Title: Dust
Fandom: xmfc AU (Love in Wartime 'verse)
Rating: Gen
Length: 342
Content notes: vignette
Author notes: For fan_flashworks Challenge #21, "Wire".
Summary: a bicycle stirs the dust in lane



Charles hears the squeak of pedals in the lane and glances up from a basin full of plates. A decrepit bicycle is slowly approaching, ridden by a young boy wearing the battered pouch that has signified generations of post office messengers. He dismounts at last and walks his bicycle across the yard and out of view of the window. Charles waits for the thump of handlebars against wood before he abandons the washing up and goes to the doorway, drying his hands.

The boy turns round at the sound of footsteps, looking unaccountably relieved. “I said there was no one here now, but Mrs Harcourt said there was and that I should ride out.” He stops in the door, fumbling in his pouch whilst craning his neck to peer into the cool shadows of the kitchen. Charles looks at him sharply but sees only the simply curiosity of a lad visiting an unfamiliar house and does not admonish him.

At length the boy manages to wrest a dull yellow envelope from the depths of the pouch and peers at it. “I’ll be glad not to have to hand this back to her. She doesn’t like to be mistaken.”

“There’s only the young master here, and me to do for him. Who is it for?”

The boys shrugs and thrusts the fragile paper into Charles’s hand with finality. “Mrs Harcourt said there would be someone here and that I should give it to them, and now I have.” He backs away quickly and makes for his bicycle. “Good day to you,” he calls over his shoulder, a belated courtesy drilled into him by Mrs Harcourt, Charles thinks, and pedals off, leaving Charles with a kitchen towel in one hand and a telegram addressed to ____ in the other.

Charles lingers in the doorway staring at the envelope until only the dust hanging in the still air of the lane betrays the bicycle’s passage. Then he straightens and walks briskly through the kitchen and down the hall toward the parlor in search of Erik.

~*~