I can hardly wait for news of what you think of it all.
V. few partridges, v. sad. Well I can’t think of ought else, except that my Wife is still in Ireland, very tiresome without her.
I’ll write again after this VISIT, oh dear. [incomplete].
Dereling
Debo is out ALL day (from 8 A.M.) at a bazaar so I’ve a moment to write!1 I’ve enjoyed myself on the whole, but I see that London is too much for me. I utterly lost my voice & only really felt well again after a week on the Isle of Wid.
Evelyn is writing a piece for the U-book2 – anti-me. Saying we must remember she only became a Hon at the age of 12, it went to her head & she’s been a fearful snob ever since, & other rather cruel words. I said Evelyn do put a footnote saying you love me all the same. ‘Oh that’s quite evident.’ Only to one with 2nd sight.
I return Sat. 29th.
Much love, N
Oh dereling oi am in great & terrible despair. I’m almost sure, from signs too long to explain, that the Treuhafts have moved into rue Mr, & I can’t bear it. I’ve written to Marie to say she must tell them you are both arriving on Monday for a few nights as this seems the only way to dislodge them. (I’ve sent them £50 for an hotel.) I rang you up but you’re away & when you get back darling I beseech you to telephone to Marie & find out what’s on. No good me ringing up because when I did, & got onto Decca, she merely put on that stone walling voice & I could get nothing out of her except idiotic giggles.
I nearly got into an aeroplane today, but it is enormously inconvenient to do so & Debo very much dissuaded me. I have an utter mass of things in London next week & you know how it is – & have left most of my clothes there & so on.
If you talk to Marie (were you in Paris you could make Mme Brard1 bring her out to the motor) tell her once they’ve gone they’re not to be allowed into the flat again – she must shut all up & pretend to be away.
I know you’ll feel for me & do what you can. (And Evelyn says I am a communist agitator (the comble [limit]).
All love, N
Darling,
Oh the relief. In fact they behaved perfectly, & I think Marie must have thought I’d quite lost my head, since Momo sent her secretary round to see what had happened! Well – I had too! I think when Decca telephoned she was a bit drunk – she’d been travelling all day & then settled down to my whisky while waiting for the call.
Anyway – she’s waiting in Paris for my return, which I’ve put forward one day & will come back on Friday 28th. Of course Debo rather hotted me up – & Andrew says they upset her & she mustn’t see them again. I can’t wait to C for myself.
All news at the end of the week – love, N
Darling Sooze
How I shrieked at your account.1 Of course her bark is always worse than her bite – so typical telling you to come by bus & then meeting you – saying there’ll be no dinner & then producing it etc. Did you note how the dangerously boiling bath water can only pour onto one’s navel? Such a typically English arrangement somehow. You must have had a pow-wow! I haven’t had her account yet – she said I shall write my views. I expect she’s cooking them up.
I’m glad you’re staying on. Do go & see Zella2 – I sent you a P.C. of her address.
I’m still too busy for words with Saint-Simon3 – but it’s beginning to take shape. I’ve asked if I can have one more week.
Dined with Gladwyn,4 just back from Geneva where he had gone accompanied by all the Embassy silver for a banquet we gave. He sat next to Molotov5 who was in a very jolly mood he says. Goodness Susan what can this portend?
I also dined with some American friends & sat next a handsome & apparently powerful Mr Pulitzer.6 He said to me ‘Why do the French resist any interference in N Africa?’ I said ‘Well how would you like it if we began to interfere with your lynching arrangements?’ He roared, I must say. So the world wags on.
Love to Muv & say I’ll write when I’ve finished my essay. If she had given me any education these things wouldn’t take me so long.
Love to Dinky. Mark7 says ‘as for Dinky, she is one’.
Much love Soo, Nancy
Darling Debo
I went to see Midi1 & she told me two very young men she knows went cruising with Prod, so I said, ‘what did they make of him?’ And she said, ‘oh they thought him the most romantic man they’d ever met. They said“he could have been a marvellous writer or philosopher, but he’s never bothered to do anything, just one of those marvellous people who don’t bother to work.”’ And apparently (they said) he was once married to an incredibly famous woman, they couldn’t remember who, and that went wrong too.
When you leave Ireland, couldn’t you fit in a little visit to the Temple? Oh DO.
All love darling, Honks
Darling Honks
I am getting all excited for you to come here.
I did not tell you before, but I’m going to have a baby.
I told the Doctor last week, & he has turned me into a prisoner as I knew he would, on account of what has happened the last two times. So what I’m hoping is that you really will make a little stay here, think how one longs for you, as I can’t shoot,1 drive, or even gaze much at the pigs, I am to go out just once a day, v. slowly in a car driven by someone else, stay in bed late in the morning, rest in the afternoon & go to bed early. So do be chatting companion for more than a night or two. Haven’t I been strong minded not to tell before.
I told Lord2 that I could not shoot this winter, & the reason. He looked as if the end of the world had come & then said what, at this time of year.
COME SOON, STAY AGES.
Much love, Debo
Dear 9
Nobody told me. Honks Coo[per] rang up & said ‘I hear Debo has had the baby’.1‘No – what?’ ‘Don’t know but she’s said to be all right’. That’s the Mitfords all over. Never mind, I’m awfully pleased & relieved because, although it all seemed all right one couldn’t help remembering the Queen Mother’s horse. You know how that story has haunted me ever since, the saddest thing that’s happened in Lord Rosebery’s lifetime & so on.2
Muv says it’s a lovely baby so I can see she is losing her grip because she’s generally sensible about babies.
Went to Lanvin. The clothes are horrid, still one must have something to wear I suppose. Those little short jackets which I hate. Mme Sézille more boring than ever & said would your m. in law go & see the collection & I said I was sure she wouldn’t.
Much love you dear little thing.
What’s IT to be called? N
Darling Honks
Thank you SO much for telegrams letters etc. You are kind and faithful to be interested.
Oh the RELIEF of everything being all right, you simply can’t imagine. It took under two hours, & I heard myself saying ‘is the baby all right?’ about fifty-five times so that the anaesthetist got bored with the question. I got to know today that all the nurses have been screaming with laughter at the patheticness of the baby clothes, because they’ve never seen a baby with such old washed-out things, but of course I did it on purpose because I was so nervous. I didn’t get a cot or anything, & then I sent the Wife out to buy one & she got me one which was dirty because it had been so long in the shop. Clever old Wife.
We can’t think of names, can you? I am so glad it’s a girl because it will be able to relieve poor Em at the deathbeds, otherwise she will have such a round to do.
Masses of love, keep on writing please, Debo
Dear 9
Names
Zaïre, Zoraïde, Aïda, would fox the women’s institute. Philadelphia (Delphi for short), Lily, Ada, Zéphire, Colombine, Eglantine, Lilac, Privet, Aïssé, Bérénice, Giroflée, Cora, Daisy, Edmée, Mirabelle, Esmeralda, Una, Esther, Natalie, Nin, Momo, Virginia, Evangeline, Ursula, Hecuba, Morgana, Susanita, Foxglove, Foxhunter. I don’t know any more. What does it look like? It must suggest something (Elsa Maxwell1 might be a nice name). What about Alice (Ali for short) or Morny? Or Douro?2
Much love, N
Darling Honks
I am so glad Sir O is better, I do hope he feels well.1
I think Wife will have a try at Bignor.2 It is terribly nice, such beautiful country too. She has got her really dreadful black winter coat on today so I asked for it for the jumble & she looked rather sad & said could she keep it till June as it wouldn’t be so much of a wrench then.
I hear Nancy has gone & done it again & given an interview to the New York Herald Tribune3 saying how she hates & despises all Americans etc etc. I wish she could just keep her trap shut. I do hope everyone won’t go on about it for years & years.
Much love, Debo
Darling Honks
I’ve written to Decca to try & see her1 & I’ve suggested lunch or dinner on 28th, shall we try you just being there or would you rather not? I don’t terribly want to see her but she has written such friendly letters that I feel I must. As for her Memoirs,2 let’s us do ours for a change. Mine would be things like ‘8 May 55, Dermatologists to lunch’ or ‘15 Nov, W.I. Annual Meeting’. Yours would be ‘3 April, Headache’, ‘4 April, Another Headache’.3
My Wife is here. I think she must be terribly bored at home, oh dear.
Em & I went to Oxford last Sat, but I think I’ve told you all that, & about Em’s aplomb in the interview with the Principal. I do hope she goes, I believe she would like it.
Oh Honks I am dying for you next week.
Much love, Debo
There is a Musical Festival on at Buxton this week so I went out of curiosity to hear Barbirolli4 & the 7th Symphony, which is a tune I know. Well – I know now why old ladies queue to get in to the Albert Hall, it is the most shocking thing I ever saw, all that getting worked up in public, in front of the Mayor too. I felt quite embarrassed. Nevertheless J Barbirolli saw me & is coming to lunch on Fri with a few followers.
Darling,
Nature has stopped copying E Bowen’s1 art & we have the weather I imagine more usual, huge white clouds, lots of sun, very pretty but cold. Debo has become the sort of English duchess who doesn’t feel the cold, it is the only drawback to complete pleasure. Eddy2 had a fire all day all through the heat wave. I was with him five days, it was extremely agreeable. He had a cocktail party, Woman was there – I said to a neighbour ‘When my sister comes I know I shall be glued to her because we always are’ & the neighbour said ‘No wonder, she’s so amusing.’ Eddy says everybody adores her & it would be madness for her to go away having made a life here. The Devonshires, par contre [on the other hand], are roundly disliked. Oh dear how funny somehow, what would Jean [de Baglion] say!
Raymond3 corrected my book4 – he is perfectly extraordinary, the eye of a needle. It has gone to the printer now.
I don’t feel so depressed here as I did last time, but all is spoilt by the hanging over of the journey to Muv which is a great deal more taireeboul than I had imagined. Literal torture.
Eddy has seen a London Library book, in which Frederick’s homosexual goings on are described, & in the margin is Ay de mi in Carlyle’s writing – Shrieks! The old fraud, not one word in the Life.5
I shall be in Paris, in dust sheets, for a few days 26 June.
Much love, do write to Isle, N
Darling Honks
I would give a lot for a day or 2 of your weather, there hasn’t been a glimmer of sun for 10 days.
I wonder if you’ve seen the papers, they are full of Hardwick & the death duty deals, I think v. satisfactory for us but sad nevertheless.1
Lucian Freud2 came for the weekend, he seems very nice & not at all wicked but I’m always wrong about that kind of thing. He’s mad on tennis, rather unexpected.
Evelyn Waugh came last week, on his way to Renishaw. He is a crusty old thing, he didn’t actually get cross but one felt he was on the verge all the time. The Wife was here, we were talking in my room when we’d mounted [the stairs] and he kept coming in saying things like ‘I hope there is Malvern Water by my bed, I hope the blinds keep the light out, may I have some lemonade to take my sleeping draught in, has Lady Mersey finished with the bathroom’ & generally making one feel that things weren’t quite right & that it was one’s fault. I thought he had really gone for good when he came back with a look of triumph on his face, & said ‘I’ve looked in the pedestal beside my bed and I thought I ought to tell you the POT IS FULL’. Oh Honks the humiliation, the horror. I was rooted to the bed, couldn’t help in any way, left him & the Wife to deal with it, hid my head in the blankets & was properly put out. Evelyn seemed rather pleased. Oh dear, not what Nancy calls a nice character.
Betjeman3 is in the cottage with Deacon & my m. in law, he is sweet, I do love him. We play tennis. The church v. the laity: him & Deacon v. Andrew & me. Keep writing.
Much frozen love, Debo
Darling Sooze
So I weighed a letter for Mr Cass Canfield1 my publisher yesterday & I’ll put the same stamps on this & we’ll see. I said is Cass short for Cassowary but no, Cass is his name. Really Americans!
Well I wasn’t disloyal a bit with Aranka but she might be called Cassandra, I never knew such an old gloom-pot. She began about how Dinky was certain to have been killed in the earthquake2 so I said people like us are never killed in earthquakes & furthermore only 29 people were, all non-U. I envy her the fun of it. Next day I got a letter from Muv saying she’d slept through it (hard cheese) so I reassured Cassandra on that point. Then there was talk about Russia & I said, ‘You must realize that to us in Europe, Russia & America seem exactly the same, two enormous countries where you can’t get servants & where everything in the shops is machine-made.’ She said I’d got it all wrong & her customers have gracious lives like anything.
Well that’s the end of the paper I note & an extra sheet would mean a rush to the weigher. Ay de mi!
Fond love, Sooze
Darling Honks
V. glad to get yr letter with your plans. Mine are AWFUL, because we are having a sale of furniture at Chatsworth, a thing we have thought of for years but never got further with because we couldn’t till the death duties were fixed. Anyway now we really are going back to the house we have got to make room & there are rooms & rooms piled with furniture which has all got to be sorted, & the sale stuff chosen and the keeping stuff chosen & you can imagine what a task that is going to be.
It is very exciting but I am rather daunted (a) by the amount of stuff & (b) whatever I do people will say is wrong. Isn’t it difficult. If you could see the mountains of rubbish, maids’ washstands with broken snow-shoes from Canada, a walking stick & a smashed deck chair all in one heap, and three rooms with six beds in each all piled to the ceilings with old mattresses like The Princess & the Pea. Three huge cupboards filled with lids only of china veg. dishes, many enamel water jugs of pantomime size, two lorry loads of cream-coloured antimacassars etc etc, as well as about 1,000 incomplete chandeliers, broken carpet sweepers, ditto oil stoves & so on. Anyway you see it’s a task, but at the same time I must see you.
Wife is playing hard to get as usual, but she comes down on the sleeper Mon night so we shall have her for Tues. Please you be there too. Damn everything.
Much love, Debo
Darling Honks
I saw Farve today, he seemed very pleased which was so touching. He certainly looks rather frightening, so thin & small, but he smiled a lot & heard what I said but he gets very muddled, for instance he said he was going to ring the bell & then picked up his lighter and tried to make it work. He hasn’t been downstairs since Sept but Margaret says he can & does shuffle into the bathroom by himself. He sleeps a great deal, & drops off while one is there & then wakes up & smiles & seems pleased to find one there. He said he would like to see Muv, & I think he meant it though like everything he says it sounded vague. I saw him eat his lunch, went & had mine at the pub & went back & sat for ½ an hour.
The upshot of it all is that one feels he can’t live much longer (his breathing sounds
very difficult & queer) & as it obviously still gives him a little pleasure to see one it’s better to go now & not leave it till he is unconscious, & so vague that he would not know who it was.
Margaret was much easier, & told me a lot of things about him, how he writes odd things & she looks at anything that goes in case the receiver gets a shock, she also said (which is obvious) that the doctor told her he might die at any minute.
If Muv goes she must have you or me with her don’t you think so, it’s bound to upset her. I’ll talk to her tomorrow & see what she feels. Margaret is going away tomorrow for two nights, if only one had known that I could have taken Muv then. There is another person there (M’s ladies’ maid I suppose) to look after Farve.
I can’t think of anything else, but I’m so glad I went.
Much love, Debo
1
Darling Debo
Yesterday in answer to an SOS we went over to Woman. Tullamaine is sold but the buyer doesn’t want the house, it is a shop man from Cork, & he suggests Woman stays on. I strongly advised against & anyway could plainly see she really hates it there now & has far too much work to do. Giuditta2 wants them to go near Rome & Woman pretends to agree to this but really she has her eye on Bavaria & Rudi3 (which means throwing off Giuditta). Well I think she would be far happier in Germany where she speaks the language.
The Mitfords Page 29