Vanessa and Her Sister (14 page)

Duncan, the beautiful, elusive cousin he loves. I can see how Duncan throws sparks with his clear, slim-boned loveliness but fail to understand how they could catch flame into love. Duncan is too remote for love.

“The equilibrium is off,” Lytton said, pulling at the fraying blue damask of the armchair. “I fall, and he floats. It can only end with me hitting the ground with a very rough thump, and that is no fun if there is no one to pick you up, dust you off, and love you afterwards.”

I did not answer, as what do I know of this?

15 May 1906—46 Gordon Square

The table is definitely now Virginia’s. She has had two of the legs sawn off and had it bolted to the wall of her sitting room. She is talking about having Mr Shaw, the carpenter, come back for further improvements—something about inkpots and ledges. Thoby and Adrian came rushing
in when they heard the sound of wood splitting, but they were too late.

Violet refused to give up the price of the table, so Virginia sent her vegetables instead. Adrian, who enjoys fresh vegetables, is mollified. Thoby remains outraged—but then he doesn’t think much of vegetables and prefers cheese.

Wednesday 30 May 1906—46 Gordon Square (early, sky still pink)

There will be noise and friends and music and champagne and gifts and flowers and cake and dancing—later. Adrian will play, Thoby will sing, Virginia will kiss, Lytton will sparkle, Maynard will smoke, Saxon will watch, Clive will charm, Morgan will leave, and Desmond will laugh—but later. For now I am going to sit wrapped in my dressing gown, watch the sun light the trees in the square, and feel what it is to be twenty-seven years old.

I have a wanderlust. This year I want to travel—Greece? The drums of marriage are sounding. We four must clasp hands and flee.

LEMONADE SUMMER

15 June 1906—46 Gordon Square

“
E
nigmatic,” Clive said, reaching for his cigarette case. “That is the right word.”

He offered me a cigarette. I shook my head.

“Enigmatic?” I rolled the word round my mouth and then washed it down with iced mint tea. It was not a tasty word. “But I am not mysterious. I do not try to be. For that you must look to Virginia or Lytton.”

“Mysterious is different. Mystery implies deceit. You are enigmatic because you only say what is absolutely true. Often contradictory, partial, incomplete, badly thought through, and thorny, but true.”

His courtship has taken a turn for the bizarre.

· ·

E
NIGMATIC
.
I
DO NOT
know if I can be friends with that word. I am not sure what word I would prefer. Instead I would like the leeway to change my word randomly and without warning. Is that normal? Surely other women would be happy to live inside one full, sweet word? It is not that I do not like him, because I do. It is not that I do not like to be in his company, because I do. It is that once the choice is made, it cannot be unmade. The potential fulfilled. The
who
of my life will be defined. I
know lots of women take lovers and reinvent the who, but I am not such a woman.

Vanessa.
Latin for “butterfly”—Father chose my name. Am I meant to change?

19 June 1906—46 Gordon Square (warm but not hot)

Oscar Wilde’s
Salome
opened to a small private audience last night. Saxon, Clive, Lytton, and Thoby all went to see it.

“Think they’ll lift the ban after this?” Thoby asked, coming out of the garden door carrying three glasses of lemonade. We were in the garden enjoying the last of the summer afternoon.

“The play is banned?” I asked, then regretted it, as everyone seemed to know that but me.

“Yes, the beastly Lord Chamberlain banned it in the nineties. Dear Oscar never got to see it. He was already locked up by then and sending lovely limericks from Reading Gaol.” Lytton took a long drink of lemonade, getting bits of pulp wedged in his frizzy beard.

I watched Lytton carefully. He was discussing a play written by a man who loved other men and went to prison for it. I sometimes forget how very close to a keening wind Lytton sails.

Duncan has decided to spend the summer in London rather than return immediately to Paris. (Virginia suspects it is cheaper for him to stay with his parents in Hampstead than live
la
impoverished
vie bohème
in a Parisian garret.) Duncan will not see him alone, and so Lytton is running away to Cambridge. “Clever move,” Virginia said, when I told her about Lytton’s retreat. “Disappearing is the only way to make Duncan notice that he was ever there.”

Saturday 30 June 1906—46 Gordon Square (summer evening butterflies everywhere)

He asked me to go walking in the park, and I suggested the drawing room. He asked me if I would like champagne, and I asked for lemonade.
He asked if I still loved roses, and I said I preferred peonies. He asked if I would like him to shut the window, and I asked him to open the door.

He asked if I would marry him and I said no.

He did not respond to my no but stood by the mantelpiece quietly considering me. I felt self-conscious: of my hair, upswept but untidy, with long waved tendrils escaping over my shoulders; of my dress, a sprigged green muslin I am fond of, but the lace on the right sleeve is smeared with grey oil paint; of my cheeks—a rubbed fresh pink, as always when I am with him. But now when he looks at me, I feel beautiful. It is not a familiar sensation. This time he had no speech and did not kneel. Instead, a conversation.

“So today it is no,” he said, setting down his glass.

“Tomorrow it will also be no.”

“Yes, but it is still today,” he said, looking at me with his new peculiar, concentrated calm. “Now shall we walk?” he asked, crossing to the door.

Our business over, we resumed the day. I was outfoxed. I do not understand the shift in footing: I feel translucent to his bold brushstroke. When did this happen? The signal must have come from me. I must have given ground somewhere in the invisible air between us. Twenty-seven. Should I be so cavalier with marriage proposals?

And
—I have spent the spring planting seeds of Greece and perhaps even Asia in the family imagination and it is time to pick the fruit. Thoby thinks travelling this autumn would be “splendid,” and when I asked about Greece, he said, “Why not?” Wherever Thoby goes, we all want to follow.

Later (very late, everyone asleep)

No? No. No? No. Really? Clive wants me to write a letter to explain my no. He is right. It is no longer a single straight-syllabled word solidly built and painted in the primary colours of conviction. Instead it is a tumbledown cottage of a word, furnished in curiosity and thatched in doubt.

1 July 1906—46 Gordon Square

I have written a letter to Mr Bell. I tried for decorum but am better suited to honesty. Every time I try for Elinor Dashwood, I wind up as Marianne. I decided to tell him only things that are true:

That I like him better than any man
not
in my own family.

That he ought to go away for a year to make me miss him as I am too selfish and lazy to understand my own feelings if he stays here.

That I can not marry him now.

Quick—send it, Nessa, before common sense returns.

· ·

T
ELLING THE WHOLE BALD
, messy, unflattering truth suits me, whether it leaves me enigmatic or not. Easy to remember and unnecessary to defend—one coat of thick, pure paint.

2 July 1906

Dear Woolf
,

It is July, and after the hard, brilliant whites and rioting fuchsias of the south of France, England’s gentle rained-on summer seems unimpressive. But then our rain must be a teardrop trifle next to the fearsome monsoons of the east. Can’t fathom a monsoon. It seems biblical in its indecent lack of moderation. It isn’t the volume of the rain but the punctuality. From this month to that month, I shall be wet. Oh my dear, no.

What is my news, you asked in your last letter? My news is grim. Duncan has returned to London and taken refuge with his family in Hampstead (yes, near to my family in Hampstead—torture), and so I am taking refuge with Maynard. It is not really a practical solution as it only further muddles a muddle. Desmond is moving to the country with his épouse. It is the end, my petal, the end.

In happier news: the Gothic family are on the march. The newest plan is Greece in the autumn and then perhaps on to Constantinople. Vanessa has such a determination to live—I admire it. Unfortunately my determination is only to love—and that never ends well, does it?

Yours
,

Lytton

5 July 1906—46 Gordon Square (in the garden, hot—finally!)

Off to Eton, and what Virginia refers to as “the Cornish wedding” on Tuesday. I am pleased for Desmond and terrified of his bride. She is permanent. She is not someone one must suffer as a dinner companion and then escape. She has our Desmond forever.

Saturday 7 July 1906—46 Gordon Square (in the garden square)

“He really loves you, you know.” Lytton was sitting on the worn park bench beside me.

“Yes, so he says,” I said. I did not know how much Lytton knew.

“No, Nessa. He really loves you. And this is not how Clive usually loves.”

I was startled. It had not occurred to me that Clive had loved elsewhere. I felt a forward jolt of jealousy. How complacent of me to assume I stood alone.

“Not how he
usually
loves?” I asked, kicking the sandy gravel of the path and scuffing my shoe.

“No. Clive usually loves in character, not as himself.”

“Character? I keep repeating you—forgive me.”

“Yes, he plays the urbane, genial host of a vaguely intellectual dinner party. Haven’t you noticed?”

No, I hadn’t noticed. The Clive I know is limned by sincerity. It is bone deep.

Monday 9 July 1906—46 Gordon Square (hot!)

Shopping again all morning. I asked Virginia to come with me, as I am buying travelling clothes for her as well, but she refused.

“I want
you
to dress me, Nessa. I will like the clothes so much more if you choose them.” Exasperating.

I ordered travelling suits, muslin day dresses, four blouses, navy serge skirts, plus belts and two evening dresses (black silk with a pearl neckline for Virginia and grey chiffon with roses at the shoulder for me). I also ordered white lawn dresses and bathing costumes (red-striped for me and navy sailor for Virginia).

BLO’ NORTON

3 August 1906—Blo’ Norton Hall, Norfolk

T
his house, which we have taken for the month, is low-slung with peaked roofs at either end. Like a child standing between her parents. Inside it has a stripped-down, bleached, Elizabethan feeling. The staircases creak and the raw beams shift and resettle. The taps in the bath splutter but, after coaxing, produce hot water. It is a welcoming, rumbling, tolerant place.