Peter gave a short laugh.
‘But she isn’t mad. Dreadfully emotional and even hysterical, but not mad. She loves the boy and he loves her.’
‘What is the matter with him?’ asked Dolly.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Some bone trouble, I guess. It’s strange no announcement is ever made.’
‘Not so strange,’ said Peter. ‘Since there would probably be a revolution at once, big or little, according to the state of the country.’
‘What’s a little revolution?’
‘A failed one,’ he said. ‘We have had several. But it is not an experience to be repeated too often.’
‘No, there would not be an announcement,’ said Dolly, ‘although not necessarily for the reasons my brother gives – you shouldn’t joke about such things, Peter. No, that lot always keep things close to themselves, it seems to be their nature; a mistake, I think.’
‘It’s such a formal, unnatural life. You know, the boy told me that once every week on a Wednesday his parents take tea with him “in the English style”, as he put it, but only if “their engagements permit”. He said that, too.’
‘Of course, if Great Aunt dies we shall be in black,’ said Dolly, apparently à propos of nothing at all. ‘And the pain has come back.’
She looked at me and I shook my head. I couldn’t help any more. She sighed. ‘Fading away, that’s what they say, isn’t it? And with her it’s true; every day more evanescent.’
‘Rose will fade away herself,’ said Ariadne, ‘she seems so tired.’
‘It’s all this gaiety,’ I said. ‘Night after night. It’s exhausting if you aren’t brought up to it.’
‘Yes, you look a little ghost today,’ said Peter affectionately. ‘Go and rest now. I won’t disturb you. And you have to look your best tonight.’
He was pretending to be fonder of me than he was. In fact the distance between us had grown and not lessened.
Lying on my bed, eyes closed but not asleep, I thought about my life. In our splendid set of rooms I was not at peace. Peter was often away, and alone in my great bedroom in that gilded bed, I slept badly. A voice seemed to call me. Sometimes it was just a soft wailing, sometimes I thought I heard my name; I thought it was real, but it was so soft and elusive I could never be sure.
I lay there, and with eyes wide now, stared at the elaborate mouldings on the ceiling. On the surface, I was a self-possessed young woman who had made a good marriage and enjoyed the luxuries of her life, but underneath was a girl whose memories contained secrets and whose hopes were ambiguous. I was two people. One was cheerful and matter-of-fact, the other girl heard voices whispering in the night. Since my marriage I felt as though I had split into two halves which did not match.
There were never any voices in the daylight, though, and if there ever should be, then it would be a hard case; I should know then that either I was mad or I was being tormented. I suppose everyone has their tormentors – the Furies, as the Greeks called them – and you are lucky if they come from the outside. I know what I feared most, and that was that they were in my own head.
To add to my anxiety, nothing that I had planned was going as I had visualized.
First and foremost was the tone of the Gowrie Works. I had created an office for myself there, and brought in a young woman with a typewriter. I read every letter that arrived and I put my signature to some of the replies. But I was as far as ever from being in any sense in control there. All was now legally settled, I was the admitted owner, but I had got no more than a toe-hold in the monolith. My friend Andrew – and I genuinely liked and admired him, garlic and all – remained ever ready to rebuff me. And instead of being pleased at the interest Peter showed in the Gowrie Works, he seemed to resent this too. And, as a matter of fact, so did I.
I stared at the ceiling. I must face the fact that I had married for the wrong reasons, and must now live with it. I only marvelled that the arrangement still seemed to suit my husband. I supposed he thought I would change my attitude, that youth and proximity would change it for me.
And finally, I had the irritating feeling that when my godfather had left me the Gowrie Works he had posed me a problem he had expected me to solve. He had chosen me because he had thought I could solve it …
I moved restlessly on my bed. I often seemed to sleep badly now.
The next day I was alone in my small office in the Gowrie Works when a visitor was announced. I looked up, delighted and surprised. ‘Marisia? How good to see you. How long have you been here?’
‘Ah, some time,’ she said briskly, if vaguely. ‘After enormous upheavals in the household at home. But I came through.’ She stared around her with frank interest and, as I saw, amusement. ‘How very smart you are here. Clothes, as well. Spanking new, I observe.’
She herself looked exactly as she always did. An alpaca skirt in a dark grey, a crisp white shirt-waist, a tight belt and a tweed jacket. The only feminine touch was a bow at her throat. She put on her pince-nez and gave me an even sharper look. ‘But not happy, I think.’
‘I ought to be. I have everything I could want.’
‘When did that ever make any difference?’ She sat down on a chair usually occupied by the young lady who manipulated my typewriter. Marisia saw the machine and tried one or two tricks with the keys. ‘What a formidable instrument. But interesting. I believe I could soon master it.’
‘I’m sure you could. You could master anything.’
Marisia laughed. ‘Not at all. I had quite a struggle with my father before he would give way over my coming to St Petersburg. He can be quite obstinate where his own comfort is concerned, and he saw it threatened. But he gave way in the end. Now let me get another look at you … One thing I admire about you, Rose, is that although you are so strong-minded you do like a pretty dress.’
‘It is lovely to be able to afford the things one wishes,’ I confessed. ‘If only I could feel I had either deserved or earned my wealth.’ I stood up and looked out of the window at my kingdom. ‘This place worries me, worries me deeply. I can’t get to terms with it. Russia itself begins to frighten me.’
‘And you are the girl that conquered Vyksa!’
‘Ah, you’re mocking me. That was easy, I knew what to do. One just had to move forward, from task to task. Here I had to search my conscience before I could even accept the bequest.’
‘But you did accept,’ she observed drily.
‘Yes, the sense of possession became strong. Also, I thought it right to learn something of what running such an affair means. And I have learnt – it means touching the lives of hundreds of people, even thousands, in a manner I had never thought of. For instance, I tried to get the girls working in one department to wear gloves to stop their fingers being stained. Not only would they not wear them because it slowed them up, but workers in other sheds complained because gloves were not offered to them. Added to which, I annoyed my chief manager here, and also an accountant, for spending a great deal of money on gloves that were not used. I believe the glove manufacturer was annoyed too, because he had to throw all his schedules out to fill my big order for gloves, and then I made no more demands on him. He thinks of suing, I believe.’
Marisia took a cigarette from her purse and lit it. ‘Oh Rose, Rose. What a child you are, after all.’
‘I’m the same age as you,’ I protested, hurt. ‘More or less.’
‘Yes, but I don’t expect life’s problems to be solved easily. I expect them to go on and on, almost immutable. That’s the way of life unless we blow society up. That may be necessary. But at heart you always expect a sudden move, a new thought, even a fairy from the Land of Fairies to come and solve it for you.’
‘Yes,’ I said bleakly. ‘Hence – ‘ I stopped, but she knew what I meant.
‘Hence your marriage.’
‘Yes.’ I would not meet her eyes.
‘Ariadne more or less told me. But of course I knew. Your marriage was to solve all your practical problems? And then, you had anot
her hurt to salve.’
‘Yes.’ I was even briefer this time. She meant Patrick.
‘Don’t you wonder why I have come here?’
‘Why, to see me of course,’ I said.
‘Baby again! I would have come to see you, yes. I like you, Rose, I am your friend. But I have other, older friends who might claim my attention first. Yet I came to you first. Well, almost first.’
‘Oh, stop making mysteries. That’s the trouble with all of you in Russia, nothing’s straightforward or easy.’
‘And why should it be?’ Marisia remained calm. ‘We are not a straightforward or easy society, and that fact is reflected in everything, even down to our conversation.’ It was never easy to be quite sure when Marisia was laughing at me, but this time I did not think she was. Then she said something terrible. ‘Remember that Russia as a society is closed, full of lies and secret betrayals. The revolution when it comes will be full of secrets and lies, and so the society it creates will be full of lies.’
We were interrupted by the arrival of Andrew, who was bringing me some letters, all of which he had read first, of course, and many of which he would also have answered. I had made little progress there.
I was about to introduce them when I saw the unmistakable flash of recognition in Andrew’s eyes.
‘You know each other then?’ The thought put all kind of notions in train which I would have to consider. In general, I knew what sort Marisia’s friends were – and now I knew I might have to name the manager of my Works among them. So where did that put Andrew’s political beliefs?
‘We have met,’ said Marisia calmly. ‘But not lately.’
‘Have you been to the Gowrie Works before, then?’ I demanded bluntly.
‘Once or twice, with a message. Mr Keller assisted for a time in the mathematics department at the Smolny.’
Andrew did not like the interchange, I saw that clearly. ‘You are visiting St Petersburg, Miss Lazarev?’ And perhaps you will go away soon, his voice implied.
‘No,’ said Marisia. ‘I am now a student at the University. Or I will be.’
Surprisingly, this pleased him. ‘I was a student there myself.’
‘What did you study?’
‘Law first.’ I might have known it, I thought. ‘And then engineering. There was more future in it. And you?’
‘Medicine.’
‘Ah, engineering too, of a sort.’ To Andrew that was a joke.
Apparently Marisia thought so too, because when he had gone she said: ‘What a good man that is.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think so too, but I did not think you would.’
‘You thought I must dislike him because he does not like women in a position of power in his beloved factory? Am I such a bad judge of character as that? No, he likes you, he likes me, but he feels threatened. You are a threat, Rose.’
‘I will try not to be,’ I said soberly, although I might have to be if I investigated Andrew.
‘You’ll get on better if you are. Now come and eat luncheon with me.’ She extinguished her cigarette and took up her gloves.
I was doubtful. ‘I usually eat lunch here with Andrew and the head of the laboratory, Dr Gurien.’
‘Interesting man, is he?’ she said. ‘I should like to meet him some time. But now you must come with me.’
‘Must? Must I, Marisia? What does must mean?’
Thoughtfully, Marisia said: ‘Yes, we were interrupted by Andrew Keller when I was about to tell you.’ She paused for so long that I thought she was never going on. Then she said abruptly, as if plunging in: ‘Of course, in Vyksa we all knew about the search for Patrick that your lawyer conducted there. His enquiry men came around asking questions. But no one would answer them. Questions are automatically feared and denied in a town like Vyksa, they smack too much of the secret police. You ought to have known that.’
‘Yes, that was stupid of me.’ I could hear my heart banging in my ears, feel the pulse beating in my throat.
‘But my own enquiries were listened to, and word was brought to me of a young man who was lying desperately ill in a peasant’s hut.’
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Tell me quickly.’
‘Yes. It was Patrick.’ She looked down at her hands, now neatly gloved, as if she was seeing another scene. ‘He had been taken in from the street, so sick that he could not speak nor name himself. The people who took him in are part gypsy, part criminal, so they had their own reasons, perhaps, for going slow, but to do them justice they looked after him well. And finally came to me.’
‘How long ago was this? Oh, why didn’t you tell me at once?’
‘Not so long ago. And why? Because we got word of your marriage. We do not get to hear things quite so quickly as elsewhere in Vyksa,’ she said in that dry manner of hers.
‘I did write. I was surprised you were slow in answering.’
‘I dare say we have Madame Denisov to thank for hindering our correspondence.’
‘Yes, Dolly would be capable of it. But …’
Marisia shrugged. ‘Or it may just have been our notoriously bad mails. At any rate, we learnt of your wedding at a bad time. It threw back Patrick’s recovery, I can tell you.’
‘I must go to Vyksa at once,’ I said. ‘I must see Patrick.’ I was in agony, hardly knowing what I was saying. ‘How is he? Tell me quickly.’
‘You need not go to Vyksa,’ said Marisia. ‘I had more than one reason for coming to St Petersburg, and my father had more than one reason for wanting to get rid of me. I have brought Patrick to the city with me; I have brought him to you.’
Marisia had a room in a lodging house in the university district of St Petersburg. It was a students’ lodging house, she said, where no one took much notice of you. Patrick had a room there, too.
We could have driven in my own motor-car, but Marisia insisted we travel on a common street conveyance. I could see she wanted to draw no attention to us, but this was so like her usual way of life that I took no notice of it. The moment I stepped inside the lodging-house and smelt the air of sour cabbage and old tea, and walked on the slippery linoleum which covered the stairs, I knew that this was Marisia’s natural ambience. Here, in this subdued, impoverished intellectual world, she was entirely at home.
On the stairs, she stopped me. ‘He knows I am bringing you, and he is really quite himself again, but you must be prepared for a shock.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ I said, hardly listening. ‘But let’s get on. I want to see him.’
‘Well, here we are now.’ And Marisia rapped on a door, and without waiting for an answer said: ‘Here she is; I’ve got her with me. Here’s Rose for you, Patrick.’
Patrick got up from the chair where he had been sitting. In the light from one small window I saw he was very thin, almost gaunt, and with the flesh fined away from the bones of his face. His eyes, bright as ever, had shadows around them of deepest blue. But what shocked me most was the livid, jagged scar, still looking raw and barely healed, across the front of his throat.
I ran forward and put my arms round him. His own came round me. ‘Rose, dear Rose.’ He spoke with difficulty, his voice low and unsteady.
‘Patrick – your throat, your face.’ I swung round and faced Marisia accusingly. ‘You didn’t tell me.’
She faced me, her back against the door. ‘I didn’t tell you, no. I told you he had been taken ill suddenly. That was true, he had the Vyksa fever. I dare say we all had a touch of it more or less; I know I had, although I said nothing. But what kept Patrick speechless was that, while ill, he was attacked by men he never saw. Knocked unconscious and his throat cut.’
‘You mean a deliberate attempt to kill you? Murder?’ Now I stared at Patrick’s face.
‘Perhaps,’ he said huskily. ‘We can’t be sure.’
‘It was,’ declared Marisia in a hard, clear voice. ‘Of course it was. Now you see another reason why the family that took him in were slow to declare his presence; they did not want to stand ac
cused. But it was no common act of criminal intent.’
‘What do you mean?’ I didn’t see how she could be so sure, but her words only skated over the surface of my mind. For I had other and more pressing things I wanted to say to Patrick. ‘I was sure you were dead – or if not dead, gone from me for ever. That was why I married. No, that’s not true, not the only reason; there were reasons connected with my inheritance of the Gowrie Works. But I wouldn’t have let them weigh with me for an instant if I had thought you were alive. Oh Patrick, Patrick, if only I had known. But never mind – it’s a marriage of convenience only, there’s no reality to it, never think that for a moment; I can end it.’
Gradually their silence got through to me, and I ceased to talk.
‘Steady on, Rose,’ said Patrick.
‘No, nothing is simple in Russia, is it? I forgot.’ I moved away to sit down in the chair that Patrick had vacated. There was only a bed and a desk and a narrow bookcase in the room. ‘You had better tell me what it is I should know. Obviously there is something.’
‘What you should know is to keep quiet. Tell no one Patrick Graham is still alive,’ said Marisia fiercely. ‘If he was not the victim of an ordinary criminal act of violence, then someone tried to have him killed for one of two reasons.’
‘And they are?’
Still in that husky voice, Patrick said: ‘Because of what I am, the reason that brought me to Russia, the fact that I am an agent of the British government.’
‘You mean the police working for the Tsar might have tried to kill you? In such a way?’ I was very doubtful. ‘Surely they would just have arrested you?’
‘It’s possible, Rose. The other reason might be because of my connections with you.’
‘Yes, I see.’ And I was beginning to. The Gowrie Works was a dangerous inheritance, almost as explosive in the circle of my friends and lovers as the product we made there. ‘Yes, I can see that there are people who might have wanted to cut you from my life.’ Dolly Denisov, I thought, and the old Princess from the Red Staircase. Was that what had brought her to Shereshevo in truth? ‘But I told no one I had found you again.’
The Red Staircase Page 38
