The Silent Land Page 12

  I was engaged in cleaning the cooking range when Madam burst through the door looking red-faced and twitchy. “Prince Mayakovsky is here,” she said. “In the drawing room.”

  A catch indeed for her, I thought, and no doubt she’d be on the telephone to all her friends just as soon as he’d left. I wondered why she’d bothered to come and boast to me.

  “It’s you he wants to see,” she continued breathlessly. “Don’t just stand there, go and change into your best clothes. And for God’s sake make sure you’ve wiped all the grease off your face and hands.”

  I started to walk towards the door.

  “Wait!” Madam called. “You must tiptoe past the drawing room. You mustn’t let him know … you … just make sure you’re quiet.”

  I was tempted to go and meet the Prince as I was. It would embarrass Madam beyond endurance and shock the life out of Konstantin – both of which would have given me a great deal of pleasure. But I was living in Madam’s house and would continue to do so at least until after the baby was born, so it was prudent to follow her instructions. I climbed the stairs up to my garret room as silently as I could.

  It was twenty minutes before I was presentable enough to go down to the drawing room. The scene which met me when I entered almost made me laugh out loud. Konstantin was standing next to the fireplace, his elbow resting on the mantel shelf. Madam was sitting uncomfortably in one of the easy chairs. I sensed the conversation had been strained. That Madam had been doing her best to impress, and had failed miserably.

  “Here you are at last,” Madam said with a mock severity she’d never used with me before. “You’re a very naughty girl to keep the Prince waiting so long.”

  Konstantin’s generous mouth widened as he smiled. “It’s understandable,” he said. “Unless one is Cinderella, one cannot be transformed from a kitchen maid into a radiant beauty in much under half an hour.”

  Madam’s mouth fell open. “How did you …” she managed to gasp.

  “I make it my business to be well informed,” Konstantin replied.

  And I’d thought I’d shock him by coming in straight from the kitchen. Would I ever be able to do anything to shock the Prince?

  “We … we have a servant problem at the moment,” Madam explained, the words coming faster and faster as her desperation grew. “Anna offered to help out. She likes to keep busy.”

  “Oh, I think I understand the situation perfectly,” Konstantin said. He looked pointedly at Madam. “Thank you. That will be all.”

  Dismissing her – in her own house! Yet she showed no sign of outrage – people who treat those they consider their inferiors as dirt are usually prepared to receive the same treatment themselves from those they regard as their superiors. Yet though Madam did not react to the insult, she still resisted leaving.

  “Anna is still a young woman,” she said. “It’s not proper that she should be without a chaperone.”

  “The girl’s pregnant, is she not?” the Prince asked.

  Was there anything he didn’t know?

  “Y … yes, she’s pregnant,” Madam stuttered.

  “Well then, I think it’s probably a little late now to try and preserve her virginity. Unless, of course, Christ has chosen in his Second Visitation to be a Russian.”

  Madam gasped at both the blasphemy and his mention of virginity, but she dared not rebuke someone as important as the Prince.

  “If you’ll excuse us, Madam,” Konstantin said patiently.

  Madam rose to her feet and walked hesitantly towards the door. She twisted the handle, then turned to make one last, desperate try. “If there is anything you need … tea, vodka, we have some excellent Beluga caviar—”

  “If we need anything, we’ll ring for it,” Konstantin said. “Thank you, Madam.”

  Defeated, Madam made her exit. The Prince walked across to me, took my hand, and kissed it.

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked. “Oh, I forgot, you make it your business to be well informed. Do your spies watch every house in Petersburg?”

  The Prince shook his head. “I wouldn’t have known at all if Feodor had not written to me just before he died and asked me to keep an eye on you.”

  I knew what sort of eye he would keep, too – a patronizing eye. “Is being a nursemaid yet another of your accomplishments?” I asked.

  The Prince refused to take the bait. “You’ve grown, Anna,” he said. “How long is it since we killed the wolf?”

  “It’s well over a year since you killed the wolf,” I told him. “You must have done many other heroic deeds and impressed many other ‘flowers of young Russian womanhood’ since then.”

  To my annoyance, Konstantin laughed. “I’m a soldier, and there’s little chance of heroism in peace time. Tell me, Anna, what are your plans? Do you intend to stay in this house?”

  “Only until the baby’s born.”

  “And then where will you go?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Somewhere there is a chance of making a new life. America, perhaps. If Mr Block could become rich, maybe I will, too.”

  “I’m rich already,” the Prince said. “Perhaps even richer than our stodgy friend from Cleveland.”

  “Perhaps you are,” I said cautiously

  Konstantin walked back to the fireplace, so that he had a clear view of me, and I of him. “And I have only myself to spend my money on …” he continued.

  “No,” I said firmly. “I don’t want a gift. I won’t even accept a loan, not from a man I hardly know.”

  The Prince laughed again, and I felt once more that his mind was one move ahead of my own. “I’m not proposing a gift or a loan,” he said. “I’m suggesting a partnership.”

  “A partnership?”

  “Yes. You could marry me.”

  “I … could marry … you?” I gasped.

  “Is the idea so preposterous? I’m considerably older than you, but I’m still in excellent physical condition. I’m very wealthy, I’m a nobleman, and,” he smiled again, “though you probably won’t admit it, even to yourself, you like me.”

  “But why would you want to marry me?”

  “I ought to be married,” he told me. “The Tsar remarked on it only the other day. And if I’m to marry, why not to you? You have many fine qualities.” He began to count them off on his fingers. “You’re young. You’re beautiful. You’re intelligent. You have a sense of humour. You ride well. There, I’ve used up all the fingers of one hand, and I’ve not even begun to list all your virtues.”

  “But I’m pregnant,” I told him. “Do you even know whose child it is?”

  “Your half-brother’s – the weak son of an even weaker father. That doesn’t matter.” Konstantin walked back to me, put his hands gently on my shoulders, and looked deep into my eyes. “Your pregnancy is a bonus to me, Anna. I need an heir.”

  “And you’d settle for another man’s child?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t you have any of your own?” I asked. “Are you impotent?”

  Did I sound insensitive? Did I sound cruel? I didn’t mean to be. It was simply inconceivable to me that the Prince, that towering symbol of virility, was incapable of having children.

  “No,” Konstantin said quietly. “No, I’m not impotent. I am homosexual.”

  I stepped back, astonished. I knew that homosexuality was fashionable among the aristocracy, but that was all it was – a fashion. Nor was I so naîve as to imagine that all homosexuals were slight, slack-wristed lispers. But – for God’s sake! – I had seen this man kill a wolf!

  “Have you … have you tried to make love to women?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Many times. It doesn’t work.”

  “What if the child dies?” I asked. “What if it’s crippled or an idiot? Will you still want me then?”

  “Yes. I shall still want you, and I shall still want the child.”

  “And your family name? How will that be carried on if the child I bear is not fit to be yo
ur heir?”

  “There’ll be other children.”

  “But if you’re a homosexual, then I don’t see how—”

  “I have no intention of remaining celibate once we are married,” Konstantin said. “Nor would I expect a young woman like you to condemn herself to the life of a nun. You’ll have affairs … discreetly. It won’t be long before you’re pregnant again.”

  It was insane. It had to be insane. I pinched myself to make sure that the room, the gaudy over-ornamented room, was actually there, that Konstantin and I were really having this conversation.

  “But the children I bear will not be yours,” I protested.

  “Are we what we are because of who we are born? Or is it because of the way we are brought up?”

  I thought of the muhziks in my mir. I thought of myself, being shown a map and imagining it was an icon, being unable to see any sense in knowing the shapes of the different countries and their relationship to one another. “The way we are brought up is very important,” I said seriously.

  Konstantin smiled. “I’m so glad we agree,” he said. “I will be a good father to your children. They may not be born mine, but they will become mine. You are willing, then, to become my wife?”

  I nodded. What else could I do? What else could I say to a man like him?

  Oh, wonderful, wonderful Konstantin. Well read, intelligent, strong, courageous, kind. My first father was a drunk who sold me. My second, a coward who could not find it in himself to protect me when I needed him most. Konstantin was my third father, and as far above the others as the sun is above the earth.

  There are other ways to betray a man besides physical infidelity, and I started to betray Konstantin – I had no choice – almost as soon as we were married. Yet I loved him as much as any woman is capable of loving any man.

  I still do.

  Chapter Ten

  Once it was settled, Konstantin moved events at a breathless, almost frightening speed. I would be leaving immediately, he told Madam. Until the wedding I would have a suite at the Hotel Astoria. Madam was not to worry about chaperoning, his cousin Lisa would be my constant companion.

  “Such a lot of trouble,” protested Madam. “She could just as easily stay here.”

  “We couldn’t possibly trespass any further on your hospitality,” Konstantin said stiffly, though the corner of his mouth twitched as he spoke, a sign I’d already come to recognize as meaning that he was laughing inside.

  And Madam, realizing that by her previous treatment of me she’d thrown away her entrée into high society, bowed her head and accepted the inevitable.

  I had hardly arrived at the Astoria when Konstantin’s cousin, Lisa, descended on me. She was a brisk, bony woman in her mid-thirties, the sort destined from birth to be a maiden aunt.

  “This is Vera,” she said, pointing to the girl of about my age who she’d brought with her. “She’ll be your maid. Vera, unpack Miss Anna’s luggage. Anna, get changed. We’ve shopping to do.”

  My trousseau first. Dozens of slips and sets of underwear, countless pairs of black silk stockings and equal number of lisle ones, dresses, scarves, cloaks, bonnets, gloves, parasols – even sheets, pillowcases and table cloths.

  “But surely Konstantin must already have plenty of table cloths!” I said.

  “Where’s your sense of tradition?” Lisa sniffed, selecting another piece of expensive lace and handing it to the over-loaded shop assistant.

  My wedding dress next, cunningly tailored to hide the growing bulge in my stomach.

  “No veil,” Lisa said, explaining, “we already have one. It belonged to the Empress Josephine.”

  Fabergé for jewels, a tiara of rock crystals and diamonds to go with the wedding dress. And other baubles that Lisa said I would need – need – for the season.

  I welcomed the activity, the rushing from shop to shop with no time to think, no time to do anything but buy, buy and buy more. It was the evenings I dreaded, when I lay alone in my bed and waited for the blessed unconsciousness of sleep. I would picture the future, not the distant future, ten or twenty years hence, but the one which was just around the corner – the wedding and the ball which would follow it.

  It would be a grand society affair attended by hundreds of people, but they would all be Konstantin’s friends. Who would be there to give me support? My dear Miss Eunice was still in Scotland. My reluctant stepmother, Countess Olga, had written a curt note to say that she and her daughter were in mourning for her husband. True, my half-brother-lover Misha was in the capital, but clearly he could not be invited.

  The feeling of loneliness, which at first sat in my stomach as small as an acorn, grew quickly into a mighty oak, spreading its branches throughout my whole body. For days I managed to build a wall between my feelings and the expression of them, but it was a very thin wall indeed, and it only took one probing, necessary question from Lisa to breach it.

  “Who’ll be your bridesmaid?” she asked.

  My bridesmaid, my unmarried friend who would stand beside me just as Konstantin’s unmarried friend would stand beside him. My bridesmaid, who would hold a gold crown over my head whilst our marriage was sanctified.

  “Well?” Lisa said, a little snappishly. “What’s her name? Give me her address so I can get in touch with her. Come on, Anna, there’s still loads of arrangements to be made.”

  “There isn’t anyone,” I said, feeling a tear trickle from the corner of my eye.

  Lisa was so busy organizing my life that she didn’t notice I was upset. “There must be someone,” she abstractly. “Everybody has someone they can ask.”

  “I don’t,” I sobbed. “I don’t have anyone – in the whole world.”

  I ran into my bedroom, locking the door behind me, and flung myself onto the bed in a flood of tears.

  “Anna! Anna!” Lisa called anxiously, tapping on the door. “Don’t get upset. We can probably hire someone if we have to.”

  Hire someone? Buy me a friend? “Go away!” I sobbed

  “Anna, listen to me—”

  “Go away! I want to be alone!”

  Wasn’t that what I was anyway – completely alone?

  I heard her footsteps retreating and then the sound of her picking up the telephone. She was doing what the Count and so many other people in difficulty had done before her – ringing Konstantin. As if he were a magician who could solve any problem by one wave of his magic wand. And the strange thing was – he often could.

  From my tear-stained pillow, I heard the door open, and the sound of Lisa’s voice as she poured out the whole story. I expected Konstantin to bang on my door and demand that I come out immediately – but I didn’t know him then. It was half an hour before I felt brave enough to face him, and when I finally emerged, he was sitting on the sofa, waiting patiently.

  He rose to his feet and I rushed over to him and flung my arms around his strong, reassuring body. It was the first time we’d ever been so close.

  “I’ve no one to be my bridesmaid,” I told him.

  “I know, Annushka.”

  “But don’t you see what that means? There’s no one, in the whole world, who I can ask to hold my crown for me.”

  “The life you’ve led hasn’t given you much opportunity to make close friends,” Konstantin said. “But if you can’t have someone you care about to be your bridesmaid, then the next best thing is to choose someone important.”

  “Why?”

  “To show how important you are. I think my best man’s daughter would serve very well.”

  I pulled away from him. He’d laughed at me before, but he’d never mocked me like this. How could he be so cruel? His best man’s daughter! The Church would never allow someone with children to be his best man.

  Konstantin read my thoughts. “My best man has a special dispensation from the Holy Synod,” he said.

  “How is that possible?”

  “They’re wise enough to know which side their bread’s buttered on.”

&n
bsp; “I still don’t understand.”

  “They’d think very carefully before turning down a request from the man who pays their salaries.”

  “The Tsar!” I gasped. “The Tsar is going to be your best man?”

  “And the Grand Duchess Tatyana will be your bridesmaid. I used to dandle her on my knee when she was smaller, I’m quite sure she’ll do it if I ask her to.”

  The coach had the Mayakovsky family crest picked out on its side in mother-of-pearl and delicate gold and silver filigree. Between its shafts stood four of the purest white horses I have ever seen. In front and behind were mounted officers of Konstantin’s regiment, in full dress uniform. Is it any wonder that as we progressed up Nevsky Prospekt, people stopped and stared?

  Part of the Prospekt near Kazan Cathedral had been blocked off by soldiers. As my coach approached, they divided, and snapped smartly to attention as it passed through the gap. Ahead of me, I could see the metal dome of the cathedral, and below it, waiting under the Corinthian colonnade, a mass of people.

  I felt a surge of panic. Who was I, a peasant girl, to be marrying a Prince? Why was I, a woman with normal appetites, marrying a homosexual? It was all a foolish, tragic, mistake. I had only to open the carriage door and I’d be free. I could run and lose myself in the crowd of sightseers which was already beginning to build up.

  Lose myself! In a silk and lace wedding dress? With a diamond tiara in my hair? I giggled, tried to stop, and found it impossible. The carriage came to a halt, and the door was opened from outside. The Archbishop of St Petersburg in flowing white robes and mitre, was standing there, waiting for me to descend. Next to him was Konstantin, in his Colonel’s uniform. And behind them both was a small, dapper man, also in uniform, who was nervously stroking his beard. I had never met him before, but I knew who he was – Nicholas Alexovich Romanov, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias.

  Even with the giggles, I couldn’t keep all these important people waiting any longer. I took a deep breath, rearranged my veil, and allowed Konstantin to help me down.

  Bride, groom and priest passed through the great bronze doors together, followed by the best man, bridesmaid and then the rest of the congregation. Into the great, hollow building we went, our footsteps, and those of the people behind us, echoing around the vast, vaulted ceiling.