Privileged Children (4 page)

‘Yes of course,’ someone murmured.

‘My dear Diana,’ said Augustus, ‘I’ve discussed this once before with you, I think, and I agree that physical child-abuse is rife and ought to be stopped and that it’s ridiculous to extend childhood to eighteen or twenty-one as we do, but all the same children do have to be guided and looked after and surely you wouldn’t have some sort of institution doing that rather than parents? Goodness, the things I’ve heard you say about public schools!’

‘I don’t have to be looked after,’ said Alice. ‘Not by anyone. I don’t need anyone to take care of me,’ she quavered, ‘I can take care of myself.’

‘Because your mother’s taught you how,’ said Clementina. ‘If you hadn’t been taught how to, you wouldn’t know how to. Children do have to be guided, because they haven’t any experience.’

Alice was silent.

‘Alice can look after herself: Alice has experience: Alice is eleven years old: an eleven-year-old is a child: a child cannot look after herself: a child has no experience. Question: is Alice a child or not?’ mocked Diana.

‘Answer:’ sniffed Clementina, ‘Alice is old beyond her years because she’s been made to be.’

‘I feel like a vivisected rat,’ said Alice and everyone laughed.

‘I do apologise, Alice,’ said Diana, stopping the laughter with her apology. ‘I really do. And I admit that if you were a little older I wouldn’t have been so oblivious of your dignity. I’m afraid these habits persist.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Alice.

‘Yes,’ said Diana, looking down at her daughter, ‘you haven’t been shut up in a nursery, you haven’t been purposely deprived of experience, but all you really have experience of is a little bohemian circle. It’s a sort of grown-up nursery, and I don’t think it’s a good thing.’

‘But I’ve been all round London,’ said Alice. ‘Into the slums and everything.’

‘You’re as much an outsider there as a slumming duchess, whatever you look like, my darling,’ said Diana, ‘because you can’t imagine life on less than three hundred a year. And neither can I.’

‘When you say “can’t imagine”, Diana,’ said Leo, ‘I think you’re wrong. You just mean that you — that none of us, for that matter — have ever lived on much less than that. Very well. But if you just make up an imaginary budget of a pound a week you can
imagine
what it’s like.’

‘I think,’ said Diana, ‘that it’s very arrogant to say that you can imagine the full misery of living six to a room in a leaking slum when you’ve never had any such experience.’

‘You may be right,’ said Leo, ‘but then, why are you a Fabian? Why do you believe that such things are evils, curable evils, if you can’t imagine these evils?’

‘I’m a Fabian,’ said Diana, ‘because the doctrine of gradualism was specially designed for the conscience-stricken upper-middle-classes who don’t want Utopia to arrive until they and their tidy annuities are safely buried together,’

‘If gradualism weren’t inevitable,’ said Rose, ‘if the Marxist class war came tomorrow, I know which side of the barricade I’d be fighting on.’

‘Yes,’ said Diana, ‘so do I.’ And she looked very polite. Only Augustus gently laughed. Henry Johnson turned on the lights, and they all blinked.

‘Well,’ said Diana, ‘what a good thing we’re having a cold supper. Let’s go through, shall we?’

‘The potato salad must be absolutely crawling with flies,’ said Alice, ‘I forgot to cover it.’

‘Not so loud, my darling. Some of us believe in germs, you know,’ said Diana.

For a few moments, Alice was alone in the library with
James Bellinger, for they were the last two to leave the room.

‘Your mother’s a wonderful woman,’ he said.

‘Yes, she is, isn’t she?’ agreed Alice.

‘You’re not very like her, are you?’ he said.

Alice surprised him by fetching a chair, putting it in front of the fireplace and standing on it. She looked at herself in the dirty glass above the mantelpiece, and she saw her own reflection, rather than just a face, for the first time. She looked hard and then turned round on him.

‘All right, so I’m ugly,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got a mouth like hers, and a face shaped like hers.’ She scowled and looked most unlike her mother.

‘Honestly, I didn’t mean to be rude. And you’ll be awfully handsome one day, you know. You’re just too young for your looks,’ he said and he saw her relax a little.

Looking at her more closely, he also saw that he had inadvertently spoken the truth.

Very early one morning, before it was fully light, Alice was in Mayfair, sticking up posters. Every so often she knelt on the pavement, hurriedly pasted the back of a poster with makeshift glue, and stuck it up on a wall. Sometimes she even selected an imposing front door. Rose Pembridge, who was in prison again for militant suffrage activities, had recruited Alice to do this. Most of the posters just said ‘
VOTES FOR
WOMEN
’ but one, which Alice liked particularly, was a picture of a woman and a criminal and a lunatic, all disfranchised.

Alice heard footsteps. She gathered up the posters and glue pot with great speed and hid them under her wide cloak. As she had feared, it was a policeman. She walked past him, rather clumsily but in a businesslike fashion, and, as soon as she was round the corner, ran as fast as she could to the underground station at Marble Arch and went back to Holborn. She had not been caught yet. It amused her to put up her posters in Mayfair, where rich and thoughtless young ladies on their way to balls or to see their dressmaker or their fiancés might see them.

She kicked off her boots in the hall and tiptoed upstairs, for fear of disturbing Diana, who was in the bedroom with Sir Evelyn Reese.

In her room, she took off her clothes and wondered whether to have a bath or not. Next to the window she had pinned up the painting of the view from the attic which she had done more than three years ago. She remembered fondly how inordinately proud of it she had been at the time. She was proud now of how much progress she had made since then.

She decided to have a bath and went to boil up the hot water, for there was no running hot water upstairs; water had to be boiled over a gas ring. The bathroom window rattled, the bath was rimmed with successive hoops of green and the lavatory cistern gurgled and coughed. On a shelf lay old water-warped copies of Fabian Society magazines.

She went down to breakfast in her dressing-gown. Diana and Sir Evelyn Reese were already in the library, where breakfast was laid. ‘Got a kiss for me, Alicky?’ asked Sir Evelyn, looking up from the
Manchester
Guardian
.

‘Of course.’

Sir Evelyn was a man of medium height and nondescript appearance, with a bristly, nicotine-stained moustache and red cheeks. He was the Liberal MP for Wigtownshire. He had first become Diana’s lover in the winter of 1909, and of all her lovers had stayed the longest. Since Sir Evelyn’s arrival, the big drawing room and bedroom, which Diana called the ‘business rooms’ had been locked up. On Friday mornings he was always very silent, for he had to go back to his wife in the country on Fridays. Today was Tuesday.

Diana was walking round the table in her negligée, filing her nails. Sir Evelyn watched her over the top of his newspaper.

‘Evelyn, remember you’ve got an appointment with your solicitor.’

‘Oh yes. Well, I suppose I ought to be off. Do I look tidy enough, Alicky?’

‘There’s egg on your moustache. And tuck in your shirt tails.’

‘Keep me up to the mark, that’s right,’ sighed Sir Evelyn. He kissed Diana goodbye.

Alice, having finished her egg,
was about to go. She looked at her mother, who was standing by the window. Diana was pale, but there were red stains along her jaw and her eyes were very bright. She coughed a lot: she had tuberculosis.

‘No, Alice, don’t go,’ she said. ‘Sit down. Alice, you know I’m very ill, don’t you?’ She fiddled with the ring on her third finger.

‘Yes, mamma.’

‘I didn’t know till yesterday — the doctor says I shall probably live for one, or at the most two, years. I want you to go and live with my brother when I’m gone.’

Alice watched the sun drift over the marmalade pot, along the floor and back beyond the window ledge, leaving the room in shade. ‘Do you mean that Protestant priest?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mother of God, mamma, isn’t there any alternative? Isn’t it bad enough that you may die, without …’

‘Listen, Alice. Roderick isn’t a demon. He’s married but he’s got no children. When I was small, he was fond of me. Of course, my running off with an Irish immigrant and then becoming a whore prevented him from seeing me. But I know he would be glad to have you. He may try to reform you, as you can imagine. I don’t think he’ll do anything terrible like sending you to school, though, as long as you don’t rub him up the wrong way too much.

‘You see, Alice, I very much want you to have experience of a way of life other than ours. It’ll only be for three years at the most, because I’ve made a small trust for you, and you’ll get the money when you’re eighteen and be able to live independently. You could come back to London. Roderick would want you to have a chaperone; but still, you could manage that.’

‘I’ve not allowed myself to think that you might die,’ whispered Alice. She paused. ‘How could you do this to me! How could you!’ she screamed at Diana.

‘Alice, darling, please … Alice, I won’t force you. I just said that I’d like you to try it. I think that such a life might take your mind off what you’ve lost. Perhaps you could go to Augustus and Clementina.’ Diana then came out with a fact of a sort to which Alice was not accustomed. ‘But he’s got a legal claim on you, and he’s bound to think it’s his duty to have you. Truly, Alice, you might be happy down there. I don’t expect you’ll find many interesting people, but there is something soporific and comforting about country life if you can get into the mood for it.’

‘I will think about it, mamma,’ said Alice, with wide-open eyes. She was seeing her mother in tears for the first time.
She waited helplessly for a few moments and then ran out of the room.

She went up to a tiny skylit room in the attic. It was whitewashed, and on a small table there was a crucifix, a rosary, two candles and a painting of the Virgin and Child. Alice pulled out her own worn rosary of wooden beads which she always wore under her vest, and mumbled a Paternoster. Then she sat back and looked at the face of the Virgin Mary.

‘Holy Mother, what should I do?’ she said. There was no answer, but as she watched the flat face of the Madonna and the shadows on the white walls a thick unthinking calm descended upon her. ‘I’ll think about it later,’ she said, and slipped her rosary under her camisole again. It was cold against her skin.

She had a lesson with Mr Tuskin in five minutes’ time, and went back to the library, where he was waiting.

‘Good morning, Miss Molloy,’ he said, pulling at his tobacco-coloured goatee beard. He was a narrow man with a whiskery face, and his hands were always red and slightly trembling. He had called her ‘Miss Molloy’ even when she was six years old.

‘Good morning, Mr Tuskin.’

‘And have you prepared the drawing of the Palladian house I set you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Excellent. I happened to notice these on the shelf, Miss Molloy …’ He proffered some sheets of scrap paper. ‘How long ago did you complete them?’

‘A few months ago.’

‘Really? What period of costume does this represent, may I ask?’

‘Eighteenth-century.’

‘Ah — um — yes, I see, the hairstyle. You have added the skirt of 1855, the ruff of 1610 and the stomacher of 1670. Well, well, what variety. However, the figure and face are well done, and you are beginning to shade so that satin may be recognised as satin … but, Miss Molloy, the hand! Really, did you not trouble to check with that famous book of anatomical drawings which Mr Wood gave you? And the shoe. She seems to have a foot shaped like a croquet mallet.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s only a sketch!’

Mr Tuskin watched her in silence, delicately poised on the sides of his shoes. He walked towards her.

‘Listen, Miss Molloy. You wish to become a competent and original artist. I tell you, praise from friends and teachers is for the untalented.’ Alice nodded miserably. ‘Is there anything wrong, Miss Molloy?’ he said, and came to sit beside her.

‘Mamma’s dying.’

‘And you are worried about your uncle the clergyman?’

‘How did you know?’

‘You know, Miss Molloy, I have been teaching you for seven years. Your mother and I do occasionally exchange a few words. To my mind, you have absolutely nothing to fear from some overstuffed country parson who thinks he’s living in Jane Austen’s day. I pity the poor man. You’ll frighten him out of his gaiters.’

Alice made no response. Although she had told him of Diana’s illness she had shut the reality out of her mind.

Mr Tuskin paused, looked at her blank face and said, ‘Come now. Don’t let’s bother with accuracy and the like today. A little experiment can aid the hand and eye more than practice. Have you ever tried working in black and white alone?’

‘No,’ said Alice, looking up.

‘The effect can be striking. See how the degree of contrast can be as great or small as one likes, depending on the stroke one uses …’

Alice watched. Mr Tuskin was a master of such agile demonstrations, but he had never completed a whole picture to his own satisfaction.

After she had had lunch with Tilly, Alice went out for a walk. She went to Russell Square, and saw James Bellinger sitting on one of the benches, his delicate face reddened by the cold wind. ‘James!’ called Alice, and ran towards him. He held out his arms to her.

Alice had been walking out with James for a few months now. Though she was only just fourteen, she seemed eighteen to him.

They kissed for a long time on the bench. He thrust his
hands inside her cloak and held tight to her taut, narrow waist. ‘I’ve had some marvellous luck,’ he said, his eyes gleaming. ‘I auditioned yesterday. I’m going to play Polonius at the Criterion. The play’s being put on next year.’

‘And you only twenty-five!’ laughed Alice, and added, ‘It’s not luck but talent.’

‘I have a face which it’s easy to make look seventy,’ smiled James. ‘Alice, let’s go out and celebrate. I was on my way to Red Lion Square, actually. I’ve bought two tickets for
The
Marriage
of
Figaro
at Covent Garden. You can come, can’t you? Tomorrow night.’

‘Of course I can.’

Alice briefly considered telling him about Diana. But she had sometimes broached a personal subject with him before, and he tended to look nervous and be silent.

The next evening, she dressed with more care than usual in a blue wool dress — the first dress she had had which was not second hand. It had been provided because she had nearly stopped growing now. She put up her clean soft hair in a bun, and put on a hat. She rubbed a little rouge on her cheeks and thought that with it, by the gaslight, she was quite good-looking. If she had been a boy, she would have been very handsome.

She joined James on the doorstep and they walked hand in hand to Covent Garden. Diana was watching from her bedroom window. ‘Well, if she gets pregnant she’ll have solved the problem about Roderick, after a fashion,’ she said to herself. Diana had informed her daughter about contraception, but knew from experience how unreliable it tended to be.

Alice had never been to Covent Garden before. She and James sat at the front of the gods, from where they could lean over and see the three gleaming half-circles below them, and the seats in the stalls. Few people seemed to be listening to the overture. Alice noticed men going from one box to another, whispering to the women there. Everyone was in full evening dress. The doorman had looked askance at James and Alice.

James sat fascinated throughout the performance. Alice liked some of the music, but she could not understand the
words or see very well.

‘I’ll walk you home,’ said James when the opera was over.

‘No,’ said Alice, ‘I want to spend the night with you.’

James looked round him, but no one appeared to have heard. He hailed a cab and they got in. He could think of nothing to say. ‘Thank you, Alice,’ he said at last.

‘That’s all right,’ she said calmly, and kissed him. As she did so, she longed to press her whole body to his.

James’s rooms were high up in a large building in Chelsea. Both rooms were sparsely furnished.

‘My landlady cooks for me,’ he said, ‘but she lets me have a kettle for the fire. Would you like some tea?’

‘Please.’

They sat drinking their tea in silence. ‘I’m sorry there’s no fire in the other room,’ said James when they had finished.

‘I doubt if I’ll be cold,’ Alice replied, gazing at him over her cracked cup.

‘Come on then,’ he said quietly, and held out his hand to her. When they were in the bedroom, he pushed her on to the bed and fumbled so much with the buttons of her dress that she had to help him. She got into the narrow bed in her coarse winter petticoat and waited for him to get undressed. He left his shirt on and joined her in the bed. She was tense, but she relaxed as her pleasure mounted. She forgot all about Diana. She wished that he would spend longer caressing her thighs and waist and breasts, but he quickly turned her on to her back and dragged himself on top of her. She waited. She felt a terrible pain, to which he seemed so oblivious that she had to bite him to get rid of him. ‘Holy Mary!’ she yelled through her tears, ‘let me look at it!’ She threw aside the blankets and stared at his hard penis, which was blotched with blood. ‘But it’s so enormous,’ she whispered. ‘Why couldn’t God have made it the right size?’ James looked at her with his mouth hanging open, and then he slowly turned away. She laid her hand on his shoulder, but he did not move. ‘I’m so sorry, James, but it was such a terrible shock. I didn’t know it was going to hurt.’

‘Neither did I,’ he said, and hunched himself up.

‘James, I love you, you know,’ lied Alice desperately.
‘Try again and it won’t hurt me, I’m sure.’

‘It would hurt me,’ replied James.

Alice lay back. Her fists were clenched. Every small problem she had, and the imminent horror of which Diana had warned her, seemed ten times worse to her than they had that morning. Choking, she left the bed, and sitting by the fire in the next room, but still cold, she could not stop crying as she dressed herself.