Winter of the World

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, Tŷ Gwyn.

Daisy gasped with pleasure as they passed through the gates. Tŷ 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.

Tŷ 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 Tŷ 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.