The Mitfords

by Charlotte Mosley

  Of course these things aren’t excuses because if I had been interested I would either have read all night like you do or not done the other things. The truth is I couldn’t live here & not do the other things when what was needed stuck out a mile. So it was pretty well a 24-hour a day job & made more complicated by having to weave around & not be seen to be doing it. I got in the habit of it & couldn’t stop.

  Oh Proust, shall I try now or is it too late? I do hope it’s too late.

  And then you remember what you’ve read, that’s what’s so amazing. Not in one eye & out the other while the page remains unturned & the print becomes meaningless. Oh Honks – it’s hopeless Granny.2 If we ever leave here not in a coffin then I really will. And we ought to of course.

  Your sentiments in your KIND letter much appreciated.

  Much love, Debo

  Darling Honks

  It was lovely to see you & to be at the Temple on that staggeringly beautiful day. Wasn’t it luck, squeezed between winter before & after (it is here anyway).

  I was v. relieved to find you well. I absolutely understand the domestic worries & I wd give anything to get them resolved.

  The more I think about it the more I feel you ought not to move. The lesser of the 2 evils, to my mind, is new people. A total upheaval, from a 50 year HOME would be worse than anything I can imagine.

  The D of York’s helicopter looms so I suppose I must stop. I had a nightmare that I’d gone ON VACATION with Fergie1 & woke in a sweat.

  I’ll tell you how it goes. THANKS for my visit, car, food, chats & everything else.

  Much love, Debo

  Look after yourself please.

  Darling Debo

  Thank you so much for understanding. In a way, Andrew Wilson put his finger on it, by writing he wished he could come & chat for an hour instead of having to burden me with a night’s visit – well, of course it’s not a burden & yet it is. Arrangements have to be made, meeting agreed, often involving the dreaded telephone, as well as depending on Jerry or someone else. Whereas in a flat you just open the door! Everything here is in greater or lesser degree like that and, even with reliable people, has to be, up to a point, tiresome, not to speak of those who get out at the wrong station etc. Also being so deaf short visits are so much more welcome.

  Philip Ziegler sent his life of Osbert [Sitwell] & I couldn’t put it down. I do wonder what the critics will say. Osbert’s (ridiculous) snobbery, and his attitude to the war & other things will press every button loathed by not just the Left but all the politically correct people. Which has become nearly everybody! He (Ziegler) praises Osbert’s autobiography, it’s fifty years since I read it. Of course Sir George is wonderful, & the valet. But on the whole I don’t think Ziegler gives credit for Osbert’s funniness, he was such fun to be with & the jokes perfect. The quarrel with Sachie is terribly sad when you think how much they adored each other. I must re-read the autobiography. The last years terrible.

  Love darling, Honks

  Darling Debo

  Blazing sun, & again this morning, and warmth. Tony [Lambton] approves my plans which I told him not to speak of.1 It’s such a business coming here for chat, Jerry made a sort of House and Garden dinner à la Emmy.

  Tony says Harold left 65 millions. He left Mrs Acton’s jewellery to the nice young man who was so good to him. It’s worth 2 million. Very nice.

  Talking of language difficulty Tony says Selwyn Lloyd2 introduced him to Khrushchev saying ‘He’s the best shot in England’, & the translator said ‘Lord Lambton is to be shot tomorrow’. Khrushchev thought it quite normal but patted him on the shoulder kindly.

  Well darling that’s it.

  All love, Honks

  Darling Honks

  I think you’ll have to speak to Ld Longford about his Garter get up: soup, egg & just London dirt all over, a bit much & the poor Queen had to eat her lunch next to him. I was next to Ly Longford in church, she whispered stage-like ‘HOW IS DIANA?’ but that was all we could do, we were overtaken by anthems after that.

  My word that ceremony is beautiful. Ld Longford comes in a London taxi, they say he goes into the street, shouts TAXI, gives the driver the parking thing & says ‘Windsor Castle’. Quite sensible, it’s far easier for a 93-yr-old to get out of than a car but it does look very funny between the Bentleys.

  Ld Callaghan1 is the next oldest-looking & Ly C’s feet are a series of knobbles, poor her. I drew one Lord Bramall2 at lunch. As we went in to the huge newly done room I said ‘sorry I didn’t look at the plan’ & he said ‘oh I did, we go this way’. Well it was the wrong way so as we turned to go back I said ‘how did we win the war with generals like you?’ to which he replied ‘I’m not a general I’m a Field Marshal’. He is sweet & grows peas & beans & has a Gurkha on the box, lucky thing.3 Ld Leverhulme just sits with his mouth open these days & Quentin [Hailsham] made a bog by refusing at first then said he was coming & then didn’t come.

  So that’s the Garter for you.

  It’s the 19 June & there has been ONE day with no measurable rain so far. A bit much you’ll agree. Everyone is getting edgy.

  Heywood Hill Prize4 today*. I’ll report.

  Much love, Debo

  * Soggy lawn & yet another tent.

  Darling Honks

  Henry [Coleman] back from Lismore with a good tale of some of the American tenants – the host wished for a ghost so wonderful Denis1 whistled up one Mr Twigg (sec of the hunt!). He was dressed in a sheet, a night-cap, chains, carried a lantern, they fixed a fishing line to the chandelier in the dining room. When pulled it shook & rattled & then the apparition appeared through the windows.

  One American woman nearly fainted, screamed like anything & said she must leave the castle at once, go anywhere, even the hotel … It took ages to persuade her that the ghost was Mr Twigg, he had to appear in the flesh … she was really horror-struck, the joke nearly went too far.

  Much love, Debo

  Darling Debo

  When you think of the tiny Temple harbouring so much it is bewildering. Some of the furniture seems huge & some weeny, all quite unlike itself. Elo2 & I did your room yesterday, not quite the Centre Bedroom I fear, nor the Red Velvet.3

  I understand nothing, not the door or how people get in & I’m too deaf to hear buzzer or bell, have lost several keys & am altogether hopeless Granny. Don’t hear telephone or fax, Elo speaks no French, altogether we are babes in the wood. I must learn how to do the cooker. So many things to learn & I’m too old & not an apt pupil.

  Must get up for picture hanging.

  Love darling, Honks

  Darling Debo

  I haven’t done my memo for Jan Dalley1 but nobody is coming today so I’ll have a try. As soon as it’s done I’ll send. She has got very silly adolescent letters from me to Jim,2 apparently all his correspondence is in some American university, I suppose the whole lot was sold when he died, or do you think he sold them? Anyway the letters are available. One made me give an unwilling smile, apparently when Helleu died (and I was really sad), I wrote to Jim & said Nobody again will ever admire me as much as Helleu did. What a horrifying little beast I must have been.

  I come out of the book a monster, can’t be helped but what I’m trying to get changed is the part about Muv, lifted of course from Nancy’s letters to Mrs Ham. Nancy’s lies are almost worse than Decca’s. Both stem from unhappiness (Decca’s tragedies, Nancy’s operation in 1941) but nobody realizes that except us.

  Love darling, Honks

  Darling Debo

  ’Your health, so precious to the hearts of us all’ as Winston said in a toast to Stalin-but your health really is precious. Now darling please rest. You do far too much for others and nothing for yourself. So peaceful here. My charming fan1 is coming anon for a chat, otherwise blank.

  I’ve had lots of birthday cards, perhaps people think I’m ninety. I almost am. I’ve been reading about Evelyn [Waugh] again. I’m afraid he was a fiend in many ways and the snobbery so very sill
y not worthy of such a clever man. And the drunkenness. I think I had the best of him 1929–1930. He didn’t drink, never seemed silly or snobbish, loved chatting and jokes and we had such fun here in Paris, delicious food. The Guinness flat was just near where I am now. What made him become so awful? The demon drink perhaps, also the war and its disillusions. Poor Laura what a fate. She died aged 57.2

  Love darling, Honks

  Darling Honks

  Michael’s1 funeral was in the most beautiful place, Compton Abbas between Shaftesbury & Blandford.

  Short service, no address thank goodness. It set me thinking how strange it is that a man who had never set foot in his village church should wish to have his funeral service there. Churches are used 3 times it seems, wedding, christening & funeral. At the first two, solemn vows are made which people have no intention of keeping-at the last trump I suppose there’s a glimmer of hope of everlasting life in a sort of heaven. Can you explain it? How do people expect a church to keep going for 3 occasions in a lifetime? A sort of superstition, a leftover from childhood? It soon won’t be that as few children are taken to church in the way that our generation was.

  Much love, Debo

  Darling Debo

  What you say about Michael Tree’s funeral – do you think only Christians should have funerals and weddings in church, where the words spoken are so beautiful and so much part of the best we have inherited from the past? I don’t speak of christenings, I think it is too wicked to renounce in the name of the infant all the pomps & vanities of this wicked world and all the lustful joys of the flesh, which would include dinner at Maxim’s or a visit to the National Gallery. But weddings and funerals are social occasions and I think myself they are beautiful and should quite like to have a little funeral at Swinbrook and my ashes near Woman’s, but perhaps in view of what you say it would be better to get my sons to scatter my ashes anywhere, in the Bois de Boulogne would be easy for them. I don’t mind a bit what happens but people like to say goodbye, at my age hardly any friends but masses of family. I do wonder if the people who say the creed every Sunday could really believe in the resurrection of the body? If they don’t quite believe such an amazingly unlikely idea they shouldn’t go to church and swear that they do. What would Runcie1 say? He can’t believe it, no rational human being could. It’s no good saying this that & the other is symbolic, one cannot pick and choose between truth and symbol, the words are perfectly clear.

  I don’t want anyone at my cremation, they are so slow at Père Lachaise, unlike in England where it’s 5 minutes. I went to Nanny’s and to Gerald’s, very easy but here it’s too awful and takes forever. If you think Swinbrook unbearably hypocritical I will tell my sons what to do.

  Love, Honks

  Darling

  I rather dread the (very easy) writing of all the labels for my 20 greats, they are only part of the task, there are Jonathan’s three, and Louis, and various. I am so lazy, have never minded doing it before. Anyway I’ve got all the Xmas labels as well as 200 envelopes which will wend to you, I must ration my letters to you when you are so busy with real life.

  The Law Courts are better than any theatre. So sensible of your gr children to go. I used to go often in Eaton Sq days. Tom would tell if a riveting case was on & he used to find me a good seat but I also went to the public gallery. I heard the Tavistocks’ Restitution of Conjugal Rights case,1 it was really about money, neither gave signs of wishing for conjugal rights but Lady T. wanted cash. And best of all was Farve, sued for slander by Andia, the wireless man. I went with Diana and Randolph C, and at the end she said ‘It’s so unfair, Cousin David was bound to win because he looks like God the Father’. Well one couldn’t say that of Fayed or Hamilton.2

  Love darling, Honks

  Darling Debo

  Farve & Andia. Needless to say it started with Uncle Geoff at the Marlborough Club. He had heard of a wonderful S. American who was going to make millions with lovely ways of hiding a wireless, for a sham Chinese pot which could take an honoured place among the old Famille Rose but which was in fact plastic, very cheap to turn out in thousands. In those days wirelesses and plastic were both rather go-ahead. Old Dave must meet him and invest. A luncheon arranged, Farve fell for the patter and invested. Some time later he began to have doubts (I expect Muv said no to a gothic casket for Asthall). When Lord Dulverton asked Farve whether he should invest in the Marquis of Andia’s brilliant invention, Farve said ‘First of all he isn’t a marquis, and second don’t invest and third I really don’t think he is too honest’. A third member of the Marlborough, whose identity I can’t remember, was told this in confidence and let it all out to the marquis while refusing to invest. Whereupon Andia sued Farve for slander.

  Farve was wonderful under cross examination by a very bullying Counsel. I seem to remember it was Goddard, who became a very bullying judge. The judge of Farve’s case was quite shamelessly on his side and treated Andia like a foreign black beetle, whereas he and Farve were brothers and Farve called him My Lord.

  The case was dismissed and costs awarded to the defendant. Of course Farve had told Lord Dulverton everything that was alleged. But I suppose the judge thought he was quite right to warn Lord Dulverton about this obvious crook. That’s where the millions he got for Batsford disappeared, and it was usually Uncle Geoff’s fault. Farve was an innocent. All this circa 1926 or 27, I think. Diana Churchill hit the nail on the head for once.

  Love darling, take care and get well, Honks

  P.S. In those days wirelesses were HUGE and HIDEOUS.

  Darling Honks

  Your letters of the last few days are so meaty I have to keep looking, forgetting (as I do now) & so looking again.

  Now Decca. Muv’s letter1 is so sad & so generous & forgiving after what was a body blow. After 60 years it would still be a nightmare for a girl of 19 to disappear for 2 weeks (I remember it being longer but may be wrong, no I see Muv says 2 weeks) without any clue as to what had happened to her. I don’t think she ever realized the effect it had on all at Rutland Gate. It was just as if someone young had died. No gramo (till then continuous). Silence, worry, sleepless, guessing what could have happened & then the whole story of the lies, deception & complete callousness of not thinking for one moment of what it wd be like for all of us. I felt betrayed. She was all to me, I could not believe that she could have done what she did. Of course I knew (as Muv did) that she was miserable at home but as I’d never heard of Esmond I had no idea that she would go, but it was the way she did it which was so cruel.

  I once or twice asked her about it years later. She said it was the only way, she had to have time to get right away before being discovered & that if she had told me what would I have done? I must say I don’t know the answer.

  Decca was Nanny’s favourite, I always thought, the adored curly haired favourite.

  It was far the worst thing that happened to me, I was 16/17 & young for my age & very easily upset & the whole drawn out horror of it, the wondering what on earth had happened to her & then the cutting off with a knife seemed unbelievable.

  There was a song of Harry Roy’s (who we were all in love with) which went

  Somebody stole my gal

  Somebody stole my pal

  Somebody came & took her away

  She didn’t even

  Say that she was leavin …

  ‘Gal’ changed to ‘Hen’ & there it was, the whole story, often sung long after.

  She was in Esmond’s thrall and remained so till he died. I couldn’t bear him, he had that effect, you either adored or hated. His death must have nearly killed her, oh poor Hen.

  I don’t think she ever saw Farve again (or did she, once, I don’t know).

  My goodness how it all comes back.

  Decca softened & softened as the years went by, her letters show that. Not unusual. Do you remember when the Wife & Farve eventually met & she said something about expecting someone fierce & he said ‘All the savagery has gone out of me’.

&
nbsp; Much love, Debo

  Darling Honks

  I’ve been looking at the ghoulishly embarrassing diaries of mine, 1938. I was so awful I can hardly read them. When Decca’s baby died I just wrote a sentence saying so, & then went on about fishing with Farve at Swinbrook. Mind you I was suffering still from her departure & had had one or two awful times with Esmond when I went to see them in Bermondsey, & he was truly horrible about Muv etc.

  I think Nancy was right that Decca was changed by him but she was ripe for change & it happened to be him, might have been anyone but he was such a strong personality & so violently against EVERYTHING.

  There was no mention of going to see them after the tragedy of the baby, I suppose I’d have been kicked out by him & not much welcomed by her. There is a sad little note, 1938, from her saying ‘We’re going tomorrow’ & at the end ‘do write’ but we had so cut off from each other by the time they went to America I couldn’t think what to say, my life seemed so banal & so different from hers. The diary has some funny references to Pam Digby, funny in the light of her future career.1

  Much love, Debo

  Darling Honks