Displaying a snarky sense of humor and an intimate knowledge of the London social scene, Evelyn Waugh sends Daphne Fielding reminiscences and research advice for her book, The Duchess of Jermyn Street, about Rosa Lewis, owner of the Cavendish Hotel. Waugh had previously used Lewis as the model for the character Lottie Crump in his novel Vile Bodies, a portrayal she apparently resented.
Combe Florey House.
30 July [1962]
Darling Daphne,
It has always seemed to me as unnatural for two people to write a book together as for three people to have a baby. I am very sorry to hear that your collaborator [George Kinnaird, who was then getting a divorce from Lady Elizabeth Eliot] has lost his reason. Can’t you get him put away and carry on alone?
Of course use anything you want from Vile Bodies. The difficulty of further contributions is that I really put all I knew about her into that sketch. I was never allowed back. The last time I set foot in the Cavendish was after dinner before Henry Yorke’s wedding. We all went on to the Cavendish. Rosa was having some trouble at the time over a cheque with a man called Lulu Water-Welch (not of our party). She fixed me with fierce eyes and said: ‘Lulu Waters-Waugh take your arse off my chair’ and waved L. W. W.’s stumer. I was never a real habitué. Most of my knowledge was second-hand from Teddy St. Aubyn and Alastair Graham. Alastair, as I told you, would be a most valuable source. He has become a recluse in Wales. I haven’t seen him for 25 years. My closest chum once.
As you know Rosa had no liking for writers. Thornton Wilder once had one of the flats at the back; as also did Aldous Huxley, Cyril Connolly and his first wife stayed there but, I think, got persecution mania. There is some unhappy memory there that Cyril is loath to speak of. You might be able to coax it out. I think Cyril used to mind not looking like a cornet of the Blues (and, as you know, c of Bs were what Rosa really accepted). Apart from those three, I can’t think of any writers who went there much. Not, as you might have expected, Maurice Baring unless 1914-18. My awful brother in law, about whom Xan spoke so kindly, lived at the Cavendish in 1945 and kept in close touch. Have you tried Raymond de Trafford? I don’t know how far gone he is, but if his memory is at all intact he should be useful.
Shane Leslie’s memory is not to be trusted.
I blush to say it, but I think it was after Vile Bodies that writers started to try to get into the Cavendish. They were driven out at once unless they were Americans. I don’t remember ever seeing a foreigner of any other nationality there, tho I believe Auberon [Herbert] introduced some Poles.
All the articles I saw when the Cavendish closed were very skimpy.
I should awfully like to visit you at Brighton, but I don’t think I can really contribute much to your work.
If Elizabeth Eliot is the one I suppose, she is pock-marked like a Turk.
There was an elderly woman circa 1926 called Lady Cook who used to be a crony of Rosa’s. ‘Now don’t you go out after those street women. Why don’t you have Lady Cook here?’ My peerage is antiquated. She seems to have been alive in 1947 at Villa des Pyrénées, Pau but I daresay she is a gonner now.
Rupert Bellville [Belleville] died last week. There arent many of her middle-period set and, of course, none of her first. Has Martin Wilson any Ribblesdale relics that wld be relevant? Alfred Duggan (Hubert’s reformed brother) Old Court House, Ross on Wye might have memories.
I fear I haven’t been much help.
Love and xxxx
Evelyn
Combe Florey House
10 August 1962
[Postcard]
P.S. Rosa often called the penis ‘the WINKLE’, a term I have not heard on other lips. When chaps refused to avail themselves of Lady Cook and sought pleasure outside, Rosa pounced on them on their return and said: ‘I’ll get a doctor in to look at your winkle.’
I imagine Lady Cook’s visits were intermittent. The period when I remember her in attendance was 1925.
She can’t be alive, can she?