The Rose Stone

by The Rose Stone (retail) (epub)

  Anna watched the green, familiar countryside flow past the window and tried to feel a little less than wretched. “You seem to have found out an awful lot in a short time.”

  He lifted one shoulder and smiled the charming, self-deprecating smile that caused too many hearts to flutter for his own good. “It’s a talent,” he said modestly.

  To add to Anna’s misery, the Channel crossing was terrible, and a prey to seasickness she spent the cheerless hours, cold and shivering at the ship’s rail, whilst Michael entertained his new acquaintances, Effie Bishop and her mother, in a fair degree of warmth and comfort below. He could not, he pointed out reasonably, do anything to help his sister, and there seemed no advantage in their both being miserable.

  “Lord!” Anna said to her brother as she crawled into her berth as the train left Ostend, “Can you imagine what it must be like in winter!” Having, however, slept the afternoon and Belgium away she regained her appetite if not her spirits and was more than ready for dinner that evening as the train sped in the failing light through the neat and busy towns and villages of Germany.

  “I say – I hope you don’t mind,” Michael smiled his most engaging smile, “I sort of invited Effie and Mrs Bishop to dine with us. Thought it might be fun. Interesting too. They’ve lived in St P for three years. Thought they might sort of fill you in—”

  “Do I – sort of – have any say in the matter?” Anna asked mildly, re-adjusting a row of coral beads about her neck.

  “Not really.” Michael stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her. “I say. That outfit. It’s not half bad, you know. A bit Isadora Duncan if you ask me. Terribly outré. This Isabella—”

  “Arabella.”

  “Arabella. She’s worked wonders, hasn’t she?”

  Anna lifted exasperated eyes. “You mean like making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? Honestly, Michael – would you be so rude to anyone else?”

  He grinned at her in the small mirror, dropped a quick kiss on to the top of her head from his superior height. “’Course not. What are sisters for? There’s no other female in the world I can be that honest with!”

  Effie Bishop and her vague and nervous mother Anna found about equally painful, but in fairness she knew that to be not entirely their fault. Within her mind she was battling a longing for safe yesterday and a sick nervousness about unknown tomorrow, and she found it hard to concentrate upon the social pleasantries of travelling acquaintanceship. But about one thing Michael was certainly right; Effie and her mother knew St Petersburg well.

  “Such a pity that you won’t see it in winter.” Effie’s remarks, accompanied by a good deal of – to Anna – irritating eyelash fluttering, were addressed almost exclusively to Michael. “Piter is such good fun in the winter – the balls, the parties, the troika rides – have you ever ridden in a troika? Oh, it’s just wonderful. But in the summer – well, the place just dies if you ask me.”

  Mrs Bishop leaned close to Anna, confidentially. “The thing one finds about St Petersburg,” she said, “is that it is so awfully big. Overwhelmingly so. I mean—” she fluttered ineffectual hands “—not big in area, but in scale, if you understand me. It makes one feel quite like an ant. Quite like an ant. I’ve never really liked it, to tell the truth.”

  “Oh, Mama, what nonsense!” scolded her daughter. “It’s a wonderful city, you know it is! And really very friendly.” She turned back to Michael. “Do you know that as a general rule, if a foreigner is invited as a guest to dinner everyone around the table – twenty or thirty guests – will spend the whole evening conversing in his language – English, French, German – isn’t that so, Mama!” Mrs Bishop nodded. “And as for feeling at home – why we’ve even got our own English shop on the Nevsky Prospekt, did you know that? Stilton cheese, and good old English bacon—” She paused and cast a sideways, inquisitive look at Anna. “Where did you say you were staying?”

  Anna had not said. “The Shuvenski Palace.”

  “Good Lord.” The eyes this time were wide and openly impressed. “But – aren’t the Shuvenskis away in the country at the moment? They have a dacha up near the Finnish border, don’t they? One hears the most fascinating stories – of the Princess baking her own bread and suchlike. The Russians are the most extraordinary people – they do so love to play-act—”

  “I don’t know anything about that. But yes, the family are in the country. Michael and I are to stay in St Petersburg for a few days with the Prince, and then we’re to join the rest of the family in the country, I believe.”

  “Well, well,” Effie laughed gaily, “lucky you! There are a lot of people in Piter who’d give their eyeteeth to be invited to Lemorsk.” She paused, then added, delicately persistent, “The Prince you said. Would that be the young Prince or the old one?”

  Anna was tired of the catechism. “Prince Vassili.”

  “Ah.” Effie rested a small pointed fingernail upon her pouted red lower lip. “And Nicolai? His son? Have you met him yet?”

  “No.”

  Effie smiled a very small smile. “A treat you have to come.”

  “Effie!” Her mother was truly outraged.

  Effie lifted innocent eyebrows.

  “In my day young ladies would not dream of speaking of a gentleman in such terms.”

  Effie all but shrugged, rolled her eyes at Michael, who nearly choked on his coffee.

  “He is soon to be married, I believe?” Anna asked, bored by the conversation and by the silly byplay.

  “Yes. To some distant cousin or other.” Effie said lightly, her eyes still on Michael. “The match was arranged when they were children.” She pulled a face. “Wouldn’t care for that myself. Hardly seems the start of a perfect marriage, does it? I thought people were supposed to fall in love, or something,” she giggled coquettishly.

  Anna turned her head to the window. A perfect marriage, she thought, bleakly – was there truly any such thing? In the window beside her she saw reflected the small, red-shaded table lamp, the glittering cutlery, the faces of the people about her. All unreal, as this journey was unreal and the place to which she was going was unreal. The train’s echoing whistle screeched emptily back along the iron ribbon of track that led back to normality. To home. She stood up abruptly. “I do hope you’ll excuse me. I’m very tired.”

  * * *

  Düsseldorf, Magdeburg, Berlin, Poznan, Warsaw – where they changed trains and began the long pull northward – names on a map. And to Anna, unable to shake off that sense of unreality, they remained so. Cocooned in the comfort of the train, the stations, the cities, the changing countryside had little or no reality. She ate and slept and held conversations and the wheels beneath her gobbled the miles at terrifying speed. The train hurtled northward, through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia – and as it did the prospect of the task she had taken on assumed an aspect of threat that she could neither rationalize nor control, and her sense of being on the edge of panic increased. Somewhere ahead, in an unknown city full of strangers the Shuvenski diamond waited. Time and time again she took out her small sketch pad and sat, sometimes for as long as an hour, staring at the blank white page. And time and time again the little book was put back, untouched and unmarked. The most that she could hope was that this journey, this strange suspension of time and space between a known and an unknown world, would somehow go on forever. It came as a positive shock, therefore, when Michael looked at his watch, stood up and stretched, straightened his tie.

  “Nearly there. If you don’t mind, I’ll pop next door. Got a couple of arrangements to make.”

  Nearly there. Anna sat rigid with dismay. They couldn’t be nearly there. She wasn’t ready to be nearly there. What in the world was she doing in this idiotic situation anyway? Why wasn’t she sketching at her desk in the bedroom window at Kew, or sitting cross-legged upon Beth’s bed listening to Arabella’s passionate account of Mrs Pankhurst’s latest speech? What had Joss been thinking of, to manoeuvre her into this corner?

 
The dusty countryside had given way to buildings – shacks, small houses, dirt-track streets, the occasional onion-domed church, odd to Western eyes. There were farm carts drawn by oxen or by shambling horses. The train slowed a little. Intrigued despite her own self-centred anxiety, Anna leaned to the window, rubbed away the film of her breath. For the first time real interest stirred; this after all, was the land of her father, and of her husband. The people were dark, the cast and slant of their features distinctive, their dress, to Anna’s eyes, strange and outlandish; the men in skirted coats or blouses and baggy trousers and dusty boots, the women, stockily built, in voluminous skirts, aprons and colourful shawls, their hair usually covered with a bright headscarf.

  “Well,” Michael’s voice brought her back to herself, “this is it. Piter, as Effie will insist upon calling it, awaits.”

  Anna stood up, patted her hair, adjusted her hat. Despite a good night’s sleep and the luxury of a private toilet and washbasin she felt tired, untidy and at less than her best. She followed Michael into the corridor. The train, puffing long, thankful sighs of steam, was clattering into a vast station. Upon the platform crowds of people waited – servants, peasant women, men in bright, dashingly unfamiliar uniforms. Amidst a pandemonium of slammed doors and pushing people they stepped on to the platform. “This way,” Michael said. “Hey, Porter! Drat that man – hold on a minute. I’d better see that Effie and her mother are all right.”

  “Michael!”

  But Michael, with a brief wave was gone, back into the crowd, his bare fair head bobbing above caps and headscarves and military caps, and Anna found herself and her suitcases stranded in a stream of hurrying humanity. Blast Michael! And blast Joss for getting her into this in the first place. She’d told him what an irresponsible idiot her brother could be.

  “Madame Anatov?” The voice behind her was young, and very pleasant. She turned to find herself looking into a pair of the brightest and most arresting blue eyes she had ever encountered. The young man was about her own age, tall and slightly built. His smile was warm and lit those striking eyes with laughter.

  “Yes.” It had been agreed in London that while it was safe to use her married name, it might be best not publicly to declare her title.

  With grace and utter unselfconsciousness he bowed a little, inclining his shining brown head, the attractive smile widening. “Nicolai Shuvenski. My father asked me to meet you. The carriage is waiting. I trust the journey was not too arduous?”

  She shook her head.

  He snapped his fingers and two men came forward to take Anna’s luggage. Nicolai Shuvenski looked around. “You are surely not alone? I understood that your brother would be travelling with you?”

  To Anna’s utter consternation something inexplicably strange had happened to the rhythm of her breathing in that first moment and she was having some trouble in correcting it. “I – yes – he’s here somewhere. He made a friend on the train and he went back to – I’m afraid he can’t always be called the most reliable of people – ah, there he is – see, the tall, fair young man—” She was gabbling dreadfully. She pressed her lips tight shut and forced her stupidly fluttering hands to stillness. God in heaven – she sounded like that awful Mrs Bishop! What had got into her?

  Michael joined them, beaming. “They’re all right. Someone’s here from the Embassy. Hello, who’s this?”

  Nicolai’s grin matched his own. He extended his hand. “Nicolai Shuvenski.”

  “Michael Rose.” They shook hands.

  Nicolai spoke in rapid Russian to the men who held the cases, then turned back to Anna and offered his arm. “Madame.” Gingerly she laid her gloved hand upon his sleeve, barely touching it. Yet still there was a small shock of excitement at the slight contact. She glanced up at him, and he smiled. She looked away. He led her through the crowds and handed her with careful courtesy into the splendid open carriage which awaited them outside the station. Their host saw to the stowing of their luggage, climbed into the carriage and they set off at a spanking pace through the wide, impressive streets and boulevards of the Imperial capital. Anna sat bolt upright upon her leather seat, her head turned, watching the splendid buildings. In one thing Mrs Bishop had certainly been right – the grandeur and scale of the city was overawing. The carriage, big as it was, seemed like a matchbox in the vast streets and squares, in which few people walked or drove, though the weather was clement.

  “It is your first visit to our city, I believe?”

  She turned her head. The blue eyes were watching her attentively. “Yes, it is.”

  “It’s a little overwhelming at first I think – and very unlike London.”

  “You know London?”

  “Very well.”

  Anna glanced around her. “It’s very – grand.”

  He laughed. His laughter, like his voice, was warm and attractive. “A good word for it. One gets used to the scale of the place eventually, but it does take time. See – the river—” The wide, glimmering Neva flowed smooth and bright as metal in the warm sunshine, its great breadth nature’s complement to the monumental palaces, public buildings and churches that lined its banks. “For many months of the year, of course, it is frozen over. Like a great frozen road through the heart of the city. Then in spring the ice breaks and the river flows again. It is one of the most spectacular sights in the world.”

  “I should like to see it.”

  “You must visit us again, and perhaps you will.” His words, like her own, were the merest politeness, a pretty exchange between host and guest. Yet it seemed to Anna, as when she had touched his arm, that something warm and unspoken had passed between them, and that those eyes held more interest than the occasion warranted as he studied her face. She looked down at her clasped hands, furious with herself. The wretched journey must have unhinged her mind! A handsome face, a softly spoken word and here she was all but swooning like a schoolgirl!

  “I’m very much looking forward to seeing your work. My father spoke very highly of it. And I very much liked the things he brought back from London with him. The inkstand is particularly fine.”

  She blushed. “Thank you.”

  “I was in Paris last year. I saw nothing there any better—”

  She looked up, startled, shook her head, “Prince Nicolai, I—”

  “Nicolai. Please. Just Nicolai.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating just a little.”

  “Not at all. The jewelled insects – they’re exquisite – my mother loved them.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “We have some wonderful jewellers in St Petersburg—”

  “You have Monsieur Fabergé!”

  “Quite. We have Monsieur Fabergé, and his work, quite rightly, is famous throughout the world. I, however, happen to share my father’s view that it is a little too opulent. My tastes are simpler. An elegance of line, the—” he paused, his face serious “—the symmetry of nature. These things are true beauty, are they not?”

  “Yes. I think so.” Alarmingly, she was having some difficulty with her breath again. She turned to Michael, saying gaily, “Michael, do look – a pair of Sphinxes! One would think oneself in Egypt rather than Russia!”

  As Anna had more than half come to suspect during the ride from the station, the Shuvenski Palace was breathtaking; an immense and spacious building with the sweeping staircase, the marble floors and columns, the glittering chandeliers that spoke of a confident and opulent age. Yet it was not, as she had certainly expected, overawing. For the size of it and the treasures it held it might have been a museum: but the great bunches of flowers that adorned the tables and the summer-empty fireplaces, the lovely Oriental rugs, the soft colours of furnishings and fabrics, the comfortable furniture, all proclaimed it the family home that it was. To Anna the most intimidating thing was the enormous number of servants. They seemed to be everywhere, resplendently uniformed, ready with positively oppressive attentiveness to anticipate her every need. She found herself installed in a s
uite of rooms that might have done service for a princess – indeed, she thought, gazing at the velvet-draped bed and the great, gilded mirrors – probably had. She dressed for dinner carefully – amazed to discover that every item of clothing had been removed from her trunk, sponged, pressed and hung in the enormous wardrobe or laid in the sweet-smelling drawers – and swept down the magnificent staircase, a glimmer of amusement in her eyes at her own charade of confidence when only she knew the effort it took to swallow a mouthful of food, or to answer politely the questions that were put to her across the glittering crystal and silver of the flower-decked table. She escaped as soon as she decently could, pleading a perfectly excusable tiredness and fled to the sanctuary of the enormous, wonderfully comfortable bed where she lay staring at the ornate ceiling in the long twilight, facing a confusion at whose roots undeniably lay a pair of bright, attentive eyes and a smile as warm as summer itself.

  The next day, after a night of fitful sleep that was only partly due to the unfamiliarly light northern night, Anna saw at last the object of her journey, the creation of her father, the stone known now to the world as the Shuvenski Diamond. It had been taken already from its old setting and rested now in a box lined with black velvet. It was, beyond argument, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. As she held it upon the palm of her hand she could feel Josef at her shoulder. Predictably, he had been much against her coming to Russia, and even more against her having anything to do with this stone. Was it possible, she thought, that he had forgotten its magic? If he could see it now, hold it as she held it, his fears – whatever they were – surely could not possibly withstand the sheer lustrous beauty of the thing? A beauty that he himself had created. For the first time she wondered at her father’s skill, and wondered more that he had forsaken it; for since the cutting of this stone he had never to her knowledge touched his tools again. It had never until now occurred to her to question that.