In December 1945, the windows of the Parisian department stores were filled with animated toys for the first time in five years and children pressed against the glass in wonder. On Christmas Day, the house decorated with holly branches, Susan Mary gave a party in two languages before leaving to dine with the Coopers, the British ambassador and his wife. She was becoming a Cooper household regular.
IV
Affairs of the Heart
The Ambassador and the Madonna
When Winston Churchill named his friend Duff Cooper ambassador to France in the autumn of 1944, he was giving him a coveted gift, fully knowing how disobedient Duff was likely to be. Duff was convinced that Western Europe had to unite to resist the American and Soviet giants, and he felt that the cornerstone of this union should be a Franco-British alliance. He took it upon himself to start forging this bond, even though his government had told him otherwise. In Churchill’s opinion, becoming closer to France meant currying the favor of General de Gaulle, an idea that put him on the verge of an apoplectic fit. Foreign secretary Anthony Eden was in favor of strong Franco-British relations, but feared it might anger the Soviets. This lack of support did not worry Duff. It would not be the first time he had held out for what he believed to be right, and if he did not get his way, he would always have Paris, his favorite city, to console him, with the Travellers Club, the bookstores, and the fine restaurants he went to in the company of his many lady friends.
Duff was a man of contradictions. Firmly rooted in a traditional, conservative background, he loved work and study and was faithfully attached to his wife, all of which never stopped him from speaking his mind or seeking pleasure in all forms. His entire life, he always did what he felt was right and what he found enjoyable, even if other people thought or lived differently.
Born in 1890, Duff was the son of a respectable surgeon, Sir Alfred Cooper, and of Lady Agnes Duff, the daughter of one of King William IV’s ten legitimized children with the Irish actress Dorothea Jordan. Lady Agnes and Alfred Cooper were married, but polite society found it difficult to overlook the fact that she had been married twice before, even if she managed to settle down after the third marriage. She adored her only son, and had named him Alfred Duff—Alfred after his father and Duff after her maiden name.
Duff (he never used the name Alfred) was educated at Eton and Oxford before beginning his career as a diplomat in 1913, a position he abandoned for a few months during the war. He served bravely in the third battalion of the Grenadier Guards and returned with the Distinguished Service Order and a renewed appetite for life. A talented diplomat, Duff was certain that he would soon become a cabinet member. He possessed the joyful confidence that promises and facilitates success. He had a Regency air about him, and particularly admired two figures from that fascinating period: Charles James Fox, the renowned Whig Party politician, and Talleyrand, whose biography he would later write.
Women, literature, and politics were the three interests that occupied Duff’s time in equal proportions. His technique for wooing was to compose sonnets and seal the deal. This heady mix of assertive sensuality and intellectual romanticism worked well, and women were attracted in spite of his unremarkable physique, medium height, and round face. He married Lady Diana Manners, one of the stars of her generation, the youngest daughter of the lovely and artistic Duchess of Rutland. Diana was a beauty herself, blond and pale with the doe-eyed, startled expression of silent-movie actresses. Amusing and determined to have a good time, she surrounded herself with a group of friends who were her bulwark and her battle flag. Her looks, high birth, and wild reputation called for the scandalized admiration of her peers and tabloid readers alike, giving her a visibility she grew accustomed to with no trouble at all. She forced her disapproving parents to agree to her marriage to Duff on June 2, 1919, a union that caught the public’s imagination as a fairy-tale match between a princess and a commoner. In fact, the two were drawn together by a bond of mutual understanding. Diana’s brilliant exterior hid an intellectual inferiority complex and a tendency toward clinical depression; Duff brought calm and balance to her life and appeased her anxious narcissism more surely than drugs. In return, she was a great help to her husband, providing him with full access to Britain’s highest social and political circles. Diana’s sense of fun, eccentricity, and social position ensured that Duff would never be bored, and allowed him to escape the provincial respectability and petit bourgeois attitude typical of many politicians and civil servants. Diana always provided an irresistible spectacle, be it her shapely profile beneath enormous straw hats worn at even the most inappropriate occasions or the proud, splendidly theatrical towers of Belvoir Castle. Not least, she proved to be smilingly tolerant of Duff’s extramarital adventures, delights that he no more intended to give up than fine port, backgammon, and collecting first editions. She asked only to be kept informed, a request that was not always fulfilled. Thanks to his wife (although at what cost to her own peace, one has to wonder), Duff had the satisfaction of being both a loving husband and a dedicated womanizer.
The only thing missing from their tender, if not sensual, relationship was money. Duff wanted to leave the stifling, shadowy hallways of bureaucracy for the bracing atmosphere of the House of Commons, but getting elected was expensive. Diana took it upon herself to transform her childhood love of costumes and playacting into a career. Her heart-shaped face took light well and her name was already famous. She acted in two silent movies before starring as the Madonna in Max Reinhardt’s play The Miracle; hands clasped, looking up to heaven, she toured the United States during four long winters. She made enough money to allow her husband to run as a Conservative Party candidate. Duff’s career took off after his election in 1924 and he held a number of ministerial posts. Some said his future was as promising as Anthony Eden’s, while others wrote him off as a dilettante too easily distracted by women, gambling, and drink. In 1935, the prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, named Duff war secretary. Two years later, he was promoted to First Lord of the Admiralty under Neville Chamberlain, a post Winston Churchill had held before World War I and which came with a yacht and a beautiful residence in London.
It was a welcome nomination, in spite of the serious disagreements over foreign policy and defense that had long divided Cooper and Chamberlain. Duff was convinced that Germany’s bellicose attitude required a closer alliance with France, and had tried, in all the posts he had occupied, to accelerate British rearmament and create an expeditionary force for eventual intervention on the Continent. But such an alliance was unpopular among those in Conservative circles who felt France was too weak and vindictive and saw Germany as a shield against the Bolshevik threat. Backed by his cabinet and the political class at large, Chamberlain made economic recovery a priority, believing it would guarantee future social harmony. When evidence of Hitler’s ambitions became clearer, Chamberlain thought war could be avoided by coming to an understanding with Europe’s dictators. While Duff continued to argue in vain for the reinforcement of Britain’s naval capacities, Chamberlain took his policy of appeasement to its limits, signing the Munich Agreement with Hitler and sacrificing Czechoslovakia.
This was too much for Duff, who believed that the agreement was both morally unacceptable and politically dangerous. He could not stand behind a calculation that bought peace at the price of a sovereign state. Out of respect for international law and for Great Britain’s honor, he resigned from the government the day after Chamberlain’s triumphant return from Munich on October 1, 1938. Although some of his colleagues agreed with him, he was the only one who had the courage to leave his post.
Duff had been close to Churchill from the beginning and he had to wait for the great man’s return to power to resume his career. He would briefly serve as minister of information in 1940 before becoming special envoy to the Far East. Finally, in January 1944, he left for Algiers, where he became the British government’s representative to General de Gaulle’s French Committee of National Liberation. Worki
ng with touchy and distrustful de Gaulle was difficult and required all of Duff’s patience and tact. Not without reason, the general interpreted every move as an Anglo-American plot to prevent him from taking power in postwar France. Caught between Churchill and de Gaulle, two quick-tempered giants who had decided from the outset that they would not get along, Duff managed to be respected by both men, and to make himself useful. His reward was the job he had been hoping for: ambassador to Paris.
At the Hôtel de Charost
Diana was not thrilled at the idea of leaving Algiers. Had she been given the choice, she would have preferred to continue living in her pajamas until noon rather than face the responsibilities of an important embassy in a country for which she felt no particular attraction. Moreover, Diana’s favorite house was always the one she was about to leave. Still, she could not let Duff down, so, once again, she underwent a transformation and turned herself into an unforgettable ambassadress. The Hôtel de Charost, their new residence on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, was a vast, peaceful, and elegant house imbued with the spirit of Pauline Bonaparte, who had once filled it with the carefree merriment of her parties. Diana was a worthy successor. Whether a grand reception or an intimate dinner, every event held at the embassy had to be unique. Diana boldly ignored protocol, inviting her friends, mixing guests according to her fancy, and creating seating arrangements that paired off Aragon with Malraux; a comic like Noël Coward with the new prime minister, Clement Attlee; or Daisy Fellowes, reputed to be the most stylish woman on two continents, with the old Communist Marcel Cachin. This easygoing attitude led to criticism, both in Paris and in London. The Coopers, it was said, ought to be more careful about opening the embassy to people whose wartime activities had been less than impeccable. These mutterings went unheeded. Diana obeyed her own laws, and Duff, for his part, refused to blame those who had shown less courage than he had. He had no intention of getting involved in the internal conflicts of the French.
Whatever their reason for wanting to be asked, the guests all agreed that Lady Diana was simply marvelous. She entranced a number of men, from stout British statesman Ernest Bevin, who called her “Luff” and often tried to proposition her, to the last bey of Tunis, with whom she communicated by drawing on the table during an entire dinner. Cocteau immortalized the “pale blue pistol shot of her gaze,”1 and she dazzled the writer François Mauriac with “her adorable beauty.”2
Thus, without even trying to compete with other salons (the musical evenings of Marie-Blanche de Polignac, Lise Deharme’s mezzanine, Florence Gould’s lunches, the meetings of the Académie Française at Edmée de La Rochefoucauld’s, cosmopolitan gatherings at Marie-Louise Bousquet’s, and artistic ones at the house of Marie-Laure de Noailles), the British Embassy became one of the most sought-after centers of Parisian social life. Although she sometimes felt breathless from so much activity, Diana was happy as long as her husband was pleased.
Susan Mary entered the Coopers’ inner circle at the end of 1945. Diana had heard about her and invited her to the embassy with Bill. The beautiful Englishwoman was always surrounded by a bevy of admirers—courtiers, her detractors might have said. Her devoted retinue served and flattered her, treating her like a goddess, although on bad days she felt herself fit for the madhouse. To become part of the clique, one had to be beautiful, amusing, or both, and not too obscure or unconnected. Susan Mary met the requirements. She was pretty enough for the fearsome editor of Harper’s Bazaar, Carmel Snow, to have her regularly photographed, and so striking that Balenciaga sold her dresses at a special price for her to wear at society affairs as a mannequin du monde. She was also fashionable enough to be a regular guest of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Paris and Antibes. She could be trusted to make conversation about anything, from politics to gossip, and, unlike other society women, she was truly interested in the future of humanity. She read the morning papers not just to shine in the evening but because she had a genuine hope that peace might last and be even more exciting than war.
Still, Susan Mary was not at ease with her glamorous image. When Carmel Snow’s assistants admired photographs of her reclining on a sofa in a low-cut evening gown and said she looked like a painting by David, “mais très ladylike,” she disagreed, thinking she had an idiotic, frozen expression. She blamed herself for idleness since she had stopped working for the Red Cross and considered her French inadequate—for years she would keep making mistakes on the gender of nouns. The letters she sent home dwelled on supposed failures and brushed aside achievements. She described going to tea at the house of a Frenchman who immediately tried to get her into bed. She fought back like a frightened schoolgirl and fled, instead of withdrawing gracefully. The next day, her coat, hat, and gloves were returned and the rejected party became a close friend. She sighed with relief and noted, “Frenchmen may be wonderful lovers. I wouldn’t know. Certainly they are very good thwarted lovers, bearing no rancor.”3
Another story she told against herself was about the charity ball she organized for war orphans. She had reserved the Pré Catelan, a famous restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne, for May 28, 1946, but nobody was buying tickets. In despair, Susan Mary went one morning to the embassy, begging Diana Cooper for help. Sitting in her bed of red damask, a massive Empire affair with carved bare-breasted Egyptian figures, the ambassadress, who loved acting as fairy godmother, hatched a plan. The next day, she and Susan Mary made the rounds of the couturiers, ordering fabric, reserving masks, and loudly congratulating themselves on their good luck at finding a few things still available so near to the date of an important ball. The rumor spread, the tickets sold like hotcakes, and the fete was saved.
Susan Mary had long learned to hide and overcome her lingering feelings of inadequacy. Even more than Washington, Paris demanded that she camouflage any weakness and refuse to feel sorry for herself. One had to keep in line with the relentless perfection of society life. So Susan Mary played her role at embassy receptions with quiet grace, then went home and mischievously commented on them with Bill. Small parties were the best. At the end of the day, the regulars would gather around the fireplace in the green salon on the second floor and drink their liquor neat. There was Evelyn Waugh, whose friendship with Diana was as famous as the fits of rage he sparked off in Duff; Nancy Mitford, who watched her lover, Gaston Palewski, flirt with other women while noting the idiosyncrasies of her fellow guests for her next novel; and, above all, Louise de Vilmorin, enthroned at Diana’s side, gloomy when neglected and brilliant when everybody was listening to her. One evening, Susan Mary witnessed her fling a lump of butter to the ceiling (where it stuck) to bring herself back to the center of attention. The fiery intensity of Cocteau’s monologues scared her a little, but she thought it charming that Christian Bérard should throw himself at her feet in mock worship every time he saw her in a new dress.
Susan Mary was even more interested by the company of politicians and diplomats. There was no vulgar, personal motive in her desire to be near power. She liked seeing “history on the boil,” as Nancy Mitford put it, being present in a room where the fate of the world was being played out. She did not ask to be on the stage itself; a good place in the audience was more than enough, one from which she could see everything and be seen. For years, the British Embassy provided her a seat in the front row.
Indeed, there was much to be seen in 1946. Even as the peace treaties that were meant to put an end to the war were being negotiated, distrust grew among the Soviets, the English, and the Americans over German war reparations, elections in Eastern Europe, and the United Nations’ regulation of atomic energy. On March 5, Churchill was the first to speak of the iron curtain that had fallen across Europe. Familiar with embassies, Susan Mary got to know the leading players: Ernest Bevin, who had replaced Anthony Eden as British foreign secretary; Churchill, out of office but a frequent visitor; and Vyshinsky and Molotov, the Russian ministers of foreign affairs who represented the Soviet threat. A conference on Asian affairs was held that sum
mer at Fontainebleau; Susan Mary was introduced to, and greatly impressed by, Ho Chi Minh. Usually she behaved beautifully at these events, but one evening in September, she tripped up. Seated between Duff and Cocteau at a dinner, she mentioned the speech that had just been given by the American secretary of state, James Byrnes, concerning the need to rebuild Germany. It was quite the wrong thing to do. Ambassador Cooper held views similar to those of the French and was hostile to the idea of the German state rising anew. He exploded with rage. “Duff Cooper can be frightening,” she later concluded.4
Still, thanks to Susan Mary, the Pattens had become a fixture in the enchanted life of the Hôtel de Charost.
A Strange Affair
I found four letters from Susan Mary awaiting me. It is a strange, imaginative affair.5
—Duff Cooper’s diary, May 1, 1947
What does a kiss mean? The final touch to a pleasant evening, a sweet mistake, one drink too many? A trial run, a question asked, a promise given? A bolt of lightning, intense desire and fire in the veins? On February 27, 1947, after a dinner at the British Embassy, Susan Mary Patten kissed Duff Cooper, and the solid foundation of her well-ordered life shifted forever.
She had stopped loving her husband a couple of years earlier, and had taken pains not to let him notice. Gentle, kindly Bill deserved the pretense of conjugal bliss. Too many people, she felt, let the fabric of their marriages unravel out of carelessness or a misguided idea of truthfulness. There was no reason for Bill to catch cold just because she had fallen out of love. He had enough to worry about between his asthma, which had not improved in spite of treatments, and the constant threat of losing his job and being called back to the United States. It was best that he remain under the illusion that their relationship still made sense and had substance. Susan Mary had suffered a miscarriage early in their marriage, and the absence of children already made him very sad—she did not want to add to his grief.
American Lady : The Life of Susan Mary Alsop (9781101601167) Page 5
