Charles sat on the back stoop of the theatre. Most of the performers were inside preparing for the night's show. Half in costume, Charles was reading a letter with a French stamp on the envelope. Alice snuck up behind him and placed her hands over his eyes.

"Guess who."

"Please, Alice, not now." Charles frowned and pulled her hands away from his face.

"Well, I had a present for you, but if you're going to be like that…" Alice teased coquettishly but Charles ignored her. Frustrated that he did not pay her more attention, she pouted with her hands on her hips. "Charles, I'm talking to you!"

"And I've said, 'not now,'" he responded curtly, but not unkindly. "Can we talk later? Please?" His voice and eyes were dull.

"Half the company are leaving London tomorrow and I have a lot of goodbyes to offer. You ought to be flattered that I started with you."

"Normally, I would be," Charles assured her. "But I've just had some news from France and I'm not in the mood."

"Is it bad news?"

Charles looked at her with open disdain. "Do I look as if I've had good news?"

"No," Alice admitted. "What's the news?"

"My mother is ill; gravely so. They write that she won't last more than a few days and this was posted…" Charles turned over the envelope. "Three days ago. In all likelihood, she's already dead." He kicked his heel at the step below him in helpless frustration.

"Oh, Charles, I'm so sorry." Alice sat beside him and took his hand. All her playful petulance was gone. "But why didn't they send you a telegram?"

"Because telegrams are expensive and the woman my mother works for is a tightfisted, old bi…hag," Charles growled.

"Is there anything I can do?" Alice offered. "I hate to see you so down."

Charles covered Alice's hand with his own and forced a sad smile for her benefit. "It helps that you're here."

"Perhaps a present will cheer you a bit," Alice suggested. "It won't fix anything, but…" She reached into her wrist bag and pulled out a folder made of thick paper. Charles knew immediately what it was.

"The photo I asked you for! I didn't think you were going to get it made before I left." He opened the folder and gazed at the likeness. "Lovely. Thank you, Alice. This means a lot to me."

"I couldn't send you out into the provinces without something to remember me by," Alice informed him seriously. "two months is a long time and some of those country girls can be quite pretty. A city boy like you is quite the catch."

"I'm not a city boy," Charles protested with a sad smile. He was glad of the distraction Alice's teasing provided. "And I don't need the photograph to remember you, but I did very much want it."

"Then who was I to deny you what you wanted?"

"Alice…" Charles started then stopped. "I know this isn't very good timing, but…there is something else that I want."

"From me?" Alice asked warily.

"Most definitely from you," Charles confirmed in a voice broken with emotion. "I've been thinking…"

"Oh, dear," Alice tried to joke, but she looked too nervous to sell the joke.

"Thinking about us."

"Charles…"

"Do you think… perhaps we could…perform a number together?" Charles suggested. "Just a song or a dance; something for between main acts?"

"What?" Alice asked with obvious surprise. This was not the offer she'd expected. She smiled with relief. "A number together?"

"Well, what do you think?"

"Maybe," Alice agreed. "We can talk about it when you get back."

"Really? You'll think about it?" Charles finally smiled a full smile. "Thank you. I'll try and find a song for us while I'm away."

-00-

"Oy, Charlie boy!" Grigg's voice carried across the train station; above the hullaballoo of all the acts boarding the train car assigned to the company. "We have to go. The luggage is all sorted, now it's our turn."

"It's got to come any second. I wired them yesterday. They've had plenty of time to respond." Charles gave the telegraph operator a pleading look. The man just shook his head. Charles had been waiting for a reply from France all morning.

"Have it forwarded on to Cardiff, man, the train's about to leave," Grigg insisted. Charles had to follow. Charles gave the clerk a piece of paper with the name of their Cardiff hotel and allowed Grigg to drag him to the train just as the porter was calling all aboard.

They found a pair of seats in the performer's section of the car and settled in as the train pulled away from the platform.

"Stop worrying, Charlie boy, there's nothing you can do. Whether you get your reply today or tomorrow, it won't change what's happened." Grigg offered what he no doubt considered consolation. Charles glared at him.

"It were nice of Alice to come down and see us off," Grigg said, hoping to change the subject. The subject of Alice Neale usually cheered Charles up. The ride to Wales was long enough without having to deal with a morose traveling companion.

"Did she?" Charles asked. "I didn't see her."

"She said I was to look out after you."

"If you're taking requests, I'd rather you left me alone," Charles grumbled.

"I'm sorry about your mum, Charlie boy, I really am," Grigg said in his usual tone of casual insincerity. "But you have to look at it from another perspective. I didn't even know my mum, so you're one of the lucky ones."

Charles was starting to think that Grigg's mum had been one of the lucky ones. "But if she's dead…"

"If she'd dead, a telegraph ain't going to change it."

"They need to know what to do with the body. I need to have her sent to York. I'll need to meet her there." Charles was running through all the logistics in his mind. He wasn't even aware he was speaking out loud any more. "I need to know if she got my wire. Did she know how much I love her?"

"Sometimes it's better not to know, lad," Grigg said philosophically. "Have a drink."

Charles looked with disgust at the flask Grigg had shoved under his nose. "It's not even ten o'clock yet."

"What's your point?" Grigg wondered. "Here; a toast to your mum; wherever she might be." Grigg tossed back a swig and handed the flask to Charles.

Charles could hardly refuse to toast his mother, so he accepted the flask, though he was wary of what it might contain. "To mum; maybe she pulled through."

Charles choked down the liquid, which tasted how rubbing alcohol smelled. "Thank you," Charles croaked through a burning throat. "I think I'll go to the diner car for some tea."

"Suit yourself," Grigg shrugged and took another slug of the potentially blinding substance. He seemed relieved that Charles was leaving.

By the time Charles returned from a fruitless walk through several adjacent cars, Grigg was fast asleep, drooling against the window and smelling of alcohol.

-00-

"Charles Carson?" The hotel clerk asked as he read the register Charles had just signed.

"Yes, that's me."

"A wire arrived for you around noon."

"Thank you," Charles said and held out his hand.

"Charges were reversed. They said you'd agreed to that," the clerk said, withholding the flimsy yellow paper with the teletype pasted to it.

"Yes, yes, I did." Charles shoved a few coins across to the clerk who took what was owing and shoved the remainder back to Charles. He grabbed the change and the wire and hurried to an empty corner of the lobby. He skimmed the addresses and jumped straight to the message.

MAEYRN CARSON DEAD SEPT 14 STOP BURIED SEPT 16 VALBONNE STOP SALARY OWING USED FOR EXPENSES STOP LETTER TO FOLLOW WITH MORE DETAILS STOP CONDOLENCES=

LADY POWIS=

"Well?" Grigg asked, looking over Charles' shoulder.

"They've already buried her," Charles whispered in awful wonder.

"Where?"

"In France, I think," Charles assumed Valbonne was in France, it certainly wasn't in Yorkshire.

"Without asking you?" Even Grigg sounded disgusted by this insensitive behavior.

"I'm to expect a letter with more details," Charles mumbled without emotion. He took his valise and plodded to his room. Grigg followed at a respectful distance, unsure of what to do.

Once in the room, Charles unpacked his few belongings into the top two drawers of the room's dresser. When he was done, he sat heavily on the bed nearest the window and stared blankly at the wall.

It was over. He was alone, completely this time. Until this moment, there had always been the chance that she'd come back to England. Maybe he would look after her in her old age, maybe they would be a family.

Charles had felt isolated most of his life, but it was nothing compared to the emptiness that enveloped him now. The odd thing was, he felt at home in the emptiness, as if finally stripping away the last illusion of family and connections had freed him. His life until now had been defined by other people's expectations. Maybe now was the time for a fresh start.

Charles gave a large sigh, drawing his attention to the item he kept in his breast pocket. Still in a daze, he removed Alice's picture from his coat. 'Time for a fresh start,' he thought again as the photo seemed to smile at him. The family God had given him was gone. Maybe it was time to start his own family.

-00-

Elsie wiped a tear from Charles' cheek before it could run to his chin. Charles smiled sadly at her. He hadn't been aware that he was crying.

"It was almost forty years ago. Why does it still hurt?" He asked like a confused child worrying over a splinter that has worked it's way beneath the skin.

"I've said it before, but it bears repeating; 'You've only got one mother,'" Elsie said gently. "And because my man has a sensitive soul."

Charles sniffed back the unshed tears. The pain he felt was fresh, sharp and unexpected. He'd feared that he might become emotional when speaking of Alice, but he had not expected to feel this vulnerable speaking about losing his mother. Everyone loses their mother.

"Did you ever get to go to Valbonne?" Elsie brushed at the hair which fell over his forehead.

Charles shook his head in shamed confusion. It had never occurred to him that he should visit Valbonne. His mother was dead, what was the point? Or so he'd told himself at the time. Now, he felt like an ungrateful son for failing to pay his respects.

Elsie watched the emotions playing out on his face. Though she still did not know the details of Alice's betrayal, things were coming into focus. Elsie already understood her husband better. Elsie perceived that Charles' pain from his mother's death was deeper than anything Alice had ever inflicted. Alice was the name he'd attached to the pain, but he'd combined the injuries from Alice and Maeyrn into one terrible event in his life.

The wound from Alice had come so close on the heels of the deeper injury that it had been impossible for Charles to separate the two until now. Alice should have helped him through his pain, but she'd only added to it. Elsie had nursed him as he healed from Alice. She was honored to be the one to help him now.

"Let's go inside, love," Elsie suggested gently.

"Are you cold?" Charles asked again, determined to be an attentive husband, even if he'd been a negligent son.

"No, but I have some idea of what comes next in your story," Elsie said quietly. "I think it might best be faced beside a warm fire and wrapped in a blanket."

Charles nodded in grateful silence.

"You start the fire, Charles, and I'll make us a strong pot of tea," Elsie instructed as she rose from his lap. "And did I see a bottle of port in the kitchen?" She tried to draw him up from the bench by both hands, but Charles resisted and pulled her back to him.

"I don't deserve you," Charles said quietly. His arms wrapped around her middle. Her chin rested on his head. She held his head to her breast, letting healing love flow into him; the love she had as a wife and the surrogate love of a mother.

"I know," she whispered in response. "That makes us even."

TBC…

AN/ I'm sorry to be so cruel to Charles, but I have to believe that he was SERIOUSLY messed up by what happened with Alice, so I'm making it as complex and painful as I can. Otherwise, there is no excuse for him to have denied his feelings for Elsie for so long. IMO. Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know!

ETA/ to the reviewer who wanted to know how to pronounce Maeyrn (your PM was disabled- I hope you get this). I've never known anyone with that name, but I found it on a list and liked it because it struck me as an archaic version of Mary. In my head, I hear that name the same as the 'Marine', but maybe softer. I hope that helps.