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Since returning to Willingden, Charlotte rises with the birds.
The house is still dark as she moves through the kitchen and pulls on her woollen shawl. Dawn tints the trees as she follows the path out, but Charlotte would know the way even in the gloom. The heels of her worn boots clip as she crosses the bridge over the river. They sink into the mud as she walks along the paddock. Autumn has crept up the countryside, reds and golds and grown ebbing along the fields and the branches.
Charlotte knows this place. Every stretch of cobblestone and paddock and tree line. She was born here. For so long, she had only even been here.
Now she had travelled beyond the reaches of the small village. To Sanditon. To London. Her heart had been carried across the sea, to the foreign land where her dear Georgiana had grown up, and her first love was buried.
Willingden had not changed in these two years though. This land remained fixed. Her father’s stock and crops would come and go but the land would endure all seasons. Charlotte walks up to the fence line to the herd her father wanted her to shift. She whistles to the sheepdog running ahead of her. The dew on the long grass dapples the hem of her dress.
In this place she had been five years old, running after her father. She had been eight, nursing a broken arm from climbing too high and stumbling. She had been 17, lying in the grass looking up at the endless sky. Now, she was three and twenty and felt every year of her life wearing on her.
After last summer, Charlotte had spent a lot of time thinking about rivers. The different people you could be at either side of them. The water ever-changing in between.
Charlotte is not the girl she was before getting into the Parkers’ carriage. She is not the girl who Sidney Parker saw something good and something to treasure in.
She had shed her girlhood with her grief and her sorrow. She had not been enough. She would make herself anew. Someone solitary, someone self-reliant. She had tried to raise young ladies. To find contentment out of society. Somehow there she had found someone she wanted to be. A woman with a kind heart who did not hide away from life, but lead those she loved into it. Someone who could draw a man so hurt and cautious out of hiding himself to find love—no, no. Charlotte could not think like that.
All she knew now was that, another summer gone, she was not sure who she was now.
The morning sky shifts from deep navy, to gold, to a faded blue. White and grey rippled through as the air carried the threat of rain. Charlotte tugs her shawl tighter around her. She trudges slowly back towards the house. The rest of her family would be awake and about by now. Knives and forks clattering around the table. The excited chatter of children and her parents’ own steadier tones. Allison’s endless joy at her upcoming wedding day.
Charlotte is never ready to break her solitary morning walk. This was the only time she got to herself all day. When she could let her mind wander and her heart soar.
When she had returned from Sanditon the first time, she had hated being back in the pokey bedroom heaped in with Allison, Caroline and Henrietta. Her time at Trafalgar House had spoiled her. A room to herself. Trunks of fine dresses. Blue shoes she would never have need of to wear again. The room—the house itself—had felt suffocating. There had been no space for her heartbreak, and then especially none for her grief. She had to be outside to be alone and to unwind the tangle of feelings inside of her.
Now, Charlotte almost always wanted to be within a fingers-stretch of her family. Her young brother Charles always ready to be scooped up onto her lap when she missed Leonora so much she could cry. Henrietta with her easy laugh, so generous with her smiles whenever Charlotte felt the sadness clog up her throat. Even her mother was a balm for her wounded soul. There was always something to do—a frock to mend or a tenant to call on—to make Charlotte feel of use again.
Charlotte remember how last year after her first visit to Sanditon she had looked at her mother—soft-spoken and weary and always holding a screaming child—and had longed for Mary. Someone who cared about what she felt and thought and made time for her. Now Charlotte could see how selfish she had been longing for a shoulder to lean on when she could see just how much help her mother needed. Now she could see what meaning could be found in holding together a home. Now she could find some way fit herself back into her family that had grown without her.
And yet, Charlotte found in the almost two months she had been home that she had to guard her morning solitude. The hour or so while the house still slept when she could slip outside and wake up with the day.
Charlotte tries not to think about how it was just a force of habit. A bleak imitation of her walk every morning along the beach front and cliff tops from the village to Heyrick Park. Every day it feeling less like she was leaving home to go there, but more like every morning it feeling more like coming home.
Charlotte’s boots rap her entrance back into the yard. She can see the bustle in the kitchen through the windows. Her father sits on the step to the side door, a small stack of letters propped on his knee and a pipe puffing in his mouth. He nods to her and smiles.
Charlotte sits down beside on the stoop, bumping her shoulder against his in greeting.
“You saw those accounts that need responses this week then, Papa?” Charlotte leans across and taps the pile of correspondence precariously perched on her father’s grubby trousers.
“Yes, thank you. I suppose those months with mad businessman Mr Parker have taught you some wisdom in managing your revenue,” he huffed, his barbs never truly meant to sting.
Charlotte had hoped things may have improved in the months she and Allison had stayed in Sanditon. They were not so fortunate. She could see lines etched in her father’s face that she had never seen before. A tightness in his jaw that she had never noticed. A seriousness in him that scared her. The night she had returned from Sanditon—heartbroken again—he had looked at her with such sorrow that she had almost started to cry again despite resolving on the journey home she would not shed another tear over a man who discarded her so easily.
“There is no more time for adventures, Charlotte,” her father had said gravely.
In the crisp morning light, her father does not look so haunted but Charlotte can still see the lines, the tension.
The rap of boots announce a visitor from across the bridge. They look up from the letters to see a familiar figure approaching.
“Good morning Ralph,” Charlotte called out. Just as she took her morning walk every day since her return, every day Ralph called on her. He was always Ralph to Charlotte, never Mr Starling.
He was always the boy from down the lane with the bouncing brown hair that would run along the fence line with her. Always so quick to give her a laugh or a smile, or to hold out a hand to lift her up.
Even after his father died when they were just 15 and he had to help his mother run the farm.
Even now, a man and master of his own land. He was Ralph, her friend.
“Good morning Mr Heywood, Charlotte,” Ralph tips his hat, rolling forward on the balls of his feet. He reaches for the package under his arm.
“Fresh bread. Cook made an extra loaf,” he offers the package to Charlotte’s father, who takes it and gladly tucks away the bundle of letters. He stands up and nods to the kitchen, gesturing the fresh loaf. “Will you join us, Ralph?”
Every day when Ralph would call somehow he would end up at their dining room table, a younger brother or sister hanging off each elbow and her father sitting across from him chuckling at some outlandish story his children were trying to tell him. Charlotte has to perch at the corner of the table to fit, tuck her arms into her sides and crane to reach her plate. She tentatively picks at her slice of toast. Little James recites the poem Allison has taught him. Isabella twirls around the seats, the makeshift doll Charlotte had sewed for her three years ago clutched to her chest. Ralph catches her eye across the table and grins.
Charlotte feels her face move in an automatic response, conjuring up a smile in return. Her mind though is still wandering across the fields, the sharp morning air stinging her cheeks.
The chaos starts to ease as everyone begins to leave the table and head out on their tasks for the morning. Charlotte pulls her thoughts away from the clouds and tries to remember the chapters she had set for her younger siblings to read. She yearned for a moment for the sprawling library of Heyrick Park, but quickly chased away that notion too.
“Charlotte,” her father’s voice cuts through her pondering.
“Yes?” She sits forward, finally able to reach the table properly.
Her father nods to Ralph, who is looking at her, as he always did, with bright eyes.
“I hoped I might speak to Charlotte alone for a moment?” He says, evidently a repeat of his earlier request.
Charlotte’s mouth goes dry and her stomach seizes. Her father takes her silence as apparent agreement.
“Of course, dear boy,” her father smiled, clapping a hand on Ralph’s shoulder as he stood. “Why don’t you step into my study. I have some matters to attend to at the top paddock. I’ll find you on my return,” he locks eyes with Charlotte. There it was, that grave stare again.
Her father’s study is narrow room at the east side of the house. It is really just a desk, a shelf and a battered set of chairs. Ralph follows in behind her. She goes to the window and looks out at the yard. She wraps her arms tightly around her middle. Perhaps if she holds herself together, she will not shatter.
The room is so confined that she can hear Ralph shifting from one foot to the other nervously behind her. Charlotte had probably spent more time cooped up in here last year than her father. Records that were usually sprawled in unruly piles were stacked and ordered. Since her return she had tried to stay away, memories of another, much grander, study rushing back every time she sat by the mahogany desk.
“Charlotte, I came to talk to you about something important. Truly, the most important thing to me.”
Charlotte squeezes her eyes shut and digs her fingernails into the fabric of her dress. Her breathe shudders out and then she turns to face him.
It is just Ralph. Her friend. Standing in front of her ready to give everything to her, without any reservation.
Somehow, after all these months, Charlotte is still stunned that this is the proposal she receives. Not the promise of the first man who had captured her heart, only to disappear with the plumes of smoke and just the taste of ash left on her tongue. Not the gentle spirit she craved from a man she felt she only was just starting to—no, she could not think of him. Not now. Not anymore.
Ralph has taken her hand between his own and Charlotte has to focus on breathing evenly and not feeling like the walls are closing in on her. She is not trapped. She is not helpless. Ralph is her friend, someone she and her family trust without question.
Last year Charlotte had run from him. Taken her broken heart and hidden away in the far reaches of the top paddocks, down in the gully and on endless errands for her mother into the village. She had felt worthless at being passed over by Sidney, never enough never enough. She had felt ashamed at wishing that he had chosen her over Sanditon.
This year, Charlotte had to swallow her devastation. All of her heartbreak, her shame and her bitterness forced down and away. Mr Colbourne did not want her. There was nothing to be done about that.
Now, Charlotte had to learn to stand her ground in this place. In this place that used to be her entire world. The dream of Sanditon, of Heyrick Park and its master, had to be just that, a dream.
Ralph could not touch her heart. She was safe.
She could be Mrs Ralph Starling.
She had to be.
“Yes, I will,” she hears herself whisper, as if her own voice was coming from another room, or just carried in on the breeze.
Ralph is all joy and excitement. He pulls her into his arms and lifts her so her feet barely touch the ground. She buries her face in the cloth of his jacket, trying to ground herself in the familiar scent and feel of him. To not let her heart wander and remember the feeling of another man pulling her in closer, the way Mr Colbourne could move her with just the lightest touch—
“I love you, my dearest Charlotte.” Ralph’s words are everything a betrothed would want to hear. All sincerity and with an open heart.
All Charlotte can do is press a kiss to his mouth. It is chaste, perfunctory. Safe.
“Let’s go tell your family,” Ralph beams, taking her hand in his again. “I cannot keep this happiness to ourselves.”
Her mother weeps. Her brothers laugh, a little bewildered. Her father stands taller than Charlotte has ever seen him and with such a broad smile that he looks years younger.
Allison is furious. Charlotte can see the thunderstorm crackling on her face as Ralph announces the news to the whole house. Allison is an open book. Her feelings always pinned valiantly on her sleeve.
She does not say anything until that evening. Until the celebratory lunch is eaten and the visits paid to Ralph’s mother and the rest of the family tucked away for the night. Allison drags Charlotte out of their room away from their younger sisters and into the cramped parlour.
“How could you?” Allison cries, distraught. Lightning flashing in her eyes in the dark of the room.
Charlotte crosses her arms and keeps her expression stony. No more tears. “Ralph is a good man, Allison. You know that. It is a good match.”
“But you do not love him!” She does not bother to keep her voice down in the slumbering house and Charlotte urges her to hush. Allison huffs in frustration.
“You cannot give up on your heart. Not yet.” Allison’s whispers echo, but Charlotte stands firm. She smooths her hands down her nightgown and tries not to glare at her younger sister.
“I tried to be a woman of independent means and that did not work,” she says simply. It is the truth. Plain and simple. “I want a home of my own, Allison. I want a family,” her voice catches and she has to take a steadying breath.
Allison’s lip trembles and her eyes shine. “Please don’t shut yourself away in a loveless life, Charlotte. There is always hope, there is always love out there for you. I know it.”
Charlotte has to look away.
“I cannot be so certain, Allison,” she sighs.
Oh, how Charlotte had hoped, almost against all sense, that he would come. That one morning as she walked along the fields she would see Hannibal against the horizon. That somehow news of Allison’s wedding would make it to Heyrick Park and among all the guests travelling from Sanditon he would be among them. That somehow Alexander Colbourne would come here, this place where Charlotte has spent almost her entire life, and take her hand and take her home.
Even though her heart hoped, she had to confront the truth. There is no reason for him to travel here. He is not invited and she was just a member of his staff. Nothing more.
“Please,” Charlotte pleaded, pressing her hands to her chest. “Please, let me try and belong here, Allison. I am so tired and there is nothing more I can do.” She doesn’t even attempt to keep her voice low, the words are faint and strained.
Allison eyes her warily, and then takes her hand. “Let’s go to sleep. Declan’s family arrives tomorrow and I cannot have your news steal the day.” Her jest rings false but Charlotte is grateful for the reprieve. She follows her sister back to their room. They step over Henrietta’s trunk, scold Caroline for still having her candle lit and then climb into their narrow beds.
Despite the exhaustion she can feel to her very bones, Charlotte stares up at the dark ceiling. She has to will away the timbre of his voice she can hear as she starts to drift to sleep. Cast away the memories of the way his eyes would gleam when he would test her knowledge or tease her practice. She has to forget the feeling of being in his arms as they had danced together in the Assembly rooms; the strong line of his shoulders, his steady gaze holding her to him.
Even as she lies alone in her small bed, cramped and confined, she can feel his lips on hers. The sparks that his kisses ignited in her still crackling. She closes her eyes and tries to force it all from her mind, from her heart.
Charlotte cannot want Alexander Colbourne anymore. She cannot crave the tender parts of him. His gentleness. His compassion and kindness. The desperate yearning that he is hiding the best parts of himself away from the world and the people who love him.
She has to find peace in her childhood home. She has to rise in the morning and walk the paths and trails she has for her entire life. She has to do everything she can to ease the lines in her father’s brow and carry her mother’s burdens. No more adventures.
Charlotte has to forge the new woman she is now. Mrs Ralph Starling.