To Dream of Snow

by Rosalind Laker

  ‘Then we’ll dine together this evening.’

  Her refusal was firm. ‘Not tonight You’re in too uncertain a temper for me to feel relaxed in your company for a while.’

  ‘Then let it be in two days’ time. By then all the paintings in the gallery will be properly hung and I’ll be in an exuberant mood.’

  She laughed. ‘Very well. Why do you still buy and sell the work of other artists when you could paint all the time here in St Petersburg?’ she asked him. ‘Your portraits are always in demand and any landscapes or other scenes would be too.’

  ‘I admit my work here is profitable. The extra income is useful as it enables me to risk backing young artists whose work I believe will make its mark on the art world one day. Without my support they might starve and then their paintings would be lost for ever. There’s a young Dutchwoman among them, whose flower paintings are exquisite.’

  ‘Do you have any of her work here?’

  ‘Yes, there’s one. My assistants unpacked it today. I believe the Grand Duchess would like it and I intend to offer it to her first, which is why it will not be on public show at the opening, although you shall see it. There are also some French paintings that I bought when I was in Paris last November that you may like to see.’

  ‘You were in Paris!’ she exclaimed. ‘How did it look? Do you think much has changed since I was there?’

  He told her at length about his visit, for she asked him many more questions and it pleased him to answer them, although there was something he had been waiting the whole time to tell her.

  ‘I wish I had known you would be in Paris,’ she said at last. ‘Before you left last autumn I could have given you a letter for my former employer, Madame Fromont, whom I’ve spoken about sometimes. It’s such a very long time since I’ve heard from her and I only hope that the cause is the disruption in the post by war and not that she is ill or otherwise incapable of writing.’

  ‘I remembered all you had told me about her and I went to her address.’

  ‘You did?’ she exclaimed joyfully. ‘How very kind! Was she well?’

  He frowned. ‘That’s another reason why I wanted you to come today. I have bad news, I’m sorry to say. She had died the previous week.’ He saw immediately how much she was saddened by what he had told her, and he paused considerately before continuing what he had to say. ‘But the very pleasant woman who has been caring for her knew my name from your letters and went with me to vouch for my reliability to a lawyer. He gave me a letter for you.’ He took it from his pocket and gave it to her.

  She opened it in silence and read it through before looking up in astonishment. ‘Madame Fromont has bequeathed me her house and its contents in the hope that one day I’ll return to France and design for Versailles.’

  His face was expressionless. ‘How opportune. You’ll have a home waiting for you when you effect your escape.’

  She smiled sadly, her thoughts still with the letter. ‘Madame Fromont was always annoyed that the Comtesse d’Oinville would never reveal to other women the source of the clothes she wore to Versailles. Now through her kindness in providing me with a home in Paris it’s as if Fate is encouraging me to leave Russia at the first opportunity.’

  ‘It seems like it,’ he remarked dryly.

  She looked up brightly. ‘You could stay whenever you come buying in Paris! I should be so glad to see you.’

  ‘That’s most generous of you.’

  They met quite frequently as the weeks went by, but almost always in the company of other people, for she never knew when or if she was being watched night and day. She often saw, but chose to ignore, the question that lingered luminously in his eyes under his lowered lids. Yet to let him make love to her might set off events beyond her power to control and she wanted to avoid anything that could further complicate her life at the present time.

  Towards the end of July Marguerite arrived at his apartment for the first sitting for her portrait. To oblige his whim she wore a yellow silk gown that she had never worn before. Before coming she had removed her wedding ring and put it away. It was right that she should make a fresh start. A new beginning, Jan had called it.

  He took her straight into the finely panelled room that he had made his studio and where the windows gave good light, particularly at this time of year. She looked about observantly. Canvases were stacked against the walls and a handsome chair was set on a draped dais. A prepared canvas had been propped ready on its easel and on tiered shelves were flagons of oil and rows of jars containing coloured pigments. There were white and black, vermilion, a variety of browns, yellow, red ochre and several greens as well as azurite and smalt, both of which gave a deep-blue colour. A pestle and mortar stood on a table beside shallow bowls of colours already ground and mixed. His palette was lying in readiness. Containers holding brushes were right beside it and some paint-rags were at hand.

  She stepped on to the dais and settled herself in the chair. He came across to take one of her hands and rest it in her lap. Then he propped her elbow on the wooden arm of the chair before turning her chin slightly to the right. He stepped back to regard her pose professionally. ‘Are you comfortable?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  After that he took up his palette and selected a brush.

  ‘Here we go.’ He gave her a smiling glance before he disappeared behind his easel.

  He had told her once that he rarely spoke when he painted, although his sitters could talk as much as they liked. So he was as silent as she had expected he would be and it was wonderfully quiet in the studio.

  It was a time to be reflective. A spell in her busy life in which to think of many things. She thought first of Sarah. It was almost a year since she had heard from her, but there would be letters on the way somewhere. Tom had been absent at the time of Sarah’s writing. She had related proudly that titled clients had engaged him for projects months ahead, for a change was taking place in the world of great gardening. Sweeping landscapes with lakes, man-made or otherwise, had become fashionable for the parks of great houses in England, whole villages being relocated if they spoiled the desired view, so that Tom with his skills was greatly in demand. As for Sarah herself, she was happily helping to care for her brother’s children and even added that she scarcely had time to miss Tom.

  So it was as he had predicted, Marguerite thought, and with so many projects to fulfil, as well as the war making travel difficult, it was highly unlikely that he would ever return to Russia. She supposed that sometimes he would wonder how much of his plans, if any, was being used for the glassed-in roof garden on the new Winter Palace.

  Marguerite pondered over the intensity of relief that had swept over her when she had read that letter from England. Was it that she was still not totally sure of her feelings towards Tom and to see him again after a long time might ignite again that attraction between them as instantly as it had been aroused in that hostelry in Riga? At least she would never have to risk that test now.

  There would have been no call for him to create sweeping parkland at the new Winter Palace, as it was in the heart of the city and fast approaching completion. She knew the Empress had viewed each stage in its progress and it was said to be more magnificent than anything previously built in Russia, maybe in the whole world. Marguerite remembered how she had always had the conviction that she would see it finished. Now, unless she soon found an opportunity to escape the Empress before that day, it was likely to be her destiny.

  She had turned over in her mind many ideas for getting away, but each one had a flaw. Whatever way of escape she took it would have to coincide with the Empress being at a distance from the city, because she could not risk being sent for unexpectedly and her absence discovered too soon.

  Her thoughts turned to her Frenchwomen. With the exception of Rose, from whom no word had ever been received, all were totally comfortable with their lives in St Petersburg. Sophie was looking forward to the birth of her second child and was blooming in her pregna
ncy.

  As for Jeanne, life was being good to her and not only in her being reunited with her son Louis. When Agrippina had retired, the two sewing ateliers had been amalgamated and Jeanne was totally in charge. She had bought a pleasant apartment, where Louis was living with her. As he had been fighting with the enemy as a mercenary he would not normally have been taken on to the ship that had brought him to St Petersburg. It was as the battle had ended and he lay with his leg smashed by a bullet that he had had the wit to steal the coat of a dead Russian officer lying beside him, but with the comradeship of soldiery he had shoved the man’s identification papers into the corpse’s bloodstained shirt. Then, half-fainting with pain and loss of blood himself, he had drained his last strength as he struggled to put on the coat before losing consciousness. When he had recovered his senses he found he was minus his leg from the knee down. It had been hacked off by an army surgeon in a battlefield tent.

  Since he had called out in his own language during his delirium and with French being natural to an educated Russian officer, his true identity had never been suspected in the general turmoil. He had been given a crutch as soon as he began to make a recovery. Soon he had been shipped off to St Petersburg, never supposing there would be truth in the plausible reason he had given of having family there, for his one thought had been to reach some place where he could lose himself from the eye of authority.

  But that was all in the past and Louis had become quick and nimble on the wooden leg a palace carpenter had made for him. At Sophie’s suggestion Valentin had decided to employ him as an assistant in his pharmacy. Although at first it was only for selling potions and pills in the shop, Louis had become interested in the mixing and blending of herbal remedies as well as in the other ingredients used, an interest that Valentin was encouraging.

  Marguerite’s thoughts turned to Violette, whose curves had become more than ample from her rich and lazy living, for she no longer embroidered or made her own gowns. She now had more jewellery than she could wear, went driving in her own carriage with a coachman in livery and six black horses, had an even larger apartment than before and was still adored by her generous elderly lover, who was now a general. He had provided well for her in the event of his demise, which he thought was his own idea, not realizing that Violette had instilled it. If she took younger lovers from time to time he did not know of it.

  Only Rose’s fate was unknown, but Marguerite believed that, whatever troubles and dangers the girl encountered, she would come through it all to suit her own ends as she had always done previously.

  Jan took the rest of the summer to finish the portrait, for her sittings were spasmodic and long-standing orders for his work had to be filled. When she questioned him as to the progress of his self-portrait for her he made a quick excuse.

  ‘Pressure of work is delaying me. Be patient, because it would suit me much better to paint it at my Amsterdam studio during next winter.’

  She knew it was a reasonable request and did not question him about it again, knowing he would keep his word. In any case he would have to bring it to her in Paris if all went well for her in the meantime.

  He had not let her see her portrait before he had given it a final touch. It was September and the day before his annual departure.

  ‘Now,’ he said, taking her hand as she stepped down from the dais for the last time, ‘come and see yourself.’

  She was startled by the way her likeness seemed to breathe with life. Had a pulse throbbed in the throat it would have seemed perfectly natural. He had portrayed her looking slightly to the right as if someone had just spoken to her and there was a smiling look to her eyes. Maybe it was when he had broken his silence occasionally that he had managed to capture that look on the canvas.

  ‘Does it please you?’ he asked with a frown of concern when she remained silent.

  ‘Very much,’ she replied. ‘I’m just overcome by what you have done.’

  ‘It was not a hard task to paint the woman I love.’

  She shook her head slightly. ‘Jan . . .’ she began uncertainly.

  He made a dismissive gesture, his tone impatient. ‘Forget what I said. You have made up your mind always to keep us apart just because of someone you can never have.’

  She almost voiced a fierce denial, but she bit it back. For the moment, in all honesty, she was uncertain as to whether there was any foundation for his accusation. Abruptly he turned away and picked up her cape from a chair to hold it for her. She knew he had seen how he had caught her off guard, and his face was set. Yet she did not want them to part on a discordant note.

  ‘I’m also forgetting your last remark too,’ she said determinedly. ‘Tomorrow you sail home again. Let us part as friends. Say you will still come to supper with me this evening as we arranged?’

  He nodded stiffly, but did not smile. ‘I’ll be there.’

  That evening when Jan arrived Marguerite was relieved to see that he was his usual agreeable self, nothing of the anger in his eyes that she had glimpsed earlier. She had chosen a good wine and Marinka had prepared an excellent meal. Over it they talked non-stop as they always did. It was after the dishes had been cleared and Marinka had gone home that he stood looking at his own painting on the wall.

  ‘You haven’t realized yet what is missing in Morning in St Petersburg, have you?’ he asked.

  She had just seated herself, but she sprang up again and went to his side. ‘So there is something! I’ve always felt it. You’ve never mentioned it before. Tell me what it is!’

  He laughed and shook his head. ‘No, you have to discover that for yourself.’

  ‘At least give me a clue!’ she implored eagerly.

  He turned to her. ‘Is it so important that you should know?’

  ‘Yes! I’ve been continually tantalized by this beautiful painting and it has made me exasperated with myself many times for not being able to define its secret meaning.’

  His frown was serious as he looked down into her upturned, hopeful face. ‘Then you shall have your clue. It is in this one night when you shall not send me away!’

  His arms swept about her, almost lifting her from her feet as he crushed her to him, his mouth coming down on hers with such a force of pent-up passion that a thrill of voluptuousness swept over her, sending a violent tremor through her whole body. Without realizing it, she had became pliant in his arms, responding almost without her own volition by cupping his head in her hands as if to hold his kiss to her for ever. It was a sudden total abandonment on her part, for in spite of all her efforts against surrender he had brought her to the point of no return and she no longer wished to escape his sudden, ardent domination. A fierce yearning for him, long denied, possessed her utterly.

  She made no move as he began to strip her lovingly where she stood until, defeated momentarily by the tapes at the back of her bodice, he snatched up her scissors lying beside her sewing box and cut them through. Only when she was released from her garments, standing as naked as Venus rising out of the sea, did he take his time as slowly and sensuously he caressed her, his lips and hands travelling over her lovely curves and inlets while she stood like a poised dancer, hands softly by her sides, her head tilted back as she exulted in his tender exploration. When he lifted her up she looped her arms about his neck and rested her head against his shoulder. He carried her through into the bedroom, which had also been his in the past, and laid her on the bed.

  She watched him toss his own clothes aside and there was a wild turmoil inside her, a physical yearning of a force beyond anything she had ever experienced before. In total happiness she welcomed this strong and beautiful man, his muscles taut as ropes, into her warm embrace. For a few lingering moments he leaned on his forearms as he looked down into her eyes.

  ‘I have wanted to be with you like this since the first moment I saw you, my beloved.’

  Then his mouth covered hers again before moving to her breasts and he began making love to her with his lips and his hands, alternatin
g between infinite tenderness and a demanding adoration. The aura of candle-glow gave a golden bloom to their bodies as hers became as familiar to him as his own. When at last he entered her with a loving violence she clutched at him and they were swept away together into such a tide of ecstasy that she reared against him, her back arched, and cried out in her joy.

  He made love to her in many ways throughout their night together, the imminence of his departure in the morning giving intensity to this brief time they had together. Once when she was resting her head on his flat stomach after pleasuring him he stroked her hair with great gentleness.

  ‘Is it so impossible for you to speak of love to me?’ he asked quietly, his voice heavy with regret. ‘Not once in this whole night, not even at the height of passion when you abandoned your whole self to me. Yet I know the reason why. It has kept us apart in the past and it will ever be the same in the future. I fear, my beautiful Marguerite, that you’ll never come to the truth of the painting I did for you.’

  But she slept and did not hear him.

  Cherishingly, he drew her up into the circle of his arms and kissed her closed eyelids. After a little while she stirred to smile sleepily at him and he made love to her again, for it was almost time to leave her.

  He was dressed and about to wake her when she next opened her eyes. She sat up immediately, sweeping her hair back from her face. ‘Is it time for you to go?’

  ‘Yes. As you know, it’s an early sailing and I’ve left my departure to the last minute. But there’s something I have to tell you before I go.’

  His serious expression alarmed her. She swung her feet to the floor and reached for a robe to slip on. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your Englishman will soon be back in St Petersburg. He is presently in Moscow. I heard of his forthcoming return yesterday evening just before I came here. According to my source, the Empress has summoned him for his advice concerning the roof garden at the new Winter Palace.’

  ‘You knew and yet you didn’t say!’