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- Herausgeber: Allen & Unwin
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
The wedding of Thomas, an idealistic German architect, and Irene, an English artist, brings together the Curtius and Benson families. But their new lives are soon shattered by the outbreak of war in Europe. While Irene struggles to survive in a country where she is the enemy, her sister Sophia faces the war as a nurse on the Western Front. For their brother Mark, diplomatic service sees him moving between London, Washington and Copenhagen, all the while struggling to confront his own identity. Against a backdrop of war and its aftermath relationships are tested, sacrifices are made and Irene and her siblings strive to find their place in an evolving world.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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Giles Waterfield is an independent curator and writer, the Director of Royal Collection Studies and Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He is a trustee of the Charleston Trust and a member of the National Trust Arts Panel and the Advisory Panel of the National Heritage Memorial Fund. He is also the author of three previous novels including The Long Afternoon, which won the McKitterick Prize. He lives in London.
Also by Giles Waterfield
The Long Afternoon
The Hound in the Left-hand Corner
Markham Thorpe
First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2015
First published in Great Britain by Allen & Unwin in 2015
Copyright © Giles Waterfield 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Every effort has been made to trace the holders of copyright material. If you have any information concerning copyright material in this book please contact the publishers at the address below.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: 020 7269 1610
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com/uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Paperback ISBN 978 1 76011 200 4
E-book ISBN 978 1 74343 930 2
For my German friends
CONTENTS
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
PART TWO
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
PART THREE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PART ONE
1
The afternoon was idyllic, the warmth tempered by the faintest breeze, with only the tiniest clouds scudding through the sky. London was looking as handsome as it could. On the way to the church the wedding guests glimpsed the park, the riders in Rotten Row, the great houses on Park Lane, and every window box in Wilton Row was crammed with flowers: the whole city seemed to be celebrating the happy occasion.
As the guests filled the church, you could hardly imagine a mere two families could have so many friends, but the ushers were well prepared. English on the left, Germans on the right. Like two armies. That was the principle, but there were so many more English that after a while the ushers put the bride’s friends on the bridegroom’s side. ‘Let’s invade Germany,’ the English ushers muttered to one another, amused.
They were the nicest sort of Germans, you could see that at once. Watching the groom’s family arriving, the congregation agreed that you’d hardly know they weren’t English. Their clothes were almost exactly right: the men’s tail coats fitted immaculately, the women’s clothes were all they should be, the bridegroom’s mother had chosen the ideal hat for a woman of her years, dark blue with a discreet display of ostrich feathers that suited her serene features and her fine black hair. It was evidently a large family, led by the short and undeniably stout but amiable-looking father and this dignified mother. There were at least two brothers and several sisters, and men who must be brothers-in-law. The German ushers had beautiful manners, and spoke excellent English. Only their hair showed they were not English; it was cut unusually, in a straight wave over the head, with precisely delineated edges.
The groom was most presentable, tall and fair. The best man had to be one of his brothers, a slightly shorter, cheerful-looking version of him. They chatted easily to one another. Their morning coats were impeccable and must have been made in London. The bridegroom had apparently spent years in England studying architecture, it was not surprising he understood English ways. Irene Benson could hardly have done better, that was the consensus. It was said the groom’s father occupied a position at the Kaiser’s court, his mother came from a landed family. How could one believe the stories about war with Germany when one saw such a family?
‘They’re so like us,’ they murmured in the pews.
‘And look at our own royal family. . .’
‘And our beautiful new Queen Mary, such a fine young woman, and as German as can be.’
On the other side of the aisle sat the Bensons. Mrs Benson – small and slender, her face recalling youthful prettiness, her hair richly auburn – was extravagantly dressed. Her green hat was assertive, its ostrich feathers sweeping dashingly upwards so that when she moved, the upper extremities shook. Her dark green costume opened to reveal a handsomely embroidered blouse secured at the neck with a bronze-coloured neckband.
There was much whispering about her clothes.
‘She does look fine, doesn’t she? What a beautiful dress, most fashionable. Do you think she found it in Woollands? Or could she have gone to Paris, to Worth, even?’
‘It’s quite possible. They live very comfortably, you know. They say he is doing very well at the Bar. . .’
‘Yes, you’re always seeing his name in the papers – big cases. . .’
Mrs Benson gazed ahead, suppressing tears that were not due until later. Her son, a slight-looking young man, came to sit beside her, and there were some aunts and uncles and cousins. Clustered together was a group of young people who must be Irene’s artistic friends, the women in ill-fitting sludge-coloured dresses with fussy embroidery, and soft velvet hats, who surprised the congregation’s wandering gaze.
‘What odd-looking people. Who can they be?’
‘She was at the Slade, you know. She must have met them there.’
‘Look at that long hair, some of the men have hair on their shoulders. Artists, yes, I suppose they must be.’
‘Not even wearing morning dress. It’s too bad.’
‘I’ve heard she refused to be presented at court.’
‘Well, at least she agreed to a proper wedding.’
Everyone was set to enjoy the occasion. Why, complete strangers spoke to their neighbours in the pews, so friendly was the atmosphere.
The church was full. Even in St Paul’s Knightsbridge with its hundreds of seats there was hardly a spare place. The building trembled with polite rustling, waving of hands, craning of necks, whispering to spouses. The people in the galleries – the Bensons’ long-serving maids, clerks from his chambers, that sort of person – stared downwards. The guests below never looked up.
Ten minutes late, there was a bustle at the west entrance. The whispering gave way to an eager hush, the organ burst into a matrimonial march. The west doors were thrown open to admit Mr William Benson, with his daughter on his arm. His saturnine face was as composed as though he were entering a law court – appropriately for a King’s Counsel. But at the sight of the silks and muslins and feathers of the ladies spreading among the black morning coats like wild flowers across a ploughed field, the faces in the galleries merging into a single eager countenance, the white lilies in long silver vases, the sunlight transmuted into patterns of blue and pink and striking the face of groom and best man, his features softened. Though many could not see Irene’s face, they could all admire her tall slender figure in white satin stitched with pearls, and the lace cascading from the chaplet of flowers. She was followed by two little girls and a taller girl, all in gold dresses, and two small pages, their soft complexions adorned with drops of sweat, like little jewels.
Thomas Curtius turned and looked down the aisle. He looked concerned; it was a serious moment. The bride, encumbered by the drooping richness of satin, was a long while walking up the aisle. She moved proudly, upright and elegant. When she reached the front of the church she turned towards her family and gave the tiniest wave. Finally she reached the bridegroom. Then she threw back her veil in a bold, careless gesture, the lace tumbling round her, reached her hand towards him, smiled. Who would not be happy to receive such a smile, so frank, trusting, loving? Silently but powerfully, the congregation expressed its approval. They were a beautiful couple. They were clearly destined for happiness.
At St Paul’s they celebrated weddings almost every week, and the machinery was faultless. The vicar – handsome, urbane, silver-haired, as much at home in a drawing room as at an altar – assumed the air of kindly dignity, subtly modulated to fit the couple’s social status, that he had refined over several hundred ceremonies. The choirboys, hair smoothed, faces shining, rapidly inspected bride and bridesmaids before languidly surveying the congregation. They sang with melting beauty. The best man produced the ring at precisely the right moment. The couple’s responses were clear and confident. It was a perfect wedding. Except for the bird.
The bird was only a little bird – a swift, could it be? – but a noticeable one. People became aware of a faint fluttering that turned out to be beating wings. During the exchange of vows, a dark shape flew towards the middle of the church, and for a moment hung in the air. People involuntarily followed its progress round the church. The vicar, while smoothly intoning ‘. . . let no man put asunder. . .’, thought, I told Sturgess not to leave the gallery window open, it really is maddening. Then the bird halted, somewhere. It had not gone. As the organ burst into the ‘Wedding March’, it re-emerged and flew towards the chancel, landed on the altar rail to the amusement of the choristers, set out on another flight, its wings beating hard, narrowly avoided the altar, aimed for the east window. As though seeking escape, it flew against the glass, once, and then again, and then once more.
As the bridal pair reached the west door, the bird fell heavily into a mysterious space behind the altar, and did not reappear.
2
‘Pandora, darling, I asked you to tea for a reason. I wanted to show you the Golden Boxes. I think we should look at them together.’
‘Ah, the famous Golden Boxes. I thought you’d seen them all, with Granny.’
‘Only some of them. The history of her life was contained in those boxes, but she thought it best to forget. . .’ Dorothea sighs. ‘Have you had enough tea? And enough lemon cake? You must take it away with you, I know the young never have enough to eat. . .’ She pats the sofa beside her.
‘Someone might want to write her biography, I suppose. Could they do that from these boxes?’
‘Oh I hope not, at least not while I’m around, it would be too hurtful. Still, let’s look at the first box. Mother loved to keep things. . . Will you draw the curtains and turn on that light? And come and sit beside me.’ She peers at the fire. ‘That is, if you are interested.’ Reaching down, Dorothea pulls a piece of silk off a large box. ‘Well, here it is. The first of the Golden Boxes.’ She dusts it vaguely.
‘Does it need dusting, Ma? You’re always dusting. . .’ And Pandora laughs.
‘Oh that’s my métier. No, it doesn’t need dusting, you’re right. The studio was as clean as could possibly be. This box, it’s nearly all photograph albums.’ She pulls out a large leather-bound album. ‘This is Mother’s first album. Nicely labelled, you see, 1910. Mother was always precise about such things, she liked to keep her life in order.’
3
Nobody at the wedding reception seemed to read anything into the bird.
His parents had rented a house in Belgrave Square for the reception. They seemed mildly ill at ease in this pretend home, with its white and gold hall and its handsome staircase leading to the drawing rooms. But Mark, who at Cambridge had acquired a taste for uncomfortable grandeur, enjoyed the rooms and wondered if he would ever inhabit such a place himself.
The two families had hurried there for the photographs. There were pictures of the bride and groom on their own, with parents, with attendants, with their entire families. They took a long time to set up, particularly the last picture, which showed all thirty of them, arranged according to etiquette and height. Sophia made a fuss about being photographed, said she looked ugly and fat.
Keen to study the arriving guests, Mark had earmarked a vantage point halfway up the stairs. He loved to be an observer. Up the stairs the guests progressed, chattering like macaws. He supposed that, as a diplomat, he’d attend events like this all the time. He was excited by the idea of the Diplomatic Service. When Sir Ernest had taken him to lunch at the Travellers’ Club, it was flattering to be told he seemed wholly suitable. Sir Ernest could drop a word. ‘They still listen to me. I have a brief to look out for the right kind of fellow. . . You seem ideal: intelligent, a good First, you say; good background, character. No vicious tastes, I imagine?’ They laughed.
His little sister squeezed her way down the stairs, as though in search of something. This turned out to be him. ‘Do come out from there. It’s too unreasonable of you to hide. I’m having to work ever so hard and you’re a grown-up, you should be helping. Do come, Mark.’ He waved her away.
He had no friends of his own here. Of course, when he was married, he’d invite friends by the hundred. Not that he had hundreds of friends yet, but he planned to. If he could participate in the Season, he’d meet people like those glowingly confident young men one met from Trinity and King’s. These guests were not the sort of people he had in mind: lawyers and their wives, figures from the City, dons, one or two celebrated authors and several who scraped a living writing initialled reviews in John O’London’s Weekly, clever women who wrote pamphlets on the poor. And of course his mother’s new smart friends like Lady Belfield, about whom she was perpetually talking, though he wasn’t convinced they were as smart as she supposed.
In the reception line, Thomas was friendly and brisk. Irene spoke at length to the guests, particularly her artistic set. The Berlin contingent were easily recognisable, with their cultivated faces, different from the mild, untidy Saxons among whom Mark had lived last year. He’d been intrigued by Paul, one of Thomas’s brothers, whom he’d met the evening before. Paul was his own age, a student at Heidelberg. He had apparently mastered not only classical and German philosophy and literature, but English philosophy, literature and history as well.
Edward Jenkinson came up the stairs, talking to a dark, striking-looking girl Mark did not recognise. Edward, or Teddy, it was not clear which, was a new phenomenon in their family life. He seemed cheerful: clearly he liked a party. He waved jovially. ‘Hello there, not joining in?’
Mark could see his mother gesturing at him. She liked him to be seen, since, as she often told him, he ought to be less shy; he was special, people would enjoy meeting him. It really was time to emerge, into the friendly company of Uncle George and Aunt Lavinia and their children. They were a lively, good-humoured family; their optimism always encouraged him.
The reception was engulfed in vivacious noise. The hospitality was lavish. There was champagne, champagne, champagne, and Mosel provided by Thomas’s family, and vast quantities of little sandwiches and cakes from Searcy’s. By the time they were ready for speeches everyone was a little tipsy, glowing in the balmy afternoon, the long windows having been opened onto the deep balcony and the plane trees in the square.
Everyone enjoyed the speeches. Mr Benson was characteristically dry. He said he would miss his daughter but at last he’d be able to finish the book he’d been working on for ten years as his younger children were less demanding. He welcomed so many friends from abroad. He thanked his wife, his constant helpmeet. She laughed and cried at the same time.
Friedrich, the best man, apologised for his bad English – ‘I want to make better my English,’ he stated, ‘but not with an audience of five hundred people!’ He laughed at his own jokes, it was hard to resist. He said, in capturing Irene Benson, his brother had won Germany’s finest victory since Waterloo – ‘though the fighting was hardly less violent, and when finally my brother wins the battle, we are all thinking, will he ever win such a battle again? But Thomas adores England – do you know about this? When he is young, he comes to London to study the architecture – always the architecture, he talks about nothing else, except Irene, and maybe one or two other girls, but they are a long time ago, you understand. Then he comes home and we hear always about England, how fine it is, the people are so friendly, the houses so comfortable, the humour so amusing, we are driven mad. We all think he would like to be English, he wants to look English, he has his hair cut by an English barber, he uses English slang, and I have to tell you, someone once actually thought my brother was English – Thomas was delighted, even though this person was blind and deaf and came from Russia. So when I first came to England, I said to myself, I am sure I will not like this country. In Germany we are suspicious, you know. They say it is so old-fashioned and the people are pompous and cold. But after a few days, I realise I am completely wrong! England is wonderful, and beautiful too! I am a convinced Anglophile, within one week. Now I plan to come and live here and study business, so my English will be better than Thomas’s and who knows, I may find an English bride.’
He paused for a moment. ‘Of course, I cannot hope to find an English bride as beautiful, as kind, as good, as Irene. Now, with her, Thomas will become not only a fine man, but a fine husband and a fine father. With such a wife, he can face anything. Now, I say a few words in German.’ He drew himself up to his full height. ‘Und jetzt, meine Damen und Herren, ist es mir eine Ehre auf Sophia und die anderen Brautjungfern anzustoßen. To the bridesmaids.’
They drank the toast and clapped and even cheered, and the English guests remarked, surprised, how humorous he was.
It was Thomas’s turn. This was the man, Mark reflected, who was taking away his sister, but the speech disarmed him. Thomas thanked the Bensons for their kindness and recalled how he and Irene had met. Then he announced that he wanted to speak seriously. ‘I apologise, it’s our national failing.’ He hoped that in an age when Britain and Germany shared many noble objectives – improving social conditions at home, advancing technology and scientific understanding, teaching the arts of civilisation to primitive peoples – they would not forget the gentler friendships and emotions they shared. The British and the Germans were kinsmen, sprung from the same stock, united by years of friendship. He cited the extended connections between the royal families of Britain and Germany. He trusted that his marriage would follow this example. ‘Though ours will be a German house, it will also be English. I won’t undertake to try to transform Irene into a German, or indeed anything else – I know that, whatever I say, she will behave as she chooses.’ They laughed at that. ‘But I hope that in our new home we shall succeed to create a household and family that will unite the best of the English and the German traditions, and that our friends from England will feel, when they walk over our threshold, that they are at home.’ And then, rather slowly, he spoke a few words in German, and if they did not understand him, everyone appreciated the warmth and affection behind his remarks. ‘Laßen Sie mich mit einem Toast auf meine Braut beenden, an deren Hand durchs Leben zu gehen, mein Glück sein wird. Prosit!’
The guests raised their glasses and surrendered to the enjoyable emotions appropriate to a wedding. Then Mark saw in the midst of the artistic set a back turned on the bridal couple. So Julian had come, after all. Mark knew that when Irene had told Julian about her engagement, he had shouted, burst into angry sobs, vowed he would never speak to her again. Now here he was, red in the face, wearing a not-too-clean suit.
Other people’s lives were mysterious. Mark was thankful that he’d never had an affair, if it led to so much pain. But of course he too would marry one day.
His eyes returned to the new couple as they moved among their guests, Thomas in the lead, Irene a little flushed. He asked himself: this perfect love which means you lose yourself in someone else – was that what Irene felt for Thomas? Mark was sure it was what Thomas felt. But Irene?
There was a stir from the artistic corner, raised voices, jostling bodies. Julian emerged, pushing his way to the middle of the room until he was staring at Thomas, who, always polite, held out his hand to this stranger. Julian glared, moved towards the bride. He thrust aside the man she was talking to, and placed himself in front of her, legs apart.
Julian did not frighten Irene. ‘I am happy to see you here.’ She held out her hand. He raised it to his lips, kissing it fervently. She pulled it away. ‘I’m glad you could come.’ She took her husband’s arm and they moved away.
Mark was disconcerted when Julian caught his eye. But he only said, ‘Mark, hello. Happy occasion, eh? Pleased?’ Mark felt sorry for him. Julian was not such a bad fellow, it was just that love made him miserable. ‘I love her, you know that, I love her.’
‘Yes,’ said Mark.
‘I always have. You see, Mark, it’s not just a romantic dream. I just love her, everything about her, the whole woman. I can’t imagine ever feeling like this about anyone else.’
‘It might be best to try.’
‘I can’t.’ Then he pulled himself together, looked penetratingly at Mark. ‘She loves you very much. She was so angry when I mobbed you up at that party – sorry about that, old boy. She said, whatever I thought about you at first sight, underneath you’re as good as gold. You’ll miss her too.’
‘Yes, I shall.’
Julian was fiercer and yet softer than when they’d met before. He was like a dark hairy animal. For a moment he could see why Irene had liked him.‘Will she ever come back?’ Julian’s eyes glistened.
After a while, people moved downstairs to wave the couple off. Mark held back. In the almost empty drawing room he noticed himself in one of the long mirrors. Well, I suppose I don’t look so bad, he thought. Hair fairly much in order, face pleasant if rather flushed, features regular. Move on, Mark, he told himself. Looking at oneself in a mirror is not something a man does. Then he saw, reflected, someone looking in his direction. It was Paul, Thomas’s brother.
The two reflections regarded one another, Paul unsmiling but intent. Then Paul said, ‘You must be sad, that your sister leaves you, and comes to us.’
They went down the broad marble staircase together and joined the waiting crowd. A moment later, Irene and Thomas appeared in their going-away clothes. Mark kissed Irene goodbye, shook Thomas’s hand. Thomas put his arms round Mark. Mark stiffened, immediately regretted it.
As the couple stepped into the waiting Daimler, Mark was overcome by a sense of loss and hopelessness. He could not explain it. But the feeling did not last.
Paul turned to him, saying, ‘Will you show me something of London, my new brother-in-law? My new friend, I hope?’
4
Pandora and her mother sit surrounded by albums. But the albums have been arranged neatly, as though they are to be seen in a certain order.
‘Honestly, Mum, these wedding photographs are extraordinary. Look at them all, in their silk dresses and their tail coats, lined up like the royal family. When I’m married, if I ever am, I want the event to be about love and commitment, not about showing I belong to a superior social caste.’
‘Darling, I’m sure you’ll be running around naked celebrating Flower Power and smoking hash. Still, they look happy, don’t they?’
‘Your father was so handsome.’
‘I remember him as handsome when I was a little girl. That’s Aunt Sophia, frowning, hating having to wear a bridesmaid’s dress.’
‘I must go and see her one of these days.’ Pandora moves closer to her mother and squeezes her hand. ‘It’s sweet of you to show me these pictures. I hope it doesn’t upset you.’
‘These don’t upset me, no. The ones of Mother and Father in Berlin when I was a little girl, those make me sad.’
‘Who’s that young man beside your father?’
‘Freddy, that’s Freddy. He was the best man. I never knew him. They said Sophia was very fond of him. Two brothers marrying two sisters, what a thing that would have been. And that’s another of Father’s brothers, and that’s my German grandmother, such a wonderful person. All dead now, all dead, except Sophia. At least I suppose the Germans are dead, I really don’t know. Shall I turn the page?’
‘Who is this confident-looking person? Cousin Edward, it says?’
‘That’s Edward from Canada. You know all those Jenkinson cousins who’ve made so much money? He was their father. Shall we turn over?’ Pandora looks at her mother enquiringly. Her mother laughs. ‘You look just as you used to look when I was telling you fairy stories.’
‘It’s a pity you never wrote them down.’
‘Oh nobody would want to read anything by me. I remember Edward as large, and limping, and not keen on Germany.’ There was a pause. ‘There were rumours about Edward. . . Will you put some more coal on the fire, Pandora?’
5
One evening a few days after the wedding, Teddy and Mark sat in the drawing room drinking brandy. Dinner had been dull. Mamma had chatted about the wedding and how nice the Germans had been – things she had said already – and gazed adoringly at her nephew. Mark thought ruefully that he had been supplanted, as though Teddy were a long-lost son. Teddy, it seemed, was already making ‘contacts’, as he called them. He talked and talked, mostly about the shipping business in Canada. What he said was not dull exactly, but somehow crude. Papa had been almost silent, seemed distracted. Sophia occasionally asked difficult questions. Mark was glad when dinner was over.
Brandy was not usually drunk in that house, but now that Teddy had appeared, it seemed everything was possible. Once the others had gone to bed, Teddy sprawled on the sofa, his feet on an arm. His face was rosy to the point of redness but he was not bad-looking. He seemed unwilling to go to bed, pumped Mark for information.
‘What are your sports, Mark?’
Mark muttered about doing a lot of rowing at school (which was barely true) and the subject passed. The truth was, he hated playing games, was ashamed of his ineptitude.
Teddy was prone to generalisations about the world, and Canada, and Britain, and whole categories of people. He disliked the French (especially French Canadians), and the idle working classes, and Jews. ‘Jews, they’re trouble,’ he said. ‘Best keep out of their way.’ He had further aversions. ‘One of the problems with this country – thank God we don’t have too much of it in Canada – is you have so many fairies, as I understand. D’you ever come across them?’ Mark mumbled something like a negative. ‘Can’t be doing with them, a danger to the nation, the whole way we live.’
Mark did not comment. What a pain this man is, he thought.
Teddy wanted a job, preferably in shipping, and a wife. ‘A good straightforward girl, and if she’s got connections, so much the better – I’m a bit of an old cynic.’ And he laughed. ‘D’you know a lot of girls?’ He seemed disappointed when Mark said that at school you met none and at Cambridge very few, and that the girls you came across in a clergyman’s family in Dresden were not always electrifying. ‘We’ll work on it together,’ said Teddy. He had some introductions through people in Canada, he’d already arranged to call on a couple of chaps in the City. Clearly his sociability was well planned.
Towards midnight Mark began to feel so tired he could only nod. He wished Teddy would go to bed.
Teddy laughed. ‘You look fed up,’ he said. ‘You look as though you were thinking, who is this stupid colonial, why doesn’t he stop talking?’
It was exactly what Mark had been thinking and he laughed.
‘I am a colonial, but I’m not completely stupid. D’you know how I was brought up? We kept the whole story quiet, but you’d better know, I think. When Mother died I was ten, and I was taken in by the vicar of our church and his wife. They were kind to me, they had no children of their own, they wanted to adopt me but somehow that was not possible. I was sent to boarding school when I was twelve, a school for the sons of churchmen. The vicar fixed it, Uncle Matthew, as I called him. It was very hard, high-thinking, not much to eat, so cold in winter you’d not believe it, in chapel your breath came out in an icy puff. Then I went to university, money came somehow through Uncle Matthew, he said it came from my father, but – more brandy, old boy? – but I never believed that. When I met my father in Toronto not so long ago he was a broken-down old man, no good to anyone – tried to borrow money from me, in fact. No one loved me much except Uncle Matthew and Aunt Anne.’
Mark looked at him in astonishment. He was crying. Crying? His big blustering cousin Teddy, crying?
‘Sorry, old man,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to hear all this. I must be drunk. I am drunk. Anyway, just remember, I had to keep fighting. Money – I realised how important it is, it’s what shapes how we are. Anyway, when Aunt Elizabeth wrote and invited me to the wedding, I thought, well, why not? Why not get to meet my real aunt and uncle? Why not see the Old Country? And here I am.’
‘Mamma is delighted you’re here. It quite makes up for Irene. She adores you already.’
‘A great lady, your mother. She seems like a mother to me. I plan to stay. Anyway, don’t mind me if I talk on and on about the French, just a way of carrying on. Germans – Germans I do not like. . . Though they seemed pretty nice at the wedding. I think I’d better be going to bed. Good night, so glad I’m here. . .’ And he lurched out of the room, cuffing Mark over the head in a friendly way as he went.
Mark followed him, reflecting as he put out the lights that perhaps Teddy was not such a bad fellow, not so insensitive after all.
6
On the boat train they hardly spoke. The night in the station hotel had not been as she’d imagined. They were both so tired that they fell asleep as soon as they were in bed, and woke at two to find the light burning. Irene next woke to the bustle of the traffic and the station, and lay wondering what would happen when her new husband stirred. Not much did happen. He smiled, gave her a kiss, put his arm round her neck and pulled her head towards him. Then he said, ‘We must stand up and take our breakfast, we must be in good time for our train.’
The journey was quiet. She stared at the Kent countryside disappearing behind them, she found its prettiness comforting, as she always had when setting out to Paris or Dresden or Florence. But this time she was leaving for good. Each oast house, each church, seemed to be joining in a chorus of farewell.
Thomas had bought a book at the station that identified the historic buildings they would be passing, and from time to time he refreshed Irene’s memory. This involvement in the past was not something she was used to. The last thing in the world she and her friends had ever done was look at old buildings; what they liked was to talk about the Post-Impressionists and Wyndham Lewis and Maeterlinck. But she felt it was good for her.
‘Your countryside is so gentle. Wait till I show you Bavaria, you will love it, so dramatic, so spiritual. Sadly there is nothing to show you around Berlin, just scrub and woods.’
They still spoke English to one another, though she’d insisted that in Berlin they’d speak German. ‘We shall be a German couple, we must be German through and through,’ she’d said sternly.
He’d smiled. ‘Perhaps on Sundays we will speak English. And our children must learn English as a mother tongue.’
The sun negotiated its way past the stained window and the curtain, bathing Thomas’s face in gold. He looked like a radiant Apollo. What would it be like, marriage to a god? But then the ancient gods had their weaknesses, while Thomas apparently had none. She almost wished he did.
She hardly knew Berlin. When she was studying at the Dresden Academy, her friends told her there was nothing to see in the vulgar capital, full of marching soldiers and notices telling you not to spit, unlike the refined, beautiful city of Dresden. Even the museums, they said, were fatiguing.
She shook herself. She was looking forward to the future. London had become too familiar. Now was the moment for her to achieve something new in her work, to escape the eternal feminine concentration on charming domesticity. Perhaps she could work as an illustrator, English design was much admired by the Germans. She must forget the debates that had gone on so long in her mind – Thomas or not Thomas, Germany or not Germany. There was no going back now.
It was a dull phrase, but the train seemed to pick it up. ‘No going back,’ repeated the wheels, ‘no going back.’ They grew closer to Dover and the boat and the honeymoon and Berlin.
Thomas had fallen asleep, his mouth had dropped open. He looked vulnerable, as he hardly ever did. Only once before had she seen him look truly vulnerable.
From the beginning, he’d never doubted his feelings for her. They’d first met one hot day taking the steamer down the Elbe with a group of friends to picnic at Schloß Pillnitz. At once, it was clear he admired her, though at first she hardly noticed him. They often met in this society of young people, living in what many considered the most beautiful city in northern Europe. Many of her friends were British, studying German or music or art, staying as paying guests with impoverished ladies. Irene was surprised at how free and easy life was; her German friends lived with little interference from their parents, whereas her own bids for freedom in London had met with continual protests from her mother. In Dresden one could easily meet any friend, male or female, and walk along the banks of the river or through the suburban streets with their drowsy gardens and their pergolas covered in wisteria, past the frescoed balconies dreaming of Italy. Soon Thomas wanted to see her every day; she wanted to see him perhaps every three days. What did she feel about him, she would ask herself every day at breakfast when an envelope addressed in his fine hand was handed to her by the Baronin, in whose house she was lodging, with the smallest smile.
He invited her to Berlin to stay with his parents. It had not been a success. She was irritated from the outset. The parents had been kind, but there were so many younger sisters and brothers around, who treated her as though she were certainly going to marry Thomas and must prove she was good enough. She resented this, and the long meals taxed her German. Thomas took her to see the things that interested him, mostly old buildings. She was bored, he was hurt.
Actually Thomas turned out to be surprisingly radical. He believed the trappings of the past, even the empire, must be swept away. In front of the Reichstag he spoke about the parliamentary system. ‘It is a farce. They pretend we have a powerful parliament but the elections are adjusted to suit the Junkers, and the deputies have no real power. The Kaiser opened the building but to him it is just a nuisance, he considers he is divinely appointed.’ I’m superficial, she thought. I can’t ask the right questions about politics, I’m more interested in how to convey the effect of light striking a pot. He was explaining the social organisation of a living-colony being planned close to Dresden. My work, she thought, is private, for me and a few friends. What he does is highly public, for the state, for the good of great numbers of people. But isn’t what I do worthwhile too?
The worst moments occurred on the last day, on a walk with his sister Elise down Unter den Linden. Irene did not enjoy Thomas’s account of the regiments parading through the Brandenburg Gate to salute the Emperor. It was odd, no one could have called Thomas militaristic, he constantly complained about the deference shown to the army, and yet he seemed proud of such events. And she was annoyed when Elise proclaimed that London had no ceremonial street, that Berlin was much better provided. These people do nothing but lecture me, she thought. She stopped saying ‘Schön’, merely remarked that in Britain Parliament was more important than the army. This agitated Elise, who explained that the Kaiser knew his people and could not surrender his power to the Reichstag. The German system worked better, in England everything was in chaos. Irene merely smiled condescendingly. By the time they arrived home they were hardly speaking.
When Thomas saw her off the following day at the station he did look vulnerable. He had been looking forward so much to her visit, he said. She curled her lip and closed the window, hardly bothering to wave him goodbye. After an hour she began to feel uneasy. By the time she was back in Dresden, she felt she’d behaved badly, and realised that all they’d wanted was her approval. She felt sufficiently guilty to send the parents, and Thomas, grateful letters decorated with little drawings.
Soon afterwards she returned to London, and Thomas ceased to interest her. But after a year or so he visited England, and called at her parents’ house at Evelyn Gardens. By chance, she’d had a violent quarrel with Julian that day. Thomas had been easy and confident, and had talked with passion about the excellence of work by Mr Voysey and Mr Baillie Scott. She liked him again. He delayed his departure by a week, and then a week longer. And when on the day of his eventual departure he’d asked her, much to her surprise, to marry him, she’d not said no. A month or so later, partly to stop her mother’s nagging but mostly because her work was going badly and she was tired of her friends in Fitzroy Square, and also because Thomas was good-looking and good-natured and not at all like Julian, she accepted him. And as the wedding plans developed, it seemed easier to let the process continue.
Well, she must live in the present: a beautiful morning in July and the beginning of her three-month honeymoon. Thomas woke up, and smiled that tentative subtle smile of his. He leant forward.
‘This is a happy moment, is it not, my darling?’
She smiled back. Yes, decidedly. Yes, a happy moment.
7
When Mark, late and flustered, arrived in Trafalgar Square, he found Paul looking through the new triumphal arch at the park and the palace. He wore a light blue tie and grey suit, making Mark anxious about his own flannel trousers and shapeless summer jacket, but Paul seemed not to notice, shook his hand vigorously, grasped his arm. Mark didn’t think he had ever touched any of his friends like this. He must not flinch.
The city was quiet, as though nobody could be bothered to make much effort, not even the flower sellers with their wilting roses. The newspaper sellers urged passers-by to Read All About It, but sounded unconvinced that It really mattered. On such a day, who cared?
The great houses along Piccadilly and Green Park were being cleaned and tidied, blinds coming down, tubs of plants being removed. They talked about how in Prussia the nobility were poor and lived on their estates, and how Paul’s aunt and uncle survived on what they could grow or hunt; and how Mark truly wanted to enter the Diplomatic Service and that in any case his mother was determined that that was what he would do and she must be obeyed. At which they both laughed.
‘Would you like to go to Charlotte Street?’ asked Mark. ‘There’s a German colony there, a successful one. But perhaps you’re tired?’
‘Not at all. So if you are to be a diplomat, my new cousin,’ and he put his arm round Mark’s shoulders, ‘you will have to prevent the war between Germany and England that is approaching. You look shocked, but it is likely, is it not? We may find ourselves fighting on opposite sides.’
‘We think Ireland is more of a problem. The Irish are very unreasonable, though perhaps it’s reasonable for them to be unreasonable. And the Suffragettes are a nuisance too.’
‘You have so many problems, but who would guess it, seeing all this luxury? In any case, it is hot, perhaps we can go to a café?’ But Mark said that there were no cafés in London, really, and one had never been to a public house, was not sure what to do there. So they walked to Charlotte Street.
‘Ah, so this is the German colony,’ remarked Paul. ‘What will all these good Germans do when war breaks out?’
‘I’m sure our governments don’t want war.’
‘It’s hard to say what our Kaiser wants. He’d like to be a great war leader, but then he adores England. You respect your King, no? We make jokes about the Kaiser all the time, in Berlin we regard him as the best joke ever. My father likes him though, because of his position he sees him quite often. It seems the Kaiser is aware of this marriage – your sister, my brother – and approves. No, I fear war is inevitable.’
‘And so my poor sister is marrying into the enemy.’
‘She will become one of us, yes. National loyalty transcends individual loyalties. Don’t look so dismayed. We will look after her. Who are all these people in Charlotte Street, these Germans?’
‘Shopkeepers, I suppose, and musicians, waiters. Business people too, there are many German businessmen here.’
‘Well, there is money in England. You know Berlin, it is a rich city, and flashing – flashing?’
‘Flashy?’
‘My apologies. But there is so much poverty too. Thomas is always talking about it, he wants to make their lives better. . . You seem dejected, I’m sorry. It’s just that at home we talk about war against England all the time. At my university some visiting Englishmen were attacked by drunken students, they had to take refuge in a restaurant until the police arrived. It is so strange to come here, and find you all so friendly and. . .’
‘And?’
‘So like us, in many ways. Your sister, she will be among friends. We may not like the concept of England, but we like the individuals.’
They stood outside an Italian restaurant, where Paul declared the food should be good. He was right. They drank red wine. Mark drank a good deal, he was nervous, he seldom went to restaurants. Paul ordered. Mark had never eaten spaghetti.
‘A diplomat must learn to eat the food of foreign countries, you cannot always be eating roast beef.’ Mark smiled feebly. ‘You must come to Heidelberg, and I will show you a real German university. I suppose you want to be an ambassador?’
Mark shook his head. ‘Oh no. . .’ Yes, ambassador to Paris or Washington.
‘I am sure you will be successful. Of course, you will have to obey the rules, as we all must.’ Paul waved his fork in the air. ‘None of us is free, we believe what we’re brought up to believe, we behave as we’re taught to behave. We are guided towards a profession, and then we follow it all our lives. Look at me, I shall complete my second dissertation and apply for a post as an academic assistant and perhaps become a professor in Greifswald or some such place, taking tea with professors’ wives and trying to write a major book so I can be promoted to Berlin or München, as though a chair in Berlin or München were the summit of human aspiration. We are all slaves, and there is no escape, at least until our present society is destroyed, which is possible. I think Thomas would welcome such a resolution.’ He looked sideways at Mark, who blinked.
‘Am I a slave too?’ he asked, and laughed.
‘Yes, and it’s no matter to laugh about. You do what your mother says, you give up your academic ambitions in order to enter the Diplomatic Service, now you will fight elegantly to reach the peak, and there you will be subjected to the whims of politicians who know nothing about the real problems. Well, you are a charming young man, I am sure you will be most successful if you are content to remain one all your life.’ He spoke playfully.
Afterwards, Mark walked back with Paul to his hotel through the darkening streets, softly warm now, past the Soho shops and restaurants, past the parading women in Regent Street, through somnolent Mayfair to Bayswater.
The next evening Mark went to Charing Cross to say goodbye, clutching a little bouquet for Frau Curtius; such a sympathetic person, he thought. The Curtiuses were delighted to see him, and urged him to visit them in Berlin. Paul gripped his hand, and looked intently into his eyes. ‘Bis bald, mein Freund,’ he said.
Mark waved goodbye longer than anyone else on the emptying platform. If he became a diplomat, he would constantly be saying goodbye, not just physically but spiritually. Like other station halls, Charing Cross, banal as it might seem to the daily crowds, was an ante-chamber to the enchanting adventure of abroad.
The train had disappeared. The station had become quiet under its bright lights. It could, he thought, also be a place of nagging anxieties and larger fears, a portal to a dark world, foreign in every sense. He looked at the ticket office and the boards announcing trains to Bromley and Canterbury, and smiled at his own portentousness. But he shivered.
He moved slowly towards the Strand. As he passed the news stall, he saw a man looking at him, half-smiling. Why did men smile at him in the street? He did not want their friendship.
He wished Paul were not going so far away.
8
It was in the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone that Irene first asked herself whether she loved her husband. Or at least, for the first time since the wedding three weeks before. Or rather, she knew she loved him, but was she in love with him? Or rather, what did being in love involve when you had a life sentence? Did it mean you wanted to spend every moment of the day and night with that person, and missed him fiercely if he was away? She knew this feeling very well – but about Thomas?
Thomas was reading from Baedeker. He had been reading – it seemed – for hours and hours. He read well, but one could grow tired even of his voice. They had risen, as usual, at six since at midday the churches closed and it was obligatory to see at least eight churches or two museums before lunch (a museum scored as three or four churches). She’d been moved by the Early Christian churches, and liked to think of those brave people celebrating Communion in their catacombs. What she could not bring herself to enjoy was seventeenth-century Italian architecture and ceiling paintings, her Protestant upbringing rebelled. She wished the old Romans had been less pious. But to Thomas everything was interesting. If she did not respond to a piece of information, he would look surprised and gaze into her eyes as he read, to involve her. This meant she could never yawn or sit down or let her eyes wander towards the old ladies in black moving about their prayers. He had a little black book in which he took notes. She observed this habit with a dogged wish to find it charming, but realised that one day she might find it irritating.
From time to time Thomas, at least in their first days in Rome, had pointed out inspiring views and urged her to draw, but she’d refused. She was not interested in making genteel renderings of famous sites. To work she needed to be on her own, she couldn’t sketch in public while passersby looked over her shoulder. But she did miss drawing. Only occasionally, in their bedroom, privately, did she draw a slither of the courtyard, or her husband asleep and tousled. When he was her model, she felt, particularly fond of him but that was when he was not speaking.
A clock struck the three-quarters. It was almost twelve. All morning she had not liked to suggest that they might stop and drink coffee, but what she most wanted to do was stop talking about architecture, it would be enough to sit in silence, and watch the people promenading. In the Piazza Navona he had discoursed about Cardinal Barberini and Santa Apollonia and the laying of foundation stones, and the palace on the right and the palace on the left. And movement in Baroque buildings, apparently all in a state of perpetual motion. And now Thomas spied an important tomb – with a Baedeker star! – in the corner.
So, did she love him? As a surgeon might lift a specimen with the forceps for a closer examination, she wondered whether she might have made a mistake. Or rather, whether she might think so one day. Her father had told her once, when she was agonising about Julian, to distance herself from her emotions, to observe them dispassionately and analyse whether they were worth giving way to. She’d always followed this advice. They were staring now at the ceiling but at least this meant she could look upwards and not at her husband. Perhaps this detachment had stopped her understanding her real feelings about Thomas. He’d always confused her.
Directed to look at something else, she wondered whether she would spend her whole life playing the obedient wife. She thought fleetingly, I wish I were in Danvers Street, or even Evelyn Gardens, which are less beautiful than Rome, but where at least I was a real person.
She and Thomas were moving towards the sacristy, which contained some interesting minor pictures. It might be locked, but he was all too persuasive with sacristans.
Making love with him was not what she’d expected. Thomas changed personality in bed. At first correct and considerate, he soon became hotly loving, pushing his lips hard against hers, trying to enter her mouth with his tongue, muttering incomprehensible endearments. Then he would get excited, even rough. She was the first woman he had ever made love to, that was clear. At the conclusion (it felt like a conclusion), he would give her a single punctilious kiss and fall asleep. The new ideas about mental togetherness when making love had not reached him.
She thought, I must be a disappointment, he must find me cold even though he’s accepted he is not my first lover. Does a woman who has slept with a man feel differently about him for the rest of her life, she wondered. She thought the answer was yes. And a man, about a woman?
Meanwhile Thomas had seen a painting that worried him. ‘The book says this picture should be above the altar in the third chapel on the left side, but here it is above the door to the cloister. This must be the same picture, a Holy Family by Sodoma. Yes, it is labelled.’
‘I suppose they must want to move the pictures now and again,’ she remarked mildly. ‘Perhaps there is a new priest who wants to make changes. As a new wife might want to make changes to her husband’s house, that too is possible, I suppose.’
He smiled. ‘Yes it is. Perhaps you are right, priests are human beings, after all. Even Catholic priests. For us Protestants, this Catholic apparatus can be difficult, no? We are always wondering why so much theatre is needed to reach God.’
She agreed. She wondered briefly whether it was her fault that he talked all the time about churches, not about himself or her, whether it was her passivity – her new passivity.
She dropped onto a bench. He looked at her, piercingly, and sat down beside her, put his arm round her, then pulled it away as though remembering they were in a church.
‘It is difficult, marrying a foreigner,’ he said. And then, tenderly, ‘Liebling. Don’t you agree?’ It seemed rude to agree. She shook her head.
‘I mean,’ he said, ‘I don’t always understand you. When we speak English. . .’
‘Your English is perfect.’
‘My English is mostly correct, but that is another matter. Your language is so full of ironies, I do not always know whether you are serious. If I cannot understand your language fully, how can I understand you?’
‘There are other ways,’ she ventured.
‘Yes, but even with those other ways – I suppose you mean sexual cohabitation. . .’ He lowered his voice here, as though the painted saints might be shocked. ‘Or even flirting – even that is more difficult for educated people, the nuances are so great. . . Sex is a language too, of course, or so good Dr Freud would have us believe. But perhaps we should not talk about sex in this sacred building.’ He peered at her again. ‘And then there is the language. When you speak German, it is difficult not to correct you because I want your German to be perfect, like you.’ He hurried on. ‘But if I correct you, it is annoying, and our honeymoon should be a time of perfect happiness, how can it be perfect if I correct your word order?’ He closed his Baedeker. ‘Then I make you look at all these churches, my dearest. I am trained to look at such things, but for you it must be fatiguing. Shall we have lunch? A proper lunch, with wine?’
She blinked. Usually he preferred a modest lunch with water, before retiring to their room for a little passion and a long slumber. Not that he couldn’t afford it, there was always money for books, or architectural casts or whatever he wanted, money not discussed but comfortably there. As in her family. With Julian, there’d been no money; she’d not minded, except when he’d tried to borrow from her.
‘You are so English, I don’t know what you are truly thinking.’
They were standing in the piazza. He was sweating. She did not sweat, she stayed cool even in extreme heat. He looked like a child, pink, eager to please. She was glad he was thinking about her rather than Borromini. Could you add together good qualities, she wondered, and by nurturing them, create a solid lifelong love? She laid her hand softly on his shoulder to see whether by behaving lovingly she could make herself feel loving. Was she play-acting? Was she expressing her underlying feelings? Really, she didn’t know.
But if she was play-acting, she succeeded. He was touched, and took her hand.
‘I know I annoy you,’ he said. ‘I am selfish, I have not been in love before, I do not know how it is done, even though I am in love with you since Dresden July 1905, do you remember?’ He was always precise about dates. ‘I want to learn from you, my dearest. You understand so much, about love, about everything.’ He took her in his arms and kissed her. He had never done this so publicly.
‘Lunch?’ he said, releasing her.
They passed a flower seller. ‘Signore,’ he said and pushed his basket towards Thomas, who took a single red rose. ‘Luna di miele?’
Thomas nodded and smiled, she nodded and smiled, as though to make it clear that this was the most magical experience of their lives.
The flower seller did not wave away payment as Irene thought he might. Instead there was an awkward pause while Thomas looked for change.
