‘I expect she’s shy. She’ll soon get used to us. What are you doing today?’
‘I don’t know. I thought we would go for a walk and explore.’
‘Yes, you do that. But don’t go too far and get lost.’ She opened the back door for them and they found themselves in a courtyard. ‘Luncheon is at one,’ she called after them.
They crossed the yard to the stables where the grooms were working and an almost identical conversation took place. Lydia was nervous of the black and white dog and hid behind Claudia. ‘Bless you,’ a man in a thick tweed jacket and jodhpurs said. ‘Bessie won’t hurt you. Soft as butter she is. Come and stroke her.’ And he took Lydia’s hand and put it on the dog’s rough fur. The dog wagged its tail and licked her other hand, making her smile.
‘That’s the first time I ever saw her smile,’ Claudia said.
‘Ah, well, that’s animals for you.’
They left the stables and walked through a garden and out of a gate into the park that surrounded the house. Here there were walks carved out of the grass and they followed one to a lake and stood looking across the water. A light breeze ruffled the water and set the reeds swaying to and fro and made the leaves of the water lilies bob up and down. Some ducks were swimming a little way out, but seeing them, paddled towards them quacking noisily, expecting titbits. ‘We must bring some crusts next time we come,’ Claudia said in English, and when Lydia looked enquiringly at her, repeated it in Russian, adding, ‘Time to go home. Sir Edward and Lady Stoneleigh might be looking for us.’
Home. The word obviously meant something different to Claudia.
In the days that followed, Lydia’s young brain shut out the awful death of her brother and their nurse except in horrendous nightmares. The loud ticking of the nursery clock was an unheard background to gunshots, galloping horses, sleet and snow, the dark, menacing forest and a vision of brave little Andrei, his life’s blood spilling all over her white dress, wine-red and sticky. It was a terror so huge that it surrounded her like a stifling blanket which had somehow wrapped itself around her and covered her face in her sleep, so that she could hardly breathe. She would wake up screaming and be comforted by Claudia.
They kept to their own quarters, except when they went out for walks with Bessie trotting along with them and sniffing in the hedgerows, and they saw little of Lady Stoneleigh. Her ladyship was not cruel, but she was not especially kind to her. It was a kind of indifference, a standing apart, on the sidelines, as if she were watching a play from the wings and at the end of it the actors would take their bows and go home. Lydia could not put this into words, but sometimes she wondered if Lady Stoneleigh really liked having her.
Sir Edward was different. He would come up to the nursery suite almost every day and talk to her in Russian and sometimes he joined them on their walks. He understood her bewilderment at being without her family, in a strange country surrounded by strangers speaking a language she could not understand. He and Claudia were the only stable things in her life and it was through his gentle perseverance that she slowly came to accept her new life, but she was desperately lonely and homesick for Mama and Papa and had not given up the idea of being reunited with them.
It was something Margaret wished for too.
‘Edward, have you made any progress at all about finding that child’s parents?’ she asked him one day, just before Christmas. They had finished dinner and were sitting in the drawing room. She was on the sofa with a piece of embroidery in her lap but was making no attempt to ply her needle. He was in an armchair reading a newspaper. He put it down.
‘No, I’m afraid not. These things take time.’
‘Surely people, especially landed gentry, do not just disappear into thin air.’
‘They do in Russia at the moment,’ he said grimly. ‘The situation is chaotic and the stories coming out are horrendous. Both Reds and Whites are perpetrating unimaginable horrors. If the count and countess have survived, heaven knows where they are.’
‘I believe there is a charitable society in London that takes care of displaced Russian children. It is run by a Russian lady married to an Englishman. You could take her there.’
‘Why? Do you want to be rid of her?’
‘Edward, she does not belong here.’
He was disappointed. He had hoped, by bringing her to Upstone Hall, he would be making a loving home for her, but it had not turned out like that. Lydia and Claudia were like ghosts in the house, occasionally seen flitting here and there, sometimes heard talking quietly in a mixture of Russian and English, but never real, never part of the household. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, he heard Lydia screaming. He would slip on a dressing gown and go up to stand outside the nursery door, listening to her sobbing and Claudia soothing her. Unable to do anything for her, he would go back to bed, feeling helpless, wishing Margaret could bring herself to be a mother to her.
‘She is not a nuisance, is she?’ he asked.
‘No, she is very quiet – too quiet, I think. She would surely do better among her own kind.’
‘Darling, it would be cruel to uproot her again so soon after bringing her here. Can’t you imagine what the poor child has been through? Her nurse and brother were shot in front of her eyes. Her clothes were covered in their blood when she was brought to me. It will be a long time before she gets over that.’
‘You are determined on keeping her here, aren’t you?’
‘What else would you have me do? I brought her here, accepted responsibility for her and that responsibility is ongoing.’
She gave up. He was not going to change his mind, which only went to confirm her worst fears.
The household was gearing itself up for Christmas, doing a lot of cooking, buying and making presents, discussing the decorations and the parties they meant to attend, and though they talked to Lydia about it, she understood very little. She knew it was a happy time when wishes were granted to good little girls. Her wish was that Mama and Papa would come, which would be the best present of all, but when she told Sir Edward, he took her between his knees and kissed her. ‘The trouble is, my little one, I still do not know where they are.’
‘Are they lost? Or hiding?’
‘You think they may be hiding?’ he asked, surprised that she had thought of it.
‘We were hiding at Kirilhor. We had to be quiet all the time and stay in the kitchen and back parlour. When the bad men were coming, we had to leave. Papa said we would go on a big ship.’
It was the first time he had heard her speak of that time. ‘And you did, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. Did they come on a big ship too?’
‘No, I do not think so, my sweet. I have asked everyone I know. I think they were left behind in Russia. As soon as I hear anything I will tell you, I promise.’
She was miserable for a few days after that but brightened as Christmas Day drew nearer. There was a Christmas tree which she helped to decorate and parcels were put all round the bottom of it which were not to be opened until after Christmas dinner. This would be at one o’clock after everyone had been to church, including all the servants, except Cook and the kitchen maid left behind to make sure dinner was on the table on time.
Church, which they attended every Sunday, was the only time Sir Edward and Lady Stoneleigh took her anywhere together. Dressed in a warm woollen coat in a soft blue, with a tam-o’-shanter on her curls and her hands in a muff, she stood and sat and knelt between them and enjoyed the singing. On Christmas Day she was allowed to join Sir Edward and Lady Stoneleigh for dinner of roast goose and Christmas pudding. She was becoming used to English food and, like all small children, her appetite was good.