Bloomsbury's Outsider (22 page)

Reviews were largely very favourable and universal in praising Bunny's prose, ‘the exquisiteness with which the story is told', ‘that simple, exact English of his';
³⁰
‘death and violence seem a mere ripple of prose. Perhaps it is the short simple words he uses.'
³¹
Some praised the honesty and ‘truthfulness' of the story: ‘Mr Garnett […] does not shirk the truth of things, and the reader who has followed the poignant story from beginning to end will be forced to admit that it must have happened so, though he will also reflect mournfully on man's inhumanity to man.'
³²
The
Daily Telegraph
declared: ‘the action moves inevitably forward at an even pace to its sad end, with nothing arbitrary or unnatural to enhance the tragedy, only the inevitable pressure of circumstances and the malice of the ignorant'.
³³

There were a few dissenting voices. R. Ellis Roberts in
Weekly Westminster
shared George Moore's concerns about the ‘miserable ending', feeling Bunny should have allowed Tulip and Sambo to leave – or to die – together, ‘as simple and savage people can
die'.
³⁴
The
Daily News
disliked ‘the black heathen's' attitude to Christian customs, and felt it lacked imagination to allow ‘the heathen' to show herself ‘less cruel than the Christians'.
³⁵
The
TLS
review began by asking, ‘Exactly what Mr Garnett's intention may be in writing this tale of a sailor who married a negress and settled down in a Dorsetshire village', concluding ‘we have no means of knowing'.
³⁶
This, however, inspired a riposte from Bunny's friend, the doyen of literary critics, Desmond MacCarthy, writing as ‘Affable Hawk' in the
New Statesman
. He devoted several pages to the review, demolishing the
TLS
review word by word. MacCarthy affirmed that ‘It is a sad enough story, but it does not damp one's spirits', pronouncing it ‘a work of art'.
³⁷

While Bunny was in the thick of writing and re-writing, he and Ray were excited about the imminent birth of their baby – or babies – the local doctor was certain that Ray was carrying twins. On Easter Sunday, 12 April, a fine boy was born at 8.45 in the morning. Bunny was delighted with the timing, because he had to fetch the doctor away from church. There was only one infant, but he weighed a hefty 9lb 6oz. According to Bunny, the baby had Garnett hands, which he thought miniature examples of those of Edward and Dr Richard Garnett. Bunny and Ray named their second son William Tomlin Kasper. Tommy was thrilled to be commemorated thus. ‘My dear', he wrote to Bunny, ‘I do wish your new baby the greatest luck in the world, & if his good fortune in happening on his parents be an augury for the future, he should do well enough […]. I think of you both (as I
always do) & of your family & your establishment & your work with a great deal of love & admiration.'
³⁸

Bunny's establishment came alive at weekends, when he and Ray filled the house with friends and family. Cambridge had long been an outpost of Bloomsbury (or was Bloomsbury an outpost of Cambridge?) so Hilton was ideally positioned to welcome those of the Bloomsbury–Cambridge axis, and their friends and friends of friends. One letter from Bunny to Constance, written in June 1925, gives a flavour of Hilton's hectic social whirl:

Garrow Tomlin has been with us since the Friday before Whitsun […]. We have also had two friends of Ray's camping here, visits from Cambridge [Ray's brother Tom Marshall and his wife Nadine], & on Friday last the Partridges [Carrington and Ralph Partridge]. On Saturday Lytton came to tea […]. In the evening we went to the play [in Cambridge], followed by a dreary party. Next day [John] Hayward, Frances Marshall, Lettice Baker and someone else came out for tea & dinner […]. Tomorrow Rayne [Bunny's cousin] & John Nickalls & Christopher are coming to tea […]. On […] Saturday Francis Meynell brings down a cricket eleven – Francis & Vera stay the weekend.
³⁹

This was the first of several Hilton Village versus Publishers cricket matches, for which Bunny and Ray would prepare an enormous cold lunch and cricket tea. In the evening there would
be dinner, the publishers' team seated around the long dining table in Hilton Hall.

Bunny and Ray were conveniently placed to offer hospitality to a changing cast of Cambridge undergraduates, bright young men and women who had caught the eye of a Harry Norton or Maynard Keynes. One such was John Hayward. He was a remarkable man. Not only was he more than competent to edit the Nonesuch Press
Collected Works of Rochester
while still a twenty-year-old undergraduate, but he did not let the matter of his progressing muscular dystrophy interfere with living life to the full. Bunny thought him ‘exceptionally courageous', ‘gay, affectionate and very witty'.
⁴⁰
He was a considerable literary scholar, an assiduous collector of books, and in the 1930s his London flat buzzed with the conversation of writers and intellectuals. Hayward was a flamboyant character, a dandy, but not a fop who, according to Bunny, had the air of a seventeenth century dramatist about him. When Bunny wrote praising Hayward's Introduction to
Rochester
, the young editor replied that it was ‘the kindliest letter I have ever had'.
⁴¹
Like many others to come, Hayward was always grateful to Bunny for this early support of his literary career.

‘My life now is divided into two parts. Nonesuch & Hilton. Two or three days a week I go to town […]. Then I am a business man, well dressed, & a devil for work. I go to parties etc. Here I look after my bees, potter in the garden, fiddle away at a big book I have in my head & entertain weekend visitors.'
¹

In the summer of 1925 Bunny began another book, a re-working for an adult audience of the tale of Puss in Boots. In order to concentrate on writing, he decided to accompany Alec Penrose to France, where they would spend a month at Cassis, on the Provencal coast. In mid-July, Ray, Richard and baby William were dispatched to Judy and Dick Rendel in Kent, while Bunny and Alec left for France.

Alec's wife Bertha and young daughter Sheila were already installed at Cassis, together with Alec's brother Roland Penrose and his beautiful girlfriend, the poet Valentine Andreé Boué. In
the circumstances, it was difficult for Bunny to focus on writing, and he was easily seduced by conversation and the delights of swimming in a warm sea. He wandered about wearing only trousers and a singlet, his arms bare and brown; swam every day, sailed in Roland's boat, and consumed delicious meals, drinking a bottle of wine at each of them. He attended fêtes and festivals, danced with lovely girls, and enjoyed something of a celebrity status with people joking about foxes turning into women.

All this he relayed to Ray in letter after letter. ‘I love & treasure the thought of you every moment of the day', he wrote, ‘You don't know how much I bless the day that sent you to me, for my own sake & my children'.
²
In his desire to share his happiness with Ray, he did not stop to consider how she felt, languishing in England with a small child and baby in tow. She was exhausted, but staying with relatives was not the kind of holiday she needed. Neither did she need to be told by her husband that he was having a fine time in close proximity to a glamorous beauty. He could not keep his eyes off Andreé, telling Ray she ‘interests me very much. I want to make real friends with her.' ‘I am not', he added disingenuously, ‘the least in love with her or excited by her though she is beautiful beyond anything one is used to. She is the
most
beautiful creature I know.'
³

Ray's anger manifested in silence: she punished Bunny by refusing to write. Why should she write happy responses to Bunny's descriptions of a woman with whom he seemed besotted? Bunny's protestations of love for Ray, often expressed in the context of her role as the mother of his children, might well have made her feel like a brood mare. But instead of understanding
the cause of her silence, Bunny began to pen increasingly petulant letters in which he questioned Ray's love. ‘You are a cold hearted unimaginative thing', he scolded, ‘& you have hurt me by your misery of silence'.
⁴
Ray finally capitulated because she needed to know about Bunny's plans to return home. ‘My nerves are raw', she wrote, ‘& I am very tired. This means nothing to you as I've said it often before but my God I am tired & it seems a pity to be too tired to be happy now that Richard & William are small & adorable & want me all the time. When they are older I expect they will be as unkind as you are & give me the heartache same as you do.'
⁵

Bunny and Andreé did not have an affair, but his inability to dissimulate and self-indulgent assumption that Ray would want vicariously to share his every experience, damaged his marriage. He could never understand that the characteristic Bloomsbury way of articulating, analysing, sharing, scrutinising and being open about personal relationships was not appropriate for Ray. She wanted to be happy, she wanted Bunny to love her, and she hoped he loved her exclusively; but she did not want to know about any other claims on his affections, real or imagined.

Ray also wanted to be taken into account; it was ironic that at the very time when she, above all people, deserved a holiday, Bunny should abandon her and go on vacation himself. It was another example of that selfishness manifest since his childhood, whereby he rarely did anything he didn't want to do and conversely usually achieved what he wanted. The vacation was also an example of his need for compartments, his urge to prevent the domestic sphere from merging with his wider social
circles. While he welcomed friends to socialise with his wife at Hilton, he rarely transported Ray into the external life he shared with them.

As Bunny told Lytton, ‘France was delightful. For a month I recaptured my twentieth year.'
⁶
That was exactly what Bunny wanted: he wanted his family and all the happiness it brought him but also to be able to access a different world, in which he could return to a carefree youthful existence. In one of his earliest letters to Ray he told her, his tongue only slightly in his cheek, that what he wanted in life was ‘Freedom', ‘Unbounded Admiration', ‘Universal success with women' and ‘Eternal Youth'.
⁷
These were neither realistic long-term choices nor the most appropriate to a happy marriage, but they did reflect his boundless enthusiasm for living life to the full. Bunny lived very much in the day (though he liked to have something appealing on the horizon) and he liked to be in love because every new love affair provided a fresh affirmation that life had not become stagnant or moribund, but could offer new experiences and be eternally renewed.

That autumn, Bunny heard from his American publisher that ‘Puss' had been turned down. He knew the decision was fair, conceding it ‘a meaningless story badly done'.
⁸
But this was a blow: the first time he had suffered a rejection of his work. To compound matters, he felt directionless: even as Bunny worried about putting food in his children's mouths, he could not settle to work. Instead he whiled away his time remodelling the garden or playing badminton, joined in both enterprises by Tommy's
brother, Garrow Tomlin, who was spending more and more time at Hilton. Edward advised Bunny that the only way forward was ‘to seclude yourself & go on day after day at it
more or less all day
'.
⁹
But his advice fell on deaf ears: Bunny allowed himself to be endlessly distracted, attending numerous parties, including one where he saw Picasso talking to the film star Douglas Fairbanks.

There were parties and parties: those of Bloomsbury tended to be more intellectual, with ‘good talk' a priority. But there was dancing too, Lydia accompanying Maynard dancing the ‘Keynes-Keynes' or everyone pushing back the furniture and dancing to gramophone records. Fancy-dress parties were favoured, Bunny and Geoffrey Keynes on one occasion encased in the rear and front of a dappled horse, like a pantomime pony. Light-hearted plays were performed on topical themes, usually with one member of Bloomsbury impersonating another. At one party, hosted by Bunny, Tommy came dressed as a fortune-teller, remaining unrecognised by his friends as he read their palms in an insalubriously shady alcove (the toilet in Duncan's studio). Bunny later acknowledged that the main aim was ‘to get the young woman whose eyes answered one's own downstairs in an empty room among the hats and coats'.
¹⁰
It was as though he had not progressed beyond youth.

As if Bunny did not have sufficient opportunity to socialise, he and Tommy established a dining club, for the purpose of good conversation among select friends. They called it the Cranium Club, after Thomas Love Peacock's Mr Cranium, the brainy
character with the enormous domed head, in
Headlong Hall
. The club met monthly, initially at the Verdi Restaurant on Wardour Street, later at the Reform Club. New members had to be proposed by two existing members, and then not be blackballed, which guaranteed nepotistic exclusivity. The list of members reveals just how much Bunny's influence prevailed. In 1929, four years after the club's formation, members included Frankie Birrell, Bunny's brother-in-law Tom Marshall, Garrow Tomlin, Gerald Brenan, Duncan Grant, Raymond Mortimer, Alec Penrose, Leonard Woolf, E.M. Forster, Charles Prentice, Lytton Strachey, James Strachey, Adrian Stephen, Maynard Keynes and Ralph Wright. It was all highly informal, but as Bunny's son Richard commented (having become a member in 1950) ‘We were a distinguished lot.' ‘It was an occasion to talk on equal terms with Stephen Spender or Isaiah Berlin or hear Christopher Strachey talking about computers when they had barely been invented.'
¹¹
The club was very private, with no publicity. There were no papers or presentations, it was simply an occasion for people to meet, dine and converse. It is also interesting, looking at that list of members, to note that Bunny was probably the only person on it who had not attended public school. But he had now indubitably joined the literary and artistic elite and was no longer an ‘outsider'.