ENOUGH OF THAT

DISCLAIMER: I do not own, nor do I profit in any way from, the characters, settings, or ideas drawn from Downton Abbey that may appear here. Everything belongs to Julian Fellowes.

Chapter 10 By Special Request

Allies Again

He was at the Dower House again, this time at his own request. It was a good five weeks on from that turbulent encounter in the Dowager's sitting room. Good fortune, or possibly just random circumstance, had prevented their meeting in the meantime and for this Carson was grateful. He was not in the least cowed by the Dowager Lady Grantham but, like Lord Grantham, he appreciated the value of an interview at a time of his own choosing. It never hurt to have as many cards in hand as possible.

Spratt met him at the door.

Carson exercised little mental energy over the man who served as butler at the Dower House. Although he had been there for several years, Spratt's almost anti-social behaviour ensured that he remained a stranger to the staff of Downton Abbey. Would that the same could be said of Her Ladyship's lady's maid Miss Denker who was all too familiar a face in the servants' hall at the big house where she dispensed a never-ending supply of gossip and innuendo. Much of what the Downton staff did know about Spratt came to them through this medium which made most of it, in Carson's opinion, next to worthless.

The last time he had been here Spratt had greeted him in silence, responding in tight-lipped monosyllables to Carson's few words. Relieved of the need for pleasantries, Carson stepped into the house with only a nod to the man, and was surprised when Spratt himself spoke.

"Why are you here again?" he asked belligerently.

Carson pivoted on one heel, whirling on the man, startled as much by the fact of communication as by the words themselves. "I beg your pardon!" he said coldly.

Spratt's eyes bulged a little. He almost always looked as though he were about to explode. For a few seconds he returned Carson's glare, a challenging look in his eye. And then he relented, dropped his eyes, and took a half step back. Gesturing silently to the stairs, he led the way without another word. Carson could only shake his head in wonder.

As they approached Her Ladyship's sitting room, Carson could not help but recall conversations he had had with Lady Mary - Miss Mary, as she was then - a quarter of a century earlier. He had impressed upon her the cardinal importance of making an apology when one was in the wrong. He had laid emphasis on the fact that the identity of the wronged party was immaterial - a transgression against a footman or a hallboy or an undergardener was as serious as one committed against His Lordship or the Dowager Countess, and repentance to be as sincerely expressed, regardless of rank. This was a dictum of singular significance to him. In this specific matter, Elsie thought him more deserving of an apology from the Dowager than the other way around, but he knew she was wrong in this. It was of no consequence what Her Ladyship had said to him. The impropriety here was all his own.

The Dowager clearly wasn't harbouring a grudge for she welcomed him with a cheerful greeting and a warm smile. Had she had any misgivings her demeanour would have been more aloof. Although she beckoned him into the room, she did not, of course, invite him to sit. He was relieved. All was as usual between them.

"Have you been to Downton to see my new great-grandson, Carson?"

Well, this explained in part the exuberance of her countenance. Lady Mary had given birth to a health baby boy only six days earlier, and mother and son were thriving. The event had made for a celebratory mood at the Abbey and in the village, and Carson had experienced this vicariously through Elsie and His Lordship and more directly in a visit with Lady Mary and Master Stephen, as they were calling the baby, only the day before.

"I have, my lady," he responded with feeling. It had warmed his heart to see Lady Mary's great happiness.

For a few minutes they exchanged notes on the remarkable child. Carson could appreciate the enthusiasm with which Her Ladyship spoke of the boy, even knowing she would have seen him only briefly and not held him. The Dowager cherished infant members of the family, but largely in the abstract.

Carson wasn't one to seize on a distraction to delay an unpleasant task, so the moment the conversation about Lady Mary's news lagged, he came to the point.

"My lady, I asked to see you that I might address the concerns you raised in our last conversation. But first, I wish to apologize for my behaviour toward you on that occasion. My display of temper was without foundation and entirely unacceptable. I hope you can forgive me."

He spoke in solemn tones and Her Ladyship listened to his words with an equally sombre expression on her face. Then she nodded in acknowledgment of his speech. "Thank you, Carson. I accept your apology and forgive the offense."

Though they occupied distinctly different strata of their society, Carson and the Dowager had gotten on so well over the years because of their common perception of the world and how things ought to work. It did not occur to the Dowager to absolve Carson of even partial responsibility for his outburst by referring to her provocation and he saw it as a sign of respect that she did not undercut the dignity of his apology by attempting to do so.

"Have you made any decisions about your future role at Downton, then?" she asked. It was a perfunctory question. She knew he had, else he would not now be standing here before her.

"I have, my lady. Mr. Barrow is the butler at Downton Abbey now and he will exercise authority in every aspect of that position. I will play no role, formal or informal, in the conventional sense. Mr. Barrow and I have met regularly these past several weeks to discuss a few of the issues arising from household management in which he still lacks confidence. And I have been...for lack of a better word, tutoring him...in the matter of wine care and management. We have established a...collegial...relationship." Carson's tone with these last few words reflected his own slight disbelief at that development. "I imagine these consultations may taper off as Mr. Barrow becomes more comfortable in the work. I have assured him that he may continue to call on me for advice, at his discretion." He paused. "He is a quick learner, my lady, and wants to do his best. He will serve Downton well."

He made this statement calmly and with a confidence born of his own acceptance, and indeed approval, of its substance. He could not quite pinpoint when it had happened, but sometime in the past few weeks - perhaps it wasn't a single moment that could be identified - he had let go of his sorrow and turned a corner in the whole business. Weeks ago, facing the Dowager, he had been in a dark place, unhappy in his present and uncertain about his future, and had thus been acutely vulnerable to her censure. This time, he was the model of equanimity. Nothing she might say would rattle him.

For a long moment she stared at him and he returned her gaze, not defiantly, but only patiently waiting her response. There was no reading her. She was inscrutable.

"It is a hard lesson for us both, Carson. You have borne the tide of change more bravely than I."

This was unexpected. He briefly bowed his head. "You do yourself a disservice, my lady."

Her face twitched almost imperceptibly in acknowledgment of his courtesy. "And you are satisfied with this resolution?" she asked, giving away nothing in the tone of her voice.

He gave a deep nod. "I am, my lady. I hope I have not disappointed you." It was a sincere desire on his part. However determined he was in this course of action, still he wished for her continued good will. She was one of the few persons in his life whose good opinion he valued.

"You have not disappointed in fifty years' faithful service to the Crawley family, Carson," she said firmly, and he appreciated her emphasis on the word faithful, an indication that her harsh words at their previous interview had been a device. "And you do not disappoint now." She spoke with a gravity that invested her words with an almost regal bearing. "My concern was only ever with the state of your heart and mind, never your labour. I wish only that you should be content."

He nodded again and had to struggle to suppress the smile that tugged at his lips and that would have been inappropriate in so formal a moment. "I am, my lady."

The cast of her features softened a little, revealing that she felt a similar pull on her emotions. "Then I am content, Carson."

They both enjoyed the moment.

"What will you do now?"

The Dowager Lady Grantham had always taken a patrician interest in the lives of those who served the family. This impulse had, in the past, prompted her to intervene with the draft board during the war to prevent the conscription of footman William Mason and valet/butler Joseph Molesley. When William went to war despite her efforts and returned mortally wounded, she had again exercised aristocratic privilege to ensure that he spent his last days at the officers' convalescent home at Downton Abbey, in contravention of military principles, sensitive to both William's comfort and his father's convenience. In the uncertain post-war world she had interceded twice on behalf of the hapless Mr. Molesley. There were many other examples of her largesse. But she had a much greater investment in Carson's well-being, due in part to the longevity of his service but not least because she was also particularly fond of him.

He received this manifestation of interest from her as a matter of course.

"I want to reacquaint myself with the estate, my lady. I knew it well as a boy, but I've not had time for it these many years past. His Lordship and I have been walking it together of late and I want to get to know it again."

She nodded politely.

"I also want to work at being a proper husband," he went on. "Marriage might come more easily to a younger man, but it is all new to me and requires considerable concentration on my part. I have...struggled to get things right," he admitted. "You may perhaps think that silly, my lady."

She drew herself up almost indignantly. "No woman would think ill of a man for wanting to invest himself in his marriage, Carson," she said firmly, and then added, "Mrs. Hughes is a fortunate woman."

"I am the fortunate one, my lady," he said, daring to correct her because he was confident that she would agree with him.

"Yes," she drawled. "You're right, of course."

"And..." He paused. "I thought I might try my hand at something new," he said, watching her carefully.

She raised her head alertly and her eyebrows rose with slight trepidation. "That sounds ominous." It was a little joke they could both appreciate.

"Lady Hexham has suggested I write an article for her magazine."

If he had thought this would startle her, he was mistaken.

"Then you are seriously considering it?" she said swiftly.

He was taken aback. "You know of this, my lady?"

She made an impatient gesture. "I know everything, Carson. None of them can keep a secret. How will you manage the physical aspect of this venture into the realm of popular writing?"

So she did not know everything. He ignored the disdain with which she had invested the word popular because he shared it. It did not surprise him, nor did it offend him, that she should refer so bluntly to his ailment. He - almost always - appreciated her plain-speaking manner.

"Lady Hexham has offered me the services of a stenographer, my lady. That person is coming to Downton next week for a preliminary consultation. If we get on, then we will proceed."

"Stenographer," Lady Grantham said acidly. "I dislike new words. At least it's not French."

Once more they were in agreement.

"What about Lady Mary's idea of a history of the Crawley family?" she asked abruptly.

His eyes widened, although if she knew about the one, it was hardly surprising she should be aware of the other. "You are well informed, my lady."

She shrugged. "I only wish it had been my idea. What about it, Carson?" she repeated insistently.

He hedged here. With the piece for The Sketch he was dipping his toes into the water. He still had no idea whether or not it would work out. Lady Mary's project was far more ambitious and he was wary of getting in over his head.

"That is a...more complicated matter, my lady. The scope of the work is daunting, as you may imagine. I could not attempt it without physical assistance. How that might be managed..." His uncharacteristic inarticulateness was a device, a not-so-subtle disguising of the critical question at the heart of such an endeavour: who would pay for it?

"But the work is critical, Carson!" she declared vehemently. "It is very much to our purposes!"

"My lady?" He accepted that a family history might have some intrinsic value to the family proper, as Lady Mary had suggested, but he had not seen in it anything quite so definite as a purpose.

"Carson," she said, fixing him with an impatient eye and addressing him as though he were a particularly obtuse junior footman, "control the past and you shape the future. History is not neutral. It is the tool of those who dominate the narrative. And the first party to get their story into print gains an insuperable advantage."

He supposed he did see her point, but she seemed almost alarmingly animated about this. It did not occur to him to question her assumption that his account of Crawley history would, of course, accord with hers, because it would.

"I will speak to Lady Mary and His Lordship about this, Carson. This is an enterprise that the family cannot afford to ignore. If it comes to it, I shall pay for your...your help...myself."

Carson was inspired by her enthusiasm, but still he wondered. "And you think it that important, my lady?"

She sighed in exasperation. "Really, Carson. We may be losing ground on several fronts, but we don't have to surrender it all. History," she added knowingly, "is the long game."

He could only look upon her with admiration. The world would not know her like again. And that, he supposed, was reason enough to take up this project.

"What of Lord Grantham, Carson?"

This sudden redirection of the conversation startled him, but he swiftly reoriented his thoughts. Last time she had voiced her concerns about how Carson's own circumstances might affect her son.

"Lord Grantham" he assured her solemnly, "shall always have my support."

"Yes," she said slowly. "He tells me that he has stepped into the breach opened by Lady Mary's indisposition." She stared at him for a long moment and he saw in her face a look of calculated amusement. "I wonder how much persuading that took."

He discreetly chose not to make a reply and shortly thereafter took his leave from her.

He had entered the Dower House in a state of tranquillity and departed from it not only satisfied with the outcome of the conversation, but also a little excited. He had thought his apology and her forgiveness would be the centrepiece of the interview, but they had passed on so quickly to future considerations that he was still reeling a little from the suddenness of it all. It would take him a little time to digest all the implications.

A more immediate challenge soon absorbed his thoughts as he walked back to the cottage. How, he wondered, was he going to explain this to Elsie?

Juggling

They discussed his meeting with the Dowager over dinner at the cottage later that evening. They had not planned to eat at home together, but he had hastily arranged the meal, prevailing upon Mrs. Patmore to provide them with the mains and making of her an additional request that drove that good woman's eyebrows to their limits. He thought his news worthy of a special effort.

"So how did your conversation with the Dowager go?" she prompted him, as they sat down to eat. She had done the immediate preparations for the meal with the components he had secured, his resourcefulness stretching only so far.

He imparted to her that part of the exchange with the Dowager dealing with his apology, letting the other matter lie until he presented her with the first surprise of the evening. She was pleased by his determination to clear the supper dishes and then somewhat confused when he placed before her the pan with their dessert in it.

"I saw Mrs. Patmore making pies this morning," she said, looking to him for an explanation. "Why would she have made rice pudding, too?"

"She didn't make it," he said, standing proudly at her side. "I did."

"You!" Elsie could not have been more astonished. "My goodness! What brought you to that?"

He supposed her wonder was justified. He had almost nothing to do with the preparation of food in their home. "I'm working at being a better husband," he explained. "Only don't get used to it. Shaky hands are a menace in the kitchen."

She sighed playfully. "You've an ironclad excuse." She served it up for them and he waited, a little anxiously, for her verdict. She savoured her first taste of it. "Well, Charlie Carson," she began, after an excruciatingly long minute, "you've done yourself up proud. I am impressed."

He smiled at her praise, but downplayed the achievement. "I only followed the receipt. Anyone can do that."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Don't let Mrs. Patmore hear you say that." She looked up to find him staring at her with a curious look on his face. "What is it?"

"If I'd been braver, we could have had more years together. If I could have seen straighter, I'd have loved you earlier."

"What makes you think I'd have felt the same about you?" she demanded, teasing him.

"Because I'd have wooed you - properly - and you'd have found me irresistible, Elsie," he said, with all the swaggering confidence of a much younger man.

They laughed. They weren't ones to dwell on the past.

" So was that all the Dowager had to say?"

Well, she asked. So he told her.

She already knew about the idea of a history of the family. They'd discussed it off and on over the last few weeks, though neither had seen any practical route to it. Now, however, it appeared that the Dowager was prepared to arrange the means.

"And this interests you," she said, not really asking. She knew he loved both the Crawleys and history.

With her he could be more open than was ever possible with the Dowager, or anyone else. "I am," he said simply. He frowned a little at the almost resigned look on her face. "Elsie? Are you unhappy about that?" He would not write a word without her approval.

She smiled. "No, of course not. I think it was a job made in heaven for you. It's only..." She shook her head. "Oh dear, I thought the one thing your retirement would mean was that there would be less of the Dowager in our lives. But now she's wormed her way back in, perhaps even more intimately than before. I might have known she'd find some way to keep her talons in you."

"Elsie!"

She wasn't really annoyed and he wasn't really indignant. They both laughed.

"She thinks more of you than you do of her," he said, trying to bring her around with guilt.

Elsie did not succumb to it. "That's not hard," she muttered, and decided it was best to change the subject. "What about this stenographer Lady Hexham is sending to you, Charlie? What sort of person will you get?"

"I don't know." He had given no thought to it.

"Probably someone young, at any rate," she went on. "Lady Hexham's business is a modern enterprise."

He shuddered at the word modern. It was another of those troubling words like change and the future. But Lady Hexham's commission now seemed the less daunting prospect. "Writing a...book...," he was still trying to get his mind around something so immense in scope, "...will mean working with some...you know, stenographer person...a great deal more than the article will require," he said more seriously. This worried him just a little.

"A man or woman?" Elsie asked.

He shrugged. "I would want the best person for the job." He always had.

She thought about it for a minute. "A woman, then, I think."

"What?"

"You'd be more yourself. You know what you're like."

"Elsie!" She had somehow made a business conversation sound a little risqué.

"I'm not suggesting anything improper," she said, rolling her eyes at him.

He was in good humour tonight and it was such a relief to her.

"How will His Lordship get along without you?" she asked, turning the conversation that he might soothe his ruffled feathers.

"Our Monday mornings are sacrosanct," he said solemnly. "And he's busier himself these days, in any case. And I'm glad of that," he added with emphasis. "He is, of course, happier to be more involved with the estate again, but it's meant that our conversations lately have been filled with the details of negotiations over Pipp's Corner and wheat prices. He has not returned to the subject of my past nor made any more irregular requests." He usually related to Elsie the general outlines of his conversations with His Lordship, so she was aware of that unsettling excavation of his dance hall days that His Lordship had undertaken a few weeks ago.

"He gave you his word, Charlie. He wouldn't go back on it."

He conceded that.

They scraped up the last of their rice pudding and this time Elsie got up to put the dishes in the sink. As she did so, a mischievous spirit overtook her, prompted by his remarks about His Lordship. She turned to face him, leaning back against the cupboard.

"Can you juggle, Charlie?"

He groaned. "Don't bring that up!"

"But...can you?"

He glared at her and she knew from the irritated look on his face that he could. Or had once been able to do so.

"Come on, then," she coaxed him. "Show me." And when he made more inarticulate noises of aggravation, her smile only broadened. "I'm your wife. Think of it as a special favour."

This prompted him to draw himself up in his chair as though he were about to make a grave pronouncement. "I am shocked," he said in a clear, cold tone, "that you should be interested in such a vulgar past-time."

This made her laugh aloud. "Oh, Charlie. Vulgar, indeed. Please."

"We've nothing to juggle with," he said, as if that would put her off.

But she had anticipated that and went rummaging in the cupboard behind her. He groaned again as she filled her arms with potatoes and then delivered them to the table. They rolled in every direction as she dropped them.

"Will these do?" she asked, fixing him with those sparkling eyes he found impossible to resist.

With a sigh, he began to examine the potatoes, picking them up one at a time, looking them over, dividing them according to size. "What I do for you," he muttered, glancing at her darkly.

She sank a hand into his hair, entangling her fingers, and then leaned over to kiss the top of his head. This was a request that needed some encouragement.

"I'll just drop them all, you know," he said, standing up. "I'll be lucky if I get one go-around with them. See," he said, and pointed to Shep, who had come to sit in the doorway of the kitchen.

"Oh, never mind him," Elsie said. "He likes raw potatoes. I just want to see you try."

He picked up four potatoes, all of them roughly the same size, and then took another one to make five. Looking at her, he shrugged. "I might as well drop one more in the bargain."

It had been such a long time. He weighed the potatoes in his hands, shifted them from one hand to the other, thought about it. He gave a few preliminary tosses and then it seemed to come back to him and he threw the potatoes, one after another into the air. They all circulated once. He caught them all and then missed the next and in a moment there were potatoes flying in every direction. Shep made an uncharacteristic leap to catch one in mid-air and then retreated quickly into the hallway, lest anyone try to take it away from him.

But neither Elsie nor Charlie were paying him any attention. As the potatoes scattered in different directions, she burst into laughter. After a few seconds watching her holding her sides as she convulsed in merriment, he began to laugh, too. He dusted off his hands and then reached for her, drawing her into his arms, wrapping them tightly around her. When she had regained some semblance of self-control, she put her hands up to his face and leaned up to kiss him. Such a display required a reward.

When at length they relaxed and could look at each other again, she gazed on him with wonder. She had known him so well and for so long and yet he could still surprise.

He bent his head to hers again and she thought he might renew their kiss. Instead he spoke softly in her ear.

"Tell no one," he said.

THE END