"I never thought there would be so many of them." Said Elsie Hughes, her eyes on the teeming pack of little girls who all seemed bent on turning the kitchen into their private race track. Beside her, Sarah O'Brien smirked.
"I told you we 'ad an army built up."
"I hardly thought you were serious."
"When it comes to this lot, I scarcely need to exaggerate."
Sarah leaned back to watch as her nieces made another shrieking lap around the kitchen table, her laughter low and startling to Elsie's ears. The housekeeper-former, forever- sat and watched the younger woman, sensing this for what it was; an opportunity.
Among her kin Sarah's smiles were freer, more genuine than anything Elsie had received in Downton's halls. There was an ease about the younger woman she had never seen before, a contentedness that Sarah lacked when dashing up the stairs or brooding on the edge of Elsie's bed. She sat beside Elsie dressed in a crisp blouse and a skirt the color of wine, sure of herself and her place here.
"Careful, you little beasts, don't trample her!"
Sarah bounded out of her seat and Elsie saw that the smallest of the girls had taken a hard fall and was on the verge of tears. Sarah leaned over her and scooped her up into her arms, murmuring softly at the girl and casting a poisonous look at the rest of her nieces, who all shuffled nervously away.
"Hush, Lucy. Why don't you sit with me for a spell, hmm?"
Elsie felt an unpleasant jolt in the pit of her stomach when spied Lucy's ink-spill hair and her enormous blue eyes; it dawned on her then that this must be young Michael's daughter, his last and best legacy.
"Has she grazed her knees?" Elsie asked as Sarah reclaimed her seat.
"No- a bit shaken, is all." Sarah said softly, her chin on the child's dark curls as she fruitlessly searched her pockets for a handkerchief. Elsie was already leaning close, smiling reassuringly at the little girl as she dabbed at stray tears with cheap and serviceable cotton.
"There, now, I think we've learned a lesson, haven't we? Wee things like you ought not to play race horse, at least not until you've grown some."
Lucy blinked at her with those eyes and burrowed her face into her aunt's shoulder out of shyness. Sarah met Elsie's gaze over the child's head and smiled, slow and warm.
Elsie's heart knocked sharp against her ribs, and she dropped her eyes and carefully stroked Lucy's black hair.
"Such a lovely girl."
"Yes. She looks like him, you know. Just like him."
The smile faded from Sarah's face, leaving her eyes distant and dark. Elsie reached for her hand, unseen by any of the children, and twinned their work-worn fingers together.
Only the O'Brien-lings belong to me; Elsie Hughes and Sarah O'Brien are the creations of Julian Fellowes, Phyllis Logan and Siobhan Finneran.