LITMIR.BIZ

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and I remembered, too, my thought that she had a mirror carefully placed so that she could watch the door. The door had moved, and as soon as it had moved she had got me out of the room. Or so I had thought.

      A question occurred to me. ‘How many rooms are there in the tower where Princess Irene lives?’

      ‘I have never seen. My duties do not take me in them.’

      ‘But you know?’

      ‘I have been told; three rooms leading into each other, one very small in which the woman Anna sleeps.’ His tone indicated that she could die there, too, for all he cared. ‘And a staircase leading down to the street, with its own entrance on to Molka Street.’

      A back door to the Denisov osobniak, in fact. So Irene Drutsko could entertain whom she wished, with everyone coming and going unnoticed by the rest of the household.

      ‘St Michael and all his angels could come trooping up the stairs,’ said Ivan, accurately reading my thoughts. ‘Or the Devil and all his.’

      ‘And just as likely to,’ I said sceptically. ‘You don’t really believe all that rubbish.’

      He shrugged. No, he didn’t believe the Devil came visiting, it was just a handy phrase, covering a multitude of suspicions and fears. There it was again, I thought, the secret language of the oppressed. ‘The Devil must be gentleman compared to some I’ve met,’ was all he said.

      Downstairs, it was at once apparent that Dolly Denisov an her retinue were in the process of returning. Home two hours at least before anyone expected them – I could tell by the flustered way the servants were running about.

      Ariadne came hurrying in first and went straight up the stairs, passing me, where I stood at the door of the great drawing-room, without a look. Dolly Denisov followed, slowly drawing off her gloves and talking over her shoulder to he brother as she did so.

      ‘I blame you entirely, Peter. I have wasted my morning taking Ariadne to choose clothes and she has chosen nothing. All because of you. How could the child like the silks and lace when you were being so critical? I have never before known you like it, you almost had the poor woman who was showing the dresses in tears. She was doing her best you know, Peter. I shall never be able to show my face ther again.’

      ‘Oh, come now, Dolly,’ protested Peter. He had followe her through the door, and behind him came Mademoiselle Laure; he looked flushed and she was deadly pale. Ther was a reason for her pallor; it appeared that she had been stricken with a migraine and had had to be brought back This was the real reason for Dolly’s displeasure.

      ‘Can I help?’ I said. Laure looked very sick. To my suiprise she turned to me with something very like gratitude in her face. ‘It would be a great kindness,’ she said.

      I assisted her upstairs and helped her undress. When I had got her lying on her bed she was easier. ‘What do you usually do to relieve the pain?’ I asked.

      ‘Nothing. There is nothing I can do but lie here and endure. Later, when the sickness goes, I sometimes take a long warm bath.’

      I put my hand on her forehead. I could feel an angry pulse throbbing under my fingers. ‘Does it still hurt?’

      ‘Much less.’

      ‘Try to sleep.’

      ‘Yes, I believe I will be able to sleep now. You have been very kind, and I have been shrewish and ill-tempered to you. Unfair as well. But I will make it up to you. I will tell you why you have been brought here. I know. I should have told you before, but I was evil and stupid and wanted to see you in trouble.’

      ‘Oh, but I know it all.’

      ‘Do you? You really know? How do you know?’ There was surprise in her voice. ‘Then surely you see the danger.’ She struggled to sit up.

      ‘I saw Princess Irene, poor old thing.’

      ‘Princess Irene?’ She seemed genuinely surprised. ‘It’s not only her. No, no, they’ll use you, turn you inside out and then, if it suits them, abandon you. If all goes wrong, you will either be shipped back home – or at worst, who knows what could happen to you? Don’t you see – it is not what you are but what you will be, what you will possess, that matters to them?’

      A wave of nausea swept over her and she retched. I pushed her gently back on the pillows, thinking her more than a little mad. ‘You can’t talk now, you must rest. Presumably you think me in no danger today? And I possess nothing, dear Laure, so calm yourself.’

      ‘No, not today,’ she muttered. ‘Not today. It is not today that matters. Although I quarrelled today with someone on your account.’

      ‘Very well then. Tomorrow, tomorrow we shall talk.’

      I waited till her eyelids closed and then walked quietly to the door. When I turned round for a last look, her eyes were open again and she was looking towards me. Yet I don’t think that it was me she saw.

      ‘At last I believe I am free,’ she said softly. ‘I have tried so often to leave Russia. Once I even got as far as Poland – but I always came back. Now I am free. I’ll start a little school in my own town of Blois. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’

      Her eyelids closed again and she was asleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

      When I left Mademoiselle Laure, Peter Alexandrov was waiting for me downstairs.

      ‘How is she?’

      ‘More comfortable,’ I replied thoughtfully.

      ‘I was concerned about her. She is not a happy woman. Did she say much to you?’

      ‘No.’ Had Laure been in love with him? Perhaps even his mistress? ‘But then, she has had a sad life, losing her lover just before they were to be married.’ Of course, I had lost my lover just before we were to marry, but it came to me suddenly that I did not intend to have a sad life. ‘And perhaps feeling the world has used her badly.’

      ‘I am sure Dolly means her to have a peaceful, contented life here with her, but Mademoiselle Laure is a woman of a jealous, suspicious temperament.’ His voice was calm and kindly. If there had been anything between them, it had long gone on his part. ‘Now you deal excellently with everyone, Miss Rose.’

      ‘I don’t think Mademoiselle Laure likes me,’ I said frankly. ‘But she has promised to talk to me.’ I broke off. Ariadne had come into the room.

      ‘How is Mademoiselle?’

      ‘Resting and recovering, I hope.’

      ‘Poor Mademoiselle, she hates us here sometimes, I think.’

      ‘She’s planning to return home to France and open a girls’ school, so she says.’

      ‘Goodness! Is she? Poor Mademoiselle.’ Ariadne went over and studied her face in a wall mirror. There was a spot that seemed to trouble her. Peter shook his head at her vanity. ‘I’m afraid she won’t go. She always says that when she’s particularly cross with us. But she never goes.’ She turned away from the mirror. ‘Poor us, Rose. To punish me for my sins this morning, Mamma forbids me to ride with Major Lacey this afternoon, and instead I have a whole great dull list of shopping you and I are to do. You are to come too, if you would like to, Uncle Peter, but first you are summoned to go up to Mamma’s sitting-room now. And wear armour, for she is very fierce. She has old General Rahl with her, and you know how disagreeable that always makes her.’

      Peter made a grimace. ‘Who is General Rahl?’ I asked.

      Peter said: ‘He’s a friend of an aged relative we have living in the house. A retired soldier. Forcibly retired – he was bad at the job. Oh, he’s not a bad old boy, but he’s a policeman now, of a rather special sort. He is

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