Lady Susan Plays the Game (17 page)

She was in good spirits. The house was not as grand as Langford but, in the modern palladian style, much more to her taste and it was better than expected. The paths were nicely raked, the pleasure grounds looked extensive and two pretty dolphin fountains were playing in the middle of flower beds. In the circumstances the effort of arrival came easily.

‘My dear, dear Mr and Mrs Vernon,' she cried as her host and hostess came towards her, ‘how I have longed to see you. Frederick so often spoke of wanting us all to be together but somehow the years have hurried past and now …' she turned away.

Art
, said Mrs Vernon to herself as her husband's features softened.
Men are so susceptible to the idea of a widow, and that a pretty one
. For, at first glance she had to admit that Lady Susan was remarkably lovely.

‘But where are the dear children?' pursued their visitor recovering herself. ‘Deprived of my own I must have my fill of yours, where are my little niece and nephews? I have presents for them and I want to be a most loving and favourite aunt, you know. Do let me see them at once.'

She couldn't be refused, and so to her amazement Mrs Vernon found herself in the nursery, her guest barely out of her travelling clothes, showing off the strong limbs and stronger voices of her three darlings.

Lady Susan was all admiration. She even spied a look of Frederick in his little namesake, something about the mouth and eyes, she said, while Arabella with her noisy excitement was welcomed even when she began at once to pull so strenuously at the doll she'd been given that she broke its china finger. Lady Susan was not offended. She liked spirit in a girl, she said. What a lucky mother was Mrs Vernon.

‘But you have your Frederica,' exclaimed her sister-in-law, ‘we were so sorry not to have her with us.'

‘Ah, Frederica,' sighed Lady Susan, ‘what a wrench that has been. But really she does need a little polishing. She hasn't had the advantage of siblings. They make such a difference to growing up. A brother, for example.'

Mrs Vernon was checked in her sympathy by the thought that, if rumour were credited, the child had also not had the advantage of a mother – but Lady Susan was purring on, sliding easily from Frederica and her affection for the girl to the beloved children before her. Everything about them was admired and their few faults, if they could be called such, were mitigated. It was high spirits that made them tug at the ribbon on Lady Susan's travelling cloak and pinch their mother when she tried to restrain them.

‘To spend Christmas in such a family will be delightful,' said Lady Susan. Then she startled Mrs Vernon by holding out both her hands and looking straight into her eyes while exclaiming ‘Dear Mrs Vernon, we will be sisters' for all the world as if she were sincere. Only later did the astonished Catherine Vernon remember that Lady Susan had had a half-sister who had recently come to an unpleasant end.

By the time she found herself alone with her maid in her green and gilt rooms Lady Susan was quite worn out with all the enthusiasm. ‘I expect it is the travelling, your ladyship,' said Barton. ‘The roads were dreadful.'

‘Yes, I suspect so,' yawned her mistress.

Barton was unpacking the bags and laying out the clothes. She was wondering what gown to prepare for the evening.

Lady Susan gave the matter some thought. ‘I believe tonight I should not risk the brocade. We are, after all, in the country.'

‘Your ladyship eclipses other ladies wherever she goes,' murmured Barton.

‘Silly girl' was her mistress's affectionate reply.

As she dressed, Lady Susan thought of the inmates. Charles Vernon, who had something of the same temperament as Frederick whatever his sharpness in business, would be easily won over: Lady Susan could see that a congenial attitude, an amiable smile and some admiration of the neatness of the little estate and his wisdom in not succumbing to the mania for curved lines of trees would fix him. But Catherine Vernon must be handled with care: clearly she still resented Lady Susan's interference in her marriage and the sale of Vernon Castle. She would need a steady supply of compliments.

Lady Susan felt immensely tired. But, as Barton had said, it was in part the travelling. She would rally her forces by the next day. She must try not to have too much to do with those squabbling, ill-behaved brats.

‘You know, Barton, I had some idea there were two children, but there are three already and I imagine more to come. It's really as well they aren't in Vernon Castle; it would never have done.'

‘It would not,' replied Barton combing the lustrous fair hair, which gave her such pleasure to array. ‘They are better here.'

‘Yes,' said Lady Susan carelessly, ‘it's a nice enough place, not quite on the style of Langford, but the furniture and hangings are good. The faded yellow drawing room is especially pleasing, I think.'

Barton knew better than to express any opinion of her own. Her mistress used her as a sort of journal, she sometimes thought, and wouldn't have appreciated any real response. ‘Yes indeed,' she said.

‘They keep early hours. It's so frightful to dine by daylight.'

‘Yes, your ladyship.'

Lady Susan didn't pursue the point. Manwaring was filling her mind uncomfortably.

Two days after her arrival at Churchill a letter came for Lady Susan. The butler presented it to her on a silver tray. She assumed that the Vernons had seen it: for all his mild manner Charles was probably as nosy as his wife. It was stamped with a postmark near Langford but she didn't need a mark to tell her that the letter was from Manwaring. There was something entwining about the script.

She read it hurriedly, smiling at the passionate phrases. He was miserable. He was desperate to see her. But what could he do? He was trapped. He longed to be with her. Instead he had to bear the reproaches of his wife and her shrewish cousin. Was ever a man so beset? He thought of her every minute – he felt her in his arms – her mouth, her beautiful mouth, that firm etc. etc. And the pleasure, the painful pleasure, the pleasant pain. She reread the letter more slowly, folded it, then burnt it with the flame of her sealing-wax candle.

In the breakfast room she encountered the Vernons, he smiling, she purse-lipped, slightly frosty. Catherine Vernon was not really an ill-looking woman, thought Lady Susan, a bit big and blowsy. But she should adopt a more amiable expression in repose. She would never be pretty but she would be improved by a better arrangement of the face.

‘I heard from dear Mrs Manwaring this morning,' Lady Susan remarked as she helped herself to a boiled egg from the sideboard. ‘Their daughter Mary is a little off colour – she may have taken cold out riding – but, otherwise, they are all tolerably well.' She sat down to eat with a general smile.

Later in the morning Lady Susan found it necessary to follow her sister-in-law to the nursery again. There were indeed only three children in it but, with the squealing and squalling, it seemed more like five or six.
Mice in a nest
, she thought. There was something vulgar about this sort of breeding. Probably Mrs Vernon breast-fed.

Lady Susan shuddered and remembered her husband's obedience in the bedroom with some affection. And how necessary her precautions had been, she mused as her eyes travelled over this mess of writhing limbs and clothes. Apart from the noise and clutter, the expense must be dreadful. But Charles was by now very rich. This French war was wonderful for banks. They as good as printed notes for the government – and themselves. But what was
the point of fortune if one had to waste it on such a brood? As far as she could see, the Vernons rarely went to London despite owning a town house, and never did the season. Charles rode off occasionally, presumably to see about his money and the bank, but that was more or less all. In comparison, Langford, which she'd rather dreaded as a social desert, seemed Vauxhall in May.

She concentrated on the task before her. She'd got the children's names clear, but knew they would fade by evening. The answer was to pick one of the brats and make a constant fuss of it. The obvious choice was the boy who, it seemed, was called Frederick, a rather unnecessary compliment to her husband, though possibly it was the name of his and Charles's father as well. She couldn't remember.

So that was settled. She would clasp this heavy child, try not to let it dirty her dress, place it on her lap and coo over it as reminding her of her own dear Frederick. ‘I do wish my poor husband had lived to see so strong and promising a boy,' she'd exclaim. ‘He has such robust legs for a child so young.' It was hard work but easier than trying to cope with the entire mob. Little ‘Freddie' was a pretty, sulky child who blossomed under exclusive attention.

It was a happy choice. Catherine Vernon had a penchant for this boy. She knew a mother shouldn't have favourites and, after her first, Arabella, had been born, she couldn't have imagined ever loving any child more or even sharing her affection. But, as the family had grown, a change had occurred. She loved them all – of course she did – but there was something about Freddie, perhaps his infant self-centredness, greater than that of the others, which tore at her heart.

She wasn't one of those mothers who resented the attention people paid to her children. Rather, she gloried in any admiration – it was, of course, justified. For nearly a decade she'd been hearing scandal concerning Lady Susan; she knew that, had she prevailed with Charles, she, Catherine, would not now be Mrs Vernon and a happy wife. Yet, seeing this same Lady Susan with her alabaster skin, pale golden hair, and cool grey-blue eyes, looking with such frank affection on her dear boy and gently pointing out his subtle graces, she could not fail to be touched as a mother.

Lady Susan would have appreciated the impression. She was finding the seduction of Catherine Vernon less troublesome than she'd anticipated. It had been easy to simulate
interest in the nursery. Now she observed copies of the
Lady's Magazine
scattered on a table and understood that her hostess had been intending – or had taken – patterns from this source. Lady Susan despised such journals – they told the middling classes what their betters knew by instinct, but clearly they had their uses for provincial ladies. She was also amused to see that her sister-in-law had marked items on modern motherhood and the education of children.

A compliment to her taste in fashion was easily done. It needed more imagination to address the interest in childhood. But, after she had spoken a few times about the girlhood of Frederica, it became almost real to her. Among other matters she lamented the poor training the child had suffered while her father had declined in health. So detailed did Lady Susan's affectionate depiction become that, while she spoke, Mrs Vernon momentarily forgot that the neglect, if there had been such, had occurred while her sister-in-law was enjoying the high life in London.

Since letters continued to come regularly from Langford Lady Susan found herself having to speak a great deal of the Manwaring family as well. Soon she had invented an entire set of occupations and guests: horse-riding, assemblies visited, samplers completed, cousins entertained, winter ailments and flannel ordered. She had even given them another ball at which Mary Manwaring's pink dress was much admired by the county.

‘I miss Charlotte Manwaring most dreadfully,' she said after letters had arrived on consecutive days for almost a week. ‘We were so close in school. Though older, she rather looked up to me in those days and I befriended her whenever I could. We've remained such dear friends through all these years.' She gazed through the window where the gardeners were raking the fine gravel of the drive after the ruts from a carriage and the morning frost, then resumed, ‘But, for a widow, her life – or rather the life of all the family – was simply too social. They moved in very genteel circles, of course, but there was too much entertaining. And I think poor dear Frederica found the same. Much as I love Charlotte – you see she writes almost every day – her way of life really didn't suit me, not at present.' She looked affectionately at Mrs Vernon. ‘Now here we are lively and gay but
en famille
, as it should be.' She squeezed her sister-in-law's hand and there almost seemed to be a tear in her fine large eye.

Catherine Vernon was perplexed. Why had it taken three months for her ladyship to feel overwhelmed? And, if it was so, why were there such rumours abroad? She would talk to her husband. He was usually too placid to judge properly but he must have thought about the extraordinary disparity between what they had heard and what they now saw.

‘My dear,' said Mr Vernon, when accosted on the subject. ‘I am quite sure the stories are exaggerated. She's a fine woman and must provoke some jealousy – except in a good soul like you.' He patted his wife's hand, then thought the sentiment not quite gallant, so hurried on. ‘And besides, Mrs Manwaring would not write so often if there'd been – as there would have to have been – coldness between them. If there'd been anything very improper, then there'd be no correspondence between the two ladies.'

‘You may be right,' replied his wife. ‘To be sure the rumours mentioned by Reginald were extreme – seducing a vicar, apparently. And the daughter's lover … I hear this man was pursuing her and another – or was it two other? – women at the same time.'

Yet no smoke without fire
, she thought.
If not a vicar and a young man, then probably some old bachelor had had his head turned
. Whatever had happened, she must not let herself be cozened into thinking no harm had been done: Lady Susan was urbane and clever and she, Catherine, was not used to women like that.

Charles Vernon, who well understood his wife's feelings, was glad to end the conversation. His clinching point had been the letters. But he had a niggling suspicion that the hand was a touch too masculine for a lady. There was often a difference between the sexes in the script they wrote, slight but definite. Men showed a boldness in the upright letters, a greater swirl in the dangling ones, and shorter dashes. This hand put him in mind of an old friend with whom he used to go hunting before his marriage. He told himself that surely this could not be: the writer must be Mrs Manwaring. None the less a suspicion remained, one that it was better not to share with his wife.