House of Gold

by Natasha Solomons

  She barely noticed her reluctance towards motherhood ebb away. It disappeared, slowly and absolutely, melting like frost in the sun. If the child was a girl, she’d give it a flower’s name – but which one? Finally, confident of her own happiness, she told Albert. His joy was not abstract or rooted in a sense of family. It was personal and absolute. It lasted three days. On the fourth, Greta began to bleed, only a little at first, then a torrent of pain and black blood.

  The doctor came and diagnosed a miscarriage. She could not have been more than three months along was his guess. It was a pity, of course, but she was young and healthy and in time there would be another baby, a stronger one.

  ‘Now you’re a gardener, aren’t you, Mrs Goldbaum?’ asked the doctor, after she had been tucked back into bed, pale-faced and desolate.

  She nodded.

  He continued. ‘A baby is like a seed. Some germinate and flower, but others never do. We don’t know why. It is the mystery of life. You can call it God’s will, if you like.’

  Greta did not want to call it God. It was an unnamed sadness. She begged Albert not to tell anyone. It was their shared disappointment. The first thing they had lost together. It had not yet been a baby or a person, but it had been the hope of one, the possibility of a family, and that was gone. At first Greta believed that the fact no one knew, and there had been no outward sign of her pregnancy, would make it easier. But it did not. It was as if she had never been pregnant at all; there was no mark upon her body or the world. Her loss was internal. Nothing had changed except for Greta herself. Before, she had not wanted to be a mother. She had agreed to try for the baby out of obligation and resignation. Now she longed for one with a franticness that took both her and Albert aback. Nothing could fill the hollowness except a baby. She was furious with Albert when he refused to make love to her in the weeks after the miscarriage, worried about hurting her, damaging her womb. She cried and tried to dig up the allium bulbs, insistent that she could not bear to see them flower and reproach her. When she found one, it was starting to germinate, a tiny green shoot like a curved finger pushed out of the bulb and, suddenly guilty, she buried it again.

  All anyone else could speak of was Ireland and the bill for Home Rule, the whisperings of civil war. Otto found it an odd experience to be an outsider resident in a country in the midst of a national crisis. The Goldbaums were conservatives and unionists, and Otto, as a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, could not help but sympathise. If countries were permitted to secede from political union according to religion or nationality, then England and Ireland would only be the first. Europe would break apart, the map redrawn like a checkers board into a series of thumbnail nations. Yet the prospect of war between fellow countrymen was abhorrent. The Ulster Volunteer Force approached the House of Goldbaum for a donation of ten thousand pounds. Albert rejected them out of hand, appalled that they had come to him.

  Otto saw the first strands of grey brushing his cousin’s temples. He knew that Albert worried about the constant labour strikes, and civil war in England and Ireland, but most of all, he worried about his wife. With Lord Goldbaum in Hampshire and Clement rarely in London, Otto and Albert often found themselves dining alone together at Number One, Park Lane. Albert complained that no sooner did he arrive in Parliament to attend a debate on Irish Home Rule at the House of Commons than he was summoned urgently to the House of Goldbaum, as the price of gold and other safe commodities soared in these uncertain times. Neither Albert nor Greta divulged to Otto the reason for her present unhappiness, and Otto did not like to pry.

  Otto and Albert tried to divert Greta with their news, when they returned to Hampshire at weekends, but it was clear that she was distracted and could not attend. All she took in, with apparent relief, was that the Germans had dropped out of the naval race. Otto was amongst the first to know. The German government requested from the Berlin House no further loans to pay for dreadnoughts. The Berlin cousins confided in Baron Peter, who told his son, who shared the information with Albert and Greta.

  ‘I’m exhausted by all the lazy chatter of Germans as warmongers,’ said Greta. ‘All they want is the same as us: peace and sunny afternoons.’

  A fortnight later, Otto received another report. The Berlin House had received a request for a loan: the German government wished to re-equip the army. He shared this information with Albert, but by mutual accord neither man mentioned it to Greta.

  By the middle of October, Lord Goldbaum was considered well enough to start receiving the minutes from meetings at the London House. They were returned with scribbled notes in the margins, to which Albert was expected to pay close attention. At the end of the month, when the leaves on the beech trees in the park at Temple Court were burnishing gold, Lord Goldbaum summoned Otto to his rooms. He was sitting in his dressing gown at the bureau, surrounded by neat stacks of correspondence and typed reports. He glanced up and gestured to an upright chair beside the desk.

  ‘I hope you consider your time in England to have been useful, Otto. Your experiences in the London House will serve you in good stead when you leave us. But, even more importantly, your friendship with my sons will strengthen the bonds between the Houses.’

  ‘So I take it I’m to be sent back to Vienna, sir?’ asked Otto. He and Albert had delayed any suggestion of his return, hoping that Lord Goldbaum’s present incapacity was an excellent reason to prolong his stay.

  ‘The cousins have been discussing America again, this time with resolve. We require a presence on Wall Street. Fifty years ago we made a mistake, and every year that there is no House of Goldbaum in New York, we compound it. The decision has finally been made to start a bank there. Each of the European Houses will provide capital. It will take a decade to establish, twenty-five to turn a modest profit. The man who is to go there must determine to make America his home, and his nation, for the rest of his life.’

  ‘And the cousins wish that man to be me?’

  Lord Goldbaum shifted in his chair, tucking back in the cord of his dressing gown around his ample middle.

  ‘We consider you able, qualified and the most suitable man in the family.’ He adjusted his spectacles and studied the younger man. ‘But you must want to go to America, and eventually to become an American. You would represent the interests not only of the Goldbaums, but of America. And, I’m afraid, since we are so late in our arrival in the New World, you will have fearsome rivals – the Fricks, the Rockefellers and the Astors. We are on good terms with them, assisting with their European business. You might not find them quite so accommodating when there is a House of Goldbaum on Wall Street.’

  Otto was very quiet, considering. Everything that appalled him about Vienna – the decaying Empire and Emperor, the stultifying society – promised to be transformed in America. If Europe was winter, then America was spring. Poor Jews were pouring out of Russia and arriving in America in a flood. Why shouldn’t the wealthy join them?

  ‘May I have a few days to consider?’

  ‘Take a week. This is not a decision that can be undone.’

  Otto said nothing to anyone. He was being offered an adventure – or the closest a Goldbaum heir could come to one. It might not be an exploration of the stars, but it did involve new worlds. He resolved privately to accept the offer, his excitement tempered only by the prospect of telling Greta.

  Quite unable to sleep, he finally completed his paper on Celestial Mechanics, sending the article to the journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. On Saturday evening, as they held a dinner for the German Ambassador, Prince Karl Max, at Temple Court, Otto found himself discussing his paper. The Prince was particularly popular with Greta and Adelheid, who engaged in a constant battle to persuade their guest to converse with them in German. Aware of his diplomatic position, in addition to his penchant for all things British, Prince Karl Max insisted on speaking English, while they – equally intent on demonstrating their warmth towards his nation – answered only in German. It made conversation for the non
-bilingual somewhat baffling.

  Greta leaned across the table, reaching for Otto’s hand.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve written another paper. I’ve been nagging you for months to write something.’

  ‘Does this mean you’d like to read it, Mrs Goldbaum?’ asked the Ambassador, in his beautiful English.

  ‘Heavens, no!’ answered Greta, switching to German. ‘I’m afraid I lack my brother’s starry gifts. My talents are muddier.’

  ‘Indeed they are. You have to see my sister’s garden,’ said Otto. ‘It is the German ideal of an English garden. She has even thatched her house.’

  ‘You have not!’ said the Ambassador, amused. ‘It must be the largest cottage in England.’

  ‘It is indeed thatched. Whether it is a cottage, you must decide for yourself, Ambassador,’ said Greta, still in German. ‘Now, what size are your feet? We’ll need to lend you some boots, if you want to see the gardens. They are particularly filthy at the moment.’

  The English rain was certainly something he would not miss, decided Otto.

  The following morning being Sunday, the Goldbaums politely asked the Ambassador whether he would like to attend church. After he had equally politely declined, Otto walked with him to Fontmell to tour the gardens.

  ‘It is good to have an ally like yourself in such a position within the English House of Goldbaum,’ said Prince Karl Max.

  ‘Not for much longer, I’m afraid,’ said Otto. ‘And you must know that while I’m here, my loyalty is towards the British Goldbaums.’

  ‘Of course,’ demurred the Ambassador.

  ‘And let us say that I ask this so that I can reassure my sister: the German nation and her government want only peace, despite their investment in the army?’

  The Prince smiled and bowed. ‘The army, as you know, is a nineteenth-century relic. It is unequipped for the modern world. As far as I can see and as far as I know, there is no reason to fear war.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The Ambassador raised his bowler hat in acknowledgement. It amused Otto that the German Ambassador looked more impeccably English than the average country squire. His suits were cut in Savile Row and his hats were from Lock of St James’s, his moustache oiled and clipped. Since yesterday he had somehow found a pair of English Wellington boots. All he lacked, decided Otto, was a Labrador.

  ‘And the Kaiser is so chastened by his humiliation that he’s hardly interfering in government at all,’ said Prince Karl Max.

  ‘And leaving all military decisions to his generals,’ said Otto with unease.

  ‘For a young man, you worry too much,’ said the Prince with a smile. ‘The Kaiser is presently confining himself to shooting Pomeranian ducks and writing his memoirs. All of us who aren’t Pomeranian ducks should be relieved.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Otto, trying to smile at the Ambassador’s joke.

  They found Greta waiting for them on the terrace.

  ‘I’m sorry that you’re not seeing the gardens at their best,’ said Greta. ‘Summer is colour and scent and flash and show, but then autumn is all about texture and sound.’ She led them down to the wilderness beyond, running her fingers along a feathered bank of pampas grass.

  ‘Listen to the wind in the larches. It sounds like rain.’

  She plucked a transparent seedhead of honesty and pressed it into the Prince’s hand.

  The vista was clear all the way down to the Fontmell river, a fat silver streak gleaming amongst the wide salt marshes on either side. A murmuration of starlings rose and fell, sweeping through the air in a single movement, each bird a limb of the same colossal being. The flock of starlings joined another, merging as smoothly as two pools of ink on blotting paper, until the murmuration was a vast black arrow rushing across the sky, darkening the clouds, turning and switching.

  ‘I think that, through the wonder of your garden, you have learned to love England, Mrs Goldbaum,’ said Prince Karl Max with a small smile.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I have,’ said Greta. ‘Still, one inevitably misses home.’

  ‘You can always visit,’ said Otto.

  ‘Yes, perhaps. But it isn’t the same.’

  ‘A German garden is not so different from an English one,’ said the Prince. ‘We share the same love of flowers and colour and texture. And peace, in which to enjoy it.’

  Greta had almost convinced herself that she was expecting again. Her monthly had not come and she was almost ready to consult the doctor. To distract herself she supervised the cutting of nearly fifteen thousand small holes for crocuses under the cedar trees on the lawn, to commemorate Albert’s election as MP for Fontmell West – one purple crocus for each vote cast for him. The fresh air and planting did not revive her, it only made her tired and sore. She retreated to her bedroom to rest and almost immediately fell asleep.

  There was a horrid bang, almost like a gun going off, and she awoke with a start, disoriented. Padding across the room to the window, she saw the imprint of a bird against the glass and, opening it, saw a wood pigeon caught in the ropes of rose thorns beneath the sill. Its neck was twisted at an odd angle and it lay quite still, stunned and unable to flap. The only movement was the slow blinking of its eyes. Greta watched it, disconcerted. It must be in pain, but unlike a person it could not scream, and with its neck broken, it could not flap or fuss. It stared at her with wet black eyes. She wished it would hurry up and die. If she rang for Anna, the maid would come and wring its neck and put it out of its misery, but somehow she couldn’t bear to do that, either.

  She closed the curtains and retreated to bed, but all she could think of was the bird dying just outside the window. What had she been doing when Claire and the baby were busy dying? The shot of Claire’s gun must have been infinitely louder than a bird flying into a window. She slipped out of bed and opened the curtains. The wood pigeon was still alive, blinking at her. She closed them again. She sat down at her dressing table and realised that she had begun to bleed. There was no baby after all. A heaviness descended over her and she indulged in private tears of frustration and regret. It was the bird. It had brought death with it, she decided wildly. Flinging open the window, she rustled the creeper so that the small body of the wood pigeon tumbled earthwards, landing with surprising heaviness on the terrace below. Greta could not bring herself to look.

  There was a knock at the door and Anna entered with a note on a silver tray.

  Greta took it with impatience. Otto was asking himself to dinner. Usually she would be glad to see him, but today the prospect of any company filled her with dread.

  ‘New York? You are really going?’ she asked, incredulous and dismayed.

  ‘You could visit,’ said Otto.

  ‘Yes. Every few years. How often have Mama and Papa been to see me in England?’ she demanded.

  Otto did not reply, but tactically spooned his soup. He ought to have waited until the cheese course before telling her. He knew Greta would not be pleased, but the vehemence of her reaction took him aback. She’d turned quite white and abandoned any pretence of eating. Albert signalled to the butler to refill her glass and urged her to drink.

  ‘The packet sails regularly, Greta. And if it would make Otto happy?’ Albert said.

  ‘The ship will sink,’ she said, her face quite drained of all colour. ‘I know it will. The dead bird was a bad omen.’

  ‘Greta, you’re being quite absurd,’ said Otto, trying to laugh, but not finding it funny in the least. He’d known her obstinate and argumentative, but never irrational.

  ‘If you must leave us, can you not simply go to Vienna? At least there you are only a few days’ journey. A week at most. But America? We’d be lucky to meet half a dozen more times in this lifetime.’

  ‘If my ship doesn’t sink,’ said Otto, wryly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Greta, not smiling.

  Usually Fontmell dinners were a delight. The thick elm table was always left bare, the reddish gleam of the grain swirling in the firelight, and the fo
od was excellent, unfussy and decidedly Austrian in flavour: golden crumbed veal schnitzel with spätzle noodles and caramelised onions, crisp apple strudel with thick cream from the Temple Court herd of Jersey cows. But tonight Otto could not even find solace in the clear soup with Griessnockerl dumplings. Greta drained her wine glass and an unnatural pink flush appeared on each cheek. He realised she did not look well.

  ‘Greta, what is it? You seemed perfectly all right this afternoon with the Ambassador.’

  ‘I don’t like the thought of my only brother going to America. Isn’t that enough?’ Her voice was thin and petulant. She rose. ‘I shall leave you to your port,’ she said, quitting the room, despite the fact that the first course had not even been cleared.

  Greta retreated to the drawing room. A fire had been lit and it was too hot. She drew back the curtains and sat in the window seat, making patterns in the condensation on the glass pane. She knew that she was being snappish and unreasonable. She’d become used to Otto being here, and had succeeded in forgetting that his presence was not permanent. They’d been companions for most of their lives, so having him in England seemed perfectly ordinary. She opened the window and let the brackish air cool her face. She could smell the river mud. After a little while she heard Otto enter the drawing room. He stood behind her, watching her trace patterns on the pane.

  ‘Albert told me about the baby. Why didn’t you?’

  Greta shrugged. ‘Does one usually tell such things? It wasn’t even a baby. I’m not supposed to be so upset about such a little thing. A proper English wife would dust herself off and have another.’

  Otto sat down on the seat beside her. ‘I wouldn’t know how you’re supposed to feel.’