“I need to know then.” He gathered my hands once more in his and kissed my palms, sending a thrill of anticipation down my spine. “Do I have a chance?”
“A chance in what regard?” I asked coyly.
“A chance with you.” His eyes widened, as though his very being depended on my next words. “I love you.”
The audience inside the theater started to clap along to the opening music—a rousing orchestral piece. In that moment—despite all the worries in my head clamoring to be heard—I knew beyond a doubt that I loved Alexander.
“You have always had my heart,” I told him. “It was only a matter of claiming it.”
Six
MOSCOW
APRIL 1830
Perhaps I had read one too many novels of romance, but after we kissed I assumed Alexander would propose straightaway. As days of embroidery and prayers passed without word, I began to worry I had misconstrued his intentions and the “chance” he spoke of was not meant to imply marriage but a more lurid proposition. Strangely, I did not feel offended, only intrigued.
Lively carnivals and sleigh rides soon gave way once more to the ominous quiet of the holy season. Mother insisted on strict adherence to the rules of our Lenten fast, and so I spent the next few weeks in misery, not only from heartbreak but the constant pangs of hunger in my stomach. I grew sick of thin mushroom soup and mushy apples and the vile bread the Church approved for Lent, made with a false butter that only made you long all the more for the real affair. As Moscow prepared for the greatest holiday on our Orthodox calendar, I spent my afternoons quietly plotting escape from what felt to be a dungeon.
A week before Easter, the city began to rouse once more from slumber like a restless bear. Predictably, Mother disapproved of the raucous markets, but we were able to slip out. My sisters gawked and giggled at the forbidden pastries and sweetbreads as Dmitry herded us past handsome boys singing and hawking hand puppets and giant red balloons to mark the arrival of the holiday and the coming spring. I tried to enjoy the excitement, but couldn’t lose the stinging sensation of disappointment at not yet hearing from Alexander. I was seventeen and already my world had come to an end.
The night before Easter, as we ate vegetable stew and coarse black bread, my siblings remained uncharacteristically silent. We had spent the day dyeing and polishing eggs and Mother had prepared kulich cakes, filling the house with a divine sweet scent. Later, we would walk to church for services to celebrate the resurrection.
As Azya began to clear the dishes from our meager supper, Ekaterina passed around one of the eggs she had designed and intended to hang outside our door. Affixed with an intricate pattern of red and black diamonds, it glistened, tantalizing under the candlelight. The bell at the front door rang just as my brother Sergey handed the egg to me. Startled, I dropped the delicate prize and the egg fell to the floor, shell cracked and the design splintered. I waited for Ekaterina to rail against my clumsiness, my lack of care with her things.
But to my surprise, Ekaterina only said, “It’s a good thing I made extras.”
Our footman appeared with a letter for Mother. I saw Alexander’s name, the flamboyant handwriting, and caught the scent of his cologne. My heart rate escalated. Was it possible Alexander had come after all? Would he accompany us to services this evening? At midnight, we formed a procession to declare Christ had risen; how much more gratifying the transcendence of that moment would feel at Alexander’s side.
“Thank you.” Mother glanced solemnly at the clock. “I suppose I have time to indulge this gentleman before we leave for services.”
I looked at Mother.
“Close your mouth, Natalya,” she told me. “You appear a simpleton.”
Ekaterina smirked, and my cheeks grew hot. It was unfair to keep me waiting. Mother might still be playing games, waiting for a proposal from someone with more money than Alexander. It was all I could do to force my anger down as I rose to help Azya clear the dishes. As though nothing at all had happened. As though my very future were not hanging in the balance on the most sacred night of the year.
After the dishes were cleared, Mother retired to the parlor to read the letter. When the minutes stretched on and still she did not approach me, I began to wonder if she kept the contents to herself to spare my feelings. Perhaps I had been fooling myself and could not truly see matters as they were. Perhaps the letter did not include a proposal at all, but instead Alexander had cut things off and apologized to Mother. I bit my bottom lip. During his travels, he must have met another woman. Perhaps many women. Perhaps he’d decided the bachelor’s life was more suitable for a poet and I had no place in his future.
As I brushed my hair in front of the looking glass trying to get in my one hundred strokes to give it sheen—for even on the holiest night of the year we were expected to look our best—I resolved to see the letter for myself. Once Mother finally shuffled off to her room to get ready, I put on my spectacles.
The room was excessively cold. Knowing we would be out for the evening, Mother had all the fires in the hearths extinguished early. I pressed forward and found the letter alongside knitting notions in her sewing basket. Mother’s tabby had been busy stalking some unseen phantom in the kitchen. When I started to bustle about, he poked his nose through the door and emitted a loud meow at the prospect of playing with yarn. I hushed him and he sat back on his haunches, surprisingly receptive to my command. I heard the bed from Mother’s room creak and glanced upstairs. I held my breath and waited, but no one came down.
Mother’s full name was emblazoned on the front of the envelope in Alexander’s now familiar bold hand. Shivering with cold and nerves and excitement, I carefully withdrew the letter and began to read.
It was a proposal of marriage.
The oddest proposal.
Alexander spoke at length of me, praising my beauty, wit, charm. He gave a full account of his finances and spoke of how well he would treat me as his honored wife. I clasped my hand over my mouth and rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet as I crouched over the basket. The room no longer seemed so cold, nor life so bleak.
However, in the next section of the letter, Alexander put forth his concerns. He claimed that though he loved me, he would make a most unconventional husband, for a creative spirit must have room to breathe. He trusted we would always be in good spirits, even if our lifestyle might not be as grand as our neighbors, for we would always depend on the whim of publishers. I sighed and then frowned. It seemed odd to express all of these reservations in a letter to my mother, and besides, he said nothing I didn’t already know. I wanted an unconventional life.
I settled in on Mother’s old rosewood chair and continued to read.
He spoke of another woman he had spent time visiting while in St. Petersburg: a Polish lady named Karolina. Envy clouded my vision and the words began to run together as I imagined this woman, a beauty no doubt, full of wit and gossip and fascinating tales of time spent abroad. Naïve as I was in those days, I still knew Alexander should not mention another woman in a letter meant to focus on me. He explained to Mother that while he had been seen often with Karolina, his heart had been claimed and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.
Then why feel compelled to mention another woman at all? Unless, an angry voice inside my head insisted, there had actually been an affair with this Karolina. Perhaps Alexander feared the news of this affair would reach us via other channels and he hoped to diminish the impact by telling us himself.
Footsteps creaked on the stairs behind me. “So you see what he has written.”
I broke from my demure façade, and for the first time in my short life, I braced for a fight with my mother. Alexander had proposed. My time of playing the meek and obedient daughter was coming to an end. “I had a right to know.”
“You have no rights. You are still under my protection.”
My hands bunched into fists, a gesture I had borrowed from Alexander. If only I could explain how much I
resented her protection and wished to break free of it. “I have been dying of curiosity.”
“Oh do not be dramatic, Natalya.” Slowly, Mother made her way down the stairs, past the faded unicorn tapestries and toward the kitchen. She scooped the tabby into her arms and began to stroke behind his ears until he purred. “The poet is a charming enough fellow, anyone can see that, but to maintain his success, he will forever be subject to the dubious fortunes of court life. Before I shared this letter, I wanted time to consider what your poet had to say. Have you not thought how this possible engagement might affect me?”
Always her. Never a thought that I might be a human in my own right, with my own desires and ability to make decisions. Still, Mother’s tone held a note of acceptance and so I decided to focus on hope. “Did you find what he said to your liking?”
“I had not expected him to be quite so candid regarding his faults.”
I didn’t expect this either, but still it irritated me more that Mother saw fit to hide the letter from me. “I would expect nothing less than complete candor from Alexander. He is an honest and honorable man to tell me about…”
I found I couldn’t utter Karolina’s name aloud, but Mother finished for me: “Yes, but why mention another woman now?”
“Oh.” I had felt so sure of myself a few minutes earlier, but the mention of this Karolina put my thoughts once again into disarray.
“Does it make you hesitate?” Mother released the tabby who scurried back to the kitchen.
“I wish he hadn’t talked about her.”
“I’m not sure I agree. As you say he is an honest man. Every man thinks of other women, considers them before making a proposal of marriage. I believe he must think well of you to be so forthright.”
I felt momentarily confused, for I had expected Mother to use this part of the letter to persuade me not to marry Alexander. “It shouldn’t concern me that he was courting someone else?”
“He is a popular gentleman. Did you really expect otherwise?”
I suppose I had not, but I hoped he would never speak of it to me.
“Despite my prior reservations, I must admit his proposal does great honor to this family and to you. You have a chance at a better life now, with a famous husband and a substantive income. Perhaps your experiences at court will be positive.” A faraway, dreamy look entered Mother’s eyes then, something I hadn’t seen before. “I should like to see you married in the Church of the Ascension.”
Mother still did not mention love. “I don’t care where I get married. I care who I marry.”
Mother cast a glance upstairs. “As long as your father approves. That’s all that matters.”
I knew my mother had once served at court, as Aunt Katya did, but then left that world to marry my father. He should have been here now, interviewing Alexander to ensure he was good enough for me. Father hadn’t been home in weeks, and yet his absence still had the capacity to wound me. I recalled how he had been once upon a time, when I was a small girl living in Kaluga with my grandfather. When my father came to visit, he swung me high in his arms. He still played his violin then, still used the elegant paper from my grandfather’s mills to transcribe sheet music. I liked to think I had been the center of his world—at least for a short time—his adored youngest daughter. I hoped somewhere deep inside he knew I was on the verge of marrying a man I loved.
No matter. I would rely on my own counsel and my heart was quite clear. I may have been jealous of this other woman, but that only proved the strength of my feelings for Alexander. All that mattered was we loved each another. And at midnight, the church bells would ring to declare Christ had risen, and we would spend our first Easter Sunday together as an engaged couple.
* * *
A month later, we sat in the great hall of Afansy’s estate in Kaluga where I had come for a spring visit; Alexander had joined me for a week so as to become better acquainted with my grandfather. I stared, enchanted with the way Alexander’s elegant fingers turned a thick sheet of newly pressed paper in his hands and the movement of his lips when he munched on a fresh cucumber. I remembered his mouth pressed against mine and silently vowed to find time for us to be alone in a quiet space, away from prying eyes, hands intertwined while his lips ran across my shoulders, my neck, the tender spot behind my ears …
“So what do you think of it?” my grandfather asked, putting a sudden end to my reveries.
Alexander shifted his weight in one of the pine barrel chairs around the massive dining room table and gently slapped the paper with the back of one hand. “It is a fine quality to be sure. Your family has performed a great service to my industry.”
“I told you as much!” Afansy sat across from us and his kindly features, more lined now than when last I saw him, beamed. His frail voice echoed in the nearly empty room. “A man could get much writing done on such fine paper. I like to think the Goncharov family might contribute to your success in this way.”
“You have already gifted me with an angelic muse.” The chairs were spaced so far apart around the formal table that Alexander could not pat my hand, but I saw the reflection of his smile in the giant looking glass on the opposite wall.
“Listen here, chap.” Afansy straightened his shoulders as his common-law wife—the so-called French laundress named Babette—entered the room with a steaming tray of fried cutlets, the aroma of which made the room a little more inviting. “It was good of you not to make too great a fuss over Natalya’s dowry. My granddaughter has asked me to love you as much as she does and I cannot refuse the darling. So I’ll tell you what … Take as much of the paper as can fit in your spare valise. Set to work right away with it.”
“That is most kind. Why, I have a proposition to start a new journal and almanac modeled after the English style, which I intend to propose to a few fellows of my acquaintance. I shall use the first sheets for that endeavor.” Alexander nodded at Babette as she offered him a cutlet. Her gray curls were tucked modestly under her kerchief, and while even my weak eyes could see how much my grandfather had aged, her youthful features seemed as impervious to the passing of time as Aunt Katya’s.
I tried to smile and thank Babette for my cutlet, but I was distracted by the man who had followed her into the great hall. He staggered about, unsteady on his feet.
My father.
It had been Mother’s idea to have him join us, insisting he had a right to know his youngest daughter’s fiancé better and claiming the country air might do wonders for his condition. I suspected Mother simply wanted him out of her way. The country air had done nothing for him. His hair was askance, his eyes drooping and vacant, and his words slurred when he deigned to speak at all. I could no longer determine where his sad dependence on drink ended and an ailment of the mind began, for they had become one and the same. I had begun to wonder if we should consider a sanitarium, with professionals, but Dmitry always dismissed the idea as rubbish. Of course, Dmitry had never been charged with our father’s care.
Afansy sliced into a cutlet with relish and then took a long sip of iced lemonade. He had long since learned to ignore Father. “Once you have gone through the paper in the valise, we can agree to a reasonable sum on your future supplies.”
Father was at the table now, reaching for a cutlet with his bare hand until Babette slapped his hand away. “Now, now,” she said, a nervous laugh in her voice. “We spoke of this before, dearest. We shall take our supper in the kitchen.”
My father pouted like a small boy, a bead of drool forming at the corner of his mouth, while Alexander concentrated on the barnyard rooster pattern edging his chipped china plate. I caught him sneaking a peek at Father, clearly trying not to let his disgust show. Though he was buttoned tightly into a brown coat, he shivered.
My heart sank. Embarrassment of my own father flooding me. I knew it was wrong, but I wished Alexander had never seen him.
“I have one more matter to discuss,” Afansy said, “regarding a grand lady.”
; “Oh?” Alexander gave a last glance at Babette as she ushered my father out of the great hall.
“I believe you might know of the old girl. Empress Catherine herself! Now, the family tale is the empress was meant to visit our humble estate during one of her tours of our great land.” Afansy swept his arm to indicate that this room itself might have been so honored. “It is said my grandfather commissioned a likeness in bronze from a factory owned by Prince Potemkin.”
When I lived with my grandfather, I often visited the bronze statue of Catherine the Great, cobwebbed and forgotten in one of the storage houses on his estate. I knew he must be conniving to rid himself of the thing. He had done naught but complain of it for years, but the thought of losing Catherine saddened me. “What of it?”
“I was hoping your fiancé might use his connections to fetch a good price for the statue. It’s time to let the old girl go.”
“No!” I cried. “You won’t get rid of her?”
“She might best serve this family now as part of your dowry. Surely your fine poet knows people in the capital who would be honored to care for such a statue.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Alexander muttered, returning his attention to the cutlets.
“That is all I hoped to hear,” Afansy said.
Alexander may have accepted that my family could not provide a significant dowry, but I don’t think he anticipated my own grandfather might want to use him for his own ends, as a purchaser of paper products and disposer of unwanted heirlooms.
A loud snorting sound and maniacal laughter rang out from the kitchen. Clearly my father had broken free of whatever charm Babette used to keep him quiet over dinner. It was the last straw. I could not abide the thought he might return to the dining area and try to snatch food from our plates. I scooted my chair back and it screeched along the wooden floor, startling Afansy and my father in the other room, for he suddenly quieted. “I’m sorry, but I feel faint.”
The Lost Season of Love and Snow Page 8