Lady Susan Plays the Game

by Janet Todd

  Mrs Vernon was cross at finding herself forced into yet another tête-à-tête with Lady Susan – she had not got over the previous one – but she silently assented. The two women walked up to her dressing room and the door closed behind them.

  Mrs Vernon motioned her sister-in-law to a seat but Lady Susan remained standing. She had her back to the window and occasionally looked out of it with a pensive expression flickering across her face.

  ‘I am quite as bewildered by the arrival of Sir James as you must be,’ she began, turning her eyes earnestly on Mrs Vernon. ‘I had by no means expected it.’ She paused. ‘I really cannot say to you how sorry I am for what must seem an unpardonable intrusion. However,’ and she sighed a little before proceeding, ‘it is flattering to a mother.’

  She smiled gently to allow Mrs Vernon to adjust her thoughts. ‘As I am sure you have fathomed, dear sister, Sir James is warmly attached to my daughter and it seems he could not bear another moment without seeing her.’

  Mrs Vernon roused herself. ‘But Frederica,’ she began. ‘Surely she—’

  Lady Susan was now looking out of the window, shading her eyes from the wintry sun. Then, as if she had not heard Mrs Vernon, she spoke over her. ‘I think the little you have seen of the young man will have convinced you what a superb match he would be for any young lady. He speaks too much perhaps – he rattles – but he is young and will grow out of the habit. His temper is good and in all ways he could not be more eligible. It has given me the greatest pleasure as a mother to find that dear Frederica has attracted a man of his status and calibre.’

  ‘This is very sudden, Lady Susan. You have mentioned Sir James as a suitor, but now he is here it is not clear that your daughter much welcomes his suit in the way you had led us to believe.’

  Lady Susan sighed again. ‘It’s so difficult to know what Frederica welcomes and does not welcome. She’s so closed; she hides so much from me. But, as you see, she is too old for restraint: indeed she’s thrown it off in a rather dramatic way.’ Here Lady Susan looked frankly into her sister-in-law’s eyes and smiled conspiratorially, woman to woman. ‘I don’t propose to try for any other school for her – I doubt any would take her – and so it has occurred to me that, although I would not have countenanced Sir James appearing like this, it may now be the best thing to bring the possibility of this match into the open.’

  ‘But are you sure that such a match would ever be agreeable to your daughter?’ cried Mrs Vernon more aggressively than she’d intended. She gave Lady Susan a stony look. Lady Susan greeted it with another smile.

  ‘Dear Frederica is, I fear, not quite mature. If I thought there was anything exceptionable in this connection or that she had any rooted and appropriate dislike, I would of course drop the idea in an instant. But until now I had not known how warm was the affection Sir James held for my poor girl. This would surely touch the heart of any woman. I myself feel quite sure.’

  They were both silent. Catherine Vernon determined not to speak again. She didn’t trust herself. ‘One day, dear sister,’ resumed Lady Susan, ‘you will find a man who is all that you could wish in character and circumstance and see your sweet Arabella given to him. You will then know the kind of exultation as a mother that I now feel. But of course’ – and here she paused, giving another glance into the outside world while Mrs Vernon continued to be silent – ‘in the case of your daughter you will not need to be so grateful to fate, for she will have fortune enough to make a choice. As you know, to be comfortable, to be settled in life in a rank suitable to her birth and upbringing, Frederica must attract a man of the substance of Sir James – and, heaven be praised, she has done so. I do hope,’ and now Lady Susan moved from the window towards the bell rope beside the door (it was time to end the talk by summoning Barton to fetch her pelisse from her chamber), ‘I do hope that you can feel able to congratulate me on this favourable circumstance.’

  Mrs Vernon felt trapped. ‘Indeed, Lady Susan, if it is all as you say, then I must indeed congratulate you, and yet …’ Mrs Vernon stumbled over her words. Lady Susan seized the moment.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, dear sister. I know that you have the welfare of both me and Frederica at heart and I am most sincerely grateful.’ With a look of warm affection, she left the room.

  Mrs Vernon got up, took her thick cloak and walked slowly down to join the men, who were being helped into their greatcoats. She was discontented with herself.

  During the walk Frederica loitered miserably just behind the party as her mother led with Sir James. Reginald engaged his sister. Mrs Vernon had tried to include Frederica in a trio but the girl hung back; meanwhile Reginald pulled Catherine forward so that he could keep close to Lady Susan, who was vexed that he was near enough to hear the conversation she was having with Sir James.

  As a result, since his sister was almost silent, Reginald heard the visitor prattling on. Sir James was foolish: there was no hiding the fact, and he must seem a very odd choice as son-in-law, however large his acreage. Lady Susan talked as much as she could without offending decorum, but her companion refused to be silenced.

  ‘The horses were not lean,’ he said, ‘just right for the coach but not for a phaeton. They must be lower in fat, you see. I fancy townspeople put sleekness before speed,’ he giggled.

  Lady Susan came in quickly, ‘It has been so wet recently that—’

  ‘Yes yes,’ he exclaimed. ‘Horses, especially the mares, don’t like rain. People don’t think of that you know,’ he tittered again. ‘They think horses are just things in front of a carriage but they feel you know. My horses, bays, just a little different in hue you notice—’

  ‘The mud this season here,’ said Lady Susan ‘has been quite amazing.’

  Sir James laughed his high-pitched laugh; spittle was starting to form on the side of his mouth in his excitement. ‘Mud, mud, indeed,’ he cried. ‘Country mud is one thing, town mud another, I can tell you. You know in London my carriage wheels were thick with grime, thick I say, worse than Lincolnshire, and some people think Lincolnshire is all mud.’ He interrupted himself to laugh heartily. ‘A coach in town is impossible to keep trim. It’s like keeping an elephant in a parlour, an elephant in a parlour, you know. That’s very comical, isn’t it, Ned said it, but it’s true. It was all over scratches when we got home and filthy …’

  When they re-entered the house after a stroll none of them had enjoyed, Frederica dashed to her room. Her head reeled. She couldn’t escape from here as she had from Madam Dacre’s. There was nowhere to go and she had learnt the futility of flight without a haven. Also she was with the parent who was supposed to be her defence.

  She turned over in her mind whether Lady Susan could actually have sent for Sir James. Surely her mother could not be promoting a match now so obviously abhorrent to her. She thought of her dear father and his kindly words about his wife: could he have so misjudged? Her mother must want what was good for her; she must just not understand. And yet, as she remembered the many tears shed in her presence, Frederica wondered that none had prevailed or even affected her mother – except to exasperate her further. Now the only course was to keep resolutely out of Sir James’s way; he must be gone after dinner.

  She thought of Mr de Courcy, so gentle, considerate and refined, so very different a man. He had still hardly spoken to her, but she had seen more of him lately when they were all together in the drawing room or dining room, and then he said such sensible things. One evening when he, her mother and the Vernons had been chatting about drawings, he’d turned to Mr Vernon and, with a book of nature prints in his hand, said, ‘Look at this fine one of polyanthus primrose. It’s from John Hill’s Eden: a wonderful book, do you know it, sir?’

  Charles Vernon replied that he did but had not acquired it for his library.

  ‘I would like banks of such flowers planted at Churchill, on the south-facing slope near the house,’ Reginald continued eagerly. ‘They are a something between a wild and a cultivated flower.’<
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  Frederica had not dared say anything but her heart was full. She and her father had so loved this book when they had botanised together at Someyton. She had not heard of her mother’s recently proclaimed fondness for wild flowers.

  Sir James was not deterred by his tepid welcome. He had taken to heart Lady Susan’s assurances that Frederica would be won in time and the sight of the mother always increased his certainty about the daughter. He felt fired up. In this ebullient mood he informed the surprised Vernons that he would be staying for a few days.

  The self-invitation displeased them all. Lady Susan wished she had had him alone before he made a fool of himself. But it couldn’t now be helped. He would stay and they had to make the best of it. The Vernons were forced into the position of hosts but at least, thought Charles Vernon on whom their new guest had not yet impacted fully, he might be a good shooting companion. Reginald enjoyed the sport but his mind was often elsewhere.

  The news horrified Frederica. What was she to do? She had promised her mother that she would never tell Mr and Mrs Vernon what had happened in London – or anything else about their immediate affairs. She was bound by her word. She racked her brain as she sat alone in Lady Susan’s dressing room, an unread book on her lap. She had long given up playing the pianoforte even when her mother was absent.

  How had the Emelys and Emmelines acted in this predicament? If escape was no option, there could only be an appeal to someone who wished them well. The numerous images of weeping, kneeling and pleading girls swam into her mind. The phrase about ‘wishing well’ reminded her of the night in London and she blushed violently. But this was no time to indulge in painful memory. She must know a person somewhere who could help. And yet, was there such a being? If they knew how disobedient she had been and wanted to be, no one in the house or outside would pity her or speak up for her. She began to weep quietly, her head against a cushion, her tears seeping into its dark green velvet cover; the book slid from her lap on to the floor. The tears were warm, even pleasing on her face.

  Lady Susan entered the room, saw her daughter and groaned. ‘Well, my girl, this is fine behaviour. You behave like a baby. For goodness’ sake grow up. If I say you will have Sir James, you will have him and there’s an end of it. You are very unlikely to have another chance like this.’

  ‘Oh, Mama …’ Frederica got up, knelt down and clung to her mother’s dress. Exasperated, Lady Susan pushed her off; Frederica steadied herself, then fell back in her chair, her foot against the open book on the floor. ‘Mama, I am so very, very miserable. I cannot, I really cannot …’ Her sobbing interrupted her words.

  Lady Susan let out a long sigh. She was so tired of these self-pitying moods. The girl was turning out to be more unmanageable than she’d ever envisaged. Even when she herself had been at boarding school in Bury surrounded by such simpletons as Charlotte Dawlish and Sophie Alderson, Lady Susan had never encountered a child so completely clueless in the ways of the world as Frederica appeared to be – and yet so stubborn and histrionic with it.

  ‘This is absurd, Frederica. You say you cannot but I assure you that you can. In any case, for the moment I demand that you treat Sir James with proper civility. Is that clear? Your aunt and uncle will be very displeased if you do not.’

  Frederica shrank back into the chair.

  ‘I said, is it clear what you must do?’

  Frederica nodded, ‘Yes, Mama,’ she whispered.

  It was enough. Lady Susan swept out of the room.

  Frederica stopped crying and sat motionless. Thoughts whirled round her head. She now knew she was in extreme danger. There were abductions and forced marriages in remote country houses and no one could stop them. Who knew what Sir James and her mother were planning? She must act herself, however dangerous it might be. Someone must take her side and defend her.

  She had promised not to talk to her aunt and uncle and in any case she was not sure she could entirely trust them, especially her aunt. Mrs Vernon often tried to provoke her into criticising her mother, so that she wondered wildly whether the two women could be in league to test her. No, there really was only one person left with whom she had had no dealings and to whom she had not promised to avoid speaking: Mr de Courcy.

  She flushed deeply as she thought of him. He’d been at the back of her mind all along. Surely he would understand her feelings if she appealed directly to him.

  It was an immense risk. He was always with her mother: she supposed he might even be in love with her. The idea seemed far-fetched, he so marvellous and young and she … but Frederica could not go on. She was used to men being enchanted by Lady Susan. Her father had been. It was what men did. And except when she was upbraiding her daughter in private, her mother was lovely, as lovely as the heroine in any novel. Yet, thought Frederica, she did not act like a heroine – it was unthinkable that she would faint into waiting arms or wet the knees of her saviour with sobbing. And she cared so little for the tears of others. The notion, which she refused to follow through, gave Frederica strength. Her course was decided.

  She would wait for a moment when Mr de Courcy was not with Lady Susan, then she would speak to him in calm clear tones. She resolved to practise what she would say and to control herself. He would despise her crying at the outset, though perhaps later … As she began mentally to rehearse the speech she would make, a wave of renewed self-pity swept over her and the tears started to run down her cheeks once more.

  It was unfortunate that her mother returned just then. Lady Susan looked at Frederica whose face was now puffed from crying. She had no patience with this lack of restraint. She herself had had to repress many feelings when a girl; she had lost her mother, her father had been inattentive, and she had not enjoyed being shipped off to a country school. But she had learnt to control herself. If one let oneself go, there was no end to the mess one made within and without.

  Chapter 18

  ‘Mr de Courcy,’ Lady Susan began as she and Reginald walked together towards the library the next day, ‘I think perhaps I should speak to you about what much concerns me. You think me less than a caring mother.’

  ‘Madam, I would have no right—’

  She raised her fan to interrupt him. ‘I believe you’ve formed no very favourable opinion of Sir James.’ She flicked his arm with the green and black feathers and smiled up at him. The slight coldness she’d detected when they’d met earlier in the morning dissipated just a little.

  ‘I read you well,’ she said as they entered the room. ‘You disapprove of what you think I might be planning for Frederica.’ She looked pensive as she took a seat. He waited. ‘Had I and my daughter the freedom of a young man in the prime of life like Reginald de Courcy, I might take a different course.’ She paused again. ‘Frederica is shy but strong-willed; she has become a reader of novels and fancies herself as a heroine, I make no doubt. You have already seen what disasters can befall a girl of that character. I want the best for her. I want her to have the kind of comfortable domestic life your dear sister has. A woman alone has so much to suffer and fear.’ She sighed audibly. ‘The world is cruel and censorious,’ she continued. ‘Already her recent escapade might have become known in London. Here is Sir James, a person of good character, a young man ardently in love with her to such an extent that he is prepared to flout convention to be near her. He offers her his hand, his fortune, his protection: what would you have a mother do?’

  She lingered on her last words and watched them strike home. Reginald did indeed feel deeply the difference between men and women – the recent notion, much discussed among his more dashing friends, that the sexes were equal had amused him – and he tried to imagine what it would be like to want protection. The effort pleased him.

  ‘Your opinion of Sir James has been made on very slight acquaintance. He’s nervous among new people, and first impressions are so often faulty. And Frederica: she does not love him yet, but a girl of her age is perhaps not the best judge of her own interests or future inclin
ations.’

  They were both silent for a minute. Then Lady Susan spoke again, ‘If you still think as I believe you have thought, then try to forgive a mother who has reason to want security and a man’s guidance for her daughter.’

  The fan was dangling from a ribbon round her wrist as she pressed his arm lightly with her slender spread fingers. Then she rose and went out of the room.

  With these few minutes’ work Lady Susan was relatively sure that she had begun to counter Reginald’s misgivings – had she perhaps gone a little too far in mentioning a ‘man’s guidance’ when the subject was Sir James? The Vernons would be less easily worked on.

  Charles Vernon had not judged Sir James as harshly as Reginald but by now the loud laugh was grating on him. The man was certainly foolish. More significantly, Mr Vernon had remarked his niece’s strained looks. So, when he entered his wife’s dressing room to try again to tell her about the plans for the pheasant shoot and to discuss his notion of selling timber from the lower woods, he was ready to find Catherine Vernon more eager to talk about their visitors than the optimum time to dispose of wood.

  ‘I do fear for that girl,’ she said abruptly and, although he’d been arguing the case for selling the timber now before the war stopped and the price went down, he knew exactly what she was referring to. ‘Sir James may have fortune in his favour but he is not sensible or sensitive and Frederica is both.’

  Her husband privately agreed but, wanting to avoid strife, replied, ‘My dear, we must leave it to the girl to make up her own mind. She is old enough to know it. If she wishes to give him encouragement, then—’

  ‘Mr Vernon,’ interrupted his spouse, ‘as you can surely see, she gives him no encouragement.’

  ‘You may be right, but it’s too early for us to judge. She’s a quiet girl and we may have misconstrued her. We’re not her guardians.’