‘Did you know, when Susan saw me last she said that, if I were a different sort of woman, I would be a beauty?’
‘Oh, Sarah,’ said Sophia after an impolite moment, ‘you’re getting morbid again. Whatever would Edwin say? Look, I’m going to take you out. There’s a shop in Regent Street which I want to visit. I want to choose new curtain material for this room. Do look at that tobacco brown! We’ll go by omnibus, and ride on top! You’ve never been in an omnibus, let alone on top, have you? It’s tremendous fun being poor in some ways.’ Sophia enjoyed being immensely kind to Sarah, but not as much as she enjoyed going out on her own.
Sarah followed Sophia up the steps of the omnibus. Both pretended to be unaware of the disapproval of the other passengers at ladies travelling on top. Sophia seemed to be very used to travelling like this, and she smiled at Sarah, who gazed down, frowning, at the street running past below.
‘Do you know, Sarah,’ said Sophia as they walked along Regent Street, ‘it wasn’t until after I was married that I even realised that I’d never in my life been out in London on my own? The first thing I did the day after my wedding was to go outside. I needed hairpins, you see – can you imagine getting married without enough hairpins, Sarah, let alone a trousseau? Well, I did. So I just ran out of the house and managed to find a shop, all on my own, and buy my own hairpins. It was in Southampton Row.’
‘But why didn’t you send your maid out?’ said Sarah.
‘Oh, Sarah, don’t you see? Marriage can mean freedom for a woman. I have no maid now, Sarah dear – I mean, no personal maid, of course!’
Sarah understood that Sophia was very happy, and that she was trying to share her happiness with her.
She had tea with Sophia, but although her sister once pressed her, she did not stay to dinner with her and Edwin.
Edwin Sacheverell was smaller than Sophia by almost half a head, and he teased her about it as she teased him. He was stocky, but not fat, although Sophia claimed that he had the beginnings of a paunch. He had a small pointed brown beard and thick brown hair which stood up on his head, stiff as a brush. He had high cheekbones and red cheeks, not because he had broken veins but because he was very healthy. His eyes were large and beautiful, and looked odd above his turned-up nose; they were a curious light brown, with dark eyelashes and eyebrows, rather like Sophia’s.
‘She said, my love, that she wouldn’t put us out so far as to stay to dinner, as we were so poor,’ said Sophia when he came in at eight, to find her poised in the lamplight with a book on her lap. ‘It was the only – well – aware thing she said all afternoon. My love, it was really a great effort entertaining her. She seemed to be in a world of her own, really very slow and stupid, and usually she listens to everything one says.’
‘My love, your sister is a very slow and stupid woman, and she never listens. At least she does but words, and particularly advice, don’t enter her brain. Perhaps if she’s capable of it she was doing a little thinking today. I should imagine that, if she ever did think, she would be incapable of breaking the spell for long enough to make polite conversation with her sister. I don’t suppose she made any inquiries about our ridiculous venture into matrimony, and so on?’
‘Oh, no. Sarah has always been too clever, you know, to take any interest in gossip and so on.’
‘Too stupid, my love, too stupid to take any interest.’
‘My love, you are very masculine in some ways – I mean in some unpleasant ways. You only say that because she’ll never listen to any of your medical advice and you’re forced to dose her with rubbish in order to earn your visitly guinea. Oh, Edwin, don’t look so outraged, my love, you know I don’t mean a word of it.’
*
The next morning Sophia received a letter from Susan. She stared for some time at the big round writing on the envelope, saying, ‘Mrs Edwin Sacheverell’, although she had borne the name for five months now. Susan had always been a great letter-writer: before her marriage, while away from Lynmore, Sophia had had letters from her twice a week. Since her marriage she had heard nothing from Susan: it was one of the things which divided the present from the past.
‘Reams of good advice from Mrs Proudie,’ she said to Edwin as she slit the envelope. He had guessed it was from Octavius.
‘My dear Sophia, now you are a married woman I really must drop your nursery diminutive – we all should have done so long ago, of course. I should have written ages ago, I know, but I didn’t know quite what to say! A feeble comment, and not a threatening one: I don’t intend to chide. But you know how difficult I find it to write a simple letter of congratulation or regret!
‘I am so pleased by your marriage, Sophia. Sarah, of course, has told me nothing worth knowing about Dr Sacheverell but Lucy Carson assures me he is charming. What surprises me is that you married in such an odd way. Now, I would have expected you either to have had a tussle with Father and Augusta, which you would really rather have enjoyed, and then married publicly with a reluctant blessing (for you know how Father would have overridden Augusta eventually), or else to have had the same tussle and then had a really romantic elopement: climbing out of a window and rushing to Gretna Green. But a quiet, secret, humble marriage (arranged with a little help from Lucy Carson, she let that slip! Dear Lucy): such a thing has always appealed to me, but never, I would have thought, to you.
‘I think you have done the right thing in all ways. I wonder whether Augusta, who was rather upset by your communication, has yet seen you, or written to you? She is not very friendly towards me at the moment and I haven’t asked her.
‘Sophia, I must say one (not horrid) thing, very briefly. When the first excitement of your marriage wears off, don’t let yourself become unhappy, there are so many other things in life. I am quite sure that you will always hold your husband’s affection: perhaps because he is so much older than you, he is likely to cherish you more than he might otherwise. It’s not only that: he married you, I have guessed, truly knowing your virtues and your faults, and if anything can make you solidly happy in your marriage that will. Perhaps because of what I understand the nature of your meetings to have been, you don’t yet know all his faults, how could you? But you will cope beautifully, I know, with whatever occurs.
‘I am expecting a baby! He (or she?) will be born sometime in January. Unfortunately I feel very unwell, in the mornings especially, and it interferes with my routine and that makes me irritable. All things considered, Octavius is very good about it.
‘Sophia, I can really only say this to you: there are times when I wish I really were Mrs Proudie! (Octavius is quite right when he calls me a very bossy woman.) He sends his love by the by, and we both hope to see you soon. Your loving sister, Susan Potter.’
Sophia re-read the last two paragraphs. They made her feel that she really quite wanted to see Susan, if she could ever get away from the Rectory and come to Bloomsbury.
‘Ridiculous letter,’ she said, pushing it across the table towards Edwin.
‘Sophia,’ he said a moment later, without glancing at the letter, ‘I have a little premonition. I rather think that soon you’re going to start talking again about what happened between you and Mr Potter, I mean Dr Proudie. Now, my love, I won’t tolerate any further mention of the former love of your life, if I may call him that.’
‘Oh, Edwin, I promise never never to speak sentimentally of dear Dr Proudie.’
He got up and patted her cheek.
‘Do you know, Sophia, we’re going to be very happy.’
‘Oh, my love, to have such a thing said at the breakfast table after five whole months of marriage.’ She grinned again.
‘You are my pretty cynic.’
CHAPTER 13
THOMAS GOES
It was September, 1886. Thomas Pagett was now thirteen and in ten days’ time he was to start at Eton. He had not been sent to preparatory school, although he had rather wanted to go and his mother had very much wanted him to go, because Nicholas said that it was w
rong and cruel to send a child away from home before at least the age of twelve.
Thomas was well grown and handsome. He had coarse brown hair, like Sophia’s but darker and curlier, his mother’s dark eyes and fine, large mouth, and her long full oval face. From both his parents he had inherited his broad, strong physique. His nose was still childlike, unformed and freckled. Although there was a dappling of spots round his mouth his voice had not yet begun to break and this worried him very much. He did not know that he was bigger and older-looking than most other boys of his age, for, although he saw a few such sometimes when out hunting, he knew none of them well enough to ask their exact ages. He also did not know for sure how far, if at all, he was similar to other boys.
It was Saturday and his lessons had finished at lunchtime. He learned classics, mathematics and religion from his tutor, Father Colquhoun, and he was made to work very hard. There was little else for him to do. He was still in the schoolroom after luncheon, a book of Euclid open in front of him, thinking about Eton. Outside it was warm with the yellow and dull red and dull green of early autumn, but Thomas did not long for the open air. Unless he was hunting he could only go out alone, and he found that there was nothing to do outside, alone.
Augusta came in. Quickly he scraped back his chair and got to his feet.
‘Not outside? I wonder how you’ll like these organized games which I gather they now play at Protestant schools. I hate to broach an unpleasant subject, Thomas, but you really ought to go to the Rectory and say goodbye to your half-sister. She’ll give you a tip, I expect, so that will be an inducement.’
‘I was going to go,’ said Thomas.
‘Leave that alone,’ said Augusta, nodding at the book. ‘You can go now and get it over with.’
He obeyed her. Augusta loved her son but she felt that she had to be effectively peremptory with somebody. With Sophia she had never been strict.
‘Where’s Susan?’ he asked the maid when he got to the Rectory, marching through the hall.
‘Oh, the mistress is in the garden, Master Thomas. She’ll be right glad to see you.’ She did not bother to announce him. He thought that when he started at school servants might call him Mister Thomas.
He found Susan gardening, watering sunflowers. It was difficult to call Susan eccentric but she did things like that. She was wearing a huge, battered hat of plaited straw. Thomas thought that her loose, dull bronze dress was more sensible than a maid’s. He had not noticed before that Susan’s clothes were as different from those of fashionable women as his mother’s. Sophia too was different; Sarah he did not know.
‘Hullo, Susan,’ said Thomas in a deep voice.
‘Why, Thomas! You are looking well.’ She embraced and kissed him and he stood quite still as she did so.
‘I’ve come to say goodbye,’ he said.
‘You’re not off for ten days, are you? But I dare say you’ll have a lot to do, preparing to leave. I can see you’re shocked by my appearance,’ said Susan very coolly, ‘and quite right too: all good boys are very conventional. If I’d known you were coming to say farewell before grown-up life begins I’d have dressed up specially.’ Only Susan teased Thomas. She patted his shoulder and led him indoors.
He stood pulling at his Eton collar in front of the blue-and-white-tiled fireplace in Susan’s drawing room while his sister talked to Octavius through the study door.
‘He’ll be out in a minute, he says. Now we had better have some tea, although it’s a little early. I’m sure a growing boy like you can do with two teas. Thomas, I must insist that you take a bottle of castor oil and some syrup of figs and cod-liver oil with you. I’ve got them all ready for you. Don’t look disgusted, my dear, you can keep them secret from the other boys if it’s necessary, and you’ll be glad of them one day. I can tell you that they won’t feed you properly at school, and you don’t want to trust the school nurse. You’ll have to look after yourself, you know.’
‘I know that.’
‘What else have you got to put in your tuck box?’
‘Cakes. Sweets. You know.’
‘That won’t do at all. You want good wholesome food. I’ll give you some port-wine jelly and a couple of cold birds. Mr Knight has promised us three brace of partridges but when we’ll get them I don’t know. A cheese will be a great standby, and you must keep it wrapped in damp muslin, not wet, mind you, barely damp. And you can take eggs and sausages and so on and so forth. Don’t worry, Thomas, I’ll see to it that you have all the proper things.’ She looked closely at him.
‘Thank you Susan,’ muttered Thomas.
‘And here,’ said Susan, ‘before I forget. Here’s a little something.’ She opened her workbox slowly, and delicately, smiling, she took out a sovereign wrapped in tissue paper.
‘Oh, I say, Susan, thanks awfully.’
‘The food may be of more use to you. What opportunity you’ll have to buy things, I don’t know,’ she said.
‘Lots,’ said Thomas, raising his head. ‘Eton’s a town, you know. There’s lots of shops – I can buy all my grub.’
Susan looked at him. ‘I know I’m a very bossy big sister, Thomas, but you mustn’t mind me.’
Octavius came in. ‘To appear so soon!’ said Susan. ‘You have special powers, Thomas. It takes me all my time to persuade him to glance at his own son when we’re all together, and as for getting him out of that study!’
‘Well, Thomas, do you feel any affinity with large red squalling lumps?’ said Octavius, smiling.
‘Oh, Lord, no,’ said Thomas. ‘Horrible things, babies.’
‘I don’t believe you’ve ever seen a baby in your life, Thomas. Apart from Alfred of course, and he was never a red squalling lump, Octavius. You’ll have tea with us, I hope?’ She said to her husband. ‘I ordered muffins as you asked.’ Susan’s son had been called Alfred after Octavius’s father.
‘Of course. It isn’t every day one’s brother-in-law leaves for school for the first time. Looking forward to it, Thomas?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Yes, naturally,’ said Susan, with another long look at him.
‘You won’t want an earful of good advice,’ said Octavius, rubbing his chin, ‘but I will just tell you that “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” and all those moral novelists are quite wrong about boys becoming religious under good influence. There are no good influences in real schools. They’re all heathens, boys, and heathenism isn’t looked down upon at all. Religion is.’
‘Really, Octavius!’ said Susan. ‘Well, Thomas, you’d better watch out for your faith. Are you religious, by the by, Thomas?’ She twinkled deliberately, but she sounded as though she really wanted to know.
‘Susan,’ murmured Octavius.
‘I’m a Catholic,’ said Thomas swiftly. No one in the world knew that when he went to confession he never confessed anything that might be a mortal sin because his tutor was his confessor.
‘Yes, of course. Octavius, will he suffer at school for it?’
‘He will be envied, because presumably Augusta has insisted on his attending no services in the school chapel?’
‘Of course,’ said Susan. She spoke gaily. ‘I think, Octavius, that there are things you ought to tell him about school, as he doesn’t have any brothers to tell him. I’ll go, in case there are things to be said which a lady should not hear.’ Her little smile was just like Sophia’s, and she went out. She had had no opportunity to suggest this to Octavius when Thomas was not present: she had not expected him to come ten days before his departure.
Susan was quite certain that Octavius would begin by being cheerful and imprecise, and then finish rather suddenly by telling Thomas that he was bound to get on very well, because he was rich, handsome, healthy and not intellectually gifted. She went into the stillroom, from which she could hear Thomas when he came out into the hall. She got up and joined him, as though she feared he would not come to her to say goodbye.
‘I’ll walk with you if I may,’ she said. ‘I have s
omething to give to Father.’
‘I’ll give it to him.’
‘No, I must explain about it.’ She paused. ‘It’s an old-fashioned remedy for gout which I don’t think he’s tried yet.’
They walked half way up the drive in a silence which was quite pleasant to both of them.
‘I’m sure Octavius is right about all he said to you,’ said Susan.
‘Mm’, said Thomas, and Susan wondered whether Octavius had said anything (what sort of thing, she could not know) about self-abuse.
‘But Thomas, it – it will be difficult for you in some ways. Although you’ll cope excellently. I understand that one thing about school is that you never mention your family – personally, I mean; it doesn’t matter if you talk about your house and all that. Especially not your mother and sisters. And you’ve only ever known your family, Thomas, just as we girls had before we came out. And your family consists of a mother and three sisters.’
‘I know that!’ said Thomas.
‘Yes, well then, I’m sorry I mentioned it, if that’s so. And I’m sure, Thomas, that you understand about Father.’ She spoke as though she thought him grown up, and he understood.
‘Father is vulgar.’
‘You mustn’t say things like that, Thomas.’
They walked in silence the rest of the way.
*
Susan was very surprised when she received a letter from Thomas, some two weeks after the half had begun. She had not written to him because he so disliked advice.
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