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meantime, continued to pursue his own path elsewhere.
When he went away, she wrote him charming letters with
cheerful drawings and private jokes. When he was home,
she pampered him. She created a garden and ensured
the cellar was stocked full of jars of homemade jelly. As
an artist, she was more productive than ever during
this period.
The push-and-pull relationship with Gertler came to an
end, but the vacant place in the triangle, Carrington’s
favorite form of relationship, didn’t remain unoccupied for
long. Ralph Partridge, a friend of her brother, appeared on
the scene. In the summer of 1919, the situation was this:
Strachey was in love with the athletic Partridge, who in
turn was in love with Carrington. She definitely felt
attracted to Partridge, but Strachey remained the most
important thing. And they all loved each other anyway. So
there was plenty of sweltering emotion at The Mill. ‘[...]
everything is at sixes and sevens—ladies in love with
buggers, and buggers in love with womanisers, and the
price of coal going up, too. Where will it all end?’ Strachey
wrote in a letter to Carrington.UNCERTAINTY
It ended in marriage. Partridge had ramped up the
pressure. Carrington had no desire to get married, let
alone have children, but she was afraid that he would
break up their little ménage à trois if she didn’t say yes,
and that she would then lose Strachey, who sometimes
disliked that she was so dependent on him. The marriage
on May 21, 1921, was a capitulation and not a success.
She soon started an affair with British author Gerald
Brenan, a good friend of her husband. Even though
Partridge himself also enjoyed extra-marital relationships,
he was not happy when he found out.
Her extensive correspondence shows that Carrington
often felt insecure about her work. She was critical about
everything she made. It didn’t help that her realistic and
rather traditional artwork was so different from that of the
leading painters of the Bloomsbury Group she hung out
with. Strachey encouraged her, but at the same time hein bed with one of her worshippers. ‘I have never felt any
desire for the male body,’ she confessed to Gertler. The
more she resisted, the more he persisted. But when he
seemed to be giving up his attempts, she reeled him back
in. She was almost sure she really loved him.LOVE TRIANGLE
Then she met Strachey. He was thirteen years older and a
prominent member of a group of intellectual writers, artists
and thinkers, known as the Bloomsbury Group. That one
look, exchanged while she was standing at his bedside,
scissors at the ready, was the beginning of a lifelong
passion. She fell in love with his kindness, wisdom and
sense of humor. He, in turn, was bemused by her worship
of him. Slowly but surely, this unlikely pair grew closer. She
painted a portrait of him, reading, that radiates her love for
him. Gertler didn’t know it yet, but Carrington had found
her great love. Strachey needed a country house to work
properly, and she went in search of one, finding the place
where they began living together in 1917: The Mill, in
Tidmarsh, west of London. She decorated its interior
lovingly and tastefully. Carrington had never before been
so happy. Their relationship was more emotional than
sexual, but in 1916 she did lose her much-debated
virginity to Strachey. Because he placed no demands on
her, she didn’t have to invent excuses and was able to
lead her own life, albeit largely in service to him. He, in theCarrington in 1920.