Читать книгу The Red Staircase - Gwendoline Butler - Страница 5

The wind was blowing in my face, a cold wind blowing across the waters of the Baltic to where I stood on the deck of the John Evelyn. It seemed to go right through my clothes. Ahead I could see the docks and quays of St Petersburg. It was May, we were the first ship into the Gulf of Finland since the winter ice had melted. The wind was cold, and my future lay spread before me on the horizon, and suddenly the prospect frightened me. But it was already more than a prospect; it was upon me. Even now the trunks were being piled on deck ready for arrival, and I could see my own box, black leather with my name on it in white: The Honble Rose Gowrie.

Tentatively I looked up at the man standing beside me, Edward Lacey, late of His Majesty’s Scots Guards, and my travelling companion. I had begun by hating his bland sophistication and his cool English voice. I hated all men, anyway – and pour cause, as our dominie used to say. But he proved kind and considerate during the journey, and relations had improved, though I still found him rather opaque. Now he turned to me with that ever courteous smile. ‘Nearly there, Miss Gowrie.’

We had boarded the small cargo ship, the John Evelyn, going out on the evening tide. The captain had bowed as he passed us on the deck. I was a passenger of special quality on the John Evelyn because I had been seen off by no less a person than Prince Michael Melikov. To my surprise he had been waiting at the Surrey Docks when I arrived. I knew who he must be; Edward Lacey – whom I had met for the first time the evening before, at the London hotel where I was booked for a single night – had told me of the Prince’s presence in London, and that he was a long-standing friend of both the Countess Denisov and my cousin Emma Gowrie. He was wearing a deep violet velvet overcoat. I never saw a man wear coloured velvet before, but on him it looked sombre and rich and yet correct.

He had bent his head to me politely and introduced himself in his deep, sweet voice. ‘And so here I am to see you off, Miss Gowrie. I could never excuse myself to that good lady, your cousin, when we next met in St Petersburg, if I did not see you safely aboard.’

Behind his friendly brown eyes was nothing, he had no real feeling for me. I sensed it without knowing why.

‘I’m looking forward to meeting her,’ I said. ‘I never have, you know. I believe she came once to see us at Jordansjoy but it was years ago, when my parents were not long married and I was only a child. She was old then.’ And must be older now by my twenty years. It was 1912. ‘Our Russian cousin, we call her, but she is as Scots as I am in blood, although four generations of Gowries have lived in St Petersburg now.’ I was talking nervously, for there was something about Prince Michael’s empty eyes that alarmed me.

Edward Lacey arrived at that point, in a cab, and after he had greeted me, stood talking to Prince Michael on the dock. How different they looked: the Prince tall and elegant, but with the withdrawn, inward expression of a man used to books and libraries; and Edward Lacey almost as tall but broader of shoulder, with the look of the open air about him, active and energetic. The one as unmistakably Russian as the other was English.

They were both watching me. The notion struck me and would not be dismissed. I felt as if they were studying me. Politely, of course, but with intent. And not for my looks, either. I knew what that sort of look was like; I knew what it was to be admired. At the memory of some special glances I once treasured, my spirits plummetted. I gritted my teeth, and pushed emotion away. I would not be bitter.

The dock side was very busy, many craft were taking advantage of the high tide to load. A string of lighters and barges was passing down river towards the estuary. Its tug gave a melancholy hoot as it went and another ship answered, part of the perpetual conversation of the river. It was evening, a fine night in early summer. Summer smells mingled with the smells of oil and dust in the Surrey Docks, and with the strong odour of horse. A dray horse, who had brought his load of packing-cases to the side of the John Evelyn to be hauled aboard, was pawing the cobbles. There was a young lad sitting on the dray, ostensibly minding the horse, watching the scene, and calling out jokes and ribaldry to the stevedores and dockers labouring around him. He had a tin whistle stuck in his waist and presently he started to play a tune. A gay little rag-tune; I shall never forget it. I think it was called ‘Irene’, a name which was to mean much to me. Strange, that name coming then; what an uncanny trick life has of striking a note that it means to repeat.

At last we went aboard the John Evelyn. The light was fading fast. I was unsurprised to find that over an hour had passed. I remember Prince Michael’s smile as he finally went away, which accentuated rather than took away the emptiness of his eyes. He smiled, not for me or with me, but because of me; I was quite sure of it.

After I had unpacked, I went on deck again to watch the Thamesside slipping past. The ship had sailed almost immediately on our coming aboard. My cabin was small, but I had it to myself. I had arranged my clothes, put out the silver-backed hairbrushes that had belonged to my mother, and around them placed the photographs of Grizel and young Alec, Tibby and my brother Robin. My pantheon, as naughty Alec called them. Four faces where there had once been five; one god had gone from my pantheon. Again, I tried to repress bitterness, but the taste of it remained in my mouth even as I stood on deck and watched the lights of London and her satellite suburbs, Greenwich and Woolwich, disappear into the dark. The water grew rougher as we felt the pull of the open sea.

I had made myself a hooded cloak of thick plaid, and lined the hood with fur from an old tippet handed down in my family for generations and at last consigned to me. ‘Bring warm clothes,’ my old Russian cousin had written. I pushed back the hood and let the soft fur fall across my shoulders in unaccustomed opulence; and I wondered what the future held in store for me. I suppose every girl wonders this, but I had special cause.

Then Edward Lacey came up behind me. I recognised him by the smell of Turkish tobacco and Harris tweed that I had already identified as peculiarly his own. He moved to my side, he took out his pipe.

‘Do you mind if I light up, Miss Gowrie?’

‘Oh, no, please do. I enjoy the smell.’ I had smoked a cigarette myself once, but I did not tell him; he seemed to find me puzzling enough already.

He struck a Swan Vesta, and the tobacco smouldered fragrantly. He took a puff or two, then the pipe went out. Pipes always do. But he did not re-light it. Instead he stood there looking into the murky river, glancing at me from time to time.

I kept silent. I was aware he was studying my face. I suppose I was studying his in return. We had met only briefly the day before, but now, embarked on our voyage, conscious that we should be much in each other’s company over a long period, it was as if we both knew we were about to move into a new kind of intimacy. As a type he was not new to me; I had seen plenty of his sort come up for shooting parties at the big house. Such men were sophisticated, worldly, and hard to know. Not the sort of person I really felt at home with.

‘So,’ he said, as if recapping what he had already established, ‘you are the strong-minded young lady who likes medicine and healing the sick? I must warn you that you have a sceptic in me.’

‘Why, Major Lacey – ’

‘I mean, as far as women’s education is concerned. I just don’t like to see it overdone. Seems all wrong to me.’

‘You seem to know a lot about me,’ I said shortly.

‘Well, I do in a way. A potted biography, Dolly Denisov gave me. She’s got a knack of putting things in a nutshell.’

‘Accurately, I hope.’ I spoke with a certain asperity.

‘Yes, she’s reliable, is Dolly. And then, of course, I know your cousin and old Erskine Gowrie, too. Not that he’s seen much these days. Not the man he was. No, Dolly told me all about you. The medicine and all that. I thought you’d be a tough, dried, hockey-stick of a girl.’

‘And I’m not?’ I enquiried, thinking that, after all, not everything about me had been relayed to this man through the channels of Emma Gowrie and Dolly Denisov. Not Patrick.

‘Not a bit,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But I ought to warn you – you’ve captivated Dolly’s imagination. And that can be dangerous.’ He was half laughing, but half serious. ‘All Dolly’s swans have to be swans, you see. Ask Mademoiselle Laure about that.’

‘And who is Mademoiselle Laure?’

‘Oh, a sort of French governess they keep there,’ he said vaguely. ‘On the retired list. Except I believe she teaches French to Ariadne still.’ There sounded an ambiguous side to Mademoiselle Laure, I thought.

‘Thank you for the warning. I need this post. The pay is good and I am poor, which is a state, Major Lacey, you probably know nothing of. You have certainly never been a poor, unmarried girl with her way to make.’

‘Touché,’ he conceded.

I needed desperately, too, to get away from my home, but no point in telling him that if Dolly Denisov had not. It was my own private wound, for me to bear and heal.

‘But Russia is a dangerous place to come to make your fortune,’ he said soberly.

‘I shall hardly do that, working in the Denisov home.’

‘No, if that’s all that happens. But one rarely does only one thing in Russia, as I know to my cost. It’s the way things happen there. There’s a sort of persuasiveness to the place.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t bully yourself too much, Miss Gowrie. Sit easy to the world; it’s the best way to take your fences. Goodnight. I’m off below.’ And he strolled away, calm and friendly as before.

With a start, I realised he knew all there was to know about me, and was giving me what he thought of as good advice. Something in his cool assumption that he knew best got under my skin. With sudden tears of fury blinding me, I hammered the iron deckrails till my hands ached. ‘Beastly, arrogant man!’ I cried. ‘Stupid and obtuse like all of them! I hate him. I hate all men.’

I felt better after the explosion of tears, and from then on I started to enjoy the journey. After all, I had done so little travelling that to be on the move was in itself new and exciting. My spirits improved daily, and I even began to enjoy the company of Edward Lacey.

And now I was almost sad that the journey was ending …

I came back to the present, to the view of St Petersburg, and to Edward Lacey’s voice. ‘Peter the Great built St Petersburg because he wanted a door on the world,’ he was saying.

‘Hadn’t he got one, then?’

‘The western world. Moscow was in many ways an oriental capital. He wanted to change all that. He did, too. But I think Russia has been paying the price for it ever since. What a country.’

We had talked a good deal about Russia during the voyage, and he obviously knew it well. His sister, he had told me, was married to a Russian; she was expecting a child in the autumn. Now he said: ‘I shall hope to introduce you to my sister, Miss Gowrie, when she’s out and about again.’

‘Oh, thank you.’ Perhaps he didn’t disapprove of me as much as I had thought. ‘Yes, I should like that. I shall know so few people apart from my godfather and the Denisovs.’

‘That will soon change,’ he predicted briskly. ‘The Russians are an endlessly sociable people. The Denisovs will take you around. Dolly Denisov lives for the world.’

‘Ariadne is only seventeen,’ I said.

‘Never mind, you won’t be cloistered.’ He had his eyes screwed up, staring at the quay. ‘There’s the Denisov motorcar already waiting for you, I see.’

‘A motor-car?’

‘Yes.’ He sounded amused. ‘Did you expect a sledge? It is summer and there are very few motor-cars in St Petersburg, but of course Dolly Denisov has one.’

Suddenly, my new life seemed all too close. ‘I wonder if I shall be happy in Russia,’ I said urgently.

‘Yes. If you are the sort of girl who can accept it for what it is, a country entirely itself, and not be continually comparing it with what you know at home, then you will be happy. Or on the way to happiness.’

‘I think I can manage that.’

‘And learn the language. The real Russia is hidden, otherwise.’

‘I already know a little Russian,’ I said. ‘Our local schoolmaster taught me to read Chekhov, he had the language from his mother who was a governess in Russia.’

‘Then you will be well away. And keep your eyes open to the state of Russia. I expect you know something already?’ He was summing me up.

‘I have read the news,’ I said. ‘I know of the terrible poverty, of the oppressive rule, and of how they fear revolution.’

‘Yes. There are all shades of political thinking in Russia, from the most reactionary which favours extreme despotic rule by the Tsar, to the moderates who want to make the Tsar a parliamentary monarch on the British model, to the extreme anarchists who want to destroy all government – blow the lot up, is their motto. I should say Dolly Denisov is an old-fashioned liberal who wants the Tsar’s government to relax some rules but otherwise keep things more or less as they are. As for her brother, he sometimes looks as if he despaired of his country and did not give a damn. Yet I swear he does, because Russians always do care, and those who seem indifferent often care the most. For all I know he may be an out-and-out reactionary – there is that element in the Denisov family – or a downright anarchist.’

He was patently instructing me in the intricacies of Russian political life and I acknowledged this. ‘I will look and learn,’ I said.

‘Then you may survive. But mind: I only say may. It’s the goddamned country. One loves it or hates it.’

We disembarked together, and moved along the quay towards the Denisov car. My great adventure was upon me. With a beating heart I prepared to meet the Denisovs. The Denisovs and Russia.

No one had told me about the May nights, how white they were, and how intense, and how they would affect me. I kept thinking of Patrick; I had come to Russia to forget him, and he was all I could think about. These long, sleepless nights were one of the phenomena of my first weeks in St Petersburg. There were others. One was the cold. Heaven knows, Scotland is often cold enough in May, but I was not prepared for the cold wind of Russia that made me huddle in my clothes. But they told me it would be warm enough soon, and then I should see. Everyone in the Denisov household seemed to take a delight in offering me the contradictions of St Petersburg, as if it had all been specially constructed to amuse me. It was my first introduction to one aspect of the Russian character: its capacity to charm. At the beginning, and indeed for a long time after, Dolly Denisov seemed to me charm personified. Partly it was her voice, delicate, light and sweet.

‘You speak such excellent English yourself, Madame,’ I told her, not long after I arrived, ‘that I wonder you need me to speak to your daughter.’

‘Ah, but poor Ariadne, she needs your company. She must be gay, happy. I love her to be happy. Besides, I cannot be with her all the time.’ A slight pout here, as of one sacrificed already too much to maternal duty.

But it was plain from the start that Dolly Denisov had other amusements besides motherhood; her appearance, for one thing. Never had I seen such dresses and such a profusion of jewels. Perhaps she saw my smile. ‘Ah, it’s no joke, Miss Gowrie, being a wife at eighteen and a widow with a daughter at twenty.’

‘And such a daughter,’ said Ariadne, giving her mother a loving pat. ‘Seventeen years and more you have had of it, Mamma.’

‘But luckily the English nation has been specially created to provide us poor Russians with the governesses we need,’ laughed Madame Denisov, ‘and thus to lighten my burden.’

English or Scottish, it was all one to her.

A joke, of course, but partly meant. You got a new slant on the Anglo-Saxon people and the great British Empire in Russia; we were not, as I had supposed, a nation of shop keepers and diplomats and colonisers, but a race of trustworthy governesses.

The Denisov motor-car had duly met us off the John Evelyn, and, close to, gave me an immediate appreciation of the Denisovs’ mettle; it was of surpassing elegance, the bodywork of maroon with a sort of basket-work corset enclosing it, the metalwork like well polished silver and the upholstery of lavender-blue watered silk. Did I forget to say that it was perfumed? As the introductions were concluded and I stepped inside, a sweet waft of rose and iris floated towards me, nicely mixed with the smell of Russian cigarette smoke. I discovered afterwards that Dolly Denisov smoked incessantly, a long, diamond-studded cigarette-holder always between her fingers. Not that Madame Denisov was there herself at the quay, of course. She was out at one of her numerous engagements, and indeed I did not see my employer for the first twenty-four hours after my arrival. But Ariadne, my dear pupil, had come to meet me. A plain girl, I thought at first, but when I took in her friendly brown eyes and her gentle smile, I saw she had her own beauty.

She turned from Edward Lacey and held out her hands in welcome. ‘I am so glad to see you, Miss Gowrie. I have been excitedly looking forward to today.’

I mumbled some pleasantry in reply. There was the sort of small, unhappy silence that seems inevitably to characterize such occasions, and then Edward Lacey was shaking my hand. ‘Goodbye for the time being, Miss Gowrie.’

I watched his tall, erect figure disappear amid the dock-side crowd. I have not found him easy to know, but with his going went my last link with home. Here I was, ensconced in a beautiful motor-car, with my charge. I seemed to have absolutely nothing to say. All I could think was: ‘Already Ariadne speaks excellent English. I shall have little to do on that score.’

At once she seemed to sense my thought, demonstrating that quick intelligence I was to know so well. ‘I speak English all the time with Mamma. Naturally.’

‘Naturally?’

‘Here one speaks either French or English, and Mamma says she likes French clothes and English conversation.’ It was a fair introduction to Dolly Denisov and, in its calm, good-humoured presentation of the facts, of Ariadne also.

While I was talking to her, I was trying to take in all that I could see of St Petersburg as we drove. It was a city of bridges and canals; water was everywhere. I could believe the stories of how the city had risen out of the marshes at the command of Peter the Great. It was early afternoon, and the sun sought out and flashed on gilded domes and spires.

‘That is the dome of St Isaac’s Cathedral,’ said my companion helpfully, observing my intent look. She pointed. ‘And that is the spire of the Fortress Cathedral.’

The streets were wide but crowded with people. Many of the men seemed to be in uniform – uniforms in a tremendous range of styles and colours. I supposed that later I would learn to recognise what each meant, and to appreciate the significance of this green uniform, and that red livery, this astrakhan cap and that peaked one, but at first glimpse the variety was simply picturesque and exciting. Our motor-car wove its way in and out of a great welter of traffic, private conveyances, carts, and oddly-shaped open carriages whose iron wheels rattled across the cobbles. At one junction an electric tram clattered across our track, motor and tram so narrowly missing a collision that I caught my breath. But Ariadne remained calm, as if such near misses were an everyday occurrence. At intervals, a majestic figure wearing a shaggy hat of white sheepskin and a long dark jacket would stride through the traffic, oblivious of all danger, forcing all to give way before him: a Turcoman, living reminder of Oriental Russia.

Now we had turned along a waterfront, passing a great honey-coloured building and then a dark green, verdant stretch of gardens. There was what looked like a row of government buildings of severe grey stone, succeeded by a row of shops and some private houses. Then a few more minutes of driving and we had arrived at the Molka Quay. The motor-car stopped outside a house of beautiful, pale grey stone with a curving flight of steps leading to an elegant front door.

As we drove up, the door opened. I suppose someone had been watching. But this was always the way it was in Russia; it never seemed necessary to ring a bell or ask for a service, every want was unobtrusively satisfied before the need for it was even formulated, the servants were so many and so skilful.

I was taken up to my room by a trio of servants and a laughing Ariadne. With a flourish, the girl showed me round what was to be my domain. Domain it was; I had two lofty rooms with an ante-chamber, and my own servant. I almost said ‘serf’, but of course the serfs had been freed in 1861 by Alexander, the Tsar Liberator. Nevertheless, the servant who bowed low before me was old enough to have been born into servility, and I felt you could see it in his face, where the smile was painted on and guarded by watchful eyes.

‘Ivan will stand at your door, and anything you wish, he will do. You have only to say.’

‘I shall have to brush up my Russian.’

‘Ivan understands a little English, that is why he was chosen. On our estate a few peasants are always taught some English. Also French and German. It is so convenient.’ Ariadne held out her hand and said sweetly: ‘Come down when you are ready. We have English tea at five o’clock.’

Somewhat to my surprise, and in spite of his Russian name, Ivan was a negro.

When Ariadne had gone, leaving only Ivan standing by the outer door, I explored my rooms, which were furnished with a mixture of Russian luxury and western comfort. Carpets, tapestries and furniture were expensive and exotic. Great bowls of flowers stood everywhere. The bed in the bedroom was newly imported from Waring and Gillow of London, by the look of it. I unpacked a few things, stood my photographs of the family at Jordansjoy by my bed where I could see them when I went to sleep, and proceeded to tidy myself to go down to the Denisovs’ ‘Five o’clock’. I washed my hands. I found that the rose-scented soap in the china dish was English.

It may very well be that young Russian noblewomen never go anywhere without a companion, but otherwise it seemed to me that Ariadne Denisov had a good deal of freedom. For that first evening she entertained me on her own, presiding over dinner and then playing the piano to me afterwards. It was pleasant and undemanding, but anticipation and a battery of new experiences had exhausted me, and before long Ariadne realized the condition I was in, and the two of us went up to bed.

On our way upstairs I saw a small, dark-gowned figure moving along the corridor a short distance ahead of us. Not a servant, obviously, from the sharp dignity with which she observed: ‘Good night, Ariadne,’ disappearing round the corner without waiting for an answer.

‘Mademoiselle Laure, the French governess,’ explained Ariadne. ‘The French governess,’ I noticed, not ‘my French governess’. Thus Ariadne dismissed Mademoiselle as a piece of furniture of the house, necessary, no doubt, to its proper equipment, but of no importance. Her attitude contrasted strangely with the welcome given to me.

Sitting up in bed, plaiting my hair, I thought about the scene again. No doubt I had imagined the flash of malevolence from Mademoiselle Laure’s eyes. Yet she had spoken in English when French would have been more natural to her. No, emotion was there, and I would do well to heed it. I recalled Edward Lacey’s suggestion that Mademoiselle Laure had experienced a certain captiousness in Madame Denisov’s attitude to her protegées. Was she, perhaps, envious of me?

I considered where I had landed myself. The business of preparing for bed had revealed that the luxury I had first noticed went hand in hand with a curious primitiveness. There were beautiful carpets and fine pictures everywhere, jasper and lapis lazuli had been used to decorate the walls of the salon; but there was absolutely no sign of piped water. No water-closet seemed to exist, and I had an antique-looking commode in my room. Private and convenient, no doubt, but even Jordansjoy did better. And there was dust under the bed.

But all the same, I liked it here. Magnificence suited me, never mind the dirt. The Denisovs were obviously extremely wealthy. I had been told that only the very rich had their own house, or osobniak, and that even the well-to-do chose to live in flats. But the whole of this great house seemed given over to the Denisovs. And so far I had met only one of them. Besides Madame Denisov there was the ‘Uncle Peter’ Ariadne had spoken of, her father’s younger brother. She had pointed out his photograph to me, showing me the face of a neat-boned, dark-haired young man with a look of Ariadne herself, the features which seemed plain on the girl possessing elegance on him.

I snuggled down into bed at last, tired but curiously confident – sure I could outlast any caprices of Dolly’s favour for as long as it suited me.

The next day, somewhat later than I might have expected, I met Dolly Denisov.

She was sitting curled up on one end of a great sofa, a bright silk bandeau round her head, a pink spot of rouge on each cheek and something dark about her eyes, puffing away at a cigarette and chattering at a great rate to Ariadne in her high-pitched, lilting voice. She leapt to her feet when she saw me and came forward holding out a delicate, jewelled hand.

I don’t remember her opening words, I was too absorbed in her physical impact; I was swimming in a strange sea, excited and exhilarated. Then we were sitting down, side by side on the sofa, talking as if she was really interested in me.

‘And did you sleep? Visitors sometimes find our summer nights trying.’

‘I did find it difficult to sleep.’

‘And you dreamed? We always say that there’s nothing like a St Petersburg summer’s night dream.’

‘Yes, I dreamed.’ I had dreamt of Patrick. She knew all about Patrick, of course. I realized by now that everything of my sad little history had been explained to all parties concerned by Emma Gowrie.

‘Everyone dreams here in the summer. When they can sleep at all. I can never sleep. All the time I am exhausted.’ She didn’t look it, though. Energy crackled from her. ‘But then we go to our estate in the country and there I rest; but you will be at work.’ And she smiled. ‘Foreigners are always interested in our country estates because in them is the heart of Russia. We know what we owe to our peasants, Miss Gowrie, you must never doubt that. Between the landed proprietor and his peasants is a bond that only God can break. Outside Russia, people do not understand this. But I am a liberal-thinking woman. I want the Tsar to rule through a Parliament – the Duma, we call it – as your King does.’

Our conversation was broken into by a procession of servants carrying salvers laden with food and wine, which they proceeded to lay out upon a series of small tables before bowing and retiring. I watched, frankly enjoying the scene; it was as good as being at the play. And no sooner had they departed than a stream of guests began arriving, almost all the men in a uniform of one sort or another, the ladies for the most part as richly decked out as Dolly Denisov, with one or two poorer-looking figures dressed in dingy dark clothes – including one elderly lady who speedily helped herself to a plate of assorted delicacies and retired to a corner to eat them as if she had not seen food as good as this for sometime, and would not soon do so again. Last to arrive was a trio of musicians who came quietly in, settled themselves in a corner and struck up. No one took the slightest notice, although by all accounts the Russians rated themselves very highly as music lovers.

Ariadne skipped around, sometimes bringing guests up to me to be introduced, sometimes leading me to them. Madame Soltikov, Count Gouriev, Professor Klin, Prince Tatischev, the Princess Valmiyera – she was named with especial respect, and was the little old lady eating her plateful of delicacies.

Halfway through the evening a tall, dark-haired young man walked quietly across the room to where I was sitting and introduced himself. ‘I am Peter Alexandrov, Dolly’s brother.’ He was fastidiously and beautifully dressed and I caught the faint scent of verbena as he bowed over my hand. No one could have been more unlike Patrick, but he was the first man who had caught my attention at all since my disaster. ‘I should think he knows how to interest women all right,’ I thought to myself as I talked to him.

Our conversation was light and easy, nothing important was said, but I felt I had made a friend. When he rose to go I saw him catch Dolly’s eye and a look passed between them. A question in hers, and an assent in his. I could not mistake it. He had wanted to meet me, I was sure of it.

Someone had been watching us. I turned quickly. A small dark-clad figure crossed the room diagonally, walking towards the door. I recognised Mademoiselle Laure. So she had been here all the time.

An irrational vexation possessed me. We were two of a kind in this household, Mademoiselle and I, and yet she seemed to avoid me, whereas I had already made tentative explorations to see if I could find her room.

‘There goes Mademoiselle Laure.’ I pointed her out to Ariadne. ‘I didn’t know she was here.’

‘Oh, she came to listen to the music, I suppose,’ said Ariadne. ‘She is very fond of music.’

If she had been listening, then she was the only one. The musicians had played sadly, as if they never expected an audience. Now they had packed up their instruments and were filing out, one after the other like the Three Blind Mice.

‘I suppose she has a room somewhere near mine?’ I asked.

‘Mademoiselle Laure? Oh, I think she is in a room on the next floor,’ said Ariadne vaguely, as if she did not know and did not care. It was all very unlike the treatment of me.

The next day Dolly Denisov clapped her hands and announced that Ariadne would be taking me on a tour of the city. Was I rested? Was I comfortable? Good. To be introduced to St Petersburg was a necessary preliminary to my duties.

‘Duties,’ I thought. There seemed to be no duties, only pleasures.

We duly set off in their large motor-car, with Ariadne pointing out the sights. We had passed this way yesterday. ‘There is the Rouminantiev Garden ― so beautiful. One day we must walk there. Oh, all those buildings are part of the university, but that one over there covered with mosaics is the Academy of Arts. Mamma says it is unsightly, but I rather like it. Oh, and that’s the Stock Exchange – looks as if it was hewn out of solid rock, doesn’t it?’ She spoke through the speaking tube to the footman, who then spoke to the chauffeur. ‘Go on to the Peter and Paul Fortress, then the Cathedral, and then down to the Nevsky Prospect.’ She turned to me. ‘That way we’ll go past the Vladimir Palace and the Winter Palace. You’ll like the Nevsky Prospect, the shops are gorgeous.’ And she giggled. She and her mother had the same sort of delightful, rumbling little laugh.

Ariadne had her orders, I decided, and the tour which looked so artless had been carefully thought out. The city was laid out before me in its great beauty, with everywhere trees and water, and buildings either of rich red brick or stone apricot-coloured in the sunlight. The sombre bulk of the Fortress of St Peter and St Paul, Kazan Cathedral, the Winter Palace itself, I saw them all. And at the centre was the Nevsky Prospect. ‘It is the longest and widest street in the world,’ said Ariadne proudly. ‘Five miles from the Alexander Gardens to the Moscow Gate.’

I was struck by the width of the street, too, the pavements looked as if a dozen people could have marched up them side by side. Very soon Ariadne stopped the car.

‘Now we will walk,’ she said, and took my hand tightly in hers and led me along. ‘This is the glittering world, Miss Rose. Perhaps I shall have to renounce it one day, who knows what may happen? But while it is here, let us enjoy it. Look, here is Alexandre’s.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘Oh, I adore Alexandre’s.’

Together we stared at the window full of expensive and elegant objects – jade boxes, scarves of Persian silk, chains of gold and ivory, a delicate parasol of white lace with a diamond-studded handle. Never had I seen anything like it. By comparison Jenner’s in Prince’s Street did not exist.

‘Do you have anything like this?’

I shook my head. ‘In London, perhaps. Not in Edinburgh.’

Past Alexandre’s was Druce’s, the ‘English Shop’, where were sold English soap and toothpaste and lavender water – which was much used by the men. After that we went into Wolff’s, the great bookshop, where Ariadne lavishly bought me several books about Russia and a copy of the London Times.

‘Across the road,’ she said in a low voice, ‘is Fabergé’s shop. Even I hardly dare look in there, it is so expensive. Old Madame Narishkin spent the whole of her husband’s salary there in one day, just buying two presents for his birthday. Or that’s the story, anyway.’ She gave that giggle, so like her mother’s. ‘The old goose is silly enough for it.’

A golden-voiced clock somewhere chimed the hour, and it reminded Ariadne of something. ‘Let’s go to Yeliseyeff’s,’ she said. ‘I have to order some ryabchik for Mamma – tomorrow she gives a dinner party.’

Yeliseyeff’s, as I was to discover, was a large provision store filled with exotic delicacies from all over the world: great jars of crystallised apricots and plums, drums of mysterious marrons glacés, bowls of strawberries and peaches, sacks of dark brown nuts. Seasons had no place in Yeliseyeff’s calendar, any fruit could be had at any time.

Ariadne ordered the little game birds for her mother from a smiling assistant, added to it the request for a box of praliné almonds for herself, and then led me to the grand treat of the morning. ‘Coffee and ices at Berrin’s,’ she announced.

Berrin’s was the French confiserie in Morskaya Street, just off the great Nevsky Avenue, and thither we were driven in the car which had all this time been following us at a discreet distance. There, at a round mahogany table in the window, we ate tiny sponge cakes and ice-cream served to us by a tall Frenchwoman dressed in brown and black, a colour combination I had never seen before – and it would certainly have looked dowdy enough at Jordansjoy – but which I now realized was of great elegance.

‘If this is to be my life in St Petersburg,’ I thought, ‘I am on Easy Street.’

An indeed, during those first few days in St Petersburg I was beginning to see a little of what lay behind Edward Lacey’s reservations about Russian society; it would be easy to be corrupted, to sink back into a comfortable, idle life. I do not deny that for a little while I indulged myself with daydreams about what it would be like to be a femme du monde like Dolly Denisov, with nothing to do except mind my clothes and my appearance. Delicious fantasies they were, too, but not for long. I delighted in Dolly Denisov, but I did not wish to be her, it was not in my nature to live like that. Besides, even Dolly had a conscience. Had she not asked me to come here to help with the health of her peasants? So before long I asked, rather shyly, if I could be introduced to this side of my duties.

‘Oh, aren’t you happy with Ariadne, then?’ she asked in some surprise.

‘But very. She’s a delightful girl, and I love going about the town with her. But I long to get on with the medical work,’ I said eagerly.

‘Yes of course, I can understand that.’ She gave a severe look at one of her own beautifully manicured hands, as if that hand was anxious to get out and cleanse wounds and tie bandages. ‘But it’s difficult till we go to Shereshevo, which will not be until a little later. It is there you will work, you see. Still, I don’t see why you couldn’t make a start.’ She considered. ‘Would you like to go and see one of the great St Petersburg hospitals?’

‘Oh, I would.’

‘Then I’ll arrange it. Let me see, tomorrow won’t do; I’m fully engaged. Nor the day after ― fittings, you know, for one or two new little dresses. But the day after that.’ She consulted her diary. ‘Yes, the morning of that day will do beautifully. Would you like to see the hospital of St George? I know the doctor, the medical administrator there, and he will arrange it for us.’

It wasn’t quite what I had had in mind; from my Edinburgh experience I knew that hospital inspections by a fashionable party of people, even those blessed by the noblest of motives, were not relished by busy doctors and nurses. Nor much by the sick themselves, I suspected. ‘If it’s all right,’ I said doubtfully.

‘You mean, for the doctors, the patients?’ Dolly’s eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘Oh, but they will love it.’

And when we got there I found to my surprise that this was true, at least of the patients. They really did enjoy being visited; my first intimation – one among many – of the differences between the Russian spirit and what I was used to at home.

We drove out to the hospital in Dolly’s car, travelling for about half an hour, first through the prosperous heart of the city with its great shops and palaces, then into a more working-class district. I looked about me with interest.

‘Well?’ said Dolly, adding with some irony: ‘A charming area, is it not?’

‘It looks poor enough,’ I said bluntly, ‘and it reminds me more of Glasgow than Edinburgh, with its great tenement blocks alternating with factories.’

‘Yes, there is a lot of industry here.’ Dolly put her hand on my arm. ‘Over there is a factory that should interest you.’ We were passing a high brick wall which protected a bleak stone building with few windows and those set high. ‘It belongs to your godfather, Erskine Gowrie.’

I stared at it as we sped past. ‘What do they make there? What kind of factory is it?’

After a moment’s pause, Dolly said: ‘Some sort of engineering factory, I believe.’

‘Engineering, is it? I thought I was told it was a chemical factory.’

‘I may have got it wrong,’ said Dolly easily. ‘It’s the sort of thing I do get wrong.’

‘I wonder if I could see over it.’

‘So you are interested in factories as well as hospitals?’ said Dolly, with a glint of amusement.

‘In that one, anyway, as it belongs to my godfather. He might let me in. Although he seems to have forgotten my existence,’ I added.

‘I believe he sees no one and is quite withdrawn. Senile, you know. With some people old age goes to the legs, and with some the mind.’

As the factory disappeared from my sight I had time to wonder who ran the factory if my godfather was beyond doing so. I was just about to ask Dolly this question when she said: ‘And here is the hospital.’

As far as looks went, there was not much to choose between my godfather’s factory and the hospital, for both were bleak, grey buildings nestling behind high walls; the hospital had more windows, that was all. But in my limited experience all hospitals looked like that outside, more or less; it was the inside that counted and showed its quality.

This hospital was simple enough inside, but well run. Armed with my introduction from Dolly, I was made welcome and taken to the dispensary, where drugs and equipment were laid out for me to see. I made a quick list of what was easily available and what I could order. They seemed to have most of the medicines I would have used at home. But what struck me about the hospital was a looseness of discipline; the staff and patients seemed almost jolly, I actually heard laughter and singing. When I thought about it I could see that happiness must promote healing. I was learning fast about the strange country that was Russia. I could see already that in many ways it was a harsh society, and yet there were always the unexpected things – the gaiety of the people, their charm – that delighted me. And somehow distracted me, too, from focusing on the grimmer realities.

On the way back home we drove by a different route and did not pass my godfather’s factory, which disappointed me. That was all I felt then – curiosity, and disappointment. But perhaps there were already questions forming in my mind: What does this forbidding place produce? What connection to me, exactly, is Erskine Gowrie? Am I to meet him? And if not, why not? Perhaps there was already growing in me a faint unease.

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.’