The Sisters_The Saga of the Mitford Family

by Mary S. Lovell

  Apart from Unity, only David, Sydney and Tom were told of the marriage, under a strict vow of secrecy. Although David was not reconciled to Mosley, both the Redesdales were relieved that at least Diana was no longer living in sin and the rule that he must never be mentioned was relaxed. However, Sydney realized shortly afterwards that the world still thought Diana was living in sin, and that therefore she could still not allow Debo to visit Diana at Wootton. ‘The poor thing was quite distraught about it,’ Unity wrote to Diana, ‘and . . . did hope you would understand.’37

  There was still no change in the relationship between Nancy, Diana and Unity. And the singular thing about this quarrel is that Nancy, the queen of all teasers, was deeply hurt by Diana’s continuation of the ‘non-speakers’ rule, and from this hurt grew an increasing bitterness. Perhaps she was not even aware of it herself, but it shows in waspish comments in her correspondence. During the summer she and Prod had taken Decca on holiday to Brittany. Decca enjoyed herself, especially as they treated her as a grown-up and took her to nightclubs, but it was traumatic for Nancy because Prod was in the middle of an emotional love affair, one of many but this one seemed more serious than the others. The girlfriend, Mary Sewell (née Lutyens, she was married for a short time to Unity and Decca’s ‘white slaver’), lived a few doors from Rutland Gate, and the Sewells and the Rodds used to meet regularly to play bridge together. Mary followed the Rodds to Brittany and stayed in the same hotel, causing an aura of emotional tension to pervade the holiday. The Rodd marriage, which had started off so well, was already a sham whose front was wholly maintained by Nancy. She might have accepted the infidelity, for she saw so much of it in the circles in which she moved, but Prod had also started to drink heavily, which made him unpleasant and aggressive. Also Nancy desperately wanted a child, and tried for years. It was altogether an unhappy period for her as the Rodds moved from their first married home, Rose Cottage, at Strand-on-the-Green, into a small Victorian house at 12 Blomfield Road in Maida Vale. The tiny garden backed on to the Grand Union Canal, which was ‘enchanting’ and the saving feature of the otherwise poky little house.

  It could not have helped that Diana and Mosley had moved into beautiful Wootton Lodge earlier in the year. It was tranquil indoors and out: bluebell woods surrounded the house and clothed the valleys that were dotted with trout pools. Diana had made there ‘an atmosphere of extraordinary beauty and stillness,’ Nicholas Mosley recalled. ‘Whenever [my father] became exhausted or ill – such as the time he was hit by a brick at Liverpool – he would return to Wootton as if it were his fairy castle and Diana his princess.’ They were so happy there that they spent all their holidays at home in preference to going abroad. When they were apart they sent each other loving notes: ‘Today,’ wrote Diana, ‘as my heart is full of love I shall write what is always in my thoughts; and that is, that I love you more than all the world and more than life. Thank you my precious wonderful darling for the loveliest days I could possibly imagine . . .’ And Mosley wrote in kind, ‘Tried to ring you Saturday night but told no answer – nothing special – just love!’38 In Diana’s diaries during their time at Wootton the same entries occur over and over. ‘Perfect day with Kit [her name for Mosley],’ and ‘Wonderful day.’39

  Romance was in the air, it seems, for Pam, the ‘most rural’ Mitford, had at last fallen in love. For some time she had been seeing Derek Ainslie Jackson, the thirty-year-old good-looking son of Sir Charles Jackson, founder of the News of the World.40 He had married Poppet John (daughter of Augustus John) in 1931 but a divorce was in progress when he and Pam began their relationship. Derek and his identical twin Vivian had been orphaned while still teenagers at Rugby, and were inseparable. They took scholarship examinations for different universities because it was thought best for their development that they were split up (Derek applied to Trinity, Cambridge, and Vivian to Oxford), and when they parted company at Bletchley Junction41 it was believed to be the first time in their lives that they had been apart. Although their guardian cheated them by selling blocks of their shares in News of the World at rock-bottom market price and then bought them back himself, they were gleefully aware that they would be millionaires when they reached their majority. They had a highly developed sense of fun and were great teasers. They could be bombastic and arrogant, but they were also lively, charming, generous, funny and devoted to animals.

  They had first-class brains and read science subjects. When Derek graduated with a first, as anticipated,42 he was contacted by Professor Lindemann, who offered him laboratory facilities of his own at the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford to work on his doctorate. Later Derek would say that Professor Lindemann had ‘bought’ him, ‘just as you might buy a promising yearling. But this particular yearling was a spectacular winner, for at the age of only twenty-two his specialist research in the field of spectroscopy led to a leap of thought considered so brilliant that no book on physics could ever be written again without including his findings.43 He would go on to become a world-renowned physicist, and a professor at Oxford, and although his life outside his work was filled with activity and pleasurable pursuits, science was always what mattered most to him, ultimately taking precedence over everything else: nothing was so sacred that it could not be shelved or cancelled if he happened to be at a crucial point in his research.

  Second only to his love of science was Derek’s love of horses. He rode with significant success and great bravery as an amateur in National Hunt races, including several times in the Grand National, and he hunted like a hawk with the Heythrop hounds two or even three days a week in the season. Compared to the Mitfords he was not tall at five foot eight; compactly built, he could hunt thoroughbreds when most men needed a heavyweight hunter – thus he had an incomparable advantage when following hounds across fast country. His riding, jumping and off-the-cuff quips (an important part of hunt social life), as well as his eccentricity, became the stuff of Heythrop legend. He once came off into a ditch and was soaked through but, undaunted, he dashed home, changed, and returned to finish the day. To sixteen-year-old Debo he had been a hero-figure for some time. She considered herself in love with him, and was delighted when Pam began going out with him, for it meant she got to see him at home. In the autumn of 1936, however, Pam moved into Derek’s home, Rignell House, anticipating his divorce by a few months, and the couple drove over to High Wycombe to announce their engagement to her family. On hearing their news the infatuated Debo ‘slid gracefully onto the flagstones in a dead faint’.44

  That December saw the abdication of Edward VIII that most people had been hoping would somehow be avoided. James Lees-Milne recalls in his diary that he stayed overnight at Wootton with Diana and listened to the broadcast with her. ‘We both wept when Edward VIII made his abdication broadcast. I remember it well, and Diana speaking in eggy-peggy [baby talk] to Tom Mosley over the telephone.’45 Christmas carollers that year invented a new verse to add to the old favourite: ‘Hark the herald angels si-ing/Mrs Simpson’s pinched our King . . .’

  Three weeks later, just two days before the end of 1936, Derek and Pam (the latter ‘laden with jewels, which her generous bridegroom had showered upon her’), were married at the Carlton register office. In the formal wedding picture, the small group of Mitfords and family friends are muffled in furs and dark winter clothes. No one is smiling, but this is probably because it was no more customary, then, to smile for formal photographs than it was when sitting for an artist for a portrait. The posed annual family photographs of the Mitfords are equally serious. Diana and Nancy, apparently with hatchets temporarily buried, stand shoulder-to-shoulder behind Pam, Derek and Sydney. Tom is half hidden behind David. Unity, Decca and the heartbroken Debo are not in evidence.

  The newly-weds left for Austria on honeymoon. On arrival at their hotel in Vienna in early January the manager came out to meet them and asked Derek quietly if he could speak to him alone. Derek spoke fluent German and it was from this complete stranger that he received the news tha
t his twin Vivian had been killed in St Moritz. A horse-drawn sleigh he was driving had overturned after hitting a telegraph pole. Pam told Diana that Derek was never the same again. ‘Part of him died with Vivian, who meant more to him than any other being on earth ever could.’46

  10

  Elopement

  (1937)

  Hardly had the Redesdales recovered from the news of Vivian Jackson’s tragic death, and worry over the inevitable unhappiness this meant for Pam at the start of her marriage, when another crisis was upon them.

  During the autumn of 1936, prior to Pam’s wedding, Sydney had been conscious of Decca’s unhappiness. It was for this reason that the Redesdales took her up to Scotland with them in December to visit David’s Airlie cousins, but she seemed even more bored there than at home despite the pre-Christmas festivities. Racking her brains to try to bring her daughter out of the doldrums Sydney came up with the idea of taking her, Debo, and a friend of theirs on a world cruise departing in March. Debo was due to make her début the following year and a cruise would be as good as a period at finishing-school, which in any case Debo did not want. But nothing could please Decca at that time and in her autobiography she admitted that ‘even the exciting planning of the trip was marred by my bad temper’. There were arguments about every stop on the itinerary, which usually ended with Sydney saying in the languid drawl that came from the top of the back of her throat, ‘You’re very silly, Little D.’ After these rows Decca was always angry with herself because she recognized that her mother was only trying to help her. But the source of her misery was that she felt trapped, living a life of luxury, provided by ‘the very people’ who upheld the non-intervention policy that allowed the barbarous war in Spain to escalate. So it was probably somewhat to Sydney’s relief when an invitation arrived for Decca that was greeted by its recipient with unusual enthusiasm.

  In the third week of January 1937, Decca went to stay with Dorothy Allhusen at Havering House, near Marlborough in Wiltshire. Renowned for her hospitality, ‘Aunt Dorothy’ was credited with being the Edwardian instigator of weekend house-parties – ‘Do come Saturday to Monday’ – and her house was famous as a haven of comfort. Fires blazed in all the rooms throughout the winter, and no expense or detail was spared to make guests feel pampered. Those who accepted her generous hospitality included Lord Beaverbrook, Winston Churchill and Somerset Maugham. Also among their numbers was Esmond Romilly, for Aunt Dorothy had a soft spot for her wayward young kinsman. She was a widow, and having lost her only son to a childhood illness had informally adopted Esmond. After he ran away from school he had been sent to a remand home when his mother told the court she could not control him. Aunt Dorothy had stepped in at this point and offered to be his guardian. Knowing all this, Decca thought she might hear some news of Esmond at Havering, but on her arrival it was even better than she hoped. Her fellow guests were an American couple called Scott, and Esmond, who was expected later that day. Decca felt faint with anticipation.

  Esmond had recently returned from Spain, where he had gone within weeks of hearing of the Falange rebellion to join the International Brigade. With fifteen other Englishmen he joined a unit of miscellaneous volunteers from France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Poland who, after the briefest of training, were sent to the front at Cerro de Los Angeles. In December 1936 he was involved in the battle of Boadilla del Monte from where he sent several dispatches, which appeared in the pro-loyalist News Chronicle under headlines such as ‘Winston Churchill’s Nephew Sends Graphic Message’. Twelve days earlier, Esmond reported, his company of men had numbered 120. Following the battle their number was reduced by death and injury to thirty-seven. There was no field discipline and they were sometimes shelled by their own side; there were no supplies, and no medical aid. Eventually he, too, succumbed to the conditions, and was invalided home in early January with dysentery. Later he wrote that that he hardly recalled the hardships of that period; all that remained in his memory was an impression of

  a wild Russian-filmish scene of endless singing of the ‘Internationale’ and wine-drinking in romantic cafés with tough Russian drivers and frenzied cheering and rushing around in romantic corduroy trousers with romantic belts of hand grenades and sleeping on the romantic stone floors of churches and all the rest – that was all there . . . but a more truthful account would have to include also the continual Army slogan – ‘We’re being f—ed again’, and that the personal struggle for an extra square foot of space on a truck or train and the attempt to avoid tasks like carrying boxes of ammunition did in fact loom larger than ‘No Paseran’.1

  After several weeks’ treatment in King’s College Hospital, Aunt Dorothy told Decca, Esmond was now recovered. He had been spending a couple of days visiting the parents of young men who had been killed beside him in the fighting (he was one of only two English survivors), and he was probably already on his way to Wiltshire by train.2 Decca had been trying for months to find a way of meeting Esmond. Before she was dragged off to Scotland (her description) she had arranged through a mutual friend, Peter Nevile, to meet Giles Romilly at a Lyons Corner House, ‘a place where you are hardly likely to run into anyone you know’, and asked him if he could help her to run away and join the International Brigade. Nothing had come of this, but during his spell in hospital, Esmond had learned from Giles and Peter that Cousin Decca, ‘the ballroom pink’ of the Mitfords, had been making detailed enquiries about him, and wanted to get to Spain to help in the fight against Fascism. He then suggested to his doting aunt that Decca might be an interesting house guest.

  In an interview in later life Decca admitted that she was already half in love with Esmond before she ever met him. ‘There was a marvellous photo of him in the front of his book Out of Bounds, at which I used to gaze wistfully . . .’3 She dressed that evening with special care in a mauve lamé ankle-length dress. It was very fashionable but uncomfortable to wear, and she worried about its tinny smell. She sat in her pretty room agonizing about what he would think of her, and wondering about possible rivals for his affection: sophisticated London women, brave Spanish freedom fighters, ‘all of them beautifully thin, no doubt’. At last, gazing at her reflection in the flattering pink glow lent by the dressing-table lamp, she decided she didn’t look too disgusting, and steeled herself to go down to join the others. Over sherry she talked to Mr Scott and watched Esmond out of the corner of her eye. He was not quite as she had imagined him. He was shorter than the Mitford men, thin with bright eyes fringed with long lashes. Energy seemed to flow from him and he had a manner of standing with his head held on one side, listening to what anybody said as though it were the most important thing he’d ever heard in his life. Spain had changed him, according to his friends: he had gone out a romantic and come back disillusioned, though not embittered. He was serious that night, quiet and full of admiration for the Communists who alone, he said, had saved Madrid.4 After they went into dinner things moved fast.

  Aunt Dorothy had thoughtfully seated the two cousins together and taking advantage of a moment when the others were deep in conversation Decca furtively asked Esmond if he was returning to Spain. He said he was. ‘Well – I was wondering if you could possibly take me with you?’ she asked. Esmond needed no time to think over this bold proposition. He replied immediately and easily that he would. Decca, prepared to counter any number of depressing arguments, was taken aback. Could it really be this easy? No cavilling about her being too young or a girl? He suggested they went for a walk after breakfast to discuss it, and carried on talking to the others. That was all it took for Decca to fall in love with Esmond but in her defence it must be said that many contemporaries recalled him as a highly charismatic personality.

  Next morning Decca was first down, and after breakfast Esmond extricated them from the party expertly. ‘We won’t be long,’ he said firmly, as they left the room with his hand under her elbow. Walking in the freezing muddy lanes of an English midwinter, Esmond outlined a plan he had concocted during the ni
ght. He had an advance of ten pounds from the News Chronicle to return to Spain as a war correspondent, which would enable him to get the necessary visa. He suggested that Decca should go as his secretary, which should allow her to obtain a visa too. He brushed aside as irrelevant her concern that she could not type: he did all his own typing anyway, and he was impressed when she told him about her running-away account which had been painfully accumulated from saved pocket money, sales of valued objects such as the appendix and windfall half-crowns from uncles and aunts at Christmas and birthdays. Fifty pounds would make things much easier, he said. Quickly they laid their plans and less than twenty-four hours after they met everything was in place. At last, Decca was about to achieve her childhood ambition to run away, and with the adored Esmond. All her dreams coming true.