction. Unlike the tenuous matches made beneath the footlights on the halls, their marriage would last. It was a well-rounded relationship. They were everything to each other – in heart, mind, soul, and, very shortly, body. He was confident, excited, eager, and full of anticipation.

E * E * E * E * E * E

She was not. Not entirely. Oh, she was not wholly immune to the excitement of the thing. She was a woman, with feelings and passions that had been as carefully controlled as any that he had had. In her sixty years, she had looked at men, been more or less attracted by one or another, imagined what it would be like to kiss and be kissed. And she had known powerful longings – to touch, to hold, to caress and be caressed in her turn. Age dulled the intensity of such longings, but never extinguished them. And she was attracted to her husband. She thought him quite handsome, had always liked dark-haired men. That he was a big man was another draw. For weeks now the imagined sensation of his body on top of hers, just the thought of the weight of him, had stirred unfamiliar sensations in her, wondrous sensations. And she could not deny, though she would admit it to no one, that she yearned to know what it would be like to be physically united with another, with her husband, with this man whom she loves.

But Elsie Hughes – Elsie Carson! – was nothing if not pragmatic, a characteristic that had ever tempered flights of fancy and silly romantic notions. And for all that she had been reassured by Mr. Carson with regard to intimacy, she was still plagued by concerns. There was the matter of her nightgown. It was frumpy, unattractive, worn. Old. This would not matter especially if she were not also frumpy, unattractive, worn, and old. Youth dispelled all shortcomings. She doubted whether young lovers – Lady Mary and Mr. Matthew, for instance, or Anna and Mr. Bates even – gave a passing thought to the raiments of either themselves or their partners. Why would they when, whatever the coverings, they could be certain to find beneath them a firm body, smooth skin, taut muscles, and an absence of excess flesh. Those younger men would want to look on their naked wives and glory in the beauty of the human body. Art only emphasized this. Artists appeared to relish the prospect of a nude model, to a degree that made the reserved Elsie Hughes (Carson) uncomfortable. But no one painted older women. In short, for all his apparent interest – and he had said all the right things – Elsie could not really imagine Mr. Carson wanting her, not like that, once he'd actually seen her. She doubted that that would arrest the consummation of their marriage. He was a man, after all. But glory in her body? No. And that saddened her just a little.

And there was something else. Marriage was foreign territory compared to the working world, in which she had spent so much of her life. Downstairs at Downton Abbey, she had been Mrs. Hughes, the housekeeper, for more than two decades. It was a position of authority and responsibility and she had exercised both with skill. She knew what she was about. And, as much as there was a hierarchy downstairs with Mr. Carson as the butler at the pinnacle of it, there were also spheres of authority. There were matters – oversight of the female staff, for instance – in which her word prevailed even over his. And in some other ways, no doubt because they worked together so well, they had operated almost in partnership, though his was necessarily the deciding voice. And yet had she not exerted influence to change even his mind on occasion? That was a relation with which Elsie was much at ease.

But marriage was quite different.

She had put her understanding of this quite bluntly to Mr. Carson in the matter of the venue for their wedding reception. When he had pushed back against her rejection of the Great Hall in the Abbey, insisting, "It's my wedding, too," she had retorted, "The wedding is the bride's day. We'll be doing everything your way for the next thirty years!" And wasn't it so? There was no division of authority in marriage as there was downstairs. In the home, a man reigned as a monarch, and nowhere more so than in the bedroom. This irritated Elsie, but, oddly, it gave her some small comfort, too. They were both novices, but it was his job, his responsibility to figure it out. Her role was that of acquiescence, cooperation, submission. It might be new to him, too, but he had already assumed the directing role. He would lead and she would follow.

C * C * C * C * C * C

He was eager. He had bided his time for fifty years. It was hard to believe that this culminating act of human relations was now within is grasp. He could almost taste it.

But as the train drew closer Scarborough, he began to appreciate the reality of the responsibility incumbent upon him as the man more acutely. The wedding night. Yes, yes, he was eager. And at least one of their decisions, marrying in June, complicated this. This was one of the longest days of the year. This evening would be interminable as they awaited sunset. Darkness might not be necessary for the act, but he felt that propriety demanded it, until they got used to it anyway. No doubt she would appreciate that. But when finally it came to it, the leading role would be his, both because of the natural order of things and her earlier expressed reservations. They might both be novices, but it was the man's role to direct and guide the rites of this aspect of marriage. She would rely on him. He must steady them both, take charge. His would be the active role, hers one of passivity, submission. It is how things were and he did not waver from this responsibility. Nor did it diminish his excitement. But he had begun to feel the weight of it nonetheless.

E * E * E * E * E * E

Elsie, who had closed her eyes but not actually slept, felt the slowing of the train as it came into the Scarborough, and sat up, curious about this seaside town which she had never before visited. She turned away from her husband hoping to catch a glimpse of the North Sea as the train wound its way to the station in the centre of town. She was startled by the touch of a hand on hers and the words murmured in her ear.

"We're here."