The most ambitious of these commissions was the translation of a comedy by André Roussin, La Petite Hutte, which had been running in Paris for over three years and which the impresario Binkie Beaumont wanted to bring to London. For those days and for an English audience the plot was a risqué one, involving four castaways on a desert island, a man and his wife, the wife’s lover and the ship’s black cook, all three men taking it in turns to spend the night with the girl in the Little Hut. ‘The reason I was asked to do it,’ Nancy told Muv, ‘was that I’m supposed to be good at making outrageous situations seem all right,’ a sleight of hand involving the transformation of the black cook into a white one, and sprinkling the text with Mitfordisms: ‘Do admit’ is a favourite expression of the wife, Susan, who confesses that the only thing she misses on the island is the Tatler. It was part of the agreement that Nancy should accompany the play on tour and be present for the first night in the West End. They opened at the end of July 1950 in Edinburgh, Nancy of course having left perfect hot summer weather behind her in Paris for bitter freezing cold north of the Border. (‘Poor poor poor Marie Stuart I feel for her.’) The next stop was Glasgow (‘the horror of the town quite indescribable’), then Newcastle and Leeds. While the play was on in Newcastle, Nancy stayed with Farve at Redesdale, only a few miles away. She found him looking frail and old but the days she spent with him were not as restful as she had hoped. ‘Farve now lives for cocktail parties – gave one for me – & has sold all his cows because milking time is cocktail time.’ Although she complained of the ugliness and the cold, and although she undoubtedly suffered, as always, at being away from the Colonel, the theatrical life was something new, and Nancy could not help but be amused by it. The cast of The Little Hut was headed by Robert Morley as the husband, with David Tomlinson playing the lover, and Joan Tetzel the obliging wife. Nancy got on well with Morley – he took her racing and roller-skating, she took him round Castle Howard – and with the director Peter Brook, but the others she thought too idiotic for words. ‘The temperament, unbridled by one ray of intelligence, of actors, has come as a revelation to me … I never knew such people. Any good line is “my good line” or “my laugh” & the rest are that’s a very flat line of yours darling (to me) … & the girl talks for 2 hours by the clock about what she calls her “hair do.” ’
The play, with a pretty, picture-book set by Oliver Messel, opened at the Lyric in London on August 23, and in spite of some rather shocked reactions was an immediate success, playing to full houses for well over a thousand performances. Mark Ogilvie-Grant held a first-night party for the cast at his house in Kew; and Nancy gave a pre-matinée luncheon at the Mayfair Hotel for members of the family and old retainers, including Nanny Dicks, and Mabel who had been with the Mitfords since the early days at Asthall. ‘Out of a haze I heard Mabel’s voice “then I told her I was his Lordship’s head parlourmaid” as one saying I am Duchess of Malfi still.’
Nancy returned to Paris in September, just in time for the rentrée from the summer holidays and a stream of visitors – Constantia Fenwick, Billa Harrod, ‘blissful blissful Pam Berry’9, two sisters (Pam and Debo), and finally Peter on his way back from a typically Proddish venture on the slopes of Etna in Sicily, where ‘he made the peasants dig channels for the lava as a result of which 3 extra villages were destroyed & he was obliged to flee by night’.
It was not until the following month that Nancy was able properly to start on a project which she had been working on intermittently since the beginning of the year. The idea had come from the film-producer Alexander Korda: he had given her a plot with the intention that she should first write the story as a film-script, and then later re-work it as a novel. But Nancy’s treatment was not a success and Korda lost interest, leaving Nancy free to do as she liked with the original theme. As working in Paris with all its distractions was impossible, she went to stay with Mrs Hammersley on the Isle of Wight where quiet days punctuated by long healthy walks and bridge in the evenings provided exactly the conditions she needed. Just as Love in a Cold Climate had been more of an effort to write than The Pursuit of Love, so the new novel, The Blessing, was more difficult than either, as though the further Nancy moved from her own experience, the more laborious the process became. She finished it in March 1951. ‘Never again THE LAST,’ she wrote to Hamish Hamilton.
The Blessing tells the story of Grace, a beautiful very English Englishwoman married to a very French, French marquis by whom she has a son Sigismond. Grace is dazzled by her Paris life, by the beautiful, chic women, the couture clothes, the brilliant dinner-parties, and falls as deeply in love with her new country as she is with her husband, who, to Grace, was ‘the forty kings of France rolled into one, the French race in person walking and breathing’. But part of Charles-Edouard’s very Frenchness is his love of women, the absolute necessity of making love to as many pretty women as he can lay his hands on; and this Grace, Anglo-Saxon to the marrow, cannot bring herself to accept. They separate, Grace going back to England, Charles-Edouard remaining in Paris, where they are kept apart by the shameless scheming of eight-year-old Sigi, who finds this life very much to his liking. No longer told to ‘run along, darling’, by his parents, he is spoilt by both, and flattered and indulged by all the men hoping to marry his rich, beautiful mother, and all the women angling for his rich, handsome papa. In the end, Sigi is caught out, and Grace and Charles-Edouard are reconciled.
If The Pursuit of Love was a love-letter to the Colonel, The Blessing is a love-letter to the whole of France. Its theme is the rivalry between France and England, le cinq à sept versus nursery tea, and of the superiority on every count of the former to the latter. England is cold, ugly and dark, and it rains all summer long. Grace on her journey home looks out of the train window after leaving the lovely light airiness of northern France, to see ‘the little, dark, enclosed Kentish landscape … the iron grey sky pressing upon wasteful agriculture, coppices untouched by hand of woodman, tangles of blackberry and gorse, all so familiar to her eyes’. No wonder she is glad at the end to return to warm, luxurious France, back to delicious food, sparkling wit, well-trained, cossetting servants who change the mimosa in her bedroom three times a day10.
The sub-plot is a guerrilla attack on the one nation on the face of the earth Nancy loathed above all others, America. In the person of the very important and very boring Mr Hector Dexter, in Paris to administer the Marshall Plan, she incorporates everything that in her opinion was wrong with the New World.
‘ “Now what you need in this little old island,” ’ says the unstoppable Mr Dexter, ‘… “is some greater precognition of and practice of (but practice cannot come without knowledge) our American way of living. I should like to see a bottle of Coca-Cola on every table in England, on every table in France, on every –”
‘ “But isn’t it terribly nasty?” said Grace.’
Nancy’s anti-Americanism had greatly increased since she had come to live in France. The General’s, and thus Gaston’s, contempt for their transatlantic allies was loyally parrotted by Nancy, only too ready to sympathise with that feeling of resentment towards America common to many Europeans in the impoverished years immediately after the war. Nancy was essentially European: her great love was for France, and in particular for the France of the eighteenth century, for the grandeur of Versailles, the prettiness of Watteau and Fragonard. To someone of these predilections, the vigorous modernism of the United States was unlikely to appeal, nor was she impressed by the appearance and behaviour of the hordes of American tourists who, with their crammed wallets, loud checks and obese figures, were to be seen making their far from elegant progress round the city’s famous monuments. ‘Isn’t Dulles a wonderful name for an American?’ she would ask provocatively, and John Wilkes Booth was her favourite historical figure because he had killed Lincoln: ‘Always rather pleased when there is one American less in the world & I’m sure God will send them to a different place from ONE & Lord Byron.’ When confronted with the fact that many of her fr
iends were American, she would answer, ‘Yes, but they live in Europe and have chosen freedom.’
Colonel/Charles-Edouard, to Nancy’s infatuated eye more fascinating than ever, irritated some of her English friends who found him selfish, complacent and insensitive. But to Grace, as to Nancy, he was perfection, except of course for his compulsive promiscuity, but that, it is made very clear, is a trait completely natural for a Frenchman to which only the boorish Anglo-Saxons would object. Nancy’s own technique with the Colonel is mirrored in the clever behaviour of Albertine, Charles-Edouard’s favourite mistress, who knows exactly how to keep him amused. ‘She was certainly quite the reverse of dull, always having something to recount. Not plain slices of life served up on a thick white plate, but wonderful confections embellished with the aromatic and exotic fruits of her own sugary imagination, presented in just such a way as to tempt the appetite of such sophisticated admirers as he. She had endless tales to spin around their mutual friends, could discuss art and objects of art with his own collector’s enthusiasm as well as with imaginative knowledge, and, what specially appealed to Charles-Edouard, would talk by the hour, also with imaginative knowledge and with collector’s enthusiasm, about himself.’
Nanny Dicks turns up on form as Grace’s old nanny who comes with her to France to look after Sigi, remaining uncompromisingly English and thoroughly disapproving – sniff, shrug – of all those nasty foreign ways. Mrs Hammersley has a small part as the cultivated Mrs O’Donovan, described as belonging to ‘the category of English person, not rare among the cultivated classes, and not the least respectable of their race, who can find almost literally nothing to criticize where the French are concerned’. And Cyril Connolly puts in an appearance as the Captain, one of Grace’s suitors, owner of an avant-garde theatre run by longhaired girls with dirty feet, closely modelled on the Horizon staff, a portrait which, unsurprisingly, gave a great deal of offence to its original.
As before, Evelyn read the manuscript, his main criticism being that Nancy had failed to make Sigi convincing as a little boy of eight and a half. ‘How awful about Sigi being 25,’ Nancy replied to the charge. ‘I had so congratulated myself on his development between a backward 6 & a forward 9. Of course French children are different – somebody once said to me a French boy of 14 has a heavy moustache, 2 mistresses & a hoop!’ As before she accepted some of Evelyn’s corrections, ignored others, and this time re-wrote the whole thing twice. ‘People always think I dash off my books with no real work but it is not so, I very honestly do my best,’ she complained. Hamish Hamilton declared himself ‘in transports of delight’ over the result and, in spite of several less than favourable reviews, The Blessing sold ‘like the hottest of cakes’ on both sides of the Atlantic.
1 About one of these, Muv snorted to Diana, ‘My Swedish friend sent me a publisher’s notice of Nancy’s book it says “Everywhere in Europe men lost their heads when the beautiful elegant Mitford sisters dominated the salons” Oh dear what nonsense.’
2 She had promised so many people that she was leaving them treasures – houses, jewellery – in her will that Nancy suggested they form a trade-union.
3 Vicomtesse de Noailles, patron and hostess, was involved in a car accident during the war while driving with a German officer.
4 Poet, minor novelist and wit, Louise de Vilmorin had been able, as the wife of the Hungarian Count Palffy, to travel freely across Germany and was thus regarded with suspicion by the French authorities.
5 To revise the script of Kind Hearts and Coronets.
6 Rassemblement du Peuple Française.
7 Georges Bidault’s left-wing party.
8 ‘Nancy came for the weekend and remained seated before the fire for two days,’ Evelyn noted in his diary for December 1945.
9 Lady Pamela Berry, daughter of the first Earl of Birkenhead, married to Michael Berry, proprietor of the Daily Telegraph.
10 Nancy was clever at putting across the inflection and rhythm of the French language while writing in English –‘ “Oh no, but all the same, this is too much and occasionally she makes clever play with verbal ‘faux-amis’, the errors of literal translation, as when, for instance, in Love in a Cold Climate Fabrice’s mother, the old Duchesse de Sauveterre, explains that, ‘Castle life always annoys Fabrice and makes him nervous!’ i.e. ‘Country-house life bores Fabrice and makes him restless.’
CHAPTER NINE
Rue Monsieur
The nineteen-fifties, the middle years of the century and the years of Nancy’s middle age, were in many ways the happiest of her life. She became more settled, was able to develop an annual routine, to make a pattern of life which was in all externals immensely agreeable. At the end of 1951 she was able to arrange a long-term lease on the flat in the rue Monsieur, which gave her not only a greater sense of security but also the opportunity of having round her at last her own furniture. ‘I’ve got Tomford’s nice big sofa (think of what IT must have witnessed in its time),’ she wrote happily to Mark, ‘& my Sheraton writing table & Farve’s lovely Chinese screens & they all fit in very well … Also a great deal (12 pairs) of Muv’s linen which is worth its weight in gold now, & my Dresden china clock.’ Financially she was well-off and could afford to spend money not only at Dior and Lanvin but also with the expensive antiquaires in and around the rue Jacob to which the Colonel, with his passion for pictures and furniture, had introduced her. Her domestic life ran smoothly and in perfect comfort thanks to the efficiency of the saintly Marie who had become an accomplished cook. Her repertoire was not wide (roast chicken was the speciality), but the food at Nancy’s luncheon parties was invariably excellent. When the Colonel was expected there would the day before be an anxious conference between Nancy and Marie, gazing at each other over the kitchen-table searching for inspiration as to what they could give him for pudding: he had a notoriously sweet tooth and Marie’s usual fruit compôte he did not consider worthy of his attention – neither sweet enough nor rich enough. (On the day itself Nancy was always restless until Gaston arrived, only half listening to the conversation, one eye on the window giving out onto the courtyard. As often as not the telephone would ring, and after a minute Marie would come into the room with, ‘Monsieur le Colonel s’excuse, Madame.’) Nancy’s social life was brilliant and diversified, and she had a number of rich friends who invited her to luxurious locations in the South of France where she could ‘boil up’, lying on a beach in the hot sun and chatting by the hour. She stayed with Dolly Radziwill at Montredon, with Tony Gandarillas at his villa at Hyères, with Daisy Fellowes at Cap Martin or on her yacht, the Sister Anne, cruising round the Mediterranean.
But the place that meant more to her than any of these was a house only a short distance from Paris, Fontaines les Nonnes, belonging to Countess Costa de Beauregard, an old lady of distinguished pedigree and deep religious beliefs. Fontaines and Mme Costa first came into Nancy’s life through Violet Hammersley: the two women were half-sisters, Mrs Hammersley being the illegitimate daughter of Mme Costa’s father, Pierre Jean Aubrey-Vitet. It was from Aubrey-Vitet that Mme Costa had inherited Fontaines, a beautiful, cream-coloured eighteenth-century manor-house deep and remote in the flat farmlands of the Marne. On one side of the house were orange-trees in tubs and a park, a private chapel and ornamental dovecote, on the other a working farmyard complete with hens and manure heap. The way of life that Nancy found there had a timeless quality – the same ancient servants, the same old friends who had been going there for years, all now in their eighties, the gossipy conversations, walks over the stubble, expeditions in search of Bossuet at Meaux or Rousseau at Ermenonville; and every Friday at luncheon M. de Rohan-Chabot’s unvarying joke as the fish was brought in, ‘Enfin, sole.’ Fontaines was almost a second home to Nancy who, much the youngest, delighted in being treated as ‘the Child’, and loved the quiet Chekhovian atmosphere, and the beauty of the countryside with its tiny stone villages and narrow poplar avenues stretching across the fields to a wide and distant horizon. She de
scribed Fontaines to Evelyn as a house ‘in which nothing has changed for 100 years. In the drawing room sit 4 old ladies, who have stayed there all of every summer since they were born & M. le Curé aged 87, who has been M. le Curé there since he was 27 … One wakes up with the sun shining through pink taffeta curtains & my room, in a tower, has sun all day. Mme Costa spends up to 8 hours a day in the chapel the rest of the time she plays bridge & talks about Dior & déclassées duchesses.’
As Nancy became more deeply ensconced in her French life her ties with the ‘Old Land’ inevitably became frailer and more chafing. As she had told Muv on first moving to France, all the friends she cared about came regularly to Paris; but in England there were still her parents and sisters; and there was still Peter. Nancy and Peter had not lived together since the beginning of the war, but they remained man and wife. Although Nancy had long accepted that there was no chance of her ever being able to marry the Colonel, and although she knew very well the value of her married status – particularly in the eyes of the French – she had for some time been anxious for a divorce. Her reasons were mainly financial. She was fond of Prodd but she never wanted to live with him again, and with his extravagant habits he had cost her a great deal of money. He was forever turning up on the scrounge at rue Monsieur penniless and in need of a bath, frightening the life out of Marie with his piratical appearance; and worse than that he made it impossible, while he stayed, for Nancy to see the Colonel who, strict to his own moral code, refused to come to the flat while Peter was there.
She complained to Diana, ‘I am really fond of Peter you know but the whole thing is complicated, & the person I live for is the Col & if he can’t run in & out of my house at all times I know in the end he will feel lonely & his thoughts will turn to marriage. Also I can’t see what poor Pete gets out of it as I’m not really very nice to him & surely he’d much better marry again & produce an heir to the lands & titles … For some reason he is absolutely determined not to have a divorce & I can’t make out why, I really can’t believe he’s so fond of me as I am completely beastly to him all day & trying to be nicer really wears me out, & I have awful remorse & then begin again. Well you know. I honestly do think marriage is the most dreadful trap & that human beings must have been mad to invent such a relationship … Nobody except a husband can make one cry with rage, or make me cry at all, & now my hankies are wet all day. Oh dear. Still there must be many many worse husbands in the world.’
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