Princes and Peasants

by Catrin Collier

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Glyn and Praskovia’s house

  December 1871

  Exhausted, hungry, and thirsty after a sleepless night, Richard and Glyn stamped the snow from their boots on the doormat before exchanging them for felt slippers. They shrugged off their damp hats, coats, mufflers, and gloves and handed them to Pyotr. Alerted by the sounds of the door opening and of voices, Sarah walked down the stairs to meet them.

  Richard kissed her cheek. ‘Good morning, sweetheart. The snow is falling thicker by the minute.’

  ‘I saw.’

  ‘You went out?’

  ‘To the hospital to sit with Naomi and the Rinskis.’

  ‘We heard she died. I’m so sorry, Sarah.’ Glyn hugged her.

  ‘All three of you look as though you need a good breakfast.’ Praskovia and Sarah had cried over Naomi when Sarah had come home a couple of hours ago. Both were struggling to keep their emotions in check lest it affect the others, especially Richard’s young brothers. Praskovia opened the door to the dining room. Morgan and Owen were leaving the table after breakfasting on buckwheat pancakes, eggs, and cured ham.

  ‘Straight to the laboratory, no snowball fights on the way,’ Richard warned.

  ‘Richard, please,’ Morgan countered with all the wisdom of his twelve years. ‘We’re too old for snowball fights.’

  ‘Your brother and I aren’t,’ Glyn teased. ‘We tossed snowballs at one another all the way up the street.’

  ‘Excuse us please, Mr Edwards, Sarah, Richard, Praskovia.’ Morgan pushed ten-year-old Owen through the door, ‘we promised to arrive early so Monsieur Picard could go through the assignments he gave us yesterday.’

  ‘You’re excused.’ Sarah had trouble keeping a straight face.

  Glyn noticed the empty chairs. ‘Edward not up?’

  Praskovia raised her eyebrows. ‘Not yet.’

  From that Glyn surmised that his brother hadn’t returned home.

  ‘Did you find the people who attacked Naomi?’ Sarah asked Richard. She’d tried to sleep when she’d returned from the hospital but, expecting Glyn and Richard back at any moment, she hadn’t undressed. Neither had she slept. The moment she’d heard the door open, she’d run downstairs.

  ‘We found nothing.’ Richard sat at the table. He frowned as he looked around. ‘Is Anna back from her night shift?’

  ‘One of the porters brought her home an hour ago. She was too devastated to eat and insisted on going straight to bed. I asked my mother to make Anna’s favourite shashlik and rice for dinner, so hopefully she’ll eat later.’ Praskovia handed round the dishes on the table.

  ‘I spoke to Anna before I left the hospital. She saw Naomi when she was brought in and is absolutely convinced it was the Paskeys who attacked her.’

  ‘What made her think that, Sarah? Thank you,’ Glyn smiled at Praskovia when she filled his coffee cup.

  ‘The injuries were similar to the ones the Paskeys inflicted on her,’ Sarah said. ‘I think seeing Naomi brought the whole horrible experience back to the forefront of her mind.’

  ‘Whoever killed Naomi will be found and brought to justice sooner or later,’ Glyn helped himself to eggs and ham.

  ‘Let’s hope it’s sooner,’ Richard said feelingly.

  ‘Naomi’s killer will be bloodstained. If they turn up in one of the communal dormitories they’ll be seen and someone will report them,’ Sarah observed.

  ‘We can but hope, sweetheart,’ Richard commented, ‘but you know what this town is like late at night.’

  ‘I occasionally hear peculiar noises but I can’t honestly say that I know what it’s like.’

  ‘Just as well,’ Glyn observed.

  ‘There are fights that draw blood in every bar – Russian, Welsh, German, and French,’ Richard elaborated.

  The front door opened and they heard Edward speaking to Pyotr. He walked in and joined them.

  ‘Early morning walk, Edward?’ Glyn asked pointedly.

  ‘Trying to get my bearings, this place isn’t quite home yet, but it’s cold out there,’ Edward complained, ‘and it’s snowing more heavily than it was earlier. Nothing like we get in Wales. This breakfast looks marvellous,’ he said to Praskovia as she pushed the tureens of food closer to his plate.

  ‘Did you see or hear anything unusual?’ Glyn asked.

  ‘No, I bumped into Alf and he told me what happened. Awful news. Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘Richard and I will be going to the office after we eat, come with us, and you’ll find out,’ Glyn passed Edward the bread.

  ‘I saw Cossack soldiers out searching with Vlad and Alf.’

  ‘Misha Razin and his platoon came in this morning to relieve the men who’d been out all night,’ Richard commented.

  ‘He wasn’t doing much searching when I saw him. Yes please, Praskovia,’ Edward nodded when she offered him the pancakes. ‘He was sitting at one of the window seats in the hotel with Alice Perkins when I passed a few minutes ago.’

  Richard and Glyn exchanged glances.

  ‘Could Alice and Betty finally be planning to return to Taganrog with the Cossacks when they next go to get supplies?’ Richard asked.

  ‘The Cossacks won’t be going anywhere again until the spring.’ Praskovia handed Edward a basket of rolls. ‘Misha called on our mother yesterday. He told her they’re expecting the last platoon that went to Taganrog to return to the barracks next week and no one will be leaving again until the snow melts. He also said that Colonel Zonov’s made him winter duty officer.’

  ‘Does that mean that now the snow’s here, Betty and Alice will have to remain in the town until spring?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Unless they find someone prepared to drive them to Taganrog in a sleigh, and I doubt any competent driver would risk it for fear of hitting a snowstorm. Misha also told Yelena that he was thinking of getting married.’

  ‘Did he give her the name of the lucky girl he’s picked out?’ Glyn asked.

  ‘No, other than to say she’s rich.’

  Edward looked uneasily at Richard. ‘One of us should call on Betty and Alice and say something.’

  ‘What exactly, when neither Alice nor Mrs Edwards is talking to anyone in this house except to nod “hello” to you and my two young brothers, Mr Edwards?’ Richard asked. ‘And Betty didn’t even acknowledge the boys the last time she saw them out with me. Cut us dead when we greeted her in the street. Pass me the butter please, Glyn.’

  Hotel Hughesovka

  December 1871

  ‘Your table is ready, Captain Razin.’ The waiter ushered Misha and Alice from the window table in reception to a secluded booth in the dining room. After pulling out a chair for Alice, he picked up her napkin from her place setting and laid it with a flourish over her lap. ‘Your menus, miss, Captain.’ He handed Alice her menu first, then Misha.

  ‘Thank you.’ Misha smiled at Alice as the waiter left them. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been able to come into town to visit you since our arrival here, but my colonel has kept me busy in the barracks.’ He shrugged. ‘No officer in a Russian regiment, especially the Cossacks, can call his time his own.’

  She reached across the table and grasped his hand. ‘You’re here now, that’s what’s important. I’ve missed you.’

  ‘I’ve missed you too,’ he lied. ‘And I’ve been worried about you and Mrs Edwards, alone here in the hotel with Martha and the child. You only have to look at what happened last night…’

  ‘That poor nurse.’

  ‘You know?’

  ‘One of the porters speaks English. He told us that she’d been …’ she lowered her eyes. ‘Ravished before being murdered.’

  ‘He was right. Last night proves that this is not the town for unaccompanied ladies, especially when the lady is as beautiful as you.’

  Alice accepted the compliment with a coy, well-rehearsed smile.

  ‘Does Mrs Edwards intend to return to Wales soon?’

  ‘No, she s
ays she has nothing there to go back to.’

  Misha was surprised. ‘I heard that her husband does not want to live with her. He won’t even allow her into his house.’

  ‘He has signed over the deeds of his house to his mistress.’

  ‘Has he now,’ Misha mused, savouring the titbit his mother hadn’t passed on to him. It could be useful to have a sister who owned a house as grand as the one Glyn Edwards had given her. He filed away the knowledge, suspecting that it might come in useful one day.

  The waiter interrupted them with coffee pots and their breakfasts of pancakes, butter, and cherry jam.

  ‘So what will Mrs Edwards do here?’ Misha probed.

  ‘She doesn’t know, other than move out of the hotel as soon as she can. Neither of us can afford to continue living here indefinitely. If we tried we’d have no money left after a year or two.’

  ‘But you’d have lived well,’ Misha smiled.

  ‘That would be of little consolation if we were reduced to existing on the street. We both agree that we need to do something to earn a living. Mrs Edwards has been talking about opening some kind of business, something that we can do together. She ran a very successful hotel in Merthyr.’ Alice stretched the truth. The Boot Inn could have been described as many things but ‘successful hotel’ wasn’t one of them. ‘Drinking den and cheap doss house for bachelor colliers’ might have been nearer the mark.

  ‘And you, Alice? Would you like to run a business?’

  ‘I might,’ she said airily, ‘as long as it was something I was interested in, like ladies’ gowns, hats, perfumes, and face creams. I wouldn’t like to leave Betty – Mrs Edwards, that is. She really is a very close friend. Probably the closest friend I have.’

  ‘So you will stay in Hughesovka as well?’

  ‘I have no immediate plans to leave.’

  ‘I’m glad because I have something for you.’ He took a small box from his pocket and handed it to her. She opened it. Inside was a three-banded ring, one in yellow gold, one in rose gold, and one in white gold.

  ‘It’s a Russian wedding ring,’ he explained, ‘from the very best Moscow jeweller.’ He’d debated whether to tell her that much. He’d bought the ring for Sonya when he’d been stationed in Moscow after he’d been informed by his commanding officer that he was being posted back to his home territory. He’d hoped to rekindle the relationship he and Sonya had shared as children. He’d been devastated when Sonya had refused his proposal.

  After her rejection, he’d returned the ring to its box, dropped it into the bottom of his chest and forgotten about it – until the moment Alice Perkins had told him that she had money.

  ‘Misha, are you …?’

  ‘Asking you to marry me. Yes.’ He locked his fingers into hers. She left her chair, flung her arms around his neck, and smothered his face in kisses. Their table was set back in the alcove but not far enough for him to avoid embarrassment. Sensing the other hotel guests watching them, he untangled himself from Alice’s embrace.

  ‘The ring is made of gold in three colours because the yellow gold is “for then” – that is, the past when we fell in love – and the white gold is “for now”.’

  ‘And the rose gold?’ she asked, slipping it on to her finger.

  ‘Is for the future, or as the jeweller would say, “for ever”.’

  ‘Thank you, Misha, I will be proud to be your wife. Of course I’ll marry you, and then our life will be complete.’

  The waiter arrived with more coffee and his congratulations. As Misha watched him fill their cups, he wondered how long he should wait before asking Alice to ‘lend’ him enough money to buy himself out of the regiment and into the horse-trading business he intended to set up as a civilian.

  Beletsky Mansion

  December 1871

  ‘We didn’t realise the Paskeys had taken the place of the pillions on the back of your carriage until we reached Madam Koshka’s, sir.’ Ilya hadn’t lied. He’d seen the Paskeys whispering to Gleb at the supper table, but he’d left almost immediately to take advantage of the servants’ mealtime to secrete a few bottles of his master’s finer wine in his hidden – very hidden – personal store. The first thing he’d learned at his master’s house parties, was that when the wine started flowing freely his master’s check on the number of bottles consumed became less stringent. Also, as the evening progressed his master’s guests’ taste buds dulled, and it wasn’t difficult to pour the contents of cheap bottles into emptied expensive ones. That freed the odd bottle which brought a good price from agents who weren’t too particular where their stock came from.

  Gleb took over the conversation and began to relate the story he’d concocted with the other drivers and footmen to cover their involvement in Ianto and Mervyn’s expedition into Hughesovka.

  ‘As you know, sir when we reached Koshka’s salon, it was dark. I joined the other drivers in the carriage house to wait for you, sir. When I looked out of the door, I saw Mr Komansky’s two pillions standing at the back of his carriage. When one of them took off his hat I recognised him as Mervyn Paskey. I shouted to him but he and his fellow pillion, that I took to be Ianto Paskey, ran off.’

  ‘You went after them?’ Levsky asked.

  ‘A few of us did right away, sir. But as I said, it was dark.’

  ‘It was snowing. There would have been lanterns in the carriage house. You could have followed their footsteps.’

  ‘There were a lot of people about, sir, going in and out of the beer shops and drinking dens. All of them making too many tracks in the snow to follow any one set in particular. When we didn’t find the Paskeys after an hour or so, we decided to go back to the carriage house in case they’d returned there.’

  ‘More like you wanted to get back to the brazier and carry on drinking vodka,’ Nicholas guessed.

  ‘We all needed a warm, sir,’ Gleb conceded.

  ‘We were walking back down the street when we heard someone shout from behind a big house,’ Ilya volunteered. ‘I looked in the direction of the voice and saw the Paskeys running alongside a garden fence towards the road. They were covered in blood.’

  ‘You said it was dark,’ Nicholas reminded.

  ‘It was, sir. But as you said we had lanterns.’

  ‘And you could see the blood on them from a distance?’

  ‘Then what happened?’ Levsky snapped, annoyed with Nicholas for interrupting Ilya.

  ‘I thought the Paskeys had been in a fight, sir. I knew you didn’t want any trouble that would attract attention to you or Count Beletsky, so I asked Gleb to fetch a carriage as quick as he could. One without a coat of arms on the door.’

  ‘Didn’t whoever shouted follow the Paskeys?’

  ‘No, sir. Not that we saw. We heard more shouts for help, sir, but from somewhere behind the house. I thought the Paskeys had been fighting with someone.’

  ‘You didn’t see the girl.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Gleb lied stoutly.

  ‘Ilya?’

  ‘No, sir, we didn’t. When I heard the shouts, I told the Paskeys to run down the street until they saw Gleb. But given the problem Mr Komansky encountered at Madam Koshka’s, sir, Gleb was delayed. The Paskeys were almost at Koshka’s when Gleb left with a carriage. He stopped it, and as Mr Komansky was unconscious Gleb, me, and the Paskeys decided to climb in to look after him and protect him in case he should be attacked again, because Mr Komansky was in no state to help himself, sir.’

  Levsky allowed the pathetic explanation as to why Ilya, Gleb, and the Paskeys had ridden inside, not outside, the carriage to pass. ‘You drove straight here?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And neither you, Ilya, nor you, Gleb, saw the girl?’ Levsky demanded.

  ‘No, sir. We didn’t even know a girl had been attacked until the other drivers returned.’

  ‘You’re sure you didn’t join the Paskeys in their idea of fun?’ Levsky stared directly into Ilya’s eyes.

  Ilya returned his master’
s stare unflinchingly. He’d had a great deal of practice. ‘We only knew where the Paskeys were after we heard the shouts, so there was no time to join them, sir.’

  ‘What did you do when you came back here?’ Levsky continued his interrogation.

  ‘Locked the Paskeys in their room, and told them to clean themselves up.’

  ‘The livery they were wearing?’

  ‘I told them to wash it, sir.’

  ‘It’s bloodstained?’

  ‘Soaked, sir.’

  ‘Burn it. I’ll compensate Mr Komansky for the loss.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did any of the house servants see the Paskeys come in?’ Levsky checked.

  ‘No, sir. I brought them in through the back door.’

  ‘Good.’ Levsky pointed to the door to the Paskeys’ room. ‘Open it. I want to talk to them.’

  Levsky and Nicholas stood back as Ilya unlocked the door. A fetid, animal-lair stench redolent with the metallic tang of blood wafted out. Ianto and Mervyn were cowering at the far end of the room. Both were stripped to the skin, the livery they’d worn lying in a bloodstained pool at their feet.

  Ianto pointed to a bowl of bloody water balanced on a chair. Rags floated in it like sewage in a stagnant cesspit. ‘We need fresh water.’

  ‘After you’ve cleaned this filthy room, you can scrub yourselves down in the trough in the stable yard.’

  ‘It’s snowing out there,’ Mervyn whined.

  ‘It would be no loss if you both froze to death.’ Levsky turned to Ilya. ‘Watch them, as soon as they’ve finished cleaning this room and themselves bring them back here and lock them in. And keep them locked in until I tell you otherwise.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Levsky turned back to the Paskeys. When he spoke his voice was soft, low. Ominously so. ‘What happened in Hughesovka?’

  ‘The girl…’

  ‘Start at the beginning. Why did you go into the town?’

  ‘Me and Mervyn … well, sir … we’d been cooped up for weeks in here. When we had supper in the kitchen we heard the other men, the drivers and footmen, talking about going into town. We’d been hearing about Hughesovka all the time since we’ve been here, but never been there so we asked two of the footmen if we could take their places …’ Ianto’s voice trailed under Levsky’s cold stare.