A “MOST ACCOMPLISHED COQUETTE”
In spite of the almost universal inclination to pass over Jane Austen’s “minor” works without serious comment, we are ourselves strongly disposed to consider Lady Susan of considerable importance.
The early compositions, if sprightly, are not precocious: the cancelled chapter of Persuasion—replaced only eleven months before her death by chaps. x. and xi.—remains an interesting record of what would have fully satisfied a less careful artist; and the description—with extracts—which Mr. Austen-Leigh has given us of the novel begun on 27th January 1817 and continued until the 17th of March,[6] does not contain body enough for confident anticipation: i.e. of detail. There is, however, no reason for dreading any decline in artistic power.
Water-marks of 1803 and 1804 on the original manuscript prove The Watsons to have been written between her two periods of productive activity; and it is not likely that definite evidence will now transpire in explanation of its having been left unfinished: unless we accept Mr. Austen-Leigh’s somewhat fastidious conclusion—
“that the author became aware of the evil of having placed her heroine too low, in such a position of poverty and obscurity as, though not necessarily connected with vulgarity, has a sad tendency to degenerate into it; and therefore, like a singer who has begun on too low a note, she discontinued the strain. It was an error of which she was likely to become more sensible, as she grew older, and saw more of society: certainly she never repeated it by placing the heroine of any subsequent work under circumstances likely to be unfavourable to the refinement of a lady.”[7]
Her nephew further remarks that “it could not have been broken up for the purpose of using the materials in another fabric”; although, in his opinion, a resemblance between Mr. Robert Watson and Mr. Elton is “very discernible.” We might also observe that Mr. Watson appears to have taken his “basin of gruel” as regularly as Mr. Woodhouse; while, on the other hand, Lord Osborne’s affected superiority to dancing recalls Darcy. Miss Watson’s theories on life and marriage are particularly characteristic:
“I would rather do anything than be a teacher at a school. I have been at school, Emma, and know what a life they lead; you never have. I should not like marrying a disagreeable man any more than yourself; but I do not think there are many very disagreeable men; I think I could like any good-humoured man with a comfortable income. I suppose my aunt brought you up to be rather refined.”
Emma Watson, in fact, like all Jane Austen’s heroines, shines by comparison with the rest of her family.
Lady Susan, unlike any of the stories mentioned above, is obviously complete and finished. “Her family have always believed it to be an early production”; but we cannot conjecture why it was laid aside and never published by her. It is, however, an “experiment”—never repeated; and very possibly Jane Austen did not feel moved to revise what evidently had not satisfied her own standard of perfection.
For us, however, its striking dissimilarity to the six recognised “works,” and its unique position in the development of fiction, are of peculiar interest. To begin with, it belongs to the old “picaresque” school of fiction, seldom popular in England, though practised with considerable vigour by Defoe, and once revived by Thackeray in a work of genius—Barry Lyndon.
It may, perhaps, be considered an exaggeration to call the heroine a villain; and certainly Jane Austen entirely avoids the sordid material of criminal adventure (not scorned by Thackeray); which is the recognised foundation of ordinary picaresque work. But the essential characteristic remains prominent. The good people are comparatively colourless; our interest centres around Lady Susan, and it is on her that the author has devoted her most careful work. Moreover, it should not be overlooked that Lady Susan does contemplate, and actually instigate—in refined language—a course of action which may fairly be called criminal. The confidante, Mrs. Johnson—a recognised appendage to villainy—receives the following significant hint:
“Mainwaring is more devoted to me than ever; and were we at liberty, I doubt if I could resist even matrimony offered by him. This event, if his wife live with you, it may be in your power to hasten. The violence of her feelings, which must wear her out, may easily be kept in irritation. I rely on your friendship for this.”
The quiet audacity of this paragraph is really astounding; and just because no other word in all the forty-one letters contains so much as a hint at anything beyond unblushing effrontery and reckless lying, we regard it, without hesitation, as the keynote of Jane Austen’s method, and the declaration of her aim. Only a villain could possibly have written these words; only a genius could have refrained from giving her away on some other occasion.
Superficially, Lady Susan is no worse than a merry widow, given to man conquest, perfectly indifferent—if not contemptuous—towards the wives or the fiancées of her victims. In this matter, indeed, her enemies complain that “she does not confine herself to that sort of honest flirtation which satisfies most people, but aspires to the more delicious gratification of making a whole family miserable.” During the first months of widowhood she had determined on “discretion” and being “as quiet as possible”:—“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 John 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”;—the fact being that she wanted the man for her daughter.
This “most accomplished coquette in England” is described with some fullness by a sister-in-law who had every reason to think ill of her.
“She is really excessively pretty; however you may choose to question the allurements of a lady no longer young, I must, for my own part, declare that I have seldom seen so lovely a woman as Lady Susan. She is delicately fair, with fine grey eyes and dark eyelashes; and from 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 to admire her, though always hearing she was beautiful; but I cannot help feeling that she possesses an uncommon union of symmetry, brilliancy, and grace. 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 an attached friend. One is apt, I believe, to connect assurance of manner with coquetry, and to expect that an impudent address will naturally attend an impudent mind; at least, I myself was prepared for an improper degree of confidence in Lady Susan; but her countenance is absolutely sweet, and her voice and manner winningly mild. I am sorry it is so, for what is this but deceit? Unfortunately, one knows her too well. She is clever and agreeable, has all that knowledge of the world which makes conversation easy, and talks very well, with a happy command of language, which is too often used, I believe, to make black appear white.”
Such being the lady’s own manners and sentiments, we are fully prepared for her satirical references to her daughter:
“I never saw a girl of her age”—she was sixteen—“bid fairer to be the sport of mankind. Her feelings are tolerably acute, and she is so charmingly artless in their display as to afford the most reasonable hope of her being ridiculous, and despised by every man who sees her. Artlessness will never do in love-matters; and that girl is born a simpleton who has it either by nature or affectation.”
It is hardly necessary to add that Lady Susan has no desire, or ambition, in life beyond universal admiration. She is “tempted” indeed, but does not on one occasion lose her head: and we cannot feel that she was even exactly pre-eminent in her practice. It does not appear that she quite succeeded in ever enjoying the fruits of victory. Miss Austen has not drawn for us a really “cunning” coquette. Lady Susan subdued men, but she could seldom hold them; and on no occasion does she conquer “circumstances,” i.e., other women.
There may be, obviously, three explanations of this fact. Either Jane Austen was lacking in the more robust humour of Thackeray and his predecessors, who seem to revel in the gaiety of the heartless; or she recognised the limitations of country life, where the artificial can never prosper for long; or she had, in her own quiet way, too much principle to countenance, even in fiction, any permanent happiness for the wicked.
However it be, the result is unique. Lady Susan stands alone as a heroine. As we have seen, the full depths of her criminality lurk beneath the surface: her power is rather hinted at than described. It is only on looking back over the accumulation of slight touches and chance words that we realise her astounding insincerity, her absolute lack of feeling, or the brilliance of her superficial attractiveness. It is a very short book, containing few characters and practically no events; yet we are startled, on reflection, at its unsparing picture of the incalculable amount of mischief that may be done by sheer empty-headedness, entirely without strong feeling or passion; and of the incredible isolation in which such a character must always live.
Lady Susan injures, in some degree, literally every person named in the whole story. She has not a friend in the world. In reality, perhaps, the last consideration indicates most clearly the virtue in Miss Austen’s characterisation. It is not once even mentioned, and, consequently, arouses no remark. We must deduct from it our own observation. But, inasmuch as never for one instant does a single thought for anyone but herself cross the mind of Lady Susan, so never does anyone else show one spark of affection for her. Mrs. Johnson, obviously, was governed by interested motives, and frankly abandons her at the first serious danger of “the consequences” to herself. The kind of devotion she inspired in men had no affinity to friendship, respect, consideration, or unselfishness. The closing scene is described with a cutting brevity, that recalls Miss Austen’s dismissal of Maria Rushworth and Mrs. Norris.
She married the man designed for her daughter—for an establishment: “Whether Lady Susan was or was not happy in her second choice, I do not see how it can ever be ascertained; for who would take her assurance of it on either side of the question? The world must judge from probabilities; she had nothing against her but her husband, and her conscience.”
As we have noticed before, Miss Austen seldom obtrudes her opinions, but they are occasionally implied. And, on such occasions, they are unhesitating. We find in her no doubt, no compromise—we might almost say no charity—about a few questions of ultimate morality.
On the whole, however, we cannot claim for Lady Susan all those perfections of style associated with the genius of its author. Save for a few turns of phrase, of which we have quoted the most significant, it has little of her pointed epigram or subtle humour. The language is equally finished and inevitable, but there is neither sparkle nor gaiety. We miss the dialogue and the delicate variety in characterisation. It would be hazardous, indeed, to suppose that anyone could have “discovered” Jane Austen from Lady Susan; but, knowing her other work, we can detect the mastery.
In conclusion, it is worth noticing that she has here given us some insight into the constancy of man.
Reginald de Courcy had been a victim of Lady Susan’s. After her second marriage, her daughter
“Frederika was fixed in the family of her uncle and aunt till such time as Reginald de Courcy could be talked, flattered, and finessed into an affection for her which, allowing leisure for the conquest of his attachment to her mother, for his abjuring all future attachments, and detesting the sex, might be reasonably looked for in a twelvemonth. Three months might have done it in general, but Reginald’s feelings were no less lasting than lively.”
It will be remembered that Miss Austen is less explicit about Edmund Bertram:
“I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, that every one may be at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as to time in different people. I only entreat everybody to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire.”
On the other hand, Marianne Dashwood required two years to conquer her devotion to Willoughby in favour of Colonel Brandon; but then Miss Austen has claimed for her sex, through Anne Elliot, “the privilege of loving longest, when existence, or when hope, is gone.”