Nancy Mitford by Nancy Mitford

difficult to revive the Berners-Diaghilev ballet of 1926,
The Triumph of Neptune
. The epitaph he composed for himself ran:
    Here lies Lord Berners,
    One of the learners.
    His great love of learning
    May earn him a burning
    But, praise to the Lord,
    He seldom was bored.
    Likewise Nancy seldom was bored—except when she had to add up accounts in the shop. Lady Anne Hill remembers that ‘she used to look quite ill and peaked from the boredom of this’. When she felt overwhelmed she would delegate the chore to her mother who, she maintained , enjoyed the meticulous process of addition.
    Fire-watching was another duty she failed to relish for it entailed spending part of the night in a camp-bed at Crewe House. On these occasions she would don old trousers and a tin hat, and sally forth into the blackout armed with a stirrup pump. Once she and Mollie extinguished some fire bombs in Hill Street off Berkeley Square, Nancy carrying the pump and Mollie two buckets of water, laughing all the way. ‘She
made
my war,’ said Mrs. Buchanan. When the flying bombs descended Nancy would plead in her cooing voice: ‘Come and look at the V.s. They are so pretty. Do admit.’ Survivors staggering out of the rubble they left behind them were less prone to admire their prettiness. But when her grocer was bombed out of his house she invited him to hers with his wife and children and they stayed for several days. ‘He was not an attractive or interesting grocer,’ added a friend who was one of his customers.
    To her mother she wrote (26th February, 1944): ‘You never saw anything like the burning. I pack a suitcase every night and always dress which I
never
did before, but the raids are very short,exactly one hour, so that’s no great hardship only chilly. Also we have a very good fire party here so I have great hopes that we could get anything under control.’ And later in July: ‘Nobody minds the bombs any more (I never did) but they are doing a fearful amount of damage to houses. One going over here knocked panes of glass out of my neighbours’ top window simply from the vibration of the engine, which is unbelievable unless you have heard the thing… But how can the Germans be so stupid as to get everybody into a temper now, just as they must see they have lost, it is really too idiotic of them and seriously I think minimizes the chance of a decent peace… I do dread losing the house because oh
where
would one live?’
    When so many mooched about with long faces Nancy’s resolute cheerfulness was a tonic. Hers was a peculiarly English type of beauty and it did not belong entirely to this age. Her clear smooth skin and clear quizzical eyes under a high forehead with chestnut hair like a wavy turban above it would have been portrayed to perfection by Sir Joshua Reynolds. She appeared much younger than her age and her humour had the gaiety of girlhood. In spite of her intellectual bent she could not be described as an intellectual, nor could she be described as sensual or worldly. She had natural good taste, not only in the clothes she wore. In those days she could not afford to indulge her love of elegance yet in the neat black velvet jacket and black wool skirt she usually wore in the shop she looked better dressed than many a more prosperous friend: her husband contributed nothing to her few amenities, if he ever wasted a thought on them.
    In March 1944 Peter was ‘living near the ruin of our villa (the Rennell villa near Naples) and using our servants and burning my ma-in-law’s frightful furniture for firewood, isn’t it strange. He goes to the beach head every day—says it is hell on earth.’ He was back in London before Easter. ‘Peter is to and fro and one never knows which until he appears and he doesn’t know from one minute to the next. I think he is getting a very important job and he goes on being a colonel, which people generally don’t when they come home and which makes a huge difference in money.’ No huge