Vanessa and Her Sister

by Priya Parmar

  Friday 14 December 1906—Cleeve House, Seend, Wiltshire (wet and cold)

  Well, what did I expect? They are country gentry, live in a country house and like country sports. So, the house: the house is not beautiful. I’m sorry, house. The house is also not original. Whatever was here isn’t any more, as Clive’s father pulled it down to build this mock Jacobean mess, and I think it must be a pity. Anything old and gracefully crumbling would beat this great Victorian scalloped heap any day.

  And the family? The mother is most likely lovely, but I never see her alone as she is always with her brute of a husband or Clive’s unbearable sister, Lorna. Lorna sounds like a hunting horn and moves with a great barrelling efficiency that I find unnerving. Even though the house is comparatively new (although one would never know it, as there is a freezing oak-panelled great hall and a minstrels gallery), it is not modernly equipped. The water supply is unreliable, and we are encouraged not to bathe—extraordinary. The parlour maid is called Meeks and the chauffeur is called Ovens. It is all too good to be true and would seem contrived in a novel. I must tell Morgan.

  Later

  I’ve been put in a freezing gothic bedroom complete with walls studded with decapitated animals. There is a cosy smallish dressing room for me and the same for Clive. We will use his dressing room as our studio. I will paint and he will write.

  15 December 1906—Cleeve House, Seend, Wiltshire

  Good god. A gong sounds, and we are to present ourselves in the chilly breakfast room. Only it isn’t for breakfast but a family sermon. The servants, in their starched black uniforms and frilly white aprons, keep to one side, and the family keep to the other. There is a reading, followed by a lecture, followed by the Lord’s Prayer. I was startled when the servants, on cue, dropped to their knees at the correct moment with a unanimous bang. The icy floor is rough on the knees, I should think. And then they go out and bring back coffee, tea, porridge, and eggs. We are to do this every morning?

  I still collect funny things all day long to tell Thoby. I know Virginia and Adrian and Clive and Lytton do it as well, but grieving has become a private business. The wound seeps, but we no longer speak of it. Instead, it rests like an iron anchor on a thick chain dropped under the water. To speak of it, everyone, all together, would drown us.

  But the habits remain, and I cannot keep from saving bits of news for him. He would love to hear about the pompous Bell country household. It would have made him like Clive more rather than less. I can hear him saying that it takes gumption to rise above such determined mediocrity. Although even Thoby could not have forgiven Clive for this ugly house. I cannot share that with Clive, I don’t yet know when it is all right to poke fun at his family. I wish I could ask Thoby about it. That slight wobble of unfamiliarity just makes me miss my brother more.

  And—Walter Headlam has asked if he can dedicate his translation of Agamemnon to Virginia. He is at least ten years her senior and we have known him since childhood. What an unlikely suitor.

  46 GORDON SQUARE

  BLOOMSBURY

  TELEPHONE: 1608 MUSEUM

  Cleeve House, Seend

  16 December 1906

  Dearest Snow,

  My God, what a family. Dorothy, the younger of his sisters, is pleasant enough but Lorna, the elder sister, is a struggle. Double everything Lytton said and multiply it by three. Not that it matters. Clive and I are so wrapped up in our new togetherness that even if they were a marvellous family, we would still ignore them.

  I want to know everything about him. Everything fascinates me. I am astonished. And the moment I want to know something, I ask him. No hesitation. No stumble. Does that sound like me? Utter freedom. I have been holding my breath for twenty-seven years. Virginia would be desperately hurt to read that line, whereas you, my dear, I know, understand perfectly. What can I tell you about my days? They are not mine but ours, and they are peppered with our Victorian family encounters. Otherwise they are spent writing and painting and reading and walking together. Throughout all of it there is a taut thread of unbroken conversation. Even in the silence, we keep pace.

  So happy. When I am finished writing this, I will go straight to our shared study and tell him that I wrote to you, without pause or preamble. Can you imagine me doing that?

  Do not worry about travelling down for the wedding, as we are inviting no one. The aunts and George and Gerald are all put out; to say nothing of Virginia. Adrian took it all with good humour.

  Yours,

  Vanessa

  19 December 1906—Cleeve House, Wiltshire (after luncheon)

  “I cannot keep up. If she keeps writing like this, my only news will be that I have responded to her letters.” I flopped down in the armchair next to Clive.

  “She misses you. All her life you have been there, and now you are not,” Clive said evenly, laying down his book. It was a collection of essays on Rodin.

  “We have been separated before. Two years ago she went off travelling with Adrian, and there wasn’t this monsoon of correspondence.”

  “Yes, but now it is not just distance that separates you. You are not coming home to her. You are coming home to me,” he said, pulling me out of my chair and onto his lap.

  I looked around to see if his family were looming. They tend to loom. Although why I should care, I don’t know. We will be married in a few weeks.

  “Yes, I am coming home to you. Home to you. Home to you. Doesn’t that just sound right?”

  Later (everyone in bed)

  Can’t sleep, and the giant animal heads on the walls are not helping. I am sure Clive’s mother insisted I have this room to acquaint me further with the country sports I do not like. There are seven unhappy deer heads in the hallway. I counted.

  Virginia. Virginia. Virginia. I worry about the effect all this change will have on her, but I cannot quite talk to Clive about it. I know Virginia would hate that, and it feels like betrayal. And so I cannot sleep. During the last go-round, when we lost Stella and then Father, she went mad. It hangs over my head like Damocles’ sword. That Virginia will go mad.

  And—I unpacked Thoby’s small drawing of a nuthatch. I brought it from Gordon Square. I must have known I would need a touchstone.

  21 December 1906—Cleeve House, Seend, Wiltshire

  Clive just showed me a terrible letter from Virginia. He is not quite sure how to handle it and so came to me. I am pleased she is writing to Clive (as I have asked her to), but I am mortified by her subject. Virginia has written to ask him to please cite his good qualities so she may know if he is enough for me. And then she invited herself here for the Monday after Christmas. She wants Clive to placate her and me to scold, but I know that trick. Once again she would be invited into us—into the us-ness of us—to mediate, arbitrate, and make camp. No. It will not do. I will ignore it, not mention it in my next letter, and suggest Clive do the same.

  22 December 1906—five am (snow)

  Clive came into my room early to wake me in time to hear the Christmas robins singing in the snow. He listens for them too.

  LA BELLE ÉPOQUE

  6 February 1907—46 Gordon Square (frosty)

  Just back from the opera—Fidelio. Virginia conjugated Latin verbs all the way home. It is, as she keeps reminding me, our last night. She says it mournfully like a lamb due to be separated from its mother in the morning. She says she has written me a letter. It was a weighted sort of sentence, the kind that gives me a rolling dread.

  Later

  Virginia knocked on my door but entered without waiting for an answer. “You must read it, Nessa. Before …” Virginia held out the folded paper. There was no envelope.

  “Before?” I was being difficult. I knew very well before what. Before I marry Clive tomorrow. Before I become a Bell and no longer a Stephen. Before Clive and I go away together and leave her behind.

  The tickets—I looked around for them. We leave for the train from the registry office, and I do not want to forget the tickets. My mind had alrea
dy drifted away from her letter to tomorrow.

  GOOD GOD. FOR THE rest of my life, I will pretend I have never read this letter. I will show no one, tell no one, and never think of it again. She calls herself “my humble beasts.” She speaks in multiples. She wishes I had married them. And if I will not, perhaps I will take them as my lovers? Too much, Virginia. Too much. I will not let you spoil tomorrow as you have spoiled tonight.

  7 February 1907—Paddington Station (beautiful winter sunshine)

  Two sentences. Two signatures, and I am Vanessa Bell.

  “Happy?”

  “So happy.” I pulled one small white rosebud from my tightly wrapped posy and handed it to my husband.

  The Bells, the Bells.

  Virginia Stephen

  46 Gordon Square

  Bloomsbury

  8 February 1907

  My Violet,

  How are you feeling today, my dearest? Are you eating custard and waxing round and plump with health? I hope so. I need you to conserve all your strength. You will need it to love me mightily this spring. For I am alone. She did it. She is Mrs Clive Bell. Not one syllable of that name bears any trace of Nessa. I am trying, dearest Violet. You must believe that I am. If you were here, I would curl at your feel and ask you to brush my coat until it shone. The Goat stands alone. It sounds like a farmyard nursery rhyme.

  I have done my best to love him. No, that is not true. But I will do my best to love him. It is the only way. I think it will take some doing to divide them, don’t you? I know just what you will say to that: be happy for your sister as she would be happy for you. Quite pedestrian advice, if you ask me. I expected more from you. You see, Nessa and I are more than just sisters. We are different—exceptional.

  For now, I will see my new brother-in-law for all his best qualities and forgive his piggy faults. I will love him and write to him and charm him and bring him into our family. If he loves Nessa, then surely he will love me too? It will help. I am sure it will.

  Your

  Virginia

  PS: This ought to be the last letter you receive from me on this writing paper. 46 Gordon Square is now the address of the Bells. The poor Stephens are shunted to the outpost of Fitzroy Square.

  PPS: Mr Headlam has become pressing. I can’t quite see it. Can you?

  CLOSERIE DES LILAS

  12 February 1907—Sea View, Manorbier, Wales

  Who knew I would like sex as much as I do? It is neither awkward nor embarrassing nor dull—all things I was sure it would be. I have discovered that I am not a fragile woman. There is a humid, delicate closeness, a tangible animal instinctive us-ness that wraps us together in these moments, and I know in that brief time, I am free to be everything that I have ever been or ever will be; all my Vanessas brought home to roost. It is as though all I feel for him is given a verb: a visible, shattering verb that thrums through us, making us different from other people—alone and of a kind. I have never known such safety. I feel rooted in another, all my selves and secrets held in trust. I had not realised until now that I have been lonely all my life.

  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?

  UNION POSTALE UNIVERSELLE

  CEYLON (CYLAN)

  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.