Lady Susan Plays the Game (33 page)

‘This is absurd, Frederica. You say you cannot but I assure you that you can. In any case, for the moment I demand that you treat Sir James with proper civility. Is that clear? Your aunt and uncle will be very displeased if you do not.'

Frederica shrank back into the chair.

‘I said, is it clear what you must do?'

Frederica nodded, ‘Yes, Mama,' she whispered.

It was enough. Lady Susan swept out of the room.

Frederica stopped crying and sat motionless. Thoughts whirled round her head. She now knew she was in extreme danger. There were abductions and forced marriages in remote country houses and no one could stop them. Who knew what Sir James and her mother were planning? She must act herself, however dangerous it might be. Someone must take her side and defend her.

She had promised not to talk to her aunt and uncle and in any case she was not sure she could entirely trust them, especially her aunt. Mrs Vernon often tried to provoke her into criticising her mother, so that she wondered wildly whether the two women could be in league to test her. No, there really was only one person left with whom she had had no dealings and to whom she had not promised to avoid speaking: Mr de Courcy.

She flushed deeply as she thought of him. He'd been at the back of her mind all along. Surely he would understand her feelings if she appealed directly to him.

It was an immense risk. He was always with her mother: she supposed he might even be in love with her. The idea seemed far-fetched, he so marvellous and young and she … but Frederica could not go on. She was used to men being enchanted by Lady Susan. Her father had been. It was what men did. And except when she was upbraiding her daughter in private,
her mother was lovely, as lovely as the heroine in any novel. Yet, thought Frederica, she did not act like a heroine – it was unthinkable that she would faint into waiting arms or wet the knees of her saviour with sobbing. And she cared so little for the tears of others. The notion, which she refused to follow through, gave Frederica strength. Her course was decided.

She would wait for a moment when Mr de Courcy was not with Lady Susan, then she would speak to him in calm clear tones. She resolved to practise what she would say and to control herself. He would despise her crying at the outset, though perhaps later … As she began mentally to rehearse the speech she would make, a wave of renewed self-pity swept over her and the tears started to run down her cheeks once more.

It was unfortunate that her mother returned just then. Lady Susan looked at Frederica whose face was now puffed from crying. She had no patience with this lack of restraint. She herself had had to repress many feelings when a girl; she had lost her mother, her father had been inattentive, and she had not enjoyed being shipped off to a country school. But she had learnt to control herself. If one let oneself go, there was no end to the mess one made within and without.

‘Mr de Courcy,' Lady Susan began as she and Reginald walked together towards the library the next day, ‘I think perhaps I should speak to you about what much concerns me. You think me less than a caring mother.'

‘Madam, I would have no right—'

She raised her fan to interrupt him. ‘I believe you've formed no very favourable opinion of Sir James.' She flicked his arm with the green and black feathers and smiled up at him. The slight coldness she'd detected when they'd met earlier in the morning dissipated just a little.

‘I read you well,' she said as they entered the room. ‘You disapprove of what you think I might be planning for Frederica.' She looked pensive as she took a seat. He waited. ‘Had I and my daughter the freedom of a young man in the prime of life like Reginald de Courcy, I might take a different course.' She paused again. ‘Frederica is shy but strong-willed; she has become a reader of novels and fancies herself as a heroine, I make no doubt. You have already seen what disasters can befall a girl of that character. I want the best for her. I want her to have the kind of comfortable domestic life your dear sister has. A woman alone has so much to suffer and fear.' She sighed audibly. ‘The world is cruel and censorious,' she continued. ‘Already her recent escapade might have become known in London. Here is Sir James, a person of good character, a young man ardently in love with her to such an extent that he is prepared to flout convention to be near her. He offers her his hand, his fortune, his protection: what would you have a mother do?'

She lingered on her last words and watched them strike home. Reginald did indeed feel deeply the difference between men and women – the recent notion, much discussed among his more dashing friends, that the sexes were equal had amused him – and he tried to imagine what it would be like to want protection. The effort pleased him.

‘Your opinion of Sir James has been made on very slight acquaintance. He's nervous among new people, and first impressions are so often faulty. And Frederica: she does not love him yet, but a girl of her age is perhaps not the best judge of her own interests or future inclinations.'

They were both silent for a minute. Then Lady Susan spoke again, ‘If you still think as I believe you have thought, then try to forgive a mother who has reason to want security and a man's guidance for her daughter.'

The fan was dangling from a ribbon round her wrist as she pressed his arm lightly with her slender spread fingers. Then she rose and went out of the room.

With these few minutes' work Lady Susan was relatively sure that she had begun to counter Reginald's misgivings – had she perhaps gone a little too far in mentioning a ‘man's guidance' when the subject was Sir James? The Vernons would be less easily worked on.

Charles Vernon had not judged Sir James as harshly as Reginald but by now the loud laugh was grating on him. The man was certainly foolish. More significantly, Mr Vernon had remarked his niece's strained looks. So, when he entered his wife's dressing room to try again to tell her about the plans for the pheasant shoot and to discuss his notion of selling timber from the lower woods, he was ready to find Catherine Vernon more eager to talk about their visitors than the optimum time to dispose of wood.

‘I do fear for that girl,' she said abruptly and, although he'd been arguing the case for selling the timber now before the war stopped and the price went down, he knew exactly what she was referring to. ‘Sir James may have fortune in his favour but he is not sensible or sensitive and Frederica is both.'

Her husband privately agreed but, wanting to avoid strife, replied, ‘My dear, we must leave it to the girl to make up her own mind. She is old enough to know it. If she wishes to give him encouragement, then—'

‘Mr Vernon,' interrupted his spouse, ‘as you can surely see, she gives him no encouragement.'

‘You may be right, but it's too early for us to judge. She's a quiet girl and we may have misconstrued her. We're not her guardians.'

His wife grew impatient. ‘I think we have not, as you put it, misconstrued her. Indeed, I'm sure of it. Her feelings are plain enough to all – except perhaps her mother. I will try my
best to draw her out and get her to express her thoughts to me more openly. She likes me, I am sure, but there's a restraint that I cannot get over.'

‘Perhaps she's deeper than you think,' replied Charles Vernon, who mused that, on balance, it would be best to sell the wood now rather than later.

‘You think I'm being too favourable to the girl? And yet there's something about her that makes me trust to her good nature, a simplicity and artlessness that can't be feigned.'

‘You forget,' said Mr Vernon gently, ‘who is her mother.'

To put her plan into action Frederica had begun creeping through doorways and along corridors, hoping to find Reginald alone in a room or sauntering down a stairway.

Both her mother and Mrs Vernon noted her stealthy movements.
The poor girl
, thought her aunt,
she is growing quite love sick for my brother
. Lady Susan was surprised at the timid assertiveness the action revealed. She assumed that Frederica was trying to avoid Sir James – she always seemed to be going in the direction opposite to the one he had taken.

After keeping a close watch for two days, Frederica was starting to give up hope of finding Reginald alone. She would have to take the more dangerous method of writing a note instead of talking directly to him. She knew – especially from Clarissa's fate – that this was a very improper thing for a young girl to do, but she was now as desperate as any Clarissa or Emmeline had been.

Just as she was despairing of an encounter, she saw Reginald go into the billiard room alone. She scurried towards the door and gave a gentle tap.

‘Come,' he said, not raising his eyes from the rack of cues before him. He assumed it was one of the servants wanting to tidy the room.

A silence followed; he looked up and was amazed to see Frederica before him, trembling and white as a sheet.

‘Frederica, Miss Vernon, are you looking for someone?'

She replied in so low a voice that he had to go closer to hear what she was saying.

‘I … I was looking for you.'

‘For me?' he said astonished.

‘Yes, I am sorry, I–I …' She stopped.

He thought for a moment she was going to faint and he led her to a chair against the wall. She sat down.

The kindness of the action and the closeness of Reginald stretched her nerves and, against all her resolves, she burst into tears. As she did so, she felt dimly aware that the response was not quite inappropriate. Just for a moment she thought to fall on her knees and clutch his legs – but she kept her place.

‘Dear Miss Vernon. What on earth is the matter?' Reginald watched her shaking convulsively. It must be painful for Lady Susan to have so uncontrolled a daughter. Was the girl unhinged?

‘I wonder,' Frederica finally managed to gasp out, ‘Oh, Mr de Courcy, may I speak with you?'

She sobbed again and he offered her his large cambric handkerchief with its RDC embroidered in purple thread prominently on one corner. She took it and dabbed her face.

‘If you wish of course.' He brought up a chair and sat waiting for her to calm herself.

‘Mr de Courcy,' she began, ‘I am so very very miserable.'

‘I see that,' he said unable to prevent a slight smile.

She shook her head, sniffed, swallowed and restrained her sobs. ‘I've no one I can talk to. I have promised Mama not to say anything to Aunt and Uncle. And there's no one else. I know I am not doing what Mama wants but she did not strictly forbid me … Oh, please help me.'

‘Help you do what?' asked Reginald surprised.

‘Sir James. I cannot love him. I cannot like him. In fact I don't like him at all. But Mama wants me to have him.'

‘Your mother has your interests at heart, Miss Vernon.'

She was twisting his handkerchief round and round. ‘No, you don't understand. Please, please say you will take my part. I know she'll listen to you. I cannot bear it. It will kill me.'

Reginald remembered Lady Susan telling him that her daughter was a reader of novels and that her escape from school had been rather in fictional mode. He suspected the present drama might be similar.

What she said next persuaded him he was right. For she stopped screwing up the handkerchief and, with one hand clutching the muslin at her throat, gasped, ‘I would rather, much rather, work for my bread than make such a marriage. I would rather die.'

Although he could not help being affected by the girl's distress, Reginald was detached enough to doubt either proposition. ‘And what is it you want me to do?'

‘Oh, you can talk to Mama. You are so good and sensible, you can persuade anyone of anything.'

He passed this over. ‘But why do you not tell your mother yourself what you feel? Surely she can't know the strength of your dislike – if dislike it truly is.'

‘Oh, Mr de Courcy, how can you doubt it?'

Her tears had stopped falling but her cheeks remained wet. Still a little amused, he looked at her closely. Suddenly she glanced up at him and their eyes met.

‘Mama has had her heart set on this match ever since she persuaded Sir James not to think any more of Miss Manwaring. I cannot make her change her mind.'

Reginald was jolted. This seemed to confirm the rumours he'd heard. He became more serious. ‘Are you saying that your mother deliberately broke an alliance between Sir James and her friend's daughter? Miss Vernon, of what are you accusing Lady Susan?'

Frederica began to sob again. ‘Oh no, nothing really, nothing, I didn't mean … I don't know what I'm saying. But you must believe me, you must, that I loathe Sir James and cannot, will not, marry him.'

Reginald was disturbed. Frederica had not confirmed what she'd blurted out about her mother and yet could it be true? On the other matter he was becoming convinced: Sir James was indeed hateful to her. Yet he remembered Lady Susan's words: ‘a girl of her age is perhaps not the best judge of her own interests.'

Abruptly Frederica stood up. ‘Please help me. Speak to her. You are so …' And with this resonant unfinished sentence she turned and dashed out of the room, still twisting his handkerchief in her fingers.

She left Reginald in some confusion. He retained an impression of dark eyes swimming with tears.

He needed fresh air. Although it was cold and he lacked his greatcoat, he went to the stables ostensibly to see about one of his hunters. He avoided Sir James, who was showing Mr Vernon the wonders of his coach springs. Mechanically he moved across the stable yard, his movement helping him to collect his thoughts.

Something was wrong somewhere. He couldn't believe Lady Susan would persecute her daughter as Frederica implied, and yet the girl spoke so spontaneously she could not have been pretending her feelings. In any case, why should she?