Vanessa and Her Sister (42 page)

And
—Julian and I watched the birds in the square this morning. He is so like Thoby. I have hung Thoby’s lark and nuthatch drawings in his room.

Thursday 10 November 1910—46 Gordon Square (late)

“The reviews are awful,” Maynard said to no one in particular.

“But that is perfect!” Lytton said from his basket chair. “The British public will rush to see something scandalous. My dears, they must see it. Otherwise how can they criticise?”

“But they are taking it as a
moral
affront,” I said. “I knew they would not
like
it, but they are
outraged
.”

“Wonderful!” Clive said. “That way they will be
sure
to see it.”

11 November 1910

Dearest Mother
,

Please explain to Father that I am not exhibiting pornography. I am sure he will read the reviews of my show and worry that I am. Yes, the public are disconcerted, but that is how art must happen. It cannot be a comfortable, smooth transition from one aesthetic to another. It must bump and jostle and disrupt and shake the ground until the ground gives way. My reputation as an Old Masters lecturer is sunk for good after this. So be it. The old does not politely move over to make way for the new; it must be roughly shouldered aside. If you and Father would like to come one evening after all the crowds are gone, I would very much like you to see the exhibition.

Thank you for writing to Helen. The doctor has been very kind and helpful to me as well as to her. He encourages me not to blame myself, and I sense that he is trying to prepare me for the worst. I told him that I have been trying to prepare myself for this news for years but cannot do it. The callus will not grow. I do not want it to. What sort of person would I have to become to be “prepared” for such news? Instead, I must continue to hope. In each letter, in each visit, there are moments, small and fragile as eggs, of precious normality. For that fraction of time the ice door opens and she is calm, not violent, not rageful, but herself. I hang my heart on these moments.

Love
,

Roger

14 November 1910—46 Gordon Square

They were right. The gallery is packed like a fish crate every day. Morgan went yesterday and pronounced it “confusing.” Morgan is traditional in his tastes and gets startled when I say “bugger” at a dinner party, so I am not surprised he got muddled about the paintings. Maynard is seeing it tomorrow. Duncan loved it and is enjoying the vocal indignation of the public. Virginia has not been to see it yet (crowds make her nervous at present), and Clive and I go daily.

And
—I am experimenting with dark fragmented outlines around my loosely drawn figures. It allows me to move freely inside a stricter space. Like wild horses in a broken-down paddock.

Sunday 20 November 1910—46 Gordon Square (9.30pm)

What Roger has done is remarkable. His reputation as an art critic will never recover from the mighty fury he has raised in London, but he does not care. He lives entirely in the present tense. It is astonishing, particularly given what he has been enduring this month. Desmond was here for supper. He has been staying here whenever he misses the last train back to Surrey. Desmond is chronically late and leads a mistimed life, so
often
misses his trains.

He said it quietly. He said it just to me. While Lytton, Maynard, Duncan, Adrian, Virginia, and Clive were enjoying a rowdy gossip about Ottoline and Henry Lamb, whose affair seems to be drawing to a messy close, Desmond leaned over and, in a low voice, told me that Roger’s wife has finally been declared incurably insane and was placed in a permanent institution this morning.

“He has known it was coming for some time,” Desmond said softly. “But I think that makes it harder when the day actually comes, don’t you?”

I looked over at Virginia. All my worst fears for my sister follow this sea lane. It is lightless and choppy and the tide is strong. “Yes,” I said. “Hope is an unbreakable habit.”

Later (two am)

I came up to bed and went to check on Quentin. They are all still downstairs. I keep thinking of Roger alone in the big house in Guildford. Desmond says the children are with Roger’s sister in Bristol. I know Roger built that astonishing house on a hill for his wife, even though he never said so. “Open spaces are better for Helen,” he said on the day we joined him for luncheon. “She prefers to be out of London.” She lived there so briefly. It is a terrible thing to grieve for someone who is not dead, not in love with someone else, but just no longer there.

And
—I watched Clive and Virginia tonight. Clive has behaved in a way that has released me from all the love I felt for him. But he has left
me whole, intact. However can Roger go on after breaking his own heart?

21 November 1910—46 Gordon Square (late—everyone asleep)

I suppose it was inevitable. Clive and Lytton have never liked each other much. No, that is not true. I think Clive would very much have liked to be Lytton’s friend, especially after Thoby died, but over the years it has become painfully clear that Lytton does not think much of my husband. Tonight they had a noisy row, and Clive threw Lytton out of the house.

The air between them was drum tight. Clive accused Lytton of spending too much time with his family—by that he meant Virginia and me. Lytton accused Clive of behaving like a pig of a husband. I was grateful that he left the specific details of Clive’s bad behaviour unsaid. But then, there was no need to say them. Everyone knows.

22 November 1910—46 Gordon Square

We had breakfast as usual. Neither of us mentioned the row with Lytton. This is how our life is this autumn. We get on fine if things remain flat, routine, and dishonest. But I could not leave it at that.

“You know I mean to still invite Lytton here, don’t you?” I said as he sliced his grapefruit.

“When?” he snapped.

“Whenever.”

“To annoy me?”

“No. I do not think it
should
annoy you.”

“But it does, and you won’t change to suit me,” Clive said, sounding hurt.

“No, I won’t. I love Lytton dearly and want him here. I am sorry.” The truth is best.

Later

I met Lytton at Ottoline’s this afternoon. She left us alone to talk. She really does have the most marvellous tact.

“Are you going to try to make it up with him?” I asked him bluntly.

“No use,” Lytton said. “He is angry about things that I cannot help.”

Thursday 24 November 1910—46 Gordon Square

The art gallery at Helsinki just bought a Cézanne from the show, the
Mont Sainte-Victoire
, for
eight hundred
pounds! I am regretting Clive’s decision not to buy the Van Gogh we liked. He thought four hundred pounds was too much. I am pleased we bought the Picasso last month for only four pounds. It is a small cubist still life with beautiful colours. Ottoline has bought two paintings from the exhibition, though I am not sure which ones. She has visited the gallery nearly as often as Clive and me. It is strange that she never asks me to accompany her. Our friendship has mellowed to a kind civility. I am disappointed. To my surprise, I enjoy her company very much.

Later

Clive came home with lots of gossip. Ottoline and Henry are through, although they always say that and never really are, and Bertie Russell is in love with Ottoline. He and his wife, Alys, live entirely apart now. I did not tell Clive but I suspect Ottoline has begun to care very much for Roger. Roger notices nothing. This month, how could he?

1 December 1910

My dear heart
,

Yes, I have received your letters. I am sorry not to have replied. I was acting under the doctor’s advice. He thinks you will settle in better if you have less news from Durbins. But I know it pains you not to hear from your family. I ought to have written. It was wrong. Forgive me? I am stumbling, my dear, and you must believe that I am doing my best.

The children are still with Joan, and both asked me to send their very best love. Joan is teaching them to ride, and they are learning quickly. I have been very much occupied with the new exhibition in London. It has brought a riot of anger and derision down on my head, but the bad press has only increased our sales. It is all painters you have long loved and I am sure you would approve. There is a Matisse you would adore and two Gauguin nudes I chose not to hang in the end. You would have included them, but then you are braver than I am. You always have been.

How I miss you, my dearest one. How you are threaded through my thoughts. I wish I could take you away to a world of colour and light. Perhaps things will change and you will grow well enough. I hope only for that.

Sleep well, my dear
,

Roger
                    

20 December 1910—46 Gordon Square

Leaving for Wiltshire to see Clive’s family for Christmas and am resentful. Virginia and Adrian are staying at the Pelham Arms in Lewes for a week’s holiday, and I am being hauled off to face the dragons.

Quentin is doing a bit better but still does not weigh as much as he should. I do not like taking him out in midwinter.

THE RED TRAIN

15 January 1911—Little Talland House, Firle, Sussex

V
irginia has rented her own house. She found it while she and Adrian were spending Christmas in Firle and took it on the spot. I came down to see it right away. “My own first proper home,” she said, happily trotting from room to room. Having a place of her own has already done such good. It settles her, calms her, just knowing it exists somewhere on this earth. Predictably, she has renamed it Little Talland House after the house Father rented for so many years in Cornwall. We have been scavenging for furniture for the last three days, and Virginia is fed up. She has found a wonderful stand-up desk, very like her desk in Fitzroy Square, and so considers the house furnished. Her books are stacked in towering piles on the floor of her new study.

I worry that Adrian will be a bit adrift on his own at Fitzroy Square, but Virginia told me that he spends nearly all his time with Duncan anyway. Good.

25 January 1911—46 Gordon Square

Virginia’s birthday. She is visiting Lytton’s sister Marjorie for the night. Clive, who said that he was in Wiltshire last week to see about some family business, was most likely either in Sussex at Virginia’s new country
house or with his Mrs Raven Hill. I made the mistake of working on my painting of the bathers today. I am sure I ruined it. So I sent a note round to Lytton, who came over, and we ate cake.