“I cannot tell if they regretted or welcomed my departure,” replied Lady Vernon with a smile, “but Mr. Manwaring supposed that there must be a matter of business that could only be resolved by my coming to Churchill.”

Vernon stammered something about Manwaring being a very glib fellow who talked a great deal of nonsense. “He is amiable enough, but if he knew half as much as he ought about business, he would have made a better marriage,” he added with a laugh.

“Oh, I believe it was a very businesslike proposal on his part, for he had not a shilling and Eliza had a great deal of money settled upon her. It was Mr. Manwaring’s ill fortune that the custodian of her money withheld it from spite—a very ignoble thing for Mr. Johnson to do, do you not agree? Mrs. Manwaring’s father had intended for her to have the money and depended upon Mr. Johnson to carry out his wishes. No man of honor could have doubted the intent, but perhaps there was just such an informality in the arrangement that allowed Eliza’s guardian to withhold it. But I fear this subject does not interest Mrs. Vernon—indeed, the subject of business often becomes either too dull or too heated for many people, and she is not acquainted with any of the principals.”

Charles Vernon attempted some weak humor about women and business, and Mrs. Vernon agreed that business was better left to men and that her children gave her all that she needed to think about.

At last, Lady Vernon begged her relations to excuse her, pleading the fatigue of her journey and the desire to rest and refresh herself before dinner. She was shown to her apartments, which were in a very inferior situation that would expose her to all of the noise and traffic of the nursery and the back stair. The rooms themselves were large and well furnished, however, and the windows opened to the back, upon the crisscrossed hedgerow and a portion of the park, with enough of the forcing garden and greenhouses within view for Lady Vernon to observe that they had fallen into disrepair.

“I know nobody in the servants’ quarters,” Wilson told her mistress. “Even Cook—dear Cook—has been sent away, and I cannot think that the woman who has come to replace her is half so good, though she may do well enough for the family. It is said in the kitchen that it is rare for Mr. and Mrs. Vernon to have anyone to dine, and that they accept very few invitations. The neighborhood must feel such a very great change from Sir Frederick’s open hospitality.”

“And yet the house itself is unchanged. There has been almost no alteration to the furnishings or in the arrangement of the rooms, no adornments that would have put the Vernons’ own stamp upon the property or pronounced their good fortune to the world—nothing save for one change that I do not like,” added Lady Vernon warmly. “Sir Frederick’s portrait has been removed from the gallery and has been replaced with one of Mrs. Vernon’s grandfather.”

She was all composure, however, when she went down to dinner and took her place below Mrs. Vernon. Catherine experienced no discomfort until her sister-in-law declined the pheasant curry and the sweetbreads. Lady Vernon apologized for her poor appetite, attributing it to the parting from her daughter and an uncomfortable carriage ride, and declared that a day or two of exercise and fresh air would allow her to do justice to Mrs. Vernon’s excellent table. Mrs. Vernon was not consoled; she believed that for all her sweetness of address, Lady Vernon meant to express her contempt for her sister-in-law by taking no more than a plain breast of chicken and a boiled potato.

chapter twenty-two 

Lady Vernon had determined, when she came to Churchill, that she would make a direct appeal to Charles and the morning after her arrival, she waited until Catherine excused herself from the breakfast table to go up to the nursery. “Stay, if you please, brother,” said she, for Charles had made a move to depart. “As happy as I am to be introduced to Mrs. Vernon and my nieces and nephews, I must tell you with all candor that I have other motivations for coming here.”

Charles appeared distressed, and glanced at his watch and made some remark about having to ride into the village. “I hope that your apartments are to your liking—they are very near the children, and the children are very lively. They will soon come to an age where some renovation will have to be thought of, and there will be the expense of governesses and masters—yes, it is a costly thing to raise a large family.”

“It can be more difficult to provide for one child than four, if you have not the income.”

“Yes, but that is not the case with you, as you were left a very fine house in town—a house in town, so handsomely furnished, may be let or sold for a very good price, and there is your own income, which must be above seven hundred pounds per annum. That ought to keep you and my niece quite comfortably until she marries, and she has two thousand settled upon her, has she not? That is very handsome.”

“It cannot be said to be handsome, if it is only a portion of what she was intended to have. Charles, I must be frank. If my husband’s injury and ill health prevented him from carrying out his wishes as far as Frederica was concerned, is it not for you, his heir and brother, to see that they are fulfilled? You know that he intended to settle ten thousand upon her.”

“My dear sister, you suppose that I was in my brother’s confidence to a greater degree than was the case. If his motives for leaving matters as he did are obscure to you, who lived with him daily, how much more so must they be to me? All I can know of his intentions were set down in his will, and as this was influenced by the manner of provision favored by our honored father, I must take it to be a genuine expression of my brother’s desire. And if that is the case, how can I contradict it?”

Until that moment, Lady Vernon did not know how far she had continued to hope, for the sake of her husband’s memory as well as her own comfort and Frederica’s future, that her ill opinion of Charles might have been undeserved.

With as much dignity as she could command, Lady Vernon rose from the table and left the room.

They did not meet again until dinnertime, and although the ladies sat for nearly two hours after dinner, the dullness of Mrs. Vernon’s company was only relieved by the appearance of the children for half an hour. Charles did not join them.

The next day and the next were much the same—Charles kept himself very much engaged, and though Lady Vernon saw no evidence of anything that could so completely occupy his time, and some very disheartening indications that the property was not being attended to as it ought, he did not appear again at breakfast, nor did he sit with them after dinner. Catherine, without accomplishments or conversation, spared Lady Vernon the pain she might have felt for detesting the husband of an amiable woman. Only the company of her little nieces and nephews gave her any pleasure. They were still too young to have had their tempers impaired by the indulgence of their mother or the neglect of their father.

Thus did the first week of Lady Vernon’s return to Churchill Manor pass away.

chapter twenty-three

With the foolhardiness of many selfish men, Charles Vernon had thought only of the pleasures of acquisition without the sting of conscience. He was entitled to all that his brother’s will had assigned him, and had been in a fair way to arguing himself out of any reproach. Yet while Lady Vernon’s reproving gazes could be avoided, the quantity of letters she received could not. Vernon began to put a troubling construction upon each letter she sent off to the post and each one she perused at the breakfast table. He imagined her confiding her situation to the Martins, to Lewis deCourcy, or to one of the gentlemen at the banking house, and although Vernon knew that the law was on his side, they might be prevailed upon to aggravate him with appeals for charity or compassion.

One morning, a week into her visit, Lady Vernon descended much earlier than usual and espied Vernon in the passage, examining the mail that had just been brought in, giving particular attention to the direction on several of the letters.

“Are there any letters for me, brother?” Lady Vernon asked.

He turned upon her with a start and a guilty flush spread over his cheeks. He muttered something about Mrs. Vernon’s expecting a letter from her mother that morning. “Why, yes, here are three—no, four!” said he as he handed them over. “So many letters, and so soon after your arrival, but I expect at least two or three of them are from my niece. Catherine and I shall be very eager to hear how she gets on in town.”

Lady Vernon made no reply and took her letters to the breakfast table, sensible of the reason for her brother-in-law’s discomfort. If he was anxious that she had confided the particulars of their conversation abroad, she was not inclined to make him comfortable by correcting him.

The first letter she opened was from Sir James. She had not sent him any word that she meant to go to Sussex until after she had left Frederica at school. Her letter to him had begun:


             You will be very happy to know that I have taken your advice and brought my time at Langford to an end. You will be surprised to learn that I do not remain in London to be near Freddie, and you will be angry when you learn where I have gone. I pray you, cousin, do not take up your pen to reply until you have reconciled these incompatible sensations and are capable of making a rational reply.