Gluck Diana Souhami (smart books to read TXT) 📖

nerves.… I do think there is something wrong physically for she looks so white and drawn …

I was interested to see how much more peaceful she became when she got to Cornwall. I think it’s a gloomy place to stay alone in, and I told her so, but she has such a real, solid affection for that part of the world that I think it would be a great mistake for any suggestion to be made at present to get rid of it. Let her get strong first.

All my love and don’t forget this is a very private letter! She is so annoyed at the moment about your name and the Queen that she’s not writing to you. But you know well enough it all means nothing and I really do think she is ill and tired into the bargain – though happy!

Much love dearest Meteor

Nesta

Gluck must have wondered quite whose exhibition it had been. The Meteor was unable to leave her alone at centre stage. Out of a desire to promote Gluck’s reputation, and perhaps her own, she had made an undignified display. Her actions left Gluck uncertain as to where her own worth lay. The inference of her mother’s determined efforts was that artistic worth could be got from Buckingham Palace or the national galleries. Gluck wanted her pictures to speak for themselves. They were all that she had to say. If they were to receive praise she wanted it freely given, not coerced. She had asked her mother unambiguously not to interfere. Her words had gone unheeded. Gluck could defend herself by changing her name and her appearance, but she could not change her mother who caused her to fight with superhuman force for a will she might call her own. She could not achieve her mother’s standards of perfection. Nor, for that matter, as the years took their toll, could she either in life or art achieve her own.

ELEVEN

‘THE BRIND AND THE WHEEZE’

After the razzmatazz of the Bond Street show, Gluck’s first thoughts were to take time off for a holiday with Nesta: ‘The hoar frost on the trees and bushes would fascinate you. What pictures you would conjure up here. Another year you too must come.’ So Seymour Obermer had written from St Moritz in January 1937, to Gluck as she pined in her Hampstead studio for his wife. The next January Gluck joined them in the mountains. She conjured up no pictures in Lenzerheide, but was crazy about Nesta’s forte, skating:

Grand Hotel Kurhaus, Lenzerheide

February 20th 1938

Mother darling

… skating has taken such a hold of me that I can think of nothing else.… Nothing like an absorbing new occupation for putting things in proper perspective. Yesterday I tried to waltz with Nesta and it didn’t go too badly. She is a crack skater – quite the best here. In fact she has given the professional teachers many tips.… It is such a graceful, lovely thing and so rhythmic to go round with the music which consists of a gramophone with loudspeakers and very good records – so you see my horizon though limitless is also bounded and I almost dream skating at the moment – you must forgive the obsession. My ankles, which I always had thought too weak are getting stronger …

I have only been on the ice three weeks next Monday. I have a lesson every day professionally, so something ought to ‘marche’ soon. On Friday we are going to take an expedition to the top of the mountain – Nesta on skis with two other skiers and Seymour and two Englishwomen we met on the rink and I on snow shoes. There is apparently a marvellous view at the top.

Goodbye my dear … I have literally no news because my whole existence at the moment is concentrated on skating …

Always your very loving Hig

The following year the trio went again to the same place. Seymour evidently accepted Gluck as a holiday companion. The months during which the world rumbled toward war were, for Gluck, happy, hedonistic, low on work and high on fun. In the early thirties she had entered Constance’s world of hard work and high style. Now she moved into Nesta’s life of outdoor sports, house parties and no work routine at all. She spent more time at The Mill than at Bolton.

Sporting crazes came and went. Horseriding in Plumpton followed skating in Lenzerheide, ‘Fourth lesson – learnt about bridles and saddling at stables’ was her diary entry for 20 September 1938. A couple of days later she wrote to her mother (23 September 1938): ‘Riding goes on apace – Yesterday, my 5th lesson – I rode some events with other pupils and came in first twice. I shall hate stopping to come back to London.’ And, to complete the country image, she acquired a dog, a Weimaraner:

Mother darling

… I have a stupendous piece of news for you! I have a dog!! It is one of the most beautiful creatures you have ever seen. Its father is a champion.… It has the sweetest nature and will be a grand guard when I go out sketching.… I have always loved dogs as you know, but felt I ought not to have one until life seemed more settled. Now I feel the moment has come.

Now comes the very important part of this letter and please don’t forget about it. Nesta has given him to me – but we have told Seymour and everybody that you have given him to me because it seemed more politic from every point of view – She has been far too generous really and he is a ‘show’ dog and for that reason she felt she would sooner no one knew she had given him to me. You are the only person to know and you must never divulge the secret. I expect all this will amuse you, but with your experience of people and life you will certainly see eye to eye