When the ceremony of rights was over, conversation resumed on a gossipy, joking level, flavoured by Virginia’s wit and Vanessa’s logic. Once Virginia had been liberated by receiving her allowance of kisses, she became detached, quizzical, gay and intimate. Vanessa, let off the hook, relaxed the knot into which she had tied herself, and although she continued to feel waves of frustration and reserve, the hedge in which she sat, and which Virginia had been trying to break down, grew less thick and impenetrable.
Leonard, like a vigilant and observant mastiff, remained unmoved by this behaviour. He was made of different material from the rest of us, something which, unlike obsidian, couldn’t splinter, and inevitably suggested the rock of ages. I know from later conversations with him that he strongly disapproved of the way in which I had been brought up, and although, had I been his own daughter, he would not have used the rod, neither would he have spoiled the child. I remember two incidents which, trivial in themselves, gave me a taste of his authority – a taste which suggested a different set of values. Once, not realising the nature of my crime, I spilled some type that he had just spent hours in sorting, and I said nothing about it. A week later I was reprimanded with a controlled annoyance which seemed to imply a standard of behaviour I was seldom expected to live up to. On another occasion, having asked for a copy of Flush to give a friend, I was unprepared to pay for it, but Leonard made me go home and get the money. These contacts with a sterner reality impressed me – he seemed to be the father figure who was missing in my life. And yet, had Leonard been my father I would have resembled one of his dogs, never beaten but always intimidated by the force of his personality.
For my birthday one year he gave me a splendid Victorian copy of Pilgrim’s Progress, filled with pictures of Christian marching onwards in stiffly engraved wooden drapery. For some reason this book meant a great deal to me, and my eyes met those of Leonard across the festive tea-table in a moment of intense understanding I seldom experienced. For once I felt limpid and transparent, purged by emotion of all the dross of puerile secrecy and prevarication that usually submerged me. I had unwittingly come into contact with the passion in Leonard’s character, which was both convinced and inflexible, contrasting with Vanessa’s tendency to compound and procrastinate in favour of those she loved, and Duncan’s ability to laugh away and ignore things he didn’t like. They were conscious of a moral force in Leonard which they repudiated as narrow, philistine and puritanical. Both he and Vanessa were natural judges and both were full of prejudice, but whereas she avoided morality, Leonard clung to it, always remaining something of the administrator of the Hambantota District in Ceylon. In Bloomsbury, vowed to amorality, this may have seemed a little heavy-handed and irritating, but with it went a refreshing purity which in later years I fully appreciated.
Once every fortnight in summer we would bundle into the car and, in the chalky stillness of a Sussex afternoon, drive over to Rodmell, crossing the Ouse at Southease level-crossing. Monk’s House, in the heart of the village, was, very largely for this reason, as different from Charleston as possible. The house was long and narrow: the rooms opened out of each other in succession, the whole house lower than the garden outside, so that one stepped into it rather as one steps into a boat. Plants and creepers knocked at the small-paned windows as though longing to come in, invited perhaps by the green walls. Cool and peaceful, on a hot summer’s day the house seemed to bubble gently, like a sun-warmed stone that has been dropped into a pool. As a little girl I had sometimes stayed at Monk’s House as a guest, and once my cousin Judith and I had discovered the amusement of rolling down the steep lawn opposite the front door, only to be scolded by our nurses because we were bright green all over. Green is the colour that comes to mind when I think of the house and garden, with its curling fig trees and level expanse of lawn overlooking the water-meadows. Green was Virginia’s colour; a green crystal pear stood always on the table in the sitting-room, symbol of her personality.
For tea we sat at the long table in the dining-room, the only big room there was. Virginia, sitting at one end, poured out tea, not as Vanessa did, with a careful, steady hand, but waving the teapot to and fro as she talked, to emphasise her meaning. Our cups and saucers were of delicate china, our food less solid than at Charleston – there were biscuits instead of cake, farmhouse butter procured by Virginia herself, and penny buns. Virginia ate little, popping small pieces of food into her mouth like a greyhound. Before tea was over she would light a cigarette in a long holder, and as her conversation took fire, she herself grew hazier behind the mounting puffs of smoke. She would describe a visit from Hugh Walpole or Ethel Smyth, or some local scandal, and, encouraged by our comments and laughter, rise to heights of fantasy unencumbered by realism. From Julian and Quentin in particular the laughter became ecstatic, their chairs tipped dangerously backward, hands raised in mock dismay at Virginia’s audacity or slapping their thighs in capitulation. Her brilliance was not without malice, and her eyes shone with delight at her success. While her mind seized on the unconscious, weaker and more vulnerable aspects of people, noticing details of behaviour with a brilliant haphazard appropriateness that skirted the edge of the possible, Leonard would wait, and then describe the same incident in terms that were factual, forthright and objective. Not that Virginia was not capable of objectivity, but she arrived at it by a different road, and on these occasions flung it over the windmill, intent only on enjoying herself.
When the meal was over we all trooped into the garden, invited by Leonard to play the ritual game of bowls. If the first half of the entertainment had been Virginia’s, the second was his. He took charge of the game, pressing everyone to play, even the least experienced, who were given handicaps and praised if they did better than expected. Leonard paced the doubtful distances with large, thick-soled feet placed carefully one before the other, sometimes attended by Pinka, who adoringly sniffed each mark on the grass, only to be gruffly told to go and lie down. Leonard’s word was law, his judgment final, and we would continue with the gentle, decorous game while he carried on a discussion with Julian or Quentin about the habits of animals or local politics.
Meanwhile Virginia sat in a deckchair under the elm tree, smoking, talking to Vanessa about cousins seen again after many years, and laughing about them in their own quiet, throwaway fashion, like two birds on a perch. Alternatively, Virginia, unable to tolerate boredom, did her best to inspire rivalry between Charleston and Rodmell, preferring to squabble about houses rather than remain silent. Vanessa hated the thought of life in a village, and, albeit reluctantly, defended the liberty and privacy of Charleston, where we were a law unto ourselves, where no Mrs Ebbs looked over the garden wall or called out to one on one’s way up the village street, and where there were no church bells to intrude on one’s Sunday afternoon. But when I went to sit beside them Virginia would insist on trying to make me say that Rodmell was the superior of the two. In the end I would become impatient and she would say, ‘Oh! Pixerina, what a devil you are! But you do love me, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do, Witcherina, but I can’t lie to you.’
As I grew older and she grew richer, Virginia made herself responsible for my dress allowance, which was £15 a quarter, quite enough for clothes and minor pleasures. Although the money was hers, Virginia had often forgotten to bring it with her and had to ask Leonard to pay me by cheque. It was a little like extracting water from a stone. Although Leonard did not protest, he went through a process of finding and putting on his spectacles, which made him look like a hanging judge, plunging his hand into some inner pocket to draw out his cheque book, then his pen, from which he unscrewed the cap with some difficulty, and finally writing out and signing the cheque with a trembling hand in complete silence – all of which seemed a test of my endurance. In the end he handed it over with a half-smile, like the flash of a needle under water.
With Virginia at Rodmell, 1932
Leonard and Virginia’s relationship was above all comra
dely: deeply affectionate and indivisibly united, they depended on each other. They knew each other’s minds and therefore took each other for granted – they accepted each other’s peculiarities and shortcomings and pretended no more than they could help. They were bound together by honesty. There was little, if any, conjugal bickering. Leonard never failed in vigilance and never fussed; neither did he hide his brief anxiety that Virginia might drink a glass too much wine or commit some other mild excess; he would say quite simply, ‘Virginia, that’s enough,’ and that was the end of it. Or, when he noticed by the hands of his enormous watch that it was 11.00 in the evening, no matter how much she was enjoying herself, he would say, ‘Virginia, we must go home,’ and after a few extra minutes stolen from beneath his nose, she would rise and, as though leaving a part of herself behind, follow him and Pinka to the door.
Once I remember walking behind Virginia up the garden steps, when it suddenly occurred to me to wonder whether she had ever made love with Leonard. I assumed she had, and yet it seemed impossible – I could imagine her in bed with no one, in spite of her obvious femininity – but no doubt the absence of sexual feelings was an important factor in the success of their relationship. Virginia remained a virginal, bony creature, stalking her way through life, like a giraffe. And yet, though her head was often above the clouds, her feet were firmly enough planted on the earth. Shabby, untidy, wispy, her fingers stained with nicotine, she cared not a straw for her appearance, but by some curious fluke remained both distinguished and elegant.
On one occasion I went to tea at Monk’s House when Virginia was alone. Before the evening was over she complained of a headache and I helped her to bed, finally leaving her alone to await Leonard’s arrival from London. It was the only time I ever saw her near a breakdown. I had been shielded from knowledge of these, partly because Virginia had needed protection when she was suffering from them. But there was also a common family habit of referring to Virginia’s ‘madness’, which made it seem quite unreal – and, as though that were her intention, it became something one could not contemplate. Seeing her suddenly threatened left me with the impression of a stoic vanquished only for the moment, as brief a moment as she could make it. In spite of her fragility Virginia had enormous resilience: she could never resist the call of life itself, no matter what shape it took. She never cut herself off from people, as we did at Charleston; even if it threatened to destroy her, human contact was indispensable. She searched continually for satisfying relationships, finding for the most part only volatile if stimulating contacts in a sea that threatened to submerge her, and which, had it not been for Leonard, would have done so.
With hindsight I can see, though she never said so, that Virginia was disappointed in me: she wished I was more intelligent, more disciplined, and probably agreed with Leonard about my education. She would have liked me to have had more enterprise and independence, to have been less predictable. Longing none the less to seduce me, she succumbed to the more conventional ploy of trying to improve my appearance, doing things which did not come naturally to her such as taking me to my first hairdresser, giving me jewels and feminine knick-knacks. But she also gave me her copy of Mme du Deffand’s letters, presented to her many years before by Lytton, and encouraged me to talk to the Rodmell Women’s Institute on the theatre, helping me with my script. She tried to probe and loosen my ideas, and, when she forgot to be brilliant and amusing, showed a capacity for intimacy which I found illuminating. At such moments her critical faculties and insight were used intuitively, and never made one feel inferior. I felt too that there was in her a toughness and courage to which she clung through thick and thin, of which one was aware under all the jokes and laughter.
9
Looking up to Julian
Anxious to go to Italy before the heat became too severe, Vanessa took me away from Langford after Christmas 1935, without entering me for the school certificate; I was barely sixteen. We travelled to Rome in the unaccustomed grandeur of Vita Nicolson’s chauffeur-driven car, accompanied by Quentin. After a few days at the Hassler Hotel, just off the Piazza di Spagna, we found a studio in the Via Margutta, traditionally the artists’ quarter. Our landlord was a Fascist and a bully; we had some trouble with him, the cause of which I forget, but which left Vanessa both crushed and indignant. We were conscious of our official unpopularity owing to the sanctions imposed by the British Government, and occasionally Mussolini made a speech, while once or twice we saw Blackshirts stepping down the Corso. This was the extent of our contact with the Fascists: those we saw most of, the shopkeepers, peasants and the odd painter, showed no political feeling. It was more disturbing when our washerwoman burst into tears; she had heard nothing from her son in Abyssinia for six months. This was one of the occasions when Vanessa’s shyness prevented her from showing sympathy. I remember standing there, longing for her to embrace the woman, to show some human warmth, but she held back, troubled and awkward; in spite of our enthusiasm for the southern temperament, we could not free ourselves from our inhibitions.
When Clive arrived for his usual continental holiday, he took me with some friends to picnic on the shore of Lake Nemi, and from there to visit the Princess Bassano in her country house. The young Prince showed me the stream that ran under it, swift, deep and cold, brimming with weeds of an intense and brilliant green. Preoccupied but full of dignity, the Prince was preparing to join his regiment in Ethiopia. Under the sophisticated façade of our fellow guests was a barely perceptible malaise which, had I been better informed and more politically sensitive, would have held a greater significance.
On the whole, however, we escaped confrontation with the régime, and continued unalarmed in a hermetic but enjoyable existence. Vanessa and Quentin painted every day in the Forum or in the Medici Gardens under the ilex trees, while I wandered in the sun or sat on a tomb learning the part of Juliet, for it had now been decided that I should go on the stage, and I immersed myself not only in Shakespeare but in Bram Stoker’s life of Henry Irving and any other books I could find in the English Library. Every morning, evading with some difficulty the lecherous old men on the bus, I went to have lessons in Italian with Signorina Boschetti, who seemed to have had as a student every English girl who had ever been to Rome. There I pored over Italian verbs and the most famous of Dante’s sonnets, unable to concentrate, my thoughts drawn inexorably to their own secret but well-worn paths. The mornings, however, were taken care of; it was the afternoons that were dangerous. After the siesta there were dozens of young men hanging about in voluptuous attitudes, waiting for the innocent and untried female. One afternoon, as I stood on the Pincio, I was invited by a handsome stranger to ride in his carriage drawn by six white horses: my imagination, nourished on Romeo and Juliet, plus a command of Italian hardly strengthened by the boredom occasioned by Dante, probably jumped to unwarranted conclusions – this charming young man was very likely referring to the horse-power of his car. Vanessa, when I told her, seemed quite unmoved, though to tell the truth, walking alone round Rome at the age of sixteen was not without peril.
At a loss to find a music teacher, Vanessa was pleased to meet her old friend George Booth, whose daughter Polly was studying the ’cello; she recommended a violin teacher, to whom I took my Handel sonata. No sooner had I played a few bars than he whisked away the music and substituted a page of formidable arpeggios. They seemed entirely without attraction and continued, like the Ganges, for ever. Every mistake, whether of bowing, notes or fingering, was drily, mercilessly corrected, and by the time I was half way through I was exhausted. It appeared I was wasting my time playing at all. The stuffy atmosphere of the maestro’s apartment was oppressive, and, as I travelled home with Vanessa inside the bus, tears coursed silently down my cheeks. Aghast, she suggested that I have no more lessons; the old pattern was repeated, my pride and self-confidence eroded. She wrote to the violinist saying that we were unexpectedly leaving Rome. Ten days later we met him in an antique shop in the Via del Babuino: awkwardly, w
e retreated behind a statue until we could unobtrusively leave the shop. No doubt we laughed about it afterwards, but I was secretly mortified by my failure.
Duncan arrived at last, and took another studio in our building, from the roof of which we could see far out over Rome. He continued to work on his decorations for the liner, the Queen Mary, for which he used me as a model, while in the evenings we sat in the marble interior of the café Greco drinking grappa, teasing him about various relationships with virginal spinsters supposed to be in love with him, while half-hypnotised by our reflections in the sombre perspective of the café’s mirrors. Afterwards we strolled home in the warm evening air past the theatrical decor of façade and fountain.
Deceived With Kindness Page 12