Complete Works of Jane Austen (277 page)

It would be well for the eldest sister if she were equally satisfied with her situation, for a change is not very probable there. She had soon the mortification of seeing Mr Elliot withdraw, and no one of proper condition has since presented himself to raise even the unfounded hopes which sunk with him.

The news of his cousin Anne’s engagement burst on Mr Elliot most unexpectedly. It deranged his best plan of domestic happiness, his best hope of keeping Sir Walter single by the watchfulness which a son-in-law’s rights would have given. But, though discomfited and disappointed, he could still do something for his own interest and his own enjoyment. He soon quitted Bath; and on Mrs Clay’s quitting it soon afterwards, and being next heard of as established under his protection in London, it was evident how double a game he had been playing, and how determined he was to save himself from being cut out by one artful woman, at least.

Mrs Clay’s affections had overpowered her interest, and she had sacrificed, for the young man’s sake, the possibility of scheming longer for Sir Walter. She has abilities, however, as well as affections; and it is now a doubtful point whether his cunning, or hers, may finally carry the day; whether, after preventing her from being the wife of Sir Walter, he may not be wheedled and caressed at last into making her the wife of Sir William.

It cannot be doubted that Sir Walter and Elizabeth were shocked and mortified by the loss of their companion, and the discovery of their deception in her. They had their great cousins, to be sure, to resort to for comfort; but they must long feel that to flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

Anne, satisfied at a very early period of Lady Russell’s meaning to love Captain Wentworth as she ought, had no other alloy to the happiness of her prospects than what arose from the consciousness of having no relations to bestow on him which a man of sense could value. There she felt her own inferiority very keenly. The disproportion in their fortune was nothing; it did not give her a moment’s regret; but to have no family to receive and estimate him properly, nothing of respectability, of harmony, of good will to offer in return for all the worth and all the prompt welcome which met her in his brothers and sisters, was a source of as lively pain as her mind could well be sensible of under circumstances of otherwise strong felicity. She had but two friends in the world to add to his list, Lady Russell and Mrs Smith. To those, however, he was very well disposed to attach himself. Lady Russell, in spite of all her former transgressions, he could now value from his heart. While he was not obliged to say that he believed her to have been right in originally dividing them, he was ready to say almost everything else in her favour, and as for Mrs Smith, she had claims of various kinds to recommend her quickly and permanently.

Her recent good offices by Anne had been enough in themselves, and their marriage, instead of depriving her of one friend, secured her two. She was their earliest visitor in their settled life; and Captain Wentworth, by putting her in the way of recovering her husband’s property in the West Indies, by writing for her, acting for her, and seeing her through all the petty difficulties of the case with the activity and exertion of a fearless man and a determined friend, fully requited the services which she had rendered, or ever meant to render, to his wife.

Mrs Smith’s enjoyments were not spoiled by this improvement of income, with some improvement of health, and the acquisition of such friends to be often with, for her cheerfulness and mental alacrity did not fail her; and while these prime supplies of good remained, she might have bid defiance even to greater accessions of worldly prosperity. She might have been absolutely rich and perfectly healthy, and yet be happy. Her spring of felicity was in the glow of her spirits, as her friend Anne’s was in the warmth of her heart. Anne was tenderness itself, and she had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth’s affection. His profession was all that could ever make her friends wish that tenderness less, the dread of a future war all that could dim her sunshine. She gloried in being a sailor’s wife, but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance.

Finis

Lady Susan
is a short novel written in epistolary form during the early-mid 1790’s, when Austen was in her teenage years. She recopied the novel in 1805, but did not amend it or chose to publish the work during her lifetime. In 1871 James Edward Austen–Leigh, the author’s nephew, completed a biography of his aunt which included
Lady Susan
and fragments of other works. The novel is an interesting exception to Austen’s canon not only due to the epistolary style, but also because it centres on an almost wholly immoral character. Lady Susan is unlike any other Austen heroine; she is calculating, devious, selfish, deceitful, cold-hearted and manipulative. She is also depicted and revealed to be a cruel mother who treats her daughter with contempt and disdain. At the start of the book she is newly widowed and intent on attaining a wealthy husband for herself and also marrying off her daughter. When she arrives at her in-laws’ estate, she is already mired in scandal, with tales of her involvement with married men and attempts to seduce those bequeathed to others. When her sister-in-law’s brother, Reginald de Courcy, arrives at the estate, he is wary of Lady Susan and mistrustful of her. However, Susan prides herself on the ability to manipulate and entice those that are dismissive of her and so begins the many attempted deceptions and out manoeuvrings between Lady Susan and those around her.

Austen certainly does not endorse Lady Susan’s behaviour, nor does she provide the happy ending reserved for the heroines of her six major novels. However, Susan’s fate is not as horrendous as might have been possible and the work also subtly exposes the limitations for women in a conservative, patriarchal society; even wealth does not offer any real independence or freedom.

CONTENTS

I. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MR. VERNON

II. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

III. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

IV. MR. DE COURCY TO MRS. VERNON

V. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

VI. MRS. VERNON TO MR. DE COURCY

VII. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

VIII. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

IX. MRS. JOHNSON TO LADY S. VERNON

X. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

XI. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

XII. SIR REGINALD DE COURCY TO HIS SON

XIII. LADY DE COURCY TO MRS. VERNON

XIV. MR. DE COURCY TO SIR REGINALD

XV. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

XVI. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

XVII. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

XVIII. FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME

XIX. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

XX. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

XXI. MISS VERNON TO MR DE COURCY

XXII. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

XXIII. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

XXIV. FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME

XXV. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

XXVI. MRS. JOHNSON TO LADY SUSAN

XXVII. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

XXVIII. MRS. JOHNSON TO LADY SUSAN

XXIX. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

XXX. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MR. DE COURCY

XXXI. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

XXXII. MRS. JOHNSON TO LADY SUSAN

XXXIII. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

XXXIV. MR. DE COURCY TO LADY SUSAN

XXXV. LADY SUSAN TO MR. DE COURCY

XXXVI. MR. DE COURCY TO LADY SUSAN

XXXVII. LADY SUSAN TO MR. DE COURCY

XXXVIII. MRS. JOHNSON TO LADY SUSAN VERNON

XXXIX. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

XL. LADY DE COURCY TO MRS. VERNON

XLI. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

CONCLUSION.

I. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MR. VERNON

Langford, Dec.

MY DEAR BROTHER, — I can no longer refuse myself the pleasure of profiting by your kind invitation when we last parted of spending some weeks with you at Churchhill, and, therefore, if quite convenient to you and Mrs. Vernon to receive me at present, I shall hope within a few days to be introduced to a sister whom I have so long desired to be acquainted with. My kind friends here are most affectionately urgent with me to prolong my stay, but their hospitable and cheerful dispositions lead them too much into society for my present situation and state of mind; and I impatiently look forward to the hour when I shall be admitted into your delightful retirement.

I long to be made known to your dear little children, in whose hearts I shall be very eager to secure an interest I shall soon have need for all my fortitude, as I am on the point of separation from my own daughter. The long illness of her dear father prevented my paying her that attention which duty and affection equally dictated, and I have too much reason to fear that the governess to whose care I consigned her was unequal to the charge. I have therefore resolved on placing her at one of the best private schools in town, where I shall have an opportunity of leaving her myself in my way to you. I am determined, you see, not to be denied admittance at Churchhill. It would indeed give me most painful sensations to know that it were not in your power to receive me.

Your most obliged and affectionate sister,

S. VERNON.

II. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

Langford.

You were mistaken, my dear Alicia, in supposing me fixed at this place for the rest of the winter: it grieves me to say how greatly you were mistaken, for I have seldom spent three months more agreeably than those which have just flown away. At present, nothing goes smoothly; the females of the family are united against me. You foretold how it would be when I first came to Langford, and Mainwaring is so uncommonly pleasing that I was not without apprehensions for myself. I remember saying to myself, as I drove to the house, “I like this man, pray Heaven no harm come of it!” But I was determined to be discreet, to bear in mind my being only four months a widow, and to be as quiet as possible: and I have been so, my dear creature; I have admitted no one’s attentions but Mainwaring’s. I have avoided all general flirtation whatever; I have distinguished no creature besides, of all the numbers resorting hither, except Sir James Martin, on whom I bestowed a little notice, in order to detach him from Miss Mainwaring; but, if the world could know my motive THERE they would honour me. I have been called an unkind mother, but it was the sacred impulse of maternal affection, it was the advantage of my daughter that led me on; and if that daughter were not the greatest simpleton on earth, I might have been rewarded for my exertions as I ought.

Sir James did make proposals to me for Frederica; but Frederica, who was born to be the torment of my life, chose to set herself so violently against the match that I thought it better to lay aside the scheme for the present. I have more than once repented that I did not marry him myself; and were he but one degree less contemptibly weak I certainly should: but I must own myself rather romantic in that respect, and that riches only will not satisfy me. The event of all this is very provoking: Sir James is gone, Maria highly incensed, and Mrs. Mainwaring insupportably jealous; so jealous, in short, and so enraged against me, that, in the fury of her temper, I should not be surprized at her appealing to her guardian, if she had the liberty of addressing him: but there your husband stands my friend; and the kindest, most amiable action of his life was his throwing her off for ever on her marriage. Keep up his resentment, therefore, I charge you. We are now in a sad state; no house was ever more altered; the whole party are at war, and Mainwaring scarcely dares speak to me. It is time for me to be gone; I have therefore determined on leaving them, and shall spend, I hope, a comfortable day with you in town within this week. If I am as little in favour with Mr. Johnson as ever, you must come to me at 10 Wigmore street; but I hope this may not be the case, for as Mr. Johnson, with all his faults, is a man to whom that great word “respectable” is always given, and I am known to be so intimate with his wife, his slighting me has an awkward look.

I take London in my way to that insupportable spot, a country village; for I am really going to Churchhill. Forgive me, my dear friend, it is my last resource. Were there another place in England open to me I would prefer it. Charles Vernon is my aversion; and I am afraid of his wife. At Churchhill, however, I must remain till I have something better in view. My young lady accompanies me to town, where I shall deposit her under the care of Miss Summers, in Wigmore street, till she becomes a little more reasonable. She will made good connections there, as the girls are all of the best families. The price is immense, and much beyond what I can ever attempt to pay.