Epilogue
The banns were read at church on Sunday, and by the next morning the happy couple had agreed that they would wed in a fortnight, after the third calling of the banns. Jane and Charlotte insisted that Elizabeth could not manage a proper wedding with so little time to prepare, but the dowager countess was ready to rise to the challenge.
The Bennets of Longbourn were sent a packet of letters detailing the happy news. Elizabeth wrote of her betrothal and invited her father to bring the rest of her family to Sanditon as soon as it could be arranged. Lady Margaret wrote a very pretty letter to the second Mrs. Bennet, while Jane and Marianne wrote to Mary, Kitty, Lydia, and Margaret Dashwood of the many diversions and pleasing society they might expect in Sanditon. Sir Edward composed a very sensible letter containing circumspect praise of Mr. Darcy and rhapsodical veneration of Lady Margaret.
Even Mrs. Jennings wished to have her say, and after bidding Marianne include her own compliments to Mrs. Bennet, she began to insist that she must take the ladies shopping and plan a large dinner for everyone.
After a day of so much society, Elizabeth looked forward to her day with Mr. Darcy. On the day of the solstice they met just beyond Sandpiper Cottage as the sun began to rise over the cliffs in the east, and as it crept above the horizon, Elizabeth led him back to the secluded inlet where they had attended a picnic less than a week earlier. They were alone and well concealed, visible only from the manor atop the cliff, where the windows bore no light.
Elizabeth’s first notion was to swim, which Mr. Darcy readily agreed to, but it proved too cold for them to do more than wade ankle deep in the water. They frolicked, chasing one another and kicking up surf until they notably found themselves embracing on a large boulder where the cliff met the sea.
When their damp clothes threatened to cool their passion, they returned to the cottage, where Elizabeth borrowed a gown from a cheerfully scandalized Georgiana while Mr. Darcy changed into dry clothes.
Georgiana and the colonel were invited to join them, and when they departed the cottage to walk into the village, ostensibly to visit Elizabeth’s favorite cafe, she grinned at her companions. “I do not know why, but I wished it to be a surprise.”
They passed through the lobby of the Tremont, which had been decorated with floral garlands, and into the central courtyard. A colorful banner had been suspended from the windows of the Gardiner apartment reading Sanditon Solstice Spectacular. The courtyard was full of vendors, local villagers, and hotel guests. There were performers, face painters, games, and even children playing in the large fountain.
Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy walked arm in arm about the courtyard, taking in all the attractions of the fair, and over the course of the morning they met with many of their friends and found ample sources of wonder and delight.
The same gypsy woman who promised Elizabeth a lifetime of happiness with her fiancé and predicted a sudden financial windfall for the colonel also pronounced that Marianne would meet the love of her life that very night. Many young ladies would have been captivated by the notion; Marianne was irritated.
Emma quickly befriended Lady Rebecca, and when the pair encountered Darcy, Elizabeth, and their companions, the two ladies made a great show of selecting flower crowns for everyone. Marianne would only accept flowers that symbolized friendship, even asking the vendor if there were any flowers known for driving away love. Elizabeth was perfectly willing to defer to Emma and Lady Rebecca’s superior judgement, accepting a flower crown of daffodils, primroses, and peonies to symbolize her future happiness in marriage. Even Mr. Darcy was induced to wear one; he enjoyed the irony of discovering that the gloxinias he sported represented love at first sight.
Next they joined Sir Edward and his children in watching a very odd puppet show put on by the Parker siblings; Charlotte had attempted to direct them, but the Parkers had ever been known for being ungovernably peculiar. Their puppets soon turned from a script extolling the joys of summer, and delighted the village children by beating one another about the head. Elizabeth observed that it was a true likeness of the family her friend had married into.
The fair extended far beyond the courtyard of the hotel. Vendors and entertainers lined the north side of Grand Avenue, while the more exuberant activities took place on the beach. Sir Edward gravitated toward Lady Margaret, and had the honor of presenting his four children to her as they all joined Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy in observing the kite contest. The dowager countess appeared invigorated by the day's activities and joined Sir Edward and his children with her stately style of enthusiasm. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were conscripted as judges, assessing both the beauty and craftsmanship of the kites as well as the style and success of their flight in the air.
After playing a few of the games along the beach, the couple made their way back up the cliff to peruse the artisans’ stalls on Grand Avenue. They purchased a variety of trinkets as gifts for their friends and had their faces painted. Elizabeth sported a pink and purple butterfly on one cheek, while Mr. Darcy leant much dignity to the features of a lion.
They sampled a variety of foods, from hand pies and pastries to fruits and cheeses, and even sampled every entry in a contest of flavored ices. Mr. Darcy favored Mr. Connors’ frozen concoction, a creamy maple rum sorbet, while Elizabeth fervently supported Mrs. Sealy’s strawberry and lemon blended sorbet served over Shrewsbury biscuits.
Declaring that he had never enjoyed a day so much in all his life, Mr. Darcy happily paid three shillings for a sketch to be made of himself and Elizabeth together, and he was so enchanted by the resulting portrait that he astonished the lad who had drawn it by presenting him with a guinea. The youth was next commissioned to sketch Miss de Bourgh and Miss Lovelace, who had been enjoying every attraction of the festival with a degree of exuberance made possible by Lady Catherine’s departure that morning.
Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth were still not entirely comfortable with his cousin, but were in high enough spirits to wish her a good day before moving along to their next activity. They joined the colonel, Georgiana, and Marianne in an archery contest where they all did very poorly for the sake of Charles Bingley, who desperately wished to win. It was here that Mrs. Jennings discovered them and began to regale Marianne with a lengthy description of a brief encounter with a gentleman she had met when purchasing a gift for her young friend. “Alas, there was nobody to introduce us! But I am determined to discover his name, for he is handsome and amiable, and he understands muslin!”
While Marianne was resolved to be contrary and would hear nothing of beaux, Lady Rebecca appeared delighted to have found one for herself, even if it was only Sir Anthony Denham. He paid a shilling to have a sonnet composed in her honor, and even earned a hearty cheer from the lady when he participated in a rowdy spectacle wherein many of the locals jigged about to a raucous drum beat, contriving outlandish dance steps.
One of the principal events of the festival was the cricket match on the beach. All who wished to participate submitted their names on slips of paper, which were drawn from a hat just before the game. The randomly selected teams were tasked with choosing outlandish and intimidating names for themselves to arouse the support of the onlookers.
It was an easy choice for Elizabeth to choose the team that called themselves The Sporting Cormorants, for Mr. Darcy, Sir Edward, Mr. Knightley, and Charles Bingley had all been assigned to this team. She sat with Jane, Georgiana, Emma, and the countess to cheer for them, but they were soundly defeated by their opponents, a team the colonel had persuaded Sir Thomas, Sir Anthony, and the others to call Poseidon’s Bollocks.
Colonel Fitzwilliam took great pleasure in eloquently triumphing over his cousin and their friends while another of his teammates, Mr. Connors, was mortified to have so soundly thrashed his employer. Arthur Parker accused his eldest brother of cheating – a family tradition, according to Charlotte, Sir Anthony used his victory to endear himself further to Lady Rebecca, and Mr. Horne credited the absent Sir Sidney for his limber maneuvering as he claimed a victorious kiss from his lusty bride.
After the cricket match, the assembled crowd made their way back to the courtyard of the hotel, where a parade of florally festooned carriages embarked along Grand Avenue toward the plaza on the eastern end of the village.
Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth rode in Mr. Gardiner’s barouche which had a canvas covering that could be folded down so that the riders could enjoy the open air. The Gardiner children and the dowager countess crammed in with them, waving merrily at the revelers who followed the procession on foot.
When they all reached the plaza, Sir Thomas Parker gave a rousing speech extolling the many festivities yet to come that summer, the virtues of their excellent seaside village, and his appreciation for everybody present. Lady Denham also gave a speech that encouraged the cheering crowd to continue their efforts to make Sanditon the premier seaside destination for the fashionable elite, and then she announced that the ballroom at Sanditon House was ready for dancing to commence.
Lady Denham’s estate sat on the easternmost clifftop, bookending the village which ended with the Tremont to the west. While the hotel boasted a large ballroom overlooking the sea with splendid views at sunset, the ballroom at Sanditon House was truly a wonder. It was a space of impressive dimensions and a high ceiling that covered one half of the room. The other half of the ballroom blended seamlessly into the terrace, with massive awning of woven branches and flower boughs that thinned out until dissipating entirely, leaving the furthest edge of the room open to the dusky sky.
Wide stairs led from this end of the ballroom down the cliffside, to a stretch of private beach where a bonfire began as the sun sank from view behind the distant silhouette of the Tremont Hotel. Here, the musicians played livelier tunes than the refined music upstairs in the ballroom, and both areas soon filled with eager dancers of every social class mingling together without a care for the formalities that generally governed them.
Elizabeth and her beloved danced together on the terrace as they savored the final hours of sunshine on the longest day of the year, the finest day either of them had ever known. Amidst such a large crowd, they took the liberty of dancing more often together than would have been proper at a more formal ball, and when it grew dark, they made their way down to the beach, where they waltzed in the sand with the other indecorous revelers.
It was sheer chaotic perfection for Elizabeth as she and Mr. Darcy cavorted with villagers and nobility alike, drank themselves silly on the sweet wine Lady Denham called ambrosia, and savored the merry company of so many friends. The finest moment of all was when they managed to sneak away from the crowd; just before he kissed her, Mr. Darcy whispered in her ear, “I love you, Elizabeth, and wish never to be parted from you, nor from this magical place.”