The Mitford Affair

Nancy is recovering from fertility surgery. She is working on a new novel, The Ladies of Alderley, which is inspired by the history of her family. In writing about the past, Nancy finds a place of rational politics and community-mindedness, a respite from the turbulent politics of her own era. Diana pays Nancy an unexpected visit and alludes to traveling for work, which makes Nancy suspicious that Diana is working with the Nazis.

At a church service in England, Diana notes how everyone stares at her and her children. She tries not to let it bother her: She believes that when Mosley and her plans for political upheaval are realized, her past scandals won’t matter. Winston Churchill approaches her: He complains that the Nazis have used the family’s relationship to Churchill as a way to embarrass him by referring publicly to Unity as “Churchill’s relative.” Churchill alludes to the rumors around Unity, such as that she is having an affair with Hitler or that she has many lovers in the SS. Diana defends Unity for living in a country whose progress she believes in and Churchill refutes this with an argument about the Nazi concentration camps.