Winter of the World

They had braised beef, boiled potatoes and cabbage. It was no better or worse than most army food, and Lloyd tucked in, aware that it had been paid for by people such as his grandparents who were having bread-and-dripping for their supper. There was a bottle of whisky on the table, and Lloyd took some to be convivial. He studied his fellow trainees and tried to remember their names.

On his way up to bed he passed through the Sculpture Room, now empty of art and furnished with a blackboard and twelve cheap desks. There he saw Major Lowther talking to a woman. At a second glance he saw that the woman was Daisy Fitzherbert.

He was so surprised that he stopped. Lowther looked around with an irritated expression. He saw Lloyd and reluctantly said: ‘Lady Aberowen, I believe you know Lieutenant Williams.’

If she denies it, Lloyd thought, I shall remind her of the time she kissed me, long and hard, on a Mayfair street in the dark.

‘How nice to see you again, Mr Williams,’ she said, and put out her hand to shake.

Her skin was warm and soft to his touch. His heart beat faster.

Lowther said: ‘Williams tells me his mother worked at this house as a maid.’

‘I know,’ Daisy said. ‘He told me that at the Trinity Ball. He was reproving me for being a snob. I’m sorry to say that he was quite right.’

‘You’re generous, Lady Aberowen,’ said Lloyd, feeling embarrassed. ‘I don’t know what business I had to say such a thing to you.’ She seemed less brittle than he remembered: perhaps she had matured.

Daisy said to Lowther: ‘Mr Williams’s mother is a Member of Parliament now, though.’

Lowther was taken aback.

Lloyd said to Daisy: ‘And how is your Jewish friend Eva? I know she married Jimmy Murray.’

‘They have two children now.’

‘Did she get her parents out of Germany?’

‘How kind of you to remember – but no, sadly, the Rothmanns can’t get exit visas.’

‘I’m so sorry. It must be hell for her.’

‘It is.’

Lowther was visibly impatient with this talk of housemaids and Jews. ‘To get back to what I was saying, Lady Aberowen . . .’

Lloyd said: ‘I’ll bid you goodnight.’ He left the room and ran upstairs.

As he got ready for bed he found himself singing the last hymn from the service:

No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to that rock I’m clinging

Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth

How can I keep from singing?

(ii)

Three days later Daisy was finishing writing to her half-brother, Greg. When war broke out he had sent her a sweetly anxious letter, and since then they had corresponded every month or so. He had told her about seeing his old flame, Jacky Jakes, on E street in Washington, and asked Daisy what would make a girl run away like that? Daisy had no idea. She said so, and wished him luck, then signed off.

She looked at the clock. It was an hour before the trainees’ dinner time, so lessons had ended and she had a good chance of catching Lloyd in his room.

She went up to the old servants’ quarters on the attic floor. The young officers were sitting or lying on their beds, reading or writing. She found Lloyd in a narrow room with an old cheval-glass, sitting by the window, studying an illustrated book. She said: ‘Reading something interesting?’

He sprang to his feet. ‘Hello, this is a surprise.’

He was blushing. He probably still had a crush on her. It had been very cruel of her to kiss him, when she had no intention of letting the relationship go any further. But that was four years ago, and they had both been kids. He should have gotten over it by now.

She looked at the book in his hands. It was in German, and had colour pictures of badges.

‘We have to know German insignia,’ he explained. ‘A lot of military intelligence comes from interrogation of prisoners of war immediately after their capture. Some won’t talk, of course; so the interrogator needs to be able to tell, just by looking at the prisoner’s uniform, what his rank is, what army corps he belongs to, whether he is from infantry, cavalry, artillery, or a specialist unit such as veterinarian, and so on.’

‘That’s what you’re learning here?’ she said sceptically. ‘The meanings of German badges?’

He laughed. ‘It’s one of the things we’re learning. One I can tell you about without giving away military secrets.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Why are you here in Wales? I’m surprised you’re not doing something for the war effort.’

‘There you go again,’ she said. ‘Moral reproof. Did someone tell you this was a way to charm women?’

‘Pardon me,’ he said stiffly. ‘I didn’t mean to rebuke you.’

‘Anyway, there is no war effort. Barrage balloons float in the air as a hazard to German planes that never come.’

‘At least you’d have a social life in London.’

‘Do you know that used to be the most important thing in the world, and now it’s not?’ she said. ‘I must be getting old.’

There was another reason she had left London, but she was not going to tell him.