LETTER FOURTY-ONE
MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY
Churchill.
My dear Madam
Your Letter has surprised me beyond measure! Can it be true that they are really separated – & forever? 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 surprise is the greater because on Wednesday, the very day of his coming to Parklands, we had a most unexpected & unwelcome visit from Lady Susan, looking all chearfulness & goodhumour, & seeming more as if she were to marry him when she got to London, than as if parted from him forever. She staid nearly two hours, was as affectionate & agreable as ever, & 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 beleived he had already returned home – which I was very far from crediting.
Your kind invitation is accepted by us with pleasure, & on Thursday next we & 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, & so was her Uncle; & all that could be urged we did urge; but Lady Susan declared that as she was now about to fix herself in Town 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 & proper, & Mr. Vernon beleives 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, & 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, & I hope made her a little more comfortable. But I shall not be easy till I can go to Town & 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 expectation of. At present it is not very likely.
Yrs. &c.
CATH. VERNON.
CONCLUSION
This Correspondence, by a meeting between some of the parties, & a separation between the others, could not, to the great detriment of the Post office Revenue, be continued longer. Very little assistance to the State could be derived from the Epistolary Intercourse of Mrs. Vernon & her neice; for the former soon perceived, by the style of Frederica’s letters, that they were written under her Mother’s inspection, & therefore deferring all particular inquiry till she could make it personally in Town, ceased writing minutely or often.
Having learnt enough in the meanwhile from her openhearted Brother, of what had passed between him & 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, & placed under her own care; and, tho’ 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; & 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, & was met with such an easy & chearful 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, & seemed eager to shew at once, by every possible attention to her Brother & Sister, her sense of their kindness, & 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’s being uncomfortable, & 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; & indeed, in all her conversation she was solicitous only for the welfare & improvement of her Daughter, acknowledging, in terms of grateful delight, that Frederica was now growing every day more & more what a Parent could desire.
Mrs. Vernon, surprised & 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 Churchill, 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 Neice’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; & as, tho’ 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, however, persevered in the offer of it; & tho’ 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 Churchill with her uncle & aunt; & 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, tho’ 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, & in the course of two months ceased to write of her absence, & in the course of two more to write to her at all.
Frederica was therefore fixed in the family of her Uncle & Aunt till such time as Reginald De Courcy could be talked, flattered, & finessed into an affection for her – which, allowing leisure for the conquest of his attachment to her Mother, for his abjuring all future attachments, & 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 Probability; she had nothing against her but her Husband & 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 Manwaring, who, coming to Town & putting herself to an expense in Cloathes which impoverished her for two years, on purpose to secure him, was defrauded of her due by a Woman ten years older than herself.
Sense and Sensibility (1811)
