Vanessa and Her Sister Read Online Free PDF Page A

themorality of suicide—one of her favourite fallback subjects, but exasperating on a spring day when good things are happening. I was nervous as we were on the top deck of the Number 8 omnibus and her voice had taken on the specific, tinny shrillness that presages a mad scene—and this was not a good place for a mad scene.
    We alighted near Green Park. I decided a long walk home might calm her. The traffic on Piccadilly clanged and kicked up dust, but behind the tall iron fence, the park lay in hushed splendour. Virginia noticed none of it. She was walking quickly, her long skirts flying and her hair slipping loose of its pins. Her small straw hat kept sailing off in the breeze. Twice I had to run after it into the road.
    Up we went, along Piccadilly, past Devonshire House with its gilded animal gates, past the great stone cube of the Royal Academy, past the robin’s egg blue of Fortnum and Mason’s emporium. I knew Virginia wanted to stop in at Hatchards bookshop next door but it was better not to risk it. I had to get her home. When I steered her away from the glossy black doors, the tension in her body flared into rage, and I quickly asked the porter at Fortnum’s to hail us a cab.
    I know that chewing over a viscous, obstinate question is her way of re-centring a day that is spinning out of her grasp. Trouble is, it takes my day along with it.
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    A T HOME, SHE KEPT ON TALKING ; talking without stopping, talking for hours. She did not respond when spoken to and would not turn to look when we called her name. She just continued to talk. When she gets like this, her words rush and tumble like unskilled acrobats, landing up in a heap of broken nonsense.
    A few years ago, Virginia talked for three days without stopping for food or sleep or a bath. We were still in Hyde Park Gate, and she sat up in her attic room speaking in low, frantic tones that rose and rose to shake the tall house by the shoulders. That time Virginia’s words unravelled into elemental sounds; quick, gruff, guttural vowels that snapped and broke over anyone who tried to reach her. Her features foxed withanger growing sly and sharp; her face twisted into something unfamiliar, and her hands bridged into white-boned nests. We waited until the third day before we sent for Dr Savage. A mistake. Virginia spent a month in the nursing home recovering.
    Now I know better. After three hours of Virginia’s unbroken talking, we sent for Nurse Fardell to come and administer a mild sedative— a draconian measure as far as Virginia was concerned. I stood outside the door and listened as Virginia evaded the nurse’s starched ministrations. There was a huge glassy noise as the pretty bedside lamp crashed to the floor. Virginia howled, and the nurse spoke to her in a stern, efficient hospital voice.
    Thoby came up the stairs with Mr Bell and, joining me in the hallway, asked what was happening. Virginia, not realising that she was in outside company, shrieked, “The Goat’s mad!” from inside her bedroom by way of a reply—her war cry. Virginia hates whispering and always reacts dramatically to sickroom voices. Mr Bell, not the least discomfited, drained the tension clean away by laughing a loud, easy laugh and politely enquiring if we had any other farmyard animals convalescing at Gordon Square.
    Tuesday 2 May 1905—46 Gordon Square
    The sedative worked, and Virginia slept for eighteen hours straight. Sleep rights her as surely as the lack of it derails her.
    Virginia—irritated at her outburst—is now sulking, reading three books at once, each about Spain, and speaking only in Spanish.
    Thursday 4 May 1905—46 Gordon Square
    A busy at home tonight, but everything went wrong. Twice I showed my hand and revealed my staggering ignorance. Who knew Tacitus was Roman and not Greek? “Listen to the name,” Virginia said, as if she were teaching a child to spell. I nodded but did not answer. Herodotus. Theodorus. Tacitus. I don’t see it.
    5 May 1905—46