The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family (41 page)

At weekends they relied on invitations to grand houses, where they were wined and dined, and in return entertained their fellow guests with stories of Decca’s upbringing and their elopement. On one occasion when she phoned to accept an invitation to a mansion in Virginia, Decca was asked, ‘You ride, of course?’ ‘Oh yes,’ Decca said blithely, unwilling to forfeit a weekend of lavish hospitality, and giving only momentary thought to those frequent falls in the paddock at Swinbrook. ‘Do bring your riding things,’ said her hostess. Decca’s riding things consisted of a pair of old trousers and a rough shirt. The other guests were clad immaculately in gleaming boots, well-cut breeches and hacking jackets. Nor was Decca able to handle the thoroughbred she had been allotted. It was a disaster.

In early November the Redesdales heard through the American embassy that Unity was ‘in a surgical hospital in Munich’ and making a good recovery from an attempted suicide. At least now they knew the worst and when, a few weeks later, a reporter rang in the middle of the night to ask if it was true that Unity had died in hospital, Sydney was confident enough to hang up on him. Suddenly the newspapers were full of a story that ‘The Girl Who Loved Hitler’ had shot herself following a massive row with Hitler and had died in a Munich hospital. In other versions she had been shot on the orders of Himmler, and buried in an unmarked grave. Blor, who was in London for Christmas shopping (‘It didn’t take long,’ she said, ‘the shops were empty’),
⁴¹
saw a news-vendor the next day holding a poster with headlines announcing Unity’s death. ‘She went up to the man and said, ‘
THAT’S NOT TRUE
!’ Sydney wrote. ‘He was astonished . . . Debo is terrifically gay and goes out to lunch and dinner every day. I suppose there is a great dearth of girls in London and the young men come up quite a lot . . . The cottage at Swinbrook is presently housing Diana’s nurse and baby and is to be let for a month at Christmas to friends of Debo; Andrew Cavendish and another boy. I do hope they won’t break it up completely.’
⁴²

Debo and Andrew Cavendish had been secretly pledged to each other for some months having been in love since shortly after they met in the previous year. Debo thought it was pointless asking for permission to marry; they would only be told they were too young. Sensibly, they decided to wait for a more propitious moment.

Hearing the latest reports, Decca wrote anxiously asking for news. The Romillys were now in Florida, and she had been mobbed by reporters offering her money in exchange for a story but she didn’t know what to make of the assertion that Unity was dead. Sydney cabled her enough information to set her mind at rest.

David came down from Inch Kenneth to spend Christmas at the mews cottage and it was while he was there, on Christmas Eve, that he and Sydney received further news about Unity. It was the best Christmas present they could have received, for it was Janos calling and, after explaining that he was with Unity in Switzerland, he handed the phone to her. ‘When are you coming to get me?’ Unity asked plaintively.

14
Irreconcilable Differences
(1940–41)

Although in the brief telephone conversation Unity sounded normal it was obvious from what Janos told them that she was far from well. The family learned that Hitler had arranged for Unity to be taken to Berne in a specially fitted out ambulance carriage attached to a train. As well as Janos, she was accompanied by a nursing nun, who had been with her since the shooting, and a doctor who was the ex-husband of a friend Unity had made when she first went out to Munich to learn German. The doctor had now returned to Germany but the nun and Janos would wait until the Mitfords arrived.

Somehow, although it was Christmas, David acquired the necessary travel papers in three days, and on 27 December Sydney and Debo set off for Switzerland. David was to remain in England ‘to organize things from that end’ and to meet them with an ambulance when they returned on the cross-Channel ferry. Debo was nineteen and thinks that Sydney might have had some special permit from the Foreign Office to present at the inevitable checkpoints and borders. It was one of the most harrowing and strangest experiences of her life. It was midwinter, grey, freezing cold, and none of the trains ran to schedule, but at least there was no fighting yet. She and Sydney were both anxious to get to Berne and on 29 December they arrived at the clinic. Nothing had prepared Debo for the shock of what they found.

Unity was still bedridden, propped in a sitting position with pillows since she suffered from severe vertigo and could not remain upright without help. She looked frail and very thin, having lost over thirty pounds, and her dark blue eyes seemed enormous in her yellowy white face with its sunken cheeks. ‘She was
completely
changed,’ Debo recalled. ‘Her hair was short and all matted. Because of the wound I expect they couldn’t do much about washing or combing it, and her teeth were yellow; they had not been brushed since the shooting. She couldn’t bear for her head to be touched. She had an odd vacant expression . . . the most pathetic sight. I was very shocked and I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for my mother seeing her like that . . . But it wasn’t just her appearance; she was a completely changed person, like somebody who has had a stroke . . . Her memory was very jagged and she could remember some things and not others. She recognized us though.’
¹

Just to be reunited with Unity was an enormous joy to Sydney, and Unity was thrilled to see them and asked after the others. ‘We were all three so happy,’ Sydney said later.
²
As they talked, Unity’s problems became more obvious. She frequently confused words, calling the sugar ‘chocolate’ or the salt ‘tea’ – typical symptoms of brain damage. Janos, who had already stayed longer than planned in Berne, was anxious to get back to his family, so exchanged pleasantries then left. The nun, who had nursed Unity for four months, remained with her patient until they left Berne on New Year’s Eve. She passed on the details of Unity’s clinical treatment, explained that the medical bills had been met by the Führer, and that he had arranged for Unity’s furniture to be packed and placed in storage at his expense. Altogether this was a remarkable sequence of events, and it is curious that none of Hitler’s many biographers has attempted to explain either the relationship or his many small kindnesses to Unity.

The ambulance carriage was now hooked on to a train heading for Calais. Presumably Sydney enlisted the help of British diplomats in Switzerland for it seems unlikely that she could have dealt with the matter on her own. The journey to the French coast was a nightmare, according to Debo, and what should have taken two days took three or four. ‘It seemed to go on for ever,’ she said. ‘Every time the train jolted, stopped and started, it was torture for her. It was a long, dark and cold journey, and Unity was
so
ill. My mother worried it would be too much for her.’
³
Worse was to come. The press were waiting for them at Calais. Unity’s activities had featured in the newspapers for a long time now, and the attention her return stimulated in journalists was a forerunner to the intense press interest associated with modern celebrities. It took them all by surprise. When they reached Calais they found they had missed the sailing and had to stay overnight in the hotel near the terminus. Here, Sydney received a note from a
Daily Express
reporter offering three thousand pounds for an interview with Unity. As if she was declining an invitation to tea, Sydney replied courteously that Unity was too tired, having been very ill, although she was now much better for she had been well cared-for in Germany. This was seen by the reporter as an invitation to trade. He increased his offer to five thousand. Sydney declined again and asked the hotel staff to keep the press away.

Next morning Unity was carried on to the ferry where they encountered problems with the Customs officer and a doctor. Rudi had packed all she could of Unity’s personal belongings from the Agnesstrasse apartment into fourteen containers.
⁴
The Customs officer insisted on searching each one, and when he came across some tablets that Unity could not identify he seized them. The doctor said they were cocaine and brusquely accused Unity of being a cocaine addict. Sydney insisted he took them away and had them analysed. They turned out to be some old pills that had been prescribed for Rebell, the Great Dane. At last the boat reached Folkestone where David was waiting anxiously with the ambulance. As Unity’s stretcher was carried down the gangway in the failing light, he rushed up and kissed her.

The press corps had been kept out of the port, a restricted area, but after the ambulance passed through the gates the Redesdale party was followed by about twenty cars containing reporters and cameramen. A few miles outside Folkestone the ambulance began to make ominous clanking sounds. A spring had broken and they decided to return to the hotel David had used while he waited for them. They arrived unexpectedly and there was nobody to carry Unity, so David supported her as she walked unsteadily inside while flashbulbs popped and reporters shouted questions. The foyer of the hotel was a blaze of light and crammed with journalists. Sydney tried to calm the frenzy by asking, in wonder, ‘Are you all
quite
mad? What is it all about?’
⁵
That they were inside the hotel made her suspect that the broken spring had been sabotage. ‘At the time I was not sorry,’ she said later. It had been so difficult driving in the dark of the blackout with pinprick lights, and Unity was worn out. They all were. Before she was carried upstairs the press managed to get a few words from Unity. ‘Are you pleased to be home, Miss Mitford?’ someone called. ‘I’m very glad to be in England, even if I’m not on your side,’ a newspaper report claimed she replied. On the following day David hired another ambulance and the party drove to the cottage at High Wycombe without further interference.

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.