Chapter Nine - Bloomsbury 1911-1913

From 1908 or thereabouts onwards one began to meet people in society whose attitude towards life and other human beings one detected a peculiar quality and flavour. A readiness for intercourse, an absolute directness of mind, a half sceptical, half ardent fearlessness in matters of the heart and spirit – these were the first thing perhaps to show themselves. As one got to know more of people, to know them better other aspects which one came to recognise as common in a measure, to them all, emerged. The onlooker, myself especially, seeing more and more of all this, could not help being moved to a wistful envy, to a desire to achieve for himself this technique of friendship.

There was an immense amount of talk among them, but they loved one another with a great simplicity. And how secure and competent their serious and conscientious dealings made them in their affections! As time passed, this sense of the value of the possession they had forged for themselves only deepened. Through absence, through marriage and love-affairs, through the difficulties of close intercourse in work, through the strains and misery of the war, this bright and lovely thing was seen to hold good, unstained, unwearied, and undimmed; lighting up dark passages for those who traversed them and shining like a flame round the heads of those who died. I would like to tell over their names – all the list of those who were radiance to their generation, of those whom to know is still a security and happiness – Rupert, Jacques Raverat, Cosmo Gordon, Justin Brooke, Frances and Gwen Darwin, Geoffrey Young, Celia Newbold, Will Arnold Forster and Katherine Cox, and Friedi Goude, Hugh Dalton, and Geoffrey Keynes and Margaret Darwin, Claude Elliot, and George Trevelyan. Every name stands for a different generosity, an individual grace.

George first came into contact with the Bloomsbury Group, as they came to be known, in the latter half of his first term at Cambridge, via Geoffrey Keynes and Rupert. Geoffrey was friends with the Darwins and Jacques Raverat – and they both later married Darwin sisters Gwen and Margaret – and Rupert, via James Strachey, fell in with not only the latter’s brother Lytton, the biographer and critic, but with Thoby and Adrian Stephen, sons of Sir Leslie Stephen, the great man of letters and president of the Alpine Club. All three were invited to one of Adrian’s poker evenings in Fitzroy Square. All three showed up, in characteristic fashion: Geoffrey earnestly played and chatted and got to know people easily and was very welcome; Rupert charmed everyone, played badly and lost badly, afterwards retiring to an armchair in a pouting and quite affected ennui; and George neither played nor chatted, but watched all keenly and blushed whenever anyone but his two friends addressed a word to him. But after the card-playing broke up he remedied matters by congratulating Adrian on his wins at the Lent bumps, as the boat races were known.
‘I’m please to know all my hard work paid off for someone besides the team.’
‘You were in the Magdalene boat?’ Adrian perked up his ears at this.
‘Number seven,’ George smiled.
‘He’s Secretary next year,’ Rupert called from his chair. He had flung his legs over the arm of it in a picture of languor. ‘So expect excellent reports and dunning of the freshmen.’
George’s answer was a smirk, but Adrian was hooked. ‘You write? Do you act as well? You should meet my sisters. We put on some terrific plays. Don’t we, Thob?’ he threw out to his brother. The latter looked up from the table where he was counting out everyone’s losses and gains and entering them in a ledger.
‘Hmm?’
‘Our plays are scrummy,’ Adrian pronounced. He tossed his dark-blond hair from his handsome, equine face with a deceptive assurance.
‘Oh yes!’ murmured Thoby, who went back to his counting while Adrian turned his grey-green gaze steadily on George. ‘So you must come,’ he said, ‘We are in need of handsome Puckish villains.’ An undertone hung in the air, familiar and deep as a fugue. George heard it, accepted it, agreed, and so it began.

He was friends first with Thoby and Adrian, who had rather a crush on him; and then with Vanessa, who was eager to talk about painting, but never returned the incipient romantic affection George had for her; and then with Duncan Grant, in whom friendship and affection were given full flower. He said to me, of Vanessa, as we walked along on our way to that first Thursday evening,
‘I met her at a party at Maynard Keynes’ – Geoff’s brother, you know – in King’s, and she was the most languidly beautiful, frightfully outspoken girl I had ever met. I was enchanted,’ he admitted briefly, with a look of apology, for he caught the shimmer of jealousy that washed through me. I tried to appear coolly indifferent, but I’m not very good at such games, and the nasty ill-feeling showed all over my face.
‘You’re upset,’ he said. It seemed to me such an absurd thing to say, not an apology but a pronouncement of the obvious, and I was even more embarrassed at his bringing it out.
‘Well yes!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’m not used to men going on to me about how much they are or were in love with someone else!’
He smiled a little. ‘Not in love, it was not nearly that deep or meaningful… She knows a lot about painting, and is herself an artist in the Post-Impressionist style. She speaks freely, thinks seriously, takes life easily – so it appeared! How could I not be enchanted? She is married, of course, but that didn’t seem a terrific impediment, though I like Clive, her husband, and it seemed rather caddish to impinge on that.’

I was a little disconcerted at this startling admission. ‘Would you have had an affair with her if you hadn’t liked him?’
He thought for a moment. ‘If she were inclined, probably. But she wasn’t.’ He glanced at me, and then looked up the street. ‘Oh dear, you looked so awfully shocked! It’s not so bad as that! You see, they have an open marriage.’ He looked back at me, gauging the response, which was bafflement.
‘What’s that?’
‘They have romances or affairs with other people if they feel strongly enough about them.’
‘Then what’s the point in being married?’ I asked with some asperity. ‘Why not simply be bohemian and live together?’
He looked at me seriously now. ‘It’s a good question, and I asked it myself when I first knew.’
‘Well? What’s the answer?’
George shook his head. ‘I didn’t have it from Nessa, but from Duncan, of all people! He said, “one reason, dear boy: children.” It seemed so very sensible.’ He walked with his hands in his pockets, now balled into fists like a schoolboy.
‘Could you live like that?’ He asked.
I was aware this time that this was one of his ‘testing’ questions, and was not put out or shocked by it. But it didn’t stop me from answering honestly.
‘No,’ I said flatly. ‘I would be terribly hurt, if someone I loved wanted to carry on with someone else.’ It sounded, even to my ears, awfully conventional, and I was relieved at his response.

‘Nor could I,’ he said easily, looking up the street again. His face was lit in golden hues by the setting sun. A Greek god. It was so easy to see why they all called him that…. I felt a strong wash of feeling for him, that wild ardour that no remissness on his part could sunder. Walking along in this cloud cuckoo land, I was tumbled rudely back to earth by his next question.
‘But what,’ he continued, ‘if you were married and met someone you absolutely fell for? What would you do?’
I didn’t especially like these questions, and rather got the idea that it was all to prepare me for the evening’s chat – which it was – and was having second thoughts about having agreed to this outing. But. But. But. Here was the deepest heart of who George was and what concerned him – ethics and morality – and it was not an intellectual abstraction – but real and personal, first person. Hadn’t I complained of his detachment too often? Hadn’t I yearned for what was real from him? We had had that, on Snowdon, which is why I cherished it, much more than the awkward tryst. And – I could not help thinking – if we were to marry not only would I want to know such things, and have my own real feelings known, but I should have to expect this kind of talk breakfast lunch and dinner.
I was aware that the silence was stretching inordinately long. What would I do? I tried to pick my words carefully, thinking aloud as I went.

‘It would depend on how I felt about the man I was married to. If I really loved him, and felt that he really loved me, it would be an agony of confusion… How can one love two people equally? How can there be any loyalty or honour for both? It isn’t like with children. One can have a dozen children and love them all passionately.’
‘So you think it is impossible to love more than one person in that way?’ The question was quiet-spoken, thoughtful.
‘Impossible to do so and be happy!’ I exclaimed. I shook my head. ‘I couldn’t do it! I would have to keep the vow I had made and if it were possible, be friends with the other.’
George smiled. ‘That would take a very enlightened man, to be able to be your friend after being spurned.’
I found myself blushing hotly at this.
‘I don’t know what you mean!’
He laughed, softly, in that intimate way he had done on Snowdon, and looked at me directly, his gaze frank and affectionate. ‘Dear girl, there isn’t a man alive who wouldn’t burn with jealousy if he couldn’t have all of you, once given a taste. You give yourself to a man with such ready ardour, even dancing, that it is impossible not to want more, and it is tortuous when you remove yourself to your ivory tower. But you know this. You know this effect. I’ve seen it.’
‘Are you calling me a tease?’
He smiled again, ‘That’s one word. Yes, I am,’ He looked at me, askance, and there was no malice in his friendly honesty. ‘I don’t mind it. I think you’re adorable.’

He took his hand out of his pocket and reached for mine. It took the sting out of the candour, and mollified me a little. ‘Now,’ George went on, ‘what would you do if you did not love your husband?’ He swung my hand like a child, his tone full of cheer.
‘I shouldn’t marry someone I didn’t love in the first place!’
He laughed. ‘Things happen, ma cherie, or haven’t you noticed? Love is replaced by duty very often.’
‘Well, it shan’t be with me. I shall work very hard to remain in love.’
‘Spoken like a romantic!’ He laughed again. ‘You can’t deny it!’
‘I won’t deny it! I want it all, forever.’
He was smiling now. ‘You’re so dearly enthusiastic. It is what I love about you. So, tell me!’
I thought for a moment, then plunged into the icy waters with pure frankness: ‘I would spare nothing for the lover, do anything – divorce, run away, live in sin, change my name – anything.’
‘Love means that much to you?’ George asked. He sounded a little surprised at the passionate outburst.
‘Yes!’ I had never meant anything more, and found myself in tears. I looked away to where the grey Georgian houses of Bloomsbury were gilded and roseate as a Baroque painting. I wanted so much to tell him how I really felt, that I loved him, that he was the one that meant that much. But I couldn’t do it. I was so afraid of rejection! Somewhere I knew there was something wrong between us – I didn’t know what it was – but I felt it there, despite all his affection and attention and tenderness.

‘Hey,’ George coaxed. He stopped. ‘Hey, sweetheart.’ He forced me to look at him. I was very conscious of people passing, but more of his expression – deeply moved, compassionate and wistful. ‘Oh Cottie, my dear girl,’ he said, a flicker of pain in his eyes. ‘How dear you are, how soft you are, I forget it, sometimes.’ He took both my hands. ‘I’m so sorry. You seem so strong and sure of yourself.’
I shook my head mutely, violently, and tried not to cry.
He looked up to Gordon Square, took out his handkerchief from his pocket, gave it to me and put an arm about me as we continued walking.
‘God.’ He said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I am too!’ I blubbered, balling up the handkerchief. ‘I can’t help it!’ The words came tumbling out of their own volition, ‘I can’t help it! I’m so in love with you and it hurts.’
‘I know,’ he murmured, quietly, miserably. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. ‘There are things I need to tell you,’ he said, looking up as we crossed the street to the square.
‘What things?’
‘Nothing there is time for now,’ an undertone of irritability crept in to his voice. ‘There’s never enough time!’ He stopped abruptly, and turned to me, his expression passionate and fierce. I believe only the very public street-corner prevented him from taking me by the shoulders – he was that agitated. ‘Cottie, believe me in this, I am not unaware how you feel. I am not unaware, sweetheart! And I know how I feel for you...’ he paused and coloured. ‘Oh Lord, what you do to me! There is no other girl I would rather be with, in any way, than you. But there are things I must tell you, that you must understand, or we shall never get it right.’

I felt a strange thrill here, of recognition. So he knew too that something was wrong! And moreover, he knew what it was! I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. ‘You must believe me,’ he went on, in almost savage low undertones, ‘that I will tell you, that I must tell you – certainly before anyone else does who doesn’t understand!’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Christ! I thought it would be all right, that it was separate, but you pegged it, just now,’ he shook his head, and tears sprang to his eyes. ‘You spoke the veriest truth about love and I cannot deny it.’ Through the haze of my own misery, I perceived, dimly and at last, that he was, had been for a long time, tormented by some supposed flaw in himself, that he too was putting on a brave face for me. It distilled an instant calm to my mind, curious and powerful.
‘Whatever it is,’ I promised him, ‘whatever it is, I will hear it. It shall not alter me. Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.’
He sighed hugely. ‘Thank you!’ It was now twilight and he looked about. ‘Come on, we should get on. We’ll be just on time.’
The Stephens’ house had been divided up according to the occupations of the residents. Virginia had a room on the second floor; Vanessa a room on the third, which she used as a studio; and Adrian had the front room on the ground floor, where the Thursday and Friday evenings were held; it was articulated to the drawing room at the back end. The main drawing room occupied the whole first floor. It was well proportioned, with long windows overlooking the square, green carpets, red curtains, blue walls, comfortable furniture, a pianola , on which Adrian played Beethoven and Wagner, and G. F. Watts’ portrait of their father. The young men there had no 'manners' in the Hyde Park Gate sense. They criticized the women’s arguments as severely as their own – and they never noticed how one was dressed or if we were nice looking or not, which was entirely contrary to ‘evenings’ everywhere else. It was, at once, a relief and an anxiety.

Virginia was very shy in company, never addressing the company as a whole, but only making conversation with the person next to her. To men, even her brother in public, she could be aloof and fierce. With Vanessa or with Ka Cox, Gwen and Margaret Darwin, or Pamela Fry, she was less reserved, though she preferred to keeps her emotions private and guarded with those she did not know well.

I was, as you may imagine, prepared to dislike Vanessa Bell, harbinger of such a troubled and fraught conversation, but I found to my surprise, that I did not. Clive answered the door himself. They had no servants.
‘H’lo, George!’ Clive said. ‘Nice to see you! Is this your friend you’ve been telling us about?’ He was not very tall, with a round moon of a face, mouse-coloured hair and greenish eyes. The famous art critic wore an ordinary sack suit and carpet slippers, looking every bit the middleclass businessman. But there was genuine warmth about him, and I liked him on sight.
‘Yes,’ George smiled. ‘This is Cottie Sanders.’
‘Aha,’ Clive said. ‘Your father’s not John the speculator, is he?’
I was rather startled that my family should be known here. ‘No, that’s my uncle. My father works for the railroad.’
‘Ah. Pity. Nice chap, John, very good eye.’ I was not about to disabuse him that he was the black sheep of the family.
Clive stood aside. ‘Well, come in, there’s a few here already.’

We came into the arty, sparsely furnished, strangely painted parlour on the ground floor, lit up with the brilliant hissing glow of hand-painted gas lamps. It did not at first glance look very different to me from Geoffrey’s parties – a casual mixed party with everyone sitting about where they would wax on whatever book they were reading or the latest lecture or an upcoming art exhibition. Vanessa was sitting with Duncan Grant on the green-upholstered sofa, more of a chaise longue than a proper sofa, wrapped in a brilliant pink kimono with great red flowers on it. She did not get up.
‘Hullo, Georgie,’ she said with gay detachment from her nest on the sofa. ‘How nice you’ve brought your friend. Hello, Miss Sanders. Welcome.’ She waved her hand, her words punctuated by an ebony cigarette holder. Her voice was a throaty contralto, like an opera singer’s and her whole expression was, as George had said, languid. She was quite beautiful, with the assurance of the grand ladies of my mother’s acquaintance, whom I had met in the days as her shadow in rounds of calls.
‘Hello, Angel,’ George said with a smile. I started at this strange intimacy. To my astonishment, he went over and they exchanged an airy embrace.
‘Hello, my boy,’ Duncan murmured behind her. ‘Come about now and let us see your friend.’
‘Adrian, fetch her a drink, won’t you?’ Vanessa said to her tall brother who was standing by the mantel, staring intently at us.

I was brought over to Duncan where he sat cross-legged on the chaise with his head on Vanessa’s shoulder, her dark-blonde hair in his mouth. I stood before him, in the middle of the room, feeling awkward as if this were some kind of interview, prearranged.
‘Well well,’ Duncan said, looking me over. Adrian came, gravely, with a drink, which he handed over, first sticking his finger in it and licking it, letting the drop fall on his lips. When he gave it me, I nearly dropped the glass, my heart hammered so at this odd behaviour. The drink was sweet. Vermouth.
‘Sorry it’s not absinthe,’ Adrian winked at me, and sauntered back to the mantel. The joke was lost on me, alas.
‘You’re a writer, Miss Sanders?’ Duncan asked, bringing my attention back to the introductions.
‘Yes. Poetry, and short stories.’ I was about to say that I had recently had one published in the London Illustrated News, but he asked suddenly,
‘Have you ever modelled?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ I wanted very much to sit down. George beside me, one hand on my back, took a drink from Clive, and watched the proceedings with interest and no aid.

‘Art, my dear,’ Duncan said. ‘Have you ever been an artist’s model?’
‘No,’ it was flattering, if bewildering.
‘You’d be lovely,’ he pronounced. ‘Wouldn’t she, Angel?’ He asked Vanessa.
‘Mmm! Yes. In veils, like Salome.’
‘And all that hair,’ Duncan agreed. ‘George has promised to sit for me,’ he went on, ‘but he hasn’t yet, the naughty boy. So you will have to encourage him.’
I looked at George, not knowing how to respond to this. There was an undertone, a look between him and Duncan that I didn’t comprehend.
‘Who encourages whom would be the question,’ George replied, enigmatically, smiling. But the group understood and there was some laughter.

‘Yes we can see that,’ said a bearded man, sitting in the armchair next to the chaise. His voice was pitched to a falsetto, and his expression was exaggerated. ‘Your young friend has such a lovely boyish quality,’ he said to George.
‘Be nice to the innocent, Lytton,’ Duncan said mildly. So! This was Lytton Strachey, the great biographer, who was helping George with his Boswell book! Duncan’s remark I barely heard and in any case did not take in.



‘Are you athletic at all?’ Lytton asked. ‘George tells us you climb things.’
I blinked at this. How much had he told his friends about me without every letting me know it? ‘Yes,’ I managed. ‘I’m a member of the Alpine Club—’
‘Oh one of Pappa’s creatures!’ This from Virginia, whom I hadn’t noticed before, sitting at a card table behind Lytton, playing with a pack of tarot cards.
‘Lovely,’ murmured Lytton.
George was suddenly animated. ‘Oh Lytton, you should have seen—’ He looked at me. ‘Do you mind if I tell this story, about Courmayeur?’
I blushed, ‘No.’

George went and sat on the floor near Lytton’s chair, bidding me to follow, and told the group of one of our adventures:
‘We had been on a traverse on Courmayeur, out all night and day, in the rain and snow and a terrific wind, and were sodden. At about nine o clock at night, when we had been out for twenty-four hours, we finally made it down the glacier to the town to find beds. Well, we stopped at the edge of town, by the railway station, so that Cottie could change, only to discover that she had left her skirt, which was completely sodden, up at the Grivola hut. So, boldly, we strode into town, both of us wearing climbing breeches, and bundled to the neck. After searching for an hour, we finally found a hotel that had a vacancy.

‘Now, I grant you, it was dim in the lobby, but the clerk saw us striding in together with all our gear, two tall pretty fellows he thought!’ He laughed. ‘For Cottie had her hair up under her hat. I asked him for two rooms, and he gave me an odd look. He asked why did we not want one, as he had only one regular room and the porch and it was still raining. I said I wouldn’t mind the porch if my companion could have the room. Then he said something in German Swiss, looking at Cottie, which I didn’t understand. Well, she turned all sort of fetching colours, and I asked her what he said.’
‘I’m breathless!’ murmured Lytton. I was beginning to be sorry I had agreed to let George tell this story.
‘He said he didn’t understand why there was a problem with two young men sharing a room, even if there was only one bed, as he was not implying we were amoureuses.’
‘Oh, delicious!’ Lytton exclaimed. Vanessa hushed him.
‘Be quiet, Giles.’

‘What did you say, my dear?’ Duncan prompted me.
I was the breathless one now, haltingly giving the details of this secret adventure to a room full of strangers. ‘I wanted so much to tell him off! But I didn’t want to give him the wrong impression—’ I looked at George. Or the right one either! ‘For we’re both known thereabout…. I didn’t know what to say without making it all worse, so…’ I had a sudden inspiration here, to show that I wasn’t so impossibly gauche as they supposed. As I spoke I pulled the pins from my hair. ‘I slowly took off my hat and…’
‘Down tumbled a gorgeous mass of golden braids,’ George finished, as my hair fell on the floor. ‘The poor fellow was stupefied!’ he laughed, ‘and apologised profusely for ever thinking das Fräulein a pretty boy! He gave us a wonderful meal and a bottle of their best wine courtesy of the house.’ He looked at me now, fondly. ‘That was a good time.’
‘Bra-vo!’ Duncan exclaimed, ‘You two are a delight. A splendid performance!’

‘I agree,’ said a familiar voice from the door. It was Rupert, lounging against the doorjamb. He sauntered into the room. ‘Troilus and Cressida.’
‘No, Paolo and Francesca, darling,’ said Lytton. He leaned his head back and quoted Dante,
‘And time and time again that reading led our eyes to meet, and made our faces pale,
and yet one point alone defeated us. When we had read how the desired smile
was kissed by one who was so true a lover, this one, who never shall be parted from me,
while all his body trembled, kissed my mouth. A Gallehault indeed, that book and he
who wrote it, too; that day we read no more.’
George reached up for Lytton’s hand. ‘Thank you for Galahad, my friend.’
‘My dear, I can but say when you have your Lady of the Lake beside you!’ He returned. Meaning me. I blushed. How did they know these private games? Or did they guess them?
‘Tristan and Isolde,’ this from Adrian.
‘Heloise and Abelard,’ said Virginia. A groan went about the room.
‘Don’t be so cross, Goat,’ Vanessa said. ‘That’s a terrible fate to wish on magnificent George.’ I was grateful for this championship; I didn’t much fancy being compared to star-crossed lovers, however beautiful. Virginia made a noise of rude disgust and got up to put Caruso on the gramophone.

Rupert came in and before saying hello to anyone came and picked up my hair in handfuls, burying his face in it and murmuring,
‘Hello schatzi. I’ve always wanted to see this. We’d make such a beautiful picture, don’t you think? Die zwei Löwen. George wouldn’t mind if I borrowed you.’ He moved away, smiling brilliantly, and greeted the room. George, seeing I was disturbed, asked in a whisper, ‘What’s wrong with you?’
I looked across the room at Rupert, who had flung himself into a chair at the head of the chaise and was arguing animatedly with Duncan. He caught me looking and smiled again, that hard brilliant smile that felt indecent.
‘Oh,’ said George, noticing the exchange. ‘Don’t worry, that’s just Rupert. He doesn’t really want to make you.’ What I didn’t know was that Rupert had been engaged to Noel Olivier, daughter of the Royal Governor of Jamaica, for two years – meanwhile carrying on affairs with the actress Catherine Nesbit and his fellow Fabian, the sculptress Katherine Cox. Ka was to become a good friend of mine, and I only heard about his engagement to Noel after they came back from Germany before the outbreak of the war.

‘Don’t count on it,’ Lytton said blandly from his chair. He put down the book he was holding, a volume of Ernest Jones’ On the Nightmare, and regarded me benignly. ‘Pretty child,’ he murmured, as if to himself, his voice in its natural tones now, ‘You should have Virginia read your fortune. I for one would be very interested.’ He leaned round the chair and said to Virginia, who was still laying out cards on the table and studying them intently to the croonings of Caruso,
‘Queenie, do let’s give the girl’s lines a tracing.’

Everyone joined in this experiment eagerly, and as interested as I commonly was in such things, I felt uneasy in this company. Virginia was not the most sympathetic of seeresses. She regarded me rather balefully for a moment before asking me to cut the cards in threes as I sat across the table from her. Then she turned up seven cards on by one, which even to my untutored eye were an exceedingly mixed bag.
She pointed at the first card, on the left, saying,
‘Ten of Cups, that which is ending.’ She paused, and there was silence from those gathered round. ‘You’ve had a privileged life. It is ending.’
She turned up the next card. ‘The Lovers. The present.’
‘I told you,’ Rupert said archly.
‘Of course darling, just look at them,’ Lytton returned in his campy falsetto.
I couldn’t look at anyone, certainly not George, who was sitting on my right. Vanessa put her hand on his should as she stood behind him. I looked up at her, and her eyes were full of something akin to pity, or maybe knowing. Anyhow, I felt that she was kind.
‘Go on,’ said George, diffidently. He took up my hand under the table.

Virginia turned up the next card.
‘Nine of Swords, the immediate future. There is a great sorrow about to befall.’ She looked at us each in turn, and spoke with a slow steadiness that was chilling. ‘But I cannot tell in which of these spheres it is.’ She indicated the other two cards. A thick tension descended on the room and I was genuinely afraid. Disaster had already befallen my family fortunes for it could not be that. That left only one option. Please god, stop this stupid game, I thought, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. She went on.
‘Eight of Coins. What to do.’ Virginia looked up at me, her clear, heavy green eyes at last betraying some human feeling. ‘You are very talented. Hone your skills, make them as sharp as a sword, and they will serve you well. Write, about all that pain, and glory, and it will make you famous.’ She paused. ‘I saw your story, in the Illustrated News,’ she smiled a little, mockingly. ‘C. M. Sanders. You have a good eye for detail, but you know nothing. This will teach you,’ She tapped the card with the weeping woman and swords. ‘Write about that.’ Her tone was portentous, and she looked at George significantly and back to me. I shuddered.
‘Come, you’re scaring the child, Goat.’ Duncan protested.
‘It’s only what is here,’ Virginia said tonelessly. ‘Shall I go on?’
I nodded.

‘The Wheel of Fortune,’ She said as she turned up the next card. ‘Outside influences. You have a very powerful fate, Miss Sanders.’ She grabbed my hand and traced the line. ‘Yes, a very powerful will, too. But it’s fractured, I see. Great fortune and great sorrow.’ She turned up another card on top of the one just revealed. ‘Two of Swords. There is a falsehood in your life, a basic dichotomy. A secret told to no one.’
‘I have no such secrets!’ I protested at last.
‘This is not for the present,’ Virginia said with exaggerated patience. ‘It is your whole life. It will unfold,’ she said with a complacent certainty. She turned over another card.
‘The Queen of Coins. Hopes and fears. Well, that’s no surprise,’ She said dryly. ‘You are deeply erotic, Miss Sanders, but you fear it, we all saw that—’ Adrian laughed out loud at this. ‘You let go, but only rarely, and are ashamed of it.’ I moved to speak but she went on relentlessly with this blistering psychoanalysis. ‘You also crave material comfort, wealth and prosperity, the privilege you’ve always had, up to now. But you can be niggardly and vicious if crossed,’ she tapped the Lovers card again. ‘And you’re afraid of failure.’

‘Steady on!’ Clive said. ‘I say, Goat, that’s a bit stiff.’
‘Isn’t everyone?’ I asked, rather bleakly.
‘I’m only saying what’s here. She cut the cards,’ Virginia said coldly. She laid down the last card.
‘Ace of Coins. Outcome.’ She paused, smiling a little. ‘Well well.’ She turned up another card. ‘Ace of Cups.’ She looked up now, raising her head back. ‘Well, Miss Sanders, it seems you were born under a lucky star. Despite all the problems, you will find your holy grail.’
‘A bit easier since first she’s found Galahad,’ this from Duncan.
Everyone, including George, laughed at this. I was grateful, but all I wanted to do was cry. I felt so horribly exposed. This was no amusing parlour game, I felt, but a mean trick to taunt an outsider. I managed to croak a perfunctory thanks, to which Virginia smiled acidly. ‘Some people are very lucky,’ she said, pushing herself up from the table. ‘Whatever happens, pretty one, you’ll land on your feet, don’t worry. You’re ruthless enough and there will always be some man to adore you. Count your blessings.’ With that, she left the room.

‘Don’t mind Virginia,’ Vanessa said gently, with her hand on my shoulder. ‘She’s only jealous because you have strength and she hasn’t—’ she looked out into the hall when her sister had gone.
‘I’ll see to her, Angel,’ Duncan offered, and skittered out of the room. What was so terrible about what Virginia had said was that it was all true, and moreover, everything she said came true.