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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lady Susan, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender, Power, and Manipulation
Public Appearance vs. Private Reality
Love and Transaction
Summary
Analysis
Letter I. Lady Susan writes to her brother-in-law Charles, asking if she can take him up on a previous invitation to stay at his estate, Churchill. While the friends she’s currently visiting are delightful and want her to stay, they’re a little too social for her taste. Besides, she’s excited to meet Charles’s wife and grow close with his children, especially since she’s about to be separated from her own daughter, whom she’s sending to boarding school. Lady Susan hopes that Charles will let her come—it would be incredibly painful to her if he refused.
Lady Susan seems to be a constant visitor to other people’s estates. If she actually wanted to avoid socializing, she would presumably just return to her own home—but it’s possible that she doesn’t have a home of her own. This would explain why she’s accepting an old invitation that she’d presumably already refused, and why she seems so desperate, claiming that Charles’ refusal would hurt her. This could also be why Lady Susan is sending Frederica to boarding school instead of allowing her to remain home. Lady Susan probably isn’t very close to her brother-in-law’s family if she’s never met his wife or children, which makes it even stranger that she’s coming to visit them now.
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Letter II. Lady Susan tells her friend Alicia that, despite how lovely the past few months have been, she must leave the estate where she’s currently staying—unfortunately, the women there have taken issue with her. Recently widowed, Lady Susan tried to keep her affair with the estate’s owner, Mr. Manwaring, discreet. She hasn’t been involved with anyone but him, except that she flirted “a little” with Sir James Martin in order to estrange him from his fiancée. But her motives were good: in spite of those who call her a bad mother, she was only trying to set Sir James up with her daughter, Frederica. This would have worked, if Frederica wasn’t so stupid.
This letter reveals that everything Lady Susan told Charles was a lie: she was actually forced to leave her friends’ home because she seduced two men who should have been off-limits, which explains why she’s fleeing to Churchill now. The humor of this passage comes from both its sharp contrast to Lady Susan’s previous letter, and from the way Lady Susan understates her own dastardly deeds: clearly, she thinks the women in the Manwaring household are overreacting. After all, she tried to keep her affair with Mr. Manwaring hush-hush, and she only flirted slightly with Sir James. Lady Susan also doesn’t seem to care that her husband recently died—she’s not exactly grieving the loss, since she’s already flirting with multiple men. In fact, family seems to matter very little to Lady Susan: she has an odd idea of motherly love, as she was trying to seduce Sir James on behalf of her daughter. This is an uncomfortable and manipulative dynamic, and what’s more, Lady Susan doesn’t even seem to care about her daughter. Though she was acting in Frederica’s name, she probably didn’t have her best interests at heart.
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Sir James did propose to marry Frederica, but the girl was vehemently opposed. And Lady Susan would have married this wealthy man herself were he not “contemptibly weak.” Now, Sir James has left the estate, and the women of the house are furious with Lady Susan—so furious that Mrs. Manwaring might have tried writing to her guardian, Mr. Johnson (who happens to be Alicia’s husband). It was smart of Mr. Johnson to break with Mrs. Manwaring when she got married, and Lady Susan asks Alicia to stoke that resentment. But now that the whole estate is in chaos, Lady Susan must leave.
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Lady Susan hopes that Mr. Johnson isn’t still mad at her, since (despite his flaws) other people find him respectable. It’s awkward that he refuses to see her given how close she and Alicia are. Lady Susan is coming to Charles’s estate in London, which is her last resort—she doesn’t like Charles and she’s scared of his wife, but she has nowhere else to go.
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Letter III. Catherine tells her mother, Lady De Courcy, that they unfortunately won’t be able to spend Christmas together, because Lady Susan plans to visit. Catherine is surprised, since she assumed that Lady Susan was happy staying with the Manwarings. While Catherine knew they’d eventually have to host her, she didn’t expect it to happen so soon. She has a grudge against Lady Susan because of her bad behavior when Catherine and Charles were first engaged; unfortunately, Charles is always overly kind to Lady Susan and accepted her profuse apologies. They had to help her out financially after her husband died, but Charles didn’t need to encourage Lady Susan to visit.
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Unlike Charles, Catherine isn’t looking forward to Lady Susan’s visit. While Charles believes Lady Susan’s apologies, Catherine thinks that there might be more to the story. After all, Lady Susan is known to be attractive but manipulative, and she’s even unkind to her own daughter.
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Letter IV. Catherine’s brother, Reginald, is amused that Lady Susan will be visiting. He’s heard nasty rumors about her: she flirted with both Mr. Manwaring and Sir James while staying with them, proving that she was trying to disrupt the entire Manwaring family. Reginald is excited: he plans to visit in order to meet the woman who could seduce two attached men simultaneously. He’s glad, however, that Lady Susan’s daughter won’t be joining them—according to his sources, Frederica is boring and proud, a sharp contrast to Lady Susan.
Letter V. Lady Susan writes to Alicia that she has arrived at Charles’s estate, called Churchill. While Charles has treated her well so far, she’s miffed by Catherine’s coldness. Lady Susan wanted Catherine to be happy to see her, but Catherine still seems upset about Lady Susan’s attempts to prevent her marriage—even though this happened six years ago. At the time, Lady Susan also stopped Charles from buying her husband’s old estate when they were forced to sell it.
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Lady Susan sometimes regrets this, but she was worried about her husband’s dignity at the time, since he would have been selling the estate to his younger brother. Besides, Charles was about to get married and have children, so Lady Susan wouldn’t have benefitted from the sale—if Charles had remained unmarried, Lady Susan and her husband could have lived with him.
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Lady Susan’s interference must have put a sour taste in Catherine’s mouth. But she was never going to like Lady Susan, anyway, and at least Catherine’s feelings haven’t kept Charles from giving Lady Susan money. Charles is gullible and rich, but he has no idea where to spend his money. For this reason alone, Lady Susan is glad to be staying with him—and while she’s here, she plans to change Catherine’s negative opinion of her by befriending her children. In the meantime, she’ll continue writing to Mr. Manwaring (in front of the Vernons, she pretends that his letters are from Mrs. Manwaring).
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Letter VI. Catherine writes to Reginald with a full account of Lady Susan: she’s beautiful, even more beautiful than they predicted she would be. Beyond that, she’s also intelligent and graceful—she was so polite to Catherine, in fact, that Catherine almost forgot all their history. She was expecting Lady Susan to behave like a flirt, but she’s just the opposite. Still, Catherine knows it’s all fake, and that Lady Susan’s good manners must be what allow her to lie effectively. She even came close to convincing Catherine that she cares about Frederica, although Catherine knows that’s not true.
Since even Catherine nearly believes Lady Susan’s act, it makes sense that Charles has bought into it completely: he believes that Lady Susan left the Manwarings’ voluntarily, still grieving for her late husband. But Catherine knows that Lady Susan stayed at the Manwarings’ far too long for that to be true, and she assumes that Lady Susan had to leave to save face. However, she also thinks that Reginald’s gossip must have been wrong—Lady Susan couldn’t have seduced Mr. Manwaring in addition to Sir James, since she regularly writes to Mrs. Manwaring.
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Letter VII. Lady Susan tells Alicia that, while her friend’s offer to spend time with Frederica is kind, she shouldn’t bother—Frederica is stupid and has nothing of value to offer. Besides, any time they spent together would mean less time spent on Frederica’s education, and because Lady Susan has no accomplishments, she wants Frederica to have at least a few. Still, Frederica shouldn’t spend too much time on that, either—Lady Susan plans for her to marry Sir James within a year. She only sent Frederica to school to humiliate her, since she’ll be one of the oldest students there.
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In the meantime, Alicia just has to stop Sir James from marrying anyone else—this shouldn’t be a problem, because Lady Susan is sure that he’ll propose again. Overall, she’s proud of how she’s handled this situation: she didn’t want to cruelly force Frederica into an unhappy marriage, so she’s instead tricking her into believing it’s her own idea, given how miserable she’ll be at school.
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Staying at Churchill is still pretty dull, but now Lady Susan has some amusement: Catherine’s brother Reginald has arrived. He’s handsome and clever, but overly flirty—still, Lady Susan hopes that once she gets him on her side, he’ll be fun to talk to. The main goal of this exercise will be to “subdue” Reginald, since he currently has a negative opinion of her—and when he changes his mind about her, it will have the added bonus of humbling his proud family and annoying Catherine. At the very least, Lady Susan will have a good time.
Letter VIII. Catherine writes to her mother, Lady De Courcy, letting her know that Reginald won’t be coming home because he plans to stay at Churchill to hunt with Charles. Catherine’s mother shouldn’t tell Catherine’s father, Sir Reginald, but here’s what actually happened: Lady Susan has changed Reginald’s mind about her, which made him extend his stay.
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This manipulation disturbs Catherine. Reginald initially disliked Lady Susan and believed horrible rumors about her, so he thought he’d flirt with her for fun. But instead of reciprocating, she acted gracefully. Admittedly, if they didn’t all know the truth about her, Catherine might have understood his enchantment. As it stands, though, Reginald now claims that all of Lady Susan’s prior evils must have been youthful mistakes. Catherine thinks that Lady Susan is just toying with Reginald—and she’s horrified that the normally sensible Reginald is falling for it.
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Letter IX. Alicia writes to Lady Susan, enthusiastic about Reginald’s arrival at Churchill; in fact, she thinks her friend should marry him. His father, Sir Reginald, is ill and will probably die soon. And although no man is in Lady Susan’s league, Reginald is well-liked and might come close. Mr. Manwaring would obviously be jealous, but Lady Susan can’t be expected to wait until he’s free to remarry. In other news, Alicia has recently seen Sir James, whom she believes would marry either Frederica or Lady Susan in an instant. He even claimed that his engagement to Mr. Manwaring’s sister was just a joke, and they both laughed at her expense.
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Letter X. In response to Alicia, Lady Susan claims that she has no plans to marry Reginald. She doesn’t need the money right now, and until Sir Reginald is dead, the marriage wouldn’t benefit her. However, she thinks that she could marry him if she wanted—she’s “triumph[ed]” over him completely, which even Catherine has noticed. Catherine is probably going to try to change Reginald’s mind about her, but Lady Susan will block her attempts—she’s having too much fun watching Reginald warm to her.
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Ironically, Lady Susan made Reginald like her by not flirting with him. Instead, she engaged him in serious conversation, and now she believes he’s very much in love. Lady Susan’s seduction was flawless; in fact, the only reason that Catherine sees through her is because of their prior history. But even if Lady Susan didn’t care about Mr. Manwaring, she wouldn’t want to marry Reginald, who could never compare—Reginald is nice enough, but the fact that he ever thought badly of Lady Susan is a mark against him. For now, she’s just amusing herself; soon, she’ll hint to Frederica that Sir James plans to propose again.
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