Twenty-eight:
Home Again

May 1901

Charles gently smoothed Elsie's hair back out of her face, whispering soft words of love as he did so. She was still shaking and crying; he'd found her at the bottom of the flight of stairs that led to the attics, her head bleeding and her hands shaking. She'd been up in the servants' quarters, inventorying the linens. It had been a bad fall, then, more than ten stairs, if she was at the bottom and banged up like that. His panic had been so great he'd rushed her to their rooms and dropped her into bed immediately, not waiting for the doctor to be sent for.

"Please tell me you won't refuse the morphine now," he pleaded quietly. "Please, Elsie."

"I don't want to be that woman," she whispered shakily. "The one you hate because I'm taking something you despise so much –"

He swallowed hard and took her shaking hands in his, willing her to calm down and focus, to see reason. "Elsie, love," he whispered, "I won't hate you, not ever. Especially not now, not after all this, my love. I love you so much and seeing you in pain – seeing you get hurt worse because you're afraid I won't love you – is killing me, darling."

"The pain was so bad I fainted," she murmured. "And I could feel myself falling and couldn't stop it. Just imagine if I'd had Gracie in my arms, Charles – god, I could have killed her…"

"You almost killed yourself," he snapped. She stared at him, alarmed. "Elsie, please listen to me, love. I need you to be okay. I need you to be reasonable and take the damn morphine that the doctor is trying to give you. We can worry later about the rest. Just please…"

She looked away from him. "I don't expect you to understand, Charles –"

"I don't understand how you can do this to yourself day in and day out and expect my sympathy – no, demand my sympathy, Elsie – when you're in pain," he finally snapped. "Why won't you bloody well do something about it?"

"Because I can't!" she shouted at him, her eyes wild and far more terrified than he'd ever seen, even the night when she'd broken Mrs. Potter's arm, even the night when she knew she was pregnant and they'd rowed like the world depended on it. "I can't, Charlie – I just – I can't even explain."

"Elsie, I need to know –"

"Charlie, I'm not going to give you a reason to ask for a divorce," Elsie whispered. "I can't tell you – I won't –"

"I won't be asking for any such thing as a divorce, you idiot woman," he growled. "For god's bloody sake, just tell me why you won't do as you're told!"

"I'm not from good people, Charlie," she whimpered. "My da was on the bottle all the time, and my mam…" She looked away from him, stricken, frightened. He hated seeing the pain and suffering on her face, wished he could take it away. "I married Joe and he started drinking when we lost our third bairn. It's my fault, you see… I drive people to do stupid things, don't I? Always have."

"Elsie, that's not true…"

"They cut me mam open to deliver me," Elsie said very quietly. "The cord was round my neck and I didn't breathe for a couple of minutes. She was always telling me that I were blue as the mornin' sky when I was born. She also said it was my fault that Becky is the way she is; that if I'd been born natural, Becky would have been born just fine, but I was a witch, an abomination…" She pulled away from him and mumbled, "She had a pain syrup the doctor gave her. She took it from the day I was born till the day she died. Bottle after bottle after bottle, Charlie. She was addicted to the cocaine and the opium and the alcohol in it, you see… and she overdosed."

He stared at her, stricken, the horrors of her youth washing over him like a wave of filth. "Elsie, you are not your mother – you could never be like her…"

She was still shaking, trembling, and her voice wavered like her hands as she spoke. "I thought… if I could have a bairn of my own, if I could be a mam… I could prove I weren't what she said. And I lost all of my children but our Gracie and now, if she dies… if she dies, it just means I am –"

"No," Charles said quietly, earnestly. "Elsie, no."

She looked up at him, her eyes so sad, so full of pain that it broke his heart just to look at her. "Charlie, I don't want to take the morphine because I'm scared I'll hurt our girls like she hurt me and Becky," she whispered. "The scars you asked about… that I said I got on the farm… they were almost all from mam. She'd take her medicine and if she wasn't asleep, she'd beat me with anything she could get her hands on – said I ruined her bloody life. If I'd've been a boy, it might've been worth all the pain she went through, but since I was just a stupid girl with nobbly knees and curly hair, I wasn't worth the time it took to feed me." She swallowed hard. "Why do you think I lied about my age and ran away to become a housemaid? At least there, I got food."

"And you married Joe because he could get you away from it all?" he asked gently, knowing he had to tread lightly.

"I did love him," she said defensively. "Not the same way I love you, though. Never like that. But we were good together, Charles… and I was content to be his wife if he could protect me from mam." Her smile was ever so very tired as she pulled her hand to her temple and smeared the blood as she touched it. "When she killed herself, I insisted we bring Becky to live on the farm. Joe nearly went off his head – I'd just lost our second bairn and he was tired of pretending we'd be all right. But he knew I was much happier knowing that she was safe, and we brought her to live at the farm with us." She frowned. "She hated Joe on sight. It took weeks for me to coax her out of her room – took me buying a bunch of ridiculous chickens, too." She reached over and touched his arm. "She loved you on sight, Charlie. I knew then I'd fallen in love with a good man, a kind man…"

"Elsie," he sighed, "I am so sorry that I ever gave you cause to doubt my moral worth as a human being –"

"My standards were very low," she mumbled. "Why else do you think I let that dreadful Potter woman do what she did? All for a bloody photograph…"

"What?" Charles said, blinking.

"She stole the only photograph I had of Joe, our last bairn, and my Becky," Elsie admitted very quietly, averting her gaze again. "And she used it to blackmail me into… well… having relations with her. Among other things. I was foolish enough to think that she would give it back if I just did what she asked, but she told Her Ladyship that she'd burned the photo almost immediately."

Charles frowned. "You're certain she did?"

"Burn it? God, the retched woman probably kissed it first, then set it alight," Elsie mumbled. "Devil's own whore, that one was…"

He got up and went to the wardrobe, looking for his envelope of important paperwork. One day when he'd been inadvertently courting a rather startled, terrified Miss Hughes, he'd gone to His Lordship's library and had taken out a volume of Macbeth for some light reading. Pressed between the pages of exquisite illustrations from the 17th century, he had found a rather more modern photograph. Never realizing its importance, he'd merely tucked it away in his papers and never quite put two and two together. Until now.

Charles found the photograph and brought it over to her. "I think I have something that belongs to you, my love," he said softly. "I found it in a book – I never imagined it was what you were so broken-hearted over."

She stared at the photograph in her hands, then up at him. Her face was blank, then she burst into hysterical tears that made him flinch. "Elsie, love, darling –"

"Do you know how much I love you?" she sobbed brokenly. "Do you have any idea, Charles?"

"I only know how much I love you," he said very quietly, a knot growing in the pit of his stomach at the thought that she might be so upset as to leave him…

"Take that and magnify it to a power of ten," Elsie sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her bloodied hand, leaving trails of blood in its wake. "My god, how – no, I don't know why you kept it –"

"Because I thought it was important to you," he said gently. "You've always been so beautiful, Elsie, and I didn't know that it was that picture that had you so very upset. I'm sorry – if I'd have known, I would have given it back immediately. We're very lucky it didn't go up in the fire."

Elsie frowned, biting her lip as she ran her fingertip around the edge of her face in the photograph. "Where has that little girl gone?" she asked, sighing softly. "I wasn't very happy. Ever. Not until I came here and met you and your Fiona, Charlie. You've always been too good to me and I never understood it till now. It wasn't about my past or who I was… it was always about who you saw me to be, wasn't it?"

He leaned in and kissed her gently upon the lips. "My beautiful, strong Elsie," he whispered. "I fell in love with your heart, your soul… tarnish, dings, and the whole lot." He paused. "It hurts me to see you in so much pain – especially when I know that the morphine will help. You'll likely be in pain the rest of your life, darling, and the last thing I want is for you to feel like you have to be."

"The last thing I want is to hurt our girls," Elsie said. "I'm too much like my mam in temperament – I'm not going to spend my entire life worrying."

"Will you at least take an aspirin? Your poor head has got to be splitting," he sighed. "And me with only fifteen minutes before I have to leave to go pick up our Fiona at the station –"

Elsie blinked up at him. "What?"

"It was meant to be a surprise," he sighed. "I was to go into the village on an errand and come home with some ribbons for the baby's new dress and Fiona on my arm."

"Oh, and stupid me, I've gone and gotten myself laid up for the night," Elsie sighed, pouting a little. "I'm sorry I ruined your surprise, love –"

"She's going to be very angry and scared when I tell her that you took a tumble today of all days," Charles warned her. "She'll want to know why you're refusing the medicine, same as I did." He paused, taking in his wife's fragile state, then said very quietly, "I won't force you to take it, but I need you to consider the idea of taking it once in a while. Not enough to cause problems, but enough to take the edge off."

Fraught between agony and indecision, Elsie finally whispered, "I am not, nor could I ever be, like my mam. But I cannot go on living if it will be like this the rest of my life, Charlie. I don't know what I'm supposed to do – I don't know." She looked up at him and breathed, "Will you control it, then, if I agree to take it? Lock it away in the silver cupboard since you're the only one with a key, and mete it out for me so I never take too much?"

He could see the utter terror in her eyes, hear it in the question; his strong, capable dearest heart, was so weak, so truly shaken to the core that she was asking him to help her commit the ultimate (in her eyes) sacrifice. "Of course, Elsie," he whispered. "Of course, my love."

"Then, yes," she said very quietly. "I'll take the morphine."

Fiona stood awkwardly on the platform, biting her lip as she clutched her small suitcase with both hands and her valise dangled from her wrist. She was sure she'd told her father that she was coming home today – and on the one-fifteen train from York. Where was he?

She'd been waiting nearly half an hour since getting off the train and she finally decided that maybe he wasn't coming. He'd probably forgotten or got distracted or something…

And, despite all the progress they'd made, despite everything, she began to wonder if it had all been a show put on for her benefit, to get her to stop asking questions. To get her to think she wasn't second best when clearly –

She heard footsteps and he called, "Fiona!" Her father rushed up to her and scooped her into a fierce embrace. "I am so very sorry I'm late, my darling girl – I had to make sure your mum was put to bed and that she had her medication before I left. My hands were shaking; it was difficult to give her the injection."

"Injection? Oh god, what happened, dad?" Fiona asked anxiously. "Is mum all right?"

"Calm down," he said softly, gently. "Your mum took a tumble and hit her head, but she's all right," he said, trying to assure her. The words had the exact opposite effect, though, and she started to cry. "No, no, sweetheart, she's fine – she's fine," he insisted. "Come on, let's walk home together, my darling girl. Your mum's waiting for us."

He took her baggage and carried it easily, offering her his arm to hold as they left the depot. He encouraged her to talk about her time in York as they walked back to the big house, and promised that Auntie Beryl was making treacle custard and shortbread biscuits for Fiona's first night home. She was too busy being scared that something dreadful had happened to her mum to really care.

As soon as they were in the servants' entrance, Fiona grabbed her valise from her father's hands and tore off toward the stairs, leaving him standing there in the corridor with a suitcase in hand, looking bewildered. She ran up to the Lavender Suite without thinking, without registering that she was running home to her mum until the doors were open and she was flying into her parents' room and into her mother's arms.

"Mum, I missed you so much," Fiona sobbed brokenly. "I love you – I missed you – daddy said you fell and hurt yourself –"

"I'm fine," Elsie said with a smile. "I fell and knocked some sense into my head is all, love," she promised. "You're really so upset over that?"

"I am," Fiona confirmed, sniffling miserably. "I was so scared something bad would happen when I wasn't here and I wanted you to be okay and – and –"

"Shh, my darling girl," Elsie whispered, pulling her down onto the bed with her. "I'm feeling no pain at the moment – your da was wonderful and gave me a shot of morphine before he left. He was late because he wanted to make sure I was comfortable when he went to get you." She paused, then said, "Please tell me you got your certificate – I couldn't bear knowing you were away for so long and didn't…"

"Of course I got it – I couldn't disappoint you and daddy and Lady Cora so much as all that," Fiona said with a sad frown on her lips. "I don't want to live in the village, mum. I want to stay here."

"But you'll get a little house all to yourself," Elsie pointed out gently.

"I don't want a little house to myself," Fiona said. "I want to stay here with you and dad and Gracie – this is my home, mum." She was struggling not to feel betrayed, and was failing miserably.

"Oh, my sweet, darling girl," Elsie whispered. "Do you know there's only one thing in my life I truly regret? Only one. And that is that you aren't my own flesh and blood, Fiona Carson. But I love you as much as if you were my own little girl – and I want what's best for you. You've gone to so much effort to get your certification and you're ready to teach. I am so very, very proud of you, Fiona." She reached up and tucked the stray curly lock of hair that had escaped Fiona's up-do behind her ear. "But you're almost to turn seventeen now – when I was that age, I was married and expecting my first wee'un." She smiled sadly. "But you're so much better, so much more, than I ever could have been. You take your dreams and you run with them, Fiona – you run so hard and so fast and don't you ever let anyone tell you that you're wrong for wanting to be more, be better. Do you understand me?"

Fiona stopped, listened, heard words both too hard and too soft for their own good. She knew with a sense of painful duty that she had to move into the teacher's house, but she didn't want to leave her family. It hurt too much: she'd already been away so long… "I understand, mum," she whispered.

"And we're really not that far away from the village, my darling," Elsie whispered. "You can come home whenever you like."

"But you'll forget me if I'm not here," Fiona sighed. "You've got Gracie and the family and –"

"I will never forget you as long as I live," Elsie promised very firmly. "You're my little girl, Fiona Carson, and never you forget it."

Fiona mumbled, "Even if Gracie takes my place in your bed?"

"She'll never take your place, my darling girl," Elsie promised very softly. "How could she?"

Fiona tucked her face into her mother's shoulder and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. She felt safe and loved in Elsie's arms, and had never had reason to wonder what things would have been like had she never loved her in the first place.

Her rest was dreamless, a small smile of contentment on her lips as she rested.

END PART TWENTY-EIGHT