During that time, when she took almost no time off and did not even allow herself to think of Kohlröserl Ellen began to feel that she was some way to accomplishing her task.
But pride goes before a fall. Ellen’s fall came at the end of the first week when she was cleaning out a strange collection of debris she found in a small round room in the East Tower.
She had noticed a painting hanging on a dark wall above a table full of unsavoury litter: an old tin of Cerebos salt, rusty round the rim, a candle-end burnt dangerously low, a dead bunch of marigolds with slimy stalks and a piece of bread covered in mouse droppings.
Appalled by this health and safety hazard, Ellen got to work. She tipped the bread and salt into her dustpan, threw the dead flowers away, gathered up the frayed cloth with its mouse droppings and soaked it in disinfectant. Half an hour later the room was clean, the blinds rolled up to let in the light and the painting-which was of a number of little men in conical hats and underpants adrift on an ice floe-was left in possession of the field.
Ellen had gathered up her dustpan and bucket and was turning to go when her way was blocked by a tall, thin woman with long strings of hennaed hair, a pinched nose and wild, navy-blue eyes. She wore a muslin dress with an uneven hem, her long feet with their prehensile-looking toes were bare and slightly yellow, and she was in a towering rage.
“How dare you!” she shrieked in a strange accent which Ellen could not place. “How dare you destroy my sanctuary-the only place where I can refresh my soul.”
“Sanctuary?”’ stammered Ellen, looking at the mouldy bread, the rusty salt tin in the waste bucket.
“You ignorant English peasant!” the woman shrieked. “Of course you know nothing of how the Russians worship. You have never heard of the icon corner which in every Russian household is the heart of the home.”
Ellen could find no words. The woman’s wrath flowed out of her; her narrow nose was white with anger and to her own annoyance, tears came to Ellen’s eyes.
“I didn’t realise… the bread was mouldy and—”’
“Oh yes, of course; that is all you care for, you little bourgeois housekeeper. I have heard how you have scrubbed everything… This picture,” she pointed to the little men cowering in their shifts on the ice, “was given to me by Toussia Alexandrovna, the Prima Ballerina of the Diaghilev Ballet. These men are the martyred bishops of Tula-they died on an ice floe rather than renounce the Old Faith. Every day I light a candle here in this corner-the Krasny Ugol-and now you come here in one hour and destroy the atmosphere with your lower-class hygiene.”
“I’m sorry; I really am. I didn’t know. But the flowers were dead and—”’
“Enough!” The woman raised a hand as long and yellow as her feet. “Go! I shall speak to Bennet of this. It is possible you will be dismissed.”
Though she could see the absurdity of the encounter, Ellen found it difficult to shake off the misery and embarrassment of having upset a fellow member of staff, and instead of going to the common room at tea time, she went to find Margaret Sinclair in her little office.
“Oh there you are, dear,” said the secretary. “I was meaning to have a word with you.”
“Margaret, I have done this awful thing-but I didn’t know. I just thought it was… well, you know there are so many things lying around that have been forgotten and I’d simply never heard of the martyred bishops of—”’
“No, of course you hadn’t. It’s a disgusting place and we’re all absolutely delighted that you got rid of it.”
“Yes, but she… Tamara was furious. She’s going to tell Bennet and she said she’d get me dismissed.”
“Oh my dear… Come, I’ll make you a cup of tea. What nonsense! Bennet knows all about the work you’re doing; he wouldn’t dismiss you in a thousand years and he never takes the slightest notice of what Tamara says.”
But Ellen was not so easily comforted. “Do you think I should go and explain to him and apologise all the same?”’
“Well, he’ll be happy to see you-he’s going through a bit of trouble with the new play at the minute. But it’s best not to talk to him about Tamara; it’s not easy for him. He never speaks against her, but of course she is a deeply unpleasant woman, and what he goes through—”’
She broke off her words and busied herself with the teapot.
“But if she’s so awful… and I must say what she did to Janey… I mean, why doesn’t he get rid of her?”’
Margaret spun round, her kind, plain face amazed. “Good heavens-did no one tell you? I suppose they thought you knew, and it’s true we don’t mention her if we can help it. We’re all fond of Bennet-and the children too.” She handed Ellen her cup. “She’s his wife, you see, Tamara is. He’s married to Tamara, only that isn’t her real name, of course.”
“Oh!” It seemed incredible and also unutterably sad. In the short time she had been here, Ellen had conceived a great admiration for the hardworking, scholarly little man who powered the whole place with his vision. “But how? I suppose one shouldn’t ask or pry, but—”’
“It happened in Paris. Bennet was there looking up some texts in the Sorbonne-he’s a fine classical scholar, as you may know. This was twelve years ago when he was still at Oxford. He was walking across the Pont Neuf; it was night time. Do you know Paris?”’
“Yes. I was there for a term learning French.” Ellen could see it: the Seine, the lamps lit, the moonlight, the boats sliding under the bridge.
“And he saw this girl, huddled under a lamp-post and weeping. She had long hair and a thin face… and all that,” said Margaret, and paused, noting the bitterness in her voice. “You can imagine. He’s a chivalrous man. It turned out that she was a dancer from the Diaghilev Ballet who’d been dismissed because she was pregnant. Her lover had deserted her, her mother wouldn’t have her back, she had nowhere to go.”
“Yes, I see. It would be difficult to resist that kind of despair. And she was Russian?”’
“Well, no-that’s what’s so ridiculous. She isn’t Russian at all. Her name is Beryl Smith and she comes from a mining village somewhere in the north of England. She had one of those ballet mums who pushed her through exams and she got taken on by Diaghilev for the Ballet Russe. They all had to have Russian names, so she became Tamara Tatriatova. I suppose it was her happiest time, being part of the troupe, all the warmth and the chatter and people lighting samovars and calling each other Little Pigeon and Little Cabbage and so on.”
Margaret’s effort to be fair to Tamara was taking its toll. She had decided to give up sugar in her tea but now she reached for the bowl and spooned in a generous helping.
“Actually I wondered about the cabbage thing,” said Ellen. “Doesn’t Coucoushka mean Little Cuckoo? We read a lot of Chekhov at school and—”’
“Yes it does; you’re quite right. But the children are convinced it means cabbage, and I must say, I myself—”’
She broke off, not wanting to admit that being fond of birds she also preferred to think of Tamara as a vegetable. “Anyway, Bennet married her,” she went on. “The baby was stillborn-apparently her grief was terrible. Bennet said he’d never seen anyone so distraught. He brought her here soon afterwards to regain her strength and she saw the castle and wanted to live in it and it was then that Bennet thought of the school. She said she’d like to be a mother to other children if she couldn’t have any of her own, but of course it hasn’t worked out like that. Not that one can blame her entirely,” said Margaret, “for it is an unfortunate fact that the needier a child is the less attractive it is. I think she thought they would be smaller, like fairies in a ballet. Since then she has got sillier and sillier and clings more and more to the Russian fantasy. No one believes it; I don’t think she believes it herself. I suppose she is a little mad but that makes no difference. Bennet will never leave her; he is not that kind of man. He stops her teaching as much as possible but she’s convinced she has a mission about The Dance.”