The Bohemian Girl (6 page)

‘Well,’ she whispered in a hurry, seeing that her mother was coming round, ‘no doubt it’s very – very romantic to marry an actress!’

Maud, still crying silently, left the room unnoticed.

*

Kitty Dupree, the Hon. Mrs Edward Blentham, was wide-hipped and full-bosomed, but so short and small-boned and dark that it had been easy to mistake her for a real Japanese when she was playing Pitti-Sing in
The
Mikado.
Her real name was Ellen Rosenthal; but she was only one quarter Jewish, for her paternal grandfather had married a Gentile, and his son’s wife, Kitty’s mother, had been of French descent. Edward Blentham had never believed that his wife’s stage name was her true one, though at first she had told him it was. He had not minded her lying to him when he first knew her, for the truth about her origin did not really interest him. He was only concerned with the fact that she was a very pretty, clever little woman who loved him.

When she told him some of the truth about her background, saying that her mother was a Huguenot, whose silk-weaving family had once owned one of the best houses in Folegate Street, Spitalfields, and that, though her father was a tailor, one of her great-great-grandfathers had been a professor at the university of Heidelberg, Edward did not believe her. He smiled indulgently at her, and preferred to think that she was a pure London urchin, even though she did not talk like one. Edward imagined that he would spread many different rumours about Kitty round London, when his marriage was known. Her own story would do for one, but he would tell some of his more liberal-theoried friends that she was a workhouse child, others that she was part Lascar, and more that she was the natural daughter of some distantly hinted-at eminent man.

Kitty did not introduce Edward to any of her relations, most of whom disapproved of her being on the stage and thought that only trouble could come of her marriage to a
peer’s son, if her marriage was a true one at all and he was not a deceiver. She knew that her people would have to be dropped, and Edward quite agreed with her.

Sometimes Kitty herself could not wholly believe in her marriage. This was partly because it was of course so extraordinary that she, Nellie Rosenthal, truly was to be a baroness and the mistress of Dunstanton Park, and partly because, after fifteen years, she had found a man who was not only a peer, who would marry her, but a darling boy whom she could adore. There was a third and slightly less agreeable reason for her irrational doubt: Kitty had spent these first six months of her marriage living more like a mistress than a wife.

She did not share Edward’s rooms off St James’s Street, but lived in a rented house in Brompton Square which was considerably drearier than most kept mistresses’ establishments. It was the financial strain of keeping two places in London on a bachelor’s allowance which, a few days ago, had enabled Kitty to persuade her husband that it was time, at last, for his family to know.

Kitty studied her face in the bedroom mirror and narrowed her eyes, as she waited for Edward’s return from Queen Anne’s Gate, and imagined the Blenthams all together. She was wearing a silk dressing-gown over elaborate stays, and as she brushed her hair she sang, with the impertinent air of doubt her husband loved:

Then she stuck her tongue out at the mirror and said: ‘Ya!’ Such vulgarities did not come quite naturally to her, but they were amusing.

Kitty’s face was often called amusing, enchanting, impish, but above all lovely. Edward said she looked quite deliciously the girl of the period. She had little parted lips, discreetly noticeable white teeth, very big tilted hazel eyes, and waving hair which was almost black. Her nose was retroussé, her chin
pointed, and her only fault was a slightly sallow complexion which a dab of rouge could entirely cure. She photographed very well, and she favoured big elaborate dresses, ostrich feathers and furs, for such things made her look like a wonderfully promising girl-child, although she was thirty-one.

Suddenly as she was twisting her hair up, a flicker of evening sunlight made Kitty lean forward and examine her face in detail. There was a tiny, soft crack between her nostril and the corner of her mouth: another two under her eyes. She looked up fearfully at the photograph of herself in white lace which had once been publicly for sale. It had been taken nine years ago at a high point in her career, before she quarrelled with the manager of the Gaiety Theatre. Kitty tried to think that she had not aged at all; then remembered that she was very good for her age in spite of her little lines of character, and that she was married and retired besides.

Just as she was thinking that one day she might miss the stage, which was by no means so immoral as Lady Blentham thought, else she would never have become an actress in the first place, Edward opened the door.

He startled Kitty, and when she looked up, she thought he looked ridiculously startled too. ‘Well, Teddy my love?’ she said. ‘How was it, then?’

‘Dear little Kitty,’ he said, ‘dear little girl.’ Edward sat down on the bed, removed his monocle, and sighed. His face was pale.

Kitty watched him for a few moments, then said: ‘Well, before we talk, you can help me dress. That’s what I’m going to wear tonight, and you can button me down the back.’

‘How soothin’ you are,’ said Edward, as he rose to obey her. ‘But I don’t think I can face the thought of Frascati’s tonight. Besides,’ he added dully, ‘it ain’t time just yet to dress, is it?’

‘What, as bad as that?’ said Kitty, seeing his expression. She paused. ‘Well, good Lord! Come, Teddy, didn’t we agree to celebrate your
telling
them, whatever the outcome? A brave stand, my boy! Our first appearance as a couple!’

‘Jolly good,’ said Edward, raising loving eyes. He smiled, and reached out for her.

Kitty pulled her peignoir round her and went to sit firmly beside him on the bed. ‘So they
are
coming the ugly?’

‘Oh, awful. Mater fainted and then refused to say a word. Absolutely. Just said she wouldn’t know you, or bow to you, etc, etc.’ Edward began to look a little better. ‘The fact is, darlin’ one, nothing and no one can remove her deepest native prejudice that
every
actress is a lady of the night! Mrs Siddons of sacred memory? A courtesan, don’t you know! Our own Miss Terry? Worse and worse!’

Kitty hissed. She said after a moment, ‘I suppose of course she’s too much of a
lady
to say such things aloud?’

‘What, in front of the girls? My darling!’

‘I was never such a bloody fool as to get caught by any man that way,’ said Kitty, very quietly. ‘Presents and promises!’ This was not true. She had been seduced at the age of eighteen.

‘Darling, I know. You’re a
clever
girl and, as Cornwallis says, you
do
deserve your coronet.’ Cornwallis was Edward’s closest friend; he had been at Oxford with him, but instead of leaving after two years to become a Guards officer had become a literary man and the master of a little literary circle. Long ago, Cornwallis had admired Edward for going into the Army out of boredom with juvenile Oxford.

‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ Kitty said.

‘Love!’ he cried. ‘Oh darling, not offended? I say!’

‘No,’ she said, ‘not really, if you’re sorry.’ She looked at him and waited.

‘
Awfully
sorry. Never sorrier.’

Kitty patted his knee. ‘Well then, what about your Papa?’

‘He says he’ll raise my allowance to fourteen hundred a year.’ This was an increase of five hundred pounds. ‘And pay my debts, you know.’

‘Nice old gentleman!’ said Kitty, surprised. She wondered for a moment, then added: ‘Teddy, did you tell him alone first of all?’

‘I ought to have done,’ said Edward. ‘But it was so awfully hard to resist the temptation to announce the news in front of
Mater and the girls! When Mater left the room – awfully dramatic – he took me into the study. Felt like a schoolboy.’

‘H’m. Wouldn’t it have been better to have told him straight off, and left him to – break the news to your mother?’

‘Yes, I know, darling.’

‘Oh, you are a foolish boy. What did he say besides?’

Edward moved further up the bed and Kitty, though she was usually more passionate than he, hoped he would not want to make love just yet. ‘Kitty, I don’t know how we’re to manage on fourteen hundred. The old man knows damn’ well I’ve spent more than that per annum ever since I was at Oxford! Don’t mean he hasn’t been good about paying up once in a while, but now – Kitty, what are we going to do?’

‘Well, for a start you’ll give up those lodgings of yours. That’ll be a considerable economy. And then don’t worry: I’ll contrive somehow. Lord, Teddy, when I was a kid my dad thought himself lucky if the shop brought in a hundred and fifty pounds a year, and there was six of us! I know a good deal about keeping house. Now then, what else did he say, darling? We can talk about the money later.’

Edward sat gazing round the bedroom and holding his wife’s hand. He thought of how, already, she had improved upon the heavy and old-fashioned decoration of this furnished house, with its dark papers and curtains, overstuffed balloon-backed chairs and billiard-cloth carpets. Kitty had bought small things in odd places for surprisingly little money, had somehow quite changed the house’s general effect: she was wholly perfect. As she looked at her distant grey reflection in the dressing-table mirror, Edward laid his head on Kitty’s lap. ‘Darling.’

‘Come now, Teddy-love. Tell Kitty.’

‘I tried to explain what sort of a girl you are – anyway, he said he was satisfied that I wasn’t such a fool as to be caught by one who was, well, bad, darling. But he didn’t like it.’

‘And why not? It’s happened before, our sort of marriage. And may I ask what sort of catch
you
are for a girl, Mr Blentham, compared to His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge?’

‘Such an amusing girl you are,’ said Edward. ‘Love.’

‘Well, what else did he say?’

‘Well, darling, he pointed out that I wasn’t under age, and he said of course he wouldn’t attempt to do as Clancarty did with poor little Dunlo last year. Dashed good of him, wasn’t it!’ said Edward into her lap. ‘Doesn’t want more scandal than is strictly necessary. Besides, my love, he never liked Clancarty.’

‘Yes,’ said Kitty. ‘And I’ll have him know that I’m not such a namby-pamby creature as Belle Bilton, with her bastard kid, and her self-pity, and marrying Lord Dunlo
while
living with that other poor chap! Oh, I don’t deny she was innocent of adultery proper – I’m glad they gave her flowers at the Empire, I’m sure. But talk about a girl with no character!’

‘Yes, darling love.’

‘And now she’ll be moping herself to death in Ireland. Well, I’ve no intention of doing that, Teddy-love. We’re going to be in Society. Are we not, sir?’

‘’Course we are!’

‘Pity your Mater didn’t
quite
commit herself to presenting me at court, ain’t it?’ said Kitty, putting her hands on her hips and raising one eyebrow up to her hairline.

‘A damn’ shame.’

‘Yes, well, we shan’t let it trouble us.’

Edward raised his head from her lap. ‘You’ll win her round, Kitty, in time. She’s a grand old girl in her way, don’t you know, and less of a snob than many women.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Fact is, the only thing she can’t stand is what she calls impropriety. Once she knows you’re not that way inclined –’

‘That I wasn’t your mistress before I married you?’ said Kitty, swinging round from the waist. ‘But who’ll make her believe that? Or anyone believe it – though we could hardly have lived more respectably, I made sure enough of that! Look at this house, let to Deans and whatnot – I’m not sure it wouldn’t have been better for us to have made a splash from the start.’

‘They’ll have to believe it,’ said Edward.

‘There’s one economy we’re not going to make,’ said Kitty,
getting up from the bed. ‘No more hired broughams and hansoms, Teddy. We’re going to Long Acre tomorrow to buy a carriage – a victoria – and you can go to Tattersalls’ for a nice pair of tits. You and I are going to drive in the Park, my boy, morning and evening, I’ll learn to ride, and first thing of all, you can send the notice of our marriage to the newspapers. After which I’ll start leaving cards. And now,’ she said, ‘you can help me dress, as I said, and then get yourself ready for Frascati’s!’

‘Dear Kitty, I do so love you,’ said Edward after a slight hesitation, in which both stood quite still, and looked at each other. He turned away, put his monocle in his eye, and whisked Kitty’s evening dress off the bedroom screen.

*

Lady Blentham’s vision of Kitty’s physical appearance was remarkably accurate. She guessed at the large breasts, black hair, little features and big dark eyes, but in her imagination the actress was not a small creature, but as tall as her son. She could not quite decide whether Kitty would have some influence over Edward or would, one day, be a whining overweight crying at her husband’s every subtle snub.

Diana, who had gone to visit her mother in her boudoir after Edward’s quitting the house, and had been allowed to stay, watched Angelina making little dabs at her blotter with a dry pen. She herself was sitting as upright as her mother, with her hands folded in her lap. They had barely spoken and did not intend to speak; Diana because she did not know where it would be tactful to begin, and Lady Blentham because the subject of actresses and Edward could not be discussed with a girl. If Diana tried to talk about it, she would have to be silenced. In spite of this, the two women did not want to separate, and they continued to sit in silence, thinking about Kitty.

Diana’s picture of Edward’s wife did not resemble Angelina’s. She imagined her to be fair and slim and graceful, with a light foreign accent and deep grey eyes. The question of whether Edward was to rule Kitty, or the other way about, did not occur to her: she thought only of how brilliantly charming the
woman must be to marry above her station at her age. Diana wanted quite fiercely to meet and impress her, but she knew she would not for years, unless her mother gave way.