The Acquisition of Memories

by BorneToFlow

Embarking on their honeymoon, Charles and Elsie begin to process the events of their wedding day and those leading up to it. A series of internal reflections; lengthy, fun & sometimes in-depth conversations; &, interspersed with requisite amounts of playful holiday fun & honeymoon adult times. From Ch19 rating is a tasteful but strong M. Some S5/6 JF canon is blissfully ignored.

9. Chapter 9- Coming to His Senses: Smell

The Acquisition of Memories. Chapter 9- Coming to His Senses: Smell

A/N: My writing soundtrack ATM: Vivaldi- the Four Seasons Concertos by the London Chamber Orchestra (1989).

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Charles spends some time running his dreams of how he will attend to Elsie tonight and fulfil his promise to her in their private realm beyond the world of words. However, practicality soon overtakes Charles as he realises that he will need all the energy he can muster if he is going to pull this idea off later tonight. So he leans his head back into the plush headrest of his seat and inhales the alluring warmth of Elsie by his side. As the glazed landscape slips by the carriage window and crisp visions of the morning and his memories buffer home in his mind, Elsie's head weighs soft and heavy on his shoulder and Charles revels in yet another wonderful freedom that his marriage now affords him. Inhaling. Exhaling. Soothed by the expansion and contraction of the life breath of the world. In the drooping of his eyelids, in the slow rise and fall of his chest, in the steady slide into slumber … in the stretching of the sounds around him into sleepy, muffled distance, Charles breathes in… he senses it last-before the fall. He senses it all….

Elsie's perfume. That scent.

Over the years, he has quite unconsciously tried to trace it as he has entered any room she may have been in. An intoxicating fragrance that has found him angling his head towards her own, time without number, as she has stood near him in their rigid masks of duty. Only now, as he inhales, freely, deeply- before sleep claims him completely on this rolling, sliding sensual journey- now, in her provocative closeness, he can finally acknowledge that he has been trying to capture it- that balm. He has tried to etch it onto the back of his palate so that he can attempt to find it somewhere else in nature or distilled somehow into a bottle. Daily, as he has walked through the various divine aromas that waft out of Mrs Patmore's kitchen he has searched for it. Sometimes he has pursued it in the oils in the woodwork, or the polish on the dining table; the ink soaked into blotters, or the striking of a match; the steam from steeping tea leaves, or in the melting of scented wax. As he has adjusted floral arrangements and tested the bouquets of petals and corks and decanters of wine, he has been searching for the notes of it, wanting to find that freshness in more of the world around him. But never yet has he quite found what he has been looking for- that essence, which is less tangible, even, than the way he has imagined the sensual, silken fall of her hair through his fingers. He could never hold onto either of these things.

It is full, though, heady- that essence that seems to seep into the fibres of his mind yet will not be caught. That hint of warm skin- floral and bright and fresh, and with a sensual musky undertone that he never can never place- that seems to flit away from his consciousness like a willow-the-wisp on the moors, such that Charles is never really sure that he has detected it anywhere at all. And recently, how he has begun to wish that he could catch that quintessence of Elsie upon his skin or in the sheets from the linen press when his bed is made up freshly each week. How he has wished it could stay with him and make him feel safe at night. That distillation- the truth of Elsie- that has haunted him in the narrow passageways of the day and through into the edges of his consciousness at night. In vain he has searched for it, tried to place it in the tones and the depths of the finest wines he could access. Forever in vain. Until now.

Now he can flood his mind with this new and piquant pleasure. With Elsie by his side, Charles inhales deeply as his eyes grow heavy, as the train pitches and sways and lulls him. He gives in to the demands of the day. With a final deep, reverent intake of Elsie's sweet and calming incense into his lungs and soul, Charles knows that all of his searching has been senseless, for never could it be found where it did not belong, and that all along, deep down, really, he knew it all along… he knew that all he was trying to capture, all he has ever really wanted to hold onto was just…her.

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