Sanditon revisited

6: How to know if to trust one's first impression, or second

Author's note: Thank you for taking the time to read! Thank you for commenting and liking! Always much appreciated.

/Miss P

- o -

In which Charlotte Heywood sees new sides of Sidney Parker's personality, for a while quite likes him but ends up furious like never before

- o -

If Sidney was bewildered when he left Sanditon, so was Charlotte Heywood and she became increasingly so in his absence.

Meeting him again in Trafalgar house the morning after the chance encounter by the coves, caused a mixture of feelings to well up inside her. It made her instinctively try to escape in the most ridiculous way, by hiding under Tom's desk when she heard Sidney's deep voice in the hallway, only to cause her further embarrassment when she was discovered. For a brief moment they eyed one another, and a tingling not altogether unpleasant sensation spread throughout her body. He looked a bit rough this morning, as if he had slept badly and not taken the time to shave, but she had to admit that the dark shadow on his chin suited him and he was as handsome as ever. His waistcoat and trousers were as always perfectly fitted to his lean frame and the silhouette now reminded Charlotte of what he looked like underneath. Just as she had feared this forbidden knowledge was not easily buried.

When he with a smirk remarked that she always seemed to pop up when least expected, she came to her senses, excused herself and hastily left, even if she really ached to tell him that she was not the one appearing out of the sea naked. It would not have been a suitable comment coming from a young lady and it would have exposed the incident to Tom, which was the last thing she wanted. He and Mary would probably put her on the first coach back to Willingden if they knew and there were so many things yet to explore here in Sanditon, including her newformed friendship with Georgiana Lambe. She was far from ready to leave. Hence, she sensibly held her tongue, shot him one last defiant look, then made her escape before doing anything she regretted.

Soon however, unexpected events were to turn everything around. There was an incident involving old Mr. Stringer and they were forced together, Sidney Parker and her, and surprisingly worked as a team. He astonished her in many ways over a few intense hours, showing her there was no way of predicting the actions of this man. When they had brought old Stringer to Trafalgar house, Charlotte overheard him speaking to his son, young Mr. Stringer, sympathetically comforting him and telling him to leave when they set his father's broken leg so he would not have to witness his pain. This was so different from the cold, distant personality Mr. Parker had displayed on numerous occasions, now instead showing himself compassionate and thoughtful. Even in the midst of the chaos of the accident, it left Charlotte confused to find him so caring.

She braced herself, expected him to ask her to leave too, say this was no place for a woman and prepared to object, but he tried nothing of the sort. Instead he listened to what she said, did as she told him and looked at her with a new expression ... she thought maybe it was approval. Oddly it caused a flutter in the pit of her stomach. When it all was over, he even told her he she had given a good account of herself and admitted that she had turned out to be more capable than he had expected. Even if this implied he did not expect anything of her to begin with, he impressed her by owning up to his mistake, by willingly admitting she had made him change his mind about her. She was amazed when he asked her forgiveness for dismissing her before. For the first time, there was a smile in his eyes when he looked down on her, then even one playing on his lips. It did strange things to her insides.