Polonaise (6 page)

‘And bedrooms on each side.' Though he had immensely taken to his new companion, Rendel was nevertheless delighted at the prospect of a room to himself again. There was so much writing to be done.

‘You will take some vodka, lords, while you wait for your baggage?' asked Jadwiga, in Polish. ‘Or anything else?'

‘She's offering us vodka,' Jan translated. ‘Or anything else?'

‘I wonder how all-inclusive that is,' said Glynde thoughtfully. ‘She's a striking creature, isn't she? It's the first time I've seen the Polish national dress worn with style, as it should be. But no vodka for me, or anything else. I cannot begin to tell you how I look forward to that Turkish bath.'

Two hours later they were ready, glowing with cleanliness, scrubbed and pummelled and soothed by the willing staff of the Turkish bath, and dressed in the formal best each had saved for this occasion. They made a comic enough contrast, Glynde thought, he in full court-dress of knee-breeches and silk stockings, Jan in another of his loose-fitting coats over straight trousers, but these of the finest alpaca. ‘Father said I should get a rig-out like that,' he looked a little anxiously at Rendel's costume. ‘I said he was crazy. I'm an American. This is how I dress.'

‘And very comfortable it looks. Frankly, I envy you.'

‘Thanks. But what will she say?'

‘Nothing,' said Glynde. ‘Whatever else she is, your cousin is a great lady.'

Which did not do very much to calm his young companion's nerves, but luckily the chamberlain appeared at this point, cast an approving glance over Glynde's costume and a puzzled one over Jan's, and said, ‘You are ready, lords? Then come with me.'

They entered the palace by a back way that was only marginally less stately than the front one and passed through ranks of liveried, bowing footmen to a grand stairway that swept up through the centre of the building. Dusk had fallen while they were in the bath, and every third footman held a flaming torch, while candelabra on the walls had their myriad candles reflected over and over again in the huge looking-glasses that adorned the stair. ‘I feel like Tom Thumb,' muttered Jan. ‘I wish I'd stayed home.'

‘But why didn't she tell me?' asked George Richards, distracted. ‘I'd never have brought her. You must see, Miss Peverel, that I would never have brought her.'

‘I suppose not,' said Jenny, ‘but whether that would have been a good thing is more than I can tell. I haven't met her mother, but I did wonder …'

‘A terrible creature,' said George Richards. ‘A blood-sucker. I'd thought to get Mary clean away to Bristol, but not a bit of it. Can't leave dear mama. Or rather, dear mama won't be left. So I bought a house in Bath – only thing to do, hoped for the best. Drew the line at her living with us. Better living on her own, I said; her own life, all that. But in and out all day; Mary quoting her to me till I thought I'd choke on it. Planned this trip as a last recourse. And now, look what's happened. If only she had told me!'

‘But she didn't know. And really, Mr. Richards, from everything you say, I think it may be all for the best, if we can just get her safely through this first difficult time. My sisters were always poorly at first; merry as grigs the rest of the way. By what Mary says – if I may call her Mary – I would think she is probably almost over the worst of it. If we take great care of her for the next few weeks …'

‘How can we? If only you had told me at Yarmouth,' he said again. But they both knew it had been quite impossible during the chaos of embarkation the night before. Now, Mary was prostrate in the tiny cabin and Jenny had asked George Richards to take her up on deck for a breath of air after the noisy, crowded ship's breakfast. It was a fine morning with the ship running easily under what she thought Giles would have called a following wind. She found she liked the live feeling of the deck under her feet; felt herself automatically yielding to its movement.

Impossible not to feel exhilarated by the fresh, keen air, the
cheerful bustle around her. She pushed back the hood that warmly framed her face and smiled at him. ‘That inn was no place for her. It would have meant going back to Bath, I think. Which would have been bad for her too. She says young ladies in Bath stay at home with their feet up when they are in her situation.'

‘Ridiculous! If I could just get her to Petersburg! Safe enough in Holy Russia from ma-in-law – and from Bonaparte. It's a handsome city. Their customs are strange, of course, take a bit of getting used to, but there's a British colony centred round the Factory, and this new Tsar of theirs is quite a fellow, they say. I've not been there since that madman Paul was killed last year. I'd never have considered settling there while he was alive. Do you know, Miss Peverel, if his carriage met yours in the street, you had to stop and get out and stand bareheaded while he passed? In the snow, even, with the temperature well below freezing. Women, too, and children.'

‘And if you didn't?'

‘Siberia the least of it. Well – a foreigner might just have been ordered to leave, but I wouldn't have banked on it. He was army mad, you know. It's a fortunate thing for us all that he died, or he might have come to blows with Bony in the end, though he seemed to think well enough of him. Well: two tyrants! His son Alexander's a liberal, a man of peace. He'll do great things for Russia and I mean to be there to see them. Profit by them. It's bound to mean more trade. Do I shock you, Miss Peverel? It's hardly the kind of talk you can be used to.'

‘I like it,' she said. ‘It reminds me of when my brother Giles used to talk of life in the navy. It's real, somehow. Different.'

‘I'm sorry about your brother. Mary told me last night. She didn't seem to be able to settle. She's … worried about herself, I think. Frightened, maybe?' He was half ashamed to admit it. ‘I'm from a family of ten. Mother never had time to fret. Too busy keeping us out of trouble, I reckon. I wish she'd lived so I could give her a bit of comfort in her old age. I'm selfmade, Miss Peverel, proud of it. I've been wanting to tell you, so you know where you stand. Mary never would tell, poor girl. She's ashamed of it. I'm not, but I understand how
she feels. Course, we did have to pretend a bit for her ma. She'd never have swallowed me whole, not as I really am. Wasn't it a lucky thing for me that when I started making my mint I had the wits to get me a speech master?' His voice changed, rose a note or two, took on an accent she had never heard. ‘Born and reared in Liverpool, miss, if you call it rearing. Begging in the streets; fighting for crusts; holding horses for halfpence. Mary's ma would never have stood for me, talking like that, would she now?' He reverted to the King's English. ‘And even you might think twice about being seen with me, Miss Peverel.'

‘I wish you would call me Jenny.' It was the most complete answer she could think of.

‘Thank you, Jenny.' He took it as such. ‘Well, there we are. Yarmouth's behind us. Hamburg won't do. How long do you reckon we are going to have to cosset the lass?'

‘Not long. Another few weeks at most. What are the country inns like in Prussia?'

‘Terrible. But I planned to start by way of Lüneburg – that's in Hanover, practically British,' he explained. ‘It don't make much difference to their inns, but there's one in Lüneburg I've found snug enough. I aim to do a bit of business there on the way. It's one of the Hanseatic League Cities, you know, quite a centre of trade.'

‘I didn't know,' she admitted. ‘To tell truth I'd not thought of Hanover as being exactly British. Even if our King does reign there, too.'

‘You're right,' he said. ‘It ain't. But I reckon we could stay there a few days, and let Mary rest, if it won't make you too late for that wedding of yours.'

‘Oh, never mind about that.' She smiled at him. ‘It will save me worrying about what to wear. And, of course, Mary must come first. My invitation to Rendomierz is a very general one. Princess Sobieska seems to feel she will want company after she is married.'

‘As well she may. This Prince Ovinski she's marrying don't sound at all the thing to me. We merchants have our sources, bound to have. Oh, his credit's good enough; no trouble there; but as to his character … And an old man, too. No, I reckon that Princess knew what she was doing when she sent for you.
I only wish … Miss Peverel, you wouldn't think again and come to Petersburg with us instead?'

It was, for a moment, enormously tempting. Then she shook her head. ‘It's most kind of you, but my father –'

‘Wouldn't much like your running off with a self-made cit and his wife. And quite right too,' he added handsomely. ‘But I wish you could, just the same. Mary will miss you badly. And so will I.'

‘The Princess will receive you in the small salon.' Leon Wysocki led the two young men through a series of brilliantly lighted rooms hung with tapestries Glynde longed to stop and study, catching a glimpse of a unicorn here, a flower-studded landscape there. He could hear music now, a piano played quietly as background to a buzz of talk; Mozart, he thought, or old Haydn.

The small salon would have been a large reception room anywhere else. As they paused in the doorway the pianist played a final chord and was rewarded with a brief hush and a small flutter of applause. Then the conversation started again, on a rather louder note, as Wysocki led them forward through a group of men talking Polish, who drew aside with curious glances to let them pass. Beyond them, six women were sitting bent over their work, talking quietly. Three of them wore widow's black and could be dismissed at once, but Glynde, eagerly scanning the other three, felt a pang of disappointment. Could one of these very ordinary young ladies really be the almost royal beauty of whom he had heard so much?

Apparently not. With a brief greeting, Wysocki led them on to where the pianist was looking up eagerly at a tall young woman, dressed in plain white, who had her back to the room as she leaned against the piano to leaf through a pile of music. Glynde had dismissed her as the pianist's page-turner until he drew near enough to see the look of hopeless adoration on the man's face. And at the same moment, he saw them coming and said something.

She turned, smiled, held out both hands in welcome. ‘My cousin!' She had singled out Jan unerringly, and Glynde, watching, thought it no wonder. There was an obvious likeness
between them. Both had dark curling hair, wide brows and sparkling black eyes, but where these made Jan merely good-looking they gave the Princess an absolute beauty.

She was turning to him. He must not gape like a boy at his first party. ‘And welcome to you too, Mr. Rendel. It is a long time since we have had the pleasure of entertaining an Englishman here at Rendomierz. You will have to bear with me if I speak your language with a little difficulty. I have not had much practice of late years.'

‘But you speak like one of us.'

She smiled at him, making him her absolute slave. ‘Believe me, I was not – you say hunting for a compliment?'

He returned the smile with good measure. ‘Fishing, as a matter of fact.'

‘Thank you! I remember now, my governess used to say it to Casimir and me. “Never fish for compliments, children.” She was English, of course. My brother and I made it our private language.' The expressive face clouded. ‘She died last year, my dear Miss Pratt. It spared her a great sadness. She loved me, but she adored Casimir. Well, we all did. You look a little like him,' she told Jan. ‘I am so very glad to see you, cousin. You will both stay for the wedding, of course. You come on a happy day. We have just heard that my affianced is on his way from Petersburg. He should be here within a week or so. He does not like to travel fast, which is perhaps as well, since the ceremony is to be performed as soon as he gets here and there are naturally a million things to do first. I am afraid you find us all at sevens and sixes –' A challenging glance suggested to Glynde that she knew she had got this phrase wrong.

‘The ceremony will take place here?' he asked.

‘But of course. In our church, with our people present.' She turned to Jan who was gazing at her, as spellbound as Glynde. ‘Are you a Catholic, cousin? You are my nearest male relative, you know, even if your name is Warrington.' She made heavy weather of it, on purpose, Glynde thought.

‘No, I am so sorry, I am afraid … My father …' Glynde thought, amused, that for two pins Jan would have abjured his father's religion there and then. ‘My sister still is,' he went on, as if that might help.

‘But she is not here. I wish she were. I am sadly lacking in female relatives to talk to.' Her meditative gaze rested for a moment on the little group of women still rather ostentatiously busy with their handiwork. ‘That is why I am so grateful to Monsieur Poiret for his music.' She smiled down at the pianist, translated the last sentence into French, and introduced him: ‘Monsieur Poiret and his parents escaped from France in ‘89,' she said, still in French. ‘They saw the storm coming before most did.'

‘And found a most blessed asylum.' Poiret's look of adoration was so blatant as to be painful. ‘May I play the sonata you picked out, Highness?'

‘Would you like it?' she asked the two men in English.

They exchanged glances, Glynde's suggesting that as her cousin, Jan should speak first.

‘Well, as a matter of fact –' Jan was actually blushing ‘– mother was a great one for music; used to sing to us when we were little. Anna loved it, but, me, I'm afraid …'

‘It means nothing to you? And you, Mr. Glynde?'

‘Highness, I like it so well, and thought so highly of Monsieur Poiret's playing, what I heard of it, that I would much rather have a real chance of listening to him some other time.'

It got him a pleased look from Poiret, and one of the Princess's ravishing smiles. ‘You put me quite to shame, Mr. Rendel. Let me introduce you to my friends.'