Polonaise (20 page)

Glynde was walking by himself in the summer gardens one bright June morning when he saw the tall figure of the Tsar approaching. Alexander did not enjoy the unpopularity that had grown steadily through the winter and mostly shut himself up in his summer palace, visiting only his mistress and his wife. Glynde expected to be ignored, but this time Alexander paused beside him with a friendly smile, and head inclined as usual to favour his deaf ear. ‘All alone, Mr. Rendel? Where is your young American friend?'

‘He's hard at work, sire, arranging for what trade he can.'

‘And you, Mr. Rendel, what news have you of your friend Lord Leveson Gower? Is he sad that the peace negotiations between your country and France have come to nothing?'

‘I've not heard from him yet, sire.'

‘Ah, the mails … the everlasting mails. How much we blame on them.'

‘Yes.' It was too good a chance to miss. ‘Mr. Warrington and I have been hoping for news of the Princess Ovinska, but communication with Vilno seems unusually slow.'

‘She's at Vinsk with her husband?' A shade of something flickered across the handsome face. ‘If I decide to go west this autumn I must most certainly pay them a visit. Perhaps you would care to accompany me, Mr. Rendel? I miss your friend Lord Leveson Gower sadly, though I must not say so. It is restful to be with someone who does not flatter.'

‘I should be more than honoured, sire.'

‘Miriam?' An unsigned note had summoned the Princess to this assignation at a corner of the long walk, invisible from the house. ‘Forgive me,' she went on. ‘I do not know your other name.'

‘You know what it should be. He told me he had told you.'
Her hand was cold in Isobel's. ‘I have been hoping to meet you like this. Where no one can see. No one must know. I can trust you?'

‘Surely the boot is on the other foot?'

‘I beg your pardon?' They were speaking French, and the English idiom baffled her.

‘I'm sorry. I meant, surely it is I who have cause to fear you?'

‘No need. But remember, I love him. You don't.' It was not a question.

‘No. I liked him at first. Now, he terrifies me.' She was still holding the other woman's hand, staring at her. ‘You're very beautiful.'

‘So he thought. Once.' Dark eyes met dark eyes.

‘The strange thing is … You remind me of someone.'

Miriam laughed, harshly. ‘Yourself. We're cousins, Isobel. I grew up on your grandfather's estate at Grodno. His grand-daughter. If I was not a Jewess, born on the wrong side of the blanket, I would be a Sobieska like you. Prince Ovinski knew that all the time. Before I did. My parents never told me. Only when I married – thought I married –' she corrected herself, blushing crimson. ‘My mother was dead, my father away,' she went on painfully. ‘I was so much in love. He said – the Prince – that it was our chance. It had to be in secret because I was Jewish. I'm proud to be Jewish.' The black eyes flashed.

‘Yes?' Isobel was increasingly aware of the tie of blood between them.

‘I didn't know the marriage service. I never did understand what was left out, but it was enough. I've been his chattel ever since. And I still love him. It's not for you I am doing this, Isobel; it is for him.'

‘Doing what?' Isobel looked anxiously down the long walk, recently cleared of late snow.

‘He's out hunting. No fear of being interrupted. But you're right to be cautious. Come in here.' She pulled her into an alcove with a rustic bench. Too cold to sit; they stood facing each other. ‘Have you sent for the little Prince yet?'

‘No. I said he wasn't well enough. That it must wait until the roads dry out after the thaw. That I'd send then.'

‘Don't. If he comes, I think he will die. An accident. I don't
want the Prince to have the child's blood on his hands. Even for the sake of my own children. Is Casimir his son?'

Once again, black eyes met black eyes squarely. Then, ‘No one will ever know,' said Isobel.

‘And he's not chancing it. I can understand that. It's like him. He doesn't take chances. I think you should go back to Rendomierz, Isobel.'

‘He won't let me.'

‘I'll try what I can do. A few jealous scenes, perhaps? They sometimes work.'

‘You have no cause.'

Miriam smiled. ‘I know. I'm sorry for you, Isobel.' She sounded immensely older.

‘Your sons? I'd like to see them. How old are they?'

‘Six and four. Michael and Jan. If he wants you to see them, you will. You and I must not meet again, unless he wishes it.' For her, Isobel saw, there was only one ‘he'. ‘We have talked long enough. Goodbye, cousin. May God protect you and your son.'

‘And you, too.' They kissed like old friends, parted, walked swiftly away down their different alleys.

The wood-built palace gave only a feeling of privacy, never the fact. It was three days before Isobel managed to be alone with Jenny out on the carriage sweep which had just been cleared of snow by a sullen army of serfs. ‘How they hate us.' She took Jenny's arm to walk up and down on the cleared gravel, and wished she had warned Miriam that the serfs blamed her for the Prince's return. But Miriam probably knew.

‘Yes. I wish we could go back to Rendomierz.'

‘So do I! I'm going to ask the Prince, the next chance I get.' She poured out the story of her meeting with Miriam. ‘I knew I was right to be afraid,' she concluded.

‘Yes. But what are we going to do?' She thought about it. ‘I think we should send a message to the Brotherhood.'

‘The Brotherhood?'

‘Casimir is part of their hope for the future. A pawn in the game, at least. They will protect him.'

‘Unless they prefer Miriam's sons,' said Isobel.

‘You know that's impossible.' Jenny had been thinking about this. ‘They are half Jewish, Isobel. You know as well as
I do how you Poles treat the Jews. Use them, and abuse them. Oh, we're bad enough in England, but it's only social with us. Much worse here. Poor Miriam is deluding herself about this; as she must have about her marriage. The Prince knows better. Don't let him frighten you with that bugbear, because that is all it is. Do you remember how that Jewish landlord cringed, when we stopped at his inn for refreshments on the way here? Think of him, and ask yourself if someone with even a hint of Jewish blood could lay claim to the Polish crown.'

‘You're absolutely right,' said Isobel slowly. ‘So – there is no threat. No need to apply to the Brotherhood.'

‘But Miriam was afraid?'

‘Yes.' Reluctantly. ‘She was afraid for the Prince, she said, not for me.'

‘And she knows him. Loves him. I suspect she simply does not recognise the depth of his plans. One thing I have learned since we came here, and that is that the Prince is not a rich man. He's land-poor, like our Irish aristocrats. I just hope he hasn't got another heiress in mind. There's a very rich Princess of Courland I heard someone speak of. Rich and young.'

‘You mean he would kill me, too?'

‘You had not thought of that? Who would inherit your estates if you and Casimir should both die?'

‘The Prince, of course.' Her face was white as the snow.

This was not a message that could be sent by Olga. ‘Tell Them I must talk to someone myself.'Jenny kept her exchanges with Olga to a minimum.

‘You don't trust me?'

‘Why should I? But I know you have more sense than to disobey Them. So I can trust you to take my message.'

She met the Brotherhood's messenger a few days later in the Greek rotunda above the ornamental water. The weather had turned mild enough so that it was possible to walk in the grounds without causing comment, and the mock Greek temple provided the perfect site for a secret meeting, since it stood on a little hill with a clear view in all directions. Arriving, on Olga's instructions, as early as she could get out of the house, Jenny thought she was the first for a moment. Then a masked
figure appeared in the entrance to the temple's little central chamber.

‘Sit down on the bench,' he told her, without greeting. ‘Keep watch. Don't look at me as we talk. You are alone here, so far as anyone can see. Now, tell me the meaning of your message. Quickly. You cannot stay here long.'

‘No.' After one quick glance, which summed him up as in his twenties, dressed for hunting, an undoubted aristocrat behind the mask, she sat obediently on the bench, scanning the park, briefly summing up her fears for Isobel and Casimir. ‘I thought you should know,' she concluded.

‘You were right. You have served us well, and we will remember it. I will take counsel with my Brothers. You may or may not hear from us, but I promise you, action will be taken. But, first, one question. Is Prince Casimir the Prince's son?'

‘I know nothing to suggest he is not.' Stating merely the facts of the case, she had not raised this question, but had been prepared for it.

‘Not really an answer,' he said.

‘The best I can give.' It was oddly frightening to carry on this conversation with her back to him. But even if she had been facing him, the mask would have prevented her from seeing his expression.

‘You do not trust the girl, Olga, or you would not have insisted on this meeting. Do you wish her replaced?'

‘No. I have great confidence in her fear of you.'

‘Which I hope you share.'

‘There's someone coming,' she said. ‘It's the Prince!'

‘Then go down to meet him. Don't let him come here, if you value both your lives.'

‘I do.' She rose, shook out her skirts, bent to pick a sprig of lavender from the neglected formal garden that encircled the little building, and moved forward to intercept the Prince.

A few days later, he joined his wife in the small parlour where Jenny was reading aloud from
La Nouvelle Héloise
. ‘I have a favour to ask of you, my dear.'

‘A favour?' She looked up from her embroidery.

‘Yes. I have had a disturbing letter from Warsaw. My fool of a steward there seems to have got himself into some kind of difficulty with the Austrian Governor.'

‘He's Polish? Your steward?'

‘Yes. Got a lot of mad ideas in his head when the Austrians were defeated back in December … Been having meetings in my house … Now he's in a great panic, poor fool.'

‘As well he may be.'

‘Yes. And though he is a fool, he is also a cousin of mine, in some sort. But – I am not exactly
persona grata
with the Prussians. My intervention would do nothing but harm. If you were to go? Your friends the Potockis go on well enough under Prussian rule, do they not?'

‘They seem to.'

‘And would help you with the necessary approaches? I really would be immensely grateful.'

‘I would be most happy.' The Princess put down her work and rose. ‘And flattered to be asked. I imagine the sooner I leave the better?'

‘If you would be so good. I will send to the Governor of Vilno for the necessary papers today. They should be here by the time you have made your preparations. I am afraid you may find my Warsaw house in some disarray.'

‘It would be my pleasure to put it in order for you. It's a long time since I have been in Warsaw. With your approval, I would like to spend a little while there.'

‘And get back in touch with your old friends? An excellent idea.'

That was a happy summer. They found the Prince's big house in Saxon Square near Warsaw's Royal Palace in a sad state of disrepair, and his steward in daily terror of arrest. But, whatever his reasons, the Prince had been quite right. The Princess had enough old family friends in Warsaw to intercede successfully with General Kalkreuth, the Prussian Commandant. In fact, he had much more serious anxieties to plague him, since his royal master King Frederick William was busy negotiating with Russia and France at the same time. To sign a quittance for one stupid little intriguer, when asked by a beauty like the Princess Ovinska, was simply a matter of course.

By the autumn of 1806 the Princess had her own salon, where she entertained every Thursday, and had sent at last for the little Prince. Both her husband and the Brotherhood
had asked her to spend the winter in Warsaw, and she had been happy to agree. She and Jenny had got more or less used by now to the sight of grey Prussian uniforms in the streets, to the sharp North German bark of command, and Jenny was working hard at improving her German.

They celebrated Casimir's arrival from Rendomierz with an unusually elaborate reception early in October, but though the Ovinski house was now well known for its hospitality, this occasion was not a happy one. People stood about in twos and threes, talking in low voices, hushed at the sight of one of the few Prussian officers who had the entrée.

‘What is it?' Princess Isobel asked her friend Anna Potocka. ‘Something's happened, I can tell.'

‘Come to the window. There has been no hard news for days. No papers. That's always how we know there is trouble brewing. They keep us deaf and gagged, our Prussian –' She smiled over Isobel's shoulder. ‘Good evening, Herr von Arnim.' And then, when he had kissed their hands in his stiff, Prussian way, and moved off to where the food and drink were being served, ‘It was months before we heard of the deaths of our young men when Napoleon sent the Polish Legion to its destruction on Haiti. And there are still families who have had no news of sons who fought at Austerlitz. But this kind of universal silence always bodes worse news still.'

‘And I have just brought Casimir here!'

‘Oh, never fret about that. I don't suppose any of it will affect us here; everyone has forgotten about Poland. And it will be some time before your little Casimir is old enough to fight.'

‘And thank God for that,' said Princess Isobel, telling Jenny about the conversation afterwards. ‘Hasn't he grown, though? And talking like a six-year-old.'