The Happy Years (1944-48)

by Cecil Beaton

  We talked as frankly as only one can to one’s best friend: there is nothing I keep secret from Bébé or he from me. He retailed how he had had to tell the Galerie Charpentier this morning that the painting he had promised them by twelve o’clock was not finished. Terrible row with Boris Kochno ensued about so much money being spent in anticipation of future sales. The ramifications endless re Pierre Colle, their new agent, who must be convinced that the rumours that Bébé is now quite incapable of finishing a picture are again false.

  We talked of our work and projects, and Bébé remarked that the people he painted were not those who attracted him sexually. He knew my type from watching me. He knew I liked a certain mouth formation: he had seen me at various times in my life.

  Suddenly Bébé clutched his chest with a violence that was terrifying. Was this a heart attack? He became panic-stricken for he had lost his pocket-book. ‘It has my passport in it!’ he moaned. His eyes blazed, his fingers trembled: he was in a frenzy. Jacinth, his small dirty dog (of the same breed as Marie Antoinette’s), smelt alarm and yapped hysterically. Bébé suddenly rushed to the telephone. The wallet was found chez Marie-Louise. Bébé and the dog calmed down. Bébé explained that the dog understands everything in his life.

  ECHOES OP THE GESTAPO

  Paris was cold, grey and wet today: it was a leaden day that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

  A man in the police took me on a tour of the Headquarters of the Gestapo and the prisons where the Germans, until recently, had subjected their victims to atrocities more terrible than any conceived before in history. The chief centres of torture were right in the heart of the city in the Rue Saussaies, the Rue Mallet Stevens and the Rue Laurestan. At Mont Valerian, suspected members of the Resistance were punished beyond human endurance in order that they should give away the names of others in the movement: at least four thousand people were done away with. The cries of the sadists’ victims were blood-curdling, yet those who heard them dare not say or do anything for fear of bringing the same fate on themselves.

  The French by now have become almost accustomed to stories of sons being tortured in front of fathers: of fathers killed by slow and diabolic degrees in front of their families: of eyes put out: of ice-cold baths with electric currents turned on: of hot walls, of flame jets. For me the horror was new. I heard two women relating how the concierge had had to clean up the mess after Jean Desbordes’s[7] screams had ended in a death that left blood everywhere.

  On the walls of the chapel at Mont Valerian some of those awaiting their doom had scribbled a last tragic message: ‘George Maliard mort le 26 octobre 1943.’ ‘My last thoughts are of Suzan, France and tomorrow.’ Other scrawls were terrible and bitter. ‘Si jamais je crève ici Maxya, ma fiancée, habitant 119 Rue de la Convention, sera responsible de ma mort.’

  In the Avenue Foch, in the garrets on the top of the Gestapo HQ, people were herded together for days on end awaiting further torture or the unknown in its most terrifying forms. Here again were pencilled last desperate messages and testaments: ‘Courage! Méfiez-vous des moutons!’ ‘All is well in the best of worlds.’ ‘Vive le Communisme! Vive la France!’ Terrible indictments of the way the Germans treated their prisoners were manifest in the names of RAF pilots and WAAF who had gone through these rooms to their deaths. Yes, here they were, their names: ‘Shelley RAF’ — ‘D. A. Ronden WAAF’. These scrawled, desperate messages, written possibly in the hope that they would come to the ears of one person, are now a writing on the wall for all the world. They ought to be preserved so that future generations read them in order to realize that Germans are capable of perpetrating such brutality.

  For a visitor like myself, these rooms today were so haunting that even to imagine the feelings of those whom fate had arranged should be trapped here — that escape could never be — was something that would wake one with horror for nights on end.

  On my way home I tried to feel thankful that such a destiny had not come my way, but my heart and whole frame were crushed that such things could be. I crawled into my bed and hoped that the pictures that insisted on asserting themselves in front of my closed eyes would one day fade away.

  CHARLES BEISTIGUI

  While others in their own various ways have been fighting a hideous war Charlie Beistigui, a rich Spanish-Mexican bachelor, has been busy transforming a large home outside Paris to look like an eighteenth-century Russian palace. Word has it that by employing these draughtsmen and artisans, the best in France, cabinet masters, stucco workers and silk weavers from Lyons, Beistigui prevented them from being sent to Germany...

  Beistigui’s adolescence is something that he has never been willing to leave in the past. Here at Groussay he has reproduced his night nursery with white furniture, a model train on the mantlepiece, and a pot de chambre under the stark bed. Stained wood is much in evidence, and the baths and lavatory seats are boxed around with mahogany. Beistigui has never forgotten that he was at Oxford where he came into contact with the English aristocracy. His first glimpse of country houses — with green studded baize doors leading from the butler’s pantry to the silver room, and with halls hung with souvenirs of the hunt — made so lasting an impression upon him that he had to re-create them today.

  Although nothing of an ‘outdoors’ type himself, the entrance to his fantasy world is dotted with antlers’ heads: corridors are lined with sporting prints while stuffed fish hang in glass cases. Guest bedrooms are hung with tartan silk, old Paisley cashmere, yellow damask, or Victorian chintzes of bunches of violets. In the silk drawing-room Edwardian jardinieres are filled with everlasting sea-lavender and topped with potted palms, and tum-of-the-century photographs of royalty are grouped on the draped piano that is seldom opened. A vast electrolier shines onto the cumbrous billiard table in the dark green room where no one will ever pocket the white off the red. The lofty library comprises three floors and is splendid with mahogany and gilded bronze Louis XVI furniture. The bookcases are filled with effectively bound books bought en bloc, but few people notice that they are quite unreadable. Besides, who would take a volume out of these shelves? Certainly no one has ever seen Beistigui reading a book. Yet he is versed in the knowledge of most works of art, and on certain aspects of history could be considered an expert.

  Groussay is the most elaborate pastiche of something that no longer exists: a re-creation created against, and to spite, the present times. Here, inside a Russian façade, is a long-discarded Victorian England peopled with Beistigui’s French, Spanish-Mexican and South American weekend guests. They wear English tweeds, English cashmere jerseys, English brogues. They skim through the Illustrated London News, and walk on lawns until it is nearly lunchtime when tasselled footmen serve marrow or dripping on toast with a glass of Madeira. Conversation is mainly about those who do, or do not, possess great taste — or great furniture. The host does not encourage political argument or controversial or inflammatory subjects. Unfashionable pursuits or unpopular personalities are distasteful. Here is one place where, at whatever cost — and the cost must be astronomical — the outside is determinedly kept at bay. Beistigui is utterly ruthless: such qualities as sympathy, pity, or even gratitude, are completely lacking. He is without a doubt the most self-engrossed and pleasure-seeking person I have met.

  COMPARISONS

  Paris, 1945

  Many people in Paris still appear stunned from the effect of Occupation. Their recent suffering taught them to close their eyes to reality, and they are not yet fully awake. It is hard for those who have been taught during four years to defy the enemy by breaking laws to realize suddenly that rules and regulations must be respected. But the negative habits of Occupation are by degrees being discarded for the more positive techniques of resuscitation, and those who have been idle must start to work again in real earnest. Although an incentive has sprung into being, the organization to put the wheels in motion has not evolved. The rich produce of Normandy is rotting for lack of transport. The black market, encoura
ged by the Germans, continues to flourish. Those with money enough are able to live on velvet, but when others are starving this does not make for contentment.

  Some people appear to have lots to spend: for a thousand francs you can eat a superb dinner. Luxury trades are flourishing. Queues of GIs outside dressmakers’ shops buy scent and silk scarves. The antique shops are filled with porcelain and rare objects that, in England, are still entombed against bombs. Florists display leafless lilac, long-stemmed roses, and the sort of hothouse blooms we have not seen for years. Fashionable women look extremely strange to English eyes in their billowy clothes and clumsy velvet and cocks’ feather hats — but then English women have worn only that ubiquitous handkerchief over their heads for five years. Most surprising to an Englishman is to find that in private apartments men-servants answer the bells, while a middle-aged butler, assisted by young liveried footmen in white gloves, waits at table.

  But soon one realizes that, though Paris may still purvey her luxuries to the privileged, only a small proportion of people have any heating in their rooms, and many have not enough to eat.

  In England today, travel is uncomfortable enough, but here you cannot travel at all. In England people are poor, taxes are still mounting, and no luxuries are encouraged. There is still not a sign of the spoils of victory, but in England people are united; they share and share alike. The tension, stress, irritating and often seemingly unnecessary restrictions, the coupons and the queues, the petty tyrannies disguised as safeguards of liberty, and the lack of freedom — these are all endured in preference to the paralysis that overcomes a people whose whole life has become clandestine.

  In Paris one is aware of the aftermath of bitter feuds, of private enmities which made even more unendurable these years of humiliation. Denouncements were made for no apparent reason, everyone was suspect, even friends and lovers accused one another.

  Behind the lofty façades of Paris there is still bitterness, resentment, mortification and unrest.

  England and France have both suffered. There is, in my mind, no doubt as to which country has suffered the more deeply.

  WAR’S ENDING

  May 4th, 1945: Ashcombe, Tollard Royal, Wiltshire

  During these long years of war the one o’clock news has so often brought disappointment or dread, that we have learned to brace ourselves for almost any kind of shock. Yesterday we were caught off guard, and could hardly grasp what had happened when we learned of the utter and complete collapse of Germany.

  Perhaps we are too exhausted to retain any strong emotions. We can just manage to give a hungry gasp of relief from perpetual queasiness in the pit of the stomach — and a sigh of gratitude.

  The winter this year seemed bleaker, colder and grimmer than ever before. Then, prematurely and all of a sudden, spring arrived and was immediately followed by a freak fortnight of summer heat. Out came — all at once — the lilac, the tulips and honeysuckle. It’s been almost too much to believe in. Now, with the avalanche of summer, good news, like the blossom and flowers, is pouring from every source. ‘Berlin falling!’ ‘Goebbels dead.’ ‘Germans surrender to Montgomery.’ Now, any moment, we expect the full, unconditional surrender. The worst of the nightmare is past: the terrible casualty lists, the ghastly deaths of so many unquestioning young people fighting in all the elements, the gassing of Jews, the torturing of prisoners, the butcheries in German-occupied territories, the children soaked in petrol and set alight, the rows of naked women hung upside down from windows... Yet one is conscious of so much continuing suffering throughout the world that it is hard to celebrate...

  VE DAY

  May 8th, 1945: Pelham Place

  In Kensington it is as quiet as a Sunday. Flags are hanging from the balconies of the houses opposite. Some young people have gone to the West End to let off steam, but there is no general feeling of rejoicing. Victory does not bring with it a sense of triumph — rather a dull numbness of relief that the blood-letting is over. Hitler’s reign of terror has left behind it a ruined and exhausted Europe, and throughout the world a desperate uncertainty about the future.

  The spontaneous joy of deliverance from war is missing. We are told that if we wait patiently some important news may be given to us in the near future. One more restraint: it is the Russians who will give the word when to celebrate with a triumphal march in Berlin. We are having no marches ourselves.

  VE NIGHT

  By twilight the crowds have poured into the West End of London. St Martin’s-in-the-Fields and the National Gallery are already floodlit in cold greenish light looking like Regency engravings. In Pall Mall the flaming torches cast a golden glow on the façades of huge Venetian-palace clubs. Small separate groups are celebrating in the ruins outside the pubs. Much strutting and capering in strange hats. Someone sacrifices a front door as a bonfire and around the burning glow Merchant Navy stewards, Wrens, old hags, young boys, and anyone you can think of, join in the Hula-Hula dance. Someone shouts at a passing brigadier: ‘Come on, Colonel, join the fun!’ — and he does: a sailor in command of a large mug of beer sings ‘Have You Ever Been To Ireland?’ Then a jig is struck up. A small tired woman embodies a wiry toughness as she knifes her way through the concourse. In spite of years of poor food and a hard life she could still drive a dynamo with her strength and vitality. A handkerchief on her head, her tight, nutcracker jaw working avariciously, she puffs violently at one cigarette butt after another. This is her way of celebrating the moment for which she has so intensely waited.

  By now they are ten thousand strong outside the Palace. Lancelot Gobbo, high on the railings, waves a wand and shouts: ‘We want the King!’ When the King’s speech is relayed the silence is such that only the twittering of the birds can be heard — the birds revelling in the branches of the newly-covered trees.

  Part II: England, 1945

  ‘LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN’

  A group of us were having what should have been a quite uneventful little supper-party at Prunier’s. It was given by Ti Cholmondeley whose claim to theatrical fame was that she had originated the role of Water in Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird. After years of being happily married into the aristocracy she still enjoys the feeling that she has connections with the stage, and indeed has recently appeared in a club production of a Strindberg play directed by an unknown young man of promise named Peter Brook. Tonight her star guests were Binkie Beaumont of H.M. Tennent who, for years now, has had the monopoly of London’s theatrical management, and John Gielgud. Talk was of recent play productions, and we all praised the revival of An Ideal Husband. Particularly delightful were Rex Whistler’s last designs which he had done while he was under canvas in the army. Later, in Normandy, an enemy bullet picked him off and we were robbed of one of the greatest scenic talents the English theatre has known since Inigo Jones.

  Binkie vaguely discussed the possibility of reviving some other Oscar Wilde comedy; John suggested that Isabel Jeans would be excellent as Mrs Erlynne in Lady Windermere s Fan. As if we were playing a country-house writing game, we all jotted down on menus the names for other members of the cast. ‘Who would direct?’ asked Binkie. John said that if he was wanted he’d like to take on the job. I summoned enormous courage and spurted out: ‘And I will do the décor.’ ‘Right!’ concurred Binkie. It was as easy as that.

  This was the great, glorious, golden moment for which I had been waiting all my life! As a child my chief enthusiasm was my toy theatre. On that small stage the sets of Oh, Oh, Delphine! and The Whip had been re-created on cartridge paper by my water colours. The filigree of the wisteria and the rambler-rose borders had been carefully cut out with nail scissors, and the two-inch high performers, pillaged from The Play Pictorial and painted with heavy make-up, were propelled on tin rods from the wings. At Cambridge I had ignored lectures and the end-of-term examinations in favour of getting up ladders with buckets of size and paint to do the décors for the productions of the Marlowe Society and the ADC.

  But I had waited now a lon
g time for a big break-through into the real live London theatre with human actors to clothe and ornament. I had so far had only the opportunity to design one or two ballets, a much-too-literary play, and an odd costume here and there. Whenever a job was going that would be an important opportunity for a designer, it was offered first to Oliver Messel, and if he were unavailable, then to Rex Whistler. For a long while I had been gathering up feelings of frustration that my chance to materialize into an important designer would never come.

  All at once, I felt confident that a whole new vista was opened to me. This was a play I knew I could do well. As I walked upon air with Gielgud up the Haymarket late that night, I kept pumping him with a stream of suggestions as to how the production should look: overcharged, richly stuffed and upholstered, with a great use of trompe l’oeil and enfilades, in false perspectives, of Victorian stucco and heavy chandeliers. Lots of parma violets, maidenhair fern and smilax, and Lady W. in apricot. He seemed a bit overwhelmed, and laughed nervously, but made no objections.

  ‘Then can I really start tomorrow?’

  ‘Why not?’

  I got into my small Ford and drove immediately to Ashcombe, there — quietly — to put my ideas on paper. For nights, sleep was impossible, for my brain was working overtime and would not quieten down. Too many ideas of decoration that had been kept in cold storage came flooding out into the glow of my enthusiasm. Things that I had remembered in childhood: the candy-striped silk of Elfie Perry, the first actress who ever came to our house; and my Aunt Cada’s love of japonica pink. Then more recent impressions: the green silk walls, covered with engravings, in some London club, and the gilded garlands framing the plaques in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace. All the ideas, like the pieces of a large, complicated jig-saw puzzle, eventually fell into place. My hands could not wield the crayons, chalks and paint brushes quickly enough. A week later my designs were accepted.