ABSTRACT
The scene is the grounds of Knowle in Kent, the Sackville family seat. Vita Sackville-West and her childhood friend Violet Trefusis (‘Lushka’ and ‘Metya’) lie under a tree, Vita sprawled in her britches like the young boy heir she could never be. They look at the magnificent building in its deer-inhabited grounds, and Violet says, ‘if you had been a man, I would most certainly have married you for it’. Thus in the four-part BBC2 TV serial Portrait of a Marriage (screened 19 September to 10 October 1990), the issue of inherited property linked to social position—aristocratic inheritance/class—is raised for a moment, only to be cast aside in favour of an almost hermetically sealed story of ‘private individuals’. References to both women’s literary careers are similarly marginalized and directly subordinated to the sexual tale; Violet, for example, seduces Vita with intense flattery, praising her as ‘great poet’. Even if the audience already knows ‘the background’, this reference to her writing could as easily be lost to the audience of the serial as is Vita’s contribution to the serious art of gardening, buried as it is by a little manly if unspecific digging. Vita and Violet at Knowle. (Courtesy of the BBC.) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203359976/4deafba4-f39c-48e0-be51-d46aecd284d7/content/pla07_10_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
