They had only lived in the Byeloskoye Palace for a year, since Basil’s father had died. Before that they had lived in a modest but attractive townhouse in Tver Square; but once Basil had inherited his father’s fortune, he had taken Anne on a tour of all the vacant palaces and great houses in Moscow, to select their new home.
‘The choice is yours,’ he said. ‘I leave it to your taste only make it large enough, and impressive enough.’
It was not exactly that she had fallen in love with Byeloskoye – she never knew whether she was more amused or appalled by it – but it was certain that after seeing it, everything else was an anticlimax. Moscow was full of oddities, and of the spectacular edifices of Russia’s leading families, many stood, like Byeloskoye, in extensive grounds. The number and extent of these parks, as well as gardens, orchards, and ornamental squares meant that Moscow, city of around three hundred thousand souls, sprawled over a vast area, more like a province than a city.
The area it covered was roughly circular, with the River Moskva winding a sinuous course through the bottom third of it. The main streets radiated outwards like the spokes of a wheel from the hub of the Kremlin – fortress, arsenal, royal palace, barracks and urban grainstore – whose dark red walls and glittering, spiralled onion-domes dominated the vast market-place of the Krasnaya Ploshchad – the Beautiful Square. Here every day the peasant carts from outside the city trundled in their freight of vegetables, fruit, poultry, eggs, butter, grain and sunflower seeds; and pedlars, trappers and merchants from all over the empire and beyond set out their wares: Kashmir shawls, Chinese silks, Indian muslins, Persian carpets, Turkish bronze and copperware; sable and mink from Siberia, spider-web lace from Azerbaijan, dried flowers and herbs from the Crimea, enamel bracelets and earrings from Kiev.
When Peter the Great had built his new capital of St Petersburg almost a hundred years ago, he had issued a decree forbidding the use of stone for building in any other city. Though this decree had been rescinded fifty years later by a successor to the imperial throne, it meant that many of the great houses in Moscow, and all the lesser ones, were built of wood. The Muscovites had made up for it, however, by painting them in bright colours – yellow and pink and leaf green and sky blue – and by adding carved decorations, porches, fancy shutters, even columns and gables, all of wood. The rich went one better, and behind many a noble facade of white marble or pink granite or honey-coloured Portland stone, was concealed the lowly reality of common timber.
Perhaps, Anne thought, that was another reason that she felt at home in Moscow. Her life, like the great buildings, was not all it seemed: a splendid and eye-catching affair which concealed a hollowness. The succession of violent emotional shocks which had driven her into marriage with Basil Tchaikovsky seemed, like a fierce fire, to have burned out her capacity to feel. They had left her numb, and she had longed only to escape to some place where nothing would be demanded of her.
At first she had succeeded. Basil was a kind, pleasant and undemanding companion, and within a short time of their marriage, he had brought her to that place in society which he had promised her. She was ‘Madame Tchaikovsky’ the society hostess: wealthy, handsome, fashionable, with a following of the best of the intelligentsia. She was mistress of a large house and a small army of servants, co-spender of a large fortune, with a respected family name. It was a very different life from that of a governess, however well treated or highly paid, and it was only to be expected that it had changed her. She knew that she was more assured in her manner, more poised and confident, more authoritative; inevitably she was also less confiding, more formal, more careful of how she appeared to others. She had been brought up to be a gentlewoman, but a great lady was quite another matter.
Informality and gaiety were now social devices to be calculated for their effect; but if she had lost some spontaneity, it was certain that there was no one to desire it of her, or to regret its passing. What she had become was what was required; and she and Basil were a success. They were invited everywhere, and their invitations were prized; their taste was consulted, their opinions repeated, their approval sought; they were accepted by everyone, and liked almost as universally. Theirs was a winning combination: Basil had the old name, the family fortune, and his own social expertise and charm to recommend him; Anne was clever, well educated, shrewd and unpretentious. She was also English, and since, after Tilsit, Anglophilia had replaced the Francomania which had invested all things fashionable in Russia, that counted for a great deal.
The Kirovs, who had so dominated and changed her life, had dropped away from it as completely as a shed garment, and she was content that it should be so. She heard of them only at a distance, when the name came up in conversation at this or that great house. The Count’s status as a Special Envoy to the Emperor earned him occasional honourable mention on the dinner-party circuit, and from time to time his wife’s continued ill health was deplored as a hardship for a man so much abroad: Irina had never recovered from the loss of her best-loved child. Seryosha’s military career cropped up less often, but from what she heard of his dedication and single-mindedness in pursuing it, Anne guessed that he would never get over Natasha’s death either.
Lolya was merely a child, and her visiting her Grandmama in Moscow was the only reason Anne ever heard of her at all. Of Sashka she never heard, and she was glad of it. Her numbness was not quite so deep as to prevent her from grieving for him, if she allowed herself ever to think of him.
The barouche was now turning into the Kuznetsky Most, the main boulevard in Moscow’s most fashionable quarter. It was a wide street paved with closely fitting, solid wood planks, and lined with the most delicious shops, filled with fashions and luxuries, silk and lace and leather, French lingerie and perfume, imported wine, English worsted, hand-made shoes, books, song sheets and jewellery: everything, in fact, that the rich and fashionable Muscovite could want. Here you could buy a tame nightingale from Moldavia, and a golden cage to keep it in; perfume to attract a new lover, or a book of French lewd engravings to revive an old one – and a silk chemise from Paris, trimmed with Mechlin lace, to entertain either in.
The Kuznetsky Most was also the place to be seen, either walking or driving – the Bond Street of Moscow, Anne thought of it to herself. Even for a shopping trip, therefore, Madame Tchaikovsky had to present a smart appearance, and maintain her reputation for leading fashion. Today she was wearing a sleeveless pelisse of her own design, of very light, ruched velvet trimmed with gold loop braiding, rather in the style of the Hussar uniform, and a small hat decorated with three curled cock’s feathers and a half-veil. Her suede gloves were elbow-length, and clasped round each wrist was a heavy gold and enamel bracelet showing Basil’s family device of a chained swan. A four-strand pearl collar and pearl earrings completed the ensemble. She looked smart, tonish, very much a leader of society.
To maintain that position required endless work and attention to detail. Anne would never have thought that mere social life could so have used up so much of her time, that it could be such hard work to remain at the top of the tree. Clothes, alone, took up hours of every day, what with designing, choosing fabrics, making-up, and having fittings – not to mention hats, gloves, shoes, stockings, pelisses, capes, cloaks, furs and shawls. Then she must read all the newspapers, and the books people were talking about, as well as those she intended they should talk about. She had to see all the plays, good and bad, and attend all the concerts, in order to have an opinion about them; keep up with political matters, both domestic and international, and the social gossip about who was having an affair with whom; and she had to find time to practise her pianoforte and singing, both of which were much in demand at parties.