Strange Are the Ways

by Strange Are the Ways (retail) (epub)

  She was still laughing as Kaarlo heaved a basket full of small fish onto the wooden verandah. ‘Come on, woman,’ he said, unsmiling, but with a glint in his dark eyes that was not altogether unfriendly, ‘you’ve shown us often enough that you’ve got a fishwife’s tongue – let’s see what you can do with these.’

  That afternoon the soldiers came.

  Almost they were taken by surprise, for so long in this winter fastness had they felt themselves secure. One moment the peace of the forest was undisturbed; the next there came the faint jingling of harness, the equally faint but unmistakable crunch of feet upon the still-frozen mud of the track that led to Pikku Kulda.

  ‘Jesus! Russians!’ Kaarlo, sitting upon the verandah whittling at a piece of wood with his lethal-looking knife, leapt to his feet. Through the tall bare trunks of the woodland distantly a flicker of colour showed, and the dull glimmer of metal. As Kaarlo spoke Heimo appeared, running, gesticulating as he came.

  ‘In! Get in!’ His low voice was urgent.

  Kaarlo had grabbed Katya’s arm, was dragging her with no ceremony through the door to the darkened interior of the house. Jussi grabbed the chairs in which they had been sitting, all but threw them after them, frantically scraped with his boot at the fresh woodchips Kaarlo had left on the boarded floor.

  ‘Russian soldiers!’ Heimo was holding onto the verandah rail, gasping for breath after his sprint through the forest.

  ‘How many?’ Jussi was still clearing the verandah of the all too obvious signs of life – the ancient book Katya had been reading, culled from a shelf in the living room, his own fishing tackle that he had been mending.

  ‘Not many. But enough. And armed to the teeth. What in God’s name are we going to do?’

  ‘Get inside. Shut the door.’

  They stumbled into the darkness, slammed the door behind them. Katya stood like a statue in the centre of the room, Kaarlo’s arm about her waist, his knife at her throat.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Kaarlo!’

  ‘She’s a Russian,’ Kaarlo said, and did not move.

  There was a moment of tense silence. Jussi tensed; his hands came up.

  ‘Jussi, no!’ Heimo moved between them. ‘God Almighty, are we to kill each other before they even get here?’ He jerked his head at the door.

  They all heard the sharp call, the whinny of a horse.

  ‘Kaarlo, let me go.’ It was Katya, her voice very quiet, very reasonable. ‘I can talk with them. I can make them go away.’ Only the faintest tremor betrayed her fear.

  The knife pricked her throat.

  ‘Kaarlo!’ The warning in Jussi’s voice was fierce.

  ‘Hello? Hello the house? Anyone there?’

  ‘We’ll fight them off,’ Kaarlo said.

  ‘We can try.’ Heimo’s voice was grim.

  ‘Please! Kaarlo, believe me – I can get rid of them. At least I can try!’ Braving the knife, Katya turned her head.

  ‘Let her go, Kaarlo.’ Jussi’s voice was flat, totally devoid of emotion. ‘Harm her and I’ll kill you.’

  Kaarlo lifted a bitter face. ‘Well you would, wouldn’t you? You’re besotted. You have been from the start. You think I haven’t known?’

  Katya threw a swift, startled glance at Jussi. His face had not changed. ‘Let her go.’

  ‘She’s a Russian! She’ll betray us without a thought –’

  Jussi launched himself. Katya, seeing it coming, threw herself to one side. The two men went down.

  ‘For God’s sake, you two!’ Heimo reached for the struggling men.

  Katya slipped past him to the door, opened it and stepped through, shutting it firmly behind her. She blinked in the light, pushed a hand through her dishevelled hair, straightened her bodice a little, smoothed her skirts.

  The silence that her appearance had imposed upon the gathered men in the clearing lasted for a full and valuable minute. Long enough for her to gather her thoughts, to take in the scene before her. An officer, young, fresh-faced, inexperienced-looking, sitting his horse, fur-lined cape draping its flanks. Perhaps a dozen fierce-looking, moustachioed soldiers, booted, great-coated, fur-hatted, stamping their feet, pulling off gloves, blowing upon their hands. A sense of impatience and of boredom. A great many weapons, slung across shoulders, tucked under arms. The young officer carried a pistol, unholstered. ‘Goodness, Captain,’ she said, laughing a little, yet keeping a little hauteur in her voice and in her level glance. ‘I don’t think you’ll need that.’

  The sound of her unmistakably educated and equally unmistakably Russian voice threw him completely. He stared. Coloured. Hefted the weapon uncomfortably in his hand.

  Katya laughed again. Behind her, through the door, she felt rather than heard a crash. Brightly and briskly, chin high, she stepped forward, offering her hand. ‘Yekaterina Mikhailovna –’ she allowed herself to hesitate a little, willed a blush ‘– Lavola. How may I help you?’ She was as composed as if it had been a St Petersburg salon.

  The young man scrambled from his horse, removed his heavy gauntlet. Took her hand, bowed over it. ‘Stasski. Captain Branislav Stasski. At your service, Madam.’

  ‘Captain.’ She inclined her head gracefully. Almost she could have laughed at the look on his face. Almost. She waited, politely enquiring.

  ‘Yekaterina Mikhailovna – forgive the intrusion.’ The young captain glanced around him, bemused. ‘We have information –’

  She allowed her eyebrows to climb a little.

  ‘– information concerning a certain nationalist terrorist group –’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ She allowed a chill to creep into her voice.

  ‘Of course I realize –’ His voice tailed off. One of the soldiers nearby coughed, none too delicately, swung his hands across his torso, thumping them to restore the circulation of his blood. As Katya glanced at him he hawked, and spat. Here was one who was not impressed by a gentle voice and an upper-crust accent.

  Katya made a small, impatient gesture with her hand, ‘Captain, I appreciate that you have a job to do – but terrorists? Do I understand you to mean –’ she paused, as if searching for the word ‘– assassins? Here? At Pikku Kulda?’

  ‘N-no. Of course not. That is – not here, especially. But in the area. We were told to check, to discover if there might be anywhere where fugitives might be sheltered. Some have been traced to hereabouts.’

  This time Katya allowed her laughter to peal into the cold quiet. ‘Shelter fugitives? At Pikku Kulda? Why, Captain, look for yourself – there is scarce room for the two of us, let alone for –’ she laughed again ‘– for fugitives? By all means, search the outhouses if you wish. Climb the trees. Drag the lake. Who knows what you might find? Fugitives indeed! Captain, I may be married to a Finn, but I am a true Russian, as is he. Long live the Tsar! You’ll find none of your fugitives here.’

  Still he looked uncertain. The soldier hawked again. Spat again. His eyes roved the clearing.

  ‘Now,’ Katya said, glinting a sudden laughing glance, moving a little further away from the cabin as she did so, ‘if you were to abandon this silly story of terrorists and tell me that you were in the pay of my papa – then I’d believe you!’

  The young captain showed every reasonable sign of bewilderment.

  ‘Tell me, have you been in Petersburg this winter?’

  ‘Why yes. At Christmas.’

  ‘And had the scandal already died?’ Again her look was arch, laughing. ‘The Bourlov heiress and her Finnish Count?’ She waited.

  He thought for a moment. Then, ‘Oh, good lord! You’re –’

  ‘Yekaterina Mikhailovna Lavola,’ she murmured and dropped a sketchy, mocking curtsey. ‘As I said. And truly, Captain, do you think my husband and I have had nothing better to do this winter than to shelter fugitives?’

  He laughed with her, his acceptance of her story instant and unreserved. ‘Many apologies Countess. If I had known –’

  ‘If you had known you might have told my father,�
�� she said. ‘But now it is too late, for we plan to return to the fold anyway. So – you have uncovered one set of fugitives, but sadly I cannot help you with your more important task. Now, may I offer you and your men tea? You have time, I think, before getting back to the village? Though –’ she lifted her head, sniffed the air ‘– the weather is far from settled. Even at this time of the year a blizzard can set in with very little warning.’

  He lifted a hand. ‘No. We won’t impose upon you. We have good billets in the village, but it’s a long march. The sooner we get back, the sooner the men will be satisfied. I apologize, Countess, for the intrusion.’

  She nodded her head politely. Her knees felt absurdly weak.

  He pulled on his gauntlets, walked to his horse, took the reins from the waiting soldier.

  ‘And, Captain?’

  ‘Countess?’

  She smiled beguilingly. ‘I can trust you to keep our little secret? In a month or so we’ll be back in Petersburg. I should like to keep our whereabouts a surprise until then?’

  ‘Of course, Countess. Of course.’

  His very expression belied his words. Katya had every confidence that within days the world would know the whereabouts of Jussi Lavola and his impulsive bride. Safe. She was safe. It was an extraordinarily odd feeling. She smiled. ‘Thank you, Captain.’

  She watched them out of the clearing, the men shuffling behind their well-mounted officer. At the edge of the clearing he turned, lifted a hand. She waved brightly back. When the last man had disappeared from view she turned to the house.

  The door stood open.

  Suddenly trembling, she walked slowly to the steps, climbed them, went on into the shadowed room, walked unthinking into Jussi’s arms, open and waiting for her, hugging her, fiercely and possessively. For a very long time no-one spoke.

  ‘We have, I think, another fighter for Finland,’ Jussi said at last, over her head.

  ‘For Suomi,’ Kaarlo corrected him. His nose was bleeding.

  ‘I had quite forgotten,’ Katya said, her voice muffled by Jussi’s none-too-clean sleeveless sheepskin jacket, ’that I had become a Countess. It seems after all that I must be my father’s daughter. I find I rather like the idea. You’ll not get rid of me now, Jussi. Don’t dare try.’

  Interlude: 1913-1914

  Katya and Jussi returned to face the music of St Petersburg late in the spring of 1913, and were received by her father, to no-one’s great surprise, with the relief and celebration so often reserved for prodigals.

  Anna heard of the runaways’ return in the summer, in a letter from her mother that arrived confirming the arrangements for Anna’s long-planned trip to St Petersburg.

  Three days before the arrival of the letter, Guy suffered a severe stroke.

  She sat at her husband’s bedside, the letter in her hand, her eyes upon his face, usually so lean and so vital, now thin, pallid and distorted with the paralysis that drew down one side of his mouth and made his left eyelid droop. Beyond the window a soft summer shower drenched the garden, misting its glowing colours, drifting through the heavy verdant canopies of the trees. ‘A letter from Mama,’ she said, softly.

  He attempted a smile. She steeled herself to smile back, not to betray her own pain at the sight of his. He could not speak, not yet, though the doctor was hopeful. His good hand squeezed hers.

  ‘Katya’s come home, complete with husband and – to Mama’s intense disappointment I suspect – no child. There goes the winter gossip out of the window! Katya was, it seems, simply being Katya after all and livening up a dull world with a bit of outrageous behaviour. Now there’s to be a “proper” wedding – all the trimmings, all the expense – and as usual she’s achieved the best of all possible worlds! Dmitri, Natalia and the children are well. Margarita is recovered, though sadly there seems to be no sign of another child.’ She saw the flicker in his open eye and hurried on, ‘She says nothing of Lenka.’ She sighed a little. ‘I wonder why she doesn’t answer my letters? I had so hoped –’ Her voice died. His hand squeezed hers again. Gently she reached to smooth the silver hair from his high forehead. ‘Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?’

  His head moved very slightly upon the pillow.

  ‘I’m not tiring you?’

  Again the small, negative movement.

  ‘Mama speaks of my visit. I shan’t go, of course. I shan’t leave you. No!’ He had made a small, protesting movement with his hand. ‘No! Absolutely not. I shan’t go, and you won’t make me. It’s out of the question. We’ll go to St Petersburg when we can go together.’ A small smile glimmered upon her tired face. ‘I can’t trust you – how can I leave you?’ Her voice was gently scolding. ‘When you’re better, then we’ll both go.’ She forced brightness into her voice, firmly suppressed misgiving. ‘Now, would you like me to read the paper to you?’

  She fetched the paper, settled down again in the chair. War in the Balkans again – Bulgarians and Serbs, Greeks and Turks, all at each others’ throats. The dangerous antagonism of Muslim and Christian, the even more dangerous tangles of alliances and ententes, the desperate weakness of a dying empire. She read with only half her mind concentrated upon the content. She had not realized how much she had been looking forward to seeing her family again. To seeing the new generation, the children she had never met, who knew little or nothing of their Aunt Anna who lived in the strange country of England across the sea. To Dmitri’s and Natalia’s children she sent presents on Name Days and birthdays; to Lenka’s also, though she suspected they never saw them. Certainly she had never received a single word of thanks or acknowledgement. Poor Lenka evidently nursed her grudge still. If she could have seen her – met the children – the children, again. She remembered the flicker of pain in Guy’s eye as she had mentioned Margarita’s childlessness. She did not know how he knew, but he knew. They had never discussed the matter of children. Yet somehow he had sensed that in this past year or so her own longing for a child had been the single grief in a happy – a very happy – life. And now – too late. A price she had always known she would have to pay for her precious marriage to this most precious of men.

  But – if he died? What then would she have of him but memories?

  ‘The woman who threw herself under the King’s horse has died. What a strange thing to have done. Does she really believe that such actions will influence Parliament to give the vote to women? They choose to fight with strange weapons, these women. Though the new law that allows them to be rearrested after they have recovered from their hunger-striking is harsh I think. Whatever else they are, however misguided, one cannot doubt their courage. I don’t think I’d have it in me to do such brave and painful things.’

  The good side of his mouth twitched a little. The one, bright blue, intelligent eye glinted. How could he bear it, this silent prison of flesh in which he was trapped? What would he do if the none-too-confidently predicted improvement did not materialize? She could not bear to think of it. Briskly she rustled the newspaper. ‘The editorial is about the Irish troubles – you’d like me to read it to you?’

  Later, the rain stopped, she wandered the soaked garden, rubber boots squelching in the mud, the hem of her skirt sodden and disregarded as it flapped about her ankles, in her hand the inevitable pair of secateurs. The air was fresh and beautiful. She worked her way through the rosebed, letting the simple task of deadheading distract and calm her mind and emotions. Once she turned towards the house, lifted her hand in greeting, in case he might be watching. Rain shimmered upon the rosebuds like diamonds upon the smooth skin of a beautiful girl. She thought of Katya and her strange escapade, and smiled a little. She would write to her cousin. Perhaps she could persuade the newlyweds to visit her here? What fun that would be, and some recompense for the disappointment of not being able to go herself to St Petersburg after all. Next year. She would go next year. Guy would grow strong again – he would, of course he would – and they would go together. If they travelled slowly and with care he co
uld manage it, she was sure. Anna was young still, and in the young hope truly springs eternal.

  * * *

  Guy did indeed improve, though he walked with a shuffling gait and a stick, the clear voice was hesitant, a little blurred, his words slow, and the left side of his face sagged, marring the fine, patrician looks. In the year that followed he fought his own battle with a quiet courage and determination that surprised Anna not a jot. By the following spring he was indeed as recovered as he ever would be, and dignity and that gentle delight in life were his again. But there could be no question of his undertaking the journey to Russia, and they both knew it.

  Resolutely she refused to leave him; as resolutely he insisted that she should. But then reports began to reach the outside world of violent unrest in St Petersburg, of marches and demonstrations, of strikes and barricades, of confrontations between unarmed workers and the Tsar’s all-too-well-armed army. There was talk of incitement, of agents provocateurs. There was talk of revolution. Since Guy’s illness, Anna had continued the pleasant habit of reading The Times to her husband each day; but increasingly as that hot summer progressed, as the bees bumbled in business-like fashion about the splashed colour of Anna’s herbaceous border, as friends came and went and long, lazy afternoons were spent in discussion and in making music, the news became steadily worse. Not just Russia, but the world in turmoil.

  It was in June that a Serbian student discharged the bullet that was to send the world to war. In the tense and confused weeks that followed there could be no question of travelling to Russia. In July the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia; Russia immediately mobilized her troops along the German border and Germany declared war on Russia and her ally France. It could only be a matter of time before the conflagration spread to the rest of Europe; optimistic souls thought still that Britain could remain aloof.

  But at the beginning of August – a month given in memory to holidays, to sunlit mornings and hot, dreaming afternoons, to laughter and the roll of waves upon a beach – Germany marched into all-but-undefended Belgium and the flames of war took hold. As guarantor of Belgium’s neutrality, Britain could not stand by and see her crushed. The youth of a nation rushed to join the fun, fearful it would all be over before they got there. Singing, they marched to war.