Chapter Text
Charlotte is sixteen when she sees the sea for the first time. Her aunt is getting married, and her mother is eight months into her latest pregnancy, unable to travel because of her imminent confinement. Mr Heywood is reluctant to go without her, but his wife packs him off along with their eldest daughter, giving the latter strict instructions to keep her father sensible and sober. Mr Heywood laughs, kisses his wife and offers a gallant arm to his daughter as he hands her into the trap and gets up himself to take the pony's reins. The eldest of Charlotte’s younger brothers dangles his legs off the back, along for the first part of the journey.
As soon as they're out of sight of the house, Mr Heywood gives the reins to Charlotte, and she steers them all the way to the coaching inn at the nearby town, arms aching and hair flying. Her father smiles quietly at her, her brother laughs and plays jigs on a small tin whistle and even the April rain, when it comes, cannot dampen their spirits. Her father ruffles his son's hair when they arrive at the inn, and hands him half a pork pie for his lunch.
"Straight home." He tells him, and Jonathan nods and grins, waving to Charlotte with one hand as he flicks the reins with the other and clicks the pony on with his tongue.
The express is cramped and smells unpleasantly of other people and damp leather, and after three days of jarring roads and creaky beds Charlotte is sure she is ready to be done with this latest adventure.
And then they reach the coast.
Charlotte is squashed into a corner, neck craned to see beyond the tattered curtains that line the coach's grimy window. The sun has come out and all she can see is a wide expanse of sparkling blue.
Charlotte feels like she is choking on it, a deep bubbling joy and a desperate need to get closer, to feel the wind coming off the waves and the clear coldness of the water.
The coach races along the cliff edge, and Charlotte Heywood licks her lips and tastes the salt of the sea and smiles.
Portsmouth is a horrible city. It smells of fish and humanity, and the sea looks grimy and cold. The wedding is small and sweet, Charlotte's mother's sister quietly marries her sea Captain and looks blissfully happy about it. She's twelve years older than Charlotte and hasn't seen her since Charlotte was a baby, but she insists that Charlotte be a last minute addition to the wedding party.
"Anne would be," she declares of Charlotte's mother, "if she weren't so happily married."
She winks and half of the company look mildly horrified, while the rest look rather amused. Charlotte understands enough to blush, and her father grins ruefully and shakes his head. Captain Derney's ship departs in a week, so the couple are to honeymoon a few miles up the coast in a quiet town just on the cusp of being developed.
"It's going to be a new resort." The new Mrs Derney announces gleefully, "and we shall be its first customers!"
"I think it's still rather in the planning stages." Captain Derney remonstrates, "But that is all the better for us, we shall be without the terrible racket of building noise, and the lodgings will be half the price!"
"Join us for a few days," Mrs Derney begs Charlotte and her father, "Charlotte and I have only just met, and it may be years before we see you both again."
Mr Heywood looks conflicted, thinking of his wife at home.
Charlotte, ever the sensible one, takes his hand and smiles gently. "We should get back." She tells him.
"It must be another time, my dear." Her father tells his sister in law. Mrs Derney pouts playfully, but she does not push, instead changing her tactics.
"At least take the carriage with us," She insists, "Spend the day at Sanditon with us and get some fresh air, and go on with the coach in the evening, it's on your way home in any case. You shall be scarcely six hours later than if you never came at all!"
Mr Heywood grants this, and Charlotte feels a quiet, selfish thrill. Back along the coast to the proper sea, the true sea!
There is only one other gentleman in the stagecoach when the four of them climb in early the next morning. He is asleep, nose tucked into the collar of his black travelling coat. Charlotte can only see his profile, a deep wrinkle in his brow and a strong nose followed by full lips that nearly snarl, crushed as they are against his clothes. Charlotte thinks he looks young and angry, and rather sad.
"No matter," Her father whispers loudly, glancing around the cramped space, "I shall sit up next to the driver."
Captain and Mrs Derney sit side by side on the empty half of the coach, and Charlotte curls herself as neatly as she can into the available seat. The young man's legs are long, and as the coach jostles its passengers his knee nudges Charlotte's own until, with the aid of one large pothole, his leg presses nearly against the full length of hers.
Charlotte wants to shudder at the strange contact, such proximity to a stranger she has never experienced before. The warmth of him seeps through the layers of clothing and travels to Charlotte's cheeks, and she bites her lip and stares out the window, hoping for a glimpse of the sea to distract her. They are rollicking down a steep slope at a steady pace, the entire carriage bouncing with exuberant momentum, and all Charlotte can see that might hint of the ocean is tantalising silhouette of what could be a distant headland.
Mrs Derney murmurs something to her husband and he laughs quietly in response. Charlotte glances at them, wondering if they laugh at her expense, but the couple are lost in one another, oblivious to Charlotte or the stranger at her side.
Charlotte smiles at the picture they make, feeling her lips pull up involuntarily. Their joy is infectious.
The young man's knee presses against her leg for an instant, as if the muscle had spasmed, and Charlotte turns her head slightly to the side, smile still on her lips.
It falls a little as she meets two dark, open eyes. A rich, deep brown, they feel as though they stare into her very soul. It's a moment no longer than a second, but it is what she will remember most about the moment for years to come. The warmth of him, and the cold terrible pain in his eyes.
Charlotte blinks, the coach flies over a pothole and the front wheel splinters with a hideous snap that echoes in her ears. The horses screech and rear and there is nothing to stop the carriage’s momentum as it lurches to the side and over, utterly unbalanced. Charlotte has no time even to put out a hand before her side of the coach crashes into the broken road, her head bouncing into the shattered window and a bruising pain blooming in her thigh. The carriage skids and groans its way down the steep slope and the chassis breaks with a deafening crack.
Charlotte swears she can hear the sound of the fleeing horses over the blood pounding in her ears, but all she knows are the large warm arms wrapped around her, pinning her in place as a strong hand comes up to cradle her head, too late to prevent the blackness that swallows her whole.
When Charlotte wakes, Her whole world is spinning. Or rather, shaking from side to side. There's a pounding in her head and a sharp, all-encompassing pain in her thigh that makes her whimper.
A voice above her head hushes her, and as Charlotte drags her eyelids open, wincing with pain as the action pulls on the skin around her eyes. She feels a sticky dampness against her temple, trickling into her hairline, and sees just before her nose the black buttons of a frock coat. Her whole body seems to be wrapped in it, and blearily she realizes she is being carried. The cloth is smarter than her father's old greatcoat, and as her head drops back with the jostling movement she catches the strong chin and full lips of the young man from the coach.
"M'father." Charlotte attempts to say, but speaking is harder than she expected, and her words slur, no louder than a whisper.
"You are the only one severely hurt." The young man replies, "Stay still, I am taking you to a doctor."
She wants to know where her father is, whether Captain and Mrs Derney are all right. The questions are on the tip of her tongue, but they become lost in the burning pain that sweeps over her whole body. She whimpers and curls in on herself, and the arms around her tighten sympathetically. The movement jars her leg, brushing against the wound on her thigh that seems to be the centre of the agony. Charlotte chokes on a cry and feels an echoing flinch in the body that carries hers.
"Hush, you must remain still." The young man says, sounding more desperate than calm. His arms cradle her more gently, but Charlotte is lost to a roaring pain and a strange delirium. Perhaps it is like being swallowed by the sea, she thinks. There is a musky, salty scent in the air and in the fabric next to her head. Through it all a steady, galloping rhythm pulses through her ears. The rocking motion increases and short pants of air hit Charlotte's face.
They are flying now, she thinks, they will fly all the way beyond the sea.
She lets his thundering pulse lull her into unconsciousness.
She wakes to find herself lying on a physicians bench, surrounded by a cacophony of voices and swiftly moving bodies that her eyes cannot follow. She cannot find her father’s voice or form amongst them, and her hands grasp the empty air, hoping to find him somehow by touch. A warm palm settles her hand against the table, pressing it gently flat against the wood. She looks up, but her eyes are blurred with tears and she cannot see. There is a tentative brush against her temple as a soft cloth wipes some of the dampness from her eyes, clearing her vision.
The young man is at her side, dark eyes fixed on her face. He turns her palm over with the hand that pressed it to the table and gently folds her fingers around the handkerchief he has just used to wipe her eyes.
“I must leave you to better care than mine.” He pronounces in a rich voice, pitched low against the uproar of the room. Before Charlotte can gather her faculties to thank him, he is gone.
A brisk hand cups her neck and raises her head to offer her a bitter liquid to drink, and Charlotte chokes it down. She tightens her grip on the handkerchief, scrunching the material so hard that her nails bite into her skin.
It is the last thing she knows before her consciousness fades and the fever takes hold.
A week later, she is lucid but weak. Charlotte truly had been the only one seriously injured in the crash. Her leg had been gashed open on the splintered frame of the carriage, the impact bruising her leg to the bone. The splinters have been carefully picked out, but the infection had set in and is only just abating.
Her father sits at her bedside, and informs her of the fate of the coach’s other inhabitants. Captain Derney had been mildly concussed, and Mrs Derney had no more than bruises. Mr Heywood and the coachman had been thrown clear of the carriage as it lurched, and Mr Heywood had landed badly on his left side.
"My ankle and wrist are sprained," he informs Charlotte as she lies dazed in the bed, curtains drawn and a dull light filtering through. Her head is lightly bandaged and her leg even more heavily so. It throbs, and the constant pain is exhausting. Her father takes her hand and squeezes it, and she aches as much for the worried frown on his face as she does from her injuries. "I could barely walk, let alone carry you to the town. Mr Parker very possibly saved your life."
"I must thank him." Charlotte says drowsily, and smiles at her father to reassure him. A wave of nausea rolls over her, and her smile becomes a grimace.
When it recedes her father and the town's physician, an old man whose hands have a noticeable tremor even when at rest, are consulting one another in the corner of the room. Charlotte knows their frowns mean something serious, but she finds herself too tired to care.
A maid enters the room and smiles at Charlotte kindly. She sets something down on the bedside table, and as Charlotte turns her head she sees a neatly folded and pressed handkerchief.
“You had it in your hand, miss.” The maid tells her, “When the fever was high we couldn’t prise it from you. I’ve done my best to wash it but the stain set in, only I didn’t want to burn it, as you seemed to treasure it so.”
Charlotte nods, thanking the maid earnestly as her eyes trace the handkerchief with curiosity. The linen is a crisp white, but the edges are hemmed unevenly, giving it a lopsided effect despite the neat folds the maid has left. Two blue initials are entwined on one corner, an E and a P. The stitches are, like the hem, ungainly and clumsily crafted, but Charlotte smiles to see the deliberate care that must have been taken over them. It reminds her of when she was small, and her mother taught her to sew. Her work is little better now, as needlework is not Charlotte’s preferred pursuit, being rather too sedentary a pastime to pair well with her love of the outdoors, and she feels a kinship with the awkward crafter of the handkerchief’s small embellishments.
Less endearing to Charlotte is the dark stain that bisects the initialed E. Scrubbed into a dark brown, her blood forms an almost perfect crescent, smeared in one corner like too much wax on a seal. Her eyes trace the shape over and over as exhaustion slowly claims her, lingering on its dark intrusion. She wonders how she is to return it to its rightful owner when it has been so indelibly marked by her touch, or how to convey her gratitude to the man who gave it. Mr Parker is the name her father gave, a Parker that she realises must pair with the handkerchief's second initial.
Edward, thinks Charlotte, or Edmund. Ewan or Eliot perhaps. The names spin around in her head and she cannot settle on one. They none of them seem to suit him well.
"I'm so sorry my dear, so sorry." Mrs Derney's hands flutter for Charlotte's, clasping them then patting them, then clasping them once more. Her eyes are misty with emotion and Charlotte feels awkward.
"It wasn't your fault." Charlotte tells her earnestly. "I can still walk, it is not so very bad."
Mrs Derney's eyes flutter to the cane that is propped against the bed. Sanditon’s physician, a Mr Brooks on the cusp of retirement (to a small village in Wales, he tells Charlotte, where his mother was from), broke the news just that morning. There was hope that she would be able to walk normally with enough rest and recuperation, but the more likely fate was a pain in her thigh that would follow her for the rest of her life. The bone itself had been bruised, and the gash has healed poorly in a knot of tissue that will pull and cramp at Charlotte’s muscles.
‘“It is early days,” Mr Brooks tells her, “We’ll know more when it is fully healed.”
In the meantime, her father has purchased a slim wooden cane, sturdy enough to bear a surprising amount of weight. Charlotte is yet to use it, firmly bedridden for another week. She is too optimistic to have much fear of the changes that this might entail, and although the prospect of continued pain is daunting, the memory of the accident and its potential for even greater loss is too fresh in her mind for her to feel anything but relief.
“You are a dear, sensible girl.” Mrs Derney tells her, lamenting that she must leave Charlotte to join her husband in Portsmouth now that their honeymoon - brief and rather unpleasant though it turned out to be - is at an end.
Charlotte feels too bored to be considered sensible, but she thanks Mrs Derney and wishes her pleasant voyaging, and her aunt leaves with the promise to write many letters.
Now that Charlotte is out of immediate danger, Mr Heywood begins to fret about his wife. The doctor believes Charlotte neither should nor could be moved for at least another fortnight, perilously near the time when Charlotte’s newest sibling is to be born.
There is nothing to be done, however, and Charlotte’s mother has already written to that effect. Mr Heywood was sparse with the details of the accident, reluctant to alarm his wife. He tells her only that Charlotte hurt her leg in a carriage accident, and that they are detained until it heals. Charlotte’s mother playfully responds that she is glad to have him worrying at a distance, rather than under her feet all the time. She shall get more done with him from home, she declares, and Charlotte and her father smile at one another to read her cheerful missive.
Mr Heywood spends the mornings reading to his daughter, and whilst Charlotte delights in his company, she is frustrated at the slowness of his pace. Indeed, the slowness of her life is what distresses her the most. She is intimately familiar with the small room she inhabits, its single cot and high window which looks out directly onto the street through thick muslin curtains, for her room is on the ground floor of the inn. The doctor had thought the ground floor best, considering the state of Charlotte’s leg, and the innkeeper had offered up the small room he used on nights he was too tired to return to his home, or for his own personal guests. As such, the room is more homely than many others that might be found in an inn, but even its quaint comforts became dull after endless hours in their company.
Charlotte longs for fresh air, and after lunch every day she encourages her father to take it for her, so that he might come back and tell her of some incident he has witnessed, and imagine it herself as though she were free to roam the streets of the seaside town.
While he is gone, Charlotte asks the maid to open the window. She lies in bed, watching the muslin curtains flutter as they keep her privacy, listening to the murmur and bustle of the street and inhaling deep lungfuls of salty air.
She wishes secretly that each day might be the one that Mr Parker - Edward, Edmund, Eliot Parker - comes to call so that she may thank him, but he never does. Undaunted, Charlotte asks the maid for scraps of cloth and sets to work hemming and embroidering a replica handkerchief to replace the one which she has stained. No matter how large, how deliberately clumsy she makes her stitches, she cannot recapture the blundering charm of the original.
Resigned to her limitations, Charlotte reads instead. Anything she can get her hands on, galloping through the pages of novels and essays alike. Surprisingly, the innkeeper has a small collection of the Greek classics, and she keeps the philosophers for her father to read, finding his slow deep voice lends the philosophers’ complicated trains of thought a calm weight that lulls her into introspection and allows her to find clarity within the dense text.
At night her father retires to an upstairs room, although in the early days of her recovery he insisted on sleeping in the armchair which he now only occupies during the day. Charlotte is used to the noise of the bar, though Sanditon hardly attracts rowdy customers.
Just over two weeks after the accident, Charlotte is allowed to walk for the first time. Her steps are hesitant and stumbling, her leg tugging with disuse and an unfamiliar pain, but she rejoices at the chance for movement.
Mr Brooks is pleased, making her try a few simple exercises before sending her back to bed. Charlotte begs to be allowed outside, but Mr Brooks is cautious and refuses.
“Tomorrow.” He promises, and Charlotte smiles and swallows her disappointment.
That evening she tosses and turns, unable to get comfortable. She longs to practise walking again, and as the noise from the bar dies away to silence her frustration builds. It is near the early hours of the morning when Charlotte wrestles her more obedient inclinations into submission and plans her escape.
Carefully Charlotte sits up and swings her legs to the floor, lifting the injured leg - her left - so that it is not jostled. She reaches for the cane that sits propped next to the small table and stands slowly. Happily, she finds that she can easily support her weight with the aid of the cane, but she makes sure her steps are slow and careful, unwilling to strain her body and risk more time trapped in the tiny room. Only to the door, she promises herself, so that she may go outside. Her father had offered to carry her out and sit on the beach one day, but Charlotte was doubtful of his ability to lift her securely and had tactfully declined. She knows he would have offered to pay for a chair if she had seemed more enthusiastic, but their enforced stay has been enough of an unforeseen expense, and she has no wish to put another worried line in her father’s forehead by demanding more help than she strictly requires. Far better, in any case, to be able to go out by herself, and catch Sanditon unawares and in the throes of slumber.
She makes it to the doorway of her bedroom without incident, and into the dark corridor outside. The taproom is to her right, and Charlotte sees that it is empty, the last embers of the fire dying in the hearth and the tang of stale beer hanging in the air.
Wrinkling her nose she hobbles forward, even more desperate to reach the door that leads to the clean night air beyond.
The latch clunks loudly as Charlotte’s fingers slip, but no one stirs. Charlotte tugs at the door but it doesn’t open, and Charlotte realises it must be bolted from the inside. Fumbling, she finds the bolt and it slides back easily, the door finally swinging inwards on its heavy hinges.
Charlotte stumbles forwards, grinning in anticipation as she lifts her nose into the air to inhale deeply, feeling a slight breeze against her cheeks. She closes her eyes to savour the sensation, and consequently jumps out of her skin when a deep voice emerges from the dark to her right.
“You’re an odd kind of thief.”
Charlotte jumps and whirls, protests already on her lips. She has no chance to reply though, as her hand drops the cane and her balance tips sideways. She tilts, her leg twinging at the sudden movement. She gasps with pain even as she braces for the inevitable fall. It never comes, as two hands wrap around her arms and steady her, and she finds herself face to face with the elusive Mr Parker.
“You were outside all this time!” She exclaims without thinking, “Oh how typical!”
He quirks an eyebrow in her face, his features becoming more distinct as her eyes adjust to the light. He looks even more mysterious half-shrouded in darkness, even more sad in spite of the amusement on his face. Charlotte blushes as she realises she is the cause of his mirth.
“I assure you I have been inside just as often,” He grins at her, “The taproom is a good acquaintance of mine.”
Rattled by his abrasive humour, to her horror Charlotte finds herself snapping at him. “Then you might have ventured further to my room and saved me the trip outside.”
“My apologies,” Mr Parker leans back, assuring himself that Charlotte can bear her own weight before he leans down to pick up and hand her the cane. “I was not aware I was meant to be attending on any young ladies in their private rooms.”
Charlotte blushes more deeply at the implication, hoping the darkness hides her embarrassment. “You know what I meant,” She huffs, “I wished to thank you, and I am vexed you did not give me the opportunity.”
“And what a thanks I am receiving!” Mr Parker laughs, before his expression becomes more serious. His eyes flit up and down, taking in Charlotte’s unsteady stance and the cane on which she leans once more. Recognition lights his face. “You are the girl from the coach.”
“Am I so forgettable?” Charlotte snaps bitterly. She feels embarrassed and cross, to have wasted so many hours wishing she might see and thank him, only to find him utterly infuriating! Her leg hurts, and she blames the pain for her shortness of temper even though she knows it has little enough to do with it. It is her fancy that has let her down, and her pride that is hurt. He barely remembers her.
“Hardly,” Mr Parker is saying, and Charlotte refocuses to find his expression still grave. “I assure you the incident made quite an impression on me. I was relieved to hear you had recovered well from the fever.”
“Thank you,” Charlotte tells him, “I wanted-”
She stops. Her wish that he might call upon her seems ridiculous now. What could she have meant to him, after all? It was he who obliged her with the rescue, he owed her nothing further.
“You wanted?” Mr Parker prompts, and Charlotte resigns herself to speaking her mind, ridiculous though it may be.
“I wanted to thank you.” She says, with as much dignity as she can muster, “and I wished that you might call, so that I could do so.”
“Forgive me.” The amusement has returned to his eyes, and he steps backwards to execute a formal bow, “I am at your service. Thank away.”
He grins unreservedly, and Charlotte sees the years fall off his face. He cannot be much over twenty, she thinks, and though it seems an age of years away to her, it strikes her that twenty is not so very old. She has thought of him as a young man, but now he seems a boy, lighter and more playful than the brooding rescuer she remembers from the delirium of the accident.
She curtsies awkwardly, laughing slightly at her own ungainliness. “Thank you.” She says sincerely, finding that all her irritation has melted away as swiftly as it came. Never before has someone caused her moods to change so quickly, or with such extreme depths of passionate anger or joy, and Charlotte finds herself simultaneously enthralled and bewildered.
“My pleasure.” Mr Parker smiles at her, and it is the middle of the night but Charlotte swears for a moment that it is as though the sun has risen.
“Oh!” She exclaims, remembering suddenly the second part of her mission. “Your handkerchief!”
The smile vanishes from his face as quickly as it had appeared, and Charlotte is at a loss to know why. She fishes in the pocket of her skirt, knowing it is tucked away in there. She has taken to keeping it close to her as a kind of talisman against the boredom of these past weeks, her interaction with Mr Parker and the dreaded return of his handkerchief the only excitement she truly had to anticipate.
“There!” She holds it out to him triumphantly, but his face remains stony. “I am sorry,” She falters, remembering the stain that mars what must be a deeply personal item, “We washed it but it wouldn’t come out.”
He frowns, seeming puzzled, and slowly reaches out to take it from her. The confusion fades from his face as he observes the crescent shaped mark daubed in Charlotte’s dried blood. Charlotte feels sudden tears prickle to her eyes as she awaits his response, anxious that he will be angry or annoyed.
“It looks like a moon.” Is all that Mr Parker says, and Charlotte is startled from her worry by his strange response. He seems absorbed by the cloth, and Charlotte’s gaze flickers between the handkerchief and his face as she blinks away her distress.
“I suppose it does,” she says slowly, “A crescent moon, perhaps?” She leans her head over it to see it more clearly, although she has inspected it often enough to know its shape well. She always thought of it as a letter C, like her own initial, but of course Mr Parker has no reason to make that connection. “Very like a crescent moon.” She decides.
“Or an eclipse.” Mr Parker mutters to himself, and Charlotte gives up on understanding him.
“I wasn’t sure whether to give it back.” She admits, “I tried making you a replacement but it wasn’t as good.”
“Good,” he snorts, not looking up from the lopsided handkerchief. “Your assessment of its worth is too kind.”
“It is earnest.” Charlotte says without thinking, a half-smile on her face. Mr Parker’s eyes dart to hers, and she is startled by the intensity of his expression.
“Perhaps.” He allows after a moment, and a strange peace falls between them. The breeze dances past Charlotte’s cheeks once more, and she shivers even as she leans into it.
“You should go inside.” Mr Parker observes, and Charlotte sighs.
“But it is so much better to be out here, and close to the sea.” Charlotte closes her eyes and wraps her right arm around her middle, hugging herself. She declares a flight of fancy aloud, too enraptured by the moment to care for the suitability of sharing her thoughts. “I wish I might board a boat and sail around the coast, discover all the forgotten coves and study the currents. Maybe follow them all over the world. There’s something about the sight and smell of the sea here that feels so free, don’t you think?”
Mr Parker is silent for long enough to make her feel awkward, but when he replies his tone is considering, not dismissive.
“Perhaps you are right.” He says, “Perhaps there is freedom to be pursued on the sea.”
Charlotte opens her eyes and smiles at him, and though the wide grin from earlier does not return, his lips quirk in answer to her own.
“Go on an adventure for me.” She instructs him playfully, waving a hand in a regal gesture and he makes a mocking bow in response.
“As the lady demands.” He declares grandly, and Charlotte feels a shiver at the deep timbre of his voice.
She laughs quietly in response, and their eyes catch and hold for a moment of mutual understanding before dropping naturally away. Charlotte looks down and smiles to herself, knowing their brief interlude is come to an end. She turns awkwardly to go inside, maneuvering the cane so that it clears the slight step at the door as she nods a silent goodbye.
“Wait.” She looks back over her shoulder to find Mr Parker has extended the handkerchief towards her. The intense look from earlier returns, and she does not know what to make of it.
“But it is yours.” Charlotte tells him, and he shakes his head and offers it again.
“It did more good for you than it ever has for me,” He declares, and his mouth twists in a wry, slightly harsh way that Charlotte does not like.
“Thank you.” She says quietly, and takes it from him. Their fingers brush minutely, and Charlotte wants to gasp at the warmth of his touch, but she controls herself. She tells herself her hands must be very cold, to feel such a small touch of his so strongly in such a brief instant. She almost shakes her hand at the strange sensation, but winds the handkerchief around her fingers instead, slipping it back into her pocket.
Mr Parker nods once and sketches a final bow, then strides off into the night without another word. Long after she has returned the bolt to its place, Charlotte stands before the closed door, lost in thought. When she finally returns to her bed, it is to a restless sleep. Her heart races against the tiredness that drags at her eyes, and her fingers smooth the familiar material within her pocket, still tingling gently from his touch.
Charlotte does not see Mr Parker again for the remainder of her stay in Sanditon. She recuperates quickly, her naturally hardy constitution winning out against the abuses of her body. Mr Brooks is impressed with Charlotte’s progress, and declares her ready to travel home three and a half weeks after the accident. She is delighted to get back on her feet and to return to her mother who has yet to deliver, and her father is cheered by the prospect that they might yet be in time to see the child born.
On her last day in Sanditon, Charlotte hobbles around the sweet cobbled streets of the small town. She has not yet made is to the beach, and she is determined to do so at least once. Mr Heywood, indulgent though he is of his daughter’s desires, is concerned that she might exhaust herself. He pleads that she wait until he may accompany her, but Charlotte is too impatient and ventures from the inn by herself.
Her leg twinges after fifteen minutes of walking, even with the cane, but seeing the promenade ahead she forges on. People stop and stare, but Charlotte pays them no mind. She does not mind their interest, for she is as curious as the next person and she knows she must make a strange sight. Her hair is mussed, for she did not have the patience to redo her long braid, and the ribbon flutters sadly at its trailing end. She misbuttoned her coat in her haste, and her shoes are nothing more than slippers, but she does not care. She does, however, feel a slight flush come to her cheek as one woman whispers to a friend, in tones no doubt intended to be discreet.
“...a cripple, do you think?” Charlotte hears. The other woman tuts and shakes her head, but it is not in disagreement.
Charlotte wonders if she ought to feel hurt, but she cannot bring herself to it. She is only conscious of a sense of shame because other people seem to feel it for her. Society’s stormy cloud threatens the clear sky, but Charlotte shakes her own head and smiles, forgetting almost instantly about everyone else around her and dismissing their judgement. The sea is at every horizon, for she is at the very edge of the promenade. After weeks and weeks she is finally here. She can see the sea in all its glory. The May sun shines, and the water reflects it, glittering and dancing. Soft greens waves roll up into translucent crests then bubble gently to the shore, and further out the surface heaves like a giant taking unsteady breaths. Far off, so removed that she has to squint to see it, Charlotte thinks she can make out the distant mast and sails of a ship forging its way through the sea. Laughing, she salutes it with her free hand, wrinkling her nose with delight.
Charlotte does not feel like a cripple, she does not feel broken. She feels free.