Curse Not the King (15 page)

So Paul moved into Gatchina, the great marble palace built for his mother's lover, the man who had helped to kill his father; and with him went a larger retinue of gentlemen and servants.

Among those was a nobleman of Tartar blood, the cynical, clever courtier Rastopchine, who had joined the Czarevitch's household against his own interests, because a quixotic streak of his nature sympathized with the fallen and despised the easy luxury of Catherine's Court. He was a curious, rather silent man who had managed to win Paul's confidence over the years, and the friendship strengthened in spite of Marie Feodorovna's jealous disapproval.

But the most evil influence in the household was also the most influential. A former Cadet Corps instructor named Alexei Araktchéief was transferred to Paul's service because of his brutal record, and he was joined by a low-born Turk called Koutaïssof.

The stiff, military despot, Araktchéief, his nature rigid with self-imposed discipline, whose ferocity to his underlings amounted to calculated sadism, was placed in command of the troops who were to keep order in Gatchina and the surrounding countryside. He entrenched himself in Paul's good graces by fanatical loyalty and blind obedience. He was a monster of cruelty, but his methods proved efficient; they transformed the savage collection of ruffians the Empress had allowed to enlist with her son into a highly trained force of men, men who obeyed the neglected Czarevitch as if he were already Czar of Russia, men who guarded him so that for the first time in his life he felt secure.

Koutaïssof became Paul's valet. He was cunning and ruthless, consumed with greed and the need to rise above his subservient station by any means available. He flattered his master, anticipated his slightest wishes, and loathed the Grand Duchess, who treated him with typical Nordic disdain. He was no soldier, no smooth-tongued courtier, but he was confident that his opportunity for usefulness would come. It came in the middle of 1788, just twelve years after Paul's second marriage, and it brought the precarious structure of his dull domestic life with Marie crashing into ruin.

BOOK TWO

Curse Not The King

7

Marie Feodorovna sat in her music room at Gatchina making notes, while one of her ladies sorted out a pile of compositions and another read aloud in French. It was typical of Marie's methodical routine that no opportunity for cultural improvement should be lost, and while she muttered over her list she half attended to the reader's droning voice, nodding at intervals as if she appreciated and understood.

At last she raised her head and signalled the reader to stop.

“There, everything is arranged for to-night. You haven't forgotten the list of guests, have you, Anna?”

“No, Madame, I have it here, do you wish me to read it to you again?”

“No, that won't be necessary. They're all coming, aren't they? Including that horrible Araktchéief, I suppose; still, I had to invite him. Oh, someone must go to the Czarevitch and tell him I shall dine privately as I want to rest before the concert.… Who'll go to him? Well, in Heaven's name don't look so nervous; he objects to pages coming with personal messages from me and somebody has got to tell him.…”

“I will go, Madame.”

Marie turned to look at the speaker and raised her light eyebrows contemptuously. It was the Nelidoff, of course, always willing to run errands, mild, stupid little creature; her gentle obedience and self-effacing airs always irritated Marie, who only wished to be surrounded by attractiveness and wit. Slight, dark-eyed Catherine Nelidoff possessed neither of these qualities, added to which she was an old maid of thirty without even a romantic scandal to her credit.

“Very well, go then, but hurry; I have things for you to do!”

The maid of honour slipped out of the room and began walking quickly along the dark, tapestried gallery which led to Paul's apartments.

Thank God for those messages of the wife to her husband, messages which brought her into his presence and permitted her to see and speak to him alone. Though the occasions were rare and their duration brief, though he seldom looked at her or seemed aware that she existed, the insignificant lady-in-waiting lived for those encounters. She moved with remarkable grace, a grace that found expression in a talent for dancing that was preserved in an old painting commissioned by the Empress years ago after a performance by the childish Nelidoff had caught her notice.

But there was little dancing at Pavlovsk, where the Grand Duchess still spent several months, and none at all at Gatchina. She glanced round her at the dismal, Spartan furnishings and shivered; it was so gloomy, more like an enormous barracks than a home, its courtyard echoed to the tramp of soldiers, all day long the guards were being changed, companies were being drilled … and there were some days when she dared not Took out of a window because some wretched criminal was being publicly flogged for an offence. Yet she preferred it to Pavlovsk, and though she shuddered in its atmosphere, she understood it, whereas the heavy, cloying air of Marie's Teutonic residence depressed her unbearably.

Pavlovsk was hideous, hideous in its attempt to appear tasteful: every piece of furniture, every ornament and painting was a clumsy sham, a replica of someone else's treasure. The gardens, which might have been beautiful left in their natural setting, were flattened and carved into the semblance of a French Tuileries.

Everyone in it was bored to death except Marie Feodorovna, and the Czarevitch was the most ill-at-ease of them all.

The Nelidoff paused before the entrance to his private suite, her way barred by two sentries of the Gatchina garrison, two snub-nosed Russian peasants, their bodies buttoned into elaborate Prussian uniforms, grotesque with powdered hair and monstrous conical hats. They recognized her and let her pass, springing back into position like clockwork toys.

A page directed her to his bedroom and she entered quietly, curtsying to the ground.

It was a large high-ceilinged room, dominated by two objects, the big canopied bed that stood in the centre and a huge portrait which hung on the wall opposite the bed, so that it was the first object on which the sleeper's eyes would rest when he awoke.

Catherine Nelidoff recognized the picture only too well; the irregular features, bulbous head and half-witted expression of Peter the Third were painfully familiar to the inhabitants of Paul's household. Quickly she glanced away, and Seeing the Czarevitch seated before the fireplace, she advanced towards him.

He sat with his back to her, aware that she had entered, unable to turn round, because a servant was leaning over him, laying cold cloths on his head.

The servant looked up at her with inquisitive black eyes, and she recognized his valet, the Turk, Koutaïssof.

“Who is it?” Paul demanded.

“Mlle. Nelidoff, your Highness.”

The valet answered for her, watching her intently.

“Tell her to come round where I can see her.”

She approached him, careful to tread lightly, for his attitude was rigid with pain.

“I have a message from the Grand Duchess, your Highness,” she whispered, and he opened his eyes with an effort and looked at her. For an instant she sustained his glance, noting the terrible pallor and strained expression, before the treacherous colour dyed her olive skin and forced her to look down.

“What is this message, then?”

“The Grand Duchess begs you to excuse her from dining with you this evening; she wants to rest before the concert.”

He frowned and pushed back the compress from his forehead.

“What concert … what is she talking about …?”

“A musical evening. Sir,” the valet told him, never taking his eyes off Catherine Nelidoff's face. ‘“You were to attend, don't you remember …?”

“Oh, God.… Yes, I remember. Well, since you're here, Mademoiselle, you may inform my wife that I have another headache and cannot be present. Also I excuse her from coming to dine with me.”

“Yes, your Highness.”

She curtsied again and backed out of the door, which a page closed silently behind her. Koutaïssof stared after her for a moment and then bent over his master.

“Sir … will you excuse me for an instant … only an instant?”

Paul motioned with his hand for him to go, and then closing his eyes, relaxed in the chair, fighting the pains that tore through his brain.

The Turk caught up with her in a deserted corridor, still within the confines of the Czarevitch's suite, and seeing the slow walk and drooping shoulders, smiled momentarily before he spoke.

“Mademoiselle …”

She swung round, startled by the disembodied whisper, and seeing him, raised a hand to her eyes, which were quite red with recent tears.

“I must speak to you,” he said urgently. “Please, Mademoiselle.”

“What is it?” she asked him. Without answering he opened a door in the tapestried wall and motioned for her to enter a small ante-room.

“If you will come in here … I cannot speak where we might be overheard.”

For all her timidity Catherine Nelidoff was curious; also he served the Czarevitch; it might be that Paul had sent him.…

“I speak on behalf of the Czarevitch,” the valet said suddenly and saw that her pale face flamed at the mention of that name.

“Speak then, for the love of God!”

“He's sick, Mademoiselle. Very sick. These headaches are more frequent and he suffers greatly.”

“I know,” she murmured, and her eyes filled with tears, so that she turned away and would not look at him.

“I love him,” Koutaïssof continued. “I would give my life to serve him. Therefore I lay it in your hands, and come to you.”

She swung round on him then. “You come to me? But why … what can I do? … I am helpless, Koutaïssof. I have no friends at Court.”

“I know that, Mademoiselle, and I come to you for aid of a different kind. I say that I love my master. I will say more. I believe that you, too, are devoted to him.”

For a moment there was silence, while Catherine Nelidoff's heart pounded in mingled terror and determination. Then she faced the valet, her hesitation passed.

“I am,” she said quietly. “Like you, I would give my life.…” Koutaïssof's narrow black eyes considered her, mentally appraising her attractions.

She was certainly not pretty, he reflected, but delicately made, with small hands and soft eyes. And her mouth was good; it was full and naturally red, and his considerable experience recognized that such a mouth bespoke sensuality. Perhaps even a virgin, he thought, and his confidence rose. It might be accomplished, if she was as love-sick as he thought her.

“The Czarevitch needs the affection you could give him. He needs a woman's comfort, Mademoiselle, and I know that you have already found favour in his eyes. Will you not come to him?” he asked her.

She had begun to pace the room while he was speaking, and seeing her wipe her eyes he knew that she wept. Again her reaction pleased him. Emotion was what his master needed after the stolid embraces of his hated wife. This gentle, sensitive creature could afford him boundless pleasure, and by reason of her nature, she, as well as Paul, would remain for ever in the valet's debt.

“What can I do, Koutaïssof?” she whispered through her tears. “I confess that I love him; that I have loved him for years, watching while he married two women, neither of whom were worthy to approach him!”

“Two women? You knew the first Grand Duchess … Natalie?”

“I was among her ladies. But no one noticed me; they just passed me into the service of her successor … I don't think he knew I was alive.… Now you say he needs me. Oh, Koutaïssof, help me!”

He came close to her then.

“I will help you, Mademoiselle. Do nothing until I give the word. And remember, you can trust me.”

She was so late in returning to the Grand Duchess that Marie rebuked her severely, and dismissed her to cry in her room for the rest of the evening. But instead, Catherine Nelidoff lay in bed and dreamt wild dreams, dreams in which the central figure of Paul Petrovitch no longer viewed her from a distance, but approached close to her, his arms extended, asking to be sheltered, and finally slept with his head on her breast.

For three days the Czarevitch was ill; his head pained him and he remained in his rooms, sitting in silence before his father's portrait for hours on end, the victim of intense melancholy. Koutaïssof never left him; he served his master's food, barbered and dressed him, and persuaded him to go to bed at night.

And in the stillness and gloom of that strange sickroom, he whispered and hinted into Paul's ear, knowing that though he said nothing, the Czarevitch heard well enough and would remember.

On the evening of the third day, Paul Petrovitch left his chair and began to move around his room, one hand pressed to his forehead in the habit of pain.

“It's passing,” he murmured to himself. “Thank God, it's going away.…”

He felt for the furniture as he walked, his inflamed eyelids half closed against the feeble light of a few candles and the brighter glow of the fire, and he stepped quietly with the instinctive care of a man who had known many hours of semi-blindness.

At last his groping hand found a small toilette mirror; it was too dim to see his own reflection and he moved towards a double candlestick, shielding his eyes with his fingers.

“I must look,” he said aloud. “It will hurt for a moment, but I must see myself.…”

With an effort he opened his eyes and stared at his own reflection in the glass, the light of the wax candles illuminating his face.

The skin was bloodless and stretched tightly over the prominent brow and cheekbones; two deep lines of pain were cut across his forehead; his eyes, so fine and out of all proportion in their expressive beauty to the rest of that ravaged countenance, were red-rimmed and half closed against the light.