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Wait for Me!: Memoirs, by Deborah Mitford
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A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE
Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood that includes the writers Jessica and Nancy. Wait for Me! chronicles her remarkable life, from an eccentric but happy childhood roaming the Oxfordshire countryside, to tea with her sister Unity and Adolf Hitler in 1937, to her marriage to Andrew Cavendish, the second son of the Duke of Devonshire. Written with intense warmth, charm, and perception, Wait for Me! is a unique portrait of an age of tumult, splendor, and change. "Touching . . . moving . . . [and] compelling as a portrait of a vanishing world" (The Wall Street Journal).
- Sales Rank: #290189 in Books
- Published on: 2011-09-13
- Released on: 2011-09-13
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.22" h x 1.15" w x 5.43" l, .85 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 345 pages
From Publishers Weekly
In this sparkling memoir, the Duchess (The Pursuit of Laughter) writes about her famously eccentric family and the upper reaches of the British aristocracy with whom she has mingled during her long life (she'll turn 91 in March). She was related to Winston Churchill's wife, Clementine, and to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. In 1938, she met her future husband, Andrew Cavendish, and socialized with the Kennedy's. As their guest, she attended JFK's inauguration, and then his funeral, and writes movingly of both events. When her husband inherited his title, she became the mistress of Chatsworth; the Devonshire family estate dated back to the time of Henry VIII and contained fabulous treasures, including original Rembrandt paintings, and Mitford helped manage a variety of enterprises connected with it. In the '60s, Andrew served as a Minister of State and the couple travelled widely. A staunch conservative herself, her family's politics tended to be more extreme. Her parents sympathized with Nazi Germany, her sister Unity, a close companion of Hitler, attempted suicide at the start of hostilities, and sister Diana, wife of British fascist Oswald Mosley, was jailed. Full of absorbing anecdotes, Mitford's wonderfully-written tale of a tumultuous era is fascinating. Norman Parkinson's iconic 1952 photo of the Duchess adorns the cover.
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Review
“Charming, captivating, and at times wickedly funny. ‘Wait for Me!' was the refrain of young ‘Debo', the baby of the family. Now ninety, she has caught up beautifully.” ―Time
“A national treasure.” ―Sarah Lyall, The New York Times
“Wait for Me! . . . teem[s] with memories of love, war, betrayal, heartbreak, housekeeping, and frolic . . . tantalizing . . . riveting.” ―Liesl Schillinger, The New York Times Book Review
“Admirably done, cannily blending disclosure and reticence in a charming book that kept me riveted.” ―Miranda Seymour, The Guardian (London)
“[Debo] is in possession of what I can only describe as a uniquely Mitford-esque sensibility: loving but unsentimental . . . able to find the ridiculous in almost anything.” ―Rachel Cooke, The Observer (London)
“More entertaining than anything I could say about it.” ―P. J. Kavanagh on COUNTING MY CHICKENS..., The Spectator
“Nobody with an interest in the past century could fail to be interested in the gossip, which extends to just about everyone of interest.” ―Matthew Bell on HOME TO ROOST, The Independent on Sunday
“Behind the wit and quips, there is something else stronger and more rigorous. She goes to the ballet at Covent Garden with the Queen Mother and notices that throughout the entire performance, the Queen Mother's back ‘never once touched the chair.' That is how the Duchess is too--never a slouch, never a saggy moment, even in grief alert, attentive, observant.” ―Adam Nicolson on HOME TO ROOST, The Spectator
“One of the great twentieth-century correspondences . . . Bursting with wit and conviviality.” ―James Purdon on IN TEARING HASTE, The Observer (London)
“Beguiling . . . Hugely enjoyable . . . What these letters so wonderfully demonstrate is an unfailing appetite for life.” ―Anne Chisholm on IN TEARING HASTE, The Spectator
“Funny, loving, sparkly, snarky, heartbreaking, chilling, gossipy, wise.” ―Amanda Lovell on THE MITFORDS, O, The Oprah Magazine
About the Author
Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, was brought up in Oxfordshire, England. In 1950 her husband, Andrew, the 11th Duke of Devonshire, inherited extensive estates in Yorkshire and Ireland as well as Chatsworth, the family seat in Derbyshire, and Deborah became chatelaine of one of England's great houses. She is the author of Counting My Chickens and Home to Roost, among other books, and her letters have been collected in The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters and In Tearing Haste: The Correspondence of the Duchess of Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor. Following her husband's death in 2004, she moved to a village on the Chatsworth estate.
Most helpful customer reviews
295 of 309 people found the following review helpful.
What is glamour, anyway?
By Patricia Tryon
The cover of the American edition of this book demonstrates, to some degree, the difference between working definitions of glamor in the United States and in England. In the United States... Well, you see from the cover. The English cover shows the Dowager Duchess at her age (90), comfortably -- even proudly -- holding two prize hens. It could be that the covers show something of the difference in expectations readers will have as they wade into this autobiography.
Almost a third of the book deals with the Duchess' life before she married. She describes in detail the Victorian backgrounds of both her parents and what it was like to grow up in an unsentimental household where the birth of another daughter (she is the youngest of six daughters and a lone, prized son) was scarcely greeted with undiluted joy. Armchair psychologists will find much to mine because the descriptions of her family are affectionate, but unvarnished to the point of unsparing. But the Duchess' family was not unique in this respect among members of their socio-economic class. Their circumstances, comparatively reduced for the circles in which they traveled, required a degree of creative economizing, whether in the family's having to move house or in organizing yet another "coming out" for a daughter.
The sketches of her sisters carry overtones of love, but are also stinging and regretful. The Duchess is, keep in mind, one of the legendary Mitford sisters. Among them was a famous novelist and raconteur, another was the whistle blower on the notoriously exploitative American funeral industry (The American Way of Death, still in print), another was an infamous Hitler sympathizer who in fact took occupancy of an apartment in Germany from which a Jewish family had been evicted. If a hint of condescension enters in, perhaps it cannot be helped. The writer was, it could be argued, the most successful of the sisters: in the event, the most long-lived and prosperous. She was also, at least according to her telling, the one to whom others turned when illness and other vicissitudes struck.
Americans for the most part have an idea of dukes and duchesses that is well conveyed (and appealed to) in the portrait chosen for the American book cover. The reality is quite different. The Duchess married a younger son, Andrew Cavendish, who stood to inherit nothing of the status and responsibility of that would be conferred on his elder brother. But World War II changed things with the death of the elder son, William. As a result, her husband inherited a title in a family whose aristocratic roots extend back to the 16th century. He also inherited crushing debt because inheritance tax in post-War Britain was, in effect, confiscatory. Transferring some important works of art to the State and opening Chatsworth to the public were ways of dealing with the debt.
Chatsworth required extensive rehabilitation and renovation, and some of the book deals with an arduous task that might have daunted anyone who truly understood what the job would require. The Duchess became a knowledgeable and effective decorator whose skills have been called upon for projects beyond Chatsworth. The Duchess' country upbringing contributed, too, to her willingness to tackle gardens, livestock, and shooting. These days the latter is an unpopular topic in many quarters, but the Duchess is intransigently unapologetic. Game management is part of country life; perforce hunting is, as well.
Those of us who remember where we were the day Kennedy was shot might be interested in what the Duchess relates in the appendices about her friendship with JFK. She attended both his inauguration and his funeral.
Lest this sound like a life of cosseted privilege, it must be added that the Duke and Duchess experienced the extraordinary sadness of burying more than one baby. Her husband became alcoholic and did not recover on his first attempt. There is much more about which the Duchess writes. Her tone in the telling is far from detached, but completely lacks self-pity.
To this point, I have been describing the story told in this autobiography. My point is that I think it is an interesting life; my intention is not to pass any kind of judgment on it. A review, though, is more than a description. My review of the book is brief. I think it is intelligently written and that the writer turns phrases boldly, but not brashly. She weaves together the many strands of a story almost seamlessly.
At almost 400 pages, it is not a short autobiography so it impressed me that my interest was unflagging. The writing shows wit, acumen, irony, command of many topics (e.g., her "review" of Graceland), and occasionally just a hint of score settling. There is not a great deal of introspection. Whether this suggests a lack of insight might say more about the reader than about the writer.
The photographs represent the sweep of the Duchess' life and fortunes. They illustrate the story and, in a sense, augment it.
I like the genre of contemporary autobiography. This book will remain on my shelf as an exemplar of the genre. And I think I shall return to its stories again and again. For me, that makes it worthy of fully five stars.
69 of 75 people found the following review helpful.
Her first 90 years: A life of privilege and purpose, well lived
By Sharon Isch
Her sister Nancy was an acclaimed novelist. Sister Jessica (Decca) was the muckraking journalist who wrote "The American Way of Death." Sister Unity fell in love with Hitler and then shot herself. Sister Diana married the British Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley and spent much of World War II in prison. Now Deborah, or Debo as she is known, the youngest and only surviving Mitford sister, tells the story of her life so far, one that may well make her the most famous Mitford sister of all.
Unlike her wicked and witty collection of writings compiled in "Counting My Chickens" that reveals her crush on Elvis, her resistance to book reading and predeliction for buying her clothes at agricultural fairs, "Wait for Me!" which takes its name from a youngest child's constant struggles to catch up with the others, is a book that has the carefully considered weight of history hanging over its every word.
As Duchess of Devonshire, Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford Cavendish was responsible for seven houses that, in addition to the great British country house, Chatsworth, included Lismore Castle in Ireland where the family spent salmon-season every April and Bolton Abbey where they hosted shooting parties every August. Other times found her shopping the coutourier houses of Paris with a sister or two...going to Carnival in Rio with Aly Kahn and coming home with the gift of one of his horses, the Grand National winner Royal Tan...making a hop across the pond at the invitation of her friend Jack at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, smack dab in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis...assigned to trailing the Queen Mother at an agricultural fair and mixing Her Royal Highness's Dubonnet and gin drinks...playing hostess to "Uncle Harold" Macmillan, the Shah of Persia, Lady Bird, Lynda Bird, Evelyn Waugh, Balenciaga, and Givenchy...developing the entrepreneureal skills that have made Chatsworth thrive...sitting for portraits by world-famous artists that will doubtless hang in the halls of the most famous country house in all of England for generations to come and may one day come to outshine those of the other Devonshire duchesses--even Georgiana, the one played by Keira Knightley in that movie with Ralph Fiennes...and then, as a 90th birthday treat, going to the ballet at Covent Garden as the guest of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall and sitting in the royal box.
What an incredible life she has had. What an incredible woman she is, though one who's seen more than her share of pain--the losses of three babies within hours of their birth, and of her only brother, her brother-in-law and countless friends in World War II and the pure hell of her husband's long, long struggle with the family curse of alcoholism--a story she'd have preferred to omit from this memoir, but could not because he'd already written about it in his. I suspect there's much else she left out. For example, her husband's well known roving eye, which makes its only appearance here during their courtship; also we're told almost nothing about her children, their lives and her relationship with them.
This is a serious and mostly straightforward story of a life, leavened with occasional glimpses of the Dowager Duchess's lighter side. Like the proud admission that she had had the downstairs lavatory in the Old Vicarage where she now lives lined with silver paper and portraits of Elvis. And an offhand comment on one of the more successful products sold at Chatsworth's stall at the Chelsea Flower Show: In addition to garden seats, she writes, "We also did well meeting the revived fashion for wooden lavatory seats, whose middles we made into cheeseboards."
Update 9/25/14: The Dowager Duchess died on September 24 at the age of 94.
47 of 50 people found the following review helpful.
Another Mitford Sister Remembers
By Cathy C
This is a window into a long gone world. We have seen parts of it in the other Mitford sisters books, but Debo takes us on into the world of the busy life of the Duchess, as well. It is interesting to compare the perspectives of the sisters on their family. Debo is very loving toward them all. She does not have the brilliant wit they did and some of this reads a bit like a Christmas letter-nice bits about people you don't know and aren't interested in. I would recommend this for those who are fascinated by the Mitfords, and England as it used to be.
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