Barbara cartland, p.6
Barbara Cartland, page 6
This is the voice of hindsight, and Barbara had no way of knowing quite how grim a future lay around the corner when by 1930 she accepted that her marriage to Alexander was in ruins. To the outside world—and to the countless friends and smart acquaintances who flocked to the little house in Culross Street—she was still the most enviable of women. There was no let-up in the frantic social round and her pioneering spirit kept her firmly in the news.
That May she was busy organising a full-scale motor-rally with Lord Donegall at Bray, and had persuaded Malcolm Campbell and Tim Birkin to act as judges. Later she even drove at Brooklands in a supercharged MG as the organiser and one of the competitors in the first ladies motor-race.
But after that marathon honeymoon drive with Alexander, nothing could make her an enthusiastic motorist, and like a truly modern woman of her times she was soon trying aeroplanes. For a while she was an enthusiastic flier, and if her life had turned out differently she might well have joined the ranks of record-breaking female fliers of the Thirties. As it was she became intrigued by the latest possibilities of gliding and her own glider—the newly built ‘Barbara Cartland’—was towed from Mansion to Reading carrying mail, the first aeroplane-towed glider-borne mail in history.
It was all very dashing, very up-to-date, and brought her the publicity she still enjoyed, and which helped to sell her books. Her romantic life had suddenly become happy too, for she was in love. Since they returned from Egypt, she and Alexander had been leading virtually separate lives, but on a trip to Paris he had introduced her to a man who could easily have been one of the heroes from her novels. Tall, dark and something of a lady-killer, Commander Glen Kidston was the sort of man that Alexander failed to be. Debonair, rich, self-assured, he lived dangerously, piloting his own plane, restlessly travelling the globe and making no secret of his amorous conquests.
They danced, they met at parties, and they were powerfully attracted to each other. But at the same time Barbara was still something of the ‘wise virgin’ she had been before her marriage. She realised the danger of a scandal. She knew that she was vulnerable, and was wary of risking everything for him.
Then came tragedy. Kidston had bought the aeroplane from which Alfred Lowenstein, the Belgian financier, had fallen to his death over the English Channel. Barbara hated it and thought the plane ill-omened, but Kidston laughed at her fears and told her he intended to test-fly the plane to South Africa. She pleaded with him not to, but he was adamant, and on a misty cold spring morning, early in 1931, she drove to Croydon Airport to see him off. She never saw him again and soon after news came through that his aeroplane had hit a hillside. His body was brought back to Wales for burial—and Barbara’s photographs were found with his effects.
As if this was not enough, less than a year later she discovered that Alexander was in love—with Glen Kidston’s sister, Eleanor. And with appalling irony, it was because of this that she was abruptly dragged into the pitched battle of a no-holds-barred divorce.
When she had found a batch of letters written by Eleanor to Alexander, Barbara’s immediate reaction had been to offer him a swift divorce, but it was not to be that simple. Part of the trouble was quite simply money. Alexander, and his lawyers, were afraid of the heavy damages he would have to pay if she divorced him as the guilty party to an undefended suit. More serious still was the vexed question of the custody of Raine. Not unnaturally, Barbara had no intention of relinquishing her only daughter. Nor had Alexander—if he could help it. His family supported him, his lawyers scenting the rich pickings of a big society divorce encouraged him, and the battle started.
The first that Barbara knew of what was going on, came one evening when her brother Ronald called for her and spotted a man on the opposite side of the street obviously watching the house. Quite casually he asked him who he was, and the man confided that he was a private detective. Ronald made inquiries and the truth came out. Alexander and his lawyers were attempting to grub up evidence in the hope of suing Barbara for divorce. So desperate were they that for a while Ronald was included in the case against Barbara as an ‘unidentified’ male caller. And to show that they meant business they hurriedly briefed one of the most eminent—and expensive—barristers in the country, the formidable Sir Norman Birkett.
For Barbara this was dreadful news. She had a foolproof case, but she had no funds to hire a barrister of the calibre of Birkett to defend her. She was vulnerable and suddenly her prospects looked distinctly grim.
But one of Ronald’s girl-friends at the time was Barbara Hastings, daughter of the famous barrister and playwright, Sir Patrick Hastings. Ronald mentioned to him what was happening, and he was instantly outraged. It was blatantly unfair, he thundered. The McCorquodales were simply using their money and hiring a famous silk to enable a rich guilty husband to do down his wife, avoid paying alimony he could well afford, and gain custody of Raine. If Birkett represented Alexander, he would do the same for Barbara—for nothing.
The case came up for trial in the autumn of 1932, with both sides suing for divorce, and it inevitably hit the headlines. Hastings and Birkett were both legal prima donnas, Barbara was something of a celebrity, and the case was just the sort the papers loved. A lot of mud was thrown in public, and an awful lot of Alexander’s money went to his lawyers as the case dragged on.
It was distinctly futile, for Barbara, as one might expect, was an unshakeable witness in the box. Since Alexander’s solicitors asked for a jury, thinking they would disapprove of Barbara’s looks and publicity, Ronald made her appear in Court in a simple black dress wearing very little makeup and no nail varnish, which was still considered rather fast. In contrast, Alexander was an unimpressive witness, frequently confused and contradicting himself. Neither the judge nor the jury was impressed and he lost the case. Barbara was awarded her divorce, with costs and custody of Raine.
She was vindicated—but she was also all but ruined. For the expense of the case had been enormous to her former husband, since the wretched man was also being sued by Eleanor’s husband as a direct result of the divorce. All his personal fortune had to go in settling the costs, and although his parents gave him a huge allowance to support himself, Barbara had nothing except the marriage settlement. Their house was sold, and so was the Rolls-Royce.
Just a few weeks before, she had been a rich and envied social figure with a host of friends, success and almost everything that she could want from life. Overnight everything had changed. Now she had nothing except a delicate child, £500 a year, and the social stigma of a widely publicised divorce. As she has said : ‘It was a useful test of who my real friends would be.’
Polly, as one might have predicted, was magnificent. Although she was very upset, there was no reproach for what had happened. For a few weeks Barbara, now without a house, was living in the Dorchester at a pound a night, and eating all her meals with friends. Then Polly found her what she needed—a maisonette in Half Moon Street for seven pounds a week. It seemed somewhat small but the spare bedrooms could be turned into nurseries for Raine. And although not knowing where the next month’s rent was coming from, Barbara was still living where she intended to—in Mayfair.
This was typical of her. ‘Part of my philosophy of life,’ she says, ‘is never to admit that you’ve been beaten or done down. The moment you do that, you’ve lost. Quite early on I learned that the best way to survive is to pretend that anything unpleasant simply hasn’t happened.’
She did her best to do this now, although it took a major exercise of will to pretend that life was still as rosy and benign as it had been six months before. Reading between the lines one gets a clear impression of an indomitable Barbara, colourful as ever in her new surroundings. In a gushing article on ‘Other People’s Homes’, a Glasgow Evening News reporter wrote soon after the divorce :
Another exquisite bedroom is that of Mrs Alexander McCorquodale, who has, in common with many other Society matrons, moved out of her big house in Mayfair into a much smaller one in Half Moon St. which was originally intended for a bachelor’s dwelling. Her bedroom has walls of vivid turquoise blue and her four-poster is covered with flame-coloured brocade. The bath-dressing room next door is a delicious affair of jade-green and rose. . . . Small though the house is, Mrs McCorquodale by careful planning, has even managed a nursery suite for her daughter Raine, out of what were formerly the valet’s apartments.
It was all very similar to the way Polly had survived thirty years before when disaster struck the Cartland fortune. And just like Polly, Barbara, whilst keeping up those precious ‘standards’ she believed in, was all set to fight to earn herself a living.
It was, she now admits, ‘a time of deep unhappiness, when the whole world seemed dark and frightening’, but she adds that it simply was not in her nature to sit around and cry, ‘Poor little me ! I decided I would go in with fists flying.’ And she did.
Luckily she had her training as a journalist and publicist, and still enjoyed her reputation as the impresario of the pageants and the charity affairs that she had staged. Also the novel that she published on the eve of her divorce—it was entitled irresistibly, A Virgin in Mayfair— had been a well-deserved success, and as with Jigsaw made her name as one of the few accredited social figures who were prepared to tell the world what really happened in ‘Society’. This curious obsession with the doings, and the indiscretions of the titled, powerful and rich (most of whom, in fact, were rather staid and boring) was at its height, thanks to the revelations and the steady stream of gossip churned out in the daily press. And Barbara, quite sensibly, made the most of it.
At a time when Duchesses were queuing up to advertise cold cream, one of Barbara’s first successes was a blood-curdling series in the Passing Show on the ‘Secrets of Society’. The first was on the fascinating subject of ‘Black Masses in Mayfair’—‘In Mayfair there are a few, just a few rich people who have discovered and shamelessly revel in the weird fascination of magic’
A second on the subject of ‘Paid Hostesses’ revealed that although it is a thankless task, ‘more and more impoverished women of title are trying to make a profession and a living from it’. And her most intriguing revelation of all was on the unpleasant subject of ‘Freak Parties’.
There is a definite canker in the heart of Mayfair known as the freak party . . . which are not only exhibitions of vulgarity, but also orgies of indecency and drunkenness. . . . Imagine a large room. The host is magnificently attired as a music-hall dancer of the 1890s, his wig is a work of art, so are his underclothes and high-heeled shoes. His shoulders, revealed by the low-cut dress, are powdered and his face is well made-up, even to the black patch on his rouged cheeks. . . . It is noticeable that most men are dressed as women and that they prefer to dance together.
Perhaps there is rather more of the imaginative novelist than the professional reporter in these articles, but they helped pay the bills and build her name up as a journalist. And during these first few crucial months of living on her own, Barbara’s real success came from her instinctive flair for publicity.
All that activity for charity was now an invaluable apprenticeship—so was her training from Lord Beaverbrook and the sort of help she had given Norman Hartnell. For better than almost anyone, Barbara understood the power of famous names and how to use them. Just as with her early journalism it was ‘names and the more aristocratic the better’, and she made something of a speciality of what she called ‘psychology publicity’. She explained it with disarming candour :
Advertisement no longer meant spending money in the advertisement columns of the newspapers. The gossip columns were the best and surest medium of attraction as far as the London area was concerned, for social names were the surest bait to catch the wealthy suburban worm. The suburbs really seemed to be the only people who have paid in full for everything everywhere and they paid heavily for their snobbery.
She was in fact one of the very first to grasp the publicity potential of the ever-expanding popular press, and skilfully exploited it.
One of her first coups was to put the Westminster Ice Rink on the social map, by organising gala nights, and making sure the press was there to report the presence, and the antics, of her specially invited guests. Still more successful was her work with the once fashionable but now declining Embassy Club. Here famous names alone were not enough to revive its flagging fortunes, and it was Barbara who totally revamped the image of the club.
She did this with her own inimitable mixture of realism and romance, grasping the point at once that those who make or break a smart expensive nightclub like the Embassy are the well-to-do, ‘who are usually getting on in life but are seeking romance. They want to feel glamorous, to imagine themselves in love, if only for the evening.’ They could not do this in the harshly-lit Twenties decor of the club as it was when the Prince of Wales had made it famous ten years earlier. Instead she persuaded the management to, ‘let me do the whole place up rather like my bedroom, with Nile blue walls, a coral carpet and orange-pink lighting which was very flattering and romantic’.
Once again Barbara was right, and she had the bright idea of offering free food and charging well for the drinks, where the real profits lay. The Embassy began to boom again, especially with Barbara bringing countless celebrities and friends to get it mentioned in the press.
She had a natural ingenuity at getting places talked about and rarely failed. One somewhat staid West End dressmaker she took on, trebled its clientele as soon as Barbara started introducing important society customers—and making sure that they were mentioned in the gossip columns. And when her old admirer, Sir James Dunn, invested in an ‘Instant Cleaning’ business, Barbara took charge of that as well. Once again the Cartland formula brought quick results. Her idea here was to offer a quicker cleaning service than anywhere else in London, and to get the shop talked about by having the cleaning gift-wrapped in yellow paper with a bright pink bow.
It seemed that she was always rushing, always on the go, and her only big mistake was in usually working for an outright fee—never for a share of the profits she brought in. Because of this, money—or the lack of it—remained a constant problem, with Barbara needing all her cleverness and mother wit to meet the expenses of the flat in Half Moon Street and to ensure she lived the life that she had set her heart on.
And what exactly was that life, now that she found herself a single woman, her thirtieth birthday rapidly approaching, and living with a year-old daughter in the heart of London?
Over one important detail she was fortunate. The McCorquodales agreed to pay for a Nanny for Raine, thus leaving Barbara free to work. She was also lucky with a few extremely faithful friends. On the whole Barbara has never particularly enjoyed the company of women—nor does she have a high regard for them as friends. As she has candidly admitted.
I have always found women difficult. I don’t really understand them. To begin with, few women tell the truth. I always say what I think and feel—it’s got me into trouble, but only with women. I’ve never had a cross word with a man for speaking frankly, but women don’t like it. I can’t think why unless it’s natural love of subterfuge and intrigue.
But there were one or two exceptions. One of course was Polly, who remained the loyalest of allies and most unshockable of confidantes. And another was a red-haired, newly married heiress she had recently met at a party given by the future owner of Picture Post, Edward Hulton.
Mary Cunningham-Reid had started life as Mary Ashley, sister of Edwina Ashley, (who in 1922 would marry Lord Louis Mountbatten in the most glittering wedding of the Season). As a granddaughter of the great Edwardian financier, Sir Ernest Cassel, Mary was invariably described by the press as ‘the £80,000 a year heiress’. Polly had met her in the war when she stayed at Broadlands with Bertie, and had told Barbara that, unlike her older sister, Mary had seemed ‘rather sad and shy’. She was still shy when Barbara met her, and Barbara saw her as something of a ‘prisoner in a glittering golden cage fashioned by money, and limelit by publicity’.
No one could have been more different from the gregarious, unsinkable, limelight-loving Barbara. There was the inevitable attraction of opposites, and they rapidly became devoted friends, which they have remained to this day. For Mary, Barbara was a life-enhancer, a continual source of fun and someone she could turn to for advice through all the tribulations of her stormy marriage to the unscrupulous Cunningham-Reid. And for Barbara this new friend was even more important, for Mary supported her in every way she could, having her for meals at her house in London, inviting her and Raine for weekends at her estate in Cambridgeshire, and even taking Barbara on holiday to the South of France.
But apart from Mary, Barbara was very guarded in her relations now with women. For she knew quite well that after the scandal of a big divorce—and with her present straitened circumstances—she might be snubbed or patronised by some of the hostesses she had known. Typically she had not the least intention of being either.
‘I’ve never admitted to myself that I’ve been snubbed, and in fact I never had the slightest trouble after my divorce. People didn’t ignore me. Rather the reverse.’
For, as she insists, she simply had no wish to go to the sort of parties or grand social gatherings Mayfair wives might have invited—or not invited—Barbara to attend. Cocktail parties had always bored her, and to this day she refuses to attend them—‘an appalling waste of time’. As in the days before her marriage, what she really liked was male company—the more the merrier. Her definition of a perfect party was ‘dinner with a man I find attractive and who thinks I’m wonderful’. And as she knew, men were not really interested in the sort of gossip that enthralled their womenfolk. She found she rarely had to dine at home.
The only sign she gave of being just a little less romantic than she used to be came in the answer that she gave to a newspaper questionnaire at the end of 1932 on what she would prefer—true love or a million pounds. Her immediate reply was very much the voice of the Barbara of her youth.
