The Red Staircase

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘And where is Ivan?’ I demanded.

  He bowed without answering, letting me know politely that it was not a question to which he had the answer.

  I never saw Ivan after that. I was sure he was still in the house, because I fancied I heard his voice from afar, but we never met. Dolly, when I asked her, only replied vaguely that ‘he had returned to other duties. He asked to be moved,’ she said.

  ‘And who is this Augustus?’

  ‘Oh, Peter chose him specially for you. He is a splendid servant.’

  ‘I preferred my old Ivan. He was lazy, and he drank and he was superstitious – ’ here Dolly looked at me sharply – ‘but he had some warmth.’ Besides, I owed him some loyalty, I thought, even if he seemed to owe me none. Dolly saw my anger and tried to fend it off.

  ‘My dear, I don’t know what you are fretting about,’ she said. ‘You ought to do nothing now but enjoy yourself.’ She added happily: ‘Soon we shall have to be getting our ballroom opened. We shall give two balls, I think. One for you and Peter after your wedding, and perhaps while your sister is still here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I murmured, thinking that I should have to show Dolly that I meant to be working. I was standing in the hall, dressed ready to go out. Ariadne and I were going shopping.

  ‘And one for Ariadne. A bal blanc.’

  Ariadne groaned. ‘Oh, I envy you; you will have a bal rose – named for you, even – and nothing but a dreary old bal blanc for me. Oh, how I dread it! All the old chaperones sitting round the room yawning, and not even a proper orchestra but that old tappeur whom we have known all our lives, banging away at the piano. And nothing to dance but a quadrille. ‘Advance. Retreat. Join hands. Form a circle. Chasse.’ Oh, it’s not a ball, it’s a military display.’

  ‘Poor Ariadne. And you know all the latest steps, too,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, don’t imagine even you will get anything more exciting than a waltz or two. The two-step is vulgar, they say, and the Tsar has forbidden the tango and the one-step. But never mind, when you are married you will be able to give the most delicious little private dances where anything can happen. Oh, how I long to be emancipated!’

  Dolly gave an angry little click of her teeth and took another of her incessant yellow cigarettes. ‘You only talk that way to annoy me.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Ariadne. She looked at me. ‘Marisia is coming to St Petersburg.’

  ‘I knew it,’ said Dolly, throwing down her cigarette.

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad,’ I said. ‘I long to see her again.’

  ‘And I am not glad,’ said Dolly. ‘She alarms me.’

  Ariadne said: ‘She is going to study at the University, she’s going to be a doctor. That’s your doing, Rose; before that she thought of being a lawyer. I might do so myself.’

  ‘Never,’ said Dolly. ‘Not with my permission.’

  ‘Then without it.’ Ariadne looked bold.

  ‘Rose,’ Dolly looked at me imploringly. ‘Help me.’

  ‘Why don’t you let her go?’ I put on my gloves and adjusted the buttons. ‘She’ll soon be back home.’

  ‘Rose, you beast!’ A reproachful cry from Ariadne.

  ‘You know you are not in the least equipped to be a student. I have never seen you study anything.’

  ‘Just for that I shall insist on going to the English book-shop and ordering some very dull books to read. Macaulay, I think, and Gibbon, and I shall make you read them with me.’

  Dolly said: ‘I am driving out myself. The motor-car can take us all. You may leave me first at my dressmaker and come back for me.’

  I was seated next to Dolly in the motor-car, and Ariadne was in the little seat facing us. Dolly ignored her; in a low voice she said: ‘Rose, I think you may get a call to the palace at Tsarskoe Seloe any day now.’

  ‘The boy is ill again,’ I said quickly.

  ‘No, not ill. But he liked you, you know, and he is eager for anything that can amuse him, and they are eager for anything that is safe for him. And anyway they are all interested in you and the Gowrie Works.’

  So I was not to be let off that particular hook.

  We put Dolly down at her dressmaker, or one of them – she kept about three, as far as I could see, all hard at work for her – and went on to the English bookshop.

  The bookshop was crowded, but Ariadne was quick with her shopping – no books by Macaulay or Gibbon, I noticed, but some French fashion magazines – and I collected the invitations to my wedding which had been engraved and reproduced in their workshop. We were soon ready to leave.

  As we drove off, and the car was moving slowly away through the crowded street, I caught sight of a young man just walking away from the shop with a newspaper under his arm.

  I leaned forward and rapped on the window so that the chauffeur turned round in surprise. ‘Stop the car – I want to get out.’

  ‘What is it? What are you doing?’ said Ariadne in alarm. ‘Rose come back! Where are you going?’

  I was running through the street, weaving my way through the crowds, trying to catch the man I had seen walking briskly away from the English bookshop.

  For a moment he had looked like Patrick Graham, but I saw now he was someone completely different.

  Ariadne and I drove home in silence. I had little I wanted to offer her by way of explanation for my behaviour. ‘I thought I saw someone I knew,’ I said lamely. ‘But it was a mistake.’

  My heart was banging. How could I marry Peter Alexandrov when I was still willing to run through the streets after someone who looked like Patrick Graham.

  Amidst a confusion of cardboard boxes and crisp folds of tissue paper, my trousseau was arriving. Every article, from tailored suits to tea-gowns, was inspected and appraised by Dolly and greeted with rapture by Ariadne. By Dolly’s standards it was a modest wardrobe, but for me it represented a considerable outlay.

  Dolly interrupted Ariadne and me one morning as we were gloating over the latest delivery. ‘I am glad that silk and alpaca walking-dress has arrived.’ It was a pretty confection of anthracite, with a grey tailored bodice and skirt and a frilly lace jabot; I had chosen it with pleasure. ‘It will be just the thing to wear to Tsarskoe Seloe.’ And she handed me a large square white envelope addressed to me in a hand-writing I guessed to be Madame Titov’s.

  So the summons to the Summer Palace had come. So many strands in my life seemed to be coming together in this winter season in St Petersburg. Marisia from Vyksa, Madame Titov from Spala, the Gowrie inheritance. It was my first experience of the way life can knot together. But all I said was: ‘The grey dress is part of my trousseau. I wore nothing grand to Spala.’

  This was dismissed. ‘Spala is the provinces. Here in St Petersburg you must be properly dressed to go to Court.’

  ‘Even sneaking in through the back door?’ I said.

  ‘We are honoured guests,’ said Dolly reprovingly.

  ‘And Father Gregory, is he an honoured guest too? Will he be there?

  ‘The Princess Irene says he has a new mistress every week and prefers them to be aristocratic’. Really I should have said every day, and added that he liked virgins. I had, of course, resumed my visits to the Red Staircase. The old tyrant who lived at the top of it and I had become too important to each other to relinquish our relationship. I was a drug to her, a draught which she had to take as often as possible in order to live. She was my great informant about Russian society. In its upper reaches, that is – she had very little to say of anyone below the rank of Countess.

  Dolly looked flustered. ‘You should never mention his name. Not above a whisper. He is banned from St Petersburg, must not come within miles of the capital. Thank God,’ she added.

  You don’t know, I thought. If he ever left the city, he has come back.

  ‘So when do we go to the Summer Palace?’ I asked.

  ‘Now, at once. We are to go with all speed. There is a motor-car sent.’ For the first time she hesitated. ‘That is, when I say “w
e” … You are to go alone.’ She seemed nervous. ‘You don’t mind, Rose?’

  ‘Not in the least. I’m sure it’s best.’

  ‘As you say. Still, I don’t know, it makes me uneasy for you.’

  Ariadne was radiant. ‘Such promotion for you, Rose! You must be sure always to go alone in future.’

  ‘If there is ever another visit.’

  ‘Oh, there will be, I’m sure of it.’ She sounded excited. I suppose it was exciting, my contact with the Tsarevitch, in this Imperial city.

  ‘Can you be ready in fifteen minutes, Rose?’ Dolly looked at the little jewelled watch on her fob.

  ‘Someone will have to explain to Peter,’ I said, going towards the door. ‘We were going out together.’

  ‘Then explain to him in person,’ said his voice, and there he was on the threshold. ‘Or rather, don’t bother, save all excuses and explanations for Cousin Louisette, for I am coming with you.’ To Dolly’s protesting voice he said: ‘Yes, yes, I know all about it, or guessed, because I saw the Imperial car parked at the back of the Molka Prospect. Such secrecy was an indication in itself.’ He was in rattling spirits.

  Dolly said: ‘Well, I suppose you can go with her in the car, but you won’t be allowed in. On her own, that’s the fiat.’

  ‘Never mind. To keep her company is the least I can do.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re so happy at the prospect of a cold drive and a boring wait,’ I said. ‘But I can see you are.’

  As I ran up the stairs to change, I thought: they are all of them happy because of me, and only I am not happy.

  The great house oppressed me. I could not imagine a happy family life being lived in it. I supposed there would be a family for me. I pushed the thought away as bringing with it all sorts of associations I did not wish to dwell on.

  Peter did not say much and neither did I, so we drove in silence out of the city to the royal village of Tsarskoe Seloe, where palace after palace lay scattered in opulent parkland behind tall railings – boundaries along which mounted guards rode on continual alert. We drove through the great gates, which were permanently open, rusted so, I expect, like the huge gates of Versailles which thus failed to keep out the revolutionary mob when required. Snow lay everywhere, mantling turf, trees and buildings, so that the bright uniforms of the soldiers stood out against the grey and white landscape.

  The officer on duty seemed to know Peter and nodded to him as we passed.

  ‘Which regiment is that?’ I asked. I thought I recognized the uniform. ‘The Preobrajenski Guard,’ he said absently. ‘The loyalest of the loyal. Never mutinied, you know, not like some of the others.’

  Ah yes, I thought; Count Grabbe, my rejected suitor. Aloud I said: ‘And he knew you?’

  ‘We were in the Imperial Corps des Pages together, only he went on to make service to the Tsar a career, and I did not. He thinks me an idle, lazy man, no doubt.’

  ‘And what do you think of him?’

  ‘I never think about him at all,’ said Peter, showing, just for a moment, a touch of the ruthlessness that lay beneath his gentle manner. ‘All the same,’ he said, as he scrambled out of the motor-car after me, ‘I shall go and talk to him while you are on your errand of mercy. There, will that convince you that I am not such a bad fellow after all?’

  As I walked away, led by a servant who had been awaiting me, I thought what a lot Peter saw, and how little he ever let one guess it.

  I was shown into a pleasant-looking room furnished with English chintzes and pale furniture. In appearance it was somewhere between a schoolroom and a nursery. The Tsarevitch was sitting at a table, occupied with a jigsaw puzzle; with him were Madame Titov, who rose as soon as she saw me, and the boy’s English tutor, who gave me a pleasant smile. A table near the window was set out with the tea things. It was clearly to be a social occasion. The boy looked up when he saw me and smiled radiantly.

  ‘So you’re here, you’ve come. I asked for you to come, and for once I was allowed to have my own way. I’m not often allowed.’ He left his puzzle and came over to me and gave my hand a hearty shake.

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ I said, looking round the cosy room where two cats and a dog slept happily on a furry rug by the porcelain stove. ‘I think you have lots of cossetting, and are spoiled in all sorts of ways.’

  ‘So many things I may not do, though,’ he said with a little sigh. ‘Not run too fast, not jump. I may not ride on my own, and never above a trot.’ He sat down on a stool near the cats and put out a hand to stroke one. ‘I’m glad you’ve come. I’m pretty well, as you see.’

  ‘Good,’ I said.

  He put his head on one side. ‘But there’s the little matter of my leg, don’t you see, my dear. One leg is shorter than the other.’

  Madame Titov made a demurring noise. ‘There is nothing wrong with your leg, Your Imperial Highness, nothing.’

  He gave her a sidelong look. ‘No, very well. I am not allowed to say so, neither is anyone else. Nevertheless, my bad leg is crooked and shorter than the other, and that is that.’

  He stretched out both legs and looked at them, inviting me to do the same. I could see that the muscles of one leg were drawn and twisted so that he could not flex it properly. The distortion was a mute testimony to the terrible suffering he had endured.

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ I said.

  ‘There is nothing nature will not cure,’ said Madame Titov.

  Behind the boy was a door leading to an inner room, and that door was a crack ajar. I could just see the edge of a pale violet skirt protruding. So the Tsarina was there, watching me. I thought there was a whole world portrayed in that silent, secret watch.

  ‘I should think exercise would help,’ I said. ‘Walking and swimming.’

  ‘Ah, but I can’t walk very well. I hobble. And that makes them ashamed of me. I mustn’t be seen to hobble. They think I don’t know, but I know all about it.’ He gave me a hard look. ‘They think I’ll die of this illness I have. They don’t say so, but they think it. I won’t, though. I don’t know how I know it, but I do know it. So I suppose I’ll live to be an old man. I might even become as big and strong as my grandfather.’

  ‘Of course you will, sir,’ said Madame Titov at once both hearty and unconvincing; I could see how she must depress the boy.

  ‘Can you help me?’ he said directly to me. ‘To walk better, I mean. I’ll manage the living. You were so jolly to me before.’

  I bent down and looked at his leg. Then I peeled back the thick knee-length woollen socks he wore, and put my hand on the calf.

  At first I felt nothing, but then I felt the wasted, knotted muscle. I knew the limb would never recover completely, but he was very young, he must still be growing and this must help him. But at the same time I recognized the deep sickness in his veins. What would happen to him if limb after limb became damaged in this way? I looked at the boy. He smiled at me. I said, my voice unsteady. ‘Do you know, I believe Madame Titov is correct; now nature will do the job. As you grow I believe the leg will right itself. You may always limp a little, but you won’t hobble.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad. It’s undignified to hobble. Besides, they mind.’

  From behind the door I saw the flicker of mauve move away; the Empress – and surely she was the chief of them – had withdrawn.

  A rattle of silver against china announced the arrival of tea, supported into the room by two tall footmen. ‘Ah, tea,’ said the boy. ‘You’ll take some with me?’

  ‘I should be glad to. I missed luncheon.’

  At once he was apologetic. ‘Because of coming to me? I’m so sorry.’

  I drew near the tea-table, which Madame Titov was superintending. A plate of plain bread and butter and some soft-looking biscuits made up the eatable part. I was surprised at the dullness of the food. He saw my look.

  ‘No one cares about food here. I saw what delicious food you can have when I had tea on my English cousin’s yacht. Scones, shortbrea
d, Dundee cake.’ He made a tasty catalogue of it, just like any ordinary hungry little boy. ‘But no matter how much I ask, I never get anything different from this. I suppose I’ll be able to do something about it one day,’ he said without much hope.

  ‘Are you always on your own?’

  ‘Well, except for Mr Gibbs.’ He gave his tutor a smile; relations between them were good.

  ‘Except for Wednesdays,’ the tutor reminded him gently.

  ‘Oh, yes. Every Wednesday at five o’clock Mamma and Papa take tea with me. If their engagements permit,’ he added carefully.

  Shortly afterwards a nod from Madame Titov gave me the hint to leave. I looked at the boy; his eyelids were heavy. He was tired and so was I.

  Because I was tired I did not talk over-much on the drive back to St Petersburg. But Peter was curious, and I answered his questions.

  ‘So he takes tea in state once a week with his parents?’ he said with amusement. ‘I had heard the story. And so it’s true?’

  ‘Every Wednesday at five,’ I nodded. ‘Poor little soul. What a life.’ And I shivered.

  Peter did not answer, but he seemed to catch my chill, because he huddled deeper into his fur-lined coat.

  I was cold all that night in my scented and over-heated bed-room, cold in spite of the heat, and I slept badly. When I did sleep it seemed as though a high wind was whistling in my ears. Then the wind seemed to change into a whispering voice. ‘Rose,’ it called. ‘Rose, Rose.’

  I woke once and listened, and it felt as though a sibilant whisper was just completing its sound in the empty room.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  About then, time, which had been galloping, took off on wings. Seven days to my wedding, six days, then five, four, three – and my trunks were already neatly packed and ready, waiting for the final touches; two days – and my wedding dress was delivered, and within the hour Grizel and her Archie had come.

  I went to meet them. They were staying at the Hotel Geneva, a modest establishment run by a Swiss, which Archie had selected for himself in preference to one of the grander hotels where he would have been Peter’s guest.