‘Your French accent has improved a great deal, Hélène. Is that dear Fräulein Hoffnung’s work?’ the Dowager cooed, reaching for her reticule. Yelena, who had taken up a position leaning on the arm of the sofa with her elbows, rocked her feet off the floor and down again rhythmically as she watched the hand in the reticule with avaricious eyes.
‘No, Anna Petrovna teaches me French now,’ she said. ‘Is my present in there? What did you bring me?’ The Dowager had brought out a pretty gold cachoux-box with an enamelled lid and tiny diamonds round the edge, doubtless intending to take a cachou for herself, but Yelena said, ‘Oh, it’s so pretty, Gran’mère! Is it really for me?’
To Anne’s surprise the Dowager, with hardly a hesitation, said, ‘Do you like it? Yes, dear, it’s for you. Here–’ Her hands lingered only a little regretfully on it as she relinquished it into Yelena’s eager fingers. ‘Take good care of it, won’t you, ma chère p’tite, because it belonged to the poor dear martyred Queen of France.’ Yelena bent her head over it with close interest, and the Dowager turned a less hostile eye on Anne, and lifted her lorgnon only half-way as she said, ‘So, you teach my granddaughter French, mademoiselle?’
‘Yes, madame. That is, I improve her French, for she speaks it very fluently already,’ Anne said diplomatically.
The Dowager lowered the glass a little more. ‘Hmm,’ she said grudgingly. ‘You have a good accent, mademoiselle. English? I would not have thought it.’ She pulled herself together, and turned to frown at Irina. ‘There is no call to learn English as far as I can see. It was never required in my day, and what use will it be to Hélène? French is the language for a gentlewoman, French and only French. I’m surprised at you, my dear.’
Fräulein Hoffnung, anxious to protect her young mistress, now made a mistake. She had been holding Natasha by the hand all this time, and now, to draw attention away from the Countess, said, ‘Dear madame, here is your other granddaughter, come to greet you. Natasha Nikolayevna, curtsey to your grandmother.’
Vera Borisovna’s head swung round and her eyes narrowed, and she looked so coldly at the elderly governess that the poor Fräulein turned quite pale, dropped Natasha’s hand, and fumbled in her sleeve for a handkerchief which she pressed to her face as though hoping to hide in it. Natasha curtseyed quite prettily, but the Dowager stared, unmoved. ‘Yes, so I see.’ Then she looked at Irina Pavlovna and said frostily, ‘She looks like her mother.’
The words themselves were unexceptionable, but the tone of voice suggested that it was a grave misfortune for the child, and Irina Pavlovna’s lips quivered with distress. She held out her hand to her daughter, who ran to her, unconcerned, and climbed on to her lap. Anne could see how hurt she was, and also how the Count had – at least apparently – noticed nothing untoward in the exchange. Fortunately Yelena broke the tension by asking again after her brother, and the moment passed.
The Dowager, to mark her disapproval of Fräulein Hoffnung’s blunder in asking her to notice Natasha, decided to be gracious to Anne, invited her to take a seat near her and engaged her in conversation about Yelena’s education, beauty and amazing talents. She referred to her granddaughter always in the French form, Hélène, and lavished praise on her in her hearing in a way Anne thought calculated to make her own life more difficult in future. A conversation with the Dowager was ike a stroll under shell-fire, but it was obviously better to be one of Vera Borisovna’s favourites than one of her anathemas, so she picked her way carefully, answered patiently, and closed her mind to the Dowager’s offensive manner and her insulting opinions. It astonished her, then and on reflection, how the Count could have grown up so intelligent, liberal and kind, and even more how he could now be so blind to his mother’s multiple faults.
The following day, the Danilovs arrived, bringing Sergei with them. The Count’s sister, Alexandra, whom everyone but her mother called Shoora, was a round-faced, sweet-tempered, merry romp of a woman, seeming much younger than her age and certainly too young to be the mother of her two children. She didn’t look in the least like the Count, so Anne assumed she must favour her father. She had a frank, open face and round blue eyes, and when Anne was introduced, she took hold of both her hands and said, ‘Ah, you poor dear! How dreadful it must be to have no family and to be so far from home. Well, we shall be your family now. You must look on me as a sister, and you shall call me Shoora – none of this “madame” business. And how sensible of Nikolasha to give you a Russian name! It makes you seem like one of the family. You must come and stay with us in Moscow as soon as Irina can spare you, mustn’t she, Vsevka?’
Her husband, Vsevolod, was less voluble, but equally kind. He shook Anne’s hand, gave her a steady, friendly look, and said, ‘Yes, of course you must. You mustn’t miss seeing Moscow. It knocks Petersburg into a cocked hat!’
Their children, Ivan – Vanya – who was twelve, and Kira, who was ten, were remarkably attractive children, with the free, open manners of their parents, and a good deal of fun about them. Kira, indeed, was so pretty, with neat, regular features and a mischievous smile, that if she hadn’t been one of Vera Borisovna’s grandchildren, the Dowager would have given her a very uncomfortable time. Shoora and Vsevka treated the Dowager just as they treated everyone else and were impervious to her criticisms, shrugging them off with a laugh; and she was a good deal less formal and frosty with them. It went to prove, Anne thought, that the one thing one should never do with a bully is to lie down under their feet. But it was impossible, of course, to tell the Countess that.
The Count’s son, Sergei, was very like his father in looks, quite startlingly so, in fact. He was almost fifteen, and in the borderland between boyhood and manhood, capable of romping unselfconsciously with his sisters and cousins, but with the occasional painful access of dignity. He liked to talk seriously with his father and Uncle Vsevka about politics and military matters, standing with his hands clasped behind him, nodding sagely in a way that made Anne and the Count catch each other’s eye and repress a smile; and yet the next moment he would be in the throes of a very childish bout of horseplay with Vanya and Lolya, involving battering each other with cushions until they fell to the ground breathless.
His grandmother obviously adored him even more extravagantly than Yelena, and he bore her attentions patiently. The only time he rebelled was when she called him ‘Serge’ instead of Sergei or Seryosha. Then the high colour of youth in his cheeks would deepen with embarrassment and annoyance, and he would say ‘Don’t. That’s not my name.’ All the children called her Grandmère.. She spoke nothing but French, and would understand no other language, and they would not have dared address her as Baboushka, even had anything in her resembled that comfortable word.
Sergei treated Anne with friendly deference, as an unobjectionable adult outside his immediate circle of concern, which was all she would have expected of him. His attitude to his step-mother was harder to define. He was perfectly polite to her, and Anne, though she watched him closely, could not detect any hostility in his attitude; yet he was not at ease. He seemed to want to get away from her, answering her briefly when she spoke to him and never meeting her eye. He seemed to become subdued in her presence, as if the outflowing of his young spirits were suddenly damped down. He seemed almost to become smaller when he was near her.
The visitors settled in, and the house was filled with sound and movement, talk and laughter, which Anne found delightful. Shoora was a great asset to the company. She was full of fun and chatter, keeping the conversation going through every awkwardness and deflecting the Dowager’s malice from the Countess. With her brother’s help, she organised games and frolics in the evenings that kept everyone amused until the children fell asleep, despite themselves, from sheer exhaustion.