Стефани Баррон - The White Garden - A Novel of Virginia Woolf

“MARGAUX WILL MEET US TOMORROW AT THE Connaught,” Marcus Symonds-Jones said as he cradled his phone. “Nine-ish, I should think. Coffee and croissants, no doubt. The cow quite liked the notion of holding court; a spot of breakfast should lull her into a false sense of complacency.” “Why false?” Gray Westlake demanded. “She has the manuscript. She has the upper hand.”

“So she believes. But is the notebook a genuine Woolf?” “Surely somebody here at Sotheby’s can tell us that.” Marcus smiled. He thought, but did not say, And set an excellent price for it, you poor bugger .

“I’m coming to that meeting,” Imogen Cantwell announced belligerently. “Someone must represent The Family’s interest.”

“Why not one of the Nicolsons themselves?” Gray suggested.

The change in Imogen’s expression was comical to behold; she was at once appalled and flummoxed.

“Too soon,” Marcus said smoothly. “And unnecessarily complicating. If we involve The Family, we involve the Trust, and our ability to contain the negative aspects of this unfortunate affair — for Imogen, and your friend Miss Bellamy — may be quite limited.”

“Not to mention the nasty blowback for Sotheby’s,” Gray offered.

Marcus merely inclined his head.

“This woman — Margaux Strand — had no idea where her ex-husband might be?”

“None, I’m afraid.”

Gray steepled his fingers thoughtfully, his gaze on a spot somewhere above Marcus’s head.

“It’s gone well beyond my ability to understand,” Imogen said forcefully. “Jo scarpers with the notebook, brings your bloody man on, and then hands over the goods to his ex-wife without so much as a murmur. It doesn’t seem likely to me. I smell something rotten. And it’s coming from that Margaux woman’s behind.”

Gray Westlake rose abruptly, as though he could not endure another second in the department head’s room; and Marcus thought, He’s wondering the same thing. Why has this bird of his run off with Llewellyn, if she’s not authenticating the Woolf? And what, for that matter, is Peter up to? Margaux’s nasty bit of news has thrown us all for a tumble, and no mistake. Steady, Marcus old sod; you’ll have to manage things quite cannily at the Connaught tomorrow, or find yourself without a buyer.…

He was grinning broadly as he ushered Gray and the Cantwell creature to the door. The American, he gathered, had handsomely offered to foot Imogen’s hotel bill. Poor fool. He must really care about Jo Bellamy. But didn’t Marcus recollect that there was a Mrs . Westlake somewhere?

That was a piece of information, he decided, as he closed his office door behind them, he really must research more thoroughly before morning.

IN THE END IT WAS A NAME, AFTER ALL, THAT GOT JO’S attention.

Letter from H. Nicolson to JMK, 4 April 1941 .

“H. Nicolson,” she murmured. “Harold? — Vita’s Harold? Peter — ”

He looked at her as though surfacing from deep water, blond hair scattered over his eyes.

“Harold Nicolson wrote to Keynes. A few days after Virginia may have shown up at Sissinghurst. Should I get the letter from the archive?”

“Might as well.” He shrugged. “It’s probably about the war. Everything was, then.”

“Have you found anything?”

“Not much,” he admitted grudgingly. “Mostly domestic accounts, notes about renovation projects at Tilton House, Keynes’s plans for his garden — it looks like he borrowed Duncan Grant from Charleston to draft part of those, you’d find them interesting I daresay — ”

“But we don’t have time.” She copied the letter notation from the index card carefully; it might have nothing to do with Virginia, after all, but she’d failed to discover anything else. And she was curious about Harold Nicolson. Hadji . He was a vague outline in the Woolf notebook, a Sissinghurst ghost, most present in Vita’s loneliness.

The letter was on microfiche. It took seven precious minutes to retrieve it.

Sissinghurst

4 April 1941

My dear Maynard —

You will find it intolerable cheek, my writing to you like this, without warning or the delicate veils of diplomacy we two usually cast, over such trivialities as where to dine and with whom, the details as codified and mutually agreed as we once demanded of our treaties at Versailles — but I am uneasy in my mind, and as the uneasiness involves my wife, I will make no further apology for demanding what I may of your time .

Vita has had an unexpected visitor to stay at Sissinghurst. A visitor from the grave, one might almost say, and her appearance on the doorstep has tangled us in all the toils of broken marriage and fractured mind. Her history of nervous complaint and instability are strong marks against any tale she might tell — but I found myself compelled to listen when we spoke on Tuesday. I had gone down to Kent from London at my wife’s request, and her friend’s account of recent events in Sussex — as well as the part you and your Cambridge friends played there — can only be described as shocking. I do not pretend to know the workings of military intelligence; I am but a poor player on the Ministry of Information’s stage; but it would seem to me that higher authority ought to have been consulted. You will argue that you, yourself, represent that authority; I decline to be persuaded .

Our friend has written an account of what she witnessed, and all she suspects. Some of it is quite fantastic — and I might regard it as another demonstration of her genius, a bit of dark fantasy brought on by this desperate war — had it not been for that unfortunate young Dutchman’s death reported in The Times only yesterday morning. There will be an inquest, no doubt, and the matter will be properly hushed up — but it is all, as I say, quite shocking.

Our friend has placed the chief of her testimony in my hands for safekeeping. I might have dispatched it to her husband, along with the lady herself; but The Times has unsettled me, rather. I shall therefore place her pages where no one shall disturb them — set an angelic host about them, as it were — until such time as she may have need of them.

Should you wish to consult me on this matter, I am only too willing to make myself available .

Cordially,

Harold Nicolson

“It has to be Virginia,” Jo said.

Peter was skimming the copy of the letter she’d printed from microfiche. “All very mysterious on Nicolson’s part. And rather menacing, don’t you think? I know what you’ve done, Maynard, me lad, and so does Virginia . Only, what’d he do? Who was the young Dutchman? And why should Harold or Keynes care that the fellow was dead?”

“Because Keynes was involved,” Jo suggested. She was feeling her way through the density of Harold Nicolson’s language. “Remember Vanessa Bell’s mural — Virgin and Apostle . Keynes begging forgiveness, from a figure that could be Virginia. Keynes must have had a part in something that happened before she left her husband — something that haunted her, maybe even the thing that drove her away, in the end. A few days later, she confided in Harold Nicolson; and he sent off this letter.”

“It’s a threat, isn’t it, from first to last? He might almost have said: Harm her, and we publish.”

“Except that he was too well-mannered. Invoking his wife. Apologizing for Virginia’s nuttiness. And then throwing down his glove — ”

“Only to fail.” Peter’s expression was uneasy. “Because if you’re right — and she didn’t go into that river of her own accord — ”