‘You see, Anna Petrovna, how it would be? I can offer you not only wealth and position – any rich nobleman could do the same. But I have the entrée at Court. I know the Imperial Family, and I know the ministers and the generals. You could hold a central position in the wheel of power.’
‘Why should you think I want to?’ she asked.
‘Because knowledge is power. Because for the intelligent mind, to know is everything.’ He read her expression. ‘Visualise yourself at the heart of matters, mistress of the salon where the fate of nations is decided: the intriguante sans pareil! Yes, it attracts you, doesn’t it?’
‘You talk such nonsense, Basil Andreyevitch,’ she said.
Sergei came up to her at last, where she was sitting on a sofa a little out of the way, in a sort of alcove in a corner of the ballroom. She could not dance, of course, but apart from Tchaikovsky, several people had come up to sit beside her and talk for a while, and she had got through the evening more pleasantly than she had thought possible.
The Count had not come near her, though she had seen him looking at her from time to time. She was aware of him wherever he was in the room, even if she was not looking at him; she could feel him on her skin like a radiance. The memory of his love, their passion, the touch of him, was small and secret in her mind, something she would take out later, when she was alone, and examine, for pleasure or pain, probably both. What to do about it was beyond her to consider for the moment. She was tired; she wanted nothing, only to be left alone.
Count Tchaikovsky was obliged to dance one or two duty dances, and it was while he was thus away from her side that Sergei took the opportunity to approach her. She was engaged in the delicate task of untangling the clasp of her fan from the net-mesh of her reticule into which it had hooked itself in her lap, and noticing at last that a pair of white breeches and silk stockings had been stationary in front of her for some moments, she looked up to encounter Sergei’s flushed face and over-bright eyes. He was, she realised with a sinking heart, not sober.
‘So, I have you to myself at last,’ he began unpromisingly. ‘I began to think if that dog Tchaikovsky didn’t go away and leave you alone, I should be obliged to come over and let some of the air out of him.’
She met his eye questioningly, and he gave a twisted grin. ‘Yes, I am a little foxed,’ he said, reading her thoughts. ‘Well, it’s expected on occasions like this, when the champagne flows. Every man in uniform will drink himself into a stupor tonight. Mess hospitality, you know!’
She made a small gesture of dismissal. ‘Don’t let me prevent you from enjoying yourself.’
He flung himself down at her side. ‘Don’t be angry with me, Anna! Why have you been so distant with me? What have I done to upset you?’
‘Nothing – nothing in the world.’
‘Is it because I haven’t come to Pyatigorsk before now? But you must have known that I would have come if I could. We’ve been at full stretch, every man, trying to hold back the Chechen – raids every day, and at night too. I couldn’t have come before.’
‘I didn’t expect you,’ she said truthfully.
‘Then why are you offended?’
‘I’m not offended, Seryosha. I’m just tired,’ she said. She had no feelings to spare for him at the moment, one way or the other. ‘Just leave me be.’
He was hurt. ‘You’ve changed,’ he said abruptly. ‘It can’t be that Tchaikovsky creature! Why, he’s barely a man – just a clothes-wearer. Why do you let him hang around you?’
‘He’s very kind to me.’
‘It’s not kindness! Can’t you see the fool is flirting with you? Don’t be taken in, Annushka! You’re too trusting.’
This was exhausting. ‘Basil Andreyevitch has asked me to marry him,’ she said. ‘He is perfectly honourable.’
‘Marry him? You can’t marry him! What have you told him? Why is he still hanging about you? You haven’t accepted him, have you?’
‘No–’
‘Then he has no right to plague you. I’ll have to teach him some manners,’ Sergei said triumphantly. ‘If he comes near you again, I’ll settle him for you, don’t worry.’
‘Please, Sergei, I can’t bear this,’ Anne said, putting a hand to her brow; but he caught it in both his and lifted it to his lips, kissing it fervently.
‘I know, my darling! I’ve been away from you too long, and you’ve had to bear the sorrow all alone. But everything will be all right, you’ll see. Don’t be angry with me, Annushka! I didn’t neglect you on purpose.’
Anne tried to pull her hand away. Everything will be all right! How many more people would promise her that, when it was plain that everything was coming to pieces, would never be all right again? ‘Don’t, Seryosha! People are looking.’
‘Let them look! I don’t care! I want the world to know about us!’ He kissed her hand again, and then turned it over and began to kiss her wrist. ‘Angel!’
She struggled, half tearful, half angry, pushing at his hard, muscular shoulder with her free hand, and making no more impression on it than on a rock. His fingers were making red marks on her arm.
And then out of nowhere the Count was there, his voice icy.
‘Sergei Nikolayevitch, release Anna’s hand. You’re annoying her. Are you drunk so early in the evening? ’
The hard tone, the formal appellation, acted like cold water. Sergei dropped Anne’s hand, and started up, and then his face began slowly to colour. He straightened to attention before his father and said with dignity, ‘You are under a misapprehension, sir. I am not drunk, and I was not annoying Anna Petrovna.’
‘Forgive me,’ the Count said with cutting irony. ‘I was judging by appearances. When a young man is trying to kiss a woman in a public place, and she is struggling to prevent him, I can only suppose she finds it an annoyance. And when that young man is my son, I assume that only excess of drink could lead him so to forget himself.’
Sergei glowed with anger. ‘Appearances can deceive, sir. There is nothing improper in my attentions. I am going to marry Anna – she and I are promised to each other.’
If it weren’t so horrible and so tragic, Anne might have laughed, to see the look of disbelief on the Count’s face, rapidly followed by shocked doubt. Knowing his son, he realised that Sergei would not tell such an outrageous lie without some reason. He stared at him, then looked to Anne for enlightenment, and read some consciousness in her eye. His expression changed. Knowing he had no right to her only made his jealousy the more bitter.
‘Perhaps I have been deceived,’ he said in a hard voice. ‘Must I congratulate you, mademoiselle?’
Don’t be a fool, she thought wearily, but those were not words she could say to him, not in public, not in front of Sergei.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I am not going to marry Sergei.’ Out of the corner of her eye she saw the young man’s start of protest, but she could not spare him her attention at the moment. She was looking into the Count’s eyes, holding his gaze steadily.
‘Do you mean to tell me there is nothing between you?’
He wanted, needed her denial; yet she felt Sergei like a weight on her consciousness. There had been nothing between them, in the sense that his father meant; yet she could not quite do that to Sergei. She had done such wrong by him already. She said, ‘I am not promised to him. He is mistaken.’
‘But Anna–’ cried Sergei.
Now she flung him a look. ‘I did not accept,’ she said firmly. ‘I told you it was impossible.’
‘Nevertheless,’ the Count said in a voice of bitter darkness, ‘it seems he did ask you. I had no idea – how long has it been going on? There must have been a great deal more – affection – between you than I ever imagined possible between a governess and her charge.’