Rebel Princess (10 page)

Once in the Empress's carriage, the Grand Duchess gazed through the windows, smiling and bowing like a queen to the lines of struggling citizens who thrust forward, braving the Cossack soldiers' blows for a glimpse of the royal party.

As they proceeded slowly towards the palace, Catherine almost forgot the presence of her husband and the Empress in her excitement; she was not aware of the sudden jealous tightening of Elizabeth's lips as she watched the radiant Grand Duchess so readily taking the plaudits of the crowd.

Her little protégée had developed on quite unexpected lines; her personal beauty was counted as second only to Elizabeth's own at court, and her assumption of popularity with the people made the Empress's heart contract with rage.

What viper had she nourished all these months, Elizabeth wondered suspiciously, as the yells of Catherine's name came to her ears almost as often as her own.

At length the Empress leaned forward and tapped the Grand Duchess sharply on the knee with her fan.

“Sit back, Madame!” she said shortly. “You are not the Consort yet, remember; and you obscure my people's view of me!”

Catherine obeyed instantly and her smile faded as she met Elizabeth's furious eye.

Peter laughed maliciously.

“Take good care, Your Majesty,” he sniggered, “or my wife will have the crown off your head before you know it! Eh, my dear Catherine?”

Elizabeth turned on him with a snarl of rage.

“Hold your stupid tongue, you damned imbecile! Conduct yourself like a prince instead of a stable-boy! Incline your head to the people and smile, curse you, this is your wedding day!”

Peter smiled, but it was a grim expression.

Only a state banquet and a few more hours of ceremony remained before his marriage night, and the prospect filled him with hidden excitement.

He had planned such a glorious revenge on these two women that he hated; his aunt, that vicious tyrant with the face of an ikon Madonna, who had snatched the Labuchkin away from him, and his wife, the clever, ambitious little Catherine upon whose greedy hand he had placed a wedding-ring that morning, symbol of a union sanctified by force and hate.

The coffers of Elizabeth's treasury had been rifled almost bare to provide a fitting spectacle for the imperial marriage, and the state banquet held that night in the Summer Palace surpassed in extravagance anything that had ever been seen before at court.

Every noble in the realm who was not under sentence of banishment had been invited; all the foreign ambassadors and their entourages had been bidden, while the heads of Church and State were gathered at Elizabeth's side.

The guests dined off solid gold plate, eating until outraged Nature forced them to rush from the table and relieve their stomachs into golden basins which the Empress, mindful of her own habits, had thoughtfully provided.

The company drank the health of the Grand Duke and Duchess in cups of priceless crystal, and followed Elizabeth in the Russian custom of hurling the vessels to the ground.

Throughout the banquet Catherine ate little and drank less, uncomfortably aware that Peter was drinking a great deal and that his remarks in respect to his marriage were growing more audible and insulting as the evening progressed.

Leo Narychkin sat at a lower table, and Catherine watched him steadily emptying his cup and slipping lower in his chair as the wine fuddled his brain and paralyzed his limbs.

Somehow she had depended upon him for support; a look and a smile of encouragement, even from a distance, would have heartened her. But Narychkin was certainly drunk; too drunk, thanks to his own foresight, to dwell upon Catherine and Peter in the privacy of their bedroom.

At midnight the Empress glanced around her and nodded towards Catherine.

It was time to conduct the bride and bridegroom to their marriage bed.

Out of the banqueting hall, up the palace staircase flanked by lackeys bearing lighted candelabra, the Empress led the procession to the suite of rooms prepared for the couple.

There Peter and his entourage separated from them and went into his own dressing-room.

Then the ceremony of undressing and bedding down the bride proceeded, assisted by the Empress herself.

Catherine stood passively while her women removed the beautiful ball gown and released her stays; she felt numb, mentally and physically, now that the ordeal she had dreaded and put off in her mind was so close at hand.

She knew that Elizabeth was appraising her with calculating eyes, eyes that tried to assume Peter's vision and judge her desirability from a man's point of view.

Still Catherine felt nothing, neither embarrassment nor fear; for the moment her sensibilities were completely stilled, and she remained quite silent, until the Empress drew on her embroidered night-gown with her own hands.

Obediently Catherine climbed into the huge bed and kissed Elizabeth's extended hand.

The Empress smiled down on her with the first genuine kindness she had shown for some time.

“Good night, my child. We leave you now to your bridegroom. God's blessing be on your union.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” whispered Catherine, suddenly brought to life by Elizabeth's gentleness, and dangerously near to tears.

When they had gone, leaving her to await Peter's coming, she did weep, burying her face in the frilled pillow lest anyone should hear.

At length she sat up and wiped her eyes; at any moment her husband might come into the room and it would only enrage him to find her crying.

Catherine pulled back the bed curtain and looked round the room, there must be a clock somewhere, and she could hear laughter and the subdued clink of glasses from behind the wall.

Peter and his household were celebrating. She wondered unhappily how drunk he would be.

She lay back and closed her eyes, fighting the temptation to shed more tears, reflecting that outside in the streets of St. Petersburg people were dancing round the wine fountains and watching firework displays, making merry in her name and Peter's.

Some of them were making love; there were other brides in Russia on this night, men and women lying together for the first time in dirt and straw, while she lay alone in the gilded bed, shivering between the silken sheets, denied the joy granted by Nature to the poorest peasant girl in the land.

A little jeweled clock on the mantelshelf struck two and Catherine started. It was over an hour and a half since Elizabeth had left her.

She lay there, listening to the muffled sounds of revelry that drifted through to her from Peter's dressing-room, watching the candles burn low in their sockets and the firelight sink slowly in the marble grate.

Why didn't he come?

Torn between miserable anticipation and uneasy suspicion, Catherine tossed wretchedly, wondering whether to get up or try to sleep.

The insult to her was so brutal; Peter preferred to sit drinking with his household on his wedding night. It would be common knowledge all over St. Petersburg by the morning.

At a quarter to three the door opened and Catherine saw Peter standing on the threshold.

He was wrapped in a gorgeous dressing-gown, and the tassled night-cap on his shaven head gave him the grotesque appearance of an overgrown gnome.

He kicked the door shut behind him and began to stagger towards the bed; Catherine sat up slowly, aware that her bridegroom was so drunk that he could scarcely stand.

Peter favored her with a sly, malicious grin, then he struggled out of his robe and stood there by the bedside in his night-gown.

Not a word passed between them.

Roughly he dragged the covers aside and fell onto the mattress.

Despite herself, Cathrine shrank back as he leaned over her, for the smell of wine and stale tobacco that emanated from him made her feel faint and sick. For a moment they looked at each other and Peter's bloodshot eyes gleamed with hatred and some hideous, suppressed mirth known only to himself.

“Good night, Madame,” he said mockingly.

Then he drew the covers up to his ears and turned his back on Catherine.

Within a few minutes he was fast asleep.

Chapter 5

In the spring of 1746 the imperial court was once more in residence at the Wooden Palace, and the Moscow season was at its height. Elizabeth danced and drank and gambled; it was rumored that she intended to sanctify her affair with Rasumovsky by a secret wedding; the figure of Bestujev loomed more powerfully than ever in the political scene and relations with Prussia were consequently a little more strained.

The confidential dispatches of the foreign ambassadors informed their sovereigns of all these things, and among the items of importance was a single astonishing fact.

After nine months of marriage the Grand Duchess Catherine was still a virgin.

Day by day Peter and his wife appeared at court functions; they feasted, gambled and lived like the rest, but every night the Grand Duke climbed into bed beside his bride and fell asleep.

Sometimes he would produce his dolls, carefully hidden among the bedclothes, and force Catherine to play with them; or if his temper was short, he might relieve his feelings by hitting her, as the thoughtful Brümmer had suggested. Then he would have the malicious satisfaction of falling asleep to the sound of her sobs, while Catherine lay and clenched her fists, the tide of hatred and resentment growing in her.

The Empress was well aware of the relationship between Peter and his wife, and the frustration of all her hopes was such a bitter blow that her wrath with the couple could not be concealed.

Unreasonably she blamed Catherine, supposing that the Grand Duke's ugliness had led her to repulse him in the privacy of their bedroom. It was inconceivable to Elizabeth that a young man, who could pursue the plainest among her maids of honor, should feel no attraction for Catherine's charm and sensual beauty.

Partly from anger and partly to take precautions, the Empress redoubled the watch on the Grand Duchess. Everywhere Catherine went her ladies accompanied her, and even the most casual conversation with a man was interrupted, while the courtier she addressed was afterwards warned about familiarity with one above his station.

The plan worked so well that even the most reckless gallant recognized the extreme danger of friendship with the Grand Duchess, and Catherine's position became one of supervised isolation.

Even Narychkin dared not exchange more than a brief word or smile, and he was the least suspected of all men.

Elizabeth calculated that if masculine company were denied her, Catherine's obvious maturity would force her to seek satisfaction with her husband; and mindful of her own intemperance at that age, the Empress relied upon Nature to do the rest.

All through the long winter months Leo Narychkin had watched Catherine from afar, knowing that the girl whose unhappy gaze had haunted him at her wedding banquet was more alone than ever.

Had she been happy, his love for her might have died; the knowledge that Catherine had found tenderness and satisfaction in her marriage would have made it easier for him to forget her in the arms of one of the many attractive women who were always at the disposal of any young and handsome man at court.

But he saw that her eyes were often red with weeping and that she seldom laughed.

Instead, the gay, beautiful Grand Duchess, who had been the darling of the court, seemed almost crushed by the course her life had taken since she had been wedded. Always thrust into Peter's unwilling company, the constant, often public rebukes from the Empress and the humiliating fact of her continued virginity made her a tragic, outcast figure whose future looked increasingly ominous.

It was the thought of her future that destroyed the last shreds of Narychkin's caution.

He knew that the present situation would not be allowed to continue much longer and the only alternative was Catherine's divorce, which would mean her instant “retirement” to one of Elizabeth's conveniently isolated convents. It was not the Russian custom to return unsatisfactory brides to their parents.…

The thought of Catherine shut up for life, suffering the fate of the unhappy Ivan, determined Narychkin to show his hand at last.

The court was leaving Moscow for St. Petersburg when the rumor reached him that the Empress's patience had come to an end.

No one knew what Elizabeth's plans for the erring Grand Duke and Duchess might be, but Narychkin dared not take a chance on leniency; he must give Catherine the choice of saving herself if she wished.

The Empress was giving a masque soon after her arrival at the capital, and Narychkin judged that Catherine would attend and the general confusion of identities might give him the opportunity to speak to her alone.

Masked and in fancy dress, he would approach her and tell her of the love that had been devouring him for all these months, and warn her of the danger that threatened her, offering his protection and the chance to escape.

Inwardly he hoped that Elizabeth would not indulge her usual caprice by ordering the men to dress as women at the masque, for if this plan went well the Grand Duchess Catherine, before the night was done, should be in his arms, driving through the city streets to the banks of the Neva where a small boat awaited them.…

The prospect of exile did not disturb him in the least; only two things filled his mind, the unspeakable delight of possessing the woman he loved, of living with her for the rest of his life, and the urgent necessity to get her out of Elizabeth's reach in time.

He knew his Empress; he had seen that look before, a bland, stony expression that deadened her pretty face like a mask of marble. Very soon the façade would be shattered by a fearful explosion of fury, and he could only prepare and pray that, with God's help, his beloved Catherine would not be there to receive its consequences.

Once out at sea they would sail for the protecting coasts of Sweden. Elizabeth might threaten and demand their extradition as much as she pleased, her enemies at the Swedish court would be only too eager to welcome the Grand Duchess as a refugee from the Empress's tyranny.