Lorimers at War (25 page)

What of it, she demanded, working her self-criticism into indignation. Not to flirt with a young woman was by the standards of his class to be uncivil. It didn't mean anything. She didn't want it to mean anything. Even in England Kate had held strong views about the social obligations of the aristocracy – but most British landowners, when compared with the Russian nobility, might be considered impoverished and full of social concern. Although more fortunate than others, they were members of a community, not merely of a social caste, isolated by its wealth from the rest of society, as was the case in Russia.

In other circumstances, perhaps, she could have enjoyed a friendship with Prince Aminov, for she found his company congenial and his conversation excitingly different from anything she had enjoyed since she said goodbye to Sergei. In other circumstances, indeed, she could have fallen in love with him. Even as she formulated the thought, she knew that she was being dishonest with herself. She had already fallen in love – but if she could continue to pretend indifference on her own part and attribute insincerity to him, perhaps she could cure herself of the affliction. Circumstances were what they were. The prince was a representative of a privileged class of which Kate could not bring herself to approve. It was unfortunate, but it was final. Slowly she unfastened the tiny buttons at her waist and slipped the low-cut bodice off her shoulders, stepping out of the gown as it fell heavily to the floor.

That night there was shooting on the Nevsky Prospekt. But the soldiers who fired on the workers during the hours of darkness streamed out of their barracks the next morning, killing the officers who tried to stop them. They joined the demonstration and by their own desertion turned it into a revolution. When the hour arrived at which Kate might have seen her papers stamped at last beside a samovar of tea, her prospective host was already
a prisoner of the Duma. In the Tauride Palace, Kerensky took into his hands the power which the lmperial Cabinet had abandoned, and did his best to prevent a massacre. But in the city outside ministries were burned, police stations besieged, and the streets were crowded with students, workers and soldiers, destroying every trace of the old regime.

Only thirty hours after Kate had stared across the frozen Neva at the beautiful golden spire of the Peter and Paul fortress, she watched again as it fell to the forces of the revolution, and saw the political prisoners and their military guards streaming together across the bridges. Her instinct had been a true one. She herself would never look like a princess again, and nor would anyone else in the country for very much longer. The face of Russia, too, had changed for ever.

The Tsar had abdicated but the liberal Provisional Government, sharing power and premises uneasily with the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, was no more willing to interest itself in Kate's medical supplies than the old regime had been. While the struggle for authority continued, no one would spare the time to take a decision about such a trifle, although it would have taken only a moment for someone to stamp a paper of release – freeing himself with a single thump of the nuisance of Kate's daily attendance at the supplies office.

Prince Aminov had returned hastily to duty as soon as the troubles began, telling her before he left that she must stay as long as she needed. It was with increasing anxiety on his behalf that Kate read the various proclamations which issued from the Soviet, for their intention and effect was to destroy discipline in the army, robbing
officers of any power to enforce their orders and encouraging mutiny and desertion by the abolition of the death penalty. One of these orders provided that local soviets of soldiers or sailors should in future control all arms and equipment. Kate saw how she could use this to suit her own purposes. It would need a good deal of courage, but in the interests of her patients she steeled herself to be brave.

She went as usual the next day to the offices of the General Staff, and as usual found them swarming with petitioners like herself. Also as usual nowadays was the presence of the troops who lounged in the huge entrance hall with red ribbons tied round their arms, content to show themselves without posing any great threat to anyone. There was a junior officer ostensibly in charge of them. Kate had had plenty of time during the past few days to study his increasing nervousness and the care he took to give no direct orders which might lead to trouble.

She began by making a fuss at the desk of the man who had so often before told her to wait. He did so again, but this time she did not move far. Instead she climbed on to the desk and made a speech.

Even in Russian the words came fluently, fuelled by the frustrating weeks in which she had had time to rehearse them. Her appeal was made directly to the soldiers. She was speaking on behalf of their comrades at the front, she told them, men who were dying for lack of the drugs withheld by these other men who had been careful to keep themselves at the greatest possible distance from danger. The property
belonged
to the soldiers in the hospital. It had been refused them by ministers and generals but now it was true, was it not, that generals no longer had any right to obstruct the needs of the people. She herself knew where the goods were held. If they could not be extracted by the production of the right piece of paper, they could be taken without permission, by force. Kate promised that they would be handed over
to those who needed them and were entitled to have them. She appealed for help. Looking straight at the young officer, she asked him to lend her a section of his men.

As she had calculated, he hesitated and her point was won. Ten men were instantly ready to follow her. Anxious not to delay, lest the impetus of her vehemence should be lost, Kate nevertheless needed to press further demands on the officer. When she returned, an official permit for the transport of the goods must be ready, she told him, and an escort to help load and guard them. She expected the necessary papers to be prepared within the hour.

They would be ready: she felt no doubt of that. The men were anxious to exercise their new powers over officers, and the officers would wait for more important issues than this one on which to make a stand. Striding out victoriously, Kate led the way to the warehouse.

Three hours later she returned to the Aminov palace to collect her bags. Was it only the triumph of her achievement which made her feel that spring was on the way at last? After weeks of bitter cold, the sky was filled with pale sunshine; the snow was melting and it was possible to fill her lungs with air which seemed almost warm. She was singing aloud with happiness as she approached the palace door.

It was open. That was unusual enough, but the scene inside was more unusual still. The floor of the entrance hall was awash with wine and half a dozen of the servants were sprawled around in a manner which made it clear that what had not been spilt had been drunk. From their quarters behind closed doors came the sound of singing and shouting. Kate found herself tip-toeing through the confusion and up the stairs, uneasy lest some obstacle might arise at the very moment when success was in sight.

Still quietly, she opened the door of her bedroom and
then was alarmed into silence. Prince Aminov, standing in the middle of the room, was pointing his revolver at her.

He put the weapon away as soon as he saw who it was, and apologized for frightening her.

‘I needed to speak to you, and there was no other room in the palace where I could feel safe from discovery while I waited. Even this room will not be safe for long. You must leave Russia at once, Dr Lorimer. I have come to warn you, in case you are not aware how dangerous the situation has become. You should go immediately to the British Embassy and arrange for your government to get you away. It may be that these people have no good reason to attack foreigners but they have ceased to be ruled by reason.'

‘What has happened, Excellency?' Kate asked. She could see that he was shocked and upset, and at first she assumed that it had been caused by some event on the battlefield.

‘Mutiny has happened,' he said. ‘Murder has happened. My brother has been killed – on his own ship, by his own men! And the Imperial Guard itself has proved disloyal. Who could have believed it? I was ordered back from the front to command the garrison at Tsarskoe Selo, but when I arrived I was greeted by a disorderly mob who first of all demanded that I should join them and wear the red cockade. And then they recognized me as a member of the nobility. I was lucky to escape with my life. And when I return here, thinking that at least I can rely on the loyalty of my own people to protect me, I find – I find –'

‘They're drunk, Excellency. This isn't their normal behaviour. It's not the expression of their true feelings.'

He shook his head in disagreement. ‘There are different kinds of drunkenness. If all they wanted was their own pleasure, they would have drunk only vodka. They don't like wine. They are consuming it only to show that I am
no longer master in my own house. The same thing has happened in our theatre palace at Tsarskoe Selo – it has been completely sacked. Not looted. Spoiled. The chandeliers cut to the ground, the pictures slashed, the panelling defaced. Now I shall never be able to show you the theatre where Alexa sang. But what does all that matter beside my brother's murder? You must understand that he was not like me. I am a reluctant officer, serving because it is my duty. But he – his ship was his whole life. What has happened to loyalty?' He buried his head in his hands for a moment. ‘But for you now the important thing is that you should go. Go back to England. That was why I waited, in case you did not understand how grave the position is.'

‘No!' Kate cried. ‘It's impossible. I have my supplies at last. After waiting so long, I can't leave now. I must take them to the hospital. It is you who should leave the country.'

‘There is no way of doing so. The British and French will send ships to take away their own people as soon as the ice breaks, but they will not use precious space to save Russians from each other.'

‘Then where will you go?'

He threw out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘There is nowhere. Yesterday I owned three estates. Today, after my brother's death –' his voice faltered again – ‘I own seven. But it seems that the places where I am known are the most dangerous. Ever since our father died we have cared for our people, Paul and I. I truly believed that they loved us. But now –'

He sat down on the edge of the four-poster bed and for a second time buried his head in his hands. It was not fear which made him tremble, Kate realized – although he had good cause to be afraid – but the shock of his brother's death and the servants' disloyalty. Like the ice on the Neva, the established order had cracked and there was nowhere he could feel safe.

Kate took a little time to consider the question seriously before she spoke. This was not an occasion for impulsive gestures. She must be sincere, and practical in regard to details. It proved not to be too difficult. Only a little time had passed since she had regretted the way in which circumstances made it impossible for herself and the prince to develop a true friendship. But circumstances had changed with a vengeance. No longer over-privileged, he lacked at this moment even the precarious security of every other class of society. Yet there were no crimes for which he could be held personally responsible.

‘You could come with me,' she offered. ‘For a while, at least, until this first violence subsides. For all we know, the revolution may not yet have spread outside Petrograd. In any case, as you've already recognized, you'll be safer where you aren't known. Come south with me. I can arrange it. The train leaves in two hours.'

‘You don't know what you're proposing. For a woman – and especially a foreign woman – to travel across a country in a state of anarchy is foolish enough. As your companion, I should double the danger. It's out of the question.'

‘Listen to me, Excellency,' Kate pleaded. ‘I arrived here unknown, uninvited, tired and not even very clean. You've made me welcome. You've treated me like a princess. It's not just that you provided me with the first taste of comfort that I've had for two years. I've been spoiled by your kindness, your conversation, your music. Was it presumptuous of me to hope that we might become friends?'

‘Of course we are friends,' he said. ‘And for that very reason –'

Kate wouldn't allow him to finish. ‘As your guest, I have an obligation to give you a present as an expression of thanks for your hospitality. It's an English custom. And as my friend, you have an obligation to accept whatever I choose to give you.' She forced herself to
laugh, trying to deflate the solemnity with which she had spoken. ‘Although it may prove in the end that I have nothing to offer except words. But I can try, and you must let me try.'

They were discussing what might well be a matter of life and death – and yet it seemed to Kate, as she gazed steadily into Prince Aminov's eyes, that he was not really listening. She waited for his answer, and it did not come directly.

‘I remember – it can be only a short time ago, but it seems to have been in a different lifetime – how I danced with you at Princess Radziwill's ball,' he said. ‘You were wearing my sister-in-law's ball dress, and you were magnificent. Magnificent! I had never seen a woman looking beautiful in quite that way before. Not a Russian way, not a fashionable way. It was your eyes, I think, so green, so full of fire. Of course, I could not understand at once what it was that made you hold your head so high. I would have liked to kiss you, but before I could do it you were telling me that society was divided and that you and I were on different sides. And now again I would like to kiss you: but today the division is a real one, not a theory, and I must keep in my own place if I am not to drag you down.'

‘This is not the time to speak of kissing,' said Kate severely. ‘And as for the rest, you're talking nonsense. If we were both on the same side there would be no need of help and no opportunity to offer it. But if we waste any more time in argument, the opportunity will be talked away. Is it that you don't trust me?'