The Wandering Years (1922-39)

by Cecil Beaton

  Wonderful people were there, all very artistic. Bernard Shaw stood talking to the Fagans. Mary Grey[19] stuck her face almost into his, pouted her lips and puffed out her cheeks. I thought Shaw looked very pale, scraggy and watery-eyed and old; but then, I suppose he is old. Lopokova came in, smiled and bowed at me. She wore the same huge moccasins and almost transparent dress I had seen her in at Cambridge. How small she is, how unaffected without any powder. David Cecil arrived in a taxi, together with a frightfully affected person from Oxford.

  I waited outside a long time. I felt sorry for a little old woman. She peered into every taxi, but her friend still hadn’t arrived a quarter of an hour after the show began. Neither had mine: Boy, it turned out, went to the wrong theatre!

  March 25th

  The alarm clock woke me successfully at 7.30. I lay in bed, wondering whether after all I would get up and go to church.

  I would; I did. It took me ten minutes to dress, one minute to unbolt the front door and three more to reach the church at the end of Southwick Place. Few people were there. I didn’t like the church at all, but felt pleased to have been to Communion.

  I came home fresh and full of energy, then read the papers while waiting for people to come down to breakfast.

  Poor Sarah Bernhardt is dying! It seems like some final part to be played with those grandiloquent, yearning gestures (after all, hadn’t she always wanted to die on the stage?).

  How I loved her red frizz, her white face, hen’s beak and kohl-rimmed eyes. She was beautiful when young, like a Delacroix gypsy. And they say that at one time she became so thin you could only see the ghost of a skeleton emerge from the hansom cab when it arrived at the theatre. In later life she was heavy but made a none the less grandiose appearance, muffled up in lace, chinchilla and violets, with a huge sable extinguisher on her head. Her voice must have been golden, but I missed my only opportunity when, one-legged, she last appeared in London…

  The following vignettes are included, for all their detailed banality, to show something of our family life.

  Perhaps they stress too much the misunderstandings, irritations, and clashes of temperament which are so often part of a large household with its conflicts of age and interest: for, in fact, we were a united, happy family, always wanting to share our delights and joys, particularly those of the country-pleasures which only city dwellers know. But it was during those periods of enforced enjoyment of the family holidays that the strain sometimes brought about scenes that were tragi-comic.

  In defence of my own smugly critical attitudes and fantasy-snobbishness little can be said. The fact that as the eldest of the children I had had glimpses of the grandeur of adult life, cannot excuse my callow condemnation of the very people of whom I am most deeply fond.

  IN THE COUNTRY WITH MODOM

  April 9th, Turner’s Hill

  Aunt Jessie’s Danish friends, the Petersens, sometimes lend her their weekend cottage at Turner’s Hill. As I was recovering from my sixth bad cold this winter, she suggested a few days in the country. The Petersens would send us down in their motor.

  The idea of ‘the country’ has always excited me. I put on my coat and waited impatiently. Modom buzzed about, making an inventory of the supplies we were taking with us — candles, tea, coffee, sugar and peppercorns.

  Of course, the motor was ten minutes late; and it took another ten minutes to get the luggage on board. I asked the chauffeur if Turner’s Hill was in Sussex or Surrey. ‘Sussex,’ he replied. Nancy and Baba rushed into the house, screaming, ‘Sussex, Sussex.’

  It was a bitterly cold morning. We sat comfortable and airless in the Petersens’ huge car. I looked at the squalid scene while Modom held a pencil and jotted down the names of passing places. ‘Oh look,’ she exclaimed with unwithered enthusiasm, ‘this is Purley, Balham Hill, Tooting. And here’s Wandsworth Common.’

  I felt vaguely sick at the very mention of absurd suburbs which had always been a joke before. I couldn’t imagine why we didn’t go past Wigan!

  It was snowing outside, the first snow of winter in spring. I shut my ears to Modom’s enthusiasm and read the last act of Advertising April.

  It stopped snowing. The countryside became green, dotted with pink and white blossoms. I was now very curious to see what sort of place we would arrive at. Modom kept saying, ‘Oh, it’s all very nice.’ But then, she considers such weird things are nice. I asked a lot of questions. ‘Is the cottage pretty? Is it old? Is it grey stone? Is the countryside hilly or wooded?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Modom replied, making me suspect the worst. Then we arrived; and my suspicions seemed confirmed. Before us stood a new, red-brick cottage.

  A white-haired woman opened the door. Her name is Mrs Eagles. She has known the Petersens for many years, and quickly informed us that a kinder man than Mr Petersen didn’t exist. ‘He is the kindest, goodest man God ever created in the whole world!’

  Inside, the cottage proved pleasant in spite of its newness. A great log fire burned in the open fireplace. Pots of primroses stood on the window sill. There were red walls, quiet oak furniture a bowls of wild flowers. I thought the pictures unsuitable, but they would have to stay. Books included volumes on Velazquez, Franz Hals, Millais (I now quite like Ophelia), Rossetti and Holman Hunt.

  Aunt Jessie went into the kitchen and started to talk sob stuff with Mrs Eagles about Madam Butterfly. ‘It’s so beautiful, so sad. She is waiting for him, you know. It’s his child. And then she kills herself.’

  Mrs Eagles repeated the last word of each sentence and added, ‘Oh yes, I’ve read about it in the papers.’

  Again they talked of Mr Petersen, the world’s paragon. Aunt Jessie agreed, ‘He’s the kindest man. I adore him.’ She laughed and warned, ‘But you mustn’t tell Mrs Petersen that!’

  Screams of laughter from Mrs Eagles. It made me so on edge I pinched myself. I tried to get absorbed in the Pre-Raphaelites and not listen, but the two women chattered and laughed loudly.

  Mrs Eagles bragged, ‘Yes, I’m fifty-three, and I can still carry two slop basins down the stairs.’

  Modom said how happy she was now that she had no servants or money.

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Eagles replied, ‘What I say is, “Waste not, want not”.’

  ‘Absolutely. Oh, absolutely.’ Then Modom brooded: ‘What shall we have for dinner tonight? I’m trying to get thin, you know. I only want one good meal a day. It’s healthy.’

  ‘Oh yes, absolutely,’ Mrs Eagles agreed. ‘I have only had one meal a day for fifty-three years and I can still carry two slop pails,’ etc.

  ‘Some steak, some onions,’ Modom suggested. ‘I’ve been abroad a lot, you know. My husband was the Bolivian Minister. He died.’

  ‘Oh, yes, my husband was a taxi driver,’ Mrs Eagles took up the refrain. ‘He left me with five children, and Mr Petersen sent me a pound. My daughter is a between-maid.’

  ‘Oh? My sister Etty is so sweet and kind and considerate. She keeps five maids, but none of them are good to her. Oh, Mrs Eagles, you must see her. I hope she’s coming down here for a day. Her between-maid won’t get up in the morning,’ etc.

  At last Modom issued forth from the kitchen. We went out for a walk. I couldn’t admire the village, with new cottages so infernally hideous and suburban. I became a little tempery when we walked along a tarmac road. It’s all very well, but one can do that in London.

  It started to snow again, then stopped. In spite of the wet, we trudged on to Lord Cowdray’s estate and were rewarded. Birds twittered in the avenues of huge grey trees. We sat on an upturned trunk by a gurgling stream. All seemed calm and quiet, except for the birds’ song. Modom discovered a beautifully made nest, as smooth as the inside of a coconut, which held two greeny-blue eggs with brown specks on them.

  Then we came to a primrose field, with thousands of little faces looking up at the sky. Trying to get near the biggest clumps of yellow primroses I jumped into a bog. My red tie got splashed.

  Winnings in the
distance: Aunt Jessie couldn’t jump over a little stream scarcely a yard wide.

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ I laughed.

  Timidly, Modom lifted her black skirt to reveal pink knickers. Now for the jump across the stream. It was quite easy to do, but — splosh! ‘Oh, oh, oh, I’ve gone over my ankles! I’ll catch my death of cold.’

  At six o’clock we came home footsore. Modom loved it all, even the tarmac road. We had tea and I ate a lot, then lay back in a huge chair. I thought of the green groves, quiet woods, grey moss, fawn-coloured birds and the trees silent and beautiful. I felt happy.

  Modom made a wonderful supper from her Bolivian recipes — Empanadas — little pies filled with meat and raisins — then picante chicken. It was spicy, peppery and good. I gobbled while Modom talked in a whisper. She always does at mealtimes, as though the act of eating were something forbidden. Methodical, diligent, dainty and precious, she watched my plate. ‘Let me give you another pinch of Aji.’[20]

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Oh, but yes, only a nip,’ and she heaped my plate with mounds of everything.

  After supper I lighted twelve candles, ignoring the oil lamp. I lay back and read about Rossetti. Who would have known him to be so voluptuous and horrid, taking chloral in later days? Poor man, he turned out to be a brilliant disappointment.

  Early bedtime. One had to be quick in undressing: it was cold away from the enormous fire in the room downstairs.

  April 12th

  Overslept and came down in my dressing gown to eat an egg which had only just been laid. The sky was dark grey with clouds. There were no letters. I deliberated for a long time as to whether or not to go to the post office and telephone home. Perhaps if the family thought of coming down, then they had better be warned of the wet weather.

  It took only a minute to get through to London. Murphy answered the telephone. Though I asked thousands of questions, she still didn’t know who was speaking. ‘No, Mrs Beaton has gone away for the day with Miss Nancy and Barbara and Mr Reggie.’ They had started at 9.30!

  I ran to tell the good news to Modom, who sat in the kitchen exchanging ‘absolutelys’ with Mrs Eagles.

  A flurry of excitement ensued. Auntie worked very hard, polished tables and chairs and the window sill, hurried upstairs, put on her grey and black suit, made up her face as if for the stage and ran off to buy a leg of lamb. Mrs Eagles flurried for rhubarb and vegetables from the next garden. I was left to Rossetti’s chloric.

  After a bit, Modom came back with a gargantuan joint.

  All of a sudden the sun came out. The sky cleared and it became hot. Brrr, brr, brrr, brrr, the little Calthorpe chugged slowly up the hill. Inside were Mummy, who drove, and Nancy, Baba and Reggie — all of them squashed up without hats.

  Everyone screamed and rushed about. I seized things out of the car; two films, hair lotion, letters, chocolates, Roquefort cheese and baskets. Nancy and Baba jumped with hysterical excitement inspired by my letters of the past two days.

  Indoors, the ‘absolutelys’ rose to a crescendo. ‘Isn’t it lovely! Isn’t it sweet, delightful! Now this is my idea of a country cottage. Oh, isn’t the fireplace cosy? What adorable windows,’ etc.

  Nancy jigged up and down. ‘I wish we could stay the night, Mummie, can’t we sleep here?’ With Baba in her wake, she sped upstairs to the bedrooms, then she sped down again.

  Modom’s voice soared and swooped: ‘Beautiful eggs, just out of the nest and only one-and-sixpence a dozen!’

  While the sun still shone, we hurriedly decided to go into the woods. Reggie drove: Nancy, Baba and I sat on different parts of the car and whizzed along with the wind blowing through our hair. An old woman, looking rather like Great-Aunt Clare, lay sleeping on some logs. Her hands were behind her head, her hat on her stomach. Our laughter was so shrill that we woke her up.

  We got out at the Red Lane. Baba thought she was being so clever in ‘going down the Red Lane’. Arm in arm, the four of us trooped across Lord Cowdray’s preserves. We hurried through the wet grass, climbed banks and hedges with boundless energy, and invaded the wispy woods. Nancy and Baba shrieked with ecstasy at the sight of pheasants and partridges, small rabbits and a squirrel. They danced around trees, gathered the primroses, scooped up the star moss and listened to the crackle of leaves and twigs. We bolted home with baskets full.

  After the joint (undercooked!), we braved the afternoon rain. Everyone put on thick shoes and overcoats and went out. We walked over sopping fields and climbed gates. Nancy looked so pretty, her hair getting curlier and her cheeks pinker every minute. Baba was being chirpy about her botanical diary. We came to the boggy wood and fought for gowans — Nancy and Baba eager, Reggie so dashing.

  We picked quantities of the yellow blobs. Nancy chirped from the middle of a bog. ‘Mummie’s bought a new hat.’

  ‘Oh, what’s it like?’

  And Baba in a throaty voice, ‘It’s a little cloche,’ etc., etc.

  On our way back over the wet fields, we saw newborn lambs, and I inspected the thrushes’ nest with the two bright eggs inside it.

  It began to rain. Back in front of the fire, shoes and socks were hung up to dry while the women separated the primroses, gowans and wild violets, busily tying them into separate bunches with cord. Nancy did so want to stay the night, but no: time to put on the socks and pile high the motor-car with foliage, flowers and eggs. Then space must be found for the occupants. At last the Calthorpe drove off. And it seemed so quiet, dull and lonely.

  Darling Modom will go on talking in whispers at meals, and if only she wouldn’t refer to lunch as ‘dinner’ and dinner as ‘supper’. Yet she has even me doing it. Why won’t she allow me to help myself? She even tries to give me salt and ‘that’s bad luck!’ ‘There, there,’ she says, all full of breath. ‘There!’ as with eyebrows raised to heaven and lips pursed into a cupid’s bow, she takes spoon and fork in her fat little shiny white hands.

  Modom has other peculiar habits. She often leaves off in the middle of a sentence and goes on with some other half sentence. It is tiresomely abstract. ‘So you’re blue, yellow, green and red,’ five minutes later, I discover she’s talking about my Fair Isle jumper.

  She affects a foreign accent. She pronounces ‘potato’ or ‘tomato’ like a Spaniard; she talks about ‘a negge’ or ‘a nahpple’. Instead of swearing she exclaims ‘Och ta tai.’

  Yet Aunt Jessie is wonderful, I love her. She has a heart of the purest gold. Her courage and gallantry is heroic. What other woman, so essentially feminine, could survive without any trace of bitterness such a reverse of good fortune? Once she was ‘Her Excellency’ with the entrée at Court. She was flirtatious and admired. Rich yet happy! Her dinner parties were listed in The Times. Then, suddenly, her husband’s fortune in the rubber plantations of Bolivia was lost, and she became a destitute widow. Hardly any of her colleagues in the Diplomatic Corps bother about her now, though she still has staunch friends who appreciate her for her extraordinary generosity of spirit and gaiety.

  For me, as a child, she was not only the most resplendent human being, but she gave me my first unforgettable taste of adult luxury. To see her today is less comic than tragic as she simpers out of the room with all the airs and graces of yesterday but with the fag end of a cigarette yellowing her upper lip, and a vegetable dish poised in either hand.

  I judge Modom so harshly because I am an insufferable snob. Besides, she has interrupted me twenty times while I write this. ‘I can’t think what you scribble so much about in the evenings.’ I reply arrogantly that it is my ‘work’. It isn’t, and hating myself for my swinishness I go unhappily to bed.

  August 30th, Instow, Cornwall

  At loose ends, with nothing to do on a cold morning, I took out Daddy’s large box camera and decoyed Matilda, the grotesque servant at the hotel, into the garden. If her photograph comes out it will rival ‘the Ugly Duchess’. I could hardly hold the camera still for laughing at her wig (like cotton wool dipped in Bovr
il) and huge hourglass figure encased in black.

  Reggie and some man had been messing about with the man’s car while Matilda postured. Baba said the man had exclaimed about me, ‘What a terrible looking person,’ and asked Reggie who I was. Why didn’t I get my hair cut, etc.

  Reggie (foolishly, as I at first thought) replied he didn’t know me. But on thinking it over, I’m glad he denied acquaintance. The man would have told everybody about his faux pas: ‘And do you know who he was? Why, his own brother.’

  I pretended I didn’t mind a bit, but I do mind — a lot.

  Somewhat dejectedly, I went for a walk beyond the cricket ground, wandering slowly up the hill to the church. On the way I stood gazing for ages at an old stable of the most unique shape. The light dappled through the trees threw moving shadows on the Devonshire cream cracked walls.

  I felt an urge to do something about the stable — perhaps photograph it, but then the plum painted doors and windows would be lost. I rushed home for my paints and was lucky that Reggie brought me back again to this spot in the car.

  But rain came down periodically, and the shadows disappeared. The sketch was an utter failure, which made me profoundly desolate.

  September 3rd, London

  Tokyo and Yokohama have been wiped out by an earthquake. There is no proper news yet, but over 200,000 people are estimated killed. The papers were just one mass of this earthquake and the return of Pavlova. I read all about it after breakfast, then lotioned my hair with that evil-smelling muck.

  September 5th

  My father came back from the office with the news that he is going to America on the Berengaria on Saturday. What exultation at dinner! We all talked American — like rich Americans because we don’t like to think there are any poor Americans.