Work Text:
Sister Eloise Bridgerton of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service sighed the biggest sigh of relief she thought had ever been sighed. The wireless had announced that the ceasefire had come into effect at eleven o’clock, the guns had fallen silent on the Western Front, and the war was over. She could hear cheers out on the streets, parties beginning, but the hospital ward was silent. The injured soldiers in their beds wondering if the injuries and the shell shock and the trench foot had been worth it (most concluded that it had not).
The other nurses all looked at each other in a moment of reflection, but there was only one person Eloise could think about.
Phillip.
She’d started writing to Sir Phillip Crane, Baronet of Romney Hall, when she’d seen it in the papers that his brother George had been killed at Passchendaele in August 1917. Her brother, Colin, had been there too, and was unable to speak about what he’d seen. She’d seen that George Crane, the heir to the baronetcy had been killed, and then two weeks later that the Baronet himself, George’s father, had died. It left Phillip with the title (not that that was what she was interested in, in her experience titles were a lot of hassle). She’d found out what regiment he was in (a patient had recognised the name when she mentioned it in passing) and wrote to him.
He’d written back, six weeks later when he’d gotten her letter. It had found him in a muddy hole in Belgium, and it had been the only bit of brightness in his miserable little life on the Western Front. A single, small, solitary bit of joy as he was surrounded by mud and guns and barbed wire and bombs and bodies.
Now the war was over, and Phillip would be coming home. She’d told him what hospital she was working at, and had told him to write to her when he was home. Now that peace had broken out, it was a much more real prospect.
The thing about Eloise was that she was nearly thirty, far beyond eligibility according to society, even in the bright shining modern lights of 1918. She’d decided that Major Sir Phillip Crane was rather a good candidate for a husband, should he be so inclined. She wasn’t in love with him, or anything like that, but she was pragmatic at the very least. She came from an aristocratic family - her eldest brother was a Viscount, after all - and so did he. He was unmarried, so was she. He needed a wife (apparently), she needed a husband (apparently). Why shouldn’t she decide on him?
She’d had it all decided. Phillip would return to England, they’d meet, he’d see what a good wife she would make, and they would make a clever match and marry. There wouldn’t be any love involved, but she liked Phillip, and at her age she had decided that that would be enough.
There was a massive bloody great spanner in the works when Phillip did return home. Eloise had received a letter from him at her lodgings, saying he was back at his family home of Romney Hall in Gloucestershire, and that she was invited to tea, if she would be so kind. She decided that she was indeed so kind, and a week later was on a train down to Gloucestershire to meet him. She’d managed to find an omnibus going to the village of Romney, and had walked from there. She’d rung the doorbell, had been greeted by the butler, and had been shown through to the drawing room. The butler told her that Sir Phillip was in his greenhouse, tending to his long forgotten plants, but that he’d fetch him for her.
Phillip had said in one of his letters that he’d been asked if he’d wanted immediate discharge from the Army after the deaths of his brother and father, but he had insisted he would fight until the end of the war, but would like to be discharged immediately upon peace breaking out or even a temporary ceasefire. His wish had been granted, and so when he walked into the drawing room, in a white shirt covered in soil and a pair of old trousers, he looked nothing like the soldier Eloise had pictured him to be.
He was also considerably more handsome than Eloise had expected him to be. It wasn’t that she’d expected him to be unattractive, but she expected him to be like the average man. If Sir Phillip Crane was anything, average he was not. It wasn’t a problem - she’d already decided to marry him, after all - but it did make a huge difference. As he poured tea for them and started to talk quietly, Eloise found that she was attracted to him. She hadn’t factored that into her thinking when she’d decided he was a suitable candidate for a husband.
“Sister Bridgerton, I do hope-” Phillip started.
“You might call me Eloise,” she interjected quickly, “you did so in your letters”
“Letters are different, Eloise, but I suppose I should oblige. I do hope I’m not misreading the situation, but I gathered from your letters and your turn of phrase that you were - for lack of a better word - assessing me”
Eloise quirked a singular eyebrow, “assessing?”
“As to whether I would be a possible candidate as a husband” Phillip said, his tone conveying much more confidence than he felt.
Eloise couldn’t deny it. He’d seen through her.
“I must confess that, though I promise you that wasn’t my design in writing to you in the first place” Eloise replied, “I did somewhat come to the conclusion though”
They talked through the proposal of a proposal over their tea, and decided that Phillip would court Eloise for a few weeks, and they could see if they felt like going forward with a marriage would be a good idea.
Eloise returned to her lodgings with a spring in her step, a note in her pocket, a flower in her hand, and a kiss on her cheek.