The Red Staircase

‘Am I?’ I said doubtfully, withdrawing my hand as gently as I could; dry and cold as her hand was, it seemed to take warmth from mine. All the same, my professional interest was aroused. She was a sick woman. I could feel it in the thin, dry, papery quality of her skin. No healthy hand has such skin. It was hard to get my hand away, for her age she had a firm grip. ‘I’m here to be companion to Ariadne and to talk English to her.’ For some reason I did not mention my more important reason for coming to Russia: the medical work I was going to do at Shereshevo. I think I knew instinctively that such a scheme would find no favour with the Princess Irene.

‘Ah?’ Her eyes lit up with mockery. ‘Is that what you think?’

‘Of course. Madame Denisov – is she your niece – engaged me,’ I said stoutly. It seemed to me that I was obscurely defending myself, although I couldn’t tell why. A little trickle of alarm moved inside me. Of course it had been Madame Denisov who offered me my position. What did the old lady mean?

There was a moment of silence, and during it I became more aware of my surroundings. I was standing by the bed; behind me was the door through which I had come in. Now I noticed that in the wall behind the bed was yet another door. I wondered where it led.

‘You think so?’ Her question seemed to give her satisfaction. She shook her head. ‘No, Ariadne is not so important. You have come to me. Do you think Dolly is the only one with ailments? Not that she has any, whatever she may think, she is as strong as a little horse. She smokes too much, of course, but they all do.’

‘I didn’t know Madame Denisov was ill,’ I said, surprised.

‘Nor is she; I have just been saying so. Don’t you listen, girl? Sick in her mind she may be at times; she certainly ought to be with the way she plays at cards and all the worries this family has.’ She paused, and added ironically: ‘So you are her wonder-worker, who will train her silly peasant women in the ways of good health? So she says.’ She gave a sceptical titter.

‘You do know, then?’

‘Of course I know. I know everything there is to know up here in my tower.’ Still the mocking note in her voice. She would be a devil if she was angry, I thought, but in spite of her great age there was an immense attractiveness welling out of her. She seemed like the Sphinx itself to me, only half human, richly encrusted with memories of worlds long gone, and full of mystery. ‘But I shan’t let you be wasted on a pack of illiterate peasants.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘No, you are too valuable a property to leave in my Dolly’s feckless hands. I can see there will have to be a little war between us.’

‘I don’t think I want to be the subject of a war.’

‘You can’t help it, my dear, you are chosen. Life chose you.’ She gave me an amused look. ‘Shall I tell you what I know? No, after all, I won’t. It will be more amusing for me to see you move to strings pulled by you know not whom. At my age, what is left but to be a voyeur?’

I did not properly understand her, but this only added to her amusement. ‘Although I will admit, my dear, that I have hopes of returning to more active life with your help.’ She gave a little cackle of laughter. ‘You will help me, my dear, but I do not promise to help you. That is the law of my world. Struggle, little moth, in your web.’

‘You’re a wicked old woman,’ I said; but there was so much humour in her, black as it was, that she captivated me still.

Behind her the door opened an inch or two, then halted.

She saw it too, reflected in the mirror; she stopped in mid-sentence. Behind the wrinkles and the rouge and the powder her expression changed, amusement and satisfaction draining away and blankness taking their place.

I looked at the door: it was still open, I hadn’t imagined the first movement. Someone must be standing behind it, waiting to come in.

‘Please go now,’ the Princess said, leaning back on her pillows and closing her eyes. Pretending to close them, I thought, because I could see a glimmer through those painted lashes. ‘After all, I am greatly fatigued. Goodbye, my dear, your arrival is my great joy. Come again soon. I will arrange it.’

‘But Madame Denisov – ’ I began. ‘I mean, I don’t know what she expects …’

She interrupted me. ‘I find it best to make my own dispositions. Goodbye for the moment. I shall soon be greatly in your debt.’

Did the door move a fraction as I went away? In the mirror I thought I saw it did.

I was halfway down the red staircase when it struck me that from where she lay in her bed the old lady could watch both the doors. More, anyone opening either door could see who was in the room, reflected in the mirror, before entering. What a room for conspirators.

I didn’t mention anything of this to Dolly Denisov or Ariadne. I wasn’t proud of either my original inquisitiveness or the secrecy it led to. It was Russia, I see that now; and in particular, the way Russia manifested itself in the Denisov household. Without my knowing it, the atmosphere of the house was affecting me.

But the next day Dolly Denisov raised the subject herself, in her own way, and obliquely. We met over the teacups while Dolly smoked and Ariadne nibbled macaroons.

‘You have settled down so well, Miss Gowrie.’ Dolly smoothed her glossy hair, which today was pinned back with a tortoiseshell and diamond comb, shaped like a fan. ‘I am so happy.’

‘I love it all,’ I said with honesty.

‘And soon letters from home will start arriving, and that sad little look I see at the back of the eyes will have gone.’

‘Yes,’ I said. But none from Patrick. No letters, ever again, from Patrick. I don’t think Dolly Denisov can ever have been truly in love or she would not have said what she did. But perhaps she didn’t believe it. Hard to tell with Dolly.

‘You miss your family, of course you do. We Russians understand about families. That is why we live in such huge houses, so we can all be together.’ She reached out for a cigarette, and the dark silk of her flowing tea-gown slid away from her arm to show half a dozen barbaric-looking gold bracelets. ‘Even in this house we have an old aunt living. She is too old and frail for you to meet, she sees no one,’ said Dolly easily.

I said nothing. Old, Princess Irene certainly was, I thought; frail too, no doubt; but it wasn’t true she saw no one. She had seen me. I was opening my mouth to confess all, when Dolly swept on. ‘One day, perhaps, I will take you up to see her. She is history personified. Do you know, as a girl she danced with Prince Metternich? She was a great flirt. Well, more than that, I’m afraid; one couldn’t say she stopped short at flirting, precisely. So many scandals.’ Dolly laughed indulgently. ‘Never really beautiful, but she knew how to attract. Oh, she was worldly, Tante Irene, and now look what she has come to: a recluse, quite cut off, seeing no one. The sadness!’

I kept quiet. I wondered if it was true about her being quite cut off. I had got the distinct impression the Princess received exactly whom she liked in the tower.

Next day, after walking with Ariadne, there was a budget of letters from home waiting for me. I longed to carry them straight up to my room, but Ariadne said no, there was a special visitor in the drawing-room and I must come in and meet him.

‘Oh, who?’

She screwed her face up in a wry grimace. ‘I suppose you would call him a suitor.’

‘A suitor? For you?’ I was surprised. She seemed so young.

‘Oh, don’t worry, Miss Rose, these things take years and years in Russia.’ She smiled. ‘I’m not supposed to know. But of course I do. Goodness, my nurse told me of the arrangement when I was five. But I pretend I don’t know. My mother understands I know, but she pretends that I don’t, too.’ Then she sighed. ‘I shall have to make up my mind soon or it will be too late.’

‘You can choose, then?’

‘Oh, I expect so,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Mamma would never force me to anything, but why should it be no? He’s rich, gentle, and quite pretty, I think.’

‘We say handsome with a man,’ I said.

‘Handsome, then,’ accepted Ariadne blithely.

In the drawing-room were two men. One was Peter Alex-androvitch and the other – yes, seeing him suddenly through Ariadne’s eyes, he was handsome.

‘My Uncle Peter,’ introduced Ariadne, ‘whom you know. And this …’ no doubt from her voice and manner of amused archness that this was her suitor, and that she was enjoying my astonishment … ‘Edward Lacey.’

I held out my hand. ‘I am very glad to see you, Major Lacey.’ And it was true. I was surprised at how happy I was to see him. How secretive they had been, neither telling me until now of their particular interest in each other. Yet it was a private matter, of course, and not the sort of thing to be discussed with a new acquaintance.

Ariadne and I had interrupted a conversation about a famous Russian writer who had just, inexplicably committed suicide. ‘He killed himself,’ said Peter Alexandrov. ‘Shot himself through the mouth. Oh, there is a sickness in our society, all right, and where can it all end?’

‘It is part of your sickness to have no answer,’ said Edward Lacey.

‘Possibly. Or too many answers.’

‘Oh, politics, politics, they can never touch us.’ Ariadne interrupted their conversation with gaiety. ‘Let us ignore unpleasantness and have a good time.’

‘Wretched little butterfly,’ said Edward, but he seemed to enjoy her prattle. Presently the two of them went over to the piano where he turned the pages and Ariadne played and sang. I suppose it was a courtship in the Russian style.

The music began, and Peter and I were left looking at each other. Then Peter gave a short laugh. ‘Ariadne knows nothing, and yet she knows everything. She is like an animal that senses instinctively how to lead a happy life. But give her time, she will grow up. The women in our family mature late. But Ariadne will still be happy, it is her gift.’

Perhaps that was what Edward Lacey liked, and perhaps it was the gift I lacked. ‘Lucky Ariadne,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘Ah, but you have your own gifts.’

Our eyes met, and I seemed to read understanding in his. ‘I think I know what you mean; my gift of healing. But it’s such a little thing, perhaps nothing at all, mere imagination.’ I found myself telling him about the boy in the village, about a dog I had once helped, even about a bird’s wing that I had healed. ‘And yet, small as it is, my gift may have ruined my life.’ I was thinking of Patrick.

‘Your life is only just beginning,’ said Peter. ‘You do not know what you may become.’

‘In Russia?’ I queried, half smiling.

But Peter said nothing more, and soon the others came back from the piano and suggested that we go out to see the new horse that Edward Lacey had just bought and which was ‘a regular winner’. Then, after looking the beast over, I was able to go back to my room, where I sat down by the window and opened my letters from home.

My sister Grizel’s was the longest and the least well spelt, and Alec’s was the shortest, produced in his best copperplate hand, and containing one brief sentence about seeing a fox. Grizel produced a string of home news, such as the state of her Sunday hat, the sad disappearance of our best laying hen (a fox was suspected) and the fact that she was invited to a house-party at Glamis and had ‘absolutely nothing to wear and no way to get there except by walking’.

I raised my head and smiled. I knew that Grizel would get to her house-party – some hopeful suitor would constrain his mother or his sister or his aunt to drive her over – and she would look delightful in her old clothes.

Tibby’s letter was more down-to-earth; she too mentioned the hen, which was obviously a sore point with the whole family, but blamed the local tinkers and not the fox. She concentrated on health. She told me how the minister was, how his wife was, how the postie’s rheumatism had made him ‘terrible slow’ with his letters lately, and finally she told me how she, Grizel and my brother were. I was delighted to hear that they all seemed in rude health. But as I turned the last page of her letter I saw a frantic postscript which seemed to have been jointly written by her and Grizel.

‘My dear Rose,’ wrote Tibby, ‘we have just heard that a terrible trouble has fallen upon the Grahams. Patrick has disgraced himself in India and must leave his regiment in dishonour. We don’t know the details as yet; I dare say we never shall, but I feel for his poor mother.’

In Grizel’s hand, I read: ‘Rose darling, Patrick is accused of mutiny, who would have believed it of him? And he has fled. No one knows his whereabouts, not even his mother. Well, thank goodness you are not married to him, my love, that’s what I say.’

But I thought: poor Patrick, poor Patrick. And I also thought how little I knew him after all.

That night, instead of dreaming about Patrick I dreamt about myself. Troubled, restless dreams in which my own identity seemed lost, and I wandered like a ghost through an unknown countryside.

I woke in the pale dawn and lay looking as the sunlight began to colour the room. I held my hands up in front of me; ordinary, quite pretty hands, with long fingers and the narrow nails inherited by all the Gowries. Why should my hands be working hands, hands to heal, when the hands of all my forebears – except for the soldiers’ – had been idle ones? And yet I knew my hands must work. I wanted to feel them scrubbed clean and sterile, ready to do what I asked of them. And then at the end of the day I wanted to feel they had achieved what I had asked of them. It wasn’t exactly that I thought of myself as a healer, although I hoped I would be; it was simply that there was a job I seemed born for, head, hands and heart, and I longed to be at it.

Had Patrick sensed this? Was this, as much as any troubles of his own, what lay behind our break-up? Perhaps I should blame myself as much as him. And lying there in that Russian dawn, I did blame myself. Somehow I had frightened Patrick away. The notion that he had been paid to leave me struck me now as ridiculous. Still, he had gone, and now some terrible disaster had struck him in India. I felt as though I didn’t understand about this disaster. As if the story, as presented to me, was false. I did not believe in the mutiny tale.

I thought about that for a little while. ‘But I’ve only heard about it at third hand,’ I thought. ‘What actually happened in India, and the story as told to me, may bear very little relation to each other … What a lot I don’t understand;’

The next day – quite unexpectedly – I got my first taste of the other Russia. So far I had been on the whole cocooned in a world of luxury and security; now I was to see the dark side.

That morning early, before breakfast, I buttoned myself into a cool, white linen shirt – for St Petersburg was beginning to be hot – and went downstairs where Ariadne was waiting for me to go with her to church. Like many Russian girls of her class and generation, Ariadne had strongly developed religious feelings, although of a somewhat dreamy and simplistic sort. Religiosity rather than religion, my old Tibby would have called it. It was a matter of duty that I should go with her, but in fact, I was entranced by the richness and beauty of the Orthodox service and music. We went quite often. Church was not, as in Presbyterian Scotland, a Sunday affair; one could go on any day of the week, at almost any time; sometimes we planned to go, but sometimes, too, we went quite casually, just because Ariadne felt like it.

I had instituted the habit of walking; Ariadne fell in with the idea, to humour me. This morning we were turning into the street which led to the church when we saw a line of police drawn up across the road, and we were stopped. Beyond them we could see a small group of people being questioned by two policemen, and in the distance, right down at the end of the road, was a glimpse of the Nevsky Prospect where a large crowd seemed to be milling about.

‘What’s going on?’

The police officers were eyeing us, and one man stepped forward. ‘You may not go that way, Excellencies,’ he said politely.

‘What is it?’ asked Ariadne.

He bowed. ‘A bomb in the Imperial Library, Excellency.’

‘Oh, the Anarchists again, I suppose. Was anyone hurt?’

‘I believe so.’ He was clearly reluctant to add more.

Ariadne turned back to me. ‘The police must think the criminals are still in the neighbourhood; you can see they have the area cordoned off and are searching.’

I had my eyes on the little group already under investigation; I saw a girl, quite young and neatly dressed in dark clothes, a young man in the characteristic suit and narrow cap of the student, and two older men, both working-class.

‘Perhaps they have them, or think they have,’ I said. Even as I looked, the four were led away by the police.

‘The girl was very young,’ said Ariadne. ‘Younger than me. It frightens me a bit.’

There was much to frighten one in Russia, and I was only just beginning to realise it. All the newspaper reports of violence I had read at home, the cautious speculation on the possibility of widespread unrest, suddenly took a concrete form. I was witnessing the break-up of a society. This was the edge of a volcano.

‘Let’s go home.’ And I took Ariadne’s arm, and we turned our backs on the scene.

‘It’s exciting, though, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘She was so brave, that girl, and must have dared so much.’ She was like a child who had just been given an experience that both shocked and delighted her, so that she wanted to go on re-living it in her imagination. For myself, it made me wonder how I should bear myself in this strange new country full of alarming portents.

In the hall Ariadne excused herself. ‘I’ll have some tea and bread in my room. I won’t come in to breakfast. I think I would like to be alone for a little while. You know, if we had been a bit further on on our walk we might have been near that bomb. The Imperial Library is not so far away from the church. We might have been hurt.’

‘And the girl?’ I said. ‘If she’s guilty, what will happen to her?’

‘The Fortress of St Peter and St Paul first,’ said Ariadne. ‘That’s where they take political prisoners. And then – ’ she shrugged – ‘Siberia, I suppose. It is terrible, isn’t it? However you look at it. Terrible what she did, and terrible what will happen to her. Russia is a terrible country. And today I have to go shopping for clothes with my mamma!’ And she ran away upstairs.

Thoughtfully, I went into the breakfast parlour. So now Ariadne knew that politics could reach out and touch her.

I found Mademoiselle Laure there, for once, coolly drinking tea. Her appearances on occasion were as puzzling as her disappearances. No rule seemed to account for them. But this morning, I learnt, Ariadne was to go to her mother’s French dressmaker, and Mademoiselle Laure was to go along too, presumably to see fair play. I was to be left to my own devices.

Mademoiselle Laure inclined her head to me over the teacup, as if it gave her some satisfaction to pass on this information. She was wearing a tight black dress with a small miniature, set with seed pearls and plaited hair, at her throat; I was in white even to my shoes. We made a strange pair, I all white and Mademoiselle Laure all black. There was something total in that blackness. Almost as if she was in mourning.

She saw me looking at the miniature and laid her hand protectively across it. ‘It is the anniversary of his death, and on that day I always wear his likeness, and dress,’ she indicated with her hand, ‘as you see.’

‘His death?’

‘Georges. Georges Leskov, my betrothed. He died of a fever before we could be married.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I had no idea.’

‘No matter. He loved me, and to the end. I have that consolation.’ And she gave me a meaning look.

I flushed. Bitch, I thought. And then: even she knows! ‘I wouldn’t have let him die,’ I said.

‘I too would have saved him, Miss Gowrie, if I could.’ She looked at me: there were tears in her eyes. ‘I nursed him day and night, did all the unpleasant duties a nurse must do, never flinched at inflicting pain. Could you do that, Miss Gowrie?’ She lowered her eyes. ‘But you would not have had to, one touch of your hand …’

‘What do you mean?’ I said sharply.

‘You know what I refer to, Miss Gowrie. Do you suppose Madame Denisov did not get a nice little character sketch of you before she engaged you?’

I flushed again. ‘I suppose she did. Indeed, I know it.’

‘Oh, you have no need to worry. She finds you magnificent. You are quite the “new woman” to her, all that she wants Ariadne to be. Or so she thinks at the moment. She’s a sceptic, not one of these sensation-hungry, superstitious Russians. Changeable, you know. Fickle. Better be prepared for that. You’re the chosen one now, but you won’t last. I’ve been used myself by someone in this house, to my cost.’

‘Oh, I can’t believe it,’ I said, stretching out my hand to her. To myself I thought she was madly in love with Peter, and that was her trouble.

She didn’t drag her hand away as she had done before, but her face softened a little. ‘Then you are truly unfortunate,’ she remarked.

As this chilling comment was uttered, we both heard the voice of Madame Denisov outside. Quickly Mademoiselle Laure said: ‘Take a word of advice from me, if you are not too proud.’

‘I’m not proud at all.’

She gave me a sweeping look. ‘Oh, you have pride. I can see it in the way you hold your head and in the stare of your eyes. Well, you’ve come to the right place to take a fall.’ She buttered a slice of bread and divided it into four equal segments, one of which she put into her mouth and ate carefully. ‘You have been with the Princess Drutsko.’ I made a quick movement of alarm. ‘Oh, don’t worry; I have said nothing to Madame Denisov.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I saw you come down the staircase. I have taken that walk myself, and know where it leads. Oh, yes, the Princess was my friend before she was yours. Don’t trust to her loyalty, will you? It does not exist. Come to my room when you can, and I will tell you a story.’

There was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice, nor could I fail to understand what lay behind it. ‘You have no need to fear me,’ I said slowly. ‘I am not your rival. Nor will I listen to any tales.’

She gave a short, incredulous laugh. At this moment, Dolly Denisov, accompanied by her brother Peter and followed by Ariadne, swept into the room. Behind, fussing and chattering in various tongues, came the little suite of attendants who seemed needed to get her off on any major expedition: French maid, Russian assistant and German secretary.

‘You will not be going,’ hissed Laure Le Brun in a whisper. ‘You’ll see.’

‘Oh, Rose, you are not to come with us,’ said Ariadne.

‘No, I know. Mademoiselle told me.’

‘We are too frivolous for you today.’

‘I should have enjoyed a peep inside a couture house.’

Dolly dimpled. ‘You shall have one, but on another day. Today, your cousin Emma wishes to meet you, and wants you to see your godfather, Erskine Gowrie. She sent a message round early. It’s one of his good days and she wants you to take advantage of it. She is there herself today.’

Everything had obviously been arranged in detail days before, and without a word to me. I was becoming increasingly annoyed, and puzzled, by the Denisovs’ habit of presenting me with ready-made decisions, careful faits accomplis. Was it a Denisov habit – or was it the way that Russians behaved in general? It made one feel awkward and helpless, particularly if one pretended to any kind of independence …

But I accepted it without protest; I wanted to see my Gowrie relatives. Soon after Dolly and her party had left, one of the Denisov carriages came for me, and after a smart ten-minute trot, drew up outside a large house in another fashionable district of St Petersburg. The footmen took me up to the Gowrie apartment and there was Emma Gowrie herself waiting for me.