Sanditon Episode 7 promos show Charlotte's love rival, Eliza , come to town while Lady Denham is on her death bed
Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams) faced the green sting of jealousy for the first time at the ball in London in last week's episode. Sidney Parker (Theo James) laughed and flirted with Mrs Eliza Campion (Ruth Kearney), his ex-flame, back on the marriage market as a wealthy widow. He seems to bear no ill will toward her for breaking his heart and whose memory he escaped by fleeing to Antigua.
In the trailer released for Episode 7, we see Charlotte looking crestfallen as she learns that Sidney has invited Eliza to stay for Tom Parker's (Kris Marshall) grand regatta. But Sidney's heart is more divided than Charlotte could ever imagine. The next scene shows Sidney rowing Charlotte down the river while he muses on how he had thought he would be alone forever. Even though Charlotte has shuttered down, Eliza sees them together with worried eyes. A woman knows a rival when she sees one.
In another sneak peek scene, we see Eliza throw subtle shade at Charlotte by clubbing her with the children who are building sandcastles on the beach before asking Sidney as they walk away, "and she helps with the children?", putting her somewhere between a nanny and a naive, young maiden who is almost a child herself. Charlotte is not impervious to Eliza's casual dismissal and her eyes follow the couple as they leave, looking a bit bereft.
Eliza on the other hand quickly finds out who this "Miss Heywood" is from Sidney and then calls her a "sweet little thing" like she is Sidney's pet. Sidney smiles awkwardly, which goes to show that his feelings towards Charlotte are not that of a guardian -- unlike how he is with Georgiana, his ward -- even though they are of similar age.
Meanwhile, the trailer also shows the drama unfolding in the Denham House. The doctor tells those who have gathered that Lady Denham (Anne Reid) will probably not survive the night. Esther Denham (Charlotte Spencer) is seen telling Clara Brereton (Lily Sacofsky) what her brother told her -- that there is no will. But Clara, eager to widen the rift between brother and sister, tells her that not only was there a will that she and Edward (Jack Fox) had destroyed but that she and Edward had decided to divide the property equally between them. This is significantly more than the one-fifth share Edward had promised to her. But Clara's goal is accomplished when the revelation that her brother was deceiving her gets Esther's hackles up as she hisses, "You're lying." And so she is -- but only partially.
Edward has no qualms about cutting her sister out of the inheritance and taking sole control of the wealth and forever keeping her beholden to him. Given Esther's volatile nature, she won't take this betrayal lying down and Clara might have inadvertently pushed Esther's buttons one too many times with this revelation.
‘Sanditon’ Season 1 Episode 7 will air on February 16, 2020, at 9 pm ET.