Frederica could not but smile at such willful good nature, and she extended herself even so far as to shake hands with Mr. Smith, who looked somewhat abashed by the courtesy of a woman whom he had pronounced stupid and proud.
The conversation was awkward—nobody could be comfortable except for those whose conduct ought to have rendered them contrite and silent. Sir James was all ease and affability and Lucy Smith was delighted with everything. “What a sweet and natural spot your Churchill is! The woods appear quite wild! I do not like it at all when a property is laid out all orderly and trim! What do you think, Claudia, do you not think that Churchill is much prettier than Gisbourne?” she cried, naming the Hamiltons’ country residence.
“I cannot think meanly of the home in which I was brought up,” Claudia replied. Her younger sister’s marriage had left her between the obligation to think ill of Lucy’s elopement and the envy of a younger sister’s nuptials occurring before her own.
“I think we all must have a particular attachment to the home in which we were raised,” observed Mr. Lewis deCourcy in his easy fashion, “but circumstances will often oblige us to live elsewhere. My childhood was spent in Kent, and as a young man I lived primarily in town. I was fond of them both, and yet now that I have settled in Bath, I am perfectly happy—or very close to it.”
“That is because you have the right disposition,” Sir James answered with a smile. “But many of us are too unyielding. We do not want to settle anywhere but in familiar surroundings.”
“Which often means that the lady must yield,” was Lady Vernon’s cool reply. “Unless her home and her husband’s are in the same county. A gentleman can settle where he likes while his lady is often removed from all that is familiar to her.”
“And yet you must agree, cousin,” Sir James replied cheerfully, “that many marriages come out of a family connection, while the prospective couple are still children. Visiting each other’s households and taking pleasure in each other’s society must ensure that if a union should arise from it, there will be no feeling of unhappiness or sacrifice on the part of the lady.”
“I think there must always be unhappiness when a lady is taken from her home,” observed Mrs. Vernon. “I am sure that I cannot like Churchill Manor nearly so well as Parklands.”
Even the Smiths, who were less sensible of what ought to give offense than anyone in the room, were uncomfortable at a declaration that slighted the family home of Lady Vernon and her daughter.
“La!” cried Mrs. Smith. “Then you would have us never marry!”
It was at this moment that Reginald came into the room with Vernon in tow. The latter could not conceal his agitation at the sight of the company, but he managed a few words of welcome and then, making his dress the excuse, hurried out of the room.
Sir James, in very high spirits, took up the conversation where it had left off, and moving his chair closer to Frederica’s, he said, “I would have everybody marry. Let us all give up our claims to property and demands as to settlements that keep us single too long. I would marry this minute if the object of my affection would consent.”
“Then you would marry too quickly for your own happiness,” said Reginald, “and for the lady’s, too.”
“And yet if you wait too long, your opportunity to be happy may be lost forever,” observed Lewis deCourcy, whose natural civility attempted to keep the conversation away from unpleasantness. “I should not be the old bachelor I am today if I had not thought too long and seriously over each prospect. Someone inevitably cut me out before I could bring myself to advance my suit.”
“I cannot think that we disagree, Uncle,” Reginald replied. “Where there is a genuine prospect of felicity, there is no need to delay from a want of fortune. We ought no more argue ourselves out of our happiness than we should allow ourselves to be argued into a union where there can be no promise of it. No gentleman can want a wife who finds him truly disagreeable and a woman of feeling would rather work for her bread than give her hand without her heart.”
Frederica blushed deeply at this remark, and Miss Manwaring, sensing her friend’s unease, hastened to observe, “I agree with Lady Vernon, sir. Your remarks are colored by the power of choice, which your sex enjoys. The prospect of working for one’s bread is not a mean one, but it is not one that a lady is raised to. Marriage is the only situation for a gentlewoman of small fortune, and yet we cannot choose it, we must wait to be addressed. I daresay you, Mr. deCourcy, broke many hearts with your silence.”
“My uncle cannot wish to marry,” declared Claudia. “He is rich enough and happy enough to be single.”
“And yet,” replied her uncle with a smile that included Miss Manwaring, “those who have reached my age and are single are so because they have been too poor or too miserable to engage the affections of any lady.”
Vernon did not come down again until the party was rising to go into the dining room, and they sat down to dinner with considerable discomfort on the part of both Vernon and his wife. She was in too much apprehension over her menu, and Vernon was oppressed by the benevolent gaze of Sir Frederick’s portrait on the opposite wall (as Reginald, acting with his usual resolve, had removed the portrait of Lady Vernon and her daughter and ordered Sir Frederick’s likeness brought down from the attic and hung in its place) and by the unhappy recollection that he had not had so many people at his table since Sir Frederick’s death.
The conversation shifted from subject to subject until at last the weather and the roads and the excellence of a particular dish (which put Mrs. Vernon into a better humor, if it did not render her more talkative) were all gone over. Whenever there was a break in the conversation, Lucy Smith would inevitably say something to make one of the others blush or wince until, at the earliest possible moment, Mrs. Vernon rose and led the ladies from the table.
Frederica now had the opportunity to sit down with Maria Manwaring and enjoy a quiet tête-à-tête, while Lady Vernon took up some needlework and Mrs. Vernon inquired of her cousin Claudia how Lavinia did and whether she would accompany Lord and Lady Hamilton to London. “In town, Lavinia and Reginald will be at leisure to see one another on a more frequent footing.”
“La!” cried Lucy, who had been roaming around the room and exclaiming over everything that caught her eye. “We will not want my cousin in town except to fix the date and then he may run away again until the wedding! Lavinia will need to buy her wedding clothes, and nobody wants a gentleman about for that! And we may buy ours together, as I had not time to get a stitch before my marriage.”
This remark produced something like a flush of embarrassment to Mrs. Vernon. “Then perhaps you ought not have been so impetuous,” she replied coolly.
Lucy, however, who heard nothing that she did not wish to hear, addressed Frederica. “We may all three go to the warehouses together, for I cannot believe your beau will be put off much longer! What a pleasant man Sir James is! How can you not like him!”
Frederica blushed at this remark, and Lady Vernon saved her from the obligation of making any reply by answering, “Sir James is our cousin, and I am sure that we both like him as much as we can—and sometimes more than he deserves. Our relations must claim a closer attachment than our friends and cannot be easily dropped from our acquaintance, though I believe many of us would divorce a cousin or a brother if we could.”
Miss Manwaring said, “Indeed,” almost too quietly to be heard, and Lucy exclaimed, “Oh, I daresay you are right! Claudia would not love me half so much if I were not her sister!”
Claudia Hamilton was spared the necessity of a reply by the appearance of the gentlemen, and the coffee and tea had no sooner been laid out than Lucy Smith cried, “Oh, what an excellent party we are—just so many gentlemen as there are ladies! And this room is such a fine size! Why, may we not have some dancing?”