‘Go on,’ shrugged Stana. ‘I am a little out of practice and you were always so much better at it than me.’
‘Are you ready?’ asked Militza, looking at the round-faced lady’s maid.
Sitting at the end of a long wooden table in the centre of the room, its walls festooned with copper cooking pots and pans, were the elderly housekeeper, two younger housemaids and Natalya, Stana’s lady’s maid, who was nervously clasping her hands and licking her plump lips, a round bulge protruding out from under her skirts. She must be six months gone, at least.
‘Oh, I’m more than ready, I’m excited, Your Imperial Highness,’ she said, fluttering her sandy eyelashes. ‘Honestly, I don’t mind either way.’
‘But you’d like a boy?’ suggested Militza, sitting down.
‘Just so long as it’s healthy,’ said Natalya, giggling anxiously. ‘I have heard your mother doesn’t need eggs – she can tell what sex a child is just by looking at your belly!’
Militza fixed her with a dark stare. ‘Who told you that?’
‘I did,’ interrupted Stana. ‘But my sister is just as talented.’ She patted her maid’s pink hand to reassure her. ‘She predicted my Sergei and Elena perfectly.’
Militza could feel a wave of irritation. Why was Stana always so indiscreet? The maid didn’t need to know about their family, their business. Ever since the wedding the sisters had deliberately decided to keep their ‘customs’ to themselves. And although there was an embryonic movement amongst the more enlightened at the fringes of St Petersburg society, it was not so long ago that witches were being hounded, ducked and burnt. Women still had to make cakes and hold ‘phantom’ tea parties, even if they were going to do something so rudimentarily primitive as tasseomancy – reading tea leaves. So both she and Stana had to be careful to protect themselves. They had not survived along with generations of other wise women without the use of their substantial wits. In fact, they had both so overtly and wholeheartedly converted to the Russian Orthodox faith on the eve of their marriages that no one could possibly question their piety or probity.
Militza would have admonished her sister then and there had she not been so anxious to get on. She was worried that Peter might return and she’d been warned by him before not to get involved with the servants. Quite apart from the fact that it was unseemly for a woman of her position ever to venture below stairs, it was dangerous to tell the servants too much of anything, he insisted. That way gossiping lies.
‘Well, let’s see, then, shall we?’ asked Militza, cracking the egg swiftly down on the edge of the white plate. Everyone stared as she forced her sharply filed thumbnails through the fissure in the shell and pulled them apart. The egg broke and spilt its bloody contents all over the plate. In silence, the maids watched the writhing gasps of the premature chick as it slithered around on the cold plate in its own womb sac. Unable to breathe, its unformed eyes still firmly glued shut, its pale beak frantically opened and closed as it panicked and snatched at the air. Its puny legs and soft-boned feet skidded back and forth on the smooth porcelain until, eventually, its brief life and struggle was over and, as its beak shuddered open one last time, it died.
Natalya glanced across at the shocked faces of her friends, covering her own mouth with her hand to prevent herself from vomiting. The wave of nausea was immediate. She had not really thought through what she had asked. It was supposed to be a bit of fun, something to while away the boredom of a cold, grey afternoon, finding out the sex of her unborn child, but she certainly had not expected anything quite so visceral.
‘Poor chick,’ she whispered.
But neither Stana nor Militza appeared to notice the servants’ reactions. Accustomed to such sights since early childhood, they were more intent on finding out the sex of the bird. Militza picked up the flaccid chick and, turning over its soft body, she pressed her thumb hard between its legs.
‘Boy,’ she announced. She nodded down at Natalya’s stomach. ‘Congratulations.’ She smiled before dropping the dead bird back down on the plate.
‘Well done! A son!’ added Stana, giving Natalya’s broad shoulder a small squeeze.
Natalya promptly burst into tears.
‘I really must go,’ declared Militza, anxiously glancing up at the wooden clock above the large open fireplace. ‘The Grand Duke will be home soon.’
In fact, he was sitting in the red salon, smoking a cigarette, leafing through a copy of What Is To Be Done? by Leo Tolstoy, having just returned from a luncheon. His face lit up as she walked into the room.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked, getting out his chair to embrace her. His question was not accusatory, but his eyes were enquiring.
‘Just been upstairs to check on Marina,’ said Militza, with a little wave of her hand.
‘But the nurse said she’s been out in her perambulator all afternoon.’
‘Did she?’ Militza frowned. ‘She’s mistaken. We have just been up to see Marina.’ Militza turned and smiled at Stana.
‘And what a sweet fat thing she is too,’ replied Stana.
‘Elegant fat thing,’ corrected Peter, flicking his ash into a small silver tray. ‘Soon to be just elegant – oh, and extremely intelligent; fortunately, she has her mother’s attributes.’ He smiled. ‘Are you well, Stana?’ he asked.
Peter was extremely fond of his sister-in-law, only he wished she’d spend a little more time in that rented mansion of theirs on Sergeivskaya Street, for it was rare for him to find his wife alone.
‘Just as well as I was yesterday,’ she said, smiling.
‘Is George still angry about not being invited to Minny’s birthday at the end of the month?’ he asked.
‘What do you think?’ replied Stana, helping herself to a small sugared almond from a silver bowl on the gilt table in front of her. ‘He’s known the Tsar ever since he was a child and now the Tsarina won’t invite him to her birthday party.’
‘It is supposed to be a small event.’
‘Since when has the Empress Maria Fyodorovna ever done anything small? She and the Grand Duchess Vladimir rule this city.’ Stana crunched the almond and stared out of the window.
‘I think it’s smaller this year. The Tsar’s not well; he’s travelling south at the moment to recuperate,’ said Peter.
‘He hasn’t been well for a while,’ agreed Militza.
‘It’s his kidneys. Ever since that accident at Borki, when he held the train roof aloft to save Minny and the children,’ agreed Peter. ‘I think that must have broken something in him.’
‘Anyway, George is still furious at not being invited and blames me, naturally,’ said Stana. ‘Much as he blames me for all his ills.’ She sighed. ‘I’m quite sure I don’t know why he married me in the first place. Are you invited?’
‘If we are, I shan’t go,’ declared Militza. ‘I am not sure I want another evening of being stared at, giggled at, whispered about or almost entirely ignored. I don’t know what to tell Father. All those letters and requests badgering me to ask the Tsar for help or a bit more money – it’s not as if Maria Fyodorovna allows us anywhere near him!’
‘Anything to help shoe that barefooted army of his!’ added Peter, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘What?’ he said, looking up and catching his wife’s eye. ‘We all know your country is perfectly charming, but the roads are impassable, the peasants don’t want to work – frankly, its only use is its warm-water ports. Am I not speaking the truth?’
‘Sometimes the truth is not always necessary,’ replied Militza.
‘Well, personally, I think you need to make more of an effort,’ he said, glancing from one sister to the other. ‘Get out of the palace. When was the last time you went skating, for example?’