Anne absented herself all day, took herself off to the remotest corner of the tangled gardens with a book she was quite unequal to reading. It was inexpressibly painful to think of them together, painful and shocking to discover how much she still felt for him, how little control she had over her mind and her feelings. She had not even been able to bring herself to witness the first reunion between them. As soon as he had handed her down from the carriage, she had hurried away round the side of the house before anyone had time to emerge from it.
When the hour for dinner approached, however, she had to go back. Galina told her that Count Tchaikovsky had been there asking for her, and she remembered belatedly that he had promised to bring a book they had been discussing. He had left the book, and a kindly message to say that he would call the next day, as he didn’t suppose she would be at leisure to receive him that evening, in view of the Count’s arrival.
Dinner proved not to be the ordeal she had expected, for neither the Count nor Irina emerged from their rooms for it. The mood of the assembled company was subdued, and there was little conversation, for which Anne was gratefuclass="underline" she didn’t want to know how the Count had greeted Irina, nor she him. After dinner, Galina was obliged to chaperone Masha and Zinochka to a ball, and Katya was engaged to drink tea with a friend. Feodor sat with Anne on the verandah for a while, smoking a cigar in silence, and then said apologetically, ‘I don’t seem to be much company tonight, do I?’
‘I don’t really feel like talking myself.’ She glanced at him. ‘Don’t feel you have to bear me company. I had just as soon be alone. I think I’ll go to bed early.’
‘Well, if you don’t mind… Feodor said, pushing himself up out of his chair. ‘I’ve some letters I ought to be writing.’ Left alone, Anne sat by the verandah rail and watched the light fade from the pale-green evening sky, and the soft, moth-winged dusk creep in. She was too tired even to think, and she listened to the sounds of evening and smelled the emerging twilight fragrance of the jasmine with her mind blessedly blank.
Some time later – she didn’t know how long – the Count came out from the house. She felt his presence before she saw or heard him, felt it like a weight on the back of her neck, and turned to see him standing in the doorway, one hand against the upright as though he needed its support. He didn’t look at her, but he crossed the verandah and took the chair next to hers, and leaned back in it, sighing like a weary man come home after a day in the fields.
Anne sat very still, feeling his ease with her – the treacherous way he had come to her as to a place of comfort. After a while she heard herself ask him calmly if he had eaten, and the sound of her own voice amazed her. It was like a question passing between husband and wife of long standing: unemphatic, almost needing no words.
‘No,’ he said. ‘They sent in dinner on a tray, but I couldn’t eat it. Too tired,’ he added. She was putting off the moment of looking at him – half in fear, but half as a child postpones a treat.
‘I expect they sent you the wrong things,’ she said. ‘Let me get you some fruit, and some wine.’
‘Fruit – yes. I could eat fruit.’
‘And wine.’ She rose to her feet to ring the bell.
‘Only if you will drink with me. It’s poor sport to drink alone.’ She nodded consent, and he added suddenly, ‘Champagne – let it be champagne! Did you know the best champagne in the world comes from just across the mountains, in Kakhetia?’ She looked at him, startled, but the servant had come out in answer to the bell, and he gave him the order. When they were alone again, he turned to her and said gently, ‘He thinks I’m mad too. But champagne is not only good for celebrations, you know. It’s a medicine too. They gave it to Yelena Vassilovna when she was dying. I should like to be sure I will die with something so good on my tongue.’
It was the first time he had ever spoken of his first wife to Anne. He was looking away from her now, out into the evening, and she was free to study his face. It was tired, drawn, grey with fatigue and, probably, hunger; but there was a burning, luminous look in his eyes, which she didn’t understand.
The servant came back with the wine, and a bowl of fruit, which he placed on a small table before them. The Count poured two glasses.
‘This is Tsinandali, the best of the Kakhetian champagnes. Drink, Anna – the first toast I taught you, do you remember? Za vasha zdarovia! How long ago it seems! I feel as though I have known you all my life.’
She was unable to speak, and drank the toast in silence; but he went on without seeming to need more encouragement.
‘I came across Kakhetian champagne for the first time when I was about Sergei’s age. Like him, I served in the Caucasus against the Tcherkess, but I was stationed with the Dragoons in Tiflis, protecting the vineyards of the foothills against the wild mountain beys. They used to come down like sudden hailstorms from the mountains, and we had to drive them back, and kill enough of them to discourage them for a while. It was hard, dangerous living – and how hard we celebrated in the mess every night, those of us who had survived the day!’
He drank again, and then took a glowing, Crimean apple from the bowl and lifted it to his nose to sniff it delicately; but then he seemed to forget it, put it down absently, and said, ‘So beautiful, the Caucasus – ice blue and brown and white and blood red – have you seen the “bloody snows” of the Caucasian mountains? Something to do with iron in the rock, I believe. Beautiful and sinister.’ He was silent a moment. ‘When I came again, years later, I was seconded to the Independents, as Sergei is now. That’s when I met Irina.’
‘Yes,’ Anne said. ‘I’ve heard the story.’
He put his glass down abruptly. ‘I can’t reach her,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to do. Tell me, Anna, tell me what happened.’
‘You know what happened,’ she said warily. ‘Sergei must have told you in his letter.’
‘His letter made no sense; and she won’t tell me the real story.’
‘She doesn’t know it,’ Anne said quickly. ‘For God’s sake, don’t say anything to her!’
Triumph bloomed in his eyes. ‘So there is another story. I knew it! And I knew you would know the truth of it. You must tell me, Anna, I must know.’
She was distressed. ‘I can’t. It’s for Sergei to tell you. The story is his.’
‘No, the story is mine. Tell me the truth – what really happened?’ She looked at him, wide-eyed, miserable, and he added gently, ‘It could not have been as Sergei said. There could not have been so much dereliction of duty in the whole household that the Tcherkess could come down to the very threshold and snatch her away. There is a story, isn’t there?’
She saw the impossibility – and worse, the impropriety – of holding back the truth from him, the child’s father. But would he believe? Would he understand? Sergei’s letter must have been incomprehensible because he did neither – and how could she explain that to him?
Stumblingly, she began the story; but as it progressed, she began to tell it not to his face, but past his eyes, into his mind, and saw the words sink into place without effort or translation. She wondered how she could ever have been so stupid as to think he would not understand. She had been apart from him too long, had forgotten that all she knew, he knew; that they were not different from each other except unimportantly, on the outside.
When she came to the last part, she trembled; and without breaking her rhythm, he reached across and took her hand, and it made a warm bridge across which the communication could flow, half thought, half feeling. She told Sergei’s part of the story too, remembering that Sergei was his child, and that he had a right to know what he could know; and she saw that he did not understand that part directly, but only through the medium of her sympathy. She thought that had it been he who had found Natasha, and heard Zaktal’s words, he would have found some way not to do what Sergei had done. He would have been stronger, strong enough to have spared the village; or weaker, perhaps, in his grief, enough to have killed without the remorse. He did not understand why Sergei was suffering, could only accept it because she said it was so.