Lady Susan Plays the Game (2 page)

Through the tears suspended on her lower lids Frederica saw her mother's expression. It stopped her from quoting more – or ever quoting again in her presence. Lady Susan had a number of poetic extracts lodged in her mind from her schooldays but she had no occasion to employ them out loud.

Things are worse than I thought
, she mused.
What on earth ails the girl? Some grief is natural, but this forgetfulness of her surroundings is quite distracted. What has Mrs Baines been teaching her all these years? A bit of French – and that with an atrocious accent no doubt – some music and drawing are all very well, but of no consequence if one can't acquit oneself in public. The next months will be trying
.

Lady Susan had ordered refreshments in the drawing room – also sadly in need of redecorating, she noticed – and, after seeing the state Frederica was in, she sent her daughter to her room and went alone to greet the few neighbours who'd come back from the churchyard. Sir Philip Valmain was still with them. She spoke briefly to him. He was, he said, staying in the area and, as the owner of Vernon Castle and an acquaintance of her husband, wished to pay his respects to a true gentleman.

‘I am of course sad that I was not at his deathbed,' remarked Lady Susan when brought face to face with Sir Philip for a second time. ‘It was so sudden, there was no opportunity.'

‘Indeed,' said Sir Philip, ‘very sudden. It must have been an apoplexy.'

‘Of course,' replied Lady Susan, hiding her surprise, ‘apoplexy. I believe it ran in the family. His father, you know, died young. And dear Frederick was never strong.'

‘He seemed frail when I called some little time ago. Your daughter was with a friend in Norwich and perhaps he could then express a weakness he controlled when she was at home.'

After a few more pleasantries, Sir Philip took his leave. He bent lower than was customary over Lady Susan's hand, saying with exaggerated, almost insolent politeness, ‘If there is anything I can do.'

She smiled on him. He was an ugly dark man, only his size and a something in his formal manner making her doubt he was Welsh. He had mentioned Shropshire as his original home during the sale, a habit she'd noted among the Welsh who wished to disguise their unfortunate identity, and he had a slightly emphatic way of pronouncing words. He could never have been a friend of her husband's.

‘There is nothing. Grief has to be borne alone, I'm afraid. But thank you for the thought, Sir Philip.'

He glanced at her, then left. She was glad to put him out of her mind. It was said that he'd made his large fortune from hemp, much in demand now England was at war with France – or possibly coal. She couldn't remember. All she knew was that the knighthood had come from the riches. Then he
had bought himself a castle. Whatever his background it was sure to be unprepossessing. You could tell he was new to wealth.

Once Sir Philip had gone, the elderly neighbour Mr Gurney left and the other guests took their cue from him and went also. Some saw grief in her ladyship's eye – the sparkle there must be a tear. They had assumed her heartless – she'd visited her husband and daughter so seldom – but there was something about her after all.

Soon only the lawyer remained. Frederica at last entered the room and sat on the edge of a chair in a corner trying to be inconspicuous. Mrs Baines had urged on her the propriety of putting in an appearance in the drawing room, else it suggested she believed her own grief superior to her mother's. And vanity of any sort Mrs Baines abhorred.

Mr Burnett made some flattering remarks on Mr Vernon, which Lady Susan thought out of place from an inferior. Then he also adverted to the sudden death.

‘And yet he was not a high-living gentleman,' he remarked. ‘It was a sad way to go. Something worried him, I think. The mind can have such effects …' He trailed off.

Hearing her father mentioned, Frederica surprised Lady Susan by impetuously standing up and walking over to them. The lawyer's last words seemed to bring her to life. Once again she tripped slightly over some loose threads in the carpet.
Surely
, thought Lady Susan,
she must have got used to the unkempt floor coverings by now
.

‘Oh yes,' she blurted out in her shy childish voice, ‘Papa would look at me and sigh and when I asked him to tell me what was amiss he wouldn't. And sometimes he was visited by a man from Norwich and I always noticed he was even sadder when he left. Oh Mama,' she cried as she twisted free of the arm Lady Susan had placed on hers, ‘could he have had some secret grief he kept even from me?'

‘Goodness child, I should have known if he had.'

Lady Susan was conscious that Mr Burnett's mouth twitched. The rebuke set Frederica weeping again.

‘Do run along, my dear. Mrs Baines will be waiting for you. Lawyer Burnett and I have business to discuss.'

Burnett nodded to the girl, then followed her with his eyes as she left the room. She lacked the elegance of Lady Susan but had a pleasing, rounded shape. He liked plump young girls.

‘Indeed, madam,' he said once the door was closed.

Lady Susan glanced at him. He was actually rubbing his hands, just like a wheedling stage lawyer.
How absurd everyone in the country is
, she thought,
quite as if they studied for the chorus of rustics in a play.
Even Sir Philip Valmain had something vulgar about him despite his money and possessions. Lady Susan couldn't imagine him in town.

‘Shall we go into Mr Vernon's study?' she proposed. ‘More suitable I think for business.'

Burnett assented. He liked this protracting. He stood back as her ladyship swept out before him and down the stairs.

Soon she was seated in the study, in the dark old Queen Anne chair her husband had brought from Vernon Castle. She had entered the room only a few times before. She didn't think highly of men or their abilities and assumed they had to have special rooms for different functions, quite unlike women. A dressing room was enough space for a lady to do everything she needed to do, dress, read, sew, write letters, gossip, plan, scheme and make up accounts if needs be. She glanced at the engravings of Vernon Castle beside the window, then turned her attention to the lawyer.

Mr Burnett stood before her. He had declined a seat.

He drew out a sealed paper from an inside folder in his waistcoat, making much of the action. Then he put on the spectacles, which he took from a silver case, placed their arms carefully round his prominent ears, first one then the other, all the time holding the paper tightly in his free hand.
Why doesn't he put it down?
thought Lady Susan.
The desk is near enough
.

‘I have taken the liberty, your ladyship, to ask two witnesses to be present.'

Lady Susan gestured assent.

He went to the door, opened it, and Mr Vernon's manservant John entered. He stepped forward awkwardly, then stood fiddling with his buttons.

‘Yes, your honour,' he said in a thick voice.
Grief or catarrh
, wondered Lady Susan.
In this damp country they all seem to be drowning in phlegm
.

She expected Miss Davidson, the asthmatic housekeeper, but instead Mrs Baines entered. ‘Get on with it, man,' Lady Susan said irritably. ‘We are all ready and present.' She lowered her eyes, ‘Frederica needs me at such a time.'

John turned his head slightly towards her; Mrs Baines sniffed and looked away.

‘Yes of course,' said the lawyer, ‘only natural. I shall be as brief as I can, your ladyship.'

He broke the seal and began reading from the beginning, emphasising the legal words and phrases: the ‘last will and testament'; the ‘sound mind'. He found them as comforting and alluring as he supposed the local vicar found the equally meaningless service he'd just read. Burnett was not a believer although punctilious in observance at church. He loved the ritual of all men's professions. It was what separated men from women.

So he read slowly, aware he was annoying Lady Susan. He knew this because she was staring fixedly at the portrait of herself, which Frederick had hung over his desk. It was rather lovely, he noted.

There were a few bequests, something for the servants including John and Miss Davidson, less for Mrs Baines despite her years of service, then the rest to his beloved wife, as it should be. All seemed in order and John and Mrs Baines were asked to withdraw.

When the door was shut, Burnett turned to Lady Susan. He cleared his throat slowly, a little fearful even as he relished what he had to say.

‘But your ladyship,' he began, ‘there is really – and I say it in great sorrow here – no “rest”, or none to speak of, that is, when everything is, as it were, unravelled, there will not be what one might have anticipated in such an illustrious family.'

‘What can you mean, man?' cried Lady Susan. ‘Do please speak plainly. What are you talking about? Of course there must be …' She paused, then rushed on. ‘What about the sale of Vernon Castle? Sir Philip paid a considerable sum for it, I know very well. What of that? Don't tell me the wretched brother of Frederick's has got his hands on the fortune after all?' Lady Susan usually avoided expressing herself so vulgarly, but she'd been taken aback. ‘What do you mean?' she said again. ‘Do speak up, man.'

She had now twice addressed him as ‘man' and Burnett didn't like it. ‘I mean,' he said making no effort to increase his speed – he had rehearsed this moment many times, the last one only that morning before his shaving glass. ‘I mean that in lay terms – not that I imply that your ladyship would not understand the stricter terms of the law but in view of your ladyship's desire for haste and absolute clarity, I speak in brief – I mean that the estate is so encumbered with debts, many to a Norwich money-lender called Mr Jacob King – I believe you know the man?' he stressed the last word as he looked at Lady Susan before turning to gaze briefly through the window where the rain was now sliding down the pane. ‘I mean that there is a preponderance of debts over assets, or that at best they will be roughly equivalent.'

He turned back to look Lady Susan in the eye. It was the first time that he had stared so directly at her. He took off his spectacles and held them in one hand, ‘Perhaps your ladyship knows better than I what these debts are.'

Lady Susan rose from the chair. ‘If you are insinuating that I am responsible …' She didn't finish the sentence but simply expelled air while her eyes roamed the ceiling and distant wall.

‘No, no, your ladyship, of course not,' cried Burnett. ‘How could—'

He was interrupted. ‘I have had expenses of course – life in London – but I had assumed Mr Vernon understood what he was doing and was handling our affairs as he ought. A wife has so little to do with money.'

‘Do you mean you know nothing of these debts?' asked Burnett a touch more sharply than intended.

‘I knew of some, naturally,' replied Lady Susan with returning hauteur. ‘In the course of my stays in town I have had to apply to my husband on several occasions – a wife does – but he did not
confide in me that there was any problem. He always told me that nothing was too much to do for me.'

She studied the window pane and sliding rain for a moment while Burnett glanced at her face. He thought he caught a sudden contracting, a hardness unusual to her expression. ‘I never assumed he was beggaring us.'

Burnett pressed the point. ‘I'm afraid, your ladyship, that the sums of money advanced are considerable and will need to be paid.'

‘But surely a lady cannot be held responsible for a husband's debts. It would be a strange world if that were the case.'

She looked levelly at Burnett.
He is enjoying this
, she saw.
Let him. He will not see my thoughts
.

‘Certainly not. But these are debts which' – and he paused – ‘your ladyship has incurred through your husband's name and which now fall to the estate. They must, I am afraid, be paid.'

‘You sound like the butcher and draper demanding their money.'

‘I may do so, your ladyship,' responded Burnett who had come to the end of the rehearsed part of the encounter. ‘And I've no doubt that the butcher and draper will do as you surmise. But the truth remains that there are as many debts as assets.'

‘You repeat yourself,' said Lady Susan. ‘I think we have done enough for today.'

She rose and Burnett took a step back. He was a short, stocky man, only a little taller than Lady Susan, but it was rank rather than size that sometimes oppressed him. The woman before him was poor, ruined, in worse state than his own increasingly affluent family. But she was the daughter of an earl, if only of an Irish creation, and she had the assurance of birth. He bowed, not quite satisfied with his performance, although he couldn't say quite where it had gone wrong.

In the past he had made much of a very distant connection with the Burnetts of Crathies and had a woodcut of their Aberdeenshire castle and sumptuous pleasure gardens on his parlour wall. But, although always a well-bred gentleman and unfailingly polite, Mr Vernon had never followed up the subject, and it would certainly not impress his widow.
Yet, when all is said and done
, he mused then and now,
a connection to a bona fide Scottish laird should count as something before a spendthrift English lady and her Irish title
.

‘I will leave your ladyship at this difficult time,' he said. ‘Perhaps she will call for me when the moment is more opportune. I may have some advice that might profit her.'

The verb was ill chosen. Lady Susan gave him an icy smile, inclined her head and left the room. She rarely needed to be alone but she felt the need now.

When she entered her dressing room Barton was waiting for her. Usually Lady Susan enjoyed her pert talk, but not today. She dismissed the maid and sat at her dressing table looking at the mottled swinging glass from which she'd pushed back the modest fabric covering. She must think.