Rebel Princess (36 page)

It was a courtier, Leo Naryshkin, for thirty years the devoted friend of Catherine, who noticed that the twitch in Paul's left cheek had disappeared. Others observed that the nervous habits had disappeared, the tricks of caricature were passing from his manner, and as a result the likeness to the dead Czar Peter was not nearly so pronounced.

Naryshkin, who knew very well the history of that old love affair, and the bastardy of the child ostensibly legitimate, spoke to the Empress one evening as the two were playing cards.

Leo, his hair now thickly streaked with grey under the powder, watched Catherine with admiring eyes. Thirty years of unrequited love had aged him, but the fire of his desire for her still burned.

The fall of Gregory Orlov had rekindled hope in him, and the knowledge that she was tiring rapidly of his successor brought Naryshkin to her side once more. But he was careful to say nothing of these things.

Instead, he talked of Paul.

Catherine put down her cards and listened.

“You find him much changed then?” she asked.

“Yes, Madame, almost beyond recognition. This child from Darmstadt has transformed him. God knows, I thought him a grotesque; now he has dignity, almost presence. One might remember who his mother is,” he added, smiling.

Catherine's expression did not soften.

“He hasn't changed to me, Leo. He hates me still, calf love for Mistress Natalie hasn't altered him in that. She, too, looks on me with disapproving eyes, primed by my son. I'm not a happy mother, my friend. The children born of me, whether they are hidden bastards like Paul, or the son of Gregory, prove rebellious and ungrateful. You know Panin urges me to have the Czarevitch arrested?”

Naryshkin nodded.

“He's afraid for his own skin, in case your son succeeds you while he is still alive. If I remember, Nikita's safety was always his first consideration.”

Despite herself Catherine laughed.

“You mean the morning of the Revolution when he hid in his bed with the covers over his head, pretending to hear nothing till one side or the other had won the people over? Ah, yes. Then he brought Paul to the Church of Our Lady of Kazan to swear allegiance to me.…”

“I'll vow that Paul remembers it as well as we,” Naryshkin remarked drily. “Therefore Nikita seeks to bury the memory and the Czarevitch in the Schüsselburg.… Don't listen to him yet, Madame. Be patient with the boy. He's young and he may turn towards you.”

Impulsively Catherine held out her hand to him, and Leo lifted it to his lips and kissed it. There was no shadow of formality between them.

“He'd never believe that you pleaded for him. He hates you, too, my dear friend; he told a lackey once chat he was sure you'd been my lover, and that when he came to the throne he'd punish anyone who shared my bed. If I die and he succeeds me, what will befall you, then? What will he do to all those that I love who are left to his mercy?”

Naryshkin held her beautiful fingers in his, watching the jewels in her rings flashing in the candlelight.

“If what he thinks had ever been true, I would consider any punishment worth the payment. But it won't occur, Catherine. You'll live for many years to torment my heart. And you'll be ruling Russia long after I'm in my grave.”

When he left her, Catherine sat alone at the card table, turning up the squares of pasteboard at random, thinking of his words and her own.

If Paul succeeded her, the lives of everyone she cared about would be in jeopardy. Leo, despite his extra years, the Orlovs, even poor stupid Vassiltchikov, whose dismissal was about to take place; he, too, would suffer for the two years he had been her lover. Scores of helpless men and women would become the objects of Paul's vengeance, and Catherine never underestimated the strength of his memory or the extent of his vindictiveness.

He was loyal, she knew that too, and ambitious, as she was herself. Many of her traits were in him, but until his marriage, his nervous disability had hampered their development. She had tried to make peace by giving him a wife, and the union was rapidly changing him into a dangerous rival.

She remembered that Panin thought him conspiring with Pugachev, and that the pamphleteers and street-corner voices who cried out, “Long live the Czarevitch, down with the Empress Catherine,” did so with his consent. How true that was she did not know, but if anyone could discover it and trap him it would be Panin. And if it were proved, she could take action.

They would all be safe then, all those she loved and who depended on her, and if Paul were declared a traitor it would not plague her conscience; it would never haunt her like the death of Peter and of Ivan.

“Ah,” said the Empress under her breath. “Let him make one false move, and I swear by God that Panin shall have his way.”

Before autumn the Court was preparing to leave Tsarskoë Selo and return to Petersburg. Already an army of servants and lesser courtiers had departed to put all in order for the Empress's arrival.

The end of that long summer idyll was a source of dread to Natalie Alexeievna. Here, where etiquette was lax, her meetings with her lover had been easily arranged, the disappointed, trusting Czarevitch fobbed off with pleas of headaches and fatigue, and her ladies anxious to pursue their own paths and leave the Grand Duchess to herself.

From the moment of her surrender to André, Paul's wife dispensed with modesty or guilt. She loved the handsome equerry beyond all caution, and as her passion for the one increased, so her dislike of intimacy with the other deepened in proportion. Rasumovsky became less reckless as the weeks went by, sobered by the enjoyment of his prize.

It was necessary to keep up appearances, he told his mistress a little anxiously. It would be unwise to underestimate the Czarevitch; fool though he was, there was still a limit it was dangerous to overstep. She must coat the pill with sugar, and pretend to some wifely feeling for him. He was stupid enough to be content with very little, André argued. A few words, a little praise, a sentimental sop to set his mind at ease, and any amount of lies to keep him out of their way.

It was easy enough to dupe Paul, less easy to keep him out of her bed, but with a ruthlessness born of her love for the equerry, Natalie almost managed to do both while the Court stayed at Tsarskoë Selo. With alternate coquetry and excuses, she deceived and avoided him, until even Rasumovsky marvelled at the depths of duplicity and passion which dwelt in the gentlest of women.

He marvelled and became even more enslaved. Other mistresses had tired him, wearied him by their caresses and their words, but the Grand Duchess in her teens did neither. Their love was mutual, and it fed fiercely on itself until he who had counselled her to caution with regard to Paul, became a prey to savage jealousy once more.

Often they discussed the Court's return to Petersburg, talked of it with mingled anger and despair, aware that freedom would be much restricted for them both.

A thousand difficulties stood in the way of their meeting in the confines of the palace in the capital, where Paul and his household were subject to rigid discipline by the Empress. Never would the danger of discovery be so great as when they both became involved in the routine of life under the eyes of waiting-women with nothing to do but watch their mistress, and the duties of equerry to the detested Czarevitch would occupy most of Rasumovsky's time.

With that prospect before her, Natalie clung to him and cried, and the sight of her distress drove him to frenzy.

“We'll meet, my beloved,” he promised her. “Nothing shall deprive us of our happiness together. I swear to you; we'll find a way as others have before us.”

“We will, André, my love. We must.…”

So they resolved, desperate in their need of one another, and in happy ignorance that their intrigue had been discovered long before.

3

Nikita Panin sat at his desk, supporting one pendulous cheek with his left hand while he turned the pages of a thin dossier with the other. He knew the contents off by heart, and it made very curious reading. Six months of careful observation lay between the covers of that report, the work of the Minister's spies who had been lurking in the shadows whenever the Grand Duchess Natalie walked or spoke to members of her suite, whether she rode with her husband in the park at Tsarskoë Selo, or sat sewing with her ladies.

Sandwiched in between accounts of her most harmless activities, they reported the astounding fact that the virtuous bride of seventeen was committing adultery with a royal equerry within a few months of her marriage.

Nikita, whose hopes of discovering the Czarevitch engaged in treason were still frustrated, swallowed his astonishment and for the time being kept the information to himself. His opinion of feminine virtue could sink no lower for the revelation: he only marvelled at the stupidity of the girl who plunged into a love affair before a legitimate heir was born.

For six months he had waited, collecting the reports of stolen meetings; but at the end of that time, when the Grand Duchess was still childless, though possessed by a husband and an extremely virile lover, Panin decided at last that there was no more time to waste. If there had been a child, even if fathered by Rasumovsky, then a secured succession would have set many uneasy minds at rest, and opened the door of a cell to Paul.

But Natalie Alexeievna had not conceived, and for that reason Panin had decided to denounce her.

At five minutes to ten he heaved his increasing bulk out of the chair, settled his wig firmly on his bald, bullet-shaped head, gathered up his papers in their proper sequence, and went on his way to the Imperial apartments.

The usual throng of courtiers was waiting in the ante-room of Catherine's suite; the air was stale with mingled perfumes, and the atmosphere was stifling. The Empress's subjects did not share her passion for open windows and the corresponding draughts.

As he passed through into the ante-room adjoining Catherine's own chamber, Panin's little eyes flashed shrewdly along the lines of those whom his Empress had favoured with the promise of an early audience. He noted two generals, her secretaries, Leo Naryshkin, whose friendship with Catherine was an institution, and then glanced sharply at a tall, uniformed figure which lounged ungracefully against the very pillars of the Imperial doorway.

He recognized the man who waited there immediately, even before the great head turned towards him, and he smiled blandly into that ugly, arrogant countenance.

In answer to Panin's nodded salute, the soldier barely moved. He was a man of massive build; his dress was careless to the point of disorder; his manner haughty and detached. His colouring betrayed a strong strain of Tartar blood, and though a patch covered one empty eye socket, the light of a fierce intelligence glowed in his remaining eye.

Panin was well aware of the rumour that Vassiltchikov was about to be dismissed, but he doubted if he had just looked on the Empress's new choice. He was far too ugly, with his sallow, Oriental features and clumsy giant's strength. However, it was as well to err on the side of safety.

“Good morning, M. Potemkin,” he said amiably, and then passed through the doors to Catherine's private room, his mind already returned to the downfall of Natalie Alexeievna, unaware, as he went, that he had just given greeting to the man who was to prove his own.

“Before God, I'm astonished! After a few months she's creeping into someone else's bed!”

The Empress threw the Minister's report down on to her desk and regarded Panin, frowning and still almost incredulous. The Count smiled at her, and his smile was a diplomatic mixture of sympathy for his mistress and censure for the culprit, whose real fault lay in having been discovered in her crime.

“It's most unfortunate,” he agreed, “and distressing for you and the Czarevitch. But I'm afraid there can be no doubt. The Grand Duchess is this young man's mistress; they're intriguing here in Petersburg. It pains me to have to shatter your Majesty's faith in the girl, but we can't afford to let this scandal continue. Now that we know she's unchaste, the Grand Duchess can never be trusted again.… Even if we punish Rasumovsky, as of course we must, there'll always be others.”

“As you say, Nikita. There'll always be others. But what woman living will ever remain faithful to my son! As she was young and inexperienced I hoped she might settle down. But I never expected her to love him—I don't ask for miracles, my friend!”

“I know that, Madame. But I think the most vital point is being overlooked. There's no heir of this marriage. And you must have an heir! As long as your son remains at liberty, neither you nor those who serve you can be certain of their lives.… You said yourself that he was the greatest danger to you. There's a scandal and there's no child after a year of marriage.… Supposing the Grand Duchess is barren! We can't afford to wait; take her and the equerry and put them to death! That'll teach her successor a lesson in chastity and obedience …!”

Panin sat back and wiped his forehead with a large lace handkerchief; he was sweating with his own vehemence and his little green eyes glittered with malice.

“Put them to death …”

The Empress regarded him intently and under that searching look he smiled uneasily and lowered his eyes. With her genius for reading human hearts Catherine divined the depths of spite that prompted his suggestion. Nothing had been proved against her son, and the hatred Panin bore him hoped to strike at him by shedding Natalie's blood and proclaiming the failure of his marriage to the world.

It was a mistake that he could ill afford to make with her, and he fell into such errors when he forgot that for all her failings she was never cruel.

“There'll be no open scandal, Nikita,” she said firmly. “Rasumovsky shall be dealt with, but as for the Grand Duchess … if there'd been a child, I might have pardoned her, but in this, too, she has failed my son. Therefore he must divorce her. She will be shut up in the Novo Diévichy Convent for the rest of her life.…”