To hell with her tea! Nobody asked her to go rummaging through their kitchen, just because Joe had put a ring on her finger in a bout of youthful folly!

Bill ignored the children and approached Lottie. "Lottie..." he put his hands on her shoulder. "T' lad didn't mean it."

Lottie pulled her shoulder away. She wasn't feeling receptive to his touch at the moment.

"Ye men are all alike..." he wasn't really expecting an answer. "ye take an take... and don't give back"

That was it, her breaking point. She would be heard, she who did not like to yell had grown a backbone because of the coldness of her mother. She moved to where the others could hear her and said, "I am sorry to have intruded upon your kitchen, but I have made tea. Now, I would make scones for the lot of you too, but it is late and the tea will more than sooth us. Joe, please apologize to your mother. I know you didn't mean what you said." And then she turned to the two upstairs, "And I apologize too... For all this mess. Now please..? Will you please just... come down and have some tea with Joe and me? And then we'll go... If that is what you truly want."

Joe listened to Pearl and moved slowly up the stairs. His gait was artificially slow, he found the grain of the individual stair-boards more interesting than usual, but he was going. He suspected this wouldn't be the only time he would be apologising for this. He squeezed himself into a corner on the small landing.

"Mam?" Joe said with a child-like softness. Trying to apologise under the stern gaze of his father only served to make it harder and make Joe feel even younger.

"I'm sorry."

Of course Lottie had to make this about 'men' again. Bill folded his arms and leaned against the wall. Fine! She could sort herself out! He wouldn't attempt to comfort her anymore!

With his anger fed by Lottie's word, he gravely watched Joe come up the stairs. He cast a look of disapproval over Joe's shoulder at Miss Carrington. "Stay out of it, lass!" he called down the stairs. Her way of speaking and meddling irritated him to the point that he was tempted to push her out the door and tell her to stay there. She had no place here. She never could have one, and Joe was a bloody fool if he thought differently.

"That the best you can do?" He spat the words at Joe. "Ye bloody dimwit!"

The soft tones of her son stirred her heart. "Hush Bill. Joe, yer my son and I love ye." She tabbed her eyes with her sleeve sniffed heavily. " I accept yer apology, but we need to talk about what ye'eve dun." She could forgive, but would not forget.

"I love him!" she yelled to Bill, her eyes flashing in defiance. Then she squared her shoulders and said, "I mean no offense, sir. None. But I will not stay out of it when it involves my husband and me. Please just... hear us out. Perhaps if you knew the circumstances, you would understand better." And with that, she walked away from the stairs and moved to sit down.

"It's been a long day. I could use a cuppa tea. Let's all go ta the kitchen and if there more to say, do it there instead of this upstairs, downstairs nonsense."

Oh there was so much here to make him angry: Lottie turning 180 degrees and suddenly accepting the apology, Miss Carrington answering back, and Joe. But he clenched his fists and made his way down the stairs. "Aye we may as well... not let the tea go to waste just because Miss Carrington felt so free." He glanced at her disapprovingly while he passed her. He went into the main room and dropped himself into a chair. If the others joined, he looked at Joe as if he was ready to jump on the boy as soon as he opened his mouth.

Lottie followed the group downstairs, her pace slow. Suddenly, she was feeling every one of her 48 years. The atmosphere in the main room was thicker than Christmas Pud, Joe muted like a small boy, Bill looked like one of those steam engines of his, about ready to billow smoke. She couldn't blame her husband really, young Joe had really made a mess of things. The Blacke matriarch gingerly tasted her brew. Did this girl know how to make a cup? or was that something servants did for her? Lottie silently thought on her son's choice of companion. Bloody 'ell Joe, a Carrington? Again, there would have been no problem with Rose Ward or someone similar.

"You made tea. That's nice."