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

by Jane Rubino

  The news of Reginald’s engagement to Frederica was a wretched turn of events, but to see her mistress of Vernon Castle and to have his vague concurrence that he ought to do something for her turned into a fixed sum—eight thousand pounds!—was not to be borne. Still, the sum was not yet surrendered—he must act to repair the damage before it was irrevocable.

  Mr. Vernon to Mrs. Vernon

  Berkeley Square, London

  My dear wife,

  I have some very surprising news that I do not doubt will reach your mother by way of Sir Reginald. Your brother has proposed to our niece! After appearances had convinced all of London that she was reconciled to a marriage with her cousin—indeed, she received with him at Cavendish Square and opened the ball in such a manner (so I have heard, as I was not present) as persuaded everyone that the announcement of their engagement was imminent. I begin to wonder if all of the rumors of our niece’s engagement to her cousin were circulated by herself, and if her show of distress while she was with us at Churchill was a charade to pique Reginald’s interest, for you know that a gentleman will always find a woman who is promised to another more appealing than one who is thrown at his head.

  This news can please my mother-in-law in only one regard—Reginald does not marry Lady Vernon—and yet, for your sake, I would almost prefer that marriage to this one. Even if Lady Vernon were in health to make the marriage a long one (which I doubt, as reports have her becoming increasingly frail), a wife toward whom his father was so decidedly opposed would always ensure that you remain first with Sir Reginald—now I fear that the distinction of “daughter” is one that you must share with our niece, who, it appears, has now set herself toward securing your father’s affections with the same slyness that allowed her to play upon Reginald’s heart.

  I now reside at Berkeley Square with Sir Reginald and have done my part to ensure his comfort, yet one thing is wanting and that is to have you here. You know that your father’s spirits are always at their best and most generous when our children are present, and I fear that if his liberality does not have a proper object, he will be inclined to squander it—and we will be comprehended in his imprudence. Already he has coerced from me a promise that I will provide our niece’s dowry! As this was brought up in company, and before Reginald, I could not protest the injury such a loss would do to our children and was even compelled to agree to a sum—nearly a third of my brother’s legacy! This, when added to some other expenses that my situation must incur (and with no income from the banking house, as that position has been given up), is not insignificant—I can only hope that when the quarter comes due from Churchill Manor, it may be, in some part, offset.

  The irony is that our niece has no need for a dowry; not only can marriage to Reginald make it unnecessary, but Sir James Martin has resolved to settle Vernon Castle upon her! To wring an additional eight thousand pounds from me is very unreasonable. Had you been here, I am certain that you might have talked your father out of it—this may yet be possible; your presence and those mild and disinterested arguments that have always prevailed with your father (when added to the company of our dear children) may persuade him to retract this extravagant gesture. If you cannot come at once, an express to your father may do as well, but I think you had better come.

  Your devoted husband,

  Charles Vernon

  Sir Reginald’s letter to his wife was more to the point; they had so little to say to each other that even the most significant communication did not extend beyond a concise disclosure of the facts.

  Sir deCourcy to Lady deCourcy

  Berkeley Square, London

  My dear wife,

  You have long looked toward the prospect of Reginald’s marriage and you will be pleased to know that all of the prudent encouragement has not been given in vain. Reginald has made an offer to Miss Vernon and she has accepted him. I have given my consent, and Lady Vernon has likewise given her blessing. I will leave it to Reginald to solicit yours, and will trouble you for a few lines to Miss Vernon and her mother.

  Your devoted husband, etc.,

  Reginald deCourcy

  Charles Vernon had spent so freely that the portion he agreed to settle on his niece represented more than half of what remained of the money bequeathed by his brother. His desire to preserve it long enough for Catherine to come to London and coax her father back into prudence and sense had him fabricating some urgent business at Churchill Manor. He could not meet with Sir Reginald’s agents and attorneys while he was in Sussex, and so immediately after dispatching his letter to Catherine, he made some remarks about a matter of business at the family estate that could not be resolved by correspondence and required his immediate attention. He promised to return in three or four days’ time, which, he calculated, was all that would be allowed for Catherine to receive his letter, apprehend the urgency of their situation, and come to town.

  Reginald arrived at Berkeley Square to find Charles gone and his father engaged with his uncle, so he decided to call at Portland Place. His carriage drew up beside Sir James’s and the two gentlemen greeted each other and were admitted together.

  Sir James was at once aware of some disruption in the household, for the footman’s livery was half-buttoned and his wig askew, and Miss Wilson appeared from below with a shawl thrown over her nightdress and a tea tray in her hands.

  “Miss Wilson!” Sir James cried. “What is the matter?”

  She immediately handed her tray to the footman with orders that he take it up and ask Lady Martin to come down, then showed the gentlemen into the drawing room. She bade them sit, in a manner that did credit to her self-command.

  “What is the matter?” Sir James demanded once more, with more feeling than civility. “Why is there no fire? Why are the drapes still drawn? Has someone been taken ill?”

  Lady Martin bustled into the room, her dress disordered and her hair hastily tucked under a cap. Her face revealed her exhaustion, but her eyes were bright and her expression joyful. “What do you mean by coming upon us so early—it is only eleven o’clock! Why do you not stay in bed until noon anymore? You mean to become steady and sensible just to plague me. If it is your influence, Mr. deCourcy, I cannot protest. Come, sir, and we will have a comfortable chat—for my Frederica has only just got to sleep and I do not think you would have me wake her. As for you, James, you may go to Susan—she is very comfortable now, and when she heard that you had come, she decided that she would as soon see you now as later—but you must not keep her long, for she is very weak and will not stand much conversation.”

  Sir James, filled with notions of influenza and putrid fever, hurried to his cousin’s apartments, not even stopping to knock on the door before he entered. He found Frederica fast asleep upon the sofa and Susan sitting up in her bed, her beautiful face very pale, and holding a bundle in her arms.

  Sir James’s shock cannot be described, but his self-command, always concealed by his facade of merriment and nonsense, rose to support him, and drawing a chair beside her, he looked at her searchingly, assuring himself that she was not in danger, and then turned his gaze upon the child.

  “Well!” he declared, attempting to affect his old buoyancy of tone. “Who is this? I beg you to introduce me, cousin.”

  “May I present you to your cousin, James Frederick Vernon.”

  “Excellent! You must let me hold him—have no fear, I will not break him—there! You are surprised, no doubt, that I know how to hold an infant—it is a delightful thing to have everyone think one so trifling and silly, their expression of surprise when one says or does anything in a sensible fashion is excessively diverting. What an excellent little fellow! I declare, he has the Martin forehead and the Vernon chin! Why, what will this mean for Frederick’s line? The little fellow must precede Vernon—and do you know what that means?”

  “I do.” Lady Vernon smiled.

  “‘I do’—an excellent phrase. And as you, young man, are now the head of the family, I would be very happy to
hear it from you. I ask your consent to marry your mother. I have asked once, but your mother—for some unaccountable reason—put me off. She seemed to think that some mysterious and unacceptable circumstance might come to pass that would make me regret my offer! But if you approve me, she cannot refuse. See how he grasps my finger! He has given his blessing—it is how an infant will express his consent, I am quite sure of it. What a perceptive little fellow he is! I declare, he can all but talk, but if he could I am certain that when I asked him if he would consent to our marriage, he would say ‘I do.’”

  chapter sixty-two

  Charles Vernon had gone to Churchill Manor with every intention of wringing from it all the income he could, and a sincere desire to apply himself, at this late date, toward the administration of the family property. The desire was stronger than the sincerity, and had he behaved as he ought, and come into his inheritance honorably, he would nonetheless have been ill equipped for the responsibility.

  He returned to London full of plans for exploiting his last resource to find Sir Reginald gone to call upon Lady Vernon, and a letter from Catherine.

  Mrs. Charles Vernon to Mr. Vernon

  Parklands Manor, Kent

  My dear husband,

  Your letter surprised me beyond measure. Can it be true that Reginald and Frederica are engaged? Perhaps Lady Vernon’s ill health has been the result of her parting with Reginald—yet while it is far better than if Reginald had married Lady Vernon, I am equally confounded by his credulity and her pretense, for I must think that her eagerness to come to Parklands was only to understand precisely how rich the wife of Reginald deCourcy must be—and having succeeded in ingratiating herself with Reginald’s parents, she set out to steal him away from her mother. It seems that she is Lady Vernon’s daughter after all.

  My mother is very angry that you have provided our niece with a dowry—she is quite of your opinion that it is unnecessary, and a very great imposition, as she is enriched at the expense of little Frederick, Kitty, and Regina. In fact, she is so angry as to insist that we think of changing Frederick’s name to something else, as she does not wish to hear anything like “Frederica.”

  In her present state, she cannot think of coming to town—even in her happiest disposition, London is odious to her, and with all of the talk of influenza, I do not think it would be a fit place for the children. In any case, we should likely no sooner be settled than my father’s spell of good health would give way, and we would all be compelled to return to Kent—but as you are no longer with the banking house, why may you not come to us?

  Your devoted wife,

  C. Vernon

  This blow was a very mild one when compared to the next, for Sir Reginald’s valet, having emboldened himself to wish Mr. Vernon joy, was required to explain himself, which he did by providing the newspapers that proclaimed Lady Vernon, widow of Sir Frederick Vernon, had been safely delivered of a son and heir, and added a few lines about the alteration in the succession that this very interesting sequence of events must bring about.

  Vernon’s response was utter disbelief. To have nothing, nothing at all—the heirs to Parklands both to marry—the surrender of his position at the banking house—the loss of Churchill Manor! To evade this responsibility became uppermost in his mind, and he immediately quit the house and made his way back to Parklands Manor, to throw himself upon the mercy of his wife and her mother.

  The recent fluctuation in their family left them both vulnerable and eager to cling to anything like stability. Vernon had little difficulty in convincing them that they had been used very ill by Lady Vernon and her daughter, and to agree that the loss of eight thousand pounds would place a very great burden upon Kitty, Regina, and Frederick, when Lady deCourcy, who was very quick to understand anything in the way of profit or loss to her family, asked, “But will even that be theirs? Will you not be compelled to give back the whole sum to Sir Frederick’s heir? Unless some childhood illness or other carries him off, you will be obliged to restore all to him, will you not?”

  chapter sixty-three

  It is best, for all parties who suffer from a tragedy, to not look too deeply into how far that misfortune came to be the source of a new happiness; thus, Lady Vernon did not dwell upon the circumstance that left her free to marry a second time. Sir Frederick was not forgotten—he could not be forgotten by those who had esteemed him so highly, nor could his memory fade in the presence of little James Frederick, whom Lady Martin declared the possessor of the Vernon forehead while Sir James maintained that he had the Vernon chin.

  The devotion of Sir James and the steadiness and counsel of his mother persuaded Lady Vernon to amend the answer she had given to her cousin at Churchill. She did not oblige him to wait out the year, and three weeks after the birth of James Frederick, she and Sir James were quietly married. A month later, Miss Manwaring was wed to Lewis deCourcy in a modest ceremony, and before the season was out, the marriage of Frederica Susannah Vernon to Reginald Hamilton deCourcy was celebrated in a fashion that Alicia Johnson declared was “quite the jewel of the season.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Reginald deCourcy settled happily in Staffordshire, where Frederica had the particular pleasure of renewing her acquaintance with the Clarkes and residing a very easy distance from the Martins at Ealing Park. Her intimacy with Maria did not suffer for the hundred miles between Vernon Castle and Bath—superior conveyances, excellent roads, and an affection between uncle and nephew, which had them always ready to promote the closeness of their wives, brought them together as often as they could wish.

  In time, Frederica ceased to dwell with pain upon her father’s death, and though she must tolerate the occasional encounter with Charles Vernon in town or at Parklands, she beseeched her husband to support her in never having him at Vernon Castle.

  In the coming year, Charles Vernon was to suffer a final humiliation: having lost Churchill Manor for himself, his line was further divided from Parklands when the Mrs. deCourcies were delivered of a young Reginald and a young Lewis, respectively. The two boys, born only a month apart, grew up to be the best of friends.

  It is, perhaps, too indulgent to describe the course of Vernon’s mortification any further, but to spare his daughter from the effects of it as far as he could, Sir Reginald pledged himself to all that had been promised to Frederica and bequeathed to Churchill’s heir. Vernon’s reputation was restored as far as it could be, but all of his claims to money and property were gone, and he was obliged to return to Parklands Cottage with no hope of ever leaving it for those pleasant country visits or lively occasions in town that he had taken for granted while Sir Frederick had lived. Catherine and her mother were as little distressed by this turn of events as anybody could be—they mixed no more with the world than they had done in the early years of Catherine’s marriage, and so were spared the distress of hearing anything to Vernon’s discredit. They kept little company, went nowhere, and returned to a routine that was without variety or diversion and that seldom had them going beyond the lane that separated Parklands Manor from Parklands Cottage.

  Sir Reginald could not think well of his son-in-law, and although he must maintain him at Parklands, he reserved his liberality for the children, and for Reginald and Frederica.

  The necessity for someone to hold Churchill Manor back from a slide into serious neglect before the heir could come into possession of it was a matter of some discussion, and Lady Martin finally decided that she might yield the management of Ealing Park to her daughter-in-law and withdraw to Churchill Manor, where she resumed her usefulness, coaxing the farmers into productiveness and the neighbors into harmony and hurrying to the bedside of anyone who fell ill before they could summon the apothecary or the surgeon.

  Miss Hamilton and her mother were deeply mortified by Reginald’s marriage, but as the word got round of Vernon Castle’s stateliness and beauty, they made a gesture of rapprochement in order to gain admission to the estate and kept up their friendship with Mrs. Lewis deCourcy so a
s to widen their acquaintance among the eligible gentlemen at Bath. Yet, despite all of Lady Hamilton’s determination to get them husbands, and her daughters’ thirty thousand apiece, many years were to pass before any offers of consequence came their way.

  Lucy Smith and her husband were frequent visitors at Vernon Castle and Bath; they were always cheerful and affectionate, possessing the sort of good-natured exuberance that might settle into contentment or sink into imprudence and misfortune; the latter was to be their fate, but not for many years.

  As for Manwaring, he drew a harder lot than mere folly merited, for having pursued every woman but his wife, he now came to think that only Eliza had suited him after all; she had been a capable mistress of Langford and the possessor of a fortune that brought him fifteen hundred pounds per annum without having to do anything much for it. She had no sooner won over Mr. Johnson and installed herself at Edward Street when Manwaring set about courting her, as energetically as he had done before their marriage.

  Authors’ Note

  Lady Susan was written by Jane Austen in the mid-1790s, when she had a body of lively juvenilia behind her and the first draft of what was to become Sense and Sensibility immediately ahead. The protagonist, Lady Susan (Vernon) “the most dangerous coquette in England,” is a beautiful widow with a daughter of marriageable age who descends upon her brother-in-law’s household after her flirtations have made her unwelcome at the home of her friends the Manwarings. Through a series of letters—principally between Lady Susan and her London friend Alicia Johnson, and Lady Susan’s sister-in-law, Catherine Vernon, and Catherine’s mother, Lady deCourcy—we derive a portrait of a protagonist who is both captivating and calculating, with the combination of a scintillating wit and self-interest that Austen would later employ in the character of Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park.