‘I just don’t see how it’s possible,’ she said to her father an hour later as they dined together. ‘I’ve tried, truly I have, but I always feel a foreigner.’

‘Well, that’s because you are a foreigner,’ her father said with Yorkshire bluntness, helping himself to another slice of ham.

Aware that he didn’t realize how deep her sense of alienation in Berlin was, she laid down her fork and said, ‘Zelda is a foreigner too, but she doesn’t feel like one.’

‘Ah, well. Zelda wouldn’t.’ He helped himself to more pickle. ‘Zelda is a typical member of her caste. Like many others belonging to New York’s social elite she has the will power to always adapt to her immediate surroundings.’

Seeing that she still looked deeply troubled, he said gently, ‘And you mustn’t forget, my dear, that Zelda is accustomed to living in the hurly-burly of a big, sophisticated city. Berlin isn’t as different to her, as it is to you. And I don’t think city-bred people have the same strong sense of place that people born and brought up in the country have. Give it time and you’ll acclimatize just as Zelda has.’

Not wanting her father to become concerned about her, Vicky merely nodded, keeping her doubts to herself.

‘And now tell me how Berthold is enjoying being an industrial tycoon,’ her father said, broaching the subject he was most eager to know about. ‘Has it been a smooth transition period for him?’

Vicky paused, wondering how she could best explain to her father that Berthold loathed every single aspect of his position as head of the House of Remer and that it was Josef who, in everything but name, had stepped into Harald Remer’s shoes.

‘He relies very much on Josef,’ she said evasively.

Her father helped himself to more mustard. ‘With the European situation as unstable as it is at present he needs to keep a firm hold of the reins. I would hate to see the House of Remer becoming as heavily involved as the House of Krupp where the manufacturing of armaments is concerned.’

Vicky smiled. ‘The House of Remer doesn’t manufacture armaments, Papa.’ She laid her knife and fork side by side on her plate. ‘If it is as hot tomorrow as it has been today I’m going to take Paul for a picnic down by the river, and perhaps now he’s seven we could find him a bicycle to ride.’

The next afternoon, when she and Paul returned from the banks of the Ure with an empty picnic hamper, a small bicycle was propped against the stone balustrade of the terrace.

‘I was talking with Adam Priestley this morning in the Wool Exchange at Bradford,’ her father said, his thumbs tucked into the pockets of his waistcoat. ‘He’s William Priestley’s son and has grown up to be a fine wool man, just like his father. I mentioned our need of a child’s bicycle and he had this spanking-new BSA sent from Keighley.’