“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.” — William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, scene ii
“I want to be a living work of art!” — Marchesa Luisa Casati
1) The extra hour I allowed myself to sleep in turned out to be the loudest, according to SnoreLab — so I guess I needed it.
2) I haven’t been having breakfast at the hotel, but today I succumbed, and they lost money with the number of lattes I made in that machine. After breakfast I found a snug banquette where I could settle down, write, and take care of some of the Business of Life.
3) This felt like the first day in a month where nothing was planned. But it was warm and sunny — a sin to remain inside. So, I said to myself, why not try to find the Marchesa Casati over at the Brompton Cemetery? Why not indeed?! So it was off to Russell Square to catch the Piccadilly Line to Earl’s Court.
4) Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without ye Gyygle Maps, but it sometimes sends me in the opposite direction, notably in Madrid when looking for the Museo Sorolla two years ago. But after I turned on precise location (which I am always loath to do), I got back on track PDQ.
5) Expecting a nearly empty cemetery, imagine my surprise walking through the gate to spot a lively little café to the right, and a populated volunteer center on the left. I wasn’t sure anyone would know anything about the marchesa. Well, ha ha — she’s number 17 in their Top 100! And one of the volunteers had been training other volunteers that morning and using her as an example! “Oh yes!” she said. “Italians love to come here and find her. They leave things for her, like lipsticks.”
There she is!
5a) “Now go down the wide dog walking path,” the nice elderly lady was telling me, “turn right, and keep going until the number 17, and you’ll see a worn path through the grass, and that’s where she is.” And off I went on an adventure. I did eventually have to get out the map, just to figure out whether to look on the right or the left. While I never did see the 17, I spotted the worn path through the grass, and the urn familiar to me from a photograph. I had found her.
Her grave. See the little tributes people left her. Notice the date; the anniversary of her death is tomorrow!
6) Just over half my life ago, someone gave me for my 30th birthday a copy of Cecil Beaton’s The Glass of Fashion, his survey of tastemakers from the first half of the 20th century; so, from Audrey Hepburn and Diana Vreeland back to Gaby Deslys, the Jersey Lily, and his beloved Aunt Jessie. Cecil had a thing for extravagant and flamboyant ladies who died bankrupt, and he wrote about them in this book. That’s how I was introduced to the Marchesa Casati*, “the mad marchesa.”
6a) Long story short (too late!), Luisa was born into a wealthy Milanese industrial family, married a marchese in Rome, bore him a daughter, and then went completely around the bend. She hennaed her hair, became a spectacular party giver in Rome, then Venice, and eventually Paris; enjoyed a continuous affair with the scandalous Gabriele D’Annunzio, used belladonna drops to make her eyes sparkle (!) and then ringed them heavily with kohl**, devoted herself to the occult, indulged every whim (especially in portraits), and then was mightily surprised when all her money was gone — before the 1929 Wall Street crash.
6b) The remainder of her life she spent mostly in London, living on handouts from friends like Augustus John (he and others set up a bank account for her, but learned not to have more than five pounds in it at a time) and continuing to dress in her increasingly ragged glad rags of yore: skintight black velvet and leopard print.
6c) I forget who it was who chose her epitaph from Antony and Cleopatra — her daughter, granddaughter, or a friend — but it could not be more specific or perfect for her.
6d) Seeing her grave made me wish I had brought something to leave her, something black and glittering like a string of glass beads (not plastic). But that sort of thing requires planning and tenacity.
This is the rear approach to the marchesa’s gravesite.
7) Walking on this narrow footpath through the tall weeds, surrounded by trees in the bright warm sun brought back a memory of my early teens. There was a block of pine woods roughly between my junior high school and my aunt and uncle’s house on 18th Street. One summer day biking from one place to the other, I saw this opening in the wood and went through it. It was a narrow footpath in the dirt, bright and sunny in tall grass, with pine trees closely by. Almost straight through from one street to the other. Why was it there? Who had made it?
Observe how overgrown!
8) Having found the marchesa and paid my respects, it was time to see the rest of the cemetery. Some sections were quite overgrown. I learned later that this is by design, to promote biodiversity. Which is all well and good, and picturesque, but I do worry about conserving the gravestones and other memorials.
9) Returning down the central path toward the north entrance, imagine my joy at unexpectedly happening upon Richard Tauber, to some the greatest tenor of the 20th century (including Pavarotti). After that “Let Me Awaken Your Heart” stayed with me awhile, and Schumann’s “Widmung.”
A detail from the grave of Emmeline Pankhurst.
9a) And then almost immediately there was the famous suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. I had been reading about her this spring in Sophia Duleep Singh’s biography.
10) After consulting the cemetery’s Top 100 guide (best £3 I’ve spent), I resumed my tour along the east wall, where I was told I’d find Sir Samuel Cunard — and did. And also a little pug dog with ice-blue eyes, accompanied by his lady human, but off his lead, against the cemetery rules. This section of the cemetery is quite overgrown indeed, but it’s not empty. Joggers, cyclists, and strollers were all there, but not so many as to feel omnipresent.
11) Reaching the end, I turned right to proceed along the south wall to find conductor and composer Constant Lambert (of whom all I know is his soundtrack to Vivien Leigh’s Anna Karenina). And I found it, with the bonus of his son Kit, “The man who made The Who.” Which just goes to show that the generations achieve different things in the same field.
12) While pausing to consult the map to find Lambert, I had attracted the interest of a squirrel. An unnatural and unwelcome interest. I tried to ignore it and was just about to photograph another grave nearby, a new grave ornamented with a new photograph and a rose bush and a beautiful wooden cross. But that squirrel hopped over, closer and closer, and while it wasn’t foaming at the mouth or chattering, it had a look in its eye like that of the Basilisk. “OK, Squirrely, I get the message!” I said to myself. “Ciao!” As I hotfooted it back to the central path I wondered whether a permanent resident of that section had taken a dislike to me and occupied the squirrel to let me know . . .
13) If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this cemetery, it’s kinda sad to see an epitaph that begins “Also.” As in “Also [name], [relation] of the above,” usually with nothing else beyond one’s dates. One grave I remember was the grave of a man, and beneath “Also his daughter-in-law . . .” Imagine having your entire life being defined by your relationship to someone in your spouse’s family not your spouse!
The Bonomi family.
13a) If you want good billing on a family marker, be sure you die first. No matter who it is, they tend to get top billing. One particularly poignant example is the Bonomi family. Their four children are on top because they all died first (of whooping cough, during Easter Week). Their maternal grandmother and mother come next, and then at the bottom the father, so often the most important member of the Victorian family.
13b) Another example with slightly more status is this tiny stone surmounted by an angel for the wife of Constant Lambert, at the foot of the Lambert family plot.
14) The Central Avenue of the cemetery is majestic, overgrown, and warm indeed in the sun. And here’s where I found the grave of that campy old British character actor Ernest Thesiger. You may know him from the original Frankenstein, but I know him first as the undertaker in Scrooge with Alastair Sim.
Fussy, finished!
15) And here’s another piece of advice for your Permanent Residence: don’t let it overshadow you. Frederick Leyland was a great patron of the arts, but his legacy is passed over because of his unusual chest tomb designed by the great Edward Burne-Jones. Let’s just say that Burne-Jones has stolen Leyland’s spotlight.
16) The west side of the cemetery, where burials continue to take place, seems much better cared for than the east side. Aside from the Chelsea Pensioners Monument (which includes a small wildflower meadow now) and the Coldstream Guards Brigade of Guards, I saw evidence of other languages, cultures, and religions. And some very beautiful roses. It’s not clear to me who’s responsible for some of these lovely flowers, the cemetery or the family/friends of the deceased. One rose I could smell six feet away.
17) As I mentioned, there were always other people present. Walking back up the Central Avenue to the entrance, a young woman passed me, quite beautiful, wearing cream silk trousers that flowed behind her like sailing over the water, Venus rising from the seafoam indeed. And an elegant tight-fitting top. Her whole look that made me think of Lady Brett Ashley and Vivian Regan and 1920s beach parties.
17a) Not that this had become a fashion parade suddenly, but maybe ten minutes later on a more remote overgrown path two women were walking toward me in those summer sundresses, you know the ones: gauzy cotton or linen, spaghetti straps or a halter top and a skirt to the ankles or lower. The woman on the left wore red, possibly edged in black and gold. The woman on the right had on a deep green with a wide paisley design at the hem. One could only wish they had hats and parasols and were on their way to tea!
An allegory!
18) My final thought, after this wonderful wonderful afternoon (thank you for your patience), comes from seeing this holly tree erupting from the plinth on which this memorial urn once stood. This is Life Conquering Death, the New Regenerating out of the Old — or the Enduring continuing after the Temporary. You choose.
19) After all this, how could a return trip on the Tube be eventful?! Happily, it wasn’t, and I walked back from Russell Square to my hotel with a bag of dinner from ye Pretty Manzhay to enjoy with a negroni in my room. Somehow the negroni has become my drink of choice at this hotel.
“Yet a little while is the light with you.” But not for always.
*Also Rita Lydig, “the fabulous Mrs. Lydig,” whose grave I found in New York in 2021, and whose heartbroken fiancé, Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, is buried at Forest Hills.
**Did she create the “vamp” look first, or did Theda Bara? My money’s on Luisa.