Chapter 14
. . . I grant that Mr. Wilson’s face does have a certain amphibious quality, but I do wish you would learn to be a bit more circumspect in your speech.
While I would never consider him an acceptable candidate for marriage, he is certainly not a toad, and it ill-behooved me to have my younger sister call him thus, and in his presence.
—from Eloise Bridgerton to her sister Hyacinth,
upon refusing her fourth offer of marriage
Four days later, they were married. Phillip had no idea how Anthony Bridgerton had managed it, but he’d procured a special license, allowing them to be wed without banns and on a Monday, which, Eloise assured him, was no worse than Tuesday or Wednesday, just that it wasn’t Saturday, as was proper.
Eloise’s entire family, minus her widowed sister in Scotland, who hadn’t had time to make the journey, had trooped out to the country for the wedding.
Normally, the ceremony would have taken place in Kent, at the Bridgerton family seat, or at the very least in London, where the family attended church regularly at St. George’s in Hanover Square, but such arrangements were not possible on such a hastened schedule, and this wasn’t an ordinary sort of wedding in any case.
Benedict and Sophie had offered their home for the reception, but Eloise had felt that the twins would be more comfortable at Romney Hall, so they’d held the ceremony at the parish church down the lane, followed by a small, intimate reception on the lawn outside Phillip’s greenhouse.
Later in the day, just as the sun was beginning to dip in the sky, Eloise found herself in her new bedchamber with her mother, who was busying herself by pretending to tuck away items in Eloise’s hastily gathered trousseau.
It all, of course, had been taken care of by Eloise’s lady’s maid (brought up from London with the family) earlier that morning, but Eloise didn’t comment upon her mother’s idle busywork.
It seemed like Violet Bridgerton simply needed something to do while she talked.
Eloise, of all people, understood that need perfectly.
“I should complain that I’m being denied my proper moment of glory as the mother of the bride,” Violet said to her daughter as she folded her lacy veil and placed it gently on top of a bureau, “but in truth I’m just happy to see you a bride.”
Eloise smiled gently at her mother. “You’d quite despaired of it, hadn’t you?”
“Quite.” But then she cocked her head to the side and added, “Actually, no. I always thought you might surprise us in the end. You frequently do.”
Eloise thought of all those years since her debut, all those rejected marriage proposals. All those weddings they’d attended, with Violet watching another of her friends marrying off another of their daughters to another fabulously eligible gentleman.
Another gentleman, of course, who could now no longer marry Eloise, Lady Bridgerton’s famously on-the-shelf spinster daughter.
“I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you,” Eloise whispered.
Violet gazed at her with a wise expression. “My children never disappoint me,” she said softly. “They merely . . . astonish me. I believe I like it that way.”
Eloise found herself lurching forward to hug her mother.
She felt awkward doing so; she didn’t know why, since hers was a family that had never discouraged such displays of affection in the privacy of their own home.
Maybe it was because she was so perilously close to tears; maybe it was because she sensed her mother was the same.
But she felt an awkward girl again, all gangly arms and legs and bony elbows and a mouth that always opened when it should be closed.
And she wanted her mother.
“There, there,” Violet said, sounding very much as she had years ago, when fussing over a skinned knee or bruised feelings. “Now,” she said, her face turning pink. “Now, then.”
“Mother?” Eloise murmured. She looked very strange indeed, as if she’d eaten bad fish.
“I dread this,” Violet muttered.
“Mother?” Surely she couldn’t have heard correctly.
Violet took a deep, fortifying breath. “We have to have a little talk.” She leaned back, looked her daughter in the eye, then added, “Do we have to have a little talk?”
Eloise wasn’t certain whether her mother was asking her if she knew of the details of intimacy or if she actually knew them . . . intimately. “Uhhh . . . I haven’t . . . ah . . . If you mean . . . That is to say, I’m still . . .”
“Excellent,” Violet said with a heartfelt sigh. “But do you—that is to say, are you aware . . . ?”
“Yes,” Eloise said quickly, eager to spare both of them undue embarrassment. “I don’t believe I need anything explained.”
“Excellent,” Violet said again, her sigh even more heartfelt.
“I must say, I do detest this part of motherhood. I can’t even recall what I said to Daphne, just that I spent the entire time blushing and stammering, and honestly, I have no idea if she left the encounter any better informed than when she arrived.
” The corners of her mouth turned down. “Probably not, I’m afraid. ”
“She seems to have adapted to married life quite well,” Eloise murmured.
“Yes, she has. Hasn’t she?” Violet said brightly. “Four little children and a husband who dotes upon her. One certainly can’t hope for more.”
“What did you say to Francesca?” Eloise asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Francesca,” Eloise repeated, referring to her younger sister who had married six years earlier—and was tragically widowed two years after that. “What did you say to her when she married? You mentioned Daphne, but not Francesca.”
Violet’s blue eyes clouded, as they always did when she thought of her third daughter, widowed so young. “You know Francesca. I expect she could have told me a thing or two.”
Eloise gasped.
“I don’t mean it that way, of course,” Violet hastened to add. “Francesca was as innocent as . . . well, as innocent as you are, I imagine.”
Eloise felt her cheeks grow hot and thanked her maker for the cloudy day, which left the room somewhat darkened.
That and the fact that her mother was busy inspecting a torn hem on her dress.
She was technically untouched, of course, and she’d certainly pass inspection if examined by a physician, but she didn’t feel quite so innocent any longer.
“But you know Francesca,” Violet continued, shrugging and looking back up when she realized that there was nothing she could do about the hem. “She’s so sly and knowing. I expect she bribed some poor housemaid into explaining it all to her years earlier.”
Eloise nodded. She didn’t want to tell her mother that she and Francesca had in fact pooled their pin money to bribe the housemaid. It had been worth every penny, however. Annie Mavel’s explanation had been detailed and, Francesca had later informed her, absolutely correct.
Violet smiled wistfully, then reached up and touched her daughter’s cheekbone, right near the corner of her eye.
The skin was still slightly discolored, but the purple had faded through blue and green to a rather sickly (but certainly less unsightly) shade of yellow.
“Are you certain you’ll be happy?” she asked.
Eloise smiled ruefully. “It’s a little late to wonder, don’t you think?”
“It might be too late to do anything about it, but it’s never too late to wonder.”
“I think I’ll be happy,” Eloise said. I hope so, she added, but just in her mind.
“He seems a nice man.”
“He’s a very nice man.”
“Honorable.”
“He is that.”
Violet nodded. “I think you’ll be happy. It might take time until you realize it, and you might doubt yourself at first, but you’ll be happy. Just remember—” She stopped, chewing on her lip.
“What, Mother?”
“Just remember,” she said slowly, as if she were choosing each word with great care, “that it takes time. That’s all.”
What takes time? Eloise wanted to scream.
But her mother had already stood up and was briskly smoothing her skirts.
“I expect I shall have to usher the family out, or they will never leave.” She fiddled with a bow on her dress as she turned slightly away.
One of her hands reached up to her face, and Eloise tried not to notice that she was brushing aside a tear.
“You’re very impatient,” Violet said, facing the door. “You always have been.”
“I know,” Eloise said, wondering if this was a scolding, and if so, why was her mother choosing to do it now?
“I always loved that about you,” Violet said. “I always loved everything about you, of course, but for some reason I always found your impatience especially charming. It was never because you wanted more, it was because you wanted everything.”
Eloise wasn’t so sure that sounded like such a good trait.
“You wanted everything for everyone, and you wanted to know it all and learn it all, and . . .”
For a moment Eloise thought her mother might be done, but then Violet turned around and added, “You’ve never been satisfied with second-best, and that’s good, Eloise.
I’m glad you never married any of those men who proposed in London.
None of them would have made you happy. Content, maybe, but not happy. ”
Eloise felt her eyes widen with surprise.
“But don’t let your impatience become all that you are,” Violet said softly.
“Because it isn’t, you know. There’s a great deal more to you, but I think sometimes you forget that.
” She smiled, the gentle, wise smile of a mother saying goodbye to her daughter.
“Give it time, Eloise. Be gentle. Don’t push too hard. ”
Eloise opened her mouth but found herself entirely incapable of speech.
“Be patient,” Violet said. “Don’t push.”
“I . . .” Eloise had meant to say I won’t, but her words fell away, and all she could do was stare at her mother’s face, only now realizing what it truly meant that she was married. She’d been thinking so much about Phillip that she hadn’t thought of her family.