Lorimers at War (22 page)

Someone was playing a piano, and as they came nearer to the sound, the footmen fell back. The intrusive foreigner, it seemed, should be left alone to face their master's anger at being disturbed. Ready to do so, Kate opened a door and found the pianist. But at first she could not bring herself to look at him, so overwhelmed was she by the room. It was a hall rather than a mere room – perhaps actually intended as a private concert hall, since there was a raised platform at the far end: or perhaps as a ballroom, with provision for an orchestra. Except for the grand piano on the platform and fifty or so gilded chairs arranged against the wall, it was unfurnished: but the proportions were so perfect that it did not appear bare, and the materials of its construction so
beautiful that it did not need decoration. The walls were of a pale pink marble into which had been set, as a pattern, panels of other marbles in a range of colours which seemed too fragile to be stone: pale blue and delicate mauve, the sea shades of green, clear yellow, misty grey. It was an aristocratic room in its own right; a fit setting for an aristocrat.

Kate had been an enthusiastic concert-goer in her student days and recognized the work she was hearing as the piano part of an early Beethoven concerto. But the piece was interrupted by the pianist's awareness of her presence. He was a fair-haired man in his early thirties, wearing the style of moustache currently sported by the dashing young officers of the cavalry regiments. But instead of wearing uniform he was casually dressed, with a scarf loosely knotted inside his open-necked silk shirt. And although a moment earlier he had been hunched over the keyboard, projecting an impression of great physical power and control through the crashing chords and rapid trills of his performance, in repose he gave the impression of softness, as though there were no bones in the wide, long-fingered hands which rested on his knees as he looked at her. He would have had the right to be impatient or indignant or aggressive, but instead his brown eyes watched her passively as she walked towards the platform.

‘I'm trespassing in your palace and disturbing your practice,' she said as she approached. ‘I must apologize. But the servants –'

‘Oh, the servants!' He interrupted her with a shrug of his shoulders. She had spoken in English and, as she expected, he answered her fluently in the same language. ‘What can I do for you?'

‘I'm Dr Kate Lorimer, from England,' said Kate. ‘I have an introduction from my aunt, Lady Glanville, to Prince Aminov – Prince Paul Arninov.'

He stood up and bowed over her hand in languid
acknowledgement of the introduction. ‘I fear your journey is not ended, Dr Lorimer,' he said. ‘As an admiral, my brother feels obliged to be at least within sight of the water while the war continues. He is at Murmansk. And my sisters and their children have retired to one of our country estates to avoid the food shortages in the city. I regret that I am the only member of the family here to welcome you. But I can see that you are fatigued. I shall not allow you to continue in search of my brother until you have dined with me and enjoyed a good night's rest. And if your business is not with him personally, I hope you will allow me the pleasure of representing him.'

‘I should certainly be most grateful –'

Again she was interrupted, this time by a clap of the hands. The two footmen hurried in with a promptness which made it clear that they had been listening to the exchange. Kate heard them ordered to take her and her luggage to a room. Then the prince turned to her again and for a second time formally kissed her hand.

‘When you are rested, we will meet again for dinner,' he said. ‘It will be an unexpected attraction of my leave to enjoy such charming company.'

To Kate, knowing herself to be tired and dirty and crumpled, the remark sounded like a joke. But during the past winter she had spent enough time with aristocratic officers of the Imperial Army to know that the compliments which would have signified insincerity in England were only normal politeness with them. In any case, she had come in search of hospitality and did not intend to let pride rob her of it. With so many rooms and servants, her presence was not likely to inconvenience her host – and the speed with which he resumed his piano playing as she withdrew suggested that he would not allow it to do so. She had been received and temporarily dismissed.

How could she discover at what hour she would be expected to appear for dinner? Her enquiry to the maid
received the courteous answer, ‘It is as you wish, Madame.' So the problem was solved by sleep, which overcame her as soon as she lay down on the huge four-poster bed, intending only to rest for a moment or two. By the time she awoke, the short northern day had long since ended and the maid was standing in the doorway, awaiting instructions.

Over dinner Kate felt it her duty to give more information about herself, especially to a host who clearly thought it rude to ask questions. The first matter to be established was that of Alexa's name. Prince Aminov had never heard of Lady Glanville, but as soon as Kate remembered that Alexa's visit to St Petersburg had taken place before her marriage, and mentioned Alexa Reni, there was a very different reaction.

‘The beautiful Alexa! Oh, but most certainly I remember her visit. I thought her the most ravishing creature I had ever seen. And her voice was as perfect as her face. I dreamed of composing an opera for her. My brother, alas, took care that she should not notice me. I half expected her to become my sister-in-law, but it seemed that Paul was not quite persuasive enough.'

‘From what my aunt told me, I had the impression that he was offering a little less than marriage.' Kate spoke mischievously. At the first moment of meeting she had been tired and uncertain of her welcome and her host had been patiently suffering an interruption: no wonder they had behaved stiffly to each other. Now that they were both relaxed, she found him easy company. Her professional acquaintance with the Russian officer class had led her to divide it into two categories: one containing drunken boors and the other delightful but often idle dilettantes with the charming manners of international society. Prince Aminov, it seemed to her – although only a dilettante in the sense that his talent for music was not exercised for money – fell into the second group. Already he was flirting with her in the manner of a man who
knows he will not be taken seriously, and for this one evening of relaxation Kate was prepared to match his mood.

‘You are probably right,' he laughed. ‘When Paul did marry, two years after your aunt left Russia, he chose a Grand Duchess from the imperial family for his bride – with highly advantageous effects on both his fortune and his career. We are close in age, but he was an admiral before he was thirty, while I, as a bachelor, have to endure the more usual intervals between promotions.'

‘I hope your brother's marriage has proved as happy as my aunt's.'

‘Ah, well,' he sighed. ‘Unfortunately my sister-in-law died in childbed last year – and the baby died as well. So you'll find my brother unencumbered. Perhaps you'll have more success than the lovely Alexa in persuading him to take an English wife.'

Kate flushed. Too unsophisticated to make a joke of his teasing, she could counter it only with her true reason for coming to Petrograd, although the effect was to make it clear that she was using the Aminov palace as a hotel. Fortunately her host took it for granted that she should have done this, and insisted that she must stay as long as might prove necessary. He listened with a frown to the details of what she needed.

‘I can tell you where to go and whom to see,' he said. ‘But the difficulties you face will be no less here than they were at a distance. The inefficiency of the ministries is almost unbelievable. The armies lack ammunition because the trains lack coal, and yet there is plenty of coal in the country. The city bakeries can bake only a tenth of the bread which is required because they are short of flour, and yet the granaries in the east are full. Every department is ruled by incompetence.' He sighed. ‘There must be some efficient officials somewhere, but they are all afraid to act on their own initiative and are strangled by bureaucracy if they attempt to use the system
laid down for them. It is my duty as an officer of His Majesty's Regiment of the Imperial Guard to protect the Tsar's life with my own, but I would be doing him a better service if I could persuade him to dismiss his present ministers and committees and give direct power to one or two men who know what the army needs and would cut through every knot to provide it. We are losing the war. You, on the front, must know that as well as I do. There are too many Russians who are ready to give in, to make a treaty. The rest of us, those who remember Japan and are not prepared to be humiliated again, have only one defence against such defeatism – we must win.' He smiled apologetically. ‘Well, I mustn't start delivering political lectures. What difference does it make to an Englishwoman whether we win or lose?'

‘If Russia were to surrender, the German and Austrian armies could turn their whole force against the French and British,' said Kate; but even as she spoke she realized that a Russian could not be expected to care greatly about that. Tactfully she tried to rouse the prince from his mood of depression. Would he play to her, she asked him, and the charm of his smile showed at once how much the suggestion pleased him.

It was as well that the evening finished on a restful note, for the next day tried Kate's patience to the limit. To sit in a hospital hundreds of miles away and fume because letters were never answered had been hard enough. Far worse, she discovered, was to wait in a government building and see that her request for an appointment was not even conveyed from the reception area to the office of someone who might conceivably deal with it.

On that first day she tried to cultivate the patience shown by her fellow-petitioners. It did not come naturally to her, and she wondered whether the Russians themselves were not being pressed close to the edge of tolerance. Surely in such conditions even they might
abandon the fatalism which had endured for so many centuries. On her way back to the palace on that first evening she noticed the long line of women queueing for bread and realized that they would have to wait all night in the bitter cold for whatever might be available the next morning. Twenty-four hours later, as Prince Aminov's sleigh was carrying her back from a second wasted day, she saw the lines break. The windows of the bakery she was passing were broken by stones and the crowd rushed inside to seize what they could. So great was the crush that the sleigh was brought to a halt. It was able to continue only when the clatter of horses' hooves on the frozen ground alerted the looters to the fact that the Cossacks were coming.

‘One thing surprised me,' said Kate when she was describing the incident to her host later that evening. ‘A friend once described to me the whips which the Cossacks carry.'

‘Yes?' Prince Aminov showed no interest in whips. ‘What of it?'

‘They were not carrying them today.'

It had seemed significant to Kate, but the prince merely shrugged his shoulders. ‘The crowd was mainly of women, I imagine. It is when students riot or soldiers mutiny that the Cossacks need to establish their authority. Now then, I have an invitation which I hope that you will accept. On Sunday evening Princess Radziwill is giving a gala ball. She has heard that you are my guest here and insists that I bring you as my partner.'

Kate considered the offer doubtfully. A society dance would not have attracted her even in England. Here she would find it even more difficult to converse – in French – with the kind of wit and intelligence which would be expected.

‘I'm afraid I came to Petrograd prepared only to petition ministers,' she said. ‘My clothes are more than unsuitable – it would be an insult to a hostess if I appeared in them.'

Prince Aminov waved away her objection. ‘My sister-in-law's wardrobe is still hanging in her dressing room. Paul has not been back here since she died. He will never want to see them again. Please take your choice. No one will be hurt or offended, and each of the ball dresses will have been worn only once. You will make me very unhappy if you refuse.'

Kate hesitated still. She found it easy to converse with her host, but less easy to know what he was thinking. Except when he was playing the piano, his eyes held a dreamy, far-away look, as though nothing were of any great importance to him. She realized that out of politeness he would have been bound to pass on the invitation to her, but she was unable to guess whether the corresponding politeness on her part would be to accept or to persist in her refusal.

Prince Aminov took her hand and bowed to kiss it as though they had only just been introduced.

‘You are too serious,' he said. ‘It is good that you should be so greatly concerned for your patients and I admire your perseverance in battering your poor head against the doors of our bureaucracy, fighting your own private war. But you are too young to be angry all the time. There is nothing you can do for your hospital by staying here in the evening. And a good deal that you might achieve by coming.'

‘What do you mean, Excellency?'

‘I mean that this may prove the way to unlock the warehouse which holds your goods. I shall introduce you to the right people – the highest people, who are never likely to grant an audience to someone who comes without appointment to their waiting room. You will meet them on their own ground, as an equal. Together we shall approach the little difficulty with delicacy. They will realize that you are a friend of mine. Then they will understand that the customary procedures will be observed, and the difficulties you have faced will disappear.'

‘Are you trying to tell me that they are corrupt – that they need to be bribed?' Kate demanded.

The prince gave an amused smile. ‘Is it corruption to operate a system which is generally known and accepted? It would certainly be corrupt if they allowed your property to go to someone else for a consideration, but I'm sure they would never dream of doing that. All they expect is a little present – a fee, you could call it. And I only use this argument to show you that you will be serving the interests of your patients in going to the ball, because I could not bear to be disappointed of your company. The evening is a time for pleasure – and how could I enjoy myself if I knew that you were here alone, fuming with rage? You will come, please? For my sake.'