Chapter Text
Have you forgotten yet?…
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same—and War's a bloody game…— Siegfried Sassoon, “Aftermath”
1935.
Penelope first meets Colin on the train.
It is a hot, sticky day in late August, and she is lurching down the train with her mother and three sisters. They are going from London, where they have lived for the last five years, to Canterbury, where Penelope will go from the station to Saint Julian’s School for Girls; from there, the rest of her family will go to her godmother’s home a short distance away before their scheduled departure in two weeks.
She is fourteen, and for perhaps the first time in her life she is off to do something special.
“Hello, have you got room?” Portia asks in her most syrupy sweet voice at the last compartment they come to. “There’s no room elsewhere.”
There is one person sitting in there, and as Penelope peers around the doorway, her heart nearly stops.
The man — boy, really, he is only a few years older than she is — is beautiful. Unbelievably handsome, with dark brown hair curling around his forehead and deep blue eyes, his smile quick and spreading across his face.
“Yes, of course,” he says, and she falls madly in love.
“Well,” Portia says on the platform. Canterbury rail station was busy when they first arrived, but the bustle has died down now, and the Featherington ladies are the only ones still there. A young woman from the school who has come to pick up Penelope greeted them when they first arrived, but she’s stepped aside to let the family say their goodbyes. “You’ll write to us at your godmother’s, once you’re settled in. And you’ll write to her, of course, to let her know when you’re to come for half-term.”
“Yes, Mum.”
“And you’ll not hide yourself away in the library, I hope. Too much reading isn’t healthful for a girl your age. Better to be outside. Sport is invigorating for the body and the mind, you know.”
“We did buy a hockey-stick for me,” Penelope reminds her mother. “It was on the list with the uniforms.”
“Is she playing hockey, or is she the ball?” Prudence says in a whisper meant to be overheard, and she and Philippa giggle, although the latter at least looks a little ashamed to be laughing. “Good luck, then.”
“Thank you.” Penelope doesn’t want her sister’s luck, wished as it is with a sneer, but she’s spent all fourteen years of her life trying to rise above her older sisters. Now isn’t the time to stop.
Philippa steps forward. “Good luck. We’ll miss you,” she says, and she actually sounds earnest as she squeezes Penelope’s arm gently.
Staring up at her with big, sorrowful eyes, Felicity’s lower lip starts to wobble, and fat tears slip down her rounded cheeks. “Wanna come with,” she says.
Penelope hugs her. “I know. But just think! You’ll get to go on a ship. You’re going to have such adventures. And then at the other end Dad will be waiting, and you’ll get to give him a big hug.”
“Don’t wanna go on a boat,” Felicity whimpers. “Wanna stay with Penny.”
“I know,” Penelope whispers into her sister’s hair. “Be good for Mummy, all right?”
When she stands, her mother gives her a perfunctory hug and releases her with a sharp, knowing look. “Be good,” she says. “And we’ll see you in four years.”
At Saint Julian’s, she is assigned to the dormitory of one Eloise Bridgerton.
“She’s rather high-spirited, I’m afraid,” the headmistress tells Penelope as she leads her down the corridor to the dormitories. Lady Danbury is intimidating to be sure, but her voice is steady and reassuring. “Your mother said on the telephone that you’re shy, so perhaps Miss Bridgerton might bring you out of your shell, and you shall be a calming influence on her.”
Unlikely, Penelope thinks glumly. ‘High-spirited’ is bound to mean ‘wild,’ and as the perpetually ignored sister of two flighty, catty girls, she knows not to expect to be great friends with this schoolmate.
So she is surprised when Eloise takes to her like a duck to water, chirping hello and showing off everything she’s done to make their room cozy.
That first night, they stay up late talking. It’s a novel experience, huddled so tightly under the covers and whispering secrets back and forth across the bed. She cannot stop marvelling over her new dormitory-mate’s easy welcome and the relief washing over her slowly. Eloise hushes in a practiced motion when someone walks by, and Penelope tries to pretend that she, too, has done this a thousand times.
“Where do you live?” Eloise asks. The lights are off and they ought to be long asleep, but Penelope is too keyed up to think of rest and Eloise looks as though she has energy for days and miles.
She finds the question a little odd. “Well, here.”
“No, silly, when you’re not here. Where did you live before?”
“Oh. London, but we don’t live there anymore. My mother and sisters sail for Singapore next week.”
“Singapore! How lucky. I would love to go there. You must be awfully jealous.”
“Not really,” says Penelope, who is more than thrilled to be staying behind in England, away from the criticism and insults intended to be backhanded compliments volleyed by her mother and older sisters. “It’ll be hot and sticky, I suppose. Like this week has been, but all the time.”
“Did you read about it?”
“Yes. But also we lived in India, before London. It’s not the same, of course, but I remember the weather there.”
“India!” Eloise seems to speak in italics. “You must tell me everything.”
Under cover of darkness, Penelope smiles, pleased. “All right. But you haven’t told me where you’re from.”
“Oh, nothing so interesting. Aubrey Hall, here in Kent. It’s not far, which is why I’m to go home some weekends. Mother doesn’t like the idea of me being away all the time. She says it’s enough with the boys always going off to Eton.”
“You have brothers?”
“Oh, yes. Three older, and one younger. And three sisters too. There are eight of us, and three still at home year-round, so it’s not like Mother would be bored in that big house all on her own, but I begged and pleaded not to go to horrid Mayfair School in London — that’s where my sister Daphne goes, she’s two years older, and I guess Francesca will go there too in a few years. I wanted to go to school somewhere far away where I could have adventures, like Scotland, but this is better than stuffy old London, and since it’s so close, Mother agreed.”
“Eight of you?”
“Yes, I know, it’s extreme, isn’t it? But there’s always something going on, it’s impossible to be bored or too sad, really, there’s just no time to be. You ought to come home with me, for half-term.”
“I’m supposed to go to my godmother’s,” Penelope says, and although she is fond enough of Aunt Charlotte, a big bustling house full of people as friendly and warm as Eloise sounds much preferable to the quiet stiffness of Dutch House.
“Well, she’d say yes, wouldn’t she? Telephone tomorrow, or whenever Danbury will let you, and ask. Oh, you’re going to love Aubrey Hall.”
Aunt Charlotte says yes.
Six weeks later, Eloise’s older brother Benedict picks them up from school, the shiny Daimler purring quietly in front of the stone facade of Saint Julian’s. The night before, Penelope had been told in strict confidence that Benedict is by far the best of the older Bridgerton brothers (“ever so much more fun than Anthony and not so annoying as Colin”) and now Eloise runs down the front steps and launches herself at him with the force to rival an elephant.
“Oof! Eloise, slow down,” her brother scolds, though his arms wrap around her. “I thought they were teaching you to be a lady here, not a boxer.”
Living up to the latter, Eloise punches him in the arm. “You might be nice and say hello to my friend if you weren’t so rude all the time.”
“Oh, yes, Mother said there were two of you. Introduce me, why don’t you?”
Eloise seizes Penelope’s hand and drags her into the drive. She looks up before looking away again — he’s rather tall, something Penelope isn’t destined for, and tall people make her terribly shy — and takes in her scuffed Oxfords against his polished leather shoes.
“Pen, this is my brother, Benedict,” Eloise says, and Penelope’s head pops up; Eloise has never called her by a nickname before, not to mention one she quite likes. “Ben, this is Penelope Featherington. She’s my dormitory-mate and my best friend.”
She barely hears anything after that.
Best friend.
Eloise is right. It’s impossible to be bored at Aubrey Hall. Lady Bridgerton — because Eloise neglected to mention that her late father was a viscount — is lovely and kind and everything a mother ought to be. The siblings are fiercely competitive and boisterous and generous. The house itself is beautiful, light in color and in feeling.
“We’re so happy to have you here, Penelope,” Lady Bridgerton tells her with a gentle squeeze to one shoulder. “Now, I’ve prepared the bedroom two down from Eloise for you—”
“Mother, we can share!” Eloise says, bouncing from foot to foot on the foyer’s marble tiles. “We do at school.”
“Yes, dearest, but I thought that as we have the room, Penelope might like some privacy,” Lady Bridgerton says, smiling. Something perceptive lingers behind her eyes. “I hope you like yellow, my dear. The bedroom is done up that way.”
Her heart sinks. She loathes yellow. Detests it. Hates it. For years, her mother has insisted on yellow dresses and twinsets; even the ugly dark green of the school uniforms has been a welcome change.
But that changes when she sees the yellow bedroom. The walls are covered in a bright, light, airy yellow. Two large casement windows framed by floral chintz curtains are opposite the doorway, and in between them a desk. Dominating the room is the bed: a huge white headboard, far taller than Penelope, posts to either side and intricately carved with garlands and rosettes.
“The bed belonged to some distant ancestor and my late husband couldn’t bear to get rid of it, so we painted it white,” Violet says from behind her. Penelope startles. “It did help some. I hope you like it.”
“It’s wonderful,” breathes Penelope. “Thank you, Lady Bridgerton.”
“You’re very welcome, my dear. I hope you’ll come to stay here often. It’s lovely to have the house so full again, even just for a few days.”
She unpacks in a hurry and changes her school uniform for more casual clothes, tying the laces of her shoes just as Eloise barges in.
“Oh, good, you’re all ready,” she says. “You don’t ride, do you?”
“Ride?”
“Horses, silly. Anthony’s horse-mad, best thing about him, really, and everyone else all rides but no one loves it nearly as much as me and Ant. Oh, and Hyacinth, but she’s still on a pony. Anthony says Hy’s too young but really I just think he’s being overbearing, she’s the same age I was when I moved from a pony to a horse.”
“Oh,” Penelope says quietly, feeling terribly left out. “No. I’ve never ridden before.”
“Well, you lived in London before here, so that’s what I thought,” Eloise says, seizing her by the arm as they make their way through the house. “You don’t mind if I go riding, do you? Colin will walk with you, he’s not too keen on horses.”
Colin must be the brother closest in age to Eloise, given the discerned alphabetical order. A bit twee, she thinks, but Lady Bridgerton is so kind one could forgive her anything. Eloise hasn’t said much about him, other than that he’s a nuisance.
They emerge into the most serene blue drawing room filled with people. One sister — it must be Francesca — is practicing piano. The two youngest are sitting at a card table, bickering over what seems to be a game of Battle, and Lady Bridgerton is in hushed conversation with one of Eloise’s brothers on the sofa.
Leaning against the jam of the French doors are Benedict and, backlit by sunlit, the last of the Bridgerton brothers.
“Oh, good, you’re here,” the brother conversing with Lady Bridgerton says. Without introduction, she knows this is the eldest brother, Anthony. “Will you introduce me to your friend?”
“Penelope, this is my oldest brother, the Viscount Bridgerton. Anthony, this is Penelope Featherington.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Penelope,” Lord Bridgerton says. “Welcome to Aubrey Hall. Do you ride?”
“I already asked, she doesn’t,” Eloise says, and his face falls a little. “She lived in London before, and who could ride there? But she says she doesn’t mind if we ride. I want to make sure Woolly is well.”
“Woolly?”
Benedict snickers. “Eloise, you haven’t told your friend your horse’s name?”
“Ben,” she whines, as embarrassed as Eloise gets.
“It’s short for Wollstonecraft,” Benedict says, barely holding back laughter as he walks away from the French doors. “After the eighteenth-century writer. The original suffragist and all that. And Eloise thought it would make an excellent name for her horse.”
“Don’t tease her so,” says Lady Bridgerton. “As if you did nothing outrageous in your youth!” But she says it with a loving, warm smile and the admonishment loses any harsh edges. They all laugh, even Benedict, and Penelope feels just settled enough to join in.
“Penelope, can I present to you my other children? You’ve met Benedict, of course, but that is Francesca on the piano, and these are my two youngest, Gregory and Hyacinth.” The two squabbling at cards stop long enough to beam cheekily at her. “Colin, dearest, will you come here, please?”
“And stop brooding!” Eloise says, sticking out her tongue as the boy turns around.
He turns around and his face is so dark that she cannot make out his features until the light shifts and suddenly she can, and she sees—
“The boy from the train!” she says without thinking, and claps a hand over her mouth.
The boy — Colin — grins. “Oh, you’re the redhead!”
“You know each other?”
“We met very briefly a few months ago, when I took the train back here from visiting the Stantons,” he says. “Penelope, is it? It was a very crowded train and I shared a compartment with her and her family.”
She blushes; curses her fair skin and how the flush shows too easily. They all must see it, how her cheeks are warm and she can’t bring herself to look him in the eye. This is a family full of attractive young people, but all of them pale in comparison.
But she finally raises her eyes and looks at him, bashfully and then gaining more confidence. Colin is smiling right at her and tilts his head in the direction of Eloise bounding out of the drawing room, as if to say, well? Are you coming?
In the end, six of them tromp out to the stables: Anthony, Colin, Eloise, their youngest siblings Gregory and Hyacinth, and Penelope. Colin declines to ride, but the other Bridgertons clamber atop their mounts like they were born to meld with these equine beasts, laughing and joking with one another, and trot merrily out of the stables. Colin and Penelope follow them down a dirt path some ways on foot as the other four get smaller and smaller until they can barely see them. Next to Penelope, Colin leans forward against the fence, smiling after his brothers and sisters.
“Mother said you like to read, like Eloise,” he says. “What sort of books do you like?”
Penelope blushes. If she is ever to be invited back (and oh, she hopes she will be), she must learn to control that. "Oh. Silly things, I suppose.”
“Do you find it silly?”
“No," she admits. "But you would. Lots of fairy-tales. School stories, too.”
“Why is that silly? Fairy-tales are lovely.”
“I didn't think most boys liked them.”
“Well, l've got four little sisters, and all of them save Eloise made me read them ‘The Princess of Canterbury’ so many times I could recite it in my sleep,” says Colin with no small amount of pride. “Once, I tried to change the boy's name from Jack to Benedict, as a joke, and Daphne pitched a fit the size of the Atlantic Ocean.”
Penelope laughs, affection worming its way into every crevice of her heart. “Do you read much?”
“I'd like to. They stuff our heads so full of Latin and Greek at Eton that it's hard to remember English, some days.”
“I wish I could take Latin. But I didn't have any before I got to Saint Julian's, so French it is.”
Colin hums knowingly and they look out across the misty field together. Eloise and Benedict are two specks in the distance against a tangle of leafless trees. Penelope silently marvels at the grass; even deep in autumn it still looks so green, purer than any emerald and more lush than anything she’s seen in London before.
In primary school, they read some of Blake's poetry, who described the people of London as having “mind-forg'd manacles.” Penelope always thought this was unfair. After all, she likes London: she likes the bustle and the noise and the study of the people, even when those people were thoughtless or rude or even cruel. But looking across this quiet country field in Kent, she thinks that she could become used to the calm that settles over her here, in a beautiful space with people who care for and respect her. Especially with this one particular boy who seems to respect her, too.
Yes, she thinks, staring off after her new best friend in the distance, spying on Colin out of the corner of her eye, letting the weight of the inadequacy she has carried all her life slip away, even if only a little, even if only for a moment. She could get used to all of this.