Chapter 1
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TERRIBLY INTIMATE PORTRAITS
COMPILED BY
NOEL COWARD
WITH SIXTEEN REPRODUCTIONS FROM OLD MASTERS BY LORN MACNAUGHTAN
BONI AND LIVERIGHT
PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK
TERRIBLY INTIMATE PORTRAITS
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC.
_Printed in the United States of America_
_To_
GLADYS BARBER
AUTHOR'S NOTE
In view of the fact that I have received many tiresome and even carping letters from the more captious critics of this child of my brain, I feel in justice to myself and Miss Macnaughtan that it is incumbent upon me to protest, in no measured terms, against what is not only an organised opposition and a pusillanimous display of superficial egotism, but a dirty trick.
I have been taunted with my inaccuracies; I have been called a fool; an idiot; an uneducated dolt; and an illiterate cow! This is far from kind, and I resent it.
My concentrated researches prove these memoirs to be absolutely accurate in every historical detail.
I refute utterly these criticisms, fostered by naught but the basest jealousy.
My parents and other relatives consider the book excellent.
NOEL COWARD.
"THE HOLLIES," MARINE CRESCENT, ROME.
FOREWORD
I have endeavoured in writing and compiling this book, to emphasize not only actual deeds and historical facts, but to aspire to an even higher goal--to conjure to life for a few brief moments the "Souls" of my subjects, stark in all their deathless beauty. What task could be nobler than to delve in these vivid famous lives and bring to light, perhaps, some hitherto undiscovered motive--some delicate and radiant action which so far has escaped the common historian and lain unplucked like a wee wood violet in an old, old garden!
Modern realists would have us believe that romance and beauty are dead, that the spirit of heroic achievement and chivalry has been crushed by the juggernautic wheels of civilisation. Poor blind, sad-hearted fools--their dreary, unlovely minds have risen like gaunt weeds from the ashes of their wasted opportunities. Romance dead? Never! And in order to disprove their dismal forebodings, I have included in my portrait gallery studies of such national heroes as--Snurge, Spout, Puffwater and Plinge. Men selected purposely not merely for the glory of their achievements but for the individual dissimilarity of their fundamental characteristics, and to illustrate to doubting minds the amazing resemblance between the signal courage and romanticism of our forebears, and the innate present day spirit of high endeavour.
Take for example "Madcap Moll," Eighth Duchess of Wapping, and her famous ride to Norwich--and compare it with Jabez Puffwater's ride to the succour of his old Aunt Topsy. Or E. Maxwell Snurge's celebrated national appeal in West Forty-Second street, and Sarah, Lady Tunnell-Penge's dramatic speech from Tower Hill to the turbulent people of London.
All, all are impregnated through and through with the never failing spirit of public heroism, and staunch loyalty to existing standards, and all will stand for beauty, romance, and nobility of purpose until the end of time.
Ring up the curtain. Bring to life the faded tapestries of yesterday side by side with the vivid multi-coloured bas-reliefs of to-day! The frou-frou of brocade and lavender adown bygone corridors, and the sharp toned clarion call of Twentieth Century heroism and daring-do!
NOEL COWARD
"THE HOLLIES," MARINE CRESCENT, ROME.
CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWORD
1. MY AMERICAN DIARY
2. JULIE DE POOPINAC
3. MADCAP MOLL, EIGHTH DUCHESS OF WAPPING
4. E. MAXWELL SNURGE, AN INTIMATE STUDY
5. BIANCA DI PIANNO-FORTI
6. SARAH, LADY TUNNELL-PENGE ("WINSOME SAL")
7. JABEZ PUFFWATER
8. FURSTIN LIEBERWURST ZU SCHWEINEN-KALBER
9. JAKE D'ANNUNZIO SPOUT
10. DONNA ISABELLA ANGELA Y BANANAS
11. MAGGIE MACWHISTLE
12. THE EDUCATION OF RUPERT PLINGE
13. ANNA PODD
14. SOPHIE, THE UNCROWNED QUEEN OF HENRY VIII
15. "LA BIBI"
16. AH! AH!, QUEEN OF THE RUDE ISLANDS
GLOSSARY
PRESS NOTICES
FOOTNOTES
TERRIBLY INTIMATE PORTRAITS
I
"MY AMERICAN DIARY"
_SATURDAY_
I felt that some sort of scene was necessary in order to celebrate my first entrance into America, so I said "Little lamb, who made thee?" to a customs official. A fracas ensued far exceeding my wildest dreams, during which he delved down--with malice aforethought--to the bottom of my trunk and discovered the oddest things in my sponge bag. I think I'm going to like America.
I have very good letters to Daniel Blood, Dolores Hoofer, Senator Pinchbeck, Violet Curzon-Meyer, and Julia Pescod, so I ought to get along all right socially at any rate.
It would be quite impossible to give an adequate description of one's first glimpse of Broadway at night--I should like to have a little pocket memory of it to take out and look at whenever I feel depressed. I shall feel awfully offended for Piccadilly Circus when I get back.
God! How I love frosted chocolate!
_WEDNESDAY_
For a really jolly evening, recommend me to the Times Square subway station. You get into any train with that delicious sensation of breathless uncertainty as to where exactly you are going to be conveyed. To approach an official is sheer folly, as any tentative question is quickly calculated to work him up into a frenzy of rage and violence, while to ask your fellow passengers is equally useless as they are generally as dazed as you are. The great thing is to keep calm and at all costs avoid expresses.
As another means of locomotion the Elevated possesses a rugged charm which is all its own, the serene pleasure of gazing into frowsy bedroom windows at elderly coloured ladies in bust bodices and flannel petticoats, being only equalled by the sudden thrill you experience when the two front carriages hurtle down into the street in flames.
I took three of my plays to Fred Latham at the Globe Theatre. He didn't accept them for immediate production, but he told me of two delightful bus rides, one going up Riverside Drive, and the other coming down Riverside Drive. I was very grateful as the busses, though slow moving, are more or less tranquil and filled with the wittiest advertisements--especially the little notices about official civility, which made everyone rock with laughter.
_FRIDAY_
Met Alexander Woollcott and Heywood Broun at a first night--we were roguish together for hours--Alexander Woollcott says that each new play is a fresh joy to him, but the question is whether he's a fresh joy to each new play!--I wonder.
_TUESDAY_
Spent all last night at Coney Island--I've never known such an atmosphere of genuine carnival. We went on "The Whip," the sudden convulsions of which drove the metal clasp of my braces sharply into my back, I think scarring me for life. Then we went into "The Haunted House" where a board gave way beneath my feet and ricked my ankle, the "Giant Dipper" was comparatively tame as I only bruised my side and cut my cheek. After this we had "hot dog" and stout, which the others seemed to enjoy immensely, then--laughing gaily--we all ran through a revolving wooden wheel, at least the others did, I inadvertently caught my foot and fell, which caused a lot of amusement. I shall not go out again with a sharp edged cigarette case in my pocket.
_THURSDAY_
Went down to Chinatown with a jolly party all in deep evening dress which I thought was rather inappropriate. Mrs. Vernon Bale dropped her side comb into the chop suey which occasioned much laughter--Jeffery was very tiresome and refused to be impressed, saying repeatedly that he'd seen it all before in "Aladdin!"
We all went to "Montmartre" afterwards. Ina Claire was there looking lovely as usual. Marie Prune was sitting at the next table squinting dreadfully and, I think, rather drunk and obviously upset about her sister running away with a Chinaman--poor dear, she's had a lot of trouble but still even that's no excuse for looking like a blanc mange slipping off the dish, she should cultivate a little more vitality and never wear pink.
_MONDAY_
Just back from a week-end at Southampton with Mrs. Vernon Bale. Apart from coming down to breakfast she's a perfect hostess. We played the most peculiar games on Sunday evening and she and Florrie Wick did a Nautch dance which was most entertaining and bizarre! How hospitable Americans are, I've fixed up heaps of luncheon engagements for next week--Edgar Peopthatch was particularly kind--he offered to introduce me to Carl Van Vechten and Sophie Tucker both of whom I've been longing to meet.
_THURSDAY_
Such a busy day! Had plays refused by Edgar Selwyn and William Harris, and this book turned down by Scribner's. I also fell off a bus, being unused to getting out on the right-hand side. I just love America.
_SUNDAY_
Went with Lester to hear Tom Burke sing at the Hippodrome. His voice is better than it's ever been and he sang exceedingly good stuff. Poor John MacCormack with his winsome Irish ballads.
_TUESDAY_
Lunched at the Coffee House--what an atmosphere--even the veal and ham pie tasted of the best American literature, and there was a lovely signed photograph of Hugh Walpole. I do hope I shall be taken again.
The "Vanity Fair" offices impressed me a lot, they're so comfortable, artistic, and full of deathless endeavour. They took the proofs of this book in order to publish one or two extracts from it and sent it back full of the loveliest corrections. I was duly grateful as Mr. Bishop had told me a _lot_ about burlesque during the afternoon.
_WEDNESDAY_
Lynn Fontanne took me to tea at Neysa McMein's studio which was most attractive, she is a charming hostess and there was an air of pleasing bohemianism about the whole affair which went far towards making me take another cake--in more formal surroundings I should naturally have refrained. After tea I played and sang and everybody talked. It was all great fun. I liked F. P. A. enormously, he really ought to write for the papers.
_SATURDAY_
If I had money I should buy the English rights of "Dulcy" and drag Lynn back to England by sheer force--we have few enough good actresses without letting those we have, fly away. There's no denying that America's the place to get on--this book was refused by Harcourt Brace only yesterday.
Met the Theatre Guild this morning and played hide and seek with them in the park--such a merry set of rascals! Teresa Helburn invented a new prank--she took all my MSS. and hid them in a tin box for two months--how we laughed!
_THURSDAY_
Apparently all the theatrical "Elite" congregate at the Algonquin for supper, I noticed Elsie and Mrs. Janis, Irving Berlin, Frances Carson, and Desiree Bibble who looked appalling in probably the rudest hat that has ever been worn by man, woman, or child.
Marc Connelly made me laugh for twenty minutes over a friend's funeral--_what_ a sense of humour!
_TUESDAY_
Spent all day on an island in the middle of the Sound with a lot of old gentlemen in towels--returned very sunburned and in great pain--now I know what Jeffery suffered when he embarked for England looking like a fire engine.
Went to the first night of "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife" with Alfred Lunt--in which Barry Baxter made an enormous hit, he is now a brilliant light comedian. I think one or two of his sworn acquaintances in England will be _quite_ cross when I tell them.
_SATURDAY_
Had my first experience of surf bathing to-day, at Easthampton. Apart from spraining my wrist, being grazed all over, stunned by a breaker, and finally swept several miles out to sea, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
_MONDAY_
Met Mr. Liveright--what a dear!
JULIE DE POOPINAC
For several years all France rang with the name of Julie de Poopinac--or to give her her full title, Angelique Yvonne Mathilde Clementine Virginie Celeste Julie, Vicomtesse de Poopinac. As the most peerless of all the beauties at Court during the last years of a desperately tottering throne, she has been hailed and heralded (and is still in some outlying villages in Old Provence and Old Normandy) as almost an enchantress, so great was her beauty and her wit. Born in a stately chateau in Old Picardy, she was brought up in comparative seclusion; her father, the Duc de Potache,[1] spent his time at Court, so that her radiant loveliness was left to mature and develop unnoticed. Her childhood was uneventful, but at the age of seventeen this ravishing creature was wedded by proxy to Gustave de Poopinac, a dashing young officer in the Garde du Corps,[2] and at twenty-five she came to Court in order to see her husband; but alas! Fate, seated securely in Destiny's irreproachable turret, willed it that her journey should be in vain. She left Old Picardy a merry, laughing married woman--and arrived at Versailles a widow. Gustave, the husband whose love she would never know, perished at an early hour on the morning of her arrival, at an adversary's sword-point behind a potting-shed near the Petit Trianon. Rumour whispered that it was on account of a woman that he fought and lost, but this last blow of Providence's hatchet was spared his girl bride, innocent, secure in her supreme purity and innate virginity. If evil tongues had even mentioned the word "woman" to her, she would not have known what they meant.
Gradually the pain of her loss grew less. She commenced to enter into Court life with a certain amount of zest. Ben-Hepple tells us that it was during a masked carnival in the Park of Versailles that she first attracted the attention of the amorous King. He had dropped behind Du Barry for a moment to tie up his bootlace, and Julie, running girlishly along the moonlit path, bumped violently into his arched back. With a muttered exclamation he straightened himself and tore off her mask. Ben-Hepple goes on to say that his Majesty went from scarlet to white, from white to green, and then back again to scarlet before he made his world-famed remark, "_Mon Dieu! Quel visage!_" At this moment Du Barry appeared, furious at being left, and dragged her royal paramour away. But the mischief was done. The wheel of circumstance had turned once more--and a few days later Julie changed her _appartements_ for some on a higher landing.
What vice! What intrigue! What corruption! Versailles seemed but a vast conservatory sheltering the vile soil from which sprang the lilies of France--La Belle France, as Edgar Sheepmeadow so eloquently puts it. Did any single bloom escape the blight of ineffable depravity? No--not one! Occasionally some fresh young thing would appear at Court--appealing and innocent. Then the atmosphere would begin to take effect: some one would whisper something to her--she would leer almost unconsciously; a few days later she would be discovered carrying on anyhow!
Julie de Poopinac, beautiful, accomplished and incredibly witty, queened it in this _melee_ of appalling degeneracy; she was not at heart wicked, but her environment closed in upon her pinched and wasted heart, crushing the youth and sweetness from it.
She held between her slim fingers the reins of government, and womanlike she twisted them this way and that, her foolish head slightly turned by adulation and flattery. Louis adored her: he gave her a cameo brooch, a beaded footstool (which his mother had used), and the loveliest cock linnet, which used to fly about all over the place, singing songs of its own composition.
All the world knows of her celebrated scene with Marie Antoinette, but Edgar Sheepmeadow recounts it so deliciously in Volume III of "Women Large and Women Small" that it would be a sin not to quote it. "They met," he says, "on the Grand Staircase. The Dauphine, with her usual hauteur, was mounting with her head held high. Julie, by some misfortune, happened to get in her way. The Dauphine, not seeing her, trod heavily on her foot, then jogged her in the ribs with her elbow. Though realising who it was, the great lady could not but apologise. Drawing herself up as high as possible, she said in icy tones, 'I beg your pardon!' Quick as thought Julie replied, 'Granted as soon as asked!' Then with a toss of her curls she ran down the stairs, leaving the haughty Princess's mind a vortex of tumultuous feelings."
A few words of description should undoubtedly be vouchsafed to the decoration of her apartments at Versailles. Artistic from birth, Julie de Poopinac inaugurated almost a revolution in colour schemes: her _salle des populaces_ (room of the people), where she received supplicants for alms and various other favours, was upholstered in Godstone blue, with hangings of griffin pink; her _salle a manger_ (dining-room) was a tasteful _melange_ of elephant green, cerise, and burnt umber. Her _salle de bain_ (bathroom) deserves special mention, owing to its bizarre mixture of mustard colour and vetch purple--while her _chambre a coucher_ (bedroom) was a truly fitting setting for so brilliant a gem. The walls were lined with costly Bridgeport tapestries in brown and black, picked out here and there with beads and tufts of gloriously coloured wool. The bed curtains were of soft Norwegian yellow, with massive tassels of crab mauve, while the carpet and upholstery were almost entirely Spanish crimson with head-rests of Liverpool plush! It was here, of course, that she wrote most of her poems.[3]
Her world-renowned "Idyl to Summer":--
"Dawn, The poplars droop and sway and droop, A lazy bee With wings athread with gold and green His merry way with esctasy He takes, amid the garden blooms-- Ah me, ah God, ah God, ah me! Dawn...."
And the perfectly delicious light poem dedicated to Louis--
"Beloved, it is morn--I rise To smell the roses sweet; Emphatic are my hips and thighs, Phlegmatic are my feet. Ten thousand roses have I got Within a garden small, Give me but strength to smell the lot, Oh, let me sniff them all!"
Then her rather sordid realistic poem to Louis's death-bed commencing
"Oh, Bed Wherein he frequently disposed His weary limbs when day was done, His last long sleep has murmured down-- Oh Bed--beneath your silken pall, His eyes aglaze with death, and dim With age--are closed. Oh, Bed!"
It was of course after Louis's death that Julie was forced to seek retirement in her chateau in Old Brittany. There for many years she lived in almost complete seclusion, writing her books which were the inspired outpourings of a tortured soul: "Lilith: the Story of a Woman"; "The Hopeless Quest," an allegorical tale of the St. Malo sand-dunes, then unexplored; and "The Pig-Sty," a biting satire on life at Court.
Then the storm-cloud of the revolution broke athwart the length and breadth of fair France, relentless, and indomitable and irredeemable. Julie was arrested while blackberrying in a Dolly Varden hat. With a brave smile, Ben-Hepple tells us, she flung the berries away. "I am ready!" she said.
You all know of her journey to Paris, and her mockery of a trial before the tribunal--her pitiful bravery when the inhuman monsters tried to make her say "_A la lanterne!_" Nothing would induce her to--she had the firmness of many ancestors behind her.
We will quote Ben-Hepple's vivid description of her execution:--
"The day dawned grey with heavy clouds to the east," he says. "About five minutes past ten, a few rain-drops fell. The tumbrils were already rattling along amidst the frenzied jeers of the crowd. The first one contained a group of _ci-devant_ aristos, laughing and singing--one elderly vicomtesse was playing on a mouth-organ. In the second tumbril sat two women--one, Marie Topinambour, a poor dancer, was weeping; the other, Julie de Poopinac, was playing at cat's cradles. Her dress was of sprigged muslin, and she wore a rather battered Dolly Varden hat. She was haughtily impervious to the vile epithets of this mob. Upon reaching the guillotine, Marie Topinambour became panic-stricken, and swarmed up one of the posts before any one could stop her. In bell-like tones, Julie bade her descend. 'Fear nothing, _ma petite_,' she cried. 'See, I am smiling!' The terrified Marie looked down and was at once calmed. Julie was indeed smiling. One or two marquises who were waiting their turn were in hysterics. Marie slowly descended, and was quickly executed. Then Julie stepped forward. '_Vive le Roi!_' she cried, forgetting in her excitement that he was already dead, and flinging her Dolly Varden hat in the very teeth of the crowd, she laid her head in the prescribed notch. A woman in the mob said '_Pauvre_' and somebody else said '_A bas!_' The knife fell...."
MADCAP MOLL
EIGHTH DUCHESS OF WAPPING
Nobody who knew George I. could help loving him--he possessed that peculiar charm of manner which had the effect of subjugating all who came near him into immediate slavery. Madcap Moll--his true love, his one love (England still resounds with her gay laugh)--adored him with such devotion as falls to the lot of few men, be they kings or beggars.
They met first in the New Forest, where Norman Bramp informs us, in his celebrated hunting memoirs "Up and Away," the radiant Juniper spent her wild, unfettered childhood. She was ever a care-free, undisciplined creature, snapping her shapely fingers at bad weather, and riding for preference without a saddle--as hoydenish a girl as one could encounter on a day's march. Her auburn ringlets ablow in the autumn wind, her cheeks whipped to a flush by the breeze's caress, and her eyes sparkling and brimful of tomboyish mischief and roguery! This, then, was the picture that must have met the King's gaze as he rode with a few trusty friends through the forest for his annual week of otter shooting. Upon seeing him, Madcap Moll gave a merry laugh, and crying "Chase me, George!" in provocative tones, she rode swiftly away on her pony. Many of the courtiers trembled at such a daring exhibition of _lese majeste_, but the King, provoked only by her winning smile, tossed his gun to Lord Twirp and set off in hot pursuit. Eventually he caught his roguish quarry by the banks of a sunlit pool. She had flung herself off her mount and flung herself on the trunk of a tree, which she bestrode as though it were a better and more fiery steed. The King cast an appraising glance at her shapely legs, and then tethered his horse to an old oak.
"Are you a creature of the woods?" he said.
Madcap Moll tossed her curls. "Ask me!" she cried derisively.
"I am asking you," replied the King.
"Odds fudge--you have spindleshanks!" cried Madcap Moll irrelevantly. The King was charmed. He leant towards her.
"One kiss, mistress!" he implored. At that she slapped his face and made his nose bleed. He was captivated.
"I'faith, art a daring girl," he cried delightedly. "Knowest who I am?"
"I care not!" replied the girl.
"George the First!" said the King, rising. Madcap Moll blanched.
"Sire," she murmured, "I did not know--a poor, unwitting country lass--have mercy!"
The King touched her lightly on the nape.
"Get up," he said gently; "you are as loyal and spirited a girl as one could meet in all Hampshire, I'll warrant. Hast a liking for Court?"
"Oh, sire!" answered the girl.
Thus did the King meet her who was to mean everything in his life, and more....
It was twilight in the forest, Raymond Waffle tells us, when the King rode away. In the opposite direction rode a pensive girl, her eyes aglow with something deeper than had ever before illumined their translucency.