The Ice King (12 page)

She had gathered from various little clues and hints that the Princess was something of a dragon, and she certainly gave that impression when she greeted her guests upstairs in the salon. She was a stiff, upright little figure in rustling black silk, with her white hair elaborately arranged under a flashing diamond and sapphire tiara. Her face, comparatively unlined for her age, had a haughty set to it, and she looked Tanya up and down as she made her curtsey in a manner which seemed to take in every detail of her appearance and bearing, but left the verdict undeclared.

It was a small party. Besides Alexei, Maria and Tanya, there was Vladimir Karachev, resplendent in full dress regimentals, with a row of campaign medals to accompany his St. George; a nervous, wispy lady on uncertain age and colourless aspect, who appeared to be terrified of the Princess and never spoke above a whisper; and an important Minister of the Government, who seemed bored with himself and everyone else.

“My nephew is late," the Princess pronounced in an incisive voice. "While we wait for him, you will excuse me for a few moments. Countess Tanya Ivanovna, be so kind as to accompany me.”

Tanya gave a nervous start at this summons, and hastened to follow the old lady from the room. They mounted the stairs in silence and went into a small room on the floor above, which was furnished with a large icon of the Holy Mother and a
prie-dieu ,
and half a dozen portraits hanging on the walls. A twelve-branched candelabrum stood on a small table, its candles alight. The Princess took it and held it up so that its light fell on one of the portraits.

It was a full-length study of a young woman in a bridal gown in the style of the 1780s. She was not unlike Princess Dolgorova might have been in her youth, but the softness of her expression and an air of delicacy about her appearance made it clear that she could never have turned into that steely old lady. Tanya studied the painted face and noticed the look of gentle melancholy, which the artist had caught very well. It was several moments before she realised that the woman in the portrait was wearing a tiara, and then her hands flew at once to the original of it, which was on her own head. She flushed with embarrassment and turned to the Princess.

“My younger sister, Nikolai Volkhov's mother," the Princess confirmed in a calm, expressionless voice.

Tanya opened her mouth to launch into a detailed explanation, but found herself unable to say anything.

“I assume that there is some good reason for my nephew to allow a young lady to appear in public wearing his father's bridal gift to his mother. I merely wish to convey to you that I am aware of the occurrence," the Princess said. "It is for Nikolai to provide the explanation, if he wishes to do so."

“It was a kindness," Tanya stammered. "I haven't one, so he offered to lend it. I didn't know it was . . . Oh dear! I'm sorry!”

The Princess looked her straight in the face and said in the same calm, incisive tone as before, "Nikolai has suffered a great deal of loneliness and a gross betrayal in his life. I trust you will not add to his unhappiness."

“I hope not," Tanya replied sincerely.

The Princess inclined her head in a decidedly regal manner, set down the candelabrum and led the way back to the salon without another word.

Prince Nikolai had now arrived. He was in Court dress with his ribbon and order of St. Andrei. He looked disconcerted when his aunt came in with Tanya, but made his apology for being late, which was received with a long, inscrutable look from the Princess. Tanya was too selfconscious after the recent exchange with his aunt to meet his glance, but she stole a look at him later and thought he looked pale and tired.

The loud, didactic pronouncements of the Government Minister dominated the conversation at dinner, and afterwards the party had no time to linger, but put on their cloaks and hats and were directed by the Princess into her two carriages, the Kirovs in one with Vladimir, and the nervous lady, Prince Nikolai, and the minister were to accompany the Princess in the other. Vladimir, with a perfectly blank face, firmly climbed into the wrong one, thus confirming the Princess in her poor opinion of the intelligence of the military, but she apparently didn't think it worth while to correct the error, and Prince Nikolai, after the briefest hesitation, got into the other carriage and sat opposite Tanya. He said very little on the short journey, no more than to reply politely to any remarks addressed to him, but looked at Tanya with his usual air of settled melancholy, except once when he caught her eye and gave her a faint smile.

When they reached the Opera House there was a slight delay at the doors because of the great throng of people, for, of course, they all had to dispose of their wraps and greet their friends. Tanya took the opportunity to say urgently to Prince Nikolai, "Your aunt recognised the tiara! She took me to see a portrait of your mother in her wedding-dress . . ."

“And the tiara, of course!" exclaimed the Prince. "I'd forgotten about that. What did she say?"

“That it was for you to supply an explanation, if you wished to do so. She wasn't unpleasant about it, just . . ."

“Dragonish?" the Prince supplied. "Don't worry about it. I'll set it to rights. It's the result of my action, so I must bear the responsibility for it. I'm sorry you were put to the embarrassment, though.”

There was no time to say any more as the crowd in front began to move, and they followed the Princess up the stairs to her box. She bade Tanya, in quite a friendly tone, sit well to the front so that she could see everything, and the others disposed themselves on the velvet-coloured chairs, the ladies to the front, the men behind.

Tanya enjoyed the lively Rococo decorations of the theatre and the spectacle of the finely dressed and bejewelled audience, and particularly a very good view of the Emperor when he appeared in the Imperial box, but she found the opera incomprehensible. She struggled to follow the story all through the first act, and then gave up and just listened to the music.

When the curtain swept down for the interval, the auditorium became full of chatter and movement as people went about to talk to their friends. Alexei and Maria went to see someone in another box, the minister drifted away to make some more pronouncements in more important ears, and Vladimir marched off to talk to some brother-officers. Boris came in to make his bow to the Princess, who actually smiled at him, and then he turned to Tanya.

The wispy lady had faded away at some point, and Prince Nikolai, seeing that his aunt was virtually alone for a moment, took the opportunity to sit down beside her and began to speak quietly to her. Tanya was unable to hear whathe, said, but she saw the Princess tap him lightly on the arm with her fan and nod her head two or three times, and then she said, "Quite right, my dear boy!”

With that, she turned to speak to someone in the next box, and Prince Nikolai went to stand in the shadows at the back of the box behind Tanya, and stayed there until the curtain rose on the next act, when he sat down in the nearest chair.

Tanya thought he had gone out, and as none of the others returned she assumed that he, like them, had been taken unawares by the beginning of the overture and had stayed wherever he was, as Boris did, drawing his chair a little nearer to hers. She turned her attention to the stage as the curtain rose, and was at first unaware that Boris was still turned towards her and was gazing ardently at her profile until he slyly stole one of her gloves and her fan from her lap.

She unobtrusively twitched the glove out of his hand, but he retained the fan, opened it, and began to fan her gently, leaning closer until she could feel his soft breath on her cheek and she wondered, with a strange mixture of fear and excitement, if he was about to kiss her neck. She made a quick snatch and recovered the fan, closed it and gently pushed his face away with it. He gave a mischievous grin, and she made an urchin-like grimace at him which appeared to amuse him vastly, but he accepted the rebuff in his usual good-humoured way and behaved himself for the rest of the act.

When the curtain fell, Tanya turned round and found Prince Nikolai was sitting just behind them, staring at Boris with his brows drawn together in an angry frown.

The Kirovs returned at that moment, and Boris took his leave, gazing soulfully into Tanya's eyes as he kissed her hand. She shook her head at him and he winked, his expressive eyes twinkling. When he had gone, Tanya moved to the back of the box, where the Prince was standing again, and said quietly to him, "Boris is a shocking flirt."

“Yes, but fairly harmless. You mustn't mind him," the Prince replied in level tones. His face was hidden in the shadows, but Tanya thought he didn't sound angry, so perhaps she had been mistaken about the way he looked at Boris.

“He needs a set-down from time to time," she said, "but I don't suppose I manage it very well. I haven't had much experience."

“As long as you don't mistake flirting for anything else," Prince Nikolai replied, "or anything else for flirting, for that matter. I've explained to my aunt. She approves.”

After the opera there was a short ballet, which quite entranced Tanya, and then it was time to thank Princess Dolgorova, who surprisingly took both her hands and said, "You may kiss me, my dear.”

Tanya did so, and the Princess smiled and said, "I'm very happy to have made your acquaintance," in quite a warm tone.

When the Kirovs' carriage arrived, Prince Nikolai handed Tanya in, kissing her hand as he did so. With a sudden thought, she tightened her clasp on his hand and whispered, "The tiara! How shall I return it to you?"

“You may need it again. Keep it until you leave," he replied. He then kissed her hand again, as if he had forgotten that he had already done so, and stepped aside to make way for Count Alexei, who was waiting to get into the carriage.

As they drove away, Tanya looked back and saw him standing there amid the crowds and carriages, with snowflakes settling on his hair, and hoped he would not take cold.

*

She saw nothing of him for several days after that, but gathered from snatches of conversation that he had gone to Czarskoe Selo with the Emperor, who was suffering from the recurrence of an old injury to his leg and had gone into the country to rest between the activities of the Season. While the Prince was away, she was surprised to receive another invitation from the Princess Dolgorova, this time for an evening reception. Count and Countess Kirov were also invited, but Maria did not seem very enthusiastic, and on the way there she confided to Tanya that she was not much looking forward to it, as the Princess frightened her.

“She spends a great deal of time with the Dowager Empress, and the Imperial manner seems to have rubbed off on her," she said. "I feel positively provincial when I meet her, and I can never keep up with the conversation — it's so intellectual!”

The Princess welcomed them very graciously, and again invited Tanya to kiss her, which caused a little stir of interest among the other guests waiting to greet their hostess.

Tanya wandered off to a quiet corner, where she could look around at the elegant room and study it at more leisure than she had been able to do on her previous visit. It was very classical and restrained in its ornamentation, with dove-grey walls broken by white fluted pilasters with a little gilding on their Ionic capitals, and there were white marble statues in the alcoves at each end of the room. The ceiling was panelled, with Greek fret borders, and the pattern was mirrored in the design of the carpet, which covered the whole floor in muted greys and blues.

The furniture had clearly been designed for the room, in polished rosewood with shell-pattern inlays and a little ormolu. At least Tanya assumed that the fine line of metal running along the back-rest and down each leg was ormolu, but in fact it was gold. There were tall cabinets against the walls between the pilasters, filled with curios and
objets d'art,
which Tanya would have liked to inspect more closely, but she did not wish to appear vulgarly curious.

A number of guests were playing cards at the various tables about the room, but Tanya saw that the table nearest her was set ready for chess. There was no one near it, so she went over to look at the pieces. They were made of coloured porcelain from the Imperial Factory, the pieces nearest her being mainly green in colour. The pawns were soldiers of the Imperial Guard, each with the collar-band of a different Foot regiment, and they held little muskets at the Present. The knights were hussars, perfect in detail to the fur edging on their pelisses; the bishops were dressed in full Orthodox robes; and the castles were onion-domed towers. The King was a Czar in coronation robes with the crown of Monomakh, and the Queen a Czarina in robes and tiara.

The other pieces were blue-clad, with high-shakoed French Imperial Guards for pawns, French dragoons for knights, Marshals for Bishops, and guillotines for castles.

The King was a dumpy figure in a grey overcoat and a cocked hat, and the Queen wore a high-waisted blue gown and a tiara in the style of the Empress Josephine.

“Nicely modelled," Vladimir Karachev remarked beside her. "Very accurate, considering the size.”

Tanya gave him her hand and a warm smile in greeting, and agreed that it was a very neat and precise rendering of the two armies. They stood discussing the pieces and showing details to one another for a few minutes, and then Vladimir said hopefully, "Do you play?"

“Oh, yes!" Tanya replied. "My Great-Uncle liked to play every evening. He said it was the only game for a soldier." "Play you a game?" offered the Colonel.

Tanya agreed smilingly, and they sat down and began. Presently, she became aware the Prince Nikolai had come and was standing silently watching, but from a slight distance, as if he didn't wish to distract their attention, or was perhaps not certain of his welcome.

Tanya turned to smile at him and bid him "Good evening." He stepped forward and kissed her hand, then drew up a chair and sat down. Vladimir glanced up and nodded a brief greeting, then bent a frown of fierce concentration on the game. Tanya said, "I thought you were gone to Czarskoe Selo?" to the Prince while the Colonel was considering his move.