The Happy Years (1944-48)

by Cecil Beaton

  VYVYAN HOIXAND

  Oscar Wilde’s son is still receiving royalties from his father’s plays, but it was not for this reason that Vyvyan Holland was so helpful and interesting a collaborator on our exciting project. He at once invited me to dine with him in his flat, filled with mahogany and rare books, in Sloane Street. V.H. has now become somewhat hard of hearing and his manner of speech has never been spontaneous. Age has made his mouth twitch and his eyes sag. But the more one knows him the more gentle and delightful a person he becomes.

  After an excellent post-war meal with Château Yquem, marrons glacés, pineapple, etc. (his wife, Thelma, is as great a gourmet as he is), he reminisced about the original production of Lady Windermere. Later in the evening V.H. had relaxed sufficiently to talk about his father. ‘He was very good with us as children: he was great fun. I remember his saying to me he’d give me ten shillings when I grew to be as tall as his stick. One evening I stood on a footstool behind the curtains and said: “Look! I’m as tall as your stick,” and he gave me a ten-bob note. But it was an appalling shock to find what complete pariahs we became after “the period”. My mother and I went to Montreux, and when they discovered who we were we had to leave the hotel. I was seven at the time and it has made a terrible impression on me ever since.

  I can’t bear even to see my name in print: it gives me the horrors.

  We had to change our name because everywhere we went we were hounded: people even changed the names of their dogs if they happened to be called Oscar, and in my aunts’ house I came across a copy of The Happy Prince with the name of the author covered with sticky paper.

  Thelma disclosed that talk about Oscar Wilde was a rare occurrence and that for years this had been a forbidden subject in this household. She had just recently discovered the whereabouts of Oscar’s valet. He had come to tea with her and spoken affectionately of his erstwhile master whom he had accompanied in the carriage on his last journey of freedom. When he passed his usual tie shop Oscar decided to stop the carriage. He got out and bought a new cravat.

  Even the valet found it hard to find further employment when it became known for whom he had worked. It was this being scorned by the world that had killed his father, said V.H.

  HIROSHIMA

  Lady Windermere has opened to excellent notices on its trial trip to the provinces. All portends well: it has been a comparatively smooth undertaking. Few major alterations have had to be made, although until the last minute John Gielgud continued to change his direction. The most important and painful necessity and upheaval was the eleventh hour substitution of Mabel Terry-Lewis by a younger, more forceful actress. That the frail, forgetful and irascible old lady doomed to the axe happened to be Gielgud’s real-life aunt only made the situation more fraught.

  Another major change: they needed an entirely new setting for Act One. For economy’s sake we had ignored Wilde’s directions and played Lady W.’s boudoir scene in the ballroom of Act II. But Wilde was right: the first scene calls for a more intimate atmosphere.

  When a designer has used a certain chart for his colours, it is difficult to juggle them around. Gielgud and the management agreed that if Lady W.’s small gilded cage of a boudoir should be of yellow silk — very fussy and overcharged — her last act blue dress would be more suitable than the red and white ‘Elfie Perry’[8] candy stripes intended to be seen against the dark red walls of the ballroom. But we all reckoned without the actresses involved. Lady W. would not switch, and she was aided and abetted by Mrs Erlynne in japonica red. Binkie shrugged: ‘After all, it is the actress who has to wear the clothes for the rim of the play.’ I was upset out of all proportion.

  I did not intend to give in to defeat without a struggle that might have to continue with Binkie the entire length of the return journey to London. But as the early-morning train pulled out of Manchester station Binkie and I opened the morning papers. It was impossible to discuss theatrical trivialities after reading of the magnitude and horror of the bomb dropped the day before over Hiroshima.

  LADY ALEXANDER

  The management gave me some seats for the first performance in London of Lady Windermere’s Fan. I thought it would be kind to invite Lady Alexander to come with my mother. Lady Alexander, the widow of George Alexander, an actor-manager of earlier days, had been involved in the original production of the play, and she had befriended my brother and myself when we knew few sparkling people. Reggie and I were always vastly amused in her somewhat grotesque company. Although of an alarming vintage she took Reggie and me to benefit performances, charity balls, first nights, and all sorts of public places. When we first saw her she presented a strange spectacle with her pig’s snout, dog’s mouth and bird’s eyes, wearing the most exaggerated of clothes and feathered head-gear. Even in broad daylight she appeared to be in full fancy rig: yet we dared not laugh at her for she was a kind, good soul with a golden heart. Someone said she looked like a caricature of an old marquise, but she always reminded us of some circus dog dressed up — a white poodle covered in frills and diamanté.

  ‘Everyone’ in London knew Lady A. by sight, and she enjoyed being stared at in a friendly way. However, when she went to Paris where no one knew her (although she was said to be half-French) crowds gathered as she tottered along in her jerky, mechanical fashion carrying a high cane, her bosoms almost popping out, her bottom proffered, and her face covered with flour and Hogarthian beauty-spots. Some bystanders were so elated by the display that they applauded.

  In ordinary conversation Lady A. never made much sense, but she perfected, for all and sundry, a confidential manner which worked for her as real friendliness. Once when Boy Le Bas, at the time an undergraduate at Pembroke College, had motored from Cambridge and told her how, in his car, he’d nearly run over a dog, she whispered to him with great import: ‘You know, these dogs don’t realize how quickly one comes upon them!’

  Lady A. herself was always surrounded by old Pekineses. Two years ago, the favourite dog died. The leading florists in London sent miniature wreaths and sheaves, and the corpse was taken down to Chorley Wood to be buried beside Sir George. Lady Alexander felt so upset that she nearly made a trinity. One afternoon about six months later she met a Mrs Tate in a hat shop. Mrs Tate was in deep mourning for her husband and son who had both been killed in a tragic accident. Lady A. said: ‘I’m so sorry to see you all in black. I do hope you haven’t lost someone?’ Mrs Tate shed a tear and replied: ‘Yes, my poor dear husband and son.’ Lady Alexander turned a sympathetic eye upon her: ‘I, too, have had a great sorrow. My little Pekinese, Mimosa...’

  Every summer Lady Alexander sent out ‘At Home’ cards to hundreds of friends who thronged the red-brick house in Pont Street for a gala bun-fight. It took determination and patience to mount the white marble steps of the porch, ease into the Wedgwood medallioned hallway, then slowly scale the stairs, so jammed with humanity in morning-coats and flowered chiffon. But there was much to beguile one’s attention as one waited, squashed in line. Older-than-mountain actors and never-say-die actresses appeared with the aura of the footlights still about them. Sir Squire Bancroft could be seen adjusting his monocle: Dame Madge Kendal represented the Victorian era in a bonnet: Mary Wyndham, now terribly deformed by illness, would be enveloped with embraces by so many loving friends: and — of a younger generation — Lilian Braithwaite appeared, moon-coloured and ghost-stricken, with bad feet. Miss Braithwaite was for many years beloved by the hostess’s much mourned husband, and her daughter Joyce Carey referred to the theatrical Knight as ‘Uncle George’. It would be interesting now to watch the hostess’s greeting. An old-fashioned string band played lazily in a corner: smilax was hung in festoons from curtains. An aged stage butler stentoriously pronounced the names of guests: ‘Sir Trehawke and Lady Kekewich — Lady Hicks and Miss Betty Hicks — Sir Bindon and Lady Blood — Miss Mieville — Cherry, Lady Poynter — Sir Cunningham Graham and Mrs Dummet.’ Then came the long-awaited reward. Lady A. would be discovered standing in a
bower of rambler-rose trees. Above her hung the over-life-sized portrait of Sir George wearing the white satin breeches and cottonwool wig of The Prisoner of Zenda. Our hostess looked like a wound-up fairy-doll as she bowed to left and right, croaking in a barely audible whisper. Her snout seemed more turned up than ever, her huge gash of a mouth like a torm pocket, her eyes small, unseeing currants. She wore a daring décolletage, a sheath of silver and old lace trimmed with pink rosebuds, and tulle frills encircled her head and wrists. She exuded a strong pharmaceutical odour that might have derived from the calomine lotion with which she was whitewashed. How enjoyable it would have been to stand by and watch the flow of this pageant and to note all the gyrations of this spectre receiving her friends. But the crush was too great. One had to move on and push, with a lot of greedy geezers, for iced coffee, mustard-and-cress sandwiches, Eclairs and rose-pink ices.

  On quieter occasions I used to ask Lady A. about the St James’s Theatre in the days of Sir George’s management when she used to help with the choosing of dresses and effects (all very casual in comparison with today’s décors). But she was always deliciously vague and appeared not to remember Oscar Wilde — perhaps because her husband eventually disapproved of him. Alexander was playing in The Importance of Being Earnest at the time of the trial, and behaved disgustingly by continuing to make money from the play while taking the author’s name off the bill-boards, and turning his head away when eventually they again met. Lady A. did tell me, however, that at the dress rehearsal of Lady Windermere, Wilde leant out of a box and gave the order that at the ball Lady W. must wear opals. Everyone concerned was aghast: ‘They are such unlucky stones!’ But Wilde insisted, so Lady Alexander was sent off to supply the parure.

  Since the war I had not seen Lady Alexander, but I gathered that her physical condition has deteriorated sadly. My mother told me of Lady Alexander’s arrival to see our revival. As she staggered blindly into the lobby, resplendent in crimson velvet, one of the more elderly of the Haymarket Theatre staff recognized her, and came forward to conduct her through the crowd. She was steered to her berth, leaning heavily on his arm, and kept up a sotto voce muttering: ‘Oh, you know things are so different these days. The times we knew are over for ever, and it’s difficult to get accustomed to these new ones.’ Then she apologized: ‘I’m such a nuisance to everyone nowadays. I don’t see properly and I’m so old, and I can’t move since I had that nasty tumble: I really shouldn’t have come.’ Thereupon the theatre manager, who had joined them, remarked: ‘You’re just as charming as ever you were, you don’t look any older, and we’re all very proud and honoured to have you here again.’

  EXIT PROM ASHCOMBE

  Ashcombe

  Surely Mr Borley wouldn’t turn me out of Ashcombe after all these happy years — it couldn’t be possible! And yet now I see that it is just what he has been planning eventually to do since I appeared before him as a foolish young man, willing to make a derelict ruin habitable.

  When first I discovered Ashcombe — once a grand mansion but by then halfway to ruin — it was used by the landlord, a former publican of the Grosvenor Arms, Shaftesbury, and today a great enthusiast of the gentlemanly sport of shooting, as a storehouse for feed for his game. When I told him that I would like to live in such a remote spot (‘Strange it appears who so’er could build a seat in so an inaccessible retreat’) he eventually condescended to give me a seven-year lease. He smiled as he saw the arrival of the builder, plumber, gardener and electrician.

  At the end of that lease his ferret eyes glistened and he smiled again as he made his tour of inspection and asked: ‘What other improvements have you in mind?’ I did not suspect his interest. ‘Oh, we are going to terrace this part of the garden and make an orchard.’ ‘But what are you going to do about the tiles on that roof?’ he asked. ‘Those walls need re-pointing,’ he observed, ‘and the private roadway must have a new surface.’ On eliciting certain promises from me, he agreed to another seven years.

  Now I have been to Shaftesbury to drink a glass of South African sherry in a pitch-pine-panelled room, and have been served with an ultimatum. My lease will not be renewed, and the landlord’s son will benefit by my plumbing system.

  I have come away reeling from that claustrophobic Victorian villa as if galloping cancer had been diagnosed. I can scarcely swallow. I dare not be left alone with my thoughts...

  I was twenty-six years old when I came to live at Ashcombe, the first piece of property I felt I could call my own. With the money that I had made from my photography, illustrations and designs I was able to plant trees and fill the flower-beds and, in an impromptu fashion, to decorate the house. No matter that I could not afford to furnish the house in the conventional way: my theatrical sense and ingenuity came to the rescue. Soon my hideout was discovered by a flow of young friends. We played; we laughed a lot; we fell in love. Ashcombe became a place where time stood still and care was a stranger.

  At first, the studio was mostly used for parties and charades, and only in fits and starts did I go across the courtyard to paint. As the years passed more time was spent at the easel, and I began to wonder how I had once managed to work with such confidence and so little application. With my writing, too, I hid myself for longer periods in order to give full concentration to some forthcoming book.

  Then there were alarms in the world and rumours of war came nearer. Eventually the dread became a reality.

  Would Ashcombe, once used for little more than a peacetime idyll, be able to change its character? Could it even be maintained in the bad times to come? Within a week of war being declared so much of life in England had changed. With the fear of bombing, and with troops in transit, half the population seemed to be on the move. Hundreds of refugee children from Kentish Town arrived in the neighbourhood.

  Almost immediately the married couple who looked after us at Ashcombe left with their cat. Would Dove, our beloved gardener, and a victim of chronic asthma, be strong enough to forge through the winter mists?

  Ashcombe changes but it never disappoints: as usual it lived up to expectations. It became more than ever a refuge — a place to work in — a place to come back to. When the bombing on London became unbearable to my mother and her sister Jessie, they left, with shattered nerves, to recuperate in the country. Here they remained for the ‘duration’.

  In spite of flooding, oceans of mud, and of trees being blown across the valley, throughout the worst winter weathers Dove continued to battle his way up from Tollard Royal. Sometimes on arrival his face would be blue; he could not breathe: we thought he would die on the minute. But, helped by my mother’s ministrations, Dove survived yet one more attack.

  Tom Curd, the postman, was another stoic: come tempest or sleet, he walked the four miles from Ashmore to Tollard Royal to collect mail, thence over the downs, past Wingreen eight hundred feet up where he could be seen — a minute speck — in the distance coming down Ann’s Path to bring, from the sack slung on his back, friendly words and presents from New York.[9] When snow drifts eight foot deep blocked him from his usual route he trudged through the fields. He never complained, but sometimes admitted that the expedition ‘pulled his legs a bit’.

  But remote, hidden and inaccessible as Ashcombe is, it was not left immune from the effects of war. A searchlight came to be set up by the archway, and the dozen soldiers who arrived to man the site remained to become a great addition. Not only did they give a feeling of protection to my mother but they were generous with gifts of tinned plum jam and margarine. More astonishingly still, in the dead of night a German bomb was jettisoned in the valley. It blew out our windows and caused a ceiling to come down onto my aunt, and completely obliterated the gamekeeper’s cottage though only dazing his family.

  It was at Ashcombe that, early one morning, my mother rushed into my bedroom to pull the curtains with the first decisively good war news: ‘Great victory in the desert! Rommel on the run!’ It was also here that the bulletin came through that the war was ov
er. When I ran out to tell Dove what had been announced on the radio, he said with his foot poised on a spade: ‘That’s a good job done,’ and after a minute he started again to dig up the potatoes. It was not long before Dove died.

  I was fortunate enough to survive the war, but was not allowed to enjoy the return to peacetime at Ashcombe before my release was cruelly wrested from me.

  WEEKEND IN LONDON

  September: Pelham Place

  Now that I have no place of my own to go to at weekends I must take other trains to other places. Of course I pack in my luggage a certain amount of work to do during the visits to friends, but I find that if one is absorbed in one’s subject, there is no greater frustration than having to break off to look at a not-too-nearby church or help entertain neighbours. Notwithstanding, it was at first enjoyable to see how others lived: the plot of their existence unfolded like a play. As in the theatre the last act was the weakest, and I returned to London somewhat disappointed. I soon realized that it is quite an effort to organize an escape from London at the end of each week. Even if they want one under their roof, there isn’t all that number of friends with whom one wishes to remain even for the short length of a Saturday to Monday. Often it is not convenient for them to have a guest just when it suits me.