Lorimers at War

by Anne Melville

  ‘Then where will you go?’

  He threw out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘There is nowhere. Yesterday I owned three estates. Today, after my brother’s death –’ his voice faltered again – ‘I own seven. But it seems that the places where I am known are the most dangerous. Ever since our father died we have cared for our people, Paul and I. I truly believed that they loved us. But now –’

  He sat down on the edge of the four-poster bed and for a second time buried his head in his hands. It was not fear which made him tremble, Kate realized – although he had good cause to be afraid – but the shock of his brother’s death and the servants’ disloyalty. Like the ice on the Neva, the established order had cracked and there was nowhere he could feel safe.

  Kate took a little time to consider the question seriously before she spoke. This was not an occasion for impulsive gestures. She must be sincere, and practical in regard to details. It proved not to be too difficult. Only a little time had passed since she had regretted the way in which circumstances made it impossible for herself and the prince to develop a true friendship. But circumstances had changed with a vengeance. No longer over-privileged, he lacked at this moment even the precarious security of every other class of society. Yet there were no crimes for which he could be held personally responsible.

  ‘You could come with me,’ she offered. ‘For a while, at least, until this first violence subsides. For all we know, the revolution may not yet have spread outside Petrograd. In any case, as you’ve already recognized, you’ll be safer where you aren’t known. Come south with me. I can arrange it. The train leaves in two hours.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re proposing. For a woman – and especially a foreign woman – to travel across a country in a state of anarchy is foolish enough. As your companion, I should double the danger. It’s out of the question.’

  ‘Listen to me, Excellency,’ Kate pleaded. ‘I arrived here unknown, uninvited, tired and not even very clean. You’ve made me welcome. You’ve treated me like a princess. It’s not just that you provided me with the first taste of comfort that I’ve had for two years. I’ve been spoiled by your kindness, your conversation, your music. Was it presumptuous of me to hope that we might become friends?’

  ‘Of course we are friends,’ he said. ‘And for that very reason –’

  Kate wouldn’t allow him to finish. ‘As your guest, I have an obligation to give you a present as an expression of thanks for your hospitality. It’s an English custom. And as my friend, you have an obligation to accept whatever I choose to give you.’ She forced herself to laugh, trying to deflate the solemnity with which she had spoken. ‘Although it may prove in the end that I have nothing to offer except words. But I can try, and you must let me try.’

  They were discussing what might well be a matter of life and death – and yet it seemed to Kate, as she gazed steadily into Prince Aminov’s eyes, that he was not really listening. She waited for his answer, and it did not come directly.

  ‘I remember – it can be only a short time ago, but it seems to have been in a different lifetime – how I danced with you at Princess Radziwill’s ball,’ he said. ‘You were wearing my sister-in-law’s ball dress, and you were magnificent. Magnificent! I had never seen a woman looking beautiful in quite that way before. Not a Russian way, not a fashionable way. It was your eyes, I think, so green, so full of fire. Of course, I could not understand at once what it was that made you hold your head so high. I would have liked to kiss you, but before I could do it you were telling me that society was divided and that you and I were on different sides. And now again I would like to kiss you: but today the division is a real one, not a theory, and I must keep in my own place if I am not to drag you down.’

  ‘This is not the time to speak of kissing,’ said Kate severely. ‘And as for the rest, you’re talking nonsense. If we were both on the same side there would be no need of help and no opportunity to offer it. But if we waste any more time in argument, the opportunity will be talked away. Is it that you don’t trust me?’

  His eyes showed that she had hurt him, and he gripped her hands fiercely with his own, as though that were an answer.

  ‘Well then,’ she pointed out, ‘the division isn’t as great as it seems. I’m on the side of the Revolution because even in such a short time I’ve seen a whole nation being pushed to its doom by stupidity and greed and inefficiency. I don’t pretend to understand the causes: I only know that the system has to be changed. But I’ve also seen that you share most of my feelings – of compassion and a wish to help poorer people, to protect your dependants. It’s only your birth which puts you on the other side. You can’t change that, but I’m not going to let you suffer for it if I can help it. I shan’t speak to you in English again. From now on we must talk in Russian. Nor shall I address you again as Excellency. You are my comrade – Comrade Vladimir – and you are going to work in my hospital.’

  Her forcefulness was enough to bring the sentimental moment to an end. He even forgot his family grief for long enough to laugh wryly at her, and himself. ‘That a woman should speak to me so!’ he exclaimed, shaking his head unbelievingly. Yet there was no sign of resentment. If anything, Kate suspected that he admired her most when she was at her most determined. From his nursery days he would have been accustomed to give orders and expect them to be obeyed. The necessity for command and discipline must be so much a part of his character that rather than flounder in a chaos of equality he was prepared to obey someone else’s equally arbitrary instructions.

  ‘Well then, Comrade Katya,’ he said – speaking, as she had ordered, in the language which was almost as foreign to him as to her. ‘I am your friend, so I accept whatever you have to offer. I am your slave, so I obey. What would you have me do?’

  ‘Get out of that uniform,’ she said. ‘Take some clothes from the servants. They’re too drunk to notice. Shabby clothes, but warm. Then make your way to the station. I’ll meet you there in about an hour. Will you bring my bag for me?’

  Unexpectedly she remembered Sergei, whom she had ordered about in exactly the same way at their first meeting. That meeting had been the start of an affectionate friendship – no, more than that: they had loved each other, in a way. Was she becoming one of those bossy women who only liked men they could bully? Later on she would need to consider that and be careful. But for the moment she must not allow the impetus of her determination to slacken.

  ‘You speak Russian very well,’ the prince said. ‘Not just fluently, but with the right amount of passion. No Russian who didn’t know you would recognize you for a foreigner. He might think you came from a different province from his own, with a dialect which he couldn’t quite place, but that would be the only question in his mind.’

  ‘I feel almost as though I am Russian,’ Kate said, turning briefly back from the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, truly sorry, about your brother’s death, Vladimir. It wasn’t right and I don’t believe it was necessary. I don’t like to think of anyone being in fear of his life. But I can’t help being excited. To be in this country, at this moment! For more than two years Europe has been destroying itself, and now at last a new society is being built, and I’m here. I intend to be part of it, to help.’

  ‘The fire has returned to your eyes,’ said Prince Aminov softly. ‘And the beauty to your face. And all because you feel so passionately about people who are strangers to you.’

  He was about to kiss her. Kate wanted him to do so. She had wanted it once before, and had been able to control her feelings only because she had recognized the barriers of class and idealism which separated her from Prince Aminov. Now that those barriers were broken down, there was nothing to hold her back – and indeed she found his new vulnerability even more attractive than his earlier kindness and glamorous appearance. What made her at this moment long to step forward into his arms, to press her body close to his and to comfort him in his distress was the lost look in his eyes. His whole way of life, from the mom
ent of his birth, had been supported by the service of other people, and all those supports – except hers – had been abruptly withdrawn. He had believed himself to be loved and respected, and found himself hated instead. He must have expected that his wealth would cushion him for the whole of his life and even now it would be possible for him to fill his pockets with jewellery or Fabergé trifles which alone would represent more wealth than a Russian worker would see in the whole of his lifetime: but such riches, if they were discovered, would betray rather than sustain him. He had never needed to earn a living, but now he must step out into the ordinary world. It was a tribute to his courage that he showed no sign of fear, for the prospect must certainly be alarming. Even if he escaped physical harm, he was so badly equipped to adapt his life to the demands of a new society that he was bound to suffer. Kate saw all this, and felt her heart swelling with the wish to protect him.

  But this was not the time to confess her feelings. Far more important was the need to maintain her earlier mood of excitement and determination. The same force-fulness which she had used to appeal for help and to demand authorization must be maintained at its highest pitch if she was to be of any help to Vladimir. Keeping her voice brisk, she repeated the arrangements for their meeting and hurried from the room.

  The papers which awaited her appeared to cover all the checks and emergencies which might arise on the journey, authorizing the movement of the supplies as well as of herself and a soldier who had been left on guard at the station. It was this young Estonian, Vassily Petrovich Belinsky, who was an important part of Kate’s plan to smuggle Prince Aminov out of the capital. He had enjoyed helping to break open the warehouse door and carry out the crates; but his pleasure had turned to sulkiness when he found himself appointed as the escort. Clearly he had no wish to exchange his lazy life in Petrograd for the long and uncomfortable journey south.

  Kate set to work on him as soon as she had congratulated him on defending the reserved wagon containing the crates of supplies. The train was so overcrowded that this was a considerable achievement, even allowing for the fact that civilian passengers were accustomed to observe military priorities.

  ‘You are in luck, Vassily Petrovich. There is no need for you to make the journey. I have a volunteer to accompany me.’

  ‘Why should anyone wish to do that?’

  ‘He has a son, five months old, whom he has never seen: and two weeks’ leave but no money or permit to travel. He will gladly take your place for the sake of a day or two with his wife. All he asks is that you should keep away from your officers and comrades for two weeks, so that they believe you to be obeying instructions. And he has sent this basket in order that the two weeks need not be too dull.’

  As she left the palace she had picked up some of the bottles of wine which littered the floor. Prince Aminov had been right to suggest that vodka would always be welcome, but in these days of shortages no sort of drink was likely to be rejected. It required little persuasion to show the young soldier that he could enjoy a fortnight’s leave. If he remembered that he had left his identity papers at the office, in order that his details might be entered on the travel permit, he presumably thought that they were still there, instead of folded inside Kate’s money belt. It would be two weeks before he discovered the truth and then he would find it safer to claim that he had lost them in the confusion of the journey than to confess the truth. Kate allowed him no time to think about them, but hurried him on his way as soon as she saw approaching a shabby, rather furtive peasant figure whom she recognized as the prince.

  ‘Your name is Vassily Petrovich Belinsky,’ she told her former host as he climbed into the wagon. ‘It’s hard that I have to learn to call you Vassily when I’ve only just become used to calling you Vladimir.’

  It was partly relief which made her chatter on, but in addition she was excited by the adventure. By her own efforts she had achieved what she came to Petrograd to do and had a good chance of taking her friend to safety at the same time. But the prince looked dazed, and as the train pulled out of the station on its long journey she noticed how sadly he looked back at the city which had been his home. Whilst she looked forward, seeing little good in the old regime and eager to take part in the building of a new way of life, he was conscious only of what he was losing. For him, the future promised only danger and hardship.

  Her sympathy silenced her. She gazed at her companion as he leaned a little way out of the wagon, still watching the receding city. There had been a moment once before when she had been forced to admit to herself how attractive she found him. On that occasion she had controlled her admiration first of all by mentally stripping away the uniform which made him look so handsome. Then, as she realized that it was the man himself, unadorned, who excited her, she had in a manner of speaking dressed him again in order that the gold braid and jewelled Order should act as a barrier between them, reminding her that the two of them lived in different worlds.

  Now the splendid trappings of nobility had disappeared. Beneath the shabby overcoat was not a prince but a man. But Kate, assuming authority, had changed in the opposite direction, so that in a sense she was not a woman but a doctor. Would that, she wondered, be any protection during the long journey? Did she want to be protected?

  The train picked up speed. Vladimir pulled the heavy wagon door across until it clanged into place. He gave a single deep sigh, a groan of loneliness and misery and insecurity. Then he turned towards Kate and, still without speaking, took her into his arms. She did her best to comfort him, and found that it was no longer possible to control the love she had felt and concealed since the night of the Radziwill ball.

  In the days and nights which followed, Kate should have been worrying about her patients and nurses, for the journey across Russia would have been complicated enough even for a passenger who had only himself to move from one train to another. When it was a complete wagon which had to be uncoupled and then attached to another engine, the difficulties at times seemed insuperable. As one obstacle succeeded another, Kate would in normal circumstances have become indignant. But the new experience of love made her for a little while unusually passive. It was easy to live from moment to moment, accepting each delay as it came, because she was so completely overwhelmed by the happiness of her honeymoon.

  This was not the sort of honeymoon which might have been envisaged either by the daughter of a missionary or by a Russian prince. But Kate felt no qualms about the fact that she lacked a marriage certificate; nor did Vladimir complain about a honeymoon suite which consisted of a nest of blankets, extracted from one of the hospital crates, in a comer of the goods wagon. To the nurses who greeted her when at last they reached the Romanian Front, Kate announced that she was married, because that was how she felt.

  7

  Born in a spring of despair and hope, the Revolution stumbled through a summer of chaos towards a winter of defeat. From her field hospital on the Romanian Front, Kate watched with dismay the disintegration of the Russian Army. The orders and decrees which flowed from the capital effectively sapped all discipline, and the Germans and Austrians were quick to take advantage of the fact that their opponents no longer had any firm chain of command. Their summer offensive found Kate’s medical unit well enough equipped to deal with the casualties, but lacking any military protection. Those of the Tsarist officers who had been born into the nobility had been killed when the first news of the Revolution arrived. Most of the others had fled; and the few who remained were well aware that if they ordered a counter-attack or tried to impose any punishment, the rifles of their men were as likely to be turned on themselves as on the enemy. What followed was not a mutiny in any active sense, for most of the Russian soldiers simply slipped away to their villages, knowing that they could no longer be shot for desertion. The Serbs remained in the line, because they had nowhere to go – but of the men who had sailed with Kate for Salonica in 1916 only a handful were still alive.

  Without Vladimir at her side Kate might w
ell have despaired, overwhelmed by the responsibility for the safety of her nursing team and her patients as the enemy advanced. At first his support was only that of a lover, for he had few practical skills. But in order to establish him as one of the medical team she taught him how to administer anaesthetics: he had the strong hands necessary to hold the mask down over the face of a struggling patient and, although he never overcame his distaste for watching an operation in progress, he did not allow his squeamishness to distract him from checking the patient’s breathing. In addition, he was recognized as Kate’s personal assistant, and if at times he seemed quiet and withdrawn and uncertain of himself, this was assumed to result from the natural reluctance of a man to obey the orders of a woman, of a husband to run errands for his wife. Kate, not daring by any word or gesture to hint at the difficulties which he faced as a result of his birth and upbringing, watched with loving anxiety as he gradually learned to get the necessary tasks accomplished not by giving orders but by taking part in the work.

  Even though she no longer felt alone, she was still left to take many decisions with which no one else could help. In the disorganized conditions which now prevailed she realized that there could be no possibility of further support from Beatrice and the suffragists’ movement. She alone had to decide, as the Germans advanced, when it was necessary to pack up the unit and retreat; and with increasing clarity she saw that she would have to recognize the moment when the nurses on her staff had done as much as could reasonably be expected of them.

  The moment came on a night in the autumn of 1917. For the third time since the beginning of summer they were retreating. So many Russian soldiers were taking the same direction, whether as deserters or as the ragged remnants of an army, that it was difficult to find billets for the night. The peasants in the villages were suspicious, and unwilling to part with any of the food they had hidden, for they saw that the coming winter would be a hard one. For this night, Vladimir had found a riverside site and had supervised the erection of tents, and Kate had already made her evening round of the wounded. She knew that after a day of jolting over rough roads in carts with wooden wheels, their best treatment was to sleep in peace. So she had no duties to disturb her enjoyment of the night, and for a little while it was enough to be alone with Vladimir in the small tent which they shared.