by Cecil Beaton
We stayed on until very late. Stulik, the fat old proprietor, waddled about sleepily begging people to go. The little canary dozed in a corner of its cage.
May 3rd
Lugged my portfolio to the office again, as J. C. Squire kindly gave my name to Longman’s for an interview this afternoon. I hate going about with the portfolio: I feel everybody is sniggering at the poor struggling artist.
The people at Longman’s were warm and jolly. I don’t think Mr Robert Longman understands anything about painting, but he’d heard from Squire that I was good. Squire had evidently been funny to him about me, said I’d been in an office for six weeks and didn’t yet know what was sold! At any rate, it was decided that I should do the dust jacket for Billie Williams’s book The President’s Hat and get four guineas. I didn’t think four guineas much. Robert Longman said they paid from three to five guineas for these things. If I were well known, I’d have been paid five; but I suppose if Squire hadn’t said, ‘Here’s a young man that is going to be good one day,’ they’d have paid only three guineas. All in all, I was pleased.
My next move would be to take the portfolio to Nigel Playfair, who is doing such interesting things at the Lyric Theatre.
When I got home hungry and depleted, everyone was talking about the strike. Tomorrow there would be no trains, no buses, no newspapers. I didn’t relish walking to Hammersmith, so I asked Reggie late in the evening if he’d like to motor me there now, before the strike. He wouldn’t and I understood and didn’t get annoyed. But Papa flew into a towering rage, shouting at me, ‘You want everyone to wait on you hand and foot! You never think of the expense for petrol and the run of the car. Why didn’t you think of it earlier?’ Etc.
I flared back at him, beside myself with bitterness. ‘The car has been running up to the Hampstead Cricket Club twice or three times a day lately. Reggie takes it whenever he likes, and never has the cost of petrol been taken into consideration. Is it any further to Hammersmith than Hampstead?’ Daddy became livid at being answered back. Effectively, too, I told him that if I’d suggested going to that morbid middle-class club in Hampstead there would have been no outburst. ‘Get out,’ Daddy shouted.
I got out. I sat in my bedroom feeling venomous, loathing my father. Here I was, at the damned office all day long. Unless I got some definite work in my line I’d never be free.
I reached a pitch of hatred and frustration when Mama came up and said, ‘Why did you want to take your designs to Hammersmith?’ I broke down completely, blubbing as I hadn’t done for years.
Mummie sat looking worn and unhappy. She tried to make me feel a little forgiving, to respect my father or, at any rate, to try and put up with him. I, meanwhile, overtired from working late on my drawings and skipping lunch, continued to weep hot, fat tears. I could hardly breathe.
After Mum left, I blew my nose. I lay on a wet pillow and didn’t go to sleep for a long time.
May 4th
My mother did her best to create an amicable atmosphere at breakfast, but I never spoke a word to Daddy. The General Strike meant no underground or buses; unless one had a car, one must walk to the City. I felt like an independent parlourmaid, and wouldn’t have stepped inside my father’s car if I’d been asked. I wasn’t asked.
I set off to walk to work, enjoying my dejection while everyone else seemed to be enjoying the strike. People felt important for being a part of the general crisis. Apart from the many pedestrians, a stream of unfamiliar traffic moved slowly through the streets. Lorries were piled high with giggling typists; old carts were chock-a-block full of women dangling legs and loving it all. ‘Such a lark,’ they seemed to be saying, ‘so new, so amusing, so bohemian.’
I walked in a straight line from Bayswater Road along Oxford Street to Holborn. I was the earliest bird. Soon the others dribbled in, all with stories to tell. That little wretch of a Miss Wildman, who still ought to be at school, had hiked it from Clapham. She was one of the heroines of the day. But then we found the greatest heroine in the tea shop below: she had walked for four and a half hours!
Mr Skinner prodded me to get off a letter to publishers, asking if I might pay them a visit to show my designs for dust covers. I drafted out a letter — original, unbusiness-like and impertinent. Mr Skinner’s alternative struck me as cringing and drab. I think that must be why people like him don’t get on. At length we decided on a compromise, which I typed out many times and sent off.
May 6th
I walked back from the office this evening and was pleased to find an array of letters from publishers willing to see me. Also Miss Todd of Vogue had written to say she is favourably impressed by my photographs and will let me know how many they will be publishing!
This was a beginning. I pictured myself inundated with orders for dust jackets, photographs, stage designs and paintings. Then I remembered that I am always being disappointed.
I went up the ladder — the one in the dining room. I am still gilding the moulding round the ceiling. What a messy job: my arm ached above my head, the treacly paint trickled down the brush on to my hand, my fingers stuck together and the smell gave me a headache.
May 8th (Saturday)
The mater was still in bed, but she had her heart set (at least I had) on being well enough to get up and present a scroll to the Queen at the Gentlewomen’s Club Meeting. Mum did go, looking very nice indeed, pale and smart. As her name began with a letter early on in the alphabet, she found herself first to make the presentation to the Queen, who looked ‘extremely handsome’. Her Majesty had a pristine pink and white complexion and rigidly waved white hair. She wore an ankle-length skirt and shoes with toes ‘turned towards heaven’ as N. and B. would say. She dragged her inevitable umbrella into the drawing room.
I went on with the gilding (I’ve only been at it three months). Loins came in to gossip. He told me about the days when he was butler to the Newtons in Regent’s Park. The Newtons had been neighbours of Gladys Cooper, who sued them for letting the bath water run into her house. She got sixty pounds damages, but six weeks later Gladys Cooper’s bath water ran into the Newtons’ house, and they got their money back!
Gilding took the entire day. I felt once removed from myself by night time. The strike got on everyone’s nerves. Loins became terrified when, from the height of the ladder, I threw a cigarette end into the fireplace. There were sparks. He jumped and gave a terrific, ‘Oo-er!’. Later he said he thought a striker had thrown a bomb through the curtained window.
During the night a lorry broke down outside the house. The driver tried to start the engine again, which banged and misfired. All the servants hurried in fright to hide in one another’s rooms. They thought a revolution had started! They’d heard wild stories about how the strikers were so desperate to win, doing this, that and the other to buses, old women and volunteers. All of which was, of course, poppycock.
May 25th
When I went to see Squire, I was nervous and awkward, dropping my umbrella and hat, convinced that everyone was secretly laughing at me. But nowadays I feel superior and definite. I march smartly in to see people without blushing or being clumsy.
Today being exceptionally slack at the office, I was able to visit quite a number of publishers. This morning to Fisher Unwin, where I got treated like the meanest commercial traveller.
I then went to Heinemann, and after keeping me waiting for twenty minutes the man who looked at my designs dismissed them as ‘rather rough’!
I went home and got down to enlarging photographs. Paul Cohen-Portheim has been writing me frantic letters from Germany because I haven’t yet sent the pictures for his arty magazines.
Baba helped me for some time, but the prints were so bad that I went on alone until the early hours of the morning.
May 27th
I don’t seem to have got anywhere since leaving Cambridge. The truth is, I don’t know what I want to do or be, and one can’t be successful until one knows what one wants to do. If I felt convinced about a
cting I could go ‘all out’ for the theatre, possibly even have a success. But then it occurs to me that Lady Curzon would think it rather low of me to go on the stage; she would immediately drop me. In reality, however, I don’t even know Lady Curzon! So my snobbery is wasted and useless. As a matter of fact, I am surrounded by the awful sort of people who go to charity balls. For them, it doesn’t matter a hoot whether I go on the stage or not.
Here I am, terribly swanky and snobby but utterly penniless, unable to afford all the things I would like to do. I loathe my existence at the office; the drabness of the underground and Holborn saps my vitality. I’m in an awful groove and don’t know how to get out of it. I know it is silly and wrong, but I believe I enjoy wallowing in my dejection.
June 1st
My God — June the first! And I’m still looking at the goddess with the lightning conductor on her head. That really does cut home!
None of my visits to publishers have come to anything, so I’ve cheapened myself for nothing. At Cambridge I used to have such a high opinion of myself. But now I see what a snob I am, even in my most sincere moments I harbour absurd and petty notions about fame. It all leads to nothing, only everlasting disappointment. Perhaps I am after wrong and impossible things — that is very likely true. Yet I want these things, I should like these unreal things to happen.
I haven’t seen Boy or any stimulating people. How can I, when it costs money and I am in debt? I try occasionally to earn a guinea or two from photographs in papers, but the fee barely pays for materials.
June the first — what a catastrophe! I ought to be enjoying my summer, instead of sitting in Holborn collecting moss. I’m twenty-two years old. That’s almost twenty-three. After twenty-five, I’ll be old.
I have almost lost confidence in my endurance. Yet I know that I’m talented in many ways. And I’ve got a tremendous personality. Something must happen!
June 8th
To Selfridge’s for the negatives of Mama resplendent in court dress. They were thin and not very sharp. It exasperates me when my photographs turn out badly — such a waste of time and money. I spend hours arranging things, dressing up sitters, dragging out all the lights. To have disastrous results is heart-breaking.
The negatives retouched and the evening was spent enlarging them with Baba’s help. But we couldn’t get the right exposure. Every attempt turned out so pale that a fortune in expensive paper was ruined.
June 11th
Schmiegelow sent me on an errand to Peter Lind, Ltd. I was to find out about some lost cement bags. I hadn’t even the money for a bus fare, so hoofed all the way.
When I arrived at an enormous building, I produced my little card: ‘John P. Carr and Co, represented by C. Beaton.’ This is the sort of identification travellers bring out with a flourish, but at the critical moment I fumbled and dropped it. The gentleman who received me, a Mr Hill, fixed me through his pince-nez while I grovelled under his desk.
‘You are John P. Carr?’
‘No, I’m C. Beaton.’
‘I see. What is the nature of your business?’
‘Cement bags.’
‘You make them?’
‘No, I believe we’re looking for some.’
‘Here?’
‘Well — uh — I — uh — don’t really know. I’m so incompetent.’
‘If that’s the case, I don’t know what you’re doing here.’
The cement bags were not found.
June 12th
I am always in a panic for fear that Schmiegelow, by some mischance, will arrive at the office before me. But though I arrive late, sometimes very late, he arrives still later. What is the point of arriving early, anyway? There is hardly anything to do. Schmiegelow asks, ‘Would you go and pick up some theatre tickets for me? Take this note to the Danish legation.’ Etc.
When I got home this evening, I found another, ‘the editor regrets...’. So now my article on the Charleston has been returned by all the papers. At any rate, if I couldn’t sell the Charleston I would learn how to do it. Cousin Tecia was returning to Birmingham, and N. and B. and I made her try to teach us before she left. We hung on to backs of chairs, jumping about like cats on hot bricks. Tecia made it look easy; she is brilliantly expert with her firm steps and unwobbly ankles. Yet jig, kick and laugh as we might, we couldn’t seem to get the knack.
CAMBRIDGE REVISITED
June 13th and 14th
I went to Cambridge for a night, just to visit old friends. Topsy Lucas was delighted to see me on Sunday afternoon. I told her I’d come up for Richard Sykes’[38] party. She said, ‘I am amazed to hear that you even know the hunting set.’ She said they sounded nice, but added, ‘Will you be a success with them?’
Lytton Strachey was staying with Topsy. He soon appeared in the doorway, cutting a marvellous figure, tall and anaemic. His beautiful hands are pale yellow, long and thin but useful. His voice is ridiculous — high-pitched, nervous, affected. He speaks quietly, each syllable most distinctly pronounced and rather dragged.
Topsy boasted of my affiliation with the hunting people. Lytton showed interest. His eyes twinkled as he commented that he would like to be liked by the cultured, hearty hunting men more than by anyone else.
Topsy uttered a horsey scream, ‘Oh, nohohh!’
Lytton, in his genteel dairy-maid voice, ‘Yes, yes I would. We’ve all been wanting to get in with that set for years.’
Dinner was over. The candles guttered in Richard’s room. Jack Gold and I, Richard and Ambrose Congreve lay about in a haze of port and brandy. Soon Jack became quite tipsy and started to reminisce (he enjoys doing that). He sang Lee White songs out of 1914 revues: ‘I shall see you tonight, dear, in my bee-eautiful dreamland’; ‘Goodbye, Madam Fashion,’ etc. Then we both sang Ethel Levey songs and remembered how unique she had been.
We were talking about Gaby Deslys and the King of Portugal when Richard Sykes observed, ‘You’re too young to know about such things.’ I replied proudly, ‘I have always considered myself of the Gaby Deslys period.’ Jack roared, ‘You go back farther than I do.’ We soon realised that to the young, Richard and Ambrose, we were being ‘old bores!’ We had never before considered ourselves anything but young and modern; it seemed funny to pretend that one’s ‘period’ had passed.
Jack and Richard said, ‘We’re going on a motor tour to visit the châteaux of the Loire at the end of July. Won’t you come with us?’ I said, ‘I’d love to go. Ask me again when you’re sober.’
Ambrose Congreve sat quiet as a tomb. Richard started to play the piano. We did a Charleston to the newest ragtimes. Jack leaped into the air like some cat doing a death dance. We then sang more revue songs, imitating the whole company doing the finale.
Ambrose was still bored when Charles Cavendish, Robert Adeane and John Ramsden barged in from a dinner party at Newmarket. Kicks and yells ensued. Robert pounced on Charles and tore open his boiled shirt. In the melée of legs and arms, someone knocked the sofa over. Someone else got hurt: ‘Oh, you are a bloody fool.’
I laughed. Jack, rather sober now, sat eating an apple.
At last the evening broke up. There was some difficulty as to where I should be sleeping. I suggested the sofa, but John Ramsden had first claim on that. Robert, Jack and I then staggered off to the Blue Room Hotel and knocked up the night porter. No room was available. That meant I’d have to go to Simon Whitbread’s dirty sheets (he’d gone away for a day or so).
It was now three o’clock. I didn’t relish climbing the ten-foot railings of Trinity in pitch blackness. Besides, I had my heavy leather bag — the new one Reggie gave me for my birthday. Robert Adeane helped with the luggage. Jack clambered over the nails and spikes without much difficulty. But when it came my turn, my trousers caught. I hung on for grim death, miles up in the air. At last I got free. Robert hoisted me the portmanteau; I lowered it to Jack, who let it down with a bang. I jumped into black space and we scuttled away, thinking the night porters would surely have heard.<
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It was blind man’s bluff groping in the darkness of Trinity. I went first, but forgot a descent of six steps and came a cropper. Jack immediately hared off like a rabbit. Porters scurried about, flashing torches through the darkness. Dazed and stupid, I staggered in the vague direction of Jack’s room. The stairs creaked. What a nightmare to be caught doing this sort of thing: in the ordinary course of events, one could be sent down.
With a terrific sigh of relief, I found myself in Jack’s room, but he hadn’t arrived yet. I then went to Simon’s room and found Simon in bed! He had returned a day earlier, so I would sleep on Jack’s sofa after all.
I returned to Jack’s room, wondering where he was (he still had my bag). I undressed, then waited. Had he been caught by a porter? Perhaps he’d crashed into a pillar and was lying hurt somewhere. I thought I’d better search for him. I felt my way along Neville’s Court, half naked. At length Jack was heard creeping along. All was well, he had simply gone back for the leather bag. No damage, thank goodness, and the porters hadn’t spotted him. ‘If they had, I’d have bribed them,’ he said grandly.
Jack decided to be gallant and unusually selfless, insisting on my having his bed while he took the sofa. Exhausted, I immediately fell unconscious, though my dreams were troubled at the thought of having to get up so early tomorrow and return to the hell of Holborn.
June, undated
I’d been wondering lately if I couldn’t get a job talking on the radio. I wrote to the BBC offering my services, and received a summons to be tried.
In fear and trembling, all bunged up with a bad cold, I found my way to the broadcasting place. This really was an adventure! I hadn’t told anyone except N. and B.
