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Authors: Laura Thompson
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underground’); the Batsford Estate – leaves a slightly queasy impression of financial cluelessness.
In 1919, however, David still owned the heart of his inheritance: the village of Swinbrook, the trout fishing in the Windrush, the spreading acres in the shallow valley. ‘All this belongs to you,’ the kindly and dramatic Blanche Hozier said to her niece Nancy, then aged twelve, as they were standing on top of the hill at Batsford, overlooking the greater part of the Cotswolds. ‘Oh, what utter rubbish,’ was Sydney’s reaction, when Nancy ran to tell her this tremendous news. ‘ Nothing belongs to you.’
III
Then the life of ‘the Mitfords’ began. With part of the proceeds from his selling spree, David bought 1,000 acres adjoining Swinbrook, including Asthall Manor, the house where the family would remain for the next seven years. With the exception of Jessica (and Deborah, who never lived there at all), the children retained memories of Batsford. They had been given a home on the estate in early 1916, when they ceased to be Londoners. From 1917 they lived in the main house, congregated in a few rooms, like lodgers who happened to be in possession. Nancy in particular – almost fifteen when the house was sold – would have remembered the glorious golden grandeur hidden beneath the dustsheets, the great ballroom with its impossibly vaulted ceiling, the five staircases, the long window seats in dusky panelled rooms. This was aristocratic living: Nancy never had it again for herself (that was Deborah’s lucky fate) but she always conjured it as an image of ineffable romance, about which she wrote with comfortable realism. For instance Hampton, the country house where the opening scenes of Love in a Cold Climate take place, is described in terms that approximate to Batsford, as a showy gothic castle built to replace a delightfully plain Adam house. (‘“I suppose it is beautiful,” people used to say, “but I don’t admire it”...’)
Diana, who was nine when Batsford was sold, remembered it chiefly as a place where one could always find an enormous room to read in, alone. This urgent passion for reading was shared by Nancy – later it would be a supreme solace for both sisters – and by Tom. When the Batsford contents were sold in 1919, David Mitford asked his son, then aged ten, to decide which books to keep; Tom was what his father called ‘a literary cove’.
The cleverness of these three children was highly remarkable. And the fact that it developed into adulthood is an argument for a very simple educative plan: teach them to read, give them access to a marvellous library – like Bertie’s – then let them get on with it. Of course this approach (which was really the opposite of a plan) left gaps in their knowledge, but it did the fundamental job of making them want to learn. They were also taken to nearby Stratford-upon-Avon three or four times a year, and became familiar with Shakespeare. There were two governesses, one French and one English, but the essential work the children did themselves. These sequestered Batsford years were thus formative for the older Mitfords; although Pamela did not progress in the same way. This was part-nature, part the nature of events. In 1911 Pam was stricken by infantile paralysis, which left her hesitant, with one leg slightly shorter than the other. And she suffered from Nancy’s teasing, which she could not withstand (as when, during the General Strike, Nancy and Pamela ran a café supplying tea to the emergency services; Nancy disguised herself as a tramp and pretended to accost her sister. Most people would have seen through this ruse, but by all accounts Pam was completely terrorized by it). What Pamela really thought about Nancy thereafter is unknowable, because in a way Pam’s façade was the most complete. She was passive, which was very non-Mitford. Yet she had her own slow, serene version of the family assurance, and a mode of expression that
In 1919, however, David still owned the heart of his inheritance: the village of Swinbrook, the trout fishing in the Windrush, the spreading acres in the shallow valley. ‘All this belongs to you,’ the kindly and dramatic Blanche Hozier said to her niece Nancy, then aged twelve, as they were standing on top of the hill at Batsford, overlooking the greater part of the Cotswolds. ‘Oh, what utter rubbish,’ was Sydney’s reaction, when Nancy ran to tell her this tremendous news. ‘ Nothing belongs to you.’
III
Then the life of ‘the Mitfords’ began. With part of the proceeds from his selling spree, David bought 1,000 acres adjoining Swinbrook, including Asthall Manor, the house where the family would remain for the next seven years. With the exception of Jessica (and Deborah, who never lived there at all), the children retained memories of Batsford. They had been given a home on the estate in early 1916, when they ceased to be Londoners. From 1917 they lived in the main house, congregated in a few rooms, like lodgers who happened to be in possession. Nancy in particular – almost fifteen when the house was sold – would have remembered the glorious golden grandeur hidden beneath the dustsheets, the great ballroom with its impossibly vaulted ceiling, the five staircases, the long window seats in dusky panelled rooms. This was aristocratic living: Nancy never had it again for herself (that was Deborah’s lucky fate) but she always conjured it as an image of ineffable romance, about which she wrote with comfortable realism. For instance Hampton, the country house where the opening scenes of Love in a Cold Climate take place, is described in terms that approximate to Batsford, as a showy gothic castle built to replace a delightfully plain Adam house. (‘“I suppose it is beautiful,” people used to say, “but I don’t admire it”...’)
Diana, who was nine when Batsford was sold, remembered it chiefly as a place where one could always find an enormous room to read in, alone. This urgent passion for reading was shared by Nancy – later it would be a supreme solace for both sisters – and by Tom. When the Batsford contents were sold in 1919, David Mitford asked his son, then aged ten, to decide which books to keep; Tom was what his father called ‘a literary cove’.
The cleverness of these three children was highly remarkable. And the fact that it developed into adulthood is an argument for a very simple educative plan: teach them to read, give them access to a marvellous library – like Bertie’s – then let them get on with it. Of course this approach (which was really the opposite of a plan) left gaps in their knowledge, but it did the fundamental job of making them want to learn. They were also taken to nearby Stratford-upon-Avon three or four times a year, and became familiar with Shakespeare. There were two governesses, one French and one English, but the essential work the children did themselves. These sequestered Batsford years were thus formative for the older Mitfords; although Pamela did not progress in the same way. This was part-nature, part the nature of events. In 1911 Pam was stricken by infantile paralysis, which left her hesitant, with one leg slightly shorter than the other. And she suffered from Nancy’s teasing, which she could not withstand (as when, during the General Strike, Nancy and Pamela ran a café supplying tea to the emergency services; Nancy disguised herself as a tramp and pretended to accost her sister. Most people would have seen through this ruse, but by all accounts Pam was completely terrorized by it). What Pamela really thought about Nancy thereafter is unknowable, because in a way Pam’s façade was the most complete. She was passive, which was very non-Mitford. Yet she had her own slow, serene version of the family assurance, and a mode of expression that
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