Nancy Mitford

by Selina Hastings

  Then, to complicate the situation further, Nancy made a complete about-turn by moving in one effortless step from Left to Far Right, abandoning her Socialist pink (‘synthetic cochineal’, as Diana accurately referred to it) for the uncompromising black shirt of the British Union of Fascists. Peter, at first thrilled by Mosley’s new Movement, had enthusiastically joined up; and Nancy, with no political mind of her own, had gone in with him. The two of them bought black shirts, attended the meetings, and Nancy even went as far as to write an article4 (couched in that curious quasi-oratorical style that was always a sure indication that she hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about) acclaiming Fascism as the hope for the future: ‘We British Fascists [believe] … that our Leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, has the character, the brains, the courage and the determination to lift this country from the slough of despond in which it has for too long weltered, to an utopia … Soon the streets will echo beneath the feet of the black battalions, soon we will show the world that the spirit of our forefathers is yet alive within us, soon we shall be united by the sacred creed striving as one man for the Greater Britain.’ And so on.

  Both Peter and Nancy had been at Mosley’s mass meeting at Olympia of June 19345, during which an open battle had broken out between the Communists and the BUF. Peter’s presence there was reported to his father who sounded a warning note, writing anxiously to Nancy, ‘Can you not persuade him to stick to the business in hand and not to advertise himself in these Fascist demonstrations? … if he becomes identified with an anti-semitic campaign in England you must see yourself what that would lead to … There is a good deal in the spirit behind the movement [Fascism] which I should be disposed to encourage. But things are manifestly taking a wrong direction.’

  Whether or not as a result of this timely interference, the Rodds’ support for Fascism came to an abrupt end, and within a few weeks they were vociferously condemning the Fascist cause they had so recently championed. Nancy returned to her satirical novel, Wigs on the Green, and later Peter came near to provoking a diplomatic incident when, on receipt of an invitation from the German Ambassador, Ribbentrop, he wrote his refusal in Yiddish. The invitation, it is true, had been worded in German, an offensive departure from diplomatic precedent, but it was perhaps fortunate that Peter’s letter was intercepted by Nancy before it reached the post. ‘I took the letter away,’ she confessed, ‘because of my weak mind & not wanting to be tortured when the G’s have conquered us’.

  Nancy started work on Wigs on the Green in the spring of 1934. The plot concerns two young fortune-hunters, Noel Foster and Jasper Aspect. Noel has inherited enough money to enable him to leave his dull job in the City and keep himself in style for six months, a period he intends to devote to landing a rich wife – and no one more suitable, he considers, than England’s wealthiest heiress, the seventeen-year-old Eugenia Malmains. Noel and his friend Jasper make their way to the village of Chalford where their first sight of the heiress is of Eugenia standing on an upturned wash-tub on the village green, haranguing the villagers on the virtues of the Union Jack Movement. Eugenia is Unity to the life: ‘Her straight hair, cut in a fringe, large, pale-blue eyes, dark skin, well-proportioned limbs and classical features, combined with a certain fanaticism of gesture to give her the aspect of a modern Joan of Arc.’

  Noel and Jasper listen admiringly to Eugenia’s peroration (‘Soon your streets will echo ’neath the tread of the Union Jack Battalions, soon the day of jelly-breasted politicians shall be no more, soon we shall all be living in a glorious Britian under the wise, stern, and beneficent rule of Our Captain’), and eagerly join up in order to ingratiate themselves with her. Returning to their hotel, they are intrigued to find a couple of pretty young women, newly arrived, who have signed the register as Miss Smith and Miss Jones, who clearly they are not, an impression strengthened by a glimpse of Miss Jones sitting in the orchard with a pair of scissors picking ducal coronets off her underwear. Heiresses, clearly; and Jasper decides to investigate.

  Noel meanwhile entangles himself with the local beauty, Mrs Lace. Anne-Marie Lace (born Bella Drage) was pretentious, ambitious and beautiful. ‘She had the satisfaction of knowing that most of the women disliked her, while their husbands, loutish boors whom she despised, thought her lovely but much too high-brow. This was satisfactory, still more so was the whole-hearted adulation which was laid at her feet by some ten or twelve rather weedy youths who formed every summer a kind of artistic colony in thatched cottages near Rackenbridge. They supposed her to be rich, ate quantities of free meals beneath her roof, and painted incompetent little pictures of her in the most extravagant poses.’

  The climax of the plot is a pageant, part Social Unionist rally organised by Eugenia and her Union Jackshirts, and part Olde Englyshe Fayre and historical pageant dominated by Mrs Lace and her artistic young men. Needless to say this ends in chaos, with a furious confrontation between the Pacifists (Mrs Lace’s aesthetes) and the Jackshirts. There is a pitched battle between Jackshirts and Pacifists, who ‘fell upon the defenceless comrades with life preservers, knuckle-dusters, potatoes stuffed with razor blades, bicycle bells filled with shot, and other primitive, but effective weapons’. The book ends with Eugenia being congratulated for her bravery by the Leader, Captain Jack himself, who ‘as a token of gratitude, plucked, like the pelican, his own little emblem from his own bosom and pinned it, still warm, upon hers’. Jasper marries his runaway heiress, Poppy St Julien; and Noel returns thankfully to his dull job in the City.

  As always the text is seeded with private jokes and references. Muv throws her shadow on Eugenia’s grandmother, Lady Chalford: ‘Religious fervour was, in her eyes, almost as shocking as sexual abandon, and quite likely to be associated with it.’ Farve appears in the joke of the building peer (used before in a story Nancy wrote for Harper’s Bazaar in 1931) and also in character as Mr Wilkins. When Wilkins is asked by Eugenia to join her movement he says: ‘ “Is it against foreigners and the League of Nations, because if so I’ll join with pleasure. Damned sewers.” Mr Wilkins had spent several years tea planting in Ceylon where “sewer” is apparently a usual term of approbrium [sic].’6

  In her portrayal of Unity as Eugenia, Nancy’s ambiguous feelings about her sister emerge more clearly than she was probably aware. She had taken pains to make Eugenia lovable, but, although disguised by the comic approach, there is a detectable feeling of distaste on the author’s part for the violence and fanaticism in Eugenia/Unity’s obsession with her Jackshirt/Fascist movement. Her mania, though made into a joke, is not pleasant.

  ‘ “I really don’t know what an Aryan is.”

  ‘ “Well, it’s quite easy. A non-Ayran is the missing link between man and beast.” ’7

  Under pressure from Unity and Diana, Nancy removed a lot of the jokes, leaving in only brief references to Mosley/Captain Jack,8 and only one reference to Hitler: Poppy St Julien says, ‘ “I don’t know a thing about politics, but I’m sure Hitler must be a wonderful man. Hasn’t he forbidden German women to work in offices and told them they never need worry about anything again, except arranging the flowers? How they must love him.”

  ‘ “They do,” said Eugenia. “Heil Hitler!” ’

  When Nancy began on the novel she was confident that Bobo would be both flattered and amused. ‘Darling Eugenia, I can’t write to you very often as I am so busy writing about you. You get more & more wonderful every day & more like yourself – in the last chapter you even make that gesture when you try to snap your fingers but no sound comes!’ At first Unity rather liked the sound of this, although she was too interested in her own affairs to pay it much attention. ‘Well its wonderful to be in the Deutsches Reich once more, what do you think, I saw the Führer the very day I arrived, if that isn’t being the Luckiest Person in the World I’d like to know what is … How is Eugenia getting on, when you have done a bit more you must come out here & read it to me. Or you might read it over the phone … Heil Hitler! Love Bobo.’

&n
bsp; Soon, however, she began to grow apprehensive. ‘Now seriously, about that book. I have heard a bit about it from Muv, & I warn you you can’t possibly publish it, so you’d better not waste any more time on it. Because if you did publish it I couldn’t possibly ever speak to you again from the date of publication.’

  By the end of the year, Nancy was beginning to realise that she might have Gone Too Far; she wrote placatingly to Diana to explain what she was up to, hoping for a sisterly shriek. ‘Peter says I can’t put a movement like Fascism into a work of fiction by name so I am calling it the Union Jack movement, the members wear Union Jackshirts & their Lead is called Colonel Jack. But I shall give it to you to edit before publication because although it is very pro-Fascism there are one or two jokes & you could tell better than I whether they would be leader-teases.’ But no shriek was forthcoming. Diana disliked the book, and insisted that, if it could not be stopped, it must at least be cut and toned down. The BUF was a new movment which Mosley was working hard to establish; the last thing he wanted was his future sister-in-law publicly poking fun at it. What to Nancy were the comic aspects – the black shirts, the militaristic formations, the clockwork marching and inspiriting songs – were important elements in identifying, unifying and organising the Party. If it were mocked, if ever he were seen to condone the mockery, it might be thought that he was not serious.

  Nancy refused to abandon the book, but she did agree to substantial cuts. ‘Darling Stone-Heart Bone-Head,’ she wrote to Unity, ‘I am very glad to hear that you are returning anon. Do leave all ye rubber truncheons behind & pump some warm palpitating blood into that stony heart for the occasion. I have taken out all references to the F.9 (not the10 POF, the other F.) in my book, & as it cost me about 4/6 a time to do so you ought to feel quite kindly towards me now … Nardie11 is off to Rome … just as well … now you won’t be able to hot each other up about me Head of Bone/ Heart of Stone/ Sister Hater/ Mother-Baiter/ I will finish this poem later.’ But as the publication date drew near Nancy became nervously aware that a row was unavoidable. She wrote to Diana a week before publication to explain her position.

  Darling Bodley My book comes out on the 25th inst:, & in view of our conversation at the Ritz ages ago I feel that I must make a few observations to you.

  When I got home that day I read it all through & found that it would be impossible to eliminate the bits that you & the Leader objected to. As you know our finances are such that I really couldn’t afford to scrap the book then. I did however hold it up for about a month (thus missing the Spring list) in order to take out everything which directly related to Captain Jack amounting to nearly 3 chapters & a lot of paragraphs. There are now, I think, about 4 references to him & he never appears in the book as a character at all.

  In spite of this I am very much worried at the idea of publishing a book which you may object to. It completely blights all the pleasure which one ordinarily feels in a forthcoming book.

  And yet, consider. A book of this kind can’t do your movement any harm. Honestly, if I thought it could set the leader back by so much as half an hour I would have scrapped it, or indeed never written it in the first place. The 2 or 3 thousand people who read my books, are, to begin with, just the kind of people the Leader admittedly doesn’t want in his movement. Furthermore it would be absurd to suppose that anyone who was intellectually or emotionally convinced of the truths of Fascism could be influenced against the movement by such a book.

  I still maintain that it is far more in favour of Fascism than otherwise Far the nicest character in the book is a Fascist, the others all become much nicer as soon as they have joined up. But I also know your point of view, that Fascism is something too serious to be dealt with in a funny book at all. Surely that is a little unreasonable? Fascism is now such a notable feature of modern life all over the world that it must be possible to consider it in any context, when attempting to give a picture of life as it is lived today.

  Personally I believe that when you have read the book, if you do, you will find that all objections to it except perhaps the last, (that my particular style is an unsuitable medium) will have disappeared.

  Oh darling I do hope so!

  She foresaw that her careful position sitting on the fence was about to cause her to topple into the mud, and to Unity three days later she wrote:

  Darling Head of Bone & Heart of Stone Oh dear oh dear the book comes out on Tuesday. Oh dear, I won’t let Rodd give a party for it, or John Sutro either, who wanted to. Oh dear I wish I had never been born into such a family of fanatics. Oh dear.

  Oh dear, this is probably the last letter you’ll ever get from me because its no use writing to Stone-Hearts.

  Miss Stony Heart/ What shall I do/ Oh how I wish I was/ Stone hearted like you Please don’t read the book if its going to stone you up against me Anyway Eugenia is the only nice character in it except for Lady Marjorie who becomes nice after joining up with the Union Jack Shirts. Do remember that.

  Oh dear do write me a kind & non-stony-heart-letter to say you don’t mind it nearly as much as you expected, in fact you LIKE it, in fact, after I face the stars it is your favourite book even more favourite than mine comf. I wonder what Mr Wessel will think of it. Are you going yachting with him again by the way?

  Oh dear, I am going to Oxford with Nardie tomorrow, our last day together I suppose before the clouds of her displeasure burst over me. She doesn’t know yet that its coming out on Tuesday. Oh dear I have spent days trying to write her diplomatic letters about it. Oh dear I wish I had called it mine uncomf now because uncomf is what I feel whenever I think about it. Oh dear.

  So now don’t get together with Nardie & ban me forever or I shall die. Could you forgive me quite soon? Otherwise Xmas & other feasts at home will be so uncomf.

  So now write quite soon & say you forgive me. I did take out some absolutely wonderful jokes you know & all the bits about the Captain. OH! DEAR!’

  Wigs on the Green attracted little critical attention – ‘Miss Mitford has simply (if I may be allowed a highly metaphorical expression) kicked up her heels on the village green’:12 – but within the family the damage had been done. Diana was seriously annoyed, and for a time the relationship between the two sisters was strained. As for Bobo, as John Betjeman rightly said after he had read the book, ‘I suppose it will now be all up with Unity Valkyrie and you.’

  1 The economist, at this period University Lecturer in Economics at Oxford.

  2 Cynthia, daughter of Lord Curzon.

  3 The Poor Old Leader, derived from nicknames for Farve, the Poor Old Male (TPOM) and Muv, The Poor Old Female (TPOF).

  4 Vanguard, July 1934.

  5 Years later Nancy wrote about it to Evelyn Waugh, ‘Prod looked very pretty in a black shirt. But we were younger & high spirited then & didn’t know about Buchenwald.’

  6 In his copy of the book, Farve wrote in pencil against the dedication ‘To Peter’ (‘Filthy rat’), and opposite the usual disclaimer, ‘This is a work of fiction, and all characters in the book are drawn from the author’s imagination’, he had written ‘Beastly lie’. He had also taken the trouble heavily to delete two jokes (told by Mr Wilkins) which he obviously found in bad taste: ‘ “And have you heard about the man who went into W. H. Smith?” Mr Wilkins was saying.

  ‘ “No,” they cried, in chorus.

  ‘ “He said to the girl behind the counter, ‘Do you keep stationery?’ And she said, ‘No, I always wriggle.’

  ‘Roars of laughter greeted this story.

  ‘ “And do you know about the man who was had up by the police?”

  ‘ “No.”

  ‘ “They said, ‘Anything you say will be held against you.’ He said, ‘Anything I say will be held against me?’ and they said, ‘yes’ and he said, ‘Right Oh, then, Greta Garbo.’ ” ’

  7 Nancy wrote to Evelyn Waugh in 1951 when her publisher wanted to reissue her early novels, ‘Wigs on the Green is a total impossibility. Too much has happened for j
okes about Nazis to be regarded as funny or as anything but the worst of taste. After all, it was written in 1934, I really couldn’t quite have foreseen all that came after.’

  8 Both Unity and Mosley had appeared before in similar guise in a sketch Nancy wrote in 1932, ‘The Old Ladies’, but this was a private joke, never intended for publication.

  9 The Führer.

  10 Poor Old Führer, ie. Mosley.

  11 Diana.

  12 News Chronicle.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Married Life

  For the Mitfords, 1936 was a year of general upheaval: two sisters married – Diana to Mosley, Pam to Derek Jackson, the millionaire physicist and amateur jockey. Swinbrook was sold, Farve keeping only the Old Mill Cottage next to the Swan public-house in the village. And Nancy and Peter, enjoying a brief period of comparative prosperity, left Rose Cottage for a house in town.

  12 Blomfield Road1 was small and elegant, one in a shady, tree-lined street of early nineteenth-century houses, each with its own garden, running alongside the Grand Union Canal in Maida Vale (now the fashionable area known as Little Venice). As at Strand on the Green Nancy’s outlook was one of trees and water, the wide reach of the Thames giving place to the narrow banks of a sooty urban waterway.