The Letters of Noel Coward

by Noel Coward

  They also reveal the repeating pattern in his life—the need to compete and succeed, at one and the same time, in all the creative areas his multiple talents opened up to him; the winding up of his personal mainspring until mind and body force him to stop and draw reluctant breath…and then the game is afoot once more. So much to do, so little time. If anyone was ever driven, Noël was driven by the need to succeed and please those few whose approval he sought.

  He was always a man in a hurry—a hurry to get on to the next thing and the next place. Which is why he was particularly fond of the telegram as a means of communication. Not only was it necessarily brief and to the point but it lent itself to the kind of verbal jokes that he dearly loved. Western Union should have given him shares.

  There is the famous (and probably apocryphal) story of the occasion when Noël tried to send a telegram by phone when he was in New York. Being fond of signing both his letters and cables with fanciful names, he dictated as his signature “Fiorello La Guardia.”

  There was a moment of outraged silence on the line. Then….

  “Are you really Mayor La Guardia?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can't sign it ‘Fiorello La Guardia.’ What is your real name?”

  “Noël Coward.”

  “Are you really Noël Coward?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you may sign it ‘Fiorello La Guardia.’ ”

  •

  I HAVE TRIED as far as possible to avoid endless footnotes. The linking narrative covers most of the necessary context, and I have inserted key information, such as a surname or the title of a play, in the letter itself.

  I have also, in the main, adhered to the misspellings in the original letters—Noël's and his correspondents’. Occasionally I have indicated the correct spelling, so as not to drive the proofreader mad, but it seemed to me that you are probably as sick of sk as I am. So what you see is what Noël got—and gave.

  When he was asked in a final TV interview to sum up his life in a single word, Noël thought for a long moment before saying, “Love … To know that you are among people you love and who love you. That has made all the successes wonderful—much more wonderful than they'd have been anyway. And that's it, really.”

  Apart from time's winged chariot, the thread that goes through this life in letters is, indeed, love. Not the homosexual definition of love that can now not only speak but positively shout its name. That was not the Coward style. As his friend Rebecca West always maintained, “He was a very dignified man…There was an impeccable dignity in his sexual life, which was reticent but untainted by pretence.” He would not have been well pleased to become a gay icon at the expense of his work or to observe, for instance, a generation of young gay directors giving us Coward plays, “as darling Noël would have produced them,” had he been able to in the prehistory of sexual liberation.

  Drawing by Lynne Carey.

  No, the love expressed in the letters is an almost childlike affection for family and friends, with Noël anxious to see the qualities he wanted to see in them, even in those cases—such as Jack Wilson—when the signs increasingly indicated otherwise. Noël continued to travel hopefully and to see what he wanted to see for as long as he could.

  And of all of his correspondents, the most important for those first fifty-four years of his life was his mother, Violet Coward. He wrote to her once a week, regular as clockwork, whenever he was away from her, telling her what he was doing, how he was feeling, seeking her approval. In them and in her replies one can see the balance of the relationship shift as fame and a degree of fortune take over the son and turn the nurturing mother into the dependant, now demanding the love she feels is hers by right.

  No sweet little old lady contentedly crocheting in a rose-bowered cottage, she emerges as a strong-minded, not to say imperious, woman, determined to see her son succeed and making her love conditional on his efforts to do so. If contemporary society insisted on trapping her in a social stereotype, then she expressed herself through him. Shakespeare would have known what to make of her, and it is surely no accident that there are so many strong women in Coward.

  Theirs was just one of the “love stories” the letters reveal.

  BARRY DAY

  NEW YORK AND PALM BEACH

  2007

  PREFACE

  Hail, starry dawn and dark December morn,

  Clash on the cymbals, blow the hunting horn,

  Let joy be unconfined and flags unfurled

  To honour Noël's advent in the world.

  Not long since that auspicious winter day

  When he, an innocent pink cherub, lay

  In swaddling clothes, and sucked and coo-ed and cried

  While his Mamma beamed down on him with pride.

  Yet even she could not foretell his fame,

  Nor did she spot the Muses when they came

  By Comet from Parnassus (V.I.P.

  Nine spritely sisters, and their baggage, free.)

  To place their gifts upon the bassinette,

  And make this sleeping babe their special pet.

  Melpomene, Terpsichore (Terps to you)

  Polymnia, Clio and Euterpe too,

  With harpsichord and palette, brush and pen,

  To bless this babe, most fortunate of men.

  Came their Papa, in his triumphal car,

  (The spirit of Winston, minus his cigar)

  Quoth he, “That high-brow stuff may go down well

  On Mount Olympus, but down here, it's hell.

  Wit is the saving grace of this world, and hereafter,

  So I endow your prodigy with laughter.”

  The Norns (or Maughams? I always get them mixed)

  Wove pretty woofs with N.C. on them fixed,

  While Pan (not Peter, but his adult prototype)

  Composed a new allegro for the pipe,

  And danced to it in moonlit woods, for joy,

  (Which shows this was no ordinary boy)

  Sweet and beguiling ladies, merry gents,

  Pray charge your goblets while you still make sense,

  And to the ancient air you know so well,

  Sing with the Waits outside

  No-ël, No-ël!

  KATE MARY BRUCE

  (Somerset Maugham's favorite niece)

  PART ONE

  “BEGINNERS, PLEASE!”

  CHAPTER 1

  THE BOY ACTOR

  (1899-1919)

  I never cared who scored the goal Or which side won the silver cup, I never learned to bat or bowl But I heard the curtain going up.

  UNTIL THE DAY she died, Violet Agnes Veitch Coward made sure she was the single most important person in her son Noël's life. In a very real sense her own determination shaped what he became. She suffered—like a lot of late-Victorian, lower-middle-class women— from having a native intelligence that was largely uneducated and from having to settle, through lack of alternatives, for the boring domestic round. Married to the ineffectual Arthur Coward, she found herself in the poverty trap, forced to take in lodgers to make ends meet. The role of cook, bottle washer, and all-round skivvy was not one she relished or thought she deserved. Some generations back, she would remind people, her own family had had “connections.” Noël wrote that his mother came from a “good family…brought up in the tradition of being a gentlewoman.” Living in suburban Teddington, Middlesex, with her sometime piano salesman husband, that must have seemed a world away.

  In 1928—with Noël at the height of his fame—Violet decided to put her version of the family history on the record:

  Mr. Noël Coward, author of This Year of Grace, is the descendant of a very old Scotch family on his mother's side, Veitch of Dawick in Pee-bleshire. The beautiful and finely wooded estate of Dawick which extended for 4 miles along the banks of the river Tweed was held by the Veitches from the 13th to the close of the 17th century, when an heiress inherited and married James MacSuelt, 2nd baronet, known as the “Deil o'Dawick.” The ru
ins of the old house are still in existence but nearby has been built a beautiful castellated mansion. There is a celebrated avenue of silver firs.

  Noël's mother, Violet Agnes Coward (1863-1954).

  Mrs. Coward's great grandfather, Mr. Henry Veitch was Her Majesty's agent and Consul General of her Island of Madeira for 30 years. His great uncle was Sir George Harrison, assistant secretary to the treasury who lived at Spring Gardens and wrote several learned books which with his portrait are preserved in the British Museum. His grandfather entered the British Navy and became Captain but retired at an early age on account of his health and went to Madeira with his wife and family, where they lived for some years. On his death his widow returned to England and settled in what was in those days the pretty riverside village of Teddington on Thames. There his youngest daughter met Mr. Coward, who was a member of a large and very medical family who did much to help with their talents in the work of the Parish and services in the beautiful church of St. Alban. The vicar, Francis Boy of Toronto, Canada, was a great friend of the family and was afterwards Vicar of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge.

  Noël Coward's grandfather on his father's side was organist of the Crystal Palace when it was at the height of its popularity and was one of the most celebrated glee writers of his day.

  The Veitch coat of arms is three bulls’ heads and the motto—“ We extend our fame by our deeds,” which seems singularly appropriate to their present descendant.

  Noël's maternal grandmother, Mary Kathleen Synch (1837-1908).

  Violet Coward

  December 9th 1928

  Being a woman of spirit, though, she was always looking for a way out of the sexual and social prison society had imposed on her and women like her and she knew she would have to find that way out for herself.

  To add to her burdens, her beloved first son, Russell, died at the age of six of spinal meningitis. He was “so lovely and so clever, too clever,” she would recall.

  And then, on December 16, her second son, Noël Peirce, was born—the “Noël” the Cowards considered appropriate because Christmas was just around the corner and this was the best Christmas present Violet could imagine.

  “I was looking forward with joy and longing to my little newcomer,” Violet wrote in the notes she left behind, “little knowing the great happiness and pride I was to have in him, and how he was to alter all our lives. It seems almost incredible to think that I should have been destined to be the mother of a genius.”

  It was a present she would cherish for the next half century. In fact, she came to live her life through it.

  Aunt Vidal Sarah (“Vida”) Veitch (1854-1946).

  When she died, “Mum's Suitcase” came to light and it became obvious that she had kept every last relic of her remarkable second son. There was the little blue book marked “Baby's Record” that came to new mothers with the compliments of Mellin's Food for Babies (“Used by the Royal Mother of the Future King of England”). With her sharp sense of humor, Violet must have positively enjoyed writing in the column marked “Baby Food” the names of Mellin's two major competitors!

  She also noted: “Baby's eyes—blue, hair ‘Golden Brown,’ weight: 7% lbs.” She documented his first outing: “January 10th, 1900: Baby went out for the first time in the garden. Wore hat and cloak and went for walk.” And other trivia: “Bought baby's first pair of shoes and he walked out the nursery in them holding on to a chair.”

  Writing finis in August 1901, she concluded with the observation that he had “cut his last tooth, thank goodness!”

  •

  ALTHOUGH THE FAMILY had no real theatrical background, there was always music in the air. Several members of the family on both sides sang in church choirs, and like so many Victorian—or by this time, Edwardian—families, the informal sing-song round the family piano was a primary source of family entertainment in those pre—radio and TV days.

  As a result, the young Noël was brought up to the sound of music and could remember and sing those songs and hymns word for word perfectly to the end of his life. The urge to entertain seems to have been in his genes. At two he had to be removed from church for dancing in the aisle to accompany the hymn being played, and even in old age he would still recall his disappointment that his passionate rendering of the treble solo in the church choir did not receive a round of applause but instead the shuffling of an audience kneeling to pray.

  Brother Russell Arthur Coward (1891-1898).

  Another disappointment he suffered was the fact that he applied for but was rejected by the Chapel Royal choir. No reason was given, but it remained a contentious topic for Noël and as late as 1949 he is correcting journalist Beverley Baxter, who was preparing a profile for The Times and had sent Noël the draft to vet. Noël replied:

  The article is very loving and very kind and pleases me very much. Of course, you have been basely inaccurate on one point, which is that I NEVER told you that my boy's voice was awful. On the contrary, it was quite, quite beautiful and on one occasion moved the late ex—Queen of Portugal to tears. The reason that the Chapel Royal refused me was because my performance was too dramatic.

  •

  THE SAME URGE to entertain was evidenced in his first extant letter to Violet in that same seventh year. It became a habit to send Noël in the summer to stay with his aunt Laura (Violet's sister) and uncle Harry Bul-teel in Charlestown, near St. Austell, Cornwall. The house and grounds were spectacular and there was a large lake with an island and a dilapidated punt to get to it.

  Darling Mother

  I hope you are well. Girlie [his cousin Violet] has taught me to row with two oars and I row her along. I had some little boys over yesterday afternoon to tea and I dressed up in a short dress and danced to them and sung to them and we all went round the lake and on it. XXXXXOOOOXO I am writing this in the kitchen with love from Noël Coward give this to Maggie and Winnie.

  Maggie and Winnie were the maids in the Coward household at that time. No matter how straitened a family's circumstances, it was unthinkable to manage without domestic servants.

  Another endless summer (1912) and another unpunctuated letter:

  Dear Darling old Mother,

  Thank you very much for your letter. I could not send a card and this was scarcely odd because there were no cards to send. I am enjoying myself very much indeed Yesterday Girlie took me round the lake and gave me a nice swing, and in the evening she and I went out in a boat fishing we were out nearly 3 hours and never caught a single one. I have been out in the yaught this afternoon it was very rough and I was fearfly sea sick and Uncle Harry took me ashore and I was going to wait on the beach for 2 hours but a very nice lady asked me to go to tea with her I went and had a huge tea this is the menu 3 seed buns 2 peacies of cake 2 peacies of Bread and jam 3 Biscuits 2 cups of tea when I thanked her she began to Preach and said we were all put into the world to do kind things (amen) I am afraid she did not impress me much but I wished her somewhere I shant go in that yaught again for months and months and months. Auntie Laura sent my washing to the village I hope you are not miserable it makes me miserable to think you are I have got to go to bed now so goodbye from your ever loving sun Noël. Squillions of kisses to all love to Eric the name of the lady that gave me tea is Mrs. Penrose Walter. The dogs are so nice down here Nan and Marcus, Marcus sits on a chair and smokes a pipe he looks so funny and if you drop anything anywhere Nan goes and fetches it. I had 3 little boys to tea yesterday each about the size of a flea. I had to amuse them and didn't enjoy it much Elephant [Aunt Laura] sends her love.

  His brother Eric (later Erik) had entered the scene in 1905. Noël always professed to be indifferent to both his father and Erik, and certainly there is little evidence of marked affection on either side, but they rubbed along and corresponded occasionally once Noël took to the road as a touring actor.

  There was room for only one emotional relationship in the Coward family and that was the rather Oedipal one between Noël and Violet. Unbeknownst to h
im she wrote a memoir of him that was found in Mum's Suitcase: “There is so much I could tell of his dear ways and loving affection when he was a boy, no mother ever had such a son and I always feel that I am really and truly more proud of his love for me than of his great success.” But she was not complaining of that success when it came.

  •

  MEANWHILE, THERE WAS a small matter of Noël's education. Dancing and singing lessons were all very well, but the three Rs were in grave need of attention by this time (1909). Matters were not helped by the fact that the Coward family were somewhat footloose and kept moving the family home. At the end of that year his parents made (for them) a difficult decision. After Christmas, Noël was sent to stay with Aunty Amy and Uncle Ran in St. George's Square, where he was tutored by Mr. Selfe, who seems to have been a minor Dickensian pedagogue. Taken away from home, the ten-year-old Noël was badly homesick, a condition that was to apply for many years to come when he was separated from his mother.

  Dear darling old Mother,

  I am still very unhappy and I shant get over it till I see you again. I would rather see you than Alladin but I suppose I cant. I saw the Portsmouth train going off the other day and I longed to get on it. I wish you would let me come back to you please do, for I do want to so I could never be happy without you. I cry every night and day and are so miserable do let me come back. I am quite alright now but I wish you were here. The dinners are alright, at school there are six new boys. I have to get up very early in the morning. Aunty Amy and Uncle Ran send there love to you … oh mother do send me some money to come down to you please do I am not very happy here without you….