by Diana Cooper
I am at Chantilly with St. Martin’s summer going on outside but I’m abed with 101 temp. and only hoping it isn’t going to be bronchitis – and the Arc de Triomphe party arriving today. I walked Papa round the dahlias at Sceaux yesterday and didn’t feel too bad, but by the time I got down here I was really ill. Better this morning and I sent for an old peasant to apply ventouses16 and I hope – how I hope – it will be thrown off by tomorrow.
Post just arrived. Very brilliant Evelyn Waugh’s new book Helena – special copy of thickest paper, widest margins and bound in white. A letter announcing her arrival from Freya.
Chantilly
October 10th, 1950
So Papa’s gone to London. It’s been the hell of a day. Papa’s not at all used to trouble. It’s funny for one who is never out of it to see the stranger swept in a twinkling into that horrid country, not knowing the language or what defences to use. First he found on arrival here two letters, the first from his partners in that firm he doesn’t know anything about complaining that they’d waited for him at a business lunch. As this is the third time he’s forgotten it’s begun to frighten him.
The other letter was from the Director of Naval Intelligence saying a ‘buzz’ was going round that a book from Papa’s pen was due to appear on the subject of Operation Mincemeat. If it was true, he would like to make it clear that he would oppose its publication with all he’d got. Very upsetting – I’ve always expected it. Papa the optimist felt sure he’d get away with it and consulted the man who’d arranged it and he consulted Antony Head on the W.O.17 Board. M.I.5 is all right and Winston told the story at a dinner party. If the D.N.I. succeeds in banning it, it will be too bad for us and cruel to Rupert Hart-Davis, who will necessarily lose a lot as it’s due out on November 2nd so all printed and bound. Compton Mackenzie wrote such a splendid piece in the little Book Society paper – try and get it. It was made alternative Book of the Month too. So I’m alone in the house.
Next morning: took a death dose and slept like the Seven only to be woken at cockcrow by a telephone erreur. Papa has rung up to say the D.N.I. has disappeared to the golfing suburbs and left his underling to help. The idiot was accepting this and going to see the flea of the flea, because the D.N.I. is not the body – he’s only a huge flea. So I yelled and swore and begged him to dig out the Big Flea. The little flea will only send in a report that will be returned marked ‘No’, whereas Duff could read his book aloud to the D.N.I. and wring tears from him and melt his heart and break his pigeonholes and burst his red tapes. I begged him yesterday not to go without making quite sure his target was reachable, but Papa always knows best.
Chantilly
October 21st, 1950
P.L.’s back, a dream of bronzed beauty, bearing petits fours and a nice doggy smile. The child is in him still and I’ve made a profound discovery about our country and this one – nobody has the child in them here. Winston, Max, Papa, Belloc, Maurice, Antony Head, most nice women (not Nancy) but Jenny and Freya and Pam and Barbara, etc. And why none of the French (except Louise) have that precious vestige is because they’ve never had it in crawlers or sailor suits. They’ve always looked and been knowing and suspicious adults, without the child’s honesty and generosity and vagary.
I’ve discovered that Prince Paul is tremendously greedy. He was so austere at La Reine Jeanne18 that I thought of him as an ascetic hypochondriac – still, the greediest of us went slow on that menu. Here yesterday he ate twice of everything plus a Stilton I’d managed to buy in London plus all the petits fours he could lay hands on. K. Humbert19 said he’d always been the greediest boy he knew. A nice King, very de la bande,20 and bald as a coot, and twenty years ago I left him maned like a lion. Everyone I introduced him to seemed to live in Italy – Auberon in Portofino, Bertie Landsberg21 at Malcontenta, Freya might have been there and that would have been another, at Asolo. All may return but him, poor thing.
Two nice days alone with Papa – gardening, working and reading aloud The Outcast of the Islands.
Chantilly
October, 1950 (Saturday)
I’ve been in bed eleven days. I don’t get a bit better – always 100 temp., always an appalling migraine through the endless and hideous night. A nurse exactly like Margaret Rutherford gives me a morning injection in the buttock of something as simple as Friar’s Balsam, for the bronchial tubes that the doctor guaranteed clear. Can you beat it? She sweeps all the tables clear of their objects with the tide of her cape and tells me that doctors have lost their intuitive powers on account of too many aids and tests. My doctor hasn’t been near me since he first saw me six days ago. Yesterday in a rage I got him on the telephone. He told me qu’il était grippé,22 but he’d come all the same. He didn’t, neither has he telephoned this morning so if my spirit has the force I’ll call him and ask him his temp. and his respiration and if his bowels have been open.
Papa came back after his happy day with you and dark delightful nights at the Dorchester. Here he has me migraining and moaning and wringing myself out of sweats and having a bath and asking him to read me to sleep again.
The Pretender of France23 and his eleven children have been allowed to settle in Paris. ‘The noble County Paris.’ Mogens said ‘Ve are vondering who the Parises vill go around with.’ I bet a lot are vondering. A play came out two nights ago by an homme du monde called Fabre-Luce about the Resistance, debunking it. Mort pour Rien it’s called. Aren’t they pets?
Chantilly
January 24th, 1951
P.L.W. summoned me to Versailles to meet Eisenhower, visiting the Mendl house to ‘get a perspective’ also to revisit his headquarters of 1944 – Le Noviciat. Van der Kemp24 was invited too but he arrived early, squatted down in the salon blanc, where sleep overcame him and out he stretched yawning just as it was all over. I didn’t think Ike was a bundle of charms – though he tries to please. He told us of a murder plot during that last German effort in 1944–5 and how his garden was bristling with protecting guns and ’tecs and hand grenades ready to throw at the assassins. Meanwhile an unfortunate double was found – a man to stand in for him – to be dolled out in C.-in-C. uniform and medals and to be driven round in a motor car followed by armed jeeps to be shot at. What an unpleasant role to be cast with! But he answered my sympathy with ‘The double came to see me and I was horrified what an ugly little fellow they’d chosen to represent me.’ Not very funny but all he said.
We dined with the Burckhardts to hear Louise read her new story aloud. Madame de it’s called. I finished and adored Enid’s book.25 Papa doesn’t think it so good as I do. It’s not a bit like me, and I fear he has told her so. My fault for telling all and sundry that it was to be a photographic study of me in age. Lady Maclean (God’s teeth) and Ruby too (what an appalling name) never comes to life. The central figure she is meant to be is a noble serene shadow, almost my opposite, with no fears and frailties, panics, pains. She loses her husband not by death and has a strained relationship with her only child. Pray God these two horrors are not in store for me. There are some splendid character sketches of others in the cast, and a lot of the writing touches me deeply – but O the name! It makes one long for an oven to put one’s head in and have done with the struggle called living.
Chantilly
February 12th, 1951
So, Graham Greene rang up in his surprising way and said come and lunch with Katherine26 at Véfour. He always does it on arrival in France, it’s always an enormous success, the meal rollicks; and then no other come-togethers – no correspondence, no telephone enquiries – no plans till the next sudden message from Paris. So we came to Chantilly after a lunch of oysters and beef for them, and a dish for me of such richness that never again can I even think too hard about it. Tranche de foie gras hidden in frothy creamy sauce – wonderful, but it took two days discomfort and calomel pills, salts and bed and veganin to get on top and then rid of it.
Party yesterday. When Graham Greene arrived I could see he was in terrible shape
. He told me at once that he had been up till 5 a.m. discussing a play in French adapted from The Power and the Glory with Jouvet27 and others and a lot of whisky. I took him alone to the drinks room to ask what palliatives he needed. Alcohol he thought. A stiff gin he hoped would steady his hand enough to get the glass to his lips without the help of his other one. I suppose the truth is he’s a big double drunk and that’s why he looks like Sinclair Lewis and as though he had been seared. I can’t make out about his faith. I think it’s guilty love has put him all out. Hence The Heart of the Matter. He said he hadn’t spoken to Padre Pio28 (you know, Auberon’s saint in S. Italy). He’d been to his Mass which had lasted an hour and a half, tho’ he and everyone else thought it had taken the usual twenty minutes – but he was frightened to talk to him as he feared he might alter his life.
Hugo walked with him after lunch and bombarded him with journalist questions such as ‘tell me Mr. Greene, is The Heart of the Matter autobiographical’. He admitted to Hugo that he would welcome death but that may have been due to alcoholic depression or desire to be free of Hugo’s questions, or again the only road to repentance. I think he is a good man possessed of a devil and that Evelyn contrary to this is a bad man for whom an angel is struggling.
Villefranche
February 22nd, 1951
Papa’s 61st birthday
I wonder if you have heard of the car tragedy? After a very successful journey bathed in rain as far as Aix, in sun, mimosa ever since, we came first to Eddie’s superb hotel not far from Cannes. After a nice evening, a visit to Opio the following day – lunch at the Vol au Vent in Cannes Harbour – we arrived at Monte Carlo to board Daisy’s yacht. A bit of a disappointment for me that Daisy had not put me into her cabine-de-luxe but in an ordinary underwater bunker. I suppose natural really – but otherwise very pleasant and independent.
We went up to dine with her that first night, and we came back at 10.30. I parked my car along with many others on the quayside – rather far from this ship because Papa hates backing.
At 1 a.m. we heard steps as heavy as Noémi’s run above us on deck and half an hour later the steward in unattractive déshabille came to say the car was in the water. Nothing to be done, no good staring into inky depths – full fathom five. Next morning the diver arrived to salvage the poor monster. It took about four hours and in the doing of it everything seemed to give, so the hood29 disintegrated completely – the triplex windscreen shivered – the bonnet and fenders in frills and tatters and God knows what of the engine. It was hauled off to the garage. I have not yet had a report – the wreck looks total to me.
Undaunted, in my own inimitable way I bought a second-hand Simca the following day. It cost 300-odd pounds and is a dear tough little thing – it will do as a Paris runabout or for you in England – it is 3 h.p. Cruises at 80 kms. if given time – holds two, luggage and is advertised as having an appétit d’oiseau.30 Also it’s so small it’d cost nothing to transport abroad.
Wonderful sun, icy cold. Dinner last night with Willie Maugham, his minion Alan Searle and Raymond Mortimer. Literary conversation at which Papa did not let Willie get a word in. Papa has taken on to please Caroline all the gains and losses and liabilities to Opio to save the rich Duffs the trouble. He never consulted me, but it will be me who has the sweat and strain. Josette and husband31 had all the complaints ready, the chimney had fallen in and all but killed the baby, olives untended, etc., etc. I might have been back at Chantilly. Norah writes that Noémi has taken her dismissal calmly, but means to leave immediately. I’m rather glad – but aren’t they all shits? I wrote to her to say I had done nothing about a successor and that she was to stay as long as she liked – anyway until she found a really good place.
Villefranche
Feb. 25th, 1951
I dined last night on the Vanguard.32 Daisy’s yacht sailed from Monaco – the owner aboard. Such a bustling and banging and sliding down companions dragging anchors, heave-hoing, abafting and all aboards from dawn till 8.30 when she arrived. The crew hasn’t been out since September so it’s a liberation for them. Daisy in seaman’s jersey, divided blue short skirt, scarlet jacket and netted hair looked just the thing. The boat rolled pleasantly enough, the sun glittered and we sat under its slight warmth till after a gay little nursery lunch on board when the mistral took over with rain and depressing skies. Vian33 came to visit us as soon as we anchored – Vanguard sent up signals of loving welcome which we misread and sent up an answer that didn’t fit and wrong at that – a solecism drawn immediate attention to by the Admiral to Daisy’s discomfiture. He came with an invitation to dinner, which we didn’t want but being caught unprepared with an excuse found we had to accept. He also came to thrust upon us the responsibility of the First Sea Lord’s programme of pleasure. He showed himself the autoritaire martinet he is supposed to be. I obediently wrote out suggestions for each hour of the thirty-six. To invite S. Maugham and Daisy to lunch at the Château de Madrid, to go dancing at Cannes for dinner with Duff, me and any girls I can induce to dine there that night, for Lord Fraser to swing round with. The ship was a fair treat, a huge Nelson column as a table centre and some kind lady in Lisbon had presented a flock of small glass pigeons to make the board more Trafalgar-Square-like.
The other night we dined with Esmond Harmsworth in that house of hideous34 and happy memories. After, Daisy and I sat for twenty minutes while the men caroused with Esmond’s daughter, Lady Errington, a great beauty of twenty-eightish, very English, middle class, Swan & Edgar and curiously uninhibited – for in answer to questions about her three children she told me, unsmilingly that she did not like her daughter (aged seven) because she smelt so badly. ‘Yes, from birth we never liked her smell – now the boy (aged four) smells all right. Rolly and I agree on it. The baby – well he’s 50–50’.
Sister Anne35 is as top heavy as a ninepin, the sea is blue glass and all the objects have been laid on the floor and I can hardly keep my seat.
April 25th, 1951
69 Rue de Lille
Papa went to Paris in the p.m. to fetch Lord Linlithgow – a man I’ve always loved, not only for his brontosaurian shape but for his odd humour and fund of information.
So all our outlook and our spirits were coloured and warmed by spring and the next day broke more lovely than the last with a light hoar frost at 7 a.m. Who can all those who came to luncheon have been – I can’t think of a name or a face yet we were eleven. Little walks were taken to the cascade – little drinks – large and generous admiration by all for the Battersby panels. That evening we all motored up, me in a diaphanous crinoline naked to the waist, Ld. L. and Papa laden down with orders (Lord L. is a Knight of the Garter) in the camionette with Mum at the wheel. We looked rum I can tell you, Pierino crouching in the luggage section.
St. George’s dinner at the Cercle Allié was the occasion. I sat next to Oliver Harvey and Brontosaur. Every one spoke – the Consul told a story – Papa spoke best. Over and back to the truck, crinoline shoved in, crosses clanking.
On Tuesday Lady Brontosaurus came down to lunch – she’s of the same race – she brought and left Jenny and took her own dear beast. The weather was still as lovely. The border is not half bad. Norah is beaming and ineffectual rather, Jenny dreadfully spotty, Susan Mary brought Bill and a Boston brute called Charlie Adams. She must have died of shame, the whimpering snarl that he uses for talk was only heard once.
May, 1951
69 Rue de Lille
Paris
I had an evening of historical honour that needs telling before it’s forgotten. I went to dine with the Windsors – alone since Papa was at Ascot. It was a large friendly dinner – a prelude to Elsa Maxwell’s orgy at the Restaurant Laurent. Evangeline of course the loveliest in a Dior dress of white tulle draped in roses and elegant as a Third Empire picture. She went up in flames after dinner, no one rushed to help with rugs or knocked her down and rolled her in the carpet. She put her own fire out and had to go upstairs to have the charred
ends cut out. Meanwhile Bestegui knocked over a glass with the tail of his coat and broke it resoundingly enough for the Duchess to run across the room and brush the pieces of glass sticky with stale cocktail, with her white ostrich fan – it was a gesture of grandeur, but the contaminated fan should have been handed over for destruction to the liveried blackamoor, and not kept to coquette with.
Dinner was as usual excellent, ending as an oxymoron savoury – slices of thinnest crispy bacon coated dryly in toffeesque molasses. Elsa’s party cards told guests to dress as they felt their best. I had a new off the floor sober tho’ ample dress from Griffe – so this I wore as the belle(?) jardinière36 with large straw hat and basket of beautifully arranged Chantilly flowers on the arm. In spite of a baby’s rotten nappy in the bottom of the pannier I put so much moss soaked in water to keep the flowers fresh that I left trails and pools where’er I walked. Always I’m like the unpopular man victim who was asked to go to the nudist dinner, went starkers and found all the others in grande tenue de soir.37 So I was the only one dressed up. True, Wallis had had her hair blue powdered and spangled – a chef d’oeuvre really. She wore a short expensive white satin dress, common twinkly feet and the soiled fan, but looked remarkably fresh and alarmingly over-excited, jitterbugging, talking too fast and too repetitively and, with only her pure face to deny the supposition, hopped to the teeth. Mrs. Donaghue – the mother of the beastly young pansy who Wallis has selected for her scandal and presumably for her lover – was present, as was the scandal himself.
