Rebel Princess (8 page)

Peter, weakling that he was, would be devoured by the scourge that laid thousands in their graves every year.

Her title, honors, jewels and hopes of the Crown would vanish like a snowflake on the fire when Peter Feodorovitch breathed his last. There would be no future for her then but to return to Germany with Johanna.

Catherine cried aloud at the thought, and sank down by Peter's door in an agony of despair, weeping as if her heart must break.

If she had loved him her grief could not have been greater.

Chapter 4

In January of the year 1745, a very worried woman paced up and down the polished floor of an ante-room in the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg.

By nature she was carefree, and until now her responsibility as head lady-in-waiting to the Grand Duchess had never weighed upon her, but the task confronting Countess Roumiantzov was not an easy one. It required tact and sympathy, and where the good lady was an expert in dress, etiquette and the affairs of the heart, she felt that someone more serious-minded should have been sent to Catherine in her place.

She continued to walk up and down, fiddling with her jewels, repeating empty phrases in her mind only to reject them as unsatisfactory.

A mere half an hour ago she had been sent for and told to break the news to her mistress, with an injunction from the Empress to prepare Catherine to meet the ordeal correctly.

Someone entered the ante-room, and the Countess swung round in alarm. Leo Narychkin stood with his back to the door, his usually gay face clouded and frowning.

“Oh, my God!” exclaimed the Countess. “So soon? Why I haven't even seen her yet, she is still dressing! Am I to have no time at all to speak to her?”

“The Empress said I was to fetch her,” replied Narychkin. “I dared not delay. Besides, I thought you would have spoken to her by now!”

He looked at her irritably, guessing that in her distaste for the task she had not pressed for an interview with Catherine, hoping that a messenger would come, as in deed he had, to relieve her of the responsibility.

“Have you seen him?” demanded the Countess. Narychkin grimaced.

“Yes, I have seen him. Christus! What a horror! The beggars outside Kazan Cathedral are scarcely more repulsive.…”

The Roumiantzova threw up her arms in despair.

“I knew it! I knew it was terrible by the Empress's words to me. How am I to tell her, Leo? What a responsibility! Suppose she screams or swoons; the Empress will blame
me!
”

Narychkin abandoned his stance by the door and caught the Countess in a most ungentle grip.

“Think of your mistress for once and forget yourself! Damnation,” he exploded, “it would have been better for her if the young German pig had died. God help us, that we may help her! As for you, Countess, in with you and break the news to her this instant, and see that you do it as gently as may be, or I'll pour a tale of your inefficiency into the Empress's ear that'll send you to Siberia!”

He thrust the Countess towards Catherine's door and watched her knock and disappear into the bedroom with a mixed expression of anger and concern.

He was a courtier and a man of the world, he reminded himself. Only a fool would have made such an open display of his feelings before a gossiping featherhead like Roumiantzova. However it was too late now. He, the clever, sharp-tongued Narychkin, hero of a hundred amorous intrigues, had fallen victim to the charms of a mere girl.

What an age had passed since he had met the nervous Princess Augusta of Anhalt and taken her to that first meeting with her bridegroom!

Now the child had gone and a woman had taken her place, a lovely, gay creature, warm and eager for life, shining like a bright star at Elizabeth's court, and her easy, friendly glances had stabbed Narychkin with a longing and tenderness that he knew must remain for ever undisclosed.…

“Leo,” said a well-known voice, and turning, he dropped on his knee before the Grand Duchess.

Catherine smiled down at him, but she was very white.

Countess Roumiantzov coughed discreetly in the background. She caught Narychkin's eye and her expression said clearly that she had done her best.

“The Grand Duke is here,” Catherine said, “and you are to being me to him. As before,” she added, half to herself.

Narychkin's courtly training came to his aid as he released her hand and straightened up.

“His Highness is waiting for you with great impatience, Madame. As soon as the risk of infection had quite gone, he came at once to Petersburg to see you.”

Catherine thanked him for the lie with a wry smile, then her eyes sought his and held them with a look that demanded nothing but the truth.

“Roumiantzova tells me that he is much changed, Leo. Have you seen him; is he very—marked?”

Narychkin looked away from her as he answered.

“I fear so. You must be prepared to find him greatly altered.” Still the full significance had not sunk in.

On her way to the Empress's apartments, Catherine wondered sadly why Narychkin and her lady-in-waiting should be so concerned. Did they imagine that she loved him and would weep over a few pock-marks?

He was alive, but he was still Peter, and she could not visualize how even smallpox could have altered him for the worse.

“Her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Catherine!” announced Elizabeth's Court Chamberlain, as Catherine and her retinue sank down in homage inside the doorway.

Elizabeth sat in a raised chair, gorgeously dressed as usual, sipping wine out of a golden cup. Her delicate face was lined and puffy with fatigue beneath a generous coating of cosmetics, for in her desperate anxiety the Empress had returned to Chotilovo to nurse her stricken nephew herself.

Her nerves were frayed with the ordeal and she was still quivering with tiredness and ill-temper. She greeted Catherine with irritable haste and the girl's heart began to beat uncomfortably as she became aware of an atmosphere of extreme tension.

Where was Peter?

Then she saw him, standing with his back towards her, in a corner of the room. She noticed quite impersonally that he had grown taller.

The Empress followed Catherine's glance and set her wine cup down quickly.

After all, she had been warned.…

“Peter!” called Elizabeth. “Come here.”

The figure in the corner turned round and walked a few paces forward.

“Well,” it said to Catherine, “do you recognize me?”

Suddenly the walls of the great gilded chamber seemed to close in on her, and the floor on which she stood heaved dangerously. Like people in a dream, the Empress, her women, Narychkin and the Countess swelled and swayed before her eyes, while a huge head, completely shaven under a wig that had slipped awry, bobbed up and down like some monstrous thing; the swollen features were encrusted with smallpox sores, so cruel and deep that they were still unhealed.

The horror that was Peter tried to smile, and the question came again through his disfigured lips:

“Do you recognize me?”

“Yes,” whispered Catherine, and it was Leo Narychkin's strong arms that caught her as she fell.

It took Elizabeth's physician some time to rouse the Grand Duchess from her fainting fit; in fact Her Imperial Highness lay speechless and stony with shock upon her bed, stubbornly resisting all efforts to rouse her, the tears coursing down her face, her eyes fixed unblinkingly upon the canopy above her head, while Countess Roumiantzov chafed her cold hands and ordered that her dress and corsets should be slit.

At length the Empress's doctor abandoned all pretence of gentleness and smacked his patient sharply across both cheeks; he was gratified to observe her sensibilities return and express themselves in a flood of hysterical tears. With assurances to her ladies-in-waiting, he departed to make his report to the Empress.

Elizabeth received him in her boudoir, lying in
deshabille
on a couch with a decanter of wine at her side. She listened to his reassuring words with an impatience that the learned man could not fail to notice.

He noticed something else, though his shrewd eyes were blandly deferent, something that was already whispering its way through the palace corridors and gradually finding a place in diplomats' despatches.

Her Imperial Majesty was drunk. She held the wine cup in hands that were unnaturally careful lest a drop be spilt, and her powdered head nodded while he spoke.

Elizabeth's eyes were bloodshot and their stare was hot and angry. She refilled her wine cup and ended his report with an irritable gesture.

“Enough about the Grand Duchess!” she said. “It was a foolish display of weakness and my idiot nephew is weeping over his scars at this moment because of it. His face will heal in time; but he is the one that concerns me, not Catherine. Speak no more about her fainting fit. Tell me, how long before I can arrange the marriage?”

The physician groaned inwardly; the question was a very awkward one and he dreaded Elizabeth's reaction to the answer he must give. He shrugged and tried to soften the blow.

“The Grand Duke is not strong enough yet, Your Majesty. Perhaps when he has gained a little flesh it would be easier to tell.…”

The Empress snorted angrily.

“Do you take me for a fool, with your babble about smallpox! I know very well he is weak, that is not the question. Is he a man yet? Can he give the Grand Duchess a child? Why, God's blood! My father had a trail of bastards across Russia when he was Peter's age!”

The physician folded his hands under his coat tails and said nothing.

If Elizabeth wanted the truth she must arrive at it herself. In his private opinion, the Grand Duke's virility was on a level with his mentality, but he knew better than to say so and be knouted for his pains.

The Empress drained her cup and rose unsteadily from the couch. “He plays with dolls!” she announced thickly. “Is that a man's pursuit? I have given him a girl that any man would be glad to bed with, and he has never even touched her! Oh, I have had them watched, day and night, but they might be brother and sister for all the interest they show in one another.”

She began to walk about the room, holding on to the furniture to steady herself.

“They must marry and beget a child. How am I to have peace while the throne depends upon this weakling, idiot nephew of mine? Would to God there was someone else,” she muttered, and the answer followed dismally. “But there is no one.…” She swung round and caught at the back of a chair to steady herself, while the sight of the doctor pulled her together.

“But why should I torment myself? Peter is backward perhaps, but he is still half Romanov! My sister was hot blooded enough. Once he and the Grand Duchess are married, all will be well!”

She turned to the doctor.

“How long before the nuptials? Come now, speak out; when will my nephew be ready for his bride?”

The physician made what he considered a compromise.

“A year, Your Majesty.”

“Six months!” amended Elizabeth. “And not a moment longer! You may go!”

Then the Empress seated herself once more and took a long comforting draught of wine.

Of course Peter and Catherine would produce an heir; she already saw the infant in her mind's eye and cradled it in her own empty arms. The expression on her delicate face boded ill for the Grand Duke and Duchess if they should disappoint her.

During the long weeks of his convalescence, Peter moped disconsolately about his apartments in the palace, for he was still too disfigured to appear in public.

The time passed slowly for him and he spent his leisure hours shut in with his lackeys, drilling them endlessly, or discussing his coming marriage with his tutor, Brümmer.

As a subject for conversation, his wedding opened up endless interesting conversations with the otherwise taciturn Swede, who waxed most eloquent on the theme of a husband's rights over his wife. Mindful of his own domineering spouse, mercifully left behind in Sweden, he emphasized the need for a firm hand in dealing with women.

“Always remember, Highness, the man is the master! Women are inferior creatures and they're always the better for a good beating. Use your fists and use them often; the Grand Duchess must have no will but yours, and a good blow on the head will do her no harm!”

Peter listened delightedly; the manners of servants and lackeys to their women suited him exactly.

“Very well,” he thought. “Until now I have always been bullied, forced to come to Russia, to do everything I hated. Even my games at drilling are frowned upon. My gracious aunt has given me a wife for my amusement instead … perhaps it will be entertaining after all, if marriage is indeed what Brümmer says.…”

His eyes lit up with pleasure at the thought of the superior Catherine cowering under the weight of his fists, and he doubled them in anticipation.

He need not fear her, or shrink from her. His tutor had taught him something worth learning at last.

“In the meantime,” added Brümmer, “look about you, Highness. These court bitches would fight for your favors, I tell you. Before or after marriage, no man's eyes should be turned always on his wife! God above, if I were in your place I know the ones I'd choose,” he muttered.

Peter accepted this advice too, and promised faithfully to follow it. Excited by Brümmer's envy, his imagination began to review the ladies who attended at court and whose company he would select instead of Catherine's. More than company he did not want, not yet, he thought hastily, but it made him feel strong and virile even to pretend; and, perhaps, with a woman who pleased him he might make pretence to reality. At any rate, no one need guess how far his favor went, and what a barb of spite to flaunt before his bride!

Catherine spent her spare time studying, and entered into the court's amusements with as much spirit as she could muster. But despite her natural love of gaiety, a cloud of uneasy depression hung over her which refused to be dispersed.