Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar Read Free Book Online Page B

August.” I pulled my newspaper closer.
    “Nessa, are you sure we cannot go back to Talland House?” Virginia, sensing my shorthanded answers, had begun to repeat herself.
    “I have told you, I could not manage it, dearest. The house is let.” True, I had tried, and the house was let, but I had not tried terribly hard. I did not want to return to Talland House. I wanted to be somewhere new and untilled. We must be careful in Cornwall. After thirteen happy childhood summers, all our ghosts will be waiting for us there.
    “But Nessa, will it be near Talland House?” Virginia asked.
    “Quite near, dearest,” I reassured automatically, when in fact I had no idea. “St. Ives is not a big enough place to be too far from it.”
    “What’s the house called? Trevor something?” Thoby asked, dragging a wicker chair over the stones to sit down.
    “But is it on the same side of the bay?” Virginia persisted.
    “Trevose View, and yes, it is on the same side of the bay,” I saidsoothingly. I could feel Virginia pulled taut, on the brink of something, and I was not up to a mad scene today.
    “Are you sure we could not stay in Talland House?” Virginia repeated, unfolding my newspaper and spreading it over her knees. The page I had been reading slipped to the ground.
    “Ginia, if Nessa could have fixed it for us to stay there, she would have,” Thoby answered, with the unthinking authority of one who does not anticipate an argument. He set his lemonade down on the wrought-iron table and leaned back in his chair. He opened his book. “When do we leave, Nessa?”

ONCE FOR LUCK

    Saturday 15 July 1905—46 Gordon Square
    A n argument rippled below the surface last night but did not break the skin.
    I suggested Snow come with us to Cornwall. A mistake. Snow has a steady grace that gets on Virginia’s nerves. Women without a light fingerprint of malice are too foreign for Virginia. As well Snow, with her thick mahogany sheet of hair and her low, rich voice, is one of those women who grows more beautiful as you get to know her. Virginia hates that.
POST CARD
    This Space to Be Used for Correspondence
    30 July 1905
    Dear Woolf ,

Bell is resolved. He loves her straight through. He would rather fail at her feet and live on her doorstep than settle for less. Comfort is of no value, he says. Uncomfortable, thorny passion is where he will pitch his tent. Surprisingly, I wish him luck. Unusual, when I think she is ten times the man he is. But his conviction has won me. How wonderful it must be to feel such pure decision.
  Yours,
Lytton

    To:
Mr Leonard Woolf
Assistant Gov’t Agent
Jaffna, CEYLON
----
    SERIES 4: SUNFLOWERS IN PROVENCE
    1 August 1905—46 Gordon Square (packing—cases everywhere)
    I am surprised and not surprised all at once. I must have known it was coming.
    The evening began beautifully.
    After a wonderful dinner in his rooms—just us, very bohemian—he walked me home. The thick scent of roses sweetened my skin. He had bought hundreds of roses. Buckets of them. They overwhelmed his rooms at King’s Bench Walk, perching on narrow shelves and slim windowsills. The effect was potent, visceral. I was touched. He had taken Virginia’s knifing criticism and had gone out of his way to find roses that smelled of roses.
    His rooms were not what I expected. Original Toulouse-Lautrec lithographs shared the mantel with invitations to shooting parties in Scotland. The bookshelves were crowded with a mix of Dickens, Shakespeare, Roman and Greek history, and books about fish. The conversation was unexpected too. I discovered he loves one of my loves: JaneAusten. Unusual for so outdoorsy a man to be interested in the indoorsy lives of women.
    He walked me home. In the square, he paused by the large lilac tree he knows is my favourite. Wordlessly brave, he knelt and asked.
    A silent beat. And another. I took a shallow breath, held very still, and tried not to think. A tide of instinct roared through me.
    I kissed the