The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  The third day, Dmitri’s mother, Countess Eugenia Remizov, would host a reception for the newlyweds. And finally, four days after the wedding, the couple would be taken to Warsaw Station to embark on a four-week honeymoon excursion on the Mediterranean.

  As Katrina let out a long, sleepy sigh, she decided it all sounded like those Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales Anna was so fond of reading. Or, rather, it was more like the ending of a tale that concluded with the words “And they lived happily ever after . . .”

  She jumped out of bed, suddenly wide awake. The fact that she was now nineteen years old escaped her altogether. All at once she felt like an excited little girl again! There was so much to do! She threw on a robe and skipped from the room.

  “Anna!” she called, in a voice as impatient as her ecstasy would permit. “This is no time to be sleeping in!” She strode through the sitting room and, without so much as a knock, entered Anna’s bedroom.

  The maid’s bed was not only vacant, but neatly made. “Well,” said Katrina good-naturedly to herself, “I suppose I shall never catch that girl malingering about!”

  She spun around, running nearly headlong right into Anna herself. “Oh, there you are,” she said, startled. “I suppose you have been up for hours.”

  “No, Princess,” laughed Anna, “just long enough to wash and dress and see to some of your laundry. But, Princess, you should have tried to sleep a bit longer. This is a big day.”

  “That is exactly why I couldn’t sleep! My wedding day, Anna! Can you believe it?”

  “And your birthday.”

  “Oh, my! I’d forgotten!”

  A smile crept, almost unbidden, across Anna’s lips as a past memory flitted into her mind.

  “You don’t believe it, do you, Anna?” said Katrina, half in fun, half in earnest circumspection. “You think I’m still a precocious adolescent?”

  “Oh, no Princess! I just recalled the first moment I saw you—all sprawled out in the snow chasing after your mother’s dog.”

  Katrina also smiled. “You were in no better condition,” she said in jest. “An uninvited interloper, quaking at the expected retribution from your new employer.”

  Katrina paused in a rare moment of thoughtful introspection. “We have both changed a great deal since that day, haven’t we, Anna?”

  “I am sure we have, Princess. At least I have heard others say so.”

  “I was such an incorrigible brat.”

  “You are no longer, Princess. How wonderfully you have opened your heart, not only to me, but to everything about you. Yet you are still so lively and full of energy I cannot help admiring, even envying you for that.”

  “That is as much as to say that I can still be an ornery, stubborn little chit when I want to be,” said Katrina laughing.

  “I said nothing of the kind,” insisted Anna. “I said I admired and envied you.”

  “Well, you have nothing to envy me about! I have always envied your calm and peace. Anyway, Anna, thank you for your kind words. But I have a long way to go before I’ll be within sight of sainthood.”

  “We all do, Princess. It is a willing heart that God looks for rather than perfection. You do have that, Princess, and so, to answer your first question, I have no doubts about your readiness for marriage.”

  “That means a great deal to me, Anna.”

  Impulsively, Katrina threw her arms around her maid and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for everything!” she said.

  “If I have done anything for you, Princess,” she replied, “it has been for me an honor.”

  “You always know just what to say, Anna, and that is one thing I appreciate learning from you. I think that will be a quality I will need in the future more than ever.”

  “How is that, Princess?”

  “You know when I am married you will come with me to live in Dmitri’s family home?”

  Anna nodded. They had discussed such plans, and though Anna did not relish the change, she’d rather move with Katrina than be relegated back to scullery service under Olga Stephanovna!

  Katrina continued. “You haven’t met Dmitri’s mother yet, Anna,” she said. “And I haven’t said a great deal about her. But I suppose you should know that she is . . . well . . . she is quite the opposite of my mother. I don’t even know her that well. For as close as Dmitri has been to our family, she keeps very much to herself, spending most of her time on their estate near Moscow. Dmitri has warned me that she can be extremely demanding. To tell you the truth, I am a little nervous about her. I am glad we will be at the St. Petersburg house and she in Moscow. Anyway, whatever tact I possess, which I don’t say is much, I have learned from you, Anna. And I hope it serves me well with her.”

  “You will have no trouble,” said Anna sincerely. “She will not be able to keep from loving you as her very own daughter.”

  “I would like to think you are right, Anna.”

  Katrina paused a moment, as if considering further the prospects for the new life that lay before her. Then she shook away the thoughtful mood and sprang to life.

  “We hardly have time to be standing about talking, Anna. We have to get ready for my wedding!”

  66

  By three o’clock in the afternoon, the bride was dressed and her hair styled to perfection.

  Since there were plenty of bridesmaids and aunts and cousins, not to mention a very frazzled mother, to attend to the remaining needs of the bride, Katrina gave Anna permission to slip away so that she would have plenty of time to get to the church before the ceremony. Only an elite handful of servants would be in attendance, those who had been with the family a long time or were in positions of particular authority. Anna accompanied Nina outside where a carriage waited for them. Mrs. Remington, Olga Stephanovna, and a few others were already inside.

  Shortly after 3:15, a sudden flurry of activity in the Fedorcenko home threatened to interrupt the orderly movement of events toward the appointed hour. Several minor crises in the kitchen had Polya in a dither over what Olga would say upon her return. One of Katrina’s bridesmaids turned an ankle and now sat immobile on a settee while some of the others fluttered anxiously about her. And finally, the day at last proving too much for her, Princess Natalia fainted from all the stress of being mother of the bride.

  When the doctor arrived, he wrapped a cloth bandage around the bridesmaid’s ankle and handed a small vial to one of the aunts hovering around poor Natalia’s prostrate form. The distraught woman was no better under the circumstances than Natalia would have been, but she did manage to get the bottle of smelling salts close enough to Natalia’s nose to begin to revive her. In a minute or two the doctor pronounced the young girl’s ankle to be less severe than feared, then walked to the other side of the room to attend to Natalia, now groggily coming to her senses.

  Katrina began to wonder if her optimism of the morning had been premature. She sat at the dressing table amid flounces of lace and satin, her elbow propped on the table and her chin resting, almost dejectedly, on her hand. She gazed in the mirror at the reflection of those ministering to her mother and cousin on the other side of the large upstairs sitting room. Here she was, the object and reason for all the hubbub, and yet everyone was fussing over ankles and smelling salts, and she sat observing it all with nothing to do.

  Katrina smiled to herself. It really was rather humorous. She wished she hadn’t sent Anna off yet. Right now she would give anything to be able to glance over at her maid with a wink and a smile. Anna would know just what she was thinking! Even though she had only been gone fifteen minutes, suddenly Katrina, on the very verge of the happiest moment of her life, missed Anna very much.

  She supposed she ought to be thankful her mother had survived the ordeal this long without collapsing from exhaustion, or something worse. The elder princess had actually done very little in direct preparation for the wedding. Her chief contribution had been endless anxiety and weeks of fretting, which was certainly labor enough for one of Natalia
’s delicate sensibilities.

  No one in her right mind could ever be angry with Natalia, no matter how useless she proved to be. Katrina loved her, and as ready and anxious as she was to marry Dmitri and begin her life with him, she felt a sudden wave of melancholy at the thought of leaving her mother. It was not a feeling she had expected on this day. All else aside, there would be one less person around to protect the elder princess from the hard realities of life.

  I’ll visit her often, Katrina resolved. And the thought helped a little.

  When Natalia had revived and was sitting up again, a knock came at the door. One of the bridesmaids answered it, spoke a moment to the maid who was standing there, then turned and walked across the room to Katrina.

  “Your father wishes to see you, Princess,” she said, “if you are free.”

  “Of course!” Eagerly Katrina jumped up, forgetting the mounds of wedding dress behind her and nearly sprawling to the floor before she found her feet.

  Her father sat waiting for her in his study. Katrina threw her arms around him and suddenly felt tears, the first of the very emotional day, rise to her eyes. He put an arm around her and led her to his leather divan. Because the fullness of Katrina’s dress prevented him from sitting next to her, he drew up a chair as close as he could get and sat down across from her.

  “I may not have another chance to talk with you today, Katrina,” he began in his earnest, soldier-like tone.

  “Papa, if you had not sent for me, I would have come to find you,” burbled Katrina. “I want to thank you so much . . . for everything! You are the best papa a girl could ever have!”

  “A man sees his daughter married only once,” he said formally, “and I want this day to be a memorable one for you, my dear.”

  “Oh, it will be, Papa!”

  “I had to admit, I had my doubts about your Dmitri.”

  A little smile parted Katrina’s lips at her father’s profound understatement.

  “Although he has nearly been a member of our family for years,” Viktor went on, “I could not but wonder what kind of husband he would make. You must remember, I have known him longer than you have, Katrina. And settling down will not come easily for a man like him. Thus your task as his wife may be all the more difficult.”

  He paused, grimacing at his difficulty in expressing to his daughter what was on his heart.

  “I do not mean to dishearten you,” he continued, “and I don’t suppose I am going about this at all well. But what I mean to say, Katrina, is that a year ago I could never have given my consent to this marriage. Considering your own maturity, too, I would have had serious doubts that you could meet the challenge. Yet, since that time, I have seen what I think are hopeful signs in Dmitri, and I am tremendously impressed with the maturity you yourself have shown as well. I believe you are up to the responsibilities marriage entails, especially this marriage. I am proud of you, Katrina!”

  “Oh, thank you, Papa!” Katrina’s words were accompanied by a rush of tears. “Everything you say means so very much to me!”

  Viktor pulled a handkerchief out from the pocket of his dress uniform and handed it to her. Katrina blotted her damp eyes and blew her nose.

  “Dear me, I am going to be a sight!” she exclaimed.

  “You look beautiful, my dear!” rejoined the proud father, relieved that he had discharged his duty so admirably, and succeeded in conveying more or less what was on his mind. “You are the loveliest bride I have ever seen!”

  He rose, took her hand, and helped her to stand. “The carriages are standing by. Are the rest of the women ready?”

  “I think so, Papa. I know I am.”

  “It is time we were leaving. Go tell your mother and the others.”

  Before they left the room, Katrina laid her hand on her father’s arm. “Papa,” she said, “I will always have a home here . . . won’t I? Suddenly I am beginning to miss you all so terribly!”

  “My dear Katrina,” he said, placing a broad arm around her. “I could not let you go otherwise!”

  They walked to the door of the study. Katrina started in the direction of the parlor where the women were gathered, and Viktor began the descent to the front of the mansion where a fleet of carriages and footmen were waiting. Katrina turned once again to her father, and thought she detected a glistening in his own eyes.

  It was as close to tears as she had ever seen her father come.

  67

  When Anna and the others arrived in the carriage driven by Moskalev, many people were already crowded around Senate Square in front of the church. Mostly the crowd was made up of curious onlookers who had heard that the daughter of a high government official was to be married, and hoped to catch a glimpse of all the finery. Scores of carriages carrying the invited guests were streaming down the avenue.

  Anna climbed down from the carriage, holding firmly on to Leo Moskalev’s hand, feeling almost as alone and out of place as she had on that first day when she had arrived in St. Petersburg. She felt as if she should take her place among the throngs of spectators rather than entering the church alongside the prim and proper Mrs. Remington in the midst of all the grandly attired aristocrats.

  As she had done on that first day, she cast a rather fainthearted glance toward the old coachman as she followed the older Fedorcenko employees.

  He grinned in understanding. “Be off with you, Anna,” he said quietly, so that only she would hear. “You’re as good or better than the lot of them!”

  “I just hope I can keep from tripping over my own feet!” she replied, then hurried off between Nina and Mrs. Remington.

  They displayed their invitations to one of the uniformed men in attendance at the doors, then entered the church, which was quickly filling with guests. They made their way toward the back and side, where a small cluster of other servants and footmen were gathering. Nina and Mrs. Remington treated her more warmly than ever before, and even Olga Stephanovna, who persisted in thinking of Anna as her own personal “little protege,” gave out with an occasional rugged smile.

  They had been standing in their places only a few minutes when a robed ostiary walked up to Anna, tapped her arm, handed her a note, then went off about his business. Nina glanced downward with a skeptical wrinkle across her brow. But Anna tried to take no notice, and managed to read the words without divulging the contents of the message to her colleagues.

  The note said simply: Meet me at the west entrance . . . hurry!

  “I will be back in a few minutes,” said Anna to Nina, then turned and walked off before any of them had the chance to question her.

  Her heart beat wildly as she exited the church and hurried around the corner as the note had directed her. She knew the handwriting well enough, and could hardly keep herself from running!

  Sergei stood at the door, striking in his dress uniform. The bright green coat with white braid and sash, accented by polished gold buttons, set off his Teutonic features admirably. But it wasn’t the uniform that put a glow in his eyes or gave the high color to his complexion. He had been filled with a new hope ever since his visit to Katyk, and Anna rejoiced to see him free of the despondency which had characterized his spirit after the war. She never presumed to think the color in his cheeks had anything to do with her.

  “Come, Anna,” he said with no other greeting, then led her inside the church and along the darkened inside wall. In a recess of the thick stone wall, behind one of the huge supporting columns, he stopped and turned toward her.

  “We should have a minute or two of peace here,” he said.

  “I wondered if I would see you,” Anna said. “There are so many people!”

  “I only have two or three minutes before the rest of the family arrives and I will have to take my place with them. I got back into the city only two days ago and have been trying to find a way to see you ever since, but that sister of mine has been keeping you busy every second.”

  Anna laughed. “I have been working hard. But the day has fi
nally come.”

  “You look beautiful, Anna,” said Sergei. “And a new dress too, is it not?”

  Anna nodded, blushing at his words.

  Sergei took another moment to look at Anna in her pale blue linen dress, embroidered at the hem with a colorful garland of flowers. The bodice was also embroidered at the neckline, and under it she wore a blouse of white gauze with full, long sleeves. Ribbons were braided into her thick, pale hair, and her curls fell loosely down her back.

  “You look like no servant I have ever seen in my life,” he said at length. “I would take you for royalty if I did not know you!”

  “Your sister bought it for me,” said Anna, still embarrassed.

  “Ah, how well my sister treats her maid. But you should be one of the honored guests at this wedding, rather than having to stand with the other servants.”

  “She is good to me, Sergei.”

  “You really ought to be one of her bridesmaids, Anna—her maid of honor, if the truth were told. Instead, you have to stand at the back of the church, grateful for that.”

  “Let us not talk about that now,” she said. “I am grateful for all she has done. That is enough.”

  “Agreed,” he said reluctantly. “But it becomes harder all the time to see you treated like a maid, when I long to make you something better.”

  “The time will come, I am sure, Sergei,” said Anna. “But we must be careful that we wait for just the right time. I am still concerned for you and your father.”

  “I know, and I love you all the more for your care for me. But you must forgive me if once in a while I display the reckless impatience of a Russian soldier.”

  “I would not love you if you were anything other than who you are,” smiled Anna.