The Bohemian Girl

by Frances Vernon

  Diana stamped one frozen foot and blew on her hands. ‘I don’t think you realise how lucky you are, Roddy, to be a man and independent,’ she said loudly. She guessed that Roderick had done something to harm one of the horses, and she said this partly to distract his angry thoughts.

  ‘Independent? I? You try being a curate, my girl – on a tiny legacy from Aunt Emily and a stipend of two hundred a year!’ He drew himself further up in his riding boots, and put one hand inside his coat. ‘And my father hardly helps to make me independent, as you call it. One mustn’t complain, of course,’ he said: quite contentedly, for Diana nearly always had the effect of putting him in a good mood. He thought that if he had not been her brother and a clergyman, he would have wanted to marry or sleep with a girl of her type, and would have succeeded in winning one.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean money,’ said Diana, studying her brother’s coarsely handsome face, and remembering the disrespectful way in which her father had spoken to him. She sighed.

  ‘You’re not back on Cambridge, are you?’ he said. ‘You’ll be wanting a latchkey next.’

  ‘Yes, I’d like a latchkey, but I’m not so silly as to ask Mamma!’ said Diana.

  ‘I should hope not! Poor old Didie. Cheer up. Come on, let’s get out of this da – this frightful cold.’ Roderick took her arm, and Diana quite enjoyed walking beside him with her head two inches above his own. Of course, she thought, no one was truly independent, not even men. Like her father, Roderick was right and annoying, and there was nothing to be looked forward to in life but reading.

  *

  Lady Blentham considered herself fairly broad-minded. She had no prejudice against any form of intellect, or even against those who were a little Bohemian, so long as they did not offend in some way against propriety, etiquette or taste. When her husband argued that, in order to be called Bohemian, a man or woman must necessarily be lacking in a sense of propriety, she would say that absolute convention and real propriety were not quite the same thing. To prove her point, she would remind him of Edward’s friend, Arthur Cornwallis, who was wholly devoted to his rather plain wife. It was not conventional to write little essays, or to wear soft collars, but it could be perfectly proper.

  Arthur Cornwallis claimed to adore Lady Blentham, whom he had met several times as an undergraduate and stayed with twice since his marriage. He told Edward that his mother was a marvellous example of a dying breed or type, an Early Victorian, and that visits to Dunstanton and Queen Anne’s Gate were delightful because of this. Angelina knew perfectly well that he flattered her, and must think her a foolish if charming old woman, but she liked him all the same. When they were together, they always talked about old-fashioned subjects such as Ritualism and Dickens, or about the decline in morals and good manners over the past thirty years.

  Sometimes, Angelina confided in him. Cornwallis had never told Edward that Lady Blentham had once said: ‘You must not think, Mr Cornwallis, that I would be opposed to Edward’s – wanting to be more like you, to be something of an aesthete or a literary man, if only I could think he had talent! But he isn’t up to it, as they say. Now, don’t agree with me! I know you can’t – you are always loyal to him, dear Edward.’

  The Cornwallises came to stay at Dunstanton that year during Roderick’s visit to his parents; and Arthur soothed Lady Blentham’s fears that her son was not a good clergyman.

  ‘I’ve made a small study of theology,’ he said, ‘and I couldn’t fault him on doctrine when we were indulging in a little discussion after dinner last night.’ Roderick had said very little over the dining-room port. ‘Though I’m afraid, dear Lady Blentham, we bored your husband horribly.’

  ‘I’m sure not,’ she smiled.

  Tea was over, and they were alone together at the end of the Long Gallery, protected by screens from the draughts of its dim wooden length. Mabel Cornwallis and Maud were both having a headache and lying down upstairs, while Diana was in the library and Roderick visiting a friend.

  ‘How I enjoy a wood fire,’ he said. ‘Coal fires inspire a man to do nothing but wrap himself up in a dressing-gown and brood on unworthy subjects, but a wood fire makes one think – almost of noble deeds. Certainly of one’s days of youthful activity. Medieval in the very best sense, don’t you agree?’

  Mr Cornwallis, thought Angelina, had the face of an eagle and the body of an owl. He was a little too dark for her taste, but that did not matter.

  ‘I’m afraid the house is a little cold in winter, Mr Cornwallis. Many people say so, out of my hearing.’

  ‘Dear lady, you’re teasing me! I hadn’t thought you capable of such a thing – so unkind.’

  ‘I believe I have – some qualities I don’t quite know myself,’ said Lady Blentham.

  ‘How could I doubt that? But to return to Roderick, do you know, I think that when he is – master of his own parish, with a suitable little wife, he’ll settle down as a first-rate High-and-Dry man – quite of the old school, no Romish vestments, no –’

  ‘Perhaps too old a school,’ said Angelina, who enjoyed colourful ecclesiastical ritual, though only because she had a secret romantic nature. She was too young to remember the days of High-and-Dry theology, but she rather liked Cornwallis’s pretence that she belonged to a previous age, before even surplices were commonplace. She continued: ‘On the other hand, Diana is becoming quite a New Woman. Or I hope you don’t think so?’

  He rememberd quickly. ‘Oh, Newnham and Somerville! Prunes – and pine-wood, and terrible voices! Dear Lady Blentham, it must be discouraged. Naturally you won’t allow her to become a New Woman?’ Though his choice of words tended to be flowery, Cornwallis’s voice was always sober, soft, and unaffectedly kind.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Angelina.

  Cornwallis removed his spectacles, polished and replaced them. ‘Diana is a most admirable girl,’ he said. ‘I should imagine that this wish of hers to go to Cambridge – distressin’ly vulgar, dear lady – is partly a wish for what she imagines would be more freedom of society, more intellectual companionship?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lady Blentham.

  ‘She must be told how wickedly strict these women’s colleges are – far worse than school. She never went to school?’

  ‘No. I think it can do a girl nothing but harm. I hear that nowadays there are schools where the girls actually prepare for public examinations, and play cricket.’ It had not quite occurred to Angelina that women’s colleges were strict: she valued Cornwallis partly because he could make this kind of revelation.

  ‘Yes, a horrid thought. Well,’ said Cornwallis, ‘I wonder what is to be done?’

  Maud came back into the gallery, carrying a large tapestry-frame from which dangled a piece of gros-point in shades of bright blue.

  ‘Well, my dear, is your headache better?’ said her mother. ‘We were talking about Diana.’

  ‘She’s at the awkward age,’ said Maud, sitting slowly down and arranging her embroidery.

  ‘Very true,’ said Angelina, ‘but there are so many awkward ages for a woman.’

  ‘I think you should let her go to Cambridge, Mamma.’

  ‘My dear,’ sighed Lady Blentham, and turned her head towards Cornwallis. ‘Still my little rebel.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Maud. ‘But I remember what it was to be young and I have every sympathy with Diana.’

  ‘You never thought of Cambridge,’ said her mother, smiling.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But Miss Maud, do you consider yourself middle-aged?’ said Cornwallis gravely.

  ‘I’m thirty.’

  ‘Hush, my dear,’ said Angelina, who believed that Maud was a little in love with Cornwallis. ‘Never mention your age! Mr Cornwallis,’ she said, ‘I want your help.’

  He was contemplating Maud’s fleshless beauty with intellectual pleasure. In a sense, Maud’s looks had improved since he first met her five years before, though she was even more thin and pale now than she had been then: for now she was a true spinste
r no one expected her to have the charm and colour of a nubile girl, and her features were allowed to be nearly perfect. ‘With little Diana, Lady Blentham? But of course!’

  ‘Large Diana, I’m afraid.’ She saw Maud look up. ‘Could you talk to her? I know how you find very young girls a nuisance! But if you were to tell her that Cambridge, for women, isn’t what she thinks it – I’m sure she would believe you.’

  Maud started sewing again.

  ‘I’ll do more, dear lady,’ said Cornwallis. ‘May I make a very modern and shocking suggestion?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Cornwallis, though I doubt it will be either,’ Angelina said.

  ‘I wonder – I wonder whether you would allow Diana – and Violet and Miss Maud, too, if they would care for it! – to come unchaperoned to one of our little parties? Diana could read her poems to us.’

  ‘Unchaperoned?’ There was silence for a moment, while both rapidly considered whether Maud could be thought old enough to be a respectable chaperone. Maud considered the question too, though they did not guess it had occurred to her. ‘Perhaps you think it’s freedom from control Diana wants?’ added Lady Blentham.

  ‘No no no! But isn’t my wife chaperone enough?’ He had a very polite, disarming smile.

  ‘Of course she is,’ said Angelina after a moment. ‘Yes, I see. Yes. Times are changing, as we have agreed. It’s extremely kind of you, Mr Cornwallis. And it might possibly answer. Maud my dear, you would like it, wouldn’t you? You would like to go with Diana?’

  ‘Very much, Mamma,’ she said, blushing. ‘Mr Cornwallis was kind enough to invite me.’

  ‘You’re old enough to have a latchkey – if you had ever asked for it I should have given you one!’

  ‘Thank you!’ Maud closed her eyes, because she felt too old and tired and stupid to be bothered with a latchkey. Last year in London, Dr Sacheverell had told her that it was not her age or even her anaemia which made her so listless, it was her fondness for laudanum. He had told her to go out, and be active.

  Maud heard her mother say: ‘Mr Cornwallis, will you promise me one thing?’

  ‘Dear lady?’

  ‘If I give Diana, the girls, a little more freedom – if we let her learn that there are intelligent people, moving in the first circles, who are prepared to encourage her – will you promise me never to allow her to meet Edward’s wife at your house? You see, I never have allowed either her or Violet to go out with anyone but myself, or one of our kinswomen who understands, because of her!’

  ‘But of course!’ said Cornwallis, thinking that he must remind little Diana, when he introduced her to Kitty, that meeting Kitty had been forbidden by her mamma. She would like that, and so would Edward.

  *

  Both the Cornwallises were rich and well born. They lived in an odd, graceful house in Half Moon Street, with eighteenth-century furniture and tapestries, black-and-white-tiled or polished floors, and one or two modern things such as vases full of sunflowers and silver-framed photographs. Books were everywhere.

  When their literary evening began with an excellent dinner, Diana and Maud were rather disappointed, thinking it little different from many formal dinner-parties in other houses. The conversation, however, was not quite what they were used to.

  Maud and Diana were impressed when, over the removes, they learnt that Arthur Wing Pinero (whose latest play had greatly shocked Lady Blentham) was to drop in for a while later in the evening. The Blentham girls had not heard that anyone else at the party was famous, but they supposed during dinner that some must be, for people were talking in a familiar way of Mr James McNeill Whistler, Mr Oscar Wilde and Mrs Humphry Ward. No one mentioned such figures to them, but Diana did manage to make intelligent, brief replies to the elderly man on her left. He wished to discuss modern novelists.

  Edward and Kitty were present, and were kind to their sisters as everyone else was, but the girls had little time to talk to them either at dinner or afterwards. Both were extremely popular, and considered to be a rather good joke. When they left the dining-room and went upstairs with the other ladies, Maud and Diana were astonished to see Edward lean forward and begin to speak as the door closed behind them. His voice lacked its usual languor, and he was obviously being listened to by the other men.

  Half an hour later, the gentlemen returned to them; and the Blentham girls were delighted yet embarrassed when Kitty changed the tone of the whole evening. She climbed up on one of the finest Queen Anne chairs in the drawing-room and gave a raucous imitation of May Yohé; who, she said, had no right to have taken the London stage by storm.

  ‘No voice, no figure, and a nasty little face, gentlemen! Now, listen to this!’ she said, grinning, and half the party gathered round her. She winked at her sisters-in-law, who were sitting close together by the door.

  Maud and Diana, who had been allowed to see only Shakespeare at the theatre, had heard from other girls that the new American actress was able to sing only four notes. Kitty, with her hands on her hips and her butter-coloured throat raised to the gas-lights so that the good paste jewels glittered in her hair, sang a whole song on two.

  ‘Maud, how did Mr Cornwallis persuade Mamma to let us come?’ said Diana.

  ‘You know how clever he is with her. It is – rather exciting, isn’t it? Though I see what our mother means about Kitty.’

  ‘Yes – just as he said – far more exciting than Cambridge,’ murmured Diana, as everyone clapped and Kitty jumped down, trailing black lace which looked very well against the men’s plain black and white. ‘Maud, you won’t tell Mamma about this?’

  ‘I?’ Maud turned to her, looking like a brilliant, beautiful girl. ‘Do you really think I will?’

  At that moment, Cornwallis came up and sat down beside Maud. ‘I think we may enjoy a few more civilised recitals before the night is over,’ he said. ‘But I so like to entertain originals of every kind. You weren’t offended, Miss Maud?’

  Diana sat still, smiling at him, remembering the half-hours of his time Cornwallis had given her since January, discussing books with her instead of trying to draw morals from them as Angelina did. He was as kind as he was deceitful and mischievous.

  The men round Kitty were dispersing, and she herself retired to a corner with two of them. One man, Diana saw, was making his way in her direction. He was big, blond, clean-shaven and young, a boy whose name she had forgotten, who looked more like a sailor than a literary man.

  ‘Miss Blentham, may I join you?’

  ‘Yes, certainly …’ He was rather handsome, she thought, in spite of his snub nose: firm-jawed and clear-complexioned, with light round grey eyes set beneath unusually thick and pale eyebrows.

  ‘I think you’ve forgotten my name,’ he said, seeing the anxious look on her face. ‘We were introduced, actually. Julian Fitzclare – v-very much at your service, as they used to say!’

  ‘Oh, you’re Mrs Cornwallis’s brother – she told me – Captain Fitzclare, of the Blues!’ she said.

  ‘Yes, of the Blues,’ he agreed.

  They were quiet for a while, looking down at their laps, and shiftily moving their feet. ‘This is a good party, ain’t it?’ he said. ‘It’s unusual.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Diana, looking at the one man who was not in evening dress but in a ruby velvet coat. She was not used to feeling shy, and she had felt shy ever since the Blentham carriage dropped them at the door. ‘I suppose it’s Bohemia.’ She smiled.

  ‘Yes – at l-least so I’m told by – c-crusty old ladies,’ he said, smiling at her dark-red eyes. ‘Actually, my sister tells me you’re a p-poetess – may make an awfully good poet. She admires you.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Diana. ‘You do make me feel rather a fool, Captain Fitzclare.’ She wondered just how old he was: twenty-five or -six.

  He sat upright, and flushed. ‘Why? I’m not one of those sort of idiot fellows who thinks a lady shouldn’t have a brain. I don’t like stupid girls,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Most m
en do, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ Diana was quite unable to decide whether she liked him or not.

  ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that women are superior to men.’

  Diana laughed. By the fireplace, a man was discreetly reading out a passage from a little sage-green book, which he then handed round to his small audience of ladies.

  ‘Why do you laugh?’ said the Captain. She hoped he was hurt.

  ‘Well, I – used to want very much to go to Girton, or any women’s college at either of the universities, in fact. Most people always tell me that women are so superior, and clever in their own way, they don’t need university. But they don’t deny university is for the cleverest men! The Senior Wranglers and Senior Classics – aren’t they the cleverest of men, Captain Fitzclare?’

  ‘Mr Pinero!’ the butler announced.

  There was a stir as the playwright entered; Mabel ran forward and began introductions. He was led over gradually to the other side of the room and Captain Fitzclare, who had shaken hands with Mr Pinero with stiff and deep respect, sat down again beside Diana and showed her a very serious face.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I knew a girl once who was very like you – talented, and pretty, and clever and all that – and she went up to Somerville and simply hated it. She was awfully cold and lonely, you see. Felt she had to stay her whole three years because she’d fought her people so hard to get there. She told me it was rather dirty, as well as cold – and everyone was dreadfully earnest, and suspicious as a governess – not a soul she knew – people rather despised her for being, well, a lady, I suppose. Wouldn’t take her seriously because of it. You wouldn’t like that, surely? Though I’m sure you’re brave enough, and can’t be a wretched snob, or anything like that. And then you see, she never did anything with all that education. Just got married, and never opened a book afterwards.’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Diana, colouring slightly because it had never occurred to her that lower-middle-class people, with accents, might go to women’s colleges, although she had never supposed she would meet girls from quite her own set. ‘I thought colleges were extremely luxurious – Charles the Second silver, and enormous dinners, and so on.’