I couldn’t quite make out all you said re the medical facts except that it’s obviously very bad; yet somehow, in back of mind, I always thought it would be in spite of all the seeming improvement that you and she told of in letters. So all I want to do is a) come, b) do anything possible to help, c) not be in any way a bother-and I can see from N’s letters that this will be the most difficult of all. And in this regard, Hen, I do implore you to make clear to Honks how I long to avoid all friction etc etc, as I think I did say in another letter.
One thing has puzzled me a good deal: why have you so firmly decided not to tell her anything at all about what’s wrong with her? That is, I can quite see one would have to exercise a good deal of judgement about that (no point in giving gloomy reports right after the operation when a person is at lowest ebb, etc) but I must say I think I should far prefer to know, for masses of reasons. Which would range all the way from the thing you said about her book (wanting to get all done possible on it) to the horrid disappointment of getting iller & iller without knowing why.
Oh Hen. It’s all so very sad & bad and unbelievable, such a nightmare & those drs. sound so awful, never getting in touch with you for all that time.
Am so longing to see you, Yr Hen
Dearest Hen,
N. continues to improve just exactly like any ordinary convalescence; still has a bit of pain in morning, but not bad at all, she says, the last few days. Otherwise beginning to look and be utterly her old self.
Tomorrow, my friend from Dallas called Frances Mossiker1 comes; she’s going to pick me up here, tour the chateau, we’ll have lunch in the town & come back to tea. While Nancy says she’s a great fan of Mossiker’s books (she wrote a v. smashing one called The Queen’s Necklace, another of the letters of Buonaparte & Josephine) I can see she’s actually planning to loathe her. ‘Sounds awfully bossy on the telephone. Let’s see: if she died and Bob died and you married her husband, you’d be called Jessica Mossiker’ etc. (You can see she’s getting much better, Hen.) So I’m longing to see how these two lady Fr historians hit it off. Fri, I’m going to Paris & the Col. lunches here. Hen I was allowed to get the things for tomorrow’s lunch and the Col’s lunch today! There was a bit of groaning about how they’d have gone bad by lunch time, but do admit a bit of lamb, put in fridge, should last 24 hours?
Diana left as planned this A.M. Nancy v. put out: ‘Fancy you leaving, when I’m ill’. Oh she is a rum one.
Yr loving Hen
Darling Debo:
All continues gloomy here, Decca will have told you what the doctor said. Naunce hates the idea of more & more pain killers, & naturally the reason she hates them is because they destroy one’s intelligence & even one’s personality; the question (I begin to wonder) is whether, if she knew the truth, one couldn’t spare her a lot of pain, because then she (possibly) wouldn’t hesitate to take whatever was offered? It is all so difficult & ghastly. Decca thinks she ought to be told, the doctors all agree that she mustn’t be, & I just don’t know. Sometimes I feel it would be the end, if she were told, because she would just give up.
Jean & I went yesterday for Decca’s departure & stayed till nearly lunch time, she had an awful pain & I got her to take her drug & it went away while we were there. I’ve got to lunch in Paris today so I shall go to Naunce fairly early & again in afternoon & I shall offer Jean for the middle of the day if she’d rather not be alone.
You just telephoned. It is such a comfort to have a chat. Kit is very kind but it’s not you.
All love, Honks
I am very dopey but everybody tells me I am better. Perhaps.
Sitting in the garden I was startled by clash of steel, you never heard such a noise. Well: it was the torties making love. They charge head on at full gallop about 4 or 5 times & then horrors, Stublow, they turn tail & DO ALL, coming so far out of their shells you’d think they’d never get back. It went on for about ½ an hour. Neither Woo nor Dec here to see-what waste-& old Marie frankly shocked. Now they are about as far apart as they can be, I do hope that’s not it for the summer.
Mogens [Tvede] wishes to marry Woman. I said to Marie the trouble is his flat is too small so M says he must buy another. He must. He saw at a glance she is the PICK of the Bunch, clever old Dane.
My garden is dazzling, would you could see it. Roses & daisies, & a huge bush of wild roses, my favourite flower, is performing.
Oh Miss the departure of Marie.1 Nevair.
Much love, N
Dearest Hen,
I’m amazed, and profoundly gratified, that my visit there seems to have met with such favour. Because do you see how one was on a slight tightrope-between going up to her room too much, with the attendant danger of either tiring her or boring her (or both, as judges always say-$5,000 fine, 2 years in jail or both), and not going up enough, danger of seeming to neglect? As for me, I can’t say how glad I am that I went, & really it is thanks to you that I did, because I couldn’t have, after her letter, if you hadn’t smoothed the way.
I adored being there. ‘What did you do in Europe?’ people ask. ‘Shopping, weeding and chatting.’ I miss it all v. much.
I got a marvellously dotty letter from Woman all about how she couldn’t come on June 4 because the weather was too cold to leave her door open, so the dogs couldn’t get out, & she had to be there to let them out.
Much love, & from Bob, Decca
Darling Sooze
I go on improving-it’s wonderful you would hardly know me.
I’m missing Marie more terribly than words can say. The New is so nice, so efficient & a bore. Not one scrap of sense of humour. I have to hear by the hour how poor old Marie, whom I physically crave, hadn’t got a single reserve of food in the house. The frigidaire I note is crammed with ghastly old bits of things & the greatest crime in my eyes, she sprays flies! Oh Susan those flies, to begin with, suffer horribly & then they go off & get eaten by some bird & it dies! She wants to spray an ant heap I was cherishing but I was in time to stop that. Susan Susan-!
Best love, Susan
P.S. Of course I long to put the Fly Sprayer in a book but never can as it would wound I fear. I’m alone with the F.S., all sisters having buggered.
Dearest Hen,
Thanks awfully for yr. v. informative letter of 13 July from Versailles.
I do feel most terrifically strongly, and must stress this point Hen very much, that it is now verging on wicked not to tell Nancy, in view of Dr Evans’ report.1 Because don’t you see, it’s awful enough to get such news when one is feeling fairly OK & strong; but if it is delivered very late in the thing, when one was completely weak anyway and in much pain, so much harder to bear, I should think. Now might be the time. Bob suggested that it be put in terms of new information from Dr Evans, newly discovered, or some such. To me, it seems a sort of awful betrayal not to tell the truth, & I must say it caused me many a horrid moment when there.
Well: I think I said all this before, so no more of it.
Much love, Yr Hen
Darling Debo:
I got your last from Artois, thank you darling for writing often, I got such a picture of it all. Can’t help feeling optimistic in the extreme! The cancer might take years & years, & if the mysterious pain is better what does the other matter? Or am I just stupid? You never said what Dr Evans thought of the analysis. Decca’s letters have got such a horrid undertone, it is all of a piece with her communism, a sort of attitude of ‘You won’t like this & it will ruin your life & make you miserable but it is right for you to know & therefore it would be immoral of ME not to tell you that, contrary to what you are blind enough to imagine, you are very ill indeed’. Preserve us from such. By the way Col completely agrees with us about not telling her, & Alphy [Clary] is certain it’s best not to. Both he & I have had v cheerful letters from her.
I had a frightful nightmare, the first for ages, which I connect with Decca’s cold letters, they sent a shudder eh. When she’s there she is much much better than one would supp
ose from her writings (letters & books), don’t you think so.
All love & to Wife, Honks
Dearest Hen
Thanks so much for your latest. I note you’re still for telling, but I also note you note I’m not. And I’m still not, because of destruction of HOPE, death sentence when not feeling too bad, it seems to me better by far not to have to think about it all the time which is exactly what anyone would do and search for lumps & symptoms, wouldn’t one Hen?
I left last week & all seemed well & much work was toward, she read us the first 3 or 4 chapters, it’s BRILL, so well written, like a sharp negative, no extra words or woolliness, and very funny quite often. She says 3 months will finish it but it can’t appear till 1971 because of the sloth of everything to do with the illustrations.
Honks returns to Temple from Italy tomorrow so she’ll have a regular caller again.
Great haste, home on 1 Aug, this is just to thank for yours & to say things are really quite well, very cheerful in Artois Road.
Much love from Yr Hen
Darling Debo:
As I told you yesterday Naunce had a wretched day on Monday & asked me to go over yesterday & then she telephoned to say don’t come because it had been so bad that she took two stronglings, & would be sure to sleep all the afternoon. So I didn’t go, & felt miserable. At 8.30 I telephoned & she answered & was feeling better, but here is the rather ghoul bit. Newling,1 who knew she was specially bad, had gone out to see her mother off, in Paris, & was only expected back late. She had left some soup for Naunce (water with a potato floating, she said). Naunce is totally alone now when that happens because Mme Guimont is holidaying & so are the chemists. I suppose really & truly she put me off because she thought she wouldn’t hear the bell, if she was sleepy.
I said ‘I’m coming straight over now’, but Naunce just laughed & said ‘Oh no she’ll be back soon & I’m quite all right & reading a marvellous book’. Then Kit & I sat down to dinner & the soup was a sort of vichyssoise & I thought of the water & potato & could hardly swallow. And then I thought if Newling, having been told to make almost nothing, did what Emmy would if one was ill & sent in a soupçon more & something we hadn’t ordered, & Naunce chanced not to want it, poor old New would be in the doghouse for extravagance. Isn’t it all awful. The only real answer is Woman.
You know we are going away this weekend, all the pleasure has gone & it is just a mad worry. Kit can’t go without me because when we get there I am driver, also he wouldn’t go, & he has been looking forward for ages. I am at wits end. Giuditta is on her hol so Woo can’t come for a week or so anyhow. I will continue this dreadful letter anon when I’ve phoned.
Poorling Naunce refuses point blank to see the Dr & says ‘what’s the use?’ Then, as you know, she often has several good days in a row & really likes to be left to work. But of course when the pain is bad I know she must need somebody. I need Kit when I’m ill, just to hold his hand, & she’s got no hand. When I think of her I can’t stop crying.
All love darling, Honks
Naunce says you & I are for fair weather only, & I said no, for foul too, & she says no, only Woo for foul.
Yes, Lady Writer, I am glad that AT LAST you begin to see the point.1 You’ve taken a long time about it. I’ve been staying with Ld Sefton2 (whom I ADORE) shooting grouse (admit how brave). The Duke of Roxburgh (who is an unpleasant animal dressed as a sort of human) said, re the Arc, ‘I don’t suppose Andrew said it but I would have said “YOU BUGGER” to Piggott when he got off’. Well, Andrew didn’t say it. What a surprise.
The owner of the winner had a father, McGrath senior, who won the Derby not long back. He was summoned to Brenda’s3 box, which is the way of owner of winner of Derby. He said ‘this is the second time I have received hospitality from your family’. ‘Oh’ said the Queen, ‘& when was the first?’ ‘When I was in prison madam’ came the answer.
Honks tough? Are you mad? The slightest thing sends her into floods, she wakes up screaming when anything goes wrong with any of us, she takes things to heart in the way none of the rest of us can. Oh Lady, admit.
Much love, 9
Dear Miss
The journey was a total success,1 we all adored it & Woman was the heroine. I shall never go away without her again-though I expect you heard there was a nasty moment at Orly when she was bagless.
I can now count myself as cured-you can’t imagine what a lot I did, on my pins for hours in the galleries. I don’t say it wasn’t sometimes v. painful esp. at the end when my back got out again-still, I did it & Mlle pushed the back in when I got home & I’ve not been so well for nearly a year as I am now. We saw marvels & the wonderful thing was being so much looked after by three jolly policemen. It had its slightly sinister side-we were never left alone for a moment with anybody & an English friend of Decca’s who came to see us gave us the creeps he looked so pathetic-in fact I should think he’s for committing it. Perhaps I’ve told you all this though.
Woman’s sagas went down like one o’clock. I see that they are like modern art & literature; pointless & plotless, but it is the manner-she ees weeth eet, clevair. She went to see Marie on her way here, so good of her, & found her on top of the world surrounded by friends.
Yes I wish all Commies could be forced behind the curtain. You can’t know until you’ve seen the curious sinistry of it. And that is in spite of the oiling-oil-less it must be fearful.
You say airily that we meet soon. Is England’s Darling coming back for some hurdle races?
Josephine says what can she go as to Redé(sdale)’s ball (Oriental) to be different? I said go as Joan Ali Khan that will be quite different.2
Love from Lady (busy)
Dearest Hen,
Oh dear I didn’t go to Nancy’s after all. Was to go today for 2 nights, but she rang up (fancy!) this morning at Sonia [Orwell]’s to say that Woman’s got a v. bad stiff neck, can really hardly move; & also they are snowed in, so not to come. I’m so sad about it Hen, but what could I do? So changed all plans, & left for America instead. Diana rang up yesterday & we had a long chat about Nancy, but it was all about what I was to look out for etc, so all has come to naught. I am in near floods about it all.
Meanwhile Dinky’s baby was born last week, a bouncing 8lb 80z boy.1 Hen I was SO NERVOUS until I heard, isn’t it stupid because she wasn’t, but you know how it is. Bad dreams about her falling down stairs etc. His name: you’ll shriek, a string of names like a royal baby: Chaka (I think, couldn’t quite make out, after a Zulu hero of last century) Esmond (after you know who) Fanon (of The Earth2 & other works)-P. Toynbee calls him Bongo-Esmond, refusing to remember Chaka. So I’m on my way back to that scene-longing to see all of them, yet bitterly sad not to have seen Nancy. You know: wondering if I ever shall again? Diana said she’s so thin in spite of eating heartily. Hassan3 sounds marvellous, he must be terrifically rich to afford all that food, as Woman & I can attest to.
One other good thing: the English publisher is going to re-issue BOADILLA4 with foreword by Hugh Thomas!5 Proceeds to Bongo-Esmond.
Hen, this letter is naught but a wail, so sorry.
Yr loving Hen
Darling Sooze
Yes Susan, I am not a Cuddum & I need much gold with wh to feed Hassan who eats like a wolf. All I think of now is how to keep what Woman & I call H for Happiness because having once tasted such bliss how shall I ever manage without it? You know, bar chaff, a proper servant properly trained in things like opening the door & a real cordon bleu. There’s not a restaurant in Paris, said one of my guests, where you wld get such a meal.
Woman is still here-she has been awfully ill but has come to now. I wish to goodness she would settle in for our old ages but don’t like to suggest it. Her company suits me exactly-but people must have their own lives I know, furniture, pictures & so on (worst of all, dogs).
Your publicity has been stunning1 & must do good & do me good too as I always feel it’s a family build-up. My agent saw you on TV & praised the pe
rformance.
I can imagine those black babies with huge blue eyes must be irresistible-what Queen Victoria called strong dark blood & longed for it in the Royal Family.
Fondest I mean warmest love, N
Dear Miss
A spate of letters from you from all over the shop, viz. several different continents, for which many thanks. I see about the animals, they do sound fascinating though I am quite contented myself with Mrs Tiggy Winkle.
Fancy you looking at The Water Beetle. I often think it’s the best of a poor lot in spite of the strictures of Marghanita Laski who said it was embarrassingly bad.1
Woman was rung up by an old admirer whom she hasn’t seen for 35 years. He asked her to lunch-she wrote down the place, Plaza Artemis. When I had put her right2 she retired to her room & presently: ‘Naunceling it’s the most expensive restaurant in Paris’* So she is flinging her bonnet over the windmill & planning to take a taxi from the Gare St Lazare. Now the question arises, how will they know each other? She can only remember that he is very tall. She had her hair done yesterday & looks smashing again from having looked very ill for an age. One can see the eyes from the other end of the passage.
Best love, N
Darling Soo
Exchange between your two wicked sisters.
N: ‘Do you think that, as an English lady, it’s my duty to teach Hassan to read & write?’
Honks: ‘Like little Eva? Do be careful or he will escape over the ice-floe.’
Perhaps I needn’t. He will never be Président du Sénat, he’s just a nice cheerful extrovert. Loves the télé. I suppose very soon nobody will read or write, they’ll just love the télé. So I needn’t be Miss Eva.
The Mitfords Page 52