‘This business with the budget?’
Albert sighed. ‘According to my father, it isn’t a budget but a revolution.’
Otto raised an eyebrow. ‘Surely it can’t be quite as bad as all that?’
Albert shook his head. ‘I worry that it will be the end of England as we know it, one way or another. The government is taking down the constitution, brick by brick. My father led the charge in the House of Lords to block the budget and now they want revenge. This is a war against us and our class, make no mistake.’
Otto was silent. He was less sure than Albert as to which class he belonged. In Vienna the moneyed, privileged Jew was in a class parallel to that of the privileged Christian. They were never quite grafted onto the establishment’s tree. Otto was unhappy to hear that Lord Goldbaum was at the forefront of political dispute, for he’d been taught to understand that Goldbaums must labour unobtrusively behind the seat of power, instrumental but overlooked. He was troubled at the thought of Greta’s father-in-law as the figurehead of a hopeless and much-vilified campaign.
Albert set down his glass without having raised it to his lips. ‘Everyone here is fretting about German naval ambitions. Ought we to match them and have four dreadnoughts, or eight or twelve? We are arguing about naval deterrents when England is already at war with herself.’
‘At least you can distract yourself with something other than wedding preparations,’ said Otto, attempting to lighten the tone. ‘That is a silver lining.’
Albert did not laugh. In fact, if it was possible, he looked more apprehensive still.
After tea, Albert led Greta in to view the wedding presents. Two saloons had been set aside for this purpose, and yet still they were not large enough. Clients of the Goldbaums from all over Europe had sent tokens expressing felicity and gratitude, in the silent hope of generous terms in future negotiations. Tables heaved with silver dinner services from President Armand, and Persian rugs from Emperor Franz Joseph himself. The British Empire was expressed in miniature: hand-painted wallpaper from China, a carved chest from the Maharajas of Rajasthan filled with finely coloured rugs, an ivory jewellery box from Ceylon. The butler recorded the names of the giver in a black bound book and displayed the name on a little card before each gift. A string quartet played while the invited guests inspected the assembled treasures. Greta escaped the minute she could, wishing that so many strangers had not been quite so generous, requiring so many hundreds of thank-you letters. If she had remained a moment longer she might have overheard Albert remark that he found the habit of ingratiating gift-giving obsequious and excessive. If he had wanted a set of eighteenth-century porcelain finger-bowls adorned with dancing bears, then he would have purchased them himself.
The wedding was to take place at half-past two the following afternoon, and to Greta it felt like an execution – if not of her life, then of part of herself. She might remain a Goldbaum, but she would lose her name: Fräulein Greta Margot Esther Goldbaum would become absorbed into Mrs Albert Goldbaum like blood into rust. Unfortunately, it was quite clear to Greta that Albert required a proper Englishwoman as a spouse: someone who not only knew who to seat beside whom at dinner, but who fretted with quiet gravity over the consequences; someone who could both recite the names of the hothouse flowers and embroider them onto a cushion with elan. Greta did not want to be a good wife. She did not wish to check the quarterly wage bill of the servants or ensure that sufficient lavender was gathered during July to scent a year’s worth of laundry. She had been a dutiful daughter for twenty years and the prospect of a lifetime playing the role of compliant wife, charitable patroness and dedicated hostess was too awful. She pushed aside the uneasy question as to what it was that she did want.
Instead, she resolved upon action. It was her moral duty to warn Albert of her own inadequacies. It was an act of conscience, she reasoned. She might not want him as a husband, but he certainly would not want her as a wife.
After retiring for the night, she sat at the desk in the window in her nightdress and set out her faults at length, adding a few more to be on the safe side. The Baroness would have marvelled at her contrition:
I’m afraid that I do not believe our marriage will be a happy one. Of course I do not love you. But I’m afraid that, after a year or two, we shan’t even like one another very much. And why should we agree to live in the murky unhappiness of our parents? For once let us be brave. Let us refuse to do this thing that is expected of us. Say you won’t marry me. Tell them that you won’t do it. Let this be the one act that we perform together: tell them no. Then we might have a chance at happiness. And after all, that’s all anyone can ask for – a little chance.
She rang the bell and pressed the letter into Anna’s hand, speaking to her in rapid German.
‘Give this to a porter and tell him to take it to Park Lane. He’s to wait for a reply.’
Anna blinked at her, eyes thick with sleep. ‘It’s nearly two. Mr Goldbaum will be asleep.’
‘Then wake him up. Hurry! Bitte schön.’
Greta paced the room. On the dressing table rested her jewellery box. The butterfly choker had been taken out of the hotel safe, ready for the morning. She unwrapped it and set it on the table. In the darkness the jewels looked black, simply the ordinary fragments of carbon that Otto delighted in telling her were all diamonds really were.
Anna returned. The porter had been dispatched. Should she sit with her and wait? No. Greta wished to be alone. The maid withdrew. Greta opened the window and listened to the growl and rattle of the city outside her window. She tried to imagine what she would do, if Albert agreed. She would have to leave London, but she couldn’t go back to Vienna. Her mother would not bear the shame of returning with her unmarried. She’d become a parable in the family story box, a warning to other wayward girls. But mingled with fear was a thrilling sense of possibility. Her father would have to grant her an allowance – enough for her to live on. A small house on Lake Geneva perhaps; she had been happy there. Otto would visit. Maybe he would follow her example and decline a Goldbaum bride. They could share a household in cheerful companionship. One day, she might take a lover. Someone who read novels and laughed a good deal, and asked very little of her.
It was nearly four o’clock. Where was Albert’s reply? A simple yes or no would suffice. She felt sick. Her nightdress stuck wetly to her back. It was unbearably hot. She rang for some ice. The door opened. It wasn’t ice; it was a letter. She read it, standing in the middle of the room.
‘What does he say?’ asked Anna.
Greta looked up, her face shining with tears.
‘No. He says no.’
The letter was brief and elegant. The hand that wrote it did not tremble. Albert expressed his sorrow that she felt such anxiety, but suggested that all brides, Goldbaum or not, were renowned for experiencing last-minute doubts. Her knowledge of her own faults – not that he accepted she possessed them – revealed a remarkable self-awareness and a humbleness of character of which he had been previously unaware. Indeed – he did not wish her to worry about it – he liked her more rather than less because of her outpouring. He wished her a good night’s rest.
Greta dried her eyes. She was angry. ‘Piffle! He doesn’t mean a word. He’s just a coward.’
‘My cousin Ursula ran away the night before her wedding,’ said Anna.
‘Even I can’t bring that much shame upon my family. I’m many things, Anna, but I am not a coward.’
Greta allowed the Baroness to supervise the battle over her treacherous curls. She hardly spoke, but everyone else chattered and argued so much that they did not notice the taciturn bride. They adjusted her veil and sewed fresh roses onto the toes of her silk shoes. Greta allowed herself to be preened and prodded without complaint. They pinned lily-of-the-valley in her hair and she noticed a bouquet of the same resting in a vase. Greta roused herself.
‘I asked for gardenias.’
‘Lily-of-the-valley is traditional in England. For society
brides,’ explained the Baroness.
Greta laughed. Gardenias had been her only request.
It was over one hundred degrees by twelve o’clock, and the Baroness selected the very lightest of lace shrugs for Greta to wear. Heat or not, a bride’s suggestive wrists must be covered in the synagogue.
‘You look tired,’ complained the Baroness.
‘I didn’t sleep,’ said Greta.
‘No, of course not, too much excitement,’ said the Baroness, almost tenderly. She kissed her daughter on the cheek. Greta started at the affection. She could not think of the last time her mother had touched her spontaneously.
‘You might decide in time that you like him,’ said the Baroness.
‘I might. But do you not find it miserable that no one even pretends love is a possibility?’
‘Of course it’s possible,’ said the Baroness.
‘Just unlikely.’
‘Love isn’t always desirable. It can be… ’ she hesitated, fumbling for the appropriate word, ‘messy. A sensible, restrained affection that never gets the better of one has much to recommend it.’
She plucked a stray petal from Greta’s shoulder and handed it to the maid to place in the wastepaper basket. She made no further remark about the possibility of love.
Greta and Baron Peter were conveyed to the synagogue along Piccadilly in the coach used by Lord Goldbaum on state occasions. It gleamed with gilt, the family crest emblazoned in blue and gold, the eyes of the five goldfinches picked out in lapis lazuli, the sycamore pods in glossy pearls. Inside the coach the cushions had been re-stuffed with new horsehair, and pinned below the windows were tiny crystal vases filled with yet more lily-of-the-valley. Yet beneath it all Greta could smell the musty scent of decay. The coach being pulled along by four silver-tailed horses was a relic, mouldering at the back of the Goldbaums’ coach house underneath a tarpaulin, while the Rolls-Royce and the Daimler and the Wolseley motored in and out.
Inside it was as humid as a greenhouse, and Greta felt herself wilting. Each time she tried to open a window, her father put out a restraining hand.
‘I promised your mother we’d keep them shut. She doesn’t want your dress to get spoilt.’
A film of grime coated everything like a second skin, and curls of smut floated on currents of warm air like flecks of black snow. The movement of the horses was rough, jolting Greta to and fro.
‘I feel sick,’ she said. ‘I need some air, or you’ll be carrying me swooning into the temple, and that will make Mother crosser still. You know she can’t abide women who faint – it reveals a wanton lack of self-control.’
The Baron considered the two evils for a moment and then acquiesced, opening the window. As they reached the Great Synagogue on Duke Street, Greta noticed a sizeable crowd had gathered on the pavement. Some of them waved Union Flags, while others had banners in blue and gold.
‘Oh dear,’ said the Baron. ‘Some are clerks from the London House, but I believe the others are hoping for a glimpse of His Majesty. He’d planned to attend, but is taken up with matters preparing for his coronation.’
‘Thank goodness for that. I hadn’t known there was a danger of his coming. Let us brave the disappointment of the crowd.’
The Baron handed Greta down and together they walked into the synagogue, through the cheers and the flags. The Baroness waited for them with two rabbis in the entrance, both sweltering in their black tailcoats.
‘Rabbi Reuben,’ said Greta, smiling on seeing a familiar face from Vienna, and for once wishing the law didn’t forbid her from planting a kiss on his bearded cheek.
He chuckled. ‘I don’t think you’ve ever been quite so happy to see me.’
‘No, I don’t think I have,’ agreed Greta.
‘Well, your enthusiasm for your wedding is wonderful. God will be pleased.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Greta. ‘I’m going to disappoint Him again. But He’s probably used to it by now.’
The Baroness cleared her throat in irritation.
Rabbi Reuben gestured to a side-room. ‘Shall we?’
They followed him into a flower-decked room where, to Greta’s relief, Otto was waiting. He poured her a glass of water and she gulped it quickly, her nausea subsiding. A high-backed chair had been garlanded with roses and white freesias, like Titania’s bower. Greta wished she felt more like a fairy queen and less like a rude mechanical. Rabbi Reuben motioned for her to sit upon the bridal throne.
‘Shall I summon the groom for the Bedeken?’ he asked.
Greta nodded. Her forehead itched with perspiration and she could see the Baroness grimace, longing to order one of the maids to dab at her. The door opened and a procession of Goldbaums entered: Lord and Lady Goldbaum; Albert’s brother, Clement, round and soft as a marshmallow and pink with heat. He winked at her, and she smiled before she realised that he too was blinking away the drops of sweat that rolled in a waterfall down his forehead. They murmured their felicitations of joy, and Lady Goldbaum – tall and elegant as a tulip, in a purple suit – leaned in close as though she was about to confide something and then withdrew, squeezing Greta’s hand instead. Where was Albert? It had taken Greta a moment to realise that he wasn’t there. The door opened again with a crack, and Albert stood in the doorway, looking paler and less tidy than Greta had ever seen him. His tallit was not on straight, and his yarmulke slid off his head.
‘I’d like a moment with the bride,’ he announced.
Every face swivelled to look at him in surprise.
‘A moment, if you please,’ he said. His voice was snappish, and the others looked at him in alarm.
‘Is everything all right?’ asked his mother with concern.
‘Perfectly, thank you. But I would like a moment’s privacy.’ He spoke firmly, in a voice expecting to be obeyed.
Lady Goldbaum glanced at her husband. He frowned, but gave a tiny nod and Greta watched in astonishment as the assorted Goldbaums filed out again. Under other circumstances she would have laughed. Albert took her hand and helped her step down from her throne of flowers. It was a perfectly ordinary room. Chairs had been laid out for the family, each one set with a blue-and-gold cushion, and the walls had been freshly whitewashed. But the parquet floor was worn and the only decorations were a series of dreary oil paintings of the last incumbent rabbis, with a full bushel of beards. Albert took a moment before speaking, and Greta looked around in silence without prompting him. When at last he spoke, it burst out of him in a rush.
‘I’ll do it. If that’s what you want. Hang the consequences!’
Greta stared at him.
‘I’ll call it off. You seem… well, pleasant. And I don’t like the thought of making someone miserable. And if you really think that I will, then, well, I shan’t marry you.’
For the first time in weeks Greta felt calm. The noise fell away. There was only Albert and the scent of a hundred freesias. At that moment she had a choice. She could disappear to her house of air on Lake Geneva or she could marry Albert, but it was up to her. His momentary act of bravery and rebellion made her wonder for a moment if, perhaps, she could find something to like in Albert after all. She hoped she wasn’t mistaken.
‘I’ll marry you,’ she said slowly.
The relief on his face was palpable.
‘Here,’ she poured him a glass of water. He swallowed it in a gulp, spilling some down his chin. She poured him another and he drank that, too.
‘Shall we ask the others to come back?’ she said after the third glass.
As Albert ushered them back inside, all of them scrutinising bride and groom with wary curiosity, Greta smiled. None of the others knew that she had freely chosen to marry Albert Goldbaum. It might be a good decision or it might be a bad one, but it had been hers.
TEMPLE COURT, HAMPSHIRE, JUNE
At night Greta dreamed she was lost. She found herself in some unfamiliar part of the house and couldn’t find her way back to her bedroom; the darkness grew tongues and hissed at her
on every side. She was always falling. Sometimes she dreamed she was on the roof, unable to find her way to safety, and she would slip and plunge over the edge. Or else she was at the top of one of the dozen staircases and missed her footing, and then she was tumbling over and over into nothing. She never landed. She would claw herself out of the fall, out of sleep, and find herself in bed, her nightdress and her hair sticking slickly to her skin. She’d ring the bell, summoning Anna to bring her a glass of water (there was already a jug on the nightstand) or a clean nightdress (beneath her pillow). Really she clung to the maid as the only familiar person, the sole remnant of home.
Greta felt a stranger to herself: perpetually off-kilter. She might be fluent in the language, but the nuances still tripped her. She wasn’t witty in English, or else she simply had no friends to amuse. She was treated with respect by the family, with deference by the servants, but with fondness only by Clement. Albert was polite. Solicitous. His manners were as meticulous as his person, but Greta never penetrated beyond the armour of his careful social self. She felt a perpetual guest.
The house was too big. It was the last calendar house to be built in Britain: it had three hundred and sixty-five windows, fifty-two principal rooms, twelve staircases, seven towers and four wings. In the fortnight that she had been a resident, Greta had not visited all of the rooms. She’d been lost twice and had to be rescued by a housemaid who, she was fascinated to discover, kept a map in her apron pocket, despite having worked there for nearly half a dozen years. There was a floor for the family bedrooms; a wing for visiting bachelors, with bedrooms, bathrooms, a smoking room and library; another for married guests of various social status. Queen Alexandra’s state bedroom was carefully dusted and set aside for the most important visitors, the blinds always drawn to save the fragile silks on the priceless wall-hangings from rotting in the light. To Greta, it appeared like a mausoleum, and she could imagine nothing worse than spending a night in such a chamber. A separate wing constructed around a courtyard housed the dining room and a city of kitchens: the bakery, the patisserie kitchens, the still room and stores for jams and preserves, meat lockers and the cavernous wine cellars, a cool subterranean tunnel nearly a quarter-mile in length.
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