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shallownessSanditon. (Spoilers for episode 2.1). Sidney Parker/Charlotte Heywood, Sidney Parker/Eliza Campion, OFC. Second person POV. 673 words. Universal. Summary: A servant is not paid to notice everything, but of course you do.
The name on his lips: shallowness
You have never carried such a message to such a destination before. It ought to have surprised you more to have to go to a dance to tell your mistress that her husband had passed. His death was not so sudden, nor unexpected to those who chose to see the signs, and yet you had to leave the house to break the very worst news to her.
Mr Parker had returned to Antigua with this new, wealthy wife on his arm. You could not but notice that he was as controlled and distant as he had been on his last visit to these shores.
You heard Mrs Eliza Parker read the invitations that followed their arrival, and you heard her husband make clear that he would be too busy to accept any of them. He spoke courteously, but would not be moved by his wife. His purpose in returning was business, but he raised no objection when she said she would call upon their neighbours and attend the events that seemed most entertaining on her own, then. You only needed to know that she would go her way and he would go his, and divide the work accordingly. But a good servant reads their employers’ moods, and you thought that Mrs Parker was covering disappointment with liveliness.
You attended her upon her return from the first soiree and informed her that her husband had retired to bed. She laughed and said how late she must be, then.
You were not paid to think that your employers threw themselves into their separate doings with great zeal, or to wonder whether if Mr Parker had frowned as hard at the news that his wife was not at home as he did over rows of figures in his study, she would have withdrawn from the social whirl. But he seemed indifferent that his wife’s days and evenings filled up with more engagements, or that he often dined alone.
But there came an evening when he had no appetite for his meal, and indeed, he went to bed soon after. By the morning, the fever had taken a hold of him. No matter his strength or purpose in coming here, he could not get up for several days. For those days, his wife did stay at home, but chose not to grace the sick bed often.
Mrs Parker took heart when her spouse recovered enough to return to the study to send letters of apology to his business associates. She left to visit a neighbour. He returned to bed while she was away, tired by his exertions, and was feverish again the next morning.
You wondered if ‘fever’ was a word that carried less dread back in their England as the lady of the house decided to go pay another call, repaying indifference with indifference, and attention with attention.
She was not there to see the yellow tinge come into her husband’s skin a few days later. You saw it, and exchanged glances with the other servants who took turns tending to him. You all knew how much peril that meant, especially for strangers to these climes. You had survived past outbreaks, but you had all lost loved ones to this pestilence. Mrs Parker was blind to your worries, deaf to the murmurs of ‘yellowjack’. There was to be a dance, and it seemed all she could think of.
Every time you returned to his room it became clearer he was losing ground.
You had removed the cloth on his forehead and were about to replace it with a fresh one when he cried out a woman’s name, ‘Charlotte’, in a hoarse voice. You stilled. The raw need of his cry went unanswered. You did not pretend that you were this other woman, afraid of deceiving a dying man. Soon enough, he could cry no more.
All that is why, when you had to seek out your mistress, making her break off from her dancing to learn that she was a widow again, you were not surprised.
You have never carried such a message to such a destination before. It ought to have surprised you more to have to go to a dance to tell your mistress that her husband had passed. His death was not so sudden, nor unexpected to those who chose to see the signs, and yet you had to leave the house to break the very worst news to her.
Mr Parker had returned to Antigua with this new, wealthy wife on his arm. You could not but notice that he was as controlled and distant as he had been on his last visit to these shores.
You heard Mrs Eliza Parker read the invitations that followed their arrival, and you heard her husband make clear that he would be too busy to accept any of them. He spoke courteously, but would not be moved by his wife. His purpose in returning was business, but he raised no objection when she said she would call upon their neighbours and attend the events that seemed most entertaining on her own, then. You only needed to know that she would go her way and he would go his, and divide the work accordingly. But a good servant reads their employers’ moods, and you thought that Mrs Parker was covering disappointment with liveliness.
You attended her upon her return from the first soiree and informed her that her husband had retired to bed. She laughed and said how late she must be, then.
You were not paid to think that your employers threw themselves into their separate doings with great zeal, or to wonder whether if Mr Parker had frowned as hard at the news that his wife was not at home as he did over rows of figures in his study, she would have withdrawn from the social whirl. But he seemed indifferent that his wife’s days and evenings filled up with more engagements, or that he often dined alone.
But there came an evening when he had no appetite for his meal, and indeed, he went to bed soon after. By the morning, the fever had taken a hold of him. No matter his strength or purpose in coming here, he could not get up for several days. For those days, his wife did stay at home, but chose not to grace the sick bed often.
Mrs Parker took heart when her spouse recovered enough to return to the study to send letters of apology to his business associates. She left to visit a neighbour. He returned to bed while she was away, tired by his exertions, and was feverish again the next morning.
You wondered if ‘fever’ was a word that carried less dread back in their England as the lady of the house decided to go pay another call, repaying indifference with indifference, and attention with attention.
She was not there to see the yellow tinge come into her husband’s skin a few days later. You saw it, and exchanged glances with the other servants who took turns tending to him. You all knew how much peril that meant, especially for strangers to these climes. You had survived past outbreaks, but you had all lost loved ones to this pestilence. Mrs Parker was blind to your worries, deaf to the murmurs of ‘yellowjack’. There was to be a dance, and it seemed all she could think of.
Every time you returned to his room it became clearer he was losing ground.
You had removed the cloth on his forehead and were about to replace it with a fresh one when he cried out a woman’s name, ‘Charlotte’, in a hoarse voice. You stilled. The raw need of his cry went unanswered. You did not pretend that you were this other woman, afraid of deceiving a dying man. Soon enough, he could cry no more.
All that is why, when you had to seek out your mistress, making her break off from her dancing to learn that she was a widow again, you were not surprised.
