Carrington's Letters

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Carrington's Letters Page 34

by Dora Carrington


  You will be delighted to hear my ambitious nature is at last asserting itself. I now make over £3 a week selling little glass pictures at the Gerrard Street Book Shop. The pictures only take about 2 hours to make and some sell for 35/- or £2. So really the profit is enormous. My plan is to keep this minor talent in the winter as a means of making money, and in the spring and summer do my serious painting. I will do you a very lovely picture as a present on your return. In any style, on any subject. Flower piece, boxers, balloons, volcanoes, tight rope dancers, Victorian beauties, soldiers, tropical botanical flowers, birds and fruits, are a few of my subjects.

  I cater for every taste. Ravishing soldiers in busbies for the gentlemen, and elegant ladies for the Clive Bells.

  Ham Spray still remains very perfect. I am continuously happy here. The pleasure of my large studio, the Downs, and the garden continue, in spite of the atrocious climate, and the cold winds […]

  Norman Douglas has written a fine attack on D. H. Lawrence in a privately printed book. Aldous Huxley has written yet another novel on poor Ottoline. Henry Lamb came and stayed here after Xmas for two days – he played ping pong most of the time with Ralph! – brother Noel marries a Slade beauty the end of this month – which leaves me cold. Barbara and Faith are both pregnant with child, and like Rachel fill the air with their lamentations […] Bunny has formed a ‘Cranium Club’, very exclusive, only the purest intellects.fn15 Dinners twice a month, discussions on only abstract and literary subjects, no gossip, and no women allowed. Sherry, to be drunk – with great ritual – from a SKULL …

  To Alix Strachey

  22 February 1925

  Thank you for your very friendly letter. Yes it was rather serious, (or at any rate it would have been so had not that Lady [Henrietta] been too vague, or unwilling to admit my seriousness) but now I have almost recovered. I mean I only think of her occasionally, and only receive a few stabs in the heart when I hear her name mentioned. In a few weeks she will return to America. I shall be rather glad when I know she has definitely gone. Because I still have struggles when I go up to London for a few days to resist trying to see her. In time – I mean when one is 40 – I expect one will forget the pain and look back with a certain pride on the adventure […]

  Norman Douglas has written such a good attack on D. H. Lawrence. Really very amusing. I’ll ask James to send it you. It’s very cheap. Lytton has a fascinating correspondence with Norman Douglas […]

  Frances M, who remains very charming, altogether nice, still comes every weekend. She is rather a dim character. I mean she never behaves differently – and one never gets to know anything about her. But considering how lovely she is, and how spoilt by hundreds of young men, and the dullness of the bookshop I think she remains very intelligent.

  To Lytton Strachey

  Ham Spray House

  Monday morning, 7 o’ck in bed before breakfast, 30 March 1925

  Dearest Lytton,

  Such a weekend! Such orgies! Such conversations! Why weren’t you here? […] A wire from Henry [Lamb] and Dorelia to say they were arriving for tea (and a wire from Tommy to say he couldn’t come for the weekend). I just had time to whisk a few rockeries into cupboards and they were upon us. D looking very lovely, and in high spirits. H a little older perhaps, and a little balder, than the last time! I soon gathered they had come to spend the weekend. Mercifully we had some food in the house. They were both very sad at not seeing you and Henry has taken your address at Lyme and he said he would like immensely to come over and see you. I was completely knocked over by Dorelia and her beauty. She was very talkative and gay.

  We played the gramophone most of the time, drank mead and sloe gin and bottles of wine, played ping pong and went to bed very late. Yesterday we walked over after lunch to Sheepless Downs. Poor Dorelia got very exhausted, so I had to support her on my arm. She has a fearful cough the whole time. She goes in April to Ischia, an island near Capri, with John. It sounds perfect, a little cottage on the edge of the sea, with a garden and an Italian cook and servant and a little sailing boat. It was interesting to see Henry and Dorelia together. She fairly raps him over the knuckles when he gets fussy and laughs at his absurd conversation and rags him when he gets sententious. Olivefn16 is so far perfect. Far brisker that Annie, cleans and bustles about in a pair of squeaking shoes, and beams with pleasure when one talks to her. I think she will be alright in a few days. She is full of energy and common-sense. And already does a great many things on her own without being told.

  Henry of course couldn’t resist making up to F. M. [Frances] a little. But I fear his days of success with jeune filles are over. She couldn’t see a trace of that former dazzling beauty in his battered face, she confessed afterwards. Noel and Missie Afn17 came over to tea yesterday – we played poker after tea over the fire. Cream brulé came off and created a very proper impression. They [Henry and Dorelia] go back this morning to Alderney. Henry brought me a most superb Mexican Lily, a great red lily on the top of a thick purple stalk. I shall do a large painting of it today after they have gone. Dorelia promises to come again. She was delighted with our country, and properly enthusiastic over our beloved house. It was sad not to have you here and we kept all the time wishing you were staying at Ham Spray instead of at L[yme] R[egis] […] We both miss you very much. I will try and find the cork of the hot water bottle this morning.

  Love from your Mopsa

  In an attempt to keep him close to her Carrington had found Gerald a cottage in Shalbourne, not far from Ham Spray. This did not, however, improve their relationship. She drove him to despair by hardly ever seeing him alone and, if he spent a night at Ham Spray, only reluctantly sharing his bed.

  To Gerald Brenan

  Monday night, 12.30 [1 June 1925]

  Amigo Mio, I hadn’t read your letter when I passed you in the car. I couldn’t read it till I got back here tonight. I am desperately unhappy and my head aches. Last night was awful. I cried in bed because of the sadness and dreariness of our day together […]

  I felt last night you hadn’t understood what I was trying to explain. I mean I told you all my worst moods crudely. I let you see the horror of my lowest days of gloom and nerves. But you are being unfair to both of us, if you don’t see the other side. I mean you mustn’t forget just as some days I feel removed and very distant physically, other days I feel the reverse. Only it is quite true it is awful for you who mind so much what my physical feelings are, never to know before hand, what mood I shall be in. I entirely sympathise with your feelings. That is the worst of it. I am in despair because I am against myself. I think about you until my head aches. But I do not know what to say or how to alter things.

  You see when you came over yesterday morning I was transported with pleasure. I looked at you with the greatest happiness, filling the bottles and talking. Then suddenly in the greenhouse, I could hardly bear the difficulties and arguments which seemed to surround us. Just as I make you eccentric, you react on me by your noticing me in some peculiar way and make me disagreeable and nervous. I am not like that usually. Directly I am away from you, I hate myself for being so unfriendly. When I see you with Helen and other people I see all your charms and love the humour and engagingness of your character. But when we are together, half the time seems to be spent in this friction and that instantly makes me intolerant not only to you, but far more to myself […]

  It is awful to care so much for you, to love your character, to be excited by your mind and your writing and yet never to be in contact with these, because of these other complexes which suddenly without the slightest warning, appear. You cannot say I am incapable of physical feelings, yet the last 2 weeks I felt as if I was without a body. Will you please not bear me a grudge? Perhaps it’s something which I will recover from. At the moment I seem impossible. I quite agree. Dear, it is awful, after bringing you to Shalbourne and getting what I had looked forward to for so long now, to see you unhappy and looking ill. Why is it we cannot strike a sort of every day
relation that excludes these crises?

  I showed Ralph your letters, for I was in such despair. I did not know what to do, and couldn’t bear not to talk to someone. Naturally since he knows, perhaps even better than you do, the tiresomeness of my character, he could say nothing

  […] What can I say to you Gerald? I feel so utterly gloomy because I have made you unhappy. You will write to me? It’s impossible for me, even although it’s useless, not to go on caring very much for you.

  My love

  Yr Cirod

  […] Later, one o’ck

  PS Don’t let us make any decisions. Don’t say you won’t come back here, or you won’t see me again in London. For I am childish, I always believe what you say. Now I must go to bed for I am so tired. Good night. I feel I’ve been so tiresome that I’ll do exactly what you ask me. Write, not write. You must go to London thinking I’ve turned against you. It isn’t against you. I wish I could explain. I care for you as much as I ever did, Amigo mio. You really mustn’t think my distrait moods are to do with you, I should be like that if I was surrounded by beech trees and no men within hundreds of miles. Bless you.

  Yr C

  You shall have your birthday picture next week.

  Tuesday morning

  PS Please come over to talk to me today if you feel it will make things any easier.

  With nothing resolved between them, nor likely to be, given that he wanted the physical and emotional commitment she could not give, Gerald went off to France. Carrington continued to write to him.

  To Gerald Brenan

  Ham Spray House

  Sunday, 10 July 1925

  Dearest Amigo,

  You haven’t answered any of my letters to Toulon. But as I know you treat writing seriously, and I treat writing as a mere pleasure, I will write you another. If however you don’t answer this letter. I shall conclude you aren’t in a mood for conversing with me. And I shall not be offended.

  What do you want me to tell you? The summer glides by, without anything happening to me now. Tommy is still here, as far as I am concerned, as chaste as when he appeared. We go for long walks in the evening on the downs. And have endless conversations. He has just finished his statue for the garden. It’s very classical and elegant, a nymph of the ilex tree with the cornucopia of fruit. It is to be cast in lead. I am painting a portrait of Julia Strachey, at the moment. She is a most amusing companion. She comes here a great deal nearly every week. But do not leap instantaneously to a wrong surmise. I have come to the conclusion that Henriettas are as rare as mandrakes. One great excitement in my life is that at last I have a horse of my own here – when I say my own, it really belongs to the little Japp girl.fn18 But she has gone with her mother to Madrid, and has lent it to me. Everyday after tea I ride to the top of the Downs, and gallop along that grand track. The country is turning so lovely in England now. The tops of the Downs are pink with sorrel. And the edges of the woods are filled with small blue and pink flowers, creeping bushes and orchids. I ride very badly of course. But I daresay in time I will learn to do it better. I look after the horse myself, and feed it on lawn mowings. This week I shall have to ride it back to Lambourne, as I am afraid if I kept it too long something may go wrong with it.

  Last week there have been two parties in London. Karin Stephen and Dadie [Rylands], and Douglas [Davidson]. And Philip Ritchie. That was a very strange affair. With Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Margot Asquith, Lady Colefax and hundreds of celebrities, and exquisite actresses.fn19

  My plan in life is to have so many things to do that I never have time to think about myself […]

  I send you whether you want it or not, my love,

  Your loving C

  To Gerald Brenan

  Ham Spray House

  Sunday morning [19 July 1925]

  Your letter came yesterday morning. I have thought about you for a whole day. My detachment from us both seems complete. I shall always believe you to be one of the most perfect, lovable characters I have ever known. You contain more that attracts me in your character than I have thought possible for one person to contain. Thinking of you I forget all the difficulties and scenes and only remember other images of you.

  But looking at myself I feel only resentment at my character. Most of your attacks are justified. I see my complexes only bring out your worst features, which probably if I didn’t exist to torment them, would be invisible. I am only sorry you never knew, or so seldom, my better character. For somehow you also drag out something from me which I myself do not ever feel except with you. The irony of it is that H (who is a person of no importance and lacks all the proper virtues, for I can see even her, detachedly today) should have so completely altered my physical feelings for everyone. It was seeing her again that upset me so this spring. How foolish one is! To alter these things seems the hardest thing in the word. Yet with one’s head one is perfectly logical, and sensible. Don’t, Amigo Mio, turn on me and think it all a waste of time […]

  No one is quite happy. I know quite well, how much you really matter to me, but I agree with you, after one has one had a sort of perfection in a relation, one can’t put up with something different […]

  Do not blame yourself that anything was ever your fault. I hardly think it was mine. It was simply an irony of fate, that drew out suddenly from a past bundle of suppressions, these feelings of mine for H, which are of course perfectly futile and senseless. My secretiveness has always been my own misery. But when I tell you I suffer literally, physically sometimes, when I hear my inside self discussed – but if you haven’t these feelings it is difficult to explain. Will you when you go to Edgeworth send me back that diary I sent you. With you going away, my last contact with an outside world probably vanishes. I shall now retreat back into my self again. But I cannot bear to make you, (who in spite of all you say), I care for in a way different from my feelings for anyone else, continually unhappy. So I accept your letter. I will write to you no more and I will not come to London for some time. If I do, I will do my best to avoid any places where you may be. Dearest Amigo. You would forgive me if you knew how unhappy I make myself writing this. My fondest love to you,

  Your Cirod

  Later

  PS […] When Ralph said ‘Gerald told Frances all about it and the letter he sent you, I literally felt sick with pain. You can never bind two intimates to secrecy. If I confided your secrets and feelings as recklessly as you do mine, to Ralph and Lytton you would have soon felt the stings of publicity. I know it’s an obsession with me. But for a little I would beg you to remember it’s part of a person you care for. Please don’t write to me again; it simply makes it harder to behave as one wishes to behave. My love again,

  Yr Cirod

  Sunday evening, 7 o’ck

  I could not after all send my letter this afternoon because there were no stamps in the house. I went for a long walk with Alix this afternoon to Shalbourne Hill. She talked a great deal to me. I think I admire her more than any human being I have ever known. Her intellectual, and moral honesty is so remarkable.

  Gerald, I think I am unfitted as a human being to have a relation with anyone. Sometimes I think my obsessions and fancies border on insanity. As I haven’t 2 gns [guineas] a day to spare to be analysed I had better put up with my complexes alone, by myself. In any case I think you are too decent a human being to be dragged into my mire. The alternative is to try and be a serious artist. You once said I couldn’t face being alone. Don’t you realize that unless one has intimate relations with a person, one is really alone most of the time? I think you think I don’t understand your feelings. I understand them too well. Please do not turn on me […] My love again.

  C.

  To Gerald Brenan

  Ham Spray House

  Tuesday, 21 July 1925

  Amigo Mio, your letter from Rodmell, came yesterday after I had written to you. Oh my Amigo what an awful thing it is to be so divided, so unhinged. How much easier it would be if one felt definite a
nd positive feelings, like other people. If only our feelings for each other coincided more often. You want perpetually something from me which it is not in my power to give you and I feel always a sense of guilt and depression because I cannot give it to you. Reasonably there is nothing to prevent me having a very intimate relation with you, except a feeling of secretiveness and an instinct to live away from the world which seems to drag me against all my reasonable inclinations, away into myself. I feel if only I mattered a little less to you, it would be less strained. But of course if I did, probably then you wouldn’t want to see me. I torment myself with my own character. I envied Alix her independence from human beings and her concentrated interest in her work.

  […] I want so hard to try and be very exact. Because I know how easily you are depressed by misgiving. You know I have always hated being a woman. I think I mind much more than most women. The Fiend which most women hardly notice, fills me with such disgust and agitation every time, I cannot get reconciled to it. I am continually depressed by my effeminacy. It is true au fond I have a female inside which is proved by ≈ but afterwards a sort of rage fills because of that very pleasure. And I cannot literally bear to let my mind think of ≈ again, or of my femaleness. It is partly because R treats me not like a woman now that the strain has vanished between us. All this became clear really last summer with Henrietta. Really I had more ecstasy with her and no feelings of shame afterwards. You really pressed me out of myself into a hidden suppressed character. But when I returned, I turned against the other character that you had brought out and was filled with dread at meeting her again. I have been trying to make this clear, but perhaps it means nothing to you. (Suppose Seb [Sebastian Sprott?] persuaded you to go to the furthest point with him, can you not imagine although it was also part of yourself, you might be filled afterwards with feelings of terror?) It’s really something nothing to do with you, but some struggle in myself between two characters. I think H although she gave me nothing else, gave a clue to my character. Probably if one was completely S [sapphic] it would be much easier. I wouldn’t then be interested in men at all, and wouldn’t have these conflicts. It’s not true to say I don’t care for ≈ with you. Because you know I did. But at moments these other feelings come over me, and I dread facing that side in my character. (It’s not a dread against you, but against myself, against my own femaleness.) Somehow it is always easier if I am treated negatively, a little as if I was not a female, then my day-dream character of not being a female, is somehow pacified. I have tried to make this clear. I have never completely told R this, or anyone. It is a confidence I make only to you. Merely thinking of this makes me so agitated I feel I can hardly bear any relation with anyone again. In the past everything I believe went wrong for this reason. Always this struggle with two insides, which makes one disjointed, unreliable and secretive. I find it as difficult as you do to bear the strain of making each other unhappy. I don’t see how I can ever give you up. Because there is nobody who for me, can ever be quite what you are to me. Perhaps this internal combustion will one day cease, and my torments with it.

 

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