Sweet Sorrow (3 page)

‘You know about war, Lady Edward. It is terrible, is it not? I am by instinct a pacifist but I’m not a politician, thank God. I leave politics to Leonard. He spends hours with dirty, unkempt, impractical philanthropists at whom I’d throw the coal scuttle after ten minutes if I were in his place. I know he’s happy when I hear the drone of a committee meeting in the next room. Politics is Leonard’s hobby, his passion. Mind you, in my experience, nothing advocated by well-meaning literary men ever happens.’

She spoke vehemently and Leonard looked rather surprised and not a little hurt.

Edward, trying to change the subject, said, ‘At Eton, you know, some of us played a ludicrous medieval football on St Andrew’s Day called the Wall Game. On St Andrew’s Eve, we feasted and passed around a loving cup. As we drank from it, we chanted “
In priam memoriam
JKS.”’

‘So I have been told,’ Virginia said more cheerfully. As Verity looked blank, she added, ‘J.K. Stephen was my cousin – a great classical scholar and footballer.’

‘And what happened to him?’ Verity inquired.

‘He went mad and died aged just thirty-three,’ Virginia said flatly.

Verity wished she had not asked and her discomfort was made more acute by Byron’s next sally.

‘You are a Communist, aren’t you, Lady Edward?’ He spoke aggressively, emphasizing her title.

‘I was. I still feel a Communist at heart but I grew to dislike the Party’s slavish obedience to Moscow so I decided to hand in my card. In fact, I have just written an article for
Revolt!
on the Party’s destruction of the Anarchists in Spain. My Communism is, I suppose, closer to the socialism Mr Woolf preaches in the
Political Quarterly
.’

‘Please,’ Leonard interjected, ‘now we are friends and neighbours, I hope you will call me Leonard and, if I may, I shall call you Verity and Edward.’

‘Please do,’ Verity said smiling. She knew she would have no difficulty calling him by his first name but doubted she could ever call Mrs Woolf ‘Virginia’ – not that she had as yet been invited to do so.

‘
Revolt!
– what’s that?’ Adrian inquired. ‘It sounds sanguinary.’

‘It’s a magazine edited by George Orwell and Vernon Richards which discusses the Spanish Civil War from an anti-Stalinist point of view.’

‘I hope you get paid,’ Leonard said with a laugh. ‘I heard yesterday that it has folded.’

‘Yes, I know. I wasn’t paid, as it happened, but I didn’t expect to be. I much admire Mr Orwell and was glad to do what I could to help. I’m only sorry my offering didn’t make a difference.’

‘Did you read Orwell in
Tribune
?’ Byron asked. ‘In the “As I Please” column he called English intellectuals “boot-licking propagandists of the Soviet regime”. A bit unnecessary, I thought.’

‘Orwell was a contemporary of mine at Eton when he was called Eric Blair,’ Edward put in. ‘I didn’t know him well and I never guessed he would turn into such a remarkable journalist. I find I share his views on most things.’

Leonard nodded in agreement. ‘I’m sorry, Byron, but I do agree with him that we were too quick to excuse Stalin’s political trials. One can see now that it was just state murder.’

Byron growled a protest.

As he carved a boiled chicken, Leonard said to Verity, ‘When you were recovering from TB, did I send you John Strachey’s
The Coming Struggle for Power
?’

‘No, but I mean to read it.’

‘I have a copy, if I can find it, which I shall be glad to lend you. Though it was written from a Marxist perspective as long ago as 1932, I think it still relevant.’

‘You did send me Iris Origo’s novel about Byron’s daughter, Allegra, which you published. Have you read it, Mr Gates?’

‘I have, as a matter of fact. Byron’s behaviour was quite inexcusable. He took her away from her mother out of spite and left her to rot in an Italian convent. I called my daughter Ada after Byron’s first legitimate daughter. She fared better. She was taken from him by his wife when she left him in 1816. Ada was only a month old and never met her half-sister. Unexpectedly, Ada became an accomplished mathematician.’

‘I didn’t know that. Is your Ada a mathematician, Mr Gates?’ Verity asked.

‘She’s a good girl but no one could ever call her intelligent,’ he replied dismissively.

Verity was shocked. If she ever had a child, unlikely as it was, she knew she would never talk about her with such contempt.

Leonard and Verity went on to discuss Lady Carter’s recently published book about women in prison –
A Living Soul in Holloway
– Leonard’s work towards disarmament and the failure of the League of Nations.

Inevitably, Verity was soon talking of the Spanish Civil War which – as they spoke – was ending in victory for General Franco and the Fascists, or Phalange Party, as it was called in Spain.

‘You know my nephew, Julian, was killed in Spain?’ Virginia broke in. ‘And now it’s going to happen again. It depresses me so much to think of all our young friends caught up in something unutterably worse than what we went through in 1914.’

Verity saw Leonard look at his wife with concern.

‘Yes, I met your nephew once and much admired him,’ Verity replied gravely. ‘Of course war is horrible but, like Lord Byron, I think Julian knew he was doing the right thing. It’s the same today. Any sane person hates the idea of another war with Germany but Hitler has to be withstood. Surely it is better to fight than be made a slave?’

‘You’re so like him – like Julian.’ Virginia put out a hand as if she would touch her but withdrew it. ‘Despite what you say, I still don’t understand what made him do it. I suppose it’s the fever in the blood of your generation which we can’t possibly understand. We were all conscientious objectors in the Great War. I was a great admirer of Senator La Follette, a much misunderstood patriot, and, though I understand the war in Spain was a “just cause”, my natural reaction would be to write against it.’

‘As I did,’ Verity interjected.

‘The moment force is used, it becomes meaningless to me,’ Virginia continued. ‘I’m sometimes angry with Julian but his feelings were fine, as you say . . . fine but wrong.’

‘His feelings were fine and right,’ Verity said firmly but, she hoped, not rudely. ‘And we must now fight again until Hitler is destroyed. It is the same war.’

‘But the bombing . . .?’ Virginia said faintly. ‘I’m so terrified of gas attacks . . . We’re giving up our house in Tavistock Square.’

‘To live here at Monk’s House, permanently?’ Verity asked.

‘No, a few months ago we bought a house in Mecklenberg Square and we are in the process of moving our things. We must have been mad to buy another house in London but, when we decided to move, we didn’t think war was coming so soon. In fact, in my more optimistic moments I still don’t think there will be war.’

Verity could not believe that this highly intelligent woman could so delude herself but she said nothing.

‘London is a huge city spread over a vast area,’ Edward said, in an effort to calm her. ‘In my view, if war does come and I fear it must, the Luftwaffe will not be able to reduce it to rubble as quickly as people seem to think. Mr Churchill . . .’

‘You’re a friend of his, I believe?’ Byron interrupted. ‘I don’t trust him. He brought on this war by his posturing. There’s still time to make our peace with Germany. I don’t believe war solves anything.’

‘Your namesake fought for freedom,’ Edward couldn’t resist saying.

‘And died for it,’ Byron agreed. ‘What a waste! Great poets . . . great artists, great scientists are too precious to be wasted. Look at Archimedes – killed by a common soldier.’ He shook his head in sorrow.

Edward wondered if he considered himself to be a great poet and rather thought he did. Unwisely, he was unable to restrain himself from quoting from Lord Byron’s last poem.

‘“If thou regret’st thy youth, why live?

The land of honourable death

Is here: up to the field, and give

Away thy breath.”’

Verity was embarrassed, fearing that Virginia would be upset, and said quickly, ‘Edward, how often have I asked you not to show off? Poets – with the exception of Wilfred Owen and Sassoon – have very little idea of the reality of war.’

Unabashed, Edward again addressed Byron. ‘I have a rather odd link with Lord Byron. When I was at Trinity, I had the privilege of being lodged in his set of rooms. I’m told he kept a bear which he would take out walking with him. Then, when I moved into Albany, I discovered that my set also once belonged to him.’

‘Byron had a fine time at Cambridge,’ Leonard put in. ‘In fact, I gather he lived a life of what must be called dissipation.’

‘He fell in love with a choirboy,’ his namesake said with a smirk. ‘He had wanted to go to Oxford – Christ Church, my college as it happens – but there were no rooms vacant so Trinity was second best.’

‘I think the only living creature he truly loved was his dog, Boatswain, a Newfoundland. It’s said that, when admirers asked Byron for a lock of his hair, he used to send them a curl or two of Boatswain’s fur.’

‘But what is important,’ Virginia said, as though she found the tone of the conversation distasteful, ‘is that he wrote wonderful poetry. “Fain would I fly the haunts of men. I seek to shun, not hate mankind. My breast requires the sullen glen, whose gloom may suit a darkened mind.”’

There was a silence when she finished speaking. Her deep, melodious voice put an end to trivial gossip.

When dinner was over, they moved into the drawing-room. The maid brought in a pot of coffee. Leonard put a record on the gramophone and, when they had sat down on an odd assortment of chairs, he lit a pipe while Virginia rolled a cigarette – a blend known as My Mixture. Adrian, who had said little at dinner, preferring to watch Verity and Virginia take each other’s measure, asked Leonard how he had enjoyed his French holiday. In June, he and Virginia had driven through Brittany and Normandy.

‘We very much enjoyed ourselves. Virginia is a great admirer of Madame de Sévigné and we thought we should visit Les Rochers and pay our respects while we still could.’

‘Oh, I do wish we could forget about the war for a moment,’ Charlotte protested. ‘We’ll soon have our fill of it. While we are still at peace can we not talk of peaceful things?’

‘Indeed,’ Leonard agreed. ‘Now, who of our neighbours have you met, Lord Edward?’

‘Please, I thought we had agreed that you would call me Edward. One of the things that made Verity hesitate before agreeing to marry me was the idea of being saddled with a title.’

‘Lady Corinth I could have lived with,’ Verity explained, ‘but Lady Edward . . .’ She threw up her hands in mock despair. ‘When people call me that I feel I’m just an appendage.’

‘Well, to answer your question,’ Edward continued, smiling, ‘we’ve only spent one night here so we haven’t had much time to meet people, but Colonel Heron came by to give us advice on the blackout. Apparently, our curtains show too much light and will have to be lined with what I believe is black felt.’

‘Heron is a busybody,’ Byron said. ‘He tried to tell me how to black out Ivy Cottage but I’m afraid I told him to go to hell. The worst thing about this war is going to be the little home-grown Hitlers who’ll try to regulate every minute of our daily lives.’

‘Didn’t I hear that Heron attacked you in the pub a few nights back?’ Leonard asked him.

‘He was drunk,’ Byron said dismissively. ‘He apologized the next day and we agreed to forget about it.’

‘Can I ask what he was accusing you of?’ Leonard persisted.

‘Apparently he knew my first wife – this was some time before we married – and he had the gall to accuse me of mistreating her. I’ve no idea how he would know as he was in India during the time we were married. It was all some fantasy of his. I believe he may have had a thing about Marion and went off to India when she rejected him. I don’t know for certain and I don’t care but we agreed to keep clear of one another. That’s why I don’t want him telling me how to black out my cottage.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Virginia said. ‘Rodmell’s too small a village for quarrels.’

‘Don’t concern yourself, Virginia,’ Byron replied. ‘It was just a silly misunderstanding and it’s all over now. Let’s forget it, shall we?’

‘He says he’s going to drop off some gas masks for us to try on,’ Virginia added, ‘as though one were trying on a hat.’

‘Well, it’s no good if they are too small or too large,’ Leonard said gently.

‘I refuse to wear a gas mask. The thing disgusts me. If there is a gas attack, I shall just die. I’d rather die than wear one. The very sight of a gas mask with its hateful snout and tiny eyepiece terrifies me.’ Virginia’s eyes were wide, her pupils dilated.

‘I agree,’ Verity said, hoping to soothe her. ‘It’s certainly not a fashion accessory.’

Virginia smiled weakly and the hysteria that had seemed about to bubble over subsided.

‘Colonel Heron is one of our churchwardens,’ Leonard told them. ‘He’s very active in the village.’

‘Too active, if you ask me,’ Byron grumbled. ‘You won’t catch me in church. I get the feeling our dear vicar doesn’t approve of me at all.’

‘I want you to meet Mark Redel, the painter,’ Leonard went on as though Byron had not spoken. ‘He lives in the little cottage just down the road. We invited him tonight but he absolutely refuses to come out to dinner when he’s in the middle of a picture. You’ve got to know him well, haven’t you, Adrian?’

‘Yes. He’s difficult – no point in pretending he’s a social animal – but he’s a great painter, in a different league from me.’ Verity smiled at her friend. Adrian was always so modest about his work but when she chided him he joked that he had a lot to be modest about. ‘He’s racked with guilt about being safe in England and hate for the Nazis. He gets terrible depressions but . . .’

‘I get the impression, Leonard,’ Edward interjected, ‘that you have gathered quite an artistic colony around here?’

‘We have done our best, particularly for our Jewish friends. I’m a Jew, of course, but Virginia feels just as strongly that we have to do what we can, though it’s little enough.’