The Mitfords

by Charlotte Mosley

  Well darling I suppose I must get up.

  All love, Honks

  Darling Debo:

  Louise de Vilmorin 1 came over to Temple, she’s got an old ex-husband of 80 (American) under her thumb now & has squeezed 1, 000 dollars a month out of him, she says it helps a little bit & then tells about him & ‘Some people think he’s all right; I don’t’ which is nice gratitude for £4,000 a year to almost strangers isn’t it.

  Have you been reading Lord Moran 2 in S. Times, rather awful of him to publish now but it is very inter-esting with knobs on, though one could have guessed it easily. What became of R. Kee’s book about Ireland, 3 there seem to be dozens but not his.

  I had a kind letter from Laura Waugh (whom I don’t know, but wrote to all the same). It’s so strange, you know what I told you about Evelyn’s letter saying he was jealous of my other friends after Jonathan was born, well I wrote back saying I’m afraid really you thought I’d become a bit of a bore, & that’s why you made a cruel portrait of me in Work in Progress. Well, really I never thought the bore in Work in Progress was me, but it was my turn to be humble if you see what I mean. Evelyn wrote by return to say there wasn’t one single bit of me in Work in Progress, the only thing was the character was pregnant, as I had been during our great friendship. Then Evelyn died, & now his widow writes he was most distressed in the last days to think I could ever have imagined that the person in Work in Progress was in the very least me, etc. Debo! I never really did but thought I must say SOMETHING MODEST. Don’t tell.

  All love darling, Honks

  Darling Honks

  The Lady & I went for a walk against the wintry wind on the farm and she started pulling up nettles so of course I did too. After pulling & chatting for a bit she said & ‘I’m afraid these aren’t nearly as good as French nettles because you see …’ but by then I’d said & ‘Dame, now you’ve gone too far, even the nettles aren’t up to Frog standard, eet ees’ etc & we both laughed so much we were in floods, luckily no one to note except a bullock.

  Trust the Dame.

  Please write to Chatsworth, I go there on Wed.

  Much love, Debo

  Darling Debo:

  The thrill of a lifetime-I saw Krishnamurti! 1 Lydie 2 came down on Sat & just happened to mention she was going to his lecture next morning, so I rushed to Paris in the train (not to spoil the day off of Jerry) & got back in time for lunch, to swim etc. with Kit. Anyway, a sort of little theatre with a kitchen chair on the stage. In comes a little rather bent Indian with hair like fine white silk, sits on the chair & talks. Of course I was riveted & quite tired after because I listened so carefully. I’m afraid it was all nothing! He just said one must reject all the old beliefs, dogmas, saviours, gods, which man, in his anxiety & desire to arrange everything, has accumulated during the last 5,000 years, & empty oneself. He did not once mention suffering, the evil which cannot be denied. How can a person be happy, relaxed or whatever you like to call it if he is watching a loved relation die of cancer? It is all so easy when everything goes well, as for example yesterday surrounded here by perfect beauty & sun & flowers & peace & dear Kit so content, but Krishna I’m sure is surrounded by the most maddening old ladies who worship him & long for a message & he’s just telling them there is no message, the kingdom of heaven is within (at least, I think that’s what he means). At the end there were questions & I died to ask him my question (how he fits the reality of suffering into his & ‘live in the moment & thus banish fear which is made of memory & anticipation’ philosophy) but he answered one question & then looked at his watch & buggered.

  Naunceling came, she LOVED Ireland & said & ‘why doesn’t one live there?’ & her answer is & ‘too many old ladies & no old gents’. Although Krishna spoke a stone’s throw from rue Monsieur she didn’t bother to come which shows she didn’t LIVE in Candles in the Sun 3 & the other book like we did. Of course the audience for Krishna was very telling, lots of ladies in cloaks with straight hair cut in a fringe & idiotic smiles, but quite a number of men, some Chinese & Indian. He spoke English without any American accent, a small Indian accent, & once or twice used sort of nursery words like & ‘sloppy’ (for emotional) which is probably why Lydie finds him assez difficile à comprendre. 4

  Oh Debo I wish you were here, isn’t it dread the way you never are. The sweetness of the many families of ducklings on the pond is intense. A raven steals them & Jerry & Kit rush with guns, I hope they miss him, because don’t they live 200 years?

  All love darling, Honks

  Darling Honks

  Three cygnets have hatched. Is that up-swanmanship or have you got some? The Muscovies never tried this year, very odd.

  Nancy described Col’s party for General & said what I’d missed. I would have loved to have viewed the fellow but have had my fill & more of Heads of State & begin to prefer the ponies.

  Much love, Debo

  Dereling

  I’m deep in Lord Moran, it has made my eyes ache because one can’t stop reading. I can’t imagine what all the fuss is about (it seems people come to blows over it). Imagine if he really had been gossipy & spilled the beans-‘Wendy’ 1 at Monte Carlo, Randolph vile & making him cry, Diana 1 getting electric shocks for her hysteria, Sarah 3 in & out of the cells, etc. The doctor must have known all, with knobs on, yet there’s never a hint (he does once say there was & ‘an uplift’ in Winston’s spirits when he visited the Reves at Roquebrune-it reminds me of old Beaverbrook saying to me once & ‘Why can’t they leave him with Wendy where he’s happy’). I long to know what you think of the book-much better than the extracts, as always.

  We went over to the Dook 4 & there were the Alphands. M.

  Alphand spoke of you & was highly interested to hear of your move. I notice intelligent people approve & fools disapprove of the move-by & large, that is. Dook said & ‘When I was in London after my eye operation my niece offered me Buckingham Palace garden to walk in, because I tried Regent’s Park & camera men followed me around. One day I was walking in the garden & I met my niece, she was out with two of her little kids, & a camera man with a long distance lens took a picture of my niece & me from one of those new sky scrapers’. Mme Alphand: & ‘I can’t understand why they allowed those sky scrapers to go up, near the palace’. Dook: & ‘You mean the crown should have bought the land? Couldn’t afford it, that’s why.’

  All love, D

  Get on

  I had to hide your letter re Wife being like Lady Labouchère 1 because she really somehow couldn’t bear her & ’twould be bitter to be told she was the double. She gives an imitation of Lady L standing first on one leg & then the other, leaning slightly back, looking at Wife’s Art, frowning, & waving both hands round & round windmill fashion, saying, & ‘Yes, there is wonderful movement there, wonderful movement’. Of course looking at pictures is a well known trap not to be fallen into lightly, & as for saying anything about them, I’ve learnt in 46 years NOT TO. Fatal.

  D Carritt & B Sewell 1 come back tomorrow to continue valuing the drawings & prints. It’s a scream watching them work, I’ll keep my imitation up my sleeve & will try & perfect it tomorrow. I love them both (rather).

  Much love, 9

  Get on

  Tim Bailey is here for the weekend, he had a dinner in Sheffield to do with his work & remained on. He brought one David Montgomery, son of your F.M. 1 He is charming. He made one hate the wretched F.M. Do you know for five years from age eight to thirteen he never spent his hols in the same place, used to be sent to Holiday Schools, do admit how really cruel. His ma died when he was eight-I suppose Monty couldn’t be bothered. He told it all v. nicely re his dad, but imagine how it must have been at the time.

  The F.M. has got a Belgian woman as cook. The others in the house came & complained she didn’t do anything to help the cleaning but just cooked & threw the dirty dishes at them. He called her in & said in his voice & ‘I believe you don’t do the things in the house you are meant to do-have you never done any cleaning & such like
?’ To which she replied & ‘JAMAIS’ [never]. He said & ‘the only person who says Jamais in this house is ME’, & sent her back to the kitchen. Next day she said could she have some wine for the cooking-he said JAMAIS.

  London & Lady Mosley tomorrow, monster thrill.

  That’s all for now.

  Much love,

  Dear Miss

  I’ve just got your letter about breaking your toes & falling in love. If you broke your toes as often as you fall in love you would be a sad cripple indeed. As the letter took three weeks I expect both are by now forgotten-it meandered to the Isles of Greece & on here, through two postal strikes.

  Fulco1 has been here. I miss him dreadfully as we met every afternoon for sight seeing (as well as every morning on the beach). Also his friendling who I gather is universally loathed but whom I worship for the shrieks. He & Fulco are so funny together.

  I hear Sto dances like Nureyev2 in which case our fortunes may be made as in Athens, where Nureyev had been, they were saying he has become fat & sulky & can’t dance any more. (I never thought he could.) I expect they’d love to take on old Sto with his sunny nature & undoubted genius. Margot more of a whizz than ever there. Mark [Ogilvie-Grant] is in love with one of the corps de ballet-I expect I told you that-called Donald, I think that’s why he has gone to the land of snow all of a sudden.

  That’s all I think.

  Love, N

  Dereling

  We went to Paris to see the Abdys1 they were adorable, Bertie had another ‘divine hat’ which made Sir O quite green, but he’s only got to go to place Vendôme where Bertie’s modiste lives. This one was of fine straw with a blue ribbon & he wore a tie to match.

  We were talking about the burnings (Byron, Nietzsche etc) when people die & Bertie says he burnt all Emerald’s private papers & put the ashes in the loo at the Dorchester until finally all the plumbing was wrecked. He says he couldn’t bear for anyone to pick over all the love miseries of Emerald & then expose them to the world. I suppose Sir Thomas2 was villain of the piece, but one feels sorry for him too because there’s nothing worse than being over-loved when you can’t reciprocate.

  All love dereling, D

  Dereling

  Did you see the photo of Ld Weymouth1 & his anti-bride, black of course, well his hair is tied back & he’s got every sort of beard as well. Can’t think why Henry doesn’t feed him to the lions with the dusky anti-bride except that under or behind all the hair one sees such an exquisite Thynne face, looking the image of late Ld Bath, & according to Kit, the exact double of the Ld Weymouth whom he saw killed just near him in the first war.

  Now for you: what is an anti-bride? Of course you may have SEEN in which case you don’t need to be clever (’twas in the Daily Express).

  The new dentist is IT & he has got a pretty drawing room. He was cross about me choosing a pearly tooth instead of the tomato fang which he said matched mine, & there was a lot of shoulder-shrugging & his Parthian shot was, ‘I suppose you think it goes with your eyes’ (i.e. bluish white).

  Roy & Billa [Harrod]’s visit is in September so you’ll be home thank God. Geoffrey [Gilmour] says you are escaping just in time because, with the new travel allowance, English will be on the doorstep asking for francs.

  All love, D

  Dear Miss

  Has Decca sold the Island?1 I’ve got a very kind letter offering me anything I like out of it & Honks thinks it may be sold so do remind her.

  I came back to 23 days’ unforwarded letters, it was taireebool-some urgent, some pained, like Gerry [Wellington]2 who had ordered me to the Ritz on a certain day & there I wasn’t. Monty3 says he hopes I’ve sent him my book as he likes to have all my books. I suppose he’s never heard of a book shop. (Actually I know my work & have put his name on the list already.)

  Today I went to Galeries Lafayette which advertises English Week & Brando had told me of English (Irish?) lace for curtains etc for which I die. Well. There is masses of whiskey & a brass umbrella stand like a boot & beefeaters in plastic cases & a hundred mahogany barometers & a mass of road house furniture & no lace. That’s life. And Beatle songs on loud speakers. All the buyers were English.

  I think Kit looks very ill. I feel quite worried & note that I’ve become quite attached to him in old age. Honks hasn’t said anything, probably hasn’t noticed. I must get on with all these letters.

  Love, N

  Darling Soo

  I’ve lost so many letters that I wonder if there was one from you saying you’d sold the Island? It occurred to me that may be why you are sort of packing up there? If so & if there happened to be a chest of drawers available, that I would love to have. It would be for your room at rue d’Artois so in your own interest in a way. I’m also short of a bedside table for same.

  I went down there yesterday, they have done marvels, & I can begin to see what it may be like in the end. I said to the foreman ‘c’est une bonne petite maison.’ ‘Petite? Oh là là-je m’y perds.’1

  A friend of yours called Mr Boland went to take your greetings to the Mosleys. They were amazed. He said ‘I think she’s warm inside’. I said sounds as if he’d been up to no good with her. He said he’s descended from Anne Boleyn. Honestly Susan.2

  I must go on with these awful letters, the horror of them. I plough away & the heap never seems to get smaller.

  Much love, Soo

  Dereling,

  I’m shaking all over with nerves from trying to ring up Debo. How can people telephone who haven’t got secretaries? It took 1½ hours partly because they pretend that wretched Basloe has got a W somewhere. How can it? Bwalsoe? Bawsloe?1 I give up. I’m crying. Anyway it was to ask if I ought to go & see dear Auntie.2 Debo seemed to think (& I’d wondered if that might be so) that it might possibly worry her. I didn’t tell Debo how ghoul it has been because she is always so snéery-how I loathe & detest the PHONE. I’d carefully written out Bertrand Anatole Sophie, & so on to please the brutes.

  Another letter from Monty-he can’t have enough to do-saying LBJ is mad & the General quite right about Vietnam.1 He says he has got a team of young men working on his book about warfare. I’ve now written to say make them do your table talk. Hope it leads to something.

  Love, N

  Brando has lent me yr book.1 CONGRATULATIONS lady. It is very beautiful & probably very clever. I’ve got to p.70 & I’m adoring it. Surprised? I am. Amazed.

  But I see it’s like the Shetland world all over again. I saw a glowing review by R Mortimer, thought that’s good for the Lady, opened Louis-Louis, first thing I saw he had (a) sort of written it & (b) twas dedicated to him. Talk about nobbling the judges …

  Alas, it’s the way of the world.

  Perhaps Horse & Hound or Home Chat or Carpenter’s Monthly will give it a truly independent piece, but I doubt it, you’ve been round the lot I guess. Anyway Lady, you’ve done a grand job & we can all have a read as well as look at the pictures.

  I suppose you’re inundated with fan letters, do write all the same.

  Much love, 9

  Dear Miss

  I’ve left my pen at home-eyebrow pencil seems to work!

  Goodness it’s funny here.1 They are treating me like a precious jewel. It seems (I’ve been told in confidence) that L[ouis]-L[ouis] is saving Hamilton’s bacon because he lost thousands over Capote wh hardly sold in England.2 He has given me a large silver bowl & Rainbird3 a hundred (not quite) roses & I have joined the roses to the bowl. They look very pretty. LL & Uncle Harold4 are in a photo finish-what an unlikely pair.

  I dined alone with Rainbird, full of lovely tales about Monty who is writing a history of War.5 He has found out about Nelson & Lady H & breaks off his narrative to say how shocking it was. Rbird suggested he might skip the moral judgements & Monty said ‘I’ll think it over but I can’t give you much hope’! Young Rbird, awfully nice, came to meet me at airport-he’s in the business but his father said mournfully he’s got no toughness in him. I suppose publishing is a rat race nowadays. T
hey are all running out of LL-Canfield telephoned to see if H[amish] H[amilton] could let him have 10,000 in a hurry, & HH himself is in need. But the booksellers are well stocked & they hope to have more from the printers in good time. The Capote affair made Hamilton too cautious apparently-& the squeeze also.

  So that’s the news from Frankfort on the Main. Funny that the Germans look so nice & are so ghoul. The Americans are equally ghoul but they don’t even look nice. You should hear the news in American wh is laid on here, it makes your blood run cold-all gloating for hours over the things they are doing to those wretched little yellow people. Ay de mi.

  Love, N

  Dearest Hen,

  Nancy is in sunniest mood; and Woman is coming! She telephoned to say she’s driving here, arriving today, so that’s marvellous. We must get after her about the cookery book. I think Nancy ought to do a bit of it, though. She told about cooking a boiled egg for Farve in the war, when he had been awfully ill & had eaten naught, but one day wanted an egg when Mabel was out. ‘I was quite excited at being asked, so I boiled up the water and threw the egg in and the most sinister things like an octopus started growing out of it.’ So she threw in two more, representing the entire week’s ration for three people, and the same thing happened.