Vanessa and Her Sister (32 page)

Lytton, also watching, leaned forward to me. “You know
nothing
has happened between them, don’t you?”

“No,” I said. “It is not nothing.”

My sister and my husband opened the front door and let the cold air in.

VIRGINIA

20 November 1908—46 Gordon Square (London!)

H
ome and a raft of notes and cards were piled upon the hall table waiting for me. Invitations:

Ottoline: yes

Aunt Anny: yes

Gerald: no

As well, there was a stack of post for Virginia. She still receives about half of her correspondence here. An envelope from Mr Cecil Headlam, Walter’s brother. I will walk it over to her now.

And
—My God, Thoby, it has been two years today. I feel decades older, and you are still a golden twenty-six.

Later (one am)

Home. Exhausted. It happened. I suppose it had to happen.

Tonight:

“Virginia, aren’t you going to open it?” I asked, watching her toss Cecil Headlam’s letter onto the kindling pile.

“No. I already know what it says, and I know I don’t want to.” Virginia
slumped deeper into her wingback chair. It used to be Father’s, and I can remember him adopting that same sulky position.

“Well, then, I will answer Cecil. What does he want?”

“He wants me to help write Walter’s memoir. He wants to know if I have any particular memories I want included. And I don’t.” Virginia pointedly took up her book. I looked at the spine. Eliot.
The Mill on the Floss
. She’s reading it again.

“Dearest Billy Goat.” I could feel myself wheedling and stopped. If she wished to insult Cecil, I was not going to prevent her. Virginia is determined to behave badly in every quadrant of her life at the moment, and nothing I say seems to stop her. I picked the letter up out of the pile and began looking around for my hatpin, lost in the sofa cushions.

“Nessa, that is
my
letter. What do you want with it?” Virginia challenged.

“I am going to write to him, since you seem to be too ill-mannered to do so.”

I was shocked when Virginia leapt from her chair and snatched the envelope out of my hand.

“It is
mine
. Do not touch what is
mine
.” Virginia’s face had taken on a feral malevolence. I should have called out for Adrian. I should have sent for Dr Savage.

“What is
yours
, Virginia?” I asked softly. I too could be dangerous. “Do you want to discuss what is yours and what is mine? Do you really?”

But Virginia was trapped in a cyclone of anger and resentment by then and too far gone to hear my warning.

She was muttering to herself, “
Mine
, Nessa. You do not get to have everything and everyone. Some things are
mine
. Walter was mine. He did not love
you
. You think that everyone must love
you
?
You?
The perfect mother. The perfect wife. Walter didn’t. Walter loved
me
.” She was pacing. For once I was unafraid of her madness. Unmoved by her fragile mind.

“Yes, Walter loved you. He even asked to marry you.” I watched her stride back and forth in front of the fireplace.

“Yes, yes, he did. He thought
I
was beautiful and brilliant. He told me I had a classically noble disposition, Vanessa. A
noble
disposition, unlike you, who have become some sort of breeding animal, dribbling milk and grunting at her piglet. How could you, Nessa, when you were so splendid.”

I stepped back, stung.

“Beautiful and brilliant,” she continued. “He told everyone he thought so. Beautiful and brilliant.” She was repeating herself. A bad sign that I should have heeded, but I refused to bend to her instability. “He said that there was no one who could touch me, no one who could best me. And so he asked me to
marry
him.”

“Yes.” I paused. “Just as Clive asked
me
.” His name fell like a stone through the thickened air.

“Clive.” Virginia had stopped pacing. “Clive and you.”

“Yes. And now it is Clive and
you
.” I held very still.

“That is not
my
fault, Nessa,” Virginia said, pulling at her hair and shifting from foot to foot. “Not my fault. I cannot help how he feels.”

“No. I do not believe that.” I looked at her levelly, insisting she remain calm. “You have pursued this, Virginia. And I could have forgiven you, had you fallen in love with him. Had you felt sincere passion or even real affection, I could have made sense of my sister doing this atrocious thing. But you are not in love. You are jealous. You cannot bear to be left out. And so you have broken what you could not have.”

“And what if it is broken?” Her chin lifted in rebellion. “He is not
enough
for you, Nessa. He is not up to being a man in our family. I am your
sister
. Our relationship is unbreakable. What does it matter what happens between you and that thing, Clive?”

“
Nothing
is unbreakable,” I said quietly.

Virginia stood still. All her wildness tamed.

Still later (three am)

I go over it in my mind. How I should have said this, and this. How I should have raised all her terrible destruction to the surface like a shipwrecked
boat dredged up from the sea floor. But that would have given the fracture a shape, a dimension—a definite perimeter to the ruin. This way has a subtle cruelty. This way will torment. She will spend years trying to map the rift she caused and sound the damage. She will push on the bruise and grow frantic trying to repair the creeping remoteness. It is the unkindest thing I have ever done. And I will not relent. I will not do otherwise. Damn her. And damn him.

18 December 1908—46 Gordon Square

This morning, when I went to take Julian from Elsie, he looked at me and with his voice full of purpose, said “Mama.”

PROPOSALS

6 January 1909

Dearest Mother
,

I spent all yesterday with the architects, Mr Clemence and Mr Moon, talking about the house I intend to build here in Guildford. They suggested several wonderful innovations to make the home more comfortable (radiators hidden under the floorboards!) and the plans should be ready by next week. I will bring them when I next come to London.

I feel sure that leaving London was the right thing to do. Here Helen will be able to rest and recover in peace. She is still in hospital, but Dr Chambers is hoping she can be released by the end of the month. Joan has taken the children to Bristol so that I can work. For the last two weeks, the doctor has advised me not to visit Helen, as her outbursts have turned violent again. I should hate to see her restrained, even for her own safety. There are days when I feel in the grip of crashing sadness. We began with such an ignorant happiness. We had no idea such things could happen. And now. How could we have come to this place? I am choking in the swollen dark.

And then I shake myself and return to my industry. It is the only answer. I am working with my former assistant, Burroughs, in New York to negotiate a marvellous Renoir for the museum, La Famille Charpentier. It is an unusual composition and has so far been undervalued. I hope this neglect persists long enough for me to buy it. There is also a Whistler (a portrait of M. Theodore Duret—wonderful—owned by King Leopold) that would be perfect for the Met. Burroughs (who has replaced me as curator) agrees and is travelling over next month to see them both.

I hope you and Father are still planning to come for Sunday lunch? Let me know the time, and I will meet the train.

All love
,

Roger
   

Thursday 21 January 1909—46 Gordon Square (frosty)

“And she is fifteen!” Lytton lit his pipe and then handed me his lighter, and sat back in his customary chair.

“And James is …?” I relit my cigarette. We were having Thursday night here tonight, as Julian has a cold and I did not want to leave him. Since we returned from Paris, we have been meeting at Virginia and Adrian’s. It was still early. Clive was dressing, and Lytton and I were in the drawing room discussing his brother’s latest romantic misadventure.

“James is still besotted by Brooke, and Brooke is besotted by this fifteen-year-old Miss Noel Olivier. Rupert is absurd, writing sometimes three or four letters a day to this schoolgirl. But then if one is in love, letters are a moment of relief until the frenzy subsides.”

I looked at Lytton. This autumn he has done his best to make peace with Duncan and Maynard. It is a courageous thing.

“I suppose I see it in a carnal, objective way, as he is astonishing to look at, but I just do not see the
point
of Brooke. He is so self-satisfied and, I don’t know, lazy—yes, lazy.” Lytton reached for another slice of cake.

“Lazy? You only say that because he is not interested in being friends with you,” I said.

“Do you know, we spent a month living on the same staircase at Cambridge, and nothing—he had no interest in speaking to me. I call that lazy.”

“But James?”

“James is in the death throes of the thing, and one can only hope it passes soon. Although it might carry James away with it.” He looked up at me. “Not all of us have the willpower to survive these things, Nessa.”

21 January 1909

Kandy, Ceylon

Lytton
,

I am sorry to have neglected you for so long. We are having a disaster here. Rinderpest disease has broken out in several herds in the neighbouring province of Uva, and it will be catastrophic if it spreads to our cattle herds. It is highly contagious and can wipe out thousands at a time. Cattle are people’s most precious possession here, and to lose them is heartbreaking as well as ruinous.