Chapter 8 The Second Day (Sunday)

Elsie

It was challenging for the staff in a great house like Downton Abbey to practice their faith in the conventional public forums, as work so often interfered. They were expected to have some faith and it was assumed that this would be some Protestant Christian denomination – though the Granthams did not stand on this and there had been exceptions over the years – and that they might take advantage of any opportunity in their spare time to address spiritual devotions. Elsie had noticed that there were some members of the staff who were untroubled by such impediments and pleaded service obligations to escape any occasion for worship. Elsie herself was an adherent of the Church of Scotland, but had the luxury of attending such services only in London. At Downton, she made do with the Church of England.

Mr. Carson was not among the lukewarm when it came to church attendance and was a stalwart adherent of the Anglican communion. Elsie was pleased to tell him, as she drew open the curtains to let in the morning light on their second morning in Scarborough, that they had a choice of parishes and services, but that she favoured St.-Martin-on-the-Hill, being partial to that sort of name.

He watched her from the bed. His despair of the previous night had dissipated, replaced apparently with apathy. So while she bustled about preparing her clothes, he remained sluggish.

"You don't want to be late," she prompted him, trying to conceal the competing currents of compassion and impatience she felt at his behaviour. Tardiness was anathema to both of them.

He shrugged. "I'm not feeling very grateful this morning," he said, with an impressive degree of equanimity.

She understood his attitude, but it exasperated her, too. Absently she pressed a thumb to the design on the breast of her nightgown and paused for a moment to consider it. The rose and the thistle. Charlie and Elsie. It struck her then that here she was, standing there in the full light of day, in her nightgown, without her robe and a man mere feet away. Odd how circumstances changed perspective so abruptly. For all his reassurances, she had never been entirely convinced that he would be attracted to her. Oh, she had believed he was sincere in thinking that he would be, but she had thought reality would shake him out of that.

Well, her own fears had fallen by the wayside these past two nights. Whatever half-truths a tongue might convey, a body did not lie. She realized now that he could not have obliged his body to respond to her if that longing had not been innate, beyond his conscious control. She now believed that he wanted her very much, that his desire and admiration for her were genuine. And, importantly, that any faltering in consummation of their union had nothing to do with her. Or, for that matter, him, physically at least. She had put his problem down to over-excitation, the first night, but now was beginning to think there was something else there. What that was, however, she did not know.

What she did know, though, was that she herself felt an unexpected freedom standing there in her night shift, almost an exhilaration. And though she was aware of his eyes on her, she was not at all self-conscious, and how had that happened? A bold thought occurred to her and she swished her hips a little. Let him be reminded of his desire. Let him realizes he wants me.

She was looking at him with a different eye. What drew her most about him, even in that lethargic state, was his hair. It was delightfully tousled. Mr. Carson of Downton Abbey was always impeccably groomed and she had always found the starched and pressed butler attractive. Had she not, they would not be here. But there was much to be said about the man in this rumpled state, too, and even his despondency could not dispel her interest. She wished she had the nerve to march right over there to him, fling an arm about his neck, and kiss him with the energy and eagerness with which he had kissed her two nights ago before things began to come apart. But…she didn't have that nerve. And it was Sunday morning, after all, and she wanted to go to church.

Yet still he lingered.

"Get a move on, Charlie," she said briskly. "Or I'll go without you.

He began to stir.

Charlie

Well, Scarborough was a nice place. A nice small place. The beach was impressive and he did like that, although it had been a particular draw because of how it resonated with them from Brighton. And there was history in Scarborough, although he demurred once more about going to the castle when Elsie raised the possibility after church. He just wasn't in the mood. The church service had not moved him as such services usually did, though the minister was interesting enough and the choir quite good.

At Elsie's suggestion, he agreed to linger afterward to examine the art and architecture. It wasn't Michaelangelo, but one didn't have outlandish expectations for local institutions. He was proud of Yorkshire's achievements and assessed them on their own merits. On those grounds, he was favourably impressed with St.-Martin-on-the-Hill. In other circumstances, it might have occurred to him to propose a tour of the churchyard. He didn't know any of the dead in Scarborough, but graves were a history lesson in themselves and Elsie was not at all adverse to a quiet stroll in a graveyard. But he couldn't take that today, either.

The shops were closed so they went back to the beach again. There were more people there today, enjoying the sunshine. He was glad to see them. Alone with Elsie, he would have no excuse to avoid the casual touches and playful kisses they had indulged in yesterday. Only yesterday! Already so far away. No, he didn't want to kiss her today, though he would hold her hand if she insisted. They might as well act the part of the staid pensioners, well beyond anything else, that was their reality.

"Tell me something about you I don't know."

Her request startled him and then he sighed. She was back to that again. The game enticed him even less today than it had the day before, but he surprised himself with a ready response. "I was with both of my parents when they died," he said. "I held their hands as they slipped away." Where had that come from? And they weren't even in the graveyard. Before she had a chance to react, he felt a wave of remorse flood him and he stopped. "I don't know why I told you that, Elsie. What a melancholy thing to say. I'm sorry."

But she smiled at him and did take up his hand, pressing it gently. "Our lives are not an endless chain of happy events."

He raised an eyebrow at this. The truth of that statement was lying on the mat right before them. "It was foolish," he muttered, and looked away.

"It is important to you," she countered, as they began to walk again, though she kept hold of his hand. "And I value that."

He cast her a puzzled look, not quite sure what to make of her. "Your turn."

He saw the glint in her eye before she spoke and recognized it for what it was. She was about to come out with something startling, unsettling. Unconsciously, he braced himself.

"When the family is away," she said, not trying very hard to conceal an impish tone, "I use the main staircase all the time. And I've sat on all their chairs and sofas, too."

This was such an unexpected remark that he was speechless, and halted abruptly again. "What?"

This was no I-didn't-quite-hear-that-could-you-repeat-yourself sort of What?, but rather a threatening What! The butler of Downton Abbey had reappeared. Though his cry drew a look from a few passers-by, it didn't cow her in the least.

"You heard what I said."

"I did! I just can't believe it."

She shrugged and moved again, tugging him along. "Well, believe it."

He pulled his hand from hers. "You've not slept in their beds, I hope!"

"No," she said lightly. "I've had no reason to." Perhaps she was not quite as diffident as she seemed, for she relented a little. "No one's ever seen me. The staff, I mean. I don't do it in front of anyone."

"Certainly I've never seen you."

"No, certainly not. I'm not a fool."

There was a tartness in her tone now and, inexplicably, it touched something within him, something he wanted to grab hold of and hang on to. Her. They were on the wet sand now, just at the innermost reach of the ebbing tide. She skipped a little to avoid a splash.

"Why would you do such a thing?" he asked, more calmly, distracted by her playfulness.

Again she shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose it's because I object to all these arbitrary lines dividing us, as if they're better than we are. They aren't, you know," she added, without looking at him.

It wasn't the first time she'd said something like this. "I know that. But there is such a thing as the right of property and the respect due that."

"I don't disagree," she said lightly. "But we live there, too."

Elsie

He hadn't smiled all morning, not even when she teased him about the rules of Downton Abbey. She did not expect him to recover … was that the right word?... as quickly today as he had the day before. A second failure, this time rather more spectacularly, was bound to strike him low. But he came around eventually, only in a way she found more unsettling than reassuring.

It had not been very long after Christmas, after the most romantic proposal a woman could ask for, that Elsie had begun to contemplate the realities of marriage and to worry about them. Realities. No, there was but one that preyed on her mind and that was the physical relationship. She was sixty years old and she had the body of …. Well, a lifetime's hard work had taken a toll on her. What had worried her most was how Mr. Carson … Charlie … would respond when finally he saw her. Oh, he might prattle on in the abstract about loving her and thinking her beautiful. But was he not working largely with the constructs of his own imagination when thinking of her?

In such circumstances, the imagination was likely more generous than stingy and he could not but be disappointed. And then what? Well, he was honourable, her Mr. Carson. He would hardly recoil from her there, on their wedding night. No, what she had thought might happen was that he would steel himself to the task, making love to her mechanically and unemotionally, doing his duty. The thought of such honourable resignation had appalled her. She knew that to be embraced in duty rather than love would be excruciating. As it turned out, his premarital assurances had proved up in the manifest desire he displayed when he saw her for the first time in her lovely nightdress and even more convincingly in the way he had reached out for her and caressed her these past two nights.

But now he was exhibiting precisely that behaviour she had most feared – the polite indifference, the courteous going through of the motions – only he had been prompted to it by his own physical shortcomings, not her own. And it was no less excruciating than she had anticipated for all that it was not directed explicitly at her. She began to think that it might have been easier to endure his disappointment in her than his disappointment in himself.

It took him a while to get to this state and so it was almost noon before he had mastered it and was behaving normally, if you could call it that. The self-pity of the night before, the lethargy of early morning, these were gone. For their lunch, he chose a restaurant and perused the menu with interest, making comments and recommendations wholly in keeping with what he might have been expected to say in ordinary circumstances. He took particular care with the wine list, his bout of temperance clearly a fleeting thing, and pronounced himself satisfied with his choice when it came. Elsie was unsettled by the shift in him, for nothing had been resolved and it was not as though the problem that confronted them would go away of its own. She did not enjoy the wine as she might have done. It seemed to her that, rather than a sign of the restoration of normality, his renewed interest in wine signalled resignation.

And then he suggested they go to the castle. "It's a hike, but we've got a fine day," he said bracingly.

It was a hike, especially after such a sumptuous lunch, but it was, as he had noted, a fine day, and so they make the trek. And as they walked, he held forth on the history of Scarborough Castle which stretched back, as far as Elsie could tell, an interminable 3000 years and which he had apparently memorized. By the time they got there, she felt she didn't need to see the actual thing, for she already knew all about it.

"Would you mind very much if we didn't go through it?" she asked. "I'd rather go up on the headland and enjoy the view." It was not, after all, as though she'd never seen a castle before.

The ease with which he acquiesced to her request disturbed her more than any protest he might have made. He was building a wall around himself, affecting a demeanour that was as much a role as that of the butler of Downton Abbey. Best to disrupt that process before it hardened into a habit.

The view was spectacular. Elsie had grown up on the west coast, facing the Atlantic, not that they got many glimpses of the sea from her village in Argyll. But did it really matter – Atlantic or North Sea? The majesty of the waters, even on a calm day, put frail humanity in its place every time. From the headland, the effect was more awesome still.

"I've never been to the mountains," she said, as they settled themselves on a grassy knoll well back from the sheer drop but still within view of the surf. "Not real mountains like the Alps. But I can't imagine feeling any closer to heaven than I do here, right now." She leaned back on her hands and stared at the sky.

He emulated her, leaning back, staring skyward, but said nothing. She glanced at him. He was well into it now, she thought. Here, but not here. His hair was blowing about in the breeze and a strand of it kept falling across his eyes. How much she longed to reach out and brush it back. But it was not the moment.

"When did you know you loved me?"

He came over bemused and slowly turned his gaze on her, squinting a little. "I beg your pardon?

She said nothing, only staring at him, willing him to answer.

"Why do you ask?" He was clearly hedging.

She gave him a smile. "Oh, women like to know such things," she said lightly.

One of the many things she liked about him was that he was honest. It was not as though he sometimes might not wish to engage in dissimulation, but he seldom did so. Perhaps, too, it was because he was such a bad liar. Now, though he might not want to have such a conversation, she was certain he would reply truthfully.

It was a moment before he spoke. "It was when you had that cancer scare," he said with gravity. "I was frightened for you. I agonized for you. I wanted to share it with you." He glanced at her. "I know the thing happened to you and that everyone else must be an outsider in such a battle, but it never hurts to have someone holding your hand, wanting to be there. And I daresay I would have been better at it than Mrs. Patmore."

There was no mistaking the passion in his voice, but also the trace of resentment, too. And she had to stifle a smile at the reference to Mrs. Patmore. "I daresay you're right about that," she said. "But…." She reached out and feathered her fingers over his hand. "…if it was that long ago that you knew … how you felt … what took you so long to ask me to marry you?" Her question had not been merely to draw him out. She was curious.

This time he squinted out at the sea. "I wasn't sure how you felt, was I? You play your cards very close to your chest, Elsie."

That was true for all sorts of reasons. "Women don't get to do the asking, do they? Better to be circumspect than be left out on a limb."

His eyes slanted her way. "Not for you, then, the advice of Charlotte Lucas, to show more affection than you feel rather than less."*

She gave him a look. "When were you sure, then?" she asked. "About how I felt?" She was trying to draw him out by focusing on that which had drawn them together.

"I wasn't sure until I'd asked you and you said yes."

This took her aback just a little. "Am I that inscrutable?"

"Yes. But," he added, "what you said, how you were with me that day on the beach at Brighton, that encouraged me to think it possible." His gaze shifted abruptly to the sea again. "Holding my hand. I wanted, then, to be able to hold your hand, to … hold you, whenever I liked."

He spoke hesitatingly, so unlike the masterful confidence he often exhibited. His words gave Elsie a warm feeling, but when she pressed her hand in his, he remained unresponsive, and she withdrew again.

"Love is always a bit of a risk, isn't it?" she said.

With her hands splayed behind her, she was suddenly more conscious of the gold band on the third finger of her left hand. She'd never worn a ring in service. Jewellery was not permitted in service, for all sorts of reasons. Personally, she was not much enamoured with such accoutrements, but this one was different, of course. She cherished this one. And wondered about it. Tearing her gaze from the sea, she stared at the ring. It wasn't new. It was polished up like new, but somehow she knew it wasn't.

"Was this your mother's ring?"

His dark eyes came round to her almost abruptly. "Yes," he said guardedly. Was that apprehension in his eyes? Did he think that she would mind?

Again she took his hand. "Oh, Charlie. That makes it so much dearer to me." He rubbed a thumb over the burnished fragment on her finger and she revelled in the gentleness of his touch. "And how convenient that it should fit me so well."

They sat in silence for a long moment, letting the breeze ruffle through their hair and clothes.

"Turnabout is fair play," he said suddenly, without looking at her. "What about you?"

She was puzzled for an instant and then realized he was posing her own question back at her. "Well, it came on gradually, didn't it? I know I was saddened when you decided to move with Lady Mary to Haxby. I wouldn't have called it love, not … not this kind of love, not then. But the prospect made me realize what an important part you played in my life. I missed you already and you hadn't even gone. And then…how you behaved through those long weeks while I waited for the results from Dr. Clarkson. I was irked with Mrs. Patmore for letting the cat out of the bag, and with you, too, a little, for treating me like an invalid. But … I could see you cared. I was touched. And, then, the day I got the news and after Mrs. Patmore told you, I heard you singing in the pantry. Singing!" She shook his arm a little to get him to look at her and he did. "I've not heard you singing outside of church. And so exuberantly, too. And I…well, I loved you for caring so much."

He said nothing, nothing in words, but there was a light there in his great dark eyes. Oh, he loved her now, and so much. She could see it clearly.

"And…," she went on, more cautiously, "and there was another moment, but you won't like it."

The softness in his expression disappeared behind a wary look. He raised an eyebrow. Go on.

She'd said too much now and wished she'd stopped while she was ahead. But this was only the truth and it wasn't so appalling. "It was when you came to see Mr. Grigg off at the station." Predictably his face closed off at the mention of the notorious Charlie Grigg, but she persisted. "When you made up with him. Just…seeing you on that platform, I thought, What a wonderful man. What a great heart he has." She cleared her throat. "I love you in many ways, Charlie Carson, and one of them is in the admiration of your character. You've a very fine man." She let the words buffet him about, hoping they would touch his heart, but he did not respond.

Oh! how she wished he would relax and lie here with her, his head in her lap, murmuring sweet nothings that meant little in themselves but were in fact the sinews that bound hearts and minds and souls together.

"The Germans bombed the castle in 1914," he said suddenly. "And that church we were in this morning. We thought we were far from the war, tucked up at Downton, but the Germans bombarded our coastlines not fifty miles away."

"Imagine," she said politely, sighing inwardly. So much for hoping to draw him out with talk of love.

Charlie

Well. It turned out that Elsie had been right, after all, in her conclusions if not her apprehensions. They were best suited for a platonic relationship, one built on the solid foundation of a friendship that had grown up over three decades of close association. Yes, they loved each other; he knew his own heart and he was certain of hers in that, at least and at last. But love was not enough. There had to be a physical capacity as well, and he did not have it. A deep sadness enveloped him at the thought, for was not the union of a man and a woman one of the experiences of a lifetime? He had always wanted it, had thought it finally within his grasp, only to find that he was now beyond it. He had waited too long.

Sobered by this revelation, he was able to think beyond himself, to her. How selfish he had been, so immersed in his own sorrows. They must salvage something from this wreckage and it was up to him to manage that. So … good food, fine wine. Today some of the sights of Scarborough – the castle. He'd rather have gone through it, for it would have been a distraction. But he didn't mind their afternoon on the headland either. It had not been so hard to stay away from difficult conversations after all. Perhaps she had come to terms with their reality, even more quickly than he.

With the matter of marital intimacy off the table, then, he had to find other things to make this holiday a worthwhile one. He was not without ideas. She had been game about the castle, although history was not of much interest to her. Tomorrow they would spend the day as she might like it, in the village, going to the shops. Women liked to shop, he thought, though he'd never known Elsie to do much of it. She wasn't extravagant. But he would treat her. She deserved it. And tonight they would go to the finest restaurant in Scarborough and drink the best wine the place had to offer. He might not be able to make love to her, but there were other things at which he excelled, discernment when it came to a good wine among them. And, with any luck, their long day in the fresh air would have exhausted them both and made sleep the most desirable end to the day. In the meantime, he must make every effort to be a pleasant companion.

"You'll like this," he said, clinking his glass gently against hers over what promised to be an excellent dinner. "People tend to think a Bordeaux must be red. But I like the whites, too." And he suggested oysters on the half shell as an appetizer, too. She came over a little sceptical when they appeared.

"I've only had them once," she said, "years ago. When we all ate Lady Edith's aborted wedding feast. I'm not sure I liked them then."

"These are fresh from the sea," he said, encouragingly. "And this is how you eat them." He demonstrated. It was a bit of a challenge to maintain one's dignity when gulping oysters, but he'd lost enough dignity over important things and was unconcerned. And when Elsie swallowed her first, he declared, "Bravo!" and gave her a warm smile. He noticed that though she smiled in return, her eyes did not sparkle as they usually did when she was in good humour. Well, perhaps she didn't like the oysters, after all.

He wanted to move on to a red wine with dinner and so chose the roast beef. He was a little chagrined when she opted for lamb. "You've been eating that all your life," he protested, in good humour.

Elsie shrugged complacently. "I never thought I'd see the day when Charlie Carson questioned a conservative choice."

This made him laugh, which was, incidentally, a bit of a relief. So it was still possible.

He enjoyed the wine, first the Bordeaux, and then a Chateauneuf-de-Pape. He knew his wines, of course. A butler's first duty was his lord's wine cellar. It was also a perk of his position to deal with wines left unfinished at meals in whatever way he liked, a perk and a pitfall, for dipsomania was the butler's disease. But Charles Carson had always been cautious of this, husbanding open bottles judiciously for the family's next day meals, and indulging himself only in a glass or two or that which was unlikely to be used or to keep well.

Such restraint was unnecessary tonight. He enjoyed the wines he had chosen and, though he was not paying for them, he thought it wasteful not to finish the bottles. Why not? Neither drinking moderately nor abstaining had served his purpose these past two nights. This was his first significant holiday in years and he wanted to enjoy himself. And if alcohol helped him manage the great disappointment he could not quite suppress, so much the better.

Elsie

He snored.

She hadn't noticed that the night before, or the night before that. Perhaps she'd fallen asleep before him both times. Or perhaps it was the wine. Well, he'd certainly drunk enough. Elsie liked wine and had developed a reasonably cultivated palate over the years, thanks to her professional association with the butler of Downton Abbey and their evening habit of reviewing the day together over a glass of something. But moderation had always been her watchword and tonight she'd had only a glass of each, the red and the white, and then a modest portion. He had polished off both bottles and followed that with an after-dinner aperitif as well.

The alcohol had had an impact on him, releasing a form of that uninhibited Charlie Carson she had seen on the morning of their wedding. But this was a mockery of that jovial man, for then his ease and joviality had been genuine. Now, alcohol-infused, it was as false as his unnaturally sombre behaviour the night before. In consequence, she took no pleasure in it.

She'd never seen him drink so much, but she was not unacquainted with men in a state of inebriation. There were pubs and clubs and other drinking venues aplenty in her world, and homes from the lowliest hovels to glittering palaces right across the land could boast of men, and not a few women, who drank to excess for all sorts of reasons. She had no patience with such indulgence – Mr. Molesley, who had once unintentionally drunk himself sick could attest to that – and she wasn't best pleased by it now. And yet she had watched it develop this evening right there in front of her and felt powerless to arrest it.

It had taken a familiar course. Through dinner he had grown more gregarious and even amusing.

"You mentioned the ring earlier," he said, and both of them glanced at the gold band on her hand. "About how lucky it was that it fitted you so well."

"It's quite a coincidence." She brushed her fingers over the soft metal.

"Well, it wasn't. My mother's finger was thicker than yours and I was afraid it would slip off if it wasn't snug. So I had it sized."

He had a curious look on his face, as though he had a secret he was bursting to tell her and she was drawn by this. "I wasn't aware of you measuring anything. You guessed well."

"I didn't guess. I measured your finger. Or, rather, Mrs. Patmore did."

And then he told her the ridiculous story of Mrs. Patmore and the biscuit dough. She just stared at him. "What on earth?"

"She measured the circumference of your finger from the hole in the biscuit dough," he repeated. "I did wonder what you thought of that."

"I thought she'd gone mad!"

"I did, too, when she explained,"he admitted, smiling broadly. "But it worked." He reached out and took her hand. "Why did you go along with such silliness?"

Elsie sighed. "Well, you know her. Sometimes it's just easier to give in to her than to resist."**

It was a delightful tale and for a little while, it seemed a transformative moment, propelling them into that territory of their old ease with each other. And then an imperceptible shift had taken place and the glow to recede, which was only the natural course of alcohol. There was still some life in him. When they left the restaurant, he put his arm around her waist in the most visible and public display of affection he had shown all day and chattered on as they walked back to the hotel, almost entirely steadily.

He was in a mood, she thought, to try again, though he was hardly fit for it and as they climbed the stairs to their floor, she wondered how she might put him off. Alcohol-infused lovemaking might even be successful, but she thought it likely to be enjoyable only if both parties were feeling light-headed and she was not. And it was hardly appropriate for their first time.

In the end, she did not have to face the question. In their room, he went immediately to the bed to sit and she withdrew to the bathroom for her own needs. When she emerged again, he was lying, fully dressed, on the bed, already asleep. Within minutes, he was snoring. Although not a very attractive sight, it was a bit of a relief. She put a blanket over him and then considered her options.

It was not how she had imagined this night, not in the several permutations that had played out in her mind all day, but it did present an opportunity. She was going to take a bath in that lovely deep porcelain tub. Such a pleasure had beckoned to her the first moment she had seen it, but there had been more pressing matters. Well, now she was free to indulge herself.

It took a few minutes for the tub to fill, it was that large. In the bedroom, Elsie retrieved her night things from the chest of drawers and set them out carefully in the bathroom. She tested the water until it was perfect and then shed her clothing. She was about to step in – into, really, for it had quite high sides – when a thought gave her pause. A nice long soak would indeed make her feel better. A relaxing, uninterrupted immersion in this soothing environment would also give her time to think. But…perhaps that wasn't the best thing, for she'd been thinking furiously for the better part of two days now, and had reached the limits of her own imagination. Perhaps it was time to ask for help.

And so she returned to the room, not even bothering to pull on a housecoat or wrap a towel about herself. Her daring distracted her. There was her husband only a few feet away and she standing naked before him. She had a panicked moment, but resisted it all the same. They were husband and wife now and this was a natural state between them. Still and all it was going to take some getting used to and here was an opportunity. So she lingered for a moment, aware that it was almost as big a challenge to be so comfortable in her own skin as it to be so intimate with her husband.

"Your bath is getting cold," she told herself abruptly and then remembered what she was about. Quickly she went to her case, which stood to one side. She had emptied it on arrival and put her things in the drawers. But she hadn't quite emptied it. Tucked into an interior side pocket was a small, blue, cloth-bound volume. Why had she brought it? She wasn't really sure. Charlie would erupt with … well, any number of objections … to know it was there, but she hadn't worried. He was not the kind of man to go through someone else's things. She had her own apprehensions about the thing, but …desperate times, desperate measures.

With one last glance at her still sleeping – and snoring – husband, Elsie turned off the light in the room, slipped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. The light in the smaller room was not the best for reading, but it would do. She slipped cautiously into the bath and eased herself into the enveloping embrace of water perfectly warmed. And then she reached for the book, opened it to the first page, and began to read.

*A/N1. In a conversation in Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Lucas suggests to her friend Elizabeth Bennett, that if Jane Bennett were seriously interested in Mr. Bingley, she would be well-advised to show him more affection even than she felt in order to secure him. Elizabeth Bennet – and our Elsie Carson – could not entertain such a view. Both Charlie and Elsie would have read Pride and Prejudice.

**A/N2. The story of Mrs. Patmore and the biscuit dough is told in Chapter 4 The Gifts in Getting Married.