Vanessa bell, p.10
Vanessa Bell, page 10
Immediately after the proposal Vanessa had disappeared on a holiday to Cornwall with her brothers and sister. She did not tell Thoby what had happened until they arrived at Carbis Bay, though he had already surmised the truth. She appears to have shrugged off any pity she may have had for Clive and generally treated the matter lightly. However the letter that she wrote to Margery Snowden has a disingenuous tone, for it rationalizes the situation with very little real regard for her own feelings or those of Clive. She begins with the improbable assertion that she had not flirted with Clive:
also, unless this particular man is unlike every other, it is highly probable that by this time next year he will have turned to fresh diversions. I can’t bring myself to take his unhappiness very seriously - for I have had some experience of men! I think that really my being worried was chiefly because of the selfish reason that a comfortable and easy and friendly state of things had to come to an end. Also when one is actually asked by a man to marry him, even though one has no feeling at all of that kind oneself, one is obliged to think rather more seriously about it than one has done before. It really seems to matter so very little to oneself what one does. I should be quite happy living with anyone whom I didn’t dislike ... if I could paint and lead the kind of life I like. Yet for some mysterious reason one has to do what someone else very much wants one to. It seems absurd. But absurd or not I could no more marry him than I could fly - so there’s an end of it. ... I am ashamed of the length of this letter ... really I am becoming almost as tiresome as a man!22
As this was the Stephens’ first visit to Cornwall for eleven years, there was much to distract her. She and Virginia expected to find many aspects of their past preserved in this far corner of England and were not wholly disappointed. On the first night of their arrival they crept up the dark lane to Talland House and peered through the escallonia hedge at the house but went no further, fearing that its new reality might pierce the film of remembrance through which they saw it. Many of the old St Ives folk remembered them and had followed the fortunes of their family in the newspapers. But it was the sea that dominated this holiday, for not only did it turn silver with the long-expected arrival of the pilchards in the bay, but the sight of porpoises cutting through the water also gave Virginia her first sight of the fin rising above the waves, an image that returned to her mind in hallucinatory form after the completion of To the Lighthouse, and when her mind again raced and she arrived at the conception of The Waves. Vanessa, in Cornwall, painted several small seascapes, employing Whistler’s method, using a red or brown base to deepen the blues of sea and sky.
Throughout this period she was attempting to place her painting on a more professional basis. She began to take an interest in portraiture and early in 1905 had gone down to the home of Lord Robert Cecil at Chelwood Gate in Sussex in order to paint a portrait of his wife Nelly§, who had been introduced to the Stephens by Violet Dickinson. She had married Lord Robert in 1889, was childless and since 1894 had suffered the tormenting isolation caused by deafness. Vanessa, perhaps unintentionally, conveys her solitariness by accentuating the contained pose and the sharp, bird-like gaze of her sitter. Following Sargent’s example, she has emphasized select details but arranges these across the entire composition so that, unlike most of Sargent’s portraits, the picture forms a decorative whole. The handling, however, has none of her teacher’s panache, but is tentative and in places awkward. Nevertheless this was the first painting Vanessa exhibited. When shown at the New Gallery in April 1905 it brought the artist her first portrait commission from a stranger.
Vanessa’s new willingness to exhibit and accept commissions may reflect a desire to keep up with Virginia who had begun to write reviews for the Women's Supplement, the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, and whose exceptional talents were becoming evident. In December 1904 Vanessa sent Virginia some praise from Violet Dickinson: ‘She thought you would undoubtedly be a great writer one day. Your things are so well thought out, fresh and original and interesting. You always have something to say on any subject. Your writing is so living. Is that enough for you? She really thinks you a genius. Isn’t it strange?’23 Even if she felt no jealousy of Virginia’s brilliance in a medium other than her own, such praise would probably have caused a reflex examination of her own talents and position. She now realized that her circle of friends, both old and new, was not conducive to painting. Therefore in the summer of 1905 she founded the Friday Club.
In starting this club Vanessa hoped to create a cultural milieu not unlike that she had observed in certain Parisian cafés. She drew upon her friends from the Royal Academy Schools (Margery Snowden, Mary Creighton and Sylvia Milman) and also tapped contacts made during her brief period at the Slade. During the first few years of the club’s history the Slade contingent included J.D. Innes, Derwent Lees, Maxwell Lightfoot, John Currie, Edna Clarke Hall and Claire Atwood. The young painter Henry Lamb, who had trained at William Orpen’s and Augustus John’s school in Chelsea, also joined, as did certain of Vanessa’s friends and relatives - Thoby and Adrian, Saxon Sydney-Turner, Katherine Cox, Marjorie Strachey and Beatrice Mayor - all of whom were allowed in as lay members. Soon after the club was formed, Vanessa looked round for rooms to rent where they could put on regular exhibitions. As most of these plans began to unfold in July 1905, the month before Clive’s proposal, Vanessa felt free to turn to him for advice, which he gave willingly. He lectured to the club and, perhaps in order to win Vanessa’s affection, himself painted and sent two paintings to its first exhibition in November of that year. Richard Shone has argued that the Friday Club was ‘one of the liveliest exhibiting groups before the First World War’.24 But though this accurately describes the exhibitions put on between 1910 and 1914, which received considerable attention from the press, it does not apply to the first five years of the club’s existence. Lacking any dominant style, the odd mixture of artists (many of them still students) and the more dilettante members would have given the exhibitions an amateurish look. Moreover, the artistic debate that split the committee, as Virginia observed (‘one half of the committee shriek Whistler and French impressionists, and the other are stalwart British’25), was several years out of date.
Whatever the Friday Club achieved, its existence is a testimony to Vanessa’s organizational prowess. It was she who, through the exercise of diplomacy, united disparate artists, arranged for talks to be given and kept a healthily argumentative society under control. ‘Old Nessa goes ahead, and slashes about her,’ Virginia observed, seven months after the club had begun, ‘and manages all the business, and rejects all her friends’ pictures, and don’t mind a bit. She is said to have a genius for organization, and it all seems to interest her - it would bore me to death.’26 Elsewhere Virginia commented on her sister’s talent for stating unpleasant truths in a matter-of-fact voice, for Vanessa’s honesty could make her ruthless. Nevertheless, her matter-of-fact approach often benefited others, not least Virginia. When the latter left for a holiday in Spain in March 1905, she forgot her sponge bag. Vanessa, discovering this, found time before departing herself for a tour of northern France with Margery Snowden, to send Virginia instructions to buy another.
During the first two years of their existence at 46 Gordon Square the Stephen sisters hovered between the old world and the new. They had banished from their lives most of the customs that had constricted their previous existence, but they still received visits from old friends such as the Freshfields and accepted invitations from such eminent families as the Balfours. Moreover, the rules governing the conduct of women of their class were rigorously strict. When one afternoon Vanessa took tea alone with Henry Lamb in the King’s Road, she was risking her reputation, for it was considered scandalous for a young woman, before marriage, to be seen alone in company with a man not old enough to be her grandfather. When Stella had come of age she had been obliged to take one of her half-brothers or -sisters with her as a chaperon when she crossed London. The lack of social etiquette at the Stephens’ Thursday evenings made them seem shockingly informal to both Henry James and George Duckworth who were more accustomed to the Edwardian standards of behaviour which Sir Charles Petrie has described: ‘When a man paid a call he took his hat, stick and gloves into the drawing-room, for to do otherwise was for him to lay himself open to the charge of behaving as if he were at a hotel.... Informality of any sort was frowned upon - behaviour was either correct or it was not.’27
Surrounded still on many sides by conservative opinion, Vanessa and Virginia were delighted when, after the Balfour government resigned in December 1905, the ascendancy of the Liberals seriously discomforted George and Gerald. At this election Jack Hills and Lord Robert Cecil both achieved the remarkable feat of winning seats for the Conservative party. When in April 1906 Vanessa returned to Chelwood Gate in Sussex to paint a portrait of Lord Robert for his wife, she felt unforgivably ignorant of politics at a time when subjects like tariff reform were being discussed. An old Tory, a moderate free trader and, like his father, a supporter of the enfranchisement of women, Lord Robert was at this time in a quandary as to which side of the house he should be on because, in particular, he disliked the new imperialism of Joseph Chamberlain. At Chelwood his wife’s deafness left much of the conversation to Vanessa. ‘I wish I weren’t such an ignoramus,’ she complained to Virginia. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that staying away is a very severe test for one’s general intelligence, and it’s appalling to find how little I’ve got. If I were to do it often I should try to get educated.’28 She formed a high opinion of Lord Robert, and perhaps tried to convey this in her portrait; but he sat badly, at his paper-strewn desk, for only short periods of time, and all she could achieve was a characteristic sketch (present whereabouts unknown).
In May 1906 Vanessa turned twenty-seven. Though still unmarried, there is no indication that she wished her state otherwise. For most women of her class, marriage, in an age when contraception was still little practised, brought ties and social obligations that put an end to any thought of a career. Among certain Fabians in the preceding generation this problem had been solved by celibate marriage which had allowed both partners to get on with their work. This would have been no solution for Vanessa and much therefore depended on her finding a partner who would understand and sympathize with her need to paint. Yet though she had several admirers, she had no more proposals, perhaps because her sense of purpose detached her from the more superficial aspects of daily life and made her difficult to approach. Inevitably she aroused in others much speculation: Aunt Mary Fisher, when she found six drawings of Austen Chamberlain in Vanessa’s sketchbook, immediately presumed a romance was afoot; George thought Charles Trevelyan was enamoured of his half-sister. But Vanessa, living happily at Gordon Square with the magnificent Thoby on hand, in whom was blended warmth and reserve, tolerance and natural authority, as yet felt no great need for a husband. And when in July 1906 Clive Bell once more proposed, she again refused him.
This time, however, she did so in such a way as to leave room for doubt. She told him that if marriage were just a question of being good friends and caring for the same things, she would have accepted his offer; she liked him, she added (significantly), better than any other man - outside of her family; she could not marry him but she did not want to banish him completely from her life, as custom demanded: in effect she could not reject him outright. This left the problem as to whether or not they should go on seeing each other. The matter had not been decided when in August she and Virginia took themselves off to Norfolk where they rented Blo’ Norton Hall. Thoby and Adrian joined them at intervals and there they made plans for a visit to Greece in the autumn. Thus while writing at length to Clive about her feelings for him, Vanessa was also studying Greek sculpture and making preparations for their trip. She then had to take her farewell of Thoby who, with Adrian, went on ahead in order to travel down the Dalmatian coast on horseback. Vanessa and Virginia, accompanied by Violet Dickinson, set out for Greece in mid September, travelling by boat from Brindisi to Patras. Due to Vanessa’s forethought and organization, they were dressed in grey felt hats, white linen suits and white boots and carried green-lined white parasols. Vanessa told Margery Snowden that she was certain the trip would be important for her and that she would return ready to enter a new stage in her artistic development.
While she crossed the Mediterranean, Clive bided his time in the Highlands. He lay in a boat reading and occasionally joined in the shoot, first of grouse, then game. Before long, letters arrived telling him that the two parties had been united and had made their way to Athens. From there they decided to make a trip to the Peloponnese. They set off by boat and during the course of their journey Vanessa began to feel unwell. On their return it was necessary to stop at Corinth so that she might gain strength, and by the time they reached Athens she was seriously ill.
Her illness may have been caused by nervous strain. Over the last three years the fear that Virginia might again lose control of her reason had given Vanessa unremitting anxiety. Her responsibility for her sister had sometimes troubled their relationship and, as Vanessa felt, brought out the worst in her. In addition to this, Clive’s recent proposal had tested her loyalties, by offering a new kind of life that would oblige her to break with family ties. Psychologically taxed, she now suffered a physical breakdown, as her London doctor later confirmed. In Athens it took a fortnight’s rest and four tumblers of champagne each day before she was well enough to be carried on a litter to the boat bound for Constantinople where they caught the Orient Express.
Thoby had returned to England ahead of the rest. On reaching 46 Gordon Square Vanessa was shocked to discover that her elder brother was in bed and seriously ill. As she herself was obliged to go straight to bed, there was little she could do and in her helplessness she turned to Clive. Shortly before leaving Constantinople she had written to him firmly declaring that they should not see each other that winter. Now, unsettled by Thoby’s illness, she revoked this decision:
Dear Mr Bell,
Thank you so much for your letter. I feel as if I had been very brutal to you. I really didn’t mean to be. ... It was horrible to come back and find Thoby in bed and be sent to bed myself and not allowed to look after him. However he seems to be better and I hope the worst is over. ... As for myself, I am forced to obey this doctor - though I haven’t much faith in doctors, and he won’t let me see anyone except family ... I know much better than he does what is good for me and I am quite sure that a visit from you would do me a lot of good (does that sound very like Mrs Gaskell?) but I must wait. I hope you won’t find me either sentimental or too proper ... I will write and ask you to come as soon as I am allowed to see you.
Yours very sincerely,
Vanessa Stephen
Thank you for making Thoby go to bed. I think you just prevented him from getting really bad.29
If this letter aroused Clive’s hopes, they were dashed by that which he received six days later. In the intervening period Margery Snowden had arrived to supervise the nursing of Vanessa and Thoby, both of whom were thought to be over the worst. Now more confident in herself and of her family, Vanessa told Clive that her feelings were still unclear and that she felt opposed to marriage in the abstract; moreover if he remained in her vicinity on an easy footing nothing would change. She therefore advised him to go away for a year and then review the situation. She could not resist adding a piece of advice:
I wish that if you decide to go away, you would work at something. I don’t mean that I in the least want you to go in for any particular profession, in fact I can’t imagine you being a successful barrister or man of business! - but I do think you would be happier and would most likely think less of the Stephen family if you were producing some kind of work and not only adding to your knowledge. Besides I think brains are so badly wanted that people who possess them haven’t the right to let them be of no use. I haven’t the courage to go on being impertinent.30
Margery Snowden stayed only a week. A day or two after she left, and some ten days after their return home, Thoby’s illness was found to be not malaria as the doctors had said, but typhoid fever. His condition became suddenly critical; he suffered much pain and was frequently delirious. Clive, now in and out of the house, was in a frenzy of anxiety. ‘I’m afraid I have no other sort of news,’ he reported to Sydney-Turner. ‘At present, you will readily understand that, saving 46 Gordon Square, I am not greatly interested in “external reality”.’31 The next day Thoby was operated on and three days afterwards he died, peacefully and without pain. Two days after his death Clive again proposed and this time was accepted.
To some extent Clive had stepped into Thoby’s place in Vanessa’s life. Just as after Stella’s death Vanessa had clung to her memory by growing closer to Jack, so now she gave her affection to Thoby’s greatest friend. Clive had, however, prepared the ground for his new role and to some extent Vanessa’s former indifference to marriage is now exposed as bluff. Virginia later recalled that during the summer of 1905 Vanessa, ‘stretching her arms above her head with a gesture that was at once reluctant and yielding’ had said: ‘Of course, I can see that we shall all marry. It’s bound to happen.’32 Virginia resented the suggestion at the time and even after the engagement was announced sometimes grumbled that Clive was not good enough for her sister. But seeing Vanessa lying back against the pillows, happy and contented, with a rose tucked rakishly behind her ear, she could not doubt that the engagement was inevitable. Margery Snow-den, to whom Vanessa had once made the promise that she would not marry without love, also approved the news. She wrote to Clive: ‘No one knows better than I do how much she has felt the want of an unselfish affection during the last few years; and no one can be more truly glad than I am that she now has it.’33
