Winter of the World (27 page)

Daisy felt she had done a great job with Eva. She had taught her friend how to choose clothes that suited her, smart styles without frills, in plain, strong colours that flattered her dark hair
and brown eyes. Gaining in confidence, Eva had learned how to use her natural warmth and quick intelligence to charm men and women. And Jimmy had fallen in love with her. He was no movie star, but
he was tall and craggily attractive. He came from a military family with a modest fortune, so Eva would be comfortable, though not rich.

The British were as prejudiced as anyone else, and at first General Murray and Mrs Murray had not been thrilled at the prospect of their son marrying a half-Jewish German refugee. Eva had won
them over quickly, but many of their friends still expressed coded doubts. At the wedding Daisy had been told that Eva was ‘exotic’, Jimmy was ‘courageous’, and the Murrays
were ‘marvellously broad-minded’, all ways of making the best of an unsuitable match.

Jimmy had written formally to Dr Rothmann in Berlin, and had received permission to ask Eva for her hand in marriage; but the German authorities had refused to let the Rothmann family come to
the wedding. Eva had said tearfully: ‘They hate Jews so much, you’d think they’d be happy to see them leave the country!’

Boy’s father, Fitz, had heard this remark, and had later spoken to Daisy about it. ‘Tell your friend Eva not to say too much about Jews, if she can avoid it,’ he had said, in
the tone of one who gives a friendly warning. ‘Having a half-Jewish wife is not going to help Jimmy’s army career, you know.’ Daisy had not passed on this unpleasant counsel.

The happy couple went off to Nice for their honeymoon. Daisy realized with a pang of guilt that she was relieved to get Eva off her hands. Boy and his political pals disliked Jews so much that
Eva was becoming a problem. Already the friendship between Boy and Jimmy had ended – Boy had refused to be Jimmy’s best man.

After the wedding, Daisy and Olga were invited by the Fitzherberts to a shooting party at their country house in Wales. Daisy’s hopes rose. Now that Eva was out of the way, there was
nothing to stop Boy proposing. The earl and princess must surely assume he was on the point of it. Perhaps they planned for him to do so this weekend.

Daisy and Olga went to Paddington station on a Friday morning and took a train west. They crossed the heart of England, rich rolling farmland dotted with hamlets, each with its stone church
spire rising from a stand of ancient trees. They had a first-class carriage to themselves, and Olga asked Daisy what she thought Boy might do. ‘He must know I like him,’ Daisy said.
‘I’ve let him kiss me enough times.’

‘Have you shown any interest in anyone else?’ her mother asked shrewdly.

Daisy suppressed the guilty memory of that brief moment of foolishness with Lloyd Williams. Boy could not possibly know about that and, anyway, she had not seen Lloyd again, nor had she replied
to the three letters he had sent her. ‘No one,’ she said.

‘Then it’s because of Eva,’ said Olga. ‘And now she’s gone.’

The train went through a long tunnel under the estuary of the River Severn, and when it emerged, they were in Wales. Bedraggled sheep grazed the hills, and in the cleft of each valley was a
small mining town, its pithead winding gear rising from a scatter of ugly industrial buildings.

Earl Fitzherbert’s black-and-cream Rolls-Royce was waiting for them at Aberowen station. The town was dismal, Daisy thought, with small grey stone houses in rows along the steep hillsides.
They drove a mile or so out of town to the house, T
ŷ
Gwyn.

Daisy gasped with pleasure as they passed through the gates. T
ŷ
Gwyn was enormous and elegant, with long rows of tall windows in a perfectly classical façade. It was set in elaborate
gardens of flowers, shrubs and specimen trees that clearly were the pride of the earl himself. What a joy it would be to be mistress of this house, she thought. The British aristocracy might no
longer rule the world, but they had perfected the art of living, and Daisy longed to be one of them.

T
ŷ
Gwyn meant White House, but the place was actually grey, and Daisy learned why when she touched the stonework with her hand and got coal dust on her fingertips.

She was given a room called the Gardenia Suite.

That evening, she and Boy sat on the terrace before dinner and watched the sun go down over the purple mountaintop, Boy smoking a cigar and Daisy sipping champagne. They were alone for a while,
but Boy said nothing about marriage.

Over the weekend her anxiety grew. Boy had plenty more chances to speak to her alone – she made sure of that. On Saturday the men went shooting, but Daisy went out to meet them at the end
of the afternoon, and she and Boy walked back through the woods together. On Sunday morning the Fitzherberts and most of their guests went to the Anglican church in the town. After the service, Boy
took Daisy to a pub called The Two Crowns, where squat, broad-shouldered miners in flat caps stared at her in her lavender cashmere coat as if Boy had brought in a leopard on a leash.

She told him that she and her mother would soon have to go back to Buffalo, but he did not take the hint.

Could it simply be that he liked her, but not enough to marry her?

By lunch on Sunday she was desperate. Tomorrow she and her mother were to return to London. If Boy had not proposed by then, his parents would begin to think he was not serious, and there would
be no more invitations to T
ŷ
Gwyn.

That prospect frightened Daisy. She had made up her mind to marry Boy. She wanted to be Viscountess Aberowen, and then one day Countess Fitzherbert. She had always been rich, but she craved the
respect and deference that went with social status. She longed to be addressed as ‘Your Ladyship’. She coveted Princess Bea’s diamond tiara. She wanted to count royalty among her
friends.

She knew Boy liked her, and there was no doubt about his desire when he kissed her. ‘He needs something to spur him on,’ Olga murmured to Daisy as they drank their after-lunch coffee
with the other ladies in the morning room.

‘But what?’

‘There is one thing that never fails with men.’

Daisy raised her eyebrows. ‘Sex?’ She and her mother talked about most things, but generally skirted around this subject.

‘Pregnancy would do it,’ Olga said. ‘But that only happens for sure when you
don’t
want it.’

‘What, then?’

‘You need to give him a glimpse of the Promised Land, but not let him in.’

Daisy shook her head. ‘I’m not certain, but I think he may have already been to the Promised Land with someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know – a maid, an actress, a widow . . . I’m guessing, but he just doesn’t have that virginal air.’

‘You’re right, he doesn’t. That means you have to offer him something he can’t get from the others. Something he’d do anything for.’

Daisy wondered briefly where her mother had got this wisdom, having spent her life in a cold marriage. Perhaps she had done a lot of thinking about how her husband, Lev, had been stolen from her
by his mistress, Marga. Anyway, there was nothing Daisy could offer Boy that he couldn’t get from another girl, was there?

The women were finishing their coffee and heading to their bedrooms for the afternoon nap. The men were still in the dining room, smoking their cigars, but they would follow in a quarter of an
hour. Daisy stood up.

Olga said: ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I’ll think of something.’

She left the room. She was going to go to Boy’s room, she had decided, but she did not want to say so in case her mother objected. She would be waiting for him when he came for his nap.
The servants also took a break at that time of day, so it was unlikely that anyone would come into the room.

She would have Boy on his own, then. But what would she say or do? She did not know. She would have to improvise.

She went to the Gardenia Suite, brushed her teeth, dabbed Jean Naté cologne on her neck, and walked quietly along the corridor to Boy’s room.

No one saw her go in.

He had a spacious bedroom with a view of misty mountaintops. It felt as if it might have been his for many years. There were masculine leather chairs, pictures of airplanes and racehorses on the
wall, a cedar wood humidor full of fragrant cigars, and a side table with decanters of whisky and brandy and a tray of crystal glasses.

She pulled open a drawer and saw T
ŷ
Gwyn writing paper, a bottle of ink, and pens and pencils. The paper was blue with the Fitzherbert crest. Would that one day be her crest?

She wondered what Boy would say when he found her here. Would he be pleased, take her in his arms, and kiss her? Or would he be angry that his privacy had been invaded, and accuse her of
snooping? She had to take the risk.

She went into the adjoining dressing room. There was a small washbasin with a mirror over it. His shaving tackle was on the marble surround. Daisy thought she would like to learn to shave her
husband. How intimate that would be.

She opened the wardrobe doors and looked at his clothes: formal morning dress, tweed suits, riding clothes, a leather pilot’s jacket with a fur lining, and two evening suits.

That gave her an idea.

She recalled how aroused Boy had been, at Bing Westhampton’s house back in June, by the sight of her and the other girls dressed as men. That evening had been the first time he had kissed
her. She was not sure why he had been so excited – such things were generally inexplicable. Lizzie Westhampton said some men liked women to spank their bottoms: how could you account for
that?

Perhaps she should dress in his clothes now.

Something he’d do anything for
, her mother had said. Was this it?

She stared at the row of suits on hangers, the stack of folded white shirts, the polished leather shoes each with its wooden tree inside. Would it work? Did she have time?

Did she have anything to lose?

She could pick the clothes she needed, take them to the Gardenia Suite, change there, and then hurry back, hoping that no one saw her on the way . . .

No. There was no time for that. His cigar was not long enough. She had to change here, and fast – or not at all.

She made up her mind.

She pulled her dress off.

She was in danger now. Until this moment, she might have explained her presence here, just about plausibly, by pretending that she had lost her bearings in T
ŷ
Gwyn’s miles of
corridors and gone into the wrong room by mistake. But no girl’s reputation could survive being found in a man’s room in her underwear.

She took the top shirt off the pile. The collar had to be attached with a stud, she saw with a groan. She found a dozen starched collars in a drawer with a box of studs, and fixed one to the
shirt, then pulled the shirt over her head.

She heard a man’s heavy footsteps in the corridor outside, and froze, her heart beating like a big drum; but the steps went by.

She decided to wear formal morning dress. The striped trousers had no suspenders attached, but she found some in another drawer. She figured out how to button the suspenders to the trousers,
then pulled the trousers on. The waist was big enough for two of her.

She pushed her stockinged feet into a pair of shiny black shoes and laced them.

She buttoned the shirt and put on a silver tie. The knot was wrong, but it did not matter, and, anyway, she did not know the correct way to tie it, so she left it as it was.

She put on a fawn double-breasted waistcoat and a black tailcoat, then she looked in the full-length mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door.

The clothes were baggy but she looked cute anyway.

Now that she had time, she put gold links in the shirt cuffs and a white handkerchief in the breast pocket of the coat.

Something was missing. She stared at herself in the mirror until she figured out what else she needed.

A hat.

She opened another cupboard and saw a row of hatboxes on a high shelf. She found a grey top hat and perched it on the back of her head.

She remembered the moustache.

She did not have an eyebrow pencil with her. She returned to Boy’s bedroom and bent over the fireplace. It was still summer, and there was no fire. She got some soot on her fingertip,
returned to the mirror, and carefully drew a moustache on her upper lip.

She was ready.

She sat in one of the leather armchairs to wait for him.

Her instinct told her she was doing the right thing, but rationally it seemed bizarre. However, there was no accounting for arousal. She herself had got wet inside when he took her up in his
plane. It had been impossible for them to canoodle while he was concentrating on flying the little aircraft, and that was just as well, for soaring through the air had been so exciting that
probably she would have let him do anything he wanted.

However, boys could be unpredictable, and she feared he might be angry. When that happened, his handsome face would twist into an unattractive grimace, he would tap his foot very quickly, and he
could become quite cruel. Once, when a waiter with a limp had brought him the wrong drink, he had said: ‘Just hobble back to the bar and bring me the Scotch I ordered – being a cripple
doesn’t make you deaf, does it?’ The wretched man had flushed with shame.

She wondered what Boy would say to her if he was angered by her being in his room.

He arrived five minutes later.

She heard his tread outside, and realized she already knew him well enough to recognize his step.

The door opened and he came in without seeing her.

She put on a deep voice and said: ‘Hello, old chap, how are you?’

He started and said: ‘Good God!’ Then he looked again. ‘Daisy?’

She stood up. ‘The same,’ she said in her normal voice. He was still staring at her in surprise. She doffed the top hat, gave a little bow, and said: ‘At your service.’
She replaced the hat on her head at an angle.