The Red Staircase

‘You look very thoughtful, Miss Rose,’ Peter said breaking into my considerations, as we strolled away from the bookshop. ‘But you often do. There is a certain sort of serious, quiet look you sometimes have. I have noticed it. Is it because you are thinking of home things? Have you perhaps had bad news?’

‘No, not exactly bad news, but unexpected,’ I said, remembering the letter about Patrick’s troubles in India.

‘About your – ?’ He paused delicately, seeking for a suitable word.

‘About the man I was going to marry? Yes.’ So he too knew about Patrick. I suppose I should have guessed it.

‘What was he like, Miss Rose? To look at, and as a person?’

Could I still remember what Patrick looked like? Faces, even beloved ones, fade so fast. ‘He was tall, fair-haired, with blue eyes; not a bit good-looking really.’

‘But you thought he was, all the same,’ Peter said gently.

‘I suppose so.’

The conversation seemed to be taking on the kind of intimacy I didn’t feel ready for. I was quite relieved when Ariadne suddenly suggested: ‘And now what about church?’

‘Very suitable,’ said Peter good-humouredly. ‘To settle your mind after all that shopping.’

‘And Madame Titov will be there.’

‘And Edward Lacey,’ said Peter sardonically.

‘Well, yes, but he is not the point. Won’t Rose like Madame Titov? Or anyway, like to meet her?’

‘If you can meet her,’ said Peter lazily. ‘She is so neutral and cloudlike.’ All the same, I thought he did wish me to meet her. I had already noticed that Ariadne’s apparently spontaneous suggestions had often the appearance of being prompted by either Peter or her mother. ‘She is a nice woman,’ Peter went on. ‘A member of the Imperial household.’

‘Very close to the Tsarina,’ put in Ariadne.

The coincidence of meeting the Heir, a Grand Duchess, and a member of the Household came home to me. I wondered if it was really all by chance – but the point of the design, if there was one, escaped me. We walked along in silence for a time, side by side. The afternoon was now very hot, the sun striking off the stone in a dazzling way. Dolly had intimated that we would be leaving St Petersburg soon for the country.

‘You’re getting that look again,’ said Peter. ‘You are thinking either of your lost lover or poor Mademoiselle.’

‘Both,’ I said. ‘Both.’ And it was true. Ever since Laure had told me about her own broken love affair, there had been a link between them in my mind. Strike a note of pain and disappointment, and at once I saw them both.

‘And there is Major Lacey,’ said Ariadne, suddenly interrupting. She pointed to where he stood outside the Church of St Andrew.

He came forward to meet us, smiling. ‘I called at the house, and Madame Denisov told me where to find you,’ he said. So then I knew this expedition had been well planned.

We were very close to the open church door, and a wave of incense – Russian incense, stronger than anything I ever knew – blew towards us.

‘Are you thinking of being received into the Orthodox Church?’ I asked the Major.

‘No, I come for the singing.’ Impossible to tell if he was serious or not.

As always, the church was crowded with people of all ages and conditions, rich, poor, sick and the fashionable healthy like us. The smell of humanity mixed with incense was overwhelming. It usually took me a few minutes to get used to, although Ariadne seemed not to notice it; but I saw Major Lacey’s nose wrinkle slightly. ‘By Jove,’ I heard him murmur under his breath. ‘Rich.’

Inside the church, the darkness was lightened only by candles. I stood still while my eyes adjusted. Then I slipped into a place beside Ariadne, whose head was bent; she was murmuring reverently. Now that my eyes were used to the gloom I could take in the great splendour of the building. I had been here several times by now, of course, but the almost barbaric magnificence of the place astonished me afresh on each visit. Everywhere that the light of the candles penetrated I could see the glint of gold. It shone from the golden candelabra, from the crosses and from the gold leaf used in the paintings which decorated the walls. The other colour which shone through the darkness was the blue of lapis lazuli which I could see on walls, pillars and roof. Here and there were the deep green of malachite and the yellow of onyx. I felt as though I was inside a great jewelled box – but inside this box I felt stifled, not free and at peace as in the kirk at Jordansjoy. I was pressed down by the weight of too many centuries, and too much emotion expended in too much wealth of decoration.

The choir began to sing, emerging in procession from behind the great carved screen which concealed the tabernacle and the host. With them came the priests in their splendid robes of velvet and stiff silk, embroidered with gold and silver. In colours of mulberry and purple and deep blue they walked, one after another, men with pale faces dominated by their vestments. Incense was being thrown about lavishly in great clouds. The host was carried round and the people pressed close. A woman near me knelt down to kiss the floor; Ariadne crossed herself continually. I sat with my hands folded, feeling a little apart; I was not drawn into the emotion spilling out all round me. I felt sad that I wasn’t more touched; I felt reverence and respect for the ritual of the great tradition unfolding itself before me, but a little hard knot of reserve remained within. I wanted to give way, but I could not. I had been like this with Patrick, when I had wanted to show him some special mark of affection, had longed, really, to let my love overflow towards him. But something held me back, and I remained constrained and stiff. Perhaps it was this, in the end, which separated him from me – I think this shyness would have gone with marriag e but I never got a chance to show him. Poor Patrick. I had been so angry with him at first, so full of injured pride and resentment. Now I only grieved for him. I hadn’t thought of myself as to blame in the breaking-off between Patrick and me, but I saw now that I might have been. To a man under stress I had turned a perfectly composed face, and it hadn’t been enough: he could not confide in me, and perhaps he had thought I did not love him.

So as I stood beside Ariadne, I was really thinking of Patrick.

‘Time to go, Miss Rose,’ whispered Peter. ‘We must move. We are keeping the people behind us waiting.’ He looked at me with interest. ‘You were far, far away. Oh, it was the music, I know, it affects everyone, no one can resist it.’

‘Yes, it was very fine.’

‘Interesting counter-tenor they have in the choir,’ said Edward Lacey.

‘He’s a genuine castrato,’ said Ariadne with enthusiasm.

Peter grinned, and Edward Lacey looked a little disconcerted at Ariadne’s frankness. Possibly he thought that well brought up young girls should not be too familiar with the term ‘castrato’, although anyone who has seriously studied music must know it. ‘I thought he might be,’ he said. ‘Strange noise he makes. Vibrant but odd. One could hardly call it beautiful.’

The crowd was pressing close against us, hemming us in on either side, making it difficult to move. We did slowly edge an inch or so forward. I was struck once again by the variety of people that made up the mass. A richly dressed woman was shoulder to shoulder with an old man in his working clothes, a fragile old creature in tatters and rags stood before a burly man carrying a silk hat. Behind them came a trio of schoolgirls in the charge of a Sister in flowing robes, and behind them the tall figure of a bearded monk. The girls were giggling amongst themselves, and I saw the monk give them a hard stare. I noticed his eyes, for they had a particularly alive and searching glance. He turned his head towards me with a penetrating clear look. I blinked.

Once when I was walking in the woods around Jordansjoy, I came upon a young fox. He appeared on the path above me; the ground sloped, so we met eye to eye, and he stared at me boldly, unafraid. Now, to my surprise, I saw that free, questing animal stare again in this man’s eyes. Strange eyes for a monk, I thought.

‘We can move now, Miss Gowrie,’ prompted Edward Lacey politely.

The crowd was much thinner and it was easy now to make our way to the great door, where groups of people still stood about talking and settling their hats and gloves preparatory to departure. As we went forward, I could see that Ariadne had her eyes on a woman soberly dressed in plain, dark clothes who was drawing on a pair of white kid gloves and opening a parasol.

‘Madame Titov,’ she said. ‘I want you to meet her.’

Peter withdrew from us a little, leaving us apart. Perhaps he did not so much like Madame Titov.

‘Oh yes, I remember you mentioned her.’

‘She is a person it is very good to know,’ Ariadne assured me earnestly. ‘Nice in herself, and important.’

She didn’t look important, rather she looked a shy, quiet woman with a dowdy taste in hats, and yet she had an air of being completely at ease in the world.

‘And she’s very holy,’ went on Ariadne. ‘That is, devoted to the Church, you know.’

‘Pious,’ I said. ‘And what makes her important?’

‘Hush, she’ll hear. It’s the Empress, of course. They are very close. She looks after the Heir. In the schoolroom and so on.’

Ah, I thought, a governess, even if of a very superior sort. A sister to me beneath the skin. ‘So that’s why you want me to meet her? We are two of a kind.’

‘Not exactly,’ Ariadne smiled. ‘She is not a bit like you. Nor are your duties the same. But she wanted to meet you.’

Inwardly I raised my eyebrows: so now it was she who wished to meet me. That hadn’t been the story the first time round.

‘I think the lady knows you are here,’ murmured Edward Lacey under his breath.

It was true, now I took another glance, Madame Titov was unobtrusively studying me as she fiddled with the buttons on her gloves. Clearly, she was waiting for us to come up to her. Nor did we keep her waiting long. Ariadne piloted me towards her deftly, towing Edward Lacey behind us like a small tug guiding a liner. Except that even out of his uniform there was something of the warrior in Edward’s bearing, so perhaps I should have likened him to a man o’ war.

‘This is Miss Cowrie,’ said Ariadne breathlessly. ‘Madame, may I present Miss Gowrie. Rose, this is Madame Titov.’