There was plenty of society available, but many of his old friends were gone: Emerald Cunard had died in 1948, Desmond MacCarthy in 1952, Eddie Marsh in 1953, Max Beerbohm, whom Maugham had last visited in Rapallo only months before, in 1956, Bert Alanson, profoundly mourned, in 1958. Rather less regretted were a couple of deaths within the family. On March 23, 1958, F.H., after suffering a stroke, died at his house in Cadogan Square, aged ninety-one. A widower for eight years, he had been looked after by his eldest daughter, Kate, and his death was neither unexpected nor greatly grieved over. Yet if the death of his brother left Maugham largely unmoved, that of his ex-wife three years earlier had been a cause for positive rejoicing. Returning to London after the war, Syrie had moved into a flat on Park Lane, where she continued to conduct her business, although on a much smaller scale than before. In her seventies, Syrie’s formidable energy had begun to fail her, and she spent much of her day in bed, talking on the telephone and rapping out orders to her long-suffering maid and secretary. Since the bout of tuberculosis a few years earlier, her health had been precarious: she suffered from angina, and this, coupled with a bad bout of bronchial pneumonia, brought about her death, at the age of seventy-six, on July 25, 1955. Maugham learned of it in a telegram from a heartbroken Liza. “It would be hypocrisy43 on my part to pretend that I am deeply grieved at Syrie’s death,” he told Barbara Back. “She had me every which way from the beginning & never ceased to give me hell.” Indeed, his strongest emotion was one of relief that he would no longer have the financial burden of supporting a woman from whom he had been divorced for nearly thirty years. “Tra la la, no more alimony,44 tra la la,” he would sing, tapping his fingers on the card table. He attended neither the funeral nor the memorial service at the Grosvenor Chapel, nor did he contribute to the purchase of the sculpture presented in her memory to the Victoria & Albert Museum.
In his own last years Maugham thought constantly about death and about what form his end would take. “I am like a passenger45 waiting for his ship at a war-time port,” he had written on the last page of A Writer’s Notebook. “I do not know on which day it will sail, but I am ready to embark at a moment’s notice.” He became obsessed with his aging appearance, standing in front of the looking glass and deploring his hooded eyes and deeply lined face. And indeed there are many descriptions of Maugham in diaries and memoirs of this period in which the same saurian similes are repeated again and again, a crocodile, a tortoise, “an iguana sunning itself46 on a rock”; the diarist Frances Partridge compared Maugham to a chameleon, “with his pale deeply furrowed face,47 sunken glittering eyes and the mouth that opens deliberately and sometimes sticks there,” while Harold Nicolson was “reminded of the lizards48 that creep slowly over the dry boulders of the Galapagos Islands”; Glenway Wescott conjured up a more cheerful image after seeing his host wearing nothing but a straw hat poised to jump into his swimming pool: “[Willie] was shapely but tiny49 and with his little potbelly he looked like the King of the Frogs in the fairy tale.” Yet Maugham in old age remained nimble and fit; he was still sexually active, not only with Alan but with boys brought by Alan to the Villa: he saw sex as one of the physical appetites it was healthy to indulge, he told Wescott; and he still enjoyed his food and drink, looking forward to the preprandial cocktail (the martinis now made with a dash of absinthe) and continuing to take an informed interest in the ordering of menus for lunch and dinner.
As he neared the end of the 1950s, “a seedy relic of the Edwardian era,”50 as he wryly described himself, Maugham rarely invited his friends to stay. “Things I could do with pleasure years ago now exhaust me,” he wrote, aged eighty-five, to Gerald Kelly. “I am always (or nearly always) glad if people I like will come & lunch with me, but that is all the entertaining I can do.” Among his favorites as luncheon guests were two men also far from their first youth, Winston Churchill and the Canadian press baron Lord Beaverbrook, proprietor of the Express newspapers. Churchill, who was often on the Riviera, was an exact contemporary, and Maugham could not resist remarking on how much fitter he was than his old friend, who, with his pink complexion and wispy white hair, looked like “a poor old celluloid doll,”51 walking with great difficulty and taking in little of what was said. “If you think I’m g-g-g-ga-ga,”52 Maugham would crow, “you should see W-W-W-Winston.” Max Beaverbrook, on the other hand, five years younger, was still vigorous and spry, and when he was in residence at his villa on Cap d’Ail, the two men regularly visited each other, in between sending their chauffeurs to ferry over little gifts of figs and pots of marmalade.
IF FEW FRIENDS WERE invited to stay, an exception was always made for members of the family, and Liza’s visits every summer were always an agreeable distraction. Maugham, who adored babies and young children, had been infinitely beguiled by Nic and Camilla when they were small, and he was equally charmed by the two little boys of Liza’s second marriage, Julian, born in 1950, and Jonathon two years later. With his son-in-law he had never got on: he and John maintained the civilities, but privately Maugham found the man a bore, a dry stick, and it was tacitly agreed that whenever possible Liza should come without him. Especially for the two elder children the Mauresque was a magical place: they knew they had to be on their best behavior with their grandfather, whose patience might suddenly give way and whose temper could be terrifying, but there were the enormous garden, the tennis court, the swimming pool—and there was Alan. Alan had become a playmate, a confidant, ever ready with a giggle and a joke, making them collapse with laughter as he gave them a comic rendition of his exploits with the sailor boys down at the port the night before. As Maugham in his old age grew increasingly unpredictable, it was good, devoted Alan to whom everyone turned, Alan who seemed so kind and capable, soothing his employer, reassuring the visitors, and making everything all right. None of the family, not the children, not Liza herself had any inkling that he detested them and was determined to do them down. And yet with hindsight there are a few indications that all was not quite as it appeared. In retrospect both Nic and Camilla remembered occasions when Alan tried to coax them into naughty behavior that would have gotten them into serious trouble; and several of Maugham’s friends detected a more complex personality behind the cheeky-chappy façade, saw something unctuous and moneygrubbing in his demeanor. One observer described Alan as a “cockney Mephistopheles,” while Christopher Isherwood’s boyfriend, Don Bachardy, wrote that “[Alan] is not nearly as simple53 and unimpressive as he pretends to be,” a view endorsed by Alan Pryce-Jones, who defined Searle as “an intriguer, a schemer54 with a keen eye to his own advantage, a troublemaker.”
The origins of Alan’s vindictiveness toward Maugham’s family are obscure. Alan Searle was a sweet-natured man who, as his previous career demonstrated, genuinely loved to do good; his devotion to Maugham was absolute; he had never been a gold digger, out to amass a fortune; and yet from the moment he arrived at the Mauresque he became obsessed, dangerously and irrationally obsessed, by a conviction that Liza and John Hope were scheming to cheat him, to grab for themselves what rightly belonged to him. Maugham had always been generous with Alan. He had set up a trust, as he had done for Gerald, that would provide him with a comfortable income for life, and he frequently made him presents, not only of money and clothes—a mink-lined overcoat, on one occasion—but also of paintings and even his own manuscripts, which were fetching high prices at auction in London and New York. And yet none of this reassured Searle. There must have been some profound insecurity embedded in his past that led him so bitterly to resent Liza’s position as Maugham’s only child. Perhaps a clue is to be found in a line written in an autobiographical memorandum discovered after his death: “Parents subjected me55 to appalling mental cruelty.” Whatever the origins of his delusion, Alan over the years worked himself up into a state of bitter hatred for Liza, and by extension for her husband and children, a hatred he continually harped on to several of Maugham’s closest friends. “I’m always thinking about the future56 and ge
tting scared as to what will happen to me after I no longer have Willie to care for me … his family, of course, are longing to cut my throat, so I am afraid … I am in for a pretty rough time.” Occasionally and in diluted form he expressed his anxieties to his employer, but Maugham, bored by his companion’s endless complaining, was briskly dismissive. “What will become of me57 when you die?” Alan would whine. “You’ll have to go into lodgings,” Maugham teased him, and when Alan’s eyes welled with tears, he would snap at him, “Oh, stop it, you silly cunt.”
In his determination to defeat what he saw as the Hopes’ wicked plans, Searle now determined do everything he could to turn Maugham against them. Yet here he had to tread carefully. Maugham was no fool, and it would be self-defeating to openly criticize Liza in front of him. But then by chance the ideal occasion presented itself, and there fell into Alan’s lap the perfect opportunity to make trouble, trouble that was eventually to grow, to dominate and wholly destroy not only the end of Maugham’s life and his relationship with his daughter but his standing in the eyes of the world before and after his death and for years to come.
BY THE MID-1950S, Maugham’s picture collection had grown enormously in value. Of the thirty or so works of art bought since the beginning of the war, nine had been purchased in Liza’s name, including the Renoir nude and a Picasso: legally they were hers, but it was understood that they should remain at the villa for her father’s lifetime. During Liza’s visits in the summer, Maugham enjoyed talking to her about her pictures and about his will, in which he had left her almost everything; since 1954 she had been the majority shareholder in the company that owned the Mauresque, formed in order to bypass death taxes, but he also wanted the Villa’s contents, his money, and his royalties to go to her and the children. “I want you to know58 that you are going to be extremely well off,” he would tell her. “You are going to be an extremely rich woman.” Liza was a little embarrassed by these conversations, she said, “[but] it was always a friendly atmosphere and I thought it was very generous, naturally.” Her father took care to go over with her every detail of her substantial inheritance, and it was during one of these conversations that he shocked her by revealing that she was born before he had married her mother, a fact of which she had been unaware. Recounting the circumstances of her birth, he explained that in his will he had deliberately referred to her not only by name but specifically as “my daughter,” in case anyone should question her status after his death.
And so matters might have rested had it not been for Maugham’s sudden decision to sell his collection. In 1960 there had been a series of well-organized art thefts along the Côte d’Azur, and these had alarmed him, his disquiet increased by a visit from the mayor of Saint-Jean, who came to warn him that his paintings were bound to be targeted. Alarmed, he contacted Sotheby’s, the Bond Street auction house, and plans were put in place for a high-profile sale to be held in the spring of 1962; this would be accompanied by a short essay by Maugham about his pictures, “Purely for My Pleasure,” handsomely bound and illustrated with color plates. Everything was to go, including the Gauguin on the glass panel in Maugham’s study, and to increase the impact of the sale even further, Maugham persuaded the Hopes to include Liza’s nine pictures with the rest. “It will also be very nice for you both,”59 he said, “as you can have the money now and not wait for my death.” This was amicably agreed between them during his daughter’s annual visit to the Mauresque in August 1961. After she had returned home, Liza wrote to thank him for her stay, as she always did, and she also confirmed her consent to the selling of her paintings with his.
In October, Maugham as usual came to London, and Liza telephoned him at the Dorchester to arrange a meeting. But instead of her father, Alan answered, sounding strangely overwrought: he must come over and see her at once, he said, as there was something he needed urgently to discuss. On arrival at the Hopes’ house in Chelsea, Alan abruptly informed Liza that her father had been made so angry by her “aggressive” letter that he refused to either speak to or see her. She must on no account try to contact him, said Searle, but meanwhile he himself would try to calm the old man down and do his best to effect a reconciliation. Stunned, Liza at first agreed to do as she was told, but when after a week she had heard nothing she again telephoned the Dorchester. Again Alan answered, this time telling her that her father was beside himself with rage, still refused to see her, and was now insisting that she give up at least half her share of the proceeds of the sale. She must obey, said Alan, as Maugham was in a terrible state, his condition was fast deteriorating, and if there were any recalcitrance on her part he could not answer for the consequences. Appalled by Alan’s account and seriously worried, Liza wrote to her father. “Dearest Daddy, You really are making me quite miserable60 by refusing to see me,” she began,
when I think how well we have got on, and what happy times we have had even as recently as six weeks ago when you were so sweet to the children, and we all had such fun at the Mauresque. … How can you suddenly turn on me when I have done absolutely nothing? Please let me come and see you and don’t let’s have any more of this awful rift.
In reply she received an attorney’s letter insisting that it was not possible for Mr. Maugham to meet Lady John while there were certain matters under dispute between them. Mystified and disturbed, Liza wrote a note to her father asking him please to explain what was going on. This note she attached to the lawyer’s letter, giving both to Searle, who had again been to see her and had again pressed her to take just half the proceeds of the sale.
This second visit of Searle’s was on a Friday. On Monday, Liza was telephoned by Alan, who to her astonishment said that her father would like her to come to tea. Searle gave her strict instructions, however, not to mention the pictures. “As far as he’s concerned61 the whole thing is forgotten.”
Or could it be that Maugham knew nothing of the matter? Certainly the subject of the sale was never mentioned. Liza found her father “very pleasant and friendly,” and, extraordinarily, it was as though he were unaware that anything disagreeable had passed between them. A few days later he and Alan returned to the south of France.
The sale, which realized $1,466,864, took place at Sotheby’s on April 10, 1962. Maugham remained at the Mauresque, but Searle, who had been much involved with the preparations, came over to London for the occasion. The night before the auction he called on Liza and talked to her in a manner that both shocked and frightened her. Red in the face and highly emotional, he said her father was determined not to let her have a penny of the picture money, and that if she pressed for it he would disinherit her children. But Liza was not Syrie’s daughter for nothing: by now furious, she told Searle that if any attempt were made to deprive her of what was rightly hers she would fight it in court, at which Alan shouted that she was “a damn fool” and slammed out of the house.
From that moment open war was declared between Maugham and his only child, a source of profound unhappiness to them both. It was only after Maugham’s death that Liza began to suspect how deeply implicated Alan Searle must have been in the traumatic breakdown of her relationship with her father; only later, she said, that she realized “Alan must have had a hand in it.”62* Now nearly ninety, Maugham was a very old man, his mind deteriorating, his grip on reality becoming increasingly fragile. With Alan by his side, a podgy Iago constantly briefing against the family, it is hardly surprising that Maugham became convinced of their treachery and greed. Searle’s letters to his cronies on the subject give a startling insight into the depth of his hostility. Liza, “his vile so-called daughter,”63 was “a scavenger … a bitch64 [who] fills my heart with murder. She goes around saying ‘I love my daddy, and I want to be with him.’ I wonder she doesn’t drop dead … she’s only interested in what she can get out of him…. The greed of these people and their callousness is beyond belief.” He told Maugham that Liza and her husband had been seen at the Mauresque counting the silver, making inventories, and walking aro
und as if they owned the place, that Liza was interested only in his money. As Alan knew, Maugham was vulnerable to such propaganda because of his past history—since his prewar trip to India he had held a grudge against John Hope’s family—but more crucial was his miserable marriage and his loathing of Syrie that was as virulently alive as ever: Liza was Syrie’s daughter, and he saw too much of Syrie in her ever to forget the association.
By now there seemed little chance of resolution. “Alan incites Willie against Liza,65 Willie loathes Lord John Hope, and poor Liza is ill at ease but a cautious, discreet, ambitious girl,” Ann Fleming reported to Evelyn Waugh. Maugham’s niece Diana was another who saw faults on both sides, believing that Liza, too, was becoming unreachable by reason. “There is something in her66—perhaps a coldness … to do with money,” she observed, and she tried to persuade Liza to show more understanding toward her father. But any retraction was now out of the question. Liza was determined to sue, lawyers were called in, and Alan for one looked forward to his day in court. “I only hope that [Maugham]67 will say all the things that he has kept hidden all these years,” he wrote to Robin. “It will ruin [the Hopes] completely … and serve them right too.”
The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham Page 60