Carrington's Letters Read online

  But no matter. I will also give him more suitable rayment & obviously bathing drawers. I am returning to London next Monday & will get a model & draw them better, as I simply find it impossible to draw anything with any regard to the truth, from memory. So if I let you have a fair copy by say, next Monday week, will that do? and a touch of colour about it […]

  Thank you. I am quite happy – I only get sad intervals over the war, as I am sorry to admit it but I forget it often. Yesterday morning at 6.30 I went for a fine swim in the sea by myself as my youngest brother has gone back to London, to enlist. Tell Paul I am sorry he did not get through his medical, & give him & Barbara [Hiles] my love […] I cannot say with positiveness that I can frescoe in October, as so much depends on the war primarily, & other things. I’ve got to earn my living if I live in London, so if that fails I shall have to return home, and my people are leaving here to go to Hampshire in the middle of October. But to the best of my knowledge I could frescoe then.

  But I hope you are well, & able to do some work. I have done practically nothing this summer. For most of the day I seem to spend picking apples & storing them, & picking beans, & making large pots full of blackberry jam. The blackberries here are the best in any land, the like of which have not been seen before. I want to see your work badly. So I hope you have done some. But who will buy? […] I expect I shall see you after you return from Cheltenham in London, then we could, with more satisfaction than is gained by writing, discuss the frescoe project. I tried to draw a field of Indian corn yesterday. For I have never seen such a wonderful sight before. But it was almost impossible to draw. Have you ever seen a field of it? Today it is raining hard. Did Paul do some very good work in the north? This is a stupid letter, I am sorry. But somehow it is difficult to write just now. My eldest brother was wounded only not badly I think. I hope he will get well enough to fight again soon.

  Thank you for being so kind about my bad design. When I get more settled in my brain I will do something better, at least I trust so.

  Now I will stop & remain

  Carrington

  Even at night I see apples in my dreams & all day long I pick & eat them & realize the many resources of an apple, ie apple charlotte, apple stewed, A baked, A boiled, A turnover, A pudding, A fritters, A with cream & without, & in the streets they sell A’s for 2 lbs a penny! What shall she do with them?

  To John Nash

  c/o Mrs H. Game, 3 Primrose Hill Studios, Fitzroy Road, London NW

  [n.d.]

  Dear Jack,

  Now I have two letters to answer, & much to discuss & talk over. I hesitate to write, as there is so much to say …

  Letter the first

  The winter is bad, so my book tells me, to frescoe in owing to the fact that the wet & cold affect the plaster. But the fault to whom does it lie? Nobody but my erring self, so I can’t complain. But you asked me, so I tell you to the best of my knowledge, a hot summer or spring is the most favourable season wherein to paint in the frescoe.

  I saw Sam, my brother, when he was in the hospital & listened to the gory & sanguinary accounts of the battles. It sounds so like Goya, who is a fine man withal at depicting battles & bullfights. Yes, I agree with you Cheltenham is of all English towns the most stagnant & over grown with seedy colonels & their wives – would that the Germans would erase it, & a few other of our cities, entirely to the ground, & lessen its inhabitants in their numbers.

  I have been in London a little while now & am working hard on a beastly scholarship job, as we are poorer than ever now through this old war.

  Letter the second

  Yes farmyard scenes are the best, & the country. I know that definitely now & dislike this city London, with its ugly faces & hard pavements. I am neither well nor happy here, as I have a bad cold, & miss the summer, & my work is no good! I hope you have done some.

  You must come to tea with Buntyfn3 when I go, & take your drawings to show me. Durer at the British Museum is sustaining, & keeps one from getting too depressed amongst these people who talk so constantly of the war. Well I shall be glad to see you again also. But do not be too angry if I fail over my design. Now I remain in haste,

  Carrington

  By early 1915 Carrington had left the Slade and was living with her parents in a handsome old house in Hurstbourne Tarrant, a village near Andover in Hampshire, where she turned an outhouse into a studio and went for long walks exploring the nearby downs. Her pleasure in and need for country life grew stronger, and she began to dream of a place of her own with a congenial companion.

  John Nash had recently taken up with Christine Kuhlenthal,fn4 another Slade friend and his future wife. This appears to have intensified Carrington’s feelings, not for him but for her. Her female friends were increasingly important to her, and she never liked to lose friends, male or female, to marriage, which she regarded with increasing distaste.

  1915

  To Christine Kuhlenthal

  Ibthorpe House, Hurstborne Tarrant, nr Andover, Hampshire

  14 February 1915

  Dear Christine,

  I thank you for two letters. Which according to my habit & custom I will answer in turn […]

  I loved your description of Garsington, it told me so much. But I am not jealous! Lady Ottolinefn5 has often kissed me, I am sure really she likes me better than Barbara also. Yes dear Christine I will write you a poem. But the inspiration has not yet arrived. Generally it comes in the bath. Awful, since I have no paper or pencil at hand & thus lose whole stanzas of valuable rhyming matter. But soon I will write you one & illustrate it […] Yes, yes I will come and live in a cottage, only do let us keep it a secret. Let us pretend we might not go. Like a ‘liaison’ in a book, we will stay a week in a cottage. I have thought already of heaps of things we will do […] would you be frightened to sleep in an empty ruined cottage in a wonderful bleak mountainous valley near here? Do come & live with me there a week in the summer. I discovered it by accident the other day Wednesday when I was on a walk about 9 miles from here. It was all in ruins except for two rooms; & it was quite alone on the side of a big bare hill. Christine, be brave & live with me there. Nobody would ever see us, or discover us. You must come. Even if the remaining roof falls in on us, we shall at least die together! and do not thousands of men die every day?

  How pleased I was with your second letter. I was so happy you really liked my poetry … and also glad you do not like Barbara as much as me. She is friendly & kind. But don’t you wish she had just one vice. If only she wasn’t quite so smiling & cheerful. I also ward her off with my hand. I don’t know why. It is just because she is so easy & never unhappy. I feel she doesn’t play fair. It is not human to be continually bright & cheery.

  But when I come up to London you must come & dance with me. I like best to dance out of doors, then one doesn’t run into the walls and easel. Our garden will be great, lovely yew hedges very thick, & then green mossy grass. Just behind my studio I am making a wild garden, all grass & wild plants, under the tall fir trees. On Friday it was like a summer’s day. A lovely golden sunshine shone all day, so I walked to Inkpen Hill, 8 miles away, where the country is as wonderful as you could wish for, and where I can sit in the deserted garden of the old empty house. I did tell you about it, did I not? a house which I dream of all day & I live in constant terror lest someone should take it before I can live there,. You will I am sure love it as much as I do.

  In a field in the sunshine I saw such a pretty sight, two hares fighting. It was really the tragedy of an over ardent suitor & the reluctant lady hare, but it was a fine sight to see them wrestling on hind legs, twisting & turning somersaults, up again, & tearing in pursuit, & so on. They came quite close to me, & never saw me. It was indeed an earnest battle & all in the lovely sunshine. I am indeed so happy that I feel it cannot last long. Brett can say as much as she likes that the country makes one stodgy, but she is wrong. It is a thousand times more stimulating here. Does one ever see two hares fight in London? and the
house at Old Combefn6, with its wonderful garden? […] Sam, my brother, is just writting a poem on the Slade. He is so happy because it rhymes. I have told him to send it to Brett to read to you. Do you like having her back at Slade again? she tells me she goes two days a week. Of course Barbara has usurped my place entirely. Even Gertler likes her better than me I’m sure, as she doesn’t have sulky or hilarious moods. I am reading Wuthering Heights again. How excellent it is […]

  I wouldn’t go back to Slade for anything. Oh this freedom is wonderful! & nobody who cares whether I work or not or if I do whether it is good or bad. All over the garden plants are coming up, little green leaves. What will they turn out to be? – and tiny black lambs are being born in the fields, surrounded by hurdles. I wish I could make a hedge, & a hurdle. They look so satisfactory.

  I wear great thick woolly stockings, heather mixture. Does this repulse you? […]

  Write to me again soon won’t you, & tell me what you do.

  I sold my New Englishfn7 picture. Oh I was so happy. What a good thing money is to be sure! I shall give you a big party in Brett’s studio when I come up.

  Goodbye now.

  Love from,

  Carrington

  This is a stupid letter. But I cannot help it. Perhaps it is because I am growing stupider myself. Really I wanted to tell you what I was doing & also that I am glad we are friends.

  Lady Ottoline Morrell, the flamboyant, emotional, generous befriender of artists and writers, had already taken up with Dorothy Brett and Mark Gertler and asked them to her London gatherings before 1915, when she moved to Garsington Manor near Oxford. They introduced her to Carrington, and before long she became keenly interested in the puzzling relationship between Carrington and Gertler.

  Meanwhile, through Gertler and his friend the writer Gilbert Cannan, Carrington had also met the young David Garnett (who claimed to have been at once ‘powerfully attracted’) and the already well-known and controversial novelist D. H. Lawrence and his German-born wife Frieda.

  To Mark Gertler

  Ibthorpe House, Hurstbourne Tarrant, nr Andover, Hants

  Sunday, April 1915

  Dear Gertler,

  Thank you so very much for Jude the Obscurefn8 it is good of you to give it to me. […]

  What fun you all seem to be having in London. Did you all go that night to Lady Ottoline’s in fancy dress? or didn’t it come off? I felt for you. For if the atmosphere had been intense & learned it would have been truly tiresome. Brett, who by the way is fifty times a better correspondent than you!, sent me a little plan of your studio & told me all about it. It sounds splendid. I do hope you will take it. No No, the part about the Lawrences didn’t bore me. It was only I wanted to hear more about yourself & your work, instead of which you told me of the Lawrences! But I like his book Sons & Loversfn9 so much that I want to know him. Mrs Lawrencefn10 I admit tries me sorely […]

  Since I last wrote I have been starting some work. I am just going to do a still life, in green, yellow, & orange, of apples, & some little orange pumpkins. Last night I did a drawing of my father. He’s rather a good head to draw. But he was suffering so much time at the time, that in the end I had to stop. In the cold weather his leg gets so stiff & hurts him terribly. My brother takes me rides sometimes on his motorcycle. It’s so exciting rushing through the air, with the cold wind hissing in one’s eyes & ears. The country round here is wonderful. Two days ago the snow came, & fell. It was a fine sight, all the hills & valley, became white, & the little bushes stood out in little spotted patterns all over the hills. And the river rushing on, looking quite green in contrast to the white snow. I am going to grow all sorts of wonderful flowers in my garden this summer. I have just been choosing the seeds. I hope you are keeping well, & taking care of yourself. It will be splendid to live so near the Heath won’t it. Think of it in the spring. You might be happy now.

  Directly you tell me you are in your studio I will send you some leaves, to put in your vases. Yesterday morning I went rabbiting, to try & catch a rabbit for Brett. But we couldn’t catch one. It was too cold & they all stayed in their holes, & refused to come out. Next week I will try again. I am going to learn to make some puddings & good dishes to cook for you when I come back, as I am sure in time we will get tired of eggs on plates. Have you ever worked out the idea of Cain, a small man fleeing across a desolate country? Do go on with it sometime. Do you see much of Strachey?

  Brett is so wonderful, I simply marvel more & more at her unlimited endurance of other people, & her kindness. I have just finished reading the old Ranee’s book on Sarawak.fn11 It was so interesting. She repeats some wonderful old legends that the Malays used to tell her. They were so inspiring to read.

  Early this morning as I lay awake upstairs about 5 o’clock I heard a big crash, & fumbled my way downstairs in the dark & found my father had fallen out of bed on the floor. (I know you laugh, but please don’t.) It was so terrible to see this big helpless form lying there, & I had to help my brother lift him on the bed again. His brain is so clear & active, it is painful to see his limbs like lumps of carved stone, which his brain cannot make move. He bears it all so patiently & never complains […]

  With best wishes

  I remain

  Carrington

  Her casual question to Gertler about Lytton Strachey is her first reference to him. Strachey, still a minor writer not yet renowned ouside his circle of devoted friends, had been attracted to Gertler for some time, and although there was nothing romantic or sexual between them they met often. By now, the question of Carrington’s refusal to sleep with Gertler was becoming common knowledge in their circle. She found his physical demands and emotional pressure, poured out in anguished letters, almost unbearable. In the following letter, Carrington cut out and pasted the passages written in capitals from Gertler’s latest letter at the top of her reply.

  To Mark Gertler

  Hurstborne Tarrant

  16 April 1915

  NEXT LETTER. WHEN YOU WRITE, WHENEVER YOU DO DON’T MENTION OUR SEX TROUBLE ETC ETC ETC: AT ALL I AM HEARTILY SICK OF IT – JUST WRITE AND TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF THE COUNTRY AS USUAL. AND IF EVER I WRITE ABOUT IT TO YOU, PLEASE TAKE NO NOTICE.

  OUR FRIENDSHIP IS NO WORSE OR BETTER THAN ANY OTHER FRIENDSHIP. AT ANY RATE WE ARE INTERESTED IN EACH OTHER – ENOUGH. WHY SHOULD WE FUSS?

  I WANT SIMPLY YOUR FRIENDSHIP AND COMPANY MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD.

  You wrote these last lines only a week ago, and now you tell me you were ‘hysterical and insincere’. When you talked to me about it at Gilbert’s and said you loved my friendship were you hysterical and insincere? Yes I know that your real love is ‘beautiful and not low’. Do not think I ever doubted that.

  Only I cannot love you as you want me to. You must know one could not do, what you ask, sexual intercourse, unless one does love a man’s body. I have never felt any desire for that in my life: I wrote only four months ago and told you all this, you said you never wanted me to take any notice of you when you wrote again; if it was not that you just asked me to speak frankly and plainly I should not be writing. I do love you, but not in the way you want. Once, you made love to me in your studio, you remember, many years ago now. One thing I can never forget, it made me inside feel ashamed, unclean. Can I help it? I wish to God I could. Do not think I rejoice in being sexless, and am happy over this. It gives me pain also. Whenever you feel you want my friendship and company, it will always be here. You know that. This is all I can say.

  REMEMBER THAT I WOULD SACRIFICE ALL FOR YOU, MY VERY LIFE IF YOU ASKED IT OF ME.

  You write this – yet you cannot sacrifice something less than your life for me. I do not ask it of you. But it would make me happy if you could. Do not be angry with me for having written as I have. And please do not write back. There can be nothing more to say. Unless you can make this one sacrifice for me. I will do everything I can to be worthy of it.

  This exchange coincided with Carrington being a reluctant bridesm
aid at the wedding of her sister Charlotte. The correspondence with Gertler and her refusal to have sex with him continued.

  To Mark Gertler

  Hurstbourne Tarrant

  Wednesday evening [May 1915]

  I am writing again as I promised I would. It has been a lovely day, a beautiful hot sun, and cobalt blue sky with passing clouds. I have been hard at work on my picture of saint John the Baptist. It was good having a model this morning, as I got on much better with it. Mancini’sfn12 figure is quite good to draw. But his face fills me with depression. Curious how no models have good heads to draw. He comes again tomorrow and Friday.

  I am so glad all this wedding is over, you have no idea how terrible a real English wedding is. Two people, with very ordinary minds want each other physically, at least the man does, the woman only wants to be married and have his possessions and position. To obtain all this they go through a service, which is comprised of worthy sentiments uttered by the old apostles and Christ! Many relatives come and friends all out of curiosity to see this presumably religious rite; afterwards they all adjourn to the house, and eat like animals and talk, and view each other’s clothes and secretly criticise everyone and then return home. All this costs a great deal of money: a bouquet of flowers which the bride carries into the church for 15 mins, and afterwards leaves in the house behind her, which dies the next day as none of the flowers have stalks, costs £2. It seems curious. The dress she wears for about 1 hr costs about £10. And yet this is a so called ‘quiet’ middle class wedding. But it astounds one, the ridiculous farce, the sham festivity. If only they all got merry and drunk, and danced: or if only they were all moved and religious it wouldn’t matter. But to be nothing real. Thank god it cannot happen again now. I was almost glad it rained. I felt my sky and country here anyrate were not ‘pretending’ to shine and be happy.