Winter of the World

by Ken Follett

  Most of the colleges held summer dances to celebrate the end of exams. The balls, plus associated parties and picnics, constituted May Week, which illogically took place in June. The Trinity Ball was famously lavish. "I'd love to go, but I can't afford it," Lloyd said. "Tickets are two guineas, aren't they?"

  "I've been given one. But you can have it. Several hundred drunk students dancing to a jazz band is actually my idea of hell."

  Lloyd was tempted. "But I haven't got a tailcoat." College balls required white tie and tails.

  "Borrow mine. It'll be too big at the waist, but we're the same height."

  "Then I will. Thank you!"

  Ruby reappeared. "Your mother is wonderful," she said to Lloyd. "I can't believe she used to be a maid!"

  Robert said: "I have known Ethel for more than twenty years. She is truly extraordinary."

  "I can see why you haven't met Miss Right," Ruby said to Lloyd. "You're looking for someone like her, and there aren't many."

  "You're right about the last part, anyway," Lloyd said. "There's no one like her."

  Ruby winced, as if in pain.

  Lloyd said: "What's wrong?"

  "Toothache."

  "You must go to the dentist."

  She looked at him as if he had said something stupid, and he realized that on a housemaid's wage she could not afford to pay a dentist. He felt foolish.

  He went to the door and peeped through to the main hall. Like many nonconformist churches, this was a plain rectangular room with walls painted white. It was a warm day, and the clear glass windows were open. The rows of chairs were full and the audience was waiting expectantly.

  When Ethel reappeared, Lloyd said: "If it's all right with everyone, I'll open the meeting. Then Robert will tell his personal story, and my mother will draw out the political lessons."

  They all agreed.

  "Ruby, will you keep an eye on the Fascists? Let me know if anything happens."

  Ethel frowned. "Is that really necessary?"

  "We probably shouldn't trust them to keep their promise."

  Ruby said: "They're meeting a quarter of a mile up the road. I don't mind running in and out."

  She left by the back door, and Lloyd led the others into the church. There was no stage, but a table and three chairs stood at the near end, with a lectern to one side. As Ethel and Robert took their seats, Lloyd went to the lectern. There was a brief round of subdued applause.

  "Fascism is on the march," Lloyd began. "And it is dangerously attractive. It gives false hope to the unemployed. It wears a spurious patriotism, as the Fascists themselves wear imitation military uniforms."

  The British government was keen to appease Fascist regimes, to Lloyd's dismay. It was a coalition dominated by Conservatives, with a few Liberals and a sprinkling of renegade Labour ministers who had split with their party. Only a few days after it was reelected last November, the Foreign Secretary had proposed to yield much of Abyssinia to the conquering Italians and their Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

  Worse still, Germany was rearming and aggressive. Just a couple of months ago, Hitler had violated the Versailles Treaty by sending troops into the demilitarized Rhineland--and Lloyd had been horrified to see that no country had been willing to stop him.

  Any hope he had that Fascism might be a temporary aberration had now vanished. Lloyd believed that democratic countries such as France and Britain must get ready to fight. But he did not say so in his speech today, for his mother and most of the Labour party opposed a buildup in British armaments and hoped the League of Nations would be able to deal with the dictators. They wanted at all costs to avoid repeating the dreadful slaughter of the Great War. Lloyd sympathized with that hope, but feared it was not realistic.

  He was preparing himself for war. He had been an officer cadet at school and, when he came up to Cambridge, he had joined the Officer Training Corps--the only working-class boy and certainly the only Labour Party member to do so.

  He sat down to muted applause. He was a clear and logical speaker, but he did not have his mother's ability to touch hearts--not yet, anyway.

  Robert stepped to the lectern. "I am Austrian," he said. "In the war I was wounded, captured by the Russians, and sent to a prison camp in Siberia. After the Bolsheviks made peace with the Central Powers, the guards opened the gates and told us we were free to go. Getting home was our problem, not theirs. It is a long way from Siberia to Austria--more than three thousand miles. There was no bus, so I walked."

  Surprised laughter rippled around the room, with a few appreciative hand-claps. Robert had already charmed them, Lloyd saw.

  Ruby came up to him, looking annoyed, and spoke in his ear. "The Fascists just went by. Boy Fitzherbert was driving Mosley to the railway station, and a bunch of hotheads in black shirts were running after the car, cheering."

  Lloyd frowned. "They promised they wouldn't march. I suppose they'll say that running behind a car doesn't count."

  "What's the difference, I'd like to know?"

  "Any violence?"

  "No."

  "Keep a lookout."

  Ruby retired. Lloyd was bothered. The Fascists had certainly broken the spirit of the agreement, if not the letter. They had appeared on the street in their uniforms--and there had been no counterdemonstration. The socialists were here, inside the church, invisible. All there was to show for their stand was a banner outside the church saying THE TRUTH ABOUT FASCISM in large red letters.

  Robert was saying: "I am pleased to be here, honored to have been invited to address you, and delighted to see several patrons of Bistro Robert in the audience. However, I must warn you that the story I have to tell is most unpleasant, and indeed gruesome."

  He related how he and Jorg had been arrested after refusing to sell the Berlin restaurant to a Nazi. He described Jorg as his chef and longtime business partner, saying nothing of their sexual relationship, though the more knowing people in the church probably guessed.

  The audience became very quiet as he began to describe events in the concentration camp. Lloyd heard gasps of horror when he got to the part where the starving dogs appeared. Robert described the torture of Jorg in a low, clear voice that carried across the room. By the time he came to Jorg's death, several people were weeping.

  Lloyd himself relived the cruelty and anguish of those moments, and he was possessed by rage against such fools as Boy Fitzherbert whose infatuation with marching songs and smart uniforms threatened to bring the same torment to England.

  Robert sat down and Ethel went to the lectern. As she began to speak, Ruby reappeared, looking furious. "I told you this wouldn't work!" she hissed in Lloyd's ear. "Mosley has gone, but the boys are singing 'Rule, Britannia!' outside the station."

  That certainly was a breach of the agreement, Lloyd thought angrily. Boy had broken his promise. So much for the word of an English gentleman.

  Ethel was explaining how Fascism offered false solutions, simplistically blaming groups such as Jews and Communists for complex problems such as unemployment and crime. She made merciless fun of the concept of the triumph of the will, likening the Fuhrer and the Duce to playground bullies. They claimed popular support, but banned all opposition.

  Lloyd realized that when the Fascists returned from the railway station to the center of town they would have to pass this church. He began to listen to the sounds coming through the open windows. He could hear cars and lorries growling along Hills Road, punctuated now and again by the trill of a bicycle bell or the cry of a child. He thought he heard a distant shout, and it sounded ominously like the noise made by rowdy boys young enough still to be proud of their deep new voices. He tensed, straining to hear, and there were more shouts. The Fascists were marching.

  Ethel raised her own voice as the bellowing outside got louder. She argued that working people of all kinds needed to band together in trade unions and the Labour Party to build a fairer society step by democratic step, not through the kind of violent upheaval that had gone
so badly wrong in Communist Russia and Nazi Germany.

  Ruby reentered. "They're marching up Hills Road now," she said in a low, urgent murmur. "We have to go out there and confront them!"

  "No!" Lloyd whispered. "The party made a collective decision--no demonstration. We must stick to that. We must be a disciplined movement!" He knew the reference to party discipline would carry weight with her.

  The Fascists were nearby now, raucously chanting. Lloyd guessed there must be fifty or sixty. He itched to go out there and face them. Two young men near the back stood up and went to the windows to look out. Ethel urged caution. "Don't react to hooliganism by becoming a hooligan," she said. "That will only give the newspapers an excuse to say that one side is as bad as the other."

  There was a crash of breaking glass, and a stone came through the window. A woman screamed, and several people got to their feet. "Please remain seated," Ethel said. "I expect they will go away in a minute." She talked on in a calm and reassuring voice. Few people attended to her speech. Everyone was looking backward toward the church door, and listening to the hoots and jeers of the ruffians outside. Lloyd had to struggle to sit still. He looked toward his mother with a neutral expression fixed like a mask on his face. Every bone in his body wanted to rush outside and punch heads.

  After a minute the audience quietened somewhat. They returned their attention to Ethel, though still fidgeting and looking back over their shoulders. Ruby muttered: "We're like a pack of rabbits, shaking in our burrow while the fox barks outside." Her tone was contemptuous, and Lloyd felt she was right.

  But his mother's forecast proved true, and no more stones were thrown. The chanting receded.

  "Why do the Fascists want violence?" Ethel asked rhetorically. "Those out there in Hills Road may be mere hooligans, but someone is directing them, and their tactics have a purpose. When there is fighting in the streets, they can claim that public order has broken down, and drastic measures are needed to restore the rule of law. Those emergency measures will include banning democratic political parties such as Labour, prohibiting trade union action, and jailing people without trial--people such as us, peaceful men and women whose only crime is to disagree with the government. Does this sound fantastic to you, unlikely, something that could never happen? Well, they used exactly those tactics in Germany--and it worked."

  She went on to talk about how Fascism should be opposed: in discussion groups, at meetings such as this one, by writing letters to the newspapers, by using every opportunity to alert others to the danger. But even Ethel had trouble making this sound courageous and decisive.

  Lloyd was cut to the quick by Ruby's talk of rabbits. He felt like a coward. He was so frustrated that he could hardly sit still.

  Slowly the atmosphere in the hall returned to normal. Lloyd turned to Ruby. "The rabbits are safe, anyhow," he said.

  "For now," she said. "But the fox will be back."

  ii

  "If you like a boy, you can let him kiss you on the mouth," said Lindy Westhampton, sitting on the lawn in the sunshine.

  "And if you really like him, he can feel your breasts," said her twin sister, Lizzie.

  "But nothing below the waist."

  "Not until you're engaged."

  Daisy was intrigued. She had expected English girls to be inhibited, but she had been wrong. The Westhampton twins were sex mad.

  Daisy was thrilled to be a guest at Chimbleigh, the country house of Sir Bartholomew "Bing" Westhampton. It made her feel she had been accepted into English society. But she still had not met the king.

  She recalled her humiliation at the Buffalo Yacht Club with a sense of shame that was still like a burn on her skin, continuing to give her agonizing pain long after the flame had gone away. But whenever she felt that pain she thought about how she was going to dance with the king, and she imagined them all--Dot Renshaw, Nora Farquharson, Ursula Dewar--poring over her picture in the Buffalo Sentinel, reading every word of the report, envying her, and wishing they could honestly say they had always been her friends.

  Things had been difficult at first. Daisy had arrived three months ago with her mother and her friend Eva. Her father had given them a handful of introductions to people who turned out not to be the creme de la creme of London's social scene. Daisy had begun to regret her overconfident exit from the Yacht Club Ball: What if it all came to nothing?

  But Daisy was determined and resourceful, and she needed no more than a foot in the door. Even at entertainments that were more or less public, such as horse races and operas, she met high-ranking people. She flirted with the men, and she piqued the curiosity of the matrons by letting them know she was rich and single. Many aristocratic English families had been ruined by the Depression, and an American heiress would have been welcome even if she were not pretty and charming. They liked her accent, they tolerated her holding her fork in her right hand, and they were amused that she could drive a car--in England men did the driving. Many English girls could ride a horse as well as Daisy, but few looked so pertly assured in the saddle. Some older women still viewed Daisy with suspicion, but she would win them around eventually, she felt sure.

  Bing Westhampton had been easy to flirt with. An elfin man with a winning smile, he had an eye for a pretty girl, and Daisy knew instinctively that more than his eye would be involved if he got the chance of a twilight fumble in the garden. Clearly his daughters took after him.

  The Westhamptons' house party was one of several in Cambridgeshire held to coincide with May Week. The guests included Earl Fitzherbert, known as Fitz, and his wife, Bea. She was Countess Fitzherbert, of course, but she preferred her Russian title of princess. Their elder son, Boy, was at Trinity College.

  Princess Bea was one of the social matriarchs who were doubtful about Daisy. Without actually telling a lie, Daisy had let people assume that her father was a Russian nobleman who had lost everything in the revolution, rather than a factory worker who had fled to America one step ahead of the police. But Bea was not taken in. "I can't recall a family called Peshkov in St. Petersburg or Moscow," she had said, hardly pretending to be puzzled, and Daisy had forced herself to smile as if it were of no consequence what the princess could remember.

  There were three girls the same age as Daisy and Eva: the Westhampton twins plus May Murray, the daughter of a general. The balls went on all night, so everyone slept until midday, but the afternoons were dull. The five girls lazed in the garden or strolled in the woods. Now, sitting up in her hammock, Daisy said: "What can you do after you're engaged?"

  Lindy said: "You can rub his thing."

  "Until it squirts," said her sister.

  May Murray, who was not as daring as the twins, said: "Oh, disgusting!"

  That only encouraged the twins. "Or you can suck it," said Lindy. "They like that best of all."

  "Stop it!" May protested. "You're just making this up."

  They stopped, having teased May enough. "I'm bored," said Lindy. "What shall we do?"

  An imp of mischief seized Daisy, and she said: "Let's come down to dinner in men's clothes."

  She regretted it immediately. A stunt like that could ruin her social career when it had only just got started.

  Eva's German sense of propriety was upset. "Daisy, you don't mean it!"

  "No," she said. "Silly notion."

  The twins had their mother's fine blond hair, not their father's dark curls, but they had inherited his streak of naughtiness, and they both loved the idea. "They'll all be in tailcoats tonight, so we can steal their dinner jackets," said Lindy.

  "Yes!" said her twin. "We'll do it while they're having tea."

  Daisy saw that it was too late to back out.

  May Murray said: "We couldn't go to the ball like that!" The whole party was to attend the Trinity Ball after dinner.

  "We'll change again before leaving," said Lizzie.

  May was a timid creature, probably cowed by her military father, and she always went along with whatever the other girls decide
d. Eva as the only dissident was overruled, and the plan went ahead.

  When the time came to dress for dinner, a maid brought two evening suits into the bedroom Daisy was sharing with Eva. The maid's name was Ruby. Yesterday she had been miserable with a toothache, so Daisy had given her the money for a dentist, and she had had the tooth pulled out. Now Ruby was bright-eyed with excitement, toothache forgotten. "Here you are, ladies!" she said. "Sir Bartholomew's should be small enough for you, Miss Peshkov, and Mr. Andrew Fitzherbert's for Miss Rothmann."

  Daisy took off her dress and put on the shirt. Ruby helped her with the unfamiliar studs and cuff links. Then she climbed into Bing Westhampton's trousers, black with a satin stripe. She tucked her slip in and pulled the suspenders over her shoulders. She felt a bit daring as she buttoned the fly.

  None of the girls knew how to knot a tie, so the results were distinctly limp. But Daisy came up with the winning touch. Using an eyebrow pencil, she gave herself a mustache. "It's marvelous!" said Eva. "You look even prettier!" Daisy drew side-whiskers on Eva's cheeks.

  The five girls met up in the twins' bedroom. Daisy walked in with a mannish swagger that made the others giggle hysterically.

  May voiced the concern that remained in the back of Daisy's mind. "I hope we're not going to get into trouble over this."

  Lindy said: "Oh, who cares if we do?"

  Daisy decided to forget her misgivings and enjoy herself, and she led the way down to the drawing room.

  They were the first to arrive, and the room was empty. Repeating something she had heard Boy Fitzherbert say to the butler, Daisy put on a man's voice and drawled: "Pour me a whisky, Grimshaw, there's a good chap--this champagne tastes like piss." The others squealed with shocked laughter.

  Bing and Fitz came in together. Bing in his white waistcoat made Daisy think of a pied wagtail, a cheeky black-and-white bird. Fitz was a good-looking middle-aged man, his dark hair touched with gray. As a result of war wounds he walked with a slight limp, and one eyelid drooped, but this evidence of his courage in battle only made him more dashing.