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.