Valentine Ackland, page 3
To get herself into the marital bedroom at all, Molly drank a large brandy, standing alone in the dining room in her dressing-gown. (Like a scene in Julia Strachey’s Cheerful Weather for the Wedding.) This spare room had two beds, which was perhaps not conducive; the bridegroom was nervous and the bride unco-operative. ‘We did not accomplish anything that night’, 24 Valentine wrote drily, many years later. The inability to consummate their marriage was the result of a deeper problem than the mutual embarrassment or inexperience which marred so many honeymoons of the time; both were committed to other lovers and other lovemaking, neither could force themselves to it, but Richard’s heterosexual credentials were at stake. ‘I did not understand,’ Valentine recalled, ‘more than vaguely, why Richard would commence making love, as it were quite gaily, and then collapse into bitter tears and next day walk in gloom and silence.’ 25 (The word ‘gaily’ is probably intentionally ambiguous here.)
4.The husband (briefly) – Richard Turpin … and the lover – Bo Foster.
When Richard tried to reach a satisfactory conclusion with speed and force, he only succeeded in hurting Molly, whose passive non-co-operation turned into active resistance. This Richard found more exciting; he tried to assert his marital rights by violence, Molly fought him off. She was physically repelled by him, and frightened; he was mortified, and terrified of what he perceived as failure. They were awkward together in the daytime, remembering their nightly ordeal, and scared of each other in bed. Thus was their miserable honeymoon passed.
After a fortnight, Ruth joined them on her usual August holiday by the sea, and noticed nothing amiss; after a month Bo joined them. Not being on their own together all day eased the social mortification of the honeymooners, and Molly was overjoyed to be with Bo again. They returned to loverlike intimacy, and it was inevitable that soon their resolution faltered and they made love ‘under a haystack in the bright sunshine.’ 26 With Bo, Molly had no difficulty or pain during lovemaking. (Many years later, writing of the ‘commonplace cause of trauma’ which was her honeymoon, Valentine recounted that she had dreamt about it – a nightmare – but that anyway ‘I invariably dream frustration, when I dream about men’, even though there had later been slightly more successful episodes with other men which hadn’t been ‘very satisfactory’ but had ‘gone off alright’. She added: ‘It was much easier for me to be lover than beloved.’ 27 This insight not only relates to Molly’s easy sexual relationship with Bo, but is also a glimpse of the emerging Valentine Ackland.)
Their ghastly honeymoon over, Mr and Mrs Turpin moved to their new flat at 32 Colville Terrace in Bayswater, conveniently close to Bo. On Richard’s insistence, they consulted doctors who, predictably enough, decided the problem was Molly’s; her hymen was unusually tough. Richard was in danger of getting inhibited, and must succeed in deflowering his wife or risk a ‘nervous injury’. 28 (Neither of them would, of course, have mentioned their preferred sexual practices to these doctors.) A weekend completely alone in the Golden Cross Hotel, Oxford, was prescribed, without success. By now, Molly had discovered a fact about the married state which was even worse than the sexual aspect; she had exchanged the confines of home for a more complete tyranny. Richard was not a monster, but he wanted to have a completely conventional marriage. Molly was determined not to surrender:
I fought against Richard’s excessive possessiveness … his insistence on his ‘rights’ as master of everything – of me. I wanted to read, to do nothing else but read and write: I didn’t want to cook, to listen, to companion him, to be his wife. I wanted to be my own. This I fought for all day and all night … I was in extremity… 29
Molly avoided Richard’s attentions by claiming to be ill (Ruth’s favoured avoidance technique), and indeed she was not eating or sleeping, but was drinking heavily, so her health was getting worse.
Richard went out to work at his father’s office, and in his absence Molly and Bo made love. This made Molly physically happy; although she felt guilty about committing adultery, she was incapable of refusing Bo’s love. Bo stoutly maintained that what they did was not adultery; if Molly really thought it wrong she should stop it immediately. (Perhaps Bo felt that the invisibility of lesbianism could work in her favour for once.) Molly recognised this as a spurious argument, but she would not repudiate Bo, who still represented an ideal of romantic love, even if that ideal had proved unattainable. She had, however, given in to social pressure to marry, and now there was an enormous pressure to make the marriage work. By marrying, she had achieved the goal for which her entire upbringing had prepared her, satisfying her mother’s ambitions and her class expectations; there was too much invested in it to allow an easy escape.
Molly consulted a woman doctor about being ‘sickened by Richard’s lovemaking’, 30 and she recommended an operation to remove the hymen, making it easier for Richard to enjoy his conjugal rights. There is no record of any suggestion being made to improve Molly’s side of the situation. The doctor also suggested that it would be dangerous for Molly to have a baby. Molly’s priest vehemently commanded her to have the operation, allow her husband to impregnate her, and obey him. When Molly made the mistake of talking about it to Richard, he enthusiastically agreed that it was his Catholic duty to beget a child, and insisted that she should have the operation. The beleaguered Molly confessed to another, unknown priest, who sympathised so much that he wept for her, but still abjured her to have the operation, give her husband ‘every chance to enjoy his rights’, submit to him in everything, and leave it to God whether or not she died in childbirth. 31
Once the church and the medical profession had pathologised marital incompatibility as physical inadequacy (hers, not his), and prescribed the cure, Molly was trapped. ‘Physically revolted’ 32 by Richard, she was under intense pressure to conquer her aversion. Although she was terrified by the prospect of childbirth, let alone death, and frightened by the idea of the proposed procedure, she seemed to have very little choice. Guilty, confused, anxious to do the right thing, Molly agreed to have this unusual operation.
No wonder the cottage bedroom seemed like heaven. Chaldon, cold and windswept and isolated, was safe; an enchanted place. It was here that Molly began to ‘moult away’ her ‘draggled adolescence’. 33 She stayed on, eating Bovril and biscuits, trying to smoke her pipe, writing poetry, and exploring the countryside. Gradually, she recovered, her health slowly improved, she slept better, her appetite returned, her strength grew from walking, swimming, sunbathing and gardening. She made friends with the people who lived there; the pub landlady Florrie Legg, who was tactful about selling her brandy, Mr Goult who let her drive the village bus unusually fast, Shepherd Dove who greeted her from the height of the downs, Grannie Moxon, known as the local witch, who took a great liking to Molly. Ruth continued her allowance of £300 a year, on the understanding that Molly might yet return to Richard, but Molly felt relatively poor (for her class). Still, she was determined to divorce her husband, and here she found an unexpected ally in the Catholic church; non-consummation was one of the few reasons for which annulment could be granted.
Bo visited Chaldon often, and they ‘embarked together on a new phase of love-making’. 34 It was with Bo that Molly decided to take a new name, to mark the emergence of her new identity. She would return to her maiden name as a matter of course, but she decided to choose a new first name as well, as an act of individuation and taking possession of her self. ‘We made a list of about six, I think,’ she recalled, ‘and I chose Valentine in the end.’ 35
Valentine Ackland. This piece of profound self-invention was euphonious, and sounded like the name of a poet. Equally importantly, it was ungendered, if not positively masculine, expressing the contemporary fascination with androgyny, and emphasising Valentine’s new image. Whether envisaged as coming out or growing up, this naming was the means by which Valentine publicly proclaimed her new identity. It was not a pseudonym; Valentine was known to all by that name all her life, it was her official signature, it is on her gravestone. Although there were other ways in which she claimed her preferred identity, this was the most fundamental. It was the cause of frequent gender confusion, which she did not bother to correct, even in correspondence. However, the final e feminises the name in France; Valentine was already expert at being acceptably unacceptable.
5.Young Valentine, her transition from Molly almost complete.
The decision made with Bo also fell on that choice in clear reference to Valentine’s self-proclaimed status as a lover, whose patron saint and namesake is the high priest of love. The pagan rituals of St Valentine’s Day were important to Valentine, who treated it as her name day, and always wrote rhymes like this for the occasion:
Let who will proclaim
There’s nothing in a name
One name’s powerful – mine –
Chosen your Valentine. 36
Perhaps Shakespeare’s Valentine in The Two Gentlemen of Verona was also an influence; as the handsome leader of a band of outlaws, his unfaltering love wins him his beloved who is, of course, the auspiciously-named Silvia.
Most importantly, this name change was a repudiation of the childhood self, the Miss Molly who had been miserable, abused and powerless. That sad child was no more. It also expunged the heterosexual wedded self – Mrs Turpin – that Molly was unable to become. Later she wrote of this act, only half-jokingly, as necessary to her very survival. ‘Why don’t more people change their Christian names? I did. It would not have been possible to live so long if I had been called Molly – now, would it?’ 37 By repudiating the names – and the roles – given her by other people, Valentine was free to assume adulthood, to become the poetic self she chose to be, and to express her potency – both sexual and poetic. The process of becoming Valentine completely would take several years, but living independently in Chaldon was the first step towards it.
Bo, who had contributed so crucially to this transformation, must have been dubious when she saw what kind of butterfly was emerging from the chrysalis. Even now that the situation was so changed, she could not offer any acknowledged relationship, just as she had not spoken to prevent either of Molly’s intended marriages, because she had no alternative to offer. Valentine would no longer remain exclusively Bo’s lover without Bo’s commitment; Bo wanted exclusivity, but would not make this commitment openly. Disagreement was inevitable.
When they first met, back in 1924, Bo was twenty-eight, Molly not quite eighteen. Bo was an official speaker for the Conservative Party; Molly had been volunteered by Ruth to work in the Young Conservative Union, while she prepared for the voyage to Java. Bo gave Molly worldly advice about drinking burgundy and gin for her period pain, or not smoking too many cigarettes, and her warmth and charm quickly made her a real friend to Molly. Joan, extremely jealous of such a friendship, invited Bo to lunch and warned her that Molly had an unsavoury past, including a lesbian relationship at finishing school which had broken their father’s heart. Bo, doubtless encouraged by this, began her careful courtship.
Molly was ‘deeply flattered’ by the suggestion that they should stay the night together at a house Bo knew of in Camberwell, near their work. In Glengall Road, Madame Daloge cooked French food, her companion Miss Woollard was an accomplished violinist, and it was possible to have an adventure. Bo was so discreet that everyone was convinced she was a good influence on Molly (even Joan never suspected her), and Molly was allowed to go. Their first visit was on 5 January 1925, when Molly was too shy to enjoy herself. She wrote in her diary: ‘Bo is a fascinating person … She spoke about Java that it would be unwise to go – I know in my heart she is right, but she stopped just when she might have helped … She held my hand and kissed me goodnight. An odd affair’. 38
A fortnight later they went again, and had champagne at dinner. With commendable foresight, Molly had extracted from her trousseau the clothes intended for her wedding-night: a dressing gown of white figured velvet with a swansdown trimming, an apricot crêpe-de-chine nightdress with heavy Irish lace, and white leather slippers with heels. Thus attired, she met Miss Woollard in the corridor and overheard her reporting back to Bo: ‘She looks like an angel – like a duchess – Miss Foster – you never saw anything so beautiful in all your life.’ 39 They talked for a long time in front of the fire about going to Spain together; Molly had a legacy of £50 from her grandmother for the journey. After their conversation turned towards love, Bo kissed Molly ‘slowly and so intently that [she] almost fainted.’ 40 Then the cautious Bo sent Molly to her own bed. In the morning, when Bo came to her, Molly tried to adopt a sophisticated manner and said,
‘Well, I suppose it is all over?’
‘Over?’ Bo answered. ‘This is only the beginning of the beginning.’ 41
They set off for Spain via Gibraltar on 6 February, on the SS Caledonia, accompanied by Bo’s brother Boyo, whose protective presence was necessary to secure Ruth’s permission. (She was now fond of Bo, but had never met Boyo, who was a rather loutish Army officer.) As soon as they were alone in their cabin, Molly and Bo made love. Valentine knew, in retrospect, that Bo had been ‘considerate and gentle’, 42 but at the time their lovemaking seemed violent, sweet, exciting and terrifying. ‘Bo made love very well indeed,’ 43 Valentine recorded, giving credit where it was due. Molly had ‘dedicated’, 44 as she put it, all the loveliest things in her trousseau to Bo, and considered this as their honeymoon. When she woke, with Bo looking down at her, she felt afraid of her own passion (‘I am lost’) and then gave herself up to its dangerous power (‘I WILL not hide from this’). 45 It was a decision she abided by always.
Ever afterwards, Spain meant sex to Valentine. It seemed intensely romantic, travelling third-class on the train from Grenada to Seville to Algeciras. Once they passed a green young poplar tree standing alone in a brown field. Bo wrote a note – Boyo was asleep – ‘My beautiful – you are like that tree’, and gave it to Molly, who wrote in answer ‘Let a gale blow on the tree.’ 46 Afterwards, Molly wrote in her diary ‘Spain was the most marvellous thing that ever happened’; 47 her only regret was that it had to end. As she lay in her cabin on the return voyage, the dance band played Irving Berlin’s ‘What’ll I do when you are far away’, and the cheap music seemed unbearably potent. Molly imagined confessing this affair to Rodric, the ensuing parting … but this triangular romantic drama was not on Bo’s agenda.
On their return, Molly realised that although Bo did love her, and enjoyed being with her, there was no question of living together; talk of their cottage was pure fantasy. Bo made Molly promise to be extremely careful and keep their relationship absolutely secret. Perhaps one day, after her parents had died, she might be in a position to change her life. Molly’s passion had made her wild and bold; she wanted the violence of a commitment which overwhelmed all other considerations, to be everything to Bo now, not in the future. This intensely romantic approach seemed dangerously impractical to Bo, but in refusing it, she ultimately lost her lover. Once Molly had shunned the hypocrisy of her marriage, and become Valentine, she was not prepared to sacrifice her life to a perpetually unacknowledged love.
In 1926, after escaping her marriage, Valentine embarked on a period of sexual experimentation, typical enough for her age and era, if not popular with Bo. Despite the obviousness – to sophisticates like Rachel – of Valentine’s sexual orientation, she did not exclude men from her repertoire, as yet. Perhaps, separated from her husband, she was testing her own heterosexual responses, which she could hardly judge from her marital experiences. Unlike Richard, however, she made no attempt to deny her homosexual impulses. Rachel belatedly became a lover, as did Rachel’s lover, Sydney Sheppard. Elizabeth Muntz, a sculptor who lived in the village, was an admirer who took to sketching Valentine when she sunbathed naked on the beach. Katie Powys, who had a difficult history of falling in love with unobtainable people, inevitably fell for Valentine and was hurt to discover that Valentine’s attentions to her were by no means exclusive. Realising too late that Katie was a vulnerable person with whom it was difficult to keep a relationship casual, Valentine attempted to be kind without giving too much encouragement; a near-impossible task. Several other women who lived in the village engaged in less emotionally-involved but happier experiences with Valentine; this was the ‘light love’ which she expected. 48 Considering her sexual practices at that time, Valentine wrote:
I was naturally more inclined to love women than men; I found deep pleasure, true pleasure and complete satisfaction from making love with women, and less complete pleasure, but still good pleasure, from being made love to by men. I did not ever really and completely make love with men: but with women I was released and happy, and I gave happiness and pleasure; and I did not need any kind of help from drink, to make me feel competent and secure in making love. 49
The vocabulary she uses is significant – she is made love to by men, whereas she makes love with women. One activity is passive, the other collaborative. Valentine tells us that Bo, on their first night together, made love to Molly, thereafter she describes it as a mutual activity. Her comment that she never ‘really and completely’ made love with men could be a definition of sexual practice, or a revelation of Valentine’s own sensations of an incomplete act. All the positive aspects of sex which she affirms with women seem, by implication, to have been lacking with men. (There is also the implication that she needed alcohol to function in sexual situations with men, as on her wedding night.)
Although she still lived in Chaldon, Valentine also took a studio in London, at 22 Doughty Street. It was here that she ‘walked in Mecklenburgh Square in trousers’, 50 an act which caused great amazement, even in Bloomsbury, and became in her recollections one of the seminal images of herself in youth. It was here, she believed, that she became pregnant, despite her avoidance of ‘complete’ sex with men. Valentine was not interested in the paternity of the child she intended to have; she intended to be a single parent. Her daughter would be called Tamar, and brought up in the country, by women; Valentine would love her unconditionally, and protect her. Bo, after her first rage at this further proof of infidelity, promised to help her when the time came to have the baby, and adopt it if Valentine died. Ruth pretended to believe that the child was Richard’s, and that there might yet be a reconciliation, so she was able to be pleased. Valentine was radiantly happy; all her life’s problems and emptinesses would soon be over. She began to collect her favourite poems into a Miscellany for Tamar.
