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The sound of brooms sweeping across the wooden floor echoed through the room.
And even they were out of sync.
Ralph looked up and could see Charlotte down the other end of the hall. She could not be any further from him if she tried.
Physically and metaphorically.
The sounds of children laughing and playing outside had now all but faded, as was the bright sunlight through the end windows.
Everything was fading…
He paused at a group of chairs, hastily pushed to the corner. Pulling one out he balanced it on a single leg, tilting it on an angle, and spun it around in circles with his hand.
Charlotte was still sweeping, paying no attention. Lost in her own world.
Even at this distance, with enough room for two fine carriages to pass between them, he could see the rise of her brow and the shadows and unspoken words in her mind as they played across her face.
It was time.
Past time.
“Charlotte?”
She was in a trace, her mind far from the village of Willingden.
Ralph wondered if the sound of crashing waves and gulls calling out to each other blocked the sound of his voice in her mind.
“Charlotte,” he called, louder this time, and it broke the spell.
“Hmm?” she stilled the broom and looked in his direction.
“Whose chairs are these?” he questioned, giving the one he was rotating a final spin before righting it to its four legs.
A frown creased her brow.
“We marked them all on the bottom of the seat, you know that,” she replied with a slight air of annoyance at the interruption – of her thoughts more than the task she was completing. But, as if she remembered as an afterthought, she gave him a smile. “I believe the Turners are the only family that did not take their chairs home this afternoon. They will collect them tomorrow morning.”
“Do you mind checking?” he questioned, thoughtfully with a return smile that did not delve much past the surface. “You’re so much better at these things than I.”
Charlotte pursed her lips. If she was not initially annoyed by his initial interruption of cleaning up the church hall after Alison and Declan’s wedding celebrations… she was now. It had already been a long day since the happy couple had spoken their vows and her day had started so much earlier helping her mother settle her sister’s prenuptial nerves. Her head was starting to ache.
She leaned the broom against the wall and crossed the floor to where Ralph stood.
Holding the back of a chair she tipped it sideways.
“Yes, there is a “T” in chalk… they belong to the Turners,” she confirmed, and she took a step or two back before turning to go back to her broom.
“Charlotte… stop for a moment? Talk to me?” Ralph requested.
“I really want to get this hall swept before I go. I do not know where the other girls have gone. They are supposed to be helping,” she complained, taking another few steps away.
“Stop Charlotte. I told them to go home… I wanted the chance to talk to you,” he said with a rush, “Please?”
She spun back around to him, all she wanted to do was go home and stop. Stop smiling, stop feeling, stop missing… him… just stop.
She sighed. “Ralph, I…”
“Please Charlotte, just sit with me for a little…” he asked, it came out as a plea.
Ralph pulled another chair from the stack and placed it next to the one he had been spinning.
“Please?”
She took a breath, nodded, and sat on the offered chair.
Her hands sat entwined in her lap; eyes rigidly fixed on her fingers.
He looked at her downturned face. Why did she have to make this so difficult he thought.
“I thought your friends might have stayed longer?” he began. “They seem like nice people.”
“They are wonderful, generous people. I am incredibly lucky to have such good friends,” she smiled, still not looking at him.
“Then why, Charlotte, had you not shared news of our engagement with them?” finally asking the question he had pondered since meeting their surprised faces at the news.
This brought her eyes to his. She had not been expecting this question just yet… although she thought it might arise.
“It was Alison’s day, today. I did not want to take any of the focus from her with my… our news,” she replied with the response just she had rehearsed in her head.
“Charlotte, you have had weeks to write and tell them. Long before today.” He questioned with a tone of weariness.
“I… I have been busy helping Alison and Mama prepare for today,” she tried. It sounded like the feeble excuse that it truly was. She had not expected him to question her any further about the matter past the already offered response.
“Charlotte… talk to me, please? If you are to be my wife, I need to know.” He sighed.
“Know what…?”
“Everything. You forget sometimes how truly long I have known you. Twice you have gone to Sanditon and twice something has happed there that has brought you back home with… not even a heavy heart, I dare say more of a broken heart. After the first time, you almost began to smile again. It almost reached your eyes, but then Mrs. Parker arrived at the dance, and Charlotte… the real Charlotte was gone again. If it had been the passing of just an acquaintance, Mrs. Parker would have written, Charlotte, not traveled all the way here in her mourning clothes.”
Charlotte opened and closed her mouth – words not coming to her tongue. She had repressed them so deeply that it was as if they were written in a foreign language that she no longer remembered how to translate.
He reached out and held one of the hands in her lap and gave her a small, upturned smile of encouragement.
“I… really… I do not know if I can bare to speak… to relive it all,” she replied. And she did not.
Two men she loved.
Two vastly different men and two hugely different heartbreaks…
But heartbreaks nonetheless.
“I am here, and I will listen without judgment, Charlotte. Please tell me… from the start…”
Charlotte looked up at her friend. He looked so sincere.
He really had been a dear friend all her life. Like a brother – it made the thought of being married to him and all that it entailed – twist her stomach.
If there was one person, she could unburden her soul with, surely it was him.
So, she did.
Everything.
Every single detail of her life since the day she left for Sanditon the first time. She had omitted, with Alison, the harrowing trip to London – with merely a story of promoting the Regatta. But she told Ralph the full truth of the matter. The truth of Sidney’s miraculous rescue, all the words that he had ever spoken to her, the endearments, the kiss… the promise of a conversation when he returned with yet another miracle to save his brother… And even when he did return, he spoke of the offer he intended… the one he now could not give her. That life could only provide one promised miracle – to save his brother – not the one of true love as well. Even though he had declared he did not love his intended, with the deep insinuation it was because he loved her…
Then Mary arrived when her heart was starting to heal. Sidney Parker was a good man, looking after his family despite the promises shared but not spoken... of their shared grief of Sidney’s sacrifice for his family… of the second grief of him gone forever…
Truly gone… not just to her… but forever.
And then her return to Sanditon… of a new kind of adventure
The vow she had made to close herself to love would be worn away by a man suffering his own demons, his own grief and torment. Of smiles and picnics… the gradual awareness of something growing between them. Of the breaking down of each other’s walls before he threw those walls up again blocking her way.
How they had parted...
How she had dared him to fight for her, to tell her she was wrong. She had given him the opportunity to correct her… ‘if that is all you have come here for…’ she had said, daring him to give his heart and tell her it was not his reason – that he loved her as she did him…
But it was not enough.
He did not tell her.
He closed down – she even thought she could see the moment the words almost left his lips only to be swallowed back down.
She knew he loved her.
She knew she loved him.
But it was not enough to just know.
He needed to tell her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
And he could not.
“But you did ask me,” she smiled to Ralph, her story now laid bare. “You did and that is why I said yes.”
If Ralph had been expecting a simple explanation for her obvious heartbreak – he certainly did not receive one.
He did smile to himself; he really should have known nothing was simple when it came to Charlotte Heywood.
But now… where to begin.
How to untangle the web…
He had asked the question and he had no right to be unhappy about her answer, no matter how much it pained him.
“I know when I asked you to be my wife, Charlotte, it wasn’t out of love that you accepted,” he said softly, still holding her hand.
“Are you saying you are withdrawing your proposal, Ralph?” she questioned, wondering what this confession might mean.
“No, not at all. But I think you should seriously reconsider whether this is what you want Charlotte,” he replied.
She did not have an answer for him.
How could she?
“I really need to get this sweeping finished Ralph,” she offered with a smile, removing her hand from his. “I will be still here at midnight otherwise.”
**
And so they continued. Polite conversations in the company of others with no real substance in their words. Questions from friends inquiring now that Miss Alison was wed, that perhaps it was time for Charlotte and Ralph to also set a date so that the banns could be read accordingly.
However, neither was willing to discuss the subject. Ralph could see Charlotte needed time. Although he was not sure there would ever be enough time especially when he saw the sadness in her eyes.
*
They traveled to Sanditon together to celebrate the coming of age of her dear friend Georgiana. Charlotte had taken him for a stroll along the promenade and then along the seashore. Charlotte felt she could speak of Sidney openly now, of how she had taken several strolls along such as this with him and his family. Recounting his request to keep an eye on Georgiana, of the Sanditon cricket match. Happy memories. It was obviously easier for her to move on from that one heartbreak. He was relieved of that much.
“And what of Mr. Colbourne? No strolls along the beach?” he questioned with a smile and a nudge of his shoulder as they walked. Hoping to evoke some more happy memories for her.
Her face clouded, although she still tried to smile – although he could clearly see it was forced.
“No. He rarely came to town. We… we had wandered the fields looking for his daughter once and…” her memory went back to the ‘turn about the grounds’ that second, passion-filled kiss…
“And…?” Ralph questioned as she stared out across the ocean, obviously caught in a memory.
“Hmm… sorry?”
He smiled and patted the hand that was hooked around his arm. “Never mind.”
*
And they met with her friends and took tea with Mr. and Mrs. Tom Parker and again the next day with an elegant lady who Charlotte had explained was a prominent Lady in society in London. Ralph marveled at how friendly she and Charlotte were. Although later realising he really should not be surprised. Charlotte endeared herself to everyone – no matter their station in life.
But he was more resigned to the fact now…
Charlotte had most definitely outgrown Willingden.
To keep her there would be akin to caging an eagle.
One that would diminish and succumb from want of flight.
They attended the Birthday ball in Miss Georgiana Lambe’s honour. Charlotte looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her before and was proud to be there with her.
At least he was there with her in body, if not in spirit.
They had arrived early with the Parkers, Charlotte despite being a guest, could not help wanting to ensure that everything was in place for the evening.
Ralph was not part of this level of society that Charlotte had established herself in seamlessly. However, he enjoyed standing back and watching the people arrive, wondering about their lives and what brought them to the celebrations. Were they true friends or merely in attendance by association – as he found himself?
He could not help but notice when the next guest to arrive, trailed by a younger woman, scanned the room before his eyes rested on Charlotte.
Ralph recognised the look of pain and want of something - that the gentleman did not think he could have.
He knew the feeling well enough himself.
“Charlotte?”
“Yes, Ralph?”
“That’s him, isn’t it?”
In slight confusion, she turned in the direction Ralph was looking, not at first understanding who it could be that Ralph was referring to. She tried, but with the shock of seeing his face… he was supposed to be in London, she thought… a tiny smile caught her lips before she caught herself and turned back just as their eyes met.
“Yes,” she uttered breathlessly, shocked that seeing him still made her feel like the earth had stopped.
Ralph continued to look in his direction and gave her a nod. “He is clearly in love with you.”
“Ralph… please, do not say such things,” she hissed.
“Charlotte, I am a man, and I am not blind. It is clearly written across his face, the second he saw you. Is that the niece you spoke of with him?”
“Augusta, yes.”
“She is coming this way,” he added, before taking a sip from his glass.
“Oh…”
“You will be fine, Charlotte. Where is that courage you always had?” he grinned.
“Miss Heywood?”
She took a deep breath before turning, “Miss Markham, how lovely to see you.”
“And you,” she replied, glancing at Ralph.
“Miss Augusta Markham, may I introduce you to my…”
“Ralph… Ralph Starling,” he interrupted. “I am a friend of Charlotte's from back home.”
Charlotte looked at him with her mouth agape. Why would he do that?
“It is lovely to meet you, Mr. Starling. Are you enjoying your stay in Sanditon?” Augusta asked politely, reveling in the practice of making conversation.
“Very much,” he replied with a smile.
Alexander, who had been caught by Mary Parker as they walked in finally caught up with his niece.
“Miss Heywood, welcome back to Sanditon,” he offered with a bow.
“Thank you, Mr. Colbourne.”
“Ralph Starling,” Ralph offered by way of introduction, not waiting for Charlotte to offer any explanation or introduction.
“Mr. Starling is a friend of Miss. Heywood’s from her home,” Augusta imparted with a confused smile.
Alexander gave the gentleman a nod, having just been informed by Mary Parker that he was more than just a friend of Miss Heywood’s. If it had not been for Augusta’s sake, he would have promptly left after hearing the news she was engaged. He was at least thankful that Mrs. Parker had given him a chance to prepare, even if it was only by a few minutes.
“You live in a lovely town Mr. Colbourne. I can understand why Charlotte enjoys being here so much,” Ralph continued.
“I err… do not actually live within the town, Mr. Starling. I have an estate just outside,” Alexander offered in an even well-mannered tone.
“Ah… yes, of course. Merely a turn of phrase. Charlotte has spoken of it fondly,” Ralph added.
Charlotte glanced at Ralph, wondering what mischief he was at by mentioning her time at Heyrick Park. She felt like she was trapped in some maelstrom with no way out. Everything just spinning around her, out of control.
“Miss. Heywood can be assured her presence at Heyrick Park is also remembered fondly by all that reside there,” he replied with a warm smile. Hoping that the sentiment was not lost on Charlotte herself.
“I do not doubt it,” Ralph smiled warmly.
“If you will excuse us,” Alexander bid, “I see my brother has just arrived after many years away and I wish to reacquaint him with some families from our childhood.”
“Of course,” Ralph continued to smile looking between Mr. Colbourne and Augusta. “I am sure there will be plenty of time for you to catch up with Charlotte.”
“I can hardly wait to tell you all about London,” Augusta beamed brightly to her former Governess.
“I look forward to hearing all your news,” Charlotte replied, finally finding her voice.
And with a smile and a nod, the encounter was over.
*
“Charlotte, I cannot let you continue with this charade,” Ralph offered quietly as they were alone again despite the ever-increasing bevy of guests in the room.
“Ralph, please…”
“No. Your friends know it, and I can plainly see it for myself. I will not be hurt, Charlotte. Disappointed, yes – but I will not stand in the way of true happiness for my dearest friend.”
“But you will not break my heart, Ralph.” She uttered lowly, with sadness in her eyes.
“No, I will not as it is impossible to break something which you do not hold. I do not have your heart, Charlotte; we both know he still has it. He might have almost let it slip from his grasp and it has a little crack in it, but we both know it can be mended. He has the thread, Charlotte. Let him repair what has been damaged.”
**
“It’s quite warm in there, isn’t it?” Ralph questioned from the shadows as Alexander leaned back against the pillar which adorned the façade of the building.
“Mr. Starling, excuse me… I did not realise you were here,” Alexander nodded to make leave.
“No… it is fine, Mr. Colbourne. There is plenty of fresh air to share.”
Alexander eyed him with a wary glance and leaned back against the pillar again. “Thank you.”
“In truth, I was hoping we might get a moment for a quiet word,” Ralph posed.
“You were?” Alexander what on earth they would have in common to discuss… well other than the obvious.
“Yes… about Charlotte.”
And there it was… the obvious.
“I believe I have yet to congratulate her… yourself… on your… engagement,” Alexander expressed, hoping his words did not sound as pained as they felt.
“Oh, so you have heard?” Ralph questioned, although he was not surprised considering the Parkers knew.
“Yes.” The reply escaped with a puff of chilly air as to emphasize a greater magnitude than the three letters it comprised.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Ralph questioned, with an air of directness.
“Pardon?” Alexander replied, not sure he had heard correctly.
“Love… hate… death… fear… the complexities of life. It is a theme as fluent as the sea. But I believe love is the hub to all of it. Without love, what is the point of any of it really?” Ralph mused, as much to himself as to the man that stood in front of him – holding the heart he wished he could hold – knowing he never would.
“Mr. Starling…”
Ralph chuckled and stepped forward, feeling bolder now. He loved Charlotte, so the least he could do was to help her in the quest for her to obtain her own love.
“She does not love me, how can she when she is in love with you? But she refuses to release me from the engagement. I have asked. I would prefer she did. If I had known the full story… firstly about the late Mr. Parker and then you… I would never have asked her in the first place. She does not belong in Willingden, nor with me. Her heart is yours and I can clearly see the return is true.”
“I really do not think it is my place to discuss…”
“Mr. Colbourne… make no mistake. If Charlotte does not break the engagement, I will marry her… even though I know she will never love me like a wife should love her husband. I will offer her protection at least from poverty and the burden she feels she is to her family. But I will tell you now if you do still love her, like I believe you do… you need to tell her – for both your sakes.”
Alexander was shocked by these revelations, not really knowing what to say in return. He stood; mouth slightly agape as Ralph turned to head back indoors.
“We are here for another two days, Mr. Colbourne. She has taken to going for an early morning stroll along the cliffs since we arrived,” Ralph offered as an afterthought over his shoulder.
“Mr. Starling?”
Ralph stopped at the threshold and turned back to Alexander. His face wore a resigned smile.
“Thank you, Mr. Starling.”
And with a smile and a nod, Ralph returned to the Ball.