Empress of the Night (43 page)

Alexandrine will be watched. Every mistake she makes will be noted. Would it be wise to ask Princess Dashkova to accompany her? The Princess is waiting for such a request, of course. Most eager to get herself back into her Empress’s good graces. There are advantages. The Princess has been a family friend for so long. She will offer advice and comforting words. With her sharp eyes that never, ever miss a slight. Real or imagined.

They laugh in unison.

The mirrors reflect two figures seated on the apple-green sofa. Close enough, but not too close. Just so they can see each other face-to-face. On this quiet afternoon of warm confidences, of shared concerns. Dear old Queenie’s cravings. Pani’s festering eyes.

That Bolik! Why did the ungrateful rascal run away? And right now! It would have been such a comfort for the dear child to have that dog with her. Is it true that there have been sightings of him? By the Admiralty? But that Bolik ran away each time? Or maybe it wasn’t Bolik at all?

He was such a sweet puppy. So curious and yet so fearful. Scared of mops and tin buckets. Must have been frightened out of his wits by some scullery maid to run away like that.

Finally the last smear of the torte has been scraped away with the side of the fork. The plate is back on the serving table, another piece declined.

“One more thing, my dear,” Catherine says. In the mirror, her daughter-in-law’s bulky figure freezes.

With Maria, there is no point in hinting. Her daughter-in-law is not really stupid, but she must have decided long ago not to make any guesses, no matter how straightforward and obvious they seem, and this decision has served her well enough.

If only she, the Empress, could order her daughter-in-law to choose her son over her husband! But this cannot be done. She must argue her case. And so she swallows her pride and talks to Maria Fyodorovna as if she were explaining her policy to Bezborodko.

“My son, I regret to say, is not fit to rule Russia. You know it as well as I do.”

What takes place at Gatchina is the best example, Catherine continues. Paul is unpredictable, easily influenced, irresponsible. He believes in ruling by fear. He desires blind obedience at all cost. Criticizes her, his mother and Empress, for doing away with kneeling in front of her.

He will turn all Russia into the kind of military settlement Gatchina has become.

Maria lowers her eyes, her only shield.

“There is no need to dwell on more reasons,” the Empress continues sternly. “They are too painful to all concerned.”

Maria’s hands clench.

“Alexander will succeed me after I die,” the Empress says. “But I want it announced soon. He needs to tackle responsibilities that will prepare him for the throne. It won’t be easy for him. It is not easy for anyone. This is why he needs our support in these difficult moments.”

She pauses and waits for her daughter-in-law to look at her, but Maria doesn’t lift her head. She is breathing fast but not crying, which is a good sign.

Catherine continues her explanations. “Alexander tortures himself with guilt. He doesn’t want to hurt his father’s feelings.”

Another pause, the last one before the final punch.

“Alexander, my dear Maria, needs his dear mother’s support. He needs to know that his mother will take his side. Will prepare his father for what must happen. Soften his disappointment. Make his father see that nothing that truly matters to him will change. That he can have his Gatchina army the way he wants it. Run Gatchina the way he always has.”

The letter is in her hands. A simple but heartfelt letter of assurance, a mother telling her son she understands he is forced to accept the burden of power for the good of Russia and that she offers him her blessing and her prayers.

“Please, my dear Maria,” the Empress says. “Read this. Talk to me if you wish anything changed. If you trust my judgment, copy it in your own hand and sign it. Bring it to me and I’ll lock it in my private coffer. I’ll give it to Alexander myself.”

She says: When the time comes. She says: A secret between the two of us for now. My utter trust in you. Our common love for our Prince.

Maria takes the letter in her hand as if it were a bone-china cup from Sèvres, so delicate and thin that it might break when her fingers close on it. Glances over the sentences quickly, lips moving as if in prayer.

Hasn’t enough been said? What else does the foolish woman want to hear?

“Alexander needs words in his mother’s hand that he can read when doubts assail him. His mother, whom he loves and whose judgment he trusts. His mother, who, when his grandmother dies, will be the one all imperial wives and daughters will come to for advice and support.”

Maria lifts her face.

But instead of Bezborodko’s shrewd, competent eyes, two deep pools of watery blue stare at her with terror.

“Then Grand Duke Paul asked the Swedish King if he agreed that Pavlovsk was but a shadow of Gatchina,” Queenie says, shaking her head. “In Maria Fyodorovna’s presence!”

This is Paul’s idea of diplomacy, to ask his prospective son-in-law to criticize Maria Fyodorovna’s pride and joy.

“And did he?”

“He said both were equally beautiful.” Queenie laughs.

She has braided three kerchiefs together and wrapped them over her head. Blue, red, and yellow. There is something cheerful and girlish about this combination of colors. Quite attractive, even on Queenie, with her hairy upper lip and chubby cheeks.

Told to sit down, Queenie settles on the ottoman. Rests her bulky body on the embroidered cushions, every one of them adorned with a bird. Her plump elbow is stuck right into the beak of a big blue parrot.

Queenie has brought news from Gatchina.

She heard it from a young maid-of-honor in Maria Fyodorovna’s entourage. The latest of Queenie’s many protégées, spotted at some country estate or other, lured to St. Petersburg with promises of imperial favors and a husband. Thus this is all gossip, but it would be unwise to dismiss it. Something about Queenie attracts confessions. Women come to her. With broken hearts, empty pockets, troubling dreams. Even Maria Fyodorovna has sought her advice. Over trifles, but still.

“The Swedish visit,” Queenie continues, “went quite well, considering.”

Considering what, Queenie?

Queenie frowns. Pensive now, she strives to deliver what she has heard, free of her own conjectures. Facts only. Not what you think happened but what you either saw or heard. Old lessons, only the best of spies remember.

The linzer torte may be remembered fondly, but after Maria Fyodorovna’s return to Gatchina, there has been considerable unpleasantness. On account of her evasive answers to her husband’s questions.

What questions precisely, Queenie?
the Empress thinks, but won’t interrupt. It will only delay what’s most important. Queenie is not known for her conciseness, but for her sixth sense, which lets her hear what others don’t.

Paul, as might have been expected, wanted to know what his wife talked about with Maman.

Everyone at court, it seems, is capable of imitating Paul’s voice: high and shrill, sentences delivered with petulance. Queenie’s imitation of Paul interrogating his wife is uncanny:

The two of you only talked about Alexandrine?

And about Katya Dashkova, who will be asked to go with her. If we agree
.

She asked you if we agree?

She did
.

Really! So why are you avoiding my eyes?

There would’ve been more, Queenie announces, her plump chest heaving. Only then the guests arrived.

Right before noon. Seven carriages. The Swedish King, the Regent, the Swedish Ambassador, a few other grandees. No ladies, which made it awkward for Maria Fyodorovna.

A lot of military talk ensued: Paul’s kind of talk, which did not involve battles and campaigns but a lecture on how the length of a pigtail and deft application of hair powder are not frills—as some Russian commanders maintain—but proof of discipline. There was an inevitable parade with demonstrations of bayonet attacks. A show of Prussian military drill.

How predictable her son is! How unable to move away from the ruts of his feeble mind! Is there anything, ever, he can surprise her with?

Well
, she thinks a few moments later:
One needs to be careful what one wishes for
.

Queenie, flustered, perfectly aware of the effect her words are causing, is describing this scene:

In the great Gatchina dining room, with its carved ceiling and walls covered with paintings of famous battles, Paul presides over the table. He has drunk too much, which happens often, though this time the wine is making him not merely reckless and spiteful, but sentimental. Or maybe, incorrigible Queenie observes, it is not just the wine but the thought of Alexandrine’s anticipated nuptials and the presence of the man who will so soon take her to his bed. A moment a father might dread, Queenie suggests.

Any father.

To continue: Paul talks quite a bit. Too much, is a more apt description. Hardly allowing anyone a word edgewise. Recalling Alexandrine when she was growing up. For his eldest daughter—he wishes to warn his illustrious guest—was not always as sweet as she is now.

It’s tempting to get caught in Queenie’s story. The memories of Alexandrine slipping rotten plums into Constantine’s riding boots. Or drawing cat’s paw prints on the wall in her bedroom. With her own sooty fingers! Hiding her hands behind her back and claiming she didn’t know who might’ve done it!

Tempting to laugh with Queenie, too. Laugh and forget the passage of time.

But this is not why Queenie is here, allowed to loll about on the ottoman.

“What happened next?”

Queenie grows serious. The dinner, she says, ended. All the ladies present—at Maria Fyodorovna’s signal—stood up and left.

Right outside the dining room door, in the melee of voices that followed the ladies’ departure, Queenie’s protégée heard the name:
Kosciuszko
. And then, in the utter silence the word brought upon the Swedes, Paul Petrovich, who thinks himself a Prince worthy of the Russian throne, called the Polish rebel, his mother’s prisoner, “a valiant general I greatly admire.”

“I couldn’t believe my ears,” Queenie says, shaking her head and wrinkling her nose. “But it’s not a name one mistakes easily, madame.”

Like flies to carrion, the Empress thinks the following morning, sorting through the daily flow of petitions from her new Polish subjects, hoping to feed on the mishaps of their compatriots.

Conquests move more than borders. A crushed rebellion reshuffles real estate. Those who supported it lose, those who opposed it stand to gain a reward. Each estate confiscated becomes the object of someone’s desire. A motivation for a sincere report. A cause for a confession. A reason to plead.

Enemies turn into friends, friends into enemies. But Alexander doesn’t have to know that yet. For now, she makes sure he has little idle time. No more visits to Gatchina, no long discussions with Adam on the nature of American democracy or some other youthful folly. Every morning, she sends for her grandson to join her in her study. With a cautious character, such as Alexander’s, slow steps work best. He will not even notice how, after a few weeks, he is drawn into more and more projects.

“I’m considering sending Princess Dashkova with Alexandrine to Stockholm,” she tells her grandson. “What do you think?”

The court is readying for the engagement ceremony. Joyful preparations, filled with laughter and frenzied flutter. Alexandrine is being fitted for an engagement gown of white satin embroidered with silver rosebuds. Her sister Maria is jealous and wonders when she, too, will be betrothed. “Does the King of Sweden have a brother?” she wants to know.

“Isn’t Princess Dashkova ill?” Alexander asks. “And hasn’t she angered you over something?”

“Dashkova did anger me,” Catherine answers. For him, her clever heir, she has nothing but patience. “She allowed the publication of books that shouldn’t have been published.” Dashkova is the head of the Russian Academy. She should know that vigilance matters. Foresee what might stir up sedition.

Should she be more blunt? Spell it out? Remind Alexander how the French King and Queen rode wooden carts to their deaths, the mob cursing them and all monarchs? How bodies of aristocrats swayed from
the Parisian lanterns, or were torn to bloody scraps? Was that a good time to publish a Russian play in which a rebel chastises a Tsar? Or one in which the author instructs the Empress how to rule Russia? Calling her blind! A dupe of scheming courtiers!

No need. Being too forceful doesn’t work with Alexander. It’s best to let him reach his own conclusions.

“Is it really that important to censor such thoughts?” he asks. “What is gained from pushing them underground?”

She gives him a nod of approval. When she was designing Alexander’s education, some things were of the utmost importance. Such as teaching him to question what he was taught. And the ability to assume various dictions. Restate the plot of an Aesop’s fable in a simple style. Then in a grandiose style. Write a letter as if you were Achilles right before dying.

“Inform me, but do not humiliate me,” she continues her explanation. “If you think something doesn’t work well under my rule, come to me directly and tell me what needs to be reformed and why. You know me well, Alexander. I’ve always listened to reason. But Russia is not ready for instigators, announcing their threadbare ideas from street corners.”

Alexander’s gaze slides over her desk and rests on her amber inkwell, its copper tint matching his hair. Yes, it is easy for a young heart to take sides. Simplify what is complex. Forget that a future Sovereign cannot mistake his own wishes for those of his country’s. But it is a grandmother’s duty to watch over her grandson. Warn him when he is erring in his judgment. Point out the pitfalls he cannot yet see.

“Words are not innocuous, Alexander. Thoughts expressed aloud can make men bold. Especially thoughts that promise easy solutions.”

Alexander frowns and leans backward as if to push her words away. Has she been too forceful again? But her grandson is no weakling.