Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar

by Olga Wjotas

  “Great. I’ll call you Greg, and you call me Shona. No more of this ‘your excellency’ nonsense. Agreed?”

  Old Vatrushkin’s lips trembled. They formed a circle, preparatory to obeying my instructions, then immediately straightened as if to address me formally. Sweat broke out on his brow as he tried to force his lips back to a circle and yet again they shifted back to parallel.

  With a cry of anguish, he flung himself across the table and seized the breadknife. “I shall cut out my tongue rather than cause offence,” he cried, opening his mouth and grabbing hold of his tongue with his other hand.

  He raised the knife and prepared to strike.

  I acted instinctively. “What do you think you’re doing?” I thundered in the voice that had once struck terror into dozens of first years found smoking in the toilets. “Put that down at once!”

  The knife clattered onto the table and Old Vatrushkin’s tongue disappeared back into his mouth.

  I’m a firm believer in egalitarianism, but it seemed Old Vatrushkin was so convinced of his subordinate position that I was just going to distress him if I insisted on treating him as an equal. In the interests of his well-being, I had to compromise my principles.

  “I was testing you,” I said. “I wanted to see whether you were capable of over-familiarity. I’m delighted to say you’ve passed, and shown that you are eminently suitable to be my coachman.”

  I went into the pantry and retrieved the breakfast ingredients.

  “If you’ve been out there all night, you need a fry-up,” I said. “Sorry it won’t be a proper one. I’ve got bacon and eggs and mushrooms and tomatoes and lots of potatoes, but there isn’t any square sausage.”

  “Square sausage?” he said wonderingly. “How can a sausage be square?”

  “I’ve no idea,” I said. “But in Scotland, where I come from, it’s a delicacy. Sausages is the boys.”

  He flinched. “In Scotland, you make sausages out of people?”

  I reflected that in some parts of Glasgow, they probably did, but there was no need to tell him that.

  “No, it’s just an expression,” I explained. “It was a catchphrase of the music hall entertainer Jimmy Logan, although the grammatically correct ‘sausages are the boys’ was previously the catchphrase of the comedian Tommy Lorne, after whom the square Lorne sausage is said to be named.”

  Old Vatrushkin was listening attentively and nodding, but I felt there was an underlying lack of comprehension. Then it struck me that of course he wouldn’t understand since this was probably before the era of the music hall.

  “It means that sausages are very good,” I concluded. I went over to the stove and started preparing the pans.

  Old Vatrushkin sprang to his feet. “You cannot cook for me, your excellency! I beg you, go to the salon and I shall prepare breakfast for you.”

  I pointed out that he had no idea what I would like for breakfast.

  “I shall prepare whatever you want, your excellency. Turtle soup, pickled mushrooms, fermented mare’s milk, herring cheeks, goose giblets . . .”

  “Sounds delightful, but I’ve got all the stuff for the fry-up right here.”

  Old Vatrushkin reached out to take over the culinary duties and I had to smack his hand away. The pans sizzled and I even managed to rig up a rudimentary toaster in front of the stove. There was no orange juice to go with the coffee, but I found some black cherries that I mixed with the fermented mare’s milk to make a probiotic drink.

  Old Vatrushkin approached his plate warily but after a few mouthfuls, he decided that a full Scottish breakfast wasn’t bad. I made him some more toast and another couple of eggs, and he wolfed them down.

  “If I may be so bold, how long is your excellency staying here?” he asked.

  “I’m here on a mission,” I said, “and I’ve been given up to a week to complete it.”

  Old Vatrushkin swallowed a bit of yolk-covered toast and murmured, “Le succès de la plupart des choses dépend de savoir combien il faut de temps pour réussir.”

  My fork stopped midway towards my mouth. Old Vatrushkin had stopped speaking Russian and was speaking French. And if I wasn’t mistaken, which I knew I wasn’t, this was an aphorism by the political philosopher Montesquieu, suggesting that the success of most things depended on knowing how long it would take for them to succeed.

  He saw me staring at him and immediately started babbling an apology. “Forgive my presumption in using the language of the aristocracy,” he said. “I am a fool who must learn to think before he speaks.”

  “I don’t think the definition of a fool is someone who can quote Montesquieu,” I said. “Where did you learn French?”

  “Paris, your excellency,” said Old Vatrushkin, and then returned to his plate, mopping up the rest of the egg yolk with fried potato.

  “Come on, work with me here,” I said.

  “Forgive me for misunderstanding,” he said, leaping up and going over to the stove. “I thought your excellency didn’t want me to touch anything in your kitchen.”

  He was simultaneously really sweet and really irritating.

  “Sit down and finish your breakfast,” I ordered. “It’s just an expression – I mean give me a better answer than that. One minute you’re telling me you’re a serf, the next you’re telling me you learned French in Paris. How does that happen?”

  “My former master sent me to Paris to study painting because he kindly thought I had some small talent in that direction. Many households think it fashionable to have a serf artist.”

  “You studied painting in Paris? Do you by any chance know who did those stunning landscapes upstairs? Did you study with them?”

  Old Vatrushkin stared down at his plate and mumbled something.

  “Pardon?” I said.

  Old Vatrushkin mumbled again, but this time I managed to make him out.

  “They’re really yours? They’re totally amazing – the delicacy of the brushwork, the use of impasto, the vitality, the luminism, the psychogeography . . . Old Vatrushkin, you’re a genius.”

  He was curling himself into a ball of embarrassment, his beard millimetres away from the fried mushrooms.

  “And a very good choice of subject, the Volga near Yaroslavl, and the Dvina near Veliki Ustyug.”

  His head was down, but I caught a twitch of beard that suggested he might be smiling.

  “Your excellency is too good, recognising the subject of my poor efforts.”

  “So what are you working on at the moment?” I asked.

  “Nothing, your excellency, my duties as a coachman keep me fully occupied.”

  That was a scandal. A talent like his needed to be nurtured. At least his former master had had the sense to send him to Paris.

  “Isn’t your current master interested in art?”

  Old Vatrushkin looked up from the fried mushrooms and gaped at me. “But I told you I was here to drive you wherever and whenever you want to go. You are my current master, your excellency. You own me.”

  My toast fell on the floor, butter side down. Some two centuries later, food scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University would conclude that toast falls butter side down when the table isn’t high enough for it to rotate a full 360 degrees.

  “I can’t possibly own you,” I said. “I’m more than happy to employ you as my coachman, but it’s totally immoral for one human being to own another. I could never stand in the way of you being a free autonomous individual. Old Vatrushkin, I emancipate you with immediate effect.”

  He sprang from his seat and fell to his knees in front of me, his hands clasped in entreaty. “No, your excellency, forgive me, forgive whatever I have done to offend you so greatly – I am unworthy, I know, but I beg you not to cast me off like this!”

  I’ve heard that anybody in Morningside who has a cleaning lady scrubs their
house from top to bottom before that lady’s arrival. I’ve always thought it was a rather odd approach to domestic help. But serfs seemed to be a whole new level of problematic.

  “You don’t want to be free?”

  He shook his head. “Vivo ut serviam.”

  “Old Vatrushkin, if I’m not mistaken, and yet again I know I’m not, that’s Latin for ‘I live to serve’. And you know Latin because?”

  “Because my master before my previous master wanted to translate Virgil’s Aeneid into Russian, but didn’t know Latin. He had no time to study it, so he sent me to study it instead. His translation is very well regarded.”

  “You mean your translation.”

  “Oh no, your excellency, I merely told my master what the Latin meant, and how it would sound best in Russian.”

  “Old Vatrushkin, you’re a literate, well-educated man – it’s utterly preposterous that you’re a serf driving a carriage. It’s not what you should be doing. It’s like Aristotle being–” I looked for a suitable analogy “–being a chartered accountant.”

  “I do not know what a chartered accountant is,” said Old Vatrushkin.

  The Edinburgh Society of Accountants was established in 1854 but it took some time for the trend to reach other countries, so Old Vatrushkin’s ignorance of professional accounting bodies didn’t help much in pinpointing the date.

  “But,” he went on, “there can be no comparison between myself and the great Aristotle. He would immediately point out the flaw in your deductive inference, where premise does not link with conclusion. If I may be so bold, perhaps I fit better into the Hegelian tradition of integrating opposites?”

  Now this definitely was a clue: Hegel published the third volume of the Science of Logic in 1816.

  Aloud, I said, “Do I have a garden?”

  “Indeed, your excellency, there are extensive grounds behind the house.”

  “And is there a shed in the garden?”

  “There’s an orangery,” Old Vatrushkin offered.

  “In that case, the orangery will be your studio. Shift the oranges out of your way first, obviously.”

  Old Vatrushkin was gazing at me with the reverent expression that most Scots bestow on square sausage.

  “The orangery will be my studio? Your excellency continues to overwhelm me with your beneficence! What do you wish me to paint for you?”

  “I don’t wish you to paint anything for me,” I said. “You’re the artist, you choose.”

  “You don’t want my paintings?” said Old Vatrushkin, his lower lip trembling. “No, of course not, how could you? You are a lady of exquisite taste and discrimination, and you see my pathetic efforts for what they are.”

  “Old Vatrushkin,” I said with great deliberation, “you and I are going to fall out if you don’t listen to me. You’re a wonderful painter, and you must paint what you want – I don’t have any right to tell you what to do.”

  He looked quite scared. “Is your excellency a Liberal?” he ventured.

  “I’m not a member of any political party,” I said firmly. “I hoe my own row.”

  “You work alongside your serfs in the fields like Count Bezukhov?”

  “I’ve only got one serf, Old Vatrushkin. And if you don’t want to be forcibly emancipated, you’d better start painting whatever it is you want to paint in your new studio.”

  I retrieved my purse from the dresser and took out a banknote. I was about to pass it to Old Vatrushkin when I looked at it more carefully. It was splendidly multicoloured, featuring the double-headed imperial eagle. But I’d never seen a note of this denomination. “Three roubles? Is that like a nine-dollar bill?”

  Old Vatrushkin was gazing at it in awe. “Such riches, your excellency! I’ve never seen so large a note before!”

  “Well, if it’s not a fake, take it. Get yourself some paint and easels and stuff.”

  “This is too much!” he wailed.

  “It’s fine. Keep the change and buy something else you want.”

  “What else do I want?”

  “I’ve no idea. A sticky bun. A mug of kvass. An apple for the horse.”

  Old Vatrushkin pondered. “I could get all of these things, if your excellency wishes.”

  I heaved a sigh. “Okay,” I said, counting on my fingers. “Here’s your to-do list. Painting materials, sticky bun, mug of kvass, apple for the horse. But first, have some more tea and tell me all about the countess.”

  “Alas, there is little I can tell. This is her first time in society.”

  I processed this. The bulgy-ankled countess, the entrancing Sasha, the beautiful Lidia and me, all newbies.

  “How is that possible?” I asked. “Has she only just married the count?”

  “On the contrary. They have been married for some twenty years. But following the unfortunate incident, the count has only just returned from exile.”

  “Siberia?”

  “His country estate.”

  “So what was the unfortunate incident?”

  Old Vatrushkin shook his head. “We are forbidden to speak of it.”

  I considered pressing him further on the incident, but decided it might provoke another attempt at tongue severing. But I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Forbidden by whom?”

  “Our Little Father, the Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, of Moscow, Kiev–”

  “Yes,” I said. “Vladimir, Novgorod, etcetera. So is there anything you know about her?”

  “Very little, your excellency. She lived on a neighbouring country estate to the count’s, and was to come to town for the first time for her own wedding. It was to be the most grand event possible, attended by our Little Father, the Emperor and Autocrat of all–”

  “Yes, still with you. And?”

  “And then came the unfortunate incident.”

  “Yes, I see,” I said, although I didn’t see at all since he was forbidden to speak of it.

  “And since she has been unknown in society, that is why she has brought the young gentleman you enquired about,” said Old Vatrushkin before drinking some more tea.

  This time, I was prepared to say I didn’t understand.

  “At the countess’s advanced age, and with her lack of a waistline, her entry into society would have gone entirely unnoticed were it not for the exquisite young man,” said Old Vatrushkin.

  I still found it quite baffling.

  “This young man,” I said. “Does he have any particular skills, attributes?”

  Old Vatrushkin’s tea went down the wrong way and it took a while before he could even splutter.

  “I mean, can he sing, play the balalaika, tell jokes? It can’t be enough for him just to be amazingly handsome.”

  Old Vatrushkin was looking desperately uncomfortable and I realised I was upsetting him by asking him questions he didn’t know the answer to. But I still had one last thing to ask.

  “Do you know where he’s from?”

  Old Vatrushkin shook his head. “The countess brought him with her. The count’s estate is near the village of N– so perhaps the people there will know more.”

  “You’ve been very helpful,” I said to Old Vatrushkin in a bid to cheer him up, although he really hadn’t been helpful at all. “Go and make all your purchases, and get on with your painting. I’ll see you later.”

  He got up from his chair, came round to where I was sitting, and gave me a resounding kiss on the shoulder. He never knew how close he came to serious injury. During my schooldays, I saw off innumerable priapic youths from both the state and independent sectors. It didn’t matter whether they were solid prop forwards, nippy wingers or simply desperate, I could send them packing within seconds. Not for nothing was I known as Ballbreaker McMonagle. But on this occasion, I fortunately remembered that a serf kissing someone’s shoulder was a token o
f respect, and Old Vatrushkin remained unscathed.

  He was just leaving when I remembered. “Oh, one more thing. Does the Little Father, the Emperor and Autocrat etcetera go out walking?”

  “Every day, your excellency. It is very fashionable to walk along the boulevards.” He paused and beamed. “Walking along the boulevards is the boys.”

  I was going to explain that “is the boys” applied only to sausages, but he was so pleased with himself that I couldn’t bear to see his wee face fall.

  “And where’s the best place to pick up a newspaper?” I asked, deciding that this would be a good way to find out what date it was.

  Old Vatrushkin looked uneasy. “Newspapers have been banned by Our Little Father the Tsar ever since one attempted to report on the unfortunate incident of which we are forbidden to speak. The ban is now presumed to have been lifted following the count’s return to town, but Our Little Father’s temper is unpredictable and no newspaper proprietor has yet been bold enough to publish.”

  So it was back to picking up clues. I set out on my walk, and didn’t get far before I was surrounded by well-wishers and the inquisitive who recognised me from my appearance at Lidia’s party. Yes, Scotland was very beautiful. Yes, there was a strange beast in Loch Ness. Yes, a sheep’s stomach. Any moment now, they’d be asking if anything was worn under the kilt, and the traditional response didn’t translate well. I switched to unobtrusive mode and shimmered away, leaving behind a mystified group.

  I headed off from the busier boulevards, down a tree-lined avenue. Miss Blaine must have been guiding me, since I came to a park where I spotted Lidia Ivanovna promenading with a tiny elderly woman. The woman was even tinier and possibly even more elderly than Lidia’s tiny elderly dance partner. But she was surprisingly nippy, and the pair of them were going at quite a rate. I had to break into speed-walking to catch up with them.

  “Don’t slow down,” the old woman commanded her charge.

  “Shona Fergusovna!” gasped Lidia, as much from breathlessness as surprise. “Nanny, this is the wonderful Scottish visitor I told you about who made my party such a success. Shona Fergusovna, this is my darling nanny.”