The Man from St. Petersburg (35 page)

“I never realized …”

“Marya never told you, of course—what governess would?”

Charlotte was just repeating the memory, not accusing her mother, just explaining something. She went on: “So you see, I have the wrong mother, and now I have the wrong father, too. The new thing made me remember the old, I suppose.”

Lydia said: “You must hate me. I understand. I hate myself.”

“I don’t hate you, Mama. I’ve been dreadfully angry toward you, but I’ve never hated you.”

“But you think I’m a hypocrite.”

“Not even that.”

A feeling of peace came over Lydia.

Charlotte said: “I’m beginning to understand why you’re so fiercely respectable, why you were so determined that I should never know anything of sex … you just wanted to save me from what happened to you. And I’ve found out that there are hard decisions, and that sometimes one can’t tell what’s good and right to do; and I think I’ve judged you harshly, when I had no right to judge you at all … and I’m not very proud of myself.”

“Do you know that I love you?”

“Yes … and I love you, Mama, and that’s why I feel so wretched.”

Lydia was dazed. This was the last thing she had expected. After all that had happened—the lies, the treachery, the anger, the bitterness—Charlotte still loved her. She was suffused with a kind of tranquil joy. Kill myself? she thought. Why should I kill myself?

“We should have talked like this before,” Lydia said.

“Oh, you’ve no idea how much I wanted to,” Charlotte said. “You were always so good at telling me how to curtsy, and carry my train, and sit down gracefully, and put up my hair … and I longed for you to explain important things to me in the same way—about falling in love and having babies—but you never did.”

“I never could,” Lydia said. “I don’t know why.”

Charlotte yawned. “I think I’ll sleep now.” She stood up.

Lydia kissed her cheek, then embraced her.

Charlotte said: “I love Feliks, too, you know; that hasn’t changed.”

“I understand,” said Lydia. “I do, too.”

“Good night, Mama.”

“Good night.”

Lydia went out quickly and closed the door behind her. She hesitated outside. What would Charlotte do if the door were left unlocked? Lydia decided to save her the anxiety of the decision. She turned the key in the lock.

She went down the stairs, heading for her own room. She was so glad she had talked to Charlotte. Perhaps, she thought, this family could be mended, after all; I’ve no idea how, but surely it might be done. She went into her room.

“Where have you been?” said Stephen.

Now that Feliks had a weapon, all he had to do was get Orlov out of his room. He knew how to do that. He was going to burn the house down.

Carrying the gun in one hand and the candle in the other, he walked—still barefoot—through the west wing and across the hall into the drawing room. Just a few more minutes, he thought; give me just a few more minutes and I will be done. He passed through two dining rooms and a serving room and entered the kitchens. Here Charlotte’s plans became vague, and he had to search for the way out. He found a large rough-hewn door closed with a bar. He lifted the bar and quietly opened the door.

He put out his candle and waited in the doorway. After a minute or so he found he could just about make out the outlines of the buildings. That was a relief: he was afraid to use the candle outside because of the sentries.

In front of him was a small cobbled courtyard. On its far side, if the plan was right, there was a garage, a workshop, and—a petroleum tank.

He crossed the yard. The building in front of him had once been a barn he guessed. Part of it was enclosed—the workshop, perhaps—and the rest was open. He could vaguely make out the great round headlamps of two large cars. Where was the fuel tank? He looked up. The building was quite high. He stepped forward, and something hit his forehead. It was a length of flexible pipe with a nozzle at the end. It hung down from the upper part of the building.

It made sense: they put the cars in the barn and the petroleum tank in the hayloft. They simply drove the cars into the courtyard and filled them with fuel from the pipe.

Good! he thought.

Now he needed a container: a two-gallon can would be ideal. He entered the garage and walked around the cars, feeling with his feet, careful not to stumble over anything noisy.

There were no cans.

He recalled the plans again. He was close to the kitchen garden. There might be a watering can in that region. He was about to go and look when he heard a sniff.

He froze.

The policeman went by.

Feliks could hear the beat of his own heart.

The light from the policeman’s oil lamp meandered around the courtyard. Did I shut the kitchen door? Feliks thought in a panic. The lamp shone on the door: it looked shut.

The policeman went on.

Feliks realized he had been holding his breath, and he let it out in a long sigh.

He gave the policeman a minute to get some distance away; then he went in the same direction, looking for the kitchen garden.

He found no cans there, but he stumbled over a coil of hose. He estimated its length at about a hundred feet. It gave him a wicked idea.

First he needed to know how frequently the policeman patrolled. He began to count. Still counting, he carried the garden hose back to the courtyard and concealed it and himself behind the motor cars.

He had reached nine hundred and two when the policeman came around again.

He had about fifteen minutes.

He attached one end of the hose to the nozzle of the petroleum pipe, then walked across the courtyard, paying out the hose as he went. He paused in the kitchen to find a sharp meat skewer and to relight his candle. Then he retraced his steps through the house, laying the hose through the kitchen, the serving room, the dining rooms, the drawing room, the hall and the passage, and into the library. The hose was heavy, and it was difficult to do the job silently. He listened all the while for footsteps, but all he heard was the noise of an old house settling down for the night. Everyone was in bed, he was sure; but would someone come down to get a book from the library, or a glass of brandy from the drawing room, or a sandwich from the kitchen?

If that were to happen now, he thought, the game would be up.

Just a few more minutes—just a few more minutes!

He had been worried about whether the hose would be long enough, but it just reached through the library door. He walked back, following the hose, making holes in it every few yards with the sharp point of the meat skewer.

He went out through the kitchen door and stood in the garage. He held his shotgun two-handed, like a club.

He seemed to wait an age.

At last he heard footsteps. The policeman passed him and stopped, shining his torch on the hose, and gave a grunt of surprise.

Feliks hit him with the gun.

The policeman staggered.

Feliks hissed: “Fall down, damn you!” and hit him again with all his might.

The policeman fell down, and Feliks hit him again with savage satisfaction.

The man was still.

Feliks turned to the petroleum pipe and found the place where the hose was connected. There was a tap to stop and start the flow of petroleum.

Feliks turned on the tap.

“Before we were married,” Lydia said impulsively, “I had a lover.”

“Good Lord!” said Stephen.

Why did I say that? she thought. Because lying about it has made everyone unhappy, and I’m finished with all that.

She said: “My father found out about it. He had my lover jailed and tortured. He said that if I would agree to marry you, the torture would stop immediately; and that as soon as you and I had left for England, my lover would be released from jail.”

She watched his face. He was not as hurt as she had expected, but he was horrified. He said: “Your father was wicked.”

“I was wicked to marry without love.”

“Oh …” Now Stephen looked pained. “For that matter, I wasn’t in love with you. I proposed to you because my father had died and I needed a wife to be Countess of Walden. It was later that I fell so desperately in love with you. I’d say I forgive you, but there’s nothing to forgive.”

Could it be this easy? she thought. Might he forgive me everything and go on loving me? It seemed that, because death was in the air, anything was possible. She found herself plunging on. “There’s more to be told,” she said, “and it’s worse.”

His expression was painfully anxious. “You’d better tell me.”

“I was … I was already with child when I married you.”

Stephen paled. “Charlotte!”

Lydia nodded silently.

“She … she’s not mine?”

“No.”

“Oh, God.”

Now I have hurt you, she thought; this you never dreamed. She said: “Oh, Stephen, I am so dreadfully sorry.”

He stared at her. “Not mine,” he said stupidly. “Not mine.”

She thought of how much it meant to him: more than anyone else the English nobility talked about breeding and bloodlines. She remembered him looking at Charlotte and murmuring: “Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”; it was the only verse of the Bible she had ever heard him quote. She thought of her own feelings, of the mystery of the child starting life as part of oneself and then becoming a separate individual, but never completely separate: it must be the same for men, she thought; sometimes one thinks it isn’t, but it must be.

His face was gray and drawn. He looked suddenly older. He said: “Why are you telling me this now?”

I can’t, she thought; I can’t reveal any more. I’ve hurt him so much already. But it was as if she was on a downhill slope and could not stop. She blurted: “Because Charlotte has met her real father, and she knows everything.”

“Oh, the poor child.” Stephen buried his face in his hands.

Lydia realized that his next question would be: Who is the father? She was overcome by panic. She could not tell him that. It would kill him. But she
needed
to tell him; she wanted the weight of these guilty secrets to be lifted forever. Don’t ask, she thought; not yet, it’s too much.

He looked up at her. His face was frighteningly expressionless. He looked like a judge, she thought, impassively pronouncing sentence; and she was the guilty prisoner in the dock.

Don’t ask.

He said: “And the father is Feliks, of course.”

She gasped.

He nodded, as if her reaction was all the confirmation he needed.

What will he do? she thought fearfully. She watched his face, but she could not read his expression: he was like a stranger to her.

He said: “Oh, dear God in Heaven, what have we done?”

Lydia was suddenly garrulous. “He came along just when she was beginning to see her parents as frail human beings, of course; and there he was, full of life and ideas and iconoclasm … just the kind of thing to enchant an independent-minded young girl … I know, something like that happened to me … and so she got to know him, and became fond of him, and helped him … but she loves you, Stephen, she’s yours in that way. People can’t help loving you … can’t help it …”

His face was wooden. She wished he would curse, or cry, or abuse her, or even beat her, but he sat there looking at her with that judge’s face, and said: “And you? Did you help him?”

“Not intentionally, no … but I haven’t helped you, either. I am such a hateful, evil woman.”

He stood up and held her shoulders. His hands were cold as the grave. He said: “But are you mine?”

“I wanted to be, Stephen—I really did.”

He touched her cheek, but no love showed in his face. She shuddered. She said: “I told you it was too much to forgive.”

He said: “Do you know where Feliks is?”

She made no reply. If I tell, she thought, it will be like killing Feliks. If I don’t tell, it will be like killing Stephen.

“You do know,” he said.

She nodded dumbly.

“Will you tell me?”

She looked into his eyes. If I tell him, she thought, will he forgive me?

Stephen said: “Choose.”

She felt as if she were falling headlong into a pit.

Stephen raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Lydia said: “He’s in the house.”

“Good God! Where?”

Lydia’s shoulders slumped. It was done. She had betrayed Feliks for the last time. “He’s been hiding in the nursery,” she said dejectedly.

His expression was no longer wooden. His cheeks colored and his eyes blazed with fury.

Lydia said: “Say you forgive me … please?”

He turned around and ran from the room.