The Restless Years (1955-63)

by Cecil Beaton

  Mrs Talbot has said that lately she has noticed a great deterioration in my mother. She is so much weaker, so tired even when she wakes up in the morning. My mother seems convinced that she is on her way out of life. ‘Am I dying?’ she asked Mrs Talbot. ‘What will I look like when I’m dead?’ Mrs Talbot, with tremendous resources of good spirits, laughs.

  Occasionally my mother does talk to me about the past, about her brother Joe. ‘He would have straightened things out!’ She talked about how they used to parboil the potatoes then cook them in the oven with the mutton and caper sauce. She tells of how as a child she would go off on a bicycle tour with her father and they would ride for miles — he had such beautiful hands.

  AUGUSTUS JOHN

  When I arrived at Fryern, Dorelia was there to welcome me. She was, as usual, an almost incredibly beautiful figure in blue and red, with a red scarf draped over her head. Her hair has become grey, her face washed out, but she is still a dazzling asset to any scene. She has the startling beauty that defies the disadvantages of old age.

  ‘Don’t know what Augustus is up to but he wants you to go down the garden to the other studio. You know the way!’

  I went through the wild garden, past the avenue of Irish yews and sprawling, rambling plants and flowers. Augustus, totally deaf, did not hear my shouts as I entered the room; only when I came into view did he know anyone had joined him. He was sitting waiting for me, sucking at a pipe, with a new square of canvas propped up in front of him.

  ‘This is a smaller canvas, easier to manage. I can do several of you.’

  Wild-eyed, trembling in every limb, he banged his brushes on the palette to mix the paint. He stretched forward and dabbed at the canvas.

  But the years’ deterioration was very marked; everywhere were added signs of weakness. Before he had been able to stand to work; now, as he sat, he jerked and twitched and his breathing became so heavy that I felt his heart must soon give out. Not only was the stertorous breathing agonising to hear, but from inside his chest came other sounds of rusty boxes grinding, of wheezing concertinas and rattling combs.

  After a long session of keeping very still, he bellowed: ‘Want a rest?’ I shouted to know if I could see the picture. But Augustus is completely deaf. No word got through, and he has discarded his deaf aid.

  The canvas was the wild mess of a madman. Nothing was there. Just nothing: a weak daub of entrail-coloured brush strokes that fell far wide of their mark.

  I wandered about the room. Since I was here last, a dealer had been and ransacked the place. There was nothing left but rubbish and a few old photographs.

  However, on with the picture; another session and the blinking old man, dressed like a French servant in blue, bashed away frantically until he said something about tea. I did not want to wait around while tea was brought and made my escape as quickly as possible, promising to return in two days.

  The next sitting (and the last) was sad. I watched the brushes flashing up and down. He was becoming hysterical; all the time breathing more ferociously until I had a picture of Augustus keeling over in a stupor. What then would I do? Run for the gardener? Drag him to the door? Or would he already be dead by then? But he survived till teatime.

  I sat with Dorelia while we wrote notes to Augustus. But communication in these conditions was very difficult, and after bread and butter I left, Augustus coming to the blue door to wave goodbye.

  I know when I am tired how the juice of creation does not come down my arm into my pen or brush. It must be a living nightmare for this maestro who could wield magic strokes suddenly to find the necessary energy no longer there!

  August

  Quite imperceptibly summer has given way to that marvellous yet sad time of the year, remembered so well from childhood holidays, when the trees were so dark that they were hardly green any more, and one sensed that unwelcome nip in the air which portends the beginning of autumn.

  Yet it is still full summer, and it should be a time of relaxation and peacefulness. But it can also be a time when one feels depleted and longs for a more salubrious air. It is the time when wars are threatened.

  These last days at Broadchalke have made me feel unaccustomedly melancholy. The reasons are not hard to discover.

  It has been my first spell here by myself for quite a long time. Even if I stay for weeks on end there are usually collaborators or assistants working on a play or a set and at weekends a lot of ‘neighbourising’. This time I have not even had the company of Eileen and I have been forced to do that which I have always longed to do — lead the quiet life with few appointments to distract me from my painting. Here was the opportunity, but my painting did not satisfy me. It is only natural that having painted so comparatively little, the results of a sudden outburst should not be up to the standards by which I judge the paintings of others. The village children sat to me, and some of these portraits were a little more encouraging, but they did not even make one feel one had earned one’s good lunch!

  There are times, when one takes stock of one’s life, when one feels suddenly much older. One asks oneself important questions about whether one is improving in character or wisdom or discipline as the years pass. These questions have been prompted very forcefully recently by the reviews of my diaries.

  Even my friend Jakie says: ‘Your trouble is your dancing feet.’ Even he is waiting for the day when I will be quieter, can settle down and enjoy a few friendships. ‘Don’t bother about your ever being an old bore. You won’t be, because it’s the way you look at life that’s fascinating and individual. You have a particular slant and a sense of humour that will always prevent your being a bore, even if you are twice as old as the others!’

  TANGIER: BARBARA HUTTON’S BALL

  August 1961

  The gilt-edged invitation cards summoned the privileged guests for 10.30 in the evening. By 11.30 a hundred ill-assorted people of all ages wandered aimlessly from room to room wondering when the hostess would appear to greet them. The house is almost too oriental in its excess of latticework tiles, painted and carved woods, and divans piled with velvet cushions. David Herbert had arranged a great number of flowers, but somehow there was nothing to surprise or delight, and quite a lot of the more distinguished, older guests sat around winking or making veiled comments of disapproval.

  Trapped by consuls’ wives or ex-ambassadors, I revolted. This was not what I’d come to Tangier for. I sought out Ira Belline who, turbanned and bepearled, looked beautiful. She conducted me to the roof-terraces, which were splendidly transformed for the night. In cleverly arranged shafts of light there were scarlet and orange tents. Orange and magenta cushions of Arabic designs in brilliant colours were everywhere. Obelisks, balls and Archimbaldo figures were made of marigolds, zinnias and sunflowers. The effect was made more remarkable by the night scene of Tangier’s inhabitants peering from the neighbouring white houses, and in the distance the silhouette of the old town.

  Suddenly the hostess was on view, dazzlingly illuminated in a greenish light. The performance was to be given only for tonight. The real emeralds, as big as prunes, were embedded in a great fillet of real diamonds. The egg-size pearls at her neck had an unholy brilliance; her dress was heavily embroidered in diamonds. It was a little Byzantine empress-doll. Her gestures of greeting and affection, her smiles, the look of surprise or delight, were all played in the grand manner. An arm was extended for the hand to be kissed, a graceful turn of the head to greet a Moroccan ‘big-wig’, a wide, open-armed welcome to an old friend, head thrown back with lowered lids and a move of the mouth — every sort of smile and coquetry.

  I watched, as did quite a number of others, as if she was in reality playing a scene on the stage. She seemed quite oblivious of the stares, or of the photographic flash-lights. In her gladioli tent with the brass tray table at hand for her champagne glass, she received the most important Tangerines until, suddenly, she decided to leave her igloo to go to a higher roof to watch some local dancing.

  I
would have liked an opportunity to talk to her during the evening. But, by now, she was too euphoric to be able to communicate except by pantomime, and to do spasmodic little dances àla Bali with neck shaking from side to side, and a wriggle of her shoulders. Standing behind a belly dancer, we watched not the performance but Barbara’s reaction to it.

  As the evening progressed, she overplayed her role. She was in need of a director to tell her that she was forcing her effects too much. Nonetheless, I was fascinated.

  This perfect oval face was seen at its best with the Helen of Troy hair-do and the fillets above. I could not discover why I did not think she looked utterly beautiful. Any minute the curtain might come down for ever. But, meanwhile, the delicate little child’s hands applauded, and the exquisite little feet, shod in the tiniest Cinderella sandals, were beating time ineffectually, with tire toes turned in.

  VENICE

  August

  Flying towards Venice in the late afternoon one saw the shape of this small, sea-surrounded town as one never can when living in its labyrinth of canals and twisting streets.

  An hour later in the grand Palazzo on the Grand Canal, Brando,[8] my host, said we were all to be taken to the Villa Maser to hear some cinquecento madrigals. At once one was involved in a highly civilised eighteenth-century way-of-life that does not exist in many places today. It is probably the last place where footmen in white gloves and family livery help with the cold buffet of game and salmon, truffles in rice, and wines produced on the estate.

  The Villa Maser, brightly lit in the motionless night, came alive as the guests arrived to be greeted by a screaming hostess; a token drink, a canapé. The guests were bidden to the terrace to listen to the music against a Palladian background. The sounds created there were of great subtlety and perfection and one marvelled at such exquisite dedication to an art form that, to most of us, may seem rather remote.

  The news of a further nuclear test by the Russians, and the sealing of East Berlin seemed rather an empty menace here in Venice where the merits of the latest contribution to film art, L’Année Dernière a Marienbad, the interpretations of the Zeffirelli Old Vic production of Romeo and Juliet, the exhibition of the Albertine drawings at St Georgio and the modern abstractionists at the Palazzo Grassi were being discussed vehemently. And who could bother about Mr Kruschev when that great impresario, Lili Volpi, was about to give her annual ball?

  Lilies were being placed in obelisk form or in garlands; the tuberoses splayed in glass tubs on the floor (très goût courtesane!), floral tributes sent by well-wishers. Would the hostess raise her hand to some uninvited guest and shriek ‘Sortez! Sortez!’ as she had done in the past?; or perhaps sack all her servants on the spot so that two days later she would be weeping in a completely deserted Palazzo?

  Chez nous, the hairdresser in Cristiana’s[9] bedroom was attending a scurrying bevy of beauties: Graziella was under the dryer, the Duchess of Alba against her will was having her yellow hair dressed downwards. ‘But I wanted it up! I’m always being a victim!’ The queue for attention was frenzied, and the result was that the other guests assembled for the large dinner-party were all kept waiting. Daisy Fellowes, who, in spite of her weak heart, climbed the stairs with serenity, was now beginning to get fractious. ‘I’m hungry. The Rothschilds are always très en retard, but they don’t mind!’

  The motor-boats puff and throttle at the door. The waves lap over the gang-planks, as other boats rush by on the way to the midnight rout. ‘If the wind blows my head, I’m done for!’ the loud cries are squawked.

  A red carpet had been laid on the planks outside the Palazzo, where dozens of husky servants helped the helpless guests on their unsure feet. That social institution, that pillar of all that is decadent, La Maxwell, looked like a terrified buffalo as she was aided to the entrance. She was dressed in gold-bead embroidery of a magnificence that should belong to a Calpurnia or a Volumnia.

  The great assemblage was exactly the same group of Venetian society as it was last year and all the years before. All the hairdressers and costumiers had been at work, and hundreds of people involved. Yet there was no note of originality. No dress was outstanding. Only Lili Volpi’s beehive hair-do was remarkable in the boldness of its proportions.

  She looked bored as she wandered around or sat in positions of abandoned relaxation, leaning on a massive elbow or slumped against the back of a chair. Occasionally she exerted herself to give hell to the servants in the dining room. The head steward looked miserable; any minute his head may fall. She moved a screen in front of the servants’ entrance in her own rich arms. She supervises the scene in the ballroom — ‘La chaleur! C’est raté mon parti — the band is épouvantable! My silly daughter, Anne Marie, is responsible. I told her this band would be a flop but she insisted, the stupid, stubborn girl. She’s always making mistakes. No wonder her husband has left her! To have married him in the first place was an error!’

  The cold buffet was a triumph of the chef’s art with huge octopi made of lobster; a gondolier rowing a decorated ham, two bleeding mountains of cascading beef; crawfish filled with crevettes, and pinnacles of shrimps.

  Back at the Palazzo Brandolini, where Wagner wrote Tristan, a charming scene of relaxation. Most of the ladies have unfastened their waists and bodices. ‘At last I’m free! My dress was killing me!’ Now they are guzzling ripe figs. The men’s shoes are off and strewn about the oriental rugs. The funny vignettes of the evening are discussed. Cristiana says, ‘It was a horrible bore. I hated every minute!’

  PARIS: MADAME DE HOZ

  Arriving in Paris this time I called up the ‘past’. ‘Oh, Mr Cecil Beaton! [She uses my full name each time.] You will find me an old woman. I’m a hag. You will be shocked, but no matter, come and have a cocktail at seven o’clock.’

  The sitting room at the Ritz was surprisingly small for a stay of nearly six months, and despite two abstract paintings, and a few expensive flowers, had no atmosphere.

  But the woman in duck-green country clothes who greeted me was bubbling with youthful zest, and I was at once fascinated and stimulated. I had never really talked to her before. (The disastrous time I tried to photograph her a long time ago I was unable to speak French and she had no English!) Now I found her amusing and full of point.

  Madame de Hoz is by far the youngest woman of sixty — or sixty- five or seventy, whatever she is today — I have ever seen. Her silhouette is unchanged. The skin is only a little puckered around the eyes, but this gives the eyes more gaiety and melancholy. They are extraordinarily deep-set, like blackbirds’ eyes, and together with the short black hair are the only South American traits that she still possesses. In effect she is a fashionable woman ‘out of time’. She is not of today, nor is she essentially of any particular time. She is a ladylike woman of impeccably refined taste, never vulgar, but always gracious and totally feminine.

  I was beguiled as she sat en face, making the situation alive and interesting. She neither drank nor smoked as she talked of life: not with sadness or bitterness, but with amusement! ‘What was the life of Paris today? To go to a bistro! You ask are there elegant women at the races! You should see them! Nowadays I am the only woman out on the streets who wears a hat! I have some lovely hats from Paulette, but I never wear a casquette or a football on my head. But I can only stand Paris because my husband and I live in the mountains for the other six months in the year, and we are two-and-a-half hours by horseback to the nearest neighbours. The air is so wonderful! You feel so refreshed. You sleep so well!’

  ‘Who is there to look at here? No point in my going downstairs for lunch! So I have most of my meals in this room.’ With a chuckle she finds it all a great joke. Even the fact that she is ‘gaga’ and cannot remember names strikes her as being funny. It is good to see someone surviving in such a delightfully independent, personal way.

  Part VIII: Restlessness, 1962

  MY MOTHER

  Reddish: January 15th, 1962

  Generally Dr Christ
opher Brown has said: ‘Physically she’s fit, she’s not in any pain, she does not suffer. She may go on like that for a very long time.’ But tonight this kind, intelligent, very human young man paused quite a long time. Then he said: ‘I think you ought to know that she is failing very fast now and it may not be very long before her life is over. I must say she is quite comfortable. Her restlessness is a thing of the past and she is now dozing most of the time.’

  The coal readjusted itself in the grate. The library looked very dark and serious. I remembered an incident that occurred just before Christmas. I had been attending to some last-minute detail of the festivities, when I saw my mother standing at the top of the flight of five steps. She looked bewildered at the thought of having to manipulate the further stairs. When she saw me she made a gesture which I shall remember until my dying day. She lifted her arm high and yearned towards me with her thin hand stretching in desperate supplication. All the years of my life seemed to be cast away as I ran towards her and tried to give her the support that she had given me as a child.

  January 23rd

  Somehow or other this slow process of dying was different from what I had imagined it to be. Death has always seemed sinister — it had elements of cruel mystery, something to be ashamed of. This was sad, but no more frightening than the crumpling up of a flower, or the weakening of a bird.

  She scrutinised her hand a great deal and seemed surprised that her wedding-ring now slides loosely on her fingers. She likes to have me sit by the bed holding her hand. She looks very beautiful.

  February 23rd

  I had to go to Paris for two hectic days of work. It was at the end of the second day that at last I lay down on my bed at about 6.30 in the evening. The telephone bell rang. Since we had already discussed all the business in hand, I was surprised that it was Eileen. She told me in a very calm, off-hand way that my mother had died at 3.30 that afternoon, that it had been most fortunate that Nancy had been with her, also Mrs Talbot and Doctor Brown; that she had died very simply and quickly — no pain — very peaceful. I took the news so calmly that I could only wonder at my lack of emotion.