The Bohemian Girl

by Frances Vernon

  Nurse got to her feet, and with her lips pursed together picked a spray of rowan berries. Her little sister, made pregnant by the son of the house in which she had had her first situation, had become a Haymarket prostitute and died of a mangled abortion four years later.

  ‘But how?’ said Diana, whining. ‘What d’you mean, Nurse?’

  Nurse was daintily examining the berries, thinking now of certain ladies of the Prince of Wales’s set, to whom Lady Blentham, Diana’s mother, would only give a distant bow in passing, and a two-fingered handshake if it could not be avoided. They led lives as morally adventurous as her sister Rose’s; though less full of variety, Nurse supposed. She knew that such ladies could not regard Lady Blentham as quite their social equal, and her bows and cold handshakes, which they precisely returned, amused them very much.

  ‘Nurse, am I going to come to a bad end?’ said Diana. ‘Is that what you mean?’ She realised that she must not ask more about Nurse’s sister, and she was not, in any case, a very curious girl in general.

  Nurse knelt down at once and put her arm round the child.

  ‘You? My little Didie? You keep your stockings up, and you’ll be a duchess, a respectable duchess, with a house in Park Lane and a big place in the country, and diamonds and carriages and I don’t know what besides, and Nurse’ll be your housekeeper! Now, is that what you call a bad end?’

  Diana giggled as Nurse cuddled her, and looked up into the shade of the rowan umbrella, waggling her latest loose tooth.

  ‘I sh’d like to be a duchess,’ she said when Nurse removed her fingers from her mouth. ‘And I’m sure I’m old enough to be one now.’

  ‘Well, I should think it’s good enough to be plain the Honourable Diana for the present – and Nurse’s good girl too, I hope, which is more important!’

  Diana looked up at the sunshot green leaves, and the orange clusters of berries which looked both jewel-like and edible, but decided she was too sleepy and comfortable to reach for them just yet.

  ‘Virtue is the true nobility!’ said Nurse, and pinched Diana’s elbow.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE BLENTHAMS AT DUNSTANTON

  One morning early in 1886, when his younger daughters were at their lessons upstairs, Lord Blentham stood at his study window and watched his wife, wrapped in furs, descend from her carriage and enter the house. He went to the hall to meet her.

  Dunstanton Park, in a flat part of north Kent near Strood and Rochester, was a dark brick Tudor manor house to which a white portico had later been added by Inigo Jones. The linen-fold panelled hall, and the gallery above it, were the only sizeable rooms in the building, and the house was cold from September to May.

  Lady Blentham always ignored the cold. Her husband saw her take off her gloves, little bonnet and furs without a shiver, and hand them to the butler while she gave orders about that evening’s small dinner-party. She was in mourning for a cousin, and wore thin grey cashmere with jet ornaments, and an Alexandra fringe.

  ‘Well, Charles?’ she said. ‘The crocuses are coming up very prettily, all down the drive.’

  ‘How was old Nellie?’

  ‘Oh, not at all well I fear. Nothing else of course was to be expected. That niece of hers – Harriet – was with her.’

  Lady Blentham paused, and Lord Blentham expressed surprise, and added, ‘Pretty girl, that.’

  ‘Charles, you sound like a masher. Well, she admitted she left her place before her year was up, but I think service has improved her, nonetheless – she said thank you very nicely when I gave her my mother’s receipt for embrocation, and remembered to curtsey, too!’ She smiled.

  ‘Good, good.’ They went into a little family sitting-room which opened off the hall and was full of photographs and china and fashionable thick-leaved plants.

  ‘Charles, is there something on your mind?’

  Lady Blentham was a thin pale beauty who always dressed in excellent taste; her husband was plain and fat, and wore out-of-date Dundreary whiskers which his wife persuaded him slightly to trim. They were fine golden-red whiskers, though he was fifty-six and the remaining hair on his head was grey.

  ‘Well, Angelina, I’ve had some news, got some news for you, and I’m afraid you won’t be – altogether pleased. Though …’

  She opened her eyes as he waited.

  ‘Is it Maud?’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me that very odd young man has written to ask you for her?’

  ‘No, no, nothing to do with poor Maud. I couldn’t see that the fellow was smitten with her, I must say, my dear.’

  Lady Blentham sighed. ‘A pity. In her case, any husband would be better than none. There are times when I fear – well, what is your news, Charles?’

  Lord Blentham put his shoulders back, and looked her in the eyes. ‘My dear, I learnt this morning – got a letter, from Granville in fact – that it’s perfectly true. Gladstone does mean to introduce a Home Rule Bill.’

  There was silence for a while, and Lady Blentham’s thoughts turned away from her eldest daughter. She remembered how often Mr and Mrs Gladstone had stayed with her father, Admiral Venables, when she was a girl. She also thought of how Lord Blentham had failed to become a Cabinet Minister in either of Mr Gladstone’s previous governments: though it was true he had been Under Secretary of State at the War Office in 1869. That seemed a very long time ago.

  ‘To introduce one? It will be the end of the Liberal Party,’ said Lady Blentham, sitting down on her bustle and gripping the arms of her chair. Her husband coughed and she added, quite humbly, with a smile: ‘Home Rule for Ireland! Well, Papa would have said that Mr Gladstone knows best, I dare say, and who am I to think it will destroy the Party and ruin the country? Of course, dear Mr Gladstone is a very old man now, but my dear Charles, whoever would have thought it?’

  ‘Hartington …’

  ‘Oh, Lord Hartington!’ She waved a hand. ‘Yes, I know you told me he said something to you at the club, en passant, but how was I to take it seriously?’

  ‘I would never have expected it of Gladstone myself, before this winter,’ said Lord Blentham, rather coldly, because he would have liked Angelina to be a little proud of his close acquaintance with Lord Hartington, deputy leader of the Party to which she felt loyal. ‘But I will say, Angelina, I think he’s right. My own fear is that he may be ousted from the leadership because of this devotion to – principle. Things have come to a pretty pass in the Commons, I can tell you.’

  Lady Blentham’s mouth trembled. She was not a virago, and she did not speak in an intimidating voice. ‘Charles,’ she said, ‘do you believe in Home Rule?’

  ‘Well, yes, Angelina! Yes, I think it’s the only solution.’

  She got up from her chair and looked at him. ‘I have always been prepared to be guided by your judgement, Charles. Now – in all the years of our marriage, you never even told me – your real views on Ireland?’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t been a Home Ruler quite since we were married, Angelina,’ said Lord Blentham, looking at the fire. He was smiling. ‘But now Gladstone is prepared to introduce a bill, I thought I’d …’

  The butler came in to announce that luncheon was ready, and that Miss Maud was in the dining-room. The Blenthams did not discuss politics in front of their daughter, who called herself a socialist but, as they told her, was quite ignorant of the realities of government. Maud herself happened to mention women’s political rights, and her mother said: ‘Women can have nothing to do with such things, my darling,’ without telling her about Mr Gladstone’s conversion. Lord Blentham took no notice.

  *

  When luncheon was over, Lady Blentham went up to the schoolroom to see Violet and Diana. Half way up the big stairs she paused, and fingered the oak gryphon at the top of the newel-post. Her expression was grave. As she studied the little gargoyle, Lady Blentham regretted the hypocrisy of her remark to Maud about politics being quite outside the feminine sphere. She tied a knot in her handkerchief to remind herself to mention that fault in h
er prayers, and went on up towards the landing, still thinking hard.

  Lady Blentham thought she had not been merely hypocritical, but cowardly, and she sighed. Cowardice had prevented her explaining to Maud in front of Charles that a political hostess, a statesman’s wife or mother, had far more influence on events than a woman with a vote. Her husband would have raised his eyebrows if she had dropped such a hint – but he had not noticed her duplicity with Maud, which was of course improper only on a high religious level. It was impossible always to tell girls the truth.

  Walking quickly along the corridor, she wondered whether Mr Gladstone (for whose sake she had always been a Liberal) would require all future members of his government to be convinced Home Rulers, and thus whether Charles would at last have a seat in Cabinet. Lady Blentham was still angry with both her husband and the Prime Minister; and she was so sure of the wrongness of Home Rule that she did not feel remorse. Charles would deserve it, she thought, if he had a very difficult time in the next government … she wondered how he had guessed in the first place that she, who had always been affectionate and submissive, would care so very much about this latest disaster in the world. She would no more openly argue about men’s business with her husband than she would dispute his right to share her bed and do as he liked there.

  Lady Blentham opened the schoolroom door, and looked in. It was the middle of a French lesson, and her daughters were reciting a poem they had learnt. When they saw their mother, Violet and Diana pushed back their chairs and came over to kiss her; so naturally that she thought they would always be a comfort to her, unlike Maud, and her two sons Edward and Roderick. The girls were not often quite so easy with her, though she had always considered herself an indulgent parent.

  ‘Well, Mrs Mackay, I suppose I shouldn’t interrupt their lesson!’ she said happily to the governess. ‘But I haven’t seen you since Tuesday, have I, girls?’ Now, she thought, looking at the two of them, this is my proper sphere.

  ‘You neglect us,’ said Diana, smiling.

  ‘Hush, my baby. Mamma is very busy, with –’ she hesitated, for she had been about to mention Mr Gladstone and their father.

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Now, no questions.’ She tapped Diana’s cheek, and saw the next moment that, at twelve, Diana had picked up her father’s habit of raising her eyebrows.

  ‘This is such a nice interruption, Mamma,’ said Violet, diverting Lady Blentham’s attention. Violet was no taller than her little sister, but fatter, with her father’s too-curly hair, wide mouth and blunt nose. Her eyes were large and dark and lively, and might attract a husband in four years’ time. ‘Mrs Mackay is so strict and French is so particularly dull!’ She winked and pouted at the governess, who flushed, because Violet’s gesture looked so affectionate. The Blentham girls were sharper and more tiring than any she had taught before, though their mother thought them quite normal.

  ‘Is she very badly behaved?’ said Angelina to Mrs Mackay.

  ‘Yes, Lady Blentham, she is!’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Violet, clasping her hands before her. ‘Only sometimes.’

  ‘Yes, that’s quite true,’ said Diana seriously. ‘Only occasionally.’

  Lady Blentham turned and looked at the two girls, who were steadily regarding her in a way which made her realise that perhaps they were not children. She put an arm briefly round each one.

  ‘My dears,’ she said, ‘I think you’re both inclined to be rather impertinent. Tomorrow – we must have a little talk.’ She continued, when they did not respond: ‘I shall be driving into Rochester to call on Mrs Denison. Mrs Mackay, can you spare them to me for an afternoon?’

  ‘Certainly, Lady Blentham.’

  ‘Work hard at your French, girls,’ she said as she prepared to go. They went back to the table and sat idly down. In the doorway, Lady Blentham turned, and Violet and Diana looked at her in surprise.

  The fringed jet brooch at her collar jangled, and her face looked tired in the full cold light. ‘I shall tell Annie not to light a fire in here tomorrow morning,’ she told the governess with sudden severity. ‘It can be lit at tea-time. It’s nearly March – nearly spring, and the girls can very well do without a fire during the day.’

  ‘Mamma, it’s cold!’ said Violet. ‘It’s winter.’

  ‘Violet, you must learn not to answer back. You must not expect to be pampered, either of you.’ She left, and shut the door behind her.

  *

  Lying on her stomach, Diana warmed her chilblained fingers at the fire until they hurt. Violet wriggled deeper into her armchair, and spread her hair over its back. She gave a hollow groan to attract her sister’s attention, but Diana only smiled and looked down at the book which lay open before her. Outside the window, it was dark.

  ‘Di–die,’ said Violet at last.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t be fusty. Talk to me.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Anything. Oh, I’m so bored.’ Violet jumped up and went to the table, where the remains of tea lay waiting for the third housemaid to take them away. She inspected them, and put a piece of dry bun in her mouth.

  Diana closed her book, rolled over, and looked up at the cracks in the schoolroom ceiling. She was particularly fond of the one shaped like a bonnet with an ostrich plume.

  The schoolroom was on the second floor, directly under the roof of the house. Together with Mrs Mackay’s bed-sitting-room, and the girls’ own bedrooms, it looked out over the drive, at the lawn and cedar trees, while the old nurseries and the servants’ quarters were on the same floor in the two short wings which poked out at the back. Nothing in the schoolroom had been changed since Diana could remember.

  The walls were dim cream, decorated with maps of English counties and the world; the Turkey rug was full of holes and stained with ink, and the hard armchairs were like those in the servants’ hall. Over the little iron fireplace, there hung a pen-and-ink drawing of a tiger shoot in India, in which the bearers looked very small, and the Englishmen too large for their elephants, though the elephants were nearly as tall as the palm trees. It had been done by the girls’ eldest brother Edward before he went to school, and the wounded tiger in the foreground, Diana thought, was particularly unrealistic. There were other drawings on the fireplace wall, but there were very few books in the schoolroom.

  ‘I wish Mamma would leave us alone,’ said Violet.

  Diana sat up. ‘Do you? Vio, d’you love her?’

  ‘Of course I do! Goodness, what funny questions you ask.’

  ‘I don’t think I do.’

  ‘Didie.’

  ‘Not as I love – some people. How could I? It’s common sense.’

  ‘Oh, of course one couldn’t be as fond of her as one is of Nurse, for example.’ Violet sat down in the armchair again. ‘But I do admit,’ she said, pulling a face, ‘that Mamma is a vast improvement on Fusty Mac.’

  ‘“When I was a ga-irl in Sco-atland,”’ said Diana, and they both began to laugh, ‘“one of the greet Clan Menzies, there was noo such thing as a fire, Diana Blentham. Fire hadn’t even been inv-ented then. I was verra hardy, when I was a gairl, one of the greet clan Menzies! Raw herrings for breakfast on the Sabbath, Diana Blentham, and …!”’

  ‘Oh, poor old widow!’ said Violet, still giggling. ‘She must feel persecuted. I must try and be kind to her, really I must.’

  ‘No, I suppose I do love Mamma,’ said Diana suddenly. ‘I admire her.’ Diana herself wished to be influential, self-sufficient, and much admired.

  Violet did not take her sister’s remark very seriously. ‘But you love me most, don’t you?’

  ‘Mm.’ Diana smiled. Violet came over, and thumped her on the collar-bone.

  ‘You love me most. Say it.’

  ‘You’re so undignified, Vio.’

  ‘Say it.’

  ‘Yes, Vio.’

  ‘Say it?’

  ‘I love you mostest.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Violet, thumpin
g her again and then sitting up straight. ‘I say, Didie, d’you think I’m very young for my age?’

  ‘No,’ said Diana, surprised.

  ‘I’m not as clever as you are,’ said Violet, ‘and so I suppose I naturally feel – roughly the same age. It’s hard to think I’ll be coming out two whole years before you.’ She looked up over the table at the black window.

  ‘I don’t want to come out,’ Diana told her, and she meant it. ‘Though it’ll be nice to get rid of Fusty Mac.’

  Violet said: ‘Oh Didie, you are young.’

  ‘In many ways, I’m rather old for my age,’ said Diana.

  They were quiet for a while, and Diana opened her book again. The housemaid came in, and took away the tea-things. When she had gone, Violet said in a deep but casual voice: ‘Didie, have you ever wondered how babies – are made? I don’t imagine you know!’ She clapped her hands as though swatting a fly.

  ‘They grow inside a woman once she’s married,’ said Diana, looking up. ‘Just as puppies grow inside dogs.’ She had gathered this, because the Blenthams kept several male and female terriers, and because did not believe in telling children direct lies on any subject at all, but only in misleading them when necessary.

  ‘Even if the dogs aren’t – mm – properly married?’ Though she did not know quite why, Violet began to giggle again. ‘The bitches aren’t married, with a white veil and all that – I wonder…. Of course I know that, but Didie, how do they get inside one? How d’you think? And where do they come out, come to that, one does think a great big baby …’

  ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’ It then occurred to Diana that, of course, men had something to do with it. Quickly she remembered the boy Thomas Pagett, who had pinched her thigh five years ago at Lynmore Hall, and she remembered Nurse’s odd distress. She flushed, wondered why she had never thought about the matter before; then decided it did not really interest her.

  ‘The woman’s husband must have something to do with it,’ said Violet, making her sister start. ‘Look, do you think Mamma would tell us if we asked her?’