Lady Vernon and Her Daughter: A Novel of Jane Austen's Lady Susan Page 8

  “They are all of the opinion that you objected to Miss deCourcy’s marriage to Mr. Vernon. Mr. deCourcy feels the insult on his sister’s behalf and so he stays away.”

  “He must be a very foolish young man to take such offense at a rumor—and even if it were true that I objected to the Vernons’ marriage, Mr. deCourcy’s affection for Miss Hamilton ought to overrule his resentment against me.”

  “Ah, well, his friend Mr. Smith will not be kept away—he takes offense at nothing if there is the promise of diversion.”

  When they entered the house, Eliza Manwaring met them with a letter in her hand and proclaimed, with great delight, that they were to have an addition to their party. Lady Vernon supposed that Reginald deCourcy’s affection for his family had overcome his prejudice against her, but to her very great surprise, Eliza announced, “Sir James Martin comes to Taunton on a matter of business, and he will stop at Langford.”

  The news affected the ladies very differently. Lady Vernon immediately withdrew to see if she had also received a letter from her cousin; Mrs. Johnson declared that Sir James must have a very particular reason for coming; and Lady Hamilton hurried off to write to her mantua maker, charging her to hurry up Miss Lucy’s white crepe gown, and then summoned the housekeeper to know where she might send for someone to dress Miss Claudia’s hair.

  chapter sixteen

  When Sir James arrived at Langford, he gave no indication of what interest had brought him from Ealing Park. He received no businesslike correspondence and never rode into town. He would as often sit with the ladies as go shooting with the gentlemen, attending them all with good humor and unfailing gallantry. Toward Lady Vernon, however, he was especially solicitous, and toward Miss Vernon so attentive and gentle that everyone at Langford was persuaded that his purpose in coming was to apply for Miss Vernon’s hand (a rumor started by Alicia Johnson). Having delayed so long until she came of age, Mrs. Johnson assured them all, Sir James was too impatient to wait out the customary term of bereavement and meant to entreat Lady Vernon’s consent to an immediate engagement.

  The Hamilton girls and their mother were affronted; the elder girls maintained that Miss Vernon had no conversation, no style, and no fortune, and their mother was contemptuous of Lady Vernon for encouraging the suit when her own husband was not cold in the ground. “I must say, I do not think that she ought to partake of any company at all,” she remarked to Mrs. Manwaring and Mrs. Johnson one evening, after Lady Vernon had retired. “If Lord Hamilton died, I would not allow myself to be seen by anybody but my maid for a twelvemonth!”

  “Lady Vernon,” declared Eliza Manwaring, “is the sort of person who will do everything in her own fashion.” She spoke with some bitterness, for Manwaring’s admiration of Lady Vernon had not been overlooked by his wife.

  “That sort of fashion, which throws all propriety aside, I do not care for at all!” replied Lady Hamilton. “All of her smiles and leaning upon the family connection will not make Miss Vernon one whit less insipid and dull, nor add a penny to her fortune.” She lowered her voice and glanced toward Frederica Vernon, who sat at the instrument, while the other young people were dancing. “I have heard by way of my niece that Miss Vernon was left only two thousand by her mother’s parents and that Sir Frederick left her nothing at all. That sum might get her a clergyman—and indeed she would suit our Mr. Heywood. He is like to be a widower, as I do not believe that his wife can survive another lying-in, and it would be good to have someone at hand. I cannot bear a single clergyman. But to aim higher! Lady Martin! For Lady Vernon to grasp at that match is the sort of vulgar ambition that I do not like at all.”

  Unfortunately, these last remarks were uttered at a break in the music and the pianoforte was near enough to allow Miss Vernon to overhear the latter part of Lady Hamilton’s speech. Her fingers stumbled upon the keys and she rose from the instrument, stammering an apology and begging to be excused. The young ladies pleaded with her to remain, but only for want of a musician. Sir James, fearing that she had been taken ill, went to her side and offered to fetch her some water or wine with great solicitation, which only added to Miss Vernon’s embarrassment.

  “How very ill-mannered!” Lady Hamilton declared when Miss Vernon had left the room. “To stop before the young people have had a reel, when she must see how much the gentlemen were enjoying the dancing. Lavinia, my love!” she cried out. “You must sit down and continue the music. She does not play at all badly,” she told the others, “and since her future is settled, she cannot wish for her sisters’ partners.”

  Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Manwaring congratulated Lady Hamilton, declaring what a fortunate thing it was for a girl when an early engagement relieved her of the tedious business of accomplishment.

  chapter seventeen

  Lady Vernon walked out the following morning with Frederica and heard her account of what had been said. “You must not trouble yourself,” she consoled her daughter. “I will not urge you upon Lady Hamilton’s clergyman. She is all presumption and vanity—she is persuaded that no gentleman of fortune can be content without a wife, and therefore marriage must be your cousin’s object. And if James does not court any of her daughters, she concludes that he means to address mine.”

  “Yet they have only to look to their own family to see the error of their premise. What of Mr. Lewis deCourcy? He is wealthy and unmarried and as amiable and contented a gentleman as I have ever met.”

  “Perhaps the example of Sir Reginald’s marriage persuaded his brother that a good character, an honorable occupation, and the pleasure of never having to give an account of himself to anyone were all the domestic comfort he wished for.”

  “And yet,” said Frederica gravely, “a gentleman may seek comfort as readily with vice as with virtue, if he is never called to account for himself.”

  “Not every gentleman can enjoy such liberty,” declared a masculine voice. “I must account to Mother for my vices and virtues as rigorously as a cook must account for the spoons.”

  Sir James Martin had come up behind them. He stepped between the two ladies and offered an arm to each.

  “And what account will you give my aunt for your time at Langford, cousin?” asked Frederica. “I have not seen you attend to anything like business since you arrived.”

  “Nonsense, my dear Freddie. I have killed three dozen birds and danced as many dances, and I have read the newspaper every morning and played at billiards in the afternoon and at cards every night. I have admired Miss Claudia’s new spencer and Miss Lucy’s fashion plates and Lady Hamilton’s pug and Mrs. Manwaring’s geraniums. I have written letters to both my mother and my tailor every day. I do not think there is a gentleman at Langford who has been half so industrious.”

  “Then perhaps you ought to go back to Ealing Park, where you might recover from your exertions,” declared Lady Vernon.

  “I will go today, if you will both come with me.”

  “It would please me very much to see my Aunt Martin,” Lady Vernon replied. “But the master of Ealing Park is the sort of deceitful, giddy person that I do not like at all.”

  “And what do you say to that, Freddie?” inquired her cousin.

  “I do not think that you are deceitful.”

  “There!” Sir James laughed. “If a young lady of such sound and analytical mind cannot think me deceitful, then her mother must be mistaken. What is your opinion, Freddie?”

  Frederica reflected upon the question. “In science, if our conclusions do not prove true, we must go back to the premise.”

  “Very sound! So what is the foundation of your mother’s dis pleasure?”

  “I can think of nothing that you have done to offend my mother. I am sure that the great kindness you have shown us both places us greatly in your debt.”

  “And what is your reply to that?” Sir James asked Lady Vernon.

  “That it is the very notion of indebtedness that offends me” was his cousin’s reply.

  “I think that �
�indebtedness’ is a term for business or to be used among strangers,” observed Sir James. “Surely among relations there is only generosity and regard.”

  “You did not regard my instructions concerning Vernon Castle. I had asked for advice and assistance, not for alms. I am grateful that it was not more generally known that you were the purchaser,” she added.

  “It would have been very ungenerous indeed to have Sir Frederick exposed as the object of his relations’ charity.”

  “You asked for assistance in finding a purchaser, which is precisely what I did. You did not ask that you approve the purchaser—you and Sir Frederick gave me leave to manage all. Come, my dear cousin, we must not quarrel. Give me your opinion, Freddie, for you are a very sensible girl. Was I wrong to buy Vernon Castle? If you tell me that I have done wrong, I will beg forgiveness.”

  Frederica pondered his question. “I think that you deliberately withheld information from my mother that she ought to have had.”

  “There!” Lady Vernon declared.

  “But,” her daughter added, “my cousin’s motives were for the best, and he acted out of generosity, so as not to let dear Vernon Castle go to strangers. If he has offended you, I think he ought to have been forgiven.”

  “A very sound answer,” Sir James replied. “What goodness and compassion! Can you have acquired it without any encouragement from your parents? Surely something must be attributed to maternal influence.”

  Lady Vernon found herself smiling and realized that she had believed that she ought to be angry with her cousin after all sensation of anger had gone. She had never been able to remain cross with him for very long. His liveliness, good humor, and wit were the sort that might test one’s patience but never provoke a permanent ill will.

  “Come, Susan, sit down on this bench here in the sun—you are far too pale. Freddie, walk to the greenhouse and let me talk to your mother alone. Then I will come join you and cut one of the roses for you on purpose to vex the Misses Hamilton.”

  “It is wrong to encourage discord, cousin.”

  “It is worse to encourage hope.”

  Frederica gave him a reproving smile and left them alone.

  “It is good to see her smile,” Sir James remarked.

  “She has had little enough to smile about.”

  “Do you still mean to send her off to school?”

  “Frederica can have no better opportunity to acquaint herself with the advantages and manners of London,” Lady Vernon replied. “She has seen too little of the world.”

  “Perhaps she is all the better for it.” After a moment’s reflection, Sir James added, “Susan, I do ask you to forgive me and offer you Vernon Castle if you like. The Edwardses are very genteel, unimaginative folk who did not move a chair nor trim a hedge—it will all be as you remember it. They depart after the Christmas season. It can be yours on the first of January.”

  “I do not wish to be as far from Freddie as Staffordshire. Not every mother can be like my Aunt, who looks to the first of the year when she can send you off to London and enjoy Derbyshire in peace and quiet.”

  “Too much peace and quiet will dull the mind—think what Mother would be if she had no troublesome son to whet her better nature and to sharpen her wits upon! She might have sunk to an Eliza Manwaring or a Lady Hamilton. Every mother should have such a son, do you not agree?”

  “We all have our share of maternal pride, cousin. I think as well of my daughter as any mother does of her son—I wish for nothing more, except perhaps some assurance that it will be in her power to attract a husband of consequence.”

  “How can you say so when everyone whispers that she is being sent to London in order to be finished for me?”

  “You may laugh as much as you like, but I cannot afford to be diverted where Freddie’s future is concerned.”

  “I will not laugh, I cannot laugh, if you cannot afford to share my mirth. Come, Susan—we are not good at keeping secrets from one another—what allowance will you have for your diversion?”

  “Per annum?” she returned with a renewal of spirit. “I think that it will be something more than you paid for the new mantelpiece at Cavendish Square and considerably less than the annual bill from your tailor. Now, do not look grim, cousin, and do not think of making us the object of your charity once more. We will not want for a roof over our heads.”

  “I do not like that it is Manwaring’s roof,” replied he. “I like it even less than I did when I left you at Churchill. Manwaring’s attentions have made you the object of some very unpleasant talk—the gentlemen, of course, can say nothing offensive in my presence, but the ladies do not have to be so circumspect. They may cast as many winks and allusions as they like and have no fear of a calling-out.”

  “I am not wounded, cousin. Lady Hamilton’s wit makes for a dull weapon.”

  “She is not to be taken lightly, Susan. Her connection with the deCourcy family means that everything she sees here will find its way to Mrs. Charles Vernon.”

  “I am convinced that Mrs. Vernon cannot dislike me more than she does already. I am grateful to Lady Hamilton for giving her niece some foundation for her aversion. I would not want to be hated for nothing.”

  “My dear cousin, I beg you to bring your visit to an end when you take Freddie to London. That is my only business here. If you do not wish to come to Derbyshire and do not like to open your house in town, you may have mine on Cavendish Square, and I will take a set of rooms somewhere. Everyone will anticipate that we are planning my engagement to Freddie and she will become such an object of interest that some rich, headstrong young man will hurry to address her just for the fun of cutting me out. Every party will come out the winner.”

  “Save for you. You will be as idle and giddy and single as ever. Go to Freddie, James, and let her tell you how many uses she has found for the Manwarings’ lovage leaf and archangelica. Let me sit and enjoy a few moments of tranquillity—that is such a rarity at Langford.”

  He laughed and went off to walk with Frederica, while Lady Vernon sat down on a bench to reflect upon her cousin’s advice. She had erred in coming to Langford, not because she had encouraged Manwaring’s flirtation, but because she had removed from Charles Vernon’s consciousness the discomfort that her presence must have wrought. She could not dispute his right to deprive her and Frederica of all that Sir Frederick meant for them to have, but she might not have allowed him to be so easy.

  Although Frederica, in her account of Sir Frederick’s injury, had suggested that her uncle had not acted as promptly as he might have, Lady Vernon was willing to concede that his hesitation may have come from shock and dismay rather than a malicious desire to see his brother perish. Yet, however pardonable his motives may have been then, his subsequent visits to Churchill Manor and his continual attendance upon his brother must now be seen as hopelessly, heartlessly mercenary. In persuading Sir Frederick against assigning any part of his fortune to Lady Vernon and her daughter, he had eased his brother into complacency and indefinite delay in the hope that it would be to his advantage, and with that as his object, could he do other than rejoice at its fulfillment?

  The sound of horsemen aroused Lady Vernon from her reverie and she looked up to see Manwaring alight from his horse and hand the reins over to his groom.

  “How fortunate that I should find you without a party of a half-dozen to act the chaperone! Which walk do you take? Do you prefer the park or a country lane?”

  “I came out only to meet the post,” she replied, turning back toward the house. “I am expecting a letter from Miss Summers’s Academy—the arrangements for Frederica’s placement must be completed before we go to town.”

  “But you go only to get Miss Vernon settled. You must give me your word that you will return to Langford, for we quite expected you to be with us for many weeks longer.”

  “I may be obliged to stay on in London to attend to some business of my own. My housekeeper at Portland Place is anxious for some direction as
to what I mean to do.”

  “Oh, but you need not be in town for that—correspondence will do as well. Or you may send your instructions with Sir James, who goes to town from here. Something very particular must take him to town so early, and that interest will make him happy to oblige you.”

  Manwaring viewed the prospect of an engagement between Miss Vernon and Sir James Martin with complaisance. He liked his sister well enough, but he was resigned to the fact that if Maria had not caught Sir James when she was seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen, she could have no hope of him at twenty-two. “And,” he continued, offering Lady Vernon his arm, “if it is money matters, you can leave it all to Charles Vernon, can you not? You are not left as Eliza was, with her fortune in the hands of one who regards her right to it as conditional only, and with no one to come forward and dispute it. Sir Frederick’s intentions were so well known that his brother must abide by them. It is excessively diverting to hear Lady Hamilton talk about Miss Vernon as though she were penniless. To be sure, Miss Vernon’s ten thousand pounds may be nothing when compared to the thirty thousand of her daughters, and I daresay Sir James will not even ask for that, so you will be all the richer! If I had been able to settle ten thousand upon Maria, I would have got her off my hands before now!”

  “You have a very happy opinion of my prosperity, and my daughter’s fortune.”

  “My opinions can only be drawn from Sir Frederick. Why, the very day we were all a-shooting at Churchill, he spoke of the matter, for Vernon had been trying to coax us both into some speculation. I quite forget what it was, something that involved a great deal of risk, I daresay, for Vernon always had a touch of the gamester about him. I could put nothing into the venture, and Sir Frederick would not and declared that he had learned his lesson from the last scheme and that he must be prudent for Miss Vernon’s sake. It was then that he said he meant to settle as much as ten thousand upon her and very likely more.”