Chapter 5

Charles looked at his watch impatiently probably for the umpteenth time within that two minutes as he stood on Isobel's doorstep. His taxi was nearly twenty minutes late and the delay was certainly not helping his mood. His wide eyebrows were knitted in annoyance, he grunted and proceeded to cross his arms in front of him. The bright lights of the house opposite Isobel's annoyed him further as the notes of some horrendous modern music forced its way into the street. He couldn't help but notice through the window with its curtains open, how a young couple "vaped", oblivious to the loud music that thundered around them. A habit which irritated him to no end. They were not cigarettes, yes, but they were still the same thing to him. He's had enough of cigarettes for a lifetime with Barrow, his assistant, often looking like a steam engine during breaks. It did strike as odd to him, that the young couple and the whole bubble they've made in that house didn't match the house itself. Two modern young people, too racy for his tastes, in a house that grand and gracious. Maybe the elders are away or something, he concluded.

He glanced back over the shoulder instinctively as the door opened and closed behind him and did a double take as he realised who had opened the door.

"Hello," he greeted Elsie Hughes who had just stepped out of Isobel's House with a sour expression on her face to match his. He made way for her to stand next to him.

"Hi," she replied, an irritated note lacing her voice. "Thought you were gone already."

"My cab is late," he answered and kept on watching as she fished her smartphone out of her trouser pocket and began tapping at it annoyedly with her thumb.

"You're…er… driving back? Or taking a cab," he asked, as he uncrossed his arms and tucked one hand into his trouser pocket.

Elsie looked up from her phone to him. "Cab. I thought I'd get an Uber. Bloody app is crashing and it's messing up the rest of the phone as well," she answered and let out a frustrated sigh.

Charles didn't really get half the things Elsie mentioned in that sentence. He's heard about apps from Robert's girls and Barrow and he knew that it was something to do with those ridiculous smartphones and that was about it. Uber, he knew to be taxi service on phones, one he had not the slightest interest in. He cared neither for the fancy phones nor the fancy taxi services in them. He owned an old fashioned phone with buttons, not even a BlackBerry because he despised the rows of keys that looked like the mouth of a monster. Mary gave one to him for his birthday, two years back and he used it only for two days and was still in its box in the farthest end of the cabinet downstairs. And he preferred the way of booking a taxi by calling a company, even though the operators annoyed him, or better still hailing one off the street.

"Oh," was the only reply he could give to her sentence. "What are you going to do?" he asked a moment later, while Elsie was still battling with her phone.

"I don't know, either get this sorted or get one from the street, she replied and looked up from her phone at the dark street that stretched in front of them. "It must be hard though getting one at this time of the night, from this street." She bit her bottom lip as she contemplated the options, her gaze still upon the street.

Charles smiled lightly at her gesture. He found it rather adorable. "Perhaps," he began and Elsie looked up at him. "Which way are you going?"

"A couple of streets before the village green. Close to Haughton-le-Skerne. Why?" Elsie asked, puzzled.

"Well, I've a cab booked. It's late to arrive but it's still booked and it's supposed to come. Perhaps I could drop you," he suggested. Observing the tense expression on her face and guessing what she might be reading into his offer, he got flustered and blurted out, "I'm sorry Miss Hughes, that wasn't thoughtful of me… of course I understand if you find unable the suggestion unacceptable. Please forgive me if I've offen-."

"Oh please Mr Carson," Elsie said cutting him off. "It's not that I don't trust you. I've seen a bit of life and no mistake, I can see that you are not the type of person who would take advantage of another." She paused and having noted that he understood what she subtly phrased, then continued, "It's just that I don't want to impose on you."

Charles couldn't help but beam a little at Elsie's implication that she trusted him. Of course he was not that sort of man! He would never even dream of taking advantage of innocent women who found themselves in a difficult predicament. He looked deep into Elsie's blue eyes, darkened by the dim light around them. The annoying noise from across the street dying away in his mind as he focussed on her.

"Of course not, you are not imposing Miss Hu-," he paused, "Elsie. I'm going towards Downton Abbey anyway. I wouldn't mind dropping you off." A second later he added as an afterthought, "In fact I'd be delighted!"

Elsie smiled at him. Her eyes drifted to his greying hair, neatly combed, except for one errant curl that had found its way on to his forehead, and back to his deep brown eyes. "Thank you Charles," she said, carefully pronouncing his name. "That is very kind of you."

"Not at all," he replied, regretting the fact that he had to reply in order to be polite. He would have preferred for the night to go quiet in his mind after the sound of her voice pronouncing his name had dissolved into the air around them.

She broke her gaze which was fixed with his and looked at the house that was opposite Isobel's. The girl, who was seated, laughed at something the boy, who was leaning against the frame of window, said. The smoke from the vapes forming a thick cloud around them.

"Funny isn't it, how times change," she said, her eyes still looking ahead.

"It's a topsy turvy world we live in now," Charles agreed, his eyes following the path of hers.

"You talk as if it's entirely a bad thing," she looked up at him with a raised eyebrow and smirked.

"Isn't it?" He leant a bit to look better at her and taken aback by her implication.

"Well… I think people must move on with the changing world. It's not the world of our childhood today," She raised an eyebrow at him.

"But that," he waved his hand randomly, in the direction of the house opposite, "is the future you want to so gladly embrace?" His voice with a hint of disgust.

Elsie rolled her eyes. "I don't mean take in everything. Every era had its good and bad. I'm saying we have to…" she paused. "Look, could a young couple like them have time to themselves so easy a century ago? Forget it, even fifty years ago." She nodded pointedly in the opposite direction. "Those two may not be the ideal example perhaps, but it's the idea of their closeness that I'm referring to." The young man at the window took the girl's hand in his kissed her palm just in time with her comment.

"You may be right there, but it's a lot more complicated than that for instance…"

Elsie cut him short with a question. "What are you afraid of?"

Charles couldn't think of an answer, only kept looking at her determined expression. There was a fire in her eyes, embers glowing. Yet with the undertones of a warm glow of waiting to understand him. How could he even begin to answer that question? Everything he had believed in, based his life upon, had been tested in the past years, at times with a brutal painfulness about it. And that had made him to fear the future. The past was neat and orderly and the present was strewing it all over the place.

Before he could voice the answer that he had pieced together, loud honk caused him to look away from her and at the street. A cab had stopped in front of them.

The driver lowered his shutter and called out, "Mr Charles Carson?"

"Yes," Charles answered gruffly. His irritation at the driver's tardiness full on display.

"I'm sorry I was late. Some mess up at the operations centre," the driver said in a thick Yorkshire accent, eyeing Charles' near fuming figure with caution.

"But it's over twen…" Charles began in a tone that margined rudeness.

But Elsie spoke up before he could complete whatever comment he was about to make, "It's alright." She smiled briefly at the driver and frowned looking up at Charles.

"Very well," Charles muttered beneath his breath and eased his angry expression. Quickly making his way down the steps of the house, he opened the door of the car and stepped aside waiting for Elsie.

"Oh thank you Mr Carson," Elsie smiled and quickly made her way down the stairs and got in to the car.

Charles closed the door carefully and walked over the other side of the car and opened the door. Closing the door on his side a bit harder than Elsie's he turned to the driver. "You've got the destination?"

"Yes sir. Downton Abbey isn't it?" he asked, looking at Charles from the driving mirror.

"Yes, it is. But we'll go through towards Haughton-le-Skerne first."

"Of course," the driver nodded and directed the car towards the street.

Elsie looked at Charles from the corner of her eye. He was too focussed on the road to notice her eyeing him, so she turned her head towards him by a minute angle to observe him more carefully. She found him to be a proper gentleman, the kind that took their age upon them with grace and charm instead of trying desperately to live out their youth back again and appearing quite ridiculous. He was also a typical Englishman at first look. Few words, seemingly unsentimental and polite gestures to the point that it would seem to be stuffy.

When the car was back in the road and moving forward, he took his eyes off the road. Feeling he was being watched, he instinctively turned to his side and in time caught her watching him. She averted her eyes quickly to stare at the side was the road that was moving past them. She fiddled with the handles of the large paper bag that Beryl had made for her for her dinner. He wrung his hands and glanced for a second at the passing landscape, all too familiar.

He cleared his throat and Elsie whipped her head round to face him, eyes wide. Nervousness, awkwardness, he couldn't really place what it was.

"I was wondering…" Charles began, taking his time in enunciating the words to make time for his mind to process the way he wanted to direct the conversation with her towards.

He couldn't complete his thought let alone his sentence because the driver commented out of the blue, "It was a lovely summer's day innit?"

Charles glared at the man who was completely unaware of the death glare that was projected at his back.

"Bloody nuisance," Charles muttered almost inaudibly and only Elsie heard him. He started out in a gruff tone, "I don't see what-"

She frowned at him and intercepted whatever angry retort Charles was about to fire at the driver, "Yes it was."

"Love the sun, me. Never been one for rain and I hate rainy summer days. Me wife used to say…" the driver trailed off in in his broad, Yorkshire accent, not bothering to pay any mind as to whether anyone was actually paying attention to his monologue.
Charles sighed and looked out of the window, annoyed that he couldn't continue the conversation with Elsie and ask what he had intended to at the beginning of the conversation. He frowned as he stared blankly at the darkness outside.

Beside him Elsie bit her lip as she politely kept up the conversation with the driver, not that she got to or had to do much of talking. She looked over at Charles who was staring out through the glass, the way he seemed to be frowning and at the way his fist was clenched and trembling slightly as he tried to hide his frustration. She too began to feel terribly impatient as the driver chattered on but she could never be rude and ask him to stop, that wasn't her.

Elsie made her contribution to her conversation with the driver out of politeness (not that it could really be called a conversation because at most points she didn't even have to respond, the driver carried on), but continued to observe Charles Carson. Though he was turned to his side, looking out of the window, and despite the darkness that was growing upon the surroundings, she could make out his features quite clearly. Occasionally a passing streetlight would illuminate his form completely and then she paid close attention, the driver's mostly one-sided conversation blurring into the side lines. The glorious Yorkshire landscape failed to arrest her attention because her gaze was well and truly fixed on one particular Yorkshireman, a tall, handsome Yorkshireman with a deep voice and brown eyes.

"Oh bloody hell," the driver muttered beneath his breath and Charles' head whipped forward. Elsie awkwardly directed her gaze away from Charles to the front of the car, and felt a bit relieved that Charles had not noticed her staring at him.

"What?" Charles asked both surprised and gruffly.

"Bloody hell, bloody hell," the driver continued to mutter, albeit much softly than before as he directed the car to the side of the road and stopped the engine.

"What is it?" Charles inquired again, annoyance creeping into his voice in a way that Elsie dreaded. The slow and steady build up before the burst.

"The engine's seizing up I suppose," the driver replied observing the various scales in front of the steering wheel. The luminous light upon the dials glaring at the light from the streetlight a few steps behind where they had parked.

"What do you mean seizing up?" Charles questioned, decidedly annoyed now. Elsie remained quiet, her brow furrowed.

" 'appened early today, I didn't think it would come back. I thought it was something minor," the driver replied, proceeding to fiddle with the controls.

"Doesn't seem like something minor if it was repeated," Charles added leaning forward from the seat to catch a glimpse of what the man at the front was doing.

"Yeah, seems like it," the driver replied, and Charles was literally fuming at his words.

"Didn't it occur to you-," Charles began but Elsie, realising that an argument over a situation that could not be fixed easily would be worthless, cut him short.

"And you don't think you'll be able to continue to the destination?" Elsie asked. Charles stared at her with eyebrows knitted and his face red with a mixture of anger and annoyance. He clearly wanted to give the driver a piece of his mind before planning anything else. He crossed his arms in front of him.

"No ma'am I don't think so," the driver turned in his seat to face them with a pleading expression on his face.

"Alright," Elsie nodded and bit her lip as the man turned forward and proceeded to remove his seat belt.

"What do you mean 'alright'? We're stranded in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night!" Charles exclaimed.

"It's hardly nowhere, as if you don't know this area. And it's hours till midnight. Don't exaggerate Mr Carson," Elsie sighed and shook her head. She knew very well how annoyed men could behave like children and the fact that this specific one had a booming voice (even in ordinary conversation) didn't help matters.

"Exaggerate? I'm just stating facts Miss Hughes!" Charles boomed and Elsie was thankful the driver was out of the car, opening the bonnet. She couldn't believe she was having this disagreement with someone who was only slightly different from a virtual stranger.

"Now look here Mr Carson. This is a situation none of us can help. Only thing we can do is to find a way around it," Elsie said, her voice steady and even, but the glare she directed at him instantly put him in his place.

"Of course… ehm… I'm… I'm terribly sorry Miss Hughes," Charles replied sheepishly and uncrossed his arms. "Please forgive me."

Elsie smirked. It was rather sweet, his apology. One minute he was like a petulant child and in the next he was the perfect gentleman. "Elsie," she added softly. No matter how much, she wanted to be mad at him, she just couldn't. Had it been any other man, he would have seen the fearful side of her temper. It was not without reason that her some of her colleagues and most of her employees had nicknamed her 'The Scottish Dragon' behind her back. But with him, she didn't feel like it. She didn't want to be mad at him.

His gaze rested on hers back again. "Elsie," he repeated in the softest tone he could manage and let his lips form a soft smile. "Still… I'm very sorry."

"Apology accepted," Elsie smiled. She turned slightly and took the handles of the paper bag she was taking with her in her hand. She opened the door and got out. Charles followed her lead on the opposite side.

"How much will that be?" she asked from the driver.

"Oh please let me," Charles interrupted.

"No Charles it's alright I'll pay."

"No I will."

"Go Dutch then?"

"I insist Elsie," he said firmly staring deep into her eyes and she relented. Elsie nodded.

Having paid the driver, they moved a few steps forward and paused staring at the road ahead of them, gradually hiding in the veil of the night.

"Now what are we going to do?" Charles said, his hands making their way into his trouser pockets.

"Try finding another taxi of course," Elsie replied, already tapping on her phone to check if Uber was working.

"Easier said than done," Charles muttered.

"I heard that," Elsie remarked, her eyes still fixed on the screen of her smartphone. "Bloody app is not working as yet," she said looking up from her phone to Charles.

"See? What did I tell you about those new gadgets?" Charles said, a triumphant look making its way on to his face.

"Don't you start," Elsie rolled her eyes.

"I'll try calling a taxi," Charles fished out his own phone and proceeded to look to up the number of the company. Having found one he dialled it and absent-mindedly took a step away from where he was standing beside Elsie. Elsie clutched the handles of the paper bag in both her hands and waited for him.

A few minutes passed and Charles was now connected with the third company. Elsie found herself humming the melody of a new song she's heard on one of Daisy's CDs, a catchy tune she instantly picked up once when she was visiting Beryl. She stopped mid melody. She couldn't remember clearly how the rest of it sounded like. The words were swimming in her mind, quite muddled, of course. But she just couldn't make out how the rest of it sounded like, so she began again from the chorus.

A few steps beside her Charles thundered, "What do you mean there aren't any available? Isn't this England?" He angrily pushed the end button with more force than it required.

"No luck?" Elsie asked as he made his way towards her.

"None available! Can you believe it? None! Called three damned companies and none available!"

"Well…" Elsie sighed. "There's no other option then."

"What is the remaining one? We can't very well wait here till a taxi turns up out of the blue."

"Walk." Elsie answered nonchalantly and Charles raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Walk?! What do you mean walk?" He asked, quite confused.

"Yes, you heard it right, walk. Till we either get a taxi or get home."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"I actually am not." Elsie replied, pulling a much serious face.

"This is ridiculous! You really can't be serious Elsie." Charles shook his head.

"I am being perfectly serious," Elsie deadpanned. Observing the look on his face, she added with a much softer expression, her head tilted "Go on Mr Carson. We can afford to live a little."

"Aren't you worried about thieves?" Charles asked, making an effort to sound and look serious but he couldn't avoid the glint of mischief that sparkled in his eyes.

Elsie rolled her eyes at him, "This is England Mr Carson. So not particularly, no."

Charles laughed at that. "Remind that to me when we are sitting in a police station to make a complaint about a robbery."

"Oh ye of little faith," Elsie shook her head and smiled. Her words unintentionally coming out in a more pronounced Scottish accent. Unknown to her Charles stored the memory of her voice at the back of his mind, hoping to repeat it again in his head along with the image of her face framed in the growing darkness and lit gently by starlight.

To be continued…

Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews! I'm very grateful! I'm so glad that you all like this story so far. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting long for this chapter, so here's a longer chapter than usual in hope of making up for the delay. Real life intervened (university is becoming tougher now) and inspiration ran a bit low. But I'm back now and I'll try to post the next chapter as soon as possible. I would be very grateful if you could let me know in the reviews your thoughts on this chapter and this story so far. Thanks again! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Hope to see you soon with the next!