Chapter Text
When Cressida was younger, she always imagined her wedding as a grand affair. She would be in a dress as big as the ones her mother said the queen wore. And she would sparkle down the aisle. Everyone would be looking at her and they’d all be seething with jealousy. Cressida Cowper would be off the market and everyone would weep that they’d missed their chance.
The only other person in the room who would rival her beauty would be waiting for her at the end of the aisle. Young Cressida figured she’d be nice to her future spouse, and allow her dress to sparkle too. But slightly less than Cressida’s would.
When she first mentioned this to her mother, she was sent to her room without dinner. Her future husband, her mother had stressed this word, would not be in sparkles. And neither would she if she kept saying such nonsensical things. So Cressida stopped saying such nonsensical things to her mother.
When she first mentioned this to her father, his rage had shook the whole house and she’d been confined to her room for months. She’d been forbidden from talking with any of her friends. Whenever they attempted to visit, they were turned away at the door. She wouldn’t need friends, her father explained. She would have a husband one day.
Eventually, her mother convinced him that it had been a love of fashion and a misunderstanding of the world that led to Cressida saying she’d marry a woman in a beautiful dress. She laughed at him when he showed fear, scorned his concern. It was a childish fantasy, a simple misunderstanding, taking it seriously was ridiculous. She used her cruelty to spin her husband’s head (and hands) away from their daughter.
This wasn’t the first time Cressida saw her mother use cruelty to gain power but it was the first time the lesson stuck.
Her father quickly stopped expressing concern but both her parents were very careful to manage her social calendar after the incident. She had few friends when she entered the marriage mart. And even fewer by the time she was entering her third season.
Her third season would be her last, her father insisted. If she didn’t find a husband, he would find one for her. Even her mother’s cruel laugh about what society would think of them if their only child married a much older man wasn’t enough to change her father’s mind.
She would marry this season, he threatened. One way or another.
Lord Debling was young, he had an estate, he would travel a lot, she’d have freedoms as a married woman that she didn’t now. Her mother stressed these things before every social event.
He was better than the alternative, Cressida figured.
And then he chose Penelope Featherington.
But Penelope Featherington didn’t choose him back.
Cressida swallowed her pride and danced with Lord Debling. And then she let him court her, holding back her crueler side, expressing an interest in the natural world, and standing quietly as her father told Lord Debling the size of her dowry and negotiated a marriage contract.
After, with very little feeling, Lord Debling had asked for her hand in marriage. Under the watchful eyes of both her parents, she had accepted.
Her wedding was a small affair. Lord Debling had some family in attendance but Cressida had only her parents. She’d wanted to invite Eloise Bridgerton but her father resolutely refused. She was to start her life as a married woman, she would have no time for friends. Especially friends who were shaping up to be spinsters and would influence her in all the wrong ways.
Her dress did not sparkle. Lord Debling did not sparkle. The air around her wasn’t one of love and envy. The church wasn’t full of dappled sunlight. It was dark and dusty and the priests voice was a low drone instead of a proud projection.
Immediately after her wedding, she was packed into a carriage and she and Lord Debling made their way to Sheffield, a week long journey that was to be the start of their married life.
They shared the occasional easy conversation, they were both very considerate of the other, and they spent much of their time silently. Lord Debling was reading a book on the journey he wished to take soon and Cressida would embroider and think. She’d never been much of a reader, but by the end of a week in the carriage, he’d lent her a book of his that she was actually enjoying.
She did not enjoy the marital act but it was a much smaller part of her new life than she had feared. It seemed Lord Debling saw it as a chore to be done, which was better than the passion her mother had warned her of.
When they finally arrived in Sheffield, Cressida was greeted by the entire staff and given a tour of the house that would be hers. Was hers, partially. Debling spent much of their first weeks together explaining to her the estate and the staff and ensuring she had the support she would need to run the estate in his absence.
Occasionally, they would make the trip to the nearby estate that his parents, the Earl and Countess of Wycliffe, still occupied. Her mother-in-law gave her a tour of it as well, but it was clear neither of his parents took any great interest in him or in his choice of spouse.
Luck blessed them and Cressida got pregnant within the first year. And then luck blessed them again when she gave birth to twins, Oliver and Charlotte.
Debling stuck around for the first couple months of their life before going on his first trip, not all the way to Antarctica as he wished eventually, but to Greenland. He was gone for months. Cressida took well to running the estate. The estate manager was not as stodgy as she’d feared and he was very willing to work with any Debling who wanted to take a more active management role. Apparently Debling’s parents wished to be as hands-off in the process as they could be.
She didn’t see much of her kids but the nurse promised that their development was coming along well.
Life passed, her children grew, and her experience running her husband’s house skyrocketed. Her husband would come home for brief visits before taking off, each time on a grander and grander adventure.
In his absence, Cressida began subscribing to newspapers on estate management and farming and gardening. She’d even begun a communication with one of the article publishers, and with more and more regularity was seeing some version of her own ideas and words in the articles as they came out.
Debling wrote letters as well, at first directed only to her and then as their children grew minds, he’d write so that she may read to them. He wrote of his adventures, of sailing, and of birds.
Cressida wrote back, of the children and the chores and the initiatives she wanted the estate to undertake. Debling approved them all, trusting her entirely. It was a nice feeling.
It was a quiet companionship, but she cared for her husband. And he cared for her.
His father died and he inherited the Earldom. Cressida became Countess Wycliffe, which suited her perfectly well. They moved into a much bigger house and Cressida took to it quickly, the bigger estate filling up that much more of her time. Doubly so for how hands-off the previous tenants had been with the whole affair.
They had a third child, another boy. Upon his arrival, her husband started planning a bigger trip. He was going to try and complete the Northwest Passage. It was a dangerous journey, they both recognized. But she did not ask him not to go and he did not offer.
He left her with a kiss on the cheek and a promise to write.
And he did write, often at first. And then with less frequency until she found herself receiving a Mr. Dundas into her study. He broke the news softly to her. It was not unexpected, after so long with no news.
She cried, more than she had thought she would. She mourned. Her children cried but moved on much quicker. They’d never known their father. She mourned that they never would, now. She wore the black and the lavender much longer than she needed.
The first months were the hardest, whenever mail was delivered she found herself absently flicking through envelopes, looking for the one from Alfred. It was never there. No more letters of grand adventures that she could read to her children, laughing with them over their fathers antics.
There was still plenty of mail, though. Letters from her mother, inviting her up to London. But the last thing she wanted to do was throw herself back into society. Or see her father.
Letters from various pen pals, at first still about a new gardening tool or watering schedule. And then condolence letters, as news of Alfred’s death hit London. Fewer letters than a man like him deserved.
But nice ones. She remembered two specifically, from Violet and Francesca Bridgerton. Both ladies who’d lost husbands of their own. Both reminding Cressida that her grief would pass but her love for her husband would stay with her.
They helped and hurt. Helped because she was truly grieving. But hurt because she hadn’t, really, loved him.
More months passed and Cressida eventually stopped looking for her name in Debling’s writing. She still wore the lavender of mourning, though the mourning period had long since passed.
The few callers she’d had before Debling’s death had petered out, bothering a widow in mourning was not done. She liked the peace, so she kept the clothes. One of her neighbor’s sons had been sniffing around the estate after the year anniversary of Alfred’s death. Cressida wanted to radiate disinterest in marrying again.
She dreamed of being one of those widows who never exited mourning. Wearing fabulous black and grey and purple dresses, lace in her hair to match. She hadn’t had lace in her hair for years.
Change for Cressida was normally slow. Gradual. She slowly decided to court Debling and slowly won him over. They slowly adjusted to life in Sheffield and he slowly transitioned into more travel. Even his death happened slowly, to her. Letters petering off and stopping for a long while before news of his death reached her. And she slowly mourned his loss.
Until, one day, quite suddenly, a letter arrived. The same as any other letter, really. Her name adorned a thick and beautiful envelope. Cressida Debling, Countess of Wycliffe.
Change came into Cressida’s life slowly, normally. She was slowly courted by Debling, she slowly stepped into her new life, she slowly had faced it when he died.
And then, suddenly, her butler handed her the day’s mail. On the top was a letter, in unfamiliar handwriting and on unfamiliar paper. The slanting cursive was familiar, though she couldn’t place it. Elegant and well-practiced. It was quite like most other mail Cressida received. Except for who franked it.
Simon Basset, 2nd Duke of Hastings
Cressida opened the letter immediately, not even settling to read her correspondence over breakfast as she normally did.
Lady Debling,
I am saddened to hear news of your husbands passing. All my sympathies to you and to your family.
Eloise Bridgerton
It was a short note. And yet Cressida read and reread it many times, standing in her foyer. Lost. Alfred had died more than a year prior. It was ridiculous for Eloise to just have heard about it. Rude to have heard so late and written anyway.
Her mother never wrote condolence letters, Cressida knew. But whenever someone reinterred society, she would say that she hoped the mourner had gotten her sympathies. It was a hectic time, Cressida knew from experience. Letters got lost in the mail or receivers simply forgot who had written.
So her mother just lied about it. Eloise could’ve just lied, if she were to ever come across Cressida’s path again. Or just not brought it up, as so many ladies of the ton were sure to attempt when she finally did see acquaintances again.
Cressida would know exactly who had lied, though. As she was not like her mother. And she was not flooded with condolences as she ought to have been. There had been a couple, all kindly meant and all infuriating. Her own pen pals didn’t understand her pain. And Alfred’s friends couldn’t offer more than platitudes to sooth her own grief. Far too little, every one of them.
And yet, every one of them had meant the world to her. People cared, about him. About her. About their children and their life together. Cared that it was gone. Forever.
And Eloise hadn’t even written until a year had passed. But she must’ve known, Cressida figured. She must’ve known as her own mother and sister had known and written already.
Which meant London wasn’t even talking about it.
The reminder stung. She used to lord over London balls and now she was just some distant Lady, who’s title wouldn’t matter for another decade. At which point her son would reach his maturity and the family would re-enter society for her daughter’s first season.
She wondered if Alfred’s death had even been mentioned in the society sheets.
Her whole life was upended by his death. Her days would never be the same. For all that her husband’s travel had been part of the life they’d built, his absence now was graver, bigger, everywhere.
She was angry. Angry that no one in London cared. Angry that not everyone had written. Angry that no one had traveled North for his funeral. Angry that she was left alone in a massive estate where the child who owned it was only 8. Angry that she was so clearly such a minor footnote in Eloise Bridgerton’s life as to be barely thought of for a whole year. A year in which she was fighting to get out of bed every single day.
Society used to shudder when she entered a room, now they might ask “Lady who?”
Her husband was dead and she’d never truly loved him the way he deserved and Eloise Bridgerton wrote her a condolence letter consisting of two short sentences a year after his death.
She rushed to her study and whipped out a piece of paper. She briefly cursed the maid for being too good at her job as she had to pull out a freshly clean quill tip and set up her inkwell before she could begin to angrily pen her reply.
Miss Bridgerton,
Thank you for your very kind words on my husbands passing, however late they are. Perhaps your letter got lost in the mail for some months?
Lady Cressida Debling, Countess of Wycliffe
She called her butler back into the study and handed the letter off to him, trusting him to frank and address it to, apparently, the Duke of Hasting’s summer estate. Where Eloise was likely staying with her sister. Having a grand old summer.
She placed the letter in the top drawer of her desk and moved forward with her day, she had tenants to see to, a dispute on fencing, a meeting with her estate manager, and she wanted to redecorate her drawing room.
Her mother had sent her some fabrics that the upholsterers in London said were all the rage. And her mother kept threatening to visit. The current and unaltered state of all of the rooms at Sheffield would send her mother into an early grave, so she’d agreed to look at them. And then had found some wonderful designs and figured she might as well. It could be nice, to have new things to look at.
The housekeeper was not having it, the old bat. She said it wasn’t right to redecorate such a grand room. And if it were to be re-done, the master of the house ought to oversee it.
They’d reached a standstill where Cressida refused to stop looking but the housekeeper refused to do any work to clear out the room or prepare for a re-do.
A small and stupid and meaningless battle that Cressida had no intention of losing. Her housekeeper was good at her job. She handled the staff deftly and efficiently. She would not disobey direct orders but she had other ways of persuading her lady into doing her bidding.
Cressida hated it, loathed it. She was fuming over how to get a workman into the drawing room without needing to directly order him to be allowed in and was nearing something that might work, if she timed it perfectly.
By the end of the day, she’d been so busy she’d almost forgotten about the letter that she’d carefully placed in the top drawer of her desk. After crumpling it up and nearly throwing it in the fire.
Tomorrow, Cressida promised herself. She’d burn it tomorrow.
Perhaps her letter got lost in the mail? The nerve! Here Eloise was, writing out of the kindness of her heart, to an old friend, hoping to rekindle that old friendship, and Cressida said her letter might’ve gotten lost in the mail!
She was a busy and enterprising woman! She had other things going on in her life! She had a whole gaggle and a half of nieces and nephews all waiting for her adoration and input! She was almost a sort of governess to some of them. She was writing columns for The Lady’s Guide to Everything!
And so, sometimes, she missed out on the latest London gossip. It’s not her fault that no one had thought to mention the passing of some never-in-town lord to her.
And once they had she hadn’t known what to say, had written tens of letters before finally calling it and just sending one of them. And maybe she’d had a bit of wine with Daphne before doing so. And maybe she couldn’t, exactly, remember what she’d written.
But she was sure it would be nice! And friendly! And maybe a bit generic, but the only thing she’d ever learned of Alfred Debling was that he loved the Great Auk. So much so, apparently, that he’d died for the blasted birds. The idiot.
And then Cressida had written her two sentences back, practically spitting in her face for having sent a letter at all.
When Eloise had first drafted a reply, at her mother’s house, her mother had told her that the contents of the letter didn’t matter half so much as the writing. That grief is a lonely thing and that Cressida would appreciate just a kind word.
Her mother had already written a letter, of course. And didn’t even give Eloise the option of adding her own name to the bottom, though her mother’s was sure to have been beautiful and perfect and the most helpful condolence letter in the world of condolence letters.
Even Francesca had written one. Daphne had not, but Daphne did not hold Cressida in high esteem after some nonsense around Simon and gardens and threats from her season. Threatening a future duchess sounded quite like Cressida, Eloise figured.
So she’d decided to hell with it all, wrote a letter, and just sent it. No more second guessing, no more looking back. Just some kind words on a piece of paper off into the world. No taking it back.
Looking at the letter in front of her, she wondered if she might’ve done well with a bit more second guessing.
Still though! The nerve! She ran her hand along the letters, the penmanship was not as neat as a lady of Cressida’s standing should’ve been able to do. The ink blotched in areas and thinned in others. It was still legible but messy.
Eloise imagined Cressida in a snit, grabbing a pen quickly and immediately writing a reply. Sending it off before the ink even dried.
She must’ve sent it quickly, for Eloise was still at Hastings when it arrived. She’d been eating breakfast when the Duke’s butler came in to deliver it to her. Rude though it was, she’d read it at the table, Daphne laughing at her impatience. Daphne’s kids also laughing.
They took after their mother far too much. The Duke hadn’t laughed. Though he did have a telling twinkle in his eye.
After breakfast, Eloise had taken off to her room to write a reply. Where she sat now, alternating between fuming and worried.
What had she written in her note?
What should she say next?
It occurred to her that she could simply not respond. Let the correspondence end there and call it a day.
It had taken her 8 years to send Lady Debling a letter. Perhaps her hesitation had been for a reason. Perhaps Cressida and she were only meant to be acquainted for a few brief months when they were young and to never talk again. Perhaps Eloise was meant to finally try and move on, instead of returning to their last conversation again and again and again.
Cressida had good reason to be upset with her, even without whatever she wrote in that letter.
Except, Eloise had always liked Cressida best when she was a little mad.
And if she was already mad, and she already wrote back, then Eloise felt fairly sure that she would write back again.
Eloise wrote her first draft in her notebook rather than on the parchment she would use for letters. It turned out to be a good idea as the paper was full of scratched out half formed thoughts that would be better left stuck in her head rather than having made it to the page.
To the Countess of Wycliffe,
Thank you for your kind receipt of the letter I sent to you, however quick it was to arrive.
Perhaps your manners got lost in the mail as well?
Though, that would imply that you’d ever had any.
I am, of course, joking. You have impeccable manners.
I hope you are teaching your children better ones. Maybe I’ll write to them next.
I do apologize, I wanted to write earlier but
Regards,
Eloise Bridgerton
In the end, she went with something simple and short. Anything else felt forced or too rude when she meant it in jest. But she felt like starting a sentence with this is a jest makes it rather less funny.
To the Countess of Wycliffe,
Thank you for your kind receipt of the letter I sent to you, however quick it was to arrive.
How are things in Sheffield?
Regards,
Eloise Bridgerton
P.S. Direct your response, should you send any, to Aubrey House.
She read this one over several times before calling it good. Eloise folded her letter, sealed it, and franked it with Simon’s name. She’d hand it to the butler later that day. Her journal she left on the counter, after taking note of the last question she’d added. One letter to Cressida with mysterious contents was enough, this time she would make sure she remembered what she’d written.
She left her room and immediately Edward ran headlong into her legs.
“Aunt Eloise!” He shouted at her, “You are slowing me down.”
“Slowing you down in your adventure to do what?” Eloise asked, curious.
“Escape to the kitchens!” He said, turning to glance behind him where the nursery was located. The door began peeking open and Eloise quickly opened the door to her room and shoved her nephew inside.
The door to Eloise’s room clicked shut just as the governess exited the nursery.
She bowed to Eloise, “Miss Bridgerton, have you seen Mister Edward?”
“I am afraid I have not, but I just exited my room from writing all morning,” she lifted her hands and showed her inked wrists as if for proof. “Has he run off again?”
“I am afraid so. I will check the kitchens and hope he is simply stealing more biscuits again. I swear this child will be the death of me.” With that, the governess ran off into the bowels of the house. Eloise waited until she could no longer hear her footsteps and then opened the door to her room once more.
“If you do escape to the kitchens, she will be sure to find you. What say we go for an adventure outside instead?”
“Fine, but if you try to trick me into learning again, I will run away for real.”
“Deal,” Eloise said and held out her hand to Edward to shake. “We two E’s need to stick together, after all.”
Eloise acted as guard around every corner as her and Edward made their way to the front door. Simon absolutely saw them sneaking around, but as a good father, he simply turned the other way and pointed the governess to David’s room as a possibility for where Edward could’ve run off to.
A little rebellion was good for a child. And plenty safe if Eloise was part of the scheming.
She and Edward spent much of the day wandering the lands, Eloise pointing out various kinds of flowers and plants and naming them and their common uses. She even snuck in a bit of history on where those plants had come from. And some on King George’s love for farming and the tools he’d introduced to the industry as a result.
Edward seemed absorbed in it all, smelling all the flowers, and picking up no fewer than 10 bugs to show off to her. Eloise knew very little about bugs but figured she ought to do some reading if Edward continued to show interest in them. She knew dreadfully few fun insect facts.
The hour before the supper bell would ring, Eloise turned them around to make their way back to Hastings. Edward lagged a bit.
“Aunt Eloise, do you have to leave?”
Eloise laughed. “Yes, I have to return to Aubrey, where I will see you very soon for your cousin’s birthday celebrations.”
“But can’t I come with you? Then you can be my governess and we can spend every day outside instead of in that hateful cramped room.”
“I am not qualified to be a governess.”
“But you know everything!”
Oh, how Eloise wished that were true.
“Not quite. And you need to learn Latin if you want to go to Eton like your father.”
Edward looked thoughtful and Eloise worried she’d have to say something more substantial. But luckily he had simply seen a bug on a leaf and had moved on to studying that.
Eloise loved all her sibling’s children. But she’d never longed for any of her own, though she knew her siblings didn’t really understand why not. Plus, the distant responsibilities of being an aunt suited her much better than those of motherhood.
The huff that Daphne let out seeing her youngest son’s muddy shoes and dirty hem confirmed Eloise’s theory. Much easier to be the aunt returning a dirty child than the mother cleaning up after him.
Her final dinner for this visit to Hastings was as loud and friendly as ever. All the children talking over each other with what they learned that day, Edward loudly proclaiming he would one day become an adventurer.
She went to bed with a full heart and stomach and only briefly thought of Cressida Cowper—Cressida Debling before drifting off to sleep.