Ch 8- Scandal

Elsie stared out the window watching the pouring rain cascade down the glass, jumping as the lightening struck. She could scarcely believe she'd been made such a heated topic of conversation and felt almost paralyzed by it. She didn't care much about Downton, but the fact that their new life was jeopardized, the fact that she'd shamed her Charlie: those things devastated her.

"You will do no such thing." Cora insisted angrily, sipping her tea.

Cora was livid, not with the future Mrs. Carson, but with the scandal that engulfed her. She and her husband-to-be, found themselves in the sitting room with Lord and Lady Grantham, trying to figure out what to do.

"Every one knows my shame." She turned, facing her fiancé and employers. "It marks your house. It scars my Charlie." She said, gazing at him with tears in her eyes.

He looked back at her, pained and defeated, his own tears signaling his heartbreak. She took a labored breath, her eyes focused on his now.

"Oh Charlie." She whispered.

He turned away, Lord Grantham looked back sympathetically, wondering how he could fix this mess. He softly pat his broken hearted butler on the shoulder.

…

"Loves what are you doing down there?" Beryl asked.

She'd been watching the children and trying to comfort them but it was too late: they'd already heard everything. The baby was napping in Elsie's sitting room, but Mrs. Patmore found the twins hiding under Carson's desk. They hid their faces when she finally found them.

"Are we bad?" Ainslie asked innocently.

Their father had always made them feel worthless, but to know the truth, some truth they didn't wholly understand, about their real mum's birth being forced on their grandmother… whatever that meant. The twins didn't understand, but they knew the implication. Mummy was bad, grandmummy was bad and so were they.

"He won't want us anymore." Allaster sniffled.

"Now you calm that down, that's ridiculousness if I've ever seen it. Come on, out with you and cookie time!"

The twins cried out, feeling so hurt by whatever was going on that nothing save the power of time could heal them. The twins curled up, holding each other tight as they'd done all their lives. The pair was devastated, feeling their hopes for a different like were ruined.

'Here it goes.' Ainslie thought. 'Some other mess you don't understand.'

Allaster only thought of loosing his new father: the idea made him weep.

….

"Mrs. Hughes." Robert blinked uncomfortably as he spoke. "I don't understand how it came about in the papers… that you're a wanton woman?" He certainly didn't see it.

Elsie breathed uncomfortably. "The truth is m'lord I…"

"We told you they were cousins because we thought they were." Carson interjected.

He didn't think of them in that way. With Allaster in particular, he'd seen his son the moment he looked at the child. The idea of loosing him and his sisters if Elsie left, which she'd decided was best, devastated the butler.

"They're my grandchildren, m'lord." Elsie closed her eyes and just said it, figuring it didn't matter: she'd have to leave anyway.

"WHAT?!" Cora and Robert cried so loud that Molesley could hear it down the hall. Robert's voice made the chandelier shake and Molesley found himself gazing at the dining room ceiling in surprise.

"I don't think there's a very high instance of earthquakes in this part of England Mrs. Molesley." Baxter cautioned sweetly.

"Yes." Elsie continued. Carson hung his head. "M'lord it isn't." She swallowed her tears. "It's far from easy to say."

"Well say it!" Robert stood, angry now.

Something inside Carson jumped, wanting to fight Lord Grantham for snapping at his Elsie. It didn't matter that she was leaving him; he'd fight to the end of the end for her.

"Robert!" Cora cautioned, tugging at his sleeve and urging him to sit.

"I had their mother." She took a breath, beginning to shake. "When I was a young woman, alone in Scotland. I was… I was raped." She let the last word roll off her tongue slowly and closed her eyes, not wanting to see mixed the looks of horror and anger that played upon her face.

"Oh Mrs. Hughes!" Cora cried sadly.

"I was with her a year and at the end of that year, I came here. Then cousins stole the baby I'd very much planned on keeping."

"We didn't realize m'lord, until Ainslie began to speak of her mother."

Lord Grantham stared off, feeling horrible now.

"And you see their father was also a cousin of mine, I thought that's how we were related. I'd lost touch with my daughter, and with all of them over the last few years. Her guardians had never believed it was… something forced on me. So they cut her off from me. I'm sorry m'lord, for any shame it brings."

"No. No Mrs. Hughes. I'm sorry." He said.

Carson stared back wondering why she hadn't apologized to him.

"Mrs. Hughes, I don't know how they found out: but I promise they won't get a way with it." Cora explained.

"No they will not." Robert uttered, having obviously changed the focus of his anger.

Carson's heart thudded now that this part had all been resolved. What about him? He was her beloved? And worse, she was his. He was so angered that she'd been slandered he didn't think he'd be at the wedding.

"If you'll excuse me." She said, tears in her eyes.

Elsie left quickly, Carson at her heals.

"Elsie!" He cried, following her toward the green baize door and down the stairs.

"Don't touch me!" She cried when he tried to softly grab her arms.

They didn't know the children were hiding and watched as he reached to grab her. The two were unreasonably afraid. There they went again, daddy grabbing mummy, hurting their mummy. It was how she'd died.

"Mummy!" Allaster cried out, fearful about what might happen to her.

The couple sighed turning toward the place they'd heard the little voice.

It'd been one of the more trying days of their lives, and a shocking one to boot. Elsie had shown up in the paper's gossip column: Downton's Housekeeper Keeps More Than One House. She'd seen it while in the village with the children and thought that it was merely about her and Carson's new life and cottage. Sometimes the papers did cute stories about people and families: she assumed it was that.

Instead, the article detailed her painful loss of a bastard daughter and how it had culminated in her inheriting the children. Elsie was devastated, confused and scared: she'd never imagined herself receiving her very own scarlet letter, especially when she was going to be Charlie's bride so soon. Moreover, who would've said such things? Who could've found out?

"No." He said. "Don't leave me Elsie. Please, never my love."

The twins were confused: daddy used to say that too.

"Everyone knows I'm not good enough for you now." She cried.

"No, no." He soothed, drying her tears with his hands.

The twins watched carefully; having not believed him before when he said this is what his hands, as a father and husband, were made for.

"Who could've done this?" She asked.

"Shu… please, please let me hold you." He whispered lovingly, pulling her into a hug.

"You still want me?" She asked, surprised.

The twins were surprised too but couldn't believe that they were still wanted. After all they were the reason Elsie was bad. They'd been a reason their real mother was too (according to their original father).

"Always and always."

"I don't know how we'll deal with everyone knowing."

"We'll live it down." He promised, rocking her now.

"I don't know if I can do it to you."

"If you don't it'll kill me." He whispered, rubbing his nose against hers.

Her heart split at his words. It would kill her too but she wasn't sure she could stand to see him shamed. In her mind it was only right that she and the children leave. Carson was begging her not to do it, and even Cora had been angered at the thought.

"Are we bad?" Ainslie asked, she and her poking their heads out of their hiding place, Carson and Elsie looked back in surprise.

…..

Upstairs, Lady Edith was in a panic. If they'd done this when they found out Mrs. Hughes had had a illegitimate daughter, through no fault of her own… how would she ever live the Marigold situation down? Moreover, how would she ever be happy again? The incident brought back old feelings that had been anxiously tucked away when Marigold moved into the house, but remained unresolved and had grown perhaps more complicated than ever.

It'd made the papers that Downton's housekeeper; the future Mrs. Charles Carson was a wanton woman. If she was that for having been raped… Edith knew she was good and ruined and that was the end of it.

'No wonder.' Edith thought. 'Mrs. Hughes didn't say anything when she obviously found out.'

It'd been obvious to her for some time that Mrs. Hughes knew about Marigold. And for a while that'd been something that terrified her, but now she finally understood why her secret was safe.

….

"I told you I don't know anything." Baxter gave a tired sigh, hurrying down the steps as Thomas breathed down her back.

"Oh don't you? You've been watching the children."

"So have you." She gave a frustrated sigh. "You're not the one who reported it?"

"No!" He seemed surprised. "I wouldn't go that far Ms. Baxter. I just resent being late with my news." The truth was he would go that far. He just wouldn't where Mrs. Hughes was concerned. First off, he was afraid of Carson's wrath and of Lord Grantham's… but really he liked Mrs. Hughes, a sentiment he kept hidden inside.

"Hmm." She said reaching the closet she'd been headed toward. "You know, we all should've known."

"What do you mean?"

"Thomas." She sighed, putting the blankets she'd been carrying on a shelf and closing the door. "We all have little secrets. You know mine, as does Lady Grantham now mind you. And we all know yours. But those children… they're her image. There's no way they could just be cousins. I'm surprised she didn't know any sooner, but the point is; she didn't. Now the question is, if you didn't do it, who did?"

After parting with Thomas, Baxter took the devastating news and the conversation to the only logical source she could think of: Mr. Molesley.

…..

"My loves why would you ever think you were bad?" Elsie cried, more pained by this than her own shame.

She and Carson had taken the twins into his pantry with a pot of tea to discuss their outrageous statement. The twins sat uncomfortably in their chairs.

"Um…" Ainslie began.

The pair looked up, noting their adoptive parents sat calmly, almost lovingly awaiting an explanation. Beryl had told the couple of what the children had said when they were upstairs. It'd confused the cook but unfortunately, Elsie thought she understood. The twins were crying softly, sure they were about to be tossed out, that they would loose this mummy too. They didn't know how to express how they felt or what had been the situation at home, all they knew was that this reminded them of it.

"Somebody made you have mummy." Ainslie offered.

Elsie swallowed hard, she didn't want them to know that, not until they were much, much older.

"And everybody knows that now and that means we're all bad. A-and that you won't want us now."

"Because we bring trouble."

"Which is what daddy used to say." Allister confessed quietly, looking back up at Carson.

The couple felt their hearts drop, wondering how much worse the confessions could get.

"No." Carson said with a smile. "Allister. Nothing could ever make me not want you, or change that you're my son, or change that I love you, or your sisters or mummy."

Ainslie watched Elsie as she cried; the smile that played upon her lips as she shed such big tears confused the little girl. She didn't think she'd ever seen anybody smile AND cry before she'd meant Elsie.

The twins paused at his words, not used to hearing anything like them. They almost didn't know what to make of it, but climbed onto his lap when he held out his arms.

"You're not bad." Elsie whispered, running her fingers through their hair. "You're our perfect little treasures, you're a gift."

Carson laughed in agreement, delighted despite his pain. "That's right, you're the best surprise I've ever received."

The twins were overwhelmed. Every time they thought things would become as they were, Carson and Elsie proved them wrong.

"So we're not." Allaster yawned. "Bad?"

The twins had worried their way though their nap and now that they'd been reassured by the only two people who mattered, they were ready to fall asleep.

"No m'lad. You're our wonderful children." Carson reassured.

"And even when things are wrong, you've got nothing to worry about." Elsie bit her lip, looking back at the man she'd just tried to abandon. "You have a home, and a ma and da who love each other, and you."

Ainslie yawned, succumbing to sleep without saying what was on her mind: that similar news had led to her mother's death, at her father's hand.

"Thank you for this wonderful gift, Mrs. Hughes." Carson said as the children drifted off. He thought they couldn't hear him, but the fact that they did would change them forever. "You're not tainted, your not bad: you're my heart." He spoke firmly. "And so are they. Your leaving will be the end of me Mrs. Hughes." She said nothing and leaned into him, kissing him deeply. "It will mean the loss of everything I hold dear."

Despite the children in his lap, he pressed into her with all his weight, lips first. He didn't know why, perhaps it was the fact that she might leave, but the news had made him want her even more than he already did and he wanted, right then, to show her in everyway how much he still loved her, and how worthy she was of being his wife.

"Oh Charlie I love you so much, how could I taint you, how could I shame you?" She whispered, her breath tickling his lips. She loved him enough to give him up for his sake.

"You don't have that power over me Elsie: only the ability to crush me. And either way, I'll love you forever."