Chapter Text
The day before Sidney Parker’s wedding to Mrs. Eliza Campion the church was packed to the brim of the most elite families in the beau monde. Eliza had told the Parker family that only a few people were invited to the wedding rehearsal. However, the Parkers (including Sidney) were all learning that a few people to Mrs. Campion meant the excessive version of a few. There were more than a few hundred people present at the church to watch as the wedding party practiced the procession for the next day.
Dinner would follow at Eliza’s London Estate; Eliza had informed them. Her Estate had belonged to her deceased husband and was a massive home with many servants present. In truth, Sidney groaned to himself, the dinner after rehearsal was really sounding like an event closer to a ball. He had not been looking forward to it at all. If he had not tuned Eliza out on most occasions, he would have learned to hear that a string quartet was hired as well as a famous opera singer and much dancing was to be expected.
At present, as Sidney and Eliza took their places at the altar and listened to the vicar run through the ceremony, the door of the church burst open. A man walked into the church unannounced followed by two burly men dressed in black. Coincidentally, the stranger’s intrusion had followed the moment when the vicar asked the guests if anyone present in the congregation had any objection to the marriage.
“Vicar!” The unexpected visitor yelled, “ this man cannot marry this woman.”
Sidney watched as the man and his friends approached and tilted his head to Crowe and Babington to stop him from coming closer. The stranger’s two burly friends also stepped in front of the stranger mirroring Sidney’s friend’s actions.
“I don’t want any trouble here,” the man said as he stepped in front of his friends as Crowe and Babington backed off and looked at Sidney.
“Then why are you here?” Sidney asked as he stepped down from the altar with Eliza to come closer to the man.
As one of Sidney’s hands was still absentmindedly holding Eliza’s, he felt her stop abruptly as they approached the stranger. She gasped in horror as if she were seeing a ghost.
Sidney looked at Eliza questioningly and then looked at the man with concerned eyes and a tint of confusion. Sidney quickly observed that the man’s face had been patched up and bruised as if in a fight or accident. The stranger looked to be an older gentleman, rugged. He looked familiar but Sidney could not quite pin where he has seen this man before.
The man walks further down the aisle, with his friends close by and another audible gasp comes from somewhere in the crowd and someone yells, “Oh my God! That is Alexander Campion!!” The crowd starts murmuring as shock resonates throughout the church. The Vicar is silent with eyes wide and bulging at the scene before him.
The man turns towards the voice in the crowd and replies, “Indeed, I am, sir” and then the man turns to Sidney, “And whatever this woman has said to you, she has known this whole time that I am alive.”
The crowd gasps at his news and silence resonates as everyone waits to hear what will happen next.
Eliza stares on, mute and in shock. All eyes from the guests are travelling to her and back to Campion and Sidney in continued wide-eyed silence.
Campion continues his story.
“You see, I am a seafaring man, and I had been on many adventures, but none so elaborate as the tale that my wife has spun.” Campion says as he looks out to the guests and flourishes his arms out in emphasis. “I was in a shipping accident a year ago. The doctors where I ended up after the accident did not have the tools or means to understand why I could not remember whom I was except for what my ship mates had told them. I was sent back home to my wife, and she hastily placed me with a caregiver against the London doctor’s advice. The specialist she took me to told her that my situation could be reversed with the proper treatments and therapies. I was unable to speak coherent words nor walk on my own. Eliza entrusted my care to my valet and kept me at home. When she would travel, I would be sent to the next town over with my valet in an unmarked carriage. The lie she told the ton was that I had died at sea. That she was recently widowed.”
The Parker clan lets out an audible gasp.
But Campion continues.
“My trusted valet has been with me the whole time, something that Eliza has done right at least, to keep something familiar to me. For I couldn’t remember anything. But lo and behold, she sends me on a carriage ride to a town outside of Sanditon. One day on the way there, our carriage crashes on a very bumpy road outside the skirts of a small town called Willingden. I hit my head. I was told by the town’s doctor that a young woman and her siblings were out practicing shooting and heard the crash and came to my aid. The doctor was new and relocated from London and operated quickly on my head to fix the bleeding. I was comatose for 3 days. And when I woke up, I coherently asked my valet where I was. I had not spoken a full sentence in a year. “
Campion walks closer to where Sidney and Eliza are standing as Babbington and Crowe part to let him through,
” Eliza, you are still as beautiful and youthful looking as I remember, and the scowl you have on your face now, brings back so many memories. Including ones where you talked to me of your plans while I was an invalid.”
The crowd gasps again. Campion turns to the guests and opens his arms again as he addresses them.
“I would like to invite all of you to leave now except for the Parker family while we sort this mess out. We may be here a while.”
The guests slowly leave the church and Eliza stares at Campion coldly as she is obviously recovering from her shock. Campion smiles a friendly smile at Eliza and then at Sidney.
“Mr. Parker, please unhand my wife,” Campion voice is louder in the now empty church.
Sidney, not realizing he was still holding Eliza’s hand, drops it quickly and abruptly and steps back.
“Sidney!” Eliza exclaims, “will you not do something?”
“Tut, Tut Eliza, there will be no challenges here,” Campion looks at Sidney, “now son, knowing that this is not for me to blame you, I am willing to talk terms with you on behalf of what my wife has promised you under the circumstances. I have already talked with my solicitor and all documents are intact and no will has been read. But because of what you have been through, I am willing to work with you for an amiable parting.”
Sidney regarded Campion and looked from Eliza to campion, “what did you have in mind, sir?”
“Sidney!” Eliza and Tom both exclaimed
“I did not think this was a love match.” Campion counters as he walks towards the altar, “but if it is, then I will divorce her. And you can have her and her penniless life as it is. “
Sidney looked sorrowfully at Eliza as if in apology and answered, “When we were younger, it may have been love. But that was close to 10 years ago. I am not in love with Eliza now.”
At this time, Tom was the only one who gasped.
“I came to Eliza months ago for help to invest in Sanditon after an insurance debacle with one of our buildings. Eliza flipped my need for help on its coin and suggested that if she were to give such an investment then surely that would warrant a proposal of marriage. Reluctantly, I agreed to it, I’m not proud of my desperation. I did not want my brother and sister and nieces and nephews to end up in debtor’s prison.”
“I know her ways all too well, Mr. Parker. You were the young man that Eliza was engaged to before she married me. I dare say she weaves quite the web, does she not?” Campion chuckled amiably, “well, I looked over my ledgers as I was here in London with my solicitor. I came here straight away after I recovered in Willingden. I see that Eliza has given you a surmountable amount of my money to pay for the debts that have occurred form your seaside town. I will gift it to you as recompense for my wife’s misgivings. And she will spend the rest of our marriage making it up to me. Your name will not be dragged through the mud, and we will part on these terms if you find them agreeable.”
Sidney felt as though he may leap for joy. As Eliza tears up and looks at Sidney for help, he grabs her hand for old time’s sake and says goodbye to Eliza before he walks to Campion with his mind made up.
“Can I get all this in writing?” Sidney asks quickly.
“Yes, my solicitor is waiting outside the door with all possible paperwork depending on your choice. There will be 3 sets of each, and a copy will go to me. One copy to you and it will be filed with the court tomorrow morning. “
As Sidney leaves with Campion, Eliza runs after them, “how dare you!”
Campion snaps his fingers and the two men in black that he brought with him block her from following the two gentlemen outside the church.