The Mitfords

by Charlotte Mosley

Dear Miss

  Having found this piece of rich paper I may as well use it!

  I hope you’re not too sad. I loathe the body of Mr W1 but, as I said to Honks, one has to be careful, knowing what you are like about POWER & most probably he is even now moving into Chatsworth as his Midland H.Q.

  Talking of power, Col was the last person to see poor old Khrushchev who said I’m just off to Moscow to greet the cosmonauts. Pathos.2

  More cheerful subject: the owl. Thought best to leave it, hoping the mother wld come, but after two days it was quite groggy & had fallen over so I forced some raw meat down its throat & went for a walk. When I got back it had disappeared, no doubt to die in a dark corner. I searched as much as I could but the pigeonnier is full of old goat carts & bits of rubbish one can’t move, so I gave up. For more than a week I had that awful guilty feeling wild animals always seem to arouse. I ought to have brought it in & kept it warm & fed it instead of leaving it to a dreadful, long cold death. I woke up in the night & grieved & of course went back many times to the pigeonnier, though I knew it must be dead ages ago. Well yesterday I went & thought I heard something & under my feet an enormous creature the size of a half grown pullet got up & scuttled away among the goat carts. Oh dear what a relief-one had done the right thing for once!

  Well I’ve waffled on too long so goodbye.

  Love, N

  Dear Miss

  I’ve been awful I know about writing but my time for letters is the morning & for some reason every day I’ve had to get up. One day Woman’s golden head was in my bed instead & that was wondair. She brought smoked beef, well you know that leather called biltong which pionéers eat? I gave it as entrée at a luncheon party & saw the people trying to spit it out without me noticing. She said it was so expensive. I longed to ask for my money back.

  Do you know I think you’ll love the Grès-so soft & comfortable. I had a good gander at them yesterday.

  Now I’m off to see our relations at Orsay.

  Much love, N

  Eureka. I’ve found the letters to Muv from us all, in old suitcases in Ches. St. The relief. I thought I’d caused them to be sold with an ancient chest of drawers from the garage. Now they’ll be kept in optimum archival conditions with the rest of the rubbish here. Henderson will be relieved but no one so much as me. I thought I’d lost them.

  Woman phoned this morning, she doesn’t want to come here I can see, so I’ve sort of let her off. Why is she always in such a desperate hurry? I shall never quite understand that.

  COME FOR XMAS OF COURSE WE LONG, but I thought perhaps it was too much of a bind, what Stoker calls. Have a deep think, & if Louis Louis1 is going well throw all to the winds & loom. The room will be there, as I’m waiting to ask Wilson till he is a bit more firmly entrenched.

  Much love, 9

  Only a scribble to feed your flame (letters) as (in order to be so rich) I’m so busy.

  V. odd that the moment one buys something in Paris it turns up at Marks & Spencer & yet how many times when in London have I vainly tried to land some smashing bargain, combing Harrods Dior & Marshall’s Grès in vain.

  I saw yr friend Bobby K1 & wife on T.V. They looked as if they were chewing bits of white paper-’twas their teeth. He said ‘I’m now going to quote er er the pote’ (clearly had forgotten which pote) ‘who said, and I quote, “We must build a better world.”’ Are you needled?

  I’m dreadfully pleased about the letters (Muv’s) just in case I ever wanted to write something about my life in France, not very likely but one never knows. I keep no diary on acc of the huge bulk of letters I write.

  Keep up the correspondence as I live for your letters.

  Love, N

  Xmas. So I come.

  Derleeng,

  What a horrid card showing the age! But I do wish you many happy returns of your birthday.

  Do you remember forty-two years ago on my birthday1 at Asthall when there was such a heavy frost that the wire netting of the hen pens was quite closed with frost sparkles & the sun was shining brightly. Farve gave us all enough money to take the bus to Oxford & lunch & cinema. When we arrived we had ages to wait for lunch, so, as it was icy cold, you insisted on going to the Ashmolean Museum. We were against it as it was costing 6d each & we would not have so much lunch as we hoped. However, we agreed to go as it was the only place to keep warm till lunchtime. Then, to our joy, we met Uncle George in the Museum & he invited us all to a wonderful feast at Fullers! How wise you were to insist on going to keep warm! Yesterday was just such a day but not nearly so cold, I was able to sit out in the sun with the dogs in the garden.

  I so much enjoyed my visit to France & will do it again in the spring; it is best to stay at home at this time of year.

  Much love from Woman

  Darling Honks

  Been in London since Monday & that’s quite enough. It’s odd how very dirty it still is although no one has fires much, I suppose it’s the dreaded petrol. One’s hands are never clean & in spite of sweet Mrs Winchester the house seems v. grubby, it re-looms as soon as you clean it up.

  Stoker has got a friend called Lord Ancram,1 son of Ld Lothian. He went to a party & the announcing person asked his name, he said Lord Ancram, & was announced as Norman Crumb! He is always called this now & friends send him invitations to Norman Crumb Esq. Since Lyndon B Johnson he has added B so he’s Norman B Crumb now, sometimes known as Bread Crumb.

  Much love, Debo

  Darling Debo:

  We are enjoying a general strike, it began last night after dinner. We sat very peacefully by candlelight & I was just able to see enough to struggle with the crossword. We went to a memorial service for poor Charles Saint,1 which was frightfully gloomy. Then I got your letter about Mr Thomson’s dread cremation. What do you suggest exactly? A funeral first & then a cremation? But would there be a grave to throw earth in? I think I will try & get a pigeon hole at Père Lachaise, or would you prefer a plot in Orsay cemetery? What has Naunceling done about all this? I will ask her.

  A long letter from Wooms, did you realize she hasn’t got a fire? I can’t imagine hiring a cot with no fireplace, what misery.

  Naunce is getting excited about the Versailles house-she’s to see it tomorrow.

  All love, Honks

  Darling Honks

  I got yours of the general strike day, what a thrill, on getting home. Shall we get up a Fire For Woman Fund, I can’t bear to think of her huddled in a shawl with ne’er a glimmer & only the two gas rings to cook her one meat ball. Oh the great pathos but, one could say, all her own fault when she has Wonderful Woodfield to repair to.

  I suggest NO CREMATION, just an ordinary common or garden FUNERAL, I mean you have ‘All Things Bright & Beautiful’ & ‘Holy Holy Holy’ and then the stalwarts shoulder you and heave you to the graveyard (where, side by side, lie many a long low grave) & everyone is in floods as you are lowered & a handful of earth is thrown on & the fellow says Dust to Dust and Ashes to Ashes, more floods & bowed heads & then all leave & start screaming with laughter before they’re out of the churchyard. That’s what I’m after.

  If you’ve got to be planted in France I suppose you will have to be fried if it’s a pigeon hole you’re after, but the Orsay cemetery might fit you in whole?

  Happy Christmas keep writing.

  Much love, Debo

  Deerling:

  Didn’t we have a lovely three days, how I hope I didn’t exhaust you too much. Rather lovely here-sun & a huge moon-but that book of S. de Beauvoir about her mother’s death1 made me terribly cafardeuse [gloomy] (a word I culled from it). It is brilliant & terrible, at every moment one is reminded of Muv & our time on the Island & the nurses etc but Mme de Beauvoir had a terrible cancer (though she never knew it) & was in a clinic, in a private room, & yet the utter horror of it passes belief. Even a tough & strong-willed daughter like S. de Beauvoir can do NOTHING when the doctors wish to torment a dying old woman once she is in their power. On the other hand the torments do seem to ha
ve ‘done good’-up to a point-in that after them, & as a direct result of them, she felt ‘better’. Which poor Muv never did, did she. Of course once they’ve got hold of one (which they would if one broke a leg) there’s nothing to be done in the way of choice. Muv would have minded it all much more than Mme de Beauvoir, mentally, because she didn’t want to prolong her life while in spite of all Mme de Beauvoir clung to it. S. de Beauvoir says that this ghastly month where she & her sister took turns at the bedside did save them from remorse, which they wd have suffered from if she’d died suddenly. So true. Apparently the old relations used to say to the mother: ‘Simone est la honte de la famille’.2 Admit.

  Well, perhaps you’d better not read it. It made one think not only of Muv but of one’s own future. One lars [alas]. The longer I live the more I see that ‘le poteau’3 is almost a mercy. What a dreadful Xmas letter! But my poor old mind is full of it.

  All love, D

  Dearest Henny,

  I can’t tell you the swampedness of me. Not writing a book, but various articles. Mainly, one for Esquire Mag about Ronald Reagan,1 an ageing film actor who is being pushed for Governor by the Calif. Goldwaterites. As I know nought of either movie stars or Republican politics, you must say it’s difficult. The thing is supposed to be finished in one week from now and I’m trembling. I went to Hollywood to look into all those matters (R. Reagan, the Repubs etc) which was rather bliss; the writing part is the torture.2

  Have you read The Magic Christian? By Terry Southern. It is a fair scream, v. short, do say if you want it and I’ll send.

  Much love, Yr Hen

  Darling Debo:

  This is a ghoulish O [hotel]. One can’t believe a word the agencies tell one. To be fair: we’ve got nice bedrooms & balconies BUT we are meant to be en pension & the dinner last night was almost Holloway work, accompanied by dread music from many a concealed loud speaker.

  Last night we went down the road & saw the funeral1 at a cinema-rather disappointing, there was only the coffin over & over again & just glimpses of private grief (which I had hoped they wd intrude into). Of course the marching sailors were perfect & one did see inside St Paul’s, but I wanted more of 1,000-year-old Randolph, Sarah & Co.

  It is bitter here after Durban where the water we swam in was 85°. Did I tell you about the sharks in the aquarium, well they are huge & swim about with that dreadful smile on their faces a few inches from one’s face.

  Our Catholic priest rushed in last night; he looks on the black side, just like Mrs Ham used to, is it their religion perhaps? Think what a pessimist Evelyn [Waugh] is.

  Your stiletto wound at the W.I. party made my blood run cold, I think thirteen-stoners should beware of those heels. Oh Debo your letters literally do make my life.

  All love darling, Honks

  Dear Miss

  Once again we come to the day when Fate made a Fool of Muv.1 How well I remember the church bell tolling-the very cattle in the fields moaning & the horror with which one realized that the nursery was to have another furious occupant, shrieking like a cage of parrots. No, no!

  Love, N

  Darling Debo

  I’ve had Max’s friend Robert Skidelsky1 staying & he brought an Indian economist2 with him (a don at St John’s aged 23), lovely looking in a rather Krishna-like way.

  Robert is planning a book about Kit, & Macmillan has given him a big advance on it & S. Times & S. Telegraph are bidding for serial rights. Uncle Harold is supposed to have seen a sample & to have been pleased. Oh Debo what can it be going to be like if all these people commend it? I hope not too dread. Robert is very clever & I’m fond of his company (we chatted for 8 hours non stop yesterday) BUT I can’t abide more wounds for Kit (don’t tell one soul this of course-one will have to put on the usual brave face no doubt).

  What about the budget, a good thing you stocked up wasn’t it. We all listened in the new Citroen with the Indian-our only proper wireless. I’m afraid he was disconcerted by Nancy’s & my screams (all about nothing-you know) but what matter, young people think we are mad so who cares.

  All love, Honks

  Darling Susan,

  Woman arrived here yesterday! She said she is thinking of writing a book because 1) you and I got so reech from same, and 2) she has masses of boxes of paper left over from when she was married to Derek and it seems a shame to let it go to waste. She seems in v. good fettle, I am glad she could come as I haven’t seen her for years.

  So Sue: I think we’ll be in Paris on the 20th April, leave on 22nd, spend night in Le Havre and thence to our ship. How marvellous to see you again for a bit on the way home.

  Love from Susan

  Darling Debo

  I put a white cherry in a strategic position, very strategic, & it has just come out, late like new ones do, & it’s PINK. Really French nurseries are the giddy. They are completely hopeless from beginning to end.

  We went over to lunch with P. Jullian.1 He had got sixteen guests waited on by a juvenile Portuguese, the food sent in from the charcuterie, bitter day, no heat except a smouldering log miles away. One had to keep one’s knife & fork. ALL the frogs in chorus said what a delicious & sympathique lunch it was. I think that’s the right way to treat them i.e. ROUGH.

  All love darling, Honks

  Darling Debo

  You’re on the move I know (Tom used to say that Muv said ‘Hm, Debo’s always rushing off somewhere’). I am static. Kit is rushing off to yet another discussion on telly, but I’ve given up faith in it ever being shown.

  I’m sure I begged you to read the Picasso book,1 it is one of those books one lives in. I can see why he minds so passionately, it’s partly the give away of all his magic & superstitions & partly the exposure of his methods with dealers-so clever the way he hots them up but of course maddening to have it all published. As to ‘love’ I doubt if he minds, each new lady obviously thinks she can tame him. Anyway he’s 83.

  Nicky [Mosley]’s novel Accident is very good & I believe you & Andrew wd enjoy it – much his best & one gets inter-ested in what will occur. I note it’s in its second edition.

  Do try & come over some time with the little gurl, I do so die for her.

  All love darling, Honks

  1

  Dereling,

  Debo is looking too lovely, she sits on the lists2 like a broody hen & the mobiles [eyes], fixed on a far horizon, show that she is only half here.

  Woman is wondair. She distributes her favours among supplicating courtiers all longing for one night at least. You know, I think we have a bad effect on her. I heard her deeply discussing Goethe with Raymond [Mortimer] last night, Maltese architecture, Napoleon at Elba & many another topic. With Debo there is much talk of a sauce for trout with finely shredded ham, in fact she is Universal. We think of buying the hotel here & running it with my brains & her brawn.

  I’ll write v soon –

  Darling Honks

  I’m here, summoned yesterday by Cake to go to the Flower Show1 with her yestreen. Her minion phoned Chatsworth at 11 A.M. for one to be at hers at 5 P.M., so a good deal of looking sharp had to be done, but I’m v. glad I did because I re fell in love with her. She really is superb at her own type of superbery. The P[arker]-Bowles, Salisburys & about twenty other semi drear hangers on & us assembled in the Clarence Ho drawing room & she made an entrance with one hand up saying ‘Chelsea Again!’ as though it was something of a surprise.

  Bobbety2 was v. fine over Booty’s3 buggery bill, he said he was intellectually in favour but found the whole subject ‘so vewwy distasteful’ that he wasn’t going to vote. He said the speakers boomed things out which he didn’t care to think about & when a stentorian voice behind him said ‘Hear hear’ it made him ‘vewwy nervous’.

  The lilies were v fit at the show, ditto the strawberries. The giant everything was a bit too giant but the dwarf dahlias are nice & so on. I won’t bore you further. I wore my pink dress & coat & rather rued the day, the evening rather, as NO FIRE at Cake’s dump & you k
now how that dress has no back therefore no underclothes & I thought it looked a bit rude to keep the coat on.

  Much love, Debo

  Darling Debo

  We had a huge (for us) dinner & Derek came with new friend & I had put names because there were two tables, & Naunceling announced that Derek & friend had been to Geneva & married each other, so I put Mrs Jackson, & Debo they’re not married. Anyway, I flew down & removed her card but I’m afraid the fact that this v. circumstantial rumour is whizzing about might sort of force him into it. As Geoffrey [Gilmour] truly says he always marries when the whole thing is coming to an end, & then regrets it, & then is liable for another £5,000 a year pension. She’s1 not too bad, makes vaguely left-wing remarks & is apt to sit by herself in a corner with a mag which is disconcerting for the assembled revellers. She is early to bed (10.30 P.M.) & cooks his dinner. For a multi he lives in a dreadfully uncomfortable way.

  All love darling, Honks

  Dearest Hen,

  Here’s a story (true) about the President, told by somebody who was there. A salary increase had been granted to the White House advisors, or staff, or whatever they’re called. So one of them said to L. Johnson, ‘Thanks awfully for the increase. We were wondering if it could be made retroactive to January?’ Johnson answered (but you’ve got to imagine his voice, Hen, which you can, because you’ve met him, haven’t you?) ‘Ah am the President of the United States. Ah am the leader of the Free World. And you ask me a chicken-shit question like that’

  There is an Eliz. Arden slimming and beauty resort here where Mamie Eisenhower goes, costs $700 a week. One of the mags wants to send me there for a couple of weeks so I can do a tease on it (article) for them, so I think I shall, prob. in the autumn.1 Isn’t there a place called Tring or something in England, along the same lines? Do you know anything about it, anyone who has been there, or could you inquire? Do, Hen, it would be a help. I promise to sing ‘All Things Bright And’ at yr. funeral, if you do.