Russian series 03 - The Eagle's Fate (17 page)

‘I though perhaps he was worried about that,’ Tatya said. ‘Poor man! He seems to me to have changed—he was always a pleasant man, and I’m very fond of him, but before he was always very confident—even a touch arrogant. The hussar uniform suited him—his character, as well as his physical appearance! That slung pelisse, and the sabre and sabretaches swinging—the whole panache of the uniform! It gives a man a presence—a touch of swagger!’

Tatya smiled, then sighed faintly. ‘He was such a dominant character, but now he’s much quieter—almost retiring, and he sounds bitter sometimes. Perhaps it’s just that he doesn’t feel quite the thing yet, but I suspect that it’s something deeper. Do you think he’s unhappy, or worried about something? Other than his hands, I mean?’

‘He worried about his friends,’ Nadya suggested thoughtfully. ‘I think he feels that he ought to be there with them…And—if he happened to be in love with someone, he may think that he’s lost his chance with her—because of his hands’

‘You think he is in love with someone?’ Tatya pounced on the suggestion.

‘Yes—I—I think he may be in love with—with you,’ Nadya said wretchedly.

‘Oh, surely not!’ Tatya exclaimed, half-amused, half-horrified. ‘Oh, I do hope you’re wrong! I like him very much, but I don’t love him, and I know I never can! I don’t love anyone—not like that, and I think perhaps I never shall! I’m sure you’re wrong—he’s always flirted with me, but that’s all. I pray that’s all!’

Nadya lay awake for a long time after Tatya had left her, praying that she might have given Andrei a little comfort that afternoon, and that Tatya might learn to love him after all, for it was unbearable to think that he should suffer the miseries of unrequited love. She dare not think about the bitter sweetness of being held in his arms, knowing that his thoughts must have been elsewhere.

Chapter Seven

Tatya sent a note to Lev’s man of business first thing in the morning, and he arrived so soon after that the ladies had hardly finished breakfast—indeed, as it was only a week past the shortest day, it was not even dawn! Nadya spent some twenty minutes or so with him in Lev’s sombre, book-lined study, explaining her problem.

He was a younger man than she expected, little more than thirty, and dressed in fashionable clothes of good quality but sober black in hue. He listened to Nadya’s explanation about the arrangements that had been made with the Treasury to provide her annuity, and then how it had been paid through a goldsmith in Moscow, then asked to see her passport, which she very properly carried in her reticule. After making a few notes, he returned the passport to her and assured her that there would be no problems, then took his leave.

Nadya rejoined Tatya and Irina, feeling surprised that something which had worried her should be so easily resolved. Tatya then ordered her carriage and they set out to buy Christmas gifts.

By far the best place for such shopping was the Gostinny Dvor or Merchants’ Palace in the Nevsky Prospect. It was a very large building, occupying a whole block a little to the east of the Kazan Cathedral and the Ekaterina Canal. A small tower rose above one corner, but otherwise it was simply two long arcades of large arches, one above the other, running round all four sides of the building. Each arch was occupied by a small shop, which opened on to a wide corridor on the inside with another row of shops within it. There was a main entrance at each corner of the building, with flights of steps to the upper floor. The great advantage of it was that one could visit a large number of shops selling a wide variety of goods, mainly luxuries, without once setting foot outside in the cold.

Tatya, having seen to the ordering of the large number of articles needed to provide a gift for every servant in the Petersburg house many times before, went straight to the shop of the merchant who stocked a good selection of suitable articles, and spent a little over half-an-hour making her choice, accepting or rejecting with great rapidity, yet obviously with the needs or preferences of particular servants in mind. Some were ordered by the dozen, others only singly, and she made careful notes in a fat book which she had brought with her. Irina, anxious to learn, looked over her shoulder and saw that the servants’ names were set out in an irregular pattern, some grouped on a page, others singly, with past gifts noted, and Tatya was matching her selection to the list.

Nadya sat lost in thought, wondering what she could buy for Andrei. She decided that it must be something small, not merely because Tatya had suggested that they exchange only small things, or because it was all she could afford, but more because she doubted if he would be pleased to receive anything from her. It had better be something useful.

But what? What must he find difficult to do with his maimed hands which might be made easier with some small aid? He was like a child, in a way, having to find out how to do things for himself—how to put on his own clothes, tie laces, do up buttons–-

That was it, of course! A button-hook! There must be at least a dozen buttons on his dolman, each to be pushed through the loop of a frog, and probably others elsewhere—she had only a hazy idea of the mechanics of a gentleman’s clothing. When he stopped wearing uniform, there would be little waistcoat buttons, even more difficult to manage.

Having made up her mind about the most difficult gift, the others were easy by comparison. A pretty trifle for Irina, who had never possessed anything frivolous and was not likely to buy such a thing for herself, and a silver thimble for Tatya, who had pierced a hole through hers a few days before, pricking her finger quite painfully with the embroidery need which had made the hole.

With a murmured excuse, Nadya slipped out of the shop and wandered along, looking for another which she could remember from times she had spent in Petersburg in the past. It was only three or four arches further on, and sold exactly what she wanted—small articles in silver and hardstones. It took only a few minutes to choose and purchase the right things—a serviceable buttonhook in a leather slipcase, large enough to be gripped easily between finger and thumb, but small enough to carry in a pocket (if hussars had pockets); a thimble prettily moulded all over with little flowers instead of the usual tiny dimples—the size was no problem as she recalled that Tatya had often borrowed her own thimble while they were at school; and for Irina, a little soapstone box for hairpins, the lid decorated with a silver cutout of a dove with a sprig of olive in its beak in the middle of a wreath of flowers. The shopkeeper said it was intended as a peace offering from a gentleman to a lady after a lover’s tiff, but Nadya thought it very suitable for Irina as it clearly referred to the meaning of her name, and she used a great many hairpins as her hair was very thick and heavy.

She waited apprehensively while the shopkeeper totted up the prices on his abacus, but by the time she had bargained a little, the total was well within her means, for she had spent very little of the fifty roubles she had carried away from Moscow as Tatya seemed to anticipate every need she might have.

That left only something to be found for Marfa. The girl was fond of bright colours, and there was a shop opposite the silversmith’s which sold shawls printed with gay flowers. Nadya chose one with yellow and red roses on a green background, and took it with her, not thinking it worth putting the shopkeeper to the trouble of delivering one article. The small parcels from the silversmith’s were already tucked in her reticule for the same reason.

On her way back to Tatya and Irina, she encountered Andrei, who was just coming out of a perfumiers, resplendent in his uniform, the foot-high white plume on the front of his kiver brushing the lintel of the shop doorway. He looked a little disconcerted at seeing her, but made her a slight, formal bow without saying anything, then stood looking at her.

‘Tatya and Irina are in there.’ Nadya said, nodding towards the shop in which she had left them.

‘Yes. Perhaps you can advise me what the—what on earth I can get for Irina,’ he said. ‘Do you think she’d like a reticule? She only seems to have one for evening use, and it doesn’t go with all her gowns.’

‘I’m sure she would! She likes pretty things, but I think she’s never been allowed to have any, and doesn’t venture to buy them for herself.’

He nodded and gestured along the corridor. ‘There’s one in a shop along there…’ He set off towards it, striding along with his sabre and sabretaches swinging, and Nadya, hard put to it to keep up with him, remembered Tatya’s reference to the hussar’s swagger and smiled a little, seeing what she meant.

‘Here!’ he said, stopping so suddenly that Nadya passed him and had to turn back. He put a hand on her elbow and propelled her into the shop, quite forgetting his usual reluctance to touch anyone, and pointed to a reticule hanging among a dozen others on a stand.

‘She usually wears rich colours—emerald or ruby—that would go with either, don’t you think?’

The reticule was made of a silvery fabric which seemed to reflect other colours near to it, and was embroidered with wreaths of little red roses and green leaves in tiny beads which glowed like miniature jewels.

‘Oh, it’s lovely!’ Nadya exclaimed. ‘Just the thing! I think she’d like it, because it’s useful as well as pretty!’

Andrei summoned the shopkeeper with a look, indicated what he required, paid for it without bargaining, and instructed the man to send it with no compunction whatever about its being one small parcel, although he remarked to Nadya as they left the shop that he was not allowed to carry parcels when in uniform. ‘The War Minister’s probably afraid we’d be mistaken for liveried footmen,’ he added drily, making Nadya smile at the thought.

They retraced their steps in silence as far as the shop where Nadya had left the others. As they reached it, Andrei suddenly said, ‘You ought to wear richer colours, like Irina. They’d suit you…’ then broke off as Tatya and Irina were bowed out of the door by a smiling shopkeeper and came towards them. Tatya flourished her little muff in greeting. She was dressed in a beautiful redingote of black sable, with a matching Cossack-style cap perched elegantly on her curls, and sable-trimmed black ankle-boots.

‘That’s the easy part done!’ she said. ‘Now for the rest. I suspect that I shall be here for
hours
yet, so if anyone feels they’d rather go home, pray do—the carriage can return for me later.’

Nadya and Irina were quite content to remain and see more of the treasures in the little shops, but Andrei begged off, saying he had a few matters of business to attend to, but had his own carriage. Nadya watched him go away along the corridor after he had taken leave, and wondered what he had bought for Tatya in the perfumers. She lingered by that shop for a moment, looking at the beautiful crystal flasks with their ornamental stoppers, and reading the names on the labels, which varied from simple flower essences to exotic and outlandish names.

Irina’s modest purchases were soon made, but Tatya seemed to have a large number of friends and relations to buy for, and they were already late for luncheon when she sent the liveried porter at the entrance to summon her carriage to whisk them home by the shortest route, along Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, past the Apraksin market, and then by the place where Nadya’s family house had stood. She clenched her hands together as they approached the site,