The Mitfords Read online

  Nancy’s usual victim was Pamela, whose unguarded nature made her an obvious target for teasing. Diana, however, presented more of a challenge; she was fully Nancy’s intellectual equal, with just as determined a character, and was able to stand up to her sister’s bullying. Occasionally Nancy managed to exert her seniority and successfully torment her younger sister. When she was sixteen, she formed a company of Girl Guides, appointed herself captain and tried to make ten-year-old Diana salute her. On another occasion, she pretended to have heard the Redesdales discuss sending Diana to boarding school, an idea that filled her little sister with horror. But they both enjoyed reading, which drew them together, as did a similar sense of humour and a longing to escape the confinement of Swinbrook. As they grew up, they became, according to Diana, great friends. But underlying the friendship was a deep current of envy on Nancy’s part towards a younger sister who was already a great beauty and the instant centre of attention with the undergraduate friends that Nancy brought home. These feelings were exacerbated when Diana, aged eighteen, married the extremely rich and good-looking Bryan Guinness and became a sought-after London hostess.

  Shortly before Diana’s engagement to Bryan in 1928, Pamela accepted a proposal of marriage from a neighbour of the Mitfords, Oliver Watney. The prospect of having two younger sisters married before she was may help to explain Nancy’s unwise decision to become unofficially engaged to Hamish St Clair-Erskine, a friend of Tom’s from Eton who was younger than her and homosexual. Her infatuation with Hamish dragged on for five unsatisfactory years, causing her a great deal of unhappiness. During this period she started to write her first articles for Vogue, and in 1930 was taken on as a regular contributor to cover social events for The Lady. This brought in a little pocket money, as did her first two novels, Highland Fling and Christmas Pudding, light satires on upper-class life that sketched out the world she would so successfully depict in her accomplished post-war novels.

  Nancy used to say that the first three years of her life were perfect, ‘then a terrible thing happened, my sister Pamela was born’ which ‘threw me into a permanent rage for about 20 years’. Her affront at being supplanted in the nursery was compounded by an insensitive nanny who immediately shifted all her love and attention to the new baby. By the time Nancy was six and Pamela three, they might have overcome their differences and played together, had not Pamela contracted polio which affected her physical and mental development. She was in constant pain from an aching leg, and often tearful and sad. Her illness was doubtless a strain on Nancy: ‘you’ve got to be kind to Pam, she’s ill’, was dinned into her unceasingly. Instead of narrowing, as it normally would, the age gap between the two sisters widened. Pamela, who was the least able to defend herself, became Nancy’s scapegoat. She learnt to keep her head down and seems never to have shown any ill will towards her tormentor. She loved jokes as much as the rest of the family, and laughed about her own limitations, but she refused to retaliate or compete in the teasing. Her sisters nicknamed her ‘Woman’ because, like a symbolic character in a medieval Mystery Play, she epitomized the womanly virtues of simplicity and goodness. From her mother, she inherited dignity, common sense and the talent for making a comfortable home; from her father, a love of the countryside, where she was at her happiest. In 1925, when these letters begin, Pamela was a shy seventeen-year-old debutante, confiding to Diana her nervousness about going out into the world.

  Unlike Nancy, who was a late developer and drew out her adolescence well into her twenties, Diana, by the time she was thirty, had been twice married, given birth to four sons and experienced the most eventful decade of her life. When these letters begin, she was a precocious fifteen-year-old, dreaming of independence. Her closest companion in the family, both in age and interests, was Tom, and when he was home for the holidays the two were inseparable. Diana admired her brother’s musical and intellectual talents and delighted in the company of his sophisticated friends. These glimpses of a world of art, music and intelligent conversation increased her yearning to escape the restrictive family atmosphere. The 1926 General Strike, sparked off by the grim working conditions in the coal mines, made a deep impression on her, kindling her social conscience and fostering a lifelong interest in politics. Whereas Nancy treated the national emergency as something of a joke and disguised herself as a tramp to frighten Pamela who was running a canteen serving food to strike-breaking lorry drivers, Diana felt the injustice of the miners’ situation acutely. Her interest in politics was also fuelled by visits to Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s family home in Kent. Churchill’s wife, Clementine, was a first cousin of Lord Redesdale, and two of the Churchill children, Diana and Randolph, were much the same age as Tom and Diana.

  In 1927, Diana spent six months studying in Paris, where she said she learnt more than in six years of lessons at Asthall. For the first time in her life she was free of the strict chaperoning imposed by her parents and of having to jockey for position among her sisters. The painter Paul-César Helleu, a friend of Thomas Gibson-Bowles, was an important influence during her visit. He took her to the Louvre and Versailles, introduced her to his artist friends and admired her looks, making her aware for the first time of the effect of her exceptional beauty. When she returned to Swinbrook, Diana was more impatient than ever to get away from its schoolroom atmosphere. The following year, at the end of her first season, a proposal of marriage gave her the chance to escape. Bryan Guinness, the sensitive and diffident elder son of Lord Moyne and heir to a brewing fortune, fell deeply in love with her. A poet and novelist, Bryan was part of a group of Nancy’s Oxford friends that included Evelyn Waugh, John Betjeman, Roy Harrod, Harold Acton, James Lees-Milne, Henry Yorke and Robert Byron, young men whose interests represented everything that Diana aspired to. She and Bryan were married in January 1929 and divided their time between London and Biddesden, a fine eighteenth-century house in Wiltshire, where Diana was able to give free rein to her talent for decorating and entertaining. Unity, Jessica and Deborah often went to stay with the young couple and in 1930 Pamela settled in a nearby cottage to run the Biddesden farm. Nancy was a less frequent visitor. Caught up in her unhappy affair with Hamish and very short of money, it was galling to see Diana settled in a splendid house, surrounded by a loving husband and two healthy babies. However, the picture of happiness that Diana and Bryan presented was not as bright as it appeared. Although they were undoubtedly in love, there was a basic incompatibility between them that soon made itself felt. Increasingly, Bryan wanted to stay at home with only his family for company while Diana, who was eager to travel and fill her house with friends, found this domesticity all too reminiscent of the life she had so recently managed to escape.

  In the spring of 1932, Diana sat next to Sir Oswald Mosley at a dinner party in London. The former Conservative MP and Labour Minister, whose New Party had been resoundingly defeated in the previous year’s general election, was preparing to break with parliamentary politics and launch the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Diana fell under the spell of this seasoned womanizer and compelling talker who seemed to her to have all the answers to Britain’s problems. In Mosley, she found the combination of a powerful man she could love and a cause to which she could dedicate herself, a pattern that Unity and Jessica – and to a lesser extent Nancy – were to conform to in their different ways. Mosley was married and made it clear that he would not leave his wife. Undeterred, and encouraged by Mosley, Diana decided to divorce Bryan in order to be available for her lover whenever he could spare the time from politics, family and the other women in his life. By throwing in her lot with Mosley, Diana was prepared to sacrifice her social position, distance herself from her beloved Tom, who disapproved of her leaving Bryan, alienate her parents – who refused to allow her two youngest sisters to visit her – and even risk losing her sons. She once wrote of her decision, ‘I probably ought to have behaved differently but I never regretted it’. Of the family, only Nancy supported Diana’s choice and became a regular visi
tor to the house in Eaton Square that Diana took after her divorce. It was no doubt easier for Nancy to be close to her sister when she was unpopular than when she was at the height of her success.

  Unity was described by her mother as a sensitive, introverted little girl, who used to slip under the dining-room table if anything was said at meals that upset or embarrassed her. By the time she was eight, and had graduated to the schoolroom, she had become naughty and disruptive, her shyness concealed beneath a tough shell of sullen defiance. More solemn than her sisters, she lacked their quick wit and enjoyed practical rather than verbal jokes. In an effort to stand out, she behaved outrageously. When she was fourteen, partly because she was so difficult at home and partly because she wanted to go away, Lady Redesdale decided to make an exception among her daughters and sent Unity to boarding school. The three establishments she attended were no more successful at controlling her than her governesses had been and she was expelled from all of them. In 1932, she followed her older sisters and was launched into society: ‘a huge and a rather alarming debutante’, according to Jessica. Social life bored her and she had not grown out of the need to draw attention to herself. The only party she enjoyed was a Court ball, where she distinguished herself by stealing Buckingham Palace writing paper. In early 1933, to fill in the months before another Season, she enrolled at a London art school. Diana’s house in Eaton Square was forbidden to the two youngest Mitfords because of the scandal of her divorce and involvement with Mosley, but Unity, freed from parental supervision, was able to call on her sister whenever she liked. On one of her visits she met Mosley and became an instant convert to his ideas. The fascist cause had the attraction of being disapproved of by her parents, as well as providing her with the thrill of being connected to its charismatic leader. For Diana, who at the time was cut off from most of her family, Unity’s enthusiastic support was reassuring.

  During the eight years covered by these early letters, Jessica, the second-youngest sister, went from being a cheerful, mischievous eight-year-old to an angry, rebellious adolescent. While there was nothing unusual about this – her sisters had also gone through periods of teenage moodiness – the boredom of home life and the frustration of not being allowed to go to school instilled in Jessica a lasting sense of grievance. Although in her memoirs of 1960, Hons and Rebels, she may have exaggerated the fortress – like aspect of Swinbrook and overlooked the laughter and genuine companionship that existed between herself, Unity and Deborah – whom she likened to ‘ill-assorted animals tied to a common tethering post’ – there is no doubt that life there for the three youngest Mitfords was more circumscribed than Asthall had been for the eldest four. A few months after Diana, who had always been her preferred older sister, left home to get married, twelve-year-old Jessica’s determination to rebel took a tangible form and she opened a ‘running-away’ account at Drummond’s Bank. In her memoirs, she recalled that by this time her social conscience had been awakened by newspaper accounts of the economic depression gripping Britain. She dated her interest in socialism to reading, at the age of fourteen, Beverley Nichols’ pacifist novel, Cry Havoc!, and noted that it was she, not Unity, who first became interested in politics. Nichols’ book was not in fact published until 1933, the year Jessica turned sixteen, by which time Unity had taken up fascism and the struggle between the two ideologies was already being played out on a wider stage than the Swinbrook schoolroom. But no matter which of them was the first to take up an extreme position, Unity and Jessica had, like many sisters, quarrelled relentlessly as children and their political disagreement was in many ways a continuation of earlier squabbles. Beneath their rivalry, however, was a deep and lasting affection which remained intact, even after they had embraced diametrically opposite sides in the conflict of the day.

  After their disappointment at her birth – the Redesdales had been hoping for another boy – Deborah was the only one among the sisters never to cause her parents any heartache, and was probably their favourite daughter. She was a contented child with a loving nature, for whom the idea of school was anathema. She was happy so long as she was with the ponies, dogs, goats, guinea pigs and other animals that were as important to her as the human inhabitants of Swinbrook. While she possessed just as passionate and resolute a nature as her sisters, the key to Deborah’s well-adjusted disposition was the ability to accept life as she found it. The youngest of a large family, she soon learnt, as she wrote in a memoir of her childhood, that ‘as everything in life is unfair, perhaps the sooner it is realized the better’, and unlike her politically engaged sisters she never felt the urge to go out and right the injustices of the world. Unencumbered by spite or malice, Deborah possessed a cheerfulness and buoyancy of spirits that never deserted her. As a small child, she worshipped Nancy and sought out her company, only to be teased or treated with amused condescension in return. Her staunchest ally against her eldest sister’s persecution was Jessica; the two remained very close throughout childhood and adolescence, when they shared an easy, happy relationship, expressed through ‘Honnish’ jokes, songs and poems.

  My dear Diana,

  You must have had an awful time poor dear!1 Didn’t it hurt most horribly? Anyway I am sure you will be very happy at Bexhill-on-Sea. We have just got the telegram to say that you got there alright, not that I quite see what could have happened to you unless it might have been a train accident. But it is the custom to send telegrams whenever one arrives safely anywhere.

  Pat2 has arrived, he came at tea time. Mary3 came yesterday and so far no one else has arrived. I do so wish that you were here. You see I feel so stupid because every one invited Togo4 to tea on Sunday to play tennis and Mary keeps telling everybody that she has asked him for me and that everybody is to fade away and leave us two together! If you were here you would of course also join in and I should not feel so young. However I shall have to get over feeling shy and this weekend is sure to help me in doing so. I should really much prefer to be at Bexhill with you.

  We want to do some table turning one night but we are so afraid that Farve5 might find us at it. That would be awful of course.

  Much love from Pam

  Dearest Ling

  Isn’t this too grand?1

  So awful, I ought to be drawing but the professor has been so beastly to me in a piercing voice, everyone heard & I rushed away to hide my shame in the writing room. Very soon I shall have to go back & face my brothers & sisters-in-art.

  They are so awful to you, they come up & say What a very depressing drawing, I wonder how you manage to draw so foully, have you never had a pencil in your hand before. They burble on like this for about ½ an hr & everyone else cranes to catch each word. Luckily they are the same to all. I now burst into loud sobs the moment one comes into the room, hoping to soften them.

  Very soon it will be lunch time & then I shall be seated between an Indian & a Fuzzy-Wuzzy2 degluting sausage & mash oh what a treat. I’m learning Italian here now which I enjoy. In fact I love being here altogether, it’s the greatest fun.

  I hope you are in rude health & enjoy your matutinal cold bath.3

  So awful, the head of the whole university had us all up the other day & said there is a lady thief among us. I tried not to look self conscious but I’m sure they suspect me. I now leave my old fur coat about everywhere, I long for the insurance money.

  Love, Naunce

  Dear ould ’Al,

  I expect you wonder why I haven’t sent you that Toblerone? Well, you see, it is like this: I bought a 4/6d dove, in a 16/6d cage, which made £1 1s, and I only had £1, so I had to wait two weeks without pocket-money! and so forgot about the toberlerone. But as perhaps you’ll forgive me.

  We have started an ‘Industry Club’ and we’ve got a Mag, called the ‘Industries’, and I pronounce it ‘industries’ which annoys Boudle.1 But I wondered if you’d like it whenever it comes out; and if you would please write and tell me, and I’ll send you one.

  Yours fairly affectionately, DYAKE />
  1

  Darling Cortia,

  Thank you SO much for that marvellous little satin bed-coat, it has been my one prideandjoy. Nurse and Nanny2 simply love it, too, and actually let me wear it sometimes instead of keeping it up and hoarding it in drawers. I had my stitches out yesterday (one of which I enclose). There were five altogether. Debo has bought one for 6d, I’ve sent one to B. Bamber, a school friend. I’m keeping my appendix in methylated spirits to leave to my children.3

  I hope poor little Bryan4 is better, give him my love & show him the enclosed stitch. He can have half of it.

  Love from Decca

  Darling Pam

  Oh I am so sorry how beastly for you poor darling.1 Never mind I expect you’ll be rewarded by marrying someone millions of times nicer & obviously Togo would have been a horrid husband. Are you going to Canada? I hope so, that would be lovely for you.2

  Best love & don’t be too miserable, I am, dreadfully, about it but one must make the best of things.

  Heaps of love, Naunce

  Darling Pam,

  Thank you so much for the letter. I am so glad you did not feel sick on the ship. The parrot is very well, and is often let out in the garden. We are going to stay with Diana1 at Littlehampton a week yesterday, and will probably be there when you get this letter. Nancy is staying in London with a person called Evelyn,2 and they will do all their own housework like you and Muv.3

  Love from Jessica

  Dee Droudled Boudle,

  It is rather fun here, but it is a bore having to miss ½ term in London. Debo has been rather cross part of the time. Day before yesterday at lunch she told the maid she wanted ‘a very little ham’, and she was furious with Nanny for saying afterwards she wanted ‘a very, very little ham’. She said ‘What’s the use of my saying I want a very little ham if you go and say I want a very, very little ham?’1