The Flash Fiction challenge is just to write something short and sweet to get some writing done. Everyone is welcome to join. You can find the daily prompts on kedreeva on tumblr. I'm posting here to try to keep myself honest. There will be a new prompt every Monday through Friday of March and I hope to try to fill them all. Thanks for reading! Happy March!
Flame
Lady Edith's room reeked of smoke.
The builders had been in earlier to make sure that the structure was still sound. They would need to come back to fix the walls and redo the floors, but for now, Elsie took in the damage.
The fireplace where the flames had begun was covered in soot, the white of the mantel blotted out by the black dust. Everything would have to go. If it wasn't burnt, the waterlog would have ruined it. The maids and footmen would be set to work here later, once all the other tasks for the day were done. The House was still full of guests, after all.
Elsie still didn't know how the fire had started. Lady Edith's flimsy excuse of falling asleep with a book didn't sit right with her. The bed was far enough away from the fireplace that a fallen book would not have fallen close enough to the flames to catch. She sighed.
The things on Lady Edith's night table went into the small box she had brought for this purpose. Anything personal should be handled by the Housekeeper. Pictures and letters were placed with care. Some of it was beyond salvage, but she would leave the decision to throw something away to Lady Edith. She placed a book on top at last and turned her eyes around the rest of the room for anything else. A corner of a paper caught her eye underneath the pillow. She pulled out a photograph of a baby and gasped.
Many things began to click into place for her. Lady Edith's distress of the last year after Mr. Gregson had disappeared. Her sudden trip to France with her aunt. The morose mood she'd returned with.
"Mrs. Hughes? Is everything all right?"
Mr. Carson stood in the door looking at her with a worried frown. She placed the picture inside the book and turned to him with a tight smile.
"Everything's fine," she assured him. "Just saying a little prayer in thanks that it wasn't worse."
He nodded solemnly. "We were very lucky that it was caught in time."
"Have you thanked Mr. Barrow yet?" she asked, smirking as she turned from him to pick up the box of Lady Edith's things. His moue of disgust was still firmly in place when she looked at him again.
He cleared his throat, shifting in the doorway to let her pass. "Yes, well. As I said, we were very lucky. I'm glad that no one was injured."
"As am I." She stopped in the door, looking up into his face, and for a moment she saw an echo of the flames that had raged through Downton Abbey.