Chapter Text
Chapter One:
‘Charlotte – a dispatch arrived for you today’ - her father said to her over dinner one night in late September.
***
It had been several weeks since Charlotte returned home and back to what used to be the world she knew intimately and contentedly. What once was coloured now had a certain tinge of dullness to it. The blackbirds were invisible to Charlotte on her daily solitude walks as her mind drifted aimlessly back to a summer that offered so much but left her with so little. If she had but one regret, it was that she wished she could have found another way to help Mr. Parker find a solution to the financial nightmare the other frivolous and irresponsible Mr. Parker left in his wake after that infamous fire in Sanditon. But she knew - she knew that her contribution would have been slight and no matter how hard she tried to think ill of Mr. Parker she knew it was a fruitless waste of time and emotion. She reprimanded herself for saying to him that he should try harder to help his brother. Why? Oh why did she say that? Was it her words that had encouraged him to oblige himself to Mrs. Campion? Round and round that thought festered in her head sending her normal emotional stability into a state of confounding disarray. Many a day she walked aimlessly pondering this time and time again. There seemed to be no escape from it. Solitude gave her solace but it equally created an internal state of torture that left both her direction and her attention meandering without intention.
She occupied herself as best she could but it was always there. There had been a wedding of a local farmer and his sweetheart in Willingdon in the early Indian summer weeks of September which pierced her heart deep. She could not but think about what might have been. She had quietly removed herself to the church graveyard to find a moment to let her tears fall in private when the service had finished. She couldn’t understand why it had affected her so much. Heartbreak had crept upon her from behind when she wasn’t looking. She was so composed at the wedding of her friend, Esther Denham to Lord Babington when her heart’s desire stood just five feet away from her standing up for his friend as much as she was standing up for her friend. But then she was quite intent of putting on a good show remembering that that day was all about the bride, not her feelings. Brooding about it seemed futile.
And so her life progressed neither with intention nor purpose. It felt like her sound common sense and assuredness had been stolen from her. Instead she was now left with a grey world where sometimes she had to remember to inhale.
Charlotte struggled to readjust back to Willingdon life after her adventures in Sanditon. She couldn’t forgive herself but she now felt trapped in a world that wouldn’t allow her to be her true self. She had helped another be his better self and yet here she was left with an anger that somehow she had fared worse on her return than he had in his choices. He had after all, despite whatever good and noble motivation he felt, chosen another future that didn’t include her. She had said that she didn’t think badly of him and she had truly believed that at the time. But with hindsight, she felt very angry. Fate had taken her up a hill that she did not know existed and robustly pushed her back down that hill beyond the starting point she had set off from. And yet would she wish it had never had happened? Would she wish that she had never gone to Sanditon? No never! Not at all! She just knew that time would help her through this period of uncertainty and she wished desperately that she would come out a better and fuller young woman on the back of it.
***
‘Open the letter now’ her mother encouraged her. ‘It has come from London after all. It must be important’. Charlotte gently forged open the letter and read it quietly to herself first before offering a shorter version of the contents with her parents -
‘My dear friend Charlotte,
I do so want to apologise for my lack of contact over the past few weeks. I have been in the countryside and only recently returned to London where very shortly afterwards I learned of the fire in Sanditon. I could hardly believe it. I was so very surprised to hear that a certain Mr. Parker had also engaged himself to that wealthy widow. I cannot pretend that I am keen on said woman particularly after her remarks to you - albeit she showed you an indirect compliment making public her own insecurities in your company. However, I cannot abide women who feel the need to take down another woman to ensure they can maintain their own standing in the eyes of another. It is a great failing to be sure.
But I drift away from the purpose of this letter. Charlotte my friend, I would like to invite you to London as my special guest at a time convenient to you this side of Michaelmas. Please do say that you will come. I meet many people and many of the same people I’m afraid. You are a like a breadth of fresh air in a world that becomes too intoxicated with itself. Do please me with the pleasure of your company and in exchange allow me to show you many of the museums and sites that London has to offer.
Yours,
Susan’
Over several communiques it was decided that Charlotte would arrive in London within the month to stay with her new and interesting friend, Lady Susan Worcester, the fulcrum of the Beau Monde of London. She was to stay a fortnight before returning home for the beginning of Willingdon’s Christmas celebrations.
Once in London, Charlotte could not lie that she was both nervous and apprehensive on the off chance of an encounter with Mr Parker and his bride to be. When she discovered that they were residing in her country estate with friends in Norfolk, she was both relieved and disappointed at the same time. There was a small but intense fire within her that burned and only she knew it was bursting to explode from within her. When she walked around the wealthy streets of Kensington before her daily stroll in Hyde Park, she hope, she prayed that there may be just one sighting of him. Just a sighting for if she had actually met him, she could not be sure of her reaction. She could not offer herself a guarantee that she would simply walk away or fall in love with him all over again. Would she have the strength to resist or leave herself exposed to that open wound she was slowly trying to heal? She could not predict.
On her last morning before returning home, over breakfast, she thanked Lady Susan for the great kindness and patronage she had shown her.
‘Charlotte my dear. It is time I am honest with you. Once I said to you that the race was not won. Your love was not a foregone conclusion. What I saw that night at the ball and again in Sanditon were two young people deeply taken with each and very much in love.
‘But life and unfortunately, people, can be a very cruel lover and what should be doesn’t always end up with what does be. ‘. She paused and sighed - ‘You have not raised the issue during your stay here but I cannot believe that you are insensitive to your situation.
‘My dear if you don’t already know, let me be a friend who tells you with the most kindest consideration that Mr. Parker and Mrs. Campion are to be married in early March. A date has been set and without a miracle, your beloved, no matter how much you try to claim that you are indifferent to him, is your beloved and he will be married to another. To another who fades in comparison next to you as well she knows it.
‘But my dear’ she said as she held Charlotte’s hands in her own in an act of reassurance ‘please I do not want to send you off in despair or disappointment. I want to offer you another opportunity.
‘Next spring I am due to travel to the Continent to the warmer shores of the Italian coast. Please, please be so kind as to join me as my special companion. There will be so much culture to take in and enjoy. I am travelling with a small group of very interesting people and I have no doubt that you would thoroughly enjoy their company and conversation. And if you come, it will give me some added relief to know that while this horrendous wedding is happening, you will be far, far away seeing other sights the world has to offer. If love isn’t knocking on your door now, adventure is. Discuss this with your parents when you arrive home but promise me that you will consider my proposition seriously’.
And so Charlotte travelled home with this offer ringing in her ears. She formulated various ways of approaching her parents with this offer and various arguments to counter argue any opposition they may have. On reflection, they agreed that it was a great honour and opportunity for their daughter and a date was set of March the First for Charlotte to begin her journey to London and onwards to a world that books had but barely touched upon.