A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews, PM´s and alerts. I´m having a lot of fun trying to write Elsie into a lunatic asylum, so this story will have a total of four chapters. Most of it is already written, so you can expect the last chapter on Tuesday.

Chapter 2

¨I´m merely trying to point out to you that the cream damask would go so much better with this particularly set of china,¨ Charles was pointing out exasperatedly, holding on to his last shred of patience. ¨I would be very much obliged if you would adjust the linen rota accordingly.¨

¨The linen rota is a housekeeper´s duty, Mr Carson!¨ Mrs Williams´ voice clipped disapprovingly. ¨And I would be very much obliged if you did not interfere with it!¨

¨It´s both the butler and the housekeeper´s duty to ensure that tonight´s dinner runs smoothly and meets the highest standard of decorum,¨ he countered tersely.

¨We would meet these standards easily if you did not keep changing table setting every last minute,¨ Mrs Williams replied with a sulky edge to her voice.

Charles barely kept himself from groaning out in frustration. ¨I was only informed an hour ago that Lord Covington would join the family for dinner. Had it been merely a family dinner I would have gone with another set of china that required the white damask as we had agreed on originally. However, now that Lord Covington is included in the party, I feel that using the Royal Doulton would be more appropriate.¨

¨As would the Worcester, Mr Carson,¨ Mrs Williams snapped back. ¨I fail to see why you see it fit to upheaval the routines of the laundry maids.¨

¨It will mean a bit of extra work for them,¨ he conceded. ¨But surely if you explained the situation to them they would understand. It´s what the Downton housekeeper, Mrs Hughes does and it never fails to…¨

In retrospect this had of course been the worst thing he could have possibly said and with a poisonous: ¨But I´m not Mrs Hughes, am I?¨ Mrs Williams left his office in a huff.

Staring bewildered after her figure that stamped off in an indignant manner, Charles thought warily to himself that at least agreed on that sentiment. Sighing deeply, he rubbed his temples, feeling a massive headache emerging. Only six more weeks, he tried to reassure himself. Six more weeks and he would be home again. Home at Downton, home where his very competent staff could be found, along with his very competent housekeeper. Elsie…

Elsie wouldn´t have made a fuss about a request for the cream damask instead of the white one. Elsie would have probably recognized herself that it was a better fit with the Royal Doulton he was planning to use for tonight´s dinner party.

Briefly he berated himself for calling her Elsie in his mind, when he had never actually asked her permission to take that liberty. However, it was a small indulgence he allowed himself whenever the weariness of being away from Downton for so long began to set in fully.

Usually the first weeks tended to fly by, busy as he was with setting up the household again after the long absence of its master, making sure everything ran smoothly again and was up to his impeccable standards. But then, after a week or four something inside him began to stir. At first his annoyance with the constant noise and smog of London would start to irritate him and he would long for the quietness of the Yorkshire countryside and its fresh air. Before he fell asleep at night he envisioned himself walking through the corridors of Downton, trying to remember every little detail, hoping that if he created a clear enough picture in his mind´s eye it would feel for a moment as if he was truly back.

He had long ago given up any precedence that it was just the house that he missed. As devoted as he was to the family, whenever he was away from her, he realized with a painful clarity that his heart was even more tied to her. As long as she was near, he could convince himself that she was nothing more than a highly-valued colleague and a good friend. And perhaps the most captivating woman he knew. But during the long months when he was his London, his mind slowly but surely began to reveal what it had managed to hide in oblivion before.

When his memory of Downton – and of her began to fade to the point where he could no longer recall the scents of the house or just exactly what the colour of her eyes was, his dreams began to paint him much more vivid images, betraying just how much deeper his wishes and desires concerning her were. In was then that he began to refer to her as ´Elsie´ in the privacy of his mind, as a small concession to both his ardent feelings and his unwavering sense of propriety. It wouldn´t do for a man of his station and position to make advances towards someone placed in his care. And as much as anyone would try to dispute the fact that Elsie Hughes needed to be taken care of (she herself most insistently) he couldn´t help but feel that that was the heart of the matter: her well-being, her comfort at Downton was his responsibility. And any unwanted attentions on his part surely would only lead to her feeling highly unsettled.

For some unexplainable reason he found it a great deal easier to keep these feelings under a tight lock when he was at Downton than when he was at London. Perhaps absence really did make the heart grow fonder, but in his case it also made his thoughts more occupied and the ache in his chest whenever he thought of her more profound.

What didn´t help either was that the London housekeeper, Mrs Williams, couldn´t possibly have been more different from Elsie. Where Elsie was his ally in every matter concerning the house, he found that with Mrs Williams often felt like a competition of some sort. Their frequent collisions over the most trivial matters were wearing him down to no end. It wasn´t so much that he never had a disagreement with Elsie – the plain fact was that they´d had plenty. She was fierce, opinionated and every bit as stubborn as he was. But he found himself willing to take a flare of her Scottish temper any day over the gruesome, passive-aggressive behaviour of Mrs Williams.

And – although he was ashamed to admit that even to himself – he couldn´t help but comparing her physical appearance to that of Elsie on numerous occasions. He found the London housekeeper to be a disturbingly bony woman, every angle of her body as straight and square as the next and he often remembered rather fondly how Elsie´s hips would sway slightly as she walked away from him, causing the keys to make their jingling sound as they dangled alongside her rustling skirts.

As opposed to Mrs Williams beady eyes, Elsie´s were of a deep blue colour and after all their years of working together, he thought he could easily read every emotion from them. He knew how they acquired a bit of a twinkle whenever she teased him or shared something she found humorous. He knew her eyes softened just a bit whenever they rested upon young William or lady Sybil. And became sharp and guarded whenever she watched Thomas. He knew how her eyes followed him, sought his constantly as they were dealing with the staff or the family. There was something comforting in it, that he only had to glance sideways to find her unwavering support, her practical nature and sharp mind right there next to him.

But more than anything he missed her voice. And after two months of having to endure Mrs Williams shrill tones he longed for her soft Scottish lit. She never had to raise her voice. Not to him or to any of the housemaids under her jurisdiction. Just the intensity of it whenever she was wanted her point to come across was enough. He remembered a particular instance last year, just after Charles Grigg had returned to his life. The aftermath of this highly unsettling reminder of his shameful past had been a particularly humbling experience for him. Having been exposed to the possibility of ridicule from both his employers and his staff had caused him to examine the validity of his position, swinging the old feelings of shame and insecurity he thought he had buried after years of hard work and rigorous self-control into full motion again. He had voiced those feelings to her, even though she didn´t have a clue as to where they had originated from, in a hesitant and almost shy manner, one afternoon as they´d been getting ready to the ceremony of the installation of Mrs Crawley as board member of Downton Hospital.

"Do you find me very ridiculous, Mrs Hughes? Putting on airs and graces I've no right to?"

Her voice hadn´t raised a notch as she´d answered him, but the intensity of her reply, of the tone of her voice, still caused his breath to hitch in his chest.

"Mr Carson, you are a man of integrity and honour, who raises the tone of this household by being part of it. So, no more of that, please"

He missed her dreadfully, it was as simple as that.

A short knock on the door shook him out of his reverie and he called out for admittance. One of the young hall boys entered his office, holding out a cream coloured envelope to him. ´You´re mail, Mr Carson!´ he said in his most dignified voiced, assuming his most rigid posture.

¨Thank you, Mr Davies,¨ Charles replied, inwardly amused by the boys´ eagerness. With a curt bow the boy left and Charles eagerly turned the letter in his hand, instantly recognizing from neat handwriting and the stationary that this letter came from her. She wrote him diligently every week and he enjoyed her tales of Downton immensely. Settling himself at his desk, he used a silver letter opener to slid the top of envelope open and took out the closely written letter. Smoothening it down on his desk, he forgot all about his misgivings with Mrs Williams, the suffocating air of London and his homesickness and simply read.

The six weeks after the disastrous morning she had found out that Mr Molesley had send her letter to Charles passed in a blur of anxiety and nerve-wrecking ponderings, since she honestly didn´t have a clue where they stood or what he thought of her letter.

Once she knew the letter had indeed been send, she had spent the next eight days fretting and worrying, her mind thinking of one ridiculous scheme after another to deal with this dreadful situation. Then, after eight days, a letter from him had arrived, addressed to her. It had been delivered only half an hour before luncheon and she´d decided that it wouldn´t do for the housekeeper of Downton to appear all puffy-eyed and tear-stained at the servant´s hall, because she had been soundly rejected by the man that had held her heart for quite some years. So she had exercised restraint and put the letter on the desk to be read on a later moment, carefully locking the door of her parlour behind her when she left, just in case Mr Molesley was around.

During luncheon she had barely been able to swallow two bites together, her nerves causing her stomach to turn into a tight knot. After luncheon she had overlooked the scullery maids as they cleared away the dishes, had made a round through the house to ensure that everything was running smoothly and had even gone outside to cut some fresh flowers for the hallway display when she realized she was just stalling time and putting off the inevitable. Furious at herself for her cowardly behaviour she had marched back into her parlour and torn the letter open, readying herself for whatever he had to say. Her eyes had skimmed over the words frantically, barely taking them in until she´d reached his signature and sank down on the chair at her desk because her trembling legs could no longer support her.

He hadn´t mentioned her letter or its contents once. Instead he had informed her that the family was in excellent health, that there appeared to be no suitors for either Lady Mary or Lady Edith yet and that Lady Sybil was greatly benefiting from spending time with an Italian master, making good progress in her ability to speak the language fluently. He talked about the weather and the appalling state of the roads now that it had been raining for a week. He told her about an opera he had visited and he finished his letter by telling her that he missed Downton and was greatly looking forward to his return in five weeks.

She had lowered the letter, still staring at it incredulously. Not a word about her letter or any indication that he had even read it. The tone of his letter was perfectly friendly and easy, as if she had never revealed her feelings to him at all. She re-read the letter, trying to detect any signs of his displeasure or discomfort, but found none. Perhaps he was waiting until he got home to confront her face to face with what she had done. This seeming to be the most possible explanation for the lack of response in his letters, she felt she was dreading his home-coming now even more than she had anticipated it at first.

As the weeks wore on, she almost brought herself to the brick of a nervous break-down, concurring up every possible scenario as to how their inevitable talk would go. She hoped fervently that they could salvage their working relationship, even if a continuation of their friendship was no longer an option. If he was willing they could fall into a polite, professional understanding, each of them dealing with their own tasks and responsibilities and trying to meet as infrequent as possible.

Other times she feared he had informed his Lordship of her conduct and she would be sacked the same day the family would return from London. She envisioned the humiliating scene that would follow so vividly that she promptly dreamt about it a few nights in a row, each time waking up covered in cold sweat.

She wondered if she would have to leave Downton as a result of this unfortunate accident and she had been discreetly checking the papers for advertisements. Briefly she toyed with the possibility of simply denying that she had ever send such a letter. If she held her ground and stated that someone else wrote it by means of a practical joke, she might be able to convince them. But she very much doubted she would have the courage to see it through. As hard as it would be to look him in the eye and admit her feelings, it would be even more impossible to look at him and deny them.

And every so often, usually just before she fell asleep, she allowed herself to fantasize about what it would be like if he returned her feelings. If he came home and just swept her in his arms and told her he loved her every bit as much as she loved him. But in the stark and sobering light of the morning these thoughts seemed utterly ludicrous. Her feelings where wholly unreciprocated, she was certain of it.

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