Mrs Guinness

by Lyndsy Spence

  There were more pressing matters to contend with. That June, Diana discovered she was expecting a baby. Not yet 20, she responded to the pregnancy without much enthusiasm, and the thought of a confinement, before and after the birth, did not thrill her. Bryan was ecstatic, he longed for a child of his own, and wanting to revel in his happiness, he asked Diana to keep the news a secret.

  In August, Diana and Bryan went to stay at his father’s house, Knockmaroon, on the edge of Phoenix Park in Dublin. ‘We are happy here,’ he recorded in his diary.23 They were content staying indoors, looking at the River Liffey and watching the cattle grazing in the meadows. This scene of quiet domesticity made Bryan suddenly feel as if he were travelling through life in ‘a sensation of immense speed’. The prospect of becoming a father made him acutely aware of his own mortality and the ‘insane rate at which I was travelling to my death’, but all morbid thoughts left his mind when he glanced over at Diana ‘sitting on the sofa secretly expecting our first child’.

  Gone were the lively parties, often lasting all night, and Diana and Bryan filled their evenings with trips to Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. Regardless of any situation, she could always find things to make her laugh. Whilst attending John Ferguson, a play by John Ervine, a disgruntled man suddenly awoke from his daydream and yelled: ‘That’s not Irish, that’s an Ulster word!’ He charged from the theatre, stamping on Diana’s toes as he left.

  Having attended the theatre almost every night, Bryan and Diana became acquainted with the actors, but he refused to relent to her longings to join them for late suppers after their performances. They promptly returned home to Knockmaroon and Diana was early to bed for the sake of the baby. He remembered in his diary how he had scattered rose petals around her golden head as she slept and, seeing her eyelids flutter and her head turn over, he departed just as she started to wake.

  When they returned to England, Bryan’s thoughts turned to his growing family, and he took Colonel Guinness up on his generous offer to buy the couple a country house of their own. Diana and Bryan were drawn to Wiltshire, influenced by friends who lived there and the happy memories of his days at Oxford. Close proximity to London was important for both Bryan and Diana, due to his career as a barrister and her longing for the lively social activities that only London could provide.

  The house agents John D. Wood drew Bryan’s attention to Biddesden, an eighteenth-century country house, which charmed Bryan and reminded him of his own childhood spent at Bury St Edmunds. For Bryan, the house was a ‘gateway to happiness’, even if Diana openly reminded him of her loathing of the countryside, having just escaped it. But disappointment was not far off when Bryan discovered that Biddesden was priced too high and he hated to ask Colonel Guinness if he could increase his budget.

  Putting Biddesden out of his mind, he and Diana travelled to Paris. Combined with the cheerful company of Evelyn Waugh and Nancy, Diana also hoped the beauty of the location would compensate for her lengthy confinement.

  Waugh confessed to feeling shattered by the unexpected ending of his relatively short marriage and, far from sympathetic, Diana admitted that he showed no signs of heartbreak. He cavorted around the Rue de Poitiers in high spirits, enchanting Diana with witty stories and doing all he could to keep her entertained. Inside the flat, she relaxed in the quiet splendour of watching Bryan, Waugh and Nancy work on their manuscripts. Waugh was struggling to meet his deadline for his travel book, Labels, Bryan was composing Singing out of Tune (inspired by the failed marriage of the Waughs) and Nancy worked on her first novel, Highland Fling.

  In the fifth month of her pregnancy, Diana was overcome with fatigue and she spent most of her time in bed reading their manuscripts and dispensing her critique, whether it was required or not. When she felt lonely, Bryan, Waugh and Nancy moved their writing stations into her bedroom. But it was hardly an ideal setting, as demonstrated by Bryan when he shook his pen so violently that the ink spattered the delicate silk curtains.

  During fleeting bursts of energy, Diana and Waugh went on short walks, drives to the countryside and trips to the cinema. Behind Waugh’s exuberance, he concealed a deepening love that had been growing since Diana fascinated him at the tropical party. Ever a trusting friend, Bryan did not think it strange when Waugh adopted the odd practice of lying in bed next to Diana during her afternoon naps. Diana, on her behalf, thought his attentiveness was strictly platonic. She was touched when Waugh worried about the birth of the baby, hers being the first pregnancy he had observed. ‘I don’t know what to say about the imminence of Baby G. Dear Diana it seems all wrong that you should ever have to be at all ill or have a pain.’24

  Returning to London, the close relationship with Waugh continued. Diana and Bryan treated him to a birthday luncheon at the Ritz, but as her pregnancy advanced, her social life wilted. With Bryan occupied with his career as a barrister, Diana and Waugh grew closer and he now had her undivided attention.

  It was an unusual set-up for its time, but her condition made it somewhat acceptable for them to spend so much time alone. Diana had a table installed in her bedroom and she and Waugh enjoyed private, though miniscule, supper parties. They went to luncheons in Hampstead at Waugh’s parents’ house and took silly little trips to the zoo. Even though Diana could not abide living things imprisoned in a cage, she still managed to erupt into peals of childish laughter at the monkeys. All too often, Diana grew bored with the confines of Buckingham Street and she called on Waugh to accompany her on some ‘carriage exercise’ in her chauffeur-driven Daimler.

  Some years later, Waugh drew on this unique experience when he wrote Work Suspended. The narrator falls in love with Lucy, the pregnant wife of his friend who spent her days ‘lying in bed in a chaos of newspapers, letters and manicure tools’. It was an age suited to parody and Waugh’s imagination smouldered with all sorts of silly manifestations. Still, Waugh peddled on with Vile Bodies, finishing it in time to present its dedication to Diana and Bryan on Christmas morning: ‘To BG and DG’ it read. In return, Diana and Bryan gave Waugh a gold pocket watch.

  The following month, Waugh, still full of admiration for Diana, presented the Guinnesses with the complete manuscript of Vile Bodies,25 bound in leather with its title stamped in gold. But having discovered that his young friend was quite unlike the protagonist of his novel, Waugh wrote to Diana: ‘I am now convinced that Vile Bodies is very vulgar and I am sorry for dedicating it to you but I will write many more exalted works and dedicate them to you.’ The fictional portrayal of Diana played on his mind and he wrote to his friend Dig Yorke: ‘She seems the one encouraging figure in this generation – particularly now she is pregnant – a great vat of potentiality like the vats I saw at their brewery.’

  Waugh’s eagerness to dedicate his future writings to Diana seemed optimistic. Before the birth of her baby, Waugh was making plans to stay in Dublin to complete his latest manuscript, a biography of Jonathan Swift (it was never written). He encouraged Diana to recuperate from the birth at Knockmaroon, where they ‘could have fun’. Diana agreed and she looked forward to the revival of her social life.

  Christmas was a flamboyant affair, held at Grosvenor Place, where the guests were treated to an abundance of food. First came the traditional food, and on each plate there were three or four tiny parcels, as well as elaborate crackers. Afterwards, the guests were ushered to the drawing room, given a pair of scissors and directed to the presents which were piled up in groups along the walls and in the corners. Viewing the spectacle beyond her wildest imagination, Diana understood why Lady Evelyn began her Christmas preparations months in advance. It was an alien experience for Diana, whose family Christmases consisted of the same ritual each year: a family dinner followed by a fancy-dress party and a photograph snapped using the self-timer.

  Over the festive season, Diana’s elderly grandmother, Lady Clementine, visited Buckingham Street to enquire about the baby. ‘When do you expect the baby?’ she asked.

  ‘In the beginning of March,�
�� Diana said. ‘In fact it might be born on the thirteenth.’ (13 March was David’s birthday, Lady Clementine’s less favoured son.)

  ‘Oh, I hope not!’ cried the old lady, and with a sympathetic tone she added, ‘poor darling Dowdy! Always so unlucky!’

  Unlucky was a poor adjective to bestow on Diana. As 1929 came to a close, and still only 19, she looked forward to the birth of her first child and the subsequent relaunch of her social life. She could not have anticipated the personal and social upheavals the thirties would bring, nor could she have predicted the exceptional change in her own her destiny.

  NOTES

  23 Diary entry dated 14 August 1929, Potpourri from the Thirties, Bryan Guinness.

  24 Letter to Diana dated 1929, Letters of Evelyn Waugh, Mark Amory (ed.).

  25 Jonathan Guinness sold the manuscript of Vile Bodies at auction in 1985 for £59,400.

  13

  A GILDED LIFE

  On 16 March 1930, Jonathan Bryan Guinness was born. Diana was filled with happiness when she looked down at her newborn baby sleeping in his elaborately trimmed cot. The feeling elated her, and in spite of the pain she had endured and Sydney’s pessimistic statement that ‘all babies are ugly’, Diana thought her son was ‘perfect’. Bryan fussed by her bedside and treated her with the utmost care. She had given him what he always longed for and he fell even more deeply in love with her. He spared no expense and lavished her with an enormous painting, the ‘Unveiling of Cookham War Memorial’ by Stanley Spencer.

  A nanny would have to be engaged. Diana had known no different, she had been cared for by a nanny until her marriage to Bryan, and it never occurred to her that she would look after the baby herself. Nanny Higgs had come by good recommendation from the Churchill family, she had been the eldest children’s nanny and doted on Diana: ‘What a character!’ she often said. Though Diana Churchill, like her cousin Diana, was now grown up.

  Although Nanny Higgs became a close friend to Diana, she was strict about her duties and interaction between mother and baby was kept to a minimum. Nanny’s day off was the occasion Diana looked forward to most, it was the only opportunity she had to push her baby son in his pram – a novelty she anticipated every week. In between, she had to make do with walking Pilgrim the dog.

  Before Jonathan’s birth, Diana had purchased dozens of pretty frocks from the children’s retailer, Wendy, owned by Bryan’s aunt. No one objected to Diana dressing her baby son in girls’ clothing and Bryan was too ecstatic to care about the smaller details. The nursemaid’s patience was tested daily when she changed the baby several times a day into his pretty dresses adorned with numerous tiny pearl buttons. Even the nightgowns were made from the finest lace and linen, and hungry Jonathan detested this morning ritual of dressing which delayed his feeding and he would cry until red in the face.

  Planning the christening, Diana wanted to carry on with her unusual approach to clothing and dress Jonathan in long, black lace trousers. If only for the sake of formality, Bryan convinced her to go with a traditional gown. The christening was indeed a formal affair, conducted on a lavish scale, with the society columns printing stories and photographs of Bryan glowing with pride and his young wife, not yet 20, gazing adoringly at the baby’s chubby face scowling from beneath the lace bonnet. Squashed to the back of the group photos were Randolph Churchill and Evelyn Waugh, the appointed godfathers, each festering an intense dislike for one another – a dislike they both carried until the end of their days.

  In early summer, London’s society events were in full swing and with youthful gaiety Diana launched herself back on the scene. Bryan had reservations about parties, balls, tea at the Ritz and endless trips to the theatre once again consuming their lives. Waugh, too, disapproved of her eagerness to indulge in such frivolity and it caused friction between the two. Like Bryan, he preferred to have Diana all to himself, to sit in a quiet corner where they could talk, but Diana, by her own admission, was ‘pleasure loving’. Waugh’s jealousy transferred to Bryan, who was not happy when Diana began passing over his luncheon invitations in favour of her husband, with whom she dined at the Savoy Grill during his afternoon break from his barrister duties at the Temple.

  The once close friends were reunited on Diana’s 20th birthday that June, when Waugh presented her with a charming Briggs umbrella. However, inspired by his feelings of resentfulness, he recorded in his diary that Diana broke the umbrella the following day – an untrue account, as she cherished it for years until it was stolen. Two weeks later, at a supper party given at Buckingham Street, Waugh continued with his unusual behaviour. He instigated a fight with Randolph in the servants’ hall, resulting in both men punching one another until the brawl was broken up.

  Diary entries written by Waugh detail the breakdown of his friendship with Diana and reveal the bitterness which blighted their meetings:

  D and I quarrelled at luncheon.

  D and I quarrelled at dinner.

  Quarrelled with D again and left.

  Four days after recording the last event in his diary, Waugh avoided Diana at Cecil Beaton’s cocktail party. It pained her when he did not lapse into their old, familiar rapport and he simply bid her goodnight and left. Diana must have featured heavily on his mind, for later that evening, Waugh sent a letter to Buckingham Street. His bad behaviour, he wrote, was due to his unease with himself and the parting words, ‘don’t bother to answer’, left Diana with little doubt as to how she should proceed. Waugh’s petty behaviour enforced Diana’s firm belief that ‘in friendship there must be neither possessiveness nor jealousy. Either would wreck it.’

  Thirty-six years later, a month before his death on 10 April 1966, Waugh offered Diana some closure when he wrote to her, shouldering the blame for the ending of their friendship. He broke it off out of ‘pure jealousy’ provoked by an infatuation with her. She had shown him kindness and empathy during a turbulent time in his life and this inspired him to see Diana in a romantic light. She had become the ‘unobtainable object’ of his desires and, even though a sexual relationship was off limits, he wanted her all to himself as an ‘especial confidante and comrade’. That, Waugh told her, was ‘the sad and sordid truth’. Except for his letter, they never spoke again.

  14

  AN INTERVAL IN FRIENDSHIPS

  Diana pined for Evelyn Waugh and she pondered how to get him back. Her former friend’s attention was consumed by his new celebrity status; Vile Bodies had been a major success and Waugh was in demand at parties and in fashionable salons in London. He also directed his affection towards the Bright Young Thing, Baby Jungmann, who, alongside her sister Zita, had many admirers.

  Despite Waugh’s abandonment, Diana was not bitter and she recalled her fondness for his company when she said: ‘Wherever Evelyn was he made it exceptional – brilliant company! His malicious wit, his quickness on the uptake … he was an incredibly clever man who saw the fun in everything and made life wonderful.’ With this in mind, she sent another invitation to Waugh, once again inviting him to join her and Bryan at Knockmaroon, but, as he had done before, he declined the invitation.

  Through Waugh, Diana and Bryan had become friendly with the artist Henry Lamb and his wife, Lady Pansy. At Bryan’s insistence, Diana extended an invitation for the Lambs to visit Knockmaroon and, in Waugh’s place, she invited Lytton Strachey, who delighted her when he accepted. But unbeknownst to her, Strachey had once been infatuated with Lamb, whom he had initiated into the Bloomsbury set. Lamb was aware of Strachey’s feelings and, as soon as he embraced him, he was rebuffed. ‘Absolutely out of the question, impossible!’ the artist was reported to have shouted at Strachey. To ease the tension, Lamb decided they must discuss the matter and, although he admitted his ‘brutality’, Strachey kept up the pretence of the past flirtation and teased, ‘You knew I was a dangerous character.’

  As much as Diana admired Strachey, he was not an easy guest and she rather wished he had imitated Waugh and stayed at home. From the moment Strachey departed E
ngland, his visit had begun on a sour note. He was an uneasy traveller and he felt imprisoned in his uncomfortable cabin as the ferry battled across the Irish Sea. There was no car to greet him on the quayside and, ‘owing to the incompetence of the idle rich’, he was forced to catch a rickety train to Dublin. He then took a taxi, hoping to get to Knockmaroon, but it ended up lost. When Strachey finally arrived at Knockmaroon he was in no mood for Diana’s rigorous social calendar, and by her own admission she was too self-absorbed to afford her weary friend much empathy.

  Trips to the Abbey Theatre were more than Strachey could bear. He had tolerated quite enough of ‘Irish actors pretending to be Irish people’ and he refused to go to any more plays. ‘Oh do,’ Diana implored him. But her plea fell on deaf ears, for Strachey had retreated behind his beard and spectacles and could not be reached. It was a relief to him when a bout of illness swept through Knockmaroon and many guests, including Bryan, came down with a nasty dose of the cold. Bryan was the significant victim, and with him out of action Diana was at a loss to entertain lavishly.

  Strachey was delighted by this bad fortune and in a positive mood he wrote a letter to his companion, the artist Dora Carrington: ‘Diana remains very dashing and superb’ – in spite of the plague which had stricken her guests. He was also tickled to discover that she, too, liked monkey puzzles. ‘So I suppose you adore her,’ he teased Carrington.26 Ironically, the calamitous trip was oddly refreshing and he began to write his first piece of literature in months; an essay on Froude, which he later read aloud to Diana and his guests.