Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar

by Olga Wjotas

  “Take me to Lidia Ivanovna’s,” I said.

  This wasn’t good. One day in, and I was already meeting with failure.

  “Lidia’s going to be so disappointed when I tell her she can’t go to the ball,” I said to Old Vatrushkin as we sped along.

  “But your excellency, she already knows.”

  Lidia had many excellent qualities, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t psychic. I was also pretty sure that even though the Russian diplomat Pavel Schilling had designed an electromagnetic telegraph in 1832, it wasn’t yet in general use.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because she was there, visiting Madame Potapova.”

  Four

  I wondered how I could ever have thought that Old Vatrushkin needed assertiveness training. He could have run master classes in it. He remained as polite as ever, but he was utterly unshakeable.

  It all started when I told him he must be mistaken. “Lidia didn’t go out. She went off to her room to sort out what she would wear this evening.”

  “Your excellency’s drozhky was sitting next to the young lady’s carriage.”

  I had never heard such firmness in his voice.

  “It probably wasn’t Lidia’s. I’m sure one carriage looks much the same as another,” I said.

  There was a heartbeat’s pause, which I found a little intimidating. Then, without raising his voice, Old Vatrushkin said, “I know my carriages.”

  “Lidia’s carriage doesn’t mean Lidia,” I argued. “She might have wanted to maximise our chances of an invitation by sending Madame Potapova a bunch of flowers, or a spare Nebuchadnezzar of champagne.”

  Old Vatrushkin’s tone reminded me of a teacher explaining the bleeding obvious to the class numpty, and it wasn’t a tone I was used to.

  “In that case, the young lady would have sent a small open carriage, not the large formal closed one.”

  “Did you actually see her?” I demanded.

  He turned and gave me a small smile that seemed almost pitying. “I did not have to, your excellency.”

  I was going to have to bow to his expertise. But this was extraordinary. Lidia, who never went out anywhere? Who couldn’t go out unchaperoned? Why on earth was she visiting Madame Potapova anyway? Had I really seen a shadowy figure behind the widow before she fell?

  “And the carriage was still there when we left?”

  “Yes, your excellency.”

  “Well, we’ll know she was visiting Madame Potapova if she’s not at home when we get there.”

  “The young lady could easily get home before us,” said Old Vatrushkin. “Her driver could take a shortcut that I judged too jarring for your excellency.” This wasn’t helpful.

  When we arrived, I was ushered into a reception hall. Some moments later, light footsteps pattered down the hallway. Lidia entered, smiling radiantly. I studied her keenly. Did she look slightly flushed? Out of breath? Jarred?

  “Dear Shona Fergusovna, what a joy to see you. I ran all the way to greet you when they told me you were here.”

  A perfectly acceptable reason for someone to look as she did. I was about to ask her how she’d been spending the afternoon when Nanny turned up.

  “Back again?” she said. “What is it this time?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news,” I said, still studying Lidia, whose expression changed to respectful attention.

  At that moment, there was a knock at the reception room door. A footman crossed to open it, revealing another footman, and they had a short whispered conversation. Then the first footman announced, “Her excellency’s coachman!” and Old Vatrushkin came in, clutching his lamb’s wool cap.

  “Forgive the intrusion, your excellencies,” he said. “But I have news through my brother coachmen that I thought you should hear as soon as possible. The countess is inviting everybody to a ball at her palace this evening.”

  “The countess?” said Nanny. “But that will clash with the dreadful Potapova woman’s party.”

  I prepared to watch Lidia closely as I revealed the news about Madame Potapova, to see whether she knew it already. But before I could speak, Old Vatrushkin intoned, “Madame is defunct.”

  Nanny shrieked, making me jump and taking my attention away from Lidia. “God forgive me for speaking ill of the dead!” she cried, crossing herself.

  “De mortuis nihil nisi bonum,” whispered Old Vatrushkin, nodding glumly as he agreed that speaking ill of the dead was to be discouraged.

  By the time I got round to looking at Lidia, her head was bowed and she was murmuring a prayer for the departed.

  “I’ll come round for you about eight,” I said when she finished. She gave me a smile so luminous and guileless that it was inconceivable that she would be engaged in clandestine expeditions.

  No, for once Old Vatrushkin had got it wrong. No doubt Lidia had sent the large closed coach because the small open one was away having its wheels balanced or something.

  But Old Vatrushkin remained an excellent coachman and got us safely to the countess’s palace that evening. The long driveway was illuminated by hundreds of flambeaux.

  “Now I see how things should be done,” said Lidia in a small voice.

  “Nonsense,” I said. “This is a vulgar new-build. Your mansion has Slavic class. Mine has Scottish solidity. I always reckoned the countess would go for baroque excess, but this isn’t even Rastrelli-garish, it’s sub-Rastrelli garish. Old Vatrushkin, when exactly did this monstrosity appear?”

  “A few months ago, to mark the count and countess’s return from exile into town.”

  “I thought so. They didn’t have time to get anybody reputable, so they hired some architecture student who wanted to create something edgy for their portfolio.”

  “Your words are unfamiliar and yet I think I understand your meaning,” said Lidia. “These caryatids–”

  I looked into the distance at the columns of storey-high unclothed female statues fronting the palace.

  “–I think they are the countess?” Lidia continued.

  “The countess when she was a few decades younger and many stone lighter,” I said.

  Above the caryatids was a frieze of vast medallions depicting the countess in profile, albeit with a substantially firmer jaw line and fewer chins. I was just wondering what egotistical eyesore would come next when I realised the carriage had stopped. The entrance was still a considerable distance away.

  “Why aren’t we moving, Old Vatrushkin?”

  “There is such a press of guests. This is the first party the count and countess have held, and everyone is anxious to see the palace and the–” He was overtaken by a fit of coughing.

  “Did you say protégé?” I asked, but he was still coughing.

  There was a massive queue of carriages in front of us. “It’s going to take hours to get to the entrance. You two stay here, and I’ll go and check the lie of the land.”

  “It is predominantly flat with a slight slope to the right,” said Old Vatrushkin.

  “It’s just an expression,” I said. “I mean I’m going inside.”

  “Of course, I quite understand that you wish to make your entrance unencumbered by me,” said Lidia humbly. “But when the carriage finally reaches the doorway, may I enter?”

  “Lidia, I wouldn’t dream of making my entrance without you,” I said. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  I jumped lightly out of the carriage, gathered up my evening gown to knee level and jogged my way to the front door, all in unobtrusive mode. The major-domo, resplendent in uniform, recoiled slightly as my shadow fell on him, but gave no other reaction.

  The tubby countess was everywhere. She was a set of golden nymphs holding torches. She was a series of plaster cherubs on top of every pilaster. She was a large marble neo-classical statue (though still not as large as the or
iginal) on the half-landing. The only place she wasn’t was in person at the top of the stairs, greeting her guests. The count, cadaverous, forbidding and unsmiling, stood alone.

  “So very kind of you to step into the breach after Madame Potapova’s party was called off,” chirped an elderly guest. “But where is our dear countess?”

  “Not here,” said the count. “Champagne?” He indicated a footman with a tray just inside the ballroom and the elderly guest toddled away.

  “I hope she is not ill,” said the next guest.

  “No,” said the count. “Champagne?”

  I glanced into the ballroom to see even more gilt and alabaster representations of the countess, reflected to infinity in the vast floor-to-ceiling mirrors, but still no actual countess. I edged along the corridor and went through the first door I could find, which turned out to lead into the count’s study. Even here, there was no escape from his formidable wife. On the desk was a vast marble bust of the countess, presumably the nineteenth-century equivalent of a framed photo. She was in the pose of a bashful maiden, which I was prepared to bet money she had never been. The eyes were modestly downcast, the lips had the trace of a shy smile. It was possible to be sure that it was the countess only because of the dimensions of the bosom, which kept the bust firmly anchored to the desk. I tried to move it to see if there was any clue to the sculptor who had so totally compromised his artistic integrity, but it wouldn’t budge. The count was lumbered with a perpetual reminder of his other half.

  I have remarkably acute hearing, and I picked up a distant sound that I identified as the countess shrieking. I crept out of the count’s study and tiptoed down the servants’ stairs towards the noise. I found myself in a drab corridor and sensed that the countess and the person she was shrieking at were just round the corner. It was too dangerous to go any further: being unobtrusive is fine when there’s a crowd or some other distraction, but I was pretty sure the countess would see me if I came any closer.

  “You slut! You hussy!” the countess was screaming. “You think because you’re an insignificant nobody that I don’t notice you?”

  “No, madam,” whimpered a female.

  “I see the way you concoct reasons to come into the room when he’s there, the way you try to catch his eye, the way you flaunt yourself in front of him! How dare you, when you know he belongs to me!”

  How odd, I thought, that anyone should be after the count. He wasn’t a looker and he seemed to have a pretty grim disposition. Perhaps the guilty party had a thing about father figures, and had had a rubbish father.

  “You will leave immediately and you will not pack your bags, since your bags and everything they might contain belong to me,” the countess went on. “You have nothing.”

  “Madam, you can’t mean–” came a disbelieving wail.

  “I can and I do. From this moment, you are no longer my maid. You are emancipated.”

  There was an outbreak of heartrending sobs. “Madam, madam, please – if you emancipate me, there is only one road open to me, and that is not one that any decent girl could take.”

  “And what would you know about decent girls?”

  “Madam, you can’t mean to send me away without anything at all!”

  “Indeed I don’t. Here!”

  There was the sound of a vigorous slap, and a renewal of the wailing.

  “Get out! You have delayed me long enough,” hissed the countess. “Tonight I take up my rightful role, unjustly postponed for twenty years, as a leader in society.”

  I fled, just before the countess appeared round the corner. I sprinted up the servants’ stairs, dodged past the count, and raced back to the carriage, which had scarcely moved.

  “Slight change of plan,” I gasped. “Old Vatrushkin, do you know where the servants’ entrance is?”

  He jumped down from the carriage to join me. “It should be at the back of the palace. I shall find it for you.”

  We headed off round the back, where there was not a flambeau to be seen, and wandered around in the darkness in search of an insignificant door. It was so insignificant that we failed to see it until it creaked open and a tear-stained figure stumbled out.

  “Hello,” I said. “I believe you’re looking for a job.”

  The figure raised its head to look at me with a mixture of suspicion, gloom and surliness. Never, despite a lifetime in Scotland, had I seen anyone who so perfectly merited the description of dour.

  “I know your sort,” said the countess’s erstwhile maid. “You want to sell me down the Bosphorus as an odalisque.”

  “In fact I don’t,” I said.

  A look of annoyance crossed the maid’s face. “Are you saying I’m not good enough to be an odalisque?” she said.

  I was about to embark on a discussion of whether being an odalisque was a desirable career choice but I had doubts as to whether the maid’s feminist consciousness was sufficiently raised to make the conversation meaningful. What was important was keeping her in gainful employment and saving her from inappropriate decisions.

  “I can offer you a job as a serf, in the capacity of a lady’s maid,” I said.

  “What did you do to your last lady’s maid?” she demanded mistrustfully.

  “Nothing. I’m new here, and I’m in the process of hiring staff. Perhaps you’d like to hear from one of my current employees? Old Vatrushkin, tell the lady what it’s like working for me.”

  “It is like living in paradise,” breathed Old Vatrushkin. “Her excellency is the kindest and most munificent owner one could hope to have; she is compassionate, gracious–”

  “I was thinking more of terms and conditions,” I interrupted. “It’s a five-day week, free board and lodgings, and twenty kopecks an hour for evening and weekend work.”

  “You’ll give me money?” said the maid, looking animated for the first time.

  Old Vatrushkin gasped. “No, no, no, your excellency, you must not give her money – she will only spend it.”

  “Old Vatrushkin, that’s not your concern. So, is my job offer acceptable?”

  “Yes, your excellency.”

  “Splendid. What’s your name?”

  The maid shrugged. “Don’t have one.”

  “What does the countess call you?”

  “‘You.’”

  “What does your family call you?”

  “Nothing pleasant.”

  I felt it would be too presumptuous for me to give the maid a name. “All right, we’ll work round it,” I said. “With or without a name, you’re hired.”

  Old Vatrushkin glared at her. “Express your gratitude to her excellency, you ingrate.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that, you unkempt lout! You’re just a coachman, I’m a lady’s maid.”

  Old Vatrushkin began to make a retort, but I interrupted in my prefect’s voice. “Not another word from either of you. There is no hierarchy in this household. We’re all Jock Tamson’s . . .” I stopped, unsure of how to Russify “bairns”.

  “We are all the children of Jock Tamson,” I said. “That’s an expression. The Reverend John Thomson was the minister of Duddingston Kirk until 1840. In fact, for all I know, he may be minister of Duddingston Kirk at this very moment.”

  I paused and waited for confirmation or denial of the date from my audience, but my order not to say another word was being taken seriously.

  “Anyway, he said of his congregation–” I paused again, unable to translate They’re a’ ma bairns. “–‘They’re all my children.’ Or it’s also possible that he had a number of children with his first wife, then married a widow with children, and had more children, and other people would say, ‘They’re all the children of Jock Tamson’. But that’s by the way. What’s important is that it has come to be axiomatic of the Scots’ support of social equity. So we all treat one another with respect
. And if you don’t, you know what I’ll do.”

  Panic in his voice, Old Vatrushkin whispered, “On your knees, girl! Beg her excellency’s pardon!”

  “Why?” she whispered back. “What will she do?”

  Old Vatrushkin gulped. “She will . . . she will emancipate us.”

  The maid sank to the ground, moaning. “No, I couldn’t survive being emancipated twice in one day.” She clutched at my pelisse. “Forgive me, your excellency, forgive me,” she gabbled. “I promise you will have no reason for complaint.”

  “Old Vatrushkin?”

  “Nor from me, your excellency,” said Old Vatrushkin, twisting his lamb’s wool cap in his hands.

  “Great. Old Vatrushkin will take you home and show you where everything is. I expect I’ll be home late, so don’t stay up. We’ll have a proper chat tomorrow.”

  I led them back towards the palace’s grand driveway where we found various horses whinnying and stamping, and coachmen shouting. The queue in front of us had disappeared, and the guests in the carriages behind us were getting restive. We rushed back, Old Vatrushkin leaping up to the driver’s seat and setting off at speed as I hauled the maid inside.

  “Lidia, this is my new maid. This is Lidia Ivanovna,” I said, and congratulated myself on my skill in navigating round the maid’s lack of name.

  A few moments later, flanked by Lidia, I made my official entrance, announced by the major-domo.

  The chubby countess, now standing beside her husband at the top of the staircase, raised her eyebrows as we approached.

  “Ah, little Lidia Ivanovna and the foreign lady who tried so hard to turn her evening into a success.”

  I always try to see the best in everyone, but the countess was making it very difficult.

  “You’re just in time,” she went on. “I would like you to lead us in some of your quaint Scottish dances in half an hour.”

  “Would you indeed?” I said. “I’m terribly sorry, Countess, but I’m afraid I can’t do that. Last night was a personal favour to my friend Lidia Ivanovna. I’m not an itinerant dance instructor.”

  From the countess’s expression, I deduced that she liked my tone just about as much as I liked hers. “I cannot–” she snarled, but what she couldn’t do remained unspecified as she caught sight of the next guest and gave a shriek of excitement.