Polonaise (41 page)

‘Not much of one,' he told her. ‘My brother's wife is dying, Miss Peverel. He'll marry again as soon as she does, get himself an heir. I find myself, all of a sudden, a man quite without expectations.' What in the world had made him tell her that?

‘I see.' She took it in. ‘I am so very sorry.'

‘Don't be. I don't like myself very much just now, but at least I am my own man, for what that is worth. I had thought of going into business, maybe with Jan Warrington. Why should I blench at dwindling into a tutor? And one with such interesting prospects.' His tone was savage.

‘One must live, Mr. Rendel.'

Something in her tone caught him up short. ‘Forgive me! Now I really am ashamed. You've gone through it all, have you not?' He was remembering the first time they had met, when she had found herself marooned in the stable yard, butt of Cossacks and servants, and how gallantly she had borne it.

‘And still am.' She raised suddenly brilliant eyes to his. ‘So – I'll give you a word of advice, Mr. Rendel. Name your terms to the Princess. A house, independence, a salary … You'd best consult with Miriam and Mr. Warrington about that. But – get it in writing, signed and witnessed.'

‘You mean –' This was an entirely new thought to him. ‘You?'

‘I have been here eight years, Mr. Rendel, and these are my total earnings so far.' Her hand touched the necklace she wore.
‘Be warned by me. And for God's sake, don't speak of it!'

‘Monstrous! No – of course I won't. And, Miss Peverel, nor you of what has happened to me. Shameful enough to have thought of dead men's shoes … to have imagined myself Lord Ringmer. It's done me good to tell you, but you're the only one. May it remain like that?' How easy she was to talk to. What an admirable listener.

‘It most surely will. I was going to advise it. I'll never understand the Poles. At least I've reached the point of knowing that! But, I do think it might make some difference, not perhaps to Casimir, but to the little devils his schoolmates.'

‘Little devils? Strong words, Miss Peverel.'

‘Wait till you meet them.'

They were little devils. They were proud and ignorant, and proud of their ignorance. Each one of them had grown up a small tyrant, monarch of all he surveyed, subject only to the authority of his father. The idea of cooperation, of working together towards a common goal was totally alien to them. Force was the only argument they recognised, so force it had to be. Glynde learned more about Poland and its problems in the next few months than he had in all the time he had spent before at the Princess's court, and in all the reading and thinking he had done about Poland since.

Casimir would have been the worst of all – because of having had no father – if he had not had Jenny. You could reason with Casimir, and if you interested him, he would listen. And he was passionate about Poland. Tell him of hope for Poland, and he would listen almost for ever. The problem was to hold the balance steady. French domination was visible all around them: in the taxes paid to support the occupying army, in men marched away to join it, mourned as gone for ever by their families. The Duchy of Warsaw, bankrupted by war and occupation, was paying its debts in men for Napoleon's army, now more and more deeply engaged in the Spanish peninsula. There might be glory to be found with the French armies, but there was also death, and with the man of the family gone, the family starved. Dead soldiers pay no pensions.

Casimir, in and out of peasant houses at Rendomierz, was very much aware of this. But then, there were peasant families,
too, who had lost breadwinners to the Russian armies generations back, or, more recently, at the massacre of Praga, or when French and Russians clashed along the Vistula. Hatred of the Russians was ancestral, engrained; hatred of the French was comparatively new, just being learned, hardly yet recognised because they were providing glory, too.

‘The trouble is –' As so often, Glynde had taken his problem for discussion with Jenny Peverel. ‘I can't get them to think as Poles. They are either against the French, or against the Russians. Their only union lies in hatred. It just depends where they are from, who they hate.'

‘And Casimir?'

‘Ah, he's different, thanks largely to you. I have great hopes of him.' Of course Casimir was different. His son! How strange it all was, and how frustrating that he could not possibly tell Jenny about Casimir's democratic heritage.

While he fought his first battles with the little boys, the weather was growing perceptibly milder. The thaw would come soon, and anyone who wished to travel, must do so. Miriam and Jan only stayed three days, and he was glad to see them go. He had still told no one about the Polish émigré he had quietly visited for language lessons in Brighton, letting them all assume that he was as ignorant of Polish as he had been on his first arrival eight years before. He had felt guilty at first at letting Jan go on interpreting for him, but when they had reached Vinsk, the deception had paid off handsomely. In French and Russian, Jan and Miriam were good friends and trading partners; in the few phrases of Polish they allowed themselves, they were obviously lovers. It had been anxiety, not accident, that had kept him restless on the night of the attack in the forest, but it had been lucky for them all.

His intention, on reaching Rendomierz, had been to warn the Princess at once. But nothing had been as he expected. It had gone horribly against the grain with him to follow Jenny's advice and ask for a firm contract from the Princess. But her reaction, when he did so, had been illuminating.

‘A contract! Between friends?' She had not tried to conceal her anger. ‘I thought you my friend, Mr. Rendel.'

‘I thought more than that of you, Highness.' If she wished to take this as a threat, she was welcome to do so. ‘But if I have dwindled into your son's tutor, the labourer must be seen to be worthy of his hire. I'll get no respect from that bunch of rapscallions you choose to call your school unless they see me in an assured position; gentleman among gentlefolk. I need an estate from you, preferably one so close to Rendomierz that I can run my school in my own grounds. This arrangement of yours, with the boys living luxuriously in different houses, and all the rivalries it gives rise to, has been a disaster from the start. I had a word with Wysocki this morning. He tells me there is a small house and a big barn down closer to the Renn; just the other side of the pleasure gardens. It belonged to Marta, he tells me, she gave it up when she went into her convent. What could be more suitable? I'll live in the house, the boys can play at being Spartans in the barn; we will be out of your way, but happy to pay our respects to our Foundress and Commander when she so desires.'

‘You've got it all worked out, then, you and my steward between you?' She was hesitating between surprise, amusement and fury.

‘Why, yes, Highness. I thought best to lose no time, since if you are really going to Paris with Madame Potocka, you will want to take advantage of the frozen roads as far as Warsaw. If I am to do any good here, I must have my position secure before you go. And you will doubtless wish to be able to make a favourable report to our mutual friend whose ingenious idea the whole thing was.' He was almost tempted to tell her of his relationship with Talleyrand, but that would be the act of a coward. And anyway, the reminder that he was in a sense Talleyrand's man should be enough.

‘Paris?' she said thoughtfully. ‘I doubt I could get there in time for the Emperor's wedding, but the celebrations should prove interesting. And there is quite a Polish colony there, by what I hear from Anna Potocka. Send for Wysocki, Mr. Rendel. We had better finish what you two have taken upon yourselves to start.'

‘I do congratulate you.' Jenny had been amazed and delighted to see an army of serfs set to work in the barn. ‘It will be much
better than what we had here; I'm only sad you'll be so far away.'

‘But, Miss Peverel, you are coming too! You cannot imagine I have any idea of doing without you. You are to have a suite of apartments on the ground floor of the barn, with a room for Marylka. My idea is that the two of you will be absolutely responsible for the boys' physical well-being, while I try to knock some sense into them!'

‘And the Princess has agreed to this too?'

‘With enthusiasm. So –' he held out his hand ‘– is it agreed? You and Marylka will temper the monastic simplicity I plan for my boys?'

‘Representing the gentler sex? A grave responsibility.' She put her strong little hand in his. ‘Gladly, Mr. Rendel. And the Princess?'

‘Goes to Paris, or so I devoutly hope.' It surprised him to hear himself say it.

‘Stay a little longer, Jan.' Naked in his arms, the first night at Vinsk, Miriam put up a loving hand to touch his cheek. ‘I've missed you so, all these nights we've been apart.'

‘And I you! To be so near, and unable to touch you!' They had made love passionately at first, then more gently, now were comfortable together in the friendly aftermath. ‘But it went well, don't you think?'

‘Better than I could have imagined possible. I never thought he'd do it, did you?'

‘He must have been having things harder than I knew in England. Do you know, I actually found myself feeling sorry for him.' He kissed her, laughing. ‘How surprised he would have been, if I'd told him I was expecting him when he turned up on my doorstep in Petersburg! Or, before that, when I got him into Talleyrand's clutches at Tilsit. Ignorant, innocent Jan, the simple American, outsmarting him all the way! He, the great British aristocrat, friend of Ambassadors, so good to the poor American. Watching my tongue for me! And now he's head tutor of a boys' school in the depths of Poland. Not at all what he expected!'

‘He took it admirably.'

‘Yes, didn't he! I felt a brute, when the Princess sprang it
on him like that. I suppose that's the other side of the aristocratic coin. They do have good behaviour drilled into them.'

‘Which he will do to Casimir.'

‘Yes. He'll make a Prince of him. And a man.'

‘A great gentleman, like himself.'

‘In a moment, my love, you are going to make me jealous.' He pulled her to him, laughing.

For a man with a broken heart and hopes destroyed, Glynde found himself remarkably busy and cheerful. The Princess had given him
carte blanche
before she took the long road for Warsaw and Paris, and work on the new school-building went on apace. He had moved into the manor house, known for no good reason as the cottage, as soon as the Princess made it over to him, so he was on hand to direct the alterations to the barn that was to be his school. On Jenny's advice, he had asked for Lech as his servant, and was amazed to find himself, all of a sudden, master of a thriving household, where his every wish was law.

He still had one overriding anxiety. There had been no message from Talleyrand, and so he had no means of communicating with him. The instructions he had received in England had been precise. He was to get himself to Rendomierz, arrange his own channel to Petersburg, and then wait for Talleyrand to supply the westward link in the chain. Then – as Talleyrand's man had told him – ‘accidentally' met on Brighton beach, where the sea would mask their voices, Talleyrand would have his line of communications clear, all the way from Paris to Petersburg.

He had his eastward link, by way of Miriam and Jan, but had no idea to what extent he could trust them. He had been almost tempted, before they left, to admit his knowledge of Polish, challenge them to explain their relationship, but what he thought were wiser counsels had prevailed. But he desperately needed to let Talleyrand know of this new hazard. Which brought him up sharp against another problem. How far could he trust this unknown father of his? The short answer was: not at all. Urging him to accept the Princess's amazing invitation, Talleyrand's man had said nothing about the reason for it. He had been left to make his idiotic mistake, to risk his life, a
modern Quixote, all across Europe to a Dulcinea who merely wanted him to run a school. The fact that he was enjoying this enormously was neither here nor there. He had been shamelessly used, and would not forget it.

It was the little boys who brought the first news that something had happened in the forest somewhere between Rendomierz and Warsaw. ‘They don't much like to talk of it in the village,' Casimir told Glynde, ‘but there are men missing. They can't hide that. Mama will be angry when she hears. We're short-handed enough as it is after that last draft went for soldiers. I don't know how we're going to get in the harvest.'

‘We'll all have to help.' Glynde was both touched and impressed by Casimir's small assumption of authority. ‘I shall declare a school holiday. But – you mean there has been fighting in the forest?'

‘And no one will speak of it. Can I tell the boys about the holiday, Mr. Rendel?' He was eager to be away; fighting in the forest was nothing new to him.

‘Yes, of course.' Left alone, Glynde thought for a while, then went out to the stables, where he could be sure of finding Lech at this time of day. ‘Saddle two horses,' he told him. ‘There's something I need to look at.'

‘Yes, Pan Rendel.' A look of total comprehension on Lech's calm face.

They started out with Glynde in the lead, but as soon as they were safe into the dark of the forest he slowed to let Lech come up beside him. ‘Now, what's this about fighting in the forest?'

‘I was hoping for a chance to tell you. Trust the little Prince to know what is going on!' He looked about him nervously, as if the trees might have ears. ‘It's the Brotherhood. There's been dissension among them for a long time. There was a meeting, between here and Warsaw, at a hunting lodge. It came to blows, to deaths. I'm glad to say that the Poles won.'

‘The Poles? The Brotherhood? What are you talking about, Lech?'