LADY SUSAN
PART 9
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 ever 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 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 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 Churchill 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 or 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.
Concluded
