Vanessa and Her Sister

Authors: Priya Parmar

BOOK: Vanessa and Her Sister

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Vanessa and Her Sister
is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Parmar, Priya Vanessa and her sister: a novel/Priya Parmar.
pages; cm
ISBN 978-0-8041-7637-8
eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-7638-5
1. Bell, Vanessa, 1879–1961—Fiction. 2. Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941—Fiction. 3. Sisters—Fiction. 4. Women artists—England—20th century—Fiction. 5. Women authors, English—20th century—Fiction.
6. Bloomsbury group—Fiction. 7. London (England)—Intellectual life—20th century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3616.A757V36 2014
813′.6—dc23 2014030434

www.ballantinebooks.com

Frontispiece: A sketch of Vanessa Bell by Roger Fry

v3.1

For Tina and Nicky
who made growing up fun
and
For M and D
who gave us the moon

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Cast of Characters

Part One: Vanessa Stephen

The Party

Mr Sargent

A Holiday in France

The New Gallery

In a Cambridge Garden in June

Flowers at the Door

A Thursday Evening at Home

Once for Luck

Godrevy Lighthouse

Tennis Whites

Friday Evenings in Autumn

Part Two: The Stephens Go Abroad

Is it Worth it?

Lemonade Summer

Blo’ Norton

To Antiquity

The East

The Return

Thoby

Yes

Bezique

The Bells of Wiltshire

La Belle Époque

Closerie Des Lilas

Home

Part Three: Vanessa Bell

Julian Heward Bell

Where the Land Ends

Questions and Answers

Mr Headlam

Italia

Corresponding

Virginia

Proposals

Clarissa

Part Four: Vanessa in Paint and Ink

A Meeting on a Train

Hoaxing at Sea

King Edward VII

Twickenham

Gratian

The Post-Impressionist Exhibition

The Red Train

Painters

Regretfully Yours

On a Swing

Part Five: The Bells and the Woolves

Resolution

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

Other Books by This Author

About the Author

I
n 1905 a group of friends began to meet in the drawing room of a London townhouse in the bohemian neighborhood known as Bloomsbury. Defying the conventions of their day, they were brimming with new ideas about art, literature, love, and friendship. Innovative and headstrong, they would go on to change the course of art and letters in the twentieth century. History remembers them as the Bloomsbury Group.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

(as of 1905)

STEPHEN FAMILY

S
IR
L
ESLIE
S
TEPHEN
—literary critic, biographer, died in 1904

J
ULIA
D
UCKWORTH
S
TEPHEN
—his second wife, philanthropist, died in 1895

V
ANESSA
S
TEPHEN
—Julia and Leslie Stephen’s eldest child, painter

J
ULIAN
T
HOBY
S
TEPHEN
(T
HOBY, THE
G
OTH
)—second eldest sibling, Cambridge graduate, law student

V
IRGINIA
S
TEPHEN
(
THE
G
OAT
)—third eldest sibling, writer

A
DRIAN
S
TEPHEN
—youngest sibling, Cambridge undergraduate

G
EORGE
D
UCKWORTH
—child of Julia’s first marriage to Herbert Duckworth

L
ADY
M
ARGARET
D
UCKWORTH
—his wife

G
ERALD
D
UCKWORTH
—child of Julia’s first marriage

S
TELLA
D
UCKWORTH
—child of Julia’s first marriage, died in 1897

FRIENDS

C
LIVE
B
ELL
—Cambridge graduate, art critic

R
UPERT
B
ROOKE
—Cambridge undergraduate, poet

V
IOLET
D
ICKINSON
—friend of Virginia’s and family friend of the Stephens

E. M
ORGAN
F
ORSTER
(
THE
M
OLE
)—Cambridge graduate, novelist

R
OGER
F
RY
—Cambridge graduate, curator of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City

H
ELEN
F
RY
—his wife, artist

D
UNCAN
G
RANT
—Lytton Strachey’s cousin and lover, artist

S
IR
W
ALTER
H
EADLAM
—childhood friend of the Stephens, classicist

J
OHN
M
AYNARD
K
EYNES
—Cambridge undergraduate, economist

H
ENRY
L
AMB
—painter

W
ALTER
L
AMB
—his brother, Cambridge graduate, classicist

D
ESMOND
M
AC
C
ARTHY
—Cambridge graduate, journalist

L
ADY
O
TTOLINE
M
ORRELL
—socialite, literary hostess

I
RENE
N
OEL
—friend of Vanessa’s and Virginia’s, descendant of Lord Byron

M
ARGERY
S
NOWDON
(S
NOW
)—friend of Vanessa’s from the Slade School of Art, artist

J
AMES
S
TRACHEY
—Lytton’s younger brother, Cambridge graduate

L
YTTON
S
TRACHEY
—Cambridge graduate, journalist

L
EONARD
W
OOLF
—Cambridge graduate, cadet in the Colonial Civil Service in Ceylon

2 December 1912—Asheham

Dearest Nessa
,

She arrived in an inauspicious brown crate. Your painting is smaller and rougher than I expected. Mrs Virginia Woolf in a Deckchair—what a marvellously blunt title. Without it, I am not sure anyone would know it is me given the empty face but Leonard says he recognised the set of the shoulders right away.

Where shall I put your beautiful canvas? Leonard thinks the upstairs hallway. Would you choose when you come down next week? You know how I like it when you decide these things. You
are
still coming down?

There is an unrushed calm about your Mrs Woolf. Is this how you see me now, dearest? The woman in the painting looks whole and serene and loved. Am I still loveable? Or have I undone that now?