Matthew Dennison - Behind the Mask - The Life of Vita Sackville-West

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2014

Copyright © Matthew Dennison 2014

Matthew Dennison asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Front cover shows Lady with a Red Hat (oil on canvas), Strang, William (1859–1921) / Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove, Glasgow, Scotland © Culture and Sport Glasgow (Museums) / Bridgeman Images; Shutterstock.com(roses)

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007486960

Ebook Edition © October 2014 ISBN: 9780007486977

Version: 2015-05-20

For Gráinne, with all love

‘… he told her that he could find no words to praise her; yet instantly bethought him how she was like the spring and green grass and rushing waters.’

( Orlando , Virginia Woolf)

‘All the coherence of her life belonged to Condaford; she had a passion for the place … After all she had been born there … Every Condaford beast, bird and tree, even the flowers she was plucking, were a part of her, just as were the simple folk around her in their thatched cottages, and the Early-English church, where she attended without belief to speak of, and the grey Condaford dawns which she seldom saw, the moonlit, owl-haunted nights, the long sunlight over the stubble, and the scents and sounds and feel of the air.’

John Galsworthy, Maid in Waiting (1931)

‘… we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.’

Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT Copyright COPYRIGHT DEDICATION EPIGRAPH FAMILY TREE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE PROLOGUE: Heritage PART I: The Edwardians PART II: Challenge PART III: Invitation to Cast Out Care PART IV: Orlando PART V: The Land and the Garden PART VI: All Passion Spent? PICTURE SECTION NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BY THE SAME AUTHOR ABOUT THE PUBLISHER William Collins An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF WilliamCollinsBooks.com This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2014 Copyright © Matthew Dennison 2014 Matthew Dennison asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Front cover shows Lady with a Red Hat (oil on canvas), Strang, William (1859–1921) / Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove, Glasgow, Scotland © Culture and Sport Glasgow (Museums) / Bridgeman Images; Shutterstock.com (roses) All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780007486960 Ebook Edition © October 2014 ISBN: 9780007486977 Version: 2015-05-20

DEDICATION Dedication DEDICATION EPIGRAPH FAMILY TREE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE PROLOGUE: Heritage PART I: The Edwardians PART II: Challenge PART III: Invitation to Cast Out Care PART IV: Orlando PART V: The Land and the Garden PART VI: All Passion Spent? PICTURE SECTION NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BY THE SAME AUTHOR ABOUT THE PUBLISHER For Gráinne, with all love ‘… he told her that he could find no words to praise her; yet instantly bethought him how she was like the spring and green grass and rushing waters.’ ( Orlando , Virginia Woolf)

EPIGRAPH ‘All the coherence of her life belonged to Condaford; she had a passion for the place … After all she had been born there … Every Condaford beast, bird and tree, even the flowers she was plucking, were a part of her, just as were the simple folk around her in their thatched cottages, and the Early-English church, where she attended without belief to speak of, and the grey Condaford dawns which she seldom saw, the moonlit, owl-haunted nights, the long sunlight over the stubble, and the scents and sounds and feel of the air.’ John Galsworthy, Maid in Waiting (1931) ‘… we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.’ Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)

FAMILY TREE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS List of Illustrations 1. Vita by Philip Alexius de László, oil on canvas, 1910 (© National Trust Images/John Hammond ) 2. Vita with her mother; Vita with her father 3. Knole; King’s Bedroom, Knole (© English Heritage ) 4. Harold, Vita, Rosamund Grosvenor and Lionel Sackville on their way to court; Vita and her parents ( Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images ) 5. Vita as Portia by Clare Atwood, oil on canvas, 1910 (© National Trust Images ) 6. Vita and Mrs Walter Rubens (© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans ); Vita (© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans ) 7. Sir Harold Nicholson, c. 1920 (© Private Collection/Bridgeman Images ); Vita at Ascot with Lord Lascelles ( Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images ) 8. Violet Keppel by Sir John Lavery, oil on canvas, 1919 (© National Trust Images ) 9. Vita and her two sons ( Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images ) 10. View of Long Barn, Kent, in Winter by Mary Margaret Garman Campbell, oil on paper, c. 1927–8 (© National Trust/Charles Thomas ) 11. Vita at the BBC (© BBC/Corbis ); Vita in sitting room at Long Barn with her sons (© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS ) 12. Vita (© Mary Evans/Everett Collection ) 13. Dorothy Wellesley by Madame Yevonde (© The Yevonde Portrait Archive ); Virginia Woolf ( Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images ); Hilda Matheson by Howard Coster (© National Portrait Gallery, London ) 14. Sissinghurst Tower (© Niek Goossen/Shutterstock ); White Garden at Sissinghurst (© Eric Crichton/CORBIS ) 15. Vita by John Gay, 1948 (© National Portrait Gallery, London ); Vita in the Sissinghurst Tower by John Hedgecoe, 1958 (© 2006 John Hedgecoe/Topham/The Image Works ) 16. Vita’s desk by Edwin Smith, 1962 (© Edwin Smith/RIBA Library Photographs Collection )