Hesketh Pearson

by The Marrying Americans

  The one drawback to her careful planning was that Barker; could neither hunt, shoot, nor fish, without one of which accomplishments a fellow could scarcely qualify as a country gentleman. Moreover, he was bored with sport and county talk. A visitor reported that he could scarcely conceal his yawns. True, he remained locked behind his study door all the morning and managed to write two plays, a book on the theatre, and several Prefaces to Shakespeare’s works, within a decade; but one feels in all of them that he was holding life at bay and rapidly changing from producer to professor. Helen knew Spanish well, translated several plays from that language, and put her husband’s name with hers on the title pages; he probably gave hints on words and commas. Completely dominated by her, he ceased to be the independent being known to his friends.

  Helen’s detestation of Shaw, who had been her husband’s good angel and whose influence she intended to supplant, was complementary to her passion for Barker; and an episode described to me by Shaw is of considerable psychological interest:

  Her hatred of me manifested itself in a most uncomfortable manner. In May 1925 there was a meeting at King’s College in the Strand to hear Barker give an address on the theatre. A. J. Balfour was in the chair; I was down to second the vote of thanks, Forbes-Robertson to propose it. When I arrived I was shown into the Green Room and found Balfour there alone. We chatted together for several minutes when in walked Mrs. Barker, with chains of pearls decorating her neck and bosom. She is one of those people whose face I can never remember, her appearance being entirely negative, so that each time I see her I seem to see her for the first time; but I recognized her pearls, so all was well. Naturally I expected her to be distant, if not openly hostile; but to my surprise she came straight up to me and spoke in a most friendly manner. Then I recalled that Balfour had recently been made an Earl, and all became clear. She could swallow me with Balfour, but she could not take me neat.

  After Barker had delivered his address and Forbes-Robertson had proposed the vote of thanks, I rose to second it. The devil entered into me and I was at the top of my form. I praised Barker’s speech to the skies and said that his retirement from the stage to become a professor was inexcusable. Barker as a professor! I exclaimed. It was preposterous. Why, the speech he had just given contained enough matter to make twenty professors! I then delivered a sustained eulogy of his work for the stage, repeated my assertion that his retirement from active work in the theatre was a public scandal, brought down the house, and resumed my seat. Barker was now placed in a very ticklish position, and I was not wholly unconscious of what his wife would be thinking of me. But Balfour saved Barker’s face by cleverly bringing the meeting to a close.

  What happened then was most extraordinary. The moment I got up to leave the platform I felt that my spine had been converted into a bar of rusty iron which grated on the base of my skull. The pain at the top and bottom of my spine was so frightful that I could not even bend down to get into a taxi. Somehow I reached home on foot, and when my wife arrived I was lying flat and helpless on my bed. The doctors could make nothing of it, and I really thought I was done for. I was brought down here to Ayot and after a while began to hobble about a bit; but I daren’t go further than the garden gate, until one day, with a great effort of the will, I decided to walk down the road, come what may. Instantly and miraculously the pain left me, and I recovered completely. I noticed that it was exactly one month to the hour since I had been stricken down by this inexplicable and horrible disablement.

  Some time later I met Lady Colefax who had been present at the King’s College meeting, and I told her what had happened to me. That, she said, was easily explained. She had watched Mrs. Barker, who was sitting exactly behind me, and who had been leaning forward in her seat while I was speaking, every muscle in her face and body rigid with hate. There was not the slightest doubt that she had bewitched me. And after hearing this I could conceive of no other explanation.

  As neither of the Barkers was happy, they traveled restlessly from place to place during what they called “holidays.” Luxury did not agree with him, and he was beginning to look sleek. Laziness increased his hypochondria and he consulted innumerable doctors. He appeared like a butler to one observer, like a farmer to another, like a tired stockbroker to a third, like a lost soul to a woman who had known him well. In 1930, to his great relief, they left the enervating atmosphere of Netherton Hall and took imposing apartments in Paris, at No. 18 Place des États-Unis, where they kept a large staff of servants, in addition to a country château. Barker walked daily in the Bois de Boulogne, and they entertained diplomats, millionaires and other eminences, even authors if they were French. Barker developed his Shakespearean studies, his writing becoming more and more refined and fastidious.

  When a man has nothing much to say, he takes great trouble over the manner of saying it, and Barker spent hours rewriting paragraphs and sentences. His writings on Shakespeare would have surprised that poet because he made no attempt to relate the work to the personality of the author. The strain and stress of Shakespeare’s life were beyond the comprehension of Barker, whose battle with hostile forces took place in an arena which Shakespeare would have considered a playground. He hated to think of King Lear as anything more than a literary and theatrical masterpiece, and the man whose sufferings were exposed in that tragedy was merely in his eyes a great dramatic artist and craftsman. There was a strong element of fear in this, for Barker even went so far as to assert in public that the whipping-post should be revived for all those terrifying persons who produce reminiscences and autobiographies, and his behavior when he heard that his ex-wife Lillah McCarthy had produced a book of memories might be described as neurotic. Shaw told me what happened:

  All communication between Barker and myself ceased until Lillah wrote her memoirs and asked me to do a Preface. Naturally I had to send the preface to Barker, who suddenly blew in here one day as if he had only been away a few hours. The Webbs were with us, and Barker looked rather uncomfortable. He asked if he could speak to me for a few minutes in private. “I never thought I would come here again,” he said when we were alone, and he went on to assure me that if Lillah’s book were published he would take proceedings. I replied that he couldn’t as there was not a detrimental word about him in it; I warned him that any action on his part would result in a lot of mud-stirring; and I absolutely declined to advise Lillah’s husband to withdraw the book. At last I got a smile out of him; he saw that he hadn’t a leg to stand on, and left me with some approach to friendliness. About twenty minutes later (he must have gone some distance in his car) he returned to take an effusive farewell of my wife. As a result of Barker’s attitude, Keeble decided to take out all the references to him in Lillah’s book, much to the annoyance of both the Barkers when they read it.

  In 1936 Barker’s play Waste was revived in London, and he came over to rehearse it, being as fussy with his actors as he was over his periods. Whenever his wife called for him at the theatre in her car, he dropped work at once and dashed away.

  The Barkers managed to reach Spain when the Germans entered France in 1940, and in September were installed at the Mayfair Hotel; Park Avenue, New York. He lectured at Yale University as Honorary Professor, and repeated what he had said in the previous war: that he would be happier digging trenches on the Norfolk coast. There were no insuperable obstacles in the way of doing so except a strong preference for easy living. He worked in the British Library of Information, but an attack of eczema restricted his labors. Then he lectured on the drama at Harvard and Princeton universities, receiving a few of those academical distinctions so much coveted by gentlemen of letters.

  The war over, Harley and Helen were soon back in Paris, to find their sumptuous apartments in apple-pie order, their possessions inviolate. Gabriel Pascal wanted Barker to play the Inquisitor in a film presentation of Shaw’s Saint Joan, and he would have liked to do so, but his wife would not let him. Soon afterwards his constitution began to break up and he suffered
from hallucinations. He told a friend, “My life is useless,” and indeed it had been so ever since he had ceased to do the work which called forth all his talent. In his unhappiness he cried a lot, and received no comfort from talks with an Anglican parson. His death from arteriosclerosis occurred on August 31, 1946.

  Helen’s mind was affected by his sudden decease, and her behavior became unpredictable. One winter she visited St. Moritz, where Harley and she had stayed during their honeymoon. She went for a solitary walk, did not come back, and was found by a search party insensible and semi-frozen. Soon afterwards, in February 1950, she died, and was buried next to Barker in Père Lachaise cemetery.

  CHAPTER 17—Royal Romance

  Bessie Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor

  We began with a Betsy from Baltimore: we end with a Bessie from the same city.

  Bessie Wallis Warfield came of a highly respectable family, had a respectable upbringing, and in November 1916 at the age of twenty married a flying officer of the United States Navy named Winfield Spencer. An “odd incident” occurred at the beginning of their honeymoon. Her husband found that they had come to a “dry” state where he could not buy a drink; but he had a bottle of gin with him and obtained supplies elsewhere. As time went on his intake of alcohol increased; he became jealous of the attentions she received from other men and either sulked or asserted himself. Sometimes he indulged in practical jokes, such as locking her up in a room for hours at a time; on other occasions he maintained “a running barrage of subtle innuendoes and veiled insults” at her expense and in front of other people. He seemed to be discontented with himself, and the more he drank the worse he became. When he got a job in Washington their rows were audible through the thin walls of the hotel rooms. At last she could stand it no longer and broke the news to her mother, aunt and uncle that she intended to divorce him. They were violently opposed to a deed that had never before occurred in the family.

  There were many temptations to part from an uncongenial husband. “The nineteen-twenties were, I recall, a particularly hazardous era for American women, especially on sofas and in rumble seats.”{47} But she had a code, never to drift into momentary affairs, and she intended to wait until her heart and head were engaged. A trip to Paris with a friend was followed by another attempt to live with her husband in China, where he was then stationed. But it was a failure: the combination of gin and jealousy enforced their separation, and they were divorced in 1925. The fact that he married four times before his death at the age of sixty-one proved him an optimist.

  In due course she met Ernest Simpson, an American ship-broker who represented his firm in London and loved England. They were married in 1928. At first she did not feel certain they would be suited to one another, but after marriage she decided that they were. Life was prosaic but secure. They led a social life. He was a well-informed man who enjoyed taking her to see cathedrals and ancient castles.

  In the winter of 1930-31 she met the Prince of Wales at a country house near Melton Mowbray. She was struck by his shortness (five feet seven inches) and by his sad, wistful expression. She was nervous before he arrived, worried about her first curtsy, but managed to survive the ordeal successfully. His naturalness delighted her; he talked without the least affectation, actually lit his cigarette like anyone else, and put her completely at ease. At lunch next day she sat by him, and as she showed no interest in hunting he started a discussion on central heating. Although she had a cold in the head, she displayed no enthusiasm on the subject.

  Edward, Prince of Wales, was beyond doubt the most popular man in the British Empire, having attained that position by natural charm, unremitting toil, sportsmanship, informality and kindliness. At his urgent request he had been allowed to serve during the 1914-18 war on the various fronts, being frequently under fire. Thereafter he had visited many parts of America, Australia, Africa and India, with the object of serving the Empire, and wherever he went his personal popularity increased. As President of the British Legion, he never ceased to work for the men who had fought in the war. It was generally felt that he ought to get married; and though he later admitted that “there had been moments of tenderness, even enchantment, without which a Princely existence would have been almost intolerable,”{48} he had no intention of being hurried into an engagement.

  The Prince and Mrs. Simpson were soon on friendly terms, meeting one another at various houses. He told her all about his garden at Fort Belvedere, and she was “utterly absorbed.” She was presented at Court, and he admired the grace and dignity of her movements. He dined at the Simpsons’ flat in Bryanston Court, thought her a wonderful hostess, and enjoyed the lively conversation of her guests. Her independence of thought and forthrightness of expression appealed to him, and he began to envisage a life shared with her. But the Royal Marriages Act of 1772 necessitated the Sovereign’s permission; and as his father, King George V, was too ill and full of care in 1935, the son disliked adding to his worries.

  The Simpsons spent several weekends at Fort Belvedere in 1932-33, and she discovered the Prince’s preference for doing needlework to reading. The guests were also provided with the necessary implements and spent hours slashing away at the laurel trees their host wished to have cut down. She thought about him constantly, with some amazement that “so brilliant a personage” should enjoy messing about in a garden. For her birthday in 1933 the Prince gave a dinner party at Quaglino’s, and the Simpsons returned the compliment a fortnight later at their flat. Her friend Thelma, Lady Furness, on leaving for America, asked her to look after the Prince as he would be lonely. She had no objection, and he began to drop in for cocktails or meals at Bryanston Court, telling her much about his work and more intimate matters. While her husband was in the States she joined the Prince’s house party at Biarritz, her aunt being among the guests, and while the others were amusing themselves she and the Prince often dined at little bistros by themselves. Then they went on a sea trip, and after a visit to Majorca she felt that their relationship was closer than ever, but could not help wondering whether it was all “a Mediterranean Night’s Dream.” The glamour surrounding royalty had cast a spell upon her.

  Her husband Ernest at last perceived “the shape of things to come” and refused the Prince’s invitation to the winter sports in Austria. He returned to New York instead, and when they met again he was very silent. Later he declined to join a party at Cannes. Meanwhile his wife’s friendship with the Prince of Wales had become evident to the leaders of social life, and many prominent hostesses, including Lady Cunard, suddenly discovered that Mrs. Simpson was their greatest friend, and hoped that she would bring the Prince to their parties. Soon their friendship got into the gossip columns of the daily press, and women who stayed at Fort Belvedere reported that the Prince seemed happier than he had ever been. In a bonnet and tartan kilt he would march around the table after dinner playing the pipes. He wanted all his guests to feel at ease and to do as they liked. The atmosphere of the place was relaxed and agreeable, not a soul feeling constraint, while the host himself was restlessly attentive to everyone’s requirements. His concern for Mrs. Simpson was noted by Lady Diana Cooper, who wrote that when Wallis tore her nail she said “Oh!” and forgot all about it, but that the Prince dashed out, shortly reappearing breathless with two small emery boards for the filing of her nail.{49}

  At length Ernest Simpson began to pay attention to a female friend and his wife decided on a divorce. At St. James’s Palace she watched the ceremony at which Edward’s accession to the throne was proclaimed, and she know how different thenceforth his life would be. The Archbishop of Canterbury came to see him, leaving the impression that he was being advised to terminate his friendship with Mrs. Simpson. Edward invited a party, including Wallis, for a cruise down the Dalmatian coast, and wherever their boat put in, the populace gave them a tremendous reception, clearly under the impression that the two were in love. On returning from the trip, Wallis received cuttings from American newspapers which amazed and
shocked her. But David, as she now called the King, reassured her, implied that it was a journalistic stunt, and said that the British press would ignore it.

  Having arranged to start divorce proceedings, she went as a guest to Balmoral. To avoid publicity, it was decided that the case should be heard at Ipswich, which meant that she would have to reside for a period within the jurisdiction of the court. A cottage called Beach House, near Felixstowe, was rented for the purpose, and she left the flat at Bryanston Court, taking No. 16 Cumberland Terrace, Regent’s Park. At the hearing of her case she thought the judge hostile, but he granted a decree nisi, which necessitated a delay of six months before the divorce could be made absolute. On her return to London after the hearing she and David dined together in Cumberland Terrace. He had disturbing news.

  Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, had called to suggest that the King should influence Mrs. Simpson to drop the divorce proceedings, implying that the British press could no longer ignore a subject that was being blazed in headlines throughout America, where the papers foretold their marriage. The King had asked Lord Beaverbrook and the Hon. Esmond Harmsworth (later Lord Rothermere) to prevail upon the press to report the divorce case in the usual way and not to make a sensational feature of it.

  Early in November Wallis and her aunt spent the weekend at Ford Belvedere, and the King showed her a letter he had received from his private secretary, Alexander Hardinge, advising him that she should go abroad at once and hinting not only that the Government might resign but that the press would probably give tongue in a few days. On reading this, Wallis said she would go, but the King would not hear of it and declared his intention of marrying her whether he was on the throne or off it. He considered the letter impertinent, and thereafter conducted matters with the aid of Walter Monckton. She was deeply distressed, but the King was adamant, and she agreed to stay because she thought the country could deny him nothing and “as a woman in love I was prepared to go through rivers of woe, seas of despair, and oceans of agony for him.”