Gluck by Diana Souhami (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📗

tongs till lunchtime. E. makes herself ill. Goes to bed temporarily. After dinner terrible and hope final scene with E. … Go down to Gatewick to see Stanley Spencer on TV. E. makes ghastly scene on my return at 10.40 pm.

A. asks us both to TV Stanley Spencer. E. refuses and is still working when I leave at 9.45 pm. Scene at 11–12 on return.

Meet A. with Charles [her son] unexpectedly at post office 3.50 pm. She comes back to see studio with Charles. As leave, see E. who looks angrily at A. and Charles. A. upset and I too. When I speak to E. about it later she makes terrible scene. Exhausted and miserable.

Were to go out to dinner and Renée [sic] Clair film but it was eventually abandoned. Furious, miserable and resentful at the waste of time and life by such wicked scenes.

My birthday. E. puts roses on my tray. Look lovely – a nice card too. Go to Gatewick at 2.15 pm to 3.25 to get birthday presents from Anne and David. Electric torch, socks, a nice card and cast iron Napoleon door stop [Gluck was later to drop it on her right big toe]. Miserable scenes E. Champagne.

Edith’s 72 birthday. Calm until teatime when makes minor scene. Usual subject.

Terrible scene. E. gets letter from A. One of the worst days I have ever lived through.

Another terrible scene. E. writes to A. and gives me letter to take with me when I go at 1 pm. Go with A. to ‘The King and I’. Home at 6 pm. E. calm and evening peaceful.

David writes letter to E. I give it to her. Terrible scene after she reads it. I get her to burn her copies of letters.

E. goes out handing me a note and stays out to lunch. I cannot settle to anything. I am nervous wreck.

I am desperately unhappy at silly wicked atmosphere. Entirely unjustified cruelty.

I go to Gatewick and then Brighton. Give dinner to A. & D. and Claude at Penny Farthing. Very pleasant. Drive A. there and back. Terrifying scene by E. on my return. She stands at corner by church watching.

E. makes scene on usual theme of breaking up. When I come in at 5.15 all in darkness and no tea.

Terrific scenes. A. sends letter as result of hearing E. scream abuse over telephone. Another horrible day.

Go to Milestones to lunch with E. A. & D. there. A. does not greet at all and goes out without looking. E. put out. I telephone on return and E. makes scene.

… feel unbearably miserable … very uncertain about everything … increasingly depressed about life and work. No one understands that I must be in a vacuum if I am to find my way.4

Misery can be a protracted affair. Such were her jottings virtually every day for about six years. Gluck saw herself as the victim of Edith’s jealousy, but she made no modification to her own behaviour which was the catalyst to all the storms. Anne Yorke was entrenched in family life which Gluck in no way threatened – there was room for her within its orbit. From her husband’s point of view, his wife was providing stimulating company to an elderly, talented eccentric, who, he thought, should never have buried herself in Steyning in such dreary and provincial company. But Gluck’s feelings for, and behaviour toward Anne Yorke, marginalised Edith and made her into the cuckold. As the painful years rolled on, round and round in a groove of provocation and recrimination, they damaged beyond repair their chances of a decent life together. Tension bound them together as it wore them out. Trust went, and so did ease.

Nor was there any clear way out, if that was what either of them truly wanted, as both, on occasion, said they did. Edith was stuck in what had been her home, dominated economically and emotionally by Gluck. While they battled, Gluck was having a new studio built in the Chantry grounds. As at Bolton House, this too had all the north light in the huge working area, a sleeping gallery, kitchen, bathroom and workroom, its own walled garden with fountains playing, its own entrance. The whole estate now belonged more to Gluck than to Edith. Gluck moved her paints and easels in on 13 May 1958. The same day her brother phoned to say the Meteor was dying. She died four days later.

Probably Edith felt totally bound to Gluck. Beyond that fact she did not, in her seventies, have enough capital to buy another house. Nora, retired from The Lady in 1953, quickly went physically and mentally downhill, and was cared for in a nursing home. She died in 1961. Their brother Harry died in 1956. Edith often spent weekends with an old friend (to whom Gluck could not be rude enough), Diana Wood, an architect living in London. They holidayed in Venice, France, Italy, Ireland. She came back rested and well but the old troubles soon resurfaced.

Edith’s friends and relatives were horrified at what they saw happening to their civilized, whimsical, clever friend. Most of them resisted visiting the house when Gluck was there. Helen Beauclerck, alone after Edmund Dulac’s death in 1953, stayed from time to time at the Chantry, witnessed the scenes and made no attempt to be civil to Gluck. No doubt buried within the relationship was some paradox of love and truth, but to all appearances things seemed rather shocking. Few of Gluck’s friends knew what was going on. Many from the halcyon days of the thirties, she no longer saw, or were no longer alive. She heard of Constance’s death on the television in 1960. ‘Distracted and very shocked and unhappy about Constance … terrible depression … Constance’s funeral early afternoon. Feel desperately sad.’ Nesta, who was not afraid to confront Gluck, reprimanded her when she stayed for a week in August 1958 about the laceration of Edith’s feelings:

N. starts new version (fourth) of green apple. This time with pink