Rebel Princess (22 page)

Catherine, the atheist disciple of Montesquieu and Voltaire, was painted as the guardian of orthodox religion, the generous-hearted, hot-blooded patroness of soldiers, whose only longing was to drown the German King and his forces in a sea of their own blood.

Of Paul Petrovitch a good deal less was said. He was the prop upon which the legitimists could hang the crown if they wished; but the true focus point for discontent became his mother, the Grand Duchess.

While Gregory and his brothers formed the core of revolt within the military, Princess Dashkov's observations about Nikita Panin bore rewarding fruit.

The ailing Elizabeth received a humble request from Catherine that she might see her little son, and the Empress was too sick and low-spirited to refuse.

The Grand Duchess could expect a visit from the boy and his tutor the following afternoon.

Catherine dressed carefully for that interview, and her rôle was one of maternal dignity and solicitude. No hint of the flamboyance which had enslaved Gregory in the hours of their intimacy must mar the impression she wished to make upon the worthy Panin.

The Count was a man in middle years, and over-indulgence at table had clothed his face and body in a cocoon of fat. Like many obese people, he moved lightly with almost catlike grace, and his sharp, small green eyes appraised his hostess with inward admiration.

She looked charming in her white wrapper, youthful yet serious, and at first glance one might find the tales of her promiscuity difficult to believe.

But Panin was not concerned with Catherine's virtue and his nature rendered him safe from her sensuous appeal. From previous formal contact with her, he had formed a particular opinion of her character and talents, and a great deal depended upon whether this private interview would strengthen or dispel the illusions which he cherished concerning her.

He stood back and waited while Catherine went forward to embrace her son.

The little Grand Duke Paul regarded his mother with suspicious eyes; this tall handsome woman was to all intents and purposes a stranger to him, though her name was among those automatically included in his nightly prayers.

She was his mother but he did not know her; she had never held him on her knee or carried him in her arms, her lips had never bestowed one kiss upon him and, as she advanced towards him, he shrank from her.

Where was his adored “mother Elizabeth,” she who had nursed and cared for him since birth? For a moment he stiffened as his mother put her arms around him and touched his small cheek with her mouth; mercifully the embrace was short, and Catherine straightened up, one hand placed on his head in a gesture of maternal affection which she was far from feeling.

Her glimpses of the child had been rare and her memory of him vague; now in the privacy of her own drawing-room she looked at him, and a spasm of superstitious horror enveloped her.

With her eyes on the boy, Catherine wondered what hideous irony of fate had bestowed fair hair upon Saltykov's son; the child of lovers whose coloring was dark as night was blond-headed and milky-skinned, his pale blue eyes were prominent and his small, weakling body and truculent expression bore a stamp of impossible familiarity.

Paul Petrovitch resembled neither of his parents.

Some frightful trick of fate had fashioned him in the image of the Grand Duke Peter. Only Catherine's iron self-control kept her hand on his head and forced a smile to her stiff lips. Angrily she shook off the superstition that had overwhelmed her, and the thought raced through her mind that the boy was some changeling, a bastard of Peter's whom Elizabeth had substituted for her son—any explanation rather than the fact that it was possible for Peter Feodorovitch to be reproduced in the person of a child he had never fathered.

Count Panin watched her closely and, aware of his scrutiny, the Grand Duchess turned to him and bade him sit down; then her strong fingers caught the child's hand and drew him to a sofa.

The little Grand Duke climbed up on to the brocade seat and sat stiffly, regarding his buckled shoes and wishing that his mother would release him. Decidedly, he did not like her.

Catherine smiled at the Count in her most charming manner.

“My son is indeed a credit to your care, my dear Count Panin,” she said. “It is a great comfort to me to know that he is in your charge while the Empress is ill.”

“I am most grateful to you, Highness. I find him an admirable child; obedient, intelligent and good natured. Well fitted for his future destiny,” the tutor answered, and his little eyes glinted at the Grand Duchess.

If he had indeed made an overt gesture by that remark, Catherine intended to probe his meaning further. She looked down at the boy, whose small hand was still clasped unwillingly in hers, and sighed audibly.

“There are times, Count, when my Paul's destiny seems unhappily obscure. Dearly as I love him, I fear that my husband is somewhat lacking in paternal feeling.…”

Panin eased himself back in the fragile gilt chair and crossed one plump leg over the other. He had been right in his supposition after all; Catherine and he had one idea in common. He knew of Elizabeth's plans for Paul; she had told him of them herself, and he approved with all his heart. The more his shrewd eyes saw of the Grand Duke, the less he wished to see him mount the throne as Czar.

Now he must sound the feelings of the indomitable mother of the little Czarevitch, the smiling, gracious Catherine who had played a sinister waiting game for all these years.

She must be Regent; the Empress had so named her, and Nikita Panin could think of no man better fitted to assist her ministry during Paul's minority than himself.

“It is unfortunate that the Grand Duke has such little liking for his son. It is a great grief to Her Imperial Majesty; she fears for his safety when her nephew becomes Czar.…”

Catherine released the boy and turned right round to face the speaker. The pretense was wearing thin between them, and she decided upon a bold move.

“As a mother, Count, my love for my child transcends even my duty to my husband; I would that neither he nor Russia should fall under the absolute dominion of the Grand Duke!”

Panin lowered his eyes, wondering whether to speak of Elizabeth's intentions then or hold his hand until another day; it was almost certain that Catherine knew of them, and if she did, then she would doubtless mention the matter herself.

“There are many, Madame, whose esteem of yourself and loyalty to your son incline them to a similar view.…”

Catherine rose to end the interview and the boy jumped down and ran to his tutor, eager to escape. Panin raised Catherine's hand to his lips and bowed as deeply as his bulk would allow.

“I hope that Your Highness will honor me with a further audience; we might discuss the most suitable subjects for the education of the future Czar.”

The Grand Duchess's smile did not quite extend to her eyes, but her response was perfect.

“By all means; attend upon me as soon as you wish, my dear Count. And perhaps you would accord me a little favor?” The tutor nodded blandly, his instincts sharp with suspicion.

“I must not correspond with prisoners, you understand. But if you should send a message to the former Chancellor Bestujev, remind him that Catherine Alexeievna will always be his friend.…”

As the Count led his charge back to the suite adjoining Elizabeth's, he remarked to himself that the Grand Duchess evidently did not forget her friends when disaster overtook them. She had not forgotten Bestujev in his disgrace, and those words were a clear promise that she would secure his release at the first opportunity.

If Elizabeth Petrovna's will was enforced, as Panin and others intended it should be when the hour arrived, then the old Chancellor would return to Petersburg. It behoved Panin to become quite indispensable to the future Regent in the meantime.

Alone in her room, Catherine walked to the window and stood staring absently out on to the view of trees and lawns, meticulously laid out and threaded by narrow ribbons of pathway, flanked by the broad shining waters of the Neva; down below small figures moved like toys, court ladies taking an afternoon walk; a platoon of uniformed guards marched under her window and disappeared into the palace; all about her the life of St. Petersburg went on, heedless of the growing drama which was unfolding day by day in its midst.

Whatever the Empress's will, she had never meant to keep to it for more than a few short months. Let Elizabeth depose her nephew in favor of the boy Paul; let Catherine assume the mantle of temporary authority which she could declare had been thrust upon her as a duty; let Nikita Panin believe her willing and eager for this compromise; once Peter was gone without the tumult of revolution, Orlov and she would know how to deal with her small son and his faction.

But the Dashkova had been mistaken about Panin; he was no friend to Catherine, but the emissary of a third party which had grown up secretly at court; the patriots who wished to see Paul Petrovitch ascend the throne. They needed the Grand Duchess for the completion of their scheme, and she in turn needed them for the furtherance of hers.

She and Orlov would welcome Panin and his unprepossessing little charge into their conspiracy, and Catherine smiled grimly at the thought.

Catherine looked down through the window. This city, dominated by its vast palace, the teeming populace which had won her heart and wrung it with pity for the poverty and the burden of slavery which oppressed it, all the vast dusty plains of Russia, parched with heat in summer, frozen and limitless in their mantles of winter snow, the savagery and barbarism, the humility and magnificence of Holy Russia, one day it would all be hers.

Hers by right of conquest and by the right of love; for she loved it as Peter Feodorovitch hated and feared it. They had become her people, mixed of race and strange of custom, antithesis of the bleak, ordered Germans who had left her young imagination uninspired.

The dying Empress, enslaved by her own distorted passions and unhealthy fears of hell and punishment, the Grand Duke, his feeble brain tottering under the weight of suspicions and excesses which his mistress had not the sense to discourage smooth-tongued Panin, with his straining paunch and cunning eyes—she, Catherine, was a match for them all.…

Suddenly the colorful pattern of the gardens beneath her window became blurred. She caught at the wall to steady herself as the whole scene shifted and began to recede; the ground seemed to melt under her shaking legs, perspiration broke out over her face and a wave of sickness preceded the blackness which enveloped her as she fell.

Vladyslava found her lying unconscious on the floor by the window, and the waiting-woman revived her where she lay.

Catherine came to her senses slowly, and for a moment her eyes followed the other woman in her ministrations with a curiously frightened look. Cushions had been piled under her head and her dress had been opened to facilitate her breathing.

Vladyslava smiled at her and held a cup of water to her lips. Catherine frowned, fighting off nausea, trying with all her strength to deny the horrible suspicion which was fast taking possession of her. Vladyslava destroyed her last illusion when she spoke.

“Forgive me for not putting you to bed, Highness, but when I found that you had fainted I thought it wiser not to call for help. You will be well enough in a moment. 'Twas sickness, was it not?” Her mistress nodded.

“Then it is as I thought. Better for you that none should know just yet and go tattling round the court. Come now, Madame, raise yourself and lie upon your bed. I remember that it was like this with you before, when you carried the little Grand Duke Paul.…”

Catherine lay on the big canopied bed and wept with helpless fury.

This then was nature's price for the passionate ecstacy which Gregory had given her within the darkness of these same brocaded curtains and upon the softness of this mattress.

On the eve of the most decisive period in her life, she was pregnant.

For the first few months the Grand Duchess became something of a recluse; she pleaded poor health openly and spent hours lying on her couch or driving slowly in her carriage. The gossips would have soon remarked upon her pallor and listlessness, and the cause would have been guessed immediately, but Catherine forestalled them. She declared herself ill and the declaration was accepted without interest.

Vladyslava alone witnessed the convulsions of sickness which racked her and observed the signs of advancing pregnancy in her body. Her ladies never saw her undressed and her thickening contours were perfectly concealed by the swaying hoops and voluminous skirts which fashion had made a godsend to the preservation of feminine secrets such as hers.

The Grand Duke rejoiced at the decline in his wife's health; the Dashkova, kept in judicious ignorance of the truth, mourned and redoubled her attentions to her friend; and Panin took advantage of the period to have many discreet conversations with the Grand Duchess. His vision of himself as chief minister during the Regency grew clearer with every visit, and before long he was able to present Catherine with a list of court nobles and officials who would support her son's claim against Peter.

The Grand Duchess thanked him warmly and added the names of those already compiled by Princess Dashkov.

The princess was proving an invaluable ally; she had made many friends among the serious-minded and her infatuation for the Grand Duchess began to spread to her intimates. Catherine's explanation of Panin's plan had caused her to stamp with rage.

Why waste time with a six-year-old boy when the true ruler of Russia, ordained by God and born for the task, was at hand in the person of his mother?

But the Dashkova was a child of the great world; at eighteen she was well schooled in intrigue and her shrewd scholar's mind had been trained to dissemble as well as to reason; she saw and agreed with her beloved friend's attitude towards Count Panin and, with a ruthlessness almost the equal of Catherine's own, prepared to use him before the time came to enlighten him as to the end for which he had really been working.