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"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 good night." 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' dinnertime, 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 color 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 skeptically. "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.
