A small reception was held afterwards at a nearby hotel. My mother could not reach the service because she was in Portugal, and is terrified of flying. Gillian was conspicuous by her absence. With Priscilla’s death half of her had died. Completely distraught, she could not face the funeral of a friend she had adored since childhood.
When Tracey turned eighteen, Priscilla wrote her a letter, but then decided for some reason not to send it. I discovered it folded away in the padded chest. Tracey was sixty-eight when she read this letter for the first time. Priscilla had been dead for almost thirty years.
‘My darling child,
‘As you very well know you are not strictly speaking my daughter, but as far as I am concerned you might just as well be. I have brought you up from an early age with all the love and affection that I would have given to my own child, had I had one. I believe that your childhood has been a happy one. Certainly far happier than my own.
‘It is now my duty to teach you about life as I have found it. I sincerely hope that you won’t grow up thinking that divorce is an easy solution to any troubles that may occur. Believe me, it is not. It is a wicked and terrible thing, especially if there are children concerned. Nevertheless, I would urge you, when the time comes, to take marriage very seriously. It is not easy to spend one’s life with one man to the exclusion of all others and as time goes by there seem to be more temptations rather than less. I would suggest that you should not consider marriage before you are 21, and if possible leave it until you are 24 or 25. Then you should know your own mind. Not before. Of course, if you fall in love before then you will think, as we all do, that it will last for a lifetime, but we all change as we grow older and it is impossible to know exactly what we want at an early age.
‘Next there is the question of money. You happen to have parents who are both well off and can give you much in life. It will be difficult for you to find a young man who can keep you in the luxury to which you have become accustomed. It is very important in this life to gradually better one’s position. Don’t believe people who talk about “love in a cottage”. It rarely succeeds. I don’t mean by this that you should be mercenary. God forbid! But don’t ever let any man marry you for your money, and make quite sure that he is capable of keeping you, if not in luxury, at least in comfort.
‘Now my last point is a tricky and extremely delicate one. It is a question of morality. Nowadays young girls have a lot of freedom and many of them lead immoral lives. Many marriages are brought about by the fact that the girl is pregnant. Please whatever you do, don’t marry for this reason. It is a bad basis for a marriage. If ever you are in trouble of any sort you must come to me and ask my advice. I don’t know what I shall say to you because there is no easy way out, but I do know that I shall do my utmost to stop you marrying for such a reason.
‘Should you not come to see me, you might try and find your own solution and here you must beware of upsetting your health. Young and ignorant girls have often lived to regret a hasty decision.
‘Drinking and smoking are to be taken seriously too. Both your father and I and all our friends do both, if not to excess, at least too much.
‘One other thing I would like to mention before I end this letter. Whatever you do in life try not to hurt anybody or you will pay for it in the end. Don’t play with people’s feelings and don’t whatever you do leave your husband for somebody else. It is never worth it.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book could not have been written without the assistance of Tracey Maitland, who gave me unrestricted access to Priscilla’s papers. For their recollections and encouragement, I am also indebted to Carleton Thompson, my parents John and Lalage Shakespeare, my aunt Imogen Vignoles, and my late aunt Vivien Van Dam. I cannot adequately thank them for their unstinting support. In no instance was there pressure put on me to remove or alter anything that I uncovered about Priscilla’s life.
For access to Priscilla’s police file and related material in the Musée de la Préfecture de Police archives in Paris, I would like to thank Béatrice Le Fur.
For access to collections of Gillian Sutro’s papers and related material, I would like to thank Bryan Ward-Perkins and the Fellows of Trinity College Oxford; Colin Harris of the Special Collections Department at the Bodleian.
For access to collections of S. P. B. Mais’s papers, I would like to thank Alison McCann at the West Sussex Records Office in Chichester; Laura Russo at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center in Boston; Jeff Walden at the BBC Written Records Centre in Caversham; Rachel Hassall at Sherborne College; Alexander Waugh. For access to Intelligence reports on Alois Miedl at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, I would like to thank Eric Van Slander and Rebecca L. Collier.
For access to reports on British internees in France at the National Archives in Kew, I would like to thank Neil G. Cobbett.
For access to his private collection of papers about the women’s internment camp at Besançon, and for his patience in answering umpteen questions, I would like to thank James A. Fox; for the recollections of their internment, I would like to thank Rita Harding and Shula Troman. As well, and for permission to use her unpublished diaries and memoir, I would like to thank Yvette Goodden.
For permission to quote from his letters to Priscilla, I would like to thank the estate of the late Robert Doynel de la Sausserie.
For permission to quote from Henri Johanet’s letters to Priscilla, I would like to thank Gisèle Levrat.
For access to his father’s unpublished memoir and related material, I would like to thank Quentin Tiberghien and his family.
For permission to quote from Robert Donat’s letters to Priscilla, I would like to thank Brian Donat and his family.
For permission to use the sound recording of Jacqueline Grant’s interview at the Imperial War Museum, I would like to thank Stephen Walton.
For permission to quote from ‘To Your Daughter’ in Alec Waugh’s Resentment (Richard, 1918), and from Alec’s letters to Arthur Waugh, I would like to thank Peter Waugh.
For permission to quote from Graham Greene’s letter to Dermot Mills (© 2013, Verdant SA), I would like to thank the estate of Graham Greene and David Higham Associates. For permission to quote from Greene’s The Quiet American (© 1955), I would like to thank Random House.
For permission to quote from Geoffrey Wansell’s letter to Priscilla, I would like to thank the estate of Geoffrey Wansell and the Sayle Literary Agency.
For permission to quote from Jean D’Ormesson’s At God’s Pleasure (© 1977), tr. Barbara Bray, I would like to thank the author and Harvill Secker, Random House.
For permission to quote from Joseph Kessel’s Belle de Jour (© 2007), tr. Geoffrey Wagner, I would like to thank Gerald Duckworth & Co.
For permission to quote from Rosemary Say’s Rosie’s War (© 2011), I would like to thank Noel Holland and Michael O’Mara Books.
For permission to quote from Antonia Hunt’s Little Resistance (© 1982), I would like to thank the estate of Antonia Hunt and Leo Cooper/Pen & Sword Books.
For permission to quote from Hanna Diamond’s Women and the Second World War in France, 1939–48: Choices and Constraints (© 1999), I would like to thank the author and Longman.
For permission to quote from Michael Bar-Zohar’s The Phantom Conspiracy (© 1981), I would like to thank the author and Orion Publishing Group.
For permission to quote from Antony Beevor’s D-day: The Battle for Normandy (© 2010), I would like to thank the author and Penguin Books.
For permission to quote from Elisabeth Furse’s Dream Weaver (© 1993), I would like to thank the estate of Elisabeth Furse and Ann Barr.
For permission to quote from Martha Gellhorn’s The Honeyed Peace (© 1953), I would like to thank the estate of Martha Gellhorn and Penguin Books.
For permission to quote from P. G. Wodehouse’s Performing flea, a self-portrait in letters (© 1954), I would like to thank the estate of P. G. Wodehouse. Repr
oduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd.
For permission to quote from George Orwell’s 1945 broadcast ‘In Defense of P. G. Wodehouse’, anthologized in The Orwell Reader (© 1978), ed. Peter Davison, I would like to thank the estate of George Orwell c/o A. M. Heath and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
I would like to express my gratitude to the following: Gillon Aitken, Brian Aldiss, Elisabeth Barillé, Francesca Barrie, Vicky Bassadone, John Bevington, Maurice Bezard, Jennifer Booth, Carmen Callil, Joseph Carer, Zizi Carer, Peter and Louise Cawthra, Jacques and Marie-Ange Chabert, Maria Corelli, Judy Daulton, Eric Daviatte, Brian Donat, Serge Doubrovsky, Richard and Adeline Doynel de la Sausserie, Heinz Fehlauer, Jean-Michel Fouquet, Didier Gamerdinger, Robert Girardi, Michael Goodden, Jacqueline Hodey, Annette Howard, Robert Irving, Phyllis Jeffery, Adrianne Joseph, Michael Kerr, Katherine Lack, Christophe Lafaye, Patrick Langlade, Gisèle Levrat, Christopher MacLehose, Angela Mclean, Bryan Magee, Tracey and Tim Maitland, Rüdiger von Maltzahn, Jean-Paul Pitou, Priscilla Pessey, Sue Procopio, Timothy Radcliffe OP, Maisie Robson, Claudius Schonenberger, Gitta Sereny, Michael Sheringham, Jon Stallworthy, Priscilla Thiriez-Andre, Susie Thompson, Ariel Tiberghien, Arnaud and Christiane Tiberghien, Didier Tiberghien, Gael Tiberghien, Jean-Loup Tiberghien, Pierre-Yves and Susan Tiberghien, Quentin Tiberghien, Peter Waugh, Michaël Yannaghas, Nancy Yeide, Sofka Zinovieff.
I would like to thank the staff of the Codrington Library and Taylorian Library in Oxford; the Fondation Ledig-Rowohlt and staff of Château de Lavigny in Switzerland, where part of this book was written.
All writers depend on the input of others. I would like to thank Antony Beevor for his generous nit-picking; my editor Liz Foley for her calm guidance; Clare Alexander, Gillian Johnson, Nicholas Robinson and Peter Washington for reading early drafts and for their comments. In particular, I would like to thank John Hatt for his time and patience, and for lessons in punctuation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph by Gillian Johnson
NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE was born in 1957. His novels have been translated into twenty languages. They include The Vision of Elena Silves, a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and The Dancer Upstairs, which was chosen by the American Library Association in 1997 as the year’s best novel, and in 2001 was made into a film of the same name by John Malkovich. Bruce Chatwin, Shakespeare’s biography of the British novelist, was published in 2000 to widespread critical acclaim. Shakespeare is married with two sons and currently lives in Oxford.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
ALSO BY NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE
FICTION
The Vision of Elena Silves
The High Flyer
The Dancer Upstairs
Snowleg
Secrets of the Sea
Inheritance
NONFICTION
Bruce Chatwin
In Tasmania
SOURCES
Abbreviations used in source sections:
PT: Priscilla Thompson papers
SPB: S. P. B. Mais papers, West Sussex Records Office, Chichester
GS: Gillian Sutro papers, Special Collections, Bodleian Library, Oxford
IWM: Imperial War Musem, Lambeth
NA: National Archives, Kew
BBC: BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham
MPP: Musée de la Préfecture de Police archives, Paris
ANF: Archives Nationale de France, Paris
AM: Archives départementales de la Manche, Saint-Lô
AC: Archives départementales du Calvados, Caen
HGA: Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston
NARA: National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC
Literature on the Occupation would fill the two libraries in Oxford where I wrote much of this book, and every day fresh archival material appears online. For help in understanding the background to Priscilla’s life in France, I am grateful to a number of writers, whose works are listed below. Like any student of this period, I am indebted to the pioneering scholarship of Robert Paxton, Julian Jackson, Philippe Burrin, Patrick Buisson, Robert Gildea, Antony Beevor, Allan Mitchell, Hanna Diamond, Ian Ousby and Richard Vinen.
PART ONE
Based on conversations with Vicky Bassadone, Peter Cawthra, Maria Corelli, Judy Daulton, Annette Howard, Phyllis Jeffery, Tracey Maitland, John and Lalage Shakespeare, Carleton and Susie Thompson, Vivien Van Dam.
Unpublished sources: MPP; PT; SPB; Vivien Van Dam memoir; ‘Venal Vera’, published anonymously (although attributed to Canadian war correspondent Quentin Reynolds).
Newspapers: Nursing Times, Chichester Observer.
Books: All the Days of My Life, by S. P. B. Mais (Hutchinson, 1937); Buffets and Rewards, by S. P. B. Mais (Hutchinson, 1952); The Happiest Days of My Life, by S. P. B. Mais (Max Parish, 1953).
PART TWO
Based on conversations with Maurice Bezard, Joseph Carer, Zizi Carer, Richard and Adeline Doynel de la Sausserie, Jacqueline Hodey, Robert Irving, Bryan Magee, Jean-Paul Pitou, Sue Procopio, Michel Lepourry, Jon Stallworthy, Shula Troman, Vivien Van Dam, Michaël Yannaghas.
Unpublished sources: PT; GS; SPB; IWM; BBC; NA; IWM; AC; AM; Rossall School archives.
Newspapers: The Times, News of the World, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, Bonnier’s, Vogue, London Gazette, L’Ouest Éclair.
Books and articles: A French Officer’s Diary: 23 August 1939–1 October 1940, by D. Barlone, tr. L. V. Cass (Cambridge, 1942); The Private Diaries of Paul Baudouin, tr. Charles Petrie (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1948); BBC Handbook 1941 (BBC, 1941); Fireworks at Dusk: Paris in the Thirties, by Olivier Bernier (Little, Brown, 1993); Strange Defeat, by Marc Bloch (Oxford, 1949); Myths of War, by Marie Bonaparte (Imago, 1947); Voices from the Dark Years: The Truth about Occupied France, 1940–45, by Douglas Boyd (Sutton, 2007); The Thirty-nine Steps, by John Buchan (Blackwood, 1915); Living with Defeat: France under the German Occupation, 1940–44, by Philippe Burrin tr. Janet Lloyd (Arnold, 1996); The Road to Bordeaux, by Douglas Cooper & C. Denis Freeman (Cresset, 1942); Looking for Trouble, by Virginia Cowles (Hamish Hamilton, 1941); Généalogie de la Maison Doynel, by Colonel Doynel de La Sausserie, in ‘Héraldique et généalogie’, 1986, pp. 392–401; Paris Diary 1932–33, by Edward Gordon Craig, ed. Colin Franklin (Bird & Bull Press, 1982); An American in Paris, by Janet Flanner (Simon & Schuster, 1940); Marching to Captivity: the War Diaries of a French Peasant 1939–45, by Gustave Folcher, tr. Christopher Hill (Brassey’s, 1966); The Thirties: an Intimate History, by Juliet Gardiner (Harper Press, 2010); Memoirs of Montparnasse, by John Glassco (Oxford, 1970); Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene (Heinemann, 1938); Holy Deadlock, by A. P. Herbert (Methuen, 1934); The Ayes Have It; the Story of the Marriage Bill, by A. P. Herbert (Methuen, 1937); Front Line, by Clare Hollingworth (Cape, 1990); A Strange Eventful History: the Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable Families, by Michael Holroyd (Chatto & Windus, 2008); Memories of Occupied France, by Agnès Humbert, tr. Barbara Mellor (Bloomsbury, 2008); The Fall of France: 1940, by Julian Jackson, (Oxford, 2003); France: the Dark Years 1940–1944, by Julian Jackson (Oxford, 2001); Report on France, by Thomas Kernan (John Lane, 1942); Belle de Jour, by Joseph Kessel (Gallimard, 1928; Duckworth, 2007, tr. Geoffrey Wagner); Scum of the Earth, by Arthur Koestler (Cape, 1941); De Gaulle: the Rebel 1890–1944; De Gaulle: the Ruler 1945–70, by Jean Lacouture, tr. Alan Sheridan (Harvill, 1992); The Leopard, by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (Collins, 1960); If Britain had Fallen, by Norman Longmate (Greenhill, 2004); Shadows Lengthen, by Clara Longworth de Chambrun (Scribner, 1949); Loose ends, by Arnold Lunn (Hutchinson, 1919); by S. P. B. Mais : A Public School in Wartime (John Murray 1916); Interlude (Chapman & Hall, 1917); Rebellion (Richards, 1917); A Schoolmaster’s Diary (Richards, 1918); Education of a Philanderer (Richards, 1919); An English Course for Everybody (Richards, 1921); Oh! To be in England (Richards, 1922); Delight in Books (
Wheaton, 1931); See England first (Richards, 1932); This Unknown Island (Putnam, 1932); These I Have Loved (Putnam, 1933); S.O.S.: Talks on Unemployment (Putnam, 1933); A Modern Columbus (Rich & Cowan, 1934); Time to Spare: What Unemployment Means, ed. Felix Greene (Allen & Unwin, 1935); The Writing of English (Chapman & Hall, 1935); England’s Character (Hutchinson, 1936); The Three-Coloured Pencil (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1937); The English Scene Today (Rockliff, 1938); Raven Among the Rooks (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1939); Listen to the Country (Hutchinson, 1939); Diary of a Public Schoolmaster (Lutterworth, 1940); Diary of a Citizen (Lutterworth, 1941); Caper Sauce (Hutchinson, 1948); I Return to Switzerland (Christopher Johnson, 1948); Wodehouse: a Life, by Robert McCrum (Viking, 2004); Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie, by Tony Lee Moral (Manchester University Press, 2002); Suite Française, by Irène Némirovsky, tr. Sandra Smith (Chatto & Windus, 2004); At God’s Pleasure, by Jean D’Ormesson, tr. Barbara Bray (Harvill, 1978); Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940–1944, by Ian Ousby (John Murray, 1997); A Pacifist’s War: Diaries 1939–45, by Frances Partridge (Phoenix, 1999); Occupied Territory, by Polly Peabody (Cresset, 1941); Bluebell: the Authorized Biography of Margaret Kelly, Founder of the Legendary Bluebell Girls, by George Perry (Pavilion, 1986); The Life of Irène Némirovsky, by Olivier Philipponnat and Patrick Lienhardt, tr. Euan Cameron (Chatto & Windus, 2010); Death and Tomorrow, by Peter de Polnay (Secker & Warburg, 1944); Pages d’atelier, 1917–1982, by Francis Ponge (Gallimard, 2005); An Unrepentant Englishman: The life of S. P. B. Mais, Ambassador of the Countryside, by Maisie Robson (King’s England Press, 2005); Wodehouse at War, by Iain Sproat (Ticknor & Fields, 1981); Histoire généalogique de la maison de Chivré, 1096–1987: Maine, Anjou, Normandie, Drôme, Avignon, Gérard de Villeneuve avec la collaboration de Paul Doynel de La Sausserie et de René de Chivré, (Versailles, 1988); The Loom of Youth, by Alec Waugh (Richards, 1917); Resentment: Poems, by Alec Waugh, (Richards, 1918); The Eye of the Storm, by Patrick White (Cape, 1973); Devon Holiday, by Henry Williamson (Cape, 1935); At the Blue Moon Again, by D. B. Wyndham Lewis (Methuen, 1925); On straw and other conceits, by D. B. Wyndham Lewis (Methuen, 1927); The Stuffed Owl: an Anthology of Bad Verse, selected by D. B. Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee (Dent, 1930); Performing Flea, a Self-Portrait in Letters, by P. G. Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1953).
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