6. No Apology for Cheapside
CHAPTER SIX
NO APOLOGY FOR CHEAPSIDE
Waking up in a bedchamber on Grosvenor Street was an entirely different experience from her drafty bedroom in Longbourn.
The bedsheets were so smooth they might have been spun by fairies, and the counterpane felt too grand to sleep beneath.
The pillowcases wore lace, and the blankets embraced her with a softness that, for one disconcerting moment, made Elizabeth almost pinch herself.
Even the London birds were more muted than their country cousins.
And Nettle lacked a certain eagerness for her morning walk.
A footman had let her out and had brushed her fur to a sheen, picked out any burrs, and cleaned her paws.
Elizabeth pulled back the curtain and made her resolution.
Before the dress shops, before the trustee meetings with their columns of figures and even more careful Mr. Darcy, before Lady Sophia began scheduling calls and visits and social obligations and the tedious business of being-seen, before any of it—she would take her sisters to Gracechurch Street.
Jane had spent Christmas with their uncle, aunt, and four cousins after suffering what their father termed a vexation of the heart when Darcy’s friend, Mr. Bingley, had quit Netherfield and departed without calling to say farewell.
Grosvenor Street also came with a lady’s maid who fussed over every button and pin as if Elizabeth might fall apart without them.
After her hair and dress were deemed presentable, Elizabeth made her way downstairs to find Jane standing before a portrait of Lady Sophia in her youth.
Mary hovered nearby, brow furrowed, clearly lost in the wilderness of too many rooms.
“Jane, stop smoothing your gloves. You look like an angel who has lost her way and wandered into Mayfair by mistake,” Elizabeth teased gently. Then, turning to her other sister, she said, “And Mary, dear, perhaps we should request a map from Mrs. Alford.”
Jane laughed, a sound like a silver bell in the hushed, cavernous hall. “I cannot help it, Lizzy. I feel as though if I breathe too deeply, the Portland stone will vanish, and we shall find ourselves back in the breakfast room at Longbourn with Mamma’s smelling salts.”
“Let it vanish tomorrow, then,” Elizabeth declared, gesturing to the surrounding splendor. “Today, we have a carriage with a crest, a matched pair of grays, and our very own coachman. We shall visit Aunt and Uncle Gardiner before it all turns into a pumpkin and mice.”
“I would love to see them.” Jane clasped her hands together. “The children will be so delighted to see us in a fancy carriage.”
“Nettle must come with us,” Mary added. “She can play ball with Samuel or let Rose dress her in dolly clothes.”
“Then it’s decided. We shall take the carriage to Cheapside.” Elizabeth scooped Nettle up, the dog’s tail thumping against her chest. A tap-tap of a cane echoed from the landing above, and Nettle’s ears perked up.
“What is this I hear? A fancy carriage through Cheapside?” Lady Sophia descended the staircase, her eyes bright and alert. “And children playing with Nettle?”
“We plan to visit our Uncle and Aunt Gardiner,” Elizabeth said. “Gracechurch Street. They have four children who will absolutely ruin Nettle’s dignity, but she will love every moment of it.”
Lady Sophia paused on the landing, considering. “I have not been to Cheapside in years. The pastry shops near Leadenhall are excellent, if memory serves. I should like to join you.”
“It is in Cheapside,” Elizabeth repeated, feeling the need to be perfectly clear. “A merchant’s residence.”
Lady Sophia regarded her with mild reproach. “I have often found that character and intelligent conversation are not confined to a single slice of society. If you think I am too refined for Cheapside, you have gravely misunderstood my character.”
The Mottistone carriage turned into the crowded streets of Cheapside with the smooth self-assurance of a swan gliding into a duck pond. Lady Sophia tapped her cane against the roof, and the coachman drew up before a bow-windowed shop displaying an impressive array of sugared confections.
Elizabeth reached for the door handle. “I shall go in. I know exactly what the children like.”
Lady Sophia’s hand settled over hers—light as air, immovable as stone.
“Let Peters go.”
“It seems rather a great deal of fuss when I am perfectly capable of walking through a door and pointing at tarts.”
“You are capable of a great many things.” Lady Sophia said it the way one might observe that rain was wet.
“The question is no longer what you are capable of, but what is expected. You are not Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn, stepping into a shop in Meryton. You are Miss Bennet of Grosvenor Street. The shop comes to you now.”
She said it without unkindness, without condescension. It was simply a fact.
A tightness crept into Elizabeth’s chest, the same as when her maid plaited her hair or the footman presented Nettle, gleaming and unfamiliar. It was a small thing, smaller than the Sèvres teacups or the lavender sheets, but it felt like a chalk line drawn across her life.
Jane’s gloved hand found hers and pressed once while the footman departed into the shop, returning shortly with marzipan fancies, iced biscuits shaped like rabbits and hedgehogs, almond tarts, and a paper of sugar plums. And then the carriage rolled into Gracechurch Street, and Elizabeth caught sight of familiar shopfronts and children darting through the lane.
The tightness in her chest eased, just a little.
“Your aunt keeps a blue door,” Lady Sophia observed. “I find I like her already.”
“You cannot judge a woman’s character by the color of her door.”
“Assuredly, I can. A blue door in Gracechurch Street argues for personality, the only quality I find consistently worth encouraging.”
The carriage had hardly drawn to a stop before the blue door burst open.
The Gardiner children emerged in a tumble of excitement—Rose launching herself at Jane’s midriff, Samuel stationing himself by the horses with proprietary interest, Alice appearing with a book still tucked under her arm, and two-year-old Thomas toddling after them with the determined focus of a small explorer who refused to be left behind.
Peters handed Elizabeth down first, followed by Jane and Mary. Lady Sophia watched from the window, her eyes gleaming with interest.
“Are they yours?” Samuel demanded, staring at the matched grays. “The horses?”
“They belong to the household,” Elizabeth said.
“What’s a household?”
“A very large concept that I am still learning to navigate myself.”
Nettle leaped from the carriage without waiting for an escort.
“She bit Mr. Darcy,” Mary offered, her tone uncharacteristically bright.
Samuel’s eyes went wide. “The horse did?”
“The dog. On the ankle.”
“Did he deserve it?”
“Almost certainly,” Elizabeth said, catching Lady Sophia’s delighted smirk.
Peters brought down the basket, and Samuel abandoned the horses for this new attraction.
“What’s in it?” he asked, already reaching for the lid.
“Marzipan fancies,” Lady Sophia said from the carriage window. “Iced biscuits in the shape of rabbits and hedgehogs; almond tarts, which are for the grown persons; and sugar plums, which are for children who do not ask too many questions.”
Samuel paused. “How many questions is too many?”
“That,” Lady Sophia said, descending with Peters’ assistance, “is an excellent question, and I find I cannot hold it against you.”
Rose, having released Jane, discovered Nettle. She buried her face in the dog’s wiry fur and pronounced her beautiful. Nettle, who usually maintained a low opinion of strangers, licked the girl’s ear with the solemnity of a dog fulfilling a civic duty.
Mrs. Gardiner appeared in the doorway after her children. Her gaze swept over the matched grays, the glinting crest, and the silver-haired woman anchored by a cane. Only the fractional lift of an eyebrow betrayed her surprise.
“Lizzy,” she said warmly. “You look radiant. And entirely out of your depth, which is usually when you are most entertaining.”
“Lady Sophia Mottistone, may I present my aunt, Mrs. Gardiner. Aunt, Lady Sophia is my newest godmother.”
“I crave your pardon, Mrs. Gardiner,” Lady Sophia said, her eyes twinkling. “But the prospect of a new acquaintance and a Leadenhall almond tart was far more tempting than another morning with a bad novel.”
“Please do come in. And pray do not trip over Thomas—he is somewhere examining his treasures.”
He was, in fact, clutching a large brass key and a beetle of uncertain species, both of which he clearly considered objects of equal importance.
“A collector,” Lady Sophia observed approvingly. “I had a nephew who kept his treasures in a box beneath his bed. He is now a Fellow of the Royal Society. One must never discourage a child’s instinct to hoard interesting objects.”
Alice herded her younger siblings into the house, her book still tucked under her arm. Nettle trotted over to nip at the girl’s skirts, apparently finding an interesting scent on the hem.
“She is quite wiry,” Alice observed, though she did not pull away. “And I like her wet nose.”
“She is an adventurer,” Elizabeth said, greeting her eldest niece with a kiss. “And I see you have brought an adventure of your own.” She nodded toward the book.
“The heroine is a ninny,” Alice said flatly. “She cries when it rains. But the horse is magnificent. He has the only sensible lines in the entire chapter.”
Lady Sophia smiled at this, tapping her cane. “The horse is nearly always the most intelligent creature in the room. In fiction, and certainly here in London.”
The party drifted into the drawing room, where Lady Sophia settled herself into the best armchair by the fire.