I’m reading Carla Kaplan’s new bio of Jessica Mitford, Troublemaker, and it brings new shocks to any Mitford fan, and I am definitely that. Debo, the sister who became the Duchess of Devonshire, was in some ways the worst of the sisters, partly because her life was always so circumscribed by wealth and it did not make her kinder. Duchesses don’t need to be kind.

When she visited Decca’s house in California, she shivered in horror and wrote to Diana, the Nazi sister: “The house had a very peculiar smell and they said they had a negro family in the basement so of course that was it.” She actually wrote that.

Also read the bio of the Mitford mother, Muv, by Rachel Trethewey. Didn’t realize that she had gone so solidly Nazi, for no reason that I can grasp. She was extremely English, as was her husband. It seems inexplicable. If it was part of her belief that people should stay in their own class, well, explain how the peasant Hitler was not the obverse of that. It ended her marriage, which caused great suffering for both her and her husband as they grew old but not together. Hideous.

What this devoted mother of six children wrote about Jews welcomed by Nancy and sheltering in their London house in Rutland Gate during the war cannot be repeated. Just stomach-flipping.

Few Mitfords come out of this well, except for Decca, and it can now be said with authority that no Mitford daughter ever matched to a man who wasn’t a shit. Nancy, Debo, Diana, Decca, Pam and Nancy all ended up with men who betrayed them with extreme ease.

Most of this comes from letters, the social media posts of their time, now revealed. It makes me think the quotes are unfair. But letters take time and thought. Posts don’t. It’s revelatory but often in sick-making ways. People are so strange.