Lady Susan Plays the Game (3 page)

Of course she knew where the money had gone, but she'd assumed there was more to come. She'd thought that Frederick, for all his ineptness in other areas of life, would have managed things better. He'd always been over-scrupulous in paying minor tradesmen whom it was unnecessary to flatter in that way. They could only gain advantage in being known to supply the Vernons, whether they paid or not. If their custom were removed from such people, surely other gentlemen's families would follow suit? Frederick himself could have spent little. He was no high liver and he had clearly not kept up the house. And what did he and their daughter want with money in the country?

Certainly they had been rich enough some years ago. They must have been, for she had persuaded her husband to sell Vernon Castle – rather advantageously – to a stranger instead of letting his brother have it for a lower price, so keeping it in the family. She'd assumed that this beneficial transaction would have kept them comfortably for the remainder of their lives. It had never occurred to her until now that the estate might already have been mortgaged. Why had he not told her?

As an earl's daughter, Lady Susan had brought rank to the match with Frederick, but her dowry had been modest. ‘Your fortune will have to be your face, Sue,' her father had said drawing attention as he spoke to his own well-formed and useful body. He'd approved the marriage and written from France an elegantly phrased letter to say so. But privately he told Susan he thought she might have added a decent title to the wealth she'd married for. At the time she'd been satisfied enough with her choice. A willing adoring spouse and money to spend was not a bad bargain for a girl of seventeen who was sick and tired of a country boarding school and with nowhere very obvious to go.

Lady Susan breathed in deeply and expelled the air. Then she sat up more erectly. She supposed the small legacies would have to be paid to the servants. She doubted a lawyer like Burnett would agree to them being cancelled. In any case they were too little to be significant.

Well, there were only two routes out of her dilemma, two games that could be played with some chance of winning. She got up, then bent to study herself in her glass. Each must be tried, possibly both together. She exhaled, then smiled at her dim reflection: she anticipated some enjoyment.

Late in the evening, in her corner bedroom with her drawings of spring and autumn leaves on the pink painted walls, Frederica sobbed without the elegance demanded by her mother or the self-control preached by Mrs Baines. Her gasps came irregularly and made her so tired she almost slept between them. When she was thoroughly exhausted she sat motionless, her head in her hands.

Her anguish had increased once she understood they were to leave Someyton almost at once. All its seasons passed before her eyes as in a magic lantern, while the thought pounded through her that she and her papa had lived through their final spring together. His miniature in a little silver frame hung round her neck: she looked at it and imagined she saw the eyes gently close.

Those eyes had seen the last blackthorn and hawthorn, the last apple and plum blossom, the last bluebells, daisies and scentless mayweed, the last ragwort, catsear and hawkwood, the last wild daffodils and primroses, the last buttercups in the water meadow, the last forget-me-nots.

The wildflower names tumbled through her head as a mournful litany. She remembered how her father had smiled at her enthusiasm for plants that rarely struck other girls, the hedge woundwort with its furry or spiky leaves and purple patterned flowers, the marsh hawksbeard with its tight green bud that opened from the stem into the crinkling yellow flower. It was such a transformation that her papa said they should go each day to see if they could catch the very moment when it changed.

She loved intricate plants, the welted thistle more than the spear thistle, the vetch and agrimony, even the brambles and nettles whose haphazard leaves, like the twigs of the hawthorn, she delighted to capture with her pencil. Her papa had pointed out how the broad-leaved dock opened to reveal itself, pretending it was fiercer than it
was, that its spikes were hard when they were really soft.

Mrs Baines had not joined in their expeditions to the water meadow or bridle paths: she cared little for uncultivated blooms. So the plant words became a secret language between Frederica and her father. He knew the Latin names for most of them and she had seen them in the books they pored over together, like Hill's
Vegetable System
, but he never encouraged her to use them. She would be his companion, not his equal: it was a woman's role.

That last spring, like those before, they had looked together at a lark's nest with eggs lodged in the grass, while keeping their distance from the swallows' nest above one of the barn doors: Frederica had been afraid to enter in case she disturbed them. Years before, when they had nested there, a swallow had dived at her and she had run to find her father. He calmed her. ‘Do you know,' he'd said, ‘that eggs laid later are more spotted than early ones.'

The beauty of everything had struck her most strongly only in her last two years, especially the very last. She remembered Vernon Castle a little but it was Someyton that had entered her soul, its sturdy three storeys, the attic corridor where you had to walk bent over, the sloping outbuildings, the little paddock where she'd first ridden Spots with her papa holding the bridle, the lanes and path to the village she'd walked so often with Mrs Baines grumbling about the dirt, the garden seat near the apple trees where they'd taken their sewing for the poor on warm summer nights. It had been close to a small brook, more of a ditch really, that ran near the house with its banks of willows, some pollarded. She knew each separate tree.

She tried to block out a few of these memories – they were too intense. She wished she could talk to someone. But Miss Davidson would be coughing her lungs
out and Frederica knew better than to try to speak to her in these fits. For a moment she thought of going to old Nanny, crippled and largely keeping to her attic room. She'd nursed her papa too and, when little, Frederica had liked her soft lap and silky whiskers. But Nanny irritated Lady Susan and she wisely kept out of the way. Frederica sensed that just now Nanny did not want to talk.

Mrs
Baines, a courtesy title that lady had assumed when marriage seemed beyond her reach, had visited her charge in her room and tutted over her a little in sympathy; then she left. She was sorry for the girl in the hands of such a mother. But Mrs Baines had learned she was to be dismissed and there was six months owing to her, more than the value of the small legacy she was to receive. She had little comfort left for others.

Having acted quickly with Mrs Baines, Lady Susan felt her daughter heavy on her hands. She would have to be put in a school, presumably in London. There were such places in Norwich but she would be criticised if she so clearly abandoned the girl so soon after her father's death. Her own old school in Bury St Edmunds had long since collapsed, its proprietor being too fond of stimulants. In any case, London was a fitter place for Lady Susan's schemes.

Frederica was old enough to be a parlour boarder but it would be as well if she learnt a few tricks with the younger girls. Schools touted music and art in their advertisements: Lady Susan doubted their use. In any case, Frederica could draw, or so her father had said, and play the pianoforte a little, quite enough for most men – and enough to display the hand and arm, which, Lady Susan noticed with surprise, resembled her own. She needed dancing lessons and instruction in deportment: she slouched and crept into a room like a frightened rabbit.

Lady Susan could not just now pay the fees a London establishment would expect, but would anyone want her to do so at once? By the end of the first quarter things might have improved. Mr King was taking so much of her estate that he might agree to be useful again. She'd never met him but he'd been courteous in the notes accompanying the bills of exchange. She could try to call on his services once more.

‘Barton,' she said as she prepared for bed, ‘remind me of that establishment where Lady Clementina sent her granddaughters.'

‘I believe it was in Wigmore Street, your ladyship. Yes, I am sure it was since Deborah, that is Lady Clementina's maid, has taken parcels there.'

‘Yes, yes,' she said, ‘I think you're right. I will write directly to Lady Clementina. She will quite understand the case. I believe Frederica would be much benefited by—'

She stopped, amused: she realised she was rehearsing an attitude. She knew Barton couldn't stand the girl.

The letter was dispatched and a few days later came a reply with condolences and information. The school was indeed in Wigmore Street and very expensive – eighty guineas without extras, a great deal more than had been spent on Lady Susan's own education in Bury. But Madam Dacre's Academy for gentlemen's daughters had, according to Lady Clem, tamed one of her most unruly grandchildren, so might be worth the sum. The headmistress was obliging enough, wrote her ladyship, but a shrewd businesswoman.

Lady Susan found the warning timely. Clearly part of the fees would need to be paid at the outset. Could she save them entirely by marrying off Frederica at once? The girl had birth and some appeal – and she was fresh. Manners might be improved in a few months, if never mastered; common social sense would always be wanting,
but, if she could be married young, it would be some time before a husband would realise the lack.

Her mind began to work on Frederica. She would have to seem ingenuous and sweet. When out of mourning she could go for the pastoral look: white frocks and blue sashes, straw hats, ribbons, artificial flowers, that sort of thing. This was fine: husbands and lovers were not caught with the same bait and, while the faux rustic look did not always appeal to the latter, it usually attracted the serious suitor. Collars could be turned on the few passable frocks in Frederica's small wardrobe.

What else was wrong? The face was too bland; it lacked contrasts except when she blushed. She must agree to a little rouge. At once Lady Susan abandoned the idea: Frederica would make a fuss and could probably not carry it off. If she would only suck in her cheeks, it would make for contours. Then the hair – it was too long and straight. Well, that could be improved with scissors and tongues and papers at night. It had looked almost passable when Barton frizzed it before the funeral.

As Lady Susan saw it, the real problem was that Frederica wouldn't make the best of herself or her opportunities. Over the years her father's lack of wit, his very goodness, had annoyed his wife more and more. Frederica took after him. It was worse in a woman. She needed to be cleverer. Lady Susan expelled a breath, then returned again to the subject. The girl had the advantage of youth. And the teariness, the simpering, might suit an older man. They really wanted children as wives.

She turned over in her head the various men and their fortunes she knew were on the market, then eliminated the majority: they would wish or need a dowry. There were not many left, it was a bad season.

The rich little Plunkett boys would do but they were mostly spoken for; Lady Philpot's second son had an income of his own but played hard to get; Lady
Clementina's grandson perhaps, but others had tried there without success – he preferred London whores to decent girls; Lord Gaines was now a widower, though at fifty-five, might be thought too old, and since he'd taken up with one of the poorer Stanley cousins he was probably not looking for a wife at once; General Dunkin was available, no, that wouldn't wear – he liked saucy women, not ingénues; the sickly Sir Thomas Hewitt, Lady Hen's relation … Lady Susan put the idea out of her head. The girl was too foolish to see the advantage of a man who would soon make a widow, and Hewitt's leering habit would frighten her before they began.

After running through a few more names, Lady Susan decided to consult her friend Alicia Johnson. In school she'd been plain ‘Alice' but ‘Alicia' had been adopted as more suitable when she entered society. Together they would draw up a list and consider whether an immediate campaign was feasible. She fancied Alicia knew more about which rich men had ailing wives so would soon be available. There would be competition for these but Lady Susan flattered herself that she had skill in a contest. Still, it was best to have the school in reserve if nothing came of their efforts. She would write at once to Madam Dacre and indicate that, at some time during the next months, she would wish to use her services.

As Barton fiddled too long with her hair, twirling the curls round the combs, Lady Susan found her fingers itching for London. She thought of the tables laid out in the fashionable drawing rooms around St James's Square, the new packs of cards waiting in their rosewood boxes, the ivory fish and other counters heaped up on the green baize or directly on the inlaid wood tables.

She loved the shine and feel of all this, the slightly rough back of the playing cards, and the smooth front, the coolness of the fish, the glitter and noise, the
excitement, the candles, the bright light by the tables, the darker corners of the room where sometimes she knew she was being watched – with envy she supposed; her eyes though large and bright saw poorly at a distance but she had a sense of pulling other eyes towards her.

She loved the hush, then the roaring in the head as stakes mounted. She loved winning; even losing excited her, made her feel alive in every inch of her body. She loved all the games: speculation, whist, piquet, vingt-et-un, quadrille, and faro and basset above all. They were quick games of such pure chance, such delicious hazard, played alone, with no partner. She loved all the terms; she rolled the words off her tongue:
hombre
,
puesta
and
codille
, the ace of spades, the greatest matador.

Originally when drawn to play she'd believed she'd be rather good at it. She had a fine memory for the cards and most of the skill lay there, especially if one knew how to cheat. She had no scruples about this, simply lacking the knowledge of how not to be caught. A lady touching cards and signalling to footmen would, she'd imagined, be conspicuous. But in fact she was not drawn to this sort of subterfuge. She favoured luck more than skill or deception; she loved chance itself. It was superstition – but she felt there was some craft, some knowledge beyond memory which, by playing often, she might obtain, some trick, some gesture that would make her win and win, some way of dominating chance.