The Bohemian Girl (4 page)

‘No,’ said Diana, surprised.

‘I’m not as clever as you are,’ said Violet, ‘and so I suppose I naturally feel – roughly the same age. It’s hard to think I’ll be coming out two whole years before you.’ She looked up over the table at the black window.

‘I don’t want to come out,’ Diana told her, and she meant it. ‘Though it’ll be nice to get rid of Fusty Mac.’

Violet said: ‘Oh Didie, you
are
young.’

‘In many ways, I’m rather old for my age,’ said Diana.

They were quiet for a while, and Diana opened her book again. The housemaid came in, and took away the tea-things. When she had gone, Violet said in a deep but casual voice: ‘Didie, have you ever wondered how babies – are made? I don’t imagine you know!’ She clapped her hands as though swatting a fly.

‘They grow inside a woman once she’s married,’ said Diana, looking up. ‘Just as puppies grow inside dogs.’ She had gathered this, because the Blenthams kept several male and female terriers, and because did not believe in telling children direct lies on any subject at all, but only in misleading them when necessary.

‘Even if the dogs aren’t – mm – properly married?’ Though
she did not know quite why, Violet began to giggle again. ‘The
bitches
aren’t married, with a white veil and all that – I wonder…. Of course I know that, but Didie, how do they
get
inside one? How d’you think? And where do they come
out,
come to that, one does think a great big
baby
…’

‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’ It then occurred to Diana that, of course, men had something to do with it. Quickly she remembered the boy Thomas Pagett, who had pinched her thigh five years ago at Lynmore Hall, and she remembered Nurse’s odd distress. She flushed, wondered why she had never thought about the matter before; then decided it did not really interest her.

‘The woman’s husband must have something to do with it,’ said Violet, making her sister start. ‘Look, do you think Mamma would tell us if we asked her?’

‘No,’ said Diana.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t quite know.’

Diana found secret pleasure in her own body and she hoped that, when she married and shared a bedroom, the man would not disturb her: that was all, she thought, and she tried to dismiss the question from her mind. There was something very insecure about that deep private pleasure. Though no one had ever discovered it, or told her so, Diana knew that it was wrong, a squalid thing, which ought to make her unhappy. ‘I don’t want to have children,’ she said.

‘
Don’t
you?’ Violet, who had been resting her head on her arms, lifted her face and looked at her sister. ‘Oh, I want as many as possible!’

‘No, I don’t want any,’ said Diana. ‘I don’t want to marry at all. I’ll be an old maid and I’ll manage perfectly well on my own.’

The door opened, and Maud, who was twenty-two, came into the room.

Maud had inherited Lady Blentham’s looks, but no one described her as a beauty, which was most unfair. Her sight was very weak, and thick spectacles concealed her eyes, which were not large, but very clear, framed with blonde lashes, and
blue as Canterbury bells. She was far too thin, and her soft complexion was so anaemic as to look grey in a bad light. She had a true Grecian nose which ran straight down from her forehead, a pale clear-cut mouth and a fine oval face; but her defects prevented these being easily noticed. Only her hair attracted the attention it deserved, for she was the one true, rich blonde in the family. Edward was flaxen-haired like his mother, Roderick and Violet were brown, and Diana’s hair was too red in some lights and too dark in others to be called blonde except by very generous people. Mrs Mackay called it ginger.

‘Hello’, said Violet and Diana together. They rarely saw their elder sister.

‘Hello, children. I came up because I suppose you don’t know yet – that Bateman is going to be married?’

Nurse’s name was Alice Bateman, and now that she acted as Maud’s lady’s-maid, and took care of their clothes too when the family was not in London, Violet and Diana were supposed to call her by her surname.

‘Queen Anne’s dead,’ said Diana, and Maud looked coldly at her.

Violet giggled at Diana, and said: ‘But she’s been going to be married for ages, Maud. She got engaged on Didie’s eighth birthday – I remember it very well.’

‘I meant that she’s going to be married next month. Her uncle died and left her a legacy – enough to get married on at last, or so she told me.’ Maud smiled. ‘We must wish her happy.’

There was a pause. ‘I don’t
believe
it!’ said Diana at length. She had been very upset when Nurse first announced she was going to be married; but the engagement had gone on so long she had thought the wedding would never take place.

‘Well, I suppose it must be true,’ said Violet. ‘So she’ll be leaving?’

‘Yes, of course. I came to tell you because –’ Maud hesitated – ‘because it would be very bad if either of you reproached her for going. I realise that you’re both very much attached to her, but you won’t, will you?’

‘She ought to have told us herself,’ said Diana. ‘And why did she tell
you
?’

Maud flushed. ‘She was going to tell you. She doesn’t know that I’ve come. Diana, you mustn’t make a – a scene when Bateman does tell you! Thank goodness I did come up! There’s no reason for her to feel tied to us! She’s well over thirty – it’s time she was married – do you expect her to put you before her husband?’

‘Yes,’ said Diana.

‘Didie doesn’t mean that seriously,’ said Violet.

‘I do,’ said Diana. Tears dropped out of her eyes, and her ears were bright red as she looked down at the floor. Nurse’s betrothed was second gardener at a house in the Midlands; and Nurse had always said that he meant to set up on his own as a market-gardener as soon as he was able. Now they had a little capital, they would go to live in Worcestershire, and Diana would be lucky to see Nurse once a year. ‘There is reason for her to feel tied to us,’ she said.

‘There is none. She’s a servant. Do you expect to buy her – her
soul
with wages, as well as her labour?’ Maud said this very loudly, because in her parents’ presence she found it very difficult to express herself just as she wished.

‘Oh, Maud,
really
,’ said Violet, and added: ‘she wasn’t your nurse, but do try to understand how – Didie must feel.’

‘Surely you’re both too old to care in this way?’ said Maud.

Violet went to put her arm round Diana. She cleared her throat, hugging her sister, and in order to divert herself as well as Diana from unhappiness, said: ‘Maud, before you came in, Didie and I were talking about – how babies are made. We’re neither of us quite sure. Can you possibly tell us?’

Maud put her hand on the doorknob, and one corner of her mouth twitched. ‘The doctor brings them in his black bag, Violet. Surely you knew that!’

‘Maud! Here, you’re making fun of us! No, do please tell us.’

‘As far as I know,’ said Maud calmly, ‘that is the truth.’ She knew exactly as much as her sisters did, and her curiosity about the subject was far greater. But it seemed to her that
discovering the whole truth about the matter was quite as difficult as permanently improving the condition of England’s poor. There were no books to explain, references in forbidden novels were very odd, and no one, of course, could be asked. It occurred to Maud then that she might ask Bateman, and she blushed thickly under her spectacles. ‘Remember what I said!’ she told them, and left.

‘
Well
!’ said Violet, putting her hands on her hips.

After supper, Nurse came herself to tell the girls about her coming marriage. Violet wept pleasurably through her congratulations, whereas Diana was perfectly polite, saying that Maud had already informed them of the happy event. She did not cry at all. Nurse told them that she would always be fond of them both, and remember them; and Diana reminded herself that in any case she had seen comparatively little of Nurse, of Bateman, during the past five years. There was no reason for her to be unhappy.

*

Lady Blentham had an uneasy night. At first, she could not sleep at all for worrying about Charles and Home Rule and Mr Gladstone’s mental health. When she did fall asleep, she had several confused dreams, in one of which all three of her daughters ran away to Ireland in a train bound for Vienna, and Alice Bateman announced that she was a cousin of Lady Londonderry’s. Recently, Angelina had begun to suspect that, when the girls were little, Bateman had not been quite the strict well-trained nurse she had appeared in public.

She woke very early, as usual, in a cold bedroom, and when she rang the bell her letters were brought up to her with her toast and tea. Lady Blentham was surprised to see one addressed in her son Roderick’s hand, and she tried to feel love. At present, for no particular reason, Angelina felt that all children in the world were merely a source of trouble.

Roderick as a child had been plain, stolid, generally obedient, but obstinate sometimes. He had always been intended for the Church, and had accepted the idea until two years ago, when he had simply announced that he did not want to take orders, and would not do so. His virtue, thought Lady
Blentham as she slit the envelope, was that he was sincerely fond both of her and of his little sisters. Roderick was now eighteen, and handsome in a heavy, youthful way in spite of being rather pimply.

Lady Blentham sat further up in bed and pulled her pillows into shape behind her, before returning to the letter.

Lady Blentham read this twice. She expected very little of a boy still at school except good-natured obedience, and Roderick’s awkward words seemed to her as full of proper feeling as a sermon by the late Dr Pusey.

Angelina felt her faith in children restored by grace; but she was a little puzzled, for though she thought Roderick as sinful as most boys, she knew that only some great and peculiar sin could have prompted his conscience in this way, and she could not quite think what that might be.

After a two-days’ interval for reflection, she took her son’s letter down to the library and showed it to Lord Blentham,
saying that it had arrived that morning. He was pleased enough with it after a short discussion.

‘I hope he won’t become too – earnest, but I agree, Angelina, it’s a very proper letter and it’s a good thing to have him settled. I never thought he’d do for the Army or the Navy, and what else is there? Though the Church isn’t what it used to be. He’s not clever enough for the Bar.’

‘One son in the Army is quite enough,’ agreed Lady Blentham, ignoring the implication that a stupid man would do well enough for the Church. ‘But there is something which puzzles me rather, Charles.’

‘Yes, my dear?’

She hesitated. ‘Roderick is reserved, and has never been – eloquent, shall I say. But he writes now almost as though he had done something – very wrong. I am worried, Charles.’

Charles looked at the last postscript, and folded the letter up. ‘Oh yes, I should think he’s done something pretty wrong.’

‘But what possible opportunity could he have for doing something – sinful, at Harrow? A public school! A few illicit trips to London – even the occasional glass of beer – could not be considered absolutely
immoral,
Charles. And what worse could there be – for a boy of his age? Edward is in no way repentant of
his
sins!’