Rebel Princess (32 page)

The occasion was to blame for all these unsatisfactory musings. Years ago Panin and others had intrigued for her son Paul, and it was this night, when she prepared for the banquet to celebrate his wedding, that called the past so vividly to her mind.

Paul Petrovitch; he had been nine years old when she took the crown which should have been his on the death of Peter. Panin had forgotten that technicality as others had done, only too eager to participate in the fortunes of the new sovereign and to share in the spoils divided among her supporters. But the pale, ugly child had remembered, and that tremendous wrong had added to the intensity of his hatred. It was a mutual feeling, ungovernable on the side of the nervous, sullen boy, concealed and deadly in the heart of his mother.

They had never liked each other; they had begun their relationship as strangers and developed it as rivals; it had seemed impossible that there should ever be a truce between them.

She had closed her mind to the advice of those nearest her. He is rebellious and disloyal; he is his father's son in nature as he is in looks. Imprison him, put him to death.…

She had been forced in the end to murder one Czar. Ivan had been a babe in arms when he was crowned; he was scarcely two years old when the Empress Elizabeth's palace revolution had dethroned him and swept him into the darkness of imprisonment from which he had never emerged.

Elizabeth, whose cruelty was only matched by her superstitious piety, shrank from ending her hapless victim's agony and her own insecurity, so that Catherine discovered that, with the former's power, she had inherited her nightmare, a rightful Russian Czar, alive and in prison. Reports had dismissed him as mad, and Catherine, mindful of her own love of freedom and daylight, fully credited these tales.

Her instincts of mercy were instantly aroused; she visited the prisoner secretly, determined to free him, assured that the spectacle of his witlessness would render him harmless to her cause. But Ivan Ivanovitch was sane; backward perhaps, but in perfect health. The Empress had returned to her palace, the lie of his lunacy already prepared, but without the living proof. Within two short years the throne was rocking under her, revolt was threatening all over Russia, and the name upon the rebels' lips was Ivan. So Ivan had to die.

The burden of that dreadful deed had done more than anything else to safeguard the life and liberty of Catherine's son, Paul. Despite his faults, his disobedience and open enmity towards her, Catherine had spared him; she had no wish to take life unless she must, and for several years now she had been promised a solution. The doctors who attended upon the Czarevitch prescribed marriage as the cure for the ills of temperament, the nerves, discontent and violent rages to which the royal patient was subject.

Catherine had agreed; she had found him a wife, and that morning the marriage had taken place.

Was it possible that a solution had really been found to this rivalry between them? The Empress hoped so with all her heart. She had no love for her son; he inspired nothing in her but suspicion and dislike, yet she needed desperately the peace of mind his submission could give her. She longed for an omen of prosperity that did not have its origin in the wars her armies waged; she wished for a truce with her enemy, and above all for an heir from this marriage who could succeed him if the need to follow her advisers ever came to pass.…

The clock on the dressing-table struck the half-hour, reminding her that it was time to complete her toilette for the banquet, and Catherine rang for her ladies-in-waiting.

She sat quietly in her chair, watching their ministrations reflected in the mirror, examining the image of herself.

At forty-four she was still beautiful, though lines of concentration marred the smooth, high forehead, and the angle of her square jaw was more pronounced. It was a handsome face, fine featured, with vivid blue eyes and the clear complexion of a young girl; the sweep of hair which her ladies were arranging was still jet black; when her reflection smiled it radiated charm and grace. Yet the Empress knew her image to be nothing but a clever mask.

Beside the numberless cares and responsibilities of her position, Catherine had endured a personal torment which had only just been eased. For the first ten years of her reign she herself had been ruled, and the yoke imposed upon her had threatened to crush that indomitable spirit. Her ruler had become her lover when she was still Grand Duchess, a person as fabulous as herself in looks and reputation, the handsome, ruthless Gregory Orlov. Together they had planned the
coup d'état
which was to place her upon Peter's throne, and in his love for her Catherine had found the fullest satisfaction of her life. Cruel and barbarous he may have been, but his passion for her was undoubted. In adversity and danger nothing had come between them; it was in Catherine's triumph that his love for her had died.

He had expected consort's rank as the reward for his services, but equal power was the one favour Catherine would never give him. Money, lands, palaces and serfs were poured into his discontented hands, but nothing removed the stain of favouritism from his manhood. In the arms of countless mistresses, Catherine's lover sought revenge and consolation, and for ten long years she had suffered agonies of helpless jealousy, too much in love with him and too afraid of his power to discard him and end her servitude.

The previous year had seen the final outrage against her in the seduction of his thirteen-year-old niece, and Catherine, driven beyond caution, sent him on a mission and then banished him to his estates.

Her chief lady-in-waiting was securing a diamond coronet in her hair; the huge stones flashed brilliantly in the candlelight; a magnificent necklace was already gleaming around her throat. The Empress reflected suddenly that she would gladly exchange every jewel in her possession if she might safely return to Gregory Orlov's arms. But whatever the loneliness and nostalgia she felt, Catherine knew better than to weaken. Knowledge of her own temperament had dictated a measure which made Orlov's return impossible. She had taken another lover in his place.

“Your Majesty looks beautiful to-night. More beautiful than ever. Will you choose a fan?” Catherine looked into the mirror and smiled at the speaker's reflection. The Countess Bruce, her friend and confidante, the personification of discretion and loyalty; few people understood the needs of Catherine as she did, or pandered to them so efficiently. “Have you selected some for me to see, Bruce?”

“Yes, Madame. With that red gown, I thought perhaps one of these …” The Empress considered some half-dozen fans, a sample of the hundreds in her possession, most of which she would neither see nor use. After a moment she chose a painted chicken skin on gold sticks inset with diamonds.

“I wish to look well to-night. Remember, my daughter-in-law is very pretty!” Catherine laughed.

“No woman in all Russia can compare with you, Madame!”

“Now you know this little Natalie is quite charming! She's been much admired, and my son is infatuated with her.… It's strange, I never thought him capable of anything but hate.… Bruce?”

“Yes, Madame?”

“Could any woman care for him, do you think? Speak honestly. Everything may depend upon this marriage.”

The Countess paused and met her mistress's eye in the mirror.

“Since you ask me, Madame, I don't think it's likely. No. I'm not squeamish, but even I wouldn't fancy him as a lover.… But she's young and pliable. They tell me she was carefully watched in Germany and nothing could be found against her. She may be content enough with him.”

“I made sure of her virtue,” the Empress remarked grimly. “I want no whores intriguing here, neither in politics nor in love.”

At the stroke of twelve she rose.

Countess Bruce smiled admiringly at her.

“Shall I send for M. Vassiltchikov, Madame?”

Catherine Alexeievna nodded, unaware that this was the first of many names that the Countess would mention in the years to come.

“Yes,” she said. “I am ready now. Call him to escort me to the banqueting hall.”

In the ante-room the new favourite waited. He was a young man in his early twenties, tall, well-built and handsome, and he bowed low over his royal mistress's hand.

On his arm, the Empress left her suite; she walked to the banqueting hall in a growing mood of optimism. It was the night of her son's wedding; all over Russia the people feasted and rejoiced; the streets of Petersburg were full of happy crowds, celebrating the event with the Imperial gift of free wine and bread. From that moment she would put the past behind her; the shadowy end of Peter the Third, the death of Ivan; her lover's defections and final downfall—these would be forgotten. She smiled warmly at Vassiltchikov, and tried to summon a fleeting affection for the cause of her happy presentiment.

Paul Petrovitch and his new bride were waiting, waiting as she and Peter had done nearly thirty years ago on the night of their marriage, seated in the same chairs in the same banqueting hall.

But the resemblance would end there. The union would be successful, and fruitful, and she would try once more to make peace with her son.

Filled with these intentions, Catherine passed on to the banquet unaware that, three thousand miles away, the skies over the southern Urals flamed red with the fires of rebellion.

The heir to the throne of Russia was then nineteen years old, and that night, for almost the first time in his life, he found himself the centre of attraction in his mother's Court.

The Imperial table was at the head of the immense banqueting hall; above it, a crimson velvet canopy rose to the ceiling, surmounted by a golden double-headed eagle, supporting the crown between its dual beaks and clasping the royal insignia in each claw; directly underneath this Imperial emblem, the Empress sat on a magnificent throne, raised above the level of the other diners. Paul Petrovitch was seated further down the table, aware that hundreds of curious eyes were fixed upon him, and despite his pretence of arrogant composure, his sallow face flushed and one hand tugged nervously at his lace cravat. He was dressed with all the splendour of his state and with the elegance of an age of lavish male attire. His tight blue satin coat was fastened with large diamonds, and his broad chest blazed with an array of Imperial and foreign orders. The lace at his neck was priceless and secured by an enormous sapphire; all the wealth of Catherine's kingdom was symbolized in the person of her son, and with it the pitiable spectacle of a disinherited puppet, placed on show.

Since Catherine's accession Paul had been thrust into the background; insecurity had been the corner-stone of his early years and growing manhood, and parental love had been denied him. Ill health had weakened him and ravaged his features with convulsions that left a permanent nervous twitch behind them. Inevitably his stability had suffered; deprived of love and normal interests, Paul's thwarted mind had seized upon the dim memory of the man he thought to be his father, and his childish need had invested the cowardly, effeminate Peter the Third with an aura of martyrdom and fanatical worship.

Peter Feodorovitch had become his idol; in the end he had sunk to bribing his servants to tell him those things about his father that he wished to hear. The sordid, tragic history of Catherine and Peter had reached him through the medium of ignorant lackeys, and their stories raised the figure of a maternal demon to rank beside his paternal god. His mother was a usurper, they whispered, and the listening child would sit and clench his fists at the thought of her treachery.

When the tale of his father's murder was repeated to him, the Czarevitch was often seen to weep, though he knew every detail of the tragedy by heart; so, over a period of years, Paul's hatred of his mother grew in violence until it could no longer be concealed.

She had killed his father, taken the Crown which was his rightful inheritance, ignored and despised him, while she kept a low-born lover in the state which would have done honour to a king. It had become necessary to exclude the Czarevitch in order to avoid scenes which he never shrank from making, and Catherine added to his grievances by banishing him out of her sight as much as possible.

Despite his youth, Paul Petrovitch fully recognized the danger which threatened him as a result of his attitude and the Empress's dislike, and it was characteristic of his reckless courage that the knowledge urged him to try the patience of his mother and her ministers to the limit, daring them to take the course of imprisonment and death which he knew they contemplated.

But on this night he wanted neither recognition nor revenge. His only desire was to be alone with his new wife.

With his first sight of her, a weight of unhappiness seemed to have lifted from his life. Shyness, stammering, all the inherited curses of a shattered nervous system had impeded him in the early weeks of his courtship, and the timid little seventeen-year-old Princess from Darmstadt lacked the confidence to make the necessary advance.

Strangely, this inexperience drew the Czarevitch out of the shell of his own fierce prudery. His first reaction to the mention of a wife had been typically violent. No woman chosen by his mother would be acceptable to him, and only when he was presented to his betrothed did his hostility waver and finally collapse.

They had baptized her into the Orthodox Church, changing the harsh German names and titles to the flowing Russian of Natalie Alexeievna. Paul leant towards her and smiled, some formal query on his lips, love and admiration in his heart.

The new Grand Duchess was small and delicately made; her proportions were almost child-like in their fragility, and the oval face upturned to her young husband was exquisitely pretty.

Her dark hair was piled unpowdered on her head, Paul's wedding gift of pearls and diamonds blazed round her throat and cascaded down over her breast; white ostrich plumes and a white satin dress embroidered with silver and pearls emphasized the bridal motif. She sat at his side, as pale and fragile as a creature of the Russian snows and gazed at her young husband with eyes as blue as sapphires. Never had Paul seen anyone whose beauty so conformed to his ideal; pride swelled in his heart as he looked at her, increased by the knowledge that all men's eyes were turned on him in envy. She glanced up at him and smiled and his new-found solicitude sensed weariness, so that he touched her arm with a comforting possessive gesture.