Chapter Text
Out the window that opened up to the garden, there was a willow tree that hung over a little pond where Penelope liked to read to Franny in the afternoons. Its silver face rippled over with wind that came blowing in from the south; not an unpleasant chill, but a welcoming remembrance. Sometimes when it came, she heard the hollow reeds whistle with the chime of the wind, stirring the leaves from their branches. And in such moments—when the sun was just out, and nary a cloud was in sight, and Franny played with her little toadstools by the pond—Penelope could even bring herself to forget.
It was the 16th of June. When she awoke this morning, she had noticed the date with markedly less consternation than in previous years. It was the day of memory and the day of forgetting. It was the day of joy and the day of sorrow. It was the day she had realized she was pregnant with Franny. And it was the day Penelope’s life as she knew it had ended.
“Darling,” she laughed, when little fingers dashed forward to grip the hem of Penelope’s skirt, “Do not be afraid. The fish do not bite.”
“It is not the fish I am afraid of,” said Franny in that dour voice, the one that pushed her sweet little chin out and revealed the gaps in her front teeth. “It is the fairies!”
“But your fairies are kind, are they not?” Penelope pressed.
“Not the ones I read about!”
Penelope laughed and gathered the child in her arms. She righted the white hem, which was stained with dirt, and brushed the girl’s brown ringlets from her warm forehead. Franny kicked and moaned in protest, but soon submitted to being embraced by her mother. Penelope pressed her cheek harder to the girl’s face. On this day her heartache always seemed to triple, and she did not wish the child to know it.
“Ma’am!”
Penelope looked over her shoulder, blinking the wetness from her eyes.
Rae made her way towards them, a letter clutched in her hand. Penelope smiled before she realized she was doing it. She lifted Franny as she stood from the bench.
“Ma’am,” said Rae, curtseying. “This has come from Mayfair.”
“Thank you, Rae.”
Penelope took the letter carefully.
“Could you take Fran for her bath?” she asked. “And make sure to scrub behind her ears this time. I don’t know how she manages it.”
Handing Fran to Rae, she sat back on the bench to open the letter.
Dearest Penelope,
I do hope you and Fran are well. I apologize that it has been so long since my last letter. I did not wish to regale you with all the little frustrations of life as a new mother. The twins are wonderful, but they do tax even the most patient of mamas. Though I know you must not feel the same. Is little Franny still sweet as ever?
You do not need to answer that, for you may tell me yourself in person. As summer approaches, it is almost certain that the family will gather at Aubrey Hall in the coming weeks. Since it is but an hour’s carriage ride from Osterley, I believe I will see you then.
There is something I wish to discuss with you. It is too delicate to be mentioned in a letter. But do not fear. I am certain all will be well.
Yours truly,
Eloise
Penelope read the letter twice, then smoothed it on her lap. Her friend’s familiar cursive never failed to lighten her spirits. But the wind had chilled in the moments of her reading it, and Penelope now shivered, unaware of why the letter had precipitated this sense of foreboding.
Penelope folded the letter in half and adjusted her skirts, intent on writing back to her friend. She hurried from the garden to the drawing room, where the writing desk was still strewn with uninspired musings. Motherhood—and single-handedly managing the estate—had seldom left her time for any literary endeavours, save for those she deemed most insipid. Sometimes even the sight of her quill sent a shiver of nausea down her spine. But today, she bent over her desk and lavished the parchment with a fluidity she had not experienced in months. Perhaps it was Eloise’s impending visit. Or perhaps it was just the nature of the day that had driven her to restlessness.
The news of Eloise’s visit brought a new liveliness into the house. Penelope conducted the staff to spare no level of ostentation, for it was not often Osterley Park had visitors. Ne’er had Penelope expressed a desire to entertain any. But it was most probable, from the staff’s perspective, that Lady Penelope had simply missed her best friend after she had taken three years' leave to live in Scotland with her sister.
Now the lady of the house was in a flurry of excitement. Even the charm of the quiet, well-conducted pond beyond the window had not eased her nerves. Lady Penelope laid out rows of books she thought Lady Crane might like, and even the heavily-framed portraits of the late Queen and Poet Laureate that hung above the hearth were dusted to a blinding shine.
All week, Lady Penelope seemed like a woman changed, save for the moments with Fran. The young Franny Featherington had a way about her, as all children do; but this one in particular had accomplished wonders with the merest bat of her blue eyes encircled by dark, elegant eyelashes. Even the most taciturn members of staff had not resisted the simple pleas of the young Featherington, who always ran with a book in hand. And her mother was the most susceptible of all to her charms.
“Do you remember Aunt Eloise, Fran?” she asked her daughter one afternoon.
“Of course,” answered the little girl, though she often exaggerated to appear wiser than her years, and took a thoughtless and happy pride in it.
“You are only ten, dearest. How could you possibly remember when you saw her at the mere age of five?”
“Mama, I remember everything!”
And so Penelope believed her the way mothers believed their children: beyond the need for further proof, beyond love.
“She has arrived, ma’am.”
Penelope stood up so swiftly that her book tumbled from her lap onto the carpet.
“Fran!” she called, dashing out of the drawing room. “Come greet your Aunt Eloise!”
Penelope and her daughter hurried outside, where a blue gilt carriage was turning into the courtyard. At the sight of it, on a bright summer’s day, Penelope’s cheeks flushed with relief and excitement.
The doors opened, and out came Eloise Bridgerton.
She had not changed at all, from Penelope’s memory; though at closer inspection, she had a wizened depth to her eye and new lines around her smile. Suppose it was what the passing years had accomplished, or rather, the duties of motherhood. Nevertheless, Penelope still recognized the daring girl from her youth just as if she had arrived unchanged.
Penelope breathed out. Then, she ran.
“Pen!”
They came careening toward each other. It had been so very long indeed. Penelope held onto her friend tightly and felt that if she let go, the world would slip from beneath her feet. Eloise gripped her back, and they seemed to tilt into the wayward grass. Daisies pushed up between their fingers as they laughed.
“It has been too long,” said Eloise, still catching her breath.
“Too long,” Penelope agreed.
“I declare it shall never be this long again.”
“Never. Never.”
The two friends laughed again, and all the years between them seemed to vanish. Girlhood was a bloom in their cheeks as they walked arm-in-arm to the entrance where a little girl stood, suddenly shy, behind the knees of her governess.
“Franny,” said Penelope. “Come say hello.”
But the girl did not move.
Eloise paused. She surveyed the child. Something in her gaze made Penelope think that her friend had been thrown off course by something. But soon the laughing look returned as Eloise cajoled her again.
“Fran, you’re all grown up now,” she teased. “Far too grown for my present, I fear.”
That made Franny’s eyes widen with interest. “A present?”
Eloise nodded in mourning. “Yes, yes. I brought a present all the way from Scotland. I am afraid it was for nothing.”
Franny stepped out from behind her governess’s legs and peered determinedly up at Eloise. “Auntie, I am not too old.”
“Oh?”
“I do so wish to see your present.”
“Very well, then. Since you asked so nicely.”
Eloise recalled her coachman and passed Fran a leather-bound book. It was adorned with gilt lettering that spelled out "The Adventures of Boadicea. "
“I believe this will capture your interest,” Eloise explained. “It was a tireless search, finding something that you did not already possess in that grand library of yours.”
Fran took the book with eagerness. She nearly hurried off into the garden until she remembered her manners and thanked her aunt. Then, when she had scurried away, Penelope retook Eloise’s arm and showed her into her home.
After a jubilant dinner, during which too much red wine had been drunk, the two old friends sat laughing in the dining room, where warm candlelight abounded behind wall sconces and gilded surfaces. Eloise made a truly unladylike sound as she gripped the table’s edge.
“You do not mean to tell me the cook said that to his wife?”
“Oh, he did not just say it. He shouted it!”
They dissolved into a fit of giggles again. Eloise clutched her side until the urge subsided. Then, her face smoothed as she seemed to venture into her own thoughts. Her gaze travelled the decoration of the room, which followed the rest of the house: pale blue with white adornments.
Penelope watched her with a slight frown. “Is something the matter?”
Eloise blinked, then smiled at her friend. “It is only—you remember I have something I wish to discuss with you.”
Penelope sat forward, remembering the letter and the chill of foreboding that had washed over her. “Of course, El. You can tell me anything.”
She reached for her friend’s hand and smiled warmly.
Eloise’s eyes wavered, then stilled, as a lake rippled with a disturbance.
“He has returned, Penelope.”
Penelope’s smile faded.
Silence descended. The grandfather clock echoed in the hallway. Her hand on Eloise’s fell away.
“He is back from his travels,” Eloise continued. “I did not know until last week. He is intent on visiting Aubrey Hall to spend time with the family. I just thought you should know.”
Through the dazed channels of her vision, Penelope attempted a nod.
“Of course,” she heard herself say. “It is kind of you to tell me.”
“Pen.” Eloise reached for her hand. Her voice was hushed, urgent. “It has been ten years. Surely you two can see—”
“No.”
Penelope stood, her chair scraping harshly against the wooden parquetry. She had ceased to breathe for these last minutes, and the air now sprinted in at alarming frequency.
“I cannot see him,” she stated firmly. “And he does not wish to see me.”
Her friend’s voice took a tone of incredulity. “Pen,” she breathed. “He deserves to know.”
Penelope shook her head. “No.”
“But he has forgiven you. I am sure of it.”
Penelope slammed her fist against the table. Everything rattled.
“I said no,” she burst. “Fran and I are doing perfectly well on our own.”
Eloise looked up at her, then stood. She stared Penelope down.
“Are you?” she challenged. “In this empty manor, two hours away from society, with no company to speak of?”
Penelope felt the hot sting of tears. Emotion welled up in her throat, but she pushed it back enough to grit through her teeth, “I have done the best I could with what I was left with. After the engagement ended, I could not stay in society. No one would have me. Certainly not after I was—”
She looked down at her stomach. She swallowed bitterly. “—used up.”
Eloise looked at her friend with sadness. She had witnessed the cold years of torment Penelope had suffered. After news of the failed engagement had leaked, Penelope’s reputation was ruined. A woman of her age, unmarried, and with child? There had only been one course of action. To disappear.
Eloise had understood it at the time. After all, the world was most unkind to women in these situations. And Penelope had not deserved to be cast out, shunned, and cut off from her family due to such “unscrupulous behaviour” as falling pregnant out of wedlock. Her past as Lady Whistledown had been lucrative enough for her to afford to move to the countryside in secret, where she could live out her days with her child away from prying eyes. It had been a drastic decision, but the situation had called for it. Eloise had understood.
She now stared at her friend. Penelope retained still the beauty afforded by her opalescent skin and fiery hair, but the liveliness she had once coveted was gone. Her azure eyes, which had always held unearthly vivacity, were mild and dim, and the little twinkle of mischief was gone from them. This was a woman who was living in the remains of herself, whose only joy lived entirely in her child.
Eloise’s heart ached. She placed a hand on Penelope’s shoulder.
“Do you know that he has not even taken a wife?” she said. “After all these years?”
Penelope’s eyes lifted. She gazed at Eloise as if she had never seen her before. And then her eyes dimmed again, as if a veil had been pulled down.
“It does not matter,” she said softly. “Nothing has changed.”
Eloise loathed to see the two people she loved most in the world in such discordant pain. Colin, she knew, had taken the route of copious distraction. Penelope had chosen the ascetic domain: penitence.
Eloise tried to speak again, but it was no use. Penelope bid her goodnight, then left the dining room with the excuse of Fran’s bedtime. Eloise stayed, gazing at the room, which seemed to be modelled precisely like Bridgerton House, and sighed.
Penelope stared at the ceiling, wide awake. Her heart had not ceased to fitfully beat since dinner, and she now became aware of every noise beyond the soft snores of Fran, curled up to her side. The child had had nightmares again and so crawled into her mother’s bed in tears. Penelope, equally frightened, had clutched her until the wee hours. But now that Fran was asleep, Penelope’s mind was left unguarded.
Colin, she thought. Where are you now?
She shocked herself with the contemplation. She had disabused herself of thinking of Colin since that night ten years ago. She would never forget his voice, thin with betrayal. And his eyes. She could not bear to remember his eyes.
“I cannot do this, Penelope. I cannot marry someone who could do such a thing. I am sorry.”
I will never forgive you.
Penelope had understood. In truth, she had been afforded more happiness than she deserved. And it had been worth it, all worth it, for however short it was. To have been Colin’s fiancée for only a moment; to have been loved by him at all—it had been enough.
After years lying awake in these bitter hours of the night, Penelope knew this to be true. She had discovered that a person only needs to have been truly happy once; that that happiness was enough to last a lifetime. And when she could not sleep, she would sometimes indulge in those memories of joy. She would close her eyes and picture his face, smiling into hers. She would feel his hands along her skin. She would feel his lips. Hear his laugh.
But then the memory would end. And she would soon have to face all that she had done to get here. But then—she could not regret being Lady Whistledown as much as she could not regret being with Colin. For they had both given her something no money could buy: true freedom.
And she had learned to channel any moments of deficiency, any moments of doubt, into her one certainty: her love for her daughter. If she had been asked to name her greatest accomplishment, it would not be the column or the life she had made for herself—but Franny.
And most days, Franny would be enough to keep joy so anchored in her heart. Penelope, at first, had not believed it would be possible. She could not fathom that her heart—battered and wearisome as it was—could be so occupied by another individual ever again.
But she had been proven wrong. And how glad she was for it.
“Mama,” Fran now slurred, half-awake. “What are you doing?”
Penelope soothed her hair back from her face and whispered,
“Just dreaming.”
Eloise remained at Osterley the following day. She strolled through the gardens and made note of any odd specimens Philip would be interested in. She jotted them down in her notebook when she came upon a little pond beneath a poplar.
She stopped. It was a charming place. The summer breeze sifted the long leaves, out of which came a flood of mellow June sunlight. To the east, from the window, one even got a glimpse of the white cherry-trees and the nodding, slender birches down in the hollow by the brook. The brook connected the pond to a river running long beneath the vine-tangled hills. She could see Penelope enjoying her days here; reading on the small bench, picking flowers, playing with Fran by the waterside.
Eloise smiled at the thought. Perhaps her friend was not all despondent here. There was certainly joy to be found in the life of an unmarried, independent woman running an estate alone: freedom to do as she wished, privacy to be at peace, and a little companion to always adore. Once, Eloise would have thought that this was entirely sufficient for a woman to be at peace.
But she had learned things, too. Love had changed her. It had mellowed her, despite her very adamance against it. And Eloise could sense the thing that was missing in Penelope because she had felt it herself—the sense of being loved.
“Aunt Eloise!”
Eloise emerged from her thoughts to witness the child standing expectantly before her. Fran held the book in her little arms. She seemed poised to derail Eloise with a dozen questions.
“Do I remind you of Boadicea?” she asked.
Eloise studied her.
The girl stood up straight, puffing out her chest amid the inspection. Her unruly curls had tumbled from her ribbons and now flew wayward aloft her face. Large eyes as blue as the sky in summer beheld Eloise with astute perception and pride. Eloise had seen those eyes before, in a much older individual.
“Why, yes, of course,” Eloise replied. “Boadicea was a warrior queen. She led her people in revolt for their freedom and died for her cause. There was no nobler woman.”
Franny blinked, seeming to come to some conclusion. She beheld Eloise again with confusion. “But Mother says that I should always be kind and gentle.”
Eloise crouched down and kissed the child on her head.
“There are always times to be kind and gentle. And there are other times—where one must show their teeth.”
Eloise stormed into the drawing room that afternoon as Penelope was taking her tea.
“I do not care for your arguments,” she began hotly. “You will let me speak my piece to the end.”
Penelope blinked. The cake in her hand froze midway to her mouth.
“All right,” she settled on.
Eloise took in a swift breath. Then she began.
“I have kept your secret all these years, Pen. I have kept it from him, knowing it would kill him. But I did it because I love you. Because I knew you did not wish to entrap him into staying with you. But, by God, can you not see that this is madness? Can you not see that Fran deserves to know her father, that Colin deserves to know his child? Can you not see that hiding away like this, in shame and guilt, is killing you? I am not saying that you need a man to complete you. God knows I am not saying that. But I also know you, Pen. I know you better than I know myself. And I know that you will not be happy unless you make things right with him. Your heart will not be at peace until you do. And I cannot bear to watch you both wither away before my eyes. I love you too much. And I love that child. I love her because she is so much like the both of you. And I know that he will love her, too. No matter what he might think of you.”
Eloise breathed out. She stood in full muster, flushed to her neck. She waited for her friend to say something.
But Penelope could not. She stared at Eloise, moisture glistening in her eyes. Her voice was caught in her throat, just as it had always been. She could not even remember a time when it wasn’t so.
She gripped the edge of the table. “El,” she breathed, and felt as though by saying her coming words, she was committing a terrible sin. “I am frightened.”
Eloise, so poised in rebuttal, softened completely. She gazed at Penelope with affection. “I know. I know you are.”
“And I do not know how I will face him,” Penelope continued. “I do not think I can bear it. You did not see him that night, El. He hated me. He wanted nothing to do with me.”
Eloise came to her side and gripped her hands. “Time changes things. You know that.”
“But does it change the convictions of the heart?” Penelope asked. “He could not abide by me being Whistledown. He could not stand to be with someone so cruel. And he was right. I wished him to be free of me.”
“He was angry,” Eloise pleaded. “That does not mean he does not love you.”
Penelope shook her head. “How could he have loved me? You cannot truly love someone unless you know them. And once he knew me, he decided he could not love me.”
“Let him decide if he wishes to know you now or not,” Eloise urged. “I know he would want to know his daughter. Please, Pen. At least give him that chance.”
Penelope stared at her friend. Every fear she had ever felt now emboldened itself in her psyche. But as she looked into the eyes she had known in her youth, she realized that it did not matter. She no longer wished to live in fear and shame. If not for herself, then for Fran. How could she ever look her daughter in the eye and speak of courage, when Penelope kept none for herself?
Penelope’s eyes lifted.
“Very well,” she said.