Gentlemen and Players

by Frances Vernon

  ‘Her ladyship asks you to step upstairs, miss, if you would be so good, she is not feeling quite herself today and she is laying down in the boudoir.’

  ‘Susan,’ said Sarah from the day-bed in the boudoir, and stretched out her hand, in which there was a vial of smelling salts.

  Susan kissed her and said, as she was taking off her hat and coat: ‘It’s good to see you, Sarah.’

  Sarah rang the bell and her maid took away Susan’s outdoor clothes. ‘Sit there, dearest,’ she murmured, waving to a little silk-covered armchair which stood on three legs, for the fourth was short. Susan adjusted her weight so that the chair jerked a little, and smiled.

  ‘You look well in spite of that vinaigrette, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I’m only a trifle under the weather, I assure you. Do please excuse me for not rousing myself, but I thought that, as we were sisters–would you care for a cup of tea? Or chocolate or coffee?’

  ‘Please, yes. Tea, I think.’ The bell was rung again.

  ‘And how is dear little Sophie? Is she not out this year?’

  Sarah continued to talk like a charming woman in early middle age, with a delicate constitution, a semi-absent husband, many youthful admirers and a few pretty children who tired her though she adored them: whose unmarried sister had come to keep her company, which she did not really need. She lay back with her satin slippers crossed, a cashmere négligé over her petticoats; her stays were properly laced and her hair was dressed. Both the slippers and the négligé were of dull lavender and rather plain, without lace or rosettes.

  The boudoir was decorated in pale apple green, with patches of gold on cushions and braid and on the rug. The curtains were of heavy silk, with looped pelmets, and there were inner curtains of muslin and Venetian blinds, which were drawn although it was only March.

  ‘Dearest, you will want to tidy up, and change and all that. Vickers will show you up to the blue bedroom, I am sure your maid will be ready for you. Oh, I must tell you, Templecombe has agreed not to go to his club this evening–indeed, he wants very much to know you better. So we shall be dining here together.’

  ‘Yes, dear, I will take my leave of you,’ said Susan, ‘and when shall I wait on you again?’

  At that moment Sarah pulled the blind-cord, then turned back. Light now fell in wide bars across her face and she did look ill: thinner than ever, with shadows beneath her eyes, the lustre gone from her hair and also from her skin, although the full light in a sense flattered it, granting translucence. There was a bruise on her temple, in her favourite lavender-grey.

  Susan stopped being angry with her. ‘I’m glad you mean to get up, Sarah, you’ll feel much better for it, I promise you. There. Shall we go out for a drive together this afternoon?’

  *

  Templecombe came home ten minutes after eight o’clock, apologised for his lateness, kissed his wife’s hand and Susan’s, and was very polite. Susan had expected to see him come in red around the eyes from drink, and belligerent, although Sarah had said nothing about him when they were driving round the park that afternoon. She had said as little as she used to when she was a girl.

  The dinner was very bad: the soup a slimy broth, the halibut not properly boned and overcooked, the veal bloody, the birds in a sauce tasting of raw flour, the pudding heavy and the coffee full of grits. It was all the kind of food supposed to be delicate and elaborate. Sarah murmured her apologies and her husband said something polite in reply, twitching a smile at her, though he addressed her as ‘Lady Henry’. Sarah did not look displeased, or worried, or sad at this.

  ‘It is good to have you with us, Miss Pagett,’ repeated Lord Henry, and Sarah glanced at him. ‘You were not in town last year, were you?’

  ‘No,’ said Susan, ‘no, I wasn’t as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Nor was she the year before that,’ said Sarah.

  ‘But now my little sister is coming out, so I shall be in town this summer, you know, playing chaperone sometimes, I daresay.’

  ‘My dear Miss Pagett! I can’t believe that, a young lady of your age and–er–your looks …’

  Susan blushed deeply because it seemed he thought she had been asking for a compliment. She looked at Sarah and saw that she looked ashamed, the only emotion she had shown all day.

  ‘Naturally Aunt Augusta will act as Sophie’s chaperone,’ she said.

  ‘These duennas,’ murmured Templecombe salaciously, and Sarah shivered–as though, Susan thought, she were imagining his long-nailed, purple veined hands gripping her little, square, cream-coloured shoulders, and his ruddy face bent over her own pale one. She wondered whether Sarah would ever tell her that the bruise on her forehead had been inflicted by him.

  ‘It is cold,’ said Sarah. ‘I shall have a better fire made up in the drawing room.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it, my dear,’ said Templecombe with his eye upon her. Susan believed that across Sarah’s back there must be a mass of red weals: the back of her blue-and-lilac evening dress was high enough to conceal them, though it was quite low in the front.

  When she was alone later that evening it occurred to Susan that her sister was being unfaithful to Templecombe, and this was the reason for his abusing her, ignoring her, and being as polite to her as she was to him. As she paused in wonder at this thought it seemed more and more likely. In the Park, a young man had ridden up to their carriage and talked to Sarah for a little longer than was merely civil if he were a frequent guest in Curzon Street. The young man, Mr Wycombe, had been blonde and pretty, and no more than twenty years old.

  In her first Season Susan had discovered that, although many men did find Sarah almost repulsive, there were some who were attracted by her, by all she left unspoken: they could never know what it was of which she did not speak. It still surprised Susan to hear a man speak of Sarah as rather a clever sort of woman, for in her view a charming, clever woman should have Sophie’s quick tongue and her own good sense and judgement. She sighed.

  If he were less than twenty, Mr Wycombe would see in Lady Henry a young, delicate creature married by force to Templecombe, and also a middle-aged lady, sorrowful with worldly wisdom, perhaps rather like his mother: but if he saw her thus he would not wish to commit adultery with her. After a minute or two Susan decided that they were not lovers, but that Templecombe who had fallen in love with his wife after marriage, jealously and stupidly believed they were. As she undressed Susan wondered whether she could ever question Sarah about what it was really like to be married.

  *

  Templecombe had just left Sarah and gone to his own room. She had not struggled, or spoken, but had lain beneath him quite limp, as motionless as she could in such circumstances without physically stiffening. Now she lay in bed with here eyes wide open, watching her small bony hands curled over the counterpane, wondering whether it was a mistake for her to have said afterwards, in an interested voice: ‘Why do you wish for this when you have a mistress who is fond of you?’ He had forgotten to be cool in reply and his anger might mean that he was now in love with her, but more likely not.

  He had started to be angry because that night they had held a dinner-party, and at seven o’clock Sarah had told Vickers that she felt too faint to act as hostess and must stay in bed. He had not been home at that time, and, when Susan told him, it was too late for him to come and remonstrate with her. After the guests had gone he had said, she remembered: ‘How dare you, ma’am, pretend to be sick when you have guests.’ And she had replied: ‘Susan must have enjoyed playing hostess. Did she not?’

  ‘You were hoaxing, weren’t you? You are not really ill, I don’t believe you ever are, even that damned sister of yours swears you have an iron constitution.’

  ‘She is quite right …’ Sarah had said. ‘I did have, long ago. Is it not strange?’ Vickers came in just then with some medicine and he had watched her take it and declare that she felt a little better.

  He had continued quarrelling at her as soon as the maid had gone. Two things n
ow worried Sarah. He had said that he knew she was not having an affair with young Mr Wycombe, who did come to see her and whose first love she really was; and that he knew she wanted to commit adultery, but that she would never be able to for no man would voluntarily take her to bed. She was also disturbed by the memory of her apologies, however careless, for having put him to some inconvenience. She wondered whether it might not have shown more indifference to have said nothing. She looked down at her breast-bone, where a bruise was developing: he had punched her when he finished shouting at her, then left her room, then come back and got into her bed, raped her and gone away again. Templecombe had never beaten her severely and it was only rarely that he slapped or punched or shook her. She had not been badly hurt, but very upset, once, when he had kicked her.

  Carefully Sarah went through the past hour in her cold mind, over and over again, to calm herself. She could feel hysteria trembling inside her: but more than anything else it was the pure embarrassment caused by the memory of how she had loved the man three years before, which made her want to scream and be sick.

  *

  ‘Dear Sarah,’ said Susan the day before she left for Byranston Square, ‘I’m so glad I came – I’ve had a most enjoyable time – thank you.’ She was holding her sister’s hand and Sarah, lying down, was half-smiling at her. ‘Will you tell me one thing–I wonder, Sarah, you’re still in love with that man, aren’t you?’

  It was a week since Sarah had had her scene with Templecombe.

  ‘You are ridiculous,’ she said in a small voice and then, higher: ‘I never knew you could be so stupid. I never was in love with my husband. I knew he wanted me for my money.’

  ‘But Sarah, when I – when we all …’ said Susan with lowered eyes.

  ‘Yes, yes. Naturally at first I – I thought him a dashing figure.’ She squirmed. ‘I wanted to be married and I wanted a title. One ought not to say that, no one ever admits it, but that is the bold truth, Susan.’ She was speaking more easily than she had since Susan’s arrival.

  ‘I see,’ said Susan.

  ‘Only think how terrible it would be to be an old maid.’ A new look came into her face. ‘That is not what you want, is it, Susan? Only think!’

  Susan, who had looked disturbed at Sarah’s first comment, said: ‘Better to be an old maid than unhappily married, don’t you think?’ and drew herself up. ‘Is he unfaithful to you, Sarah?’

  ‘Naturally he is. He always was.’

  ‘It must hurt, even if you don’t love him.’

  ‘One’s pride,’ said Sarah proudly, and shrugged. ‘I am indifferent.’

  ‘Does he like that, I wonder? Perhaps he would like you to mind.’

  Sarah said nothing aloud, though she heard her voice in her head: ‘At first I objected.’ The picture of herself in tears in front of him at the first discovery of his infidelity, two and a half years before, came to her and she said: ‘Nonsense. You can’t understand these things.’

  ‘Sarah, does he ill-treat you?’ Susan gripped her hand.

  ‘He beats me sometimes if that is what you mean.’ She pulled the mohair rug which covered her up over her chest. ‘I must say, you know, I don’t feel well today,’ she said in her light, cheerful voice. ‘I have a little idea that I am awaiting another interesting event. Oh dear, Susan, it is so very bad for one, one can hardly believe that such a nasty disease is a state of nature. One’s ankles swell up,’ she continued, ‘and one’s bosom is sore, you know, and no position is ever comfortable. And then at the end … oh, you know, don’t you? It’s horrible, Susan,’ she almost teased.

  Susan did not know exactly what happened in pregnancy, but she quoted a matron whom she had once overheard. ‘My dear – I’ve heard that nowadays one can have ether, or chloroform, or something of that kind, just as though it were an operation.’

  Sarah said nothing. Susan let go of her hand and got up. She was going to pay a morning call and she went over to the mirror and arranged her collar.

  ‘Isn’t it odd, that there’s nothing more insulting than being accused of being in love with someone whom one – for whom one has no such feelings? I do know, because Sophie will say I’m in love with the Rector, who is quite mad about her. Isn’t it absurd? It’s much worse to have people accuse one falsely, if one can put it like that, than to have them discover a real passion. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Susan, you and Sophie and Aunt Augusta will all come to call on me, won’t you?’ said Sarah. ‘I am looking forward to seeing Sophie – dear me, think of her being grown-up, eighteen already, and I daresay she is very pretty. Will she break hearts, do you think? Really, you must bring her.’

  ‘Of course I will. Now, I simply must go – I’ll be back soon. Goodbye, Sarah.’

  She walked from the room and Sarah leaned over and looked out of the boudoir window, so that she could see her go out into the street and climb into the carriage, which was to drive her to Mount Street. Susan did not pay calls on older ladies without a companion, but she went alone to visit her married contemporaries. This was in fact the first year she had done so; and this Season (and next Season, if she was brought again to London), she would not be properly chaperoned by Augusta, because Sophie would have greater need of her stepmother.

  From time to time it puzzled Sarah that her sister had not married, but she had asked no questions.

  She watched Susan now, enjoying an older woman’s freedom of movement, driving off alone. She suddenly had the idea of telling Susan, when she came back, that really she ought not to wear pale pink and primrose yellow, too many ribbons and too much lace; that less gay and fashionable clothes would become her: perhaps a slate-grey frock with blue buttons and sleeves and collar.

  Sarah rang the bell and a hot toddy was brought to her, for she had the first signs of a cold. She drew the blind, lit the lamp, and opened the first volume of The Return of the Native. She had been reading this for six weeks now, but she rarely progressed: she liked best to re-read descriptions of the dark Eustacia Vye, of how she looked upon the lowering, mourning-coloured heath and of what a splendid goddess she would have made.

  CHAPTER 6

  IN WHICH NICHOLAS PLAYS HOST TO THE UPPER TEN THOUSAND

  The Pagetts held a house party at Lynmore early in August, 1880. There were twelve guests, not including four children, and they came on the Thursday, and left between the Monday and the following Thursday.

  On Saturday there was a picnic luncheon to be held in a clump of beeches just below the folly in the park. Hampers and baskets of food and napery and silver, cases of lemonade and hock and champagne, were carried up from the house in the heat of the day and placed inside the folly in the cool. Nicholas had turned the slender octagonal tower into an ice house.

  Guests were expected to remain inside the little copse, although some of the young might sit in the long yellowed grass beyond, in the full sun. The footmen and gardeners prepared the dry beige ground beneath the trees. They removed brambles and nettles, but allowed rosebay willow-herb and early fallen leaves, dark green with late summer and punctured with holes, to remain. There was enough breath in the air to rustle the beech leaves from time to time and allow light to move over the grey and lichened trunks.

  A few garden chairs were dotted round the space, but nothing else was laid down, for the younger gentlemen were to bring up the lighter equipment, rugs and cushions and shooting sticks, when the party moved up from the house at a quarter to one.

  *

  The young people were gathered in the hall, waiting to set off, laughing and shouting, everyone bearing a cushion or a parasol, and the older ones were in the long drawing room, drinking madeira. Many Cheshire people had come for the picnic and there were about forty present in all. Susan was in the drawing room, and Sophie was in the hall, running about in the brightest, plainest dress of all, chosen by Augusta: a grass-green tailored skirt and bodice in linen, with white stripes, stiff white collar and white cuffs. She darted between Octavius Potter, who had
put on gaiters and a grey hat for the picnic, and Captain Tremain, who had begun to court her in London.

  Augusta came down the stairs, richly flushed, with her collar unpinned, and carrying a very battered round-hat. ‘You had better start moving,’ she called to the young as she reached the bottom step, and waved towards the door. ‘Your elders will be after you in five or ten minutes.’ She walked into the drawing room, pleased that Sophie was wearing the green dress, about which she had had doubts, for she thought that ordinary light muslins became her delicacy better than the sharp green. A few people smiled at Augusta retreating, and one young woman said uncertainly: ‘She is eccentric, isn’t she?’

  Sophie led the way out of the front door, carrying a shooting stick as though she were a man. Octavius Potter hesitated wondering whether to join the drawing-room party and walk up with them. Susan came out into the hall when, through the shaded French windows, she saw the others straggling through the garden. ‘We must catch up with Sophie and her cronies,’ she said to him, and smiled. They walked briskly to catch them up.

  In the crimson long drawing room, Nicholas was standing inside the edge of the gathering, as Octavius Potter had stood in the hall, looking as though he had just finished talking to someone. His eye was resting on a small, fair woman in pink. When his wife came in he walked over towards her and they met in the middle of the room, for the group had congregated round the empty fireplace at the far end. ‘Do you know, my dear, I don’t think I shall join in your picnic? I’ve a twinge of the gout, unfortunately, and it’s a young people’s affair, after all.’

  ‘Nicholas,’ said Augusta, ‘I asked after your health this morning – I specifically asked after all your ills individually, d’you remember? – and you said you had not so much as a bad head from last night. And the picnic is not just for the young people, as you know very well.’ She looked him up and down, and her lips curved. ‘Come now, my dear. Do you want people to think you ill mannered? They will, if you don’t continue to play host. And you’ve been a perfectly good host so far.’