Gentlemen and Players

by Frances Vernon

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I think, Edwin, that you seriously underestimate Sarah’s intelligence. Naturally I don’t claim that she’s really clever, but I’m sure you take my meaning when I say that – that her mind is narrow, but deep.’

  ‘Susan, may I tell you as a doctor that this is not so? Sarah simply suffers from a peculiarly feminine nervous disorder.’ He brightened. ‘Why else would she be unable to see that her little affairs were utterly commonplace, as any remotely sensible woman would?’ He looked down and polished his spectacles. ‘Sarah has neither intellect nor common sense.’

  ‘Well Edwin, I can tell you that although you’re a doctor you’ve never done my sister a particle of good.’

  ‘Which sister?’ he said, slowly raising one eyebrow. ‘Oh, Susan, Susan,’ he added a moment later, ‘I do so love to tease you. Come now, stop talking about Sarah and favour me with your views on my wife.’ Susan did so, then left the room and did not tell him that Sarah’s affairs did not seem commonplace to her.

  CHAPTER 19

  SOPHIA SACHEVERELL

  ‘I can only tell you, Edwin, that I don’t like the idea. That’s all.’

  ‘Sophia, why won’t you listen to me? You seem to be incapable of reason at the moment, which only goes to show … well, never mind.’

  ‘Why is being unsexed going to cure me of melancholia?’

  ‘I’ve told you that the question is a side-issue. I’m not sure that it will. Any anyway it’s quite ridiculous to talk about unsexing and melancholia. We are not living in the dark ages.’

  ‘I don’t want to be sexless.’

  They were in bed together, lying on their backs, and it was six o’clock in the morning. Sophia had woken Edwin with her crying.

  ‘It’s idiotic to say you’ll cease to be female because you have no uterus. Some doctors believe that women are walking wombs, but you know that I don’t,’ he said. She said nothing and he pushed an arm under her. She did not move, and he raised her and pulled up the pillows to form a comfortable back-rest. A grey dusty light came into the room, two wide shafts from the open windows which lit the outlines of the furniture. It was February, but they both believed in open windows, and they always opened the curtains when they turned out the lights. They stared into the room. ‘I’m cold,’ said Sophia, and wriggled. Edwin pulled up the eiderdown and tucked it round her.

  ‘I agree with you now, Sophia,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t good for you to have the children in such quick succession.’

  ‘Well, let me be thankful for that.’

  He went on to explain. He explained that even if he were wrong in supposing that the removal of her womb and ovaries might well make her happier – because really she was right in claiming that no one’s gynaecological knowledge was as extensive and sure as it ought to be – the operation, to save her health, would be an effective contraceptive, and one which he thought, if he employed Catholic casuistry, would be less objectionable to her Church than the unsavoury methods which they already employed. They had agreed long ago that they wanted no more than two children, a boy and a girl; and after the operation she would be at no further risk of uterine disease. He went on to tell her that he suspected her depression to be the result of some disorder of the womb. He suspected a prolapsed uterus. Sophia, leaning back on his short, tough arm and looking straight ahead of her, said nothing until the very end.

  ‘I will talk to Augusta about it.’

  ‘Augusta agrees with me.’ There was a pause.

  ‘Well, Edwin, I have made a tiny concession, so in return I demand a tiny drop of laudanum to put me to sleep again.’ She had always phrased requests in such a way, but now she spoke without any bounce in her voice or flickering of her eyes.

  He did not give it to her, but tightened his hold on her. ‘My dearest love, can’t you see how miserable it makes me to see you so unhappy? You’ve been like this for two years now and nothing ever seems to raise your spirits. We’ve tried more useful activity, and useless activity’ – he squeezed her – ‘we’ve even tried physic of various kinds. And I did think Augusta’s visit would cheer you up.’ It was an exaggeration to say that she had been depressed and in discomfort for two years.

  ‘Why?’ said Sophia.

  ‘My love, don’t you see that I have to cling to this one hope?’

  ‘That the unsexing operation will cure me?’

  ‘That the hysterectomy will help to make you well and happy.’

  *

  Augusta sat over the breakfast table after Edwin had left the house, with the Manchester Guardian open in front of her, just as she did after breakfast every day at Lynmore. She had not come to London since Sophia’s marriage, and had seen her step-daughter only once, when she had paid a visit to her parents, without Edwin, in November, 1887. They had been writing to each other for years but Augusta had refused Sophia’s invitations to stay at Tavistock Square, and she had not come down until, in January, she had suddenly received a letter from Edwin (whom she called ‘Sacheverell’), telling her that Sophia had been moping and pining for some time, quite inexplicably. He had asked her to come and stay, and do something for her. She had arrived two weeks before, and had not spent much time alone with Sophia because she was so moody.

  Augusta was fifty-five now and enormously fat. Her hair was still black, except for two perfectly white, straight streaks which ran back from her temples. She was not much wrinkled, although she had three chins and her eyes were sunken in her flesh; but her swarthy skin had become very coarse-grained. She still wore the plain, full skirts and striped, full blouses, pinned with a tiger’s-eye brooch at the neck, which she had worn when she first married Nicholas. She used a stick, and with it she could walk considerable distances, quite swiftly, in spite of her weight.

  Sophia had not got up for breakfast with her husband and stepmother, and was still in bed. Augusta, frowning at the front page of the newspaper, was thinking about her. She had suggested to Sacheverell that Sophia was consumptive; for bouts of fragile elation interrupted her depression, which Augusta had heard was a symptom of tuberculosis, and she was a little thinner, more bright-eyed and bright-cheeked than usual. They had had a real quarrel, in raised and trembling voices. Sophia had heard them, and it had made her cry.

  Sacheverell was using towards his wife the love and cajolery and reason which she, Augusta, had come to believe she ought to have used when Sophia had been rejected by Octavius: but she could not use it now, because Sophia was an obstinate, ungrateful, unreasonable little minx. She must talk properly to her, though she must not tell her what she thought of her.

  ‘We are going to talk, Sophie,’ said Augusta five minutes later. ‘And you are not going to languish in bed while we do so. Come now.’ She put out a mottled brown hand and smiled a little. Sophia took her hand, looking worried, and Augusta pulled her out of bed. ‘I don’t want any argument,’ she said.

  ‘Really, Augusta!’ said Sophia, half-laughing. ‘All right, all right, I’ll get up. Do I have to dress as well?’

  ‘Yes.’ She rang the bell. The maid came in and laced Sophia’s stays while Augusta watched, perched on a little bedrom armchair. ‘We’ll go downstairs,’ she said when Sophia had pinned up her hair. Sophia led the way.

  In the drawing room the two women looked at each other. Augusta sat down heavily, crossed her legs, and rested her chin on the back of her hand while Sophia remained standing, her hands clasped in front of her, facing her stepmother. Both thought that these positions were typical of fifteen years before, although Sophia did not feel like a little girl.

  ‘Did Edwin instruct you to scold me?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think, do you, that Sacheverell would be quite so unwise?’ She lit a cigar, and offered one to Sophia, who declined. ‘It calms the nerves, Sophie, you ought to take to it.’

  ‘Edwin would die of horror. He thinks it’s bad for the health as well as disgusting – and unfeminine, that goes without saying.’ She smiled.

  �
��As a matter of fact he did ask me to have a talk with you some time ago, but I haven’t got round to it until now. He thinks I may be able to help him find out what’s making you so bloody-minded.’ She looked down shyly and Sophia saw, but Augusta did not correct herself.

  Sophia said, ‘So you two have taken each other into partnership? I had expected to have to cope with all manner of bickerings.’

  ‘It would hardly do you much good if we fought, would it?’ said Augusta gently. ‘Are you happy in your marriage, Sophie?’

  ‘Oh yes, there’s no one on earth I’d rather be married to.’

  Augusta laughed. ‘Given the rest of the male sex, what kind of tribute is that?’

  ‘You are a cynic, Augusta. Oughtn’t it to be I who said that?’ She shook her head, smiling. ‘No one could be so indulgent, so gentle,’ said Sophia. ‘He doesn’t put it on for your benefit, you know, he always behaves as though I were still his adorable child bride, and we’ve been married seven years. Think of it!’

  ‘You were not a child bride, you were a monstrously headstrong woman of two-and-twenty. Don’t think I’m not glad, on the whole, now, that you did it. You could have done much worse in the condition you were in then.’

  ‘You thought I might go into a convent, didn’t you? I remember. I did actually consider becoming a Carmelite.’

  ‘Sophie; what the devil is wrong with you? I can tell that you think yourself that you’re behaving badly.’

  ‘Of course I do! Do you think I’m ungrateful for all the love and attention which is lavished on me?’ she shouted.

  ‘We are not going to quarrel, Sophie.’

  ‘No.’ She paused. ‘I don’t understand what it is, Augusta. About five years ago I went through a – a restless phase, wanting to get back into society, and so on. I was bored. But I got over it, you know, with Edwin’s help, and then I took up the work with the prostitutes, which I enjoyed.’

  ‘You were certainly enthusiastic. Free medical inspections for the unfortunate women, I seem to remember, and better wages for servants and needlewomen which, don’t you claim, would prevent prostitution?’

  ‘Oh, what does it matter? You are provoking. No – and there were other things, fussing about Sarah, and Laurence’s birth, and entertaining. But I don’t seem to be able to get over it all this time.’

  ‘You concealed your last bad patch from me,’ said Augusta. Sophia said nothing. ‘Now, there’s no need for you to say any more. I am perfectly sure Sacheverell is right. You must have this operation, Sophie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, take Sacheverell’s advice, and have the operation.’

  ‘I heard! Unsex myself!’

  ‘I must say, I never suspected you of being so full of melodramatic sensibility, Sophie. If you knew as much of the world as I do you’d be on your knees thanking the Blessed Virgin for such a chance.’ She paused. ‘Yes, Sophie. I only wish that I could have had such an operation. I suffered greatly in giving birth to Thomas, as you know, and I was told that I must have no more children. At that time I still rather wanted to share your father’s bed …’ She paused again, and looked up at Sophia, then down at her cigar. ‘For me there was no choice, I had no one to advise me on contraceptive methods, let alone on an operation of that kind. Of course, your father wouldn’t have shared my bed, after the birth, even if I had had such an operation.’

  ‘But,’ said Sophia, ‘if you’d had it you wouldn’t have wanted lovemaking, would you? You wouldn’t enjoy it.’ She blushed, and a slow smile spread over Augusta’s face.

  ‘My dear little Sophie, you have been married over seven years to a man of whom you are very fond, and you don’t know that enjoyment of the sexual act has nothing to do with the womb? And he a doctor and a Radical!’

  ‘What do you mean? There – there are sensations …’

  ‘Oh, yes, I suppose so, but I promise you that the womb has nothing to do with it. You’re perfectly all right so long as you have the folds between your legs.’ Augusta did not know the word.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t Edwin tell me?’

  ‘My dear, don’t ask me, there are some things a man doesn’t like to tell his wife. It’s always possible he doesn’t know.’ She had just thought that this was what he had really wanted her to explain to Sophia.

  ‘Well,’ said Sophia a little later, ‘It’s nice to know but I suppose it doesn’t really matter because it’s the cuddling that I really enjoy, anyway.’

  *

  A letter from Susan arrived two days after Sophia’s talk with her stepmother, and it said everything which Sophia had expected Augusta to say about the prospective hysterectomy.

  ‘Lynmore Rectory, 28th February, 1892. My dear Sophia, I was considerably disturbed by your last letter. Your husband’s plan to remove your womb sounds to me most unpleasant. There is no call, I assure you, for you to say that he is probably right and that your own very natural and proper revulsion is unreasonable. You said you were unsure of Augusta’s views on the subject, but there is no doubt that one would be very disappointed to discover that she is not supporting you as she ought. It is my belief that doctors are far too eager to doctor, when they do not properly understand what is the complaint, and your husband is not an exception. You say that he is very gentle with you and you wish you could obey him: I say that if he only appeared to be as commanding as he really is, you would not wish to obey him and would realise fully that you and I are quite right. However, I cannot expect my view to influence you, for you know that I do not always get on very well with Edwin, though I quite see his charm for you. Sophia, will you ever forgive me if I say that I think he spoils you as well as subtly coerces you? And will you understand quite what I mean? He is too tolerant of your vagaries and ill-temper, a little more downright criticism and lack of indulgence would do a great deal to make you better. You say, of course, that that was his original reaction to your becoming melancholy, and it made you feel much worse, but his new tactics, if I may call them so, do not seem to have made you any better, do they?

  ‘Let me continue to be a little dictatorial! It “goes against the grain” for me to say it, you will doubtless think (!), but I do agree with Edwin over the question of Sarah. I really do think she is not well enough to live alone. That maid of hers is devoted to her in a way, of course, but as a very bad nanny may be devoted to her charge – excusing and covering up her faults, and so on. There is no one to prevent Sarah from drinking spirits, which I am sure she does, and it is essential that someone take her intemperance in hand before it is too late. I wonder whether you and Edwin know of it? For of course she is not communicative these days, as she was before the horrid upset over that wretched young man. I would take her myself, were it not for the fact that I already have charge of her daughters, and my husband would certainly be set against such a plan. Also, don’t you think it would do you some good to have Sarah with you? I am not (God knows!) claiming that she would be amusing company, but if you had her problems to worry about you might have less time for your own, rather indefinite ones? I do not believe, either, that you will have to listen to endless histrionics, I am sure that she is very quiet on the whole, though gloomy, only occasionally suffering from an outburst of grief, in which case she will write to tell me!’

  Sophia was very surprised. She remembered, as she read, that a few weeks before Edwin had suggested that they ought to take Sarah in. His proposal had been half-hearted but Sophia had been set so violently against the idea that he had had to produce good reasons for his suggestion, and a quarrel around the subject of Sarah had broken out, and lasted for quite half an hour. Sophia had then written to Susan about it, but had forgotten to post the letter until she had forgotten all about the violent argument, the only one in the last eighteen months.

  ‘Please, Sophia, don’t think I don’t understand your problems. It must be especially difficult for you with Augusta staying, for I would guess that Edwin has wormed his way into her good books. She is getting
elderly, of course, and no man has flattered her for a good many years: the dear old termagant must be rather susceptible! And you, Sophia, are neither Edwin’s Sophia, nor Augusta’s Sophie … is it not so? I know they love you too much to turn against you because you are not yourself, so it’s nothing really to worry about.’ Susan said no more and Sophia cried and cried, which Susan had not intended. Then she showed the letter to Augusta, looking nervous and away from her while her stepmother read it, until Augusta said, ‘Of course, it’s true that Sacheverell flatters me and I’m an old fool to fall for it.’ She added, in Susan’s voice, ‘… dear old termagant!’

  ‘It’s absolutely wicked, don’t you think?’ said Sophia.

  ‘Your sister is not intelligent enough to be called wicked, Sophie.’

  ‘Of course, it’s precisely what one would expect from her.’

  ‘There’s no point in discussing it,’ said Augusta, throwing the letter onto the bed. She watched Sophia pick it up and put it on the fire.

  Sophia finally consented to the operation in April and Edwin found that she had a growth, which he called benign, in her womb. When, after a couple of months, she recovered from the operation, she began to feel much better, for the lightly, constantly nagging pain in her womb, which Edwin had treated as little as possible because he thought the pain killing drugs were bad for her, was gone. As soon as she was better he would not allow her to be lazy, and she went back to her work reclaiming prostitutes, and went out more than she had done since she was pregnant with Lavinia. She met a boy of twenty, who fell in love with her; and, with indulgent confidence, Edwin encouraged her to flirt with him. She had a brief love affair with him, and then sent him away, as she had sent away suitors when she was a young girl in Society. For a short while he was very unhappy, and she worried about him, and Edwin thought that a new trouble was developing. Then the young man married a pretty girl of his own age, in the spring of 1894.