That night, when Henry eventually made it home, exhausted and aching, he was never more delighted to see his wife than he was at that moment. Ella was laid in bed and had barely moved as muscle, as instructed, since he had left her and she was delighted to see him.

'Why are you so late? I was beginning to get really worried about you.' Ella said as her husband as he stood beside her and laced his fingers through hers.

'Not too worried I hope?' He asked with a raised brow. 'We had a patient brought into us with dropsy, just as we were about to leave. But I haven't finished yet; I've still got one more patient to see.'

'Oh Henry, you can't have, you've only just come in.' She said with dismay and watched as he stooped down into his bag and pulled out his stethoscope. 'Oh you mean me!' She smiled and laughed at her own silliness as Henry grinned mischievously at her.

Whilst Henry was checking her blood pressure and listening to her heart, there was a light knock on the door and then it was pushed open by Elsie, with a tray of dinner for her daughter.

'Ah perfect timing Elsie; I was just about to ask her if she'd eaten yet.' Henry said as he pulled the cuff from Ella's arm and removed the stethoscope from around his neck.

'Well I've learnt not to ask her anymore; I now just appear with something and make her eat it.' Elsie replied with a laugh as she placed the tray on Ella's knee. 'And how is our patient?'

'She's doing well. You're obviously doing a good job of looking after her when I'm out, as her blood pressure is a lot lower. In fact, it's almost back to what it should be...but before you get excited Aurelia Crawley Forbes, this does not mean that you can start over exerting yourself again.' He replied and interrupted Ella before she could get excited.

'Spoilsport!' Ella replied jokingly. She didn't mind really, but she would be glad to be able to get out of bed more often.

'Right, I'm going to go downstairs and make myself something to eat. I shan't be long.' He said as he rolled down his shirtsleeves and put his jacket on over his waistcoat again.

'Oh there's no need for that Henry. Mrs Patmore and Daisy are still downstairs and I can bring it up to you.' Elsie said.

'No thank you Elsie, that's quite alright. Much like my wife, I'm not keen on having people waiting on me, but unlike her, I'm able to get up and do something about it.' Henry replied with a wink and a smile at Ella, who playfully huffed in dismay.

He left the two women alone to spend some time together whilst Ella had her dinner and Elsie sat on the chair beside the bed, her usual spot. Her actions now came so natural to her, but when she thought back to how they were with each other only a year earlier…well they were barely recognisable.

'Good morning Mrs Hughes, I hope you are well?' Ella would ask.

'I am very well, thank you Milady.' Elsie would reply politely as she opened the thick, red bedroom curtains and allowing light to flood into the room.

'It looks like it's going to be another glorious day.' Ella would comment with utter glee.

Ella would always make conversation with the staff, she treated everyone with kindness and respect, always made sure of their welfare and never looked down on anyone. She was very unique that way.

Elsie's favourite time of the day, before Ella learned who she really was, was at night time, when she would go to Ella's room to help her dress for bed. She would spend ages, gently unpinning Ella's hair and gently caressing her long honey locks with the brush.

'Mam, are you quite alright?' Ella asked, which brought Elsie round from her thoughts. Clearly her daughter had tried a couple of times to get her attention.

'Yes, of course I'm alright. I was just thinking about how different things were between us this time last year.' Elsie sighed and Ella wasn't sure if it was a contented sigh or a painful one and Elsie saw the look of concern on her daughter's face. 'Honestly, I'm absolutely fine.'

'Well, as long you are quite sure.' Ella said as she placed her empty tray onto the bed beside her.

'There is one thing that I do miss about the old days though.' Elsie replied as she stood from the seat and walked towards Ella's dressing table.

'Oh yes and what is that?' Ella asked with a furrowed brow, surprised that there could be anything about the old days that her mam would miss.

'This,' Elsie said as she picked up Ella's hairbrush and showed it to her, which brought a large smile to Ella's face. 'I miss brushing your hair.' She added as Ella shuffled forward slightly in her bed and allowed Elsie to sit behind her.

Elsie gently pulled the ribbon from the bottom of the plait that Ella had braided her hair into and then carefully ran her fingers through it. She teased the hair apart before pulling the brush through it, stroke after stroke and she enjoyed the calming sensation it had on them both. Ella closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of her scalp being massaged and it reminded her of her days with the housekeeper, for all those years before she knew the truth. It was a bittersweet memory.

'What are you thinking about back there? You're very quiet.' Ella said sleepily and without opening her eyes, but if she had have opened them, she would have seen Elsie smiling broadly, with tears in her eyes.

'Oh I'm just thinking about how often I have done this for you and how I love doing it. Your hair has grown so long since I last brushed it for you.' She replied. 'Do you remember the time, shortly after I became housekeeper, you came running down the stairs to me in my sitting room, crying your little heart out, because your governess didn't brush your hair the way you liked it. You must have only been about four at the time. It broke my heart to see you cry like that, but it was mended by the fact that it was me you came looking for.'

'I think I vaguely remember that. And of course it was you I came looking for. You were always so kind to Sybbie and me, well of course, you were, you're my mam, but you know what I mean. No one ever quite looked after us the way you did and we used to miss you, even though you were only downstairs.'

'I used to miss you both too, dreadfully, I hated to be separated from you.' Elsie replied and then that pang of pain and guilt hit her again as she thought about the cottage and about her next separation from her daughter and she suddenly went very quiet.

'Mam are you alright? I haven't upset you have I? I am sorry.' Ella said as she turned round to face her tearful mam and she embraced her tenderly.

'Oh Ella, I know that every mother has to let their children go at some point, but I feel that I'm doing it all in reverse. I let you go when you were just a tiny baby and now I've got you back, but I can't bear the thought of letting you go again.' Elsie sobbed and her words confused Ella.

'What do you mean Mam? You don't have to let me go, I'm not exactly going anywhere.' Ella said as she tried to comfort her mam and not get upset herself. It pained her to see her mam in pain and to know that, usually, she was the cause of it.

Once she was a lot calmer, Elsie felt able to explain to her daughter the truth about what had been troubling her for weeks.

'You might not be going anywhere, but your dad and I will be moving to the cottage soon, well, that's what he wants anyway.'

'And you don't? But I thought you were looking forward to having your own place together, our own little sanctuary away from this place, where we could make our own memories and truly be able to be together as a family.' Ella said as she held on tightly to Elsie's hand.

'I know and I do want all of that. But I never thought about exactly how difficult it would be for me to leave you. I know it's only a short distance away and I realise that I will still see you every day, but…well, gosh, I don't even know how to describe this. For the twenty four years you were on this earth, not knowing the truth about me being your mother, that separation pained me every day, but what got me through it, was the thought that you were only in the next room or up the stairs or in the garden. You were only ever just a minute away from me…does any of that make any sense? Perhaps I will only ever be the one to understand it.' Elsie said as she struggled to understand her own feelings, let alone to try to make someone else understand them.

'I do understand them, more than you will know. I might not have always known that you were my mother, but it didn't mean that I missed you any less when we were apart. Do you remember, when Sybbie and I were sent to boarding school, we only lasted a few days because we missed home; it wasn't even the fact that I missed Mama and Papa or Mary and Edith that made me miss home the most, but it was because I missed you and Dad too for that matter. Whenever I needed a boost of confidence or help with anything, my parents would give me that stiff upper lip and tell me that I needed to work things out for myself or that I needed to get on with things; they weren't unkind to me, of course they weren't, they love me unconditionally and I do know that. But it was always you and Dad that we came to, because we would always get the best advice and when the governess was getting cross with me because I was struggling to read and write, you were the one who dried my tears, took the nearest children's book and helped me to learn. And when Sybil and I went off to study nursing during the war, I watched Mama as she cried outside the front of the house as we drove off, but I did see you, standing at the window and watching us too and I thought about how much I would miss you both. That was all, long, before I knew that you were my mother.' Ella explained calmly, but with a quivering voice and Elsie was so touched. 'But Dad makes you so very happy and it's time that you stopped living your life around me and started to live your own life with me and I don't think we're ever going to get that with the way we are living now.'

'So you wouldn't mind if your dad and I moved into the cottage soon?' Elsie asked quietly.

'No, I wouldn't mind, because I would come to you every day and we could still have our time together here. I would expect you to take more time off than you do when you are here, so that we can spend some proper time together and create a life that is entirely ours, especially when the baby arrives. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, for either of us. But, we could start my taking baby steps. Perhaps you only need to stay at the house a couple of days a week to begin with, so that we can get used to being apart. What do you think?'

Elsie thought about it for a few moments and she couldn't believe that she hadn't thought of that herself, of easing herself into domestic life gently and easing her pain from being separated from her daughter. Now she wished that she had spoken to Ella before about all of this; perhaps the pain of knowing that she had been separated from her mother, had had an effect on Ella after all and maybe she was the only one who truly did know how Elsie felt.