Someone familiar with the proceedings, probably Voikin, must have given the signal to link hands. To my right, though I could barely make him out in the darkness, Chermakov grasped my hand in a moist, bony grip. To my left, I could not reach across the empty seat to find Anya and wondered, stupidly, if by not completing the circle I might impede the success of the séance.
No one remarked on this and I guessed they could not see that the circle was broken. I felt too intimidated to speak.
It was strange how the circle of light thrown by the candle seemed to become smaller and dimmer. Anya to my far left and even Chermakov next to me on the right were barely discernible, and Voikin and Serge were in complete darkness. Only Madame Lili was clearly visible, and I wondered how she seemed to attract all the light. She appeared to be sleeping, with her eyes closed, and chin on her chest, without the slightest movement.
After what seemed to be a long time, I fancied that I could hear her breathing heavily and gradually faster. Inwardly, I admired the theatrical effects except…except…I was beginning to feel more and more uneasy in spite of my dismissal of the whole business as a sham. An involuntary shiver ran down my back and I felt oddly cold and uncomfortable. Slowly at first, the solitary candle started to flicker, and then to gutter and dim as though about to go out.
Suddenly, Madame Lili opened her eyes wide and, staring straight down the table, gasped out, ‘Something is coming! It is here, amongst us!’
The look of horror on her face intimidated me by its genuineness and I felt my whole body tense. Absolute silence reigned in the huge room, now reduced to just this table and feeble candle glow.
Gradually, I became aware of vague movement to my left. First, a slight draught disturbed the air, then there was a faint rustling sound and slight creaking, as if someone had just sat down in the chair beside me. A fragrance filled the air, a perfume that seemed somehow familiar.
My whole body flinched as something grasped my left hand and I started, involuntarily, before my brain realised that Natalie must have slipped back into the room and, somehow, in the dark, found her seat beside me. Now her cool hand grasped mine and I felt a gentle squeeze of the fingers by way of a silent greeting.
Madame Lili, meanwhile, seemed horrified at whatever she believed was taking place. She continued to stare down the table and seemed to be focused on the seat beside me. Slowly, she lifted her hand and pointed to my left. Her long, gloved fingers trembled and a look of both surprise and real horror froze her face.
Even as I watched, fascinated, I was becoming aware that something was not as it seemed. The hand in mine was not gloved and there were rings on the fingers. The perfume…was Jasmin de Corse…this was not Natalya! My brain screamed it at me and I made to snatch my hand away, but I seemed paralysed at this realisation and unable even to utter the cry rising in my throat. Time seemed to stop and then, suddenly, the hand let go. The guttering candle suddenly flared up and for a few seconds lighted the table before dying and plunging us into total darkness. And, in that one short flicker of light, I understood everything. There, in the chair beside me, though her face was averted, I had just time to discern the long white dress and auburn hair of Tatiana, the girl I had met in the garden and who had told me in her charming French that she was the second daughter of the Tsar of all the Russias – Tatiana Nicolaevna Romanova.
Nor was I the only one to recognise her; Serge, still invisible in the darkness behind Madame Lili, gasped out loud, ‘Velikaya Knyazhna!’ – Your Highness!
Absolute silence followed and then all hell broke loose. I felt, rather than saw, Chermakov jump to his feet. Voikin must have done the same. A chair scraped and the table juddered violently. I heard Anya screaming.
‘Oh, my God, she was holding my hand!’
There was the sound of movement, footsteps muffled by the carpet, and then the room lit up as I had never seen it. Serge, overriding the instructions from the Grand Duchess never to use the electric lights, had somehow got to the door and found the switch next to it.
We all blinked in the sudden dazzling light, and when I was able to focus I saw that the chair next to me was overturned and there was no sign of Tatiana in the room.
Madame Lili remained seated, a look of total bewilderment on her beautiful face. The two men stood a few feet back from the table, seemingly paralysed, and Anya had begun to hyperventilate, teetering on the verge of hysteria. Father Feodor was on his knees, muttering and crossing himself.
Only Serge, standing by the light switch at the door, seemed in control of himself. He looked at me and shouted above Anya’s shrieks, ‘Nicolai Feodorovitch, was that the person you saw in the grounds?’
I nodded.
‘Come with me, we must search the House.’
It was an order, from a Cossack. I went with him, more shocked at the general panic than surprised at seeing Tatiana.
As we ran up the stairs, I remembered the consternation that had greeted my earlier description of meeting her in the rose arbour and the near panic that had ensued on that occasion. There was, however, no time to dwell on those thoughts as I followed Serge in his frantic search from room to room.
I don’t know how long it took to search the whole House but eventually we returned, wearily, to the dining room. As soon as we entered, Madame Lili looked up and interrogated Serge with her eyes. Slowly, he shook his head and Madame Lili turned her eyes on me. Instead of her usual penetrating gaze, I thought I could discern an almost pleading appeal for an explanation, and I realised in that moment that, whatever had just taken place in front of us, it was not Madame Lili’s doing. For once, she seemed to have lost control of events. She could not understand what had just happened, and it frightened her.
She got up and moved slowly towards me. The usual intimidating presence, the steely self-confidence, was gone. Instead I saw a beautiful but suddenly vulnerable and bewildered woman.
‘Help me, Nicholas,’ she whispered.
‘Of course, Madame Lili,’ I replied, seizing my chance and taking the proffered gloved hand. She was trembling slightly and, in spite of the fact that she had, some might say deliberately, frightened me in the past, my heart went out to her now.
We were interrupted by Dr Voikin, who, assisted by Chermakov, was trying to half-walk, half-carry a sobbing Anya from the room. Madame Lili went to help them and they all stumbled out into the passage together, leaving just the stolid Serge and myself in the room. He moved to the door and then looked back at me.
‘Come on, come to the kitchen.’
He nodded in the direction of the back of the House and made the universal gesture of drinking from a glass. I followed, lamely, with a last glance back into the empty room with its upturned chairs, deserted table and burned-out candle.
Serge grunted as he looked across at me.
‘You know more about this than you’re saying, Nicolai Feodorovitch.’
We were both sprawled in chairs next to the fireplace, a glass of his ‘special’ vodka in hand. This was not the first glass, and the fierce liquid, together with the heat from the fire and the physical exertion of searching the whole House, had had their effect on us. Serge’s new rubashka was now undone, as was his belt. I had long since discarded my jacket and bow tie and unbuttoned the uncomfortable fly collar. Both of us had propped our feet up on the fender.
‘Well?’ he prompted.
‘Look, Serge, I know only what I’ve already told you. I met this girl when I was sitting in the arbour, just yesterday. I was asleep so I don’t know where she came from – she was just there beside me when I woke up… I’d not been feeling well, if you remember. She told me she’d been a nurse in the Great War and pretended to take my pulse…’
‘What language did she speak?’
‘French and a bit of English, as I remember.’
‘No Russian?’
‘Not that I recall, though her French had a distinct Russian accent…’
I didn’t want to admit that I couldn’
t speak Russian. He looked at me sternly and arched his eyebrows into a frown. ‘What else did she say?’
‘Only that she was called Tatiana and that her father was the Tsar.’
Serge eyed me with suspicion before leaning forward and asking, ‘You are sure about that, my son?’
It was the first time he had called me ‘son’.
‘Yes, I’m sure. I’ll tell you something, though, Serge. She’s definitely not a ghost or a spirit. When she held my hand, she was warm flesh and blood.’
He grunted, picked up the bottle and poured us each another shot, stared into the fire and then turned slowly to face me. His voice was hoarse. ‘That’s as maybe, but she didn’t come past me to get to the door, so where did she go?’
‘You saw her, Serge. We all saw her. She was there. Anyway, what’s all the fuss about? It made for an interesting evening, didn’t it?’
‘Oh, you laugh now, Nicolai Feodorovitch, but I saw your face when I put the lights on and you were scared then.’
I didn’t know how to reply to that, and anyway I was fed up with constantly being interrogated by everyone. The vodka having done its work, I decided to call it a night. Serge, I knew, would sit up all night nursing that bottle, but I was all in. Making my excuses, I shuffled off to bed.
I wasn’t so tired though that I didn’t turn the whole thing over in my mind once I’d locked the doors, got into bed and blown out the candle.
My mind immediately returned to the séance. It had not been at all what I’d expected. No raps, no levitating chairs or tables, no spirit guide for Madame Lili to consult, and no nebulous spirit forms hovering above us and playing trumpets. Where was the protective circle with its pentagrams and magic symbols into which we all cowered when the Rider of the Pale Horse of the Apocalypse (whose name was Death) assailed us?
Disappointment was my first reaction, but Serge’s words echoed in my mind: ‘She didn’t come past me to get to the door, so where did she go?’
Finally, I slipped into an uneasy, troubled sleep.
CHAPTER 8
Hallucinosis
‘“Won’t you come into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly…’
It must have been the early hours of the morning when I awoke, or at least became vaguely aware of my surroundings. It was pitch dark but warm and comfortable in bed, and a relaxed drowsiness overcame me.
A beautiful perfume pervaded the room and I sensed rather than felt the person beside me. Natalie! She must have come to me, as if in answer to my dreams, as if in answer to the disappointment of her absence most of the evening.
Still only half awake, I reached out to her and felt her snuggle into my arms with a small sigh of pleasure. Tired, and a bit drunk, I would have slipped back into sleep had she not gradually aroused me with gentle movements of her body. Soon, in spite of my befuddled state, I was reaching over to kiss her…a strange, tight-lipped, even bashful kiss from her that surprised me. Sitting up, I gently rolled her on to her back and began the moves that precede lovemaking – slow and tender. Any inhibitions I might once have felt had evaporated with the passion of our previous lovemaking, and I was soon awake enough to take the lead and begin to make love to her.
She seemed strangely unresponsive, as if she wanted to but had forgotten how, and seemed awkward and gauche, eager yet hesitant. It was not until we climaxed and were lying exhausted together that these separate clues began to assemble in my befuddled brain.
I sat up with a suddenness that jolted the bed, peered down at her in the thick darkness and the awful truth hit me: this was not Natalie! The scent of jasmine, the strange kiss, the awkward lovemaking…but, even as I thought these things, the truth dawned on me:
‘Tatiana?’
I felt rather than saw her nod her head.
‘Oh, Nicholas! Do you really love me? You know you are the first…the only…’ she whispered in her quaint accented French.
I leapt out of bed. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. My confusion was absolute. I groped for the bedside table…the candle…the matches, but even as I struck the flame I knew the bed was empty.
My first impulse was to run to the door and pursue her down the hall. Only my naked state and acute embarrassment prevented me, and I sank down on the bed, overcome by the enormity of what I had just done – the betrayal of Natalya and the compromising of Tatiana.
Even while she was still being sought by everyone in the House, I was ‘sleeping with the enemy’.
Suddenly cold, I slipped into bed and lay back on the pillow as the events of the night churned in my mind.
In the end, I took the coward’s way out. I determined to keep quiet about everything and hope that it would all go away. After all, no one knew about it – except, of course, Tatiana – and she had no contact with anyone else in the House so no one could know unless I told them. The alternative was to confess to Natalie that it had all been a mistake, that I had been tricked into it. That seemed like a recipe for disaster, though, and, even if Natalie did understand and forgive me, what would Madame Lili make of the whole thing? No. Best be silent.
Sleep would not return and I was glad to go down to breakfast. Even then, I was half expecting trouble. What if Tatiana had been seen leaving my room? Where did she go without any clothes, and where was she now? Had I upset her deeply? I would not have done that for the world. But there was no way to find her and tell her.
Serge grunted a half-hearted return greeting. In spite of all the vodka, he looked bright and alert.
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ he shouted, fixing me with a frown. ‘Séances…superstitious rubbish, all of it. Spirits from the dead, my arse…’
‘Serge!’ It was Anya, standing by the door. ‘Please moderate your language!’
Serge looked sheepish and mumbled his excuses but he wasn’t done. ‘You’ll be telling me next that she was a ghost.’
He had obviously been ruminating about the night before. I couldn’t resist a taunt.
‘It was you standing by the door, Serge. What did you say to me when she disappeared? “She didn’t come past me, so where did she go?”’
He reacted badly, jumping up and growling, ‘I’m going outside…things to do. Stuff and nonsense.’
He slammed the door. Anya flashed me a quick, embarrassed smile. She seemed completely recovered from the previous evening’s shock.
‘So what do you make of all this, Nicholas?’
I prevaricated. ‘It was my first séance, Anya. I didn’t know what to expect…’
‘But you’ve seen the girl before, haven’t you, in the garden, wasn’t it? On Sunday. So you sort of know her. Do you think you could be psychic?’
She came over and sat across the table from me, leaned forward and stared me straight in the eyes. ‘I think you know more about this mystery woman than you are telling us, Nicolai Feodorovitch.’
I didn’t reply, sick and tired of the same old questions from everyone. She continued, ‘Madame Lili thinks so too. She wants to see you this evening, Nicholas, in her rooms.’
Having delivered this summons with suitable sinister foreboding, Anya got up to leave. At the door, she turned and said archly, ‘Good luck, Nico.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amélie the cook, get up from her usual seat beside the fire.
‘Monsieur Nicholas, are you wearing the cross I gave you?’
‘Uh, no, Amélie. I usually do, but I took it off when I showered this morning,’ I lied.
She eyed me anxiously and came very close.
‘Be sure to wear it tonight!’ she whispered fiercely.
For the first time since arriving at the House, I was relieved to receive word that Natalie could not attend classes that day. Apparently, the Grand Duchess was still indisposed and wanted her company.
I didn’t know how I could have faced her that day. Deeply ashamed at cheating on her, I sought refuge by telling myself that there was no way I could have known that the girl in my bed was Tatiana. B
ut in my heart I knew that, even if I had realised earlier than I did, I would still have continued the lovemaking. There was no valid excuse, only a combination of events which had confused me until things had gone too far to stop. I was so selfish! It was not my proudest moment. My stay in this House was revealing some very nasty home truths.
More worrying was how to deceive Madame Lili if she asked me this evening about my relationship with the girl at the séance. I felt like a man condemned to be exposed as a liar and a cheat.
The apprehension didn’t leave me all day, and I found myself taking deep breaths as I knocked on Madame Lili’s door. Stupid really: what could she do to me that was any worse than asking me to leave the House? And why should she do that just because I happened to be the only person there who knew anything about Tatiana?
Her heavy perfume hit me as soon as she opened the door and stood back, smiling to let me enter. Mastering my unease, I couldn’t help but admire the setting. This was Madame Lili as I had never seen her before. Instead of the long black dress, veil and big hat, she was breathtaking in a cream-coloured creation that was something between a sari and a bathrobe, trailing on the floor but with a slit on one side all the way up to her waist, showing her long, slim legs as she walked back towards the centre of the room. Her long black hair, usually piled high on her head in a sort of bun, hung in heavy curls about her shoulders and down her back and she moved sensuously to a chaise longue in the middle of the room, which was warm from the fire and softly lit with oil lamps. Adding to this heavy atmosphere were huge vases of lilies and freesias dotted about the room.
She sat on the chaise and patted a small armchair directly opposite and gestured to me to sit down. ‘Ah, Nicolai Feodorovitch, how good of you to come. I have looked forward to this meeting all day.’ She smiled up at me as I sat down. ‘Bring your chair closer,’ she urged. ‘Let me look at you. No bad dreams, I hope, because of our little séance?’
The Spaces in Between Page 9