Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar

by Olga Wjotas

  In fact, my preferred solution was to ensure that Lidia danced with Sasha instead. It was already the third day of my mission: I really should be further ahead with getting them together.

  “Ah yes, the general,” she said with a heavy sigh. She certainly didn’t sound like a woman in love, which was a good thing. “Nanny thinks I should marry him because of his status.” Then flinging her arms wide, she burst out passionately, “But what does that matter? It is trivial, petty, worthless and inconsequential. If I fell in love, it would not matter to me if he were a prince, a boatman or a serf.”

  She was always so docile that I was completely taken aback by this outpouring of feeling. And then I had one of these blinding revelations where you wonder how you could have been so stupid not to have seen it before – something that happens to me very rarely. With those words of Lidia’s the mystery of Sasha’s background was solved. He was the countess’s serf. And since Lidia subscribed to a notion of romantic love that transcended all boundaries, she wouldn’t find his lowly status a bar to marrying him.

  There was a knock at the door, and a footman came in with a note for me on a silver salver.

  “The young gentleman is currently at lunch with a lady on the countess’s instructions but will leave before dessert and join you at Lidia Ivanovna’s. Your excellency’s humble serf, G. G. Vatrushkin.”

  I was hurtling towards my mission’s goal.

  “By the way,” I said, “the princess was telling me about your family tragedy, the terrible loss of your wee brother. I just wanted to offer you my condolences.”

  “How kind you are!” said Lidia. “Nobody ever speaks of it, so it’s a comfort for me to hear your words.”

  “And it must also be a comfort to you to be able to go and visit his grave,” I said.

  Lidia blinked. “Goodness! I never thought of that. I pray for him every day, of course, but I have never noticed his tomb in the family mausoleum. How strange.”

  “Very,” I agreed. “Perhaps you should ask Nanny about it.”

  Nanny was already in the dining room, simultaneously presiding over a tureen of soup and frantically knitting a formless length of wool.

  “I have another three fichus to finish by this evening,” she complained. “Lidia Ivanovna, there is surely someone else in this town who can knit.”

  “But nobody who knits as beautifully as you, Nanny. The ladies said they wanted ones just like mine, and it will make them so very happy.”

  “And you, Shona Fergusovna? Do you require one as well?” said Nanny, serving the soup with one hand and casting off with the other.

  “If I were thirty years younger, I wouldn’t be seen without one,” I said. “But I’m at an age where it’s best to leave high fashion to the youngsters.”

  I gave Lidia an encouraging smile to prompt her to ask Nanny about the missing tomb, but she misunderstood my meaning.

  “Oh, Shona Fergusovna, you could wear anything – you are ageless!” she said. Then she flushed. “No, of course you are not ageless. You have an age. Just like everybody else who is made of flesh and blood, rather than if you were an incorporeal spirit who transcends our hours and days.”

  “Speaking of hours and days,” I said, “how long exactly did your wee brother live for?”

  Nanny’s spoon clattered into her plate, spattering soup all over the emergent fichu.

  “Alas,” said Lidia, “a matter of hours only. I remember hearing his cries, and then the priest came, and after that there was silence. Nanny, I was chatting with Shona Fergusovna on this very matter just before lunch, and I realised he is not buried with the rest of the family. Perhaps you know why?”

  “Yes, Nanny,” I said, “we thought it was really strange.”

  Nanny had dipped the end of her apron in her water glass and was busy dabbing at the soup stains on her knitting.

  “Strange?” she said. “I’ll tell you what’s strange. I put two new balls of wool in my apron this morning and one of them’s completely disappeared.”

  “Dear Nanny!” said Lidia, jumping up, and running to kiss her on the cheek. “It’s disappeared because you’ve knitted it into a fichu! Look!”

  “What? But it was blue, and this one is–”

  “–blue as well,” supplied Lidia. “There, do you see now? It was a ball of wool this morning, and now it is knitting.”

  “Saints have mercy, it’s all so confusing for a poor old woman like me,” sighed Nanny. “I must go and get another one.”

  She tottered out of the room. But I had the distinct impression that she wasn’t confused at all, and had created a fuss about the wool in order to change the subject.

  I heard the sound of approaching footsteps, two sets. A footman and a lunch guest. And Nanny couldn’t accuse me of breaking any promises, since my promise had applied only to last night’s party. The door opened, and I smiled in greeting at Sasha.

  Only it wasn’t Sasha. It was the general.

  “General!” said Lidia. “How kind of you to join us. And of course you know Shona Fergusovna, our distinguished foreign visitor?”

  “We have not yet been formally introduced. A very great pleasure,” he said, bowing and practically disappearing from view.

  Nanny returned, her apron stuffed with wool.

  “And this is my darling nanny,” said Shona. “Nanny, this is the general who has been so kind as to dance with me.”

  Nanny nodded at him. “So glad you could accept Lidia Ivanovna’s invitation to lunch,” she said.

  Lidia’s eyelashes fluttered in bewilderment, and I realised that the invitation had come not from Lidia, but from Nanny herself. I had been feeling slightly guilty about my surreptitious invitation to Sasha, but I was going to have to up my game.

  Nanny was fussing around the general. “Sit here,” she said, placing him next to Lidia. “Let me get you some soup. My little chicken has told me all about you.”

  The general looked startled.

  I leaned over to him. “Yes, it confused me as well to begin with,” I said. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with haruspices and hepatoscopy.”

  The general looked even more startled and I reflected that while a military man might well be expert when it came to sieges, fortifications and pincer movements, he was unlikely to have had the finest education in the world. I seized the opportunity to expand his horizons.

  “In Ancient Rome, priests – haruspices – foretold the future by inspecting chicken entrails – hepatoscopy,” I explained. “But Nanny’s not really talking about an actual chicken. She means Lidia Ivanovna.”

  “Lidia Ivanovna inspects chicken entrails?” said the general.

  I was tempted to say yes in the hope that it would put him off, but since he had already engaged her in conversation about carnage on the battlefield, he would probably approve of a wife who wasn’t squeamish.

  “Dear Nanny!” said Lidia affectionately. “She misses the country so! That is why she calls me her little chicken, because it reminds her of the beloved companions of her childhood. She has never really taken to the town.”

  “That’s a shame,” I said. “So how long have you been here, Nanny? About twenty-five years?”

  “Oh, many, many more years than that!” scoffed Nanny.

  “She was my revered father’s nanny, and then when he grew up, she took over managing the serfs,” said Lidia. “By the time I was born, she was so expert at it that she could look after me and manage the serfs simultaneously.”

  I was well impressed. Serf management was complicated enough with only two to deal with, and I reckoned that a vast mansion like Lidia’s would require a good few more.

  The general, who, as prospective husband, had a personal interest in the matter, asked, “How many serfs do you have?”

  Lidia looked vague.

  “Eight hundred and t
wenty-six,” said Nanny promptly. “That’s just here, of course. There are another three thousand, four hundred and seventy-three on my little chicken’s country estates. I say country, but they are just on the outskirts of town. And where are your own estates, General?”

  “I have no property in town,” said the general. “I do not like the town. But I have been obliged to come here and live in rented accommodation while I look for a bride, since there are no suitable candidates in the country.”

  “The luxury apartments by the river?” asked Nanny. “I believe they’re very nice.”

  “Charming,” agreed the general. “But unfortunately, still in town. Thankfully, my estates are very isolated and distant from here. The nearest habitation is the village of K–.”

  “The village of K–!” cried Nanny. “Why, I was born not three versts from there. Oh, Chicken, it is the most beautiful place in the world. Flat as a blin, not a single hill to spoil the view. And the quaint ramshackle hovels! I remember how the goats would eat their way through the wooden walls, and the wind would whistle through, straight from Siberia. We would fill the holes with grass, and then the sheep would eat the grass. It was a losing battle, something I’m sure you know all about, General.”

  The general politely bowed his head to her. “Indeed, I have had the honour of losing many battles.”

  Nanny’s childhood home sounded ghastly. “I’m sure it’s improved a lot since you were last there, Nanny,” I said.

  “No,” said the general. “Most of the time, I live in my campaign tent in the garden. It is warmer and drier than indoors.”

  “Don’t you have a big mansion?” I asked.

  “An extremely big mansion,” said the general. “It’s very draughty because of the holes in the walls. The roof is also full of holes.”

  “Grass,” said Nanny firmly. “That’s what you need for the roof. The sheep don’t usually manage to get on the roof.”

  “Sound advice, I am sure, dear lady, but we have no access to grass because of the mud.”

  Nanny’s eyes closed in blissful reminiscence. “Ah, the mud,” she murmured.

  “The goats are a terrible problem,” the general went on. “We attempt to tether them, but they simply eat through whatever we tether them with.”

  And then Lidia’s voice rang out, firm and decisive, in a way I would never have imagined possible. “The problem is neither the sheep nor the goats. The problem is the wood. Tell me, what kind of wood is being used?”

  Nanny gave an indulgent chuckle. “Just plain ordinary wood, Chicken.”

  Lidia gave what would have sounded like a snort from someone less diffident. She turned to the general with an enquiring eyebrow.

  He gave a helpless shrug. “Brown wood?”

  The piece of bread between Lidia’s fingers exploded into fragments but her tone remained polite. “Thank you, General, that’s most helpful. Although your description could apply to several types of wood, and a site visit by a professional may be necessary to determine the precise variety. Tell me, is the wood affected by anything other than goats?”

  “Where do I begin? The floorboards in the upper storeys are rotten with mildew. And most of the verandah has disappeared because of an infestation.”

  Lidia’s cheeks flushed, and she clasped her hands to her bosom, dislodging her fichu. “A rundown verandah! Oh, how I should love to restore a verandah! The footings, the joists, the bevelling!”

  “Lidia Ivanovna!” gasped Nanny. “How dare you be so forward! And kindly readjust your fichu. Please excuse her, General. I assure you, she is a modest, well-brought-up girl. I have never known her to yield to extreme emotions like this.”

  “There is no need to excuse her,” said the general. “I am overjoyed to find that there may be a happy coincidence between Lidia Ivanovna’s desires and my own.”

  “Lidia!” said Nanny. “Thank the general for being so understanding.”

  “Thank you, General, for being so understanding,” said Lidia obediently.

  I shuddered. The general’s estate, decaying, dilapidated, in the back of beyond, sounded like East Kilbride. Was Lidia to be consigned to a life of misery in a swamp just because she liked woodwork?

  “So, so beautiful, Chicken,” Nanny reminisced. “I will never forget the mud. It was a true pleasure to walk on, not like the nasty hard pavements you get in town. Tell me, General, is there still as much mud?”

  “Even more,” said the general. “The Volga burst its banks last year. My wife was swept away in the flood.”

  “How terrible!” exclaimed Lidia.

  “Thank you for your concern, but I’m soldiering on,” the general said, and Nanny gave a peal of laughter.

  “You’re quite the wit, General,” she said.

  “I like to keep cheerful,” he said. “And of course, were I not now a widower, I would not have had the opportunity to take lunch in such pleasant company.”

  “Lidia!” said Nanny. “Thank the general for his gallant compliment.”

  “Thank you, General, for your gallant compliment,” said Lidia obediently.

  “And there is still a great deal of mud in the environs?” Nanny enquired.

  “More than I have ever seen,” said the general.

  “Do you hear that, Chicken? You would love it!”

  Nanny was going to have Lidia betrothed to the general by the end of lunch if I didn’t take action.

  “What was your favourite battle, General?” I asked.

  It was a masterstroke. The general commandeered plates, silverware, crystal glasses, candlesticks and napkins to illustrate the battleground tactics. Nanny tried to encourage a conversation between him and Lidia, but I kept bombarding him with questions, much as the enemy batteries had done to his entrenchments. And then my reinforcements arrived.

  Not for the first time, I marvelled at Sasha’s beauty. The long eyelashes, the blond curls over his smooth forehead, the perfect curve of his ear lobes: everything conveyed integrity and sincerity.

  I sprang up, offering him my seat opposite Lidia. “I need to sit closer to the general,” I explained. “That decanter is stopping me seeing what direction the artillery’s firing in. Do you mind introducing yourselves?”

  I have a great ability to multi-task, so while I insisted on getting a minute-by-minute account of the battle from the general, I could also keep tabs on the adjacent conversation.

  That light, attractive voice: “Forgive me for the intrusion. My name is Sasha. I was kindly invited to join you by Shona Fergusovna.”

  Nanny glared at me. “How very hospitable of Shona Fergusovna to invite people to lunch when it is not even her own home.”

  I tried to look suitably contrite and, after a pause, Nanny signalled to a footman to reset the place. “Well, sit down. I’m Nanny and this is Lidia Ivanovna. Would you like oysters, soupe printanière, turbot with sauce Beaumarchais, poularde à l’estragon or a bit of all of them?”

  “You’re very kind,” said Sasha. “I’ve just had lunch, but a small coffee would be most welcome. I hope I’m not inconveniencing you.”

  Nanny waved a peremptory hand at the butler. “Just coffee for the gentleman. And no, you’re not inconveniencing us. We know our social duty. It’s open house at mealtimes, even to guests of our guests.” She glared at me again.

  “I believe,” said Sasha, his soft voice contrasting with Nanny’s unfriendly rasp, “that until recently, it has not been open house.”

  “Oh really? You seem to know a lot about us and we don’t know anything about you. Where are you from and what’s your family?”

  I froze. From what I had heard while I was jammed under the settee, Sasha and the countess had just assumed that everyone would believe he was an aristocrat, and hadn’t actually concocted a cover story for him.

  “All in good time, Nanny,” I interrup
ted. “Let the poor boy drink his coffee in peace. Lidia, why don’t you tell Sasha about dovetail joints or something?”

  When Sasha had sat down beside her, Lidia had shifted her chair so that her back was to him. Her insistence on behaving modestly wasn’t helping her get to know him, but I appreciated that when you were facing him, there was a real temptation just to sit staring at him with your mouth open, drooling slightly.

  Without turning, Lidia said, “I particularly favour the secret mitred dovetail when building cabinets. It is both challenging and time-consuming, but it provides strength and a superb finish.”

  She spoke so softly that Sasha had to lean towards her, practically breathing down the back of her neck. I was still feigning fascination with the general’s strategic retreat, but simultaneously marvelling yet again at how perfect Sasha and Lidia looked together.

  Nanny was similarly observing Lidia and Sasha from her place at the other side of the table. “Young man!” she suddenly grated. “How old are you?”

  “I’m twenty,” he said.

  She scrambled off her chair, shoving her knitting into her apron.

  “Lidia Ivanovna!” she said. “You can’t sit here gossiping all day! You have that picture frame to finish off.”

  Lidia, her mouth falling open in surprise, stood up uncertainly.

  “Come on! Come on!” Nanny exhorted, standing at the door like a prison warder escorting Lidia back to her cell.

  “Excuse me,” Lidia murmured. “Thank you all for coming.”

  Nanny grabbed her by the elbow and propelled her down the corridor, Sasha gazing after them with the gentle, wistful expression he always had when Lidia was near. Some men in the benighted nineteenth century might object to a wife five years older than them, I reflected, but Sasha was so evidently enthralled by Lidia that age was clearly not an issue.

  Now Lidia had gone, he joined me in providing an audience for the general’s war stories, attentive and respectful as the wee guy droned on.

  We were interrupted again by a footman carrying a note on a silver salver, which he presented to me. In careful block capitals, it read: “Shona Fergusovna, I must see you alone as soon as possible on a matter of the gravest importance. I shall be in my room. Nanny.”