The Firebird (42 page)

She could not contradict that. ‘Yes, he is.’

‘He’s asked permission of my husband to come pay a call to you, one day. My husband told him that, if you had no objections, he’d be welcome.’ Her sidelong glance held interest. ‘Do you have any objections?’

Anna raised her head and looked, she knew not why, towards the bowl heaped full of painted eggs that sat by Katie’s bed. And then she forced a smile and told the general’s wife she could not think of any reason why they should not welcome Mr Taylor, if he chose to pay a visit. ‘As you have observed,’ she said, ‘he is a
nice
man.’

Mrs Lacy sent another sidelong glance in her direction, but she merely gave a nod, and with the matter settled, moved the conversation on to other things.

‘I’ll tell you,’ said the general, full of charm as he upended a decanter of fine claret over Mr Taylor’s cup, ‘a merchant’s life is fine, I’ll grant you, but there is no occupation can compare with soldiering.’

The afternoon was grey, and in the drawing room the
rush-backed
chair that Anna had moved closer to the windows, for the light, was growing harder at her back and more uncomfortable to sit in. Had she been a child, she thought, she would have fidgeted. And had she been a man, she would have sat as Edmund now was sitting, all but lounging in his armchair with his legs stretched out at ease in front of him, his elbows propped so that his hands were linked across his stomach, making him the very picture of a man digesting dinner in contentment.

Anna rolled her shoulder slightly to relax the cramping muscle as she tried to keep her focus on the tiny, even stitches she was placing in the fullness of the fabric that would be the petticoat of her new gown, when it was finished. She liked sewing. Liked the steady repetition that allowed her thoughts to drift, and the unequalled satisfaction of creating something functional, and sometimes even beautiful, with her own hands. Embroidery, for her, had never held the same appeal. The whorls and leaves and flowers worked in thread were wasted effort if they did not have a use.

The general’s wife, who sat with perfect grace upon her stool before the harpsichord, said, ‘Leave him be, Pierce. Mr Taylor surely does not wish to be a soldier.’

‘No, indeed.’ He was a pleasant-faced young man, with fair hair slightly tinged with red and clear blue eyes that held no guile. And coming as he did from Perth, he also had a Scotsman’s practicality. ‘I’ve not the nature for it, I’m afraid. I have no quarrel with most men, which makes me disinclined to choose a path in life that leads me into conflict.’

Edmund asked him, ‘And if conflict came to you, how would you meet it, then?’

‘With honour, I should hope, sir, if it could not be avoided.’ Mr Taylor sipped his wine, and with a flash of humour added, ‘But I’d still prefer to be among my ledgers and my books than on a battlefield.’

The general’s wife agreed. ‘So would we all.’

Anna said nothing, for it would not have been ladylike to say where she’d have wished to be, in any time of conflict, but she felt herself observed from all sides while the talk devolved to talk of trade in general, and the weather, and the rumour that the elder princess would at last be married to the Duke of Holstein.

‘He has waited long enough for it,’ was General Lacy’s wry opinion. ‘And he’s been more patient in his suit than many men would be, but patience often wins the day in love, eh, Mr Taylor?’

Mr Taylor, diplomatically, chose not to make reply to this. Instead, he paid a compliment to Mrs Lacy on her home, and one to Anna on her sewing. ‘I do mind that very silk arriving at the Custom House,’ he said, ‘and I said then to Mr Wayte, “Just see if we don’t have Vice Admiral Gordon in to buy it”, for I saw it was the colour of your eyes.’

Mrs Lacy smiled approval. ‘So it is, and she is making a fine job of it. A most accomplished seamstress.’

Edmund cut in languidly. ‘I do confess I’ve never yet seen Mistress Jamieson remain so still and quiet for so long. Are you quite well?’ he asked her.

Biting back the first retort she would have liked to make, she told him, ‘Very well, I thank you, sir.’

‘I see my pawns are safe, this afternoon,’ he said. Then, looking past her shoulder, ‘Mr Taylor, will you have a game of chess?’

‘I do not play it, I’m afraid.’

Edmund made no comment, only glanced at Anna pointedly, then back at Mr Taylor. ‘Cards, then.’

General Lacy, turning in his seat, said in a murmur, ‘Edmund.’

Mr Taylor was already answering, ‘I do play Piquet, sir.’

‘Excellent.’

A servant brought the folding table covered with green plush, and cards, which Edmund shuffled rather clumsily, as though he had not done it in a while. He dealt, and Mr Taylor gathered up his hand while General Lacy settled nearby in a chair to watch, and Mrs Lacy played a flowing tune upon the harpsichord.

As Anna sewed her seam, she kept one part of her attention on the game. She found it difficult, no matter how she tried, to not compare the men at play. In looks and manners, and in dress, young Mr Taylor should have won and drawn her eye; so it was frustrating to her that he did not, that more and more her eye returned to Edmund’s roguish face, his plainer clothes, the square hands with the scars across the knuckles. And the more she watched, the more she grew aware that he was not as unaccomplished with the cards as he appeared.

His hands were lazy in their actions, and she did not truly see how he controlled the play, and yet she grew convinced he was controlling it. But not for his own gain. When it seemed certain that he would not lose, the cards turned very suddenly in Mr Taylor’s favour, and it seemed to Anna she had not imagined the faint smile in Edmund’s eyes that vanished even as it formed, as though it were enough amusement for him just to play the game.

He turned his head, and caught her looking. If he guessed at her suspicions, he said nothing, only, ‘Will you play the winner, Mistress Jamieson?’

‘No, thank you. I must finish with this seam.’

‘Aye, for ’tis of great concern to finish with a gown you cannot wear, in time of mourning.’

Mr Taylor, seemingly surprised at Edmund’s tone, said mildly, ‘But the mourning will not last for ever.’

Anna gave a nod. ‘As Mr Taylor says. Afflictions pass, Mr O’Connor, just as surely as the winter brings the spring. You ought to know this, with your Cailleagh.’

General Lacy roused himself from deeper thoughts at that, and looked between the two of them. ‘What’s this about the Cailleagh?’

Anna said, ‘Mr O’Connor shared a piece of Irish folklore with the children and myself, a few weeks past.’

‘I was that surprised,’ Edmund remarked to the general, ‘they’d never yet heard of it, being half-Irish and all. ’Tis a piece of their heritage, surely.’ His dark eyes touched Anna’s with meaning as he added, ‘People should know who they are.’

Mr Taylor said, ‘Aye, there is much to be said for tradition.’ And looking in his turn at Anna, his honest face could not hide how he admired the picture she made in her chair by the window, the fabric spilt over her lap and her needle in hand. Then he turned back to Edmund and asked, ‘Shall we play one more hand, sir? I must say, I’d forgot just how much I enjoyed this game.’

Edmund’s mouth curved in a smile that seemed private as he looked down, reaching a hand for the deck of cards. ‘Aye,’ he replied, ‘so did I.’

Spring came, and with the thawing of the river the whole city came again to life, the merchant ships returning and the open-air exchange on Vasilievsky Island growing once more crowded with the merchants and their goods, and with the men who kept the warehouses and worked about the docks.

Vice Admiral Gordon now divided his own days between the Admiralty and Cronstadt, the small island with its castle and its shipyards near the Tsar’s old house of Monplaisir a
half-day’s
journey distant down the Neva, where the greater ships were forced to put to anchor when they ventured in towards St Petersburg, and where the warships of the Russian navy often gathered with the galleys before setting out to sea.

From time to time he visited the general’s house to see that Anna was well, and just as often carried a small gift within his pocket as he’d done when she was younger. Last week he had brought her a wrapped piece of palest pink silk, for a lining to the bodice she was piecing at the moment, and two days ago he’d given her a handful of dark hairpins each set with a tiny pearl. ‘It is the fashion of the French, I’m told, to dress their hair with jewels,’ he’d said.

So on this morning, when the shoes arrived by messenger without a note, she knew from whom they’d come. Even the general, when he’d seen her with the package, had deduced, ‘Another gift from the vice admiral?’

Anna had nodded, still struck speechless by the beauty of the shoes. They were of silk brocade in twists of cream and
berryred
, with silver buckles, pointed toes and heels much higher than she’d ever dared to wear.

‘He is a cruel man,’ General Lacy had remarked, in all good humour, ‘to give such things to a girl who cannot wear them till the mourning has been lifted at year’s end. I dare say by that time you’ll have those worn out just from looking at them.’

Truthfully, she could not take her eyes from those bright shoes. They sat now on the table at her bedside, so whenever her gaze lifted from her sewing she could see them, though she scarce had time to focus with the lively goings-on within her chamber.

Living in a household full of children might have been a trial for some, but Anna loved the near continual activity, with the boys seeming to never stand still, and the girls going past in a flurry of petticoats, all of them laughing and playing and fighting in turn, as a close group of siblings would do. It reminded her of her own first happy years with the brothers and sisters who hadn’t been truly her own, and yet had been. She thought of them all now and then, and she’d minded the promise she’d made to the father who’d raised her to never forget them, but though there was warmth in those memories she rarely felt sadness. She’d let those days go, as the mother who’d raised her had opened her arms and released Anna from them that day with the loving, true words, ‘Ye never were my own to keep.’

Some memories, Anna thought, were like that – only to be held with fondness, never mourned. But still, she liked to hear the children’s voices.

Both the boys were at their lessons for the day, with Father Dominic instructing them, and so the girls had gravitated to where Anna was, with tiny Helen winding thread, and Katie keen to protest while her older sister tried to read a book to her. ‘But I want Mistress Jamieson to read to me.’

‘But Father said I had to practise reading.’

Anna verified this, nodding. ‘It is true, for I was there when he did say it.’

Katie frowned. ‘You read to Mama.’

‘She is Mama’s companion,’ said Hannah-Louise, who was twice Katie’s age. ‘Not our governess.’

Their mother’s cheerful voice within the doorway said, ‘’Tis well you do remember that, my dears, or you’ll have wearied Mistress Jamieson past all reviving, and I do have need of her myself, just now.’

She looked refreshed and happy, from her hour of rest. The child within her had announced its healthiness a week before by quickening, and Mrs Lacy’s sickness had now all but disappeared, replaced by a glad energy.

Replying to the summons, Anna fastened off her stitch and bit the thread and set the gown aside. ‘What would you have me do?’

The older woman smiled. ‘The same thing you are doing there, but sadly, in reverse. I have a gown that I would wear, but my dimensions have increased since last I wore it, as you see. I wonder, could you let the seams out for me?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I would have asked one of the maids, but your work is more skilled than theirs, and it is one of my favourite gowns, sent as a gift from my sister. I’d not see it ruined.’

Hannah-Louise brightened. ‘Is it the green one, Mama?’

‘Yes, it is.’ Then, on noticing Anna’s confusion, she smiled more broadly and crossed to the window to open it, letting them all hear the still-distant roll of the drumbeats and flourish of trumpets; the indistinct voice of a herald progressing through all the streets with an important announcement. The general’s wife turned round again to Anna. ‘You will soon have your wish, my dear,’ she said, ‘to put off mourning for a short while, for it seems we are to have a royal wedding after all.’

The day had been dazzling. It had all begun, officially, that morning at eleven with the grand procession to collect the bridegroom, with the open phaeton of the wedding marshal in the lead and all two dozen of the groomsmen riding two by two on horseback with the trumpeters amongst them, and the day had grown in richness and in wonders ever since. The Duke of Holstein and the princess, glitteringly royal in their wedding clothes of silver brocade, made a most impressive couple. Anna, being as she was included in Vice Admiral Gordon’s family, had by virtue of his high rank been admitted as a guest, and so had watched with her own eyes the wedding vows be given in the great Church of the Holy Trinity, and joined with all the other guests who’d crossed the river back again by barges to the gardens of the Summer Palace.

Here, close to the corner where the Neva met the smaller Swan Canal, a brand-new banquet hall had only just been built for this one joyous celebration. Designed by one of the chief architects, the speed of its construction had been overseen in person by Prince Menshikov, the late Tsar’s boyhood friend and closest confidant, who’d even stayed to sleep within it these past days, to make sure that the workmen did a proper job of finishing.

The end result was beautiful – a building with a fine, enormous central room, and more than fifty windows all around it, decorated on the outside walls with rows of pilasters and vases set on pedestals, and on the inner walls with painted murals showing battle scenes, the sculpted forms of Mars and Neptune set to guard the southern doors that opened to the tree-lined pathways of the Summer Garden.