We're back! Enjoy!
Charlotte admittedly loved Christmas in London. Solitude was good in its season, and she adored the gloomy medieval abbey she spent most the year in, but truly nothing shone like Leyburn House at Christmastide. The garlands and fruit wreaths that dressed the windows and iron fencing, the Advent hymns sung in church, hardened businessmen engaging in charity, and her mother-in-law's eccentric warmth. They always stayed from the first Sunday of Advent through the day of Epiphany, January 6th.
She'd wasted no time in collecting Anthony from school and the girls were also just as eager to reach their London home.
"Mind your step!" She cried as she watched the girls tumble out of the carriage to greet their grandmother on the steps of Leyburn House.
"My dears!" Caroline Dryden cooed as she hugged and kissed her grandchildren. "Your cousins are due to arrive at any minute, and then our fun shall begin?"
Charlotte internally groaned. The haste of their journey had worn her out, and though the coming month was a prospect of great joy to her, she was no longer twenty, her children were loud, and she required a rest. Her mother-in-law was indefatigable, however, and content to take charge of the children. The family made their way inside where tea, sandwiches, and all sorts of delights were waiting in the small parlor. Charlotte stopped only to prepare a cup of tea, and then began to leave for her room.
"Will you not stay with us Mama?" Theresa inquired through a mouthful of biscuit.
"I should think that your Mama requires a bit of silence, and that is hard to come by with you lot." Caroline said with a wink to Charlotte, and returned to quizzing the girls on their schooling.
Charlotte considered motherhood her chief job, her calling in life. It was what women like her did, and she loved it very much. However, even the most adoring, devoted mother needs a respite from small voices. Reed, her maid, met her upstairs with her things and helped her undress.
"I sometimes wonder if staying in this room is quite good for you madam." Reed said as Charlotte climbed into the four poster bed she once shared with James.
"I wonder the same." Charlotte said, sinking into her pillows. Nothing about the space had changed since the day she was married, and sleeping there was both a comfort and an ache in her soul. "Bring me my diary? I want to look at the social events for these coming weeks, and please, go rest yourself, we can unpack this evening. I doubt my sister-in-laws will mind terribly if we miss another themed dinner, they do try so hard with their dress."
"Very well. Ring if you need me." Reed left the room and Charlotte was alone with her schedules.
Tonight, dinner with the family. Caroline's theme of choice was Classical Greece, which was fairly easy for the adults, as it only necessitated borrowing from the fashions of their adolescence.
Tomorrow, the opera she had promised Anty and Tere, and Sidney had said he'd be there with his two daughters. Charlotte wasn't positive she was quite enthused to see them, as they confused her with their fickle behavior. One minute they were carefree and affable, the next haughty and superior. She mostly hated to see how eager Tere was to be included by them.
How different her life was now than when she first slept in this room. She'd married a family, a title, but little means beyond a dilapidated townhome, mortgaged beyond belief, and a cold dark Abbey in north Yorkshire. They scrimped and saved and never could afford an opera box, or a chaise and four, and now she had all those things, and no James to share them with. Charlotte fell asleep with her diary across her lap, and slept through till morning.
The next evening, The Royal Opera House
It wasn't a fashionable night to be seen at the opera, Sidney knew. He knew because he himself was a bastion of society, and because his daughters never ceased in reminding him as he dragged them into the carriage.
"You must become used to being unfashionable if you deem the Dryden family so." He said as they wound their way to their box.
"It is very likely, Papa, that Lady Leyburn will not want to marry you at all." Marianne quipped as they took their seats.
"Indeed, and who would consent to marry the two of you? Certainly not the vicar at our church, nor the priest at theirs. You simply could not do it." Annabelle added.
"I would think that girls as smart as yourselves could learn new criticisms of the lady. We've discussed this many times before." Sidney replied dryly, holding his opera glasses to his face, scanning the other boxes for Charlotte. The girls' comments bothered him very little anymore, as he'd heard the same ones over and over again.
He caught her eye in a box a few to the left of theirs. She looked divine, he thought, in emerald green and holly sprigs in her hair. He didn't think he'd ever seen her in that color before, because he remembered them all, every dress, hat, pelisse she'd ever worn. He took his eyes off her long enough to see Theresa and Anthony on either side of her. The children were in awe of their surroundings, and he remembered they'd never been to an opera before. Anty had seemed to grow a foot since he last saw him, and he wondered how tall the boy's father had been. He looked back and forth between Theresa, with her black curly hair and fair skin, and Anthony, the spitting image of Charlotte's warmer complexion, and tried to piece together what the late Earl looked like. It began to drive him mad, until the curtain rose, his daughter elbowed his ribs, and he watched the opera.
Whatever was being performed, Charlotte hadn't a single clue. The singers were talented, the notes soared, and the costumes were lavish. She couldn't have recounted more details than that with a pistol pointed at her. The moment she'd entered their rented box, she was highly aware of Sidney's presence in the room, and pretended not to notice him as he looked for her, like a young girl who seeks to increase her lover's interest by indifference. It was pointless, as she spent the entirety of the first act staring at his profile.
How was it that he was only more handsome with age? His temples had gone gray, and a few lines marked his forehead, but he stood tall and strong as ever. James had not been tall, and he'd not built in the same sturdy way as Sidney, and she'd loved him with her whole heart. Could it be possible to be devoted to Sidney in the same way? Charlotte wondered if a day would come when she would not constantly weigh the two against one another in her mind.
Before long, her thoughts had carried her so far away that she did not even notice the close of the first act.
"Mama? Mama?" Anthony worked to get his mother's attention.
"Yes, my dear?" She finally replied.
"Where is the audience going?"
"Oh! Yes. It has become a new custom to gather in the great hall and enjoy a glass of something between the acts. A way to introduce young folks. Would you like to go down?"
"Please!" Theresa jumped up and opened the curtain that separated their box from the corridor.
Before Charlotte could caution her daughter to mind the other couples, the country in Theresa took over, and she was off in a flash, jostling aged countesses and pristine young ladies in her rush to meet with the Parker daughters. Charlotte hardly had a moment to think before she was met by Sidney at the top of the box-level stairs, when her flush of embarrassment at Theresa's wildness became a blush of happiness at Sidney offering her his arm.
"Don't be too cross with her, Mama." Sidney teased as they descended. "I rather prefer my daughters after they've spent an hour or two in the company of your young ladies."
What Charlotte wanted to say in reply was that she couldn't reciprocate the sentiment, but instead she only smiled and looked behind her for Anthony, who trailed them with an inquisitive expression. Their party had reached the bottom of the stairs, where Theresa, Marianne, and Annabella were sipping on lemonades. The conversation looked cordial enough, and Anthony joined them with a backwards glance at his mother and her escort.
"I've never seen you wear this dress before." Sidney said softly in her ear, so quiet and near that it felt indecent.
But Charlotte, a woman, did not always mind indecency.
"Oh?" Came her reply, with an arch of her eyebrow.
"I quite like it." Sidney said, a little louder this time.
"And what about it, Sir, strikes your fancy?"
"It must be the color."
"Just the color?"
"Perhaps there is something about the bodice." He said, voice lowered again.
"The bodice, Sir? I cannot understand you." She grinned.
"Oh, I believe you can."
"Mama!" Came a sharp, reproving voice. Anthony's voice.
"What?" Came Charlotte's uncouth squawk, before she could stop herself. Sidney, though suddenly aware he was in public, chuckled at her response.
"I believe it is time to retake our seats." Anthony said sternly.
"It cannot, we've only been down here a few minutes." Theresa exclaimed in response to her brother's reproach. He countered with a look that could freeze water, one that James used to wear in moments of stress.
"I, I believe your brother is right Tere. Excuse us. Sir Parker, Miss Parker, Miss Marianne." She curtseyed and followed her son's lead back up the stairs to their box.
Recovering herself, she broke out into a harsh whisper, "Anthony! What absolute rudeness to the Parkers!"
"Rudeness! Your shameless flirting was embarrassing beyond belief. We could all hear what you were saying and I fully understood the implications of your words."
"How could you?" Charlotte couldn't believe her son knew that particular fact of life. The cross of his arms and downturned expression told her that her son was not a child anymore, and if he had no practical knowledge of the biblical act, he at least understood innuendo.
"Stop! Please! You're both ruining my first opera. May we please have a moment of peace before the rest of the audience returns and hears of this?" Theresa whined.
Charlotte and Anthony were both silent from that point on in the evening. She choked back her tears of shame, for her loose speech, for being heard, and for her son's evident disapproval. The carriage ride home was another silent torture; if Anty heard and understood, who else did?
Goodness, readers! What to say! I've been gone a long time, and again not pleased with the content of this chapter, but trying to flex the writing muscle again. Much has happened since my last few updates…the first flutters of a crush has now become a beloved boyfriend of a year, old job ended, and a new one begun, and a new season of Sanditon premiered. I miss writing, and every few months I open the doc where I keep this story and try to add a few words, but I never stick with it. Until today! Thank my cheap-ass budget airline for delaying my flight by 5 hours! Without it, I might not have logged on and finished this chapter. Love and blessings to all who read this.