Carrington's Letters Read online

  May I come and see you in the winter with Barbara if you still stay at Wissett? We (Brett, the Murrys and I) are going to live in Maynard’s house in Gower Street, the end of this month. I shall be rather glad to live in a civilized house again; the mice, and general dirt of that studio of mine in Yeoman’s Row rather suffocated one. I have fine days here wandering over these downs. They are terrifyingly big, but it’s rather lonely after living with such excellent company for so long. How did your poem end about the Bubble? I think I shall go back to London next week to do some work for Roger [Fry] restoring Mantegna frescoes at Hampton Courtfn27 and move in to Gower Street afterwards.

  My love to Duncan and Vanessa and you,

  Carrington

  To Mark Gertler

  Hurstbourne Tarrant

  September 1916

  Thank you indeed for the Marvel Marvell books! How glad I am to have them and your letter. It seemed so long since I had heard from you.

  I love that poem ‘To his Coy Mistress’. It is difficult to stand up against such poetic persuasion! Donne & Marvell together may bring about my fall. Who knows […] Last Thursday evening I bicycled over to Garsington to see Brett about the house business & Katherine was there. I shared a room with her. So talked to her more than anyone else late at night in bed & early in the morning. I like her very much. It is a good thought to think upon that I shall live with them & Brett in Gower Street. For we are all going to share 3 Gower Street, as doubtless you already know. How glad I am Iris is back! She must indeed look lovely. Give her my love. What parties we shall have in Gower Street in the evenings. Katherine was full of plans. She was splendid at a concert there was at Garsington, and sang coon songs, & acted a play. It was a curious night, all very strange. I am out of favour now! completely! I do not know why – But her ladyship loves & fondles me no more! and Brett was rather severe. I got rather lonely & depressed there. Except for Katherine I should not have enjoyed it much. But she surprised me. I did not believe she would love the sort of things I do so much. Pretending to be other people & playing games […] Maria was there. Looking rather lovely in a voluptuous way. She became morbidly depressed the evening of the concert over Ottoline, and walked about pale, with heavy eyes in the moonlight. I felt a strange desire to torment & tease her, & let her have one of her crises. As it was she felt a strange heroine with no one to notice her. I don’t believe Ottoline ever noticed her mournful attitudes on the floor once!! I went out into the garden with her […] Katherine & I wore trousers. It was wonderful being alone in the garden. Hearing the music inside, & lighted windows, and feeling like two young boys – very eager. The moon shining on the pond. Fermenting, & covered with warm slime.

  How I hate being a girl. I must tell you for I have felt it so much lately. More than usual. And that night I forgot for almost half an hour in the garden, and felt other pleasures strange, & so exciting, a feeling of all the world being below me to choose from, not tied with female encumbrances, & hanging flesh.

  Do you mind me saying this. What nights now! and I am alone. Closed in by these walls & hateful things – my mother and dark furniture. What would I not give to roam alone over these high downs, with the huge moon above me […]

  Clive was at Garsington and Professor Brown.fn28 It seemed almost like a lunatic asylum at tea. Everybody equally enchanted. Brett is doing a huge painting of Ottoline. But not finished so I give no opinions. Barbara said she had tea with you. She has changed don’t you think so, for the better.She was not affected any more when I stayed with her. Write to me again. If I find many more poems by Donne urging me to forsake my virginity I may fall by next spring when the sun is hot once more. I think he is a man of such rare wisdom that I take his words very seriously. Far more so, than Philip & Ottoline […] But I ought not to write this to you as my moods vary like a sky of clouds! But my love. Carrington

  May I have a Bond Street photograph?fn29

  To Vanessa Bell

  3 Gower Street, London

  Saturday [n.d.]

  Dear Vanessa,

  I must write & tell you that we went and saw Charleston on Thursday. Never, never have I seen quite such a wonderful place! We sat round the pond and marvelled at it all, the house and the orchard, and the great downs behind.

  This is to tell you that if you want a strong lad, or girl to cut down the overgrowth in the garden, till the vegetable beds, paint the house inside, prune the trees, plant seeds or any other occupation – Barbara & I are willing (or move your furniture for you), we would work very hard for you, & sleep in a loft in some hay over the kitchen up some back stairs –

  I will admit to you frankly that I am distractly [sic] enamoured with a boy on Tracey’s farm who milks the cows! N.B. do not tell Duncan of him & no account the vile wretch Lytton.

  A charming old hag came, & asked us to tell you that her daughter wanted a situation, & that she would speak to you of her when you came down – what excellent things there will be to paint in that garden with the pond & buildings.

  We are telling nobody about the glories of Charleston. So you will not mind us having seen it will you?

  Our search for a house for Lytton was rather a failure. As after seeing Asheham, & Charleston, it was difficult to be satisfied with the curious erections the Lewes agents sent us to inspect.

  I am taking some relics of Duncan’s round to Gordon Square this evening. And two old chairs of mine. I thought you perhaps like them for the garden.

  May I come & see you when you come back to London this time if you are not too busy?

  Did you notice the very exquisite fireplaces in the upstairs rooms? Bunny said you never told them a bit of all its wonders! And that you called the pond rectangular – did you see it had a punt on it?

  Bunny has already seized most of the pantries, and all the possible positions where one would like to lie under the trees for his bees!

  My love to Duncan.

  Yrs affectionately

  Carrington

  David Garnett, Barbara and Carrington had been over to inspect Charleston, a farmhouse near Lewes in Sussex, ahead of the Bells’ move there, having spent the night before at Asheham, without the Woolfs’ permission. They had eaten some apples, borrowed a book, found sheets, made up one bed and all slept in it together. The Woolfs were not pleased.

  The next letter probably marks the moment when Carrington finally went to bed with Gertler. Her decision coincided with the publication of Gilbert Cannan’s novel Mendel, with its overheated portrayal of a girl who drives her intense Jewish lover nearly mad by refusing to sleep with him. Sex with Gertler turned out to be a sad disappointment to them both. She found contraception humiliating and difficult and his demands excessive. Such difficulties did not arise with Lytton.

  To Mark Gertler

  3 Gower Street

  1 November 1916

  Dear Mark,

  I am sorry not to see your sculpture before next week. But I am glad you have got it back to work on. I am afraid I hurt you the other night. Do not think about it anymore. It will probably be alright of itself. Let us not talk of it more. As it’s getting almost preposterous in size and importance. Which isn’t true really. It doesn’t count for as much as all that even to you […]

  How angry I am over Gilbert’s book! Everywhere this confounded gossip & servant-like curiosity. It’s ugly & so damned vulgar. People cannot be vulgar over a work of art, so it is Gilbert’s fault for writing as he did.

  I am going to paint two portraits soon. One today & one tomorrow. I am losing hope rather of Teddy.fn30 It’s beginning to depress me terribly sometimes […]

  I hope you are happy. You must be. It’s absurd really the way we both go on. It’s my main reason for having done with it, & coming to you. Simply because it’s ridiculous to talk so much about it, when it doesn’t count for anything […]

  Good bye,

  Carrington

  To Mark Gertler

  3 Gower Street

  [n.d.]

&n
bsp; […] I scribble pictures of myself in the looking glass in my drawing book. What a dull show today! If you come tomorrow evening do not ask me about that and please do not make love to me. Leave it all until we go to the country as it distresses me sometimes rather. It’s wonderful being alone up so high by myself. I wish sometimes I could bolt the door and live in here for days and days and not get disturbed by all the outside world of people […] Goodnight Carrington

  To Mark Gertler

  3 Gower Street

  Saturday, December 1916

  Dear Mark,

  […] I read Marlowe again last night and knew what one thing meant more than I did last week! It certainly is a necessity if one wants to understand the best poets. No she’s not going on to say that is why she takes sugar in her coffee now. But taking sugar incidentally does make one appreciate those poets more fully. But I only like sugar some times, not every week and every day in my coffee. I think you would like it so much and take it so often in your coffee that you wouldn’t taste anything in time, and miss the taste of the coffee. But darling I shall look after that alright and only allow you three lumps a month. You’ve had more than three for this month. So no more till next year, you sugar eater you!

  Goodbye then till Tuesday evening

  Yr periwinkle

  Crinkle Crinkle

  To Mark Gertler

  Hurstbourne Tarrant

  Saturday, December 1916

  Dear Mark,

  […] Today it is snowing white, and a piercing wind. But I love the hugeness of it. The great space between one and the hills opposite, after the houses in Gower Street which press against my very nose, on every side. The irregular shapes of the sky and hills are a joy after the square shapes of London houses and square slits of sky. I am sorry if I have annoyed you lately about that business and making such a fuss. It is only my inability to really get interested I am afraid and really I did try that thing. Only it was much too big, and wouldn’t go inside no matter what way I used it! But I won’t be so childish any longer […]

  Are you working again yet? I am so excited about my painting now. I want to do nothing else all day long. Today I shall go for a long walk over the Downs. But it is cold. Almost too cold out to be really happy […]

  1917

  As she did not tell Gertler, it was during the autumn and winter of 1916/17 that Carrington completed one of her best paintings, her delicate, loving portrait of Lytton, head and shoulders in profile, propped on cushions on a sofa under a red rug, his spectacles on his nose, his beard softly auburn, a book in his pale slender hands. On New Year’s Day 1917 she wrote in her diary:

  I wonder what you will think of it when you see it. I sit here, almost every night it sometimes seems, looking at your picture, now tonight it looks wonderfully good and I am happy. But then I dread showing it. I should like to go on always painting you every week, wasting the afternoon loitering, and never showing you what I paint. It’s marvellous having it all to oneself. No agony of the soul. Is it vanity? No, because I don’t care for what they say. I hate only the indecency of showing them what I have loved […]

  I would love to explore your mind behind your finely skinned forehead. You seem so wise and very coldly old. Yet in spite of this what a peace to be with you, and how happy I was today.

  There is no record of what Lytton thought of the portrait.

  During the winter of 1916 to 1917 Carrington was writing regularly to her brother Noel, with his regiment in France. Her letters were affectionate and teasing, frequently contained grumbles about their parents and occasionally pleas for a loan. She was often short of money.

  To Noel Carrington

  3 Gower Street

  [n.d.]

  Dearest Noel,

  I am up a gum tree as the debts close in about me and next week on the 14th we have to move from here and I have no where withal.

  Dear brother hearken unto my prayer

  prayer

  Least [sic] I be

  utterly

  consumed

  I swear faithfully I am making earnest attempts now to earn the bright sovereigns & give up my profligate life. Oh Saint Lewis hearken upon my supplications.

  The next amount of Bills is £8.10. But I swear the golden day will come when all will be returned to you.

  Miserably your sister Dora

  To Noel Carrington

  3 Gower Street

  Tuesday [n.d.]

  Dearest Noel,

  […] Thank you so much for the cheque it was indeed useful as Brett has decamped to Garsington, & all is left to me & my purse.

  Well you require a brief summary of my affairs de Coeur, & my doings in this city […] I went to tea with the Johnsfn31 yesterday, Sunday I mean, with old Lytton, & the great man showed me some awfully good drawings, & gave me one! When you come home I will take you to tea with him, you would like his work I think. Lytton has been reading me Julius Caesar in the evenings lately, which we have now finished. I did like it. We are now going to do Antony & Cleopatra. I started a painting of the little man Saxon-Turnerfn32 who came with us to Sussex, Barbara’s devoted swain. He is one of the most classical mortals who ever stept on god’s earth, & reads Lucretius. & the ancients. You would like him I think. For his learning is great & yet unostentatious withal. Roger Fry has started a club in Fitzroy Square called the Omega Clubfn33, of which I was elected a member. It has no advantages except a meeting once a week in his big rooms, & the pleasure of taking 2 friends […] The first meeting was on Saturday evening.

  But such controversies ensued. One Clive Bell by name making many complications by asking idiotic questions, & losing his temper on being snubbed. But it was fairly interesting as people like Maynard Keynes of the Treasury give one the Government Gossip & it’s pleasant seeing people again sometimes.

  I’ve been put on some charity at Chelsea Palace, on the Executive Committee with all the nuts. Yesterday I had to go to Lady Ian Hamilton’s to a meeting. Heavens! They are fumblers & muddle headed idiots. So I soon up & spoke with my usual intelligence & greatly impressed them with my vast understanding!

  I send you a programme […] There is going to be a ‘John’ Beauty Chorus, Bloomsbury chorus & caricatures of all the old Chelsea people, Whistler etc. Carlyle, & then again, all the moderns, Lady Ottoline, etc. & all the great actors leaping about. Barbara & I are going to walk the Plank just for fun – & not sing! What have you been reading lately?

  I will try & send you some more papers soon.

  Mother sent me snowdrops from Hurstbourne today, which made me rather long to fly away down there. Write to me again soon. I’ve been rather wretched lately. I find it hard not to get miserable over Teddy. As I am now certain he cannot be alive […]

  Goodbye little brother

  Much love & my blessing, Dora

  Along with some forty other artistically inclined and well-connected young women, including Brett and Barbara, Carrington was in the Beauty Chorus (for which she had designed gypsyish costumes made by the Omega Workshops) for the finale of the show at the Chelsea Palace Theatre on 20 March 1917, singing:

  John! John!

  How he’s got on!

  He owes it, he knows it, to me!

  Brass earings I wear

  And I don’t do my hair

  And my feet are as bare as can be;

  When I walk down the street

  All the people I meet

  They stare at the things I have on!

  When Battersea-Parking

  You’ll hear folks remarking:

  There goes an Augustus John!

  To Noel Carrington

  c/o [illegible] Home Farm, Welcombe, Bude, Cornwall

  [n.d. spring 1917?]

  Dearest Noel,

  I’ve not heard from you this week. But I daresay unlike me you are hard at work. So I therefore write you a letter, to while away your business hours & cast a ray of pleasure into the dreary darkness of the G. H. Q. Rouen …

  I do wish these
idiots like Winston Churchill wouldn’t make these speeches against peace, when people are just at some decent negotiations with Germany.

  Kerenskyfn34 seems to have been a dirty villain after all. What a corrupt business all that Russian officialism is. Even the pseudo democratics are really as bad as Roman Caesars working for their own ends & caring nothing for the butchery of hundreds in the mean time. It’s a bit ironical saying we must have reprisals in order to give the Germans in Germany a taste of war, & what it means. When for two years we have starved them so successfully that it’s appalling the state of poverty & hunger of the lower classes, & their lack of food, and as if the logic of giving people back what they give you had any effect. We give the German soldiers back underground explosions, gas fumes, hand grenades & every horror that they give us & yet it has not altered their state of mind. What idiots these political people are. If one really believes it is brutal to kill non combatants, & women, well then we ought to try & guard our towns efficiently & let alone the populace of Germany. But I doubt if you agree. I’ve no general news as it’s so remote down here. I’m getting on with my painting every day. Shall I try & send you some cream? Please write to me again soon. I shall go back to HBT [Hurstbourne Tarrant] on my way to London I expect. I hope you keep well & haven’t got any chills. The waves yesterday were terrific yesterday with the wind, a grand sight. My progress with the History of Gibbon progresses slowly.

  This letter to her brother shows that for all her usual detachment from the war and politics, Carrington’s views by this time were clear, deeply felt and in tune with Lytton Strachey’s. He loathed the war from the start, believed the right course was to work for peace and applied for exemption from military service for himself on health grounds. He was granted temporary exemption in April 1916. After some early confusion and hesitation, Bloomsbury became almost entirely pacifist as the war went on.

  To Noel Carrington

  3 Gower Street

  Sunday afternoon tout seul!

  [n.d.]

  Dearest Noel,