Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West. Matthew Dennison

in France and presented her with a ruby she had bought in Ceylon. Pucci took the opportunity to propose again. Again Vita turned him down. By contrast, in January 1911, Harold’s departure from château Malet startled Vita on account of his apparent lack of regret. His behaviour provoked her in a way that neither Violet’s nor Pucci’s had. It was a revelatory response, her feelings strikingly at odds with Harold’s. Vita was approaching a point where she could no longer disguise from herself the necessity of reaching a decision about her future; she was approaching a point where that decision would make itself. It frightened her nevertheless. At intervals over the next eighteen months she would appear to long for and to fear marriage to Harold, to take control of the situation and to relinquish it. ‘I’m going to let everything be for a bit. Perhaps something will happen!!’ she wrote at a moment of particular hesitancy.⁸⁷