Polonaise

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  ‘No need to suspect me, sire.’ She used his title on purpose. ‘We Poles do not betray our friends.’

  ‘Your Poles fought gallantly at Austerlitz. On the wrong side.’ He moved his chair nearer hers. ‘I should have listened. To you and to Czartoryski. Would the tide of battle have flowed in another direction, do you think, Isobel, if I had fought it as King of Poland?’

  ‘I am sure it would!’ Was she? ‘It is not too late, sire. Speak now! Announce it now, and see what will happen! The rumours of Austrian defeat have been rife for days; there has been trouble; disturbances savagely put down. Only place yourself at our head, you will have a new army of loyal Poles.’

  ‘At the moment of defeat? I would rather it was on the tide of victory.’ He reached out and took her hand.

  ‘Sire, I sometimes think we Poles are at our best in time of defeat. It unites us, you see.’ She tried to withdraw her hand; failed. ‘You would gain yourself a whole nation of allies. Ones who will never fail you.’

  ‘You say that? But what of your son? Of Prince Casimir’s claim?’

  ‘I would bring him up to be the first and most loyal of your Polish subjects.’

  ‘Would you? I think I would need a guarantee of that, Isobel. A pledge of love. You are pale, beautiful lady, you are sad. And no wonder. You have sacrificed your youth and beauty to an old man for your country’s sake. You have done well; you have a fine Prince to prove it. Now, you are entitled to a little happiness. We will comfort each other, you and I. And I will know you, for always, my friend.’

  ‘Your loving servant, sire.’

  ‘My love.’ He stood up, pushed aside the tea things, gathered her in his arms. ‘I carried you once before, Isobel. Knew it would come to this. Today is our destiny. Tomorrow, I must leave for Petersburg and face the world.’

  ‘What can I say?’

  ‘No need for words.’ He bent to kiss her.

  Travelling slowly with the defeated army, the three young men did not reach Petersburg till well after Christmas.

  ‘The Tsar seems to have received a hero’s welcome.’ Glynde and Jan were entertaining Granville.

  ‘That was before the wounded started limping in,’ Granville said impatiently. ‘Everyone’s waiting now for news of the dead. There’s none, of course. It’s painful to go out into society, be buttonholed by mothers and wives longing for news I can’t give. Frankly, I long for my recall.’

  ‘You’re so sure it will come?’

  ‘Yes. Pitt’s dying; there’s bound to be a change of government. New men, new policies … I hope you’ll stay on, Glynde, and keep me posted.’

  ‘Oh, I think so. There’s not much to call me home. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen? I have a visit to make.’

  Left alone, the other two exchanged a long, thoughtful glance. ‘Mrs. Richards?’ asked Granville at last.

  ‘I’m afraid so. It don’t mean a thing, you know. I suspect he really goes there for news of the Princess. The other … just happened. If you’d ever seen Mary Richards, you’d understand. She’s pretty as a picture, and not much more to say for herself.’

  Granville laughed. ‘You make her sound irresistible!’

  ‘Welcome. At last.’ The Prince greeted his wife at the great wooden gate of his country house at Vinsk. ‘And Miss Peverel.’ He took her hand, very completely his urbane self. ‘But where is the child? Where is Casimir?’

  ‘He was not well,’ lied Casimir’s mother. ‘A childhood ailment, but it quite unfitted him for the journey. He will be better at home.’

  ‘From now on, this is your home, ma’am. We will send for the child. My people here must get to know their next lord. You are in looks, my dear. I trust I see you better.’

  ‘Quite better, thank you.’ She was looking at the ranks of serfs drawn up almost in military order to greet her. ‘You keep your state here, I see.’

  ‘I hope you will find things well ordered. There was a sad lack of discipline when I arrived. Well, when the master’s away …’

  Jenny, following as they walked slowly along the lines of serfs towards the palace doorway, could see what they could not: ingratiating smirks replaced instantly by scowls, and here and there the unmistakable mark of the knout, savagely red across a face that tried to smile. Order had been achieved at a price.

  ‘I don’t like it here!’ Olga came to her room as she was changing for dinner. ‘I wish we had brought more of our own people. They treat us like dirt belowstairs. And their lingo! I had a friend in Warsaw from Lithuania, learned a bit of their horrid language from him. I’m glad I did now. I soon showed them they couldn’t sneer at us to our faces.’

  ‘Was that what they were doing?’ Jenny had been disconcerted to find the Prince’s people speaking a language she had never heard before.

  ‘Of course. I learned a thing or two before I let them know I could understand.’

  Jenny was surprised and disconcerted to find that the Princess and her small retinue of close servants were lodged in a wing of the rambling wood-built palace far removed from the Prince’s quarters. Conducting his wife there, later that night, the Prince bade her a stately farewell at the entrance to her suite of rooms. ‘You will be fatigued; there will be time to talk in the morning.’

  ‘He’s got a mistress, tucked away in his own wing, that’s why.’ Olga had brought Jenny’s breakfast. ‘A Jewish beauty he bought from her father years ago when she was a mere child. On a promise of marriage, of course. They’re strict, the Jews. He’s kept her here ever since, poor girl. I do wonder, don’t you, what made him insist on the Princess coming here?’

  ‘So they are talking to you downstairs?’ Jenny was too much interested in the information to scold Olga for producing it.

  ‘Freely enough now.’ Olga laughed and tossed her head. ‘Now I’ve told them we don’t like their Prince Almighty any more than they do. The stories they tell of him would make your blood run cold. He hadn’t been here for a while, see. The overseer had got lax; more drinking than working went on, and a merry time had by all.’

  ‘What about the Jewish lady?’

  ‘God, they hate her. She’s the one told on them; wrote him what was going on. Must have been. He turned up with no notice given one day when they were drinking his vodka in his dining-hall. The overseer’s in Siberia now,’ Olga told it with relish, ‘his family were turned out of the house into the snow. No one knows what happened to them. No one dared take them in. The Jewish woman spoke up for them, I’ll say that for her, but he shut her up in that smooth way of his. “Be grateful it’s not your children,” he said.’

  ‘She has children?’

  ‘Two boys. Both older than Casimir. Wouldn’t I just like to see the Princess’s face when she meets them.’

  ‘That will do, Olga.’

  ‘So you see your problem, my dear.’ The Prince had joined his wife over breakfast in her boudoir. ‘I could declare our marriage bigamous tomorrow, if I so wished. It would inconvenience me too, of course; the Tsar would not much like it. Miriam is from Warsaw, by the way. Our sons are proper little Poles. I’m sorry you did not choose to bring Casimir. It would have been good for him to have two older brothers to knock some behaviour into him.’

  ‘You acknowledge them as your sons?’

  ‘Not as my legitimate sons. Not yet … And that reminds me, I wish to hear more of that remarkable visit the Tsar paid you on his way back from Austerlitz. You did not choose to mention it in your letters.’

  ‘You have heard? You know?’ She was white as ivory.

  ‘Where you are concerned, my dear, you may count on it that I keep myself well informed. Of course I have heard. Of course I know. And no need to look so whey-faced either. As a husband, I should, I suppose, resent it, but, granted that most unfortunate miscarriage, I can only, as a diplomat, admire you for what you did. At least,’ he smiled his urbane smile, and suddenly made her think of a death’s-head, ‘you are logical in your behaviour. An heir for Poland. And what an heir that
would have been.’ He stood up, looked down at her with a detachment she found frightening. ‘As it is, I think we had best decide to make do with Casimir. At least for the time being.’ And on that dubious note he left her.

  Chapter 13

  Glynde was walking by himself in the summer gardens one bright June morning when he saw the tall figure of the Tsar approaching. Alexander did not enjoy the unpopularity that had grown steadily through the winter and mostly shut himself up in his summer palace, visiting only his mistress and his wife. Glynde expected to be ignored, but this time Alexander paused beside him with a friendly smile, and head inclined as usual to favour his deaf ear. ‘All alone, Mr. Rendel? Where is your young American friend?’

  ‘He’s hard at work, sire, arranging for what trade he can.’

  ‘And you, Mr. Rendel, what news have you of your friend Lord Leveson Gower? Is he sad that the peace negotiations between your country and France have come to nothing?’

  ‘I’ve not heard from him yet, sire.’

  ‘Ah, the mails … the everlasting mails. How much we blame on them.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was too good a chance to miss. ‘Mr. Warrington and I have been hoping for news of the Princess Ovinska, but communication with Vilno seems unusually slow.’

  ‘She’s at Vinsk with her husband?’ A shade of something flickered across the handsome face. ‘If I decide to go west this autumn I must most certainly pay them a visit. Perhaps you would care to accompany me, Mr. Rendel? I miss your friend Lord Leveson Gower sadly, though I must not say so. It is restful to be with someone who does not flatter.’

  ‘I should be more than honoured, sire.’

  ‘Miriam?’ An unsigned note had summoned the Princess to this assignation at a corner of the long walk, invisible from the house. ‘Forgive me,’ she went on. ‘I do not know your other name.’

  ‘You know what it should be. He told me he had told you.’ Her hand was cold in Isobel’s. ‘I have been hoping to meet you like this. Where no one can see. No one must know. I can trust you?’

  ‘Surely the boot is on the other foot?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ They were speaking French, and the English idiom baffled her.

  ‘I’m sorry. I meant, surely it is I who have cause to fear you?’

  ‘No need. But remember, I love him. You don’t.’ It was not a question.

  ‘No. I liked him at first. Now, he terrifies me.’ She was still holding the other woman’s hand, staring at her. ‘You’re very beautiful.’

  ‘So he thought. Once.’ Dark eyes met dark eyes.

  ‘The strange thing is … You remind me of someone.’

  Miriam laughed, harshly. ‘Yourself. We’re cousins, Isobel. I grew up on your grandfather’s estate at Grodno. His grand-daughter. If I was not a Jewess, born on the wrong side of the blanket, I would be a Sobieska like you. Prince Ovinski knew that all the time. Before I did. My parents never told me. Only when I married – thought I married –’ she corrected herself, blushing crimson. ‘My mother was dead, my father away,’ she went on painfully. ‘I was so much in love. He said – the Prince – that it was our chance. It had to be in secret because I was Jewish. I’m proud to be Jewish.’ The black eyes flashed.

  ‘Yes?’ Isobel was increasingly aware of the tie of blood between them.

  ‘I didn’t know the marriage service. I never did understand what was left out, but it was enough. I’ve been his chattel ever since. And I still love him. It’s not for you I am doing this, Isobel; it is for him.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Isobel looked anxiously down the long walk, recently cleared of late snow.

  ‘He’s out hunting. No fear of being interrupted. But you’re right to be cautious. Come in here.’ She pulled her into an alcove with a rustic bench. Too cold to sit; they stood facing each other. ‘Have you sent for the little Prince yet?’

  ‘No. I said he wasn’t well enough. That it must wait until the roads dry out after the thaw. That I’d send then.’

  ‘Don’t. If he comes, I think he will die. An accident. I don’t want the Prince to have the child’s blood on his hands. Even for the sake of my own children. Is Casimir his son?’

  Once again, black eyes met black eyes squarely. Then, ‘No one will ever know,’ said Isobel.

  ‘And he’s not chancing it. I can understand that. It’s like him. He doesn’t take chances. I think you should go back to Rendomierz, Isobel.’

  ‘He won’t let me.’

  ‘I’ll try what I can do. A few jealous scenes, perhaps? They sometimes work.’

  ‘You have no cause.’

  Miriam smiled. ‘I know. I’m sorry for you, Isobel.’ She sounded immensely older.

  ‘Your sons? I’d like to see them. How old are they?’

  ‘Six and four. Michael and Jan. If he wants you to see them, you will. You and I must not meet again, unless he wishes it.’ For her, Isobel saw, there was only one ‘he’. ‘We have talked long enough. Goodbye, cousin. May God protect you and your son.’

  ‘And you, too.’ They kissed like old friends, parted, walked swiftly away down their different alleys.

  The wood-built palace gave only a feeling of privacy, never the fact. It was three days before Isobel managed to be alone with Jenny out on the carriage sweep which had just been cleared of snow by a sullen army of serfs. ‘How they hate us.’ She took Jenny’s arm to walk up and down on the cleared gravel, and wished she had warned Miriam that the serfs blamed her for the Prince’s return. But Miriam probably knew.

  ‘Yes. I wish we could go back to Rendomierz.’

  ‘So do I! I’m going to ask the Prince, the next chance I get.’ She poured out the story of her meeting with Miriam. ‘I knew I was right to be afraid,’ she concluded.

  ‘Yes. But what are we going to do?’ She thought about it. ‘I think we should send a message to the Brotherhood.’

  ‘The Brotherhood?’

  ‘Casimir is part of their hope for the future. A pawn in the game, at least. They will protect him.’

  ‘Unless they prefer Miriam’s sons,’ said Isobel.

  ‘You know that’s impossible.’ Jenny had been thinking about this. ‘They are half Jewish, Isobel. You know as well as I do how you Poles treat the Jews. Use them, and abuse them. Oh, we’re bad enough in England, but it’s only social with us. Much worse here. Poor Miriam is deluding herself about this; as she must have about her marriage. The Prince knows better. Don’t let him frighten you with that bugbear, because that is all it is. Do you remember how that Jewish landlord cringed, when we stopped at his inn for refreshments on the way here? Think of him, and ask yourself if someone with even a hint of Jewish blood could lay claim to the Polish crown.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Isobel slowly. ‘So – there is no threat. No need to apply to the Brotherhood.’

  ‘But Miriam was afraid?’

  ‘Yes.’ Reluctantly. ‘She was afraid for the Prince, she said, not for me.’

  ‘And she knows him. Loves him. I suspect she simply does not recognise the depth of his plans. One thing I have learned since we came here, and that is that the Prince is not a rich man. He’s land-poor, like our Irish aristocrats. I just hope he hasn’t got another heiress in mind. There’s a very rich Princess of Courland I heard someone speak of. Rich and young.’

  ‘You mean he would kill me, too?’

  ‘You had not thought of that? Who would inherit your estates if you and Casimir should both die?’

  ‘The Prince, of course.’ Her face was white as the snow.

  This was not a message that could be sent by Olga. ‘Tell Them I must talk to someone myself.’Jenny kept her exchanges with Olga to a minimum.

  ‘You don’t trust me?’

  ‘Why should I? But I know you have more sense than to disobey Them. So I can trust you to take my message.’

  She met the Brotherhood’s messenger a few days later in the Greek rotunda above the ornamental water. The weather had turned mild enough so that it was
possible to walk in the grounds without causing comment, and the mock Greek temple provided the perfect site for a secret meeting, since it stood on a little hill with a clear view in all directions. Arriving, on Olga’s instructions, as early as she could get out of the house, Jenny thought she was the first for a moment. Then a masked figure appeared in the entrance to the temple’s little central chamber.

  ‘Sit down on the bench,’ he told her, without greeting. ‘Keep watch. Don’t look at me as we talk. You are alone here, so far as anyone can see. Now, tell me the meaning of your message. Quickly. You cannot stay here long.’

  ‘No.’ After one quick glance, which summed him up as in his twenties, dressed for hunting, an undoubted aristocrat behind the mask, she sat obediently on the bench, scanning the park, briefly summing up her fears for Isobel and Casimir. ‘I thought you should know,’ she concluded.

  ‘You were right. You have served us well, and we will remember it. I will take counsel with my Brothers. You may or may not hear from us, but I promise you, action will be taken. But, first, one question. Is Prince Casimir the Prince’s son?’

  ‘I know nothing to suggest he is not.’ Stating merely the facts of the case, she had not raised this question, but had been prepared for it.

  ‘Not really an answer,’ he said.

  ‘The best I can give.’ It was oddly frightening to carry on this conversation with her back to him. But even if she had been facing him, the mask would have prevented her from seeing his expression.

  ‘You do not trust the girl, Olga, or you would not have insisted on this meeting. Do you wish her replaced?’

  ‘No. I have great confidence in her fear of you.’

  ‘Which I hope you share.’

  ‘There’s someone coming,’ she said. ‘It’s the Prince!’

  ‘Then go down to meet him. Don’t let him come here, if you value both your lives.’

  ‘I do.’ She rose, shook out her skirts, bent to pick a sprig of lavender from the neglected formal garden that encircled the little building, and moved forward to intercept the Prince.