Half the Story Hidden—Chapter 2. Pt—e: Fair Nature's Confounded Base
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Author Note: Update 3/5/22- I thought I had mentioned the name of the 6th Earl of Grantham's Butler in some other DAFF story of mine, but I scanned through my most likely suspects, and it appears that I have never done so. As such, I have decided to change his name to 'Peters', rather than what I had originally posted in this chapter, as I do not really want to lift this name directly from fellow DAFF writer, Edward Carson's own works. I have updated the name from 'Finch' to 'Peters' in the last chapter, and I will maintain the name of 'Peters' as Carson's mentor from now on.
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Continued: August 1927, 6 days later - After the morning funeral and early luncheon in the great hall for the wake of the late Dowager Countess of Grantham.
Chapter 2, Part c: Fair Nature's Confounded Base
Afternoon: In The Stable-hand's Stream
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As meticulously as ever, Charles spends a good amount of time showing Elsie how to string a new fly onto the line of his favourite rod. Then, before his special rock in the middle of the natural weir of the stream, they stand barefoot and knee-deep. They look out across the quietly rolling waters. He points to patches of bubbles and flickering movements near the water's surface and tells her how it looks when the trout move to the surface of the river to feed on summer insects that might alight upon the water's meniscus.
"Like with wines, Elsie," he states with delight in the scientific nature of it all.
She smiles for her Charles still being just who he is at heart. She loves him so very dearly for it. Their eyes dance and trace the paths of some of the lazy dragonflies that hum above the water's surface and finally Charles points to an area where he thinks they might have the most chance of catching something.
Standing behind her, his arms encircle her as he guides her wrists and arms through the fluid motions required for casting and recalling the fly. It takes a little time, and some of Elsie's casts land too heavily and drown when the surface tension of the slowly eddying pool falters. But then they refocus their attention. Elsie is quick with the restringing of the hook another dry fly each time, and so before too long, she is casting and looping those large rings of floating string through the air like the natural angler Charles always suspected she would be. He gives her more space to move and merely rests his large hands lightly upon her twisting and swaying hips as she goes through these hypnotic motions—simply because he just cannot bear to not be touching her in some small way on this very strangest of all days.
And In spite of everything, this midsummer's day truly is glorious. The sun is bright and high and the air is thick with the sounds of humming insects and birds on the wing. Thicker still is the scent of lush barley that is almost ready to turn and start drying in the field across the remaining days of summer heat. Everything is balanced on the absolute cusp of ultimate abundance and ready for a full harvest that will see them all through the long nights of the coming winter.
All of Downton has always truly shined in the height of summer, Charles thinks happily and then realises with a blinding certainty: It is still my home, and I simply do not want to be anywhere else— especially when my Elsie–love is here with me—Always by my side.
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At length, once she feels more sure of her rhythms and the solidity of Charles' presence behind her, Elsie speaks quietly again.
"Tell me more of what you know of the Hepworths, Charles. Who was this 4th Earl?"
"Oh, the Crawleys have known the Lascelles for years. I recall they would see each other regularly during the London Season, on Grosvenor Square. But, looking back on it, neither the 6th Earl nor the Dowager Countess ever seemed to enjoy Lord Hepworth's company. But as with all of these sorts of things, they were civil, if somewhat cool, at any table they shared. Conversation seemed to revolve around the progress of their various children it seemed. There was much judging and comparing and one-up-manship about it all, now that I recall it. There was always, what you, my dearest, would call, 'an atmosphere' when the two families had to meet."
"Well can I imagine."
"Hmm…Anyway, the 4th Earl, William Henry Lascelles, he died not long before the 6th Earl of Grantham, as it was, in '89, if memory serves. Anyway, he had ended up marrying twice- and both very young brides each time. His first wife was Lady Joanna Elizabeth Catherine de Burgh. She was the daughter of the Marquess of Clanricarde… and so, realistically, she would have brought a better title and much more money to the union than the Dowager Countess ever could have, as she was only the youngest daughter of a newly established Baronetage.
"Well, it would explain a lot about why the Viscount did not see fit to marry Lady Violet."
"Indeed, for Hatton Park would have cost a fortune in upkeep and to run well with a full complement of staff, Els. It was monstrously large far bigger than the Abbey—absolutely sprawling, but quite spectacular. I did go there once or twice when I was still valet to the 6th Earl. It was designed by John Carr, with Robert Adams interiors and filled to the brim with Chippendale furniture, and then with extensive grounds by Capability Brown, just like ours at Downton, you know. They even had some early Turner's and Stubb's in their galleries, and a Gainsborough or two, Els. I wonder where they all ended up after the sales?"
Elsie smiles a little for their shared honeymoon memories from the Tate Gallery and for how easily Charles still slips into calling Downton 'theirs'. He owns Downton in his heart, just as much as Downton, rightly or wrongly, has somehow always owned him. We will be all right. This will all turn to rights in the end, Elsie assures herself.
"Well, so long as they are appreciated by someone, somewhere, I suppose. But it does sound like we got out of things a bit more easily with Downton, doesn't it, Love? How many house staff would it have had, Mr Carson?" Talking old shop is still such an easy space for them to share, even this far into their retirement years.
"I would wager at close to one hundred, maybe even more at the height of its glory days, Mrs Hughes," Charles muses, dropping easily back into their long-held professional relationship and names again. "So, almost double that of Downton before the turn of the century."
"Well, size is not everything. Look at where it all ended up!"
"I know. It is sad, but I wouldn't wonder if the debt for Hatton Park was still being paid off by the 4th Earl too, several generations after it was all built. And then I believe at the time that the 4th Earl was looking to marry, he was trying to make his mark, as so many were at the time, by following Queen Victoria's tender penchant for all things Scottish." He leans in to kiss behind his wife's ear, making her smile serenely. "Mmm…and so he would have required quite a lot of money to build the extension and handle the refurbishment of Loch Earle."
"That's not so far from Loch Lomond really, is it?"
"Hmm… indeed. Not so far from where you hail from, my Love."
"Silly way to live when you think on it all, though, isn't it, Charles? I mean, at least we own our little piece of property outright. No debts to pay to anyone. That's the surer way to live."
" 'Neither a borrower nor a lender be',* hey, Els?"
" 'And to thine own self be true' "* and she leans her head back to rub her cheek up against his. "…hmm… Still, old Polonious was saying all of that palaver about trustworthiness and then the next minute he is chastising his daughter for being both not virtuous enough, and yet also for not courting Prince Hamlet's favour quite robustly enough!…and then despite his words of good faith to his son, the old man sends a servant out to spy upon young Laertes, anyway! Hardly a trustworthy man to be taking advice from, one would think."
Dropping into speaking about some of their favourite pieces of literature is also a very easy space for Charles and Elsie to understand one another more.
"Hmm…maybe…But we are all such complex creatures. Polonious' inability to uphold the actual virtues he espoused to his children does not make the message he had for young Laertes any less true, does it?"
"Aye, I suppose not. And I guess we are learning more and more of the complexities of the people we thought we knew today, aren't we?'
"Hmm….indeed…" Charles rumbles behind her, feeling most uncomfortable about all of this again and wondering if the message from the Dowager Countess might have more to it for him, for it does comes from a source who is obviously quite adept in employing the slippery skills of subterfuge and misdirection, and even manipulation, in order to hide the biggest of all secrets in plain sight for all of these years.
'Like a deft sleight of hand trick, that's what it be, Charlie-Boy'—Grrr! That grating voice sounds inside Charles' head. What now?! Bloody Griggs!—Hmmph…well he might have said that about it…but something else…something else must be hiding behind this complex tapestry of the Dowager's, surely…
Charles shakes the thought and Grigg's highly dubious voice from his mind for the moment for he feels decidedly unprepared for any more shocking revelations just yet.
"Hmm… But anyway, Els, the story is that the 4th Earl of Hepworth—he had six children by that first marriage and then Lady Joanna died—quite young actually. I don't remember the dates, of course.
"Well! How remiss of you Charles!" Elsie elbows good-naturedly back into him as she continues casting and recalling the fly. "And there I was thinking that you had all of Burke's Peerage imprinted onto the back of your eyelids!"
"Cheeky," he drawls out as he rubs his hands over her fleshy hips and cannot help smiling for his Elsie lovingly ribbing him once more.
"Maybe. Hmm…But… actually, now I think on it…you know, I overheard the dowager, a few years ago now, talking about how Lord Hepworth was 'sniffing around her skirts back in the 60s,' and that was well after she was married to Lord Grantham. Hepworth really is beginning to sound like one that would be chasing any lady that moves within a 200-yard radius of him, whether he was still married, or widowed or what-have-you."
"Oh dear, Charles, that is a rather fruity way to put it. Has Beryl Mason taken control of your tongue there" Elsie laughs out.
He huffs out a small laugh and ducks his head into her neck to plant a small kiss. He feel such a delightful pang through his heavy chest when he can smell the finest film of this heady summer's day upon her skin. The heavy weighted rock inside his heart is slowly but surely lifting away.
"But anyway, Els, the 4th Earl obviously soon found the 'piece of skirt' he wanted and remarried, and again, it was to a very young Lady— the Lady Diana Smythe-Parker who was a daughter of the Duke of Grafton, and so likely there was a substantial dowry involved once again."
"And yet they still could not save Hatton Park?"
"Well…they did go on having more children…eight more in fact. And I suppose that is just the legitimate ones that appear in Burke's."
"Lord above! Fourteen children! That is taking the directive to have an heir and a spare somewhat to the extreme, is it not? It is little wonder the estate went broke with all of those hungry mouths to feed! …Hmm...but it does sound as if he was somewhat of a profligate fellow."
"Some might call it virile, Elsie."
"Yes.. some men might do that. But I would suggest that Lord Hepworth's actions with the Dowager Countess, and also his seemingly living well beyond his means, lends itself much more towards the claim of profligacy."
"Well… I cannot really deny that charge. My memories of him were from when I was a much younger man. I thought him to be quite dynamic back then. Certainly not as quietly spoken and constrained as the late Lord Grantham. But if I look back at that sort of behaviour now, I am more inclined to see it all as far too ostentatious and rather tasteless."
"Lacking in style was it, Charles?"
He catches the smile quirking on her cheeks.
"Hmmph …Something like that Els, yes…But, perhaps I was still too enamoured of 'show' from my days on the Halls back then, without recognising the substance that true style requires to back it all up"
"Oh, I somehow doubt that, Charles. You would have been well clear of all that by then."
"Thank you, Love," he says quietly and he smiles for the sure faith she has in him, even from before she even knew him. It is a faith that underpins all of her easy ribbing of him and it never ever cuts too closely at the core of his most dearly held beliefs. He squeezes appreciatively at her hips once again as she draws the line back in to reset the fly with another dry one from his tackle basket.
She is an absolute wonder and a blessing. Charles' suddenly glassy eyes cast briefly heavenward. Thank you for my Elsie-love, dear Lord.
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"You know, Charles? I am beginning to think, more and more, that the Dowager Countess may have completely shunned all marital relations with the 6th Earl because of what may have happened to her with Lord Hepworth. I do not know how much that man may have forced his attentions upon the Her Ladyship, but she was still very young… so… well…I guess I can well understand that feeling Charles— after what nearly happened to me at Duneagle," Charles' grip tenses immediately at her hips as she wanders down this particular fraught pathway from her past once again.** "I know that I did not want to entertain any thought whatsoever of such things after that, and I lived quite happily for decades without thinking of it as something worth giving my time to or…well… it was not something that I could think of as at all worth giving myself over to."
Charles has stopped breathing for a moment, for neither does he wish to think about that dark part of Elsie's past that he just cannot change or ever keep her safe from. But Elsie blithely carries on, for the burden of those days has lifted somewhat from her soul as she has had Charles by her side to willingly help shoulder the grief of it all with her. "And Charles, that is all despite what I knew it likely could be like because of how Becky and David have always been together. But I also saw much the same with Dear Anna as she was rebuilding herself after the attack."
She feels Charles' hand clenching ever more tightly on her skirts and she knows that a shudder has just rippled through his entire frame and over the top of his refined sensibilities at that blunt statement. These are foul memories of what he has learnt about from Elsie's own past, and from their dear Anna's. And now, as it seems most likely, these are the foul revelations that must be attached to the life of the woman who was his birth mother and who was the only constantly present matriarch across the whole of his long life. But Elsie brings it all up because she really only wants to give his soul the same relief today as he has been able to give to hers in the past. Still, she treads this particularly fraught line somewhat haltingly and very delicately.
"But Charles…well, I guess, if that is what happened to Lady Violet, then I do feel a bit more forgiveness for her than I did before. Sadly, it does sound as though she faced as much shame and ruin as our Ethel did, and our Anna— back at that time. And so, if Lord Hepworth did …foist himself upon her, and it does sounds as though he may well have based on the number of children he has fathered, and his propensity to pursue and marry very young ladies, all whilst still pursuing other married and unmarried ladies at the same time, well… it does sound as though this was not at all beyond his seemingly poor character. And…and so, …if he did do this to Lady Violet, well then,…she simply had to keep you hidden all of this time. There would have been no other way for her to remain with her good family name, or to even stay alive, Charles. Don't you see? She had even more chance of going the way of Ethel way back then, and you...well, that hardly bears thinking about. We both know how long it took for the likes of Lord Shaftsbury and his supporters to stem the practice of baby farming."*** Now it is Elsie's turn to shudder bodily at such horrid thoughts. She shakes her head to try to rid herself of the images of squalling and then listless and starving babies in squalid swaddling clothes and overcrowded tenements in a side of Victorian London she was glad to have never really seen the very worst of. "No…no…There really was no other way…And then, for whatever reason—love? We might presume—The 6th Earl saved Lady Violet from scandal by marrying her and seeing that her confinement occurred whilst they toured the continent on their honeymoon. It was a clever ruse, I must say."
"Hmm, that all makes some sense" Charles rumbles out grimly. He too had heard of, more so than he had actually seen, the shadowy process of couples, but mainly women with lodgings, making money off desperate women who wished for their children to be cared for and raised when they could no longer keep their own illegitimate offspring and hope to hold down any work to feed them anyway. He saw these unscrupulous types' thinly-veiled adverts in the Dailies, even when he was off running the Halls with Griggs. They had both known singers and actresses who ended up having to answer those adverts before they disappeared from the stage and entered the seedy back lanes for good. And it very well might have been the unknown infant Charles Lascelles himself, who would have been given gin to quieten him down, and fed on thinned oat water, at best, while an evil and loveless landlady waited for him to perish…And Her Ladyship, Charles shudders again, she would have led whatever life she did have left to her always in the shadows—disowned and turned out onto the street, with all that that might entail, or toiling away in a dangerous mill or a factory, at the very best.
Elsie breaks back into his disturbing stream of thoughts, "She truly would have been ruined, Charles. You must see that. ANY woman would be ruined by that. It is the sad way of the world, even now in 1927. Even our Anna had to live through that fear that she would bear a child to a man who assaulted her most grievously."
"Dear God, Elsie! Please don't remind me from whence I sprang!—A wretched father who turns out to likely be no better than that vile Green! Or that ANIMAL Dunn who tried to hurt you!" He spits out the names of these beasts of his worst nightmares. How can you even bear to look at me! Elsie? I am born of a man who likely did all that I most abhor and despise—one of the lowliest things any man can ever possibly do!"
"Oh, Charles! How can you say that?! " she turns towards him suddenly and lets the line settle into the water behind her, the new deer's hair mayfly lure sits precariously upon the surface, waiting for the slightest gust of wind across the surface of the pool to either catch it up or push it down below the fragile skin "Honestly, Charles!— have you ever seen me think anything less of little Charlie Parkes because he was born into a horrid situation by two foolish people—one of them selfish beyond all words? God rest his soul. Hmm? And have we ever thought less of Miss Marigold because of the circumstances of her birth?"
"Well of course not! She is but a child. Charlie Parkes is just a child."
"Just so!. And I can assure you, I would never have cast any malice towards any bairn that might have been born from Dear Anna's situation! Even though that child too would have to have been sent away." She eyes her man intensely. "You are NOT defined by the accidental circumstances of your birth, Charles— and you Charles Ernest Carson— are most certainly NOT, nor could you EVER be your biological father's son."
"That makes absolutely NO sense at all, Elsie!"
"Oh, Piffle, Charles! You know exactly what I mean by it!"
"Piffle?"
"PIFFLE!" she reaffirms with a firm finger poked into the centre of his chest once more as she continues to eye him with a resolute intensity, beneath which scrutiny Charles merely stands agog. "OH! OH! OH! Charles! There's something on the line! What do I do now? What do I do?!"
"Ooo-ooo! OH! The game is afoot, Els! Grab it, Els! Grab the line hard and don't let go. Here." And he steps closer and puts his arms back around his wife— steadying the wooden rod and planting its end against the flesh of her hip. "Now Love, you need the hold that line in place against the rod up here, but then start reeling in all the slack. That's it. Not too fast. Not too fast, or the whole lot will move too much and the fish will strain and thrash even more against it and that is when it might slip the hook. Now...That's it now. Give the line a little play at times. Yes. Let it move a bit so it thinks it's free while you are reeling it in."
"Like that?"
"Just like that. Now, tweak it a little…let it know you've still got it…That's it. Now as you reel past all of the slack—go slowly now… that's it—so you don't burn your fingers, but keep running the line through them at the moment, that way if you slip on the winder, you can still stall the fish from reeling away from you too much again. That's it. That's it, Love. Can you feel him on there?"
"Oh yes, Charles! It is like it's dancing!"
"Ha, I guess so. I have never thought of it that way before. Now then, just keep steadily reeling him in. Have you got it? Nice and steady. Let me just get the net from the rock. That's it…keep going."
"There's not much to go— surely, Charles. He will beat the surface soon. Be quick!"
"Here, Love, bring him in close, that's it. Nearly there."
Charles steps to Elsie's side as the salmon trout final peeps his head and dorsal fin above the surface. Charles just gasps.
"Oh, Els! Just a bit quicker now, but don't lose her."
"Her now?!" Elsie gasps a little through her efforts with the rod and reel.
"Yes! Her, Elsie-Love! I think we have finally got her! Look, Els! Look! It's a grayling!" he exclaims excitedly as he manages to reach and scoop the flapping and struggling fish into his little net.
"A grayling! Really? After all of this time? Lady Frances Grayling?!— Oh my! The Lady of the Stream—Baron Trevor's erstwhile wife?!"
"Yes! Lady Frances Grayling! Elsie! We finally caught one on a dry–fly!"
He is almost jumping about in a circle with boyish glee.
Well…he is certainly wriggling his hands about as much as the fish in our net. She smiles happily up at her man—all a–flutter he is.
"Oh, but you were meant to be the one to catch her, Charles! Oh! But, is she a good one? Is she big enough? Oh my, but you are right, she is rather pretty."
"She is lovely, Elsie. A right pretty match for our Baron Trevor, and only 40 years in the making! And I would much rather have caught it with you at the helm alongside me than I had caught it out on my own, Elsie." He is fairly rippling with unadulterated happiness. "Somerset, Wakefield, Ferrybridge, and even Argyll all eluded me! I could not manage it on my own—quite obviously—but now with Lady Frances in our cottage, I will never forget that it is Downton that ended up yielding all that I most desire in this life— and it is all from your steady hand, once again, my Love," he states surely as he firmly plants the most joyful kiss on her broadly smiling lips, even as Elsie's eyes glass up a little for the love of him and for his poetic way of weaving their acquired memories together through all of his words.
To counter her over-welling emotions for him on this veritable spinning top of a day, she quips, "Oh dear, Charles! Forty years in the making indeed! Now you most certainly made that sound as if you are comparing us to a pair of dried out old kippers!"
"And if I did, Fair Lady Carson?" he rumbles out low as he cocks a bemused yet sultry eyebrow at her.
"Dear Lord! Charles, how you managed to make any of that sound in the least bit romantic, I may never know!" She smiles brightly up at her man as the Lady Frances flips and struggles in the net. And all Charles Carson can do is lean in again to wrap his free arm around Elsie's sure shoulders, drawing her to him and planting another kiss of pure love and gratitude upon his fair wife's lips.
"Come, Milady, let us get our wrinkled up old prune feet out of this water and set this wee fishy aside. I'll have to take it directly to old Jarvis's lad from the icebox in the morning and get him to see to preserving the old girl for our Baron Trevor."
He is sparkling all over like sunlight on a rippling stream. My Charles, she thinks happily as she kisses him on the cheek again before they collect their glasses and wine bottle from the rock. Then they make their way across the weir of stones to their secret and secluded picnic rug at the edge of the field of barley.
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*Hamlet Act 1, Scene 3, Lines 561 and then 564
**Discussed a length in my fiction "The Acquisition of Memories. Chapter 41—The Darkest Hour."
*** For a quick insight into the grim history of "Bastardy and Baby Farming in Victorian England", go to this study: http : / people. loyno . edu/ ~history / journal /1989-0 / haller . htm
And in the current political furore, I would argue, sadly, that we have not really come so far from those days—we have just coldly medicalised it all beyond recognition.
Author Note: I have based the family tree and history of the Earl of Hepworth and the Lascelles of Hatton Park vaguely on an actual British Earldom and family tree. However, I certainly do not conflate the actual Lascelles family with any of the actions and morals of the Lascelles family that I am inventing here. The historical family tree merely gave me a frame to work from.
Regards,
BTF