To Dream of Snow (38 page)

Before getting into bed Marguerite stood for a while at the window looking out at the park still fully visible in the daylight of the White Night. She could see the shimmer of the Gulf of Finland just beyond some trees. Although she had intended to spend no more than three or four hours at Peterhof, which was the average length of her visits combining business and pleasure, there had seemed to be a kind of desperate need in Catherine to keep her close at this time. It was as if, in spite of having two loyal servants at her beck and call, she was strangely ill at ease and needed a friendly presence with her.

It was very early morning and Marguerite, who still found it difficult to sleep sometimes during the light summer nights, had been lying awake for a little while when she heard the click of a boot heel. Immediately alert, remembering Catherine's unusual nervousness, she feared at once for the woman's safety She sprang from the bed and looked out of the room. The door leading to Catherine's rooms had been opened. Deeply alarmed, she ran through to see Alexis Orlov, whom she recognized instantly, hovering on the threshold of Catherine's bedroom as Chargorodskaya shook her from sleep.

‘Madame! Alexis Orlov is here! He has an urgent message for you!'

Alexis had used extreme caution when entering the pavilion, using a key that Catherine had given Gregory, for he had not known if she was already under guard. Fortunately that did not seem to be the case. At the maid's signal he entered the bedroom at once and dropped to one knee as Catherine sat up in bed, instantly awake.

‘Madame! There is no time to lose! You must dress and come with me now! It's feared that forces moving against you may overtake you at any time now! The army has rallied to you! You are to be declared Empress of all the Russias in your own right in St Petersburg today!'

Marguerite flew to dress too. She matched Catherine's time and ran after her out of the pavilion to the waiting coach, Chargorodskaya hobbling in their wake, for she had lost a shoe on the way and had not dared to stop and put it on again. The manservant, who had been awakened too, was fully dressed, and with his powdered wig slightly askew he ran out in their wake. None of them noticed that Catherine was still wearing her beribboned nightcap, and the three women clambered into the waiting carriage, skirts bundled high, and it bowled away even as they flung themselves on to the seats. The manservant had just managed to leap up at the back of the carriage in time, losing his wig in the process, and his shaved head gleamed in the sun. The carriage departed by the unguarded way it had come. Catherine and her fellow passengers hung on as the wheels splashed through wavelets on the shore before lurching back on to the land to take the road to St Petersburg at a rollicking speed.

They had gone some way when Catherine became aware of something tickling her face. She brushed her cheek, thinking it was a fly or even a little spider, and then realized it was the ribbons of her nightcap. She burst out laughing.

‘See what I'm still wearing! My nightcap!'

She pulled it from her head and spun it merrily on a forefinger. Marguerite laughed too and Chargorodskaya giggled, promptly taking care of it. There was still more merriment when the maid revealed her shoeless foot. Their laughter eased the tension. Catherine knew that she had exchanged one perilous situation for another, but she was high-spirited and exhilarated, her mood infectious.

Alexis, up on the box beside the coachman, pistols ready in his hands in case of any ambush or pursuit, recognized an approaching carriage as belonging to Monsieur Michel, Catherine's French hairdresser. Knowing from experience that all women wanted to look their best for any occasion, he signalled to the coachman to stop. As the Frenchman put his head out of the carriage window, Alexis shouted to him.

‘The new Empress has need of your immediate attention!'

Moments later Monsieur Michel was changing carriages. With Marguerite and the maid holding hairpins and brushes, he dressed Catherine's hair simply but superbly, in spite of being jogged about and losing his balance more than once as the wheels thumped over ruts and dipped into dusty hollows.

When they reached the city limits Gregory Orlov was waiting on horseback beside a grander open carriage, other mounted officers and a mass of foot soldiers with him. He saluted her with his sword. Catherine, about to alight, paused with a theatrical sense of occasion on the step of the dust-streaked equipage that had brought her to this fateful moment, and bowed her head forward and to the right and left in traditional greeting.

Instantly a great burst of cheering rose up from the foot soldiers and they shouted that she was the little Mother of all the Russias, their beloved tsarina and their rightful ruler. She gave them all a little wave before she was handed into the waiting open carriage.

Marguerite and Chargorodskaya had remained seated where they were and their coachman urged his horses forward, making sure that he was in the direct wake of the officers on horseback before the foot soldiers could close in to shut him off from the imperial carriage. He did not want to miss seeing what happened next. As a result his two passengers had a superb view throughout Catherine's triumphal ride as she was escorted joyfully from one barracks to another throughout the city, being met every time with loyal support that increased her following procession. There were no ordered ranks, only a mingling of regimental uniforms, and here and there mounted officers rode together or singly as if sailing on a moving ocean of men.

Only once was there a tense and dangerous moment when they met a double line of muskets ready to fire from a regiment uncertain where its loyalty should lie, but the sight of Catherine, rising to her feet in the carriage to face them, swayed the day. Weapons were lowered and exuberant acclamation reigned. By now great numbers of other people had joined the throng, word of the coup d'état spreading everywhere. The many genuine smiles that Catherine had bestowed on soldiery and civilians in the past, in addition to her reputation for always being gracious and considerate, even to the humblest of individuals, had finally brought her the total acclaim for which she had always aimed.

Rumours about Peter's instability, later fuelled by his inexcusable behaviour in the funeral procession, which had been witnessed by the huge crowds that had lined the route, had aroused misgivings in many thoughtful citizens as to how he would rule. Now here, without doubt, was a ruler they could trust.

At Kazan Cathedral Catherine alighted and entered to find the Archbishop, standing at the altar with a grouped semi-circle of other bishops, waiting to bless her as the new Empress. She sank to her knees before him and bowed her head thankfully and reverently.

When she emerged there were cheering crowds as far as she could see, and the whole host followed her to the Palace, filling every available space in front of it and overflowing all around. Marguerite, who had now left the carriage, was in the midst of the crowd when Catherine appeared on the balcony with young Paul. People were still cheering when Marguerite left to return home and put down on paper the design for Catherine's coronation gown, which she had had in mind for some time.

Later Catherine made an even more memorable appearance, wearing the gold-braided dark-green uniform and tricorne hat of one of her regiments, and riding astride a red-bridled white horse, a sword in her hand. She was ready to lead her army against any hostile forces that Peter might muster, although she dreaded the thought of Russian against Russian and hoped desperately it would not come to that. No word yet of the coup d'état would have reached the regiments waiting at Kronstadt to embark for Denmark and, dangerously, they far outnumbered those in St Petersburg. In addition to gaining their loyalty she had yet to win over the navy waiting to transport them. She had already sent an envoy to the naval commander in charge of the port's fortress as well as to the army commander. All she could hope for was that Peter would not reach either of them first.

She cast a happy look at her own loyal soldiers, now formed into orderly ranks, seeing that they had discarded the hated Holsteinian uniform they had been forced to wear and had found old regimental coats to don instead. They were almost delirious in their pride in her and burst forth once again into a spontaneous cheer.

The fifes and drums began to sound and Catherine rode forward followed by the Orlov brothers riding just behind her, the tramp of the soldiers' boots drowned in the cheers of the crowd waving them on their way to Kronstadt. The momentous day, which had had such an early start for Catherine, was still only in mid-afternoon.

At Peterhof a very different scene was taking place. Peter, having been told that he would find Catherine at the pavilion, mounted the steps of the entrance, his mistress at his side. He frowned with displeasure when the door was not immediately opened for them from within. Elisabeth Vorontsova, eager to witness Catherine's final downfall, reached out a hand to open it herself, but he stopped her. One of the men from the party of courtiers who had accompanied him from Oranienbaum ran quickly up the steps to perform that duty and stood aside as Peter led the way into the charming blue entrance hall.

‘Catherine!' he bellowed loudly, his voice echoing. ‘Present yourself at once!' Then, when she failed to appear, he stamped his foot impatiently. ‘It's no good skulking in a corner! I want you here! Now!'

Somebody spoke behind him. ‘I fear she has gone, Sire.'

Peter whirled round to face the courtier. ‘What do you mean? She would never disobey my command!'

‘One of the guards has just this minute reported that the Lady Catherine left here at a very early hour this morning.'

‘No!' Peter roared in disbelief, ignoring Vorontsova's whine of disappointment. ‘She would not dare!'

He turned to throw open the nearest double doors and began charging through one room and then another, convinced that he would find her, all the time shouting her name hysterically in his temper. When he did not discover her in any of the ground-floor rooms he rushed upstairs. Those of his party gathering in the hall could hear his high-pitched shrieking as he continued to search in vain. Now and again something crashed as he hurled a vase or a porcelain figurine against a wall in his frustration. Once he toppled a Roman bust. When he returned to the head of the stairs, scarlet-faced with rage, a chancellor of his court came forward, an unfolded message in his hand, and stood looking gravely up at him.

‘Your Imperial Majesty, I have just received word that the Lady Catherine is in St Petersburg, where the army has rallied to her! She is being declared empress in your stead!'

Peter turned ashen and uttered a kind of frenzied scream of fury, arching his back as if he had been shot in the chest, and shaking his clenched fists into the air. His one thought was that Catherine had thwarted his plan to have her incarcerated and had put his life in danger instead of hers. Then he gave way totally to panic.

Nobody could keep pace with the orders that he shouted out as he ran about like a dog chasing its tail. Someone brought him a decanter of burgundy and a glass, and he gulped down glass after glass as if he thought it would give him strength at this time of crisis. Vorontsova sobbed noisily as she watched his wild antics. He was drunk when he finally sat down and the chancellor was able at last to give him sound advice.

Peter did not even raise his head as he mumbled his replies. No, he did not want to go to Kronstadt where the troops would still be loyal to him. No, he would not ride at their head and march them to the city to put down the insurrection.

In the end the chancellor lost patience with such cowardice and did the unthinkable by wrenching the Emperor to his feet. With the waters of the Gulf of Finland lapping the shore of Peterhof it was not long before Peter was bundled aboard a vessel and found himself bound for Kronstadt with Vorontsova at his side while attempts were made to sober him up. But Peter's failure to rise to the moment had lost him the day. Catherine's envoy had reached the fortress first. A shout from Peter's vessel that the Emperor was on board only met with a refused entry by the commander, a cannon blast across its bows a hostile threat to sink it in the event of defiance.

The chancellor still did not give up hope for Peter, who sat weeping. He tried to persuade this pathetic emperor that he could still win the day if he went ashore and addressed his troops courageously, but Peter sprang up in terror at the suggestion and bolted from him. When they found him it was if he had sought the safety of the womb again, for he had tucked himself away in one of the darkest corners of the hold, seated with his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms covering his face.

Soon afterwards he was landed back at Oranienbaum and went straight to bed, emotionally exhausted. Later, when a declaration of abdication was brought to him, he took up his quill without a murmur of dissent and signed it.

It was only when he heard the fate decreed for him, which was exactly what he had planned for Catherine, that he once again gave way to tears, high-pitched shrieks and protests.

‘No, no, no!' he cried, falling to his knees and totally without dignity.

He was to be incarcerated in a fortress a great distance from St Petersburg, from which he would never be freed. Although he would be allowed some privileges, he would not be permitted to take Vorontsova with him. It was impossible to tell which of them shed the most tears or made the worst scene.

The Orlov brothers were made responsible for seeing him installed at the fortress. Marguerite happened to be with Catherine when she received an urgent message from Alexis. Marguerite saw how she turned ashen and read the contents twice as if to convince herself that what was written could be true. Then, her face wrenched by distress, she turned distractedly to Marguerite.

‘Peter is dead!'

‘Oh, no!' Marguerite was equally shocked.

‘Alexis has written that it was an accident. Some kind of struggle. But everyone here and abroad will always think I had him murdered!'