We lead very idle lives here. It is impossible to get over the continual pleasure of lying in the sun. But now I go, and paint my landscape.
Must
shall
ought
My love and xxx from your very happy
Mopsa
On 9 January, as they were about to set off for home, Lytton wired to say the purchase of Ham Spray had gone through.
To Lytton Strachey
Hotel de Cataluna, Madrid
[10 January 1924]
My very dearest Lytton,
Your letter has just been given to us by the chief cook [of Thomas Cook & Son]. You are too good, too kind. What can we do? You can’t think how moved we are. How terrible the agitation must have been for you all alone. But a triumph I think, for after all we did bring old P down a little. We must hope that the perfection of our lives will be so great in the sun and on the Downs that we will never regret it. I feel certain myself that we will master the situation.
The real thing that matters is the indissolubility of our affections. The addition of hot sun, a veranda and the most beautiful country can only add to an already existing state of perfection. We love you so much. I do not know what to write to you, the past, the present, or the future. I can’t also remember how much I told you at Granada. Already I’ve planned all the rooms at H S, painted them a hundred times, planted the garden, and cut down the fir trees. You were the dearest person in the world Lytton to send that telegram. Please don’t be despondent; we will be back very soon now. Did it look lovely in Country Life?fn1 I always feared the cunning Mrs P would do something to finally break down the spirits. Never have I ever been so full of sensations. They rush through my head like flames up a chimney. But my predominant feeling after reading your letter is to be with you […]
D. V.fn2 Sunday 13th at 6 o’ck we reach Paris and go to the Pas de Calais [hotel].
A little explanation. Ralph told Frances M before he left England that he would be returning to Paris and if she cared to join us for a few days we would be very pleased. (She thought it doubtful so nothing was fixed.) She has just written to Thomas Cook saying that she has been able to get a holiday for a week and will come over next Saturday the 12th. Now the alternatives are
(1) That you will come over and join us for a few days or a week after Clive and Mary have left you on the Monday or Tuesday. In which case a wire from you would summon your faithful attendant spirit to the station to meet you in Paris.
(2) That you won’t come because of the storm and the beastly weather. In which case, I will (if F. M. does not object to my departure) come over on the Wednesday by myself and reach you and Tidmarsh as soon as possible. R is compromised, and will have to stay until the end of the week, but he has been such a dear he really deserves a little rest from the fatigues of looking after me, and the crates of china […]
The Louvre will be shut on Monday, so I would like to spend Tuesday in Paris, so that unless a wire comes, (and unless F. M. objects in which case I will of course wire) I will come over on Wednesday. If a wire comes, we will meet you at the station. I so fear the cold will wreck your health that I do not put our real feelings foremost […]
If you only knew the agonies we have been through!
Another time we will manage better. But when one is abroad the expense of everything makes one try these curious methods of transport. Ralph has been terribly heroic and sympathetic over it all. We bought 2 lovely chintzes in Granada. If we want more, Gerald promises to buy them for us in April and bring them back with him. He was so good to us Lytton. Really, next to you, he is the kindest person I’ve ever known. He simply heaped presents on us at Yegen. And refused to take any money for our stay with him. He gave us all of his most beautiful plates, and jug. His kindness on the journey to Granada was typical of him. […] I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so gloomy in my life as on our second day in Granada. The mud in the streets was indescribable and it poured all day. Gerald of course after his gay spirits on the motor bus journey, collapsed into deep sadness. Ralph was rather gloomy; but calm. I felt the change from the beauty of Yegen and the perpetual sun almost as if I had entered a grave in Finland […] I hope you have kept well all the time we have been away, since you say nothing I hope you are well. You can’t think how I long to see you again. I think of you very often. My dearest you are almost too kind to us. I only hope you are as happy, as you have made us. Bless you. Une mille baisers.
Your Mopsa
Later […] It’s wonderful, Lytton, to have Ralph and you, and H. S. altogether to enjoy this year! […]
After they reached Paris, Frances Marshall arrived and Carrington fell ill. Her spirits improved when Lytton joined them on 12 January, but she was still unwell on their return to Tidmarsh. She confided her reservations about Frances to Gerald.
To Gerald Brenan
The Mill House
Tuesday, 11 o’ck, 22 January 1924
Dear,
I think R enjoyed Paris very much. He is of course fascinated about his lady. He tells one everything. And goes into her most menial actions. I feel personally a slight gulf of age between her and myself. She has so obviously never loved or felt anything passionately. She has also never suffered. She clearly thinks we make rather a fuss over life. I think it’s too big a difference between us. Even Ralph admitted it made a limitation to her understanding. She is also rather egotistical, that is rather terrifying. If you were here I would talk a great deal to you, but I cannot write now. I have not the energy with this aching head to write clearly. But I shall not forget to talk about her when you come in April.
Ralph as I knew he would of course had a reaction on Sunday when he came back here. He tried to make out I wasn’t friendly to his liaison, and that I hadn’t tried to make friends with her. This was too childish. For I was only twice alone with her for a few minutes and it was perfectly clear she was engrossed in R and hadn’t the slightest desire to be my most intimate friend. My sadness in Paris was entirely inside myself. I confess sometimes they annoyed me when I wanted to lie alone in my room by their high spirits, but that was merely my moodiness. I saw underneath R wanted me to object, or be a little difficult to him … because he saw he had made it rather difficult sometimes for me at Yegen … but it’s only we have different characters. There’s no virtue or vice in the matter … R said ‘I tell you all about my feelings for Frances, and go into detail of our relations, and what we discuss, and my lust for her. And you never tell me anything about yourself and Gerald. Whenever I ask, you give me a sort of communiqué. If I want to find out what happens between you and Gerald I have to ask G then if I tax you with what he has told me, you suddenly remember and either deny, or admit what he has told me. For instance, I never know what your physical relations are with G. Would you, if I said I didn’t mind, like to go to bed with him? For I would much rather know what your real feelings were, than know you conceal your feelings so as not to hurt my feelings. Why can’t you discuss your sensations with G and his feelings for you quite openly?’
I said we did care very much for each other as he knew but that we did not think of going to bed together because we knew he would not be able to bear it. That if he changed his mind completely then possibly we might realize we might like to, but to continually think of something that wasn’t possible and agitate our feelings by wanting it, seemed madness. We were quite happy as we were if we could go around together, and the only thing that could spoil our happiness would be if R was injured and made unhappy.
R then said ‘But surely even if you know you can’t live together, you must know if you would like to.’ I said I don’t think we ever think about it too much. R said ‘You are queer people. Of course you clearly think it spoils something if you describe it in detail to me, and you incidentally find it impossible to analyse your feelings for Gerald, as I do mine for Frances.’
I tell you this because I think it’s important. What one has to remember with Ralph is that he has reasonab
le moods, when he would even perhaps go so far as to think he didn’t mind us living together, but I know [given] a reversing of his fortunes, (if F. M. deserted him,) he would then remember my confidences and use them against us. It is of course a temptation because one is interested in truthful discussion to confide everything but I thought it would be folly. I could see no possible purpose, and it would probably be used as a reason for curtailing our liberty in the spring. I tell you in detail what I say to Ralph, because he sometimes plays us off against each other to make us confide in him. Also I have another reason for my reticence. I find it impossible to confide my most intimate feelings for you, to anyone but yourself, and even that is sometimes difficult …
To Frances Marshall
The Mill House
[23 January 1924]
Dearest Frances,
It was charming of you to think of writing to me. I must confess at once that you are one of the very few young ladies I would ever again chaperone because your behaviour was so perfect! In short you require no chaperoning! I am only sorry I was such a decayed pumpkin the whole of our jaunt in Paris. I now feel rather more decayed, in fact I doubt if I shall survive, my headache grows worse and worse, although I drink purge after purge and drug after drug. I expect every moment Lytton and Ralph in a rage will drive me out of the front door with the cats (who were both sick yesterday) and then throw me and them into the stream […]
Really Frances, I was a little afraid you might have thought me churlish and green tempered in Paris. But I promise all my glooms and despairs were entirely within myself. I felt far iller than I dared confess because I didn’t (a) want to bother Ralph and (b) to bother Lytton after he so nobly came over. I had a suspicion Ralph thought I hadn’t been as friendly as I might have been to you. But I really felt too dim to show any signs of life except killing both the Madames at the hotel […]
I am so sorry you have to go to work every day. And you will come and visit me here in my swamps and bogs one weekend? For I see I shall never reach London.
Give my love to yourself.
Your Carrington
To Gerald Brenan
The Mill House
[3 February 1924]
Dear, oh why did you write that letter to me? Do you want deliberately to end everything or make things difficult? I have told you in every letter I write that I may always be asked by Ralph, that he may read your letter. If you write as you did yesterday you make it impossible for me to show your letters.
He did ask, I refused, and said I was sure you would prefer, and so did I, that he should not read it. He at once became suspicious. So I showed it him. Minus two pages which I was able to extract. He then said ‘No wonder you don’t want me to read Gerald’s letters to you, because he is so obviously in love with you, otherwise why should he be in this state?’
The whole morning has been given up now, to what I most wish to avoid, discussing our relations. Dear, I am not angry, only I feel rather hopeless. Is it not possible for you to realize how difficult it is for me to read your letters in private? That we can only be intimate in our conversations? If you admit you are in love with me Ralph then says he knows it will end in my either giving way to you, suppressing feelings, or making you very unhappy […] If you must at any time write something indiscreet although I beg you not to, please put it in a small PS so I can show Ralph half the letter.
Yesterday you wrote me a huge package, with one sheet which it was possible to show, and a PS eight pages long. How could I conceal it all, or pretend your envelope contained one sheet? If all this is too tiresome, I feel it may be sometimes for you, tell me. I can’t alter it at present […] One day I shall be forced to tell Ralph simply in self-defence, more than I want to tell him. Please wait until April. I will send you memoirs, letters every day, if only you will not make our friendship impossible. I am to blame you know. I am terribly sorry. Please forgive me. I write on Tuesday next intimately. My very fond love.
Your most loving Doric
[…] Later
You mustn’t dearest amigo, think I was angry. I couldn’t be with you. Also no great harm was done, Ralph was slightly agitated but nothing more only please do not make your letters a source of agitation to me directly I see the outsides of the envelopes!
I must tell you the riveter at Reading has mended the plate so perfectly, not a trace of the breakages remains. So our weeping was imaginary. Your lovely pink primitive house dish stands on the dresser. I do love you for giving it me. We go tomorrow to see Ham Spray House. I write the day after. Please write to me very often, only no gloomy emotions. […]
I love you very dearly.
Your Doric
To Gerald Brenan
The Mill House
Tuesday morning, 11 o’ck, 4 March 1924
Dearest Gerald,
I hope you will soon write to me. If it wasn’t that there is a decree out against protestations and scenes, I could tell you, that I almost wrote off a frenzied appeal for a letter yesterday when no letter came from you.
The last letter you wrote me reached me on Thursday and today is Tuesday.
I feel very gloomy, so do not expect anything but wails, and dismal howls and mia-owls. We went up to London on Saturday morning leaving Lytton fairly well. He has had slight lumbago in his back all this week, but I thought he had practically recovered from the influenza. When I got back on Sunday morning I found he was much worse. Mercifully his sister Pippa was here with him on Saturday, and sent for the doctor. The doctor says it is a relapse after the influenza and that he has fever and must stay in bed some time until he is quite strong. You can think of my feelings when Pippa said: ‘I thought it was pleurisy from all the symptoms, but the doctor assures me it is not.’ Last night Lytton was worse, and felt new pains in his side. Soon the doctor will be here again, and then I shall know what these pains mean. Although I suspect the doctor is rather an owl, and probably isn’t very expert. What a curse diseases are! I feel exhausted with rage against a universe that seems designed to torment people with fevers, or worry people with agitations over sick friends and now of course this train of thought has led me to think of what I have been trying to avoid thinking about, that you may be ill and perhaps that is why you haven’t written. I won’t let you spend another winter out of my reach.
The Yegen ‘landscape’ has been held up again by Lytton falling ill. But I am going to start painting again directly I have finished this letter to you […]
I saw on Saturday afternoon D. H. Lawrence and his fat German spouse Frieda and the great decaying mushroom Middleton Murry and an attending toadstool called Dr Young at Brett’s house in Hampstead. I went up there to say goodbye to Brett, but found to my dismay this dreadful assembly of Adelphites. Lawrence was very rude to me of course, and held forth to the assembly as if he was a lecturer to minor university students. Apparently he came back this winter expecting to be greeted as the new messiah. Unfortunately very few saw his divination. The great Dunning almost denied it. A few critics called him a genius but that wasn’t enough. ‘England is rotten, its inhabitants corrupt.’ Mexico is the only country where prophets, and great writers are appreciated. So tomorrow Lawrence, and Frieda and Brett set off in an ocean liner for Mexico.fn3
Of course on examination it comes out it is New Mexico that they go to, which is a state of U. S. A. But they speak about it as ‘Mexico’. ‘We lead a very primitive life, we cut our own wood, and cook our own food’ ‘and Lawrence makes the mo-ost beau-ti-ful bread’. Frieda always comes in like a Greek chorus, the moment D. H. L. has stopped speaking. I nearly said he could come to Tidmarsh if that was all he wanted by ‘Primitive’.
‘And here is Carrington, not very much changed, lost a little of her “ingénue” perhaps, still going to parties, still exactly the same, except I hear you are very rich now, and live in a grand country house.’
I took the shine off his Northampton noise and his whining ‘ingénue’ accent. I told him I had £130 a year which I had a
lways had.fn4 ‘Ah but yer married a rich husband!’ – ‘He has £80 a year.’
‘And yer don’t mind the change, that’s very fortunate.’ I report his conversation so you can have an idea of the greatness of our present day geniuses.
He then gave a description of Mexico, with some fine literary passages at which all the assembly looked up and took notes in invisible note books. My brother Noel was at this strange tea party and of course was delighted at talking to the great D. H. Lawrence. Whenever D. H. L. talked about the Mexicans, Indians, Noel made some absolutely boring remarks about Hindus. If D. H. L. described the Rockies and vegetation of the desert in Mexico, Noel at once described the Himalayas!!
The decayed Murry sat on a sofa and said nothing; he swayed backwards and forwards like a mandarin with hollow eyes, toothless gums, a vacant smile and watery eyes. Only once he spoke. ‘Say, Brett your butter’s bad. It’s not good.’(D. H. L. They’ve scalded it Brett, butter should’na be scalded. They’ve boiled the milk.’) Otherwise the great Murry never spoke. It is reported he has given up the Adelphi and is, in a few months, going to follow the Messiah, Frau Messiah, and Brett to Mexico. He said, when asked what it all meant, and what would happen to Adelphi, ‘Oh, that’s the last of my hypocrisies.’
[…] Later, 3 o’ck
The doctor thinks Lytton is going on alright. So my agitations are over. But I expect he will be in bed all this week. I’ve exhausted all my Yegen memories, so it is time you came back soon, and gave me some new ones […]
I hope to go to Ham Spray on Friday to see my gardener. We are all going to plant trees. Lytton plans a mulberry, Ralph a medlar, and I shall buy a tulip tree. Will you bring me a small dragon’s blood tree from Cadiz, and plant it in a corner of the garden?
Please write to me soon. Throw this dull mutton chop of a letter into the cat’s plate, but put the £2 in your pocket. If by any chance you could buy two chintzes, of the same design, I would be grateful, as I want to make curtains for my four poster bed.
Carrington's Letters Page 31
