Gentlemen and Players

by Frances Vernon

  ‘Yes,’ said Octavius. ‘But I’m very clumsy, you know, I doubt I could master it.’

  ‘So am I clumsy. My dear, you’re just too vain to make yourself look foolish, learning.’

  ‘Sophie, you may be right.’

  ‘Sophie is right,’ said Susan, ‘you should learn to ride, I’m sure it would give you a great deal of pleasure.’

  ‘You ride very seldom, don’t you, Susan?’

  ‘Goodness me, yes, as rarely as possible – I can barely keep my seat. But I rather wish I could. The truth is that horses make me nervous.’

  ‘Susan, nonsense!’

  ‘Oh, they do, isn’t it dreadful? And I have Augusta for a stepmother.’

  ‘Augusta is a marvellous rider,’ said Sophie. She made this remark because she was not concentrating, and was then cross at having said the obvious.

  ‘Well, she was brought up here,’ said Susan, and there was a pause.

  ‘I expect she was one of those who are put on horseback as soon as they can walk,’ said Octavius.

  ‘Yes, she was,’ said Sophie. ‘She put me on horseback as soon as we came here, too.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Susan. ‘The pony ran away with you.’

  Sophie turned crossly, then laughed. ‘Quite true. I fell off, of course, but thank goodness I landed on grass, if I’d hit my head on the cobbles in the stable-yard I’d never have ridden again whatever Augusta said!’

  ‘You are reckless sometimes, Sophie,’ said Octavius.

  Sophie looked delighted.

  ‘I hope you never have an accident,’ he added.

  ‘This is not right,’ said Sophie, leaning forward. ‘We ought not to be talking about horses and hunting and riding and the weather – we shall all bore each other silly, shan’t we?’

  ‘We do know each other rather too well –’ said Susan, while Octavius looked nervous – ‘at least, I don’t know. But however intimately one knows someone, there are – perennial subjects of conversation.’ She paused. ‘I imagine that if one is very intimate, one’s conversations are either repetitious or severely practical or both. Don’t you think that’s likely?’

  ‘Do you mean marriage, Susan?’ said Sophie.

  Octavius smiled. ‘Who can be a brilliant conversationalist all the time?’

  ‘I expect Dr Johnson himself must have made commonplace observations when he was feeling unwell,’ said Sophie.

  ‘I have never been able to plough through Boswell’s “Life”,’ said Octavius.

  ‘Oh my dear, neither have I!’ They both laughed and carried on chatting.

  ‘I think I’ve now played dragon for long enough,’ said Susan a few minutes later. There was an indulgent expression on her face. ‘I have things to attend to.’

  ‘Must you go?’ said Octavius, fiddling with his collar.

  ‘I think I ought to,’ said Susan.

  ‘You are so understanding, Susan,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Am I?’ said Susan mildly. She rose and looked down at Sophie on the chaise longue and Octavius on the most uncomfortable chair at her head, like a doctor, though Sophie was not yet stretched out on the sofa, her favourite position. They looked, Susan thought, as though they had just been surprised in some childish error. ‘Take care, my chickens,’ she said, and left them, bored.

  ‘We oughtn’t to be alone,’ said Octavius. ‘She oughtn’t to have left us.’

  ‘Naturally not,’ said Sophie. She watched him. ‘Now I have thought of something very odd,’ she said. ‘Even Augusta, who as we know so well dislikes the distinguishing attention you pay to me, never really minds when we meet out of doors – you know, my dear, by accident – but they do mind if we are indoors. I expect, you know, it’s because – don’t you think – it’s really too cold outside to get up to – er – mischief.’

  ‘Oh, Sophie!’ He started forward, and kissed her. Sophie, now reclining, did not mind, and when he had finished she patted his hand.

  ‘When you were away I was so bored and lonely,’ she said. This was true. ‘Dear Octavius, you must not go away when I am at home!’

  ‘But you – dear, dear Sophie – must go away for several months of every year?’

  She narrowed, then lowered, her eyes. ‘I don’t want you to tire of me, Octavius,’ she said. This was ridiculous, and exciting, and he kissed her again.

  *

  Susan considered that Octavius had been too flirtatious, and insufficiently eager to be a rejected suitor, and that Sophie would never marry him. She wondered when he would propose, and how upset he would be at Sophie’s refusal.

  When she went up to her bedroom, leaving Octavius and Sophie, she was not wishing to be with them, or to overhear them. She had too pleasant a memory of having been a very agreeable chaperone. Now she was alone, she unfolded and re-read a letter from Sarah, and prepared to reply to it.

  ‘Curzon Street, November (?), 1881. My dear Sister, I do not think that I have written for an exceedingly long time. I assure you, I apologise for my inattentiveness.’ Sarah’s letters arrived at long and regular intervals, and had done so ever since her marriage.

  ‘I hope very much that you are in the good health which is natural to you. Indeed I envy you your constitution. Sometimes I envy you your periods of rural repose: I have nowhere in the country to go. I find the London air so very enervating, & the fog, at this time of year especially, is very unhealthy. It is damp, & I feel it clinging to the inside of my lungs.’ Sarah did not underline words swiftly as she went along, as Susan did, but added them with a ruler when she had finished and was reading the letter through.

  ‘Tho’ I am feeling unwell, I am fortunate this year, because I have found a new physician. He is an excellent man, & I believe that he has already a deep understanding of my constitution. I found him after my little Charlotte’s birth (She is quite well, tho’ her brother has the measles. Dr Sacheverell is taking very good care of him, & I hope he will recover completely shortly. I am told this is likely. Dr Sacheverell is very frank. He says it is a great pity I am so fertile, because I am too small really for childbearing, I am the kind of woman who finds it difficult to bear healthy offspring. This was a hurting thing to say, but he said it very kindly, & it is what I have always thought, as you know. He is a funny little man, & very ugly. I did not like Dr Smithson, tho’ you recommended him so very strongly. He was too vigorous, & he was sometimes impertinent. Once, he denied that I was ill, when I was.

  ‘I am not ill at present. My new medicine makes me sleep well, & in the daytime I enjoy two very hot baths, which purify one. Dr Sacheverell says there can be no real harm in them, if they make me feel better. My husband says he is very expensive, but he is not quite so expensive as Dr Jersey. I inquired quite closely, & I found that out, & so the discussion ended. Such is married life.’

  Before she went on with the letter Susan considered the possibility that Sarah was having an affair with her new physician. Sarah was not one of those sickly women who praised each new doctor extravagantly at first, then quickly fell out with him and sacked him: Sarah was distrustful of almost all the men who came to see her. Susan smiled a little over no real harm. She made a note to tell Sarah in her reply that doctors were strange people, and that if a physician who tended sickly women was indeed a nice man, he would wish to associate only with healthy females in private life. This would only be one of Susan’s typical, slightly inconsequential but truthful remarks, she thought, not a warning.

  ‘Sister,’ continued Sarah, who always used the word as a form of address in writing, ‘I wonder why it is you have never married. I wonder that you can remain at home, at your age. Everyone knows it is not because no one has offered you marriage. There was Lord Harrogate, and Colonel Beeston, and Mr Cholmondeley-Gore, & there may have been others. Indeed, I am sure there must have been – I speak of your first two or three Seasons, so I cannot clearly remember. I expect you are waiting for love to come. Have you never loved? You do not have a cold heart, or I believe you do no
t. Perhaps you were once in love, but nothing came of it. You were wounded, or so I suspect, and naturally you do not speak of it, nor do you wish for any replacement of the object of your affections.’ In this letter Sarah did not once mention the burden of old maidenhood. Had Susan not had still one or two suitors she would already have ceased to be a young daughter of the house, and become the poor relation. She had said this to Sophie when Sophie first came out.

  ‘Now I must stop. I daresay you think me impertinent, as well as lazy and good for nothing, and immoral, but suddenly I did wonder why you have not married. If it is not a subject with which I ought to concern myself, I apologise, but as you know, & tell me, I have very little to do or think about, & I excuse my lapse from good taste on those grounds. I wish you the best of health and happiness, & I remain your affectionate sister, S. Templecombe.’

  From time to time Sarah wrote these letters which, in comparison with her usual full sheet of model sentences, were long, inquisitive and informative. Susan never knew what provoked them. She hoped that this one, indicating a certain interest in the world, had been precipitated by the new physician, who she hoped was Sarah’s true lover.

  Two days later, Susan was called upon by Mr Banks, a widower who was in love with her. Augusta did not bother to receive him and Susan explained at some length that a day’s hunting had tired out everyone except herself.

  Mr Banks was fifty-eight, and he had two grown sons and a daughter of Susan’s age, who kept house for him. He was small and passably good-looking for a man of nearly sixty: Susan found it difficult to describe him in more detail. He owned four and a half thousand acres on the other side of Congleton, three thousand of which were mortgaged, and the mortgages were held by Nicholas. When he had proposed to her on other occasions, he saw that she might have believed that he wanted her for her money, and imagined that this was why she refused him. Susan had mentioned, both times, her affection for his daughter: she did not want to displace Marjorie Jane from her position as his housekeeper and companion.

  Susan knew that he would propose again now, and would declare loudly that he adored her while he scowled at her in bewilderment, and she would smile and murmur gently, feeling all the while that if only he would not shout she would not hate him.

  ‘Now Miss Susan, you know it is you I have come to see, not Mrs Pagett.’

  ‘The old question, Mr Banks?’ she spoke with confidence and dignity.

  He looked a little surprised. ‘I shall never abandon hope until you marry another.’

  Susan hid a smile.

  ‘Miss Susan, I know you do not love me. In your eyes I am an old man. Come now, confess it! You’ve no need to be coy, my dear.’

  ‘You’re no older than my father, sir!’ said Susan crossly.

  ‘How good and sweet you are, Susan. I love you dearly and I will make you happy, I promise you. You will be comfortable, you will have your own establishment, be mistress of your own home. Susan! Say yes, only yes.’ Susan stood up.

  ‘Mr Banks, I’ve told you I can’t.’ She glanced up, then clasped her hands behind her back and surveyed him. ‘As you say, you are too old for me.’

  ‘Miss Susan, only let me …’

  ‘I will never marry without love, do you understand that?’ said Susan as though he were one of her family. ‘I’d rather be an old maid – yes I would! I don’t see why I personally should suffer very much from it. I’m not a woman whom no man wanted, it’s that I haven’t wanted any of the men who have wanted me. And that is a great comfort, Mr Banks.’ She smiled, politely.

  ‘Miss Susan, you are still young – twenty-four, twenty-five? But in five years – ten years – you aren’t getting any younger.’

  ‘No,’ said Susan, ‘no.’

  He took a step towards her quiet figure. ‘My love, there is no cause for despair!’

  Mr Banks jumped as she swung round, and stepped backwards.

  ‘You are impertinent,’ said Susan. He looked stupid. ‘Insolent!’ she shouted. ‘How dare you tell me “I am not getting any younger?” How dare you? I’ll never speak to you again, no, never! Get out!’

  ‘Susan – Susan – you are in a passion – let me ring for your maid –’

  ‘Do I have to run away in my own house?’ she stamped her foot, her face reddened, and she raised her face and added: ‘Leave this room at once, sir.’

  ‘But you’re not well.’

  She paused with tears in her eyes, holding her head up pompously in order that they should not roll out. ‘I hate scenes, Mr Banks, and melodrama. Will you go, please?’ He was persuaded that she was not hysterical, and he went.

  She was not very upset when he was gone, for she soon came to see that his remarks had not been impertinent, but natural to a man in his position. She did not regret her reaction all the same, because she disliked Mr Banks.

  Augusta and Sophie knew he had called. They asked after her meeting with him later, and they, who had had tantrums all their lives, looked at her respectfully while she told them boldly how she had confounded her suitor.

  *

  Sophie, who unlike her sister took very little interest in the parish, dared not call at the Rectory on some pretext more than once a month, for fear of gossip. After Octavius came to see her at the house, she tried to run into him in the village, or meet him in the church, where they had met quite often. They had never kissed in church.

  She found him in the vestry on the first Sunday in Advent, in his surplice, reading the Spectator in front of a little stove. She laughed to see him and he was delighted.

  ‘It’s so icy, you see, that I want to warm myself thoroughly before I go home,’ he said, and took off his surplice. Both of them were a little embarrassed if they met when Octavius was looking excessively priestlike. ‘Afternoon service in winter is always rather gloomy – have you been riding?’

  Sophie was wearing her habit, a new and unusual one in claret-coloured worsted. She smoothed it.

  ‘Yes, I’ve just come back – I’ve been hacking.’

  ‘Where’s your mare?’

  ‘Tied her up to the lychgate. Why?’ She swung her crop against her skirt, feeling herself to be very much a fast, bold girl.

  ‘Everyone knows she’s yours. She’ll be recognised.’

  ‘Oh really, my dear, no one is going to think I am in here with you.’

  ‘That is exactly what every village gossip would think, even if you loathed the sight of me!’ They both laughed a moment.

  ‘If you were not a Roman Catholic,’ said Octavius, ‘people wouldn’t think it so strange.’

  ‘Augusta would think so,’ Sophie said then, in a low voice. ‘That I was in here with you if my mare was outside, I mean. I can’t tell you, Octavius, how awful it was when she found us the other day.’

  ‘I certainly can tell you!’

  ‘Yes I know, my dear, she was beastly to you,’ said Sophie, returning to her light voice for a moment, and touching him. ‘But it was terrible – terrible afterwards. I don’t mean so much her boxing my ears, it was her disgust at me that was so painful.’

  ‘She did what? Sophie …’

  ‘I said, she boxed my ears. She’s never done that before, Octavius.’ Sophie was unable even to dart him a look and tease him about not having seen him for so long; she was unwilling to display cauliflower ears which, in fact, she had not really been given. She continued, troubling him: ‘She looked at me as though I was mad. I don’t understand it. You know, she’s caught me – flirting with other young men, in London, and she’s never been affronted even, let alone disgusted, before.’

  ‘I think Mrs Pagett has questionable morals.’

  ‘Oh rubbish, Octavius. I don’t know why you’re so against her.’ Augusta had said to her, when she had found them kissing, that she was repelled by the thought that Sophie had been able to kiss a man as unattractive as Octavius. Looking at him now, she decided again that he was not unattractive.

  ‘I am not opposed to Mrs Pagett, but,�
�� he paused, and brightened ‘I object to the way she cossets you.’

  She turned. ‘Cossets me? Augusta?’

  ‘Yes. She indulges you. Her interest in you is too – too intimate. She has given you a distorted and – corrupt view of the world. Oh, I am pompous!’

  ‘My dear Octavius …’ drawled Sophie. His lips quivered as he looked down at her with puzzled fondness. She was seated by a small rough table, leaning back in her chair, with one arm resting on the table, her small white hand poised for something. He thought that it would be just her dear sense of mischief to attempt to get him to kiss her in his vestry; but he felt he could not say this to her, though they had known each other quite well for two years.

  ‘Augusta has always shown her affection for me by constant scoldings and good advice,’ said Sophie. ‘She wouldn’t know how to cosset me, as you call it. She detests sentimentality. I think, you know, that she was so disgusted by us because it was sentimental.’ She smiled. Then she looked decidedly sad. ‘I just can’t bear it when she’s angry with me – really angry – and I could not stand her – her incomprehension.’

  ‘Oh, Sophie – my little love. You are my beauty.’ Octavius mumbled. He crushed her hands, one gloved and one naked, protectively between his.

  ‘There’s no need for you to look distressed, my dear. Did you know you were looking distressed?’ said Sophie to his bent head, teasing.

  ‘Dearest – I can’t bear to see you worried and unhappy and fretful – you’re not like my Sophie when you’re like that.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not really and seriously worried and unhappy. But I’m often fretful, I know, because I’m so spoilt – and it is wicked.’

  He was enchanted by her familiar, cheerful mock despair, but thought it best not to kiss her or propose marriage to her.

  ‘I would be so much more fretful here if I didn’t have you, my dear,’ said Sophie.

  CHAPTER 8

  SUSAN IS A SPINSTER

  ‘Dear Octavius,’ wrote Susan, and then inserted above, ‘Bryanston Square, 27th June, 1882.’