The Mitford Girls

by Mary S. Lovell

  That week cinema-goers were treated to a newsreel film of Unity looking startled and puzzled, as David helped her from the stretcher to her feet outside the hotel. Sydney had washed and combed Unity’s hair while they travelled, which improved her appearance, and that she was able to walk made it appear as though there was not much wrong with her. With little else to write about the incident, journalists made a story of the fact that Unity had been brought home in a first-class carriage with a special guard’s van at a cost of £1,600 to her parents. A good three-bedroom house could be bought for three hundred pounds in 1939. Perhaps it is not surprising that the newsreel was greeted by scathing jeers and catcalls from largely working-class audiences, earning perhaps four or five pounds a week. Opposition - hatred, even - was understandable for ‘the girl who loved Hitler’, but so unusually aggressive was the press coverage of Unity’s arrival that questions were asked in the House of Commons and, later, some newspapers had the grace to admit that their reporters had ‘gone too far’ in their treatment of a young woman who was, clearly, still gravely ill. For some months afterwards the cottage at High Wycombe was given police protection. This led to the assumption that they were being ‘watched’ by the authorities.

  When she had rested for a few days Unity was admitted to hospital in Oxford but the doctors told the Redesdales that everything that could be done had already been done in Germany.6 Only time could help Unity now, they told Sydney. Unity kept repeating, ‘I thought you all hated me but I don’t remember why.’ She asked Nancy, ‘You’re not one of those who would be cruel to somebody, are you?’7 And ‘Am I mad?’ This was an occasion when Nancy was kind. ‘Of course you are, darling Stonyheart,’ she said gently, ‘but then you always were.’8 Initially Unity appeared to think that her doctors had made a hole in her head, which had caused her illness. Later, though, as her memory returned she asked Diana privately if she thought it ‘very wicked to die by one’s own hand’. Diana believes that ‘to that small extent man must be the master of his own fate. He did not ask to be born; if his life becomes too tragic or unbearable he has the right to die.’9 She told Unity this, but told her also that as she had been saved, she must now concentrate all her energy on recovering her health.

  Nancy sometimes stayed with her parents during this period, and to pass the time she worked on Pigeon Pie, a novel based on her experiences in the first-aid post. As usual it was peopled with her friends and connections: You are in it,’ she wrote to Decca, ‘as Mary Pencill.’ After it was published Nanny Blor wrote to Decca to say she’d read it, but hadn’t enjoyed it. Everyone who wrote to Decca said how Unity continually asked after ‘my Boud’ and said how wonderful it would be if she were to walk in the door. Tom and Nancy wrote that they had to leave the room to cry when they first saw her, but that there was a gradual improvement.

  The combined effort required to bring Unity home had created a temporary lull in the growing discord between Sydney and David about Germany. With Unity safely home, their differences surfaced again. For a short time in 1938 David had gone along with Unity’s line that the Treaty of Versailles had been unfair to Germany, and that it was only right that the former German colonies should be restored. Like most of the upper classes David had been deeply concerned about the spread of Communism, and feared it. Fascism appeared to be a possible alternative. And Hitler had behaved like a gentleman over Unity’s illness. But by 1939, in common with practically everyone else in Britain, David viewed Hitler as a threat as great as Communism, and someone to be strenuously opposed. Sydney, however, still regarded Hitler as the charming music-lover who had entertained her to tea and, what is more, had looked after Unity so kindly. She recalled the tidiness of German towns, the cleanliness of its hotels, the magnificent autobahns, the feeling that everyone was happy and working together for the greater good of the country, under the beloved Führer. ‘When the Germans have won,’ she said to David, ‘you’ll see, everything will be wonderful and they’ll treat us very differently to those wretched beastly Poles.’10 By mid-February 1940 the couple were ‘absolutely at loggerheads’, as Nancy put it, quarrelling bitterly. Eventually David confided in Nancy that he did not think he could continue to live with Sydney for much longer. And when Nancy wrote to Mrs Hammersley she said that he ‘is more violent now against Germany than anyone else I know, and against any form of peace until they are beaten . . . I really think they hate each other now.’11

  Initially the Redesdales intended that after Unity was discharged from hospital, they would take her to sit out the war in the quiet and solitude of Inch Kenneth. But the island was made a ‘protected zone’ like many coastal areas, and when David applied for permits to travel there he was turned down. Unity might be British and she might be an invalid, but she was no more trusted than an enemy alien. Lady Redesdale had made her views on the Germans clear, and she was not allowed to go, either. Lord Redesdale was permitted to go there, of course. He blamed Sydney for this, believing that had she told the truth about the extent of Unity’s brain damage, and not aired her pro-Nazi views so forthrightly, there would not have been a problem. Sydney could hardly admit to herself that Unity might have brain damage, so perhaps it was not surprising that the rest of the population did not know the facts, and it did not help matters when Sydney was quoted as having stated firmly that Unity was ‘recovering well . . . My daughter must not be made into one of history’s tragic women,’ she insisted to a reporter.

  The old David, tall, strong, funny, fiery and the inspiration for ‘Uncle Matthew’, had almost disappeared. The events of the last few years, Diana’s divorce and remarriage to Mosley, whom he detested, Decca’s defection, Unity’s suicide attempt, and now the quarrel between himself and Sydney, had broken him. Although he was only sixty-two his health was failing. His eyesight was poor because of cataracts and, white-haired and stooping, he looked a decade older than he was. Where once he had thundered, his tempers were now mere flashes of irritation. When Unity came out of hospital an added and unforeseen problem presented itself: the brain damage had made her clumsy and incontinent - when eating she frequently spilled or dropped her food and David could not stand the sight of her at the table. Eventually it all became too much for him: he went alone to the island, taking the under-parlourmaid, Margaret Wright, as his housekeeper. She was also a trained nurse, which was an advantage with his failing health. David and Sydney wrote to each other almost every day, and often their letters - from David anyway - were tender, always beginning, ‘My darling’. In future the couple were together occasionally for special family occasions, and they sometimes stayed at each other’s houses, but it was the end of their marriage as such and they never again lived as husband and wife. For the remainder of the war David spent six months of each year at Inch Kenneth and the other six, in the winter, at the mews cottage at Rutland Gate.

  Sydney decided to return to Swinbrook, reasoning that everyone in that remote area had known Unity from childhood so she was unlikely to be attacked or harmed. She rented the old ‘fishing cottage’ next door to the pub for the summer, and took on a Mrs Timms as a daily. Soon she had acquired some hens and a goat, which gave birth to twins within weeks of purchase. Unity was thrilled, and wrote to Decca about the kids in wavery childish handwriting with grammatical errors. It must have brought a lump to Decca’s throat when she compared it with Unity’s letters before the shooting. Blor came to help with the nursing and after she went home to her family Sydney looked after Unity alone. With dedicated and loving care Unity made limited progress but she remained childlike for the rest of her life. For Sydney it was an unremitting job: Unity’s incontinence meant that her bedlinen had to be washed every day, and as she recovered her mobility she wandered further from home, which, given her trusting simplicity, was often worrying. Old friends and cousins, such as Idden and Rudbin and the Baileys, visited along with Tom and all the sisters except Decca.

  Decca had been very anxious. Like the Redesdales in England, she had been badgered by American
reporters offering a thousand dollars and more for ‘the inside story’ on Unity. Poor as the Romillys were, and in some ways unscrupulous, and much as they loathed Fascism, Decca’s love for Unity prevented her speaking to the press. One magazine she turned down ran a story anyway: ‘I see they have an article about the “fabulous mansion at High Wycombe”,’ Decca wrote to Sydney, ‘and pointing out that Farve is one of Princess Marina’s closest friends and talking of Winston Churchill as Bobo’s uncle. One journalist wrote that I had said, “Unity was always a wild youngster,”12 (I hadn’t even seen him) and next day it was in headlines in every US paper.’13

  From Sydney she learned that six months after the shooting the doctors expected Unity to go on making limited progress for up to eighteen months but that she would never recover completely. She was stuck at a mental age of eleven or twelve. Sydney tried to remain optimistic, treating the injury like concussion, and reminding everyone how long Tom had taken to recover from concussion caused by a car crash some years earlier. However, she admitted that Unity’s personality was changed: ‘That old insouciance has rather gone,’ she wrote, ‘and she is so much more affectionate and sweet to everyone and there is something really so pathetic about her, poor darling.’14 At Unity’s request, Sydney arranged for her to see a Christian Science practitioner. From this point on Unity displayed the obsessional fixation on religion that can often be a characteristic of mental illness. The Daily Express, however, chose to link Unity’s interest in Christian Science with the Nazi movement, pointing out that ‘several of the leading Nazis’ were strong Christian Scientists. But Unity was interested in many religions and swung from one to another, depending on whom she had last spoken with.

  The papers continued to run stories on Unity almost weekly and David was often bothered for ‘a statement’ and referred to in reports as a supporter of Hitler. Finally he could bear it no longer and on 9 March he wrote to The Times:

  My only crime, if it be a crime, so far as I know, is that I am one of many thousands in this country who thought that our best interests would be served by a friendly understanding with Germany . . . though now proved to be wrong, I was, at any rate, in good company . . . I resent . . . the undoubted undercurrent of suspicion and resentment caused by publicity to which there is no right of reply . . . I am constantly described as a Fascist. I am not, never have been, and am not likely to become a Fascist.15

  To spare Unity potential hurt the newspapers were hidden away from her, even though, Sydney wrote to Decca, she could only read a few lines if she found them, for she had the limited attention span of a child, her concentration was gone and she suffered blackouts.

  The old life in England seemed far away to Decca and Esmond. He wrote a series of brilliantly simple, though obviously subjective, essays on the political situation and the Cliveden set, for journals such as the Commentator, but though he frequently criticized England and its administration, he never wavered from his intention to join up when it became necessary. His brother Giles was already serving in the British Army and had been sent with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to France, but while everybody waited for the Phoney War to end, he and Decca were determined to enjoy what they knew was a limited period of freedom.

  Driving to New Orleans they made a mistake in navigation and ended up in Miami. There, by virtue of invented backgrounds, Decca found a job on a faux-jewellery counter in a drug store at fourteen dollars a week, and Esmond, ‘known for his inability to carry a teaspoon from one room to the next’, was employed by a restaurant based on his ‘long experience’ as a waiter at the Savoy Grill. He lasted one evening, during which he soaked his customers with wine, dripped tomato sauce on their clothes and ended up crashing spectacularly into a heavily laden fellow waiter leaving the kitchen with a tray of food. He was asked to leave but such was his personal charm that he talked the owners into letting him open a cocktail bar at a wage of five dollars a week plus meals and tips.16

  The bar was an immediate success but the Miami police called round and closed the restaurant down because, they said, the bar was being operated illegally. To reopen the owners needed a liquor licence, which would cost a thousand dollars for the season. The Italian family who owned the Roma restaurant were crushed by what seemed the end of their livelihood, but Esmond struck a deal with them: he would raise the money, he said, in exchange for a full partnership in the restaurant. They agreed, probably thinking he was mad. If he could raise that sort of money why would he work for five dollars a week? Even Decca doubted Esmond in this case, especially when he told her his plan. He would use their small savings to fly back to Washington, DC, and see Eugene Meyer and talk him into lending them the money. In Decca’s experience rich people got that way by not lending money without equity so she wrote immediately to Tom asking him to transmit to her the three hundred pounds in her account at Drummonds, proceeds of the sale of some shares David had given her. This, she thought, would pay off Mr Meyer if he agreed to the loan, but Tom could not comply with the request due to currency regulations.

  Esmond’s interview with Eugene Meyer was brief. He described the venture and launched into an explanation of the exchange rate between English pounds and American dollars, which Mr Meyer cut across with the remark, ‘Yes, Esmond, I happen to know about the exchange rate.’ Then he leaned back in his chair and said, ‘A thousand dollars. Yes, I think I can lend you a thousand dollars.’ Esmond was so bemused at not having to trot out his brilliant arguments that all he could think of to say was, ‘Oh! Well, I hope it won’t leave you short.’ Collapse of stout party: Mr Meyer thought the remark hilarious and wrote out a cheque on the spot.17

  Decca resigned from her drugstore job to help Esmond run the bar. They became part of the Italian family and if Decca thought, What would Muv think? when she had to eject a drunken woman from the restaurant powder room, it was all part of the fun of building their business. It seemed never to have crossed their minds that ownership of a business might carry a whiff of capitalism, and they cheerfully quizzed customers about their politics while always strongly espousing the left. It was an enormously happy time for them: young, bright and successful they managed to put the war out of their minds. ‘We spend the mornings on the beach,’ she wrote to Sydney, ‘and the rest of the time eating up the delicious Italian food.’ To her great surprise she met Harry Oakes in Miami, the man who had made his millions at Swastika. She had heard of his good fortune all her life, whenever David talked about the gold mine. To meet him was, she thought, an extraordinary coincidence.

  The Phoney War ended suddenly, in May 1940, as Hitler’s troops swept victoriously through the Low Countries and crossed into France. On 10 May Chamberlain announced his resignation and Churchill was asked to form an all-party coalition government. The BEF was forced to retreat until there was only the English Channel at their backs, and were rescued by the miracle of a massive fleet of small boats ferrying back and forth from Dunkirk.

  Decca believed that Esmond changed a lot during the eighteen months they spent in the USA, that he had outgrown his automatic adolescent rebellion against any form of authority. He was steadier and more serious. There was only one aim in his life now, and that was the permanent defeat of Fascism. News from home was bad. Esmond’s father died suddenly on 6 May. His brother Giles was missing in the fighting, believed to have been taken prisoner at Dunkirk. Nellie wrote to tell him that Aunt Clemmie had come for the funeral, and that Uncle Winston rang her to say that Holland and Belgium had been invaded. ‘Esmond,’ she wrote, ‘if it is your own sincere conviction not to come home there is nothing more to say - but if Decca is holding you back from your country in her hour of anguish remember Uncle Winston’s words, “If Britain lives a thousand years . . . this will be her finest hour.”’18 Suddenly Europe loomed over them again.

  They sold the bar, making a small profit after settling the loan, and set off for Washington, DC, where Esmond intended to join the Canadian Royal Air Force and volunteer to serve in Europe, ev
en though, as he told Decca, ‘I’ll probably find myself being commanded by one of your ghastly relations.’19 He suggested that she should enrol in a stenographer’s class while he was away. They both knew it was going to be tough and lonely for her with him gone. Learning shorthand and typing would be occupation for her and enable her to earn a living, as typists were always in demand. As for accommodation, Esmond had this worked out, too. They called on the Durrs and, while Decca was engaged in heated conversation with Cliff, he slipped into the kitchen to ask Virginia if Decca could stay with them after he left. ‘I’m sure she will be so lonely. If you could just keep her for the weekend I can’t tell you how much I would appreciate it.’20 She told him she was going away that weekend to a Democratic convention but agreed that Decca should go with her, to take her mind off Esmond’s departure for an RCAF training depot at Halifax, Nova Scotia. ‘Within days,’ Virginia wrote, ‘we had become devoted to Decca.’ They referred to her jokingly as ‘our refugee’ and she fitted very well into the untidy mêlée of the extended family, pets and stray visitors that peopled the farmhouse. Decca wrote to Esmond, ‘Virginia has very kindly - entirely due to you, you clever old thing - asked me to stay as long as I want, but of course if there’s any chance of seeing you I could scram North in a second.’21 In the event Decca ended up living with the Durrs for two and a half years, and Virginia always said that Esmond had had the whole thing worked out from the start.