  2008年，狄波拉·卡文迪什在自己居住的查兹沃斯庄园内拍摄的照片。 英国当地时间9月24日，德文郡公爵夫人狄波拉·卡文迪什（Deborah Cavendish）去世，享年94岁。自此，英国上流社会赫赫有名的“米特福德六姐妹”中的最后一位也离开了这个世界。如果看过《傲慢与偏见》、《公爵夫人》、和新版《简·爱》，你一定会记得里面那座巨大的庄园。狄波拉生前居住的查兹沃斯庄园即是这些电影的拍摄地。3.5万英亩的查兹沃斯庄园有多大？它是《唐顿庄园》拍摄地海克利尔城堡的领地面积的7倍，相当于半个伦敦市区。 这位颇具经济头脑的公爵夫人，正是拯救这片土地免遭被分割出售及陷入经济困境的人。 六姐妹中最有经济头脑和交际手腕的一位 狄波拉·卡文迪什生于1920年3月31日，是里兹代尔男爵二世大卫·弗里曼-米特福德和悉尼·弗里曼-米特福德的小女儿。她的家族从日耳曼征服（5-6世纪）开始就已经被册封为贵族。 第二次世界大战前后的英国，“米特福德姐妹”因为惊世骇俗而声名远扬。她们如同英国上流社会的一张标签，以出位的语言和富有争议性的生活方式著称于世。那些向她们求爱而不得，甚至不惜自寻短见的男人们都把她们称为“美杜莎”；那些学习她们，又沦为东施效颦的女人们则把她们形容成“荡妇”。但举止优雅又文思广博的六姐妹，却是人们怎样也绕不开的话题。 六姐妹鲜明且迥异的政治倾向尤其令世人侧目。《时代周刊》曾这样描述六姐妹：“（从大到小）戴安娜是法西斯主义者，杰西卡是共产主义者，尤妮娣和希特勒过从甚密，南希是自由主义者的小说家，狄波拉是公爵夫人，帕米拉则是‘家禽鉴赏家’。” 1940年，“米特福德六姐妹”终因政见不同分道扬镳。南希从家庭出走，到伦敦从事专职写作，成为日后著名的喜剧小说家；杰西卡因为坚定的共产主义信仰而不再与大姐戴安娜交谈，并随丈夫移居美国；帕米拉是个疯狂的反犹太分子，她一生富足，但也是六姐妹中最没有建树的一个；戴安娜因为坚定的法西斯信仰而在伦敦被关押了3年；尤妮娣则因为跟希特勒的亲密关系而遭到英国人的唾弃，她深爱希特勒，甚至在战前为她开枪自尽，结果脑部留下后遗症，终于在1948年因为旧伤引发的脑膜炎不治身亡。   和姐妹们比起来，狄波拉·卡文迪什并不是最高调的一个，却是最有经济头脑和交际手腕的一位。 当她的姐妹们早早开始绚烂生活的时候，她童年时代最好的朋友却是家中的老男仆胡普尔。 幸福的童年生活在她16岁的时候结束。当时，米特福德家族被迫又出售了一栋乡间别墅。17岁的时候，她最亲密的姐妹杰西卡不辞而别。当时的报纸因为错把杰西卡的名字写成了狄波拉而被起诉，胜诉所得的1000英镑被狄波拉换成了一件裘皮大衣。1938年，宠爱她的父亲为她在米特福德家族位于伦敦的别墅内举办了一次舞会。彼时已成为希特勒亲密伙伴的姐姐尤妮娣从德国写信来：“狄波拉看上去玩得很开心，她的爱慕对象是谁？” 答案是当时18岁的安德鲁·卡文迪什勋爵。 狄波拉1941年与当时德文郡公爵十世的二儿子安德鲁·卡文迪什结婚。她无意成为公爵夫人，但因为丈夫的大哥在二战中去世，丈夫成了爵位继承人。1950年，安德鲁的父亲、德文郡公爵突发心脏病猝逝，安德鲁继承了爵位，成为第十一世德文郡公爵。英国一共只有28位公爵，德文郡公爵获封的历史已经超过300年。 在炮火中的伦敦，狄波拉嫁给了安德鲁·卡文迪什，结婚初期的情况因为战争而十分糟糕。狄波拉在给大姐戴安娜的信中写道：“结婚前夜，我们街上的两幢房子被彻底损毁，我们房子的窗户也被全部震碎。于是妈妈把墙纸当作临时的窗帘，然后参加我的婚礼。”婚后，狄波拉随丈夫在英国境内周游。她写道：“我对现在的工作感到恶心，为自己感到抱歉。在基督教青年会食堂，他们都模仿我说话，这让我感到很尴尬。”从信中可以看出典型的米特福德家族的说话语气和自我为中心的态度。 战后，安德鲁的心思却没有回到家族和事业上。曾有一度，关于他的婚外情绯闻闹得沸沸扬扬，更荒唐的是，一次他带着小情人在位于伦敦的府邸中厮混时，遭遇了入室行窃的盗贼，案发之后，作为当事人和目击者的安德鲁被迫出庭作证，从而让自己偷腥的事实公之于众，一时成为英国人的笑柄。 为复兴查兹沃斯庄园制定出了一系列计划 作为查兹沃思庄园的女主人，狄波拉心灰意懒，最终选择委曲求全。安德鲁在日后的自传《财富的踉跄》中坦率承认：“我们的婚姻之所以能一直维持至今，主要是因为狄波拉的忍辱负重和宽宏大量。” 狄波拉很早就把自己的注意力从丈夫身上转移到了卡文迪什家族的产业上。在眼见许多贵族入不敷出、纷纷败落，她为复兴查兹沃斯庄园制定出了一系列计划，用今天的眼光来看，这些都是极具现代商业头脑的主意。 由于英国的遗产税最高达到40%，这意味着每死一代贵族，其家族财力就要减少近一半。所以，很多贵族在生前将大片土地分割，分别赠予不同的继承人，以减低税率。有的贵族为避免资不抵税，干脆卖掉自己的城堡或者庄园。 但是，查兹沃斯庄园是少数还保存了大片土地的庄园，这在很大程度上应感谢狄波拉的远见和举措。   和许多高傲贵族严厉驱赶外来者不同，狄波拉决定向公众开放查兹沃斯庄园的一部分。  查兹沃斯也是许多古装电影最热衷的拍摄外景地，场地租借不仅收入不菲，也让该庄园的名声随着电影远播全球。 因为查兹沃斯庄园风光秀丽，不少慕名而来的游人会偷越围栏，从而一睹这座壮丽庄园的风采。和许多高傲贵族严厉驱赶外来者不同，狄波拉决定向公众开放查兹沃斯庄园的一部分——只要你买门票，就能领略到真正的贵族生活。每日前来参观庄园的人络绎不绝，给庄园带来可观收入。 同时，狄波拉还扩建了庄园中花园的面积，拓展了许多跟庄园相关的商业项目，比如售卖庄园农场作物的商店、为游人提供昂贵餐点的庄园餐厅、出售印有庄园标记的纪念品商店等，不仅大受游客欢迎，更为当地居民提供了100多个工作岗位，造福一方。 另外，查兹沃斯也是许多古装电影最热衷的拍摄外景地，场地租借不仅收入不菲，也让该庄园的名声随着电影远播全球。电影《傲慢与偏见》、《公爵夫人》以及新版《简·爱》等都在此取景。 狄波拉曾在多本传记中提及自己与伊丽莎白女王、英国前首相麦克米伦、美国前总统肯尼迪，乃至希特勒的交往。直到今天，媒体称她“仍能很轻松地促成阿拉伯世界和以色列的代表们坐到自己庄园的宴会厅里进行‘密谈’，也能把美国特使请到家中来喝下午茶”。 但年过九旬的狄波拉更感兴趣是撰写回忆录和有关庄园的著述。“已经过了很多年了，我想念那些姐妹；现在有些事我都不知该和谁说了，这很让人伤心。而且也没多少人会去关心她们是谁了……” 她为庄园的土地逐个命名，还迷上了房子的每一处细节。据说，狄波拉每天都会打开那把罕见的、产于17世纪的锁，检查自己的柜子。 1991年，狄波拉出版了一本名为《农场动物》的书，里面写的都是她的领地上的动物们。曾有城市里的男孩来庄园参观给奶牛挤奶。狄波拉写道：“当时他的表情像是在说：这是我人生中看过的最恶心的场景了。我再也不要喝牛奶了。” 2004年，德文郡公爵去世。狄波拉继续写作，并于2010年出版了回忆录《Wait for Me!》。她的儿子佩里格林继承了爵位，两个女儿艾玛和索菲亚亦都健在。 查尔斯王子回忆：我们将会非常想念她，她不是一个会被轻易忘记的人。她通过那些书给予大家的快乐，以及她为查兹沃斯所作的贡献都不会被忘记。  电影《公爵夫人》剧照。查兹沃斯庄园为其取景地。 - See more at: http://www./blog/309468/article-211049.html?from=bottom#sthash.JblmZSpS.dpufDeborah Cavendish, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire and the last of the six eccentric Mitford sisters, who turned her husband’s ancestral estate into one of England’s grand country houses and wrote books about it and her own fairy-tale life, died on Sept. 24. She was 94. Her son, Peregrine, announced her death in a statement, which did not say where she died or provide a cause. On the jacket of her 2010 memoir, Wait for Me!, is a 1952 photograph of the regal duchess. In a long black gown, against portraits and period furniture, she is a figure of alabaster loveliness from another epoch – one of country estates and fox hunts, furs worn to bomb shelters and clever talk over tea with dictators. She was married to a duke, had lost a sister, a brother and two children, and had yet to define herself. Being a Mitford, Deborah could have hardly been conventional. Diana married a fascist in the presence of Goebbels and Hitler. Jessica was a communist and prolific author. Unity Valkyrie, in love with Hitler, shot herself when Britain declared war on Germany. As a child, Pamela wanted to be a horse; she married a fabled jockey. Nancy’s books satirized the upper classes. And Deborah, tentatively, became a connoisseur of fine poultry. They had little formal schooling. Their emotionally detached Edwardian parents, who sent their only son to Eton, thought education was wasted on girls, who were expected to marry well. Deborah, the youngest, called Debo, grew up with governesses, tutors and servants in country seats, a London house and an island in Scotland. Despite the trappings, the family’s wealth was shaky and in the Depression years required economies. From age six, Deborah had a passion for chickens. In their drafty old Oxfordshire manse, she and her sisters hid in a linen cupboard heated by water pipes and made up secret languages. Her father, an irascible baron, hunted his children on horseback, with hounds. Visiting Munich with Unity in 1937, Deborah, 17, wrote home: “We have had quite a nice time here & we’ve had tea with Hitler & seen all the other sights.” At 21, she married Andrew Cavendish, second son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire. His older brother was killed in the Second World War, and when his father died in 1950, he became the 11th Duke – inheriting vast wealth, including a castle in Ireland and Chatsworth, a 35,000-acre Derbyshire estate that had been in his family for generations. Surrounded by 105 acres of gardens designed by Capability Brown and miles of meadows and wooded hills, Chatsworth’s magnificent 16th-century mansion, with ceilings painted by Antonio Verrio, had 297 rooms, 112 fireplaces, 68 lavatories, 26 baths, 32 kitchens and workshops, 17 staircases and 1.3 acres of roof. But it came with a catch: Inheritance taxes of nearly $20-million (U.S.), not to mention huge maintenance costs. Like many of Britain’s great country houses fallen on hard times, Chatsworth, outmoded and rundown, had long been open to the public, but its trickle of visitors and income left the duke and duchess in the red. They sold artworks and acreage to pay taxes totalling 80 per cent of the estate’s value: $285-million in today’s money. Transforming Chatsworth from a museum-like relic into a self-sustaining family business, however, was a more ambitious long-term project that, because of the duke’s alcoholism and other problems, fell largely to the duchess. She made it the core of her life’s work. She put in central heating, phones, new wiring and plumbing for 17 new bathrooms; opened gift shops and a market that employed 100 people and sold meat and produce, including the Duchess’s Marmalade and the Duke’s Favourite Sausages. She began lecturing on farming, drawing 200,000 people a year. Later came restaurants, catering services, boutiques and other moneymakers, including two hotels near Chatsworth. Recognizing the commercial value of her involvement, she took a hands-on approach to running the house, greeting and leading tourists through the public rooms, teaching classes and feeding her chickens: Leghorns, Rhode Island Reds, Buff Cochins, Welsummers and less notable types that ran loose on the grounds like marauding gangs. In 2002, Chatsworth became self-sufficient for the first time, covering its $6.5-million annual costs with income from the Chatsworth House Trust and proceeds from visitors, country fairs and the restaurants and shops she had started. Some 600,000 people a year visit Chatsworth, making it one of Britain’s most popular rural tourist sites. Visitors found the duchess gracious and down to earth, a straight-backed, silver-haired aristocrat who spoke animatedly with anyone about interior design, livestock, gardening, fine arts and Elvis Presley, whom she adored and whose memorabilia she kept. She was properly “your grace,” but regarded herself as less exalted. “I’m a housewife,” she told a reporter for The New York Times in 2003. For many years, she and the duke, who was knighted in 1996, occupied 24 rooms that were off-limits to visitors. With the death of her husband in 2004, she became the dowager duchess, and her son, Peregrine, became the 12th Duke of Devonshire. Later, she moved to a nearby village, Edensor, and continued writing. Since the early 1980s, she had written a dozen books, many on Chatsworth, along with volumes of essays, reminiscences, cookbooks and letters exchanged with the travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor. All were touched with autobiographical details. Her memoir’s title – Wait for Me! – referred to a lifetime of playing catch-up to her sisters. She was born Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford on March 31, 1920, at Asthall Manor, the Oxfordshire estate of her parents, David Freeman-Mitford, the 2nd Baron Redesdale, and the former Sydney Bowles. Denied formal educations, she and her sisters developed a rich fantasy life, creating a secret “Society of Hons,” which met in the warm linen cupboard at Swinbrook, another stone-cold family mansion. There, they divided the world into “Hons” – or honourables, as barons’ daughters are known, and others they liked – and “Counter-Hons,” everybody else. They invented secret languages, Honnish and Boudledidge, which mimicked rural Oxfordshire accents, with distorted vowels and softened consonants, all pronounced in tones of hopeless yearning. A governess taught them the joys of village shoplifting. They went their ways: Nancy (1904-1973) wrote The Pursuit of Love, andLove in a Cold Climate. Pamela (1907-1994) married a horseman who became a physicist. Thomas (1909-1945) was killed in the war. Diana (1910-2003) married Britain’s Fascist leader, Oswald Mosley, and was imprisoned with him for most of the war. Unity (1914-1948), who was Eva Braun’s rival for Hitler’s affections, died a decade after her attempted suicide with the bullet still in her head. Jessica (1917-1996) eloped with Winston Churchill’s nephew, and they moved to the United States. He was killed in the war, and she remained in the United States, writing The American Way of Death and other books. Unlike her siblings, Deborah knew little of politics growing up. But her marriage to Lord Cavendish brought her into political circles. His uncle by marriage was the future prime minister, Harold Macmillan, who found government jobs for him, and they had long been friends of the Kennedy clan (the families were related by marriage) and attended the inauguration and funeral of slain U.S. president John F. Kennedy. Three of the couple’s six children died shortly after birth. Besides her son, Peregrine, she leaves two daughters, Lady Emma Tennant and Lady Sophia Topley; eight grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. In 1999, Queen Elizabeth II named the duchess a Dame Commander of the Royal Victorian Order for her services to preserving Britain’s residential heritage. |
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