The Secret Countess

  ‘Petya, I must go back to town,’ said Anna. ‘I’ve been away so long and it isn’t fair on Mama.’

  ‘Oh, no! We’d have such fun! There’s the wedding, too – you must stay for that!’

  ‘I can’t, love. Maybe I’ll come back,’ she lied, ‘but it’s Pinny’s birthday next week and you know I like to be there for that: she’s done so much for us. So now let’s have our dance and then I’ll slip away quietly. Listen, it’s a polka! We’ll show them!’

  And they did. But when it was over and Anna, under cover of the supper break, tried to gain the double doors, she was suddenly arrested – for sweeping into the ballroom, still laughing at Hawkins’ efforts at pronouncing their names – there came the Ballets Russes!

  They came in costumes borrowed from Firebird and Sheherezade and all the other costumes immediately looked drab and uninteresting. They came as guests, not performers, but all eyes were instantly fixed on them, such was their vitality, their ‘otherness’. There was La Slavina, darling of the Maryinsky for two decades and still, in her forties, a woman from whom it was almost impossible to avert one’s eyes. There was the ineffably stylish designer, Lapin, with drooping eyes and a white streak in his jet-black hair. There was the silent and beautiful Vladimir on whom the mantle of Nijinsky seemed likely to fall, a choreographer with a bald and yellow skull, a pale, tragic-looking girl straight out of a ‘blue’ Picasso . . .

  They surged forward to greet their host and hostess, embracing everybody in their path, seizing glasses of champagne from the passing footmen – and the temperature of the party soared. Then La Slavina paused, threw out an arm, and let out a high and enchantingly modulated scream.

  ‘Mon Dieu! C’est la petite Grazinsky!’

  ‘You look charming, Countess,’ said Lapin approvingly. ‘But not, I think, the cap. One wishes only to suggest a costume.’ He unpinned Anna’s cap, tossed it away, plucked a white poppy from an urn and tucked it unerringly into her hair.

  ‘Ah, but it is magnificent to see you, ma chère,’ said La Slavina, hugging Anna. ‘And look, there is the little brother also!’ She turned to Lady Byrne. ‘You have no idea how good the Grazinskys have been to us in Petersburg! Such benefactors, such hospitality! Of course they always loved the ballet. Do you remember, Countess, when you ran away? You were seven years old and all the police in Petersburg were searching – such a scandal! And where was she?’ she enquired of the bystanders. ‘In Theatre Street, in the ballet school, trying to audition for a place!’

  ‘And when she tried to sell her rubies to pay for Diaghilev’s first tour of Europe?’ said the choreographer. ‘Do you remember? All by herself she went to see old Oppenheim in the Morskaya! Often and often he has told the story: how there comes this little girl whose head is not over his desk and brings up her arm with in it her shoe bag and out falls this necklace which has been insured for fifty thousand roubles!’

  ‘You have lost everything, I have heard?’ said La Slavina in a low, sympathetic voice.

  Anna shrugged. ‘We’re all right.’

  ‘Ah, you have courage. And a fine brother!’ She pinched Petya’s cheek. ‘But tell me,’ her voice, this time, dropped half an octave, her splendid boudoir eyes became veiled in a profound and personal nostalgia. ‘What has happened to your so beautiful Cousin Sergei? I have heard that he was safe, but no one has seen him in London and the Baroness Rakov is désolée.’

  ‘He is working in the north, somewhere,’ said Anna cautiously.

  ‘As a chauffeur, I have heard! Est-ce-que c’est possible?’

  They had collected, inevitably, a crowd – and among its members were the Nettlefords, who had closed ranks after the dreadful news of Tom’s engagement and were conveying a stunned Lavinia to the supper room.

  La Slavina threw out an arm to include the company. ‘Ah, if you could see the prince! Never, never have I seen a man so ’andsome. And fearless, too. Do you remember, Lapin, when he won the St Catherine Cup on that unbroken horse of Dolgoruky’s? But all the Chirkovskys were like that. It was Sergei’s father who gave me my first diamonds. I was still in Cechetti’s class at—’ She broke off to say with her enchanting smile: ‘I beg your pardon, mademoiselle.’

  But the fault had not been the ballerina’s. A tall and avid-looking girl covered in scales had cannoned into her, en route for the open French window through which she now vanished. There was a short pause, then with assorted exclamations of fury, four more girls in an extraordinary collection of clothes raced after her, one of them dropping, as she did so, a rubber asp.

  ‘Drôle!’ said La Slavina, raising her eyebrows. Then she tucked her arm through Anna’s and led her entourage towards the supper room.

  Anxious to avoid the servants’ hall, with its backbiting and gossip, Sergei had spent the evening in The King’s Head down in the village. Now he was smoking a quiet cigarette in the paddock which adjoined the stableyard until he should be summoned to take the Lady Lavinia and her fellow bridesmaid back to Mersham.

  ‘Sergei! Sergei! Where are you?’

  ‘Here, my lady.’

  The Lady Lavinia, in full tilt, careered round the corner of the stables and panted up to him. Her scales caught the moonlight; an even fiercer glitter lit up her eyes.

  ‘Do you wish to leave early, my lady? The car is ready.’

  ‘No, no, Sergei! The night is young!’ She came closer. ‘But I’m very cross with you, Sergei! Very, very cross,’ said Lavinia, waggling a bony finger in his face.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear this, my lady.’

  ‘Very cross indeed! You’ve been a naughty boy, Sergei! A very naughty boy.’

  Sergei looked round for a way of escape, but short of simply leaping the fence and racing away across the paddock there was nothing he could do.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us your real name?’ said Lavinia, now fixing his arm in a vice-like grip.

  ‘But I did, my lady.’

  ‘No, you didn’t! Not all of it!’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

  ‘Oh, naughty, naughty!’ said Lavinia, entranced by her proximity to this devastating man. ‘What about the prince, hey? Prince Sergei Chirkovsky. You didn’t tell us that!’

  ‘I did not think it was important, my lady.’

  ‘Not important! Ooh, you are a funny man!’ She edged even closer, her shoulder digging into his side. ‘Don’t you see, it means you can take your place in society if you wish? That is if . . .’ She glanced up at him, her thin eyelashes fibrillating in the silver light, ‘if you had someone to support you and—’

  ‘Lavvy! Lavvy! Where are you?’

  The pack was closing in. Furious at Lavinia’s head-on start, her sisters had rushed off down the terrace steps in hot pursuit. Unfortunately, Salome’s ankle bangle had caught in the turned-up spike of Cleopatra’s golden sandal, eliminating the Ladies Hermione and Priscilla, who rolled down the remaining steps in a vituperative and flaying tangle. But Gwendolyn, and the headless daffodil that now was Beatrice, had reached the stableyard.

  ‘Ah, there you are! You’ve found him. You’re a crafty one, Lavvy! Just as soon as you found out he was a prince you came running after him. Don’t take any notice, Sergei; it’s just cupboard love.’

  ‘It’s because Tom got away,’ said Beatrice who had perfected spite to a degree remarkable even for a Nettleford.

  ‘So now she wants to be a princess, don’t you, Lavvy?’

  But Sergei had now had enough. His accent very pronounced, he bowed and said: ‘Ladies, I have two things to say to you. Firstly, as from this moment I resign absolutely my post as chauffeur to your family and you may tell the duke and duchess this. Secondly, I am engaged to be married.’

  And before the girls could recover themselves, he had vaulted over the five-bar gate and vanished into the trees at the far side of the paddock.

  After the arrival of the Russians, no one could doubt that the ball was a triumph. But at its heart was not Muriel Hardwicke, stiff
and disapproving in her elaborate dress: at its heart, her escape cut off, was Anna. Anna dancing a tango with Lapin, Anna drinking champagne with Mr Bartorolli, Anna and Vladimir demonstrating a polonaise . . . Anna besieged by partners and never, not for one minute, looking at Rupert, who never, for one minute, looked at her.

  ‘That girl seems determined to make an exhibition of herself,’ said Muriel, frigidly executing a two-step in the arms of her fiancé. ‘I hope you don’t expect me to have her back at Mersham after this?’

  Rupert did not answer. Anna had paused at the end of her dance to thank her partner and straighten the flower in her tumbled hair. Caught off his guard for an instant, Rupert gazed at her just as her control, too, snapped and she raised her eyes, brilliant with fatigue and excitement, to his.

  And at that moment it became clear to him with an absolute and blinding certainty that he could not live without her and that he must break his engagement even if it meant disgrace and ruin – and that he must break it that very night.

  Sergei had taken refuge in the Italian garden, the statues and arbours of which gave shelter even in the bright moonlight. Here he would wait quietly till the Nettleford girls returned to the ballroom and then pick up his things from the coachhouse and make his way to the station. Thank heaven he had not spent his last week’s wages; at least he had money for the fare.

  He was just beginning to make his way back when he heard a sound: forlorn and small and infinitely sad; the sound of someone resolutely not crying. And turning aside he saw, framed by a trellis of jasmine, a girl sitting on the rim of a fountain, her head in her hands. A girl whose pose, whose slender outline, seemed heart-rendingly familiar.

  Rupert’s glance had cut through Anna’s mood like a sword, and excusing herself from her latest partner, she had slipped away, wanting now only that this long night should end at last.

  “Annoushka! Mylienkaya! Eto ti?’

  The voice, known and loved since childhood, the tender Russian words, brought her to her feet – and into the arms of the tall man coming towards her.

  ‘Seriosha!’

  For a moment they stood locked together in an embrace of homesickness and love. If there was one person in the world that Anna needed at this hour it was the cousin who was now brother and father, protector and friend. If there was one person who could make him think well again of women, it was this girl with her steadfastness and courage, her spiritual grace.

  ‘I didn’t know you were here, Sergei. Why didn’t you come into the house?’

  ‘I’m not a guest, little idiot; I’m the Nettlefords’ chauffeur. Or I was.’ And he quickly told her what had happened, making her smile through her tears. ‘And you?’ he pursued, looking down at her. ‘You are in fancy dress? Or . . .’ his voice sharpened, ‘or have you been working also? Tell me the truth, Annoushka.’

  There no longer seemed any point in concealment. ‘But Petya must never know, Sergei,’ she said when she had recounted the events of the evening. ‘He’d leave school at once if he knew we were penniless. So please just help me to get away quickly now. Then when I have seen Mama and Pinny I can begin to look for another job.’

  ‘No! You shall not work again like this! I forbid it absolutely!’ And as he spoke, Sergei knew exactly what he would do and that the lie he had told the Nettleford girls had been a prophetic one. ‘I’m going to marry Larissa Rakov,’ he went on. ‘She’s a kind, understanding person; it will be all right, you’ll see. And you and Petya and your mother shall live with us, and Pinny too. And if you’re good,’ he continued, gently flicking away a tear, ‘I shall find you a rich husband – one who will beat you only twice a week.’

  She tried hard to smile. ‘No, Seriosha . . . I don’t want a rich husband. Or any husband except . . .’

  Sergei took out his handkerchief. He had dried the eyes of countless weeping women, but none more tenderly than those of this girl. ‘Poor coucoushka,’ he said, settling her head against his shoulder. ‘Now, tell me everything, please. Of course if he has harmed you I shall kill him, whoever he is,’ he added matter of factly. ‘But otherwise, perhaps something can be done.’ He gave a last dab at her face. ‘Blow your nose, dousha,’ he commanded, ‘and begin.’

  So she told him everything, always blaming herself for not seeing in time what was happening, and as he held her and stroked her hair, he caught from her voice the immensity of her love, her inexhaustible tenderness and the total lack of hope that came from the sense of another person’s honour. And it seemed to him that she had grown up and surpassed him, this girl who had always been to him a younger sister, such was her committal and her certainty.

  It was thus that Rupert, looking for Anna in the garden, found them. Leaning against each other as if they were one substance, the man bending over her, holding her close, while she turned to him in total trust – and her hair, loosened by the dance, streamed across them both.

  14

  It took one hour and twenty minutes for news of Anna’s sudden elevation at the ball to reach the servants’ hall at Mersham. One of the Heslop chauffeurs, going to fetch late arrivals from Mersham Halt, had mentioned it to the station master, who thought it of sufficient interest to merit a telephone call to his old friend Mr Proom.

  Though it was late, only the bossy Mildred who had replaced Mrs Park’s beloved Win, and the two new, enormous and asinine footmen imported for the wedding had gone to bed. Mrs Park was patiently icing the exquisite petits fours and mille-feuilles with which she proposed to supplement the five-tiered perfection of the wedding cake. James and Sid, cobwebbed from a long session in the cellar, were polishing the Venetian decanters; Peggy and Pearl, resting their aching feet on the slumbering Baskerville, were folding damask table napkins into intricate flower shapes; Mr Cameron, on a rare visit indoors, was giving Louise instructions about the disposition of his orange trees.

  Mr Proom’s entry put a stop to all these activities.

  ‘A countess!’ said Mrs Park, putting down her forcing bag and sitting down suddenly. ‘Well, I never!’

  ‘The Russian aristocracy is more numerous than its British counterpart,’ said Mr Proom judiciously. ‘For example, all the offspring of a prince or a count will carry the title.’ But he was considerably shaken all the same.

  ‘It’s that Charles’s face I’d like to have seen,’ said James, who had suffered at the hands of Heslop’s first footman.

  ‘Fancy her dancing with his lordship,’ said Peggy. ‘It’s like that film . . . you know, the one with Lillian Gish, where she comes up from the country all innocent like . . .’

  Mr Proom and Mrs Park exchanged glances. Certain things about Anna’s recent behaviour were becoming clear to them.

  ‘A countess, eh?’ Mr Cameron, into whose ear-trumpet the news had duly been shouted, had begun to wheeze with unaccustomed and silent laughter. He knew, now, what to call his new rose, and the joke – obscure, private, pointless – was just the kind he particularly enjoyed.

  ‘Remember that day she first came,’ said Pearl, ‘when she went and sat down right at the bottom of the table, below Win, even?’

  ‘Aye.’

  For a moment they were silent, all in their different ways remembering Anna.

  ‘It just shows about that dratted dog, doesn’t it,’ said Sid. ‘Bloomin’ snob. ’e must have known.’

  But sharp Louise had seen another aspect. ‘She won’t be coming back, not for a minute. We’ve seen the last of Anna.’

  ‘Anna’s not like that,’ said Peggy hotly. ‘She’d never—’

  ‘It’s nowt to do with Anna,’ interrupted Louise. ‘It’s that Miss Hardwicke. She won’t have Anna in the house, not after his lordship’s made such a fuss of her. Not for a minute.’

  Proom inclined his domed head in acknowledgement that Louise spoke the truth.

  ‘Mrs Proom will miss her,’ he said heavily.

  ‘She’s not the only one,’ said Mrs Park, brushing away a tear.

  In the small hours, a
fter the ball, the weather broke. A niggling wind shuffled the leaves, clouds scudded in from the west, it began to rain.

  To the girl stumbling in her torn sacking dress up the grassy path that led from Mersham woods to the kitchen gardens, the rain meant nothing. She was in the last stages of exhaustion; her hair filthy and matted, her bare feet bleeding, a frayed tape with a number stamped on to it still clinging to her wrist. Every so often she would stop for breath and turn her bruised, vacant face towards the woods, listening for pursuit, before she was off again and as she ran she sobbed continously like a child.

  She had reached the kitchen gardens, passed through the door in the wall, crossed the orchard. In her clouded brain there was only one bright image: one room, one person to whom she could no longer give a name.

  Nearly spent now, she stumbled across the servants’ courtyard, dragging herself along the damp stone walls of the kitchen quarters, groping, putting up a hand with its torn fingernails to feel for the window, the one window behind which was sanctuary.

  She had found it. With a last desperate effort she leant across the water butt and tapped once on the pane of glass behind which Mrs Park lay sleeping, before she slithered, unconscious, on to the cobbles.

  Win had returned.

  ‘There’ll have to be an enquiry, Rupert,’ the distraught dowager said to her son. ‘Dr Marsh says there’s no doubt Win’s been seriously ill-treated. It must be an absolutely diabolical place – she was dressed in sacking, literally. She’s half-starved, too, and terrified. If you go up to her, even though she’s barely conscious she puts up her arms as though she expects to be hit. I’m going to get it closed down if it’s the last thing I do. And Rupert, you must speak to Muriel – the servants are dreadfully upset! Mrs Park’s given in her notice – she’s going to take Win to her sister’s when she’s well enough. I can’t think how Muriel came to find such a place. It’s miles away, thank heavens, and notorious, I understand.’