The Irmingham family, on the other hand, was represented by Giles Irmingham and his second wife, Lady Isobel. His son by his first marriage, Gerald, was seated next to his wife, Hannah, and their son, Master Charles Irmingham. The prince looked in vain for Lady Helen. She was clearly not present, but the resemblance to her in Gerald’s copper hair and blue eyes was unmistakable. He was strikingly handsome and evidently charming in upper-class terms, with an ingratiating drawl and a tendency to laugh nervously at his own remarks. His wife, Hannah, a petite, good-looking blonde, clearly doted on him. She spoke little but when she did it was quite loudly and defensively. This occurred chiefly in talking to Lady Isobel Irmingham who went to considerable lengths to hide the strain of poor hearing.
The reason for the dinner being held so early, Master Charles, looked ideally pre-Raphaelite, as should any boy with Lady Helen as an aunt, the prince supposed. He was dressed for the occasion in a suitably Tolstoyan peasant smock that, for all its simplicity, served to draw attention to the way his head of curly fair hair stood up thickly like a straw crown. This gave him every right to preside over one end of the table as ‘king’ for his eleventh or twelfth birthday, the prince never having discovered exactly which it was.
The conversation during the wholly vegetarian meal was punctuated by bursts of excited talk, followed by periods of embarrassed silence. Carrot soup, for instance, allowed the Reverend Ellis Chalmers to express himself loudly on one or another aspect of Tolstoyanism, to the annoyance of Raymond Vernoncourt who described everything said as ‘poppycock’ or ‘abject poppycock.’ The main dish of nut cutlets and a variety of vegetables was accompanied by a more light-hearted discussion of certain Tolstoyan ideas led by Giles Irmingham, who invited contributions and opinions from the prince as ‘the only one among us who is truly related to the great religious thinker.’ The prince tried to respond adequately but was glad when the dessert arrived. It consisted of fruit and ice cream specially prepared for the birthday boy and was climaxed by the arrival of a birthday cake topped by an array of candles which were all ceremoniously blown out in one breath to cries of ‘Happy Birthday!’ and a round of applause.
Towards the end of the meal abstinence from all alcohol and any kind of liquid stimulant, including tea or coffee, led to a general conversational malaise. Julie exclaimed at the ‘beautiful idea of living together completely freely and completely honestly.’ The sing-song statement sounded so pert and earnest it made Rodney Palmer murmur aloud that it was all very well for people to make their own clothes but what the hell would life be like if you had to try and make your own Havana cigars (‘Can you imagine not having tobacco leaf that had not been rolled on the thick brown thighs of nubile Cuban ladies?’). The remark hardly elicited a smile, let alone a titter. It left room for Mrs Emerald Stephenson to extol the attempts to create communes in the United States. Once that had been greeted with polite thanks from Lord Irmingham, she inquired whether ‘that poor birthday boy’ was really enjoying his birthday. She said she thought a birthday could not be a real birthday without charades.
‘Isn’t that right, Monty?’
‘Please, mother.’
‘Count Tolstoy says nothing about what you call char-aids and we call char-ards,’ declared the Reverend Ellis Chalmers.
‘For once in a way he’s absolutely right!’ said Raymond Vernoncourt. ‘Charades – pronounce the word any way you like – are all so much poppycock conceived as entertainment for the upper classes. Abolish them! I say.’
‘They are not poppycock at all. They are a simple human pleasure, ritualised among the poorest of our brethren into a brand of carnival and most certainly likely to receive the full endorsement of Count Tolstoy when brought to his attention. I must write to him on the subject.’ The Reverend Ellis Chalmers took out a notebook.
‘I find something very difficult to understand,’ announced Mrs Emerald Stephenson shrilly.
‘Please, mother,’ Monty said.
‘What is it you find difficult to understand?’ asked Rodney Palmer as he cut off the end of a cigar.
‘I mean the Russian soul. The Russian soul is too big a thing, isn’t it? It’s too grand, too great. But we have to take it very seriously, don’t we? Which is why we simple folk in Massachusetts need remindin’ of the simple side o’ life. It ain’t witches, it ain’t superstition I’m referrin’ to, you understand, it’s just light-hearted legends, fairytales, char-aids, as I call ‘em, which simple folk can enjoy. They believe in ’em, you know. Of course, you English don’t seem to have no folklore to speak of. Why, it’s all travelled abroad, I reckon. How many people here have actually seen a water nymph, I wonder? Why, where I come from, we’ve always had water nymphs!’
‘I share that sense of loss,’ said Rodney Palmer. The cigar had been lit and he blew a plume of blue cigar smoke into the candlelight, wiping the match flame out as he did so with suitably flamboyant exuberance. ‘Mind you, I imagine if I went down to the river now…’ he cleared his throat ‘… and was very quiet, and did nothing to frighten our modest English river spirits, I’d see a nymph. Long hair, of course, charmingly naked, pale of limb, curvaceous, utterly innocent, a perfect child of nature. But if you were to ask me what I would do after seeing this nymph…’
He paused.
‘Well,’ asked Mrs Emerald Stephenson, ‘what would you do?’
‘Tell her the facts of life!’
‘Why, that’d sure scare her!’
‘The prime reason, perhaps,’ said Rodney Palmer, ‘why one sees them so rarely. But what good is a nymph to us humans unless she knows the facts of life?’
‘And can therefore, er, appreciate our human needs?’ drawled Gerald suggestively.
‘True, quite true. But it poses a moral dilemma, does it not?’ Rodney Palmer blew a further plume of cigar smoke into the air. ‘Innocence is not an absolute, not an unconditional state of things, but the dilemma which faces us is that a nymph who is not in a state of innocence cannot have a moral claim to be a nymph, in my opinion.’
‘They have bosoms and tits!’ came a boyish cry from the end of the table.
‘What on earth is he saying?’ cried Lady Isobel, who was too far away to hear accurately. ‘What’s the child saying?’
Hannah wagged her finger at him and Master Charles went extremely red.
‘Yes, from the mouths of babes and sucklings,’ Rodney Palmer went on quickly. He looked hard at Julie, who returned his look with a sensual, querying half-smile. ‘It is a sign of a nymph’s implausibility, alas, that she should flee away from human contact in this country and find a habitation and a dwelling for herself among the waterways of the eastern states of America. But, you see, their impermanence, their reticence, their shyness disarms us morally. It makes us aware how fallen and seduced we are. What is your opinion, Prince?’
‘“A gap in nature” is one way of describing it. I saw such a gap on the river yesterday.’
‘Pardon?’ exclaimed Giles Irmingham.
‘You are referring to water nymphs, I imagine?’ Rodney Palmer inquired.
‘No, I am referring to what I saw yesterday.’
‘What was that?’
He described the black boat, the gunshot and the red rose cast on the water. ‘It brought to mind, you see, Cleopatra in her barge. I am fond of English poetry, especially Shakespeare, and Shakespeare described Cleopatra in her barge as “a gap in nature”.’
‘I say, that’s very good!’
‘Poppycock!’ shouted Raymond Vernoncourt.
‘No, not poppycock at all!’ protested Rodney Palmer. ‘Not at all! There are gaps in nature. Consequently, in approaching the innocence of water nymphs, we confront a gap, don’t we? We are inevitably placed in the wrong if we try to explain to them what is natural to us. That is “a gap in nature”.’
‘What is wrong,’ interrupted Giles Irmingham a little crossly, ‘excuse my mentioning it, is talk of a black boat and a gunshot. Surely, my dear Dmitry, you must be mista
ken. I cannot imagine you saw anyone shot!’
‘But I did,’ said the prince quite calmly.
‘Really! Oh, good heavens!’ exclaimed Mrs Emerald Stephenson.
‘Oh, mother, please,’ said Monty and turned to the prince. ‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘I thought I saw someone being shot. But I was very probably wrong.’
‘I am sure you must be wrong,’ Giles Irmingham insisted.
‘But I am sure I saw a black boat.’
The prince’s repetition of his claim, stated so confidently, brought a moment of silence that led Mrs Emerald Stephenson to say equally confidently: ‘If the prince saw what he saw, why I believe him. He’s entitled as a Russian to see things we very likely don’t see. Isn’t that right, Mr Palmer? Why, if you are prepared to see an innocent little water nymph, I am quite prepared to believe the prince saw a black boat.’
Rodney Palmer bowed towards her. ‘You understand me, my dear. I am gratified. Tolstoyanism should free us of the rational imperatives surrounding truth, not to mention the moral and sexual constraints to which western civilisation has so long inured us.’
‘You mean genuine symbiosis?’ Monty asked.
‘As genuine, my boy, as flesh can allow.’ And Rodney Palmer kissed the back of Julie’s hand, at which she emitted a cascade of giggles.
That night the prince found it hard to sleep, not only because he had obviously upset his host but also because he was very puzzled. The colour combination of the light counterpane on his bed reminded him of Lady Helen’s remarkably deep blue eyes and the way they were offset so brilliantly by her abundant, copper-red hair. He could not imagine why she had not been at the dinner, especially as it had been to celebrate her young nephew’s birthday. He could only hope what kept her away was not his presence. He had asked after her, but she had been described as ‘busy’. He did not press to know what that meant. So he contented himself with superimposing the image of her deep blue eyes and copper-red hair on the remembered, long-cherished image of his dear wife, Princess Alisa, the one merging into the other into a pure velvet blue in the darkness beyond the flickering radiance of the bedside candle. He knew emotional betrayal lurked there, unreal and unlikely though it might be; so he blew the candle out and the images slowly decayed into a ghostly whiteness as the oblong of the window, still open, concentrated all the light in the room.
The night was warm and close. An owl hooted. It was a reminder how unused he was to the noises of the countryside, despite the days he had spent on his bicycle tour. He had been too tired at the end of each day to notice. Now the outside noises served to reinforce the secretive and mysterious air of Stadleigh Court and his reasons for being there. The name Karenin crept into his thoughts. Why had Giles Irmingham asked him about it and been so adamant that it shouldn’t be mentioned? And why had he been offered what was obviously a very good guest room, with a beautiful view over the gardens and all the most desirable facilities, including an Irmingham Rapido?
Consumed though he was by such doubts and queries, he apparently could not help himself from falling headlong into a hectic dream. He was running, running very hard, along a rocky hillside, and the running became a kind of gliding. Bullets whistled above his head and the shell-shattered earth fountained up directly in front of the Grivitza Redoubt. A huge pain like a spreading inkblot drenched his whole body. He tried to raise his right hand to fend off the explosion, but the echo of it resounded sharper than any owl’s cry and brought him upright. He awoke to find himself sitting up in bed fully conscious.
Greyish darkness surrounded him. His forehead was covered in beads of sweat.
There came a quite audible clicking noise. The door handle to his room was being moved.
A fearful creeping sensation, like a rat’s claws, ran along the crown of his head.
Who?
The tongue of the door lock had been moved back. He knew Cotton hadn’t locked it. It was being held back by someone outside, at the head of the stairs. The next moment the door slowly opened. An enlarging beam of light fell across the carpet. The door shut quietly and a figure approached.
‘Mr Rostov? Sorry, sir. I mean prince, Prince Rostov… Ah, ya’r wekkit, sir!’
It took two or three seconds to put two and two together. In the gleam of the oil lamp held up to aid identification the prince recognised the youthful but drawn face, the bulges of little sacs below the eyes and a distinct sallowness in the lightly freckled cheeks.
‘Dr Parkinson, what on earth…’
‘Did I wek ya, sir? My sincere apologies.’
‘No need for all that!’
‘No, sir. Sorry, sir. It’s second nature to me now, the accent. How are you? How is your arm? And the rib?’ He placed the oil lamp next to the extinguished candle.
The prince protested quite justifiably that it was hardly the right time for a consultation. James Parkinson gave a low chuckle. He announced he had heard his patient was coming to the Court from Lady Helen the previous evening. Now was the opportunity to undo the tight bandage and take a look at the wounded left arm, only to find the bandage already undone.
‘You’re better, aren’t you?’
The prince explained that he had taken a bath.
‘I see. May I just…’ James Parkinson frisked professionally. ‘Bruising, I think. Take it easy, that’s all. No bicycling down steep lanes, understand?’
His patient acquiesced.
‘Well, Prince Rostov, sir, I don’t know really how to put it to you, but you are Russian, aren’t you?’
The prince could hardly deny it.
‘Then it’s about your compatriots, sir.’
‘My compatriots!’
‘Yes, sir, Russians, sir. One of them’s very seriously ill. I cannot make him or the others understand he must go into hospital. Otherwise there’ll be no chance. Can you help me, sir? It’s very, very urgent!’
‘How can I help?’
The doctor explained he was at the end of his tether and his voice contained such a genuine note of fatigue there could be no doubting him. ‘They won’t let him, you see.’
‘Who won’t let him?’
‘The servants. They seem to be in charge. Lord Irmingham said it was up to them.’
This was extremely puzzling and intriguing. ‘These are Russian servants?’
‘Oh, yes, sir. Most Russian!’
‘And you want me to talk to them? Where are they?’
‘Upstairs. Yes, I want you to persuade them he must go into hospital.’
‘Upstairs? Here, in the house?’
‘I will be eternally grateful Mr – sorry, Prince – Rostov, sir.’
There was enough here in what he had heard to intrigue the prince sufficiently to point to the dressing gown at the end of the bed. It was of blue silk with red piping to the wide lapels and a crest on the breast pocket picked out in gold thread. ‘One of my little luxuries,’ he murmured as he was helped to put it on after pulling on his slippers.
The glow of the doctor’s oil lamp showed the way. It was hard to believe there were any compatriots of his at Stadleigh Court, but he followed the young man’s stooped back out of sheer curiosity. Practically soundlessly they went along the corridor at the head of the stairs and round a corner. The door facing them had to be unlocked. It swung open softly and was re-locked just as softly and he found himself being led up a flight of curved stairs. The oil lamp showed a dado to shoulder level and above it rows of framed paintings whose glass fronts flickered and glimmered in the passing light. They climbed two flights and two small landings. The air smelled stuffy and unused. At the top was a larger landing containing such oddments as a pile of books, an old pair of boots, an umbrella and a portrait on the wall before which a light burned very dimly in the manner of an icon flame. He had no time to see who it was. The doctor turned to him with a finger to his lips and whispered that he hoped he was now asleep.
The hope was extinguished almost immediately. Muffled yet distinct,
at that very instant came a yell of agony that made the doctor rush to a door and swing it open without knocking. The prince followed him.
The first thing he knew was a darkness filled with the stench of the sickroom. It was so repulsive that he staggered backwards and masked his mouth and nostrils with the lapel of his dressing gown. The smell, though, was less dreadful than the sight. Within the ring of light cast by the lamp a couple of candle flames could be seen set either side of a bed on which a naked man was lying. He had a strong, muscular body, the lines of his torso clearly silhouetted by the fact that he was enduring some kind of spasm. His back was arched steeply in a wrestler’s bridge that made his body unnaturally and hideously rigid. His skin glistened with sweat and fluid exuded from his anus, his eyes and his nose. The door was hurriedly shut to prevent another yell being heard, only for the spasm to pass practically at once and the muscles to relax. The pale body flopped back exhausted.
An elderly woman dressed in black, with a black shawl over her head, leaned forward at once and began wiping the man’s eyes and mouth. He lay there apparently oblivious to her repeated appeals for divine intervention and divine mercy. Even the way she stroked his cheeks was accepted as an endearment merely incidental to the pain that tautened his neck muscles and forced his sweat-soaked hair back into an already soaked pillow. Seeing the prince and reacting to his instant query about her patient, she quickly covered the man’s nakedness as best she could with a small blanket.
So this must be one of the Russian servants, was the prince’s first thought. About to ask more questions, he suddenly caught sight of an old man standing near the foot of the bed. He was dressed in an antiquated, elegant waistcoat with embroidery round the buttonholes and a long, shabby frockcoat so aged and stiffened by use it looked like a toga carved from stone. He did not turn to look at the new arrival but remained fixed in predatory watchfulness. The prince could not help following the direction of his gaze.
The Killing of Anna Karenina Page 5