Anne and Parmoutier exchanged a glance. Yes, the rain would be very bad for the marching soldiers! It would slow them down – and roads would become quagmires. ‘God is on our side, madame,’ Parmoutier said softly.
The old woman, overhearing, crossed herself. ‘Amen to that! God is on the side of the righteous.’
The storm passed quickly, and a calm, bright, fresh afternoon followed. There was no word from Nikolai, and no one came near the house. Anne’s sense of unreality grew. At one moment she thought that perhaps everyone had left Vilna, and she was alone in the path of the oncoming French. At others she thought perhaps the French were not coming after all, and everyone knew it except her. As the afternoon faded into evening, and the rain-washed air grew chilly, Pauline came out to her with a shawl, and asked her diffidently if she would take dinner inside or on the terrace.
‘Dinner?’ she said vaguely, and became aware that she was extremely hungry.
‘You have eaten nothing all day, madame,’ Pauline said sternly.
Nor the evening before, Anne remembered suddenly. The news had interrupted her and Nikolai before they had had time to eat supper. All she had had was a glass of champagne. She laughed, and Pauline looked at her quizzically.
‘Yes, I’ll have dinner here,’ she said, and glanced towards the house. ‘Is everything all right, Pauline?’
‘They were all very frightened before,’ Pauline answered, ‘but now they see you so calm, they think everything must be well. We are all waiting for news.’
‘Are you afraid?’ Anne asked curiously. It must be hard for the maid, caught between her own people and her adopted people. Either side might take her for a spy.
Pauline shrugged. ‘If you are not afraid, madame, why should I be? I go where you go, and as long as you are safe, so am I.’
‘You want to stay with me? You don’t want to go to – to the other side?’
Pauline looked contemptuous. ‘They are not my people,’ she said. ‘That one, that Bonaparte, he holds my people in thrall as much as everyone else.’
‘Ah, is that how you see it?’ Anne said thoughtfully.
It was late when Kirov came home, looking bone-weary. Anne guessed he had not slept or eaten since she saw him last. She was still sitting on the verandah, beginning to feel chilly now, but unable to bring herself to go in, out of the soft summer twilight and into the stuffy darkness. Once she went in, the day would be over, and it might be her last day in Vilna, her last day of peace.
He came to her and kissed her, and sat down beside her, stretching out his legs and sighing with weariness.
‘Shall I get you some supper?’ she asked.
‘In a minute,’ he said. ‘Sit with me a while first.’ He reached out a hand and she gave him hers, and he carried it back to his lap and held it there, caressing it lightly, his eyes closed. Through their linked hands, communication passed. She understood that they were to be parted, and that, as she had wanted to savour the last of this day, so he wanted to savour these moments with her while he could.
At last he opened his eyes and said, ‘We are to evacuate Vilna. Shishkov tried to persuade the Emperor that it was cowardly to yield the first instant the French appeared, without making any kind of a stand, and it took us all day to argue him down. Vilna would be impossible to defend, even if we had the men. We’d be trapped between the enemy and the river, with only one small wooden bridge to escape by.’
Anne nodded. ‘I see.’
‘So did the Emperor at last, thought not until Tolly and I rode out in person, and came back and assured him that the French really were coming.’
‘You’ve seen them?’ Anne said, startled.
His face seemed to grow older as she watched. ‘Yes, I’ve seen them. Poor devils, they don’t look as though they’re marching to glory. That storm took all the air out of them – and some of the horses already look half starved. We’ve stripped the country they’re marching over, so if they haven’t brought provisions with them, they’ll be hungry long before they get here. But there are thousands of them, Anna. Thousands. And how did Napoleon move so fast? It’s impossible to over-estimate that man.’
‘How long?’
‘To reach Vilna? Another two or three days, perhaps; the cavalry might get here sooner. The Emperor’s leaving tomorrow, during the night to avoid spreading panic. We’re moving headquarters to Drissa. I think you ought to leave tomorrow morning. Once the word gets out that we’re evacuating, there’ll be some pretty scenes, I don’t doubt, and the roads will be crammed with carts and coaches. You should be able to get as far as Sventsiany tomorrow – that’s about seventy-five versts. Put up in the best inn, and I’ll come to you as soon as I can.’
‘When will that be?’ she asked in a small voice.
‘The day after, I expect. I’ll know more by then – we’ll make new plans.’ He eyed her. ‘Are you afraid?’
‘No,’ she said.
He squeezed her hand. ‘That’s my brave girl. Shall we go to bed?’
‘You haven’t eaten. I was going to get you some supper.’
‘There are more important things than supper. Come, lie in my arms, Doushka, for a few hours. God knows when we’ll have the chance again! I shall have to leave you before dawn – we’re taking everything with us that we can – the city archives, food, munitions – and I shall have to help supervise the packing. What we can’t take, we’ll burn; and then we’ll destroy the bridge. He’ll find the Vilia harder work to bridge than the Nieman.’ He stood up, grimacing. ‘It’s going to be a long day.’
‘Then you’d better sleep,’ she said.
He grinned. ‘To hell with sleep. If you argue any more, I’ll think you don’t want me.’
She twisted her arm round his waist. ‘Always, always,’ she said.
He left her arms at four the next morning; dressed himself, saying that he would shave and breakfast at headquarters; kissed her once more, thoroughly, and went away. Anne turned over into the nest of warmth he had left in the bed, and cried a little; then dried her eyes, got up, and rang briskly for Pauline.
By eight o’clock, when they were ready to leave, it was already very hot, and threatening to be hotter. She longed for Adonis’s strong arms and cheerful confidence as she chivvied the servants, and supervised the loading. Rose was in a fret over Mielka, and had to be carried down the line to see him, hitched between Image and Quassy, before she was satisfied that he was not being left behind. She plainly felt her world was threatened.
‘When are we going to see Papa?’ she demanded.
‘Soon,’ Anne said distractedly.
The procession rolled away from the house, two carriages, a kibitka, and the grooms leading the riding-horses. The upper part of the town was quiet, but when they got down to the bridge over the Vilia, they had to wait their turn in a queue of carts driven by soldiers, loaded with sacks of grain and boxes of ammunition. Anne stretched her neck and stared out of the window in every direction, hoping for a glimpse of Nikolai, but there was no one higher than a sergeant in sight.
Once out on the highway, they trotted past the slow-moving carts, and got ahead of their dust, and Anne settled back against the squabs and set her mind to entertaining Rose for the long journey to Sventsiany.
On the 27th, the baking heat of the day was suddenly masked again by lowering clouds, and torrential rain began to fall; but this time it did not blow over in an hour or two. It went on, almost unremittingly, all day, and all the next day too; the temperature dropped rapidly; the rain became sleety; there were periods of hail, and violent thunder storms, and sheets and forks of lightning.