‘H-human beings have s-such a n-need for each other,’ said Julian a moment later, and Diana watched the pair of brown moles below his left nipple move nervously up and down. When he saw her looking, he covered them up with his shirt. ‘I d-don’t regret this. I’ll m-make sure you d-don’t either. I’ll l-look after you – you r-really must let me l-look after you.’ His face was grim.
‘No,’ said Diana. ‘I want a little time to think, before … You’re doing quite enough for me in lending me a thousand pounds – and though of course it was rather a shock, this, now, was very much what I needed!’ she continued rather breathlessly: ‘One does so miss – a mere man. Do I shock you rather?’ Diana adjusted the pillows.
Julian said calmly: ‘I k-knew you were p-passionate, Diana, as w-well as c-clever – and I l-liked you for it, I l-loved it in you. I d-didn’t think it what some – elderly l-ladies would c-call immodest, or s-something.’
‘Oh, Julian, I’m not a lady,’ said Diana.
‘I shall s-see to it that you are – and that you l-live l-like one.’
He closed his eyes. His sudden thrust of good fortune in capturing Diana without even fully intending to do so had given Julian a headache. The noble beauty who had rejected him, he thought, would be his kept mistress, but he would be very kind to her, and there was, he believed, no malice in him. He did love her. The keeping of her would be so very discreet that he hoped Diana herself would not put the unkindest interpretation on their love-affair until it was absolutely necessary.
‘Well, this will have to be love free from ties,’ said Diana, making him jump. ‘You could not marry me, could you, even if Catriona didn’t exist. Just think of the talk there would be in the Cavalry Club!’ She looked out of the bed at the typing machine, at the orange-boxes, the deal wardrobe and the chamber pot. She was trying to concentrate on reality, but she was unable to see the nasty objects properly.
Julian smiled. ‘One doesn’t t-talk m-much, you know, in the C-cavalry Club.’
Diana was thankful to see that he had a little sense of humour, and a certain adroit intelligence which enabled him to avoid painful subjects. Before they made love again, she told him calmly to withdraw from her person at the suitable moment. Diana would have liked one more baby if Michael had lived.
‘Too s-sudden!’ Julian whispered. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
*
Diana had imagined that Julian, who could not be expected to bear the squalor of Museum Street, would give her odd presents of money. These, she had supposed, would be enough to allow her to rent a reasonably Comfortable lodging and employ a maid-of-all-work while she looked about for a job. She had not expected Julian himself to pay the rent of a charming house in Hampstead, and the wages of two servants, or to make her an allowance of forty pounds a month. But she understood, and acquiesced in his arrangements, and tried not to feel she was robbing him, for debt and poverty had been very terrible. It was illogical, thought Diana, but the less likely the prospect of more poverty became, the more frightful it appeared to her. And yet she still had doubts about her present life, though it was so agreeable, and moderately moral.
Julian said one day after luncheon: ‘Dearest, if w-we were m-married, you w-would hardly object to m-my s-supporting you. Where is the d-difference?’
‘Well, we are not married. And although we are very fond of each other – I don’t like being a kept woman. Even by you, even – temporarily. But unfortunately I have little choice.’
‘That’s a v-very v-vulgar expression, and I d-don’t like you to use it.’
‘I am glad we are not married,’ said Diana. ‘We shouldn’t have suited, Julian.’ She meant: if you love me, why don’t you leave your wife? Diana did not seriously want him to do this, but she wished him to make the suggestion.
‘As you l-like,’ he said, and looked at his watch and told her he must be going.
‘So I’ve hurt your feelings,’ said Diana.
He kissed her lightly, and said goodbye. At the doorway, he turned back and looked at her, sighed and wished that this could last. Diana looked very lovely now that she was at ease, well fed and well, if unusually, dressed. She wore her hair down like a girl’s, tied in the nape of her neck with a large black bow, and her crimson dress was plain, but not severe. The cream walls and bright window behind her made a flattering background.
‘Diana,’ he said, ‘I rather w-wish you l-loved me as I l-love you, b-because I do s-still love you. Do you r-remember the p-poems I used to c-copy for you, w-when we were young?’ His tone of voice was most unsentimental as he put his hand on the door.
Diana looked away and said: ‘Julian, wait one moment!’
He turned back a second time.
‘Tell me,’ said Diana, ‘how secret are you keeping me? Have you told anyone about our arrangement? Anyone at all?’ She lifted her eyebrows.
There was a slight pause. ‘G-good God! I’ve only t-told old M-monty, and he won’t g-gossip, Diana. Why are you s-so – suspicious, dash it? B-besides …’ said Julian.
‘Besides what?’
‘I’m not ashamed of y-you.’
Diana laughed. ‘Oh, go away, darling!’ It occurred to her that women in the best circles had been forgiven before now for having financially advantageous love-affairs, and she tried to comfort herself.
Soon after Julian was gone, Alice came staggering into the room. She was now a square-faced, black-browed child of eighteen months, with thick dust-coloured hair and pretty hands. Diana dressed her in simple loose frocks, and did not make her wear complicated underclothes, or unnecessary boots and hats and gloves.
‘Unca Julia bring present?’ she asked, planting her feet well apart on the carpet.
‘A present for Mamma, but not for you, I fear,’ said Diana.
‘Not for Alick? Mamma?’
‘I need presents,’ said Diana. ‘In fact, I almost live on presents, Alice. He brought me a little ruby ring. Look.’
‘Roobyring.’
‘Look.’ Diana pointed, and the child came forward.
‘Sparka,’ said Alice, putting her dirty fingers on the little table where a cheap but well-set ruby lay, uncovered, beside its box. ‘Not much use, ask me.’
Her mother put an arm round her. ‘Oh, darling, darling, where did you learn that!’ She sent Alice back to Bridget.
Diana put the ring on to go for a walk on Hampstead Heath. When she found a quiet bench, she took off her glove, looked at it, and wished she truly loved Julian. She had an idea that if she were only able to love him, her life both now and in the future would be enormously changed. Julian very much wanted to be loved: in that one way he was like Michael, and unlike other men. Diana dreaded the future.
He was not a bore, he was generous, he had a fine body, and he did not dismiss her writing as rubbish. But I can’t love him, thought Diana. After all, he does not love me. She could not even respond fully when he touched her, though she liked having him in bed with her, and tried hard to please him by making the noises she had made with her husband.
She looked down at the celandines near her feet, and up at the promising March sun, and thought how pleasant life could be. It was only when she thought of how many years and years of life she no doubt had ahead of her, that Diana became depressed.
Secrecy, she thought, and wondered whether she wanted it. Diana was lonely, but she refused to go with Julian to fashionable places where he said she might meet people. The idea of meeting a well-dressed crowd of people of all kinds, which might even include her relations, frightened her and she did not know why. She supposed she wanted others to come to her, and yet she did not like the idea of Julian bringing his friends. The only man who did come to visit her in Flask Walk was Julian’s brother-in-law, Arthur Cornwallis.
Diana was angry with Julian for pretending that Arthur did not know they were lovers, for saying that ‘only Monty’ had been told. Cornwallis was far more charming to her now than he had been when she was a g
irl, or a wife. He was, she thought, probably the only more or less charming person amongst Julian’s friends. Diana imagined these friends to be a set of hard-drinking, hard-whoring cavalry officers, though Julian was so kind and polite and knew many people who were not in the army. Her lover said he knew no women to whom he could introduce her, and he added that it was an awful pity Diana had not kept up with friends of her girlhood. He had admitted, without her prompting, that that was a foolish and hurtful remark.
But he has made me an inferior, thought Diana, getting up from her bench and walking slowly down the path. She twiddled her thumbs inside her fur muff. ‘It can’t be helped,’ she whispered to a clump of dead willowherb. Perhaps other people will not quite see the truth, and I’m happy enough, after all.
*
In the fullness of spring, Diana began to feel strongly that she wanted her mother. For the past few months she had written cautious and short, though very affectionate, letters to Angelina, but these were now not enough.
Lady Blentham was so pleased to see Diana that she cried a little and spoke sternly as soon as her maid was out of earshot.
‘You should not have stayed away so long, my dear. I was very much hurt by your thinking that I should – despise you for your poverty. Was that it?’
‘I’m sorry, Mamma.’ Diana sat down.
She looked about her at the little drawing-room, full of those solid pieces of Adelaide furniture which she remembered in their old setting at Queen Anne’s Gate. Lady Blentham was seated in a black papier-mâché armchair inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which Diana had once called ‘fit for a queen’. She looked old, sweet-natured, tough. The skin above her lips had tightened across her teeth while that beneath her chin had gently collapsed. Her clothes had barely changed since the early eighties, and her back was as erect as ever. She considered modern fashions unbecoming to most women, and rather vulgar: the straight-fronted corset Diana was wearing so thrust out her bosom and behind. The silver top of Angelina’s stick emphasised the beauty of her heavy-veined but pale and slender hand.
While thinking to herself, ‘how very extraordinary, painful life is – I don’t know that I can bear this,’ Angelina said: ‘My dear, I wasn’t able to write to you, although I’ve been about to do so now that I have your own address in – in Hampstead, is it? But did you see the notice of Roderick’s engagement in The Times yesterday?’
‘Roderick’s engaged?’ said Diana. ‘Heavens, I thought he was a confirmed bachelor!’
‘A Miss Cicely Vane, her father is in the Indian Army,’ said Lady Blentham carefully. ‘A Major, I think, or a Lieutenant-Colonel. Not related to any of the Vanes we know. I’ve met her only once, when Roderick brought her here.’
‘Is she pretty?’
‘She’s timid, and very fair,’ said Angelina. ‘She should do very well as a clergyman’s wife.’
‘Has Roderick succeeded in becoming a Canon yet?’
‘No,’ sighed Lady Blentham. ‘But he was appointed Rural Dean the other day. I don’t think, myself, he will advance much further in the Church. It was so different when I was young: corrupt, of course, though very much better than in my grandfather’s day!’ Lady Blentham’s grandfather had been the Bishop of Launceston.
They smiled sadly at each other, agreeing silently about Roderick’s irritable temper, love of comfort, occasional bursts of charity, and the horrible time his wife would have.
‘Poor Roddy,’ said Diana, breaking the quiet. ‘I suppose he grew quite tired of being pursued by all the widows and spinsters of Melton Balbridge.’
‘I daresay,’ said Angelina.
‘Tell me about Edward and Kitty,’ prompted Diana.
‘Oh, Kitty –’ Lady Blentham pronounced the word carefully – ‘Kitty has become quite a grande dame. The moment your father died, Diana, she decided to hide every last trace of Whitechapel and the stage. You remember she used to speak in a decidedly vulgar way? Well, it seems that that was all side. Remarkable, isn’t it? Edward is entirely under her influence, of course. That’s quite unchanged.’
‘Does she carry a lorgnette?’ said Diana. She was not surprised to learn that Kitty had made a thorough job of copying Angelina. She had five children now, just like her mother-in-law.
‘Yes, she does. She carries it a good deal more than is necessary.’
‘And I suppose she no longer gives her – ridiculous imitations at dinner-parties? Of course, May Yohé’s passée now, but I do so well remember Kitty getting up on a chair at the Cornwallises’, and howling out something from – from “Little Christopher Columbus”!’
‘Diana, you horrify me,’ said Lady Blentham, and smiled, making her daughter’s heart squeeze with eagerness. ‘What I exposed you to as a girl, all through my desire to be modern!’
‘Mamma.’
‘It was so difficult to keep you entirely out of her way!’ said Angelina, looking aside. ‘Oh, how long ago it is – what were you then, nineteen, twenty? Now my dear, tell me. Is your new house perfectly comfortable? And how have you – well, you’re very well-dressed, although I can’t say I care for the ridiculous hats one is supposed to wear nowadays, or for – but you are not too fashionable! You always had taste. Perhaps now that your husband’s debts are paid your income has increased? Has your stockbroker been able to make some good investments for you? You know, I myself have been fortunate, I’m able at last to keep a carriage – just a second-hand brougham, but I did so miss not having any carriage of my own.’ She began again. ‘Or perhaps – perhaps you have borrowed money from a bank, and set up a little business of some kind? You always were independent, and nowadays trade, even for a woman of –’ Lady Blentham lost herself. She did not want to think.
‘I borrowed money from Julian Fitzclare, Mamma.’
Angelina’s nose twitched. It had never twitched in that way before she was a widow. ‘Did you seek him out?’
‘He sought me out.’ Her stomach was now churning inside her. She wanted to confess, and could not quite believe that her mother would entirely condemn her once the first shock was over, and she knew the whole.
‘Well,’ said Lady Blentham, ‘when none of us succeeded in discovering you … I wonder how he did so. Diana?’
You did not try, thought Diana; you didn’t send for a detective. Her mother looked away from Diana’s face, down at the handle of her walking stick.
‘My dear. You’ve been so much out of the world that it’s necessary for me to tell you certain things. You see, although Fitzclare was a very charming young man once, since his marriage his character has not improved. Of course he married Catriona Graham from pique, but we needn’t go into that. He neglects her, I’m afraid and – oh, you can very well guess the rest. I heard from his mother that he’s very fond of gambling, as your husband was, of course.’
Diana, blushing, looked just like a debutante. ‘I’m afraid – I ought to tell you – he neglects her for me. I wanted to tell you myself because one day I suppose you’d hear an exaggerated rumour … perhaps it’s rather a pity I jilted him all those years ago but I can’t say I regret it myself! I prefer this, now. I don’t want any man to live with me constantly, after Michael. I’m sure you’ll understand!’ She stopped herself at last, and gradually raised herself in her chair, in an effort to regain the years from twelve to thirty.
‘Of course,’ said Lady Blentham in the end. ‘Of course, Diana. You’re what the young men when I was a girl used to call a pretty horsebreaker. Fitzclare provides you with your clothes and your house? And servants?’
‘Yes,’ said Diana, wide-eyed. This understanding was not what she had expected from her mother. She had never heard the euphemism ‘pretty horsebreaker’ before.
‘So,’ said Angelina. ‘No, don’t speak!’ Quietly she held up her hand as Diana opened her mouth. ‘For the time being, Julian Fitzclare is keeping you. Why?’
‘We are in love, and I was very poor. I fell, as they used to say in those awful novels Violet was so fond of!�
��
‘Don’t tell me lies, they’re insolent,’ said Lady Blentham. The mention of Violet made her stand up, as Diana had been expecting her to do for the past five minutes. ‘You were in love, once, I suppose, with that repulsive husband of yours. You never were in love with Fitzclare, and you certainly are not now. I can see it in your face.’ Angelina turned, and Diana turned away. ‘You could have provided amply for yourself and Alice by coming to me. You could even have gone to Edward and his wife, if that is what you would have preferred! But no, no,’ her mother went on. ‘How many people know of this, Diana? Gossip, of course, takes a long time to reach me nowadays. Do you suppose Fitzclare is discreet, that he doesn’t want to set men laughing in the clubs over how he – he robbed you of all your dignity, after you made him ridiculous? Think about it, Diana.’ Lady Blentham swallowed.
Diana said nothing. Angelina pressed her hands to her cheeks. ‘Within marriage, of course, it is unavoidable,’ she said, half to herself. ‘And poor wretched girls, who are seduced in all innocence, cannot be blamed. Oh, some of them are knowing, but no servant of mine ever was. I got two maids married suitably, Diana, when they were ruined by men, and I sent Templeton home to her mother to have the child, and I gave her an excellent reference – wilful unchastity is the most unnatural sin in the world in a woman, but I never, never turned off an innocent servant who was in that condition, and left her to fend for herself and become a – a soiled dove, as they like to call it!’
Diana, who was very pale, gathered up her gloves and reticule and placed them on her lap. ‘Mamma – are you objecting, chiefly, to the thought that I might – enjoy the act of love?’
‘No woman can!’ Lady Blentham almost shouted. She lowered her voice at once. ‘Do you realise, Diana, that it is almost treachery of a kind, to our sex, to encourage a man to think his attentions are anything but disgusting? Oh, God, I remember having almost this conversation with Violet, when she was a girl.’ She closed her eyes because she was shaking, though her voice was so quiet. ‘You’re not in love, you’re merely a mercenary, common little whore!’
The Bohemian Girl Page 20