The Bohemian Girl

by Frances Vernon

  ‘Very well, Maud, you’ve read it out once, twice is quite beyond the call of duty,’ said Lord Blentham, getting up. ‘I imagine Violet and Walter have already seen it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Papa. But we knew, of course, didn’t we, Mamma?’ said Maud. ‘Diana did drop us a line about it, before.’

  Violet looked about her, and stroked her sables. Her husband was now gently snoring in the armchair nearest the fire. ‘Really? How awfully odd. She wrote to me – quite a long letter – and said she was hoping for a girl, so I’m awfully pleased, because actually we didn’t see the notice – but I thought she told me she wanted it to be a surprise for the rest of you. Sorry!’

  ‘What a deuced bad moment,’ mumbled Sir Walter.

  ‘Maud is telling an untruth,’ said Angelina. ‘We’ve had no communication from Diana. Naturally I intend to go up to London to see her, now, in view of this.’ She did not say when.

  Roderick swallowed some tea. ‘You would do well to take plenty of cash, Mater. I fancy that Irish bounder of hers is pretty deeply in debt. You know, I went to call on her as soon as I had her address – I was very glad to be able to lend her a few guineas.’

  ‘Thank you, Roderick,’ said his mother.

  ‘You’ll give her very little besides advice, if you take my advice, Angelina,’ said Lord Blentham. ‘I told her we would do nothing for her, and … I’ll take care of matters as they ought to be taken care of.’

  ‘There is the child now, Charles,’ said his wife.

  ‘Yes, there’s the child, Angelina, I know,’ he said. ‘Alice, indeed! I had a pointer bitch called Alice once – but it’s rather an unsuitable name for a child, in my opinion, though I did once hear some old lady or other say it was a very good sort of name for a maid. Together with Ellen, and Jane, and Dolly, and Cora,’ he said, and smiled. He looked very old and ill, though he had made a marvellous recovery from a stroke the previous winter; and he very seldom smiled. ‘I have no intention of visiting Diana yet – I see she means to have us all under her thumb pretty soon.’

  *

  Alice Molloy was a seven-pound baby, whose aged face looked just like her father’s an hour after birth, and like a black-haired Diana two weeks later.

  ‘I’m going to get myself knighted before it’s time for her to be presented at Court,’ Michael said.

  ‘Oh, Fierce Fenian,’ said Diana.

  He lowered his eyebrows. ‘That’ll be no bar by the time she’s eighteen or so. The world will have changed a great deal by then, you wait and see.’

  ‘Oh, I wonder,’ said Diana. ‘Anyway, I have no intention of presenting her, and dragging her through all those terrible parties one has to endure when one’s young. And besides, why on earth do you want your daughter to be presented to the English sovereign, Michael?’

  ‘Oh, I’d like her to catch a glimpse of Ireland’s oppressors at home.’

  ‘You are ridiculous. And you’ve been drinking,’ said Diana, sitting up in bed.

  ‘And so why not? I’ve something to celebrate.’ He took hold of Alice, who was sleeping on Diana’s lap, and cooed at her. She woke, screamed, and was quietened by his putting his finger in her mouth. ‘I’ve found a nurse for her, Diana.’

  ‘A nurse?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d keep you properly? I made up my mind long ago that a nurse you should have for her.’

  ‘But how can we afford one? And do you think any self-respecting nanny would work in this house? We don’t even employ a cook, let alone – oh, heavens. And I won’t have Alice shut in a cupboard, or forbidden to suck her thumb, or spanked, or –’

  ‘You’re still weak from the birth,’ Michael said, looking down at her. ‘And this isn’t a self-respecting nanny, not in the sense you mean! She’s a good girl from Kerry who’s lost her place, because she was pregnant, poor child, and then she lost the baby. I found her drowning her sorrows, that’s how I know. She’s not trained, but she was eldest of her family, so she told me in the Crown, and she’s looked after infants since she herself was weaned. Oh, and you needn’t be thinking she’s a drunkard, she was drinking her port as though it were nasty as medicine. And not to be wondered at, given the port at the Crown.’

  Diana stared at him. ‘But Michael –’

  ‘I’ve got her downstairs. You’ll see if you like her. She’ll do any work which will keep her off the streets, she said – I said ten pounds a year and her keep for looking after Alice and having an eye to the housework, and she said, Done!’

  Diana revived a little. ‘Didn’t you tell me once that the stupidity of the Kerrymen is a standing joke in Ireland?’

  ‘It is so. I prefer to make jokes about English stupidity.’

  ‘Michael, does this girl speak English? Isn’t County Kerry part of the Gaeltacht?’

  ‘Of course she speaks English! How do you suppose I managed to talk to her! And do you think an Irish girl would get a place as a skivvy in England if she spoke only Gaelic?’

  ‘Very well. I’d like to see her, at least. What is her name, Michael?’

  ‘Bridget O’Shea. You may have some trouble at first in understanding her, her accent’s very strong.’

  Michael went out to fetch the girl, and he stayed away for a long time. Diana began to cry for no reason. Then she imagined, and next convinced herself, that Bridget O’Shea was or would be Michael’s mistress. Physical passion held their marriage together, and made all their differences negligible: now this would not be so. Michael would keep Bridget O’Shea on the collapsed bed in the studio.

  Diana was just beginning to remember the full ferocity and tenderness and loose ache of making love, and to want her husband inside her again after eight weeks’ abstinence. She let out a sob, and Alice too began to howl. At that sound, Diana thought of her own incompetence in changing her baby’s napkins, winding her and even feeding her. She was prepared hopelessly to welcome her husband’s pert Irish mistress. Afterwards, she thought, she would go back to her family and mourn these eighteen happy months of her life forever.

  When the door opened again, Diana’s self-control snapped back into place.

  ‘This is Bridget, my dear,’ said Michael.

  ‘Ah, the poor little mite!’ cried Bridget, looking at the roaring, tousled baby at the foot of the bed. Then she blushed.

  Michael smiled, and Diana sat up straight. ‘I – understand you wish to apply – to be Alice’s nurse?’ said Diana above the noise. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bridget wonderingly. ‘Mr Molloy did say –’

  ‘Yes, I know. Oh, how ridiculous this is! My husband said you had had experience in looking after your brothers and sisters – if you can only make the child quiet, you can be her nurse for as long as you like!’ Diana fell back on the pillows, feeling like a caricatured tyrant. She loved Alice dearly.

  Bridget O’Shea picked up the baby and hushed her for a moment. Diana saw that she might have been pretty, but was not because she was so thin. The shape of her face was round as a muffin, but her cheeks were hollow, and there were grey shadows of hunger about her snub nose. She had expected a black-haired and blue-eyed colleen, but Bridget had frizzy golden hair, and light freckled eyes.

  Alice began to grumble again. ‘She’s wet, mam – where do you keep her little napkins, then?’ Bridget said.

  ‘Over there.’ Diana pointed to a chest of drawers.

  Bridget proceeded to change the baby on top of the chest, watched by the Molloys. Her hands shook a little, but that did not seem to disturb Alice. ‘Do you feed her at the breast, mam?’ said Bridget, when she had finished. She spoke quite naturally, because she was so bewildered at this sudden change in her life. She had eaten well for the first time in two weeks, and hope and curiosity had temporarily blown away her private unhappiness.

  ‘Oh, yes. So much less trouble than one of those dreadful bottles!’

  ‘And so much better for the little one, mam!’

  Bridget then said some
thing to Alice in Gaelic and Diana guessed that, even before her pregnancy and miscarriage, she would not have made a good under-servant in a conventional household. She was a spirited girl and seemed to be only feebly aware of class distinctions, and the necessity of treating body functions as taboo. Diana herself was now a socialist as well as a bohemian, and believed all people of spirit and intelligence to be equal, all stupid people to be objects of compassion.

  She had a vision of making Bridget a companion, of merely having a woman she liked in the house. She realised then how long she had been cut off by Michael from her own sex. Michael was standing there now, smiling away. He must have thought of all this too.

  *

  Lady Blentham and Violet called at Mornington Terrace the day after Bridget O’Shea’s arrival. Angelina had not seen Diana since her marriage, but she had written several letters and received teasing, evasive replies. As she stood on the doorstep, she felt tears in her eyes, and she told herself she would not be angry. Camden Town upset her very much.

  Violet, who was dressed for the grouse-moors, said: ‘Isn’t this a rather charming part of London? Variety, you know. Awful pity about the railway line, imagine poor old Didie’s bed rattling every single night with the trains going past. I believe there are quite a lot of artists living in this district, or somewhere else, I can’t remember. Walter was being rather a bore about it the other day. Isn’t there quite a famous music-hall very near here?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, Violet.’

  ‘She is taking a long time to answer the bell. She wasn’t looking very well, physically, when I saw her last – rather overworked with only a charwoman, and her writing to do. She takes it awfully seriously now, Mamma. But so happy!’

  ‘Happiness is indeed a blessing,’ said Lady Blentham.

  Bridget pulled open the door, with Alice on her arm, and said: ‘Good morning, your Ladyships, Mrs Molloy’s been expecting you! Will your Ladyships please to mind the step and follow me – this is Alice, Miss Alice, and I’ll be taking her in to Mrs Molloy directly!’ She held the door wide open, and ran upstairs.

  Lady Blentham, who had understood only the gist of Bridget’s rapid speech, was very shocked, yet inclined to smile. Violet laughed.

  ‘Oh, Didie is extraordinary!’

  They followed Bridget upstairs, to the double-windowed sitting-room from which all the Aesthetic decorations of the early eighties had now been removed. There were paintings by Michael on the walls, and Persian rugs as frayed and faded, but not originally as good, as those at Dunstanton lay on the bare floor. The room was extremely untidy. They saw Bridget give Alice to Diana, who was seated in a cane armchair, and then run out past them on to the landing.

  Diana raised her head, and Lady Blentham tried to decide whether she was plainer or prettier than before. Her own hands were shaking on top of her cane.

  ‘Vio,’ said Diana, ‘I didn’t expect you to come with Mamma.’

  ‘Oh, I decided to. I haven’t seen Alice, after all. Darling, let me hold her!’ Violet ran forward and picked up the child with expert hands. ‘Oh, she’s so like you. Look, Mamma!’

  Diana wished passionately that Violet had not come. She thought her mother had aged terribly in the past year. She was not yet sixty, but her hair was nearly white.

  ‘She used to have quantities of black hair but it fell out quite suddenly a couple of days ago,’ said Diana.

  ‘Oh, she’ll be blonde,’ said Violet. ‘Look at that.’ She pushed at a cobweb-thin line of hairs at the nape of Alice’s neck.

  ‘Mamma, do sit down,’ said Diana. ‘Why are you using a stick?’

  ‘I sprained my ankle a month ago. At my age, these things do not mend quite so easily as they did when one was young. Violet, I wonder – do you think you could leave us for a little while?’

  Violet stared and wrinkled her nose. ‘Didie?’

  ‘Do you mind dreadfully being sent out, Vio? Mamma has something to say to me, I can tell,’ said Diana, looking out of the window.

  Violet put her head on one side. ‘Tell me Didie, is that very odd girl your maid?’

  ‘She only came yesterday. She will be Alice’s nurse – she’s not a trained palourmaid, as you will have noticed.’

  Violet looked from Diana to her mother, returned Alice, picked up her skirt and left, smiling crossly.

  ‘My dear,’ said Angelina, ‘my dear.’ She paused, and said in an unstately way: ‘Violet was trying to make this easier for us both, but –’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Diana. ‘I hope she isn’t too much offended.’

  ‘No.’

  Diana adjusted her child’s dress and shawl. ‘I presume you came on Alice’s account?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Lady Blentham looked at the baby. ‘It’s been too long, in any case. Diana, where is your husband?’

  ‘In Bloomsbury.’

  ‘This room is most – artistic. Are you comfortable here, Diana?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s extraordinary how quickly one grows used to having very few luxuries – to lacking what one used to consider not so much as essentials but as part of nature’s order.’

  ‘I daresay. Could your maid bring us some tea, do you suppose?’

  Diana smiled. ‘I’ll ring the bell. This is not her first place, she does know the sound of a bell.’

  ‘I imagine you found her in a somewhat unorthodox way?’

  Diana began to enjoy herself, and to feel a little ashamed of it as she rang the bell. ‘Oh, yes. Michael discovered her in the pub – the public house round the corner, weeping because she’d lost her place, poor child.’

  Angelina studied her gloved fingers and, to her own horror, quiet tears began to glide down her cheeks. ‘This is the way you prefer to live, Diana?’

  ‘Yes, Mamma. I should hate to be very poor, but we’re not. Don’t cry!’ she said lightly. After a moment’s thought, she presented her mother with Alice. ‘Do you know, I’ve earned a little money myself – I published two short poems in a small journal the other day? Publishing is not easy.’

  ‘A charming child,’ said Lady Blentham. ‘Yes. I came chiefly to talk to you about Alice, my dear. You understand that your father will not – can never – forgive this marriage of yours? I forgave you long ago, as you know, Diana.’ She stopped. ‘I had no right – cowardice has kept me from visiting you before.’

  ‘Don’t let it distress you too much, Mamma.’

  ‘I wish I could invite you, and Alice, down to Dunstanton, but your father makes that impossible. Did you expect him – ever – to be so cruel?’

  ‘No. Only bombastic’

  ‘He is not bombastic. He is a highly determined and intelligent man, whose mind I have – whose mind it is impossible to change. He holds to his original intention of cutting you out of the family, his will, but he says – he is just beginning to consider … You see, I have explained to him that there can be no reason for Alice’s suffering from your – I ought perhaps to quote him exactly … from your disgusting folly and ingratitude.’

  Lady Blentham hesitated, and Bridget came into the room, carrying a tray on which there stood two chipped cups, a silver teapot and a Toby jug. Although she had not yet been asked to bring it, she was beaming.

  ‘I thought as you might like a drop of tea, mam.’

  ‘Thank you, Bridget, I was about to ring a second time.’

  ‘Glad I am then that I saved you the trouble, mam.’ She nodded, smiled, and went, banging the door. The theatrical noise made Diana want to laugh, and made Angelina close her eyes.

  ‘Diana, I suggested to him that he leave three thousand pounds in trust for Alice. It would have gone to you, of course. The others are all well enough provided for, even Maud – your father agreed with me that it might be possible to do this. He has even been thinking of possible trustees, if he should decide to set it up.’

  ‘Three thousand. Who is he considering as a possible trustee?’ said Diana a moment later, setting down the teapot.

  �
�Her father – and your brother, Roderick.’

  ‘Her father? Michael?’

  ‘He – would think it proper. His views on a father’s duties, whoever he may be, whatever … Of course, because he insists on your husband’s being a trustee, he may never make the trust at all.’

  ‘So he can forgive my poor old Fenian seducer, but not me,’ said Diana very quietly.

  ‘I consider it abominable.’ Angelina did not use such words easily, Diana remembered.

  ‘If it happens, of course I shall be very glad for Alice’s sake. I shan’t be especially grateful, I’m afraid, Mamma.’

  ‘No, you won’t be.’ Lady Blentham’s tears had stopped.

  ‘Michael too would be delighted.’

  Angelina got up and changed her chair. She gave Alice back to Diana, then said after a little while, watching the baby: ‘Diana, tell me, did you marry that – did you marry him for love?’

  ‘Mamma.’ Diana stared at her. ‘Did you think it was for his social position – I’m not being sarcastic?’

  ‘Yes – no. But love, Diana. Did you not find married love, after all my warnings … has nothing been a disappointment to you?’

  ‘Almost nothing. Certainly not love.’

  ‘You are too thin for a woman in your condition,’ said Lady Blentham, though her daughter’s bosoms were the normal size of any nursing mother’s. She felt it impossible to discuss Diana’s confinement in detail. ‘Far too thin, but I must admit that you are still a beauty!’ There was a glow in Diana’s face, which might be mischief, not motherhood’s fulfilment. ‘How did you bruise yourself? You have a bruise on your wrist.’

  ‘Michael hit me with a paint-brush. I do bruise very easily,’ said Diana after a little hesitation. She smiled.

  Angelina raised her face. ‘He does not – oh, my God.’

  ‘Oh, Mamma, he isn’t what one might call a – a police-court wife-beater! I oughtn’t to have have told you, but the fact is, we rather like a little mild fighting, in an odd sort of way. I hit him a great deal harder than he hit me on that occasion. I can promise you I did.’ For the first time, she looked a little embarrassed. ‘It’s quite a little bruise, look. His is much larger.’ She laughed, and fiddled with Alice.