‘She’s not well. It’s part of the reason I came home. My tour of duty doesn’t end until September, but the good Fräulein Hoffnung wrote to me to say she was worried about her mistress. Since the death of Natasha–’ She saw that it was difficult for him to talk of it. The horror of the child’s lonely death had changed everyone whom it touched. ‘Irina just withdrew into herself. It was always her way to cope with things that troubled her, but now Fräulein Hoffnung says she is afraid her health is breaking down under the strain. I wrote to the Emperor, asking to be relieved. I can be of more use to him in Petersburg now, than in Paris, in any case.’
She saw that the tangle of reasons, personal and political, was not evenly balanced, but she didn’t wonder at it. She knew a little of what he felt about his wife – more, really, than she wanted to know.
‘So you’ve been to Schwartzenturm already? I thought you said you’d come straight from Paris.’
‘I did – I have. I’m going to Petersburg after I’ve seen Lolya, and then to Schwartzenturm.’
‘Ah, then it isn’t serious? She isn’t seriously ill?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked at her with a wry expression. ‘Do you think I should have gone directly to her?’ Anne couldn’t help feeling a little shocked, and though she tried not to show it, he knew her too well for her to be able to disguise it from him. ‘You’re a strange one, Anna! You should rather want to keep me from her, keep me with you.’
She flinched. ‘Ah, don’t! You know–’ Impossible to go on. There was too much guilt in her own heart – of thoughts, if not of deeds – to speak of it. Instead, with a painful eagerness, she said, ‘Tell me about Sashka. It was so terrible, Nikolasha, when I left. I waved goodbye to him at Chastnaya, saying that it was for a few weeks, and I never went back again. I dreamed of him for months, waving goodbye, looking at me reproachfully.’ She frowned, her eyes dark. ‘He was like a son to me.‘
‘More than he has ever been to me,’ Kirov said quietly. ‘How can I tell you anything about him? Since he was born, I’ve hardly spent six months with him.’
‘He must be – almost seven. Seven in August,’ Anne mused. ‘I don’t suppose he would remember me now. Well, it’s for the best, as things are. And Lolya I know about – I see her now and then. When do you mean to bring her out? She’s old enough now.’
‘Next Season, in Petersburg. In November, I expect, if Irina’s well enough. She can be presented at Court at the same time. It’s another thing I had to come home for – my mother was beginning to write stern letters to me. She longs for Lolya to dazzle society–’
‘La Belle Hélène,’ Anne murmured.
‘Just so. I’m afraid she will make her very vain and silly, with her talk of breaking hearts and such female nonsense.’ He kissed her brow. ‘She doesn’t have you, now, to keep her sensible.’
‘Your sister is a sensible woman.’
‘Shoora’s a dear, but not clever. However, it was in the hope of mitigating the worst effects of Mama’s flattery that I’ve left her in the country, at Tula. My mother would have loved to have her in Moscow, but I refused to allow it. I wanted my little girl to grow up modest and natural.’
‘Will you take her back with you when you go to Petersburg?’
‘No – let her have one last summer of romping in the fields. I’ll fetch her in October. That will be soon enough.’
Anne mused. ‘I always thought you didn’t understand about your mother.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I mean, I thought you were blind to her real character.’
‘To her faults, you mean? No, dear love, I knew all about her. I watched what she did to my sisters. But what could I do? You can’t change a grown woman, particularly a widow who’s had the command of her own fortune all her life. And I could never bear to have to take sides between her and Irina. I owed a loyalty to both of them, and how could I choose? So I stood aside, and tried to make light of it.’
Anne’s mind cried a protest: but you were wrong! You left Irina victim to your mother, who was twice as strong as she. You should have defended your wife – that was where your loyalty lay! She felt he had been at fault, and that it was a weakness on his part; and probably he knew he had been wrong, but hid the knowledge from himself. He was not perfect, she saw that; her love for him did not make her blind to his faults. But she said nothing. In the first place, it was not her business; and in the second, she had no desire to argue with him about Irina – that was the last thing that should come between them.
Instead she said, ‘And Sergei? How is he? Have you heard from him?’
‘He’s with his regiment, fighting the Persians in Azerbaijan. He writes to me regularly, but he never says much about himself – just about the campaign, and occasionally about hunting or fishing trips.’ He sighed. ‘Mama complains that he never writes to her, or goes to visit her. When he has leave, he spends it in the Caucasus. I tell her it’s only natural that he shouldn’t want to spend half his leave travelling, but she suspects there are other reasons.’
‘And are there? What does he do in the Caucasus?’
‘Rides, hunts.’ He frowned. ‘That place has an unholy fascination. I felt it myself, and tried to resist it. I think you felt it too, didn’t you?’
‘It’s not like anywhere else in the world. But I have unhappy memories connected with it,’ she said quietly.
‘So do we all. Seryosha too. That’s what makes it all the more strange that he should keep going back – and particularly that he should spend so much time at Chastnaya. I think it’s unhealthy – obsessive. He keeps going over and over the ground. He blames himself for Nasha’s death, I think, which is absurd.’
Anne thought of the grim young man she had last seen at Pyatigorsk. Yes, obsessive was a word that fitted. But there was more to it than that, she thought. There was her own part in his ruin, which she could not calculate; and his complicated feelings about his step-mother and about her relationship with his father. In the Caucasus, she thought, in that place of light and shade, of dark magic and brooding mystery, Sergei might well be able to bring himself to believe that nothing at all was real, beyond the sword in his hand and the dust in his throat.
‘I wish he’d find a girl and get married,’ Kirov said. Anne, coming back from her thoughts, almost smiled.
‘How can you, of all people, recommend that as a cure-all?’
‘Unfair, Anna! But I do think it would be more natural if he were to marry. There are girls enough in Pyatigorsk, but he doesn’t seem to care for any of them.’
‘He may not tell you everything. Perhaps he has dozens of women. Would you tell him everything?’
‘Women is not the same as woman,’ he said succinctly. He leaned up on one elbow and looked down at her. ‘You don’t suppose he’s still thinking of you? I thought at the time that it was just an absurd infatuation – but feeling as I do about you, I could hardly blame him if it were more than that.’ He stroked her cheek.
‘I don’t think he ever really saw me,’ she said evenly. Her eyes met his, and something clenched inside her. ‘Nikolasha–’ she said in supplication.
It was different this time, slower, gentler, full of tenderness. She felt so close to him, pressing her cheek against his and cradling his head with her hands as they moved; yet the passion was filled with sadness. Afterwards they lay in silence, watching the shadows move across the walls. Time was running out. I shall never forget this place, she thought, not one detail of this room, of what happened, of what was said; yet it was not true. Already things were slipping away. The wholeness was so important, that it was impossible to hold on to the detail. It mattered so much, that it dispersed like mist when she tried to grasp it.