But he could not remember amongst the whole lot of them one single unattached woman whom he would consider worthy to step into his mother’s shoes and take her place in his various houses.
“Yet it would be ridiculous to die a bachelor!” he cried aloud.
He made up his mind that when he returned to England he would definitely make an effort to do something about his position.
The great hostesses of London would, he was quite certain, be only too glad to offer him their advice.
If the hostesses failed him, there was always the Queen who, because she was so ecstatically happy with the Prince Consort, wished everyone else to enjoy the same connubial bliss. But the Queen had married at twenty-one!
‘How the devil could I put up with a girl of that age?’ Lord Athelstan asked himself.
He felt himself shudder at the idea and knew that some idealistic streak in him rejected the thought of deliberately taking as a wife a member of a blue-blooded family to act as little more than a breeding machine.
There were many men of his acquaintance who treated their wives in just such a manner.
They were left alone in the country, producing baby after baby while their husbands enjoyed themselves in London, keeping a mistress in one of the smart little villas in Regent’s Park and frequenting the gay night spots that increased year by year and which looked like making London a rival to the lurid attractions of Paris.
‘I shall have to do something about it – and soon!’ Lord Athelstan told himself.
The thought depressed him just as he felt depressed because Kyril had failed him, although he hoped that she would not realise it,
Once he had believed that their desire for each other was more than just physical, that it had contained some of that elusive half-spiritual ecstasy that Lord Athelstan believed all men sought but seldom found.
He faced the fact now that their union this evening had been entirely and completely physical and, because he knew her so well, he was almost certain that Kyril would realise as he did that the magic had gone.
‘What do I want? What the devil do I want of life or of women?’ he asked himself.
He rose from the armchair and walked to the window.
Outside the sun was sinking in a blaze of glory making the green fertile land in the valley seem almost a Paradise of beauty.
Lord Athelstan turned his face towards the sky.
Already there was the first faint translucent sable of the approaching night hanging over the distant mountains.
Then, as he looked, he saw flying directly above him the great outstretched wings of an eagle.
The King of birds seemed to hover in the light from the setting sun. There was something symbolic about him, something free and unrestrained – something omnipotent as if he was above the world and all its problems.
‘That is what I want,’ Lord Athelstan told himself suddenly, ‘that is what I am seeking. To fly like an eagle!’
Then, almost as if he heard someone speak, the question was there,
‘Alone?’
He turned from the window.
‘What is the point,’ he asked himself almost savagely, ‘of seeking the impossible?’
Chapter Five
When Lord Athelstan left the sitting room, Natasha turned and went back into her bedroom.
She did not know quite why but she felt angry at the thought of him making love to the Baroness.
She had taken a strong dislike to the beautiful Austrian because of the insinuations she had made about Princess Anna and, by implication, herself.
‘How dare she think that we would enjoy being prisoners of Shamyl!’ she fumed again to herself. ‘How could she suggest that any decent woman would desire or submit to the embraces of an uncivilised Tartar?’
At the same time she was intelligent enough to admit that there were women who would enjoy the excitement of being kidnapped by the mountaineers who were, if nothing else, exceedingly good-looking.
‘That might also be said of Lord Athelstan,’ she told herself.
She had been so angry with him when at the Great Aôul he had refused to agree to take her with him to Constantinople that she had not thought of him as a man.
She had only known that he was deliberately putting obstacles in the way of her scheme to save her brother from being brought up as a Caucasian.
She had hated him with a violence that surprised even herself.
When, having discovered her success in foisting herself upon him, he had raged at her and it had given her pleasure to know that she had broken through his reserve and incensed him to the point where he could barely control his temper.
She had, however, since they had arrived at the Palace heard a great deal about Lord Athelstan that had surprised her.
She had thought in her ignorance that he was just a stupid Englishman, a Nobleman who worked in the Diplomatic Service in a dilettante manner and had obtained his position thanks merely to his rank and breeding.
But she had heard the respect in the voices of those who spoke to and about Lord Athelstan and she could not attribute it solely to the fact that the Russians were anxious to be friendly with Great Britain.
The other guests in the Palace and the Viceroy himself talked of Lord Athelstan in such glowing terms and praised him with such sincerity that, despite herself, Natasha was impressed.
She learnt of the journeys he had made all over the world on Britain’s behalf and how his tact and charm had settled differences between nations that everyone had been quite certain must end in war.
She was told that even the most stubborn and obstinate Rulers would become amenable in Lord Athelstan’s hands and there was no doubt that the Russians felt positively honoured by his presence.
She found herself looking at him with different eyes and now realised that he was exceedingly handsome.
Perhaps the most handsome man she had ever seen!
Even in St. Petersburg, she thought, where the Russians in their splendid uniforms caused every woman’s heart to beat faster, he would not be overshadowed.
She discovered too that he was younger than she had at first supposed.
In her anger and resentment she had thought of him as middle-aged, someone too old in years to take a risk or relish an adventure.
Nothing in fact could have been further from the truth and finally she had to admit that Lord Athelstan’s intelligence must be remarkable for the Viceroy to be so pleased to see him.
Natasha could not have stayed in Georgia without realising that Prince Voronzov, or ‘The Accursed One’, as he was called by the Murids, was a hero who was venerated to the point of worship.
Everything about him was on the same large scale as his Palace and generations of noble ancestors all seemed to be embodied in one astute, ruthless, courageous and high-principled man.
Even to those who knew him well, the Prince was an enigmatic figure, haughty and reserved, and yet Natasha noticed that he unbent when he talked of Lord Athelstan.
The two men had, she realised, a great deal in common.
For one thing the Prince had been brought up in England. His father had voluntarily exiled himself from Russia as he disliked the Czar, Paul I, and he spent those years in London. The present Prince therefore was one of the gay raffish young bucks who circled round the Prince Regent, later George IV.
When he returned to his own country, he served the Czar first as a soldier and then he was appointed Governor of New Russia and Bessarabia.
Here his brilliant administrative ability was discovered when he created a new colony from what had been a wilderness.
In Odessa he introduced commerce, built harbours, hospitals, streets and colleges and, finally, employing an English architect, he created at Alupkha on the Crimean shores one of the most fabulous, incredible, amazing Palaces the world had ever seen.
Rising sheer above the Black Sea, the Prince’s home was a fantasy that showed that beneath his cold exterior there was something irrep
ressibly romantic – perhaps a longing for the unobtainable that only a man like Lord Athelstan could understand.
In her bedroom Natasha walked about restlessly.
She tried to tell herself that the Baroness was an impertinence and yet her thoughts could not help dwelling on Lord Athelstan and what he was doing at this very moment.
‘How would he make love?’ she wondered.
Would he be stiff and pompous as she had believed all Englishmen were or was there a fire beneath that icy exterior that in her anger she had not sensed?
‘How can he like such a woman?’ she asked and then knew that the question was unfair.
The Baroness was beautiful!
She was exquisitely dressed and Natasha had learnt from the gossip in the Palace that she was courted by men of every nationality wherever her husband’s profession took them.
“She is frivolous and shallow!” Natasha said aloud and yet the criticism did not quite ring true.
On her dressing table lay the dagger that she had just purchased in the bazaars and picking it up, she held it in her hand, testing the sharpness of the blade.
It was with this weapon that she would die.
It was a pretty ornament. Fashioned with the usual delicacy of the native craftsmen, the handle was set with coral and turquoises, which in the East are always believed to be lucky.
Perhaps the dagger would bring her a swift and painless death.
She put it down and moved across the room to stand at the window as Lord Athelstan would do later, looking out over the green lush valley.
She would never see it again.
In a very short time she would be enclosed by the harem walls and perhaps her only view through an ivory latticework would be of the Bosphorus.
It seemed strange to think that her life was ending so quickly almost before it had begun and yet, she told herself, she had no alternative.
It seemed a long way at the moment from her home near Warsaw and from the glories of St. Petersburg.
She had been brought up in Poland because her father and mother had lived on a small estate there, which had been left to them by a distant relative.
Natasha had not realised until she left it how free and unrestrained Poland was compared with Russia.
The nobles lived on their huge estates in feudal magnificence, content to enjoy the life of a Princely squire, riding across the plains on their thoroughbreds – ignoring the fact that they were for the moment beneath the Russian yoke.
Warsaw, with its old houses, ornamental fountains and narrow streets was considered the most fascinating Capital in all Europe, while those who lived there regarded themselves as Europeans.
It was in fact very cosmopolitan compared to St. Petersburg and was connected by a direct railway service to Paris.
There were smart shops, stylish dressmakers, while the very latest plays from France and Germany could be seen in the theatres.
What Natasha did not realise until she left Warsaw was that there was a freedom of thought in her father’s house that she was never to find again.
Her mother died when she was fourteen and it had never struck her father that it was unusual to expect his daughter to take his wife’s place in running the house or in playing hostess for him.
He was an extremely intelligent man, his friends were all intellectuals and they talked to Natasha as if she was grown up.
She had in fact had a very wide and enlightening education. Her father had seen to that and because she learnt quickly and because she enjoyed learning, she absorbed far more than most girls or indeed, boys of the same age.
But it was the conversation of distinguished men that had enlarged her horizons and made her seem much older than her years.
When her father died, it had been a bitter blow, not only because she loved him but because she now had to leave her home.
There could be no question of her and her small brother living there alone. The Czarina heard of their plight and sent for them both to come to St. Petersburg.
Dimitri was more or less adopted by a delightful family who had sons of the same age.
He settled down immediately and there was no doubt that he was extremely happy with two people whom he looked on, to all intents and purposes, as his parents.
Natasha was to live in the Winter Palace.
The Czarina had two hundred Ladies-in-Waiting, all housed in the Palace.
Amongst them were several novices who, like Natasha, were to learn their duties before they were permitted to wear a cipher and crown in diamonds on their shoulders and a long red and gold train.
The first thing Natasha noticed in her new life was the excessive heat of the Palace, which seemed to stifle her after the life in the open air she had enjoyed in Poland.
The second was the fact that she soon learnt it was a breach of etiquette, and certainly unwise, to speak her mind.
She had, of course, heard her father and his friends in Warsaw talking about the despotism of the Czar and the manner in which those who offended him were punished by being sent to Siberia.
But she had not really believed it.
It had all seemed a strange fantasy invented by clever men to disparage those who had conquered them.
When she arrived at St. Petersburg, she could not help noticing the contrast between the extravagant and unbelievable luxury of the Palaces and the ragged half-starved creatures she saw in the streets.
Because her father had taught her to be observant and not be afraid to criticise what she saw, Natasha looked at St. Petersburg not as a young romantic girl might have done, but as an intelligent observer.
At first it was impossible not to be a little bemused and excited by the great colourful Royal Palaces – the Winter Palace a delicate green-white, the Youssoupov Palace reflected yellow in the Fontanka canal and Voronzov Palace, which overlooked the Neva, was decorated in the family colours of crimson and white.
There were others in blue, lilac or pink, and their liveried servants were so colourful, so extravagantly garbed, that they appeared to be taking part in a theatrical performance.
In contrast there were the ragged serfs who could be flogged or killed by their Masters and the women and children who haunted the corners of the streets with frightened eyes and skeleton-like hands begging for bread.
Among the Ladies-in-Waiting at the Winter Palace was a young girl a little older than Natasha who she became friends with.
Elizabeth was in love and, inevitably, she needed a confidante. Natasha filled the role admirably.
Their rooms were adjoining and they spent a great deal of the night sitting on each other’s beds talking.
Natasha learnt that Ellico Orbeliani had declared his affection during a picnic in the summer and Elizabeth had fallen madly in love with him.
Letters were smuggled into the Palace from the Military Academy almost daily. They were touching, rather juvenile little notes. Although he was tall and good-looking, Natasha felt that Ellico was in many ways very young.
But to Elizabeth he was perfection!
He was her first love and she could talk of no one else.
When they went to the balls or assemblies that took place every night in St. Petersburg, she looked only for Ellico and, if he was not there, the evening no longer held any interest for her.
Natasha, having spent her life with much older men and having as yet no knowledge of love or its effect on lovers, could not help feeling that both Elizabeth and Ellico were too young to be married.
But there was no doubt as to the sincerity of their affections.
She was surprised to find how little Elizabeth knew about running a house, how ignorant she was of the world outside the glittering candle-lit Palaces and the artificial life led in them.
Had she any idea, Natasha asked herself, what it would be like to be the wife of a soldier? To accompany him to obscure perhaps uncomfortable parts of Russia or even to foreign countries?
She somehow could not visualise El
izabeth being anything but a pretty child moving like a flower over the ballroom floor or snatching a quick kiss amidst the orchids in the conservatory.
Nevertheless, the two young people loved each other although there was no question of Ellico speaking to Elizabeth’s parents until he had passed out of the Military Academy.
Then disaster struck!
The Czar was in one of his bad moods when he went to inspect the cadets.
He could be cruel to the point of brutality and he could be ruthless and completely unbalanced over something that concerned him personally.
The night before his inspection, a number of cadets had enjoyed a roistering noisy dinner at which they had all become extremely drunk.
It was the sort of evening that all Russian Officers indulged in and perhaps it was because Ellico was so young that he could not stand the pace as well as his more experienced colleagues.
Whatever the reason, he was not only late on parade but he was also incorrectly dressed.
The Czar made an example of him.
His uniform was stripped from him and he was sent to Siberia.
It seemed, when Natasha first heard of it, too fantastic to be true. But afterwards she told herself it was what she might have expected of a man who had shown himself to be as savage a despot as any Oriental, Mongol or Shah.
With Elizabeth sobbing in her arms, it was hard not to feel a horror she had never known before of a life where this sort of thing could happen.
Until this moment, Siberia had seemed to be a vague bogey-land to frighten criminals. Now it became a reality.
Because Elizabeth had to know what Ellico was suffering, Natasha learnt where the deportees worked in caverns lit only by a lantern.
“Their boots are worn out during the months when they march to their prison,” the two girls were told. “When they reach Siberia, they work barefooted or they wrap their feet in straw tied with rags.”
“Oh, Ellico! Ellico!” Elizabeth sobbed.
“They work until they collapse,” their informant continued. “Then they are beaten back to consciousness by the whips of the Cossack guards.”
As Eagles Fly Page 9