To Lytton Strachey
The Mill House
Saturday morning, 12 o’ck [14 May 1921]
My dearest Lytton,
There is a great deal to say and I feel very incompetent to write it today. Last night I composed a great many letters to you, almost till three in the morning. I then wrote an imaginary letter and bared my very soul to you. This morning I don’t feel so intimate. You mayn’t value my pent up feelings and a tearful letter. I rather object to them not being properly received and left about. Well there was more of a crisis than I thought when I wrote to you on Thursday. Ralph had one of his breakdowns and completely collapsed. He threw himself in the Woolves’ arms and asked their sympathy and advice. Leonard and Virginia both said it was hopeless for him to go on as he was, that he must either marry me, or leave me completely. He came down to Reading yesterday and met me at the Coffee tea shop. He looked dreadfully ill and his mouth twitched. I’d really made my mind up some time ago that if it came to the ultimate point, I would give in. Only typically I preferred to defer it indefinitely and avoid it if possible. You see I knew there was nothing really to hope for from you – Well ever since the beginning. Then Alix told me last spring what you told James, that you were slightly terrified of my becoming dependent on you, and a permanent limpet and other things. I didn’t tell you, because after all, it is no use having scenes. But you must know Ralph repeated every word you once told him in bed; that night when we were all three together. The next day we went for a walk on the Swindon downs. Perhaps you remember. I shall never forget that spot of ground, just outside Chiseldon, at the foot of the downs, when he repeated every word you had said. He told me of course because he was jealous and wanted to hurt me. But it altered things, because ever after that I had a terror of being physically on your nerves and revolting you. I never came again to your bedroom. Why am I raking all this up now? Only to tell you that all these years I have known all along that my life with you was limited. I could never hope for it to become permanent. After all Lytton, you are the only person who I have ever had an all absorbing passion for. I shall never have another. I couldn’t now. I had one of the most self abasing loves that a person could have. You could throw me into transports of happiness and dash me into deluges of tears and despair, all by a few words. But these aren’t reproaches. For after all it’s getting on for 6 years since I first met you at Asheham; and that’s a long time to be happy. And I know we shall always be friends now until I die. Of course these years of Tidmarsh when we were quite alone will always be the happiest I ever spent. And I’ve such a store of good things which I’ve saved up, that I feel I could never be lonely again now. Still it’s too much of a strain to be quite alone here waiting to see you or craning my nose and eyes out of the window at 41 Gordon Square to see if you are coming down the street, when I know we’ll be better friends, if you aren’t haunted by the idea that I am siting depressed in some corner of the world waiting for your footstep. It’s slightly mythical of course. I can pull myself together if I want to and I am more aware than you think, the moment I am getting on your nerves and when I am not wanted. I saw the relief you felt at Ralph taking me away, so to speak, off your hands. I think he’ll make me happier, than I should be entirely by myself and it certainly prevents me becoming morbid about you. And as Ralph said last night you’ll never leave us. Because in spite of our dullness, nobody loves you nearly as much as we do. So in the café of that vile city of Reading, I said that I’d marry him. And now he’s written to his father and told him. After all I don’t think it will make much difference and to see him happy is a rather definite thing. I’d probably never marry anyone else and I doubt if a kinder creature exists on earth. Last night he told me in bed everything Virginia and Leonard had told him. Again a conversation you had with them was repeated to me. Ralph was so happy he didn’t hear me gasp and as it was dark he didn’t see the tears run down my cheeks. Virginia told him that you had told them you didn’t intend to come to Tidmarsh much after Italy and you were nervous lest I’d feel I had a sort of claim on you if I lived with you for a long time, ten years and that they all wondered how you could’ve stood me so long and how on earth we lived together alone here, as I didn’t understand a word of literature and we had nothing in common intellectually or physically. That was wrong. For nobody I think could have loved the Ballades, Donne, and Macaulay’s Essays and best of all, Lytton’s Essays, as much as I. Virginia then told him that she thought I was still in love with you. Ralph asked me if I was. I said that I didn’t think perhaps I was as much as I used to be. So now I shall never tell you I do care again. It goes after today somewhere deep down inside me and I’ll not resurrect it to hurt either you, or Ralph. Never again. He knows that I am not in love with him. But he feels that my affections are great enough to make him happy if I live with him. I cried last night Lytton, whilst he slept by my side sleeping happily. I cried to think of a savage cynical fate which had made it impossible for my love ever to be used by you. You never knew, or never will know the very big and devastating love I had for you. How I adored every hair, every curl on your beard. How I devoured you whilst you read to me at night. How I loved the smell of your face in your sponge. Then the ivory skin on your hands, your voice, and your hat when I saw it coming along the top of the garden wall from my window. Say you will remember it, that it wasn’t all lost and that you’ll forgive me for this outburst, and always be my friend. Just thinking of you now makes me cry so I can’t see this paper, and yet so happy that the next moment I am calm. I shall be with you in Italy in two weeks, how lovely that will be. And this summer we will be very happy together. Please never show this letter to anyone. Ralph is such a dear, I don’t feel I’ll ever regret marrying him. Though I never will change my maiden name that I have kept so long – so you mayn’t call me anything but Carrington.
I am not going to tell my mother until the day before, so she can’t make a fuss, or come up to London. I think we’ll probably get united by Saint Pancras next Saturday and then drift over to Paris and see Valentine.fn131 If my Fiend comes on I’ll linger there for 2 days and then Italy … Nick and Barbara are still here, and this weekend Saxon, and Alan and Michael come this evening. We’ll pay off all the books before we leave. Now I must leave you, and paint the other side of the grey hound.
Later
Nick has just mown the lawn and it is now as smooth and short as a field of green plush.
All the ducks and chickens survive and Ralph spends his time lying in the sun on the lawn trying to persuade them to swim in a pan of water. I thought you had been clever to escape the thunderstorms and rains, but today the heat is more wonderful than anything in your land of the Romans. Saxon is an extraordinary character!! I am telling no one what I have told you. It will remain a confession to a priest in a box in an Italian church. I saw in London Group catalogue a picture by Walter Taylor called ‘Reading Lytton Strachey’s Victoria’ – such is fame. I shall do a still life of a dozen Victoria’s arranged in a phalanx for the next London Group. My dear I am sorry to leave you. I’ll write again tomorrow. It’s such a comfort having you to talk to.
My love for a dear one
Yr Carrington
3 o’ck, Saturday
PS I’ve just read this letter again. You mustn’t think I was hurt by hearing what you said to Virginia and Leonard and that made me cry. For I’d faced that long ago with Alix in the first years of my love for you. You gave me a much longer life than I ever deserved or hoped for and I love you for it terribly. I only cried last night at realising I could never have my Moon, that some times I must pain you, and often bore you. You who I would have given the world to have made happier than any person could be, to give you all you wanted. But dearest, this isn’t a break in our affections. I’ll always care as much, only now it will never burden you and we’ll never discuss it again, as there will be nothing to discuss. I see I’ve told you very little of what I feel. But I keep on crying, if I stop and think about you. Out
side the sun is baking and they all chatter, and laugh. It’s cynical, this world in its opposites. Once you said to me, that Wednesday afternoon in the sitting room, you loved me as a friend. Could you tell it to me again?
Yrs Carrington
This last letter took six days to reach Lytton in Italy. She kept on writing to him and others as usual, and broke the news to Gerald Brenan.
To Lytton Strachey
Driftway, Middle Wallop, Stockbridge, Hants
Thursday, 19 May 1921
Dearest Lytton,
I am staying down here for two days before we whisk over to Paris. My mother bore the shock very well, and is fortunately making no fuss over it. So little fuss indeed one is apt to think perhaps she has known all along my wicked ways! She is mercifully not coming up to London which is a great relief. Dear, I’ve had it on my conscience that I wrote you rather a horrid letter last Sunday from Tidmarsh, but I was rather ‘beside’ myself, as they say. I hardly saw, or knew what I was writing. Now I am quite happy again and calm and I love my Lytton. Ralph is such a dear and somehow so childishly happy that I don’t feel it’s a plunge in any direction. In fact I suspect it will make practically no difference. Ralph is coming down here today to be inspected. Then we’ll glide off tomorrow to London, have a joy day looking at Max’s [Beerbohm] pictures. (I see they charge 5/- entrance today! Private view was yesterday.) The Nameless showfn132 and in the evening Bulldog Drummond with Alan, and Marjorie. Saturday 10 o’ck St Pancras’ Registered altar, then your 11 o’ck train, and Paris. I have asked Valentine to get me rooms at her hotel, and perhaps will stay till Monday before we move on to Italy. I believe I feel all these proceedings very little because I am so excited about ITALY! It’s almost too exciting sometimes, and already I am depressed about coming back, and the end of the month being up! It’s wonderful to be in Wiltshire again, and see the downs and the juniper bushes and the rings of beech trees on the tops of the hills. The cuckoos are cuckooing to despair almost. Bees buzz in the garden which is full of big poppies, and flags. Italy will have to be in fine trim to equal the beauty of Middle Wallop. So tell her to muster up her birds and flowers to greet Queen Mopsa next week. I’ve just been reading the History of Vanessa and Swift and their letters.fn133
I didn’t know it was like that. It touched me strangely. How lovable was Vanessa, rather like Alix I thought. On Tuesday evening we went into 51 G. S. after dinner, and talked to the family. Simon and Janie [Simon Bussy and his daughter Jane] were there, the latter I thought very attractive. Marjorie was in one of her most hectic moods. Ray was there also and her ladyship. We played bridge afterwards, and gossiped with Ray, and Marjorie. I had an awful time over my passport signing ‘D. Partridge’ on every line, and making a thousand mistakes. I got Noel Olivier to sign for me as she is a doctor. She thought Mrs P. was an excellent joke and fairly roared over it! I didn’t tell her it was nearly or would soon be a grim truth. Unfortunately in her merriment she signed it wrong so I had to forge her name. Which may yet land me in jail instead of in Paris! But I trust they’ll not discover it. I am bringing my spy glasses, an air cushion, and a camera, and a drawing book. C’est tout. Here’s a little blue flower for you. I’ll write if I can tomorrow.
Dearest Lytton, love me always as much as you do now and I’ll be happy.
Yr Carrington
To Gerald Brenan
Driftway, Middle Wallop, Stockbridge, Hants
20 May 1921
Dear Gerald,
Isn’t Middle Wallop a good name for a village, and it’s as good a village as you could find south of Andover. – I am again full of absurd emotions writing to you! Because no matter how prosaically I sit down to write to you, instantly, a vision of you in a blue cotton suit, tall green poplars, coloured mountains, and your house float into my head, & destroy all my literary talent & coherence […]
I would like to paint like Uccello & I never shall, because as you say he is highly ‘intellectual and conscious’ – It has something – this desire – to do with my wish to have Lytton as a lover, a wish that the veriest goose could have known was impossible.
I am obviously a simple painter. Simon Bussy once saw ‘the quality of Rousseau’ in my work. I have more feeling really for signboards & very simple 18th cent. English painting than for modern French. But I appreciate these Intellectuals almost to a pitch of worship. Matisse is exquisite. I love him too. But he’s not quite rich enough. Or tight enough for me. A little too – how shall I say it, water-coloury & pale muslin dresses for me. But perfect in his own way.
I hope to see more Ingres very soon in Paris. I saw some at the British Museum about 3 weeks ago. They are astonishing.
Yes, I agree also about Raphael but I always feel there’s something lacking in oneself if one doesn’t appreciate him. When Roger Fry talks about ‘the fullness of the lines’ and ‘the massive drapery’ I strain every wit & muscle to grasp what he means, but I always find honestly, I am cold and feel nothing. He never seems to me to be ‘peculiar’ which is what I love in artists […] Piero de Cosimo is my Saint at the moment, I burn all my candles to him […]
[…] Shall I answer your letter or break my news, like a cart belching out its stories on to the poor road, & burst it on you now, & then proceed with your letter.
The latter course is obviously more civil and the first wiser, as perchance if I answer the letter, which, you may remember is a long one, the post will come & carry my letter away without the news.
But after all what news is this? If I’d painted a masterpiece, made £100 to share with you, written a poem, that would be news … But this news is merely like any other, a passing fact, a slight alteration of names
DORIC CARRINGTON PARTRIDGE
Is it hateful to you? You, the connoisseur of names!
Next Saturday morning at 10 o’clock at St Pancras shrine I shall change my beloved name of Carrington to a less noble one of Partridge.
You smile & say ‘how are the stiff necked fallen, where are her grand principles!’ They are still here young man, locked in my amazon breast. ‘I never will change my maiden name that I have kept so long’ rings a good song – to you I shall ever be Carrington & to myself …
I sent you some books as a present did you ever get them? And I sent your letter to Lytton to Italy.
Oh, I am very glad you think so highly of E.V. Lytton has not received such high praise, as that, from anyone.
[…] The reason? Ralph was very unhappy & said if I didn’t, he couldn’t bear it – He is too good a man for a little wretch like me to make unhappy. Besides I had inward reasons, a devil, a plague to destroy inside me, he will help in the destruction. And he makes me very happy, & helps me bear the brunt of this tiresome world. It won’t make any difference, for we’ll not ‘set up’ in a house, with a neat maid in black & white & have napkin rings, we’ll live at the good Mill & keep a little room in Gordon Square & always a bed for Geraldo.
He is so charming, such a good companion, I couldn’t have married anyone else, unless perhaps …
But you shall never know that perhaps. G. B. Perhaps? Or perhaps not!
I am sorry the neuralgia plagues you. I will send you some excellent flat tablets for the same, 3 of which hurt no man or woman. I read Vanessa’s letter to Swift. It almost made me wept. I understand it so well. Dear Gerald never cease to remember I am still your friend Carrington & you can rely on my help if ever you want it.
My love dearest one.
D. C.
To Noel Carrington
41 Gordon Square
21 May 1921
Dearest Noel
This morning at 10 o’ck punctually I married R.S.P. at St Pancras Registrar. Please R.S.V.P. & tell me you are pleased.
A little gold ring now adorns that hand that once stood brown & bare
a wreath of orange blossom twines around her once so golden hair
oh dearie me oh dearie me
never again a maid shall I be!
Rex is
very happy, & that’s the main thing. We had an entertaining time breaking the news to mother who took it in a proper spirit & wasn’t too overcome. She professed a great liking to him & was very obliging not coming up to the wedding.
Alan & Marjorie Strachey alone supported us. Alan is a charming creature. Very soon in a couple of hours we glide to Paris, rest a day there, & then Italy. Then fresco tours like Assisi & Siena & Ravenna & then Venice where we join Lytton & Pippa Strachey.
Then we travel in the north, pay a visit to Mrs P & Dorothy & come back to London & paint pots on June 20th.
Everyone is very nice to one on such occasions I always find.
Lottie [Carrington’s sister Charlotte] even sent me a wire. I only told her in a letter this morning. Mother only knew two days before so she hadn’t much time to get agitated & secretly I believe she was vastly relieved I wasn’t costing her a penny in clothes, or a cape even. You must be happy also as I know you will […]
Why did we do it after so many years of brazen sin? Mostly to please Rex, who has a slight mania – entre nous – to behave properly! and then it made him happier. It’s cheaper also and deception is rather wearying year after year.
Mother hadn’t even heard of R. P. in connection with me apparently!
I’ve no more news as now I must pack. It’s a superb hot day & I am very happy. A cable cost too much for Rex has spent most our money on shoes & a new shirt.
Send us your love soon.
Yr devoted ever to you
D. C.
After some days, Lytton’s long reply to Carrington’s letter about her marriage arrived. He was as loving and reassuring as he could be.
Oh my dear, do you really want me to tell you that I love you as a friend! – but of course that is absurd, and you do know very well that I love you as something more than a friend, you angelic creature, whose goodness to me has made me happy for years and whose presence in my life has been, and always will be, one of the most important things in it. Your letter made me cry […]
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