Will you write me a letter? I hope you are happy, Julia. I have asked the cleaners to send your coat directly to 41 G. S. So you ought to get it by Monday next week. Lytton sits writing in the sitting room. The wind roars outside and the fire blazes up the chimney. Stump and Tinker lie in a lovers embrace asleep in the arm chair […]
Last night I was chased by a huge black bull, in a dream. A tranquillity has settled on Ham Spray lately. Perhaps it is the snow. I feel incapable of anything but the very purest emotions. You have no idea how lovely the garden looks in the moonlight with the snow all glistening like diamonds. Tante C is becoming romantic, that will never do. My love dearest Julia. You know I love you a great deal.
Your devoted C
To Gerald Brenan
Ham Spray House
Thursday, in bed [27 February 1927]
Dear Amigo,
Thank you for your letter. It was like a cherry tart, one continually had to be taking stones out of one’s mouth. I am no duller I assure you than I am usually. I enjoy reading enormously and I can do that all day long. Then I lie for hours making up imaginary stories and now that I cannot movefn27 I no longer wonder if the stove has gone out, or if Olive has remembered to put on the potatoes […] You wonder why I prefer my Wiltshire water closet to London? But where do you imagine I could lie in bed in London? I could not lie for ever in R and F’s sitting room and the alternative was a nursing home and I would literally rather die on a dung heap than be scolded and fussed over by nurses, who allow one to see visitors between 3 and 4 o’ck as a great favour and charge one 10 gns a week for boiled cod and cornflour shape […]
Lytton came back yesterday full of the most amusing gossip. I laughed for nearly 2 hours over his stories. Stump, my favourite cat, sits on my bed and drinks out of the saucer on my tray. It is very pleasant lying under the blue canopy hung round with the tapestries of Granada, with a Greek chorus of rooks outside. Yesterday for the first time I tottered three yards and sat in a chair over the fire. It’s curious to feel so feeble. However Ellie [Rendel, Lytton’s doctor cousin] when she examined me, gave me a very flattering account of my health. My blood pressure was only 118, and my physique was superb. She is a very charming doctor. She tells me very softly just what one most longs to hear. I have read all Gogol now. ‘The Nose’ pleased me as much as any story. And ‘The Overcoat’ and then the ‘Diary of a Madman’ is superb. But I can’t write you a letter. It is a pity, for it is used to be one of the greatest pleasures. Your philosophy of life sounds almost perfect. I have plenty of books to read thank you; and I want nothing to eat.
But you will find the new universally admired genius will turn out to be the same Tomlin and that all the roads leads to Rome. That is one of the strangest phenomena of life. For a change, this year I will concentrate all my attention on my work and regard people as species of birds for my bird book, which I am making. I hope you will like your new room. It was kind of you to write to me. Forgive my stupidity but any sense I had has been thrown down the Wiltshire water closet in the bedpans.
My love
Your C
To Julia Strachey
51 Ladbroke Grove, London [a nursing home]
Write to Ham Spray next time
Wednesday [March 1927]
Dearest Julia,
Now you are forgiven only unfortunately you have whetted an appetite that can only be satisfied by another letter and very quickly. I am glad you are so happy. It sounds much more pleasant, and economical than London. I have been here for 10 days having my back massaged by a singularly unpleasant young woman with peroxide hair and the beauty of Phyllis Dare. She is terribly sadistic and hurts me very much. However I conceal my real character and lead her on to tell me all her innermost feelings. ‘Don’t you love Surrey Mrs P. I was down at Hindhead on Sunday giving my dog a run.’ ‘Don’t you think dogs’, violent slaps, ‘much more’, slaps, ‘intelligent’, bangs, ‘and more capable of love’, bangs, ‘and affection than human beings’, bangs. ‘I think’, slaps, ‘something has been left out of human beings they are such miserable’, bangs, ‘mean’, harder bangs, ‘creatures’, terrifying bangs, ‘compared to intelligent dogs’. Today being the last day shall I reveal my true character and shatter her? But that is probably impossible. She is made of iron. When one thinks of what might have happened, lying smoothed tenderly by gentle loving hands. But I suppose there wasn’t much chance of Ellie sending one a sympathetic masseuse!! This is a vile pen. I haven’t been able to do much frisking about in London as I get so tired in the back. So I’ve decorated Lytton’s sitting room at Gordon Square for him: very chaste. In pale green, white and cherry red, with decorations on the mantelpiece. Lytton bought a lovely still life by John Bfn28 which is a joy to put over the mantelpiece.
Am I cutting my throat, I often wonder, making Lytton’s room so elegant and lovely? Will he now fly to Gordon Square with R [Roger Senhouse] every Monday and leave me desolee at Ham Spray? Then I’ve painted Gerald’s new room in St James’s street, apple green and vermilion. And Alix has commissioned me to paint her gramophone with pictures all over it […]
Gerald was back in London for the summer. His relationship with Carrington staggered on.
To Gerald Brenan
Ham Spray House
Friday afternoon [13 May 1927]
Amigo Mio,
[…] My head aches with thinking backwards and forwards about you, and myself. And I get more and more depressed. Yes, it’s quite clear I am fit only to have relations with old plates and cats. I agree with almost everything you say. Don’t ask me to make any decisions, or more promises. For I am incapable of both. I only will try and reform and please more and be less selfish. If you find me intolerable you had better give me up. I’ve such a poor opinion of myself. I can’t argue about it. I am very sorry I have made you unhappy […]
My fondest love to you.
Your loving C
To Gerald Brenan
Ham Spray House of Banging Doors
Saturday [11 June 1927]
Dear Mr Crusoe,
I should be glad if you could tell me, since you are a seer, why doors bang instead of shutting or keeping shut? Why everything is green in the summer? And why Mr Robinson does not write letters? Phyllis is coming to lunch today so you can just imagine what a flutter Miss Moffat and her tuffet are in! […] No visitors this weekend for a miracle, which is a mercy. For to tell you the truth, much as Miss Moffat likes showing off her wilderness of green leaves and her possets of sack, even more does she prefer dawdling away her time in her room and listening to Mansfield Park with Lytton over the fire alone. Do I see you next Wednesday? That would be nice, if you also thought it nice, and I will spend Thursday with you? No. Impossible! Yes. We’ll spend all Thursday together; I’ll not go back till the evening train […] My love dearest Amigo,
From your amiable Miss Moffatt
PS I’ve been reading a life of Sargentfn29 the painter. It is almost unbelievable that such people can exist.
Saturday evening
PS My letter never got posted today. Phyllis came this morning looking very dazzling like a grand Persian Wxxxe [whore] with a scarlet mouth. Really I could wish she didn’t paint so violently. Lunch went off beautifully. Veloute sauce and carrots, cold chicken and cream posset. Lytton was very deign and friendly. After lunch we went off alone together and lay in the grass and talked. Very amusing gossip and conversations about lovers and lust. She has to go back at tea time. I must say she attracts me very much but I can’t quite tell you why. She loved Ham Spray and was properly appreciative of everything. I wish she could have stayed longer, as there was so much to talk about that I simply forgot to ask her. Now I’ve finished painting my bedroom pale yellow and I’ve been for a walk with Lytton and discussed Phyllis’s character with him. The day is not very agreeable, too sultry, and yet cold. I’ve got this pain in my back again, so feel rather distrait. And exhausted after the agitations of the Vicomtesse invasion. But it will be ni
ce to see my sober Mr Crusoe on Wednesday evening. I’ll try and be as good as you deserve.
Your very loving C
To Saxon Sydney-Turner
Ham Spray House
15 July 1927
I think if I enjoyed the party more than other parties it was perhaps because of your friendly wave as I started off in my ship (or cab) on my voyage. There was a very mixed gathering of nautical beauties. Lytton predominated as an admiral. Duncan looked very exquisite as a commodore. There was the usual contingent of male ‘beauties’, Douglas [Davidson], Dadie [Rylands], Angus [Davidson] and many others, all in white ducks. Julia was a 1890 middy. I meant to cut out the description in the Evening Standard which devoted two paragraphs to Lytton’s appearance and the other notables. Miss Tallulah Bankhead the actress, Serge Lifar, Miss Todd etc. There was a professional cocktail shaker, who for 4 hours mixed ‘side cars’and ‘moon rakers’ without stopping. I had a proposal from The Honourable Gathorne-Hardy, but unfortunately (or fortunately one never can tell) his original paramour a gentleman called Mr Ferriere, returned to the party, so he deserted me. And I ended up as I began with my old loves, Lytton and Alix and Dadie and returned with them to 41 Gordon Square. Alix moved me by giving me a passionate embrace half way up the stairs at 4.30 and said after all old friends were best and these new adventures really ended in dust and ashes. The next day I woke up with a terrible headache, for I had drunk nothing but cocktails the night before. Still as a dream and a vision of beauty, it still gives me great pleasure to think of these lovely sailors and sailoresses, all so very amorous, and gay. Julia and Tommy are to be married next week I think. They seem very devoted and happy so I hope it will (at any rate for some time) turn out successful. Oliver was to entertain the Judge and Lady Tomlin at a formal dinner at the Oriental [Club] last night! Unfortunately Lady T discovered about Paris,fn30 so weeps all day and says if only it had been ‘different’ how pleased she would have been to have welcomed Miss Strachey into the Tomlin fold, but as things are, she can only receive her with icy drawn back arms. The dreadful scandal has been kept from the Judge, so Lady T has to bear ‘the burden of this great sorrow’ alone. I bought them a patch work quilt for a wedding present before I left London.
Lytton and I returned yesterday afternoon and at 4 o’ck the postman brought me your letter. I regret I am not yet old enough to be insensible to flattery. And I was very moved by your letter. But perhaps you also had been drinking old brandy for dinner? Topsy and Peter Lucas arrived yesterday and stay till tomorrow. Do you know them?fn31
[…] Tomorrow Olive goes to Brighton for the day. I feel slightly depressed as I can do my painting. There is no reason except that I feel I know what the result will be before I start on a picture, and the result is so dull always, it hardly seems worth while beginning. Lytton is getting on slowly with ‘Elizabeth’.fn32 He hopes to get it finished by September and then perhaps we may go away together for a fortnight. But I hardly like to look forward to it in case it doesn’t come off. And in August perhaps you will pay Ham Spray a visit? […] Do you grow happier or remain in much the same mood from one year to another? Lately I feel as if for the first time I’ve grasped what the general plan of one’s life is, and will be.
My fondest love to you,
Your Carrington
A very notable black lily (the same variety as one Barbara had last year) is just going to unroll itself into flower so I am very excited.
Despite his mother’s horror that they had been living in sin, Stephen Tomlin and Julia were married in the summer of 1927 and would soon move to a cottage in Swallowcliffe, not far from Ham Spray.
To Julia Strachey
[Ham Spray?]
Monday [mid-July 1927]
Darlingest Julia,
You can imagine, Julia, the load that has been lifted off my mind, and the hell I have been through and now all the loads are lifted, and one can see daylight again, and I am tremendously glad that you are so happy as I know you will be with Stephen who is a dear boy, and I am sure when you have both found yourselves as you certainly will soon, you will understand what a real married life can be. Oh Julia, I am very glad over your new born happiness.
Well well it’s all been very fine but exit Aunt C. I fear now that her bird of a dove has found a nest.
I am glad seriously (exit Wogan for everfn33) you are going to marry Tommy who if you didn’t marry I should seriously think of marrying myself, for he is such a charmer. I loved our last weekend together (sobs and sighs) and I fear you’ll incur a great many enemies, i.e. Lytton, by snatching the lovely boy into your Swallow’s nest.
I am going to buy you a mirror for your blue spare room. I loved your cottage really, it looks very lovely, although what with the children and Barbara and one thing and another there is hardly time to look at it. Burn this letter, or we shall be disgraced and don’t tell T as I am sure he will disapprove! May I be your best aunt at your wedding? But I suppose the crowd of sobbing, sighing lovers will be too thick and may I come in August and see you? I will whether I may or not. I wish I could come up this week, but I am afraid I can’t. Tell me if you want a momentary loan of money to buy anything, a yard of brides-veiling for the occasion. Darling Julia, nobody can be as glad as your most loving
Tante C
To Julia Strachey
H. S. S. Owlscliffe, Wiltshire
Thursday [August 1927]
Darling, I fairly exploded with laughter over your letter this morning in bed much to the surprise of the little Tiberius who was about to eat my bread and butter (seeing it was a letter from you, and that my attention was completely engrossed.) ‘But who are all those other letters from,’ cries Mrs Nosey Tomlin? Ha Ha. If only you shared my double bed, and left your Swallow’s nest for my snuggery you would be able to read all my letters, even those from the lovely R-s-m-on [Rosamond Lehmann]. Well, darling, if you really liked the spotted dog which was I confess ‘knocked off’ in two minutes to please a little boy of 4, I will do you a whole dinner service of: Pussy Cats.
‘Really Julia, I must protest. I simply can’t face eating my boiled sausage off a cat’s back.’
‘Believe me, Tommy it is only one of her jokes. But what shall we ask her to paint on our dinner service?’
There is a problem for you to solve and in two weeks please make up your answer, as I shall by then be starting on my new china enterprise. Oh dear I wish I hadn’t a complex about earning money, and such a desire to have money at the same time. It’s the same thing I suppose as my mania for wanting ‘to go’ to the W.C., and my dislike for being there, so that I rush out before I’ve even ‘tried’ as they say. I now take paraffin oil to assist Madame nature.
What fun your birthday party, with the blue cake, will be. I shall think of some very recherchez gift to stagger and I hope melt the granite heart of my perfect paramour.
We are infested by rats also. I use Rodine with some success. But it only lasts about a week. Then a new army enters the house from the farmyard and starts nibbling the books, the papers, and the cheese. The cats catch some, but they obviously are too many.
To Julia Strachey
Ham Spray House
[17 August 1927]
Written in haste
Darling Julia,
Many Happy Returns of yesterday […] I can’t find your blue pettie-coatie my sweetie. What’s to be done? I am afraid Stump must have stolen it and seized it for Sunday wear. Oh dear, I’ve given her a tail! What’s to be done? […]
At the beginning of August, Carrington visited Munich with James and Alix Strachey and Sebastian Sprott. She and Gerald were still exchanging agonised and repetitive letters.
To Gerald Brenan
Ham Spray House
Saturday [13 August 1927]
I haven’t written to you because I have not known what to say. But I have been thinking a great deal about our relation.
The truth seems to be that I am almost diseased in the head over some matters and probably it’s
lunacy for me to try to have an intimate relation with anyone. Lately, I mean the last two months, I’ve had rather an obsession of the subject of copulation. The result is I sleep badly and get nervous about it. It seems out of my control. I mean when these feelings come, and go. However, I see it’s maddening for you to have anything to do with me and the knowledge that my behaviour affects you so considerably and makes you bear me grudges only makes me feel disinclined to see you and depressed. I feel at the moment it’s no good you seeing me. For I only irritate you. And I’m incapable of promising before hand what the mood will be, as I do not know about them myself. If however you want me to see you again later on, when your irritation has passed and possibly my nerves left me, you must tell me. Apparently I only get on with people and behave ‘decently’ when they have no intimate relations with me. It’s no good ‘going into it’ and seeing for explanations in our conduct. I am only sorry that I was wrong in thinking last autumn that I was capable of sustaining a lover-relation. But I assure you there is no pleasure to be got out of finding oneself impotent, which is what it amounts to, and you might instead of heaping abuse on my grey head, give me a little pity. You know I am devoted to you, but these barricades seem to make it impossible at the moment. I will send back your keys by Ralph next week, as I expect you would like them.
I feel rather depressed so I can’t write very intelligently. But I send my love. Your C
Philip Ritchie had died unexpectedly of septicaemia following a minor operation. Lytton and Roger Senhouse were deeply upset.
To Lytton Strachey
With J and T, Swallowcliffe
[21 September 1927]
Darling Lytton,
It was such a mercy to have your letter this morning. I am glad you were able to comfort Roger. I am sure it will make such a difference to him now, having your affection in this crisis to depend upon. I mean he has an excuse now for being natural and showing that he isn’t self supporting. He wrote me such a charming letter this morning telling me all he had heard from Jennings about P’s death. I thought of giving you that portrait of Philip I painted this spring and doing Roger a copy of it, or if you don’t think you would like it, I’ll give it to Roger. You can see it when you get back. I am afraid you must be rather worn out after Monday. I do hope your health keeps up.
Carrington's Letters Page 37