Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson Page A
Authors: Laura Thompson
Ads: Link
In her 1963 obituary, the family friend James Lees-Milne suggested that Sydney ‘looked at life with the philosophic detachment of a mariner’: an interesting aperçu . He also called her ‘a woman out of the common. It would be strange indeed if a daughter of Thomas Gibson Bowles had been anything else.’
Her future husband, David Mitford – born two years before her, in 1878 – was also the child of a rare parent, although it was Bertie’s heir, Clement, who showed most plainly his father’s qualities. Clement was a paragon, kind and clever and popular. David was a slight problem. Clement went to Eton, David to Radley. Clement was a 2nd lieutenant with the glamorous 10th Royal Hussars. David was sent to Ceylon as a tea-planter after failing the written exam for Sandhurst.
But war is something of a leveller. Both young men fought in the Boer War, David in the Northumberland Fusiliers, and like his alter ego Uncle Matthew he was a brave fighter. Appointed orderly to his commanding officer, then (like his brother at last) a lieutenant, he saw a chance for the military career that he had wanted, and in 1901 wrote to his father, asking if Bertie would try to get him a commission. In March 1902, however, he was reported as ‘severely wounded’. Then – according to the terse bulletins in The Times – he went from ‘progressing very favourably’ to ‘gunshot wound, dangerously ill’. David had spent four days lying in a bullock wagon, his chest swarming with maggots and one of his lungs shot away (which did not stop him chain-smoking). He was invalided home, and at the age of twenty-four any hope of a life in the army was over.
It would have suited him: his casual gallantry, his relentless energy – he had all Bertie Mitford’s vigour but few of the same outlets. (‘The trouble with my father,’ Nancy later said, ‘is he simply hadn’t got enough to do .’ 10 ) David was less cultured, but somehow more sensitive, than Bertie. He was full of bravura but lacking in confidence. His portrayal as Uncle Matthew captures this contradiction, although for comic purposes it emphasizes the bravura: the stock whips that he cracks on the lawn, the bloodhounds with which he hunts his children. True of David Mitford, and inevitably not the whole truth. Similarly Uncle Matthew is unquestioningly uxorious, indeed worshipping of the vague but astute Aunt Sadie, and their marriage is portrayed as a quietly happy constant. Again, real life was a little more complicated.
David Mitford and Sydney Bowles first met through their fathers: Tap visited his friend Bertie at Batsford in 1894 and took Sydney with him. It is not surprising that she should have been dazzled by David, who was astonishingly good-looking (no surprise either that this pair produced seven beautiful children). Ten years later they married at St Margaret’s, Westminster. By then the scales had balanced, or even tipped the other way. David was still handsome, of course, but a slight crock with his missing lung, while Sydney was now hugely attractive. Having made her society debut she had, at last, some proper clothes (her father had previously supplied her mainly with sailor suits), as well as what James Lees-Milne described, in her eulogistic obituary, as a ‘divinely formed, slightly drooping mouth which expressed worlds of humour and tragedy’. What she had, too, was a quality of control, of withholding, which can put a vulnerable man in a constant position of seeking to please. The fact that David proposed not long after a near-fatal injury, and the death of his hopes of an army career, might imply that he got married because he did not know what else to do with his life. Yet he had written a love letter to Sydney from hospital in South Africa, to be given to her in the event of his death. His feelings for her were real. The gunshot wound probably pushed him to act upon them.
She, meanwhile, was rumoured to have been in love with another man, and to
Her future husband, David Mitford – born two years before her, in 1878 – was also the child of a rare parent, although it was Bertie’s heir, Clement, who showed most plainly his father’s qualities. Clement was a paragon, kind and clever and popular. David was a slight problem. Clement went to Eton, David to Radley. Clement was a 2nd lieutenant with the glamorous 10th Royal Hussars. David was sent to Ceylon as a tea-planter after failing the written exam for Sandhurst.
But war is something of a leveller. Both young men fought in the Boer War, David in the Northumberland Fusiliers, and like his alter ego Uncle Matthew he was a brave fighter. Appointed orderly to his commanding officer, then (like his brother at last) a lieutenant, he saw a chance for the military career that he had wanted, and in 1901 wrote to his father, asking if Bertie would try to get him a commission. In March 1902, however, he was reported as ‘severely wounded’. Then – according to the terse bulletins in The Times – he went from ‘progressing very favourably’ to ‘gunshot wound, dangerously ill’. David had spent four days lying in a bullock wagon, his chest swarming with maggots and one of his lungs shot away (which did not stop him chain-smoking). He was invalided home, and at the age of twenty-four any hope of a life in the army was over.
It would have suited him: his casual gallantry, his relentless energy – he had all Bertie Mitford’s vigour but few of the same outlets. (‘The trouble with my father,’ Nancy later said, ‘is he simply hadn’t got enough to do .’ 10 ) David was less cultured, but somehow more sensitive, than Bertie. He was full of bravura but lacking in confidence. His portrayal as Uncle Matthew captures this contradiction, although for comic purposes it emphasizes the bravura: the stock whips that he cracks on the lawn, the bloodhounds with which he hunts his children. True of David Mitford, and inevitably not the whole truth. Similarly Uncle Matthew is unquestioningly uxorious, indeed worshipping of the vague but astute Aunt Sadie, and their marriage is portrayed as a quietly happy constant. Again, real life was a little more complicated.
David Mitford and Sydney Bowles first met through their fathers: Tap visited his friend Bertie at Batsford in 1894 and took Sydney with him. It is not surprising that she should have been dazzled by David, who was astonishingly good-looking (no surprise either that this pair produced seven beautiful children). Ten years later they married at St Margaret’s, Westminster. By then the scales had balanced, or even tipped the other way. David was still handsome, of course, but a slight crock with his missing lung, while Sydney was now hugely attractive. Having made her society debut she had, at last, some proper clothes (her father had previously supplied her mainly with sailor suits), as well as what James Lees-Milne described, in her eulogistic obituary, as a ‘divinely formed, slightly drooping mouth which expressed worlds of humour and tragedy’. What she had, too, was a quality of control, of withholding, which can put a vulnerable man in a constant position of seeking to please. The fact that David proposed not long after a near-fatal injury, and the death of his hopes of an army career, might imply that he got married because he did not know what else to do with his life. Yet he had written a love letter to Sydney from hospital in South Africa, to be given to her in the event of his death. His feelings for her were real. The gunshot wound probably pushed him to act upon them.
She, meanwhile, was rumoured to have been in love with another man, and to
Similar Books
