Beginnings Beyond Endings (A Sanditon Fanfiction)

Degrees of Devotion

The excited buzz of chatter filtered through the rooms of the pavilion as those gathered settled for the meal in clustered groups and broke into speculation and gossip. George and Charlotte had retreated to one of the lesser occupied tables with the Ladies and their husbands for nourishment after their earlier activity.

The dinner served at the Midsummer Ball had evolved to a twelve-course extravagance with soups and breads, pies and pastries, poultry and game, all served with an abundance of fruits and vegetables and garnished with glazed confections and waterfalls of wine. Everything was rich and flavourful and it was a testament to the skill of the cooks that such a hearty meal sat so lightly in one's belly despite the volume one devoured.

That hour passed pleasantly with no great distractions from their quarter or elsewhere and Charlotte would have been content to remain seated for another hour more, but for the promise to reserve the first set after the meal for Lord Babington whose wife had all but begged for the ladies amongst their circle to keep him from hovering about her.

The pair had been engaged in a ridiculous exchange of commentary about the other parties present that evening when a gradual silence began to spread throughout the room and the root of the disturbance caused even the musicians to become distracted and allow their melody to stilt and peter to a halt. Most couples engaged in that dance, being occupied as they were with their partners than the room at large looked about themselves in confusion as their rhythm was disturbed and the dance lost its energy.

Lord Babington, however, had been making some shocking observations about the goings on by the large doors that exited out into the street and saw the entire scene as it happened. He directed the attention of the viscountess on his arm to the couple that had just appeared even as he began to guide her away from the rapidly deteriorating mess of the quadrille they had been engaged in.

Charlotte was stunned by the sight of Phillida Beaufort stood in the entryway, soaked to the bone from the downpour outside with her skirts clinging to her legs and her dress loose in the back and gaping at the front to reveal her uncorseted pale skin. And beside her stood a rather loutish looking fellow in a naval officer's uniform and he, too, only barely covered by them.

She'd long since realised that the Beaufort girls were silly and though Charlotte had not perhaps recognised the extent of this at their first meeting, she had always found it difficult to comprehend them. They had both spent hours on end in rapturous giggles over this or that attractive man and, though Charlotte could not deny that she too held much fondness for anything romantic and good, she also recognised that such a degree of devotion to it was insensible and only invited disappointment. Indeed, one may face disappointment even without such an attitude.

And yet, surely this girl could not be so silly and lost to good sense as to not realise that such a scene as the one she now found herself could only end badly for her and her sister. Charlotte felt great pity for Julia Beaufort whose prospects of a good marriage became an ever more distant dream with each year that passed, she now being three and twenty, still a ward of Mrs Griffiths' School and likely considered quite firmly on the shelf by most, despite the greater maturity in her manner that Charlotte had witnessed these past weeks.

And still her sister stood shamelessly there in such a distasteful state and looked upon them all with a guise of petulant innocence and laughed! How could she be anything other than mortified and distraught in the face of her own ruination? Charlotte ignored her own hypocrisy at such thinking, for while it was true she had often been a little freer than was wise, she would never have dared to risk her reputation with a scene like this. Her parents had taken great care to instil the values of modesty and decorum and dignity in their daughters and, though perhaps she had flouted these on many an occasion, she knew her worth and knew not to push the limits of acceptable behaviour too far lest her actions bring harm to her siblings.