Steampunk Duchess: Violet Trefusis
Victorian England, behind all its demure social decorum was home to things and people who were decadent rebels, extravagant bonvivants or charismatic criminals. From Mary Shelley to Jack the Ripper, a time when don’t say gay was the norm so they screamed it instead. A gory fairytale where the filth of the slums washed against the walls behind which the privileged sipped their tea and each scone had a soggy bottom. Although nowadays writers like Oscar Wilde are celebrated as symbols of the LGBT history in England, there was a trio of women still in the shade of this discourse when compared to him. I just stumbled upon this intriguing chapter of queer culture in a society that was anything but inclusive. The story of the strange and intense bond between Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf and the original steampunk duchess, Violet Keppel Trefusis.
Born in 1894, Trefusis was the daughter of Alice Keppel, favourite long-time mistress of Albert, the Prince of Wales. Since extramarital hanky-panky runs in the family’s DNA, her most famous descendant is Camilla, whose hanky-panky with Prince Charles led to marriage and the status of Queen Consort. Violet enjoyed things you were supposed to hide in Victorian times while leading a socially acceptable family life. In 1919, she married Denys Trefusis with whom she had two sons though she only accepted his proposal on the condition they don’t have sex. That didn’t stop her from having lots of hanky-panky with Vita Sackville-West, herself in an open marriage with Harold Nicholson, a bisexual man. The relationship wasn’t exactly a secret and almost led to a scandal due to their lengthy private excursions on multiple occasions. Must have been quite a hoot.
The history between two women is remarkable, since patriarchy squeezed their true identity in a very tight grip, yet they would somehow find some breathing space to pursue their own truth. It helps if you’re wealthy, like Vita. She came from the Sackvilles, a noble family that still resides at Knole, a monumental Jacobean 15th century manor where she was born. There are allegedly 365 rooms so you could theoretically spend each day of the year in a different one. Just imagine the utility bills. Only a millionaire can afford to keep so many lightbulbs on. Though we are in an age where female voices in literature are loud, she’s far from the mainstream spotlight. Her literary legacy is substantial: 11 collections of poetry, 13 novels, short stories, literature for children, plays, essays, biographies etc. Due to their relationship, Virginia Woolf considerably influenced her work.
Her column In Your Garden was as popular as the garden at her home, Sissinghurst, which she designed herself. She may have been an amateur horticulturist, but the place was renowned for its extraordinary beauty. It can be argued that sexual ambiguity is ubiquitous to restless creative spirits. When they reach that specific peace of mind we’re all striving for, they loose that itch that makes them push the limits of their creation ever further. This is reflected in her social circles as well, like the Bloomsbury Group. It was an early 20th century collective that included writers, intellectuals and visual artists. Virginia Woolf was one of them, just like Lytton Strachey, T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster, among others. The relationship between Sackville and Woolf went beyond romantic. In fact, Vita was the inspiration for the main character of Orlando: A Biography.
Though all three women led lives that swung between hell and harmony due to a society that had certain expectations of a respectable lady, only Virginia Woolf succumbed to her own demons when she took her own life in 1941 by drowning in the river Ouse. However, in her suicide letter, she made it clear that her marriage was a happy and a fulfilling union. Still, it wasn’t enough to save her from depression that was partly triggered by sexual harassment she endured at a young age and made worse through personal loss, like the deaths of her parents which she never recovered from. She was institutionalised after a suicide attempt when her father died in 1904. Mental health crises followed her throughout her adult life. Her work was the rock she held on to in order to keep her sanity until it turned into a losing battle. This gentle flower couldn’t survive the storm.
If cheating was in the blood of the Keppels, in the case of the Stephens it was suicidal tendencies and depression, which didn’t claim only the life of Woolf, but also others like Amaryllis Garnett, her great-niece who drowned in the river Thames at the age of 29. The other thing they’re famous for is much more benevolent: writing. Julian Bell was a relative and a poet, as well as Adrian Stephen, a bisexual writer and another member of the Bloomsbury Group. He published an account of the Dreadnought Hoax, Horace Cole’s elaborate prank in 1910. Dressed up as Abessinian royals, with turbans and blackface, they managed to convince the Royal Navy it’s a group of foreign dignitaries wanting to see the ship. Participants exclaimed “bunga, bunga”, which became Silvio Berlusconi’s synonym for the hanky-panky. After the discovery of the truth, the Navy became the butt of jokes.
The deeper you dive into it, the more those people seem like a community of hippies, just without Manson’s Helter Skelter. There are detailed accounts of the relationship between Vita and Virginia, with their love letters published in 2023. It’s a long walk down an intimate memory lane dotted with passion, reflection and melancholy. In an age when we’re all about emails and tweets, it’s a reassuring experience to read actual letters, from a time when you could still hold it in your hands without having a printer spitting it out for you first. You see the unique handwriting, like the one from that suicide note, where the letters seemed long and sharp like daggers cutting through paper instead of being gently spread out like butter and strawberry jam on tost. When I take a dive into my postcard trove, it’s similar. Smooth, sweet and ocassionally, bittersweet. But that’s life.
Violet Trefusis was also a writer, but much less successful than the other two ladies. Though her work had commercial success, it was overshadowed by her love life which provided the gossip mill with more fodder than it could take. Her queer persona had nothing to do with the lesbian stereotype propagated in the media: either asexual and manly or promiscuous sexpots. On the contrary, she looked like Gustav Klimt’s Salome or other sensual creatures that could turn dust into ice merely through their gaze. The other woman famously associated with her is Winaretta Singer, a wealthy heiress married to the Prince of Polignac, the gay grandson of Queen Marie Antoinette’s close friend Yolande de Polignac. You might say that the blood running in those veins wasn’t blue but gold.
The Prince’s affair with Count Robert de Montesquiou must be one of the most famous queer relationships. They were consummate dandies and socialites. Actually, the Count arranged the marriage with Singer and turned into a gossipy bitch when it seemed the couple was actually happy. He was a composer and a regular in Parisian private clubs where you discuss pressing issues like cigars, beards and politics. After all, his own marriage was a beard too. Compared to this lot, The Bloomsbury group looked like a village book club. Violet hardly restrained herself in matters of pleasure. In relationships, she was allegedly a power bottom, perfectly summed up in the rhyme “Mrs Trefusis never refuses”. She died in 1972, in her Italian villa that once belonged to Galilei. Both of them were birds of paradise in a world that wasn’t ready for their dreams. Fortunately, both of them were right. You’re only a fool if you allow people to play you for one.
