The Mill House
27? January 1922
[…] This week we had Barbara to stay with us, and she brought her little girl aged 3. The visit was a triumph for me! For Ralph said when they left ‘Well that’s cured me of ever wanting to propagate my kind. I’ll never have a child if I can help it.’ I must say I had no idea children could be such boring teasing creatures. And this one was very pretty and well behaved. But it never gives Barbara more than 1 hour to herself and in her cottage she has a baby aged 1 year as well. I thought she led a life which was little better than that of any illiterate cottage woman – and then what an end to a lovely little creature who once held nearly every man who ever looked at her captive in love. Our relief when they departed was almost hysterical. Poor Lytton suffered most perhaps …
Pray God, I will never go through what poor Barbara has suffered, the degraded torments of pregnancy, child birth and then perpetual sordid boredom with children to bring up. Grrrrrr. Let us pledge ourselves dear Gerald not to propagate our species …
Carrington was not a great fan of Clive Bell, and composed a hoax reply complete with forged signature from George Bernard Shaw after Bell had criticised Shaw’s writing in the New Republic.
To Clive Bell
10 Adelphi Terrace, London
[February?] [n.d.]
Dear Clive Bell,
Thank you for the numerous compliments you have paid me in this week’s New Republic. I am sorry I cannot return the compliment that I think you, or your prose, ‘Perfectly respectable’ …
You do not, it would appear, lead a very enviable aesthetic life; to me it seems dull.
Yours Bernard Shaw
To general glee, Clive Bell was completely fooled.
To Lytton Strachey
The Mill House
15 February 1922
Dearest Lytton,
Thank you so much for your letter. We shrieked with laughter under our canopy of blue very often as we read it … Especially about Clive and Shaw’s letters. Really he was a greenhorn. Did it never occur to him Bernard Shaw wasn’t likely to type the address on his note paper? Perhaps he does. Perhaps God inspired me, and the first letter was the image of the second! Poor Shaw I wonder what he thought of Clive’s apologies! ‘Clive Bell completely ga-ga. Never wrote him a letter in my life.’ I see a new aspect: a new avenue in life now! Forgery between lovers, enemies, dukes and duchesses […] I sit writing to you like Nelson’s Column with lions on every side, with a cat on either arm of my chair, with an untasted tea before me on a chair.
[…] I painted my roebuck [inn sign] all today. I want to get rid of it and start some serious work. I’ve put him in the snow one side with a dutch snow landscape in the background. It’s simply pouring with rain now I write very quickly because it’s nearly six o’ck. I hope you haven’t been forced into Bunny’s shop yet. Can’t you get Pippa to be a little more precise and if she will come, what will she like to do? Did you take Aldous’s book of poems to Davis? I see Penrosefn142 has been decorating an opera at Cambridge. The Ibsen play sounds rather good at Oxford. I suppose you wouldn’t like a matinee with R. and me on Saturday afternoon? I didn’t know Mark’s pictures were so dear. No don’t buy one unless you like them. He might do something more lively this year. £40 is too much to spend unless one really likes a picture very much.
My love dear,
Yr devoted Carrington
In late February, Carrington and Ralph rushed to Vienna where Alix Strachey, studying psychoanalysis under Freud, had become dangerously ill with pleurisy. Ralph soon went home, leaving Carrington anxious and frustrated as her friend was thought too ill for visitors.
To Lytton Strachey
Hotel Hammerand, Wien
Later: Pension Franz, Wahringerstrasse 12, Wien 1
28 February 1922
Dearest Lytton,
I will just start a letter to you whilst R is paying the bill. We couldn’t go to Pension Franz until Willie Sargant [Alix’s uncle] left which he did yesterday evening. First I will tell you about Alix. You know it was the most serious operation. I hadn’t grasped that, when we left England. They had to cut a big piece of rib away to clean out the lungs and she can use only one lung to breathe now. But ever since the operation she has been getting a little better. The temperature has been more steady and lower. Poor James is very exhausted and I think he has never left his room except for a few hours and until Sunday he could hardly tell me of her appearance.
I have not written to you since a postcard in Nuremberg. I put on the postcard that I thought all the architecture in Germany hideous. But later I retracted just as I was posting the postcard, so I rubbed it out with a wet finger as a false statement! For the old part of Nuremberg is indeed very remarkable […] What charming people the Germans are! They enjoy their life so tremendously. Their plainness, their stoutness never depresses them. They all sat drinking weak wine, laughing and smiling at each other. The little girls danced with gauche young men, with beaming hot faces. I made one conquest: a fair German youth came and asked with a click of his heels and a stiff bow, if he might have ‘the honour’. Unfortunately I was so hot I really couldn’t, but I appreciated the compliment. We were sorry to leave such a clean, sunny town. Vienna is indeed the grimmest city I’ve ever been in. Much, much worse than Madrid, worse than Manchester. Everything is deep grey. All the houses are either old and crumbling, or new and cemented Baroque. The roads are grey and cold with slimy mud.
Heaps of grey snow piled up on the sides of the roads. The plaster peels of the houses. Nobody smiles. All the faces are grey and the boots covered in mud. We nearly burst into tears on Monday. We both became so depressed in this fearful prison of a town. At first I was so surprised why James never stirred outside his nursing home. Now I do not wonder. Life here is just as expensive as England and the food is horrible. Everything has an overcoat of batter. The meat often wears two waistcoats and 2 mackintoshes to conceal its identity. The very cakes wear macks. The butter is ashy pale and tasteless. I had chicken last night that tasted of mongoose and then one’s lunch costs 4/-, each bed and breakfast 5/- each, and the room had stained glass windows, and was practically a dentist’s waiting room. The Pension Franz is much better. The rooms are light, and James and Alix’s untidiness is human and the sight of books makes one happier. Madame Philip Florence has one room and we share the other. She is very pleasant and we all get on quite well together. We always see James after breakfast, and again for tea. The nursing home is a most extraordinary place. Nuns in sweeping dresses with flowing head dresses are nurses. For it is an R.C. institute. Baroque dominates, and sham tapestries. The appearance of cleanliness, James says, is only superficial. He lives in a little white bedroom, just opposite Alix’s door. Nobody but James could have borne living in that bedroom for 2 weeks day after day! If you could only see the vision that greets my eye as I write to you now. What can I compare it to and make you see it? Perhaps a flat in a high building in the Strand, near Waterloo Bridge. Only it is greyer and trams run below! But let us leave the Pension Franz and go to the gallery together.
This morning we were happy for the first time. Two divine Giorgiones; one of those Three Men and the big rock landscape, a tremendous picture. Then the head of a boy, also Giorgione. Too divine. A superb Raphael, of a Madonna and children with landscape, a lovely nude by Bellini. At least 20 Canalettos, so amazing you ought to come to Vienna just to see them. A superb Tintoretto of Suzanna and the Elders, perhaps the most remarkable picture in the gallery. A great number of Breughels, only one good one, the famous Snow Scene with Dogs. Two good Cranachs. At his worst he is awful. Some lovely Rembrandts and some Italian pictures. I shall go back again tomorrow and make a more thorough inspection. There is a riding school which James says I shall like, and tomorrow we see Figaro together. Unfortunately the good music season seems to be over. Really I am amazed every hour how James and Alix could stand life in this Pension and this city! The hideousness of the rooms is not to b
e imagined. We travelled on the train with Mrs Riviere,fn143 who made friends with us. R rather succumbed to her charms […] But R will tell you all our adventures. James says he is fairly well. I think Alix’s recovery will make him better faster than anything. I thank you darling Lytton for making it possible for us to come. Keep well till R gets home to you.
My love, Mopsa
By mid-March Carrington was back home, having not been able to see Alix, who gradually recovered. Meanwhile Gerald had been staying with the Dobrées in Larrau in the Pyrenees, where Valentine had become his confidante. He and Carrington were trying to arrange to meet.
To Gerald Brenan
The Mill House
Tuesday afternoon, 14 March 1922
Darling Gerald,
Yesterday Valentine gave me your letter and I was overcome when I read it […] Oh you do not understand if you think I do not still care or if I haven’t cared just as much since Watendlath. But you have conception how difficult it is with Ralph. He is so suspicious in a queer way & I do so dread if I write as I would like to you you may reply … and I shall not be able to show him your letters.
The truth is I am quite happy with him & I need not tell you what a charming creature he is, but I want more … and I find it impossibly hard to control friendships so that he can always peer in them.
That is my reason for preferring Larrau to Yegen, we shall be able to be alone more naturally. We will not have to manoeuvre it. I see Valentine understands … not that she said much but she understands enough to make it far easier for me to be alone with you than if we were cooped up in Yegen with J. H. -J. & Robin John.fn144 I love Valentine very much. She is a marvellous person – yesterday quite made up for the rather disappointing first meeting on Saturday. We had lunch alone together & then talked in the afternoon. Before she left she gave me your letter. Oh Gerald how good it will be to be with you again! I will be very fond of you. Do you know your ‘Bestiary’ struck me as so very good I asked R to show it to Virginia Woolf – was that wrong? – and they are so struck with it they want to publish it! So perhaps you will have to come back to England to see to the publishing of your book.
May I please do woodcuts for the animals if they publish it. Lytton is very enthusiastic. There! You have at least pleased 2 Partridges, a Lytoff and two lean Woolves! – and you wrote it for me. I am so happy I keep on saying ‘it’s mine’ ‘it’s mine’ because I love it so much. I haven’t time to write today & tell you in detail how much I like it. I just went up yesterday to London. Last night we spent at Gordon Square. Lytton took us out to dinner, such a lovely dinner and to Pinafore afterwards which I had never seen. I thought it most lovely & the music was charming. How dreadful never to have seen it before […]
I am going to start the wood blocks of your beasts this week – why do I never tell you of my painting? Because I am often sad about it and I think and think & draw picture after picture & then so little is ever painted. Tomorrow I start a picture of the ‘Horse Riding School’ in Vienna, of which I made sketches. This is a hurried letter just to tell you how very very fond I am Gerald – you don’t know how difficult it is to bottle up feelings. To know one might have cared so much more if one hadn’t been prevented. As you say everything proves this to be a cynical & idiotic world. I have loved Lytton for 6 years. He might have had my love for the rest of his life if he wanted it. He might have made me his boot black or taken me to Siberia and I would have given up every friend I had to be with him … and now it’s all been melted down, smothered with pillow after pillow of despair and finally put away in an envelope the day I married R – and R can make me care for him in every way except the way he wants me. And we who perhaps only want a month together on the mountains of Yegen to get thoroughly tired of each other have hardly been alone 6 hours […]
I have a feeling we might achieve this at Larrau. Valentine’s diplomacy will count for much.
Gerald darling if I have made you unhappy it was never intentionally […]
My fond love xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yr Doric
By early April, Gerald, Ralph and Carrington were all staying with the Dobrées in Larrau. The plot thickened when Valentine started an affair with Ralph, who was still in the dark about the developing relationship between his friend and his wife. In Larrau Carrington and Gerald’s romance deepened, though they were still not technically lovers. Gerald went on to Spain, but by the end of April, all four were back in England. Ralph continued to see Valentine whilst Gerald longed for Carrington, who in turn clung to her happiness with Lytton.
To Lytton Strachey
[29 April 1922]
Oh why are you not here to enjoy the loveliness of The Mill House, Tidmarsh, Pangbourne?
Really today Saturday its beauty is unparalleled. […]
The Charltons [recent tenants of the Mill House] really are amazing occupiers! They weeded all the footpaths, cut the hedges, cut the box hedges and left the house shining with cleanliness! Annie was here to greet us last night more exquisite and seductive than ever. R was more than moved. She is a coquette. Fires crackled on brick hearths. The wallflowers’ sweet scent pervaded every room. Tulips shone on a clean yellow cloth in the dining room. An exquisite French dinner à la Tidmarsh greeted us on the table.
We are overpowered by eggs. Two huge buckets in the larder already.
The little ducks are monsters, all the chickens alive and a garage complete in the paddock! Thousands of letters, bills, papers, and packages of books for you! All is very beautiful, and I’ve come to the conclusion we must never never leave this earthly Paradise. Really I think Annie was very clever to keep the livestock so superbly when we were away. I’ve given her a new print dress as a reward.
Please bring back a Duncan [Grant] for our walls.
The heat is really almost too much today in the garden. Ralph has a great deal of news about the Hogarth Press to tell you, so do hurry back. Dear Lytton I hope Pippa will bring us good news, and that I shall see you on Monday.
There are so many Country Lifes to look at, I feel almost bored with old houses. Our sitting room resembles a dentist’s waiting room today.
My fondest love,
Yr Carrington
[From Ralph Partridge]
I love you so much, do come down like the wind, the wonderful Charlton aftermath will all too soon disappear. The Hogarth is in the clouds, to rise or fall!
Your Ralph
To Gerald Brenan
The Mill House
Tuesday, 2 May 1922
Kunak,
Which in Georgian means a superb and superior kind of friend, in fact a friend who has reached planes of friendship and love, only reached in Georgia. How can I thank you enough for the plates and the ruggery?? They are so lovely I rush into the dining room every five minutes to gaze on their beauty, ranged in rows on the yellow dresser. (You ought to get our village carpenter to paint you some furniture I am sure he would.) Oh but Gerald the weight of that chain! You really carried it on your back all those miles over those Pyrenees? Do you know I could hardly stagger with it from the station on my bicycle to the Mill House, and you carried tents, sleeping bags, and personal baggage as well. If you had known of my joy over the plates your burdens would have seemed feather bags. I feel I wasn’t half grateful enough, but you never told me how terribly heavy they were. Bless you. Bless you. Bless you. Lytton is in almost equal raptures and even the stoical Ralph is moved into frenzies of delight. They were only both very sorry not to see you. But I felt for you in your ‘cold’ distress so acutely that I thought it sheer selfishness to ask you to stay when you sniffled so wretchedly. You only seemed fit, to tell you the blunt truth, for parental closes, and I hope they will soon restore you to a presentable condition.
[…] Ralph was so sorry to miss you last night and hopes you will come back here soon. Here is a letter from Valentine, full of affection, and so many apologies. I am sure, that you will soon be in love with her again. Please write me a detailed account
of your family life to amuse me. Lytton thought the photographs even from a photography point of view very very good. No one else will ever see them.
Mais il est un très exquise jeune homme, et, je suis très rongé avec la desire pour lui. Hélas. Je voudrais que j’étais un jeune et jolly fille aussi. Hélas.fn145 I’ve nothing to tell you. We simply eat tremendous meals, talk like kings, and laugh like jesters. Lytton has bought me some amazing books from London. A novel by Middleton Murry and a superb book of some aged Victorian peer, which is simply an attack on Victoria. But what an attack! The old peer triumphs over Lytton by sheer brilliance of sentiments. It will delight you beyond any book at Tidmarsh. I am so happy. I feel filled with Russian feelings of goodness and love for everyone. I could kiss the old butcher who brings the meat to the door, I feel so spiritually light hearted. Gerald dear, I was glad to see you again. Only your collar slightly abashed me. I believe collars are the mainstay of virginity. Valentine once told me of a young woman she knew who always wore stick-up-white-stiff collars. One day she accidentally left them off. The change was extraordinary, she suddenly felt very randy, rushed off, started a new life, had lovers, even Sapphic affaires, took to drink, drugs, and never returned to the path of virtue! Which a white collar had supported for nearly 30 years impeached. Now I must stop. I’ve so many things to do. The tapestry you brought looks lovely on the bed in a pink room. I do hope your cold is better. I love the plates very much indeed. They are almost too lovely to be possessed by such a creature as your D. C.
Dear Gerald if I ever have moods of being tiresome do not despair. I am so fond of you. I value friendship higher than anything. That is why sometimes I am a little nervous of in any way threatening our present very happy relation. Burn this letter, or all may one day be in the kettle of fish. Here’s a pretty kettle of fish! Bless you again.
Your most loving Doric
It was Bloomsbury’s habit to share letters, which Carrington, as her correspondence with Gerald became more intense, found increasingly alarming and took steps to avoid.
Carrington's Letters Page 23