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Hi, I'm Doctor Alison Lowy. I was the Gender and Women's Studies programme director at Victoria University of Wellington here in New Zealand for many years. I'm a writer or a historian and Lisbon and gay activist. Today I'm going to be looking at Catherine Mansfield, regarded as one of our greatest writers, and someone whom we know had very important, emotional and probably sexual relationships with women. Should we be thinking about Katherine Mansfield [00:00:30] as a lesbian? Do we want to use a noun like that? A label in relation to her? Should we think of her as a lesbian writer, whatever that might mean? Uh, when? Actually, most of the things she writes about aren't to do with same sex relations between women. At least, of course, we think that there is some kind of sensibility, uh, that would be apparent in women whose primary relationships are with other women that that would affect [00:01:00] the ways in which they write about things and give them another kind of sensibility. That's a possibility, and people have tried to look at her writing in that way. Let's think about her. She's born in 18 88. Born in Wellington, she comes from, uh, an upper class background. Uh, her father was Australian Harold Betrim, her mother, Annie Burnell Dyer. And they later become Sir Harold and lady beat very important people in Wellington. [00:01:30] Uh, Lady beat running the social scene here. Her father later becomes, uh, his, uh, he's not. He's a director of the Bank of New Zealand and has other significant social roles. They lived in several houses around Wellington as the as the fortunes of the family improved and the Children attended local initially local public schools. But as the family became wealthier, they were later [00:02:00] sent to private schools. When Katherine Mansfield Kathleen Bee as was her original name when she was 12, they were transferred from Wellington Girls High School to miss school Now Samuel Marsden Collegiate school for girls. And that's where uh, Katherine Mansfield first met uh, Marta Mau, probably her first lover. Certainly a very intense and close relationship between the two of them. [00:02:30] The beat, like other wealthy New Zealanders, wanted to see their Children's edu education completed abroad, and, uh, in January 19 03, the Families SA sailed for London, where the three older girls were enrolled at Queen's college in London and their maternal Aunt Bell Dier, uh, remained there as chaperone. It was at the school that Katherine Mansfield met Ida Constance Baker, whom she later called Leslie [00:03:00] Moore or LM. During her time at the school, she was exposed to a number of different ideas. She became familiar with the work of, uh, Oscar Wilde. Of course, the Oscar Wilde trial had had happened. Uh, not that long before. Then she becomes more worldly. She makes a trip, uh, to Belgium, where she encounters, uh, some interesting people [00:03:30] there. And then she returns to New Zealand in 19 06. She becomes, uh, involved in Wellington with Edith Kathleen Bendel, who she refers to as EKB. And that relationship is very important to her. She appears to be having very intense friendships, uh, with EKB and with Marta, who also returns [00:04:00] to Wellington, and she appears to be having relationships with the two of them at that time here in Wellington. Now Marta is, uh, she's from she's also known as Martha Grace. And sometimes as Princess Martha. She was the daughter of Chief Dick Mau and Emily Sexton, who married Nathaniel Grace after Ma Ma death. Pat Lawler, in his uh, by early biography says that, uh, Catherine [00:04:30] and Marta's early relationship was of some concern to their teachers and that Sir Harold and Lady Beach did not favour the friendship. And this might be because they were aware of its intensity and disapproved of that. Or it may be because of the fact that MARTA was Maori and there may have been some, uh, racism involved in their, uh, put in their concerns about this. They had met up in London before Catherine [00:05:00] returned to New Zealand, Uh, because Marta had been at finishing school in Paris and she was accompanied by her own chaperone, MT. It was during this time that Catherine allowed Marta to purchase clothing and, uh, leave the bill for Harold Beach to settle. So there may have been some problems around that. In her journal, Catherine writes, and she refers to Marty as Carlota and she writes, Oh, have you remembered? [00:05:30] We were floating down Regent Street in a handsome on either side of us, the blossoms of golden light and I had a little half loop of the moon. Then, in June 19 07 in her journal she writes. I want Marta. I want her as I have had her terribly. This is unclean, I know, but true. What an extraordinary thing I feel savagely clued and almost powerfully and armoured of the child. I had thought that a thing of the past. Hey ho, my mind [00:06:00] is like a Russian novel and around about the same time, Marta wrote in her own diary, which she then gave to Catherine. Dearest Kay writes ducky letters. I like this, but what do you mean by being so super beautiful as you went away? You, which you are beauty incarnate? Pat Lawler interviewed Marta and reported that she revealed unpublished incidents in Catherine's life. Uh, saying that Catherine had left New [00:06:30] Zealand because of a flirtation in 19 08 and saying that, uh, Sir Harold had locked his daughter in her room as a punishment and to console her, uh, Marta had climbed up to her room. Marta revealed other sensational aspects of her alleged knowledge of Katherine Mansfield, which Lawler said he did not did not wish to publish. So there are clearly all kinds of clues and rumours and incidents that are of [00:07:00] interest in relation to this. One of the most interesting is a story that, uh, Katherine Mansfield writes, and she writes it, uh, placing a protagonist in the thistle in and the in the story she writes, I can never forget the Thistle Hotel. I can never forget that strange winter night. My room was opposite hers, she said. Could I lace up? Her evening bodes. It was hawks at the back. Very well. [00:07:30] The story ends, she told me as we walked along the corridor to her room that she was glad the night had come. I did not ask why. I was glad, too. It seemed a secret between us, So I went with her into her room to undo those troublesome hooks like a sleepy child. She slipped out of her frock, and then suddenly she turned to me and flung her arms around my neck, and you was not dead. The story was called Libere, and it was eventually [00:08:00] published from a copy that Catherine Mansfield had sent her school friend via Baker, whom she referred to as Mimi. Uh, in January 1922 Catherine wrote, and this is about a year before her death in 1923 that she'd received a frightening letter from Mimi, which brought back the inexplicable past. It flashed into my mind, too, that she must have a large number of letters of mine, which don't bear thinking about in some way I fear her. This suggests [00:08:30] that Catherine had sent Mimi similar stories or letters regarding her as a safe confidant. Mimi was the girl who had introduced Catherine to the 18 91 and explicated version of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey at School, and it was at school, according to biographer Clare To that, the two that's Mimi and Catherine were suspected of immorality of a kind unspecified. Now it appears that that her parents may [00:09:00] have read this story. Certainly Catherine gave this story to her father's typist to type, and it may be this. That's the reason that there's an incident, uh, which does result in the fact that they are prepared to allow her in nine in 19 08 to return to London, UN chaperoned. Now this is a young woman where they felt that her sisters and her constantly needed chaperones on the voyage. Suddenly, they prepared to allow her to go off to England on her own [00:09:30] and have a Remittance have some money that she's going to regularly receive in order to live there. In a sense, she's a Remittance woman in the opposite direction, and a possible explanation of this is that she there's a scandal going on, that they don't want her in Wellington. It's going to affect the family's reputation and that they're of concern. It's likely that they're more concerned about her relationship with Marta. And there was evidence that Marta, uh, during uh, an engagement party for Catherine's sister Marta [00:10:00] came to Wellington. She attended it. It's very likely that she would have stayed with the family at Fitz Herbert Terrace. It's much more likely that she would have stayed at the Thistle in up the road so that this story was actually about Marta at the Thistle Inn and that the parents did end up reading it. Even Anthony Alpers, uh, talks about this and says that, uh, there was an episode that happened, [00:10:30] and he wonders whether the A story that was being put about, which was about a a AAA dance with a sailor at a ball. Um, and he wonders whether there was an adventure, actually, with a man or with Marta and whether the Bee trims were concerned about Catherine's chastity or whether they had the word pervert in mind. Now Catherine also had a relationship with Edith Kathleen Bendel, and she writes about this fairly frankly, in her journal, [00:11:00] Uh, in June 19 07. She writes about an episode with Edith Kathleen Bendel at the Beach Holiday Cottage in Days Bay. That's the cottage that's the subject of the story at the Bay. But that's not what she's writing about. In her journal, she writes. I feel more powerfully all those so term sexual impulses with her than I have with any men. I feel that to lie with my head on her breast is to feel what life can hold pillowed against her, clinging to her hands, her face against mine. I am a child, a woman and [00:11:30] more than a half man. We lay down together, still silently, she every now and then pressing me to her, kissing me, my head on her breasts, her hands around my body stroking me lovingly. What an experience! And when we returned to town, Small wondered that I could not sleep, but tossed to and fro and yearned and realised 1000 things which had been obscure. Oh, Oscar, Am I peculiarly susceptible to sexual impulse? I must be, I suppose. But I rejoice now. Each time [00:12:00] I see her, I want her to put her arms around me and hold me against her. I think she wants to too. But she is afraid and custom hedges her. And I feel we shall go away again. Then she writes, uh, in between February and May 19 08, she writes. I shall end. Of course, by killing myself, I purchased my brilliance with my life. It would better that I were dead already. But I am unlike others because I've experienced all there is to [00:12:30] experience. But there is no one to help me. Of course, Oscar Dorian Grey has brought this to pass. I am now so much worse than ever. Madness must lie this way. Pull yourself up. It's clear that Catherine was familiar with the work not only of Oscar Wilde, but of John Addington Simmons, Edward Carpenter and Walt Whitcombe. She read books at the General Assembly Library, arranged to her father's connections, and she mentions Edward Carpenter, who wrote the Intermediate sex in a letter, [00:13:00] and she also writes, I find a resemblance of myself to John Addington Simmons. So it appears that she actually has quite a bit of information and that her information is that homosexuality is degenerate. It's a perversion, and she starts to become very frightened about all of this, and especially if she is sent away from Wellington, then that clearly is going to be very traumatic for her. Now. Both Marta and EKB remain in New Zealand, [00:13:30] and she corresponds with them, uh, for some years, And Kara Mansfield writes several stories inspired by these women and traces and clues can be, uh, seen in relation to that now. Meanwhile, although she's having these intense relationships with these two women, she continues her friendship, uh, with Ida Baker and when she returns to London, Uh, that's the person with whom she resumes a friendship [00:14:00] and a relationship. And that's the relationship which endures for the rest of her life until her death in 1923. So that's actually the most important, um, relationship of her life. Certainly the most consistent, uh, when she returns to London, she's met by Ida Baker. She stays with her family before she moves to a hostel, and then she becomes involved with the New Zealand musician Garnet and moves in with his family as a paying guest. And she appears to have been trying [00:14:30] to create a relationship with him. Uh, she writes to trial that she felt as though nature said to me Now you found your true self now that you are at peace with the world accepting instead of doubting now that you love you can see Another lodger at the hostel has described Troll as slender, dreamy and cultured, and Alpers commented that he was not markedly masculine. Her interest in the trolls they were twins, uh, had begun in New Zealand. [00:15:00] She had written, uh, in her journal that Arnold must always be everything to me because he poured into my virgin soul the life essence of music. And here is the colonel of the whole Matter, the Oscar like thread, so clearly she is dwelling on her emerging sexuality. She's concerned about this and the circumstances, and she's particularly concerned because before they'd returned to New Zealand, uh, she'd visited the trials in Brussels, [00:15:30] where she'd met their homosexual friend Rudolph, and shortly afterwards, Rudolph had shot himself and Anthony Alpers comments. The circumstances, which belonged to the world of Oscar Wilde and the love that dare not spread its name, were very disturbing to Katherine Mansfield. Did that sort of thing lead to suicide? And perhaps the trials and Rudolph were involved in homosexual relationships at that time? The Oscar like thread or just as significantly? Perhaps Katherine Mansfield believed that they were. [00:16:00] She wanted to marry Garnett Tra, but his parents intervened and the relationship ended. Suddenly, in March 19 09, she married George Bowden, a singing teacher she'd met only a fortnight before. Bowden, age 31 lived with a male friend, Lamont Chan, again. Perhaps they were homosexual. Or perhaps Katherine Mansfield believed they were. She was constantly in her journals and in her letters, seeking my people, perhaps a reference to homosexuality as well as to like mindedness. Clare [00:16:30] Tolan suggests that she married Bowden because she was pregnant to Arnold. Even if this were the case, uh, she may still have preferred to marry a man that she thought might be have an inclination toward his own sex Bowden and his own recollections, recalled that when they first met, she looked like Oscar Wilde. So perhaps she was attempting to signal her sexuality through dress for the wedding. She dressed in black as if for a funeral, and afterwards they went to a hotel where had immediately left him and fled [00:17:00] back to Ida Baker. She returned to the hostel and Ida Baker found her a flat and, uh, then her mother, Because of these incidents, then her mother, uh, comes, uh to to London. Uh, there's a good deal of trouble. And, uh, on her, she takes her to Germany to the Bavarian Spa Bad Hoen. And that is the place where Doctor Knape has the [00:17:30] water treatment. And the water treatment was thought, uh, very useful for nervous and mental problems. It was frequently used for sexual problems so that it may well be the case that Lady Beat thinks that Catherine has some sexual problem because of her interest in women. This has upset the marriage. Certainly she's not pleased with her and she sails back to New Zealand and she cuts Catherine out of her will. And that's, uh, pretty drastic news of the scandal reaches [00:18:00] Wellington and Vera Betrim, the uh, sister her fiance was warned against marrying the sister of somebody like Katherine Mansfield. So contemporary theories of biological determinism might have encouraged the belief that there was some kind of inherited perversion in the family. Catherine stayed in Germany till the end of 19. 09, possibly miscarried a pregnancy. And she possibly had an affair with Florian uh Serbians, who infected her with gonorrhoea, subsequently making [00:18:30] her vulnerable to the tuberculosis infection from which she died. She may have thought that having a number of heterosexual affairs might cure her interest in women. Um, perhaps she's bisexual, as, um, biographers have written about her. Perhaps she's just very interested in sexual experimentation. It's difficult to know, however. She's clearly not very happy, Uh, and clearly she finds all of this a great worry and disturbance. When she returns [00:19:00] to London, she performs at the Cave of the Golden Calf, which is a nightclub patronised by lesbians and run by Frieda Strandberg, the lesbian, an acknowledged lesbian and the former wife of Swedish playwright Alga Strindberg. She's also familiar with the Bloomsbury Circle and Lady Ole Morell group at Sington, though she feels ambivalent about Bloomsbury or blooms buggery, as she calls it, with discussions on the loves of bugger, sodomy and SAS are common. [00:19:30] She's close. She became close to Virginia Woolf from 1916. The connection probably expressed in this passage again. There came that silence. That was a question. But this time she did not hesitate. She moved forward very softly and gently. She put her arm around her friend a long, tender embrace. Yes, that was it, Of course, that was what was wanting. So there are many other kinds of passages where she writes about those kinds of things. She becomes involved with John Middleton Mary from 1911, [00:20:00] and he became a lodger in her flat and after some weeks, her lover. They married in 1918, after her divorce from Bowden, uh, she writes in her 1919 journal that I had been the man and he had been the woman we'd always acted more or less like men friends, Then this illness getting worse and worse and turning me into a woman. Uh, others also perceived them as men friends, one Bandol Frenchman recalled with his cigarette [00:20:30] and his stick and madam with her cigarette and her stick. It was impossible to tell which was which they were so alike. So that's the relationship she had with him. It's quite an intense relationship, but largely, uh, carried on through letters and difficult at this stage to know how physical that relationship might have been. She becomes very ill from 1918. It's unlikely that she has any kind of physical relationship much with anybody. After that, uh, Ida Baker, later known as LM. Um, [00:21:00] in her memoirs, she writes, uh, uh uh. She puts in a poem that Catherine Mansfield had written to her called The Secret. In the Profound Ocean, there is a rainbow shell. It is always there, shining most still under the great storm waves and under the happy little waves that the old Greeks called ripples of laughter. And you listen. The rainbow shell sings in the profound ocean. It is always there, singing most silently, and this might suggest the existence [00:21:30] of a secret cater Mansfield self special to Ida Baker and to which cannot be destroyed even by storm waves, she writes, um, earlier in her in her journal, I think quite seriously that LM and I are so extraordinarily interesting. And it's not while the thing is happening that I think that but the significance is near enough. Have I ruin into a happy life? Am I to blame? And she writes in one of her last [00:22:00] letters to Les Leslie Moore is, I had better end as quickly for the old feeling is coming back and a a longing, a feeling that I can't be satisfied unless I know you are near not on my account, not because I need you, but because in my horrid, odious and intolerable way I love you and I'm yours ever. And she ends her life by going to She becomes interested in the teaching of which is interesting in itself because a year later, a number of American [00:22:30] lesbians, uh, also go there. So that's an interesting, esoteric, uh, kind of, uh, religion. And it's unclear whether she just goes there with because she feels it will help cure her tuberculosis or whether she wants some other kind of more spiritual psychological change. But an entry that she writes in her journal is interesting. She writes this in October 2019 22. Risk [00:23:00] risk Anything care No more for the opinions of others. For those voices, do the hardest thing on Earth for for you act for yourself, face the troops, and it may be that she was hoping to begin a new and to find a way in which to live her life. Unfortunately, her health completely declines, and she died. So we don't know from this stage what her life would have been like had she lived [00:23:30] longer. We don't know how important the relationships that she had with women were, but I think we can say that she's certainly deeply conflicted about them. Uh, they were important to her. And in those ways, it's very interesting to think about how same sexuality, uh, has been such an important part of the lives of many, uh, creative women in New Zealand.
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