Love to love ya, not fade away.
4
The following morning found Daisy—or, DeeDee, as her larger friend was now intent on calling her—feeling a little bit under the weather, not herself at all, really. On the previous evening, she had plied herself with one too many glasses of the local Rhenish, and had allowed herself to be sung to and had danced to more songs from the seventies than her sore brain cared to remember. It would appear that she, the Prince, and the little people had partied long into the night.
All things taken into consideration, then, it hardly seemed surprising that, while preparing to dress for a day’s salmon fishing on the River Dee with Charles—to be accompanied by the Q.M., who had muscled an invite for herself, under the guise of there being a grave necessity for a chaperone; and, to be followed by a go at grouse hunting with Phil; afterwards to return to the castle, for a final intimate dinner with the immediate family and an evening of games—that, in her haste, Daisy never even noticed the discarded Star of David where it lay, offering mute accusation, still upon the counter of the bathroom sink.
“Coming, Charles!” she shouted through the door when summoned, hurrying out to meet him.
In fact, our girl was so busy now—on the verge of becoming such a social centerpiece, really—that her failure to see the chain is perhaps to be understood and forgiven.
Or perhaps not.
November
1
November had finally come to the city of London. Along with the naturally inevitable maturation of the seasonal calendar, the time came for rolling up the shirtsleeves and getting down to brass tacks, for acting one’s age, for getting serious.
Well, sort of.
Elizabeth II, Queen of England, Defender of the Faith (what did that mean exactly?), Leader of the Commonwealth, blah, blah, blah, was on her way to the House of Lords in Westminster. She had a date with Parliament.
She was traveling by state coach, clip-clopping along the Mall, doing the equine version of the proverbial snail’s pace, in order that the faithful (perhaps those whose fullness, her job description demanded that she defend?) who had come out early to line the roads might be rewarded with a glimpse of Her Majesty in all of her glory. This was the only time of the year that the Queen had occasion to wear the monarch’s traditional robes and crown, and those who still held the monarchy dear to their hearts, as being a viable and even essential part of British life—not to mention, those who liked to play with color, or those with a fondness for black leather and metal spikes on Saturday night would never miss the chance of witnessing this ultimate display of THEM finery. If the United Kingdom could be said to represent one united Us (with the exception of THEM) – as opposed to a divided Us and Them, then it could likewise be argued that that Us was clinically described best as a schizoid personality.
But why quibble? Besides, there were really only a couple of rabidly anti-monarchist bad seeds who actually threw things at the passing carriage, the tomato (pronounced with a distinctly long American “a” sound) being the favored weapon of revolutionary fervor.
All dysfunctional relationships aside, the Queen’s planned route had been designed in advance. Like Orion in winter, or the anal retentive itinerary of a cheap Caribbean cruise, her course had long been carved in stone. Her path would take her along the Mall, escorted by the household Cavalry. It would convey her to parliament, there to be greeted by the fanfare of trumpets. Her ultimate goal, of course, was the reopening of that august governing body, which, inbreeding the House of Commons with the House of Lords, liked to go under the single, more simplified—if no less unified—heading of Parliament. Thus, it had always been, and thus, it should always be. Ho-hum.
Contentious bills, infighting, filibustering, snoozing M.P.s bored out of their faithfully elected skulls—all could be safely expected to appear upon the docket within the coming year.
But what of change, what of progress, what of flies in the ointment?
Undoubtedly, these would crop up as well, although no mention was made of such possibilities in the Queen’s restrainedly upbeat opening speech. But, then, when christening a ship—even the Titanic—it was customary to employ Champagne, as opposed to, say, Raspberry Vinaigrette. Suffice to say that, in the year to come, it was to be expected that there would be a healthy dose of cynical idealism and childish rumor-mongering as well; all the better to ensure that the wheels of government did not grind too smoothly, nor lead the populace to believe that its leaders might be relied upon to act their ages.
In the interests of keeping awake 650 M.P.s in the House of Commons—not to mention, all of those dukes, archbishops, barons, etcetera, ad nauseum, and that stick that kept coming into contact within the House of Lords—who knew what new and titillating names would have to be bandied about within the debating chambers? Who knew what scandals would need to be unearthed? Who knew what lengths these individuals might go to in their collective relief that it wasn’t themselves who were caught out “dropping trou” this time?
All that one could indeed be certain of was that Daisy Silverman’s second, soon-to-be cruel stepsister had finally reawakened following its summer slumber, its perversely reverse hibernation. And that, before long, the roused beast, stretching its arms out and yawning a hungry hello to the world, would once again need to be fed.
2
The Second and Third in Line to the British Throne were enjoying a rare tramp around the grounds of the palace in the company of their father, the man who—through genetic entitlement and the purported will of God, if not through personal inclination—was still referred to in some circles as being the Next in Line.
“So,” the Next began, drawing an enormous breath for fortification, and almost swallowing a bee, which had absolutely no business being around the flowers at B.P. this late in the season but, what with the unseasonably warm weather—what with all of the global warming and ice caps melting and all of that other terrifying rot—what was a future monarch to do?
“What do you boys make of Daisy?” was the question that the Next finally succeeded in spitting out, placing the issue squarely on the table.
“Well,” replied the Second, hesitating, one eye on some sort of ground animal that had just scampered off under the bushes, the other eye, as ever, firmly focused on a diplomatic future. “She’s not exactly like our mother, now, is she?”
“Nor will she ever be,” put in the Third, crossing his arms, his fists clenched in a decidedly obstinate fashion. His own training, regarding the fine art of verbal finesse, had been, unfortunately, sorely neglected in favor of his elder brother. “We already had one of those. Ya know?”
“Yes, of course you did,” hurriedly soothed the Next. “And that is eminently fair of you to point that out to me.”
The Next paused as his ears registered what sounded like a gunshot coming from the general direction of the Duke’s quarters, a man who had only ever been in line for the loo.
“When will Father learn not to play with his guns out of doors?” the Next wondered, grasping his earlobe between his thumb and forefinger, and shaking it, in order to silence the ringing.
Turning his attention back to the boys, he decided that it would be most positive to proceed with the negative, crossing his fingers that the worst-case scenario did not, in fact, prevail. “But, it’s not as though you hated her, or anything drastic like that, is it?”
“Oh, no,” relaxed the Second, vastly relieved that “not hating” was all that was going to be required here. “As a matter of fact,” he waxed expansive, “one is rather impressed with the way she never seems to mind falling off a horse.”
“Yeah,” snickered the Third, just a smidgen nastily.
“Ya know” and “Yeah”? thought the Next. And there ensued a lengthy lecture on the hazards of viewing too much American television via the palace satellite dish.
“And I like the way she never minds making an ass out of herself either,” finished the Third, at last receiving the
opportunity to complete a thought.
The Next proceeded to tick off the points made, using his fingers to count them, while aloud he verbalized the salient features. “So, what we have here, then, is: ‘doesn’t seem to mind falling off of a horse’; and, for you,” he said, indicating the Third, “‘never minds making an ass out of herself either.’”
The Third nodded his head once, decisively.
“Hmm,” mused the Next, clearly puzzled by it all as he unconsciously gave his lower lip a chew.
But then his eyebrows lifted, his outlook seeming to brighten considerably. “Well, I suppose that’ll have to do then. How about those fireworks tomorrow evening—probably be a simply stupendous show, what?”
3
Like a misguidedly ethnocentric anthropologist, Daisy was experiencing some degree of difficulty in understanding the British traditional celebration of November 5 as being Guy Fawkes Day. After all, she hailed from a country where just cause for a holiday tended to be more black and white. You waved flags on the Fourth, because you had won the war; you marked December 7 off as a day of remembrance because the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. It therefore seemed downright peculiar to be commemorating a day by, in effect, magnifying the positive within a potential negative; hard to credit one of the most rained upon and reigned upon cultures in the history of the world being possessed of a more optimistic outlook than their American counterparts. But then, there you had it.
Guy Fawkes Day, for the uninitiated, represented the national observance of the 1605 failure of the eponymous malcontent to blow up the Houses of Parliament. This accentuation on the bright side, with its insistently upbeat focus on an event that did not in fact occur, impressed one as being something akin to the Americans creating a Squeakie Fromme Day (“Thank God that little twerp didn’t succeed in shootin’ Ford. Maw, let’s all have us a weenie roast!”) or, perhaps, a Day of Bay of Pigs (what with the American propensity for creating acronyms everywhere, it could become known as Do-BoP, which could be kind of cool). Could the Benedict Arnold White Sale be so very far behind?
Yet, if Daisy was having a tough time figuring out how the supposedly grim, stiff-upper-lip Brits had managed to outpace her own people in the lightheartedness department—through their blithely incisive appreciation of the fine art of barely averted disaster—she was finding that she was experiencing zippo trouble in reaping the rewards of the celebratory fallout. For, if the temporarily distant and wholly irrelevant fact that some overzealous sniveler with a bad aim had failed to level, through lobbing as opposed to lobbying, an entire legislative body—and this, some three hundred and ninety years previous—meant that on this day Daisy would be able to stand amid the protective camouflaging of an arbor of trees, while fireworks exploded overhead and her favorite beau stood with his arms about her, nuzzling her neck and snugly holding her from behind, then she was all for it. Damn the torpedoes and try not to drown.
“Fuvrthawtf mm mm mm eed?” enquired the Future King of England, almost drowsily.
“What?” Daisy giggled, shrugging a shiver as he nibbled on one of her earlobes.
“Fsowoodu mm mm mm mm mm mm mm me?”
“What?” she asked a second time, as he proceeded to attack the other ear. It would appear that elocution and romance made for a strange stew. Daisy wriggled out of his embrace and, turning, faced him. “I can’t hear a word you’re saying when your nose is in my ear,” she laughed. “What did you say?”
“I said, or rather, asked, ‘Have you ever thought of getting married?’”
“Oh, Charles,” Daisy whisper-sighed, supporting her elbow with one hand, while the other hand covered her mouth, in an attempt to either keep the flies from coming in through that orifice or to prevent anything truly idiotic from flying out. “Are you nuts?”
Eschewing military advice, the Prince decided to ignore the question of his temporary sanity for the time being, choosing to proceed without caution instead.
“And then, DeeDee,” he hurried on in a rush, as though intent on spitting it out before his nerve had a chance to desert him, “I asked, ‘If so, would you consider doing it with me?’”
“Oh, Charles,” she almost whispered the words this time. “Are you nuts?”
“Quite, er, possibly, hmm, perhaps. That is to say, still and all…” and as he was pronouncing this eloquent speech, a velvet jeweler’s box materialized in his hand. He extended the box to Daisy.
She opened the lid to reveal a ring that, while some might call it a tasteful setting, had a rock on it that was nearly the size of her head.
“I can’t… We can’t… How can we… Can we?” she stammered in confusion, proving, once and for all, that the art of rhetoric had indeed fared no better on the other side of the Atlantic.
“There are a few minor details to work out, of course,” he allowed, with an expansively dismissive wave of the hand. “But, details…”
This was all getting to be too much too fast for Daisy. While a part of her was more than willing to be swept away by the emotional forces that were tugging at her heartstrings, a more rational voice in her head was pleading for just a little more time on terra firma.
She cast about for a temporary stopgap, hoping to pull a parliamentary action, and thus, avert potential disaster, or at least for the time being. With that noble aspiration in mind, she located a loophole and through it she leapt.
“How ’bout we just live together for a while?” she suggested, with an apologetically wincing shrug. “Maybe see how we like it first?” Then she waved the velvet jeweler’s box in the air. “And do you think that, just maybe, we might keep this between the two of us as well? Just keep it under our hats until we’re both sure of what we’re doing?”
“Fine,” he smiled, the victorious crack of fireworks and the visual sparkle of Daisy combining to produce an aura of confidence. “Whatever it takes.”
• • •
In a strictly humanitarian sense, all men had always counted with Daisy, but it was fast becoming increasingly safe to say that, now, there was one man who counted far too much.
4
Daisy spent her last night at the Hotel Russell staring out the window, in the direction of the British Museum. She was wondering if, before the car came to collect her tomorrow, she’d have time to go across and perform some zero-hour research. She had remembered reading in a history book, once upon a time, in a different life—while cramming for a hoped for, but never to materialize, appearance on Jeopardy!—that there was something loose in the world that was referred to as the 1701 Act of Settlement. She recalled that this document, while hardly fodder for scintillating cocktail party conversation, ensured that the Future King of England could not marry a Roman Catholic. What she was desperately hoping to learn was if there was any fine print on the damned thing. Did it, for example, say anywhere that he was likewise prohibited from marrying a Jew?
As the evening hours ticked by, what with nowhere to do her research and Bonita being out on what she described as—hold the phones!—a date, Daisy found herself growing antsy. Feeling as though she were living out something akin to teetering on the cusp, the dividing line between the Before and After pictures in a scam weight-loss ad—but not feeling sure which side she was starting from or which side she was transcending to—she decided to take a walk about town, enjoy the bracing London night air, revel in her final moments of freedom.
Her footsteps took her down past Oxford and Regent Streets, where she noted that the Christmas lights had already been turned on in anticipation of the coming season. As she wandered the streets aimlessly, she sought to breathe in as many of the city smells as possible, in order to store them up in her memory, for she had the feeling that the place where she would soon be going would be another world complete unto itself. But as she hurried along the pavement, pitter-pattering, her heavy sweater bundled snugly about her, she found that a curious thing was occurring: the scents, which at first were quite vivid, were beginning to fade. And as s
he scurried, trying to catch up with them, she found her frustration growing along with her sense of the cold.
In desperation, she finally sought refuge in the very first welcoming place that she saw, the only place that she could think to turn to on a bitter, odorless night. Like her father before her, on the eve of a cataclysmic event in her life, Daisy Silverman sought refuge in a church.
As she entered at the portals to St. Martin-in-the-Fields, opposite the National Gallery and overlooking Trafalgar Square, her thoughts went back to a nervous Herbert Silverman, ants filling his pants on the eve of his wedding day to Rachel. Unable to sleep, and cursed with having been born in a generation before the advent of 24-hour everything, he had wandered the streets, looking for someplace—anyplace—to kill some time. Finally, unable to stand the cold anymore, he had found that, in a pinch, a Catholic church could serve as a haven for a nice young Jewish boy from the Bronx pretty much as well as anything else could, and the priest there had proven surprisingly sympathetic on the topic of jittering self-doubt. When God gave you lemons, as Herbert became so fond of saying in later years, only a schlemazel would fail to make a glass of lemonade.
And, if the environment that Daisy now found herself in impressed her as being just a touch hermetical, at least she was safe there. But as she gazed up at the cross, hanging there above the altar, she couldn’t help but wonder just what in the world she was letting herself in for.
5
A Maxfield Parrish sky hung over the city of London on the morning that Daisy made good her approach, the sound of the team of six’s hooves clip-clopping merrily along the Mall, the metallic clang of shoe against pavement making her advancement evidently audible to anyone with sense enough to open up their ears and just shut up and listen for a change. Sunbeams shot through the trees that lined the lane, creating the kind of light that granted one the belief that otherworldly things might be possible on a given day.
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