Natasha's Will

by Joan Lingard

  ‘It’s not your fault, Stepan,’ said Eva. ‘You don’t have to apologize. Do you think you could light the fire? It’s freezing in here.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can find wood, Madame.’

  ‘And find Lena too! She will know what to do. Where is she anyway?’

  Natasha said nothing. She knew that Lena did not like to rise too early. She said she had had to rise early all her life. ‘I do not intend to do it now. I have known enough cold dark mornings.’

  Lena appeared half an hour later, followed by Stepan carrying a few sticks. Natasha looked up, startled, as Lena came in, and saw that her mother was reacting in a similar way. Lena was wearing a blue chenille dress with an embroidered collar. It belonged to Princess Eva. Or rather, it had belonged to her. Neither of them said anything. They were gradually learning.

  ‘Where are my brother and his family to sleep, Lena?’ asked Princess Eva.

  ‘There are no rooms left, as you know, except for this one. Everything else is taken.’

  ‘But this is the salon!’

  ‘I’m afraid they will have to sleep here. Or else it is the kitchen.’ Lena shrugged.

  ‘The kitchen! But that is full of –’ Princess Eva broke off. She had been going to say, ‘tramps and thieves,’ but had thought better of it. Leo himself had warned her to curb her tongue, especially when speaking to servants. You never knew whose side they might be on. Some of them were reputed to be spying for the Bolsheviks. Eva had also warned her daughter to be careful what she said to Lena. Natasha had retorted with annoyance, ‘But she’s my friend, Mama!’

  ‘We can sleep here,’ said Leo. ‘We shall be pleased enough with this.’

  When Princess Olga came down to partake of her morning tea she was far from pleased.

  ‘But this is the only salon left! Where are we to sit?’

  ‘Leo and Marie will take up only a small amount of room,’ said Eva.

  Princess Olga regarded the child Kyril. ‘I like peace and quiet in my salon. The rest of the house is in a state of chaos.’

  Leo began to apologize for causing such inconvenience, but his sister cut him off.

  ‘They have nowhere else to go,’ she informed her mother-in-law. ‘I cannot let my brother and his family freeze to death on the streets. You would not expect me to, would you? If Mikhail were here he would not allow them to.’

  ‘Of course I don’t want them to freeze to death,’ said Princess Olga tetchily. ‘How I wish poor dear Mikhail was here.’

  Prince Ivan entered. ‘This is absolutely preposterous!’ Colour had mounted high on his cheekbones so that the skin had taken on a purple tinge. His wife put a restraining hand on his arm, but he paid no attention. She feared he might get so wound up one day that he would have a heart attack. ‘How dare they put you out of your own home, Leo! Turn you into the streets like common riff-raff! And after what you did for them. Those bloody Bolsheviks! Thank God my son is still out there fighting them! The White Army will be victorious in the end, you’ll see. Our time will come again!’

  ‘Hush, Father-in-law,’ said Eva, glancing at the doorway. Lena was hovering in the hall with a feather duster in her hand, which she was making no attempt to use.

  ‘I don’t wish to hush! We have done too much hushing.’

  ‘Come and have some tea,’ said Eva, going to the samovar. They still had a little tea left, which they mixed with dried herbs.

  ‘Tastes of dried hay,’ he declared after a sip.

  There came a loud knock on the outside door. Every time it happened they froze and stopped whatever they had been doing. They kept their eyes down. They heard Stepan go to the door and then voices split the silence, raised, demanding voices. Even the small child in the room was still, as if he could scent the fear of his elders.

  The salon door was opened. Stepan tried to speak, but was pushed roughly aside. Four Red Guard entered, wearing their hats and rifles.

  ‘Which of you is Prince Ivan Denisov?’

  The prince straightened himself up.

  ‘Come with us, Denisov! Straight away! And be quick about it!’

  ‘You can’t do this!’ The prince started to bluster and to back away.

  He was seized by two of the guards, each of whom took an arm.

  ‘You can’t take him away!’ cried Princess Olga. ‘He’s an old man.’

  ‘And not well,’ said Leo quietly, stepping forward. ‘I would ask you to show mercy on him.’

  ‘He’s an enemy of the people,’ said one of the guards. ‘Enemies deserve no mercy.’

  ‘He hasn’t even got his coat on,’ cried his wife. ‘He’ll catch his death.’

  ‘He won’t need a coat for long!’ joked the guard and the other three laughed.

  Princess Olga advanced towards them with her hands outstretched. ‘At least let me –’

  ‘You can say goodbye.’

  She said it in a whisper. Prince Ivan made an attempt to say something in return, but was unable to produce a sound.

  ‘Right, let’s get moving!’ He was prodded in the back with a rifle butt. He stumbled forward.

  The guards departed with their prisoner. Those left behind listened to the sound of their feet dying away on the pavement outside. When they had gone, Princess Olga began to weep, very quietly. Her daughter-in-law put her arms around her. Tears flooded Natasha’s own eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Leo shut the door, closing the family off from the rest of the world.

  TWELVE

  TREACHERY IN THE WINGS

  ‘Can you read out the clue again, Alex?’ asked his father.

  ‘ “Take the hint. There’s treachery waiting in the wings.” ’

  ‘Sounds like Shakespeare. Try Julius Caesar.’

  Shakespeare’s plays were all on the same shelf. There were no pieces of paper in Julius Caesar.

  ‘I’ll just try the lot, shall I, Dad? I expect there’s quite a bit of treachery in a number of them!’

  Alex went through the shelf of plays and found nothing.

  ‘Maybe I should take out every book on the shelves and shake them,’ he suggested.

  ‘Then we might end up with the clues all jumbled together. And not all the papers drop out easily, as you know. You’d have to go through each book page by page. It would take hours. There are thousands of books on those shelves. Let’s go back to thinking about treachery. Does it suggest anything to you?’

  ‘There’s treachery in Treasure Island’

  Alex found Treasure Island easily for this was a book he had read himself and so he recognized the spine. He took it down and carefully swung it to and fro. Nothing fell out.

  ‘There aren’t so many pages in it,’ said Duncan. ‘Let’s just look through the lot.’

  They went carefully through the book, page by page, to no avail.

  ‘Waiting in the wings does make it sound like something to do with the theatre,’ reflected Duncan.

  ‘What about take the hint? Do you think Natasha just meant “hint” to be another word for “clue”?’

  ‘Who knows? But let’s think about “hint”. What other words can you think of for it?’

  ‘Tip?’

  ‘Suggestion? A hint is a mild sort of suggestion. Also, you can talk about a hint of colour.’ Duncan pursed his lips. ‘I don’t feel we’re getting anywhere, do you?’

  ‘Betrayal,’ said Alex, throwing in the word for consideration. ‘Treason.’

  ‘Perfidy,’ said Duncan. ‘Deceit. Disloyalty.’

  They kept turning the same words over and over again, hoping for a flash of enlightenment.

  ‘Treason sounds good,’ said Duncan. ‘What about a hint of treason? Something like that.’

  And then, suddenly, Alex got it and he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t thought of it before.

  ‘A hint could be a cue for an actor in the theatre, couldn’t it?’

  ‘It could,’ acknowledged his father.

  ‘What about Cue for Treason? It’s a novel by Geoffrey
Trease.’

  THIRTEEN

  ST PETERSBURG, APRIL 1918 NEWS FROM THE FRONT

  They had realized for some time that they would have to try to find a way to leave St Petersburg. It would not be easy; far from it. That was why they had delayed their departure. Princess Olga was another reason. Following her husband’s arrest and execution, she was so ill and distraught that it was impossible to consider taking her with them. She would never have survived the journey. Then, in February, she fell, broke her hip and subsequently contracted pneumonia and died. Leo had done what he could, but he had lacked the drugs to help her.

  In February, the snow still lay deep, with temperatures dropping regularly to well below freezing. Inside the house, icicles hung from the window ledges. They huddled round makeshift fires, with a broken-up kitchen dresser, a couple of chairs, even table legs, as well as whatever Stepan could scavenge outside, providing the fuel. Outside, the street sweepers heaped up piles of snow with their flat wooden shovels and lit bonfires in an attempt to melt it. The river was frozen solid. There was little change through March.

  In mid-April, they heard the first cracking of the ice on the river, heralding the beginning of a thaw. The days remained cold, however, and Leo said they must wait until it was a little warmer. And then the soldier came with the news that was to push them into action.

  He arrived dressed in ragged civilian clothes, his boots riddled with holes and held on to his skinny, infected ankles with pieces of string. Stepan left him standing on the doorstep while he went to call Princess Eva. Natasha was with her in her room.

  ‘He says he’s from your husband’s regiment, Madame.’

  They knew immediately that the news would be bad. They hurried downstairs. The man on the cold step looked barely able to stand.

  ‘Come inside, please,’ said Princess Eva. She closed the door behind him. They stood in the porch. ‘You seem very weak?’

  ‘I am, Madame. I’ve walked most of the way from Omsk.’

  ‘Walked? That is a very long way. What news do you bring?’

  ‘Bad news, I’m afraid, Madame.’ He lifted his rheumy eyes to look at her.

  ‘Oh no!’ she cried.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  Natasha seized her mother’s hand and held on to it tightly. She had long thought that there was not much hope of seeing her father again. In his sparkling blue Cossack uniform, he seemed like someone who had belonged to a different life.

  ‘When your husband was dying on the field he asked me to come and tell you, Madame, in person. I was with him at the end, you see.’

  ‘Did he –?’ The princess faltered. ‘Did he die quickly? Did he suffer much?’

  ‘He went in minutes. I stayed with him.’

  ‘How kind you are. What is your name?’

  ‘Rufus.’

  ‘Where will you go after this, Rufus?’

  ‘Home to my village, in the north.’

  ‘Will you walk? But how can you, in the state that you’re in?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘If you will wait here, Rufus, I will find you some clothes and food.’ Princess Eva did not dare ask him to come further than the porch. It was said that the Secret Police had a spy inside every house. Leo had warned them to be careful what they said in front of anyone outside the family. Every time they heard a loud knock on the door, they feared that the Red Guard might have come for him. They thought Leo had been spared only because he was a doctor and there was a scarcity of medical people in the city. Many had fled or been taken away. He was still working long hours amongst the city’s poor.

  ‘Thank you, Madame.’ Rufus tried to touch his forelock, but his arm was too weak.

  ‘Don’t.’ The princess put her hand on his arm. She no longer expected such gestures from people.

  ‘Who is there?’ asked a voice behind them.

  They turned to see Lena.

  ‘He is a poor beggar, that is all,’ said Princess Eva. ‘I want to give him some clothes and a little food.’

  ‘We have neither to spare.’

  ‘Natasha, go up to my room,’ said her mother, ‘and bring down some clothes of your father’s. Some warm clothes. And boots. Here is the key.’

  Natasha took the key and fled up the stairs. My father is dead. My father is dead. As she went, the words pounded inside her head like the heavy beat of a drum. She unlocked the door of her mother’s room with fumbling hands. They had hidden some of her father’s clothes underneath the bed. The rest had been dispersed amongst the lodgers by Lena. Natasha dragged out the bundle of clothes. Her father would never wear any of these things again. Never! She caught her breath. A pain had flashed through her heart like a streak of lightning.

  The door behind her opened and Lena poked her blue-kerchiefed head round.

  ‘Can I help you, Natasha?’

  ‘No, thank you, I can manage.’

  Natasha swiftly extracted from the bundle a pair of heavy tweed trousers, a woollen overshirt, some socks, a fur hat, a shuba and a pair of brown leather knee-length boots.

  ‘I didn’t know your mother had all those clothes there.’ Lena came over to the bed. ‘Why is she giving all this to a tramp who calls at the door?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Natasha did not look up.

  ‘I hardly think she could have taken a fancy to him?’ Lena gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘Have you ever seen him before?’

  ‘No, never.’

  Natasha stood up, clothes spilling from her arms.

  ‘It’s crazy to give so much to a stranger who just knocks at the door,’ said Lena.

  She reached out to take something. Natasha backed away, trying desperately to hold on to the garments. One of the boots slipped from her grasp and toppled to the floor. In a flash, Lena had picked it up.

  ‘This is very fine leather,’ she said, stroking it. ‘So supple! It is not often one comes across leather like this. Your father liked to wear top quality clothes, did he not? They’re much too good for a tramp.’

  ‘But the poor man’s boots are falling to bits!’

  ‘My brother would like a pair of boots like these. Give me the other one, please, Natasha!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I insist!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Princess Eva had come to see why they were taking so long.

  ‘I want to give these boots to my brother, Madame,’ said Lena. ‘And the shuba. He is in need of a warm overcoat.’

  ‘So is the man at the door.’

  ‘You seem very concerned about this man?’ Lena’s eyes narrowed. They looked like a cat’s eyes, thought Natasha. The eyes of a cat confronting its prey.

  ‘These clothes belonged to my husband. I shall give them to whoever I wish.’ The princess was doing her best to control her voice. ‘It is not your place, Lena, to challenge whom I give them to.’

  ‘So, what is my place?’ asked Lena softly. She gave a little smile though her eyes remained cold.

  Princess Eva made no reply.

  ‘The clothes belonged to your husband, did you say?’ continued Lena.

  ‘Belong still, I hope,’ replied the princess, realizing her mistake. She did not want Lena to guess that the man in the porch had brought news of Prince Mikhail’s death. If she did, then she might suspect that he was a soldier who had fought with the White Army and she might denounce him to the Red Guard. ‘So give me the boot, please!’ Eva held out her hand.

  Lena stared defiantly back, making no move to pass the boot over. For a moment it seemed that there would be no resolution. Natasha glanced at each of their faces in turn. Both looked determined not to give way. Eva reached out and tugged the boot sharply from Lena’s hands.

  ‘Give me the other one, please, Tasha dear,’ said her mother. ‘And the overcoat. Can you carry the rest? I will lock the door.’ She stood on the threshold waiting. Lena hesitated for a moment then, with a toss of the head, she left the room.

  Natasha had never known her mother act so forcefully.
But she knew what the cost would be: they had made an enemy of Lena.

  FOURTEEN

  CUE FOR TREASON

  Alex spent nearly an hour looking for Geoffrey Trease’s book. He felt convinced that it would be the answer to the clue. His eyes were beginning to blur with the effort of reading titles, some of them so faded they were almost illegible. Yet he had the feeling he ought to be able to recognize the book straight away, for it was one that, again, he had read himself. Also, it was newish, at least compared with a lot of the dusty tomes, and so the title should still stand out. He frowned.

  ‘You wouldn’t have had it up in your room?’ suggested Duncan.

  Alex didn’t think so – it was a while since he had read it – but he went and looked anyway. When you were embarked on a search you couldn’t afford to ignore anything. He came back down to the library empty-handed. And then he remembered!

  ‘I lent it to Iain two or three months ago. I don’t think he ever gave it back.’ Iain was one of his school friends. ‘I hope he hasn’t lost the clue.’ It was an appalling thought that their hunt could end right there. It would have been only too easy for Iain to have come across the piece of paper and, thinking it was of no importance, thrown it away.

  ‘Go and ring him,’ said Duncan.

  Iain’s mother answered the phone. Iain was out, she said; he’d gone to help his father with the fishing nets.

  ‘Could I come over?’ asked Alex. ‘I lent Iain a book and I need to have it back. It’s important.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Iain’s mother. ‘Come right over.’

  Iain lived further along the shore, about fifteen minute’s cycle ride away. Alex was winded when he arrived. He dropped his bike on the grass at the side of the house and took a few deep breaths before going in.

  ‘His books will all be up in his room,’ said Iain’s mother. ‘Do you just want to go up and take a look yourself? His room’ll be in a right mess, mind.’

  Alex didn’t mind. He dashed up the stairs. Iain’s mother had been right: the room was in a mess, with the bed unmade and clothes everywhere. Cue for Treason was not in the bookshelves. He hunted around and as a last resort looked under the bed. And there it was.