Autobiography

by Diana Cooper

  There is a new moon and a new star. May they shine kindly on us and make us happy.

  Rutland Hospital

  June 10

  Two letters tonight—I feel gayer. When I arrived at seven I swung round to Venetia, who told me about the new star that was coming to destroy us in two years. I turned quite white and sick with horror for ten minutes, speculating on the certain death and the dread of the price and scarcity of poisons which we would be fighting for, then I saw it all as so perfect from another aspect. The war would stop, for who would fight in hell for no gain since annihilation was certain, and you would come back and we would be so happy in those two years, with not much more dread than in these normal days. It sounds a story not worth the telling, but I enjoyed the change that thoughts of you are able to create in me, for really my fear was genuine and ghastly until you came into my mind.

  Rutland Hospital

  June 20

  Great success and fun at Max Beaverbrook’s last night. He lives at the Hyde Park and we had an amazing meal in a sitting-room—Edwin, Nellie, Mr Means the Canadian representative at the Conference, host and self. Edwin really stimulated with argument and Beaverbrook terribly attractive. Lloyd George’s name was brought up as knowing some small point which he could not remember. He rang the bell for a confidential servant and ordered him to find out where Mr Lloyd George was dining and ask him to come round. After an hour’s work on the servant’s part, he appeared again, pale and exhausted, and said: “Mr Lloyd George is on his way, my lord.”

  It is as cold and wet as charity. It hurts me less than the warm sun, but it acts upon one too very sadly. I’m to have a tooth out this morning and I funk the gas terribly, or will it waft me to Hardelot and the woods and the little good restaurant called Catelan or some such nearby? Perhaps it will take me to a lovely grass-grown moat filled with irises and lilacs (now no doubt a practice trench) and put your hand in mine, and sink all fears, till I shall funk the waking.

  P.S. Beaverbrook referred to my father as “a man of considerable stupidity.”

  Ely

  July 1

  I haven’t been able to write because we had not got a stick of paper between us at that very very unformed Breceles.‡ We took a picnic yesterday to a distant fen or mere, so beautiful and so hot. I see at last the charm of Norfolk. It’s so demoralised. The fields are half-tilled only, so that poppies and wild blue torches fight with the corn and some acres are given up to them. It is thinly populated because Norfolkians can’t or won’t propagate, so that the birds have it their own way and reign unmolested, except by love, and in gratitude even the high-building species in this country nest on the ground, presumably out of consideration for the inhabitants.

  I tried to master some characteristics and appearances of birds. The lapwing, plover, snipe, redshank and duck I think are stamped on my eye-mind, but they don’t excite me. Butterflies in the British Isles only number about forty kinds, according to Edwin, so we will master them in a year of leisure. Jim Vincent, the Hickling keeper, was there on leave, asking after you. He’s a fine man. I listened to him reminiscing for an hour. He could not tell a story that was not discreditable to poor Edwin. “That day, sir, you was so exhausted. I’ll never forget your lying there panting and pleading for a trap,” “That day you took fright at that little pony, sir?” The Montagus will be happy there, I think, and so pray God will we.

  B.E.F.

  July 4

  Three letters came from you this morning, so you do love me after all. Lovely letters from Breccles which made me laugh and one from Alan which made me cry. I laughed at “That day you took fright at that little pony, sir?” and I cried at his description of your sweetness, your beauty and your love for me. He expresses fear of my not fully realising the last. Perhaps I don’t. One can hardly sometimes realise the greatest fabulous wealth, and I feel about your love as about a miraculous fortune which has come to me, which makes me proud and happy all day long, and over which I ponder and gloat more avariciously than ever the maddest miser over his heap of gold. And it is true that I never knew how great it was until I came abroad. Imagine then the miser’s joy when, counting his shekels for the thousandth time, he finds that there are twice as many as he thought before. Alan goes on very charmingly to urge our marriage and makes me think of Shakespeare and Mr W. H. He will not admit impediments. And certainly it does seem wicked that so great and unimaginable a joy should be hindered by the miserable shortage of crumpled Bradburys.§ Tell me truly what you think about this and about the irreducible minimum. I think I asked you once before and you didn’t answer.

  I thought of sending you Alan’s letter but I can’t spare it, so I will quote a little. “Diana is too lovely at present … and, Duffy, she does love you so much. Perhaps you don’t realise it and will be glad to have me tell you, but it really is true and you should be very proud of it. She thinks of you all day, watches the post eagerly for your letters and loves to talk of what you are doing and what you have done and will do with her” (I cried)…. “I wish you would marry her, Duffy. She would take you at once if it were practicable. And can’t it be made practicable? I don’t suggest that you should do what I did, which is to marry on £400 worth of debts, though I would like to point out that even a crushing burden like that is not a fatal obstacle to a happy marriage. But I wish it could be made possible…. Your marriage couldn’t fail” and more in needless but pretty praise of your qualities and assurances, which God knows are unnecessary to me, of how perfect a wife you would make. “She is not only the most beautiful woman in the world but also the best, the most generous, the most warm-hearted, the most gentle, the most loyal. Is all this to change or wither after marriage? Surely it can only blossom the more, etc.” Damn him, he appears to think that I am hanging back. He can’t think that really, but is only carried away by his own verbosity. You surely, darling, have never doubted how madly proud and wildly happy I should always have been and always shall be to marry you under any conceivable conditions, how little I should mind poverty, how gladly I should renounce all my extravagances and vices, break my champagne glasses, throw away my cigars, tear up my cards, sell all my books—the first editions first, study the habits of busses and the intricacies of tubes to obtain that inconceivable honour. You don’t believe this. You shake your lovely head, your pale eyes look reproaches for past transgressions and too recent ones, but, O my best, you can surely see how different it would all be then. Believe, believe me how gladly I would scorn delights and live laborious days, and indeed what would it matter then how the days were spent? But what would Her Grace say and His Grace too?

  So I propose to you again. It is just five years since I did so first, by letter from Hanover in fun. Do you remember? I can still remember your non-committal answer. I wonder what it will be this time. Whatever it is, my life, it cannot make me love you more.

  It was sweet of Alan to write, wasn’t it? Perhaps he showed you the letter, in which case I shall look silly. You were writing to me near him at the time. He described you stretched under an apple-tree.

  B.E.F.

  July 5

  I am not going up to the line at present and am secretly rather disappointed. However I am leaving here and a change is always nice. No letter from you this morning, so I had to read the paper. How good Wilson’s speech is, though he is wrong about the Barons of Runnymede acting not for a class but for a people. I love his phrases: “I can fancy that the air of this place (Washington’s tomb) carries the accents of such principles with a peculiar kindness,” and “forces … which have at their heart an inspiration and a purpose which are deathless and of the very stuff of triumph.” “Stuff” is good. I have just looked through the new Tatler hoping for a picture of you where I don’t usually hope for it. But now I am starved for your features. Send me a little picture to carry with me. This is a day of hustle bustle.

  Bath Club

  July 5

  A woman strolled in today and asked for me. She was from t
he Daily Express and much upset as to how to work the appeal for this hospital. She had had Editor’s orders and was almost desperate to get the thousand pounds. I have a great fear that one morning, without even opening my Express, my eye may be caught by some sentimental article about the Manners’ sacrifices and my merry, or sad, blue eyes. I dared not tell her to submit it, as a gift horse must not be looked at.

  P.S. Ella Wheeler Wilcox met a beggar, she says, and gave him a thought. Ronnie Knox in an essay praises her generosity for what she could so ill afford.

  Rutland Hospital

  July 8

  Such a wonderful letter this morning about our marrying. It was my cure, my wings. I feel it may be so. I know I cannot be as happy without you, but these dread days indicate less than ever a means.

  In a sense the world shapes to hide our possible squalor; no one shall have motors since we cannot. There shall be fewer servants all round, and food is not to be bought, but wine shall flow which our guests’ other hosts lock up, and so they’ll love us best, and never pity our poverty.

  Rutland Hospital

  July 9

  I send you another picture today, for the sake of the romance in it. She was a spy. Her prettiness you can believe. Her hair is of an acid peroxide colour and her skin frail. She told her beads while Orpen painted her the day before she was shot, crying terribly. The story is told, but not believed, that she asked to be allowed to dress properly for her execution, so her maid was allowed to go to the cell taking with her an unequalled sable and chinchilla coat, and a little pair of white satin mules. She asked for no bandage, no cords round her wrists and begged for short warning. When it came she let the furs slip from her naked body and lie like a vanquished animal round her feet. Like that they shot her. No doubt she had a little hope and faith in her beauty earning her a reprieve.

  Rutland Hospital

  July 10

  I was so childishly thrilled today by the Queen of the Belgians. I went to the Albert Hall and found it congested with crowds expectant-eyed on the Royal Box, and she was sent in to face the multitude unsupported for a couple of minutes. So very small she looked and dressed in gleaming white from head to toe, and they cheered as I have not heard cheering before.

  I have been dining at the Café Royal with Lutyens, Barbie, Ivo (up from Tadworth for the night), Birrell and McEvoy—a strange little party, not unsuccessful. We retired to “The Green Griffon” and had general information. One story of Birrell’s I remember, but I think it may be a chestnut. Lord Young to Alfred Austin: “Well, Mr Austin, are you writing still?” “Keeping the wolf from the door, Lord Young.” “Do you show the wolf your poems, Mr Austin?” Birrell said too he had heard King Edward do as good as “Scribble, scribble, Mr Gibbon” when he turned to Lord Rayleigh at a Palace party and said “Well, Lord Rayleigh, discovering something, I suppose?” and then turning to Birrell “You know, he’s always at it.”

  I still make castles half the night and they house us so regally. I have had such a million sorrows, you must have been kept to restore me.

  Rutland Hospital

  July 12

  I have felt so ill all day. I slept all the afternoon while Mother drew me, and then woke and went out and bought What Maisie Knew because James is such a conspicuous gap in my reading, but I couldn’t manage a single page without dropping off, so I tried learning the Midsummer. Is it from “I’ll met by moonlight, proud Titania” and am I to learn both parts or only the fairy queen’s while you have all the dolphin fun, and when am I to stop? And am I to learn Helena and Hermia too? Do explain. I’d rather have done Romeo and Juliet but perhaps you haven’t got it.

  The Wharf, Sutton Courtenay

  July 13

  I have touched the apex of wild despair. The party is Cynthia, Mary, Beb, Hugo, Sidney Russell-Cook, Eliza, two McKennas, Asquith, and from ten to twelve after a parched dinner Mary and I and Hugo and Beb sat in a fireless room in the Mill House. At dinner Beb had relieved the monotony a trifle by turning to the German-born Mrs Joshua and saying with intent about a battle: “We won it. No, you did. No, I think we did.”

  Wade I loved this morning because she volunteered some reminiscences of last year’s Wharf and reeled off the guests, all with the purpose, I think, of saying when she reached your name “How is Mr Cooper, milady, has he been much in the front line?” I said “Yes, he has” curtly with 10,000 beams raying towards her from my heart.

  P.S. I cannot be happy without I marry you, as these Americans say.

  P.P.S. I am dull and tired and always sad. The offensive starts again and I don’t know where you are.

  Rutland Hospital

  July 18

  Beaverbrook took me to see a private view of a German-produced film, unreleasable because of its origin, but of such gross commonness and vulgarity that I think it should make fine propregander. Nothing I have seen or heard has bred more hate in me of the enemy—old men’s lips and fat women caught bending. Max also produced from his pocket a wireless they had just intercepted from Germany making tremendous propergander of His Grace’s prayer for rain. “Lord Rutland gives us to understand,” it runs, “that the harvest in England is even wor se than our highest hopes…. All crops are dried up, etc.,” and many enlargements.

  My father had written to The Times about rain. At least that is how the news posters read. “Duke prays for rain”—“Duke’s prayer answered.” The poor man had only suggested on the correspondence page that prayers should be offered in all churches.

  B.E.F.

  July 7

  I have just finished The Brothers Karamazov and I don’t think I need ever read another Dostoievski, need I? He is the great writer I like least. He heads my heresies. I am now enjoying Eminent Victorians. I love your markings. I don’t think he is good on Manning but my criticism is rather too complicated to explain. You can’t write well about a man unless you have some sympathy or affection for him, and he obviously has none either for Manning or for Newman. It is very easy and obvious to mock at people who worry about religion and especially about small points of doctrine. What is interesting is that the Victorians, Manning, Newman, Gladstone, Acton—all cleverer men than Strachey—really were worried to death about these things. Strachey seems to me to make no effort to understand them or to represent what they felt and what was their point of view, but simply to show how very funny their religious worries appear seen from a detached and irreligious standpoint, and he rather suggests that in so far as they had religious worries at all they were either mad or insincere. He doesn’t write like an historian but like a pamphleteer. You don’t feel reading him as you do when reading Gibbon that he is looking down from the heights of knowledge and wisdom upon “the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind” and that he cannot occasionally refrain from sneering at th em. You feel rather that he is out to sneer, that he is like an agile quick-witted guttersnipe watching a Jubilee procession. He can laugh at the judge’s wig, the bishop’s gaiters and the general’s medals, can make a good joke at their expense and if necessary throw a lump of mud and run away. I apologise for this long tirade, the less justified as I have only read the first of his Victorians and am now enjoying Florence Nightingale, which is certainly not so open to the above criticism. I didn’t mean to write so much on the subject.

  P.S. I’ve just taken a deep “drop off” reading this letter. God knows what you will do. Don’t write too legibly or intelligibly as I have no occupation so pleasant as pondering for hours over your hieroglyphics, and for hours more trying to interpret your dark sayings. A clearly written, simply expressed letter is too like the lightning.

  B.E.F.

  July 8

  No mail today from England, which made everyone cry but none so much as me. Nulli flebilior quam mihi.¶ I have just written to Alan on the subject of his letter to me. I have told him that God knows I never needed prompting and that the decision rests only with you. And I have pointed out all the arguments against—your arguments and the world’s, for
I have none—the arguments of the star against the moth, of King Cophetua’s best friends against the beggar maid, of all which I am probably more sensible than you. So don’t think, darling, that I wish to force your hand, and you may if you like and find it easier ignore the matter in your letters altogether. I only feel that in a collapsing world it would be a great bid for happiness, which the Fates don’t seem likely to bestow on us unless we fight for it. As for the pecuniary aspect, while the war goes on it hardly matters. Everyone lives from hand to mouth and from lunch to dinner. Afterwards there will surely be work to be done, or shall we say jobs to be got, in the securing of which our combined talents could not fail us. People have started on less and lived happily ever afterwards. But there, don’t let me bother you. Your answer will probably be the traditional one of the Old Gang|| and I can’t quarrel with it.

  I have nearly finished the Victorians and though I have enjoyed it enormously my criticism of yesterday I still hold to. He tries to be detached and dispassionate but he doesn’t succeed. You can feel reading the book that he is pleased that Miss Nightingale grew fat and that her brain softened, and he is delighted that Gordon drank. I must say that he makes me like both better than I did before, partly out of opposition. Dr Arnold of course is a bit too much.