Curse Not the King (18 page)

“M. Araktchéief, your Imperial Highness.”

He advanced into the room with measured steps, his shoulders back, his long arms stiffly at his sides, moving with the precision of a soldier on the parade ground. He was tall and deceptively thin, for that sparse frame was sinuous and powerful as a steel spring; for a moment his green eyes rested on her and the beetling black brows contracted with disapproval. He hates me, she thought and shuddered, unable to endure that freezing glance even for an instant. Abruptly he stepped before Paul and bowed low to him; then he inclined towards Catherine Nelidoff, and turned again to his master.

“Sir. You sent for me.”

Paul nodded.

“Yes, but since I issued the summons, Mademoiselle Nelidoff has persuaded me to a different course to the one I contemplated. However, my dear Araktchéief, there are some matters which we may as well discuss.”

He looked at the white-faced woman by his side, and his ugly face softened with tenderness.

“Go to your rooms, my love,” he whispered. “I'll join you in a little while.”

“You have promised, remember! You'll do nothing rash?”

“You have my word. Go now,” he said quietly.

When the door closed behind her Paul rose abruptly, his expression hardening, and turned towards the soldier.

“She has a gentle influence,” he muttered, and Araktchéief moved impatiently.

“It's not for me to discuss the lady with you, Sir.”

“No, Araktchéief; by God, I know you're no friend to women.… You're loyal to me, are you not?” he demanded suddenly, swinging round upon the other.

The soldier looked at him and an expression of extraordinary passion flashed across his features. It was as if a sudden light illumined that arctic countenance, as if a creaking robot proved to have a living soul; for a second the man whose unspeakable brutality had made him the most hated of all the savage pedants who surrounded Paul showed himself capable of fanatical devotion, a love so abnormal and so strong that his enmity for Catherine Nelidoff had its roots in bitter jealousy.

“To the last drop of my blood,” he answered.

“It is well, my friend. I need your loyalty. I need all men's loyalty, for my enemies begin to press their persecution of me.… I would fight them, Araktchéief, I would take up arms and die, rather than suffer any further at their hands.… But the Mademoiselle has entreated me to yield. And I have promised. So I shall not need your troops, my friend, not yet. Instead, give me your report.”

“My men captured two civilians creeping into the town of Gatchina this morning. I believe them to be spies sent here from Petersburg.”

Paul stared at him, and the colour drained out of his face; at the same time his left cheek became convulsed, the spasm tugging at the corner of his eye. Araktchéief, having learnt to recognize the symptoms, gave no sign.

“Spies, you say. Spies. Tongues have been wagging to my mother, Araktchéief … people have told tales.… I would discourage them.”

Suddenly his voice became a roar of rage, his blue eyes blazed, and the blood rushed up into his face.

“Where are they?”

“In the cells under the guard-room, Sir,” the officer replied, and his light eyes had begun to gleam, illumining his face until his expression seemed almost gay with some anticipation.

The Czarevitch was walking up and down, clenching his fists, tearing at his cravat as if he choked, watched by the silent figure of his garrison commander, whose punitive exploits had reached a climax on the day he tore off the ear of an offending soldier with his teeth.

“They shall be punished …” Paul said grimly. “They shall learn that it is dangerous to wrong their Czarevitch.… We'll make an example of them, Araktchéief, an example that may deter other traitors from spying for my mother.… Araktchéief!”

“Sir!”

“Assemble the garrison and as many of the townspeople as you can muster by to-morrow morning. Then bring out these swine and have them knouted till they die.…

That night Paul went to Catherine Nelidoff, soothing her fears with promises of his protection.

When he slept at last, she lay wide eyed and restless, pinned down by the weight of his head on her breast, tormented by doubt and terror for the future, listening to the sounds of activity that went on inside the palace and within the great courtyard throughout the hours of darkness and which continued long after daybreak.

But fortunately Catherine Nelidoff did not look out on to the scene which Araktchéief had staged so expertly; instead she nursed her lover, who woke moaning with pains in his head, and cried out for darkness, since the light streaming through the window was torture to his eyes.

He lay in his mistress's arms, fighting the blackness of suffering and despair, while the two innocent citizens of Catherine's realm were flogged to death in front of the entrance of Gregory Orlov's old pleasure palace. The watching crowd was silent, mesmerized by fear, and some among them remembered standing in these precincts nearly twenty years before, when the handsome, wealthy Orlov had been in the heyday of his love affair with the new Empress and the ground at their feet had been splashed red with wine flowing from free fountains, instead of growing damp with streams of blood.

8

In the apartments allotted to the Grand Duchess's ladies-in-waiting, Marie's confidante and childhood friend lay wide awake listening to a sound that penetrated through the wall of an adjoining room.

After a few moments Madame de Benckendorf, the Grand Duchess's “dear Tilly,” raised herself on one elbow, and turned towards a figure outlined in an adjoining bed.

“Anna!”

The second lady stirred sleepily.

“What is it? … I was almost asleep.”

“Be quiet a moment and listen. Now, do you hear anything?”

Tilly Benckendorf's companion opened her eyes wide and sat upright.

“Someone is crying. In the next room.”

Madame smiled triumphantly in the darkness.

“Yes,” she said. “It is our presumptuous little Nelidoff. I fear she isn't happy with us any more!”

Anna Zanova slid down underneath the bedclothes and she too smiled.

“It is really very entertaining; I never thought the Grand Duchess could be so vindictive. And I never liked the creature. It amuses me to help torment her. Listen to her! And she can't creep to the Czarevitch to-night either, for Irena is in there watching her.”

“It won't last,” the Benckendorf declared. “In the end she'll ask to be relieved. And she's being punished as she deserves, the sly little vixen, trying to supplant my mistress with that ugly fiend.…”

Anna Zanova blinked nervously and suddenly the prospects of sleep receded.

“Sometimes, Tilly, I wonder if he knows.… If she tells him how we treat her. He's so savage.… Some of the things that happen in the prisons at Gatchina … even I can't look at them, and God knows I'm not squeamish! Do you know, Tilly, if he ever finds out what goes on with the Nelidoff, I believe he'd have us torn limb from limb!”

Tilly Benckendorf shrugged irritably. The thought of Paul's reprisal had occurred to her often enough and quite spoiled her pleasure in bullying and hounding the helpless Katya Nelidoff. In spite of her unwavering viciousness towards Marie Feodorovna's rival, fear of the Czarevitch chilled her enthusiasm and even imposed some restraint in her dealing with the victim.

“He doesn't know,” she said sullonly. “She's too noble or too wise to tell him, since he can do nothing to spare her. And the Empress ordered a full reconciliation between him and the Grand Duchess. He's obeyed so well that she's pregnant, and I hope Mistress Nelidoff likes that!”

Anna Zanova pulled the bedclothes up to her ears and shivered.

“I wish I had your confidence, Tilly. I know he's submitted, but they say
she
persuaded him! And I don't believe he's really obedient. I think he's only waiting, waiting to spring on the Empress, on Marie Feodorovna, on all of us!”

“Hold your tongue, Anna! You know he is never going to succeed! The next Czar is Alexander, with the Grand Duchess as Regent.… Now go to sleep.”

Obediently the lesser lady-in-waiting turned on her side and said no more, but she lay with her eyes wide open in the darkness, aware that while Catherine Nelidoff wept into her pillow in the next room, her chief tormentor, Tilly Benckendorf, tossed restlessly on her bed.

It was a long time before either of Marie's faithful ladies fell asleep.

Catherine Nelidoff's early life had been characterized by dullness. Then the brief interlude of passionate attachment at Gatchina taught her the meaning of fulfilment and for a time she was transformed; even after the dreaded order to return to Marie at Pavlovsk, she met her lover with smiles and tenderness, and surrendered herself to his outraged wife with an outward resignation she was far from feeling.

But for all her courage, her loyalty to Paul and her determination to endure his wife's anger patiently, Catherine Nelidoff's spirit almost broke during that first year.

Every humiliation which the Grand Duchess or her spiteful, partisan household could devise was inflicted upon the woman Paul loved. The meanest tasks were allotted to her, and her duties were increased till she could scarcely stand with tiredness. Where she was concerned, the stolid, autocratic Marie Feodorovna proved to be a vindictive tyrant, burning with injured pride and malice, who encouraged her women to add their persecutions to her own. She didn't care if he were angry, she declared to her friend and chief lady-in-waiting, the sympathetic Tilly Benckendorf, he should not humiliate her with the Nelidoff now that they were reconciled and she was once again with child.

And for months, Marie Feodorovna pursued this course, until her physical state induced a sudden aversion to Paul, an aversion so strong that she shrank from his casual visits and gave way to tears and fainting fits if he sent for her at night.

It was Tilly Benckendorf who summoned Catherine Nelidoff and told her that the Grand Duchess wished her to accommodate the Czarevitch while she was indisposed; and it was Koutaïssof who played the pander once again and brought the maid of honour to his master's rooms.

On the way he whispered words of encouragement, aware that the hated Marie Feodorovna had made his protégée suffer to the detriment of her looks and his advantage.

“The Czarevitch is so unhappy, Mademoiselle,” he told her. “He has been like a man bereaved for all these weeks.”

She looked at him quickly, her eyes enormous in her white face; the flesh had melted from her cheeks, her throat and shoulders had become painfully thin and she started nervously at every sound.

“Damn that spiteful German bitch and her pack of shrews!” the valet said to himself. “The girl has gone to a shadow.…”

“Then he doesn't blame me for neglecting him,” she murmured. “Does he know I had no choice?”

“Oh, he knows, Mademoiselle,” Koutaïssof promised grimly. “I've seen to that.…”

“Thank you, Koutaïssof. I know you are my friend.…”

When Paul received her there was no time for words between them. She ran to him and threw herself into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably, while he kissed her with blind fervour.

Paul held her close, feeling as if his heart would burst with tenderness.

“My darling Katya,” he whispered, kissing her lovingly and without the impatient urgency of passion, once the mutual storm had risen to its climax and subsided.

“If you knew how I have missed you.… I was afraid you no longer wished to come to me.”

“How could you say that.… This separation has been torture. But there was never a moment.… They watch me day and night.”

“So Koutaïssof assured me. And when I sent for you, my love, the Benckendorf said you were ill and couldn't come. Katya?”

“What, beloved?”

“Has my wife been ill-treating you?”

It was a question she dreaded; even as she prepared to deny it, in order not to worry him she loved to the point of worship, the tears of weakness welled up into her eyes and her small body trembled in the circle of his arms.

She hid her face against his shoulder and lied.

“No, Paul. I promise you. I'm only unhappy because she keeps me from you. There is nothing else; I have my duties like the others, that's all.”

But later, when she had left him and gone back to her room, the Turkish valet sat at his master's feet and told him what the Grand Duchess and her women were inflicting on his mistress. Paul listened in silence, his ugly face suffused with blood, rage rising in his heart.

“She would have told me herself, Koutaïssof. She knows they dare not treat her badly.…”

“You underestimate her nature, Sir. I believe Mademoiselle fears to bring more trouble on you by revealing how the Grand Duchess abuses her. But I tell you the truth, Sir; I know how highly you regard her. I know you would never permit anyone to make her wretched.…”

“You shall be rewarded, Koutaïssof. And I shall pay a visit to my wife to-morrow morning.…”

By the end of the year Marie Feodorovna gave birth to a daughter. But before the confinement Catherine Nelidoff was installed in a private room within easy reach of the Czarevitch's apartments.

When the Empress was informed that her son's liaison was still unbroken, she surprised her intimates by losing her temper. The terrible placidity of Catherine in the face of death, sorrow or danger had become a legend, and the fame of it had spread through Russia and across the world. Nothing disturbed this amazing woman, nothing ruffled that smooth forehead or wiped the smile from her painted lips.

Wars, revolution, the defection of her lovers, even the death of Gregory Orlov had failed to induce any but the most dignified reaction or a becoming grief. But Catherine had an Achilles heel. One man could be relied upon to shatter the façade of calm and that man was her son. In the days of her love affair with Potemkin, she used to cry, to rage and despair like other women, but that period was half forgotten. The beautiful, sensuous Empress, who then had still been in the full golden bloom of maturity, had now become a corpulent old woman nearing seventy, who dressed simply, ate and drank frugally in an age of gluttony, and loved to play the doting grandmother with Paul's two sons. Only at night this domestic pose was abandoned, and the ageing Empress retired to her bedroom with a lover nearly forty years her junior.