The old lady paused, absentmindedly polishing off her glass. Powerscourt suspected it was some form of vodka cocktail. She peered out at the flames in the fire opposite. ‘I cannot see him yet,’ she said, ‘but I have not given up hope. Even a gardener may dance with a princess after all.’ There was another pause. She began to screw up her eyes in concentration and waved rapidly at her glass with her right hand. Natasha poured the refill.
‘There are so many sorts of balls, my children, but let us pretend for a moment that this is a bal blanc such as my Natasha might attend, one for the young ladies who are not married with rows of chaperons like me lining the walls, watching to see that no girl dances twice with the same partner.’ The old lady cackled suddenly. ‘Many times I have broken the rules in these bals blancs. I would do it for you, Natasha, if you wanted, but don’t tell anyone I told you. I can’t see him here, your gardener, at a dance where waltzes are forbidden, the two-step is regarded as not quite proper and most of the evening is spent in quadrilles with the young people advancing and retiring and forming circles over and over again. No, I’m sorry, Mr Martin is not here.’
Silence, save for the crackle of the flames, filled the great room. ‘Would you like to have a rest, Granny?’ asked Natasha.
‘Rest, child? I’ve only just begun. I’m just getting into my stride. I think my glass is empty, mind you.’ The old lady closed her eyes and stared as hard as she could into the past. ‘There were all sorts of balls at the Winter Palace, of course, concert balls and Hermitage balls.’ She paused. ‘I danced with the Tsar, not the present one, his father, a great bear of a man but very light on his feet, every year from ’87 to ’92 at a Hermitage ball. There was a young Dane with lashings of blond hair, I remember, attached to the Embassy, who danced with me at a concert ball in 1900, the best dancer I ever knew in my entire life. I even danced with Bismarck once, my children, at a Nicholas ball in the 1880s. He trod on my feet. I can still remember that.’ She stopped, waiting, perhaps, for the memories to keep coming.
‘Some things were always the same of course, the flowers, the baskets of orchids, the thousands of palm trees, the exotic plants from the Crimea, the masses of lilac and tulips and roses sent specially from the Riviera.’ She paused again, the look on her face abstracted as she swept through her recollections. ‘The food, the elaborate pastries, the special ices to cool the dancers down, the plates of cold sturgeon, the chicken creams, the stuffed eggs, the three different kinds of caviar, the great blocks of ice standing about with holes cut in them filled with tubs of champagne . . . And sometimes, when the numbers weren’t too big, you could walk with your partner away from the ball, my children, and go deep into the empty rooms of the Winter Palace. The gentleman would take his partner on his arm – a famous admiral took me once – ’ Elizabeth Bobrinsky smiled at the memory of her naval escort, ‘and you could wander through countless empty suites and end up in magical half-lit rooms with only the odd orderly officer to be seen somewhere in the distance, and those enormous windows, as high as a cathedral, looking out over the Neva sparkling in the cold and the moonlight with maybe a light fall of snow come to dust the outside of the Winter Palace.’
Powerscourt and Natasha dared not speak a word. They waited. Elizabeth took another absentminded gulp of her vodka.
‘Where is he? The gardener?’ She spoke very fast, looking around her now, as if some faint memory was stirring. ‘He was here in St Petersburg in the January of 1903, that’s not very long ago. Natasha, my dear, do you remember the famous ball of 1903? It was the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of St Petersburg and that was the last ball held in the Winter Palace what with these common little assassins blowing up Ministers of the Interior and the war with those horrid yellow Japanese.’
She stopped suddenly as if she had lost her way. A sad, abandoned look came over her face as if she was six years old and lost in a strange park.
‘Natasha?’ she said quietly. ‘Natasha? Are you still here?’
‘Of course I’m still here, Grandmama,’ said the girl gently, reaching out to take her grandmother’s hand, ‘You were just telling us about the anniversary ball in 1903. Maybe Mr Martin was there.’
Elizabeth Bobrinsky paused once more. She looked as though she might have used up all her strength. ‘Early January,’ she said, speaking very slowly now, ‘there was a performance of Boris Godunov in the Hermitage, then, two days later, the costume ball in the Nicholas Hall in the Winter Palace. Three thousand people, marshalled by those giant troopers of the Chevalier Guards in white, silver and gold at every entrance and along all the staircases, and Cossack Life Guards in their crimson and blue, the Negro footmen dressed in scarlet from head to foot.’ She stopped again and took a tiny sip of her drink. ‘Half past eight, the ball started. The guests were waiting in the Nicholas Hall as the Grand Master of Ceremonies appeared and tapped three times on the floor with his ebony staff, embossed in gold with the double-headed eagle of the Tsar. The crowd fell silent as the great mahogany doors, inlaid with gold, swung open and the Ceremony man called out “Their Imperial Majesties!” and fifteen hundred ladies curtsied in unison.’
Powerscourt noticed that she had changed tenses as if what happened twenty or thirty years ago was so vivid it came to her in the present, while events of two years before were consigned to the past.
‘Everybody there was wearing seventeenth-century court dress. The Tsar was turned out as Alexis, the second Romanov Tsar, in a rich red caftan embroidered with gold thread and Alexandra was dressed as his wife Maria, in a sarafan of gold brocade with a silver design inlaid with emeralds, pearls and diamonds. Everywhere you looked there were velvet gowns and gleaming golden headdresses, dangling festoons and flashing ribbons.’ She smiled again at Natasha. ‘Do you know, child, I danced with four Grand Dukes that night! I haven’t danced since, mind you. Now I’m going to have a serious look for that Martin.’
Elizabeth closed her eyes. There was a deep furrow of concentration on her brow. Powerscourt could hear strange leaden notes of music being hummed by the old lady. It sounded as if they were out of tune. An old hand, the skin on the back like rumpled parchment, began to conduct an imaginary orchestra. Natasha was making dancing gestures at Powerscourt, swinging her arms round an imaginary dance floor between the tables and the window. They thought they could hear her mutter No from time to time. Then the hand and the humming stopped. She seemed to frown even harder. The hand came up, stayed steady for a few seconds or so and then conducted the tuneless humming into a dance that Powerscourt thought was a polonaise. This was followed by a waltz. Powerscourt suddenly realized that for their benefit the old lady was conducting this titanic effort of will and memory, that, very probably, he and Natasha were witnessing this evening the last dance of Elizabeth Bobrinsky. He wondered how many dances the old lady could hum out of tune and suspected the answer ran into thousands. He settled back for a long wait. Natasha, he noticed, had her arm on her grandmother’s shoulder and looked close to tears. Suddenly the old lady’s left hand began scrabbling frantically round the tables. Natasha placed the photograph of Roderick Martin between her fingers. She opened her eyes and stared hard at the image, as if she wished to lock into her memory every section of the photograph. Then she closed them again. Join us again for another evening of your favourite dance tunes with the Winter Palace Orchestra . . . Powerscourt was lapsing into London music hall announcements. But not for long. With a loud shout of ‘Yes! There you are! You can’t hide from me, Mr Martin!’ Elizabeth Bobrinsky opened her eyes and slammed her fist on the table. ‘I always had the feeling I’d seen him before. I’d forgotten that at the costume ball we didn’t have national music only for the two hundredth anniversary. We had the usual stuff, waltzes and things as well for the non-Russians, diplomatic corps, military attaches, visiting professors, those sorts of people. I saw that Mr Martin just now dancing a waltz with Tamara Kerenkova. I’ve just remembered, he may look like a gardener, but he’s a beautiful dancer.’ She saw her granddaughter exchanging looks with the Englishman. ‘It’s not “is”, is it?’ she said suddenly, realizing the truth behind those glances. ‘Poor Mr Martin’s dead, isn’t he? Poor man, he’ll never dance again.’