The Happy Years [1944-48] by Cecil Beaton

Author:Cecil Beaton [Beaton, Cecil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912546282
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2018-04-26T04:00:00+00:00

LOOKING FOR A NEW HOUSE

October, 1947

Since I was thrown out of Ashcombe I have been somewhat forlornly looking for a small house in the country to take its place. But where on the entire earth could I find such another remote and beautiful a treasure as Ashcombe? ‘Particulars’ came from estate-agents by every post: ‘Imposing Georgian-style mansion only thirty-seven minutes from Piccadilly Circus…’ ‘Tudor gem — oak porch — all mod. cons. — billiard-room and solarium...’ ‘Converted Gothic lodge with indoor fives court...’

I went, by expensive hire-car service, to Sussex to see deserted, pebble-dash haciendas decorated indoors with wrought-iron work, and to Surrey to admire slate-turreted maisonettes with cinder paths curving among the sparse beds of pampas grass and montbretia. I determined to remain faithful to Wiltshire. ‘No, Messrs Rawlence and Squarey, I did not fall in love yesterday afternoon with the mustard-and-pepper brick house at Quidhampton. Why? Because — well — to begin with — it’s too near the railway, and those pylons make a beeline for the garden.’ Eventually I became embarrassed at having to refuse so many of these ‘unique offers’.

But even more embarrassing were the visits, recommended by my relations and closest friends, to the houses of people they knew, who were either ‘feeling the pinch’, wishing to ‘make a change’, or settling into something more ‘in keeping with the times’. In spite of its much vaunted monkey-puzzle tree I loathed ‘Redlands’ and wished so desperately that its occupants, still in residence, were not so obviously avid to sell to me. I felt trapped. I felt obliged to admire the gnarled beams, the granite chimney-piece and the stained-glass lattices, and the rockery and ponticums beyond, yet the praise must not be laid on too thick for then my eventual escape would be made all the harder. No matter what I said, there was nothing to be done: when I tried to leave ‘Redlands’ without a promise of ‘something down on account’ the owner’s son-in-law tried to set the dogs on me.

After a while, in a recurrent nightmare I dreamt I was being blackmailed into buying some such overwhelming monstrosity as Royal Holloway College or a sinister Victorian workhouse.

However, Edith Olivier, who eighteen years ago had found Ashcombe for me, now wrote to me of a small Wren house, not far from her in Wilton, belonging to the National Trust, and which she had heard was available for rental. Perhaps Edith could mark up a double...

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.