by Janet Todd
‘None the less it will be good for Frederica to polish the language. I am with you there, Madam Dacre. But I’m especially concerned with manners, dancing and the like. Poor Frederica has had little chance to develop in these areas – she has been brought up quite isolated in the country. Her father’s ill health, you know.’ She lowered her voice and smiled again at Madam Dacre.
‘And work, Lady Susan? Does the young lady require instruction in fancy needlework?’ Madam Dacre had quite given up addressing her new pupil.
‘I believe so. I fear Frederica is but a sorry needlewoman.’
Frederica blushed. ‘I enjoy plain work,’ she said. ‘Papa encouraged me to sew for the poor.’
Lady Susan smiled. ‘I think Madam Dacre has in mind more elegant work. It’s a skill you can surely develop.’
‘Music?’ Madam Dacre went on. ‘The lessons would be extra, of course. The pianoforte or perhaps the harp. It’s a very fashionable instrument now and shows off a young girl’s arm and foot to perfection. It’s most useful when a lady begins her displays.’
‘The pianoforte is enough, I think,’ replied Lady Susan, ‘and Frederica is already proficient there – though she needs instruction in raising the hand from the keys. It’s important not to over-perform.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Madam Dacre with just a glint of steel in her eyes. ‘And elocution?’
Lady Susan inclined her head. ‘Certainly elocution. To articulate well is essential. My daughter has a tendency to stammer or become a little confused when nervous. I’m sure you will easily cure her of the habit.’ And again she smiled benignly at her companions.
Frederica resolved not to burst into tears. She disliked the place and Madam Dacre. But anything was preferable to being hunted by Sir James with his piggy eyes and slobbering lips. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands and her eyes stayed dry.
‘I shall leave you to say your adieus in private. Miss Vernon, we dine at half past three,’ said Madam Dacre and swept out.
Lady Susan followed soon after. Having had a few further private words with the headmistress, providing her with some particular and pertinent instructions as to what she intended for her daughter, she left, quite satisfied with the arrangements.
On Madam Dacre she had made a mixed impression. Her manner and demeanour were impressive and titles were always welcome in parents. She just hoped that there was enough income or jointure to cover the cost of keeping this graceless child.
Frederica was to share a bed with Anna Leigh, a solid girl of fourteen who grinned broadly when they first met. She seemed disposed to be friendly, finding her new bedmate an improvement on the old one who’d kept the bed too warm with her fevers. The day before Frederica arrived she’d been anxious since sixteen-year-olds tended to lord it over younger ones, making them mend their bonnets and run errands. But she saw at once that the new girl would not be like this.
Frederica unpacked her box, laying out her possessions on her bed, her few books, including the poetry of Cowper and the volume of Hill’s Vegetable System. When her belongings were arranged, Anna Leigh came round the bed to look at them. She picked up the books, glanced at them, shrugged and put them down again.
Her action startled Frederica. She’d been used to privacy. There’d been people around in Someyton. Mrs Baines had been there and a maid had helped her dress and undress every day, while Nanny had clucked round her and Miss Davidson had wheezed in sometimes to tell her of the travelling ballad man who’d been seen in the lane. But she’d had her own closet, her own private place. Nobody just entered and handled her special things. Here all the intimate activities had to be done before others.
The six girls who slept in the room along with herself and Anna showed interest when she first appeared: they questioned her, looked at her clothes and books, mocked her a little, then judged her wanting in one way or another. She possessed one good fashionable outfit in the new double muslin but not much else and she could not answer their cheeky talk with anything amusing. So they soon returned to their own chatter.
To Frederica’s embarrassment they spoke openly about everything – of the monthly flowers, and how they coped with them, the pains and the general mess, what rags were better to stanch the flow. They complained about tight stays and the effect they had on parts of the body she’d been taught it impolite to name in front of others. They discussed the new fashion for leaving stays off altogether, and the two fat girls said that, as far as they were concerned, they did very well with them and they could be as tight as ever for all they cared. So what if they made you fart.
Then they chatted of beaux and how to attract them in church. They were pleased to be noticed by any man or boy, it seemed, from the brothers of their fellow pupils to the middle-aged dancing master to Joe, the taciturn but well-made lad who ran errands for Madam Dacre and the under-teachers. Was this the adult world? Or the world of these particular girls? They were all younger than Frederica but already more knowing.
She thought often of her father and their amiable times together, when they’d read poetry to one another sitting by the apple trees near the house if the weather was mild or cosily by the fire on wintry days – she recited the lines to herself as she lay in bed:
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful ev’ning in.
With her father’s voice sounding in her head she let the world expand in memory, for only there did the sky spread out vast overhead, high and deep in blueness, and the fields stretch away forever. Only in her head now did the low autumn light fall through the trees and dim windows making patterns on the lawn and fraying carpets.
Out of Lady Susan’s presence she thought more and more about her father’s life. Had he known he was dying? Her mother had alluded to a long illness that kept him in the country, but Frederica had known nothing of it. Was his gentleness due to pain? she now asked herself. With a pang she realised that, although she’d read to him often and made him comfortable in the evenings by bringing a footstool or a shawl when they sat out in the garden, she’d never really considered whether there might be anything seriously the matter or asked him about himself in that way. She had thought him immortal. Now she ached to feel his kindly hand on her arm and his loving eyes on her face.
He’d suggested she paint but she’d not been good at it and he didn’t insist. ‘Your drawings are marvellous, dear,’ he’d said, ‘so intricate, you can feel the leaves unfurling.’ Now when she saw these sketches the tears rose to her eyes. Sometimes she dreamed that the two of them were united again in some loving huddle in a place that was always spring.
The sadness of separation overwhelmed her and she found herself bathed in tears at night. On the first occasion her companion had been sympathetic but on subsequent nights Anna, who habitually took up more than half the bed and was a light sleeper, had grown cross. ‘Everyone loses a papa at some time,’ she snapped as the gentle sobbing roused her yet again. She herself had a robust attitude to parents. Hers were alive and she cared for neither. In fact, she was relieved to be at Madam Dacre’s where the severity was general rather than particular and where, since the headmistress had not received specific instructions to change her character or physique, she could spend much of the day chatting of imaginary admirers instead of dawdling round Twickenham with her overdressed mother.
‘Did your papa hunt much?’ asked Anna one night.
‘No, not much,’ replied Frederica. ‘He sometimes used to join the Kimberleys nearby. But I never went with him. We used to ride round the meadows together and along the bridle paths above Wymondham.’
This wasn’t what Anna wanted to know and the talk fizzled out.
Frederica found she couldn’t describe her father in any
state of activity. Her emotions were too strong and her words inadequate. It was better to be silent.
Did the headmistress especially dislike her, she wondered after a few weeks had passed. It seemed so. She did her best but her best was not enough – just as with her mother. The French mistress grew impatient, the drawing master spoke gruffly, and the dancing teacher, who had paid compliments on her appearance when first she came, declared she lacked what she’d thought ‘grease’ until Anna Leigh translated it as ‘grace’. She associated the word with Mrs Baines and the road to Heaven. Her lips quivered even now when she thought how hard she tried to please and how little she seemed to do so.
All the girls except the parlour boarders took deportment and paraded round the room with books on their heads, but only the younger ones had rulers stuffed down their backs. This was seen as an indignity since it made a girl look like a chicken roasting on a spit, her breasts thrust out in embarrassing prominence. Yet Frederica had been told to submit to this treatment and the under-teacher Miss Jones, who was standing in for the dancing master, looked coldly on her when she dropped the books from her head and couldn’t bend because of the ruler along her back.
The French teacher Mam’selle Latour, who came in daily, had seemed pleased with Frederica when, after hesitation, she had answered correctly in the first class. But she pursed her lips in surprise when her pupil admitted she knew no French songs. What had she been singing at home? When Frederica began to talk of folk songs from Norfolk and the airs of Mr Handel, Mam’selle Latour cut her off, with a ‘mais oui’ and a knowing glance to the other girls, who tittered politely.
She fared no better with the science master. She didn’t show him her botanical drawings since her mother had brusquely advised against it. ‘They are not what a young girl is supposed to do with her time, Frederica. They are too detailed. No man wants a bluestocking for a wife. I’ve told you that already. I suggest in school you stick to blooms.’
So the drawings remained hidden in her cupboard but, when asked about plants, Frederica couldn’t help mentioning their parts. The master gave her a kindly look, then withdrew it, muttering about Erasmus Darwin and his improper work on the sexual life of plants. Frederica didn’t know what he was talking about but blushed anyway.
It was worse when she actually made a drawing of a flower brought in for the girls to copy. To Frederica her work looked like an imitation with all the various pieces carefully delineated; to the master and to two of the girls who came to stare at it, the drawing seemed suspiciously like human parts. The girls giggled and the master turned away, angry with Frederica and the world.
The most dreadful class was elocution, over which Madam Dacre herself often presided. A young girl, Elizabeth Atcherley, was the first to read out a passage from Elegant Extracts; she used the sort of voice Madam Dacre declared proper for a young lady. Without quite telling her charges to cultivate a lisp, she did suggest that a little feminine halting while maintaining clarity would be correct.
‘Do I hear a burr in your voice?’ Madam Dacre had rasped out in front of the smirking girls when it was Frederica’s turn. Frederica hadn’t replied but instead looked down and reddened. She supposed that, if she lived in Norfolk with Norfolk people, she would speak a little like them. She began again to read from the chosen passage by Mrs Chapone, but her nervousness made matters worse and, when she stumbled over the word ‘distressing’, Madam Dacre snatched the book from her and gave it to Lucy Reardon to finish; Lucy had – or had cultivated – a very pronounced lisp and pouted prettily over the word. Madam Dacre smiled and told her to go on.
Sometimes at night Frederica lay awake beside the snoring Anna and, when her tears had ceased, found herself whispering to her dear dead father. She would never please anyone, she told him, certainly not as she had pleased him.
Catherine Vernon felt that she and her husband had been tricked into receiving Lady Susan at Churchill. As she’d told her mother on many occasions, she’d resolved never to have that woman in her house. She loved Charles and he loved her; yet she knew that her sister-in-law had done everything in her power to prevent a match that was eminently suitable. On top of this, Lady Susan had persuaded her own much put-upon husband to cheat her dear Mr Vernon out of the little he should have had from the family fortune.
‘Cheat’ was perhaps a strong word but Mrs Vernon felt strongly. Her mother had hoped her daughter would marry an elder son; consequently, Mrs Vernon took every opportunity to mention how much had been taken away from her husband by this scheming minx, as well as how splendidly Mr Vernon had managed the little that had been his. The summation of her wishes would have been the removal to Vernon Castle entirely frustrated by their sister-in-law.
But the letter had come and before she had even discussed its contents with Mr Vernon it had been assumed that Lady Susan would be arriving and would be staying a long time. Short of having her intercepted on the road there was really nothing Mrs Vernon could do. In any case, she knew that her dear husband had impressed on the widow that she should treat his home as hers. Everyone knew such sort of words were merely convention – only someone as artful or desperate as Lady Susan would think of acting upon them.
However, as her husband gently pointed out, when Mrs Vernon couldn’t help yet again complaining, they had better make the best of the visit. Even if, as his wife was surmising, his sister-in-law had few places she could go, she’d still chosen to come to them. He once made the mistake of adding that Catherine might find a friend in her relative, for Lady Susan was reputed to be a charming woman.
‘At least,’ said his wife, as she finished stretching a piece of excellent needlework on its frame, ‘she is not bringing the daughter with her. A hoyden of sixteen with no education and with the example of such a mother would be no good companion for our little Arabella. A school is the best place for her.’
‘My dear,’ replied her husband, ‘you remember we heard that the daughter was precisely not with her mother and you yourself have mentioned the matter on several occasions when we’ve had letters from my brother. From his description she sounds a very amenable sort of girl.’
Mrs Vernon didn’t reply. She had no very great opinion of a man who had chosen Lady Susan for a wife and she doubted he could have been much help in bringing up a female child. She had in any case heard the girl was unmanageable.
After a silence Mr Vernon continued, ‘I wish you would read all her letter, my dear. You remember you broke off rather sharply just after you’d learnt her determination to honour us with a visit. She goes on to say very generous things about wishing to be acquainted with our own children and to act as an aunt towards them, while—’
With a visible shudder his wife interrupted him. The idea of Lady Susan as an aunt to Arabella and the boys filled her with horror. And yet when Mr Vernon held out the letter and she was forced to read some of it, the reference to her own ‘dear little children’ had a mollifying effect. But it was very slight. A woman who had so neglected her own child was unlikely to care much about the children of anyone else.
‘Well, my dear,’ she said to her husband, ‘there is no help for it, but do not anticipate that she and I will become friends. She will not get far with a de Courcy.’
Her husband was used to her invoking her family name and smiled indulgently, but she had turned away before she could catch his expression.
By the time Mrs Vernon had reached her chamber, the slight softening of attitude had disappeared and she had recourse to her pen to relieve her feelings. There was no point in trying to argue with her husband so she was writing her vexation to her mother. At least, so she ended her letter, the woman would probably attract her brother Reginald to their house out of curiosity. When in the past they had spoken about her scandalous sister-in-law, he’d shown distinct desire to see this old woman who charmed the breeches off men. Mrs Vernon did not use the expression to her mother but Lady de Courcy had a clear idea of what was meant.
That sensibl
e lady did not share her daughter’s angry letter with her husband. Sir Reginald was a very different man from Mr Vernon and quite likely to take unnecessary offence. He might even write to his son-in-law to tell him to think of his wife, and not let such a woman enter their house. That would never do. But Lady de Courcy did let Reginald know her own and his sister’s disquiet. He could change his Christmas plans and go to Churchill to be of some assistance to poor Catherine. Her daughter adored him. But, then who didn’t? reflected Lady de Courcy, he was such a handsome and charming young man.
Mrs Vernon was glad her mother would do the business with her brother. He was younger than his sister and, although he would surely take her part, he might also mock her anxieties. Yet, was it wise to encourage him to visit? Unusually for her, Mrs Vernon was in two minds. Without Reginald perhaps it would be so dull in Churchill that Lady Susan would simply go away after a week or two. But she’d already sensed that her sister-in-law would not be coming to them at all if she had anywhere else to go. So, however dull they were, the woman could not be relied on to leave in a hurry. Besides, she had heard from her mother through Reginald that there’d been gossip concerning her stay at Langford and she’d need to live that down somewhere out of town. At least, concluded Mrs Vernon, she could do no mischief in their house. Dear Mr Vernon was quite immune to this kind of woman, and the neighbourhood boasted few gentlemen with the spirit to be at risk.
As the widow of her husband’s elder brother Lady Susan must of course be publicly treated with respect. She knew what was due; yet it was with a heavy heart that Mrs Vernon ordered the housekeeper to have the green and gilt chamber and dressing room prepared for the guest and discussed with cook a slightly more elaborate menu than they were used to. She would need also to think a little of her wardrobe and what remained presentable. Three lyings in had taken its toll on her figure and her best gowns were no longer serviceable. Happily she’d recently had some patterns from the Lady’s Magazine made up by the dressmaker.