Vanessa and Her Sister

by Priya Parmar

  I ordered travelling suits, muslin day dresses, four blouses, navy serge skirts, plus belts and two evening dresses (black silk with a pearl neckline for Virginia and grey chiffon with roses at the shoulder for me). I also ordered white lawn dresses and bathing costumes (red-striped for me and navy sailor for Virginia).

  BLO’ NORTON

  3 August 1906—Blo’ Norton Hall, Norfolk

  This house, which we have taken for the month, is low-slung with peaked roofs at either end. Like a child standing between her parents. Inside it has a stripped-down, bleached, Elizabethan feeling. The staircases creak and the raw beams shift and resettle. The taps in the bath splutter but, after coaxing, produce hot water. It is a welcoming, rumbling, tolerant place.

  Later

  Thoby and Adrian joined us this evening. It snipped the encroaching tension between Virginia and me. She asks about Clive at least three times a day, and it is only when I reassure her that I will not ever marry him that she lets the conversation go—exhausting. The boys leave for Italy in a few days.

  4 August 1906—Blo’ Norton Hall

  We wear old cotton dresses and come down to luncheon marked by our pursuits: I am dipped in paint, Virginia is stamped in ink.

  The house is quiet again. Too quiet. I miss the vigorous, heavy tread of my brothers. Thoby and Adrian have gone to ride horses down the Dalmatian coast. I wanted to go with them, but Virginia is not up to it. We had a row. Virginia is insisting on bringing Violet to Greece. A bother, as I was hoping it would be just us. I should have more patience with Virginia, but I am restless. By the afternoon, when the day is scratched and broken in, I am done with it and anxious to start a fresh one. I want to be in motion: on a ship, a horse, a train, a truck—it does not matter. I want to be moving away from here, where I worry about letters I will write and receive.

  And—A note from Desmond. They are moving out of London. And so it begins.

  7 August 1906—Blo’ Norton Hall (sunny and mild)

  Virginia walks for miles. She has a map and sets out like a surveyor to meet the countryside. Sometimes she bicycles (and gets grease on her hem), but most often she walks. She comes back breathless and muddy, telling tales of leaping fences and storming churches. I know I should not fret and just let her ramble as she chooses, but when she says she is writing and then does not write, I worry.

  14 August 1906—Blo’ Norton Hall (windy but sunny)

  Virginia keeps talking about the two of us being on “honeymoon” and I try to encourage the description into “holiday.” It is not the affection but the belligerence that frightens me. She is driven by the need to footprint, to own, to possess. A honeymoon is by nature a pairing, an exclusion.

  Later

  It came in the first post. Clive has responded to my messy, unflattering letter. He has developed an uncanny sureness, a certainty that I will change my mind and marry him. He is happy in his conviction, and perversely, I am happy that he is happy.

  Virginia saw his handwriting on the envelope and twice over breakfast asked me to promise that I will never marry him. Rather than shoring up my decision to reject him, her persistence is having the opposite effect. I can’t think why I am rejecting him now. I like his company. As far as I know it, I like his character. It is not rapture, nor even love, but a balanced liking. Is that something that should be thrown away with such vehemence?

  25 August 1906—Blo’ Norton Hall

  Now she is writing. Every morning she stands, smokes, and writes. She is using her travel desk from home. The wood is worn on the left top corner, where she pulls and paws when she cannot find the right word. Writing settles her. It gives her day a shape, a tempo. I hope she is working on the novel and so can keep her drumbeat rhythm for months and years instead of watching it eddy away as it does after a short article or review.

  Later

  “Rosamond Merridew. What do you think?” Virginia asked this afternoon.

  We were walking to visit the village church, which is meant to be pretty, but I have not yet seen it.

  “Rosamond Merridew? Floral. Is she a floral woman? What does she smell of?” I asked, not looking up. The road was muddy and pitted, and I worried for my new kid boots.

  “She smells of earth, coffee, and raspberries. She is a fascinated woman, a hunting woman. She is bound up in the history of another woman who lived four hundred years before,” Virginia said cryptically.

  “Careful, Virginia,” I said as I untangled her skirt from a roadside hedge. Virginia would have just torn it in her impatience to keep walking. “Who is the four-hundred-year-old woman?”

  “Joan Martyn. She kept a diary following one year in her life.” Virginia leapt over a grubby puddle. “The year she decided to get married.”

  There it was.

  Even later (after supper)

  We received a letter from Thoby and Adrian. They have had perfect weather and have ridden as far as Montenegro. Now they are headed south to the baked island of Corfu.

  Virginia and I are back in London on Monday.

  7 September 1906—46 Gordon Square

  (evening, too chilly to open the windows)

  Violet is coming with us. She is travelling in Italy at the moment and will meet us in Athens. We have also decided to stop and see Irene’s family, the Noels, in the Greek islands.

  We leave tomorrow and meet the boys in Olympia on Thursday. Olympia: where the men meet the gods.

  And—Virginia’s story is about acceptance and alienation. What does it mean to belong to a place or country or family? What is it to be English? Why do certain places hold an emotional charge and others allow the current to pass right through?

  TO ANTIQUITY

  1 October 1906—Palace Hotel, Athens

  It all began well.

  Ferry to France, and then bumping, rattling trains through Italy, to the bare, hot southern tip. I am pleased with the green-lined parasols. They do cut the glare of the endless white. And the earth paused, and then came the ocean. And what an ocean. This blue bilingual water knows itself. It is a weighted, fresh, crystal blue. I meant to read but was unable to look away from such a blue.

  We changed boats at Patras, much the way one changes trains at Norwich. A small Greek man, with a thick Greek moustache, boarded the boat and organised us in perfect English. Travellers, trunks, parasols, and papers, he strapped our luggage to a small, wiry boy, sent him on ahead to the next boat and instructed us to follow. This boat, the Peloponnese, was smaller, tinnier, and grubbier but sailed the same gemstone sea.

  When the boat docked, we landed among the ancients. Our brothers, suntanned, white-toothed, and sweaty, whooped from the shore. Thoby has become even more expansive in this country. Dismissive of Baedeker and his kind, he relies solely on local advice. He believes in it like a religion. He speaks to everyone: milkmen, postmen, taverna owners, bankers, bakers, waiters, farmers, fishermen, toymakers, tailors, bus drivers, and the police. And being Thoby, he is instantly invited in for coffee, ouzo, olives, and cheese. He is returned to us flushed, happy, noisy, and full of ideas. “We must visit this temple, on this mountain, on this day. We must eat this cheese from this goat on this farm. We must drink this wine from this region at this price.” And so we do. This family. We sail and swim in this sea under this sun, together. Even with an extra Violet, I feel the balanced symmetry of four.

  In Athens we checked in to the awful Athena Hotel and had to change immediately. There was a rat in Virginia’s bathtub, and Adrian’s window had no glass. We moved to the Palace Hotel—fusty but clean. Curvy gilded chairs, ornate beds, and tall open windows—I like it here.

  I shared with Virginia and we looked out over the Acropolis. Thoby and Adrian looked over the square and were disappointed. But we did not stay long and quickly moved on to the ruins of Mycenae; Eleusis, the birthplace of Aeschylus; Epidauros and the beautiful crumbling amphitheatre; and sleepy Nauplia with its Italianate architecture.

  And there, among the chalky ruins and the hot l
ight, my appendix began to complain. And so we returned to Athens. Violet (who had a slight indisposition from the oily food) and I stopped here, and the others went on to visit the Noels in Euboea.

  Violet is surprisingly easy to be with and much different on her own than with Virginia. She tries less and laughs more. I like her much better than I expected, but that might also be a product of being away. Familiar people become much more endearing when one is away.

  Later

  The doctor was here and thinks whatever is troubling my midsection is being agitated by a nervous condition. “Do nervous conditions run in your family?” he asked in thickly rounded English. Don’t they just. I must relax, he says. He charged next to nothing and prescribed four large glasses of champagne a day.

  Virginia Stephen

  46 Gordon Square

  Bloomsbury

  Achmetaga, Euboea

  9 October 1906

  Dearest Dolphin,

  We have fallen onto a seahorse-shaped island in the Aegean Sea and I feel nestled in the bounty of Greek goddesses. I am sure we are surrounded by light-footed forest nymphs who will braid flowers through our hair and throw garlands round our necks should we fall asleep.

  Today our host, Mr Frank Noel, took us picnicking on a grassy slope by a pine grove. He and Thoby discussed local birds for hours, and I lay reading Byron in the grass. When staying with the descendants of Byron, one cannot read Wordsworth, no matter how immortal one feels. How Byron loved this country. He died not far from here, in Missolonghi, but I do not think we will have time to visit there. I must rush back to you, my summer Dolphin, and have a stern discussion with your unruly tummy.

  Your

  Billy Goat

  PS: Do you know, they have his writing desk. Oh, the saucy things that saucy man must have written at that desk.

  14 October 1906—Palace Hotel, Athens (hot!)

  They return tomorrow, and I am determined to be well enough to go on to Constantinople. You can set one foot in Asia and one in Europe, and I am not going to miss it. I have been reading about the Church of Santa Sophia and the Bosphorus, and my dreams are lit by spice.

  15 October 1906—Palace Hotel, Athens

  They are back. Virginia presented me with three letters she wrote to me but did not have time to send, and Thoby gave me a small, square drawing of a lark. I love Thoby’s birds. Adrian lost his hat and got terribly sunburnt.

  Wednesday 17 October 1906—Palace Hotel, Athens

  It was a sparkling morning, and we were breakfasting on the hotel terrace. I came down but was already regretting moving. Virginia was not eating her breakfast. I was drinking my prescribed champagne with orange juice and was not in the right mood to get tangled up with Virginia. I left it to Thoby.

  “But why don’t they,” she repeated.

  “Virginia, of course they don’t speak ancient Greek. Stop embarrassing everyone,” Thoby said, sipping his coffee and reaching for the English newspapers.

  “Why wouldn’t they speak their native tongue?” Virginia said obstinately.

  “It is not their native tongue. It was, two thousand years ago, but not any more. Do you speak Anglo-Saxon?” Thoby said, disappearing behind his paper.

  “If Sophocles or Aeschylus had written in Anglo-Saxon, then yes, I would be fluent,” Virginia pronounced, opening her guidebook.

  Later (in the hotel drawing room—after ten pm)

  “Nessa?” Thoby asked.

  I waited.

  “Do you miss him?”

  There was no need to ask whom he meant.

  I could not answer. Yes, but I do not want Virginia to know? No, I do not miss him enough to marry him? Yes, but please don’t ask me about it?

  Seeing my confusion, Thoby squeezed my hand in sympathy. “Not yet. You do not have to think about it yet. Bell is patient. He is a huntsman. He understands the value of waiting. He loves you, Nessa. I think he would wait forever.”

  Roger Fry

  The City Club of New York

  55–57 West 44th Street

  New York

  My dear Mother,

  The new gallery was finally finished on Wednesday, and the opening reception was held tonight. We had an awful time getting it ready. In the end, I was mixing the paint colours for the decorator myself as he would not get on with it. I have become an expert in haranguing contractors and electricians and printers. But tonight’s gala was a success. The gallery looked beautiful. We borrowed a Cipollino table and placed it in the centre of the smaller room, and I scrounged up two lovely Rodin bronzes to sit majestically on top.

  I feel increasingly entrenched in this country. I am no longer surprised by the wrong-sided traffic or the flat-vowelled bellowing, the wide avenues or the tightly gridded cities, but I never feel at peace. As soon as I have a letter from Helen, I count back to the day she sent it and breathe relief that she was all right on that day. But then my mind pitches forward and the brief respite is over. I count the days since, and the fretting begins again. I do not think I can keep this up much longer. I feel such a gathering pull towards home.

  Your loving son,

  Roger

  THE EAST

  Sunday 21 October 1906—Tokatliyan Hotel, Constantinople!

  What an exotic family we are. I was too ill to walk to the boat and so was carried in a litter. Carried in a litter. It is nearly impossible to be graceful in a litter. It bounces and yanks, and your head bobbles and stomach drops. It would have been better to walk. The boat was gruesome. When one is afflicted with a stomach sickness, a boat is not the answer.

  Later

  Adrian has lost his luggage, naturally, and is wearing Thoby’s clothes, which look ridiculous on him. No one but Thoby can carry off Thoby’s clothes.

  Virginia Stephen

  46 Gordon Square

  Bloomsbury

  Tokatliyan Hotel

  Constantinople

  21 October 1906

  Dearest Nelly,

  I began this letter to you at six o’clock this morning when I stood on the deck of the steamer and saw the Orient for the first time. Wrapped in a fur-trimmed coat and feeling a bit Russian, I settled down to write you a long letter. I got as far as the date and stopped, as there it was: Constantinople, like a marzipan feast glimmering on the wave. Santa Sophia floated in the centre like a wedding cake; three golden spheres of impossibly ripe architecture. How can something so definite be made of such rounded stuff?

  Closer and closer, and it did not disappoint. Do you know, I was not expecting the East. Never having left Europe, I feel like a freshwater fish who hadn’t realised there was an ocean. I did not understand that such a place was possible. There is a story waiting for me here. A story of magic and change.

  Tomorrow morning we go to see the view of the city from Pera. We will look down from a tower called Galata upon a river city of misted gold.

  By the way, I just read that Cortés, bloodthirsty, Aztec-murdering Cortés, was the first man to bring tomatoes to Europe. I thought you would want to know.

  Missing you dearest,

  Virginia

  25 October 1906—Constantinople

  The air feels different here. Gritty and tinted with a dusty light I do not yet understand. Today we visited the Church of Santa Sophia. What to do with such a building. A church and then a mosque and then a church. But she is still none of those things. She is entirely herself.

  And now we will be four: three Stephens and a Violet. Thoby has to return to London early and will be taking the boat train tonight. I was hoping he would change his mind and stay, but he had promised to meet Lytton and Saxon in the Lake District, and it cannot be put off as the cottage is already paid up.

  “Bother the cottage,” Virginia said.

  I did not want him to go either but recognised the inevitability. Virginia ignores inevitability and refused to let the subject drop.

  “But if you stay with us, you will get to ride home on the Orient Express. To come so close and then mis
s it? People will think you lack imagination,” Virginia said, her voice rising steeply. I saw Thoby tense. We knew that tone.

  “Or, Ginia, they will commend me for my imagination. How rare a person it must take to get so close and then not go? That takes a rare man,” Thoby said, pulling her to him. “I will miss you and be very sorry not to be here,” he said into the top of her head. She calmed. It was what she was waiting for.

  Later (after supper)

  We sat in the hotel drawing room. There was an odd assortment of travellers, Violet and us. I poured coffee for Virginia but did not expect her to drink it.

  Virginia was sullen but controlled. Thoby had said goodbye to her last. To be saved for last is very important to Virginia.

  28 October 1906—Constantinople (hot and close!)

  Ill again. Desperately ill. Adrian and Virginia are taking me home.

  And—The train is booked. Adrian was able to re-arrange our seats for tomorrow morning instead of next week.

  Later

  I managed some soup and a little bread tonight. My fever spikes up quite suddenly, and I lose my way in a thought. We are leaving for London early tomorrow. It will not be an easy trip, and Adrian and Virginia are both worrying about it, which is only making me more uncomfortable.