'This is a friend I came upon by chance,' Vania announced. 'Signoria Maria Stella of the Theatre Feydeau. But tell us quickly, young man, what is the latest threat?'
'Give me a drink first. My tongue feels like a dry sponge. It's too big for my mouth.'
'It will be bigger still after a good soaking then,' Madame Bursay retorted but she poured him a full mug of beer which he swallowed down with eyes half-closed and an expression of utter bliss upon his face. Disdaining such trifling matters as good manners, he smacked his lips and bolted down a slice of ham, helping it on its way with a second draught of beer, then threw himself down bodily upon a decrepit armchair which groaned under his weight, and fetched a deep, lugubrious sigh.
'Even when one's body may be doomed to extinction at any minute,' he remarked, 'there is still a great deal of comfort to be found in feeding it.'
'Well, you're a cheerful one, I must say,' Vania scolded him. 'What makes you think we may be doomed to imminent extinction, as you call it?'
The things that are happening in the city. The rumour is spreading that Murat's cavalry is hard on Kutuzov's heels. The civilian population is in full flight.'
'That's no news. They've been fleeing for three days.'
'Maybe, but this is somewhat different. Yesterday it was the rich, the nobility and gentry. Today, it's anyone who has anything to lose. Only beggars, the bedridden and the dying will be left. And by this time all of them are in despair because they are taking away the sacred images from all the churches and monasteries to keep them from falling into the hands of Antichrist and his marauding hordes. Near the church of Peter and Paul I saw the people escorting the wounded to the Lefort Hospital, throw themselves down in the dust at the feet of the priests, stretching out their arms to the icons and pleading for them to remain, crying that the wounded would surely die, and then move on before the priests so much as lifted a hand to ask them, such is the habit of submission among these people. But there is worse to come—'
"What now?' Madame Bursay said irritably. 'Why must you always save everything for dramatic effect, Lekain?'
'It's you I'm trying to save! Before leaving Moscow, that damned Rostopchin threw open all the prisons, letting all the rogues and thieves and murderers they contained loose upon the city. And they'll not leave it without filling their pockets. I saw a gang of them getting into the Kremlin by the Saviour's Gate – and I can tell you, none of them were stopping to bow to the icon there, nor was there anyone to remind them of the law! I think they'll probably break into every house of any size.'
'And you stand there moralizing!' Vania cried indignantly. 'We must warn the caretaker, tell him to barricade the doors and windows and – and – I don't know what else!'
Lekain laughed grimly. 'The caretaker? He's a long way off by now and probably still running. I saw him going off with a cartload of stuff as I came back. If we have to put up a fight, there'll be none but ourselves to do it. Besides, I shouldn't think we'd much to fear up here—'
Marianne had been following her new friends' conversation in silence, but now she voiced her own opinion.
'But this store room is near the main gate, isn't it? And surely they'll try to break the first doors and windows they come to? We'd be more likely to escape them in the servants' quarters.'
The young actor had been gazing at her with evident pleasure but now he smiled with evident intent to captivate.
'I said a moment ago that you were as pale as you were beautiful, Madame, and now I say that you are as wise as you are both. The servants' rooms in the attics seem to me an admirable refuge – unless the mob should see fit to fire the house, in which case we shall undoubtedly be roasted, or if—'
'If, if, if,' Vania broke in impatiently. 'You can prove anything with if!For myself,' she added nobly, tossing the folds of her antique robe over one shoulder, 'I'd rather be roasted than ravished!'
'You have the oddest tastes, then,' Lekain said with a grimace. "That's what comes of singing Dido. It gives you a fancy for a funeral pyre. At all events, I think the lady is right. We had better move. Since the caretaker has absconded, we should be able to break into the palace itself and get upstairs. We may not be troubled at all. Moscow is very large and there are many palaces. But in any case we shall be safer there, and it may enable us to hold out until the French enter Moscow. I'd better go and fetch the others.'
Suiting the action to the words, he left the store room and made his way across the courtyard to knock on the door of the little chamber where the other two actresses had taken up residence. Meanwhile, Vania crossed over to where Marianne was pushing back her cushions and struggling to rise and bent over her.
'How are you feeling? Do you think that you can walk – enough to climb up three flights of stairs? We will help you all we can.'
The younger woman looked up at the Italian with a washed-out smile.
'I must. I do feel a little faint still, but I think I can manage. Have I lost a great deal of blood?'
'A certain amount. But you must have an excellent constitution for it stopped flowing quite quickly. Come, I will support you.'
Slipping an arm under Marianne's sound shoulder, she gripped her round the waist and helped her to stand. There followed a bad moment for the sufferer who felt as if the walls were revolving round her and all the blood she had left had drained into her feet.
'Have a little more brandy,' Madame Bursay suggested, surveying her blanched cheeks with some anxiety.
'It will make me drunk—'
'As if that mattered! Once we are upstairs you can be put to bed and sleep. The thing is to get there.'
Marianne meekly swallowed a thimbleful of the aromatic spirit. A trace of colour came into her cheeks but it was at Vania that she smiled gratefully.
'Very well then,' she said simply.
While Madame Bursay made a bundle of their provisions in the remains of the torn-up petticoat and added as many cushions as she could carry, Marianne and Vania made their way with slow, cautious steps towards the door. The Florentine singer's arm was firm and steady and with her help Marianne was able to walk better than she had feared. However, she found that she had an odd, instinctive confidence in her new friend, and with it a feeling of having known her all her life. It may have been something to do with the scent of roses that clung about the dark red robe, reminding her of Fortunée Hamelin.
In the courtyard they found Lekain struggling, with the assistance of two young women, one dressed as an ingenue, the other in a page's costume, to lift into place the heavy iron bar which secured the palace against intruders at night. By the time they had finished, they were all three very red and out of breath but this did not prevent them throwing themselves enthusiastically at the main doorway of the palace itself, consisting of an imposing pair of oak leaves framed by a colonnade. Lekain got the better of it without much difficulty with the aid of some tools he had picked up in the store room and, without pausing for introductions, the little band of fugitives swept inside. Their voices rang through the huge and splendid vestibule as though in a cathedral.
Impressed, despite herself, by the grandeur of the place, Madame Bursay chuckled and said softly: 'We must look a weird sight in our stage finery against all this marble and gilt.'
'Indeed?' Vania took her up at once. Tor myself, I feel perfectly at home here. One has only to know the right way to go about it.' And she proceeded to demonstrate how perfectly at ease she found herself in her surroundings by embarking on a spirited rendering of Don Alfonso's aria from Cost fan Tutte: