The Mitfords

by Charlotte Mosley

  Love to Sophy and so on. Was she at the dance?

  Yr. loving Hen

  Darling Debo:

  I knew where I was this morning, when I said to the maid who brought my breakfast ‘Can I have a newspaper?’ And she said ‘Indeed you can not, there’s a strike, and the gravediggers are striking too.’ So no lovely Irish Times & Cork Examiner, & not even a list of films to be had, & it’s pelting with dread rain out there on the Green. I saw a woman in a cotton dress, white plastic mac & SUNGLASSES this morning-a real bit of Dublin.

  Kit is at the Dr, & tomorrow is the operation,1 it is really VERY weeny but I feel worried in case it hurts & in case his poor face is swollen & I do feel at his age getting better takes longer.

  All love darling and to Sophy, Honks

  Dear Miss

  I think I’ve got all your letters now-some forwarded from Mark’s.1 Still no real news of Eddy’s death.2 Raymond [Mortimer] never speaks of it. I mind dreadfully; also, though this is a minor & selfish consideration, I feel another source of fresh air has gone &, when Fontaines collapses, it will be diesel diesel diesel all the year round.3 After what happened to T Wragg MBE4 I shall be far too frightened to go back to the Old Land even if kindly invited. I fondly believed that the Northern part of the island was Good. Ay de mi.

  I fear young men are not what they were in my day. I note that Stoker now intends to hang about the European fleshpots instead of sternly crossing deserts. (Sorry to say I am entirely in favour of this change.)

  I worry about Alphy & also about Lidi [Clary] who looks quite desperate-I’m sure she thinks her Love will soon depart. Also they haven’t got a servant, so, ill & unwell as he is, they must drag out twice a day to a restaurant.

  No beach today as we are to lunch with Holy St Cini. No beach tomorrow because Raymond discovered I’d never been to Padua & he disloyally told Anna Maria [Cicogna] & they gave me such cruel looks I’ve got to go. From now on I’ve SEEN EVERYTHING & been everywhere-within reach at any rate. Then the weather will spoil: We know as Brando5 says. It’s too divine at present. Oh why aren’t you here? Furious of.

  About my will. I wonder if I could make a sort of trust for my indigent friends to be administered by you? I note that Mark [Ogilvie-Grant] will be far from rich if his job with Shell comes to an end. Then there’s Alph if he survives one. Colonel is nice & rich now with his new post6 which doesn’t depend on a certain Govt being in power & which is permanent. You see one’s friends have such ups & downs, such sudden changes of fortune.7

  Yes I can’t do Decca’s caskets any more. She has certainly acquired a sort of heavy handedness from living too long among those savages. She soon sharpens up when with one, however, the dear thing. Oh when oh when do we meet?

  Fondest love, N

  Darling Debo:

  Just got yours about the triumph of Easter Bonnet,1 I do know the excitement of it as it happened to me once (with Pilgrim, my Irish wolfhound). I led him round & he got 1st in a huge class at Crystal Palace. The other leaders were in black kennel coats & I was in black velvet ’twas GHOUL. I didn’t know about the proper way to dress, but in all other respects a day of days.

  Apparently all the couture people are really puzzled by Courrèges2& why he has got workrooms but no collection, & Bettina asked [Antonio del] Castillo who thinks it’s because his boyfriend has left him & he’s having a crise de dépression nerveuse (‘Ah oui’) & went on to say when that happened to Balenciaga he was just as sad but he did make ‘une collection de veuve, toute en noire’3-(Ah oui’) aren’t they what Muv would call a set.

  All love darling, Honks

  Darling Debo:

  Debo, we have had a lucky escape (between you, me & d. post). Julian Slade1 is making a musical comedy out of The Pursuit of Love, & Naunceling phoned many a time, & once she said I’ve changed some of the dialogue but of course I can’t change the lyrics. Then she said U. Matthew had a song beginning ‘I do want my girl to be a lady’ (I think it was that) so I SCREAMED with horror & said ‘imagine the kitchen-sink critics who are already so unfair to Slade; what a field day they will have, not only about him but about the poor old aged, decrepit Mitford “girls”’. Well, she saw, & she’s changed lady to moron, which is funny (& true). Of course there may be dreaderies left in but I told her about Ken Tynan2 & she said the words ‘Ken Tynan’ to him & he went white to the lips, so I do think I managed to frighten what Patrick Guinness calls ‘the both of them’. She says it’s very funny now & I’m sure it is & lovely if she made a little fortune so we can (I think) R.I.P.

  The horror of Los Angeles,3 I don’t suppose you bother with telly at Bolton but it really has been awful. Rather odd they all shot at each other for 4 days & there are only 32 people killed. The really dreadful thing is that obviously having a vote isn’t going to make any difference to unemployment, & the more advanced America becomes the less will the blacks be needed in industry. There was an intelligent Negro who could speak French interviewed on our telly-one felt a sort of despair because there’s no solution.

  Now here’s another tale for you alone in fact darling please burn this. Marie-Zéphyre4 has had a motor crash in S of France & Naunceling heard of it from Mme Costa & said, amid shrieks of laughter, ‘They’ve cut her ear off & Mme Costa says “c’est tellement dommage”.’5 This gave me a sleepless night & how can one laugh about such a thing. Anyway it’s not true, I just got a letter from Doodie6 & she (M-Z, I mean) has had stitches in her ear & has got many a gash but nothing terribly bad. I do hope it will make her more careful. When we saw her the other day I was shocked by her sort of tough don’t care attitude but I suppose her mother drives her mad.

  All love darling, Honks

  Darling Debo:

  We were in Paris on Wed & I went to see Naunceling & Kit came to fetch me & suggested she come down for the night & she did! And was at her VERY nicest & we had such laughs, you can imagine. She went back last night after a boiling day by the pool. I thought over her seeming heartlessness (M-Z’s ear) & decided it’s not heartlessness but a sort of reflex she has to sorrows (& which we all have, but in less degree). For example she says that one day at the Lido they were talking about motor smashes & she said ‘Yes, like Ly Linlithgow’ & Alphy gave a cry ‘What? Not Doreen!’ (or whatever Ly Linlithgow’s name was) & Nancy said, ‘So I began to laugh & the awful thing was everybody laughed, & you see poor Alphy had no idea Ly L. had been killed & in fact she was his oldest & greatest friend’. Debo, can you IMAGINE such a dread scene, in fact Dolly Costa’s ear is nothing to it (& in fact thank goodness the ear is all right but for a stitch or two). Naunceling realized the beach thing with Alphy was terrible (though I don’t think she realized HOW terrible!) but she simply can’t help laughing.

  Yesterday morning a young man came to demonstrate a new sort of vacuum cleaner, a perfect bore as we don’t need one but we felt sorry for him, anyway Nancy & I became weak with laughing & so did Jerry [Lehane] and the man, it was a mad scene, in the end I said ‘we MUST go’ (to an imaginary rendezvous) just to put a stop to it.

  I’m reading a funny book about French people 60 years or more ago. Comtesse Greffulhe was the great beauty & Montesquieu read a poem he had written to her beauty ending ‘beautiful lily who looks with your black pistils’ & Mme Greffulhe turned to her sister & said ‘Tout à fait juste, n’est-ce pas Ghislaine?’1

  Well darling there’s no news so there we are.

  All love, Honks

  Dereling,

  I dined last night with Robert Morley1 & six young male friends of Abby, his fat sweet daughter, who restored my faith in the Old Land. They had flowered waistcoats but short hair & were clean.

  I worry about old Robert, he is so fat & looks so ill. Nobody makes me laugh like him & although wicked to work with, in private life a sort of angel. I asked about the Redl play,2 is it really so indecent? ‘Well darling, there are two scenes of men in bed together.’ Do tell Alphy.

  I shall now snuggle under the bedclothes to get
warm enough to dress. Ay de mi.

  Love, N

  There’s a new word, possibly crag, for men dressed as women. Robert describes arriving in Hollywood for The Loved One3 & being told to go to the costumier.

  ‘But I’ve got all the clothes I need.’

  ‘It’s for that scene where you’re in crag.’

  ‘Oh no darling, if there’s any question of that I’m going home.’

  ‘Oh but it’s our best scene-you are pillion on a motor bicycle, in crag.’

  ‘Not me. The idea!!’

  He says the film is so revolting several people have been sick on seeing it. I smell the influence of Decca in all this.

  Dearest Hen,

  Benj got back and scrammed again, off to his college (here in America, this time). Thank goodness you warned me of the beard, I should have fallen out roaring otherwise. He told lots more about his time with you which he adored, and he was fascinated by Sophy. Him telling reminded me of a toy I’m getting her any day. People are always asking me to join committees against the wicked toys they’ve got here (like model H-bombs, etc) but I can’t bear to join because I know I should have rather longed for a model H-bomb if they had been about when we were little. Anyway, the wickedest toy of all, and the one that has been written up and condemned bitterly all over the US, is a real guillotine (real model of, anyway) and a toy person with toy head that comes off when the knife drops, and a colouring set with red for blood etc. So be expecting it, but don’t tell Sophy for fear the campaign has been successful and they’ve stopped selling them.

  Do write,

  Yr. loving Hen

  Darling Debo:

  I must tell you my Woman saga while ’tis fresh in my mind. Well, she is absolutely monarch of ALL she surveys. She is Queen in Grüningen & receives bows & smiles from every door & window as she pounds along screaming at the Elles.1 She showed me a cottage she craves & pointing to a door in hushed tones, ‘Nard! There’s a cow in there’. In her sitting room, a vast china stove, fed from the kitchen with wood. Ladder to bedrooms. ‘I’ve insured myself against accidents hurrying down to answer the telephone.’ In Zurich she is Empress. All her friends are multis & wherever one goes one hears the cry, ‘Pamela! How vonderful to see you!’ She feeds one on heavenly soup out of her head.2 It is paradise.

  All love darling, Honks

  Dearest Hen,

  What an utterly sweet grandchild, I was so glad to get the photo of her.1 She looks to me a touch like Dinky at that age, same round cheeks and forehead.

  News: there isn’t much. I did go to Hawaii for a week. Honolulu is a v. square place, but I loved being with the film folk. I was staying with J. Andrews,2 in a lovely house practically in the sea. The supposed reason was that I was to do a profile of her for an American mag. called Redbook. The ed. of Red said they were interested in the profile because Julie A. is one of the few people in Hollywood who is not a neurotic but is a sound, wholesome type with feet on ground etc. Well naturally it turns out she is in deepest psychoanalysis, madly unhappy-in fact what’s known as neurotic. So I’m hoping they will gradually forget all about the profile.3

  Hen did you know that Hawaii is the same place as the Sandwich Islands? Such a disappointment, as I’ve always dreamed of going to the Sandwich Isles.

  Hen the President. Did you see that absolutely revolting picture of him showing his gall-bladder scar? One person wrote that she hoped he wouldn’t be operated on for piles. He is such a fright in all ways, and those awful Birds.

  Much love, Yr Hen

  Get on

  Opening of Parliament was as beautiful (& comic mixed) as ever BUT I’m sorry to say the peeresses smelt. Can’t vouch for the further ones but the duchesses were definitely high. Do you think they had rolled? Surely not, I mean where could they have found anything to roll in?

  Their huge & dirty diamonds surmounted their huge & dirty dresses, & as for the Life Peeresses their wild grey hair had been specially tousled for the occasion, talk about dragged through a hedge backwards, but where did they find the hedge? All very mysterious.

  I sat next to one (whose hubby is High Steward) Sally Westminster.1 I was telling her about my m. in law & her nerves on state occasions, how she has to have a fix etc etc, so she said ‘well anyway I hope she enjoys the ride here with my husband’-I screamed & said ‘you don’t mean to say they’ve put her on a horse?’ but all was well, ’twas a coach she was speaking of.

  Evangeline’s2 hair is like something out of Lear now, I’m afraid she’s lost her sense of proportion. (Beautiful & nice as ever though.)

  Went to dine with Ann Fleming last week & sat next to Peter Wilson3 whom I’d never met before, I worshipped, specially when they were speaking of what made them all cry & he said fox terriers & chloroform. Well of course …

  Much love, 9

  Darling Debo:

  ’Twas a thrill to get your letter & the photo of you as Tiger Lady, it obviously IS you & may account for the rarity of letters one gets, I knew you were leading a double life.1 I remarked to Naunceling that just as after a bus strike in London people get so used to walking that when the buses begin again they’re empty, so your visit to S. America2 has set up a horrid régime of rare letters. We suffer from it here she & I.

  Last night I dined with Geoffrey [Gilmour] & rushed down here in time to hear the programme3 about Kit. Bob B[oothby] was very praising about his gifts & said he was the greatest parliamentary speaker he ever heard except Ll George.4 P Toynbee monstrously unfair about Olympia meeting, he did not even say (as he did in his book) that he bought a knuckle duster to go there with.5 Masses of the reds had – & used-razors, even on women. After all the beatings-up they are supposed to have suffered they could not muster one doctor or hospital to say they had an injury of any kind, whereas Kit’s supporters had to be sewn up galore. Oh well, who cares. The other stupid & untrue thing is to pretend that after that Kit’s meetings dwindled, whereas the one at Earl’s Court was much bigger & took place five years after Olympia. Also the lights turned on hecklers were not in Kit’s control but belonged to independent cinema people. He wanted to go on speaking & it was a great annoyance. All the same they did admit it was a patriotic movement, & that when the war began, although he always spoke for peace, he told his followers never to do anything to hurt their country (& in point of fact they all rushed to join up & the first airmen killed over Germany were members). It is all too sad to think about. Hope you’ve skipped thus far.

  My plans are the following: to London Thursday 9th Dec & back here Sunday 12th. Any hope? It is so dreadfully disappointing not to come up to you. I’ll eggsplain when I see you. The fact is, while I was listening to that wireless last night I felt the unfairness to beloved Kit has been so monstrous that any little thing I can do to please (or not tease) him is worth while. You have always been wonderful to him.

  All love, Honks

  Darling Honks

  Yes I know I’ve been DREAD re letters. I fear you’re right-it is this shooting, you see one is whacked ½ the time, fearfully over excited for a good deal more, on the road for the rest, plus trying vaguely to see to things here, viz. the 5 new rooms being decorated & furnished, 4 new Shetlands (not much decorated but very sweet) coming this A.M. from the bonny land, the W.I. annual meeting, 12 souls coming for the weekend, Mrs Canning saying she can’t (or can) get herrings, the housemaid giving notice because I graciously allowed the under ditto to go to Mass (so it’s ½ a day’s work to get her to eat out of the hand again), plus thinking of excuses when incredibly kind & incredibly dull people ask us to dinner in London, plus seeing to Sophy all last week because Eliz doesn’t come back till 22nd. Honks I know none of this Holds Water, sorry.

  There is one thing I CAN’T BEAR, & that is you being in London when I’m not, oh DEAR it is so sad & so annoying, the days you say are impossible, shooting here 10th & 11th which means people arriving 9th. HONKS, the sands are running out & of course we shall soon be dead, all the lot of us, meanwhile we
never meet while we are alive & vaguely hale. Bother bother bother.

  Much love, Debo

  Get on

  What is this tale of the tiara & the sofa at Windsor? All I remember is Dot Head at a dance there saying as she passed a heap on the floor, ‘Don’t look don’t look, there’s been a street accident’, & it was Antony [Head] who had whirled Cake round till they both fell down.

  Rhodesia.1 It’s beautiful in an endless sort of way & one feels fighting fit there. My chief recollections (we stayed a week there 1,000 years ago) are being bossed about by the then Governor’s wife & Andrew’s fury at being made to attend a children’s party. There was a recep. one night & a woman-who had driven 300 miles along tracks to loom at it-wasn’t allowed in because she hadn’t got white gloves.

  I have no doubt that the majority of white people in Rho are vile beyond compare. Also there are some super-saints who toil away unnoticed, but I do remember being v. shocked at the attitude of the viler white people to their servants, farm workers etc, in 1947, & they’ve got worse since I guess. They said awful things about them in front of them etc etc. Horrid.

  That’s the end of that. Had I not been under the drier this saga may never have been put to paper, & I see you wouldn’t have missed much.