all for it. He says I can have the pick of Cheyne Walk furniture and in return I am giving him two or three pictures. The future appears to me to be roseate specially now he is so gay and bright.
I ought to get you a diamond necklace – last chance!
All love, Diana
Darling Bodley
Oh I feel as if I were sitting on a volcano (thank you, by the way, a million times for the life saving gift of £5 THE LAST). You know, back in the sane or insane atmosphere of Swinbrook I feel convinced that you won’t be allowed to take this step. I mean that Muv & Farve & Tom, Randolph,1 Doris,2 Aunt Iris, John,3 Lord Moyne4 & in fact everybody that you know will band together & somehow stop it. How, I don’t attempt to say.
Oh dear I believe you have a much worse time in store for you than you imagine. I’m sorry to be so gloomy darling.
I am glad you like the book, so do Robert5 & Niggy,6 it is a great comfort. But so far there’s not been one single review – is this rather sinister? I think I had quite a lot in the first week of H. Fling.
Mitty says £2,000 a year will seem tiny to you & he will urge Farve, as your trustee, to stand out for more.
Do let me know developments, I think it better in every way that I should stay here at present but if you want me at Cheyne Walk I’ll come of course. Only I think I can do more good down here. I wish I felt certain it was doing good though, it would be so awful later to feel that I had been, even in a tiny way, instrumental in messing up your life. I wish one had a definite table of ethics, for oneself & others like very religious people have, it would make everything easier.
Much love always darling, Naunce
Darling Naunce
The detectives are extraordinary and just like one would imagine.1 It is really rather heavenly to feel that they are around – no pickpockets can approach etc. Isn’t it all extremely amusing in a way. I mean there is such a great army of them and it is all so expensive for Lord Moyne (may he burn in hell).
I have shirked the Grosvenor Place party2 because I was advised it would be better not to go. They ALL cried when I wouldn’t & I gave as an excuse ‘Grosvenor Place is such a big house to surround so thought it more friendly to save half a dozen men & stay at home’.
Darling you are my one ally. But it is vastly lying to suggest you encouraged my sot [foolish] behaviour;3 you always said it would end in TEARS.
Do come here soon. I am not hurrying to leave because if Bryan leaves ME the onus is on HIM and so he will.
All love darling, Diana
Darling,
At last a moment to write you – & now my fingers are too cold to hold the pen! Oh the cold is awful, luckily the ’tectives have made themselves an awfully cosy little wigwam outside with a brazier & are keeping themselves warm & happy taking up the road. Bless them.
Saw Bryan yesterday, he was pretty spiky I thought, keeps saying of course I suppose it’s my duty to take her back & balls of that sort. Henry Yorke1 told him you had gone to Mürren with Cela.2 Would I either confirm or deny? I said I thought it very doubtful if Henry knew anything about it & that I would forward a letter to you if B cared to write one.
I may say that the Lambs3 seem to have turned nasty, apparently they told B they were nearly certain you had an affair with Randolph [Churchill] in the spring.
Lunched with Dolly [Castlerosse] & Delly.4 Delly said I don’t mind people going off & fucking but I do object to all this free love. She is heaven isn’t she?
I had a long talk with Mrs Mac5 who refuses to stay with Bryan. She says you are the one she is fond of. I told her it would mean no kitchen maid but she doesn’t seem to mind that idea at all. You must see her as soon as you get back. B & Miss Moore6 both told her (a) you couldn’t afford her & (b) you wouldn’t be entertaining at all, but living in a very very quiet retirement.
Rather wonderful old ladies in fact.7
John [Sutro] had a long talk to the Leader & is now won over. Next tease for John, ‘Why even Mosley can talk you round in half an hour’.
Best love darling, Nancy
1 Diana had just had her tonsils out and was convalescing at the seaside.
2 Patrick Cameron; a dancing partner of Nancy and Pamela, and a frequent visitor at Asthall.
3 Mary Milnes-Gaskell; a friend of Nancy from schooldays. Married Lewis Motley in 1934.
4 Oliver (Togo) Watney (1908–65). Member of the brewing family and a country neighbour of the Mitfords. He was briefly engaged to Pamela in 1929. Married Christina Nelson in 1936.
5 David Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale (1878–1958). The sisters’ father believed that Asthall was haunted by a poltergeist, which was one of the reasons he eventually sold the house and built Swinbrook.
1 After much wrangling with her parents, Nancy had been allowed to enrol at the Slade School of Fine Art. She had little artistic talent, received small encouragement from her teachers and left after a few months.
2 University College London, of which the Slade is a part, was the first university in England to welcome students regardless of their race, class or religion.
3 Diana was in Paris learning French and staying in lodgings where the only bath was a shallow tin of water brought to her room twice a week.