IF YOU WANT ME

DISCLAIMER: I do not own, nor do I in any way profit from the use of, the characters, settings, suggested plot lines, or ideas drawn from Downton Abbey.

Chapter 2 Words and Actions

She Didn't Know

It wasn't Mrs. Hughes's intention to involve anyone else. She had always dealt with her own problems, relied on her own ingenuity. In this case, however, the matter seemed beyond resolution. She stewed over it, agonizing over how she might approach Mr. Carson in order to discern his expectations, and came always to the same conclusion - that she could not possibly do it. And yet she couldn't put him off forever.

And then Mrs. Patmore inadvertently intervened, concerned by what were apparently visible signs of Mrs. Hughes's inner turmoil.

She felt foolish explaining it. "You'll say I'm being stupid," she said, as they settled in her room.

"Maybe you are," Mrs. Patmore responded, in that frank way she had.

Despite this discouraging beginning, Mrs. Hughes told her anyway. The cook did not say much to alleviate Mrs. Hughes's anxiety. Indeed, her comments about "keeping the lights off"and other such pearls of wisdom were not at all helpful. But as the conversation unfolded, Mrs. Hughes began to see beyond Mrs. Patmore's utility as a confidant to her potential as a conduit. In any other circumstances, the housekeeper would have scorned the concept of a go-between. But these were exceptional circumstances. And Mrs. Patmore, though reluctant, agreed to attempt to divine Mr. Carson's marital expectations.

Waiting for Mrs. Patmore's report was tortuous. It was reminiscent of those weeks of heart-in-mouth trepidation that she had endured during her cancer scare. Mrs. Patmore's first failed attempt nearly undid Mrs. Hughes. But then the cook got to it and returned with unambiguous results.

"He loves you," Mrs. Patmore said simply, in response to Mrs. Hughes's agitated question. "And he wants a full marriage," she added, and then sighed. "Put it almost poetically, he did. He said he wanted for you 'to live as closely as two people can in the time remaining' to you." There was a far-away look in the cook's eyes as she spoke.

Mrs. Patmore might linger over poetry, but Mrs. Hughes had no time for it. The words had a concrete meaning for her that did nothing, she realized, to dispel the state she was in. This fraught venture had only resolved part of the problem. So now she knew what Mr. Carson wanted and that brought her back to the issue that had stirred her anxiety in the first place. So he desired her, but that desire existed in the abstract. How would he react when he actually saw her? Would he still want her then? Mrs. Patmore's advice was of no help there. Neither, really, were Mr. Carson's words.

But what would help? Words couldn't solve this quandary. Only the reality of experience could. And that left Mrs. Hughes in a painful state of limbo. Experience would come too late for them. Was there any way out of this? She didn't know.

No Equivocation

It was imperative that they set the date and get on with it. Then, perhaps only then, could he find peace. He knew that there would be problems of one sort or another in marriage. But he had not been prepared for problems in love.

It began to occur to him, as he took up the issue with Mrs. Hughes and found her evasive, that she was putting him off. He tried to put it to her as benignly as he could, lest she sense the primal energy that was consuming him. "I wish we could set the date," he said. But she swept this aside with an airy declaration that, "There's no rush." She would not have said this if she knew the same kind of torment he endured.

That odd conversation with Mrs. Patmore, wherein she went on about the terms of marriage and then downed a glass of sherry like a sailor would a tot of rum, hinted that perhaps there was something else. It could only be a question of whether or not they married. And so when he met up with the cook again, he asked her straight out. "Has Mrs. Hughes changed her mind?" He dreaded the answer. His query elicited, however, the strangest of responses. No, Mrs. Hughes was not concerned with whether or not they should marry, but rather with the nature of the marriage they would have.

Bizarrely, it turned out that he and Mrs. Hughes were absorbed with the same thing, though in different ways, and it was driving them in different directions and to different solutions. He would have marriage as quickly as possible in order to quell his distracting physical hunger. She would have only the framework of marriage without a physical relationship at all. Or this is what he understood from Mrs. Patmore, at any rate.

His reply was immediate. He would not equivocate. For him the physical side of things was essential. Without it they would be as they were now, only in new quarters. He could not tolerate that, not within this new conception of their relationship. He would call it off rather than live in a sham of a marriage. It would be difficult to go on, but restoring control over his rampant desire might keep him busy for a while.

Now it was up to her and he wouldn't make it easy for her. She would have to make her mind up herself.

If You're Sure

She fretted about Mr. Carson's terms and how she would respond to them all afternoon, all the while despising herself for fretting, for this was not like her at all. She was decisive, and yet in this she could not make a decision. She reviled subterfuge and embraced straightforwardness, and in this she had employed an intermediary, with unsatisfactory results. What now?

An unexpected development that evening unlocked the door to potential resolution. Sergeant Willis appeared to tell Anna and Mr. Bates that their long nightmare was over. There was a confession in the matter of Lord Gillingham's valet and it had been verified. They were free.

Joy abounded throughout the Abbey. Everyone was caught up in Mr. Carson, who had been sullen and distant all day, was affected. And Mrs. Hughes herself was touched in a way that profoundly shifted her perspective.

Anna and Mr. Bates had known the truth all along, of course. But to be vindicated in law and in the public mind ...what sweet relief! The impact of the lifting of this burden was evident in the exultation in their faces and in the way they wound their arms about each other. The truth was out and they were free. And though she was hardly aware of when it happened, Mrs. Hughes suddenly found the swirling tempest of her own uncertainties clearing in the glow of their grateful countenances.

She had wanted to know Mr. Carson's expectations and now she did. She could reject his terms, and there would be no marriage. Or she could accept them without question and go ahead with it, risking the happiness of both of them in his potential dissatisfaction and her humiliation in rejection. Neither option was satisfactory.

Because it wasn't that simple. There was another side to consider: hers. What did she want? Her absorption in his reaction to her body had obscured an appreciation for her own needs. To answer this question she had to go back to Christmas Eve and to consider why it was she had accepted him in the first place. And when she thought about it, she knew why. She had accepted him because she loved him and because she'd seen in his eyes and felt in the atmosphere that enveloped them in that magical moment his unqualified love for her in an undeniably romantic sense. She had said yes to the romance of Charles Carson and Elsie Hughes. So she did want a full marriage, after all.

But they would have this full marriage - the union they both wanted - only if he accepted her physically. That was the sticking point. And only by confronting the issue could she - they - resolve it. It was not possible to do so in the flesh. Before marriage was out of the question and after marriage would be too late. She must put it to him in words, however inadequate they might be.

The spectacle of the relief that had swept over Anna and Mr. Bates at Sergeant Willis's announcement gave her courage. The revelation of the truth - admittedly something they already knew to be so - had released them. But the lesson was there nonetheless. Whatever happened, it was better to operate in truth, than to suffer in ignorance. Mrs. Hughes realized that her story might not have a such a happy ending. When apprised of the physical shortcomings of a woman in late middle age, Mr. Carson might recoil from her. She might lose him. But better to do so now than to endure an unhappy marriage, riddled with disappointment. She loved him too much to live with his rejection in an unfulfilled marriage.

The opportunity to test her new-found courage came almost immediately in the unlikely form of Daisy, whose transgression at the auction at Mallerton that afternoon created the occasion for a quiet moment in the butler's pantry. Reprimanded and then restored, Daisy fled, leaving Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson alone with their own unfinished business.

Clearly he expected her response to his conversation with Mrs. Patmore to be conveyed through that same medium. Or perhaps he simply did not want to discuss the issue at all. In any case, he made to leave.

"Well, shall we rejoin the others?"

She stopped him. There was no more appropriate moment. And though she wavered, she also knew a comforting sense of calm. Yes, it was always better to deal with a troubling matter directly. And yet she hedged, making almost polite conversation about his exchange with Mrs. Patmore, trying to find the right words to say what she needed to say. It was what he said next that finally crystallized them for her.

"Right. Well, if you've had second thoughts, I think we should let the staff know in the morning. I won't make a grand announcement. We'll just tell one or two people and let it come out naturally. There'll be a bit of a nine days' wonder, of course. But we'll get over it."

It wasn't even the hurt in his voice that did it, but rather that he was calling off their marriage before they'd even spoken of the problem that was dividing them. And now that she'd found the courage to speak to him directly, she was determined to have her say. She might well lose him because of it, but it would be with the truth laid out fully before them.

"You misunderstand me," she said.

He stopped and turned uncertainly toward her.

"I was afraid I'd be a disappointment to you. That I couldn't hope to please you as I am now," she said. It was a stark admission of the physical impact of age. It had taken all the courage she had to say it, but it was for him to decide now. And whichever way he chose, the agony of not-knowing would be over. She took a deep breath. "But if you're sure...."

And she waited.

Never So Sure of Anything

"But if you're sure...."

He had been sullen and distant all day. He had led a celibate life and not been unhappy. But the promise of marriage had unleashed something in him, something wonderful and exhilarating and inexorable - and he did not want to try to corral it again. No, he did not want to talk to her about this. If she would reject him, then let her do it through Mrs. Patmore.

When she began to speak, he went on the defensive, attempting to control his raging feelings by taking control of the conversation. He would lay out how they would announce the news of their changed intentions even before she had made her change of heart explicit to him, already administering the remedy before he'd gotten the diagnosis.

And then he heard her confession.

"I was afraid I'd be disappointment to you. That I couldn't please you as I am now."

He was staggered by her words. For many weeks past he had waged the campaign of his life against desire, trying everything he knew to contain the primal force that had made a mockery of his vaunted claims to self-discipline. And she thought she was undesirable?

Later, when he relived these fraught moments, he would consider what he might have done to contribute to her uncertainty and recognize that the aloofness he had affected as a means to contain his passions must have played a major role in convincing her of her undesirability.

In the moment, however, he could only respond to the question put to him in the frankest manner possible.

"I've never been so sure of anything!" he declared, his voice firm and quiet, but only with a tremendous effort.

And then he waited.

Exhilaration

"Well, then, Mr. Carson, if you want me, you can have me, to quite Oliver Cromwell, 'warts and all.'"

Her specific words were lost to him. He only absorbed their meaning. She was giving herself to him, agreeing that their union would be complete, that theirs would be a full marriage.

She had doubted her attractiveness, doubted his desire. And even as she reached out to him with these words - whatever they were - he saw uncertainty in her eyes and heard a tremulousness in her voice. She still doubted. He had to make clear to her here and now that her fears had no foundation. No words were equal to that. He must loose the bindings of his ardour and show her how wrong she was. And face, in the same moment, his own apprehensions about the magnitude of his longing. He reached out to her in a trepidation of his own.

But his hands, when he placed them on her shoulders, were gentle. His kiss was deep, full of passion and expressing all the intensity of his feelings, but not devouring. He was sensitive to the nuances of the body beneath his hands and of the mouth under his. And was intensely gratified to feel in them her desire for him.

And he knew in that moment a tremendous relief as well as exhilaration. He would find with her a physical satisfaction and pleasure that both indulged his hunger and satiated it, because she was all he wanted. This revelation came to him through physical cues - the lightness with which he held her and the impulse he felt, when they relaxed , to place his hands tenderly on her face and to press his lips gently to her forehead, and then to draw her into the circle of his embrace.

She was all he needed and she wanted him, too.

Contentment

In the firm hands on her shoulders, the searching mouth on hers, the arms wrapped about her so tightly that they were almost one, she found all the answer she needed. In the tension that gripped him, a tension that suggested he was restraining his longing, he conveyed the truth more eloquently than any words ever could. She was swept away with an intensity of feeling she had not known since Christmas Eve.

He loved her and he wanted her in every way. She doubted no more.

A/N1. The italicized portions of the text are drawn verbatim from Downton Abbey, Season 6, Episode 1.

A/N2. I thought this would be a three-part story, but it had a mind of its own and insisted on brevity. So it is complete in two.