Work Text:
my advice is to always answer the question
better that than to ask it all your life
should've kissed you anyway
ruin the friendship - Taylor Swift
"Life is so short," Eloise overheard Mama tell Benedict.
Maybe it was that—the straw that broke the camel's back and sent her straight in a carriage at the next opportunity to Bloomsbury. But she thought it had started far earlier than that.
If she had to identify one thing that made her to take the risk to see Theo again, it was actually seeing Cressida again that did it. Seeing Cressida, who last time they spoke had been so downtrodden, smile, well, that had lifted a weight from her shoulders as soon enough they had been talking as they had used to. Better, even, than before.
She didn't want to live her life avoiding things forever. She couldn't.
John agreed easily to take her back to Bloomsbury, though he insisted they should only go in the day. Eloise agreed because finding him in sunlight sounded far easier than trying to find a man she hadn't seen in years in the middle of the night.
Their first port of call was Chancery Lane Printers. She wasn't sure if he still worked there or not, but it seemed like the best starting point. Eloise knocked on the door while John waited at the carriage.
A man in his fifties opened the door. Much like Eloise, he wore all black in mourning, and he looked pale in the early morning light peeking across his face through the open crack of the door.
"Can I help you, Miss?" the man asked, tiredly.
"I'm very sorry to bother you," Eloise said, twisting her hands together. "It is only that I heard, well, oh, I—I knew Mr Sharpe, a few years ago, and I wanted—I'm sorry I'm not explaining this very well, but I'm here for Mr Theo Sharpe. Do you—"
"Aren't we all? You'd best come in, then, though you are early and it's mostly family in here," the man said, opening the door more widely. "Before we head off to the church together. Can I get you anything?"
"Oh, um, no thank you, if you could just let me know…."
Eloise trailed off as she entered the printer's shop, which was far different in look to what she remembered. Most of the desks and machinery had been cleared away, leaving space for a few chairs and tables on which refreshments were placed. Around eight adults all in black were sitting or standing around, talking in soft tones.
"Have I come at a bad time?" Eloise asked. "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt."
"You're alright," the man said, pulling out a chair for her. "Never a good time, really. That's the rest of the family over there, are you a family friend, then, you know his mother or aunt…?"
"No, I was Mr Sharpe's friend. We met a few years ago. Right here, in fact," she explained. Eloise cleared her throat and looked again around the room, sensing the familiar air of mourning. "Um, I'm terribly sorry for your loss. I lost my brother-in-law only the other day, so, well, I won't say I understand, but my heart is in the same place. If it would be better to come back another time…"
"You're alright. Don't worry about it now. It's nice to hear my son had a friend like you—I'm not surprised he never mentioned, to be honest, he was the sort to keep his business to himself. I regret that now. That we didn't talk perhaps as much as we should have about things," the man said.
"You son?" Eloise asked. "You're, um, Theo's father?"
"I was," the man said sadly.
"Was?"
Eloise felt a curling in her gut, like everything inside had tensed to prepare for the blow she felt coming.
"Do I still count as a father if my son is dead? Dead before he even turned thirty! God is cruel. Cruel to us all."
Eloise nodded wordlessly. The rest of the world dimmed like a candle flickering out in the wind and Eloise faded into its smoke vapours. Her mind drifted away from where her body remained, back into candle light memories, of darkened rooms, and thoughts she had not been able to share. She remembered his smile, she thought, when he believed himself to be right, when he wanted to tease her and make fun the most, while other little gestures were out of her grip.
She thought she knew the sound of his voice still. She could still remember the inflections and the notes of her name from his lips, though even that would leave her someday, because she would never hear it again.
"Miss? Miss? Are you alright?"
"What?" Eloise asked, blinking back to the present. "I'm sorry. I… I was lost in thought."
Theo's father handed her a handkerchief and tapped his cheek. "You're crying, Miss. Let me get you some brandy."
Eloise dabbed at her eyes, then curled the handkerchief in her hands and gripped onto it tightly. She looked at him when he returned with the glass of brandy. He had the same sort of face shape as his son, though she thought the shape of his eyes was different they were the same shade. His beard had turned grey at the edges.
"Have a drink," he said. "That'll help. And tell me, how did you know my son?"
Eloise did take the glass, but couldn't manage even a sip from it.
"Leave the poor girl be," a woman said. She was taller than Eloise and Theo's father. She had long brown hair pinned into a bun and wore a long sleeved simple black dress, but her gloves were far more detailed and of good quality. She carried a notebook under her arm, which looked well-used.
Eloise didn't know why she was noticing such things.
"Forgive my brother," the woman said, putting the notebook down on the table. "For crowding you. Do have the brandy, though. It'll keep you warm. You'll need it. They said it's going to be windy today and I am not looking forward to standing around by the church, though maybe if it steals all of our air away we can all join him in the ground."
"You shouldn't joke about it," Theo's father scolded.
"He joked about it 'til the very end and so shall I. Go on, brother, try talking to your wife for a change. God knows she needs you to try right now," Theo's aunt, who Eloise was quickly growing fond of, said. She waved her brother away, then turned back to Eloise and sat opposite her. "Well, then, stranger. I should like to sit with you now—I've had too many hours of wailing and crying and should like to rest my mind in the company of a stranger. If you don't mind."
"Of course," Eloise said, faintly.
"Very good. And if you're not going to drink that, then give it here."
Eloise slid the brandy glass across the table, then watched the woman drink. She had higher cheekbones and a more cutting brow than her nephew but the resemblance was clear from her height and her biting comments.
"What… What happened?" was all Eloise was able to say.
"You don't know? Well. He passed… Tuesday. Yes, it was Tuesday, I remember. I walked into his room to check on him in the morning—he'd been sick, you know, coughing a lot—and there he was. Cold. Still. I'd never seen him so still. He wasn't the type to sit still ever." Theo's aunt downed the rest of the brandy, then put the glass back on the table. "He'd make all sorts of jokes about it too. That he was going to cough me up a fortune. That the fumes of his dad's attempts at cooking was going to do his lungs in, you know, all that."
Eloise clung to the handkerchief. "Tuesday? This Tuesday?"
"Yes, just two days ago, I know, it was so sudden. He'd only been sick for, what, I think, I don't know, a couple of days before that. We thought he'd just caught the flu and he didn't make a big deal of it. I should have known, really, all that joking—he didn't want us to worry. Oh, he'd hide all sorts of things from his parents growing up, you know, and he'd tell me instead because he didn't want them to worry. I suppose I thought he'd tell me if he thought he really was in trouble, though with the doctors not able to do much anyway for the cough I don't suppose he thought it'd make any difference, but still. I thought he would have told me, does that make sense? God, look at me talking your ear off. Ignore me, please, I'm making a complete mess of things."
"No. No. I… Tuesday," Eloise muttered. "That is so sudden. To think, if I had come a few days earlier…"
"You can't go thinking about the what ifs of life," Theo's aunt said, with the wisdom of womanhood. "They're like river currents—they'll whisk you away to all the wrong places or drown you. Best to think of other things. Yes. Let's think of other things. Did I overhear you say you were a friend of his?"
"Yes, I… I was, yes."
What would he have said if she had shown up at his doorstep while he was on his deathbed? Would he have greeted her with a smile or looked at her like a ghost? She liked to think he would have have said her name, invited her to sit for a while, and asked her about books. She might have read to him, then, and sat with him until he fell asleep. She might have said hello, she might have said goodbye, and she might have felt something other than numb.
Theo's aunt held onto the brandy glass and tapped it with her nails.
"You're not from around here, are you?" she asked. "No. You can call me Lizzy. That lady over there with the dark hair is Theo's mother, the others are his cousins, his father—you've already met him—my other brother, Edward and his wife, Jacob—old family friend, and Mr Harris, owner of this place and kind enough to let us use it before we go to church. Thought it'd be good to come where he spent so much time and reminisce, you know? There you are. Now you know everyone so you don't need to look like a lost little lamb any more."
"A lost lamb?" Eloise breathed in slowly, then out. "That's not inaccurate. I didn't… I didn't think when I came here, I…"
"I have no idea how you knew to come here, to be honest, we only told family and Mr Harris to meet here, but maybe you were called here like the rest of us to remember him in some way?"
"I didn't… I didn't know," Eloise stated.
She let go of her tight grip on the handkerchief and tried to flatten it down in her lap. She'd creased it all up something terrible, but nothing she did removed its creases.
Lizzy put a hand on her wrist and patted her arm, her actions far more gentle than the words that followed, "I didn't know about you and I don't think anyone here knows you either. What are you here for, if not the funeral of my nephew?"
"I came to see him," Eloise told her. "That was all. Last time we spoke, it didn't end with either of us being kind. I wanted… I don't know. When my brother-in-law passed, so recently too, I was reminded how short life can be."
"Ah," Lizzy muttered, looking at Eloise's mourning clothes in a new light. "I see. You did not know he had passed. Dear me, what a way to find out. You didn't see it in the paper, I suppose, but if you're not looking for that sort of thing it's easy to miss. I should have let you drink the brandy after all."
"It's alright. I don't think it would go down well right now."
"Mm. Perhaps not. Miss…"
"Oh. Bridgerton. Eloise Bridgerton. I'm so sorry for not introducing myself, I—"
Lizzy waved her hand as if the swat the apology away, then called over to her brothers for another glass of brandy.
"You may as well stay," Lizzy said, shrugging. "Whatever you've got to say, you can say it over his grave."
Her heart sank.
"It's not really the same," Eloise said.
"No. But at least he will hear you. I have much to say, personally, to that boy now. Imagine! Our Theo. Hiding away a pretty young lady from us all, well, I'm rather upset about it for one. He should've at least taken you to see his mother—"
"We weren't… Involved."
"No?"
"No," Eloise confirmed, shaking her head.
"God, that's even sadder. Did you even get a little kiss out of it for all your trouble? He might have, if you had come to see him, honestly. Ah, but then you would have gotten sick too, so I suppose it's for the best," Lizzy rambled, taking another brandy from Theo's father.
"I didn't kiss him," Eloise said, numbly.
Why hadn't she just kissed him? If she had known this was going to happen, she would've kissed him back then, if only to know what it was like, and now even if she did kiss anybody she wouldn't ever know what it would've been like with him.
Lizzy handed her the brandy wordlessly. Eloise took a sip and it burned down her throat. She put it down on the table and pulled a face, which made Lizzy chuckle at her expense.
"Not a fan of brandy? He wasn't either. If you want my advice, not that you've asked for it, but I do typically give very good advice, you should take this as a lesson in life to always do what you want to do and live without regrets. Otherwise, you'll get to my age and you won't just have Theo Sharpe to regret. Many other countless things will weigh on you. No, best to live and do as you want." Lizzy patted her shoulder. "Ah, remind me on later—I should put your name down on the attendance list. His mother wants to keep track of everyone. Make sure we stay in touch. That sort of thing."
Eloise heard the church bell chime eleven o'clock and saw Theo's father tense.
"Time to go," Lizzy mumbled, taking one last sip of the brandy. She picked up the notebook and stood. "I've got to stand by my sister-in-law. Need to look after her, really. If you don't want to talk to anyone, stick to the back, but I think she'd like to meet you at least after the ceremony if you can stick around. Nice to meet you, anyway."
"Was it?" Eloise asked.
"Ha, you do have some snark to you. That's good. And, yes, it was. Any friend of his is one of ours."
Eloise took a seat at the back of the church during the ceremony. At one point, when they rose to sing the first hymn, Theo's father looked back to glance at her and Lizzy nudged his shoulder to tell him he ought to be singing instead. But otherwise no one paid her any mind and she sat there ringing the handkerchief between her hands waiting for tears to fall.
She didn't cry at the prayers or the hymns.
Numb.
She should have.
Numb.
Why hadn't she?
Numb.
She should have come to see him sooner. She should have wrote. She would have liked to know his thoughts on Walter Scott, who she'd read religiously on her trip to Scotland only to be disappointed by sheep for company. She would have liked to know his thoughts on the East India Company, which greatly concerned her. She would have liked to have someone to talk to about all those things and more.
Anger.
He was the one who said he would return to his life and hers to her own. Alright, he had said that and she hadn't exactly agreed, but that had been that. They hadn't had a proper goodbye. They were never going to.
Why should she be sad about it? If he had wanted to see her again, he could have found her. Somehow. Her life wasn't a secret. Perhaps a letter. Yes! Why hadn't he sent a letter if he had known he was dying? He should have!
He should have at least told his aunt, for God's sake. Or his mother. His poor mother hadn't stopped crying since the ceremony had started. Theo's father hadn't cried at all, but he stood like a statue.
Stupid boy, she thought, as his father stepped up to the front of the church. Stupid boy.
"My son. Was. He was a rebel soul. He… Well. He wrote plenty of words himself. Don't know why I should say any more for him."
The man nodded to himself, then at Lizzy, who took his place at the front.
Lizzy held the notebook in her hands and said, "My nephew wrote all the time. Most things he shared with me, with us, but this he didn't. When I found him, dead in his bed, he had this by his side and a simple note asking if it was possible to make an attempt at publishing it after his death. I haven't read it yet. None of us have—thought we ought to do it together, with him here. Fitting, isn't it?"
In the moment of quiet, as Lizzy turned to the first page, all Eloise could hear was Theo's mum crying.
"Halee's—am I saying that right?—no, Halley's Comet. Oh, it's a poem. Right. Halley's Comet.
I find new worlds in books I read,
where pages turn to…
Lizzy breathed in, then looked up from the notebook to Eloise's eyes. She breathed out, then kept reading.
"where pages turn to blue eyes.
So rename this heart of mine,
and watch it curve periscope skies
on nights our telescope eyes meet."
When Lizzy finished the poem, all facade of calm ended, and her face scrunched like the handkerchief in Eloise's hands, and tears ran freely down her face. She made an attempt to wipe them away, then tried to turn the page, but couldn't get another word out properly.
Finally, Lizzy said, "I can't. I just can't."
She sat down next to her sister-in-law, who had stopped crying, and the two women held hands.
"I don't have any more tears, Liz. You can cry now for me," Theo's mum said.
Those were the only words she said for the entirety of the funeral.
Afterwards, Eloise stood in the churchyard and watched his father throw soil down onto the coffin. She could see John across the street, waiting by the carriage, and knew she couldn't spare much longer without questions being asked. Questions she was not in the mood to answer. She'd rather head straight home, sneak into her room, and stay under her bed covers for two whole days.
When it was only her that hadn't thrown soil down to the coffin, she felt their eyes turn to her. Eloise found it difficult to step forward, like her legs were made of stone, and they did not obey her. It was only when Theo's father waved her over that she managed to move.
"Your handkerchief…" Eloise started.
"Not mine," he said, sniffing. "Was his. Keep it. May as well. Now, it's your turn, Miss Bridgerton, if you'd like to."
Eloise picked up the soil and opened her hand to see it in her palm. It was not the goodbye she had anticipated at the start of the day. In every interaction in her mind, he had always replied, always said something—even if it had something hurtful, or biting, or as blunt as his aunt, or as kind as his mother, she would have welcomed it, all of it, any of it, to the silence she had now.
"You said you were going back to your life," she said, through tears. "That didn't mean you could die. Why did you… Why was time cut so short?"
She tossed the soil and wished she was throwing her fist at his chest instead. Wished she could rage, toss all of his notebook papers across the room, wished she could break his pencil and say
You wrote me into the stars, but never wrote to me! All of those words and none sent to me! Why didn't you send for me?
Why didn't I kiss you back then?
"Well, that's that," Lizzy said, gruffly. "That's all of us. God, I say we all need a bloody drink. Boar's Head, anyone? I'll buy the first round if the rest of you make sure I don't pass out in the street."
Eloise looked back at the carriage.
"I can't stay," she said. "My family will be expecting me. But thank you for letting me stay."
Lizzy patted her sister-in-law on the back, then waved off the others to go ahead to the pub. When they were out of earshot, she asked, "What's Halley's Comet?"
"What makes you think I know?"
"Alright, blue eyes. Don't tell me. I'll find out myself."
Eloise grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. It wasn't anything we spoke about before—from what I remember, anyway. But it's… It's a comet that comes around… I think, maybe 80 years? Something like that. I'm not sure why he'd choose that—"
"Don't be stupid," Lizzy scolded. "You're a smart girl and you know what it means. You just don't want to think about it because you're already dead on your feet. Just don't make me jump in after you if you leap in after his coffin like some Greek tragedy. I'm far too old for that. I'm not the biggest reader in the world, and even I can tell, it's a poem worth reading. So, great, now I've got to figure out publishing. God, I'm rambling again. You'd best get home, then."
Eloise hesitated.
"If… If you need help with that, write to me, please," Eloise told her. "Write to me and I'll pay for the costs, if it comes to that. I promise."
Whistledown Magazine
Eloise Bridgerton Was A Once In a Lifetime Woman In Publishing, Writing and… Romance
written by guest columnist Phoebe Featherington, 1986
Eloise Bridgerton was a rare pioneer of her time. Once accused in her youth of meeting with radicals by my own ancestor Penelope Bridgerton (nee Featherington, best known as the first Whistledown), Bridgerton led a long life of radical literary work and political activism.
She is unique in that her writing career began in sponsoring the work of other writers for publication. In the early world of printing, many authors (including Jane Austen) had to pay for their own costs when the publisher did not accept the work. Eloise Bridgerton had a knack for spotting work that would capture the imagination and the heart of her literary audience. Her first sponsorship, a collection of poetry—sold decently well, but set a foundation for a career to heights few ever reached.
Many have studied over the years the poems themselves for their simple but raw nature, the poet himself (a man of humble origins by the name of Theo Sharpe), and how Eloise Bridgerton's sponsorship of the poetry collection changed the boundaries of women in publishing. It was the latter topic I was most interested in and so my studies led me to Chancery Lane Printers where this collection—Halley's Comet—had been printed, along with all of Bridgerton's other works.
It was there I discovered Eloise Bridgerton was even more than what anyone had ever thought her as. Who had seen her as a figure in romance? She never married, never had children, there was no evidence of any relationship—but then… Chancery Lane.
One must ask why Bridgerton insisted on using Chancery Lane Printers first and only for her chosen sponsored works and later her own writings, when other printing houses would have been cheaper. Later, other prints would have been more specialised for her novels.
One must ask why Bridgerton chose a collection of poetry of all things to publish first, when she never wrote any poetry herself, and seemed to have favoured the novel above all.
One must ask why Eliza Sharpe would go to Eloise Bridgerton for assistance in publishing the collection. Though, Ms Sharpe had asked many for help before and had been refused.
The answer came when I met with Bloomsbury local Ms Simone Harris, a descendant of Mr Harris—the owner of Chancery Lane Printers during Bridgerton's career.
"My great-great-something great-uncle kept meticulous records," she told me. "I have them right here in a folder. I didn't think much of it, never really looked at them, but then I heard on the radio that Halley's Comet would be visible this year, and I got to wondering because I've only ever heard about that comet through Sharpe's poetry, and I knew it had been published through Chancery Lane."
Ms Harris discovered, buried in almost sixty years worth of all of the papers and records of visits and invoices to the printers, that a Mr T. Sharpe had worked at Chancery Lane from childhood until 1815. After which, we know from other records from his family, his apprenticeship had been completed, and he worked elsewhere in London intent on becoming a Master of his own shop.
"But that's not the important thing," Ms Harris told me. "Look. Right there. The whole shop closed for half a day—the day of Sharpe's funeral. I thought it was strange so I dug through the records some more. The family booked it out—he only charged them a penny—and look at this!"
I looked and right there, in black and white, was Sharpe's handwriting. He had closed up the shop alone for many nights throughout the social season of 1814. Perhaps, I thought, he had spent those nights writing in-between work.
And then Ms Harris showed me a simple piece of paper that changed all previous assumptions about Eloise Bridgerton.
Attendance List:
El. Sharpe
O. Sharpe
P. Sharpe (nee Smith)
Ed. Sharpe
T. Harris
...
E. Bridgerton
No one had ever thought that Eloise Bridgerton had attended the funeral of Theo Sharpe. He had been a print worker, a labourer, someone that normally she would have no interaction with whatsoever. She had published the work after being contacted by Sharpe's aunt. The idea there had been any interaction before then had been entirely unknown.
Why had she been there in the first place?
"Can I ask you something?" Ms Harris said. "Is there any evidence Miss Bridgerton was out and about going to meetings with radicals during her first season out?"
No.
None.
Whistledown had never retracted the statement, however, she never did. Without evidence, the assumption had been a disagreement between the girls. A disagreement later settled as the two had been as thick as thieves all their lives afterwards.
"Alright, then. Let me ask you this," Ms Harris said. "You're a writer and your great-great-whatsit Whistledown grandmother was too. If your best friend had been meeting with a man you thought wrong for her in the middle of the night during her very first season, would you name him in your magazine? Or would you twist the truth a bit? 'Meeting with radicals', no, she was meeting her fella!"
Halley's Comet, a collection of poems by Theo Sharpe, wasn't chosen by Eloise Bridgerton solely for its writing, its heart, or the sadness behind it, nor for the pleading of his family who so desperately wanted his last wish to be granted.
Eloise Bridgerton chose Halley's Comet because she was its muse.
Theo Sharpe wrote his love into the stars. Halley's Comet, a once in a life time experience. A short blaze through the sky. Her blue eyes. Their telescope eyes—both of them looking to the distance… People from different worlds looking beyond their reach. Theirs was a once in a lifetime love.
It sheds new light on Eloise Bridgerton's literary career. It wasn't what I had ever expected to find when searching for details of her influence on publishing, however, it puts an entirely new perspective on her publishing choices.
This month, Halley's Comet will greet our skies once more. We will not see its like again until 2061. As it blazes, I hope like me you think about this one thing: Bridgerton never did marry and she never had children—her chief interest was in the written word, but she did commit to one thing in her life.
She never used any printers apart from Chancery Lane for her works.
And that, dear reader, says more than words ever could.