Rebel Princess (7 page)

“Peter,” she said quietly. He continued to stare out of the window as if she had not spoken.

“There is little to amuse you here, I know,” she went on, “but since you are kind enough to visit me, perhaps … perhaps you could bring your dolls and we might play with them together?”

It was her only bribe, and she waited anxiously for his reaction. Peter turned round and looked at her, his protruding eyes sharp with suspicion.

“We would be punished,” he stated cautiously.

“Only if we were found out!” amended Catherine coolly. His expression changed to one of almost feminine longing, and her hopes rose as she watched his face.

“I should like to play with them,” he muttered wistfully, and for a moment Catherine glimpsed the utter pathos of his unhappy, twisted nature, feeble-minded and warped by the weight of his destiny. “If I could smuggle them in tomorrow.…” He looked broodingly at her in mixed uncertainty and delight. “You will not tell anyone?” he demanded.

Catherine held out her hand. “I promise not to say a word.”

Gingerly, Peter touched her fingers, for he disliked all physical contact with her, but she would make his favorite pastime possible.

“Very well then, I will bring them tomorrow. Perhaps I may let you play with them also,” he added loftily.

Catherine swept him a silent curtsy, and when he had gone she remained by the window in his place, looking out with heavy eyes while the manly, dashing Grand Duke of her imagination strutted mockingly away into space.

She was growing up; every nerve in her body proclaimed her advancing womanhood; and now that the bargain was made, her whole soul rebelled against Peter and his dolls, and the hideous immaturity they represented.

Every day the Grand Duke visited his betrothed, the forbidden playthings stuffed in his uniform pockets, and spent carefree hours in her apartments till his good humor even included Catherine in his games.

Never in his regimented life had he known the luxury of a playmate or been free of adult company, and for a time his instinctive fear of Catherine lessened as they laughed and romped on the floor together. His twisted mind saw only enemies about him, but there were times when he could forget that the willing companion of his childish games was also to be his wife, and then there was almost friendship between them.

Catherine looked up in surprise one day when suddenly he dropped his puppets and shaded his eyes with a hand that trembled slightly, for the afternoon had scarcely begun. She noticed with alarm that his face was livid and that two harsh patches of color burnt on each cheek.

Pushing the dolls to one side, she slid across the floor on her knees towards him.

“What is it, Peter? What ails you, are you ill?” she asked in a whisper. The Grand Duke shook his head and began rubbing his eyes like a fretful child.

“I don't know,” he answered. “My head aches and my eyes are sore. 'Tis only a chill though, and you are not to tell or I shall be physicked again!” He looked warily over his shoulder and then leant near Catherine.

“One day I know they will try to poison me, and I must never be taken unawares or their plan may succeed! When I am Czar I shall have a food-taster,” he added.

Catherine gazed at him in astonishment. Who would try to poison him? It was impossible, a figment of his disordered brain, yet the wretched youth shook with fear before her eyes.

“Hush, Peter,” she said quickly. “No one would harm you. You mustn't think such things. But rest easy, I will not tell that you are unwell.…”

Peter picked up his favorite doll, a little soldier dressed in the uniform of Frederick's Prussian Guard, then laid it down again. He looked at Catherine with strange simplicity and directness.

“I believe that if I were not going to marry you, I would not hate you so,” he remarked calmly.

Despite herself, Catherine blushed with disappointment.

“Tell me, why do you hate me?” she asked suddenly.

Peter frowned crossly. Often enough he could not understand his actions and feelings properly himself, let alone explain them to someone else. “I have just told you … because I have to marry you, and I do not fancy marriage, least of all to you! You are my aunt's choice, remember, I did not want you. Now she prefers you to me. Indeed everyone does,” he continued with growing resentment. “You are a mere nobody, yet you come here and try to displace me. Oh, do not think I have not noticed! Believe me, I notice everything, and I knew from the first that you would be my enemy like the rest of these damnable Russians!”

Catherine had not yet learnt the folly of trying to reason with a lunatic.

“But I am not a Russian,” she reminded him. It was an unfortunate remark, for Peter turned on her in fury.

“You remember that a little late, Madame,” he shouted, his sallow face suffusing with rage. “For a German and a subject of His Majesty King Frederick, you take surprising well to this God-forsaken country and its heathen Church! You learn their hideous language, pray before their idols. You fawn upon my aunt and make free with her courtiers. Have you so soon forgotten Prussia that you must copy these barbarians?” Peter clenched his fist and shook it angrily. “Well, you may have forgotten, but I have not, and when the time comes I shall show them all that a Prussian is worth a hundred of their dirty moujiks!”

Catherine stood up, then she looked down at him and her bright blue eyes were flashing with rage. For once her caution and perseverance west to the wind as Peter's taunts and insults over the last eight months mounted up in an unbearable surge of humiliation.

“I am sorry that the thought of me fills you with such distaste,” she answered, and her voice shook with anger. “I did not ask to wed you, and I was as little consulted as yourself! But do not speak to me of Germany, and jeer at me for lack of loyalty. I owe Prussia nothing, and I was glad, with all my heart, to leave it.”

Contemptuously she kicked one of Peter's dolls out of her way, and with a cry of protest he snatched it up and hugged it to his breast with the old feminine gesture that belied his feeble show of militarism.

“Perhaps your court was rich, your parents kind; I do not know,” she continued. “But have you ever been to Stettin, Peter? Do you know what it means to be poor, a nobody indeed, just as you described me?” She gestured vehemently towards the door. “What of my mother? Imagine living under her authority. She has hated and bullied me since I can remember. Must I long to return to her also?”

Peter grimaced and hung his head, while the flow of her pent-up feelings swept her on.

“Oh, I am German-born, but this is the land which has taken me in, showered me with gifts.…” She walked swiftly to the window and flung out her arms towards the dark landscape of the palace gardens, fringed by the city's roofs and towers. “It is a wonderful place, Peter! It is so large, it might be the whole world under your domain!” She turned round to him in exasperation. “Would you make war? There will be great armies at your command. You could win power and glory. Does it mean nothing to you that you will be the mightiest king on earth? Well it means a deal to me,” she added, and her eyes glowed at the thought. “Germany! Stettin!” Catherine almost spat the words. “I have forgotten what they mean. Russia is my home.”

Peter looked at her through eyes that were narrowed with hate and suspicion, until the sight of her tears reassured him that the storm was over.

She might give way to feminine weakness now, but he would never forget the passion that she had displayed, or the terror she had inspired in him. All the old sense of intangible menace from her person overwhelmed him more strongly than ever.

“I am glad, Madame, that the grandeurs of Unholy Russia should ease your conscience of its burden of disloyalty to your homeland,” he sneered. “But if you imagine that you have no enemies among those who fawn upon you, then you are simple-minded and not I, as people say! Do you suppose that my aunt's promise never to sign a death warrant has transformed these Russian devils into saints? How many die from a thousand lashes of the knout? How many prisoners perish under the torturers' knives in my aunt's dungeons? But you do not know about such things, of course.”

Peter sniggered derisively.

“You bask in my aunt's friendship; you think because she smiles that you are in favor? Well, heed my words, Madame, and do not trust our gracious Empress too far, for there is something else you did not know—did no whisper of it ever reach you at Stettin? Ah, perhaps not, few men live to fly with tales across the Russian border.

“Well, I will tell you. A bridegroom should have no secrets from his bride, eh? My imperial aunt is mad … mad as her father before her! I have seen her, kneeling before a statue of the Virgin Mary, asking guidance on who should share her bed that night! Ha, ha, is it not humorous? I tell you she is mad, they are all mad here; one day you are on her right hand, the next morning finds you stretched on the rack in a dungeon, charged with some crime you have never committed.”

Peter gave a harsh laugh.

“You think the bitch of Anhalt is a tyrant? Before God, wait until the gentle Elizabeth takes a dislike to you, then you will know what oppression means!”

Panting, the Grand Duke wiped his streaming face on his sleeve; he seemed to be shaking from head to foot with fever. Without another look at Catherine, he ran to the door and dragged it open.

“Brümmer, Brümmer,” he yelled, and his Swedish tutor came hurrying down the corridor.

“Take me to my own apartments. Why are you so late in coming for me?”

Peter cast a malignant glance over his shoulder, pulled a savage grimace, then slammed the door behind him. Catherine stood rooted, aghast at the picture of horror that Peter's furious tirade had painted.

Elizabeth … her nephew's blasphemous assertion was unthinkable. Cruel, capricious and indolent she might be, but she had been kindness itself to Catherine, and she resolutely shut her ears to the allegation that had been whispered throughout Europe.

Peter was spiteful and jealous, he had only tried to frighten her; because life was a hideous mad house of fear and suspicion for him, he could not bear that it should be otherwise for her.

Catherine poured herself a cup of water and tugged at the silken bell-rope for her women; it was time to begin dressing for the evening's ball, the last before the Empress's migration from Moscow to Petersburg.

The next morning Elizabeth's huge sledge bore her out of the city, and the whole court prepared to follow her. After four days' journeying, the slower vehicles stopped at the village of Chotilovo.

Johanna and Catherine were to spend the night together in an inn, as Elizabeth's sledge had sped on ahead to Petersburg.

That night Catherine sat alone in her room, huddled in furs by the small stove which had been opened to give the greatest heat possible. She felt low-spirited and strangely uneasy; depression closed over her, while the snow fell outside in a thick, freezing curtain, and a bitter wind howled through the village from the steppes.

She had scarcely seen Peter since that last afternoon, though he, too, was lodged in the inn.

As the hours went by she began to wonder why no one came with supper; somewhere in the house doors were banging and the corridors echoed with hurrying feet.

Catherine got up and walked about the room, suddenly restless and aware it was late for such activity.

There was something wrong; she knew it and, unable to bear the company of her own uneasy thoughts, opened the door.

The passage was empty and freezing; a single candle guttered dimly in a wall sconce. Catherine retreated shivering into her own room and resumed her place by the stove.

It was almost midnight when the slamming of the chamber door roused her from a fitful sleep.

Johanna advanced towards the fire, and the expression on her sharp features, which the flames illumined, brought Catherine to instant wakefulness.

“Get up and make way for me at once! I'm frozen to the bone,” the princess ordered, and her tone recalled the old days at Stettin when a downcast little girl had fled before her vindictive scolding.

Catherine stood up, but she did not move.

“What is the matter? No supper was served me tonight, and I have heard such sounds and scufflings. Is something wrong?”

Johanna snorted angrily; she was quite mistress of herself and the situation, but her daughter's unconscious manner irritated her.

“Don't play the Grand Duchess with me, Madame! Out of my way, and cease these airs and graces.” The princess smiled at her daughter with slow, revengeful spite. “Prepare yourself for bad news, my dear. Peter lies sick, sick near to death at this very moment.” Johanna paused, that her words might sink in and take effect. “He's caught the smallpox,” she announced deliberately, “so be ready to return to Germany with
me,
my fine Catherine! By God, I'll dispel your pride and punish your insolence towards me! That is, if you don't catch his sickness and share a grave with him instead of a marriage bed!”

Without a word Catherine shrank away from the stove as her mother elbowed her way to the blaze, then suddenly she ran from the room, heedless of Johanna's angry detaining cry, and sped down the corridor and up the stairs to Peter's room.

“It's a lie!” she gasped aloud. “It must be a lie. Not smallpox, he could never survive that! He was sick yesterday afternoon, the fever was already on him.…”

Frantic with dread, Catherine hammered on the Grand Duke's door, which was opened to a mere crack by his physician, Boerhave.

“Let me in,” she demanded. “I hear he has the smallpox! Tell me it is not true, it cannot be true!”

The Russian doctor answered in an impatient whisper:

“I fear it is so, Highness. He has been sickening for some days and would not be tended. Now the rash has covered him. I beg you, go to your own room and keep away from infection! As it is, my head will be the Empress's price for his life,” he added gloomily. With that he shut the door and Catherine heard him shoot the bolt into place.