Bloomsbury's Outsider (6 page)

What would have happened to Bunny if he had carried through his plan or had been caught in the process of his aborted endeavours? If the offence had been regarded as high treason Bunny would have received the death sentence. If it had not
been regarded as such, it would have fallen within the scope of the Treason Felony Act (1848), a provision designed specifically to prevent conspiracy with overseas agents or governments from overthrowing the state. For this, the sentence was life imprisonment or transportation. Perhaps, given Constance and Edward's class position and influential friends, Bunny would have received some leniency with regard to his youth, but he had, unwittingly, been involved in committing what would have been considered a most heinous crime.
³²

Reflecting on the episode, Bunny penned a poem to ‘V.D.S':

I feel no passion now, nor pain, nor grief.

What is there left? The flame of joy has gone.

It burnt me quickly like an autumn leaf

That gives one curl of flame and then is done

Leaving no sparks to slowly linger on.

Only the cold philosophies now hold

What has been beaten fire and brilliant joy.

What little ash there is, is icy cold,

It is the ultimate. You cannot change it, or destroy

The lasting image of a fiery boy.

I gave my heart to free a man in chains,

Alas it proved a very sorry file [sic].

It spilt itself, and left some sanguine stains

Which now are rusting in an Indian isle.

I was quite blind with anger all the while.
³³

‘The companionship of flushed cheeks, sparkling eyes and lovely, rippling tresses of dark hair […] was happiness'.
¹

In June 1910 Bunny submitted his application to study for an Associateship (the equivalent of a BSc) in Botany at the Royal College of Science, one of three constituent colleges of Imperial College, London.
²
Bunny's form reads as if he was applying to study the humanities rather than science. Outlining relevant experience per scientific topic, he wrote variously, ‘very little'; ‘six weeks', and ‘none'. The form took on a more optimistic tone under ‘Any Additional Information', where Bunny asserted his knowledge of English Literature was ‘above average' and of ‘Standard & Modern Authors' ‘fairly wide'. He added that he had lived in Russia and planned to spend the summer in Germany.
³

If his application was successful, Bunny would be expected to attend college every weekday, to work long hours in the laboratory, go to lectures, work in a team and to maintain a disciplined schedule. Would this romantic revolutionary be able to adapt to a highly regimented life, to institutionalisation and to no longer being sole master of his destiny? Surprisingly, the answer to this question was ‘yes', for Bunny was able to apply himself to something if he was interested in it
and
if there was sufficient diversion, variety and stimulation in other areas of his life. Indeed, while experiencing the excitement and emotional tension of his involvement with Savarkar, Bunny was also periodically living a contemplative Neo-Pagan existence. Henceforward, he would be able to divide his life into entirely separate compartments, and like someone changing uniform, adapt his persona to the particular moment.

And so, throughout the Savarkar affair and between bouts of industry at Letchworth, Bunny led a carefree existence, roaming the countryside in the company of his Neo-Pagan comrades. The late spring of 1910 saw the first of a series of organised camps, usually including one or more of the Olivier sisters but now with a progressively expansive and shifting cast.

This first camp, on the Norfolk Broads, arose through Bunny's friendship with Rupert Brooke, whom he came to know via Noel Olivier, with whom, despite the six-year age difference and Noel's then schoolgirl status, Rupert was infatuated. In May 1910 Brooke wrote to Bunny inviting him to Grantchester, near Cambridge, promising swimming and bucolic fun. Noel warned Rupert not to make his guest ‘angery [sic] about anything' adding that ‘he is very dangerous when enraged and more than once has nearly Killed people who have agravated
[sic] him'.
⁴
Bunny bicycled from Letchworth to the Old Vicarage, where he found Rupert welcoming and delightful. Together they read Rupert's poems and at midnight bathed naked in Byron's pool. Bunny considered Rupert beautiful, ‘tall and well built, loosely put together, with a careless animal grace and a face made for smiling'.
⁵
But Bunny also found him strangely inscrutable. That weekend he was introduced to some of Rupert's Cambridge friends, including Geoffrey Keynes, who had known Rupert since their schooldays at Rugby, and with whom Bunny would enjoy a lifelong friendship.

Rupert wrote to Noel to say how much he liked Bunny, and to reassure her that his new friend had not become ‘angery'. They had gone on from Grantchester to the Norfolk Broads where they were joined for a week aboard a wherry by Brynhild, Godwin and Rosalind Thornycroft (now Godwin's girlfriend). Bunny felt particularly close to Rupert at this time, the two young men sharing a cabin and what Bunny called ‘a certain lazy warmth.'
⁶
But this closeness remained chastely Neo-Pagan, even though Rupert's first consummated sexual encounter had taken place only months before, with a young man whom, he acknowledged, closely resembled Bunny.
⁷

Later that summer, Bunny attended a camp at Penshurst, in
Kent, which included the Olivier sisters, Harold Hobson, Godwin Baynes, Rupert Brooke and his friend Dudley Ward. They went bathing in the dark, placing a bicycle-lamp on the riverside to illuminate the water.

Then one after another, we took running dives into the unseen river. It was exciting – the moment of doubt before one struck the water, and then swimming rapidly out of the next diver's way. The smell of new-mown hay, of the river and weeds, the curious polished smoothness that fresh river-water leaves on the skin […]. Soon we were sitting round the blazing fire, Noel's eyes shining in welcome for the new arrivals and the soft river-water trickling from her hair down her bare shoulders.
⁸

Harold and Bunny bathed naked in the moonlight, leaping from a springboard into the river, afterwards racing each other along the banks to get warm and dry. Bunny said that what he loved best at this time was ‘to fall asleep within a yard or two of a lovely girl without a thought of trying to make love to her'. ‘It was simply part of the social climate in which I was brought up and had nothing to do with innocence or its reverse, not a matter of morality but of manners.'
⁹
But neither sleeping in a barn with a pretty woman, nor lying beneath the stars with a handsome man, was an entirely innocent pastime, as part of the enjoyment was the sublimated sexual
frisson
engendered by such intimacy, reflected in Bunny's lingering descriptions of bare shoulders and smooth skin.

The idyll was interrupted in July when Bunny went to Germany. Fearing that he was idling away his time, with the assistance of Ford Madox Hueffer, Constance found Frau Heider, a Prussian widow, with whom Bunny would lodge in the town of Boppard on the banks of the Rhine, some twenty-five kilometres south of Koblenz. There he would learn German. Before his departure, Bunny received a letter: ‘My dear boy', it began, ‘You have come to an age when new instincts & feelings may at any time put you in a position of the greatest temptation and danger.' The letter warned against ‘a moment's want of self control' which might cause ‘the biggest regret & misery for the rest of your life'. In essence, it counselled vigilance against syphilis. ‘You may', the letter began, ‘within the next few years be led by real love into intimacy with some girl, as I was with your mother before our marriage.'

As you know, I don't look at these questions from the usual man of the world standard, & such a relation is in reality what I should most wish for your happiness. But you have no right to risk
parentage
before you are ready for responsibilities. By the use of certain protective coverings – called Malthusian sheaths – this risk can be avoided, & every young man ought to know this & to make it an absolute rule of conduct never to allow himself to be led into sexual intercourse with any woman
without this precaution
, which eliminates risk of motherhood, & greatly minimizes the risk of contracting disease.
¹⁰

In its surviving form and ostensibly from Edward, the letter is in Constance's hand, and seems to have been a draft, perhaps – as
it included a number of question marks – for Edward's comments, or perhaps for Edward to sign as seeming more fitting from father to son. But whichever parent was the originator, this letter was astonishingly liberal in wishing Bunny the same degree of sexual freedom they had enjoyed, whilst counselling against unprotected intercourse. Constance had another reason to impart this advice: as Richard Garnett has pointed out, ‘she believed her father's terminal illness was locomotor ataxia – by then known to be a consequence of syphilis'.
¹¹
Bunny obviously received the letter in some form, for having arrived at Boppard, he replied to Constance, saying how sweet it was ‘to have a mother one can talk to'.
¹²

‘Everything is very nice', he stiffly informed Constance, although there were discouraging signs, including a celluloid crucifix over his bed.
¹³
The Heider household comprised Frau Heider, her two sons, Wilhelm and Ferdinand and an aged grandmother. Both young men were soldiers of a precise military bearing whom Bunny abhorred for their supercilious treatment of the servant girls. He soon concluded that a month with the Heiders was long enough. Their worthiness grated, they never stopped asking intrusive questions and he found their formality unbearable. Worse, the Heiders were devout Catholics who said grace before and prayers after every meal, and were intent on getting Bunny into church. ‘Various things', Bunny told Constance, were ‘
verboten
', and his hosts insisted on informing him that he was under the scrutiny of the ‘all-seeing eye of
God'. The Heiders could not understand Bunny's lack of Christian faith and so concluded he must be Jewish. He gladly went along with this. As he explained to Constance, ‘they seem to think my name Jewish. David is Biblical – Garnett they regard as Jewish as they should Diamond or any other jewel'.
¹⁴

Consumed with homesickness, Bunny yearned for the easy informality of his English friendships. Thankfully, relief appeared in the shape of Ford Madox Hueffer and Violet Hunt, visiting Ford's great-aunt nearby. Bunny was glad to be in convivial company, and on the receiving end of Ford's customary affection. This interlude was extended by the arrival of Maitland Radford with whom Bunny embarked on a walking tour of the Moselle, where they climbed high above the vineyards bordering the Rhine into forests and upland pastures, spending their nights lodging in a forester's house. Bunny wanted to see more of the country, but both his allotted time in Germany and money were running out. He decided that Constance might agree to his remaining if he could persuade her that his German would further improve, but he needed to devise a plan which released him from the Heiders. He wrote to Constance explaining that he wanted to stay another three weeks, adding that he hoped Ursula Cox, a cousin of the Oliviers, would join him for a week on her way to Russia. ‘If you see Ursula kiss her for me', he instructed his mother, ‘& tell her she is a dear & that I am very fond of her'.
¹⁵
Whether at the prospect of Bunny's increased fluency or the thought of young love blossoming, Constance agreed. However, Ursula did not take up Bunny's invitation, aware that he might be developing feelings she could not reciprocate. At this
time his emotional state found expression in his writing anguished poems entitled ‘The Agonies of Eighteen' and ‘Love is a Bird – But What a Fowl is Love'.

Alone again and released from the Heiders' shackles, Bunny became reckless, spending money he could not afford on hiring rowing boats and ‘expensive dinners & a knife & an automatic fire-machine [a pistol] & picture postcards & another book and coffees & then another coffee & then a seat to hear the band & then tipping a waitress magnificently because she smelled like Bryn'.
¹⁶
Connie must have been horrified to learn of such extravagance and that her son had resorted to borrowing money from a bookseller. Although Bunny had what his daughter Henrietta Garnett called ‘a Spartan streak' which ‘made him scorn anything approaching luxury,'
¹⁷
he also had what his sister-in-law Frances Partridge identified as a streak of recklessness, and it was this which led him, in Germany, to uncontrolled expenditure.

Bunny travelled up the Rhine ‘seeing castles and castles and robber holds & keeps & castles'. ‘Everyone should travel', he informed Brynhild, ‘it is so educating. It wakes one up. I feel quite different from the sleepy David I was in England.'
¹⁸
Now broke, he slept in a doss house at Freiberg, and resorted to sleeping out in the forest ‘with my hand on my pistol & my hair bristling.'
¹⁹
By the time he was due to return home, he was
penniless, sending Constance an alarming telegram requesting funds. Fortunately, he was ‘temporarily relieved by dear Ford' whom he had also wired.
²⁰

In early September, Bunny returned to England. Despite its weaknesses, his university application had been a success, and in October he began his course of study in Botany and Zoology at the Royal College of Science in South Kensington. Bunny was fortunate in the calibre of the professors by whom he was taught and for whom he would, ultimately, undertake research. J.B. Farmer was a pioneering botanist in the study of cell structure, who contributed to extending the boundaries of the Darwinian hypothesis of pangenesis (by which cells were understood to share in the transmission of inherited characteristics). In contrast, while both Adam Sedgwick and Clifford Dobell were leading figures in British zoology, neither was in favour of evolutionary theory, but both made vital contributions in their fields. Sedgwick, a one-time colleague and friend of Darwin, rejected his concept of natural selection because he felt it denied God's will. Dobell was an agnostic, but nevertheless believed evolutionary theory inapplicable to proto-zoology.