House of Gold - Softcover

A screenwriter and novelist, Natasha Solomons lives in Dorset, England, with her husband and two children. She is the New York Times bestselling author of four novels, including The House at Tyneford and The Song of Hartgrove Hall.

1911

A man's status can be judged by the number of his bedding plants- ten thousand for a squire, twenty thousand for a baronet, thirty thousand for an earl and fifty thousand for a duke, but sixty thousand for a Goldbaum.

Often-quoted saying

Vienna, April

The Goldbaum Palace was made of stone, not gold. Children walking along the Heugasse, buttoned smartly into their coats and hand in hand with Nanny or Mutti, were invariably disappointed. They'd been promised a palace belonging to the prince of the Jews, spun out of ivory and gold and presumably studded with jewels, and here instead was simply a vast house built of ordinary white stone. Though it was the very finest limestone in the whole of Austria, and had been transported from the Alps to Vienna along a railway line constructed thanks to a loan from the Goldbaum Bank, and hauled by an engine and train owned by the Goldbaum Railway Company, painted resplendently in the family colors of blue and gold and adorned with the family crest: five goldfinches alighting on a sycamore branch. (Wits liked to refer to the coat of arms as "the birds in the money tree.") Inside, the great hall was gilded from the wainscot to the highest point of the domed roof, so that even on gloomy days the light it reflected brimmed with sunshine. Such was the power and wealth of the Goldbaums that on dull days, it was said, they hired the sun, just for themselves.

At night every window was lit with electric light and the house shone out like a great ocean liner buoyed along the Vienna streets. Sometimes at the grandest parties they released hundreds of goldfinches into the hall, so that they warbled and fluttered above the guests. (The birds were accompanied by an extra two dozen maids whose sole task for the evening was to wipe up the tiny spatters of bird shit the moment they appeared on the marble floor; there were limits, it appeared, even to the power of the Goldbaums.) All the same, little happened in the capital and beyond without their say-so, and even less without their knowing it. The emperor himself despised and endured the Goldbaums like inclement weather. There was nothing that could be done. They owned his debt.

The palace on Heugasse was merely the expression of their influence. The real source of their wealth was a small, unobtrusive building on the Ringstrasse. Behind the black door lay the House of Gold: the Austrian branch of the family bank. The Goldbaum men were bankers, while the Goldbaum women married Goldbaum men and produced Goldbaum children. Yet the family didn't consider themselves solely a dynasty of bankers, but also a dynasty of collectors.

The Goldbaums liked to collect beautiful things: exquisite Louis XIV furniture; paintings by Rembrandt, da Vinci and Vermeer; and then the great manors, ch‰teaux and castles to put them in. They collected jewelry, Faberg eggs, automobiles, racehorses-and the obligations of prime ministers. Greta Goldbaum followed in the family tradition. She collected trouble. This was the trait that Otto Goldbaum most valued in his sister. Before her arrival, his mother had visited the nursery, wallowing in state on a chair reserved especially for this purpose, and, with the assistance of his favorite nanny, explained that in a few weeks' time he would be joined by a little brother or sister. They sipped hot chocolate from a miniature china tea service adorned with the family crest in twenty-four-karat gold, and nibbled tiny slices of Sachertorte dabbed with swirls of blue and pink, ordered especially from the grand hotel. Otto listened in silence, watching with considerable suspicion the rise and fall of the baroness's vast belly. And yet when, four weeks later, Greta appeared in the nursery with her own fleet of starched nursemaids, he was not put out in the least. For the first time in his three years Otto had an ally. Greta certainly seemed to belong more fully to him than to the parents who lived downstairs. The baroness was considered an extremely dedicated mother by visiting the new baby almost every day, while Otto was still summoned to luncheon with the baron and baroness at least twice each week. He listened to the cries and gurgles of his sister through the walls and, when the nurses slept, crept in to lie on the floor of her night nursery. He did this so often that the nurses gave up either berating him or carrying him back to his own bed and set up a little cot for Otto beside her crib.

Greta was not a favorite with the nurses. They could never make her look smart for Mama during her visits. Her hair would not lie flat, like Otto's, but popped up around her head in disordered curls. The rubbed patch at the back, like a monk's round tonsure, did not grow back until she was nearly two. She usually had a cold. As she grew older the maids delighted in telling her, "If you weren't a Goldbaum, you'd be given a proper hiding." Greta told Otto in that case she was frightfully glad she was a Goldbaum, but she felt terribly sorry for all the children who weren't, as it seemed that they must spend much of their time being beaten for petty crimes (melting soap on the nursery fire to make modeling clay; hiding unwanted food at the back of the toy cupboard until it was found weeks later, festering; removing the saddle from the rocking horse and fixing it to Papa's favorite bloodhound and riding the dog around the tulip beds). Greta was frequently sent to bed with nothing to eat but bread and milk. None of this mattered. She had Otto.

His character ran counter to his sister's. Where Greta was impulsive, Otto was careful. She talked and he listened. His hair was perfectly smooth, his part immaculately combed. Where Greta was in constant motion, Otto possessed a stillness that often unsettled his contemporaries, although he did not consider himself quiet, since his thoughts were so loud, his mind always restless and busy. It took Otto time to reach a decision, but once he had done so, he acted decisively. He was of average height and slim, but he fenced and boxed with skill, taking pleasure in the exercise and in anticipating his opponent's game. He considered both pursuits to contain the perfect blend of brutality and elegance.

As Greta grew, so did the trouble. She borrowed Otto's clothes and disappeared for a picnic beside the river, where she was discovered sharing a cigarillo with a pair of lieutenants. She persuaded Otto to take her to the university so that she could listen to one of the astronomy lectures he attended. Otto decided that she looked like a bird of paradise roosting among the thrushes, in her bright blue coat and hat, sitting amid a hundred men in brown and gray suits. He asked her if she liked the lecture. "Adored it. Didn't understand a word." Greta went every day for a week, saying it helped her sleep magnificently. She secured clandestine lessons on the trumpet and became rather good, before the baroness discovered her and put a stop to it. Piano, harp or, at a push, the violin was deemed sufficiently demure. Wind instruments were far too louche; all that work with the embouchure. The very word made the baroness blush. Otto developed a spontaneous interest in the trumpet. Another tutor was procured. Otto surreptitiously shared his lessons with his sister and pretended the practice was his. Greta, however, lost interest. Trumpet voluntaries were only fun when they were illicit. Otto accepted that one of his tasks in life was to help his sister out of mischief. For twenty years this had been a source of pride and pleasure to him, and of only occasional exasperation.

If anyone had asked Greta if she wanted to marry Albert Goldbaum, she would have said no, certainly not. But no one did ask. Not even her mother. They asked her all sorts of other things. Which blooms would she like in her bouquet? Roses or lilies? Did she want ten bridesmaids or twelve? Greta replied that she was quite indifferent to the number of bridesmaids. Her only stipulation was an assortment of footmen carrying white umbrellas. Her mother paused for a moment. ÒSupposing it doesnÕt rain?Ó ÒOf course it will rain,Ó Greta replied, ÒIÕm going to England.Ó

Greta knew that Baroness Emmeline was tormented by the prospect of appearing inappropriately attired. Three cloaks were to be made to match Greta's wedding dress: one of Arctic fur, one of the finest lamb's wool and another of silk and lace. The baroness insisted that a lady must always have a choice and be prepared for the unexpected, in matters pertaining to the wardrobe at the very least. She invariably traveled with at least three pairs of spare shoes in the trunk of the automobile: a pair of stout leather boots, should the weather turn; a pair of elegant shoes to change into afterward; and a pair of satin slippers, just in case. In case of what, Greta never could ascertain.

She offered no further opinion on the wedding preparations. She acquiesced to every suggestion with such pointed apathy that the baroness ceased to consult her. This suited Greta perfectly. She visited her friends and drank coffee, and changed the subject if any of them were tactless enough to raise the topic of her looming nuptials. The wedding was an unpleasantness to be endured, and for a while it was sufficiently far away that she could pretend it was not happening at all. It stalked her, though, through her dreams. Her fear was indistinct and sinister, something nameless to be dreaded. Only it did have a name. Albert.

"He probably doesn't want to marry you, either," said Johanna Schwartzschild one morning as they sat in the orangery, taking coffee and sweets, some weeks before the wedding. "Perhaps he's in love with someone else. Either way, he might just not fancy it."

Greta set down her cup of coffee in surprise and stared at Johanna, who started to color, perhaps wondering if she'd pushed it a little far and this was why she was not one of the twelve bridesmaids. But Greta was not offended, simply intrigued. Up until then she'd considered only her feelings on the matter, and had taken all the reluctance and resentment as her own. Of course it wasn't pleasant to think that someone else was considering the prospect of marrying you with horror and revulsion, but, she reasoned, it wasn't personal. Albert didn't dislike her; he couldn't. He didn't know her. But poor Albert probably didn't think much of marrying some stranger simply because she was his first cousin twice removed and had the right surname. Now he became, in her mind, "Poor Albert" and she began to think of him almost fondly. She rang the bell. A maidservant appeared.

"More coffee, FrŠulein?"

"No, thank you, Helga. Tell my mother that I've changed my mind. I don't want roses or lilies. I would like gardenias for my bouquet."

For the first time since her mother had summoned her to her dressing room and informed her that she was to marry Albert and move to England, Greta began to read English novels once again. Her English conversation lessons had still taken place for three hours each morning with the apologetic and sweaty-palmed Mr. Neville-Jones, but in a silent and futile gesture of displeasure sheÕd set aside English literature for French and Italian. Now, softening toward Poor Albert, she penned herself a firm reading list. Dickens she enjoyed immensely. The hustle and stink of London sounded enchanting, compared to the museum hush and desiccated formality of Vienna. On the other hand, Jane Austen she couldnÕt get along with at all. There were far too many young ladies far too eager to get married. Mr. Darcy sounded like a bore, and Mr. Bingley worse. She hoped that Poor Albert was nothing like either of them.

Then she discovered Jane Eyre. Oh, the thrill of being a governess and being entirely dependent on oneself. The danger and wonder of being alone in the world. Jane Eyre might have been a governess dreaming of becoming a bride, but Greta Goldbaum was the bride dreaming of becoming a governess.

As Greta walked through the park arm in arm with Otto she saw that the crocuses were erupting beneath the aspen trees, regiments of purple and shining yellow in imperial shades, like thousands of miniature soldiers. There were only tiny patches of snow remaining, shoveled into wet heaps the color of sodden newspapers.

A fluttering notice pinned to a tree caught her eye and she paused to read it. Greta liked these notes. The trees in the park were full of them, like a species of white bird. They were messages from another world-the ordinary one, where people struggled and drank schnapps straight from the bottle, and ate schnitzel and sausage for supper, and owned an ordinary number of trousers. (Greta estimated this number to be something between three and fifty pairs.) The notices on the trees were for lost dogs, rooms to rent, or ladies of low regard advertising their services. The most desperate were the most intriguing: a violinist offering lessons in exchange for a decent meal and a bucket of coal.

To Greta, it was the ordinary and mundane that contained the sheen of glamour. The aura of her name followed her everywhere like a gleaming shadow; she could never escape from its glow. People who were not kind in general were invariably kind to her, or so she was frequently informed by her friends. She suspected that her view of the world was distorted, as if everything she consumed was sprinkled liberally with sugar. She longed to taste life unsweetened.

It was better for Otto, she thought, a little resentfully. His misadventures weren't merely tolerated but encouraged. He'd been permitted to spend six entire months at the Imperial Observatory on the border with Russia, where the winds gusting through the great forests were chilled with the enemy's breath. He'd seen not only stars and comet tails, but Cossacks riding through the plains separating the two great empires, the handkerchiefs covering their faces red and blue in the moonlight. Or so she presumed; Otto had been disappointingly vague on the details in his letters home. There had been far too much about the mathematics of observational stars, and far too little about bandits and Cossacks, or the legendary eastern Jews who thrived in the border swamps and had long red beards, flaming out like Moses's burning bush.

Everything had become imbued with sudden meaning: the silver coffeepot and pats of butter stamped with tiny birds were no longer merely objects, but ciphers. Earlier Greta had remained as the maid arranged the baronessÕs hair-something sheÕd not done since she was a child, watching the maid brush and brush the long silvering hair, sleek as the tail of a weasel. Then it was wound round and round, pinned neatly into a smooth wheel. The ivory brush sat on the dressing table and Greta looked at it, knowing that the days of such intimacy were nearly over. When she left the baroness to her coffee, she felt a pang of unexpected tenderness.