by Janet Todd
His wife grew impatient. ‘I think we have not, as you put it, misconstrued her. Indeed, I’m sure of it. Her feelings are plain enough to all – except perhaps her mother. I will try my best to draw her out and get her to express her thoughts to me more openly. She likes me, I am sure, but there’s a restraint that I cannot get over.’
‘Perhaps she’s deeper than you think,’ replied Charles Vernon, who mused that, on balance, it would be best to sell the wood now rather than later.
‘You think I’m being too favourable to the girl? And yet there’s something about her that makes me trust to her good nature, a simplicity and artlessness that can’t be feigned.’
‘You forget,’ said Mr Vernon gently, ‘who is her mother.’
To put her plan into action Frederica had begun creeping through doorways and along corridors, hoping to find Reginald alone in a room or sauntering down a stairway.
Both her mother and Mrs Vernon noted her stealthy movements. The poor girl, thought her aunt, she is growing quite love sick for my brother. Lady Susan was surprised at the timid assertiveness the action revealed. She assumed that Frederica was trying to avoid Sir James – she always seemed to be going in the direction opposite to the one he had taken.
After keeping a close watch for two days, Frederica was starting to give up hope of finding Reginald alone. She would have to take the more dangerous method of writing a note instead of talking directly to him. She knew – especially from Clarissa’s fate – that this was a very improper thing for a young girl to do, but she was now as desperate as any Clarissa or Emmeline had been.
Just as she was despairing of an encounter, she saw Reginald go into the billiard room alone. She scurried towards the door and gave a gentle tap.
‘Come,’ he said, not raising his eyes from the rack of cues before him. He assumed it was one of the servants wanting to tidy the room.
A silence followed; he looked up and was amazed to see Frederica before him, trembling and white as a sheet.
‘Frederica, Miss Vernon, are you looking for someone?’
She replied in so low a voice that he had to go closer to hear what she was saying.
‘I … I was looking for you.’
‘For me?’ he said astonished.
‘Yes, I am sorry, I–I …’ She stopped.
He thought for a moment she was going to faint and he led her to a chair against the wall. She sat down.
The kindness of the action and the closeness of Reginald stretched her nerves and, against all her resolves, she burst into tears. As she did so, she felt dimly aware that the response was not quite inappropriate. Just for a moment she thought to fall on her knees and clutch his legs – but she kept her place.
‘Dear Miss Vernon. What on earth is the matter?’ Reginald watched her shaking convulsively. It must be painful for Lady Susan to have so uncontrolled a daughter. Was the girl unhinged?
‘I wonder,’ Frederica finally managed to gasp out, ‘Oh, Mr de Courcy, may I speak with you?’
She sobbed again and he offered her his large cambric handkerchief with its RDC embroidered in purple thread prominently on one corner. She took it and dabbed her face.
‘If you wish of course.’ He brought up a chair and sat waiting for her to calm herself.
‘Mr de Courcy,’ she began, ‘I am so very very miserable.’
‘I see that,’ he said unable to prevent a slight smile.
She shook her head, sniffed, swallowed and restrained her sobs. ‘I’ve no one I can talk to. I have promised Mama not to say anything to Aunt and Uncle. And there’s no one else. I know I am not doing what Mama wants but she did not strictly forbid me … Oh, please help me.’
‘Help you do what?’ asked Reginald surprised.
‘Sir James. I cannot love him. I cannot like him. In fact I don’t like him at all. But Mama wants me to have him.’
‘Your mother has your interests at heart, Miss Vernon.’
She was twisting his handkerchief round and round. ‘No, you don’t understand. Please, please say you will take my part. I know she’ll listen to you. I cannot bear it. It will kill me.’
Reginald remembered Lady Susan telling him that her daughter was a reader of novels and that her escape from school had been rather in fictional mode. He suspected the present drama might be similar.
What she said next persuaded him he was right. For she stopped screwing up the handkerchief and, with one hand clutching the muslin at her throat, gasped, ‘I would rather, much rather, work for my bread than make such a marriage. I would rather die.’
Although he could not help being affected by the girl’s distress, Reginald was detached enough to doubt either proposition. ‘And what is it you want me to do?’
‘Oh, you can talk to Mama. You are so good and sensible, you can persuade anyone of anything.’
He passed this over. ‘But why do you not tell your mother yourself what you feel? Surely she can’t know the strength of your dislike – if dislike it truly is.’
‘Oh, Mr de Courcy, how can you doubt it?’
Her tears had stopped falling but her cheeks remained wet. Still a little amused, he looked at her closely. Suddenly she glanced up at him and their eyes met.
‘Mama has had her heart set on this match ever since she persuaded Sir James not to think any more of Miss Manwaring. I cannot make her change her mind.’
Reginald was jolted. This seemed to confirm the rumours he’d heard. He became more serious. ‘Are you saying that your mother deliberately broke an alliance between Sir James and her friend’s daughter? Miss Vernon, of what are you accusing Lady Susan?’
Frederica began to sob again. ‘Oh no, nothing really, nothing, I didn’t mean … I don’t know what I’m saying. But you must believe me, you must, that I loathe Sir James and cannot, will not, marry him.’
Reginald was disturbed. Frederica had not confirmed what she’d blurted out about her mother and yet could it be true? On the other matter he was becoming convinced: Sir James was indeed hateful to her. Yet he remembered Lady Susan’s words: ‘a girl of her age is perhaps not the best judge of her own interests.’
Abruptly Frederica stood up. ‘Please help me. Speak to her. You are so …’ And with this resonant unfinished sentence she turned and dashed out of the room, still twisting his handkerchief in her fingers.
She left Reginald in some confusion. He retained an impression of dark eyes swimming with tears.
He needed fresh air. Although it was cold and he lacked his greatcoat, he went to the stables ostensibly to see about one of his hunters. He avoided Sir James, who was showing Mr Vernon the wonders of his coach springs. Mechanically he moved across the stable yard, his movement helping him to collect his thoughts.
Something was wrong somewhere. He couldn’t believe Lady Susan would persecute her daughter as Frederica implied, and yet the girl spoke so spontaneously she could not have been pretending her feelings. In any case, why should she?
Then he reddened, remembering his sister’s frequent hints. Unless of course, she was actually in love with him and was using this clumsy approach to get close. But, no, this couldn’t be the case. She couldn’t be so artful. He must speak with Lady Susan.
Dinner that night was a tense affair. Frederica, who had been refused a tray in her room, ate almost nothing; she kept her eyes on her plate and dared not even glance at Reginald, though she was aware of his every gesture. Once or twice she thought he looked down the table at her. Then she reddened just a little but made sure her face was otherwise calm. She shouldn’t have run out of the room so suddenly, but a fleeting reflection made her think the tears were perhaps not a mistake. She was both horrified and almost glad that she’d conveyed her suspicions of her mother at Langford. She’d never expressed them before, even to herself.
Lady Susan on Mr Vernon’s right spoke when necessary, as she always did, but initiated no subjects of talk. She was calculating how many days must elapse before Sir James would have to go. If ther
e were a clear limit, she would merely need to keep everyone away from each other in his or her own separate world: all could yet be right. She’d explained once again that Frederica needed time and he must wait; when directly commanded, he would, she thought, be obedient.
The other diners were even more subdued. Reginald’s eyes occasionally roved from mother to daughter. He noticed that, for all her shrinking and diffidence, Frederica was not as clumsy as he’d thought her at first. There was something pleasing in the way she carried her arms and moved her hands on the table. Mostly he let his eyes rest on Lady Susan. There was no comparison in beauty.
When once she caught Reginald’s eye, Lady Susan noticed his look of inquiry. She found it impertinent. All the men round the table were insufferable, including a gluttonous archdeacon who’d been invited to dine because he was staying with the rector. He had not expected conversation to be so difficult to sustain: he was the only one grateful to Sir James, who filled some of the silences with remarks about a counting horse, surfaces and shoots. But even that young man, his eyes darting towards Miss Vernon, felt the chill in the room and often went mum. Charles, as usual, ran a little with anything that was said but made no further social effort. A remark or two about the weather and planting and he felt his duty done.
Once the ladies had withdrawn from the table, Sir James laughed and talked in spurts, with himself as sole listener, Charles Vernon smoked and ruminated on the relative value of naval bonds and land in wartime, and the rector and archdeacon chatted together about the advantages of pluralism in rural areas. Reginald attacked the port wine with more than usual zest while his mind turned over and over the events of the day. That night he went to bed with the sore head of a man unused to heavy drinking – or indeed much perplexity.
Next morning he was not in the most amiable frame of mind but he knew what he must do. He sent a message to Lady Susan asking if he could wait on her in the blue morning room.
When she received Reginald’s message, Lady Susan was surprised since they had been in the habit of taking a walk about this time, but she prepared to go. She had put last evening’s chilly dinner out of her mind. After it she had pleaded a slight headache and gone to her chamber. She had taken supper there alone and played a game of piquet with Barton. Then she had had a fit of sleeplessness and had lain in bed calculating again and again the days, even hours, of Sir James’s probable stay. She feared she knew what Reginald was going to say.
He met her. She sensed his aloofness at once and resented it.
‘Lady Susan, forgive me, for bothering you and asking you like this … but of course’ – and he relaxed a little into gallantry – ‘it is hard for me ever to stay away long from you.’
She waited, her eyes on the carpet. Her head felt stuffy. She suspected she was catching a cold. The brats in the nursery were always sniffling and it was a wonder she’d not picked one up before now.
‘You will be surprised at what I am going to say but I feel I must acquaint you with your daughter’s actions.’
Lady Susan looked up at this. ‘My daughter, Mr de Courcy?’
‘Yes, dear Lady Susan. I know of course how fond a mother you are and I hate to displease you in any way.’
She kept silent, hardly smiling.
‘But you should know that Miss Vernon has come to me to tell me how much she dislikes Sir James.’
Lady Susan swallowed and said nothing.
‘I know you have your heart – your heart as a parent – on this match, but really I believe Miss Vernon is telling the truth when she says that she really cannot under any circumstances marry him.’
A further silence followed. Then Lady Susan spoke quietly, ‘Really. Am I to understand that my daughter has made you the object of her confidences and that you have listened to her? Would it not have been more appropriate for her to discuss the matter with her mother?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Reginald answered quickly, ‘and I told her so. But, Lady Susan, she said, or rather implied, that you had taken pains at Langford to bring him …’ He stopped.
She stifled her anger. So the girl had been telling tales despite the warning.
‘To bring him?’
‘Well, to attach him to your daughter.’
‘And surely that is what any conscientious mother would do.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he replied, ‘but she has told me how much she cannot like him and how strong has been the pressure. Knowing you as I do, if I can presume, I cannot credit this, but at the same time it is possible that she has gained the idea that you would be implacable, whatever her wishes. I am truly pained to say this, for, as you know, to me you are …’
He stopped as he caught her look.
‘And you?’ she said coolly ‘What part did you play in this little scene?’
The blood rushed to Reginald’s face. ‘I assure you, Lady Susan, there was no encouragement on my side. Your daughter sought me out.’
‘And why was that?’
His anger was rising and he answered more violently than intended. ‘Because the poor girl felt she could not speak to you and she’d promised not to speak to my sister and brother.’
‘An interesting way to keep her promise; I had not thought her quite so devious.’ Lady Susan sniffed. Yes, she feared she was beginning a cold.
He looked at her closely, his mind agitated with conflicting emotions. Before he could speak, she went on, ‘I can’t believe that you have been prevailed on in this way, Mr de Courcy. I presume she cried and you found her tears affecting.’
‘Lady Susan, it pained me very deeply to see your daughter in such distress.’
‘I imagine you were flattered to be her confidant.’
She said these last words so quietly that Reginald did not at once catch the meaning. When he did, he flushed, then stepped backwards. ‘If you are implying what I think, I dispute it. It ill becomes you, madam, to cast aspersion on your own daughter in this way, or indeed on me. Is there anything in my conduct that would suggest that I am either conniving or credulous?’
He gave a haughty look. His temper was up. It is best, thought Lady Susan, to part at once. ‘Mr de Courcy I think we should end our discussion here. When you have reflected a little on what you have said and your willingness to believe what is imputed in my disfavour by a mere child, perhaps you will think differently from what you now do.’
With a bend of her head and lowered eyes she turned and left the room.
As she walked along the corridor her anger at Frederica mounted. It was hard to believe that this girl, who had seemed all milk and water, could have been so cunning. Reginald had, she knew, at first thought her awkward and disobedient, yet one interview had brought him to the point of questioning her mother’s motives.
What had the girl done? She couldn’t credit her with any eloquence. She was habitually tongue-tied. And Reginald was not a man to be moved by childish tears of frustration. Had Frederica actually expressed love for him? It was possible. Over the past weeks she’d shown herself extraordinarily insubordinate. She wondered again what had happened in that London night. Well, she would make Frederica know who was mistress here.
Chapter 19
Next morning Mrs Vernon and Sir James came a little earlier than the others into the breakfast room. It was the day Sir James was to depart. Lady Susan had told him firmly that his stay had been long enough.
He had not been unwilling to go. He was sick of the cat-and-mouse game and was beginning to wonder if Frederica would ever be his – and whether he still wanted her. Lady Susan had tried to put him right on both counts. ‘When we are in London, she’ll be quite different, you’ll see,’ she’d said. Her daughter’s hostility here was feigned and girlish. She also told him that his own desires remained intact. He only partly believed her.
The day was grey and cold with light snow lying on the ground, but he felt in better spirits than he had for some time, anticipating an enjoyable ride to his estate in his splendid sprung carriage. He was
unperturbed whether snow fell or the sun shone on him.
He helped himself to the cold meat arranged on the marble-topped sideboard while Mrs Vernon buttered her toast. She was musing on the mismatched couples in her house, her wonderful brother and the devilish Lady Susan, the boorish Sir James and the sensitive Frederica. Things had slipped out of her control.
Sir James sat down with his meat and some pie and began to tell her that he was thinking now of buying a small chestnut mare to mate with his counting horse when her brother entered the room. He was flustered and had on his riding clothes.
‘Good morning, Reginald,’ said Mrs Vernon. ‘Are you going out?’
‘Catherine,’ he replied, ignoring her greeting and the presence of Sir James, ‘could I ask you to step outside for a moment. I need to talk to you in private.’
With a nod to Sir James, he left the room. Mrs Vernon followed as quickly as she could. She’d noted his flushed face and knew something was wrong. As a little boy he used to redden when anything upset him; she always saw the outline of the child in the adult whenever he was excited or anxious.
‘Dear Reginald,’ she exclaimed when the door had closed and they had moved a little way down the hall, ‘whatever is the matter? Has something happened at Parklands?’
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ he replied impatiently. ‘Only I am leaving for there today. I must be gone at once. I have stayed here too long. I must see father and mother, I’m sure they need me. Ladder can go on ahead with my curricle and I’ll send for my hunters later. I shall spend a little time in London on the way, then continue to Parklands. So if you have letters for our parents, write them at once.’
‘But Reginald,’ cried his sister in amazement. ‘Why? This is so sudden.’
‘Yes, and I am sorry to have to leave you and Mr Vernon, but I must go.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But before I leave I want to ask you to do something for me. You must promise. Do not let Frederica Vernon marry that man.’ He gestured with his head towards the breakfast-room door. ‘She does not like him; I know she doesn’t. Her mother is promoting the match but she has mistaken her daughter.’
