House of Gold

by Natasha Solomons

  The plans had been drawn up by the same architect who had designed other Goldbaum residences, and it was as if the excesses and whims he’d been asked to curb in his other commissions had finally been indulged here. The house was inspired by the palaces of the Valois kings – it was a vast French chateau nestling in the Hampshire countryside. It sat poised on a ridge, the trees and valley falling away below. It was built from Portland stone, with a façade of arched windows over three floors crowned by a steeply pitched gable roof in grey slate, with several conical towers rising to sharp spires. At the front the great house stood alone in a semicircular moat of driveway, large enough for fifty cars.

  It was more like a hotel than a home. Every comfort and luxury had been imagined and the servants anticipated each whim, sensing when privacy was required and immediately withdrawing. Even the Baroness would have been satisfied with the plumbing. There was an abundance of bathrooms, and the water was always hot. Anna never needed to run up and down stairs to fill a basin or bath with jugs from the kitchen. And there was a telephone on every floor.

  As well as modern luxuries, the house was stuffed with other kinds of treasures: paintings, porcelain, tapestries, carpets, furniture and clocks. At midday and midnight the place shrilled with the chiming of nearly a hundred clocks along the West and East Galleries. It was the sole task of one of the footmen to tend to these clocks, to wind and oil them – as attentive to their caprice as the gardeners in the greenhouses to the orchids and out of season fruits. Despite his best ministrations, they could never all be kept precisely to time, and they rang out continuously for nearly five minutes on the hour and half-hour. Time itself was marked with more panache by the Goldbaums than by other people.

  The house’s collections were truly remarkable, greater than those of nearly all the public museums. Yet despite the lavishness of the treasures, it seemed to Greta a house without a history. Before the construction of the present mansion in the 1890s there had stood on the site a small Elizabethan manor. Only a single fireplace remained. Everything else was newly built or bought in. The exquisite panelling in the breakfast room was taken from a chateau in the Loire, dating back to the reigns of the Louis kings. That in the Grey Salon came from a town house in Paris built for an immensely rich financier and rival of the Goldbaums. They defeated him in business and, if that was not enough, purchased the interior of his dining room when his house was sold. In the same room hung three portraits of George IV’s mistress, the actress, poet and beauty ‘Perdita’ Robinson as painted by Gainsborough, Romney and Reynolds. These dazzling eighteenth-century portraits had nothing to do with the Goldbaums, except that they thought them beautiful and could afford to buy them. The house was bursting with paintings of lovely strangers – like paid guests invited to a party to make it more scintillating. They owned the best of other, more ancient families’ histories, sold off a duchess at a time by nobility who were unable to pay the interest on their land debts. A quartet of countesses smiled wanly from each wall in the Yellow Drawing Room. The Goldbaum family history was too recent to have its own such display. The Goldbaums had been painted by Whistler and Singer Sargent and Renoir, but since their fortune went back only a generation or two, so did their family portraits. The most treasured possession was a tiny painting of old Moses Salomon and Esther Hannah Babette Goldbaum, seated in their modest parlour in the Frankfurt ghetto, by an unknown artist. It was the least expensive of all the collection and the most valued.

  Greta could have borne the house. She would have wandered among the towering indoor palms, the Riesener desks and gilded wall lights commissioned by Marie Antoinette and converted to electricity by Lord Goldbaum, and could have learned to appreciate their splendour, if only she could have liked Albert more. That moment of generosity before the wedding remained the only happiness, like a balloon in an otherwise empty sky. She returned to it again and again, insisting to herself that a man who was usually bound by convention, but who had found courage in that one moment to offer her freedom in the face of social and familial condemnation, must be a good man. In fact he was a better man than one for whom the social niceties meant nothing. She tried very hard not to regret her decision to marry him.

  They did not go to bed together the night of the wedding. Or, rather, they had lain side-by-side, exhausted, terrified, too tired to sleep and too nervous to touch one another. Greta had considered reaching out and brushing his hand, but it seemed so absolute that the first touch must come from the bridegroom that she did not. At last Albert had announced, to the relief of both of them, ‘Let us commence the business of marital relations once we’re established at home.’

  Yet the business had not commenced. An entire week of nights passed without Albert appearing in her bedroom. Greta felt increasingly anxious. Anna dressed her each night in a silken nightdress, combed her hair and scented behind her ears. Each morning the maid would enter, an eyebrow raised, and Greta would shake her head, humiliation burning in her cheeks. She had some fears about the marital act, but the absence of it worried her more. The notion of going to bed with a stranger was discomforting, but she was reconciled to her duty, and at least Albert’s person was not repellent. And if they took the time to spend some days together, then perhaps they could go to bed for the first time, if not as ardent lovers, then at least as affectionate acquaintances. Albert, however, avoided her. Greta began to dread that she would still be a virgin at the end of her honeymoon.

  By the time she appeared downstairs after breakfast (married ladies breakfasted in bed, recovering from the supposed trials of the night), Albert had invariably gone. He left profound apologies that he’d had to go up to town; he was out on an expedition to seek a rare species of moth glimpsed in the barley fields. They met at dinner, where they exchanged pleasantries and retired to bed, alone.

  After more than a fortnight had passed, Greta decided that something must be done. She was prepared to refuse him one time in three, as was her instruction, but the Baroness had offered her no advice on how to manage this difficulty. Albert’s passions must be inflamed, but how did one go about such a thing?

  At first she’d tried to arouse his interest by asking him about the Boucher paintings of young mistresses with blouses undone to reveal a hint of décolletage as they flirted with older men, hoping that their eroticism might encourage Albert, but he described their history and acquisition without so much as a flicker. She supposed that, considering the number of exquisite Watteau nudes in the dining room – during one particularly dreary dinner she’d counted thirteen nipples – he was inured to artistic suggestiveness. She decided to try again, this time by engaging him in his own passion. If she could not awaken desire, then she could at least gain his attention. She asked Albert to show her his insect collection.

  He turned to her in surprise, his initial dismay on seeing her at breakfast vanishing in an instant.

  ‘Certainly. Certainly. I have matters to attend to this morning, but after luncheon perhaps, if you are not busy?’

  Greta was not.

  He found her after luncheon on the loggia, sipping tea amongst the pots of blue hydrangeas.

  ‘Shall we?’

  He offered her his arm, for once in perfect equanimity. If Greta was pressed, she might even have said that he hummed a tune. As they entered the house, it seemed to her, as always, that they exchanged day for night. She blinked against the gloom, her eyes taking a few moments to adjust. Clement had told her that when the family was up in town, the entire house was shuttered to preserve the collections, and the maids had to clean by torchlight.

  Albert led her up the stairs to a suite of rooms on the second floor. Bookshelves lined the walls and a large mahogany table stood in the centre of the largest room, empty except for several Tiffany desk lamps especially commissioned in clear glass. Vast cabinets stood beneath the bookshelves, taking up every inch of wall space – there was not a single painting or adornment. Even the ceiling lights were simple and scientific, rather than decorat
ive. It smelled of lavender and camphor, faintly medicinal. The blinds and curtains were open and the room was filled with summer sunshine, and as she looked out onto the gardens below, Greta realised she could glimpse the shimmer of the sea in the distance.

  ‘What a glorious view,’ she declared.

  ‘Yes?’ answered Albert, as though he’d never really noticed. ‘If you could just step back, I need to shut the blinds before I can open the display cases. The specimens are damaged by the light.’

  My God, thought Greta, everything in this house is precious and fragile and damaged by light. I couldn’t love anything that had to be swaddled in darkness. I can’t bear it. If I had a passion, it must thrive in sunlight. Grow fat in it, not wither.

  ‘This red light is gentle and doesn’t harm the specimens while we’re choosing. I’ll put the white light on, once we’ve decided what to examine, so we can see them properly.’ Albert’s voice was filled with an excitement Greta had not heard before. It was endearing, and she wished she’d asked him to show her the collection earlier.

  He pulled open a drawer and lifted out a glass display box, stuffed with butterflies, and placed it on the table. He stood and switched the red light to an ordinary white one.

  ‘These are all English butterflies. Mostly ones I’ve collected from around the estate. They are not the most spectacular, or at least not at first. They’re not like the Swallowtails or Giant Monarchs, but I like them the best. Those who think they’re ordinary or drab simply don’t know how to look.’

  He pulled out a chair for Greta and they sat side-by-side. Their knees touched and Albert, either not noticing or not minding, did not move away.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Look,’ and it was an imploration.

  Greta leaned down over the case, taking his magnifying glass, and tried to see what he saw. A dozen butterflies lay before her, white and yellow and brown and sapphire-blue, their bodies softly furred.

  ‘This is a Brown Hairstreak. A female. Look at the black-and-white stripes on her antennae – aren’t they marvellous?’

  Greta agreed, not wanting to disappoint him.

  He smiled at her. ‘I’m so glad you like her. So glad.’

  He showed her case after case of butterflies and other insects: trays of beetles, from tiny crimson ladybirds to glossy stag beetles, their fearsome horns echoing those of the antelope and deer antlers mounted in the corridors below; vast orange-and-black Monarch butterflies from California, the size of birds and more extravagantly coloured than any of the paintings in the Goldbaum collection.

  ‘I think they’re more beautiful than anything else in the house,’ said Greta, truthfully.

  ‘I quite agree,’ said Albert, with some emotion.

  ‘Will you show me the Greta aurum?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, of course. What a good idea.’

  He slid out another drawer, placing it reverently on the table.

  ‘This is she.’

  He pointed to a small gold butterfly, its thorax coated in soft grey fur, a tiny black mark like a mole on the upper part of its wing. He reached out and brushed above Greta’s lip with his fingertip, where she had a little brown freckle.

  ‘See, it is you.’

  Greta parted her lips and kissed the top of his finger. Albert hesitated, staring at her and then, seeming to have come to some sort of decision, leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth, gently at first and then with more force. Their teeth touched, and Greta felt his tongue pushing into her mouth, warm and intrusive as a caterpillar. He stroked her hair and then tugged it loose, pulling it and forcing her head back. He started to kiss her neck and then nimbly unfastened the buttons around her throat and then lower still, until her corset and the tops of her breasts were exposed. With one hand and without stopping kissing her, he unbuttoned her stays. Albert, Greta realised, was definitely not a virgin.

  He paused, but only to reposition the trays of insects laid out on the table, moving them further away. The safety of his specimens could not be endangered by passions of the flesh. He tugged her to her feet and lifted her onto the table, nudging her legs apart with his knee. Greta was torn between relief – the act, it seemed, was happening at last – and discomfort. The library table was solid oak. She was also puzzled; considering his enthusiasm for the task at hand, why had he waited this long? Yet, as he continued his attentions, Greta found herself quite unable to ask herself any more questions and discovered that, despite the uncomfortable library table, she was starting to enjoy herself. This was not something the Baroness had warned her about.

  Albert laid her back carefully on the table, finding a cushion to place beneath her head, and began to fumble with his trousers. For once Greta was grateful for the gloom, not feeling up to the close examination of yet another unfamiliar specimen. Her bosom was now exposed and Albert kissed each nipple in turn, murmuring endearments. Greta found herself arching towards him, not in the least reluctant, and helped him to slide up her skirts and find her stocking tops. Albert, she observed with considerable satisfaction, was no longer tidy. He’d lost a button on his shirt, his tie was skew-whiff and his trousers hovered around his knees. He paused for a moment to remove them altogether, flinging them aside. He kissed her again and reached down, trying to guide himself inside her. Greta flinched in surprise at the intrusion, flinging her arm back so that she caught it on one of stacks of glass insect trays, which tumbled and broke as it fell, cascading glass and beetles and huge brown moths all over her. They rained on her hair and across her face. Greta screamed.

  Albert recoiled in horror, thinking for a moment it was he who had caused her to call out. She struggled to sit up, crying out and clawing at her hair, catching wings in her fingertips.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No. Get them off me. Get these God-awful things off me!’ cried Greta, yanking at her hair and pulling insects from her skin.

  ‘Please be careful, they’re very fragile,’ said Albert.

  Greta looked at him askance, unwilling to believe that in such a moment his first concern was his specimens and not his wife, and hurled a fat black beetle at him. It missed and broke against the wall. She straightened her dress as best she could, removing a large moth from her bosom and placing it on the table. Albert plucked the last few insects from her hair and deftly set them aside, making no remark. She looked at him, her shock subsiding, and waited for him to laugh. It would be all right if only he laughed.

  He did not.

  ‘You’re definitely not hurt? Did the glass cut you?’ he enquired, polite and unsmiling.

  ‘No.’

  He was already dressing, adjusting his tie. She sat on the table in disarray, trying to button her blouse and doing them up all wrong, in her confusion.

  ‘I’m all right. It was just a shock. That’s all.’

  He looked at her coldly. ‘I understand. The “God-awful things” revolt you. I’d thought that, despite everything – miracle of miracles – we might share some common interest. But tell me honestly: are you interested in entomology in the least? Or was this all some trick?’

  ‘Trick?’ Greta was angry now. ‘A trick to persuade my husband to spend five minutes in my company? Or to persuade him to make love to me? Forgive me, but I hadn’t known that tricks were necessary. Do you find my person so repulsive? Or is it my character?’

  Albert stared at her. ‘“Of course I do not love you. But I’m afraid that… we shan’t even like one another very much.” You wrote that, didn’t you?’

  Greta could only nod.

  ‘You made your feelings towards me very clear. That I was a man you didn’t even like. How could I come to your bed? I’m many things, Greta, but I’m not a man who wants to force himself upon a woman, even if she’s my wife. Pardon me for trying to spare you something that was clearly so abhorrent to you.’

  Greta felt damp with shame. She wanted to explain that, because he’d given her a choice, she did not dislike him. That the act of love, even without love itself,
was intriguing to her – even though ladies were not supposed to admit such a thing. That the insects on her skin repulsed her, not Albert himself. She tried to find the words in her mind, wishing that for once in her confusion she could simply express herself in German.

  ‘I think that one day I could like you, Albert,’ she said at last.

  He gave a little snort of irritation. ‘Well, if you do, let me know. But do make quite certain. You change your mind a good deal.’

  He stared at her, his face set with disappointment. ‘You are very young. Father said it would be better to wait a year or two.’

  He turned to leave. Greta called to him, desperate to salvage something, wanting to tell him something that was absolutely true. ‘I did like the butterflies. Really I did.’

  He hesitated, his hand on the door knob.

  ‘Everyone likes butterflies,’ he said, and left the room.

  Greta sat on the library table, hugged her knees to her chin and cried. This was how Anna found her some ten minutes later, having been sent by Albert to attend her mistress. That evening Greta shook Anna off as the maid attempted to scent behind her ears, and the next morning she breakfasted meekly in bed. Greta and Albert did not speak of the event again. In fact, unless they could help it, they hardly spoke at all.

  The only cool day was that of the coronation on 22nd June. It was proof, everyone declared, that God was indeed an Englishman. A breeze fluttered the leaves on the lime walk in Temple Court park and sprayed the water rising from Neptune’s fountain into a fine mist. Clement was relieved at the respite. He was a fat man and he disliked the heat immensely. He would have preferred to be slimmer, but he liked food more than he liked the idea of being thin. The only pleasure he savoured more than eating was playing chess, although a half-pound bowl of chocolate-coated Brazil nuts or candied orange peel often helped him concentrate on the game before him.