Nancy Mitford (4 page)

AT THE AGE of sixteen, Nancy went to a ‘finishing school’ at Hatherop Castle, where she made life-long friendships and whence, with other girls, she was shepherded for the first time to the Continent. Her mother religiously kept her letters from Paris, Florence and Venice. These are too long to quote in full, but a few excerpts convey her intense enjoyment, the freshness of her adolescent outlook.

From Paris (Grand Hôtel du Louvre, 8th April, 1922) she wrote: ‘Darling Muv, Getting up early I had my bath, took a lift and progressed down stairs to pen this to you. We arrived here at 7, took a hasty but delicious meal and—went to bed? Not at all, we walked round the streets till 10.30, came home to iced lemon squash (we have been forbidden water) and to bed at 11. Brek is in a moment, at 9. It is so lovely here, there are telephones and hot and cold water in our bedrooms. I spend my time telephoning for baths, etc.’

‘All the shops look so heavenly and the Place de la Concorde when lighted up is too
lovely
… Why doesn’t one always live in hotels? It is so lovely… We look out on to the Louvre.’

‘There are dozens of sweet little boys here (hall boys) perfect pets, I shall give them my chocs.’

‘Marjorie has such lovely clothes I feel like a rag bag… We don’t want to leave Paris at all and I was so sick in the French train after an excellent Table d’hôte lunch, I am sure I shall be terribly ill all the time. The hotel is so hot I slept in a thin nightie and only one blanket and then I lay half out of bed and was boiled. We had two huge French windows wide open too!’

‘… Jean is very nice and very Canadian. Both she and Marjorie powder their noses the whole time. I wish I could, I’m sure for travelling one ought to.’

‘There is one hall boy we call the Cherub. Miss S. wouldn’t let us have an English brek (not that we wanted it, it is too hot to eat) and we had a very scrumptious “croissant” and coffee…’

‘We are going to lunch and dinner in restaurants today as Miss S. says only old fogeys eat
at their hotel. Alas, I can’t feel hungry and all the food is so delicious, especially lemon squash with straws… I find you have to tip everyone although Miss S. really does that, I do it too. I can’t bear not to.’

‘Oh! such fun. I have never been so excited and Miss S. is so good. She quite understands that we want to do other things besides sight-seeing… I expect one of us must be run over. I escaped certain death by very little several times yesterday.’

‘How I loved the Louvre. One could spend weeks there and never get tired of it. We saw mostly Italian pictures, Titian, Giotto, Cimabue, and all of those to prepare us for Florence.’

‘We are all tired as we have walked without stopping since 10 this morning, but it was well worth it. I got postcards of all my favourite pictures. Mona Lisa is wonderful. Miss S. says men still fall in love with her—one man fell in love with her and stole her for several years.’

From Florence (12th April, 1922): ‘I think I will pass over the journey in sad silence. I was only kept alive by a huge dose of brandy administered by Miss S. I was on the point of
fainting
(not an exag) as we were walking along for brek. Pisa was too heavenly. The 4 lovely
buildings
(Duomo, the Tower, Campo Santo and Baptistry). We spent half an hour with them—quite beyond description. Too too too heavenly.

‘Being here is lovely too, although there is no building (except the Duomo) to touch Pisa. The buildings there are in a much better position, so white and in the middle of such green grass. Everything here is so brightly coloured, it must be the sun… I feel as though I have seen originals of every statue and picture I ever heard of…’

‘I am quite good at Italian already, as good as Miss S. and better than anyone else. I get along famously. I do all the bargaining for the others and always get things reduced. I talk as though I had been here a month and indeed I feel like it.’

‘As for the hotel the less said the better and I shall say nothing except we have used Keating’s freely with but little effect (I have just caught one on my neck).’

‘Next day… Last night we went for a walk on the river and a man with a guitar and a girl with a heavenly voice serenaded us. I gave them two lira and they were overcome and went on for hours. It was too delicious… I found some lovely corals, small but down to my waist, 2 strings for
£
2. Most exciting bargaining is going on. They are really 180 lira and I am determined to have them for 160. In vain the woman weeps and wrings her hands, inexorable as fate I
pursue
my ends. Luckily she weeps in English as my limited Italian gives out now and then. I
converse
with the lift boy who corrects me with a cherubic smile.
Disgraziatamente
(unfortunately) our cameriera (chamber maid) speaks French, so we get no practice there. We always have brek in bed at 8.30. It is a meal not worth getting up for. The first morning we ordered toast and
marmalade
—absolute failure.’

More details about purchases follow: ‘Do commission me to buy you some pictures, you will never have such a chance again!… I went to fetch my corals today, I had them strung
differently
. They reach down to my waist in 0—or to my knees in 1. When I was going to pay the woman she dragged me behind a screen and in a dramatic tone said that she saw a policeman and anyhow there are spies everywhere! I scented a bolshy plot at least, but on further
explanation
discovered that if I was seen to buy the corals I should have to pay 185 luxury tax! She told me to hide them till I got home, so away I crept feeling like a criminal! Nice of her. They are lovely, I must wear them all day under my clothes or they will be stolen, so I am told…’

She thought the Uffizi ‘thousands of times nicer’ than the Pitti, where the pictures were ‘lovely but so badly arranged. About one beauty in each room, the rest—rubbish… I had no idea I was so fond of pictures before, especially Raphael, Botticelli and Lippo Lippi… If only I had a room of my own I would make it a regular picture gallery. I find to my horror that there are lovely pictures in London, Italian ones and lots of good ones. I have only ever been to the Tate Gallery. This must be remedied! I never knew that there were really lovely pictures in London. Marjorie knows the National Gallery by heart. I don’t think it is too late to
develop
a taste in pictures at 17, do you? I really love them. As for the statues, I used to hate them, but when you have seen some of them here you can’t help liking them… Only 3 more days here, how shall I tear myself away? Thank you so much for sending me, I am having a
perfectly
heavenly
time, I have never been so happy in my life before, in spite of such minor incidents as fleas! If you knew what it is like here you would leave England for good and settle here at once.’

On Easter Sunday Nancy wrote an elaborate account with sketch of the
Scoppio del Carro
(the explosion of the chariot) outside the Cathedral, of the afternoon races in the Cascine (one steeplechase and the rest flat races) ‘most exciting and amusing’, and of an old man in the hotel—‘the others said he wasn’t old but he is really, quite 45’—who was ‘also an adorer of Ruskin. He seemed very surprised that I had read most of Ruskin’s books and we talked for ages. Unfortunately (
disgraziatamente
) he went away this morning. I called him “my old man” ever since we came…’ A film called
Dante
was ‘most bloodthirsty and exciting. Eleven murders close to with details, a man’s hands chopped off
very
close to and full of detail, and a man dying of starvation and eating another man
very very
close to and the death of Dante with great detail helped to add a mild excitement to a film full of battles (on land and sea) molten lead, a burning city and other little everyday matters. It lasted with two intervals from 9 to 12.15! I never saw anything like it before, it was enough to make you dream for nights. There was a seedy contingent with permanently waved hair wandering about in the desert, called the prophets of Peace, they stumbled on dead bodies at every step; a most realistic scene from hell, the devils reminded me of those drawn by Bobo [Unity]. Every time a
person
was murdered you saw him being taken down there with dire results. People died off so fast that only one character was left alive by 12.15 and it is a huge cast. That shows you! The one who did survive had just killed his wife, so one imagines he then goes mad.’

‘I am quite miserable at leaving here tomorrow. We get up at 6!… Do you think I shall ever come back here? I positively must!’

From Venice (Hotel Regina, 19 April) Nancy continued: ‘I like this in quite a different way to Florence. Here it is more the place that one likes, there it is the things, statues, pictures and buildings. Of course there are pictures here, but mostly Titian and Tintoretto. Secretly I hate Titian and loathe Tintoretto, but that, I fear, is my bad taste. I simply love the Florentine
pictures
,
Raphael and Andrea del Sarto especially. Oh, and Botticelli I love! We saw the largest oil painting in the world in the Doge’s palace by Tintoretto. It is awful, represents Paradise, and is merely a sea of faces.’

‘I would much rather have a villa in Florence than here because of the lovely scenery. Here of course there is none, no trees, no grass. However this is lovely too, quite heavenly.’

On 21st April Nancy confessed: ‘I did a most rash thing yesterday, spent nearly all my worldly on a Spanish comb, knowing full well that you won’t let me wear it, although Marjorie says all girls do. It is so nice, not carved, and looks rather like a shoe horn… Real shell of course. I do look so nice in it (ahem!) and wore it yesterday evening for dinner. It looks most habillé. Now I am absolutely broke, having just over 170 left, and still several presents to get…’

‘A dreadful thing happened last night. Turnip jumped very hard on Marigold’s bed and burst her hot bottle. Such a mess! We “ragged in the dorm” violently after that and an old lady came along and said that she thought someone must be ill. That rather shut us up!’

‘… I hope you will let me wear that comb, it grows on me (this is not to be interpreted literally). I really look quite old in it, a femme du monde you know, especially when I wear a fur. I really am a femme du monde now. Living in an hotel is so lovely. Why does anyone live anywhere else. There is an atmosphere of excitement, of latent danger in an hotel which is not created by the home. Locking my door at night is a never-failing joy, as is going in the lift (I can work it myself now). Then the feeling that when you are out all your things may (according to Miss S. most probably will) be stolen causes pleasant thrills to frequent the
marrow
. One of the women here was walking today in a calle when a man snatched her bag. With true Anglo-Saxon doggedness she hung on to it, the man let go and ran away. And this might happen to one any day. How romantic! When I see anyone glance at my corals I give an
invisible
snarl and put them under my pillow at night.’

St. Mark’s on St. Mark’s Day: ‘The golden altar completely unveiled, all the jewels sparkling in the candle light,’ the gorgeous procession (‘first choir boys, then priests, then 50 bishops, 20 archbishops and 15 cardinals, the bishops in Mitres (capital M) and priests with banners’), St. Luke’s picture of the Madonna, the glowing mosaics, the Doge’s palace, the Bridge of Sighs—Nancy described these enthusiastically to her mother as well as her various
purchases
: ‘Corals for N.M. Comb for N.M. Frame and several pictures for N.M. A Leonardo print for Tom. Corals for Bobo. Crystals for Di. Crystals for Deb. Box for Nanny. Little bronze lizard for Pam. Photograph and countless p.c’s for N.M. I haven’t got Decca’s [Jessica’s] yet…’

As a child Nancy was a precocious reader who ‘lived in books’. Even so it is surprising that she had read the works of Ruskin without visiting the National Gallery by the age of
seventeen
, though Ruskin’s championship of Turner might account for her visit to the Tate. Apparently her spring tour with the girls of the finishing school was her first introduction to the figurative arts at close range. To Venice she returned frequently in later years, always with renewed enchantment.

Reading was tolerated but not encouraged by her father, who thought it a peculiar
pastime
. ‘If you’ve got nothing to do,’ he would say, finding Nancy with a book, ‘run down to
the village and tell Hooper…’ Himself no reader, he had no objection to her browsing in the well-stocked library inherited from her grandfather, and she browsed to her heart’s content. Her taste for literature was moulded there, and she retained a lifelong preference for
biography
, memoirs and letters. Carlyle and Macaulay made the deepest impression on her.

This passion for reading set her apart from her sisters though she shared their esoteric jokes and games. ‘My vile behaviour to the others,’ she confessed later, ‘was partly, I suppose, the result of jealousy and partly of a longing to be grown-up and live with grown-up people. The others bored me, and I made them feel it… I expect I would have been much worse but for Blor.’

Lady Redesdale seems to have exerted a negative influence. According to Nancy she had ‘always lived in a dream world of her own’. Apropos of which she commented: ‘I think that nothing in my life has changed more than the relationship between mothers and young
children
. In those days a distance was always kept. Even so she was perhaps abnormally detached. On one occasion Unity rushed into the drawing-room, where she was at her writing-table, saying: “Muv, Muv, Decca is standing on the roof—she says she’s going to commit suicide!” “Oh, poor duck,” said my mother, “I hope she won’t do anything so terrible” and went on writing.’

This detachment may have been a subconscious defence against her explosive husband and boisterous children. With out knowing it Lady Redesdale was an incipient Taoist, for as Lao Tzu said, ‘The weak overcomes the strong, the soft overcomes the hard… The softest things in the world over ride the hardest.’ (Lao Tzu also said: ‘Mighty is he who conquers
himself
,’ which scarcely applied to Lord Redesdale.) Albeit no Christian Scientist, Lady Redesdale did not believe in illness, but she was prejudiced against certain foods and against pig in
particular
. Ham, sausages, fried bacon were all craved for by her children, as is usual with
forbidden
fruit. Lady Redesdale’s brother, ‘Uncle Geoff’, seems to have swayed her ideas on health. He was an eccentric of a different kind who fancied that the fortunes of England depended on the use of natural manure in fertilizing the soil. He had violent objections to the pasteurization of milk, and his niece, Jessica, has left a funny description of his advocacy of the ‘unsplit slowly smoked bloater’ and other ingredients of wholesome diet, and she quotes a characteristic passage from a privately printed collection of his old letters to editors entitled
Writings of a Rebel
in her
Hons and Rebels
(required reading for all Mitford fans). Her mother, she tells us, added a few notions of her own to Uncle Geoff’s. ‘In defiance of the law, she refused to allow any of us to be vaccinated (“pumping dis gusting dead germs into the Good Body!”).’ When Jessica in turn begged to be sent to a school, her mother sensibly re marked: ‘If you went to school you’d probably hate it. The fact is children always want to do
something
different from what they are doing. Childhood is a very unhappy time of life; I know I was always miserable as a child. You’ll be all right when you’re eighteen.’ One cannot
visualize
young Jessica submitting to school discipline. Though she might mock her Uncle Geoff she was one of nature’s rebels. Unity went to two schools and was expelled from both. When one of her sisters said so, Lady Redesdale gently objected: ‘Oh no, darling, not expelled,
asked
to leave
.’