The Bohemian Girl (13 page)

Thickly he said ‘Yes’, and Diana trembled. His eyebrows were lowered, his mouth was down at the corners, and his colour was high.

‘You look remarkably like your father at the moment!’ Diana said. She thought: but I’ve
never
found him appealing, attractive. He’s quite plain – plain and heavy. A blond stupid weight, a mere Army officer, admirable only when viewed far off in his uniform.

‘If you’d only
believed
me,
at Violet’s wedding. I wouldn’t have disliked you – I wouldn’t have learnt positively to hate you – I might have
wanted
to marry you. Oh,
damn
you.’

‘Diana!’

‘I won’t be trapped. I won’t have it implied that I am a fool. I will not be patronised, in fact I don’t know how I’ve endured it all this time.’ She paused. ‘How can you be so – so confident? You don’t believe anyone
could
jilt you, do you, Captain Fitzclare! In spite of your forever saying how
inferior
you are to me?’ Her voice was very loud, but the anger in it was unmixed with fear or misery. She looked womanly, not like a girl.

‘V-very well,’ said Julian, getting up. ‘Very well. I d-do understand you, and believe you. And I sh-shan’t ask you again.’

‘Good! Good!’

Lady Blentham flung open the door and saw Diana in a tantrum.

‘Diana.’

There was two seconds’ immobile silence.

‘I’ve broken it off,’ she said. ‘I won’t marry him, Mamma. I told him so weeks ago, but he would not listen!’

‘Do you realise that I could hear you from outside my room? You were shouting.’

‘No, I didn’t, and I’m afraid I don’t very much care.’

Angelina’s voice grew even quieter than before. She had taken in Diana’s first words, about the engagement, and she was afraid of fainting. ‘I don’t think, Diana, that I have ever heard you shout before.’

Julian went over to the window and stood there unsteadily, cursing under his breath because he had knocked over a chair on his way.

‘I shall shout, Mamma,’ said Diana.

‘I trust not!’ said Lady Blentham.

‘D-diana has absolutely p-put an end to our engagement, L-lady Blentham,’ said Fitzclare, turning. ‘I h-hope she c-comes to regret her d-decision!’

‘I hope she does
not
.’

Angelina’s attitude filled them both with shame. Although the breaking of the engagement was none of her doing and the last thing she wanted, she felt very powerful for a moment, when she saw the pair not knowing where to look. As Julian, mumbling, tried to express himself in a more proper spirit, Diana thought rather wildly: we’re like Adam and Eve, being cast out of the Garden of Eden.

Diana turned twenty-two in January, 1896. She ceased to be a very young girl, and became more independent; though, since her jilting of Fitzclare, people had tended to treat her as a wayward and troublesome child who might have yet more dangerous qualities growing inside her. Some mothers of fresh debutantes went so far as to advise their daughters not to make friends with Diana Blentham.

When Lady Blentham heard of this she told Diana that, if her father had not been so conscientious about attending the House of Lords, and if she, Angelina, had not felt it her duty to go with him, there would have been no more London Seasons for any of the family. Diana would have had to make do with the local society, and occasional visits to relations, none of whom except Violet was likely to find a husband for her.

It was Angelina who implied this, but it was Lord Blentham who thought Diana a pure idiot for throwing over Julian Fitzclare. He had said so, quite calmly, when she was still in a very bad state of mind over her broken engagement. No one seemed to believe that it had been a hard thing to do. Though their own lives were absolutely guided by convention, most people whom Diana knew paradoxically supposed that it was both easy and a great entertainment to behave unsuitably in Society’s eyes. But as time went on, Diana did begin to find it easier than before, and quite amusing too. She learnt to say shocking things in a very deadpan, even impatient way, without sidling or smiling; she had a latchkey made with Angelina’s cold permission, and she went alone to the theatre to see Ibsen’s
Ghosts.

She bought a bicyle in 1895. Though her parents disapproved in principle of women riding machines, they could not seriously object to her bicycling, because it was the Season’s craze and every girl was doing it. Diana often enjoyed herself when she was twenty-one and twenty-two, but she was not happy, and believed she never would be.

*

One Sunday afternoon in her fifth London Season, Diana went to bicycle in Battersea Park with two other girls in their twenties, but she left them with a wave of her hand after a short while, and turned down a narrow path alone.

Diana was not a good bicyclist, but she was determined, and quite capable of keeping steady on a straight, flat road. One could have, as everyone said, a great sense of freedom on a well-managed bicycle. Diana did not feel it unless she was by herself, unafraid of falling off, and able to go fast and ring her bell unnecessarily. Now, as she rode under a line of budding plane trees, a remarkably handsome man on an old-fashioned penny-farthing raised his hat to her; and Diana dared to remove her attention from the road and bow, just as though she were in a carriage.

She did not notice the coming slope until her bicycle wobbled at the change of gradient. She found herself going faster and faster, then she veered round to the side, crashed into a pedestrian and fell.

The man was knocked to the ground and, as the machine went spinning from Diana’s grip, he broke her fall with his hard stomach, and his arms.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’ve a fine pair of legs to show, I will say, if you must be knocking me over on a Sunday afternoon!’ He did not smile as he said this, and released her.

In the struggle, Diana’s skirt had been pushed up to her waist to reveal blue serge bicycling knickers.

‘Thank you – I’m sorry!’ Diana gasped. Then she realised what he had said and added steadily, ‘I hope I didn’t hurt you?’, pulling down her skirt. She did not blush.

‘To be sure you hurt me, Miss –?’ The man frowned, and rubbed his shoulder.

‘Blentham.’ Diana wondered why she had given him her name, instead of saying it was quite unimportant. He was a dark and ugly man, with a long, intense face, a broken nose, extragavant clothes, and a faint Irish accent.

‘Miss who Blentham?’

‘My name happens to be Diana.’ She immediately felt she had been pompous.

‘Well, you have hurt me, Miss Diana Blentham. But have I hurt you, is more to the point? You’ve not damaged yourself, apart from showing your legs?’

‘Don’t mention my legs!’ she said, quite angrily, and stopped.

‘
My
name is Michael Molloy, and I happen to be a painter. Do you know, you’re one of the most handsome women I’ve ever seen? You’d make a fine model. And you seem to have plenty of spirit. On the whole, I think I’d like to marry someone very like you.’

‘Oh, don’t talk rubbish, just in an attempt to embarrass me further!’ cried Diana, staring.

‘Well, I shan’t say it again. There, you can’t be offended, can you, Miss Blentham? Here’s your hat, my dear, put it on, there’s an old lady looking at us as though she’d heard the Last Trump sounding. You must never be hatless out of doors, didn’t you know?’ he told her.

‘Or unchaperoned!’ said Diana, taking her hat. She realised that she was still sitting on the grass, practically leaning against Michael Molloy. He had not troubled to get up and was lying flat on the ground.

‘As you say, ma’am. Now, do you have a chaperone near? Or elsewhere?’

Diana straightened her shoulders. ‘I came with some other girls.’

‘And you’ve left them?’ He had narrow but very bright dark grey eyes, set under black eyebrows which grew together in the middle and were even thicker than Julian Fitzclare’s. They were commanding eyes, Diana thought, and though of course his words were amusing, his voice was grim and his eyes looked sad. They were also full of sex, she was sure of
that, quite quite unlike Julian Fitzclare’s. She had had other suitors, too. Diana looked away from him, and said: ‘Yes.’

Michael Molloy raised his torso from the grass. ‘Perhaps I’d better not ask you to have tea with me, all the same. You’d best pick up that machine of yours, and be rejoining them. By the by, where do you live?’

‘Queen Anne’s Gate – and in Kent!’

He stood up, and did not ask for the number of the house in London.

‘Goodbye, Miss Blentham,’ he said, nodded, and turned.

Her lips moved quietly as she watched him lope swiftly away: she had been perfectly sure he was going to flirt with her. Diana picked up her bicycle and, with quivering legs, pushed it back up the little slope which now seemed a full-sized hill.

*

One week later, a large parcel came to Queen Anne’s Gate by the afternoon post. It was addressed in a pointed, sloping hand to ‘
Hon.
Diana Blentham
.’ The Blenthams were alone together in the morning-room when it arrived.

‘Not from Cerisette’s, surely, Diana?’ said Angelina.

‘No, it can’t be.’

‘But it can only be clothes,’ said Maud; ‘a box of that size.’

‘From one of your admirers, Didie?’ said Lord Blentham. ‘Well, open it!’

Diana, sighing at them, was already doing so. She took the parcel over to the table when she had removed the wrapping paper, and lifted off the lid. Inside, covered with tissue-paper, was a tweed coat very like a man’s Norfolk jacket. She did not show it to the family, but took out the envelope which lay beneath, and opened it. The letter said:

Diana put it in her pocket and, trying desperately not to smile, laid the jacket over the back of an armchair. Next she pulled out an Eton collar and a belt.

‘But I thought it was not from Cerisette’s, Diana?’

‘No, Mamma, someone else sent it. Look! Shan’t I look ravishing in it?’ She held up the knickerbockers which completed the suit, and started to laugh, clutching them. ‘Oh, dear. Oh, Lord.’

‘Bloomers!’ said Lord Blentham.

His wife blushed and said: ‘Rational Dress. Diana, no.’

‘You won’t wear it?’ said Maud.

‘Of course I shall wear it, it’s a present,’ laughed Diana.

‘Oh, no, you won’t, my girl,’ said her father.

Diana turned. ‘Maud, you should have a set made for yourself, then we can go out together.’

Angelina got up. ‘If this – monstrosity is a present, it is a present from whom, Diana?’

‘Oh, a very nice person,’ she said, calming down.

‘Let me see that letter you were reading.’

‘No, Mamma.’

‘No daughter of mine is going to wear bloomers in public!’ said Charles, and then was a little ashamed of having been pompous. Diana saw this.

‘They’re not bloomers, Papa. As Mamma said, they’re called Rational Dress nowadays. And it
is
rational. So sensible, don’t you think? Practical,’ she said.

‘I ask you not to wear it,’ said Angelina, raising her face. Maud followed the others’ exchange with her eyes, but did not speak.

‘You’re a disgrace, Didie,’ said Charles.

‘We shall see, Mamma,’ said Diana, after a pause. ‘I’ll take it upstairs for the present.’ Gentle, happy tears began to fall from her eyes, and she gathered up the jacket and breeches and crushed them to her as she left the room.

‘Better burn them, Angelina,’ said Charles when Diana closed the door. He opened the newspaper to show that he took no further responsibility.

‘Yes,’ said Lady Blentham. ‘Yes.’

‘Why should you?’ said Maud. ‘What right have you to do so?’

Her parents stared at her: it was so long since she had been even theoretically rebellious, and she had not been rude since she was a child. ‘You have no right to burn Diana’s clothes,’ she said. ‘No right at all!’

‘I think you are not yourself,’ said Angelina.

‘Maudie, help yourself to more tea!’ said her father.

‘No, thank you. Do you know, I think I
might
learn to bicycle!’

‘Charles,’ said Angelina, deciding not to encourage Maud by listening to her, ‘do you realise that those clothes may – just possibly – have been sent Diana by a man?’

Lord Blentham jumped, and let out a crack of laughter. ‘What? You don’t say so! I say, what a – how monstrous! I must say, that is absolutely disgraceful. It can’t be true,’ he scowled foolishly.

Upstairs, Diana laid her Rational Dress on the bed and continued to cry over it, because she was in love. She had known for days that, in three minutes in Battersea Park, Michael Molloy had succeeded in making her feel alive, and she must love him for it. Ludicrous as it was, she had become extraordinarily aware of everything about her, and had been given telescopic eyes for seeing trees and flowers in the outside world, foolishness and intrigue and comedy in her own. She had tried to put him out of her mind, because it had been a hateful encounter for all its delicious unconventionality; and yet because she had met him it seemed wonderful merely to be in England doing the London Season.

Now it turned out that he knew the precious Cornwallises, who had provided Julian Fitzclare years ago. Diana laughed and hugged herself and called herself a fool.

She put on her suit and examined herself in the mirror, planning and wondering at how Michael Molloy had guessed her size. At last, still wearing it, she sat down at her little writing table and began to scribble a letter to Violet. It was not written in her ususal discreet, elegant, faintly amusing style: she should hardly be expected to write like that.

When this letter had been finished, addressed and posted, Diana was miserable for hours, because she had imagined and said that Michael Molloy was serious in his intentions towards her. It occurred to her that he might want simply to seduce and not to marry her, but it was not this thought which made her ashamed, only her presumption in writing confidential nonsense to Violet about his being a magnificent man. She had worked a spell against his ever wanting to see her again. This, thought Diana, is love.

*

Arthur Cornwallis was amused by Michael Molloy’s version of the bicycle accident, and because he supposed that Diana was too strongminded a girl to be seriously embarrassed at seeing Molloy again, he agreed to invite both her and Maud to a soirée one evening when Molloy intended to come. Michael Molloy knew very well that Cornwallis would be as shocked as Lady Blentham at the idea of his marrying Diana, and he said only that he meant to persuade her to model for him, clothed.