Lady Susan Plays the Game (8 page)

She would have remonstrated had she not seen that Frederica's quiet grieving manner was not unappealing. In her plump unformed way she had a mournful prettiness that was more obvious here than in town, and Sir James, Lady Susan had discovered, when she stopped him babbling of horses, was sentimental.

A few nights later the family and their guests, Sir James, Lady Susan and Frederica, were assembled in the Chinese drawing room. Sir James had taken a liking to Lady Susan and she seemed to appreciate him. Mrs Manwaring was pleased. Her husband failed to understand what a fine thing the young man was for their daughter and paid him little attention.

In fact, Manwaring had once tried to oblige his wife by admiring Sir James's phaeton: the attempt had not been repeated.

‘Yes,' Sir James had replied, ‘you see the perch is here nine feet and the king bolt that little bit longer than usual. If you look below, you will see that the linchpin cannot easily become loose as so often happens, you know, and on a steep hill the iron skid shoe comes into place – see here – not that in Lincolnshire we have many steep hills.' He'd laughed immoderately at the notion of flat fields until spittle collected round his mouth; then he'd stopped abruptly and resumed, ‘You will see that the axle doesn't pass through the wheel secured with a washer and linchpin as it usually does but is bolted directly to the inside of the wheel nave. Now look at the whip springs, sir …'

Mr Manwaring had smiled and backed away. ‘Splendid, so smart it should be carried in its own chair.'

Sir James had not understood the joke – if joke it was. He'd laughed his high laugh and by the time he'd stopped Mr Manwaring was gone. The young man didn't take umbrage – his mother had often walked off while he talked; sometimes she'd actually put on her spectacles and looked through the accounts or written her journal entries while he told her of the glories of the mare brought over from Lincoln or the way the great horses churned up the mud and made a bog of the meadows – but she always smiled when he laughed, and he felt warm with her.

Now, to his surprise, he felt similar warmth with the new visitor, more than with Mary. He had not been so happy since his dear mother passed away. Lady Susan even improved on his mother for she listened with the most flattering attention when he told of the horses he'd
ridden as a boy, and the ones he'd recently bought and hoped to buy. She was a fine woman too, there was no mistaking that.

When Sir James paused in one of his catalogues Lady Susan thought she might ease him from livestock on to his dear ‘mama'.

‘She was so – so – so …'

‘I'm sure,' said Lady Susan soothingly as Sir James's fleshy lips began to tremble.

‘I wish you had met her. You would have got on like a – like a house on fire'.

From what Alicia had told her, Lady Susan doubted this. It was odd, she thought, that such a mother hadn't married off her booby son before now, but perhaps she enjoyed her control too much. Sir James was in his mid-to-late twenties, Lady Susan surmised, an overgrown child who missed the ‘Mama' who'd petted and ruled him too long.

By listening further to his chatter, she had her views confirmed. Sir James had been allowed his toys, his carriages, handsome horses and guns, while his ‘Mama' and the estate agent controlled the property, tenants, incomes and rents. ‘Mama' had let him ruffle up one of her maids – at least Lady Susan thought Sir James hinted at this when his face grew crimson and his stutter accelerated – and she'd planned to marry him to a distant relative, a Miss Gantry, a clever girl still only fifteen with no dowry to speak of. Lady Susan imagined that Miss Gantry would be pleased to be wedded to anyone for Sir James described a house of five sisters and two brothers, no doubt all squabbling. But the plan had not been perfected before Lady Martin died. Without her management Sir James was nonplussed by Miss Gantry's quick responses: he felt put down in her company and had run away before her family could move. Horses were as clever as people, he said. He lowered his voice. ‘I am going to buy one that can count you know.'

Lady Susan smiled, ‘I'm sure you are.'

He'd been relieved to meet Mary Manwaring, who loved nice clothes and smiled at him a lot. ‘You know,' he said confidentially, ‘Mama would like me to marry.' He reddened again, ‘I mean, the right lady of course. But it's not like a horse is it?' He turned his colourless eyes on Lady Susan, ‘I mean you can't look in her mouth or take her out for a canter or anything like that, you know.' He laughed, then giggled, then wiped the spittle from his mouth.

‘Alas, you can't,' said Lady Susan softly. ‘But you can see how she behaves, how placid and comfortable she might be to live with.'

‘Well, Mary is nice when she's in humour and Mrs Manwaring is nice to me too.'

‘You are not marrying the mother, though, are you, Sir James?'

‘No, I am not,' he said too loudly, then laughed again.

‘And do you think Mary pretty?' pursued Lady Susan.

‘N-n-no, that is, not quite,' he hesitated. ‘Not really, though I suppose she must be. But Mama always said a good wife need not be showy – she said “showy” – but simply modest, polite and … and thrifty.'

As he spoke of Lady Martin, Lady Susan was almost sure that Sir James had again a moist eye, but it might have been from too much boisterous laughter.

‘Your mother is a great loss to you, a great loss. And you must of course think of what she said. But perhaps for you it would be good if the girl you married happened to be pretty?'

Just then Lady Susan looked across at her daughter, who, ignored by Mary, was sitting pensively, her dark hair making her flat moonface quite alluring in the candlelight. By exaggeratedly swivelling her own sympathetic eyes to rest on Frederica, she directed Sir James's to the same spot, while she whispered to him that the dear girl was still grieving for her beloved father.

She was pleased to see that his eyes, once directed, stayed on Frederica instead of moving back to Mary. She hoped Miss Manwaring did not notice this, but luckily the girl was in conversation with her aunt. She was being persuaded to go to the new Rolfe grand pianoforte to play and sing one of the fashionable Scottish folk songs that she'd brought back from London. She played well, if mechanically, and liked the sound of her own rather high-pitched voice; she had little spare attention to focus on other people in the room.

While Mary sang and Lady Susan played on the young man beside her, hoping he would soon be caught by the glorious insipidity her daughter presented, she was acutely aware of another pair of eyes intently fixed on herself from the side of the room. From time to time, as her own swift glance took in the company, she caught these eyes through her own lashes.

She enjoyed the sensation. She had quite decided that, if it were done discreetly, she would flirt with this man after all. There was something simple about him, a slightly bemused look in the eyes when not fixed on her. She would need to be careful; he might be reckless.

She was much attracted to him, of course – who wouldn't be? But she would not endanger her other plans or make trouble for herself within the house. Her new apartments were too much to her liking for that.

Sir James was talking through Mary's singing. ‘Shsh, Sir James,' Lady Susan said as she put a finger on her lips. He smiled broadly and nodded. Then his eyes rested again on Frederica.

She would have to manage everything. Occasionally, as now, Lady Susan wondered how Frederica could really be her daughter. She wasn't like her in general looks or character. But she doubted the child was a changeling – she was far too good.

She now saw that Frederica had not made a close friend of Mary, though they got on well enough. That was how it should be – it would be no good if the girls formed an alliance. As it was, all Lady Susan had to do was to keep Frederica looking nice and in public. The grey silk flowers that adorned her own bodice would probably become her daughter and must be sacrificed. She suspected she herself had no need of adornment just now.

She got up hurriedly when the singing stopped, declaring she must take a turn round the room. Manwaring's stare was too fixed and too open, as was Sir James's on her daughter. She needed to teach both some subtlety.

As the days passed Lady Susan continued to believe she was functioning perfectly, both in public and within the family. She praised Mary's garish clothes and complimented Charlotte Manwaring on her new, more feminine style of hair, while noting to herself that it was thinning; to her cousin Miss Dawlish she spoke about culinary matters and worried about her friend's health. Sir James had taken himself off to stay with a relative in Southampton and observe the counting horse he hoped to purchase; so she had a rest from managing him and he could not expose himself further. Frederica was creeping about somewhere out of the way.

Then one morning Mr Manwaring overtook her on the stairs. ‘That is most exquisite brocade, Lady Susan,' he said, his saucy bright eyes travelling slowly down her bodice and skirt.

‘You are a connoisseur of brocades?'

‘Not at all, but when they are so well formed and moulded I must be an admirer.'

‘That is a rather forward remark, sir. I should take exception.'

‘I'm hoping your ladyship will. I'm prepared to be upbraided.'

They were walking towards the downstairs parlour where Lady Susan was to meet Miss Dawlish, who wished to know the latest London ways of serving dessert. Mr Manwaring was on his way to the stables.

‘I trust you will not seek opportunities to provoke me,' said Lady Susan and, with a smile he called ‘wicked' when he recalled it while cantering alone down the lime avenue, she went into the parlour.

Miss Dawlish began the conversation as they both seated themselves. She wanted to know whether nuts and figs should be on the table with the candied fruit. Did they serve them like this in London? To Lady Susan's surprise she also grumbled – just a little – about her favoured cousin.

‘Charlotte is so very fond of her husband,' said Miss Dawlish apropos of the expense of entertaining. ‘Whatever he spends, there is never a word of complaint, never a scene.'

‘How terrifying,' said Lady Susan, who thought she might hazard a little mockery. ‘What a depressing picture you paint of marriage and ladies with fortunes.'

She smiled confidentially at Miss Dawlish, who, after hesitating, went on, ‘And yet it seems to me that women would do very well with their money if men did not interfere with them.'

‘But it so seldom
is
their money,' replied Lady Susan looking under her long lashes.

‘The great Mrs Macaulay wished women to be educated so that they could make their own way – that is, make their own money – in the world,' ventured Miss Dawlish looking just a little suspicious.

‘But I have met Mrs Macaulay,' cried Lady Susan. She'd been visiting some friends in Berkshire and remembered a tall, elderly, masculine woman with a luridly painted face who'd been famous for marrying a man a quarter of a century younger.

Miss Dawlish was impressed. ‘How wonderful. Then you may know that she teaches us that chastity freely chosen empowers us. The energy required to support and please a man can be better used. It could make us independent; it also makes the body more vigorous.'

Lady Susan swallowed hard. The idea of Miss Dawlish choosing chastity almost brought tears to her eyes. ‘Whatever helps is good,' she said at last when she felt able to speak. ‘We both know, I think, how hard it is for a woman to make her way alone.'

‘If only dear Charlotte thought as you do on this,' exclaimed Miss Dawlish. Then something renewed her suspicion. Yet there was no glint in Lady Susan's eye or any hilarity in her expression. Perhaps it was the obvious loveliness of those long pale lashes on the delicate skin that gave her pause. She got up. ‘But I must not stay chatting. I am so grateful to you for the information about the dessert.'

Of course Miss Dawlish was absurd: ugliness and philosophy combined in a woman had to be ridiculous. They had been so with Mrs Macaulay. Lady Susan remembered how she and her friends had laughed when that lady left the room. And yet, had Miss Dawlish expressed herself less pedantically, Lady Susan might have had some sympathy. Such silliness was surely preferable to the femininity displayed by Frederica – the sort that had delivered Charlotte to her impossible marriage. All this desire to please with no sense of the purpose – what were women about?

Next day Lady Susan met Mr Manwaring again. She fancied her host did not spend much of his time in the library and yet she had been sitting there at a small side table for only a few minutes preparing to write to her friend Alicia when he entered. Apparently he was also intent on writing a letter. To her amusement, once he had taken out the necessary materials from the writing desk, he neither sharpened his quill nor made any obvious attempt to get started.

‘Don't let me disturb you, ma'am – a lady writing a letter is most decorously occupied.'

‘Then pray do not, Mr Manwaring.'

‘But I'm told that the fair sex can do many things at once, write, sew, play cards even while hearing every conversation in a room, so attuned are their minds to their world.'

‘I wonder who told you so, Mr Manwaring,' she said putting down her quill, which rolled off the desk to the floor. Not a lot of writing was going to be done today. ‘Such secrets are not usually shared between the sexes.'

‘You forget, ma'am, that I am confined to petticoats here.'

‘Yet I fancy those details are divulged only in the most intimate relations.'

‘Ah,' he replied, getting up and moving towards where she sat at the side table, ‘one has then to take every opportunity for learning.'

He was a foot or two from her when Miss Dawlish entered in search of Elizabeth Moxon's cookery book. She had left it in the parlour and it had been put into the library by an untrained housemaid, instead of back in her own room. Her eyes at once took in the relative positions of Lady Susan and Mr Manwaring.