The Red Tide Page 4

  “Say hello to Grandmama, Joseph,” Patricia insisted.

  Anna gazed at the boy. “You are all but a man,” she remarked. “Be sure you always behave like one.”

  “Her bark is much worse than her bite,” Sonia said. “And we should remember that she is in some pain, all the time.” The two women sat together in the Princess’s sewing room. The maids had been dismissed, and the children sent off to play. Sonia and Patricia wanted to be alone together, for the first time in a very long time.

  Now they gazed at each other for some moments. They were both thirty-four, both beautiful, both wealthy...and they had shared so much. Too much, perhaps, ever to be remembered aloud. And in the strangest fashion they had changed places. This was Patricia’s home, the house where she had been born and the estate in which she had grown up, certain always of her share in it, before her wayward ideas and her ability to sympathise with those less well-off than herself had led her to throw it all away. Sonia had been born into genteel poverty, and social ostracism, as the daughter of a Jew. She had not joined the revolutionary movement; she had been bred into it. She could have had no expectations beyond a lifetime of waiting for the dreaded knock on the door, even before her arrest and sentence to exile. Now she was Princess of Bolugayen. In all Russia, only the Tsaritsa and the Grand Duchesses would take precedence before her.

  But even omnipotence can have its terrors. “Have you ever heard anything of your family?” Patricia asked.

  “No,” Sonia said. It had been in Jonathan Cohen’s house that they had been arrested, sixteen years before.

  “I am so terribly sorry about that,” Patricia said.

  Sonia stitched industriously. The tears for her parents and brother had all been shed. She no longer even felt guilt for the religion she had had to abandon in order to become Princess Bolugayevska — or she pretended she no longer felt guilt. “Do you ever hear from Vladimir?”

  “I hear of him,” Patricia said. “But he calls himself Nicolai Lenin now. As if everyone does not know who he really is. But I do not suppose the Okhrana are at all interested in him, skulking in Switzerland.” She gave a brief smile. “The ultimate revolutionary, conducting his revolution at a safe distance from the country he seeks to overturn.”

  “It is difficult to know what is going to happen,” Sonia said. “Under Stolypin there have been three years of relative peace, apart from that dreadful cholera epidemic two years ago. Now...you know that his murderer was a Jew?”

  “Alexei told me. Do you think he was sent by Lenin?”

  “Heaven knows. Alexei doesn’t think so. He thinks it happened because the government has been particularly hard on the Jews in the Ukraine, and in Kiev most of all. But the Communists are still active, in Russia as well as outside, whether they call themselves Bolsheviks or Mensheviks. Did you ever hear of a man calling himself Trotsky? I believe his real name was Bronstein.”

  “I met him, in Moscow, in 1904,” Patricia said.

  “Well, he was recently arrested and sent to Siberia, for handing out seditious literature. Communist literature.” She shuddered. “It is better not to think about these things. Trishka, I have a problem.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I have told no one, up till now. It really must remain a secret.”

  “It will.”

  Sonia licked her lips. “On the night Stolypin was shot, and Aunt Anna knocked down, well, Alexei of course went chasing off after the assassin. I was left alone, in the middle of that mob, and I can tell you that though they may have been the upper crust they very rapidly degenerated into a mob. I was trying to reach Aunt Anna, but it was very difficult, until I was assisted by a man.” She glanced at Patricia, her ears pink.

  “What sort of man?”

  “His name is Korsakov, and he is a captain in the Actirski Hussars.”

  “Why, that was Uncle Georgei’s old regiment! He was serving with them when he was killed outside Sevastopol.”

  “I know. That’s not really relevant. The fact is, well...this Captain Korsakov really rescued Aunt Anna, took her out to our carriage, and rode with us to the hotel. He stayed for some time, until Alexei came back. He flirted with Anna, and she, although she was in great pain, flirted back. Well, you know Aunt Anna. Then the doctor came, and Paul had to leave the room.”

  “Paul?” Patricia’s eyebrows were arched.

  The glow spread from Sonia’s ears to her neck. “He spent the rest of the night, as I say, sitting with me. Alexei didn’t get home until past three. So...we got on to first names.”

  “He is a fast worker, this hussar,” Patricia remarked. “Is he handsome?”

  “Very handsome.”

  “Age?”

  “Oh...late twenties, I suppose.”

  “You mean he is younger than you?”

  Now the glow had reached Sonia’s cheeks. “Well...yes.”

  “So you have had a flirtation, in a cradle,” Patricia said. “What’s big about that?”

  “Well...perhaps I was foolish, but I felt obliged to write him, once we knew Aunt Anna was going to be all right, and thank him for all his help. His reply arrived the day before yesterday.”

  “Let me see it.” Sonia hesitated a moment, then got up, went to her escritoire, and took out the letter. Patricia perused it. “Undying love? Desires nothing more than your smile?”

  “Yes.” Sonia sat down again.

  “Must see you again,” she read. “Will die if I do not…”

  “I hope you did not reply to this?”

  “Finish it,” Sonia recommended.

  Patricia read to the end. “Coming here?”

  “To visit Aunt Anna, and make sure she is well,” Sonia pointed out. “That’s what he says. But...”

  “He is really coming to see you.” Patricia raised her head. “You’re sure you haven’t given him any encouragement?”

  “Well...” Sonia bit her lip. “He is awfully nice.”

  “And you are awfully married. To my brother!”

  “I know. Believe me, I know. But we do owe this man a great deal. Perhaps even Aunt Anna’s life. And he...well!”

  “He is very handsome and you find a husband twelve years your senior a trifle boring.”

  “Now that is quite untrue and unfair,” Sonia protested. “I love Alexei. I always have and I always will. But I cannot deny that he is a little...avuncular from time to time. Or that he remembers always that he saved my life. Well, I do not forget that either.”

  “You also are the Princess Bolugayevska.”

  “I know. Although...” Sonia shot her a glance. “I cannot think of a past Princess Bolugayevska who was utterly faithful to her husband. Don’t misunderstand me, Trishka. I have no intention of betraying Alexei. But you cannot blame me for having a little dream, of other worlds, perhaps other men, from time to time. You’ll not pretend you do not have such dreams.”

  Patricia was reading the letter again, in preference to answering. “He says he will pay you a visit before Christmas. Well, the solution is very simple. You will go to Petersburg. Come to think of it, I will accompany you. I so want to see Petersburg again.”

  “You mean...go now?”

  “It is October. Everyone will be in Petersburg for the start of the season. We shall take the children. I so want Joe and Jennie to see the city. But we shall tell no one we are going, so your gallant captain will not know.”

  “But if he comes here, and I am not here, without a word, he will be deeply offended.”

  “Is that not a desirable objective?”

  Sonia considered. “Can we leave Aunt Anna?”

  “She is telling everyone she is on the mend. I am sure she will not object. And she is the one this Korsakov says he is coming to visit. Well, she will be here to receive him.”

  “And Alexei and Duncan?”

  “Whether or not they come with us is up to them. As I say, we shall certainly take the children. Oh, I am so excited, Sonia.”

  “Yes,” Sonia agr
eed, somewhat soberly. She knew how easily Patricia became excited. But she had other things on her mind. “You do realise that Nathalie is using the Petersburg house as her own. We will have to take an hotel suite.”

  “We will do nothing of the kind,” Patricia declared. “As I have just reminded you, my dear sister-in-law, you are the Princess Bolugayevska. Nathalie is only the Princess Dowager. Therefore the house is yours, and that you permit her to live in it is your decision. She will have to put up with us, if we decide to stay there. Or she can move out to an hotel herself.”

  *

  “This is some spread,” Joseph Cromb said, clinging rather precariously to the reins as the two boys topped a rise above the village. He rode regularly in London, but Rotten Row was nothing compared to this cross-country gallop past endless fields of harvested grain. “How far to the boundary of the property?”

  Colin Bolugayevski gave him a contemptuous glance; although a year younger than his cousin, he had spent several hours every day in the saddle ever since he could remember. “A hundred miles,” he said, in good English; he had been taught to use his father’s and grandparents’ language since he had been born.

  “A hundred...you’re having me on.”

  “Bolugayen is a hundred miles across,” Colin asserted. “Has Aunt Patricia not told you this?”

  “Mom doesn’t talk too much about Bolugayen,” Joe confessed. “You mean your dad owns all the land for a hundred miles?”

  “Well...” Colin flushed. “We have had to sell some of it to the muzhiks. But the main part is still ours, yes. One day it’ll be mine.”

  “Gee!” Joe commented.

  “Don’t your parents own a lot of land?” Colin asked.

  “No. I don’t think we do. Certainly not in England. My Uncle Charlie owns some in Boston, I guess. What does it feel like to know that one day you’ll own all of this? That you’ll be Prince of Bolugayen?”

  “I have never thought about it,” Colin said. He saw that Joe had regained his breath, and kicked his horse forward again. “What will you be when you grow up?”

  “Plain Joe Cromb, I guess. I’ll be an executive in the family shipping company. Sounds a bit of a bore. I’d like to join the army.”

  “Which army?”

  “The American army, of course.”

  “Does America have an army?” Colin asked, ingenuously.

  “Sure it does. Maybe it’s not very big...”

  “Russia has a standing army of a million men,” Colin said. “With another three million reservists.”

  “That sure sounds like you were planning to take on the Japanese again,” Joe agreed. “You ever thought of joining up?”

  Colin smiled. “When I am thirteen I become an officer cadet, and when I am seventeen, I will be commissioned into the Preobraschenski Guards. Then in the course of time I will become a general, like Papa.”

  “Just like that? Heck. When I’m thirteen, I’m going to a public school.” Colin gazed at him in amazement. “It’s actually a private school,” Joseph explained, “but in England they’re called public schools. Very exclusive. It’s called Winchester.” He was anxious to get off a subject which Colin clearly could not understand.

  “Won’t you have to pass exams, prove yourself worthy of being an officer?”

  “Of course not. I am Count Bolugayevski.”

  “And who do you really want to fight?”

  “Anyone the Tsar tells me to. Now we had better go home. I believe we are to leave for St Petersburg tomorrow.”

  “That’s a big city, huh? You reckon it’s as big as London?”

  “St Petersburg is the greatest city in the world,” Colin said, so reverently that Joseph almost believed him.

  *

  “Why is it so important that you go to St Petersburg now?” Duncan asked. “Or at all, for that matter?”

  He would never be able to forget that it had been in St Petersburg that Patricia had first become involved in anarchism.

  “I cannot tell you,” Patricia said. “You must just accept my word that it is important.” She kissed him. “I also give you my absolute sacred word that it has nothing to do with anyone I might have known before. I have turned my back on all of that. You know that.”

  “Well...” She had turned her back on revolution after escaping from Irkutsk, and had yet allowed herself to be sucked back into those dark depths in 1904.

  “Darling,” she said, “I’m taking the children. And of course I’d love it if you’d come too.”

  “I don’t feel I can. Not right now. I came here to be with Mom, and I think I should stay with her. I know she claims to be on the mend, but she really is terribly weak, and with winter coming on...if she were to catch a cold it might be disastrous. Anyway, Alix is supposed to be coming over. I really should be here when she arrives.”

  “Of course. I quite understand. You can join us the moment you feel Aunt Anna really is well again. In any event, I’ll expect you for Christmas.”

  “I think you should come back here for Christmas. It’s the thought of you running into that thug Michaelin that bothers me.”

  “Michaelin is a disgraced man. It is he who is exiled to Siberia, now. Well, to the wrong side of the Urals, anyway.”

  “He could still happen to be in Petersburg while you are there.”

  “If I meet Colonel Michaelin on the street, I will simply stick out my tongue at him. He cannot arrest me for that. He cannot arrest me for anything: I have the Tsar’s safe-conduct.”

  “Just so long as you remember only to stick out your tongue.”

  “Oh, I would like to kill him. I certainly hope to see him die,” Patricia said, with just a hint of the old fire in her voice.

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. By the way, is Alexei going?”

  “I don’t think so. He doesn’t like Petersburg.”

  “Do you know,” Patricia said to Sonia as the train pulled out of Poltava Station. “I feel just as if we were two schoolgirls, leaving our convent for the holidays.”

  “Some schoolgirls,” Sonia commented, glancing at the four children, the two nurses and two maids who were sharing the double compartment with them; the servants would of course sleep in second-class.

  “Oh, you know what I mean.”

  In fact, Sonia did know what she meant. She wasn’t sure whether or not she had been wise to confide in her oldest friend, especially as Patricia also happened to be her sister-in-law, but she had had to confide in someone, and there was no one else. Her personal maid was a very old family retainer named Grishka, old in the sense that she had been part of the Bolugayevski staff since her teens; she was still not yet forty. But she had been with the family on both their sojourns in Port Arthur, and at one time she had been Patricia’s maid. She worshipped the ground Prince Alexei walked on...but did she, his wife not also worship that ground, Sonia asked herself.

  What had driven her to flirt with Paul Korsakov? Most people would have said that she had had enough adventures for any woman’s lifetime. But perhaps those adventures, which had included having to prostitute herself to live during her escape from Irkutsk, had had more of a destabilising effect on her character than she had realised. When she had first come to Bolugayen, it had been like re-entering the womb. There had been such an aura of safety about the place as to overwhelm the personality of someone who had never known such security at any time in her life, and had in addition just escaped in the most terrible circumstances from the most horrible existence it was possible to imagine. Alexei Bolugayevski had stood at the centre of that womb, the man who could end all of her nightmares, and had offered to do so. It was natural that she would have fallen in love with someone so gallant, handsome and dominant.

  Alexei had remained all of those things. Of course, from the first she had recognised that he had a very serious side to his character, and that, for all the eccentricities of his sisters and his aunt, which had caused him so much trouble, he remained utterly devoted to the
Tsar, to the very concept of tsardom. She had even understood that he might become more serious-minded as he grew older, without being able to evaluate what that might mean. Certainly, she knew he wanted to get back into the mainstream of Russian political and military life, and dreamed of an army command commensurate with his rank. Now that ambition had again been forced into the background. She had no idea what it was the Tsar had wanted to discuss with him at supper after the opera, because that supper had never taken place. And Alexei had not seen the Tsar since. The plain fact of the matter was that Peter Stolypin had been murdered by a Jew, and that Alexei was married to a Jewess. There was, of course, no suggestion that she or anyone known to her had had anything to do with the assassination plot. But there it was. Were Alexei to turn up in St Petersburg with his wife it would cause a closing of the ranks of polite society, and be a grave embarrassment to the royal family. But she was going anyway. Very quietly. And in any event the Princess of Bolugayen could not be prevented from travelling where and when she chose. Nor had Alexei raised the slightest objection to her visit to the capital, even as he had declined to accompany her.

  What had possessed her to flirt with Korsakov? Patricia had been right. Running away was the only thing she could do. Patricia had been looking out of the window at the fields rushing by, long stripped of their grain and lying black and fallow as they awaited the first snow. Now she smiled at her sister-in-law. “Does Nathalie know we are coming?”

  “No,” Sonia said. “I thought we’d surprise her.”

  “Wow!” was Joseph’s comment as they drove through the streets of St Petersburg in the hired carriage; he was bemused by the canals, by the Neva itself, and as they debouched on to the Nevski Prospect, by the immensity of the water opening before them.

  “It’s beautiful!” Jennie exclaimed. Colin looked supercilious, and Anna nestled in Grishka’s arms.

  Sonia looked apprehensive, but Patricia’s eyes glowed as she looked across the inner water at the grim bulk of the Peter and Paul Prison. She had been in that prison, and there experienced some of the worst moments of her life. But that had to be behind her now. She had meant what she had told Duncan, that she would like to see Michaelin dead. But she no longer wished to kill him personally, even if he had tormented her and humiliated her. That was history, and she had soared beyond his reach. As for the people she had met in the backstreets of this city, and who had become her friends and indeed her intimates, but who were now scattered to the ends of the earth, the Lenins in Switzerland, Trotsky in Siberia, Stalin...she had no idea where Stalin was, but he had the gift of survival, so he was probably somewhere safe, she wanted to forget them too. Only Sonia remained from those days, because Sonia had also made the transition from anarchist to aristocrat. And Sonia had almost been prepared to throw it all away like some stargazing teenager! She could have no doubt what Alexei’s reaction would be were he ever to see that letter.