Daddy gave me two french books last year that Melle found in the big cupboaerd in Nigel’s bed room and I have picted up a lot of French wored’s out of it. Tell Swend that if shen evere he is naughty he will have to come back here in your bag, he wont like that I am shure.
Give my love to Daddy.
Melle is still wainting for my pin to come out, and I am quite all right.
Nigel send his love, and thank for his post card.
Your loveing Ben
November 8, 1922
My Dear Mummy,
It is so cold to day.
We are going in the litle train today because Gogy has to do some business for Grannyma, I love it. I had such a lovely letter from Miss Evans today.
I am looking forwould for Xmas.
Give my love to daddy
your loveing Nigel
November 16, 1922
Dear Daddy,
What a pity that you must go a way for your birthday. I keep my present till you come back.
Many happy returns Dear Daddy and lots of lov from Nigel
Brighton, December 24, 1922
Dear Editor [of the Rainbow, a comic that Nigel reads],
I am come-ing to see you on January, and the Bruin Boys too. I shald like to come on my Birth-day so look out for me.
Nigel Nicolson
December 1922
Dear Mummy,
I am sorry that I have not ritten be fore to you, because I am to busy. Last night we sow Mr. Pickwick and we all loved it, we have lots of treats we are lucky ant we.
Good-bye mummy
Give my love to Poor Daddy
Your loving Nigel
VITA AND HAROLD
These letters from Vita and Harold are from the period between the closing days of 1919 and the spring of 1923. Previously unpublished, they are in the collection of the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. They reflect both the emotional upheaval of Vita’s affair with Violet Trefusis and the steadfastness of Harold’s and Vita’s love for one another.
Vita to Harold:
December 30, 1919. 23 rue Nitot, Paris
Mr. Hadji, who lives at 23 rue Nitot,
I live in room No. 37, Hotel Matignon, 6 av. Matignon, Paris.
I don’t, anyhow, but it will do to write to you on. Darling, I’ve just come up from putting you to bed.… Anyhow you are out of the wood. But you will be lonely for a little more—but it will get better and you will be busy, and will forget your horrid Mar [Vita’s mother; later Harold used this name for Vita].
[ … ]
Darling, I must go to bed & not write any more nonsense. But you must have this tiny scribble to bring you all my love.
Mar
Harold to Vita:
January 2, 1920
My own darling,
I got up to look out of the window & wave at you—but you didn’t look up, which was lucky, as my pyjamas came down at the crucial moment.… Oh my darling you have been such an angel to me while I have been ill. I shall never forget it—my sweet loving Mar.
Vita to Harold:
January 4, 1920
Darling,
I miss you so in the evenings—& B.M. is rather a bore with her boasting. I had to ask her last night not to talk about you—as she goes on & on, till I could scream. She has got no decency, about those sorts of things, & then every remark she manages to drag out of one she misinterprets.
Vita to Harold:
January 5, 1920
Darling, you must write the life of Verlaine. You would do it so excellently well, I can’t image anybody who would do it better. You would produce a book which was at the same time picturesque, critical, and humourous. Why don’t you start on it when you come home this time? As for me, I can’t write a word and don’t feel as though I never should again, whether prose or poetry.
J’ai perdu ma force et ma vie … [I have lost my strength and my life … ]
Please, please don’t stay in Paris longer than the 13th. I cannot bear to think of you hobbling. Et mon coeur déchiré est, hélas, tout plein de tendresse pour toi. Reviens B.M. [And my despairing heart is, alas, full of tenderness for you. I return to B.M.]
Vita to Harold:
January 12, 1920. Knole
[ … ] Darling, I had a dreadful interview today with D.T. [Denys Trefusis], it was very painful and I can’t possibly write about it. Besides, you may never get this. Anyway I will tell you viva voce.
The wind is howling round Knole. It sounds terribly melancholy. Don’t cross on Thursday if it is rough, but wait at Boulogne, because I am so afraid of your leg getting knocked.
No more, as I expect this letter will be a dud.
But come back Thursday.
Mar
Harold to Vita:
February 2, 1920
My darling Mar (oh my darling—it is getting dark & I do miss you so. What do you mean by saying I don’t miss you? Why it’s a great gap.)
Well I have done nothing much since I wrote this morning. It was a simply gorgeous spring day & the first thing I did was to go out & buy masses of mimosa for my sitting room.… I have a lovely big room with a huge writing table like a piano which rather frightens me and a room for Miss Williams next door.
Anyhow I dictated to her & then I went out to lunch with Allen Leeper at Laurents—& then I went to Edward’s Shop where there was an exhibition of spring models—some really lovely ones. The D[uche]ss of Sutherland was there and asked about “Rebellion.” She is a darling.…
And then I came here & did more work & here I am writing to you my darling darling Mar.
I do hope the tooth is better. My poor sweet.
Look here write to the [Hotel] Alexander III always.
Your loving loving Hadji
[Ed. Note: I include the following letter in this section, though it is from Vita to her mother, for the purpose of giving the reader further perspective on Vita’s relationship with Violet Trefusis.]
Vita to Her Mother:
February 9, 1920 Dover.
My darling Mama,
I daren’t picture to myself what you must think by now, after my telegrams today. Briefly, I got back from Lincoln late last night, & V. [Violet] saw Denys & told him she wanted to leave him. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what he said, but anyway he went away after being there a very short time, and she left London this morning. I travelled with her as far as Dover, and honestly did my utmost to prevail upon her to go back to him, but she would not listen to a word of it. I honestly, honestly tried, though it was torture to me to do so, as you will appreciate better than anyone, knowing as you do all the true facts. I have never tried anything so hard. Well, anyway, she left Dover by today’s boat & promised to wire to me. This afternoon Denys arrived, and he and I are going over to France tomorrow, (what a ridiculous journey! I can’t help seeing that, even at this moment) and he will ask her to return to him and I alas! shall again do all I can to make her, but whether I succeed I very much doubt. If she does go with him, I think I will go on to Paris to Harold for a few days, as I shall be half way there already. But if she refuses, God alone knows what is going to happen; he says he will never have anything to do with her again.
I have never been in such an extraordinary situation in my life, and the décor is all so much in keeping,—a howling gale, and my awful little lodging-house room with a single gas jet,—it seems very unreal, and the only real thing is the anguish he & I both endure.
I put in my telegram that all this must be kept quiet, to avoid a scandal. You will be the first to agree. I have written fully to Harold.
You were very, very, very sweet over your interview with Denys, and your telegram to me & your letter,—which by the way I did not have time to answer in Lincoln, as I went to the Fens the last day & only found it on my return. I was ill nearly all the time I was in Lincoln.
I have spent the most absurd afternoon with Denys, I only hope he sees the ridiculous side of it as keenly as I do. But und
erneath all this I feel very near the life of an active volcano. As he said rather grimly, we can’t complain that life is dull.
O Mama, don’t think I’m not taking it seriously; I know only too well that somebody’s heart will be broken by tomorrow night, probably mine, I hope mine—and I think of you.
Mar
I have also written to Dada.
[Vita had also written to Harold that same day that if Violet decided to go with Denys, as she tried to persuade her to do, “I shall come to you.”]
Vita to Harold:
[Undated but possibly in late March 1920 after Vita and Violet had again gone traveling together.]
Oh Harold, my darling, I am so absolutely miserable now. I have had your letter. I visualised the whole scene, and exactly how it must have looked. But you forget I didn’t know when you were coming to Paris, you had never told me by letter, and as a matter of fact the last thing you had said to me in London was that you would probably be crossing on Wednesday. You see, we thought we would get wagons-lits for Thursday (hence the telegram I sent you & which your mummy must have forwarded to you by now), but later in the day we heard they weren’t certain, so we determined to set out for the station and hope for the best. Oh dear, I have told you all this already in another letter but never mind. My poor poor sweet, it must have been an awful disappointment. I do realise it so well. But look here, those telegrams which they told you V. [Violet] had sent were 1) to Roncompagni in Rome telling him not to get rooms there and 2) to Pat about a commission in London. I know, because I saw them both. They were not telegrams to say we were leaving Paris—so it is all not as awful & deliberate as you thought. Those beastly concierges, how dared they grin—anyway it was a foul hotel & they made up the bill all wrong, and those two telegrams are on the bill (I’ve looked) so I hope you didn’t pay for them. That would be the last straw.
And look here, there’s something I want to tell you, you know I always keep your letters? Well, I tore that one up, so as it shouldn’t remain forever; I hated doing it, because I hate tearing anything you’ve written me, and never do, but I had to tear that letter,—elle me brûlait les doigts [it was burning my fingers]—so now I’ve told you I feel less badly about it.
I mind dreadfully your having been disappointed.
I’ve got a bad cold & feel ill and o so wretched to think of you.
And I do love you, whatever les apparences.
Look here, a proof: if you want me back now at once, send me a telegram saying you are ill & I will come straightaway. I’m not just saying this pour la forme. I mean it.
O Hadji. Je t’embrasse.
Your Mar
Harold to Vita:
May 19, 1920
My own darling Mar,
A. This is just to say, don’t forget:
1. Piccy box
2. My passport (I have got copies)
3. Le lys rouge
4. De Profundis (Oscar Wilde)
5. My luggage
B. Tell William Cooper to cut off all the lilac stems—you know what I mean, you’ll see what I mean.
Also what about the packets of Virginia Stock?
Oh dear! Oh dear!
C. I met Enid Bagnold. Also Roderick Jones. The latter is a nice, clever, gentle, self confident, in love little man. I liked him. So does Enid Bagnold in spite of your theories. Damn those Amazonian theories of yours! Surely it is less ridiculous to marry & have babies, heaps of babies, than to live on through a truculent virginity. Anyway she was evidently sensitive about it all. She flamed indignation. And I thought of that foolish hard little letter which I had that morning dropped into the box. After all what on earth? … But I won’t argue. Anyway I was tactful—according to my 1886 lights—& said I hoped she wouldn’t be cross when she got your letter. She promised she wouldn’t. She is a nice boy. I like her very much. I like her more than I like lots of people but less than I like you. My dear dear black gypsy (gypsy? gypsophylla? Oh dear. I’m not as good as Ben).
D. (dentist didn’t hurt thank you.)
E. Less windy tonight.
F. I love you.
G. Goodnight
Hadji
Meet you at 12:30 P.M. tomorrow—take tickets for Southhampton West (Not Sackville West) & oh please PLEASE don’t miss [it].
Harold to Vita:
May 21, 1920 Marlborough Club.
Darling,
That’s done it!
The secretary of this club—otherwise an intelligent and quite polite man—has just said “By the way are you any relation to the Nicolson whose wife wrote Heritage?”
Now look here; I don’t mind being Hadji or your being Vita.
Or being your husband.
I might even put up, from foolish people, with being called “Vita’s husband” or “V. Sackville West’s husband”
Vita to Harold:
November 24, 1922. Cottage.
My little Hadji,
I got your dear funny letter about your packing, which made me laugh, do you want an extra suitcase sent out to you empty some time before you come home? I’m glad you didn’t give the fluffy suit to the waiter. I should have felt that that was indeed a link with the past gone. Oh darling, how terribly we loved each other at Cosmopoli when the fluffy suit was young and we were young too. Have you forgotten? Sorry to sentimentalise.
Yes, I will have 3 Knole books sent to you, and you can give one to the Marquis, and one to the Roumanian (how on earth had he heard of it?) and one for yourself.
I am keeping all your Lausanne letters (as indeed I always do keep your letters, silly one, so you can make a diary of them if you like, and not bother to keep a separate diary).
Darling, I hope you will be impressed by all that you will find done in the garden when you come back. The gentleman (?) who came about the new hedge says Hugh Dickson always grows in that food-of-the-giants way, and that they [a hybrid perennial rose, medium-red, introduced in 1905] should be bent over & pegged down, when they will break all along the bend, and flower.
Dots & G. [Dorothy and Gerald Wellesley] have gone off to Sheffield together. She sounded quite cold and frozen on the telephone—sort of numb. She has got claustrophobia badly. I hope it won’t end by making her really hate G. More than ever do I think he was a fool not to go to India with McNeel.
Go on writing here, till I tell you to write to Ebury St., as B.M. may again put off going back to Brighton. I hope so, as Brighton is good for the babies, & I love being here. It is quite warm, rather delicious. But I wish you were here, nothing really nice without you.
Goodbye, my own darling, amor de mi vida.
I have got Ethel Mayne’s Life of Byron for you, do you want it sent out or kept?
Vita to Harold:
[part of letter, probably from late December] 1922
[ … ] Pat informed me casual-like the other day that she had left me everything she possessed. It is rather difficult to know what to reply to such remarks. “Thanks awfully” seems inadequate; lack of interest seems ungrateful and excess of interest in poor taste. I lost my head and said I wished she would see another specialist. I really think she is the queerest fish I ever came across.
Vita to Harold:
December 31, 1922
My beloved Hadji,
It is close on midnight & my last scribble this year must be for my darling to say Happy New Year, although he won’t get it till the New Year is quite two or three days old.
I enclose a letter of Nigg’s. It is written to the editor of that much-to-be-deprecated publication, the Rainbow. Of course I can’t send it, but how sweet it is, with its slight hint of menace. [See “From Their Sons,” Nigel’s letter dated December 24, 1922 in this book.]
Today I told Ben I was tired and was going to rest. I came into my room five minutes later to find him standing beside my bed with tears pouring silently down his face. I said Good gracious Ben what’s the matter? There was an outburst. He hid a wet face in my neck and sobbed out that he couldn’t bear
to think I was tired (and it was only t.m. [time of the month], poor lamb, had he known), and he had come to see if he could get me a hot water bottle. I hugged him, and he turned rough and cross, and said he must go to his tea.
And when I got into bed I found a very tepid hot water bottle pushed well down to the foot.
Goodnight, my sweet, it will be 12 in a minute. I suppose I shall see you again some time next year? But it seems a long way off
Mar
I knew this letter was from Gwen [Gwen St. Aubyn, Harold’s siser, to whom Dark Island is dedicated] so slipped this in.
Harold to Vita:
March 2, 1923
My dearest,
I send you herewith a design for the wrapper of “Reddin.” [long poem about an independent spirit] It will do well enough.
I went to the luncheon for Prince Nicolas: there was
1. Caviar
2. Sole
3. Salmon
4. Lamb
5. Quails
6. Ice
And there was
1. Sherry
2. White wine
3. Red wine
4. Port
5. Champagne
6. Liqueurs
I HAD:
1. a little bit of lamb
2. coffee
Wasn’t that good? But I don’t think I could hold out another time.
God bless you my sweet & enjoy yourself. How I long to get down to our little cottage. I loathe London.
Hadji
Harold to Vita
[April or May] 27, 1923
My darling,
I won’t come down tonight as I am going to the Piccoli with Reggie. I shall come down by the 5:25 to Hindenberg tomorrow. I love you.
I dined last night at Maudes; I came in looking very pleased with myself in my little flag & so tidy with my hair brushed all flat—& then found that no one else had a little flag & I had to take it off in front of the looking glass & get all untidy. There were lots of people & I sat between Maggie Greville and Lady Horner and we talked about Tennyson & why he was like that & it was rather pleasant. Lord Farquenhar was there & was either mad or drunk or both. We then went on to the dance. I was given back my little flag & had a large blue rosette on my lapel which looked very well & means “This large pink gentleman is a Steward and must be obeyed.” So I was pleased with myself again. But not for long. There was a “royal table” at the supper party, & Lady Curzon was to sweep in on the arm of our Prince, followed by a procession of ambassadors & duchesses & other who make England what she is. But both the Princes said they didn’t want supper at all & then the French ambassador went away.
Vita Sackville-West: Selected Writings Page 10