Strange ties

Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the secrets of brideshead
By Paula Byrne, Harper Press, £9.99

It is difficult to imagine any reader of Evelyn Waugh’s evocative novel, Brideshead Revisited, who hasn’t wondered on the real-life linkages of the book. Who were Sebastian and Julia Flyte modelled on? Who was Lord Marchmain in real life? And, most importantly, where was the actual Brideshead? This marvellous book, researched in detail and full of the most delightful anecdotes and trivia, seeks at one level to answer these questions. At another level, Paula Byrne constructs a biography of Waugh, not a comprehensive one, but of the more significant aspects of his creative life.

Waugh was an upper middle- class boy from Golders Green who went to Lancing, a minor public school. (He was to say later, “If you weren’t at Eton or Harrow or Winchester or Rugby, no-one minds much where you were.’’). Spiritually, Waugh was at Eton and this came out in Oxford where, despite being at Hertford College, he fell in with the Oxford Aesthetes (mostly old Etonians and Christ Church) led by Harold Acton and Brian Howard. The latter was the perfect picture of Anthony Blanche, who, in Brideshead Revisited, recites over a megaphone The Waste Land from a window in Christ Church. In real life, that particular deed was performed by Harold Acton. This, as Byrne shows through many examples, was typical of Waugh: he often merged the features and aspects of the lives of his friends and acquaintances to make a character in a novel.

Waugh became part of this set in Oxford through his membership of the Hypocrites’ Club frequented by the aesthetes and notorious for its boisterous meetings and drunken members. It was there he first met the handsome and charming Hugh Lygon and his elder brother, Elmley, sons of the earl of Beauchamp, who had his seat in Madresfield Hall in Worcestershire. In London, Waugh was to meet the three Lygon sisters — the tall Sibell (who had an affair with Lord Beaverbrook), the extraordinarily beautiful Mary (the toast of London) and Dorothy (Coote or Poll), who was the nicest human being of the Lygon siblings. Waugh first began to go to their London home, Halkyn House in Belgravia, and later became a frequent visitor to Madresfield Hall, which became like his second home. He didn’t particularly like Elmley and Sibell, but was close to Hugh. But his relationship (strictly platonic) with the two younger daughters was special, especially with Mary whom he adored and called Blondy.

In a way, this cast of characters sets the stage for Brideshead Revisited. Hugh was the model for Sebastian, and Mary, obviously, for Julia. Dorothy became Cordelia. This was clear, as Byrne points out, to everyone in the know as soon as the novel was published. For Lord Marchmain, who in the novel lived in exile in Venice, Waugh used Beauchamp but with a significant twist. In the novel, Marchmain had to leave Britain because of his adulterous affair with a woman. His real-life counterpart, Beauchamp, was hounded out of Britain by his wife’s brother, the second duke of Westminster, who was known as Bendor. The latter threatened to expose Beauchamp’s homosexuality and to bring criminal charges against him. Beauchamp gave up a promising political career and left Britain to become a globe trotter; his wife left Madresfield, never to return. The children, except for the youngest son, Richard, stood firmly with their father and never visited their mother.

If the most poignant part of Waugh’s novel was the decline and death of Sebastian, in real life it was Waugh’s friendship with Mary Lygon. After her father’s death, she had to move out of her ancestral home and became a heavy drinker. She made a disastrous marriage and fell into penury. But Waugh stood by her and helped her financially. What sustained their friendship were the memories of the wonderful moments they had shared together before time became out of joint.

Byrne very deftly weaves in Waugh’s life, personal and creative, into the story of Waugh’s lifelong love affair with the Lygons. As Nancy Mitford, one of Waugh’s closest friends, memorably said on first reading Brideshead Revisited, “So true to life being in love with a whole family.’’ The Lygons and the Flytes, Madresfield Hall and Brideshead, was the Golders Green boy’s dream come true.