And, will you believe it, that we have not bickered once since this magic compact was made. It is a great improvement. You are not allowed to be cynical amigo, because it is really quite difficult to break bad habits. Perhaps by October I shall be such a transformed Cirod that you will forgive me. But I oughtn’t to say that, I am sorry. If you change your mind and would like me to come for a day secretly to Canterbury, or the Romney marshes, or London, will you tell me? It is true, I am trying a little to persuade you. I confess my thoughts nakedly. But I also know you are capable of doing what you like and this is how I prefer you to behave. Please give Helenfn10 my love. Thinking of you, I see what a dear friend you have been to me. There will never be anyone quite so perfect in some peculiar ways. My rages against myself are almost unendurable.
In that we have something in common. Bless you. This letter is purposely flat. There is no point in writing anything else. And I shall not write again unless you expressly ask me. I’ll be your ghost, you can conjure me to appear, or leave me in a grave, as you wish.
My love, dearest Gerald.
Your Cirod
And yet one has another self that shrieks GRRRRR half the day.
My love. C
With Lytton in pursuit of Philip Ritchie, and Ralph of Frances (who was still not prepared to go to bed with him), and Henrietta out of reach, Carrington was not inclined to let Gerald go. She went down to Kent where they slept together, but nothing really changed.
To Gerald Brenan
Ham Spray House
Sunday [19 October 1924]
Oh, but you did enrage me yesterday. Or rather I raged against Fate, and flu and thin envelopes and curious amazon post mistresses and sensibilities and everything I could rage against. You posted your last letter to me unsealed. Really it was never glued, because when I examined it most carefully I saw the glue was virgin – unlicked. The post mistress gave it to me breathless with agitation and confusion. ‘I promise you it arrived in this condition. I hand it you just as it was handed to me,’ etc. etc. In a terrific loud voice so that R outside in the car, heard every word. Imagine my feelings all the way back in the car to Ham Spray. Can you? Or does that mean very little to you? I was so sick with agitation, that by the time I reached my room I could hardly read what was inside. Please, please give up thin envelopes. They are fatal to keeping stuck even if licked and please remember to seal your letters, or I shall go mad. Don’t think me absurd. But it really is hideous to get letters, especially yours, after the whole village has read them. Now I have over boiled like the stew in the kitchen, and the whole letter smells like burnt onions and fat and am myself again, and quite merry […]
The fair at Newbury was wonderful. Annie and I went by ourselves and met R at the Newbury station. The streets were crammed with farmers, boys and girls. You never saw such a gay scene. Flare lights with cheapjacks, illuminating every face in the crowd. Boys stuffing confetti down the blouses of giggling girls. Strange leering faces pressed against each other. Stalls selling finger snaps, and sweets. Amazing gypsies telling fortunes. The pressure of the crowd was terrific. For the stalls went down the street on both sides. Then in the square there were huge merry-go-rounds, swing boats, lottery booths, quacks and astrologers. We went on a lovely swing merry-go-round, that whirled one round very fast so one flew out into the dark sky like a revolving bird on wings, higher than the houses, above the top of the shrieking merry-go-round and below one saw, tearing round and round, the crowd and the flaring lights […]
I think all that is best in English life congregates at a fair. All the farm boys looked so gay and beautiful and once I saw, for a second, a face that was worth going to fifty fairs to see: a very pale young girl, with black eyes like sloes dressed rather respectably in tailor made clothes leaning on the arm of another girl, whose face was shrouded by a drooping veil. As they passed me, the pale girl turned around and made a most lascivious leering smile at some farm boys who were passing. I looked at them, they were bewildered by her beauty and excited, but couldn’t make out exactly what she meant by her strange passionate look. Then she laughed in their faces twisted round and rushed off on the arm of her friend into the crowd and was lost from view […]
Your letter, now I am no longer angry, was so charming. You are a dear to write to me Gerald so often. I have been painting very hard on my decoration for the cellar door. I don’t know yet if it’s any good. I worked the whole of yesterday morning from 10 o’ck till one o’ck. After supper I made Ralph sit for me, and I drew him. Today I will work again. It alters one’s whole attitude to life, working hard, I find. I mind none of the vexations of life when I am painting […] Would you like some apples?
My very fondest love amigo most dear.
xxxxxxx Your Cirod
To Frances Marshall
Ham Spray House
[October?] 1924
Dear, Dearer, Dearest, Frances,
[…] You are very charming to give me such a lovely present! I shall as the Queen in newspapers says ‘treasure them always’.
Now I shall have to find something equally exquisite to give the princess for her travels. I cannot be put in such an indebted position. But will I ever find anything so lovely? I hope it rains a little this next weekend, on Saturday morning rather hard … do you penetrate my design? I still maintain if that vulture wasn’t so devouring, I should very quickly gain your attentions Miss, to say nothing of your bed – if it is fine think kindly of me. If it is wet I shall see you here, and show you, I hope, my affection. You say you like me more than I like you –? How can we provide such a delicate point? Ralph returned looking rather hollow eyed and worn but very gay and happy. For which I am to thank … and full of scandal secrets and gossip. None of which poor Barbara was allowed to hear. In case I don’t see you I hope you will have a very happy time with that curious trio in Italy.fn11 But I know you will enjoy it. Bless you. And remember always that there are few people fonder of you than your Carrington.
Henrietta’s acceptance of her complex sexuality appears to have enabled Carrington to be more open about her own. Her letters to or about women friends became suggestive, even provocative. This was a game Frances was not inclined to play. Henrietta was, and remained, Carrington’s only female lover.
To Gerald Brenan
Monday morning, 20 October 1924
Amigo Mio, I am in the middle of my work. What am I to say? … if I come up to London I know it will mean the whole of this good effort to keep working disturbed … I think if you are working I shall feel the same about the importance of allowing you to work. Yet I am always so half hearted about myself as an artist that you have only to beg me, or tell me you are unhappy, and you know I shall come. But it is a little unfair if you wish me to ever be any good as a painter. I will come on Monday after the weekend […]
Oh Gerald please don’t make it hard for me to work. The whole of everything regarding myself I feel hinges on my painting. I know it’s selfish of me to care more for my paintings than your unhappiness, but do you not sometimes when you are working feel the same? If you want to see me you can always come down here. There is nothing to prevent you. And Ralph is away on Wednesday afternoon till Thursday evening […] And amigo mio, please be happy. When you write to me as you did this morning, I feel all my inside torn with unhappiness.
[…] Next Monday I promise I will stay with you. So will you wait till then! Dear Sweegie don’t make me unhappy and it does when I know you are sad because of me. I will write a longer letter tomorrow. My love, dear one,
Your loving Cirod
When Henrietta reappeared, Carrington went up to London to see both her and Gerald. Alix Strachey, who was herself in analysis in Berlin, knew all about Ernest Jones, with whom Henrietta was still in treatment for her sexual confusion; also bisexual but happily married to James, Alix was the one person with whom Carrington could be truthful.
To Alix Strachey
[Ham Spray]
[Winter 1924]
Dearest Alix
I saw my exquisite ravisher last Thursday in London, I met her a quarter to one outside Mr Jones. She was rather battered. ‘He has been hammering away to get at my rock bottom, and I feel rather limp. For I put up a very [word missing] resistance.’ ‘Rock bottom’ isn’t what I should have described.
I’ve had a superb lunch in Soho, I find her taste so sympathetic. Grapefruit, cocktails, fish in mushrooms, fried ham and spinach, and raw pineapple. I really confess Alix I am very much more taken with H than I have ever been with anyone for a long time. I now feel regrets at being such a blasted fool in the past, to stifle so many lusts I had in my youth, for various females. But perhaps one would have only have been embittered, or battered by blows on the head from enraged virgins. Unfortunately she is living in London now with a red-haired creature from America, so as she tactfully put it ‘You must wait, if you can. My passions don’t last long, but at the moment …’
H now goes to the London School of Economics every afternoon. I find her completely sympathetic. In other words nothing she does ever gets on my nerves. And most of the things she does charm me very completely.
She is a little terrifying, partly because I know her so little. I begged her to come to Berlin with me after Xmas. I told her of your sympathetic cafes. And she said she was ‘distinctly attracted’ and would do her best to come!
I spent two days last week in London. Most of the time I spent with Gerald. Lytton behaved monstrously and gave a party at Dadie’s room in London on Friday night, and never even told R and I he was giving it, or asked us.fn12 R came back in high dudgeon over it. But I composed myself, as I knew I shouldn’t really have enjoyed it, and yet had I been asked, I should have found it hard to refuse. Lytton (entre nous) is making un peu d’idiot of himself over P. R. [Philip Ritchie] I mean I suspect P. R. isn’t nearly so fond of Lytton as he pretends to be. Perhaps he doesn’t pretend, and Lytton imagines it himself. He is staying here this weekend. Really his stories of perpetual rapes become rather boring. Helen Anrep is staying here also. I suspect she is very cynical over Mr R although she plays up with superb astonishment, and excitement over these endless stories of assaults! Of course I really always give way to Lytton, it’s a habit by now so I almost think Mr R is one of the most beautiful and fascinating young men […]
Ralph is getting on superbly with the bookbinding and orders rush in from every side. By mutual agreement we never quarrel now. Isn’t that an astonishingly good plan! You see really Gerald always repeats (slightly inaccurately I suppose) all your conversations about me. R and Missie M [Frances] are more engulfed than ever. But really she is rather nice and fundamentally decent. She was here last weekend with James.
To Gerald Brenan
Ham Spray House
Wednesday [17 December 1924]
Dear amigo,
I send you this picture of Ralph. If you don’t like it very much I can easily do you another. I never have any feelings myself about my pictures, they all seem after a few days equally as dull. All is confusion here getting ready for the [Christmas] party. Mercifully it is hot again and the sun shines, so one does not feel that awful depression that the rain and cold produce. I don’t feel in a good mood to write you a letter, partly because I haven’t heard from you, so I don’t know what to say. I read War and Peace day after day, and live in another world, it is strangely beautiful in so many varied ways. Late last night I heard a fox baying with short barks at the moon in the field outside. The carter told Annie they are so tame here they are not frightened of the men and the other day a fox joined the work men at lunch in a field and had to be driven away, he was so anxious to join their feast. It is difficult to tell you when you ask me, how I am still fond of you. I only know when I see you again, I am overcome by a strange affection, which is different from the love I have for anybody else.
Yesterday I thought of Spain. It was just a year ago today we started for Yegen. Do you know I think there are very few hours that I cannot remember every detail of at Yegen. You will never know quite how much I loved staying with you. I can never forget, or thank you enough for letting me share your life there and for showing me so much. You know my life is almost entirely visual and no place ever gave me such exquisite happiness as last winter with you. I hope you will be happy, as far it is possible, at Edgeworth [Brenan’s parents’ house] this Christmas. You asked me not to have a lover when you saw me the other day. It is easy for me to promise.
May I ask you for a promise? Please avoid Valentine as far as it is possible, because I feel as certain, as spring follows winter, that only disasters to us all will come of it. I write purposely a little restrained, you understand why. Seeing you again made me so happy. My fondest love,
Amigo Mio, your Cirod
My Dear one, I send you all my love.
This was not the end of Carrington’s romance with Gerald, but it was perhaps the beginning of the end. As with Mark Gertler, she could not enjoy sex with him but could not quite bear to let him go. Her sexual relationship with Ralph was coming to an end and she knew there was no future with Henrietta; her love for Lytton and her need of his companionship was as strong as ever, and their shared life at Ham Spray was her priority.
1925
To Gerald Brenan
Ham Spray House
Thursday evening, 6.30 [22 January 1925]
Amigo Mio,
[…] I must write in pencil as my pen is in Lytton’s room and he is working, so I must not bother him. In half an hour I shall have to fetch Ralph from the station. There is a howling gale outside, a tiger of a wind, I wish I had not to go, as it is pleasant sitting over this blazing fire writing what ever comes into my head to you […]
I was interested at meeting Henry Lamb. Mostly because of Lytton’s past relations with him and partly because of Helen.fn13 I longed to get him to talk to Helen, but somehow it wasn’t possible. He looks like an Army doctor who has seen ‘life’ perhaps on the Tibet frontier or who has suffered from low fevers in Sierra Leone and also has a past murder, or crime, which makes him furtive and uneasy. He has a most unhappy face. But he is amusing and very charming sometimes. Did you ever meet him at Helen’s house this winter? He promises to come over this spring with Dorelia to stay here. He is a most perverse man in his opinions. Almost as silly as Morgan sometimes, but sometimes extremely intelligent and inventive. I made two glass pictures on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Did you like them? I always want to know if you like them. Will it not be wonderful if I can at last and by such a delightful occupation, earn £2 a week? I fear Ralph will have licked the sugar off my biscuit-of-a-letter by telling you all the Ham Spray news.
This morning, as I didn’t feel in the mood for drawing I cut out my green grass brocade dress, it’s going to look very lovely Querido Mio. It is a copy of my Persian dress, only made with slight differences. I shall take some weeks to finish it, as I only do needlework in the evenings whilst Lytton reads to us. But in March (after the Mystic Month of February is over) you and l have a party together at Fitzroy Street, only with no guests and I will wear my Persian finery. It’s going to be very elaborate, green silk stockings and scarlet shoes and an underdress of fine red silk. The clock flies too fast, a quarter of an hour has gone and in ten minutes I shall have to get the car out of the stable.
I will come up next Wednesday. I will try and stay Thursday night also. But I will not absolutely promise this. But I do promise all Wednesday and Thursday. There are pictures that I want to see, the toy shop at Hoxton and the London Library. But they are all occupations that I would like to pursue with a certain companion, if he will come with me. How can I tell you that I love you more than all the ~ some thing in you which I cannot explain? If you doubt this, you can easily prove it. We will spend our days in utter chastity, and I will still be happy.
Now I must go.
I will post this letter tonight, so you will get it very soon.
Lunch next Wednesday, at 18 Fitzroy Street.
My l
ove, dear one. Bless you,
Yr Princess Cirod
There was occasional awkwardness between Frances, Ralph’s new love, and Carrington, his wife and mistress of Ham Spray.
To Frances Marshall
Ham Spray House
[n.d.]
Dearest Frances,
You are an
(which is an owl)
also a
(which is a noddle)
also an
(which is an idiot)
When I say ‘that depends’ it is by way of a joke. A joke against Mr P [Ralph] insinuating of course that ‘it depends’ on nothing at all and of course she can come and wants to come, she must come and we shall be delighted. You knew this owl, idiot, and noddle and it’s just because you thought it would be gayer to go off with Mr P. N.fn14 gallivanting, that you excused yourself by pretending you didn’t understand my little (and rather feeble) humour.
PS If I hadn’t wanted you I should hardly have dared to have said so blatantly!
PS Because my disease, ‘that most prevalent of all complaints’ [her menstrual period] causes me great torture, and produces a certain misery and despair, you flatter yourself if you think this unhappiness is caused by your presence! I ignore you Madame! I hardly notice your ghostly existence. In truth I wish, speaking for myself, you weren’t so ghostly. Oh but I forgot you don’t like advances from young, to be exact middle aged women. We’ve just been reading Norman Douglas. He is superb! My love dear lady. And please remember to come here when ever you want to, for it will also be reciprocated by your
Carrington
To Alix Strachey
Ham Spray House
4 February 1925
Now I’ve recovered slightly from my misfortune, and misadventure, I dream only once a week – instead of every night – of that wretch H and I think of her only 2 hours out of the 24. I’ve also used my self control to such purpose that I’ve not written to her since December the 10th. Someday – if ever you return you shall have the whole story. At least my side – she is still a mystery and I only know her version of my fall and disgrace through eavesdroppers but it’s left me a warped, and gnarled old tree, with a pain in my head whenever I hear the name of ‘H’ or the word American. I did not lose her through pride as you suggested in your letter, but through excess of L … [love?] I suspect she found my affections so cheap that she doubted they could be worth very much. And as she has an income of £8,000 a year I expect she thinks even L … ought to cost a few hundreds. I’ll give you one day a true history of the melancholy story from start to finish. I still can’t help being a little embittered, as I feel, aged and dull witted that I may be, I can’t be such an ass as her American female bitches that she consorts with. Also in the interests of truth she ought to have given me – not other people – her reason for abandoning our affaire. ‘God’s Neck – as Katherine Mansfield used to say –it is very mortifying. – Lytton curiously enough was the one person who sympathised. Although he was no admirer of that Lady.
Carrington's Letters Page 33