The Firebird (36 page)

Anna smiled at Gordon now and said, ‘You need not worry for my match. I have no rank that is my own.’

‘Then you may borrow mine and raise yourself above what you might otherwise have been. This is a country in which such things may be possible, if one presents themselves the proper way. And wears the proper clothes.’ With that, he reached to take the silk from her and placed it with precision on the top of the plain items she had packed into the trunk. ‘What of your treasures? Will they go in here as well?’

He gave a nod towards the parcel that lay lonely on the bed – the same small parcel she had carried from Calais, and from the convent before that. He’d never asked to look inside it. Anna wondered what conclusions he would draw were he to see the Holland nightgown her Aunt Kirsty had embroidered long ago to give her mother, and the lock of bright hair tied with the blue ribbon that had once been hers, and with them both the sheet of paper softened now by frequent reading, bearing words that once had seemed to her a promise, in the writing of a man whose name she’d taken for her own to ease the heartache of her giving up the life she had once dreamt of. If Captain Jamieson in truth had ever returned to the convent, he’d have found that she had gone, and if the nuns had sent him onward to Calais, he would have lost her there as well and gone no further, for she’d left no trail behind to let him follow her to Russia. But at least he would be safe, she thought. She hoped that he was safe.

She could feel Vice Admiral Gordon’s keen eyes watching her, and waiting for her answer.

Anna shook her head, and picking up the parcel said, ‘I’ll carry these myself.’

‘Are you then done with this? Good.’ Lowering the hinged lid of the trunk he latched it firmly. ‘I will have Dmitri take this over on his sledge, and after dinner I shall walk you to the general’s house myself.’

Their dinner was a quiet meal, with little said, and afterwards both Nan and Mary saw them to the door, with Mary hugging hard as though the general’s house were in another country altogether, and not only in another street.

Anna told her, ‘It will be no different from when I was taking care of Jane, when she was in her lodgings. I will see you all the time.’

It was Dmitri, though, who seemed most wary of her prospects in her new, if temporary, home. He’d been frowning since returning from the task of taking Anna’s trunk by sledge to General Lacy’s house, and now as she was telling him goodbye he frowned more blackly and remarked, ‘You should be careful there. There was a bird perched on their window ledge, an ugly black bird, tapping at the glass. It is not good, to have a bird do such a thing outside your window. Always it means something bad will come. A death, perhaps. An illness. Something bad.’ His eyes held Anna’s so intently she could see the deep concern beneath their darkness as he told her, with more feeling, ‘You be careful in that house.’

The general’s house was grander than their own. The dark floors gleamed, and smelt of polish, and although it was yet afternoon the candles in the sconces in the entry hall had all been lit to chase away the wintry shadows, sending bright reflections dancing in the shields of brass behind them, raising sparkles from the
cut-glass
edges of the mirror on the wall.

The walls themselves were half-tiled in the elegant Dutch fashion that the Tsar had so admired, and Anna felt distinctly plain surrounded by such richness; plainer still when she and the vice admiral were escorted by the servant who’d admitted them into the general’s drawing room, where long, heavy curtains of green draped the elegant windows, and glimmers of silver and porcelain adorned every table, and portraits in gilded wood frames hung serenely by tapestried chairs.

There was no icon hung in the corner, as there would have been in a Russian home, but on the wall nearest Anna a silver-tipped wooden cross bore a carved figure of Christ in pale ivory, his face neither joyful nor suffering. That watching face stirred her memory, and just for a moment she felt as she’d felt all those years ago, when she had stood in the nuns’ parlour on her arrival at Ypres, so uncertain. Afraid.

Then, she’d had Captain Jamieson close by her side. For a moment, she could have imagined him still, and called to mind the talk they’d had about how God preferred to use his pawns above all other pieces when he played at chess with living men. ‘Is that because he sees into their hearts, and sees their braveness?’ she had asked the captain then, in all her innocence, and he had said he hoped so. With the memory of his reassuring hand upon her shoulder, Anna tried to draw herself up bravely now, in the hopes the eyes of Christ upon the crucifix might see within her heart and judge her worthy of this challenge.

When a real hand settled on her shoulder, Anna turned to meet Vice Admiral Gordon’s knowing gaze. He said, ‘You need not do this, if your mind has changed. You’ve but to say the word, and I will take you home again.’

She shook her head. ‘I have not changed my mind.’ And then, because that sounded rather too determined, like a soldier setting out to face the worst, she found a smile that looked half-natural, and said, ‘You need not worry. I am sure I will be happy here.’

A man’s voice added cheerfully, ‘If she is not, I’ll know the reason why, and see it settled.’

General Lacy was a tall man, and his high wig made him duck his head as he came through the doorway from the room beyond, to greet them. ‘A good day to you, Vice Admiral.’

‘General.’

As the men shook hands, Anna was given her first close view of the general. She had seen him in the street, from time to time, but from a distance, and she never had been close enough to notice that his eyes were blue, like Gordon’s, with the same deep creases at their corners, showing that he likely smiled more often than he frowned. He was handsome, though not quite as handsome as Vice Admiral Gordon, to her eyes. His nose was slightly overlong, his eyes a trifle heavy-lidded, but his charming smile and dimple chin would doubtless turn the heads of many women, nonetheless.

And there was something else about him, some rare force of personality that drew the eye and held it. Anna was not certain whether General Lacy had gained this from being in command, or whether it was this unspoken quality that made him such an excellent commander in the first place, for she knew that even Charles, who had small patience with the officers who ordered him about, considered General Lacy the best general in all Russia.

She had heard about his exploits in the recent war with Sweden, how he’d led his men in lightning raids all up and down that country’s coast with devastating thoroughness, relying on the galleys that could row him close to shore and speed him off again before the Swedes could move their troops to stop him.

Vice Admiral Gordon had kept busy in that war as well, and now both men were highly ranked and sitting daily in the Colleges the late Tsar had established for the running of the government – Gordon in the Admiralty, and Lacy in the College of War.

On any other day the men might easily have turned their talk to business, but today the general kept his handshake brief, and turned to Anna. ‘Mistress Jamieson, you honour us indeed. I am so pleased you did decide to come and be companion to my wife and children, for I fear I am myself poor company.’

She doubted that. His eyes betrayed the quickness of his wit, and his good humour came through in the voice that yet retained the accent of his Irish homeland. She curtsied to him when he took her hand, and she addressed him with the proper title for his rank: ‘Your Excellency.’

Lacy smiled. ‘It sounds a bit grand, does it not, for such a one as me? Let’s not have that, within the house. You have my leave to simply call me “General”, as does this man here.’ He gave a nod to Gordon, and then looking Anna up and down more closely asked, ‘And do you never feed her, sir? ’Tis well for her she’s landed in my household, for when Lent is done in two weeks’ time she’ll find our table generous, and she does appear to want a little fattening.’

‘She grows like that,’ said Gordon dryly. ‘Feed her as you like, she’ll eat it all and more besides and stay as slender as a reed. It will be books you must supply her with, for truly she reads more than any lass I’ve ever known.’

The general’s eyebrows lifted as he asked, ‘Indeed?’

Vice Admiral Gordon answered with affection, ‘Aye, she fills her mind as she does fill her stomach, with whatever is to hand. I have found her as deeply engrossed in accounts of the methods for training good soldiers and seamen as in any lighter diversion.’

The general turned to Anna. ‘So you have an interest in our military ways?’

It was not ladylike, she knew, to wish to learn about such things, but she did not feel judged by General Lacy’s gaze, and so she answered him, ‘I find such things of interest, General, yes.’

‘Then I shall very much enjoy your stay with us,’ he said.

A woman’s bright laugh sounded from the doorway just behind him. ‘You must not encourage him,’ she said to Anna, ‘for he has been known to lay the dinner table out as a great field of battle, so that he can illustrate his tactics.’

The general’s wife was pretty for her age, which must have been approaching forty. Even in her mourning dress she made a lively figure, and her tone and dancing eyes were just as friendly as her husband’s. As she offered her small hand to Anna, she remarked in Russian, ‘You will doubtless think us very odd, and wish to reconsider your decision when you’ve been with us a few days.’

Anna doubted it, and said as much aloud, in Russian also, adding, ‘Truly, I am honoured by your invitation, and I’m very pleased to help in any way I can.’

The general’s wife glanced upwards at her husband, and they shared a private smile before she told him, still in Russian, ‘You were right.’

‘Did I not tell you?’ Switching smoothly into English, he advised his wife, ‘Sir Harry does not praise without good cause.’ And then to Anna, he explained, ‘Sir Harry Stirling told us yesterday at dinner that your Russian was as clear as any Muscovite’s.’ The general looked at Gordon as he added, ‘He did also bring us news from his associates in London’s Russia Company. It seems our friend’s suspicions were correct, and we may yet receive a less than welcome visitor.’

Vice Admiral Gordon’s frown appeared more thoughtful than displeased. ‘Do we know when?’

The general shook his head. ‘It is but in the wind, at present. But we can continue to prepare. Have you the time to sit awhile, and smoke a pipe? Then come, my friend. No doubt the ladies will be happy to be rid of us.’

With that he bowed and took his leave, and Gordon brushed a kiss on Anna’s cheek and warmly squeezed her hands, and searched her eyes a final time as though to reassure himself that she was fine with the arrangement. ‘Send word if you have need of me,’ he told her, in the brusque voice that she knew was how he masked his deep emotions. ‘I will call on you a few days hence to see that you are settled.’

And with that he turned and left the room, discussing something in low tones with General Lacy while the general’s wife regarded Anna with an understanding smile. In a gentle voice she said, ‘It is a hard thing, is it not, to leave one’s home and come to live with strangers?’

Anna thought of all the times she’d done exactly that: the first time that was lost to her, obscured within her earliest of memories, when her mother had released her to the care of others who could guard her safety … and the time when she’d been swept up in the arms of Captain Jamieson, and carried from her cottage in the snow, along the cliffs above the Scottish sea … and when those same strong arms had last embraced her as he passed her to the sole care of the Irish nuns at Ypres … and when she’d journeyed to Calais in Father Graeme’s care … and when she’d climbed aboard the carriage heading from that town, with Gordon sitting at her side, and half a year of gruelling travel yet ahead of her. So many homes, she thought. So many strangers. And yet all of them had brought her something she would not have missed for all the world, nor yet exchanged for idle comfort and security.

She gathered up her bundle of small treasured things more closely and replied with perfect honesty, ‘’Tis not so hard, with people who are kind.’

The general’s wife seemed pleased by that. She gently laid her hand on Anna’s arm and said, ‘Come, then, and let me show you to your room.’

She felt faintly confused when she woke. Not because she was in a new room, with the windows and furnishings in unfamiliar positions, but because she had the certain sense that she was not alone.

She rolled against the blankets, looking warily around, and met a pair of large blue eyes that peered with curiosity from just above the level of the mattress.

When her heart had leapt and settled once again within her chest, she drew a breath and smiled. ‘Hello.’

She had not yet met any of the children. Or at least, she had not yet been introduced to them. She’d heard them last night, certainly, but they had supped in private with the servant who was charged with taking care of them. ‘My dear,’ the general’s wife had said, when Anna had enquired about the children, ‘it would never do to have them all descend on you at once, for though I love my children dearly, they are rather overwhelming.’

Anna had returned the smile.

The general’s wife, she’d learnt, was from Livonia, and of high birth, and owned her own estate there that she’d shared with General Lacy since their marriage. She had lived there until lately with the children while the general led his army on campaigns, but since he’d now been two years in St Petersburg and it appeared his duties would require him to be here a while longer, she’d decided that the family should come join him. ‘Children need to have their father near,’ she’d said, and it was clear that General Lacy loved his children, for he’d spent much time in speaking of them, with so much enthusiasm Anna could now scarce recall the blur of names and ages and accomplishments.

She looked now at the wide blue eyes that watched her from beside the bed, and said again, ‘Hello.’