Chapter Text
On Antigua, on a graveyard, Sidney and a great many others have been interred. Eliza has passed a few weeks prior to Sidney and he has had time to dictate his will to a solicitor before the doctor declared his death. On paper, he’s leaving everything to Georgiana, but he sends her a separate letter in which he clarifies he trusts she will pass it on to Charlotte, including a last goodbye for the woman he loves. He doesn’t want to taint her name by leaving his fortune to her directly. That way he hopes his true love will find happiness, that she may fall in love with a man who is deserving of her without having any financial obstacles to their union. It is his last act of love for her. He has tried to do as she told him, to make Eliza happy, but he did it for Charlotte only. One cannot love a woman who does not care about one’s feelings, who only wanted to possess him like a pet. When Eliza died, he only felt relief. Like Charlotte said: love without affection is kind of slavery.
The burial is hurried; the coffins have been hastily put together with few nails. There is a plague of mosquitos carrying the disease. Many lives have been lost already and people are afraid to catch the disease. There was no time to balm the bodies. The graves are shallow. They have not been filled up, only a thin layer of dust has been placed on top, awaiting the next series of coffins to be placed on top the next day.
At night a group of grave robbers visits the graveyard. They are runaway slaves and scavenging is their only means of survival. They know some rich men have been buried and clothes, golden teeth and buttons are taken from the coffin, which are opened with care, leaving little trace. The runaways have little mercy on those who robbed them of their dignity, their freedom.
When they try to remove the golden filling from one of them, they are startled by a sudden movement. The body is not stiff and the mouth gasps. Fearing they’ve encountered a ghost, some run away in panic. The woman holding him however concludes he is still alive. Her comrades suggest finishing him off. They have no compassion for the white men who abused them and if he awakes he might tell them off. But the woman stops them. She recognises the man to be Mr. Parker. He is not like the others. He’s been fighting for their cause. And what’s more: she owes him her life. He stopped her master and the men who worked for him from beating her to death a few weeks earlier. He helped her escape by declaring her dead before her master, after which her family could take her down from the tree where she’d been hung.
The others are hesitant, but concede to her wishes. Unfortunately they are surprised by a guard and the man gets a fatal blow to the head from one of them. He’s put inside Mr. Parker’s coffin. They carry the unconscious body of Mr. Parker up the mountain, to Boggy Peak, where they have their encampment, obscured by vegetation and protected by myths of spirits living there.
The woman, Grace, nurses him for weeks, and slowly brings him back to life. Once he has recovered, she urges him to stay longer, arguing he’s not strong enough. Once he has regained his strength, she tells him he cannot go back to St. Johns. Her master, whom Sidney had assaulted in his rage on seeing her being abused, has supposedly died of his injuries. If Sidney returns to society, he might be prosecuted and hung. His abolitionist attitude has made him few friends among slave-owning the elite, he stands little chance.
It becomes clear to Sidney that Grace does not want to let him go. But her jealous suitor does not want him to stay either. When a group tries to escape to Haiti, that has been liberated from slavery, Sidney grabs his chance. He still owns his golden tooth filling and he uses it to buy a fishermen’s boat to get to Guadeloupe, where he’s safe from his Majesty’s servants. From there he starts gathering information. Is he really facing prosecution? What will he find when he returns to England? Months have passed. He knows Charlotte must have received the assets he left her. She will be assuming him dead. Perhaps she has moved on with her life. If she has found happiness, he does not want to disturb her life. All he wants is for her to be happy and he’s not sure his return would make her so. Getting back to England is a complicated matter anyway. How’s he to acquire the fifty pounds he needs to board a packet ship? All his belongings on Antigua will be shipped to back his family by now. He’s made few friends and many enemies on Antigua. Many of his friends have died the past few months or tried to escape the epidemic by returning back to England. Finding someone to help him is difficult.
After making careful inquiries, Sidney slowly learns that he’s safe from prosecution and returns to Antigua, where he can seek help from his friends. To his surprise, he encounters Otis, now a naval officer and a much changed man. It is through Otis that he learns the news from Sanditon. Otis has no direct contact with Georgiana, but he gets reports about her from intermediaries in the army. An acquaintance of his is in the regiment that has set up camp near Sanditon. Otis tells Sidney that Charlotte was inconsolable with grief on learning about his death. She never stopped loving him. She has suitors: a colonel and there are rumours her employer fancies her, but Charlotte seems to have no interest in love. It pains Sidney to hear that she has suffered the degradation of needing to work as a governess, although Otis assures him she conceded to her new status with grace and pride. Charlotte is too practical to lament her fate. Otis himself is heartbroken having heard Georgiana seems to be enamoured by some painter. Encouraged by Otis, and being lent some money, Sidney boards the naval ship to sail home…