Imperial Splendour Read online

  The Duke was astonished but, because his concern was instantly for Zoia, he said to the Princess quickly,

  “May I speak with Vallon’s daughter? I feel that she must be extremely distressed by your attitude.”

  “There is no reason for you to concern yourself,” the Princess replied. “After all she is nothing to you.”

  “I was extremely struck by her talent as a dancer and by the way she plays the piano.”

  He mentioned the piano deliberately, knowing full well that the servants would have told the Princess that he had been to the Music Room while she was playing.

  “That I can well believe,” the Princess answered, “but I suggest we talk of other things, for I have no intention, dear Blake, of quarrelling with you over an unimportant young girl who was merely teaching my daughter French.”

  “We certainly will not quarrel, but I would still like to speak to Zoia. I feel sure that you will not prevent me from doing so.”

  He saw the Princess’s eyes narrow for a moment.

  Then she exclaimed,

  “So persistent! I must say, Blake, I am surprised at you. I never thought for a moment that a young girl would really interest you, but if so, why not my little Tania?”

  “I have already said that I think that Tania would suit my brother admirably,” the Duke replied patiently. “I will also, and this is a promise, give a ball for her at Welminster House when you bring her to London.”

  The Princess was well aware of what a concession this was and she clasped her hands together as she said,

  “That is wonderful of you, Blake, and I know exactly what it will mean for Tania as an entrée to the Beau Monde.”

  She gave a little laugh and put her fingers to her lips.

  “There, you see, I am talking French when everybody swore yesterday that never again would a French word pass their lips! But how else could one describe the glittering exclusive circle that you are such a prominent figure in?”

  “You are very flattering, Sonya, but I still wish to speak to Zoia.”

  The Princess’s eyes met his and he thought that she intended to defy him. Then, with a smile that had something slightly spiteful about it, she parried,

  “Unfortunately that is impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Zoia left at dawn this morning for Moscow.”

  “You mean you sent her away?”

  “I sent her back to her father.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she is French and I thought that she would be safer there when feelings here against the French are running so high.”

  “You really thought that Moscow, which at any moment will be within the reach of Napoleon’s guns, is safer?”

  The Duke spoke scathingly and the Princess looked at him a little apprehensively before she said,

  “It is none of your business, Blake, what I do in my own household or with someone who is more or less a superior servant.”

  The Duke rose to his feet

  “You are leaving?” the Princess asked and now there was a note of consternation in her voice.

  “I am leaving,” the Duke replied. “Goodbye, Sonya.”

  He raised her hand perfunctorily to his lips, bowed and left the room.

  “Blake!” she called out in a pleading tone just before the door closed behind him, but he did not appear to hear her.

  The Duke returned to The Winter Palace, gave orders to his valet to pack his suitcases immediately and then went to the Czar’s apartments.

  Alexander was engaged with a number of Statesmen, but as soon as he was free the Duke was admitted to his presence.

  “What is it, Welminster?” he enquired. “I have a feeling that you would not have asked to see me urgently unless it was important.”

  “It is important to me, Sire. I have decided that, after the commotion and confusion of last night, I should in the interests of my own country and perhaps of yours, go immediately to try to make contact with Sir Robert Wilson.”

  “You would liaise with my Army?”

  “I should like to have the pleasure of meeting General Kutuzov,” the Duke replied, “and to be able to see for myself exactly what is taking place. I think after last night, Sire, that we would both of us be rather sceptical of despatches from whichever direction they come.”

  “The Government behaved with quite unseemly haste,” the Czar said sharply. “I have already spoken to them sternly and telling them that in the future they must make sure of their facts.”

  “You are quite right to do so, Sire,” the Duke agreed, “and, if you will not think it is an impertinence, I should like to send you my own observations on what is occurring when I am in touch with Kutuzov.”

  “Please do that. You know that I trust you, Welminster, and I shall always be grateful for your help yesterday evening.”

  There was no need for the Czar to express in words that he was very ashamed that he, his Government and a large number of other prominent Russians had panicked with very little reason for it.

  Leaving the Imperial apartments, the Duke hurried to his own and found, as he expected, that everything was ready for him to leave at once.

  He wrote a hurried note to the British Ambassador and, because he felt that it was the decent thing to do, he wrote one also to Katharina.

  Then, almost like a boy hurrying from school to go home for the holidays, he ran down the marble staircase and out to where a drotski was waiting for him with another for his valet and six mounted soldiers ordered by the Czar to be his escort.

  As they drove away from The Winter Palace, the Duke felt as if he was setting out on a voyage of discovery.

  Not as far as the War between the two Armies was concerned, but as regards himself, his feelings and perhaps, although he was not sure, his whole future.

  *

  The Ysevolsov travelling carriage drawn by four horses was very swift and Zoia already knew that Prince Ysevolsov, like many nobles, he had his own horses stabled at convenient stopping places between St. Petersburg and Moscow.

  She thought that at the rate they were travelling she would be with her father within five to six days and knew that in some ways it would be a great relief to be with him again.

  Yet he might be angry with her for coming into danger that included not only the threat from the French but from the Grand Duke Boris as well.

  He had made life intolerable for her until her father persuaded her to leave Moscow.

  Because he could not obtain entrance to the house to see her, he was permanently outside the door, preventing her from going out and making his presence known by a long stream of presents, bouquets of flowers and letters.

  She refused to communicate with him and his gifts of any obvious value were returned immediately by the servants.

  But it had given her the uncomfortable feeling of being besieged, and she was frightened all the time that the Grand Duke in frustration might take his revenge upon her father.

  No Russian, whoever he might be, would dare to defy or offend anyone of the Grand Duke’s importance.

  But, as Pierre Vallon laughed at his threats and discounted his rudeness, Zoia trembled, knowing that there is an obstinacy and determination in the Russian character that would make a man fight and go on fighting even when he is beaten.

  That was what Zoia prayed Napoleon Bonaparte would find as he invaded Russia, but so far he had been victorious and the Russians had been defeated in every engagement.

  She could not help feeling that her sympathies were torn in two between the conflicting forces since she was half-French and half-Russian.

  But she told herself that in this instance, if in none other, her sympathy was entirely with the land of her mother.

  The French had no right, she thought, to invade another country that had done them no harm and had in fact for a short time been their ally.

  She had learned that the Czar had sent a message to Bonaparte at Vilna, saying that it was not too late to m
aintain peace even now if the Emperor would take his Army back across the River Niemen.

  “Even God could not now undo what has been started,” Napoleon countered.

  Zoia had been told that, when Alexander had received the reply, he remarked,

  “At least Europe will now appreciate that we are not beginning this slaughter.”

  But whoever had begun or ended it, men on each side would die and to Zoia there was something terrible in thinking of the young men who would not only be shattered by the guns but also be wounded and left to ebb out their lives in agony as there was no one to attend to them.

  ‘War is wrong and wicked,’ she said to herself passionately and found herself praying that no one she loved should be either killed or wounded.

  And somehow her prayer inevitably included the Duke.

  She had known when he left her that he had taken some part of herself with him.

  She had wanted him to stay, she had wanted, when she turned again to the piano to see him and hear his voice, to feel that strange vibration between them that seemed to strike into her very soul and somehow make her his captive.

  Now that they had been parted and she felt as the horses carried her away on the road to Moscow that they would never meet again and probably he would soon have forgotten her very existence.

  It was an inexpressible agony within her heart while she could not imagine it possible that this could have happened to her.

  He had walked into her life so unexpectedly and yet in that second when their eyes met she had felt as if she had found him again after endless centuries of time.

  She dared not attempt to understand what had happened to her. She only knew that it had and suddenly the music she heard within herself and which she could express with her fingers held a new meaning.

  Even her prayers had changed and, when she thought about the Duke, her whole being seemed to come alive.

  But she was leaving him behind in St. Petersburg and perhaps he would never know why she had left.

  Perhaps it would be days before he even found out that she had gone.

  Because this hurt her so, she felt as if her whole being winged through the ever-widening space between them to reach him.

  And yet, she asked herself, how could she think for one moment that she could ever be of any importance in the Duke’s life although already he meant so much to her?

  She now understood exactly what her mother had said to her when she had explained exactly why she had run away with her father in spite of the grandness of her position in her grandfather’s household, the grandeur they lived in and the distinction of being a Strovolsky.

  It was all of no consequence beside love.

  But her mother’s position was very different, Zoia thought, from her own.

  Her mother had loved a man who was considered to be her inferior, while she loved a man who was infinitely her superior in every way. He was a man of great authority and of a different nationality so that between them lay a gulf as wide as the distance from the earth to the moon.

  ‘I must forget him,’ Zoia whispered and she knew that it would be just impossible.

  She would never forget him and she thought, perhaps because of what she had felt for him on the three brief occasions when they had met and he had filled her whole world that she would always be the Ice Maiden they declared her to be.

  On and on the horses travelled. And they stopped for picnic meals that the servants had brought with them and for a change of horses.

  They travelled both by day and by night because it would have been impossible for Zoia to stay alone at night in an inn.

  What was more, she had always been told that they were scruffy, dirty and lice-ridden and doubtless at the moment filled with the Military.

  So that those who escorted her could get some sleep, they often stopped for an hour or so by the road and the men who drove the carriages and rode as outriders merely dropped down on the ground, warm from the great heat of the sun, and slept without moving.

  Then they would awaken refreshed and ready to ride on.

  It was constricting, but Zoia grew used to the movement of the carriage beneath her and sometimes she felt as though she was on a long pilgrimage which there was no end to and the rumble of the wheels seemed to fill her ears to the exclusion even of thought.

  Then, when they were coming to what she thought must be the end of their journey, there was the distant sound of gunfire.

  She had seen the movement of Russian troops in increasing numbers and one of the servants told her that the peasants had said that the Russians were preparing to counterattack the French.

  Zoia wondered where this would be. The night before, when they had stopped for a meal beneath some trees, she had asked the coachman where they were and he pointed to the South and answered,

  “Borodino.”

  She had known, for she had heard of it before, that it was in the direction of Moscow and she thought with relief how wonderful it would be to see her father on the morrow.

  She only hoped that he had not, by some frightening mischance, already left the City and she would find herself alone there without him.

  But his letters had seemed so calm and unperturbed that she could not believe he would run away and certainly he would not move unless his orchestra went with him.

  Now, as dawn broke, and they started on their way, she heard cannon again, far away to the South and realised that the battle everybody in St. Petersburg had been waiting for had begun.

  Zoia felt almost as if she was being threatened by those on each side of the conflict, the Russians because she was French and the French because she was Russian.

  She found herself praying for her own safety and somehow she found herself praying for the Duke’s safety as well, although why he should be in any danger she had no idea for she was sure that he was still in St. Petersburg.

  On and on the horses went and now at last there were the domes and spires of Moscow ahead.

  ‘I am home!’ Zoia told herself, for home was where her father was, although it could never be the same since her mother was no longer there too.

  She was tired for it had been a long journey and, as she still heard the noise of cannon now far away in the distance, she thought that the men facing the firing must be tired too, although by now many of those on both sides would be dead.

  She shivered at the thought, thinking once again that it was a cruel waste of the most precious gift God that had given to mankind – the gift of life.

  Now they were in the City of Moscow and she could see that the streets were filled with people all obviously tense and waiting for the outcome of the battle.

  The carriage drove along the riverside, past the Kremlin with its high pointed towers and then, some way further on, it turned up a street where there were well-built stone houses.

  Her mother had always said that she had no wish to live in a house built of wood and, because Pierre Vallon loved his wife so much that he was always prepared to do anything that would make her happy, he had bought a house in a quiet square some way from the centre of the City and Natasha Vallon had been delighted with it.

  “There is a garden where Zoia and I can sit under the trees,” she enthused, “and where, when it is warm enough, you and I, my darling, will have our breakfast. It is like an adorable doll’s house and we will be very happy here.”

  Pierre Vallon kissed his wife.

  “You have never grown up,” he laughed. “A doll’s house is what I should give you in every country where we have to live.”

  His wife had looked at him in an adoring fashion.

  “As long as it is a home that you will always return to,” she said softly, “I would be happy in a garret or a cellar. It is of no consequence to me.”

  He put his arms around her and Zoia, who was watching, knew that he was moved by her mother’s words in the same way that music moved him so that there was a look in his eyes which she could only describe to herself as one
of rapture.

  ‘The doll’s house’ as they called it teasingly had been an oasis of peace and happiness where Pierre Vallon could escape from everything, even from his admirers who pursued him relentlessly.

  It was only the Grand Duke Boris who had upset the peace and quiet and Zoia had been more thankful than ever for the garden when she dared not leave her own front door for fear of encountering him.

  Now for the moment there was no fear that the Grand Duke was lurking outside and, as the carriage drew to a standstill, she jumped out of it before her attendants had even time to knock on the door.

  It was opened by her father’s housekeeper who stared at her in surprise.

  “M’mselle Zoia!” she exclaimed.

  “I am back, Maria,” Zoia answered. “Is Papa here?”

  “He’s in the garden, m’mselle,” Maria replied and Zoia sped through the house.

  Her father was sitting in the shade of a tree with sheets of music in front of him and she knew that he was writing down his latest composition for his orchestra to play.

  She paused and stood for a moment gazing at him.

  Could any man, she asked, be more handsome and more attractive?

  Then her heart answered,

  ‘Yes, there is one,’ before with a little cry that startled Pierre Vallon, she ran underneath the branches of the trees.

  “Papa, Papa! I am home!”

  She saw the surprise in her father’s eyes and then his arms went around her and he was holding her close.

  “Zoia, my dearest. Why are you back here in Moscow? How could you do anything so crazy as to return at this dreadful moment?”

  Chapter Five

  “The troops are abandoning the City, sir,” Jacques announced as he served luncheon to Zoia and her father.

  “Nearly everybody else seems to have left already,” Pierre Vallon replied.

  Zoia looked at him in surprise and he explained,

  “The Governor of the City has forbidden the people to leave and pleaded with them and brought them back and punished those he could catch, but they still continue to slip away with their carriages full of everything they can pack into them.”

  “I am sure that the Russian Army has stopped the French,” Zoia pointed out. “I heard the guns in the distance soon after dawn. It must have been about six o’clock and I cannot bear to think of how many men will have been killed.”