“I may be wrong, I hope to God I am!” Sir Robert said, “But you only have to look at the battlefield to see the devastation in front of you and the guns have all been firing since six o’clock this morning.”
“That would be for ten hours,” the Duke calculated.
“Exactly,” Sir Robert agreed.
“And what are the French losses?”
“That we don’t know. They will be heavy too, very heavy.”
It was obvious that Sir Robert had no more to tell him and the Duke went back to the road where his carriage was waiting amongst a mêlée of soldiers being re-grouped, wounded being lifted onto stretchers and horses being employed to move the guns.
The Duke was just about to step into his carriage and to tell the coachman to drive on to Moscow when he saw another vehicle approaching on the road and he recognised the livery of the coachmen on the box.
As the four horses drew nearer, he could see that he was not mistaken and it was Prince Vsevolsov’s carriage, which he was sure was the one that had carried Zoia to Moscow.
He walked down the road towards it and, putting up his hand, caused the coachman to draw the horses to a standstill.
The footman on the box recognised the Duke and jumped down and another man riding with the escort did the same thing.
The servants greeted him respectfully and the Duke asked,
“You have taken Miss Zoia Vallon to her father’s house in Moscow I believe?”
“That is right, Your Excellency.”
“Will you give me the address?” the Duke enquired.
The man was about to reply when two horses pulling a gun forced them to move aside to let it pass.
There were several Russian soldiers in charge of it, all giving orders at the same time and the Duke could see that they were covered in dust and dirt and looked very tired to the point of exhaustion.
The wheels stuck in the ground and before the horses could proceed an Officer came up to demand,
“What are you doing? Where are you going with that gun?”
“We were told to move it, sir,” one of the soldiers answered, “because there be a shell stuck in the barrel and it can’t be fired.”
“What do you mean it cannot be fired?” the Officer questioned aggressively.
“It’s stuck, sir.”
“Then fire it! We cannot have the guns moved from their positions in case the French attack us again.”
Looking at the sea of dead bodies between the Russians’ present position and the French on the horizon the Duke thought that this was unlikely, but the Officer, fussily authoritative, insisted,
“Fire the gun now! Fire it in the direction of the enemy. If it kills a few more of those damned invaders, all the better!”
One of the men obediently forced a ramrod down the barrel of the gun saying as he did so,
“We’ve tried this a dozen times, sir. The shell won’t budge.”
“Then try it again!” the Officer snapped.
They obeyed him.
Then there was a huge explosion and, to the Duke watching, the whole world seemed to burst into flames –
*
Zoia reached the front door and saw, standing outside on the steps, two of the servants who had brought her to Moscow.
She was somewhat surprised to see them, thinking that by now they would already be on their journey home.
However she smiled at them, saying,
“Good evening. Is anything wrong?”
“It’s just that we didn’t know what else to do with His Excellency, m’mselle,” the elder of the two men responded in broken French.
Zoia did not understand and Jacques explained,
“They say, m’mselle, that the gentleman was tellin’ them that he was comin’ to see you when a cannon accidentally exploded. Three soldiers were then killed, one of His Highness’s servants and his horse and the gentleman’s valet. The gentleman himself is badly wounded.”
Zoia felt as if her heart was constricted and it was hard to breathe.
“What ‒ gentleman?” she asked, but she already knew the answer.
She ran down the steps as fast as she could and across the pavement.
She could see that the side of the carriage had been badly damaged by fragments from the explosion and, as the door was opened, she looked inside to see the Duke lying on the back seat covered in blood.
“His Highness’s house here in Moscow is now closed and everyone has left,” one of the servants said beside her in an apologetic tone. “We didn’t know where else to take him.”
“You were right to ‒ bring him here,” Zoia told him.
Turning to Jacques she asked him,
“Tell them to move him carefully – very carefully.”
It was not until the men had carried the Duke upstairs and laid him on the bed in the only unoccupied bedroom in the small house that Zoia, looking frantically at Maria, asked,
“He is – not dead?”
It was not surprising that she should put the question for the Duke’s face was devoid of all colour, his eyes were closed, his whole body was limp and it appeared as if he had no life left in him.
“He’s not dead yet, m’mselle, and if it be God’s will, we’ll keep him alive,” Maria said briskly.
She immediately took charge in the practical manner of a Frenchwoman confronted with a situation which could not be hopeless as long as there was something that could be done.
The Prince’s servants were told to find a doctor. Jacques gave them several addresses in case the doctors, as well as everybody else, had left Moscow.
Zoia was sent to the kitchen to boil water while Maria and Jacques undressed the Duke to ascertain the extent of his wounds.
When Zoia came upstairs with the kettle, a basin and a number of linen towels, the Duke was between the sheets and, she felt, looking even paler and more lifeless than he had before.
Now her father was here and his calm acceptance of the situation was more comforting than anything he might say,
“A doctor should he here soon,” he said as if Zoia had asked him the question. “They will not all have left Moscow. In fact I know that the wounded are being taken to the empty houses of those who have run away.”
Even as he spoke there was a knock on the door.
*
It was after eleven o’clock when Zoia and her father sat down in the dining room to a somewhat inadequate meal. They had not thought of eating while there was so much to do for the Duke.
“You met His Grace in St. Petersburg?” Pierre Vallon asked her,
“Yes, he came to visit the Princess when Tania and I were ‒ dancing in the little theatre.”
Pierre Vallon looked at his daughter and they were too close for him not to realise that the way she spoke merely confirmed the impression that he had gained when he had seen her looking at the Duke upstairs.
“You mean something to each other?” he asked her quietly.
“It was – very strange. Papa, but the moment I – met him I knew that he was – different from any man I had ever met before.”
“In what way?”
“For one thing, he understood your music and, when I played to him – he saw what we had – seen.”
There was no need to say anything more. Pierre Vallon understood so much that was not expressed in words.
“You are sure?” he asked.
“Quite, quite sure, Papa. You know I would not be mistaken ‒ about anything like that. Besides the next day when he called and found me alone, he asked me what I had – done to him. He said that he had never felt like – that in his – whole life.”
“It’s extraordinary,” Pierre Vallon murmured,
“That he should feel like ‒ that?”
“That the Duke of Welminster should,” her father replied, “I met His Grace while I was in London and again in Vienna. From all I have heard about him, and people talk about him quite a lot, I should not have imagined for one moment that he
would be as you say he is.”
Zoia smiled.
“You well know I could never be mistaken, Papa, and no one – no one but you has ever – understood before.”
Pierre Vallon did not answer for a moment and then he said,
“You know, my dearest, that I would never doubt anything you might tell me or interfere unnecessarily with any friendship you might make, but, if your mother was alive, I feel sure that she would explain to you that the Duke of Welminster can mean nothing in your life.”
“I have – thought of that, Papa.”
“It would be best,” Pierre Vallon said slowly, “if tomorrow I arrange for His Grace to be moved into a hospital. There must be one where he can have every attention, perhaps better than we can give him here.”
Zoia was silent for a moment.
Then she said,
“In a way, Papa, I feel ‒ responsible for what has happened. His Highness’s servants said that the Duke was asking for my address ‒ when the gun exploded.”
Her father did not reply, but she was well aware that he was thinking that the Duke had no right to intrude on their private life and no right to pursue a girl who did not belong to his own Social world.
Zoia gave up pretending to eat and clasped her hands together.
“When you fell in love with Mama,” she asked him in a low voice, “did you have any – choice as to whether you – loved her or whether you did – not?”
Pierre Vallon looked at his daughter and there was no mistaking the consternation in his expression.
“Are you telling me that you love this man? “
“Yes – Papa”
“But how can you be sure? You have seen him twice, perhaps three times.”
Zoia smiled and it seemed to illuminate her face.
“Really, Papa!” she scolded him. “How can you, of all people, ask that ‒ question and expect me to answer it?”
“In my case it was different,” Pierre Vallon said.
“Was it?” Zoia queried. “Mama said that from the moment she saw you she fell in love with you and ‒ she thought that you loved her too at that instant.”
“How could I help it?” he asked. “She was so lovely and so exquisite in every way. And, my dearest, you are very like her.”
“Not only in my features and my eyes, although I have your fair hair ‒ but in the – things I feel.”
She gave a little laugh that seemed to ring out so spontaneously that her father found himself smiling too.
“How can you expect me to be anything ‒ but your daughter?” she asked. “I see what you see when you play, hear what you hear and try to express myself as you do in music. But I am also ‒ Mama’s child.”
Her voice softened as she went on,
“As you know, Papa, my heart has never been touched ‒ until this moment. That is why the Grand Duke and a number of other people call me the Ice Maiden. But from the moment I – looked into the Duke of Welminster’s eyes from – the moment I touched his hand, the ice – melted and ‒ I was in love!”
“Do you understand, my dearest, that there can be no happy ending to the story?” Pierre Vallon asked.
His voice was filled with pain as if he hated to know how much she would suffer.
“I am aware of that,” Zoia replied. “But it still does not prevent me ‒ from loving him, even though I am sure that he will never love me ‒ in the same way.”
“I will arrange for him to go to the hospital.”
“No, Papa.”
“In this you must be guided by me. I don’t wish to hurt you. You know I want only your happiness, but for him to stay here is madness and I cannot contemplate where that madness would end.”
Zoia knew that he was saying without words and telling her that what the Duke would offer her would not be marriage.
She gave a deep sigh.
“I know that you are ‒ thinking of me, Papa,” she said quietly, “but every instinct in my body tells me to look after the Duke and nurse him ‒ back to health.”
“And every instinct in mine is to protect you,” Pierre Vallon retorted, “to keep you from making yourself eventually much more unhappy than you will be if you say ‘goodbye’ to him now. Just think of what has happened as a dream, a fantasy that has brought you something beautiful, just as music will bring you the same inspiration.”
He paused for a moment before he went on,
“If you don’t see the Duke, if we leave him here in Moscow as I intend, then gradually the feelings he has evoked in you and the image of him you have in your mind will vanish.”
He made a gesture with his hands as he added,
“Of course the music you have played for him will bring it back and you will always have a certain nostalgia for the moment in your life when you first fell in love, but there will be other loves and other moments that I promise you!”
“How can you be sure?” Zoia asked him. “If, when you left Prince Strovolsky’s Palace, Mama had not gone with you, would you have forgotten her?”
She knew as she saw her father’s face that he wanted to lie, but he was unable to do so.
“Was your love for Mama really different from ‒ what I feel for the Duke?” Zoia asked, pressing home her point.
Her father did not answer and she went on,
“You have taught me, Papa, to analyse ‒ my own feelings. You have also taught me to distinguish what is real and what is true from what is false and I know what ‒ I feel now is not the adolescent romancing I sometimes indulged in years ago. This is as real as breathing, hearing ‒ and seeing.”
She gave a little sigh as she went on,
“If the Duke never spoke to me again and if, as you suggest, I never ‒ saw him again, I should still love him and I am absolutely certain in my own mind that I shall never feel this way for ‒ anyone else.”
There was a silence that seemed full of a thousand unspoken words.
Then Pierre Vallon admitted,
“I don’t know what to say to you, my dearest.”
“Then shall we leave things alone for the moment and ‒ nurse the Duke back to health? Then we will face the fact that I must go out of his life ‒ and I expect eventually he will want to go out of mine.”
“I would still like to look for a hospital,” Pierre Vallon said. “I promise I will do nothing without consulting you first, but I have a feeling that the Duke may be ill for longer than I wish to stay in Moscow.”
“You intend to leave ‒ so quickly?”
“I want to go,” Pierre Vallon replied. “After the slaughter there must have been today on the battlefield, I shall feel uncomfortably self-conscious of being French.”
It was not only that, Zoia thought to herself, because his nationality had never worried him before. It was because he was bitterly disappointed and hurt that his orchestra had left without telling him and deserted it seemed in the very moment of victory.
She could understand how in their hour of fear they had wanted to take their wives and children out of the City, which might be invaded by the French.
They would now return, she told herself, and, if they apologised to her father he would forgive them for he was the type of man who could never bear a grudge for long.
At the same time she knew how deeply he would feel if he had been abandoned by those he had trusted and she thought perhaps that even they had said to themselves,
‘After all he is only a Frenchman. Why should we trouble about him?’
Dinner was now finished and Zoia, without making any excuse, went up the stairs to see the Duke.
Maria was with him and, when Zoia appeared in the doorway, she came out of the room into the passage.
“How is ‒ he?” Zoia asked.
“It’s difficult to tell, m’mselle. The doctor is comin’ again tomorrow and hopes to bring with him someone who is more experienced in such bad injuries than he is. That is if there is anyone left in Moscow.”
“Did the doctor ‒ say that?”
“He said that people have been leavin’ here every day and every hour and apart from anythin’ else, it’s impossible to find supplies for the wounded.”
“I cannot understand how they can be such cowards,” Zoia asserted indignantly.
Maria put out her hand consolingly.
“Don’t you worry, m’mselle. We’ll look after the gentleman one way or another. He’s a strong man and that will count in his favour more than anythin’ else.”
Zoia’s eyes searched the older woman’s face.
“Are you telling me that his life is really in danger?”
For a moment Maria hesitated and then she told her the truth,
“He’s bad, m’mselle, but not so bad we cannot save him with careful nursin’.”
She saw Zoia’s face and added quickly,
“Now don’t you go upsettin’ yourself. He’ll run a high fever, there’s no doubt about that. And there’s nothin’ you can do about it. But Jacques and I will look after him. You can trust us.”
“You must let me help too,” Zoia suggested swiftly. “I may not be as experienced ‒ as you, Maria, but I know I can help him. I really know that I can give him some of my ‒ own strength.”
She did not wait for Maria’s reply, but passing her she went into the bedroom.
The Duke was lying very still and again Zoia thought, with a constriction of her heart, that he might be dead.
Then she reached out her hand and touched his and felt that there was still some warmth in it.
It was like seeing a great oak tree fallen to the ground to see him so quiet and so lifeless.
Then with both her hands holding his, she felt as if she poured the life force from her own body into him.
She could feel her spirit reaching out to his spirit and at the same time she knew that her heart was searching for his heart and offering him her love unconditionally.
‘Oh, God, make him well and strong ‒ again’, she prayed. ‘He must live. Don’t take life from him – but let him live.’
It was a prayer that came from the very depths of her being, a prayer that strained every nerve and every feeling within her.
Then she said aloud to the Duke,
“I love you – think of me – come to me – I am yours – and I so want you – to live.”
There was, of course, no response from the Duke.
Imperial Splendour Page 11