Curse Not the King (17 page)

Paul looked and saw features which had begun to haunt his dreams, an irregular nose, and the wide, brown eyes which reminded him of a small, shy animal. Beautiful, no. But the lack of physical grace was something that he understood as gentle, sweet-faced Katya Nelidoff never would.

“I think you very pretty,” he said solemnly, and she turned away, playing with the embroidery on her skirt so that he shouldn't see the tears which filled her eyes.

“I shall miss you, when you go to Pavlovsk,” he continued slowly. “I, too, have been very happy these last weeks.”

She began to cry helplessly then, her narrow shoulders shaking, all her poor defences shattered by that simple sentence containing the one lie she longed to hear above all others.

“I think you very pretty.”

She saw them as they really were; two people with a common bond of unattractiveness in a world that worshipped beauty and flamboyance, both lonely, sensitive and proud. The great Prince, the nominal heir to a throne, was as desolate in his need as the plain maid of honour. And she fulfilled that need. Here in Gatchina life held a purpose for her, a dangerous purpose, perhaps, bringing the envy of the mighty in its train, but even if they dealt with her as other favourites had been dealt with throughout history, it would be worth the risk.

“I don't want to leave you … I can't, God pity me!”

For the first time Paul gathered her in his arms, murmuring words of comfort, acutely moved by her distress.

He took his own handkerchief out of his sleeve and wiped her face; as he did so he discovered that the feel of her body was stirring and agreeable. She had left him in peace all these weeks, content to sit by him, talking or in silence according to his wishes, engendering in him the luxury of mental ease. Until that moment he had been content with that, afraid to test her feelings by a more intimate relationship in the dread that he would find them wanting.

Her wretchedness was the assurance that he needed, and his hot blood quickened as he held her.

Catherine Nelidoff gazed up at him, her fine brown eyes still wet with tears, sensing that his attitude had changed, knowing with the instinctive subtlety of women that she had reversed the process and reached his senses through his heart.

Inexperience aided her then; a practised movement or a flattering phrase would have destroyed the opportunity in a second. But instead she stayed still in his arms and said nothing.

Her mouth was beautiful, he thought passionately, full lipped and curved in lines of generosity and feeling. Suddenly he bent and kissed her, gently at first, holding himself in check while his desire increased as she stirred and murmured in his arms.

For all her shyness she was extremely sensual and under the stimulus of his embrace, her passion for him broke.

Her hands caressed his face and caught fiercely at the lapels of his coat as he began to kiss her with unrestrained desire, aware that she offered him an outlet denied him since the death of Natalie.

So Catherine Nelidoff surrendered to him, blinded by love and without the assurance that he could protect her from the final consequences.

The first indication that the domestic truce of her marriage was about to end reached Marie Feodorovna in the mid-morning of that day. She was writing letters in her study when one of Paul's pages handed her a note.

It was brief and written with his own hand. In it, he wished her a good journey to Pavlovsk, with the added injunction to leave as quickly as possible. He also informed her that Mademoiselle Nelidoff would be remaining at Gatchina on his orders.

Marie Feodorovna sat rooted, the letter sliding to the floor.

She was to go, immediately … and her lady-in-waiting was to stay behind at Paul's command.…

“Oh, no!” she said aloud. “No.…”

When she recovered herself, and, blazing with fury, sent for the culprit, they found her room empty, and its occupant moved to another suite in the Czarevitch's wing, placed there out of reach by Paul.

There was nothing that the Grand Duchess could do, since he refused to see her, and only replied to her frantic notes by sending his own servants to expedite her packing and departure.

He stood by his window to watch her go, his face expressionless, until the last carriage disappeared from view, knowing that with the dismissal of Marie Feodorovna a turning point had been reached in his life.

By the end of the year rumours of a rift between Paul and his wife were so persistent that the Empress mentioned them to Potemkin, whom she had created Prince of Taurus the year before. The Court was in residence at the Wooden Palace in Moscow, and Catherine sat with her old friend in her study. It was a comfortable, almost domestic scene; the Prince's uniform coat hung over the back of a chair and his wig was pushed back from his forehead; he stretched himself in his favourite position on one of Catherine's cushioned sofas, helping himself and her to wine and sweetmeats which were placed at his elbow. He had aged and his fine muscular frame was soft and swathed in fat; bouts of gargantuan eating and sensual excesses had weakened his health, so that the Empress's beloved Grisha was often ill, and consequently very difficult and melancholy.

By contrast Catherine appeared in blooming health; her complexion was clear and ruddy, her shrewd eyes bright with an intelligence that no physical over-indulgence could dim. Rather she seemed to thrive on the mode of life that was sapping her old lover's strength. Catherine's lovers died or fell out of favour because their sixty-year-old mistress wore them out, but she remained alert, as avid for both pleasure and power as she had ever been.

“You know what's being said about my son,” she remarked, and Potemkin nodded, stuffing a sweetmeat into his mouth.

“M—m—m. This woman … Nelidoff, is his mistress. And he's neglecting the elegiac Marie. I can't say I blame him. She grows more tedious every year.…”

“I don't like it, Grisha. The reports are not encouraging. Until the appearance of this girl everything was going according to plan at Gatchina. He made it into a prison … you know, a fortress in the Prussian style, rigid discipline for the troops, who not unnaturally relieved their feelings on the townspeople and tormented them in turn. As for Araktchéief …”

“The military schoolmaster with a bent for cruelty?”

“The same … Grisha, he has made himself so hated, and through him, Paul Petrovitch, that the civilians for a radius of several miles are deserting to other towns and taking refuge where they can. It was all excellent. Another year or two and there would have been a deputation from my subjects
begging
me to rescue them from my son.… Now this Nelidoff creature worms her way into his bed, upsets Marie, who God knows never interfered and did as she was bidden, and begins nursing Paul out of his mad humours!”

“Her influence is good, then?”

“Damnably good. She intercedes for Araktchéief's prisoners, stops the public floggings that do Paul so much harm and appears to be flooding Gatchina with gentle sweetness.… She's an adventuress, of course; probably very clever, for if I remember rightly she's sallow skinned and plain.”

“What do you suppose she wants, besides the embraces of the Czarevitch?”

“Oh, most likely money, power, favours. In which case it might be possible to buy the little wretch away from him.”

Potemkin swung his legs off the sofa and sat upright.

“You say she's ugly, Catherine? How ugly?”

“A more just description would be the one I gave you, sallow and insignificant. Why?”

He frowned and bit his nails as he always did when puzzled or concentrating upon some problem.

“From my knowledge of your sex, my dear, I should imagine that if the lady is as unattractive as you say, she may prefer the limelight as mistress of the second personage in Russia to all the bribes that you can offer.”

“Before God, Grisha, you're probably right! Then what are we to do?”

“I suggest that we come down upon the side of morality and lend our support to the injured wife. Order Paul to take her back and surrender his little favourite into Marie's service as before. If she can't be bought, she can be persecuted, or if necessary frightened into retiring from Paul's household.

“Don't under-estimate the Grand Duchess, Catherine; she may be a fool and a poseuse, but I'll swear she will find ways to make Mademoiselle Nelidoff wish she had never been born.…”

The Empress's wishes were communicated to her son at Gatchina and his first reaction was to consign them to the devil. He stormed into his rooms, livid with anger, his face twitching convulsively, so that his gentle Katya shrank back appalled, hardly recognizing the man she loved. He stood before her, Catherine's letter crumpled in his fist, his eyes blazing as if he stared at some intolerable inward vision, his oaths and explanations turned into gibberish by the sudden onset of a violent stammer.

“Don't,” she begged him, terrified by his manner, “don't upset yourself … whatever it is, it doesn't matter; only calm yourself.…”

Even as she pleaded, the horrifying impression that he neither saw nor heard her became a certainty, as he brushed past her, and opening the door, shouted an order to the sentry who stood guard outside it.

When he returned she caught his arm, clinging to it despite his attempt to shake her off, rendered desperate by fear for him and by the necessity to deny her own suspicions.…

“Paul … Paul! Listen to me!”

He looked down at her, and his expression altered from anger to confusion, a confusion that melted into recognition and confirmed her dread that until that moment he had been unaware of her presence or identity.

“Katya.…”

He frowned, and encircled her with his arm, one hand pressed to his throbbing cheek, and she stared up at him in mingled tenderness and pain, knowing that he was trying to remember.

“I was so angry,” he said slowly. “Did I shout at you, Katya?”

“No, Paul, no. A message came from your mother … a letter. You still have it.”

He unclosed his fist, still holding her against him, and regarded the ball of tangled paper.

“Did I tell you what was in it?”

She shook her head.

“Let us sit down, my love. And before I begin, you're not to worry. I shall disregard every word of it.”

She sat in her favourite position on a stool by his feet, resting her head against his knee and was glad that he couldn't see her face as she listened.

“I am to go on living with my wife and to visit her at Pavlovsk. It seems there are rumours of a crisis in my household and my mother is concerned.… As for you, Katya, you are to return to your duties with the Grand Duchess.…”

“That's not as harsh as I expected,” she said at last and sat upright for fear that he should feel her trembling.

“Harsh! If you think that I am going to allow you to …”

“Please, Paul … don't get angry. Listen to me for a moment. I believe it's a fair solution; don't you see, the Empress might have banished me, imprisoned me! Instead, she offers us a way to be together without causing a scandal.…”

“Scandal … what is scandal to my mother? To the Messalina of the North! That's what they are calling her in Europe. Her name is infamous.… There is no vice that is not attributed to her.… Don't talk to me of scandal, Katya. This is another plot, another trick to deprive me of the slightest happiness. But she shan't have her way this time; no, by God, she'll not force me into Marie's arms and give you up to her to punish.… I sent for Araktchélef a few moments ago. We'll see how many men will be needed to fortify Gatchina.…”

She knew he meant it and her terror of what such an action would entail far outweighed her fear of the fate decreed for her by Catherine's order. One hint of rebellion, and all the force of that terrible maternal hatred would descend upon him and, justified before the world, deliver him to death.

“No.… For the love of God, Paul, what are you saying! They'd blow Gatchina and everyone in it to pieces in a few hours.… I beg of you, do as she says. Go back to Marie; we can still meet in secret.…”

“I am not listening to you, Katya,” he retorted. “Araktchéief will be here in a moment; then we shall see what's to be done.”

“If you do this thing,” she said firmly, “if you do it, I shall leave you. I swear it, Paul Petrovitch. I will go into a convent and never look upon your face again!”

He stared at her, surprised by the vehemence in her voice; and, recognizing the immovable obstinacy peculiar to the weak and pliable when they are roused, he faltered in his purpose.

“You couldn't do that; you couldn't forsake me when you know that I can't do without you. You make wild threats, my gentle love, because I've frightened you with all this.…”

“It's no idle promise!” she told him, and he knew that if it meant her death she would not bend. “You can't fight the Empress with any hope of winning; no woman is worth the madness that you contemplate, least of all me. Think of your heritage. Think what you would forfeit; your crown, the crown that all Russia knows is yours by right already! You are my Czar, as well as my lover.… No, Paul, you will be reasonable, and patient. If I can bear it, so must you.…”

“I will not have you suffer, Katya.”

“I won't; nothing can hurt me so long as I can come to you sometimes. Only promise that you won't desert me, and I can bear anything.”

That thought alone sustained her while she argued, for no one knew better than she what treatment to expect from Marie Feodorovna. It can be endured, she thought desperately. I have had weeks of happiness.…

Often, lying in Paul's arms, she had thought that death would not be too dear a price to pay for what he gave her, and smiled at her own morbid fancy, uneasy because the shadow of ill omen kept recurring.

By the time a timorous page announced that Araktchéief was waiting to be admitted, Catherine Nelidoff had won. Paul's capitulation left her exhausted rather than relieved and filled with such an access of terror that for one dreadful moment she almost threw herself into his arms, entreating him to defend her as he wished, to do anything rather than deliver her to the Grand Duchess. But the moment passed and she sat passive, one lifeless hand in his, when the door opened and that dreaded, bloody name sounded in her ears.