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

chapter thirteen

The journey from Churchill to Langford was to take the ladies through Bath, where they would stop for the night at the home of Lewis deCourcy.

When they had dined, Wilson retired to her sewing and Miss Vernon was invited to form her opinion of the rose garden. Lady Vernon took the opportunity to discuss the matter of her finances with Mr. deCourcy. He listened carefully and asked a good many questions about the particulars of the language of Sir Frederick’s will, then made every attempt to alleviate her anxiety.

“I am not ready to believe that you have any real need for concern yet,” said he, “though your acquaintance with Mrs. Manwaring’s situation must make you sensible of the evils of having your money under the control of one who deliberately withholds it from the intended object. There may be some working of the law that must take place before Charles can make good on any promises given to Sir Frederick. An inheritance will always come with some matters of unfinished business, and in my experience, the law does nothing so well as prolonging what ought to be swift. I advise you to wait a little longer—once Mrs. Vernon and the family are settled, Charles will be at leisure to address those points of honor that his more pressing obligations have deferred. In another month or very shortly thereafter, this will all be resolved, and if it is not, I will be more than happy to intercede on your behalf.”

Lady Vernon was sensible of the delicacy of his situation in being her particular friend and Charles’s uncle through marriage. She assured him that no intercession would be wanted and thanked him for his counsel, and the remainder of the evening was spent in discussing the pleasures of Somerset and Mr. deCourcy’s hopes that Miss Vernon might find a friend and confidante in Miss Manwaring.

At Langford, they were received with a great deal of effusion and ceremony. The business of welcome took above an hour, for the Vernon ladies must be embraced and exclaimed over, and relate how they had traveled, and how they had left Mr. deCourcy, and whether the roads had been very hot and dirty, and whether the dust had soiled their gowns. This brought on a brief embarrassment, as the remarks must draw attention to the Vernon ladies’ black dresses and remind the Manwaring ladies of the tragedy that had brought about the invitation.

At last, it was supposed that the travelers would want to rest, and they were shown to their chambers. Lady Vernon permitted herself to be taken out of her traveling dress, and when Wilson left them, she sat down to explain the state of their affairs to Frederica.

“I will not wait for my uncle to be honorable,” declared Frederica. “My father was always inclined to be fond of Mr. Vernon and I would not dare to contradict him, but from the day of my father’s accident, I have had cause to think very ill of my uncle.”

“What cause?” her mother asked, bewildered.

“On the day of my father’s accident, I was in the wood—oh, I know that I have always been cautioned to keep away when the men were shooting, but I did not think there was any harm in going just to the edge, for I had seen a small growth of hepatia upon some of the trees, and I was certain that I could obtain a sample without getting anywhere near their party. I passed through a little copse and immediately spied my father lying upon the ground and my uncle standing motionless beside him. No alarm had been raised—and it was only when my uncle spied me that he affected anything like concern and ordered me to go for help. I cannot accuse my uncle of anything worse than the shock of discovering my father in such a state,” Frederica hastened to add. “And yet—I do think that it is his nature to at least consider how far a little delay might work to his advantage!”

As certain as Lady Vernon was of her daughter’s integrity and her brother-in-law’s want of it, she was shocked to think that Charles Vernon might have withheld assistance from his brother. One is always willing to believe that one’s relations are lying, grasping, or vain, but a suggestion of iniquity will strain all but the most forbearing nature.

“How I wish that I had arrived a minute sooner,” Frederica lamented, “or said something to Papa when he recovered his health! But I could not bring myself to introduce a matter that would raise suspicion and anxiety toward one who my father always regarded with affection—oh, if only I had spoken!”

“If you had spoken, you would only have put at variance one with whom your father had the misfortune to be on good terms. It is better that your father was never obliged to think ill of his brother. He could not have done justice to the task.”

chapter fourteen

Langford enjoyed a pleasing situation in the eastern part of Somerset. The estate was not large, but the manor house was spacious and modern. The common rooms, however, were furnished in a manner that annulled every advantage of size and light, for there was not a single settee nor table where two or three might be crammed into the space, not a solitary drapery where shades and valances might be laid on as well. The lawns were likewise cluttered with statuary and fountains, and the walks were overhung with trellises. Inside and out, nothing was left alone where more could be done to it, which kept the Manwaring property in a state of habitual clutter and chronic improvement.

Such disorder did not impose upon Lady Vernon or her daughter during their first fortnight at Langford; but the Manwarings considered two weeks to be a sufficient period of deep mourning. They must have some company and noise, and soon the house was filled up with young men who came in quest of some shooting and young ladies in quest of young men.

Among the latter were the Misses Hamilton, who were brought by their mother. Lady Hamilton was secure of her eldest, but there were the two younger girls to be disposed of, and though Miss Claudia was but eighteen and Miss Lucy a year younger, they had already been launched upon a round of visits and balls and assemblies, wherever there were eligible men to be found. They had been four months in town and six weeks at Bath before they were obliged to return to the family estate only long enough for them to remind Lord Hamilton of their affection and to coax another hundred pounds of pocket money from him before they laid siege to Somersetshire.

They had not gone immediately to Langford, for while in Bath, Lady Hamilton happened upon an old friend who introduced Sir Walter Elliot to her acquaintance. This gentleman was a widower whose middle daughter had been a schoolfellow of Miss Lucy Hamilton’s, so there was an additional source of intimacy, and before they left Bath, an engagement had been formed for Lady Hamilton and her daughters to come to the Elliots for a month or two at the end of the summer. Before the superior society of Kellynch Hall, Langford must give way. Lady Hamilton very soon understood, however, that Sir Walter Elliot’s motive had been to make a very unreasonable application for her eldest daughter, and promptly recollected an absolute promise to go to her dear friends the Manwarings. “No, Sir Walter, it cannot be put off … No, I do not think we can come back again from Langford, as I mean to have Lucy try school again, in town … Eliza Manwaring has invited my nephew Reginald deCourcy on purpose for Lavinia—I am certain you must understand what that means.” And, mortified by this rejection, Sir Walter was very happy to have them go from his quarter of Somersetshire to one that, he was certain, was very much inferior.

The elder Misses Hamilton were slight, conceited, and no more than handsome, while Miss Lucy Hamilton was high-spirited, plump, and pretty. “But, la,” she declared right after she and Frederica had been introduced, “we are very near related, are we not? Our mother is the sister of Sir Reginald deCourcy, and his daughter has married your uncle, Mr. Vernon! And we may be even more closely connected in the future, will we not, Livvy?”

This caused Miss Hamilton to simper and blush and declare that she did not know what Lucy’s meaning was in a manner that implied that she did.

Frederica was drawn aside by Maria Manwaring, who said in a low voice, “It has long been decided that Lavinia Hamilton will marry her cousin Reginald deCourcy, your Aunt Vernon’s younger brother. Have you ever met him?”

“No, never.”

“Eliza and I saw him at Bath, with his friend, Charles Smith, but we were never introduced. Mr. Lewis deCourcy twice invited us to dine on purpose to make his nephew’s acquaintance, but alas, both times he was dining elsewhere. My brother means to invite him and Mr. Smith to Langford.”

“What sort of person is Mr. Smith?” inquired Frederica.

“Oh, he is not half as good-looking as Mr. deCourcy, but he is twice as lively to make up for it,” Maria replied. “I am afraid that my brother insists upon everyone being very lively here at Langford. I hope that you do not mind it.”

“No, I do not mind it, for if that is the case, you will all be too engaged to notice if we are quiet.”

The liveliness began that evening as soon as the gentlemen joined the ladies after dinner. Lady Hamilton began to nudge and wink at her youngest daughter. Miss Lucy took the hint and immediately coaxed Maria to ask her brother’s leave for some dancing. “There is your brother and Mr. Reed and Mr. Blake and Lord Whitby for partners—and you or Miss Vernon and my sisters and me. We can make up four couples!”

Maria, who was not without feeling, reminded her friends that Miss Vernon was in mourning.

“Yes,” agreed Miss Claudia Hamilton. “Miss Vernon cannot dance, but if she can play tolerably well, there is no reason she cannot oblige us. We do not expect anything like superiority of performance, only that she give us a minuet and a few lighter dances, and perhaps a reel to finish the evening. There can be no impropriety in that.”

Frederica deferred to her mother, who gave a nod of consent, and then sat down at the instrument, not at all sorry to be employed and very glad that she might oblige them without having to sing or dance.

To the chagrin of these fair petitioners, Miss Vernon performed so charmingly that the gentlemen began to compliment her upon the skill and expression of her playing when they ought to have been praising their partners’ grace and smiles.

Lady Vernon soon observed that to call Langford “lively” did not do it justice; each day was a perpetual quest for diversion. While the gentlemen were shooting, the ladies were obliged to set out on walking parties or picnics, or to drive the pair of phaetons round the park, or to join Eliza Manwaring when she called upon the neighbors and coaxed them back to Langford to drink tea or dine or partake of the evening’s tableaux vivants or dancing or music or card parties.

Lady Vernon concluded that the Manwarings must be very discontented with each other if they could not bear the prospect of dining en famille or passing an evening in quiet conversation, and she began to feel pity for Maria Manwaring. The uneasy union of her brother and his wife must give the poor girl a divided outlook toward matrimony; she could anticipate no pleasure in the prospect, and yet it was the only one that would remove her from a household where her brother paid court to every woman but his wife and a sister-in-law who urged the necessity of marrying upon her without exhibiting any pleasure in the state herself. Yet, to Miss Manwaring’s credit, she had not been made cynical or ill-tempered by living with her incompatible relations. Her disposition was resigned and gentle, her understanding was good, and a similarity in their natures began to draw her and Miss Vernon together. Maria found Frederica Vernon a far pleasanter companion than the Misses Hamilton, who desired to appear genteel and accomplished without either talent or application, and whose mother’s excessive flattery gave them a high degree of assurance without perfecting their abilities or refining their taste.

Maria and Frederica soon discovered that the subject of Sir James Martin was never a point of rivalry between them. Miss Manwaring had been persuaded that she ought to regard him as her object, though she had never thought of him with more than polite indifference. Frederica held her cousin in the highest esteem and yet laughed at the notion that anyone might think that he had never married because he meant to make her an offer of his hand.

As it was resolved between them that Sir James Martin was at liberty to marry anybody but themselves or each other, there was no obstacle to the two girls forming a sincere friendship.

chafer fifteen

Lady Vernon to Lady Martin

Langford, Somerset

My dear Aunt,

I am very sorry if you perceived any coldness from me in our last parting. Toward you, Aunt, there is no reproach or blame, for I know that you could not have prevented James from buying Vernon Castle. Upon further reflection, I have come to understand that a gentleman may do far worse to his family than to make them the objects of his generosity—but of that I will write no more, for you will be eager to hear how Frederica and I fare at Langford. Be assured that we have not been allowed to dwell upon the past or to contemplate the precarious state of our future. The present occupies the Manwarings completely, and they keep their company so caught up in parties and amusements and paying calls and receiving visitors, and cards and charades and dancing, that there is not a moment to reflect or to pine.

We have been no fewer than twelve at dinner every night, and on occasion as many as thirty! The society and to-do suit me only in one respect—they prevent Frederica’s spirits from sinking further. The oppression that marked her last weeks at Churchill Manor has lifted, chiefly through the attentions of Maria Manwaring. Her kindness and solicitude are very much to her credit, and her reward is a companion who is far superior to the Misses Hamilton, who have come to Somerset for a long visit.

At this time of year, Langford is the place to meet young men, and Lady Hamilton is determined that her daughters will not suffer Miss Manwaring’s fate—to be nearly two and twenty and not married. They have thirty thousand apiece, so I think that Lady Hamilton will let them go for as little as two thousand per annum if a bit of property, or the prospect of it, is thrown in. In disposition, the two eldest are conceited and above being pleased, and the youngest is so excessively pleased with everything that she is often restless and always noisy—the elder ones cannot bear exertion and the youngest has not the patience to sit still; their conversation is tiresome, when it is not silly, and it is not only the prejudice of a parent that leads me to think that any gentleman of worth and sense would sooner take Frederica for nothing than any of them with their thirty thousand pounds!

I want for nothing, save, perhaps, some relief from the attentions of Mr. Manwaring. For some weeks, he had been prudent, but now all reserve is gone and he is often unguarded. In the mornings, he can be avoided, as he must take the gentlemen out shooting or go into Taunton on business, but in the evenings, his attentions are so marked that they begin to kindle Eliza’s jealousy. When he addresses me directly, I keep the discourse from becoming a tête-à-tête by inquiring, “Are you of the same opinion as Mr. Manwaring, Lord Whitby?” or “Do you agree with our host that the summer was a very dry one, Mr. Reed?” until one of the Hamilton girls engages his conversation or he falls victim to their mother’s passion for cards.

Tomorrow, we will have another addition to the party—Alicia Johnson comes from London. Mr. Johnson, who generally confines his infirmities to home, had the ill luck to become afflicted while he was away, and will be laid up long enough to allow his wife to slip into Somerset for some diversion. If he were at home, he would likely oppose the visit, as he has not forgiven Eliza Manwaring for marrying against his wishes.

Frederica sends you her very best love and promises to write to you soon. In the meantime, I am commissioned to tell you, however, that the tuberoses at Langford are nothing at all beside those at Ealing Park.

Your affectionate niece,

Susan Vernon

It was not for many days after Mrs. Johnson’s arrival that she and Lady Vernon were able to take a turn around the park without Mrs. Manwaring converting their twosome into a walking party of five or six.

Mrs. Johnson immediately began to apologize for not coming down to Sussex for Sir Frederick’s funeral. “Mr. Johnson insisted that he was laid up with gout,” she declared. “I am persuaded that his gout is brought on or kept off at his pleasure. Three years ago, when I wanted him to try the waters at Bath, nothing would induce him to have a gouty symptom, and yet when the Hamiltons invited me to the Lakes, he was so laid up that I was obliged to remain in London to nurse him. And—tedious man!—he bears it all with such patience that I have not even the common excuse for losing my temper! But, my dear, how pale you look! Why, you have been here six weeks and you have not got back your color. Manwaring tells me that he means to keep you here until they go to town in February.”

“That may be his intention, but I do not know if I can withstand the Langford notion of tranquillity for so long. Frederica and the youngest Miss Hamilton are to be enrolled in school in December, and I have offered to chaperone them to town so that I can have the opportunity to look in on the house on Portland Place, and once there, I may decide to remain.”

“It will be a delightful thing to have you in town so soon, and a good school will throw Miss Vernon in the path of rich young men by way of their sisters, which is Lady Hamilton’s object for Miss Lucy. But if Manwaring will have you back here, I shall always be happy to stand up with Miss Vernon in town and to take her wherever she likes.”

Lady Vernon murmured her thanks, knowing full well that Alicia Johnson was of that class of women who had always cared too much for their own comfort and pleasure to be inconvenienced by little children, but who would be very glad to have one or two fine grown girls to parade about London and Bath.

“Miss Vernon has grown into such a beauty—the Hamilton girls are nothing at all beside her. Of course, it is settled that the eldest will marry Reginald deCourcy. Your brother-in-law must have said something of it, I am sure.”

“He has said nothing at all about it.”

“I am very surprised, for it is said that the deCourcys talk of nothing else. They are very determined on both sides that the fortunes ought to be united,” continued Mrs. Johnson, “and I know that Miss Hamilton is willing and Mr. deCourcy has never expressed any objection or shown any inclination toward anyone else.”

“His disinclination toward any other lady does not mean that he is inclined toward his cousin.”

“Very true. It is why Lady Hamilton throws them together at every opportunity. She has encouraged Eliza to invite him here on purpose to hurry matters along. She is very angry that he stays away, and if she is cool toward you, it is because she blames you that he does not come.”

“How can Lady Hamilton think that I decide whether Mr. deCourcy will come and go?” cried Lady Vernon. “I am wholly unacquainted with that young man!”

“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.”

“And was Charles disappointed?”

“I daresay he was—and I confess that I teased him a good deal about what a poor sort of banker he must be! How could he expect to coax strangers out of their money when he could not succeed with his own brother, said I! I am sorry to think what sport I made of him when the day ended so badly, but I understand that Vernon was often at Churchill while Sir Frederick was on the mend, so between them there was no ill feeling. You will not be left at the mercy of one who regards your claims as provisional or who will drag his feet where any money but his own is at stake—a brother will be conscientious out of family feeling.”

“I don’t believe that I ever gave Charles his due in regard to his family feeling,” Lady Vernon replied coolly.

“Indeed. I don’t think I love Maria half so much!” Manwaring laughed. “How I wish that Eliza had been left to a brother instead of in the guardianship of Mr. Johnson. She was left quite as handsome as you, after all, but Mr. Johnson withholds all but a very insignificant allowance. Yes, you will always be better served by family than by friends.”

He continued to congratulate her on how well off she had been left until Lady Vernon began to think that Manwaring’s pursuit of her had been motivated, in some part, by supposing her to be a woman of fortune.

chapter eighteen

Lady Vernon to Mr. Vernon

Langford, Somerset

My dear brother,

I find that I can no longer refuse myself the pleasure of profiting by your kind invitation when we last parted, of being received by you and Mrs. Vernon at Churchill Manor, and therefore, if it is quite convenient, I hope that I shall very soon be introduced to a sister whom I have so long desired to know.

Though my kind friends here are most affectionately urgent that I prolong my stay until they go to town in February, their hospitable and cheerful dispositions lead them too much into society for my present situation and state of mind.

It is my plan to leave Langford for London upon the first of December. Frederica is to be placed in one of the best private schools in town, and I shall leave her there myself, which will allow me to be of use as a chaperone to Miss Lucy Hamilton, who is to be enrolled as well. As Frederick’s long illness prevented us from opening the house on Portland Place last season, this journey will also allow me to see to Mrs. Forrester’s management of it and to determine whether I will be equal to its continued maintenance.

The separation from my only child must make the prospect of familiar surroundings and a family circle my only comfort, and it would pain me to learn that it will not be in your power to receive me.

Indeed, I am determined not to be denied, for I truly long to be made known to your dear little children, in whose hearts I shall be very eager to secure an interest, and to be introduced at last to my sister.

Your most obliged and affectionate sister,

Susan Vernon

Lady Vernon showed this letter to Frederica before it was sent to post.

Frederica confessed herself astonished and doubtful. “If, when the grief of my father’s passing was immediately before him, my uncle would not admit of any duty to us, he will not be any more obliging after so many weeks have passed. And why to Churchill? My uncle is so often in town that he cannot avoid you if you settle there.”

“Nobody is so easily avoided anywhere as in town. But in his family home, in the presence of his wife and children, your uncle will be forced to appear hospitable and obliging, which may kindle something like a sense of duty. If I had any hope of legal redress, I would not put myself in his way—even for my own welfare, I would not do it, as I might sell the Portland Place house and live very comfortably. But if, as Mr. Manwaring attests, your father expressed how much he meant to settle on you, I must make some attempt to call him to account.”

“I do not wish, for my sake, that you expose yourself to the duplicity of my uncle. I will not forget how he came to us at Churchill Manor while my father was in frail health, preying upon family feeling in a very underhanded manner, and to a most mercenary end! How the brother of a man as kindhearted and generous as my father can be so selfish and wicked! To have the same mother and father and yet to turn out so unlike! I pity my aunt and cousins—to have such a vile man for their husband and father!”

“You may be as liberal as you like with your pity,” replied Lady Vernon. “I will reserve mine for us.”

“But what of the Manwarings? They talk of you returning to them after I go to London. Maria says that they quite depend upon it.”

“I think that Mr. Manwaring does, but I cannot think that Eliza is feeling as charitable as she did when the invitation to Langford was first given. Eliza was willing to tolerate me as an object of pity, but a woman can never be charitable for long when she believes—however wrongly!—that she has a rival for any man’s attentions, even if that man is only her husband.”

chapter nineteen

Sir James Martin, having exhausted his appeals to bring his cousins to Ealing Park, departed from Langford on the following day. His absence was but briefly felt; four gentlemen, eager for gaiety and diversion, came to fill his place, so that there was no time to lament the absence of one. Indeed, they began to be sorry that Lady Vernon had not followed her cousin to town, for she seemed resolved upon making herself so charming that, when she announced her decision to leave them some weeks before her proposed departure, nobody was sorry save for Manwaring and his sister. Manwaring’s defense of her was in proportion to what he supposed her fortune to be, and Maria would not join in the censure of one whose conduct she had never observed to be improper and whose daughter had become her closest friend. The other ladies, however, began to resent that Lady Vernon managed to be more elegant in bombazine and crepe than they could manage in velvet and silk, and the gentlemen pronounced her “monstrous pretty”—too pretty for a widow—and they would not want their own wives to be so gay after they were cold in the ground. “I daresay everything I ever heard about her is quite true!” declared Charles Smith, a lively, forward young man who had come to Langford with a friend. “She is too much the coquette for my taste,” he determined, though Lady Vernon had said little more to him than a polite “Good morning” when she came down to breakfast and an equally civil “Good evening, sir” when she retired at night. “And her daughter, entirely the reverse!” he continued. “So dull and bookish—so entirely without style or elegance!”

Lady Hamilton approved these speeches and declared that Mr.

Smith was a very sensible young man and not one to be fooled by appearances. She would not scruple to set down all of Lady Vernon’s coquetry and impropriety in her letters to Lady deCourcy and to her niece at Churchill Manor—indeed, every letter posted from Langford had something of Lady Vernon in it.

Mrs. Manwaring to Mrs. Johnson

Langford, Somerset

My dear friend,

You were mistaken, my dear Alicia, in supposing that Lady Vernon and her daughter would be with us for the rest of the winter. Had I not been so overcome with pity for her situation, I would never have had her come to Langford. Though she was so recent a widow, I was not without apprehension, and she had not been here very long before she began to invite the attentions of every gentleman present, not excluding those of my own husband! Upon Sir James Martin, she bestowed what notice was necessary to detach him from Maria, and now it appears that, though Sir Frederick has been gone for scarcely three months, Sir James has every intention of making his proposals for Miss Vernon. I have learned from Maria that Miss Vernon is not at all inclined toward the match, which, if that is true, must make her the greatest simpleton on earth! I have no doubt, however, that her mother will be rewarded for her exertions as wicked people so often are, and that the scheme of placing her in the care of Miss Summers’s Academy on Wigmore Street is only done to give the girl a bit of polish before entering into the engagement.

We are in a sad state, but that will soon be relieved as Lady Vernon leaves us at the beginning of December. It is said that she will not open her house in town but only install Miss Vernon in school and then go down to Churchill Manor. I cannot think that she would go to them unless there were truly no place in England open to her—to Churchill she is to go, however, until something better comes into view, and so she may plague Mrs. Charles Vernon and flirt with her husband—who was once Lady Vernon’s beau. What an abhorrent thing for Mrs. Vernon to have to receive her!

Adieu. I beg you, my dear Alicia, to give my warmest regards to Mr. Johnson and tell him that I do not at all resent his throwing me off upon my marriage, which—considering the conduct of my husband—showed a greater affection for me than I gave credit. If I had been one degree less contemptibly weak, I should never have married him, for you know that I was applied to by more than one title above baronet—yet I was foolish and romantic and would not be satisfied by riches alone. If Lady Vernon were not to leave us very soon, I might find myself so desperate as to appeal to Mr. Johnson—but I will not impose upon your domestic tranquillity just yet. I will know better how things stand after we are relieved of Lady Vernon’s presence.

Yours, etc.,

Eliza Manwaring

Lady Vernon, accompanied by her daughter and Miss Lucy Hamilton, quit Langford in the first week of December. Mrs. Manwaring was so overcome with joy at seeing them go that she was almost restored to cordiality. Manwaring, on the other hand, was so despondent that Lady Vernon might have felt sorry for him had she not believed that the Christmas season would bring him many more visitors who had pretty wives and sisters, and that he would not want for somebody to flirt with. Miss Manwaring was genuinely unhappy at the loss of a pleasant companion, but the promise of a steady correspondence and the prospect of being in London within a few months herself reconciled her to the loss of Miss Vernon’s company.

In London, there was nobody to receive Lady Vernon except for Alicia Johnson, who could only invite her to drink tea at Edward Street when Mr. Johnson was at his club. Rumors of Lady Vernon’s scandalous conduct while at Langford had reached him, and though he was not prepared to forgive his ward for marrying against his wishes and was gratified that her husband’s immoderate conduct had proven his objections to be justified, he did not think that it would be quite respectable to meet the woman who had added to the Manwarings’ discord.

“He does not hate you,” Mrs. Johnson assured her friend. “Mr. Johnson cannot hate anybody, he has not the heart for it. But you see how it is. We are intimate friends and your brother-in-law is very high in the banking house now, and your cousin is Sir James Martin, so slighting you would have an awkward look—yet as Eliza was his ward, something is due her. He cannot bring himself to approve of one connection, nor to insult the other, and so he takes himself to his club to avoid the situation altogether. So, how did you leave them all at Langford? Eliza is very angry at Maria for not fixing Sir James while he was there. Poor Maria will never catch anybody with such a placid and reserved disposition—artlessness will never do in love matters!”

“The truth of that matter is,” replied Lady Vernon with candor, “Maria Manwaring does not care for Sir James at all and looks to marriage only in a very general way, as the means by which she may escape from the unhappiness at home. Poor girl, she might have made a suitable match by this time if Eliza had not been so determined that she must marry Sir James.”

“Ah, but one cannot blame her—he is so very handsome and rich. Eliza might be almost forgiven for aiming so high, and Miss Vernon, if I may say so, cannot be forgiven for resisting the idea of a match with her cousin. What will you do if she continues to refuse him?”

“I suppose I shall have to marry him myself!” Lady Vernon laughed.

“Well, Miss Summers’s young ladies will make her more reasonable. They know the importance of husbands, and their influence will do what a mother’s cannot. So you are really to go to Churchill? How long must we postpone the pleasure of seeing one another again?”

“Alas, if it were in my power to invite you, I would, but I have no standing there. We must wait and see how far I can win over Mrs. Vernon.”

“I will not depend upon her hospitality. The Parkers have just come back from a fortnight in Sussex. They mean to take Billings-hurst after the new year, and Mrs. Parker said that they dined with a half-dozen families in the neighborhood and yet did not once see anything of the Vernons. She says that Mr. Vernon and his wife go nowhere and keep no company—it is quite as bad as Mr. Johnson! But if I cannot visit you in the country, I can at least be a friend to Miss Vernon in town.”

“You will have to suffer Mrs. Johnson’s invitations—that cannot be avoided,” Lady Vernon told her daughter at the time of their parting. “The sacrifice of an hour or two a week will not be too trying.”

“And if it is,” Frederica replied, “I will introduce her to one of the girls at Miss Summers’s—a nice orphan girl from a good family ought to satisfy all of her maternal ambitions.”

chapter twenty

Mrs. Charles Vernon took a great deal of pleasure from living in as unvarying a style as a marriage and four children would permit. She never traveled from her home and took no delight in society beyond that of her family circle at Parklands. She had a natural complacency about everything around her, and had her circle been wider, and her routine more varied, she might have felt compelled to acquire something by way of accomplishment or education that would have justified her good opinion of herself. This good opinion, however, rested solely on her being the daughter of Sir Reginald deCourcy, and the niece of Lady Hamilton, which she could cultivate very well by going nowhere and doing as little as possible.

Her husband’s frequent engagements in London, his attachment to a very fast set, his penchant for gaming and cards, his coolness toward her parents, and his indifference to their children were less troublesome to her than the prospect of any alteration in her routine, and the acquisition of Churchill Manor, therefore, was not entirely welcome. She had known that it must come someday, but had always hoped that it would not be until after her husband was dead, when the property would pass to their eldest son and spare her the trouble of uprooting herself from Kent.

To be sure, the distance from Parklands Manor to Churchill was not great, but it was very far to one who had never lived a quarter-mile from two very indulgent parents. At Churchill, there would be no fond mother to bring her gossip and hear her complaints, and she would have to be hospitable to strangers rather than pampered by her parents.

Regarding Churchill itself, she could find little fault and wrote to her mother the very day of her arrival:

I confess, madam, that while the wooded areas are quite somber, and the grounds nothing at all when compared to Parklands, the house is a good one, the furniture fashionable, and everything is fitted out with elegance and taste. I cannot think that a woman of my sister-in-law’s reputation can have had the refinement to effect such an improvement in the property over what it must have been, for Mr. Vernon’s accounts of his youth had made Churchill Manor out to be a very uninviting place. We shall have to get a new housekeeper and cook at once, but I think that we may wait until after our visit to you at Christmas to engage the rest of the household—for many of the former staff left Churchill Manor after Sir Frederick’s death. I shall be anxious to hear your advice on how the business will best be managed.

Lady deCourcy responded to her daughter’s letter with a great deal of advice on how she was to direct her household, how thoroughly she must go over the cook’s accounts and how few dishes she might get by on when only the clergyman and his wife came to dine, expressing her confidence that anything she had forgot would be resolved when the Vernons came back to Parklands for Christmas.

This plan was at the heart of all of their succeeding letters, which invariably concluded with when we return to Kent at Christmastime or when you and my dear grandchildren come to us at Christmas. It was, therefore, particularly irksome to Mrs. Vernon when her husband showed her Lady Vernon’s letter. Mrs. Vernon was all astonishment and immediately protested. “After all that we have heard from my Aunt Hamilton of her conduct at Langford! Conduct that showed no regard for the feelings of her hostess or the memory of her late husband! Can you think of bringing such a woman into our home? To expose our children to her! I am certain that my mother would never approve such a plan.”

Charles Vernon was no more eager to receive Lady Vernon than his wife, but the prospect of going back to the dull festivities of Parklands and the oppressive meddling of Lady deCourcy was even less inviting than receiving his brother’s widow. The reports of Lady Vernon’s improper conduct at Langford persuaded him that she could not make any appeal to him that was based upon a claim of rectitude, nor would she find an ally to defend her in the wake of the scandalous rumors that had come out of Somerset. “Lady Vernon can exert no influence that your own excellent character will not offset, my dear,” her husband replied. “It need not prevent us from spending our Christmas with your family. You may invite them here.”

That suggestion was put forth in the full knowledge that Sir Reginald’s frail health would not permit him to travel, which gave Vernon the advantage of appearing liberal without actually having to put himself out. An unsettling discomfort—the beginnings of dissatisfaction with his new responsibilities—had begun to diminish the triumph of acquisition, and his chief enjoyment of it came from the distance he had put between himself and his mother-in-law.

Mrs. Vernon to Lady deCourcy

Churchill Manor, Sussex

My dear Mother,

I am very sorry to tell you that it will not be in our power to keep our promise of spending this Christmas with you; and we are prevented that happiness by a circumstance that is not likely to give us any pleasure. Lady Vernon, in a letter to her brother, has declared her intention of visiting us. I was by no means prepared for such an event, nor can I account for her desire to come to us when she has a perfectly suitable house in town. I can only suspect that her extravagant manner of living and her determination to have Miss Vernon schooled in London at great expense has left her in narrow circumstances, and that she wishes to have my husband render her some pecuniary assistance.

I can think of no other reason for her coming to us, and though she expresses a most eager desire of being acquainted with me and makes very generous mention of my children, I am not weak enough to suppose that she disposes her own child in town so that she may engage the affections of mine. I cannot forgive her artful and ungenerous opposition to my marriage—no one could overlook it, save for one as amiable as Mr. Vernon. Mr. Vernon will think kindly of her, but he is disposed to think well of everyone, and I have no doubt that his own grief has softened his heart toward his late brother’s widow.

I am very glad to hear that my father’s health has not declined to any great degree and I am, with best love, etc.,

Catherine Vernon

When Lady deCourcy heard of the alteration in plans, she wrote to her daughter in language that could not conceal her anger and frustration, directing all of her resentment against Lady Vernon. We shall at least have Reginald with us, she added.

And Lord and Lady Hamilton will come with your cousins, which will bring your brother together with Lavinia. Reginald has been so provoking of late—going here and going there, and behaving as though all of our expectations are of no significance. If we get them together for a few weeks, I have no doubt that matters will be settled before the new year.

Mrs. Vernon read this letter to her husband and expressed her relief that her parents would not be completely alone at Christmas, and said how likely it was that it would be the last Christmas season her father would see, which would make the presence of at least one of his children a great source of pleasure.

Vernon was not equally pleased. Sir Reginald’s frail health had been among his wife’s most amiable attractions, as it was likely that the demise of so fond a father would bring them something in the way of a bequest. That he would have hung on into the seventh year of the Vernons’ marriage was, to Vernon’s thinking, an example of the deCourcy obstinacy.

Vernon had other reasons to reflect upon his father-in-law’s demise, for the deCourcy estate had not been entailed entirely from the female line. Only Sir Reginald’s son and brother barred Parklands from going to Vernon’s eldest son. As far as Lewis deCourcy was concerned, Vernon had no anxiety. He was a bachelor of long standing and it was inconceivable that in his middle fifties he would marry, or bring forth an heir if he did. Reginald, however, was a more troublesome prospect. A union with Lavinia Hamilton was being urged upon him, one that would likely put a succession of deCourcys between Vernon’s son and a property worth a clear twelve thousand per annum. To have Reginald single, therefore, was a matter of some consequence to Vernon, and if the burden of responsibility had lessened the charms of his present situation, it had not kept him from wanting more.

To Reginald’s credit, he had thus far avoided matrimony as deftly as any young man will when he has plenty of money and no reason to hurry himself into wedlock, but Vernon imagined that a family Christmas at Parklands, with all of the warmth of feeling that the season will generally produce, would weaken Reginald’s resolve and end with an engagement.

Charles was fairly certain that Reginald’s fondness for sport, and his attachment to Catherine and the children, would bring him to Churchill Manor, but when Mrs. Vernon next received a letter from her brother, there was mention of the particular inducement that had persuaded the young man to make the journey to Sussex.

Vernon was determined to thwart such a prospect by inviting Reginald to Churchill Manor. Charles wrote:

We must receive my sister, Lady Vernon. As the necessity of this will keep us at Churchill, I hope that you will not deny your sister the pleasure of having you with us. I would not deprive my good in-laws of your company had I not been assured that they will have Lord and Lady Hamilton and the Misses Hamilton with them. The weather has been so remarkably mild that I ride out every day. The countryside is excellent for a gallop if one’s mount is not timid, and there will be some excellent pheasant shooting for many weeks more.

Charles was fairly certain that Reginald’s fondness for sport, and his attachment to Catherine and the children, would bring him to Churchill Manor, but when Mrs. Vernon next received a letter from her brother, there was mention of the particular inducement that had persuaded the young man to make the journey to Sussex.

Mr. deCourcy to Mrs. Vernon

Bennet Street, Bath

My dear sister,

I congratulate you and Mr. Vernon on receiving into your family the most accomplished coquette in England. I can have no kind feelings toward one who so energetically opposed your marriage to Mr. Vernon, and it has lately fallen in my way to hear some particulars of her conduct at Langford, which proves that she does not confine herself to that sort of honest flirtation that satisfies most people but aspires to the more delicious gratification of making a whole family miserable. By her behavior to Manwaring, she gave jealousy and wretchedness to his wife, and by her attentions to Sir James Martin, she deprived Miss Manwaring of a suitor. I learned all of this from Charles Smith, who passed a fortnight at Langford, and who is therefore well qualified to communicate the particulars of Lady Vernon’s conduct.

I shall certainly accept your kind invitation, for though I had resolved against any introduction to Lady Vernon, I confess that I long to see her so that I may form my own idea of the sort of bewitching powers that can engage, at the same time and in the same house, the interest of two so very different men as Robert Manwaring and Sir James Martin (though, in the latter case, her motivation was to secure him for Miss Vernon).

I am glad that she does not come with her mother to Churchill, as, according to Charles Smith, she is dull and proud and has not even manners to recommend her. When pride and stupidity are united, they will inspire such unrelenting contempt that even the simulation of notice is too great an exertion, but where pride is joined with the sort of captivating deceit as Lady Vernon is said to possess, the opportunity to witness it cannot be declined.

I shall be with you very soon, and am,

Your affectionate brother,

Reginald deCourcy

This letter was the first information that Mrs. Vernon had of her husband’s invitation to Reginald. She was very surprised, but she was so used to being indulged that she supposed Charles’s real motive was to console her for the loss of a Christmas at Parklands, and to appease her for having to put up with Lady Vernon. This absolute assurance that affection for her had been uppermost in everyone’s mind very nearly reconciled Mrs. Vernon to the inconvenience of hospitality.

chapter twenty-one

Catherine Vernon had been bred to think of herself as a woman of fashion, but a weak understanding and the indulgence of a fond mother had left her susceptible to think too well of herself and too meanly of others.

She went down to meet Lady Vernon’s carriage with a determination to be perfectly civil, and yet her greeting was lacking in the warmth and cordiality that might persuade Lady Vernon that they sprang from any genuine feeling. Persuaded as she was that Lady Vernon had objected to her marriage, Catherine might be excused for some coolness, and yet where there is a disposition to dislike, a motive will never be wanting.

Catherine anticipated that her own coolness would be reciprocated, for she quite expected to find Lady Vernon to be a dangerous, cold, and forbidding sort of creature, and was very surprised to find her excessively pretty, with such a union of symmetry, brilliance, and grace that she might have been taken for a woman of no more than five and twenty.

When Catherine ushered Lady Vernon into the sitting room, Lady Vernon made mention of some minor alteration in furnishings and complimented her sister-in-law’s taste. She then thanked Catherine for receiving her and added, “I am not apt, my dear Mrs. Vernon, to affect sensations unfamiliar to my heart, and therefore I trust that you will believe me when I declare that as much as I had heard in your praise before this meeting, I see that it was very short of the truth. I am gratified by your kind welcome, particularly as I have reason to believe that some attempts were made to prejudice you against me. I only wish—but upon that subject, let us say no more! I will only thank you for your goodness and Mr. Vernon for his generosity—but I know that he was always the fondest of brothers and I never doubted that he would receive me for dear Frederick’s sake.”

Catherine Vernon could not be insensible to the effect of Lady Vernon’s sweet voice and winning manner. It must be a superior deceit, she decided, and wondered how a disposition that could temper her resentful heart might work on her husband’s generosity.

“I cannot think where Mr. Vernon has gone to,” declared Catherine, and she repeated the phrase whenever the conversation sank into a lull until the appearance of the children relieved her of the exertion.

To Catherine’s surprise, Lady Vernon addressed the children in a tone that was frank, gentle, and even affectionate, greeting each child by name and exclaiming over the younger of the two boys, who was her late husband’s namesake. “You must be dear little Frederick!” she cried, and careless of her gown, she took the child into her arms and gave him a kiss, and then distributed presents to all of them.

Charles Vernon appeared at last, and summoning a smile of welcome, he cried, “My dear sister!” and took her hands and kissed her cheek in an awkward show of affection.

He then sat down and began to speak very quickly, running from subject to subject and barely pausing to allow for any response, stopping only to turn upon the children and reprimand them for the untidy manner in which they had thrown their wrappings and boxes on the carpet and then to attempt a jovial remark about how the children would make Lady Vernon “long for the everyday commotion of Langford,” adding that the Manwarings must have been very sorry to have her leave them so soon.

“I cannot tell if they regretted or welcomed my departure,” replied Lady Vernon with a smile, “but Mr. Manwaring supposed that there must be a matter of business that could only be resolved by my coming to Churchill.”

Vernon stammered something about Manwaring being a very glib fellow who talked a great deal of nonsense. “He is amiable enough, but if he knew half as much as he ought about business, he would have made a better marriage,” he added with a laugh.

“Oh, I believe it was a very businesslike proposal on his part, for he had not a shilling and Eliza had a great deal of money settled upon her. It was Mr. Manwaring’s ill fortune that the custodian of her money withheld it from spite—a very ignoble thing for Mr. Johnson to do, do you not agree? Mrs. Manwaring’s father had intended for her to have the money and depended upon Mr. Johnson to carry out his wishes. No man of honor could have doubted the intent, but perhaps there was just such an informality in the arrangement that allowed Eliza’s guardian to withhold it. But I fear this subject does not interest Mrs. Vernon—indeed, the subject of business often becomes either too dull or too heated for many people, and she is not acquainted with any of the principals.”

Charles Vernon attempted some weak humor about women and business, and Mrs. Vernon agreed that business was better left to men and that her children gave her all that she needed to think about.

At last, Lady Vernon begged her relations to excuse her, pleading the fatigue of her journey and the desire to rest and refresh herself before dinner. She was shown to her apartments, which were in a very inferior situation that would expose her to all of the noise and traffic of the nursery and the back stair. The rooms themselves were large and well furnished, however, and the windows opened to the back, upon the crisscrossed hedgerow and a portion of the park, with enough of the forcing garden and greenhouses within view for Lady Vernon to observe that they had fallen into disrepair.

“I know nobody in the servants’ quarters,” Wilson told her mistress. “Even Cook—dear Cook—has been sent away, and I cannot think that the woman who has come to replace her is half so good, though she may do well enough for the family. It is said in the kitchen that it is rare for Mr. and Mrs. Vernon to have anyone to dine, and that they accept very few invitations. The neighborhood must feel such a very great change from Sir Frederick’s open hospitality.”

“And yet the house itself is unchanged. There has been almost no alteration to the furnishings or in the arrangement of the rooms, no adornments that would have put the Vernons’ own stamp upon the property or pronounced their good fortune to the world—nothing save for one change that I do not like,” added Lady Vernon warmly. “Sir Frederick’s portrait has been removed from the gallery and has been replaced with one of Mrs. Vernon’s grandfather.”

She was all composure, however, when she went down to dinner and took her place below Mrs. Vernon. Catherine experienced no discomfort until her sister-in-law declined the pheasant curry and the sweetbreads. Lady Vernon apologized for her poor appetite, attributing it to the parting from her daughter and an uncomfortable carriage ride, and declared that a day or two of exercise and fresh air would allow her to do justice to Mrs. Vernon’s excellent table. Mrs. Vernon was not consoled; she believed that for all her sweetness of address, Lady Vernon meant to express her contempt for her sister-in-law by taking no more than a plain breast of chicken and a boiled potato.

chapter twenty-two

Lady Vernon had determined, when she came to Churchill, that she would make a direct appeal to Charles and the morning after her arrival, she waited until Catherine excused herself from the breakfast table to go up to the nursery. “Stay, if you please, brother,” said she, for Charles had made a move to depart. “As happy as I am to be introduced to Mrs. Vernon and my nieces and nephews, I must tell you with all candor that I have other motivations for coming here.”

Charles appeared distressed, and glanced at his watch and made some remark about having to ride into the village. “I hope that your apartments are to your liking—they are very near the children, and the children are very lively. They will soon come to an age where some renovation will have to be thought of, and there will be the expense of governesses and masters—yes, it is a costly thing to raise a large family.”

“It can be more difficult to provide for one child than four, if you have not the income.”

“Yes, but that is not the case with you, as you were left a very fine house in town—a house in town, so handsomely furnished, may be let or sold for a very good price, and there is your own income, which must be above seven hundred pounds per annum. That ought to keep you and my niece quite comfortably until she marries, and she has two thousand settled upon her, has she not? That is very handsome.”

“It cannot be said to be handsome, if it is only a portion of what she was intended to have. Charles, I must be frank. If my husband’s injury and ill health prevented him from carrying out his wishes as far as Frederica was concerned, is it not for you, his heir and brother, to see that they are fulfilled? You know that he intended to settle ten thousand upon her.”

“My dear sister, you suppose that I was in my brother’s confidence to a greater degree than was the case. If his motives for leaving matters as he did are obscure to you, who lived with him daily, how much more so must they be to me? All I can know of his intentions were set down in his will, and as this was influenced by the manner of provision favored by our honored father, I must take it to be a genuine expression of my brother’s desire. And if that is the case, how can I contradict it?”

Until that moment, Lady Vernon did not know how far she had continued to hope, for the sake of her husband’s memory as well as her own comfort and Frederica’s future, that her ill opinion of Charles might have been undeserved.

With as much dignity as she could command, Lady Vernon rose from the table and left the room.

They did not meet again until dinnertime, and although the ladies sat for nearly two hours after dinner, the dullness of Mrs. Vernon’s company was only relieved by the appearance of the children for half an hour. Charles did not join them.

The next day and the next were much the same—Charles kept himself very much engaged, and though Lady Vernon saw no evidence of anything that could so completely occupy his time, and some very disheartening indications that the property was not being attended to as it ought, he did not appear again at breakfast, nor did he sit with them after dinner. Catherine, without accomplishments or conversation, spared Lady Vernon the pain she might have felt for detesting the husband of an amiable woman. Only the company of her little nieces and nephews gave her any pleasure. They were still too young to have had their tempers impaired by the indulgence of their mother or the neglect of their father.

Thus did the first week of Lady Vernon’s return to Churchill Manor pass away.

chapter twenty-three

With the foolhardiness of many selfish men, Charles Vernon had thought only of the pleasures of acquisition without the sting of conscience. He was entitled to all that his brother’s will had assigned him, and had been in a fair way to arguing himself out of any reproach. Yet while Lady Vernon’s reproving gazes could be avoided, the quantity of letters she received could not. Vernon began to put a troubling construction upon each letter she sent off to the post and each one she perused at the breakfast table. He imagined her confiding her situation to the Martins, to Lewis deCourcy, or to one of the gentlemen at the banking house, and although Vernon knew that the law was on his side, they might be prevailed upon to aggravate him with appeals for charity or compassion.

One morning, a week into her visit, Lady Vernon descended much earlier than usual and espied Vernon in the passage, examining the mail that had just been brought in, giving particular attention to the direction on several of the letters.

“Are there any letters for me, brother?” Lady Vernon asked.

He turned upon her with a start and a guilty flush spread over his cheeks. He muttered something about Mrs. Vernon’s expecting a letter from her mother that morning. “Why, yes, here are three—no, four!” said he as he handed them over. “So many letters, and so soon after your arrival, but I expect at least two or three of them are from my niece. Catherine and I shall be very eager to hear how she gets on in town.”

Lady Vernon made no reply and took her letters to the breakfast table, sensible of the reason for her brother-in-law’s discomfort. If he was anxious that she had confided the particulars of their conversation abroad, she was not inclined to make him comfortable by correcting him.

The first letter she opened was from Sir James. She had not sent him any word that she meant to go to Sussex until after she had left Frederica at school. Her letter to him had begun:

You will be very happy to know that I have taken your advice and brought my time at Langford to an end. You will be surprised to learn that I do not remain in London to be near Freddie, and you will be angry when you learn where I have gone. I pray you, cousin, do not take up your pen to reply until you have reconciled these incompatible sensations and are capable of making a rational reply.

Sir James, however, was too impetuous—upon receiving her letter, he immediately dashed off a reply full of astonishment and anger; Lady Vernon found herself smiling at his excessive expressions, certain that the next day’s post would bring a retraction that was equally immoderate in its remorse and affection. Lady Martin’s letter was more resigned.

I am excessively disappointed that you did not come to us. I shall have to put up with James until the new year, with nobody to relieve me of his company. But do not be alarmed for me—if he becomes too troublesome, I have only to remark upon the shabbiness of his attire to get him off to his tailor in London. That is always sure to get me a fortnight of peace and quiet.

The next letter had her address penned with all of the loops and flourishes of a female hand, but when Lady Vernon opened the sheet, she saw that it was from Manwaring. She read, not without amusement, his dismal accounts of the tedium of Langford and his eagerness to quit it for London.

And when I get to town, you may write to me under the cover of our mutual friend, Alicia Johnson. You need have no fear of our correspondence being intercepted, as Alicia tells me that Mr. Johnson has accepted an invitation from Mr. Lewis deCourcy to pass a few weeks at Bath. Mr. Johnson continues to hate me for taking away his ward when he was so opposed to the match, and I confess that I begin to be on his side. Alicia, however, likes to be on the side of whoever gives her the greater share of participation in a romance. We must not disappoint her.

The last letter was from Mrs. Johnson.

Mrs. Johnson to Lady Vernon

Edward Street, London

My dear friend,

We have been very dull here, but it promises to be more exciting, as Manwaring (who has contrived, in spite of Mr. Johnson, to get a letter to me) will come to town before Christmas. He is in a deplorable state and laments over your premature departure from Langford as fervently as Eliza delights in it. I advise you to be as firm with him as you can, lest he commit the grave impudence of attempting to come to you at Churchill. It is said that he will take rooms on Bond Street, and leave Maria and Eliza to shift for themselves. Everything points to a strong desire on both sides to part, and it is only the mutual ambition to get Maria married that keeps them from acting upon it.

Mr. Johnson leaves London next Tuesday. He is going for his health to Bath. He will stay with Mr. Lewis deCourcy, and during his absence I will be able to choose my own society and receive Manwaring without Mr. Johnson reminding me that I had once made some sort of promise never to invite him to our home. Nothing but my being in the utmost distress for a new gown and some ready money could have extorted such a pledge from me, but I consider my promise to Mr. Johnson as comprehending only that I do not invite Manwaring to sleep in the house or to eat anything beyond a cold luncheon or tea.

Poor Manwaring! In his letter, he gives me such histories of his wife’s jealousy! Silly woman, to expect constancy from so charming a man! But she was always silly; intolerably so, in marrying him at all. She was the heiress to a large fortune and nothing else—neither looks, nor good humor, nor sense—she might have had a title and instead settled for a man without a shilling to his name!

I do not in general share the feelings of Mr. Johnson, but when I heard of what she threw away, I quite understand his resolve never to forgive her.

I have had Miss Vernon twice to tea and once to dine—a difficult enterprise, as the conditions under which Miss Summers’s charges are permitted to leave the premises are very strict. Your daughter bade me to send you her love and says that she has directed a letter to you by way of the parsonage.

Your affectionate friend,

Alicia Johnson

Lady Vernon had been anxious that she had received no word from Frederica, and rising from the table, she announced her intention to walk to the parsonage and call upon Mrs. Chapman.

Charles Vernon seemed very much alarmed. Though he was not comfortable in his sister-in-law’s presence, he did not like to think of her running all over the county and engaging the sympathy of the neighbors. “But see how dark the sky is!” he protested. “It will surely rain.”

“It is only a passing cloud or two.”

“Then perhaps Catherine will accompany you. Do you not wish to call upon Mrs. Chapman, Catherine?”

“Indeed, no,” replied his wife. “I called upon her only last week—my mother does not call upon the parsonage at Parklands Manor above twice a month.”

“I would not take Mrs. Vernon away from her more pressing obligations,” said Lady Vernon mildly. “I will take Wilson with me.”

“If you will wait, I will call for the gig and drive you myself,” Charles offered.

“That will not accommodate three of us,” Lady Vernon reminded him. “But you are most welcome to walk with us, brother, and we may stop at the churchyard on the way. I ought to have visited Frederick’s gravesite upon my arrival. I must not neglect it any longer.”

Charles immediately recollected some urgent letters of business that must be written that morning, and stammering an apology for withdrawing his offer, he hurried from the room.

Lady Vernon and Wilson made their way along the neglected road, where it was passable, and crossed lawns and fields, where it was not, until the white fence surrounding the graveyard was in view, and when Lady Vernon saw the stone marker, with nothing upon it but a few humble blossoms, tokens that must have been left by some kindly tenant or villager, she began to weep. Wilson waited patiently while her mistress had her cry and then helped Lady Vernon to wipe her eyes and adjust her veil before they continued on to the parsonage.

Mrs. Chapman was delighted to see them both but declared that she was very surprised to hear that they had walked from Churchill Manor. “For Mrs. Barrett and I called at Churchill Manor not two days ago, and Mr. Vernon informed us that you were too fatigued from your parting from Miss Vernon and your travels for any visiting at all.”

Lady Vernon did her best to conceal her astonishment. “I am sure that you misunderstood—I will always be happy to see my old friends while I am at Churchill. I quite depend upon it.”

Mrs. Chapman then produced a letter from Miss Vernon. “I got a very pretty note from Frederica—how handsomely she expresses herself—and she enclosed this sheet for you. How I do miss her! Only last year she got my little hothouse going so well that Mr. Chapman and I shall have strawberries into January. What a pity Mr. Vernon has lost most of your groundsmen—I am afraid that Miss Vernon’s gardens and greenhouses have quite gone down since your departure.”

Lady Vernon took her leave soon after this exchange, but not before she had got Mrs. Chapman’s promise to wait upon her at Churchill Manor.

As they walked back, Lady Vernon opened her letter and read it aloud to Wilson.

Miss Vernon to Lady Vernon

Wigmore Street, London

My dear Madam,

You will forgive this expedient for sending my letter, but I do not know who takes in the post at my uncle’s house—I do not think that he would scruple to open my letters.

I am getting along well enough here. Each morning we are tutored in deportment and elocution, French, arithmetic, and music, and in the afternoon it is needlework, drawing, and handwriting, after which we are left alone until tea. The other girls employ this time in gossip or trimming bonnets or filigree work, or practicing the new steps taught by the dancing master, who visits once a week. The library is a very poor one, and I do not think I have seen any of the girls take up a book unless it is one of their own novels, which they read aloud and exchange among one another.

We may receive visitors in the open salon but may not go out on our own, and if we are invited anywhere, a carriage must be sent for us. I have been to the theater once with several of the other young ladies, and have gone to Edward Street twice to drink tea and once to dine tête-à-tête with Mrs. Johnson. She laid down a good many hints about Sir James and myself and asked questions that I did not know how to answer. I turned the conversation aside as well as I could, and fortunately there is enough going on at Miss Summers’s to supply the diversion.

Lucy Hamilton is immensely popular and receives many invitations, but the only ones she accepts are those where she expects to meet with Mr. Charles Smith, who, it is said, has come to London on purpose to pursue her. It seems that Mr. Smith has been very much in the company of Mr. Reginald deCourcy, which cannot speak well for that gentleman—at Langford, Mr. Smith was so artificial and vain that his friends must be equally so. I do not envy Miss Lavinia Hamilton her prospective husband.

Lucy teases me a great deal about my “beau,” and will call me “Lady Martin,” and the other girls follow suit. They are all convinced that I have been sent here because I have refused Sir James and think that I am a great fool to set myself against someone who is so handsome and rich.

Please give my warmest affection to Miss Wilson. When you write to me again, you must let me know how my forcing garden and greenhouse fare.

Your obedient daughter,

Frederica Vernon

Wilson listened and then remarked sagely, “If Sir James knows how far everyone thinks of him as Miss Vernon’s suitor, it may give him another cause to be angry.”

“My cousin has always been rumored to be marrying some young lady or another. He laughed at the gossip regarding Frederica and himself when we were all at Langford—indeed, he encouraged it—and I am glad for anything that reminds Charles Vernon that we have an influential relation who takes our welfare to heart, particularly when he tries to keep us from old friends like Mrs. Chapman and Mrs. Barrett. Why, look! There he is now in his gig, waiting for us upon the road.”

Vernon was, indeed, sitting in his vehicle, and when he caught sight of the two women, he slapped the reins and drew up beside them.

“How long you have been gone! Come, take the place beside me—Miss Wilson will excuse you, I am sure, and you look very tired.”

“We are almost at the avenue, and the walking does me good.”

Vernon was not content to leave them alone and so he reined in the vehicle and walked the horse beside the two women. “You must tell me who you saw. Did you see the Reverend Mr. Chapman?”

“Only Mrs. Chapman.”

“And no one else?”

“No one. I took the liberty of asking her to wait upon us at Churchill. I understand that she and Mrs. Barrett attempted to visit and were turned away.”

“Oh, surely not! I am sure that I only told them that you were still fatigued from your journey. There will always be time for visiting.”

Lady Vernon was spared the necessity of a reply, for as they had got to the drive, a curricle raced toward the house at such an impossible speed that the women were forced to step away for fear of being caught under its wheels. Lady Vernon wondered at a person who drove with such disregard for those in his path.

“Reginald!” cried Vernon.

“It is Mrs. Vernon’s brother, Mr. deCourcy,” Wilson said in a low voice to her mistress.

The driver, observing the lady standing behind his brother, jumped down and handed the reins to the little groom who had struggled to keep pace with his master.

Reginald deCourcy was a very handsome young man. His eyes were the same color as his sister’s, but where Mrs. Vernon’s gaze was languid and indifferent, Reginald’s was penetrating and lively. He was taller than Vernon, and he moved with the assurance of one who was very pleased with himself and defied anyone else to be displeased with him.

The gentlemen greeted each other formally, and Reginald was introduced to Lady Vernon. She observed that Reginald’s bow was somewhat frosty and his address just short of outright impertinence. Her own curtsy was perfectly graceful and polite, which had the desired effect of making him conscious of his incivility, and he seemed close to making some sort of apology when his attention was diverted by his two nephews, who came running down the avenue. He was obliged to take each one in turn and toss him into the air and exclaim at how heavy and tall he had got since he had last seen him. He then lifted them both into the curricle and made a place for himself, and allowing each boy to put a hand on the reins, he guided the carriage, at a more moderate pace, down the drive.

Vernon excused himself and scrambled back into the gig, hurrying it after Reginald’s curricle in a manner that brought the women very near to laughter.

“He is quite handsome,” Wilson observed as she accompanied Lady Vernon down the drive.

“Yes, and he thinks well of himself, to be sure,” Lady Vernon replied. “His greeting was certainly very cool. I imagine that his sister has given him a very pretty opinion of me.”

The observation was soon confirmed in a conversation that Lady Vernon overheard not long after. She went up to her apartments to write a reply to her daughter and had got as far as

You are very good in suffering Mrs. Johnson’s notice. We must take it as a mark of her friendship for me, and I ask you to sacrifice a little of your time on my account. A reprieve from Miss Summers’s education can do you no harm. For the first week, we were very quiet. Now, however, our party is enlarged by Mrs. Vernon’s brother. He is very handsome

when, as the room had got quite warm, she paused to open the casement window above her little writing table. Directly below was a network of slate paths that ran beside the hedgerow, and Mrs. Vernon and her brother walked up and down in earnest conversation.

“We were obliged to receive her, Reginald,” Mrs. Vernon was saying. “What else could we do? Charles was always so attentive to his brother, always spending more effort than he ought in trying to keep up the relationship, and now extending his generosity to his brother’s widow. In my opinion, money is at the root of her coming to Churchill—she cannot live within her income and so means to impose upon Charles.”

“And by his act of charity, your husband admits into your household the most accomplished flirt in all of England. I know from Charles Smith that at Langford she behaved so atrociously that every woman in the household was miserable and wishing her gone.”

“You are mistaken there, I think. Eliza Manwaring would not keep up a correspondence if that were so.”

“Well, you do not see the letters. They may be from Manwaring himself, for it is said that he is quite smitten with her. Smith tells me that Mrs. Manwaring was made utterly wretched, and that Miss Manwaring, who was in a fair way to catching Sir James Martin, was thwarted by Lady Vernon’s determination to attach him to her daughter. Have you met her?”

“No. Lady Vernon has placed her in school in London. Oh, if you could but see her attentions to my children! The hypocrisy of interest and affection from a woman who has neglected her own child—but I am not deceived.”

“I must say,” Reginald said, somewhat reluctantly, “that as much as I have heard of Lady Vernon’s beauty, I was ill prepared for how close it came to truth. But it is what allows her to deceive so many—people will always be taken in by a beautiful woman but never by a plain one.”

After this remark, the pair moved out of Lady Vernon’s hearing, and she took up her pen once more with a mixture of satisfaction and anger. The latter emotion overwhelmed the former. A lady will always take pleasure in a compliment, particularly if she was not meant to hear it, as such a remark would be more genuine than one made to her face. The insult to Frederica, however, annulled any satisfaction, and it was in an ill humor that she continued her letter to her daughter.

and lively, but insolent; perhaps when I have inspired him with a greater respect for us than the kind opinions of his sister and his friends have encouraged, he may become agreeable. There is an exquisite pleasure in making a person acknowledge his prejudices—it is just the project to occupy my time and to prevent my feeling so acutely the separation from those whom I love.

chapter twenty-four

Reginald deCourcy came to Churchill Manor with a premeditated aversion toward Lady Vernon, expressed in a certain condescension, which the lady answered with calmness and reserve. Her manner was so free of vanity, pretension, or levity that Reginald began to wonder whether he might have placed an improper degree of confidence in Lady Hamilton’s assertions and Charles Smith’s gossip. He resolved to make out her character for himself and began to seek opportunities to engage her in conversation.

A few days after his arrival, he came upon Lady Vernon and his elder niece, a girl of about three years in age. The two were sitting on the ground in a little copse not far from the border of Churchill Wood. Lady Vernon had been showing young Kitty how to collect dried stalks and grass and to weave them into baskets.

“Good morning, Lady Vernon,” Reginald greeted her.

She replied with an inviting smile, and so he made some general remark about the mildness of the weather and added, “It is excellent for a sportsman. I have never had the pleasure of shooting in this part of Sussex.”

Lady Vernon hesitated just long enough to make the young man recognize his clumsiness. To his credit, he did recognize it and began to apologize.

“Say no more, Mr. deCourcy,” she said gravely. “If I have been brave enough to return to the scene of my husband’s accident, I cannot shrink from any allusion to it. You have come from Bath, I believe? I hope that you left your uncle in good health?”

“Yes, I thank you.”

“I was so very grateful to him for traveling all the way from Bath last summer. My husband’s death was so sudden that I am certain many people who wished to come were unable to make the journey.” She paused just long enough for him to recollect that his own sister had stayed away.

“It would not be in my uncle’s nature to do less,” said Reginald. “Particularly as he always spoke of your family in terms of such high esteem.” He realized as he uttered this remark that he ought to have given as much credit to his uncle’s opinion as he had to that of Charles Smith.

Lady Vernon took pity on him and raised another subject. “And how do you like this part of Sussex? You will find it very quiet, I think.”

“A household with four children can only be quiet when compared to the animated society of Langford.”

“The Manwarings are very fond of company,” Lady Vernon agreed. “It was at Langford that I was introduced to a particular acquaintance of yours, Mr. Charles Smith.”

“And did you like him?” he said after a moment’s hesitation.

“If I did not, I would not say so to one with whom he professed a strong and steadfast friendship. It might get back to him in a way that would not do justice to my abuse and then I would be obliged to think ill of both of you.”

Reginald deCourcy laughed and perched on a tree stump beside them. “He has very lively manners.”

“Yes, very lively. But gentlemen who are not rich cannot afford to be solemn if they want to mix with people of fashion. Such people like to be amused.”

“And do you not like to be amused?” he asked.

“I think that reading and a little music and some good conversation are the only diversions that are suitable to my present situation,” she replied with perfect composure. “So it is fortunate that they are the ones that I prefer. I understand that you are a great reader.”

“Whoever told you so said too much.”

“Mr. Smith told the Manwarings that when you were at Bath you spent a great deal of time at the library.”

“When he is at Bath, Smith reads only the book. To him, anything more would be too much and any time away from the Pump Room would be too long. I am enough of a reader to see that Churchill Manor has a very superior library.”

“The late Mr. Vernon laid out a very good foundation, and my husband added to it considerably. Our daughter has always been a great reader, and the mere mention of this title or that from her would have my husband sending around to every bookseller in England.”

“Such devotion between father and daughter is remarkable. She must miss him all the more for it.”

“Yes, her spirits have been greatly depressed,” Lady Vernon replied. “Those who have only known her since her father’s accident will find her to be quiet and aloof, I am sure, but they do not know what she was before. I hope that in the company of other young ladies, she will become herself once more. She is very fond of your cousin, Miss Lucy Hamilton, who is all liveliness and good humor—her high spirits can only raise Frederica’s.”

“Yes, Lucy is very far from quiet and aloof.” Reginald laughed. “She will make Miss Vernon more cheerful, and Miss Vernon will, perhaps, make Lucy more prudent. I cannot speak for Miss Vernon, but for Lucy it will be a very great improvement.”

“That is because you are only a cousin.” Lady Vernon smiled. “A fond mother will always think her child is beyond any improvement.”

chapter twenty-five

Lady Vernon concluded that there was no great mystery to winning over Reginald deCourcy. He only wanted to be listened to. His parents dictated, his sister criticized, his friends gossiped, but none of them paid heed to any of his replies. With Lady Vernon, he experienced the novelty of being asked for his opinion and the satisfaction of giving an uninterrupted response.

She observed that his education had been thorough, his understanding was sound, and his tendency to think well of himself had not predisposed him to think meanly of others. His gentleness with his young nieces and nephews, his regard for his uncle Lewis deCourcy, and his very handsome countenance and figure were all to his advantage, and Lady Vernon’s opinion of him had improved by the time she next wrote to Mrs. Johnson.

Mr. deCourcy is certainly a very handsome young man. He is less insinuating in his manner than Robert Manwaring, and not as teasing as Sir James. He is lively and clever; his mind has not been idle, and he has a natural curiosity that makes his conversation more to my taste than Mr. Vernon’s or his wife’s.

Her good friend, always eager to find romance and intrigue in every situation, immediately dispatched a reply filled with the sort of errant good wishes which indicated that Lady Vernon’s praise of Reginald had been thoroughly misunderstood.

Mrs. Johnson to Lady Vernon

Edward Street, London

My dear friend,

I congratulate you on Mr. deCourcy’s arrival and advise you by all means to marry him. I hear the young man well spoken of and though no one can really deserve you, my dear Susan, there are reasons that he may be worth having. His father is very infirm and not likely to stand in your way long, and the estate is considerable and entailed upon Mr. deCourcy—after that, only his uncle Lewis deCourcy keeps Parklands from passing to the issue of the female line. Charles Vernon has got enough out of the deCourcys, and if he has squandered it, it is nobody’s fault but his own. Mark my word, he will want to keep Reginald at Churchill Manor as long as the Hamiltons remain at Parklands, as he cannot look forward to a marriage that will put another half-dozen deCourcys between himself and so valuable an estate. How diverting to think that his efforts to keep deCourcy from one wife have thrown him in the way of another!

By all means, engage the affections of young deCourcy as quick as you can. You will be very little benefited by the match until the old gentleman’s death, except for the enjoyment of Mrs. Vernon’s distress. Her ability to influence her brother’s opinions has always been a point of pride with her, and she will be rightly humbled to see how little the advice of a sister can go to prevent a young man’s being in love if he chooses it. Lady Hamilton and Miss Hamilton will storm, and poor Manwaring will not be easily consoled, for ever since you were left so rich there have been whispers that he is scheming to effect his emancipation from Eliza on purpose to ask for your hand. I am convinced that there is no true affection anywhere—everything is all about money!

I have seen Sir James, who has come to town to visit his tailor. I gave him what hopes I could of Miss Vernon’s relenting and told him a great deal of her improvements, and yet he would speak of nobody but you—indeed I was persuaded that he would marry either of you with pleasure. He is as silly and agreeable as ever.

Your faithful friend,

Alicia Johnson

Mrs. Johnson was so far persuaded that an engagement between her friend and Reginald deCourcy was probable that she did not wait for her friend to contradict it before she began circulating around London that, despite a tacit understanding with Miss Lavinia Hamilton, young deCourcy had fallen entirely under the spell of Lady Vernon.

The rumor was well established by the time Charles Vernon was obliged to go to town for two days in order to attend to some matters at the banking house and collect his dividends. He departed in high spirits—a respite from the agitation that Lady Vernon’s presence had produced and the prospect of getting his hands on money and spending it at cards made him very happy to quit Churchill Manor for London. Men, however, must talk about something when they are at cards, and polite inquiries after Lady Vernon’s health and spirits were followed by congratulations upon the likelihood of her being an even nearer relation.

Vernon was astonished and disbelieving—Lady Vernon and Reginald had scarcely a fortnight’s acquaintance. He imagined the effect that such a rumor would have upon Lady deCourcy and would almost have been willing to return to Parklands if he might have the pleasure of hearing the first vehement expression of her disapprobation.

And yet … The thirty miles from London to Churchill Manor were just enough to allow Vernon to consider what might be the advantage to him if such a rumor were true.

A new and very rich husband would surely divert Lady Vernon from any contemplation of what was due from the former one. The acquisition of Parklands for his line would be more secure than if Reginald married Lavinia Hamilton, as Lady Vernon had brought only one daughter into a union of sixteen years.

By the time he alighted from the carriage, Charles Vernon had decided that it would be an excellent scheme to have Reginald marry Lady Vernon, and he began his campaign to promote it upon his first evening home. Though it was Christmas Eve, Catherine had invited nobody to dine and so Vernon was able to address Reginald as soon as the ladies withdrew. He began by remarking that nobody had been in town—“Nobody at all!”—and set it down to the mildness of the weather, which kept everyone in the country. He urged Reginald to think of extending his visit into January and to send to Kent for his horses and hunters so that they might try for foxes when the pheasants gave out. “Catherine and the children will be very happy to have you prolong your stay, and my sister is in such better looks than when she first came that I must think your company does her a great deal of good.”

This invitation was accepted with an alacrity that Charles attributed to Reginald’s desire to further his acquaintance with Lady Vernon. When they entered the drawing room, Vernon announced, “My love, I have asked Reginald to continue with us a few more weeks. You and the children have been so happy to have him here that I know you will plead his case when you next write to your mother.”

Mrs. Vernon’s countenance hovered between a smile and a frown. She was very gratified that her husband wished to keep Reginald at Churchill Manor, as she supposed that it was done entirely to please her, but she had, in her husband’s absence, seen such marks of a growing intimacy between her brother and Lady Vernon that she was willing to forgo the pleasure of having him remain at Churchill Manor to prevent him from becoming another object of Lady Vernon’s idle flirtation. When she next wrote to her mother, therefore, she appealed to Lady deCourcy to hurry Reginald’s departure rather than give him leave to stay.

Mrs. Vernon to Lady deCourcy

Churchill Manor, Sussex

My dear Mother,

It is with great reluctance that I communicate anything that might depress my father’s health and spirits, madam, but unless something is done to prevent it, you will be deprived of Reginald for more than a holiday season. Charles has invited my brother to prolong his visit, and while I am confident that my husband thinks of nothing but my pleasure, I grow uneasy in witnessing the very rapid increase of Lady Vernon’s influence over Reginald. I always regarded her coming with some uneasiness, but very far was it from originating in any anxiety for Reginald—I could not imagine that my brother would be in the smallest danger of being captivated by her after hearing Mr. Smith’s account of her proceedings at Langford.

I did not wonder at his being struck with the gentleness and delicacy of her manners, and she is altogether so attractive that I should not wonder at his being delighted with her, had he known nothing of her previous conduct. But now her powers have so offset the accounts of Mr. Smith that Reginald is persuaded that they were all scandalous invention. Only yesterday he actually said that her loveliness and abilities were such that he could almost excuse Mr. Manwaring’s feeling the effect of them.

I can hardly suppose that Lady Vernon’s desires extend to marriage. She must know that though no formal engagement exists between my brother and my cousin, both families look forward to their union. I am convinced that her object is that of any hardened coquette, namely, the assurance that she is universally loved and admired. But Reginald is young and of such a warm nature that he may not understand that she regards him only as an instrument of her vanity.

I wish you could get Reginald home again under any pretense. I believe that a few hints of my father’s precarious state of health, and of Reginald’s duty to be at Parklands when the Hamiltons are there, must come from you.

How sincerely do I grieve that she ever entered this house! I wish she would leave us, but Mr. Vernon will not send his brother’s widow away. Therefore, if you can get Reginald back to Parklands, it would be for the best.

Your affectionate daughter,

Catherine Vernon

chapter twenty-six

The next week passed in a series of quiet dinners and subdued family gatherings. The Chapmans were invited to dine along with another couple or two from the neighborhood, the children sang carols in the servants’ hall, the servants assembled to toast the health of their master and mistress, and the mince pies were distributed, but these were the highlights of the season’s festivities. Lady Vernon supposed that Charles and Catherine kept the occasion quiet out of respect for Sir Frederick’s memory, but Reginald gave her to understand that the Vernons’ holiday was quite in keeping with what had been usual at Parklands, and all of his experience with Bullet Pudding and Hunt-the-Slipper had come about when he spent a Christmas season with one or another of his friends. Much to her dismay, Catherine Vernon realized that, in the wake of Christmas Day, she was obliged to undertake a role for which she had been ill prepared and toward which she was disinclined. She must visit the tenants, and distribute gifts and assistance to the poor, and pay calls to her neighbors and receive them in return, and assure them all that she and Mr. Vernon wished them health and happiness in the coming year. She had never accompanied her mother on such rounds when at Parklands, and all that she had gathered from Lady deCourcy was that one ought not to dispense too much in the way of shillings and sympathy and hot soup as it would only encourage idleness and ill health. When Catherine asked Lady Vernon to accompany her, therefore, it was not only to keep her from Reginald as much as possible but also to catch some hint as to how she was to conduct herself as mistress of the Vernon estate.

Though Catherine did not know how much ought to be given, she had no doubt of getting a warm and grateful reception. She had, for so long, been the beneficiary of flattery and approbation that she had come to expect it as her due. It distressed her, therefore, to see her tenants’ smiles bestowed upon Lady Vernon, to hear them inquire after Miss Frederica Vernon before they extended the best wishes of the season to Mrs. Vernon’s household, and in the end, she was sorry that she had not left Lady Vernon at home.

On the third day of visiting, Lady Vernon returned to her apartments to find a letter from Sir James. His anger at her going to Churchill was all forgotten—he was all good cheer and gossip.

Eliza Manwaring and Miss Manwaring have come to town, the former in pursuit of her errant husband and the latter in pursuit of any husband but one. Prepare yourself for something very shocking—Miss Manwaring does not love me! This I learned from Freddie, who is Miss Manwaring’s fast friend. I must reconcile myself to the fact that one who has been thrown at me for so many years has no desire at all to become my wife! To be rejected by the object of one’s affection is a terrible thing, but to be rebuffed by one whom a fellow never meant to marry is far more humiliating. And yet—poor Eliza Manwaring is not ready to admit that spinsterhood is a kinder fate than the degree of misery she enjoys as a married woman.

Lady Vernon had folded up the letter and took up her pen to write a reply when she was startled by a sharp knock upon the nursery door, which was opposite that of her own apartments. The passage was a narrow one, and the nursery door was left ajar, allowing her to overhear a heated exchange between Reginald and his sister. “You do wrong to make our parents uneasy by apprehending an event that no one can think possible,” declared Reginald.

“My letter was intended for our mother only,” protested Catherine. “A cold that affected her eyes prevented her from reading my letter, which she then placed into our father’s hands. Do you now take Lady Vernon’s part? Do you forget how strenuously she objected to my marriage?”

“So we have been told—and yet what motive could Lady Vernon possibly have had for preventing a marriage that was materially to Charles’s benefit? His family could only welcome a connection with ours.”

“It was said that she believed me to be unsuitable and that a union with Charles could not possibly be a happy one.”

“But your marriage has been a happy one, Catherine, so you must either forgive Lady Vernon if she was in error or admit that you may have been. If you, who have lived in such retirement, have been the subject of rumor, think how those who live in the world will fall victim simply because it is in their power to do wrong. No character, however upright, can escape the possibility of misunderstanding.”

“And is that how you account for what was said of her behavior at Langford? You were ready enough, before you came to us, to credit Mr. Smith’s word.”

“And I blame myself for so readily believing him. You know what Charles Smith is. Though his company is lively and entertaining, he is given to exaggeration and susceptible to gossip. Lady Vernon is exceptionally clever and charming, which will always be an affront to ladies who are less so. As for Mrs. Manwaring, it is said that she has a very jealous nature, and it is likely that Manwaring often gives his wife reason to be resentful of his conduct.”

Here some interruption and demand for attention from one of the children put the conversation at an end, and soon after Reginald’s steps were heard in the passage.

Lady Vernon spied him from her window as he strode across the park, and rapidly donning her spencer and bonnet, she hurried down the stairs.

She came upon him, pacing up and down between the hedgerows in great agitation, rereading the letter that had been the subject of his quarrel with his sister.

“I beg your pardon,” Lady Vernon apologized. “I will not intrude upon you. I will take another path.”

“You do not intrude. I have just received a very distressing communication from my father.”

“Are your parents well?” Lady Vernon inquired.

“Yes, although I fear that Catherine’s last letter to my mother has agitated them both.”

“What can she have written that might trouble them? Mrs. Vernon and the children are in good health, and she does not seem to be displeased with Sussex.”

“It is not her situation but our friendship that alarms her,” replied Reginald. “She communicated to our father a belief that I am taken in by your influence and by her husband’s determination always to represent your faults—which my father claims are widely known—in the most softened colors.”

“Charles has done a very poor job of defending me, then, if my errors are widely known. Will you tell me a part of what your father writes? I cannot contradict a charge if I am ignorant of it.”

“Hear what he says, then.” Unfolding the letter, Reginald read:

“You must be sensible that as an only son and the representative of an ancient family, more than your own happiness is at stake in your choice of a partner. Her family and character must be unexceptionable.

“I cannot help fearing that you may be drawn in by one whose behavior toward you arises from her own vanity, because it is not impossible that she may now aim higher than simply to gain the admiration of a man whom she imagined to be prejudiced against her. Lady Vernon is poor and may naturally seek an alliance which may be advantageous to herself. I have been informed that this person has attached herself to you and that your own partiality for her is no secret. If the accounts of your friends have not persuaded you of this woman’s extravagance and dissipation, a father cannot hope to prevail, but I think that your affection for your sister should have been a very strong argument against anything like intimacy with a woman who did, from the most selfish motives, take all possible pains to prevent her marriage to Mr. Vernon.

“If you can give me your assurance of having no design beyond enjoying the conversation of a beautiful and clever woman, I may be restored to some measure of ease while you are away from us.

Lady Vernon met this insult with equanimity. “This is a very strange opinion of me, indeed, and I must confess that I cannot hope to do it justice. To be at once poor and extravagant, dissipated and clever, is more than I can manage, I assure you.”

“You make light of the situation?”

“Can I do otherwise? How would anger and hostility serve me, particularly when they are directed at a man of Sir Reginald deCourcy’s reputation? I would only appear the worse for expressing resentment against a gentleman who is so universally respected. But how can your father, a man to whom I have never even been introduced, have come to these conclusions, particularly if Charles has always represented me in the best light?”

“Something must come from my father’s sister, Lady Hamilton. It was she who informed him that you strongly objected to Mr. Vernon’s marriage to my sister, and that this opposition was widely known.”

“It cannot have been widely known if Sir Frederick and I were ignorant of it,” Lady Vernon replied. “We were not even aware that Charles was acquainted with your sister until we were informed of their engagement, and we learned of it then only when he made us an offer for Vernon Castle. Our only objection to anything was to that, for his offer was very low and our circumstances obliged us to get as fair a price as we could. We might have yielded, even at the expense to ourselves, had we not been confident that a marriage to Miss deCourcy would give Charles the ability to purchase wherever he liked and that he would not even have to depend upon coming in to Churchill Manor in order to be well settled. As for the rest of your father’s letter, I cannot account for it. I can only conclude that whenever an unmarried woman and a single gentleman are under the same roof, someone or other will have them at the altar. Still, your family cannot believe that, as you are engaged to Miss Hamilton.”

A troubled look passed over Reginald’s countenance. “There is no engagement. Since we were children, my parents and the Hamiltons intended us for each other, but I have made no proposal to my cousin.”

“When you do address her, your father will be more at ease.”

Reginald made no reply.

“But,” Lady Vernon added with great perception, “if you are not inclined to marry her, you only prolong your family’s groundless hopes and the expectations of Miss Hamilton when you do not make your wishes plain.”

“It is not an easy thing to disappoint one’s family.”

Lady Vernon smiled. “You must think better of your family. My family had settled on someone other than Sir Frederick for me, yet when inclination drew me to another, no estrangement from my parents resulted from it.”

“Because they yielded to your preference,” he remarked. “And perhaps my own would do the same if there was any young lady I preferred to my cousin, but alas, I cannot even argue that I am partial to another.”

“Still, you must not delay a response to your father. If you cannot bring yourself to disappoint him in his hopes just yet, you must at least tell him plainly that there is no foundation for his present fears. You must not allow gossip to injure his peace of mind.”

He admitted to the soundness of her advice, which was given without any of the attendant arguments and sermonizing that Catherine would have thought necessary. They returned to the house and parted in the hallway, he to write to his father, and she to reflect upon how different her opinion was of Reginald deCourcy than it had been only a fortnight earlier. As they advanced toward something like confidence, she discovered a thoughtfulness of manner and expression that she liked very much, and though he was not without faults, they were principally the faults of youth rather than understanding. If he was too quick to form an opinion, he was always ready to admit his error, and if he was often too inquisitive and demanding of particulars, he was never uncivil.

She could no longer disallow Alicia Johnson’s expectations—indeed, Lady Vernon now was thinking of Reginald and marriage together, but the partner she had chosen for him was not herself (however flattered by her friend’s conviction that it was in her power) but Frederica. Though little exposed to society, her daughter was Reginald’s equal in education and refinement, and though her fortune was insignificant, she was the daughter of Sir Frederick Vernon and the niece of Lady Martin. If Reginald was not bound by honor or promise to his cousin, and if his father asked only that he choose a woman of unexceptionable family and character, was not Frederica a worthy choice?

“He appears a willful young man,” declared Wilson, “but there is something to be said for a spirit that has borne up against Mrs. Vernon and Lady deCourcy. The right young lady might take away that last bit of conceit in his manner, and then I will like him almost as well as I do Sir James. But,” she added, “if he believes that Miss Frederica is intended for Sir James, he will not put himself forward.”

“I think he would put himself forward because he believes she is intended for another, and if he is persuaded that she is opposed to the match, so much the better. He has the deCourcy stubbornness after all, and will go after what he thinks he cannot get.”

chapter twenty-seven

Mrs. Johnson to Lady Vernon

Edward Street, London

My dear Susan,

I wish you the very best greetings of the season and suspect that this may be among the last letters in which I will address you in the name of “Vernon,” as, despite your protestations, you are likely to take up another name in the coming year. Until that time I caution you to be on your guard against Manwaring. He is so determined to avoid Eliza in town that he talks of accompanying Maria when she goes to Billingshurst in January—he will take any excuse that brings him down to Sussex, and if he comes as far as Billingshurst, he will be teasing you to get him admitted to Churchill. A little jealousy is a good thing, but Manwaring’s may lead him to press his suit in a manner that will strain your understanding with Mr. deCourcy.

Miss Vernon continues as obstinate as ever, and her opposition to marrying Sir James—which is talked of everywhere—ought to be very provoking to Maria Manwaring, who has tried to get him for so many years. And yet they are fast friends! What a perverse world it is!

Until that union can be accomplished, we are all diverted by a courtship of another sort. The youngest Miss Hamilton gave up her Christmas visit to Parklands Manor on purpose to stay in town and carry on a flirtation with Charles Smith! His wooing is copied out of the worst sort of romantic novel, but as she never can read two pages before she is overcome with boredom, she finds his flattery quite original and is silly enough to think that he would take her if she did not come with thirty thousand!

If nobody intervenes to prevent it, I suspect she will do something foolish. What a delicious scandal it would be to have the eldest Miss Hamilton cheated out of a match with deCourcy and the youngest throw herself away on Mr. Smith.

Adieu!

Your affectionate friend,

Alicia Johnson

Lady Vernon could only shake her head at her friend’s stubborn conviction that a marriage with Reginald deCourcy was her object.

“Is your letter from Miss Vernon?” inquired Reginald politely (as they were at the breakfast table).

“No, it is from my friend Mrs. Johnson.”

“I do not think that you have had one letter from Miss Vernon in all the time you have been with us,” observed Catherine. “Our mother writes to me that Lady Hamilton has had a half dozen letters from Lucy since she has been at school.”

“Perhaps,” Reginald said with a smile, “Miss Vernon does not possess our cousin’s freedom of expression and quantity of paper.”

“I am sure that anything Frederica would like to say will keep until I go to London,” said Lady Vernon.

“Oh, but it is too early to talk of your departure!” cried Charles, who did not wish her gone until she had got Reginald to make her an offer. “We will not think of your leaving us, do you not agree, my dear?”

Catherine did not agree. She looked eagerly toward the date when Lady Vernon and Reginald would be divided before any real harm was done. She said nothing until Lady Vernon left the room and then immediately exclaimed, “How very deficient our niece must be in her education! Not one letter all this month! Such a negligent correspondent! Such indifference to duty and decorum does not speak well for the manner in which she was brought up.”

“You judge the custom of all daughters by your own, Catherine,” said Reginald. “Perhaps it is not that Miss Vernon writes too seldom but that you write too often.”

Catherine favored him with a reproving glance. “Indeed, one cannot write too often,” she replied. “I begin to understand Lady Vernon’s eagerness to hurry along her daughter’s engagement. It is likely that Miss Vernon is so wanting in character that she is past reform, and Lady Vernon may want her married before Sir James can find it out.”

“And yet,” protested Reginald, “a cousin who has known her since she was a child must be more sensible of Miss Vernon’s defects than we, who have never met her. So we must hope for Sir James’s sake that she is not beyond reform.”

“And let us hope that other gentlemen of fortune know better what is due to their families,” Catherine replied.

“I will go upstairs and write to our mother this minute.” He laughed and left the table.

Catherine could not conceal her chagrin. She had suffered her husband’s affection for his brother, which had him always running up to Portland Place or off to the country at Sir Frederick’s invitation, but it was exasperating to have him imposed upon by Lady Vernon and to see Reginald apprehended in her coldhearted ambition.

“Reginald is too blind, and you are too little in Lady Vernon’s company to see how artful she is,” Catherine protested to her husband. “One is too apt not to look beyond a gentle, frank, and even affectionate manner to see the deception beneath it.”

“And what would be the purpose of such deception?” inquired Charles.

“To reverse all that Reginald has heard of her. With that happy command of the language which is so often used to make black appear white, she has even persuaded him that she is fond of her daughter—and yet why does she come to us and leave Miss Vernon in London? How many successive springs did she divert herself in town while Miss Vernon was left in Staffordshire to the care of her governess and servants? Oh, if only she had been left rich! She would have been the object of so many lovers that she would not think to engage in a flirtation with one who is ten years younger than herself!”

Charles could make no reply, for what would his wife have said if she knew how far he had exerted to keep Lady Vernon from being left rich, and that he was attempting to promote the very union to which Catherine so strenuously objected?

chapter twenty-eight

While Lady Vernon was being abused by her sister-in-law, she and Wilson walked to the parsonage and retrieved a long letter from Frederica.

Miss Vernon to Lady Vernon

Wigmore Street, London

My dear Madam,

The separation from you, at this particular time of the year, is made bearable by the company of some friends from Staffordshire. I have had the pleasure of seeing Anne and Mary Clarke, who are now Mrs. Frank Edwards and Mrs. Phillip Edwards; they were married only two days ago, and were in town to pass a few days before departing for a honeymoon in Brighton.

Mrs. Johnson, upon learning that I had been visited by acquaintances from Staffordshire, pressed me to introduce them to her, and she invited all of us to drink tea at Edward Street. Her latest scheme is to have the sort of salon where people of fashion come together. She fills up her drawing room with people and Mr. Johnson hides away in his library. It is not my notion of conjugal felicity, but for them it appears to be a very effective arrangement.

She is as silly as ever, but I have discovered that Mr. Johnson is not the ogre that he was made out to be. On my most recent visit, Mrs. Johnson invited me to examine the library, as her husband was not at home. I was looking over an edition of Mr. Darwin’s The Botanic Garden when Mr. Johnson appeared. I immediately begged pardon, and I remarked upon the excellence of his collection, which is far superior to the library at Miss Summers’s. He made some gruff reply. “Mrs. Johnson tells me that Sir Frederick left you enough to get all the books you like—of course, there is no sum that will replace an excellent parent.” He then hemmed a bit and said that I may borrow any of his books if I promised to return them in good time, and that if Mrs. Johnson ever had more people than I could bear to put up with in her parlor, I was welcome to make use of his library.

I confess that I do not find him an ill-looking man, and if a gentleman’s taste and refinement can be inferred from his library, Mr. Johnson is a very superior person. His efforts to make some sort of conversation with me were awkward, but not at all coarse or ill bred, and after inquiring how I passed my time at Miss Summers’s, he asked whether I had any particular friends.

“I am particularly friendly with Maria Manwaring. She does not go to school, but I hope to see her now that she has accompanied her sister-in-law to town.” I did not realize my error until I had uttered the words. The gentleman gave a sort of sigh and made some remark about the evils of making a bad match.

I replied that a bad match may have been formed with the very best intentions, and that it was an unhappy situation when the penitence that the errant party must feel was aggravated by a more general censure. “And in any case,” I added (though I cannot believe my boldness in speaking so), “I do not think that the censure ought to comprehend someone who was only a child at the time of her brother’s marriage.”

Mr. Johnson hemmed once again and then said, “If this person—Miss Manwaring—is a particular friend of yours, I cannot object—indeed, I do not object to anything at all. I keep out of the way entirely. Mrs. Manwaring was a very good sort of girl at one time, but nothing will ruin a good disposition like a bad match.”

I did not think that I ought to give an opinion on the subject, so I merely thanked him again for the offer of his library and joined Mrs. Johnson once more.

My uncle was in town last week on some matter of business, and he called at Wigmore Street, but I saw nothing of him. I dare not hope that his business was anything that might benefit us or that he has had any change of heart where we are concerned—or any heart at all.

Please give my warmest regards to Miss Wilson.

Your obedient daughter,

Frederica Vernon

From the window of his study, Charles Vernon spied Lady Vernon walking slowly down the avenue, leaning upon Wilson for support. Her regular visits to Sir Frederick’s grave were becoming a source of irritation to Vernon, as he was persuaded that they were done as a reproach to him. If, he reasoned, Lady Vernon would not so regularly indulge her misery she might turn all of her energies toward the heir to Parklands, who was one of the richest young men in all of England. Her beauty had been proof against her trials, and when she exerted her full powers, there was no lady more charming. Lately, however, she chose not to exert; instead, she would spend much of the morning in her apartments or walking to the churchyard, often not joining the family until dinnertime. In the evening, her spirits did revive, but it would take more than a few hours of clever conversation after dinner to reverse the effects of many hours’ seclusion. Vernon did not doubt that Reginald admired her, but that admiration must be hurried apace to love if an offer of marriage was to be made before one or the other of them took leave of Churchill.

Lady Vernon’s lassitude was not affected to plague Charles Vernon, but rather it rose from a perplexing fatigue, which often left her not well enough to leave her apartments until after noon and with no appetite at all until dinner. She concluded that the return to a place that held both the happiest and unhappiest of memories must have the sort of violent effect upon her emotions, which, in turn, put a drain upon her health.

It was a visit to the parsonage that suggested to Lady Vernon that her symptoms might have a more astonishing origin. While she was there, Mrs. Barrett happened to call, accompanied by her eldest daughter, who was two or three years older than Frederica, and her youngest, who was a lively boy of six. As the other five Barrett children had remained at home, Lady Vernon found herself particularly struck by the great disparity in the ages of the eldest and youngest Barretts, and she began to wonder whether the enervating symptoms that had distressed her for so many weeks might be set down to something more than unhappiness and exertion.

Her first impulse was to reject the notion as impossible, and then to wonder whether it might be possible, and at last to acknowledge that it must be—that after so many years of wishing for, and at last despairing of, an addition to Sir Frederick’s family, this hope was to be fulfilled at the most incongruous time!

The emotions that must necessarily be attendant upon such a discovery overwhelmed her and many hours passed before Lady Vernon could compose herself sufficiently to calculate, with any degree of assurance, when the anticipated event might take place, and how completely her situation would change if the child should be a son, for a son would displace Charles Vernon as the heir to all of Sir Frederick’s property and fortune.

chapter twenty-nine

Upon the sixth of January, while the children were exclaiming over their gifts and Mrs. Vernon was expressing her satisfaction that they had all “got through Christmas,” an express was handed in to Lady Vernon. She immediately opened it and read it in a great hurry.

Miss Summers to Lady Vernon

Wigmore Street, London

My dear Lady Vernon,

Do not be alarmed by any thought that Miss Vernon has come to harm, but I regret to inform you that your daughter must be removed from my institution at once. I deeply regret the necessity of this, but as the misconduct of any pupil may injure the reputation of my establishment, I cannot do otherwise.

The incident that compels me to take this action was the following: Miss Vernon left the premises without seeking permission or enlisting a chaperone. Fortunately, she was intercepted before she had got far from Wigmore Street. Although our rules may be somewhat relaxed for the holiday season, our standards cannot be. To run away in this fashion was a serious infraction, and one that I cannot overlook, particularly since I could not compel Miss Vernon to acknowledge any cause for her extraordinary conduct. When I sought a private explanation of it from the other pupils, they maintained that an engagement has been formed between your daughter and Sir James Martin, and that Miss Vernon is strongly opposed to the match and meant to run away from an enforced union.

At the present, Miss Vernon is with the Johnsons on Edward Street, who have agreed to keep her until you can make your arrangements to retrieve her. I deeply regret this circumstance as, until this serious breach and despite her excessive propensity for intellectual pursuits, Miss Vernon had been a model of deportment.

Yours most sincerely,

H. Summers

Lady Vernon uttered an exclamation of dismay.

“What news?” Charles Vernon cried.

His wife prudently dismissed the servants and Lady Vernon waited for the door to close upon them before she would speak. “The letter is from Miss Summers. She claims that Frederica left the school without permission, and Miss Summers considers this a very serious infraction and says that Frederica must be removed at once.”

“Removed?” exclaimed Charles. “Do you mean to say that my niece tried to run away? Where is she now?”

“She has been taken in by my friend Mrs. Johnson.”

“What can have compelled her to act in such a manner?” Catherine asked.

“I am certain that it is all a simple misunderstanding. The daughters of our friends from Staffordshire had passed through London, and I am sure that Frederica did not think that she must ask leave only to call upon them. If you will excuse me, I will write to Miss Summers immediately. I must prevail upon her to take Frederica back until I can make arrangements to go to town.”

“No,” declared Reginald. “A personal address is more effective than a letter, and more expedient, for the horses and carriage can be ready in under half an hour and it is only thirty miles to town. Charles, you are her uncle—you must go and set matters right.”

Charles Vernon was dumbfounded at this suggestion and Catherine protested the exertion, but Reginald stood firm. “If Miss Vernon did nothing but to pay a visit without proper dispensation, an uncle’s address can defend her as ably as a mother’s letter, and perhaps better, for you, Charles, are known about London as a man of business and your connection with the deCourcy family must bring some influence to bear.”

Reginald may well have meant to flatter his brother-in-law, but it did not please Charles to be reminded that he owed much of his importance in the world to his wife’s family.

Lady Vernon did not yield easily to this plan. She would rather have made the journey herself, but reason prevailed, for a gentleman might travel the thirty miles more speedily and with less encumbrance than a woman who was in a delicate state. “Very well,” she said at last. “But delay, I pray you, so that I may write a note for you to carry to Miss Summers.”

Lady Vernon wrote a letter that laid out all of the arguments in favor of Frederica’s remaining at Miss Summers’s Academy. Her daughter’s tractable and helpful disposition, her amiable conduct, her excellent progress in her studies, all spoke in favor of this being a lapse that had more of the appearance of misconduct than the substance of it.

I must think that this must all weigh heavily in my daughter’s favor—however, if you will not return her to school, I will ask you to keep her only long enough for me to make my preparations to come up to London.

When Vernon had departed, Lady Vernon addressed her sister-in-law. “Have no fear that you will be imposed upon by this very distressing turn of events. I am certain that Miss Summers will see reason.”

“If you will forgive me,” Catherine replied coolly, “it may be more to the point to understand why Miss Vernon acted as she did, lest she be returned to school only to run away again. I cannot blame you for wanting to improve her abilities, but it may be that Miss Vernon is too used to doing as she likes to accommodate herself to the rigors of instruction, particularly when they are forced upon her by the ambitions of a parent.”

“Ambitions?” cried Lady Vernon.

“My cousin, Miss Lucy Hamilton, has written to her mother of your desire to promote a marriage between Miss Vernon and Sir James Martin, and that your daughter is not at all inclined toward the match.”

Lady Vernon would have denied this assertion if she thought that there was any possibility of her being believed, and so she replied in more general terms. “What mother would not regard it as the highest compliment to have her daughter the object of a gentleman who is so eligible in terms of family and fortune? I know that you do not mean to reproach me, sister. You will comprehend my feelings better on that day, many years hence, when you have the happiness of bestowing dear little Kitty and Regina upon gentlemen of excellent connections and unexceptionable character.”

Lady Vernon then excused herself, saying that she had letters to write before the next post. She had no sooner left the room than Catherine declared, “If Lady Vernon had not neglected her daughter for so many years, Miss Vernon would not find the rigors of school so far above her ability and inclination.”

“Perhaps it is marriage rather than education toward which she is disinclined,” suggested Reginald. “I understand that she has been left nothing in the way of fortune and that neglect will affect her future more than a want of schooling.”

“You are wrong, Reginald. Charles has told me that both Miss Vernon and her mother have been left quite independent, and certainly Lady Vernon has friends enough to enable her to live in comfort at no expense to herself for as long as she likes.”

“We cannot agree here, Catherine, for your notion of comfort is my notion of dependence. I could not call Lady Vernon independent unless she had the resources to live well without imposing upon her friends or relations. Her own marriage was said to be such a contented one that I cannot think she would encourage Miss Vernon into an unhappy union if she was able to make an entirely disinterested choice.”

Catherine said no more, as she had no wish to add to Reginald’s attachment to Lady Vernon by portraying her circumstances to be desperate; yet, when he excused himself, she began to reflect, more thoroughly than she ever had before, on how much Charles meant to settle upon Kitty and Regina. If Sir Frederick Vernon had not sufficiently provided for one daughter, could her husband (whom, she must privately acknowledge, had been less than prudent in matters of money) be more capable of providing for two?

chapter thirty

Catherine Vernon withdrew to her dressing room, and sat down to pour out her feelings in a letter to her mother.

Mrs. Vernon to Lady deCourcy

Churchill Manor, Sussex

My dear Mother,

We have all been stirred up by a scandal here. Miss Vernon has been apprehended in some flagrant infraction, and she has been dismissed from Miss Summers’s Academy. It seems that Miss Vernon attempted to flee from the school, and while Lady Vernon makes it out to be an innocent error, I must think from some communication with my Aunt Hamilton that the real motive for this conduct is her mother’s determination to force the girl into a marriage with Sir James Martin, much against Miss Vernon’s inclination and before she has even had time to mourn her father, to whom she was, I understand, very much attached.

It is fortunate that there was an acquaintance in London to take her in, or she would have nowhere to go. Mr. Vernon set off for town in order to prevail upon Miss Summers to allow Miss Vernon to continue with her and, indeed, when one considers her connection to our family, I cannot understand Miss Summers being nice upon any point of propriety unless, perhaps, Lady Vernon has been as flagrant in money matters as in all else. If Miss Summers has not been paid in an orderly fashion, she may look for a reason to discharge a pupil whose tuition cannot be depended upon.

If it is only that which prevents her from retaining Miss Vernon, I would not be surprised if my husband supplied what is wanting, as befits his generous nature.

I fear that her ladyship may call upon this occasion to stir up Reginald’s most tender feelings. Her distress upon the receipt of Miss Summers’s letter had every appearance of being genuine, but for my own part, I cannot think that anyone who has treated her daughter so heartlessly can feel anything deeply.

Lady Vernon appears reluctant to have her daughter brought here to Churchill, and justly enough, as it would reward, with our hospitality and the appearance of approbation, behavior that deserves our disapproval. If, therefore, she cannot be returned to school, her mother will be compelled to end her visit with us immediately and settle in town—if I could be certain that this would bring about a permanent separation between her and Reginald, I would be grateful for Miss Vernon’s expulsion.

Yours ever, etc.,

Catherine Vernon

Lady Vernon’s composure lasted only long enough for her to reach her apartments before she gave way to all of her pent-up emotions. Wilson did her best to soothe her mistress and defend her former charge. “We must not judge before we hear from Miss Frederica. We have never known her to act rashly, so we have no reason to think that she has done so in this case. If Miss Summers will not take her back, she may remain with the Johnsons or even be sent to Lady Martin in Derbyshire.”

“There is one household where she must not come,” Lady Vernon replied. “I do not want her here. Mrs. Vernon’s hospitality has been stretched as far as it will go, and I fear that the addition of another Vernon will break it.”

Their discussion was interrupted by the arrival of a second express from town. Lady Vernon broke the seal eagerly and read it aloud.

Mrs. Johnson to Lady Vernon

Edward Street, London

My dear friend,

I know that you have heard of the unfortunate turn of events from Miss Summers. Have no fear, Miss Vernon is safe with me at Edward Street, but prepare yourself for delightful scandal! You will never guess—Miss Lucy Hamilton has eloped with Charles Smith! Such a foolish, romantic, impractical pair! I think that they are very well suited to each other.

Here is how it all came about: Miss Lucy, having agreed to the elopement, left no word but for a note to one of her little protéges, Miss Mary Elliot, who, I understand, is even sillier than Miss Lucy. Not knowing what to do, Miss Elliot gave the letter to Miss Vernon, and she immediately ran after her friend to reason her out of her folly. Alas, Miss Hamilton leapt into a waiting carriage—a hack chaise!—and escaped, and Miss Vernon, knowing nothing of London, wandered about quite lost until she was at last overtaken, not two streets from Miss Summers’s.

The hardest part of the matter is that I was to learn all of this from Mr. Johnson. Miss Vernon was so frightened and ashamed at being sent away that she would not say a word to me, but there has been a sort of camaraderie between them that baffles me exceedingly! He invited her to sit in his library until she was calm, and she confided all. To think that I must be indebted to him for my information, and he would only disclose the matter to me on the pledge that I say nothing to anybody. Silly man! What is the use of having such delicious news if one cannot have the fun of revealing it? All that comes of that is that everybody puts another motive to her conduct—they believe that she ran away from school in order to escape a forced union with Sir James Martin! She will be a laughingstock if nothing is done to prevent it. Would it not be better if she married Sir James at once? Nothing can wipe away a little folly like a fortunate marriage.

You must write as soon as you can, and tell me how they take the news at Churchill and Parklands. Miss Lucy’s imprudence can only extinguish any lingering desire Reginald deCourcy may have for a union with her sister, which will leave the way free and clear for you.

Yours, etc.,

Alicia Johnson

Lady Vernon dropped the letter in amazement. Wilson immediately began to praise her charge. “I knew that there must be some generous and rational motive for her conduct.”

“I am only sorry for the motive that has been assigned to her conduct.” Lady Vernon sighed. “I must write to my Aunt Martin at once, lest it reach her that Frederica ran away from a forced marriage with James.”

Lady Vernon to Lady Martin

Churchill Manor, Sussex

My dear Aunt,

I have been so negligent a correspondent that you will come to think that I never mean to write unless something has gone terribly wrong. Be assured that we are well, but a misunderstanding has resulted in Frederica’s dismissal from school. I beg you, Aunt, if you have no choice but to laugh or to be angry, please laugh, for those who will come out ridiculous in the end do not bear the name “Vernon” or “Martin,” so we may yet hold out the hope of some diversion at their expense. It is said that Frederica fled from school in order to escape an enforced marriage to James—I give you permission to laugh here.

The truth does Freddie far more credit. It seems that she ran away in an attempt to intercept Miss Lucy Hamilton before Miss Lucy could elope with Mr. Charles Smith. Alas, she failed to overtake the foolish pair; they made their escape and Frederica was apprehended. She would say nothing of the matter—perhaps in some mistaken desire to preserve Miss Lucy’s reputation as far as she could—and so the giddy young ladies at Miss Summers’s have set her up as the heroine in a novel, who flees from a forced marriage.

All of the family here are ignorant of Miss Lucy’s situation. I daresay they will hear from Parklands soon enough, but in the meantime, they all believe that Frederica is entirely in the wrong, and Mrs. Vernon does not hesitate to attribute it to my failure as a parent.

Frederica is with Mrs. Johnson (who has been of some use as a friend and correspondent) and Mr. Vernon has gone to London to persuade Miss Summers to allow Frederica to remain—but if she cannot, I will go up to London as soon as I can make preparations to leave Sussex.

As much as you detest London, my dear Aunt, can I prevail upon you to pass a few months with me at Portland Place? When I tell you the nature of my request, I do not think you will refuse me—but you must prepare yourself for a very great shock. I have very lately come to realize that the happy event that Frederick and I continued to hope for in the years following Frederica’s birth will occur after her father’s death. The significance of this, most particularly if the child should be a son, makes me wish to be safely in town, and in the care of one upon whose counsel and protection I can unreservedly rely. If I believed that I could tolerate the journey to Derbyshire, I would impose upon the hospitality of Ealing Park. I do not think that I am quite strong enough to go beyond London, however, and though Mrs. Forrester manages the household with discretion and skill, and Wilson has been an invaluable companion, your presence would be of immeasurable help and comfort.

I will take no one into my confidence save for Frederica and Wilson, and I beg you, say nothing to James. I will leave Churchill before it can become evident to Charles, who cannot rejoice in the possibility that he might be deposed and thrown back upon the deCourcys’ charity once more. Yet a daughter would be no sacrifice to me. If Freddie is any example, she will be a superior creature in every respect, and, if that should be the case, may I be so bold as to bestow upon her the name of Elinor?

Your affectionate niece,

Susan Vernon

chapter thirty-one

When the first communication from Charles arrived, Lady Vernon was certain that it must bring word of Lucy Hamilton’s elopement. Catherine read through the letter with composure, however, and announced only that Charles had arrived safely in town. Lady Vernon decided that Charles meant to delay, perhaps hoping that someone else would write to his wife and spare him the unpleasant task of communicating the news. She said nothing, therefore, although it was difficult to remain silent while her sister-in-law made pointed allusions to parental neglect and youthful misconduct.

On the second morning after Charles Vernon’s departure, Catherine was handed a letter, which Lady Vernon believed must contain news of Miss Hamilton.

“Is it from my brother?” inquired Reginald.

Catherine’s expression had settled into a puzzled frown. “He writes that Miss Summers will not take Miss Vernon back and that he is bringing her here to Churchill.”

Lady Vernon protested that Charles could not have proposed a scheme that was contrary to her wishes and instructions.

“Perhaps Miss Vernon does not like to remain in London if Sir James Martin is there,” suggested Reginald.

Lady Vernon did not trust herself to reply and rose from the table. From the breakfast-room window, Catherine and Reginald saw her walking away from the house in considerable agitation.

“Such a false show of distress!” cried Catherine in disgust. “What can one say of such a mother! How inexcusable are those women who forget what is due to family and to the opinion of the world!”

“I can only suppose that it distresses Lady Vernon to burden you and my brother with her daughter,” Reginald replied.

“She did not hesitate to burden us with herself when we would rather have gone to Parklands for Christmas. She is only sorry to have Miss Vernon come to us because she would rather have her daughter where she might be thrown together with Sir James. But that is Charles’s way—he is far too generous and compassionate to compel his niece to remain where she must often meet with a suitor toward whom she is evidently opposed.”

“It must always be considered an unpleasant thing to be pushed into a marriage against one’s inclination” was all that Reginald would reply before he excused himself and went outside to find Lady Vernon.

She had walked almost to the boundary of Churchill Pond and was pacing to and fro.

“You must come back to the house. You are very distraught.”

“I am distraught only on my daughter’s behalf.”

“Yet would you have Miss Vernon be tranquil? If she has acted imprudently, it is right that she should feel something like distress.”

“Indeed, she has no cause to feel anything like it,” Lady Vernon replied with some warmth. “She can be blamed for no more than having so little understanding of the world as to be ignorant of how even the most generous impulse can go wrong.”

“What generosity?” Reginald inquired. “She has shown no generosity toward her mother by causing you such anxiety by running away from school.”

“I am very sorry, Mr. deCourcy. There are people who delight in being the bearers of bad news, but I am not one of them—yet my daughter’s conduct must be defended. I have it on very sound authority that Frederica’s motive in running away was to apprehend your cousin, Miss Lucy Hamilton, before Miss Hamilton could elope with Mr. Charles Smith. Frederica was not able to intercept them, and only succeeded in being comprehended in her friend’s folly.”

“What?” he demanded. “Lucy and Charles Smith? It cannot be true! Smith would not impose upon his friendship with our family in such a manner!”

Lady Vernon endeavored to speak more calmly. “Mr. Smith has imposed upon the connection, to be sure, but I cannot think that he would abuse it by inducing Miss Lucy Hamilton to elope with any intention other than marriage.”

“My poor Aunt Hamilton! She will be shocked beyond words!”

Lady Vernon refrained from observing that she did not believe Lady Hamilton had ever experienced any emotion that had put her beyond words. “Lady Hamilton will be very distressed, to be sure, but upon reflection I cannot think that she will be surprised. Even when we were all at Langford, your cousin and Mr. Smith seemed very much attached to one another.”

“Her family wished a much more advantageous union for her,” he said.

“We all wish our daughters to marry advantageously, but at least there is fortune on one side and affection on both. However impulsive her conduct, with so large a fortune, your cousin can afford to marry where she likes.”

“If my cousin and Charles Smith were so resolved upon their course, how can Miss Vernon have hoped to intervene?”

“It is likely that Frederica ran after them with no other thought than how wrong it would be of her to do nothing. My daughter has a very tender heart and would have been very hard upon herself if some harm had come to Miss Hamilton that her intervention might have prevented—from the day of her father’s injury, Frederica had been very conscious of the advantage of immediate action and the consequence of delay. When she came upon her father, to find him lying senseless upon the ground, with Charles rooted in shock and incapable of any exertion, the incident left her very mindful of the necessity for immediate action in any emergency. I can only hope that Charles will not take the opportunity of their journey to resurrect that subject, as it is a very painful one for Frederica and can only stir up unpleasant memories and speculation.”

“What speculation can there be?”

“Every tragedy gives rise to conjecture,” replied she. “There is too little diversion in a common accident—some feature of it will inevitably be attributed to villainy or vice. As Charles was my husband’s successor, it would not take many rounds of gossip to attribute his inaction to gaining immediately what would be his eventually.”

She wisely said no more and allowed his imagination to go to work.

They walked back to the house in silence.

chapter thirty-two

Catherine Vernon felt herself very much imposed upon by the necessity of receiving Lady Vernon’s daughter. Lady Vernon attempted to soften her sister’s humor and to engage her sympathy for Frederica by the most effective method of persuading Catherine to do anything, which was to urge her in the opposite direction.

“I am very sorry that you should be imposed upon,” she said to Catherine when they had all sat down to tea. “Though Mr. Vernon has taken it upon himself to bring Frederica to Churchill, I will not ask you to put yourself out any more than you like. Whatever the motive for her conduct, she has caused a disturbance in your household, which cannot be treated with leniency. I assure you that I mean to impress this upon my daughter, and if I am too indulgent, I know that I may count on your sensible reproof, and if you are severe upon her, you will hear no word of blame from me.”

Catherine was surprised at this address and immediately began to ponder whether the addition of one more to the household would be a very great burden—whether she ought to think a bit more kindly of Miss Vernon—and, too, she recollected that Charles had once said something of Miss Vernon’s usefulness in household duties and tending to the children.

They had just sat down to tea when the carriage was observed coming down the avenue, and after a few moments’ delay, the door was thrown open and Miss Vernon entered and threw herself into her mother’s embrace.

Reginald did not have any opportunity to form an opinion of Miss Vernon other than concluding that her mother’s apprehensions had been rightly felt, for he had never in his life beheld a more timid creature. She attempted to meet Mrs. Vernon and her brother with courtesy—she made a very pretty effort to give a kiss to one and a curtsy to them both—but after sitting only a few minutes in their presence, she abruptly burst into tears and was hastily escorted from the room by her mother. Reginald had only sufficient time to observe that, though not at all like her mother, Miss Vernon was a pretty enough girl, with large dark eyes and a complexion that promised very fair, had not her distress drained it of all color.

“How very timid she is!” Catherine Vernon remarked. “She did not say above three words—and her dress was very plain. What is your opinion of her, Reginald? She is very different from Lady Vernon.”

“I must attribute her plain dress to the fact that she is in mourning, Catherine. But, yes, they are not at all alike. Miss Vernon is not nearly so handsome as her mother. Her complexion is not as vivid and her eyes have no brilliancy at all.”

Catherine, determined to contradict any commendation of Lady Vernon, replied, “She had been crying, Reginald. Her complexion is not as radiant as her mother’s, yet there is a delicacy about it that I rather like, and though she said so little, her manner was perfectly genteel. How did you find her, Charles, for you had the advantage of her company for thirty miles and can give us a better understanding of her mind and her conversation.”

“I did not have much opportunity to address her openly—we were obliged to have Miss Manwaring with us for much of the journey. When I did attempt to speak to her, her responses were so simple as to be almost childish. I confess that I saw no indication that she is the equal of any young ladies of quality. Yet we cannot entirely condemn her—indeed, your family must be indebted to her, my dear.” Charles then gave his wife a full account of Lucy Hamilton’s elopement, which had ended with Miss Vernon’s dismissal from school.

Catherine was shocked into silence.

“Even her benevolence is done poorly,” Charles concluded. “If Sir James Martin is a man of any sense, he will not be in a hurry to marry her, unless he is as imprudent as Charles Smith. I daresay the Hamiltons must regret that he was ever introduced into the family.”

Reginald was properly stung, as it had been he who had presented Mr. Smith to his relations. Catherine, however, was not so sharp, and she replied, “I quite agree with you, Mr. Vernon. We cannot be too quick to be introduced to new people, for we never can know what they are about.”

chapter thirty-three

When they were alone, Frederica’s spirits, agitated by the recent events and her hasty removal from town, soon settled into equanimity.

Lady Vernon inquired of her journey. “What did your uncle say of Lucy Hamilton? Was he very angry?”

“I think he was, although I cannot say whether it was that his family must share in Lucy’s folly or that he cannot share in Mr. Smith’s good fortune. But I was not obliged to suffer his company all the way from town. Maria called upon me at the Johnsons’ just after my uncle arrived, and Mr. Johnson inquired, ‘Do you not go to visit the Parkers at Billingshurst, Miss Manwaring? I believe Mr. Lewis deCourcy told me that you do, for he is to go there himself in another week or so. Well, then, if Miss Vernon must leave us for Sussex, perhaps you would have the goodness to travel with her as far as your destination.’ My uncle did not like this plan, and I was ashamed of his coldness toward Maria on the way to Billingshurst. When we arrived, the Parkers came out to meet us—they were all very civil and invited us to drink tea—but my uncle refused, and not with very good grace.”

“And how do you like Mrs. Vernon?”

“Her greeting was more cordial than I expected.”

“She believes that I do not want her to show you any affection, and so she is determined to like you in order to spite me. I advise you to accept what kindness you can get from her and not be too nice about the motive. And Reginald? What did you think of him?”

“He is very handsome. I daresay he thinks me quite foolish for running from the room as I did.”

“That will not make him think less of you—the company of Hamiltons and deCourcys has accustomed him to foolishness. But what of his manner? Do you find him to be artificial and vain?”

Frederica blushed. “I regret that I had pronounced him so before I had any chance to meet him; science teaches us that insufficient observation will often lead us into error.”

“And that the outward appearance may be a deceit or a camouflage,” added Lady Vernon. “I give you leave to observe him as scientifically as you like. I think you will find him an interesting study. But there is another matter that concerns the natural order of things that I must make known to you.” She then told Frederica of her own expectations and addressed the reversal of their own circumstances should her child be a son.

Frederica’s reaction was one of astonishment, followed rapidly by concern for her mother’s well-being.

“I have always been blessed with extraordinary good health,” said Lady Vernon. “You need have no fear for me.”

“But if you should have a son! My uncle will be very angry at the prospect that he might be deposed.”

“Yes, but we will be in London before he can become aware of my situation. I have taken our Aunt Martin into my confidence. I think it will be sufficient to have her overcome her dislike of town and agree to stay with us at Portland Place. If your uncle should attempt to impose upon us, he will find us in the care of a very formidable guardian.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Miss Vernon’s little cousins. They had always been kept to so close a family circle that anybody new was a great curiosity, and upon their cousin’s arrival, they were possessed of such excitement that they ran away from their nursery maids and tumbled into Lady Vernon’s apartments.

Frederica greeted them with a sweet and playful smile, which immediately secured their interest, and she shepherded them back to the nursery, entertained them with games and stories until their dinner was brought up, and sat with them while they dined.

chapter thirty-four

Lady Martin to Lady Vernon

Ealing Park, Derbyshire

My dear niece,

I am both delighted and shocked at your news—it is what we have always wished for! But to come at such a time! I have given orders for my trunk to be packed in no more than a day—write at once to Mrs. Forrester, for I intend to be settled at Portland Place before you come to town. An “Elinor” would suit me very nicely, yet I cannot but wish for a “Frederick.”

As far as the business at Miss Summers’s, I commend my grandniece for acting as she did. To run away from all protection in order to save a friend from an imprudent elopement! To contrive to get away from school and travel as far as two streets before she was overtaken! It is just the mixture of adventure and folly that I possessed before I married my husband and was obliged to be sensible. I am excessively pleased.

James, however, does not think it such a great joke as he once did to have everybody regard him as Frederica’s suitor, now that all of London believes that she ran away from school to escape him! To my way of thinking, that could only raise her in anybody’s esteem. I begin to fear that nobody would marry James unless dragged to the altar. Even Lady Hamilton’s youngest daughter chose Mr. Charles Smith to my wastrel of a son. James does not like it at all when his character or his tailoring are called into question. He does not mind that people think him wanting in sense, but it grieves him to be thought wanting in appearance or kindness. It is all his own fault. If he does not wish to be the object of this sort of levity, he must marry somebody. He has dallied long enough.

I am anxious to know more of your opinion of Reginald deCourcy. There is a great deal of property and a large fortune, and though it would burden Frederica with Catherine Vernon for a sister and Lady deCourcy for a mother-in-law, perhaps they may settle somewhere distant until he comes into Parklands, and then he may send Lady deCourcy off to live with the Vernons. I confess that I like it very much. How long does young deCourcy continue at Churchill? You must throw them together as often as you can.

Your loving aunt,

Elinor Martin

Lady Vernon knew that Catherine’s interest would be more difficult to secure than Reginald’s—his must be won over by Frederica’s beauty, her understanding, and her prepossessing manners, but Catherine’s sympathy could only be roused by urging it in the opposite direction. In Catherine’s presence, therefore, Lady Vernon adopted an attitude of sternness and detachment toward her daughter, which secured the forbearance of her sister-in-law more effectively than if she had made a show of maternal affection.

To be sure, even if Catherine were inclined to be strict, she could find no motive. Though Miss Vernon was the daughter of Sir Frederick Vernon and the cousin of Sir James Martin, she laid no claim to privilege and repaid her aunt’s indifferent hospitality by arranging work boxes, mending purses, assisting the nursery maids, and keeping out of everyone’s way, and Catherine could not but be pleased with one who did so much and required so little in return. As for the children, they were delighted with a cousin who was always good-humored when they slipped a frog into her pocket or tied her apron strings into a knot.

Mrs. Vernon to Lady deCourcy

Churchill Manor, Sussex

My dear Madam,

On Thursday, Mr. Vernon returned from London and brought Miss Vernon with him, as Miss Summers absolutely refused to take her back. (I am sure that by now you have learned the motive of her conduct and cannot disapprove it, as it was done on behalf of our cousin Lucy.) They arrived just as we sat down to tea, and might have been with us earlier had my generous husband not undertaken to bring Miss Manwaring as far as Billingshurst.

When her daughter entered, Lady Vernon was the very picture of self-command, though earlier she had been shedding tears and pouring out her anxiety to Reginald. No doubt because the arrival of her daughter must expose him to all of her failures as a parent, which could not be evident while Miss Vernon was in London. She greeted her daughter with composure but without any tenderness of spirit. Miss Vernon’s address was perfectly civil. She did not sit with us for ten minutes, however, before she burst into tears and ran from the room. Lady Vernon followed and reappeared again, only coming down to announce that Miss Vernon was very fatigued and that they would dine in their apartments. She made a pathetic show of concealing her misery, which tried my patience sorely, but fortunately we were not subjected to it for the entire evening.

I was able to see more of my niece on the following day. She is very pretty, but not at all like her mother. She has quite the Vernon cast of countenance, the oval face and mild dark eyes of her father. There had been a portrait of Sir Frederick somewhere in the gallery, which my dear husband was compelled to move in order to make way for a likeness of my grandfather. It had been done not long after Sir Frederick was knighted, and his age cannot have been much older than Miss Vernon is now, so the resemblance is rather striking.

I cannot think that a girl with so little in the way of fortune or accomplishment is truly the object of Sir James Martin, despite her mother’s schemes, yet although she has had a wretched education and a poor example in her mother, she may not be too young to amend her defects. She is not entirely without merit, as she has made herself useful in any number of small tasks, and her little cousins have all grown very fond of her. I am persuaded that Mr. Vernon foresaw that her temperament would be suitable to tending to them (as we have yet to engage a governess) and elected to bring her to Churchill on that account. Mr. Vernon is always putting the children and me above anything—I do not think that there is a husband who is his equal!

When Lady Vernon departs Churchill for London, which I hope will take place very soon, perhaps the children and I may come to you in Kent, and I will contrive to bring Miss Vernon with me so that you may determine for yourself whether she would do for a governess. I assure you, my dear madam, that, though she is wanting something in elegance, there is nothing coarse about her, and she has the sort of modest and obliging disposition that would never presume upon your goodwill and notice.

Lady Vernon has said something of fixing herself in town. She retains the residence on Portland Place, and if her extravagance does not allow her to keep it up, I am certain that Mr. Vernon would take it off her hands, for the convenience of having an establishment when business obliges him to go to town. If, however, Lady Vernon regards his generosity with the same obstinacy that ruled her when she and Sir Frederick were obliged to get rid of Vernon Castle, I have no expectation that he will succeed.

I remind Reginald constantly that it is his duty to wait upon you and my father, and hope that when he comes to Kent you will be successful in keeping him there. When I asked how long he meant to be with you, and whether he would spend the entire season in town, he professed himself quite undetermined. Yet there was something in his look and voice that contradicted his words. I confess I do not like to see him go to London when I know that Lady Vernon means to be in town.

He has resumed his practice of walking up and down the shrubbery with her, and I suspect that she would like to fix him before he goes away—but of this I will say no more, for a great deal may happen between now and then. I can only hope that he will see in Miss Vernon’s want of elegance and sophistication all of the neglect and selfishness of the mother.

Your affectionate daughter,

Catherine Vernon

Reginald did not share his sister’s opinion of their young guest. Though he had not allowed her to be pretty when she first entered the house, he now conceded that it was only the difference between Miss Vernon and her mother that had biased his judgment. Indeed, she was pretty, nay, beautiful, her figure and carriage were graceful, her manner unassuming, and her patience and good humor toward her young cousins were highly to her credit. Once or twice, Reginald believed that her pensive expression brightened when he approached, but she invariably hurried on before he could utter anything beyond a “Good morning.” This piqued Reginald more than any outright flirtation could have, and his remorse at having misjudged her developed into a keen interest in knowing her better.

He resumed his habit of walking the grounds with Lady Vernon solely to engage her in conversation on the subject of her daughter. Lady Vernon did not spare herself in addressing Frederica’s amiable qualities, but always with such a tone of discouraging Reginald’s interest so that, though once inclined to regard a union with Sir James Martin as highly advantageous to Miss Vernon, he now began to think that it was she who was too good for him.

When he ventured to give a hint of his opinion to Lady Vernon, she would observe that a young woman’s ability to attract a suitable match would always be hindered by indigence, and that an offer of marriage from any gentleman in possession of a good fortune was not one that a poor young woman could easily dismiss. “The matter of our poverty is one that I cannot address with equanimity—it is too closely united with my husband’s passing. Perhaps, after his injury, I ought to have pressed Sir Frederick to make those amendments to his will that would have confirmed his intentions regarding our fortune, but I always believed that Charles would honor them—no less than you would if your sister’s fortune had been left to your discretion—and at the time I was reluctant to introduce any subject that would suggest that I anticipated anything but my husband’s complete recovery.”

“But what of Miss Vernon’s happiness?” he replied with some warmth. “Surely that must be a consideration in marriage?”

“Happiness will always be a consideration among those who can afford it,” replied she, with a gentle smile. “But for a young woman who has been left with nothing, to be both unhappy and poor is far worse than to be unhappy and rich.”

chapter thirty-five

One morning at breakfast, about a fortnight after Miss Vernon’s arrival, Catherine had been perusing a letter from her mother, which was a reply to her most recent communication.

I would be happy to think that the arrival of Miss Vernon will expose Reginald, at last, to all of Lady Vernon’s failings and vanity, but I dare not be easy until he returns to us. Continue to urge him as much as you can and discourage Mr. Vernon from any sort of family feeling that would have Lady Vernon prolonging her visit. He must know that you cannot come to us while she is with you, and we are both very eager to see our dear grandchildren once more.

“Reginald,” said Catherine as she laid down her letter. “Our mother expresses a wish to have you at Parklands. When you write to her next, you must assure her that you mean to go to them before you settle in town.” She then recited several extracts from the letter, punctuating these with pointed observations that he had been with them “so very long” and that “it has been above six weeks since you came to us,” which were meant to remind Lady Vernon of the duration of her own visit.

Reginald did not hear above two words; he was engaged in observing Miss Vernon’s pensive countenance as she gazed out the window at the barren flower beds. “I think,” he said to her in a low voice, “that you find Churchill Manor very much changed, Miss Vernon.”

He was doubly rewarded, for not only did she turn her expressive eyes upon him but she replied as well, though only to say, “Yes, sir.”

“‘Changed’?” Catherine exclaimed. “We have done nothing at all but put a carpet and some shelves in the nursery.”

“I suspect that Miss Vernon does not address what has been altered but what has been neglected.”

“Neglect?” cried Charles, with an uneasy glance that comprehended both Lady Vernon and her daughter.

“I refer to the greenhouses, Charles, which I think might be almost as fine as the ones at Parklands, if they were brought back to use.”

“Oh, the greenhouses,” rejoined Catherine. “Mr. Vernon’s grounds man left us, and those who worked below him in the greenhouses are better off tending to their own fields and farms. Hothouses are good for nothing but growing melons and strawberries and the like, and Cook may get those from the village or the farms. I am not in favor of the current notion that everything put on the table must come from one’s own orchards and gardens. To be sure, it is very useful to have a cook who can keep a kitchen garden and to grow a few herbs for one’s own use, for one cannot forever be calling upon the apothecary. I daresay Mr. Lavery nearly poisoned little Charlie with his receipt when our dear boy had a congestion of the chest.”

“Miss Vernon’s interest goes beyond a few herbs.” Reginald smiled. “I believe that she has made a serious study of botany. You might allow her to take a few liberties with the plant beds and the greenhouses, I think. Would you not like to look forward to a few plants and flowers in the spring?”

“Oh, I am as fond of plants and flowers as anybody who ever lived! Miss Vernon may explore the plant beds and the greenhouses as much as she likes. I am sure that no harm can come of it—there may be some way to turn the beds into sandboxes! And perhaps she may show the children how to make a few sachets or mosaics.”

“Are you a simpler,” Reginald inquired of Miss Vernon with a smile, “or a sampler?”

“I cannot lay claim to either talent,” she replied. “My own handiwork might pass for that of a five-year-old child, and I have never poisoned anything beyond a rat. But that,” she added, “was only out of some childish experimentation with woodruff and sweet-root. I do not think that I am inclined to poison anything now.”

Lady Vernon checked a laugh. She perceived that Reginald was diverted by the reply, though Catherine declared that it was “a very odd subject for the table.”

Frederica begged her aunt’s pardon and asked if she might examine the greenhouses. Catherine readily gave her consent, and when Frederica withdrew, Lady Vernon said, “You must forgive Frederica. Her pursuits have always been solitary ones—gardening and books and music—excellent pastimes in themselves, but they do not promote ease of conversation.”

“Miss Vernon is musical?” Reginald inquired. “Why does she not play? The instrument in the drawing room is a superior one and will likely go out of tune if it is not used, as Catherine does not play at all.”

“Frederica always preferred the little pianoforte in the dressing room that Mrs. Vernon now occupies—I am certain that it will be a very convenient arrangement when the children begin to play.”

“But as they do not play, I can see no reason why Miss Vernon may not use it for practice—Catherine is not always in her dressing room. You would not object, would you, Catherine?”

Catherine was not entirely happy with the proposal. She liked to have her mornings undisturbed so that she might write her letters and then proceed to do nothing in peace and quiet. “I shall have the instrument moved to your apartments,” she said. “The furnishings in your dressing room can be arranged to make a place for it by the window. My niece may practice as much as she likes in that part of the house.”

Lady Vernon thanked her sister-in-law, yet when she withdrew Catherine declared, “You are very generous with my instrument, Reginald.”

“You would not deny her the occasional use of what had been hers,” replied the brother. “She can do no more harm to the pianoforte than to the gardens, as both have been allowed to lie fallow. And while she is with you, you will have the enjoyment of a little music and Churchill will be free of rats.”

chapter thirty-six

Upon entering the greenhouse, Frederica experiences an equal measure of happiness and dejection; the place must always hold happy associations for her, and yet she saw at once how far five months of neglect and disuse had annulled all of her effort.

The enclosure was still sound, and the rows of forcing beds in good condition, though the earth was dried up and covered in desiccated vines and leaves. Still, Frederica thought that something might be done with it, that the leaves and dried vines could be cleared away and the soil properly worked so that something might be planted. At the end of one of the long enclosures, several bundles of herbs had been hung to dry for the kitchen and for various eaux de toilettes and balms, which Frederica had tied upon the very morning of her father’s death.

She took a dusty apron down from a peg and tied it round her waist, and then sat upon one of the beds, to determine how it might be worked.

She heard a quick step along the rows and looked up to see Reginald deCourcy advancing in her direction. She dropped a curtsy and turned back to the beds, supposing that he meant to walk on.

To her surprise, he stopped and addressed her. “These were very fine greenhouses. I cannot think why my brother allows them to fall into decline unless his notion of landscape is for everything to grow in a wild and random fashion.”

“There is very little in nature that is random—even when neglected, there is some order to every growing thing.”

“You reply as one who thinks first in a scientific manner. But take this plot, for example,” he said, pointing to one of the beds where an irregular scattering of tendrils poked through the earth. “There is no system here.”

“You must be patient, sir. I put the bulbs down myself last year, to force them here and then remove them to one of the plots in the spring. When they bloom, this row will be yellow tulips and those will be white crocuses. Plants, like people, are not always as they first appear—only in time will their nature be revealed.”

“Yet there can be little deception in plants—a tulip is always a tulip, and a crocus cannot be other than a crocus.”

“Yes, if you judge candor or deception only by the exterior. Then you see only the bloom and yet the roots that support it may be corrupt—and in such a way as may ruin the entire garden.”

Reginald smiled in so warm and congenial a manner that Frederica felt emboldened and asked him to describe the grounds and gardens at Parklands. She listened raptly as he gave a comprehensive description of the deCourcy estate. “My father took a very active interest in the property when he was in health.”

“Then I wish him a very speedy return to it,” she said. She bound up two bundles of dried herbs. “This is agrimony and this one is dried peppermint. A strong brew of agrimony root and leaves is said to ease a congestion of the lungs, and peppermint tea will settle the stomach and promote digestion. I will write down the receipts for Sir Reginald, and directions for starting your own plants, if they are not grown at Parklands.”

He thanked her and, eager to prolong the conversation, tried another subject. “You get on very well with my nieces and nephews.”

“Yes. I am sorry to have not known them before now. It is fortunate that they have one another for companionship, as the move to Sussex must be a very great change for them. Mr. and Mrs. Vernon may live in as quiet a manner as they like, and the children will not be lonely.”

“And were you lonely?”

“I never felt the want of companionship when I was a child, but now I do think it would be nice to have a sister or, even better, a brother.”

“Better? I am not sure that Catherine would agree with you.” He smiled.

“Oh, a sister is as pleasing as a brother, to be sure, but I cannot help thinking a brother would have been more useful to my mother in her situation.”

“Though it gave Catherine the advantage of her own household, I am very sorry that her good fortune came at the expense of yours,” he replied gravely. “Your father and mother have always been held in high regard by my Uncle deCourcy. His good opinion is always rooted in temperance and moderation.”

“That makes his opinion more valuable than the sort of immoderate flattery that springs up everywhere.”

Reginald wondered if she was thinking of Charles Smith. “Do you not think that flattery has its motive?”

“And so does censure.”

“They are very different.”

“Their language is very different, but can one’s character not be equally misrepresented by excessive praise as by undeserved reproach?” she inquired.

Reginald smiled and fell into step with her as she completed her tour of the beds. Her conversation and opinions had elevated her even further in his esteem, and he began to think seriously of Catherine’s urging him to return to Parklands—until he addressed his parents frankly, and put an end to all expectations that he would marry his cousin Lavinia, he could not be at liberty to make his addresses to a lady of his own choosing.

chapter thirty-seven

In most cases, a fortnight would be too soon for any spirited young man to fix upon a marriage partner unless he possessed the sort of reckless nature that would stake all future happiness upon an infatuation; yet while Reginald deCourcy possessed a warm and occasionally headstrong temperament, he was no more inclined to offer his heart because he had been warned against it than to bestow his hand because it was urged upon him. His feelings for Frederica Vernon had been helped along by her mother’s purposeful dissuasion and by his own compassion for her situation, but they might as easily have reversed if Miss Vernon had truly been ignorant, dull, or proud. Her beauty alone would not have secured him, but her accomplishments and her obliging manners bespoke a genuine superiority of mind, and her melancholy situation engaged his sympathy. While always attempting to be cheerful, particularly before the children, Miss Vernon must be unhappy, Reginald concluded. The loss of her father, her want of independence, the prospect of a union toward which she was disinclined, must make any sensitive young woman unhappy—and yet how could he object to her situation when he had allowed his family to anticipate his own marriage to Miss Hamilton? He had been very wrong to permit all of his family to presuppose a union that he knew would never take place.

Every day Catherine had made some mention of Parklands and how eager their parents were for a visit, but she had begun to despair of Reginald’s spending any time in Kent before he settled in town. She was very surprised, therefore, when he came down to breakfast one morning and made a startling announcement.

“Catherine, I mean to go to Kent this week. I will send James ahead with the hunters this morning and be off myself in two days’ time. As the journey must take me through London, if there is any commission that you, Charles, or any of the ladies would like for me to perform, have your petitions ready.”

Both Catherine and Charles were astonished and excessively pleased, though for very different reasons; she supposed that Reginald’s infatuation for Lady Vernon had run its course, while he was persuaded that Reginald meant to apply to his parents for their consent to marry her without delay.

Charles congratulated himself on the prospect of Lady Vernon’s marriage to his brother. As Reginald’s wife, she would be so rich and important that there would be no more musings and inquiries about why Sir Frederick had left her so poor. And yet he could not be entirely happy. Lady Vernon was so very lovely—much prettier than she had been when she first came to Churchill. Indeed, she was in such radiant good looks that she appeared almost young enough to be Miss Vernon’s sister, and Charles could not but reflect what his happiness would have been if she had chosen him over Frederick. Then, left in his present situation, with an income that would not support his indulgences, and already weary of the quiet, country style of living, he would at least have got a more charming partner out of the bargain. But no, she had brought nothing into her marriage with Sir Frederick, and she possessed nothing that he had not got his hands on but for a house in town.

Lady Vernon, who suspected Reginald’s motives, wished that he would remain at Churchill only a little longer. She did not doubt that Frederica had engaged his interest and sympathy; that he was in a fair way to being in love was evident, but Lady Vernon would have him firmly in love before he went away.

Catherine, for her part, was relieved that the affair that had given her so much anxiety was drawing to a happy conclusion. Her conviction that it had been her own influence with her brother that had affected his decision gave her such satisfaction that she was able to look upon his attentions toward Lady Vernon and her daughter as nothing more than polite indifference.

chapter thirty-eight

Lady Vernon to Mrs. Johnson

Churchill Manor

My dear Alicia,

This morning Reginald declared his intention to return to Parklands. I must anticipate that once in Kent, he must succumb to his parents’ wishes for his future. I am resigned. Even you, my dear friend, cannot flatter me into prosperity, and a jeune fille with thirty thousand must eclipse a widow who is some years Reginald’s senior and who has no more than a modest jointure and a house in town.

Lady Vernon was interrupted in her writing by the sound of a rapid footstep in the hallway.

Frederica burst into the room. “Forgive me, madam—our cousin has come! Mr. deCourcy and I saw his carriage turn down the avenue!”

“Surely you are mistaken!”

“He is this minute sitting in the drawing room! What are we to do? What will he think! He takes my cousin James for a suitor! Why did we not undeceive everybody? It was wrong, very wrong.”

“Your cousin was happy enough to encourage the gossip,” Lady Vernon replied in great exasperation. “It was only when his suit was cast as objectionable and unwanted that he began to mind it. How provoking! He means to do mischief, to be sure!”

This remark put Frederica very near tears. “I do not like Mr. deCourcy to think that my cousin and I are to be married. What are we to do?”

“You and Wilson go down. Tell your cousin that I will join you directly. Your aunt is with the children, and I must inform her of what will be regarded as a most unwelcome imposition.”

Lady Vernon knew that Catherine did not like any variation in her narrow routine, but she was always weak on the side of vanity. Lady Vernon, therefore, addressed this side when she said, “My cousin’s unexpected visit requires some apology to you, my dear sister. I can only account for it by supposing that he means to join the Parkers’ large party at Billingshurst and could not come into the neighborhood without waiting upon you and my brother.”

“Billingshurst is ten miles off,” remarked Catherine, who could not imagine going so far to pay her compliments to anyone.

“Sir James possesses the sort of affability and easy confidence that rejects the notion that such a visit might be unwelcome or that it might be an imposition upon the hospitality of equals, particularly when we are on such excellent terms.”

For her own part, Catherine could only hope that the terms did not comprehend Lady Vernon hereafter becoming Reginald’s wife, and though Catherine would not have gone a great distance to meet Sir James Martin, as he had come to Churchill, she was curious to see him.

“Cousin!” cried Sir James when the ladies entered the room, and he stepped forward to meet Lady Vernon. His merry glance met her cross one with equanimity.

Lady Vernon made the introductions, and Catherine bade them all sit down together.

“I take a great liberty in coming to Churchill,” Sir James addressed Catherine. “I hope you will forgive it—I know you shall, for my cousin has written to me that your kindness and affection are very great, so great that it must extend to her kin.”

“And how does my Aunt Martin fare now that she is left alone?” Lady Vernon inquired of her cousin.

“Very well, I trust. When I was with her last, she did complain of some trifling ailment or other, but she seemed to improve as my departure drew near, and now that I am gone I have no doubt but that she is entirely well.”

“Then you are settled in town for the season?” Catherine asked.

“I am as settled as any poor bachelor ever is.” Sir James laughed. “We settle ourselves wherever we are invited to stay. I hope that I do not take too great a liberty to impose myself upon your hospitality, Mrs. Vernon. If I do, you must take it to be the liberty of a relation.”

Catherine was obliged to proffer an invitation for him to stay at Churchill for the present, “as you have no place else to go.”

Sir James thanked her with a warmth that nearly provoked a laugh from Lady Vernon. “I called at Edward Street three evenings ago, and Mrs. Johnson urges me to tell you how happy she will be to have you in London once more and to convey to you both her very best love. I did protest that she could not possess better love for you than your nearest relation.”

Frederica ventured to speak. “And Mr. Johnson? Is he well?”

“He commissioned me to bring you something from his library,” Sir James replied as he took a packet from his coat. “And this is what I chose. A Collection of Passion-Flowers from Nature. I hope that you approve, cousin.”

Frederica blushed and murmured her thanks, avoiding Reginald’s gaze. He observed this exchange in perfect silence but with a heightened color that suggested that he was not pleased to have Sir James at Churchill Manor.

“I cannot think that Mr. Johnson knows anything of passionflowers,” Lady Vernon remarked.

“Perhaps that is why he is willing to part with it,” Sir James replied. “And I am quite certain that Mrs. Johnson will not feel the loss of it. I must offer my congratulations to you, madam,” he addressed Catherine, “and to Mr. deCourcy on the marriage of your cousin Miss Lucy Hamilton to Mr. Charles Smith. I hope that they are very happy.”

Reginald’s expression assumed a greater shade of hauteur, but the remark induced him to speak at last. “I have no reason to believe that they are not.”

“Nor have I. Smith has a frank and open disposition, and Miss Lucy Hamilton has never possessed the convenient talent of affecting sensations foreign to her heart. With nothing like artifice in her nature nor reserve in his, I think they have as fair a chance at happiness as those whose unions were a sacrifice to policy or ambition.”

“Your opinion of marriage does not sound entirely favorable, sir,” Reginald deCourcy observed.

“I am always influenced by what is before me. Now that I am at Churchill, I think there can be no better state.”

“If you are so easily swayed, your opinion may reverse when you go away again,” Reginald observed.

“I hope that when I do go, it will be with an even happier view of matrimony than when I came.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. deCourcy will not be able to witness your change of sentiment,” Lady Vernon remarked. “He is to leave Churchill before the end of the week.”

“But not leave Sussex, I trust,” Sir James said with a smile, “as I understand that some of your relations will be at Billingshurst.”

“I go directly to London and then on to Parklands.”

“How regrettable! But Mrs. Vernon will have the pleasure of seeing them, I have no doubt.”

Catherine was somewhat distressed at this assertion. If any of her relations were to come as far as Billingshurst, she would indeed be obliged to do something, though she did not know what. She could not expect them to come ten miles to drink tea. They would have to be asked to dine. Would she be obliged to invite Miss Maria Manwaring as well? She was a particular friend of Miss Vernon’s, but of late Charles had spoken of Manwaring with something like aversion. Catherine sighed and wished that they were all back at Parklands, where the matter of what was due to anybody had been left in her mother’s capable hands.

“It has been a long time since I have seen anything of this part of the country and nothing suits me so well as a brisk walk after being confined to a carriage for many miles. We will excuse Mr. deCourcy, as he must have something better to attend to, but I think I can coax my cousins into a little walking party. And you will join us, will you not, Mrs. Vernon?”

Catherine was obliged to excuse herself, saying that she never walked and that she ought to return to the nursery. Sir James laughed and said that he hoped to be introduced to the little Vernons ere long, and what a wonderful thing it was to have such a family.

Sir James’s cheerfulness seemed to provoke Reginald, who declared that he had no pressing matters to attend to and that he would indeed like to be one of the party, and Sir James, with his natural sense of mischief, offered his arm to Frederica and left Reginald to attend Lady Vernon.

The four of them set out across the front lawns and down the avenue, walking in the direction of the village.

“I am very happy to see you looking so well, Freddie,” Sir James began. “Your ordeal in London cannot have been pleasant, but I was never persuaded that you ought to have been sent to school, and yet I do not like to see you back here at Churchill. I would much rather have had you remain in town, as your mother wished.”

“I am sure that Mama would wish you there as well.”

Sir James laughed. “I cannot recall a more chilly welcome than I have received just now! Is Mrs. Vernon generally so unequal to hospitality?”

“I have not had the opportunity to know her well. I think that she is very much a creature of routine, but so are we all in some manner or other.”

“And what sort of person is Mr. deCourcy? Is he the same sort of creature as his sister?”

“He is intelligent and amiable.”

“In other words, nothing like her. And yet there is nothing amiable in the stare that I feel directed at my back. He has heard that we are very near to being engaged and he does not like it. What shall we do? Are you still of the opinion that it is wrong to encourage discord? Will we turn back and undeceive him at once, or shall we have some fun at his expense?”

“I don’t know what you mean, cousin!”

“Do you not? And yet you are a young lady of such extraordinary discernment. It is clear to me that Mr. deCourcy admires you and regards me as a rival. What will the Vernons say? Mrs. Vernon continues to hope that her brother will marry Miss Hamilton, and Mr. Vernon—”

Frederica drew her arm back and replied sharply, “I do not care what my uncle hopes for! His hopes cannot be accomplished unless someone else’s are ruined!”

Sir James was startled at such an outburst from one whose temper was always so mild. He attempted something like an apology and she immediately begged his pardon and took her cousin’s arm once more. The two continued on, and though Sir James endeavored to divert her, Frederica remained subdued, replying to his remarks with no more than a monosyllable or a nod.

Reginald, who walked with Lady Vernon many paces behind the pair, could not hear their exchange, but he observed enough to see that Sir James had said something to upset Frederica. He began to tally—with greater attention than the subject had ever produced heretofore—the many ills that might arise when a young woman was compelled to subordinate her happiness to a duty to marry well. By the time they had returned to the house, he had enumerated many arguments in favor of preference and was resolved to address them to Lady Vernon before he left Churchill.

chapter thirty-nine

It is a universal ambition to persuade as many people as possible of one’s understanding, intelligence, and wit without having to cultivate any of them. In the case of Sir James Martin, however, it was quite the reverse: his education had been thorough and his understanding was sound, but an easy assurance and lively good humor had given rise to the impression of frivolity, and he did not trouble himself to contradict it.

His wit and complacency allowed him to keep up a steady stream of pleasantries at the dinner table. Lady Vernon was too angry with her cousin to speak to him, and Miss Vernon, who was afraid that any interest in her cousin’s conversation would be seen as a confirmation of their betrothal, was silent as well. Reginald spoke when he could not avoid it, and Mrs. Vernon, after pronouncing that the curried rabbit had turned out remarkably well, observed that the season for sport was quite at an end and that she was afraid there was little else to tempt Sir James to stay with them for very long.

Sir James smiled and replied, “My affection for this part of the world is fixed on something more prepossessing than sport. But I will not intrude upon your routine—none of your engagements need be altered on my account.”

Mrs. Vernon assured him that they did nothing and went nowhere. “But do not stand on ceremony, sir. You have acquaintances in this part of the country who will want a share of your company. Do not put us above them. Spend as much time as you like with them. We will not be offended.”

Sir James thanked her with an emphasis that provoked Lady Vernon to smile in spite of herself. “I will be happy to renew my acquaintance in this part of the world. But I am happier, of course, to see my cousins, and in such good looks, for which I must give you and Mr. Vernon credit. Your particular attentions to them seem to have offset the melancholy sensations that must attend any visit to the home that was lost to them in such a cruel fashion.”

“‘Cruel’?” cried Vernon. “Do you say that my sister and niece have been cruelly treated?”

Sir James was surprised at his vehemence and calmly replied, “Perhaps I should not have said ‘cruel.’ I should have said ‘unfortunate’—as the fortunes of those who survive such a loss are wont to decline.”

Vernon murmured something about accidents and how terrible it was when they resulted in a loss, how painful it was for them to be discussed at all.

Sir James apologized and changed the subject. “I honor your delicacy, Mrs. Vernon, for doing so little with Churchill Manor. There were, no doubt, many alterations you wished to make, and to leave it so unchanged must be a great comfort to my cousins.”

“And yet,” declared Reginald, “Miss Vernon remarked only this morning how very much changed she found it to be.”

“She would find it so,” Sir James replied, directing an affectionate smile toward his young cousin. “Freddie is naturally observant—nothing escapes her notice.”

“There is nothing to notice,” stammered Vernon. “Some changes in the household staff … the rooms are much the same … nothing whatsoever … !”

“Indeed,” said his wife. “One cannot do everything. It is troublesome to know what ought to be done at all.”

“I quite agree with you—it is troublesome, at least, to know what must be done at once and what can wait until one is more settled. And yet there have been some alterations that my young cousin must feel deeply. There had been a portrait of Sir Frederick in the gallery. It had been done when he was a very young man—not much older than Freddie, I believe. To remove a portrait might not seem a great change, but it is only natural that the absence of such a comforting fixture must impress my young cousin very deeply.”

“We were compelled to … it was necessary to make a place for my wife’s grandfather,” said Vernon uneasily.

“Undoubtedly. There is nothing like family feeling! That portrait now, of my cousins, was done when Freddie was only three years old,” Sir James continued, pointing to a likeness of mother and daughter that hung upon the wall opposite Vernon. “It gave Sir Frederick a great deal of pleasure to look upon it when he sat in the chair that you now occupy, but it cannot inspire the same feeling in you. If I may be so bold as to suggest it, the portrait of Sir Frederick would go handsomely in its place. But perhaps you have already chosen another place for your brother’s likeness.”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Vernon chimed in. “It was put away in one of the attics.”

Sir James was astonished. He had always known that Vernon’s affection for Sir Frederick went no deeper than his enjoyment of the superior society of Churchill Manor and Portland Place, and the ease with which “my elder brother, Sir Frederick Vernon” got men of fortune to open their pocketbooks. Yet to remove his portrait from its rightful place among his forebears, a place moreover where it had hung for nearly thirty years, was more than indifference—there was something cruel about it.

The subject kindled Reginald’s curiosity and he began to ask many questions about the age of the portrait and who had been the artist, and determining how far the dust and dampness of an attic might have injured the canvas. “The portrait of a former master must have its place,” he declared. “That likeness of Lady Vernon and Miss Vernon is very pleasing, but you cannot have any particular attachment to it, Charles. May I not carry it to town and leave it with Lady Vernon’s housekeeper at Portland Place, and then you may hang Sir Frederick’s portrait here in the dining room if there is no place for it in the gallery? You would not object to that, Catherine?”

Mrs. Vernon was not at all unhappy to get rid of any likeness of Lady Vernon and declared that she could make no objection, and as Vernon’s dumbfounded silence was taken for consent, the matter was considered settled.

When the ladies removed to the drawing room, the children joined them and remained until the gentlemen appeared. They insisted that they would go to the nursery with nobody but their cousin Freddie, and Miss Vernon consented to take them upstairs.

Lady Vernon took out some embroidery while Mrs. Vernon poured tea and coffee and then sat down to look at the pages of a book. Sir James took a chair beside his cousin, and under the pretext of examining her handiwork, he said in a low voice, “Vernon does not appear to be very comfortable in his new situation.”

“He does not want you here.”

“Oh, nobody wants me here,” Sir James persisted. “Except Mother, who is always glad to have me anywhere but where she is. But you are his brother’s widow and entitled to a greater respect. To banish Frederick’s portrait shows a wanton indifference to his brother’s memory and to what is due to you and to Churchill.”

Lady Vernon kept her eyes on her work. “James, I beg you to remember that we are both guests in my brother’s house, and that Frederica and I are dependent upon his goodwill. We were not left so rich that we can take offense from those who take us in.”

“If he does not wish you to take offense, he should not give it.”

“Hush, James, they will hear you.”

Sir James moderated his tone. “They would not be so likely to hear our conversation if they had any of their own. See how young deCourcy looks in our direction. He believes that I plead with you for Freddie’s hand. Let us have some fun with him, shall we?” he asked, and began to entertain his cousin with the latest London gossip in which “settlement” and “engagement” and “nuptials” were audible above their murmurs.

chapter forty

Sir James Martin’s nature, which he had taken some pains to conceal beneath a guise of frivolity, was one of keen perception and kindness of heart. When he was provoked, however, a propensity for mischief asserted itself. Though there was not a hint of malice in his nature, he was often as likely to do more damage from an act of caprice than another might do from outright cruelty, and this was never more evident than in the havoc wrought from his conduct on the following morning.

He rose with the memory of his cousins’ reserve, Vernon’s agitation, and Reginald’s resentment fresh in his mind, and he had an overwhelming desire to tease them all. Taking a sheet of paper, he began to write a brief note, his penmanship a creditable imitation of Frederica’s straightforward and elegant hand.

Dear Sir,

I hope you will excuse this liberty, but I am forced upon it by great distress, or I should be ashamed to trouble you. I am forbidden from ever speaking to my uncle or aunt on the subject. In applying to you, I do perhaps attend only to the letter and not the spirit of Mama’s commands, but if you do not take my part, I know of no other way in the world of helping myself.

I am very miserable about Sir James Martin. I have always disliked him and thought him to be silly, impertinent, and disagreeable, and now that I know how earnestly our marriage is contemplated, I cannot bear him. I would rather work for my bread than marry him. If you will have the unspeakable great kindness of taking my part with Mama, and prevailing upon her to give Sir James an absolute refusal, I shall be more than obliged to you.

I do not know how to apologize enough for this letter, and I am aware how dreadfully angry it will make everybody at Churchill, but I must run the risk.

I am, sir, your most humble servant,

Frederica Susannah Vernon

He had read enough novels to think that he had written it in a very high style and one that would do credit to any lovelorn young lady. He folded the note over and wrote “Mr. Reginald deCourcy” upon it, and slipped it under the door of the young man’s chamber and went down to the breakfast parlor. The family would not be down for another half hour, which gave Sir James both the opportunity to eat his breakfast in peace and occasion to feel something like remorse.

As he could not recover the note, he decided that the best thing would be for him to take himself out of everybody’s way, and sending to the stables for his horse, he set off for Billingshurst.

Billingshurst had lately been taken by a family named Parker; the elder branch of the family had made enough by way of trade to allow the next two or three generations to forget it (provided the sons were not too numerous and the daughters were pretty enough to find husbands). They were the sort of people whose fortune attracted a great many friends and whose amiability kept nearly all of them. They would have dearly loved to add the Vernons to their acquaintance, but their recent arrival in the neighborhood, and a sense of their humble origins, caused them to believe it was the Vernons’ place to make the overture. The manner in which Mr. Vernon had behaved when he left Miss Manwaring at Billingshurst gave them little hope, however—he had declined to come in and kept Lady Vernon’s daughter sitting in the carriage.

In the village of Churchill, Sir James encountered a carriage bearing a familiar crest and was hailed by Mr. Lewis deCourcy, who had been invited to pass a few days at Billingshurst. DeCourcy was very surprised to hear that Sir James had come from Churchill Manor and persuaded him to turn over his horse to the groom and take a seat in the carriage.

“I hope,” began Mr. deCourcy when they had set off, “that Lady Vernon’s going to Churchill Manor is some indication that the concerns that she expressed to me on her way to Langford were resolved to her satisfaction. It would have pained me to think ill of Charles, as he is married to my niece.”

Sir James did not know how to reply. If Lady Vernon had some source of distress beyond the loss of a beloved husband, she had not confided it to him. Of course, Sir James reflected ruefully, his conduct toward his cousin had not always inspired her confidence.

They were greeted at Billingshurst by Mr. and Mrs. Parker, who had bustled up from their table to meet the guests and ushered the gentlemen into the breakfast parlor without ceremony. Sir James was surprised to find Mr. and Mrs. Charles Smith among the party, as he had supposed that they would not be invited anywhere where there were deCourcys. To Lewis deCourcy’s credit, he gave a kiss to his niece and shook her husband’s hand and then took a seat beside Miss Maria Manwaring.

The breakfast table at Churchill Manor was not as amiable. The party consisted only of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon, she engaged in reading a letter from Lady deCourcy and he looking up from his newspaper whenever his lady called upon him to listen to some extract of wisdom from her mother.

As Vernon was preparing to withdraw, a note was handed down to Mrs. Vernon and she read it with an exclamation of surprise. “Sir James has gone off to Billingshurst! He writes that we must not expect him until dinnertime. That is very strange conduct, do you not agree, my love? To take himself away for an entire day when he came here on our niece’s account?”

“If he takes himself away for good, he may be as strange as he likes,” he muttered.

Mrs. Vernon went up to the children and spent a quarter of an hour teaching them something, before sending them out in the care of a nursery maid for exercise. She then sat down to write a letter to her mother.

Mrs. Vernon to Lady deCourcy

Churchill Manor, Sussex

My dear Madam,

I regret that I have not been able to write to you for some days. We have an unexpected guest with us. Sir James Martin arrived yesterday and took the very great liberty of inviting himself to remain with us as long as he liked! I thought it quite impertinent of him, and I do not think that Lady Vernon was happy to see him, either, though I cannot account for that, as she clearly means to forward a match between Sir James and her daughter.

Sir James is a very handsome and genteel sort of person, but he has a liveliness that borders on impudence. His manner is certainly the opposite of Miss Vernon’s, and I confess that I see nothing in her conduct that suggests encouragement. It is all her mother’s doing. She is absolutely determined to have them married. He is very rich, and Lady Vernon will not hesitate to sacrifice the poor girl in the cause of wealth and ambition. I would be very sorry to think that in years hence I would ever make either Kitty or Regina marry anyone toward whom they were violently opposed.

As for Reginald, I believe he does not know what to make of the matter. When Sir James first came, he appeared all astonishment and perplexity; the folly of Sir James and the confusion of Frederica entirely engrossed him and he is hurt, I am sure, at Lady Vernon allowing such a man’s attentions to her daughter.

Have no fear that this turn of events will affect Reginald’s plans. He still means to leave us tomorrow for London, and from there, on to Kent. How happy I will be when he is safely back at Parklands! I pray you may keep him there.

Lady Vernon will soon leave us, and (although my generous husband, to the very last, urges her to extend her visit into the spring) not even a desire to keep her from town and Reginald could compel me to prolong her stay. Though I did not think that his attraction to her was so pronounced in this last week as it had been when she first came to us (as she could not conceal her failures as a mother once Miss Vernon arrived), she has been in such very good looks as to make any young man’s heart overrule his head.

I can only hope that the arrival of Sir James, while a very great nuisance in all other respects, has given Reginald some insight into Lady Vernon’s coldness and ambition by her desire to force her daughter into a match with her cousin, for my brother’s disposition is very warm and it has been excited by compassion for Miss Vernon. I believe that he comes to see her as something like a heroine in distress, as last night, after Sir James had retired (the ladies having gone upstairs some time before), he remarked that our niece was “a sweet girl, and she deserves a better fate than Sir James Martin.”

While Catherine continued writing sheet upon sheet (as Reginald would carry the letter, Lady deCourcy would not have to think of the post), Reginald was given a very different sort of communication when his servant handed him the note that had been found slipped under the door.

Reginald read it with surprise and dismay. The latter sensation predominated; he was distressed by the impropriety of such an address but was soon overcome by a feeling of pity for her plight and for the evident desperation that had driven her to write the letter. These feelings were augmented by something like tenderness. “I would rather work for my bread than marry him” was a particularly affecting sentiment, and one that made him smile at the thought of Miss Vernon, who could not accommodate herself to the conventions of a ladies’ academy, going out into the world.

The closing sentences struck him with their conviction of Lady Vernon’s displeasure. If the violence of Miss Vernon’s opposition to Sir James were made known to her mother, surely Lady Vernon would take her daughter’s part despite the many advantages of such a match. Miss Vernon was very wrong not to make a friend of her. Reginald, with letter in hand, went to Lady Vernon’s apartments.

Lady Vernon had risen and dressed but did not wish to go down to breakfast until she was certain that Sir James had finished, and so was sitting at her writing desk when Reginald knocked. She invited him to sit and apologized for Miss Vernon’s absence. “She and Wilson have gone to call upon Mrs. Chapman.”

Reginald concluded that Miss Vernon had left right after slipping the letter under his door, in order to avoid any meeting with Sir James.

“I am glad that Miss Vernon is not here,” he began without premise. “I wish to speak to you, Lady Vernon, on the impropriety—the unkindness—of allowing Sir James Martin to address your daughter. It is evident that Miss Vernon dislikes him. How can you, as her mother, not see how miserable she is?”

Lady Vernon did not know whether to protest or laugh at this declaration. “Can you think of no other motive for her misery, if she is indeed miserable?” she inquired. “Frederica has been deprived of her father, her home, and her fortune. Is that not sufficient to make her unhappy? And do you call it an unkindness to wish for an advantageous match for one’s daughter?”

“It is not the matter of advantage—so superior a young lady as Miss Vernon ought to marry well. It is marriage to Sir James that is offensive.”

“What, pray, compels you to speak in my daughter’s defense? Does your sister commission you to reprimand me?”

“It is not Catherine but Miss Vernon who, by her own hand, asks me to speak on her behalf,” he replied, and before she could protest, he produced the letter.

Lady Vernon took the sheet of paper and immediately recognized the counterfeit penmanship and the preposterous expressions that exposed the letter as one of her cousin’s jokes. It affected her as Sir James’s pranks so often did, leaving her with both a desire to laugh and to be angry. Only Reginald’s grave and earnest countenance kept her from any display of emotion, and with great forbearance, she addressed him. “You know that my daughter is capable of impulse, Mr. deCourcy, as she acted so in the matter of Miss Lucy Hamilton’s elopement. Her dear father was inclined to spoil her, and I must often appear severe when contrasted with his indulgence. She is very young, and although she is a good-natured girl at heart, she is at an age when there must be opposition to one’s parent in something.”

“Can your ladyship wonder that she opposes a marriage with one who is so unequal to her in temperament? She writes that she cannot bear him.”

“Please remember that you are speaking of my nearest relation,” Lady Vernon reminded the young man. “You have only just been introduced to Sir James. His boyish manners often make him appear worse than he is, and in everything except common sense he would be a most desirable match.”

“But he cannot be a desirable match for Miss Vernon if she does not love him.”

Lady Vernon began to think that she ought to be grateful for her cousin’s prank. Reginald’s defense of Miss Vernon had excited a warmth and interest that he might not have come to so quickly without such inducement.

“What an opinion you must have of me! Can you possibly suppose that I wish for anything except her happiness? Do you think that I am destitute of every natural feeling?”

“I do not think so, but your daughter is not secure on this point. In her own hand, she writes that you are so insistent upon the match that you have forbidden her even from opening her heart to my sister and Charles.”

Lady Vernon forced herself to remain calm in the face of his indignation and her own sense of the absurdity of the situation. “I admit that I did caution my daughter against troubling our relations with any of our concerns, as such complaints might be seen as a reproach for obliging us to leave Churchill Manor so soon after my husband’s death or an insinuation that we meant to plead poverty and ask for money. If I have done wrong, it is only that in my own distressed state, I have not always known what will make Frederica happy. Although a prosperous marriage for her would be of material relief to us both, I assure you that I would never consign to everlasting misery the child whose welfare it is my duty to promote and whose happiness was always the first object of one whose memory will always be sacred to me.” She was compelled to stop here and wipe away a tear. “I honor the discretion that you have shown in coming to me and I give you my word that before the day is out, I will address them both. If Sir James has any pretensions for my daughter, he must give them up.”

Reginald took great pleasure in thinking that he had such influence with Lady Vernon, and a less creditable joy in the prospect of witnessing Sir James’s disappointment. “Miss Vernon will be made happy before Sir James can be disappointed. He has gone to Billingshurst and does not plan to return until dinnertime, and perhaps later.”

Lady Vernon, though quite out of patience with her cousin, was compelled to repress a smile at the sort of repentance that had him running away to Billingshurst. “I hope, Mr. deCourcy, that your determination to leave Churchill was not brought about by this situation. My own visit has already been too long, and it will not inconvenience us to depart at once. Whether Frederica and I are in Sussex or London is of no consequence to anyone, and I cannot in any way be instrumental in separating a family that is so well attached to one another.”

Lady Vernon’s willingness to sacrifice an advantageous match for her daughter, as well as the comforts and familiarity of Churchill, left Reginald satisfied with her generosity and affection; only the disturbing allusions to their poverty distressed him, for if they had indeed been left poor, might not Miss Vernon be pressed to take another rich suitor who was equally odious?

For her own part, Lady Vernon was delighted to see how easily Reginald’s feelings were worked upon, and while his curiosity demanded an explanation in everything, very few words from her were necessary to render him tractable and satisfied. Nothing more could be wanted in a son-in-law than to be so accommodating to his wife’s mother, and when he withdrew, Lady Vernon believed that if they could be kept from the interference of their families, she would, within a very few months, have a child come into the world and another one married.

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 cucumber 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 Frederica. “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.

Reginald walked up to Frederica and made his petition, and to everyone’s surprise, Lewis deCourcy claimed Miss Manwaring, who seemed not at all discomfited by the request. Smith would have nobody but his wife, and Manwaring, left to sit with the dull Mrs. Vernon or dance with the equally dull Claudia Hamilton, chose the latter.

Sir James put a chair beside the pianoforte and Lady Vernon attacked him at once, while her fingers danced over the keys. “You are a fine relation! What possessed you to write such a note! ‘To work for my bread’! What would Mrs. Vernon think if it had fallen into her hands?”

“She would put poison in my teacup.”

Lady Vernon replied to this with a toss of her head and fixed her eyes upon the keyboard once more.

“How pretty she looks! And young deCourcy is the picture of triumph. He knows that he has cut me out.”

“Perhaps he only rejoices because he has got to your teacup.”

Sir James laughed. “No, he will revenge himself upon me by marrying Freddie—that is as far as his imagination can take him. It will be an excellent match for them both—he will give her consequence and she will give him sense.”

“I do not think that Mr. deCourcy is wanting in sense.”

“Say rather that he does not want natural abilities. His education and understanding are good, but sense will always be vulnerable when those closest to us are weak-minded or prone to idleness or resentment or vice. In the company of a father who was too frail to exert his authority, a mother possessing neither education nor talents, and a sister whose fondness took the form of flattering his vanity, his understanding became susceptible, and he was encouraged to form opinions too hastily and express them with too little restraint. That is precisely what a prudent wife will guard against.”

“You must not be severe upon him, James. All gentlemen do not possess your high degree of gravity and restraint.”

“If I am to be grave, do not provoke me to laugh. I must look like one who has had his hopes dashed.”

Lady Vernon made no reply, and after completing a reel, she complained of fatigue and withdrew from the instrument.

There was a pause as the ladies all considered whether one of them ought to take a turn at the instrument and each waited for another to surrender her enjoyment and her partner for the sake of the others. Vernon took advantage of this lull to observe how very cloudy a day it had been, and whether it boded rain or snow, and whether the drive back to Billingshurst was above an hour.

Mr. Lewis deCourcy immediately made the civil observation that the comfort of the ladies must be considered and that there were horses and servants who had been called out at very short notice for the sake of everyone’s pleasure—they must be thought of as well. Another round of dancing was therefore forfeited in favor of a collation of fruit and cakes and tarts, which had been sent by Mrs. Chapman.

While the Vernons were bidding adieu to their guests, Sir James took the opportunity to walk up to Reginald. “I have played a mean trick on you—you must forgive it, for my cousins’ sake. It will ease Lady Vernon’s mind considerably if we attempt something like friendship. You cannot refuse to pardon one who asks for it so readily.”

“I can only conclude that the readiness with which you ask for pardon comes from the number of occasions that have afforded you practice,” Reginald replied.

“Far too many! Fortunately, my relations and friends are an exceptionally forgiving lot.”

Mr. and Mrs. Vernon were both very surprised to walk back into the room to see Reginald and Sir James shaking hands. “Mrs. Vernon!” cried Sir James. “What an excellent party! I am delighted that my own taste for the impromptu did not inconvenience you—so excellent a dinner! I did not have one half so good at Lord Millbanke’s last week, and he keeps three French cooks just for his large parties.”

Before Mrs. Vernon could decide whether or not she ought to be mollified, Sir James continued. “I fear that I must end my visit prematurely and must leave for London very early tomorrow. You will none of you be down for breakfast, save for Mr. deCourcy—and I invite you, sir, to share my chaise, as it will be more suited to the weather and the state of the roads than your curricle. I will say good-bye to you, Vernon,” he added, “and ask you to indulge me so far as to allow me to make my adieux to my fair cousins tonight so that they will not feel obliged to see me off tomorrow.”

Mr. and Mrs. Vernon supposed that Sir James meant to make his offer for Miss Vernon and withdrew, she resolving never again to be caught without provisions for a dozen guests and he wondering how long it would be before the fishmonger had another such fine supply of whitebait.

Reginald bade them all a good night and expressed a wish that they might all meet in London very soon, then left them alone, his state of mind far more sanguine at the end of the day than at its beginning.

When he had gone, Frederica gave her cousin a kiss and advised him to depart from Churchill a better man than when he arrived, then allowed her mother and cousin to say their farewells in private.

“I hope that I shall be able to take Freddie’s excellent advice,” Sir James declared when the door had closed upon her. “I hope that I shall leave here a happier man, at least.”

“You have never been unhappy, James.”

“You are quite right. But I anticipate the particular satisfaction of taking my mother’s advice. There is no triumph so complete as seeing the surprise of a parent who has got past expecting anything like compliance.”

“I think that you can no more be compliant than my aunt can be surprised, unless her advice is of some consequence.”

“It is. Mother has urged me to marry for so long that I am certain she has quite given up on the prospect.”

Lady Vernon experienced something like sadness at his pronouncement. As the husband of another, the playfellow of her youth and her foil and confidant would be lost to her forever. “And who is the lady?” She affected something like her old playfulness of tone. “Not Miss Claudia Hamilton, surely. Or one of the Misses Millbanke?”

“Oh, no! I can allow for some shortcoming in my companions, but never in a wife—there, nothing less than perfection will do. I am such a good-for-nothing that I must have a wife who is exceptional in everything.”

“I confess I am very curious, cousin. I can think of nobody in our range of acquaintance who is anywhere near perfection—save Freddie, perhaps, and you have resigned your role as her admirer.”

“Yes, but there is someone very near Freddie who will suit me even better.” To Lady Vernon’s astonishment, her cousin became very grave. “My dear cousin—my dear Susan—I valued and esteemed Sir Frederick, you know that I did. I am acutely aware of what is due to his memory and I would never address you if to do so would be to trespass upon his wishes for your future happiness. I know that Freddie would approve, and Mother would be truly indebted to you for the very great honor you would confer upon her by taking me off her hands.”

Here he paused and looked at her expression before deciding whether he should continue.

Lady Vernon was dumbfounded. She had always liked her cousin—nay, she loved him—with all of the warmth and affection of two people who have known each other since childhood. No match could suit either of them better, for she was inured to all of his faults and he was so in love as to be persuaded that she had almost none at all.

“I have forgot,” Sir James continued, “the fervent assurances that I love you beyond expression. You will forgive me if I have overlooked what ought to be said at the outset. Though I have been said to be on the verge of marriage with every eligible young lady in England, I am quite a novice at the business of proposing—nor do I have any ambition to become a proficient.”

Lady Vernon needed no such assurance. That Sir James loved her, she was certain. But would he have offered his hand if he knew that it would obligate him to Sir Frederick’s unborn child? “I am not yet out of mourning.”

“I am not proposing that we elope, Susan. That is for the likes of Charles Smith and Lucy Hamilton. I only ask for the permission to hope.”

“I would be very wrong to encourage such a hope. My own prospects are so uncertain that yours may be injured by affixing your fortunes to mine. Did you not pronounce marriage to be a business transaction that one should not enter without a promise of a return? I encourage you, as a cousin who has loved you all her life, to aspire to a happier and richer union than I can offer.”

“I do not look to be enriched by marriage, only to be happy. I entirely comprehend your hesitation, but you need have no anxiety on Freddie’s account,” he hastened to assure her. “Tomorrow I journey to London with deCourcy and I will impress upon him any of Freddie’s perfections that have escaped his notice—it will take far less than thirty miles to accomplish. They will be married in six months.”

“A great deal may change in six months,” Lady Vernon replied. “Your nature and inclinations are such that in half a year’s time you may regret your offer to me.”

Sir James was affronted and almost angry. “When have I ever wavered in my devotion to you? When have I ever given you cause to think that I would tender my proposals to anyone without sincerity? I do not deserve such censure.”

Lady Vernon had never seen him so carried away by emotion. “I beg your pardon, cousin. I do not censure you—indeed, I have always relied upon your devotion.”

“And you may continue to rely upon it. If six months’ time should bring about any change in me, it will be that of a more determined attachment.”

“If that is true, you will not object to postponing your addresses. In six months’ time, if your attachment is not what you declare it to be today—if some circumstance should arise that would make you unwilling to renew your proposals—you will suffer neither reproach nor blame from me.”

“I assure you that in six months the only regret I will feel is the loss of so much time to suspense and anxiety when I might have been happy and secure. But it is no sacrifice—indeed, as Frederick has been gone barely six months, it is no more than is due to his memory.”

Lady Vernon was resigned to her cousin’s determination to be happy and decided that it was better to let the passage of time, and the event that it would bring about, test the depth of his fidelity. She extended her hand and he kissed it, both perfectly satisfied that the matter was resolved.