And now these two lovers who would not have recognised each other passing in a street, had to decide whether their dreams of each other for all those terrible years were strong enough to carry them through into marriage. Nothing was left of the enchanting prim little girl, nor of the sentimental man who had, until it crumbled away, carried a dead red rose next to his heart. The great blue eyes were sad, and he tended to lapse into silences, just like her younger brother, when remembering things that could be understood only by other soldiers.
These two married quietly: hardly the time for a big German-English wedding. In London war fever was abating, though people still talked about the Boche and the Hun. People were polite to Julia. For the first time she wondered if choosing Philip had not been a mistake, yet she believed they loved each other, and both were pretending they were serious people by nature and not saddened beyond curing. And yet the war did recede and the worst of the war hatreds passed. Julia, who had suffered in Germany for her English love, now tried to become English, in an act of will. She had spoken English well enough, but took lessons again, and soon spoke as no English person ever did, an exquisite perfect English, every word separate. She knew her manners were formal, and tried to become more casual. Her clothes: they were perfect too, but after all, she was a diplomat's wife and had to keep up appearances. As the English put it.
They started married life in a little house in Mayfair, and there she entertained, as was expected of her, with the aid of a cook and a maid, and achieved something like the standards she remembered from her home. Meanwhile Philip had discovered that to marry a German woman had not been the best prescription for an unclouded career. Discussions with his superiors revealed that certain posts would be barred to him, in Germany, for instance, and he might find himself edged out of the straight highway to the top, and find himself in places like South Africa or Argentina. He decided to avoid disappointments, and switched to administration. He would have a fine career, but nothing of the glamour of foreign ministries. Sometimes he met in a sister's house the Betty whom he could have married and who was still unwed, because of so many men being killed and wondered how different life could have been.
When Jolyon Meredith Wilhelm Lennox was born in 1920 he had a nurse and then a nanny. He was a long thin child, with golden curls and combative critical blue eyes, often directed at his mother. He had soon learned from his nanny that she was a German: he had a little tantrum and was difficult for a few days. He was taken to visit his German family, but this was not a success: he disliked the place, and the different manners he was expected to sit at mealtimes with his hands beside him on either side of his plate when not actually eating, speak when spoken to, and to click his heels when he made a request. He refused to go back. Julia argued with Philip about her child being sent off at seven to school. This is not unusual now, but then Julia was being brave. Philip told her that everyone of their class did this, and anyway look at him! he had gone to boarding school at seven. Yes, he did remember he had been a bit homesick... never mind, it wore off.That argument, 'Look at me!', expected to cast down opposition because of the speaker's conviction of his superiority or at least rightness, did not convince Julia. In Philip there was a place forever barred to her, a reserve, a coldness, which at first she ascribed to the war, the trenches, the soldier's hidden psychological scars. But then she had begun to doubt: she had never achieved intimacy enough with the wives of her husband's colleagues to ask if they too experienced this forbidden place in their men, the area marked verboten, No Entrance -but she did observe, she noticed a good deal. No, she thought, if you are going to take a child from its mother so young... She lost the fight, and lost her son; who thereafter was polite, affable, if often impatient.
As far as she could see he did well in his first school, but Eton did not go well. His reports were not good. 'He does not make friends easily.' 'A bit of a loner.'
She asked him one holidays, manoeuvring him into a position where he could not escape easily, for he did evade direct questions and situations, ' Tell me, Jolyon, has my being German made problems for you?'
His eyes seemed to flicker, wanted to evade, but he faced her with his wide polite smile, and said, No, mother, why should it?'
I wondered, that's all. '
She asked Philip if he would ' talk' to Jolyon, meaning, of course, Please change him, he's breaking my heart.
' He plays his cards pretty close to his chest, ' was her husband's reply.
Her worries were in fact soothed by the mere fact of Eton, the fact and the weight of it, a purveyor of excellence and a guarantee of success. She had surrendered her son her only child to the English educational system, and expected a quid pro quo, that Jolyon would turn out well, like his father. and in due course walk in his footsteps, probably as a diplomat.