The Killing of Anna Karenina

by Richard Freeborn

  ‘Very gratifying, sir. I will endeavor to have your linen bicycling suit cleaned and pressed by tomorrow. The only other apparel is…’

  ‘Please, Cotton, not now. There are perils that threaten. I feel them.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Forgive me, it was insensitive of me. To be shot at as if you were a rabbit reminds me. I was informed by Master Charles that Lord Irmingham is very much against it, sir. The taking of life is very much against his principles. I think he also disapproves of fishing, even though he is not actually against it. So Master Charles tells me.’

  ‘You have an interesting source of information there, Cotton. Tell me more.’

  ‘Sir, I have been told things in confidence which I feel I cannot divulge. But he is an inquisitive young gentleman. He has, er…’ Cotton cleared his throat ‘…er, a natural curiosity about the opposite sex, you understand.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘A peep-hole interest, I think.’

  ‘Not uncommon at the beginning of puberty.’

  ‘True, sir. Except his powers of description are remarkable for one so young.’

  ‘What does he describe?’

  ‘The shape, sir…’ Cotton again cleared his throat ‘… pardon me, sir… the shape of a lady’s bosom. He has even shown me little drawings. He says that the Venus on the stairs is not a good example. There is a much better example in the Rubens Room.’

  ‘The Rubens Room? What’s that?’

  ‘I understand it is a paneled room specially imported from Holland, sir. The first Lord Irmingham had it brought over in pieces and installed here. It contains a painting by the famous painter, Mr Rubens.’

  ‘Very interesting, Cotton. I must find this room. For the time being, though…’

  For the time being he had other things on his mind. He was particularly anxious to see Dr James Parkinson. For his recent overnight stays at Stadleigh Court the doctor had been allotted a small bedroom next door. He had not been there since the prince’s sodden return from the river and was presumably attending his sick patient in the tower. It was precisely about the sick patient that the prince wanted to see him. He was pretty sure he had found something that could very likely explain what had happened.

  It might also prove that both the sick patient and his mother were not fictions. The possibility of such proof was now uppermost in the prince’s mind. To confirm her identity, to claim she was real, made him doubly sure she deserved to be protected from “enemies”. At the same time he was fairly sure his visit to her this morning had provoked or was connected with some kind of peril. However irrational it might be, he felt the gunshots in “the burnin’” posed a threat of the very peril that can conceal inexplicable joys. Whether or not they guaranteed immortality was another matter. But he felt they guaranteed his right to be the only person in England who could verify for sure that Anna Karenina was alive and well and living in Stadleigh Court, Herefordshire.

  ‘For the time being I am content,’ he said, drawing his dressing-gown tightly round him.

  ‘I am glad to hear it, sir.’

  ‘Please let the doctor know I am anxious to see him.’

  ‘Certainly, sir. And I will see to your evening dress, sir, as soon as possible.’ Cotton bowed and left the room.

  The prince let his gaze wander reflectively towards the scene of the garden. The sun was low and shadows were lengthening. Pink-tinged clouds looking like so many meringues on a plate of porcelain blue sky made a tasteful contribution to the tranquil early-evening scene. Possibly offering incalculable joys for the heart of mortal man, they were as transient in their beauty as the momentary quiet that seemed to possess Stadleigh Court. There was no organ music to be heard. Only a distant lowing of cattle accompanied by the faint tolling of a church bell for evensong came through the open window.

  What caught his eye was Oswald Holmcroft’s document. It lay on the windowsill in a triangle of sunlight. He had tried to peel back the folded sheet but the paper, sodden after being in the river, simply tore wetly apart and he had put it on the windowsill to dry.

  (B.P.)Bernard Pares,

  (O.H.)Oswald Holmcroft,

  (C.K.)Carew Kingston,

  (I.I.)Isobel Irmingham.

  He recited the names to himself. The order seemed arbitrary. Why did these four people want to deny her existence? What did they have against Anna Karenina?

  It was easy enough to understand why in the case of Bernard Pares. He was a young historian trained to tell the difference between fact and fiction. Anna Karenina was a fictional heroine who had committed suicide. By no stretch of the imagination could she be said to exist. Oswald Holmcroft’s hostility could be ascribed to the same respect for truth, though coloured by a longstanding personal dislike of the Irminghams. Carew Kingston was hostile because, as a dedicated Tolstoyan, he acceded to Tolstoy’s wishes and repudiated all Tolstoy’s writings before his conversion. As for Lady Isobel, she was no doubt hostile to all her husband’s Russian connections. Whether correctly or not, she held them responsible for the drain on the Irmingham finances and the possibility that she would lose her heart’s desire, which was to remain mistress of Stadleigh Court.

  None of these could be considered serious reasons. Certainly not serious enough to justify Anna Karenina’s own fears. They might be her “enemies” but they hardly seemed to pose a threat to her life. Something in the document might offer a clue, the prince felt intuitively, and it was annoying to have to wait for the paper to dry before examining it again.

  ‘The doctor, sir,’ said Cotton.

  Carrying his leather medical bag, Dr James Parkinson stood in the open doorway. Tall and looming, his very presence was signaled by an accompanying medical odour. He had looked tired before, but now he had the pale, drawn look of someone without sleep for several days.

  ‘You wanted to see me, prince?’

  The prince asked after the victim of lockjaw.

  ‘Worse.’ The brogue was there, but very faint. ‘I think I’ll have to spend the night here just in case I’m needed.’

  ‘You mean, the curare’s not working.’

  ‘It’s in short supply. More’s being ordered, but it won’t be here until the day after tomorrow. He’s exhausted by the return of the spasms. Which is why, as I say, I think I’ll have to stay here. And you, prince?’ He had noticed the dressing-gown. ‘You’re not unwell, are you?’

  ‘No, no.’ He explained what had happened and why he had been reduced to wearing a dressing-gown as the only dry garment left to him apart from evening dress. It allowed him to go in a princely manner to a chest-of-drawers beside his bed and carefully unwrap something from a still-wet handkerchief. ‘I wanted to show you this.’

  The object had to be handled rather gingerly less due to its weight than to the sharpness of the protruding short, spiky, rusted nails. He asked the doctor what he made of it. The latter obediently studied what the unfolded handkerchief now revealed.

  ‘An old horseshoe?’

  ‘Found in the river down by the old ford. Where I saw your patient hopping about in the water. He wasn’t shot, you know. He had probably stepped on this.’

  ‘On this? Oh, but surely…’

  ‘I almost trod on it myself this very afternoon.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘You know as well as I do that it only takes a pinprick. Tetanus has extraordinary power as a toxin.’

  James Parkinson conceded that much. Then he paused, peered at the horseshoe inquisitively without letting it come too close to his face, pursed his lips and muttered something about cow manure.

  ‘That could do it, of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to take a closer look at the soles of his feet. It’s a fancy piece of metal.’

  It was a horseshoe made from high-quality steel that had retained something of its gleaming newness although the nails had rusted to the sharpness of pins.

  ‘It was made for a fancy horse,’ the prince pointed out. ‘Frou-Frou.’

  ‘Frou-Frou?
’

  The answer to the query was curtailed by a rapid knocking on the already open bedroom door and the sudden noisy entrance of Giles Irmingham, saying: ‘Dmitry, my dear chap, do you mind? May I come in? I’d heard you’d almost drowned.’

  He closed the door behind him. ‘How are you? I mean, I can’t have you falling ill just when you’re about to swear an affidavit before my lawyers. They’re due here from London tomorrow… Oh, I say, what have you got there?’

  He was shown the horseshoe. A cursory inspection at first suggested he considered it not only obscene but wholly irrelevant to his immediate concerns.

  ‘A horseshoe with rusty nails… So?’

  ‘It belonged to the horse Frou-Frou.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what horse it belonged to…’

  ‘It belonged to the horse Frou-Frou and may well have been the cause of the injury to the sick man in the tower.’

  ‘Let me have a look.’ A closer inspection revealed the Sheffield stamp. ‘Frou-Frou Stadleigh’ could be discerned in the metal. He admitted that special care had been taken to ensure a regular supply of such shoes. ‘Where did you find this?’

  The prince explained and the doctor chipped in with his own bit about tetanus.

  ‘Tetanus?’

  ‘As the prince knows, it is very poisonous.’ Dr James Parkinson spoke slowly and rather officiously as if he were giving evidence at an inquest. ‘If my patient stepped on this accidentally and then had to carry his mother from a boat up the bank of a river covered in cow manure, it is very likely he could have been infected. That is my explanation, Lord Irmingham. He may have stepped on it before that, too, when practising with the boat, getting it ready, launching it…’

  ‘I see.’ Giles did the natural thing. He handed the horseshoe very quickly back. ‘Not nice.’

  ‘Deadly,’ said the prince. ‘Possibly deadly. But also possible proof.’

  ‘Proof? Of what?’

  ‘Proof she is alive and well and living here at Stadleigh Court.’

  ‘Ah! I see!’ The long beard was stroked.

  ‘If the horse existed, surely the rider also existed.’

  ‘Oh, Dmitry, my dear fellow, I see exactly what you mean!’ Giles Irmingham exclaimed. ‘Well I never! That’s very, very good. Very, very good.’

  ***

  Despite lack of clothes and the possible lack of dignity, the prince felt his Russian soul glow with pride in the sure knowledge that his honour was intact. He had discovered proof of a kind that could provide moral reassurance when required to swear an affidavit the following day. He could still, of course, be making an over-hasty commitment to a ‘truth’ that had all sorts of ramifying implications. The names of Bernard Pares, Oswald Holmcroft, Carew Kingston and Isobel Irmingham again beat a little tattoo in his brain. He insisted Giles should listen to him. In private. The doctor withdrew at once.

  Giles sat down in the window seat where he had sat previously. He raised an expectant eyebrow. ‘Dmitry, what is it?’

  The prince maintained a candid scrutiny of the other’s face as he spoke. ‘I was shown a signed statement this morning by Oswald Holmcroft which claimed in so many words that the lady in the tower was an imposter. Your wife was one of the signatories.’

  ‘Oh, that!’

  ‘Oswald Holmcroft said you had the documentation. I would like to see it.’

  ‘The documentation,’ Giles repeated. ‘Of course you shall see it. In view of the affidavit it’s essential you see it. I’ll just…’

  He excused himself and returned a couple of minutes later with a large brown envelope. It contained various items, each one of which was passed across.

  ‘My wife’s. Not very helpful, as you can see.’

  In fact, it was a statement from Lady Isobel affirming that the Russian lady known as Anna Karenina could not be the person she claimed to be, etc., etc., and must be an imposter. A similar signed denunciation, in both English and Russian, had been contributed by Carew Kingston Esquire.

  ‘This one’s from that fellow Holmcroft. He had the audacity… well, you can see.’

  Oswald Holmcroft had given sworn testimony before a commissioner for oaths. The prince smiled at its emphatic claims.

  ‘And here’s a chap I don’t know at all, but I believe he’s a young historian. Holmcroft got him to authenticate his claim.’

  The document was a polite letter from Bernard Pares declaring, quite simply, that Anna Karenina was a fictional heroine. Also among the documents was a copy of the TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN statement received from Oswald Holmcroft, now still lying damp on the windowsill.

  ‘Who wrote this document?’ The hand was bold and the ink of the homemade kind that the prince had used for his telegram. ‘I think your daughter said she wrote it and made a copy? Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, she wrote it and made a copy, but she’s not one of the signatories. She did it because she felt the whole thing was so silly. And that’s it, my dear Dmitry. Hardly irrefutable claims about the lady’s non-existence. But you have seen her, you have that horseshoe and – most important of all – you have known her longer than anyone. What is more, you are a Russian prince.’

  ‘True.’ The prince handed back all the documents. ‘Apart from the elderly servants, you and I, your son and daughter-in-law and the doctor are the only people who have actually seen her – here, I mean, in Stadleigh Court in recent weeks?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘And she has been living here as a recluse?’

  ‘Again correct.’

  He sighed deeply. ‘I should like to see her again before confronting your lawyers, if that were possible. There are certain matters I wish to clarify. Forgive me if I don’t detail them immediately. They are rather… rather personal. Personal doubts, if I may put it that way.’

  Giles said he understood and would do his best to arrange it. He would have to speak to ‘the servants’, as he called Boris and his wife, and it depended naturally enough on Anna Karenina’s willingness to see the prince again.

  ***

  Giles’s promise to do his best was successful. Boris bowed respectfully at the top of the curved staircase. His expression was as melancholy as his deeply creased, sallow features could make it. The tightly pursed lips caused tiny furrows of age to make his mouth resemble a pincushion and his voice, in its quavering softness, matched it.

  ‘Your excellency, our dear mistress is… in… great… distress.’

  To the prince’s relief, he did not seize his hand, nor did he fall on his knees. The old man’s own distress was expressed by a refusal to show his feelings other than through a dignified moistening of the eyes appropriate to his melancholy appearance and the dismal tone of his voice. He gravely corroborated what the doctor had said about ‘the young master’ – Sergius or Sergei or Seriozha, the lockjaw victim – having suffered further spasms. There was apparently the need for a second opinion and another doctor was awaited. For Boris this meant that ‘he is soon to be gathered up… into the bosom… of Our Lord…. Soon… Very soon, I fear, your excellency, very soon.’

  His pessimism forewarned the prince that he might be received rather coolly, especially as he had to apologise for wearing a dressing-gown. The sight of Boris’s massive stone toga of a frockcoat represented a formality and decorum he knew he could not match and left him so full of apprehensive foreboding that he followed the slow, elderly, cumbersome step-by-step ascent of the next flight of stairs without noticing any of the accompanying miasma, glad that it offered a momentary compensation for the near-naked honesty of his dressing-gown.

  The elderly retainer tapped on the door of the sitting room, entered and announced the prince. On hearing Boris speak, the veiled figure standing by the window turned at once and held out a hand. The prince’s response was to offer a somewhat agitated apology for being so inadequately dressed, only for it to dawn on him that he might well not be the first, let alone the only man to wear a dressing-gown in her sitting room. He k
issed her hand while making every effort to hide what he was holding in his other hand and began to explain his reasons for wanting to see her. She laughed quietly.

  ‘Prince Dmitry! Really! A Russian prince should never apologise for wearing a dressing-gown. Russian princes can always claim the privilege of dressing exactly as they please. And you are as smartly dressed as any! There is no need for an apology!’ She dismissed Boris with a single wrist movement. ‘I was admiring the view. It is a beautiful evening, isn’t it?’

  Standing as she had been by the closed window, one elbow resting on the back of one of her rickety gilded armchairs, she had been watching approximately the same view as he had been seeing from his bedroom, only from a higher elevation. The same sky, the meringue-shaped clouds, now seemingly no longer perilous for mortal man but white items tinted a deeper shade of pink that were like hands offering a blessing to a view of terraces and formal hedges reaching down toward the tree-lined riverbank and the distant silhouette of the battlements of the ruined castle on the other side of the valley.

  The evening light was of course less intense, certainly far less intense than the bright sunlight of the morning’s visit, but it had a faintly luminescent brilliance that made her veil almost transparent. So apparently thick when the prince had first seen it, there was now a fleeting instant when he felt sure he could see her features behind it, especially her eyes. The instant was only fleeting, but he caught a glimpse of her beauty, he thought, purified, it seemed, by age and ennobled by an ascetic suffering that left him feeling he was a voyeur and should be ashamed. She may have noticed this because her attitude changed. She turned back to look out of the window, no longer laughing but giving a deep and typically Russian sigh.

  ‘Toska-a-a!’

  The word was uttered dreamily. How often had he heard that word spoken by expatriates! Toska-a-a! The glimpse of an arc of sky, a leaf on a tree, a line of cloud and one is lost in heart-stopping nostalgia and yearning!