Gluck

by Diana Souhami

  The picture’s good reception did little to lift Gluck’s spirits. Somehow when Nesta went so too did the fun. Gluck and Edith worked out a domestic, ordered routine: roast dinner Sundays, six o’clock drinks with Steyning neighbours, trips to Glyndebourne and the Theatre Royal Brighton, touring holidays in Italy looking at frescos, cathedrals, and Pisa in the moonlight. They gardened and cared for the house. Edith bought a Stanley Spencer of a winter scene and Gluck bought a Picasso sculpture of a bronze hand. They celebrated each other’s birthdays with champagne and cake, and nursed each other’s illnesses, aches and pains. It was orderly home life, but a frustration and boredom with it bubbled below the surface for Gluck, and Edith had cause for disappointment. The coldness from her friends and relatives towards Gluck did not thaw. Harry Heald, her brother, visited one weekend and made rude remarks about Gluck’s tweed suit and only reluctantly gave her a lift to the station. Nora brought presents round at Christmas, but would not come in the house. And Gluck continued her habit of sending notes to Alison Settle when she thought she was being awful to Edith. Worst of all, between Gluck and Edith there were all too often upsets over trivial things, which left them miserable and worn out.

  Gluck’s old Hillman, BUL 700 got towed away for good in September 1949. It had broken down on countless occasions but she was extremely attached to it. A week later she parted with her Hampstead studio which she no longer used. Dr Pollock, who bought Bolton House, wanted it but dithered over the price, so she sold it to the surrealist painter and spiritualist, Ithell Colquhoun, for £2,500. Both transactions left her feeling empty and nostalgic. She gave up smoking for the umpteenth time, which was always hard on her and Edith while it lasted. For each of them, work was their focus, but for Gluck the roots of inspiration seemed dry. For more than two years she worked at a painting of a vase of roses. Edith said it had the three essentials of beauty according to St Thomas Aquinas, wholeness, harmony and radiance, but the compliment had little practical spur as eventually Gluck discarded the canvas.

  Two more judges wanted their portraits painted in the early 1950s: Sir Raymond Evershed, who succeeded Sir Wilfrid as Master of the Rolls, and Sir Reginald Croom-Johnson. Gluck usually painted largely from memory, using only a few sittings. The time-consuming part was the application of paint – a quest for perfection of line, shadow, texture and detail. ‘I compare the painting of a picture to the rehearsing of an orchestra’, she wrote to Lady Evershed (18 March 1952), ‘so some days the drums are too loud for the strings and so on, until the day when all the instruments sing to me.’

  She stayed with the Eversheds for five days in October 1951 in their Grange House farm in Norfolk. Sir Raymond went out shooting most of the time, but he posed for an hour or so each day. Gluck painted him in his Master of the Rolls Privy Council robes, lace jabot and ruffles, gold braid and wool wig. All that, and the high colour of his face, got from his outdoor sports, make it a bright if stern affair. Gluck took the robes home on the train in locked tin boxes and lodged them in the bank’s strong room when not working with them. The portrait was presented by Evershed’s uncle, Edward, to the family’s native town, Burton-on-Trent, where Evershed was a Freeman. Gluck’s picture shows him holding the Roll of the Freedom of the town, and with his own, and Burton-on-Trent’s coats of arms either side of his head. Uncle Edward knew nothing about pictures but wanted this one to be a success with no expense spared. ‘If you feel like diamonds in the frame he won’t jib,’ Lady Evershed wrote (17 October 1951). In fact he paid Gluck 500 guineas and all expenses and the picture was shown at the rooms of the framers James Bourlet & Sons in London before going to Burton Town Hall. A presentation ceremony on 5 December 1952, presided over by the Mayor, made the lead story in the Burton Observer. ‘It is well known’, said Sir Raymond at the ceremony, ‘that Miss Gluck has an unerring eye for the truth, and what is worse, depicting it.’ He said that as a result of the painting he had gained a friend in Miss Gluck, who not only as an artist of very great talent, but also as an individual, he had come greatly to admire.

  As for Sir Reginald Croom-Johnson, he wanted to be painted in his summer scarlet robes with grey silk bindings and black stoles like a forebear of his, Sir John Powell, who was a Judge of the Common Pleas in 1688, and whose picture was in the National Portrait Gallery. Gluck quoted him a feet of 350 guineas which he felt was more than he ought spend, so they settled for a smaller picture, 51 × 46 cm, for 200 guineas. ‘I wish I could have a much bigger work of yours,’ he wrote (28 December 1951),

  but before long in the way this country is going we shall have to reduce all our household goods to the very smallest proportions. What am I to do with an historical Dutch sideboard which measures over 8 feet long?

  Sittings were hard to arrange, as he spent weekends at his home in Somerset, but he was brought by his chauffeur and butler to the Chantry House with his robes and white gloves in April 1952 for several sittings, on two of which he fell asleep. He kept gently chivvying Gluck to finish the picture. She worked at it on and off for two years, lamenting the state of the canvas and her paints. The finished painting was by no means the best of her legal portraits. Sir Reginald appears to be sitting uncomfortably, blanketed in scarlet.

  In 1953 Gluck’s brother, Louis, himself a barrister and QC, was knighted with the same pomp and circumstance as these men of the Establishment whom she painted and who so liked her company. On several occasions it was mooted that she should paint him too, but they were never at peace with each other long enough for this to come about. With his professional counterparts she achieved a friendliness that now eluded her with him. And while she worked at these formal portraits of eminent judges she was herself battling against a cosmic injustice. Her mother had lost her reason. Aged seventy-five, the Meteor was diagnosed as suffering from senile mania. Probably she had Alzheimer’s Disease. She was not eating, coping, or looking after herself. Her eyes had a fixed stare much of the time and she had bouts of confusion, purposeless activity, irrational temper loss and paranoia.

  The 1950s were not enlightened times for the treatment of the mentally ill. The tendency was to institutionalize and isolate sufferers. Had the Meteor suffered a more straightforward illness, her life would have been made tolerable with all the palliatives money can buy. As it was, she was beyond the reach of help by money. Nor were Gluck or her brother temperamentally suited to cope with such a crisis. The rift between them proved tragic at this time.

  Despite her parlous physical and mental state, Francesca Gluckstein was, in 1950, still living, albeit chaotically, in the Cumberland Hotel. A nurse in mufti, Miss McClennan, looked after her, but more support was needed. On 28 February the Meteor went to tea with her son in St John’s Wood. She was irrational and hyper-manic. The family doctor, Dr Solomons, was there and he and Louis tried to persuade her to agree to an injection of a sedating drug. She refused. Louis’ wife, Doreen, wanted the doctor to slip something in her mother-in-law’s tea, so that they could get her upstairs calmly and nurse her. He refused on the grounds of professional ethics. After a ghastly afternoon of tears and failed persuasion, dominated by the Meteor’s paranoia and confusion, she was driven back to the Cumberland by her chauffeur, Peter Smith. As Louis left the house with her he banged the front gate on to the road. The Meteor said ‘Don’t you bang the door on me,’ and tried to open it and bang it herself, but was too feeble to do so. Back at the Cumberland, an electric heater was taken from her room for fear that she would set the place on fire. This mortified her and increased her paranoia as it meant she could not make herself a hot drink in the night. She was crying, rambling and ill.

  Two days later Gluck and Edith stayed at the Cumberland for the weekend. Gluck found her mother tired, irritable and distraught. Her clothes were a mess and she was not eating. Gluck saw her brother who made no mention of plans already made – for their mother to be committed to a mental hospital. On the morning Gluck was due to return to Steyning, the nurse told her that three doctors would see the Me
teor that afternoon. They did so, and made out an Urgency Order. The next day Louis lunched with his mother in the Grill Room of the Trocadero, then persuaded her to go for a drive with him, ostensibly to look at houses. They went to Moorcroft Hospital in Hillingdon, where she was committed. She was terrified and uncooperative, and the nursing staff had great difficulty in getting her to have a bath. That evening Louis phoned Gluck and told her what had happened. She was shocked and felt that her mother had been tricked and abandoned to strangers. She had not known such drastic action was even being considered. He had not made Gluck privy to it, nor told the hospital of her. ‘I was quite dazed’, she wrote in her diary, ‘by the terrible nature of what had been done and the way it had been done.’ When she telephoned Moorcroft she thought the doctors uninformative and unpleasant. They advised her against visiting for at least three weeks. ‘I endured the following weeks without any information except in one conversation with L. on the telephone who said she was very weak and had been diagnosed as suffering from disseminated sclerosis.’2

  Her brother excluded her from participating in this family tragedy. He was by now chary of her modus operandi and disliked dealing with her on any issue. No doubt he feared she would make a fraught situation worse. He was also at that time a prospective parliamentary candidate with hectic political commitments. Neither of them easily accepted the nature of their mother’s illness. Gluck’s perception of it was that the Meteor was under strain and in need of rest. Louis, while realizing more clearly how drastic the situation was, felt that she was being uncooperative in refusing injections and to be cared for in his family home. Gluck noted: ‘On my asking whether she would have to be at Moorcroft a long time he said, “Not while she behaves herself. If she continues to be stubborn and insist on having her own way I don’t know what will happen.”’3

  Dr Solomons explained the clinical realities: her condition could not improve, there had been a definite alteration in her brain cells and she was quite likely to survive in her confused state

  for some considerable time. This will mean she must be kept under proper supervision and control in some suitable place …

  Any visits by lay persons or relatives cannot be other than painful; mental illness is always painful, and especially in one’s near and dear relatives, and especially if the patient’s protestations and statements are viewed on any rational basis.4

  Gluck was wretched, angry and sleepless over it all. She felt that once again power was in the hands of her brother and denied to her. She perceived her mother as an innocent, rational victim, shanghaied by her brother, psychiatrists and the family doctor, and confined in bad quarters against her will. She reacted in her campaigning way:

  May 3rd

  Go to Moorcroft. Arrive unannounced at 11.45 am. Go straight to M’s room. Get a terrible shock. M. alone sitting up in bed right over in one corner holding her shawl tightly around her, her back pressed hard against the wooden back of the bed. She looked like someone in a trap waiting for the next assault. She said quite sweetly and quietly ‘Hallo, what made you come?’ but did not move her position and looked desperate. I said, trying to be cheerful ‘Hallo darling I’ve come to take you out for a drive, get your clothes on, I’ve got Knight here and the car, it will be fun.’ ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘I’m not going, they won’t let me you see.’ Sister Jane came in and was positively rude, saying ‘No, she can’t possibly go out.’ I told her Dr Myers had said a drive would do her good. I then saw a Dr Gilmour who said ‘I’m afraid you cannot take her out she’s not well enough.’ He said she had had a very restless night. I said did he not think she would be less restless if she went out a bit. He still refused and I had to accept the situation.

  … I was alone with M. from noon until 2.35. Her room was bare of flowers, none of the magazines I sent her were there, not a single personal possession except father’s photograph and a wireless she never uses. I sat beside her and she said ‘What have I done that I should be punished like this?’ ‘I have been shut away here to be got out of the way.’ ‘They have been given power over me and can do as they like with me.’

  She was resigned about it, quite aware of her situation, of the nature of the place and the fact that she was helpless. It was horrible and to comfort her I said ‘I will get you out of here.’ ‘Oh no,’ she said ‘You can’t do anything.’ But I assured her I could and would. Not once in the whole time I was with her did she wander or talk inconsequentially. Her pillow was very small with the ticking showing through the thin cover. Her bolster was so small and useless that when she sat up all she had to lean against was the hard wooden bed back. Her mattress was a disgrace and hard and sagging in the middle. Her bed linen was filthy, soiled, as was her nightdress. I had lunch with her. The lunch consisted of large unappetising slabs of cold, tinned meat, greens and potatoes. I could hardly touch mine, but M. ate every scrap of hers and some of mine.

  I had made an examination of her room before lunch. The cupboard was locked so I asked for the key. Inside I found her handbag. As I did not find her wedding ring in this, I asked Sister Jane for it. She said it was locked away in a cupboard in the hall. In the handbag I found M’s magistrate’s book, a terribly worn little purse with nothing in it, and a scrap of linen. No pen or pencil which she always had. On the linen I found some writing, done obviously in great distress. It must have been written before they took her pen away. ‘All things closing. Taken away. Watch. Very badly treated, no breakfast or tea or anything … water or drink.’ … It was like finding a message in a bottle in the sea. Dreadful.

  … I then asked her if she wanted me to share the responsibility for her affairs. At first she thought I meant that I wanted to share her possessions with L. and said ‘of course I want you to share equally’. I told her that was not what I meant, I had no interest in that, but did she want us to handle things for her together. She said ‘Yes’. So I told her if she would write this it would help. She agreed and wrote the following and signed and dated it. ‘May 3rd 1950. I want my daughter to share equally with my son any responsibility concerning my affairs. Francesca Gluckstein MBEJP. ‘Having written this M. then said ‘I want to keep a copy of this, I won’t give it to you till you give me one.’ I therefore wrote a copy and when she had satisfied herself by making me read her statement while she checked it with my copy, she gave me the original. I then put the copy in her bag with a footnote to say I had the original.5

  Gluck mounted this message behind a piece of perspex and kept it among her papers. She then started a ‘campaign’ to improve her mother’s circumstances and establish the facts of her own rights in the matter. She wrote down everything she saw, felt and heard about it all and got Edith, as witness, to sign and date these notes. Equal to her distress at her mother’s condition, was her anger with her brother. She wrote to Dr Solomons querying the committal orders. He urged her to come and talk to him. She refused, so he wrote to her with the details (12 April 1950): her mother had been seen twice by two senior physicians; she was suffering from senile mania; her physical condition was poor; she needed treatment; she had been certified ‘in accordance with the normal legal requirements … I would only add that I myself feel perfectly sure that the right steps have been taken.’

  He again urged her to come and see him, which she again refused to do. Instead she fired questions at a solicitor, a Mr Woodroffe: was it legal for her brother to commit her mother to mental hospital without consulting her? ‘I am the elder of Mother’s two children.’ Could not her brother and the doctors be compelled to give her full information? What were her powers to appeal against the certification? What were her visiting rights? Mr Woodroffe gave her no comfort. No information was being withheld from her. The doctors wanted to see her. Everything had been done according to procedure and ‘in a normal manner (apart of course from the fact that your brother has been so secretive about it)’. If Gluck felt her mother had been wrongly certified she was entitled to notify the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor, who would then
give another opinion.6

  While seeking to get ammunition against Louis Gluck was, at the same time, trying with both anger and desperation to make peace with him:

  Luigi dear things cannot go on like this. You and I must be able to meet and discuss Mother’s future together. Whatever grievances you may feel, real or imagined, must be forgotten now. We must really act together and make her last years decent and happy. At the moment the state of affairs is not only indecent but tragic. The only reason I am writing instead of rushing to see you is that the present situation is too serious for a meeting between us to be anything but pacific and loving and I don’t want to meet you till I know that our meeting can be so. I will try and tell you as briefly as possible what I found as I hope you will want to meet me in the way I suggest and then I can tell you everything:

  She then described in voluminous detail how sordid her mother’s quarters seemed to her – the lack of magazines or flowers, the pathetic little bolster, the sagging mattress, the ‘frightful little pillow one would not have given to a skivvy in the bad old days’, the high-handedness of the nursing staff, the shocking lunch –

  I could hardly bear the sight of it. Mother however wolfed it. There can only be two explanations for this, both of them horrible … I truly cannot endure this any longer … However ill anyone is you cannot take them suddenly from a life that included coming from an unrestricted personal room to a public restaurant with hundreds of people and a band playing and throw them into a strange place without a soul they have ever seen before and bereft of every personal contact and possession …