No sooner had Ovens helped us out of the car than the front door swung open to reveal Grandpapa standing ready to welcome us in the glow of home-generated electricity, while the respectful figure of Ellen in cap and apron hovered to help us with our bags, unwilling to allow us to carry anything heavier than a handkerchief. The hall seemed enormous. The polished floor was dazzling, warning us of how treacherous it really was. In the bustle of our arrival Grandpapa, smelling of the Harris tweed he wore, his chin wagging under a short white beard, barked his greetings, slapping Clive on the shoulder with over-hearty goodwill. I stood there feeling trapped, fearful of what he would do. ‘Put out your tongue, young lady.’ I did so, with the sensations of a ravished sea anemone. ‘What you need is plenty of greens to eat; three helpings of spinach a day.’ Silent, I was thankful to be allowed to squirm away.
Luckily, not spinach but cake was standing on the table, spread with a white cloth which hung to the floor in Vandyke points. There were two platefuls of paper-thin cucumber sandwiches, scones and silver dishes laden with rolls of butter. Dorothy, my younger and more congenial aunt, sat placidly behind the teapot while Lorna vociferated her welcome in the raucous Bell voice; their intimate conversation over tea resounded through the hall like toucans calling to each other in the jungle. Each had married a man destined to be a colonel: one of them was the last man off the beach at Gallipoli and the other the handsomest man in the British army. The man of courage was diffident and witty, whereas the other, though impeccably dressed and sporting a moustache, was the greatest bore in the county. Grandmamma, small and soft, kissed us and murmured her conventional greetings, while Vanessa and I, glad of our tea, sat down to answer all the customary questions about our lives during the past year. The men took their cups and stood a little apart, sipping through their moustaches and talking about local events and the weather, as though these were hardly fit subjects for women.
The hall was the centre of the house. A gallery ran round two sides, and off these were the bedrooms, whose privacy was maintained behind doors of solid oak. Opposite were mullioned windows, their deep window seats suggesting the Jacobean age. At one end, high up, hung the head of a moose shot by Grandpapa, the date and place of its death inscribed on a brass plaque immediately below it. At the other end of the hall was a glass case enlivened with a backcloth of Highland rocks and a greenish sky framing a stuffed heron, several grebe pecking in real sand, and, beside them, a frond or two of sympathetic grass. The whole house was hung with guns and pistols, swords and daggers, arranged fan-wise, suggesting a life of fantasy that in retrospect makes Grandpapa seem more interesting. Did he dream, as in the Civil War, of being besieged? Or was it simply ostentation, like most of his other activities? Obviously he had his fantasies, however little he was willing to admit their existence, but they suggested nothing good or attractive: everywhere were the symbols of the destroyer or the poor, dead and stuffed destroyed. Every corner held antlers of various sizes; paws, tails, mangy heads looked down from the walls in glassy impassivity, while in the mahogany cases there were stuffed squirrels, or once-charming, elusive waterfowl. Outside Vanessa’s bedroom lay a snarling tiger, his scalloped length etched in blood-red felt.
The house was a kind of petrified zoo. In the library a lamp stood on a tripod of hooves, once those of a deer, and on the writing-table, furnished with the thickest of inlaid writing-papers, was an ink-well made from another, larger hoof, perhaps that of the moose in the hall, king of all these relics. In the dining-room, pepper and salt were shaken out of a pair of silver owls, not of course stuffed and for that very reason more attractive. Every feather on their backs was etched with care, and they stood proud and steady on their metal feet. Most of the pictures were of animals – hounds, horses, dogs, including a large, unctuous chow, one of the dynasty which reigned over the life of Grandmamma. Lorna and Dorothy were not painted in evening-dress but on the back of a favourite hunter, as was Grandpapa in a pink coat as Master of Hounds. Vanessa, having been asked to revive its appearance, covered this picture with varnish which came up in bubbles – surely a Freudian demonstration. Fond though the Bells were of animals, I doubt if they understood them more than most people. They looked to them for support, needing their loving if mute approbation.
On Christmas Eve we decorated the hall. Julian and Quentin with their cousin Thomas climbed up to the moose, while his sister Barbara and I were permitted to put ivy round the bookcases. Finally all was pronounced splendid, and we sometimes had time for a game of puff-billiards in the drawing-room where Grandmamma had remained sitting in front of the fire. Although on her account we tried to control our hysteria, it usually attracted a grown-up or two, who stood behind us almost as convulsed as we ourselves were until the dressing-bell sounded, when we went upstairs to change for dinner. One of my delights at Seend were the bathrooms, tucked away into corners of the house and lined with deep-green Doulton tiles. The large bath was encased in mahogany, its brass taps jutting generously over the edge to gush with soft brown water. The earth-closet next door smelled of cinders and Jeyes fluid; its wooden seat extended from wall to wall, with a cover which one removed entirely before sitting over the hole. A little recess at the side contained paper and a shovel, so that one could cover one’s excrement with ashes like a cat, a most satisfactory proceeding. After the bath, still damp and lobster-coloured, attired in my party dress, I would dash to Vanessa’s room to show myself for her approval before descending to the dining-room at the sound of the second bell.
The gentlemen wore smoking jackets, the ladies low necks, and bits of jewellery and long skirts. Vanessa, the only beautiful woman present, put on her garnet earrings, which swung from her ears like bunches of grapes with golden leaves. Her dresses were often home-made and embroidered with unorthodox designs in large stitches which looked splendid but unusual when seen beside the odd bits of lace and chiffon worn by the others. Her manner, at variance with her appearance, was hesitant and conciliatory as well as a trifle frigid, betraying to those who knew her well her inner anguish and boredom.
After Grandpapa’s death in 1927, his eldest son Cory became our host. His own house was nearby but his wife had soon decided that she was too shy to go out, and never appeared at Seend, to Vanessa’s envy. Cory himself, though something of a fascist at heart, was kindly and affectionate. He was bullet-headed and bull-necked, but his skin was delicate and transparent, like that of all Bells. His baldness was modified by a fringe of white hair which hung round the back of his head, and his upper lip sprouted a thick toothbrush moustache. In his moss-coloured tweed knickerbockers encircling a slightly protruding stomach he looked every inch a colonel. His small blue eyes almost disappeared when, opening his mouth like a character in a limerick by Edward Lear, he emitted the penetrating sound of Ha, ha, a, a, a, which signalled his presence in any house where he happened to be. To me he was invariably kind and encouraging, and I basked in his presence rather as a sardine flashes in and out of the jaws of a whale.
After dinner, plain but good and nearly always of pheasant, served by the maids in black alpaca with white aprons and caps, we left the gentlemen and retreated to the library. The atmosphere, dominated by Lorna, at once lost any sparkle it may have had: she knew the right thing to say, but said it so that you felt you were eating dust and ashes. I’ve never known anyone more correct and more abysmally wrong at the same time. When the men rejoined us, filled with ancient port and still puffing their cigars, we were committed by tradition to answering the Times quiz, when the superlative memory of the Bells came into its own and they vied with one another in being the first to call out the christian name of Mr Knightley, or the opening phrase of Sense and Sensibility – to them Jane Austen was private property.
On Boxing Day the men, with renewed energy, in thick stockings and boots, hung with shoulder bags and guns, tramped off with their dogs to enjoy a day’s shooting, thankful that Christmas was over. Occasionally I was allowed to accompany them, and experienced that s
trange moment of silence in the misty wood, when each man stood in solitude, his gun at the ready, and his spaniel listening intently for the sound of the beater’s stick tapping against the trees on the far side. The ground was thick with leaves, and one or two yellow ones still fluttered against the lozenges of blue sky, when suddenly the world exploded, excited dogs yelped, gun after gun went off, and the birds thudded down, their long tails pluming earthward. I earned a few words of praise from Clive for retrieving one of them from under the bushes.
After a picnic of pork pie and lardy cake, we returned to our last evening at Seend. Grandmamma had put on her embroidered chinese shawl, the white fringes of which almost hid her black silk dress. Her hair was piled high in the fashion of the 1890s, stained a faint yellow by the combs that held it in place. On her feet were tiny black leather pumps. Her skin was as soft as down, her lips pleated round the edge as though drawn by a thread. Her pale prominent eyes were very like those of Clive, and her hands so fragile they reminded me of the claws of a marmoset. Communication with her was restricted to scarcely more than ‘Good night or Good morning, Grandmamma,’ and when she sometimes asked a well-intentioned question, I found it difficult to answer. She survived her husband for many years, living only for her children and grandchildren. She was a perfect example of Victorian repression; if she ever had any egotism it was distilled in selfless dedication to her family. Life had, however, been kind to her, neither giving nor exacting much, and she ended by having faith that she would always be well done by, which in the event was perfectly justified.
One day in London, on my usual afternoon walk with Louie in the Tottenham Court Road, we were both knocked down by a car, whose driver had swerved to avoid something else. I came to to find myself in the arms of a man whose smile I have never forgotten, tenderly handing me into the ambulance. Louie’s ankle was broken, but I suffered only from shock, and was liberated from hospital after two or three days, to be greatly petted and spoiled at home. It was for Duncan and Vanessa that the event was traumatic: they had been told by the doctor that I had serious internal injuries, and although this turned out to be untrue, it created a state of anxiety which was often apparent in Vanessa’s later attitude towards me. This may have been increased by the fact that soon afterwards, on a visit to Seend which was for once not at Christmas time, I became seriously ill with a throat infection.
These days, such an infection is quickly controlled by drugs, and the normally healthy child hardly experiences illness. At that time, however, the doctor could do little but watch and wait for one’s natural vigour to reassert itself. Every illness had its initial moments of malaise together with an inner certainty of imminent collapse and a deep reluctance to admit it. Then there was the relief of going to bed, followed by headaches, pain, nausea and sensations of the strangest kind. On this occasion Vanessa was trapped at Seend while I lay in a state of timeless suspension in the old nursery in the back part of the house. Vague feminine presences hovered round me; Ellen the housemaid and another woman sat murmuring by the fire when they supposed me asleep. Their shadows engulfed the ceiling, while floors and walls no longer seemed solid, but approached and retreated like the waves of the sea. Small objects became large, amongst them my head, stretched to enormous size. Never hungry, I was yet fed from plates with double walls containing hot water to keep the food warm, stoppered with little corks on a chain. So familiar did I become with the garlands decorating their edges that I could easily reproduce their dull green, pink and blue at this moment. The doctor too left an indelible impression: he sprang up by the bed like a jack-in-the-box, jocose in the old-fashioned manner, and yet full of vague menace since he evidently knew top much about me. I didn’t like the way he talked to Vanessa, mentioning all sorts of things about my body as though I were not there. Had he been young and smiling I might not have minded, but he was small and stout with a double chin, dressed in black with a stiff wing-collar: he was absurd, but had to be propitiated. One day I made some cotton-wool eggs and, pretending I had laid them myself, I drew them out from under my bottom and offered them to him as the first fruits of my convalescence, though I knew quite well that I should have got better without his help. I remember his astonishment, as though the gesture were improper, and the awkward bonhomie with which he passed it off.
As I slowly recovered, Vanessa came and went. When she was there we shared the morning-room, lighter and more cheerful than any other room in the house. Unable to paint, Vanessa wrote letters or read aloud, or I played solitaire, a game taught me by Grandmamma. It must have been about this time that I saw the huge petals of the magnolia lying on the terrace outside the library; it was cold as I fidgeted there, muffled by my overcoat and talking to Grandmamma inside. Unchaperoned, I would wander off to explore the alleys and paths of the garden, which held a dark charm for me if for no one else. There was even a secret garden enclosed by a wall, with some old apple trees in the centre to which no one ever went, and of which I took possession as though I were queen of an unknown country. Then there was the rock garden, as big as a small mountain with a path running round it just wide enough for me to walk on, putting one foot before the other, and taking care not to tread on its miniature, tufted plants.
Sometimes I was taken to visit the hounds who lived near the stables – a sea of lolling tongues and waving tails, and sometimes to the immense, rose-bricked vegetable garden, its cinder-strewn paths dividing beds of leeks, carrots and cabbages. There were some frames of violets in which I could bury my nose, and the curly chrysanthemums which appeared in the house at Christmas. A whitened glasshouse leant against the wall, containing water pipes which wound their way round like some long-trapped serpent from the age of King Arthur. A fibrous twist of vine knotted itself across the panes of glass, tied with wisps of bast to the wire that was stretched from one end of the house to the other. When it yielded its bunches of grapes, we would no longer be there.
5
Spring in Cassis
In 1927, while in the south of France with his mother and her sister Daisy McNeil, Duncan became ill with an infection diagnosed first as pneumonia, then as typhoid, in those days a much more common and frightening illness than now. Vanessa’s anxiety was increased by the fact that she was not on the spot, and had little trust in Mrs Grant’s common sense. As soon as she could, she went to Cassis, a small fishing town between Marseilles and Toulon, accompanied by Grace and myself. She rented the Villa Corsica, almost opposite the Villa Mimosa, the much older house where the Grants lived. Just outside the town, the Corsica had recently been built by Agostino, the doctor looking after Duncan, and was barely finished when we arrived. It was a horrible little concrete box erected over a garage, with an outside staircase leading to tiny, hard-edged living rooms with liver-red floors and cream-coloured walls. We were either dazzled by the intensity of the sunlight or, closing the shutters, found ourselves cut off from the rest of the world as though in a snail’s shell.
The dining-room of the Corsica was the scene of my first enquiry into sex, which I chose to make during a meal, perhaps an unsuitable moment. Clive, suffering from an unhappy love affair, evidently thought so; his repressive comments provoked my tears and I was led into another dark, womblike room where Vanessa pacified me with a description of the facts of life that, though I hardly remember it, was no doubt accurate. My curiosity had been set alight, but the explanation seemed so abstract that I soon forgot it and felt bewildered at having aroused emotions I could not understand. All I now remember are my fists planted in my eye-sockets and spurting hot, and somehow shameful tears.
At the Villa Mimosa, Duncan’s mother and aunt hovered near him, making access difficult for Vanessa who, never sure to what degree they accepted her relationship with him, felt obliged to exercise all her self-restraint. I was taken to see him, bearded and wrapped in a blanket, staggering rather than walking to meet us. Ethel, his mother, was large and handsome, with a natural warmth and dignity not unlike Duncan’s own in later life. In
her case it overlay a certain tension, of which one only became aware when one got to know her well. She was somehow out of place among the vine leaves, the hot Dionysian earth, the purple sea and heady scent of pine and mimosa. Her proper environment was an English eighteenth-century house, a pot of tea served in china cups beside a dark, flickering fire, a piece of embroidery in her hands, listening to accounts of her friends and relations. Later, with irritation, Clive called her ‘nothing but a memsahib’ – but although, naturally enough, she had much of this in her, a certain reserve bore testimony to a greater sensibility than one expects from a woman in such a position. When young she had been a real beauty, with large eyes, an oval face and sleek hair parted in the middle – the prototype of many of Duncan’s later paintings. A McNeil by birth, she married Bartle Grant, a grandson of the Laird of Rothiemurchus, whose country seat was The Doune, in the foothills of the Cairngorms. There she met her husband’s nieces and nephews, the children of Sir Richard and Lady Strachey, who habitually spent their summer holidays with their grandparents. Ethel, who unlike them had nothing in her of the intellectual or the blue-stocking, impressed them by her serenity and common sense, her ability to calm and render innocuous the rivalries that sprang up within the family.
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