Prologue

1902

The room is small, but nice. Two beds and commodes, a wardrobe and three windows. There are curtains, faded and thin, still pretty. She'll like it here. Even if she doesn't, it's her home for the time being.

"The right bed is mine", the maid next to her states. Vicky; a horse of a girl. Her hair is beautiful though, heavy and golden. "So is the right side of the wardrobe."

"I see", she smiles. It's one of those smiles that come easily these days, almost naturally; one of the qualities of a good servant, never mind the real feelings. "I'll use the left then."

"You can have those too", Vicky says, does it with the same smile while she opens some empty drawers of one of the commodes. She also shows her where to find spare aprons and bonnets, how to open the warped window, the grid that's supposed to heat the room.

The rest is as old as history. No cooking, no smoking, no noise in the room. Actually no noise at all. No swearing or men. Period. Waking time is at half past five, bedtime whenever the last task is finished and the housekeeper discharges them for the night.

"Lunch will be in forty minutes." Vicky finishes and hands her two uniform dresses. Her predecessor left them, they're as good as new. A bit too big maybe, but she can alter them if she wants to. "You shouldn't be late. Mrs. Winter detests tardiness and so does Mr. Carson. I'll show you the rest of the house afterwards."

"Thank you, Vicky." She says with another of those smiles, careful to not wrinkle the clothes in her arms.

"There's no need to thank me." The maid shrugs and starts to check her hair in the mirror. "It's not as if I had a choice."

She ponders her answer, gaining some time by putting the dresses into the wardrobe. She doesn't need to be friends with her colleague, doesn't need an enemy either.

"Even if you hadn't", she answers eventually, looking at her through the mirror. "I hope we'll get on."

"There's no need for that either;" Vicky fixes a loose hairpin. "I'll be leaving by the end of the month."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Vicky turns around, raises her brows and smiles. It's a real one that smile. The sneering twitching at the corners of her mouth gives her away. "Why would you be?"

This time she doesn't answer, bites her tongue and nods. She puts her luggage on the bed as Vicky leaves the room. The girl is right. Why would she care? She doesn't know her and never will. There'll be another maid, there's always another maid; none of them irreplaceable.

She runs a thumb over the label of her trunk. Elspeth Hughes the faded ink reads, although no one ever calls her that. But her mother insisted and there was no reason to object.

Elspeth Hughes. Harmonious letters written sixteen years ago when she first left home, left it at an age in which she should've been married already.

She, Elspeth, Elsie, shakes her head and opens the trunk. There's not much in it. She's wearing her Sunday best already and what else does she need? Another skirt, two blouses, her woolen coat. Undergarments, sponge bag, a pair of shoes. She owns some books, kept some old letters and photographs.

There's a velvet pouch which contains a brooch and there's a bunch of flowers. She takes the pouch and puts it under the pillow. Thinks and puts it under the mattress before shoving it into the lining of her trunk instead. The flowers end up on the bedside table. Cornflowers and poppies, pressed and withered already. Joe Burns gave them to her the last time she saw him. He always brings flowers when they meet. Flowers or another small gift. Apples and pears, gleaming feathers as black as pitch, a beautiful snake-stone he found in the fields. She assumed why, yet he never asked. Not even an insinuation in twenty-two months, nothing more than flowers and feathers every fortnight, a fleeting hand on her back and warm lips pressed to her knuckles as they parted at the gate of Abbotsford House. Well, until now. Until she'd told him she'd be leaving Scotland by the end of the month. Then he'd asked.

She's almost forty and yet he asked her to marry him. No one ever did before. Of course not. She's from a small village. Everyone knows everything and everybody knows daffy Becky. She doesn't blame the young men for not queuing up when she was younger. Really. A few sheet and pounds are hardly a dowry which countervails the prospects of ending up with a sister-in-law like that. Drivelling and babbling, a cumbersome, useless eater.

Maybe if she'd been less stubborn and proud, she would've been able to seduce one of the other crofters' sons into marriage. Actually, she knows she could have. Niall Brown tried to get under her skirt at more than one village dance; it surely wouldn't have taken a full roll in the hay to walk down the aisle with him.

But she is stubborn and proud. She wouldn't have had any of them. Not Niall with his bad teeth or his younger brother, neither Alan Mitchell nor his cousins. Kind souls they were, the Mitchell men; good-natured and dull as oxen. Even so, most of them made better matches than she would have been back then.

It's not like she's a better one now. But she can tell Joe is fond of her and if he needs something it's a wife and not money. His son is only twelve and the farm, though small, is too large to work without help; every penny spent on a farm hand an unnecessary expense. But they could manage together. He owns the land, they'll make a solid living. There might even be a child. It's unlikely, but not unheard of; she's still regular after all. They could have a nice life. Her mother and Becky could live with them. Joe might agree, if she asks him. She has to, she won't have money to send home when she marries him. Maybe they should have talked about it already, but then there really was no need until now. There still won't be, if she declines.

She bites her lip and eventually starts to unpack the rest of her belongings. Although Vicky will soon be gone, she puts the flowers between her undergarments. She simply doesn't feel like answering any questions. Even if she were able to answer them.

To be continued

* According to all we know, Elsie Hughes was born in 1862 and never knew the Crawley girls as infants/small children. Hence she must've been in her late 30s, maybe 40 "already", when she started working at Downton Abbey.

We also know, Joe proposed after she'd been offered the position as head housemaid at Downton. Elsie declined and he married another girl/woman.

Therefore his son Peter hardly could've been older than 10 and member of the army already when Joe proposed the second time in 1912/13.

Unless, of course, Ivy wasn't his first wife - and he asked Elsie to become his second when he first proposed, his third in Series 1.

So, there's your canon. At least it's mine. For now.

* Abbotsford House - located in the South of Scotland, built by Walter Scott. Elsie likes to read, hence Abbotsford seemd to be a nice choice for her previous working place.

Thanks (!) to Lindsey Grissom for agreeing to be my Beta. I'm thrilled. And you'll probably regret it