by Priya Parmar
Some days Nelly’s portrait feels exactly, seamlessly right and others it slips and misses the mark. Does Mr Sargent fall in and out of love with his own paintings? I did not ask.
26 March 1905—46 Gordon Square
Ginia and Adrian left on the morning train. The day stretches out in front of me, empty and whole.
27 March 1905—46 Gordon Square
Thoby spent the morning marching about the house fretting about a hat that Adrian pinched and took on his trip. “But your hat will benefit from a broader acquaintanceship,” I told him after breakfast. “It will mix with urbane Spanish hats and come back lisping and tanned.”
“It will end up lost, stolen, smashed, or, worse, smelling of pork—everything smells of pork in Spain,” Thoby said with authority and went back to his book.
Now Thoby has gone birdwatching with Mr Bell. The house settles onto its haunches when Thoby goes; lays its head on its paws and waits for his return.
UNION POSTALE UNIVERSELLE
CEYLON (CYLAN)
4 April 1905
Grand Oriental Hotel, Colombo, Ceylon
Dear Lytton,
Travelled from Jaffna back to Colombo this week. They are recalling me and two other cadets to discuss ways to improve communications between the provinces. The summons took a fortnight to reach me.
I left Charlie-the-dog in the hands of my Sinhalese houseboy and am sure he will have gained a stone and picked up very bad habits by the time I return.
Has spring come to Cambridge?
Yrs,
Leonard
HRH KING EDWARD VII POSTAL STATIONERY
5 April 1905—46 Gordon Square (before breakfast)
Chaos. And dust everywhere. The mantel from Hyde Park Gate (one of the only things we wanted to keep from the house) is to be installed in the drawing room on the first floor, and the current mantel (thickset and literal) is to be dislodged and discarded. I had thought of moving it to Thoby’s study downstairs but am afraid it might ruin the pretty, squared simplicity of that room.
Later
We dressed for dinner. It is becoming fussy and old-fashioned to change in the evening but I like it. I like the ritual grace of it, the sharp, circular breath of the fresh corset, the slim columns of lace and silk.
Thoby’s friends call him the Goth as they think he looks like a gothic romantic hero, but in a starched evening shirt, crisp collar, white silk tie, and beautifully finished tailcoat, Thoby looks more like a monumental Elgin marble. Both my brothers are tall, but it is Thoby’s golden proportions that give him that Acropolis look.
Even later (one am)
Packing and cocoa. Packing in my nightgown. My toes grip the warm wood floor. I open the window. The square ripples with lilac. The chestnut trees lean protectively over the garden. The low grass is subtle and lush like a well-kept secret. Too much sensation. I close the window. The tautness of waiting. Curls of anticipation. Of travel? Of change? Of art?
No. None of these. The answer does not land like a bird in my hand the way I want it to.
Damn.
Waiting has become a habit with me.
A HOLIDAY IN FRANCE
6 April 1905—Portsmouth (raining)
Where are they now? Seville? Adrian will be complaining of the heat, and Virginia will want to go bull fighting.
Eavesdropping. Two commercial travellers discussing riots in Madrid. Worrying.
10 April 1905—Hôtel de Ste. Lucie, Honfleur
(early—sky still pink)
I am sitting in the postage-stamp garden behind this crumbly hotel drinking cocoa from a handle-less blue cracked bowl. Snow is painting on a bluff overlooking the harbour. I should be painting, or reading Balzac under a plane tree, but unromantically, I am doing our household accounts. They pass to the eldest woman in our family. Mother, Stella, and now me.
Was it right to let the house in Hyde Park Gate? Will those funds, plus the income from our inheritance from Father, be enough for our yearly allowance? And if it is enough now, will it be enough always? So far it has been all right, but Virginia’s doctor’s fees threaten to chip away at the capital, and George says we must be careful. Luckily, the rent in Bloomsbury is cheap. I meant to do the accounts before I left but ran out of time. It is absurd to be paying the bill for a butcher in Covent Garden when I am in Honfleur, but I am the eldest woman in my family, and this is what we do.
Virginia Stephen
46 Gordon Square
Bloomsbury
Hotel Washington Irving, Granada
11 April 1905
My Dearest Nessa,
Are you still in Honfleur? I forgot to write down your travel dates.
Nothing went to plan. Boat broke and so took the train to Lisbon. Is there anything so irritating as travelling without a book? I left it in the last hotel, and there was not time to go back for it. We saw only one church today and just two yesterday, but we had a good proper walk this morning and saw: one woman who looked as if she was late to meet her lover, two small boys selling turnips, and seven nuns, so that makes up for everything.
I am second-guessing the article I sent in to Mr Maitland at the Times. I should have sent the piece about Father and Tennyson or the chunk about our childhood summers in Cornwall. Feeling the thumping dread of a missed opportunity.
Are you well, dearest? Adrian has already caught a cold, and I am quite concerned for poor Thoby, confined to bed in London with diphtheria. His unhappy throat is swollen to three times its normal size, and he can manage nothing but lemon custard and hot chocolate. As you can imagine, he yearns for a carrot. Take good care of yourself, my dearest Dolphin, and please do think of your poor Billy Goat who is missing you terribly. I wish I had something blooming and fresh to lay at your feet to show you how I love you.
Your
Billy Goat
PS: Adrian has lost his luggage twice on this trip and his cases have only now caught up to us—naturally, but there is a piano in the hotel, so he is happy.
PPS: I look at the heading on the writing paper and it makes me miss the mechanical noises of London. Spanish traffic sounds so unbridled.
Friday 14 April 1905—Hôtel d’Angleterre, Caen, France (the air smells of apple blossom)
There were Cornish fishing boats in the harbour at Honfleur yesterday. I see them and am dissolved into a thousand late days of summer fireflies and cool Cornish water sipping the rocky beach. It comes back wholly, sensually, in a way that no active recalling of a moment can do.
69 LANCASTER GATE
LONDON W.
Trinity College, Cambridge—en route
Friday 21 April 1905
Dear Saxon,
I was delighted to see you last night, and I apologise for keeping you out so late. I can only imagine that an evening’s deliciousness is soured when gainful employment looms in the morning. Did you make it in to the Treasury Office by nine?
Don’t you think the Goth managed remarkably well last night without dear Vanessa’s capable organisation? What a void those sisters leave when they fly away. Virginia’s incisive, scathing chirps and Vanessa’s level-hipped stability usually provide the contours for a Thursday evening. Do you suppose they know that the evening revolves around them?
Are you free to go to the opera on Tuesday? Do let me know.
Yours,
Lytton
Sunday 23 April 1905—46 Gordon Square
A train a boat a train a cab. There is nothing like the first bath after being abroad.
Later (after supper)
Mr Bell joined us for supper this evening. He and Thoby are still downstairs talking. He asked to see my paintings, quite directly and without preamble—as if he had planned to ask before he arrived. I was sure he was just being polite, but I surprised myself by unpacking the landscapes I did in Honfleur and Cassis. He looked at them, really looked at them, before he spoke. I like that.
Even later (can’t sleep)
A slice of moon lights my room. Bright en
ough to read by. Bright enough to write. There is deep magic in nights like this. They are different from other, darker, more ordinary nights. I circle back to Mr Bell’s comments. His suggestions were practical. He spoke to me about the unevenness of texture and the disorienting lack of depth in the landscape. He asked if I did it intentionally. Did I? No. I let instinct drive the scene. He waited, unhurried, for my answer. There is a completeness in his attention. It is not unnerving, but it is not familiar either. It is like a song one hears for the first time and wants to hear again.
Monday 24 April 1905—46 Gordon Square (Virginia and Adrian are back)
“So Snow was not too tiresome in the end?” Virginia asked pointedly. “She wasn’t too annoying or intimate? No awkward silences?”
“No,” I said carefully. Snow’s gentle humour and level common sense have the uniform consistency of spring water. But it is a narrow precipice with Virginia. Too much affection given to someone else and she can topple over, too little and she gloats. “It was quiet and not uncomfortable in the least.” I smoked a steadying breath of my cigarette. “Of course, dearest, I would have much preferred to be with you.”
Later
Virginia received a letter from Mr Maitland, at the Times Literary Supplement, in the second post. He wants to call today and discuss her writing. Virginia is hoping he will invite her to be a permanent reviewer. I am crackling with harp-string nerves but trying not to show it.
Writing is Virginia’s engine. She thrums with purpose when she writes. Her scattershot joy and frantic distraction refocus, and she funnels into her purest form. Her centre holds until the piece is over, and she comes apart again.
Later still
Mr Maitland just left. A mixed reception: while her latest book review for the TLS has been rejected—not academic enough—she has been invited to try again soon, and Mr Maitland has high hopes for her prospective novel.
Virginia’s mood rocked gently at the tipping point. Relief. She won the day and fell toward the good of the moment.
THE NEW GALLERY
26 April 1905—46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury
The exhibition opens today. I submitted my portrait of Nelly to the New Gallery over a month ago but never heard whether it was accepted. Mr Bell says that if it had been rejected, they would have sent it back.
“It probably won’t be there. I think I would prefer it not be there,” I told Virginia over breakfast this morning.
“Nonsense. Of course it will be there, and of course we want it to be there,” Virginia said with brisk conviction, buttering her toast.
I was pleased to see that she was eating.
“Nelly loved the portrait. I loved the portrait, and you love the portrait. Ah!” She held up her hand to forestall my protest. “You may not at this precise moment, but at some point between beginning it and now, you have loved it very dearly.”
I smiled at her. Yes, between beginning it and now, there have been moments when it pleased me. It is only now, when others are about to see it, that I doubt its worth.
I sipped my coffee. “It might not be there.”
Later
Virginia set out after breakfast to get a catalogue for the New Gallery. This is Virginia at her best: loving, rational, engaged, sincere.
It was there. We stood in the gallery. Watching people watch the painting. It was exhilarating but mixed with an elusive bittersweet I could not place. Nelly looked lovelier hanging on that wall than she ever did resting on my easel, but she had grown unfamiliar in the weeks since I handed her over to the gallery. It is true that we do not understand the boundaries and dimensions of what we have created until it is consumed by another. I loved being an artist today.
Later (three am—everyone gone)
The talk this evening was about me. My painting, my exhibition, my subjects, my work, my talent. Lytton, Thoby, Adrian, and Mr Bell went to the New Gallery this afternoon. Adrian and Lytton came down from Cambridge specially.
“On the first day?” I asked surprised.
“Of course on the first day,” Thoby laughed. “When else would we go?”
“Well, you and Adrian, of course—” I said, moved that the others had joined them.
“Pfft,” Lytton said. “Naturally I want to see it first. How else can I tell other people what to think?”
“Desmond and I are going tomorrow,” Saxon said. It was the first sentence he had ever directed at me.
“It was marvellous,” Mr Bell said quietly. He spoke as if we were the only people in the room.
Virginia did not say anything.
28 April 1905—46 Gordon Square (sunny and warm)
This morning my happiness was drenched by real life. I got entangled in a difficult conversation with Virginia. She was determined to discuss the morality of suicide—one of her favourite fallback subjects, but exasperating on a spring day when good things are happening. I was nervous as we were on the top deck of the Number 8 omnibus and her voice had taken on the specific, tinny shrillness that presages a mad scene—and this was not a good place for a mad scene.
We alighted near Green Park. I decided a long walk home might calm her. The traffic on Piccadilly clanged and kicked up dust, but behind the tall iron fence, the park lay in hushed splendour. Virginia noticed none of it. She was walking quickly, her long skirts flying and her hair slipping loose of its pins. Her small straw hat kept sailing off in the breeze. Twice I had to run after it into the road.
Up we went, along Piccadilly, past Devonshire House with its gilded animal gates, past the great stone cube of the Royal Academy, past the robin’s egg blue of Fortnum and Mason’s emporium. I knew Virginia wanted to stop in at Hatchards bookshop next door but it was better not to risk it. I had to get her home. When I steered her away from the glossy black doors, the tension in her body flared into rage, and I quickly asked the porter at Fortnum’s to hail us a cab.
I know that chewing over a viscous, obstinate question is her way of re-centring a day that is spinning out of her grasp. Trouble is, it takes my day along with it.
AT HOME, SHE KEPT ON TALKING; talking without stopping, talking for hours. She did not respond when spoken to and would not turn to look when we called her name. She just continued to talk. When she gets like this, her words rush and tumble like unskilled acrobats, landing up in a heap of broken nonsense.
A few years ago, Virginia talked for three days without stopping for food or sleep or a bath. We were still in Hyde Park Gate, and she sat up in her attic room speaking in low, frantic tones that rose and rose to shake the tall house by the shoulders. That time Virginia’s words unravelled into elemental sounds; quick, gruff, guttural vowels that snapped and broke over anyone who tried to reach her. Her features foxed with anger growing sly and sharp; her face twisted into something unfamiliar, and her hands bridged into white-boned nests. We waited until the third day before we sent for Dr Savage. A mistake. Virginia spent a month in the nursing home recovering.
Now I know better. After three hours of Virginia’s unbroken talking, we sent for Nurse Fardell to come and administer a mild sedative—a draconian measure as far as Virginia was concerned. I stood outside the door and listened as Virginia evaded the nurse’s starched ministrations. There was a huge glassy noise as the pretty bedside lamp crashed to the floor. Virginia howled, and the nurse spoke to her in a stern, efficient hospital voice.
Thoby came up the stairs with Mr Bell and, joining me in the hallway, asked what was happening. Virginia, not realising that she was in outside company, shrieked, “The Goat’s mad!” from inside her bedroom by way of a reply—her war cry. Virginia hates whispering and always reacts dramatically to sickroom voices. Mr Bell, not the least discomfited, drained the tension clean away by laughing a loud, easy laugh and politely enquiring if we had any other farmyard animals convalescing at Gordon Square.
Tuesday 2 May 1905—46 Gordon Square
The sedative worked, and Virginia slept for eighteen hours straight. Sleep rights her as surely a
s the lack of it derails her.
Virginia—irritated at her outburst—is now sulking, reading three books at once, each about Spain, and speaking only in Spanish.
Thursday 4 May 1905—46 Gordon Square
A busy at home tonight, but everything went wrong. Twice I showed my hand and revealed my staggering ignorance. Who knew Tacitus was Roman and not Greek? “Listen to the name,” Virginia said, as if she were teaching a child to spell. I nodded but did not answer. Herodotus. Theodorus. Tacitus. I don’t see it.
5 May 1905—46 Gordon Square
The house was quiet today. No one mentioned the date. It has been ten years. Thoby and I remember it all, but what of Virginia and Adrian? She was thirteen, and he only twelve. What do they remember? The long night before when no one slept? Beautiful, calm Stella, her hair pulled back in a blue kerchief, sitting by Mother’s bed? Mother’s dry steep fever and her digging, racking cough? The doctor arriving just before dawn? Thoby was so angry that Father had not sent for him before. “Your mother would not allow it” was all Father said.
Mother died just after eleven in the morning. Sophie had made roast chicken for luncheon, but we did not eat until after midnight.
Friday 12 May 1905—46 Gordon Square (late)
