Welcome to Sanditon

"Welcome to Sanditon, my dear," Mr Parker said with a beaming smile, heaving Charlotte's suitcase into the boot of the hotel van. He was a tall man, bursting of an energy that set his whole wiry body into motion as if he was an electric doll.

"Thank you." Charlotte looked around herself. Sanditon station on a Thursday afternoon during the first week of May was not a busy place – a couple of tourists checking their phones for the quickest way down to the famous beach, a handful of locals returning from Brighton or other places along the train line, some kids hanging out in front of the Victorian station building.

"Jump in," Mr Parker said, opening the passenger door. "I have to run an errand or two in town for Mrs Parker, then we'll pick up the girls, and after that, it's straight up to the white swan of Sanditon."

"The White Swan?" Charlotte asked, wondering whether he was suggesting a visit to the local pub.

"The Sanditon Grand Hotel," Mr Parker said, his smile broader than ever and his large blue eyes taking on a dreamy expression. "A white castle afar from the world, gleaming in the sunshine as it sits perched high up on the clifftop, commanding singular views across the English Channel towards the distant shores of France. – I'm testing out new slogans," he added in a less dramatic tone and started the car.

"This one might be a bit too long," Charlotte said. "But I like the idea of a white swan."

"Ha! Splendid! Have you experience in marketing?"

"It was part of the curriculum at hotel management school. I specialised in business administration, though."

"Splendid. Splendid!" Mr Parker repeated.

Charlotte made no reply. She was busy grabbing the handrail and praying for her life. Mr Parker's driving style could be called racy at best, especially in the narrow streets full of parked cars that lead into the town centre. She was sure she heard honking more than once behind them, and she definitely saw a pedestrian commenting with an outstretched middle finger on Mr Parker's interpretation of a red traffic light. Finally, he stopped the van in front of a shoe shop in a strictly no-parking-zone. "I'll be back in a dash," he said. "Just need to get a little something for Mrs Parker."

"But…" Charlotte started, but he was gone already. She turned around in her seat, looking out for traffic wardens and policemen. None of them in sight, fortunately, only a few pedestrians with shopping bags, and some tourists, carrying beach equipment. This seemed to be Sanditon's high street. She had done her homework and knew that much of old Sanditon had been demolished at the beginning of the nineteenth century in a bid to turn the remote fishing village into a fashionable seaside resort, rivalling the splendour of places like Brighton and Bournemouth.

Even though Sanditon had never quite succeeded in that bid, the glory of that period was still alive in the elegant buildings forming the centre of town, and in the names echoing Regency history: Waterloo Terrace, Wellington Crescent, Trafalgar House. The last one was a large sandstone building on the corner of the street, accommodating the local library, a café and the Sanditon Museum.

Charlotte looked further around. The shoe shop into which Mr Parker had vanished was called Heely's. There was also a flower shop, a bakery and, on the other side of the street, a pub: not the White Swan, but the Crown.

By some miracle (or some sensible policies) Sanditon's high street had been spared from the flashy signs and the uniformity of coffee shops and retailer chains. Most shops and cafés seemed to be individual businesses, lending the street a timeless and unique character. Charlotte smiled to herself. She liked what she saw, and she would have a great summer here.

A sharp knock on the window woke her from her reverie: There he was, a police constable out on patrol.

"Ahem," he said as she was opening the window. "This is a strictly no-parking-zone. You are barring the traffic. Don't you see the sign?" The sign was, of course, just in front of the van.

"I'm sorry, I'm with Mr Parker…"

"Traffic rules also apply to Mr Thomas Parker." The Constable seemed to be the strict type, a middle-aged man eyeing her with dark eyes in a pale face with long sideburns. "However much Sanditon owes to the Parker family, now Mr Parker owes Sanditon a fine of seventy pounds. – Are you a guest at the Grand Hotel?"

"No. I'm Mr Parker's new trainee. My name is Charlotte Heywood."

"I see. Well, Miss Heywood. Welcome to Sanditon. As I said, traffic rules also apply to…"

"Hanky!" Mr Parker's sleek redhead appeared behind the constable. "How glad I am to catch you! I see you have met Miss Heywood? Miss Heywood has just graduated from hotel management school. She'll be my trainee until the end of the summer. A very ambitious young lady. – How old are you again, my dear?"

"I'm twenty-one."

"Only twenty-one! And yet out to leave her mark in the hotel industry. – Miss Heywood, this is Constable Hankins, our local man for law and order – not that there are many violators of law and order here in Sanditon." He chuckled. The Constable cleared his throat.

"I was actually just informing Miss Heywood on the infringement of the parking law that is occurring right here with your car, Mr Parker."

"Infringement? Parking law? – No, no, my dear Constable, this was an emergency. I had to jump into Heely's to pick up Mrs Parker's shoes for the ball… we can't have the hostess of the Sanditon Spring Ball walk about like Cinderella with no shoes on, can we? – Will we see you at the ball, Mr Hankins?"

The Constable was staring at Mr Parker, his face a picture of amazement. "I… um… I did not expect… such an occasion…"

"But of course you have to join us! I'll make sure you get a place at the best table… now, if you'll excuse us, we must dash – the girls are waiting. – See you on Saturday, Constable!"

"Good-bye, Mr Parker, Miss Heywood," the Constable mumbled.

"Good-bye, Mr Hankins," Charlotte said, wondering whether she had in fact just witnessed her new employer bribing the local policeman.

"Ah, the pleasures of small-town life," Mr Parker said as he jumped into the car (for some reason, he always seemed to be on the jump). "There's no trouble that you cannot talk away if you know who you are talking to. But I'm sure you're aware of that, Miss Heywood. You're from a small place yourself, aren't you?"

"Yes. Willingden. In Herefordshire. - My father breeds Black Herefords," she added. But she could not remember her father ever bribing a policeman or any other official. On the other hand, her father never did anything worth bribing anyone, and neither did their neighbours. Apart from an annual mixed cricket match in which Upper Willingden played Nether Willingden, nothing ever happened there.

"Splendid. Splendid!" Mr Parker said, navigating the van through the heavy afternoon traffic towards the outskirts of the town. Charlotte registered bills announcing the annual Sanditon Spring Ball and slightly worn out looking banners celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of Sanditon's status as a seaside resort ("Better than Brighton since 1816" and "A fresh breeze for two-hundred years"). "Ah," Mr Parker said, noticing her interest. "That was last year. Next year we'll be celebrating one-hundred-fifty years of the Sanditon Grand Hotel, of course. You know it has been in the Parker family ever since?"

Charlotte nodded. In fact, that was one of the reasons why she had applied at the Sanditon Grand Hotel for her traineeship in the first place. Most of her colleagues from hotel management school had taken the safe options of placements within one of the big international hotel chains. A successful traineeship there always guaranteed a management job and quick promotion. She, however, had been fascinated by the Sanditon Grand Hotel's history as a privately owned hotel that had opened in Victorian times and was still managed by the same owner family with an enthusiasm that seemed to outlast centuries.

"Henry Parker," Mr Parker said. "My great-great-great-great-grandfather. He laid the foundation stones for the hotel. But it was his father, of course, whose vision of a seaside resort changed Sanditon's fate."

Intriguing as the story was, Charlotte was slightly worried by the fact that Mr Parker had let go of the steering wheel to count down the number of "great" in his ancestor with his fingers. Fortunately, they had left the main road and were turning now into a more quiet street that ended in front of a modern school building. Two girls of about seven and nine years jumped off the school's swing gate, grabbed their satchels and started running towards the van.

Mr Parker got out, opened the back door for them and gave them a tight hug before they climbed in. "Jenny, Alicia, this is Charlotte Heywood, our new trainee. Miss Heywood, meet the next Parker generation." They were cute little girls with piggy tails and big smiles on their happy faces. Charlotte immediately smiled back, thinking of her little sisters at home, especially as they started chattering away about their day at school.

Alicia's highlight was the wooden boat she had constructed – complete with a sail -, and Jenny had enjoyed a lesson of local history and was now bursting with details about the possible invasion of the French fleet more than two hundred years ago. In between, they found time to ask whether Charlotte knew how to build a sandcastle, and whether she could swim, and if so, whether she would like to go to the beach with them. They were the two most charming little ladies, and Charlotte could not help but shake their sticky hands and promise them an afternoon by the sea as soon as her rota allowed it.

"And Henry and Jamie must stay at home," Jenny said. "We don't want to have any boys with us."

"But Uncle Sidney can come," Alicia suggested. This led to a vivid discussion about whether Uncle Sidney qualified as a boy, which would exclude him from the excursion, and whether an exception could be made for him.

"Sidney is one of my younger brothers," Mr Parker explained to Charlotte. "Hardly ever here, more in London and everywhere. They dote on him."

"I see," Charlotte said, taken aback for a reason she did not quite understand. In the meantime, Jenny and Alicia had come to the conclusion that Uncle Sidney was neither a man nor a boy, but simply Uncle Sidney, and was therefore allowed to join them for their outing on the beach.

They had left the town behind them and turned into the access road that wound its way uphill to the clifftop and the hotel. To their right, the blue waters of the English Channel shimmered in the late afternoon light, and to their left, the immaculate greens of the Sanditon golf course stretched downhill towards a stately home surrounded by woodlands. "Sanditon House," Mr Parker said. "Home to the Denham family. Old Sanditon nobility. Lady Denham is my business partner. You'll meet her soon enough; she likes to meddle with everyone and everything. – Oh! Watch out!" This was directed at the driver of a golf cart that quickly dodged off to the other side of the driveway. After nearly killing one of his paying guests, Mr Parker finally concentrated on the road.

The last turn of the road brought them to the parking lot in front of the Sanditon Grand Hotel. The girls jumped out of the car and into the arms of a slightly worn-out looking woman who was accompanied by a blonde little boy. "Mummy, Mummy, this is Charlotte," Jenny said, and Alicia added: "And she's going to the beach with us and Uncle Sidney, and we are going to build a huge sandcastle, and the boys are not allowed to come."

"Welcome to Sanditon, Charlotte," Mrs Parker said, stroking her daughters' heads and smiling apologetically. "I hope the girls haven't exhausted you before you've even arrived."

"Not at all," Charlotte said. "They make me feel quite at home. I have four little sisters."

"I'm pleased to hear it." Mrs Parker had a warm smile. "This is Henry, by the way. Say hello to Charlotte, Henry."

"Hullo," Henry mumbled, giggling and hiding his chubby face in his hands. Charlotte realised that she was falling in love – if not with Mr Parker's driving style, then with his children.

Right now, Mr Parker was unloading Charlotte's luggage. His wife led her into the hotel that was, in fact, residing like a proud white swan on the top of the cliffs above the town: a white five-storey building with wrought-iron balconies in front of every window and a little tower headed by a cupola on each corner.

Charlotte was no expert in architecture, yet she did spot the marked difference to the elegant Regency buildings that made up Sanditon's town centre. If one wanted to be unkind, one would say that the hotel looked like a massive cream cake that had landed on top of the cliff by accident. If one had done one's reading (and Charlotte certainly had), one knew that the Sanditon Grand Hotel's architecture was a fine example of Italian influence on Victorian ideas, that it featured one of the first elevators in Britain, and that the whole structure, sitting on the clifftop as it was, was just another stunning proof of superior Victorian engineering.

"Welcome to the Sanditon Grand Hotel," Mr Parker beamed as Charlotte walked into the lobby. This was like entering a time-capsule, even though Charlotte was not quite sure which time she had landed in. As it was Victorian, she had expected the place to be dark and overcrowded, yet nothing could be further from reality. Crowded it was, with glass cabinets and prints and pictures covering the cream-coloured walls, but dark it was not: the sun, now sitting lower above the horizon and reflected by the sea, beamed in through the many windows, lending the lobby a Mediterranean atmosphere.

The Reception desk to the left was staffed by a slender redhead with a slightly haughty expression not quite befitting her position as the welcoming face of the hotel. "This is Esther," Mr Parker said. "Our head receptionist. Esther, meet Charlotte Heywood, our management trainee for this summer." As the switchboard started ringing at this moment, Esther merely greeted Charlotte with a curt nod, then picked up the phone and started discussing the room status of the Denham Suite with someone called Clara.

"Right," Mr Parker said, taking Henry from his wife and settling him on his shoulders. "Mrs Parker will show you to your accommodation, Charlotte. And us boys will go back to managing the hotel, shall we, Henry?"

"Yes, Daddy," Henry said, added: "Yeeeaa!" and whipped his father as if he was a horse. Mr Parker duly started galloping towards the Reception's back office.

"Men," Mrs Parker said with an indulgent smile. "Give me that bag, Charlotte. We'll take the elevator."

The elevator (which thankfully had been replaced since its first installation in 1868) brought them up to the top floor. "This used to be the staff accommodation back in the old days when all personnel were living in," Mrs Parker explained. "Now it's only for our seasonal workers. – You are in the former housekeeper's apartment," she added, opening a door and handing Charlotte the keys. "I hope you'll like it."

Like it? She loved it at first glance. The former housekeeper's apartment consisted of not much more than a walk-in-wardrobe, a window-less bathroom, a basic kitchenette and one room with a sofa bed, but that one room had three windows overlooking the sea and was filled with glaring sunlight. It was like stepping into the blue of the sky.

"It's wonderful," Charlotte said, putting down her suitcase and turning to Mrs Parker. "I've never had an apartment all to myself before." At home, she had been sharing a room with her younger sisters, and in Bristol, while studying hotel management, she was in a flatshare with three other girls.

Mrs Parker briefly touched her arm and smiled at her. "Very well. Settle in, and then join me in the Conservatory Tea Room, and we'll discuss everything regarding your traineeship."

"Thank you," Charlotte said, and as soon as Mrs Parker had left, she sat down on the sofa-bed, looked around her, shook her head and smiled: this was going to be the best summer of her life.