The Longest Winter Read online

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

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  Contents

  Daphne Wright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Author’s Note

  Daphne Wright

  The Longest Winter

  Daphne Wright

  Daphne Wright is a historical novelist with a special interest in the way wars have liberated women. Born in London, she worked in publishing for ten years before becoming a writer. After six historical novels, she turned to crime under the pseudonym of Natasha Cooper. She now divides her time between the city and the Somerset Levels.

  Dedication

  For CWW and AVW with love

  Chapter One

  Sitting at her dressing-table on Christmas Eve, pinning up her long, dark hair, Evelyn suddenly stopped, looked at her reflection as though she had never seen it before and dropped the silver-backed hairbrush on to the thick carpet. The housemaid who waited on her bent down to pick it up and held it out. When Evelyn did not move, the girl said gently:

  ‘Baryshnia?’

  Evelyn started, smiled briefly at the maid and took back the brush, saying in her halting Russian:

  ‘Thank you, Annoushka. That will be all.’

  The girl looked surprised at the phrase, which had taken her so long to understand in the days when Evelyn had been trying to train her in English ways, but shrugged and left the room. When she had gone, Evelyn laid the brush down, put her elbows on the dressing-table and propped her chin on her clasped hands.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she asked her reflection.

  The pale, square-chinned face of which she had been so proud ever since John had told her that it was beautiful looked blankly back at her as she sorted through the immediately practical answers to her own question: because you are too young to join the nurses at the Front; because you begged your parents to let you go away, anywhere, just away from all the places you had known with John; because Cousin Natalia needed an English-speaking governess for Dindin and Natalie; because … because you have to live somewhere until they find John and you can tear up his mother’s letter.

  Instinctively she touched the jewel box where she kept it. Even though she knew that she could not bear to read it again, she lifted the lid of the box and took out the creased sheet of thick writing paper. The words of the letter were burned into her mind just as deeply as those of the advertisement his mother still put in the English Times week after week:

  TEMPERLEY. Would any officer or man with any information about Captain John Temperley, who has been missing since Loos, write to his mother, the Hon. Mrs James Temperley…

  When she had first read that advertisement, Evelyn had not been able to stop tears seeping into her eyes, but in the eleven months she had spent with her cousins in Russia she had learned some self-control and no longer embarrassed them with displays of misery. But she could never control her memory, and now it hit her again with a frighteningly vivid picture of the last day of John’s last leave. With an effort that made her clench her teeth, she wrenched her mind away from the image of his face, and tried to concentrate on the question she had asked herself.

  When the news of her fiancé’s disappearance had reached Yorkshire, all Evelyn had wanted to do was get across the Channel to the Front and find him. Yet there she was, more than a year later, dressing for her cousins’Christmas Eve dinner in the immense luxury of the bedroom they had given her, almost as far away as she could possibly be from the realities of the war that was the most important as well as the most horrible thing that had touched her life.

  For months she had been too homesick and too miserable even to recognise the irony of her predicament, but that evening, with her expensive new dress ready to put on and her hair half done, she acknowledged to herself that if she had not been so hysterical in her demands to leave Yorkshire and learn to be a nurse she would probably have been nearer her goal. She might even have been in some field hospital near the trenches, helping the men who had fought beside John; by then she might even have found him, confused by loss of memory, perhaps, or unrecognisable to anyone else because of wounds or bandages.

  The pretty gilt clock above the fireplace chimed seven times and dragged her mind back from the nightmare pictures of the trenches that snaked all the way from the Belgian coast to Switzerland, the stinking mud and barricades of vicious wire, and the men who lived and did there. Evelyn shuddered at the memory of the things that John had told her.

  She picked up the hairbrush again, determined not to give way to her fears and memories. When she had driven the last big tortoiseshell pin into the gleaming, dark-brown mass of piled hair, she rang the bell.

  ‘Annoushka, thank you,’ she said when her maid appeared. ‘Please help me with the dress.’

  She stood in front of the long pier glass while the maid lifted the heavy garnet-coloured silk and settled it over her mistress’s shoulders, before carefully doing up the thirty-eight, satin-covered buttons at the back. Then she stood back and waited for instructions.

  Evelyn looked critically at herself, wanting to look her best and to show no signs of mourning, because that would give weight to her unspeakable suspicion that Johnnie might be dead. She was glad that she had yielded to Natalia Petrovna’s suggestion that she should have a new evening dress made in time for Christmas. The silk was far richer than anything she had brought with her from Yorkshire and, unlike her old dresses, its hem hung a fashionable two inches above her ankles. The gown’s combination of luxury and fashion gave her increased standing in her own eyes and would, she thought, help her to be a better ambassador for England in front of the fifty Russians who were to be at dinner.

  She might have got over the worst of her homesickness, but as she walked down the wide staircase towards the big salon, she could not help thinking of her parents, who must be spending a bleak Christmas in Yorkshire, alone except for her younger brother, Dick. As for Anthony, her beloved elder brother, she could hardly bear to think of him suffering in some cold, wet trench with his men. Her mother’s latest letters had been full of Tony’s triumphant promotion to captain and the gallantry for which he had been mentioned in despatches, but Evelyn could not think that even that honour would compensate for his absence.

  ‘Thank God,’ she murmured aloud, ‘that Dick’s asthma is going to keep him well out of the war.’

  When she got downstairs and pushed open the heavy mahog
any doors to the salon, she was relieved to find that the room was empty so that she would have a few minutes to compose herself. She had discovered long ago that any mention of the war to her father’s cousin, Andrei Alexandrovitch Suvarov, or his wife was unwelcome and she had tried to learn to keep her fears to herself.

  She wandered aimlessly around the great room looking at the pictures and admiring the massed flowers that had been sent all the way from Nice for the party. Their heavy scent seemed to fill the room and banish the slight mustiness to which she had become accustomed, but there was something about them that made her feel uncomfortable. As she passed one magnificent vase of lilies and tuberoses that had been placed on an ornamental gilded pillar, she touched one of the heavy white petals and was almost repelled by its cold waxy texture. It seemed so out of place in the flat snowridden city of Petrograd, surrounded by pines and birches. These exotically scented, flaunting flowers were all wrong. Suddenly they made her think of funeral wreaths.

  Snatching her hand away, she went instead to inspect the massed photographs on one of the side tables. A square silver-framed print she had never noticed before caught her eye and she picked it up to look at it more closely. It was of a large white house, obviously very beautiful although the sepia colour of the photograph muddied its clarity, and it stood on a small rise above a broad, calm-looking river. She was just wondering where the house could be when she was startled by a deep, liquid Russian voice behind her.

  ‘That is my home.’

  She turned so quickly that she felt dizzy for a moment and was in danger of dropping the photograph. The young man who had spoken took it from her with gentle fingers and then introduced himself as Sergei Voroshilov. Evelyn managed to smile at him as she told him who she was and then, as she looked up into his face, she thought she could understand why Dina, the elder of her two pupils, had been so excited at the prospect of his arrival. He was the most glorious-looking man she had ever seen. As tall as John, he was far more graceful. Where Johnnie was fair and handsome in his traditional, strong-looking, very English way, this man was lithe and dark, and his lavishly gilded uniform made him look like some figure from a more glamorous past. Evelyn caught her breath for a second or two and then said:

  ‘Ah yes, Dindin has spoken of you. May I wish you a happy Christmas, Sergei Ivanovitch.’

  He put down the photograph and kissed her hand in a very foreign way. Then he led her to a sofa and made her sit down beside him. Her eyes softened as she noticed that behind the magnificence of his features he looked tired and somehow spent. Evelyn remembered that he was on leave from the Front and it occurred to her that he was the only person she had yet met in Russia with first-hand experience of the war. Something about his heavily lashed, dark-grey eyes reminded her of John’s, although the two men looked so different. She forgot all her formal small talk in the face of that and said much more naturally than she usually could to strangers:

  ‘I am so glad that you have come. When do you have to go back?’

  As his full lips thinned suddenly, she was sorry that she had reminded him of what he must have left behind, but he answered easily enough.

  ‘I have eight more days’leave.’

  ‘What is it …?’ She stopped, but then her desperate aching need to talk to someone who might have understood about John, pushed her on. ‘Do you hate talking about it?’ He shook his head and smiled down at her with kindness in his face. She was unaware that she was smiling back at him as she went on: ‘Can you tell me something of what it is like?’

  Sergei thought about the lice-ridden uniforms, the lack of ammunition, the hatred of his men, the inadequate food, the wet and cold and fear and pain and wondered what he could possibly tell this sad, beautiful girl. He looked down into her expectant eyes and smiled again, as he decided to compromise.

  ‘It is terrible – like Hell, I think – but it has to be done; and we are winning.’

  ‘Truly? That is wonderful to know. The others, everyone who comes to this house, say such awful things and don’t seem to understand why it matters so much.’

  ‘I know. But let’s forget it for the moment. It is Christmas tomorrow; I am on leave; let’s talk of something more cheerful.’

  ‘I am not sure I know of anything cheerful nowadays,’ she said, but she could understand why he wanted it. When he saw that she could not think of anything to say he helped her out in a way that neither of Dina’s elder brothers – or their friends – would have bothered to do. It made her very grateful.

  ‘How do you like Petrograd, Miss Markham? Has my aunt taken you to the ballet yet? And the opera?’

  She smiled up at Sergei, feeling at home at last with someone who played the social game by the rules she had been taught in England.

  ‘Yes, indeed. I have never seen anything so magnificent as the ballet. It’s almost magical, isn’t it? We saw Karsarvina last month, dancing in Swan Lake. I could hardly believe how she could change so beautifully from Odette to Odile; one so glitteringly evil, the other so soft, charming.’

  ‘I have always found Swan Lake a rather depressing ballet. I prefer the lighter ones, Petrushka and Coppélia, that sort of thing.’

  Evelyn was just beginning to say that she had thought Petrushka much sadder than Swan Lake, when they were interrupted by the arrival of Natalia Petrovna. She caught sight of Sergei and gave a little scream of welcome as she ran, ungainly as a Strasbourg goose, across the room to land in his arms. Evelyn was astonished to see her kiss her nephew on the mouth before patting his handsome face between her hands.

  ‘Seriosha, welcome. Thank the good God that you are safe. Those terrible guns and the wicked Germans – I knew they could never touch you. You are here: it’s wonderful. But, naughty boy, why did you come in here instead of up to my dressing-room? You should have known I would want to see you at once. How is my brother?’

  Evelyn’s Russian was not good enough to allow her to catch more than the general sense of her cousin’s outpouring, and she withdrew slightly. The movement caught Sergei’s eye, and he switched politely back to French.

  ‘Ah, Natalia Petrovna, it’s good to be here. My father is well, though he could not understand why I wanted to come to Petrograd for Christmas instead of staying at home. He sends you all kinds of messages and I have a parcel for you from him. What was your other question? Oh yes, I did not come up to your room because I found your charming English cousin alone here in the salon – how could I leave her?’

  Evelyn blushed becomingly at the compliment and Natalia Petrovna smiled warmly at her.

  ‘Yes, of course. Isn’t she charming? And don’t you think the gown becomes her? I chose it for her and it really suits her. It’s a great success, Evelyn dear, though I still think you should have had the velvet. You will catch your death of cold. And you’re far too thin. Don’t you think so, Seriosha? Like an insect, almost. She never eats enough despite everything I do.’

  Evelyn’s face stiffened at the implied criticism, and her voice became a little clipped as she defended herself.

  ‘You forget, Cousin, that I am accustomed to much cooler houses in England – and no one at home has the kind of meals you all have here in Russia. I think my mother would stare in surprise if she saw how much I eat nowadays.’ Natalia Petrovna smiled mechanically, bored with the familiar topic of what was done in England, and turned back to her nephew.

  She remembered Evelyn a little later as she wondered aloud what had happened to the rest of the household and asked her to run up to see what Dina and her Russian governess were doing. Resenting the errand, Evelyn nevertheless did as she was told, only to be greeted by the governess’s saying, in French:

  ‘I do not know why you felt it necessary to chase after Dina Andreievna, Mademoiselle; you knew that she was with me.’ Evelyn sighed but she thought it would be beneath her dignity to excuse herself by saying that Natalia Petrovna had sent her. She turned and left Dindin’s room, afraid that after all there would be no pleasure in the par
ty. The new dress suddenly seemed an unwarrantable extravagance. She thought of going to her room and spending the evening there alone, writing to John. She never sent the letters she wrote him – she had nowhere to which they could be sent – but writing them helped her to believe that he was still alive. Only the thought of Sergei Voroshilov persuaded her to go back downstairs.

  When she returned to the salon at last, she saw that he was the centre of a laughing, chattering, gesticulating group between the two long windows, his dark handsomeness magnificently framed by their heavy red velvet curtains. She had never seen a face quite like his: sometimes it looked harsh, but at other moments the flashing deep-grey eyes could soften and the full lips smile in a way that robbed his high well-defined cheekbones of their drama. Evelyn stood watching him for a while, admiring the way he hid his feelings about the war and rather pleased that he had just allowed her to glimpse them.

  She did not think she could interrupt him and so she looked around the rapidly filling room for another familiar face. Andrei Alexandrovitch was standing before the fire, but she did not feel strong enough to talk to him and risk arousing his sarcastic temper. She sometimes thought how odd it was that he and her father could be so very different in character when their mothers had been sisters and the two of them had spent much of their early boyhood together in one country or the other. Just occasionally, Andrei Alexandrovitch would use an expression or make a gesture that brought Andrew Markham vividly to mind, but for most of the time her Russian cousin’s manner and appearance seemed quite alien.

  At the opposite end of the room she caught sight of Dindin’s twin brothers and made her way slowly towards them. Three years older than Dindin, and fluent English-speakers, they did not come under Evelyn’s jurisdiction, but she had got to know them well in the year she had spent teaching their sisters. They really were impossibly alike, she thought yet again, with their long, slightly tilted dark eyes and finely drawn, almost delicate faces. To her astonishment and pleasure, they were also dressed alike for once; even Piotr, the rebel, was wearing impeccably correct evening dress. His hair was sleekly combed, and the smooth blackness of his tail-coat showed off his slim, elegant figure in a way that his normal, deliberately shabby, clothes never did. An involuntary smile opened her lips.