In Tearing Haste Read online

  ‘What’s happened to Winko?’ asked Groupie.

  The Mess Corporal wagged his old head:

  ‘He said that he’d fancy a Bass, sir,

  But he went for a Burton instead . . .’

  The Muses are not absent, as you see.

  I do wish we were all a bit closer together. Do try and remedy this. Anyway fond love to Emma, Stoker & Andrew and lots and lots to you, from

  Paddy

  [1] Tom Lord; the Devonshires’ head keeper.

  [2] Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (1894–1986). Conservative Prime Minister 1957–63. Married Lady Dorothy Cavendish, Andrew Devonshire’s aunt, in 1920, and was always called ‘Uncle Harold’ by DD.

  [3] Sir Martyn Beckett (1918–2001). Architect, enthusiastic amateur pianist and an old friend of the Devonshires. Married Priscilla Brett in 1941.

  [4] A nightclub in London’s Regent Street.

  [5] Lady Dorothy (Coote) Lygon (1912–2001). Youngest of the Lygon sisters, daughters of 7th Earl Beauchamp, whose family and house, Madresfield Court, inspired Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945). Served in the WAAF 1940–5. After the war, she worked in Istanbul as a governess, in Athens as social secretary to the British ambassador, and lived for a while on Hydra before returning to England to work as an archivist at Christie’s. Married Robert Heber-Percy in 1985.

  [6] Roxane Sotiriadi; Greek wife of Alexander Sedgwick, New York Times corres -pondent for the Middle East.

  31 August 1958

  Estate Office

  Chatsworth

  Bakewell

  Darling Paddy,

  I did love your description of shooting. It was nearly all right but slipped up over one or two things, like a Hollywood film about England, so I am afraid it’s your American blood lately infused by Huston & Zanuck which has put you wrong.

  The other thing was that the weather Thank God was much better than usual, with the result that one sweated into one’s Devil’s Suit (red wool from neck to ankle under everything else) and was bitten to death by midges & harvest bugs & other counter-honnish denizens of those benighted moors.

  The waits are terrific. Some drives take two hours & one can’t have a sit down with one’s eyes shut because one NEVER KNOWS, suddenly without a word of warning (as their wings fail to whirr & are deathly quiet) those blasted birds have come & gone & the other guns, keepers etc give one NASTY LOOKS if one is asleep.

  Conversations with the loaders are nice, viz. Jones, from the Swiss Cottage here, [1] tells one about what touches him, things like hares screaming. He knows the partridges on his beat individually. One day he found one with her legs all twisted up in a bit of sheep’s wool, couldn’t fly & was hopping about, so he took the wool off & let her go & said he didn’t see her for four days. But then of course he did & all was well.

  John Wyndham [2] came to Bolton in waiting to the Prime Minister. He is a marvel. I forget between seeing him how much I love him. One night at dinner he pushed me off my chair quite hard so I fell with a flump on the floor & Desmond solemnly picked me up with a hurt look as though it was he who had been shoved.

  I talked secrets one day with the PM. Most jolly & educational. He has become much more human all of a sudden and talks about things like Adultery quite nicely.

  Much love to Joan & you write & tell all.

  Debo

  [1] Harry Jones; one of a family of gamekeepers who lived at Swiss Cottage, an isolated house on the Chatsworth estate. ‘Their philosophy of life was different to that of any other people I have known; they saw little but nature in the raw.’ (DD)

  [2] John Wyndham, 1st Baron Egremont (1920–72). A great friend of both Devonshires. Private Secretary to Harold Macmillan for many years. Married Pamela Wyndham-Quin in 1947. ‘I have never been much good at place à table – John Wyndham used to do it by weight, which didn’t go down too well with smart foreigners.’ DD, The House: A Portrait of Chatsworth (Macmillan, 1982), p. 167.

  9 (?) September 1958

  Kamini

  Hydra

  Darling Debo,

  Your letter arrived in the nick of time. I was about to settle down, with a curling lip, to some fairly brisk remarks about calloused trigger-fingers too tired for penmanship etc when in comes Vasiliki, the tragedy-queen cook, with your splendid letter and takes all the wind out of my sails. Coote and Mark are staying and I read out sundry and chosen bits to them and Joan and caused much happy laughter. Mark said enviously, ‘I say, that’s a much longer letter than the ones I get from Nancy, [1] you are lucky.’ I didn’t let on about the long wait.

  I went into Athens a couple of weeks ago and went on board the S.S. Hermes, which was carrying D. Cooper, Rose Macaulay, [2] Juliet Duff [3] and various others to Constantinople, then a trip round the Black Sea touching at various Russian ports, then back. This was all very convivial – the Grande Bretagne Hôtel suddenly became a rather jolly lunchtime Ritz, with the above-mentioned, Mark, Gladys Stewart-Richardson, [4] Coote, Cecil Beaton (who was just back from staying in Paros with Truman Capote).

  A sudden passion for astronomy has sprung up here. I got a huge star atlas sent out by Heywood Hill, [5] it’s wonderful for sleeping out on the terrace. One just lies there with the atlas on one’s lap, torch in hand to flash on the page – it’s hardly needed – spotting constellation after constellation blazing away overhead. We’re becoming pretty good at hobnobbing with and bandying about the names of stars. You’ll probably have cause to complain of this anon. I want to invent, and have patented, Fermor’s Heavenly Brolly: a vast black-lined umbrella with all the stars embroidered inside in silver, the ferrule being the Pole Star. You would just open it at night, point it at the Pole Star, and the heavens become an open book.

  Fond love from

  Paddy

  [1] Mark Ogilvie-Grant was one of Nancy Mitford’s oldest friends and they kept up a regular correspondence.

  [2] Rose Macaulay (1881–1958). The prolific novelist and journalist died shortly after returning from this cruise.

  [3] Lady Juliet Lowther (1881–1965). Daughter of 4th Earl of Lonsdale, married Sir Robert Duff in 1903.

  [4] Gladys Stewart-Richardson (1883–1966). Descended from an old Scottish highland family, she drove lorries and ambulances in Macedonia during the First World War. Settled in Athens and set up a factory producing fine raw silk for clothing.

  [5] The bookshop, founded by Heywood Hill (1906–86), opened in London’s Mayfair in 1936.

  27 July 1959

  (Castello di Passerano [1]

  Gallicano nel Lazio

  Provincia di Roma)

  Abruzzi

  Darling Debo,

  This non-writing won’t do at all; so bags I break silence, in order to seize the advantage and put you in the wrong, before this sly move occurs to you.

  Don’t be fooled by the splendour of the address at the top of this paper; I set it myself at a local printers. This castle is a huge empty thing of spell-binding beauty on top of a leafy hill overlooking a froth of treetops and cornfields surrounded on three sides by classical mountain ranges whose names need not concern us, and on the fourth by the Roman Campagna and the dome of St Peter’s in the distance, indicating – too near! – great Rome itself. The castle hadn’t been inhabited for 600 years, so it meant putting windows in and borrowing, buying or hiring furniture (all of which has ruined me). It looks rather marvellous, but there is not a drop of water running. Two beautiful girls called Loredana and Gabriella come wobbling gracefully up the castle ramp twice daily with great brass pitchers on their heads. I won’t enlarge on the loo situation . . .

  Some nuns in Tivoli sewed me a huge heraldic banner, which I fly from a mast on a tower (Fermor’s answer to Lismore). I have been building up a fictitious character for myself: the Black Bastard of Passerano, and like to think that when I unfurl my banner from the topmost battlements, all the trembling peasants of the valley look askance and cross themselves, dowse their lights and hide their cattle and b
olt up their dear ones. Actually, most of my time is spent driving car-loads of white-clad little girls or Fauntleroys into nearby Gallicano nel Lazio for first communion, or the castle women – there is a farm grovelling at the foot of the ramparts – to market: the Black Sucker of Passerano, Il Succho Nero.

  There used to be masses of nightingales, but they’ve vanished now, but there are plenty of owls which sometimes get in and flap silently round for hours among the oil lamps and candles, having rashly flown down a spiral stair inside a tower; also frogs, crickets and nightjars. The atmosphere at night is like the castle in Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

  The discomfort is almost beyond sufferance. Some of this is caused by rats, which, rather intimidated at first by my usurping their age-old suzerainty, are getting the upper hand again. I think Joan was rather taken aback by all this. The other night, hoping to foil the ants (which I forgot to mention), she put a basin of water on a table, and inside this, a jug with a plate on top containing a loaf for breakfast tightly wrapped in brown paper, and, balanced on top of this, a saucer with butter in. Next morning I was reading early by a window in the same room – the banqueting hall! – when I was roused by a rustle; there, his hind legs on tiptoe on the basin’s rim, stood a tall rat carefully unfolding a hole in the bread paper with his forepaws and nibbling in felicity. I threw my book at it – The Age of Elegance by Arthur Bryant – but missed. The rat sloped off perfunctorily, but turned back halfway to the door and resumed his post in half a minute. I thought I’d better let it rip. So there he crunched, the butter wobbling to and fro on top, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes with a victor’s glance . . . Next night, Joan found a large scorpion nestling on her. So I suppose it’s time to draw stumps.

  We are now in the cool heights of the Abruzzi, great Alpine mountains about 100 miles E. of Rome, in a village called Ovindoli. The cattle here are a wonderful body of cows. At dusk, a bell is rung from the church tower, and, quite unaccompanied, all gather from their fields at a never changing rendezvous, and head for the village by the hundred. Once in the market square, they split up and mooch off along various lanes to the houses where they live and tap on the door with their horns and out comes a girl or a grandmother and lets them into a comfortable cellar for the night.

  Lots and lots of love from

  Paddy

  [1] PLF had been lent this castle in the Alban Hills.

  9 August 1959

  Edensor House

  Bakewell

  Darling paddy,

  I was pleased to get your letter and to know you have not departed this world.

  I never really believe in foreign addresses, for instance that well known old French writer my sister is at a hang out called S. Vio & then a number, Venice. [1] Well, admit that doesn’t sound real. So of course I’m not going to spend hours writing fascinating things, or boring ones either, for the delectation of the lost letter box somewhere or other. Yours sounds a bit more true though damned affected.

  Anyway it was v v nice to get it.

  I did once have millions of things to tell, like sitting next to John Huston one night at dinner. My word he is awful. I can’t think how you spent so long near him without smashing him. He said ghoulishly embarrassing things like We Irishmen ought to get together. Well he’s American and I’m English, but I didn’t like to enlarge on that.

  Otherwise I can’t think of much except that Sophy was portrayed by Epstein. [2] They had to go every day for two hours for 14 days, so Diddy [3] & Sir Jacob became terrific friends & Diddy said ‘I think Sir Jacob’s fallen for me – he likes a ton weight.’ I thought that a very good joke & so would you if you could have seen them in that studio surrounded by ½ finished monster nudes with droopy bosoms & such like curios.

  I saw a good bit of Ann Fleming. I truly love her & kept going to dinner, sometimes in the wrong clothes, like when she took us all to a recep. at the Tate after dinner. I didn’t know it was grand & went in a cotton frock & when I got there found all the women in dresses to the ground & pearls. Then we got to the Tate & to my horror Cake [4] advanced on unseen feet in crinoline & diamonds glittering from top to toe & I was in her path like a rabbit & a snake & she made the sign to go & talk to her & it was wicked work with the dread wrongness of get-up & Sir J Rothenstein [5] looking at one as though one was a v small bit of dirt & then her saying ‘isn’t that wall lovely’ meaning a lot of daubs by famous painters & me being speechless because of being honest & after a bit I heard myself saying ‘Oh dear now I’m stuck’ which of course was v v rude indeed.

  That’s the sort of thing that’s been happening, nought of great interest.

  The children are here, very tall, very lazy & very nice. Emma is in revolt about most things but that is the disease of her age I think (16).

  I am engrossed with Chatsworth, v boring for everyone else. Next week the moors loom (not William Shakespeare’s Venetian variety – would that they were) & Uncle Harold and his followers. Oh dear, well never mind.

  Where will you be the 2nd ½ of Sept? I might be able to do something nice about then, & Nancy’s Colonel [6] has v kindly asked me to his Palace which I would like except what about my fat ankles, deformed thumb [7] & Harvey Nichols clothes.

  Much love – & send a P.C. or so – from

  Debo

  [1] Nancy was staying with her Venetian friend, Countess Anna-Maria Cicogna.

  [2] Jacob Epstein (1880–1959). The sculptor’s bust of DD’s daughter was his penultimate work.

  [3] Ellen Stephens; nanny to DD’s children 1943–63.

  [4] DD’s nickname for the Queen Mother, which she gave her after being lastingly impressed by her enthusiasm at a wedding when the cake was cut.

  [5] John Rothenstein (1901–92). Director of the Tate Gallery 1938–64.

  [6] Gaston Palewski (1901–84). The love of Nancy’s life, whom she always teas-ingly called ‘Colonel’ after his rank in the Free French army, was posted as ambassador in Rome in 1957. ‘Gaston brought life and laughter to the magnificent Palazzo Farnese when he was ambassador. I loved his company because of his understanding of English humour – somehow so unexpected in an out-and-out Frenchman (or an out-and-out French politician).’ (DD)

  [7] Nancy used to tease DD that her thumb was deformed from sucking it as a child, and warned her that she would never find a husband as a result.

  29 September 1959

  Lismore Castle

  Co. Waterford

  Darling Paddy,

  Thank you so much for my lovely visit. I did love every minute of it and I do think it was kind of you to have me on top of all those others. I think the most surprising thing was Mr Tom [1] looking up from The Times (only for a minute I admit) to look at The Green Grotto on Capri. He said it was Awfully Nice, which was going it I thought.

  We did miss you after you had gone off.

  I’ve boasted to E Sackville West [2] that I am an intimate of Sir W Walton [3] but I didn’t tell him how Sir W admitted the true horror of his and others’ music.

  I spoke to Ann F[leming] for a moment in London but then had to rush for the train, but I gathered she had been poisoned by the Colonel in Rome as they had Fish for dinner on a Monday, which she says is well-known to be fatal.

  Much love

  Debo

  [1] Thomas Egerton (1918–98). A lifelong friend since schooldays of Andrew Devonshire, with whom he shared a passion for racing. During the war, he served in the Coldstream Guards in North Africa where he was famous for saving the Officers’ Mess marmalade during the Siege of Tobruk. Married Anne Cobbold in 1962. ‘His quiet charm and humour endeared him to his contemporaries.’ (DD)

  [2] Edward Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville (1901–65). Music critic and writer who shared Long Crichel House in Dorset, a sort of all-male Bloomsbury, with a circle of writers and artists. In 1956, he moved to Cooleville House, Co. Tipperary, and was a neighbour of the Devonshires at Lismore. ‘He adored playing Freda, the game on the billiard table. It sometim
es involved running round to get your shot in, so he did not risk his dinner jacket and brought a change of clothes for the evening’s entertainment.’ (DD)

  [3] William Walton (1902–83). After his marriage to Argentine-born Susana Gil Passo in 1949, the British composer settled at La Mortella on Ischia.

  6 October 1959

  Bar da Filipo

  Forio d’Ischia

  Prov. di Napoli

  Darling Debo,

  I say, it was decent of you to come. It cheered me up like anything, and I’d really thought I’d never smile again after the rigours of the first half of the month.

  It was blowing a ghastly sirocco here when I got back, for days, the air full of headaches and limbs turning to lead, suicidal depression and demoralisation. Then, all of a sudden, lovely crystalline autumn weather, a touch of chill in the air, pale clear blue skies, emptying towns and bare beaches, all’s well.

  Henry and Virginia Bath [1] are staying at the San Francesco, and we had a nice noisy meal at Filipo’s last night. Iris [2] said that, much as she dislikes people chewing gum, she thinks chewing tobacco is an attractive and manly habit – especially the sort of talk that goes with it. I asked her what on earth she meant. She thereupon fixed me with those ice blue eyes, scowled, and began slowly and ruminatively to munch, her whole face assuming the leathery lineaments of a frontiersman. She then said in a deep and husky voice, ‘There ain’t no rattlers there, ma’am’ and squirted a ghost-jet of tobacco juice out of the corner of her mouth, fixing me challengingly in the eyes.

  No more now, dearest darling Debo, except lots and lots of love from

  Paddy

  [1] Henry Thynne, 6th Marquess of Bath (1905–92). ‘Extraordinarily handsome, a romantic’s idea of an aristocrat. He brought wild animals to Longleat when it was opened to the public after the war, calling it his Safari Park. It still brings thousands of sightseers to that beautiful place.’ (DD) Married to Daphne Vivian 1927– 53 and to Virginia Tennant in 1953.