All love darling, shall see you in London I HOPE, I must be there from Sunday week,
D
Darling,
I don’t know why you think it would be Jebb – I’m quite sure it was not from the sequence of events. The only paper the embassy spoke to (not Gladwyn but Brooks Richards1) was the News Chron. The D. Telegraph got it (the ‘story’) first & when I begged them to they kept it under their hat – then the embassy rang me up two days later & said the News Chron. have got it & intend to publish whether you deny or not as they say they have it from a good source, so I was obliged then to tell the D. T. to go ahead. D. Mail simply copied from the others & must have invented about it being you. Of course they might have got that from Papon.2 There’s no doubt that was the reason. It’s no good being an ostrich about the Fr police – they teased the concierge of a friend of ours simply because you had lunched there one day. Not on this occasion, it was some years ago now.
As my nice friend on D. T. said, the only way to keep it all a secret would have been to knuckle under & go twice a day, but I don’t think that would have been sensible either. In fact the reason it did get out was that I went to the police station (when they first sent for me) with my American publisher whom I had been lunching with, Cass Canfield of Harpers, who insisted on coming. You may say stupid of me, but remember I’d no idea what it was all about. Then he went to London & no doubt couldn’t resist telling. I’m absolutely certain it all had nothing to do with Gladwyn for all these reasons & knowing him as I do. Dreadful nuisance & wildly incompetent of the police I must say, considering you were there all the time. I don’t mean to sound as if I were on the side of these brutes against you but I must stand up for Gladwyn whose fault it certainly was not. If you pursue extreme right-wing politics you must realize that you might be on a left-wing black list. Decca might have been told to report I suppose during Ike’s visit.3 You have much less reason to mind it all than I have & I don’t mind one scrap.
Fond love, N
Woman & I went to the flowers & there are camellias in my room & everything here is heavenly of course. Can’t make out what is happening over the Mosley case.2 Their witnesses either didn’t appear or else didn’t say what it was hoped they would. One man who had signed something in favour of Sir O said ‘I was wild at being interrupted while watching TV – I’d have signed anything’.
There is a ghoulish article about us in Times Lit Sup saying how beastly poor Muv is. Mrs Ham has written up saying the reason we are all mad is hereditary & not that we were brutalized as kids.
Honks is furious with me because D Mail said the French mixed us up. I think she has got a little attack of persecution mania. As I am absolutely innocent – the only paper I spoke to was D. T. who reported it correctly & without mentioning her – I don’t so much mind.
Jean [de Baglion] has got your dresses & hat. They look too lovely.
I saw Bridget3 who is furious with everybody & everything. Really the lividry of London.
Much love, N
Darling Debo:
A review of Decca’s book in Times Lit Sup was a bit too much for me & I’ve written them a letter, they probably won’t print it. The reviewer says that Muv & Farve as seen by their daughters are ‘monsters of dullness & arrogance’ & much more besides, but that Decca is too ‘wise & loyal’ to say so. Well well.1
Muv is marvellous. On Monday she entertained Woman to breakfast off the Irish Mail at 7 A.M., caught a bus to Burford, was met by terrifying Uncle Jack,2 spent the day & night with the uncles & aunts, got a train back next morning arriving in time for her lunch party, & at 3 P.M. was in Court to hear Sir O’s case about the election. I was amazed to see her there, & when I took her home she chose to look at our flat on the way. Vive Dr Hensman. Nancy is about but we have a coolness about you know what. I wrote a fairly horrid letter which might make her think for one moment before she speaks to the whole world & assembled journalists next time.
Apparently Uncle Tommy was very pleased with our round robin. Last night at this O [hotel] we ran into Pat[rick] Cameron, dreadfully sweet. He said Constantia [Fenwick] had rung him up & said ‘It’s really too bad the way they’re building Muv & Farve up into monsters when we know what they were really like’. Wasn’t it nice of her – Pat heartily concurred. He says Farve was the most beautiful & the kindest man he ever knew, & Muv perfect.
Kit hadn’t enough evidence for his case, which of course we knew & in the nature of things he couldn’t have. But he spoke for hours very well, conducting the case himself against QCs very brilliantly & is pleased to have brought it. His ‘opening’ was truly as good as a play.
Well darling I think that’s about all. I see you got a camellia prize.
I do hope you are all loving every minute, & wish we were having a game of Scrabble at Lismore. Ireland has receded into limbo already, as it does.
All love to ALL, Honks
Darling Sooze,
Thanks v. much for prompt answer, with reactions etc. Do keep it up. How about Muck,1 for instance? (In fact, why don’t you stop writing yr. book for a bit, and concentrate on getting reactions to mine?)
The E Standard just rang up from their New York office. They had a cable from London saying Cord said (in Times Lit. Sup.) that the Revereds came out ‘grotesque’ in the book. So, under their prodding, I told them Muv had written to say she liked it and thought it funny, but that she thought there were some inaccuracies in it. They asked what you thought of it, so I said they’d have to ask you that, as I didn’t want to start a long thing of quoting from private letters. So I hope they don’t go and make up a lot of things. The person who telephoned had not seen the Times Lit Sup, but had got a cable giving that one sentence. So, who knows
I fear the Wid’s Arbitration will be adverse, as Muv says she is furious at not being included. A dreadful omission. 16th April. Oh dear I note I did not finish this. It was Benjy’s Easter hol, and we went off to the country for a few days.
Meanwhile, I got the Arbitration, and though v. kind and complimentary for the most part, she really is cross about not being mentioned. That part of her letter is in 3rd person and starts, ‘the writer of this letter’, so Wid-like.
Do write again soon.
Love from Sooze
Dear Miss
Old Vic [Cunard] is awfully ill & thinks he is dying. Anna Maria [Cicogna] assures me he’s not. The deaths of one’s friends are making an interesting study – I note that the idea of the hereafter hovering changes nothing at all. Momo goes on buying clothes, summoning up her last strength for the fittings – Victor is in a perpetual rage. I went up to Asolo where he is, three hours altogether in a hot bus, to be received by a shower of reproaches, didn’t I know it is tiring to see people when you have a bad heart – oh well now you are here you can stay – & then all the gossip of the town larded with various grievances against me dating from about 25 years which he lies there cooking up I suppose. Ay de mi. Not a word of thanks for coming or indeed a civil word of any sort.
Do write. This address is quite serious I promise. Bad weather, no beach & I look so horrid & white beside the other women here.
Fond love, N
Darling Debo:
We had a wonderful time at Bayreuth only far too short, & then Jonnycan & Ingrid [Guinness] & Max & Jean1 went to Salzburg for two more operas, & Max & Jean got back here yesterday.
I won’t bore you with Bayreuth except to tell you that Frau [Winifred] Wagner saintlily gave me her ticket for Rheingold & I made Max go as he’d never heard it, & he was a bit shy of going alone to the Wagners’ box (none of us had a ticket although I tried last Xmas) so when he got back I asked if all went well & it appears he recovered enough to kick an American lady whose head he could reach with his toe through a curtain hanging in front of the box, he did this to punish her for rustling a sweet paper. He heard her whisper to her husband ‘These Germans …’
Nancy was full of Venetian gossip & I was a bit shocked at the way she spoke
of new people ‘Yes, we all liked them’ or ‘We all took against them’, as if she had no mind of her own but was linked to her local Jewish wife.2 She looks very well & has ordered many a dress in Main St & agrees with me what a nice collection it is (at Bettina’s)3 so now darling do come in Oct, I live for it.
I rather enjoyed Peter Quennell’s pretentious book,4 & am now quite bookless, which is very horrid. We go to London for three nights on the 2nd Sept – end of next week. Can’t tell you how perfect Ingrid was at Bayreuth.
All love darling, Honks
Darling Honks
Thank you so much for your letter. So glad you liked the tunes.
It’s coming to an end here. Uncle Harold [Macmillan] leaves today & everyone tomorrow & us on Friday. The second week has not been nearly so jolly as the first, one has to think before one speaks with the oldster here.
I wrote to Nancy so she may have told you, but the first night at dinner I heard Stoker say in the stentorian tones he reserves for the over 50’s, ‘Uncle Harold, Old Moore says you FALL in October year’.1 I must say to give the old thing his due he looked solemnly at the table for a minute & said ‘Yes, I should think that will be about it’. Stoker also said to me when we were alone ‘if one didn’t know who he was one would put him down as a vague moron’.
That’s all I think. Oh for Main St, I can scarcely wait.
WRITE.
Much love, Debo
Darling Honks
What would Nancy have done for her book if it were not for Al, Honks Cooper, Farve, Eddy Sackville-West, me & Sophy?1 I only say that because she’s not inventive, merely a very good reporter. I must say it’s extraordinarily funny in bits, she’s got old Al so perfectly & the Eton boys too for that matter.
Sophy said furiously this morning ‘Why didn’t you call me Gordon when I was a little gurl, why did you go on calling me Edward, why did you’.
Couldn’t answer that.
Today is dread in the extreme, two ghoulish things to make a fool of myself at, then rush to Liverpool to catch the boat for old Ireland.
Haste. Write.
Much love, Debo
Get on
Very well then, I’ve done it. The deformed thumb has turned the pages, all 248 of them. Admit the goodness of completing the task, in record time too.
I can’t think how you do it, the writing I mean, it is so clever. I’ve been shrieking in the train to the livid looks of a dreary carriage full of Business Executives (which is what I long to be). Little did they know what I’d got my teeth into. I’m glad you quoted Old Sophy – she might have thought herself a bit out of it, though I note Edward isn’t mentioned. Stoker says the Eton boys are exactly right which is very high praise from one you will admit. We will draw a veil over Northey, & was glad to note she didn’t see fit to worship anyone’s body.1
I think people will love it, it is so funny & so clever to have brought in the brutes from the other books so people will think they are IN THE KNOW. I expect the Portfolio will benefit like mad, in which case I will give you a list of things Better Than Harpers, but have you noted how Harpers are mentioned as being bought in the Option market literally daily? That’s good I can tell you. I shall hope to see you in Frogland in Oct though I note you will be with Mrs Ham & co. Lucy Freud seems to want to Hog a Week of Oct, with sittings every day & then no promise of the end. This is what it looks like now no hair, no chin, dark yellow (including whites of eyes) but I do admit very like.
So there we are & THANKS for masterpiece, 9
Get on
It’s lovely here, but oh the journey. It’s like an operation, one vaguely forgets it when it’s behind one. The next bit (home) is child’s play as it’s all in one day (the longest day of the year, with the shortest night of the year).
The Wife isn’t too well, bother it all, so we’re going to try & hire a motor boat from Craignure so the start won’t be quite so ghoulishly prompt. She is reading your book and screaming over it, when she’s finished I’ll get her to write a review to you. You are lucky to be so clever, it really is unfair.
Lady Redesdale seems very well, her hands aren’t too bad and she’s only taking one pill a day when the dr said she could have up to three. So she could be three times as well.
Station Hotel Oban is not the place for a long sojourn. I came down to brekker, found the diner full of a Granddad’s tour all smoking (I think there ought to be a rule against it at brekker), stood for what seemed ages, no one showed me where to sit, so I said to a waitress ‘could I have some breakfast?’ She said (without looking up) ‘what are you, are you a resident?’ so I proudly said yes, so she plunged through the swing door into the kitchen (where she was going anyway) & yelled ‘Sandy there’s a resident says she wants breakfast’ as though that was amazing at 9 in the morning. It all makes one very ratty, but it’s so nice here & I think Lady Redesdale is vaguely pleased we’ve come. Marvellous food, lobster beyond anything last night.
I bought two smashing kilts in Chalmers, one is MacLaughlan tartan which I think is OK for me because we had a keeper called it.
Mr Eddy [Sackville-West] came to dinner at Lismore. There are no servants there, except some blissful dailies all aged about eighty, so everything was lying about when he arrived. Because he came so punctually, I wasn’t down to tidy all up & his first words were (very trembly) ‘Secateurs on the mantelpiece, saws on the hall table’. No silver out so no candles at dinner & that ghastly chandelier for light, beating down on our poor eyes & I said ‘it’s the new fashion, a top light’, & he really believed it, dear Mr Ed, & looked slightly pained but didn’t like to say anything.
Are you coming to London for (a) your book and (b) the unveiling of the whatever it is to Farve at Swinbrook? COME & STAY. COME for XMAS.
Much love, 9
Darling Debo
You were so faithful to send the book, here it is. I adored all the bits about Uncle Matthew & Basil, fairly adored the bits about you & the Eton boys & holy David, & loathed all the part about the French. How she must make English people dislike them, most unjust.
Yesterday Max fetched me in the Austin Healey Sprite & drove me to Oxford where Jean had made a delicious middle day dinner. The flat is marvellous, not one ugly thing, & a view over playing fields to real country & a garden with an apple tree. ALL the wedding presents were being used – your car, Desmond’s china, Emma’s Derby ware, Viv’s pressure cooker, Muv’s pink blanket on the bed and (pièce de resistance) Wife’s coffee set – also of course Freddy Bailey’s1 canteen of silver.
Oh Debo, the pathos of the young. Don’t let’s think.
All love darling, Honks
Get on
It will be awfully jolly to have you in London – I will be there all week because of dear little Lucy & his picture.
I saw Honks in London. She’s evidently having an awful lot of headaches. Oh dear.
I had two nice days’ partridge shooting this week, one with that person called Bob Laycock1 whom I’ve heard of all my life & never really met. The truth is that though I worship the bodies of these manly men, viz. Colonel Stirling2 & him, I can’t think of a single thing to say to them & the silences at dinner were quite worrying. I supposed it’s bodies or nothing, but I do like a chat myself.
I took Em to Oxford yesterday. Her room was quite nice until she got into it. I dread to think what it’s like this morning. We took a huge tea. Will it ever be washed up? I rather hope not as I was horrified to see the housekeeper at Chatsworth had sent the very best Crown Derby, oh what an idiot – I don’t like to ask Em for it back so it’s a gonna.
Much love, 9
Darling Honks
I long to hear how yours has been. Ours is breaking up – Wooms left this morning and Muv & Mrs Ham leave tomorrow.
Woman, I think, is mad. Her whole life is dedicated to those dogs. She cooks for them (rice of all queer things, meat of all kinds, brown bread – all the crank stuff), feeds them & takes them out. These three operations are repe
ated in quick succession throughout the day. Their names are fantastic & so is their behaviour. She takes them out before breakfast and their screams would waken the dead. They then come in muddy & get straight on the sofas & she makes no attempt to move them except by speaking very loud to them, which interrupts any other talk which might be going on. But they don’t notice.
Honestly Honks, it’s very odd. She’s not sortable. She spent most of the weekend conjecturing as to whether there would be snow for the journey back. How I wish you & Nancy had been there, how we would have screamed at saga after saga. She was herself with knobs on.
WRITE
Much love, Debo
Darling Debo:
This letter is to complain about Woman. Having bored myself dragging her pictures here & arranged to take them to the bank by having lunch early, she phoned to say would I take them instead to Muv’s – whence I had fetched them the day before. I think it is her will-to-power at work & shall refuse to fall in with her caprices in future. We met at Muv’s for tea, & guess why she’d come up. It was to look for curtain stuff at HEAL’S. Muv said ‘Did you see anything pretty?’ & she replied, in the holy voice used for lizard skin shoes, ‘Oh yes Muv. Wonderful. I’ve chosen a simply wonderful sort of tweedy stuff for all the rooms.’ She added Cecilia Hay1 didn’t seem to have anything of that sort. ‘Nothing lovely Nard.’
She ees wondair.
Today is red letter because I have got a rendezvous with Wife. Did you miss Panorama, R. Kee in fine form.
Dying for you & Miss Maynard.2
All love, Honks
The Mitfords Page 34