Christmas Carols
Part 2
God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen
"It's a Downton village tradition!"
Mr. Molesley and Miss Baxter were out for a brisk walk on an overcast afternoon when the mercury was down and the wind up. Miss Baxter risked a glance at Mr. Molesley even though it meant exposing her face to the cold. It was a point of interest to her that Mr. Molesley spoke about the village as reverently as Mr. Carson spoke about the Abbey. Village and house – they were the centrepieces in the lives of these two men. Miss Baxter was not surprised to learn that the village, like the abbey, had traditions with deep roots.
"People come out on their doorsteps to listen. We sing one or two songs and then move on, unless there's hospitality on offer. Some have hot drinks, and sometimes there's fresh baking." Mr. Molesley's eyes went round. He did love good baking. Then he leaned toward Miss Baxter as though taking her into his confidence, though it might have been so that she could hear him more clearly through his muffler. "My Dad makes a hot rum punch. Best in the village!"
Miss Baxter didn't doubt it. And it sounded very enjoyable indeed. But when Mr. Molesley suggested she join the carolers for their annual revelry, she hesitated.
"I'm not part of the village."
"This is about fun. It's not like a gentleman's club in London. And you're part of Downton."
"What about the party at the Abbey?"
"That's on Christmas eve. The caroling is on the night before the night before Christmas," - he enjoyed saying that - "so it won't interfere."
Miss Baxter shifted uneasily. "I don't know how Her Ladyship would feel about my going out on an evening that isn't my time off."
"It's only once a year," Mr. Molesley said bracingly. "Even Mr. Scrooge let Bob Cratchit off one day a year. And Her Ladyship's no Scrooge. It takes place between seven and ten, so you'll have had time to dress her and then to be home before she goes to bed."
A slow smile spread across Miss Baxter's face. "I seem to have run out of excuses."
"I'm glad of it!"
"Oh! Wait! I don't sing very well."
Mr. Molesley threw his head back burst into song.
"God rest ye merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay!
Remember Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day!"
There was a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to his efforts, as well as a few off key notes.
"Can you do worse that that?" he demanded, with a grin that she could see now, for his muffler had slipped while he sang.
Miss Baxter, who was painfully honest, had to shake her head. "No."
"Then you're in!" he said firmly.
O Holy Night
The grand piano was in the Great Hall, but Edith liked to practice on a stand-up piano in a smaller drawing room.
"Have you changed your tune, then?"
She looked up to see Tom standing in the doorway. "I'm practicing for Christmas Eve. I don't play these songs the year round. I need to become acquainted with them again."
"Silent Night," he said, noting the song she had been playing.
"Mary's going to sing it solo on Christmas Eve."
"As usual."
"Yes. She has a beautiful voice."
Tom sidled in and took up a position beside her. "Would you sing a song for me?"
"If you insist," Edith said obligingly. "What would you like to hear?" Her fingers poised over the keys.
"Not here and now. On Christmas eve. At the party."
Edith's already almost wraithlike figure was somehow diminished by this request. "I couldn't possibly. I've not got Mary's voice."
"No. You've Edith's voice."
"Tom…."
"I'd like you to sing O Holy Night."
Edith almost laughed. "I don't think so," she said emphatically.
"Why not?"
"I've told you. I'm not a singer. And that's one of the most challenging of songs at the best of times. Ask Mary."
"I'm asking you."
"I'd do anything for you, Tom, but …."
"It's not for me," he said.
Silent Night
Daisy found herself drifting into song without thinking about it. To forestall further friction with Mrs. Patmore on the subject, she tried a different tack.
"What's your favourite Christmas carol?"
"I'm not particular about one over another," Mrs. Patmore said offhandedly, not looking up from the recipe she was scrutinizing.
"What, you, not have an opinion?"
Mrs. Patmore's eyes lifted and she peered at Daisy over the rims of her glasses. "I beg your pardon?"
Daisy was not put off. "You have an opinion about everything. Your favourite fruit is strawberries, your worst is pineapple. You thought Mr. Lloyd George was good-looking, but you didn't like his politics. Your favourite book is Little Dorrit and you despise The Mayor of Casterbridge.
"I never said that about Mr. Lloyd George! And The Mayor of Casterbridge a horrible story and Thomas Hardy is as dull as unsalted bread," Mrs. Patmore retorted.
Daisy merely raised an eyebrow in a knowing look.
"And if you paid half as much attention to your work as to my ramblings, you'd be a cook in a great London house!"
"If I hadn't paid attention to all your ramblings, I wouldn't have seen my fourteenth birthday," Daisy muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing. But how can you not like Christmas carols?"
Mrs. Patmore said nothing. She took off her glasses and scratched the bridge of her nose and got a strange look on her face. And then took a deep breath. "I'm not musical," she said. "That's not how I … how I celebrate. I celebrate with food." She made a sweeping gesture over the great kitchen table, loaded with the fruits of such labour. "Isn't that enough?"
"Yeah." Daisy gave her a long, searching look and her eyes plainly said No.
Mrs. Patmore went back to her recipe but for a moment she only stared unseeing at the slip of paper before her. It was getting harder and harder to get things past Daisy.
Angels We Have Heard on High
Thomas stalked down the gallery in an irritable frame of mind. He had better things to do than run menial errands for Miss Baxter. Why didn't she go fetch her own sewing box from where she'd left it in Her Ladyship's bedroom? He drew up suddenly at an unlikely sound – voices lifted in song. Thin, high children's voices, tempered by the steadier, fuller tones of an adult voice. It was Nanny and the children – Miss Sybbie and Master George. The nursery door was ajar and from it emanated the strains of Silent Night.
Lady Mary's Christmas eve standard.
His ill-humour momentarily derailed, Thomas stepped lightly in the direction of the nursery, pausing just outside the door to listen. There were only the two children and they'd had no training and their voices wavered on the chorus – Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace. But they got all the words right. He wondered how long Nanny had been drilling them. He remembered learning new songs with the choir. The precentor had had infinite patience and somehow transformed a mob of rowdy little boys into an angelic host. Thomas had been proud to be one of them and his parents had been proud of him, too.
He lingered through the song and waited still, expecting them to sing another, and then was caught offguard when Nanny stepped unexpectedly from the room.
"Mr. Barrow!"
Immediately Thomas assumed an air of nonchalance, as though he had happened only to be passing by at that very moment.
"Nanny." He made to continue on the passage.
"Mr. Barrow, you're a godsend. I've an errand to run to the laundry and I can't leave the children alone. Could you mind them for me for a moment?"
It wasn't bad enough that he was fetching things, but now he had also to be babysitter as well. But he liked the children, so, while leaving Nanny in no doubt as to the great inconvenience of her request, he agreed. "But don't take all day," he called after her, before stepping into the nursery.
"Mr. Barrow!" Miss Sybbie and Master George ran to greet him and secured from him that rarest of responses – a warm smile from the underbutler.
"We're singing carols!" George declared, leading Thomas into the centre of the room. They promptly dropped to the floor, sitting cross-legged, and evidently expecting him to join them. He did, oblivious to the fact that this would put unwanted creases in his trousers.
"I heard you singing carols," he said. "Give us a one, then."
"We sing Silent Night with Nanny," Sybbie informed him. "What will we sing with you?"
"Angels We Have Heard on High." He surprised himself with this. Where had that come from?
They stared at him expectantly.
"We don't know it," Sybbie told him.
"Oh. Well, That's all right, then. We'll sing another."
"Let sing that one, Mr. Barrow."
Thomas was perplexed but Master George and Miss Sybbie were so in earnest. He glanced at his watch and wondered how long Nanny would be. "But you don't know it."
"Teach it to us," Sybbie directed him.
He opened his mouth to begin explaining to her why this was impractical and suddenly saw there in her face a reflection of her mother's spirit – the determined lift of her jaw, the dancing light in her eyes. Lady Sybil was an adventurer. She had done things that no Crawley could imagine doing. She had broken barriers. Miss Sybbie was but six years old, and had a good deal of Mr. Branson about her, but in the moment, Thomas found himself eye to eye with a visual echo of Lady Sybil.
And he was used to finding back doors to problems that seemed at first glance insurmountable.
"All right. What if I sing one line and you repeat it?" A verse was only six lines. It wouldn't take long.
They nodded enthusiastically.
Thomas cleared his throat. He smiled to himself when Master George and Miss Sybbie did so as well. And then he began.
"Angels we have heard on high," he sang.
"Angels we have heard on high," they echoed him.
"Sweetly singing o'er the plain" "Sweetly singing o'er the plain"
"And the mountains in reply" "And the mountains in reply"
"Echoing their joyous strains." "Echoing their joyous strains."
Gloria! In excelsis deo." "Gloria! In excelsis deo."
Gloria! In excelsis deo." "Gloria! In excelsis deo."
He cheered at the final line and they joined him. "Hurrah!"
"What's 'celsis deo?" George asked. He had stumbled over the chorus.
"It's Latin," Thomas explained. "Another language. It means God in the highest. That last line is Glory to God in the highest." He hadn't studied Latin in school, but he'd asked the question when he was singing with the choir and he remembered things.
"That was fun, Mr. Barrow!" George declared, clapping his hands.
"Isn't there more?" Sybbie asked.
Thomas gave her a look. She was a clever girl.
"A few more verses."
"Let's sing them!"
"I …." How could he tell them that he didn't do this, that Christmas was a fraught moment for him, recalling him to times when he had belonged and reminding him viscerally that he had been cast out of that garden.
"Please, Mr. Barrow."
"Let me think of the words," he said, stalling. But they came to him so easily, once he summoned them.
"Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be
Which inspire your heavenly song?"
Line by line he delivered the text and the children echoed him. And then the rousing finish in which they joined him:
"Gloria, in excelsis deo!
Gloria, in excelsis deo!"
"Wonderful!" he declared, elated despite himself. He scooped up the hands they extended to him and wrung them enthusiastically.
"Let's sing it again!" the children cried.
Thomas sighed.
O Holy Night
"… Long lay the world, in sin and sorrow pining,
'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world re- …."
Edith broke off abruptly, sensitive to any witness to her struggles. She had seen movement out of the corner of her eye.
It was Mary. Of course, it was Mary.
"Did we have a rehearsal planned for this afternoon?" Edith asked, taking the offensive.
"No. I was just passing by and heard you singing," Mary replied. A little line furrowed her brow. "I can't remember the last time I heard you sing. By yourself."
Edith said nothing. She did not want to make anything of it. It had taken some effort to perform even for herself and she knew Mary could shatter her resolve with one swift barb.
"O Holy Night," Mary murmured, her eyes drifting to the sheet music. "It's the toughest Christmas carol to sing. Well, apart from the Sussex Carol, but only choirs attempt that. What possessed you?"
It was a straightforward question, but Edith paused, of two minds as to how to answer. Say nothing. Give her nothing to use against you. This was the visceral reaction, ever bent to the end of self-preservation. But another feeling edged it out. Mary is part of it, too. We all are.
"Tom asked me to sing it."
This did surprise Mary. "Is it a favourite of his? I wouldn't have thought."
"No," said Edith, the hands in her lap tightening over each other. "Not at all." She took a deep breath. "It was Sybil's."
It suddenly seemed as though Mary's bones had turned to mush. She groped for a nearby chair and all but fell into it. In her eyes Edith caught a rare glimpse of vulnerability.
"I'd forgotten," Mary said hollowly.
"I hadn't thought of it in a long time either," Edith said, understanding. "We haven't sung it on Christmas eve since…."
Mary took a moment to gather herself and then, lifting her chin, gazed at her sister. "And Tom asked you to sing it this year?"
Edith listened carefully, searching for scorn or admonition in her sister's tone. There was none. Mary had worked hard to achieve a neutral note. "Yes."
Mary nodded and then looked away, focusing on something intangible in the distance. "Then you've more courage than I do."
Until that moment, Edith had been consumed with her own challenges with the song, both musical and emotional. So many memories of Sybil. Mary's remark stirred her. It was perhaps the nicest thing her sister had ever said to her. And it took Edith out of herself to other considerations.
"Do you think it will be too much for Mama and Papa?" she asked. "And Granny?" It did not seem at all peculiar to Edith that though she and Mary had put the association out of their minds, that this would not be the case with their elders.
Mary gave the question due consideration, something that Edith appreciated.
"Perhaps," Mary said finally, and her direct gaze focused on Edith once more, alert and perceptive. And then, "No. Well, of course, it will move them. They will remember."
"But stirring such feelings on a joyous occasion." Edith was wondering now.
"Why shouldn't we remember Sybil on such occasions?" Mary demanded. "She's with us always. And if they choke up in the moment, they will also be reminded of the pure joy Sybil brought to our lives. Better to remember, I say. And clearly it's what Tom wants."
Mary had regained her equilibrium and the strength of her bones. She stood up. "Only take care to let me sing first. I'll never get through Silent Night if you're gone before me with this."
"If you like," Edith said agreeably, further astonished by Mary's admission of vulnerability, however offhandedly delivered.
Mary withdrew. Did she bow her head just a little on her way out, a pre-emptive action to quell the tide of her own feelings?
Edith took a minute to recover herself. She'd shared something with Mary here. There had been, for just a flicker in time, a bridge between them, as on the day they stood together with Sybil's corpse before them. And she grasped then what Mary had just said about their parents and grandmother, for she felt in this moment both the aching loss of one sister and the rare satisfaction of mutual understanding with the other. Joy and sorrow, somehow they ran together, the one making the other bearable.
The Holly and the Ivy
"You're singing that song again," Mrs. Patmore said, a warning note in her voice.
"Don't you like it?" Daisy asked, not really paying much attention.
"Well, the first hundred times perhaps. But I've gone off it." The cook's sarcasm was lost on Daisy, who was staring at her scrap of paper again. "You're going to wear it out, you know."
At this, Daisy looked up. "Do you think you can tell anything about a person from something they've written?"
"You can, indeed." Mrs. Patmore said this with more feeling than perhaps she meant. Daisy needed something from this fragment of her mother's life and Mrs. Patmore hoped she might find it.
But this encouragement only elicited a resigned shrug from Daisy. "Another language I don't understand," she muttered.
"May I see it?" Mrs. Patmore asked this tentatively, prepared to be understanding if Daisy said no.
But she didn't. Instead, she held the scrap out to Mrs. Patmore, who put on her glasses and examined it. It was a very poor hand, indeed. To own the truth, Mrs. Patmore was surprised to learn that Daisy's mother was literate enough to have written or copied a recipe at all, but the awkward form of each letter suggested to her a woman who had written but rarely. It looked as though great pains had been taken over it and little achieved for the effort because the skill was rarely used. That wasn't the kind of insight Mrs. Patmore wanted to offer.
"It looks like she wrote it in a hurry, don't you think?" Daisy asked.
Daisy wasn't a child any more, but when she looked at the cook with her eyes round like that, Mrs. Patmore had a hard time remembering that. Her gaze dropped once more to the flawed script and she nodded. "Yes. Well. It's a miracle she got the time to write anything at all, with all those children." Daisy had been one of twelve, so they understood at the Abbey. Scattered to the winds, put out with relatives or to work, was what Daisy had told Mrs. Patmore early on.*
"I never knew her," Daisy said abruptly. "Not like you knew your parents."
"No," Mrs. Patmore said again, and handed the paper back to Daisy, who took it and stared at it again, greedily consuming the words, desperate for meaning.
"Do you know, I think you're reading it wrong."
"What?"
"It's a recipe, Daisy. Stop looking for some hidden meaning. Just follow the directions."
"What?"
"Your mother took the time to write down a recipe when she had a thousand and one other things to do, and worrying about her children all the time. What we need to do is read it, properly."
"I can read properly," Daisy countered, a little defensively. "I have read it."
But Mrs. Patmore was lashing her apron about her waist. "Let's have it here," she said, holding out her hand for it again, and this time without any hesitation. "We need to read it in a cook's language."
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night
"It's not like you to keep something from me," John said, as he and Anna were getting ready for bed. "Not something like this anyway."
Anna was buttoning up her nightgown, the heavy flannel one that, together with the warmth of John's body next to her, just about kept a chill of a winter's night away. It was always late when they got home from their work at the Abbey and it was hardly worth it to stir the fire in the grate. And the cottage, unheated all day, was always damp-cold. "What do you mean by that?" she asked sharply, giving him a look.
"Nothing," he said hastily, but smiled just a little. "I only meant that it's just the name of a song, Anna. "
She was bemused. "What are you talking about?"
"Your favourite Christmas carol," he reminded her. "You wouldn't tell me your favourite."
"You wouldn't tell me yours."
"But I gave you an answer. I don't have one. So," he paused and, eyes twinkling, said, "what's yours?" As he spoke, he sat down on the side of the bed, his undershirt half-off, as though he'd forgotten he was in the middle of undressing. He was oblivious to the cold. Shaking her head at this, Anna slipped under the bedclothes, layers of cotton sheet, wool blankets, and a coverlet that was almost as old as the cottage itself.
"You're curious," she said, putting him off just for fun.
"I am."
She gave in. "While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks by Night," she said. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, but John sat unmoved, a quizzical look on his face.
"I don't know that one."
"It isn't one of the best known," Anna agreed. "But I've liked it since I was a little girl."
"How does it go?"
"While shepherds watched their flock by night,
All seated on the ground
The angel of the Lord came down
And glory shone all around.
And glory shone all around."
He thought for a moment and then shook his head. "Of course, I wasn't very interested in any of them. I probably don't know more than a line or two to most." He pulled his shirt right off then.
"You'd best put a nightshirt on," Anna advised. "You were coughing last night."
He grumbled, resisting being told what to do, and heaved himself to his feet to go rummaging in a drawer. "Why that song, then?"
Anna waited until he'd come back to bed and was getting in beside her.
"Christmas comes at the darkest time of the year."
"It does. The winter solstice, or nearly."
"And, when I was a little girl, I was afraid of the dark, which is very inconvenient as we live so much of our lives in darkness."
"Literally and metaphorically," John murmured. "How does a Christmas carol figure into this?"
"When I heard the Christmas story when I was a little girl, I got … stuck on the shepherds being out in the fields or the hills with their flocks in the dark. It seemed to me that the baby Jesus was fine there in the manger, with his mother and his father and all the animals close by. And the star over the stable lighting everything up. But … out on the hills, the shepherds were in the dark. I was frightened for them."
The child, Anna, feeling compassion for the shepherds. "There were stars," he said.
"We had stars and it was still terribly dark at night. And then an angel appears. It would have scared the stuffing out of me. Never mind burglars or monsters under your bed. Imagine an angel coming at you out of the darkness out there in the hills. I can see your smile, John Bates."
He made a valiant effort to affect a serious demeanour. "I'm waiting for the Christmas carol part," he said.
"Well." Anna shifted onto her side, propping her head up on her hand and reaching out to trace the contours of his ribs under his shirt. "Listen to the words." And she began to sing again:
"'Fear not',' he said, for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled minds
'Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind,
To you and all mankind.
'To you in David's town this day
Is born of David's line
The Savior who is Christ the Lord
And this shall be the sign.
And this shall be the sign.
The heavenly Babe you there shall find
To human view displayed
And meanly wrapped in swathing bands,
And in a manger laid.
And in a manger laid.'
"It goes on," Anna said, breaking off abruptly. "But what I heard, when I was young, was that out of the darkness an angel came, shining in this glorious light and bringing good news. Great news. I don't know how it worked, but I realized I could be hopeful in dark times and anticipate good things to come, rather than dwelling on what there was to be afraid of."
"The source of your relentless optimism, revealed at last," John said, but he reached for her hand and tightened his over it. "Do you still sing it to yourself?"
"Sometimes," she admitted, tilting her head so as to look into his eyes. They had had some dark days between them in recent years.
"And yet I've never heard you sing it," he said, a little puzzled by this.
"When has there ever been darkness for me when I've been with you?" she said, and withdrew her hand from his that she might fling her arm about his neck.
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
The Carsons were hanging garlands of fir around the windows of the cottage.
"It's one of the ones with sheep, isn't it? Or shepherds?" Charlie was holding the greenery in place, reaching high above his head, while Elsie, close beside him, was standing on a chair. "Shepherds Arise," he guessed.
Elsie ignored him.
"Away in a Manger," he went on. "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night."
"You're daft, you know," Elsie said mildly.
"Are there any Scottish carols?" he asked, changing direction. "I can think of German and Irish and even American carols, but Scottish?" There was a glint of mischief in his eye.
Elsie turned to face him. They were mere inches apart. "Were you wanting me to make supper for you tonight?"
He grinned. Supper was already simmering on the stove.
Putting the final tacks in, Elsie climbed down from the chair. "Tell me about Christmas when you were a boy. Your favourite memory. What is it?"
He knew it was a deflection, but it wasn't one he really minded. And he could always come back to the question about Christmas carols.
"1873," he said promptly.
Elsie raised her eyebrows. "You seem quite firm on that."
"I am."
"Well?"
"Let's have a sherry."
He poured them each a glass and they retired together to the settee where Charlie put his arm around his wife and she obligingly nestled against him.
"The food," he said simply and yet made the words sound profound. "My mother was a good cook." He caught her eye. "I mean no disrespect, Elsie. Many people cook and we all have to eat. But my mother put her heart and soul into her cooking, the way Mrs. Patmore does."
"I'll tell her you said that."
"And I won't necessarily deny it," he retorted, and then settled back again. "Meat pies and mince pies," he said with a sigh. "Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy. She had her own recipe for cranberry sauce. I've never tasted better. Roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts. Christmas cake. And the pudding." He closed his eyes as though the memory was too much for him.
"No kilted sausages?"
"What?"
"You know them as 'pigs in a blanket'."
"Oh, of course. Kilted?"
"You ate well," Elsie noted, ignoring his sarcasm.
"We did," he admitted. "We were … better off than some. And that brings me to the next part. My mother always made up baskets for those that weren't. We took them round together, she and I, on Christmas eve. I was probably more of a hindrance than a help most of the time."
"No doubt she relished the time in your company. Go on with your story. You ate every year. Why was 1873 so special?"
A smile edged its way slowly across his face and he glanced sidelong at her. "Because my father took me along to the pub on Christmas eve. I'd never been with him before. And I had a dram of punch. Christmas punch. The men usually had a pint, but … the occasion called for something special. There was a generous helping of rum and cognac in it and … well, all sorts of things, I imagine. And I nearly choked on it. But I had it. And sat there with my dad in the pub for an hour, with all of his friends, them smoking their pipes and every once in a while singing a rousing chorus of one carol or another, and all of them out of tune. I didn't say a word. I just had my punch and sat with the men and felt …" His eyes glittered as he pondered it. "…like I was one of them, for the first time. That I was a man." His gaze slanted in Elsie's direction. "Heady stuff."
"And then," he went on, "we were home again and my father hitched a team of horses to a borrowed sleigh and took my mother and me for a sleigh ride in the wintry night. It had snowed that year, enough to make for a grand ride, but it wasn't snowing that night. My father told us about the stars. Horses and stars, those were his passions. And my mother and I, we sang. Oh! She had a lovely voice. We sang all the carols we knew." He paused. "And I appreciated, then, perhaps for the first time, how happy my parents were together."
They sat in silence for a moment. He had a glow about him and Elsie was content to revel in it. She enjoyed these odd glimpses into the life of Charlie Carson, who was a more colourful creature than Mr. Carson, the butler of Downton Abbey, who had existed in panels of black and white with few shades of grey. It helped to explain his general contentedness and perhaps shed light on that long-ago adventure on the halls. And then Elsie's mind came back to the realities of life on the Downton estate.
"How was this possible?"
"What?"
Elsie shifted a little so as to look straight into his face. "Your father was the head groom at the Abbey. How did it happen that he spent all of Christmas Eve and Christmas day with his own family, and not harnessing sleighs and carriages for the family?"
"They weren't there."
"What?"
"It was 1873. His Lordship and Her Ladyship were in Russia, in advance of the marriage of Prince Alfred to the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of Tsar Alexander II in the new year. They were gone for months."
"And the children?"
"With relatives."
"Goodness! What did you all do with yourselves?"
"Well, the house was shut up and much of the staff on half pay. But the horses still needed to be cared for. But not on Christmas eve or Christmas day," he added triumphantly.
"And so the most special Christmas of your childhood is one with nary a Crawley to be seen."
He frowned. "What of it?"
"Nothing." She smiled serenely.
"What about you?"
"Eh?"
"What was your best Christmas, Elsie? When you were a girl?"
She considered for a moment, although she knew the answer quite well. "The year I was thirteen, too," she said, finally. "I was set to leave home in the new year, to go to my first place at a house in Inverary. I was eager to go. I wanted to be making my own way."
"Then you've always had this streak of independence," her husband murmured indulgently.
"All was as usual – we had a Yule log, a good birch one. My father always made sure of that. And all the usual treats. My mother was a good cook, too, although I won't make any claims for her against yours."
She gave him a look and he forebore to comment.
"There was cock-a-leekie soup and then a turkey with roast potatoes and gravy, and parsnips, peas, and carrots. None of your brussels sprouts for us! And a clootie dumpling for dessert." Though she did not know it, her eyes sparkled at she recited this list and an uncharacteristically dreamy semblance overtook her at the mention of this last.
"A clootie dumpling? Do I want to know what that is?" Charlie asked cautiously.
Elsie rolled her eyes at him. "You'd eat it. I'm sure of that," she said drily. "But, as with you, it wasn't just the food and the mood of the season I recall. That was the year my mother gave me my quilt."
He knew that quilt, for these fifty years later it was still one Elsie's most prized possession and they slept beneath it every night.
"I don't know how she ever finished it without my seeing it," Elsie went on. "I was always about, in and out of the house without warning. And even when she could catch a moment to work on it, there was Becky to look after, too." She shook her head in wonder. "It must have taken her a year and more. Maybe two. Every square on it a story in our lives."
She sighed then and looked up into her husband's attentive gaze. "And it was my last Christmas at home. In any home that was my own. I've spent every Christmas since in someone else's house."
"Until this year," Charlie said gently.
And Elsie smiled. "Yes," she said, reaching for his hand and squeezing it. "Until this year."
"Well," he said at length. "This being the first year we'll spend in our new home, together, perhaps we should establish some traditions of our own."
This sounded promising. It amused Elsie to think of her Charlie Carson talking about inventing traditions – which sounded rather revolutionary – rather than defending traditions.
"What did you have in mind?" she asked, curious.
"An evening of song!," he declared. "Which brings us back to …."
"Favourite Christmas carols."
"Yes. And the sheep. So which sheep song is your favourite?"
"It's your question," she countered. "What's yours?"
Abruptly he leaped to his feet and struck a pose before the fire, taking the stage as it were. And without preamble, burst into song.
"Hark! The herald angels sing!
Glory to the newborn king!
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled."
His voice was a baritone and he sang with exhilaration and without inhibition. And he was in tune, as well. He paused for breath and looked to her for a reaction.
She clasped her hands together in delight. "Well, don't stop there! Give me the whole song."
It seemed he had been waiting for just such an invitation.
* NOTE: A meagre sketch of Daisy's family history in Downton Wiki includes this note about her many siblings.