Russian series 03 - The Eagle's Fate (9 page)

Grandfather said that two hundred years ago, when Moscow was burned in the Time of Troubles, the smoke and glow could be seen here quite easily.’

They spent an uneasy morning, trying to concentrate on the slight alterations which were needed so that some of Tatya’s gowns would fit Nadya. The messenger returned in the early afternoon, saying that the Governor’s house was full of servants from the big houses in the district, all sent on similar errands, but he brought a letter from the governor which contained several shocking items of news.

It appeared that Marshal Kutuzov, after consulting his generals, had decided against defending Moscow, and the whole Army, during the night following Nadya’s departure, had marched right through the city and along the road towards Kolomna. They had then swung off to the right, moving cross-country to a position somewhere near the Tula road, and were now going on towards the Kaluga road, south-west of Moscow. Count Rostopchin, the governor of Moscow, had instructed the remaining population to leave as well, and also the fire-brigade,
taking their engines with them
, so that the only Russians remaining in the city were those who were too stubborn or too poor or infirm to move, and the wounded soldiers who were too ill to travel any further.

On the Monday, the second of September, as General Miloradovich and the Russian rearguard left the city on one side, the French entered it from the other, finding it practically deserted. Hardly surprising in a city with so many wooden buildings, where fires were almost a daily occurrence, a large part of the city was now burning, and the French had no means of checking the flames, which were spreading rapidly in the rising wind. Cossack patrols, which had ventured as far as the inner walls, had reported that quite half the city seemed to be well alight.

The letter ended with the charitable wish the Bonaparte and his army might roast
en masse
in the embers of Holy Moscow before passing on to the everlasting fires of Hell.

Tatya had read the letter aloud to her friends, and also to her maid and to Pavel Kuzmich, who both understood French and could pass the news on to the other servants and the villagers. They had stood grave-faced inside the salon door, listening, and were the first to recover from the stunned silence when Tatya finished reading. The maid burst into tears, and Pavel formally asked permission to withdraw, only a slight tremor in his voice betraying his emotion. When he went out, he propelled the sobbing maid before him.

‘I was just remembering what Andrei said last,’ Tatya said eventually. ‘Bonaparte will have to stay in Moscow for the winter, or withdraw to the west. Well, he can’t stay in a burned city, so he’ll have to move, won’t he?’

‘He might come south,’ Irina said nervously.

‘If he does, he’ll have to fight again. The same if he goes north—we’ve another army guarding Petersburg, Tatya replied. ‘The other possibility is that Alexander Pavlovich will ask for peace terms, but I thing that there’d probably be a revolution if he does!’

‘Is Alexander Pavlovich the Emperor?’ asked Irina, who though that an oddly familiar way to refer to anyone so extremely elevated, although it was a perfectly correct way to speak of or address anyone with whom one was personally acquainted.

Nadya was only vaguely aware of what they were saying. She was thinking of the three little rooms in the wooden house in Moscow which contained all that was left of her home. Presently she started to cry, and found she was quite unable to stop.

She was still crying four hours later, the tears pouring down her cheeks, and Tatya, thoroughly alarmed, had summoned her physician from Ryazan. He arrived at dusk, and sat himself down to question Tatya and Irina about the circumstances which had led to Nadya’s present state, the candlelight gleamed on his gold-rimmed spectacle and concealed his quick, observant eyes, which darted from one face to the other as he listened and asked further questions.

He was a small slight man with a lame foot, and differed from most members of his profession by being one of a large family of the nobility, rather than a member of the merchant class from the cities. He had a good reputation as a doctor, which was due as much to his genuine competence as to his mild, sympathetic manner.

After he had elicited a thorough account of Nadya’s background and as much of her experiences during the past few days as his informants knew, he thought for a few minutes, and then prescribed a soothing tisane. While Nadya was drinking it, he talked to her quietly, asking her to tell him how she felt.

‘So embarrassed!’ she replied. ‘I’ve never been so silly before—I can’t understand it!’

‘It’s quite understandable,’ he assured her. ‘You had a serried of severe blows some time ago, followed by a long, trying period of anxiety and unhappiness, and now the experiences of the last few day. Your mind is very tired, as well as your body.’

‘Am I going mad?’ Nadya asked wretchedly, wiping her sore eyes yet again with a sodden handkerchief. The tears promptly spilled over and ran down her cheeks again. Her throat felt very dry and peculiar and she sipped some more of the tisane, which soothed her throat, if nothing else.

‘Of course not! This is the result of a very unpleasant experience.’

‘It was just as bad for other people,’ Nadya pointed out. She was able to think quite clearly, and it seemed off that she had no control over these ridiculous tears.

‘Yes, of course, but most of them had someone else with whom to share it. You were alone for the worst part. In any case, I’m sure that hose others are doing just as you are—letting their tears flow to wash away some of the shock and fear. It’s Nature’s way of helping us when terrible things happen to us. You’ll feel better when you’ve wept it all out.’

‘Everything seems so dreadful!’ Nadya sobbed. ‘Poor Luda just suddenly not there any more—she didn’t want to leave Moscow, but I made her, and now she’s d-dead—and all those men being killed and wounded, and Moscow full of Frenchmen, and all the city burning! They might go anywhere now, and no one seems able to stop them! C-Captain Tuchin said that they f-fought hard all day until they were ex-exhausted and they still didn’t beat them! They take everything, and spoil and destroy…’

The doctor seemed to be able to follow this muddled outburst without much difficulty, and replied with a sympathetic smile, ‘Oh no they won’t! Things seem very black but you mustn’t lose hope! There have been bad times in Russia before, but we’ve come through them! You must have faith in God and hold fast to hope!’

‘Hope!’ Nadya sniffed despondently, and failed to notice that the tears had suddenly stopped. ‘That’s what my name means—Nadezhda—Hope.’

‘And mine means Peace,’ Irina said quietly. ‘There’s a good omen—that we’ve come together for the first time just now!’

Nadya looked at her and saw that her brown eyes were really very beautiful with a soft steadfast look in them, and she suddenly remembered that, while she had an annuity which, at least guaranteed that she need never fear actual starvation, Irina, from what Tatya had told her, had been left really destitute when her aunt died. She suddenly felt ashamed rather than embarrassed, and managed to pull herself together a little.

‘I think I’m all right now,’ she said uncertainly.

‘So you are,’ agreed the doctor. ‘Now, if you’ll go to bed and eat a little light supper in the quiet of your own room, followed by another tisane with a little something to help you sleep, tomorrow, you’ll be as good as new!’

Nadya suddenly felt that the programme was very attractive, and did as he said. The tisane tasted rather bitter, but she managed to drink most of it, and only just had time to put the glass on the little table by her bed before she fell asleep.

Meanwhile, downstairs, the doctor took a belated supper with Tatya and Irina, and outlined what he though they should do to help Nadya during the next few weeks.

‘Quiet is what she needs, initially,’ he said. ‘And good, nourishing food—she’s too thin. It would probably be advisable for her to talk to a confessor, if you know a priest who is intelligent and sympathetic.’

‘A confessor?’ Tatya was surprised.

‘From what you said about the loss of her maid, and her own reference to it, I suspect that she feels to blame in some degree. Are you intending to go to Petersburg this winter, Tatya Petrovna?’

‘Yes, I think so. I don’t see why not.’

‘Take her with you. She may seem reluctant, but press her to go! She needs some enjoyment in her life—she’s too young to moulder away in genteel poverty, all alone in some Moscow back street, even if there are any back streets left in Moscow! Persuade her to go about and meet people—find her a good husband, if you can! That would solve most of her problems!’

‘A
good
husband probably would!’ Tatya agreed, stressing the adjective as if it had some particular importance. ‘A rich one too, for preference.’

‘That’s less important. After real poverty, a modest competence would be an improvement.’

Irina, who had been listening and getting on with her supper in her usual self-effacing fashion, thought the doctor was asking a great deal of Tatya. If she took Nadya to Petersburg for the winter Season, she would obviously have to provide her with all the clothes and accessories she would need, and that would cost a great amount of money.

She wondered a little apprehensively what Tatya expected her to do. She had thought Lev’s idea was for her to stay with Tatya until he came home from the war, and she had nowhere else to go if Tatya wanted her to leave. Perhaps she would be able to say here, in this beautiful house. It would be a little quiet and lonely, but no worse than living with her aunt had been. Better, indeed, for there were plenty of books here, and lovely things to look at. Suddenly, she realised what Tatya was now saying.

‘I had intended leaving for Petersburg at the beginning of October, but I think it would be better to wait another three or four weeks, for we must have a few gowns made here for Nadya Igorovna and Irina Arkadyevna for the balls and so forth when we first arrive. My dressmaker in Petersburg will soon produce the rest when we get there.’

‘There’s nothing like a few pretty gowns to help a young lady recover from a difficult time,’ the doctor said slyly, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles.

‘Oh dear!’ Tatya looked troubled. ‘What trivial creatures we females are! Our Country at war, the invaders in Holy Moscow, and we talk of new gowns! Our menfolk suffering hardship, wounds, even death, and we think of balls and soirees! You must think us quite heartless!’

‘Not at all! There’s nothing a lady can do at such a time but keep up her spirits and cultivate her wit and beauty. Would you have the convalescent officers in Petersburg surrounded by wailing females draped in black, like a flock of crows?’

He declined Tatya’s offer of a bed for the night, saying that he had another patient expecting an Interesting Event at any moment, and departed in his carriage. Tatya returned to the salon from seeing him off, and sat down on a sofa with a little sigh.

‘What a day!’ she exclaimed. ‘How are you, Irina? I hope it hasn’t upset you?’

Irina, who was embroidering a pair of gloves, replied calmly, ‘No, I feel for poor Nadya, of course, but there’s no sense in more than one of us being upset at a time, is there?’

Tatya shook her head, smiling. ‘That was a clever thought of yours, about Hope and Peace. I think it helped.’

‘Talking of name…’ Irina began. ‘May I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘Your name is Tatyana in full, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Isn’t that usually shortened to Tanya?’

‘Yes, but it was my mother’s name too, so they had to think of something else for me.’

‘Oh, I see. Are—are we all going to Petersburg?’

‘Of course. You do want to come, don’t you?’

‘I’ve never been there,’ Irina said wistfully. ‘But wouldn’t it be dreadfully expensive?’

‘Oh, indeed! But Lev has told me to send all your bills to his man of business, so I’m not very worried. After all, Lev is dreadfully rich!’

‘Is he?’ Irina sounded astonished.

Tatya laughed. ‘Indeed he is! We both are, for that matter! Don’t worry about it!’

Irina seemed shaken by this news, and went to bed looking quite bemused.

It rained heavily during the night, and Tatya, waking in the early hours, heard it and prayed for the poor soldiers, encamped somewhere near Kaluga in this weather, and for the wretched fugitives from Moscow. At least the volume of travellers passing her gates had diminished to something less than normal now, so it could be hoped that most of them had found shelter somewhere.

In the morning, she wrote a letter to the Abbot of the nearby monastery to ask is her confessor might come and talk to her friend, explaining something of Nadya’s distress. She sent it with a carriage, but the vehicle returned empty, the driver saying that Father Ilarion, as usual, had preferred to walk, and would be here later.

Nadya had appeared long before that, coming down a little late for breakfast and looking rather pale and hollow-eyed, but at least feeling reasonably composed. She entered the little breakfast-parlour at the back of the house hesitantly, being embarrassed about the exhibition she had made of herself the previous day, but Tatya’s warm greeting soon had her at ease again, and Irina gave her a shy, friendly smile.

During the morning she took a brisk walk with Irina along the riverbank, where there was a gravel path, the sun having dried most of the puddles by then. Irina’s shyness melted rapidly as Nadya exerted herself to encourage her a little, and she was soon answering a variety of questions about things which she had always taken for granted, but of which Irina, living in a quiet country district with an old lady, knew nothing.

‘Tatya said you were at the Smolny together, but I didn’t quite understand what she meant. I thought a smolny was somewhere where tar is made?’

‘Yes, it was originally. It was the taryard in Petersburg where they made pitch for the ships in the Navy, but a convent was built on the site. And then the Empress Yekaterina—the second one—founded a school next to it—the Institute for Daughters of the Nobility—where girls could go to be educated. We were there together for seven years.’