Frieda put her arms around her.
After a minute she felt better. ‘I’m not going to raise children for the damned Fuhrer,’ she muttered.
‘What?’
‘Let’s go home. I’ll tell you when we get there.’ They climbed on to their bikes.
There was a strange air in the streets, but Carla was too full of her own woes to wonder what was going on. People were gathering around the loudspeakers that sometimes broadcast Hitler’s speeches from the Kroll Opera, the building that was being used instead of the burned-out Reichstag. Presumably he was about to speak.
When they got back to the von Ulrich town house, Mother and Father were still in the kitchen, Father sitting next to the radio with a frown of concentration.
‘They turned me down,’ Carla said. ‘Regardless of what their rules say, they don’t want to give a scholarship to a girl.’
‘Oh, Carla, I’m so sorry,’ said Mother.
‘What’s on the radio?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ said Mother. ‘We invaded Poland this morning. We’re at war.’
The London season was over, but most people were still in town because of the crisis. Parliament, normally in recess at this time of year, had been specially recalled. But there were no parties, no royal receptions, no balls. It was like being at a seaside resort in February, Daisy thought. Today was Saturday, and she was getting ready to go to dinner at the home of her father-in-law, Earl Fitzherbert. What could be more dull?
She sat at her dressing table wearing an evening gown in eau-de-nil silk with a V-neck and a pleated skirt. She had silk flowers in her hair and a fortune in diamonds round her neck.
Her husband, Boy, was getting ready in his dressing room. She was pleased he was here. He spent many nights elsewhere. Although they lived in the same Mayfair house, sometimes several days would go by without their meeting. But he was at home tonight.
She held in her hand a letter from her mother in Buffalo. Olga had divined that Daisy was discontented in her marriage. There must have been hints in Daisy’s letters home. Mother had good intuition. ‘I only want you to be happy,’ she wrote. ‘So listen when I tell you not to give up too soon. You’re going to be Countess Fitzherbert one day, and your son, if you have one, will be the earl. You might regret throwing all that away just because your husband didn’t pay you enough attention.’
She might be right. People had been addressing Daisy as ‘My lady’ for almost three years, yet it still gave her a little jolt of pleasure every time, like a puff on a cigarette.
But Boy seemed to think that marriage need make no great difference to his life. He spent evenings with his men friends, travelled all over the country to go horse racing, and rarely told his wife what his plans were. Daisy found it embarrassing to go to a party and be surprised to meet her husband there. But if she wanted to know where he was going, she had to ask his valet, and that was too demeaning.
Would he gradually grow up, and start to behave as a husband should, or would he always be like this?
He put his head around her door. ‘Come on, Daisy, we’re late.’
She put Mother’s letter in a drawer, locked it, and went out. Boy was waiting in the hall, wearing a tuxedo. Fitz had at last succumbed to fashion and permitted informal short dinner jackets for family dinners at home.
They could have walked to Fitz’s house, but it was raining, so Boy had had the car brought round. It was a Bentley Airline saloon, cream-coloured with whitewall tyres. Boy shared his father’s love of beautiful cars.
Boy drove. Daisy hoped he would let her drive back. She enjoyed it, and, anyway, he was not safe after dinner, especially on wet roads.
London was preparing for war. Barrage balloons floated over the city at a height of two thousand feet, to impede bombers. In case that failed, sandbags were stacked outside important buildings. Alternate kerbstones had been painted white, for the benefit of drivers in the blackout, which had begun yesterday. There were white stripes on large trees, street statues, and other obstacles that might cause accidents.
Princess Bea welcomed Boy and Daisy. In her fifties she was quite fat, but she still dressed like a girl. Tonight she wore a pink gown embroidered with beads and sequins. She never spoke about the story Daisy’s father had told at the wedding, but she had stopped hinting that Daisy was socially inferior, and now always spoke to Daisy with courtesy, if not warmth. Daisy was cautiously friendly, and treated Bea like a slightly dotty aunt.
Boy’s younger brother, Andy, was there. He and May had two children and May looked, to Daisy’s interested eye, as if she might be expecting a third.
Boy wanted a son, of course, to be heir to the Fitzherbert title and fortune, but so far Daisy had failed to get pregnant. It was a sore point, and the evident fecundity of Andy and May made it worse. Daisy would have had a better chance if Boy spent more nights at home.
She was delighted to see her friend Eva Murray there – but without her husband: Jimmy Murray, now a captain, was with his unit and had not been able to get away, for most troops were in barracks and their officers were with them. Eva was family, now, because Jimmy was May’s brother and therefore an in-law. So Boy had been forced to overcome his prejudice against Jews and be polite to Eva.
Eva adored Jimmy as much now as she had three years ago when she had married him. They, too, had produced two children in three years. But Eva looked worried tonight, and Daisy could guess why.
