Kindred themes kept us up late, after which, at two in the morning, we went to a Spanish bar, already shut, but bursting with noise – claps, stamps, wails, guitars etc. We managed to get in and it consisted entirely of the family, about fifteen strong, all reeling, except a boy of four called Juanito who would tell them every quarter of an hour or so, and in vain, that it was long past his usual bedtime, then catch our eyes to commiserate on their hopelessness. The thing about this girl was, apart from her marvellous watermaiden looks, the ingrained sadness (as though her heir had gone down in the White Ship). I felt I’d won a prize whenever I made her laugh. One of her reasons for gloom was that, being solitary and nice-looking, she had a pretty rotten time with chaps, none of whom knew anything about Verlaine etc but were all after You Know What, and drifted off when nothing was doing; which cast a blight over all, & ruined most evenings – ‘Not like with you!’ she said, eyes wide with grateful candour. This, of course, completely tied one’s hands, SHOULD there have been any question of a Thurber-like lunge; and so it continued through next day Sunday off – indeed from beginning to end – and a great drive with Dick to St Emilion & the castle of Montaigne, and some more oysters. The next day, descending to depart, there was a discreet farewell wave in a passage, behind the other maids’ backs, from this tall figure – black and white again. Then away, to discover on the seat of the Standard Companion [4] a surreptitiously placed present of a Mozart record I’d said the day before was one I liked, and hadn’t got; with a covering note saying thanks for some of the ‘heures les plus heureuses de mon existence’. Wasn’t that nice? I’ll often think of that alluvial, estuary scene of Dick pounding across the sunset dunes under a mother of pearl sky, followed by this beautiful honey-coloured biped with knife, lemon, bread and butter.
So, on through Toulouse, Narbonne, finally here, where I’m staying in a rather gloomy hotel, but hope to move into a nice room in a courtyard of an old arcaded house once owned by a cardinal whose name I won’t burden you with. Nobody writes (plainly a conspiracy).
In Brittany, I saw a plough being drawn by a huge black-and-white bull, yoked behind a carthorse, rather an unusual sight, especially as there was a rainbow at the same time.
Do write at once, darling Debo, and lots of love and hugs from Paddy
What of Daph & Xan?
[1] Lawrence Durrell (1912–90). The writer was living in Sommières, a small village in Provence. ‘When all seems to languish and droop, his arrival acts like a stiff dose of Eno’s or Kruschen Salts and everyone is suddenly ready to clear five-bar gates.’ PLF, ‘Observations on a Marine Vulture’, Twentieth-Century Literature, vol. 33, no. 3, Autumn 1987, pp. 305–7.
[2] In Don’t Tell Alfred, Nancy used aspects of her nephew Alexander Mosley for Basil; Diana Cooper for Lady Leone; Susan Mary Alsop for Mildred Jungfleisch; Lord Redesdale for Uncle Matthew; Eddy Sackville-West for Davey Warbeck and DD for Northey.
[3] John ( Jack) Mitford, 4th Baron Redesdale (1885–1963). ‘One of my father’s younger brothers. He was famously snobbish and was much laughed at in the family for this failing, which he took in good part. When King Edward VII stayed at Batsford, Jack followed him round the garden with a chair in case he wanted to sit down. He made the mistake of marrying a German arms heiress in the spring of 1914, a union which was almost immediately annulled and never mentioned again. He made one or two half-hearted attempts at finding a job, but never stuck at anything and rubbed along as good company – he could be very funny.’ (DD)
[4] ‘The Standard Companion was the first car I ever had. I revelled in it! Humble and undashing, but dear to me. “Dr Piccard goes up, goes up / Captain Cousteau goes down / But my shark-blue Standard / Carries me all round the town!” ’ (PLF)
27 November 1961
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Pad,
I’m going to America on Friday for a spell. I had a v nice letter from J Kennedy, asking me to go, signed Yours ever Jack Kennedy, and then below in his own writing President JF Kennedy, The White House, Washington DC, USA. Well I must say I may be a 9 yr old but I had heard of him and his bonne addresse. So I’m going. I’ve got cold feet now & heartily wish I was staying here pulling triggers.
What will it be like in Washington? I know, one will go all that way & then be asked to tea, once, at The White Ho. I’m staying with David & Sissy, [1] that’ll be nice.
Think of me, & I’ll send a P.C. if I think Post Resting Nîmes is a sensible place to send things off to.
I saw Daph & Xan last week, both recovering from bronchitis and both perfect of course. I think Xan looked very nice but I couldn’t look at him, never can for at least two days as you know.
The Wife’s not too fit, and Mrs Hammersley is very cross about me going to America. She thinks no one ought to interfere with that gentleman & that he ought to be left to fry his fish day & night. Ass.
Keep writing, vaguely.
Much love
Debo
[1] David Ormsby Gore, 5th Baron Harlech (1918–85). Ambassador in Washington 1961–5. The politician and diplomat had been a close friend of J. F. Kennedy since Kennedy’s pre-war years in London during his father’s embassy. ‘It was JFK’s suggestion to Uncle Harold [Macmillan] that he should go to Washington. David had the best sense of humour and so did the President. This lightened their load and often surprised their officials. The friendship between the two men was deep and the relationship between them very different from the conventional formality of their roles.’ (DD) Married to Sylvia Lloyd Thomas from 1940 until her death in a car crash in 1967, and to Pamela Colin in 1969.
19 January 1962
Nearly Full Moon
Easton Court Hotel
Chagford
My darling Debo,
I did love Christmas so and you were kind and angelic to have me; and I feel a shocking laggard not having written before – only idly phoning – to say so. I’ll never forget all those icicles and frosty statues and the lovely blaze and the heavenliness of everyone indoors afterwards; nor the lovely longness of it, although it seemed over in a trice.
When I got back, I found, which I’d completely forgotten, that I’d been asked to stay for a rustic ball at Mary Campbell’s ages before; so got a lift down with Janetta [1] and great fun it was. Can you imagine it, there were nearly thirty people staying in the house. Lots of them very young and in sardine-like dorms. Lots of the neighbouring quality came over for the ball, which was pretty informal to say the least, to a gramophone, and got very wild and lively. Among the guests was Magouche’s [2] ex-hub, a tall, very handsome, Harvardish looking man. Well in the small hours, I was dancing with Magouche when the tune suddenly changed and Magouche cut a bold and light-hearted caper and fell to the floor, full length, with a bump. I chivalrously – it wasn’t my fault a bit – reclined on the floor beside her, leant on one elbow, and there we remained as a joke for a minute or two, with the dance swirling all round, like two stone crusaders on a tomb or two recumbent Etruscans, quietly conversing. All at once I felt a vice-like grip on my nape, and someone shaking me as a mastiff shakes a rat, as I believe they say. It was Jack (ex-hub) who said ‘I’m going to clobber you’. I told him not to be a perfect idiot but to come and have a drink instead, which he grumblingly did, on condition that we had a ‘clobbering match’ next morning at eleven. It was fortunately completely forgotten – a dark demon called Hangover was whirling through the snowflakes and beating his foul wings overhead by then – so nothing happened.
No more now, dearest Debo, except love to one and all and 1000 thanks, and lots and lots of love to you from
Paddy
[1] Janetta Woolley (1922–). ‘Janetta has a marvellous fine-boned beauty which, when she was fifteen, smote Eddy Sackville-West so hard (in spite of his ordinary lack of such inclinations) it prompted him to propose to her. There is something magical and quiet about her; she had – has – qualities that turned her into a treasured and lifelong friend. I ca
n never help remembering that a distant ancestor of hers was a Lord Ruthven, anti-Mary Queen of Scots, who, though old and ill, got out of bed, put on black armour and, with several other suffering grandees, climbed the stairs of Holyrood Palace and murdered Rizzio, the Queen’s Italian favourite, a friend from her earlier life as Queen of France. A grim tale.’ (PLF) Married to Humphrey Slater, to Robert Kee 1948–50, to Derek Jackson 1951–6, and in 1971 to Jaime Parladé, Marqués de Apesteguía, a Spanish architect with whom she settled near Ronda in Andalusia.
[2] Agnes (Magouche) Magruder (1921–). Boston-born daughter of a US naval officer. Married to the artist Arshile Gorky 1941–8, who nicknamed her ‘Mougouch’, an Armenian term of endearment; to John C. Phillips Jr in 1950; and to Xan Fielding in 1979.
26 January 1962
Telegrams: Antiseptic, sinister
Fitzroy House
Fitzroy Square, W1
Darling Pad,
V v nice to hear from you, specially as I’m incarcerated in this dump, which is terribly nice, but a nursing home nevertheless. I’ve only had my inside seen to as usual. It must be the most hopeless inside this side of anywhere the way it carries on. Anyway the anaesthetic was marvellous. I said to the anaesthetist the next day how jolly it was & he said yes it’s an addiction drug. Well no wonder. Have you ever had it? They give it an hour before the real thing & one floats in a marvellous state through all that’s jolly in life, trying to hold on to every minute & savour it to the full.
That dear old President phoned the other day. First question was ‘Who’ve you got with you, Paddy?’ He’s got you on his brain.
Keep in close touch.
Much love
Debo
Teusday [August 1962]
Dumbleton
Darling Debo,
I’ve spent the last two months trying to find somewhere to live in S.W. Greece, and, the trouble is, I’ve found it; trouble, because I don’t think we’ll be able to get it; owned by too many people, scattered all over the globe, who, though none of them live there, are unlikely to want to sell it; but I live in hopes. It’s in the Mani, a peninsula in the middle of a steep deserted bay, pointing S.E., E., S.W. and W., with a great amphitheatre of mountains which turn a hectic red at sunset. The peninsula descends like a giant, shallow staircase of olive groves, plumed with cypress trees, platform after platform dwindling to a low cliff thirty feet above deep blue-green glittering sea, with trees and wild sweet-smelling shrubs to the very brink, full of beehives, olives, woodpigeons, and with a freshwater spring. The cliff is warrened with a great sea cave into which one swims, under stalactites and strange mushroom limestone formations. Not a house in sight, nothing but the two rocky headlands, an island a quarter of a mile out to sea with a ruined chapel, and a vast expanse of glittering water, over which you see the sun setting till its last gasp. Homer’s Greece, in fact. But I’ve not given up hope. It would mean building a rambling peasant house, with huge airy rooms, out of the local limestone, on one of those ledges of olive-trees . . .
So much for all that. I flew back to Rome last week, then drove back alone, stopping two nights at Fontainebleau with your pal [1] who sends loving greetings.
My bust wrist [2] came out of plaster of Paris in Palermo, but still seems jolly stiff and inflexible, and I bet it never quite gets right again, the way they don’t. I wonder what this entails. Balinese dancing’s out, for a start; so, should I ever succeed to a throne, is holding an orb; the other drawbacks will surface with time.
Tons of love & hugs from
Paddy
[1] No-eye = Noailles.
[2] Broken in a hunting fall.
28 October 1962
[British Embassy
Washington]
Darling Pad,
Several tons of rubble I’m afraid. [1] It’s an horrible surprise par excellence because the poor old Loved One [2] is vaguely taken up with his work instead of messing about with one.
Much comical stuff to report. Andrew came for two short nights & one long day & during the long day we were summoned to the presence for an official call. There were some fiddling little crowds, pickets etc, outside the White House, our car was stopped at the gate & a policeman put his head in & said What group are you? Well, what group are we, I don’t know.
A rich lady said to me she needed a secretary who understood her ‘nervouswise’. The lingo is very nice indeed but takes a bit of learning.
I’ve been to dinner at the White Ho twice. Jackie Kennedy was there. She is a queer fish. Her face is one of the oddest I ever saw. It is put together in a very wild way.
Last night was the dinner for the opening of the exhib of our drawings. [3] Tom Wragg got completely drunk. I introduced him to Sargent Shriver. [4] I said this is the brother-in-law of the President, perhaps you remember his wife Eunice Kennedy, to which he replied No I don’t, but then I meet so many people I can’t remember them all.
Makes one’s heart vaguely sink. He was drunk at a cocktail party & very loudly suggested he & I should go to San Francisco. Well when you think how he hates me it was rather telling.
You can buy Plastic Feather Rocks for your garden. Huge Paxtonian objects weight 2oz each. Admit it would be a help to have a few for the old home.
Much love
Debo
[1] ‘The Cuban crisis was at its height and Paddy sent a telegram to me in Washington saying, “Blimey we’re in trouble, ’arf a ton of rubble”, hence my reply.’ (DD) Bernard Cribbins’ song ‘Right Said Fred’, about three removal men struggling to remove a piano and ‘half a ton of rubble’ falling on top of their heads, was a favourite of DD and PLF.
[2] President Kennedy had telephoned DD on Thanksgiving and asked, ‘Have you got all your loved ones around you?’
[3] A loan exhibition of Old Master drawings from Chatsworth was on show at the National Gallery in Washington. Tom Wragg, the librarian from Chatsworth, accompanied DD to the opening.
[4] Sargent Shriver (1915–). Married Eunice Kennedy in 1953.
9 January 196[3]
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Pad,
I’ve been in bed for a week, alright again now. I can quite easily see about taking to drugs, for instance the marvellous feeling of well being & the happiness when going off under a sleeping pill, one feels one could do anything far better than anyone else. Dangerous I call it & once a year is the sort of amount of times to resort to them.
The sweet Loved One is on the telly today unveiling the Mona Lisa. I guess he’d rather be unveiling a spot of real flesh & blood. What do you think? He’ll be bored stiff by the evening at The Nat Gallery. [1] I can’t wait to see his honest face acting enjoying it.
Much love
Debo
[1] The Mona Lisa was on a three-month loan to the US. It went on show at the Washington National Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
6 May 1963
13 Chester Row, SW1
Darling Debo,
I’m feeling rather odd this morning, and it’s a feeling whose oddity I can’t hope to convey to you. I woke up this morning, after a lively weekend at Bruern, [1] feeling rather weighed down by the flesh and the devil and decided, for a day, to give up smoking and drinking, and, except for a bare minimum, eating. It’s noon now, and I feel very strange and rather lost: don’t know what to do with my hands. I suppose I’d better just fold them in my lap and gaze in front of me with a quiet and contemplative smile. It’s all very queer; very chastening.
Tons of love, Debo darling, from
Paddy
[1] PLF had been staying at Bruern Abbey in Oxfordshire with Michael and Pandora Astor.
Sunday [May 1963]
Easton Neston [1]
Northamptonshire
My darling Debo,
I write in a state of some excitement. I haven’t smoked since Monday. You don’t know what this means, it’s the equivalent of reeling drunkenness and euphoria and airy rashness in you
or Nancy. I feel low, twilit and anti-climactic (if that’s the word I seek) but, at the same time, odd, pure, clean, and with a tongue like a Maréchal Niel rose petal and breath like that of high-born kine.
I don’t know what’s to become of me. [2]
Tons of love,
Paddy
[1] PLF was staying with his friend Christian (Kisty), Lady Hesketh (1929–2006).
[2] PLF soon took up smoking again and did not give up completely until some twenty years later.
18 or 19 May 1963
Inch Kenneth
Gribun
Isle of Mull
Darling Pad,
I loved your NO SMOKING letter on the beautiful paper. It was most cheering. I do wonder if you’re still at it, or not at it, if you see what I mean.
We (Diana, Woman, the French Lady & me) are all here and have been for ten days because my mother had a sort of collapse after her journey here from London & we were sent for. Oh Whack, [1] the sadness of it to see her. Thank goodness the Dr has now arranged various sleeping things every few hours so a lot of the time she is asleep but when she is awake it is AWFUL because one of the things which has more or less given up is the swallowing bit of her throat so she is fearfully hungry & cries for food & then can’t manage it, like a ghastly torture.
There is awful moaning, but the strange thing is we have got sort of used to that. Three times we have thought she was dying but each time she has rallied & then blames us, sadly, for what she calls dragging her back from the grave. Isn’t it strange it should be so difficult to be born and so difficult to die.
In Tearing Haste Page 12