The Bohemian Girl (8 page)

‘What an awfully smart phaeton she's got, I must say!' said Violet.

‘Don't use that word, Violet, it's very vulgar.'

‘Smart?'

‘Yes.'

Diana was blushing, but staring straight ahead at Kitty. Whenever she caught sight of her brother's wife she coloured, remembering the afternoon nearly a year ago on which she had gone to visit her, alone. Although she had been frightened, she had enjoyed leaving Queen Anne's Gate unobserved and, after some trouble, hailing a four-wheeler instead of the hansom cab of her imagination. But when she reached Brompton Square and was taken in to Kitty, Kitty had come near to scolding Diana for going out without either permission or a chaperone, and had told her that, though she was pleased by her kindness in coming to call, she must never do it again. Kitty had promised, unprompted, not to tell Lady Blentham about her adventure, and had had a servant fetch a cab to the door without offering Diana even a cup of tea. It had not been the conduct to be expected of an actress, and Diana had cried on the way home. It was the memory of her childishness which made her blush now, and refuse to look away.

Lady Blentham made up her mind. They could not, she decided, claim not to have seen Kitty's phaeton, especially when Cousin Theresa was with her, and she coldly asked the coachman to stop. Kitty had been watching their slow progress with amusement for the past five minutes.

‘Why, Lady Blentham!' she said. ‘How nice to see you. May I present – oh, how silly, I'm sure I don't need to introduce you – ain't you Lady Blentham's cousin, Theresa?'

‘No, you don't need to introduce us,' said Angelina. ‘I hope I see you well? Theresa, this is a surprise! Shall you be in London for long?' She saw the girls nod at Kitty and exchange satisfactory murmured greetings.

‘Just a few more weeks,' said Cousin Theresa. ‘As a matter of fact, after that you won't be seeing me for a
long
time. Jimmy's regiment is being sent out to India. I rather look forward to it.'

‘Well, I hope you find it meets your expectation. For how long do you expect to be stationed there?' said Lady Blentham, who had never really liked her young first cousin once removed. She was a younger, plainer version of Kitty.

‘Three or five years. How nice it is to see you grown-up, Diana,' she said, making Diana start. ‘Last time I saw you you can't have been more than thirteen. And I was at Girton. You told me you were going to be a poet – and didn't need an education.'

‘Yes,' said Diana, smiling, remembering that Cousin Theresa had laughed at her then.

‘A poet?' said Kitty. ‘Gracious me! Does Arthur Cornwallis know – Edward's friend, Mr Cornwallis? He'd be interested, I'm sure.'

‘I've outgrown that sort of folly,' said Diana quietly, looking into her eyes.

‘Theresa,' said Lady Blentham, ‘you must come to call on us soon. I'll send you a card for my next dinner-party – not a very formal affair, you know! I think we must be going – so sorry. Goodbye, Mrs Blentham – give my love to my grandson, and Edward, of course.'

‘Goodbye, Lady Blentham!' said Kitty, and laughed.

The landaulet rolled out of the big park gates and from her position at the horses' back Diana could see Kitty's head and Cousin Theresa's dipping and turning in the phaeton for quite a long time. It seemed to her that Kitty often looked in her direction, but that was not possible; she would take no interest in Edward's little debutante sister.

‘Mamma,' she said suddenly as they entered Piccadilly. ‘If I told you that I should like to go to Cambridge, to Girton or Somerville, what would you say?'

‘Somerville College is at Oxford, my dear, not Cambridge.'

No one doubted that Diana was clever enough to go to Girton or Newnham: those who wished to discourage her said she was too clever. No one said the women were less intelligent than men, or that women’s colleges were an abomination and a waste of time; or that a young lady must occupy herself with Society and frivolity, and nothing besides, in order to be attractive to men. The Blenthams firmly denied that truth, and laughed at Diana a little.

They considered that a severe and formal education was not necessary for a strikingly intelligent young woman who, when she was at Dunstanton, had plenty of time to make use of her grandfather’s excellent library. Although Lady Blentham forbade the girls to read some of the novels which Violet liked and did read, either because they were rubbish or because like
Tess
of
the
d’Urbervilles
they said too much about men and women, she saw no harm in serious works, except the medical dictionary and the newspapers. Even the Authorised Version was allowed: much of it was incomprehensible.

Angelina encouraged Diana’s longing for knowledge, and told her to read Gibbon and Macaulay, Addison and Steele, Carlyle and Ruskin and even Walter Pater, and von Ranke’s
History
of
the
Popes.
She liked to discuss all these with her daughter; and when she was fully satisfied that Diana was in earnest about wishing to read seriously, she told her as she never had before that some novels were positively good.

Diana was bored by her sister’s favourite Ouida and Marie Corelli, but she enjoyed the works of Jane Austen, some of
Dickens, and the Barsetshire and Palliser novels to which her mother introduced her. She learnt a good deal about life and men from her reading, and she was very grateful to Lady Blentham for allowing her to acquire some kind of education now that she had left the schoolroom, but she was not content. Throughout that winter, spent at Dunstanton but for a few house-parties in hunting country, she campaigned to be allowed to try for a place at Cambridge.

‘I’m proud of your brains, Diana,’ her father told her one day when they were hacking down a wide flat road, where rotten leaves lay cold in the ditches at the side. ‘Pity you’re not a boy, or I daresay you think so at the moment, but I believe there are all kinds of lectures and so forth that a girl can go to in London. At that place in Harley Street, and some other college, Bedford is it – all kinds of places. We’ll see in the spring, shall we? Rather fewer visits to the milliner, and a few more lectures – a considerable economy,’ he said. ‘
I
don’t mind your cutting a few At Homes and morning calls, and neither I suppose will your mother.’

‘Papa, I do so want to go to Girton. It’s not unknown! Cousin Theresa went.’

‘Your cousin Theresa’s mamma was a queer sort of woman, Didie, as your mother must have told you, and as for her father – well, you’re old enough to know that all those girls’ lives were made damned difficult by the scandal. What’s more, I don’t believe Theresa enjoyed herself at Girton. Lucky she found Jimmy,’ he said.

‘She must have
learned
a great deal,’ muttered Diana. ‘And been able to
talk
about it, properly!’

‘Nonsense, my dear, you know nothing about it. Don’t shuffle about like that, d’you want to give the poor brute a sore back? No, Diana – er – the ordinary sort of chap doesn’t learn anything at Cambridge, unless he’s a parson, I suppose.’ He smiled a little. ‘It can’t be so very different from Oxford. And all I learnt when I was at the House was how to drink three bottles of claret in an evening and – well, I made a few speeches at the Union, true enough, and that was good practice for the Commons.’ Charles had been Member for
Maidstone West before his father died. ‘One learns, you know,
after
one’s finished one’s so-called education.’

Tears began to slop down Diana’s face, making her angry and hot. When she took off her hat, they were partly washed away by the icy drips which fell from the black twigs above them. She was crying a little because she had heard the same things so many times, and was beginning to believe them to be true.

‘Now, where are Violet and Roderick? Put your hat on, Diana, why did you take it off?’

‘They went on ahead, Papa, they wanted to gallop.’ She lifted her eyes, and made out the faint shape of Dunstanton through the full white January fog. Her father was relieved to see the house, where this conversation would end.

‘Roderick’s got a damned bad seat. Violet’s the best of you, so far as that’s concerned – though you too are very good.’

‘Yes, Papa. Thank you.’

‘Didie, you aren’t unhappy, I trust?’ he said with difficulty, as she replaced her tight little hat.

‘No Papa. Just so very bored.’ She thought: why am I really so keen to go to Cambridge?

‘I’m afraid all intelligent women are bored. Your mother for instance. One marries a woman with a good mind, but one can’t discuss intellectual matters with her after one’s been married to her for a few months. Somehow marriage and conversation don’t quite go together.’ He paused. ‘You’ll have to get used to it, my dear.’ Charles spoke with absolute seriousness for the first time.

Lord Blentham could see no real harm in female suffrage, and sometimes thought that women’s brains were wasted, though nothing could be done about this. When drunk enough, he would say that his wife would have made a good Prime Minister, but that on the whole he was thankful she could not be. He had often been unfaithful to Angelina since their marriage, and he was proud of how for thirty years he had evaded her skilful plans for his advancement in politics and for his conversion to Toryism. She had sincerely and silently desired that for a long time, because if Charles
deserted the Liberal Party, she could then abandon her pretence of Gladstonian convictions, and obey her husband by making herself useful to the Primrose League. He knew all this, though she had said nothing.

Charles was sufficiently fond of Angelina to be sorry that he was a disappointment to her but he reminded himself that, when they married, he too had had high ambitions and could not have been expected to know that in fact one junior ministry would be enough to satisfy him by the time he reached early middle age. He also liked to remind himself that, as a young man, he had married Angelina for love of both her mind and her beauty, rather than for her ten thousand pounds or her connection with Mr Gladstone. Because of this she ought, he believed, to be grateful for the physical attentions he still paid her, and had paid her with vigour in the past. He supposed she was grateful in spite of her delicacy: Angelina was nearly as good as she meant to be.

Like his wife, Lord Blentham preferred his daughters to his sons though he knew them far less well. He had been fiercely strict with the boys when they were young, because it was so important that they should not turn out unsatisfactory in any way. Though Edward and Roderick had not turned out very well, the girls were good enough, and could be fully enjoyed now they were grown-up: even their little follies could be a minor source of pleasure, for he was a tolerant man. Charles supposed that his sons were good enough too, in their separate ways, but both of them had irritated him ever since they were born. They were his responsibility, as the girls were not.

Charles and Angelina had come an unspoken agreement some time age that Diana, their youngest, was their favourite child. They voiced their agreement that all the other children more or less lacked brains, though Maud and Edward tried to be clever; and they talked a good deal about Diana’s innocent wish to go to Girton, which they need never gratify.

It was an easy and rather wrongful pleasure to have a young favourite, Charles thought; and he promised himself as they rode up to the house that, even if Diana’s brains led her to some grave lapse in good behaviour, he would not be too hard
upon her. She never had been truly naughty, even as a tiny girl: only alert and rather self-assured.

In the stable yard, he helped her to dismount; and told her that she was a lucky girl, because apart from anything else she had a figure which other girls must envy. Roderick came out of one of the loose-boxes at that moment, with his greatcoat buttoned up to hide his clerical collar. He heard Charles’s remark and saw Diana flush.

‘Yes, you’re what one used to call a strapping wench, Didie!’ he said, hitting his boot with his riding crop.

‘Not a very suitable expression to use in front of your little sister, eh, Roderick,’ said his father, quite idly. ‘And hardly very suitable for a man of the cloth, either.’

Roderick gave him a slightly pouting frown. ‘I daresay,’ he admitted. ‘Have I offended you, Diana?’

‘Yes, bo – yes, you have. Strapping wench!’ She smiled, and swallowed. Her cheeks were still very red. ‘You know Roddy, you oughtn’t to have gone into the Church. Why did you? I know you’d have made a splendid sort of Parson Woodforde, a hundred years ago, but now we’re so strict about religion,
surely
you must hate it? You know how Mamma disapproves of clergymen hunting – so does everybody!’

‘Mamma’s a regular Lady Lufton – as you were saying just the other day,’ said Roderick, still pouting slightly, and watching his father. Diana had persuaded him to try
Framley
Parsonage,
but he was not fond of novels and found it easy to write sermons against them. ‘Besides, people nowadays are hardly strict
enough
about religion. There’s far too much Rationalism and other rubbish about.’ He saw that Diana was smiling at him and, unwillingly, he laughed.

‘Anything that keeps you off the back of a good hunter is an excellent thing, Roderick. I trust you
don’t
hunt, in Northumberland?’ said Lord Blentham, who was an agnostic.

‘I go to the meet, Father, and that’s all!’

‘Good.’ Just then, the coachman came up to Charles, muttered something and drew him aside. ‘Tell your mother I’ll be in shortly!’ said their father. The two men walked away together towards the opposite stable-block.

Roderick and Diana stood still and listened to the fading talk.

‘I’m sure he’s very sorry, my lord!’ said the coachman. ‘I’ve made sure of that.’

‘It can’t be helped, it can’t be helped,’ said Lord Blentham. ‘It must be very largely Mr Roderick’s fault.’

Diana stamped one frozen foot and blew on her hands. ‘I don’t think you realise how lucky you are, Roddy, to be a man and independent,’ she said loudly. She guessed that Roderick had done something to harm one of the horses, and she said this partly to distract his angry thoughts.

‘Independent? I? You try being a curate, my girl – on a tiny legacy from Aunt Emily and a stipend of two hundred a year!’ He drew himself further up in his riding boots, and put one hand inside his coat. ‘And my father hardly helps to make me independent, as you call it. One mustn’t complain, of course,’ he said: quite contentedly, for Diana nearly always had the effect of putting him in a good mood. He thought that if he had not been her brother and a clergyman, he would have wanted to marry or sleep with a girl of her type, and would have succeeded in winning one.

‘Oh, I don’t mean money,’ said Diana, studying her brother’s coarsely handsome face, and remembering the disrespectful way in which her father had spoken to him. She sighed.

‘You’re not back on Cambridge, are you?’ he said. ‘You’ll be wanting a latchkey next.’

‘Yes, I’d like a latchkey, but I’m not so silly as to ask Mamma!’ said Diana.

‘I should hope not! Poor old Didie. Cheer up. Come on, let’s get out of this da – this frightful cold.’ Roderick took her arm, and Diana quite enjoyed walking beside him with her head two inches above his own. Of course, she thought, no one was truly independent, not even men. Like her father, Roderick was right and annoying, and there was nothing to be looked forward to in life but reading.

*

Lady Blentham considered herself fairly broad-minded. She
had no prejudice against any form of intellect, or even against those who were a little Bohemian, so long as they did not offend in some way against propriety, etiquette or taste. When her husband argued that, in order to be called Bohemian, a man or woman must necessarily be lacking in a sense of propriety, she would say that absolute convention and real propriety were not quite the same thing. To prove her point, she would remind him of Edward’s friend, Arthur Cornwallis, who was wholly devoted to his rather plain wife. It was not conventional to write little essays, or to wear soft collars, but it could be perfectly proper.

Arthur Cornwallis claimed to adore Lady Blentham, whom he had met several times as an undergraduate and stayed with twice since his marriage. He told Edward that his mother was a marvellous example of a dying breed or type, an Early Victorian, and that visits to Dunstanton and Queen Anne’s Gate were delightful because of this. Angelina knew perfectly well that he flattered her, and must think her a foolish if charming old woman, but she liked him all the same. When they were together, they always talked about old-fashioned subjects such as Ritualism and Dickens, or about the decline in morals and good manners over the past thirty years.

Sometimes, Angelina confided in him. Cornwallis had never told Edward that Lady Blentham had once said: ‘You must not think, Mr Cornwallis, that I would be opposed to Edward’s – wanting to be more like
you,
to be something of an
aesthete
or a literary man, if only I could think he had talent! But he isn’t up to it, as they say. Now, don’t agree with me! I know you can’t – you are always loyal to him, dear Edward.’

The Cornwallises came to stay at Dunstanton that year during Roderick’s visit to his parents; and Arthur soothed Lady Blentham’s fears that her son was not a good clergyman.

‘I’ve made a small study of theology,’ he said, ‘and I couldn’t fault him on doctrine when we were indulging in a little discussion after dinner last night.’ Roderick had said very little over the dining-room port. ‘Though I’m afraid,
dear Lady Blentham, we bored your husband horribly.’