strange and random happenstance: Esmond Rommilly

The Mitford Vanishing by Jessica Fellowes
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: January 18th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★
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Louisa and Guy are about to start the next chapter of their lives. After their disillusionment with the establishment they have set up a private detective agency, Cannon and Sullivan. They hope to help those who the police overlook, though Guy is more sanguine, warning Louisa that they are probably going to spend most of their time on petty domestic disputes. Given their history with the Mitfords it shouldn't come as a surprise to Louisa that they are going to be their first clients now that she has finished her maternity leave. Louisa is summoned to Rutland Gate by Nancy because Jessica, familially known as Decca, has run away. This shouldn't be such a shock to the family. The nineteen year old Decca started her "running away" fund when she was twelve, so actually running away while claiming to be on a motoring tour of France with friends seemed inevitable. The problem is, if the press gets wind of this it would ruin her and her future. So they are hoping that Louisa and Guy can discretely discover what has happened by popping over to France. What has happened is that Decca's run off to the Spanish Civil War as the bride of her cousin, Esmond Romilly. From the family's point of view things couldn't be worse. She has divorced herself from her family forever. Esmond is a known firebrand and a Communist. He also happens to be Winston Churchill's nephew. Which is how the foreign office gets involved. And once the press finds out, it's front page headlines. With their reputation on the line, Louisa and Guy realize that they must succeed in finding Decca. The Mitford case will put their name on the map if they succeed. And if they fail? Their business will be a bust before it's even begun. Seeing as the government is now involved, they decide that not both of them are needed in France and Guy continues on to Bayonne while Louisa heads home to their darling daughter Maisie, and another disappearance all together. Julia Attwood has come to Cannon and Sullivan because her sister Petunia has gone missing. Petunia was a secretary at Lee Worth. A middle-aged woman who had no political power or clout. Someone who wouldn't be missed. The exact opposite of Jessica Mitford. This is someone not even the police are looking for. The poignancy of this makes Louisa take the case to heart. She learns about Petunia and a contretemps with her coworker, Bernard Plum. As soon as she starts digging into the man she finds connections to the Spanish Civil War, and, as impossible as this may seem, even Decca and Esmond. Could Petunia's case, as well as two other missing women cases that fall into Louisa's lap, all be tied together with the Mitfords for some inexplicable reason? Only time and Bayonne will tell.

Seeing as each book in this series has been focused on one of the six Mitford sisters, in the order they were born, before the title was even announced I knew this book would be about Decca. Once the title was revealed as The Mitford Vanishing I knew it would be about Decca running off to the Spanish Civil War with her cousin Esmond Romilly. Because, as any Mitford fan has, I've read Jessica Mitford's stellar autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Which makes me question the purpose of this book. Why did Jessica Fellowes choose this event from Decca's life to dramatize? It's been well documented and there's not much new ground to cover. Unless it was that Jessica Fellowes wanted us to see it from the point of view of the Mitford clan, collective noun still to be finalized, and how they were furious with Decca. Flipping the script of Decca's own writing and seeing her as throwing her life away and being nothing more than a spoiled brat than a girl on a romantic adventure. Well, having read extensively about the Mitfords, I say running away was the healthiest decision Decca could have made. Her family was a next of fascist vipers who would eat their own and this break with her family is what made her. But Jessica Fellowes takes this selfishness further and applies it to anyone who went to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Yes, there were people who viewed it as an romantic adventure, much as Jessica did at the start, but looking down on those who were actually trying to stop the spread of hate is hypocritical when Jessica Fellowes is also saying that we need to look to the past to stop the spread of fascism now. Plus it was because of the journalists on the ground that we learned about the true horrors of what was happening in Spain. It's weird to think of this large country involved in it's own conflict outside of the rest of the European theater. Yes, maybe this book took away some of the romanticism of those who went to Spain, but anyone who looks seriously at war knows there's nothing romantic about it. And Jessica Fellowes just felt like she was preaching. Hating on the naivete of these people while trying to give a teachable moment to her very naive leads. At the end I came away with the distinct feeling that Jessica Fellowes doesn't really like any of the Mitfords. And as for her mystery with the missing women? It was implausible and amorphous. No, like really implausible. Guy was in London on the phone with Louisa only hours before he showed up in Bayonne. That is the most implausible thing ever.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: Esmond Rommilly, Guy Sullivan, Hons and Rebels, Jessica Fellowes, Jessica Mitford, Louisa Cannon, Missing, Mitfords, Murder Most Foul, Private Eyes, Romanticism, Runaway, Spanish Civil War, The Mitford Vanishing

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford
Published by: NYRB Classics
Publication Date: 1960
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
Recommended for: Anglophiles, Biography Buffs, Mitford Maniacs, Journalists and History Buffs
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Jessica Mitford was the "Ballroom Communist" of the engagingly eccentric Mitford Family. The second youngest daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdalee, she had an unconventional upbringing where education was the bare minimum to make a good wife. Always wishing for an escape from her family, be it through schooling or politics or moving to another continent, she suffered through being a deb and presentation before the queen and watching her family come apart at the seems due to a divergence in beliefs. But at her first chance she ran off with her cousin, Esmond Rommilly, the nephew of Winston Churchill, to fight Franco in Spain. What with all of England trying to force her home, sending really big ships no less, even the courts of Chancery, it's surprising that she actually was able to succeed in her convictions and in marrying Esmond. The madcap and eccentric life that followed from Rotherhithe to the United States with Esmond equals that of her earlier life, but with herself being the master of her fate.

I rarely read biographies. I have to say, if more biographies were as fun and enjoyable as Jessica Mitford's I would read nothing but. The Mitford family has always been fascinating to me, what with the sisters paths being so divergent. Nancy was one of the "Bright Young Things" and a literary darling, with Love in a Cold Climate, which basically skewered her own family for her amusement. Pamela was horse obsessed and kind of out of the limelight. Diana married the heir to the Guinness fortune then divorced him to have an affair with the head of the British Facist party. When they eventually married, Hitler was at their wedding, which was held at the Goebbels' house. She also spent time in prison. Unity was Hitler's biggest fan and when war broke out between England and Germany she failed at committing suicide only to die of meningitis. And Debo... well she married the Duke of Devonshire and lives at Chatsworth, writes books about chickens and is the last remaining Mitford daughter. You could not make this stuff up! From her earliest days with family to her later life with Esmond, Jessica captures the love she had for these people while at the same time the exasperation of her situation. From hoarding money so she could run away, to the ultimate subterfuge that resulted in her being victorious, even if she had to chase the Spanish Consulate representative all over England and France. To the years scarping by in the States doing anything and everything to stay there, from selling stockings door to door to being a bouncer at a bar. That's right, Jessica, not her husband, was the bouncer.

Given the extreme fame of her family and the career Jessica later established as a journalist in her own right, if a muckracker at that, it's beyond enjoyable to see where it all began. The fact that a high born Hon would eschew her family and their beliefs to set out on her own crusade for right, for the poor and disadvantaged, is a noble crusade indeed. But what you also see is that with Esmond, this is a love story. From her first hearing mention of him, she was in love. From their similar backgrounds of trying to shed off what was their families hereditary hangups, she envied him for his actual escape and later he aided her escape as well. Whether he felt the same inevitability as her that they were meant to be is hinted at. But what is certain is that they were perfectly matched. It makes sense that the book ends with the outbreak of World War II. It's the event that, more than anything, shaped that generation, but more personally than that, embodied the division of this family. It was also the event that would claim Esmond's life. But at least in this book, we can see the love still remains.