The Red Staircase

by Gwendoline Butler

  I found myself walking up and down nervously as I talked. I soon grasped that Andrew had not fully explained the purpose of the gloves to the women, but had caused them to be distributed with the curt order that they were to be used. The result was that the workers had seen the gloves as some caprice of ‘the boss’. I tried to put the matter to them: it was their own health that was at stake. I would put no pressure on them, it was up to them. Then I asked for volunteers to try wearing the gloves. After a pause one hand was raised, and then another, until finally most of the women, amid some giggling, had their hands raised. I was pleased. Would they persevere? I asked them. Give it a week or two before they passed a verdict. I heard a murmur of assent as I left.

  It so happened that I was late in leaving the Works that day, and the women were just going home as I departed. I saw that some of them were met by husbands or sweethearts. A hug or kiss, and they went off with linked arms. I watched wistfully; I envied each of those girls who had a man who loved her. Compared with those girls I had nothing.

  I was thrown in Peter’s company more and more and I began to confide in him. He wasn’t a bad guide to the Russian temperament. ‘We are the most conservative country living, always excepting the Turks. Remember that and you won’t go far wrong.’

  ‘Things will have to change,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, we shall change a few names eventually, I suppose, but underneath it will all go on just as before. Unless – ’ And he stopped.

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Unless a whole generation is wiped out,’ he said.

  ‘Do you mean a war?’ There was a lot of talk of war that year. Coronations and tercentenaries, and Pan-Slavism and war, that was the talk in the drawing-rooms – together with ballet and Poiret’s new fashions.

  ‘Yes, I believe I do mean a war.’ Did he, though? I was puzzled. What other way of wiping out a generation was there? ‘You stand to make a lot of money out of one, if there is,’ he pointed out.

  I was troubled and he saw it. ‘Never mind, Russia will never fight England,’ he said. ‘Come on, Rose. I’m better than Grabbe after all. Won’t you take me as a husband? I’ll be a protection from the Grabbes of this world, if nothing else. And I can help you with your explosives.’

  I turned him aside then, but something in me was beginning to yield.

  Except for Peter I now felt at odds with everyone in the Denisov household, as if they all disapproved of me. Even Ivan seemed less at ease with me. He was just as courteous as before – more so, possibly – but the babble of gossip and comment had dried up. Ivan was as reserved and formal in his behaviour to me as it was possible in his nature to be. When he brought letters up to me that evening, he simply bowed and departed. At one time he would have spoken about the letters, revealing clearly that he had examined them carefully, knew as much as possible about them without actually reading them, and wanted me to enjoy them.

  Grizel was plainly happy. She rattled on enthusiastically about her betrothed, his career and future prospects – ‘he’ll be Lord Chancellor, I know he will’ — the trousseau she was assembling and the house in London that was being decorated to her taste by her Archie. ‘How lovely it would be if you could see me married, dearest Rose, but I know it cannot be. But you will think of me on “the day”, won’t you? Three weeks from now, Rose.’

  I looked at the calendar: her letter had taken a week to reach me, so Grizel’s wedding day was now two weeks away. Dear Grizel. Goodness knew what her trousseau would be like without me to hold her in check. All lace handkerchiefs and frilly wrappers and pretty hats without anything solid and warm to underpin it. I dared not think what her attitude had been to woollen stockings and winter chemises, but cavalier was probably an understatement. Well, the London rain and fogs would find it out, and chilblains would be the result.

  ‘Oh, I am so looking forward to London and my life there,’ wrote Grizel. Just think of the Season, Rose, and how we used to long to be part of it! We shall be “in” Society, or just on the fringe, anyway, and I mean to take full advantage of it, I can tell you, Rose, money permitting. I hope we don’t set up a nursery too soon, I mean not to if I can help it, and so I have told Archie, but if we do, I shall just have to make the best of it.’

  There was a ruthless practicality about Grizel that convinced me she would deal with a problem as suited her best. Her wildnesses were entirely about costume, and in any other sphere she knew well how to tread.

  Tibby’s letter, read next, was on much the same lines, full of the wedding plans, but giving a more moderate, less enthusiastic account, and confirming my own thoughts about Grizel’s shopping. ‘Her godmother, old Lady Fourmiles, sent her fifty pounds towards her trousseau … All spent, on ninon and chiffon, and not a bit of warm flannel among the lot. She chose all on a hot day, of course, never thinking about the colds of winter. Well, time will show.’ I could almost see Tibby’s grim smile as she penned these words. Then she wrote on, with a change of tone: ‘Rose, my girl, if you want to come home for your sister’s wedding, then come. Besides, there is something in your letters lately that has made me uneasy . . .’

  Uneasy, I read her letter to the end, but a little shiver ran through me. Uneasy? Was I uneasy? I rose to walk to the pretty little piece of furniture where I kept my home letters.

  A tap on the door, recognizably his own, announced Ivan again.

  ‘Come in.’ I was still standing by the open drawer.

  He came in, followed by one of the maids who carried a pile of my personal linen which had been newly laundered. She bobbed a curtsey and stood waiting for directions.

  ‘Put my clothes here.’ And I motioned to the set of drawers by which I stood. She came over and deposited the clothes by the open drawer; I saw her look in, and it was a stare so hungrily searching and eager that I hurriedly closed the drawer. She was avid for details about me. Nor was it ordinary, girlish curiosity, I saw, from the way that Ivan moved up and touched her arm.

  She scurried out of the room like a little animal, but not without a quick look behind her at me.

  Ivan had not left with her, but remained, still standing at the open door. I couldn’t stop myself. ‘That girl would eat me up, if she could.’

  Ivan’s black features usually had a plump impassivity, but now an expression akin to sympathy appeared before he resumed his customary blankness. He did not speak.

  ‘Why should she look at me like that?’ I was cross. ‘What reason is there? Are all servants in St Petersburg so rapacious? Does she hate me personally? Or all women? Or all rich women?’

  ‘Questions, questions,’ muttered Ivan.

  ‘I think you know.’

  ‘Her father was whipped once, that is true, a hundred lashes at the local barracks for breaking a china pot in this house. That was the old master’s orders.’

  ‘And she still remembers?’

  ‘Ah, she never knew, it didn’t happen in her time. That’s not the reason. It’s that she’s half crazy, as all that family are.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t look it. Besides, I’ve seen her about the house working. She works well.’

  He stared at me. ‘We are all half crazy at times, my lady, our own sort understands it. Let the mistress tell you. Oftentimes I’ve heard her say: “The servants are all mad, the peasants are crazy.” It’s part of our condition.’

  ‘Well, all right,’ I said irritably. ‘So, you are ail mad, by which I take you really to mean you are often resentful, angry and bitter.’ His eyes blinked, showing me I had interpreted him accurately. ‘Very well, I understand it. But that was not in her look. I saw something different. She was looking at me as one woman should not look at another.’

  ‘Ah, but she thinks you are not a woman,’ he rambled: Ivan always had a deep voice, now it came as from the depths of his neat velvet houseshoes.

  ‘And who says not?’ I asked sharply, knowing at once that servants’ gossip had filtered back from Shereshevo. On wha
t side of my life had they concentrated spite? The side represented by the dying baby in the peasant’s cottage, or the side which had impelled me to learn to drive a motor-car and go to the Gowrie Works.

  Ivan shrugged. ‘They say,’ he started, then stopped.

  ‘They say? Come on, they say what?’

  It came with a rush: ‘They say you are no true woman. That you can do strange things – lay hands on a baby so that it dies with a smile, but dies. They say you can draw a man’s spirit out through his nostrils and make it your own.’

  ‘Stop, stop,’ I said, trying to cover my ears as the malice spilled out.

  ‘That Peter Alexandrov is your slave, that you drive a motor-car like a man. You disappear and drive away no one knows where. Witches dance in the forest near Shereshevo. They think you are therefore a witch. And, also, of course, you have become vastly rich.’

  ‘Oh, Ivan, Ivan, how can you say all this?’

  ‘It is not I who say it, my lady. I only repeat what they say.’ He had tears in his eyes.

  My anger drained away. How hard it was to make truth and falsehood stick together in the right amalgam. Gimcrack always seemed to result, the base metal drove out the good. ‘Go away, Ivan. We will talk about it again.’

  ‘But, mistress – ’

  ‘Not now. Later.’ I sat in a chair, leaned back and closed my eyes. Presently I heard the door close. Ivan had departed. The sourness stayed in my mouth and would not go away.

  And after all, was it not true?

  There was another letter for me, and this was from Mr Dundee. I held it in my lap for a moment before opening it. When I did so, I read the few short lines it contained. ‘There is no news to be had of that person whom you wished us to seek.’ I threw the letter from me. ‘Damn,’ I said aloud. ‘Damn.’

  The bad mood hung on all the rest of the day, even though I had promised to walk with Ariadne. We had more or less taken up our old St Petersburg ways with walks, concerts and even receptions, but nothing was quite the same after Shereshevo. That place and Vyksa had altered me and hence how I saw Ariadne. Either Ariadne really had matured in these last months – and why not? She was of the age for developing – or else she had always been less the insouciant girl than I thought, because I sometimes saw now, at the back of her eyes, the look of a wise old lady. Not exactly like her aged relative, Princess Irene, who would never be wise, but approaching it, only sadder and even older.

  That’s Marisia’s influence, I thought, and began to long for that cool and brave young woman.

  That day we had been going to an exhibition of modern French painting which I was really looking forward to seeing, but I could not shake off my depression and Ariadne, seeing my mood, took us to tea at Berrin’s instead. But still the black cloud seemed to hover over me, and I suddenly found myself saying: ‘You never talk about Mademoiselle Laure. Whenever the subject comes up, you sheer off. I wonder why.’

  Ariadne drank her tea, and ate another cake. ‘Why, because I feel guilty, I suppose,’ she said in the end.

  ‘But why are you guilty?’

  ‘Ah yes, why do I feel guilty? Because wasn’t she paid to feel guilty about me?’

  ‘That’s heartless, Ariadne. The woman’s dead.’

  ‘Oh, but I am heartless,’ Ariadne said lightly. ‘Yet I can feel guilt, nonetheless. She died in our house, so I feel guilty. I should think you could understand that.’

  What a puzzling girl Ariadne was. Sometimes so sensitive, sometimes selfish and heedless. I felt I only skated on the surface of her personality.

  ‘Your mother doesn’t feel guilty.’ I was thinking things out.

  ‘Well, I think she does; she doesn’t want to, but she does.’

  It was a fair summing up of Dolly Denisov’s lightweight but essentially kind character; always more caring than she wished to be.

  Our table was in the window so that we could look out from our comfortable nest to the street already becoming dusty. A street-cleaner was working his way along the gutters. I had noticed that he kept his face turned towards the tea-shop as he worked, as if even to look at the delicacies on display was a pleasure. One hardly ever saw beggars on the streets of St Petersburg, at least in the fashionable districts; I suppose the police chased them away; but one often saw hawkers of brooms and dusters, sellers of fowl and game, even a sturdy milkmaid or two, and many street musicians, and most of these looked desperately poor. I saw the street-cleaner lick his lips thirstily.

  The sight made me say: ‘I’d like to give that man one of these almond cakes.’

  Ariadne looked out of the window. ‘What good would that do him?’

  ‘Why, he’d enjoy it.’

  ‘If you could teach him to think logically and be a rational human being instead of a bag of superstitions and bigotry, then you might help him. Otherwise leave him alone.’ She pushed away a half-eaten pastry. ‘I’ve had enough. Let’s go home.’ She tired easily now, a reminder of her illness. I followed her, silenced by her abrupt words. We went out into the street and I looked around for a likhachy to take us home.

  There was more of a crowd about than I had expected, and I noticed a large number of policemen stationed at intervals along the broad street. Then I heard the sound of horses’ hooves and a troop of soldiers began to come towards us, moving at a smart trot. As the group got closer I could see that two motor-cars were moving within the net of men and horses. A little muted cheer arose from the crowd.

  ‘It must be one of the Imperial Family,’ said Ariadne. She sounded excited. ‘I mean Them, Themselves, the Tsar and Tsarina, not one of the Grand Dukes, and They are not often seen on the streets of St Petersburg.’

  ‘Oh, why not?’ I was aware of the increasing interest and tension of the crowd.

  ‘Bombs,’ said Ariadne succinctly. ‘Or so they say. But I think it’s really Her.’ Her was always the Tsarina in Russia. ‘She hates us, you know.’ And as I looked at her doubtfully: ‘Oh yes. It’s true enough. She’s so German.’

  Russia, that year before the tercentenary of the founding of the Romanov dynasty, was in a fervour of Pan-Slavism, and I suppose Ariadne had been infected by it. Thus everything Slav was admired and the Teutonic influence resented. There were a lot of Tartars in evidence in the streets of St Petersburg, although usually in the humblest of positions – the street-cleaner was such a one – but I noticed nothing much was ever said about their claims to being quintessentially Russian. It did not do to remind Russia that she was also an Eastern country.

  The second of the two motor-cars was level with us now, and I saw a short man sitting in the back. He had greying fair hair, pale blue eyes and a short beard. From his resemblance to our own King, I recognized the Tsar Nicholas. He made some slight recognition of the crowd, inclining his head slightly but unsmilingly. The Tartar road-sweeper took off his hat and waved it. As if this was, in some strange way, a threatening gesture, two of the policemen moved closer to him.

  ‘There goes the Tsar, God bless him,’ said the old man admiringly. ‘He is a Father, though he takes the shirt off your back.’

  I slipped a coin into his hand: the policemen moved away. Then a likhachy appeared, its way having been blocked by the Imperial procession, and we went home.

  In the cab I said to Ariadne: ‘I would like to see Grizel married.’

  ‘Ah, I can’t allow that,’ Ariadne answered. ‘For perhaps you would never come back.’

  The lamps were lit in my room when I went into it on our return, the curtains were drawn, and it looked warm and pretty. I was glad to find it empty and myself alone. I sat down and tried to write my letters home to Grizel and Tibby. It was easy enough to reply to Grizel, who was wound up in her own happiness like a skein of silk, and not mightily observant either. But Tibby was another matter. What should I tell her? That my experiment was likely to be a failure? That I still grieved for Patrick Graham? It was hard to write to her. There was one thing I knew: if I went home now, I had let Patrick Graham wreck
me. To outsiders, it might look no more than a little boating accident, but to me the wreck would be total.

  My reading lamp made a comfortable pool of light on my desk, the porcelain stove sang in a corner of the room, but it was all false comfort. Inside I was ill at ease.

  Outside the room I heard the soft, slippered feet of a servant pass, then from below caught a snatch of music from a gramophone, probably Edward and Ariadne dancing to it. They went round and round the room, endlessly absorbed in practising their steps; it was their latest craze.

  I had begun the hard letter to Tibby when I heard a rustle. I raised my head and listened, but there was silence. Yet when I had written a few more words, again I heard a rustle. I looked up quickly and was sure that I had felt movement behind me. I stood up and spun round.

  The curtains were moving slightly.

  It would have been very easy either to have called for Ivan or to have run from the room. I don’t know why I didn’t do either of these two things, but instead stepped forward to the curtains. My hand was actually on one curtain, ready to pull it aside, when I looked down. A small animal’s foot, a paw, was just to be seen protruding from under the fringe.

  Then I did scream, a good, healthy, strong scream.

  Ivan appeared at once at the door; he must have been immediately outside. ‘You called out, Baryshna?’

  Without answering him, I pulled the curtain away; a small animal crouched there, one with long ears and bright eyes.

  Ivan came into the room and stood beside me. ‘The Baryshna thought it was a rat or a mouse?’ he queried, a little maliciously.

  ‘I know what it is: a baby hare, a leveret. A white leveret. What’s it doing in my room?’

  Ivan did not answer; he stood there and looked from me to the leveret, letting his hands hang by his side and giving no answer.

  ‘Ivan! I asked a question.’

  ‘I could give you an answer,’ he said.

  ‘Come on: what is it, then? How does this animal come to be in my room?’

  ‘Ah – how? I thought you asked why.’ And he relapsed into silence.