Negative: they were always negative. It was as if Natasha had disappeared from the face of the earth; and though the words had never been spoken, everyone had gradually relinquished any hope of finding her alive. The Kiriakov men left at first light every day on an increasingly hopeless search, and the unvoiced thought that they were now only seeking the final proof of her death made the days longer and more weary for everyone.
Irina’s door was ajar, and Anne saw that the room was even brighter than her own had been. Once inside, she could see why: the curtains had been drawn right back, and Irina was standing at the window, looking up at the moon. The sky outside was clear, and the moon was high and hard, a white-hot disc whose light was so bright it might almost have burnt.
In her nightdress and with her long plait hanging straight down her back, Irina looked like a child. She held the pink slipper in both hands against her breast; her eyes were wide and blank, her lips were moving soundlessly. She did not seem to notice when Anne came towards her.
‘Is she ill, Anna?’ Sashka whispered anxiously. ‘I called her but she didn’t answer, and she looks so strange.’
Anne squeezed his hand reassuringly, and then relinquished it and approached the Countess, saying quietly, ‘Irina Pavlovna, are you all right?’ There was no response. ‘Can’t you sleep? The moon is very bright.’
Close beside her mistress, Anne could hear now that she was whispering rapidly, and thought at first that she was praying. She touched Irina’s hand cautiously, and was shocked to feel that, in spite of the warmth of the midsummer night, it was icy cold. ‘Madame, come back to bed,’ she said gently. ‘You’re cold.’ The rapid whisper went on unheedingly; Anne saw that her pupils were dilated, too. Anne turned to Sashka and murmured, ‘Go quietly and wake Nyanka, my love, and bring her here. Try not to wake anyone else.’
He gave one wide-eyed look, and scurried away. Anne placed her hand over Irina’s icy one, and tried to turn her from the window, but her whole body was rigid, and her resistance was so powerful that Anne could not make any impression on her, nor unclasp so much as one finger from around the shoe. She was either in a trance, or sleepwalking.
‘Irina Pavlovna!’ she said more urgently. ‘Can you hear me? Wake up!’
The whisper became distinguishable. ‘So cold… so cold. Dark, here… No light anywhere. Cold.’
‘Wake up, madame. You’re dreaming.’
‘Cold,’ Irina said. ‘No more voices… you promised… so alone.’ Out of the corner of her eye, Anne saw Nyanka appear in the doorway, clasping a crucifix a little before her as if to ward off evil. Irina’s voice rose. ‘Don’t leave me alone… Lonely… So lonely…’ Suddenly she cried out. ‘Mama! Mama! Help me!’
Nyanka had been advancing across the room, but at the last words she stopped as though shot through the heart, and her eyes met Anne’s, wide with horror. The voice which had issued from Irina’s lips was not her own. It was higher, younger, a child’s voice – Natasha’s voice.
‘Dear God alive!’ Nyanka cried, crossing herself.
‘Quick, Nyanka,’ Anne said sharply, ‘what must we do?’
But Nyanka was too frightened to be of any help. Irina was rigid and shaking, and Anne feared she might actually injure herself, and yet feared to wake her by violent means, in case it should be harmful. Sashka was hiding behind Nyanka, clutching her skirt and peeping out in fear; and into the midst of this came Zina in a sensible wrapper, with Zinochka in curl-papers behind her, and strode across the room, grim-faced. She brushed Anne out of the way, took hold of Irina by one shoulder, and slapped her calculatedly, first on one cheek and then the other.
Irina’s eyes widened even further in shock as she stared at Zina for an instant; and then she collapsed bonelessly against her sister.
‘Help me put her to bed,’ Zina snapped at Anne. ‘Zinochka, turn back the covers. You, Nyanka, don’t stand there like a stock! Fetch her smelling-bottle, and go and wake up her maid. Go, for God’s sake – and stop crossing yourself like that! She’s not possessed by evil spirits. She’s just been sleepwalking again.’
While she was speaking, Anne had come round to the other side of her mistress, and between them they half-carried, half-dragged the inert form back to the bed, where Zinochka had pulled back the covers and was hovering anxiously. Nyanka had left the room. Out of the corner of her eye, Anne knew that Sashka was still somewhere near, and ought to be taken back to bed, but she hadn’t any attention to spare for him at the moment.
They got Irina into bed, pulled the covers over her. She lay limp against the pillows, her eyes closed, her face white except for the reddening imprint of Zina’s fingers. Zina lifted one fragile wrist to test the pulse. Anne saw that the Countess had dropped the shoe by the window, the first time it had been out of her hands since Nasha went missing.
‘I was afraid of this,’ Zina said grimly. ‘I’ve seen it building up. She used to have these fits when she was a girl, especially when the moon was bright like tonight.’
‘Fits?’ Anne queried.
‘Sleepwalking – or whatever you want to call it. A sort of trance, I suppose,’ Zina said. ‘Our mother was the same way, so I’m told – I don’t really remember. She was thought to have second sight. The serfs believed it, anyway. She was a seventh child – and Irina was her seventh, if you count the stillbirth between Feodor and me.’
Marie came in, voluble with anxiety and questions, bearing the smelling-bottle. Nyanka hovered in the doorway, torn between her desire to attend her nurseling, and her fear of things supernatural. Almost irrelevantly, in the back of her mind, Anne heard the Count’s voice: We all see visions. There’s a magic in Russia that we breathe in all the time… Well, but this was something a little different, a little out of Anne’s experience. Yet five years in Russia had changed her. The sensible English governess would have dismissed what she had heard as imagination; but this Anna Petrovna was not so sure.
‘Zina, did you hear?’ she asked now, as Zina plied the bottle under Irina’s nose. ‘When she spoke – it sounded like Natasha’s voice.’
Irina coughed, struggled a little, lifted a hand to ward off the bottle. Zina pushed it down firmly and said, ‘One more sniff, there’s a good girl.’ Irina gasped, and her eyes fluttered open. She looked around her at the ring of faces hovering over her, and then closed her eyes and moaned.
‘What happened?’
Zina’s fingers were firm on the wrist again. ‘You took one of your turns,’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember?’
‘No,’ Irina moaned. ‘My head hurts… What happened?’
‘She’s like this,’ Zina explained to Anne. ‘She’ll be better in a minute or two.’ She stroked Irina’s forehead, her work-hardened hand unexpectedly gentle. ‘There, little’Rushka, there. It’s all right now. Zina’s here.’ She looked over her shoulder and saw Sashka at the end of the bed watching, and frowned. ‘Nyanka, take that child and put him to bed! What are you thinking of? Your mistress is all right now. Marie and I will stay with her. You go back to bed too, Zinochka. You need your sleep. And send those servants away,’ she added, aware of some hovering outside the door.