Lady Vernon and Her Daughter: A Novel of Jane Austen's Lady Susan

by Jane Rubino

  chapter forty-one

  When Reginald left, Lady Vernon sat down to write to her Aunt Martin.

  Lady Vernon to Lady Martin

  Churchill Manor, Sussex

  My dearest Aunt,

  If you have not heard from James for some days, it is because he has taken it into his head to come down to Sussex and get himself into mischief. He came to us yesterday and set about teasing us all by behaving toward Frederica as a lover, so that Mr. deCourcy—who has come to feel something like interest in her—actually exhorted from me this morning a promise that I would put an end to all of James’s expectations! The promise was given, and Mr. deCourcy delays his departure for Kent only long enough to have the pleasure of seeing my cousin’s hopes dashed. I can only hope that James will gratify him by putting on as creditable a show of dejection as of ardor.

  I do not think that Reginald will be in Kent for very long—only long enough, I suspect, to inform his parents that they must give up all expectations of a match between him and Miss Hamilton. The way will then be clear for him and Freddie; soon they will both be in London, which will always be the fairest field of action for a young couple to put the finishing touches to a romance.

  Your affectionate niece,

  Susan Vernon

  While she was thus engaged, Reginald deCourcy was making some small preparations for his departure, which was to take place on the following day. He had no doubt that Lady Vernon intended to speak to Sir James that evening, and Reginald wanted only to remain long enough to see his rival’s ambitions thwarted before he was gone. Reginald was not insensible of the fact that he would be bringing to Parklands a similar disappointment; he could no more marry his cousin than Frederica Vernon could marry hers, and he had come to understand that the brief pain that his parents must experience would be nothing to the prolonged anxiety of expectation.

  In the business of arranging some small papers and letters, he found the sheet upon which Miss Vernon had written the receipts that she had promised to send to Sir Reginald. Reginald’s keen perception was immediately aroused by the difference between this example of Miss Vernon’s writing and the letter—there was a slight dissimilarity in the hand, and a pronounced distinction between the elevated expressions of the petition and the more sensible prose of the receipts. Some deception had been practiced, of that he was certain, and he resolved to speak to Frederica before her mother reprimanded her for a letter that she had not written.

  He waited in the front hallway until he saw Frederica and Wilson turn down the avenue and then went out to meet them. He asked permission to speak to Frederica alone. Wilson withdrew with her customary discretion and Reginald waited only until she was out of earshot before he produced the letter and placed it in Frederica’s hands.

  Frederica’s glance changed from one of puzzlement to deep embarrassment as she read the letter, and she immediately began to stammer something by way of explanation.

  “Say nothing, Miss Vernon. I have proof that this letter is a counterfeit—I found a sample of your own hand, but not before acting upon this forgery with my usual haste. I was deceived so far as to confront your mother and plead your case.”

  Frederica was in considerable distress and would have run to the house immediately had he not caught her hand. “One moment, I beg you, Miss Vernon. This letter—no doubt the mischief of your cousin, who fled to Billingshurst right after he left it at my door—has been productive only of good. Depend upon it, if the content of this letter had not so distressed your mother, she would not have been deceived by the hand and then she would never have agreed to relinquish all desire for a match between you and Sir James. I will not detain you. I know you will wish to hear this from her own lips. You will not be made unhappy any longer.”

  “I will go to her at once, but I beg you, sir,” Frederica faltered, “do not think ill of my cousin. He is often so lively and teasing that those who do not know him well will take offense where he does not mean to give it.”

  “If he gives you up with as good grace as you have endured his foolishness,” replied Reginald gravely, “I will think as well of him as you like.”

  “I have no doubt that he shall.” Frederica found it hard to repress a smile as she said this. “I am certain that he is already very remorseful for what he has done.”

  Sir James was, in fact, so far from remorse that he had managed to persuade the party at Billingshurst that Mr. and Mrs. Vernon had quite depended upon his bringing them all to dine. Mrs. Smith, whose natural high spirits and delight in showing herself off as a married woman left her quite unembarrassed at meeting her dear cousins Catherine and Reginald, immediately supported the scheme. The Parkers declined to go, on account of Mr. Parker’s having been up all the previous night nursing his favorite dog and Mrs. Parker’s conviction that if Mrs. Vernon had wanted to know her, she would have waited upon her when they first came to Billingshurst. They were not averse to encouraging their guests, however, as their company included Mrs. Vernon’s relations and Miss Vernon’s particular friend Miss Manwaring and her brother. There was only the matter of what the ladies were to wear and how they were to be conveyed to be settled, and so they all set off, with Mr. and Mrs. Smith in their curricle, Claudia Hamilton, Lewis deCourcy, and Maria and Robert Manwaring in the Parkers’ chaise-and-four, and Sir James on horseback.

  This happy party appeared just before five o’clock. Lady Vernon and Frederica, who were sitting with the children, observed the party from an upper window that overlooked the avenue.

  “Mama, there is my cousin—and there are two carriages with him!”

  “Good heavens!” Lady Vernon cried, running to the window. “Is there no end to his mischief! He has brought them all from Billings hurst.” The children were delighted with the appearance of the party, for there had been few visitors and no excitement or diversion since they had come to Churchill.

  “What will my aunt and uncle say?” Frederica exclaimed.

  What Mrs. Vernon was to say was very soon heard from the upper hallway, for there was a great bustle and exclamation from Mrs. Vernon’s dressing room, and when Lady Vernon and Frederica emerged, they saw her in an animated exchange with her brother at the top of the stairs.

  “What can Sir James mean! They cannot want to stay to dinner!” exclaimed Mrs. Vernon in horror. “Mr. Vernon is somewhere about the grounds, and I do not know when he is to be home, and I have got nothing but a shoulder of mutton for a family table!” Her distress was very great, and she was caught between her anger at Lady Vernon’s cousin and her desire for that lady’s opinion on how the business of unexpected visitors was to be managed.

  Lady Vernon attempted to placate her sister. “My cousin thinks that every household follows the informality and liveliness of Ealing Park, but for the sake of these guests, we must endure his impertinence. Let us go down together to receive them while Mr. deCourcy sends for Mr. Vernon. Frederica can give orders to the kitchen—your table is such a superior one that it will be nothing for your cook to accommodate visitors.”

  Few could have been as calm as Frederica in the face of Cook’s hysterics when informed that they would be twelve to dinner. “Twelve!” the good woman cried again and again, as though she might reduce the number by repeating it. “How am I to feed twelve people on what I have got in the larder?”

  Frederica explained away all of the difficulty in a very systematic fashion, for she was inclined to undertake even a domestic problem with scientific precision. There was bouillon enough for a potage of julienne vegetables and a second of chestnut purée, which would do as well as a cream soup. The fishmonger, who kept a stew pond, had sent a supply of whitebait only that morning (Vernon having an insatiable appetite for delicacy), and Frederica repressed a smile as she determined that the portion of turbot was insufficient for twelve, so her uncle must sacrifice his private indulgence to hospitality. The haunch of mutton might be sliced and served fricando with some curried fowl, and there were peas and potatoes and cu
cumber and cabbage, which might be flavored with something like capers or bacon. Frederica’s tranquillity appeased the cook so that even her objections to made-over dishes (though her mistress was willing to admit them at the children’s table, or when she and Mr. Vernon dined alone) was overcome and she conceded that enough ham might be left on the bone to be turned into a bruet with the addition of some leeks, and that if something like beaudinettes with a cream sauce were made of the cold salmon and shrimp, nobody would suspect that they had been served the evening before. As for a dessert, if there was not cake and fruit enough, they might appeal to Mrs. Chapman, who would surely take pity upon them and send them something from her pantry and hothouse.

  When the menu was fixed, Frederica went up to arrange her dress. Wilson urged her to change from her mourning to an evening dress of silver-gray crepe, to which Frederica was reconciled by the addition of a black sash.

  The party had assembled in the saloon, and when Frederica entered, Lucy Smith jumped up at once and cried, “Ah, here you are! For shame—what would I have done if you had caught me! How miserable my dear Mr. Smith and I would have been if you had succeeded! You cannot be angry—you will shake hands in spite of it?”

  Frederica could not but smile at such willful good nature, and she extended herself even so far as to shake hands with Mr. Smith, who looked somewhat abashed by the courtesy of a woman whom he had pronounced stupid and proud.

  The conversation was awkward—nobody could be comfortable except for those whose conduct ought to have rendered them contrite and silent. Sir James was all ease and affability and Lucy Smith was delighted with everything. “What a sweet and natural spot your Churchill is! The woods appear quite wild! I do not like it at all when a property is laid out all orderly and trim! What do you think, Claudia, do you not think that Churchill is much prettier than Gisbourne?” she cried, naming the Hamiltons’ country residence.

  “I cannot think meanly of the home in which I was brought up,” Claudia replied. Her younger sister’s marriage had left her between the obligation to think ill of Lucy’s elopement and the envy of a younger sister’s nuptials occurring before her own.

  “I think we all must have a particular attachment to the home in which we were raised,” observed Mr. Lewis deCourcy in his easy fashion, “but circumstances will often oblige us to live elsewhere. My childhood was spent in Kent, and as a young man I lived primarily in town. I was fond of them both, and yet now that I have settled in Bath, I am perfectly happy—or very close to it.”

  “That is because you have the right disposition,” Sir James answered with a smile. “But many of us are too unyielding. We do not want to settle anywhere but in familiar surroundings.”

  “Which often means that the lady must yield,” was Lady Vernon’s cool reply. “Unless her home and her husband’s are in the same county. A gentleman can settle where he likes while his lady is often removed from all that is familiar to her.”

  “And yet you must agree, cousin,” Sir James replied cheerfully, “that many marriages come out of a family connection, while the prospective couple are still children. Visiting each other’s households and taking pleasure in each other’s society must ensure that if a union should arise from it, there will be no feeling of unhappiness or sacrifice on the part of the lady.”

  “I think there must always be unhappiness when a lady is taken from her home,” observed Mrs. Vernon. “I am sure that I cannot like Churchill Manor nearly so well as Parklands.”

  Even the Smiths, who were less sensible of what ought to give offense than anyone in the room, were uncomfortable at a declaration that slighted the family home of Lady Vernon and her daughter.

  “La!” cried Mrs. Smith. “Then you would have us never marry!”

  It was at this moment that Reginald came into the room with Vernon in tow. The latter could not conceal his agitation at the sight of the company, but he managed a few words of welcome and then, making his dress the excuse, hurried out of the room.

  Sir James, in very high spirits, took up the conversation where it had left off, and moving his chair closer to Frederica’s, he said, “I would have everybody marry. Let us all give up our claims to property and demands as to settlements that keep us single too long. I would marry this minute if the object of my affection would consent.”

  “Then you would marry too quickly for your own happiness,” said Reginald, “and for the lady’s, too.”

  “And yet if you wait too long, your opportunity to be happy may be lost forever,” observed Lewis deCourcy, whose natural civility attempted to keep the conversation away from unpleasantness. “I should not be the old bachelor I am today if I had not thought too long and seriously over each prospect. Someone inevitably cut me out before I could bring myself to advance my suit.”

  “I cannot think that we disagree, Uncle,” Reginald replied. “Where there is a genuine prospect of felicity, there is no need to delay from a want of fortune. We ought no more argue ourselves out of our happiness than we should allow ourselves to be argued into a union where there can be no promise of it. No gentleman can want a wife who finds him truly disagreeable and a woman of feeling would rather work for her bread than give her hand without her heart.”

  Frederica blushed deeply at this remark, and Miss Manwaring, sensing her friend’s unease, hastened to observe, “I agree with Lady Vernon, sir. Your remarks are colored by the power of choice, which your sex enjoys. The prospect of working for one’s bread is not a mean one, but it is not one that a lady is raised to. Marriage is the only situation for a gentlewoman of small fortune, and yet we cannot choose it, we must wait to be addressed. I daresay you, Mr. deCourcy, broke many hearts with your silence.”

  “My uncle cannot wish to marry,” declared Claudia. “He is rich enough and happy enough to be single.”

  “And yet,” replied her uncle with a smile that included Miss Manwaring, “those who have reached my age and are single are so because they have been too poor or too miserable to engage the affections of any lady.”

  Vernon did not come down again until the party was rising to go into the dining room, and they sat down to dinner with considerable discomfort on the part of both Vernon and his wife. She was in too much apprehension over her menu, and Vernon was oppressed by the benevolent gaze of Sir Frederick’s portrait on the opposite wall (as Reginald, acting with his usual resolve, had removed the portrait of Lady Vernon and her daughter and ordered Sir Frederick’s likeness brought down from the attic and hung in its place) and by the unhappy recollection that he had not had so many people at his table since Sir Frederick’s death.

  The conversation shifted from subject to subject until at last the weather and the roads and the excellence of a particular dish (which put Mrs. Vernon into a better humor, if it did not render her more talkative) were all gone over. Whenever there was a break in the conversation, Lucy Smith would inevitably say something to make one of the others blush or wince until, at the earliest possible moment, Mrs. Vernon rose and led the ladies from the table.

  Frederica now had the opportunity to sit down with Maria Manwaring and enjoy a quiet tête-à-tête, while Lady Vernon took up some needlework and Mrs. Vernon inquired of her cousin Claudia how Lavinia did and whether she would accompany Lord and Lady Hamilton to London. “In town, Lavinia and Reginald will be at leisure to see one another on a more frequent footing.”

  “La!” cried Lucy, who had been roaming around the room and exclaiming over everything that caught her eye. “We will not want my cousin in town except to fix the date and then he may run away again until the wedding! Lavinia will need to buy her wedding clothes, and nobody wants a gentleman about for that! And we may buy ours together, as I had not time to get a stitch before my marriage.”

  This remark produced something like a flush of embarrassment to Mrs. Vernon. “Then perhaps you ought not have been so impetuous,” she replied coolly.

  Lucy, however, who heard nothing that she did not wish to hear, addressed Frede
rica. “We may all three go to the warehouses together, for I cannot believe your beau will be put off much longer! What a pleasant man Sir James is! How can you not like him!”

  Frederica blushed at this remark, and Lady Vernon saved her from the obligation of making any reply by answering, “Sir James is our cousin, and I am sure that we both like him as much as we can—and sometimes more than he deserves. Our relations must claim a closer attachment than our friends and cannot be easily dropped from our acquaintance, though I believe many of us would divorce a cousin or a brother if we could.”

  Miss Manwaring said, “Indeed,” almost too quietly to be heard, and Lucy exclaimed, “Oh, I daresay you are right! Claudia would not love me half so much if I were not her sister!”

  Claudia Hamilton was spared the necessity of a reply by the appearance of the gentlemen, and the coffee and tea had no sooner been laid out than Lucy Smith cried, “Oh, what an excellent party we are—just so many gentlemen as there are ladies! And this room is such a fine size! Why, may we not have some dancing?”

  Mrs. Vernon was dismayed at her young cousin’s boldness, but Manwaring and Smith and even Sir James seemed to favor the proposal, and Vernon welcomed anything that might take the place of conversation.

  The furniture was pushed away and the carpets rolled up so quickly that all was made ready before the musician was thought of. Lady Vernon immediately proceeded to the instrument, with more thought of escaping the attentions of Sir James and Manwaring than accommodating the company. Her powers were well suited to the occasion, as she could perform any number of country dances with spirit.