Rebel Princess (18 page)

But as she followed in the wake of Elizabeth's page, conscious that the sentry who guarded her rooms had left his post and fallen in behind her, Catherine Alexeievna repeated two phrases over and over under her breath:

“Have courage. I have burned everything.
”

One of the lackeys had dropped a screw of paper into her lap while she sat at supper, trying to eat, and those few words scrawled in a well-known hand had sent her sinking spirits high. From his dungeon Bestujev had contrived to get that message to her, knowing that her own turn had come, and it answered one persistent, torturing question that had burned into her brain in the last days.

They had no real proof of treason. She had taken money, yes, but not even Elizabeth could kill her for that; and there were letters to General Apraxin, but they were coded and read harmlessly enough. What other charges would be brought against her, what proof had been laid before Elizabeth?

The page stood back at the portals of Elizabeth's suite and watched the Grand Duchess walk past him firmly, dry-eyed and composed despite her pallor. No one would have guessed that her heart was thudding with terror as the great gilded doors of the imperial bedchamber were swung open and the dim, forbidding figure of the Empress regarded her silently from within.

Elizabeth Petrovna had but lately recovered from her last illness, but she was fully dressed. The room was shadowy, for the Empress declared that too much light hurt her eyes, and the scene was illumined by only two candelabra.

Their glow dealt kindly with Elizabeth, softening the harsh lines of sickness and the hollows graven in her painted face; she looked almost young and for a moment it seemed to Catherine that she curtsied before a ghost, a phantom of the Empress who had received her so affectionately nearly twenty years before. Behind her stood Ivan Shuvalov, his handsome face in shadow, one hand resting on the back of his royal mistress's chair. The Grand Duchess knew that she might expect no mercy from him, and her eyes lingered for an instant upon the other smaller figure who leaned against the Empress's gilt dressing-table.

So Peter was to be among her judges. Catherine knew then that she had underestimated the forces to be aligned against her; his hatred had always been an asset to her enemies, but she had not expected to find it expressed openly; his presence in that room betokened only one thing.

The conclusion was in no doubt; her fate had already been decided and Peter was there to witness the sentence. One lightning glance at the faces of Elizabeth and her favorite, hard, expressionless masks in the flickering candle-light, gave her a sudden inspiration.

They wore a pretence of impartiality, but Peter's ugly mouth was curved in a spiteful, triumphant grin.

She knelt at their feet in the role of wrongdoer, hoping for mercy in spite of her crimes, and they waited with the practiced cruelty of inquisitors for the victim to begin to plead for it.

Catherine continued to kneel, but she raised her head and stared at the Empress with fearless eyes.

“I come to Your Majesty with a request,” she said suddenly. For a moment the muscles of Elizabeth's face twitched in surprise; the tone and phrasing of Catherine's first words were not what she had expected.

“You request, you dare to speak of a request …?” The Empress hesitated.

“I crave Your Majesty's forgiveness and beg that you will not think me ungrateful or hasty in what I am about to ask. On my knees, I beg you to have pity on my unhappy state and to send me home.”

Ivan Shuvalov made an almost imperceptible movement and the Empress stiffened.

“You ask me to send you back to Germany? Can I believe my ears? What devilish impudence is this, or are you unaware why I have sent for you?”

Catherine shook her head slowly.

“I only know that once again I am in your disfavor, and God above is witness that I have done nothing to deserve it! I find a sentry at my door, my rooms deserted, and rumors of my disgrace in every corner of the palace. I have neither slept nor eaten, and once Your Majesty has told me what my fault is supposed to be, then I pray you to return me to my family or I shall surely die of sadness and ill-treatment!”

It was the most insolent, astounding statement that had ever been delivered to Elizabeth in her life, and for a moment bewilderment and rage robbed her of speech. The accused was becoming the accuser; this woman, whose guilt had been drummed day and night into her tired ears by Shuvalov and Peter, knelt there with the air of a victim demanding restitution.

She was surely either mad or innocent.

“You ask what faults are charged against you?”

With relief the Empress heard her lover's voice taking up the interrogation.

“With Her Majesty's permission, I will acquaint you with them.…” He bent down and picked up a packet of papers which had been hidden in Elizabeth's gold wash-basin.

“These letters were found among the private correspondence of General Apraxin, who commands our forces on the Prussian front. Do you deny that you wrote them?”

Catherine glanced at them and held out her hand with an imperious gesture. “Until I have examined them myself, I cannot say whether they are mine or not!”

Despite himself Shuvalov reddened with anger. Would nothing daunt this insolent creature, who spoke to him as if he were little better than a lackey.

After a short scrutiny, Catherine returned the packet to him and addressed the Empress.

“Those are my letters, but surely Your Majesty is not displeased with the sentiments expressed in them?” Formal exhortations to bring glory to Russia and his sovereign by routing the Prussians were all that could be read into those epistles, except by one who knew the code message her words concealed.

Elizabeth scowled. “You know it is forbidden to write letters upon any matter of policy in peace or war! How dared you disobey by penning your damned scribblings to my General!”

Catherine bowed her head and bit her lip in contrition. “I was indeed wrong, but enthusiasm led me into error.… I beg you to forgive me.”

Shuvalov threw the letters onto the Empress's dressing-table, and cut in quickly before the growing sense of anticlimax had time to dawn on Elizabeth.

“Do you deny that you intrigued with the former Chancellor Bestujev against the Empress? His guilt has been proved, and he was your close friend and confidant. Admit that you knew of his attempts to delay the dispatch of imperial troops to Prussia! Admit that he is devoted to you and obeys you rather than his Czarina!”

Oh, no, my clever Shuvalov! Catherine thought to herself. I am not such a fool as to send Bestujev to the scaffold for you, and be convicted of complicity out of my own mouth at the same time.…

“The Chancellor was my sternest critic and indeed my enemy for many years. He merely relaxed his attitude towards me of late, that is all. I know nothing of any treason or disobedience to Her Majesty, and had I done so I should have revealed it at once!”

“Bestujev, too, is obstinate,” remarked Elizabeth grimly. “As he persists in lying, I shall have him tortured. Then we will see what he will say; perhaps it would be as well if you were present, Madame, to remind him of the truth.…”

Only the throbbing of a small vein in her neck betrayed the sickness and horror that enveloped the Grand Duchess at this awful threat. Torture was Elizabeth's favorite method of extracting information which she wished to hear; witnessing it had become quite a court pastime.

God help Bestujev; God pity his withered body and frail bones.

“By all means torture him, but if he says I knew of any treason towards Your Majesty, much less committed it, then I swear to you that he will be lying to put an end to his pain!”

Elizabeth stared down at her through narrowed, doubting eyes, and Catherine returned her look, fairly and without a hint of the fear she really felt.

“You speak honest words,” the Empress muttered. “And you show the fortitude of innocence.…”

“Or the cunning of the Devil!”

It was Peter who had spoken, unable to hold his tongue a moment longer, while his victim gave every sign of wriggling out of the trap he had set for her.

“Be silent, curse you! Who told you to speak!” shouted the Empress suddenly, and Ivan Shuvalov laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. Trust that spiteful imbecile to interrupt at the wrong moment and irritate Elizabeth.… But the damage was done; Peter's precarious nervous balance fell to pieces under the strain of watching Catherine parry her questioners so skillfully and, without waiting any longer, he launched into his own personal attack upon her.

He advanced round Elizabeth's chair and pointed accusingly at his wife; his features were contorted with hate and his shrill voice echoed through the huge room.

“She lies!” he yelled. “She is guilty to her soul of every charge. Put her to the torture, never mind Bestujev! Tear the truth out of her, let her wriggle on the rack instead of in bed with her Pole!”

“I have warned you, Peter, hold your tongue,” panted Elizabeth, striving for self-control. What a little monster he was, this nephew, shouting and twitching like a maniac, who would one day inherit her throne.

“She kneels there, the hypocrite and harlot, deceiving you and acting the innocent! She begs to go home does she? Then I beg a favor too. She has a complaint to make has she? Well I have one to lay before you! My wife is an adulteress! She soils my marriage bed with a filthy Polish creature named Poniatowsky; he has been sleeping with her for nearly two years, coming up the servants' stairs to her room every night.

“The whole court knows of it, and I demand that she be divorced and punished! She is a strumpet who makes no secret of her shame and my dishonor. And Poniatowsky is not the first—there was a certain Serge Saltykov …”

Elizabeth sprang from her chair and turned on him like a tigress.

“Not another word! Damn your lying soul to all eternity! What slanders would you cast in the name of spite?…”

Serge Saltykov, father of little Paul. Peter had been about to repudiate the child and name it bastard!

The Empress's breast heaved with fury and alarm, and all her deep-buried hatred of her nephew boiled up and overflowed. He accused Catherine of infidelity, he, the pockmarked, ill-shaped oaf.…

“I repudiate her,” he shouted. “She is no wife to me; let her be divorced and shut her up where she can do no harm!”

Catherine watched him fascinated, while hope and thanksgiving rose in her heart. What protecting star had put it into his mouth to mention Serge, thus touching the Empress on her most vulnerable spot?

The more he screamed and demanded, the angrier his aunt became, and with one of those intuitive flashes that had saved her from so many dangers, Catherine Alexeievna caught at Elizabeth's silken skirt for protection.

“So you would divorce Catherine, eh?” snarled Elizabeth, supporting herself on the edge of the dressing-table.

“And who would you put in her place? That pit-faced slut Vorontzova, who couldn't sit gracefully in a cowshed, much less on my mother's throne? Ah, you cunning, impudent dog, I know you, I read your black heart! This is the wife I chose for you, and your wife she remains until I decide otherwise. Chancellor Vorontzov! Come here!”

There was a rustling movement and the figure of Elizabeth Vorontzov's uncle stepped from behind the tall painted screen where he had been taking notes of the interview.

“Tell your niece that she can abandon her hopes of becoming Grand Duchess for as long as I live at any rate! Now go!”

The new Chancellor bowed in silence and left the room.

Peter watched him leave, and as the doors closed behind him, he stared down at Catherine, knowing in mingled rage and fear that once again the victory was hers.

His most cherished opportunity had come to nothing, his wife knelt there, clinging to the Empress's skirts while Elizabeth glared balefully at him, the husband and accuser.

Ivan Shuvalov met his wild glance and looked away hurriedly. Peter had torn down the last shreds of the net which they had drawn so carefully about Catherine and brought Elizabeth's wrath upon himself; the favorite cursed him mentally and edged away from him.

The failure had best lie on Peter's head where it belonged, and he, Shuvalov, must set about righting himself with the Grand Duchess.

The Empress stared from one to the other, and suddenly her plump fist descended with a crash among the glass and toilet articles on the table.

“Get out, both of you! Leave me!”

Catherine watched them go, Ivan Shuvalov, the ambitious would-be diplomat who had just learned the hard lesson of a man who discovers that he knows far less about his mistress than he thought, and the Grand Duke, his large head sunk in despair, shambling back to face the disappointed Vorontzova.

As soon as they were alone, she raised Elizabeth's hand to her lips and kissed it; at the same time, deciding that the time for self-control was past, she burst into a flood of tears.

The Empress sat down wearily, her swollen legs ached and her head throbbed as it always did when she lost her temper or became excited. She leaned back and said nothing while Catherine wept helplessly at her feet.

What had become of the charges that had been leveled against her only an hour or more previously? Those terrible words, treason and adultery, had been cried out in impeachment; had they been answered? Somehow Elizabeth believed they had, how else could Catherine kneel there crying with relief? She was innocent, and the Empress was suddenly aware that she had never really wished her to be otherwise.

The shadow of death was on Elizabeth Petrovna, a thousand ghostly voices cried for justice, her countless lovers paraded before her conscience's eye, reminding her of the terrible sins of the flesh she had committed. Ivan, whose crown she had taken, still lived on in his prison, a breathing monument to her cruelty, a menace to the safety of the little Grand Duke Paul and the throne she intended him to occupy one day.