The Bohemian Girl

by Frances Vernon

  ‘Not women’s colleges. They’re awfully uncomfortable, and it’s difficult to work at anything if you ain’t comfortable. I – wonder why you really want to go, Miss Blentham? You read on your own, I suppose?’

  Obviously, thought Diana, Captain Fitzclare could not be very intelligent, let alone unconventional, because he was in the Blues: yet she felt he was unprejudiced, and capable of listening properly to a young girl whom he admired. She knew that Cornwallis had been hired by her mother to discourage her charmingly from foolish ideas. ‘Yes, of course, I read a good deal,’ she said.

  ‘And when you were younger, in the schoolroom I mean – I suppose you had even more time, did very well?’

  ‘Oh, well. I spent every minute my governesses would spare me on poetry, reading it and writing it, too. But I wasn’t allowed then to read any kind of novel – I did, of course – or adult books, really, of any kind at all. Which was dull. But poetry was considered quite all right, very suitable.’

  ‘Yes, odd that, when one thinks of some poems – mm – not that I’ve read much – what girls are expected –’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ said Diana firmly, thinking: ‘Oh my America, my Newfoundland, my kingdom safest when with one man manned.’ ‘I suppose you’re right – Cambridge would be very different from all I’ve known – in a way I hadn’t quite thought of – but –’ She was still determined to go if she could: but she was beginning to enjoy this party so much she could not think about it.

  ‘You’ve plenty of time to think about it,’ he said. ‘And I say, if you don’t get married first, they’d be honoured to have you, Miss Blentham.’

  Arthur Cornwallis came up. ‘Diana my dear,’ he said loudly, ‘did I not make you promise to bring your poem, and read it to us? You won’t be alone – many of us are preparing to indulge ourselves, you know – like Sir Henry here!’

  The man called Sir Henry said: ‘Yes, don’t deny us, Miss Blentham,’ just as though he were expecting her to play the piano and sing a little air. Suddenly, half the people in the room seemed to be looking at her. Kitty was beaming in Diana’s direction across some tall man’s protruding stomach.

  ‘Is it in your pocket?’ said Captain Fitzclare.

  ‘Don’t disappoint us, Diana!’ called Edward.

  She had written a poem called ‘Early Winter, in Garden and Soul’, and she had brought it with her, though not in her pocket as Captain Fitclare had said, because she had none. She remembered that she had tried to be exact and simple, and yet to imitate the alliterative roll of Swinburne’s lines.

  Diana took the hot, folded square of paper out of her corsage, and looked at it. It would be undignified to ask for time, or to be excused. She was angry with these people who encouraged her to show off: but she had come here in order to read a poem, and have it judged. Diana opened out her paper and blinked down at the words she had thought quite acceptable. The last lines of the second verse read:

  Cold I wait among the cherries, trained along the wall’s wire rack.

  Where loose leaves of thin coral orange, hang but a few days from branches of black.

  It did not scan. She would not have thought it possible. She must have been waiting for an imaginary lover, or inspiration, or permission to go to Cambridge and waste her time. For nothing. Diana crumpled the paper and put it back in her bosom.

  She said to those who were waiting and smiling: ‘You mustn’t encourage me to bore you – it’s bad, very bad, very bad indeed.’ Diana sat down against beside Fitzclare.

  ‘My dear!’ said Cornwallis. ‘I’m very sorry you think so, but don’t let us distress you. Another time?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ She could see that people approved of her modesty, of her throwing away her chance. Diana was angry again.

  Captain Fitzclare laid a quick hand on her fingers as soon as attention passed over them. Someone else was reading out a very amusing piece.

  ‘I’m sure, you know – I’ve heard about all this sort of thing from Mabel, even though I don’t quite fit in this s-set either – I’m sure that if you think it’s bad, it’s good, it will be good. If you thought it was g-good, it might be absolute rubbish!’

  She said: ‘How kind of you, Captain Fitzclare.’

  CHAPTER 6

  TWO ENGAGEMENTS

  In the library at Dunstanton, one wet afternoon in late July, Diana was standing on tiptoe on the rickety bookcase steps. She was looking for a copy of the Annals of Tacitus, for she was trying to teach herself Latin; all the unread classical authors were hidden on the very top shelf, not prominently displayed with the unreadable old sermons as they were in most private libraries.

  Diana found three copies after a difficult search, took them all out, and sat down on the steps to see which had the best print and commentary. One was a brown seventeenth-century volume, another had been mauled by a schoolboy, but the third, in a fairly modern binding with firm gold print, looked an improvement on either. She opened it and read the title-page, which said:

  MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE

  The Celebrated History of Miss

  FANNY HILL

  It was an early nineteenth-century pirated edition, very ill printed and very much thumbed: yet it smelt musty, as though no one had read it since it had been disguised as the Annals. Before going further than the title-page, Diana knew roughly what sort of book it must be. She had had two seasons in London, and she had heard people whispering about such things. She jumped down from the steps, went to her corner armchair, and began to read, wondering if it could possibly be her father who had had the book re-bound. On the whole, now that she was learning Latin with her father’s full knowledge, she thought it must have been her grandfather, or her seldom-mentioned Uncle Harold who had been killed at Tel-el-Kebir.

  Diana began at the beginning, and was moved and shocked by the first twenty pages though she did not quite understand. As she read on, she remembered a well-chaperoned visit to the British Museum three years ago, and the statue of a naked man which she had come on quite by accident. Mademoiselle, who was still looking at coins when Diana slipped away, had chased through the rooms, and discovered the girl examining the man with an air of detached distaste; not with the giggling, wicked curiosity proper to seventeen. She had pulled Diana away, but had not scolded her: for fear of questions, as her charge had known at the time.

  ‘So this is it, so this is it,’ Diana murmured aloud, pulling at her hair, as, while swiftly reading, she worked out with half her mind the whole truth of the baby-mystery, exactly what must be happening in cold, very undelicious terms. Why on each do they conceal it from us, the mere facts, thought Diana; oh, well, I do see. She had guessed long ago at the reality of childbirth, and she dreaded it to the point of thinking she might never marry.

  … I arrived at excess of Pleasure, through excess of Pain; but when successive Engagements had broken and inur’d me, I began to Enter into the true unallay’d Relish of that Pleasure of Pleasures, when the warm Gush Darts through all the ravished inwards … the whole afternoon, till supper-time, in a continued circle of Love-delights.

  Diana felt she knew exactly what Fanny Hill was talking about. She referred back to the earlier passages, where girls and their fingers figured chiefly, and men were only in the wings; then continued with the story, under the glass-strengthened heat of the Kentish sun which, outdoors, ruined by wind and damp, could help arouse no sleepy passions.

  Diana found Fanny Hill’s second, rather frightening lover more coarsely fascinating than the lovely boy Charles who seemed to have as little, if good, conversation as Julian Fitzclare.

  … roll’d down the Bed-Cloaths, and seem’d Transported with the view of my Person at full length … he drew up his shirt, and Bared all his Hairy Thighs, and stiff Staring Truncheon, red-topt, and rooted into a Thicket of curls … in a few minutes he was in Condition for Renewing the onset … and thus in repeated Engagements, kept me constantly in Exercise till Dawn of Morning, in all which time, he
made me full Sensible of the Virtues of his trim Texture of limbs, his square shoulders, Broad Chest, compact Hard Muscles, in short a system of Manliness, that might pass for no bad image of our Antient Sturdy Barons ….

  At the thought that her father was in fact a baron, Diana giggled and looked evil, then blinked as she remembered her cool thin gentle mother.

  ‘Oh, goodness.’

  She must show this book to Violet, when she had had time to digest it. For it was distressing, with all its talk of male truncheons, engines and machines; vulgar as well as a revelation, teaching that the deepest comfort of the body was normal. The baby-making aspect of men and women’s meeting had never aroused Diana’s curiosity so much as the unimaginable reason for her soft, low pleasure in her own flesh.

  It must be nearly nine years since she and Violet had discussed all this, though modestly, in the schoolroom the day Nurse told them she was leaving to be married. They had not mentioned the subject since then: perhaps shortly afterwards Violet, slow and dear as she was, had discovered the oozing little joy for herself. Then like Diana, she might have become only perfunctorily curious about babies and men.

  Lord Blentham came in. He asked Diana whether she was enjoying herself, and whether she did not think she had done enough work. Diana did not hide the volume of Tacitus, though her hands shook; she smiled tiredly, and said perhaps she had done enough for one day. He did not ask her what she was reading, because he was busy and had come in only to fetch the Graphic. He made a joke about Latin and strong-minded women, a commonplace remark which was not characteristic of him. Then he left, and Diana got up quickly from her chair.

  *

  Six weeks later, Lord and Lady Blentham and their two younger daughters were staying with a friend in Argyllshire. Violet liked Scotland, but Diana did not.

  ‘Oh, Didie, Didie! Oh, Manning, please will you go and wait in my room, I’ll help Miss Diana to dress, I’ve got something to tell her, you see!’ cried Violet, breathlessly pushing open the door to her sister’s room, so hard that it rattled against the wall.

  Diana had been at the dressing-table with the lady’s maid behind her, looking peacefully out at the view of the moors which belonged to their host, Sir Walter Montrose. She jumped, began to smile, and opened her mouth at Violet’s entrance, but Manning, seeing both girls’ excitement, was the first to speak. ‘Yes, Miss Violet. Do you still wish to wear the cream nun’s-veiling?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yes, anything!’

  When the maid was gone, Violet threw herself on the bed and said: ‘He’s asked me. And he got Papa’s consent before proposing, can you believe it, this is 1893? And he’s never tried to kiss me. Oh, Didie darling. Isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘Well, congratulations,’ said Diana at last. ‘I never thought he really would, I must say.’

  Violet rolled over on the bed. ‘Oh, just because he never – behaved like a young man. I knew – I so hoped – the way he looked at me, and the kindness, especially when he killed that wasp at luncheon yesterday, and I was so terrified, and Jimmy Rose thought it was funny –’

  Diana began to laugh. ‘Oh, Vio, you are an idiot. I do hope you’ll be happy. Well, when exactly did he ask you? What did he say?’

  ‘Oh, I was loitering in the hall, thinking I must come up and dress, you know, even though the gong hadn’t gone – why can’t one wear a tea-gown for dinner – and he came out of the gun-room passage, and started talking about the colours on the moors, you know, and how really awful it is to pollute them by shooting the grouse for mere sport, which I’ve always thought. And then there were no servants about, you see, so he opened the front door, and we went out, going towards the moors I suppose, awfully romantic, and then he proposed, and said a lot of nonsense about his being so much older than me.’ Violet stopped, and patted her hair.

  ‘Well, he is fifty-five. I don’t know how –’

  ‘Fifty-four.’

  ‘Still, people will say it’s shameful, you know they will, Vio.’

  ‘Oh, never mind that. I’m not in the least conventional. After all, Papa gave his consent.’

  ‘Of course he did. You’re such a big mouth to feed, and you’re old as girls go, nearly twenty-two, aren’t you now?’

  ‘Don’t tease. I wish I’d heard S – Walter asking Papa,’ Violet said, smiling into the distance.

  Diana noticed Violet’s hesitation. ‘Vio, do you still call him Sir Walter? Did he say – um – “My dear Miss Blentham, my deep and sincere friendship for you and your family has grown, over these last few weeks, to –”’

  ‘Didie, you know he’s not pompous, or old-fashioned even. He said Violet, quite passionately.’

  ‘I know. The whole position is just – it makes one rather nervous.’

  ‘Yes: Mamma,’ said Violet. ‘She’ll be so angry at not having had the least idea!’

  Diana did not take this up, though she thought her mother had guessed something, and disapproved, but had refused to take the business seriously because it was unthinkable.

  ‘Oh, Didie, I’m going to be married!’ said Violet. She went on: ‘I’ll live here forever, and I’ll never have to go to London again, or dance with dreary men, or try to look sweet and jeune fille.’

  Diana turned and looked at Violet. ‘Vio, have you thought about Fanny Hill – in connection with Sir Walter? All that?’

  ‘Often,’ said her sister, sitting upright on the bed. ‘Very often. In fact, I look forward to it very much.’ She said again, thumping the pillow: ‘I’m going to be married, Didie!’

  ‘I know!’ said Diana. ‘And I think you’re a fool – the whole thing is ridiculous, and he’s an old bore however kind he is! A widower of nearly sixty, I don’t know how you can. Don’t say you’re going to be married again, I know you are!’

  Violet stared at her. Until now, Diana had encouraged her confidences, grinned at her and teased her, and said that Sir Walter was just the man for her. ‘Poor old Didie,’ she said with ample dignity. ‘I’m going to tell Mamma now.’

  *

  Before the next day’s shooting began, Sir Walter Montrose hinted Lord Blentham away from the remains of his breakfast, and made the other men at table mildly curious. The two of them went out of the house, and Sir Walter proposed a stroll in the garden. As they walked, both silently examined the place which was to be Violet’s home.

  Auchingilloch Lodge was a convenient house, built of Scottish stone in simple, modern castle style. The gardens were poor, filled chiefly at the moment with overgrown shrubs and late, unhealthy roses; and beyond, there were the brown hills ready for shooting, lapped by streaks of morning cloud. When Sir Walter had proposed to Violet the afternoon before, the whole scene had been golden. He sighed.

  ‘Well?’ said Charles.

  Sir Walter hesitated before saying: ‘Violet has accepted me. I was – more delighted than I can say, of course, Blentham, and I must thank you for –’

  ‘You don’t mean to say you really hadn’t even dropped her a hint about the matter before?’

  ‘Well, a hint,’ said Sir Walter, smiling, ‘but a very discreet one.’

  There was a pause, and both coughed.

  ‘Well, she’s a sweet girl and rarely any trouble, and I hope she’ll make you happy. It’s time she was married, I daresay her mother will accustom herself to the idea. I told you, didn’t I … When you approached me yesterday I didn’t know what to think,’ said Charles. He had imagined at one moment that he could not face squashing the whole affair, which must already have been settled between the two of them; and at the next, that Violet was bound to turn the old man down and giggle about it.

  He heard the other say now: ‘I know I’m more than thirty years her senior. I thought – Blentham, I can only tell you that I love her deeply and asked your permission to marry her only because I couldn’t stop myself – because it is my deepest wish to make her happy.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, Montrose,’ murmured Charles. Though he said so little, he
wished briefly that more men were as articulate and unashamed as Montrose.

  Sir Walter put his hands in his pockets, and Charles thought quite crossly that he was a remarkably handsome man for his age, with his tall slender figure, thick straight grey hair, fine skin; and notable grey-blue eyes surrounded by becoming, thoughtful lines. His nose was a little too large, and hooked. ‘I think that Violet must have told your wife of our intentions,’ he said, shyly.

  ‘Do you mean because she hardly spoke to you at dinner?’

  ‘Yes – I suppose so.’

  ‘Didn’t she refer to the matter?’

  ‘No, no she didn’t.’

  ‘Oh, in that case –’

  At that moment they saw Angelina, who was already dressed in tweeds. She was coming briskly round from the opposite side of the house, though she was supposed to be in bed with her breakfast tray. They said nothing till she reached them, and she spoke first.

  ‘I happened to see you from my bedroom window,’ she told the two men, and embarrassed them slightly. ‘Well, Sir Walter, so you are going to be my son-in-law! I thought in that case, you couldn’t object to my getting up rather early – having a little stroll in your charming garden.’ She blinked up at him.

  Charles pushed forward slightly. ‘Angelina, did Violet tell you?’

  ‘Yes, Charles.’ Angelina had made her daughter cry.

  ‘I mean to do all I can to make Violet happy, Lady Blentham,’ said Walter.

  She looked at him. ‘She’s of age, perhaps she knows her own mind. I mean to have a little talk with her, Sir Walter, and if what I say about – if what I say doesn’t influence her as it should, then she can marry you without my – making vulgar objections. I’ve thought about this very carefully. I must go back into the house, I suppose, I must have interrupted a most important talk.’