Imperial Splendour Read online

  They passed through a huge Reception room so large that two hundred people or more could easily be entertained in it without crowding.

  The Duke expected to be asked to wait, but the footman, speaking in hesitating French, explained,

  “Madame la Princesse is in the theatre, monsieur.”

  The Duke nodded his understanding and they then walked on again through a number of magnificently decorated rooms until, in the centre of one of them, they reached a staircase made of priceless malachite descending to the floor below.

  The Duke had heard in England that Prince Ysevolsov’s private theatre was exceptional, but he was not prepared for the utmost beauty of what he saw when the servant opened a gold-encrusted door and he was shown in to what was obviously a Royal Box.

  Very small and holding fewer than a hundred people, it was like a child’s doll’s house in a Royal Mansion and yet it had all the charm and the beauty of an Imperial theatre.

  In the stalls there were white and gold carved chairs. The circle was supplied with seats in crimson velvet, as was the box he had entered.

  The footman had not announced him and he stood at the back noting that in front of him was the figure of the Princess, who had not heard his arrival as she was intent on watching what was taking place on the stage.

  A girl was dancing to the music of a small orchestra seated in the pit below.

  The Duke glanced at the performer perfunctorily. He then assumed with the Prince’s obsession for the theatre that it would be either a member of his own special Corps de Ballet giving a performance or else, what was more likely, one of his family.

  At the back of his mind he remembered the Princess or someone else telling him that the Prince himself enjoyed acting and expected his family to perform with him.

  If there was one thing that the Duke really disliked, it was amateur theatricals and he hoped what was taking place would not continue for too long as he wanted to talk to the Princess.

  Then the girl who was dancing made a deep curtsey.

  ‘Thank goodness!’ the Duke sighed to himself.

  He was just about to move forward to make his presence known to his hostess, when the girl, and he could see that she was very pretty, ran from the stage and the music changed and another performer appeared.

  She was moving on the tips of her toes and wearing the traditional ballet skirt worn by those who took part in Les Sylphides.

  It reached to her ankles and there was a tight bodice, low-cut to display a long swan-like neck and her bare arms.

  The Duke mused impatiently that the new ballet that he had seen performed the previous evening in Catherine the Great’s theatre in The Winter Palace had rather bored him.

  Then he realised that it was not the music of that ballet and he had not heard it before, also the movements of the dancer on stage were exceptionally graceful.

  Despite his irritation he found himself watching the way she moved.

  He had a feeling that the dance was not traditional or, if it was, he had never seen it before.

  He knew too that the music, while strange, was particularly tuneful and had a melodious beauty about it that intrigued him.

  The Duke, like the Prince Regent, was very fond of music. As in everything else that he was really interested in, he was a connoisseur and a very discriminating one.

  Now he knew that he was listening to an exceptionally fine work that did not sound to him in the least Russian.

  Then, as he watched the girl moving around the stage, dancing with a spontaneity and a kind of joy that he had never seen expressed before, he was sure, although he had no reason for it, that she too was unusual.

  He could not explain why she seemed different, except that, as far as he was concerned, she was original both in her movements, in her grace and in her dance.

  ‘Russia is full of surprises,’ he told himself and found that the music of the dance evoked some response in him that he had not felt for a very long time.

  Earlier, when he was young, he had been deeply moved not only by music but also by poetry until, like everything else in his life, it had grown far too familiar. He had found that, while he appreciated the subtleties of such things, they no longer aroused him as they had in his youth.

  Now oddly and almost inexplicably he felt his mind, or was it something deeper, flying as if it had wings on the music as his eyes watched the grace and joy expressed by the dancer.

  It seemed to him as if she moved amongst trees covered with blossom and the whole world was awakening with spring.

  There was something young and creative about her and the Duke thought that he saw butterflies hovering around her and birds in the sky above.

  It was almost with a sense of loss when he realised that the dance was over as the dancer swept to the ground in the traditional curtsey and the music came to an end.

  Two red velvet curtains fell and then rose as the two girls came forward hand in hand to take a final bow.

  There was only the Princess to clap her hands, but she did so with enthusiasm.

  “Excellent,” she called out. “Both of you were very good. Go and change and come to the White Salon.”

  The two girls then slipped away through the curtains and for the first time the Princess became aware that the Duke was standing behind her in the box.

  She gave a little cry of delight and, rising, held out both her hands.

  “Blake!” she cried. “You have come and I am so very pleased to see you.”

  “As I to see you, Sonya,” the Duke answered. “Who were those entrancing creatures? They held me spellbound.”

  “The first was Tania, my little Tania, whom I so much want you to meet,” the Princess replied. “You will see her in a few moments and I know that you will believe everything I have told you about her and so much more.”

  The Princess linked her arm through the Duke’s as she spoke and led him through the door at the back of the box.

  As they started to climb the malachite staircase, the Duke asked,

  “And the other dancer?”

  There was a quite perceptible pause before the Princess replied,

  “Oh, that was Zoia!”

  Chapter Two

  The Duke was about to ask Zoia’s other name, but the Princess chattered on,

  “You must find it terribly hot here as we all do. Of course ordinarily we are never in St. Petersburg at this time of the year but, as the Czar is at The Winter Palace, how can we go to the country and feel that we are deserting him?”

  They moved through the beautiful apartments that the Duke had noted on his way to the theatre and footmen then opened the double doors of a huge Reception room, which the Duke realised was aptly named as it was all in white.

  The carved stone mantelpiece was an artistic delight and the curtains under the exquisite gold pelmets were of heavy white Chinese silk.

  There was a glittering silver teapot on a silver tray set on a low table by one of the sofas and the Princess laughed when she saw the Duke’s expression.

  “English tea at five o’clock,” she said. “I became acclimatised to it in England and now a number of people in St. Petersburg have followed my example. I cannot offer you muffins, but I think you will find the little blini to your taste.”

  As these were, the Duke knew, small buckwheat pancakes that were filled with caviar and sour cream, he could reply quite truthfully that they were indeed very much to his taste.

  He sat down in a comfortable chair and waited for the cup of tea that the Princess poured out in the same manner that his mother had dispensed tea in England.

  “How long are you staying?” she asked, “or have you not yet made up your mind?”

  “I rather feel that the news from the Front might decide that for me,” the Duke replied.

  The Princess shrugged her shoulders.

  “Now we have Kutuzov everything will be all right and our Army will win!”

  The Duke felt that she was being slightly over-o
ptimistic, but at least it was a change from the despondency at The Winter Palace, so he merely answered,

  “I hope you are right. You should come and talk to the Czar.”

  “It would do no good,” the Princess replied. “You know as well as I do, Blake, that, if there is one thing that the Russians really enjoy, it is gloom and despondency whenever there is a crisis. My husband is the same, but with him I merely wait until the sun shines again.”

  The Duke laughed.

  “An easy philosophy from a very lovely philosopher.”

  There was no doubt that he spoke the truth when he complimented the Princess.

  She had been, when the Prince married her, the most outstanding beauty in the Court of Vienna and age had improved rather than detracted from her looks.

  There was, however, a forcefulness about her that made the Duke suspect that she drove her husband and, in a very un-Russian manner, ruled the household.

  Russians, for the most part, liked their women to be soft, feminine and unobtrusive, but the two famous Empresses, Elizabeth and Catherine the Great, had set a standard which many Russian wives followed by being irritatingly dictatorial.

  The Princess, however, was not Russian and the Duke knew it amused her to decry the nation that she had married into very simply because she wished, as it were, to challenge her husband’s importance.

  The Prince was a good-natured easy-going man. He liked peace in his home and peace for his country and the Duke was sure that if he was now playing the part of a soldier at the moment it was reluctantly and only from a sense of patriotism.

  The Princess was talking about London and asking questions about her friends when the door opened and the two girls, whom the Duke had seen dancing, came into the room.

  There was little doubt that Tania, who led the way, was just as pretty as her mother’s description of her.

  She had dark hair and a white skin, large eyes set well apart and a full smiling mouth.

  As she curtseyed to the Duke, he was sure that, when she came to London, she would be a social success.

  Then he heard the Princess saying,

  “And this is Zoia. She came with us here from Moscow so that Tania could improve her French.”

  For the first time since she had entered the room the Duke looked at the girl he had seen dancing on the stage and who had mysteriously affected him in a manner that he did not wish to remember.

  He was sure that it had been just an illusion engendered by the heat of the day or perhaps a delayed reaction from the wine he had drunk at luncheon.

  Whatever the cause, he did not wish to recall it and he had been quite certain that, when he met Zoia face to face, he would realise that it was just a fantasy of his mind and had, in fact, little to do with the performance.

  A slight figure curtseyed gracefully in front of him.

  Then, as she rose, she lifted her face to his and he found himself looking into eyes that seemed in some extraordinary way to have purple depths in them.

  As he looked into Zoia’s face, the Duke realised that she was different from any other woman he had ever met.

  It was not that she was beautiful, a great many women were that. It was not that she was particularly striking and her loveliness was not as obvious as that of Tania.

  But there was indeed something in the almost classical features, the little straight nose, the perfect curve of the lips and the oval of the face, which reminded the Duke of the statuary he had seen in Greece and some of the very fine examples that he owned himself amongst his other treasures.

  He thought too as he looked at her that, while she was flesh and blood, she had the purity and the exclusiveness of the statues that had once been worshipped by those who appreciated their sanctity.

  That, he told himself in an almost startled manner, was the right word to describe Zoia.

  There was something sacred about her and he thought for one moment that there was a light behind her or that it came from within her as she stood facing him.

  He realised that they were looking at each other, that Zoia’s eyes were held by his and that both of them were very still.

  The Princess’s voice suddenly seemed to come from a long way away.

  “Sit down, children,” she urged, “and hurry with your tea. I want to talk to His Grace, who is a very old friend, and we prefer to be alone.”

  She was pouring tea into a cup as she spoke and now she looked up and was aware that the Duke and Zoia had not moved.

  In a voice that had a sharp edge to it, she added,

  “I am sure, Zoia, it is time for you to practise your music. Go to the Music Room and tell the servants to bring your tea there. It will save time.”

  As the Princess spoke, Zoia gave a start as if she had been recalled from some distant place.

  She gave the Princess and the Duke a little curtsey and then without speaking she left the room.

  As the door closed behind her, the Duke had a sudden desire to call out to her to stay, and, when she was gone, he had an unaccountable feeling of loss because she was no longer there.

  “Do come and sit down, Blake,” the Princess suggested, “and tell my little Tania about London. She has not been there since she was ten, but she has the happiest memories of your Parks and the funny narrow little streets.”

  The Duke realised that the Princess’s description of London was due to the fact that the streets of St. Petersburg were so wide and so sparsely inhabited.

  Because Tania was looking at him in an expectant manner, he asked genially,

  “Are you really looking forward to visiting London? I can assure you it is not half so grand or as impressive as St. Petersburg.”

  “Mama tells me that I shall attend balls in London that are more amusing than those that take place here.”

  “That I find difficult to believe,” the Duke replied, “with so many handsome and dashing young Officers to partner you.”

  “Not at the moment,” Tania answered. “They are all away fighting the French and there are far too many women at every party.”

  She pouted as she spoke and the Duke laughed.

  “Let’s hope for your sake, if for nobody else’s, that the War will be over soon.”

  “War! War! War!” the Princess groaned. “Do we ever hear about anything else? I had planned such delightful parties for Tania at The Summer Palace and now all we can do is to stay here in this heat.”

  “I can only say how sorry I am for you,” the Duke said with a slightly cynical note in his voice.

  He thought that it was typical of the Princess to ignore the huge casualties that there had been at the Battle of Smolensk.

  “Let’s talk of something more interesting,” the Princess said with a swift change of mood before he could speak. “Now that you are here, I must give a party for you, a dinner party, and we will dance later to a new gypsy band I have discovered which is quite fantastic.”

  She smiled before she went on,

  “I am keeping them secret in case they should appear at any party before mine, but you shall be my excuse to present them to an astonished St. Petersburg.”

  ‘Will the Czar approve?” the Duke asked. “After all he is very depressed and worried about the War.”

  “We will not invite him,” the Princess said. ‘We will tell everyone that it is just a quiet little dinner party for you, but all my special friends shall come and Tania and I will entertain you, will we not, dearest?”

  She spoke to Tania whose eyes were alight with excitement.

  “A party with dancing afterwards, Mama! It will be so thrilling. I was saying to Zoia only today how dull it is with nothing to look forward to.”

  “You have your ballet dancing,” the Duke reminded her.

  Tania shrugged her shoulders.

  “I have had lessons for years to please Papa, but Zoia dances so much better than I do.”

  “Zoia comes into another category altogether,” the Princess said coldly. “Now run along, darling
, and I will let you come back and say ‘goodbye’ to the Duke before he leaves.”

  “I should like that,” Tania said with what was almost a coquettish glance at the Duke.

  She curtseyed and ran from the room and the Princess watched her go.

  Then she turned and asked,

  “What do you think of her, Blake?”

  “I think she is extremely pretty just like her mother,” the Duke replied, “and she will be a triumphant success amongst the beaux of St James’s.”

  “I would like her to be a success with you,” the Princess said softly.

  “Me?” the Duke enquired in a voice which proclaimed that he had never thought of such an idea. “You know that I am a confirmed bachelor. Besides I am much too old for anything so young and lovely.”

  “I think Tania would be happier with an older man,” the Princess parried seriously. “She needs guidance. She also at times needs a firm hand.”

  “Have you ever wondered what I should have in common with a child who has only just left the schoolroom?” the Duke asked. “No, my dear Sonya, my interests are very much more sophisticated.”

  He spoke deliberately in a way that made it seem a compliment and there was, as he had intended, a sudden alertness in the Princess’s eyes as she put out one of her heavily ringed hands towards him.

  “You know as well as I do, Blake, that you typify everything that is handsome, gallant and attractive in an Englishman.”

  The Duke kissed her fingers as was expected.

  Then he said,

  “I promise you that all the most eligible bachelors shall be paraded before Tania when you bring her to London. In fact I think one of my younger brothers might suit her very well.”

  As he spoke, he saw that the Princess was calculating that, if he never married, as he said he had no intention of doing, then his brother would in the course of time become the Duke of Welminster and Tania would achieve the position that she wished for her.

  Aloud she merely smiled,

  “I knew I could rely on your kindness.”

  “Tell me about Tania’s friend,” the Duke asked. “She also seems to be quite a pretty girl. Will you be bringing her to London too?”