In Tearing Haste
Page 36
Do, please, shed light!
[1] DD had sent PLF a calendar with photographs of corn circles.
1 September 1998
Dumbleton
Darling Debo,
Many thanks for those mystery cornfield photographs. One of my difficulties about them is: how could visitors from outer space know so much about Art Deco? Answer me that!
I’m ¾ of the way through Frances Partridge’s Life Regained, [1] and feel simultaneously impressed and depressed by it.
It’s looking lovely here, much better than last year, thanks to the absence of rape (by Joan’s request) which made the whole landscape look like Lord Lonsdale’s waistcoat. [2]
Love
Paddy
[1] Life Regained, Diaries 1970–71 (1998), Frances Partridge’s fifth volume of diaries.
[2] 5th Earl of Lonsdale (1857–1944). Known as the Yellow Earl because of his fondness for the colour.
[January 2000]
Dumbleton
Darling Debo,
Blake once wrote a poem which begins:
‘A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage.’
I’ve just discovered an unfinished continuation of it I scribbled in a notebook long ago. It goes as follows: –
‘Blackbirds fluttering from a pie
Cause four-and-twenty cheers on high
When a pig wanders from its pound
The angels call for drinks all round
An egg falls from the curate’s spoon
And cherubim with rapture swoon
The bed bug snug, the nibbling louse
Delight the angel of the house
When moths make holes in coats & things
The cherubs beat their tiny wings
When rodents eat the Stilton up
The Heavenly Hosts on nectar sup
A death-watch egg is hatched in teak
And there’s ambrosia for a week
When weevils raid the biscuit box
Jehovah’s brow at once unlocks
And lawns wrecked by the burrowing mole
Make heaven shine bright from pole to pole
Uncleanly Fido in the hall
Spells archangelic bacchanal.’ etc etc
The above very clumsy lines apply to the film about Chatsworth and its parasites that we saw a few days ago on TV. [1]
Love
Paddy
[1] Channel 4 was showing a six-part documentary about life and work on the Chatsworth estate which included a segment on the damage that insects cause to textiles and artefacts.
Orthodox Easter Sunday
End of April [17 April 2000]
[Postcard]
Mani
Debo,
Sarah, Dss of Marlborough, [1] hated her grand-daughter, Ly Anne Egerton and got hold of a portrait of her, blacked the face, and hung it up in her room, with the inscription: ‘She is much blacker within.’
Love
Paddy
[1] Sarah Jennings (1660–1744). Quarrelsome wife of 1st Duke of Marlborough and confidante of Queen Anne.
26 or 27 April 2000 or both.
Sto’s birthday. 55 wd you believe it.
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Paddy,
I’m in the dentist’s waiting room in London, soon I hope to St Pancras & HOME.
Just had lunch with Nicko because OUR FARM SHOP in Eliz St opened TODAY. [1] A great excitement, you can imagine. The last lap has been a monster push for the shop staff but there we are it’s open & an Eaton Sq dweller has already ordered her dinner for tonight for 8 people & our chef rushed round with it, all excited. Can they keep it up? Eccles Cakes going to all ex-pat northerners who exclaimed when they saw them. What good sport.
The telly are doing an hour on Nancy and her books. [2] Would you take part, be interviewed?
My sister Diana is havering & wavering, says she’s too old & wrinkled – I say don’t be so vain. Coote is going to see him. There aren’t many left who knew her well, dash it all.
Mary H[enderson] brought a picture of a cow & showed it to the butcher saying the bit she wanted. It reminded me of Woman, and Charles de Noailles’ amazement, when she slapped her thigh saying ‘Il faut le couper LÀ’ [3] re some pig meat.
Much love
Debo
Did you know Napier Alington? [4] Did Joan? Do ENLARGE if you remember him.
[1] DD had opened a London branch of the Chatsworth Farm Shop in Belgravia.
[2] ‘Nancy Mitford, The Big Tease’, a BBC Omnibus documentary, broadcast in 2001.
[3] ‘You must cut it HERE.’
[4] Napier Sturt, 3rd Baron Alington (1896–1940). Son of Humphrey Sturt, 2nd Baron Alington, and Lady Feodorovna Yorke.
5 August 2000
Mani
Darling Debo,
I can’t tell you what a time I’ve had trying to find a marvellous letter from you that was waiting for me here. I wanted to write a proper answer to several questions on it, so put it off for a couple of days and then it got itself lost – i.e. wriggled its way into the awful hayrick of papers that stand at both sides of my desk like rival towers of Pisa.
The only question I can remember was about Napier Alington. Of course, you’re just too young to have come into the hobnobbing zone, but I wasn’t. I met him first in Athens, pretty soon after I’d got there in May 1935, and had just taken up with the beautiful Rumanian I loved, who was an old friend of Napier’s (he said he liked being called that rather than Naps). He had just come from Egypt, staying with the Loraines, [1] and was travelling with Rosie Kerr, [2] who doted on him, like everyone else. We got on terribly well from the start, and it was a lovely time in Athens, packed with glamour and fun, of which Napier somehow seemed to be the centre. We went on lovely trips to Sunium, peeked at Byron’s graffito, and to Delphi. You know what he looked like from the Augustus John picture, which gets him to a T. He had a slightly lifted tone of voice, the sort that Douglas Byng [3] imitated, or aspired to, and was unbelievably funny and warm. He was a mixture of grand seigneur and, in a way, of clown, in the sense of seeing comedy whoever it was and contributing to it. As far as segs, * he was what Maurice Bowra called ‘stroked all round the wicket’. He wasn’t quite sure who his dad was – he thought perhaps an Italian, perhaps Jewish. [4] He was tricked into entering a lift shaft in a palazzo in Rome, and fell three storeys, and was broken up rather, but it didn’t show. (His host thought he was carrying on with his marchesa.) Do look him up in Bunny Garnett’s Letters of Carrington. There’s a nice description of him and Ph. Hardwicke (brother-in-law, I think) going over to Ham Spray. [5] He adored his mother, who he called Feo. His elder brother was killed in the Great War. When Napier heard the news, he very eccentrically took a gun, went for a walk in the woods, and shot his fourth left finger off which he masked by keeping the two next fingers together in a sort of point, wearing a ring with a blue stone in on his little finger. I went there (Crichel) a couple of times, it was the last weekend before I went abroad in 1940 (soon after we met at the ball). Three young girls were staying in the same room, and, fairly late, he thought it would be fun to haunt them with sheets over our heads, creeping in with loud moans (Mary Anna, Libby Hardinge and another girl called Farquharson, [6] all about 10). They adored it, sitting up and shrieking with arms clasped round their knees.
Not much solid stuff in all this rot, I’m afraid. You would have loved him. He was sent out to Egypt in the RAF – not able to fly, because so knocked about – but by the time I got to Cairo, he was already dead, having been tenderly looked after by Momo Marriott. [7]
This letter is so disjointed because of the tremendous heat. I’m scribbling away in a shuttered room, waiting for sunset to go for a long cool swim, as I did last night, watching the sun disappear on the way out, and swimming back under a crescent moon. Bliss.
Tons of love,
Paddy
[1] Sir Percy Loraine (1880–1961). High Commissioner in
Cairo 1926–9. Married Louise Stuart-Wortley in 1924.
[2] Rosemary Kerr (1908–85). Unmarried daughter of Admiral Mark Kerr, Naval Attaché in Italy, Austria, Turkey, and Commander-in-Chief, Greek Navy, under King Constantine 1913–15.
[3] Douglas Byng (1893–1988). The cabaret star, famous for his female impersonations, often accompanied his own camp songs on the piano at the Café de Paris in the 1930s.
[4] Napier Alington’s biological father was reputed to be Prince Marcantonio Colonna (1844–1912), assistant to the Pontifical Throne, the highest lay dignitary in the Roman Catholic Church.
[5] Dora Carrington described Napier Alington and his cousin Philip Yorke, 9th Earl of Hardwicke (1906–74), arriving at Augustus John’s house, Fryern, ‘both half naked in vests and a ravishing female beauty a cousin of Nap’s . . . They had been swimming at Kimmeridge.’ D. Garnett (ed.), Carrington, Letters & Extracts from her Diaries, p. 417.
[6] Napier Alington’s daughter, Mary Anna Sturt, her cousin Elizabeth Hardinge and Zoë, daughter of Robin d’Erlanger and Myrtle Farquharson.
[7] Maud (Momo) Kahn (1897–1960). Daughter of Otto Kahn, the wealthy Ameri -can financier. Married General Sir John Marriott in 1920.
* My new spelling for sex – such a dull word, it would keep it out of all newspaper headlines instead of obsessing them. Xan (Gsan) owed a lot of his success to it.
19 November 2000
Chatsworth
Bakewell
Darling Paddy,
The enclosed, one page in real life but two in the photo, turned up in a drawer at Lismore, spotted by Stoker. He thought it was Betjeman & sent it to Deacon. She saw your writing & sent it to me
. . . BUT the beginning is missing. Do you remember it? Can you do it again? OH DO. Mad of me not to know it by heart, but I don’t . . .
We’ve had a series of lectures here. Last night Archives by a wonderful old gent who has burrowed deep & found such curiosities as the second-ever map of Ireland, a contemp copy of Bess of Hardwick’s will, a seal of King John re some long-lost estate & a letter from George VI to my father in law on Billy & Kick’s engagement [1] saying what an awful fellow old Mr Kennedy was when Amb here. What an extraordinary house this is. I’d never seen any of those.
The blessed Spanish amb. & wife [2] came for a weekend. What a good pair. All strangers (except Kees) in the drawing room when they arrived. I lost my head and introduced her as Mrs Thing. I’d better give up asking people to stay. She is such a sport, ended her b&b letter ‘Love from Thing’.
The stuff from the Hermitage has landed at Somerset Ho & we’re going to the opening on Mon. I guess Jayne Wrightsman [3] will be crowned Empress of All the Russias because I have a feeling she has paid for it AND she’s enabled them to do up three derelict rooms at the Hermitage itself.
Much love
Debo
[1] Both sets of parents had been against the engagement of Andrew Devonshire’s older brother, William (Billy) Cavendish, Marquis of Hartington (1917–44), to Kathleen Kennedy, sister of the future President. The Devonshires were firm Protestants and the Kennedys entrenched Catholics.
[2] Santiago de Mora-Figueroa y Williams, Marqués de Tamarón (1941–), ambassador in London 1999–2004, and his wife, Isabella.
[3] Jayne Larkin (1919–). Art patron and munificent benefactor of, among other institutions, New York’s Metropolitan Museum, the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and Somerset House in London. Married Standard Oil mogul Charles Wrightsman in 1944.
29 November 2000
Mani
Darling Debo,
Here’s the poem, if you can call it that. We were staying at Long Crichel, and somebody wondered what the surnames of the inhabitants might represent, on the analogy of ‘Wellington’ and ‘Sandwich’. Raymond Mortimer, [1] it was thought, might be a kind of hat, and Eardley Knollys [2] a new kind of footwear (it was before Pat Trevor-Roper had succeeded to his place) and Desmond Shawe-Taylor would be a kind of harness (‘got a short tail, see?’). But what about Eddy Sackville-West, so gentle and sensitive and willowy? Desmond came out with a brilliant suggestion, ‘It would be a brand-new kind of boxing-glove.’ Applause was general, and it gave immediate rise to the attached verses.
Tons of love,
Paddy
THE LAY OF THE SACKWILLE GLOVE
I
’Twas a summer’s day at Long Crichel
And Phoebus vas shining bright,
And the ’ole of the Dorset Fancy
Vas gathered to see the fight.
II
Shawe-Taylor vas there on ’is bobtail mare
In the flashest of nankeen suits,
And Mortimer, too, in ’is beaver ’at,
And Knollys in ’is Blucher boots.
III
There vas many a bang-up Corinthian,
And many a milling cove,
But the gamest of all vas SACKWILLE-VEST,
As inwented ve SACKWILLE GLOVE!
IV
They pitched the ring on the welwet lawn,
And the gemmen vas crowding thick,
For BATTLING BEN from Blandford
Vas meeting the VIMBORNE CHICK.
V
‘Up vith yer dukes!’ cries SACKWILLE-VEST,
And their maulies met vith a bang –
And down goes the CHICK, as the BATTLER’S right
Connected ’is neb vith a clang.
VI
Now this clang vas caused by a doorknob
Concealed in the BATTLER’S right,
But nobody spies it, and everyone cries:
The BATTLER AS VUN THE FIGHT!
VII
But over the ropes jumps SACKWILLE-VEST
Vith ’is right ’eld be’ind ’is back,
And ’is left up’eld in preclusive spar,
Vot prowokes th’impending vhack.
VIII
’Is long, left daddle vas ’eld on ’igh,
Manoowering in the air
Clad in a newly-fangled mitt,
MADE OF LEVVER AND ’ORSE’S ’AIR!
IX
Forty-two rounds they milled and slogged
Like the pugs of ’oom poets sing
At the Var of Troy, and their slammin’ dukes
Fair made the Velkin ring.
X
Ben’s proboscis vas ’ammered flat
Vith many a vell-aimed stroke;
Both ’is peepers vas black and shut,
And ’alf of ’is ribs vas broke.
XI
’Is ears svole up like cauliflowers,
’is gnashers vas down ’is froat,
’Is claret vas tapped like a stove-in keg
At the wreck of a wintner’s boat.
XII
They carried BEN off on a five-bar gate,
And round the ’ERO pressed
All the covies, bawlin’ fit to bust:
‘THE WICTOR IS SACKWILLE-VEST!’
XIII
So fill up your glasses, gemmen all,
And all you milling coves,
And drink long life to SACKWILLE-VEST,
As inwented the SACKWILLE GLOVE!
XIV
So fill up the blushin’ bumpers
And empty ve flowin’ bowl
To SACKWILLE, VE SEVENOAKS BRUISER!
To bashin’ VEST, from KNOWLE!
PATRICIUS PRATUS AGRICOLA
(Written at Long Crichel, donkey’s years ago. Found incomplete at Lismore and written in full 29.XI.2000.)
[1] Raymond Mortimer (1895–1980). Critic and literary editor of New Statesman, joined the ‘Bachelors’, as the inhabitants of Long Crichel House were known, as their fourth member.
[2] Eardley Knollys (1902–91). Painter who, with Eddy Sackville-West and Desmond Shawe-Taylor, bought Long Crichel House soon after the war.
9 December 2000
Mani
Darling Debo,
Here’s a picture of the small tower here and flags f
lying on the 25th March, when the Greek War of Independence broke out against the Turks in 1821, which ended in victory, largely owing to the unofficial influence of Ld Byron, and the scarcely less unofficial naval guns of Admiral Codrington, whose blowing of the enemy fleet to bits in Navarino Bay – referred to in Parliament as ‘this untoward event’ – set Greece free. So we fly both flags on the anniversary, but I’m told incorrectly – they should be side by side, not one on top of the other – so don’t tell.
‘The Lay of the S Glove’ was originally inspired by four lines of Regency sporting verse, which I now can’t find anywhere. It had two Apollos in knee-breeches, squaring up to each other in a ring, surrounded by gents in beaver hats:
‘With daddles high upraised, and knob held back
In awful prescience of th’impending whack
The Hero stands, and with preclusive spar
And light manoeuvring kindles up the War.’
I couldn’t resist putting it into cockney V-W substitution dialect. I wonder who last heard it? Nobody alive now, I bet, but early 19th-century books are full of it.
I do look forward to Yuletide! It’ll be my umpteenth at Dingley Dell, as I always think of it, after the snug Christmas retreat in the Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens.
Love to all,
Paddy
[January 2001]
Dumbleton
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Darling Debo,
Christmas was marvellous and everyone enjoyed it. I even managed to get some work done in the sacred Stag Parlour. I’ve been a member for about 40 years, or I think I have.
It was decent to get the ‘Three Kings’ laid on. It’s an odd carol, written by a v High-Church Bostonian, wild about smells and lace and Rossetti, whose name I’ve clean forgotten. [1] If I’m ever asked again, do you think they could manage ‘The Holly and the Ivy’? It’s such a strange one, and so seldom heard. I’m particularly fond of it because I remember Xan singing it – with all the words, which I don’t know, in Crete at Christmas, 1942, in his strong basso profundo voice, while we huddled under the stalactites of a snug cave, roasting cheese on the ends of our Cretan daggers, delicious Cretan rarebits, washed down with tremendously strong wine out of a calabash.