Yelena was a lively child, intelligent, though Anne thought not at all well taught, and good-natured as long as she had her own way. But she lacked concentration, disliked anything that required prolonged effort or hard work; and though as yet there had been no confrontation between her and Anne – for lessons had not formally begun – Anne had no doubt from the gleam in those dark eyes that there would be something of a battle before she settled down to disciplined ways.
Natasha would not be under her tutelage for another two years yet, but Anne observed her with interest. She had thought Yelena was exaggerating when she said Natasha never spoke, but it was quite true – she not only never spoke, but never made any sound at all. The Countess said that she had cried lustily when she was born, and as a baby had made all the normal gurgling noises until she learned to walk. Then her self-imposed silence began. The Countess, at Fräulein Hoffnung’s instigation, had her examined by doctors in Petersburg last winter, but they had said that there was nothing functionally wrong with the child, and she certainly seemed perfectly normal in every other way. Nyanka said that she would speak when she was ready, and the Countess agreed. Anne was surprised at her apparent unconcern, but it seemed to be genuine.
Natasha appeared to be happy and healthy: she played with her toys, listened to stories, pattered about after Nyanka or Yelena, and shared her sister’s affinity for animals; but Anne thought her a strange little thing, and sometimes felt disturbed by that bright, watchful gaze of hers. It was too knowing for a little child, almost as though she were laughing inwardly at the adults she cared too little about to wish to communicate.
But if there was something odd about Natasha, there was also something odd about her mother. Anne saw a good deal of the Countess during that first fortnight when the Count was away: she ate all her meals with her, sat with her in the evenings, was shown around the house and taken for drives by her, and yet though they conversed in a far more friendly and informal manner than had been the case with Lady Murray, she could not feel she came any closer to the Countess than on the first day.
There was no apparent reserve: the Countess was uniformly kind and considerate, her manner gentle, her expression kindly. Yet Anne felt that she was dealing with a mask, a shape thrust forward to distract attention, not so much to present a false image, but to prevent an image from being detected. If there were a reality, it was deeply hidden, and sometimes when she spoke to her, and found herself regarded with that golden gaze, like the long, blank stare of a leopard, Anne wondered if there were anything underneath it at all.
She was not alone in finding the Countess strange, Anne discovered. During the two weeks, there were several courtesy calls paid by neighbouring families, and Anne was presented to the visitors, and greeted by them, in a warm, friendly manner that was balm to her Murray-bruised self-esteem. The Russian ladies came with their grown-up daughters and small sons and sat in the octagon room, drinking tea and chatting. They asked Anne about England and Paris and her adventures, asked after the Count rather wistfully, listened patiently to Yelena, begged Anne to play for them on the pianoforte, and praised her extravagantly when she obliged.
But she could feel their unease and noted the sidelong way they looked at the Countess, heard the unnatural note in their voices as they chatted to her, and the relief with which they turned to each other or to Anne. They were pleasant, ordinary matrons, concerned with their houses and husbands and children, with meals and domestics and fashions and marriages; probably they had too little imagination between them to know why, but the Countess Kirova made them feel uneasy.
Anne could see why the Count would have married her, why he loved her. She was beautiful in a remarkable and unique way, the sort of woman to intrigue a man, to make him want to possess her, as he might wish to own a rare and precious work of art. But she was also alien, and Anne wondered how genuine a love could be for something so utterly impenetrable, and how much it was a self-delusion, a fantasy. Anne remembered how he had spoken to her and looked at her, how close their minds had become during the five weeks of their journey to Russia, and she could not believe that he ever spoke to his Countess like that. Surely real love must be for like to like?
Anne remembered the soft glow of the Countess’s eyes when she looked at her husband, his passionate greeting of her when he first arrived home, and faltered; but then she remembered also that exchange in the carriage about the serfs, when the Countess had failed to grasp what her husband was saying, and had revealed a shallowness of understanding which a man of his intellect must find daunting. The Count might love his Irina as he would love a beautiful animal, but surely he could not love her mind? In bed at night, alone with her thoughts, Anne felt that he could not, that his singling-out of her in Paris had been in response to a real need in himself; and she looked forward to his return from Petersburg with a guilty eagerness.
Chapter Seven
A rainy day meant there was no going out for a morning walk or drive. The children had already driven Nyanka to slapping-point, and Fräulein Hoffnung had a cold in the head, so in response to Yelena’s urgings, Anne took her and Natasha down to the kitchen to make sweets.
The kitchens were on the ground floor under the white tower, a range of rooms connected by stone corridors, around a central chamber ruled over by Kerim. He was a short man, barrel-chested and slightly bow-legged, with a swarthy face, black oiled hair which hung about his neck in love-locks, and protuberant black eyes that shone as though they had been polished, and ran easily over into tears. Despite his Turkish appearance, he spoke French perfectly and with a French accent, and he took an instant liking to Anne the first time she was taken downstairs by the Countess to meet him.
‘Ah, how well you speak French, chère mademoiselle, like a Frenchwoman! How good it is to hear after the butcherings these Russians make of it! We must converse often – such a pleasure! Come to my kitchen any time.’
Anne knew enough about bad-tempered, autocratic English cooks to accept this as a compliment. Kerim was remarkably good-humoured, and never seemed to mind having his territory invaded by the children, whom he greeted each time as though he had not seen them for weeks, with hugs, damp kisses, and large sighs.
‘The darling little ones,’ he would say moistly, ‘how I love them! Fair as angels, so sweet, so gentle! Ah, mademoiselle, if only things had been different!’
‘What things, Kerim?’ Anne asked, intrigued.
Kerim shook his head lugubriously. ‘My life has been full of tragedy! If I were to tell you… But then, I would not break your heart, as mine has been broken.’
‘But Kerim, what tragedy? What has happened to you?’ Anne would ask every time.
And every time, Kerim would only say mysteriously, ‘We are not all made the same, mademoiselle. The good Lord knows why.’
Kerim, though Russian born of Turkish stock, was a Roman Catholic, which scandalised Nyanka, who thought Papists were servants of the Devil, corrupters of the true Faith, and astonishingly, intriguingly evil. It particularly fascinated her that, compared to her practice, Kerim crossed himself backwards, and when she visited with the children, she would try to provoke him into doing it so that she could watch. If that failed, she would use more direct methods, and usually finish by trying to persuade him to convert to the Orthodox faith.