I first saw London through a ferocious rain, the view from the carriage window all but obscured by the water sluicing down the glass.
Everything was gray and brown: the hazy forms of horses and carts, of people walking, of buildings rising steeply on both sides of the street. There were so many people, in spite of the rain. Some carried umbrellas but many did not; their clothing must be wet through. The tip of my nose bumped the cold window as I looked out, and my breath made fog upon the glass, blurring the scene still more.
Even through the muffling carriage walls and above the sound of the rain on the roof, I heard the sounds of the city like an assault. I did not know where in London we were, only that this was the most noise I had ever experienced all at once. How was it possible that horses and coaches and calling voices could produce such a din? I could not stop my thoughts from going to Miss Hall and her description of London’s sounds and smells from one of the many letters we had exchanged in our makeshift letter box during her years as my governess. You cannot imagine the noise, a ruckus from dawn until well after dark, people talking, carriages clattering along the streets, merchants calling for custom. And the smells of all that humanity in one place—we are odorous creatures, to be sure! There is nothing to compare to it in the country.
But with so many other things on which to rest my attention, the thought of her was not so poignant as usual; more dull ache than lancing pain.
Across from me my maid, Spinner, sat with wide eyes and pink cheeks as she peered through the window; she was so excited that I could actually hear it, a high, happy, tuneless humming coming from her throat. My own nerves snapped like nervous dogs, but in the forward motion of the carriage, the indistinct picture of the world outside, even the overwhelming tumult of the city, there was also something tentatively glorious.
I leaned my brow against the window, tucking my chin down toward my chest to hide the smile I could feel madly blooming.
In the scramble to get out of the rain, I did not take in much of my cousin John’s town house until I was ensconced in the drawing room, a cup of steaming tea in my hands and John’s wife seated across from me wearing as polite a mask as I had ever seen. She tilted her head, smiling with lips pressed closed, her eyes like shuttered windows for all the feeling they displayed. My eyes flitted birdlike around the room, keeping away from her face of their own accord, taking in lace curtains and framed landscape paintings and the graceful lines of the furnishings. The paper hangings were more pleasing than those at Rosings Park, an entire garden scene along one wall, archways and balustrades printed to look like marble with climbing plants bursting through every crevice available to them.
“If only you had time to write before coming all this way, Miss de Bourgh,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said, and I forced my reluctant eyes back to her masked face. “We expect my brother in but three days, and if he brings a friend, as he so often does without warning, I fear we haven’t enough guest rooms for you all.”
The implied rebuke made me feel as if I were surrounded by her on all sides. Multiple Mrs. Fitzwilliams, each more civilly disapproving than the last. There was an odd feeling, like insects crawling upon my limbs; I took a sip of tea and tried to ignore it, and nearly scalded my tongue. When I put my cup down again, it rattled against the saucer.
“I should have written,” I said. “I am sorry; the decision to come to Town was an . . . impulse. John said once that I was welcome any time I wished.”
Though that was years ago, now, before my cousin married. John had probably long since forgotten. Not to mention that the last impulse I obeyed sent the only person who ever truly cared to talk to me careening out of my life, and so logic would suggest that listening to my own impulses was . . . unwise. Yet Mamma left just that morning for a short visit to my uncle Fitzwilliam’s estate, and not two hours later I was dressed for travel, urging Spinner to pack more quickly, and crossing frequently to the window, as if my seeking eyes might make the carriage ready sooner.
“John said . . . ?” Mrs. Fitzwilliam frowned into her tea. “Well. It would not be the first time he invited guests without informing me.” She looked back up at me, false smile back in place. “The Season is just beginning; you’ve come at exactly the perfect time, if you plan to stay. Perhaps the Darcys have space for you.”
A sip of her tea, a tip of her head. I flinched, reminded, with breathtaking sharpness, how much I disliked Mrs. Fitzwilliam when first we met.
“I must confess myself surprised,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said now. “I thought you never came to London, Miss de Bourgh.”
“I do not. I mean, that is, I never have. Until today.” I swallowed and tried to ignore the strangling way my heart beat in my throat.
“How extraordinary,” she said. “I always understood you to be too unwell to travel. Is Lady Catherine not with you?”
“No,” I said. “Mamma is visiting Lord Brightmoor.”
“John’s father? How nice for her to see her brother; and how odd that you are here, and not there with her. And you did not bring your companion, either? Mrs. . . . oh, what was her name? That quiet woman who played the pianoforte so nicely?”
“Mrs. Jenkinson.” I shook my head, sniffed a little; my nose was suddenly dripping, as if I had a cold coming on. “No, I—she remained at Rosings Park.”
A raised brow and a little silence as Mrs. Fitzwilliam looked at me, clearly waiting for something. But I’d no idea what she was waiting for, and so the silence built around us like walls.
She had not thrown me out. She could not throw me out, I realized, with an unexpected thrill. My back straightened, like a plant stretching up to meet the sun. I was the mistress of Rosings Park. She had married into consequence; I was born to it. Mrs. Fitzwilliam folded her lips together, and I looked back at her, trying to hold on to my own sense of importance.
“The colonel will be home for dinner,” she said at last. “No doubt you will want to refresh yourself before he arrives. Your things will have been put upstairs.”
There was a pause, and then I stood, slow and careful as an old woman. “Thank you,” I said, and followed the footman to whom she gestured through the drawing room door, down a short hall, and up two long graceful staircases to the guest rooms near the top of the house.
When the door to my chamber closed behind me, I released my breath and slumped against the wall. Spinner was waiting for me, but she stood, quiet and attentive, allowing me time. Away from Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s scrutiny, my body began to shake, the enormity—and the boorishness, the thoughtlessness—of what I had done cascading through me. I was grateful for the wall’s solidity.
At last, I raised my eyes and took in the room. Well proportioned, with elegant furnishings and pale blue walls, it was less ornate than my chamber at Rosings Park, and somehow calming. The floor was dark wood, polished to a high shine, and softened by a carpet woven in a pattern of flowers. At the far end was a window framed by curtains that looked like they were heavy enough to keep out all light when drawn. It was here that Spinner stood, hands clasped before her waist, looking at me.
“I have unpacked your things, ma’am,” she said.
I cleared my throat. “I do not know how long we will be staying. It seems my cousin is expecting other company.” I glanced at the bed, which was big and soft. “I think I will lie down for a little while.”
“Very well, ma’am.” She moved toward the bed, as if intending to help me into it, then stopped, swinging back to the window. “But first—come look.” Her smile was a heady thing, her fingers beckoning me closer.
I crossed the room to stand beside her and looked out. We were up high enough that I had to look down, down, down toward the street below. It was much quieter than the areas through which we drove earlier; just one or two people were walking, and only a single carriage was driving past. The street curved out of sight, a long line of handsome brick town houses pressed cheek to cheek, each with an identical black door. The rain had stopped, and water puddled at low points in the road. Then my gaze rose above the roofs of the houses across the street, and oh, oh—there it was—London unfurling before me, a jumble of rooflines and chimneys that poured smoke out into the gray-white sky, on and on as far as I could see. My mouth opened; I leaned closer to the window.
Beside me, Spinner let out a soft laugh. She looked very young in the pale light from outside, much younger than her four-and-twenty years. “It’s even bigger than I imagined it,” she said. “Think of all the people in all those buildings! You hear such stories of the city, but seeing it—”
“Yes,” I said, breathless. “It is as if the whole world is . . . right there.”
“Well, not quite the whole world, ma’am,” she said with a sideways smile that made me suddenly very glad that she was here with me; that I was not entirely alone on this mad adventure. “This is not even the whole of London, I’m sure.”
“Of course,” I said; but I did not entirely believe it.