She felt her lip trembling, and was aware of an absurd desire to laugh and cry, both together. He was ludicrous, he was kind, he was touching and sad, he was a friend, he was more generous than she deserved.
‘Say you’ll think about it,’ he pressed her again.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, feeling ungracious and unkind. ‘I do thank you,’ she added, and he smiled.
‘No need for thanks. Come, let’s ride on. Have I taken you to the Elizavyetinski spring yet? No? We’ll go round that way, then. It’s a pleasant ride, and everyone goes to the spring at this time of the morning. There’s sure to be someone agreeable to chat to. We’ll gather up all the latest gossip, and then go back by the gallery, and stop for a glass of coffee, for it will be noon by then.’
A new Governor of Georgia was on his way to take up his duties, and as he was to break his journey in Pyatigorsk, there was to be a grand reception and ball to which everyone would be going.
The occasion also brought Sergei to Pyatigorsk, as part of a detachment representing the Grozny garrison. He arrived the day before the Governor was expected, and as soon as he had made his report, he rode out to the Kiriakov dacha to meet his father.
He arrived just after noon, when the family was gathered on the verandah eating a nuncheon of fruit, sweet buns and coffee. Galina had ordered a coddled egg with spinach for Irina, who was looking more wasted every day, and the Count was trying to persuade her to eat it, when Sergei came striding down the path between the oleanders, his spurs clinking, his boots white with dust.
Anne thought at once that he looked ten years older, no longer the handsome, light-hearted boy who had boasted to her only two months ago about breakfasting on quails and champagne. The boyish fullness had gone from his cheeks, and their high colour: his face was stern, his lips thinner, his eyes harder. His fair brows were drawn down in a sun frown, which she could see would soon become a permanent mark. As he halted before the step, he pulled off his hat, and she saw that he had cut his hair shorter, so that even its barley-fair softness could not lighten the impression of grimness about him. His temples and brow, newly exposed, were paler than the rest of his face.
His eyes went straight to Irina, who sat looking at nothing, her hands hanging like dead leaves from her thin wrists, as though she had no strength to use them; and then jumped to his father. He coloured under his tan and his mouth grew uncertain, and just for a moment he looked a boy again. The Count had risen to his feet, was staring at his son with painful love and longing.
‘Papa–’ Sergei said, his voice light with hesitancy.
‘Seryosha! Oh my dear boy!’ The Count crossed the space between them in three strides, and took his son in his arms. It was customary in Russia for men to embrace, and Anne, brought up amongst undemonstrative Englishmen, had at last grown used to it; but the Count held Sergei not as men embrace, but as he might have held a woman, one arm round his shoulders, the other hand on the back of Sergei’s head, holding him close against him.
Anne heard Sergei’s muffled voice say, ‘Papa, I’m sorry!’ – the apology pitiful in its inadequacy; and she looked away, biting her lip.
The Count released him, took hold of his shoulders instead, looking into his eyes. There was little physical difference between them now; in the year since he had graduated, Sergei had filled out, and grown the half-inch he had lacked of his father. They looked more than ever alike; yet the difference between them was greater than it had ever been. The lightness, the inner glow had gone out of Sergei: it was no longer in this young man to grow into one such as his father was.
‘Papa, I loved her,’ he said now. There were tears on his eyelashes, but he would not look away, or hide them: he was a soldier on report. His pride was the only young thing about him. ‘I would never have let anything harm her.’
‘Oh, my dear,’ the Count said helplessly.
Sergei met his eyes with a look of desperate pain. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.
‘It wasn’t your fault. You can’t think I blame you?’
‘It was my responsibility,’ he said, his voice flattening with inevitability.
‘You couldn’t have prevented it!’
Still Sergei looked into his eyes. ‘If you had been there, it would still have happened. And you would have taken the responsibility, wouldn’t you, sir?’
There was a long moment of silence. Father and son stared at each other; then the Count dropped his hands to his sides. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘But now I am here, it is mine again. You must not punish yourself over this, Seryosha. You did all you could. Your little sister is dead, and nothing can bring her back. You have your own life to lead, and it’s as precious as hers was.’
‘Yes, sir, I know,’ Sergei said. ‘I shan’t waste it, I promise you.’
The Count stared at him helplessly, and Anne saw that he was looking for some sign of the lightsome, merry boy he had left behind. He and Sergei meant different things by the same words. Sergei would live his life, but not as the Count would have wanted him to live it. Things were changed; they could not be changed back.
‘Come,’ the Count said at last, ‘come and have something to eat and drink. You must have had a long journey this morning.’ It was the only thing to do – to fall back on social form, when everything else became impossible to bear – but Anne could see that Sergei didn’t understand that, and thought his father unfeeling, frivolous. Suddenly she couldn’t bear any more. With a muttered excuse, she got up and almost ran into the house, before she could be obliged to join in the painful ritual.
There was no opportunity for Sergei to talk to her for the rest of that day, and Anne was glad of it. As she felt the Count’s pain, so she felt Sergei’s; and when he and his father were together, and their wounded minds rubbed against each other, it became intolerable. She exchanged only a distant, polite greeting with the young man, and for the rest, avoided them both as much as possible.
She managed to be out of the way when Sergei left that evening, being obliged by the call of duty to return to the military headquarters. She hoped that the arrival of the Governor would keep him out of the way the following day. All the family was going to the reception and ball, and no doubt she would meet him there, but at a social occasion of that sort, they would be cushioned from each other by etiquette. Basil Andreyevitch would be there, of course, and would no doubt constitute himself as her escort, and she looked forward to that with a kind of relief. More and more she appreciated his good manners, his gentlemanly restraint. Since proposing to her, he had not mentioned the matter again, nor behaved with any greater particularity towards her, except that his manner was a little softer – to which she could hardly object. Indeed, fraught as that situation was, it was still easier to be with her hopeful suitor than with either of the Kirovs.
The following day was cooler and hazy, a thin, high cloud covering the sky like gauze, through which the sun shone distantly, muted. Anne walked about the gardens all morning. Whenever she sat down anywhere for a moment, her restlessness drove her to her feet again within minutes. Sitting down, she felt vulnerable, as though someone might come upon her and demand something of her. She walked and walked under that hazy sun, and by the time everyone gathered for a nuncheon at noon, she was weary with the exercise. She drank a little coffee, crumbled a cake on her plate to look as if she had eaten, heard from a distance Galina ask her if she had a headache, and herself answer no, she was quite well. She was aware of the Count looking at her, and would not meet his eyes.