VI. Mrs. Vernon to Mr. De Courcy

by Jane Austen

　　Churchhill.Well, my dear Reginald, I have seen this dangerous creature, and mustgive you some description of her, though I hope you will soon be able toform your own judgment she is really excessively pretty; however you maychoose to question the allurements of a lady no longer young, I must, formy own part, declare that I have seldom seen so lovely a woman as LadySusan. She is delicately fair, with fine grey eyes and dark eyelashes; andfrom her appearance one would not suppose her more than five and twenty,though she must in fact be ten years older, I was certainly not disposed toadmire her, though always hearing she was beautiful; but I cannot helpfeeling that she possesses an uncommon union of symmetry, brilliancy, andgrace. Her address to me was so gentle, frank, and even affectionate, that,if I had not known how much she has always disliked me for marrying Mr.Vernon, and that we had never met before, I should have imagined her anattached friend. One is apt, I believe, to connect assurance of manner withcoquetry, and to expect that an impudent address will naturally attend animpudent mind; at least I was myself prepared for an improper degree ofconfidence in Lady Susan; but her countenance is absolutely sweet, and hervoice and manner winningly mild. I am sorry it is so, for what is this butdeceit? Unfortunately, one knows her too well. She is clever and agreeable,has all that knowledge of the world which makes conversation easy, andtalks very well, with a happy command of language, which is too often used,I believe, to make black appear white. She has already almost persuaded meof her being warmly attached to her daughter, though I have been so longconvinced to the contrary. She speaks of her with so much tenderness andanxiety, lamenting so bitterly the neglect of her education, which sherepresents however as wholly unavoidable, that I am forced to recollect howmany successive springs her ladyship spent in town, while her daughter wasleft in Staffordshire to the care of servants, or a governess very littlebetter, to prevent my believing what she says.If her manners have so great an influence on my resentful heart, you mayjudge how much more strongly they operate on Mr. Vernon's generous temper.I wish I could be as well satisfied as he is, that it was really her choiceto leave Langford for Churchhill; and if she had not stayed there formonths before she discovered that her friend's manner of living did notsuit her situation or feelings, I might have believed that concern for theloss of such a husband as Mr. Vernon, to whom her own behaviour was farfrom unexceptionable, might for a time make her wish for retirement. ButI cannot forget the length of her visit to the Mainwarings, and when Ireflect on the different mode of life which she led with them from that towhich she must now submit, I can only suppose that the wish of establishingher reputation by following though late the path of propriety, occasionedher removal from a family where she must in reality have been particularlyhappy. Your friend Mr. Smith's story, however, cannot be quite correct, asshe corresponds regularly with Mrs. Mainwaring. At any rate it must beexaggerated. It is scarcely possible that two men should be so grosslydeceived by her at once.Yours, &c.,CATHERINE VERNON