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  Praise for VANESSA and Her SISTER

  “Vanessa and Her Sister is an account of my grandmother’s early life, told with faith, elegance and an almost uncanny insight into the subject. But this is also an absorbing work of fiction—and Priya Parmar has made Vanessa’s story her own.”

  VIRGINIA NICHOLSON,

  author and granddaughter of Vanessa Bell

  “Priya Parmar is a powerful new voice in historical fiction. This novel explores the anguished relationship between Virginia Woolf and her sister, and provides a new view of the artistic, sensual Bloomsbury world, placing Vanessa Bell at the heart of the story.”

  PHILIPPA GREGORY,

  author of The Other Boleyn Girl and The White Queen

  “I loved this brilliant depiction of the true price of genius. Vanessa Bell glows at the heart of the Bloomsbury Group as she protects her sister, Virginia, even at the expense of her own happiness. Parmar’s novel shines a bright light into the empty spaces between the lines of history.”

  HELEN SIMONSON,

  author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

  “Priya Parmar is on a high wire act all her own in this radiantly original novel about the Bloomsbury Set. Irrepressible, with charm and brio to spare, Vanessa and Her Sister boldly invites us to that moment in history when famous minds sparked and collided, shaping the terrain of art and letters. But it’s the two sisters who are most bewitching here—rocking on the brink of unforgivable transgression, changing each other in ways far-reaching and profound. Prepare to be dazzled.”

  PAULA MCLAIN,

  author of The Paris Wife

  “With sparkling wit and insight, Priya Parmar sets us down into the legendary Bloomsbury household of the Stephen siblings, where sisters Vanessa and Virginia vie for love and primacy amidst a collection of eccentric guests. Parmar’s wonderful telling brings to life the difficulties of being responsible for an unstable family member, especially one as brilliant and cunning as Virginia Woolf was. Vanessa and Her Sister kidnapped me for a couple of days. I couldn’t put it down.”

  NANCY HORAN,

  author of Under the Wide and Starry Sky and Loving Frank

  “Vanessa and Her Sister is the novel I didn’t know I was waiting for and it is, quite simply, astonishing. Not just because of Priya Parmar’s preternatural skill at evoking the moment when the lid was coming off the Victorians, and the heated talk about art, life, and sex swirled through Bloomsbury, but because of how she has caught the two sisters at the center of that swirl—the women who would become Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. Virginia’s story is the one most often told, but it is Vanessa—the painter, observer, the woman struggling to balance her marriage and her art under the near-constant gimlet gaze of a younger sister willing to tip that balance—whose story this is. It is beautiful, wise, and deft as a stroke upon the canvas.”

  SARAH BLAKE,

  author of The Postmistress

  BY PRIYA PARMAR

  Vanessa and Her Sister

  Exit the Actress

  Copyright © 2014 Priya Parmar

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Bond Street Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Parmar, Priya, 1974-, author

  Vanessa and her sister / Priya Parmar.

  ISBN 978-0-385-68133-9 (bound). ISBN 978-0-385-68134-6 (epub)

  1. Bell, Vanessa, 1879-1961–Fiction. 2. Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941–Fiction. 3. Bloomsbury group–Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3616.A749V35 2015 813’.6 C2014-903171-8

  C2014-903172-6

  Vanessa and Her Sister is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

  Frontispiece: A sketch of Vanessa Bell by Roger Fy

  Jacket images: (woman) © Malgorzata Maj/Arcangel Images;

  (paint) © vladimir salman/Shutterstock

  Jacket design: Kelly Hill

  Published in Canada by Bond Street Books,

  A division of Random House of Canada Limited,

  A Penguin Random House Company

  www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

  v3.1

  For Tina and Nicky

  who made growing up fun

  and

  For M and D

  who gave us the moon

  In 1905 a group of friends began to meet in the drawing room of a London townhouse in the bohemian neighborhood known as Bloomsbury. Defying the conventions of their day, they were brimming with new ideas about art, literature, love, and friendship. Innovative and headstrong, they would go on to change the course of art and letters in the twentieth century. History remembers them as the Bloomsbury Group.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  (as of 1905)

  STEPHEN FAMILY

  SIR LESLIE STEPHEN— literary critic, biographer, died in 1904

  JULIA DUCKWORTH STEPHEN— his second wife, philanthropist, died in 1895

  VANESSA STEPHEN— Julia and Leslie Stephen’s eldest child, painter

  JULIAN THOBY STEPHEN (THOBY, THE GOTH)— second eldest sibling, Cambridge graduate, law student

  VIRGINIA STEPHEN (THE GOAT)— third eldest sibling, writer

  ADRIAN STEPHEN— youngest sibling, Cambridge undergraduate

  GEORGE DUCKWORTH— child of Julia’s first marriage to Herbert Duckworth

  LADY MARGARET DUCKWORTH— his wife

  GERALD DUCKWORTH— child of Julia’s first marriage

  STELLA DUCKWORTH— child of Julia’s first marriage, died in 1897

  FRIENDS

  CLIVE BELL— Cambridge graduate, art critic

  RUPERT BROOKE— Cambridge undergraduate, poet

  VIOLET DICKINSON— friend of Virginia’s and family friend of the Stephens

  E. MORGAN FORSTER (THE MOLE)— Cambridge graduate, novelist

  ROGER FRY— Cambridge graduate, curator of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City

  HELEN FRY— his wife, artist

  DUNCAN GRANT— Lytton Strachey’s cousin and lover, artist

  SIR WALTER HEADLAM— childhood friend of the Stephens, classicist

  JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES—Cambridge undergraduate, economist

  HENRY LAMB— painter

  WALTER LAMB— his brother, Cambridge graduate, classicist

  DESMOND MACCARTHY— Cambridge graduate, journalist

  LADY OTTOLINE MORRELL— socialite, literary hostess

  IRENE NOEL— friend of Vanessa’s and Virginia’s, descendant of Lord Byron

  MARGERY SNOWDEN (SNOW)— friend of Vanessa’s from the Slade School of Art, artist

  JAMES STRACHEY— Lytton’s younger brother, Cambridge graduate

  LYTTON STRACHEY— Cambridge graduate, journalist

  LEONARD WOOLF— Cambridge graduate, cadet in the Colonial Civil Service in Ceylon

  Virginia Woolf

  Asheham House

  Rodmell

  Sussex

  2 December 1912—Asheham

  Dearest Nessa,

  She arrived in an inauspicious brown crate. Your painting is smaller and rougher than I expected. Mrs Virginia Woo
lf in a Deckchair—what a marvellously blunt title. Without it, I am not sure anyone would know it is me given the empty face but Leonard says he recognised the set of the shoulders right away.

  Where shall I put your beautiful canvas? Leonard thinks the upstairs hallway. Would you choose when you come down next week? You know how I like it when you decide these things. You are still coming down?

  There is an unrushed calm about your Mrs Woolf. Is this how you see me now, dearest? The woman in the painting looks whole and serene and loved. Am I still loveable? Or have I undone that now?

  No, Nessa, it must not be. What happened cannot break us. It is impossible. Someday you will love me and forgive me. Someday we will begin again.

  Always your

  Virginia

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Part One: Vanessa Stephen - 1905–1906

  The Party

  Mr Sargent

  A Holiday in France

  The New Gallery

  In a Cambridge Garden in June

  Flowers at the Door

  A Thursday Evening at Home

  Once for Luck

  Godrevy Lighthouse

  Tennis Whites

  Friday Evenings in Autumn

  Part Two: The Stephens go Abroad - 1906–1907

  Is it Worth It?

  Lemonade Summer

  Blo’ Norton

  To Antiquity

  The East

  The Return

  Thoby

  Yes

  Bezique

  The Bells of Wiltshire

  La Belle Époque

  Closerie des Lilas

  Home

  Part Three: Vanessa Bell - 1908–1909

  Julian Heward Bell

  Where the Land Ends

  Questions and Answers

  Mr Headlam

  Italia

  Corresponding

  Virginia

  Proposals

  Clarissa

  Part Four: Vanessa in Paint and Ink - 1910–1911

  A Meeting on a Train

  Hoaxing at Sea

  King Edward VII

  Twickenham

  Gratian

  The Post-Impressionist Exhibition

  The Red Train

  Painters

  Regretfully Yours

  On a Swing

  Part Five: The Bells and the Woolves - 1912

  Resolution

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  THE PARTY

  Thursday 23 February 1905—46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London (early)

  I opened the great sash window onto the morning pink of the square and made a decision.

  Yes. Today.

  Last Thursday evening, I sat in the corner like a sprouted potato, but this Thursday, I will speak up. I will speak out. Long ago Virginia decreed, in the way that Virginia decrees, that I was the painter and she the writer. “You do not like words, Nessa,” she said. “They are not your creative nest.” Or maybe it was orb? Or oeuf? My sister always describes me in rounded domestic hatching words. And invariably, I believe her. So, not a writer, I have run away from words like a child escaping a darkening wood, leaving my sharp burning sister in sole possession of the enchanted forest. But Virginia should not always be listened to.

  A list. Parties begin with a list. Grocer. Butcher. Cheesemonger. I wish Thoby had some idea of how many are coming tonight. I suggested to Sophie that she make only sandwiches. She said it was barbaric and flatly refused.

  Neither Thoby, nor Adrian, nor Virginia would ever think of anything so banal as sandwiches or napkins or tea spoons. Mother or Stella was always there to do that for them. Now I do it. I will speak to Sloper. I am sure we should order more whisky for Thoby and wine for Adrian. And for the guests? Does Mr Bell drink whisky or wine? I can imagine him drinking either. I have no idea what Saxon drinks, but we have cocoa for Lytton, and I am sure that Desmond will drink anything we put in front of him and declare it to be his favourite. Virginia of course will drink nothing.

  Later (8.30am)

  The morning’s heavy quiet was split in two.

  “Nessa!”

  Virginia was shrieking downstairs.

  “Nessa!”

  I ignored it. Thoby was insisting that she eat her breakfast, and Virginia, enjoying his attention, was refusing. Virginia, as a rule, does not eat her breakfast. But last week Dr Savage told us that eating is crucial if we are to avert another disaster. He was dismayed when Thoby told him that Virginia’s room was at the top of the house. He suggested we either relocate her to the ground floor or nail her windows shut.

  Scraping chairs. Slamming doors. The escape. Quick cat’s-paw footsteps on the stairs, and Virginia barrelled into my sitting room without knocking and hurled herself into the low blue armchair.

  “Ginia. I have asked you to knock in the mornings. Just in the mornings. Any other time, you may behave like the little savage you are and barge in,” I said without looking up.

  “Nessa!” she said loudly. “I am being oppressed! Thoby forced oatmeal down my gullet. Libre Virginia!”

  The morning was off to a roaring start.

  Later (after luncheon)

  The interval before the second act. Adrian is down from Cambridge until Monday, and I will not let him out of the house until he unpacks his boxes from Hyde Park Gate. We moved six months ago, and they are still in the hallway. We walk around them like they are furniture. The servants shake their heads at us in disapproval. I can hear Thoby thumping around looking for his field glasses, and Virginia is out visiting Violet Dickinson in Manchester Square. Violet, older, calmer, and robustly good-natured, soothes her. And so we have peace.

  A wobbly three-legged day. A current of expectation has rounded through the house since this morning. It races and puffs up the stairs, sifting through the bedrooms in a blur of undefined something, knocking us out of stride. Thursdays have become important, like a bump that defines a nose, or a fence that marks a field. Thoby’s Thursday “at homes” for his friends from Cambridge lend shape to the week. This will be Thoby’s second at home—no idea why he chose Thursdays. He said Mondays were bulky and Wednesdays were flat. I do not mind. George and Gerald always try to frog-march Virginia and me to a gruesome dinner or dance on Thursdays to meet the eligible young men of Belgravia and Kensington. It embarrasses our half-brothers to have such conspicuously unmarried sisters. George is less concerned about Virginia—at twenty-three she can get away with it—but at twenty-six, I am a desperate worry. Strangely, I am not worried. I hate wearing white gloves, and I always find the young men undercooked and sweaty. We were meant to go with George to a dance in Mayfair this evening, but I just sent round a note with my apologies.

  I can’t think what to do with the house tonight. Gaslights, which flatter everyone, or the harsh, unreliable new electric lights? Thoby, ever in favour of modernity, wants electric, but they make Virginia and me look washed out and greenish as though we have been eating bad fish. My painting sits on the easel in the corner of the drawing room. Do I pack it away? Do I put away Thoby’s books and Adrian’s exam papers and Virginia’s notes and our decks of cards? Do I pretend that we four siblings do not live here? Stella would have ordered menus. Father would have received guests in his library. Mother would have sent out cards. We four will take our chances and see who turns up. Last week the last guest left at half past two in the morning. At midnight I told Sloper he could go to bed and Thoby’s friends could see themselves out. Sloper looked appalled and ignored me.

  Thoby’s at homes have the soft, unpredictable feeling of a hat tossed high in the air. When we moved last autumn, not to a suitable address near the Round Pond in Kensington, nor to a pretty side street in Chelsea, but to the once elegant but now shabby Georgian squares of Bl
oomsbury, I did not realise what a shocking thing we were doing. Mother and Father’s friends, feeling a sense of responsibility, tried to dissuade us from this bohemian hinterland, and of course George and Gerald objected, but we decided to ignore that. Because there is a sturdy beauty here. These Bloomsbury squares are set in their ways: no longer smart, no longer chic, they remain defiantly graceful. A good bone structure is hard to deny.

  And what if people are shocked that we have no curtains and hold mixed at homes and invite guests who don’t know when to leave? Only we live here, and we can do it how we like.

  Just us four.

  There is a lovely symmetry in four.

  Mid-afternoon

  I was in my sitting room working on my newest portrait of Virginia when Sloper came to tell me that the wine had been delivered as well as six crates of champagne and eight bottles of whisky. He was concerned, as we have never placed such a large order.

  “And what time shall we expect Mr Thoby’s friends?” he asked gravely.

  What time indeed.

  “Finished!” Adrian called up from the hall. He had unpacked the boxes. “Nessa, I’m finished!”

  Adrian still needs to be petted on the head and told well done as Mother always used to do, even though Mother has been gone ten years. Nothing is real for him until someone else approves.

  “Wonderful,” I called down to him. Sloper winced and went downstairs. No one shouted in the house when Father was alive.

  “Nessa,” Thoby said, strolling into my sitting room. “Do you mind terribly? I think you and Ginia will be the only girls again. Lytton was going to bring his sister, but—”

  “Marjorie?” I interrupted.

  “Dorothy, I think. I always get the Strachey girls mixed up.”

  “Is Dorothy the painter or the don?” I asked, pulling the canvas off the easel and tilting it to the light. It was still not right.

  “The painter, but it doesn’t matter because she isn’t coming. We could ask Violet, but she is so patrician. She might make things stuffy.”