Jessica had very little communication with her sisters for five years after the war. In 1946, she provoked the family by trying, unsuccessfully, to leave her share of Inch Kenneth – which under Scottish law the sisters inherited after Tom’s death – to the Communist Party, in order, she wrote to her mother, ‘to undo some of the harm our family has done particularly the Mosleys and Farve when he was in the House of Lords’. Her sisters, who had all agreed to hand over the island to Lady Redesdale for her lifetime, were angered by Jessica’s gesture, but their mother refused to be drawn into the controversy. At the beginning of 1948, Jessica’s seven-year-old daughter, Constancia, wrote to Lady Redesdale asking her to stay with them in America, an invitation which, to Jessica’s consternation, her mother immediately accepted. The visit was a success; it dissipated Jessica’s resentment of her mother and kindled a growing appreciation of her qualities. She was ‘a marvellous and accommodating guest’, Jessica wrote, ‘appreciative, uncritical and determined to make friends with her estranged daughter and her family’. Jessica’s relations with Nancy were tentatively re-established through Robert Treuhaft’s mother, Aranka, who made annual trips to Paris to buy stock for her New York hat shop.
In 1947, the Treuhafts moved from San Francisco to Oakland, where Robert worked for a left-wing law firm and Jessica became involved in the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), an organization created after the war by communist leaders principally to establish civil liberties for American blacks. Jessica became branch secretary and threw herself with energy and commitment into defending her black neighbours against police brutality and false accusations of crimes, the only one of the sisters actually to go out and work for her political beliefs. In a context very different from that in which it had evolved, the Mitford love of teasing came to the fore in Jessica’s battles against racial prejudice. In her memoirs she described the ‘spectacular tease’ she managed to pull off by helping a black family buy a house in an exclusive all-white area, right across the street from her arch enemy, the bigoted local District Attorney.
Pamela and Derek stayed at Rignell for two years after the war. Derek returned to his scientific work and was appointed Professor of Spectroscopy at the Clarendon Laboratory, the physics department of Oxford University which under Professor Lindemann had become a major research facility. Pamela pursued her domestic and farming activities. The Mosleys at nearby Crowood were close enough for the sisters to call on each other easily. In a letter written to her mother in 1946, Diana described a visit from the Jacksons during which Pamela launched into one of her ‘sagas’, for which she was famous in the family, dwelling on how pleased she was with her new cook, how she did everything for him, ‘lighting the stove etc’, before rushing home after tea with Diana ‘in case the cook should feel lonely’. In 1947, driven out by the super-tax levied on the rich by the Attlee government, the Jacksons moved to Tullamaine Castle, near Fethard in County Tipperary, Ireland, where Derek was able to indulge his love of hunting and steeple-chasing. He was an amateur jockey who rode twice in the Grand National. Although he had some contacts with a laboratory in Dublin and a regular visiting professorship at Ohio State University in Columbus, he cut back on his scientific research and concentrated on horses.
The death in action in 1944 of Deborah’s brother-in-law, William Hartington, had made Andrew Cavendish heir to the dukedom and to an inheritance which included estates in England, Ireland and Scotland. In 1946, Deborah and Andrew moved with their two young children from The Rookery to a house in Edensor, a small village on the Chatsworth estate less than a mile from Chatsworth House, the family’s magnificent late-seventeenth-century seat in the Peak District of Derbyshire. The great house, which had not been redecorated since the First World War and had been occupied by a girls’ school during the Second, was in a sorry state. Andrew’s parents never considered moving back but in 1948 they began the immense task of clearing and cleaning it. The following year, the gardens and the main rooms – which had been open to visitors ever since the house was built – were reopened to the public. Andrew, whose greatest interest was politics, stood as a Conservative candidate for Parliament in 1945 and 1950, unsuccessfully both times. In 1945, Labour, with a policy of radical social reform, inflicted a crushing and unexpected defeat on the Tories who had banked on the heroic stature of their leader, Winston Churchill, to win. Deborah went canvassing just once with her husband, which in the immediate post-war election could be very rough. They were tripped up, spat upon and their car nearly overturned, which did little to dispel her distaste for politics. She decided, ‘Never again’.
Darling,
My life is now a bedroom farce. Going (shockingly late) to the kitchen yesterday morning to cook up my pannikin of washing water I observed an EGG which certainly had never been there before. It gave me quite a jump, quite like R Crusoe & I awaited developments in some disquiet. Presently a dear little Frenchman appeared & announced that he also lives here (nobody had told me). He had arrived at 12.30 the night before & he said made a fearful noise bumping into things. I sleep with all doors open so can’t think why I didn’t hear him I must say. I think I’d have died of fright if I had! Then of course the Col1 rang up & was far from pleased at hearing a male voice, which couldn’t be very satisfactorily explained with its owner in the next room! So altogether as I say it gets more like a French play every minute. But the egg – you can’t think how somehow unsettling that was!
Deborah canvassed with Andrew once and swore ‘Never again’. Chesterfield, Derbyshire, 1945.
I’m doing well, writing for French mags, they pay like anything & as one knows one is safe from the mocking eye of you & Gerald one can go ahead unselfconsciously.
The terrifying Swiss lady returns tomorrow & may drive me out I feel. I have to share a bathroom with her which leads out of my bedroom & I think that will be rather hell for both. The weather is divine again, boiling, & I so long to stay on – Col goes away for three days this week which is sad if it’s my last. But perhaps I shall stay a bit longer. I’m going to Laval’s trial2 if I do. Except for seeing you & a few buddies I absolutely dread leaving, you can imagine. Business going like wildfire, only rather damaged by the fact that nobody in London is the least interested. Heywood [Hill] doesn’t answer my letters & the others just complain it makes more work for them.3
I went to see Baba [de Lucinge] – she is dreadfully sad about Tom. The odd thing is she had heard four years ago he was killed & when she saw him in London last Nov. she thought it was a ghost. When she was told again he was killed she said that’s an old story, I’ve heard it before.
I see H. Hamilton4 advertises poor Linda as a screaming farce, I knew he would. The Col thinks it’s more serious than Brideshead5 – though he has many faults to find. Greatly tickled at his own portrait.
Let me know if you die for a swansdown powder puff (I can’t do without them but some people don’t mind) they are very plentiful here. Scent is £5 a bottle which really seems too much. Oh the Printemps and all those shops, one can hardly drag oneself through them everything is so tasty. I think I’m safe to be here another week as the actual mechanics of getting away take that – permits & so on.
What shall I do in London, simply die I should think, the idea of all that gloom weighs me down like a ton of bricks.
Somebody asked the Col what he thinks of the atom bomb to which he replied ‘Comme amateur de porcelaine –’6
Much love, NR
Darling Honks
I have been here for a week with Elizabeth & Anne [Cavendish] and at first Muv was really quite cheerful and so was Bobo, but after a day or two when they got used to us being here Birdie became furious with everyone and everything and Muv became silenter and silenter and she seems so sad and everything seems so pointless for her, oh dear it is so terribly sad, I don’t know what to think about it all. Her plan to go to Wycombe is quite a good one I think but I have an awful feeling that Farve won’t go as he really seems to hate her now, and he certainly wo
n’t stay there much as Bobo irritates him so much.
I think Muv would be more or less alright looking after Bobo if only Bobo wasn’t so beastly to her, she never leaves her alone for a minute and as you know, is exactly like a child in that she has to be entertained the whole time and poor Muv can never sit down to read or enjoy herself for a moment. I do think we all ought to try and help her make some arrangement about Bobo which would leave Muv free, even for a few weeks or months, as I really do think the strain on her is too much, she looks so thin & tired & utterly miserable.
Her plan about Bobo having a cottage of her own is the best I think, but it depends entirely on getting a sort of Mrs Stobie1 to look after her. Oh goodness I wish I knew what would be the best thing.
We are going back tomorrow to The Rookery for the weekend & then to Eastbourne till the end of Jan. Do write.
I’m in such a worry about Muv, I know something ought to be done & it is only us who can do anything as Farve takes no responsibility for Bobo which I think is awful of him.
I hope your move isn’t too agonising, of course they can’t really be anything else.
Masses of love to Sir O & Nanny & the boys,
Debo
Em talks properly now & says things like ‘Everyone in the graveyard is dead’.
Darling,
My life has resolved itself into a mule-like struggle not to leave this spot (Paris I mean). Miss Chetwynd,1 owner of the flat, wrote & said when M. de Seyres arrives you must instantly go as he is very sad, has lost his wife, & must be alone.
I’m ashamed to say I haven’t gone & am leaving here, for an hotel, only on Sunday, a week after I got her letter. I blush at my awful behaviour. But the Col rushed off to Brussels & I hardly saw him between Rhineland & that, & must stay & say goodbye. So I made his secretary find me a room, but there wasn’t one until Sunday anywhere in Paris. Now I hope to stay until after the elections which has always been my real aim! The weather is boiling like June, really too divine & the trees are all yellow – just the time for Paris.
Little Marc de Beauvau2 turned up & took me round the nightclubs. I said ‘Marc what time does the metro end?’ ‘At one – but (hopefully) it begins again at 5’. However I was firm, & at 3 we were dragged home by a groaning man on a bike. He charged about £1 a groan, but even so I found it embarrassing. Marc said ‘If I come to London in Nov. will you find me a wife exactly like you?’ I can only think of the utter fascinators3 but perhaps they’re not exactly. But perfect for rank of course. He is awfully dotty but I am very fond of him I must say.
Oh the move. Poor you – still it will be the last for ages.
I went to a huge, madly enthusiastic meeting of MRP4 at the ‘Vél[odrome] d’Hiv[er]’. In the middle of the ‘Marseillaise’ (not a dry eye) the record ran down. They all simply shrieked with laughter. I do think the French are heaven.
From what I observe I should say Gaulle5 was almost certain to be all right but I believe they aren’t v. optimistic themselves. Electors are funny things as we all know. The lists are going up all over Paris – on one of them is three déportés one aveugle [blind man] & about two other equally lugubrious categories, can it be a joke? I’m inclined to think everything here is a joke really, like Mitford life, one of the reasons I so long to live here! The déportés wear a kind of centipede in their button holes & one is supposed to give them one’s seat in the metro.
Must go out into the heavenly sun.
Much love, NR
Darling,
I think I shall come home today week. The weather has taken a chilly turn & so much of my time is spent waiting about (which now I am driven to doing in my dreary bedroom as out of doors is too cold to sit & read). The Col is wildly busy & sometimes I don’t see him at all. When he got back from Germany he rang up at 2 A.M. to say he was in terrible agony & they had found an abscess in his spinal column. Imagine if I had a fit. He was given penicillin & was perfectly well & working again in twelve hours. Had it happened a year ago he would either have died or been paralysed. How would Muv explain this?
Oh I wish you could have heard a conversation at Baba’s about Denise Bourdet1 & how over her bed (where she insisted on keeping her dead hubby for a week) there hang two pictures of him dead & a death mask. Baba said ‘after all she is young & beautiful & soon she will start a love affair & then – will she have it under poor Edouard’s very nose?’ Jacques Février:2 ‘Never will Denise have another affair’. Baba – to me in a loud aside ‘Don’t pay any attention to him, he thinks of nothing but boys’. Aren’t French people wonderful. Apparently Mme B held endless receptions over the dead body & Baba arrived from England not knowing he had died & suddenly SAW. Think if it had been us! She said ‘Of course Denise always has been rather provincial’.
I’ve just had a letter from the French consul in London saying there is no hope of a visa for me to come here for at least six more months!
See you very soon now I hope.
Much love, NR
Darling
Poor Gladys,1 sobbing loudly, was removed today in an ambulance, with scarlet fever. Oh I do pray I don’t get it – it means one month on your back apparently. I should go mad.
The Colonel rang up & says the Windsors2 are giving my book to everybody for Xmas, which tickles me very much. Violet T[refusis] says Emerald [Cunard] will never be the same again & I have ruined her few remaining years as she feels she has missed something. Everybody I see says how can they get a French lover.
My situation is deplorable, strict quarantine for a week. Luckily my old mad Norwegian3 is faithfully feeding me or I should starve to death. I shall have to take a fancy to housework but I do so hate it, & I never know where G hides dusters etc. Oh bother.
Best love darling, NR
Darling,
Out of quarantine which is a comfort as every time I sneezed or felt shivery I thought it was that!
Fancy, Mrs Keppel’s1 favourite joke in my book is the chicken’s mess (A’s jewel).2 I was so pleased, never thought anybody would see that one.
Darling, housework. I make my bed & wash up a coffee cup & then I go to bed & sleep the sleep of utter exhaustion until dinner time. What does it mean & how can people manage? I never attempt the Hoover or lighting the stove or any of the moderately tough things
Pam Chichester3 was in a baker’s shop & all the women began saying ‘Oh! it’s disgusting’ & making a fearful fuss & she suddenly realized they had seen Boud who was ambling down the street, & then one she knew came in & said ‘Your friend Unity Mitford is outside’ & she was nearly lynched. Isn’t it lucky they never do it to her – but as Pam said, how can they recognise her? Rather fascinating. SW7 mentality of course.
Much love, do come up soon again, NR
Darling
You are not to say you are infamous & unfashionable it hurts my feelings. Anyway nobody so beautiful & beloved.
Spent yesterday at Versailles with my Col. I can’t get over having hours & hours of his company like this, it has never happened before except once in London when the Gen. sacked him for a week. Versailles at this time of year is magical – have you seen it?
Went to tea with two old French Comtesses, friends of a friend, to whom I took a parcel. They were exactly, & even to look at, like Aunt Iris, & I couldn’t resist teasing & when they said how dreadful it is here with nothing to eat I said, ‘I don’t call pâté de foie gras – then lobster – then beef steak – then camembert – which I had for lunch (quite true) nothing to eat.’ They were utterly furious & Aunt Irislike, it was just like teasing her.
Poor Woman – I feel they are having rather a down in life at the moment. But surely they didn’t expect to win & he’s done awfully well in other races hasn’t he?
I’ve sold Linda here for £100 in francs, which I get straight away, & I hear she’s been taken in Sweden too, so I might go for a holiday there but I think it would be a bore.
Much love darling – write sometimes if poss. NR
Darl
ing,
Randolph [Churchill] has appeared & roars at me for articles. So the Col writes them & I translate them & Randolph pays & we go out to a restaurant as a change from le High Grade.1 The articles are so good, you can’t think, & the Col gets very cross at them being under Randolph’s name, like Cyrano. But he won’t do them under his own, & R has to think they are by me – it is all vastly complicated. By the time I have translated them & R has turned them into American the Col wouldn’t recognise one word, but this I keep from him!
More thousands for the book, two more to be exact. So I’ve simply let go everything & buy whatever takes my fancy, it is heaven. Also, one of the thousands is from Johnen, & he offers me £50 a week to work on the film2 while it is being made so I don’t think H. Hill & Co will see me for a while but don’t dare tell Molly3 this as I fear she would mind dreadfully.
Randolph won’t go to Nuremberg, he disapproves of it. I wonder if his dad does too.4
Noël Coward5 is here, he called the Col ‘Chéri’, greatly to the latter’s surprise. In fact the town is full of English & on the Right Bank one hears nothing else spoken at all.
Off to Violet [Trefusis] for the weekend.
All love, NR
Darling
I’ve had a terrible letter from Molly to whom I wrote saying I hear you look tired, saying it’s not tiredness it’s sadness & my throat is sore all day from trying not to cry. I believe she was in love with that infinitely dreary blond young man who has now left. Oh dear. I’ve begged her to try to come here but I’m sure she won’t. Isn’t she a worry. If it wasn’t for the Col I would hasten back, but I feel if once I leave I shan’t get back here again & I couldn’t bear it. I live from week to week without making any plans & always hoping some miracle will occur which would force us to live here, but of course it won’t. Oh for pre-war days when one could choose where one lived.
The Mitfords Page 22