High life
Sir Harold's hospitality Taki
y Tuscan friend and neighbour Lord Lambton (or Lorlambton, as my children call him) had a treat in Store for me last week. 'But you'll have to be on time and wear a tie and jacket,' I was forewarned. So, while others more inclined toward glitz, megabucks and La Taylor sweated it out in Tangier paying homage to Malcolm Forbes, I drove the mother of my children and Tony Lambton to Florence to lunch with the grand old man of English letters, Sir Harold Acton.
Now it's not every day that a night-club character like myself lunches with the likes of Sir Harold, but stranger things happen all the time: for example, decent, and intelligent people like Bill Buckley and Gianni Agnelli having to sit down chez Forbes and break bread with, say, Leonard Stern and Henry Kravis, not to mention that God-awful publicity hound Lee Iacoc- ca. (I had planned to refuse Malcolm's invitation, which incidentally got lost in the mail, on the grounds that I refuse to dine with La Graham of the mendacious Washington Post, Barbara Walters, Mort (the dork) Zuckerman and others too low-life to mention in these elegant pages.)
But back to high life, or better yet, higher thoughts. Upon meeting the great man for the first time I was reminded at
once how standards have slumped. His manners are so natural, so impeccable and so wonderfully old-fashioned, that I never want to play against the Coach and Horses ever again, even at the Oval. But what was most impressive was his art of conversa- tion. I had heard that he modelled his speech after that of the great Oscar, but now I ain't so sure. It was too perfect to be anything but a genuine individual style. And he certainly didn't mumble or try to be too lah-di-dah, because I suppose being natural is an old-fashioned way of showing good manners, an unheard-of thing nowa- days.
And speaking of people being unnatural, I loved Sir Harold's way of escalating criticism about some rich American women who affect ladylike manners but who would hardly have been deemed ladies in a gentler age. He began by defending them when I called them a couple of social-climbing old bags, nodded his head in agreement when I said they were sans noblesse, and finally volunteered what terrific bores they were, 'bores with such superficial knowledge'.
Needless to say, it wasn't all gossip, but Sir Harold wished to make me feel at home. so he kept the gravitas down to a mini- mum. Almost as good as his conversation were his food and his servants, and of course the wine.
After lunch we sat like Edwardians in a corner of the great room next to the library and had coffee. That is when Sir Harold, or my NBF, revealed to us that he's a lifelong reader of The Spectator, and I revealed to him that I have read his two-volume history of the Bourbons of Naples not once, not twice, but three times, and plan to read it once more.
It just so happened that it was the hottest day of the summer, yet the thick walls of the 15th-century villa La Pietra kept us cool throughout. The fantastic gardens were another matter. Both house and 'The summer brings out the gypsy in his soul.' garden are too well known among aes- thetes for me to describe, but I shall try and give a personal impression. Sir Harold's gardens do not allow natural features to stand free. Like Florence in the past, there is no room for robust independ- ence. Anarchy plays no part in his world. It is the way things should be. Thank God my invitation to Tangier got lost.
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