The Bohemian Girl

by Frances Vernon

  Diana was not a good bicyclist, but she was determined, and quite capable of keeping steady on a straight, flat road. One could have, as everyone said, a great sense of freedom on a well-managed bicycle. Diana did not feel it unless she was by herself, unafraid of falling off, and able to go fast and ring her bell unnecessarily. Now, as she rode under a line of budding plane trees, a remarkably handsome man on an old-fashioned penny-farthing raised his hat to her; and Diana dared to remove her attention from the road and bow, just as though she were in a carriage.

  She did not notice the coming slope until her bicycle wobbled at the change of gradient. She found herself going faster and faster, then she veered round to the side, crashed into a pedestrian and fell.

  The man was knocked to the ground and, as the machine went spinning from Diana’s grip, he broke her fall with his hard stomach, and his arms.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’ve a fine pair of legs to show, I will say, if you must be knocking me over on a Sunday afternoon!’ He did not smile as he said this, and released her.

  In the struggle, Diana’s skirt had been pushed up to her waist to reveal blue serge bicycling knickers.

  ‘Thank you – I’m sorry!’ Diana gasped. Then she realised what he had said and added steadily, ‘I hope I didn’t hurt you?’, pulling down her skirt. She did not blush.

  ‘To be sure you hurt me, Miss –?’ The man frowned, and rubbed his shoulder.

  ‘Blentham.’ Diana wondered why she had given him her name, instead of saying it was quite unimportant. He was a dark and ugly man, with a long, intense face, a broken nose, extragavant clothes, and a faint Irish accent.

  ‘Miss who Blentham?’

  ‘My name happens to be Diana.’ She immediately felt she had been pompous.

  ‘Well, you have hurt me, Miss Diana Blentham. But have I hurt you, is more to the point? You’ve not damaged yourself, apart from showing your legs?’

  ‘Don’t mention my legs!’ she said, quite angrily, and stopped.

  ‘My name is Michael Molloy, and I happen to be a painter. Do you know, you’re one of the most handsome women I’ve ever seen? You’d make a fine model. And you seem to have plenty of spirit. On the whole, I think I’d like to marry someone very like you.’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk rubbish, just in an attempt to embarrass me further!’ cried Diana, staring.

  ‘Well, I shan’t say it again. There, you can’t be offended, can you, Miss Blentham? Here’s your hat, my dear, put it on, there’s an old lady looking at us as though she’d heard the Last Trump sounding. You must never be hatless out of doors, didn’t you know?’ he told her.

  ‘Or unchaperoned!’ said Diana, taking her hat. She realised that she was still sitting on the grass, practically leaning against Michael Molloy. He had not troubled to get up and was lying flat on the ground.

  ‘As you say, ma’am. Now, do you have a chaperone near? Or elsewhere?’

  Diana straightened her shoulders. ‘I came with some other girls.’

  ‘And you’ve left them?’ He had narrow but very bright dark grey eyes, set under black eyebrows which grew together in the middle and were even thicker than Julian Fitzclare’s. They were commanding eyes, Diana thought, and though of course his words were amusing, his voice was grim and his eyes looked sad. They were also full of sex, she was sure of that, quite quite unlike Julian Fitzclare’s. She had had other suitors, too. Diana looked away from him, and said: ‘Yes.’

  Michael Molloy raised his torso from the grass. ‘Perhaps I’d better not ask you to have tea with me, all the same. You’d best pick up that machine of yours, and be rejoining them. By the by, where do you live?’

  ‘Queen Anne’s Gate – and in Kent!’

  He stood up, and did not ask for the number of the house in London.

  ‘Goodbye, Miss Blentham,’ he said, nodded, and turned.

  Her lips moved quietly as she watched him lope swiftly away: she had been perfectly sure he was going to flirt with her. Diana picked up her bicycle and, with quivering legs, pushed it back up the little slope which now seemed a full-sized hill.

  *

  One week later, a large parcel came to Queen Anne’s Gate by the afternoon post. It was addressed in a pointed, sloping hand to ‘Hon. Diana Blentham.’ The Blenthams were alone together in the morning-room when it arrived.

  ‘Not from Cerisette’s, surely, Diana?’ said Angelina.

  ‘No, it can’t be.’

  ‘But it can only be clothes,’ said Maud; ‘a box of that size.’

  ‘From one of your admirers, Didie?’ said Lord Blentham. ‘Well, open it!’

  Diana, sighing at them, was already doing so. She took the parcel over to the table when she had removed the wrapping paper, and lifted off the lid. Inside, covered with tissue-paper, was a tweed coat very like a man’s Norfolk jacket. She did not show it to the family, but took out the envelope which lay beneath, and opened it. The letter said:

  My dear Miss Blentham,

  I discovered that you and I have a mutual friend as they say in Arthur Cornwallis.

  The enclosed will better show off your limbs than a skirt and knickers, should you choose to go out bicycling again, after our encounter in Battersea. I hope you will wear it, but in any case, I remain,

  Yours very sincerely, Michael Molloy.

  Diana put it in her pocket and, trying desperately not to smile, laid the jacket over the back of an armchair. Next she pulled out an Eton collar and a belt.

  ‘But I thought it was not from Cerisette’s, Diana?’

  ‘No, Mamma, someone else sent it. Look! Shan’t I look ravishing in it?’ She held up the knickerbockers which completed the suit, and started to laugh, clutching them. ‘Oh, dear. Oh, Lord.’

  ‘Bloomers!’ said Lord Blentham.

  His wife blushed and said: ‘Rational Dress. Diana, no.’

  ‘You won’t wear it?’ said Maud.

  ‘Of course I shall wear it, it’s a present,’ laughed Diana.

  ‘Oh, no, you won’t, my girl,’ said her father.

  Diana turned. ‘Maud, you should have a set made for yourself, then we can go out together.’

  Angelina got up. ‘If this – monstrosity is a present, it is a present from whom, Diana?’

  ‘Oh, a very nice person,’ she said, calming down.

  ‘Let me see that letter you were reading.’

  ‘No, Mamma.’

  ‘No daughter of mine is going to wear bloomers in public!’ said Charles, and then was a little ashamed of having been pompous. Diana saw this.

  ‘They’re not bloomers, Papa. As Mamma said, they’re called Rational Dress nowadays. And it is rational. So sensible, don’t you think? Practical,’ she said.

  ‘I ask you not to wear it,’ said Angelina, raising her face. Maud followed the others’ exchange with her eyes, but did not speak.

  ‘You’re a disgrace, Didie,’ said Charles.

  ‘We shall see, Mamma,’ said Diana, after a pause. ‘I’ll take it upstairs for the present.’ Gentle, happy tears began to fall from her eyes, and she gathered up the jacket and breeches and crushed them to her as she left the room.

  ‘Better burn them, Angelina,’ said Charles when Diana closed the door. He opened the newspaper to show that he took no further responsibility.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lady Blentham. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why should you?’ said Maud. ‘What right have you to do so?’

  Her parents stared at her: it was so long since she had been even theoretically rebellious, and she had not been rude since she was a child. ‘You have no right to burn Diana’s clothes,’ she said. ‘No right at all!’

  ‘I think you are not yourself,’ said Angelina.

  ‘Maudie, help yourself to more tea!’ said her father.

  ‘No, thank you. Do you know, I think I might learn to bicycle!’

  ‘Charles,’ said Angelina, deciding not to encourage Maud by listening to her, ‘do you realise that those clothes may – just possibly – have
been sent Diana by a man?’

  Lord Blentham jumped, and let out a crack of laughter. ‘What? You don’t say so! I say, what a – how monstrous! I must say, that is absolutely disgraceful. It can’t be true,’ he scowled foolishly.

  Upstairs, Diana laid her Rational Dress on the bed and continued to cry over it, because she was in love. She had known for days that, in three minutes in Battersea Park, Michael Molloy had succeeded in making her feel alive, and she must love him for it. Ludicrous as it was, she had become extraordinarily aware of everything about her, and had been given telescopic eyes for seeing trees and flowers in the outside world, foolishness and intrigue and comedy in her own. She had tried to put him out of her mind, because it had been a hateful encounter for all its delicious unconventionality; and yet because she had met him it seemed wonderful merely to be in England doing the London Season.

  Now it turned out that he knew the precious Cornwallises, who had provided Julian Fitzclare years ago. Diana laughed and hugged herself and called herself a fool.

  She put on her suit and examined herself in the mirror, planning and wondering at how Michael Molloy had guessed her size. At last, still wearing it, she sat down at her little writing table and began to scribble a letter to Violet. It was not written in her ususal discreet, elegant, faintly amusing style: she should hardly be expected to write like that.

  Dearest Vio, In your last letter, you said that you and Walter might perhaps be hiring someone or other’s house in Green St for a few weeks in June/July, and that you were trying to dissuade him because you do hate London so. But you must come, and help me, because I need you to provide a meeting-place for me! I’m in love, and Mamma and Papa are not, I think, going to approve, so do please agree to play gooseberry (blind and deaf gooseberry) now that you are a married lady as Nurse would say.

  Only consider, dearest. When I was out, bicycling in Battersea, I knocked over a very rude and ugly but quite remarkably fascinating man, a painter! called Michael Molloy who in fact knows the Cornwallises. Well, I thought very little of it until today, when he sent me a parcel containing – do guess – the most charming suit of Rational Dress. Imagines-tu, ma chérie. I opened it in front of Mamma and Papa! And I’m wearing it at this moment, and it’s extremely becoming –he did say I have awfully good legs.

  Vio, you must see I need you. One look at him is enough to tell one that, even though Mr Molloy may be one of Arthur’s junior lions, whom he doesn’t invite to his best parties, I shan’t be able to meet him in the ordinary way elsewhere, unless you’re game. And you must know how it is here, even though I do now have a latchkey, my comings and goings are continually noticed.

  If I do meet Mr Molloy chez Arthur and Mabel, I shall tell him about you, and I expect – I hope so much – that he will leave his card with you. No, nothing so ordinary, of course! He will probably ignore your butler’s saying you’re not at home, walk in, discover you in bed with a headache, explain the situation, compliment you on the state of your décolletage, and ask you whether you can please arrange a large party for your sister’s benefit and invite him as guest of honour. Chérie, do you see how intriguing?

  When this letter had been finished, addressed and posted, Diana was miserable for hours, because she had imagined and said that Michael Molloy was serious in his intentions towards her. It occurred to her that he might want simply to seduce and not to marry her, but it was not this thought which made her ashamed, only her presumption in writing confidential nonsense to Violet about his being a magnificent man. She had worked a spell against his ever wanting to see her again. This, thought Diana, is love.

  *

  Arthur Cornwallis was amused by Michael Molloy’s version of the bicycle accident, and because he supposed that Diana was too strongminded a girl to be seriously embarrassed at seeing Molloy again, he agreed to invite both her and Maud to a soirée one evening when Molloy intended to come. Michael Molloy knew very well that Cornwallis would be as shocked as Lady Blentham at the idea of his marrying Diana, and he said only that he meant to persuade her to model for him, clothed.

  At their second meeting, Diana was the first to see Molloy across the Cornwallises’ familiar drawing-room, but he turned round within a moment of her sighting him, and pushed through the crowd towards her. She waited, and did not let her eyes leave him.

  ‘Well, a fine evening, is it not, Miss Blentham? And dear Mabel does give such very good parties!’

  ‘As you say, Mr Molloy. Let me introduce you to my sister. Maud, this is Mr Molloy, whom I’ve met –’

  ‘At some ball or other, was it not?’ said Michael, without a trace of his Irish accent. His attitude this evening startled Diana, but his appearance did not. He wore a very old dinner-jacket, braided dark green trousers, and a soft collar. ‘How do you do, Miss Blentham?’

  ‘How do you do?’

  Two minutes later, Michael had presented Maud to another man who looked as patently Bohemian as he did himself, and taken Diana into a corner. ‘Diana,’ he said, ‘I want you to marry me. I came here tonight because I knew you’d be here and I wanted to ask you.’

  There was a space of two seconds, then Diana said in a low steady voice: ‘Ask me again in six months’ time.’

  ‘Six months! I can’t be waiting that long.’

  ‘I can’t be waiting less.’

  ‘Don’t you know your own mind?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘Please don’t bully me, Mr Molloy.’

  ‘Michael.’

  ‘Michael.’

  He looked at her and watched her bosom heave. A lock of his thin brown hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat.

  ‘You said,’ she told him, ‘that you wouldn’t – talk like this again. Do you remember?’

  ‘I do. I didn’t mean it. I merely thought I was being too precipitate. The first meeting is not the time to be making a regular proposal to a girl.’

  Diana laughed.

  ‘But I knew my own mind, even then,’ he said. ‘And I’ll make you know yours.’

  ‘Tell me about yourself, Michael,’ she said.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I’m a painter as I told you, and I’m thirty-seven years old. I’m an Irishman, my father’s a builder with a firm of his own in Dublin, and I haven’t a penny in the world beyond what I earn.’

  ‘Dear me,’ said Diana.

  ‘I’m not eligible, am I?’

  ‘No, indeed.’

  ‘Well, Miss Prim!’

  ‘You’re ridiculous. Don’t look so angry.’

  ‘I’m offering you love. Don’t think I don’t feel my ineligibility – even though I may try to make a joke of it! I’ve no sense of humour.’

  ‘It wouldn’t work, Michael – I mean, if we were in fact to marry!’ said Diana, looking into the crowd with red cheeks and ears.

  ‘And why would it not?’

  ‘We should quarrel.’

  ‘No, we shouldn’t, if you loved me. I’m not quarrelsome, and I should protect you from all that makes life hell, Diana – even though I’ve no money.’

  ‘Do let’s change the subject for a while, Mabel’s staring at us!’

  ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘we’ll discuss the Royal Academy private view.’

  They did discuss it, although he had not gone there, and then Michael began in earnest to talk about painting, just as though she were not the woman he loved.

  He was sharing his passion with her, and she was learning, and she loved him. It occurred to Diana that no other man had ever talked to her seriously, and she believed that Michael would like it if she talked at length on serious subjects, too. She felt tipsy: not with juvenile adoration or the longing to be married, but with powerful excitement; and she knew she wanted to be in bed with him. He was so very determined. She remembered that Julian Fitzclare, for all his love of her, had not proposed instantly because he did not know his own mind. She had had to take charge, and use silent pressure to make him stop worsh
ipping and ask her to marry him. And then, drowned in responsibility, she had realised her mistake and taken all the blame. If Michael Molloy ran off with her, nearly everyone would blame him, not her, and he would think them right to do so. She, Diana, would be able to relax in his arms on crumpled sheets, to ignore other people’s prejudices and do exactly as she pleased.

  ‘When shall I see you again? Can I call on you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Parents, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is there nowhere –’

  ‘My married sister’s coming to London next week. I’ll tell her to ask you to something.’

  ‘Is she eccentric, your sister?’

  Diana started at this idea of Violet, but said: ‘Yes, I suppose so, in a sense. She fell in love with a man old enough to be her grandfather.’

  ‘Very well done of her, to be sure. Is he rich?’

  ‘Tolerably so.’

  ‘And what’s her name, so that I’ll know her invitation when I see it?’

  ‘Violet – Lady Montrose.’

  ‘You don’t mean to say she’s already widowed!’

  ‘No, of course not. I didn’t – mean to put a comma between Violet and Lady.’

  ‘See how well I know what’s what in English Society,’ he said, opening his eyes wide.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ said Diana.

  ‘My father was a Land League man in his youth – and so was I – but a great, great snob, Diana. Knew all these things by heart, so he did, and could have told me that your Papa’s peerage is not old by any means. A fourth baron, is he not?’

  ‘Far better than a Dublin builder, at all events!’

  ‘Oh, Diana, Diana. How was your Rational Dress?’

  Then she realised that she had not even thanked him, and it seemed positively cruel of her not to have done so, when he had no money.

  *

  Michael and Diana courted each other in peace in Violet’s Green Street house, once Sir Walter had said that Michael seemed a good, intelligent man, and the whole affair was no concern of his. At other times over the following few weeks, Diana behaved with more propriety than usual. Lady Blentham noticed how amicable she was, but said nothing, only worried. She had made a private vow to speak to Diana only if she tried to wear the Rational Dress, but Diana did not wear it.