I am going to Jean’s dance on the 23rd, & Elizabeth Wellesley’s5 & Gina’s. The King & Queen are going to be at Gina’s which will be wonderful because everyone will be dressed in their best. But I am terrified because I haven’t been asked to any dinner party & it will be terrifying just arriving at a dance like that.
Do write dear. Write to Wycombe.
Love from Poor Hen
who swarms for the 2nd from the right.
Dear Bird
My case1 came on yesterday & there is a long account of the apology in The Times & a furious one in the Daily Express.
Muv wouldn’t allow me to go for some unknown reason, I was simply furious. It would have been so exciting, the first case I had ever been to to be my own, like one’s own wedding being the first one has ever been to. (Rather involved I’m afraid.)
Did the Führer go through Munich on his way to Berlin? If so I suppose we missed him by a day. Typical.
Muv was simply wonderful at Ascot yesterday, the things she said. Luckily I had my Femmerism note book with me so I wrote them down. The first was this: there were fifty aeroplanes going overhead practising for the display & I said ‘wouldn’t it be terrifying if they were enemy ones & we were being attacked from the air’. So the Fem said quite slowly and unconcernedly ‘Orrhhn, well I should always expect them to miss me’. But the way she said it – in her best Mae West style.
As we were getting out of the crowd she made her best remark for weeks. She said ‘I always think that if one had any sense one would always bring stilts to this kind of thing & just hop up on them.’ You must say that beats nearly everything. Of course they don’t look half as funny written down as they do when they are said. The important thing is to get just the right pause between ‘this kind of thing’ and ‘just hop up on them’.
Love from Tiny
Dear Crackinjay
We arrived here yesterday for the first time & it is really very nice if very cold. The fishing is terrific, we caught five trout last night. As Muv & Farve are always going on about how they love housework I leave it all to them to serve them right. All I have done so far is to make a Mitford Mess – tomatoes & potato fried in oil – which is the only thing I can cook & is it delicious.
It is more than ever like a Russian novel here because Farve has taken terrific trouble to buy things he thinks Muv will like & she goes round putting all the things away that he has chosen. The worst of all was when she went to her bedroom for the first time & saw two wonderfully hideous lampshades with stars on them & she said ‘I certainly never bought these horrors’ & Farve’s face fell several miles. It is simply pathetic.
Last night a child was murdered at Capps Lodge & they haven’t arrested the man yet so I am terrified that he will be after us & I keep thinking I see his face at the window. He was the chef from the Lamb Inn at Burford.
Pam came to lunch the other day & they talked for 2½ hours about servants. Pam has had her hair dyed orange & it makes her look like a tart.
Bobo & Terence O’Connor2 are having a terrific get off, but I am going to steal a march on her at his cktl pty on Wednesday as Birdie is in Germany.
The Hitler tea party was fascinating. Bobo was like someone transformed when she was with him & going upstairs she was shaking so much she could hardly walk. I think Hitler must be very fond of her, he never took his eyes off her. Muv asked whether there were any laws about having good flour for bread, wasn’t it killing.
Well dear do write often, there is nothing yr Hen likes better than a letter from hr Hen.
Love from André Gide
Darling Nancy
I only got your letter this morning because it was sent to me in a packet and then followed me back here. It was so sweet of you to write darling, and wish me happiness. Driberg’s story was all wrong and from the date on your letter I was here and not in Berlin when he offered you a free call!1 There was no such romantic reason for my going as he told you. When you get back I will tell you the story or Muv & Farve can. Farve says the press telephone him constantly and ask him for TPOL’s2 address, and he says ‘But I don’t know it, I’ve never met him’ isn’t it wonderful. I expect he adds: ‘the damned sewer’.3
So for the present I am Mrs G and intend to remain so for some time.
Best love from Bodley
Darling Boud
We sit all day playing a sad tune called ‘Somebody stole my Boud’ (alternatively ‘Somebody stole my Hen’).1
Love, Your Boud
Dear Hen’s Egg
Well dear, the dances have begun in earnest. I must say they are exactly like what you said always – perfectly killing. I have never seen anything like the collection of young men – all completely chinless & all looking exactly alike. Last night was the Wellesleys.
According to everyone it was a really typical deb dance. Rather a small square room to dance in & many too many people in the doorway & on the stairs. I thought I should be alright & then they started to cut my dances till, in the end, in desperation I had to go home. Tuddemy has been to all the ones I have, luckily for me. He is simply wonderful & literally waits around till I haven’t got anyone to dance with & then comes & sits on a sofa or dances with me. I must say it is terribly nice of him. My conversation to the debs’ young men goes like this:
The chinless horror ‘I think this is our dance.’
Me (knowing all the time that it is & only too thankful to see him, thinking I’d been cut again) ‘Oh yes, I think it is.’
The C.H. ‘What a crowd in the doorway.’
Me ‘Yes isn’t it awful.’
The C.H. then clutches me round the waist & I almost fall over as I try & put my feet where his aren’t.
Me ‘Sorry.’
The C.H. ‘No, my fault.’
Me ‘Oh I think it must have been me.’
The C.H. ‘Oh no, that wouldn’t be possible.’ (Supposed to be a compliment.)
Then follows a long & dreary silence sometimes one of us saying ‘sorry’ & the other ‘my fault’. After a bit we both feel we can’t bear it any longer so we decide to go & sit down.
The