"Mama! Mama! What is it, why are you crying?" a young girl's voice cried loudly.
Mary Parker startled, jolted out of her thoughts by Alicia's loud, scared question. She looked up to see the faces of her children staring at her in consternation. Little Henry looked like he was about to cry himself. "Are you hurt, Mama?" he wailed, reaching over to lean against her arm.
They were all in the nursery, playing, or they were supposed to be. But her thoughts and attention had drifted during the battle between dolls and soldiers from her children and their antics to the pain and humiliation of recent weeks – the fire, the consequence of months of Tom's lies, Sidney's hasty engagement, and Charlotte's departure.
Putting on a happy, supportive face for the family was draining her, as she had no one in whom to confide. No one. She had no sisters, her aunts were all dead, and she really had no woman friend in Sanditon that she could unburden herself in the way she needed to. Her sister-in-law Diana was a kind soul but Mary and she had never been close. Lady Denham was certainly out of the question.
If Charlotte had not been so closely involved, she would have written to the young lady, or even asked her to stay and be the soul support she had been for the summer. Things being what they were, there was no possible way to add to her burdens. It would be far too cruel.
She reached up to her face, to wipe away the tears she had not realized she had shed. "I'm not hurt, my loves, only very tired," she said, giving the children a watery smile. She turned to Henry and hugged him, giving him a kiss on the forehead.
Boots sounded on the stairs at the same time Jenny piped up. "Are you sad about Miss Charlotte going home? I miss Admiral Heywood, Mama, if Uncle Sidney could marry her then she could stay forever and play with us!"
Mary looked up to see Sidney standing in the doorway, looking stricken as he heard those words. His eyes widened, seeing her tear-stained face. He recovered quickly, however, and strode into the room, picking up Henry and spinning him around. "I see you are in the middle of a battle! Who is winning – the dolls or the soldiers?" he smiled. As usual lately, his smile did not reach his eyes.
"Uncle Sidney! Uncle Sidney! Can you play with us?" the children shrieked, pulling on his legs and hands.
"Yes, I can, but first I need to speak with your mother. We must step out for a bit, and when we get back, we can play all you like."
Mary got to her feet, requesting one of her maids to stay with the children. "We shall be back soon," she said, walking quickly downstairs and out the door to the back of the house. She could hear Sidney following her as they stepped out into the alley behind the house. She walked as fast as she could, away from the town, in the direction of the coppice of trees that housed the bluebells.
"I actually do not need to speak to you, Mary, but I could see you needed an escape. What is it, is Tom creating additional problems? The money is not all released yet, but enough of it to complete the rebuild."
"Not here Sidney, not yet, I don't want anyone to see." Mary's voice came out brokenly. She could feel more tears coming up, and it was getting harder and harder to hold them back. She did not want an audience of townspeople seeing her sobbing.
"Are you sick, Mary? Should you be out racing around like this?" Sidney asked.
"Yes, Sidney, I am sick, but not in the way you think." She was crying now, still walking. They were far enough out of town that no one could really see her face enough to see the tears.
"I am so sorry Sidney, so, so sorry. It is unfair of me, but I cannot, I cannot," she cried. They had finally reached the trees and she collapsed, sitting on a fallen log, sobbing her heart out.
"Mary, Mary, what can you have to be sorry for?" Sidney knelt on the ground beside her, his handkerchief held out to her. But Mary held her face in her hands, sobbing brokenly.
For a few minutes, they did not move, and the air was rent only with the sound of crying.
"I have no one to unburden to, really, and I am sorry to do this to you, to add to your own burdens and pain, which are so much greater than my own", Mary sniffled. "You are ruining your own life to save us from ruin. I know I must bear it, but today the loss and pain was very strong and I could no longer put on a happy face. I am so sorry, Sidney." She looked down at her brother-in-law, seeing him in almost the state she was – tears streaming down his face.
"Well, Mary, if you do not have anyone you can confide in and cry in front of, then you must know that I do not really either, at least not in this way." He wiped his cheeks with one hand and laughed. It was a hollow sound. "Babers and Crowe know the entirety of the tale, they know I am in pain missing Charlotte and wanted to marry her, but I could not cry at all in front of them."
He laughed a little bitterly, shaking his head. "Tears are at least healthier for me than drinking so much I black out and can barely recall the night before, or getting beat in a boxing match."
"Oh, Sidney, you musn't! Please don't do that!"
"Mary, it is a knife in my chest! It hurts so much! I wanted and still do want to marry Charlotte! She was and is the most marvelous woman I know, next to you, that is. The two of you would have been such close sisters, you were so wonderful together."
Mary nodded, and swallowed. "That is part of my pain, that I feel like I lost a sister, and I see no way to get her back. Part of my heart left with her. I do not feel Mrs. Campion will be the sisterly type."
"And the children, Alicia and Jenny and Henry and James are losing something precious. She was so good with them, they loved her to pieces," Sidney cried, gripping his hair in his hands. "She was never too fussy a lady to get down in the grass or sand to play with them. Mrs. Campion would rather pretend they do not exist at all," he said with a tone of disgust.
"Are you sure, are you absolutely sure that you cannot get any money any other way? You cannot live the next 40 or 50 years like that, if she disgusts you!"
"I will be an absent husband. She can live in London, and I will live near here or elsewhere. Maybe I will return to Antigua for a time, alone." His tone was bitter. "Charlotte would have been such a caring, loving mother. I would have adored having children with her. But the thought of lying with Mrs. Campion to make a child, makes me ill, Mary. She would be a terrible mother, she does not care about anyone but herself! So I end up losing my dreams of having children of my own!" Sidney stood and kicked at a tree, anger overtaking sadness for the moment.
"I am so sorry, Sidney. So very, very sorry."
"It is not your fault, Mary. Not any of it. Yet we all suffer to some degree, we have all lost something that can not be retrieved or replaced." Feeling defeated, Sidney sat down next to Mary and lost himself in tears of misery.
It would be some time before either was fit to return to Trafalgar House, with an agreement between them to help bear each other's burdens, since there was no one else either could truly trust.