Fall of Giants

Maud Fitzherbert was surprised to find herself in love with Walter von Ulrich. On the other hand, she would have been surprised to find herself in love with any man. She rarely met one she even liked. Plenty had been attracted to her, especially during her first season as a debutante, but most had quickly been repelled by her feminism. Others had planned to take her in hand-like the scruffy Marquis of Lowther, who had told Fitz that she would see the error of her ways when she met a truly masterful man. Poor Lowthie, he had been shown the error of his.

Walter thought she was wonderful the way she was. Whatever she did, he marveled. If she espoused extreme points of view, he was impressed by her arguments; when she shocked society by helping unmarried mothers and their children, he admired her courage; and he loved the way she looked in daring fashions.

Maud was bored by wealthy upper-class Englishmen who thought the way society was currently arranged was pretty satisfactory. Walter was different. Coming as he did from a conservative German family, he was surprisingly radical. From where she sat, in the back row of seats in her brother’s box at the opera, she could see Walter in the stalls, with a small group from the German embassy. He did not look like a rebel, with his carefully brushed hair, his trim mustache, and his perfectly fitting evening clothes. Even sitting down, he was upright and straight-shouldered. He looked at the stage with intense concentration as Don Giovanni, accused of trying to rape a simple country girl, brazenly pretended to have caught his servant, Leporello, committing the crime.

In fact, she mused, rebel was not the right word for Walter. Although unusually open-minded, Walter was sometimes conventional. He was proud of the great musical tradition of German-speaking people, and got cross with blasé London audiences for arriving late, chatting to their friends during the performance, and leaving early. He would be irritated at Fitz, now, for making comments about the soprano’s figure to his pal Bing Westhampton, and at Bea for talking to the Duchess of Sussex about Madame Lucille’s shop in Hanover Square, where they bought their gowns. She even knew what Walter would say: “They listen to the music only when they have run out of gossip!”

Maud felt the same, but they were in a minority. For most of London’s high society, the opera was just one more opportunity to show off clothes and jewels. However, even they fell silent toward the end of Act 1, as Don Giovanni threatened to kill Leporello, and the orchestra played a thunderstorm on drums and double basses. Then, with characteristic insouciance, Don Giovanni released Leporello and walked jauntily away, defying them all to stop him; and the curtain came down.

Walter stood up immediately, looking toward the box, and waved. Fitz waved back. “That’s von Ulrich,” he said to Bing. “All those Germans are pleased with themselves because they embarrassed the Americans in Mexico.”

Bing was an impish, curly-haired Lothario distantly related to the royal family. He knew little of world affairs, being mainly interested in gambling and drinking in the capital cities of Europe. He frowned and said in puzzlement: “What do the Germans care about Mexico?”

“Good question,” Fitz said. “If they think they can win colonies in South America, they’re deceiving themselves-the United States will never allow it.”

Maud left the box and went down the grand staircase, nodding and smiling to acquaintances. She knew something like half the people there: London society was a surprisingly small set. On the red-carpeted landing she encountered a group surrounding the slight, dapper figure of David Lloyd George, the chancellor of the Exchequer. “Good evening, Lady Maud,” he said with the twinkle that appeared in his bright blue eyes whenever he spoke to an attractive woman. “I hear your royal house party went well.” He had the nasal accent of North Wales, less musical than the South Wales lilt. “But what a tragedy in the Aberowen pit.”

“The bereaved families were much comforted by the king’s condolences,” Maud said. Among the group was an attractive woman in her twenties. Maud said: “Good evening, Miss Stevenson, how nice to see you again.” Lloyd George’s political secretary and mistress was a rebel, and Maud felt drawn to her. In addition, a man was always grateful to people who were polite to his mistress.

Lloyd George spoke to the group. “That German ship delivered the guns to Mexico after all. It simply went to another port and quietly unloaded. So nineteen American troops died for nothing. It’s a terrible humiliation for Woodrow Wilson.”

Maud smiled and touched Lloyd George’s arm. “Would you explain something to me, Chancellor?”

“If I can, my dear,” he said indulgently. Most men were pleased to be asked to explain things, especially to attractive young women, Maud found.

She said: “Why does anyone care what happens in Mexico?”

“Oil, dear lady,” Lloyd George replied. “Oil.”