Introduction
Previous: 1924
Next: early 1927
In 1925 Dorothy continues to socialise in Paris, falls in love again a couple of times, and has an enjoyable holiday in Greece, described at length. In 1926 she goes skiing for the only time in her life, and decides to travel to Malaysia.
The 1925 notes are longer than usual, because of the extensive account of the trip to Greece. However the 1926 notes are very brief. On the other hand, there are no photographs from 1925 in Dorothy’s archives, but there are a few from the 1926 ski trip.
Michel had come to Paris too, but stayed at a hotel, not with me. I wrote that I was seeing quite a lot of the two Frost girls, daughters of a friend of Bunnie’s, and also of the Benoists from St Louis. One of them, Elizabeth, was the best friend of Erwin Hayward, a friend of mine at Foxcroft. I’d heard a lot about her and she’d heard about me. Also I saw something of a friend of hers, Frances Clover.
Michel Conrad Marie Joseph Eugène de Buisseret (1901-1967) was the son of Dorothy’s aunt Bunny’s friend Caroline, who had married a Belgian diplomat and died during the War.
I have no information on the two Frost girls.
I find two sisters from St Louis, Elizabeth Emily Benoist (1899-1984) and Marie Agnes Benoist, known as Agnes (1906-1964), neither of whom ever married. There was a younger sister as well, Sara Miriam Benoist (1911-1976), but she would have been only 14 in 1925, so I don’t think she was running around in Paris on her own.
Dorothy has not previously mentioned Lucretia Erwin Hayward (1899-1945). She had married Harry Hall Knight (1897-1948) in 1923. They divorced in 1936.
Frances Honore Clover (1901-1963) was a distant cousin of the Benoists. She married Arthur Ord French-Brewster (1883-1928) at some point, presumably after 1925 but before 1928, and then her late husband’s cousin Archibald Malcolm Wallace, known as Malcolm (1888-1948), in 1931.
I can’t remember when it was that I saw the studio ghost, but I think it was in the summer of 1924. I woke about 2.00 a.m. and saw a man standing in my room; he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking down at the floor and seemed very sad. I thought it was a real person and exclaimed: “Qui est là?” twice, and then he just wasn’t there, so I realised it wasn’t real and I went to sleep. When I told my friends about it everyone was most amused, especially my French friends; they thought it was all imagination and said loftily that only Anglo-Saxons saw such things, French people didn’t.
Anyway I’d more or less forgotten about it till Mrs. Elmsle [Elsmie!] reminded me. I had had the place furnished from her for a year, and then she and her daughter decided to stay on at Cannes, so she came back to Paris to decider what furniture she wanted to take – she sold the rest to me – and she also wanted to make over the lease in my name. As we were walking to the owner’s office to change the lease she said to me: “By the way, Dorothy, are you superstitious?” I said no, I didn’t think so, and she said she felt she should tell me that there was a story that the studio was haunted. “Oh, yes, I’ve see a ghost there,” I said cheerfully. “Tell me what you saw,” she said, and I described the man. I said he was smallish, with hair coupé en brosse, and he reminded me of a Swiss I knew; I put his age at about 27. She said a man who answered to that description – he was Swiss, too – had killed himself there when he’d lost a lot of money. As I remember it he had put all the money he had into the cargo of a ship which was to run the blockade into Germany, and it was captured by the British, but I may have got that wrong. Anyway she said there was a box of papers belonging to him in the cubbyhole at the foot of the stairs going down from the kitchen, and perhaps he wanted it opened; apparently no one had ever claimed it.
I forgot all about it for some time. Then after she’d taken all her stuff I decided to do over my room upstairs, and while it was being done – I think I did it myself, but I’m not sure – I went to sleep down in the spare room. All went well for a few nights, and then one night at two a.m. – or rather one morning – I woke to hear groans and what sounded like someone walking back and forth from the kitchen to the little room where I did my dyeing. The footsteps were so clear and distinct that I was certain there was someone there, and when I couldn’t stand it any longer I got up, put on my dressing-gown, and opened my door. At once there was complete silence. I went upstairs, putting on all the lights, but the place was empty, and there was nowhere for anyone to hide. For some reason that upset me more than having actually seen the man, and I slept on a divan in the studio after that. Then I forgot it again, though I did tell my friends. There was one other incident which I didn’t know till much later. Rachel one evening in the winter, when it was already dark, was alone in the studio. The rule was that if I wasn’t back by a certain time – Six p.m., I think – she just went home. So that evening she was standing outside the door about to lock it when she glanced to the left and saw a man coming along the gallery towards her. She looked at him to see if he were anyone she knew who might me coming to see me, but she didn’t recognise him. He went past the first and second doors, and as she was sure he wasn’t coming to my place, she thought he must be going to the studio at the end of the gallery, and she stood close up to the door so that he could pass behind her. But no one passed and when she looked round again there was no one there at all. She was terrified and raced down to the concierge, Mme. Henneront, who calmed her down and said he was often seen in the building but that she mustn’t tell me or I’d leave; so the only thing that happened was that she asked if I’d mind if she didn’t stay after dark unless I were at home or coming home, and I agreed; I don’t remember what excuse she made but I didn’t guess anything.
The next episode was that sometime that year Violet Ross-Johnson came for a few nights. I told her the whole story and said if she’d rather not sleep downstairs she could sleep in the studio, but she only laughed. She said she’d been in many haunted houses and had never seen or heard anything. Again all went well at first; but one morning when we met for breakfast she was looking very tired and as though she hadn’t slept much. She asked if she’d wakened me in the night and I said no. Then she told me that she had heard the same thing that I had heard – footsteps and groans – and she simply couldn’t believe that it was not a real person. So she got up; as soon as she opened the door there was silence, but she was so certain there was someone there that she had come all the way up to my room, and of course had found no one.
Violet Ross-Johnson (1879-1945) was a Scottish writer who occasionally collaborated with the Zionist intellectual Vladimir Jabotinsky, notably on the book Turkey and the War (1917).
Nothing after that till Erwin Hayward came to spend a night. I thought I’d be very polite so I gave her my room, and I slept in the studio till she called out and woke me. She said she’d seen a blue light in the room. (That reminds me; lots of people asked me how I could see the man I saw when it was so dark, and was he luminous? I always said I didn’t remember how I saw him, I just did, but I don’t think the figure was luminous – yet it was pitch dark when he’d vanished.) Anyway either I went up to her or she came down to the studio, but she refused to stay alone. I decided it was time to open the famous box. So we got her brother John to come for dinner, and then we waited till midnight, and then we opened it. It was a wooden box, I should say about 24″ by 18″ by 12″, and it was packed full of little leaflets – just one sheet folded over – advertising the enamel paint for which the unfortunate man was an agent. The leaflets were so tightly packed that it was hard to get any of them out, and quite impossible to put them back again, so we just had to leave them loose on top. But from that time I never heard of anyone seeing or hearing anything, though later Moriț Bateman and her little boy Peter and his Nanny were there, and Peter and Nanny had the downstairs room – the only one with two beds. Moriț said that Miss Whatshername, the Nanny, woke at the slightest sound, but she never woke there. I think her name was Miss Middleton and she was really a nursery governess, not a Nanny. It’s not altogether satisfactory as a ghost story, though most of it fits in with my theory that one sometimes just catches a glimpse of the past – or the future.
Dorothy saw, or thought she saw, two other ghosts in the course of her life, one in Malaya, one in Ireland; I’m afraid it became a bit of a family joke.
Erwin’s brother was John Hopkins Hayward (1904-1979).
Morit Bateman has been discussed in earlier chapters, especially her wedding in Romania. Her son Peter, born in 1922, was shot dead escaping from a prisoner train in Italy in 1943.
Sometime in February or March I went down to stay in Bunnie’s villa and Rene Hansard was there too. But before that I went with Bunnie to Brussels; I really don’t know why she wanted me to go, but she did. We stayed in a good hotel and saw various people – I remember we dined one night with the Duc and Duchesse d’Ursel – he was the only non-royal Belgian duke, the Buisserets were always telling me. I had already met his son Henri; he and François were staying at Bunnie’s when Zora had the Cambria and came over for a few nights while I had Maisie staying. I have some snapshots of them. Also in Brussels we saw a lot of Walter Prendergast, an American who was something at the American Embassy. Bunnie wasn’t too well and I remember Walter taking me out alone, and I think that bored him. Otherwise I don’t remember anything about that brief stay in Belgium.
Bunnie and Zora are Dorothy’s aunts, Lady Frances Hadfield (1862-1949) and Lily Gordon Wickersham (1870-1956).
Rene Hansard, born Henrietta Irene Louise Juta (1884-1940) was a writer in her own right, and the sister of Dorothy’s artist friend Jan Juta. She and her husband Luke Hansard (see below) had one daughter, Gillian Elizabeth Hansard, later Nottingham (1916-1996).
Henri d’Ursel (1900-1974) became a famous film director. He appears in several of Dorothy’s 1921 photographs.
Mary Jacqueline “Maisie” Bideleux (1902-2002) was one of four sisters who were very friendly with Dorothy.
Walter T. Prendergast was born in Ohio in 1898 and died in 1972. I find him in various junior diplomatic appointments in the 1930s and 1940s.
At the Villa there was Uncle Bobby and Wilfrid Taylor and Dr. Cotton, and we played bridge in the evenings – not Wilfrid, as he worked then – I imagine at Dodd’s Parliamentary Companion, which he edited.
Uncle Bobby is Dorothy’s aunt Bunnie’s husband, Sir Robert Hadfield (1858-1940).
Dods Parliamentary Companion (with one ‘d’) is of course still going strong, though I have been unable to verify Wilfrid Taylor’s tenure of the editorial chair.
I had also been unable to identify Dr Cotton.
Rene invited me to go to stay at her little Provencale farm, Lou Miracle, at Mougins. Alan Bott was also there, an English writer who was helping Rene with some of her writing – at least that’s what I wrote to Papa. Alan had been in the R.A.F. and had been shot down in Palestine and made prisoner by the Turks; he wrote a book about it, Eastern Flights, which I still have, though only in a paper-back.
Alan Bott (1893-1952) is best remembered these days as the founder of Pan Books, the main U.K. paperback publishing rival to Penguin, and the first to publish James Bond, Modesty Blaise, and a bit later (long after he had died) The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He married Josephine Blumenfeld in 1930, and they had three children, the youngest of whom died in 2018.
I reviewed his book Eastern Flights here.
Jan Juta was painting frescoes in Sam Barlow’s house at Eze and one day I went and helped paint, it was fun. But later he told me he had painted over all that I’d done, so it would be all his own work.
Sam Barlow is the composer Samuel Barlow, who famously renovated a chateau at Eze near Cannes.
At Rene’s I walked a lot while the others were working, and I did some work myself, though not much, I think. I also fell more or less in love with Alan. Later Clovis d’Aubigny came to stay, as someone had asked him to drive their car south for them. He backed into some soft ground with the car when he arrived and I think it had to be towed out and have some minor repairs. Rene didn’t seem pleased to see him but he told me she had invited him; I don’t know. Clovis was certainly in love with Rene, and he was convinced that I was in love with Jan. Incidentally Rene was still married then to Luke Hansard. Anyway one day Clovis suggested that as we were both in love with people who didn’t love us, we should marry each other! I didn’t agree.
Clovis d’Aubigny sounds very grand, not to mention assertive, but I have been unable to identify him. I guess there is a misspelling here. I do find a Clovis Victor Daudigny who lived in Rheims from 1883 to 1946, but this doesn’t seem quite the right age or place.
Luke Hansard (1893-1927) divorced Rene some time in 1925, and remarried in November that year to Evelyn Frances Henrietta Green (1880-1943), a cousin of Winston Churchill and ex-wife of Russian general Pavel Gudim-Levkovich.
Zora and Dollie had taken a little villa in Cannes, the Reine des Mers; at the back it had the railway, but the front rooms were fairly peaceful, and it was near the sea. Whenever we went into Cannes we saw them, and Nancy Manhard, who was staying with them; Owen Rigg, Dollie’s brother, was also there.
Dollie is Zora’s fried Dollie Sperling, born Blanche Lucy Rigg (1872-1946).
I find a Nancy Manhard, nee Ponton (~1886-1936), married to William Edward Manhard of Westport Connecticut, and who is recorded in a lot of transatlantic passenger records.
Owen Davys Rigg (1866-1952), Dollie’s older brother, was a career soldier in the British army.
Lyman went back to America that spring. And Billie McKeever married Steuart Davis; I went up to Paris to meet them and then lent them my flat while I went back to Cannes to stay with Zora and Dollie.
Lyman was Dorothy’s brother Lyman Charlton Hibbard (1893-1956).
Marianne Goodhue “Billie” McKeever (1898-1934) married Edmund Steuart Davies (1882-1955) in 1925; she was also one of the early lovers of the writer Mercedes da Acosta, who was probably the most visible lesbian in American culture in the early twentieth century.
Hootch was in the south of France at Juan les Pins and I saw a good deal of him. I went swimming nearly every day, as the villa was so near the sea.
Hootch seems to be Percival Russell Robbe Hurditch (1902-1948), who was a contestant in the Wimbledon tennis championships in 1925 and 1927, but was knocked out in the first round in straight sets both times.
I went back to Paris in the middle of May and saw a lot of Billie and Steuart for a week before they went back to the States. They went to stay at a hotel, I don’t remember which one, but I do remember lunching with them in their private sitting-room, and I remember going out to Fontainebleau with them and getting one of my migraines. Steuart helped it a lot by massaging the back of my neck, but it’s a thing one can’t do to oneself. I liked Steuart enormously and thought they seemed very happy. He had been married before and had a son; Billie had no children.
Steuart had married Agnes LeRoy Edgar in 1912, but they had presumably divorced and both of them remarried in March 1925. Poor Billie died suddenly in 1934, and Steuart remarried in 1938 to Stella Wooten Bailey (1914-1953), 32 years his junior. Rachel Federman informs me that in between Billie’s death and his marriage to Stella, he was briefly engaged to the artist Betty Parsons. More on that when we get to 1933.
England
In June I went to England to stay at 22, but I also stayed at the Nook over Ascot and Alan was there too – and Bunnie, I’m almost sure, and possibly François – he was certainly at 22 most of the time. He and Bunnie had been in Morocco. I saw a good deal of Mr. Hansell, who was also at Ascot, with the Royal Household. And I went at least twice to stay at Alan’s little cottage in Kent, with his mother and sister Doris. I loved his mother, and Doris was nice too. Once for some reason I stayed alone at the cottage and hired a pony from one of the farmers and rode a good deal; I remember going cub-hunting, though, so that must have been in the autumn. It was a nice pony and the farmer would have sold it to me for a reasonable price but what could I have done with it in Paris?
“22” is 22 Carlton House Terrace, the home of Aunt Bunnie and her husband Sir Robert Hadfield.
The Nook was another of the Hadfields’ places, in Bisham in Berkshire.
“Ascot” means the races there in June. Footage survives from 1925, but my eye is not sharp enough to see Dorothy or Bunnie among the crowds.
François is François de Buisseret (1899-1933), son of a friend of Bunnie’s who had died during the war.
H.P. Hansell (1863-1935) was the royal tutor who Dorothy had befriended in Romania.
Alan Bott’s mother was born Ellen Clara Mountford (1865-1952). She married Thomas Dugmore Bott (1860-1898) in 1888; he died after ten years of marriage, leaving her with three small children.
Alan’s sister Doris Bott (1890-1963) never married as far as I can tell. Another sister, Nancy (1894-1983) had married in 1915.
Trip to Greece
This is a lengthy passage, made a bit more complex by Dorothy quoting herself, but I’m keeping it as an interesting account of two independent American women in their mid-twenties travelling safely from one end of the Mediterranean to the other.
One day in July I was in my studio, feeling very restless and wanting to go somewhere but I couldn’t decide where, Carol Iredell came in and I took an atlas and looked round for a likely place – and there was Greece, where I’d never been. I was for some reason rather short of money; as I remember I had only £10 to last till the end of the month, and I wondered if I could get to Greece for that. Carol, who was opposed to joining friends in England for a motor trip, thought Greece sounded more alluring and said she’d like to come too. So a few days later off we went, traveling 3rd class by a day train to Marseilles, sitting on the hard wooden benches. There were a number of young French sailors going back to their ships in our compartment; they drank a lot of wine, and each time they opened a fresh bottle we were offered the first drinks.
Carol Iredell (1902-1988) was a friend of Dorothy’s from her childhood in Plainfield, New Jersey.
In Marseilles we stayed at the station hotel and next morning went to Cook’s, but found all passages to Greece cost more than we could afford. So we went and sat at a cafe, and I asked the waiter what he would do if he wanted a cheap passage to Greece, and he said he’d buy some paper – I forget now which one – and look at the shipping news in that. So we did, and we saw that a small Greek steamer, the Syros, was sailing in a few days. We went to the main office of the line and booked 3rd class for 155 francs each (under £2). We were told we must bring our own food but would be supplied with a bed, or bunk. We were also told to be on board early. I think I’ll copy now from my diary.
July 19th, 1925. The sun had just gone down in the form of a large and brilliant Chinese lantern, shading from cerise at the bottom through orange to pale yellow at the top a most entrancing spectacle. Carol and I are sitting side by side waiting for our blankets to arrive for the night, kind friends having supplied the comforts we lacked through ignorance. We came on board yesterday at 9.00 a.m., having been told that only so could we obtain a berth in the common third-class cabin. We got our berth, right enough, but had been told we’d have a mattress and that somehow was not forthcoming. However, the cabin as sleeping-quarters did not appeal to either of us, and when a poor man approached me to ask whether, in the event of our sleeping on deck, we would let his wife and numerous children have our bunk, we were only too glad to give it to them. So we installed ourselves by the taffrail, rolled up a dress or two to serve as pillows, spread newspapers on the deck which was far from clean, lie down and put our coats over us.
July 20th. But here I must tell of an incident that took place in the morning. While we were waiting through those long hours from 9.00 to 5.00 I started sketching people about me. First I drew a man who was eating his luncheon at the end of his knife. The sketch, though badly drawn, was not unlike. I then began to draw a woman who had been an interested spectator, but unfortunately I couldn’t get a good likeness. Meanwhile the man came and was much pleased with his sketch. Then he sat down to talk to us. He spoke quite fair French, but he was far from attractive to look at, being dirty and unkempt with no collar. We always refer to him as our collarless friend. The woman later came and asked to see her picture, but it was very bad; however she admired the one of the man very much.
To return to the first night; soon after we had lain down our collarless friend arrived, patted me soothingly and said it was a pity we had brought no covers. We protested that we were all right, but it weighed on his mind and we heard him talking about it to some other people. Presently our nice woman rushed up and seized my arm saying we must go and sleep with her as she had plenty of blankets. But our situation, completely isolated from the rest of the ship by the covering over the rudder-chain, appealed to us strongly and we declined to move. Then she insisted on bringing us covers, and presently appeared with a beautiful rug – native – which she spread on the deck for us to lie on, then when we had lain down she put a blanket over us. Later someone else – a man – brought another. We were very snug and comfy and slept well; a hard deck isn’t at all a bad bed. In the night I lay awake for an hour or more watching the stars, which were very bright. Jupiter in the south-west was casting a reflection in the sea, the first time I have ever seen such a thing. Vega was very brilliant overhead, almost at the zenith, and the constellation of the Corona Borealis was sinking in the west. Never have the stars seemed more beautiful.
The next morning at 5.50 the sailors woke us and we all got up protesting more or less vigorously. Our morning ablutions were performed at a tap in the wall near the boiler-room and were forced to be of a decidedly rudimentary character; faces and hands could be washed but not much else.
After that we returned to the deck and had breakfast. We have brought all our provisions with us; we ordered them from Felix Potin and they arrived at the hotel packed in a huge caisse which we brought on board just as it was. We have potted meat, bread, jam, mustard, anchovy paste, tinned asparagus, cheese, sardines, hard-boiled eggs, fruit and biscuits, also several bottles of wine. The other passengers have practically nothing but dry bread. We had also some sausage but only ate a little and gave the rest to the man who has our bunk.
After breakfast we had to pile our luggage up on some coil of rope to be out of the way of the men swabbing the decks. Then we went forward where the decks dried more quickly as the sun reached them first. There a man joined us who had already spoken to us as he spoke English and had heard us talking. He insisted on playing the mandolin, chiefly “Yes, we have no Bananas,” and “Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Sheen“, though he knew a few Spanish and Italian tunes which were quite charming. He showed signs of succumbing to Carol’s charms. But when he was joined by a friend who spoke French but no English, and consequently showed signs of attaching himself to me, I’d had enough. After lunch we went up to the bow to watch as we passed through the straits of Bonifaccio. The rest of the afternoon went by quite peacefully; we read, wrote, sewed, and from time to time went up to the bows to get cool. Unfortunately the wind and sun combined to burn us almost beyond endurance. Poor Carol especially suffers; I have had some experience of sunburn already at Cannes.
After a fairly good night, we woke, this time about six, and went down to wash. While we were below the sailors started swabbing the deck and some very kind people piled all our luggage up on the coil of rope otherwise everything would have been soaked. Really people have been amazingly kind to us in a thousand little ways. Our collarless friend invariably says “tu” to us, especially to me whom he treats like a favourite child.
Breakfast over we went forward and for over an hour were quite alone; I took advantage of it to sleep, curled up in a coil of rope. When I woke up Carol and her admirer were plunged in animated conversation. I forgot to mention that the evening before he had made a rendezvous with her for the next morning at seven! However he was late. Soon after I woke various other males appeared, several of whom spoke French. One came and sat near me and we had a long conversation consisting chiefly of the history of his life and of his unique affaire d’amour. He has apparently permanently adopted us; we are to stay at a hotel of which the gérant – un homme tout à fait bien, un veritable sportsman, petit et gros – is a great personal friend of his, and the two of them can accompany us on our visit to sites of interest in and about Athens. Alluring as this prospect seems, Carol and I have strong leanings towards a large and comfortable hotel with bath and breakfast in bed and all the familiar comforts. Fortunately we are not yet definitely committed to an acceptance, the more so as it would undoubtedly involve meeting his entire family and accepting hospitality which it might be difficult to return. Our new friend has also suggested going with us to Crete. It is going to be difficult to get out of all this but it must be done.
Much amiable wit was called forth this morning by the obviously smitten state of Carol’s admirer. He, by the way, has been a garcon coiffeur in Paris, and on Sunday morning he wanted to manicure our nails and when we gently but firmly refused he did his own to show us the superiority of the red crayon he uses.
Our new friend found the coiffeur’ intensely amusing and ragged him for some time with infinite wit and delicacy, offering to marry him from his own house in Athens, to be godfather to the first child, and so forth. Towards eleven-thirty we wearied of the merry banter and departed lunch-wards.
After luncheon we had a splendid view of Mt. Etna and Stromboli as we approached the Straits of Messina. Then as it was very hot in the sun we went in search of shade, and settled forward on a bulkhead between two great wooden cases, only to be requested to leave by the lawful occupants, though as they themselves immediately went away I think they might have left us in peace!
Our next station was in the shade of another case – which contains a Renault car – and there we stayed quite happily except when some sailors who were washing emptied their buckets of soapy water on the deck, so that it ran down towards us in rivulets which we had a merry time avoiding.
Presently the Straits of Messina came in sight and we joined the other passengers at the side of the ship till we were through the straits. By then the sun and wind combined had burned us pretty badly, but especially Carol, so we went aft on search of shade and coolness. We sat on one of the benches on the port side and soon found ourselves drawn into conversation with some of the 2nd class passengers. The line between them and us is very indefinite; they theoretically sleep in cabins – though as the cabins are very hot and stuffy their occupants usually prefer the deck at night – and they have a dining saloon and two others, which we may not enter, but the deck is common to us all from bow to stern. The 1st class has a deck to themselves above.
Being by no means anxious to acquire more speaking acquaintances we told them we were just about to have dinner and went back to our sleeping place by the taffrail where we ate supper. Then as I had a splitting headache I lay down. Presently our kind female friend who supplies us with blankets appeared and announced her desire of sleeping with us. As there is just comfortable room for two we were somewhat dismayed at her suggestion but of course pretended to be delighted, not to hurt her feelings. She then went off and returned with all her bedding, the rug we usually sleep on, which she laid down first with a bit of sacking to help it out at the end; then the blanket we have us, then she made various pillows out of dresses etc. and produced a real pillow for Carol and me. Our covering was a contrivance made of several blankets covered with coarse linen, and very heavy and hot. Unfortunately the night was the warmest we had yet had.
Our benefactress herself did not join us at once, as a group of men near us were singing and playing and she had joined them. Carol and I both slept and when we woke it was growing late – 10:50 seems very late on this boat! We lay and talked for a bit and then I dozed and Carol slept. It seemed to me that someone pulled the covers up over my shoulders and after drowsily wondering if Carol had done it I decided our kind friend had joined us. I turned over but there was no one there and even her pillow had disappeared. I spoke to Carol and we decided that it must have been her plan from the first, in order to make us take her blankets, as of course we wouldn’t have taken them away from her. One amusing episode was when she had put the pillow for us to sleep on, and I changed it to her place; she wouldn’t hear of it, but presently pretending that I thought it was dirty she seized it and started turning the cover inside out to show me; of course I snatched it back and explained to the great amusement of the onlookers. Half the ship assists at our retiring each night.
July 22nd – In the morning our friend came to us delighted with the success of her scheme; she had slept with her brother. We gave her an egg, two bananas, some biscuits, an orange and some chocolate, the morning before we gave her chocolate, bananas and plums. She seemed pleased though she was evidently afraid that our supplies would run short. The rest of the morning passed peacefully except for the appearance of Carol’s young man, whom she promptly sent flying. The remainder of the morning we followed the shade about the ship and managed to keep from getting more burned. Poor Carol suffered a good deal in the night her arms hurt her enough to keep her awake a good deal.
We had luncheon about 11:30 and then again pursued the shade forward, where we found an awning had been spread. There our new French-Greek friend presently joined us. It is going to be very difficult to get out of accepting his numerous suggestions as to a hotel and his offers to take us about and show us Athens. Yet we must manage it somehow.
That night seemed very long somehow; I lay awake continually thinking of what I should say to the young man to explain our not going to his friend’s hotel. Towards midnight a lighthouse appeared to port, the first sign of Greece.
We woke before the sun rose on the morning of the 23rd and watched it come up over the Aegean. Then after our scanty breakfast we packed our bags, left everything in order and went forward to watch our approach. Never shall I forget my first sight of the golden shores of Greece rising steeply from a black sea in the clear early light. But we had almost too much time to admire those shores as we did not dock till nearly twelve.
Our young man came forward and I explained to him as nicely as I could that we were both to be married soon and rather wanted peace and quiet for our last month of liberty. He took it astonishingly well, and said he quite understood, gave us his Paris address and hoped to see us there.
At last we arrived at the Piraeus and were at once surrounded by a horde of porters in row-boats who however were not allowed to come on board till all the passport formalities had been finished. The heat was terrific and I felt quite unequal to struggling with porters and trains etc. So when we saw a Cook’s man in one of the boats I hailed him. As soon as the porters were allowed on board his man appeared and took our luggage and rushed us through the customs and into a car, then up to Athens. We got away well among the very first. Our first view of the Acropolis was then; in the sunlight it glowed over the city. We stopped first at Cook’s for our letters – such a joy to find two from Zora and two from Alan; – then came to the Majestic, which the Cook’s man had recommended.
(Here I break the diary to put in a few memories of my own. We hadn’t been able to wash properly for four days, in all that heat, and quite frankly we were whiffy. But we marched in as though we owned the place. The clerk at the desk was by no means certain of us and it took the utmost haughtiness on my part to make him reasonably attentive, but he became so eventually.)
The Majestic Hotel building is still there, but derelict and dilapidated, on the corner of Panepistomiou Street and Santaroza Square in Athens.
Here the first contretemps occurred. Athens is short of water, consequently one can only have baths at certain times, and 2:00 p.m. was not one of them. However they brought hot water to our room and we managed to wash, and after much persuasion they gave us something to eat; cold chicken, bread, goats milk butter, honey, oranges and café au lait. Never did anything taste better! Then we rested and later walked to the Place de la Constitution [Syntagma Square], where we drank mastika sitting in the shade and looking towards the old palace. It was cooler by then and a lovely evening. Carol didn’t care for the mastike so I drank hers and then we took a fiacre to the Acropolis.
(I’ll leave out my rhapsodies over the Parthenon; everything I said has been much better said by other people. I’ll just give a little of the less magnificent bits.)
The Parthenon against the clear blue sky seemed like a thing of clouds, a dream…. On one side of it the land falls away steeply at first, then more gradually till it merges into the Aegean. On the other side, beyond the Erechthion there is the same sharp fall of land but there it is caught up into the hills which form the horizon. (All this is changed now, Athens is so terribly built up – I was there last summer, in 1965.) We went back to the Plateia tou Syntagmatos [Syntagma Square, again] and wanted to dine there, but it was too early. So we thought we’d dine at the hotel but found they didn’t serve dinner, only breakfast and lunch. We found the hotel quite expensive (I am no longer quoting from the diary, just taking out the main items) we were paying 75 Drachma a day for room, breakfast, service and tax; the rate was then about 292 Drachma to the pound sterling. Luckily Carol had quite a lot of money with her and we each wore a money belt under our clothes. Still 4/- a day doesn’t seem exorbitant; I did try to find somewhere else but without any success. That first night we dined at a restaurant near the hotel and drank the resinous wine which I rather liked. Incidentally before going to the Acropolis we had had our hair washed which made us feel much more human.
Carol stayed in bed next morning but I went to see other hotels, and ran into one of our ship acquaintances, a Greek Jew from Cairo who was reporting for the Daily News. I talked to him for a few minutes.
We lunched at the hotel but found it expensive, 50 Drachma each without wine. We rested in the afternoon and dined at a charming little restaurant just across the street. Then I said that we walked through the Plateia tns Omonias [Omonoia Square] and on for half a mile or so in the cool evening air. “Athens has a way of becoming a tiny country village if you walk half a mile away from the centre in any direction – or rather a group of country villages. It is a delicious place; I could stay here for a long time quite happily.”
[That’s what I said then; no wonder I hardly knew where I was last summer [1966] ! 41 years had wrought a horrifying change. I had learned a few Greek words, and of course I’d done enough Greek at school to read the letters. Back to my diary again.]
July 24th. A morning spent chiefly in the Museum where the vases and small figures of men and beasts are admirable. The sculpture is fine also, but I could get only the most general idea of the place in an hour and a half; now I know approximately where things are and can go often again. When the museum began to fill with tourists and their noisy guides I left and took a taxi to the Place de la Constitution [Syntagma Square, again] where I had a mastika and did a little shopping. Then home to fetch Carol and we lunched at the same restaurant where we had dined the night before. A quiet afternoon, reading, writing, resting and then we dined at the same place and home again.
July 25th. The heat grows ever stronger. In the morning I had a very violent nose-bleed, which however disappeared with the application to my forehead of cloths soaked in iced vinegar by the sommelier and chambermaid. For fear it might start again Carol came with me to Cook’s for the letters, and we bought some handkerchief and lunched at our pet restaurant. We rested till nearly five, and then I decided to go out again, and tried to persuade Carol to come. The child never moves from the hotel all day long, but she said the heat was too great for her. (I didn’t realise how very ill she was feeling. I think we both had heat-stroke, but the violent nosebleed I had relieved me, whereas she just went on feeling ill.) So I left her. It was hot at first; I walked to the Palace Gardens and through them, and later it grew deliciously cool. I glanced at the monument to Lord Byron which is a sweet thing, then went on to the Olympeion. The ruined columns are rather magnificent but the architecture is Corinthian; the capitals have little curlicues recalling the Ionic style between the carved leaves.
From there I went to the theatre of Dionysius and sat for a long time trying to fill the seats with ancient Greeks and watch the play being acted. Then on up the hill; on the way I stopped and had a drink at a café just outside the gates of the Acropolis. The waiter spoke a little French. (At that time the Acropolis was open, and free, all day though there was an enclosure which was locked up after sunset.)
Then on up to the Acropolis where I wandered about happily, till nearly sunset and then established myself at the base of the pillar at the north-west corner of the Parthenon, looking off over the Aegean, so incredibly blue. Here the women would gather when a battle such as that of Salamis was being fought, and strain their eyes in a vain attempt to see how the struggle was going. From here they must have seen Pheidippides long before he reached Athens, a tiny figure moving along the road from Marathon. Were they different from us, I wonder, those Greek women? Had they more calm grace, dignity and self-control? Were they superior creatures? Did they stand dry-eyed – with faces forced to serenity waiting for news of the men they loved?
This is unusually lyrical of Dorothy, and no doubt sparked by her own memories of the war a few years previously, when her brother ran a field ambulance and her aunt an entire hospital in France.
As the sun sets the Acropolis is forcibly cleared of its visitors by means of whistles and bells, blown and rung by the attendants. I walked down the hill and learned from my friend the waiter that dinner would not be served before 8:30, so I walked up the Philopappos hill. The view from there, even in the growing dusk, was extensive and very lovely. An old man seated at the foot of the monument was brooding, with his head on his hands, perhaps lamenting the departed glories of his native land, who knows? [Or maybe he’d just had a bad day.]
As it grew darker I came down again to my little cafe. Still no sign of dinner but my nice waiter supplied me with beer, cheese and bread, and amiable, if somewhat unintelligible conversation. His French was scanty in the extreme. He asked for a cigarette which I gave him and then when I wished for the bill refused to be paid. So I gave him a handful more of my cigarettes and we parted out the best of terms,
As he had volunteered so much information about himself, he naturally expected the sane confidences from me, but I am afraid the impression he got, not wholly a true one, was that I was the daughter of a Greek father and a French mother, brought up in Paris and working as a dressmaker, and here in Athens doing the same.
And here I abandon the diary, I just thought those extracts were amusing, I sound rather priggish, I think. [You don’t say!] By the way, I don’t think I explained that on the boat Carol and I passed ourselves off as dressmakers – we said we’d made the dresses we were wearing, which was true.
Carol had managed dinner quite well on her own, and I was back by 10.
The next day, July 26th, was again scorching, and we lunched at the hotel and didn’t go out till six. Then we walked – Carol must have been feeling better, at least I hope so – to the Stoas of Hadrian and Attila, the Agora, and the Tower of the Winds. We went on to the Thesion.
Next day Carol had a headache and sore throat. We had both had severe colds. She wanted to get home – or at least back to Paris – so I went to see about ships at Cook’s. Unfortunately the only one we could face was a Messageries boat leaving the next day. I didn’t want to leave so soon, but I couldn’t let Carol go alone. I had a hectic time getting our passport photographs re-taken for our Greek visas. That last afternoon we went out to the New Phaleron to bathe. There was a big bathing place, all enclosed men and women quite separate; most of the women and children just splashed about, but we swam out a bit into the sea, which was deliciously warm.
I had time next morning to go to the Museum for an hour, and then came back through a market and bought two bracelets of what looked like amber for Carol and myself. We had an early lunch at the hotel and Cook’s sent a car for us, which took us to the Piraeus where we went on board the Sphinx. We were traveling 2e Intermediere which we thought meant 2nd class, but it really meant third! We found a nice 2nd class smoking-room and only when we tried to go back to our cabin did we get hopelessly lost; however we found it eventually, but a steward said: “Vous n’avez qu’ rester chez vous et vous ne vous perdrez pas,” [“Just stay where you should be, and you won’t get lost”] and I was most indignant with him; later we ran into him again with another steward who took us back to our own quarters and explained. Our meal hours were breakfast 6:30 – 8:00, luncheon at 11:00 and tea at 5:30, and dinner at 6:00. We had already arranged to have chairs put on the 2nd class deck, and when I asked the steward to move them he advised us just to go quietly to them and said if there was a fuss he’d have them moved. So we went to the 2nd class deck each day and were very comfy. We met a young American artist named Cornwall on the ship.
I wonder if the “young American artist” could have been Dean Cornwell (1892-1960)? He would have been 33 in 1925.
We docked – or anchored, I really mean – at Valetta next day, July 30th; Carol didn’t want to go ashore as she was afraid of the heat, but Cornwall and I did. I was hoping to see the Congreves and we drove to the Residency but they were away in Boequet, and when I rang up Lady Congreve was in bed, so we didn’t see them. I thought Malta charming.
Sir Walter Congreve was the Governor of Malta; Dorothy had met him in 1923 when he was GOC of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. He died in office in Malta in 1927.
The “Residency” must mean the Palace of the Grand Masters in Valletta, now the main residence of the President of Malta. “Boequet” must mean the Buskett Gardens, which contain the Governor’s/President’s summer residence, the Verdala Palace, on the other side of the island, a whole 16 km away.
Lady Congreve was born Cecilia Henrietta Dolores Blount La Touche (1967-1952) and was well known as a poet.
The food was very bad in our dining-saloon, but in any case the manners of the other passengers would have taken our appetites away. The only time we really enjoyed a meal was when it got rough and the others melted away and Carol and I stayed on at the table and the steward brought us plenty of bread and jam. There was a dear little Greek boy named Joseph beside me, but the others weren’t attractive. We reached Naples on July 31st, but Carol and I stayed on board. Next day we passed Elba; it was after that that the weather got rough.
We docked at Marseilles early on August 2nd but missed the train we had hoped to take.
France
Carol came to the flat with me in Paris and stayed for a week or so, then went to the country – I think with her friends Geraldine Morse and her three daughters. She often came for the night.
I have been unable to identify Geraldine Morse and her three daughters. Morse was presumably her married name.
I went to Zora’s at Houlgate for a few days; I said in a letter to Papa that Paris was quite deserted except for Kitty Merrick, but I was able to get some work done. From there I went over to England and stayed with the Bolts at Alan’s cottage. I was very much taken with him for a bit, but it wore off. He took me one day to the Harwood’s (P. T. Jesse and husband).
The Harwoods must be F. Tennyson Jesse (1888-1958) and her husband H. M. Harwood (1874-1959), both best remembered now as writers though they were colourful characters.
Papa wrote that Van Wyck had been elected to the American Academy of arts and Sciences that year.
Van Wyck Brooks (1886-1963) was Dorothy’s step-brother, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer.
Erwin Hayward and her husband, Harry Knight, were in Paris that autumn. I was having a very busy time; I was studying piano with Gaby Casadesus, wife of Robert, and practising two hours a day. Muriel Bradford came to stay the night quite often – they were living outside Paris then – and she would help me too. I also studied singing with Madame Delaval. Then on Thursdays I took Bee out and gave her lunch and tea, and she always, I think, brought another girls. Then I also took out the Forbes-Robertson girls, Jill and Olivia, whom I’d met with Rupert Fordham, my latest young man, but never a very serious one. Mary Syers came to stay, and Violet Ross-Johnson.
Gaby Casadesus (1901-1999) was a noted pianist in her own right; her husband was Robert Casadesus (1899-1972).
Muriel Caroline Bradford (1906-1994) was mentioned in 1923.
There was a famous 18th-century singer and teacher in Paris whose name was Madame Delaval, but presumably this is someone different.
Bee is Beatrix Caroline Marie Josephe de Buisseret (1910-????), the sister of Michel who was mentioned above.
Olivia Forbes-Robertson (1906-1994) and her sister Jill (1911-1998) would have only been teenagers in 1925. Their father Norman Forbes-Robertson (1858-1932) was a well-known actor from a theatrical family and also a close friend of Oscar Wilde. Their mother was Louisa Wilson (1878-1954).
Rupert Granville Fordham (1898-1974) eventually married Northern Irish artist Sine McKinnon (1901-1996). His father Rupert Oswald Fordham (1861-1939) later married Wicca practitioner Dorothy Clutterbuck (1880-1951).
Presumably Rupert’s appearance in the narrative means that Dorothy’s relationship with Alan Bott was cooling down by late 1925; there is a denouement coming.
Mary Cicely Nevill (1879-1963) lost her first husband, Thomas Scott Syers (1883-1918) in the war, and in 1932 married John Cole, 5th Earl Enniskillen (1876-1963)
I think it was in October that Uncle Bobby came to Paris with a delegation of Industrial Chemists. He was made a member of the French Societé de Chimie Industrielle. I told Papa that there were all sorts of banquets and things and I went to them all with him – of course I was useful as an interpreter.
In a letter to Papa written in December 1925 I told him I would never marry, that I was having much too good a time. [Spoiler: she married a year and a half later.]
Philip and Moriţ Bateman were in Paris for a bit that autumn.
François was in Belgium working hard to pass his final exams for the Diplomatic.
François William Marie Joseph Gerard de Buisseret (1899-1933) was the brother of Michel and Bee, mentioned above.
I still saw a lot of Simon Elwes, and he brought his sisters to see me when they stayed with him. I also went to the Millses often for week-ends, at Clairefontaine, where they had an enchanting Pavilion. They had lots of white Samoyedes, and white goats tethered on the lawn. They were always having house-parties; I’ve forgotten most of the people now but I remember Picabia, who seemed to me if anything better than Picasso. I loved the dogs and used to help groom them before shows. Fingal was the finest; Mariette adored him and he took great care of her. Rudi I saw occasionally, but not so much since Lyman had left. There were two American girls in the Quarter, one who was just called Kay and the other was Mary Coles. I used to see them a good deal, and also Sylvia Curtis, whom I’d known in the South of France. I played bridge a certain amount, but I don’t seem to have done so much dancing; in my letters I talk more of plays and concerts.
Simon Elwes (1902-1975) became a notable painter in the UK during and after the second world war. He had two sisters, Margaret (1903-1989) and Clare (1905-1998).
The Millses are Lawrence Heyworth “Gascon” Mills (1872-1943) and his second wife, Mariette Benedict nee Thompson (1876-1948). Dorothy noted their hospitality in 1921.
Francis Picabia (1879-1953) was an artist who is not as well remembered as Picasso these days.
I have not been able to identify Kay, Mary Coles or Sylvia Curtis.
For Christmas I went to Zora and Dollie’s at the Bastide St. Priest, a villa which they took for some years – that is, they took it for I think 10 months at a time, but kept re-taking it each autumn, and going to England for the summers. Maudie Ponton, Nancy’s sister, was staying there. Col. MacDonald was in Cannes then; he was very anti-Jew (which I didn’t like) and anti-Communist and he got us all to subscribe to the British Lion, the paper of the British Fascists. I’m rather ashamed of that! But he was so persuasive. He used to give curry tiffins and we’d smoke hookahs afterwards.
Maudie Ponton is more elusive than her sister Nancy, and I have not been able to identify her.
Colonel MacDonald sounds disgusting. I am glad that Dorothy was ashamed of her association with him. I have not been able to find out anything more about him except that he lived in Brussels and was a major donor to the Imperial Fascist League.
1926
Then Elizabeth Benoist and Frances Clover and I went to Chamonix for some skiing; that was the only time I ever did any. I must say I think we had more fun than people do now when they start; after a few days on the practice slopes our guide started taking us on quite long expeditions – we’d go by train up the mountains and then ski back. Now beginners seem to spend all their time practising. I think we had two weeks there.
My diary for this year is very scrappy indeed, and there are not many letters either. I still had Bee every Thursday, and saw a lot of various friends, and worked. I made a retreat in March at a convent near the Champ de Mars, but I don’t remember what Order it was. Billy and Steuart came to Paris in April and of course I saw a great deal of them. And Zora and Bunnie were in Paris just before, I don’t know why – it wasn’t the time when they were usually passing through. I acquired a new young man, Frank, but I forget his other name – he was a painter, and quite good, I thought. Michel de Buisseret was in Paris too that spring, and also his brother Bobby. I saw a lot of them. Bee had her holidays over Easter, but by the end of April she was back again. François was in Paris too for a bit.
Poor un-surnamed Frank! His romance with my grandmother reduced to a footnote.An outsider candidate is Frank Nelson Wilcox (1887-1964) who was definitely painting in Paris around 1926; but he’s a bit too old to be Dorothy’s “young man” and, crucially, also had a wife back in Cleveland, Ohio.
Bobby is Robert Georges Marie Joseph de Buisseret (1906-1988), the youngest of the de Buisseret brothers, though four years older than their sister Bee.
At the end of May I went down to Cannes with Carol to stay with Zora. No, it was the middle of May, I was back again in Paris on the 30th. I was having migraines fairly often by then, always more when I was away than when I was on my own in Paris; no doubt the richer food and especially the number of eggs were the reason, but I didn’t realise it at all.
Dorothy later told her family that eggs caused her migraines, but that it took her some time to work this out.
Papa and Sally came over in June; I think they stayed at the Victoria Palace again. I acted as interpreter for Papa with some French steel people he wanted to see. I just translated word for word as a lot of the time I didn’t understand what I was saying, but luckily the Frenchmen did.
England
In July I went over to England to stay with Bunny. Kent Colwell was married while I was there and we went to the wedding. I saw Midder and Donald Erskine and Colin and Alan, and went to a lot of plays, and danced a certain amount. Bee was there and I took her to see Ruth Draper; the first time I’d seen her myself.
Kent Colwell (1898-1990) married Catherine Law (1906-1992) in 1926; they divorced during the second world war and both later remarried. Catherine Law was the daughter of the former UK Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law (1858-1923), who had died three years before the wedding.
“Midder” is the royal tutor H.P. Hansell.
Donald Erskine (1899-1984) married Christina Baxendale in 1927, and had four children. He later inherited the title of Baron Erskine in 1957 from his father, and the title of Earl of Buchan from a distant cousin in 1960.
“Colin” is probably Colin Buist (1896-1981), the oldest son of Dorothy’s aunt’s friend Marion Buist.
“Alan” is presumably still Alan Bott.
Bee is Beatrix Caroline Marie Josephe de Buisseret again.
Ruth Draper (1884-1956) was an American actress who generally performed a one-woman-show of monologues and recitations.
Papa and Sally were also in London, but I don’t think they were at 22, though I think they came to the Nook for a week-end; I went there myself.
Early in August I went back to Paris and Hester Pinney came to stay. She was a friend of Evelyn Bradford’s.
Hester Harriott Pinney (1901-1982) was the daughter of Major-General Sir Reginald Pinney (1863-1943).
Alice Evelyn Bradford (1902-1956) was one of the Anglo-French friends of the Bideleuxs; her sister Muriel was mentioned above.
The family also was back in Paris. Hester was engaged to Basil Marsden-Smedley and he was in Paris part of the time she was with me. Ted Fouracres also appeared on the scene; he was a friend of Hester’s. Zora came to Paris and spent some time. We all went about together a good deal; the family and Zora and I, and Miss Laura Rogers and Miss Van Boskerck seem to have been there too, though I had completely forgotten it. I played golf with Papa at Fontainebleau. Carol came to stay and I think went with me to Houlgate, where we stayed with Zora and Dollie. I think Erwin spent the night just before we left – Harry had gone back to the States but Erwin and Betsey Benoist had hired a car and driven round England, as well as I can remember. Then at the beginning of September I went to England again; Maisie came for the last night at Houlgate before I left so perhaps Carol wasn’t there – come to think of it, no, I think she was staying on in my flat and paying expenses, but of course I didn’t charge her rent which was the 4000 Francs a year. (about £50, I think)
The gloriously named Basil Marsden-Smedley (1901-1964) was a barrister who served twice as mayor of Chelsea.
I find an Edward Charles James Fouracres (1900-1979) who eventually moved to Canada.
Laura Rogers is a very common name.
I find a Hazel Van Boskerck born in New York in 1899.
I think we all stayed at 22 but I may be wrong, perhaps Papa and Sally didn’t, but I did. They left for the States on Sept. 10th. On the 14th I went up to Wales to stay with the Buists near Machynlleth – or some place like that. For some reason they had bought this isolated house and Marion had done all sorts of improvements but why she’d chosen that remote spot no one ever discovered. I stayed about ten days; it rained a lot, but when it cleared Diana and Malcolm and I played golf, and I went for walks, and did some designs. Malcolm came back to London with me, and Colin met us. Then I went down to Alan’s cottage, and Violet Ross-Johnson stayed there with me. That’s when I got the pony from a farmer called Turner.
Diana (1906-2000) and Malcolm (1913-1965) were siblings of Colin Buist.
Hester Pinney’s uncle, Uncle Alban, I forget his other name, was living near and came over to see me. He took me racing one day. I was only there about ten days, then back to London. I was trying to learn some Arabic at the Berlitz School and also studying by myself. Unfortunately I put various Arabic words into my diary which I now can’t read!
Hester’s uncle was John Alban Head (1873-1931), who later bequeathed some of his ethnographic collection to the British Museum and a playing field to his local council. He was one of eleven siblings, the younger brother of the neurologist Henry Head; another brother, who also served as mayor of Chelsea, died in the Titanic disaster in 1912.
I quite forgot to mention the General Strike in May. Of course I was in Paris, but in England lots of my friends were working in canteens and the men were driving buses and trains and all sorts of things. The nearest I came to having anything to do with it was when Alan Bott flew over (I don’t think planes were affected by the strike, though all other transport was) to Paris with some of the weeklies which the Illustration Office kindly printed for them – I think he was writing for the Sphere, but that he brought over some other paper too. It was all very exciting and once or twice I had to go to the Illustration offices for him, I don’t know why.
He also had to see Rudyard Kipling who was in Paris, and one day we drove to the place where they were staying – as I remember it was a flat in Passy. Alan said that if they were in a good mood he’d ask if he might bring me in, so he said to wait in the taxi for several minutes and if he didn’t appear to go to the Illustration. As luck would have it Rudyard Kipling himself was just paying off a taxi when we arrived. Alan got out and spoke to him, and they went in together; I waited, but Alan didn’t come back so I went off. Alan was quite annoyed as he said I hadn’t waited long enough, but I thought I’d done just what we’d agreed on. Alan did get annoyed very easily, I think; he was very sensitive too. Being in love with him was never very peaceful.
Reading between the lines, this was the point at which Alan’s relationship with Dorothy cooled off permanently. I must say that if my boyfriend was meeting Rudyard Kipling, I too would have assumed that it was going to be a long conversation, and might have planned together accordingly.
I had a week-end with the Pinneys, Hester’s family, before going back to Paris. How formal we all were in those days – I remember Lady Pinney always calling me “Miss Hibbard”.
Lady Pinney was born Hester Head (1875-1958), the second youngest of Uncle Alban’s ten siblings. Her daughter Hester was the oldest of her six children with Sir Reginald, one of the others being psychologist Rachel Pinney.
France
Then back to Paris, and in November I went to the Dordogne with Hester and Uncle Alban. We had a few days in Toulouse, and then settled in Foix for two weeks. We visited the caves at Mas d’Azil, Niaux, Bedeilhac, Portel and the Tuc d’Audaubert. The latter was the most thrilling; it was on the land of the Comte Bégouen and was discovered by his two sons, Max and Louis, when they were boys – it could only be reached by boat on an underground river, though in earlier days there must have been another opening. Max and Louis Bégouen took us there. In one cave there was a beautifully sculptured group of two bison. We also dug for flints in the Mas d’azil; one was allowed to do that on condition of turning over anything of exceptional interest to the authorities, such as worked bone. I got a few flint scrapers and knives. We had about a fortnight there, and then I came back to Paris where Carol stayed with me – I think she had been there all the time I was away.
The caves and their 15,000-year old art do sound fascinating. I worked on two archaeology sites myself in my teens, and it’s a very interesting experience.
I was planning by this time to go back to America the following year. Vera Bideleux had married Rowley James in Penang – she had gone out to stay with Elsa (her sister) and Bill Phillips; Elsa had already one baby boy, Peter, and was expecting another child and wanted one of her sisters to stay with her. There Vera met Rowley, who was then editing the Straits Echo in Penang. I thought I’d spend some weeks with them and then go on eastwards, stopping where I liked for as long as I liked.
Vera Bideleux (1899-1983) was one of the sisters of Maisie, mentioned above; I remember meeting her as a child. As noted here she married Rowley James (1900-1938) in 1926 and died in 1983.
Elsa Bideleux (1901-1997) was another of the sisters; she had married William Philips (1892-1952), a doctor, in 1920. Their son Peter Howard Philips lived from 1922 to 1969. The imminent baby was Geoffrey Arnold Philips (1926-2012)
Before I forget, according to my diary I went to Oxford for a few days before leaving England, but I don’t remember why, or who I saw, or anything else about it.
Also before I forget, on our way back from the Dordogne Hester and I went to Bordeaux – I suppose Uncle Alban too – and then I saw Alan Bott, but just how I don’t remember, and then I went for a few days to Arcachon where Frances Clover was staying with her father; she had t.b [tuberculosis]. Later she went to Switzerland and was quite cured; I once stayed with her and her husband for a day or two, but then lost sight of them.
In December I went down to Cannes to stay with Zora. Bunnie had been in Paris; I’d seen a lot of her and of course Bee, and Bobby, who was there. And Colette was in Paris then and of course the Millses.
I think it was the year before [ie 1925] that a buyer from Drécoll, the couturier, more or less camped on my doorstep wanting me to make batiks just for them – it must have been just after I’d exhibited at the Salon and had received an honorable mention. I had quite a difficult time getting rid of her. They would have supplied all materials, but I would have been expected to work to match their patterns of colour, and with batiks, which have successive baths of dyes, it is impossible to get exactly the same effect again; no two are ever quite alike. The buyer said I could employ several girls for the work and just do the designs myself, but I enjoyed doing the actual work, and being just myself I could work when and as I pleased, I wasn’t tied down in any way.
This may have been the closest to a paid job that Dorothy ever got, though possibly her later war relief work was salaried.
Bee was also in the South for Christmas, at Bunnie’s villa. We saw them all often, but I had to have various inoculations and be vaccinated etc. [presumably in anticipation of her trip to Asia] so I wasn’t as gay as usual. Mary Syers came to stay over New Year’s and she and I sat up to see the New Year in. Little did I think what an eventful year it was to be for me!
Next: early 1927