Polly and the Prince (17 page)

“He has not asked me. Besides, he is a gentleman, and we
have no real claim to gentility.”

“Kolya is not so stupid as to care for that. He has friends of every station.”

“Friends, yes, but a wife is another matter.”

“Forgive me for meddling in what is none of my concern,” Lady Sylvia said earnestly, “but I believe you rate yourself too low, and Mr. Volkov too high. It is not as if he is a nobleman, only a private gentleman and a foreigner, and your father was an officer.”

“Mama is forever pointing out that Papa was an officer,” Polly agreed with mingled doubt and hope.

“
It
is not an insuperable gulf, where there is true affection.” Her ladyship blushed painfully. “But of course I cannot say...I do not know...I beg your pardon!”

“Nor do I.” Polly sighed. “In any case, he is not in a position to marry, and though I have earned more than I ever hoped, I cannot possibly support a family.”

“This exhibition of yours will make a fortune,” Nick prophesied. “Then you can buy that estate next to Westcombe and hire Kolya to manage it on condition that he weds you.”

His sister laughed at his triumphant expression, but Lady Sylvia looked sadder than ever. Marriage was not a topic calculated to cheer her. Polly changed the subject.

She tried not to place too much importance on Lady Sylvia’s belittlement of the difference in station between herself and Kolya. Nonetheless, ever the optimist, she woke in the morning with hope added to the thrill of the prospect of her own exhibition. Sooner or later Kolya would be able to
support a wife, and if he asked her she would wait for him.

Even if he did not ask her, she would probably wait for ever, she acknowledged with a rueful smile at
her image in the glass.

She was glad she had never got around to wearing a spinsterish cap, but her wardrobe was sadly shabby and outdated. Should she spend some of her money on a new gown or two?

She was still pondering this question when Kolya came to fetch her, this time in a borrowed curricle. Though he stigmatized his team of high-stepping roans as “showy slugs,” the phrase pleased him greatly. His spirits were as high as Polly’s, and everything they saw as they drove into town was a source of amusement.

As they passed the Pavilion, Polly remembered that he had promised to present letters from the distressed neighbours to the king. She asked if he had done so.

“Yes, I gave them to His Majesty, but I fear he will do nothing. At present he can think of nothing but his feud with the queen. He passed the letters to equerry, and they will no doubt go to Mr. Nash, the architect, who already cannot pay bills of builders.”

“So I suppose the builders are angry, too. I wonder the king can sleep at night when he owes money to so many people.”

“I believe he does not sleep well, but for worry over Queen Caroline, not over debts.”

“If his mind is so taken up with his wife, I daresay he did not offer you a position?”

“On contrary, he offered a commission in the Guards. I will not take, however. Is not good, I think, to be in the army of the country that is not my own. But do not fear, I now know many people of influence and wealth. When I have learned all that Ned can teach, I will not have difficulty in finding post.”

They turned onto the Steyne. A moment later he halted the showy slugs in front of the print shop and tied them to the railing. The proprietor came out to greet them. Beaming, he ushered them into his establishment and led the way into the inner room, lit by skylights.

“You see, I have already begun to clear the space,” he said, waving his hands at one wall almost bare of pictures. “It’s quite a job, finding somewhere to put them, I can tell you. Now, ma’am, how many pictures was you reckoning on hanging? Mr. Volkov said a couple of dozen. We don’t want to crowd ‘em, you know, like they do at the Royal Academy.”

“I can provide twenty-four or so. I expect Lady Sylvia will lend hers. You have some way of marking those that are not for sale, I daresay?”

“To be sure, ma’am, to be sure.” Mr. Lay rubbed his hands. “I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up a handbill. It’s all ready for the printer’s, saving the date. If you’ll just step back this way, ma’am, sir, I’ll show it you and you can tell me any changes you want, and we’ll fix on a date that suits.”

From under his counter, he produced a roll of paper and spread it on the polished wooden top.

Mr. Adolphus Lay

respectfully begs to inform

his illustrious clients

of a private EXHIBITION of paintings

the work of

Miss Howard

at his premises on the Steyne

under the GRACIOUS PATRONAGE of

HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE IV

Polly read it in awed silence. Kolya frowned.

“This ‘Miss Howard,’ “he said. “Must be...how do you say
‘glavnaya bukva’?”
He pointed at the bottom line.

“Capital letters? If you say so, Mr. Volkov, but it’ll have to be smaller than the king’s name.”

“And why private?” Kolya asked. “We wish that many people come.”

“Aha, now that’s a little trick of the trade, if you get my meaning, sir. Invite the public and the nobs’ll stay away. What you do is invite half a dozen Names as people recognize—Lady Conyngham, f’rinstance, who’ll be flattered to be asked to the opening—then you pass the word who’s coming and sell tickets to them as wants to be seen with the Names. Then after a day or two you publish another bill for the public and they all flock to see what the nobs was so interested in.”

“That sounds very clever,” Polly marvelled.

“I’ll tell you what would be clever, miss. If Mr. Volkov can borrow them paintings the king bought, now that’d bring ‘em in like flies to a honey-pot.”

“I will ask,” Kolya promised. “I will go on the knees and beg.”

They settled on the ninth of July, a week hence, for the opening of the exhibition, then Polly and Kolya went out to the curricle. As he was handing her in, Lady Conyngham’s barouche pulled up alongside.

“Good day, Miss Howard,” she said condescendingly, her plumes nodding. “I expect you are making arrangements for your exhibition? His Majesty is delighted with the paintings Prince Nikolai sold him.”

“Thank you, my—Prince Nikolai?” Polly stared at the vice-queen.

She tittered. “Oh my, don’t tell me he has not mentioned it
to
you! The king did say it was in confidence, but I presumed, as you are such great friends, that you would know his true rank.”

“True rank, my lady?” Her heart sinking, Polly turned her gaze on Kolya, standing beside the curricle, who appeared distinctly embarrassed.

“Why yes, Miss Howard. Our mutual friend is Prince Nikolai Volkov, eldest son of the tsar’s minister of state. Gracious, I see I have set the cat among the pigeons. You must give His Highness a good scolding, my dear. Drive on, James.”

Kolya looked up at Polly pleadingly. “Am not highness. Highness is
only imperial family.”

Feeling betrayed, her hopes withering, she looked straight ahead. “But you are a prince.”

“Yes. My father is Prince Volkov, tsar’s minister. In Russia are many princes.”

“If not highness, what should I call you?”

“Excellency is correct word, but I wish that you call me Nikolai Mikhailovich, or Kolya.” He reached towards her. She did not turn her head and he let his hand drop. “Even Mr. Volkov is better.”

“Pray drive me home at once, Your Excellency.”

“Polly...”

“Or I shall walk.”

She made as if to climb down and he hurried to unhitch the roans from the post. Inside she was crying, but her eyes were dry, burning. When he sprang up beside her, she edged away from him, pressing against the side of the curricle.

“Miss Howard, let me to explain,” he said urgently.

“What is there to explain? You deceived me. You deceived us all.”

“Because that I feared you will be vexed.”

“You were right. Your Excellency.”

Stiff and silent he drove her home. When he stopped in front of Dean House she jumped down without waiting for his help and hurried into the house.

No wonder his eyes were always laughing, she thought savagely. He was laughing at her gullibility.

Avoiding everyone, she fetched her sketch book and hurried across the garden, through the door in the wall, and up into the hills. The harebells were in bloom, their delicate blue flowers nodding in the breeze. There were purple knapweed, the tiny pansy-faced heartsease, yellow rock-rose and pink field bindweed. She would draw a peasant’s bouquet and be damned to princes.

Nick found her there. He was alone, his spyglass under his arm, a bounce in his step as he strode towards her.

“Where were you earlier, Poll? I was looking for you. A letter came from Ned: the duke has got me a midshipman’s berth! On HMS
Steadfast.
Is it not famous?” He stood with his hands in his pockets looking down at her.

“Famous! I’m excessively happy for you, Nick, dear. Does that
mean you are to leave at once?”

“Not right away. She’s outfitting at Tilbury docks. Ned’s going to take me up to London on the seventeenth, and we are to stay at Stafford House while all the papers and stuff are completed and I get my uniform. I’d rather stay here till then. There aren’t any ships at Loxwood.”

“The seventeenth?” The exhibition was to open on the ninth of July—if the exhibition was still to be held. Without Kolya’s—the
prince’s—
support
Mr. Lay might be unwilling to
proceed, Polly thought dismally. All her plans and hopes were crumbling around her.

“You don’t sound very happy,” said Nick dubiously.

Polly tried to smile. “Indeed I am very glad, though we shall all miss you horribly. I’m a little tired, I think.”

“Better come home and have some tea,” he advised, helping her to her feet. “That will make you feel better.”

She kissed his cheek before he could duck. “You sound just like Mama. Tea, the sovereign remedy.”

“Actually, I was thinking of sandwiches and cakes, not tea to drink. Lady Sylvia has a bang-up cook.”

Lady Sylvia’s bang-up cook, having grown accustomed to Master Nicholas’s insatiable appetite, provided a gargantuan spread at tea-time. The drawing room being no place for this feast, Nick and the girls would guzzle to their stomachs’ content in the dining room, while her ladyship and Polly contented themselves with delicate porcelain cups of tea in ladylike seclusion.

On fine days the ladies repaired to the terrace, and Polly found Lady Sylvia there. They sat and sipped in mournful silence for several minutes.

A blackbird’s warble drew forth a heavy sigh from Lady Sylvia. “I fear my megrims are affecting you,” she apologized. “I had hoped rather to catch your cheerfulness.”

Polly echoed her sigh. “I was thinking of your words last night.”

“I do not recall saying anything to
make you unhappy,” she said anxiously.

“On the contrary. You gave your opinion that the gulf between Mr. Volkov and myself was not impassable. Today I learned that far from being a private gentleman, he is a prince.”

“A prince?” gasped Lady Sylvia. “You are roasting me.”

“No, it’s true. I’m not roasting you but he has been deceiving me—all of us—all these months. He is the eldest son of one of the tsar’s ministers.”

“How did you find out?”

“I must suppose that the Duke of Stafford told the king, asking him at the prince’s request to keep his true identity secret; the king let it slip to Lady Conyngham and she, whether from spite or simple lack of discretion I cannot guess, told me. How he must have laughed in his sleeve to see us accepting his friendship as sincere!”

“You do not think…”

“He cannot have meant it. A prince does not choose his intimates among such simple country people as we. I am ashamed of the way we tried to lay claim to gentility.” Unable to sit still, Polly jumped up and went to lean against the balustrade, staring out blindly over the garden.

“But you
are
gentlefolk,” Lady Sylvia insisted.

“Not I.” She laughed bitterly. “Gently bred young ladies do not take up oil painting and sell their work, nor do gentlemen...Forgive me, I did not mean to burden you with my humiliation. I must go and paint the Pavilion while the light lasts.”

Her forehead wrinkled, Lady Sylvia watched her go, realizing she had been going to say that gentlemen do not earn a living overseeing other men’s estates. Mr. Volkov—the prince—had talked of becoming a land agent. Polly must believe that was simply more deception on his part.

She was so sure that her birth made her unworthy of him. Did her brother see life from the same perspective? Lady Sylvia wondered if Ned thought friendship with her as impossible as Polly thought it with the prince. If so, he must have considered her offer of a job as an unsubtle reminder of his inferiority. How stupid, how insulting she had been!

She had not meant it so. She wanted him for a friend, an adviser, a...No! That she dared not admit even to herself. She went in to see what her daughters were up to.

Polly did not return for dinner.

“It’s not like my sister to miss a meal,” Nick observed.

“She was distressed. I expect she lost her appetite.”

“I thought she was not quite her usual self. Do you know what is wrong, ma’am?”

Lady Sylvia explained about the unmasking of Kolya Volkov.

“A real prince?” said Nick. “That’s famous! Girls do get upset about peculiar things.” He proceeded to plough through a huge meal as if he had not devoured a substantial tea a few hours since.

However, by the time he was satisfied the sun had set
and even Nick was beginning to be concerned.

“I know it will be light for an hour yet,”
he said, “but I think I ought to go and see where she’s got to, don’t you, ma’am?”

“Oh yes, please do, Nick,” said Lady Sylvia, relieved. “She said she was going to paint the Pavilion.”

“Right you are. I’ll bring her home safe and sound, never fear.” He went off whistling.

Chapter 15

Polly’s gaze was fixed unseeingly on the Pavilion. For the first time in her life, she found it difficult to concentrate on her work. The thought of Kolya’s deception nagged at her. She could not believe she had actually let herself dream of the possibility of being his wife.