Vanessa and Her Sister (29 page)

I am voting for Venice and Florence as well but doubt I will have my way. Virginia is being contrary and says she does not care for the light in Venice.

Three am (in the armchair by my window, can’t sleep, stormy outside)

I watched more than spoke tonight, but I am comfortable that way. Clive, sitting beside me, also let the evening eddy around him without directing the currents as he usually does.

Interesting developments: Hilton spent a long time talking to Virginia, and I saw Lytton watching them keenly. I sometimes wonder if Lytton would consider marrying Virginia? He is not romantically interested
in women, but sometimes it seems as though he could fall in love with Virginia out of sheer curiosity. He has always been fascinated by her. Clive was also tracking the interaction closely but did not leave my side. How she rivets, my sister. Virginia’s conversation has taken on a hard, diamond brilliance. When did that happen? She plays to keep now: carving up the chessboard, fluent and calm. And each time the pieces move to defend their queen.

Friday 19 June 1908—46 Gordon Square

Tonight:

“Do you mind it?” Lytton asked, shutting the tall windows against the rain.

“Mind?” I asked, trying to find my glass from the many scattered all over the room. We had meant to have an evening alone, but Lytton called in after supper with James and Desmond, and then Virginia and Adrian popped by, and suddenly I was hostess again.

Now, Lytton and I were alone in the drawing room. Desmond had left early to catch his train, and Adrian had left with James. Clive was walking Virginia home. I told him it would rain, but she insisted that it was just too silly to get a cab around the corner to Fitzroy Square. I did not mention that she often
insists
on a cab to Fitzroy Square. Her capriciousness is best left unquestioned if one wants to avoid a scene. Lytton stayed behind, his eyes semi-shut and his red springy beard resting neatly on his chest.

“Yes,
mind
.” He calmly waited for my response and did not clutter the air with words we did not need.

The question swung like a trapeze through my thoughts, threatening to kick open my carefully boxed-away fears. Did I want this conversation? Even with Lytton? Even with myself? No.

My voice took on a challenging pitch. “Of course I don’t mind. Why should I? I would much prefer Virginia not walk home alone.”

“No reason, my dear. Absolutely no reason at all.”

Later

I asked him, and he said no. It is enough. I refolded the question and tucked it back under the shelf of my swollen fleshy heart. No good comes of half-believing. I have decided to trust this man—to hitch my happiness to our life together. When did I decide to do that? My happiness was always drawn by painting before. Before, I was in love with being an artist. Before, I was not in love with Clive.

Lytton is naturally wary of betrayal at the moment. It is the landscape he lives in.

20 June 1908—46 Gordon Square

Left Julian with Elsie and slipped out on my own for a peach ice at Buzzards. I sat in the shade and ate it slowly, feeling like a runaway.

21 June 1908—46 Gordon Square

Walter Headlam is
dead
. He was only a few years older than us. Clive rushed in to tell me. Apparently he went to the King’s College ball and a fellows’ party last week plus a cricket match at Lord’s, and then yesterday he fell down dead. I teased him for his hypochondria. He must have known something that we did not. Clive left immediately for Fitzroy Square to tell Virginia. I ought to have gone, but she will either be hysterical or cold—neither of which is sincere.

Later

“She was upset—her sensibilities are so
fine
—but not in love with him, thank God. Did you know she had refused him?” Clive was standing at the mantel in the drawing room. Agitated, he was finding it difficult to light his pipe.

“I guessed, but did not know,” I said. On the fifth try, he lit it.

POST CARD

This Space to Be Used for Correspondence

25 June 1908

My Dear Woolf
,
Have you heard? Headlam. Up and died on a Saturday afternoon. He had been to a ball at King’s, the cricket, and then kaput. He was always fretting that it would happen. Ghastly. I always fret that it will happen to me too. Perhaps I should stop? I was right, he
had
proposed to beautiful Virginia, who from her lack of yes, I assume said no. I saw her yesterday, and she seems sanguine. But then, she is starting trouble in a different quarter just now. It really would be best for everyone if you married her. Letter to follow.

 
Yrs,
Lytton

To:
Mr Leonard Woolf
Gov’t House
Kandy, CEYLON

HATCHARD’S BOOKSHOP

5 July 1908—46 Gordon Square

There was a small informal memorial for Walter Headlam today. I listened to Adrian and Virginia telling stories about our childhood summers at St. Ives. We knew him all our lives.

ITALIA

Monday 17 August 1908—46 Gordon Square (hot!)

V
irginia is off to Manorbier tomorrow. As usual, George and Margaret are appalled that she is travelling alone, but she is determined and says she needs the solitude to write. She is to stay at Sea View, where Clive and I stayed on our wedding tour. Last year—a hundred years ago.
Everything
before Julian feels like a hundred years ago. Virginia is cutting it finely. She will barely make it back from Wales in time for us to all leave for Italy in a few weeks. “Did Clive suggest it?” I asked her when I stopped in this afternoon.

“Of course. He said I would enjoy Tenby, the little village by the sea,” Virginia answered without looking up from the letter she was writing. “I told him it would make me miss you less to be in a place where I knew you had been happy. Won’t it make you happy to know I will be thinking of you?”

Virginia logic.

20 August 1908—Gordon Square (late)

Another three letters from Virginia today. They were disastrous. She talks of cliff walking and slipping and imagines the sensation of her arms being torn back by the fall but reassures me that she has no wish
to misstep. Does she mean to terrify me? Of course she does. I beg her to take care, and she basks in my protectiveness, but it only spurs her on to recklessness.

Saturday 22 August 1908—46 Gordon Square (ten pm—in the library, chilly without a fire)

Clive lowered the letter he was reading. “She wants to know if you have finished your sonnet.” Clive uncrossed his ankles and stretched his legs in a great cat stretch.

“Sonnet? Am I writing a sonnet?” I put down my sketchbook.

“Apparently you are writing a sonnet about Julian’s eyelashes?” Clive said, consulting his letter.

“Virginia?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Who else? She is now calling you ‘sweet honey bee’ and would like me to kiss your, I can’t make it out … 
knee
, maybe? At once.”

“Only because it rhymes with
bee.
” I went back to sorting through my sketches of Julian.

“Perhaps, but ever the faithful brother-in-law, I am happy to oblige.” He popped out of his chair and kissed my knee. “She also says that she is enjoying the
primitive
and
unbridled
setting of our wedding tour. Was it primitive? I don’t recall?”

“Yes, it was.” I ran my hand through his reddish curls. “The sea was wild, and the air never stood still. But
you
were the one who was unbridled, if I remember,” I said.

25 August 1908

My Dear Woolf
,

Mon frère, James has fallen for the rather garishly beautiful Rupert Brooke. We are in Scotland recuperating our demolished hearts. Our sisters Pippa and Pernel are joining us in a few days. Virginia writes that she has completed one hundred pages of her grand oeuvre and the Mole has nearly rattled off another novel. I shall ask him to send you an early copy. I am feeling slothful in my lack of productivity. Your physical exertions sound alarming. Do take care. Very pleased you are in a more comfortable situation but have no interest in your becoming so comfortable that you never return.

Yrs
,   

Lytton

PS:
Do consider marrying Virginia. Apart from being lovely to look at, she is the most extraordinary company, and we do not want to lose her to an outsider. If Bell can make off with Vanessa, anything is possible.

Sea View, Manorbier Pembrokeshire, Wales

27 August 1908

Dearest Nessa
,

Is Clive keeping my letters from you? Is he stashing them under cushions and inside shoes? Has he locked you in a store cupboard and refused you pen and ink? Have you been jailed for duelling? Taken prisoner? Shipped to Australia? Chased up a tree, shot at dawn, or lost at sea? It is the only explanation for your continued silence. I have not had a letter in four days. I feel like Napoleon badgering Josephine.

I am writing well, dearest. One hundred pages of my novel and counting. It is something. I arrive back on the 31st and I understand we leave for Italy on the 1st? Would you send Maud round to unpack and re-pack your disorganised Goat? I am meant to go to the opera with Saxon on either the Monday or the Tuesday (depending on when he can get a ticket). Would you and Clive like to go? If so, send a note round to him at once. I can make either day provided the train is on time.

Friends of Violet have just returned from Florence and report that there is a dangerous fever running riot in the city—but maybe that is just in the heat of summer and by next week we will find Italy bathed in cool clean air of autumn? What do you think? What does Clive say?