Vanessa and Her Sister (31 page)

I know you know, so there is little sense in pretending.

To answer your long-ago question, yes, I mind. My sister and my husband do little to hide their affair, and I am at last angry—very angry. Do they suppose I am a dim-witted woman? Do they suppose that as Virginia presumes upon every other aspect of my life, I would not mind sharing my marriage as well? Do they suppose that my trust in my marriage will survive this? We have all talked so much about the provincial confinement of conventional marriage and our desire for modern, broad-minded freedom. But we never spoke of what trust is broken when freedom is taken rather than given. I am released from my traditional marriage, whether or not I chose to be. Here I am.

Virginia has decided that my foul mood is a result of my nerves and keeps insinuating that I am having a breakdown. I am ignoring it. London in a few days, and Julian and work. For now I think in colour, in paint and pen and ink and shape. It is safer, and there are fewer lies. I know they find me distant. I know they find me changed. I know they do not think I know. And I know what they still do not: that betrayal is betrayal, whether the betrayed knows it or not.

Preoccupied with art and artists, Clive and I have much to talk about, but the small intimacies of loving each other are lost—that time of trusting and expanding as a couple is over. I presume that affection between us will survive in some form. It is more convenient that way. And Virginia? I do not know what to say about Virginia except that she cannot be other than she is. She never could. But then, she has never had to.

Dearest Lytton, you did warn me. And Virginia warned me. Only Thoby had utter faith. Perhaps because he drew out the best parts of Clive? I do not, it seems. Virginia was right. My husband is not good enough.

Burn this letter.

Yours
,  

Vanessa

12 October 1908—46 Gordon Square (late afternoon)

So far I have said nothing. Lytton looks at me anxiously when he thinks no one is looking, but we have not had a moment alone together to discuss my appalling letter.

I am the one who is appalled. To have expressed so much. To have lost my nerve and crashed through the thicket of all the carefully built calm. And yet Clive and Virginia seem to notice nothing. Nothing. Clive still comes to my room at least once a week, and Virginia still prattles on, inviting me to praise her, to hear her, to heed her, to love her. And I do nothing to crack the smooth eggshell surface of our life together. Why?

But then, a dying star can light the sky for centuries after her fall.

· ·

C
LIVE HAS SUGGESTED ANOTHER
holiday to Cornwall. The Bells and the Stephens. Virginia clapped her lovely white hands and flashed her lovely
grey eyes at the prospect. I am sure Clive truly believes this holiday was his idea, but I know better.

And
—Elsie says that babies often say “Mama” before they are a year old. Julian looks at me, and I know he knows who I am, but he has yet to speak. Should I worry? Perhaps I ought to ask Ottoline?

21 October 1908—46 Gordon Square (late)

Henry Lamb came for supper. Virginia, Saxon, and Adrian were at the opera, and Lytton was with Maynard, so it was just the three of us. Henry is less affected than he used to be and dresses like an eccentric. He is also less dogmatic and shrill when he speaks to Clive. He used to intimidate me with his unbridled conviction and utter absolutism. He is more civilised now.

Clive, Henry, and I stayed up and spoke about art until the early morning. Henry is now very much in the sway of Augustus John, has changed his approach to underpainting entirely, and has given up painting with black altogether. The result is a diffused, blended, less strict look. I like it enormously. Clive says that Virginia has commissioned Henry to do a portrait of me when he gets back from Edinburgh next month.

Clive insisted I show Henry my portrait of Lytton’s sister Marjorie. Clive thinks it is one of my best, but I am still ambivalent about the angle of the pose.

“Oh, I like this,” Henry said, pointing to the way the figure’s arm leaned over the table. “I like the quarter-turned shoulders and the way you do not try to make her beautiful.”

“Isn’t my wife marvellous,” Clive said, squeezing my hand with that familiar, possessive look of love and pride.

Henry was effusive in his praise and gave me some helpful advice about the troubling vase of yellow chrysanthemums. After supper we pushed back the furniture and switched on the gramophone so Henry could teach us the foxtrot. I caught on quickly, and Henry and I whirled around the rug, but Clive kept confusing the steps. He was always quick
on the fourth beat when he should have been slow. Eventually, Henry took my place and danced with Clive until he got it. Lytton and Maynard stopped in at about midnight and, seeing Henry and Clive, began to dance as well.

Later (three am)

I switched on the light, but he did not move. Clive is sleeping beside me in our old bed—in our old room—tonight it
feels
like our room, but I know now that that feeling will go in the morning. Tonight was like sharply recalling a distant memory—the affection, the sex. Is this where our modern view of marriage has dropped us? He flirts with my sister during the day and then sleeps beside me at night? Am I to take only what I am offered? I feel passive, as if my life is being decided by others and I will be a bother to everyone if I fuss. It will not do.

22 October 1908—46 Gordon Square (dawn)

Clive has gone back to his room. I asked him to. I could not let him stay. Sex, yes. Sleep, no. This is
my
room now.

25 October 1908—46 Gordon Square (late, raining)

Virginia and Adrian, Lytton and Marjorie, Ottoline and Philip, Gwennie Darwin and Rupert Brooke (down from Cambridge), Maynard, Duncan, Lady Katherine (Katie) Thynne and her husband, Lord Cromer, and Saxon for supper this evening. Virginia went quiet several times (each time that Clive called me “darling” in fact), but Clive and Hilton took turns enticing her out. I watched Clive expertly knit the evening together. I watched him slip in and out of conversations, fuelling debate, laughter, and gossip. He makes people feel comfortable and heard. I felt flat and scattered. I kept losing the arc of the evening. Instead, I watched. I watched Clive watching Virginia.

27 October 1908—46 Gordon Square (late)

“Isn’t this the first novel you started, Morgan?” Clive said, taking a sandwich from the tray. Virginia looked away. She can’t bear watching people eat.

“Yes, I started this one in 1902. But it did not feel right, so I dropped it,” Morgan said in a low voice, wiping his hands softly on his napkin.

It is good having him back in London, however briefly. He is so often away, Greece last year, and now he is going to India. He sails on Monday.

“I began it after Mother and I travelled in Italy in 1901,” Morgan continued quietly.

“Why didn’t you finish it?” Lytton asked from his basket chair, where he was having trouble lighting his pipe. He never cleans his pipes properly and then complains that they won’t light. Morgan goes about his writing with such an unfussy, self-effacing grace that he is one of the few people for whom Lytton feels no real jealousy, only admiration.

“
A
Room with a View
is a beautiful title,” I said, handing Lytton my lighter. I’ve been smoking far less since Julian was born but still carry Great-aunt Julia’s chased silver lighter in my pocket.

“Thank you,” Morgan said. “I like it too. I was pleased the publishers let me keep it.”

“Why didn’t you finish it six years ago?” Virginia asked. She is bitingly jealous of Morgan and usually avoids discussing his novels, but curiosity had got the best of her.

“I couldn’t,” Morgan said, uncomfortable at being the centre of attention. “It would not come right. The end felt too neatly patched together and too, I don’t know … resolved?” he said, his voice lifting into a question. “The problem of how to go about things, how to live as one should, as one wants to, when one
can’t
really. It was such a muddle.”

I looked at Morgan, astonished. It was a lengthy and deeply personal speech for him.

“Ah,” said Lytton. “You mean how to live as a bugger when the world tells you not to?” Everyone roared with laughter.

“Yes, I suppose,” Morgan said, flushing. “I suppose that is it.”

29 October 1908—46 Gordon Square (late afternoon—beautiful light)

We are going to Cornwall. We are booked in to stay at Penmenner House, a small hotel in an area known as the Lizard—seems fitting for my family at the moment. No, Vanessa. Too forked. Too spiteful. Too obvious, really. My jealousy is seeping through.

And
—Lytton is coming with us. We will not be alone in our unhappy triangle.

Saturday 31 October 1908—46 Gordon Square (All Souls’ Eve)

Just home from a supper party at Ottoline and Philip Morrell’s magnificent Bedford Square house. It was a pleasant evening. Morgan was there, and we spoke some more about his new novel. I had thought that he had written himself as George Emerson, but it seems he is Lucy Honeychurch.

“Mr Emerson—old Mr Emerson—is that not you?” I asked.

“Ah, Mr Emerson. He is how I
ought
to be,” Morgan said. “But being Mr Emerson takes huge courage.”

“Is he based on someone?” I asked.

“I met a man once, in Italy. A Mr Edward Carpenter.” Morgan stopped mid-thought, as he sometimes does. I waited for him to resume. “He believed in love—all kinds of love. He was”—Morgan paused—“very wonderful.”

Later

I woke up in the night and, out of habit, checked on Julian. Seeing that he was sleeping, I came down to the darkened drawing room and sat on
the long sofa overlooking the square. I thought about the conversation with Morgan, about the asymmetrical shapes of love, about the inevitable destructive quality of secrets. Morgan’s ideal is to bring the muddle into the open. He does not try to solve the muddle, he just hopes not to hide it. What a small important thing he is doing.

12 November 1908—Penmenner House, the Lizard, Cornwall (early)

I relish writing our current address. It is a tiny serpent joy. Everything is different from the last time we holidayed here. But the activities remain stubbornly unchanged: breakfasting, painting, walking, writing, piquet, reading, and talking—always the talking. I really could do without so much talking. I have nothing to say. Instead I seethe. Have they noticed that I no longer talk? No. Because now we are translated into another language—a language of ragged-edged undercurrents and bitten-off consonants rather than the open-armed, snareless friendship of good.

Lytton watches them, fascinated by their boldness, by their shamelessness really. Clive’s pursuit and Virginia’s encouragement. Their pretexts are long-winded and their excuses reed thin. Each afternoon Virginia goes walking, and it is only Clive who joins her. Lytton is astonished. But he can’t help being fascinated by Virginia.

Later

We stayed up late as Lytton and Virginia talked about his intended novel. From what I can tell, the plot involves a prime minister, a don’s wife, a saucy footman, and some prostitutes. He won’t actually write scenes of buggery, but he means to brush very close. He and Virginia sat by the fire hashing out ways for this unlikely medley of characters to believably interact. Virginia grew agitated (as she often does around good writers) and abruptly ended the conversation by asking Lytton to please confine his genius to nonfiction. Clive watched from the sofa looking stormy.

Friday 13 November 1908—Penmenner House, the Lizard, Cornwall (early morning)

I went in to visit Lytton over his breakfast tray. His routine is unshakeable. Soft-boiled egg, toast, coffee, and his letters all taken on a tray in bed.

“I have been thinking about triangles,” Lytton said, dunking his toast in his egg. “We all love in triangles. Duncan, Maynard, and me. James, Henry, and Rupert. And now Clive, Virginia, and you. And Ottoline always has a triangle going on with some man or woman.”

“Ottoline is a Sapphist?” Did I know that?

“Only sometimes. She is having an affair with Augustus John at the moment. I don’t think Philip minds, especially as he is always entangled in a romance of his own. You know she has a beautiful, long, low country home where she stashes them? Peppard Cottage. I have often stayed there.”

“And do you participate in these liaisons with Ottoline?” I asked, half-teasing.

“At one point I worried she might be expecting it, and I thought I would have to pack my bags and go as it would be too ghastly, but no. She knows I am a bugger.”

“Ha!” How I love Lytton’s pragmatic indecency. I kissed his forehead and left him to his breakfast.

Later (afternoon)

“Does he know he is making himself ridiculous?” Lytton asked, dropping into the wicker armchair opposite and picking up the thread of our ongoing discussion of Clive. “He is becoming a buffoon. He was already mostly a buffoon, but now he is really finishing the job.”

“Does anyone know when they are becoming ridiculous? Is there such a thing as ridiculous, or is it just a social construction?” I asked. That was the sort of circular philosophical nonsense question that
Thoby used to ask during our earnest Thursday evenings. Now we mostly gossip and talk about sex.

“No,” Lytton answered. “No, he does not know. Nor does he think that you suspect. You are playing the part of the unwitting wife perfectly.”

“And Virginia?”

“She
wants
you to know. It is your attention she’s after, not his. She does not care about Clive. It is you she loves.” Lytton gestured out the window. Virginia and Clive were coming up the walk. Virginia’s hat was off, and her cheeks were whipped raw with pink. They paused on the path, their heads bent close. Clive watched intently as Virginia pinned her hat back into place. Virginia waited as Clive tugged self-consciously at his jacket.