Page 85 of Winter of the World (The Century 2)

She moved her lips away from Boy's and spoke into his ear. "I'll do anything for my husband," she said.

Then she knelt down.

v

It was the wedding of the year. Daisy and Boy were married at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, on Saturday, October 3, 1936. Daisy was disappointed it was not Westminster Abbey, but she was told that was for the royal family only.

Coco Chanel made her wedding dress. Depression fashion was for simple lines and minimal extravagance. Daisy's floor-length bias-cut satin gown had pretty butterfly sleeves and a short train that could be carried by one page boy.

Her father, Lev Peshkov, came across the Atlantic for the ceremony. Her mother, Olga, agreed for the sake of appearances to sit beside him in church and generally pretend that they were a more or less happily married couple. Daisy's nightmare was that at some point Marga would show up with Lev's illegitimate son, Greg, on her arm, but it did not happen.

The Westhampton twins and May Murray were bridesmaids, and Eva Murray was matron of honor. Boy had been grumpy about Eva's being half-Jewish--he had not wanted to invite her at all--but Daisy had insisted.

She stood in the ancient church, conscious that she looked heartbreakingly beautiful, and happily gave herself to Boy Fitzherbert body and soul.

She signed the register "Daisy Fitzherbert, Viscountess Aberowen." She had been practising that signature for weeks, carefully tearing the paper into unreadable shreds afterward. Now she was entitled to it. It was her name.

Processing out of the church, Fitz took Olga's arm amiably, but Princess Bea put a yard of empty space between herself and Lev.

Princess Bea was not a nice person. She was friendly enough toward Daisy's mother, and if there was a heavy strain of condescension in her tone, Olga did not notice it, so relations were amiable. But Bea did not like Lev.

Daisy now realized that Lev lacked the veneer of social respectability. He walked and talked, ate and drank, smoked and laughed and scratched like a gangster, and he did not care what people thought. He did what he liked because he was an American millionaire, just as Fitz did what he liked because he was an English earl. Daisy had always known this, but it struck her with extra force when she saw her father with all these upper-class English people, at the wedding breakfast in the grand ballroom of the Dorchester Hotel.

But it did not matter now. She was Lady Aberowen, and that could not be taken away from her.

Nevertheless, Bea's constant hostility to Lev was an irritant, like a slightly bad smell or a distant buzzing noise, giving Daisy a feeling of dissatisfaction. Sitting beside Lev at the top table, Bea always turned slightly away. When he spoke to her she replied briefly without meeting his eye. He seemed not to notice, smiling and drinking champagne, but Daisy, seated on Lev's other side, knew he had not failed to read the signs. He was uncouth, not stupid.

When the toasts were over and the men began to smoke, Lev, who as the father of the bride was paying the bill, looked along the table and said: "Well, Fitz, I hope you enjoyed your meal. Were the wines up to your standards?"

"Very good, thank you."

"I must say, I thought it was a damn fine spread."

Bea tutted audibly. Men were not supposed to say damn in her hearing.

Lev turned to her. He was smiling, but Daisy knew the dangerous look in his eye. "Why, Princess, have I offended you?"

She did not want to reply, but he looked expectantly at her, and did not turn his gaze aside. At last she spoke. "I prefer not to hear coarse language," she said.

Lev took a ci

gar from his case. He did not light it at once, but sniffed it and rolled it between his fingers. "Let me tell you a story," he said, and he looked up and down the table to make sure they were all listening: Fitz, Olga, Boy, Daisy, and Bea. "When I was a kid my father was accused of grazing livestock on someone else's land. No big deal, you might think, even if he was guilty. But he was arrested, and the land agent built a scaffold in the north meadow. Then the soldiers came and grabbed me and my brother and our mother and took us there. My father was on the scaffold with a noose around his neck. Then the landlord arrived."

Daisy had never heard this story. She looked at her mother. Olga seemed equally surprised.

The little group at the table were all very silent now.

"We were forced to watch while my father was hanged," Lev said. He turned to Bea. "And you know something strange? The landlord's sister was there as well." He put the cigar in his mouth, wetting the end, and took it out again.

Daisy saw that Bea had turned pale. Was this about her?

"The sister was about nineteen years old, and she was a princess," Lev said, looking at his cigar. Daisy heard Bea let out a small cry, and realized this story was about her. "She stood there and watched the hanging, cold as ice," Lev said.

Then he looked directly at Bea. "Now that's what I call coarse," he said.

There was a long moment of silence.

Then Lev put the cigar back in his mouth and said: "Has anyone got a light?"

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