Vanessa and Her Sister (20 page)

When we got home, Virginia did not ask about the house.

10 December 1906—46 Gordon Square (cold and Christmassy)

This afternoon, over luncheon with Clive at Rules:

“And she just …”

“Yes, she accepted the reasoning and promised to correct it—not that it needs so much correcting now that Violet knows, but she has promised to apologise. Once she explained it, it was all very understandable, really,” Clive said, motioning for the waiter. “The lamb as well, darling?”

I waited for him to finish ordering and said, “What is understandable? How can Virginia writing letters to Violet every day describing Thoby’s recovery”—I stumbled over the word—“be understandable? She actually told Violet that she, Adrian, and Thoby were off to the New Forest this week.”

“She simply
wanted
it to be true. She wanted to pretend. And she did not want to frighten Violet. Remember, Violet is battling typhoid too, although Virginia says she is on the mend. This wine is excellent.”

I looked at his sleek, unbothered calm and felt snaking irritation.

“I also would like it to be true. I would like my brother to be recovering in his room right now,” I finally said. “I just do not give myself the luxury of pretending that he is.”

“Virginia has such an
imagination
—it is easy to see how it could happen.”

“Imagination?” I asked through gritted teeth.

And
—Rules. The last time I went there, I was with Thoby. Each first without him sweeps my breath from me. But I am terrified to run out of firsts. Once they are gone, they cannot come back. It feels like I am leaving fresh, crisp footprints in new snow and marking up the clean white sheet of our life before. Soon there will be nothing left of the old life.

Later

We have started on the books. Virginia is taking all of the books. All of the books from Mother and from Father. I went upstairs to her sitting room tonight, and there were towers of books stacked
everywhere
. We did not mention Thoby’s books. It is understood that they will never leave Thoby’s study.

Books require bookshelves, and Virginia’s sitting room will not have nearly enough. I added bookshelves to the list for the architects.

10 December 1906

Jaffna, Ceylon

Lytton
,

I have a confession. I burnt your last letter. I did not want it to exist. Inexcusable and I apologise. One must square up rather than run.

All is the same here. Charlie-the-dog has forgotten wet English winters and lives only for chasing fat Indian mice. They are brave and quick and drive him wild. I wish I could say I was coming home immediately. I wish I felt pulled in a direction absolutely. Please congratulate Maynard for me. A fellowship at Trinity sounds excellent.

This letter has little point, I realise. I send it only to greet you, my friend. I think of our June days in Cambridge with the Goth reciting “Luriana Lurilee.”

Your
,    

Leonard

HRH KING EDWARD VII POSTAL STATIONERY

11 December 1906

Away, away away. Virginia, chastened and apologetic, has written Violet a truthful letter. But it no longer concerns us as we are going
away.

Treasures have emerged from the packing rubble. The missing copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s
Aurora Leigh
(inscribed to Father, although the ink is faded and blurred now) turned up amongst the Hardy novels, and letters from Tennyson and Disraeli to our great-grandmother Pattle slid out of Mother’s threadbare copy of
Villette
.

The work on the Fitzroy Square house is set to start the week after Christmas. I am leaving detailed lists with Adrian as Virginia is reluctant to visit the new house.

And
—We chose a date. St. Pancras Registry Office, 7 February 1907, half past ten. I will wear blue. I have not yet decided on a hat. We will invite no one.

POST CARD

This Space to Be Used for Correspondence

13 December 1906

Dearest Woolf
,
He has done it. Beastly Bell has snatched Vanessa, and they are affianced. Gruesome, ain’t it? Virginia is reeling a bit at the prospect of her florid new brother-in-law but is taking it much better than I would have thought. The dreadful day is set for February. In other news of our general decomposition, Virginia and Adrian are moving to Fitzroy Square, the Mole has gone travelling, and MacCarthy has moved to Suffolk. I only see him on Tuesdays and Thursdays when he comes into town. Luckily, Virginia is keeping up the Thursday nights. Is this to be the way of things? Letter to follow.

 
Yours,
Lytton

To:
Mr Leonard Woolf
Asst. Gov’t House
Jaffna, CEYLON

SERIES 7: ROWBOATS IN SUMMER

THE BELLS OF WILTSHIRE

Friday 14 December 1906—Cleeve House, Seend, Wiltshire (wet and cold)

W
ell, what did I expect? They are country gentry, live in a country house and like country sports. So, the house: the house is
not
beautiful. I’m sorry, house. The house is also
not
original. Whatever was here isn’t any more, as Clive’s father pulled it down to build this mock Jacobean mess, and I think it must be a pity. Anything old and gracefully crumbling would beat this great Victorian scalloped heap any day.

And the family? The mother is most likely lovely, but I never see her alone as she is always with her brute of a husband or Clive’s unbearable sister, Lorna. Lorna sounds like a hunting horn and moves with a great barrelling efficiency that I find unnerving. Even though the house is comparatively new (although one would never know it, as there is a freezing oak-panelled great hall
and
a minstrels gallery), it is not modernly equipped. The water supply is unreliable, and we are encouraged not to bathe—extraordinary. The parlour maid is called Meeks and the chauffeur is called Ovens. It is all too good to be true and would seem contrived in a novel. I must tell Morgan.

Later

I’ve been put in a freezing gothic bedroom complete with walls studded with decapitated animals. There is a cosy smallish dressing room for me and the same for Clive. We will use his dressing room as our studio. I will paint and he will write.

15 December 1906—Cleeve House, Seend, Wiltshire

Good god. A gong sounds, and we are to present ourselves in the chilly breakfast room. Only it isn’t for breakfast but a family sermon. The servants, in their starched black uniforms and frilly white aprons, keep to one side, and the family keep to the other. There is a reading, followed by a lecture, followed by the Lord’s Prayer. I was startled when the servants, on cue, dropped to their knees at the correct moment with a unanimous bang. The icy floor is rough on the knees, I should think. And then they go out and bring back coffee, tea, porridge, and eggs. We are to do this every morning?

I still collect funny things all day long to tell Thoby. I know Virginia and Adrian and Clive and Lytton do it as well, but grieving has become a private business. The wound seeps, but we no longer speak of it. Instead, it rests like an iron anchor on a thick chain dropped under the water. To speak of it, everyone, all together, would drown us.

But the habits remain, and I cannot keep from saving bits of news for him. He would love to hear about the pompous Bell country household. It would have made him like Clive more rather than less. I can hear him saying that it takes gumption to rise above such determined mediocrity. Although even Thoby could not have forgiven Clive for this ugly house. I cannot share that with Clive, I don’t yet know when it is all right to poke fun at his family. I wish I could ask Thoby about it. That slight wobble of unfamiliarity just makes me miss my brother more.

And
—Walter Headlam has asked if he can dedicate his translation of
Agamemnon
to Virginia. He is at least ten years her senior and we have known him since childhood. What an unlikely suitor.

Cleeve House, Seend

16 December 1906

Dearest Snow
,

My God, what a family. Dorothy, the younger of his sisters, is pleasant enough but Lorna, the elder sister, is a struggle. Double everything Lytton said and multiply it by three. Not that it matters. Clive and I are so wrapped up in our new togetherness that even if they were a marvellous family, we would still ignore them.

I want to know everything about him. Everything fascinates me. I am astonished. And the moment I want to know something, I ask him. No hesitation. No stumble. Does that sound like me? Utter freedom. I have been holding my breath for twenty-seven years. Virginia would be desperately hurt to read that line, whereas you, my dear, I know, understand perfectly. What can I tell you about my days? They are not mine but
ours
, and they are peppered with our Victorian family encounters. Otherwise they are spent writing and painting and reading and walking together. Throughout all of it there is a taut thread of unbroken conversation. Even in the silence, we keep pace.

So happy. When I am finished writing this, I will go straight to our shared study and tell him that I wrote to you, without pause or preamble. Can you imagine me doing that?

Do not worry about travelling down for the wedding, as we are inviting no one. The aunts and George and Gerald are all put out; to say nothing of Virginia. Adrian took it all with good humour.