The Mitford Girls

by Mary S. Lovell

  In the third week of January 1937, Decca went to stay with Dorothy Allhusen at Havering House, near Marlborough in Wiltshire. Renowned for her hospitality, ‘Aunt Dorothy’ was credited with being the Edwardian instigator of weekend house-parties - ‘Do come Saturday to Monday’ - and her house was famous as a haven of comfort. Fires blazed in all the rooms throughout the winter, and no expense or detail was spared to make guests feel pampered. Those who accepted her generous hospitality included Lord Beaverbrook, Winston Churchill and Somerset Maugham. Also among their numbers was Esmond Romilly, for Aunt Dorothy had a soft spot for her wayward young kinsman. She was a widow, and having lost her only son to a childhood illness had informally adopted Esmond. After he ran away from school he had been sent to a remand home when his mother told the court she could not control him. Aunt Dorothy had stepped in at this point and offered to be his guardian. Knowing all this, Decca thought she might hear some news of Esmond at Havering, but on her arrival it was even better than she hoped. Her fellow guests were an American couple called Scott, and Esmond, who was expected later that day. Decca felt faint with anticipation.

  Esmond had recently returned from Spain, where he had gone within weeks of hearing of the Falange rebellion to join the International Brigade. With fifteen other Englishmen he joined a unit of miscellaneous volunteers from France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Poland who, after the briefest of training, were sent to the front at Cerro de Los Angeles. In December 1936 he was involved in the battle of Boadilla del Monte from where he sent several dispatches, which appeared in the pro-loyalist News Chronicle under headlines such as ‘Winston Churchill’s Nephew Sends Graphic Message’. Twelve days earlier, Esmond reported, his company of men had numbered 120. Following the battle their number was reduced by death and injury to thirty-seven. There was no field discipline and they were sometimes shelled by their own side; there were no supplies, and no medical aid. Eventually he, too, succumbed to the conditions, and was invalided home in early January with dysentery. Later he wrote that that he hardly recalled the hardships of that period; all that remained in his memory was an impression of

  a wild Russian-filmish scene of endless singing of the ‘Internationale’ and wine-drinking in romantic cafés with tough Russian drivers and frenzied cheering and rushing around in romantic corduroy trousers with romantic belts of hand grenades and sleeping on the romantic stone floors of churches and all the rest - that was all there . . . but a more truthful account would have to include also the continual Army slogan - ‘We’re being f—-ed again’, and that the personal struggle for an extra square foot of space on a truck or train and the attempt to avoid tasks like carrying boxes of ammunition did in fact loom larger than ‘No Paseran’.1

  After several weeks’ treatment in King’s College Hospital, Aunt Dorothy told Decca, Esmond was now recovered. He had been spending a couple of days visiting the parents of young men who had been killed beside him in the fighting (he was one of only two English survivors), and he was probably already on his way to Wiltshire by train.2 Decca had been trying for months to find a way of meeting Esmond. Before she was dragged off to Scotland (her description) she had arranged through a mutual friend, Peter Nevile, to meet Giles Romilly at a Lyons Corner House, ‘a place where you are hardly likely to run into anyone you know’, and asked him if he could help her to run away and join the International Brigade. Nothing had come of this, but during his spell in hospital, Esmond had learned from Giles and Peter that Cousin Decca, ‘the ballroom pink’ of the Mitfords, had been making detailed enquiries about him, and wanted to get to Spain to help in the fight against Fascism. He then suggested to his doting aunt that Decca might be an interesting house guest.

  In an interview in later life Decca admitted that she was already half in love with Esmond before she ever met him. ‘There was a marvellous photo of him in the front of his book Out of Bounds, at which I used to gaze wistfully...’3 She dressed that evening with special care in a mauve lamé ankle-length dress. It was very fashionable but uncomfortable to wear, and she worried about its tinny smell. She sat in her pretty room agonizing about what he would think of her, and wondering about possible rivals for his affection: sophisticated London women, brave Spanish freedom fighters, ‘all of them beautifully thin, no doubt’. At last, gazing at her reflection in the flattering pink glow lent by the dressing-table lamp, she decided she didn’t look too disgusting, and steeled herself to go down to join the others. Over sherry she talked to Mr Scott and watched Esmond out of the corner of her eye. He was not quite as she had imagined him. He was shorter than the Mitford men, thin with bright eyes fringed with long lashes. Energy seemed to flow from him and he had a manner of standing with his head held on one side, listening to what anybody said as though it were the most important thing he’d ever heard in his life. Spain had changed him, according to his friends: he had gone out a romantic and come back disillusioned, though not embittered. He was serious that night, quiet and full of admiration for the Communists who alone, he said, had saved Madrid.4 After they went into dinner things moved fast.

  Aunt Dorothy had thoughtfully seated the two cousins together and taking advantage of a moment when the others were deep in conversation Decca furtively asked Esmond if he was returning to Spain. He said he was. ‘Well - I was wondering if you could possibly take me with you?’ she asked. Esmond needed no time to think over this bold proposition. He replied immediately and easily that he would. Decca, prepared to counter any number of depressing arguments, was taken aback. Could it really be this easy? No cavilling about her being too young or a girl? He suggested they went for a walk after breakfast to discuss it, and carried on talking to the others. That was all it took for Decca to fall in love with Esmond but in her defence it must be said that many contemporaries recalled him as a highly charismatic personality.

  Next morning Decca was first down, and after breakfast Esmond extricated them from the party expertly. ‘We won’t be long,’ he said firmly, as they left the room with his hand under her elbow. Walking in the freezing muddy lanes of an English midwinter, Esmond outlined a plan he had concocted during the night. He had an advance of ten pounds from the News Chronicle to return to Spain as a war correspondent, which would enable him to get the necessary visa. He suggested that Decca should go as his secretary, which should allow her to obtain a visa too. He brushed aside as irrelevant her concern that she could not type: he did all his own typing anyway, and he was impressed when she told him about her running-away account which had been painfully accumulated from saved pocket money, sales of valued objects such as the appendix and windfall half-crowns from uncles and aunts at Christmas and birthdays. Fifty pounds would make things much easier, he said. Quickly they laid their plans and less than twenty-four hours after they met everything was in place. At last, Decca was about to achieve her childhood ambition to run away, and with the adored Esmond. All her dreams coming true.

  So much changed for her over that weekend that when Decca arrived back at Rutland Gate three days later, she was amazed to find everything unaltered. There was Sydney drawling, ‘Hullo, Little D, did you have a nice time at Cousin Dorothy’s?’ and talking about clothes for the cruise and typhoid injections. Household routine went on as ever. No one seemed to notice that Decca was no longer bad-tempered and bored. Next morning she made sure that she was standing by at nine-thirty to pick up the small pile of post, into which she slipped a letter she and Esmond had concocted together at Havering. It purported to come from her friends the Paget twins, who she knew were in Austria for the whole winter. She opened and read the letter in front of Sydney so that she could make appropriately enthusiastic noises. ‘Darling Decca,’ it began:

  Twin and I are so anxious to see you before you go off around the world. Now I have a suggestion to make. Sorry it’s such short notice, but do try and fall in. We have taken a house in Dieppe, that is, Auntie has taken it. We mean to make it the centre for a motor tour to all the amusing places round. We are going there from Au
stria on Wednesday and would love you to join us next weekend . . . or two weeks . . . there won’t be much of a party, just two boys from Oxford, us three and Auntie . . . our address is 22, rue de Gambetta, Dieppe. So perhaps you could send a telegram to me there if you can come . . . we shall be so disappointed if you can’t . . . Our house in London is successfully let, hope yours is too.5

  It was something of a masterpiece of composition. It told Sydney that there was no point in trying to contact the mother of the twins at the London address to confirm the story. It told her that the holiday was to be a touring one so that there was no way of getting in touch with Decca to check on her. An added bonus was that, if she was allowed to go, Decca’s running-away expenses would be met by the Redesdales as far as Dieppe. Sydney not only sanctioned the trip but even agreed to a thirty-pound advance on Decca’s dress allowance for cruise clothes. Decca was amazed by how easily it all worked. Although Sydney insisted on her shopping for cruise clothes, and getting a typhoid injection before she left for Dieppe, she agreed Decca might go, ‘although you might not be able to spend the whole two weeks, Little D,’ she said. Decca’s biggest problem was losing the others during a shopping trip so that she could get to the bank to draw out her running-away money and meet Esmond to apply for her visa. She did feel a pang of guilt, however, when Sydney splashed out three guineas for a solar topee that Decca knew she would never wear.

  On Sunday 7 February both parents took Decca in a taxi to the station. As they settled her into her seat in the train they fussed about her comfort, and forwarding addresses, and last-minute instructions and hoped she’d enjoy herself. Her stomach was churning with apprehension but she caught a glimpse of Esmond hanging around at the end of the platform, which stiffened her. She hardly dared think of what would happen when her parents discovered she had left home for good. But by now she felt that, whatever happened, Esmond would sort it out. She was so much in love with him that he had achieved something of a god-like status. It seems extraordinary that Decca would jettison her entire life and family for a young man whom she had known for only a weekend, but that is what happened.

  For the next ten days everything seemed well to Sydney. She went ahead with preparations and packing for the cruise and received several postcards from Decca and a letter.

  9 Feb, 1937 Dieppe

  Darling Muv,

  ... the weather is pretty bad here so we shan’t be doing much motoring till Thursday. We are just back from Rouen, the Cathedral is lovely . . . the Pagets send their love . . . I called on Aunt Nellie Romilly this morning and was told she was expected here next week . . . Love Decca.6

  Two further letters followed from stopping points on the imaginary tour, chatty with details of the holiday and the weather, sending love from the twins, and advising that she would not be home before Sunday 21 February. But even before these last two letters were received Sydney sensed somehow that something was not right. She cabled the twins’ mother at the address in

  Austria given in the forged letter, ‘DO YOU KNOW WHERE DECCA IS?’ and contacted a Paget aunt in London. Within hours she learned that the story of the holiday with the twins had been an invention. To say that the Redesdales were worried at this discovery would be a gross understatement. They had grown so used to Decca’s childish threats to run away that it never occurred to them that she would finally do it. Where could she have gone? Her allegiance to the Communist Party caused them great concern - to whom might she have gone? Had she tried to get to Russia? For almost three days they had no idea where she was, or with whom, and when two cheery letters arrived from her they knew them to be fabrications, so they were no comfort.

  Esmond told Decca that he had fallen in love with her on the day after they arrived in France. Thereafter, since they intended to marry eventually, they saw no reason to pay for two hotel rooms as they journeyed south. Decca’s letters were designed to keep her parents’ minds easy until a letter (forwarded by Esmond to Peter Nevile on the thirteenth), had been delivered to Nellie Romilly in Dieppe on Saturday 20 February. Esmond thought that by then, two weeks after their elopement, they would be married and ‘in the clear’, but they soon found that a marriage was not possible because they were both under age. Esmond was eighteen and Decca was nineteen; as minors they both needed parental permission. Meanwhile, they waited in Bayonne for Decca’s Spanish visa. For Esmond, who was anxious to get to Spain, it was frustrating, but for Decca everything was new and exciting. Only one incident marred her enjoyment and it led to their first quarrel.

  They were sitting drinking in a café one evening when a large rough man came in with a dog, muzzled and on a leash. After a while the man began to beat the dog across the face with a switch and as it yelped and whined the other diners laughed and cheered. Decca became frantic and shouted to Esmond, ‘Tell him to stop . . . the cruel brute, can’t you do something?’ Esmond pulled her up out of her seat and said, ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’ Outside the café he told her furiously,

  What right have you got to impose your beastly upper-class preoccupation with animals on these people? You’re behaving like a typical British tourist. That’s why English people are so hated abroad. Don’t you know how the English people of your class treat people, in India and Africa, and all over the world? And you have the bloody nerve to come here - to their country, mind you, and . . . telling them how to treat their dogs . . . I can tell you when you get to Spain you’ll see plenty of horrible sights, bombed children dying in the streets. French people and Spanish people don’t give a damn about animals and why should they? They happen to think people are more important. If you’re going to make such an unholy fuss about dogs you should have stayed in England, where they feed the dogs steak and let people in slums die of starvation.7

  Decca refused to admit that it was necessary to ill-treat animals in order to care for people, and they quarrelled all night. Next day they made up but what Esmond said made her think more deeply about her commitment to his brand of politics. It is interesting that the first disagreement between these two firebrand radicals was over a point unconnected with ideology. However, as she recalled later, she and Esmond felt they could do anything, achieve anything, and that they were not bound by any rules. Years later she attributed this to a special brand of self-confidence due to their upbringing: they enjoyed ‘a feeling of being able to walk through any fire unscathed’.

  Nellie received Esmond’s letter on the twentieth, in Dieppe, too late to reply the same day, but the following morning she contacted Dorothy Allhusen, and asked her to contact the Redesdales immediately to tell them the startling news she had just received from Esmond: ‘. . . When I met Decca Mitford at Cousin Dorothy’s the other weekend,’ he had written, ‘we both more or less fell in love with each other . . . then we arranged that she should come to Spain as my secretary. I expect by the time you get this we’ll have been married in Spain, as of course we’ve been unofficially so, since we left, and we’re intending to have three children . . . her family loathe the name of me . . . so pour some white wash on me.’8 Any attempt to get Decca back, he warned, would result in his leaking to the papers the truth about Unity and Hitler: ‘It wouldn’t be a very nice thing to have that advertised.’6

  By this time Peter Nevile had called at Rutland Gate with the unenviable task of telling the Redesdales that their daughter had eloped with a young man whom for years most of the family had thought would have been improved with a horsewhipping. He also told them that the couple were presently living as man and wife in a cheap hotel in Bayonne and that by now they might be married. Having worried for days that Decca might have run off to join a Communist cell, or even that she had been taken by white slavers, Mitford legend says that David sank into a chair muttering, ‘Worse than I thought. Married to Romilly!’

  Sydney wrote immediately to Decca at the address in Bayonne: ‘My darling, we have been in such agonising suspense . . . please come home. I cannot do more than beg of you to return. We shall be he
re as we are not, of course, going on the cruise.’9 On the same day Sydney received a seven-page letter from Nellie Romilly, which must have made her want to scream. Nellie began by saying that she and her husband, Bertram, were proud to have Decca as a daughter-in-law, even though they were concerned that Esmond had taken such a step when he was in no position to keep a wife. She was surprised, Nellie continued, as before he left she had asked Esmond if he had any romantic entanglements and he had replied that he was in no position to fall in love as he could not support a wife. ‘I know only too well that he cannot appeal to any mother as a husband for her child . . . his attitude has always been one of defiance to law and order,’ she wrote. She only hoped, she said, that ‘the children’ were in northern Spain where there was no fighting.10 When Nanny Blor was told about this all she said was, ‘Good gracious, she didn’t take any clothes to fight in.11