Militza looked up. ‘Yes, it is a very deep friendship,’ smiled Militza, using a line she had used many times before.
‘That’s just what I told Xenia the other day. She was complaining of a “disgusting nonsense” she heard that was going on. She said she didn’t believe it, until she saw it with her own eyes at the Yacht Club. We were shopping with her daughter Irina on Morskaya, seeing if there was anything interesting in Fabergé and I informed her that, quite apart from the fact that it is against the law for brothers and sisters to have relationships, they were merely just friends and that Stana is indeed still married to George. But she was quite insistent she’d seen and heard otherwise.’
‘Well, we all know Xenia’s situation is hardly whiter than white,’ Militza said, rallying.
‘Yes, well, she is the Tsar’s sister.’ Maria smiled. ‘And apparently she’d heard her mother complaining that Nikolasha was suffering from a “sick and incurable disease”?’
‘Indeed,’ replied Militza, immediately understanding the reason for the invitation to tea: confirmation or denial of some silly gossip. ‘I can assure the Dowager Empress and Xenia that Nikolasha is quite well and suffers no fever whatsoever.’
She simply didn’t have time for this. Although, had Militza paused for a second and thought, the freedom with which this was being discussed was certainly worrisome. If the Tsar’s own mother and sister were in conversation about Stana and Nikolasha, then it was certainly worse than the worst-kept secret at court. It was now being discussed as if it were a plain fact that no one felt any need to be discreet about any more. But she was deaf to how gossip had been spun, deaf to people fearing how powerful they had become, deaf to how people didn’t like their closeness to the Tsar. All she heard was the proof of Rasputin’s betrayal.
‘It’s as if the Tsar and Tsarina are all part of the same Nikolayevich family,’ enthused Anna, warming to her theme. ‘A little exclusive group of six.’
‘I wouldn’t go quite that far.’ Maria’s smile was tense. ‘The Tsar is very close to all the members of his family. For example, to us – we are all excellent friends.’
They all sat and sipped their tea.
‘I am terribly sorry,’ announced Militza suddenly, getting out of her chair and draining her cup, ‘I am afraid I need to leave.’
‘Leave?’ Maria looked stunned.
‘So soon?’ asked Anna.
‘Yes, I am very sorry, do please forgive me, I had forgotten something terribly urgent. Terribly urgent indeed.’
And with that Militza ran out of the house, her head swimming, her pulse pounding. He had completely disobeyed her! She had trusted him and now he had turned against her. What was he doing? All those years of work, of manoeuvring by her and Stana, were they all for nothing? She looked up and down the street, trying to find her car. Where was her chauffeur? She had asked him to come and collect her at six. It was five thirty. What was he doing? Where was he?
It was dusk; the weak sun had disappeared and a bitter wind was blowing off the river. She shivered. She was alone on the street and she needed to find Rasputin immediately. The Judas! She needed to put her protégé in his place. What was he thinking? Should she walk? His flat was not far – 12 Kirochnaya Street, about ten minutes at the most. She could not wait for her driver. She looked up and down the Embankment for a droshky for hire but could not see anything, so she pulled up the ermine collar on her coat, put her head down and started to walk, her thoughts churning. How could he be so disloyal? After all she had done for him. Also, all the money she had given him. It was all because of her he’d moved out of that stinking hovel he used to have, into a two-storey wooden house in his village in Siberia. She’d paid for the house; she’d furnished it and paid for a piano. An Offenbach! He couldn’t even play the wretched thing. It was for his daughters, he said, to teach them to become ladies. Oh, how the humble had risen! How quickly he’d escaped the dust! He had flower boxes at the front of his house now, a tin roof and a gramophone: all of which she’d paid for. She was furious.
She strode along, pounding the pavement in her anger. How dare he! She’d made him promise so what was he doing, cutting her out? Making a move? Excluding her and Stana from the inner circle? The injustice of it all made her walk faster.
But as she turned right off the Embankment, she realized the silk shoes she was wearing were useless in the damp streets of St Petersburg. She’d been driven to the door, she was to be collected from the door and she had dressed accordingly. Now her feet were wet, as were her stockings. It was dark, the street lanterns were not yet lit and she was becoming increasingly cold. She looked up and realized she had no idea where she was.
She knew his flat was down a side road, on the other side of the Fontanka. But which one? And where? The dark streets began to fill up a little more. The workers from a nearby factory had been let out and were walking home, trudging off the grinding monotony of their day. They glanced at her from beneath their caps, at her fur-lined coat, the glimmer of her jewellery; she was not the sort of woman to be walking alone.
As she approached the gates of the factory, the pavement was suddenly packed. A stream of workers with their heads down, their hands in their pockets, their elbows out, marched past her. One of them deliberately knocked her as he passed with a sharp jab to the ribs. It was painful, but Militza stifled her cry, forcing her gloved hand into her mouth and biting her own finger, instantly aware of how vulnerable she was. Then came another jab, harder this time, like a burning hot poker to the ribs. And then another. A crowd of men surrounded her, jostling and jabbing with their thin fingers and sharp bones. Her heart was pounding, her mouth dry as she looked around in panic. This was dangerous. She was scared. She could sense their hostility, feel their anger; she could smell the vodka on their breath and the fury in their souls. Then she saw an alley, just alongside the factory and, without thinking, she ran. She ran without a care for her shoes, her clothes, the rope of pearls she had around her neck. The men didn’t follow her; they’d had their fun. Militza didn’t look back.
Once through the alley she stopped, fighting for breath in her corseted afternoon dress. Her lungs were burning as she huffed and puffed, her nose running and her heart thumping in her chest. Leaning against a wall she saw the road was wide, the pavements busy; she frantically looked around. Suddenly she realised that she was standing right outside 12 Kirochnaya Street. How she’d got there, how she’d found it, she would never know. She rang the bell and the doorman answered. Was Grigory Yefimovich at home?
‘Mamma!’ he exclaimed, leaping out his seat as she burst into his sitting room, her heart beating wildly, her faced flushed and her feet soaked through. He strode over and embraced her, kissing her intimately three times on the cheek. ‘Sit,’ he ordered indicating to a low shabby chair opposite him. ‘You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost.’
Militza stood in the middle of the room and looked around. She had expected to find him alone but instead he was sitting at a table surrounded about at least five or six women. Militza was too taken aback to count properly. Who were they? What were they doing here? The plan that she should arrive all indignant and high and mighty, exuding a justified fury at his betrayal, had completely fallen by the wayside. Her hands were shaking, her feet were freezing and the only indignity she could describe was how she had been treated by some workers in the street.
‘You must have some tea, Your Imperial Highness Militza Nikolayevna, please sit here.’ Rasputin indicated the grubby brown chair once more. The other women bristled at the mere mention of her name, which, of course, was his reason for using it. A show-off by nature, he could not resist announcing her lofty presence to the room and he smiled softly at its effect. The women shifted in their seats, sat up a little straighter to take in Militza’s pale white skin, her ruby red lips and her dark oblong-shaped eyes. Her dark green dress was obviously expensive, as was her ermine-edged cloak.