The Bohemian Girl

by Frances Vernon

  Angelina sat down again, and vowed privately never, ever to express herself again. To express oneself was to be wicked.

  ‘Very well,’ said Diana, before her mother could speak, ‘I am being kept by Julian Fitzclare because I need a comfortable income.’ She swung one foot determinedly back and forth. ‘I don’t drive in the park in a ridiculously trigged-out victoria with – with half a pound of paint on my face.’ Tears were spoiling the little bit of rouge she had put on that morning.

  ‘No, no, that will come later, will it not? And when it does, I beg you to disgrace us in Paris and not in London. And I’d be grateful if you did not become the Prince of Wales’s mistress, I gather that’s not so well-rewarded a post as it should be!’

  ‘Mamma!’ Diana was shocked, but Lady Blentham took no notice. She wrestled with the arms of her chair.

  ‘To make a proper use of men for one’s necessary purposes, discreetly and kindly of course, is one thing, is unavoidable – it’s what one must try to do, within the limits of – of Christian marriage.’

  ‘Mamma, please.’

  ‘Do you know I could have married you to some man in need of good connections, some weak man,’ said Angelina, ‘if you had not done this? Don’t you see? By this time, most people have forgotten the – the talk there was about Molloy, and he’s dead, you could have married again!’

  ‘Mother, I’ve no intention whatever of becoming anything more – anything but what I am!’ Diana shouted.

  They both took deep breaths.

  ‘I don’t want to see you,’ said Angelina, backing her chair towards the grate. ‘I don’t understand, and I don’t wish to see you … That man debauched you. I am extremely sorry for you.’ She looked away, and seemed very old to her exhausted daughter.

  ‘Which man are you talking about?’

  ‘Please go.’

  ‘Which man?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter!’

  ‘I thought you’d understand,’ said Diana on her feet. ‘I truly thought you would – what a fool I was, wanting you. I’d forgotten. Well, we’ll leave it at that: I am a mercenary, common little whore, and you can disown me if you like.’

  ‘I shan’t, I can’t forgive you,’ said Angelina, looking straight across the room with both hands in her lap. ‘Naturally –I can’t acknowledge you in public, or receive you, or call at your house, but I shan’t disown you, whatever your faults, and I wonder at your thinking me capable of such melodramatic and – and unsuitable behaviour.’

  Diana left the room quietly, and then ran. She nearly forgot to collect Alice, who had been given into the care of Angelina’s maid after a brief re-introduction to her grandmother and the promise of tea with her later. Alice screamed at being carried away, but in fact it was her mother’s icy face which upset her so much.

  Lady Blentham sat without moving, and did not see the two of them hurrying down towards the Old Brompton Road and South Kensington station. The tears dribbled down her too-soft face as she supposed she need not be entirely cut off from the poor sinful dirty girl. Diana could come to the house veiled in a hackney when her mother was alone.

  Poor thing, poor thing, thought Angelina, and tried to transfer all her rage from Diana to the man who had seduced her. I’m still in a state of shock, of course, she thought.

  She had no difficulty in feeling charitably towards ordinary fallen women, the victims of men’s coarseness and men’s laws; laws which also supported Christian marriage, the one frail, disagreeable protection of women against universal rape. But if it had not been for the fact that the thing was done through sex, which she wondered at God for inventing, Angelina would have felt envy and admiration for the grand horizontals who ruined men and pulled off their masks of reason and authority.

  Angelina remembered Cora Pearl and Catherine Walters, who had been the great whores of the sixties when she was young Mrs Blentham, and she knew that Diana would be just like them. The thought gave her a heart-attack, a minor one from which she soon recovered.

  CHAPTER 15

  A HALF-GROWN HARLOT

  In the autumn of that year, the breaking out of war in South Africa coincided with Catriona Fitzclare’s learning that her husband’s mistress was his one-time betrothed, who had been such a scandalous beauty; and with Diana’s first introduction to Mr Archibald Trefusis at the Empire Promenade.

  Julian was walking with his arm round Diana’s waist and as they talked together in low voices they acknowledged no greetings from people they knew. It was several months now since they had started to go out together, sometimes quietly, sometimes to raucous and brilliant places where Diana would never fit in. All discretion was at an end. Diana was trying to amuse herself and become like a real whore, because Lady Blentham had told her that was what she was.

  She still felt much as she had done in the early secret days; for her cautious re-entrance into a kind of society had offered her remarkably little. It was curiously as though she were back in the schoolroom: wearing her hair down, trying to read seriously, fighting inexperience and isolation, and experimenting with sensual thoughts.

  ‘You d-don’t seem to understand that y-you’re d-different f-from the others, t-to Catriona as w-well as to me! What with her and –’ Julian stopped.

  ‘Yes, I know – you must give me up, and rejoin your regiment, and go and be killed out in the Transvaal – and preferably get a posthumous VC,’ Diana interrupted. They had both been drinking a good deal of champagne.

  ‘I should p-prefer to l-live to enjoy m-my VC.’ Julian lifted his head, for Diana’s ‘give me up’ had angered him.

  ‘Your wife’s outrage, my wickedness, and a nice little skirmish on the frontier providing a chance of escape for you from both of us,’ said Diana. ‘So very commonplace a story, don’t you rather think?’

  ‘I s-should have thought,’ said Julian, ‘that it was r-rather like the p-plot of a d-daring novel with p-pious overtones. It j-just happens I’m n-not religious, but it w-would be r-rather r-romantic if I were k-killed, eh?’ He squeezed her waist, but this did not move her.

  ‘As I said, commonplace. But you don’t want to be killed?’

  ‘I’ve got p-plenty to live for,’ said Julian, looking across the room and starting slightly at the sight of his father’s old acquaintance, the retired millionaire banker, Archibald Trefusis.

  ‘Well, it’s certainly not romantic to pass your mistress on to another man in cold blood.’ Yesterday, Julian had angrily suggested that Diana accept the advances recently made to her by a friend of his called Charles Windlesham. ‘A kindness in some circumstances, but romantic, no,’ said Diana.

  ‘D-damn you,’ said Julian, releasing her and digging in his coat pocket for cigarettes. Diana took one from the gold case without asking him. ‘D’you think I w-want you to be k-kept by another m-man?’ His voice was quite loud.

  ‘I think you rather do. Oh – I ruined myself, you didn’t ruin me. Don’t say, once more, that I’m accusing you.’

  ‘Why d-don’t you enjoy life!’

  There was a long pause, full of other people’s noise. They searched each other’s face.

  Diana and Julian had found it impossible ever since the start of their affair to forget what might have been. Memories had sometimes pulled them together, and made both think in their loneliness and wisdom that they were in love at last. More often, the past made the present intolerable. They were more at one now than they had been nine months ago, for both said privately: ‘I would be able to love him, her, now, if it had not been for all that.’ They were equals, bound together in irritation, and it was really quite unlikely that they would part in fact.

  ‘Not much to enjoy, except reading, and writing,’ said Diana. ‘I used to enjoy making love, of course.’

  ‘L-listen, D-diana, Charlie’s a good f-fellow, and in any c-case, I didn’t introduce h-him to you w-with any idea that he would try to g-get you for himself. I was d-disgusted, I m-must say, when you t-told me that! You women are the d
-devil,’ he added: ‘never b-believe anything a m-man says!’

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  Mr Trefusis was making his way towards them. Julian took hold of Diana’s arm and whispered: ‘Now b-behave yourself. It’s Trefusis – I told you about him. Knows my f-father – I told you how m-much influence and m-money he has. Got his eye on you, I c-can s-see!’

  ‘Why do we need a person with influence and money, Julian?’

  He ignored this.

  ‘My f-father’s always at B-ballynore now, h-he d-doesn’t know about you b-because no one w-would d-dare t-tell him!’

  ‘And this man would, would he?’

  Diana saw an old man of sixty or so, who in spite of his white hair and stiff beard looked a little like the dead Prince Consort. His eyes were large and slightly bulbous, and his forehead was rounded like a billiard-ball. He had a straight nose, stern nostrils and full lips, and his skin was slightly mottled, wrinkled heavily only round the eyes. Diana guessed that his beard concealed dewlaps.

  ‘Hullo, sir,’ said Julian clearly. ‘B-been to Ballynore lately, b-bought any more w-winners from us?’

  You’re not behaving, thought Diana, quite pleased.

  ‘Julian,’ the old man said, in a slightly foreign accent which surprised Diana. Mr Trefusis had had a French mother, and he spent a good deal of time in France. ‘How are you, my boy?’ A close look at Diana made his lips continue to move when he had finished speaking.

  Diana, with her hair so simply brushed back and tied, was the most beautiful woman he had seen since he made the acquaintance of the quiet friend of the King of the Belgians, the celebrated Cléo de Mérode.

  ‘Is life going splendidly?’ he said to Julian.

  ‘As you s-say, sir,’ said Julian, smiling a little, ‘S-splendidly, h-how could it b-be otherwise?’

  ‘May I have an introduction to this lady?’ Mr Trefusis knew who she was.

  ‘Mrs Molloy,’ said Diana. Both men looked a little taken aback at her speaking so plainly.

  ‘This is Mr T-trefusis, D-diana.’

  ‘Yes, you were saying so.’

  There was a short pause.

  ‘May I tell you, Mrs Molloy, what a very, very beautiful woman you are? Julian, you’ll allow such an old friend of the family as myself to call on Mrs Molloy?’

  ‘I can s-see no p-particular h-harm in that, sir,’ said Julian solemnly. ‘Mrs Molloy will –’

  ‘But I might not like it,’ said Diana, who could not be truly repelled by a man who was frank, like Michael, about other people’s exact positions in life.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr Trefusis. He turned. ‘You should take Mrs Molloy to Paris, Julian, there’s nothing in London to compare. London is no fit setting for her! How can you bring a lady – so charming – to such a place as this – it’s mere glitter, mere glitter – no gold!’ He waved his gold-topped cane at the company, and wheezed. Diana pitied him and smiled at him. ‘Worse, if possible, than Marlborough House,’ he said.

  ‘I prefer glitter,’ said Diana, for no particular reason.

  ‘I m-must t-take you h-home.’

  Mr Trefusis raised his hat to Diana, winked at Julian and, as he walked away said: ‘I believe the address is Flask Walk, in Hampstead? I can’t remember who told me that. Allow me at least to leave my card!’

  He took the arm of a jewelled young courtesan with a bare bosom and a great loaded hat.

  ‘Intolerable,’ said Diana. She was blushing with anger only because Mr Trefusis already knew where she could be found.

  ‘V-vile old man,’ said Julian. ‘But h-he’s s-so rich he’s almost n-never been s-snubbed as he d-deserves to be. D-degeneracy of m-modern times and the P-prince’s influence, as my f-father says, old h-hypocrite.’

  ‘Was his grandfather a tin miner, or something like that?’ said Diana with interest.

  Julian laughed. ‘Oh, n-no one knows, except he’s n-not C-cornish, that’s c-certain. H-his name’s adopted. J-jew, probably, or h-half J-jew!’

  ‘Very vile,’ said Diana.

  *

  Bridget O’Shea had taken a dislike to Julian, and to show her dislike she annoyed Diana by wearing a brown nursemaid’s uniform and leaving the room when he entered it. Julian approved of this, but she was only waiting for the next bout of ill fortune to discard her servant’s costume and resume her place as a substitute for Violet Montrose.

  Bridget had crude ideas about the discarding of unwanted mistresses, and she told Diana several times that they would all three find themselves on the street again one day. ‘I shall take care of that, Bridget,’ said Diana. ‘Besides, we were not literally on the street before.’

  ‘Oh, he still wants you for the present, mam.’

  ‘Don’t you like this house, is that it?’

  ‘It’s never been anyone’s home, a furnished house like this, modern as it may be with electric light and all. And,’ she added, ‘I’d have supposed so rich a man would have been able to give you a fine place, with a garden, and French furniture, and a satin bed like a sea-shell, ’twould be fitting. He’s mean, mam, and I let him know it. Oh, he does hate me, sure!’

  Diana tried to be amused by Bridget. She thought perhaps the nurse disliked Julian because he was an Anglo-Irish Protestant, part of the ruinous Ascendancy; she would probably think Diana was betraying her dead Fenian husband merely by being polite to him. Diana knew that Michael himself would have found this present love-affair hard to forgive on this score quite as much as on others, but she enjoyed arguing with Julian about Home Rule. Once her pro-Irish and pro-husband feelings had made him angry enough to leave her alone for a week in the middle of the London Season. It made her laugh.

  ‘Never trust a man,’ said Bridget.

  ‘No, Bridget.’ Life was very simple: Michael himself had effectively deceived and deserted her, therefore every other man was far worse than he. Nowadays, Diana did not put the case to herself quite so directly as that. She could not afford to. ‘But leave me alone for a little while now. I did come upstairs for a rest.’

  ‘I’ve not brushed your hair yet.’

  ‘I’ll brush it myself. Really, Bridget!’

  Bridget sniffed and left Diana, in bed, smiling at the thought of how Bridget would sincerely admire some gimcrack palace of a kept-woman’s house and of course think herself immoral for doing so.

  Perhaps Bridget was right: even if one were not going to be happy in it, one might as well extract the most gaudy and expensive lodging from a lover and then make fun of it. This simple house in Flask Walk was not hers forever, and so Diana could not love it. In fact it made her sad, because Julian had chosen it with such very great care and regard for her taste.

  Diana was determined one day to have enough money to buy a house of her own, in Bloomsbury, not Hampstead, not Camden Town. Although Julian paid her living expenses, and had only recently begun to grumble at her spending, his outright presents were not generous. It had not once occurred to him to present her with the freehold of the house. He did not give Diana jewels worth more than a few pounds, and he believed that she would find presents of straight cash deeply insulting.

  When Mr Trefusis had offered her money for nothing, Diana had turned away.

  *

  Julian rejoined his regiment in November 1899, but he had not yet been sent out to fight the Boers when the new century began. Catriona was quiescent that winter, and meanwhile both Julian and Mr Trefusis believed that the former’s attachment to Diana was unbreakable, however difficult. She was just a second wife, barely a mistress at all.

  Diana herself believed that, very soon now, her lover would put an end to everything. He had always been slow about such things, out of kindliness and indecision; except when he first took her to bed almost exactly a year ago. It seemed to her much longer than that.

  On the second of January, Trefusis came to dine with Diana and Julian, to whom he had lent a large sum of money to pay his debts and buy a farm. Julian had not yet repaid it. Diana knew nothing at
all about this.

  ‘My dear Julian,’ said Trefusis, as the four-wheeler dropped them both at the top of the street, ‘don’t trouble yourself, eh? It was a gentleman’s loan – no interest payable, and to be prolonged at your convenience! You’re the son of an old friend, if I may call him so, a very old friend.’

  ‘Damn this mud, and the w-wind,’ said Julian, not looking at Trefusis. ‘I’ve a g-good mind to take D-diana away, j-just for a l-little while. N-no one in Italy at this t-time of y-year.’

  ‘Oh, an excellent idea. All I ask, my boy, is that you persuade dear Diana to invite me to call on her more often … and don’t worry, don’t worry, she’s yours! At my age, you know, one doesn’t … And besides, a most unworldly woman, content with so little when she might have so much. Oh, I knew when I first set eyes on her, my dear boy, it would be hopeless for any man to tempt her away from you! I’m not a handsome young devil of an officer, I’ve only got a couple of millions to offer her. And what would that be to such a woman as Diana?’

  ‘Did you offer it to h-her?’

  ‘No, no. My dear boy, when I joked with her – did offer it to her, you know, as a jest – she said she’d rather have her subscription to the London Library – but she wouldn’t let me pay it, oh, no. She’s very droll, very droll.’

  Julian laughed, took out his latchkey and threw open the door.

  ‘Hello!’ he shouted, scowling, for it was silent in the house.

  Diana was rereading a letter from her mother:

  … I spoke too harshly to you then. “Justly but mercilessly,” a clergyman would say, or so I suppose. Roderick, at least, made that remark. But it was never my intention to be entirely divided from you, Diana.

  I ask you to abandon your present life and come with me to live abroad. We could not, of course, continue together in London, but living quietly at Pau we should attract no attention. Everything you have done I at least can forgive at last. You are my dear daughter. Would peace, obscurity and my companionship be so very disagreeable to you, after your hideous experience of the past year? I think not.