The two men took the seat opposite her in the four-seated karet as it lurched into movement.
‘Maria Petrovna,’ began Virginsky. ‘This is the gentleman I told you about, Porfiry Petrovich.’
‘Good day to you, sir.’ Her voice was firm and confident. She had some experience, Porfiry hazarded, of a life outside the drawing room. She thrust forward her hand almost manfully. She was of good family it seemed, and yet by some miracle, her upbringing had produced something more than an accomplished marionette.
‘Maria Petrovna, I am delighted to make your acquaintance.’ Porfiry gave a small bow of the head as he took her hand.
‘Please tell Porfiry Petrovich everything that you told me,’ prompted Virginsky. ‘There is no need to be afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid, Pavel Pavlovich.’ She could not keep the impatience out of her voice.
Porfiry Petrovich pursed his lips to suppress a smirk at Virginsky’s expense. Oh dear, Pavel Pavlovich — that was a false step!
‘My name is Maria Petrovna Verkhotseva. You may have heard of my father, Pyotr Afanasevich Verkhotsev.’ The disclosure was made factually, without boasting, her lack of constraint revealing the true privilege of her upbringing.
‘I know of him.’
‘I would be surprised if you did not.’
Porifiry allowed his head to fall forward with the bouncing rhythm of the karet.
‘This has nothing to do with my father, except insofar as it has to do with me. Some people fear him. Some people hate him. To me, he is simply Papochka. I love him as a daughter. He has always been a good father to me, and my mother a good mother. I have wanted for nothing. Indeed, they gave me the most precious gift any parent can give a child: an education. They allowed me, encouraged me would be more the truth, to cultivate an independent mind. My father, you may be surprised to learn, has decidedly liberal views.’
‘Why should it surprise me?’ said Porfiry. He seemed distracted, more interested in the unfolding narrative of the city outside the karet.
‘Some might hold that liberal views are inconsistent with his position as deputy head of the Tsar’s secret police.’
‘Isn’t the Tsar a liberal?’ Porfiry scrutinised each house and tenement building of the Moskvaya District for signs of change. It was as if he was looking into the face of an old friend re-encountered after years apart. ‘I thought he was.’
‘He was, perhaps. Once,’ commented Virginsky, dryly.
‘Like you,’ continued Maria Petrovna, directing her discourse at Porfiry, ‘I looked around me. Did I not have eyes in my head? I was not satisfied for their gaze to settle only on the surface of things.’
Porfiry turned a face of mild surprise towards her.
‘I went inside the tenements.’ It seemed almost as if she were rebuking him. ‘I did not like what I saw.’
Porfiry nodded for her to go on.
‘I decided to do something about it. But what could I, a mere woman, accomplish, even if I was the daughter of a powerful man?’
‘Much, I would imagine,’ said Porfiry, smiling.
‘I trained to be a teacher. Using my father’s influence, I gained admittance to the drawing rooms of the wealthy. I had connections of my own too. In addition to private tutors engaged by my father, my education had included a period at the Smolny Institute. Many of my friends from there had married appropriately. I will not say advantageously, for the advantages were mutually conferred. It was not a course I had chosen for myself, but I was happy enough to congratulate them on their good fortune. Especially if they were able to persuade their husbands to support my cause.’
‘Your cause?’
‘My plan, vision — dream. Call it what you will.’
‘And it was?’
‘To found a school. I wanted to share the gift of education that I had enjoyed with those less fortunate than myself. Many of the evils of society have their origin in the ignorance of the poorer classes. Eradicate that ignorance and you will eradicate the evils.’
‘A noble aspiration,’ said Porfiry, ‘as befits an old girl of the Smolny Institute for Noble Young Ladies.’
‘You’re mocking me.’
‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean to. It is simply that one forms an idea of the type of young lady that the Smolny Institute turns out and, I am pleased to say, you do not conform to it. I did not realise that they had extended their curriculum to include either practical or political studies.’
‘It is a mistake to indulge one’s prejudices. The pupils of any institute are not a homogenous mass, but a congregation of individual souls, with varying interests and characters. As are the teachers. While I was there I was fortunate to come under the influence of a remarkable educationalist, one Apollon Mikhailovich Perkhotin. The seed of my aspiration took root in his classes.’
‘What was his subject, may I ask?’
‘Conversation.’
‘Conversation?’
‘Yes. He taught us how to converse.’
‘I see.’
‘It is not as simple a subject as you imagine. Not for girls who may find themselves moving in the highest circles of society, and who may be called upon to converse with all manner of individuals, from foreign heads of state to’ — Maria Petrovna hesitated as she cast around for an appropriately contrasting exemplum — ‘poets. It begins in etiquette and ends in … well, who can say where any conversation may end?’
‘Quite.’
‘After I qualified as a teacher, I sought out Apollon Mikhailovich. He encouraged me in my scheme and advised me on educational matters. I was overjoyed when he con sented to become a partner in my enterprise.’
‘He left the Smolny Institute to work with you?’
‘Not quite. His professorship at the Smolny had by then terminated.’
‘Please continue.’
‘Thanks to the generosity of our patrons, among whom we were proud to count the Grand Duchess Yelena Pavlovna-’
‘The Tsar’s aunt?’ blurted Virginsky.
‘Of course.’
Virginsky knitted his brows as he took this in. ‘She is an interesting woman. A freethinker, it is said.’
‘The Grand Duchess was greatly moved by the plight of foundling children, who not only grow up without the love of their mothers, but also are forced from an early age to work long shifts in factories. The law does not require our factory owners to make any educational provision for these children. Indeed, they expend only as much of their profits as is necessary to keep them housed and alive, which outgoings you may be sure are deducted from the foundlings’ paltry wages.’
‘Do you not need the owners’ consent for the children to attend your school?’ asked Porfiry.
‘They are the owners of the factories, not of the children, though I concede you would not think so. However, the children find a way to get to us. Some of them travel far, on foot, to do so.’
‘Where is your school?’
‘We were able to secure suitable premises in the Rozhdestvenskaya District. It is only two rooms over an artisan’s workshop, but it serves our purposes.’
‘And how many pupils do you have?’
The swimming grey of her eyes settled on him; tears welled, adding to their brightness. Her face was flushed with feeling. A number of emotions seemed to be in contention: outrage, sorrow, disappointment, fear. But her gaze remained steadily fixed on Porfiry.
‘That’s just it,’ she said, her voice if anything firmer than before. ‘When we opened our doors, we had fifty-seven children and four adults. Far more than we had planned for, or could accommodate. However, we turned none away. Over the first weeks and months attendance grew, reaching a peak of over seventy children and about a dozen adults. That was last summer. In the winter, naturally, attendance declined. It was harder for the children to get to us. On top of that, the length of their shifts, which lasted from before daybreak till after nightfall, meant that what leisure hours they had were spent in perpetual darkness, which is inevitably debilitating and hardly conducive to study. However, in spring we enjoyed a resurgence in our numbers, which held, more or less, over the summer. Until several weeks ago, when I began to notice a gradual decline. I thought nothing of it. Attendance is not obligatory. That the children are able to come at all, even if just once, is a miracle. Who knows what effect even the briefest exposure to the schoolroom will have on their young minds? To see the wonder, the lively curiosity, awaken on their faces! Once that door is opened, the door to learning, you cannot imagine that it will ever be closed.’