by Cecil Beaton
Wallis decided to rest. I wandered about the house. Another photographer, who formerly worked for Vandyk, had taken a few shots when my sitting was over. The Duke and Wallis laughed, as he was old-fashioned and chose the darkest, most over-ornamented room in the house to feature them, standing bolt upright against an enormous fireplace. This photographer now came up to me and gave me his card, saying he knew no reason why there should be enmity between rivals. I looked on him with condescending superciliousness. Later, I had reason to think differently.
The guests came back for tea, staggering after their enormous lunch. Baba Metcalfe confided to me her quiet amazement at the Duke’s unalloyed high spirits. He had made no mention of England or his family (and I said nothing of the momentary pique at the turret window). But, even as Baba spoke, the Duke seemed once more preoccupied with things other than at hand. He stood on the lawn with his back to us, head lowered while he stared into space. He stood still long enough for me to click the camera for an introspective photograph. Beyond him the dogs wandered about, ignored for the day — the greyhound, the saluki, the endless cairns.
Tea was on now. Wallis’s Aunt Bessie officiated. The Duke talked earnestly to the parson. The Metcalfes looked calm; Sir Walter Monckton smiled nicely; Allen wore a grave air. Rogers admitted that he had a headache and was in a bad temper, though his Press announcements were about at an end. Mme Bedaux persisted in saying inconsequential things. She has been staying in the same house with the Duke for weeks; yet this morning she greeted him with a fatuous bob of the head, ‘Nice to see you again.’ M Bedaux hovered about.
Forwood seemed pooped but alert. He confided to me how deeply hurt the Duke was because certain of his personal friends had not materialised for the wedding.
It was soon time for me to be leaving, with the suitcase I had packed in case they relented and allowed me to stay for the wedding tomorrow. But that proved impossible. Only four representatives of the press had been invited; and I could scarcely be permitted to stay when so many intimates had been excluded.
On leaving I kissed Wallis goodbye: not because she encouraged me to, but I felt moved by all that was happening.
I came away with photographs that, had they been for sale in the open market, would have commanded a fancy price. With the Queen Mary sailing tonight, prints would arrive in America a whole week before the press photographs tomorrow. One agent told me that fifteen hundred pounds had been paid for the first Coronation pictures; and these were of equal historical interest. But my Vogue contract precludes such negotiations. The bulk of my work was exclusive to them. However, Mrs Chase had agreed that any photographs that Vogue did not want could be given to the general press.
This called for a certain celerity. I was pent-up in the train coming back to Paris. By the time I grabbed the aeroplane to London early the next morning, I fancied myself being presented with a cheque that would enable me to clap a new roof on the studio at Ashcombe; the rough chalk road down the valley could be made navigable; I’d give presents to my mother and all my friends.
Still counting chickens, I landed at Northolt and rushed to a conference with Vogue. But even as Miss Joseph, at home, was bargaining with the press about the price of pictures I might or might not have left, surprise overtook us. There was already a large photograph in the Evening Standard of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor standing bolt upright against an enormous fireplace in a dark, over-ornamented room. The old-fashioned photographer had seized the day! His effort was already being radioed to the USA, with prints on board the Queen Mary. I felt like a hare outrun by a tortoise.
Part XVIII: An English Summer, 1937
May 1937, London
Today has been a typical day. The telephone wakened me at an ungodly hour. It was Peter, wanting me to go riding with him in Richmond Park. Exhilarated I returned by eleven o’clock to work like a fiend at my desk; an article, correspondence, bills before Daisy[69] arrived to be photographed. She looked so perversely alluring that something unconventional had to be done. She was game to materialise from a shell: a conch Venus.
Then off to the back of the stage at Covent Garden for a rehearsal of Turandot. Goeffrey Toye showed me the workings of the various stages and technicalities.
At the Chelsea flower show, the remarks of the crowd were the soul of England speaking. I bought clematis and tobacco plants for Ashcombe; Peter admired the arrangements of vegetables in pyramids.
Tea at Daphne Weymouth’s new house. I swung the children above my head, around my waist and under my legs.
A quiet dinner at Sybil Colefax’s, followed by Tallulah’s Walpurgis night. Marian Harris, mad as a march hare, sang. Tallulah danced frenziedly, throwing herself about in a mad apache dance with Napier Alington. After he left, she wept and bemoaned the fact that he had never married her. Then she threw off all her clothes, performing what she called ‘Chinese classical dances’. In the midst of these outrageous situations, one had reluctantly to drag oneself away.
LUNCH WITH STEPHEN TENNANT
Stephen Tennant has come back into circulation again after a long illness in Switzerland. He has not only recovered physically, but seems mentally many years younger as well. His mind is as alert and unexpected as ever.
I remember Stephen’s stepfather saying that he should not draw, as he had a talent for writing. Certainly his language is exceptional; and he can always find the exact, telling word. Arriving late for a lunch appointment with Sir Charles Ritchie, he proffered a bunch of delphiniums saying, ‘Such a forgiving blue!’ But Lord Grey’s assessment was only half right, for Stephen’s drawings are also remarkable. He can unflinchingly undertake great feats of endurance with pen and pencil.
The above was provoked by a recent glimpse of our rara avis when he gave a lunch party at Wilsford. Since Lady Grey’s death, the house has been entirely redecorated, to a bizarrely gay effect. Instead of dark oak and morris chintz, ice-cream colours prevail. There are typical flights of fancy: the old oak staircase whitened and hung with fishnets and cork; petals strewn on a pink carpet; gilded shells fixed to ceilings; revolving postcard stands; bunches of artificial flowers strewn on cushions; clumps of coral and pearl.
About six women and myself turned up for lunch. Lady Violet Bonham Carter served as an ideal foil for the host. Her head is suggestive of an Etruscan frieze and she talks in the manner common to Bloomsbury intellectuals, shuts her eyes and sways her shoulders to and fro. With her, Stephen assumes a hard, dry, annihilatingly cold voice. It means he is choosing his words with special care. Together, they describe the various cries of birds. One bird (I forget which) has a startled somnambulist’s cry.
The lunch seemed typical of Stephen. Punch was served — a mixture that looked like melted jewellery and matched the vermilion flowers on the table. The food was very highly coloured, chaudfroid of chicken decorated with circus designs, many sweets and cut-up fruits. Stephen, anxious to please, amused us no end with his qualms. While we waited interminably for the first course, he observed that a Sleeping-Beauty coma must suddenly have come over everybody in his kitchens.
Our host expatiated on the books he had been reading. Of late, he had confined himself to Flaubert, Balzac, Proust and Verlaine. We then looked at scrapbooks of old photographs, and he rhapsodised suitable texts. Some very ordinary pictures of Garbo were brought to life by apt ecstasies. In a breathless voice: ‘Look! Look at the beauty of that! It’s the aurora borealis. She’s not a cinema star: she’s something much greater. As E. M. Forster said, “She is that rare exception, an occasion when the vast public unanimously approves of what is truly magnificent.” Think of it: three continents worship her to the last man. And this: it has the tragic quality of a child. Here’s another picture — rugged, almost rude with insolent health. And again, how infinitely pathetic.’
A BALL AT DITCHLEY
Twilight is the most heart-yearning time of day. This evening it was uncannily beautiful — the trees wrapped in a slight haze of blue, the corn long and lil
ting, the cows stuck stationary amid daisies and buttercups, as if placed there for the effect.
We were in the right mood for the ball that had been planned for us at Ditchley, and here it was: an enormous eighteenth-century doll’s house of honey-coloured stone, as brightly lit from without as within. Through the tall windows the gold ceilings and chandeliers sparkled. Canopied beds could be glimpsed upstairs; the great front door stood open to the stream of guests and the balmy velvet evening. Yellow roses tumbled over the balustrades at the entrance steps. Every detail had been carefully thought out. I hardly knew anything of my host and hostess, but automatically warmed to them for this treat.
Diana and I explored from room to room, admiring the fine taste of the Kent furniture, plaster swags, painted ceilings and chinoiserie carvings on the brocade. Especially for this evening, pink, blue and yellow flowers burgeoned from gold urns. The heads of peonies were architecturally massed in solid cone formation.
The tent for dancing had been decorated by Oliver with garlands of Empire leaves. Fantastically dressed plaster heads were swathed in brilliant Boldini wisps of tulle. In the surrounding floodlit gardens, water and fire were reconciled as fountains played through the fireworks display.
All the women had been asked to wear red and white. Caroline Paget looked the most beautiful storybook princess of all. Her escort, a white-faced, shy but proud Rex Whistler, had designed her a dress of scarlet and white stripes, the bodice thickly encrusted with white flowers.
Nothing could have been more rustic or poetic, except perhaps for another young couple who might have been painted by Rex as a fairy tale illustration. Valerian Wellesley, with heavy-lidded eyes, fair hair, fair eyelashes and moustache, looked a prince disguised as a footman as he waltzed by in his dark-green hunting coat and brass buttons. His Hans Andersen partner, in the person of Patricia Douglas, wore a meagre dress of pleated white chiffon, her hair straight as a page boy’s. She looked so white, frail and delicate that I felt she might vanish at any moment. I followed her about, out on to the terrace, wondering if she were not a creation of the moonlight.
REX WHISTLER
September, London
Dinner with Rex. There could scarcely be a nicer way of spending time. More than any among all my friends, Rex has an aura which improves the more you are with him and the older he becomes. His sense of repose, no doubt, springs from an unruffled, poetic and calm interior world. Rex has a tawny elegance; though he may sum up contemporary situations and passing foibles with understanding and wit, his atmosphere is nevertheless that of an older man of another century.
Perhaps this anachronistic solidity is the very reason for Rex’s being more laurel-crowned than almost any young painter today, especially by the older generation of cultured aristocrats. And recognition has come to him in spite of his putting every obstacle in its way: Rex makes himself almost impregnable, hardly ever answering letters or the telephone.
I called for him at Brook House. He was exhausted, looking very grey and white as he worked on the grey and silver decorations of landscape and motifs for Edwina Mountbatten’s boudoir. I didn’t envy him. The prospect of having to complete the details he has already mapped out for himself would fill me with despair.
It was only after he had eaten a little and drunk a lot that Rex felt able to expand. He then regaled me with characteristic personal descriptions of his weekend stay with the King and Queen at Balmoral.
His great interest, quite naturally, had been in the objects, furnishings and gardens of the castle. All seemed a blazing brightness of colour. Hundreds of vases held Victorian bouquets of flowers that had been freshly and brilliantly arranged. Bright gilt clocks, glass-domed objets d’art and albums abounded. The carpets were brilliant flowered or plaid.
The garden struck Rex as being peculiarly fantastic, with many leaden statues of John Brown, of stags, deer and dogs. The emerald-green lawns were studded with Wellingtonias, each planted by some illustrious name.
In preparation for the royal event, Rex had borrowed a wrist-watch so that he could be on time for meals. But the equerries proved indefatigable, tapping on the door to announce, ‘It’ll be all right if you come down in five minutes’ time.’
The hours had been long. Everyone came down for breakfast at eight o’clock or eight-thirty (I forget which). This in spite of the fact that, on the night of the Ghillies Ball, no one went to bed until three in the morning.
The Ghillies Ball was held in an enormous Gothic hall. Here they danced ceaselessly throughout the night. The King and Queen jigged with great abandon. The Queen ducked under huge ghillies’ arms in the various complications of the reels. Pipes squealed, people hooted and laughed. The complicated footwork of the prancing men was displayed to advantage by virtue of their spats. Even old Princess Marie Louise twinkled her toes by the hour. Rex commented on how surprisingly independent and assured all the Scots were, communicating a staunch feeling of being as good as anybody, unsurpassed by no man.
Part XIX: Manhattan Rhythm, 1937 and 1938
Photography, bringing its quick results and quick returns, suited the staccato mood of these years and absorbed much of the time. I spent a part of each winter in Manhattan.
Hence the following:
THE LINE-UP
New York, 1937
Esmond O’Brien[70] arranged for me to see the line-up at police headquarters. When I arrived, Inspector Donovan rather stunned me by saying, ‘Mr O’Brien has asked us to look for you. Who in hell is Mr O’Brien?’ At any rate, I was allowed to take my place among the gold-badged detectives.
Last night’s haul of arrests was brought on to a glaringly lit stage. From the front row of the stalls the director pulled them to attention. ‘Turn your face towards the microphone. Take your hands out of your pockets.’ In turn each man must be scrutinised with his hat on and off. One fellow tugged at the felt brim and pulled it way down on to an eye — tough guy. Another wore his on the back of the head — nonchalant charm. Others clapped their headgear straight on top of the pate, making them look slightly ridiculous.
Tics and nervous gestures abounded. Several suspects pulled at their lapels. Many twisted fingers, averted their gaze, or in babyish fashion lowered heads and eyelids.
An interrogator then asked, into a microphone, each in turn just the question they least wanted to answer. ‘Sam Katzenplattinger, you were arrested at the Brentford Height subway stop. Is it true that you put your hand in the pocket of a man asleep on the bench in the subway, and extracted the sum of three dollars and fifty cents?’
‘Nope.’ Reply was monosyllabic in most cases.
The majority seemed hardened toughs, but there were a few pathetic youngsters who did not seem to be rogues but had got caught out in some mischief that proved to be reason for arrest. One handsome Italian stood to attention side by side with his caricature of a buddy: a wizened and attenuated dwarf. ‘You two were found in a shop at 189th Street and Broadway. How did you get in? Did you force the door? Did you break a window?’
‘We wasn’t doin’ nothin’. We was sleepin’ there. When we wanted to get out the place was locked.’
‘Have you been arrested before?’
‘Yep, but it didn’t amount to nothin’.’
A fat business man, respectably dressed as a grey owl, was supposed to have embezzled a lot of money. A blonde girl who looked like Lilian Gish found herself accused of acquiring goods from a Fifth Avenue store. This was the second time she had done so. Her previous arrests embraced such innocent activities as pickpocketing and forgery. In all, seventeen counts had been lodged against her. During the questioning, she kept flicking imaginary specks of fluff from her costume and superciliously refused to answer.
Most incongruous was a quartet of toughs who had held up someone in a restaurant, as a result of which an inspector was shot. Completely correlated in appearance, they made an almost perfect contrast.
The next turn was provided by a trio of weaklings who had robbed a ciga
rette machine. Then an oyster-eyed, scarred gentleman shared the limelight with an old lady in an astrakhan coat and a red-headed whore. They all disclaimed knowledge of one another but were suspected of stealing clothing and driving away with it in a stolen car. Some Negroes who had hitch-hiked to New York from Carolina were accused of minor offences. The worst looking villain in the whole macabre vaudeville entertainment had already spent many years in Sing Sing for the rape of a seventeen year old girl.
The audience of detectives seemed greatly amused by the morning’s programme. At first I thought them callous, then reasoned that since this was a daily routine, the horror doubtless wore off in time. In order to preserve a certain carefree joviality they were obliged to take things less seriously.
As a result of this morning’s drama, I have begun to think of the obvious fact that fugitives from the line-up must continuously be in our midst. The woman in the astrakhan coat, for instance, looked like any old bird one might see in a picture gallery on 57th Street. The young boys who had been held for assault were the same ones who deliver my laundry, etc. Inspector Donovan even looked at me with a hopeful eye.
THE AUTOMAT
There is no place to rival New York for hospitality — at least, not for an English Duchess. Loelia Westminster has had the pickings to herself this winter and enjoyed a whirl. But, as most of the people ready to give her a whirl are anxious to be seen whirling her, she has only been exposed to a limited area of New York. So, instead of taking her to the inevitable Colony for lunch, we decided that the Broadway Automat might be an interesting change. Loelia, Myrtle Kellet and I set forth full of expectations.
