Lady Susan
must wear her out, may be easily kept in irritation. I rely on your
friendship for this. I am now satisfied that I never could have brought
myself to marry Reginald, and am equally determined that Frederica
never _shall_. To-morrow, I shall fetch her from Churchhill, and let
Maria Mainwaring tremble for the consequence. Frederica shall be Sir
James’s wife before she quits my house, and _she_ may whimper, and the
Vernons may storm, I regard them not. I am tired of submitting my will
to the caprices of others; of resigning my own judgment in deference to
those to whom I owe no duty, and for whom I feel no respect. I have
given up too much, have been too easily worked on, but Frederica shall
now feel the difference. Adieu, dearest of friends; may the next gouty
attack be more favourable! and may you always regard me as unalterably
yours,
S. VERNON
XL
_Lady De Courcy to Mrs. Vernon._
My dear Catherine,—I have charming news for you, and if I had not sent
off my letter this morning you might have been spared the vexation of
knowing of Reginald’s being gone to London, for he is returned.
Reginald is returned, not to ask our consent to his marrying Lady
Susan, but to tell us they are parted for ever. He has been only an
hour in the house, and I have not been able to learn particulars, for
he is so very low that I have not the heart to ask questions, but I
hope we shall soon know all. This is the most joyful hour he has ever
given us since the day of his birth. Nothing is wanting but to have you
here, and it is our particular wish and entreaty that you would come to
us as soon as you can. You have owed us a visit many long weeks; I hope
nothing will make it inconvenient to Mr. Vernon; and pray bring all my
grand-children; and your dear niece is included, of course; I long to
see her. It has been a sad, heavy winter hitherto, without Reginald,
and seeing nobody from Churchhill. I never found the season so dreary
before; but this happy meeting will make us young again. Frederica runs
much in my thoughts, and when Reginald has recovered his usual good
spirits (as I trust he soon will) we will try to rob him of his heart
once more, and I am full of hopes of seeing their hands joined at no
great distance.
Your affectionate mother,
C. DE COURCY.
XLI
_Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy._
Churchhill.
My dear Mother,—Your letter has surprized me beyond measure! Can it be
true that they are really separated—and for ever? I should be overjoyed
if I dared depend on it, but after all that I have seen how can one be
secure? And Reginald really with you! My surprize is the greater
because on Wednesday, the very day of his coming to Parklands, we had a
most unexpected and unwelcome visit from Lady Susan, looking all
cheerfulness and good-humour, and seeming more as if she were to marry
him when she got to London than as if parted from him for ever. She
stayed nearly two hours, was as affectionate and agreeable as ever, and
not a syllable, not a hint was dropped, of any disagreement or coolness
between them. I asked her whether she had seen my brother since his
arrival in town; not, as you may suppose, with any doubt of the fact,
but merely to see how she looked. She immediately answered, without any
embarrassment, that he had been kind enough to call on her on Monday;
but she believed he had already returned home, which I was very far
from crediting. Your kind invitation is accepted by us with pleasure,
and on Thursday next we and our little ones will be with you. Pray
heaven, Reginald may not be in town again by that time! I wish we could
bring dear Frederica too, but I am sorry to say that her mother’s
errand hither was to fetch her away; and, miserable as it made the poor
girl, it was impossible to detain her. I was thoroughly unwilling to
let her go, and so was her uncle; and all that could be urged we did
urge; but Lady Susan declared that as she was now about to fix herself
in London for several months, she could not be easy if her daughter
were not with her for masters, &c. Her manner, to be sure, was very
kind and proper, and Mr. Vernon believes that Frederica will now be
treated with affection. I wish I could think so too. The poor girl’s
heart was almost broke at taking leave of us. I charged her to write to
me very often, and to remember that if she were in any distress we
should be always her friends. I took care to see her alone, that I
might say all this, and I hope made her a little more comfortable; but
I shall not be easy till I can go to town and judge of her situation
myself. I wish there were a better prospect than now appears of the
match which the conclusion of your letter declares your expectations
of. At present, it is not very likely.
Yours ever, &c.,
C. VERNON.
CONCLUSION
This correspondence, by a meeting between some of the parties, and a
separation between the others, could not, to the great detriment of the
Post Office revenue, be continued any longer. Very little assistance to
the State could be derived from the epistolary intercourse of Mrs.
Vernon and her niece; for the former soon perceived, by the style of
Frederica’s letters, that they were written under her mother’s
inspection! and therefore, deferring all particular enquiry till she
could make it personally in London, ceased writing minutely or often.
Having learnt enough, in the meanwhile, from her open-hearted brother,
of what had passed between him and Lady Susan to sink the latter lower
than ever in her opinion, she was proportionably more anxious to get
Frederica removed from such a mother, and placed under her own care;
and, though with little hope of success, was resolved to leave nothing
unattempted that might offer a chance of obtaining her sister-in-law’s
consent to it. Her anxiety on the subject made her press for an early
visit to London; and Mr. Vernon, who, as it must already have appeared,
lived only to do whatever he was desired, soon found some accommodating
business to call him thither. With a heart full of the matter, Mrs.
Vernon waited on Lady Susan shortly after her arrival in town, and was
met with such an easy and cheerful affection, as made her almost turn
from her with horror. No remembrance of Reginald, no consciousness of
guilt, gave one look of embarrassment; she was in excellent spirits,
and seemed eager to show at once by every possible attention to her
brother and sister her sense of their kindness, and her pleasure in
their society. Frederica was no more altered than Lady Susan; the same
restrained manners, the same timid look in the presence of her mother
as heretofore, assured her aunt of her situation being uncomfortable,
and confirmed her in the plan of altering it. No unkindness, however,
on the part of Lady Susan appeared. Persecution on the subject of Sir
James was entirely at an end; his name merely mentioned to say that he
was not in London; and indeed, in all her conversation, she was
solicitous only for the welfare and improvement of her daughter,
acknowledging, in terms of grateful delight, that Frederica was now
growing every day more and more what a parent could desire. Mrs.
Vernon, surprized and incredulous, knew not what to suspect, and,
without any change in her own views, only feared greater difficulty in
accomplishing them. The first hope of anything better was derived from
Lady Susan’s asking her whether she thought Frederica looked quite as
well as she had done at Churchhill, as she must confess herself to have
sometimes an anxious doubt of London’s perfectly agreeing with her.
Mrs. Vernon, encouraging the doubt, directly proposed her niece’s
returning with them into the country. Lady Susan was unable to express
her sense of such kindness, yet knew not, from a variety of reasons,
how to part with her daughter; and as, though her own plans were not
yet wholly fixed, she trusted it would ere long be in her power to take
Frederica into the country herself, concluded by declining entirely to
profit by such unexampled attention. Mrs. Vernon persevered, however,
in the offer of it, and though Lady Susan continued to resist, her
resistance in the course of a few days seemed somewhat less formidable.
The lucky alarm of an influenza decided what might not have been
decided quite so soon. Lady Susan’s maternal fears were then too much
awakened for her to think of anything but Frederica’s removal from the
risk of infection; above all disorders in the world she most dreaded
the influenza for her daughter’s constitution!
Frederica returned to Churchhill with her uncle and aunt; and three
weeks afterwards, Lady Susan announced her being married to Sir James
Martin. Mrs. Vernon was then convinced of what she had only suspected
before, that she might have spared herself all the trouble of urging a
removal which Lady Susan had doubtless resolved on from the first.
Frederica’s visit was nominally for six weeks, but her mother, though
inviting her to return in one or two affectionate letters, was very
ready to oblige the whole party by consenting to a prolongation of her
stay, and in the course of two months ceased to write of her absence,
and in the course of two more to write to her at all. Frederica was
therefore fixed in the family of her uncle and aunt till such time as
Reginald De Courcy could be talked, flattered, and finessed into an
affection for her which, allowing leisure for the conquest of his
attachment to her mother, for his abjuring all future attachments, and
detesting the sex, might be reasonably looked for in the course of a
twelvemonth. Three months might have done it in general, but Reginald’s
feelings were no less lasting than lively. Whether Lady Susan was or
was not happy in her second choice, I do not see how it can ever be
ascertained; for who would take her assurance of it on either side of
the question? The world must judge from probabilities; she had nothing
against her but her husband, and her conscience. Sir James may seem to
have drawn a harder lot than mere folly merited; I leave him,
therefore, to all the pity that anybody can give him. For myself, I
confess that _I_ can pity only Miss Mainwaring; who, coming to town,
and putting herself to an expense in clothes which impoverished her for
two years, on purpose to secure him, was defrauded of her due by a
woman ten years older than herself.