The Bohemian Girl (19 page)

Lady Blentham did have a pretty good idea of the conditions in which Diana must be living, though she thrust the thought of rats and leaking roofs out of her mind. Her mental picture alternated between a vision of some bank-clerk’s dark cottage with a cornice and rosette in a twelve-foot-square ceiling, and the famous painting of Chatterton on his garret windowsill. Curiously, the poet’s garret was less repulsive to her than the bank-clerk’s house: even though she had disliked the few poems of Diana’s she had read. She
considered that no woman could ever be the equal of Tennyson, Arnold or Wordsworth. Angelina did admire the works of Christina Rosetti, and nearly all poetry, except Diana’s, was a comfort to her now. She filled in two hours of her day by reading it, the two hours she would have spent in driving out if she had kept a carriage.

I never realised that I had so few friends, thought Lady Blentham. And yet I am not a cold, unpleasant woman – I am not. I was merely ambitious, but always for others, not for myself! Do I deserve this, do I?

She decided to send Diana seventy guineas, enough to be a sacrifice.

*

On a cold day in January, Diana returned from visiting half the fashionable milliners in the West End. She had asked for a job in each one. Every modiste had seen firstly that to be served by a woman of her class would embarrass the customers, and secondly that she was too poor to buy a straight-fronted corset and a black stuff dress for working in.

In one establishment, a lady in furs had suddenly cried out: ‘Diana! My dear – where
have
you been?’

‘Hello, Millicent,’ said Diana.

The modiste’s mouth was pruriently open.

‘Doesn’t it seem an age since we came out?’ said Countess Vladiska, staring. She had been a pudgy freckled heiress in 1892, and was now a less rich
jolie-laide
, notorious in her circle since her first divorce.

‘Yes,’ said Diana. ‘Could you use your influence with Madama Lis to get me a job here?’

‘A job? My influence? But my dear, why?’

‘Come, come, Millicent,’ said Diana clearly. At that, she looked at both women’s faces, and left the shop.

Millicent Vladiska told a garbled version of Diana’s story to another customer, who had not recognised the underfed beauty in a worn-out ulster and pork-pie hat.

When she arrived back at Museum Street, Diana curled up on her bed. It was exceedingly cold, and grey snow was falling, and the cheerful noise being made by Bridget and
Alice beyond the wall did not help to warm her. She shut her eyes and stopped her ears, as she thought that she had no right to inflict unnecessary suffering either on herself or on Alice. If she could not make a hundred pounds honestly within a month, she would go to Lady Blentham. One day soon, Millicent Vladiska’s story of how she had tried to find work in a fashionable milliner’s would reach her mother’s ears. Unless she acted quickly, the embarrassment caused to the Blentham family would never be forgiven her. She realised now that she cared very much for being a Blentham, and for their forgiveness.

Diana had tried to be independent for eight months, partly out of love for Michael’s memory, and partly out of hatred for him. She did hate him, for sheltering her from the reality of their position and then abandoning her to discover the worst of it for herself. He had left her to choose between life as a poor relation and earning her own living. He would have liked her to earn her own living when he was not by, that she knew. She must carry on trying. Diana cried a little, than got up and went down to the kitchen to join Bridget and Alice. The place smelt of mice and burnt onions.

She told the dull story of her day, and was halfway through it when there was a knock on the battered street-door.

‘It’s a dun,’ she said, and then after a second’s quiet screamed out loud: ‘Oh, my God, no, not tonight! Not tonight!’ It was weeks since she had lost control of herself. ‘There’s no coal – and practically nothing to eat – oh, God, have mercy –’

‘I’ll be seeing just who it is, mam, and I’ll see him off,’ said Bridget. ‘Do you calm yourself!’ She went clattering down the stairs.

Diana tried to comfort Alice, who had toddled over towards her mother and was roaring with sympathy into her lap. Diana prayed in Alice’s ear, softly and repetitively, that Bridget would be successful in turning away the dun. The sound of her voice quieted the child.

At length, Bridget came back, with a strange look on her face.

‘So?’ said Diana. ‘You were a very long time.’

‘’Tis not dun, mam,’ she said, taking out a card from her pocket. ‘’Tis a gentleman, calls himself Major Julian Fitzclare. Gave me his visiting-card he did, and said he wanted to see you for old times’ sake, for I’m afraid –’

‘
Julian
Fitzclare
? Are you sure?’

‘Well, I’m afraid I said you was at home to visitors.’ She wiped the card on her apron, and gave it to Diana, who read the words. Bridget was illiterate.

Alice took the card from her mother’s slackened grip and put it in her mouth. ‘So who is he, mam?’ said Bridget at the door. ‘He’s downstairs still, but I’ll be seeing him off if that’s what you wish.’

‘I was engaged to him once,’ said Diana slowly. ‘Show him up. I’ll touch him for a loan – he’s rather rich, you know. Even though I did – did
jilt
him, and it will look rather bad. But why has he found me out? Oh, dear, don’t look so astonished, it was years ago, and he married some Scotch girl or other only two months afterwards, so we weren’t precisely deeply in love. I don’t have any scruples left.’ Diana did not mean any of this, but she was nervous. ‘Alice, darling, that paper will be bad for your digestion. Give it to Mamma.’

*

They went to dine, through Julian’s horrified kindness, at a steamy old-fashioned chop-house in High Holborn. He would have taken Diana to Romano’s but that, as she told him, she had nothing to wear. Her frowsty rooms had seemed an extraordinary setting even to Diana, at the moment he came through the door; and because of this, their first conversation in five years had been extremely uninhibited. Julian had exclaimed with rough shock and pity, Diana had said all was just as he saw it, and he had insisted on taking her out after being introduced to Bridget and Alice.

Now, in the chop-house, formalities began. They remembered properly that they had once been engaged, and that Diana had behaved badly. As they exchanged questions, Julian noticed that Diana drank a good deal of the burgundy. He had had a bottle before going to Museum Street.

‘How is your wife?’ said Diana.

‘C-Catriona is well, thank you.’ He had not lost his stammer, though Diana had expected him to do so with age.

‘Is your father still alive?’

‘Yes, c-certainly. And M-mother.’

‘I always liked your mother.’

‘Did you?’

‘Where are you living now?’

‘W-we’ve got a little p-place in Shropshire, I bought it myself, it’s not a f-family place. I thought p-perhaps you knew.’

‘No, I left the world some time ago … oh, dear, that sounds rather bitter, and I’m not.’ Only in debt and hungry, thought Diana. ‘Congratulations on your becoming a Major,’ she smiled.

‘N-not necessary to c-congratulate me, I’ve r-resigned my commission. Of c-course if there were to be a war, I’d g-go back if I c-could. We’ve also g-got a house in London – Chester Square,’ he told her.

‘How delightful. How many children do you have, Julian?’

‘Three s-so far.’

‘I see. What are their names?’

‘M-mabel, C-charlotte and Agatha, Diana.’

Diana thought what ugly names they were. ‘I’m sure they’re all very pretty. No heir yet? Catriona was charming, as I remember.’

‘Y-yes, she is.’

‘Julian, why did you want to see me? How did you find me, in any case?’

‘H-heard you were in difficulties – London version of the b-bush telegraph, you know. And actually – I g-got an inquiry agent to discover where you w-were l-living.’

‘What? The sort of Private Inquiry man who provides evidence for the Divorce Courts?’

‘He d-doesn’t do divorce w-work,’ said Julian, looking very military. ‘It’s against his p-principles.’ He smiled. ‘All q-quite above board!’

Diana laughed. ‘But why?’

‘L-lady Blentham wouldn’t g-give me your direction. In f-fact, she thought it w-wasn’t a good idea for m-me to see you. Nor would Edward. H-however, I wanted very much to s-see you – and s-see if there w-was anything I c-could do for you.’

‘They don’t know my direction. I didn’t give it to them, on purpose. I wonder why they did not confide in you?’ Diana paused, and they looked at each other. ‘Julian, the thing is, I’m in the devil of a hole. Could you lend me a thousand pounds or so, do you think?’ She felt very bold and bad saying this, though she knew it sounded most unpractised.

Diana looked down at the table, and Julian shouted: ‘Waiter!’ She thought of the face at which she was not looking, and drank up her burgundy, which was not so good as Michael’s. She was reminded of Michael’s wine-merchant, one of her most unpleasant creditors.

Julian still looked a subaltern, though he must be over thirty. His whitey-blond eyebrows and his hair were both as thick as ever, and the only change in him was a redder complexion and a harder look in his eyes. Once or twice he had gazed at her sentimentally, and so Diana put the slight hardness of his expression down to the influence of his wife: Catriona Graham had been her name, Graham like the doctor who had attended Michael.

Diana had aged greatly, thought Julian, but he knew that was the effect of insufficient food, worry, and the lack of a protector. Her eyes, hair, mouth and nose were as striking as ever. Her complexion had barely suffered, but he guessed that a few more years’ poverty would produce red veins and crow’s feet, and stiff lines running from her nostrils to her mouth. The thought produced first nasty satisfaction, then pity and almost love. He was unhappy with his wife, but was far too polite and intelligent to say so.

‘I hope,’ he said, ‘I hope you were h-happy with your h-husband.’

‘My Fierce Fenian,’ said Diana with her elbows on the table. She dropped her eyes then.

Julian paused. ‘To h-how much do your d-debts amount?’ he said, in a voice suitable for addressing a junior officer.

‘Roughly – five hundred in all. I asked you for a thousand because – well, in short, I’m desperate for a tiny bit of temporary capital. And you are very rich.’

‘I’ll lend you a thousand. No interest, of course.’

‘That is – impossibly kind of you, Julian. Thank you.’ Diana had never expected him to lend her so much: she remembered her bravado in asking for it with amused shame.

‘N-nonsense! W-we must forget that b-boy and girl nonsense – at l-least, it ought to be a b-bond of some kind between us. D-don’t you rather agree, D-diana?’

‘Oh, I do,’ said Diana. ‘I do. And don’t distress yourself – I
shall
be able to repay you one day.’

Julian unbuttoned his top-coat, which he was obliged to wear because the chop-house was so draughty, and pulled out his wallet. Diana watched the snowflakes melt on the mirror-like dark window-panes to her right. He handed her five Treasury notes and said: ‘Now l-look, that’s b-beside the thousand. I want you to b-buy just one pretty dress.’

Diana looked up. ‘So that you can take me to Romano’s?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Julian, I won’t be
seduced
by you.’ She blushed, and tried to stop a smile.

‘
What
! Good G-god, Diana, l-life with that man has – you’re my oldest friend – my very oldest woman friend! Although you’ve changed, you’re b-bound to have ch-changed … Of c-course, you always were u-unusual, that was w-why –’

‘How odd it seems. Just imagine,’ she said, sitting well back with her glass of burgundy, as she had often done when dining with Michael. ‘I could have married you, and then we two, just we two, would have been living in your little place in Shropshire. You have riches and security and position, have you not, Julian?’ He did not look too embarrassed, he knew her. Diana continued: ‘Paying long visits to Ballynore, perhaps that would not have been so agreeable. And in the – in due season, perhaps we’d have gone to – oh, Trouville and Deauville, Baden-Baden, Monte Carlo. No, I was right to say no. I was right.’

Diana’s eye prickled with a tear. The reckless but unhappy bravado she had shown tonight frightened her more than it did Julian. She knew where all this must lead, and of course it was very wrong: but she was too proud to leave a course once chosen, and Diana felt now that she had tacitly chosen to be Julian’s mistress when she had made her disgraceful, wonderful marriage.

‘No w-woman
like
you,’ said Julian, as he patted Diana’s shoulder and tried to disarrange her shift. ‘We ought to have married.’

Diana was shocked by what she had done – and had enjoyed, even though her new lover was not Michael. I’ve taken a lover, she thought.

It was not that Diana, after three years of life among people who cared little for propriety, believed it sinful for two people to make love if they were not married. But she thought adultery wrong, the use of prostitutes unforgiveable, and careless lovemaking a sordid business. She wondered whether things would have been better or worse if the man had been someone other than Julian. She could not decide. He was a good man.

‘Yes, it’s a g-great p-pity you threw m-me over,’ said Julian.

She leant back into the pillow. ‘Do you really think we should have been happy?’ As he advanced, Diana pushed him gently away, because she was really very comfortable as she was.

‘We
are
g-going to be happy.’

‘This is nothing,’ said Diana, listening to her words, and watching him. ‘It won’t be repeated.’

Julian, who had been pressing against her, withdrew to the far side of the bed. ‘S-suppose you – er – have a b-baby, D-diana, as a r-result of our b-bit of – of this?’ He saw her eyes open like a child’s. ‘You’re not to worry! I m-meant only that I will t-take care of you.’

‘Oh!’ said Diana. She did not move towards him for protection as he had hoped.

‘H-human beings have s-such a n-need for each other,’ said Julian a moment later, and Diana watched the pair of brown moles below his left nipple move nervously up and down. When he saw her looking, he covered them up with his shirt. ‘
I
d-don’t regret this. I’ll m-make sure you d-don’t either. I’ll l-look after you – you r-really must let me l-look after you.’ His face was grim.

‘No,’ said Diana. ‘I want a little time to think, before … You’re doing quite enough for me in lending me a thousand pounds – and though of course it was rather a shock, this, now, was very
much
what I needed!’ she continued rather breathlessly: ‘One does so miss – a mere
man.
Do I shock you rather?’ Diana adjusted the pillows.

Julian said calmly: ‘I k-knew you were p-passionate, Diana, as w-well as c-clever – and I l-liked you for it, I l-loved it in you. I d-didn’t think it what some – elderly l-ladies would c-call immodest, or s-something.’

‘Oh, Julian, I’m not a
lady
,’ said Diana.

‘I shall s-see to it that you are – and that you l-live l-like one.’

He closed his eyes. His sudden thrust of good fortune in capturing Diana without even fully intending to do so had given Julian a headache. The noble beauty who had rejected him, he thought, would be his kept mistress, but he would be very kind to her, and there was, he believed, no malice in him. He did love her. The keeping of her would be so very discreet that he hoped Diana herself would not put the unkindest interpretation on their love-affair until it was absolutely necessary.

‘Well, this will have to be love free from ties,’ said Diana, making him jump. ‘You could not marry me, could you, even if Catriona didn’t exist. Just think of the talk there would be in the Cavalry Club!’ She looked out of the bed at the typing machine, at the orange-boxes, the deal wardrobe and the chamber pot. She was trying to concentrate on reality, but she was unable to see the nasty objects properly.

Julian smiled. ‘One doesn’t t-talk m-much, you know, in the C-cavalry Club.’

Diana was thankful to see that he had a little sense of humour, and a certain adroit intelligence which enabled him to avoid painful subjects. Before they made love again, she told him calmly to withdraw from her person at the suitable moment. Diana would have liked one more baby if Michael had lived.

‘Too s-sudden!’ Julian whispered. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

*

Diana had imagined that Julian, who could not be expected to bear the squalor of Museum Street, would give her odd presents of money. These, she had supposed, would be enough to allow her to rent a reasonably Comfortable lodging and employ a maid-of-all-work while she looked about for a job. She had not expected Julian himself to pay the rent of a charming house in Hampstead, and the wages of two servants, or to make her an allowance of forty pounds a month. But she understood, and acquiesced in his arrangements, and tried not to feel she was robbing him, for debt and poverty had been very terrible. It was illogical, thought Diana, but the less likely the prospect of more poverty became, the more frightful it appeared to her. And yet she still had doubts about her present life, though it was so agreeable, and moderately moral.

Julian said one day after luncheon: ‘Dearest, if w-we were m-married, you w-would hardly object to m-my s-supporting you. Where is the d-difference?’

‘Well, we are not married. And although we are very fond of each other – I don’t like being a kept woman. Even by you, even – temporarily. But unfortunately I have little choice.’

‘That’s a v-very v-vulgar expression, and I d-don’t like you to use it.’

‘I am glad we are not married,’ said Diana. ‘We shouldn’t have suited, Julian.’ She meant: if you love me, why don’t you leave your wife? Diana did not seriously want him to do this, but she wished him to make the suggestion.

‘As you l-like,’ he said, and looked at his watch and told her he must be going.

‘So I’ve hurt your feelings,’ said Diana.

He kissed her lightly, and said goodbye. At the doorway, he turned back and looked at her, sighed and wished that this could last. Diana looked very lovely now that she was at ease, well fed and well, if unusually, dressed. She wore her hair down like a girl’s, tied in the nape of her neck with a large black bow, and her crimson dress was plain, but not severe. The cream walls and bright window behind her made a flattering background.

‘Diana,’ he said, ‘I rather w-wish you l-loved me as I l-love you, b-because I do s-still love you. Do you r-remember the p-poems I used to c-copy for you, w-when we were young?’ His tone of voice was most unsentimental as he put his hand on the door.

Diana looked away and said: ‘Julian, wait one moment!’

He turned back a second time.

‘Tell me,’ said Diana, ‘how secret are you keeping me? Have you told anyone about our arrangement? Anyone at all?’ She lifted her eyebrows.

There was a slight pause. ‘G-good God! I’ve only t-told old M-monty, and he won’t g-gossip, Diana. Why are you s-so – suspicious, dash it? B-besides …’ said Julian.

‘Besides what?’

‘I’m not ashamed of y-you.’

Diana laughed. ‘Oh, go away, darling!’ It occurred to her that women in the best circles had been forgiven before now for having financially advantageous love-affairs, and she tried to comfort herself.

Soon after Julian was gone, Alice came staggering into the room. She was now a square-faced, black-browed child of eighteen months, with thick dust-coloured hair and pretty hands. Diana dressed her in simple loose frocks, and did not make her wear complicated underclothes, or unnecessary boots and hats and gloves.

‘Unca Julia bring present?’ she asked, planting her feet well apart on the carpet.

‘A present for Mamma, but not for you, I fear,’ said Diana.

‘Not for Alick? Mamma?’

‘I need presents,’ said Diana. ‘In fact, I almost live on presents, Alice. He brought me a little ruby ring. Look.’

‘Roobyring.’

‘Look.’ Diana pointed, and the child came forward.

‘Sparka,’ said Alice, putting her dirty fingers on the little table where a cheap but well-set ruby lay, uncovered, beside its box. ‘Not much use, ask me.’

Her mother put an arm round her. ‘Oh, darling, darling, where did you learn that!’ She sent Alice back to Bridget.

Diana put the ring on to go for a walk on Hampstead Heath. When she found a quiet bench, she took off her glove, looked at it, and wished she truly loved Julian. She had an idea that if she were only able to love him, her life both now and in the future would be enormously changed. Julian very much wanted to be loved: in that one way he was like Michael, and unlike other men. Diana dreaded the future.

He was not a bore, he was generous, he had a fine body, and he did not dismiss her writing as rubbish. But I can’t love him, thought Diana. After all, he does not love me. She could not even respond fully when he touched her, though she liked having him in bed with her, and tried hard to please him by making the noises she had made with her husband.

She looked down at the celandines near her feet, and up at the promising March sun, and thought how pleasant life could be. It was only when she thought of how many years and years of life she no doubt had ahead of her, that Diana became depressed.

Secrecy, she thought, and wondered whether she wanted it. Diana was lonely, but she refused to go with Julian to fashionable places where he said she might meet people. The idea of meeting a well-dressed crowd of people of all kinds, which might even include her relations, frightened her and she did not know why. She supposed she wanted others to come to her, and yet she did not like the idea of Julian bringing his friends. The only man who did come to visit her in Flask Walk was Julian’s brother-in-law, Arthur Cornwallis.

Diana was angry with Julian for pretending that Arthur did not know they were lovers, for saying that ‘only Monty’ had been told. Cornwallis was far more charming to her now than he had been when she was a girl, or a wife. He was, she thought, probably the only more or less charming person amongst Julian’s friends. Diana imagined these friends to be a set of hard-drinking, hard-whoring cavalry officers, though Julian was so kind and polite and knew many people who were not in the army. Her lover said he knew no women to whom he could introduce her, and he added that it was an awful pity Diana had not kept up with friends of her girlhood. He had admitted, without her prompting, that that was a foolish and hurtful remark.

But he has made me an inferior, thought Diana, getting up from her bench and walking slowly down the path. She twiddled her thumbs inside her fur muff. ‘It can’t be helped,’ she whispered to a clump of dead willowherb. Perhaps other people will not quite see the truth, and I’m happy enough, after all.

*

In the fullness of spring, Diana began to feel strongly that she wanted her mother. For the past few months she had written cautious and short, though very affectionate, letters to Angelina, but these were now not enough.

Lady Blentham was so pleased to see Diana that she cried a little and spoke sternly as soon as her maid was out of earshot.

‘You should not have stayed away so long, my dear. I was very much hurt by your thinking that I should – despise you for your poverty. Was that it?’

‘I’m sorry, Mamma.’ Diana sat down.

She looked about her at the little drawing-room, full of those solid pieces of Adelaide furniture which she remembered in their old setting at Queen Anne’s Gate. Lady Blentham was seated in a black papier-mâché armchair inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which Diana had once called ‘fit for a queen’. She looked old, sweet-natured, tough. The skin above her lips had tightened across her teeth while that beneath her chin had gently collapsed. Her clothes had barely changed since the
early eighties, and her back was as erect as ever. She considered modern fashions unbecoming to most women, and rather vulgar: the straight-fronted corset Diana was wearing so thrust out her bosom and behind. The silver top of Angelina’s stick emphasised the beauty of her heavy-veined but pale and slender hand.

While thinking to herself, ‘how very extraordinary, painful life is – I don’t know that I can bear this,’ Angelina said: ‘My dear, I wasn’t able to write to you, although I’ve been about to do so now that I have your own address in – in Hampstead, is it? But did you see the notice of Roderick’s engagement in
The
Times
yesterday?’

‘Roderick’s engaged?’ said Diana. ‘Heavens, I thought he was a confirmed bachelor!’

‘A Miss Cicely Vane, her father is in the Indian Army,’ said Lady Blentham carefully. ‘A Major, I think, or a Lieutenant-Colonel. Not related to any of the Vanes we know. I’ve met her only once, when Roderick brought her here.’

‘Is she pretty?’

‘She’s timid, and very fair,’ said Angelina. ‘She should do very well as a clergyman’s wife.’

‘Has Roderick succeeded in becoming a Canon yet?’

‘No,’ sighed Lady Blentham. ‘But he was appointed Rural Dean the other day. I don’t think, myself, he will advance much further in the Church. It was so different when I was young: corrupt, of course, though very much better than in my grandfather’s day!’ Lady Blentham’s grandfather had been the Bishop of Launceston.

They smiled sadly at each other, agreeing silently about Roderick’s irritable temper, love of comfort, occasional bursts of charity, and the horrible time his wife would have.

‘Poor Roddy,’ said Diana, breaking the quiet. ‘I suppose he grew quite tired of being pursued by all the widows and spinsters of Melton Balbridge.’

‘I daresay,’ said Angelina.

‘Tell me about Edward and Kitty,’ prompted Diana.

‘Oh, Kitty –’ Lady Blentham pronounced the word carefully – ‘Kitty has become quite a
grande
dame.
The
moment your father died, Diana, she decided to hide every last trace of Whitechapel and the stage. You remember she used to speak in a decidedly vulgar way? Well, it seems that that was all
side.
Remarkable, isn’t it? Edward is entirely under her influence, of course. That’s quite unchanged.’

‘Does she carry a lorgnette?’ said Diana. She was not surprised to learn that Kitty had made a thorough job of copying Angelina. She had five children now, just like her mother-in-law.

‘Yes, she does. She carries it a good deal more than is necessary.’

‘And I suppose she no longer gives her – ridiculous imitations at dinner-parties? Of course, May Yohé’s passée now, but I do so well remember Kitty getting up on a chair at the Cornwallises’, and howling out something from – from “Little Christopher Columbus”!’