Princes and Peasants

by Catrin Collier

  ‘It must be daunting being engaged to a prince.’

  ‘It is,’ she said without thinking what she was admitting.

  ‘Having second thoughts?’ Sarah asked gently.

  ‘I can’t seem to think further than the wedding. The prince … Roman … he’s very kind, but…’

  ‘He’s a man?’ Praskovia joked.

  The doorbell rang and they heard Ruth talking to Pyotr. She joined them. ‘Hello, everyone. She kissed Sarah, Praskovia, and Sonya’s cheeks. ‘Your mother told me to tell you that the maids have laid lunch on the table, Praskovia, and the stew is being kept warm in the chafing dish as you instructed.’

  ‘My mother doesn’t like the chafing dish,’ Praskovia explained. ‘She calls it a new invention, although I’ve tried to explain to her that the principal is the same as a samovar – apart from what’s in it. It’s just something for keeping food warm.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘The men should be in soon, if they’re coming.’

  ‘Mr Hughes called a meeting,’ Sonya warned.

  ‘In which case they may not be in until supper time,’ Praskovia observed philosophically, ‘so we can have a good gossip while you all eat twice as much as normal, so my mother won’t be annoyed at the waste of food.’

  ‘I saw Alexei before I left the office. He looked happy, marriage agrees with him,’ Sonya forced a smile.

  ‘It agrees with me too,’ Ruth pulled up a chair and joined their semicircle around the stove. ‘Although I wish he’d let me carry on working in the hospital.’

  ‘Don’t let him bully you,’ Sonya reached out and grasped Ruth’s hand. She was suddenly aware of how very fortunate she was to have good friends she could call on any time she chose.

  ‘Dare I ask how your wedding plans are coming along, Sonya?’ Sarah ventured.

  ‘Thanks to Aunt Catherine, they’ve come along as far as my dress.’

  ‘You’ve found one, that’s marvellous! What is it like?’ Praskovia signalled to the maid to place the samovar on a side table.

  ‘Aunt Catherine had hers brought out of storage the day I accepted Roman’s proposal. It’s beautiful, decades old, but she’d packed it away so carefully it looks as though it’s just left the dressmaker’s workshop. It’s Empire line, white silk overlaid with white lace. The hem, puffed sleeves, and bodice are embroidered with real gold thread and beads, as are the veil and train. Aunt Catherine said she’d always hoped that her daughter would want to wear it on her wedding day, but full skirts were fashionable when Olga married Count Beletsky and he said a figure-hugging gown in the French Empire style would be regarded as indecent, so Olga had one made in a design he approved of.’

  ‘Does it fit you?’ Praskovia suppressed a pang of envy. Every time Glyn apologised for not being able to marry her she insisted she didn’t mind. But she couldn’t lie to herself. She dreamed of wearing a wedding dress, and marrying Glyn in church. Her gown wouldn’t have to be as beautiful or costly as Ruth’s, or a family heirloom like Sonya’s, just a dress she could wear to walk down the aisle to meet Glyn in front of the altar.

  ‘As Aunt Catherine said, it looks as though it was made for me, not her.’

  ‘Will Anna wear the bridesmaid’s dress she wore for Ruth and Alexei’s wedding?’ Praskovia asked,

  ‘She’s coming to dinner as soon as she has an evening off to try on the bridesmaid’s dress Aunt Catherine’s mother had made to match the wedding gown. It’s blue lace and silk, cut in the same style as the wedding dress, with the same gold embroidery and just as beautiful.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see it,’ Sarah enthused.

  ‘You will if it fits Anna.’

  ‘My grandparents told us children many stories of Mrs Ignatova’s wedding day but they were mainly descriptions of the pig roasts and pails of vodka set aside for the people who lived and worked on the estate. They never once mentioned Mrs Ignatova’s gown or a bridesmaid. Who was she?’ Praskovia moved her cushion – again.

  Sonya looked sombre as she frequently did whenever she mentioned the parents she had never known. ‘My grandparents and Aunt Catherine’s parents were great friends, so Aunt Catherine chose my mother to be her bridesmaid. She was fifteen at the time, a year younger than Aunt Catherine and the same age Anna is now. A year later she was married herself.’

  ‘To your father who was Aunt Catherine’s brother?’ Ruth was interested in Alexei’s family’s history and eager to learn all Sonya could tell her.

  ‘No.’ Sonya shook her head. ‘I don’t know the name of my mother’s first husband or anything about him other than he beat her and she left him. She fell in love with Aunt Catherine’s brother – my father – much later.’

  Sensitive to the tone in Sonya’s voice, for the first time Ruth suspected that Sonya’s parents hadn’t been married when she’d been born.

  ‘Stay there, Praskovia, I’ll serve the tea.’ Sarah reached out and wheeled the samovar closer to her chair. ‘Do you remember your parents, Sonya?’

  ‘No. I wish I had something, just one memory of them that I could cling to, but my father was diagnosed with consumption before I was born and sent to an isolation hospital where he’s remained ever since. He’s so contagious he’s not even allowed to write letters. My mother died a few months later. All I have are the photographic portraits Aunt Catherine has given me.’

  ‘I don’t even have that much to remember my parents by,’ Sarah confessed.

  ‘They died when you were a baby?’ Sonya took the glass Sarah handed her.

  ‘I’ve no idea. I was taken to a workhouse as a newborn by an Anglican vicar who left his name and address. When I was old enough to be given a day off from the hospital wing where I’d found work, first as a ward maid then a nurse, I went to the address the Workhouse Master gave me. The vicar who’d brought me to the orphanage wing had moved on and the new vicar knew nothing about me. He was kind. He invited me to have tea with him and his wife. He even asked his housekeeper, who’d known the old vicar if she could tell him anything about me, but it was hopeless. The parish was in the East End of London: an area packed from the cellars to the rooftops with immigrants on their way to – or from – somewhere. It was also full of,’ Sarah rolled her eyes and lowered her voice, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, ‘ladies of the night.’

  Praskovia and Ruth burst out laughing and even Sonya managed a smile.

  ‘Have you settled on a date for the ceremony yet, Sonya?’ Sarah finished serving the tea and returned to her chair.

  ‘Father Grigor is coming to dinner when Anna can make it so we’ll decide then. Roman would like us to marry soon so I can travel with him to St Petersburg. He wants to report to Grand Duke Konstantin on the progress Mr Hughes has made and to talk to him on Mr Hughes’s behalf about future government contracts.’

  ‘How soon is soon?’ Ruth asked her.

  ‘As soon as the snow melts enough to make travelling easier.’

  ‘So in the next month?’

  ‘Yes.’ Even as she confirmed it, Sonya didn’t quite believe her wedding could happen – ever – let alone within a month. Whether it was the lack of opportunity to talk to Roman about anything even remotely personal because of the constant presence of her chaperone Maria, or the feelings she had for Nathan, that try as she may she simply couldn’t control, she felt as though nothing was real in her life.

  It was as though she was trapped in a dream world where nothing mattered because sometime soon she would wake up and her life would begin again, afresh and anew – and Nathan wouldn’t be married.

  ‘Then you’ll go to St Petersburg,’ Ruth sighed. ‘This place won’t be the same without you. When will you be back?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Roman mentioned that he has houses elsewhere but we’ve never talked about where we’ll live.’

  ‘You will settle here permanently, won’t you?’ Praskovia said hopefully.

  ‘Roman warned me that he likes to travel, but as he has business interests with Mr Hughes I hope w
e’ll be spending a great deal of time here.’

  ‘I hope so too,’ Praskovia said feelingly. ‘I hate change and it’s as if the village I grew up in has galloped into a town and now the town’s galloping away from us. New people are moving in all the time, Welsh, Russian, German, every nationality under the sun, changing the atmosphere.’

  ‘That’s not a bad thing, is it?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Not for the people coming in, but we Cossacks are beginning to feel overwhelmed. Now that the blast furnace is in full production even more people will settle here in the hope of finding work. I feel as though everyone who lives here is losing control, even Mr Hughes. We have fights in the street, drunks around all the beer and vodka shops, and so much violence and…’

  Sarah interrupted Praskovia before she could mention Naomi’s murder, a subject that was on everyone’s mind, but one she felt that there was little point in discussing as it invariably led to upset and even tears. ‘Glyn, Richard, and I talked about the way Hughesovka is growing over breakfast. We agreed change is inevitable and that perhaps our dream of building an utopia on the steppe was unrealistic given the nature of the heavy industry Mr Hughes is pioneering, and the type of rough and ready uneducated men willing to do hard physical work in the furnace and mines. But in a few years Hughesovka will settle down, and there’ll be more opportunities for educated and skilled workers. Then, I think we can expect things to become calmer and dare I say, more civilized.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Praskovia set down her tea glass. ‘I can’t help thinking that our children will grow up in a very different world to the Cossack village that was my childhood home.’

  ‘Looking back it was idyllic. What I remember most are long summer days spent riding, building hides in the woods, and hunting with your father, Praskovia. He taught us all so much and told us so many stories.’ Sonya looked up at the clock. ‘Time I was getting back to the office.’

  ‘You’ll stay to eat something,’ Praskovia pressed.

  ‘Brides have to keep up their strength,’ Sarah added. ‘Otherwise they run the risk of fainting at the altar.’

  Sonya capitulated. ‘There wasn’t that much correspondence that needed translating this morning so I suppose another half hour or so won’t make any difference.’

  ‘Let’s load up plates in the dining room and bring them back here where it’s warm and cosy,’ Praskovia went to the door and opened it.

  ‘And talk weddings,’ Sarah suggested. She was tempted to add, or about anything except Naomi’s tragic death – not to mention the fear she sensed stalking the town like a suffocating cloud of poison gas.

  ‘And what marriage is really like,’ Ruth’s eyes sparkled.

  ‘Tell me,’ Sonya asked.

  ‘I was looking forward to sleeping with Alexei every night and waking up next to him in the morning, but I never thought it would be as wonderful as it is,’ Ruth confided. ‘When he puts his arms around me in bed it feels as though I’ve crawled into his cocoon and nothing exists outside of our world.’

  Praskovia laughed. ‘There is nothing like sleeping with the man in your life – in every sense of “sleep”. Making love with Glyn makes me feel alive in a way I never felt before.’

  None of them saw Anna on the stairs. She heard what Praskovia said and shuddered. Unable to sleep, she’d intended joining the others, but as she stood at the foot of the stairs and listened to the conversation grow more risqué and intimate, she grew increasingly nauseous. Treading softly and carefully she turned and silently retraced her steps.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Hospital, Hughesovka

  February 1872

  Nathan Kharber left Koshka’s and returned to his office. He was exhausted and had almost fallen asleep in Adele’s arms, but he had one task to complete before he went home to his own bed.

  He sat behind his desk, took a clean sheet of notepaper from the drawer and wrote a short letter.

  Dear Miss Tsetovna,

  I would like to thank you and your aunt for the fruit you brought this morning for the patients. It is much appreciated.

  Yours sincerely,

  Nathan Kharber (doctor)

  There was a hidden message in the polite note. He hoped for both their sakes Sonya would understand what it was, because he was spending so much time dwelling on and regretting what could never be, it was affecting every aspect of his life.

  He placed it in an envelope, sealed it, and wrote Sonya’s name on the outside; locking his office door behind him he handed his keys and the letter to the duty porter.

  ‘See this is delivered to Miss Tsetovna in the New Russia Company Office as soon as possible. It’s a thank you for the fruit she brought this morning.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Maxim took the keys and letter from him and shouted to Bogdan who was in the kitchen. ‘You’re needed to deliver a letter to the New Russia Company Headquarters.’

  Nathan looked in on the wards. The trainees were practising bed making under Miriam’s eagle eye.

  ‘If there are any emergencies I will be at home, Nurse, I’m going to catch up on some sleep.’

  ‘Yes, Dr Kharber.’

  ‘You look as though you could do with some rest too. If it’s quiet, lie down in one of the treatment rooms and allow the trainees to run the wards.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He knew that unlike Anna, who drove herself harder than any of the other nurses, Miriam would take his advice.

  He left the building and pulled up the collar of his coat. It had finally stopped snowing but the sky was heavy with grey clouds, and he could feel the temperature dropping by the minute. He trudged through the snowdrifts around the side of the building and walked up to his front door. The porters had cleared a path and shovelled sand from the company yard on to it to make for easier walking.

  Vasya was hovering in the hall and it was obvious that she’d been waiting for him. She opened the door before he even reached the porch.

  ‘You look exhausted, Nathan.’

  ‘It’s been a long night and morning, I need to sleep.’

  ‘Would you like me to sleep with you?’

  ‘No,’ he snapped quickly. Too quickly, he realised, when he saw Vasya flinch.

  ‘You must be hungry?’

  ‘I breakfasted earlier.’ He didn’t reveal where. He glanced at the wall clock that had been a wedding present from Vasya’s father. ‘If no one comes to fetch me sooner please wake me at six o’clock.’

  ‘You’re going to the hospital tonight after working for more than twenty-four hours?’

  ‘My patients need me, Vasya.’

  ‘You sure I can’t get you something? If you don’t want a meal, then cake or a sandwich, and tea…’

  ‘Nothing.’ He was angry with himself for being short with his wife, but he knew that if he didn’t curb her she would continue until she’d itemised everything in the pantry. ‘Nothing at all,’ he reiterated in a marginally softer tone.

  ‘My father called again this morning. About his cousin’s children,’ she began timidly. ‘My father and uncle…’

  ‘I have told you a dozen times, my word is final, Vasya, I will not adopt your father’s cousins.’

  ‘Then there is no point in discussing the matter, although they will soon be here in Hughesovka?’

  He heard her father’s demand behind the gentle request. ‘None whatsoever,’ he replied. ‘Please don’t bring the matter up again, Vasya.’

  She hung her head.

  Hating himself for hurting her, furious at her subservience, he was beginning to understand men who beat their meek wives when the women gave no apparent cause for complaint. Wishing that just once Vasya would stand up for herself, he went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Tripping over the single bed Vasya had placed at the foot of the marital bed, so she could sleep as an orthodox wife should – at the feet of her husband – he flung off his clothes, crawled between the sheets and tried to sleep.

  Sonya
, Vasya, and Roman Nadolny’s images whirled around in a kaleidoscope, interspersed with those of Rabbi Goldberg, his father-in-law, Levi, and four faceless children, three boys and a girl, all dressed in deep black mourning with tears in their coats above their hearts to signify they were mourning the loss of their parents.

  But it was Sonya’s face he kept trying to hold to the forefront of his mind. Sonya, pale and reproachful as she’d been when he’d ignored her as she’d approached the hospital that morning, wearing the pain he’d inflicted on her face.

  New Russia Company Headquarters

  February 1872

  Vasily waylaid Sonya when she returned to the office. ‘These were delivered when you were out, Miss Tsetovna.’ He handed her a package wrapped in brown paper and a letter. She looked at the address on the package. It had been written in an educated hand, but she didn’t recognise the penmanship. She turned it over. There was no return address, only her name on both sides, and below it marked in large letters PERSONAL AND PRIVATE.

  ‘Did you see who delivered it?’ she asked the clerk.

  ‘Not the package, Miss Tsetovna. It was just left on the counter in the front office. The letter came from the hospital.’

  ‘Thank you, Vasily.’

  He looked at the parcel she’d made no attempt to open. ‘Will there be any return messages?’

  ‘If there are I’ll bring them to you, Vasily.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Tsetovna.’

  Sonya waited until the clerk left her office before opening the letter. She read it and understood Nathan’s reasons for sending such a terse formal acknowledgement. He was married, she was engaged. They should never have voiced their feelings for one another. Short and formal were the only exchanges possible between them if his marriage was to survive and she was to make any kind of life for herself.