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If so, it may well have been sharpened by an incident with Mademoiselle Laure.
I had seen Mademoiselle several times now, and tried to catch her eye, but she always turned away. On purpose, I thought. And I was right. One day I came upon her in the Denisovs’ library. I was determined to talk to her. I went to stand beside her – and inadvertently put my hand on hers, a personal touch I should have avoided. She wrenched it away.
‘I am sorry; your hand is cold,’ she excused herself.
But I refused to be put off. ‘We ought to understand each other, you and I. We take the same place in the household.’
‘Hardly.’
‘I have been here three weeks,’ I said on a note of surprise, ‘and not spoken to you at all.’
‘Three weeks! I have been here three hundred times as long.’ Her vehemence had more than a touch of bitterness in it. ‘I know things you would dread to learn.’
‘Come and sit in my room with me,’ I said. ‘I expect you know it – it is so beautiful.’
‘I know it!’ She gave a short laugh.
A strange and terrible thought struck me. ‘Was it your room once?’
‘My room? I have that room? No, it would be strange if it was. Between the French governess and the English governess there is a gulf fixed.’ There was an unmistakable edge of mockery in her voice.
‘Scottish,’ I corrected automatically. Without anyone telling me, I had already grasped that a hierarchy existed, and that English governesses stood at the top, with French and German ladies well down in social esteem and salary. Russian governesses, if they existed – and I had not yet met with any – were no doubt at the bottom. It was one strange aspect of Russian society. ‘Still,’ I said, ‘we do the same sort of job.’
She laughed, an incredulous, bitter hoot. ‘You think so? You really think so? How innocent. How terrible to be so innocent. And dangerous. Well, Russia will soon teach you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, Russia will teach you. And if it does not, then ask me for a lesson. Now I excuse myself.’ And giving me a stiff little nod, full of suppressed emotion, she departed.
I told myself uneasily that she was nothing but a spiteful, jealous woman; but still, I wondered. What or who had made her jealous? How could it be Rose Gowrie? It did just cross my mind, then, that she might have been in love with Peter.
Inevitably such thoughts remained unresolved. They did not disappear – but to whom could I put questions at once so pointed and so vague? Certainly Dolly Denisov, although apparently approachable, never seemed to say anything I could settle on. But Mademoiselle Laure’s observations stayed with me; and then, once or twice, I caught Dolly herself looking at me with a strange appraising scrutiny.
Meanwhile, Ariadne and I drifted away our days in conversation, visits to other splendid houses, and walks. I had instituted the Scottish ‘afternoon walk’ and Ariadne, although at first doubtful, now enjoyed the habit as much as I did. But we seemed to have no purpose and no direction in our life. I told myself that it was very Russian, and that this was how I must expect it all to be.
I had plenty of time at my own disposal when Ariadne was taking her music lessons, or singing, or learning dancing with the French dancing-master, or taking drawing lessons; she did all of these things, one or two of them brilliantly, none of them regularly. Madame Denisov had waved a vague hand when I asked permission to explore the library and the picture gallery.
The library was a lofty, dark room filled with ancient volumes in Russian, French and German, as well as offering a smaller library of Greek and Latin texts. Of these books no volume seemed later in date than 1840. English literature had a section all its own and was mainly made up of novels. Dolly Denisov had a very representative collection of English light fiction, and I spent quite a lot of my free time there, gratefully reading my way through a number of delightful authors like E. F. Benson and Elizabeth, Gräfin von Arnim, which poverty had hitherto kept from me.
The picture gallery was a long, tunnel-like room filled with dark portraits of fierce-looking soldiers and ladies dressed with an air of fashion and expense that suggested Dolly Denisov was running true to form. They were a dull lot and, except for certain slight differences of dress, could have been found, perfectly at home, at Jordansjoy. But at the end of the gallery were three or four strange pictures that exploded with colour and light. A scene of water-lilies in a pond, a plump woman sitting at her dressing-table brushing her hair – these were two of them. Another was a country scene, but so angular, bold and bright that I had never seen anything like it. Yet another was of a girl dancer resting on a chair, her face in repose plain and spent, and yet she was an object of great beauty.
Just beyond this group of pictures was a door. One day, out of curiosity, I opened it. Behind the door was a small hall, and leading out of it a heavily carpeted staircase going straight up into the wall.
I went to the foot of it and stared up; I could see nothing because the staircase curved sharply. A scented, murky, musky smell hung over the stairwell, as if fresh air never reached it. I wondered where it led, but on that day something unwelcoming, even slightly sinister about the stairs, kept me back.
But the place fascinated me and I kept thinking about it. The next time I was in the gallery I went again into the small foyer that led to the red-carpeted stairs. This time as I stood there, I heard a movement behind me. One of the servants came through the door bearing a heavy silver tray on which were covered dishes.
I was beginning to speak a little more Russian by now, and at any rate I could ask a simple question and generally make out what the answer was.
‘Where does the staircase go?’
The servant – he was old and grey – stared without answering. Then he said: ‘Ah, the sacred staircase,’ and crossed himself as if he meant cursed rather than sacred. Later I came to observe that the servants, like many an oppressed minority, often used a word in the exactly opposite sense to the way they really intended it. In secretiveness they found both protection and defiance.
He said no more, but went on up the stairs and out of sight. On that thick carpet his feet made no sound.
I knew now that someone lived up the staircase.
The silence of the household about this unmentioned inhabitant began to oppress me. The mystery worried me. I thought about it at night, those pale nights, and when I was not dreaming about Patrick I dreamt about the staircase.
One quiet afternoon while Ariadne was at her singing lesson and Dolly Denisov out upon her own concerns, I entered the foyer from the picture gallery and crept quietly up the stairs.
The staircase wound up and up in three curving flights. No wonder no sound had floated down to me at the bottom. Ahead of me was a solid oak door with a polished bronze handle. I opened it.
I was on the threshold of a large, dark room, curtained and lit by lamps although the afternoon was bright. In the middle of the room was a great state bed of gilded wood, heavily decorated with swags and carved fruits and little crowns, and hung with rich tapestries. In the bed, propped up on cushions, was an old lady, before her a bed-table spread with playing cards. She raised her head from her cards at my entrance, and stared. Then a radiant smile spread across her face, and eagerly she held out her hands. She said in English: ‘At last you have come. I always knew you would.’
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_d7fb470a-7a7b-5aea-b0b3-5a7d48d1b566)
I had never been in such a room before. It was so shut-in and artificial that I felt the outside air could never penetrate at all. Over the window were heavy, plush curtains of deep red, and over these were layers of muslin, draped and pleated in elaborate folds. On the floor was an ancient Turkey carpet whose very redness seemed to suck up what air was left in the room after the endlessly burning lamps and the great stove had taken their share.
I stood on the threshold, shaken by my reception, and not understanding it.
The old woman in the bed and I stared at each other. Then she gave a cackle of laughter. ‘Come in, girl, and don’t stand there staring.’
Slowly I advanced into the room, vaguely conscious of great gilt mirrors on the wall uncannily reflecting everything in the room, making every image smaller and clearer than in life: gilt furniture, the old lady in the bed, the lamps, and the girl at the door who was myself, a girl in blue-and-white spotted silk, her face with bright puzzled eyes.
‘Come on, come on.’ The voice was imperious. ‘Come right up close and let me have a look.’
Obediently, as if mesmerised, I came right up to the bed and let her look at me. Her hand came forward – dry and cold it was on mine, glittering with diamonds. Age had shrunk and discoloured it until it looked like a little brown animal’s paw.
Her face was old, older than anyone’s I had ever seen. At Jordansjoy we thought of Tibby as old, but she was not old like this. This woman looked as if she and the last century had grown old together. I saw a thin, lined, wrinkled face, cheeks bright rouged, and neck and forehead powdered white. Diamond earrings sparkled at the ears, and a great pearl necklace dangled from her throat. Out of this painted, ancient face stared a pair of dark, keen eyes. But every so often heavy lids fell over the eyes, turning the eye-sockets into dark pits which made her look dead already. It was a disconcerting trick, due, I suppose, to a weakness of the muscle beyond her control. Yet I came to suspect that she used her weakness to intimidate.
‘Good,’ she said again; her voice was almost a whisper, a ghost of what it must have been. ‘I am pleased with you. You have the right look. Genuine. I knew I should be able to tell. At my age a skin peels from the spirit and one senses things at once. But you kept me waiting. I even began to think you had not come.’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ I said, flummoxed.
‘And how long have you been here?’ There was a hint of imperious displeasure in her voice.
‘I’ve been in Russia a little more than three weeks.’
‘Ah, so long? Well, I cannot rely on being told the truth. I have to allow for that.’ Her eyelids fell, revealing the bruised, violet-coloured eye-pits.
I didn’t know what on earth she was talking about. ‘I am Rose Gowrie,’ I said. She opened her eyes, now their blackness seemed opaque, then light and life gleamed in them.
‘So indeed you are: Rose Gowrie come from Scotland,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘And I am Irene Drutsko.’
The name, as even I knew, was one of the oldest in Russian history. The Drutskos looked down on the Romanovs as parvenus.
‘Yes, I am a Drutsko, by birth as well as marriage. We have a lot of the old Rurik blood in us. They say by the time we are five-and-twenty we are all either saints or mad; I leave you to discover which I am.’ Again the eyelids drooped, but were raised quickly – although with an effort, I thought. ‘No, you need not kiss my hand,’ she went on. ‘Your own birth is noble. Besides, your grandfather was my lover when he was an attaché here. It was a short but most enjoyable relationship.’
‘That must have been my great-grandfather,’ I said. ‘He was here. I’ve seen his portrait in Russian dress – very romantic’
‘So? One confuses the generations at my age. Yes, he was very beautiful. He loved me to distraction. When he was called back to London he said he would se suicider.’
‘He was eighty-two when he died,’ I said. He had also had eight children and two wives, both married and all begotten after his sojourn in St Petersburg. I wondered what he had said to her. He had gone down in our family sagas as a tremendous old liar. A great beauty, though, as she had said. We all got our looks from him.
She ignored my remark as, later, she was to ignore what did not fit in with the picture of her world as she saw it. Instead she said: ‘How strange that the blood of that worldly man should run in your veins. Truly the ways of God are beyond us.’ She took my hand caressingly. ‘Ah, my little miracle, my little treasure from God.’
‘Am I?’ I said doubtfully, withdrawing my hand as gently as I could; dry and cold as her hand was, it seemed to take warmth from mine. All the same, my professional interest was aroused. She was a sick woman. I could feel it in the thin, dry, papery quality of her skin. No healthy hand has such skin. It was hard to get my hand away, for her age she had a firm grip. ‘I’m here to be companion to Ariadne and to talk English to her.’ For some reason I did not mention my more important reason for coming to Russia: the medical work I was going to do at Shereshevo. I think I knew instinctively that such a scheme would find no favour with the Princess Irene.
‘Ah?’ Her eyes lit up with mockery. ‘Is that what you think?’
‘Of course. Madame Denisov – is she your niece – engaged me,’ I said stoutly. It seemed to me that I was obscurely defending myself, although I couldn’t tell why. A little trickle of alarm moved inside me. Of course it had been Madame Denisov who offered me my position. What did the old lady mean?
There was a moment of silence, and during it I became more aware of my surroundings. I was standing by the bed; behind me was the door through which I had come in. Now I noticed that in the wall behind the bed was yet another door. I wondered where it led.
‘You think so?’ Her question seemed to give her satisfaction. She shook her head. ‘No, Ariadne is not so important. You have come to me. Do you think Dolly is the only one with ailments? Not that she has any, whatever she may think, she is as strong as a little horse. She smokes too much, of course, but they all do.’
‘I didn’t know Madame Denisov was ill,’ I said, surprised.
‘Nor is she; I have just been saying so. Don’t you listen, girl? Sick in her mind she may be at times; she certainly ought to be with the way she plays at cards and all the worries this family has.’ She paused, and added ironically: ‘So you are her wonder-worker, who will train her silly peasant women in the ways of good health? So she says.’ She gave a sceptical titter.
‘You do know, then?’
‘Of course I know. I know everything there is to know up here in my tower.’ Still the mocking note in her voice. She would be a devil if she was angry, I thought, but in spite of her great age there was an immense attractiveness welling out of her. She seemed like the Sphinx itself to me, only half human, richly encrusted with memories of worlds long gone, and full of mystery. ‘But I shan’t let you be wasted on a pack of illiterate peasants.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘No, you are too valuable a property to leave in my Dolly’s feckless hands. I can see there will have to be a little war between us.’
‘I don’t think I want to be the subject of a war.’
‘You can’t help it, my dear, you are chosen. Life chose you.’ She gave me an amused look. ‘Shall I tell you what I know? No, after all, I won’t. It will be more amusing for me to see you move to strings pulled by you know not whom. At my age, what is left but to be a voyeur?’
I did not properly understand her, but this only added to her amusement. ‘Although I will admit, my dear, that I have hopes of returning to more active life with your help.’ She gave a little cackle of laughter. ‘You will help me, my dear, but I do not promise to help you. That is the law of my world. Struggle, little moth, in your web.’
‘You’re a wicked old woman,’ I said; but there was so much humour in her, black as it was, that she captivated me still.
Behind her the door opened an inch or two, then halted.
She saw it too, reflected in the mirror; she stopped in mid-sentence. Behind the wrinkles and the rouge and the powder her expression changed, amusement and satisfaction draining away and blankness taking their place.
I looked at the door: it was still open, I hadn’t imagined the first movement. Someone must be standing behind it, waiting to come in.
‘Please go now,’ the Princess said, leaning back on her pillows and closing her eyes. Pretending to close them, I thought, because I could see a glimmer through those painted lashes. ‘After all, I am greatly fatigued. Goodbye, my dear, your arrival is my great joy. Come again soon. I will arrange it.’
‘But Madame Denisov – ’ I began. ‘I mean, I don’t know what she expects …’
She interrupted me. ‘I find it best to make my own dispositions. Goodbye for the moment. I shall soon be greatly in your debt.’
Did the door move a fraction as I went away? In the mirror I thought I saw it did.
I was halfway down the red staircase when it struck me that from where she lay in her bed the old lady could watch both the doors. More, anyone opening either door could see who was in the room, reflected in the mirror, before entering. What a room for conspirators.
I didn’t mention anything of this to Dolly Denisov or Ariadne. I wasn’t proud of either my original inquisitiveness or the secrecy it led to. It was Russia, I see that now; and in particular, the way Russia manifested itself in the Denisov household. Without my knowing it, the atmosphere of the house was affecting me.
But the next day Dolly Denisov raised the subject herself, in her own way, and obliquely. We met over the teacups while Dolly smoked and Ariadne nibbled macaroons.
‘You have settled down so well, Miss Gowrie.’ Dolly smoothed her glossy hair, which today was pinned back with a tortoiseshell and diamond comb, shaped like a fan. ‘I am so happy.’
‘I love it all,’ I said with honesty.
‘And soon letters from home will start arriving, and that sad little look I see at the back of the eyes will have gone.’
‘Yes,’ I said. But none from Patrick. No letters, ever again, from Patrick. I don’t think Dolly Denisov can ever have been truly in love or she would not have said what she did. But perhaps she didn’t believe it. Hard to tell with Dolly.
‘You miss your family, of course you do. We Russians understand about families. That is why we live in such huge houses, so we can all be together.’ She reached out for a cigarette, and the dark silk of her flowing tea-gown slid away from her arm to show half a dozen barbaric-looking gold bracelets. ‘Even in this house we have an old aunt living. She is too old and frail for you to meet, she sees no one,’ said Dolly easily.
I said nothing. Old, Princess Irene certainly was, I thought; frail too, no doubt; but it wasn’t true she saw no one. She had seen me. I was opening my mouth to confess all, when Dolly swept on. ‘One day, perhaps, I will take you up to see her. She is history personified. Do you know, as a girl she danced with Prince Metternich? She was a great flirt. Well, more than that, I’m afraid; one couldn’t say she stopped short at flirting, precisely. So many scandals.’ Dolly laughed indulgently. ‘Never really beautiful, but she knew how to attract. Oh, she was worldly, Tante Irene, and now look what she has come to: a recluse, quite cut off, seeing no one. The sadness!’
I kept quiet. I wondered if it was true about her being quite cut off. I had got the distinct impression the Princess received exactly whom she liked in the tower.
Next day, after walking with Ariadne, there was a budget of letters from home waiting for me. I longed to carry them straight up to my room, but Ariadne said no, there was a special visitor in the drawing-room and I must come in and meet him.
‘Oh, who?’
She screwed her face up in a wry grimace. ‘I suppose you would call him a suitor.’
‘A suitor? For you?’ I was surprised. She seemed so young.
‘Oh, don’t worry, Miss Rose, these things take years and years in Russia.’ She smiled. ‘I’m not supposed to know. But of course I do. Goodness, my nurse told me of the arrangement when I was five. But I pretend I don’t know. My mother understands I know, but she pretends that I don’t, too.’ Then she sighed. ‘I shall have to make up my mind soon or it will be too late.’
‘You can choose, then?’
‘Oh, I expect so,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Mamma would never force me to anything, but why should it be no? He’s rich, gentle, and quite pretty, I think.’
‘We say handsome with a man,’ I said.
‘Handsome, then,’ accepted Ariadne blithely.
In the drawing-room were two men. One was Peter Alex-androvitch and the other – yes, seeing him suddenly through Ariadne’s eyes, he was handsome.
‘My Uncle Peter,’ introduced Ariadne, ‘whom you know. And this …’ no doubt from her voice and manner of amused archness that this was her suitor, and that she was enjoying my astonishment … ‘Edward Lacey.’
I held out my hand. ‘I am very glad to see you, Major Lacey.’ And it was true. I was surprised at how happy I was to see him. How secretive they had been, neither telling me until now of their particular interest in each other. Yet it was a private matter, of course, and not the sort of thing to be discussed with a new acquaintance.
Ariadne and I had interrupted a conversation about a famous Russian writer who had just, inexplicably committed suicide. ‘He killed himself,’ said Peter Alexandrov. ‘Shot himself through the mouth. Oh, there is a sickness in our society, all right, and where can it all end?’
‘It is part of your sickness to have no answer,’ said Edward Lacey.
‘Possibly. Or too many answers.’
‘Oh, politics, politics, they can never touch us.’ Ariadne interrupted their conversation with gaiety. ‘Let us ignore unpleasantness and have a good time.’
