When his father died, the moment might have arrived for the new ties to strengthen, for Rose to become the centre of his universe and the cement that bound him to Anne. But what had happened in the meantime made that impossible – indeed, made it difficult for him even to think about his daughter without pain.
Rose, so enchantingly pink and white that she was nicknamed after the loveliest flower of all, was a healthy, happy baby, and everyone who hung over her cot became her willing slave. In February 1810, when she was five months old, she was taken to St Basil’s Cathedral for her Christening. It was a very fashionable affair: the Grand Duchess Catherine herself – the Tsar’s sister – had agreed to be godmother to the baby, and Prince Yussupov, a close neighbour whose Arkhangelskoye Palace was one of the wonders of Moscow, was the godfather.
The cathedral was packed – everyone who was anyone was there. An anthem was sung by the choir, and the trumpeters of the Preobrazhensky Guards played a fanfare. The Metropolitan himself conducted the service, annointing the baby’s hands and feet with holy oil from the tip of a new goosefeather. The godfather carried her round the font for everyone to see, while the solemn prayers were said, and the godmother held the lighted taper, representing the light which would lead the infant on the safe path. Lastly, the priest cut off a small piece of the baby’s hair, and stuck it with a drop of wax from the taper. When it had hardened, he dropped it into the font, where it should have floated, signifying good luck.
But the wax didn’t float: because of some defect, it sank to the bottom, taking the tuft of fine golden hair with it. A whisper rippled outwards from the font as the word of what had happened was passed back; and Rose, who until that moment had borne everything with a calm smile, suddenly screwed up her face and wailed. It was a dreadful omen. Deeply embarrassed and upset, the Metropolitan hastily repeated the ritual. This time the wax floated as it should, and the assembled company trooped off to enjoy the enormous Christening feast, where quantities of French champagne soon restored the smiles to their faces.
Probably few people afterwards remembered the unfortunate incident; but a week later old Countess Tchaikovskova caught a fever and died, and on the following day baby Marya Vassilievna fell victim to a mysterious illness. The best doctors in Moscow were called in, and confessed themselves baffled. The baby was feverish, vomited, wailed, jerked her limbs in spasm: they had never seen anything quite like it, they said, and could only apply the old remedies of bleeding and purging in the hope that they would work.
Anne never left the baby day or night, snatching sleep sitting upright in a chair placed beside the crib, despite Basil’s attempts to persuade her to go to bed, and his urgent requests to take her place in the vigil. She would only shake her head, too weary even to speak. She could not go; how could he even ask it? The doctors sighed and shook their heads.. Days and nights ran into one another, and Anne hung over the crib, all of life condensed to that one point, the tiny flame that struggled and flickered and dimmed. As great as had been the joy of bringing Rose into the world, so great was the pain of watching her die.
Everything was done that could be done. Three priests took it in turn to remain in the room reciting prayers for deliverance, and Basil made offerings to every saint who could conceivably have any influence in the case; but still the fever mounted, and now the baby no longer cried or jerked, but simply lay motionless. How could so small a life bear so much? There was so little of her: Anne, tearless with so great a suffering, waited in helpless pity, and prayed to God in the new form she had learned when she converted to the Old Faith for her marriage. If you must take her, she prayed, take her quickly. Don’t make my baby suffer any more – let her die.
But Rose didn’t die. When her tiny spark of life was dimmed almost to quenching, like a miracle the fever broke, and she fell into a natural sleep. After a further week, the doctors pronounced her out of immediate danger. There was no reason, they said cautiously, why she should not live to adulthood; oh, but here was a bitter price to pay! Many had been the times since that Anne had wished Rose had died. Why had God left this pathetically thin scrap of a child with stick-like arms and legs to lie motionless in her crib, too sickly even to cry, only uttering sometimes a frail whimper of pain? The enchanting pink and white baby was no more. Rose’s hair fell out after the fever, and what grew back was not golden and curly like before, but barley brown and limp, lying across the fragile skull as if devoid of any vitality. The thin little face did not smile, and one pale eye was turned up and to the side in an ugly squint.
The doctors said that the power might come back to her limbs in time, that with careful nursing she might grow up to be almost normal. Almost normal! Anne remained in the sickroom day after day, staring at the baby; Basil had absented himself, almost lived at his club, sent word merely each evening, a formal enquiry after the progress of Marya Vassilievna to which the brooding mother never replied.
Then one day Anne emerged from her darkness, became brisk and business-like and determined. She engaged a full nursery staff to take care of Rose – a wet-nurse, a day nurse, a physician and a governess – Mlle Parmoutier, a quiet, sensible Belgian woman. Rose should have everything she could possibly need, anything that might in any way give her comfort or improve her condition. Anne went every morning to visit the nursery before she went out, and again in the evening when she had dressed for dinner; and for the rest of the time, she tried to forget what she could not endure to think about. She loved Rose so much, and it was an agony that she could do nothing for her. The sight of her child so stricken, so thin, partly paralysed, a dreadful parody of herself, tore so badly at her heart that she must shut her mind to it or be destroyed.
Basil, she guessed, felt much the same, and the knowledge of his anguish only made hers worse. Though he had wanted a son, his first sight of her had converted him. He had adored her. It was by his desire that the Christening party had been such a grand occasion; he had bought her extravagant gifts – a Christening gown of exquisite lace, a silk shawl more costly than any gown Anne had ever worn, a solid gold teething ring to suck on. He had planned ahead for her growing-up, her first puppy, her first pony, her first grown-up gown, her first ball, the match he would make for her – though who could be good enough? Many a time Anne had found him hanging over the crib, one forefinger firmly encircled by Rose’s diminutive fist, telling her all his plans, while the golden baby gazed up at him and smiled and smiled.
He never visited the nursery now, and Rose was never mentioned between them. The common love which might have brought them together turned into a pain which drove them apart. They pursued their social careers more intently than ever, filling every moment with activity, allowing their minds no instant of repose where pain might settle.
Outwardly their life seemed quite normal, and since children were not usually spoken about socially until they were old enough to be brought down to the drawing-room, there was nothing in their daily round to suggest that it was not. The Tchaikovskys remained courteous to each other, presented to the world a united front of sophisticated partnership; but never quite met each other’s eyes.
Anne’s mission in Kuznetsky Most that morning was to buy a present for Basil, whose fortieth birthday was to be celebrated in a few days’ time. Everyone who came to the dinner and ball they were giving for the occasion would want to know what she had given him. It must be a talking-point for the evening, something sufficiently valuable, unusual and tasteful to fit in with the Tchaikovsky style. Yet what was there, she wondered with a frown, that you could buy for a rich man who could have anything he wanted for the asking? She had already had three abortive outings, and had spent a month racking her brains in vain. Today, she was determined she would get something, even if it took all day – and to that end she had made no daytime appointments. She was free until the dressing-bell tonight.