Vanessa and Her Sister (27 page)

8 May 1908

Kandy, Ceylon

Lytton
,

I am not going to sweep in and propose to Virginia Stephen to save her from Walter Headlam, whom she has known all her life. She is a ravishing girl from what I recall, and there are many much more suitable and closer to hand candidates who would surely be up to the task. I can’t think she hankers after a Jewish civil servant whom she hardly knows and who is currently in the middle of the Indian Ocean. At least once a month you have suggested that I marry her. Do I sense a concealed agenda? Do
you
wish to be encouraged in that direction? Has your heart finally healed itself of Duncan? I can only hope that this is so.

I have been taking violent exercise; either squash racquets or tennis every day. I play with the Superintendent of Police, who was an Oxford Blue, and I have learned to play in inhospitable temperatures. I also occasionally play hockey with the Punjabi regiment. I am happy to report that Kandy is far more pleasant than Jaffna.

Yours
,  

Leonard

HRH KING EDWARD VII POSTAL STATIONERY

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Sunday 10 May 1908—46 Gordon Square (warm and pink)

“A
nd how is your valiant, wounded, book-fetching husband?” Lytton asked, settling into his customary basket chair.

“Busy,” I answered. It was good to be back. Our cases were hardly unpacked, and already the house thrummed with visitors. “He is preparing an essay on Manet at the moment. How did you know about his fall?”

“Injuries incurred in the service of Virginia are not likely to remain secret for long,” Lytton said flippantly. “She wrote to me, terribly excited that your devoted husband fell on his sword to please her. Although, more likely, it was to please you.” Lytton reached for a slice of Dundee cake. I had telephoned ahead and asked Maud to order it from Fortnum’s for him.

“He fell in the
gravel
, less dignified than a sword,” I said.

“The gravel was next to a moving train,” Clive said, joining us in the drawing room. It was the first time I had seen him all day. He bent and kissed me, and I handed him a thick wedge of cake.

“And the
beau
dauphin
? Is he well? Belching, teething, seeing to all those important baby tasks?” Lytton asked, daintily wiping his mouth.

“Asleep, at long last,” I said. Julian has been fractious lately. No wonder, with all the travelling he has been doing in his small life.

We talked on, of the opera (Virginia went four nights in a row last week) and the theatre and Saxon’s current obsession with the Ballets Russes and then, when Clive went out, of Lytton’s terrible Duncan-shaped heartbreak. I am glad I came home.

Later (nine pm)

Clive just told me that Maynard means to move into 21 Fitzroy Square. One door down from Duncan. It will be awful for Lytton.

15 May 1908—46 Gordon Square (late afternoon, sunny but chilly)

Virginia popped by to deliver an extraordinary rumour this afternoon. She looked like a child with an extra-special secret. Apparently, Father’s friend Mr Henry James has been heard to say that he cannot believe one of Leslie Stephen’s daughters strayed so far as to marry Clive Bell. Stray so far from whom? The half-witted damp pink men George kept introducing me to? Irritating. No idea where Virginia got such a rumour. She might have made it up.

Later

I was surrounded by my favourite buggers tonight. Lytton, James, James’s friend Harry Norton, and Morgan all stopped by this evening. We played the gramophone, danced, gossiped, told rude jokes, drank, and ate chocolate biscuits until three in the morning. Clive stayed up in his study, saying he had to work. Unlike him.

20 May 1908

My Violet
,

Where are you now? New York? I hope so, as that is where I am sending this letter. I am also sending a kiss that I ought to dress in chic, narrow-shouldered, expensive clothes and equip with a good cigarette holder to use uptown—is that a place? Uptown?

My dearest one, I dislike being proposed to. Unless of course it is you doing the proposing. Such a lot of affection and attention, I ought to like it, but I don’t. Walter Headlam will no doubt be coming next Thursday, and I am running out of things to say to him. I am trying not to be wicked—you do know that, don’t you? Trying don’t count for much when it comes time to pay up. I suppose I have refused Mr Headlam, but refused really is the wrong word. Drifted. That is what I have done. He asked me early in the year, and I prevaricated, sidestepped, and ignored it and let the subject drift away. Eventually, he stopped asking. Wicked, I know. When one is asked such a question, one ought to answer. But if one has no idea what to answer? Then what?

I think it was my first proper proposal. There have been others, but they lacked substance. Will it make me feel better to recount the others? Shall you like to hear them? There was Lytton, who asked me to marry him one evening at a Trinity Ball. That way we could avoid having to dance with anyone else and make awkward conversation. He also suggested I marry his long-absent friend Leonard, but as that was a proxy request, I doubt it counts. Walter Lamb also mentioned it once behind a potted palm at a dinner party—I can’t think whose. He said I would make an interesting wife. Hilton Young has been nosing about, and everyone thinks he will make a run at me, but I am not sure yet. I proposed almost daily to Nessa before she married Clive, but she always turned me down, however sweeping and sincere I was. And for symmetry, last week Clive tried to kiss me and told me he loves me—does that count?

Yrs
,     

Virginia

POST CARD

This Space to Be Used for Correspondence

25 May 1908

My Dear Strachey
Great things afoot. Just booked tickets to Paris to see the Ballets Russes at the Opera Garnier. Did you read the interview with Diaghilev in the Times last week? The man is a genius. Got a note from Adrian. I understand evenings at Fitzroy Square resume next week?

Yours,
Saxon

 
PS:
Adrian told me about Maynard and Duncan. Bad luck. Sincere sympathy. Funny expression—sounds as though something died. But then I suppose, something has. Thoughtless of me—have I made it worse? I hope not. Please forgive.

To:
Mr Lytton Strachey
67 Belsize Park Gardens
Hampstead, N.W.

SERIES 6. COWES IN SUMMER

30 May 1908—46 Gordon Square (my birthday—raining and cosy)

Lytton stopped in today. It was a quiet afternoon. Clive went out after breakfast and will not be back until early evening. Before he left, he sweetly put birthday roses on my breakfast tray. I am to have a treat tonight: Clive and I are leaving the baby with Elsie and going out for a supper at Rules and then to see Maurice Baring’s
The Grey Stocking
. Lytton saw it and liked it but then told me that his taste is not to be
trusted as he is too preoccupied to work up real disgust about anything at the moment.

Lytton is heartbroken. Touchingly, he has chosen to remain friends with both of the treacherous lovers—Maynard because they have been friends too long not to be friends, and Duncan because he loves him. Lytton understands the fundamental problem: “How could one
not
fall in love with Duncan?” he asked sincerely.

Our visit ended in laughter. Lytton tells me that ever since he found out about the affair between Maynard and Duncan, he is haunted by the smell of semen. “It is everywhere, darling. Mother just can’t escape it. Watch out at the opera house—it was definitely sprinkled in the dress circle. Someone was having a
very
good time in box six.” He says it is torturing him enough to put him off men. Perhaps he should marry Virginia?

31 May 1908—46 Gordon Square (six pm)

My fingernails are cutting into my palm.

I ought to put them back where I found them. I ought to go and check on Julian. I ought to open my hand and look at them again. But I cannot seem to put them down.

I was collecting Clive’s jackets for Maud to press. For a man who cares so deeply about his appearance, he does not see to his clothes terribly well. But then, I suppose until recently he has always had a valet. We planned to hire one, but then came Julian and we needed a nurse instead. Clive has always resented that. And so I round up Clive’s jackets and send them down to the laundry with Maud to be washed and pressed.

I checked the pockets. I always look, as Maud forgets. They were inside the breast pocket. Mother’s blue enamelled hairpins: the ones Virginia always wears. Four of them lay in a row like toy soldiers in my palm.

And now I cannot seem to put them down.

Later

She may have left them in Cornwall. He may have found them when we were packing up. She may not know he has them. He may have thought they were mine. He may have. She may have.

It may be nothing. But nothing is nothing when it comes to Virginia.

1 June 1908

Dearest Mother
,

I must thank you again for the wonderful bulbs you gave us this spring. The lily of the valley have been magnificent. And now may I ask you for yet another favour? Would you mind taking the children next week? Mr J. P. Morgan has a commission for me, and Helen is not up to having them at home without me there. She is recovering well but slowly and still has moments where she does not recognise me and, worse, does not recognise the children. And then there are the voices always. We had another of the dreadful violent episodes last night, but thank God, it passed quickly. I managed to restrain her, but she still struck her head against the wall with a terrible force.