Much love, 9
Dear Miss
Thanks awfully re Rhodesia-yes I see exactly. Whenever one sees anything about it on Fr. télé all seems to take place in a perpetual atmosphere of garden party. I may have made this observation to you already but you don’t know how true it is. Ladies, in flowing chiffon, writing their names at Govt house & so on. The few blacks one notes smack their lips, according to Alphy. So they do.
Auntie [Iris], writing about my Mole,1 says when she was young the peasants called them cunts, ‘a word one never hears nowadays’. She’s not in the Tynan set, obviously.2
I remember about the tiara. You came down in one (Windsor), found Cake crownless & cast yours, not upon the glassy sea, but under a sofa. Come now Miss, admit.
Somebody told me that at the coronation (Sto’s)3 P[rince]ss Margaret] said ‘Why did you ask Sir O to your party?’ to which you replied ‘Because he’s my brother-in-law-next question please’. Any truth?
Oh my drawing room is too lovely now. Come.
If the Gen is not re elected, I leave France. If one’s going to live in a sort of Portugal, which is what the candidates are after, entirely supported by America & voiceless & chaotic one might as well live IN Portugal & benefit by the climate.
Best love, N
I note you’ve taken to having your hair washed again. Keep it up.
Dear Miss
It’s a bitter blow that I’m not allowed to walk in the procession BITTER.1 All right. Woollen stockings beneath my long skirt, woollen vest & thick woollen shawl. Then the temp will be 80, I know. Heated car will make a difference, I admit, one won’t arrive congealed as one used to at the dancing class. Unlike Lady D I’ve only got one dress, my BEST, & unlike some people we know NO SABLES. On fait ce qu’on peut.2
I’ve been feeling far from well, no symptoms, just what Grandmother used to call creechy. Can’t make out whether it’s the cold or the fumes. But quite suddenly, today, I’m all right again. Interes-ting.
Would you really like me to come about the 7th? I will with joy. I rather wonder if I hadn’t better come back here after the orgy in case of getting ill in bitter houses. At Alvee [Lees-Milne]’s there is a draught in the bathroom which would take the horns off an ox & as for Raymond [Mortimer] the passages, unlike your motors, are unheated. I believe it would be more sensible to return & go to them another time.
About Bridge. It’s only the English who get cross &, as a rule, only those who can’t play for nuts. I play a certain amount here & never see crossness. I believe it’s generally because the person is cross with herself but won’t admit it. I’ve noticed in life there are three things nobody will admit they do badly: playing Bridge, talking French & driving a car. Think it over-isn’t it true. Riding used to be another.
I must get up-I’ve got Col & Malcolm3 for lunch & a new pudding sent by Mark [Ogilvie-Grant], operation sick-make-so reech.
Love, N
P.S. I note I’m invited to bring my wife. I suppose they know about you & think we are all the same.
Darling Honks
Keir1 was terrific fun, such a wonderful shoot, over 800 in three days. Sto came which made it far more fun for me, he is just the companion I would choose. He shot really well, wasn’t that good. Old Porchy2 was there, he is a one man cabaret, & Archie Stirling & his beautiful wife, she was Scott of Crowood (as opposed to the Antarctic).
Old old Mrs Stirling was there, eighty-four & perfectly fascinating, she told a lovely tale of Winnie Dss of Portland in the hall at Claridge’s during the war yelling at her (in front of all the porters, desk people etc) ‘PEGGY, WHAT’S YOUR JOINTURE, MINE’S … (mentioning some vast sum) AND I FIND IT SADLY INSUFFICIENT’.
Rather a dread journey last night, the keeper & I came on the sleeper train due at Crewe at 4.10 A.M. but just before Crewe the engine failed & we sat for 2½ hours, eventually arrived here at 8 A.M. so I slept all the morning. When I woke up for lunch I found the Christie’s people were still here, they’ve been re valuing pictures for insurance & have come out with some frightening conclusions I can tell you, i.e. the Poussin shepherds £350,000 etc. etc. What would happen if there was a fire, dread thought.
Nancy’s letters about coming here & going to A’s enthronement as Chancellor of Manchester are so funny, she might be Robinson Crusoe and/or the fellow who discovered America and Marco Polo and the whole of an Arctic expedition rolled into one. There’s a desperate tone in them now, it may turn hysterical before D Day.
Much love, Debo
Darling Honks
So exciting, coming to London to meet Em & co.1
Meanwhile I get a daily letter from the Fr Lady, clearly showing how far the Agony outweighs the Ecstasy in her impending visit. I’ve written to say I promise I’ll never invite her again & will wait until she invites herself.
She’s played such cat & mouse with Alvilde that I think A rather minds. After all, when she is cook & all it is quite a thing having someone for several days, & Nancy just says how vile it is sure to be etc, instead of ‘oh how I long’ like one would at least say.
I’m not going to enter in any more & will await the Final Decision as to day & time & place we are supposed to meet.
What I HOPE against hope is that you might come on 12th.
Sophy has got exams this week. She says you have to have a pencil sharpener, a clean handkerchief & 8 crayons. It sounds like voodoo to me. COME.
Much love, Debo
Darling Debo:
It was so LOVELY seeing you & made my rather ghoul London visit absolutely worth while. I was rather disappointed that the papers did not report any of Kit’s speech at the trial.1 It was so damning for the BBC. You know their lawyer asked why the libel action was in respect of a letter to an individual rather than any BBC programme & Kit was able to say that over & over again he has been told he was attacked in some programme or other & his solicitors have asked the BBC for the transcript & this has been refused. So they not only attack him without giving him a chance to reply but also make it impossible to bring a libel action (as one could against a newspaper) unless somebody sits for 12 hours a day with a tape recorder just in case they decide to attack. Even Panorama has no detailed programme before it is seen.
I am also sorry the papers did not print Sachs’s judgement, he was even more censorious about the BBC attacking an individual over & over again & never giving him a chance to reply. I am afraid dear Kit can’t win whatever he tries, I wish to goodness he wd see it. He is really an outlaw.
All love darling, Honks
Dear Miss
I was greeted by the dreadful, though not unexpected news of Mme Costa’s death. This leaves me without almost my greatest friend here & a second home-I am in despair. When Dolly [Radziwill] goes I don’t know what I shall do-most unwise to have these much older friends, though I must say they have survived dozens of my contemporaries.
At Chippenham the ticket collector said ‘there are three porters in the porters’ room but they’re not allowed to carry luggage-one old lady’s luggage has already been left behind this morning’. In the end a huge bribe fixed the matter-I couldn’t have done the carrying because it’s over a high bridge. Away from your sheltering wing one suffers. Tell Sto we’d better all be porters & we could have a nice game of Bridge in the porters’ room. What can it mean? Oh Borah.
We went to tea at Badminton. 1 The duke as charming as I remember him when I was awfully young & used to stay at Cirencester. We talked at great length about dry stone walls. Jim [Lees-Milne] & I walked 6 miles (there & back) to a folly called Worcester Lodge, so pretty, I daresay you know it. Deacon was quite right about the cold in their house-Alvee bustles, you see, all the morning & one is left by an unlit fire. In fact she lights it too late to be any good until ¼ hour before bed time. Smashing food.
Honks is wonderful-no headache for 16 days. BUT he is standing in the election. 2
Much love, N
Woman comes, on business.
Darling D
ebo:
No letters, there’s a sort of semi demi strike going on. Went to Mme Costa’s funeral, as you can imagine on the religious side it was very slap up with a bishop in a mitre, but no flowers, oh how sad, & Naunceling, not having seen this in the paper, had sent a huge object which I suppose they’ll put on the grave. Marie-Zéphyre looked truly beautiful in pitchest black, she is beautiful & the less makeup the more lovely which is a good sign. Naunceling came down with us so she’s asleep in your room. She told many a lovely tale of Manchester & the banquets etc. Debo, do take care, I feel so worried about you feeling so sick.
Bettina [Bergery] has had her face lifted just a bit, it seems a great success if it lasts, all the sort of pouches gone if you know what I mean. The Lady & I discussed doing ditto & decided we were not vain enough to make it worthwhile. (Or perhaps SO vain that we think people will love us with our wrinkles.) I dread the election. Kit insists on standing so we shall have three sleepless weeks closely followed by a disappointment, what a delightful prospect.
We are going over to see a house for sale at Versailles just in case ’tis perfect for N. Our summer plans depend on the stupid election. We can’t go to Venice in Sept if it is to happen in Oct, Kit says. So perhaps one ought to hope for it to be soon. I dread.
All love darling, Honks
Darling Debo:
I can never tell you the drear of Manchester. 1 Right up to within ten miles of it ’twas quite a nice day, & again when we left it, but a bitter grey pall sort of smothers it. When I said so, Kit was quite put out & said ‘We owe EVERYTHING to Manchester’. 2 We saw the election workers at a room in Queen’s O [hotel], the candidate is a v sweet schoolmaster. In his election address he has put ‘deetained 1940’ (Lancashire accent) as the high spot in a crowded life (between you & me).
Woman was wondair, in our brief 25 mins she managed to tell us every menu between Zurich & here that she had downed, not forgetting breakfast at her Ebury St O. Her price is above rubies.
The worst has occurred, finding how comf he is here compared with an O or staying with Jonnycan, Kit wishes for a permanent flat. This is deadly secret & I hope he will forget about it. You see really it is only comfortable because he’s got Jerry [Lehane], & Jerry can’t be everywhere at once unluckily.
We also went to Birmingham on Sunday, two different people said to me ‘Boyle 3 has no stake in the country’, & when I asked in what way they said ‘Because he’s a bachelor’ – & one of them added ‘Nor has Heath’. 4 Is this not a strange point of view. One of them said ‘Sir E Boyle doesn’t mind if the schools about here are 80 per cent black children, why should he, he’s got no children of his own & no stake in the country’. Do you think people are incapable of objective reasoning; I believe most people are, & imagine everyone else is.
Well darling, Shoreditch calls. I will write again anon, meanwhile let us cling to Tuesday. By the way do you notice that since he died Bill Astor 5 has been first a worker of good works & then more or less a saint, I suppose we shall hear of miracles next being wrought by his remains, too marvellous I’ve never known a saint personally before.
All love darling, Honks
Darling Soo
Thanks awfully for your letter.
Americans are much on my mind at present. Mr Rudkin, 1 who lives upstairs, his mother is dying of cancer, so to calm his nerves (naturally he doesn’t go & see his mother who is dying of c at Palm Beach) he lies on a couch all day being psycho-ed. So the analyst says he must get nearer to the earth & dig & sweat so he says to me & ‘Nancy’ (which he calls me) & ‘have you got a spade?’ So I give him a spade & he digs & sweats & digs up all my rhododendrons. Then he says & ‘Nancy’ (which he calls me) & ‘your rhododendrons are all shrivelled at the root-now I’ve got a friend who knows a man who will bring peat & I want to dig this peat into the roots of your rhododendrons’. & ‘All right.’ I know I mustn’t cross him or all the good of the digging & sweating & getting near the earth would be undone. So the peat arrives & he digs it in &, sweating like mad, he says it is 100 francs. Susan 30 dollars Susan do admit-he made me pay for it. So I’m asking Gen de Gaulle to have him removed with the bases.2
I suppose I shall have to read Capote, 3 though I feel, from reading reviews, that I have. In some ways made for me, viz. six Americans at a blow including that sweet clean-living girl Nancy. Capote does sound a regular chacal des cimeti&ères4 doesn’t he?
Much love, Soo
Darling Debo:
Debo, you made ALL the difference to the vile four weeks, you simply can’t imagine how lovely it was to think in a few days you would re-loom. We went down to Shoreditch for the booze-up & they aren’t downhearted a bit. 1 Isn’t it (in a way) a marvellous miracle-yes a miracle-of faith in, I suppose, Kit’s STAR, because I’ve got faith in him as an outstandingly clever person who is about eighty per cent right in his ideas-& yet! how can one see a break through for him, ever? (Between you, me & gate post.)
We lunched at Jonnycan’s and I saw a vast table laid in the dining room & slightly dreaded then we were ushered into a room with Catherine, Jasper, Weeny, 2 Max & Jean [Mosley], was it not lovely, my first outing for the month. Jasper is so charming now he looks like Ingrid & his eyes are huge & go round the corners of his face so that one sees them also in profile. We were forced to play Monopoly amid shouts of Hard Cheddar etc. Children of that age are so nice aren’t they. As to Weeny, he’s as sharp as a needle, I suppose partly he seems so clever because he looks about four while in fact he’s seven. He drank apple juice & I said to him & ‘Do you know who used to love that?’ & he said & ‘Who’ & I said & ‘Granny Muv’ & Debo, his whole face broke into a huge smile. They, all three, really loved her & Jasper’s schoolmaster found him in tears when she died, which must be rare for a great granny.
Can’t wait for Temple, we go there tonight. There’s a letter from Mark Girouard 3 to do it for Country Life, of course I’m for it because of the photographs. I got Kit in sunny mood & told him, & hedged about with rules (e.g. our name not to appear). I think he will agree to it.
All love darling, Honks
Darling Debo:
My lunch with David Garnett 1 was most inter-esting, it appears they were ALL in love with Carrington, viz., D. Garnett himself, Mark Gertler, Augustus John, Gerald Brenan, Ralph Partridge and Lytton, 2 the supremely loved one. It all came out bit by bit. You know how I loved her & how intimate we were & I never dreamed she had turned all those heads. Do ask Duncan Grant one day.
Garnett’s wife (Grant’s daughter) has left him & I said & ‘Do you mind?’ & he said & ‘Oh yes, I feel as if I’d lost a leg’. Poor fellow. He longed to know how it was that Lytton Strachey & I became such bosom friends, so I tried to eggsplain. It was love of chat on both sides, naturally.
All love darling, Honks
Dear Miss
Well the hot news is that Bagneux has doubled my rent (to £1, 200 a year-not much by current prices but too much for me) & the very same day I’ve seen a house at Versailles 1 which I really think will DO.
I’ve been a night at Orsay. Honks is surprisingly well-he, busily analysing his vote-& all is most cheerful. She very kindly came to see the house, & approved of it. No French people will, they regard Versailles as worse than death.
I found a packet of letters written to Prod before I knew him. I’d really forgotten what a villain the dear old soul was. Every single one is a wild complaint, either from a mistress (‘I waited for you at the Ritz for three hours’) or a friend (‘have you forgotten that you owe me £2.15’) or his mother (‘why don’t you give up these people who are NO GOOD TO YOU’). I can’t think why he kept them. I’ve also found all yours from your first little house-haven’t read them yet-& the only pretty photograph ever taken of me which I’m having copied & will send.
Much love, N
Darling Debo:
Naunceling came & also County, but she spent the night here, anyway we all went to look at a house in Versailles & for the first time we ra
ther loved it, at least I’m not sure Jean did so much, but one could see Naunceling in it & there’s room for her things (some we’ve seen have been too minute) & a quite big garden, & a lovely room for YOU (you’ll never come here again). NOW the question becomes terribly important-will she be lonely? Kit says NO it’s so near Paris & he says ideal for a writer & such a lovely expedition for her friends & so on. I think he’s right, but the only thing I slightly wonder is whether she would give up ever going out as being too much bother. No I don’t think she would, she’s fond of seeing people & it is a very small journey of about 15 mins (but rather far from station). Please give all this your close attention. I can hardly bear the responsibility of being the one to hand for giving advice. The arrangement of rooms, kitchen etc is not quite perfect-but she wd have a huge & lovely bedroom, a thing I should envy her very much.
The house’s price is about £36,000, I feel sure they’d take less. It has got central heating (oil) & two good baths & she wd put a third. Everything here is a stupid price but Kit says it will get worse. On the other hand seventy thousand souls will leave the neighbourhood now de Gaulle is dissolving NATO, so should she wait & see a bit whether marvels come into the market? Sorry to harp. Sometimes she seems slightly helpless (who doesn’t? I should be just the same faced with ghoul decision) & one must give it one’s full attention.
All love darling, Honks
Darling Debo:
What do you think of the article on Evelyn, 1 they haven’t quite hit him off have they. But then he was highly complicated.
At Woman’s I was shown a mag., Swiss, rather like a sort of German Elle. It is doing a series of black sheep & there’s an article about us called & ‘Six Black Sheep’ or something. Anyway all the usual rot but the new twist is that Woman accorded an interview at Grüningen to the journalist. Her replies to questions will muddle the readers (if any). Things like, & ‘What made you settle in Grüningen?’ ‘Well you see my dogs are getting old & I want them to have their last few years on the Continent.’ It is so completely true yet no one could believe it & ’twill take its place among aforesaid rot.
The Mitfords Page 43