Angelica Garnett - Marriage

Marriage

In 1942, aged 24, Angelica married David Garnett, by then an editor, reviewer and novelist whose mother was Constance Garnett, the noted translator of Russian literature. The relationship had begun in the spring of 1938, when Garnett was married to his first wife, Rachel "Ray" Marshall, who was dying of cancer.

Garnett was a member of her parent's circle, a former lover of Duncan Grant who had also attempted to seduce Vanessa Bell. When Angelica was born, Garnett had written to Lytton Strachey saying of the baby: "Its beauty is the remarkable thing … I think of marrying it; when she is 20 I shall be 46 – will it be scandalous?" In fact Garnett was nearly 50 at the time of their marriage. Despite their consternation, Angelica's parents did not inform their daughter of these details of Bloomsbury's past, although various associates of the family did attempt to warn her against the marriage: John Maynard Keynes had her to tea. Angelica lost her virginity to Garnett in H.G. Wells's spare bedroom.

The couple moved to Hilton Hall, Cambridgeshire, which David Garnett had bought in 1924. His novella, Aspects of Love (1955), dedicated to Angelica and involving similarly complicated domestic arrangements, was later adapted into a highly successful musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The Garnetts separated in 1967.

For a time Angelica was in love with George Bergen, a Russian-Jewish painter who had been another of Duncan Grant's lovers, but the relationship did not last.