'Dear Charlie,

I suppose I ought to call you 'Charles' now that you are nearly become a man. Your grandfather writes to your mother that you are taller than he is already. Though that isn't saying much. It seems only yesterday that we left England and you barely reached to my knee. You'll blush to read it, but I remember ever further back, to the day you were born. You fit so perfectly in my hands; curled up like a kitten in a basket. That was the proudest day of my life, but I think my happiest day is still ahead of me; the day your mother and I return to England to be reunited with you.

I'm sorry that you've had to spend these years in dreary service. A bright lad like you shouldn't have been wasted waiting on a bunch of stale, entitled bourgeoisie who can't answer their own door. I'm grateful for the work they've given you, and any work is good for a growing boy, but service isn't the calling for any self-respecting man.

I wish you'd at least been able to work outside and learn a skill like gardening or farming. I respect your grandfather because he has a skill, but I have a hard time seeing much merit in a grown man whose main job is bowing and scraping and looking good in a suit. I can't imagine how difficult these years have been for you, but you're a good lad for enduring it and there are lessons to be learned in all of life's little trials.

I know I haven't been around for so much of your childhood. These past four years have been especially hard on all of us, but I promise they have been worth it. Every sacrifice, every moment apart has been with one goal in mind; to be a family. When we have set up the museum, you shall join us in London. There, I'll teach you some tricks of the family trade. By your grandfather's reckoning, you're a strong lad, and I trust his judgment. Even if you aren't cut out to break chains with your bare hands like your Da, there is plenty I can show you. Lesson one will be how to rope the rubes in with a good yarn that will keep them on the edge of their seats and loosen their grips on their cash.

I've promised your mum I won't teach you any of the fire eating until you're older. Have you been practicing your juggling? You'll never get any better if you don't practice every day. If you prove that you've mastered it, I'll let you try juggling knives. We won't tell your mum.

I can't wait until we are a proper family, building the family business together. Now that you're becoming a man, it's time you had a man's job.

Did you read the last book I sent? The Thoreau? I can't wait to hear what you thought of it. How wonderful it will be to be able to discuss your reading and any number of things with you over the dinner table.

I must post this now, or I will be home before you receive this. Pray for a fair wind and a following sea.

I am counting the hours until I see you again. Until then, I remain your devoted Da, E.G. Carson.

-00-

When she'd finished reading, Elsie frowned up at Charles. "I'm sure he didn't mean…" She began, but thought better of it. Clearly, Edward Carson had not thought highly of a life in service.

"Charles, please tell me you don't think less of your accomplishments because of what your father thought. He didn't understand what it meant to be in service. Just because he didn't see the merit in it doesn't mean there wasn't any merit."

"I know that now," Charles assured her. "But it took some time and a few very painful lessons. It confused me more than anything; I enjoyed my job as hall boy. I hadn't ever considered it a hardship until my father's letter. The work was steady and regimented. I had time to read in the evenings and I was never hungry. The times I'd spent with my parents on the road were chaotic and noisy. It was always fun for a while, but that life quickly soured for me. Whenever I had to return to Downton, I was glad of it."

"Your father seemed to think you would want to leave Downton for London. Was that not the case?"

"I was in two minds. Of course I wanted to be with my family, but I wasn't keen on becoming a performer. How was I to tell my father that I preferred polishing shoes to juggling knives? After he died, and I was to remain, I felt guilty for being relieved that I could stay."

"You said that his letter led you to the stage. I guess I don't see the connection; aside from his distaste for footmen."

"The letter wasn't the worst of it." He gently took the letter back from Elsie. "My father gave my mother a message for me before he died. I wrote it down so I would never forget it. As if I could."

He folded the letter carefully so that Elsie could read the words scrawled on the back in pencil. His handwriting had improved much since then, but Elsie still recognized Charles' even, steady hand.

'Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!' –Oliver Wendell Holmes

"What did he mean by that?" Elsie wondered.

"Was he talking about himself, or me? Was he just remembering something from the book he'd last read? Who knows. He was near delirious when he said it, according to Mum," Charles said as he slipped the letter back into the prayer book. "I've spent years contemplating it but I'll never know precisely what he was trying to tell me."

"I suppose it doesn't matter exactly what he meant. It only matters what it meant to you," Elsie said philosophically.

"At the time, it didn't mean anything. It only made me angry," Charles admitted.

"Angry?"

"To be fair, everything made me angry for a time," Charles snorted derisively as he remembered the bitter young man he had been. "Angry and confused. His letter and his last words were certainly in my mind when I left service to become a song and dance man. I was perhaps being too literal, but that's jumping ahead in the story.

"After she was released from quarantine, my mother was a shell of her former self. She withdrew from everyone. One of my father's colleagues proposed marriage to her; offered to take care of her. She turned him down. She wanted nothing to do with the sideshow life. She sold my father's collection of oddities for a fraction of what he'd paid for them, which upset me further. I felt that she'd just rendered the past four years' separation, including my father's death, meaningless. I didn't understand that she couldn't abide any reminder of the life they had dreamed of, but she would never live.

"She found work as a Lady's maid to an elderly countess in Manchester. I returned to Downton."

Charles set the book aside and gazed absently out the window contemplating how he should describe the next segment of his life. Elsie waited patiently in his arms.

"I'd never had many friends at Downton, as you would expect." He didn't have to explain to Elsie how resentful young maids and hall boys could be towards peers who worked harder than themselves. Elsie had no doubt that Charles had been a diligent worker. Jealousy was only natural.

"But I had my books. I could escape into the worlds created by Shakespeare and Scott. I found every relationship I needed in the pages of Dickens; Magwich, John Jarndyce, Nancy, Mrs. Nickleby. They were my friends; my family. I learned about contemporary issues from the early works of Twain and Hardy. Most significantly, through my reading I found an unexpected ally.

"Old Mr. Donnelly was curator of the Downton library. He'd visit the Abbey once a month to bring new books, organize the existing collection and oversee the cleaning of the more delicate tomes. For this task, he needed a helper. I'd like to think I was chosen because I was so well read, but I was probably selected because I was the tallest of the hall boys.

"I would reach down the books, wipe the leather bindings with a polishing rag and read out the name to him. I'd been helping him since I was ten years old. Before they renovated the library, I could have told you where to find almost any book."

"And Mr. Donnelly befriended you after your father died?"

Charles shook his head. "He was always nice to me and appreciated my work, but he was not interested in making friends with a hall boy. He'd given me permission to read some of the newer books as long as I did so on my half days, did not remove the book from the library and returned them to their proper place on the shelves. If the family were away on my half day, I would spend the entire afternoon standing by the cases reading."

"Standing? Why didn't you just sit down to read?"

"I didn't dare sit down in the library, even on my half day," Charles said, aghast that she'd suggested otherwise. "Not long after my father died, I was spending my half day in the library. The family were away visiting and not expected until just before diner. I was engrossed in Thoreau's Journals when I heard a deep voice behind me..."

-00-

"What do you think you're doing?" Lord Grantham bellowed.

Though he was startled, Charles resented being interrupted, even by the Lord of the manor. He could not stop himself from answering sarcastically. "I should think that would be obvious, milord. I am reading."

"And what are you reading, boy?"

Charles bristled at being called 'boy'. "To quote Hamlet, 'Words, words, words.'"

"Those happen to be my words that you are reading," the flustered Earl insisted. He was not use to such impudence.

"Mr. Thoreau might disagree with you on that score, milord."

"You know damn well, what I meant. These books are for the family's use."

"Mr. Donnelly said I might read here on my half days if the family were away," Charles said defensively.

"He does not have the authority to grant that permission," the master of the house frowned. "Your being here is against the rules."

Charles knew that he should just apologize and slink out of the room as quickly as possible, but something wouldn't let him. Maybe it was a need to rebel against a male authority figure. Maybe part of him wanted to be sacked; wanted a reason to leave service in pursuit of a life that might make his father proud.

"Well, I'm certain you know what Thoreau says about rules, milord," Charles responded calmly, though his heart was beating in his throat. He needed this job, but he also needed to unleash his frustrations on someone.

"Refresh my memory," the Earl, now intrigued by this audacious lad.

"'Any fool can make a rule,'" Charles quoted. "'And any fool will mind it.'"

"Does that make us both fools, then?" Lord Grantham asked, barely suppressing a grin. He was rather enjoying this strange encounter.

"Either both of us, or neither of us, milord," Charles rejoined. "I suppose the choice is yours."

The perplexed Lord and the secretly terrified hall boy stood looking at each other for several heartbeats. Charles held out a slight hope that his humor would be tolerated. It was widely reported that Lord and Lady Grantham appreciated wit. If the footmen were to be believed, dinner conversation was often full of sarcastic banter and lively debate.

"Well played, lad," Lord Grantham laughed heartily. "Join me in a whiskey, won't you?"

"I shouldn't, milord," Charles protested, suddenly shy.

"I've tolerated your insolence thus far, lad, but my benevolence only goes so far," Lord Grantham joked.

"Mr. Brooks wouldn't approve. He doesn't even know that I'm in here." Charles greatly respected Downton's butler and did not wish to get him in trouble with the master of the house.

"Why do you care about the rules all of a sudden, lad? Take the drink."

"I don't drink, milord. I'm only twelve, milord."

"Only twelve?" The Earl looked more closely at this tall young man before him. "I'll have to speak to Lady Grantham. I think we've been feeding the staff too well." Chuckling to himself, Lord Grantham added a large splash of water to one of the glasses he had filled. He handed the glass to Charles who took it without further protest.

"What's your name, lad?" Lord Grantham asked as he settled into his favorite chair beside the hearth. Charles remained standing.

"Charlie Carson, milord."

"Charlie? You're the hall boy that was meant to leave us last month," Lord Grantham recalled as he tasted his whiskey. "Lady Grantham and Brooks were both very sorry to see you go. Did you change your mind?"

"It was more a change of circumstances than a change of mind, milord," Charles answered, choking slightly on his first sip of whiskey. He'd had wine with Christmas dinner, but never anything as strong as what he now held. "More accurately, it was a lack of change of circumstances."

"I won't even pretend to understand what you mean," the Earl shrugged.

"My parents have been abroad," Charles explained. "I was to join them in London on their return, milord, but it was not to be."

"Did they not return?"

"My mother did, milord, but my father died on the journey."

"You have my condolences," Lord Grantham said sincerely. "Losing one's father is always difficult, but losing him while you are still so young…I propose a toast. To your father…what was his name?"

"Edward, milord."

"To Edward Carson, beloved father and husband."

Charles mumbled an echo and drank a large gulp of watered down whiskey which caused him to sputter slightly.

"You won't be leaving us then?" Lord Grantham asked after an appropriate pause.

"Not in the foreseeable future, milord," Charles replied, astonished by the relief that filled him at these words.

"Mm," the Earl answered. "We'll have to find a better way for you to read. I can't have a hall boy hanging about in the library on his half day. Lady Grantham would not approve."

-00-

"The next time Mr. Donnelly visited, he began a library ledger and it was announced that the library was available for staff use," Charles told his astonished wife as the cuddled in their bed.

"The Downton library ledger system was created for you?" Elsie asked in amazement.

"I suppose you could say that," Charles nodded. "If you could find that first ledger, the first entry would read, July 15th, 1869, H.D. Thoreau, 'Civil Disobedience', C.E. Carson."

"And you and Lord Grantham were friends after that?"

"I would not go so far as to call him a friend, but we did develop a sort of relationship. I was certainly a favorite of his," Charles conceded. "That fall, I was promoted to fourth footman. Sometimes, during a slow dinner, Lord Grantham would ask me questions about what I was reading. I always had a few choice quotes available for his entertainment. It was the least I could do to repay his kindness regarding the library.

"Soon, even Lady Violet was prompting me for comments during dinner or at breakfast and tea. She never spoke to the second or third footman at all."

"I'm sure your fellow footmen loved the fact that you were a particular favorite of the Lord and Lady of the house," Elsie astutely observed.

"As I said, I never had many friends at Downton," Charles shrugged. "All that mattered was that I had the books. Even with all the new footman duties, I found the time to read almost a book a week. I was still restless, but, for the most part, I was content. I was too busy to think about how disappointed my father would be in the life I was living.

"Mr. Brooks took me under his tutelage and began to groom me to be butler one day. I began to learn about wine. By the time I was twenty-three, I was second footman and captain of the house cricket team. The course of my life seemed charted before me. And then, my grandfather fell ill."

TBC…

AN/ Birthday festivities interrupted the writing of this chapter. I hope it's coherent:)

Also, I didn't get around to responding to the last round of reviews. I will do so later today (hopefully), but please feel free to review this chapter in the meantime. I've had this Charlie Carson/ Old Lord Grantham 'meet cute' in my head for a long time.

I think we might visit London next chapter.