Imperial Splendour

by Barbara Cartland

  But she felt in some way that she could not interpret in whatever darkness and oblivion he lay she had enveloped him in her love and she could somehow reach him.

  Chapter Six

  “The smell of burning is worse!”

  The Duke spoke in a low voice and at the first sound Zoia rose from the armchair where she had been sitting and went to his bedside to say,

  “I thought you were ‒ asleep.”

  He looked up at her, thinking that her hair silhouetted against the sunlight coming from the windows formed a golden halo around her head.

  Then he persisted,

  “You are not answering my question. The smell is worse than it has been at any time.”

  “I think the wooden houses in the – next street are on fire,” Zoia replied.

  “I have already said that you and your father must leave Moscow at once,” the Duke said. “I am sure that the doctor can find somewhere for me to go and I must not keep you here any longer.”

  He spoke with an effort, but his tone was firm.

  Zoia smiled.

  “Do you think we could – desert you or hand you over as a – prisoner to the French?”

  “It has to be done. When the doctor comes again, I will order him to find somewhere for me to go.”

  Zoia did not reply for a moment.

  She was thinking of the twenty-five thousand wounded Russian soldiers who had been brought into Moscow after the battle.

  The Government had reacted by claiming that there was no proper accommodation for them in the City, nor could they be attended to and they were to be sent away to other towns.

  Once the order had been given, it was found that there were no vehicles to evacuate them in and, although some had got away, ten thousand Russians remained in Moscow before the French brought in their own wounded.

  Even now it was difficult for Zoia or anyone else to believe that Moscow, the Holy City of Russia, had been evacuated without a shot being fired in its defence.

  The French had arrived to find the place practically deserted and Pierre Vallon had been told that Napoleon was stunned by the emptiness of the streets and by the abandoned houses and shops.

  Only the very poorest and aged who had no means of transport had remained and they had crowded into the many Churches for safety.

  After the French had moved in, the soldiers, completely out of control, began looting and soon, because there was plenty of wine available, became hopelessly drunk.

  Fire had broken out amongst the wooden houses, but no one seemed to know if it had been a deliberate action on the part of the Russians or whether it was accidental.

  Zoia had learned from Jacques that large parts of the City were already in ruins and the conflagration was worse because, when the Russians had left, they had taken the fire engines and the hoses with them.

  At night when everything was quiet, standing at her open window, Zoia could hear in the distance the rumbling of falling walls and the excited shouts of the French soldiers.

  In the daytime there was no escaping from the smell of the smoke or the sight of it, thick and black, rising above the roofs.

  She knew that her father was afraid of what would happen to them and the reports that Jacques had brought back from the centre of the City, where the French were encamped, were more and more depressing and discouraging.

  “I must get you away,” Pierre Vallon said not once but a hundred times to his daughter.

  “So how could we leave the Duke, Papa, even if it was possible for us to escape?” Zoia would ask.

  Last night, when they had the same conversation, Pierre Vallon had risen from the table where they had been sitting to say sharply,

  “Pack everything that is of vital necessity.”

  Zoia had looked at him apprehensively.

  “What do you intend to do, Papa?”

  “I intend to take you away before the house is burnt down over our heads or worse still the soldiers break down the door in search of loot.”

  Zoia heard the fear in his voice and knew that he was afraid not for himself but for her.

  Quietly she answered,

  “I will go with you, Papa, but we must take the Duke with us.”

  Her father did not reply.

  This morning when he left the house he had kissed her and urged her,

  “Keep the door securely locked and you and Maria be ready to leave at the first possible opportunity. I am taking Jacques with me to make the necessary arrangements.”

  “With whom, Papa?” Zoia asked, but he had not answered her.

  She locked the door behind him. It was now the back door they used for Jacques had boarded up the front door of the house so that it looked as if it was unoccupied.

  The looting soldiers were usually in such a total drunken state that they did not trouble, Jacques said, to force their way into any building that was difficult, preferring houses like those of the nobles, which had simply been abandoned with full cellars.

  It seemed incredible after all General Kutuzov had said about ‘defending Moscow to the last drop of my blood’ that he should have withdrawn his Army and left the road clear for Napoleon and the French to march into the ancient City.

  But the enormous casualties the Russians had suffered had made it impossible for him to attack the French or even defend the City.

  When the Duke had recovered consciousness and was well enough to understand what had occurred, he had realised that Sir Robert Wilson had been nearly right in what he had anticipated that the casualties would be.

  Forty-three thousand Russians had been killed or wounded and thirty thousand French.

  The report of a great victory, which General Kutuzov had despatched so quickly to the Czar, was a hollow triumph when Moscow had to be abandoned.

  Pierre Vallon, perhaps because he was French, realised what a desperate disappointment his entry into the hallowed Capital had been to Napoleon.

  There had been for him almost a mystic significance in the thought of finding the five hundred domes gilded or painted in brilliant colours waiting for him, only to discover a week later that he was only in possession of a heap of smouldering ruins.

  “What will the Emperor do now, Papa?” Zoia had asked.

  “I am sure he expects that the Czar will ask for an Armistice.”

  Zoia had repeated this conversation to the Duke and he had said after thinking over what she had told him,

  “I believe that the loss of Moscow will have a traumatic effect on the Czar and on the Russian people.”

  “What do you mean ‒ by that?” Zoia had enquired.

  “I have a feeling that the yawning gap between the nobles and the peasants will be closed at least for a time and the Czar, fortified by the deep religious fervour which possesses him at the moment, will refuse to negotiate.”

  “What makes you so sure it will happen?” Zoia asked.

  He looked at her with his grey eyes and replied quietly,

  “Ever since I have known you, I have felt as if I had a ‘sixth sense’ that I have never used before.”

  She gave a little sigh.

  “I knew you had that when you – listened to me playing and you – understood what Papa had meant when he wrote the music.”

  “I don’t understand it myself,” the Duke muttered reflectively.

  Then he closed his eyes as if he was too weak to go on with the conversation.

  *

  For the first three days after coming to Pierre Vallon’s house, he had been desperately ill and had run, as Maria had anticipated, a very high fever.

  She and Jacques had sponged him down regularly with vinegar and, although she had not admitted it to Zoia, Maria thought at times that there was nothing they could do to save his life.

  But he had survived and the doctor ascribed it to his being so fit.

  “A very strong young man,” he had observed with some satisfaction.

  Zoia, however, believed that it was the Life Force that she had p
oured into him whenever they were alone.

  “You must get well,” she had said to him in her soft voice as he lay unconscious. “You are wanted in the world. There is so much for you to do. Come back! Come back from wherever you are!”

  She felt as if she called on his spirit with her own and, as every day he grew stronger, she was sure that she sustained and strengthened him in a manner that would be laughed at by medical science.

  Now he was better, but still very weak and she wondered, although she did not say so aloud, whether a long journey would be too much for him even provided that her father could take him away.

  She knew how fanatically Napoleon loathed the English, who had frustrated him at every turn and it would be inconceivable to leave the Duke a prisoner in French hands.

  He was apparently asleep when she heard the knock on the back door which told her that her father and Jacques had returned.

  Quietly she left the bedroom and then sped down the stairs to find, when she reached the kitchen, that Maria had already let in the two men.

  Because every time Pierre Vallon left the house there was always the fear that he might not return, Zoia ran towards him to put her arms around his neck and kiss his cheek as he told her,

  “I have good news!”

  “What is it, Papa?”

  “I have obtained from the Emperor himself not only a permit to leave the City but the promise that we shall have an escort until we are outside the walls.”

  Zoia did not speak. She only waited and Pierre Vallon added with a faint smile,

  “The permit includes you and me, Maria and Jacques and a member of my orchestra who was unfortunately hurt by the collapse of a burning house.”

  Zoia gave a little cry of sheer relief.

  “Oh, Papa! How did you manage it and how dared you go to see the Emperor himself?”

  “I asked to see him and he remembered me. We talked of the last time I played in Paris and then I explained to him the predicament I was in because you were with me.”

  Zoia made a little sound, but she did not interrupt and Pierre Vallon went on,

  “The Emperor said, ‘I can understand your anxiety and I suppose that I must let you go, although I would have liked you to stay and play for me. ‘I hope to do that in happier times, Your Majesty,’ I answered. ‘I look forward to it,’ the Emperor said. ‘The Opera House in Paris is waiting for you’.”

  Zoia clasped her hands together.

  “That was very complimentary, Papa, but how will we be able to get away?”

  “Jacques has kept our two carriages well hidden, which was fortunate because practically every vehicle in the City was commandeered by those who left before the French arrived.”

  “And horses?” Zoia asked.

  “They too are in a safe place,” her father answered. “I have decided that it would be best for us to leave at dawn. The Emperor has promised us an escort of soldiers and we are less likely at such an early hour to become involved with those who are robbing anyone they find on the streets.”

  He thought as he spoke of the horrifying spectacles that he had witnessed when he and Jacques had gone to the Kremlin to find the Emperor.

  Everywhere they looked they had seen French soldiers staggering from houses laden not only with money and jewels but with boots, linen, women’s furs and cloaks.

  They had seen people in the streets robbed of their clothes with those resisting being savagely beaten.

  They had learned that the French were pillaging the Churches and any woman who was not old and decrepit was seized and carried away regardless of her shrieks and struggles.

  Although Pierre Vallon did not say so, the flames of the burning City were now coming perilously close to the quiet little square where he had bought his wife her ‘doll’s house’.

  Zoia went upstairs and, when she then entered the Duke’s bedroom, she saw that he was awake and was watching her as she moved towards him.

  “You have news?” he asked.

  She did not ask him how he knew for she was aware that they were so closely attuned that he knew what she was thinking as he had been when she played the piano.

  “We leave at dawn tomorrow morning.”

  “We?”

  “Papa has a special permit from the Emperor Bonaparte himself for us to leave the City and we are to be escorted by soldiers.”

  “He has seen the Emperor?”

  The Duke did not seem surprised.

  “Yes and he remembered him.”

  There was a faint smile on the Duke’s lips as he replied,

  “Who could forget Pierre Vallon?”

  As he spoke, Zoia wondered if, when he was well, he would forget her, but she dared not ask the question.

  “Where are we going?” the Duke enquired now.

  Zoia looked startled.

  “I forgot to ask Papa. It did not seem important ‒ as long as we leave Moscow.”

  “Tell your father to make for Odessa. I know the Governor and it should be easy from there to find a ship to carry us home.”

  The Duke closed his eyes again as if talking was still an effort and Zoia stood indecisive beside the bed.

  ‘To carry us home!’

  ‘Did he mean by that to his home? To England?’ she asked herself.

  She longed to ask him to explain and then she was afraid of the likely answer.

  Of course what he really meant was, because England had command of the seas, there would be English ships that would be only too honoured to carry back to their own country anyone as important as the Duke.

  But to the English she and her father were the enemies. Because she felt that there was nothing she could say, Zoia went to her own room, which was just across the passage, and started to add to the things she had already packed.

  Suddenly she felt that the only way that she could express the conflict which raged within her was in music.

  Because she felt, when the Duke was unconscious, that music might reach him when the human voice could not do so, she had persuaded Jacques to bring the piano that was usually housed in the salon up to her bedroom.

  There were two pianos in the house. The one that her father preferred was in his special sanctum. The other one, that she and her mother would play, was also used to entertain their friends, who would seldom leave the house without begging Pierre Vallon to let them hear one of his compositions.

  It stood now in an alcove in her bedroom and, knowing that the doors of both rooms were open so that the Duke could listen, Zoia sat down on the stool.

  She started to play very softly the music that she had been playing that very first day in the Ysevolsov Palace when he had come to listen to her and had known what she was seeing as she played.

  The melody composed by her father swept away her fears for the future and made her forget for a moment the fires raging outside and the smoke billowing up into the sky.

  She was again transported into a magical world of beauty and happiness and only as she finished playing did she wonder if the Duke was asleep or whether he was listening as he had done before and understood.

  As she wondered, she heard him call her name.

  She ran from the piano across the passage and into his room.

  She went to his bedside, he put out his hand and she laid hers in it.

  “You were playing for me?” he asked in a deep voice.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so and I remember just how shocked I was the first time that it should have aroused such unusual feelings in me.”

  “And – now?”

  “I think it was Fate that brought us together and Fate that we should not only meet but be here when history is being made, something that we shall both of us remember for the rest of our lives.”

  Because his fingers were holding hers, it was difficult for Zoia to think of anything but the magic that she felt within herself because they were touching each other.

  She was sure that the Duke was too ill to feel, as had ha
ppened before when their hands touched, a magnetic rapture that was indescribable.

  But she realised that his eyes were on her face and she thought that they were searching for something, but she was not certain what it was.

  “Once we are free of Moscow, we will move very slowly,” she said, “so that you will not be bumped unnecessarily or suffer too much discomfort.”

  “I know that you and Maria will look after me and I am so relieved that, owing to your father’s cleverness, you are able to escape from Moscow.”

  Zoia looked down at him a little uncertainly.

  She thought because his words were so formal that she could not understand what he was thinking.

  She had an impulse to go down on her knees beside the bed and tell him how much she loved him and that she would sacrifice her life willingly if it would make him better or keep him safe.

  Then she thought perhaps he would be embarrassed and would suggest that she behave in a more restrained manner.

  She released her hand and, walking to the window, stood looking out blindly.

  Then she saw that behind the houses on the other side of the square that there was the brilliant light of a raging fire and she could even see flames rising every now and then above the grey of the buildings.

  She heard her father coming up the stairs and a moment later he walked into the room.

  “Zoia will have told Your Grace the news,” he addressed the Duke.

  “As I said to you before,” he replied, “you will travel more safely and perhaps a great deal faster without me.”

  “On the contrary,” Pierre Vallon replied, “I intend to go to Odessa and we will then need your assistance to find some way of reaching France.”

  Zoia started.

  So that was where he wished to go, back to their home in France.

  “I am sure that something can be arranged,” the Duke answered.

  Zoia knew by the way he spoke that he was desperately tired.

  “I think it would be wise,” she suggested, “if I asked Jacques to cook you something light and then you went to sleep as soon as possible. We all have to rise very early tomorrow morning.

  The Duke did not reply and without troubling him further Zoia went downstairs in search of Jacques.