Having returned to their little house on the seafront, Charlotte and George spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the streets of the town and discovering what new delights had sprung up since her previous visit.
They were stopped and greeted by various individuals who remembered and were remembered by Charlotte from several years before and had even encountered Arthur and Diana Parker outside the post office. The couple had engaged a lovely if brief conversation with the brother and sister which revealed them to be little changed. Charlotte promised they would call during the week before both parties went on their way.
"Your friends make for an… interesting pair, my love. They seem to have far more energy than I had expected from your description of them." George was no little befuddled by the enthusiasm and activity to be seen in the individuals whom his wife had told him were eternally concerned with their imagined poor health.
Charlotte laughed, "Yes, they are wonderfully full of character!" she agreed. "But they are very good and friendly and almost impossible to dislike."
"Only almost impossible?"
"Where one is truly determined to find some fault or other to dislike, one is sure to succeed. It seems to me a very lonely thing, but it is also true." She said. It was fortunate that there were relatively few people so determined to disapprove with everything they met and most others were content to let the world simply be as it was.
Lord and Lady Morpeth had begun to make their way home then, discussing the things they would do while they were here. George was keen to experience sea bathing, having never had the opportunity previously, and they resolved to take to the waters at least once. Charlotte delighted in recounting stories of her own time in the town and many interesting events she had been witness to; George laughed with particular heartiness upon learning of Lady Denham's dinner with the rotten pineapple and was quick to encourage that they would call on that lady sooner than later.
They spent another quiet evening together, partaking of their dinner and reading in a companionable silence before they retired to bed. Though not before George had pressed his wife into playing at the piano forte in the drawing room for him, though Charlotte protested her lack of talent at the instrument, and then promptly pulled her into a nonsensical pattern of spins upon it's conclusion when she eventually relented and they laughed sometime at the hilarity of it.
The next morning, they rose early and entreated the cook to pack their breakfast fare into a basket so that they might wander down the cliff walks and enjoy the loveliness of the day while they ate. Had anyone stumbled upon them, they would have been met with the sight of the husband and wife laid upon the grass, he with his head resting in her lap and eating an apple while she read aloud from her book, with the contents of the basket strewn upon the ground before them.
They remained there for a few hours before venturing back to the town to return the food basket and for Charlotte to change into a clean day dress having gathered a number of grass stains on the one she had donned earlier that morning. Once dressed in a fresh gown, the new blue and cream striped one with a dark grey spencer, they walked in the direction of Trafalgar House with the intention of calling on Tom and Mary Parker and making known their presence.
Charlotte rapped the knocker hung on the door when they arrived and were greeted shortly by the servant who opened the door whereupon they asked after the mistress of the house and were bid to wait in the hallway while the servant informed the Parkers of their callers.
The servant returned, following behind Mrs Parker, who greeted Charlotte with a beaming smile and long embrace and polite curtsy to the Viscount upon their introduction. Their hats and coats and gloves were collected and they were then shown to the garden where Mary had been with her husband and children.
"Tom, see who has come to call!" she said as she approached her husband who was sat at the table on the small terrace where a selection of foodstuff and a tea tray was laid out for the family's luncheon.
Tom Parker, who had been absently flipping through the pages of the Sanditon Herald, startled and looked up at the sound of his wife returning. He had not noticed the servant come to speak with her or her leaving him to greet their visitors.
"Charlotte! My dear! You are returned to us at last! I am very glad, very pleased! But who is this with you? My Mary read in the papers that you might have become engaged. I suppose this is your young man? Delighted to meet you, Sir! Delighted!" He stood up and strode over to them and shook George's hand, who was stood wide-eyed at the stream of words coming from this man's mouth.
Charlotte giggled at the expression but took pity on him when he darted a desperate look in her direction.
"Yes, Mr Parker, it is delightful to find myself here again. I have missed this place very much. And you are correct, this is my husband, George Howard, Lord Morpeth. I do hope you have all been well since we last met that Yuletide?" She said.
"Yes, very well, dear! Come you must take tea with us; I shall delight in hearing all that has happened with you. And the children! The children will be delighted to see you once more! They are playing over there, by the oak tree, you see? I shall call them over." Tom cried as he gestured for them to sit and motioned to the far limit of their modest gardens where five children of varying ages could be seen playing.
The youngest looked very young indeed and, to her knowledge, the Parkers had only four children. When she questioned them to this effect she was most surprised by Mary's response.
"Not at all, Charlotte. You remember correctly; though we delight in our children, four is quite enough to keep us pleasantly occupied with their entertainment! No, the little boy is our nephew, Thomas. He is Sidney and Eliza's son and spends a little time most days with his cousins, as you can see." Mary explained, a slight air of caution in her tone and a ghost of worry in her eyes at being the one to relay this knowledge on their young friend.
Mary could only breathe a sigh of relief when Charlotte did not appear outwardly shaken or distressed by this and concluded that, whatever feelings and hurt had existed between her brother and Charlotte had healed.
Charlotte, for her part, did not know quite what to make of this news, but settled on being pleased for Mr Parker. "He seems like a lively child." She observed as the group of them came dashing in their direction, chasing after their father, the little boy being helped along by his older cousins.
"I encountered Mr Parker yesterday when I called on Miss Lambe." She said. "I was struck by how much changed he seems." She continued as George lay an assuaging hand on her thigh as she recalled their meeting.
Though she herself had never spoken of the circumstances that left her leaving this town, some of the facts had been made known to him by Lady Susan when he had determined to court her. And though he knew she loved him, indeed, she would not have accepted his proposal if she did not, he also knew that any encounters with the man in question would surely be unsettling for her.
George thought Sidney Parker a fool. For only a fool could cast aside anyone like Charlotte after seeing her worth. But he was inclined to thank him for his stupidity; his wife would not be his wife if Mr Parker had acted with more sense. He would not dwell on those maudlin thoughts, however. He chose to redirect their conversation to less weighty topics.
"My wife tells me this town was your vision, Mr Parker. How did you come by it?" He asked.
Tom seemed to almost leap from the chair he had just returned to as his children clustered around Charlotte and drew her to play them as she used to. Little Thomas Parker, hung back shyly however, he did not know this lady and, though his older cousin had greeted her excitedly and with familiarity, he was young enough yet that strangers were still scary things.
"Ah! Well you see, my Mary and I had visited Bath for our bridal tour, that was many years ago now, of course, and it was the similarity of the air here as to there that led us to purchase this house for ourselves some time later. Sanditon was much smaller then, but there was so much potential to seen in it!..." As Tom regaled George with the story of his birthing of the reinvigoration of his quaint little coastal town, Charlotte had been persuaded onto the lawn for a game of Battledore and Shuttlecock on the grassy lawn.
Gales of laughter and cries accusing or denying their cheating could be heard for several minutes as they delighted in the return of their friendly Charlotte who had always been happy to play with them no matter how dirty or loud their games became. The lively game died down in favour of the more sedate energies of hunt the slipper where all delighted in stealing away Charlotte's shoes when little Thomas braved joining their fun, stumbling over to them on his chubby little legs.
It was to this scene of domestic festivity that Sidney and Eliza arrived, coming to collect their son from his visit with his uncle, aunt and cousins.
Eliza, having spied the Viscount several moments before she realised that there was an unfamiliar young woman playing with her child, preened and greeted the peer with every simpering civility. Sidney only nodded at their introduction by his brother's wife but then scowled at realising this must be Miss Heywood's… Lady Morpeth's… husband.
Charlotte did not realise who had joined Tom and Mary and her husband on the terrace until Eliza gasped at recognising Miss Heywood as the young woman playing with her son and scowled at her presence. Charlotte eyed the older woman cooly before begging off from the game and retreating to the terrace and the security of the Viscount's closeness.
"Miss Heywood, this is a surprise. Has your father allowed you to visit with Tom and Mary again this summer? It must have been quite an honour to make the acquaintance of such an illustrious personage as the Viscount." She mocked. Of Course, Eliza was all too aware that Miss Heywood was in fact married to the Viscount but her pride and dislike of the girl would not allow her to acknowledge that the little nobody was now her social superior. And what an error that turned out to be on her part.
Lord Morpeth looked severely upon this new addition to the Parker's terrace. "M wife is Lady Morpeth, Mrs Parker. Do not forget yourself." He corrected her soundly, generously choosing to overlook the insult, knowing his wife would not appreciate the scene. He would not hesitate to make his disapprobation clear if she repeated it.
"My apologies, my Lord. You must forgive me, Lady Morpeth, for my oversight." She ground out with false sincerity.
Charlotte looked at her for a moment before accepting her apology, though she did not believe it to be genuine.
"You have my congratulations of course," Eliza continued with an overbright smile. "I imagine you must be very pleased to have caught the eye of a Lord. I suppose you are fortunate he is so wealthy, but then you cannot have been ignorant of such a thing"
Charlotte froze in lifting a teacup to her lips at the other woman's words. "I'm afraid I don't take your meaning." She said as George scowled at the upstart before him. The nerve of the woman!
"Oh, I only mean that, as a mere farmer's daughter, you must have lacked the usual enticements to had by the wives of most lords of the realm."
"And what usual enticements do you speak of, madam?" George bit out. "My wife is everything I could imagine wanting or needing in future countess. She is intelligent, generous and kind and has a great deal more sense than most other women of her age and even some who are her senior in years and experience!"
Charlotte blushed at his praise even as Mrs Parker stammered out some unintelligible response. "I can only assume, Mrs Parker, that you are speaking of my dowry?" Charlotte said. "You needn't worry yourself, while my father's home does boast a farm, I am not a mere farmers daughter for my father is a gentleman. And, though the topic aught not be spoken of in company, I had an adequate dowry from my father, though smaller than might be had by the daughters of peers, and a very generous inheritance my aunt who passed away almost three years ago."
Charlotte decided then that perhaps it was time for them to end their call to her friends, and her husband agreed with a smirk. Mary and Tom, who had been silent during the recent interaction, were sorry to see them go but rang for a servant to show them out. Charlotte, who knew her way to the front door, walked ahead to collect their belongings from the servant, while George remained behind to invite the older couple to have dinner with them one evening.
Sidney seized the opportunity to speak to Charlotte privately, and discretely slipped away to follow her.
