Work Text:
Sleep had not stolen Francesca’s husband, but it was hard not to think it was so. Penelope could not be at ease with a sleeping baby. She could not be glad Colin was resting. All she could see when one of them lay down was the same still pose in a coffin. She could not do it, and would quickly go and pick up the baby. He was irritable and overtired, but she needed to feel him breathing. Colin had indulged her anxiety, and all three of them huddled sleepless in the big bed of their room. He was worried about everyone else, when Pen was pushing him to exhaustion with her shivering fear of sleep.
The news of John’s death reached Featherington house just after dinner, when Rae came to Colin and Penelope in the dining room with a worried look. There were two carriages in front of Bridgerton house across the way. Only one was from the family. The Stirlings did not visit on impulse, and they cherished their casual evenings at home. Colin walked over to see what was happening. Anthony was out of London, because he and Kate were introducing Edmund to the country house.
Penelope had the news as soon as her husband was able to run back and tell her, but he was crying before he entered the room. His pale face told her there was a tragedy. She had thought something vague about Anthony and Kate far away, and an accident on the road. She had thought about the daring nature of Bridgertons, and Gregory’s broken arm the previous year. Francesca and John’s orderly household seemed like the most peaceful, safe house of anyone in the family.
“I think we should offer the country house to Francesca,” Penelope said. “I know Aubrey Hall is still her home, too, and the Kilmartins have their England estate. I just think, if it were me, I would not be able to be there alone because she has never been in that house without John.”
She was crying by the time she got to the end of the thought. Colin put down the book he’d been trying to read, because they were attempting to relax with something normal. The days with Elliot could not be all that different. He still wanted to be held and played with. His meals were eventful, and his few words were forming into sentences.
“You will not ever have to face that, Pen,” he said softly. “I will not leave you. I do not care how ailing I am, for I will live so you can continue speaking to me and holding my hand.”
He was not far from tears himself, though he tried to hold them back to calm her. Penelope sighed. “You cannot truly promise that,” she said. “It is not even fair to ask you to promise it. I cannot complain you have not loved me enough. My entire life runs alongside our marriage. I keep thinking there must be something we can do for Francesca, but my mind goes blank at the horror of it. What could possibly make me feel better if you were gone?”
Colin nodded. “You would have Elliot, who is half of me,” he said. “And I know you would be strong and brave for him.”
The mention of their son made her feel worse, because the most unforgivable tragedy had been Fran’s suspicion she was expecting. It would be a difficult time to be pregnant, but she would have something yet to care for. She had a reason to look forward. Penelope was not sure if the belief had been a mistake or just a hope for it, but she had enough conviction to allow a doctor to examine her before they even had the funeral.
“The title cannot be worth what she went through,” Penelope said. “The idea that some land and money is worth mortifying a woman who just lost her husband is criminal. They took what she had left and made it all business!”
The ugly meeting with the Crown emissary would never be forgiven. The fact that it was the same man who had repeatedly visited Penelope’s mother made the insult worse. Sir Walter Dundas, Esquire, might be inestimably useful to the government, but he was also a hammer when a patient ear would do better. His job was important, but the right to mourn a loved one was sacred. The shock of it made any early decisions less consenting and more acting on the doom that seemed to drift across every remaining moment of life.
“Francesca is very dutiful,” Colin said softly. “I am not sure we could have stopped her from wanting to be certain. And if there had been a baby, her health would have been very much a concern. I hate how it came about, but there was a need to know for her sake. I am just sorry it was not good news when some hope would bolster her spirit.”
“A baby would be difficult, but certainly no worse than losing John,” Pen said. “I knew she felt she should be doing more as a wife, but I cannot see any way he could have been happier with her. It feels like that kind of love should insulate from not even having final words. John just went to sleep. He had no idea. We do not always kiss before one of us goes out and the other one stays home!”
She moved her legs restlessly, and Elliot whimpered at the vibration of his mother’s dread. His little shudder definitely meant he would wake soon, and the pale light of dawn was showing around the pulled curtains.
“Then we will be more careful to always insist we will have a proper goodbye even if it makes us late arriving where we are expected,” Colin said firmly. “Pen, it is almost morning. I feel we are too tired to even sleep at this point. We must break this cycle of sitting up all night. Maybe we will wash up quickly, change Elliot’s nappy, and visit that bakery that is so early with the fresh cakes? We can have a cake for breakfast, and Elliot will doze while we drive. I know it is not a healthy meal, but the sugar might turn this melancholy into some odd balance where the anxiousness flattens to let us sleep early this evening?”
It was tragically indulgent of them, and a complete abandonment of the baby’s careful schedule. But neither of them had the will to keep their little boy awake when they were too miserable to really play with him. Elliot loved hearing a story, but Colin’s voice was hoarse from fatigue and weeping. Penelope could not even pretend she was not upset long enough to tell the story of the funny cows locking the nice farmer out of the barn, making it necessary to stack hay bales until he could climb into the loft and go through the window.
Elliot’s little mind was not able to track entirely that nice Uncle John was forever absent, but he had definitely cried with her when it was explained that they were sad over him going away. Any change from the dull and muted attempt to keep things normal would be useful.
“We must not have an iced cake,” Penelope said. “It will remove all pleasing him with warm buttered toast when he is grumpy to get up.”
Her husband took the small boy off her, in order to let her wiggle free from the blankets pulled too tightly around her for a warm night. She was not shivering because of a physical cold. The grave would wait for them, and God willing it would long even further for their only child and his siblings after him.
“I will explain our needs and we can agree on something suitable for serving with coffee,” Colin said. “You get yourself ready and I will ask Miss Davis to ready Elliot. We will be in the carriage before it occurs to him that we are doing anything odd.”
They took extra blankets for the carriage, as the day was still trying to warm and burnish the dew off the plants in the little yards and parks they drove past. They drove past the Bloomsbury townhouse where Elliot had spent a few weeks until his exhausted parents could contrive to move him to his inherited home. They told the coachman to take the long way, aware they were asking quite a bit of a baker to have cake just out of the oven on such an early hour. It was typical to have something sweet ready for the case, but not to have made it that morning. Bread was just the biggest sale of a bakery’s day, and the staple that would have countless little children sent to get the daily loaf if it was not ready early enough.
Colin carried Elliot into the bakery with him, having knocked at the door and begged entry with a promise he would buy at least four things at the largest prices. He was waved inside and Elliot was shown the kitchen from the doorway. He had developed a child’s comfort of sitting in a busy kitchen from nights being watched by a nanny. He was permitted to visit with Cook if she was not strained by the daily menu.
“It was rather meant to be,” Colin said brightly, once he had put the baby back into the carriage and climbed up himself with a large basket packed and draped with a towel to keep the wares warm. “The baker is not Scottish but had just been taught Scots Diet Cake. It is not iced, but it is sweet and bright with lemon and cinnamon.”
Penelope settled Elliot on the seat between them, a blanket over his lap and a corrective pull of his thumb from his mouth. “I wonder if we might stop and offer to share our breakfast with Aunt Francesca?”
Colin sighed. “If she is sleeping well, I would not ask her out of bed and away from her peace,” he said.
Penelope smiled with understanding. “She is an early riser. It is a habit that is usually formed very young and is hard to break,” she said. “Even if one is up late and sleeping badly.”
However disruptive the grief had been to their home, it could not be compared to the home where the body had been found and the name of the estate’s patronage changed with such fragmented immediacy. Colin steadied the basket as the coachman climbed to his seat.
“There is no harm in knocking on her door,” he said. “We will leave quietly if we are bade to. We can at least leave some fresh bread, sausage rolls, and a few pastries. They are still hot.”
Penelope cuddled her son and looked down at his quiet slump. He was not sure why he was out of bed, but he trusted that the adventure would be worth it. He had come back to them ready for hugs, and happy to be led through it. Elliot had an innocent grace that he could not fathom a plan for much longer than tomorrow and it did not trouble him. It was actually a lovely bit of beginner’s luck to have children misunderstand time until they were old enough to know numbers and read a clock.
Francesca was indeed awake, and she came to the door herself. Penelope later realized they had been insensitive and created a moment of terror where Fran must have thought there was some illness or misfortune to add to her burdens.
“Penelope! Is there something wrong in the family? Is Elliot unwell?”
“No, we are fine. I am afraid we have been out of sorts and it has made Elliot notice we are unhappy,” she said. “We are trying to reset from a bad night with only a little rest and treating ourselves to a very good buffet of what the bakery had fresh from the oven. I was not sure you would be hungry, but I can recommend a toddler hug as a way to begin the day. We have explained about John, and he was sad to the extent he could understand it. Elliot asked about you right away.”
There would be no luckier child than to have had Fran and John for parents. The grief was banished with charm and placid relief for a moment, and she smiled at Elliot in Penelope’s arms.
“You are such a good boy. Uncle John thought so much of you and how delicate you could be. Who decided men cannot be sensitive, when it is such a force for good? Can I hug you, Elliot?”
“Hi Aunt Fran,” the boy said. “Uncle John watching from Heaven. Best horses in Heaven, and pretty songs all day on the clouds.”
He leaned forward and his Aunt took him, her arms clutching him to her and looking stuck between joy and the peril of a smothering fit of tears. A small body could only hold so strongly, but he was intensely patient in the heavy moment.
“John would love to sit in a cloud with music playing while he contemplated the selection of horses to buy and savoured a book,” she said. “You all must come in. We will have something to eat and think of him. I think your mama must have explained very well, because you see it just the way he would have it.”
Years later, when the direct link to John’s death was less clear, Elliot would be known for hugging his family members much the way Colin did. He would put long arms around them, and speak to them with profound sincerity. There was no pain that would make him awkward if he was permitted to hold the wounded party and give what ease his soft heart could lend. He would add a clause to the household contracts giving mandatory days off for death, and have the minister to his own parlour to make sure they had spiritual solace without having to manage the cost of a hansom across the city.
Penelope did not stop worrying about losing her husband, but she stopped wondering who would care for her. She made a point of bringing Elliot at times people raised eyebrows to see a little boy in a house of mourning, because his embrace had a living warmth that did not go brittle in a brave and icy calm. For all his love of a ghost story, his manners around a casket were grounded and simple. The living were not to be eclipsed by the lost. They were more important because their needs were not done with last wishes carried out.
Elliot was the living emblem of a future Penelope once believed hopeless for her. He could be the sign not to give up for many other people. She would never regret seeing Colin’s drive to bring solace take root in a man who would vote in Parliament. Her son would have power and think of every choice from the view of a person who did not choose to have almost no influence over society. John was a good man to lose, but he joined the inspirations for her son’s goodness.