Imperial Splendour Read online

  “One cannot have war without casualties,” Pierre Vallon replied. “I can only pray that the battle has been decisive one way or another.”

  Even though he spoke as if it mattered little to him which side won, Zoia was quite sure that in his heart he resented it that his own countrymen were the aggressors.

  ‘Napoleon has taken far too much already,’ she thought. ‘Why on earth should he want more? Why should he wish to master Russia as well as nearly the whole of Europe?’

  “There’s a new broadsheet, sir,” Jacques said, bringing it from the side table where he had put it.

  “What does it say?” Pierre Vallon asked without attempting to take it from him.

  “It declares that General Kutuzov will defend Moscow to the last drop of his blood.”

  “That is what I suppose he is doing at this moment,”

  Pierre Vallon remarked.

  As he spoke, he was obviously listening and Zoia could also hear, very faintly for they were a long distance away, the thundering of cannon.

  It seemed to her, although it was difficult to tell if it was a fact, that the firing was more intense and more explosive than when she had been near Borodino on the road approaching the City.

  “We are safe – here?” she asked and there was just a tremor of fear in her voice.

  “I imagine we will be safe, whichever side is victorious,” her father replied dryly. “But I do wish, my dearest, you had stayed in St. Petersburg.”

  Because she thought that it would hurt him, Zoia had not told her father that the Princess had literally turned her out.

  Instead she said,

  “If there is danger I want to be with you, Papa, and I know that is where Mama would wish me to be.”

  Her father smiled at her and she could see the sadness in his eyes which was always there when he thought about his wife.

  He rose from the table and walked to the window to look out into the sunlit garden.

  “What we have to decide,” he said, “is if it is best for us to stay or to leave.”

  “If we leave, where shall we go?” Zoia asked him.

  “That, of course, is the problem. What do you think, Jacques?”

  There was nothing unusual in Pierre Vallon discussing his plans with the man who was ostensibly their servant, although actually his position was a very different one.

  Jacques had been an unsuccessful actor who had met Pierre Vallon by chance and had then dedicated his life to his service.

  He had had a very unhappy childhood. He had wandered about in circuses taking part in minor turns and, although he had been given small parts on the stage from time to time, no one had been interested in him or wished to retain his services.

  Then, by chance, when he was out of work, he went to the Opera and saw Pierre Vallon conducting.

  From that moment, as he had told Zoia, he found his soul and knew that this was what he had been searching for all his life.

  He had now been in their household for nearly ten years and it was difficult to imagine what life would be without him.

  Apart from anything else Jacques had an aptitude for languages and he not only spoke German because he had once lived in Vienna and Arabic from visiting Egypt but now he was surprisingly proficient in Russian.

  He could act the part he wished to play much more convincingly than he was able to do on the stage and Zoia recognised that, whoever occupied Moscow, Jacques would be able to converse with them and prove that he was a kindred spirit.

  “I suppose it will be difficult to buy food if the shopkeepers have left and the ‒ shops are closed,” she asked aloud.

  “I’ve got in a good store, m’mselle,” Jacques answered.

  She smiled because she knew that, whoever else went hungry, her father would not if Jacques had anything to do with it.

  “One thing I must insist upon,” Pierre Vallon said with a note of authority in his voice that Zoia had not heard before, “you are not, for any reason whatsoever, to leave the house.”

  “Do you mean that, Papa?” she asked, remembering how frustrated she had felt before she left Moscow because the Grand Duke’s behaviour had forced her to remain a prisoner in her own home.

  “I mean it,” Pierre Vallon insisted firmly.

  He looked at Jacques as he spoke and the two men were thinking that an almost empty City would be a temptation to the Russian soldiers, let alone the French, who had fought their way for so many weary miles from their homeland. Looting was always one of the ‘perks’ of war and both men were certain that there would be uncontrollable looting, just as a woman, any woman, would be a temptation to men separated from their wives and sweethearts.

  “You are to stay in the house,” Pierre Vallon repeated and, as if he did not wish to say anything more, he went from the room.

  “You were unwise to come back, m’mselle,” Jacques said to Zoia. “It’ll worry the Master and he doesn’t work so well when he’s worried.”

  Zoia glanced over her shoulder at the closed door before she answered,

  “I just had to come, Jacques, only don’t tell Papa. People in St. Petersburg thought that Napoleon might be marching in that direction and suddenly everybody hated the French and the Princess wished to be rid of me.”

  Jacques shrugged his shoulders.

  “C’est la guerre, m’mselle, and in war anything may happen.”

  As her father had done, Zoia went to the window.

  She thought that she could hear the thunder of cannon although it was really too far away and she could imagine the sound of falling shells and the moans and cries of the wounded and the smell of blood and powder.

  She had never seen a battle and yet she felt the horror of it instinctively and she turned away from the sunshine and moved into the small salon at the front of the house.

  Then, very suddenly, at four o’clock in the afternoon, she sensed an abrupt silence and she knew without being told that the battle was over.

  Now it was the question of who had won?

  Zoia had a feeling of apprehension that was different to anything that she had felt all day. She did not understand why she was so tense and in a way afraid.

  She ran from the salon in search of Jacques and found him polishing a piece of silver in the kitchen and said,

  “I know that the guns have ‒ ceased. The battle is now over! Oh, Jacques, please find out what has happened.”

  “The Master should be home soon,” Jacques replied.

  “He will be with the orchestra and I cannot wait until he returns. Please, Jacques, find out if anybody knows the result of the battle.”

  “I don’t like leavin’ the house with only two women in it,” he said, “but to please you, m’mselle, I’ll see what I can learn. Bolt the door after I’ve gone and don’t open it to anyone except the Master or myself.”

  “No – of course not,” Zoia agreed.

  At the same time it made her feel strange to hear such instructions from Jacques.

  She went to talk to Maria, but it was hard to keep her mind on anything but the battle and her anxiety to know what had occurred.

  It was nearly two hours before Jacques returned. As soon as she heard his knock on the door, Zoia ran down the stairs and, peeping through a side window, saw him outside.

  She pulled back the bolts, turned the key and he came into the small hall.

  He was smiling and she knew before he spoke that he brought good news.

  “What has ‒ happened? What have you ‒ learned?”

  Her words fell over themselves.

  “They say it’s a great victory, m’mselle.”

  “For the Russians?”

  “Of course! They always said that General Kutuzov would stop Napoleon from reaching Moscow.”

  “Then we need not worry anymore,” Zoia cried in delight and ran upstairs to tell Maria the good news.

  When her father came back to the house, he did not seem as pleased and excited as she had thought he would be.

>   “There have been terrible casualties,” he related. “Some wounded are being brought into the City and there is practically nobody still here to attend to them.”

  “Surely everyone cannot have gone, Papa?”

  “There are only the poor and homeless to be seen in the streets,” Pierre Vallon replied, “and do you know how many of my orchestra came to the rehearsal that I had called for this afternoon?”

  “How many?” Zoia asked.

  “Six!” he replied.

  He flung the music sheets he held in his hand down on the table as he asserted,

  “The orchestra is finished! I am no longer wanted!”

  “Oh – Papa.”

  Because Zoia felt the pain in his voice, she went to him and put her arms around him.

  “You will always be wanted,” she stressed reassuringly, “if not in Russia then in a dozen other countries. You know that only too well!”

  “They were coming along so splendidly,” Pierre Vallon said almost beneath his breath. “I felt because they were your mother’s countrymen that they somehow kept me in touch with her.”

  He spoke more to himself than to his daughter and Zoia, pressing her cheek against his, said,

  “Wherever you are I know Mama is always ‒ with you. You were too close ever to lose ‒one another.”

  She felt her father’s arms tighten round her and knew that was what he wanted to hear.

  Then, as if he could not bear to talk anymore, he went to the room that was his special sanctum and closed the door behind him.

  Zoia went to find Jacques.

  “I think, Jacques, it is now time for us to leave Russia and for Papa to build up another orchestra somewhere else.”

  “I agree with you, m’mselle,” Jacques replied. “What we have to decide is where to go and to persuade your father to leave.”

  “It will not be easy, but I will talk to him about it after dinner this evening.”

  “You do that, m’mselle, and I’ll cook him a very special dinner, all the dishes he really enjoys!”

  Jacques was a superb cook and Pierre Vallon, like every Frenchman, enjoyed his food.

  That would set the scene, Zoia knew, and all she had to do was to try to persuade her father that his talents would be more appreciated somewhere else.

  Then they would be off on their travels again.

  Even as she thought about it, she found herself wishing that she could see the Duke just once more.

  She wondered if he knew that she had left St. Petersburg. Perhaps he had come back to ask her to play to him again and learned that she had departed.

  Without even closing her eyes, she could see his handsome face, his steel-grey eyes and the expression which was almost one of bewilderment as he asked her what had happened to him and why he had felt as he had.

  ‘He understood Papa’s music,’ Zoia said beneath her breath, as if she reassured herself that it had been true.

  The memory of the moment when their hands had touched and something magnetic and something inexplicable had passed between them that was unforgettable.

  Slowly she walked up the stairs and because it was to be a very special dinner for her father and, because she had a feeling that it was an important one, she was deciding which of her gowns she would wear.

  Her father always liked her to be well dressed as he had wanted her mother to be.

  He had a Frenchman’s appreciation for a woman who was elegant as well as beautiful, and, when she reached her bedroom, Zoia went to her wardrobe, opened it and looked at the gowns that hung there.

  There were none of the gowns that she had worn in St. Petersburg because, as they had been creased through being packed, Maria had taken them to another room where she would press them before putting them into Zoia’s wardrobe.

  But there were several lovely gowns that she had left behind when she had gone to St. Petesburg and among them was one which she knew was her father’s favourite.

  ‘I will wear that one,’ she told herself and could not help wondering whether, if the Duke could see her in it, he too would think it attractive.

  Then she almost laughed at the idea that he would notice anything that she wore.

  It had been obvious from the things the Princess had said that beautiful women fluttered around him not only in St. Petersburg but especially in London where he was of great social standing.

  Zoia felt her spirits drop.

  ‘He will never think of me again,’ she mused. ‘Why should he?’

  And, because it was so painful to think of her own insignificance, the sunshine seemed to have lost its brightness.

  *

  It was nearly four hours later and Zoia was now ready for dinner, which Jacques had said would be late because he had so much cooking to do.

  She was putting the last touches to her hair when she heard a loud knocking on the front door.

  It startled her and instantly the thought of the Grand Duke Boris sprang to her mind.

  It was the way that his servants, as arrogant and imperious as their Master, had knocked day after day, often hour after hour, when she was in Moscow before.

  ‘Surely he cannot have learnt that I am here already?’ she asked herself.

  Then she thought it extremely unlikely that the Grand Duke had remained in Moscow when all the other noble families had left.

  The knocking came again and now Zoia rose from the stool in front of her dressing table and went to the top of the stairs.

  Below she saw Jacques struggling into his uniform coat and pulling off the white apron that he had been cooking in and then hurrying across the hall to the front door.

  He opened it and Zoia heard him speaking to someone outside in Russian.

  She just could not hear what was being said, even though she leaned over the banisters, and then Jacques turned from the door and, looking up as if he had suspected that she would be there, he cried out,

  “M’mselle, please come here at once!”

  *

  The Duke, travelling in a carriage drawn by six horses with a small troop of soldiers to escort him, drove towards Moscow at tremendous speed.

  Like Prince Ysevolsov and all the other nobles, the Czar’s horses were stabled along the road between St. Petersburg and Moscow and in His Imperial Majesty’s case at much closer intervals than those of his subjects.

  This meant that, with a frequent change of horses, the Duke was enabled to complete his journey in a far faster time than anyone else.

  He recalled that once Catharine the Great had reached Moscow in three days, but for her the horses were changed every hour.

  The Duke was a good traveller and constant swaying of the carriage, which many people found disagreeable, did not perturb him.

  He slept some of the time and for the rest he had sat thinking a great deal about Zoia, in fact she continually impinged on his thoughts even when he wished to concentrate on the situation that he would find when he reached Borodino.

  Actually, when he arrived, it was a few minutes after four o’clock and the overwhelming noise of guns which he had heard during the last hour of his journey had stopped.

  He was, however, well aware that a tremendous battle had taken place for, as he drew nearer, he could see South of the road he had travelled on the fearful spectacle of a battlefield disappearing into a far horizon apparently covered with dead and wounded.

  It was so horrifying that he found it difficult to believe that he was not seeing a vision rather than the actual truth of what had occurred.

  When he alighted from his carriage, he saw a number of Staff Officers gathered on an incline above the road and below them were tens of thousands of men lying dead in various attitudes while wounded soldiers with scared faces were struggling to move away from their fallen comrades.

  The Duke fortunately found General Kutuzov with the Officers and immediately made himself known to him.

  Kutuzov was speaking quietly and without elation in his voice, but there was no dou
bt he was convinced that he had achieved a notable victory.

  The Duke waited while the General finished dictating a despatch to the Czar and there was a young Officer waiting to carry it to St. Petersburg.

  The Duke knew only too well that it would be received there with peals of bells from the Churches, fireworks, chains of lanterns along the banks of the River Neva and every vessel in the Port illuminated and beflagged.

  He was certain that Kutuzov would be rewarded with a Princely title and a huge sum in roubles and doubtless a Marshal’s baton as well.

  He also thought, with inexpressible relief, that now Zoia would be safe in Moscow and, if he did not spend too long with the Russian Generals, there would be a chance of his seeing her tonight.

  He distinctly liked the idea of being the person to inform her and her father that they and their home were safe.

  He therefore congratulated General Kutuzov and his Staff and then went in search of Sir Robert Wilson.

  He was not very far away and was obviously pleased to see the Duke.

  “I was told you were in St. Petersburg, Your Grace,” he said, “and I wondered how soon I should see you at the Front.”

  “It is quite obvious that I have arrived too late to be of any help,” the Duke replied with a smile.

  Sir Robert, however, looked grave.

  “I would hope that General Kutuzov is not sending despatches to the Czar claiming an overwhelming victory?”

  “That is exactly what he has done,” the Duke replied.

  He saw the frown between Sir Robert’s eyes and asked him abruptly,

  “Are you telling me that such an assumption is premature?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the cost of the battle is inconceivable.”

  The Duke looked grave.

  ‘What have you lost?” he asked.

  “It is absolutely impossible to calculate the number of men killed at present,” Sir Robert replied, “but at a very conservative estimate the Russian Army must have lost forty thousand men.”

  “Impossible!” the Duke gasped.