Vanessa and Her Sister (21 page)

Yours
,  

Vanessa

19 December 1906—Cleeve House, Wiltshire (after luncheon)

“I cannot keep up. If she keeps writing like this, my only news will be that I have responded to her letters.” I flopped down in the armchair next to Clive.

“She misses you. All her life you have been there, and now you are not,” Clive said evenly, laying down his book. It was a collection of essays on Rodin.

“We have been separated before. Two years ago she went off travelling with Adrian, and there wasn’t this monsoon of correspondence.”

“Yes, but now it is not just distance that separates you. You are not coming home to her. You are coming home to
me
,” he said, pulling me out of my chair and onto his lap.

I looked around to see if his family were looming. They tend to loom. Although why I should care, I don’t know. We will be married in a few weeks.

“Yes, I am coming home to you. Home to you. Home to you. Doesn’t that just sound right?”

Later (everyone in bed)

Can’t sleep, and the giant animal heads on the walls are not helping. I am sure Clive’s mother insisted I have this room to acquaint me further with the country sports I do not like. There are seven unhappy deer heads in the hallway. I counted.

Virginia. Virginia. Virginia. I worry about the effect all this change will have on her, but I cannot quite talk to Clive about it. I know Virginia would hate that, and it feels like betrayal. And so I cannot sleep. During the last go-round, when we lost Stella and then Father, she went mad. It hangs over my head like Damocles’ sword. That Virginia will go mad.

And
—I unpacked Thoby’s small drawing of a nuthatch. I brought it from Gordon Square. I must have known I would need a touchstone.

21 December 1906—Cleeve House, Seend, Wiltshire

Clive just showed me a terrible letter from Virginia. He is not quite sure how to handle it and so came to me. I am pleased she is writing to Clive (as I have asked her to), but I am
mortified
by her subject. Virginia has written to ask him to please cite his good qualities so she may know if he is enough for me. And then she invited herself here for the Monday after Christmas. She wants Clive to placate her and me to scold, but I know that trick. Once again she would be invited into us—into the us-ness of us—to mediate, arbitrate, and make camp. No. It will not do. I will ignore it, not mention it in my next letter, and suggest Clive do the same.

22 December 1906—five am (snow)

Clive came into my room early to wake me in time to hear the Christmas robins singing in the snow. He listens for them too.

POST CARD

This Space to Be Used for Correspondence

22 December 1906

Dearest Ginia
,
These country days are calm but framed by a mealtime anxiety. If you struggle half so much when I insist you finish your lunch, dearest, then I have been dreadfully ignorant of your anguish. Here their appetites are so robust, and I feel like a wilting Victorian. How can anyone eat six cheeses, three meats, and afters at one luncheon? Darling Goatus, did you notus how very much I miss you?

Your
Nessa

 
PS:
Another letter has just arrived from you by the second post and so all my news is out of date. There is also one for Clive—sweet of you, dearest, thank you.

To:
Miss Virginia Stephen
46 Gordon Square
Bloomsbury

RUINED ABBEY OF MALMESBURY, WILTSHIRE

LA BELLE ÉPOQUE

6 February 1907—46 Gordon Square (frosty)

J
ust back from the opera—
Fidelio
. Virginia conjugated Latin verbs all the way home. It is, as she keeps reminding me, our
last
night. She says it mournfully like a lamb due to be separated from its mother in the morning. She says she has written me a letter. It was a weighted sort of sentence, the kind that gives me a rolling dread.

Later

Virginia knocked on my door but entered without waiting for an answer. “You must read it, Nessa.
Before
 …” Virginia held out the folded paper. There was no envelope.

“Before?” I was being difficult. I knew very well before what. Before I marry Clive tomorrow. Before I become a Bell and no longer a Stephen. Before Clive and I go away together and leave her behind.

The tickets—I looked around for them. We leave for the train from the registry office, and I do not want to forget the tickets. My mind had already drifted away from her letter to tomorrow.

· ·

G
OOD
G
OD
. F
OR THE
rest of my life, I will pretend I have never read this letter. I will show no one, tell no one, and never think of it again. She calls herself “my humble beasts.” She speaks in multiples. She wishes I had married them. And if I will not, perhaps I will take them as my
lovers
? Too much, Virginia. Too much. I will not let you spoil tomorrow as you have spoiled tonight.

7 February 1907—Paddington Station (beautiful winter sunshine)

Two sentences. Two signatures, and I am Vanessa Bell.

“Happy?”

“So happy.” I pulled one small white rosebud from my tightly wrapped posy and handed it to my husband.

The Bells, the Bells.

POST CARD

This Space to Be Used for Correspondence

7 February 1907

Mon Ange
,
The newly minted Bells are to honeymoon in Manorbier and then go off to Paris next month. I have given them your address. Please take good care of them as they are precious to me. Clive is so Clivy, but you will get used to that. Vanessa is a pure, whole person. You will like her. I will pack her off with bottled kisses and boxed hugs for you. Maynard will also be in Paris soon, and I will send him along to you like a love note. Do not mistake me. I understand my irrelevance. Nevertheless, I mean to entangle you in ropes of friends and family to keep you close should you ever decide to love me again.

 
Your
Lytton

To:
Mr. Duncan Grant
Hôtel de l’Univers et du Portugal
10 Rue Croix des Petits Champs
Paris, France

SERIES 5. NUMBER 19: TRAFALGAR SQUARE

8 February 1907

My Violet
,

How are you feeling today, my dearest? Are you eating custard and waxing round and plump with health? I hope so. I need you to conserve all your strength. You will need it to love me mightily this spring. For I am alone. She did it. She is Mrs Clive Bell. Not one syllable of that name bears any trace of Nessa. I am trying, dearest Violet. You must believe that I am. If you were here, I would curl at your feel and ask you to brush my coat until it shone. The Goat stands alone. It sounds like a farmyard nursery rhyme.

I have done my best to love him. No, that is not true. But I will do my best to love him. It is the only way. I think it will take some doing to divide them, don’t you? I know just what you will say to that: be happy for your sister as she would be happy for you. Quite pedestrian advice, if you ask me. I expected more from you. You see, Nessa and I are more than just sisters. We are different—exceptional.

For now, I will see my new brother-in-law for all his best qualities and forgive his piggy faults. I will love him and write to him and charm him and bring him into our family. If he loves Nessa, then surely he will love me too? It will help. I am sure it will.

Your
    

Virginia

PS
: This ought to be the last letter you receive from me on this writing paper. 46 Gordon Square is now the address of the Bells. The poor Stephens are shunted to the outpost of Fitzroy Square.

PPS
: Mr Headlam has become pressing. I can’t quite see it. Can you?

CLOSERIE DES LILAS

12 February 1907—Sea View, Manorbier, Wales

W
ho knew I would like sex as much as I do? It is neither awkward nor embarrassing nor dull—all things I was sure it would be. I have discovered that I am not a fragile woman. There is a humid, delicate closeness, a tangible animal instinctive us-ness that wraps us together in these moments, and I know in that brief time, I am free to be everything that I have ever been or ever will be; all my Vanessas brought home to roost. It is as though all I feel for him is given a verb: a visible, shattering verb that thrums through us, making us different from other people—alone and of a kind. I have never known such safety. I feel rooted in another, all my selves and secrets held in trust. I had not realised until now that I have been lonely all my life.