Sweet Sorrow Read Free Page B

Andrew’s Day called the Wall Game. On St Andrew’s Eve, we feasted and passed around a loving cup. As we drank from it, we chanted “ In priam memoriam JKS.”’
    ‘So I have been told,’ Virginia said more cheerfully. As Verity looked blank, she added, ‘J.K. Stephen was my cousin – a great classical scholar and footballer.’
    ‘And what happened to him?’ Verity inquired.
    ‘He went mad and died aged just thirty-three,’ Virginia said flatly.
    Verity wished she had not asked and her discomfort was made more acute by Byron’s next sally.
    ‘You are a Communist, aren’t you, Lady Edward?’ He spoke aggressively, emphasizing her title.
    ‘I was. I still feel a Communist at heart but I grew to dislike the Party’s slavish obedience to Moscow so I decided to hand in my card. In fact, I have just written an article for Revolt! on the Party’s destruction of the Anarchists in Spain. My Communism is, I suppose, closer to the socialism Mr Woolf preaches in the Political Quarterly .’
    ‘Please,’ Leonard interjected, ‘now we are friends and neighbours, I hope you will call me Leonard and, if I may, I shall call you Verity and Edward.’
    ‘Please do,’ Verity said smiling. She knew she would have no difficulty calling him by his first name but doubted she could ever call Mrs Woolf ‘Virginia’ – not that she had as yet been invited to do so.
    ‘ Revolt! – what’s that?’ Adrian inquired. ‘It sounds sanguinary.’
    ‘It’s a magazine edited by George Orwell and Vernon Richards which discusses the Spanish Civil War from an anti-Stalinist point of view.’
    ‘I hope you get paid,’ Leonard said with a laugh. ‘I heard yesterday that it has folded.’
    ‘Yes, I know. I wasn’t paid, as it happened, but I didn’t expect to be. I much admire Mr Orwell and was glad to do what I could to help. I’m only sorry my offering didn’t make a difference.’
    ‘Did you read Orwell in Tribune ?’ Byron asked. ‘In the “As I Please” column he called English intellectuals “boot-licking propagandists of the Soviet regime”. A bit unnecessary, I thought.’
    ‘Orwell was a contemporary of mine at Eton when he was called Eric Blair,’ Edward put in. ‘I didn’t know him well and I never guessed he would turn into such a remarkable journalist. I find I share his views on most things.’
    Leonard nodded in agreement. ‘I’m sorry, Byron, but I do agree with him that we were too quick to excuse Stalin’s political trials. One can see now that it was just state murder.’
    Byron growled a protest.
    As he carved a boiled chicken, Leonard said to Verity, ‘When you were recovering from TB, did I send you John Strachey’s The Coming Struggle for Power ?’
    ‘No, but I mean to read it.’
    ‘I have a copy, if I can find it, which I shall be glad to lend you. Though it was written from a Marxist perspective as long ago as 1932, I think it still relevant.’
    ‘You did send me Iris Origo’s novel about Byron’s daughter, Allegra, which you published. Have you read it, Mr Gates?’
    ‘I have, as a matter of fact. Byron’s behaviour was quite inexcusable. He took her away from her mother out of spite and left her to rot in an Italian convent. I called my daughter Ada after Byron’s first legitimate daughter. She fared better. She was taken from him by his wife when she left him in 1816. Ada was only a month old and never met her half-sister. Unexpectedly, Ada became an accomplished mathematician.’
    ‘I didn’t know that. Is your Ada a mathematician, Mr Gates?’ Verity asked.
    ‘She’s a good girl but no one could ever call her intelligent,’ he replied dismissively.
    Verity was shocked. If she ever had a child, unlikely as it was, she knew she would never talk about her with such contempt.
    Leonard and Verity went on to discuss Lady Carter’s recently published book about women in prison – A Living Soul in Holloway – Leonard’s work towards disarmament and the failure of the