Bloomsbury's Outsider (11 page)

Bunny was profoundly moved by the dignity of his French friends. One story which he could not forget was that of the Germans throwing a wounded French soldier into a burning house, where they left him to die. In an act of courage and defiance, a thirteen-year-old boy, Georges Raiwot, raked through the hot embers to retrieve the ashes of the soldier, which he carried to the cemetery to be buried. Bunny became fond of this young man, as he did of many of the villagers, in particular Georges Leglais, a former pilot who had retired after losing his right arm. It was impossible not to love these people, who despite
terrible privations were nothing but kind and hospitable to the Englishmen living among them.

While the sun smiled upon Bunny in France, in England, as Vanessa reported, ‘a profound gloom has settled on us – on Duncan particularly'. ‘I wish', she said, ‘you could come twinkling out from behind the great ilex. How everything would change & what a nice excited furry little bear would be rolling about on the lawn instead of the rather pathetic quiet caged creature sighing beside me.' Vanessa evidently now saw Bunny as integral to her life, or at least, in being integral to Duncan's happiness, necessary for hers too: ‘Please write again my dear creature', she concluded, ‘you're so much wanted by the other members of the trio who often talk & always think of you.'
⁹
Duncan wrote telling Bunny that he missed him more and more, and was ‘absolutely determined to love you till the end of time'.
¹⁰
He also sent, by way of a love token, that first, unsent, letter in which he had declared his feelings for Bunny.

Letters from home afforded a window into the habitual society and gossip which continued in England, or at least in Gordon Square. Bunny loved Lytton's tantalising dispatches, designed to taunt the Censor, in which he offered to do all manner of things to Bunny in a series of ‘----'s. Bunny had also embarked on an epistolary flirtation with Barbara Hiles, the crop-headed former Slade student whose dancing had given him a black eye.

Although Frankie relished living in an all male society, Bunny found the insularity claustrophobic. He began to feel restless, a restlessness compounded by being made to attend Quaker
meetings. There was no variety, nowhere to go, no escape, nothing except the guns going ‘thud, thud, thud […] without stopping for five seconds altogether'.
¹¹
As someone who sought diversity, Bunny did not enjoy being confined, and felt cornered by the watchfulness of the Quakers. Mostly he missed the company of women and disliked having to live a chaste life on a rather public platform under the scrutiny of both villagers and Quaker brethren.

To fill their spare time, Bunny and Frankie collaborated in writing a play, ostensibly based on their lives in France. Frankie could not resist introducing ‘one rather moving evening scene with all the young men getting into bed under the stars by a tenuous lamplight'.
¹²
But Bunny was finding enforced intimacy with Frankie progressively difficult. As a result of Frankie's inability to sublimate his feelings, Bunny began to plan a holiday in England and decided he might not return to Sommeilles, although he expected to continue to work for the Friends in some capacity. Frankie later acknowledged that the ‘surrounding Quakerism' combined with his unrequited love for Bunny made them ‘unable to continue living in close proximity'. Frankie's love for Bunny was such that three years later he told him, ‘I show no signs of falling in love with anybody else'.
¹³

Meanwhile, in August 1915 Edward arrived in Italy, where he was stationed above the River Isonzo with a British Red Cross ambulance unit. Constance seemed less concerned for his safety than for Bunny's. She feared Bunny would soon complete the
work in Sommeilles and might attempt something more adventurous and dangerous. She mounted a campaign to ensure his safety, inveigling Nellie to elicit the help of friends. Nellie wrote to Louise Bréal, asking her to use her influence to see if Bunny could obtain work at the Pasteur Institute or in the Red Cross Hospitals in France. ‘You will probably say', Nellie acknowledged perspicaciously, ‘why doesn't he go with Edward? He might – but Connie of course would give anything to keep him away from the fighting line.'
¹⁴

Although Bunny normally shirked leadership, he had been made Corporal, directing the building work, assigning duties, prioritising those in need of houses, ordering materials and arranging transport. He felt incompetent faced with such responsibility, but was obviously considered capable, for Edmund Harvey, the Liberal MP leader of the Friends' War Victims' Relief Mission, subsequently appointed him
Chef d'Equipe
. This involved even more responsibility, including dispatching progress reports, keeping accounts and, as Bunny wryly commented, reading the Bible at breakfast ‘to prevent debauchery & license among the members'.
¹⁵
To his surprise, Bunny enjoyed himself. He informed Constance that he proposed to remain in Sommeilles until work there was finished, which he anticipated would be at the end of October. Afterwards, he would come home for a holiday. ‘Whether I go back to France, or to Italy, or
Russia, or Mesopotamia', he said, ‘or whether I stay in England depends on all sorts of things.' To Constance's consternation he added: ‘But I am much attracted by Italy.' ‘Driving a motor would be sickening but I don't think more dangerous.'
¹⁶
As photographs show, Bunny had some experience of driving in Sommeilles, and he felt that with a month or so of training, he would be equipped to drive an ambulance or work as a chauffeur.

Alarmed, Constance wrote anxiously to Edward: ‘I wish it could turn out to be possible for him to do hospital or orderly work only &
no
driving
.' ‘I think', she added, ‘he is distinctly less fitted in anything wanting sight & judgment of distance than most people.'
¹⁷
She explained that an oculist had discovered Bunny's focussing muscles were defective, causing him to turn his head to see things at the side. ‘If he has to meet me at the station, I see him moving his head to & fro hunting about & not seeing me till long after I have seen him.'
¹⁸
She had a point: Bunny's driving was always a nerve-racking experience for his passengers.

Vanessa wrote to tell Bunny how glad it would make her to see him again, but she could not resist communicating her happiness in having Duncan to herself. ‘I have been extraordinarily selfishly happy lately', she wrote:

I sit out or in & paint with the animal & he takes me for walks in the evening & he's there when I wake up & when
I go to bed & sometimes in between too (which in between can be read either way) & he's been so extraordinarily charming & odd in his ways & speech & so unlike any body or anything else in this world & so amazingly nice to me that I have been about as childishly happy as one can be.
¹⁹

When Bunny returned to London for his holiday, Duncan was so overwhelmed at seeing him that he needed a day to recover his composure. Lytton wrote addressing Bunny as ‘Darling, darling creature', asking ‘How have you managed it, dearest David, to be … just what you are?'
²⁰

After only two weeks, Bunny returned to France where he hoped work at the Pasteur Institute might materialise as it would enable him to be with Duncan, who had been invited to Paris with an offer of design work by Jacques Copeau, the influential theatrical producer. On 3 November 1915 Bunny and Duncan left together for Paris, but at Dieppe they became separated; Bunny continued alone, assuming Duncan would join him later. Although Duncan had obtained prior approval from the Foreign Office to work in Paris, he was subjected to intensive questioning. As his answers proved unsatisfactory, neither the French nor the English authorities would allow him to proceed to Paris or to remain in France. And so, as he wrote to Bunny, ‘I am being shipped back […] like any bloody undesirable alien'. ‘When shall I see you again?' he asked. ‘It is too beastly.'
²¹

Alone in Paris, Bunny trailed about the boulevards, as he told Lytton, ‘a pale bloated lonely figure like the last stages of Oscar
Wilde'.
²²
He felt life would be intolerable without Duncan, and worried how he would survive without money. Vanessa sent him £5, and wrote suggesting that as it seemed doubtful Duncan could go to Paris, Bunny should return to London. ‘You know of course that I'm not simply disinterested in suggesting this but apart from what it would mean to me wouldn't you both really be happier in London?'
²³

Conscription appeared increasingly probable. As the war continued, fewer men were enlisting, the initial patriotic influx long over, and the impetus of Kitchener's call to arms (‘Your Country Needs You') on the wane. The voluntary system could no longer cope with a continuing war and mounting casualties. But Bunny's sojourn in France with the Quakers had once and for all settled the question of whether to enlist. As he later explained: ‘My experience at Sommeilles had given me confidence in myself and had also turned me into a pacifist.' He read Clive Bell's pamphlet
Peace at Once
(1915) and agreed with his argument that war should be ended as soon as possible by a negotiated peace. As a result of the devastation he witnessed in France, the destruction of communities and desecration of life, he could not believe that war was justified. Conscientious objection was the only rational option.

Edward's return to England in November 1915 coincided with bad news. As a result of wartime privations, Duckworth had terminated Edward's employment. He and Constance would have very little income and this would mean they could not afford to support Bunny financially if he remained in Paris.
Bunny decided to return to Sommeilles to see everyone there one last time. Before doing so, he wrote to Frankie's father, Augustine Birrell MP. Bunny had heard from Lytton that D.H. Lawrence's novel
The Rainbow
had been banned as obscene and burnt by the police. Bunny wrote asking Birrell to intercede. Like Edward, Bunny disapproved strongly of censorship, believing it undermined artistic freedom and truth. Birrell replied dismissively that the book was ‘a stagnant pool of dull water collected at the bottom of a disused Quarry'.
²⁴

Back at Sommeilles Bunny found the weather vile and the personnel changed. He could no longer talk easily to Frankie, for there was a ‘silent listener at every conversation between Francis & me'.
²⁵
There Bunny received a letter from Maynard, written very much with Duncan in mind: ‘Why don't you come back?' ‘If you come back here, either you get a job
or
you have a very good excuse for leading what life you like and an opportunity you may never have again of seeing if you can write. It's really absurd to stay out there and quite against reason. Lastly its here Duncan is.' ‘My dear Bunny', he added, ‘do come back; on my word its good advice.'
²⁶
Vanessa wrote too, imploring Bunny to ‘make your two allies happy by coming for there are also lots of quite unreasonable reasons, such as thinking how happy we three should be […] & altogether how absurd it is in this life not to snatch at any obvious happiness one can get even at some risk'.
²⁷

Bunny replied to Maynard, explaining that if he came home he would be unable to support himself. With impecunious
parents and no prospect of a job: ‘I shall have to come back to do what? … Live upon my friends in one way or another – borrow from Nessa, come to breakfast with you, and take sixpence off the mantelpiece.'
²⁸
But between them, Maynard, Vanessa and Duncan were determined Bunny should return. Vanessa wrote, ‘You can live rent free here & food won't come to much however you come by it'.
²⁹
Duncan reasoned: ‘Bunny you know perfectly well I could afford to provide fodder for 2 & you would have no rent to pay. And you know or you ought to know that I should be happier with you, than anything that could happen.'
³⁰

Bunny returned at the end of December 1915. It was wonderful to see Duncan again, to visit Constance at his beloved Cearne and to stay at Asheham, in Sussex, where Vanessa had rented a house. Here he found himself ‘in an almost forgotten heaven' with Vanessa, Duncan, Clive, Lytton and Maynard.
³¹
In the first few days of 1916, reunited with his closest Bloomsbury friends, Bunny roamed the Sussex Downs, exhilarating in his new-found freedom. They discussed the proposed conscription bill, and could only savour the moment, uncertain what the future would bring. The last twelve months had seen extraordinary changes in Bunny's life. He had grown up, was no longer an idealistic Neo-Pagan but now determined to be a conscientious objector. He had discovered Bloomsbury, and no matter that he thought himself a womaniser, he had a male lover at the centre of his life.

‘One is a pawn in a game of chess played by people who don't know the moves.'
¹

On 27 January 1916 the Military Services Act enforced conscription for all men aged between nineteen and forty-one who were unmarried, widowed or without dependent children. On the face of it, this would impact hard on Bloomsbury: many of the men were within this age bracket, and those who were homosexual were ‘single' and free of dependents. Exemptions were made for those deemed medically unfit, undertaking work of national importance and for conscientious objectors. But conscientiously objecting was no easy matter and was subject to the approval of Local Tribunals, a quasi-judicial system of local bigwigs wholeheartedly behind the war.

Bunny joined the No-Conscription Fellowship where he worked as a volunteer alongside Duncan, Adrian, Vanessa, Clive Bell and James Strachey, the latter having been sacked from the
Spectator
for his pacifist beliefs. Based on Bride Lane, between the
Farringdon Road and Fleet Street, the N-CF had been established earlier in the war to campaign against conscription and assist men who did not want to fight. Howard Marten, a Quaker member of the N-CF singled out a particular group of ‘artistically minded' volunteers, whom he remarked ‘had a terrific repugnance of war which could only express itself individually'.
²
This was true of Bloomsbury, where conscientious objection was endemic. As Bunny put it, they were ‘pacifists almost to a man and woman during the First World War and put personal relationships higher than patriotism or success.'
³