Imperial Splendour Read online

  He deliberately made his voice sound uninterested and the Princess responded,

  “Poor Zoia, I am so sorry for her. It is not her fault that things are as they are.”

  “What do you mean?” the Duke asked again in what he hoped was an uninterested voice.

  “I forgot,” the Princess said, “that I did not tell you who she was.”

  “And who is she?”

  “She is Pierre Vallon’s daughter.”

  For a moment the Duke could not think how he had heard the name.

  Then he exclaimed,

  “Do you mean the Conductor?”

  “Of course,” the Princess replied. “There is only one Vallon in the musical world and he now has a unique position.”

  “I heard him conducting in London last year,” the Duke said, “and long ago when I was a boy in Paris. I suppose he is without exception one of the greatest Conductors in the world today and I have always thought that the music he composes is superlative.”

  As he spoke, he knew now why he had been so drawn to the music that Zoia had danced to and which had aroused such strange feelings within him.

  “I had no idea that Vallon had a family,” he added.

  “You know his story, of course.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do not,” the Duke replied. “I have admired and acclaimed him for his art and I suppose I never thought of him as a man.”

  “Then I will tell you,” the Princess said.

  The Duke knew, because she was an insatiable gossip that it pleased her to be able to impart to him something that he did not know already.

  “Pierre Vallon’s wife,” she said, “was Natasha Strovolsky.”

  The Duke was startled as she had meant him to be.

  “Strovolsky!” he exclaimed.

  He was well aware that the Strovolsky family, one of the most important in Russia, were extremely proud of their Royal connections.

  Wherever the Czar went, there was always one member of the family in attendance upon him by right not only as a Courtier but by birth because the same blood flowed in their veins.

  The Strovolskys were so proud and so Imperial in their behaviour, that it was laughingly said that the Czar would wake up one morning to find a Strovolsky sitting on the Throne!

  Without the Princess saying anything more the Duke knew that the idea of a member of the Strovolsky family marrying a French Conductor, however famous, was unthinkable.

  “How can it be possible?” he asked.

  But he knew that the Princess was only waiting for the question to begin her story.

  “You will remember,” she began, “that it was Gregory Orlov himself who put Catherine the Great on the Throne of Russia.”

  “Yes, of course,” the Duke murmured.

  Count Orlov, as he became, was part of Russian history.

  He was extremely handsome, insatiably ambitious and Europe had in 1762 learnt with astonishment that due to his machinations a German Princess of petty origin had snatched the Crown of Russia first from Czar Peter III and then from Peter’s son, Paul.

  The Duke had heard her described as ‘not only a murderess but a usurper, not only a usurper but a whore’.

  The Duke’s father, who had visited Russia at that time, had often told him how obsessed the Empress, an autocrat with everyone else, had been with her lover, Orlov.

  “I believe the fellow beats her in private,” the old Duke had said, “but she is passionately in love with him and I have never seen anything like the presents that have been heaped upon him.”

  The Duke remembered now that his father had described a suit that the Count had worn on which was sewn a million pounds worth of diamonds and told him of a fête at which the dessert at supper was set out with jewels to the value of over two million pounds sterling.

  “Ten years after her Coronation,” the Princess was continuing, “the Empress Catherine decided to replace Gregory Orlov as her lover.”

  The Duke smiled.

  “Because he was having an affair with Princess Golitzena.”

  “Exactly,” the Princess agreed. “But what the Empress did not know, nor at the time did anyone else, was that he had been briefly but passionately in love with the young Princess Petya Strovolsky.”

  “It seems incredible!” the Duke exclaimed.

  “Incredible or not, you can imagine the horror when they discovered that their prettiest and most adored daughter was having a child.”

  The Princess made a gesture with her hands that was very eloquent before she continued,

  “The Prince was an astute and, of course, all-powerful man. Very few people and only those closest to the family were aware of this lamentable and, indeed from their point of view, horrifying situation. They were not only humiliated by the position but terrified, as you can imagine, that the Empress would learn of it.”

  “What did they do?” the Duke asked.

  “Petya was sent to stay with some friends in Austria, which was how I came to learn the sad story. Her child was born there and it was a daughter, who was christened Natasha.”

  The Duke was listening intently as the Princess carried on,

  “A year later Petya and the baby returned to Russia and the Strovolskys accepted the baby, announcing that Petya had married a distant cousin who had died in Vienna.”

  “And they were believed?” the Duke enquired.

  “But of course!” the Princess answered. “No one would dare to contradict any statement made by Prince Strovolsky.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Natasha was brought up with the family and then Petya married one of my husband’s cousins and died in childbirth. Count Orlov was the love of her life and she never really cared for anybody else.”

  “I believe the Empress reinstated him, did she not?” the Duke asked.

  “She would always say, ‘I cannot be a day without love’, for as a lover she missed him desperately. On his return she loaded him up with gifts, six thousand serfs, a salary of one hundred thousand roubles and Heaven knows what else.”

  “Am I mistaken in thinking that he gave her a gift of great importance?” the Duke asked.

  “A superb solitaire diamond,” the Princess replied. “It cost him four hundred thousand roubles and it is the most beautiful single gem in the world!”

  The Duke registered in his mind that in the Empress Catherine’s reign it was five roubles to the pound and that Orlov’s gift was certainly an expressive apology.

  “Go on with your story,” he urged.

  “You can imagine the consternation in the Strovolsky household after they had done everything they could to try to forget the anxiety and risk of humiliation and shame that Petya had brought on them, to discover then that her daughter, Natasha, had run away with their children’s Tutor.”

  “So that was what Pierre Vallon was.”

  “He came to Russia like so many other Frenchmen to teach the children of the noble families to speak, to dance and to make music. You have seen him and so will understand that anyone who employed such a handsome man in a household full of young girls was asking for trouble.”

  The Duke agreed.

  He had thought that Pierre Vallon, when he had seen him conducting at a huge party given by the Prince Regent at Carlton House, was not only outstandingly good-looking but had an inescapable charm that had made the ladies present fawn on him in a manner that had made their host quite jealous.

  “What did Princess Natasha look like?” the Duke wanted to know.

  “She was absolutely lovely,” the Princess replied.

  “Was?” the Duke questioned.

  “She died a year ago and that is why I was so sorry for Zoia and brought her here from Moscow, while her father is conducting at the Grand Theatre, to give her a chance to forget what is inevitably a worse tragedy than for any other girl in similar circumstances.”

  “Why do you say that?” the Duke asked.

  The Princess looked at him pityingly as if h
e was being rather stupid.

  “While the Princess was alive, the child had some chance of meeting decent men, one of whom might have been inclined to ignore the consequences of marrying her, but now – ”

  The Princess’s hands went out expressively.

  “ – now Zoia is just the daughter of a French Conductor.”

  “But a very famous one,” the Duke pointed out, “and a composer whose work rates with that of the greatest Masters of music.”

  “However talented he may be,” the Princess said coldly, “however delightful to meet, you know as well as I do, my dear Blake, that socially he is just a French Tutor who has achieved success in his own particular profession or trade.”

  She sighed.

  “I am very sorry for Zoia and I am certain that now Natasha is dead the Strovolskys will no longer wish to know her, in fact they have already told me so. I cannot believe that she will find Paris very amusing at this moment with Bonaparte conscripting every eligible man over the age of fifteen into his infamous Army.”

  “I can see the position very clearly,” the Duke remarked,

  “I have made you understand how charitable I have been in having her here at all,” the Princess said, “Tania is fond of her and at least the two girls amuse one another when there is so little entertainment taking place at the moment.”

  As if she was bored with the subject of Zoia, the Princess went on,

  “Now let us make plans, Blake. Which evening can you escape from The Winter Palace? But give me a little time to make it a really festive occasion.”

  “I have a feeling we will be in the Czar’s black book.”

  “Then tell someone to give him another Bible to read,” the Princess retorted. “It is all over St. Petersburg that Prince Golitzen has him immersed in the Holy Scriptures. Personally I am waiting until I am ready for the grave before I become really religious.”

  Before the Duke could reply a servant came into the room and said something in a low voice to the Princess.

  “Oh, what a nuisance!” she exclaimed. “There is a Courier here from my husband not only bringing me news from the Front but requiring a number of papers that only I can find.”

  The Duke rose to his feet.

  “Then I must leave. If you are writing to the Prince, please tell him how disappointed I am that we cannot meet.”

  “He will be disappointed too,” the Princess replied. “He has always been fond of you, as you are well aware.”

  She waved the servant away and said to the Duke in a low voice,

  “Come and see me tomorrow, Blake, and we will make plans. Also I have so much to tell you, but now there is no time,”

  She spoke in a way that made the Duke look at her enquiringly.

  Then, having glanced over her shoulder to make sure that the servant had left the room, she said in a low voice,

  “Be careful of Katharina Bagration.”

  “Careful?” the Duke asked.

  “She is very close to the Czar and it is well known that she helps the Foreign Ministry with their investigations.”

  The Duke was too polite to say that he knew this already.

  “Thank you, dear Sonya,” he said. “You have always been a kind and generous friend and I assure you I am very grateful.”

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  The Duke walked from the room to see waiting outside the door the Courier who had come from the Prince wearing a stained and dusty uniform and looking as if he had ridden a long distance without sleep.

  As the servant showed the Courier into the White Salon, the Duke walked along the corridor in the direction of the staircase.

  He had reached it and was just about to descend the stairs when he heard the sound of music coming from a room on the other side of the landing,

  He hesitated for a moment and then, walking to the door, opened it.

  The room was as magnificent as the others in the house.

  There were huge pillars of a very rare marble, which supported an exquisitely painted oval ceiling and the walls were decorated with murals of Goddesses and cupids.

  On a small platform there was a pianoforte and seated at it was Zoia playing a melody that the Duke seemed to recognise.

  He entered the room, closing the door behind him, and walked slowly towards her and it seemed to him once again that she was enveloped with light.

  She was so intent on what she was playing that only when he drew nearer did she glance up and see him.

  She stopped playing, but she did not rise and once again their eyes met and it seemed as if neither of them could move.

  At last, after what appeared to be a very long time, the Duke found his voice.

  “Is that one of your father’s compositions?”

  “Yes.”

  Her voice was low and it had exactly the tone, he thought, that he might have expected of her.

  “I have met your father.”

  There was a sudden brightness in her eyes almost as if they held the sunshine.

  It was strange, the Duke thought, that her hair should be fair.

  Then he recalled that Pierre Vallon was not dark like most Frenchmen and he imagined, although he was not sure, that he came from Normandy, where fair hair and blue eyes were as common as in England.

  There was no doubt that Zoia must have her mother’s eyes and yet they held none of the mystery that the Duke had always associated with Russian women.

  Instead there was something that, just like her face, had a spiritual quality about it which was inescapable.

  He walked forward to step onto the small dais and leant against the piano.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he asked.

  She smiled.

  “What do you wish to know?”

  “How have you learnt to dance as I saw you dancing just now on the stage?”

  She did not appear surprised and he thought that she must have seen him in the box when she and Tania took their bows in front of the curtain.

  “When I was small,” Zoia told him, “Mama and I used to watch Papa play for the Corps de Ballet.”

  “You went to the theatre?”

  “Yes – in Paris or anywhere else where he was playing,” she replied. “Mama always wanted to be with him and he liked her to be there.”

  Without her having to say anything more, the Duke knew that there had been a deep love between her father and mother.

  He could understand that, because the Princess had given up so much for her love, she wanted always to be with the man who mattered to her so much more than all the pomp and circumstance that she had enjoyed in Russia.

  “Because I wanted to dance just like the ladies in the ballet,” Zoia was saying, “Mama arranged for me to have lessons from a famous ballerina who had retired.”

  “You dance very beautifully.”

  “I would like to believe that is true,” Zoia replied, “but Papa’s music, which he wrote for me, is so inspiring that, when I hear it played, I feel as if I am swept away into another world where there is only music and sunshine.”

  That is exactly what she had portrayed in her dancing, he mused and remembered how he had thought that he saw butterflies and birds fluttering around her and felt that she danced under the blossom of flowering trees.

  Even as he considered it, he was startled to realise that what he must have been seeing was what was in Zoia’s thoughts.

  Almost as if he would confirm or refute the idea out of hand, he asked her,

  “Tell me, do tell me exactly what you were thinking when just now, I was watching you dancing.”

  She did not seem at all surprised at his question. She merely looked away from him and he thought that she was not only racking her memory to recall what had happened but staring deep into her heart.

  “That particular music of Papa’s, which is part of a concerto,” she said, “makes me think of – spring – the blossom on the trees, the birds nesting, the flowers ‒ and the butterflies
hovering over them.”

  The Duke was silent from sheer astonishment.

  Then he said,

  “I understand your mother is dead. What will you do with yourself when you leave St. Petersburg?”

  “I have come only for a short visit,” Zoia answered, “because Papa asked me to do so, but today I heard for the first time that the French Army may be marching towards Moscow.”

  “It is a possibility.”

  “Then I must be with Papa.”

  “Your father will be safe whoever is in Moscow,” the Duke said soothingly. “Pierre Vallon is an international figure and music, as you know, has no nationality but is universal.”

  “That is true,” Zoia smiled. “At the same time guns do not always hit the target that they are aimed at and, if there was fighting in Moscow, I would be very frightened that Papa might be injured.”

  “Do you think if you are with him you will be able to prevent it?” the Duke enquired.

  “I shall pray that he will be safe,” Zoia replied. “But I would wish to be at his side.”

  “I think it would be far better if your father came to St. Petersburg,” the Duke suggested. “But I will find out exactly what the situation is when I return to The Winter Palace and I will let your hostess know.”

  “That is very kind of you.”

  She gave a little sigh.

  “Perhaps I was wrong to come away and leave Papa alone, but he was so insistent that I should accept the Princess’s kind invitation.”

  “You are happy here?”

  The Duke did not miss the perceptible little pause before Zoia volunteered,

  “I like being with Tania – she is a very sweet person.”

  Although her voice was warm she spoke almost as if Tania was a small child and she was looking after her.

  “How old are you?” the Duke asked.

  “I am nearly twenty.”

  It struck the Duke that in twenty years she must have seen in her travels with her father and mother a great deal of the world and would therefore be very much older in mind and in knowledge than her contemporaries.

  “Play to me?” he then proposed.

  “What would you like to hear?”

  “Something your father has written,” he replied, “and something that is your favourite too.”