Vivien Leigh Read online

  Her father was delighted with this and with Vivian’s subsequent appearances in Ootacamund, but her mother showed a growing dissatisfaction with Vivian’s Indian education. Gertrude, being a devout Catholic, felt strongly that her daughter should not be brought up in a Moslem culture. In the last days before the end of the war she tried to persuade Ernest to return to England so that the child could be reared a Catholic, but peace found him back at Piggott Chapman and Company, the family re-established in the large house in Alipore, and Hartley a senior partner in the firm. His new position made it impossible for him to consider leaving Calcutta. But even though Gertrude’s displeasure at remaining was evident, it was doubtful that he would have returned to England under any circumstances. He was enjoying a growing reputation as a ladies’ man and thought he was getting away with having the best of both worlds. Gertrude, however, was not as naive as he believed, nor as tolerant as he might wish her to be. One evening she planned a dinner party and invited all the women (and their husbands) whom she suspected of having affairs with Ernest. As she was responsible for the guest lists of their parties, poor Hartley came down to dinner unprepared to face a roomful of women he had bedded and a group of men he had cuckolded. It was an evening he never forgot and one which Gertrude reminded him of often through the succeeding years—but it did not put an end to his infidelity.

  Life was thus not too happy in the Hartley household, and Gertrude turned to her religion for solace and soon replaced Vivian’s amah—of whom the child was very fond—with an English Catholic governess who saw to it that her daughter was given religious training along with her lessons. Vivian loved stories and reading and devoured any books presented to her. Gertrude introduced her to Hans Christian Andersen, Lewis Carroll, and Charles Kingsley along with the Bible. But Vivian preferred Kipling and Greek mythology and to her father’s delight memorized long passages in the Just So Stories,

  Hartley continued his theatrical endeavors for about a year after his return to Calcutta. But the responsibilities of his new position proved too great, and in 1919 he retired from the stage.

  The following year he was given a short leave and the Hartleys boarded an English liner in Bombay with Vivian in tow and her mother intent on leaving her in England at a convent school. Gertrude had been born in Ireland, raised a Roman Catholic, and educated in a convent; and she considered this to be the best of all educations for a young girl. The boarding school that she selected and that Ernest finally agreed upon (he had at the beginning been adamantly against sending Vivian away to school) was the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton, not far from central London. The nuns and students were from upper-class homes and some of England’s finest families were represented. This pleased Gertrude, for though not a snob, she was keenly aware of her new station in life.

  When Ernest and Gertrude took Vivian to see Roehampton shortly after they arrived in March she was terrified at the sight of the forbidding medieval stone walls of the convent. They went directly to the office of the Mother General, Mother Ashton Case, a tall, beautiful woman with sharp gray eyes and a regal bearing, and were told that at six and a half Vivian was still too young to be left in the nuns’ charge. Vivian was greatly relieved, until she heard her mother say that she would enter her in September then, when she was closer to age seven.

  Once outside the convent, Vivian clung to her father and begged him to take her back to India where her memories were of golden sun and warmth, of crowds everywhere, of Gertrude’s garden parties with lovely ladies in elegant gowns and high white gloves, of cavalry officers like her father in grand uniforms and polished boots, of sleek, beautiful horses, exotic food and spicy aromas. Ernest was convinced, believing that life in the convent would be too spartan and severe contrasted with the constant attentions of a nurse, a governess, her mother, and the house servants that the child had enjoyed in India. Her doll collection had been enormous, her wardrobe filled with lovely party frocks, and she had always adored dressing up. At Roehampton she would be allowed few personal possessions and would be clothed in a stiff uniform.

  But Gertrude remained staunchly insistent that Vivian attend the school come September, and Ernest backed down, finally agreeing to leave Gertrude in England until that time while he returned to India at an earlier date. Vivian was distraught. For weeks she was moody and undemonstrative toward him. After he sailed for India, Gertrude took her to Ernest’s parents’ home at 14 Belgrave Square in Bridlington. It was meant to be a period of transition, a short, happy interlude before the school term. The house was a bright, cheery place filled inside and out with plants and flowers, the delicious aromas of Grandma Hartley’s Irish cooking, the soft and constant purring of eight family cats, and an adoring audience of grandmother, grandfather, Gertrude, Ernest’s two sisters, Hilda and Gertrude, a temporary nanny, and Katie the maid, who kept the many hearths glowing and warm. But there was no way that life at 14 Belgrave Square could prepare a child for the convent school at Roehampton.

  In September of that year, two months short of her seventh birthday and the youngest child ever to be accepted by the school, Vivian, holding tightly to Gertrude’s gloved hand, entered the seventeenth-century main building through massive wooden Gothic doors bearing hand-forged steel crossbars. Inside, the convent grounds were green and well tended but extremely stiff and forbidding. There was a small lake with benches where one could contemplate, but no ducks or geese to feed. There was little color. The nuns wore black, the girls navy blue, and the dormitories could have been a hospital ward in St. George’s with their two facing rows of white-curtained cubicles, each containing a small steel bed, a chair, a dresser, and a washbasin.

  Vivian used tears and then guile (both of which she possessed in quantity) to reverse her mother’s decision, but Gertrude was intractable and left her standing in the courtyard holding Mother Ashton Case’s sturdy hand. There was a kitten meowing at the child’s feet and she drew away and sat down on the grass hugging the small creature to her. Mother General allowed Vivian to take the kitten to her room and to sleep with it that first night though animals were strictly forbidden. It was difficult not to give the little girl special protection and privilege. Not only was she two years younger than any other girl at the school, one whose parents soon would be thousands of miles away, but she was an exquisite child, with delicate features and incredible grace.

  Within a week Gertrude was on the high seas on her way to rejoin Ernest in India. As the distance grew between mother and daughter, she realized it would be at least a year before she would see Vivian again and that two years would lapse before the child would see her father. But she was sincere in her belief that she had made the right and only decision for her daughter’s future and that it had been a great sacrifice on her part.

  Chapter Two

  Vivian was permitted to keep the ginger cat and it mitigated some of her initial loneliness. Mother General took her under her benevolent wing and the sisters and girls soon followed her lead. In Calcutta, Gertrude had impressed upon Vivian that when she was going to a party she must always do what the hostess wanted, to please her; and when she was the hostess she must then do what the guests wanted, to please them. It obviously never occurred to the child at the time that she might please herself. She was never willful or disobedient. She did exacdy what she was told to do. She smiled, the corners of her perfect mouth turned uniquely; she looked people straight in the eye, with wide, interested candor. The nuns made a great fuss over her, but it was in the end the extended friendship of a girl nearly two years her senior, the future film star Maureen O’Sullivan, who helped her to overcome her intense loneliness.

  The girls resembled each other—with their large expressive gray-green eyes, their chestnut curly hair, their lithe bodies. But there the likeness appeared to end, for Maureen possessed a budding inferiority complex, caused by a nurse who had constantly put her down, and a rebellious nature. She was straightforward, with a disregard for social prestige, defensively proud of h
er middle-class Irish background.

  “When I leave school, I want to fly,” Maureen confessed to her new friend. “I should like to be a pilot.”

  “I want to be an actress,” Vivian, almost seven, replied “A great actress.”

  Drama and music were stressed at the convent; and Vivian took piano, violin and cello lessons, and played in the school orchestra. The fact that the only man in the convent was a rather shy young music teacher named Mr. Britten certainly had a good deal to do with the girl’s musical interest. Vivian was also enthusiastic about each new theatre production, though in her first year she was given little opportunity to take part.

  The girls at the school voted on things like who was the wittiest, the most clever, and the most popular girl in the school. Not long after Vivian arrived they took a vote for the prettiest. Vivian came in first, Maureen second. Vivian accepted the honor with great equanimity and went about her classes. But Maureen returned to her room and cried throughout the day. No one knew what the cause was, but Vivian suspected that her good friend was not as used as she was to extravagant praise, high compliments, and votes of confidence. Far from being resentful that she had not placed first, Maureen had been overwhelmed to come in second to Vivian, whom she considered the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. Vivian’s head did not seem to be turned by such flattery. The fact was that there was something extraordinary about Vivian. Mother General noted that she had a curious maturity that set her apart from the other girls, while possessing such an ebullient nature that she was adored by both the sisters and her peers. Her Indian childhood, added to her exotic looks, gave her a charisma not usually attributable to a child her age. She seemed to glide in and out of rooms; her hair was always in place, her uniform impeccable; and she had a way of telling a story that would immediately capture an audience.

  But at Roehampton there was little time for childhood games. Students were occupied with their lessons. After English, mathematics, history, and French, there were long hours of religion. Vivian threw herself sincerely into religion, winning ribbons for her achievement at the end of the semester. It was the most meaningful thing in her life, and her short childish notes to Gertrude invariably ended with a scripture quote. There was drama, music, and choir; and Vivian, the only girl to do so, took ballet, a non-credited course given by one sister who had studied dance in her youth. It was an exceptionally brave thing for the child to take on, because at the end of the year the girls had to perform with their classes before the faculty and student body. Since there was no one else in Vivian’s ballet class, she had to perform alone, a thing that would have terrified the other girls but excited Vivian.

  She missed her father, and wrote him separate letters from her mother’s, all about her school adventures, apologizing for what she considered her less-than-brilliant grades and dramatizing everything. She complained about nothing except that she missed her parents and dreamed of returning to India to be with them. She could have voiced her objection to the prudery of the nuns, which she did complain about to the other girls, but she did not.

  Looking back, this prudery might seem humorous, but at the time it was a most difficult thing for free-spirited girls to endure. They were forced to take baths wearing long white shifts so that their naked bodies would not be exposed. Maureen, aware that the nuns were too modest to enter the bathroom and check if each girl kept her shift on while bathing, took hers off and bathed naked, after which she would soak the shift in the tub, wring it out, and get back into it. Vivian, who detested the feeling of the cold wet clothes on her body, would shiver in the unheated room, but she never once disobeyed.

  Another rule was that no girl could wear patent leather shoes, because somebody might be able to see up her skirts in the reflection. And still another was the nightly edict for each girl to place her neatly folded soiled underclothes, covered by a white nightdress, on a chair in the corridor outside the curtained cubicle so that her personal garments would not be exposed. To top off this curious pile her stockings had to be folded in the form of a cross.

  By Easter, Vivian had her first communion. She went to stay with Grandmother and Grandfather Hartley that summer, but both were ailing. Vivian spent the major part of her time playing nurse and rather enjoying the role. But she returned to the school for the second term quite happily. She had adjusted to her new life and felt a sense of security in the care of the nuns. On November 30, 1921, just past her eighth birthday, she was confirmed, an important and solemn occasion for her.

  The following March, 1922, Gertrude returned for her first trip home in eighteen months, and she was both stunned and delighted with the changes in Vivian. The child she had left had matured into a charming, gay little girl, who showed Gertrude about the convent as a hostess might show her guests her home. The girls had been taken to pantomimes during the Christmas holidays and Vivian had re-established her keen interest in the theatre. She begged her mother to take her to the London Hippodrome to see Round in Fifty. By summer she had managed to coax Mother General and Gertrude into allowing her the privilege of returning to see the show sixteen times. The star was a red-nosed comedian named George Robey.

  Hartley joined his family for the summer and they holidayed at a hotel in Keswick in the Lake District. There at the next table one morning at breakfast were Robey and his wife. Vivian stared throughout the meal at him with wide, beautiful disbelieving eyes, confessing when he rose to leave that she was his adoring fan and had seen Round in Fifty sixteen times. Robey beamed, took a handful of photographs of himself out of his pocket, and autographed them personally to her. These she pinned up in her locker, as she lived more and more in a world of fantasy.

  Yet she was unusually orderly in her habits. Her cubicle was the neatest, her notebooks and papers carefully kept. She was always the leader and organizer of any group activity in which she was involved. Mother General noted that there seemed to be two Vivians, however, for often she would disappear and be found alone by the lake. “Why aren’t you with the other girls?” a sister would inquire. “I like to see the trees reflect in the lake,” she replied once. “It’s a lovely ballet.”

  To friends she would confide stories of plays and ballets she had made up about golden palaces and golden princesses. India presented exotic images to the girls, but Vivian would seldom discuss it. Nor would she discuss her parents. Private emotions were kept locked away, moods and reverie, sadness or loneliness bottled until she could find time to be alone.

  Vivian’s group now included Maureen, the lovely Patsy Quinn, Brigit Boland, and Dorothy Ward. They were called the “exquisites” by the other girls. All the group members had beautiful long and luxuriant hair, which meant they had to have their heads frequently scrubbed by the lay sisters. After the hated scouring their hair was laid out to dry under the hot helmet lid of a chimney, with the girls groaning on their knees, heads painfully craned. All the girls wished solemnly that they could shear their tresses.

  Therefore, at Christmastime Vivian was quite delighted in being chosen the girl to sacrifice some hair to the life-size wax Christ child in the chapel. The Divine Babe, though very beautiful, unfortunately had no hair. The youngest children were lined up, the predicament explained, and a suggestion put forward that someone with suitable curls be “privileged to give some hair” in order that the wax Christ child be beautified. With great solemnity and little hesitation Vivian was selected as the victim, or honored one, according to one’s point of view, it having been decided among them that her tresses were the loveliest of all. However, this could not be done without a parent’s approval and the Hartleys were in India.

  A cable was dispatched and everyone waited anxiously—but none more than Vivian—for the reply, which came by return cable within a week. Vivian could have her hair cut. So one day with all the girls watching silently, the nun in charge of the youngest children cut off Vivian’s curls and placed them on the head of the Holy Child. Then Vivian was taken into the village to a local hairdresser
s’ shop to have her hair “bingled”—a fashionable cut that combined a bob and a shingle. Immediately, as many girls as could gained permission from their parents to have their hair bingled.

  For Vivian the new cut not only meant that there would be no more scorched ears, bruised knees, or stiff necks, but that she could now be cast in boys’ parts, which she considered the most interesting ones in the school productions. However, she was not allowed to wear trousers, as they were deemed immodest, and wore long cumbersome overcoats in their place. Theatre and plays were taking a great many of her private hours. More than ever she was convinced that she would be a great and famous actress. She wrote her father that perhaps someday when she came back to India they could appear at the Royal Theatre together. He replied that it was a charming idea, but he didn’t have much time for theatre anymore.

  She did not spend her next holidays with the Hartleys in Bridlington but remained at the convent by herself. She had found that she liked to read, and the nuns allowed her full use of the library. The holidays without her family did not appear on the surface to disconcert her. She was beginning to identify strongly with certain of the sisters and was happy to have the time without the other girls around to cement those relationships. The Hartleys sent her an enormous doll dressed in a crown and ball gown and looking very queenly, which Mother General permitted her to keep on her bed.

  The second year at Roehampton passed happily for Vivian, who loved the nuns and the ritual of the religious training. She appeared to be one of the few girls sincerely happy there. Unlike Maureen, who was constantly rebellious and under threat of expulsion, everyone thought Vivian to be the most well adjusted girl at the school. She seldom cried or sulked. She smiled a lot and was genuinely funny, always seeing the humor in situations that the other girls thought disastrous, always fun to be with, and yet no goody-goody. Her friends confided in her with absolute assurance that she would never betray their confidence or criticize them. She was solemnly wise—so much so that no one ever thought about how young she was. “She was,” as Maureen later said, “everything you would long to be. We would play silly games—who would you like to be if you could be someone else? Most of us wrote—Vivian Hartley.”