The Bohemian Girl

by Frances Vernon

  When she told her husband that she was puzzled by Diana’s behaviour, Charles told her that, odd as it might seem, very likely Hugh Parnell was about to make her happy. ‘Rather too young for marriage, of course, I gather he’s only just down from Oxford, but I don’t think that’s a very serious objection. James Parnell was at my tutor’s, must be young Parnell’s uncle, no, cousin perhaps. Really, my dear, he’s a nice young chap, and she could do far worse than marry into that family. The Parnells of Combe Chalcot, you know, are nearly as good as the Venables.’

  ‘Please don’t try to tease me, Charles. Diana would never fall in love with a young man so – commonplace as Hugh Parnell, and I don’t believe for a moment he is serious in his intentions, as they used to say when I was a girl!’

  Diana overheard this conversation when she passed the drawing-room door. She opened it, and said: ‘Maud and I are going, Mamma – Buxton says the carriage is ready.’

  ‘Very demure you look, Didie,’ said Charles. She was wearing white, with lilies of the valley in her hair, and huge puffed elbow-sleeves which were suitable for an afternoon dress, and original in a ballgown. Her cheeks and lips were slightly rouged, but her mother did not notice.

  ‘Then I hope you enjoy yourselves, my dear,’ said Angelina. ‘Give my love to Violet, of course. I wonder if it will be a good party? Giving one’s first London dance is always rather difficult, and her drawing-room really isn’t quite large enough.’

  Lady Blentham, who was going to dine alone with her husband and then go to bed, suddenly felt both old and wretched when she parted the drawing-room curtains and watched her daughters climb into the waiting brougham. Even Maud looked young at this distance. Dear God – whatever Diana does, she thought, I shall be too tired to take an interest. My favourite child – but nothing seems to rouse me to feeling. She told herself not to exaggerate, and turned resentful eyes on Charles, who was to attend a late-night session at the House while her own visit to the opera with her brother and sister-in-law had had to be cancelled because Mrs Venables was ill.

  At one o’clock, Violet sat down for the first time since her party began. From her seat behind a bowl of roses, she watched her guests trying to dance in the inadequate space, and imagined Diana’s future life in which nothing like this would ever be seen. She envied her extremely.

  Violet was pregnant, footsore and looking unusually plain, and she had given this party only because she knew Lady Blentham would have been triumphant in displeasure, had her daughter done no more than invite close friends to dine with her, and wholly neglected her supposed society duty. Walter and Violet both said that they despised social fetishes, and loved unconventionality, and they were pleased that Diana seemed to share their views. Violet supposed that when her sister married Molloy, she would lead a life much the same as her own, though London-based and of course, rather more eccentric.

  She did not think Michael’s lack of money a real objection, because she and her husband regarded money only as the means to buy worldly things which were quite unnecessary, and in any case, however angry the Blenthams were, they would not cast Diana out completely. Her parents would be very, very angry, that was true. Violet resolved to stand by Diana whatever happened, and she guessed that Edward and Kitty, Maud and even Roderick would support her too, if Angelina were over-ferocious. She smiled, and at that moment, Edward came up and asked her to dance.

  ‘You’ve invited quite a few oddities, haven’t you, Violet?’ he said as the little band struck up the tune for a valse.

  ‘Oh, I suppose you mean the Sacheverells. You are such a snob, Teddy. Why shouldn’t one invite a doctor to a dance? Anyway, Mrs Sacheverell was presented the same year as poor old Maud.’

  ‘Why not, indeed?’

  ‘Or an actress, or an artist, or a person in trade!’ said Violet, stamping her feet to the music.

  ‘You’re the worst dancer in London,’ said Edward.

  ‘You’ve aged terribly since I saw you last. Your face is so red, Teddy, I suppose it’s because it’s so very hot in here – I must tell Angus to open another window, oh, how I do hate being a hostess – tell me, are you happy with Kitty?’

  ‘Never regretted it for a moment,’ said Edward, refusing to look surprised.

  Kitty, who never regretted having left the stage to marry Edward, saw him dancing with his sister and decided to go upstairs for a short rest. Edward’s only fault, she thought, was a tendency to admire other women; but she knew he did not have a full-fledged mistress, and so she refused to criticise him. He would be safe with Violet for the moment.

  Edward was her dearest possession, but though he was attentive, and handsome, and charming, he had never made her well-imagined bodily passion for him magnificently real. As she edged and smiled her way through the noisy press of idlers on Violet’s staircase, Kitty reflected that, in fact, the mysterious satisfaction about which even the immoral did not talk directly had never been so very important to her. What with Teddy and the kids, she thought, I’m happy, and loving’s pleasant enough, I’m sure. A nice little thing.

  On the second-floor half-landing, Kitty raised her head; and up above her at the very top of the stairs, she saw the grey-lit figures of Diana and Michael Molloy. As she focused her eyes, Kitty took in her breath, for she recognised true, troublesome passion now that she saw it. ‘Well!’ she muttered.

  Diana was moaning, and her hair was in a terrible state. Michael’s hands were on her waist, pulling her lower half towards him, and his face was pushing her head back as he kissed her over and over again. When he began to raise Diana’s skirt from the back, Kitty swung round, opened the bathroom door, and deliberately slammed it behind her as loudly as she could.

  CHAPTER 9

  PUSHED TO THE LIMIT

  Kitty soon decided that violent lust and emotional intensity were more immoral in a girl born with Diana’s advantages than they would be in anyone else. Diana had enough good things in life as it was; the folly and ingratitude of loving a man like Molloy made her sister-in-law truly angry.

  Kitty knew that Lady Blentham would be furious too: and she told Edward that she meant to write to her, because Diana must not be allowed to wreck her life. Edward was shocked by his wife’s description of what she had seen, but he refused to do anything, and said that would be the wiser course for her to take as well.

  Perhaps he was right, Kitty thought, when the letter to Angelina had been taken away. Perhaps her mother-in-law would not be in the least impressed by her writing, would even refuse to believe what she said. Lady Blentham had not once received her in the six years of her marriage, and Kitty hated her, though she understood. She wished that she were Angelina, able to be cruel sometimes and save Diana from ruin. Diana was a good, innocent girl, and worth saving.

  Dear Lady Blentham,

  You will, I am sure, be very surprised to receive a letter from me.

  Angelina looked at the signature, and moved her lips silently, then returned avidly to the beginning.

  I do not doubt you will be displeased, even insulted, but I feel obliged to write to you, because there is something you ought to know, concerning Diana. I do not imagine you can be aware of what I have to tell you, because you would have done something long ago, if you knew.

  Angelina looked across the breakfast table at Diana, who was dressed in her riding habit and had opened The Times. Probably she was reading the Divorce Court proceedings. ‘How dare – can you read the newspaper in front of me,’ said Lady Blentham in a low steady voice, and pulled it away from her daughter. ‘You know what my feelings are.’

  ‘Mamma!’

  ‘Be quiet, if you please.’ Lady Blentham was truly thankful that they were alone together. Charles was out, and Maud was in bed.

  Diana watched the London dust floating in the sunlight before her mother’s pallid face, and with her eyes narrowed and blinking rapidly she thought of how she would marry Michael and live in Camden Town.

  I am afraid Diana has formed a v
ery unsuitable connection, – Angelina supposed that Kitty had searched a long time for that phrase – with an Irish painter, called Michael Molloy. I have met him at Arthur Cornwallis’s, and I suppose Diana met him there too, though exactly when I do not know. Whether he intends marriage or not, I also do not know. However, I do think that Violet – not even ‘Lady Montrose’ thought Angelina! – is in favour of the idea of them marrying. I hate to say anything so vulgar, but I saw Diana kissing Mr Molloy, at Violet’s little dance on Thursday.

  ‘Oh –’

  ‘Yes, Mamma?’

  Angelina read on without replying.

  I inquired from Arthur Cornwallis more about Mr Molloy, though I hope I do not need to tell you that I did not drop even a hint, about him and Diana. It seems that he is not only quite penniless, and the son of someone in trade, as you would say, but that he was actually concerned in the activities of the Land League, or some other violent, Irish Fenian organisation. Whether the police have their eye on him now, Arthur does not know, but I hope I am not exaggerating, when I tell you there is a danger of this.

  He is considerably older than Diana, of course. I hope that you will consider I have done right, in writing to you about this subject – I know that I have. I do not doubt, in any case, that you will quite agree with me, that it is of very great importance that Diana should not be allowed to throw herself away, and make a scandal. She would, I am sure, be very unhappy with Mr Molloy, for many reasons. Among others, she does not know what it is to live without elegance and comfort, on very little money.

  You will be pleased to hear, I know, that Edward, Frankie, Charlie and Little Angel are all very well indeed.

  Little Angel, an ugly baby, had been christened Angela after Lady Blentham, who considered the name a very inferior form of her own.

  Trusting that you will receive this letter in the spirit in which it was intended,

  Yours sincerely, Kitty Blentham.

  When Angelina laid down the letter, Diana said: ‘Mamma, I’m no longer so young that I cannot be allowed to read the newspaper for fear of knowing about things I should not.’

  Angelina scarcely heard her. Her chief thought, for several moments, was of the woman’s insolence in doing right. Then, silently, she made herself concentrate on the sense of the ill-expressed letter.

  ‘Is that letter to do with me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lady Blentham at last.

  Diana bent stiffly over her toast, and looked at it. ‘I should think it’s an impertinence.’

  Angelina got up. ‘It is intolerably impertinent. From your sister-in-law.’

  ‘Kitty?’

  ‘Is it true, Diana, what it says?’

  ‘What does it say? I haven’t seen it.’ She guessed, although she did not know, and had never confided in Kitty.

  ‘You may read it,’ said Angelina in a voice of contempt.

  Diana took it. No doubt, she thought when she finished reading, Kitty considered her letter a model of efficient dignity.

  ‘Well?’ said Lady Blentham.

  Diana put down the letter and her napkin and went to the door. ‘I can’t talk about it now, Mamma. I’m going to see Kitty and ask her what she means.’

  Angelina ran to her. ‘Then what she says is a falsehood? It’s slanderous, Diana?’

  ‘No, it’s not altogether a falsehood.’

  ‘Diana!’

  ‘No, Mamma!’ She left, and Angelina heard the front door slam.

  Diana walked to the nearest cab rank, and told the driver to take her to Cadogan Square. Though in the past year she had had so much more freedom than before, she had been alone in a hansom cab only four times in her life. ‘I thought you were a friend,’ she said aloud to an imaginary Kitty, then realised she must not say anything so commonplace. She was as puzzled as she was bitter, and she was still trembling a little from her rejection of Angelina.

  The hansom drew up before the young Blenthams’ house. Diana paid the cabman, rapped on the door, and was admitted by the butler, whose shocked and curious glance made her remember that she was still in riding-dress, and that it was far too early to be paying calls. She intended that, very soon, such things would no longer concern her.

  ‘Is Mrs Blentham at home?’

  ‘Yes, miss, that is –’

  ‘It’s important. Please ask her to see me – no, I’ll go up! Where is she?’ Kitty and Diana had had several friendly talks at odd moments in public, but no one could think them intimate. Diana had rarely been to their house even since her coming of age, and the butler had taken a moment to recognise her. ‘Come, tell me!’ she said to him.

  ‘I believe in the boudoir, miss,’ said the man coldly. ‘But I fancy …’

  Diana went upstairs and found the room. ‘Hello, Kitty!’ she said. Kitty, who was reading a novel on the sofa in her dressing-gown, looked up.

  ‘Well! You’re up early – you don’t want me to come riding with you, do you, because I’m afraid I can’t. Do sit down, Diana!’

  ‘Thank you. I’ve come about the letter you wrote to my mother,’ said Diana, sitting down and thinking that the pink-and-gold boudoir full of huge photographs and too-expensive flowers was just the thing for an actress. She assumed that Edward and Kitty were heavily in debt: an inexcusable, foolish thing to be. ‘She had it this morning.’

  ‘Oh, you’re cross, are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I meant it for the best, Diana.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘Why do you think I wrote, then?’ said Kitty, slowly closing her novel.

  ‘Some kind of spite – or jealousy. I can’t think what I’ve done to make you feel like that, to do what you have.’

  ‘Spite and jealousy?’ said Kitty.

  ‘Am I putting it too strongly?’ said Diana, consciously raising her eyebrows.

  Kitty imitated her. ‘Rather, Diana. Of course I didn’t do it for spite, I did it for the very reasons I said. Because Lady Blentham will be able to stop you ruining your life, at least I’m pretty sure she will, which is what you’ll be doing, if you marry him – never mind if he seduces you. I’m sorry to speak so crudely, I’m sure, but you’re old enough to know what I mean!’

  ‘He wants to marry me. There’s no question of seduction.’

  ‘So much the worse!’ said Kitty. ‘In a sense.’

  ‘My mother won’t be able to prevent my marriage, neither will my father. I’m of age, though everyone seems to forget it.’

  ‘They’ll be able to – well, put pressure on you, and I just hope you’ll listen,’ said Kitty.

  ‘My mind is made up,’ said Diana.

  ‘So you’ll marry him, will you? And what will you live on, an allowance from Papa?’

  ‘Michael earns something and yes, I expect that once my parents have – recovered, they’ll give us something too,’ said Diana. She never took her eyes off Kitty, and her toes wriggled angrily inside her boots.

  ‘And supposing that’s so, how much do you suppose you’ll have?’

  ‘Four or five hundred a year? Many people live on less, though I don’t see quite why you …’

  ‘They do indeed, Diana. They live on much less, and do you know what it’s like! Now do stop looking as though you’d swallowed the poker, I thought I was a friend of yours.’

  ‘Diana, you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re just a girl in love, and you think you don’t care if you upset your family. D’you realise that if Michael Molloy marries you, you won’t be in Society?’

  ‘Realise it?’ said Diana. ‘Do you think I want to be “in Society” as you call it, any longer? When I could be …’ She did not say ‘just with him’, but she smiled. Until she met Michael, Diana had despised people who believed in what her father called love in a cottage on nothing a year. She felt much older now than she had felt a month ago, and not only older, but braver, wittier, stronger, more beautiful and wise.

  ‘I suppose he makes poverty look positively heavenly!’ snapped
Kitty. ‘Well, I wash my hands of you.’

  ‘I’m so glad. Do you apologise for writing to my mother?’

  ‘No, I do not,’ said Kitty, sitting upright, with her hands crushed beneath her thighs. ‘Oh, I’m sorry if my doing that has only made you more headstrong about it all, and it looks as if it has! But I did the best I could and I can’t be sorry.’

  ‘If you wanted to save me from ruining my life,’ said Diana, ‘why didn’t you write to me, and give me your advice? Why did you write to my mother, Kitty? Why couldn’t you say all that – all this to me?’

  Looking at Diana, Kitty herself wondered why for a moment.

  ‘Was it an attempt to please her, make her pleased with you?’

  ‘I daresay, but what nonsense you do talk.’

  ‘It didn’t please her.’

  ‘I should imagine not.’

  ‘Well,’ said Diana, ‘I don’t want to have an irreparable quarrel with you. I’m going – let’s forget it. Will you cut me, Kitty, when I’m married?’ She got up and arranged her skirts.

  ‘I just might.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Diana, do you remember coming to call on me when you were a flapper, and we were just married? You managed to come alone in a hansom, and, oh, you were so excited and pleased with yourself. No harm in that at that age. But you haven’t changed a bit.’

  ‘You’re so jealous, Kitty,’ said Diana. ‘Do cut me in future, it should be quite amusing in the circumstances.’

  ‘Diana Blentham, you’re a bloody idiot!’

  Diana smiled, because the Cockney swear-word shocked her, and of course it ought not to, things being as they were. She left the house feeling quite calm, and on the whole decidedly the winner: though at the back of her mind there was a new picture of Kitty as a powerful, well-intentioned yet unpleasant woman. Diana did not think she would see her again. Once Kitty had represented a wild and intoxicating, quite improper world; but it was hard to remember that now.