Her eyes were defiant, but Anne saw in them a shadow of fear. Was she afraid that he would persuade her to leave – or that he would not? Anne said, ‘Lolya, you remember what I told you before, in Moscow?’
‘You told me a lot of things,’ she snapped, turning on her swiftly. ‘You told me he didn’t love me, that he was only using me. Well, you were wrong. Now you see it, don’t you?’
‘I told you that no man who loved you would do anything to risk your safety. By asking you to come with him on this – this hellish journey, he has proved he doesn’t love you. Can’t you see that?’
‘He didn’t ask me,’ Lolya said with a defiance that covered a world of hurt. ‘I suggested it. It was my plan – he only agreed to it. So you can’t blame André for anything. Blame me if you want – not that it matters now.’
‘Matters? Of course it matters! What are you talking about?’ Kirov cried, frustrated by the irrelevance of the talk.
Anne intervened again. ‘Colonel Duvierge,’ she said, turning to him, ‘won’t you please speak to Lolya? You are a gentleman. I don’t believe you are without principle. Lolya must come back with us – you must see that.’
But he only shrugged. ‘I see nothing of the sort. Hélène may do as she pleases. She came of her own free wilclass="underline" I do not keep her here by force. If she wishes, she may go with you. Ask her, not me.’.
‘I don’t wish!’ Lolya cried passionately. ‘I want to stay with you, André!’
He gave her a small smile, devoid of any affection. ‘Then stay,’ he said indifferently.
Anne stared hard at him. ‘Why did you let her come with you?’ she asked abruptly. ‘You don’t love her.’
‘Oh, love! You women talk endlessly above love! Hélène wished to come with me to Paris: why should I prevent her? It is – a pleasant thing to have a companion on a journey such as this.’ The irony of his tone in choosing that word Anne could see was not lost even on Lolya. She pressed her advantage quickly.
‘You see, Lolya, he doesn’t love you. He only finds you convenient – pleasant. Something to make the journey comfortable – like this furniture.’
‘Not true! Not true! How dare you say it! I hate you, Anna! André loves me, he does!’
‘Come back with us, chérie, while there’s still time. Even if you get as far as Paris, do you think he will go on finding you pleasant for ever?’
‘Stop it! I won’t listen!’ Lolya pressed her fingers to her ears.
‘He denies none of this, you see,’ Anne went on remorselessly, her heart aching for the young woman she must hurt to save. ‘If he loved you, he would deny it.’
Lolya threw a harried look at her lover, who met her gaze with a small, cool smile and a lift of an eyebrow, which seemed to say choose between us – safety or excitement; respectability or romance. He said nothing, promised nothing; and suddenly a change came over her. She put her hands down to her side, straightened, lifted her chin, looked at her lover with a frightening pride. In a calm voice she said, ‘I wouldn’t ask him to deny it. What he says is true -1 am here of my own free will. The choice is mine.’
A flicker of something like respect was in Duvierge’s eyes as they met hers, and it hardened her resolve. She turned to her father. ‘I’m not coming with you, Papa. I’m sorry if – if it hurts you. But I love André.’
‘I’ve heard enough of this nonsense,’ Nikolai said. ‘I’m not asking you, Lolya – I’m telling you. You’re coming home with us, now.’
‘No,’ Lolya said calmly. ‘I won’t come, Papa, and you can’t make me.’
His fists clenched in frustration. ‘Lolya, for God’s sake, what is all this? Can’t you see that this man is a scoundrel? He’ll use you and then discard you! I know his sort. How can you think you love him? Haven’t you any self-respect?’
Lolya blazed suddenly with anger, and she looked in that instant uncannily like her father. ‘Oh! I’m tired of you talking to me like a child! I’m not a child any more, but you still think you can stop me having what I want! You’ve got what you wanted, haven’t you? You’ve got Anna – and you’re not even married to her! So don’t talk to me about respectability and morals and – and–’ Her rage went as quickly as it had arisen: it is hard for a child to quarrel with a parent whose authority she has always respected. She looked down and bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, Anna,’ she said briefly. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
Anne tried once more, dragging the words up from a heavy heart. ‘Oh Lolya, please don’t do this. Come back with us. It’s for the best – I swear to you.’
For a moment Lolya looked at her, and Anne saw with a terrible pity that she knew Anne was right; that she knew he didn’t love her, and that she had deceived herself wilfully. But she lifted her head proudly and stepped over to stand beside Duvierge, and said quietly, ‘It’s too late, you see – I belong to him. We were married in Mozhaisk.’ She sought something in Anne’s eyes. ‘But even if we weren’t, it would be too late. You must understand that.’
Anne looked at her with enormous sadness. ‘Yes,’ she said, so quietly that it was almost a sigh.
Kirov looked at his daughter in bewildered pain. ‘You choose him? You won’t come with me? Lolya – my child–’
‘I think you had better go now,’ Duvierge said. ‘You see that she makes her choice freely. I do not keep her against her will.’
Kirov turned on him. ‘By God, I should like to kill you!’
‘Yes, no doubt. But it would not help, would it?’ Duvierge said indifferently.
There was nothing more to be done; and yet he could not bring himself to leave. He stood with his hands hanging uselessly, looking from his daughter to the Frenchman. Suddenly Lolya ran to him, put her arms round his neck, and pressed her cheek briefly against his. ‘I love you, Papa,’ she whispered; and before he could touch her, she disengaged herself and stepped back, and said with dignity, ‘Please go now. I want you to go.’ Duvierge followed them out, returning them to the care of the guard. At the last moment Kirov turned on him again, and anticipating him, Duvierge lifted his hands, and looked at him cannily, and said, ‘Yes, yes I know! I will take care of her – you have my word. I am a Frenchman, not the Devil.’
He would take care of her, Anne saw that – not because he loved her, but because she was his possession. Lolya would have to settle for that – and who knew but that in the lottery of marriage she might have done worse?’
Caulaincourt received them gravely, listened to Kirov’s few broken words about the interview with Lolya.
‘What power I have, I will use to see that she is taken care of,’ he said at last. ‘When all this is over, if she wishes to return, I will send her back to you. There are bound to be cartels of exchange. God knows how many Frenchmen have been taken prisoner.’
‘Thank you,’ Kirov said bleakly.
‘And now, though I would like to offer you hospitality, I think it would be better if you were to leave Smolensk immediately.’ He tapped a document lying on the corner of the desk and said tonelessly, ‘We have just had a report, you see, that your army under General Kutuzov has captured Vitebsk, and seized our garrison stores there.’
Kirov stared, his mind dragged away from his own problems for a moment. Vitebsk was the major town linking the route from Smolensk to Vilna – Napoleon’s escape route.
‘Your stores?’
‘We have been relying on those stores to get us to the border. Now we have nothing – and even the direct road is blocked to us.’
‘What will you do?’ Kirov asked at last.
‘We shall have to go another way,’ Caulaincourt said, and then his control wavered and broke. ‘We have only fifty thousand men left – fifty thousand, out of such a multitude!’ he cried. ‘They’re starving to death! If you’d seen, as I saw, the whole road littered with bodies – men dead of hunger, cold and misery! Even on a battlefield I never saw so much horror!’