Pepita

by Vita Sackville-West

  DEAR——

  I am the Dowager Lady Sackville and venture to ask you if you would be kind enough (very kind indeed) to give me the number of pennies that correspond to the years of your life. I have noticed your age in the papers. Please be very good to my MILLION PENNY FUND by giving the TREASURY, through my collection, the small help I crave from you,—only a few pence (or shillings if you feel extra generously inclined).

  I have already sent, last month, 62,000 pence representing the Brighton number of voters which gave England the largest majority.

  Now I am working for England at large, through the Birthdays of her notable people.

  Please, please don’t refuse me. No one has done it so far and they often send their age in shillings.

  May I count on your help for the TREASURY and our country, by sending me whatever you can spare, even after the awful taxes you have paid, and do give me three stamped envelopes which means one for my begging letter, one for having the pleasure of thanking you, and one for a fresh Victim.

  In spite of being half blind already and practically bedridden,—though occasionally she would arise and make terrifying descents into quarters of the house where she was least expected to appear,—she brought all her old enthusiasm to the support of her fund. ‘It is no good doing things by halves, my child’, she would say; ‘ask, and ye shall receive. C’est Notre Seigneur qui l’a dit. Quoique je ne croie plus en Dieu depuis cette horrible guerre et que je n’aime pas les prêtres qui ont donné de l’argent à Henri contre nous, j’ai toujours beaucoup d’admiration pour Notre Seigneur qui avait tant de sagesse. Knock, and they will open the door; ask, and ye shall receive. Well, I do ask and I do receive. It is really surprising how kind people are to your old Mama.’

  This was in a mellow mood: she must have had a good post that morning. There were stormier passages sometimes. Sometimes an innocent and ill-advised though distinguished stranger would write pointing out the proportions of the National Debt compared with even a million pennies. Then she would grow annoyed. ‘Does he not know, the fool,’ she would exclaim, ‘that every mickle makes a muckle?’ She thought of an even better answer to such criticisms: ‘La Dubarry,’ she would say, ‘when she was collecting stones for her diamond necklace, always said, “Les petits ruisseaux font les grandes rivières”’, and then, pleased with her own appositeness, would forget to be cross. There was a very awkward moment when it suddenly occurred to her that I had friends at the B.B.C. and might broadcast an appeal for her fund on the National programme….

  Not that she ever listened to the wireless or consented to have a set in her house. I thought, of course, that here would be the ideal solace of many hours (though at the same time I shuddered at the thought of the letters she would write to broadcasters, either of appreciation or remonstrance), but she firmly refused to have anything to do with it,—‘Cette sale boîte’, as she called it. The reason she didn’t like it is obvious: she couldn’t control it in any way. She couldn’t control what it played or when it played it; and anything which she couldn’t control was ruthlessly cut out of her life.

  In the same way, she disliked Time. She had long since cut Time out of her life as far as possible, by always going everywhere in her own motor and thus rendering herself independent of trains which had a way of starting without her, by being unpunctual on principle for every possible appointment, and by detaining other people in the subconscious desire to make them unpunctual for theirs. As her eccentricities developed with age, her temperamental dislike of Time developed also, and she would sacrifice even her own pleasure and convenience in order to get the better of it. Any engagement which meant that she was pinned down to a certain hour would be cancelled, even if that involved turning away from the door someone who had been purposely summoned from London or elsewhere. Meals became more and more erratic. Supposing I went to luncheon with her, having been bidden to arrive not later than one, ‘because I want to give you a delicious lunch, darling’,—she was always convinced that I didn’t have enough to eat at home,—I would arrive at one, only to be told that her ladyship had just gone to her bath. With any luck, she might be successfully manoeuvred back to her bed by three, when our luncheons would appear on two separate trays. And then she would refuse to eat hers. ‘These dreadful cooks! You know, my child, they do not realise that one cannot eat exactly when they want one to,—elles sont sans pitié,—all they think about is their evening off. Take it away, take it away’, she would say, and sometimes it would be six o’clock in the evening before she felt hungry and would ask why her luncheon had not been brought. By that time, of course, it was spoiled, and she would go back to memories of the chefs at Knole, how reliable they had always been, how excellent, how well served she had always been in those days….

  Her ideas of Time became vaguer and vaguer, or perhaps I should say more and more antagonistic. She thought nothing of keeping one up all night, talking: and when I say all night, I mean till six or seven o’clock in the morning. She would do this quite indiscriminately, to me or to a new servant to whom she happened to take a fancy. When it was to me it didn’t matter, for I could go home and sleep it off; but to the servant who was expected to answer the bell at eight with fresh hot-water bottles and a cup of tea it mattered to the extent of probably getting the sack that day or the next.

  This question of her taking fancies led to endless difficulties, because it meant that she would take anybody away from his or her own job and absorb him or her into her personal service. Thus she would one day send for the gardener, engage him in conversation, discover him to be an intelligent man, and henceforth use him to write her letters for her. By some strange kink in her mind, she preferred this system to the idea of employing a regular secretary. The composition of her household, whenever she had one, was the oddest ever seen. Everybody was always doing the job meant for somebody else. The cook was weeding the garden, the gardener was up with her ladyship, acting as secretary, the pantry-boy was cooking the luncheon—‘il fait si bien la pâtisserie, chérie, tu verras! C’est un rêve!’—the butler was in bed with a nervous breakdown. So far as I could make out, she never employed a housemaid, and to this day I don’t know who kept the house clean; probably all of them, the cook, the gardener, the pantry-boy, and the butler, all in turn.

  In her restless turning about in search of an occupation which should be profitable as well as distracting, she hit upon a fresh idea, distracting in more senses than one. All her life she had been fond of maxims and neat sayings, wise or witty, and had been in the habit of writing them into albums whenever she heard them. It now occurred to her that she might make use of this collection, and the scheme of ‘my little books’ sprang ready-armed from her brain. The ‘little books’ were to be of two kinds: one kind was to be printed (a million copies) and sold by Woolworth’s for sixpence each; the other kind was to be written by hand and sold privately to her friends and the friends of her friends. No two bindings were to be alike, and everybody she knew was requested to provide blank note-books gaily bound and decorated in coloured papers with endpapers of a different pattern. It seemed to me that the days of Spealls had returned, but I was wiser now, and instead of sitting down myself with paper, scissors, and paste, I employed professional bookbinders to exercise all the ingenuity at their command.

  If I could arrive at Brighton with a parcel of bound note-books under my arm, I could always manage to divert her attention sooner or later. They were by no means certain to please her, but at any rate they would give her a few moments’ entertainment, even in finding fault with them, and it was better that she should find fault with them than with her servants.

  Meanwhile she was writing away with all the zest of which she was capable. Many sleepless hours of her lonely life were thus employed; if not happily, at least in forgetfulness. The unconscious pathos of that employment is a thing on which I cannot bear to dwell. She, who had been so gay, so amused, so reckless, so young, so active, so vainglorious, so feminine, so triumpha
nt, was now old, ill, bedridden, half blind, yet still with her courage and energy unquenched, inscribing her maxims on embossed paper specially made for the blind. She could not see what she was writing, and we, alas, could not decipher what she had written. That was the most tragic part of it. She would spend half the night writing, not even troubling to turn on the light since it made but little difference to her, and in the morning she would ask one of us to read over what she had written. And we couldn’t, for it was all illegible. In spite of the paper specially made for the blind, it was illegible. She would have forgotten to turn over the page, and would have written one thing over the other, so that it looked like sentences someone had wished to obliterate, like writing Egypt, Egypt, Egypt over an indiscretion. What was one to do? One couldn’t say brutally, ‘I am afraid I can’t make this out’. One had to make an excuse somehow, or else to read whatever one could read,—but she was shrewd, and her memory was inconveniently better than one hoped. ‘No, no’, she would say to me; ‘Dieu, que tu es bête, tu lis à tort et à travers, that isn’t what I just wrote (i.e. wrote last night, or recently), tu es aussi bête que tous les autres, et toi qui es supposée d’être clever!’

  But every now and then there was a phrase I could read, and it wrung my heart to see how often it recurred,—so often, that I realise now that it represented the sad philosophy of her later years: ‘What has been, has been, and I have had my hour’.

  V

  Lest it may be thought that I exaggerate the unhappiness and discontinuity of my mother’s mind, I reproduce here a typical letter from her; and it must be remembered that she wrote to me and I to her almost every day for many years. This letter, which I have selected out of many, seems to me to include the maximum number of characteristic expressions. It expresses her personal and unjustifiable grievances; her undying enterprise; her constant though erratic interest in topical events; her generosity; her oddities; her humour; her courage, take it all in all, when one realises that she was nearly blind at the time of writing; and her impatience with the unfortunate though fascinated men and women who could never satisfy her demands. Warped and wrong she may have grown; but gallant she certainly was to the end.

  The text of the letter may be taken as (sic) throughout:

  2nd July, 1934

  MY DARLING CHILD,

  This is the end of the fortnight of the worst fortnight I have known for a very long time, I have hidden from you the awful hell I have lived in, I did not want to add fuel to the purgatory I have gone through my personal attendants. It has been indescribably cruel and if it had not been for your loving letters I don’t know what I have been driven to do. I prefer to live and die like a dog than to submit to doctors and nurses, and personal attendants who type, and that coarse retired soldier.fn1 The Middle Ages couldn’t have been more dreadful than what I have gone through.

  I am thinking of going away from here, I am too utterly miserable for words, entirely brought on by those beastly heartless servants and one can get people who can read English properly much better in London. Oh! how I admire that man Hitler! If only we could take away from the World the awful wind that blows over it! I suppose one can die of boredom, from the company of ignorant people who won’t exercise their brains and read a newspaper properly. I am so tired of hearing ‘Her’ Hitler, instead of ‘Hair’ Hitler.

  The Brighton Murder pales before the events in Germany.

  You can’t imagine how my interest has revived in the Brighton murder,—a woman and a half in a trunk must be a record. The story in the Daily Mail and the Evening News is incredible. What a plot for Mrs Belloc Lowndes! I had a horrid fright yesterday by being told that a policeman wanted to see me. I immediately imagined that it was to do with The Perfect Murder. You ought to take that for the title of your next book, darling, and imagine all sorts of atrocities.

  I think the Loch Ness Monster must have swallowed the head of the murdered girl therefore he will become The Perfect Monster. You see, dearest, I must be amused. Peu me suffit. As far as I am concerned, rien ne va plus. But I won’t give in, and I make poor jokes.

  Please don’t be disgusted.fn2 If you only knew the dullness of my life you would pity me.

  I can’t tell you how perfectly miserable I am in this house, and how today almost more than ever I should like to die. Some people are too false and selfish for words, grabbing all they can get and in a very underhand way. Ah! they are not worth bothering about, and I am pretty sick with them, I can tell you, my child. I think they will end by killing me one fine morning, so be prepared for any eventuality. I am seeing my solicitor about it this afternoon and as I am very angry at the underhand way I have been treated he will be edified.

  What do you do to stop a quantity of wasps that we are enjoying here? I am so afraid of being stung when I am in a coma sleep.

  Oh, darling, I wish you had written your diary, life is so full of interesting incidents.

  I forgot to tell you I thought of taking some house in the middle of Sussex for the winter, I have no decided plans. Do you happen to know of a little girl who would never be seen by me and do the dusting and sweeping? Do you like American peach-fed ham? Abundance helps one, especially when people come in unexpectedly. I shall send you half one, as soon as I get it from Selfridge’s. I forgot to ask you how many lobsters you could manage a week. They are so fresh and cheap here; and there is a very nice horse-radish sauce that you could order at the Stores. Tell me about the peach-fed ham.

  My brain-fag is so bad I can’t teach anything to anybody.

  Oh! that Hitler! Il me semble que c’est un nouveau Napoléon.

  I should not at all mind buying Turner’s housefn3 if it is £5000. I like it for the roof-garden and the river running furiously at the foot of the garden. My life here is awful and I should prefer to begin a new life. If I got a house in London on the river there will be plenty of fresh air and you could always come and sleep at my house as I shall have a spare room. Darling, don’t you think it is a good idea, to buy Turner’s house? We shall talk about it on Thursday. It will give me a new thought to think about. I long for you and Thursday. I am happier now, for I am extremely patient now, I have started a new phase and it answers.

  All my books have been stolen, and the cruelty to treat me like that because I am blind. The time has come when certain things must be revealed and punished.

  I am very happy with little A.fn4 She was not asleep at 2 o’clock, for she heard me singing as I was trying to charm away the horrid time, and she told me the tune I was singing which gave me proof of her dreadful night.

  I shall advertise for a maid because W. is having a breakdown. A very curious doctor came yesterday to see him, and he and I sang beautifully some duets from Gounod. He has a magnificent voice, and he sang to me, and I suddenly began to accompany him, and he was extremely surprised at the true tone of my singing. It was Verlaine’s ‘La lune par-dessus les toits’; but I can’t find out who set it, it is not only Debussy and Ravel but another Writer.

  Don’t you think my name of Foie-gras is very good for your new Alsatian? Or you might him call Stras, short for Strasbourg, where the patés come from. I am extremely unwell this week as I have so many bothers with the two young fellows downstairs who are so stupid.

  I am so tired, darling, I have dictated such a long letter and my typist is so stupid I have to spell nearly every word especially if it is in French. She means well, poor girl, she can’t help being stupid. Good-night, my child, I send you my butterfly kiss.

  VI

  The incredible disorder of her bedroom balanced the general disorder of her life. No picture of her would be complete without a picture of the untidiness and indeed squalor in which she elected to live. Suspicion, always latent in her mind, had come to stay. (I think it may not be wholly fanciful to suppose it inherited from her riff-raff Spanish ancestry?) She now suspected everybody,—she who was by nature so generous, so open-handed. This element had always been present in her character, but it now at
tained proportions which were really neither normal nor hygienic. It meant, in effect, that she would never have her bedroom touched or dusted; it meant that the servants had to watch their moment while she was having her daily bath to dash in and make her bed; it meant that she kept odds and ends of food standing on tables because she declared that if it were taken away it would be stolen. The most expensive bottles of pickled peaches from Fortnum and Mason stood there, half empty, for weeks. Tins of truffles from Strasbourg, jars of French mustard, pots of jam from Tiptree, samples of bath-salts, scent from Coty and Molyneux, boxes stacked with old ½d. envelopes intended for re-use, a stray bottle of Kümmel or cherry brandy; and then, on her bed, letters, stationery, diaries, note-books, handbags, fly-whisks, eye-shades, unopened parcels, so that the general accumulation left her only about a quarter of the bed to lie in. Yet she never seemed to notice this discomfort. She was far more concerned with the idea that the servants would read her letters and diaries, or would move her possessions out of her reach.

  The clutter in the room was increased by piles of my own books, stacked on the floor, on chairs, on tables and chests-of-drawers. For one of her more persistent ambitions and enthusiasms was for my success as an author. I had the greatest difficulty in ever soothing her indignation against publishers, booksellers, reviewers, and everyone connected with the trade. No publisher ever advertised enough: why couldn’t my publisher take the front page of the Daily Mail? It cost £500, did it? Well, she would pay for it, and gladly. No bookseller ever displayed his/my wares properly: why couldn’t Messrs Bumpus, Hatchard, Lamley, and The Times Book Club each devote a window to me for a week? She had heard that that was how If Winter Comes had been launched on its career. And as for reviewers, it was an unlucky day for me when she discovered the existence and efficiency of Messrs Durrant’s press-cutting agency. I am not aware that she ever actually wrote to a reviewer,—I tried to forestall this danger by telling her that reviewers were strange people, full of unaccountable prejudices, and that she might be doing more harm than good,—but what I could never prevent was her distribution of my books to all and sundry. Out of the real sweetness and generosity of her nature she did it, and out of the genuine desire to ‘help’, but I must say I writhed in embarrassment when I heard of my wretched novels going to Cabinet Ministers, ambassadors, and Queen Mary. It was in vain that I begged her not to. She couldn’t understand my point of view at all.