Princess Daisy (2 page)

Now, in August, Francesca Vernon Valensky sat in a field of long grass, in a Swiss meadow, with Daisy in her arms. Halsman found the actress faintly pensive, even remote, although he had photographed her twice before, the second time after she had won an Oscar for her Juliet But it was the laughing child who interested him even more than the mystery of her mother’s mood. The tiny girl was like a new hybrid rose in the inconsistency of her coloring. By rights, he thought, only generations of selective breeding should have produced a child who had the classically Italian dark eyes of her mother, and skin that had a Tuscan warmth to it, like the particular part of a peach into which you bite first, knowing that it will be the ripest spot on the fruit. Yet her little head was covered with Saxon-white curls that blew around her vivid face like the corolla of a flower.

Stash Valensky’s old wet nurse, Masha, who still formed part of his household, had, with her characteristic self-importance, informed the photographer that Princess Daisy’s hair was exactly like that of her father when he was a
child. It was true blonde hair, she explained proudly, which may become gold in time but never changes to ash brown with age. She boasted of this Valensky hair, which was found somewhere in each generation as far back as the family could be traced, yes, back to the days of the earliest hereditary Russian nobility, the
boyars
, who were the companions of the Tsars for almost a thousand years before Peter the Great. After all, she asked, almost indignantly, was not her master a direct descendant of Rurik, the Scandinavian Prince who had founded the Russian monarchy in the 800s? Halsman quickly agreed with her that little Daisy’s hair would always remain blonde. Remembering Masha’s imperious ways, and realizing that she would soon be coming to take the infant back for her supper, he worked quickly to make the most of the time left to him.

Tactfully, he decided not to ask Francesca to jump in the air for a picture, his favorite ploy after a sitting, and a trick he had practiced with success on many celebrities and dignitaries of the highest order. Instead, the photographer used his charm to cajole Stash Valensky, who had been standing behind him, observing the scene, into posing with his wife and daughter.

But for all his poise and pulsing authority, Valensky was not at ease in front of a camera. He had lived for much of his forty-one years with two phrases somewhere in the back of his mind. One of them came from Tolstoy: “… living like a nobleman is a nobleman’s business, only the nobility can do it.” The other phrase came from a tattered text on the beliefs of Hinduism which had fallen into his hands during a brief period of hospital convalescence after he had bailed out of his first Hurricane fighter plane during the Battle of Britain. “Be like the eagle when it soars above the abyss. The eagle does not think about flying, it simply feels that it flies.”

Neither of these two guiding principles permitted him to feel comfortable while holding still for a photograph. He was so stiff that Halsman, in a flash of inspiration, suggested that they go to the stables where the Prince’s nine polo ponies were kept in loose-boxes, attended to by three grooms.

Francesca cradled Daisy in her arms while Valensky indicated the fine points of the animals. Carried away by his enthusiasm, Valensky had just invited the photographer to inspect the mouth of his favorite pony, Merlin, when
Halsman wondered out loud if the pony would allow the Prince to lift Daisy on his back.

“Why not? Merlin has a contented mind.”

“But he isn’t saddled,” Francesca objected.

“So much the better. Daisy will have to learn to ride bareback some day.”

“She still can’t sit up by herself,” Francesca said nervously.

“I don’t intend to let go of her.” The Prince laughed, firmly taking the baby and setting her astride the low curve of the pony’s back between loins and withers. Francesca reached up to steady her child and Halsman finally got his cover picture; the magnificent man and the magnificent woman, their hands clasped around the little body, faces uplifted eagerly toward the sprite in a flowered lawn dress whose hands fluttered the air in jubilation.

“She has no fear, Francesca,” Stash exclaimed proudly. “I knew she wouldn’t have. Valensky women have ridden hard for hundreds of years—haven’t I told you?”

“More than once, darling,” Francesca answered with a laugh that held a wisp of sadness in its loving mockery, a laugh that only sounded for a brief moment. It was at that instant Halsman decided that the timing was right to get a jumping picture of the Prince. When he proposed the idea Valensky barely hesitated. Then, lifting Daisy from Merlin’s back, he grasped her under her arms, held her high above his head, and jumped straight up into the air, with a wild and ferocious leap. The child screamed with delight and Francesca Valensky shuddered, she who had once been so dangerously reckless. What had this marriage done to her, Halsman wondered?

2

N
ormally the
Queen Mary
makes the New York to Southampton crossing without a stop. On this particular trip, in June of 1951, the great engines came to a full halt as the ship arrived at Cherbourg. It lay just outside the harbor while a barge approached the ocean liner and tied up at a baggage port. A dozen sailors wheeled large carts piled with luggage down the gangplank and deposited it in two heaps, one mountainous and one relatively modest. By the time all the trunks and suitcases were arranged, thousands of curious passengers crowded the railings to discover the reason for the unexplained delay. After a brief wait, three people walked down the gangplank, a slender man, arm in arm with a trim woman, preceded by four small excitable dogs, and finally another woman whom the college students in third class immediately recognized and greeted with cheers and applause. While Francesca Vernon sat on one of her suitcases and waved merrily at her admirers, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, standing with dignity near the dozens of steamer trunks which held their summer wardrobes, saw no reason to respond to the democratic hullabaloo, nor did they deign to even nod to the actress whose face was as famous as theirs. Since they never set foot in England, yet always traveled by Cunard, their yearly arrival on the Continent was made in this unfortunately public fashion. While on board the
Queen
they invariably ate in their suite and only emerged to walk their band of cairns. Inured by habit, resolutely they paid no attention to the spectators, but to Francesca the audience only increased the swelling thrill she felt as the barge approached the customs shed
where her agent, Matty Firestone, and his wife, Margo, were waiting for her.

The Firestones had been in Europe for several weeks before her arrival. They had rented a huge, prewar Delahaye touring car and engaged an English-speaking chauffeur. Francesca sat mute with expectation as the car sped along the poplar-lined roads leading to Paris. Her dark beauty, which spoke of fifteenth-century Italy in its uncontemporary cut and fashion, was lit by most unclassic anticipation as she leaned forward on the cushions of the car. She possessed a combination of tranquility and pure sensuality in the composition of the essential triangle of eyes and mouth. Her black eyes were long and widely spaced, her mouth, even in repose, was made meaningful by the grace of its shape: the gentle arc of her upper lip dipped in the center to meet the lovely pillow of her lower lip in a line that had the power of an embrace. Margo watched her with maternal emotion. She thought that Francesca had never been quite as touching in any of her roles as she was now, her whole being ignited with the excitement of her first hours on European soil. Few people besides Margo, who had been her friend, confidante and protector for six years, knew just how influenced by the stuff of fairy tales and stories of high romance the twenty-four-year-old movie star still was.

“We’ll do Paris for a week, honey,” Matty told his client, “and then the grand tour. Straight down France to the Riviera, then along the coast until we get to Italy. We’ll hit Florence, Rome and Venice and go back to Paris through Switzerland. Two months of it. Sound good to you?”

Francesca was too moved to answer.

By late August the Firestones and Francesca returned to Paris, where Margo had serious shopping to finish before their ship sailed at the end of the month. They stayed at the George V, then and now the hotel for rich tourists who don’t care that the hotel is full of other rich tourists, but who do care about good beds, room service and efficient plumbing.

In the hotel bar, on the first evening of their return, Matty was greeted by David Fox, a studio vice-president he lunched with at least once a month back in Hollywood.

“You all have to come to Deauville for the polo match
next week,” David insisted. “It’s the first important one since the War.”

“Polo?” asked Matty indignantly. “A bunch of fancy no-goods on nervous little ponies? Who needs it?”

“But they’ve reached the finals—everyone will be there,” David persisted.

“How do they dress in Deauville?” Margo interrupted curiously.

“Exactly the same way you’d dress for a cruise on the largest yacht in the world,” the man replied knowingly. “And, of course, everyone changes three times a day.”

Margo barely prevented herself from licking her lips. The semi-marine mode had always been particularly kind to her.

“Matty, darling, I
need
to go to Deauville,” she announced, with an inflection that told Matty there was no use in further discussion.

Deauville, that timelessly chic resort, was established on the coast of Normandy by the Duc de Morny in 1866. From its inception it was intended to be a paradise for moneyed aristocrats, deeply involved in racing, gambling and golf. Because the grass of Normandy is the richest in France, its cows produce the best cheese, cream and butter. This same grass inevitably attracts Horse People, and the breeding and raising of horses takes place on the great stud farms of the surrounding countryside. The city of Deauville itself consists almost entirely of hotels, shops, cafés and restaurants, but the fresh sea air provides the illusion that enables the briskly strolling crowd on the boardwalk, the Edwardian
Promenade des Planches
, to imagine that the previous night, spent at the casino, must have been, in some way, good for their health.

The Hotel Normandy, in which Matty had been able to secure last-minute accommodations, is built in the English half-timbered style, rather as if someone had taken a normal country manor house and turned it into a seaside giant. In August, the Normandy, the Royal and the Hotel du Golf shelter a large portion of the people who will, inevitably, be in Paris in October, in St. Moritz in February and in London in June.

In 1951 these people were called the International Set. For lack of an engine the term “Jet Set” didn’t exist, but even then newspapers and magazines, although less preoccupied
than they are now, were fascinated by the comings and goings of this gilded mob who had, somehow, escaped the mundane, workaday world.

It was all fueled by money, although money alone didn’t guarantee entry. Charm, beauty, talent—none of these attributes, even added to money, could make a person part of the International Set. What was essential was the willingness, the wholehearted intention to spend a life of a certain
kind
; a life in which the pursuit of pleasure and leisure could go on and on for years on end without causing any guilt, a life in which work had little meaning, and accomplishment, except in sports and gambling, had no place of honor. It was a life in which one’s best efforts were expended on the exteriors and décors of life; grooming, fashion, luxurious and exotic interiors, constant travel, entertainment and wide acquaintance, rather than deep friendships.

Integral to the life of the International Set was the man then called a playboy. The true playboy did not usually have a great deal of money himself, but he was only to be found where the money was. He had good humor, reliable charm, the capacity to acquit himself well at almost any game, the tact to drink like a gentleman, to avoid gambling debts and to give women so much pleasure that they inevitably told their friends about him.

Prince Alexander Vassilivitch Valensky was not a playboy. But since he could so often be found where playboys clustered, the press had dubbed Stash Valensky a playboy as a careless point of reference.

Stash Valensky’s vast personal fortune separated him completely from the playboy ranks. It was a fortune he had never had to question, even in his periods of wildest extravagance. Indeed, he never had to consider himself extravagant since he could afford to spend whatever he chose. The easeful relationship to wealth had been common to his ancestors, right down to his father, the late Prince Vasily Alexandrovitch Valensky. Nevertheless, Stash Valensky could never have been called a businessman. Until 1939, when polo stopped for the duration of World War II, he had devoted most of his adult life to the game. He had carried a nine-goal handicap since 1935, which made him one of the top ten players in a sport in which it was so expensive to participate that only nine thousand men in the world ever played it at any one time.

Valensky had the physical presence of a great athlete who has punished his body without pity throughout his life and the watchful, fighting eyes of a natural predator. His glance was bold and his thick brows were many shades darker than his blond hair, cropped short and as coarse as the coat of a hastily brushed dog. Valensky had never had to ask for anything. Either it had been given to him or he had taken it. His nose, broken many times, gave him the air of a roughneck. He had well-weathered, outdoorsman’s skin and strong, blunt, almost brutal features, but he walked with the gait, rapid and graceful, of a man who was in control wherever he found himself. He was considered to have the best “hands” in the world of international polo. Not only did Valensky never employ unnecessary force on the bit and reins but he had been born, as some men are, with an instinct for establishing a communication between himself and his pony which made it seem as if the animal was merely an extension of his mind, rather than a beast with a will of its own.