‘And tomorrow, I will show you the house,’ the Count promised. ‘Good night, Miss Peters. Sweet dreams attend you – stationary ones, I hope.’
The Countess conducted Anne up the stairs and showed her into her bedroom. It was a decent-sized, square room dominated by the large bed with a white counterpane and curtains, towards which Anne gazed longingly. The only other thing she noticed immediately was the icon in one corner. It had a small red lamp with a pierced shade burning before it, throwing lacy patterns of shadow on to the ceiling.
‘Saint Anne,’ the Countess said, noting the direction of Anne’s gaze. ‘I thought you would like to have your own saint to look after you, but if there is another you’d prefer– ?’
‘You are most kind, madame,’ Anne said a little blankly. She had been brought up with an English contempt for idolatry and hatred of Popery, but this was obviously meant kindly. It was an example of her new mistress’s great thoughtfulness, not an attempt to convert her, and she must respond to it as such. She forced herself to add in a warmer voice, ‘It was thoughtful of you. I am content with your choice.’
The Countess indicated the wash-stand. ‘There is hot water there, ready for you. I think you should sleep as late as you need to tomorrow. I will tell them not to wake you, but wait until you ring. Good night, Miss Peters. I hope you will be happy here.’
‘Good night, madame, and thank you for everything,’ Anne said. When the Countess had withdrawn, Anne thought to herself that it would be her own fault entirely if she were not happy in a place where the mistress was at such pains to make her comfortable. She washed and cleaned her teeth, changed into her nightgown, which some unseen hand had unpacked and laid out for her, and then knelt by the bed to offer a prayer of thanks and of mild supplication, that everything would go on being as pleasant as it had begun.
Then she climbed up into the high, white bed. It was a feather bed, and she sank into it deeply, feeling the absolute weariness of five weeks on the road washing over her. Her head whirled rather pleasantly, with mingling images of light and shade, carriages and chandeliers, trees and samovars. Her limbs were heavy, the bed was soft, so soft… as soft as the curds in the curd-cake… she was sinking gently into a bed of curds… she was asleep.
Anne woke suddenly and completely, and didn’t know where she was. White curtains with sunlight streaming through them. White curtains? Oh, she must be at an inn somewhere – but where? Where had they got to last night? Recollection seeped back into her brain. No, of course, they had arrived. She was at Schwartzenturm, the Count’s house, in what was to be from now on her own room. That was a pleasant thought: a room of her own again, after so long – a room to unpack in. She sat up and pulled back the bed curtains, and then leaned back against her pillows to examine the room in comfort.
The room was square and the proportions good, but there was no sign of the elaborate elegance of the other rooms she had seen last night. The floor was of wood, painted dark red, with no rug but a sheepskin beside the bed on to which to lower tender morning toes. The walls were of plain plaster, painted white, except for a band at the top where they met the ceiling, which had been painted with a frieze of red poppies, intertwined with green stems and leaves, and yellow ears of corn. It was a scheme of decoration which struck her as simple, novel, and attractive.
The furniture was simple too. There was a handsome, tall chest of drawers made of some light, polished wood – cedar, she guessed – for her clothes, and a heavily-carved, low oak chest, like a church terrier, which she thought would do to hold her shoes and hats. In the corner by the door was the icon with its lamp on a small table before it, and near the window a pretty console table, probably English, with a large mirror above it, in a frame of painted wood. Below the window was a day bed covered in red-and-white-striped silk, which looked French, and on the other side of the room a heavy tapestry chair which looked Dutch.
Add the pleasantness of the sunlight pouring in through the white muslin curtains, the smell of beeswax, and the starch of the white counterpane, and it was a room plain and simple, but eminently comfortable. And on the table beside the bed, alongside the candle, someone – she guessed the Countess – had placed a nicely bound book of French essays, and a small vase of wild wallflowers, whose faint but sweet scent reached her like a breath of kindness. It was a room in which to be happy, to feel at home, she thought drowsily from the comfort of her pillows.
She must have drifted back to sleep, for she woke abruptly to the feeling that she was being watched, and sat up with a startled gasp to see that the door of her room was open a crack, and an eye was peering at her through the space. It withdrew hastily as she moved, and then reappeared, and, judging by its height from the ground, Anne guessed it must belong to the Count’s younger child.
‘Hello,’ she said. Then, remembering to speak French, she continued, ‘It’s all right, you can come in if you want. I’m quite awake now.’ The door opened a fraction more to allow access to the round soft button of a nose and part of a chin. ‘Why don’t you come and climb up on to the bed,’ she invited, ‘and we can introduce ourselves.’
There was a pause while the proposition was evaluated. Then the door opened fully and a small, stocky, nightgowned figure scampered in and scrambled up on to the bed, to kneel before her and contemplate her unsmilingly but with interest from under a tumble of light-brown curls. The solemn eyes were amber, like her mother’s, but otherwise it was as yet a chubbily undefined face.
‘Do you know who I am?’ Anne asked after a moment. The child nodded, but did not speak. ‘How did you know I was here?’ she asked next. No answer. ‘Did your sister tell you?’ A nod. ‘So now I know who you are, don’t I? You must be’ – she paused to get the full name right – ‘you must be Natasha Nikolayevna. Am I right?’
Another nod, and then a radiant grin, accompanied by a violent rocking back and forth to indicate approval and good will.
‘Well, Natasha Nikolayevna,’ Anne went on, ‘I am very glad to meet you, and I hope we shall be friends.’ Natasha tucked her lower lip under her upper one, and rocked a little harder. ‘What lessons do you do? Do you take lessons with your sister?’ No answer. ‘Do you take lessons with Fräulein Hoffnung?’ The bright eyes continued to regard her, but in silence, and Anne was beginning to feel baffled, when there was a small sound at the door of her room and Yelena appeared, dressed, this time, in white muslin frock and blue sash, her black curls tied up with blue ribbon.
‘Natasha! There you are!’ she cried in aggrieved tones. ‘You shouldn’t be in here, you wicked thing. Nyanka has been looking everywhere for you. You are to go and be dressed at once!’
Natasha gave Anne one more bright, silent look, and jumped off the bed and pattered out, avoiding with a dextrous swerve the admonitory pinch her sister aimed at her as she passed. Yelena, dropping Anne a curtsey of apology, began to close the door, but Anne called her back.
‘Please ask your nurse not to be angry with her, just this once. She was not troubling me,’ Anne said. ‘I was glad to make her acquaintance; but I could not get her to talk to me. Does she understand French?’
Yelena came a step further into the room. ‘Oh, she understands it, but she won’t speak it,’ she said.
‘Won’t speak it? Why not?’
‘She never speaks at all,’ Yelena said matter-of-factly. ‘Not to anyone. There isn’t anything wrong with her – she just won’t. Nyanka calls her Nemetzka – little dumb thing – but Mama says she’ll speak when she has something to say.’ She looked around the room, evidently having lost interest in the subject of her younger sister. ‘Mama said you weren’t to be disturbed, but since you are awake, are you going to get up, mademoiselle?’ she asked wistfully. ‘Because I want to show you the nursery, and my rocking horse, and Zilka has a litter of puppies in the stable.’