Read Online The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf by Stephanie Barron - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephanie Barron
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although some Fridays he never got away from the Ministry at all. Aloof as Vita always was, careless of the people she desperately loved—unkind to them even—she’d opened her arms wide for this unexpected visit. Sent a boy to Staplehurst when she got the wire—a lad named Jock, peering through the dusk for this old woman .
He took my stick—I had no bag, it was an embarrassment to me, something that ought to require explanation—but the boy asked for none. Helped me up into Vita’s pony trap, the petrol or perhaps the sumptuous car too precious to trust to a schoolboy. Became my saviour, though he can’t have known it. A simple boy, dark and serious, with sensitive hands managing the reins .
Vita was quite alone. Gave me sherry, then more of it. Patted the dogs and fed the fire while she let down the blackout shades. “Now then,” she said. “What’s it all about?” Both of us warm, free of care, snug as Ali Baba in his cave. I took still more sherry. “Life,” I said. “Singing life.”
“So I gathered, from your wire.”
I telegraphed from London. Wrote of the treacherous river, the persistent bird. No time to wait for Vita’s answer; the train was leaving. But she had not failed me. The boy, Jock, standing in the station’s gloom .
“Now then,” she said again, and sat at my feet .
How old we both are! All those years ago, when I first loved her, Vita scared me a little with her riches. Young and ripe as a sheaf of corn. Or a bunch of grapes—that was how I thought of her—the aristocratic mouth, the heavy breasts, the fat pearls she looped about her neck. Her need for love, her pursuit of it despite her children and the demands of public life. Her lordship of the manor. She was like a goddess in those days, Junoesque, heavy and omnipotent with lightning at her command. And now? As spare and wizened as an old strip of saddle leather .
“It was the lead poisoning,” she says with her usual carelessness. A bout of illness several years back, something to do with lead in the cider-press; I remember it now. Vita propped up in bed, surrounded by gardening catalogues. Illness stripped the flesh from her bones. Her cheeks are riven with vertical lines, her fingers crabbed from digging. I know the truth: we have both of us been worn down to bones. The loss of too much love, the loss of our singing lives .
“What do you mean to do,” she asked me quietly, “now you’ve really left him?”
“Live,” I said .
IMOGEN CANTWELL LOOKED UP FROM THE PAGES INTO JO’S anxious face. “Devilish hard to read, isn’t it? She could have tried for neater handwriting. But I thought it was a garden book—a diary of some sort.”
“So did I.”
“Why would Vass have kept this?”
“He didn’t.” Jo reached for the notebook as though she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t leave it in Imogen’s hands a moment longer. “The boy she writes about—Jock—that was my grandfather’s name. He would have been seventeen. Sent over from Knole, where he grew up, to work here during the war.”
“Ah.” Imogen leaned on the handle of her grubbing hoe and studied Jo frankly. “A personal interest, is it? That’s why you’re so keen to see our records from the forties. It’s not about the White Garden at all.”
“It may be. Remember the title of this.”
“Title?” Imogen frowned. Notes on the Making of a White Garden . “You think it’s… some sort of fiction? But the writer mentions Vita. That’s real enough.”
“Yes. And she’s careful never to mention her own name at all. Who would have been close enough to Vita Sackville-West in 1941 to arrive at Sissinghurst on the strength of a telegram, and be immediately welcome?”
“A lover, you mean? Vita took them in scores. Mostly women, though the odd man does come up.”
Jo turned the book in her hands. “Only one of them could write like this.”
Imogen stared at her, thinking. Like everybody who’d made Sissinghurst their world,
He took my stick—I had no bag, it was an embarrassment to me, something that ought to require explanation—but the boy asked for none. Helped me up into Vita’s pony trap, the petrol or perhaps the sumptuous car too precious to trust to a schoolboy. Became my saviour, though he can’t have known it. A simple boy, dark and serious, with sensitive hands managing the reins .
Vita was quite alone. Gave me sherry, then more of it. Patted the dogs and fed the fire while she let down the blackout shades. “Now then,” she said. “What’s it all about?” Both of us warm, free of care, snug as Ali Baba in his cave. I took still more sherry. “Life,” I said. “Singing life.”
“So I gathered, from your wire.”
I telegraphed from London. Wrote of the treacherous river, the persistent bird. No time to wait for Vita’s answer; the train was leaving. But she had not failed me. The boy, Jock, standing in the station’s gloom .
“Now then,” she said again, and sat at my feet .
How old we both are! All those years ago, when I first loved her, Vita scared me a little with her riches. Young and ripe as a sheaf of corn. Or a bunch of grapes—that was how I thought of her—the aristocratic mouth, the heavy breasts, the fat pearls she looped about her neck. Her need for love, her pursuit of it despite her children and the demands of public life. Her lordship of the manor. She was like a goddess in those days, Junoesque, heavy and omnipotent with lightning at her command. And now? As spare and wizened as an old strip of saddle leather .
“It was the lead poisoning,” she says with her usual carelessness. A bout of illness several years back, something to do with lead in the cider-press; I remember it now. Vita propped up in bed, surrounded by gardening catalogues. Illness stripped the flesh from her bones. Her cheeks are riven with vertical lines, her fingers crabbed from digging. I know the truth: we have both of us been worn down to bones. The loss of too much love, the loss of our singing lives .
“What do you mean to do,” she asked me quietly, “now you’ve really left him?”
“Live,” I said .
IMOGEN CANTWELL LOOKED UP FROM THE PAGES INTO JO’S anxious face. “Devilish hard to read, isn’t it? She could have tried for neater handwriting. But I thought it was a garden book—a diary of some sort.”
“So did I.”
“Why would Vass have kept this?”
“He didn’t.” Jo reached for the notebook as though she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t leave it in Imogen’s hands a moment longer. “The boy she writes about—Jock—that was my grandfather’s name. He would have been seventeen. Sent over from Knole, where he grew up, to work here during the war.”
“Ah.” Imogen leaned on the handle of her grubbing hoe and studied Jo frankly. “A personal interest, is it? That’s why you’re so keen to see our records from the forties. It’s not about the White Garden at all.”
“It may be. Remember the title of this.”
“Title?” Imogen frowned. Notes on the Making of a White Garden . “You think it’s… some sort of fiction? But the writer mentions Vita. That’s real enough.”
“Yes. And she’s careful never to mention her own name at all. Who would have been close enough to Vita Sackville-West in 1941 to arrive at Sissinghurst on the strength of a telegram, and be immediately welcome?”
“A lover, you mean? Vita took them in scores. Mostly women, though the odd man does come up.”
Jo turned the book in her hands. “Only one of them could write like this.”
Imogen stared at her, thinking. Like everybody who’d made Sissinghurst their world,
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