‘Madame, the storm–’ Anne said, not even sure whether the Countess had noticed. ‘I’m afraid it may rain at any moment.’
‘Well, we are under the trees,’ the Countess said shortly. ‘We are sheltered.’
‘But madame, I was always told not to shelter under a tree if there were lightning.’
‘Under a solitary tree, not in the middle of a forest. We are quite safe. Don’t fuss so.’
Anne was astonished to hear her speak so shortly and said nothing more, riding on beside and a little behind her, while the wind moaned in the tree tops, and lightning flashes and long rumblings of thunder grew more frequent. Then the trees thinned out, and they were out on the other side of the forest, and Anne could see for herself how plum-coloured clouds had rolled up to cover the whole sky, making a strange and threatening twilight in the middle of the day. It was going to rain, and rain mightily, at any moment!
The Countess, however, rode straight forward, leaving the shelter of the trees behind. Anne shivered, hating to feel so exposed, and paradoxically more afraid of the lightning than she had been when under the trees. Below and to the right she could see the peasant village she had visited with the Count, and she felt a small surge of relief. Now at last she knew where they were.
‘Madame,’ she said, ‘ought we not at least to ride in the direction of home?’
The Countess opened her mouth to reply, and there was a sudden chill gust of wind which lifted their hair, and the storm broke over them. The rain fell in large drops, the first few warm, and then, as it grew heavier, unpleasantly cold. The horses laid back their ears, and Iskra sidled unhappily, trying to get away from the hard raindrops smacking her rump. The Countess looked about her, almost as if she had woken from a dream, and Anne, raising her voice over the drumming of the rain on the dusty track, said, ‘We must take shelter! Shall we head for the trees again?’
Iskra performed several tight circles on the spot, and the Countess, straightening her out with a firm hand, said, ‘No, we had better ride to the village. We can shelter in one of the houses. This won’t last long – it never does when it’s so violent.’
She put the mare into a canter, and Anne followed, bowing her head and turning her face sideways out of the blinding rain, praying that Grafina would be able to keep her feet on the greasy track and pick her own way. They cantered full pelt down the slope, and a moment later skidded to a halt under the sheltering trees outside the first house in the village street. The Countess swung her leg free and jumped down, and at the same moment, an old man with a stick came hobbling out of the house, followed by a young woman in the usual peasant garb of cotton dress, shawl, and handkerchief tied about her head.
Anne heard an exchange going on in Russian as she freed herself and jumped down, and the young woman, who had taken Iskra’s reins, held her hand out for Grafina’s, and led the horses swiftly away through the teeming rain towards the barn next to the house. The old man bowed several times to the Countess, and then to Anne, and with voluble gestures of his free hand for them to follow, hobbled briskly towards the house.
A moment later, gasping and with water running down her neck, Anne ducked in out of the rain, and had her first view of the inside of a peasant house. It was only a single-storey building, but the ceiling was very high, going right up into the steep pitch of the roof. The atmosphere was close and smoky, for the stove was alight, and there was no chimney. The stove took up about a quarter of the space inside the hut, a huge oblong made of baked clay, with a large opening at one end through which Anne could see the light of the flames inside. It reached half-way up the height of the room, and above it, there was a wooden structure, like two tiers of broad wooden shelves, which Anne could not immediately account for.
The walls of the house were of plain wood, and she could hear the rain drumming against the roof. There was very little in the way of furniture – a large wooden table with wooden benches drawn up to it, and some shelves high up on the walls, on which bowls and jugs and boxes were stacked. Opposite the door, in the corner to the left, was a shelf with a lamp burning on it before an icon of the Mother and Child, and even as Anne entered and looked about her, she saw the Countess bow reverently towards it and cross herself.
The old man now looked at Anne expectantly, and when she stared back, not knowing what was wanted of her, he frowned and growled something in Russian. The Countess turned to Anne.
‘Do as I did. Bow to the icon and cross yourself.’
‘But I’m not–’
‘Do it. They will be horribly offended otherwise,’ she said sternly. Anne, with an inward shrug, obeyed, remembering at the last moment to cross herself the Orthodox way. She felt very awkward about it, but appreciated that it would be easier than explaining her to the inmates and persuading them not to mind, and hoped that God would understand.
There were a good many people in the room: the old man, two old women, a middle-aged woman crouching in front of the opening of the stove, and – Anne counted quickly – six children of different sizes, including a baby swinging in a sort of small hammock hung from the cross-beam. As soon as Anne had performed the ritual, they all smiled welcomingly, and a splurge of chatter broke out, and two of the women came forward to help them off with their hats and jackets, tutting and clucking about the rain, and carried them away to prop them on a wooden frame against the wall of the stove to dry.
The young woman came back and said something to the Countess about the horses – Anne knew one or two words now – and then gestured for them to sit down on one of the benches, and went over to feed the stove. Anne sat beside the Countess, with the disagreeable feeling of water in her boots, and began to pull off her gloves, which, being made of soft leather, were clinging to her fingers like a second skin.
‘It’s customary, you see,’ the Countess explained, engaged on the same task, ‘for everyone entering the house to make obeisance to the beautiful corner, before they are permitted to speak or sit down. It’s a rule they keep very strictly, without exceptions.’
Anne nodded. ‘I understand. Is that what they call it – the beautiful corner?’
‘Yes – krasnyi ugolok, in Russian.’
‘But I thought krasnyi means “red”,’ Anne frowned. It was one of the words she knew well, having heard the ‘red stables’ spoken of every day on her morning walk with the children.
‘It’s the same word,’ the Countess said indifferently. ‘Krasnyi means both red and beautiful.’
‘Why?’ Anne wanted to know.
‘I don’t know,’ the Countess said without interest. ‘We’ll shelter here until the rain stops. The young woman will make us some tea, I expect. What do you think of your first peasant house?’
‘It’s very snug, and bigger than I expected,’ Anne said, looking around her. The two old women and the old man were all looking at her, and as she caught their eyes they all beamed and nodded delightedly, and she smiled and nodded in return. This happened every time she looked up, and though rather tiring, was ample evidence of their good will. ‘There is one thing that strikes me as odd, though – I can’t see any beds. Where do they all sleep?’
‘Above the stove, of course, for warmth,’ said the Countess. Thus prompted, Anne could see how it was arranged. The lower level of sleepers would lie directly on the clay roof of the stove, and in winter, she imagined would be delightfully snug; those on the upper level, raised above them on the wooden superstructure which had puzzled her, would benefit from the rising warm air.