Chapter 2 – The Ride, Not the Destination
A Train Riding Through the Yorkshire Countryside
Later That Week, 1923
A/N: Hi, Chelsie loves. This little story has been waiting here, patiently, for me, as I finished A Yorkshire Summer. Now I'm coming back to it. It feels very…intimate…to me, a story about how slowly our loves come to action once doused with the cold water of their feelings for each other.
~CeeCee
She had meant it all in jest. It had been a bit of teasing, safe and known, as they'd partook in dozens, nay, hundreds of times before. It was just their way, after all these years.
Wasn't it?
Why, then, did she keep thinking of his hand, gripping hers, tightly, when she almost stumbled in the surf?
Why, then, did she think of how his calves had looked, his bare feet, scrunching in the sand, alongside hers?
Why, then, did she think of his usually tidy dark hair, flipping carelessly in the breeze, dancing above his face, the well-worn and well-known lines of it, etched into her memory like the lines on the back of her hand?
And, why, why oh why, did her heart flutter furiously in her throat when she thought of him, of the feeling of his hand, folded over hers?
"Ye foolish thing. Ye're too old for these types of notions. Especially, these particular notions," she muttered to herself, sighing. It had been a momentary fancy, like the trip to the beach itself; a day out of the ordinary.
However, this train was speeding them back briskly towards home, towards Downton, towards real life. A life where clasped hands and bare feet in the surf had no place, at least not for the likes of her.
"Yeh're talkin' to yerself, are yeh now?"
She started, glanced up. Beryl Patmore was grinning down at her, standing in the train aisle, swaying slightly.
"Not precisely," she answered, cleared her throat. She felt herself redden, though there was, of course, no way the other woman had heard her. Certainly not. "Muttering, more like. Not outright conversation with myself, or anything close to."
"Splitting hairs, yeh are, but I'll leave yeh be, by joing yeh," the cook responded, and sat next to her. She sighed contentedly, grinned over at Elsie.
"How can I argue with logic like that?" Elsie retorted, and felt herself giggling, in spite of herself. "Especially as I hardly understand ye're meaning, Mrs. Patmore. But I'm glad for your company, either way."
"You looked like you needed a seatmate, Mrs. Hughes. You were…brooding. No, dreamy. That's it. You look the way Ivy's been lookin', talking about America," Beryl responded.
"'Dreamy,' Mrs. Patmore? Perhaps I spoke too soon, with regards to wanting company," Elsie answered, but she settled back in her seat. 'Twas better, this: gentle teasing with her friend, rather than actual thoughts about Downton's butler, who was somewhere nearby, up or down a car or two. This teasing felt mercifully normal.
"The sea will do it to a soul, I've no doubt," Beryl caught her eye, and held her gaze.
She was smiling, but that look meant something else, something more. There were suppositions, and questions in that glance. Elsie sighed, her heart racing again. She wasn't going to have a conversation, teasing or otherwise, about Charles Carson, on this train car crammed to the gills with junior staff members. Not even with Beryl Patmore, as well-meaning as she may be.
She tried something. "Alright, then, Mrs. Patmore, I'll admit it, to you and you only – 'twas my idea, not Mr. Carson's, that we take the trip to Brighton. Though, of course, he's none the wiser, and I'd prefer to keep it that way, if you don't mind," she rolled her eyes, tried to get her heart to match the casual sound of her voice.
Why was this proving so difficult?
"Well, Mrs. Hughes, given the number of secrets and half-truths we've between us, I think I can abide by those terms," Beryl Patmore retorted, but there was, again, something more in her gaze, if not in her tone. Elsie was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable.
Beryl sighed, glanced past Elsie, at the countryside flowing past them. She settled herself back, then spoke again after a brief pause.
"Though Ivy's quite a good worker, and a nice enough girl, I can't say I'll be sorry to see the back side of her, I'll tell you the truth, Mrs. Hughes," she said. Elsie was surprised at the abrupt change of topic.
"Well, I cannot disagree with you on any of those points, Mrs. Patmore," she answered, and the tense parts of her loosened. Perhaps, she'd not been caught out, daydreaming about Charles Carson like some foolish schoolgirl.
"I was worried, for a mo', that Daisy was going to take that young American lad up on his offer – or offers, rather, as he had more than one of employment. But she's not ready to take the plunge, or so it seems, at least, not yet," Beryl continued, and Elsie realized she'd been trapped.
"Perhaps…perhaps Daisy likes the way things are, likes her place, and her friends, at Downton," she replied. "There's nothing wrong with being contented with things, Mrs. Patmore."
"No, Mrs. Hughes, nothing wrong a'tall. However…however, as much as I'd not want to lose her, I'd not be entirely upset if she set sail for more interesting waters, or made some changes to the status quo, as they say," Beryl raised her eyebrow up at her friend.
They weren't talking about Daisy. They never had been.
"Mayhaps you're right, Mrs. Patmore," Elsie sighed again, as the train pulled them closer and closer to Downton, to real life.
"I could be, Mrs. Hughes. In any case, it's no harm in dipping your toes in, is it?"
And now the cook was laughing in earnest, and Elsie couldn't help but join her.