Chelsie Postscript *

He spoke hardly a word for the rest of the day. Elsie noticed and let him be, until, that is, they were established in the sitting room of their cottage at the end of the day. She'd have preferred to have gone straight to bed, but he, restless, had migrated to this room and she had followed.

"You're quiet," she said, sitting beside him.

"Am I." He was staring moodily into the grate and wasn't really paying attention to her. He hadn't even poured them a relaxing drink.

She watched him for a long moment, wondering whether it would not be wiser to let sleeping dogs lie. But she had an inkling of what was on his mind and thought it well to remind him that marriage meant he no longer had to deal with everything alone.

"Were you caught up in the gale of Hurricane Mary?" It was not, perhaps, the most tactful way to put it, but in the circumstances it seemed appropriate. No one at Downton had entirely escaped the currents of the family storm, but he would have been more susceptible to it than most.

"We spoke this morning," he said guardedly, with only a flicker of his eyes to tell her he did not appreciate her irreverence.

"So, Lady Mary tramples her sister into the ground once more," she went on bluntly, "only this time with stakes at the Grand National level."

This shook him a little from his despondency and he stared at her, rattled that she should know so much.

She tossed her head impatiently. "There are maids and footmen and valets and chauffeurs in the house and they've all got ears. And some of them have tongues, too."

This acknowledgment of house gossiping would have fired his displeasure on any other occasion, but he let it pass.

"I went to see her today," he said instead."Your Mr. Branson put me up to it."

She ignored his little provocation. "He has a good heart," she said airily.

He ignored her little provocation. "Lady Mary's got her own troubles, that's what's behind it. But this business with Lady Edith." He shook his head, almost bewildered. "They aren't children any more." Absently he reached out to take her hand. "She said she apologized, though I'm not sure that's true. She didn't sound at all contrite."

"Lady Mary lied to you?"

"No," he said coolly, squeezing her hand reproachfully. "She did not lie, not in a deliberate sense. She wasn't trying to deceive me. I think she was trying to convince herself that she'd tried to fix things. In the moment, she seemed rather more concerned with the consequences for herself than for Lady Edith."

"And this surprises you?" It did not surprise Elsie at all.

"I'm not surprised. It's... I don't know. I feel she's let us both down."

"Did you tell her that?"

"No. I've never found that a useful approach. I hated to be told I'd been a disappointment. It just made me mule-ish and she's like that, too. Besides, everyone else is angry with her. She doesn't need mine on top of that." He shifted a bit so that he could look directly at her and when he spoke again it was with a dogged earnestness, as if he needed to persuade her to his view. "I've always tried to make her see things for herself. I've tried to boost her confidence, give her the tools to help her avoid falling into this trap of vindictiveness."

"But you are angry with her."

"A little." He exhaled loudly, clenching and unclenching his fist. "But mostly I'm frustrated. She knows better. I know she does."

Her capacity to see both sides of a quarrel was one of the things that made Elsie a successful manager of staff, but when it came to Lady Mary she was often hard-pressed to make the effort. But she couldn't ask her husband to confide in her and then dismiss his feelings. "We all get caught up in our emotions in the heat of the moment," she said, which was about as far as she could stretch, even for him.

He just shook his head. And then something shifted in him and he cast a sidelong glance at her. "I thought of you today when I was with Lady Mary," he said mildly.

"I'm flattered." She was only half-joking.

"I was holding her and thinking how different it was to holding you."

"I'm glad hear it."

His countenance softened at little at her tone. She was teasing him and he was giving in to it. But he wanted to say something else, go in a different direction. "For many years, the times I spent with Lady Mary - especially when she was a little girl - were the happiest moments of my life. I cherished those occasional glimpses of pure love that I had in the innocent embrace of that child. I used to think that was as good as it got. It was as good as I was going to get, at any rate. But as I held her today, I thought of you and realized how the joy I found there has been eclipsed by... us. ... It is an awesome thing, marriage."

For all that he had said it and meant it, and she knew in her bones how deeply it went with him, the moment passed and he slipped into dejection again. His empathy for Lady Mary made her distress his own. Although Elsie was less convinced of the legitimacy of Lady Mary's woes, she could not ignore the reality of their impact on him.

"She's taken quite a toll on you."

"It's a price I've always been willing to pay," he said firmly, rejecting any invitation to regret. He turned his solemn dark eyes on her. "I love her, Elsie. More than I can say. I wouldn't give her up for the world."

"I know," she said simply and without rancor. He would not be the Mr. Carson she loved if he did not love Lady Mary so well.

"I will admit though, I am glad I've only ever loved one of them." And he gave her a look.

She laughed at that and combed her fingers through his hair, before drawing her fingertips down the side of his face. "They're not all like your Lady Mary, you know. Sometimes they're like Lady Sybil."

An involuntary shudder gripped him and he grimaced. "She married the chauffeur!" he said indignantly.

It was hardly one of his more endearing reactions, but her heart swelled with affection for him anyway. She leant over him and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.

"Oh, you."

* AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm completely with Carson when it comes to Mary, but Mrs. Hughes wanted a look in on this.