Kind and Usual Punishment by Jessica Mitford

Tragically Esmond, who had trained as a fighter pilot, died that same year when his plane went missing in the North Sea returning from a bombing mission over Germany. Later that year Jessica had an abortion for reasons that are unclear and was also to suffer a miscarriage, but in 1941 she gave birth to a second daughter, Constancia. When they both became infected the baby died of pneumonia. No vaccine was available and Jessica had no immunity to pass on to her baby since, living an isolated existence in the country, she had not herself had the disease as a child. Their first baby, a girl named Julia, died at five months in the measles epidemic of 1938. The Romillys settled in the USA until war broke out, when Esmond joined the Royal Air Force.

Jessica believed that it was Diana who had kindled this interest in the younger sister. Political tensions inevitably caused rifts and rows within the family, with Nancy informing on Diana after her marriage to Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, leading to her detention as a security risk in Holloway prison during the war.Ĥ She was particularly close to her sister Unity who nevertheless gravitated towards fascism, which had gained some traction within the British ruling classes. Politically, two (Nancy and Jessica) tended to the left, two (Diana and Unity) to the right, and two (Pamela and Deborah) were comparatively indifferent. The other was, amongst other things, the object of the affections of the poet John Betjeman for a while. One became the Duchess of Devonshire and turned Chatsworth, her husband’s country seat, into a thriving business. The other two sisters stayed truer to their class origins in their choices but still led interesting and eventful lives. In one boisterous family there was an acclaimed author of satirical and historical novels, two fascists who gained entry to Hitler’s inner circle and a communist. The Mitford sisters were famous throughout their lives and for good reason: you could not hope to find a more diversely accomplished or notorious group of women from such a rarefied and sheltered upbringing.

Kind and Usual Punishment by Jessica Mitford