I send my love to you.
Yr Carrington
Reading this over, I see I’ve expressed it very badly. And probably it’s pointless. But I feel rather in despair, so forgive me and don’t pay any attention to it, if you don’t want to. There seems to be no answer, but perhaps you will write.
xxxxxxx
Frances wrote back to say that although she was not prepared to give Ralph up, she was prepared to share him. ‘I never never never feel that if R should live with me I should want him not to see you very often and go on being fond of you … Because I love R and want to live with him, and want him to share my life instead of being a visitor into it, I can’t see how I could find this incompatible with his being fond of you and seeing you every day of his life.’
And so it was settled that Ralph and Frances would move into the top floor of 41 Gordon Square with James and Alix Strachey (as Ralph and Carrington had done five years earlier) and spend weekends at Ham Spray.
To Julia Strachey
Ham Spray House
Monday [spring 1926]
Dearest Julia,
I am going to Falmouth this week with Lytton. So I shall not see you for some weeks I am afraid. I wanted to tell you that things are rather better. By a miracle James and Alix have stepped into the arena and saved the situation. Frances is going to live at 41 G. S., so you will have her as a near neighbour to you. And a good deal of the horrors will be mitigated for everyone I think by the new arrangement. It was so kind of you to be so friendly to me. I felt you hardly realized how grateful I felt to you.
I stay at Falmouth a week. Then I will probably come back here. Tell me about your mannequin job? It is amusing, does it help to gratify your passion for dressing up in grand gowns? I feel rather better in the head now. So next time I shall not be so boring I hope. May I come to your shop and buy something from you? Or have you nothing under 20 gns in your department? I will write again when I next come to London so that we can go on our jaunts to the cinema. My love dear Julia,
Yr Carrington
As the next letter shows, Ham Spray was not much affected by the General Strike of 1926. Gerald was about to return to Spain.
To Gerald Brenan
Ham Spray House
Thursday [6 May 1926]
Dearest Amigo,
[…] We live marooned on a green island here, cut off from the world. Except for a charming lady at Inkpen Post Office, who rings up and gives us ‘the news’ which she gleans from the wireless. You would fall completely in love with her, for she gives one such a perfect selection. ‘The Prince of Wales has just come back by aeroplane. It is nice to think of having him back just now isn’t it?’ ‘They say the hospitals will have enough milk and that there were 150 volunteers in Bristol this morning, before they were asked for. Oh yes, and the King is talking to Mr Baldwin, this afternoon, and two warships have taken food to Liverpool. I don’t think there is anything else. No riots and everything much the same in London. Oh yes, trains run every 15 mins on the Baker Street railway.’
My mother is ill with pneumonia at Cheltenham. But I hope I shall not be forced to go over and see her. Lytton is reading Ford to me in the evenings: The Broken Heart. It is very good. This afternoon we have just been [on] an exquisite walk along the foot of the Downs. I found a wild yellow auricula, a cross between a cowslip and a primrose. The woods are filled with bluebells and all the birds sing great choruses in the little copses. It’s difficult looking at the green wheat fields and the pale green woods to believe that anything unusual is happening in London […]
I feel tired with the beauty of spring and too much internal enthusiasm. As the post takes 3 days to reach anyone this is probably the last letter I’ll write to you. But I would like to send you my love before you leave England.
Your Amiga
PS Thank you for being my friend.
To Julia Strachey
The Owls’ Retreat
Thursday [summer?]
My Dearest Julia,
[…] Tommy and I have just been off to Dorset on a spree. Ma foi quelle spree! We visited Mr [Lamb] on Tuesday after tea. Went for a dismal walk along the sea shore with him. Had a lovely supper of broad beans and claret and rather revived. Then he and Tommy played music all the evening. The next morning we woke up very exhausted as the cats made such a noise one couldn’t sleep. We had then more music till half-past 10. Then Tommy and I went off to another region of Dorset and visited his old friends Mr and Mrs Powys of Left Leg fame.fn22 I found them wonderfully charming. Mr Powys seems without a fault. He was so beautifully good, and gracious. It was rather like travelling with some dethroned King of Bavaria, returning to his long lost country. From every cottage old dames, and worthies, children and half witted hobbled out to kiss the hem of Tommy’s corduroy trousers. Tommy insisted on reading me Marvell’s poems all last Monday. ‘Laments on Julia’. ‘To my fair Julia’ etc. etc. so I gathered from the expression in his voice, and the sadness of his eye, that you have indented his young heart with your cold imprint. Fie Fie. However it’s a great consolation for me to have another lovesick bird to sing duets with on the loveliness of my Julia […]
I love having you here. I will ask you very soon again. Most lovely Julia I send you my fondest love.
Your C
To Lytton Strachey
Ham Spray House
Sunday [19 September 1926]
My dearest Lytton,
Quelle Chaleur! Do you know one is forced to search out, positively, one’s old enemy the wind today. Even in the shade and in the windiest corner of the lawn it is too hot. Faith [Henderson] arrived yesterday at 4 o’ck. She seems in high spirits and is very charming. We didn’t get breakfast till 10 o’ck today and then went [for] a walk along the Downs to the mushroom field and didn’t get back till half past two. It was twenty to four by the time we finished lunch! Faith is very vague and doesn’t mind spending a whole weekend with beds unmade and no washing up. Which I have collected into a great Silbury Hill in the kitchen for poor Madame Slater tomorrow!
Do you know on the way to the mushrooms just at the top of Ham Hill I heard a plaintive mewing, and there, peeping out of a rabbit hole was a small cat, a rather half cat half rabbit. So I pulled it out, and carried it on our walk, and brought it home. It was a curious little creature slightly like a monkey with a dark face, feet and tail, and brownish fur standing up on end. It was terribly hungry. I shall try and find a home for it at the Lodge.
Bellefn23 is very happy in her field, I pay her visits and she comes up, and lets me pat her – It is exciting to see from the top of the Downs a little white horse walking across Huth’sfn24 field and to know that it is Bellinda. We got a whole basket of mushrooms, but the heat was so great we only walked very slowly. Faith was completely exhausted by the time we got down to the bottom of the Downs and reached the Deserts of Sahara […]
You can’t think Lytton darling how much I’ve loved being with you alone lately and how much I love you for being so kind to me always. It seems ridiculous after 10 years to still tell you that I care so much, but every time you go away it comes back to me, and I realize in spite of the beauties of the Ilex tree and the Downs, Ham Spray loses more than half its beauty robbed of its Fakir. My fondest love,
Your most loving Mopsa xxx
To Lytton Strachey
Littlebeck, Painswick Road, Cheltenham
[23 September 1926]
Darling Lytton,
Here I am plunged in the middle of Benares brass life, and Japanese screens, while you lie on Firle Beacons with Tommy, or talk over fires with Duncan and Vanessa. I can hardly tell you the horror I was filled with coming back to this life of dead ghosts again. The gargoyle side-board and the small details, the inkstand, and the sugar spoon with arum lily handle, and chipcarved photograph frames. If only there was a confederate outside so one could make some jokes. My mother lives with a grey mouse of a lady-help, and the refinement, and purity of life here is inconceivable! Home made
lemonade, and cold blancmange and raspberry jam for the supper last night …
I can’t write you a letter, I am too depressed by the hideousness of this house, and the bric a bracs.
The awful thought is that one is tainted by the same blood, and perhaps my manias for treacle prints, and old tea pots is just as bad as Japanese vases, and Indian brasses! It’s rather a charming little Georgian house but inside is now indistinguishable from every house we have ever lived in, so why my mother has moved so many times seems to me a mystery. I think however of Ham Spray, and our Downs and then this chimera vanishes. I love you so very much, and think of you most of the time and wish I had you here this morning to do a little ‘pavement tapping boy accosting’ – You had forgotten that line?
My love,
Yr most loving Mopsa xxx
To Gerald Brenan
Friday evening [17 December 1926]
Dearest Amigo,
Ralph has just come, and has brought the Christmas tree decorations and the toys. I love the snake so much I can hardly bear to give it away. The birds are exquisite. I now look forward to nothing but decorating the tree. The party is to be on Monday afternoon. You were very charming Amigo to go to so much trouble […]
Lytton reads. What does Lytton read? Not what you expect or what the world (which is Gordon Square) expects, for Lytton sits over the fire, the firelight playing on his red beard, his lamb skin slippers (‘oh he treated Henry Lamb quite cruelly, I assure you’) on his feet. The rug, (see Tate Gallery) thrown over his knees, surrounded by his library of books on every side (he collects mostly old books, especially 18th century French books) his three cats (Mr Strachey like Lord Kitchener and, or, Lord Roberts, cannot bear dogs) sitting on the hearth rug. His two companions Mr and Mrs Thrale in another corner of room, reading, as he sits over his fire; Lord Raingo, by Arnold Bennett.fn25 There! Mr Crusoe. What a surprise for you! You thought I was going to say, The Decline and Fall of Mr Gibbon!!!! Mr Thrale reads his Financial Times and makes calculations. Miss Moffat, for Mrs Thrale has suddenly left the room, sits in her blue overcoat with brass buttons and a pair of striped socks to keep her feet warm, writing a letter to a commercial traveller. ‘And pray what is his commerce?’ ‘Oh, he’s a coffee importer, my dear.’ ‘Is that the same as an imposter?’ ‘Now, Barbara my dear, really you must not be so stupid, or ask so many questions.’And it is time Aunt Moffat went to bed for she is almost asleep. My love dear Mr Crusoe.fn26 I am still and always will be your loving
Amiga Cirod
To Gerald Brenan
Ham Spray House
Monday morning [27 December 1926]
Amigo Mio,
[…] I wish you had been here this Christmas to put me in a good temper. For this morning I am in a very cross patch mood. Simply because I couldn’t sleep last night and then, one gets so bored with looking after fires, coffee pots, and digging vegetables and making beds. That’s just what you like to hear: Miss Moffat complaining, well I will complain but only softly to my dear Amigo! The Christmas tree looks exquisite. Those fairy balloons and the birds of paradise are my favourites. Ottoline telephones yesterday to say she was coming over with Mark [Gertler] and the Turners today for tea. But today she telephones to say their car has broken down so she will not come. For which I am extremely glad, as I hate being responsible for those crushed tea parties, with everyone talking at the tops of their voices, or remaining gloomily silent. I haven’t got your picture finished but there has been no time since the invasion arrived on Friday. I love having Julia here. She is a gay sympathetic character. Her turn of humour is very fascinating. How did you survive Xmas? I suppose by now your digestion is properly ruined and you are filled with gloomy vapours and a dislike for the human race.
Tommy arrived last night and seems in high spirits. Marjorie Strachey is very amusing and knits everyone together by her good temper and perpetual jokes. So one may say it’s been a very nice Xmas party and everyone has enjoyed themselves.
Yes, I’ve been very happy except for this morning, when suddenly finding the stove had gone out and the water in the bathroom was cold, my neck was stiff and my head ached, I fell into a fine rage with life and Christmas and anthracite stoves. But already I’ve recovered since I started writing to you and now I feel very light hearted. This afternoon I shall go for a ride on Belle directly after lunch. Marjorie Strachey gave me the most beautiful Armenian boots and Julia a blue silk padded dressing gown. Henry sent me some marsala and James gave me a huge pot of caviar, so that for the first time in my life I’ve had the pleasure of caviar for breakfast, and caviar for every meal. I want to reform next year and do a great deal more serious painting and even writing. Will one? Simply to spite oneself and one’s traditional character I think I will! You’ve been rather churlish not writing me letters, but I forgive you on condition you write me a long one this week. Ralph gave me a garbled and curious account of your affaires and conversations.
Dorelia sent me a most beautiful present. A box covered with shells, only not ordinary shells, but the most fantastic rare-coloured shells, that you have ever seen and inside the box, two charming figures of pottery.
Tonight we have a sort of dance, Japps, and Noel and Missie, I feel rather apathetic about it. I prefer these amusing conversations with Marjorie, Julia and Tommy over the fire to organised gaiety.
My love, dearest Amigo. Please write to me soon, if you are not too busy working. (Have you any news of Helen?)
From you most loving Cirod xxxxxxxx
1927
To Julia Strachey
Ham Spray House
[January 1927]
[…] I am sorry my lovely Poppet you didn’t have a nicer Xmas. But the trouble was I was sleeping rather badly and couldn’t pull myself together, and everything seemed rather disintegrated, but perhaps when I wasn’t in the room the glasses clinked and all was in a roar […] You have no idea how much I enjoy lying in my bedroom watching the fire on the ceiling. After the crises of last week it is a place of peace […]
Do let’s have ball. Dress you as an Empire oriental beauty. At the moment I am reigning Queen of Laplandia.
Your blue dressing gown is the comfort of my life.
My very fondest love,
From your devoted old Tante C.
To Gerald Brenan
Ham Spray House
Saturday [22 January 1927]
[…] What a life we all lead to be sure. Influenzas, mistresses, colds, and now I have fallen off a toboggan and bruised my bottom black.
Yesterday afternoon I went tobogganing with Olive on the Downs. It was a most lovely afternoon. The sun was just setting, and the sky was a most delicate green tinged with pink and little clouds rose up from behind the crest of the downs, like balloons liberated by some hidden hand and floated up into the pale opal sky.
The sun shone on the quarry, and lit up the snow along the ridge. I was so happy I could hardly bear to come back to tea. We had some lovely rushes down the hill. Olive had never been on a toboggan before. Unfortunately I took a ditch in my enthusiasm and bumped Olive’s head and my bottom. But I feel better this morning. The country intoxicates me with its beauty, it fills me with the same sort of internal pleasure that one feels when the spring begins. Lytton read me The White Devil by Webster last night over a fire. Just as I was getting into bed, I looked out for the last time on the moonlighted lawn and there was my enemy the rabbit, who all this week has eaten up my lettuces and cabbages, so I knelt at the open window and shot him. He died at once mercifully in one shot. This morning it is snowing again. To my mind this landscape is at its loveliest in the winter, covered with snow. How appalling about your aunt. For although one at first laughs at her extraordinary behaviour, one soon remembers it is the end of everyone and how miserable underneath all her confusion of mind she must be.
Lytton came into tea yesterday, and saw the two cats lying embraced on his chair. ‘Snakes in a sink, toads in a cistern’ he said looking at the cats. For some reas
on with the expression on his face it was very amusing […]
My fondest love dearest of Amigos. I am, in spite of all your prognostications your very loving
Cirod
To Julia Strachey
Ham Spray House
Thursday [about 24 January 1927]
Dearest Julia,
You are a fickle niece, find a comfortable bed and a kind uncle and poor Tante C is soon forgotten. Not so Tante C. She thinks perpetually of her Julia hence this letter. Well my dear you have no idea what an exciting time we have had here. Snow fights with lovely young men (or a man to be precise) with hair the colour of canary birds and the most heavenly blue eyes [Dadie Rylands] and Mr Peter Morris, his friend, with auburn hair and a ‘quite lovely’ nose. But his shoes were what won my heart. Under the excuse of examining the buckles, I gave them a delicate stroke, and the thrill that ran down my spine, my dear! I can hardly describe! […]
That wretch Ralph will have told you all our news so what can I tell you? All yesterday afternoon I cleaned my studio and this morning, true to my word (for I had made Tante C who is rather a severe character, a promise to paint a picture today whatever happened) so I sat in my bedroom and painted a landscape of the snow with some cows. MacWhirter instantly rushes to your mind, with Scotch firs and lochs and Highland cattle. Which just shows you know nothing, miss, about painting. Most of my week has been spent motoring over to Shalbourne to see poor Helen Anrep and her children, who have influenza. Now they have gone away. So our hermitage life resumes its chilly course. Lytton is reading me The White Devil by Webster in the evenings. I can’t ride Belle as the ground is covered with snow and very hard. When do you fly the country? Shall I ask Phyllis de Janzé to try and find rooms for you? Would you like a French maid to go with you to iron your frocks, and uncurl your hair? Unfortunately she don’t speak French otherwise a most respectable woman. Not a word has reached me from London. So I suppose you are all deeply engrossed in intrigues, or parties […]
Carrington's Letters Page 36
