Rebel Princess (5 page)

The request was a diplomatic one, dictated by the policy of obedience which Augusta had determined upon following before she left Germany. The slur which Peter's drunken insults had cast upon her birth and status had been a public one, made before his aunt and the whole court; for that she could not yet forgive him, and the prospect of an interview with him in private filled her with aversion.

He was ugly and hostile, twisted in mind as he was ill-formed in body, but their destinies demanded that they should be joined together as one flesh, and whatever her feelings in the matter, Augusta stifled them and asked Elizabeth if she might see him.

The Empress consented eagerly, for she counted on the girl's fresh, vital charm to rouse her nephew's sluggish blood to manhood. The sooner Peter Feodorovitch could be weaned from his childish pursuits of drilling lackeys and aping Frederick of Prussia like an infatuated adolescent, the better Elizabeth Petrovna would like it.

“Dear God, Holy Virgin of Kazan,” begged Elizabeth in her fits of frantic religious devotion: “Let him marry this healthy, docile girl; may they bring forth a child, a strong child that will live to reign after me should Peter die of his frequent illnesses. Then perhaps the specter of Ivan and revolution will not disturb my nights.…”

So the Empress prayed, kneeling for hours in her bedchamber until the first light of dawn assured her that the dangers of a night-time coup were over, and Rasumovsky entered to soothe her fears in his passionate embrace.

Regardless of her weakness for Rasumovsky, or indeed any handsome man who attracted her senses, Elizabeth's nature was at the same time deeply religious; all the contradictory scruples, devotion, superstition and hopeless remorse peculiar to the Russian people were symbolized in the person of their Czarina.

Weeks of pleasure and debauchery were followed by periods of wretched repentance, when the mightiest woman in Russia retired to a convent cell and spent her days in prayer and fasting, or trudged the dusty road to some shrine, like any humble pilgrim. No one could say how long Elizabeth's retreat from all things worldly would last, but her people knew of their Little Mother's piety and worshipped her for it. In the meantime state papers piled up, unread and unsigned, and the affairs of the land were at a standstill while the Empress expiated her sins, only to emerge, refreshed in mind and body, to commit them all over again.

On the day named by the Empress for her visit, Augusta was once more conducted to her future bridegroom's rooms, not this time by the friendly Narychkin, but by a gross, blunt-featured Swede whom she discovered to be Peter's tutor, Brümmer. This gentleman answered her questions in monosyllables, remarking that the Grand Duke was as well as could be expected after being shut up in his rooms for nearly three weeks without fresh air or exercise. This explanation did nothing to prepare her for her second sight of Peter.

The heir to the throne of Russia was sitting alone in a corner in his big bedroom; he seemed smaller, more shrunken, his clothes were creased and his hair undressed. As Augusta advanced towards him, he raised a pallid face, drawn and swollen-eyed with unmanly tears, and, horror of horrors, he clutched a doll to his breast for comfort.

The sight was suddenly too much for her, and the girl who had long since scorned such playthings for herself, burst into tears at the sorry spectacle of Peter's cowardice and effeminacy.

For a moment the Grand Duke regarded her distress and then began weeping with her in an agony of nerves and self-pity.

Such was their first meeting alone, a meeting reported by spies to the Empress, who hesitated whether to double her nephew's punishment as a reminder to play the man with his betrothed, or to release him and hope that the relationship might progress properly of its own accord. Under the advice of Peter's physician, Elizabeth sacrificed her inclinations and removed the ban upon his freedom.

On his return to court life the Grand Duke became instantly aware that the impossible had happened; his aunt, the beautiful despotic Elizabeth by whom all women were regarded with the jealousy and suspicion of feminine autocrats towards their own sex, had become infatuated with his future bride. Augusta of Anhalt, the “miserable nobody” of his unhappy description, was the most popular person at court, the spoiled darling of the Empress, feted and flattered by the greatest nobles in Russia.

They had found him a wife, he who dreaded women and wedlock, and she had become a rival, admitted to a favor with Elizabeth which his own conduct had denied him from the start.

But even as he hated her, so did another.

The Chancellor Bestujev stood by, watching and silent, while the girl sponsored by his enemy Frederick of Prussia seemed to have all Moscow at her feet. It appeared that he, Elizabeth's most powerful minister, had lost this battle to a chit of a princess, that the German influences at work had triumphed.

For the moment he was well content to let it seem so, and if sometimes he was observed to watch his enemies and smile, none guessed the reason for it, least of all the principal object of the Chancellor's silent mirth.

Frederick, wily, cunning Frederick, with his plans for creeping domination over Russia, had made one bad mistake. He had trusted his intention to a fool, whose first amateur attempts at spying on his behalf had immediately been revealed to Bestujev.

Johanna had entirely failed in her efforts to influence the Empress against her minister, for Elizabeth hated discussing politics at any time, and flatly refused to be engaged in tedious conversations about her own affairs with a mere foreigner. The Princess of Anhalt was as indiscreet as she was treacherous, and the letters penned by her and intercepted were found to contain enough evidence of treason to have her executed on the spot.

It only remained for him to choose the moment when Elizabeth Petrovna's eyes should read her guest's descriptions of her person, manners and amours. If he knew his Empress—and he sensed her growing dislike of the Princess Johanna's conceited, overbearing personality—that should ensure the return of Peter Feodorovitch's affianced bride to the land of her fathers, unhonored and unwed, if nothing worse befell her.

Meanwhile Christian's daughter was learning the Orthodox faith. One of the foremost theologians in the Church, a priest named Simon Todorsky, undertook the conversion of the future Grand Duchess, and reported to the Empress that his pupil was as submissive to its doctrines as she was intelligent in understanding them.

The oath she had taken to her father was forgotten; Augusta cared as little for Lutheranism as she did for this new faith, and she abandoned her childhood creed without a scruple.

By day her every hour was filled with gaiety, with dancing and feasts, with sledging parties and incessant card-playing, which the Empress taught her; she laughed often and without restraint, aware that here her mother held no power, the shadow of Elizabeth protected her from Johanna and almost from Peter. But not quite.

The image of Peter crouching in a corner, hugging a doll to his breast for comfort, was a phantom that returned again and again to haunt and sicken Augusta during the long night hours when the imperial court, worn out with pleasure, had sought rest at last. Then the princess would lie tossing in her great bed, sleepless and wretched, until she put an end to these waking nightmares by pacing the icy floors, barefoot and in her night-gown, murmuring Todorsky's lessons.

The Empress had retired to the Troitsky Convent in one of her fits of melancholy penitence when the news reached her that Princess Augusta of Anhalt had fallen ill with a high fever. Instantly Elizabeth forgot her devotions and raced back to Moscow, as distraught as if the sufferer were her own child.

Gazing down at the sick girl, scarlet-faced and tossing in delirium, Elizabeth Petrovna's heart contracted with fury and despair. Here lay the answer to all her prayers; a wife for her nephew, a mother for her unborn heirs. Who had permitted this thing to happen, this tragedy that might disrupt all her cherished plans? Who indeed but that unnatural mother whom her sudden entry had surprised arguing shrilly within earshot of her suffering daughter? The next moment the Empress had swung round on the astonished princess, her face crimson with fury.

“Get out!” she shouted. “Outside with you, and leave the girl to me! Only put your foot inside this chamber door and I swear I'll have you arrested!”

Without a word Johanna fled, trembling with terror and resentment.

Seated at his desk in his private writing-room, Chancellor Bestujev made a careful annotation in his neat, crabbed handwriting:

“The Princess Augusta Fredericka has contracted a malignant fever and her condition is causing grave disquiet.”

His plans for dealing with her and her traitorous mother could well be shelved for the time being, for it seemed that death, so often the willing instrument of Russian politics, would remove Augusta of Anhalt Zerbst from the path to the imperial throne.

Chapter 3

“I think,” said the Empress lazily, “that I shall name her Catherine.… Catherine Alexeievna, after my own mother. Do you approve my choice, beloved?”

Rasumovsky pressed Elizabeth's soft hand to his lips and murmured in agreement. He was alone with his adored Czarina, and it mattered little enough to him what she christened her nephew's German bride.

Elizabeth sighed in contentment; lying at ease in her darkened bedroom, soothed by her lover into a languid state of mind, for once the future seemed secure and free from fear.

Death had almost spoilt her plan by making off with the Grand Duke's betrothed, but since the girl had begun to recover nothing must stand in the way of the wedding.

“Catherine,” she whispered, and for a moment her thoughts raced back to the beautiful Estonian peasant girl who had been a camp follower to the Russian Armies, had finally become the mistress of the Czar himself, and had borne him a daughter out of wedlock. She, the Empress of all the Russias, had been eight years old before her mother had been lawfully wedded to Peter the Great and raised to consort's rank.

The first Catherine had been a simple woman, easily led by characters stronger than her own, a gentle plaything whose simplicity had pacified and endeared her to Elizabeth's ferocious father.

Catherine. It would suit Augusta of Anhalt admirably. Elizabeth determined that she would accept the honor and assume the nature of her namesake at the same time. Upon that resolution the Empress closed her eyes against the first faint light of dawn and fell asleep at last.

In a wing of the Annehof Palace, Augusta lay wide awake, watching the early daylight seep through the curtains in her room. She waited until the chamber had become sufficiently light, then she reached out for a silver hand mirror that had been placed beside her bed in recent weeks.

Anxiously she studied her own pale reflection, and the glass showed her a very different person from the plump, radiant princess who had left her native Germany with such high hopes all those long months ago.

Sickness and disappointment had ravaged her face; the childish contours had melted away in the fever and delirium. A stranger stared back at her with wide, dark-ringed blue eyes, surprisingly high cheek-bones, and a chin so square that it betrayed will-power of a terrible degree in one so young.

She was certainly not beautiful now, and her dark, abundant hair had fallen out in handfuls. It would be weeks before time had repaired the damage to her face and figure, and that meant peace and respite from Johanna whose presence, even during her daughter's convalescence, had been forbidden by the Empress.

During the critical weeks of her illness, the story of the foreign princess whose love of Russia's language and religion had driven her to study barefoot in the middle of the night, had transformed the feeling of the court from watchful politeness to real enthusiasm.

Little by little the tale spread across the country, from Moscow to Petersburg, carried by the boatmen whose craft sailed the broad waters of the Neva, through city and town, hamlet and village. The nobility talked of it and the simple serfs believed it; gossip painted a glowing picture of the unpopular Peter's bride-to-be, and the prayers for her recovery were recited fervently from end to end of Holy Russia.

The Chancellor heard the news of her recovery from the lips of her personal physician, and he received the tidings without comment. Fate had cheated him of the solution he had hoped for, and now it seemed that other means must be employed to prevent his marriage from bringing his beloved Russia to a state of German vassalage.

Peter Feodorovitch, with his insane devotion to the Prussian King, was an evil for which there was no remedy, since the Empress refused to marry; but a bride of different racial leanings might perhaps hold the balance when Elizabeth Petrovna surrendered her power.

The time had come when he must place the evidence of Johanna's treachery before the Empress, and doubtless the Princess Augusta would also fall victim to the imperial wrath.…

Bestujev arranged the documents in order and then rang for his most trusted clerk.

That very afternoon Augusta was to leave her bed for the first time, and in her latest role of maternal affection, the Empress supervised the event herself. Bestujev's messenger was waved impatiently aside as Elizabeth embraced the thin, emaciated figure of Augusta, leaning back weakly in a chair, while Leo Narychkin, he who had first welcomed her to Moscow all those months ago, kissed her hand in congratulation.

On the fringe of the crowd, as usual, stood Peter, his ill-formed body clad in the inevitable uniform, an outsize wig perched on his bulbous head, fingering the gilt buttons on his coat with dirty, shaking fingers, a prey to hatred, jealousy and despair.

Ever since her arrival in Russia, the sight of her vivacious beauty and eager charm had filled Peter's heart with inexplicable dread. In the darkness of many a sleepless night, he had acknowledged with bewildered anger that Augusta frightened him.