A/N: BE SURE you've read Chapter 20, which posted yesterday. This one picks up right where that left off, and it's a long one.
This is the last "Little Wonders" chapter - Spotify, username/playlist = ChelsieSouloftheAbbey/Chelsie Potpourri.
~hugs~ to brenna-louise for consulting and proofreading.
So here we are. Thank you for the great response to the last chapter - I often post at night, and your reviews are the most wonderful way to wake up. I do hope to wrap this up by the middle of next week, assuming my feels survive Sunday. xx
All of my regret
Will wash away somehow
But I cannot forget
The way I feel right now
In these small hours
These little wonders
These twists and turns of fate
Time falls away, but these small hours
These small hours, still remain …
"So it's true, what he said?" Daisy whispered, now sobbing softly from both the words she'd overheard and the pain from the splash of the tea on her ankles.
Elsie virtually collapsed against the wall, and Charles rushed over to help her before she slid back down to the floor.
"Yes," Charles admitted. "And it's all my fault."
"Charlie, that's not true," Elsie said softly. Her ever-expressive face now reflected the entire contents of her heart, laid bare for everyone in the corridor to see: all the fear, the hurt, the shame, and the love. Mr. Bates had never seen anything like it, and his heart shattered at the sight of this formidable woman who was, for the second time in as many weeks, crumbling to bits before him, with only the butler managing to hold her together at all.
Daisy was still in shock. As Charles was helping Elsie across the corridor and into his pantry so that she could sit, Mrs. Patmore came flying out of the kitchen at all the commotion.
"What on earth is going on out here?" she cried. "Daisy?"
"I … I bumped into Mrs. Hughes," stammered Daisy. She knew it was wrong to lie, but there was no way she could give up the true reason for her accident. She avoided the eyes of the others, focusing solely on calming the cook. "I don't know what I was thinking. I was bringing Mr. Carson the tea, as you suggested, and I must have been daydreaming. I bumped into her and lost control of the tray. The pot shattered, and I got a bit burnt. I'm alright though, I think …"
Mrs. Patmore's brow wrinkled with concern and she noticed Mr. Carson with his arm around Mrs. Hughes.
"Are you alright, Mrs. Hughes?" she asked.
But it was Charles who answered. "She's fine, Mrs. Patmore, thank you. I recommend you get something cool on Daisy's burn as soon as possible, though."
"Yes, yes, of course," Mrs. Patmore mumbled. "Come with me, Daisy - can you walk alright?"
"Yes, Mrs. Patmore, I really do think I'm fine."
The cook looked at Daisy's face, surprised at how her girl looked even paler than usual. She reached out and touched her brow, which was cold and clammy.
"Oh, you're in shock, Daisy. You need to come and sit down for a bit. It must have burned much more than you're letting on," she mumbled, putting an arm around Daisy's waist to help support her.
"Yes," answered Daisy, her voice subdued, "I suppose it did."
Mr. Bates suddenly found himself alone in the corridor. Daisy and Mrs. Patmore's muffled voices carried out of the kitchen door, and he heard the cook's kind words as she tried to soothe Daisy from what she had erroneously assumed was shock from having been physically scalded. Well, she's half right, he thought.
He could also hear Mrs. Hughes crying softly, and the low baritone of what he presumed were Mr. Carson's comforting words. Making his way into the kitchen, the valet silently prepared a new tray with two teacups and a new pot of tea, and he carried it to the butler's pantry. He knocked softly on the door and entered, uninvited, where he discovered Mr. Carson seated in his desk chair, the housekeeper on his lap and tucked into his arms. She was crying softly, her face buried into the butler's shoulder, and he was gently rubbing her back in an attempt to calm her down.
Mr. Carson looked up and took note of the tray, giving a gentle nod and tilt of his head to indicate both his thanks and that Mr. Bates should place the tray on the desk. The valet did just that and exited the pantry without saying a word, closing the door tightly behind him.
oOoOoOoOoOo
Elsie was tossing and turning in her sleep; her dreams were filled with ghosts, voices, and images that surrounded her. She seemed to be floating, watching bits of her life swirl by, scenes and people over which she had no control.
London … the Dowager Countess … the farm … Becky … Charlie: "Perhaps you can return to Scotland, have the baby there?" … the Abbey, a new job at last … the beach, and a gentle hand … "Mrs. Hughes, there's been an accident." … photos laid all over the table … letters: from Becky, from Charlie, of reference and of blackmail … her Mam's comforting arms, the scent of vanilla that permeated their kitchen in Argyll … Daisy … the Macinroys' farm, gone … Mr. Bates … "Who says I'll live to retire?" … Joe … a photo in Elsie's hand: "A friend?" … "Honestly, woman, whatever the two of you have going on lately is showing." … thunderous rain pouring, pounding, knocking on the window, the door ...
The sharp knocking roused Elsie from her sleep. She was groggy from the whisky Charlie had sent her to bed with, and she smiled as she realized that he'd likely expected her to only drink one or two wee drams. Oh, well …
She pulled on her dressing gown and opened the door, hoping beyond hope that another maid had not fallen ill in the middle of the night.
"Daisy," Elsie uttered, shocked into near silence.
The sight of the girl before her was heart-wrenching. Elsie couldn't think of a thing to say, and so she let instinct take over, some far-away part of her mind hoping that she'd not be struck or scratched in the process: she reached out and took the trembling, silently-sobbing girl in her arms, drew her into the bedroom, and shut and locked the door. Elsie led Daisy to the bed and forced her to sit, and then she fetched the whisky bottle and two tumblers. She poured a healthy measure for both of them, then added water to Daisy's and handed it to her before pulling a chair over to the bedside.
Elsie watched as Daisy took a couple of sips, listening as the sobs turned to choked gasps, and sat down in her chair when Daisy had visibly calmed. She couldn't bring herself to say a thing, but she tried to be grateful for the miracle that Daisy had shown up at her room at all, clearly needing a refuge from her distress. Small steps, Elsie, she told herself. Small, slow steps.
"I'm sorry," Daisy finally managed. "I didn't know where else to go. I need …"
Elsie could only nod at first, sipping her drink to fortify herself for the long road ahead.
"Yes, my dear lass … you need to know."
"Well," Daisy choked out, "I deserve an explanation, that's for sure!"
Elsie ignored the snappy tone, thinking herself lucky that Daisy was remaining as calm as she was given the circumstances. In this room, right now, they were not housekeeper and maid; they were mother and child, two women lost in this endless sea of lies and secrets and pain, and they'd have to work together and tread carefully to find a way out of it all.
"You do. I'm not sure you're ready to hear it, though. I'm not … I'm not sure I'll be able to convince you of the truth of it all."
"Well, Mrs. Hughes," scoffed Daisy, sniffling, "you're going to have to try."
Elsie tossed back the rest of her drink and refilled her glass, painfully aware that she had to pace herself if she wanted to be able to function in the morning. She could always hold her drink without issue, but the emotional havoc on top of the effects of the alcohol meant she'd likely have a migraine come morning.
"Alright, then. But promise me one thing, Daisy."
"What?"
"Promise me … promise me you'll believe me."
"I'll try," she whispered. She looked at Elsie and nodded.
"Well, then …where would you like me to start?"
"At the very beginning. I need to know … about my real family, I suppose."
And so it was that, in the wee hours of the morning, Elsie began her story.
She told Daisy everything about herself that she could think of, even the most personal bits that she'd never shared with another living soul. She talked about growing up on a farm in Argyll, and how the winters were rough and they sometimes didn't have enough to eat. How her Mam and Da - "your grandparents, Daisy," - were kind people but how, once Elsie's sister, Becky, had been born - not quite right in the head, as Elsie described her - it had put a strain on her parents' marriage. Then her Da had died, and Elsie had left the farm in search of work.
"I have an aunt?" Daisy asked meekly. "I've always wanted another Auntie … I had one at my Mam and Da's farm, you know. I mean … where I grew up …" Daisy's voice faded away as she wondered if she'd just hurt Mrs. Hughes even more, calling them her parents.
"It's alright, Daisy - for all intents and purposes, they were your parents. You had an Auntie?" she prodded. She seems alright now, Elsie … take it slow, she reminded herself.
"Yes, she used to visit me, play with me."
"Well, I'm not sure Becky is what you had in mind, lass," Elsie said quietly.
"But you don't really know what I have in mind, so please … don't say that," Daisy replied.
Elsie nodded. "Fair enough."
Elsie continued her story, told her girl things about selfishly wanting to escape the farm, how she didn't want the responsibility of caring for Becky and having to shield her from the village children's taunts and teasing any longer, and how she regretted that as an adult, tried to pay penance now for her actions then. She didn't realize she'd started to cry until Daisy handed her a handkerchief from the nightstand.
Elsie then spoke of how the now-intelligent housekeeper that the family valued had once been a shy girl who was a poor student, who struggled to stay on task in her lessons, who had to spend extra time on her lessons with the schoolmaster in order to learn her maths.
"Like me," Daisy whispered.
Elsie nodded, and she told Daisy of how she'd left school after the six required years and had headed into a life of service. She described herself as a farm-girl-turned-housemaid that never wanted to marry because she never thought she could be loved enough, never imagined she'd find anything comparable to the love her parents had shared.
And then … then, Elsie said, she'd met Charlie, and she'd been sucked into a vortex from which there was no return. For the first time in her life, she'd been taken utterly by surprise, and had let her emotions wholly dictate her actions … and it had been a rather poor choice, indeed, but one which Elsie realized - finally, at the moment she was speaking the words - that she didn't regret anymore.
"I regret leaving you, Daisy, and you must believe that if there'd been any other choice, any other way, then I'd have taken it. But I don't regret that day in London, or giving birth to a child that would turn into such a wonderful young woman. I thought I was leaving you with a family that had the means to feed you, a family that would care for you and love you as their own in a place that would be infinitely better than any workhouse I'd have ended up in had I raised you myself. "
"But they did," Daisy replied, and Elsie's eyebrows shot up. "My Mam and Da were ever so kind. I remember them. No … it were the others that were bad. But not them."
Elsie wasn't sure what to think. But the letter, she thought, the awful letters …
"But they sent you away," Elsie pressed. "They never told me, they just sent you away. I found out years later, when my Mam died and I returned to Argyll. I tried to ask after you, but the farm …"
"It was gone. Yes, they lost it. I was four years old. My Mam was dying, you see, and my Da had no way to pay the doctor's bill and still feed us. They sent me away, with a man Da had known from his childhood. They thought I'd be fine …" Her tears started again, and Elsie reached out tentatively to take her hand. Daisy flinched, but let her hand rest in Elsie's, appreciating the soft warmth it offered.
"No wonder you're so afraid of Mr. Mason's wanting you to have the farm, of returning to that kind of life," Elsie whispered understandingly. "It must bring up horribly painful memories for you." Daisy just nodded, trying to get herself under control.
"Can you tell me what happened after, Daisy? I know some of it, but clearly there are gaps," Elsie asked.
Daisy hesitated - so long that Elsie wasn't sure she'd speak at all. But, when she'd almost given up, she heard the answer.
"Yes, I'll try," Daisy said. "There isn't much to tell. Mrs. Patmore knows it all, but she'd never tell a soul."
Elsie tried to ignore the sadness that the thought of Mrs. Patmore brought her, the idea that her friend had been more of a mother to Daisy than Elsie had ever had a chance to be. But she recognized the sadness after a moment, claiming it as part of her penance. "No," she murmured, "I don't think she ever would."
"It were awful," Daisy whispered. She withdrew her hand from Elsie's grasp and pulled her feet up onto the bed, bending herself into an almost fetal position. The irony wasn't lost on Elsie; the girl wanted comfort, of course, and was so used to having to comfort herself.
"She used to beat me," she whispered "I was never smart enough, never fast enough. I spoke too much, or not often enough. He wasn't so bad, but she was … horrible …"
"I … oh, Daisy, I'm so sorry," Elsie said.
"It don't matter," Daisy said quietly. "Because I got out." She remembered then, and looked at Elsie as if with new eyes. "You took me away, didn't you? When you found out? Wait ... " She thought back, trying to sift through her memories. "Of course! It was Mr. Carson that picked me up at the station that day, and brought me here!"
"Aye, lass, that he did," Elsie answered. "He did so at my request. I'd been receiving letters from that horrid woman, letters demanding more money, saying all sorts of things that were undeniably not all true but that I didn't possibly know how to verify for myself. So I did as she asked, kept sending funds for your care -"
"They didn't care for me," Daisy interrupted. "To her, I was just some sort of slave girl."
"I know that now, but you must believe that I had no idea then."
"They even changed my name," Daisy whispered, hugging her knees to her chest. "'Margaret is too FANCY a name,' she'd told me. Told me I'd never manage the spelling."
"It was my mother's name," Elsie whispered. "And a stronger, more loving, more sure woman never lived. You are a credit to your grandmother, Daisy."
Elsie remembered something then and got up from her chair. She headed over to her shelves, pulled an item from the top, and handed it to Daisy.
"My parents," Elsie said. "Margaret and Connell Hughes. Fine people, they were."
Daisy took the photograph from Elsie and brushed her fingertips over the faces of her grandparents. "I do look like him," she said, and looked up at Elsie. "But you look so much like your Mam."
Elsie nodded. "Yes, we always did resemble one another very much, even when I was young. You also look very much like Becky."
Daisy hummed a reply, still examining the photograph. "And Mr. Carson?"
Elsie hesitated. "What about him, Daisy?"
"Well, as you didn't marry, I can tell he clearly didn't want me. How will he feel now that I know?"
"He has been wanting me to tell you since he got home from hospital and remembered all about it," Elsie admitted shamefully. "But I didn't think it would be a good idea."
"Whyever not? I had a right to know!"
"I agree. But I was ashamed, Daisy. I thought I'd made the best choice in leaving you with the Macinroys, but when I found out they'd sent you off and I didn't know where, I was beside myself with anguish. Those years you were with that horrid woman and her husband were the longest years of my life. She would never tell me where you were, she only sent a photograph - twice - to reassure me that she did, indeed, have you in her home. It was only when the husband died that she wrote to me to say she couldn't keep you, that she'd be sending you off, but she did send me the address. I fixed it for you to come here as the scullery maid and sent Mr. Carson to retrieve you." She chewed mercilessly on her lip, wondering if she should say anymore, but Daisy didn't give her a choice.
"But he didn't want to? You had to convince him?"
Elsie drew in a deep breath. "I did back then, yes, but he's come around. Now …"
"Now he's different," Daisy nodded. "Since the accident, the injury to his head, he's not the same man."
"No, he is the same man, Daisy," Elsie clarified, "but the way he feels about things is different."
"The way he feels about me?" she asked.
"Yes," Elsie nodded, "and, I think, the way he feels about me."
"He wants us to be a family, then?"
"He wants us to be … something, yes. And so do I. But you're going to need to figure out what you want. You're a grown woman, Daisy, and will need to make your own decisions. I'm sure you're quite angry with me, and I don't know how you'll ever forgive me …"
Daisy got up from the bed and walked around the room, pacing as she gathered her thoughts. "I'm not angry, I don't think. I'm confused, and sad, and feel foolish for never having noticed. I think back now, though, and so many things make sense … things you'd say to me, times when I needed a comforting ear and you were there …"
"But I'm not the only one, Daisy," Elsie said pointedly, "and Mrs. Patmore doesn't know. I know you think of her as a mother in many ways, and it's a lovely way you have with one another. I don't wish to …"
"No," Daisy cut her off again. "It's not the same. I mean yes, I do think of her in that way, as the only mother that I've really ever known …" She struggled to find the words, and looked Elsie in the eyes when she did.
"You and Mr. Carson care for me - for all of us, but I have always felt that I was special to you, somehow. Mr. Mason helped me see that a while back, when I told him I'd never been special to no one. He showed me that I am to him, and helped me see that I have all of you as well.
"But now it's different. I can't pretend not to know what I know, and I can't go back to the way things were this morning, neither. I just … I need to sort it some more. I would like to talk to Mr. Carson, if he would be willing."
"He would," Elsie promised. "He wants nothing more, I can assure you. But, Daisy … what shall I tell Mrs. Patmore?"
"Oh, nothing, please," Daisy replied. "I think that needs to come from me."
"Fine by me," Elsie chuckled. "Although I did promise to tell her what was going on …"
"Don't worry," Daisy reassured her. "She'll take it better from me anyhow, I think."
"That's probably true."
Daisy felt Elsie watching her, sensing she had something else to say, but she didn't want to push. She'd already gotten so much, had heard things that she somehow knew not even Mr. Carson knew about, and didn't feel it was her place to press for more.
"Are … are you sure you don't hate me?" Elsie whispered. "All those years … I just, I had no idea …"
"I know," Daisy answered. "And it's alright. I don't hate you. I'm not that little girl anymore." Suddenly, she remembered something.
"Wait … How did Mr. Bates know?"
"He saw me watching you, the day the Dowager had visited to talk about the letter, and I was so upset …" Elsie muttered absentmindedly, refilling their glasses with a wee dram to see them off to bed.
"The Dowager?"
Elsie nodded. "Yes. That vile woman had written to her, wanting money. It doesn't matter, though, she won't tell a soul, and it's due to her that the woman is now in prison."
Daisy looked at her warily but didn't argue. "Alright," she said slowly, not knowing anything about the Dowager except for how powerful and intimidating she always seemed to be.
Elsie handed Daisy's glass back to her and raised her own. "Thank you for coming to see me, my dear girl, for giving me a chance to explain. I know I may not have always done right by you, but I feel I did the best thing I could at the time."
"Mrs. Hughes … oh, it feels odd calling you that now …"
"We'll get there, I imagine," Elsie said, a small smile on her lips. You may call me whatever you wish, once you decide if you'd even like things to change. What did you want to ask me?"
"No, it wasn't a question," Daisy replied. "I was just going to say that you shouldn't feel badly about it. It's done. You fell in love, with a kind man, and you managed to bring us all together in the end. There can't be anything wrong with love, I don't think."
Elsie reached out and cupped Daisy's face in her hand, rubbing her thumb across Daisy's cheek. "Oh, lass, you may look like my Da, but you are more like my Mam than you could possibly imagine," she whispered, the echoes of her Mam's kindness swimming through her mind yet again.
"To love," Elsie added, clinking her glass with her daughter's. "Which, God willing, will always prevail."
They finished the whisky and Daisy took the glasses and put them on the desk. She turned back to Elsie, about to say good-night, but something dawned on Elsie just then.
"Daisy?" she asked, a faraway look in her eyes. "Tell me about this Auntie you mentioned … the one who'd visit at the Macinroy's."
"I don't remember much," Daisy admitted. "My Mam would tell me Auntie was visiting, and I was so excited. Auntie would take me out for the day and we'd play in the fields, running and laughing and going to look at the animals. She taught me to be kind to them, I remember. And she sang to me … always the same song, but I can't recall what it is now."
And so, without even thinking about it, Elsie started to sing, her lilting voice carrying clearly in the room despite her newly-falling tears:
I left my darling lying here,
a lying here, a lying here,
I left my darling lying here,
To go and gather blaeberries.
I've found the wee brown otter's track,
the otter's track, the otter's track
I've found the wee brown otter's track
But ne'er a trace o' my baby …*
"Oh, my God," Daisy whispered, rushing forward as Elsie wrapped her arms around her. "It was you!"
"Aye, my darling girl, it was," Elsie sobbed, fearing she'd squeeze the life out of the younger woman.
"You came to see me. You … loved me … I felt it. Mam and Da loved me too, but you treated me like someone …"
"Special," Elsie finished for her. "Yes. More than anyone else I've ever known."
*A traditional Scottish folk tune which warns of the dangers of leaving a baby alone, lest the fairies come along and take him/her. Comforting lullaby, no? But it is a lullaby. Weird, huh?
If you've the time, please let me know what you thought!