I LOVED HER FIRST

DISCLAIMER: I do not own, nor do I profit in any way from the use of, the characters, settings, implied plot lines, or any ideas drawn from Downton Abbey. These belong to Julian Fellowes.

Chapter 4 Good Company

Mr. Carson had spent the better part of the afternoon on the accounts and he was tired of them. He pulled his watch from his pocket and was relieved to see that it was almost tea time. He'd taken to having it in his pantry. Alone. Mr. Finch had done so for years, but initially Carson had chosen otherwise, thinking it useful to spend this time with the staff. Now, after two years of it, he'd decided Mr. Finch's choice was the better one.

Two weeks ago, after breakfast, he decided he'd had enough. He went to Mrs. Yardley, not immediately, not wanting her to connect the dots, and asked if it were possible that he have tea served in his pantry instead of joining the others every afternoon. He'd pleaded work, although she told him that he needed respite as much as anyone else, perhaps more. But she was agreeable. If she guessed his real reason, she said nothing of it. That was how they were, always polite and accepting of the official statement which allowed them to bypass points of potential conflict.

He knew his responsibilities as butler and he accepted them. It was necessary to be available and approachable, and he worked diligently at making that so. As butler he presided over three meals a day and, two years on, his authority was unquestioned. In truth, his authority had never been questioned, but it rested easily on them all now. Whenever he entered the servants' hall, chairs scraped and everyone stood as a matter of course.

It wasn't any failing in procedure or an issue with any individual that had put him off. It was his isolation. Mr. Finch had given him fair warning and he had gone into it with his eyes open. He had wanted the position, sought it, worked very hard to get it, and been successful. And he knew what it meant. But he was lonely all the same. Lonely in a way that he had not anticipated, in a way that even Mr. Finch had not forewarned of.

He'd always had friends. As a boy he'd palled around with several boys in the village. He was good at sports, fair-minded, and not snobbish about his family's place on the estate. Some of those boys had gone on to work on the estate in the fields or the trades. Others he saw in the village. It was not acceptable for him, not in his present position, to consort with any of them, but that wouldn't have stopped him, even if it meant courting His Lordship's disapprobation. No, it was that they had nothing in common any more. His old friends were all married, with children, and bills to pay, and labouring jobs that kept them hard at work and sent them to the local pub in their few off hours. He had no time either but, more to the point, they would have had nothing to say to each other.

Charlie Carson had been quite popular in his stint on the halls, despite his moral rigidity in the somewhat more relaxed world of the theatre. He was the more cheerful- as well as the more honest, reliable, and kind - of the "Cheerful Charlies," but he'd abandoned those friends with the heartbreak of Alice. He'd not seen any of them since.

For a while he'd gotten on with the footmen at Downton, been one of them, despite the trajectory that had marked him for advancement and set him apart. Even if his grammar school education separated them in some ways, there had always been the sports news to wrangle over. This kind of camaraderie could not persist once he'd become the butler, however.

But it wasn't so much friends, he missed - he'd been steeled for that - as conversation. At the table, Mrs. Dakin sat to his right and Mr. Bevin to his left. Immediately next to them were Constance Meeks, the head housemaid, and Veronica Kent, Her Ladyship's lady's maid. Among the four of them, there was no good conversation to be had. While they were not unintelligent - although he had his suspicions in that regard with Miss Meeks - none of them had his education and all of them were so intellectually narrow. He respected Mrs. Dakin's professionalism and her work ethic, but her mind seldom reached beyond the limits of her duties and the boundaries of Downton village. Mr. Bevin was a good valet, but seemed inordinately concerned for the security of his job, as if it were His Lordship's practice to sack an employee as a sabbath ritual. His perpetual unease was irritating. The other two women were even duller. Beyond them were the footmen, with their talk of sports, but he could hardly be bellowing down the table all through a meal.

No one read books as he did. History was his favourite, but he liked novels, too, and he'd been granted access to Downton's library when he was still a senior footman. Apart from Mr. Finch, no one else had or wanted the privilege. No one read the papers or cared about politics as much as he did. "The business of the toffs," Mrs. Dakin had said. But that was hardly so. The Jameson Raid might have failed, but that business in the Transvaal was nowhere near over. Lord Salisbury's government was bristling over the French action in the Sudan. And other storms were brewing over Africa, what with the Germans and Italians now getting into the act as well. As butler Carson heard His Lordship and the Viscount going rounds on these issues and he longed to join in, but that would have been so inappropriate. Downstairs tedium reigned. His staff might be his (almost) equal in terms of their ability to do their jobs, but no one gave him any intellectual stimulation at all, and he missed this desperately.

So he would do his duty in terms of being present with them three meals a day and keep his door always open, and have one meal away where he could at least think about the world beyond Downton for an hour.

He checked his watch again. Mrs. Yardley did her best, but not all kitchen maids were efficient. This is where he learned patience. And then a movement at the door caught his eye. Only it was not the errant maid with his tea, but a smaller form, half-in half-out, hugging the door frame.

"Miss Mary!" He was delighted. Here was a face to cheer his day.

At his welcome, she edged her way tentatively into the room, and then burst into tears and ran to him. Before he could stand, she had scrambled into his lap and into his arms, and pressed her damp face into his shirt front.

And at that slightly awkward moment, Mrs. Dakin looked in. "I was hoping to catch you before tea, Mr. Carson..." Her voice drifted off as she took in the scene before her. Mrs. Dakin had seen too much in her time to react to anything that fell into her view. "...but I see you've got your..arms...full." She paused. "I'll come back." And then she was gone.

Well, he didn't mind. Better her than anyone else. He gently detached the small arms that clung to him and looked into Miss Mary's tear-stained face.

"Now, then," he said kindly, "what's the matter here?"

The child thrust her hands up, palms forward, almost into his face. "I hurt my hands!"

He examined them. There were scrapes. "How did that happen?"

"Edith tripped me on our walk!"

"Ah." He knew that Nanny took them for a walk every afternoon, weather permitting. This looked like an injury sustained by sliding on a gravel path. "Did Nanny not tend to you?" he asked.

She nodded. "She put some...I-o-dine...on, but it still hurts!"

Yes, he had smelled the iodine. But clearly it was not enough for her. He had no medicine to trump Nanny's remedy, but something else stirred in the back of his mind. "I could, perhaps, kiss them and make them better," he suggested.

Her head went up and down emphatically.

And so he took her hands one at a time, gently kissed the wounds, then turned the hands over and kissed the back of them. "There," he said. "Feel better?"

She smiled through her diminishing tears. "Yes, Mr. Carson." She relaxed into him.

"And did anything precipitate this behaviour by Miss Edith?"

She twisted to look up at him, her face contorted in confusion. She had not understood his question.

"What happened before Miss Edith tripped you?" he said more simply.

Miss Mary was keen to tell the tale. "She said Papa loved her more than he loved me! So I pushed her and Nanny got angry with me. And then, when Nanny wasn't looking, Edith tripped me!"

The parameters of the story were familiar to him, although the details varied. The sisters often quarreled. He nodded gravely. "A tragedy, indeed. But surely you know, Miss Mary, that your father loves you very much. He is father to both of you and must love each of his daughters the same." Carson had heard parents say as much and believed it intellectually, although he found it hard to imagine that he could love another child as much as he did this little dark-haired girl. But that was irrelevant to this discussion. "You ought not to react to everything that is said to you," he suggested mildly. "There isn't enough time in the world and most of it is rubbish."

Whether or not she understood this advice, she seemed to have recovered, and so reached for his pen. He did not object. He had given her to believe she might use it. Obligingly he feathered the pages of the accounts ledger to find a blank page for her to write on. She wrote a row numbers, one through nine, and then copied them out a few times. He had taught her her numbers.

"Your tea, Mr. Carson." The kitchen maid had arrived at last. He had forgotten about her.

He cleared his throat and moved swiftly, directing her to lay it on the small side table, even as he eased himself out from under Miss Mary, leaving her in his chair. She was not in the least interested in the kitchen maid and continued with her work.

"Would you care to join me for tea, Miss Mary?" He made the offer in his most formal voice.

She looked up at him and her whole face glowed with her delight. "Yes, please, Mr. Carson!"

He turned then to the kitchen girl. "Could you please bring me an additional cup, saucer, and plate, and another slice of cake, please, Sarah?" He spoke almost as gently to her as he had earlier to Miss Mary. Mrs. Yardley had told him that some of the junior staff were intimidated by him. If that were the case, he had thought at the time, they must be terrified of her.

She bobbed and dashed off to get the extra things. His attention returned to the little girl still sitting at his desk. He went to her side, offered her his arm, and led her to the small table with as much dignity as he might have shown to Her Ladyship. The chair was too low for her, although the table itself was not very high. This was something he would have to correct in the event that this happened again, which he hoped it would.

It was high tea as Miss Mary would have enjoyed it had she been permitted to join the adults in the library at Downton Abbey. As such, she had never experienced it before and was thrilled by it.

"Nanny always gives us egg and toast for tea," she told him, her eyes widening at the prospect of cake.

There was probably a reason for that, but he was not interested in it. Guests at his table ate finer things. He poured her tea, mostly milk with just enough tea in it to warm it up a bit. Then he offered her the sugar and she genteelly accepted two spoonfuls. He ate with enthusiasm and enjoyed her chatter. She had many things to say. Most of them involved her sister Edith and Nanny, neither of whom she liked very much.

"Grandpapa says I may begin riding lessons soon," she said with wide-eyed excitement.

"Do you like horses?" he asked.

"I love them!" she said emphatically, and told him that she had a polished black steed in the nursery who was all her own. Edith had a white horse, who was not nearly as handsome, and she seldom rode him anyway. Miss Edith preferred to play with her dolls. But Grandpapa had promised that Mary might ride a real pony.

Carson thought this was, perhaps, one of the first times His Lordship might have spoken to the child. As skilled as he was in social situations involving adults, Lord Grantham had thus far evinced little interest in his grandchildren. Riding would be, for him, the first bridge.

Nanny was reading them a book about a little Swiss girl. "Her name is Heidi and she lives in a mountain hut with her grandfather," Mary told him. She frowned. "I don't think I should like to live in a hut with Grandpapa."

Carson did not tell her that her Grandpapa was an able man who could and would do almost anything, but living in a hut, with or without a small child, would never make that list.

Speaking of Nanny reminded him of something. "Does Nanny know where you are, Miss Mary?"

It should have occurred to him first thing, but he had been distracted by her tears. They had discussed this, all three of them. After giving Mr. Carson a piece of her mind about Miss Mary's inconsideration in vanishing to his pantry and his connivance at it in allowing her to stay - a reprimand which he had borne with more equanimity than he had felt, believing discretion at that moment a means to an end - she had relented, and grudgingly agreed that the child might come to him occasionally so long as she asked first. He knew that Nanny's reluctance stemmed in part from jurisdiction. All servants guarded their responsibilities carefully, lest they slip down the ladder to a junior post. But he also knew that Nanny found it easier to cope when Miss Mary and Miss Edith were apart, and that it gave her the opportunity to get a few of her organizational tasks done.

"Yes," she said.

He was glad. It had largely come to him to impress upon her the importance of asking and receiving permission.

"I told her I was coming to see you as I was running away after Edith tripped me."

Well. Almost all lessons required practice. But he had only asked if Nanny knew where she was and in that she had been accurate.

"Where does tea come from, Mr. Carson?"

There was a perceptive question. "China and India," he responded promptly.

She was puzzled. "Chi-na and In-di-a," she repeated.

"They're foreign countries," he told her. "I'll get a book and next time you're here I'll show you where they are." It was the kind of promise that pleased them both.

When they had finished their tea, he escorted her back upstairs to the nursery. She might find her own way to him, but once there she was in his care and he was diligent about his responsibilities.

Back downstairs again, he went directly to Mrs. Dakin's sitting room. Tea was over and she was at work once more. Whatever her shortcomings as a conversationalist, the housekeeper was an indefatigable worker and he knew he could always depend upon her to pull her weight.

"You wanted to speak to me, Mrs. Dakin?"

She stood up when he entered the room, the conventional show of respect to the senior staff member. He had told her not to bother in her own office, but she continued to abide by protocol. He had let it go.

"I wanted to inform you that I've made a decision regarding the hiring of the new head housemaid."

He knew the background to this statement. Constance was leaving at the end of the month to take up a position closer to home. It was in a lesser house, but clearly other considerations were of more importance to her. Mrs. Dakin had conducted a thorough search for a replacement. He'd observed the process and complimented her on it, and made notes for his own use.

He waited patiently for her to go on.

"I've decided on the foreigner," she said, almost as if she expected him to object. She did not have to be reviewing her decision with him at all. It was entirely a matter for her jurisdiction. But she was extending him the courtesy and he appreciated it.

"And you're not concerned about bringing someone in from outside?" It was always an element in hiring, although he had not thought much of the possible candidates from within Downton itself.

"I'm after the best person, Mr. Carson. This is a head housemaid position, after all. There's a great deal of responsibility involved."

He knew that.

"This one is sharp, she can do every task and do them well, and she can manage people, which she'll need to do as head housemaid. She has potential, if only we can keep her busy enough here."

"Downton is a challenge for most of us in supervisory positions," he ventured. But her words caught his ear. "Are you planning a...change?" he asked delicately.

Mrs. Dakin laughed. "Not if I can help it, Mr. Carson, although...," she sobered a little, perhaps thinking of Mr. Finch, "we never know the time, do we?" She drew a breath and then brightened again. "We've a ways to go yet on that, I hope. But," she added, with a knowing look, "if Mr. Finch can raise a butler, then I suppose I can cultivate a housekeeper."

He hadn't known that she knew. He nodded in acknowledgment.

"And she's only twenty-seven, so she'll expect to spend a good few years as head housemaid here or anywhere before she gets an opportunity for advancement."

It wasn't everyone who secured the senior position at thirty-one as he had and he realized she was making a pointed reference to his precipitous ascent.

"And the successful candidate is?" he asked. She had brought it up so he was adhering to the contours of the conversation. Mrs. Dakin was responsible for the women employees and he would meet her soon enough. It wouldn't matter much to him who she was.

"The Scot," she told him. "Elsie Hughes."