Angelina would always love her the most, for she considered that of all her children Diana was most like her. Charles’s seeming to love Diana best had been pure self-deception: Maud, thought Angelina, had been his real favourite, though he had never indulged her and had used her as an unpaid secretary. Diana must, surely, be as lonely as I am, she thought, turning swiftly with a rustle of weeds. Why won’t she come?
Lady Blentham sat down, and reread the letter, which had no date and no address. Diana had asked her to write care of the post office.
My dear Mamma,
You seem to have a pretty good idea of my situation and, indeed, I am still in debt, and therefore poor. The interest on the money Michael borrowed is still outstanding, although I have paid most of the principal. Do not judge him too harshly now he is dead (what a pious remark) for the fault was partly mine. I don’t doubt you would tell me so.
He was determined to take care of me, to see that I had no worries, and so he took it upon himself to pay all the bills. I let him do so, I never inquired, I was relieved not to have the burden of housekeeping on a small income after the first heady days, as they say. I trusted him too much – perhaps you know that men should never be trusted?
He went to a moneylender because he was quite convinced that, soon, he would be earning a good deal. (In your letter you inquired pretty closely into all this, and so I hope you will believe what I tell you.) Once, he was entirely opposed to the idea of painting Academy portraits – but in the last few months of his life he changed his mind, realising our necessity, I suppose. Two commissions made him think that, very soon, he would be putting Mr Sargent’s nose out of joint. And so, before he earned any money, he borrowed, convinced he would be able to repay. Very little of the money was in fact spent on backing horses – your accusations were unjust. If he had not died so suddenly, everything would have been well.
The rooms I have taken are extremely squalid, and so I cannot wish you to visit me. I hope soon to be able to find somewhere better.
Bridget is a tower of strength, and Alice seems to be thriving in spite of all these trials.
You say, Mamma, that it would be natural and right for us to live together, as we are both widows and have lost Violet – “who was such a comfort to us” – as well as our husbands. That is an argument I would have accepted without question five years ago, but not now. I must learn to be independent (New Woman) and I shall do so. Please, do not criticise me for this.
Perhaps, if you could accept that I shall never be a “lady” again, that Bridget is more my friend than my servant and that I intend to bring Alice up to be something very different from the “innocent” young girl of our times – perhaps then we could make a home together, even make new and mutual friends. But I don’t think you could ever do any of these things, and perhaps I could not either.
When I am better settled, I shall come and see you. But until then I don’t intend to see any of the family, not even you – I don’t want to explain all my reasons, I cannot do so.
Well, on to horrid business. Violet sent me her quarter’s allowance before she died, and poor old Roderick found me out at Mornington Terrace and kindly forced me to accept twenty pounds from him. But I still need money. I was of course very sorry to hear that owing to the last Liberal budget you are in straitened circumstances, but I would be extremely grateful for anything you could send me, including old clothes. But I cannot pay you back yet, in kind, by coming to see you and, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, allowing you to examine me. I don’t belong to you or to anyone, any longer – neither, I suppose, do you.
This has been an extremely difficult letter to write – rather a melodramatic essay, is it not? I wonder whether its frankness will turn your thoughts away from charity towards me. But I still remain your loving daughter,
Diana Molloy.
Lady Blentham did have a pretty good idea of the conditions in which Diana must be living, though she thrust the thought of rats and leaking roofs out of her mind. Her mental picture alternated between a vision of some bank-clerk’s dark cottage with a cornice and rosette in a twelve-foot-square ceiling, and the famous painting of Chatterton on his garret windowsill. Curiously, the poet’s garret was less repulsive to her than the bank-clerk’s house: even though she had disliked the few poems of Diana’s she had read. She considered that no woman could ever be the equal of Tennyson, Arnold or Wordsworth. Angelina did admire the works of Christina Rosetti, and nearly all poetry, except Diana’s, was a comfort to her now. She filled in two hours of her day by reading it, the two hours she would have spent in driving out if she had kept a carriage.
I never realised that I had so few friends, thought Lady Blentham. And yet I am not a cold, unpleasant woman – I am not. I was merely ambitious, but always for others, not for myself! Do I deserve this, do I?
She decided to send Diana seventy guineas, enough to be a sacrifice.
*
On a cold day in January, Diana returned from visiting half the fashionable milliners in the West End. She had asked for a job in each one. Every modiste had seen firstly that to be served by a woman of her class would embarrass the customers, and secondly that she was too poor to buy a straight-fronted corset and a black stuff dress for working in.
In one establishment, a lady in furs had suddenly cried out: ‘Diana! My dear – where have you been?’
‘Hello, Millicent,’ said Diana.
The modiste’s mouth was pruriently open.
‘Doesn’t it seem an age since we came out?’ said Countess Vladiska, staring. She had been a pudgy freckled heiress in 1892, and was now a less rich jolie-laide, notorious in her circle since her first divorce.
‘Yes,’ said Diana. ‘Could you use your influence with Madama Lis to get me a job here?’
‘A job? My influence? But my dear, why?’
‘Come, come, Millicent,’ said Diana clearly. At that, she looked at both women’s faces, and left the shop.
Millicent Vladiska told a garbled version of Diana’s story to another customer, who had not recognised the underfed beauty in a worn-out ulster and pork-pie hat.
When she arrived back at Museum Street, Diana curled up on her bed. It was exceedingly cold, and grey snow was falling, and the cheerful noise being made by Bridget and Alice beyond the wall did not help to warm her. She shut her eyes and stopped her ears, as she thought that she had no right to inflict unnecessary suffering either on herself or on Alice. If she could not make a hundred pounds honestly within a month, she would go to Lady Blentham. One day soon, Millicent Vladiska’s story of how she had tried to find work in a fashionable milliner’s would reach her mother’s ears. Unless she acted quickly, the embarrassment caused to the Blentham family would never be forgiven her. She realised now that she cared very much for being a Blentham, and for their forgiveness.
Diana had tried to be independent for eight months, partly out of love for Michael’s memory, and partly out of hatred for him. She did hate him, for sheltering her from the reality of their position and then abandoning her to discover the worst of it for herself. He had left her to choose between life as a poor relation and earning her own living. He would have liked her to earn her own living when he was not by, that she knew. She must carry on trying. Diana cried a little, than got up and went down to the kitchen to join Bridget and Alice. The place smelt of mice and burnt onions.
She told the dull story of her day, and was halfway through it when there was a knock on the battered street-door.
‘It’s a dun,’ she said, and then after a second’s quiet screamed out loud: ‘Oh, my God, no, not tonight! Not tonight!’ It was weeks since she had lost control of herself. ‘There’s no coal – and practically nothing to eat – oh, God, have mercy –’
‘I’ll be seeing just who it is, mam, and I’ll see him off,’ said Bridget. ‘Do you calm yourself!’ She went clattering down the stairs.
Diana tried to comfort Alice, who had toddled over towards her mother and was roa
ring with sympathy into her lap. Diana prayed in Alice’s ear, softly and repetitively, that Bridget would be successful in turning away the dun. The sound of her voice quieted the child.
At length, Bridget came back, with a strange look on her face.
‘So?’ said Diana. ‘You were a very long time.’
‘’Tis not dun, mam,’ she said, taking out a card from her pocket. ‘’Tis a gentleman, calls himself Major Julian Fitzclare. Gave me his visiting-card he did, and said he wanted to see you for old times’ sake, for I’m afraid –’
‘Julian Fitzclare? Are you sure?’
‘Well, I’m afraid I said you was at home to visitors.’ She wiped the card on her apron, and gave it to Diana, who read the words. Bridget was illiterate.
Alice took the card from her mother’s slackened grip and put it in her mouth. ‘So who is he, mam?’ said Bridget at the door. ‘He’s downstairs still, but I’ll be seeing him off if that’s what you wish.’
‘I was engaged to him once,’ said Diana slowly. ‘Show him up. I’ll touch him for a loan – he’s rather rich, you know. Even though I did – did jilt him, and it will look rather bad. But why has he found me out? Oh, dear, don’t look so astonished, it was years ago, and he married some Scotch girl or other only two months afterwards, so we weren’t precisely deeply in love. I don’t have any scruples left.’ Diana did not mean any of this, but she was nervous. ‘Alice, darling, that paper will be bad for your digestion. Give it to Mamma.’
*
They went to dine, through Julian’s horrified kindness, at a steamy old-fashioned chop-house in High Holborn. He would have taken Diana to Romano’s but that, as she told him, she had nothing to wear. Her frowsty rooms had seemed an extraordinary setting even to Diana, at the moment he came through the door; and because of this, their first conversation in five years had been extremely uninhibited. Julian had exclaimed with rough shock and pity, Diana had said all was just as he saw it, and he had insisted on taking her out after being introduced to Bridget and Alice.
Now, in the chop-house, formalities began. They remembered properly that they had once been engaged, and that Diana had behaved badly. As they exchanged questions, Julian noticed that Diana drank a good deal of the burgundy. He had had a bottle before going to Museum Street.
‘How is your wife?’ said Diana.
‘C-Catriona is well, thank you.’ He had not lost his stammer, though Diana had expected him to do so with age.
‘Is your father still alive?’
‘Yes, c-certainly. And M-mother.’
‘I always liked your mother.’
‘Did you?’
‘Where are you living now?’
‘W-we’ve got a little p-place in Shropshire, I bought it myself, it’s not a f-family place. I thought p-perhaps you knew.’
‘No, I left the world some time ago … oh, dear, that sounds rather bitter, and I’m not.’ Only in debt and hungry, thought Diana. ‘Congratulations on your becoming a Major,’ she smiled.
‘N-not necessary to c-congratulate me, I’ve r-resigned my commission. Of c-course if there were to be a war, I’d g-go back if I c-could. We’ve also g-got a house in London – Chester Square,’ he told her.
‘How delightful. How many children do you have, Julian?’
‘Three s-so far.’
‘I see. What are their names?’
‘M-mabel, C-charlotte and Agatha, Diana.’
Diana thought what ugly names they were. ‘I’m sure they’re all very pretty. No heir yet? Catriona was charming, as I remember.’
‘Y-yes, she is.’
‘Julian, why did you want to see me? How did you find me, in any case?’
‘H-heard you were in difficulties – London version of the b-bush telegraph, you know. And actually – I g-got an inquiry agent to discover where you w-were l-living.’
‘What? The sort of Private Inquiry man who provides evidence for the Divorce Courts?’
‘He d-doesn’t do divorce w-work,’ said Julian, looking very military. ‘It’s against his p-principles.’ He smiled. ‘All q-quite above board!’
Diana laughed. ‘But why?’
‘L-lady Blentham wouldn’t g-give me your direction. In f-fact, she thought it w-wasn’t a good idea for m-me to see you. Nor would Edward. H-however, I wanted very much to s-see you – and s-see if there w-was anything I c-could do for you.’
‘They don’t know my direction. I didn’t give it to them, on purpose. I wonder why they did not confide in you?’ Diana paused, and they looked at each other. ‘Julian, the thing is, I’m in the devil of a hole. Could you lend me a thousand pounds or so, do you think?’ She felt very bold and bad saying this, though she knew it sounded most unpractised.
Diana looked down at the table, and Julian shouted: ‘Waiter!’ She thought of the face at which she was not looking, and drank up her burgundy, which was not so good as Michael’s. She was reminded of Michael’s wine-merchant, one of her most unpleasant creditors.
Julian still looked a subaltern, though he must be over thirty. His whitey-blond eyebrows and his hair were both as thick as ever, and the only change in him was a redder complexion and a harder look in his eyes. Once or twice he had gazed at her sentimentally, and so Diana put the slight hardness of his expression down to the influence of his wife: Catriona Graham had been her name, Graham like the doctor who had attended Michael.
Diana had aged greatly, thought Julian, but he knew that was the effect of insufficient food, worry, and the lack of a protector. Her eyes, hair, mouth and nose were as striking as ever. Her complexion had barely suffered, but he guessed that a few more years’ poverty would produce red veins and crow’s feet, and stiff lines running from her nostrils to her mouth. The thought produced first nasty satisfaction, then pity and almost love. He was unhappy with his wife, but was far too polite and intelligent to say so.
‘I hope,’ he said, ‘I hope you were h-happy with your h-husband.’
‘My Fierce Fenian,’ said Diana with her elbows on the table. She dropped her eyes then.
Julian paused. ‘To h-how much do your d-debts amount?’ he said, in a voice suitable for addressing a junior officer.
‘Roughly – five hundred in all. I asked you for a thousand because – well, in short, I’m desperate for a tiny bit of temporary capital. And you are very rich.’
‘I’ll lend you a thousand. No interest, of course.’
‘That is – impossibly kind of you, Julian. Thank you.’ Diana had never expected him to lend her so much: she remembered her bravado in asking for it with amused shame.
‘N-nonsense! W-we must forget that b-boy and girl nonsense – at l-least, it ought to be a b-bond of some kind between us. D-don’t you rather agree, D-diana?’
‘Oh, I do,’ said Diana. ‘I do. And don’t distress yourself – I shall be able to repay you one day.’
Julian unbuttoned his top-coat, which he was obliged to wear because the chop-house was so draughty, and pulled out his wallet. Diana watched the snowflakes melt on the mirror-like dark window-panes to her right. He handed her five Treasury notes and said: ‘Now l-look, that’s b-beside the thousand. I want you to b-buy just one pretty dress.’
Diana looked up. ‘So that you can take me to Romano’s?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Julian, I won’t be seduced by you.’ She blushed, and tried to stop a smile.
‘What! Good G-god, Diana, l-life with that man has – you’re my oldest friend – my very oldest woman friend! Although you’ve changed, you’re b-bound to have ch-changed … Of c-course, you always were u-unusual, that was w-why –’
‘How odd it seems. Just imagine,’ she said, sitting well back with her glass of burgundy, as she had often done when dining with Michael. ‘I could have married you, and then we two, just we two, would have been living in your little place in Shropshire. You have riches and security and position, have you not, Julian?’ He did not look too embarrassed, he knew her. Diana continued: ‘Paying
long visits to Ballynore, perhaps that would not have been so agreeable. And in the – in due season, perhaps we’d have gone to – oh, Trouville and Deauville, Baden-Baden, Monte Carlo. No, I was right to say no. I was right.’
Diana’s eye prickled with a tear. The reckless but unhappy bravado she had shown tonight frightened her more than it did Julian. She knew where all this must lead, and of course it was very wrong: but she was too proud to leave a course once chosen, and Diana felt now that she had tacitly chosen to be Julian’s mistress when she had made her disgraceful, wonderful marriage.
CHAPTER 14
JULIAN
‘No w-woman like you,’ said Julian, as he patted Diana’s shoulder and tried to disarrange her shift. ‘We ought to have married.’
Diana was shocked by what she had done – and had enjoyed, even though her new lover was not Michael. I’ve taken a lover, she thought.
It was not that Diana, after three years of life among people who cared little for propriety, believed it sinful for two people to make love if they were not married. But she thought adultery wrong, the use of prostitutes unforgiveable, and careless lovemaking a sordid business. She wondered whether things would have been better or worse if the man had been someone other than Julian. She could not decide. He was a good man.
‘Yes, it’s a g-great p-pity you threw m-me over,’ said Julian.
She leant back into the pillow. ‘Do you really think we should have been happy?’ As he advanced, Diana pushed him gently away, because she was really very comfortable as she was.
‘We are g-going to be happy.’
‘This is nothing,’ said Diana, listening to her words, and watching him. ‘It won’t be repeated.’
Julian, who had been pressing against her, withdrew to the far side of the bed. ‘S-suppose you – er – have a b-baby, D-diana, as a r-result of our b-bit of – of this?’ He saw her eyes open like a child’s. ‘You’re not to worry! I m-meant only that I will t-take care of you.’
‘Oh!’ said Diana. She did not move towards him for protection as he had hoped.
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