The Killing of Anna Karenina

by Richard Freeborn

  He snapped the book shut and replaced it.

  10

  Lady Helen re-entered the sitting room in her usual pink dress accompanied by someone the prince had never seen before. Quite unaccountably he felt a twinge of jealousy on seeing this stranger. She made the introduction.

  ‘This is Carew, prince. Carew, may I introduce Prince Dmitry Rostov, your compatriot. Carew is our translator, you know, and the one who knows more about the teachings of Count Tolstoy than anyone. Anyone here, I mean.’

  Carew? The prince conjured with the name a moment, running it round his Russian tongue. ‘Oh, yes.’ He remembered Oswald Holmcroft had mentioned the name. He said he was very glad to meet a compatriot.

  A small man of about fifty limped towards him with the aid of a walking stick. He had a furrowed, angular face, a gunmetal beard whitening at the tips and moist, round eyes of soft blue almost hidden by spectacles. His unnecessarily firm handshake was accompanied by a rather chirpy reference to his red shirt: ‘My rubashka. Appropriate, eh, my dear Prince Dmitry?’

  ‘Oh, indeed!’ A true Tolstoyan! thought the prince. ‘Most appropriate,’ he added, trying not to sound even faintly sarcastic since the red shirt, the rubashka, belted at the waist, tended to emphasise the wearer’s thickening waistline.

  Carew Kingston leant on his stick and subjected him to a penetrating scrutiny for several moments before admitting rather too magnanimously that it was a great honour to have a Russian prince in modest little Irmingham.

  ‘I gather you’ve been in what they call “the burnin”?’

  The prince apologised for the signs of dirt on his clothes, but Lady Helen said there was no need for apologies. She mentioned she had herself only just changed out of her working clothes.

  ‘Work, ah, yes,’ Carew Kingston muttered, ‘the simple agricultural life, pacifism… Most important in Tolstoy’s teaching.’

  ‘Not when you are mistaken for a rabbit,’ said the prince.

  ‘Mistaken for a rabbit?’

  ‘If you’re being shot at, I mean.’

  ‘Who would want to shoot at a Russian prince, I wonder?’

  ‘Oh, Russian princes have always been targets.’

  ‘Well, you are not a target now,’ said Lady Helen. ‘I am sure you two will have a lot to say to each other. Do speak Russian if you wish. We will be having lunch soon.’

  ‘No, no, that would be most impolite.’ Like the way he had gingerly gripped the prince’s hand and crinkled his eyes in an ingratiating smile, the way Carew Kingston spoke English signaled an unusual eagerness to be accepted as friendly and affable. He pointed out that they had not embraced in true Russian style. ‘It is not, as they say, a done thing. Am I right?’

  The prince agreed it was not the English way.

  ‘Poor Carew has trouble with his legs,’ said Lady Helen. She invited both of them to sit.

  ‘It is when I play.’ He demonstrated keyboard movements with his fingers. ‘The organ at Stadleigh Court has heavy pedals, you know. I find my legs are very tired.’

  ‘Carew has taken to composing.’

  ‘Oh, really. May I ask what?’

  ‘Small things, small things.’ The reluctance to discuss his work seemed genuine. ‘You are long a resident in England, prince?’ The questioner seated himself slowly without waiting for an answer. ‘For me it is always a question of a mother tongue – or should I say a mother’s tongue? My mother was Russian, my father English. But my father had no money and left me nothing except my name and my command of English. Whereas my mother left me a native command of Russian, a little money and a sense of exile.’

  The prince sat down. ‘You are a translator, I think?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I am that kind of hybrid creature. Exile is for translators.’

  ‘I do try to help,’ Lady Helen pointed out.

  ‘Oh, I am forever ably assisted in my everlasting search for perfection by Lady Helen. For whom, of course, perfection is, as it were, a native clime – may I say that?’

  ‘You may!’ she laughed. ‘Though it makes me sound absurdly Shakespearean!’

  ‘Ah, Shakespearean,’ sighed Carew Kingston, ‘what a thing that is!’

  The talk turned to next day’s soiree at Stadleigh Court. Such soirees, it seemed, had been held regularly throughout the summer months and had attracted actors and actresses, public figures and celebrities from the literary and academic world as well as some press attention; but this one was to be the last for the season. Carew Kingston’s organ recital was an innovation, but Lord Irmingham always said a few words on the aims of Tolstoyanism at the end of each soiree and this one would be no exception.

  ‘And we allow no stimulants,’ said Lady Helen. ‘None of the refreshments contain any meat. It is all strictly vegetarian.’

  ‘It all happens naturally,’ said Carew Kingston. ‘For instance, I hope to start playing…’

  ‘Each one is different. There is no planning,’ said Lady Helen.

  ‘Someone will sing. Someone will give a talk.’

  ‘This time there is the reverend, the Irishman, I can’t remember his name…’

  ‘And there is Julie to help me,’ said Carew Kingston.

  ‘And that poet,’ said Lady Helen. ‘I can’t remember his name. My father mentioned him.’

  They spoke as if there were no end to the possible delights of the soiree. The prince raised his eyebrows and smilingly asked if there would be many converts. It was not intended as an ironic question. If anything, he sought information. Carew Kingston took him at his word: ‘You yourself, sir, are of the Tolstoyan persuasion?’

  The prince said he wasn’t.

  ‘Then may I ask why you are here?’

  His accident was quoted as the answer. He had been invited, he said, by Lord Irmingham and was on the point of mentioning Lady Helen’s part in it when he intercepted an anxious blue-eyed glance from her and remembered Giles’s stern admonition not to say a word about the Karenins. It gave Carew Kingston a chance to say: ‘Of course, we are all converts. There must be two or three in this area. Perhaps more. Educated people. All converts. Of course, it will be many, many years yet before we can expect Count Tolstoy’s teaching to become influential throughout the world. But in our small way we continue our work.’

  He exchanged glances with his hostess. It was hard to tell whether something more than mutual interest lay behind that exchange of looks. Against his better nature the prince felt a renewed spurt of envy, which he knew to be completely unjustified, but it drove him to remark in a spirit of playfulness as much as defiance: ‘I am a Tolstoyan in another sense.’

  ‘What is that?’ Carew Kingston looked at him over his spectacles.

  ‘My grandmother was a Bolkonskii and I am a descendant of the Moscow Rostovs.’

  ‘I am sure we are not all so privileged.’ Carew Kingston pushed his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose.

  ‘I am sure of one thing,’ said the prince.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Tolstoy’s reputation will survive as a creator of great novels, not as a religious thinker.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Carew Kingston, ‘that our greatest author does not live in the real world?’

  ‘Oh, no. I mean the world of his fiction is so real. That is what matters.’

  ‘No, pardon me, that is not what matters. What matters is the real world, the world we live in. We do not live in a fiction. It does not exist. In any case, Tolstoy has himself repudiated all his literary work before his conversion.’

  A sparkle of triumph shone in the bespectacled eyes. It did not annoy the prince. What puzzled him were the assumptions. He had to assume his compatriot was so dedicated to Tolstoy’s teachings that the truth of his fiction meant nothing.

  ‘I might not exist if that were true,’ he remarked. ‘Certainly my grandmother would not have existed.’

  ‘Well, of course.’ Again the spectacles were adjusted.

  ‘And Anna Karenina might not be de
ad.’

  This of course was risky. To the prince’s relief, no flicker of query, let alone alarm, crossed Lady Helen’s face. Carew Kingston gave a pitying smile. ‘My dear Prince Dmitry, Anna Karenina is dead, we all know that!’

  ‘Of course.’

  The prince tried to look innocent. Carew Kingston leaned forward and started saying in an earnest, whispered Russian, hissing the words a little as if he were frightened of being overheard: ‘She committed suicide by throwing herself under a train and Tolstoy, her creator, has himself repudiated her. Her spirit is laid to rest, surely. And not before time. Because the worst thing she did was to destroy a noble, decent man. And that was unforgivable.’

  The ferocity of this last remark was startling. ‘You mean her husband?’

  ‘I mean…’ Carew Kingston blinked and his face twitched. ‘Yes.’ He avoided the other’s eyes, ‘I naturally mean her husband. She ruined his life.’

  ‘You adopt a perfectly correct Tolstoyan view,’ the prince remarked cordially, only too aware how keenly Lady Helen was watching. At the same time there was a distinct softening of Carew Kingston’s expression as he glanced at her.

  ‘I feel I have a fatherly role,’ he explained. ‘I teach, you know, the correct Tolstoyan view. I love my pupil, she is like a daughter to me…’ he smiled as he spoke ‘…and I hope my pupil feels some respect, some love, in return.’

  ‘I am sure she does,’ the prince politely agreed, more than ever aware how embarrassing this might be to Lady Helen if she could understand the Russian.

  ‘She is so beautiful, is she not, that men are likely to fall in love with her at first sight? I think you, prince, are not immune. Are you?’

  The question was allowed to hang in the air. There was a moment of silence in which the fact of the quiet room itself, the low beams, the twinkling brasses and the summery outside heat reasserted itself. The eyes behind the spectacles sparkled brighter than ever. Then Carew Kingston broke into English.

  ‘I am so sorry, my dear Lady Helen. You understood perhaps what we were talking about?’

  ‘Oh…’ she twiddled her fingers. ‘No, not everything, I’m afraid. I am so unused to hearing the language spoken, you know. I do wish I knew it better. It sounds so musical and strong.’

  ‘It is a very good language for love and for argument,’ said Carew Kingston, rising slowly. ‘Forgive me, Lady Helen. Forgive me, sir. I must go across to the Court. A final practice before tomorrow’s soiree.’

  There was general agreement that they would be at Stadleigh Court to hear his composition during the soiree. The small man smiled and bowed. He then leaned on his stick and walked slowly out of the room.

  ‘You haven’t really, have you?’

  The question was asked in a low whisper as soon as they were alone. The prince could not be sure what Lady Helen meant, so he denied he had said a word about the lady in the tower.

  ‘Is it a secret? Should I have said something?’

  Why on earth was he confessing that much, even if only in a whisper? Her eyes, which smiled approvingly, suggested clearly enough that she probably knew what her father wanted.

  ‘Well, no.’ Her quiet voice and the way she raised her hand close to her lips indicated a need for care. She threw back her head to loosen a strand of red hair from her cheek. ‘I mean so few people round here know about her. What I do know is that father has pinned his hopes on her. I know he is relying on you to testify that she is who she is.’

  He said he was quite ready to testify. Then he changed the subject. ‘My compatriot is in love with you, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’re exaggerating.’ He watched her closely and saw her blink uneasily and look away. As if to make amends, she simply added: ‘He is very serious-minded, very dedicated. I have only known him for a year or so, since coming to live here. I used to live over at the Court, you see, before father remarried. Isobel and I didn’t get on. Two rather bossy women. That’s one thing. The other is something even more embarrassing.’

  Naturally this was intriguing. The prince tried to look suitably attentive.

  ‘Oh, I owe you an explanation, I know that, my dear Prince Dmitry. Isobel and I are both bossy. Isobel wants to rule the roost over there at the Court. I couldn’t stand it, so I came here. In due course, when there’s enough money, father wants to come over here and join me. In our commune, you see. Meantime, I’m the one to inherit the Court. That’s the arrangement at present. And the other thing is that the lady in the tower has taken my dear silly brother as a lover. With my sister-in-law’s consent and connivance. Which disgusts me so much I can’t bring myself to talk to her. And that’s the reason I wasn’t there last night for Charles’s birthday dinner. You may have noticed.’

  He had to admit he had. Although she had flung out her last sentence like a challenge, he did not rise to it. It was startling enough to be confronted by the animosity so latent in her attitude and therefore at the root of relationships in the Irmingham family. It was not the time, he felt, to become involved in the very slightest. Seeing how she flushed, he asked with an airily whispered nonchalance: ‘Tell me, how long have you known of her existence – the lady in the tower, I mean?’

  ‘Oh, a few years. But I’ve never been sure…’

  ‘Sure, you mean, about her identity?’

  ‘Yes. Of course, I’ve always trusted father. He’s always believed in her.’

  That was it! Believed in her! ‘So who else knows?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think anybody knows except father. Oh, and Gerald, of course, and Hannah, my sister-in-law. But not anyone else outside the Court, I mean.’

  ‘So Oswald Holmcroft wouldn’t know?’

  ‘Oswald?’ This was possibly one question too many. She brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. ‘No!’ She was so emphatic the shock of the negative came like a gust of cold air. ‘He’s insisted on denying it! He’s even got up a sort of statement! Like Carew, like my stepmother, he insists she doesn’t exist!’

  The prince was stunned. ‘You’ve seen this, er, this statement?’

  She nodded. ‘I made two copies of it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For father and for Oswald.’

  ‘I see. So these people – Oswald, your stepmother, Mr Kingston – they would be her enemies, would they?’

  She looked offended. ‘Oh, no, not really enemies, just people who don’t believe. I don’t think she’s really got enemies.’

  ‘She thinks so.’

  ‘Well, I know father thinks she’s a bit, you know, frightened, but it’s not serious. He says she says she hears things in her bath – I mean what nonsense! He’s done so much for her, you can’t imagine. Shall we have lunch? I see Jane’s waiting for us.’

  Food suddenly seemed very attractive and put the whole problem of Anna Karenina to rest. He gave no further thought to it as he accompanied his hostess into a small adjacent dining room where a cold lunch was laid ready. A window was open to the garden. Hot summer midday air swept in and around them as they sat and talked over the meal. Flies and wasps came in with the warmth, but were hardly noticed. He was entirely consumed by Lady Helen’s beauty, the glitter of her eyes and the way her features lit up as she smiled. She poured out ice-cold lemonade and he knew he had never tasted more delicious lemonade in his entire life than the lemonade Lady Helen Swanning poured out for him that lunchtime, the delicate golden hairs of her bare sunburned arm catching the sunlight as she leaned across the table to lift the jug.

  Conversation continued quietly and intimately, all queries about Oswald Holmcroft being avoided in the near-certainty that there was no likelihood of an emotional connection. The prince was now quite certain that the historian of Cromwell was scarcely more than a platonic friend who would call in on Lady Helen for tea or receive insight into Tolstoy’s thinking from Carew Kingston. True, his behaviour could be considered eccentric in some respects and a footnote in his book certainly needed questioning. As for the orga
nist and composer, the conscientious, dedicated, rather humourless lifeline between Tolstoyanism and the erstwhile Tolstoyans of the neighbourhood, the prince was quite simply puzzled. She anticipated him by asking: ‘He speaks good Russian, does he?’

  ‘Your organist? Oh, yes. His composing, what exactly is it? In what sort of style?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a new departure for him! His mother taught him to play the piano – she’s buried here, you know, in the churchyard – but he’s only taken to playing the organ and composing in the last few months.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Swallowing the last of the delicious lemonade, he contented himself with the thought that the forthcoming soiree would soon provide an answer. She rose from the table and asked what his plans were for the afternoon.

  ‘I, er…’

  He would have liked to continue their conversation but as he followed her into the hallway he could not help noticing something hanging on one of the clothes hooks. His conscience was pricked.

  ‘You must forgive me,’ he said in offering warm thanks for the lunch and the lemonade. ‘I realise I have a call to make.’

  Did a shadow of disappointment show in her eyes? She raised her chin a little imperiously and he at once bent forward, boldly seized her hand and kissed it, saying: ‘It has been a great pleasure, Lady Helen.’

  She was clearly taken aback, but her lips then formed an unforced, rather surprised smile.

  ‘For me, too,’ she admitted.

  He reached up and took Oswald Holmcroft’s cape off its hook.

  ***

  To have the warm air of the hot afternoon flowing against his face and the wheels of the Rudge Explorer turning smoothly under him was a delight. More than this, it was the exhilarating sense of freedom, of momentary release from life’s slow pace into the speed of racing air that lifted his spirits and made him want to sing aloud. After only two meetings with Lady Helen he was in the gloriously elated condition of feeling totally at peace with the world.

  Of course, it was nonsense. He was elated simply by the natural joy of being alive. Whether it was no more than a romantic illusion of the moment he had no way of knowing, but at that instant his happiness seemed an endless beam of sunlight down which he glided on spinning wheels. It was enough to evoke the beautiful Monna Vanna features and the lustrous red hair for all surrounding nature to be transfused by a Wordsworthian contentment, to induce a mood of oneness with the hedgerows and trees and majestically flowing river, a readiness to accept that this tranquil rural corner of England could be heaven on earth.