Beginnings Beyond Endings (A Sanditon Fanfiction)

Friendly Reunions

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.