The Longest Winter

by Daphne Wright

  Sergei must have read some of the regret in her expression, for just then he moved closer and said:

  ‘Don’t be sad, Evelyn. Now that we have lost so much, it is our duty to enjoy every moment that we can wrest from fate for our pleasure.’

  ‘You’re so brave, Sergei Ivanovitch.’

  ‘Not brave, my dear, but perhaps determined. Yes, determined.

  Look, there’s Madame Avinkova with her daughters. Have you met them yet?’

  ‘Avinkova? No. I’m sorry, Sergei, I don’t know who they are.’

  ‘Never mind, I’ll introduce you. Charming family, from Moscow actually, but they’ve always come up here for the summer. Come along.’

  Evelyn went obediently and was relieved to find that she had not forgotten how to behave in society during her months of domestic work. She found herself taking some pleasure in the trivial courtesies of chatting to the unknown Russian woman and her rather plain daughters, and when they all got to the river and buckled on their skates, she set off across the ice with a lighter heart than she had felt for months and months.

  As soon as she had seen that the Suvarov children were happy and safely skating near the bank, she accepted Sergei’s challenge and skimmed off with him down the river, feeling the strength of his hand as he pulled away from her only to swing back beside her and carry her with him in exhilarating loops and arcs across the river. She felt almost as though she were flying, and shivered at the excitement tingling all through her.

  When at last her conscience drove her back to her charges, she was greeted with admiring comments from the Avinkov girls on her skill. Sasha immediately said:

  ‘Evie’s a wonderful skater. In Petrograd, she was the best too.’

  ‘My champion,’ said Evelyn, pleased with the effect the exercise had had on him and his sisters. Their faces were alive again, and their eyes sparkled.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ agreed Madame Avinkova. ‘How pleasant for you to have such admiring pupils, Miss Markham. I cannot think why we have not met you all until now. Do you think that your aunt would receive me if I were to call on her?’

  Evelyn felt a little doubtful; Natalia Petrovna’s reactions could never be relied upon, and she took great care to avoid any kind of obligation. But Sergei said instantly:

  ‘She would be delighted, Madame Avinkova. She is so dull here in Shenkursk with none of her friends to visit, and all the life she knew left behind in Petrograd.’

  ‘Of course. And she always went to Finland, didn’t she? We used to look at that lovely house – much the nicest in Shenkursk, we used to think – and wish that it was occupied. Never mind, I shall call tomorrow. And I look forward to seeing all you pretty girls again. We must have a party, too. Sergei Ivanovitch, may I have a word with you?’

  ‘Of course, Madame Avinkova. Evelyn, do you want to take the others back now? I’ll follow you in a moment.’

  Evelyn and the others obediently made their way home, chattering about their expedition and making plans for what they would do the next day. But when they pushed their way happily into the old house, Evelyn caught sight of Nikolai with both hands pressed to the small of his back, stretching as though to ease his aching muscles, and she felt wickedly torn between the things she wanted to do for him and the pleasures that Sergei seemed to hold out for her.

  Ever since Sergei had shown his disgust at the way she was dressed and what she had to do in the kitchen she had lost her sense of tightness and content in the way Nikolai ordered his household. She felt that she had been living in a kind of limbo in which her real self had been forgotten. It was only when Sergei had told her that she was less than she had once been that she began to feel degraded by the way in which she was living. Now she could not forget it, and she began to think that she had seen surprise in the glances the Avinkovs had directed at her strange clothes.

  As soon as she had made certain that Nikolai did not need her for anything she went upstairs to her room and looked in the wardrobe at the few clothes she had brought with her from Petrograd. They were all draggled and those she had worn on the train looked filthy and, to her shame, smelled unpleasant. She took them out to lay them on the bed and then she picked up all the washable clothes and carried them in a bundle down to the kitchen to add to the laundry pile.

  Apologising to Mischa’s Siberian wife for her lateness, Evelyn then went to the dresser to collect the dishes and cutlery so that she could go and lay the table for dinner.

  It was when she was kneeling on the floor, leaning over the laundry tub with her sleeves rolled up high above her elbows, scrubbing at her stays and camisoles and blouses that Sergei found her. She could have sworn in vexation at being found yet again doing a servant’s work rather than when she was teaching the children, or even mending sheets, but all she said as she continued her laborious scrubbing was, ‘It seems strange to see you in a kitchen like this, Sergei Ivanovitch.’

  ‘Evelyn, I have to talk to you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh, take your arms out of that damned washtub and come and sit down.’

  Startled and becoming more than a little angry at his odd abruptness, she nevertheless obeyed and, wiping her soapy arms on her apron, went to a chair by the stove and sat down.

  ‘Well?’ she prompted.

  ‘Evelyn, you probably know that I am going to have to leave this house.’

  ‘Have they come?’ she asked, her face lighting in eagerness.

  ‘Not yet, but it can’t be long now according to my sources, and I won’t compromise Nikolai Alexandrovitch by working for them from his house. He’s been too good to me – and to you, Evelyn – for me to take advantage of him.’

  Evelyn’s eyes seemed to glow as she took in the fact that Sergei, too, seemed to care for Nikolai in spite of their political differences.

  ‘Madame Avinkova has invited me to lodge in her house and so I shall be moving there tomorrow. Will you visit me, Evelyn?’

  ‘Of course, Sergei Ivanovitch. How can you ask?’

  ‘And come to the parties she is planning? It seems so sad that you and I have never danced together since that first Christmas Eve, or – Evelyn …’

  ‘Yes, what is it, Sergei?’

  ‘Well, now that the Bolsheviki have made peace with Germany and …’

  ‘Peace, when? How?’ she interrupted, shocked out of the warm content his words had given her.

  ‘Didn’t Nikolai Alexandrovitch tell you?’

  ‘No. We have never talked about the war.’

  ‘Last month Trotsky and Lenin signed a peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk, ceding to the Germans nearly one-third of the Russian empire. The whole of the Ukraine has gone and Poland, Lithuania, Finland, Latvia and Estonia. There are Germans in Petrograd now, and the rest of the Allies have to fight on alone, with nothing to divert the Prussians from the Western Front.’

  All Evelyn’s old terrors came rushing back in an overwhelming tide. She felt as though she had been a traitor to her country, seduced from her allegiance by the emotional comfort of Nikolai’s unreal world. In her shame she looked up to Sergei and said:

  ‘I did not know. I am so sorry. I wish I could help in some way.’

  ‘You can,’ he said, gazing down at her with an intensity that made her a little afraid.

  ‘Tell me what I can do.’

  He put both hands on her shoulders, very close to her neck and rubbed his thumbs gently under her chin. For a moment she was oddly reminded of the day in Petrograd when Robert Adamson had come to help her in the kitchen and had touched her in almost the same way. A little worry showed in her eyes, and Sergei frowned. Then he said:

  ‘I am alone now, Evelyn, and I have nothing to offer you, no estates, no wealth, not even a house. But I love you, as I have loved you since that first evening in Petrograd when I came back from the Front and found you alone in Natalia Petrovna’s drawing-room, so beautiful and so understanding. I think you were the only person in that whole house who had any idea of what the war w
as like and how we suffered for our country. I want you, Evelyn, and I need you …’ Her sudden pallor stopped him in the middle of his proposal and he said in quite a different voice: ‘What is the matter? Are you ill?’

  She shook her head and her eyelids dropped, hiding her thoughts from him. Her sudden, instinctive response to his words appalled her in its disloyalty to John. Never had he seemed so far away, so lost to her. But she could not allow herself to let him go, and knew that she had to find some kind of convincing explanation for Sergei that would stop him from tempting her with promises of love. Making a supreme effort to control her voice, she said as gently as she could:

  ‘Sergei Ivanovitch, you do me too much honour. But I cannot ever return such a love. I did not know that you felt like that and if I had, I would have tried to explain to you …’ She stopped, unable to find the right words to say what she had to say.

  ‘What must you explain?’

  ‘That I love John.’ Sergei opened his mouth as though to protest, but she stopped him with a look and carried on: ‘I expect you are going to tell me that he must be dead and that I ought to forget him, but it is not so. I would know if he were – I am sure of it – and even if he is I could never love anyone else like that again.’ Even as she said it, she wondered whether it could possibly be true. But she had promised Johnnie on that last dreadful day that she would wait for him, and she could not break her word. In giving herself to him then, she had given herself to him for ever. She could not just go on to some other man now, whatever might have happened to John, whatever her treacherous feelings might be urging her to do.

  Sergei’s hands moved gently over her face and she made herself stand and let him touch her as he wished. Her stillness irritated him. Women he touched always shivered with desire.

  ‘Evelyn, you are like a stone. You were not like this in Petrograd when I went back after Christmas. I could feel you under my hands, my lips. You were moved then. What has happened since? Why are you so cold?’

  ‘Oh Sergei, so much has happened. Far too much to explain. Please, please try to understand. I cannot love you, however much I might … might wish to.’

  At the quiver in her voice as she said those last three words his aquiline face seemed to lighten. He took his hands from her face and raised one of her hands to kiss it. Then he said:

  ‘I think I do understand, duschinka, and I will try to behave as you wish. But will you promise me something?’

  ‘What?’ she asked baldly, desperately trying to hold on to her detachment.

  ‘That if you need anything you will tell me. If you ever hear … I mean if there is bad news from the Front you will tell me. That you will call for me if things are different – ever.’

  She nodded, quite unable to speak.

  He said no more, only smiled with great brilliance as he left the kitchen. When he had gone she turned again to her washing and scrubbed with vigour, almost as though she could wash away her troubled thoughts.

  No one else came to disturb her and she finished her task without interruption, hanging the clean garments on a line near the kitchen stove and hoping that if the Avinkovs really invited her to dine or dance, she would not reek of wood-smoke and stewing pork.

  The note came two weeks later, addressed to Natalia Petrovna and inviting her, her eldest daughter and her cousin to a small reception in ten days’ time. Despite Nikolai Alexandrovitch’s obvious if unexpressed disapproval, Dindin took the letter to her mother. As usual Natalia Petrovna was in bed, this time with apparently crippling pains in her legs. The fiction that she was unwell was carefully maintained by the whole household, not least because no one could spare the energy to listen to her complaints and persuade her to ignore her hypochondria. But when Dindin held out the beautifully written invitation, her mother’s eyes brightened and as she took it she said:

  ‘What is this, Dindin? An invitation? How charming. Madame Avinkova – I am not sure that I remember her. Ah,’ she went on, ‘she has dear Sergei Ivanovitch staying with her. Well that explains it all. Well, my dears, shall we go?’

  Very surprised to hear her mother talking so cheerfully, Dindin said:

  ‘Oh, Mama, could we? I should so much enjoy a party again. It seems far too long since I dressed up or saw anyone outside this house. Evelyn, you would like it too, wouldn’t you?’

  Equally surprised by her cousin’s enthusiasm and very pleased, Evelyn found herself able to say yes without the slightest doubt or reservation, and entered into the subsequent plans for what each of them should wear with all the lightheartedness that Sergei would have wished.

  All three of them decided that the clothes they had brought with them just would not do, and Natalia Petrovna summoned the inarticulate Siberian housekeeper to ask what there might be in the house that could be used to make new dresses.

  Karla took a while to understand the question, but when she had, she proved extremely helpful. She led Dindin off to one of the attic boxrooms and showed her a large, brown-leather trunk. Dusty and covered with cobwebs, it looked anything but promising, but the girl obediently knelt down and opened it. The lid lifted to reveal a welter of bolts of brightly coloured silks, reels of thread, papers of pins and beads and sequins. There were hanks of seed pearls and crystal beads: everything that could possibly be needed to create dresses for the entire company at a costume ball.

  Closer inspection proved that not all the silk and gauze was in good condition. Some pieces were damaged or coming apart where they had been folded for so long, others were not as clean as they might have been, but by the time they reached the bottom of the treasure trove, Dindin and Evelyn had discovered at least enough sound pieces to make gowns for all three of them.

  The mystery of the trunk was unravelled by Andrei Alexandrovitch, who laughed when he saw them staggering downstairs under their burdens of gaudy stuffs.

  ‘I see you have found my mother’s fancy-dress trunk. Goodness, I had forgotten all about it. She loved dressing up and masquerades. Well it makes a nice change from the winter’s dreariness. What are you going to make with them?’

  ‘We have been invited to a reception, Papa. Mama and Evelyn and me. For the week after next. We may say yes, mayn’t we? Mama wants to come – and she says that she is well enough, really she does.’

  Evelyn thought that Andrei Suvarov looked as though he were going to forbid it for a moment, but Dindin rubbed her cheek against his arm and whispered appealingly:

  ‘Papa, please. You’re always so nice to me – and you like me to be pretty and happy, don’t you? Dear Papa … please.’

  He allowed his stiff lips to relax and his bright blue eyes to soften as he said kindly:

  ‘Yes, of course you may go, Dindin. You have all been working so hard you deserve a bit of a treat. And I would certainly like to see you in a pretty dress once again. Do you think Madame Avinkova would allow me to come as well?’

  Chapter Nine

  The invitation was accepted and Dindin and Evelyn, with Natalia Petrovna’s help, started to cut out and sew new dresses for themselves during their few hours of free time. Nikolai said nothing to try to persuade them not to go to the party but Evelyn felt sure that he was ashamed of her. One evening as she sat sewing the last seed pearls round the hem of her frock of old-rose silk he complimented her on the creation, and she searched his face for signs of sarcasm.

  ‘Are you very angry with me, Uncle Nikki?’ she asked.

  ‘Angry? No, of course not. Why should I be angry?’

  ‘Well, but … because you do not approve of parties and things, and because there’s so much to do here.’

  ‘My dear Evelyn, I have no such prejudices,’ he said, nearly laughing. ‘My only determination is that no one living in my house should ever depend on a servant to do for them tasks that they believe themselves too good to do. Provided that you don’t idle away your days while others work, I do not mind what you do in the evenings. In any case, it is for you to decide; you are a grown woman.’r />
  Nikolai’s permission removed the last of Evelyn’s anxieties and she started to look forward to the reception with unshadowed pleasure. At first she had thought that there might be some awkwardness with Sergei, but she had seen him in the town once or twice since he left the house, and he had behaved with all the friendliness that she could have wanted. He made no references to marriage or love and so she relaxed and simply looked forward to seeing him again. The spring thaw had made it impossible to skate any longer and the melting snow had turned all the roads into morasses of unwalkable mud and so there was no obvious way for them to meet except at organised social occasions.

  Because of the mud, Nikolai had asked Mischa to drive his sister-in-law and the girls to the Avinkovs’house, and as she stepped into the carriage, dressed in silk, with her hair elaborately arranged for the first time in months and long gloves covering her work-ruined hands, Evelyn could almost imagine that the Revolution had been a nightmare and that she had woken up to find herself back in the old life.

  When they arrived they found the Avinkovs’pleasant brick house spilling over with light. There seemed to be almost a hundredweight of candles burning in sconces and candelabra all over the three rooms that had been flung open for the party. The sound of violins and a piano enticed them into the biggest of the rooms and Dindin took a deep, happy breath as she watched gaily dressed girls in the arms of handsome young men whirling around the dance floor to the lilting sound of a Strauss waltz. Evelyn stood at her side, hoping that Sergei was not going to embarrass her, and wondering whether she would embarrass herself when she saw him again.