Chapter Text
The Charlotte Heywood who returned to Willingden that autumn was markedly altered from the one who had left. She was quieter, more thoughtful, and took to spending every spare hour buried in a book, carefully selecting the driest and most worthy historical texts available to her and shunning anything remotely resembling a novel, let alone poetry. She felt that she could not trust herself with anything remotely sentimental in her present state of mind.
Fortunately, perhaps, there were few such spare moments to be had, for while the rest of the family had got on tolerably in her absence there is never a shortage of domestic tasks in such a large household. Over the summer, her brother William had become much taken with a clergyman's daughter two villages away, and, although nothing had yet been settled, there was a general expectation that the following spring would see him married. Charlotte could not hear this news without a pang, though she was careful to display no feeling beyond the mild interest required. Other people, she reminded herself, were no less entitled to seek happiness in matrimony because she had been disappointed.
About Sidney Parker she would say nothing beyond the truth that he was engaged to a widow with whom he had been many years acquainted; and even to her sister Alison she would say nothing beyond the untruth that she wished them well. Nor was this entirely untrue. For him, she wished every happiness that remained within his purview. It was impossible for Charlotte to see how he could ever be happy in such a situation, but for his sake she must wish it so.
For her, she could not quite do the same. It was not merely jealousy, but the conviction that Eliza Campion was a petty, snobbish, mercenary woman who had not merited his regard when she was a girl willing to marry for money, and deserved it even less now that she was willing to be married for it. Still, her opinion of Mrs Campion was based upon a very fleeting acquaintance, and could never have been entirely impartial. She must assume that there was more to her than she had witnessed -- that Sidney Parker was not such a fool as to pine for years over a woman so decidedly unworthy of him -- that she had judged her as harshly, and as wrongly, as she had earlier judged him.
One drizzly afternoon in late October, as Charlotte was helping her mother with the laundry, two or three of her siblings came running in, damp and breathless, from whatever childish missions they had been about on the farm.
'Mother! There's a man on a big black horse riding up the hill, dressed like a gentleman! What can he want?'
'He must be lost,' Mrs Heywood observed mildly; but Charlotte had already loosened her apron and hurried to the door, where, sure enough, looming through the mist, rode the unmistakable figure of Mr Sidney Parker.
Charlotte knew perfectly well that, as a respectable young lady, the time for running had passed some five or six years ago; but that was not enough to stop her racing over the sloping meadows, nor from throwing herself into his embrace as he disembarked from his horse and held out his arms to catch her.
'How… Why… Are you come to tell me it has happened? You are married?'
He shook his head, laughing. 'Not at all. My plans are changed -- entirely changed. My dearest Charlotte, I had to see you. None of what I have to say could wait for a letter.'
The engagement had been doomed from the start --- Mrs Campion, knowing of old how he had looked and behaved when sincerely attached to her, could not but feel the difference now -- It had its effect upon her temper -- He knew it was his duty to dissemble, to reassure her that his feelings remained unchanged, but he would not. He could not. It seemed to him not only a betrayal of what had passed between Charlotte and himself, but a crude parody of what his younger self had felt, and hoped, and endured.
'Time had changed us both,' he said. 'How I used to admire her lively wit -- yet now her observations seemed merely mean-spirited, even cruel. She had become hardened. Perhaps I had hardened too. I know your thoughts on that.' He smiled, ruefully, and continued before Charlotte had a chance to protest. 'So when fate -- or perhaps I should say your friend Lady Worcester -- placed an impoverished baronet in her path, it was no great surprise what transpired. He needed her fortune even more than I did, and had a title to offer in exchange for it.'
'She threw you over? Again?' Charlotte was incredulous. To have once forsaken a man like Sidney Parker seemed to her inexcusable; but to repeat the same mistake ten years later was inexplicable.
'Oh, it was not quite that blatant. But Sir John was clearly under her spell, and I would like to think it was not entirely due to her fortune. When I saw them together, I understood that I was not only sacrificing my own happiness -- and not only sacrificing yours, wretch that I am -- but hers. I was vain enough to think she would be glad to be married to me regardless of whether I cared for her. It could never have worked. So I quit the field before the wedding-plans could be advanced any further.' He paused, as if recalling the interview. 'It was difficult to tell her, but after the initial shock the relief I saw on her face was not unlike that I see in yours now. I suspect that Sir John will fit in easily enough with her arrangements. The groom is little more than a bit-player in these productions, after all.'
'But the money… How will the debts be paid?'
'Well, once I saw which way the wind was blowing, I realised I would have to make alternative arrangements. And amidst all the confusion surrounding the fire, I had somehow forgotten that I had an heiress at my disposal. I wrote to Georgiana proposing that she loan me a portion of the money, to be repaid when she turns twenty-one or marries suitably, whichever is the earlier. I was frank with her about the mistake I had made in engaging myself to Eliza and my desire to put things right. She replied by return of post with terms even more favourable than I had suggested, on condition only that I do not disappoint her dear Miss Heywood ever again. She does not care about her fortune, and even less about me, but she does care for you.'
'And I for her. But surely that cannot have covered all of Tom's costs?'
'I was coming to that. Lady Susan, when she heard of the tragedy that had befallen Sanditon, proposed an investment even more substantial than Lady Denham's. I suppose, having been instrumental in depriving me of my bride-to-be, she could do no less. She will be a formidable patroness indeed! But I think, with your help, she might be rather less tyrannical than the last one. She plans to have her own rooms in the terrace, when it is completed, and before I left London expressed a particular wish to see you at our Christmas ball. I could not make that promise on your behalf, but I hope that now -- in spite of everything -- I might be able to?'
What could Charlotte do but assent -- assent most joyfully? She took no heed of the rain or the mud as they led his horse up to the farmhouse, arm in arm, talking over the plans for the ball and how they might be improved to be more worthy of Lady Susan's generosity. By the time they returned to the house, Mr Heywood had come back in from the fields and was more than willing, if a little bemused, to grant Mr Parker a private audience.
'But I thought he was to be married to that widow?' said Mrs Heywood, while Alison busied herself in shooing the children away from the study door.
'It's a long story; but I shall be able to tell you all about it, now.'
The Charlotte Heywood who returned to Sanditon that winter was still Miss Heywood -- both having agreed that it would be prudent to spare the expense of establishing a new household until Tom's affairs were fully settled, not to mention sparing Mrs Carson the appearance of having been jilted -- but she was an infinitely happier Miss Haywood than the one who had departed in such desolation. The Parkers were only more delighted to see her in her new guise as future sister-in-law; and, as for Miss Lambe, she could be excused a little self-congratulation upon her own role in bringing her friend's travails to such a happy conclusion.