by Ann Swinfen
Natasha shifted in her chair, and he realised that she had been sitting rigidly, as if frozen. 'So all this time he has been alive – still there – in St Petersburg.'
'He couldn't believe that you had survived. But I told him how you escaped, and showed him the letter you had written me about the anniversary celebrations. When he saw your signature, he knew I was speaking the truth. We talked until dawn the next morning.'
'Is he well? Is he strong?'
'He seems very well. His arthritic hip gives him pain, particularly if he sits still too long. Then he gets up and moves about to ease it. He's still working, because he enjoys it. He likes to meet the people who come into the shop to gossip. He is an artist too, in his way.'
'It is very difficult to take this in, doushenka. Petya still alive. An old man with a family. I saw him last, nine years old, lying in a pool of blood.'
Hugh gripped her hand firmly, and tried to divert her mind. 'Look at all these other photographs I took – the house, the children playing in the park, the model boats on the lake. I asked about the other servants too, as well as Fyodor. He knew nothing of them, apart from the fact that they had run away. Except for your nanny, your Nianyushka. The men found her later, hiding in the nursery – long after they were thoroughly drunk. They teased her for a bit – dressed her up in your mother's clothes – but they didn't hurt her. She came to Fyodor's father for help, but Petya didn't see her. He was hidden away. Fyodor's father found a carrier who was willing to give her a lift on his cart to her son's house in Povenets. As far as Petya knows she lived out the rest of her life quite safely there.'
Natasha gave a sigh, a small escape of air, but she seemed more relaxed. Hugh pulled out a second packet of photographs. 'I took pictures of Petya and his daughter, Marinka. Here they are. And he gave me some family photos. These are his twin grandsons when they were boys. Marinka married very young – only fifteen. This is the family of one of the grandsons, taken last year. He is a lawyer in Moscow. And the other one, with his wife and three daughters. They live only two streets away from Petya. He is a doctor. So they have both done well. The whole family suffered a good deal during the war, of course, in the siege.'
Natasha took up the pictures one by one, studying them intently. 'This one, the doctor, he looks like you.'
'I suppose he does. It is so strange, isn't it?'
'And you saw Petya when, exactly? Which day?'
'Three days ago. On Wednesday.'
'On Wednesday.'
'Unfortunately I had to be in Moscow on Thursday and Friday, to meet Potopov. I managed to have the photographs developed at my hotel in Moscow. Then I caught the plane back here. But I spoke to the two grandsons on the telephone. What would they be? My second cousins? And I've arranged to visit them all when I go back to Russia in the spring. I had a photograph of you in my wallet, and I left that with Petya. But he wants pictures of all the family.'
Natasha kept turning the photographs over and over, going back always to the one Hugh had taken of Petya just three days before.
Hugh took a final envelope out of his pocket. 'There is one last thing for you. Petya has written you a letter.'
* * *
Half a dozen people were slumped around the kitchen table when Hugh came in. Mabel and Katya had their shoes off, and Gregor had propped his feet up on the cooler end of the range. The cats, Picasso and Seurat, now pardoned, were curled up in their basket and Harry was sprawled on the flagstones in front of the range, exhausted by his first appearance on stage.
'Everyone else gone to bed?' Hugh asked, helping himself to a glass of brandy from the kitchen supply (of the same quality as the bottle in the drawing room).
'Peter and Birgit went an hour ago,' said Gregor. 'I think Peter bore up pretty well.'
'Nick and Sally are putting Bob and Chrissie to bed. Sarah woke up and demanded to come back to the "parpy".' Mabel laughed. 'I think she realised that she had missed something! Chrissie is thoroughly over-excited. She'll be lying wide awake. Eric has marched Olga off – she was falling asleep on her feet. And Irina is helping William get to bed.' Mabel smiled to herself. Irina had been quite fierce in saying that she could manage by herself.
Anya and Spiro were sitting quietly on the old oak settle, not paying much attention to the others, but Anya did look up and ask: 'Has Natasha gone to bed?'
'No,' said Hugh. 'She said she wanted to sit out under the copper beech a little longer, and think about the day.'
'But it's dark out there!' protested Tony.
'It doesn't seem so dark when you're outside. And she does have a lot to think about. Not just the anniversary party.' He stopped, and they looked at him curiously.
'I have been telling her about my visit to Russia, to St Petersburg. I found her old home and took photographs of it.'
'You found Natasha's old home! Still standing? That's amazing,' said Katya.
'Yes. And I found something else. Natasha's brother didn't die. In fact he's still alive. I met him.'
'Her brother Petya?' Katya gaped at him. 'Then – that means he's Prince Greshlov now.'
'No, Katya, he is a watchmaker called Fyodor Petrovich. That has been his name for nearly eighty years now, and he's happy for it to stay that way. But he has written a letter to Natasha. I think she wants to be alone for a little, while she gets used to the idea.'
'That's all very well,' said Mabel, getting up stiffly and walking across the kitchen to a cupboard beside the range. 'But she is a very old lady and she will be getting chilled. Katya, take this rug to wrap round her knees if you can't persuade her to come in.'
* * *
'Is that you, Katya?'
'Yes. I've been sent to fetch you in, or – if you won't come – to wrap you up in this rug.'
Natasha laughed. 'Very well, doushenka, you can wrap me up like a plaid parcel.' She sat patiently while Katya tucked the rug around her.
'Is this the house?' asked Katya curiously, tilting the photograph to catch the light of the lamp. 'It looks as big as Buckingham Palace.'
'Oh, no. Nothing like as big. And even chillier in the winter than St Martins, although we had dozens of servants to stoke the tiled stoves in every room, and make up the fires in the fireplaces.'
'It must have been very different from nowadays.'
'Very different. And yet to my sisters and Petya and me, growing up like that, it seemed quite normal. Looking back, of course, I can see what an unjust society it was, even though my parents were very liberal, politically, and my family had given their serfs their freedom three generations before.'
'But what came afterwards was awful, wasn't it? We learned a bit about it at school – Stalin and the purges, the labour camps, the executions.'
'Yes, that also was bad. And who knows what will become of them all now?'
'Which one is Petya?'
'Here he is.' Natasha handed her a photograph. 'It's difficult to recognise the little boy I knew, but his hair always did stick up like that.'
Katya studied the photograph in amazement. She had a whole family in Russia. And they couldn't even speak to each other in the same language. She laid down the photograph and began looking at the others. 'This is the garden, is it? And that's the lake! Look, that's the lake you told us about!'
'Yes, see – there are still people having fun on the lake.'
'I almost can't believe it.'
'I almost can't believe it either, doushenka.'
Katya put down the photographs. 'What are these two big envelopes? Is this something else Uncle Hugh brought from Russia?'
'No,' said Natasha. 'That is something altogether different.' She laid her hands on the envelopes and stared away over the garden to where the dying embers still glowed on the barbecue.
'Child, will you do something for me?'
'Of course!'
Natasha looked carefully first into one, and then into the other stiff white envelope. They had no writing on the outside, and they were unsealed. She handed one to
Katya.
'Run down and put this on the last of the fire in the barbecue, will you, Katoushka? Poke it well down and make sure that it burns away.'
Wonderingly, but without a word, Katya took the envelope and did as she was told. The barbecue implements were still lying on the ground. She picked up a long-handled poker and pressed the envelope down hard against the last crumbling embers. At first it only charred sulkily, then the paper caught and an orange flame leapt up suddenly towards her incautious hand. She batted at the blackened frill of paper until the last of it had turned to ash, then she laid the poker, still hot, on the wire shelf under the barbecue and climbed back up the ha-ha to Natasha.
'It's burnt away to ashes.'
'Thank you, doushenka. Now off you go to bed. Isn't it good that you and your mother are coming to live here?'
'I can't wait,' said Katya, giving her a hug and planting a warm kiss on the thin cool cheek. 'Good-night, Natasha. Sleep well.'
* * *
'It's a girl,' said Frances, coming in the kitchen door at the same time as Katya. 'They're going to call her Natasha.'
'Wonderful,' said Mabel. 'I am glad. Where's Paul? Did he stay at the hospital?'
'No, he came back with me, but he's gone to telephone his parents – it's their very first grandchild, of course.' She looked around. 'Has Natasha gone to bed? I wanted to tell her.'
'I can't persuade her to come in,' said Katya, turning to Mabel. 'I did try.'
'She isn't still outside?' Frances looked around at them in concern.
'You know how stubborn she can be,' said Mabel. 'Not unlike you, Frances.'
'Well, I'll go and be stubborn with her now. I won't take no for an answer.'
'I'll come and back you up,' said Hugh, pushing back his chair. 'And I'll explain why she wanted to go on sitting alone for a while.'
As they crossed the lawn, in and out of the chessboard of moonlight, Hugh told her the story of Petya. Frances stopped abruptly in the middle of the lawn and stared at him.
'It's beyond belief.'
'It's true.'
'So when Natasha was painting in Paris, when she and Grandpa were helping Peter make his début in London, when we came here as children . . . when we were growing up and you went away all over the world and I was bringing up my children . . . all that time, Petya was sitting quietly in St Petersburg or Leningrad or whatever, being a watchmaker?'
'Most of the time. He served during the war against the Germans. But he was shot in the hip quite early on, and invalided out. That's the hip that still gives him trouble. Then they went through the siege and his young son-in-law was killed. His wife died of pneumonia and starvation. He was left with just his daughter and the two little boys. They're about our age – a little younger.'
In her chair under the copper beech they could see the dim outline of Natasha's figure, her piled-up hair still thick and beautiful in the moonlight.
'She must be feeling . . .' said Frances. 'I don't know what she must be feeling. She loved him best of all of them, you know. It's like a resurrection.'
They walked slowly on. Natasha sat very still.
'Perhaps she's fallen asleep,' said Hugh. 'I'll carry her back into the house.'
Only one oil lamp was still alight on the table. Beneath it Hugh's photographs were lined up neatly, and below them was Petya's letter. Natasha's hand was resting on a long white envelope, across which a single word, 'Frances', had been scrawled with a shaky hand.
Hugh bent down to lift her, but Frances suddenly stiffened and gripped his arm. The moonlight caught Natasha's eyes, which were blank and open. She was not breathing.
'Oh, God,' said Hugh. 'I've killed her.'
* * *
Frances refused to leave Natasha while Hugh went to break the news to the others and start telephoning. 'I can't leave her alone,' she said. 'Soon she'll be alone for the rest of time.'
She knelt down in the grass beside Natasha's chair, where the dew was pearling the grass in the moonlight, and took her grandmother's hand in hers. For a long time she gazed out over the garden, and the rise of the meadow beyond. The night was so still that she could even hear the chatter of the Ludbrook at the far side of the meadow. The day filled her mind, a patchwork of emotions and gestures, of things said and not said.
She had turned frantically to Hugh, when they were sure that Natasha was indeed dead. 'There were three things. She said there were three things.'
'What are you talking about?' Hugh was shaking.
'She said there were three things she wanted me to do for her, but she only told me two. What was the other thing? What am I to do?'
They opened the white envelope, and found it contained Natasha's will, and a short note addressed to Frances:
If you are reading this, doushenka, it means that I have left you, and I have destroyed my other will. The arrangements in that will are now of no importance. Apart from some small bequests, I am leaving St Martins and all my property to you. I know that you will manage matters as I would wish. I hope you will also live here, and carry on the work I have tried to do for the last half century. And I hope that you will see it as a new beginning, as an opportunity, and not as a burden.
The letter was dated two weeks previously.
'Could this be the other thing she was going to ask you?'
'I don't know. How can I know?'
'Do you suppose she has destroyed this other will she mentions? What is this all about?'
'Perhaps Nick will know. His senior partner is her solicitor.'
There were voices now, and torches, approaching from the house. Frances laid her head against Natasha's silk skirt. 'You never gave me a chance to say thank you,' she said, 'for giving me another chance.'
* * *
Two hours later, they were sitting exhausted in the drawing room. The curtains were undrawn and the windows looked black and cold. At some point they had migrated here from the kitchen, perhaps when Tony had carried in Natasha's chair and placed it in its usual position beside the window. They avoided looking at it. The doctor had been and gone. The ambulance had taken Natasha away. Mabel, struggling to stay on her feet had collapsed suddenly and been put to bed by Frances and Anya. They had decided not to waken Irina and William.
'Time enough in the morning,' said Hugh. 'It might just set Dad back again. There's no need to upset them tonight.'
Tony had fetched Nick over from his house, but persuaded Sally to stay with the children.
'Yes, I know there were two wills,' said Nick, looking at the envelope Frances had handed him. 'Brian was worried about it, and told her she shouldn't do it, but she said she wasn't quite sure how things would work out. He warned her it could cause a lot of trouble. How can we be sure she has destroyed the other will?'
'She didn't,' came an unhappy whisper from the corner behind the door. 'I did.'
They all turned to look at Katya, who was huddled on the floor, clutching a cushion in her arms in front of her like a shield. She stared at them. Her eyes were black with fatigue. 'Natasha gave me another white envelope, just like that one, and told me to burn it on the barbecue, till there was nothing left but ashes.'
'When?' asked Nick.
'When I took the rug out to her. It didn't seem important. I mean, she just told me to burn it, as though it was waste paper.'
'I don't know what I should do,' said Frances. 'What do you suppose the other will said?'
'It doesn't matter now,' said Hugh. 'This is the will Natasha wanted to leave. We all understand that.'
'That's quite right,' said Nick. 'In law, this will is the only one that has any validity.'
There was a sudden gulping sob from the corner. 'It's all my fault. She wouldn't have died if I'd made her come back into the house with me.'
Frances knelt down on the floor and put her arms around Katya. 'Darling, of course it wasn't your fault. Any more than it was Hugh's, for bringing her such joyful news. Natasha had a heart condition. She knew she could go at any time.'
'Then we shouldn't have allowed her to have the anniversary party,' said Anya, whose face was blotched and tear-stained. 'If anything killed her it was the strain of today.'
Frances smiled sadly and shook her head, looking round at all of them. 'Don't you understand? It was a wonderful day for her. It marked the culmination of all that she has worked for, all her life. We were all here. And Hugh brought the news about Petya. If ever anyone died of happiness, then that is why Natasha died. But I think she just knew that she was finished with the business of living.'
'Frances is right,' said Gregor, who had been sitting silently by the window, half hidden by the long curtain. 'This was the crown of Natasha's days. We may grieve, but she wouldn't have wanted us to. She went fulfilled and joyful.'
* * *
They drifted off to bed, one by one, till there was no one left but Frances, Gregor and Hugh. They had made tea, and then Hugh had poured brandy, but neither Frances nor Gregor had touched theirs. Hugh looked as though he was sleepwalking. The moon was throwing a great shaft of silver light through the windows, but otherwise they had no light on but a small table-lamp near the fireplace. Hugh leaned his head back in his chair and closed his eyes.
For some time Frances and Gregor sat in silence, preoccupied. Then Gregor held out his hand to Frances, whispering so that he would not wake Hugh. 'Come with me. I want to show you something.'