Books: Characters in Search of ...

DAUGHTERS AND REBELS (284 pp.)—Jessica Mitford—Houghton, M/ffif/n ($4).

The English are said to dearly love a lord, and the second Lord Redesdale is there to prove that they dote on a dotty peer—especially if he has six daughters, mostly zany, mostly blonde. An impressive photograph of the six Honorable Misses Freeman-Mitford, in their ironclad British tweeds, appears in this autobiography by one of their number. An industrious, middle-aged newspaper reader with total recall would be able to attempt a quiz about every blessed one of them, roughly thus:

The one glowering on the left would be Unity Valkyrie Freeman-Mitford, usually described in the tabloids as Hitler's girl friend. That would explain why she is standing, as Hitler did when he was not saluting, with her hands clasped just below her midriff. Unity shot herself in 1939 under still obscure circumstances and was invalided back home to England (the author says she was despondent over the outbreak of the war, but rumors were that she had been rejected by Hitler).

Next, Deborah, scowling prettily in jodhpurs, would be the Mitford who married a duke—not just any duke, but the Duke of Devonshire who still swings a lot of weight in England.

The next one emerges from her tweeds with a less sympathetic expression. Diana married one of Britain's mighty brewers —Bryan Guinness, stout feller—but got divorced and married English Fascist Sir Oswald Mosley.

Jessica, the one with the slyboots expression, married a Red, Esmond Romilly, but then, he was a nephew of Sir Winston Churchill. In fact, that marriage is what much of this book is about.

The Mitford on the far right, Pamela, was so fond of horses she married a sometime jockey.

The one with the dog married (and divorced) Peter Murray Rennell Rodd, whose business she described as "sailing small boats"; today she is the most famous member of the family. Nancy writes novels and biographies, and invented the U-game, by which it can be determined who is out of, and who is not out of, the top drawer.

The dim male figure smiling uneasily in the midst of these splendid figures is a male Mitford of whom nobody has ever heard. He is Tom, a barrister who was killed in Burma in 1945.

Life with Farve. Having passed or flunked a Mitford quiz along these lines, the reader may find any residual curiosity about the family amply answered in Daughters and Rebels, Jessica's sprightly chronicle. Some things should be settled first. What was Hitler's reaction to Jessica's elopement with Romilly when Unity told the Fuhrer, "My sister Decca has run away to Spain with the Reds"? Hitler sank his head in his hands. "Armes Kind!"1 (poor child), he sighed. What did Mr. Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, do? He dispatched a destroyer to try to break up the match.