The Red Staircase

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘Don’t talk of infection,’ said Ariadne, who was always something of a hypochondriac. ‘There, you’ve made me cough.’

  ‘Oh, you are forever thinking of your health,’ said Marisia.

  As we walked, again I came to realize that the area open to the family Lazarev was restricted and small. ‘Where does your music master live?’ I asked her, looking around.

  ‘Oh yes, you met him. He has a room in Vyksa where he lodges, and he walks out as we need him. And of course there is a room here for him with a piano to use as he likes.’

  A row of huts, part of the compound in which the Lazarevs lived met my eye. ‘Who lives there?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, the clerks and assistants to my father. I don’t have much to do with them. They have the smell of the mines too much upon them.’ She turned me away from what I was looking at with an energetic tug of the arm, as if the whole subject could no longer be borne by her. I thought then that the ‘smell’ to which she referred was a moral or emotional one, but I found out afterwards that she was to be taken only too literally. Once smelt, never forgotten, that smell of Vyksa’s mines. Perhaps I already had a whiff of it in my nostrils without knowing what it was.

  To my great relief, this time I had no sense whatever of Patrick. Nothing reminded me of him. But instead I felt a terrible apprehension, as if, by degrees, I was being introduced to a world where nightmares were real.

  We lunched with the family at the big round table, the usual simple meal of broth and meat. Ariadne ate hardly anything and seemed somehow both excited and subdued, at times chattering away far too fast to be coherent, and at others falling into silence. I saw Marisia glance at her questioningly once or twice.

  ‘Now what do you make of Vyksa this time?’ she asked me, turning her gaze away from her friend.

  Slowly, and hardly meaning to use the word, I said: ‘It’s a ferocious place.’

  ‘Ah, le mot juste,’ said Marisia lightly. ‘Yes, it has teeth all right.’ She looked again at Ariadne, and this time frank concern showed in her face. ‘I don’t think Ariadne is well,’ she whispered to me.

  ‘I heard that,’ said Ariadne.

  ‘Does your head ache?’

  ‘Not much, but it feels heavy. My legs feel heavy too.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve got a fever.’

  I stood up. ‘We must leave at once. The sooner Ariadne is home, the better.’ I went over to her. ‘Oh my poor girl, why didn’t you tell me.’

  ‘It only came on as we travelled,’ she said, leaning her head against me. ‘Yes, we’d better go. I’m sorry if I’ve spoiled your visit.’

  ‘No, I did what I wanted to. I’m free of my little bit of nonsense. But I must look after you.’ I stroked her forehead gently, I could see a little thread of perspiration forming. I wiped it away with my handkerchief.

  Marisia had hurried off to arrange for our old friend the gate-keeper to bring the pony round. Over her shoulder she threw: ‘I can give you a cooling draught, Ariadne, before you set off. No rivalry to you, Rose, but I keep a few drugs here myself.’

  I could feel the heat from Ariadne’s skin burning my own. I was beginning to be alarmed, but was anxious not to show it in front of the sufferer.

  The little girls had disappeared and we were alone in the room where they both ate and did their letters. Ariadne was lying on a sofa and I was sitting by her, holding her hand. I could hear the clock ticking on the wall; louder and louder the tick grew in my ears. Marisia seemed to have been gone for a long time; I began to be impatient to be off. I wanted to get my charge home if, as I suspected, she was to be in for a sharp dose of illness. ‘I was keen to get here, and now I am impatient to leave. Serves me right,’ I thought.

  My eye fell on a pile of books on the table. Everyone has his own particular way of arranging books. Patrick was idiosyncratic: he would line up his books with the smallest on the top, all the spines aligned – but the topmost book of all was always at right angles to the others, as if announcing a stop, a kind of finale. He did it quite automatically, and no doubt unconsciously; I had seen him do it time and time again.

  On a table in the window was such a pile. I was staring at it when Marisia returned. ‘Your conveyance is ready,’ she announced cheerfully. ‘Can you manage?’

  I turned to her. My thoughts were confused. I longed to examine the books, to question Marisia about their owner. Who did they belong to? Who had arranged them? Was I being imaginative or was there truly a person here whom I ought to meet?

  ‘Come on,’ urged Marisia, giving Ariadne her arm. ‘Rose, help her.’

  I was caught. The last thing I could do now was to hang on at Vyksa. Anxiety about Ariadne, and frustration about my own quandary, were mingled with the distinct impression that Marisia, although sorry for Ariadne, was not sorry to see us go.

  But Ariadne solved my dilemma for me by immediately being so sick, and following this up by a period of retching and cramps so sharp, that her leaving, or travelling further than a bedroom, was impossible.

  Between us, Marisia and I got her to bed, and the need to act – to give relief to the sick girl, and to decide how most tactfully to inform Dolly of what had happened – took up all my attention.

  When, eventually, Ariadne had sunk into sleep, I went to the door and stared out into the night.

  ‘I have sent a message by a servant to Madame Denisov,’ said Marisia, coming to me.

  ‘She will be worried already, at our not returning,’ I said, not moving from my contemplation of the evening sky.

  ‘Then she will be prepared.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ I felt very tired. ‘And better for her to have a bit of warning. I’m afraid Ariadne is going to be very ill.’

  ‘I could get the doctor from Vyksa, but he’s such a butcher.’

  ‘Dolly might bring one with her.’

  Marisia shrugged. ‘There is none at Shereshevo.’

  ‘No. That’s true.’ I shouldered my responsibility. ‘Well, I must do my best.’

  Marisia leant against the door frame. She seemed sombre. ‘What a terrible price to pay for Ariadne’s visits here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Of course, she caught the infection here. It has been hanging around in her system, brewing up its poison.’

  But I had been thinking. ‘She could have been infected from a child in the village of Shereshevo who was sick. The mother came to my clinic.’

  ‘Much more likely, then, that you infected the child?’

  ‘Oh no!’ I was horrified. ‘You mean I carried an infection from here to the baby?’ Then I rallied. ‘But I don’t know the incubation period. Nor the disease, for that matter.’

  ‘Oh, it’s the Vyksa disease for sure. It’s endemic here. They die like flies inside that place sometimes. At other times it seems to disappear, but it never quite vanishes, and every so often it goes on the rampage.’

  Dolly arrived just before midnight, bringing my travelling bag and special food and medicines. She came hurrying straight into the room where I sat by Ariadne’s bed. Whatever else you might say about her, she was a good mother – but a poor nurse, I decided at the end of the night. What with her nervousness, and lack of any sort of practical skill, she was more of a hindrance than a help. Marisia was useful, but after midnight I had insisted she get some rest. One of us must be fresh for whatever was going to happen next day.

  And there were moments when I feared greatly what that might be: the infection seemed to gallop like a horse. The night felt endless to Dolly and me as we laboured to relieve the girl – fruitlessly, helplessly. Ariadne was never unconscious – I wished she could have been, as she was racked with shivering fits and coughing – but sometimes there was a wildness approaching delirium. To my questing fingers her stomach felt hard and distended. To add to her vomiting she had diarrhoea, poor child. Dolly never flinched from any unpleasant manifestation, I will say that for her, and as for me, I had my Edinburgh training.

 
On one trip through the house for water and fresh linen, I passed through the dining-room where a lamp still shone. In the dim light I saw again that pile of books that had so set my imagination alight. I looked at them with indifference, they seemed drained of all importance. I was face to face with reality now.

  With morning there was a lull. Ariadne drifted into a sleep. Dolly went to rest and I moved through the house to the door, instinctively seeking light and air. I stood on the little verandah that faced the court and drew in deep breaths. Already the sun was up and the day hot.

  ‘Here, drink this.’ Marisia had appeared, cup in hand.

  I took it. ‘Oh, coffee,’ I said, grateful it was not the eternal tea.

  ‘Yes, I made it myself.’ She waited until I had drained the cup, then said: ‘How is she?’

  ‘I can’t tell.’

  ‘Um.’ She frowned. ‘Well, we shall have to wait and see. She’s a strong girl and that’s in her favour. And how are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right.’

  ‘You go and get some sleep. I’ll be in charge.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps I will. In a little while.’ I still stood leaning against the wooden verandah up which some trailing plant grew. Even in this place the plant had a sweet scent to it. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘After seven. The day has begun.’

  More than begun for those inside the mine, I thought; but even in the courtyard there were signs that people were at work. A servant was brushing a mat, the old gate-keeper came past, leading a horse.

  ‘Where are your sisters?’

  ‘At their lessons.’ She urged me: ‘Go and rest.’

  ‘I will.’ But I still stood there. Presently a servant came to talk to Marisia, and with an apology she hurried away.

  Languidly I walked into the house. To my surprise Dolly was up and conferring with Marisia in the hall. She turned when she saw me. ‘You’ll never believe it,’ she said. ‘A messenger has come from Shereshevo. That old witch, my great-aunt, the Princess Irene, has arrived home. Imagine her making the journey. I shall have to go back.’

  ‘You can leave Ariadne to us,’ I said quickly.

  Dolly put a distracted hand to her head. ‘I’m all in a whirl. Who would have thought that old devil capable of coming all this way? The truth is, she’s immortal, that’s what it is, we shall never be shot of her.’

  ‘Go to her,’ I said soothingly. ‘And then when you feel able, you can come back here.’

  ‘But what about the infection? That would be one way of killing the old lady off, to be sure, but I’d rather not be the means of it.’

  ‘It would be her own fault. But bathe in carbolic before you see her and that should do it.’ I hoped my tone carried conviction, because I was very far from believing it to be necessarily true. But one thing I had learnt from my studies in Edinburgh, and that was to appear certain before a patient.

  After we had got Dolly off I went to look at Ariadne, who was still asleep. If it was true sleep, and not a sort of stupor, her pulse was very slow.

  ‘I’ll stay with her,’ said Marisia. ‘You go and lie down.’

  I went away, but I felt restless. I walked out into the courtyard. Distantly I could hear music. How incredible, I thought, music in this place. But, of course, the little Lazarevs were at their lessons. I made out a flute and piano. I followed the sound across the courtyard to the open door of one of the huts. As I walked closer, I could hear the noise of dancing feet, too.

  My own feet dragged; now I was so close I didn’t want to look. There seemed a sort of madness in my curiosity.

  The Lazarev girls were solemnly going through the steps of a rustic waltz. The main burden of the tune was being carried by the piano, but a second part was picked out by the flute whose gay notes cheered up the whole scene. Piano player and flautist were near the door; both men had their backs to me.

  The little girls were moving with leaden feet, nothing would make dancers of them, and the flute player seemed to be urging them to lightness with one uplifted hand. He half turned as I came through the door and I saw his face. I drew in a sharp breath. He saw me at that moment, and our eyes met.

  ‘Patrick,’ I said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  He was dressed in dark blue stuff trousers such as a peasant might wear, together with a soft white shirt open at the neck. He was bronzed, and thinner than before, his expression somehow tauter. Nothing could have looked less like the neat army officer I had known. But he had not lost the deep attraction he had for me; rather, it seemed sharper now. I caught my breath.

  ‘Patrick Graham, by all that’s holy. Or unholy.’

  ‘You might well say that,’ he said soberly. He motioned to me to come outside, and we stood in that dusty courtyard, leaving the little girls to their dancing.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m the dancing master,’ he answered, not without a glint of self-mockery in his eyes. ‘And I assure you, I earn my keep; the Misses Lazarev are hard task-masters.’

  ‘But that’s not answering my question.’

  ‘I’ve just taught them how to waltz. I was going to move on to the cake-walk next. We must bring them up to date a bit, they are miles behind the times.’

  ‘You taught me the cake-walk once,’ I said, not without bitterness.

  ‘And you were a good pupil.’

  ‘I knew you were here. I knew when I heard the tune of that Burns song. You taught it to them?’ He nodded. ‘I came back on that occasion, convinced I should find you here, but it was another man playing the piano.’

  ‘The music master, a poor little chap, taken in by Miss Lazarev as an act of charity. Of course, she gets the work out of him. He’s always hoping to earn his fare back to Warsaw, but I doubt he will. He drinks, you see, and in all his years in this country has never learnt Russian.’

  I had to touch Patrick and I took his hand. ‘And it really is you, and I am not imagining it? I can hardly believe it all, even now I see you. It’s so incredible we should meet here.’

  His hand gripped mine back. ‘I knew you were here,’ he came out with. ‘I was even close to seeing you.’

  ‘What? Here? In Vyksa?’

  ‘No, not Vyksa. I’ll tell you some time.’ He stopped, drawing closer to me, almost as if he could not stop himself. That stiff, almost hostile Patrick I had met last in Scotland was gone, and he was once again the Patrick I had fallen in love with. The same and yet different. I drew away a little, for I was changed too.

  ‘You knew I was here? And yet you never tried to see me?’ I turned on him. ‘And I suppose Marisia knew of our relationship? She must have done.’

  ‘Yes, it needs some explaining,’ he said slowly. I tried to drag my hands away, but he held on to them.

  ‘I heard that you had been in trouble in India and had fled.’

  He hesitated. ‘That story isn’t quite true. Not altogether.’

  ‘I thought it didn’t sound exactly like you. But then perhaps I don’t really know you. You have turned out to be different from what I might have expected, Patrick.’

  ‘Our engagement was at an end, Rose,’ he reminded me – as if I needed any reminder. ‘No tie bound us together.’

  ‘Didn’t it?’ I said fiercely.

  Patrick looked at me gravely; he had always had beautiful eyes, and they looked brighter and clearer than ever against his tanned skin. ‘Rose, when I broke our engagement I was in bad trouble, trouble which I thought I had no right to ask you to share.’

  ‘I would have been loyal,’ I said hotly.

  ‘There are some things …’ He hesitated. ‘I had been gambling. My debts were paid.’ That three thousand pounds I heard about, I thought bitterly. ‘But for me there was a price to pay – I had to leave England. My Colonel helped me to go to India; I thought my troubles were behind me there.’ Again he hesitated. ‘It wasn’t so. In a way they were just beginning.’

  ‘I would have stayed by you.’

  ‘Oh Ros
e, be honest, did we love each other then? In the way we might have done? Did you love me? Was it all or nothing then, Rose?’

  Now it was my turn to hesitate. ‘No. I have learnt more about myself since I came to Russia, and I can see that although I think I loved you, there was something lacking. Perhaps if we had given ourselves more time …’ I couldn’t bring myself to admit that there had been nothing true in our relationship. There had been, I was sure of it, but what I had taken for a full-grown flowering had been only the first little bud. ‘I was ignorant, and very young. I feel older now.’

  ‘Darling Rose. I do prize your honesty. But I have no right to value anything about you, have I?’

  ‘It would be churlish to say no to that. And it wouldn’t be true. I still want you to value me.’ To my surprise, I found I meant it.

  ‘Thank you, Rose.’

  ‘And I suppose that the Lazarevs are listening to every word of this?’ I said, turning round to see. There they sat on the step outside the hut, mouths slightly open, eyes wide, looking so like a set of fledgling birds that I laughed. ‘And, of course, they will tell Marisia.’

  ‘Lessons are over, girls,’ he said to them kindly. ‘Go back to your sister. Yes, I think she hoped to keep us apart. For both our sakes, I don’t think we can do each other any good, Rose. She’s a decent sort, Marisia.’

  ‘Which brings me to the strangeness of our meeting here,’ I said steadily. ‘I don’t believe in coincidences of this sort.’

  ‘The truth is, Rose, that the forces that move your life also move mine. Call it destiny, if you like.’

  ‘Now you are puzzling me.’ I frowned. ‘You’d better explain.’

  ‘I mean that we are both being manipulated by political forces.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I said, utterly surprised.

  ‘But the people with whom you are living, the Denisovs and the Lazarevs, are being manipulated – and you are part of their world now.’