Chapter 3
Charlotte and Lady Worcester chatted amicably throughout the ride to London, with Charlotte sharing stories of her upbringing on the farm and her experiences in Sanditon. She told Lady Worcester of how she came to meet Tom and Mary Parker. Their carriage was traveling too fast on the road by her farm and it tipped over. Tom was injured and stayed with Charlotte's family to recover. In return for the Heywoods' kindness, Tom invited Charlotte to come visit with his family in the seaside resort he was building called Sanditon.
While in Sanditon, Charlotte met many eccentric people including Lady Denham, her niece Lady Esther Babington (née Denham) and Esther's brother by marriage, the disreputable Edward Denham. Lady Denham had a second niece, Clara Brereton, whom Charlotte had met during her first days in Sanditon. Charlotte learned that Edward and Clara had plotted to divide Lady Denham's fortune as she lay on her deathbed. But pronouncements of the old woman's death were premature, as Lady Denham miraculously recovered from her sickness and disowned them both. Edward then interrupted the Midsummer Ball, pleading for Esther to forgive him. Edward and Esther had been very close. Indeed, Charlotte rarely saw them separated when they were about town. But his misdeeds against his aunt forced Lady Denham to request his removal from the ball and Sanditon. He was put on the first coach to London. Clara was forced to leave Sanditon as well.
"Lady Denham seems to be quite the woman," Lady Worcester remarked, opening a basket containing cheese, bread, cakes, and wine while they waited at a specially arranged posting station for fresh horses.
"Oh, she is!" Charlotte said. "She is not one to mince words. She tells you exactly what she thinks of you, whether you care for her opinion or not."
"Sounds like someone I know." Lady Worcester smiled and slightly inclined her head towards Charlotte.
"Well, I never have been very good at holding my tongue," Charlotte replied sheepishly. "Anyway, Lord Babington proposed to Miss Esther Denham at the ball. The wedding was beautiful. I am glad she found happiness with Lord Babington. She always seemed so…unhappy all the time."
"Perhaps we'll get to see them in London."
Charlotte's smile faded from her face and she slowly moved the bread she was holding away from her lips. "Are they in London?"
"Yes, they are."
Charlotte shook her head slightly and rolled her eyes. "For the wedding, of course. Lord Babington is a friend of Mr. Sidney Parker's. How…how might we see them?"
"All in good time, my dear. All in good time."
Clearly, asking about the plan was not going to yield many answers. However, Charlotte had other questions Lady Worcester might answer. Their conversation up until this point had focused mostly on Charlotte and very little on Lady Worcester. They were halfway through the journey to London and Charlotte thought it best to capitalize on the remaining few hours they had together.
"Susan?" Charlotte said.
"Yes?"
"I know that you are fond of me and you want to ensure my happiness with Mr. Parker."
Lady Worcester looked at Charlotte directly with a serious expression on her face. "Yes."
"May I ask why? We only met and conversed briefly at the ball, and then you brought your friends to the regatta, saving the day. Now, you are bringing me to London in hopes of stopping Mr. Parker's wedding. I do not understand why."
A smile teased at the corners of Lady Worcester's mouth. "I think you do. I think you understand that if you were in the same position as I am, you would be doing the same. In fact, you have already done the same: helping Miss Georgiana Lambe with her suitor, Mr. Molyneux. You have a free and giving spirit, Charlotte. You defy convention. You want a world where the current rules of love and marriage do not apply."
Charlotte considered Lady Worcester's words carefully. She supposed the woman was right: these "rules" regarding who can marry whom in high society were not rules Charlotte was accustomed to. Her parents fell in love and married and had been happy their entire lives. There had been no consideration as to wealth or class.
"When I look at you, I am reminded of myself at your age," Lady Worcester continued. "I, too, was madly in love with a young man. His name was William Reeves. But my parents were wealthy landowners and my upbringing was such that I was expected to marry well. William was not wealthy enough for my father. So, we parted. I have thought of him every day since."
"Every day?" Charlotte asked, stunned. She did not know Lady Worcester's exact age, but she calculated the courtship with Mr. Reeves was at least twenty-five years ago.
"Every day. I married Lord Worcester instead. The fact that he had a title was adequate enough for my parents. We had a son named Charles. He died shortly after his birth."
"You did not have more children?" Charlotte wanted to be considerate to Lady Worcester's immeasurable tragedies, but this revelation only magnified Charlotte's curiosity about the woman.
Lady Worcester's calm, measured countenance had not changed in the face of sharing what had happened to her son. "No," she responded. "It was not an experience I wished to repeat." She bit into a piece of Blue Stilton, chewed, and swallowed. "Lord Worcester died five years ago. My marriage did provide this way of life"—she gestured to her clothing and the carriage—"but it was not the marriage I wanted."
Charlotte frowned. "Your story sounds similar to Mrs. Campion's. Except, well, she is marrying again."
Lady Worcester quickly reached for Charlotte's hand and cradled it in her own. "No, my dear. It is quite different. Mrs. Campion made a choice. Mr. Sidney Parker had plenty of wealth. She decided love was not of the utmost importance. I had no such choice."
"How…how do you know Mrs. Campion made a choice? You and Mrs. Campion are not friends, are you?" Charlotte had only heard about what happened between Sidney and Mrs. Campion from Tom and Mary. She wondered if there were missing pieces of the picture. Could Mrs. Campion truly be as concentrated upon money as she appeared?
"No, we are not friends. Merely acquaintances in London. I have heard the story of her life from my confidantes. She did not choose Mr. Parker when she had the opportunity. That I know for sure."
"But without asking her, how does one know? Perhaps there were other factors involved—"
Lady Worcester held up a hand to stop her. "You've met Mrs. Campion. Does she appear to wish she were any less wealthy?"
Charlotte could not say for certain. It was not a question she had ever asked herself. Mrs. Campion did seem to enjoy being wealthy, with her fine clothes and her entourage trailing behind her. She had a way of dismissing Charlotte, as if she were better than Charlotte. At the regatta, Mrs. Campion said she thought Charlotte would be more comfortable seeking a young boy from her village for marriage rather than a gentleman at the regatta because it helps to "share a common background". And when Sidney mentioned that Charlotte would prefer reading Heraclitus to all of their "London talk", as Mrs. Campion called it, Mrs. Campion said reading would most certainly not help Charlotte find a husband. Mrs. Campion and her companions then proceeded to laugh at her, a bitter, mocking laugh that only people with money and influence could share and understand. Charlotte had never been so humiliated in all her life.
But how well did Charlotte truly know Mrs. Campion? Even though Tom, Mary, and even Lady Worcester had it on good account that Mrs. Campion chose Mr. Campion and his money over Sidney, was there more to the story? Charlotte thought of how her "plan" to help Georgiana and Otis Molyneux had gone so terribly awry because she did not know everything about Mr. Molyneux. Indeed, Charlotte had wanted to help the lovers because Sidney insisted on keeping them apart. What she did not know was that Otis was a gambler who owed debts to some very ruthless men. His transgressions led to Georgiana being kidnapped from the location where Charlotte had arranged for Otis and Georgiana to meet. Sidney eventually rescued her, but the experience taught Charlotte two invaluable lessons. One, she might not be privy to the entire truth of a situation, and two, that leading with her heart rather than her head was not always the best course of action. She wondered now if that were the case. Did she have any more right to be happy with Sidney than Mrs. Campion did? Was going to London to stop the wedding a terrible mistake?
"Susan, how are you certain this is the right thing to do?" Charlotte asked after a long stretch of eating, drinking, and sitting in silence.
"Because money cannot continue to dictate who we marry," Lady Worcester responded matter-of-factly. "There is something inhuman about it all."
Charlotte considered how earnest Lady Worcester still seemed. It was as if the woman had put a great deal of thought into the order of things. Charlotte was certain she had not met anyone quite like Lady Worcester and she had difficulty believing she bore any resemblance to Lady Worcester's younger self. In fact, it was difficult to imagine Lady Worcester as a young woman. She was so composed, elegant, and…resilient. Charlotte assumed the woman had been born that way. Charlotte did agree, however, with making the world more charitable and she supposed she and Lady Worcester were kindred spirits in that enterprise. She began to relax again as Lady Worcester shared stories about the London Charlotte barely glimpsed during her only visit there: shopping on Bond Street, sunny afternoons in Hyde Park, and the history of Westminster Abbey.
"I promise your second visit to London will be much improved over your first," Lady Worcester said.
Indeed, Charlotte's first visit had been fraught with danger as she had traveled there alone in search of Georgiana and Mr. Molyneux. She became lost at night in an unseemly part of the city, and had it not been for Sidney fighting off a man who sought to hurt her, she may not have survived. Lady Worcester insisted there would be no dark alleys this time and that Charlotte would remember London more fondly. Charlotte put the utmost faith in Lady Worcester's words and hoped she was right.