The Masters

by Christopher Nicole

  “I gather she has only recently landed in this country, sir. A few hours ago, to be precise.”

  “Well...I’ll come down. Mrs Moultrie isn’t around, is she?” He got on very well with his landlady, but he knew she did not approve of her “young gentlemen” entertaining women in their rooms, not even if they were ladies.

  “I have not seen her, sir,” Morgan reassured him.

  Duncan pulled on his jacket and went down the stairs. The woman had been allowed into the front hall, and the street door was closed. Her back was turned to him, and her hair was concealed beneath her hat, but he could see to his consternation that there was a tiny face peeping at him over her shoulder. Desperately he tried to remember all the women he had been associated with over the past year, one of whom might have become pregnant; but he hadn’t been in England more than nine months! On the other hand, according to Morgan this woman had only just arrived. Could someone have followed him all the way from Russia? “Ahem!” he remarked.

  The woman turned, and his jaw dropped. But then, so did hers. “My God!” she said in English.

  “Patricia?” He went down the rest of the steps. “Oh, Patricia! I was beginning to think you were dead.”

  She licked her lips. “Alexei sent me to you. Without telling me. He just said you were his agent...”

  “Come upstairs,” he said. “But...” He looked her up and down. She was as well dressed as he had ever seen her, and looked perfectly healthy. Certainly she did not appear to be a fugitive. But she had a child...

  “I don’t mean to impose,” she said. “I cannot imagine what Alexei had in mind. I had to get out of Russia, you see. And, well...”

  “He sent you to me? I’m so glad he did that. Please come upstairs.” She hesitated, then climbed the stairs. Morgan waited at the top. “Make some more breakfast, Harold,” Duncan said.

  “Yes, sir.” Morgan’s expression spoke volumes as he saw the baby.

  “And the child...”

  “I will find something for the babe, sir,” Morgan said. Duncan closed the door behind them. “Do sit down.” He sat beside, gazed at the baby. “Is it...well...”

  “It’s a he,” Patricia said. “And he’s mine.”

  “Oh!”

  “Well, whose baby did you expect me to be carting around? And before you ask any more silly questions, I am not married. The father is dead. He died while we were escaping from Irkutsk. I suppose it’s all in here.” She gave him Alexei’s letter, waited while he scanned it. “So you can understand why I have to be in England. I don’t know what Alexei had in mind, sending me to you, but I promise I won’t trouble you again. If you could just tell me how one goes about renting a room, or a suite like this would be better, and getting hold of servants…” He stared at her. “I have lots of money,” she explained. “Alexei saw to that. Oh, he doesn’t approve of me, but he is my brother.”

  “He wouldn’t come with me,” Duncan said.

  “Come with you, where?”

  “To Siberia. To look for you. To rescue you.”

  “You wanted to do that?”

  “Well, of course I did. I love you, Trisha. But Alexei said it was impossible. He said that even if we found you, we’d have to send you back to the police. I’m afraid we quarrelled, and he ordered me off Bolugayen.”

  “Oh, Duncan,” she said. “That was awfully noble of you.”

  “So I came here,” Duncan said. “But I have an agent in St Petersburg, who’s supposed to report to me the moment there was any news of you. That’s why I thought you must be dead, as I had heard nothing for all these months.”

  “Oh, Duncan,” she said again.

  “Gosh, to see you...” He touched her hand, tentatively.

  “We need to talk,” Patricia said. “Is there somewhere…”

  “I will see to the babe, madam,” Morgan said.

  “Oh, would you?” She stood up, and Morgan took the baby from her arms with great expertise. “His name is Joseph.”

  “Joseph,” Morgan said. “Come along, little Joe, and Uncle Harold will feed you and put you to bed.”

  “Where did you find him?” Patricia asked.

  “I advertised. He is what is known in England as a gentleman’s gentleman. He is an absolute treasure.”

  “I can see that.” She wandered about the room, fingering ornaments, pausing to look out of the window. As it was high summer it was broad daylight, and quite warm, although a smoke haze hung above London, as it always did. “Alexei says I am to stay here until he can sort things out in Russia.”

  “Of course.”

  She glanced at him. “I meant, stay in London.”

  “Yes, I will have to get a bigger place.”

  She faced him. “Duncan, I can’t live with you.”

  “Oh, we’d get married, Trisha.”

  “We can’t get married.”

  “But...isn’t that what we always planned?”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “You mean you don’t love me any more.”

  She sat down, heavily. “Love? My God? Do you know what has happened to me since the last time we saw each other?”

  “I know it’s been pretty rough,” he said.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “I have been raped, more often than I can remember, and by both men and women. I have been flogged senseless. I have been kicked and slapped and thrown about. I have a child, by another man. And I sold myself as a whore time and time again to get across Russia to Bolugayen. Do you think I have had any time to think about love?” She paused, panting for breath. “And if you think you can still love me, after all of that,” she went on, “then you are crazy.”

  “Love has nothing to do with what might have happened to you,” he said. “Love is what a person is.”

  She leaned forward. “Duncan, what I am trying to tell you is that I am not the girl you remember. I was a total innocent when I went to that meeting in the Petersburg ghetto. I was arrogant, confident, I believed in what I was. I wanted to help people, but that was my personal prerogative, my charity. I don’t help people because I feel I should. I help them because I am one of them. Listen to me, if Vladimir came to me tomorrow, and said, Patricia, go back to Russia and shoot the Tsar, and told me how to do it and provided me with a weapon, I would obey him. You talk about love! I only know how to hate.”

  “Who is Vladimir?” he asked, quietly.

  “A friend. He escaped from Irkutsk with me.”

  “He went with you to Bolugayen?”

  “No, he refused to do that. I do not know what happened to him.”

  “Will you tell me his last name?”

  She hesitated, then shrugged. “He called himself Lenin.” He saw that her eyes were filled with tears. “I am so miserable,” she whispered. He sat beside her and took her in his arms. “But what about little Joseph?” she sobbed.

  “As of now, he is my son. The son we lost. We’ll start making it legal, tomorrow.”

  *

  Alexei and Sonia sat on the upstairs porch, enjoying an afternoon cup of tea. Below them the beds to either side of the drive were filled with brilliant flowers. To either side of the house the wheatfields stretched away into the distance, great waves of sprouting yellow. The slight breeze was from the east, and up the shallow slope from the town there came the sound of children singing.

  “What do you think of Bolugayen?”

  “It is a paradise. Is it true that you own all the land for more than a hundred miles?”

  “Not entirely, since the serfs were emancipated. But I do not own it. It belongs to my half-brother, the Prince.”

  “Does he know about me?”

  They had carefully skirted round dangerous subjects during the past few weeks, while spring had drifted into summer, and her feet had slowly healed. Geller had told him that they were indeed healed, although she would never be able to walk with total freedom: she had lost her left big toe and also the third toe on that foot. That only made her the
more fascinating. Alexei knew he had fallen for her, very heavily. He did not wish to envisage Bolugayen without her, which was another reason for staying off dangerous subjects. They breakfasted together every morning, and they dined together every night; he was not often available for lunch as he inspected the estate most days and was gone from dawn until dusk. They talked together, and sometimes she would play the piano for him. She had totally readjusted his ideas on Jews, proved that she was as well educated and as talented as any of his sisters or aristocratic acquaintances. Yet the fact that she was Jewish, with natural reserve, and that she had spent four years in the most horrendous circumstances, was obvious in everything she did, in her desire to keep so many parts of herself private. He did not know if she ever practised her religion, as there was no means of doing so publicly on Bolugayen, but he presumed she did so in the privacy of Patricia’s apartment, which was her own sacrosanct world. Yet she had never requested kosher food; presumably this had not been available in Irkutsk or on her wanderings across Siberia.

  He had had seamstresses come in to make her clothes, and he saw that she had the best of everything. She accepted this as her due, which he knew would upset a great many men — Peter certainly. It also upset Olga, to discover that Bolugayen now had a permanent live-in mistress — she knew nothing of Patricia’s brief passing through — but did not offend him in the least. Of course he wanted to have her in his bed. But he could not take advantage of any woman who might be beholden to him. When he recalled the thoughts which had tempted him when first she had come here, he was utterly ashamed. But equally, he could not consider any thoughts which might lead to their separation. “Prince Peter does not know you are here,” he said.

  She looked very concerned. “But surely he must find out, eventually? Will that not mean a great deal of trouble for you?”

  “It might. But it is not your concern.”

  “Of course it is my concern,” she said. “I must leave this place, immediately.”

  “Where would you like to go? There is still a warrant out for your arrest, and immediate execution.”

  “Well...could I not follow Patricia to England?”

  “I do not think that would be a very good idea.”

  “I thought England accepted everyone?”

  “They do, just about. But it can be a very lonely place.”

  “Would I not be able to link up with Patricia?”

  “You probably would. But I do not think that would be a very good idea, either.”

  “I don’t understand. Is she in trouble?”

  “Not in the least. She’s getting married.” Sonia’s mouth formed a huge O. “It’s to her cousin Duncan,” Alexei explained. “The letter arrived yesterday.”

  “Her cousin?”

  “It’s an old aristocratic pastime,” Alexei explained. “Certainly in my family. The fact is, Duncan and Patricia have been lovers for several years.”

  “But...does this Duncan know of...well...”

  “According to their letter,” Alexei said. “He knows all about her.”

  “She never spoke his name,” Sonia muttered. “In all the years we were together.” She raised her head. “Where will I go?”

  He drew a deep breath. “Do you have to go, anywhere?” She gazed at him. “Is my presence here not a great danger to you?”

  “No. It appears that the Okhrana have found out I helped my sister to leave Russia, and have decided, or been instructed, to do nothing about it. As for you...you are widely accepted to be my mistress.”

  “You have been very kind to me, Your Excellency.”

  “Because I love you.”

  Her head jerked. “That is not possible.”

  “Because you are a Jewess? Or because of what you have suffered?”

  “Well...both. Besides...”

  “You would be no man’s mistress.”

  “I imagine you think that is an absurd attitude, in view of the number of men who have had me.”

  “I am not interested in the number of men who have had you, Sonia. My wish is to make you my wife.”

  “Your...” She stared at him with her mouth open.

  “Is that such a distasteful thought?”

  “I am a cripple.”

  “To me you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  She gasped. “I am a Jewess.”

  “Well, we would have to be married in an orthodox ceremony, for the time being. Whenever it becomes possible, I will join you in a Jewish ceremony.”

  “But...can you marry, Your Excellency, without the permission of the Prince?”

  “I can do anything I like, here on Bolugayen.”

  “But when the Prince comes home...”

  “I think we should worry about that when it happens.” She glanced at him and looked away again. “What really matters,” he said. “The only thing that matters, is whether you can love me.”

  Another quick glance. Her cheeks remained pink. “I have loved you, Your Excellency, from the moment I saw you,” she said.

  *

  Patricia Cromb paid off the hansom cab driver, and went up the stairs to her apartment, or flat, as it was called in England.

  She carried several boxes under her arm, as she had been Christmas shopping, and Morgan opened the door for her. “The tree has arrived, madam,” he said. “Do you approve?” She followed him into the drawing-room. The flat was large with high ceilings, and had two bedrooms as well as this enormous reception room, and a separate dining-room. Morgan had installed the tree in the far corner, in an earth-filled bucket, surrounded by green paper. “I thought that you and sir, and Joe, of course, might like to decorate it yourself,” he suggested. The box of baubles waited to one side.

  “Oh, yes,” Patricia said. “We’ll do that this evening. Is there any mail?”

  “No, madam. But...” He hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “A...gentleman, called. Well, actually, a gentleman and a lady.” He gave a gentle cough.

  Patricia had heard such a hesitancy in describing a caller before. “Did he leave a card?”

  “No, madam. I do not think he had a card. But he said he would call back this afternoon.”

  Patricia was suddenly aware that her heart was pounding. This would be her fourth Christmas in London. For those four years she had known nothing but a muted happiness. It was even possible to suppose that the four years of misery she had suffered before then had been but a preparation for the contented pleasure that was now her life. But there had always lurked in the background the knowledge that she was a wanted woman. She corresponded regularly with Aunt Anna, and was regularly reassured that the Okhrana had determined to ignore her existence. Aunt Anna’s exile, and that of Peter, would end this coming summer of 1904, and they would be returning to Bolugayen. Anna wrote enthusiastically that once that was done, they could set about gaining a pardon for her.

  She also corresponded regularly with Sonia. That Sonia should have married Alexei, that they should now be sisters-in-law, was something truly to be grateful for. And Sonia was now also a mother, like her, of a baby boy.

  Equally was she constantly reassured by Duncan. She was his wife, and was therefore an American citizen, and she was living in the freest society in the world, the refuge of every political prisoner who could get there. He had supported Alexei’s point of view, that she was much safer in London than she would be even in Boston, and had shown no great desire to take her home, but she had no doubt he was as afraid of social ostracism as of any interest the Pinkerton men might take in a wanted terrorist. In fact, Patricia no longer had any very great immediate desire to visit the United States. She fully intended to do so, one day. But for the moment she felt happiest in London. They had an interesting circle of friends, who clearly found the beautiful and somewhat mysterious wife of the American shipping agent fascinating; she had all the money she could spend, and she was totally comfortable and well looked after. Morgan was, as she had determined on the occa
sion of their first meeting, a treasure. He had continued in his original role, and was not only butler and housemaid, but cook as well — he was a brilliant cook. Perkins the nurse was devoted to Joe. And Giselle, her personal maid, was an efficient little Frenchwoman.

  And there was Duncan. And his love was gradually wearing away the oversharp edges of her personality and her memory. She would love, she was certain. Yet with all the comfort and care with which she was surrounded, all the reassuring letters from Anna and Alexei, the equally reassuring words from Duncan that no one could touch her in England as long as she broke no English laws, she remained a fugitive from the Okhrana. There was a warrant out for her, and she could have no doubt that they would serve it whenever they considered it necessary or appropriate — or even desirable...no matter where she was living. And now this strange man, who did not have a card...

  She poured herself a glass of wine and went into the nursery to play with Joseph, who had just awakened from his afternoon nap. Joe was five years old, now, a sturdy little boy. Next year she would be employing a governess for him. Patricia loved him dearly, but he more than any memories kept her conscious of what she was, what she had been...and what she might be again. He strongly took after his father, was dark-haired instead of red, and had small, handsome features, just like Joseph Fine: he was clearly going to be devastatingly handsome, and hopefully, a good man. His father had been a good man. And she had his child to remember him by.

  She listened to the peal of the bell, and stood up. Perkins, sitting by to watch her mistress play with her charge, also rose; it was easy for her to tell that Patricia was agitated. “Look after Joe,” Patricia said, as if Perkins did not spend her entire day doing that, and went into the drawing-room, listened to Morgan opening the outer door...and could not believe her ears.

  She ran to the drawing-room door as Morgan opened this in turn. “Mr and Mrs...Lenin?” He was not certain about the pronunciation of the pseudonym.

  “Vladimir!” Patricia cried. “Olga!” They hugged and kissed each other. “It has been so long,” Patricia said. “There was a time I thought you dead.”

  “As we did of you,” Vladimir said. “We got to Switzerland, first.”