The Years Between (1939-44)

by Cecil Beaton

  It was in hearing of such senseless, forgotten minutiae that the summer afternoon passed in halcyon retrospect.

  We went over to Oggie’s new dwelling nearby, and listened to Maggie Teyte on gramophone records singing Fauré and other French songs. At fifty, today, Maggie Teyte’s voice, being so beautifully trained, is more perfect than ever it was. Lily Elsie sorrowed, ‘I had no stage training, no singing lessons. My voice has entirely gone — everything’s gone!’ Oggie commented that Elsie’s singing had always had intuitive style, and that at the first performance of the ‘Widow’, Maggie Teyte had sat with her in a box, and said that so fresh and exquisite was Elsie’s voice that it gave her to despair.

  Somewhat tentatively I took a few snapshots of Lily Elsie in Oggie’s garden. In the hard, out-of-door light her face suddenly became pulpy, coarse and plump, and the liquid melting stag eyes lost their brilliance.

  ‘Don’t publish them without cutting off a little lump from the hips, and don’t choose one in which, like a hen, I’m sitting badly!’

  Lily Elsie is now a middle-aged woman (to write that sentence is, for me, a tragedy, for how could that exquisite heroine ever become old?), yet there seems little cause for sadness. She still exudes the quality that only those who have been greatly admired can possess: and once they have it, it remains with them for always.

  At the end of a long day Lily Elsie dropped me at the station on her way home. I had known her all these years by her stage name and it came as quite an embarrassment to call her Elsie, for I had not known that Lily was a name never used by her friends. Dear Lily Elsie, her memory will always have a fragrance that none other possessed for Cecil Beaton.

  NOËL COWARD

  1942

  Wet feet — cold feet all day long — in the snow and in railway carriages going to and from a Ministry of Information job. Particularly discouraged to arrive at night at Denham to find no John Sutro to meet me, as arranged, at the station. Waving a lantern in an endeavour to find a telephone box, like Lear on the heath, I staggered down a snowy road. At last a pair of headlamps, a call from the darkness, and I was saved. John motored me to his temporary home where we found his wife, Gillian, waiting for us in front of a glowing hearth. With her was Noël Coward who is preparing his film In Which We Serve at the neighbouring studios.

  Although each time we have met we have become friends Noël and I have never got along well. In between meetings we have said bad things about one another and obviously they have been repeated. It’s true that I have been bloody about him, and I have never quite known why I should have felt so intolerant and bitter. There was no reason to be that jealous of him. It isn’t that we cross one another’s paths. I don’t resent successful people as a rule. However, here we were irrevocably face to face and, as usual, and, of course, we were pleased to see each other.

  Noël was extremely generous and, at once, said some kind things about my recent work. I was pleased. Life suddenly had a glow as I sat in my socks, my shoes baking by the huge fire. The very cockles of my being were thawed even more by the praise than the embers or the cocktails. However, after two enormous Martinis I felt I should keep a check on myself in case I should say something that could be taken in evidence against me by my newfound friend. This was ungenerous of me because the white flag had been accepted by us both, and Noël was being completely frank and opening himself up to me on a platter. Who was I to hold back? A lot more gin loosened any remaining constraints I had.

  Soon an extraordinary evening, which the Sutros watched in comparative silence, was under way. Noël is nothing if not articulate, and his analysis of us both was excellent. His command of words is quite fresh, and only occasionally did he resort to the use of words like ‘glamour’, and ‘hiccupping off’, ‘flouncing off’ which have been appropriated and ruined by people without his ability. Suddenly I confessed, ‘I’ve never really minded your being bloody about me, but it has baffled me that a person of your perspicacity should have shown no interest in me.’ To which he answered, ‘Don’t you believe it, sister, I’ve been madly interested in you! But I’ve been a fool, I’ve misjudged you. The war has shown how wrong I’ve been. You’ve done a great job — you’ve whipped off in a bomber to Iceland,[22] you’ve earned great respect in the RAF; and it just shows what a mistake I made. You’ve been yourself always, and how right you’ve been! I’ve been hiccuping off at the outbreak of the war, thinking it was a wonderful thing to give up those two plays that were already in production to do a job that anyone else could have done. You’ve done much better than I by just sticking to your guns: people respect you more for that. You used to stand for everything I dislike. I’ve been beastly about you being Elsa Maxwell’s darling and Elsie Mendl’s puss. But I’ve been wrong. Let’s be buddies! Life’s going to be tough for us all for the next years of the war, and much tougher after the war, and it’s better that people like us should be friends rather than enemies because we really have so much in common — powers of observation, wit, industriousness and professionalism. Ring me up, or I’ll telephone to know what you’re doing at the last minute, and come to stay here, while we’re making this film, in my guest room any night you’re free.’ The Sutros were silently amazed. During dinner they doled out great libations of burgundy and apricot brandy. Noël never stopped the pace for four hours. He got a bit squiffy — his eyes closed up and his face became drawn and haggard, but he spoke with lucidity and brilliance. Luckily I never saw myself in a glass, but I slurred over certain words. We lurched over to Noël’s rented villa near by to drink a huge container of cocktail. Noël has never acquired a taste for comfort, and these temporary quarters showed no signs of his tenancy apart from a ‘Little King’ cartoon on the wall and, in silver frames, signed photographs of the Kents, Mountbattens, Toscanini and Rachmaninoff.

  I asked Noël about his method of writing plays, but he elaborates little on the birth pangs of creation for the reason that there are none, or if so, they are not interesting to him. ‘If I type easily then I know the stuff is good!’ The way he goes over the appalling obstacles of play construction is done with the ease of a surf-rider skimming the Honolulu waves. He spoke with emotion of his childhood when his mother took him to the pit to see Gertie Millar, Gracie Leigh and the other stars of his formative period. He is first-rate when discussing the theatre in any of its branches. He dismisses Broadway as of little interest. I asked, ‘And Geo. Kaufman — what do you think of him?’ ‘Nothing — why do you?’ Broadway is too easy meat for Noël. He admitted to having had such success during the last fifteen years that he wouldn’t think it terrible if a bomb killed him today. ‘Blithe Spirit is a bloody good play, and Private Lives will always be revived and will go into the history of comedy like a play by Congreve or Wilde.’

  It was 1 o’clock: the unexpected evening was at last at an end. We embraced. We reaffirmed that we are friends now and it is, as he says, better and nicer that we stop being so jealous of one another. Gillian had long gone to sleep. John did impersonations of nonogenarians while I lay chuckling in bed.

  Next morning John woke us with an imitation of a ship’s steward doing his rounds and calling for all luggage to be ready in an hour as we were landing before midday in order to catch the tide. It was one of his best improvisations. Gillian and I took an ice-cold early morning train to London, and it was little wonder that I had a hangover and felt a bit weak from the shock of last evening.

  January 14th, 1942

  Thirty-eight! January 14th, 1904, I was born thirty-eight years ago! I’ve never liked birthdays — not even at fourteen did I want to be older. But birthdays used to be a festivity — now another nail in my coffin. Was busy this morning — didn’t have much time to think about it.

  Lunch with Cecil Day Lewis who talked about the way he writes poetry: gets a clue line, writes it in a notebook. Later, when he has a stomach-ache that denotes it is time for him to deliver, the poem is evolved around this line. Half of poem is due to the way he works it out
— half inspiration — half technique (or idiom).

  Like C.D.L. so much. He looks as if he’s disintegrating, his complexion almost malarial and his thick, but lustreless, hair donkey-coloured. But he has reserves of energy, an inner vitality, and his eyes express everything and pierce you with their penetrating, but compassionate, curiosity. Knows how to write. He went through my RAF book carefully, making brilliant suggestions; never missed up on a piece of bad style.

  Whole day spent at Ministry. Took my MS to censor. Slept a bit before dining with Colefax — nice party — Marjorie Anglesey, Cranbornes, Duchess of Devonshire, Ivor Churchill, Victor Cazalet fresh from Russia with General Sikorski.

  As I had slept before dinner it took longer than usual to get off at night, so thought about my life and wondered about the past in comparison to the future. Had it been a good past for preparing for older age? Doubt it. Long to write for stage — virtually without any talent for it. Have cold feet. Thought about Daddy — how little I’d had to talk to him about — yet how like him I’m becoming in so many recurring ways. Find myself behaving like him often — laughing like him — polite interest shown when obviously bored — childish whimsical look when walking alone — or in the dark. Wondered a lot about my childhood (‘picking daisies’ were my first words), my earliest drawings, aged four, were signed by my nickname Toto. Remembered how I fell in love when I was still at Harrow, and the thrill of working in a proper theatre at Cambridge. Wished Peter had rung but not surprised he didn’t — he never even thanked me for Christmas books — likes teasing me — let him have his little game.

  Nothing as ageing as a war. The Americans now visiting us say we have aged ten to twenty years in two years of worry. It’s the anxiety that makes us so old.

  High spot of week: Long evening with C. Day Lewis over my book, discussing styles and forms of writing and writers. It snows. He described the sounds of everything muffled in snow: postman’s tread — even the birds’ twitter. Snow reduces London to a village. A black cat comes into its own: everything else white: cat a-hopping.

  Randolph[23] to suggest to B. Bracken I am sent out to Cairo to photograph the war in the desert. Thrilled at idea of escaping and doing some more useful jobs. Besides, London palls.

  DINNER WITH MARGOT OXFORD

  January 24th

  A deux — Margot at her most delightful, at her best. Edythe Baker, with a slimy Cabinet minister, shrugged her shoulders and made an expiring grimace at me from across the restaurant. For someone thinking only in terms of sex, probably my dinner companion did look a little unappetizing. Margot presents a rather macabre sight these days with the strangest make-up and clothes. Tonight she had applied two very rough black eyebrows and burnt-corked eyelids. She wore a lot of thick underclothes beneath a transparent green Russian blouse, and on her head, at a perilous angle, a Russian cossack toque of long-haired fur that kept tickling one eye.

  During the last war Margot was at Downing Street; she was one of the great figures in England, a pivot of interest and excitement. Today she has no position and has been too frank for her friends. It is remarkable how graciously she takes her back seat. She remains completely un-bitter.

  Never was she as mellow or warm-hearted as tonight. For three and a half hours a most galvanizing and witty performance on her part overcame any superficial deficiencies. I feel she will not be ‘with us’ for long, and she has so much to teach. She is never afraid of showing her naïveté and childishness. Her knowledge of geography is as poor as mine; neither of us could place the counties of England. She professes only a superficial gift for politics, cannot speak German although she lived a year in Dresden, Berlin and Munich, and she has little French. But her sense of humour gives her a bond of sympathy with everyone who can understand anything funny. Her understanding of human nature is deeply sympathetic. She also possesses the freemasonry of the artist.

  She discussed her frankness: ‘When I’m tired, or bored, I always start undressing in the drawing-room.’ When her dinner guest rises and apologizes, ‘I’m terribly sorry, I must leave,’ she replies, ‘No one can leave too early for me.’

  She spoke of her husband with deep admiration for his character and humour. In Leicestershire her hunting friends said, ‘But you can’t marry a man with long hair!’ (They were later surprised to find that Mr Asquith knew the names of all Derby runners and their jockeys for the past twenty years; and quite dashed when he said, ‘You see, I have a wonderful memory for all trivialities.’) Four prime ministers signed the registry book at their marriage.

  Certainly the one man she loathes with venom is Lloyd George. She obviously dislikes him for having dislodged her husband from power, but she has made herself believe it is because of his dishonesty and crookedness. In one passage-at-arms he turned on her and said, ‘My dear lady, you are morbid about the truth.’

  She told me of how, when Lloyd George was living at No 11 and Herbert, as the Prime Minister, was away visiting the King of Italy, Lloyd George determined to overcome her hostility. He even thought he might make a pass at her, and appeared in her bedroom one night. Margot sat up very erect and behaved as if there was nothing strange in his sudden appearance and said, ‘Now do tell me the news — all the news.’

  When Asquith was out of a job and Margot and he found themselves without a penny, Thornton Butterworth offered her £30,000 for her autobiography. When the money arrived, Margot asked, ‘I suppose we’d better save and invest this?’ ‘No,’ said Herbert Asquith, ‘Let’s spend it and enjoy it,’ and they did. Today Margot is poor and really rather lonely. It is true she can be a nuisance and a bit obstreperous, but it is an indictment of her contemporaries that they do not put up with her any more, treat her as a bore, and are without the imagination to appreciate her shafts of wit.

  Of course Margot can be extremely difficult. At Vaynol recently she slapped Lady ... across the face for allegedly cheating at cards, then rushed into the next room to beard the husband. ‘Sir B., you’re a nice man. Your wife’s terrible. You should never have married her. Let this be a lesson to you!’ At the same house-party she appeared at midday dressed in tweeds, with bootees and leggings, and a tall pheasant’s feather in her hat for the shooting lunch. Sitting in the improvised tent, she fervently inquired what the local shots thought about the latest political events and the morning’s leading article in The Times. When the locals excused themselves by saying that they had left the house before the papers had arrived, Margot turned in disgust, and in a stage whisper opined, ‘Ignorant fools.’

  On another occasion she stood in the hall at a wedding reception and, as the guests endeavoured to go up to the drawing-room to shake hands with the young couple, confided in a loud aside, ‘Don’t go upstairs, the bride’s hideous!’

  Especially since the bombardment, with London empty of all except those who have to work here, Margot has time to permit fate to play a large part in her existence. When I told her that, unfortunately, I seldom allowed destiny a chance to act its part in my life, she said, ‘But you’re so busy! You see, I’ve got nothing to do at all! Yesterday I saw two young RAF men lunching at that table over there. I asked if they wanted a lift afterwards anywhere as I was fortunate enough to have a car and driver. The young men explained that one was the groom and the other his best man. So I took them in my motor to the wedding in Hanover Square.’

  Another day Margot saw a woman waiting in the rain for a bus and took her to her destination in Esher.

  ‘Now I am without a maid and I have to ask the liftmen at the Savoy to get me out of my dress.’ Her butler, Whitmore — a great character who has been with her seventeen years — comes to see her each day. He knocks on the door. ‘Can I come in?’ (Never a m’lady or anything like that.) ‘Just a minute, Whitmore, while I put a Shetland shawl round my head and get myself ready.’ Whitmore comes in and asks, ‘Do you know of a good life of Voltaire?’ Then he proceeds of his own free will to ring up Mr Cyril Radclyffe or Mr Cecil Beaton to see if they can have
her to dinner. ‘But Mr Beaton has only a small house, Whitmore; I’m sure he can’t have me tonight.’ They go out in the car. Whitmore, sitting in front, says to the chauffeur, ‘How can we amuse her?’ To save the embarrassment of hearing the reply Margot pulls-to the intervening window.

  When talking of prison reform she remarked, ‘Wormwood Scrubs! What a name for a prison! Dickens couldn’t have done better!’ At one moment, on the subject of suffragettes, I interrupted and said, ‘Surely they were before the war!’ Very sweetly Margot continued, ‘It doesn’t matter if it was on Thursday or Friday.’ She relishes a good story, especially if it is long and full of complicated labyrinths! She chortled with deep enjoyment when I told her about Bridget Paget whose maid told her she was going to the races, ‘in a charabanc with fifty friends’. ‘Fifty friends?’ exclaimed Bridget, pulling at her wisps of hair. ‘How lucky you are, I’ve only got five!’

  Margot also reminisced about her lecture trip to America: how she was invaded in her cabin on the boat by the reporters before she was dressed. ‘Go to my hotel and wait for me there — I’m not dressed yet!’ she shouted through the door. ‘But we have to make the evening papers!’ By degrees the reporters wormed their way into her cabin while she kept asking questions of them. ‘Why do you sit on rocking chairs?’ ‘Why must you continuously use spittoons?’ They laughed.

  ‘Now, now, Lady Oxford, we want an interview.’