Vanessa and Her Sister (22 page)

Clive is frankly stunned by my response. I questioned him endlessly about his expectations. He expected duty and diffidence. He thought I would require huge coaxing. “But you like it, and me, you are pleased it is
me
. I am … surprised,” he said yesterday as we were talking about it over supper. It is a subject that consumes and fascinates us long after we leave the villa.

“Did you think I would not like you?” I asked.

“After all the proposals, I thought you might not see me as other than a companion—a dear friend, but not a lover.” He blushed a furious
pink as he said it. His blushes are absolute, and he does not pretend they are not happening.

I had not realised how deeply my rejections had hurt him. They burrowed through all the soft flesh of insecurity and curled into his heart.

· ·

I
AM SURE THE STAFF
are laughing at us. We keep leaving for the day and returning in a matter of hours. We do not want to be with other people. Other people are hugely annoying. I feel as though we have made a great discovery—but then all new ex-virgins must think that? Clive has vast experience, I discovered. He was meticulously instructed by an energetic Mrs Raven Hill. I am not in the least jealous (Clive has assured me that she now sports several double chins and an enormous prow of a bosom) but am grateful to her. Her thoroughness is impressive.

31 March 1907—Hôtel du Quai Voltaire, Paris! (Easter Sunday)

Clive is in his element here. I can see that he is a Parisian born in Wiltshire. We dine with friends and artists and art dealers. Clive was disappointed to find that Mr Augustus John and Mr Wyndham Lewis were not in Paris at the moment, but he has had telegrams from both, and they will all meet soon in London.

Clive speaks of paint and sculpture in lush, primitive words. His ideas are simple but revolutionary. He is interested in what happens when one sees art. Sometimes I worry that I am boring him with my questions and colours, but my security returns when he kisses me.

Later

Supper at a tiny brasserie on the
rive gauche
with Duncan Grant and Henry Lamb:

“But Clive, it is
impossible
to categorise what happens!” Henry said loudly. He had drunk the better part of a bottle of wine. “It is different for everyone, every time! That is how art
must
be!”

Duncan and Henry both had the roasted lamb cutlets, and Clive and I ordered fillet of sole
pour deux. Tout est pour deux
.

Later

Now
I see it. Lytton’s compulsive love of Duncan. I didn’t before tonight. His charm is subtle and wears a sharpened blade, but it is not his charm that compels. It is in the deep nature of his stillness that the steep cliffs lie; birds above, sea below, he holds the rocky space between. His is a nerveless, animal quiet that cannot be learned but lives in the bedrock of instinct. When he asks a question, I feel that rather than answer
quickly
, I must answer
truthfully
. The stakes are high with him, and the gulls shriek in faraway warning, cautioning against the misstep of artifice. There is a challenge in his delicate beauty, a light-boned absorption. Suddenly there is nothing you need do, nowhere you need be, and instead a small inner shelf falls away, and the moment emerges clean, pure, unabridged.

He changes the chemistry of a room, reverses the gravity. It is no longer the ground that draws one close but Duncan. Everyone feels it but pretends they don’t.

Clive is a magnet turned the other way. His direction is outward. His reach is warm and long, and his generous humour encourages risk. I grow bigger, bolder; more inclined to speak a thought before it is polished hard and bright. The stakes are low, and the turns endless. Clive is home.

Lytton is planning to travel in France with Duncan this summer. Dangerous. Duncan takes him up and loves him only to let him go again. But that sense of precipice must be part of Lytton’s love. Is it in him to wholly love someone who loves him wholly in return?

And
—Walter Headlam has been writing to Virginia. Could she truly like him? She has not said. Could she see him as other than a friend of Father’s? Clive says he is too bookish for her. Can someone be too bookish for Virginia?

7 April 1907

Jaffna, Ceylon

Lytton
,

Just finished an early copy of Morgan’s second novel. MacCarthy sent it me as you were too lazy. The Longest Journey feels a bit like a nothing title, and the story feels fractured but sensitively wrought. Again the shattering event is relayed in sparse detail—beautifully done. I hope so. Rickie is clearly Morgan in an ill-fitting disguise. I find Morgan is someone I miss more rather than less; surely the mark of a good human?

Desmond tells me Virginia Stephen wants me to write something about the Goth. I do not think I can. I do not know Vanessa, as I have only met her a few times and just imagine her character to be a slighter version of the Goth’s. If that is true, she will suit Bell superbly well.

Staying on at least another year. Hoping to transfer away from Jaffna, but it would be unlikely to be promoted again so soon.

Yours
,  

Leonard

PS:
I keep forgetting the Goth is gone. As long as I do not return to London, he is there in all his broad-shouldered good humour, waiting for me. It is a childish feeling that I do not discourage. Not yet. I cannot let him go yet.

HRH KING EDWARD VII POSTAL STATIONERY

Sunday 7 April 1907—Hôtel du Quai Voltaire, Paris

Home is encroaching. Virginia and Adrian have come to Paris. Unusual to have guests on your wedding tour, but Virginia’s letters were getting frantic and so I relented. They arrived yesterday, and Clive and I met them off the train. I could feel Virginia looking me over, checking for any outward signs of change. She is terrified I will become some other unfamiliar Vanessa now that I am married.

Today the four of us breakfasted at Closerie des Lilas on the Boulevard du Montparnasse. Clive (and I) were hoping to meet M. Guillaume Apollinaire, who is a frequent patron, but he was not there this morning. It was warm enough for us to sit under the trees in the spotted shade. Clive persuaded Virginia to have a soft-boiled egg and was inordinately pleased with himself. Virginia’s egg was brought out in a delicate enamelled egg cup with great ceremony. Adrian and I had coffee and buns.

Virginia told us over breakfast that she has chosen grass-green carpets and deep red
brocade anglaise
curtains for her sitting room. I am afraid it will look like Fortnum’s at Christmas. But I do not have to live there.

Clive and I received so many wedding presents, and we have bought so much here in Paris, I am afraid Gordon Square will become hopelessly cluttered. Yesterday alone we bought a huge, silver Venetian looking glass for our room and several small paintings for Clive’s study. Each time I resist, Clive wins me over to the purchase by telling me that when we are old and grey, we will look back and remember that we bought it on our wedding tour.

I chose pale mauve curtains with butter-yellow linings for the drawing room—perfect.

POST CARD

This Space to Be Used for Correspondence

30 April 1907

My dear Strache
,
Received a postcard from Virginia about next Thursday in Fitzroy Square. Virginia wrote that Clive would be coming and how wonderful to hear all their Paris news. Can only assume Nessa will be there too? Oddly worded note, I have to say. Does one take a wedding gift if there was no church wedding? Not sure. Please advise. Counting upon you and Desmond to be there. If not, I shall make excuses. Saw Maynard at the India Office, and he cannot make it.

 
Yrs,
Saxon

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

SERIES 11. NUMBER 20: COVENT GARDEN FLOWER MARKET AT DAWN

HOME

10 June 1907—46 Gordon Square

W
e entertain at home together now.

Once Adrian and Virginia left, the air cleared and Gordon Square felt like home for Clive and me. As if it had always been that way. No. That is not right. The part when Thoby, Adrian, Virginia, and I lived here together stands out clear and precious. But the murky bit, when Virginia, Adrian, and I tried to lopsidedly carry on here without him, has become opaque and distant.

It was not easy to get them out. Virginia is sour with envy and irritation. She hated leaving and was as unhelpful as possible. She unpacked her book boxes twice in a disruptive effort to find her copy of
Middlemarch
. I re-packed the boxes, and Clive shifted them. I folded the linen,
and Clive rounded up the wellies. I collected her silver brushes, and Clive stacked her hatboxes. I know if it had been just me, I would have been flattened by their resistance to moving. But Clive and I did it together, and we withstood the flood.