When I first came back from Paris for the Coronation, the day that I was really looking forward to was the one when I would remeet [X]. And this was arranged for the dinner-party that my Aunt Vanda - Daphne’s half-sister - was holding for a party of guests that would be going on to the Lycett-Green dance. I had written with a request that she be invited, which wasn’t well-received. Vanda had pointed out that this was a debutante dance, where such girls would have the best chance for pairing up with eligible young men. There wouldn’t be much point if all these eligible squires turned up with the partners of their own from the previous summer. And the Lycett-Greens had objected to the idea. But an exception was eventually made on the grounds that I was quite a close relative - with Vanda’s mother being a Lycett-Green - and I was only back in Britain for a relatively short period, so it would have been harsh to deny me this opportunity for remeeting someone whom I really did fancy.

I did get a small rebuke, subsequently, from Vanda on the grounds that I had spent the entire evening dancing with [X], and that we had left the dance far too early. I think we went on to the Carousel, for a spell of even more intimate dancing. But the part of the evening which I have reason to remember best came while I was walking her back home, and we sought out some nook where we might kiss more passionately. And we could find nothing better than the steps round at the back of Brompton Oratory. We were now behaving very much like an engaged couple. While falling short of any full-blooded copulation, this love-session marked a definite milestone in our relationship.

Then came the week-end at [G], which had been planned previously by letter. The other guests whom [F] had invited were Laurence Kelly, Michael Boyne and Markie Hills. But we had to drive over to collect Laurence from Oxford. (He was there already, since he had been demobilized from his National Service along with the batch prior to my own.) And we found fortuitously that there was a party being given that very morning by old friends of mine from Eton days. It was by Jimmy Skinner I think, who was now at New College, with Laurence. There were so many faces that I knew, that it made me appreciate how I was going to feel very much at home, come October, when I would be going up to Oxford myself.

One of the friends that I re-met was Antony Rouse. This was the first occasion that we had run into each other since he had sent me that letter of admiration, when I was on the point of leaving Eton. It had embarrassed me at the time, in that I didn’t quite know how to answer it. But the remeeting went off without any awkwardness. I went over to chat with him, and there was a mutual understanding that the letter would remain unmentioned. [X] told me afterwards that she was fascinated by that fantastic person, who insisted on dancing with her at twelve o’clock in the morning.

During the afternoon, we all gradually recovered by watching a cricket match. And during the course of this, Laurence and myself sat talking about Paris. In a fashion typical of ourselves when in the Life Guards, he wanted to know all about my recent sex life, and I told him how I had been vainly pursuing a beautiful Argentinean girl. There followed a typical example of Laurence’s disloyalty. He went off with [X] for a long walk. And when they returned, I noticed how she was behaving slightly cool towards myself. Not that I could extract from her at that time what was troubling her. It was only much later that she finally intimated to me that Laurence had warned her how I was in love with an Argentinean beauty.

Not that this put a damper on the progress that I was making with [X] over this particular week-end. For we all returned to [G] that same evening and, finally, when all the others had tactfully retired to bed after dinner, we were left with the drawing-room to ourselves. And our kissing was now in greater earnest than it had ever been before. She eventually suggested that I should go up to bed in the room which had been allotted to me by [F]’s father, and that she would come and say good-night to me. This she did - in her nightdress. And shortly afterwards, she was lying in the bed with me. Later still she had removed her nightdress. She would allow me to go no further than kisses and intimate caresses however, pronouncing firmly that she was still a virgin, and wished to remain that way - although it had now been established that our amorous sessions might culminate in my orgasm.

After a few hours spent in this fashion, [X] decided that she had best return to her own room, which was the one adjoining [F]’s. And once on my own, I was feeling greatly satisfied with life. Even if we were not yet fully fledged lovers, I felt that the prospects for such an event in the near future was something that I might hopefully anticipate.

Then as I lay fantasizing upon this theme, I heard the passage outside my door creaking. I watched as my bedroom door slowly opened - and there was [F] in her nightdress, gliding forwards with her arms reaching out towards me. I groped for something suitable to say. Then suddenly she dissolved into titters of laughter - with [X] now emerging at the door and joining in the merriment. The two girls collapsed upon my bed, spluttering over their little joke. After this I was left in peace for the remainder of the night.

Next morning, I noted how [F]’s father was now treating me with a lot of suspicion. He avoided talking to me when possible; or when he had to do so, he managed to avoid looking at me. I was to hear later that he had indeed heard the constant patter of feet along the passages, and felt that I was abusing his hospitality. I was to remain one of his less favourite young men - a status from which I was never fully redeemed.

Another person who appeared shocked by the nocturnal events was Michael Boyne. Or maybe he just felt omitted from the romantic pace of the week-end’s events. Anyway, he made some excuse and departed on the Sunday morning.

By the Sunday evening however, romance was rife, for Laurence now bestowed his amorous attention upon [F]. The two of them were Catholics, so [X] and I regarded it as an appropriate match - while wondering just how far they took things when together. They looked quite an odd couple, with Laurence so skinny and slight of build, and with [F] as roundly ebullient as a bouncing ball. But they shared a bed together, wrapped in each others’ arms, so [X] and myself were not the only revellers that night. It suddenly seemed evident that so many of us were finally graduating with zeal, if belatedly, into the enjoyment of these fornicating games in which the adult world so happily indulged.

Rapiers aloft, we doff our hats to ladies,
trading jests, or swinging from chandeliers,
fearing nothing as we slide a ride on grand
bannistered stairs, wearing our military buckles.
Lucky in love, we cavort the floor of the spurred
herd’s stomping-ground, with wild lust
thrusting notes from formerly silent throats -
to croak, howl, bellow, roar and bay.
Displaying our fantails with rustling feathers, flicking
quickly our red coxcombs, with sperm-sacks
packed to overflowing, we offer our god-like
bodies as tools for shaping another’s joy.
Now men and women all should understand,
we’ve come and joined the copulatory clan.

On other subjects which cropped up over the course of this week-end, I came in for a bit of a shock from [X]’s revelation that [C] must have gone as far as kissing her. For it was now that she told me how there had been a wager between [C] and Nicky Gordon-Lennox as to who might score the higher number of points for sexual conquest over the course of the Hilary term. His claim that he had scored any points at all implied less innocence than she had previously seen fit to indicate by letter. The discrepancy between the two accounts bothered me. If she could dissimulate on one important detail, then how was I to know that she wasn’t doing so on others? So I probed a bit deeper with my questions. But [X] merely took delight in accusing me of jealousy - without answering my questions.

I was to discover how this was quite characteristic of [X], for she was always willing to confess half-truths, which may have had the effect of relieving her conscience without opening herself to censure. The half-truth had moreover protected her from the possibility that I might get told - by someone like Laurence - how it was well known that something or other had occurred. The story which she had originally seen fit to tell to me could then form the basis to whatever she might subsequently see fit to append as additional, if still only partial, clarification. Ultimately however, I felt confident that the whole episode concerning a possible infidelity with St Johnstone was of a relatively trivial nature.

There were no additional meetings with [X] before my return to Paris. But I was able to feel that enormous strides of progress had been achieved in my relationship with her over this brief period of time. And it was with some notion of guilt for my potential infidelity with Lita that now disquieted my heart, at the time when I flew back to Paris.

As soon as I returned to the Sorbonne, I discovered how the scene I had left behind me had been greatly disrupted during my absence. The harem of English girls who had greatly enhanced my romantic image during the previous term, had now been infiltrated by some Old Etonians just marginally younger than myself. These were Bobby Nicholl, David Nickerson and Philip de Lazlo. They were friendly, and we all got on well together. But it wasn’t the same thing as having my own harem personally for myself.

There had been similar developments over on Lita’s enclave of the upper gallery, for I now perceived that she was sometimes in the company of an American. She suggested that I come for a coffee with them on one occasion, and the tenor of his conversation was noticeably more intellectual than my own. He was wrong-footing me on my own subject of art, where my dismissive attitude towards the great masters became almost a defensive stance against his probing enquiries as to where I stood within the wider perspectives of painting. Lita noticed how I was tensing up all round, and concluded no doubt that the plan to make friends of us simultaneously could never work. I’m not sure how it came about, but the American then dropped out of her life, and she reverted to being my own companion for the coffee breaks.

Things were never quite the same as they once had been, however. I had the feeling that, in my absence, Lita had fully found her feet in Paris. She was a popular girl, and it showed all too clearly. There was an occasion when she invited me to accompany her to some ball, and I saw how there were numerous young men - of all nationalities - coming up to greet her. I felt as if I was merely on the fringe of her circle, and in some ways that is indeed where I stood.

It was at this ball that I saw Lady Diana Cooper standing by the door, watching while we danced. I made it my business to introduce Lita to her, but the greeting was cooler than I’d been anticipating. And a little later in the evening, Lady Diana’s distinct absence of enthusiasm when I asked her if she didn’t find Lita to be truly beautiful, made it quite clear to me that, through ambassadorial eyes, this Catholic Argentinean fell short of what might be regarded as a suitable wife for the scion of Longleat.

I had been introduced to Lita’s father, a man with a striking resemblance to the film star, Victor Mature. I gathered that he acquired a new Bentley to drive every year, and it was evident in his life-style that they were an opulent family. But I was still aware of a cultural divide. There was a carelessness with which they indulged in such matters, that was all so different from the character of my own upbringing - which almost went so far as stressing a need to appear rather less well off than we really were.

It would be wrong to give the impression that I saw nobody other than Lita during these weeks. I continued to see a fair amount of Camilla Crawley, for example. Camilla was always indignant about "that Argentinean girl" - protesting not so much against my taste, as against my disloyalty in looking outside the group of English girls that were available, and choosing someone so foreign. She was really quite funny about it at times - clucking at me like one of my disapproving aunts. But it would have been wrong to depict our own relationship as being totally chaste. There was one occasion at any rate, after a dance, when I walked with her under the bridges of the Seine, and eventually we kissed. We even sat down on the concrete and embraced in a lascivious fashion. I can remember a clochard walking by, and staring at us with surprise, in that her ball-gown and my dinner-jacket made us look as if we had found the wrong setting for our amorous encounter. But he didn’t stop to discuss the matter.

Generally speaking however, my relationship with Camilla was fraternal - and was to remain so. I think she regarded me as a romantic figure. She even managed to conceive me as the stereotypical young artist, starving in his garret for lack of money to pay for his food. This conception arose because I always displayed an exaggerated appetite when she invited me to dinner with her family. I must have told her that I wasn’t getting enough to eat at the students’ restaurants which I was now frequenting. Anyway, she took it into her head that she was responsible for my better nourishment and, whenever we met, she would hand me - surreptitiously - a paper bag, in which she had been collecting scraps of bread and cheese which had been left surplus on the de Castignac household’s sideboard. I never had the heart to tell Camilla that I found these scraps to be singularly unappetizing.

As a matter of fact, I used to eat fairly well at these government-subsidised students’ restaurants. The one I usually attended was the Restaurant des Beaux Arts. The food was surprisingly good, although I might have welcomed a larger quantity of it. But a meal was for as little as 100 francs, if I remember rightly.

With regard to my relationship with [X], I continued to bombard her with letters. I had never lost sight of the idea that she was the girl that I really desired to seduce. I always appreciated that I was on to a hopeless case, as far as Lita was concerned; she was the chance for infidelity which I harboured within my fantasy life. But with [X], I felt that I might well be on to the real thing. Unknown to me however, Laurence Kelly had already opened her eyes to my interest in an Argentinean girl, and exaggerated the dangers, it would seem. For she was now too ready to mistrust certain passages in my letters, which I am in no position to quote, but which I feel sure were innocent enough in what they sought to express.

I don’t think she was ever seriously worried in her assumption of my infidelity, but I was to learn later that she used it to placate her own conscience concerning her own conduct, which may have been rather more unfaithful than my own, over this period. I have never found out exactly how much of an affair she had with [M] over these weeks. I’ll be coming to that later on. But it does seem that she gave [M] reason to believe that it was him that she loved, and that her interest in myself was something more frivolous. All this is difficult to square however, with the tone that she was currently adopting in her letters to myself.

It seems that I must have written something about my friendship with Lita in my next letter to [X].

But I’m inclined to think that one of her friends might have hinted to her that I could be homosexual, and she therefore felt it to be her duty to discourage me from such tendencies - if they really existed. My guess is that I had just recounted to her how I had nearly got picked up in Luxembourg Gardens. My Velosolex had a puncture, so I had wheeled it into the garden so as to mend it, without getting in the way of any traffic. There was a paunchy man sitting on a bench, just behind the spot where I was conducting the repair. I had no intention to excite him sexually, but my behaviour may have titillated his fantasies. After all, it’s difficult to remove a tyre, put a patch on the inner tube, and then pump up the reassembled wheel, without wiggling one’s arse in what might be viewed as a lascivious fashion.

Just as I was finishing the job, the paunchy man came up to have a chat with me. He was ageing, fat and slobbery, but was endeavouring to be friendly - which I appreciated. After establishing my nationality, the talk was about English personality in contrast to French. Then he wanted to know what I was doing in Paris. "An art-student? That must be a wonderful life. It’s all free love among the students." I didn’t want to seem lacking in virility, so I agreed. He then gave me some hints about making love, culminating in a description of "l’amour á trois". He then made it a personal suggestion. "I could show you how it works. All you have to do is find a woman and bring her along to my house."

Only then had it dawned upon me that I was being accosted by a homosexual, and that I was to be the party sandwiched in the middle, receiving sexual attention from both sides. The traces of astonishment must have been apparent on my face, since his advances petered out. I murmured something about me being late for something, and that I must be on my way. He must have thought that I was going to fetch a policeman, for he became nervous all of a sudden. But I shook the hand which he proffered, and the relief was evident upon his face as I took my leave of him.

I have no record of what it was that I may have written to [X] about this episode, but my guess is that I may have suggested that if she came to Paris, we might take up his offer. But it seems that my jesting remark may have been ill-received. Not that this diminished the warmth in her letters.

Now that I was at a distance from [X], I began to prepare her for my homecoming - when I anticipated that we should rapidly become fully fledged lovers. Not having the letters that I then wrote to her, I am unable to recount the arguments that I presented to her for the acceptance of the Existentialist attitude towards free love. As it is, I have to make do with her replies. Her sense of morality was as naive as it was conventional - whereas mine probably displayed an excessive and immature zeal for liberating ourselves from convention, in the embrace of modern trends.

Meanwhile I was still endeavouring to make some headway in my relationship with Lita. It will be remembered how she had a superstition that the good things in her life were apt to occur on the ninth of any month. The first time that I had spoken to her was fortuitously on May 9th. Then I had made it my business to return to Paris just prior to June 9th, so that I could arrange that our remeeting would be on that date - not that this did much good for me, in that I discovered how there were now others in her orbit. So the next date when I might advantage myself from her superstition was July 9th. And I was planning it so that I might invite her out to dinner on that date, with a hope that I would then find her in the right mood for significant development in our relationship.

Lita was living with her father and mother at the Hotel Bellman in the Rue Fancois I. When I phoned her with my invitation, she sounded as if she was already conscious of the purpose that had motivated it, and she made some excuse for declining. Then she suggested that she might be able to go out with me the evening prior to that - whereupon I quickly registered that it would become July 9th after the stroke of midnight. So this looked promising.

We had dinner somewhere in Montmatre. Nothing special occurred as the hours ticked slowly by. I waited until midnight, and then suggested a night-club. Lita declared that she had to get back home, but she looked at me with a slight smile and said: "Why, it’s already tomorrow!" This was the sole indication she gave me that she realized how I was playing deliberately on her superstition. And I felt it to be a favourable sign that she was making a joke about it.

So in the taxi, while I was taking her home, I decided that the time might be opportune for me to venture a kiss. But I was uncertain how best to make the initial move. My difficulty arose from the fact that our relationship lacked any element of frivolity, or humour. The fault was mine rather than hers. Anything I did, or said, I required to be taken literally, for I was not in the custom of clowning, or making jokes. So when I moved to lay my hand on hers, it was an act of great deliberation. And she unfortunately responded in what was - to my understanding - the wrong way. In retrospect I can almost persuade myself that she really wanted me to kiss her, but that she was offering the slight resistance that might be expected of her, for modesty’s sake. She gave a slight smile and withdrew her hand to her own lap. But I interpreted this as meaning that she didn’t want to be kissed. So I promptly desisted, and we resorted to commonplace conversation for the remainder of the taxi ride. And the opportunity for advancing the intimacy of our relationship had then slipped past me.

So we were now into a new kind of relationship where the inhibitions had to be recognized as limitations; and inasmuch that I couldn’t feel that I was really making any headway in my relationship with her, I may have hinted to Lita that I had amorous commitments back in London. So it may be that it was in response to such statements of withdrawal that Lita saw fit to drop some hints about her own interests elsewhere. I remember feeling deeply wounded when she asked me if I minded her telling her father that it was me who took her home from a particular ball we were both attending, because he disapproved of the man from whom she had actually received a lift home. I couldn’t discern whether this was a tit-for-tat retort to my own hints that my heart belonged elsewhere, or whether I was truly one of her secondary flirtations.

She had in fact introduced me to the man in question - a smooth socialite called [J. I never did take much of a liking to his prolonged way of smiling; but then of course, I was niggled by jealousy.

Another thing that worried me was the way in which Lita sometimes seemed to be telling me that I should avail myself of the company of her girl-friends at the Sorbonne. There was Martha, and there was June. Martha, she hinted, was really quite enamoured of me. I should take her in my arms and kiss her, she declared - laughing as she said it. But was I to read from this that she was trying to fob me off on another, or merely that she was making an effort to goad me into more demonstrative acts of courtship? I simply didn’t know.

On the other hand she was urging me to come and stay with her in Biarritz that summer, declaring that her parents would make me very welcome. There was going to be a huge fancy dress ball down there at the height of the holiday season, and I could join their party. But she needed a definite answer, which I wasn’t prepared to give her. I simply didn’t know where I stood with her - or even where I wanted to stand, for that matter. But Lita herself was on the verge of departure for Biarritz, so a decision had to be made. I wasn’t going to be rushed, so it was assumed that I had declined. And Lita departed from Paris just shortly before the quatorze juillet celebrations.

My tardiness might almost be put down to an effort to remain faithful in spirit to [X]. However far it may be considered that I fell short of that, it is evident that I was still bombarding her with love-letters of a soppy nature - if her replies are at all indicative of the tone that we adopted to one another.

I shall be explaining the reference to [K] shortly. But I shall comment here upon her denigration of [L]. [X] evidently wasn’t aware how she had been a good friend of mine the summer before last. Anyway, I must have sprung to her defence in that [X] returns to the subject in her next letter.

[X] did indeed have conventional views upon moral conduct. It merely served as a measure of her moral indignation. But her own behaviour was often such as to make conventional people raise their eyebrows. Her prudery sprang from naivety, while her own bouts of daring behaviour sprang from her very genuine high spirits.

As to her mention of [K], I must have recounted to [X] how I was currently having a little difficulty in dissuading this woman from developing an amorous interest in me. It was someone who came up to me in the Academie Julien - about three years older than myself, and not my idea of a beauty. But she claimed that she liked my paintings, and engaged me in conversation. She mentioned that she had once been a debutante, which led on to my asking if she had known my sister, Caroline Thynne. And this in effect established my identity, and heightened her curiosity in myself.

[K] made a couple of attempts to arouse my sexual interest in her, inviting me up to her room to see her paintings on the first occasion. Then she enquired whether I had read The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham. I hadn’t, but made a point of buying it later, so that I could discover what she was talking about - after which I was able to see that she was identifying myself in the rôle of Larry, the elusive young mystic, and herself in the rôle of Sophie, the soulful nymphomaniac. [K] went on to tell me that she had "almost forgotten how to behave" - as if encouraging me to take her spiritually in hand, and to reform her. But I had no such ambition in mind, and announced that I must be on my way. She looked upset.

She wasn’t quite through with me however. The next invitation was for me to come back and have dinner with a few of her friends - Americans for the most part. I had no suitable excuse for declining, so I went. One of the men had evidently been given the task of asking me the appropriate questions to discover if I was heterosexual. I indicated as much, and he went back into the kitchen where I assume his findings were duly reported back to [K]. All of the guests were quick to make their departure after we had dined.

Then she took me to a cupboard where she showed me professional photographs of herself, for which she had modelled, while telling me there were others where she was naked. But in that I neglected to ask to see these, she was nonplussed as to what move she should make next. So I suggested that we go out for a drink. We moved from place to place, but at the end of the evening, I dumped her - ungallantly - in a taxi, while declaring that I myself was going to walk home. I could see from the look on her face that she had now registered that I was a hopeless case.

Not that it was any worry to me that I wouldn’t be seeing [K] again, for my thoughts were (principally) upon [X]. But it seems that she was having a good time in London with [M] - as was subsequently revealed. And this infidelity was soon to reach its climax, for she was planning to have him down to [P] over the week-end. It’s interesting to note the breezy terms with which she acquaints me of the fact that there is going to be such a week-end party; and even more interesting that there is no mention at all of [M].

Although there were quite evidently some other options open to me, I chose to be on my own for the quatorze juillet celebrations, wandering round various districts in Paris - watching the bands playing outside cafés, and the couples clinging together as they danced; and finally in St Germain for more boisterous dancing. I was feeling very much alone and left out of things.

The whole of Paris was now draining fast, and I still hadn’t made up my mind whether to follow Lita to Biarritz. Martha and June had a plan for going off on holiday together, and they had urged me to come with them. I realized how there were much more favourable prospects for having an instant affair with Martha than there had ever been with Lita. She was an attractive girl too, if slightly on the heavy side. (Her father worked in some small capacity at the Argentinean Consulate I believe.) And we did pair up to wander round the jazz clubs on a couple of occasions. But my desire to develop the relationship with her was never truly aroused. So we just remained friends.

There was now a holiday course at the Sorbonne, which offered me a good opportunity for a rapid review of the ground we’d covered previously. None of my friends had re-enrolled, but that didn’t deter me. Besides, I had always treated the Salle Richelieu as the nearest thing available to a dating agency. It had solved my problem of loneliness over the earlier months of this year, so I had hopes that it might serve the same purpose now.

But it wasn’t quite the same. Or perhaps it was simply because I wasn’t there in attendance for long enough. This wasn’t for the lack of trying however. I employed my previous tactics in playing the telepathy game, and I had quite a number of attractive girls aware of my presence up in my gallery enclave. There was even a bunch of British under-graduates over on the far side, including an attractive girl from St Andrew’s, whose name I discovered to be Anne. But she had men in regular attendance - one of whom I was later to encounter at Oxford.

The method that ultimately proved successful in breaking through her ring of defences involved the chance purchase of a ginger-bread pig, with the words "A ma pin-up" inscribed upon it in icing sugar. I then sketched a small portrait of Anne, pinned it to the pig, and left it on her seat in the auditorium for her to find when she came back from her coffee-break. It evoked laughter, and a covert hand movement of recognition. Nor was I too greatly put off that the boy-friend sat there eating my gift to her. In any case I was now in a position to speak to her in the corridors, when I next ran into her. And this led to her coming for a coffee with me in the break. But it didn’t go any further than that. She had her own bunch of friends, and it remained that way.

Then came a letter from [X], in which she furnishes a few vague details about the week-end party which had taken place at [P] - although she only dwells briefly upon [M]’ name. It is dated July 20th.

There is very little in this account to suggest what might really have taken place between [M] and [X]: although some of it was revealed to me later. Just how innocent all that may have been, I have little means of knowing, but she was always to assert that little more than kissing was involved. (I know not!) In any case I am convinced that she was still technically a virgin when I returned to England in August, in that the whole cult of virginity remained as something that was still important to her. But I was evidently not at ease concerning her description of the week-end’s hilarity, and must have questioned her on the subject in my next letter. In her reply which is dated July 28th, she seeks to set my fears at rest.

So much for all that. But I now want to dwell upon the manner in which [X] herself chose to express her reasons for adhering to the virginity cult. She was first writing about it in her letter of 20th July 1953.

This was perhaps the clearest statement that she ever gave me of her views concerning virginity, and I found myself having to contend with this attitude in her for the duration of our affair. The frustration was to make a deep impression on me, while also giving rise to a certain resentment that I was being required to tolerate such anachronistic virtue, when the contemporary trend was to be loosening up towards permissiveness. But the point really to be noticed is that the permissive era had not yet opened. The contraceptive pill had yet to be invented, and in Britain at least, society was still striving to re-establish its values upon the pre-war model. We regarded ourselves as the victors, and somehow expected that the old order still prevailed. But I was here in Paris, which had experienced the failure and destruction of that old order. And Existentialism was the language in which the new spirit of individual liberty was being expressed. But I was baffled by the restraints I felt imposed on me by the one person with whom I really wanted to break free.

[X] returns to the same subject in her letter of 28th July 1953.

[X] may have been a convinced professional virgin, but it doesn’t sound from this excerpt as if she felt much reverence for the ideal of becoming a faithful wife. I have no recollection whether this was a point that I took up with her, but it would seem from the reply she sent me - which was dated August 5th - that I must then have attempted to make a clear statement of the value in a more libertine attitude towards premarital sex.

I cannot absolve [X] from the charge of cock-teasing. Viewed from this distance, I am inclined to suppose that it was deliberate, alternating restraint and encouragement with an even hand. But she finally went on to discuss other matters - namely the latest gossip on the subject of [F] and Laurence. But it was chiefly to declare that in her view Laurence should now be regarde as being in live with [F].

After [X]’s letter of August 5th, there was a long gap before she next wrote - the reason being that France was paralysed by a rail strike around this time, which meant that the letter I posted to her on about August 7th, didn’t actually reach her until much later in the month. She knew nothing about this strike, so concluded that my silence implied that I had decided to break off the relationship. For it seemed to her that I might have reason to do this, not only because I might be growing weary of her cock-teasing, but also because it was always possible that I might have been informed - by the likes of Laurence - how she had been getting on very well of late with [M]. Some degree of poetic justice may therefore be discernible in the manner she now punished herself with the mistaken conviction that I had ditched her. But it was punishment in another manner with which I found myself afflicted, as a result of my own quest for infidelity. For this is what lay in store for me in Biarritz.

The decision to travel south to Biarritz was taken quite suddenly, and it had to be accelerated because of the threatened rail strike. I managed to get out of Paris on one of the last trains before the system became paralysed. But the date was also determined by my wish to make my remeeting with Lita coincide with the 9th day of the month. So it was probably on August 7th that I was travelling - without giving Lita any warning of my intent, and without knowing if I would find myself welcome when I got there.

So on August 9th, I went to enquire at the Hotel Miramar which was the address Lita had given me, if the Sanchez-Cires family were still there. I was told that they had moved to a rented villa, not far from the beach where I had been sleeping. So I found it and rang their door-bell. Lita appeared genuinely delighted to see me. The notion that I had followed her down from Paris, then camping out on her doorstep over the past two nights, furnished me with an image that was quite romantic. Or that’s the way she chose to view the matter. Her parents promptly invited me to come and stay with them. Curiously however, I felt that I couldn’t cope with that. I didn’t want to impose myself so blatantly upon their hospitality when the nature of my relationship with Lita was indeterminate in its character. I might find myself as a mere appendage to her scene, obliged to watch her flirting with a host of others. My moodiness would then become obsessive. And besides, I had now received this offer to avail myself of the wooden shed in Prince Radziville’s garden as an independent base for my activities. There were many respects in which I regarded this as a preferable offer - which is why I accepted it.

It may be that my nonchalance offended Lita. I had arrived upon her scene, but I was keeping my distance from her. I learnt how she and her friends spent most of their time at the fashionable swimming-pool, situated on the beach where I had previously been sleeping. I used to go in and join her group, but always felt myself as an intruder upon their scene. I found it impossible to mingle with them on terms of equality, for I was still acting out the fiction, within my own self-imagery, that I was some kind of a artist-tramp who had been rescued from his life of dossing down on the beaches. I simply didn’t feel comfortable in their presence, and was far happier when getting on with my own work as a painter.

At the same time I didn’t want to be rid of her. She was there in the vicinity, and I kept returning to her. Yet when I saw her in the company of others, I was apt to glower at them in a manner that disrupted the friendliness of her company. In particular there was [J], the man who had sometimes escorted her to parties back in Paris. And down here in Biarritz, his stature was somehow greater. I gathered how he was the king-pin to the social activities of the younger crowd. It was disconcerting for me to find that I was so much on his territory in this realm. And the worst part was that I simply didn’t know how he might really rate in Lita’s affections.

There was an occasion when [J] invited Lita and the rest of us to come back up to his chateau for a drink. It was indeed a big house, and set in cultivated woodland that was quite reminiscent of Longleat. [J] was for ever smiling, without actually addressing any remarks to me. And when we were all sitting in his drawing-room, he put on records of classical music, not as background music, but to be listened to and appreciated. Although I had learnt to play small pieces of classical music on the piano, ten years back, there had been a deplorable absence of such culture during my upbringing at Sturford. But I rose to his fly and offered my occasional comment, supposing that I might just know sufficient on the subject to be disguising my ignorance. It didn’t work out like that however. Whenever I opened my mouth, I was aware how my naive observances fell as heavily as gaffes. And [J] would lift a furtive glance of condolence in Lita’s direction, whom I could see looked ruffled. All I could do was to await the minute of our departure, slumped in what I might hope was taken as a profound contemplation of the music.

I realized that, down here in Biarritz, I wasn’t making any progress with Lita. I therefore immersed myself in my painting. But it came as a great delight to me when I received an invitation from [J] to join his table at a party he was throwing in the Casino night-club. I had heard how these parties were a regular event, to which all of Lita’s friends put in their attendance. And it was perfectly natural for me to assume that this invitation must have been sent me at her request, for I could hardly suppose that [J] himself could regard me as a friend. I had brought my dinner-jacket for just such an occasion as this, so I turned up promptly on the appointed evening.

I should have been forewarned that there was evil intent, just as soon as I discovered that Lita herself was not in attendance at his party. [J] informed me how she had been obliged to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances. So I was placed at his long table between girls whom I found stodgy and ill-at-ease. In fact there was no one at all at his table who displayed the slightest wish to converse with me. I decided that I would take my leave at the earliest possible opportunity. But I couldn’t very well depart the instant that we had finished eating. So I was sitting there, watching the others as they danced, when [J] came up with an attractive girl to suggest that I should dance with her.

It still struck me that this was an act of friendliness, so I got up to dance. But we were only half way round the floor when the music ceased, and there was a roll of drums. A spot-light came down upon me, followed by a roll of drums, and I found myself collared by the master of ceremonies. The attractive girl who had been my companion had by now miraculously vanished. I was told how, at the moment when the music ceased, I happened to be standing upon some magic spot - known only to them - where the person who would furnish the evening’s cabaret would be found. There were two other equally innocuous young men who had been singled out in the same fashion as myself. And horror was on our faces as it was announced how we were going to compete with one another.

The initial embarrassment was that we had to select a comrade from the assembled company. [J] knew perfectly well that I had come to his party very much on my own, and that I would be unlikely to be able to find such a comrade to support me. Or he might possibly have been calculating that this might oblige me to select himself, which would doubtless have resulted in even worse humiliations for me, inasmuch that he would then have been in greater control of the proceedings. But it so happened that I had spotted Dru Montague, a friend of mine from Eton, who was in attendance that evening, in the company of his girl-friend. When he saw me coming over to appoint him as my comrade, he ducked under the table in an attempt to hide. But I pleaded with him to assist me in my predicament, and he eventually accompanied me back into the spotlight without further ado.

Anyway our comrades were given the task of taking us back-stage, and dressing us up as mannequins with appropriate cosmetics, and in full feminine finery - whereupon each of us was thrust forward on to the dance floor, with an announcer declaring something in the vein of: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I have much pleasure in presenting to you.... Mademoiselle Zizi.... in her very first appearance Chez Dior." I was the first of the sacrificial victims to be pushed out for such exhibition, so that my anguish was appropriately heightened. To the accompaniment of much laughter, I began to blush. There were cries for me to start the fashion-parade, so I began to walk - mincingly as I assumed might be appropriate for a mannequin. And once again I was overcome with confusion - in fact almost in tears. But the crowd was roaring its applause, for my embarrassment seemed appropriate for the act. I was out of my depth in all their social glee, but I found that I was rising to the occasion - curtsying to the waiters and blowing kisses to all the more dashing young men.

I’m tethered in a zoo cage, huddled fearful
as jeering gobs thrust forward, pressing
the bars, incessant, insistent and impatient for the slow
show to start, while grinning toothy grimaces.
My place is spotlit. I trot with planks as footwear,
sooty-faced and jingling bells dripping
from the tips of a spiked joker’s hat, while I gibber
the scripted rubbish, burbling to the act’s end.
Sentenced to universal mirth, I dig
my ignominious grave as a hasty cachette;
dead to this scornful caste, I’ll let
a better set revamp my dampened spirit.
While somewhere out of sight, there stands the man
who engineered my folly as his plan.

None of the others could possibly match the spontaneity of my bashfulness in performance, so I was pronounced the winner - being awarded a bottle of Izzara, the Basque liqueur as my prize. All that I could then do was to play out the rest of the evening as if I’d been delighted to be given this opportunity to excel as a performer. I even thanked [J] profusely for his gift of the liqueur, although the mocking smile which he now bestowed upon me could be read as little other than contempt. It was a situation where I couldn’t possibly hope to win. Nor could I persuade myself that Lita herself had been oblivious of the fate which awaited me when I accepted [J]’s invitation to the Casino night-club. All right, she had declined to attend as a witness to my humiliation, but she had also refrained from passing me any warning of what might lay in store for me.

In Biarritz I was on [J]’s territory, and it was folly for me to dally here any longer, in the vain hope of winning Lita’s heart. I bundled up my dinner-jacket along with my painting equipment, and made my way to the train - for the strike had at last been settled. I was leaving Biarritz on the eve of the great fancy-dress ball they had all been awaiting with such a heightened sense of anticipation. It was their turn now to flaunt themselves in lewd finery, but I now knew that it was no place for myself. I was longing once more for the peaceful temperance of England.

I called in briefly at the Rue Falguière to bid farewell to Mme Pla, and to find if there were any letters for me. There was one in particular - from [X]. It was dated 22nd August 1953.

This was a reference to the way she had seen fit to describe her former love for [M] to me - as a school-girl’s craze, while still managing to convince herself that the love was real. But she appears anxious to reassure me that her present love for myself is something of a wholly different nature.

[X] goes on to talk about my paintings, with reference to some description of them that I had given her. But the conclusions she reaches are quite curious, and I suspect were inspired by some ideas about myself which had been told to her by others.

Then comes an item of gossip concerning the innocuous Moyra Hamilton.

Later there was some gossip about [F], who had just departed for a holiday in Italy - with some indication that her affair with Laurence was foundering.

Whatever plans we may have had for celebrating our reunion in a party for our friends, it seems that [X]’s parents had other ideas. For on arriving back in England, I phoned her to be told that they were leaving for their home in Scotland, but that I was invited to come and join them up there. This was at [N] - near Inverness. [N] was the stately home in the Scottish baronial style, which had been built by [X]’s great-grandfather. I had accepted it readily enough, and [X] then wrote to me confirming it, in a latter dated September 8th.

My visit to [P] could not have been for much more than a week. And it was characterized by the atmosphere of strain which accumulated, largely due to my exasperation at the falsity involved in the pose of moral behaviour, upon which [X] insisted from the very start - whilst indulging ourselves in as much sexual behaviour as we dared, just as soon as we were out of her parents’ vision. I was aware how her parents must surely know what we were getting up to, and it was simply a pretence that they were noticing nothing at all. Yet [X] insisted that they were indeed that naive, and that our sham restraint was an essential part of the deception. I have never felt comfortable in deceit however, and the anxiety must have been showing on my face.

On the other hand, it’s quite possible that our behaviour was in reality more innocent than [X]’s parents may have feared. She did come sneaking down to my bedroom on two or three occasions. But the degree of sexual intercourse which she permitted was never sufficient to get her pregnant. There was minimal penetration, and I was never permitted an orgasm inside her - whether with or without a condom. [X] always managed to persuade herself that such activities were still quite virginal, and she regarded them perhaps as being that much more exciting than any blatantly permissive behaviour because she was playing with both ideas at the same time. But from my own point of view, it was merely frustrating. I remained hopeful however, that the day when I might be permitted to make love to her, without restraint, could not be far distant.

It was plain enough for me to see why her parents were feeling the strain. [X] and myself were for ever finding pretexts for getting off alone together, when we might disappear for hours on end. On one such occasion I had borrowed [X]’s father’s twelve bore shotgun, and went off with [X] to shoot ourselves a capercaillie. During the first half hour, I let off the occasional shot in order to keep the parents happy. Then came a long silence, after we had stripped off in the bracken. I dared not fire any shots from that place of concealment, unless it brought a gamekeeper to our love-nest, in hot pursuit of what he might assume to be a poacher. But when we returned to[P], [X]’s father remarked dryly that he hadn’t heard much shooting after the first half hour.

On another occasion, we drove up the glen from Glencoe, on the pretext that I wanted to paint a landscape. I got one finished too - and it hangs today at Longleat, within a collage of some other early examples of my work. But it goes to show just how rapidly I could complete a painting in those days. I might calculate that it was all completed within the hour - which left us with a further two hours during which we could scramble around naked together in the heather.

But the result of such misbehaviour was that [X] was becoming increasingly keyed up in her mental anxiety, supposing that detection always lurked in wait for us around the next corner. And the more she worked herself up into this state of nerves, the more volatile she became, and I found it quite difficult to remain on an even keel with her. We had our first quarrels at [N] - quite a few of them. Not that they were anything serious in substance, but we were sometimes on non-speaking terms for the duration of ten minutes or so - usually with her accusing me of displaying insufficient understanding for her predicament. And what made things a lot worse for us was the fact that we had to keep up an appearance of normality whenever her parents came into the room. But I imagine they had a shrewd idea of all that was going on.

The nervous tension effected my own behaviour as well. I became increasingly irritable in my exasperation over [X]’s acts, which struck me as being childishly naive. There is one instance which I remember quite clearly. It was after dinner, and the two of us were playing cards on the floor. Mrs [X] was still with us in the drawing-room, and the problem - as [X] saw it - was how to persuade her to retire to her bedroom. So she became obstreperous in a manner that she knew would have the effect of irritating her mother - proving herself correct in this assumption, for we were soon left to ourselves. We then abandoned any pretence at playing cards, starting to romp around on the floor.

It was at this juncture that we heard someone approaching the door, so our attention was rapidly transferred to the game of cards. Mr [X] was looking for his wife, and [X] seemed to think it necessary to put on an act for his benefit, explaining to me the rules of some fictional card game. To my ears, nothing could have sounded more false, but after throwing a quizzical glance in our direction, her father bade us good-night and withdrew from the room.

[X] then expected me to congratulate her on her cunning. But after my anxiety started to subside, I merely felt angry with her for putting on such a ridiculous charade, which had been bound to arouse their suspicions. She was considerably offended with me, and we were soon on non-speaking terms. An hour later however, we were lying naked on the sofa together - worrying again in case her father might take it into his head to come down to see what was really going on.

It was on another evening when we had ended up lying in bed together, that [X] confessed to me that she had "misbehaved just slightly" with [M], on that week-end at [P], while I was away in Paris. The confession was limited to an admission that they had shared his bed for part of one night, and I was never told any more than that, but I was to hear later, from several different sources, that she had created the impression in various people’s minds that her real passion was for [M], far more than it ever was for myself. But as I saw it, her feelings for [M] were now located in what might be regarded as one of the backwaters of her life, whereas her feelings towards myself were within the mainstream of her emotional development. The suspicion lingered however, that the restraint in what had occurred between herself and [M] had been at his insistence, rather than at hers.

One of the ways that her parents kept our minds occupied - and away from sex - was to take us on sight-seeing tours. We were dependent on the use of their car, since I had travelled up to Scotland by train on this occasion. But it worked out that they were all too pleased to accompany us, thus diminishing the likelihood that we could get up to other things. So we paid visits to both John o’Groats and Loch Ness. And there was a ball at Cawdor Castle one evening, to celebrate Hugh Emlyn’s Coming-of-Age. But hard as I might endeavour to appear in her parents’ eyes as the ideal potential son-in-law, I realized how they harboured some reservations upon this issue. I think they saw how I was hardly the right person to guide [X]’s steps on to a more stable and conventional path. Indeed, I was liable to encourage her to throw all restraint to the winds. And they wondered - without due cause - just how "honourable" I might turn out to be, if our precautions and inhibitions went awry and [X] became pregnant.

When the time came for me to leave, I declared my hope they would permit me to repay the hospitality by letting [X] come to stay for a short while in Cornwall, as my mother’s guest. Mrs [X] was silent for a moment before saying quite softly: "We’ll see."

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