Apologies for the delay in this chapter arriving. I thought I'd have more time over the last week or so than I ended up having. It's shorter than the last few but hopefully (with all fingers crossed) no less enjoyable for that. With all due thanks to Mr Fellowes for his fine script!
"We'll be doing it your way for the next thirty years, I know that well enough. The wedding day is mine!"
Elsie took half a breath as she heard her own words, the harsh truth they'd hit upon echoing off the whitewashed walls. Charles' disbelief was palpable and for a split second she contemplated carrying on, to really let him have it, to throw everything she'd thought and felt over the whole damn affair at him, both barrels full. But she couldn't, she wouldn't, and so instead made for the door without saying a word. Her hand twitched as she crossed the threshold, an automatic reflex that would usually have her pulling the door to behind her, but she resisted. Let him shut his own silly door, she thought petulantly. It was likely beneath her to behave so childishly, but she didn't much care right now. Hastily, she covered the short distance to her own room and went to let herself in. But the door knob wouldn't turn, her shaking hand unable to grip it sufficiently. She tried again, cursing under her breath, the tears beginning to well up behind her eyes as finally it moved and the door sprung open.
Hands on hips in the centre of the room, she instructed herself to breathe. In and out. In and out. Her chest was tight against the confines of her corset and could sense herself becoming faint, moving towards the chair to half collapse into it. In and out. In and out. Slowly, her breathing eased and a sense of balance within herself was restored.
Goodness, he was a frustrating man to know! Caught up in his own sense of self importance and entitlement. He was no better than the family, only the high road for them and him, whilst the rest of us, she brooded angrily, are forced to take the low road, to kowtow to... She tailed off with a violent shake of her head. No, that wasn't right. He was better than them, far better. She wouldn't love him if he weren't. She'd seen it for herself over the years, the ways in which he put himself second to others. Perhaps it didn't always appear like that from where others stood, but when you looked closely enough it was there. This recollection almost had her smiling at her fondness for his often awkward, almost backwards sort of way he navigated the world. She'd become adept at gently prodding and poking him in the right direction in a way that she doubted he'd ever really noticed. She supposed all wives had to do that, the male ego being what it could be, and she didn't mind, not really. It was just how things were between them. But, she shook her head again, this was all beside the point. It didn't change anything. It didn't change the fact that he was, at this precise moment, the most irritatingly stubborn man she'd ever met!
Charles rose as she left, well, stormed out was probably more accurate he surmised, and gave a grimace as he retook his seat. He breathed deeply, steadying his nerves before concentrating back on the papers laid out across the desk, smoothing his hand across them as if to bring them to order. But it wasn't them who was out of control, he realised, as the words blurred and an unsettled feeling took up residence. That Elsie was cross was self-evident; he'd perhaps expected that. The anger however, the fury that he could almost feel resonating from the room next door, unstopped by plaster and brick, that he hadn't foreseen. But what was he to do? It was practically his birthright to be married from this house. His blood, sweat and tears were literally soaked into its fabric.
He huffed loudly, the air expelling from his lungs so violently that it was enough to lift the corner of the paper nearest him. He watched as it slowly settled back down, very slightly askew from the one below it. It felt like a sign. Elsie was a reasonable person, he argued to himself, she was upset but she'd calm down before too long. He was sure of it. She'd see the sense in what was being proposed and how it would be best all round to hold things here, at the Abbey, the place where they lived, that they called home. Time, that was all she needed; time to see things rationally, just as he did. With a firm nod to conclude his thoughts, he lifted his pen, tapping it gently against the hard wood of the desk as he forced his mind back to the task at hand. But it refused to, her words swirled dangerously around his psyche and he knew they were going to land, to stick, to never be forgotten.
"We'll be doing it your way..."
"The next thirty years..."
Lord above, he breathed quietly, his grip on his pen tightening as he strove to fight against her accusation. Is this what she truly thought of him? Of their future together? That she'd have just one day? Obviously, he was a man and men had their responsibilities in marriage and he meant to take them seriously. But surely he was not as domineering as all that? She certainly had never suggested she'd found him this way before and if he was pushed to speak honestly then he'd tell she was more than his equal in that regard. He saw how she managed the female servants, her firm hand often in play, everyone falling in line at the sight of just one of her looks, himself included on occasion. He loved that about her, that she knew her own mind. Of course, when they were man and wife then they'd have to unite around a common view on things, but he'd reckoned she saw things as he did, for the most part.
He leant back in this seat, his hand slackening around the pen as he breathed deeply, unable to dismiss the truth of it. Elsie was upset. He hasn't meant her to be but she was. Thirty years? At this moment the next thirty days felt unlikely, and he didn't like it. He didn't like it one little bit.