Chapter Text
Romney Hall, late February 1814.
Romney Hall was a Jacobean construction, Marina informed them. The building was erected in red brick with white limestone details on the sides of the towers and walls and white balconies and window decoration. The inside was dark, despite the many windows.
Marina had welcomed them just an hour earlier, and although she had not smiled, she did seem happy to receive them. It had been awkward at first, with Eloise being Colin’s sister and all. But Eloise managed to quickly put those concerns off the table.
‘He’s happily enjoying the sun in Greece. His last letter was nothing short of an ode to the country. I do believe he’s happy’, Eloise had said.
Marina had nodded.
‘Good. I’m happy for him. He… deserves to be happy.’
‘I hope we’re not your first visitors’, Penelope had laughed in an attempt to turn the topic away then.
‘Who else would visit me? My friends from home are far away, my father hates me now, and everyone from London avoids me’, she’d answered coldly. ‘But it’s good of you to come. You’ve always been kind to me.’
So when she next asked Penelope and Eloise whether they wanted to rest a bit before supper, both girls had insisted there was no need for it. They wanted to be the best and most social guests for her.
No, it was much better now, as she showed them around. Despite the fact that Marina had never shown anyone around the house, she did do a fine job of it.
They paused at the gallery filled with paintings of Crane baronets.
‘And this is the old Sir Crane’, Marina explained, giving some of his accomplishments. ‘We still need to alter the frame, add a date of death’, Marina mused. ‘Hadn’t thought of that before.’
‘Oh, is he dead?’ Eloise asked, a stupid question really. One couldn’t add a date of death before one was dead.
‘He died two weeks after news arrived of George’s death. He was very distraught.’
Marina’s lips twisted in a way that made Eloise burn to know what she wasn’t telling.
‘He must have loved George a lot’, Penelope said, interpreting Marina’s frown as sadness.
‘Yes. Him, he loved a lot. He was very sorry to lose him.’
The mystery thickened. Why this emphasis on George?
She looked down at the ground as she continued, pausing in front of two young boys.
‘And these are George and Phillip’, she explained.
Eloise paused in front of it. One had blond hair and blue eyes and looked tall and proud, while the other with his dark hair almost blended into the background. She could relate, she looked awful in most family portraits too. She studied the boys. This husband of Marina must be terribly sad. He had lost his brother and his father within two weeks of each other. Even now, a decade later, Eloise still missed her father. The influence of his presence still lingered in their home, from the way Anthony had torn away from them and tried acting like a more distanced fatherly figure, to how many times he popped up in conversation. Eloise was barely used to his absence. The thought of losing one of her siblings was just unbearable. She refused to even imagine it.
‘Which one is which?’ Eloise asked.
Marina frowned. ‘Right, you haven’t met them. The blond one is George. The next portrait of him is bigger’, she said, a small smile growing as she moved forward.
Her hand tenderly touched her pendant with a lover’s eye around her neck.
‘It was made for his twenty-fifth birthday. It was going to be used as his official portrait once he succeeded his father.’
‘Doesn’t the other one have a portrait?’ Eloise asked.
Her mother always had all children painted at regular intervals. She couldn’t imagine ending up in the Bridgerton gallery at home as only a child in a group picture, Anthony being the only one with an adult portrait.
Marina ignored Eloise. ‘And here will be mine, with the children.’
‘Children?’ Penelope asked, eyes growing.
‘Are you pregnant again already? Oh Marina that’s –‘ the look in Marina’s eyes silenced Penelope.
‘No. I’m not. I had twins.’
‘Twins! Oh, that’s wonderful. Congratulations’, Penelope said instead.
Marina gave a tired smile. She hadn’t yet addressed the children before, and they hadn’t wanted to pry. They supposed they would meet them at some point. All mothers seemed to be absolutely obsessed with their brood, they had fully expected her to show her children before the day was over.
‘What are they called?’ Penelope asked.
‘Amanda and Oliver. Named after his mother and grandfather.’
‘Their names are lovely’, Penelope agreed.
They sounded perfectly bland if one asked Eloise. But she knew better than to comment on such a thing, so she just nodded along.
‘They’re sleeping now. I wish they would sleep during the night. They are a terror.’
Eloise blinked, that was the first time she’d heard someone talk about their children in anything less than the highest terms. Children were always described as perfect angels. A lot of horse crap, Eloise had grown up with six other children. She’d been a child herself. They were absolute monsters.
Eloise looked away from the paintings, gazing through the window. She noticed a huge greenhouse. There were lights burning inside. She admired the servants still working away at this time of day.
‘I’ll show you the rooms where we receive guests now. You know, I don’t understand why people must have so many drawing rooms and sitting rooms. At home we just had the one where everyone sat together when we received guest’, Marina explained. She showed them the drawing room of the lady of the house, the study, the library, and the closed door to the sitting room of the men.
‘Not that Phillip ever goes there. He spends all his time outside’, she sighed.
‘I don’t understand why he’d want that. Even when it was freezing and snowing he was outside most hours. I’m a country girl but he really missed a career as a farmer. Give me a book and company indoors and I’m happy.’
Penelope shot Eloise a concerned look as Marina walked on.
She didn’t sound happy.
‘And this is the dining room. We always eat at eight, so you still have some forty minutes to freshen up. I’ll lead you to your bedrooms.’
They were put in bedrooms right beside each other. They didn’t look too modern, but they were excellently furbished and of high quality. Eloise begrudgingly put on one of her new frocks, its only redeeming qualities being that it was lavender and had a relatively high neckline. If it had just been Penelope and Marina she would have just kept her hair loose, she still had a mind to, but she decided to do the mature thing and put her hair up.
As she got ready her hand itched to write. The carriage ride and new house had given her poetic inspiration. But there was no time, she could write tonight.
By the time Penelope and Eloise descended, despite them being two minutes late, Marina still hadn’t arrived. Which was awkward, given that who could only be her husband was already pacing up and down the dining room.
Eloise noticed that from the back, he was not so different from her brother, tall and broad of shoulder, with thick brown hair. But his posture was far from as graceful as theirs.
‘Oh. Uhm. You are her guests’, he reasoned, straightening his jacket.
‘Yes. Penelope Featherington, we met?’ Penelope asked, deciding that since Marina couldn’t introduce them it was best that she did.
‘Yes. I do remember you’, he replied with a hesitant smile.
Eloise had never entered a house where laughter was more rare. What a dreary place this was. But then again there was little reason for them to be joyful. They were both still wearing black for his brother and his father. He had been forced to marry for duty, and she for her child. Still, it was very odd.
‘This is my friend, Miss Eloise Bridgerton.’
Eloise nodded.
‘Eloise, this is Sir Phillip Crane.’
‘How do you do?’
‘Alright. Thank you. Our trip was good, roads a bit bumpy but that was to be expected with all the recent rain and snow turning the roads to mud. Marina just showed us around, she’s a very good hostess’, Eloise rattled, wanting to break through the awkwardness.
But it appeared her speech had the opposite effect, rendering Sir Phillip who had been able to perform the traditional polite questions and remarks quite the mute.
He blinked.
‘Yes. She has not had a lot of opportunity to host. It is good of you to come. She could use the conversation and support. She’s had a hard time ever since the children… well. Parenthood takes some getting used to.’
‘We’re glad to be here’, Penelope replied.
‘My mother was always bone tired the first few months after having a child. She had eight, you know? She was always happy to have friends over to distract her a bit. I uhm. I don’t know where I was going with this again. Oh, yes. Knowing how much good some company can do when one just had a new baby, I’m glad to be here.’
Despite that it hadn’t been her main reason for coming, she did find herself growing more worried for the girl. She’d arrived not very confident she’d be able to muster kindness for the young woman who had hurt her brother, but she could not help but feel for her circumstances. Her sister was just pregnant, she could not imagine Daphne going through being a new mother all alone without anyone coming by to support her. It seemed cruel.
‘Eight?’ Sir Phillip asked.
Eloise had to keep in her annoyance. How was that the thing of her entire speech he had decided to focus on? He was so slow.
At that moment Marina arrived.
‘Oh, you’re here already.’
‘It’s ten past already’, Phillip pointed out.
‘Oh who cares about some ten minutes?’ Marina smiled, turning to her guests.
‘Sit, sit. I see you already did the introductions.’
Eloise sat down beside Penelope. Her eye fell on Marina’s necklace, and with shock she realized that either that was the worst impression of Sir Phillip’s eye, or Marina was still wearing the portrait of George. Given the blond eyebrow, the latter was probably true. That meant Sir Phillip was looking right into the eye of his deceased brother hanging around his wife’s neck every time he ate with her.
‘Are your rooms alright?’
‘They are perfect’, Penelope assured her.
‘Good.’
‘Mm, food smells delicious’, Penelope said as the servants came in.
That managed to get a smile from Marina.
‘Yes, the food is very good here.’
The servants revealed the food. The soup was perfect and thick, ideal for a cold day, but the main course…
Mutton. It just had to be mutton stew. On the bright side there were mashed potatoes and many lovely grilled vegetables dripping with butter and graciously sprinkled with pepper. Eloise focussed on those, and pushing in a bite of stew every ten minutes out of politeness.
Marina tried leading the conversation, asking everyone after their day and sharing something about a melancholy philosopher she’d read. But only Penelope knew him.
So Eloise allowed them to continue their conversation and decided to engage this Sir Phillip, who was quietly eating his food.
‘I saw a greenhouse outside. Is that where the vegetables come from, Sir Crane?’ Eloise asked.
The man didn’t reply.
‘Sir Crane? Sir Crane?’
It was only when she waved at him that he looked up. ‘Oh right, me. What did you ask, Miss Bridgerton?’
Eloise would have laughed if it hadn’t been so sad. Anthony had also taken a long time to get used to being the viscount. And right now Eloise had to bite her tongue to correct him that she was Miss Eloise. She was Miss Bridgerton now that Daphne was married.
‘Whether the vegetables came from the greenhouse?’
‘Oh, yes. Well, the carrots are. They were quick to grow. The greenhouse is still quite new, you see. I only built it when we came to live here.’
‘You built it?’
‘I… Well. I had workmen helping me. So I can’t take the credit. It was only finished just in time for the winter, in November.’
Helping him meant he had done some of the building himself. She appraised his shoulders anew. She couldn’t imagine any of her brothers making their hands dirty in such a way. They were too polished for it.
‘Oh. Well, it looks impressive to be built so fast.’
‘Oh… Well. Thank you’, he smiled.
‘Talking about the greenhouse, the roses are coming along nicely’, Sir Phillip tried to start the conversation. ‘At this rate you’ll be the first lady to have roses in her home. They’ll be ready for plucking at the start of March. You liked red roses, didn’t you, Marina?’ Phillip asked his wife.
Marina paused her conversation with Penelope, giving her husband a smile.
‘Yes. I like roses.’
Phillip then started talking about how the roses were grown, expanding about the breed and how they had been coming along, and the pruning, and all kinds of things Eloise had never considered were necessary or important to growing flowers.
The table quieted, listening to him talk. She could see Marina’s tiredness growing into impatience, and then annoyance, before finally, she snapped.
‘I like roses but Phillip, you know none of us have a clue what you talk about. Can’t you talk about something else for once?’ Marina asked, exhaustion heavy in her voice.
Sir Phillip deflated, and Eloise could not help but feel for him. It was not fair that his interests were crushed so harshly. It hit too close to home, especially since she was so often ridiculed for her interests.
‘The stew is really delicious’, Penelope said, trying to save dinner.
Although the conversation moved on, the awkward atmosphere remained.
After dinner everyone sat together in an emerald drawing room with a blazing fireplace. Eloise admired the heavy woodwork in the room. It looked really rural and old, giving it a gothic atmosphere. She admired that, the Bridgerton houses were very refined and recent, with high ceilings and pale pastels. It fit Marina and Phillip.
‘Pen, I never asked, do you play?’ Marina asked.
‘Oh, a little’, Penelope stammered, eying the piano with fear.
‘Want to play a quatre mains? It’s been so long.’
‘Sure’, Penelope agreed, moving over to the piano with Marina.
The song they chose was cheerful, and succeeded in wiping the weariness off Marina’s face.
The song ended and Marina proposed another, but they were hardly a minute in when the maid arrived, announcing the children had woken up.
Marina struck a bad note and looked up.
‘The wetnurse?’
‘They have been fed. But you know, it is their time of day.’
Marina nodded, looking at Penelope.
‘You want to meet them?’
‘Oh, I don’t want to push. But I would be happy to see them.’
Marina asked the maid to bring them down. Two maids appeared a short while after, each carrying a baby wriggling in their arms. They reminded Eloise of Gregory and Hyacinth, they had also been fuzzy. Marina accepted one of them, pressing them against her pale pink dress with deeper pink flowers.
‘This is Amanda’, Marina said, introducing two month old baby with black hair and brown eyes. ‘And that’s Oliver’, she said, nodding at the dark haired other baby currently pulling on the lapels of Sir Phillip’s waistcoat.
Penelope cooed at the baby.
‘She’s very beautiful. She looks like you.’
‘I’m afraid my looks were quite dominant’, Marina said, frowning at her daughter. ‘I’d hoped they might take after… Oh well.’
But they all understood her meaning. Her mother had also loved the aspects of her children most that they had inherited from their father.
‘Oliver has his eyes though’, she said. Eloise shuffled a bit closer to Sir Phillip, noticing the child indeed had blue eyes, with which he was observing everything.
‘They have his temper though’, Phillip said, laying the child down on the couch. He looked down at Oliver, leaning on the couch with one arm and tenderly brushing Oliver’s hair with his free hand.
‘And what is that?’ Eloise asked.
Sir Phillip only smiled at the child, not even looking up.
Eloise took heart out of the fact that despite not being the real father of the children, he was obviously fond of them. Most men would have been very angry about becoming the legal father of children that weren’t theirs. Especially if one of them was a boy and would inherit his estate. But she supposed the case was a bit different since the children were his brother’s, and his brother was supposed to be the one inheriting anyway.
‘They’re very bold, loud and adventurous.’
‘A sturdy baby is a good thing’, Penelope said.
‘Mother once said we would have had a sister, but she died within a couple of days. Very frail, she said. But they still look so tiny and frail, despite that their voices are able to cut through stone. I barely dare to touch them sometimes’, Phillip admitted.
Eloise suddenly had a vivid flashback to Hyacinth’s birth and how Colin, who had just started his growth spurt in width and height, tried to hold her with his awkward long limbs.
‘Don’t talk about dying in their presence. I don’t want to jinx anything’, Marina whispered, voice passionate as she held Amanda closer.
‘They’re all I have left of him.’
‘We have left’, Phillip corrected.
Eloise and Penelope shot each other a look.
‘Do you want to hold her?’ Marina asked of Penelope.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t know how’, she stammered. ‘But I’d like to.’
‘It’s easy, you hold your arm like so, and make sure you support their head’, Eloise explained, jumping over to put Penelope’s arms in the correct position.
‘If you’re not sure it’s better to sit down on the couch.’
‘I think I can handle it. Why do I support the head?’ Penelope asked as Marina tenderly put the child into Penelope’s arms.
‘Because they can’t support their head yet. Sir Phillip was right that babies are fragile. A new born kitten or fowl can walk around in a matter of minutes but human babies are delicate.’
‘Oh dear’, Penelope muttered, making sure she supported the head correctly. ‘Hello little one’, Penelope smiled.
‘Aren’t you a beauty. Yes, you’re going to be as beautiful as your mom.’
‘Not so beautiful anymore. You should have seen me two months ago. It’s a good thing I left London when I did, mere weeks after I started swelling like a pumpkin. I was tired all the time. Could barely move. I’m still tired. All the time. And they screech and wail at night, I don’t think I’ll ever lose the bags under my eyes. But at least I got back in shape. I thought I’d have to chuck out all my old dresses.’
‘You still look wonderful, Marina’, Penelope told her.
‘Some loss of sleep won’t make you look bad. Remember Lady Whistledown called you the true incomparable of the season. All those men who came to our house just to see you?’
‘Lady Whistledown can hang’, Marina growled, stalking over to the table to snatch her wine goblet.
‘What did those compliments matter? She only made my name important just so everyone knew who I was by the time she released that awful last column on me.’
‘It’s just empty gossip by someone with an abundance of time and a lack of useful pursuits’, Sir Phillip calmed his wife. ‘Nobody of substance attaches importance to gossip columns.’
All three women turned on Sir Phillip.
‘Then there mustn’t be a single person of substance in London. A bad word from Whistledown and my life was over, Phillip’, Marina pointed out. ‘That you don’t care for society doesn’t matter. Back there, everyone believed her words. ‘
‘London society is stupid. For heaven’s sake, only a tenth of the men in London could help in a harvest, replace a broken wheel or do their own accounts. They even need valets to dress. They live in a stupid bubble of self-importance while they’re not capable of anything but judging others.’
'That I cannot disagree with', Marina said. 'I am glad to be back in the country.'
Eloise, who felt that Phillip had called her without substance and had insulted Lady Whistledown as well, was next to attack.
‘Gossip is important in London. With or without a gossip column, people gossip. And if you have to navigate in those circles, you need to know the gossip or you can’t follow half of the conversations that are being held. Besides, there are plenty of stupider occupations with one’s time than writing. Like all these rich privileged men doing nothing but squandering time and money in gentlemen’s clubs where they do nothing but laugh, drink, smoke and lord-knows-what. She, for I am certain it is a she, is articulate, and clever and observant, and spends her time practising a profession women are not welcome in, providing society with the exact content they want. Women, women are made so useless by society. “Oh let’s go and visit a friend, oh, let’s have tea, oh yes, a dinner party. Oh, I’m bored, shall we make a walk or go riding in the carriage before going back home and writing letters to family members?” Why, it is because we can’t do anything else! We can’t work, we can’t study, we can’t do anything actually useful. She’s one of the few women who refuses to waste her time with such empty pursuits.’
Sir Phillip once again just blinked.
Eloise felt the heat creep to her cheeks. She’d said too much. Again. She wondered whether Marina and Sir Phillip ever exchanged as many words with one another in a day. They were both kind of quiet.
‘I know gossip is a currency, that doesn’t mean I approve of it or admire people encouraging others to indulge in so base a topic. As for what else you said, yes, society in London is filled with people with idle lives. Both men and women. I would not mind a woman finding a more useful pursuit than drinking tea. Just think of nuns women concerned with charity or even those women book clubs. If the woman is truly talented, she could use that talent to write something real. Obviously she, despite being a woman, has no issue getting things published.’
Eloise did not know what to answer to that. He was right. She frowned, filled with confusion. He was right and he had agreed with her. He didn’t even argue with the idea of a woman working.
‘Let’s not waste anymore breath on that woman. Eloise, do you want to hold Oliver?’
‘I’d be delighted.’
When they went to bed later that night, Eloise undressed and snuck into Penelope’s bedroom. To her absolute shock, her friend was crying.
‘Pen, are you okay?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m fine’, she said, smiling through the tears.
‘It’s just… She’s so unhappy. I thought perhaps things wouldn’t be wonderful, but I thought she’d be happy. She and her babies were saved, they would have a surname, they were taken care for, she’d even have a title, and she knew George had never abandoned her. And now she’d have his babies as a reminder of him. But she’s unhappy. She’s so unhappy.’
‘Well, she doesn’t have many reasons to be happy. If I lost my family, friends and freedom, I wouldn’t be cheered up because I was married’, Eloise said, sitting down beside Penelope on the bed. Marriage, to Eloise, had always sounded like a trap. A trap forced upon everyone whether they wanted to marry or not. And no two people she knew had ever looked more miserably trapped than Phillip and Marina.
‘For some reason, I’d tried telling myself that they would fit well together, and learn to love each other. They’re both very handsome. And he was very kind. I had hoped that they would help each other grieve, and find each other like that.’
‘But their grief makes them unable to connect. Marina is isolating herself just like Anthony did when father died. Did you notice the necklace she was wearing? That was the brother, not Sir Phillip. She doesn’t even allow him to get closer out of loyalty to his brother.’
‘I should have come sooner. No guests. No guests at all. Can you imagine how lonely they must have been since they married? Eight months and not a single guest for Marina.’
‘It is very sad. Whistledown really ostracized her. I’m sure my family would have forbidden me from coming too, if they knew I was going to visit a fallen woman. Just like yours forbid you.’
‘Wait. Then what did you tell your mother we were doing?’ Penelope asked.
‘Why, visiting a cousin of yours, of course. When voiced like that mother didn’t think I could be talking about Marina.’
‘Very clever, you were always so clever’, Penelope smiled, another fat tear rolling down her cheek.
‘I wish… Lady Whistledown had been kinder. It’s alright to tease. And to attack people who do bad things, you know? Like when a rake gambles a lot of fortune and then starts pursuing heiresses, it’s fine. Because he did it to himself. But Marina, it was just love. And if George hadn’t died, they would have married and have been very happy together. She was punished for something she had no control over.’
‘No control… You know, it only gets more confusing. First it isn’t between a husband and a wife anymore. Then my brother tells me if I’ve ever seen farm animals. Then people tell me it’s love, but plenty of couples don’t love each other and get children. It’s all quite confusing. You’re sure we can’t catch it if we have no control over it?’
Penelope huffed a laugh. ‘Oh Eloise, I shouldn’t say.’
‘You know? Pen, you can’t do this to me. You know! And you’re unmarried too. Tell me.’
‘When two people lay together, in bed, and touch each other, the woman can get pregnant. And sometimes, apparently, a couple needs to do that a lot to get a baby, and sometimes, one time even when neither wants to have a baby, is enough. It’s confusing and it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s what Marina told me. Marina and George didn’t want a baby, not outside of marriage. But they really loved each other and wanted to, well, do that’, Penelope stammered, blushing.
‘Why would you do something that can cause a baby if you don’t want a baby?’
‘Eloise!’ Penelope cried, growing more uncomfortable. ‘I just said it, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. They expected it wouldn’t happen, they took a gamble.’
‘But why gamble?’
‘I don’t know! Perhaps it must be nice! Just like kissing is nice, despite that it can ruin a woman, plenty of people kiss without an engagement. So why? I don’t know, because they wanted to! Can we drop it now, please?’ Penelope insisted.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’, Eloise said, knowing when she had pushed it too much.
Deeply confusing. Eloise shelved the information and went back to her room, opened her journal, and started scribbling.
The next day Marina, Eloise and Penelope sat in a pink drawing room, overlooking a frozen lake.
When Eloise enquired after it, Marina explained that it had been frozen over since the week the twins arrived in December and that yes, it was very thick ice indeed. She then went on to tell a story George had once told her of how he and Phillip had been so eager to go ice skating that they hadn’t waited long enough for the ice to fully freeze. Phillip had sank through and George had quickly rushed over to help his brother out, almost drowning himself. By the time they got to the edge of the lake, their father was waiting for them, ready to punish them for their recklessness.
‘And then, George said, he was actually glad he was so cold, because it had numbed his arse down so the beating didn’t hurt as much’, Marina laughed.
They all laughed, and laughed, and then Marina started crying. Little Oliver started crying as well, and the whole thing was a mess.
‘I’m sorry, little one’, Marina sobbed. ‘You’re my angel, you know, my very special angel. The only bit of your dada I have left. Because mommy was a stupid cow who burned his letters because she thought he had abandoned her.’
Marina buried her face in her baby’s shoulder.
Eloise rocked Amanda as she walked to the other side of the room, softly humming a lullaby to distract her from the crying while Penelope tried to comfort Marina.
No, this wasn’t a pleasant stay. But Eloise was glad she had come, as it was clear Marina was in dire need of support. She felt very guilty for hating Marina for half a year. And now, as she looked at the sad scene, she couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if she’d married Colin instead. Colin was young, yes, but so was Sir Phillip. But unlike Sir Phillip, Colin was a chatterbox, easy to laughter, doing everything in life with gusto, be it eating, entertaining or sporting. And with the Bridgerton name, perhaps it would have been easier to rehabilitate her in London. She couldn’t help but think someone more social and joyful would have been a better remedy for her melancholy than Sir Phillip’s quiet awkwardness.
Marina went to bed to recover, and Penelope and Eloise remained behind with the children, drowning them in affection and attention until their eyes became bleary. Then they picked them up and carried them to the nursery to put them to bed.
Penelope went to her room to compose a letter for her mother, while Eloise decided to make maximum use of her time to explore freely.