The Mitfords

by Charlotte Mosley

  Love darling, Honks

  Darling Debo

  My daily letter. Max [Mosley] & Co came yesterday, both boys dead white faces but Max says it’s make-up. The food was disgusting. Woom was wonderful. We went up to Asthall. It looked charming & of course one can see nearly everything from the church yard. ‘The Barn’ looks just as old as the house, well of course it is except for the rather grandiose east window, but even that looked nice I thought. Oh how mad to have done all that & then sold it at a loss to build Swinbrook. Farve must have had a strong & obstinate character & paid no heed to Muv.

  On the front of today’s Times there’s a picture of the Queen in one of those bowler hats women wear in the Andes. I hope she’ll treat you to a crown today or at least something slightly less Andean.

  Woman is off to the surgery for her dog bite. A man is coming to work on the Rayburn, not sure why, I shan’t hear him I’m sure. Also the electric cooker has gone mad. The awful thing is I can’t listen to Woo’s wise words about all this. But one realizes the heating has gone off & it’s bitter.

  Max loved Asthall. Oh Debo what a pity. Farve should have built one room & two lavatories up at South Lawn where he could retire away from us, our friends, & our super-boring governesses. He loved lavatories.1 Asthall was so perfect because the library & big piano were far from the house ideal for a big family. He could have hung on if he hadn’t built Swinbrook. ‘Poor darling Dowdy, always so unlucky’ as Grandmother used to say.

  Love darling, Honks

  Darling Debo

  I’ve done a whole week. It’s very snug now that Woo has gone because I just watch the rain from my bed, putting the electric blanket on & off according to how boiling I get. There’s ground frost & snow on the hills so not much point in getting up, though I do at about 3 to walk to the POST.

  Don’t laugh but the terribly important, in fact vital, list I made for the last-chance-in-Burford-with-Woman got so rained on that it was unreadable & as a result ½ the things never got bought. Monday, when Coote1 & Robert come, Daph [Fielding]’s last MEAL is coming cooked.

  I’ve finished Strindberg’s To Damascus.2 I do wonder what you’d make of it. I should so love to talk it over. The subject is the sex war & the overcoming of lust & how lust destroys love & turns it to hate. Of course true for poor Strindberg but not for everyone. The horror of the ‘happy marriages’ which turn quickly to boredom & hatred is appalling, & there there’s a sort of awful truth, or half truth, practically universal I imagine. The hatred turns back to love, then boredom begins again, & finally hatred, it’s a roundabout, never static. Jealousy hanging around all the time. Well well.

  All love darling, Honks

  Darling Honks

  Well the Dss of Windsor. What a mercy. As for the poor old thing spending her last years gathering inf. which wd rock the royal family I guess not. I wonder what actually finished her. You will be thankful she can’t be tortured by the drs any more. Now I suppose old Maître Blum1 dare die, I bet she was keeping alive till the coast was clear.

  I am struggling with that stoopid Spectator diary, mad to say I’d do it, I’m sure they want heavy stuff like Russia & Libya but they’re going to get road signs in Ireland.2 Do think of some subjects.

  Asthall, oh yes I think of all that every time I lean on the churchyard wall. I am really longing to see it all at close quarters again, do let’s see if we dare ask if we could walk in Hensgrove.3

  Much love, Debo

  Yr letter about years ago & Ali & Max & prison. OH HONKS. Don’t think I don’t see. There is more than one blind spot in their hostess, there is an animal shutting-off & un-understanding of lots of things & of course children are the first to be completely discounted for obvious reasons. Bother it all. I’m glad you wrote it.

  Darling Honks

  I’m glad you’re going to that funeral1 & long to hear all. As for the papers saying the royal family will be hidden behind a screen, what TOSH, they always go in the sort of choir place & are invisible there because of THE screen, they were for the service the other day, nothing odd in that. And what wd be the point of HRH-ing her now she’s dead, I really think the papers are too awful for words at times like these. I freely admit there is a mountain of hypocrisy too, but that’s England & its ways.

  Much love, Debo

  Darling Debo:

  Yes, as you say, the papers excelled themselves in spite & vileness. Nothing could have been more perfect & dignified than the funeral. Of course if one had been in the nave one wouldn’t have seen much but that’s the way the chapel is built. The idea that the royal family hid is such absurd rubbish. The choir (which sang too beautifully & so quietly) & the Knights of Windsor or whatever they’re called in their splendid scarlet, & the Welsh Guards, & the archbishop, & the entire royal family – what more could have been done to give the poor little person an honourable funeral. The Queen in her clever way gave the best seats to Georges & Ofélia.1

  I was so glad I asked if Catherine [Neidpath] could come with me (she was perfectly willing to wait in the car) because the whole thing was so interesting. We were opposite the Garter stall of Emperor Hirohito. I thought what on earth is that strange device of a sun, & the banner had just one huge chrysanthemum, & of course it was the dear little Jap. Mostly Paris friends, Anne-Marie Bismarck came from Hamburg, Hubert2 had one of the grand places! & climbed across knées to hug me to (I think) the general surprise. Next to us was Laura Marlborough3 & the other side of her the present Duke. You know how they abominate each other so of course she whispered non stop to me. I told Catherine to be sure I gathered up what she said & it was ‘When I told Diana Cooper I’d hired a car to come, she said “Oh do take me”, but I said “Sorry mate no way, I can’t carry you up the steps”’.

  About two seats away from me were the Hendersons,4 he busied himself with Tarmac papers while he waited for the Queen. Opposite was Gladwyn also reading – a whodunit. The ladies were very smart, mostly French. I went back to Stanway & described all to Jamie [Neidpath]. In my room at Stanway there was a roaring fire & I went to sleep with that lovely flickering on the ceiling one never sees now.

  All love darling, Honks

  Dearest Hen,

  I got a v. sweet P.C. from Sophy & she asked for ‘good suggestions for reading matter’!!1 So here they are, please relay: 1) Get a supply of books you had always meant to read, but never had time, such as Plutarch’s Lives, War & Peace, Bacon’s Essays etc. You’ll find your attention unaccountably wandering-you seem to have read the same paragraph several times & still can’t quite get its import. Put the books on a chair to be read some time later. 2) Next, fetch up some novels that you know one ought to have read in childhood but never did – Hardy, Conrad, the lesser-known works of Dickens. Same, alas, as in 1) above. 3) Find some books that you know you like, as you’ve read them before – Catch 22? Catcher in the Rye? Pride & Prejudice?. (but you’ll have to fill in the titles of your own favorites). This is far easier going, far more pleasurable. 4) Try some collections of short stories, the shorter the better. Also, Grimm’s Fairy Tales – that sort of thing. That way the constant interruptions – meals, pills, baths etc – don’t specially matter. 5) Above all – lay in a huge supply of mags, the more trivial the better, & leaf through them languidly while waiting for your cup of tea. That, anyway, is what I usually do when a) ill, b) travelling, c) on holiday; in the precise order as given above.

  Well Hen DO come to London one day. Bob’s gone home (left today) so I’m all alone by the telephone. Longing to hear from you.

  S. of France most enjoyable except there seemed to be all sorts of subterranean undercurrents of rows between Tony Richardson & Grizelda.2 A bonus was Natasha Richardson (Tony/V[anessa] Redgrave product) who we’d seen here last year in The Seagull. She’s a smashing actress – an incredibly good cook, she did all the meals à la Emma, & extremely nice unlike most good actresses & cooks.

  Much love, yr Hen

  Dearest Hen

  America was a
mazing. It always is. The mixture of formal & informal catches me out every time. I always get it wrong by miles. Killed by kindness of course, specially in New Orleans (the voices Hen aren’t they wonderful). We were taken from house to house, new people every time, except for the saintly fellow who took us (architect by the wondrous name of Grover Mouton)1 & saw many a marvel. Aren’t they clever the way tall buildings are only allowed in one part of the town so the rest is real.

  H Wakefield2 (my leader, nanny, lady in waiting, the person who is behind the incredibly good fake furniture which was the point of the trip) went out late one night to listen to the jazz (I’d gone to bed hours before of course, stupidly), felt sorry for a fellow who was playing a trumpet outside a café, gave him some money, he played some more, H.W. gave him more money, they started talking & he was a sort of old Etonian, spoke like you or me, do admit the surprise. We stayed in a new hotel of undreamed luxury, I had a ridiculous suite, 5 rooms including one with a piano, & a kitchen. Hen do explain the point of that, I mean not likely one wd stay in a hotel at thousands of dollars a night & immediately start cooking.

  The graveyards are wonderful, little real buildings for the ghosts. V. good having an architect to show us everything, I loved that.

  Then Chicago. Another vastly grand suite on the top of an O which looked over the lake. Lapping waves, sandy shore. Was told all was concrete & the sand is brought every year. The oddness Hen.

  The dinner where your Bergs3 were was 24 souls in room with v. low ceiling & the noise was deafening. I sat next to some grand old ancient head of everything to do with operas. These rather lost on me as I’ve only been to one in my life & loathed it. Do you like those fat screamers? Anyway I had a short go with Bergs but much too short as I could see he was full of point & I’m a sucker for an architect do you know. I saw some of Berg’s wavy buildings, not too sure but I’m so out of tune with all new building I’m no judge. She doesn’t look like a social-ite, more ‘ist’ I thought, but take your word for it. As you say those sort of evenings are most unsatisfactory, they leave you exhausted on the one hand & longing for more on the other. It’s practically royal the way those people go on, tons of waiters in white gloves handing unwanted this & that & standing about making one feel rather uncomfortable. But all v. kind & well meant.

  The best person in the whole outing (after dear G. Mouton) was a 78 yr old Jewess called Mrs Mottahedeh4 (yes Hen, Hedda Gabler to me) who has a business which copies china. Impeccable taste, not an ugly thing in her catalogue, & v. beautifully made. Even things like Ludwig’s Dresden swan service. I longed to be closeted with her for hours, no hope of course, whisked away to talk to more socialites with hidden claws & not too polite to their drivers.

  The evening in Marshall Field’s was an eye opener, 1,000 people paid fortunes to come to the party to see the furniture & Hedda Gabler’s china & some v. pretty & wildly expensive stuffs by the yard copied from here & elsewhere. Americans do that sort of thing so brilliantly, seriously good food all looking so pretty, flowers ditto, far better than the best here.

  Baker Knapp & Tubbs, the furniture makers, have been bought by a maker of baths & lavs called Kohler.5 He sent his plane for me to go & see his dump in Wisconsin because he is also a farmer & has 150 Morgan horses. You simply can’t imagine how funny his lav. showroom is, lav. upon lav. are hung on a wall in the ‘design centre’ & he gives a great shout when showing you round ‘And there, there is the Great Wall of China’!

  On that note I’ll end this interim report.

  Much love, Yr Hen

  Darling Debo

  How inter-esting that the mad postcode might speed letters, here it’s essential, but is the same all over what Woo calls the Continent, only England so difficile – anyway I’ll try though this time not quite fair. Your letter was among 15 Xmas cards.

  About Derek Hart’s1 bleak funeral, I’m afraid such funerals are bleak. It’s just like being married in a registry office. Although I can’t (try as I will) believe three impossible things before breakfast, you can give me a religious funeral if you like, I don’t mind in the least, much as I loathe the C of E & although I do find Christians more hypocritical, cruel & offensive than dear old pagans. But services are just for survivors, when one’s dead what difference can it make? I couldn’t arrange a service myself but as one’s gone it’s quite immaterial. So you have got carte blanche eh, or noire.

  Merry New Year!

  All love darling, Honks

  Darling Debo

  What a terrifying sermon at Macmillan’s funeral1 saying on the resurrection morning we shall all see him again. If that comes true it will give me a turn I don’t mind saying. It was on the wireless & sounded like a threat. I’d rather see Lady Dorothy but don’t want Bob [Boothby] at all.

  Love darling, Honks

  Darling Woman

  I am longing for you to see & taste the FOOD.1

  We had 38 ‘distributors’ (commercial travellers really) here on to try & show the fellows what we have to look after here, warmed them up with lunch, then we went to the Stag Parlour set up with chairs like a school room & THE PRODUCT was unveiled, along with various pots & tins from rival firms to show how much better ours are! I long to know what you, specially, will think of them. We had a tasting lot but they were so full of lunch they didn’t do enough of that!

  I think it was all v. well received, they seemed enthusiastic. Of course it depends enormously on the distributors, they have to push the things into the shops. Then we took them to the Farm Shop which of course will be a leading seller, along with the Orangery.

  Then the poor things (who had bravely come from as far as Darlington, Isle of Man, Newmarket, Devon etc) disappeared into the fog.

  The next excitement is on Mon when we have the editors of some of the trade mags, The Grocer etc, to tea at Ches. St. to show them & hope they will write nicely about it.

  Then the Birmingham Gift Fair which opens 1 Feb then the Olympia Food Fair from 5 Feb. So you see the excitement is INTENSE.

  It would be wonderful if it becomes as big a thing as we hope. All the profits will go to the house.

  I’ll try & telephone over the wkend.

  Much love, Stublow

  Do PRAY for THE PRODUCT (22 different things, or is it 25, I’ll count).

  Darling Woo

  I can so imagine how you miss sweet Beetle. But I’m sure his life had become a burden to him as well as to you. I only wish when that happens to one, one could ‘send for the vet’. So wonderfully easy.

  Such a pity you’re not here! 29° day after day & the pool is 74° Fahrenheit.

  All love, Nard

  Can you really be 70 on 11th? Impossible.

  Dearest Hen

  What about this truly ghoulish thing which ½ the population of England will be sending you this very moment.1 When I think what beautiful china used to come out of Stoke on Trent. I’ve been round the Doulton factory & it makes you despair of anything approaching TASTE, all gone out of the window. Poor Grace.

  Stella Tennant thinks I talk very funny & says ‘Granny do say my specs have simply GORN.’ She doubles up with laughter. She says ‘eye level’ instead of A level & ‘foive’ for five. She is a wonder.

  Books. The thing is not to do it, writing I mean. ANYTHING to put off beginning: telephone, take the dogs out, read yet another ridiculous mag, & then when one has begun it’s lovely & v. difficult to stop. Do you find that? I can’t do anything unless I’ve got all the things to do it with just right, paper & soft B pencils sharpened which they soon aren’t because of the softth. I wish I could type, one could see what it looks like instead of waiting on someone else to do it a little bit wrong.

  I bought a hugely expensive typewriter thinking I’d try but somehow haven’t. There have been so many distractions lately that I’ve done o, well nearly o. Hopeless.

  Now I’m going to Pittsburgh for a moment or two, 3 days actually, with an exhib. of drawings from here. Can’t think why I said I’d go, m
ust have been mad & ought to be in bed with pencils & paper. But there we are Hen, blinded by flattery as usual. I mean if flattered am blinded.

  Much love, Yr Hen

  Darling Steake

  It was good of you to remember my old Birthday & I was thrilled to get the telegram from you & Bob, it was there, waiting my arrival at Brooks’s Club & I was amazed. It was sad that you couldn’t have been there as you would have found many old friends such as Jim Lees-Milne, Derek Hill, Middy Gascoigne & lots of cousins, Madeau [Stewart] in great form with her camera, taking lots of photographs. We were 43 altogether I think. It was all a great success, lovely company, delicious food & marvellous wine & in a most beautiful room. Those houses in St James’s Street are so lovely inside. The dinner was Borsch Soup, Saddle of Lamb, Profiteroles with hot chocolate sauce. Champagne before dinner, a lovely Meursault & then Léoville Barton, & Champagne again with the coffee. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves & were in top form. It was so good of Andrew [Devonshire] to give such a party, I had expected to be here, quietly. Oddly enough I feel just as I did before I was 80 – somehow I had expected some magical change to take place but all is as usual!