Shaun van Rensburg

The neighbours sat with their wives, each within their respective drawing-rooms, at nearly the same hour, discussing their children in that way peculiar to parents: at some moments with concern, at some with patronisation, at others with resolve or indifference.

At Gossamer Park, Mr Wordsworth read the paper and only half listened to his lady as she voiced her concerns over “dear Forsythe” and his “inability to speak to ladies—or gentlemen, for that matter!”

Mr Wordsworth had heard it all before, so his full attention wasn’t required (not that he was in the habit of giving it), but he obliged his lady with his grunts and the occasional, “Indeed?”

Mrs Wordsworth was a very elegant lady—genteel, beautiful, fashionable—but she was beyond silly. Her education had prepared her for little beyond flirting and playing the pianoforte (both occupations which she’d given up as soon as she’d been married). She loved her children and had doted on them in their infancy, but unfortunately she belonged to that set of females who could never see her little boy and three little girls as anything but.

Mrs Wordsworth said: “What will you do about it, Mr Wordsworth? It cannot continue—certainly, it cannot. I fear for his future. What might happen if you pass into Heaven before me? He is not ready, and I simply know that Mr Barker—oh, odious man that he is!—will come and take advantage of his innocence.”

Mr Wordsworth had heard enough to form a reply. “My dear, if I do die before you, I am assured—yes, I recall that you have assured me on several occasions—that you will not be far behind. If that is truly the case, I think neither of us should give it much thought.”

“Why should we not?”

“It will be Forsythe’s problem.”

“And what of his sisters?” cried Mrs Wordsworth. “What should they do when Mr Barker puts them out of house and home?”

“They shall do what they do best, my dear. They shall complain and hope against reason that their troubles will be solved without their having to lift a finger.”

“Mr Wordsworth, you must be serious now.”

“I am perfectly serious,” said Mr Wordsworth, turning to the second page. “Forsythe has always been the sensible one.”

“Sensible?” cried Mrs Wordsworth, appalled. “You call him sensible? When he is shut away in the library each day, hardly eats, is deathly afraid of hounds and horses, has never been to Town—does not even desire it? He is the most insensible creature of them all, sir! I should know, certainly, for I am his mother!”

Mr Wordsworth grunted.

At Beauchamp Hall, a similar scene could be found; but here it was something of a reversal, for it was Mr Percy who spoke to his wife of his concerns regarding their eldest daughter, Lavinia.

Mr Percy was an anxious man by nature. He liked the future to be known, its outcomes to be controlled, and quite disliked change in most of its forms. He’d been attractive in his youth but had lost his figure and his face to time and worry (not that it ever mattered as much to gentlemen as it did to ladies). In the company of people, however, he seemed composed—but in the company of family or friends, he seemed rather too nervous for his own good.

His wife listened politely to him as she attempted to paint his portrait with her watercolours, but, much like Mr Wordsworth at Gossamer Park, she wasn’t really attending.

“Please hold still, Mr Percy,” she said. “If you keep moving about like that, your nose is going to look much larger than it actually is.”

Mr Percy sighed in a dramatic way. “I cannot see how you might be so very calm! Why, Lavinia is the most troublesome—the most vexing—daughter of any there is!”

“I do not think that is at all accurate.”

“Not accurate?” cried Mr Wordsworth. “She flirts with every gentleman she is able, she has no sense of duty or propriety, she still refuses to learn any instrument, is hardly able to speak French—!”

“My dear,” said Mrs Percy, “I do not see why she must do all these things—she is pretty and cleanly enough to attract a husband as soon as she is brought out—which I daresay should have happened when she was seventeen or eighteen. Why you have waited this long to see to it, I have no notion.”

Mr Percy cried: “You know very well why I have not seen to her coming out! Imagine the scandal she should cause in London! Really, Mrs Percy, you must be more sensible—she is, after all, your daughter .”

Mrs Percy heard this utterance quite clearly. She put down her brush and looked to her husband. “Oh, is she indeed my daughter?”

“She most certainly is.”

“Then perhaps you will tell me why you have acted the part of her mother all these years?”

Mr Percy said he didn’t understand Mrs Percy’s meaning (but I might inform my readers that he very well did).

“Perhaps I should enlighten you then, sir?” said the lady.

“No, no!” returned the gentleman. “I have indulged her; yes, yes—! There you have it! I have indulged our daughter, and now she threatens the very name of Percy!”

“At least she is beautiful. Beautiful girls and handsome men always have an easier time of it in Society, I daresay. They are forgiven more their shortcomings. Perhaps she should find a husband that may make her act respectably?”

“Her prettiness must not be her only contribution to marriage. No, she must learn, she must settle, she must attend to her music and sewing. I should not want my daughter to end up like Mrs Wordsworth.”

Mrs Percy rose from her chair. “Do not start with that again, Mr Percy. I can feel the headache coming on, and you are very likely the cause. Cannot you let the past go?”

“With an apology, I might! As of yet, I have not received a single one. You cannot understand these things. It is a matter of gentlemanly pride.”

Now, it may come as a surprise to my readers that the Wordsworths of Gossamer Park and the Percys of Beauchamp Hall were not on the best of terms, despite their being neighbours of such similar character. Indeed, while I know that solemn words were shared at a ball some years prior in the presence of an important personage, it was so long ago that even the two sets of parents could not recount exactly what was said. It had something to do with the raising of their children—this much all of them knew—for each family thought the other particularly inept at such things. Mrs Wordsworth thought Lavinia Percy too lively for a young lady (which she was), and Mr Percy thought Forsythe Wordsworth too timid for the eldest son (which was very right), but thinking the truth and speaking it are two very separate things. I suppose the matter had been made worse by the presence of the personage—some titled lady or another—whose good opinion had been sought and, in the face of whatever words had been spoken, seemingly lost forever in the minds of both families.

At any rate, after the incident, both families had similar reactions. On the carriage drive home, Mr Percy had forbidden his children from forming any sort of connection with the Wordsworths. No visits, no favours, no friendships. Mrs Wordsworth, upon hearing this (for such things are always bound to be heard), made Mr Wordsworth forbid their own children from having any dealings at all with the Percys. Her husband obeyed, but only after several days of prodding.

This turn of events didn’t greatly affect their young people—the Misses Wordsworth had never been fond of Lavinia or her brother, and Mr Bertram Percy didn’t think their father could truly mean for them to avoid interaction with their neighbours forever (this was England, after all!) and so didn’t take up arms against such pettiness. But Lavinia, ever willing to do what she mustn’t and speak with whom she wasn’t allowed, took it upon herself to befriend whom she saw as the most agreeable of the Wordsworths: Forsythe himself.

Hardly had her father uttered the words when she donned her riding-habit, requested her horse to be brought round, and set off for the quiet walk that she knew Forsythe frequented to escape the presence of his mother. Here, behind a tree, she had waited until the gentleman arrived with his novel, and she set upon him quite indecorously .

In a single afternoon, she’d told him all her secrets and then, having exhausted this, spent the rest of the time gossiping about their shared acquaintance—which Forsythe bore with equanimity. You see, Mr Forsythe Wordsworth didn’t at that time possess a talent for saying no or for directly condemning improper actions, and Miss Lavinia Percy possessed both of these qualities in abundance. On that afternoon, any hints of Forsythe desiring solitude were ignored by Lavinia. She was determined, he was (eventually) indifferent to her presence.

Five years had seen the steady development of their friendship, a time in which they often visited one another when their families removed for the Season (for Forsythe despised London and Lavinia wasn’t allowed to go) and time in which they’d grown much too comfortable with one another than what their parents would’ve considered at all acceptable.

‘Compliant Hearts‘ was released on the 14th of February, 2025.