Antony Head1 came to dinner in London last night, & Stavros Niarchos.2 We had herrings, aren’t they marvellous food & banned by Mrs Canning because of cheapth.
It’s quite nice here, 45° which one can’t complain of.
Honks. Uncle Alec3 & Col Tattersall. Oh Heavens how it does one in, think of the endless days & nights stretching out till death. I took Aunt Weenie. We found Id there which was an unexpected treat, she knows it all so well so one meekly followed to Col Tattersall’s room & oh dear the bitter pathos, almost too much. Id said you know he never has a letter or a visitor. When we entered there was a woman there whom Id seemed to know, I asked after who it was & she said ‘oh it’s Mary, she used to be a cleaner here & now she comes in once a week to write his letters’. Uncle Alec shares a table at meals with three others NONE OF WHOM CAN SPEAK. He said ‘yes it is rather depressing’.
It seems there is a matron in command who must have a sort of power complex, forcing these good men to do what they don’t want & refusing Uncle Alec a comfortable chair for his poor leg at meals because it makes the dining room look untidy. It seems unbelievable & the food is ‘not too clever’. One can imagine what that means. They have rows with a man who contradicts & is vilely rude to all – the only one who is not deaf so he yells out against all he hears when the deaf ones have visitors. This man was accused (when asked to pass the salt) of NOT BEING A GENTLEMAN. Uncle Alec says you see he was a Sapper & well dear child of course etc etc. Surely they ought to have a man in charge, not a matron. A. Head is getting at the War Minister (no longer Profumo) about it, my goodness I do hope they make a change.
Just been to look at the big diner. There are nineteen human beings working in there, two gilders, many a carpenter, four people putting the stuff on the walls, electricians by the handful, two daily women & so on. Anyway it adds up to nineteen & I can’t wait for the complete result next week.
Maud,4 with very long face, ‘They’ve made a terrible mistake with the new sheets’.
Me ‘Oh have they Maud, what sort of mistake?’
‘They’ve put an Earl’s coronet on them. Well I’ve heard of people giving up their titles but I’ve never heard of being reduced from a duke to an earl’. She was properly affronted.
Don’t learn to Rook while you’re away. I’m sure we ought to buy shares in cigar makers, twill soon be all the rage. WRITE.
Much love, Debo
Darling Honks
A v.v. quick line to say the sad sad news that Mrs Ham has died.
She died quite unexpectedly in the night having been quite well. The maid found her in the morning. Oh what a huge slice of our lives goes with her. Goodness won’t we all miss her. I phoned Nancy, for her to tell Madame Costa as Monica was v. worried about her hearing about it.
I might go to the funeral. I’ll hear what the arrangements are tonight. We are all so sad about it. I’m v. v. glad though that she came for that ten days such a short time ago & was so cheerful all the time here. Also so glad that she didn’t have that awful drawn out struggle like Muv.
Great haste.
Much love, Debo
Dereling
Oh Mrs Ham isn’t it unbearable. All the friends here had the same reaction: pas possible! & it’s just what one feels. I haven’t told them she was found on the floor & have warned Monica not to. Mme Rödel had had a letter written the day before saying she was sick all the time-never should she have been left alone at night. No doubt she would have died anyhow, but still! Mme Costa is sort of fussing as it is & I hope to goodness she never finds out. I wonder if Monica will have any remorse or if really her heart was turned to total stone as regards her mother in early youth.
It’s raining now & no doubt will do so for another 4 months.
Love, N
Darling Debo
Thank you darling so much for telling about Mrs Ham. I had a quite incomprehensible letter from Nancy, I mean it could have meant Mrs Ham had had a stroke. Then she wondered whether Monica felt remorseful-well-between you & me I think somebody else might feel a bit remorseful too.
Mrs Ham did so ADORE her visit to you, oh Debo how thankful I am you did that. You and Andrew have made simply all the difference to her for about 10 years. From my own point of view (because I enjoyed it so much) I’m glad she came to the Temple. Strangely enough I wrote to her this morning. I shall miss her terribly.
There’s a hateful gale here today but heavens I do feel well. I rushed to the town looking for a few Penguins & found a few. Oh it’s too sad about Mrs Ham. All the same, her death much less difficult than Muv’s death-I see you say the same. Do send any obituaries, I’ll send them back. Perhaps Julian Huxley1 or Duncan Grant will do it?2 If not do make Andrew.
All love, Honks
Darling Debo
I do feel thirty years younger at least since being here-the sun shines all day. 84° in shade but so dry that one never feels hot, or at least never sticky, a pool to swim in & all round a garden with avenues of enormous hibiscus, & jasmine scenting everything, & huge moon at night & no shawl needed. Even chatting is catered for because I saw an elderly gent examining a tree & thought if this weren’t S. Africa I should think I was seeing Cyril Connolly. Well, it was. His mother lives somewhere here & he’s worried about her & came down to see her. He & we almost have the sun mattresses to ourselves because the average age in the hotel is 100
This hotel is a complete ivory tower where one is unconscious of what Kit calls question A. The servants are Indian and ideal. As far as the real world goes there is Geen Toegang (No Admittance). All the centenarians are English colonels & admirals, it is like Careysville 1 forty years on. They look askance at us but one or two have spoken to me which one rather dreads because (as Kit says) the hotel is like a liner. It is at times like these that it pays to be a pariah. I’ve got a truly marvellous book of vast length-the third volume of Simone de Beauvoir’s memoirs,2 which I live in.
All love darling, Honks
Darling Honks
I was so pleased to get yr letter of 28th this morning & to hear you are feeling thirty yrs younger & I do hope you don’t look thirty yrs younger, that would be most annoying.
Uncle Alec haunts me. I went to see him again two days ago, he is so good & so uncomplaining & oh what the days must be like there, two or three visitors a week one of whom is Pussette1 who upbraids him throughout, otherwise no one to talk to because his three table mates can’t speak. He could go & call on poor Col Tattersall but there is a hill in the passage & U. Alec can’t do that without help & he won’t ask a nurse as he says they are so busy. But it is the petty indignities foisted on them by the matron that he minds.
As luck would have it I sat next to a marvellously sweet soldier at the Australia Day (yes Honks) dinner, Field Marshal Ld Slim.2 So I tired him with the tale & begged him to do something. Of course the important thing is it shouldn’t come from U Alec or he wd be tormented (& furious with me of course) but I think I can trust Slim. Anyway I’ll enlarge if anything comes of it. Sorry to go on but I really am haunted.
I keep picking up a pen to write 1000 things to Mrs Ham. It doesn’t sink in that she’s no longer there, it’s too sad.
Woman has gone to Zurs to get out of the fog. She took her dogs on a round of nightclubs the first night & they were ‘much admired & didn’t go to bed till 2.30’. Well I do hope she hasn’t gone completely mad. She is meant to be coming here this month but she is making fearfully heavy weather of it as per & ‘might be able to fit in a day or two’, that sort of talk.
Is Cyril C being NICE?3
Being a pariah has lots of advantages, as I know in Ireland.
Darling Honks
If you get another gold nugget in the shape of an English paper you will note the unnatural warmth in these parts. 53° yesterday at home & sun all day. Sophy & I went for a terrific walk on Calton in sun & breeze, I said ‘Stop & listen to the larks’. She said ‘I know you like larks – I like the “Hippy Hippy Shake”.’
&nb
sp; Monica has dropped a weeny cardboard box of letters from Nancy & me to Mrs Ham. I will see if there are any from you in it & salvage same from prying eyes (including mine. I’m not going to look at Nancy’s in case of little jabs one wouldn’t like to see-she can have them when she looms.)
WRITE. When are you coming home?
Much love, Debo
Darling Honks
This is a good headline from the Cork Examiner isn’t it, they sound so menacing.
GROWING HORDE OF UNQUALIFIED ELECTRICIANS
So nice here, bitter cold outside but my dear good Wife has made a monster effort re the inside & the drawing room is boiling.
I went to see Billy Flynn1 in Mallow hosp. on the way here, Honks it was too sad, he’s obviously dying & the awful thing was I couldn’t hear what he was saying, he struggled to tell me something & I just nodded my head in an idiotic sort of way like one had to with Muv. He is a terrible sight, one side of his face is hugely swollen & his arms are as of a skeleton, & yet two weeks ago he was gaffing fish. I was in floods almost at once of course, so stupid, & the matron said we get used to it but of course it’s much worse for the relations, so I suppose she thinks he is my brother. It was so sad, I loved him as did everyone. I hope he dies soon, he’s so miserable.
Much love, Debo
Darling Debo:
Did I tell you the Independent telly came, ten people, spent two nights in Paris, hired cars to come down here etc, went off saying how sorry they were I should not see the programme. Well Kit went over a day earlier than he meant to, to SEE himself, & phoned after it last night to say the interviewer (a man called McGee) had telephoned ½ an hour before the programme (This Week) was to begin to say that ‘high-ups’ had seen the film & refused to allow Kit to appear. I must say I am seldom surprised but this time I WAS. He was simply answering questions about his ideas, nothing oratorical or persuasive & the questions were quite hostile, so the interview was if anything loaded against. They simply smother him completely, & yet libel him in private (i.e. the Egyptian tale) so one cannot say they entirely ignore him (!). They must have spent a lot of their horrid money I’m glad to note.
I wish you could see Jerry & Maurice & me painting the railings. The comments of passers-by vary, we’ve got one fan but most of them say ‘you’ll never finish that’. Well, we don’t mean to, we are going to do some more in the autumn. Ha ha.
Any hope of a visit?
All love darling, Honks
Darling Honks
Thanks for yours. The telly people & the result-it is incredibly mysterious, who are the high ups who stop all every time, it is very very odd indeed.
IF YOU REALLY MEAN IT RE A VISIT I could come the weekend of 10th May. Honks if you really do mean it, are you sure? Think on it & let me know.
Would we dare ask the Fr Lady if I could have the same dress as she got at Patou, different colour of course, but to me it seems the perfect dress. Then, if she allows, they could start it more or less as though for her & I could try it when I loom. I would order the coat as well (which she didn’t). Perhaps dark brown would be nice-hers is pale brown. Then I could have a cream velvet beret from Lanvin & could dismiss clothes from my thoughts for years (well weeks anyway). Do send yr thoughts on all these conundrums.
Poor old Billy Flynn died yesterday. Can’t think how he held on to life since Friday but we know how difficult it is to die.
When we were at Derreen, I banged the side of the car on a gate post & I suppose the wing just touched the wheel which I didn’t realize. When we’d been going a bit Sophy said ‘I hear bells & cymbals, yes bells & cymbals’. Rather a poetical description of the scraping noise, admit.
Much love, Debo
1
Get on
I wonder what you’re at and in fact where you are.
Tig has got a baby thrush, she’s been its mother for nigh on three weeks & it’s the most fascinating object I ever saw. It worships Tig who is pale from digging up worms.
Decca seems fit. Can’t remember if I’ve saga-ed to you or Honks re her. She’s made £35,000 out of the book2-money from strange places like Finland is still pouring in. Ann F[leming] & I collected some left-wingers for lunch for her, R Kee, Woodrow Wyatt,3 Tony Crosland4 (who of course didn’t come-hangover), Sir J Rothenstein (because it was at the Tate & we couldn’t get a table without his help). I hope she quite enjoyed it. Woodrow asked her if she was a communist. She didn’t say yes, she didn’t say no, she didn’t say stay, she didn’t say go.5 She muttered something about the Party being in a bad way in California. He pressed on like he does but the answers were most non-committal, isn’t it inter-esting. I thought she’d given it up but I wouldn’t be at all sure now. She seems to be quite enjoying it all here.
I hope you find all fit at home.
I wish you could see the thrush.
Much love, 9
Dear Miss
Will you ever get this? I feel most fearfully worried about Honks. I went down yesterday-she’s in bed with a sort of flu – & was simply appalled by her appearance. I’ve never seen her look like that. It seems she has almost non-stop headaches & she had a temp of 102. This morning she’s no better & I’m off there again. The worst of it for me is that going there means ten minutes of her-because she gets sort of over excited & I don’t want to tire her-then luncheon, & till the train goes, with him. Oh dear poor old thing you know I can’t like him. Naivair-that doesn’t matter. I would ring you up in spite of my well known meanness plus the struggle-it’s more that really. But you are in the Congo I gather or at least the jungle. Ring me up if you can when you are back-if they haven’t eaten you.
Oh dear oh dear I feel in a fuss I wish you were here. He doesn’t seem the least bit worried. What are these bad pains in her head? It can’t be right but what really upset me was her appearance.
Fond love, N
P.S. As for work all I can say is HA-HA.
Dear Miss
I’ve taught Decca about poor little Jessie so rich1 – took her off to Dior &, by dint of whispering so rich from time to time forced her to get a v. pretty dinner outfit, plus cloqué coat, I mean a coat not a jacket to go with it. I had to prod like mad when she heard the price (under £200) but now she’s awfully pleased-not sure whether she’ll tell Bob the price though! It was such fun. I did wish you’d been there, as you generally are!
I’ve got to stay here & see a boring publisher on 1st so will go back to Fontaines 2nd, Decca leaves 3rd, so it fits in. She seems to have found quite a lot of our letters to Muv oh good. She’s being so nice & SO rich.
As I see you’re in the Bonny I’ll finish this another time. 26th I took yr Hen to lunch with Col at the ministry. I think she enjoyed it. Bob was lunching with some Cuddums wasn’t that a mercy! He’s so boring I wonder if she longs to be a widow but then I always wonder that! I mean about practically everybody over forty. Xian Fouchet2 was there, he has got a Sophy aged 7 who said to her mother when I marry I would like to marry Papa but of course it’s not a very good idea to marry a divorced man. Gen de G said he could see she was going to be a real femme du monde-!
Write here, it only takes a day longer & I’m not sure when I return.
I think that’s all.
Fond love, N
Dear Miss
I’ve just got yr Xening letter.1 Faithfully stayed on here to see the end of yr Hen who has gone to try & find her little boy in the Midi somewhere.2 She has been so nice. Oh dear, I regard her as Muv’s greatest failure, she is such a clever person & completely uneducated so that one keeps running into a wall when talking to her. It’s a shame & at the root of all the troubles of course.
I took her to lunch with Col & when sitting us down he said ‘the Hon here & the Rebel here’ which I thought WITTY.
I gather from Honks that you will be staying here 28th-2nd & have booked you a room with use of bath is that right? I’ll come up for the occasion, all agog.
Oh dear people are streaming back from their hols &
all is much less nice. This house is divine when one’s alone in it-I sit writing & baking in the courtyard.
I shall wait here for some London Library books I’ve sent for & go down to F[ontaines] at the end of the week I think & then I hope not to move again until you come.
Much love, N
Very well then THANK YOU for ALL the nice things, yr bed & board (soup, rec [chicken], Gloria1 – all) yr goodness in trudging the streets day after day in the week of The Great Taxi Hunt, for not pushing Bettina [Bergery] out of the window at the 2nd fitting, & for generally making it excessively jolly. I ADORE coming to Mr Street.
Sophy & Maud seem to be fairly loving each other, I mean very. S is doing Scripture (for the first time this term) & had to draw Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden for homework. The odd thing is both A & E are wearing pink jerseys and green skirts & when I suggested Adam might have trousers I was set upon & told trousers weren’t invented then & hadn’t I ever done Scripture? She’s also doing Boadicea-says she knows what she looked like because of the pictures. It is unfair, I never did Boadicea,
Stoker is off to Oxford next week, he’s looking forward.
I know I owe you for Stamps & Buses. Sorry.
Much love & thanks from bottom of heart, 9
The Mitfords Page 40