Below, Alexander waited. The minutes passed and no one came. My God, he thought, what if after all this, she’s changed her mind? It was nearly a quarter of an hour before the door opened.
Tatiana’s entrance took him by surprise. She was wearing a dress of dazzling blue that perfectly complemented her fair complexion and made her pale blue eyes look brilliant. He had always thought of her face as rather round and placid; but now it had grown thinner, shedding its puppy fat and allowing the form of her cheekbones to show through. She had a fresh glow on her skin that was wonderful and advanced towards him with a calm smile.
‘Alexander, my father tells me you wish to speak to me.’
And he, gazing at this commanding heiress, could only think: Well, I’m damned! She has taken charge. Yes, he could see now that this strong young woman was capable of writing that amazing letter that had brought him so abjectly to heel. He was impressed.
There was only one thing that Alexander did not know: Tatiana had not written the letter at all. To be exact, she had written out the words, but not composed them. And even as she wrote them she had trembled, hesitated, and looked up with large, tearful eyes at the older woman who was calmly dictating them to her.
For her mother, when she could bear the girl’s agony no longer, had called upon the one person who, though they hardly knew each other, she felt sure could resolve the business. She had secretly taken Tatiana to see Countess Turova.
It was the countess who had taken the firm tone in the outrageous letter; the countess who had given Bobrov the deadline. She had been rather proud of her handiwork and quietly confident of the result. ‘He’ll be yours, if you want him,’ she had predicted coolly.
And why had she gone to such trouble? Not, certainly, because she cared particularly for Alexander or this poor little German girl. For she did not. But Alexander was a kinsman; the girl was an heiress. Properly established with a rich wife he might yet be a credit to her. Besides, it was a wonderful opportunity to exercise power – and such chances, it had to be admitted, did not come to her very often these days.
She had kept the business to herself. But when the unsuspecting Alexander had come to her asking about an inheritance – the very same evening – she had almost laughed out loud. Only by inspecting her hands had she been able to keep a straight face. And hadn’t she played her cards to perfection? How she enjoyed that – defeating the gambler at his own game!
As for the girl…
‘You know of course that he has a mistress?’ she had remarked with cold casualness to Tatiana, as soon as they had finished the letter, watching curiously to see how she took it.
Tatiana blushed. She did know. Her mother had found that out. But one expected such a thing in an older man; it even made him more mysterious and exciting.
‘I dare say with a young girl like Tatiana he’ll have no need to think of a mistress now,’ her mother had remarked hopefully.
‘Not at all,’ the old woman had contradicted her. ‘The more a man gets, up to a certain age, the more he wants.’ She turned to Tatiana. ‘You mustn’t give him time or opportunity if you want a faithful husband. That’s all there is to it.’
Armed with this information, and the stern letter, the lovelorn girl had returned home and waited.
Grief and pain had strengthened Tatiana. If she was distraught while she waited for Bobrov’s response, now in her moment of triumph she had steeled herself to be cool; however much she wanted him, she must not give him another chance to humiliate her. From now on she would make him see that it was he who was lucky, not she. And I’ll take him from that Frenchwoman, she thought. Indeed, it was this last determination that helped her, at this moment of crisis, to astonish him by her calm detachment.
So it was that Alexander Bobrov came to claim his bride.
A light snow was falling that evening as Alexander made his way across the city. The little fires by the watchmen’s huts at the street corners looked orange; the houses loomed as though in a mist. All of which pleased Alexander. For he did not wish to be seen. At the Fontanka Canal, he got out of his sled and, telling the coachman to wait for him, walked across the little bridge alone. In moments, he had disappeared.
He walked briskly but carefully, occasionally turning round, almost furtively, to make sure that he was not being followed. The quarter was respectable enough: about half the houses were wooden, half brick and stone. He passed a church and turned into a quiet street.
Only one thing puzzled him. What the devil had become of that letter? When the stranger had brought it to him the night before, he had intended to burn it as soon as he returned home. But then he had forgotten. Only after leaving Tatiana in the early afternoon had he remembered it, felt in his coat pocket, and discovered that it was gone. He shrugged. It didn’t really matter. It would be completely meaningless to anyone who found it.
Now Alexander turned through a covered archway into the shadowy courtyard of a large building. Its walls were covered with peeling pink stucco, and like many such buildings, it contained a series of sprawling apartments, two per floor, most of which were occupied by merchants of the middling sort. With a last, backward glance, he ascended the ill-lit stone staircase to the second floor. The stairs were deserted with the sole exception of a very large, black cat which sat by a window, and which Bobrov ignored.
When he reached the apartment he knocked carefully, three times, before the door opened a fraction and a voice from the gloom of the hall said quietly: ‘What do you seek?’
‘The Rosy Cross.’
The door opened wide. For Alexander Bobrov the gambler, unknown even to his mistress, was a member of the innermost circle of that great, secret Brotherhood – the Freemasons. And they had important business that night.
Perhaps she should have expected it. But she was very young. That was the conclusion Tatiana herself came to, in the years that followed.
She loved him. When she saw his carriage approaching or watched the lackey at the door help him off with his coat, a thrill of excitement would go through her. He had known how to make her love him. Even in the early days of their marriage he had seemed to control everything. In their lovemaking, when he was done himself, he would still arouse her in other ways, again and again, leaving her glowing, yet always wanting more of him. She loved the way he looked, the way he dressed, his knowledge of things beyond her. Even the slight thickening around his waist, which had begun in their first year together, seemed to her to suit him very welclass="underline" he looked neat, yet powerful.
And surely he, too, was excited by their love. She knew he was: she could tell. She was learning too. She was eager to learn, both to experience new delights and to please him. She was happy; she was enthusiastic; she would – and did – astonish him!
Tatiana had great gifts. She was warm-hearted and practical. She liked to supervise the women in the kitchen; and would proudly make dainty pastries with her own hands, sitting opposite him afterwards, her face flushed with excitement, to watch his reaction to them. How delighted he seemed, how charmed.
It was therefore a shock to her when, six months after they had been married, he failed to come home one night and she began to suspect that he was still in love with Adelaide de Ronville.
She was right. And as Alexander often reminded himself, it was his fault. Indeed, he reflected, I cannot blame Tatiana at all.
It was not her fault that she was so young. It was not her fault if, like most girls of her kind, she had little education. She could not share a joke in French like Madame de Ronville, or even the old countess. It was not her fault if, on the occasions when he took her to salons like that of Countess Turova, she sat rather meekly to one side; nor that the countess, having cursorily asked after her health, would promptly ignore her for the rest of the evening.