Gentlemen and Players

by Frances Vernon

  ‘Wimpole’s

  Eton

  Michaelmas half 1886. Sunday

  ‘Dear Susan

  ‘I got here last week We spent the night in an hotel in London off Piccadilly.’ Thomas had never been to London before. ‘Then we went on to Eton the next day by train of course. Father and Mother said I was too young to go alone by train but lots of boys come without their parents.

  ‘It is actually jolly good fun here. Of course one gets beaten and one has to fag but no one ever complains about that it’s not done and anyway it happens to everyone as a Lower Boy. I am bigger and stronger than all the boys in my year except two. Lessons with Father Colquhoun were much worse than they are here.’

  Susan shook her head. She knew that Thomas would not have confided to Augusta or Nicholas how terrible it was to be flogged and made a fag. He might not have told them, as he had told her, that such things went on. They knew that these things happened, just as she did. Nicholas disapproved of ill-treating children. Wearily Susan set down her sewing, sighed and objected aloud, although there was no one to hear her, for it was the afternoon and Octavius was visiting a dying parishioner.

  ‘Mother said in the hall when we arrived that I ought to have gone to a Catholic school and that she was sure they had been advised wrongly about what house to put me in. I have quite an all right room although the fireplace is much tinier than in a servant’s bedroom at home but when we were shown it Father complained to the Dame. He said to her that I could not sleep on a bed like that it would damage my back. And he said that he wasn’t paying nearly six hundred a year to have me kept in such discomfort. Of course the bed was not changed and I am glad because everyone has beds like that but it is very uncomfortable. Susan there are some boys in my year who always pretend I have a Lancashire accent and am planning to be a Jesuit. I have fought them and I gave two of them bloody noses and got beaten but they won’t stop doing it. I can’t fight the ones who say the same who are in the year above me.

  ‘Could you please send me some more grub? All the other fellows have a special chocolate cake sent from London and I know you can’t get me that but if you could send me something really good I should be awfully grateful.

  ‘I remain your respectful and affectionate half brother Thos. Pagett. (Esq.).

  ‘P.S. At Eton one isn’t Master one is Esq. Could you please tell mother? I have told Father but he will forget to tell her.

  ‘P.P.S. Thank you awfully for the especially delicious contents of my tuck box which have been consumed with the alacrity owing to their excellence.

  ‘P.P.P.S. On the first day Mother hugged and kissed me goodbye outside the house for the first time in my life. There were lots of people about and I am sure she did it for pure spite. Father did the same but I expected that. Affectionately, Thomas.’

  Susan thought it would be easy to write a reply to this, perhaps beginning quite lightly, pointing out that his letter contained only one comma and that at the very end, but she did not find it so. She tried and then, realising that Octavius would soon be back, went instead to see the larder and stillroom, and chose and packed a large pork pie, a madeira cake, some dried apricots, some slices of tongue and a jar of calfs’-foot jelly. With them she sent a note saying only that Augusta and Nicholas had never before seen a boy off to school, let alone a son, that it really was upsetting for them both and he must try to understand. She had always disapproved of making children material gifts instead of talking to them properly; but she carried on sending Thomas parcels of home food from the Rectory every fortnight for years, until after he came down from Oxford, because in his first years at Eton he praised her almost extravagantly for feeding him well.

  CHAPTER 14

  DESERTION

  ‘I went for a walk in Hyde Park this afternoon,’ said Sophia one evening as Edwin took her down to dinner, ‘and, do you know, Dorothea Campbell and Lady Dunstan and Charlotte Jennerson all cut me.’ Edwin had returned late and the dinner was spoilt, but Sophia had not mentioned this when he came in, as she usually did briefly.

  ‘My love, I didn’t know you went for walks in Hyde Park at fashionable hours to meet your old cronies.’ He patted her hand.

  ‘Edwin, my love, I just thought that I’d sulked for over two years away from Society and some of them are really quite nice, you know, and I thought that I’d start seeing a very select few. A walk in Hyde Park seemed a suitable beginning. Was it very silly?’

  ‘Yes, my love. People really don’t like being cut for two years, you know, and being scorned as frivolous butterflies. So they cut you. Now, do you intend to re-enter Society?’

  ‘My love! Certainly not. No, I wanted to look up a few of them, especially those who’ve married well, and show them I’m alive, and boast about how happy I am. That’s not silly.’

  ‘Ah, Sophia, it is. You don’t know the world.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sophia.

  ‘Don’t sigh, my love,’ said Edwin.

  After dinner a friend called and drank brandy with them. He was an artist and looked very much like one: he had a flowing beard and longish hair and he wore a crimson jacket over a dull blue paint-stained smock. He was not at all successful. Sophia listened while Edwin occasionally commented on something Mr Fortescue said.

  ‘Do you ever take that smock off, Mr Fortescue?’ she said suddenly.

  ‘No, never, Sophia – you must call me Jonas, you know – I never know when I shall become inspired. I’ve started work at four in the morning before now.’

  ‘How often do you work, Mr Fortescue? I mean how often do you become inspired?’ Her voice was almost cross, although she was smiling.

  Edwin smiled too and said, ‘My naughty girl.’ Edwin had a good many friends who were real bohemians.

  Sophia put down the book she was reading and went to pour herself a small brandy. She hardly ever did this because Edwin said that it was bad for a woman’s health to drink spirits. He did not disapprove of women drinking for social reasons, and he had proved this by telling Sophia that if she must drink, it was far better to drink in public than alone. He also offered her sherry and even port sometimes. He told her now, gently, to have a little dry sherry rather than brandy, and Sophia poured some of her brandy back into the decanter, diluted it and said, ‘Compromise, my love.’ She wandered over to the window and poised herself there, one eye peering through the curtains. The square was empty, the lamps were surrounded by a yellow cloud of fog and between the lamp posts there was darkness. She could just see the bare outline of the houses opposite, which were almost exactly like her own: flat-fronted, sash-windowed Bloomsbury houses of grey-brown brick. Sophia could not see them but they made her think of the decorated variety of big, detached houses at Alderley Edge, where she had spent her childhood. She had not been very happy there. She turned away.

  The inside of her house was as bald as the outside, although it was usually untidy. It was decorated, in a mixture of very dark and very light colours: this drawing room had plain ivy-green curtains and cream-and-pale-green-striped walls. There were no ornaments except a pair of china dogs on the mantelpiece. The floor was bare except for a dark green and dark red rug. Everyone said Sophia Sacheverell had very masculine taste, and she continued to dress mannishly although she was married, in tailor-made clothes, wearing with these a soft, loose bun and sometimes simple, delicate jewels. She no longer possessed anything fashionable. She was as unfashionable as Susan and Augusta, and her house was perhaps a little like Augusta’s old house at Lynmore except that it was not in disrepair. Six months ago Augusta had sent Sophia a table, a rickety medium-sized Queen Anne table which she had always had in her own small sitting room. Sophia looked at it and passed her hand over the reddish-brown polished surface. Since then she and Augusta had been writing to one another.

  When Mr Fortescue had been with them an hour and a half, and had drunk four glasses of brandy and water, the doorbell rang. Sophia went out onto the landing and shouted downstairs to the maid t
hat she was not at home. She went back, and a few moments later the maid came up and said that the caller was Lady Henry Templecombe.

  ‘That is my sister,’ said Sophia. She turned from Mr Fortescue to Edwin and looked hard at him. ‘I think we’d better see her alone, Edwin. I must say I can’t imagine what this is about.’

  ‘Neither can I.’

  ‘I must be off,’ said Mr Fortescue when Sarah had come into the room. ‘I really must be off.’ Sarah was introduced quickly and then made to sit down. She watched the artist’s shambling, extraordinary figure with glowing eyes as he made for the door.

  ‘Thank God,’ said Sophia. ‘Now, Sarah, whatever’s happened? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘A rather nice ghost,’ said Edwin. Sarah did not hear. Her familiar smile slowly crossed over her face. Then she spoke.

  ‘I’ve left Henry,’ she said.

  Sarah’s small yellow face was painted and she wore an evening dress. The low-cut neck showed the ladder of bones above her flat bosom. Her collar-bone was bruised and she had a black eye which was now fading to dull mauve. She wore no sleeves and her long thin arms showed beneath a froth of lace at her shoulder. The dress was pink, very expensive, elaborate and fashionable. Sophia had never seen her beautifully dressed before. Edwin looked at her shining, happy face and thought that she did not really look grotesque. Both of them waited for her to continue.

  ‘He beat me this morning,’ said Sarah, ‘and I decided that I no longer care for being abused. And so I have run away. I never thought it would be easy but all I did, you know, was pack a little. case, myself, and get into a hansom, after dinner. I have next to nothing with me, just as you had when you married, Sophie. And now I am here and I shall never go back to Henry. Life is so simple if your mind is made up.’ She looked continually from one to the other, and her voice was soft, slurred and peaceful. ‘Well, Dr Sacheverell?’

  Sophia thought he was going to grin. He said after a moment, ‘Lady Henry, may I offer my congratulations? We really are very pleased, both of us. We’ll decide what’s to be done in the morning, shall we? Meanwhile you ought to go to bed. You’re over excited, and you need time to think.’

  ‘Oh, I could never sleep. I want to dance, Dr Sacheverell.’

  ‘I’ll give you a sedative, Lady Henry. Just tonight, and then no more drugs for you ever again.’

  ‘A new life. A wild life,’ said Sarah to Sophia. ‘I have been thinking about it for such a long time,’ she added.

  ‘Come, Lady Henry’, said Edwin. He smiled. ‘Everything will be wonderful in the morning. We must get you to bed now. We are glad you’ve left him, you Know.’

  Sarah got up and put a shaky hand on his arm. ‘But I’m so happy, Dr Sacheverell. And now you must call me Sarah, and I shall call you Edwin. Very well, I shall go to bed. Goodnight, Sophie.’

  ‘Goodnight, Sarah,’ said Sophia, still staring. Sarah smiled at her and she looked quite naughty.

  Edwin took her out and ordered a hot bath, had a bed warmed, and gave her a sleeping draught.

  ‘Oh, dear, you Pagett girls,’ he laughed when he came back. ‘“A new life, a wild life!” Your face, Sophia! You looked like a fine mixture of Mrs Proudie and the Lady of Shalott.’

  ‘Edwin, don’t be beastly. I’ll have to write to Susan and ask what’s to be done. Goodness, isn’t Sarah enjoying herself!’ Then she laughed too. ‘Of course, it is too marvellous that she’s left that man.’

  *

  Susan received Sophia’s brisk letter a few days later. It put the entire matter into her hands. Octavius was a trifle shocked when she told him what had happened, and they did not discuss it.

  After she had informed him and re-read Sophia’s letter, Susan went up to the nursery where her seventeen-month-old son was sitting in the middle of the floor, doing nothing. She started to play with him. At such times she always talked to him as though he were a grown man; he had not yet learned to talk back.

  ‘What would you do, Alfred, if you were married to a woman with eccentric parents and eccentric sisters?’ He was bouncing up and down on her knee now, sucking his thumb. Susan removed his thumb from his mouth. ‘When you are two, Alfred, I shall start putting quinine on that thumb, so just you be warned.’ She wondered briefly whether she should start doing so now, or should have begun as soon as he began to suck it. She sighed.

  ‘When you are married, Alfred, will you talk to your wife about all the world’s problems, or not? I wonder, I really do. Still, you’re cuddly, and I expect you’ll stay cuddly if we’re careful. It’s not a bad thing to be.’ She was aware that the nanny thought her quite as eccentric as her sisters, and she smiled.

  She decided quite quickly what would be advisable for Sarah and on the walk up the hill to the Hall she planned the conversation with Nicholas. The dialogue in her head was easy and well written. The bright yellow brick of Lynmore Hall had turned almost mustard-coloured. There were no other signs of wear, for the house was only twelve years old; but much of the front was now concealed by Virginia creeper. There were full-grown shrubs in the beds beneath the windows. Susan always remembered the house as she had first seen it when she was a young girl, bright and staring and bare.

  ‘Good morning, Silverman,’ she said to the butler, who was now in late middle age, old enough always to forget to call her madam and to announce her as Mrs Potter. She looked quite indulgent when he said, ‘Good morning, Miss Susan,’ for when he opened the door she expected to be called that.

  The inside of the house had changed not at all since Susan was young. She remembered how she and Sophia had called the coloured-marble hall floor ‘plums and custard’. The pair of gilded tables, topped with grey marble, the same as the marble slab in the pantry, were still pushed against opposite walls. The big drawing room was as new as ever, the small one unchanged and equally tidy, but a little worn.

  ‘Don’t bother to announce me, Silverman, I’ll find my father myself.’ Susan went straight to Nicholas’s study, her sensible boots clattering quickly along the floor. She knew he would be in, either in his study or in the library.

  She was surprised to find Augusta with him. They sat opposite each other in deep armchairs, both holding sheafs of paper, both elderly, tall, broad, fat and ailing, for they were suffering from gout together. Susan smiled at them, glancing from one to the other.

  ‘Why, good morning, Susan,’ said Nicholas, looking up.

  ‘Good morning, Susan,’ said Augusta. Slowly and carefully she laid down her papers, sat back and folded her hands in her lap.

  ‘I am so sorry to interrupt if you’re busy, but –’ she paused, ‘– why, Father, isn’t that a telephone on your desk?’ She had never seen a telephone before, but she had seen a picture of one.

  ‘A telephone it is, Susan.’

  ‘It must be the only one in the county.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t doubt it,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘A quite unnecessary new toy,’ said Augusta.

  ‘Ah, well, my dear, it may prove truly useful one day.’

  ‘When other people have them,’ said Susan, smiling. ‘Can I come back later today, Father? I see you’re very busy at the moment, but I have some rather important news.’

  ‘Get it over with,’ said Augusta.

  ‘Come now, Susan, what is it?’ said Nicholas.

  Susan drew breath. ‘Sarah has left her husband. She has run away from him.’ Neither of them moved and Susan, blushing, hurried on. ‘I had it from Sophie yesterday. Sarah’s with her at the moment. She ran away to Sophie and Dr Sacheverell, you see.’

  ‘She can’t stay with Sophie,’ said Augusta, lighting a cigar a moment later. ‘That is quite clear.’

  ‘Augusta, my dear, I wonder if you would mind my having a private word with Susan? You see, you don’t know Sarah as well as we do. If you would be so kind? I would leave the room myself if my gout were not worse than yours, my dear.’

  ‘Very well, very well,’ said Augusta. ‘You
are quite right, I take no prurient interest in Sarah’s troubles. Sophie will deal with it somehow – certainly she won’t keep her.’ She hobbled out, leaning on a stick.

  ‘The most sensible arrangement is obviously for her to remain with Sophie,’ said Nicholas quickly when she had gone. ‘Augusta would not have her here, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Father, I know it’s shocking, but Templecombe was really a brute, you know. I think it will turn out for the best.’

  ‘She must stay with Sophie. Sophie can keep her, as though she were widowed, or unmarried. That is the obvious arrangement.’ His voice was subdued.

  ‘It’s not fair on Sophie, Father. Sophie didn’t say much, but I should imagine that having Sarah at the moment is rather difficult. I – I would suggest that an allowance be made to Sarah, and that she live at Bryanston Square. She would only need a very small staff, and a companion of course; she would not need to use the whole house. You could even let the top two floors, you could get a tidy little sum from them. And I know of a suitable companion for her, a very sensible, ladylike woman. Sarah will, I’m sure, want to live very quietly.’ She had got it all over with. To her, Nicholas’s face seemed haggard with grief.

  ‘Oh, Father,’ she said.

  ‘Why do these things happen to my daughters and not to anyone else’s? It’s only me who has such daughters. Well, it’s nothing to cry about, is it?’ Susan put a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘Sarah will continue to live with Sophie and her husband. I may provide Dr Sacheverell with a certain sum for her keep.’

  ‘No, Father, you can’t make Sophie look after her. It’s not fair. And cry, Father, it may do you good, there’s no reason a man shouldn’t cry, whatever Octavius and Thomas say. It is something to cry about, it’s really terrible, although it may be all for the best.’

  ‘Go, Susan. My mind is quite made up, I assure you.’ He rose gradually as he spoke and after a moment Susan, tight-lipped, bowed our; it was a pretty sight.

  Susan did not go to talk to and persuade Augusta. In the hall she looked up at the huge family portrait of 1874, in which the great figures of Nicholas and Augusta rose above the half-grown girls, and she imagined Nicholas’s tears of pure anger and Augusta coming in before he had finished, and their quarrel. She walked quickly away.