‘Better late than not at all, I think,’ said Lady Best, openly assessing Etta.
Etta turned her chin up and said nothing, smiling in what she hoped was a mildly polite manner. She didn’t like the way Lady Best looked at her, like she was a distasteful museum exhibit.
A brunette about Etta’s own age – perhaps slightly older – joined Lady Best. She peered timidly around the door frame at Etta.
‘Do let me introduce my daughter. Like you, she too will be enjoying the Season. Clarissa, this is Lady Bainbridge and her daughter Henrietta.’
Clarissa Best smiled, seemingly inclined to be friendlier than Lady Best. She was short, plump, with warm brown eyes. Etta held out her hand, and then wondered too late whether this was how ladies greeted one another in 1817.
Luckily she was not too far off. Clarissa briefly took her hand, then bowed slightly. Etta quickly dipped back at her, about half a second too late.
‘It is lovely to meet you, Miss Bainbridge. You must call me Clarissa.’
Etta blinked. She had honestly not considered any other option until this moment, but she knew there were far more rules than her mother had been able to fill her in on in the last week.
‘Yes, please call me Etta. Henrietta. Or Etta. Whichever you prefer. Henrietta, probably.’
Her mother shot her a barbed glance, but thankfully Clarissa just laughed. Her laugh was tinkling and elegant, Etta thought, but she found herself unable to be annoyed. The girl in front of her seemed genuine. Etta liked her at once.
Lady Best cut in before Clarissa could reply. ‘Well, Clarissa, let us leave Lady Bainbridge and her daughter totheir supper. We must call on you when we’re in town – after all, we are practically neighbours.’
Etta reflected on this exchange over her beef bourguignon. She hadn’t even made it to London yet, but at least there would be one friendly face – albeit perhaps not one her mother wholly approved of. She was sure that, in time, she’d find out why not.
The city came on slowly, Etta thought the following day as they embarked on the last leg of what was the longest, most interminable journey she’d ever suffered through – more slowly than it had in 2023. At first, she thought she was entering a small town as she gazed through the carriage windows. But then the streets became increasingly crowded, and she saw the distant but unmistakable shapes of St Paul’s and Westminster Palace.
Of course, there was no Shard or Gherkin or even the London Eye. No Tate Modern or BT Tower. But London was London, she realised. Even two hundred years in the past, full of horses and stinking of their excrement, it was still somehow the same.
Oh, there was dirt and deprivation. But London had dirt and deprivation in 2023 as well, albeit from cars rather than animals. The only real difference was the colour of everyone’s skin; she had never seen so many white faces. Out in the Bainbridges’ large country estate she hadn’t really thought about it, but London without its visible multiculturalism was nauseating. It was one thing to see people in period clothing, she thought, but the thin, short, pale bodies were somehow much more jarring.
‘Everybody looks the same here,’ said Etta.
Lady Bainbridge looked at her quizzically. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Never mind, Mama. Never mind. I’m sure there are all kinds of people in London, of course,’ Etta backpedalled, seeing she’d put her foot in it. She belatedly remembered that no Londoners ever liked being told London wasn’t the best city in the world, regardless of what century it was.
‘Oh yes, people of all kinds reside in London. You know, the Bests even have a footman from the colonies! Think of that!’
‘Which colonies?’
Lady Bainbridge paused. ‘Goodness, you know, I’m not sure. We shall have to ask.’
The carriage came to a stop. As Etta was helped down from the carriage in her wildly impractical muslin maxi dress, wrinkling her nose at the stench of horse shit and body odour, she gazed up at an enormous cream stone building. It was, she thought, the kind of building she used to look at on Rightmove and dream about. In 2023, it would be owned by a Russian oligarch. She was almost certain of it. Or a Saudi prince.
But in 1817, it belonged to her.
Or, no, her brother Charlie. Because of primogeniture and anyway she, a woman, couldn’t exactly just nip to the local estate agent. She pulled at her suddenly too-tight bonnet strings.
One of the coachmen/horse-type people had already knocked on the front door and a staid-looking man who had very much come out of the ‘Butlers R Us’ catalogue was standing by it ready to usher them in. Footmen appeared and began to unload the carriage and her mother stepped forward to greet the elderly retainer in charge of them.
‘Good afternoon, Monsett. Do come, Henrietta. I expect there is a nuncheon waiting for us.’
Etta sighed and followed her mother. She very much hoped that a nuncheon was similar to a luncheon, because yet again she was extremely hungry. Perhaps she would try inventing the sandwich again. Last time her mother had been appalled to see her create one, never mind eat it, but Etta was nothing if not optimistic.
‘What ho! Looking pretty smart there, Hetty!’
Charlie had appeared at the door, hat in hand.
‘And you, I must admit,’ Etta said, looking at his outfit. ‘Off to a funeral, are we?’
