The Red Staircase

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘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 si
nister 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.’