The Longest Winter Read online

  ‘Piotr Andreivitch!’ she exclaimed. ‘Happy Christmas.’

  He correctly read the expression in her face and said with an unusually frivolous teasing note in his voice:

  ‘I know, it is extraordinary to see me looking so tidy, isn’t it?’

  Evelyn, who hated teasing, was quite unable to answer him in kind, but she did manage a reply.

  ‘I can’t think why you don’t always wear those clothes. They suit you so well.’

  ‘I could hardly fail to know that, seeing Georgii in them every evening I dine at home, could I?’

  At that, Evelyn did manage to laugh and turned to Georgii to say something nice to him too but his face, so like Piotr’s and yet somehow imprinted these days with an expression of resentment, stopped her. Instead, she looked back at Piotr.

  ‘Why did you decide to honour us like this tonight?’ she said. He smiled at her with the oddly sweet smile he rarely let her see, apparently pleased that she had found such lightness of tone.

  ‘It’s a sort of Christmas present for my mother. My father’s been in such a bad temper with me that he’s given her rather a bad time this last week or so.’

  Evelyn had noticed nothing out of the ordinary in his father’s cold, tyrannical behaviour and so she did not believe Piotr’s ingenuous explanation and pressed him.

  ‘But you seem much happier than before. What has happened?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘No. Have you fallen in love? Georgii, is Piotr going to get married?’

  They both roared with laughter at that as though she had said something deliberately comic and she stiffened again. For some reason that made them laugh the more and when he could speak, Georgii said:

  ‘That would hardly be cause for rejoicing. No, Rasputin’s dead. Did you really not know?’

  ‘Of course I knew. But what is there to be so happy about? He was murdered – horribly. Whatever you thought of his influence over the Tsarina, you cannot possibly be so delighted about that.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Evelyn,’ said Georgii in nearly as irritable a voice as his father used. ‘Everyone in this city, with the possible exception of the Tsar and his immediate family, is pleased. Rasputin was a monster.’

  ‘He really deserved to die, Evelyn,’ said Piotr, not laughing at all any more. ‘He caused untold misery and was dragging the whole of Russia down.’

  Her instinctive revulsion made her think of something else that she wanted to say to him.

  ‘Piotr, I have been speaking to Sergei Voroshilov and he said that they are beating the Germans – that’s not what you told me last week.’

  ‘Well he is exactly the kind of chivalrous fool who would tell lies to comfort a woman.’

  Evelyn’s eyes flashed and she was about to turn away when Piotr stopped her.

  ‘All right, all right, I’m sorry, Evelyn. But that kind of irresponsibility always makes me angry. He …’

  ‘He at least has been at the Front, fighting our enemy,’ interrupted Evelyn, for once hotly angry. ‘I prefer to take his word than that of a mere student who has no experience of what he is talking about and believes every word he is told by an ignorant, prejudiced, Conchie American.’

  ‘That must be me,’ said a familiar and unwelcome voice, ‘since I’m the only American you know. But I don’t much like the rest of your description of a hard-working, impartial newspaperman doing his best to report on the war for his editor back home.’

  Evelyn blushed and felt even angrier with Piotr, whom she blamed unreasonably for putting her into such an embarrassing position. She turned to his friend, suppressed her surprise that he too was wearing conventional evening dress, and wished him a pleasant Christmas in her chilliest voice. His amused expression did nothing for her anger or her embarrassment.

  ‘Well, Miss Markham, and how have I offended you this time?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Adamson,’ she said with icy correctness. ‘I should not have said what I did, particularly when it was my cousin who had spoken so absurdly.’

  ‘Against the war, was it? Or did he offend against English manners yet again?’

  At that piece of familiar mockery Evelyn looked directly at the big American journalist who seemed such an unlikely friend for the twins and put all her dislike and contempt into her expression. He almost flinched, but then laughed again and she turned to go, tears of temper rising inexorably into her eyes. She blamed Robert Adamson for turning her cousins from their usual casual friendliness to the mockery she hated. When he was nowhere near, both of the twins talked to her as though she were an equal and even when they disagreed with her were reasonably polite about it. But Mr Adamson, ten years older than they, experienced, well-travelled, and with a kind of power that Evelyn recognised even though she loathed it, could always make them turn on her as they had done just then.

  As she was walking away from them through the crowded salon, Sergei found her again. He was about to make a joke about his aunt’s having sent her away from him, but just in time saw that she was troubled and instead took her hand and said in a low, almost conspiratorial voice:

  ‘Miss Markham, what has happened? Please tell me. I hate to see you so unhappy.’

  His voice was so kind and the pressure of his hand on hers so comforting that she looked up at him and her lips smiled despite herself.

  ‘Tell me, please,’ he urged. But it would have sounded so childish to say to this man who was facing horror and death every day that she had been brought to the brink of tears by a tiny piece of rude teasing; so instead she murmured:

  ‘It’s only the war. I can’t forget it, however hard I try.’

  ‘I too,’ he said gently and pressed her hand again. ‘But won’t you try? Just to make one soldier’s Christmas leave happy?’

  Tall though she was, Evelyn had to look up into his face and what she thought she saw there made her say without considering her words at all:

  ‘Of course, Sergei Ivanovitch, I shall do anything.’

  ‘Then smile for me – a beautiful smile like the one you greeted me with. Yes, that’s right. Now, come to the buffet with me and have some champagne.’

  ‘Of course I’ll come, since you wish it, but, Sergei Ivanovitch, I do not really like champagne.’

  ‘What? That’s almost heresy! Well, we shall find something that you do like. Come with me now.’

  So she went, and in the knowledge that now, at last, she was doing something for someone who was involved in the fighting she began to relax. For that one evening she did not mind that it was her duty to smile and enjoy herself and behave frivolously.

  He hardly left her side before dinner as they stood chatting, sipping their wine and choosing delicacy after delicacy from the heavy silver trays of zakuski that the servants were handing round. There was caviare served on warm kalatches; there were canapés of smoked reindeer tongue, pickled grapes, smoked fish of all kinds and foie gras. Evelyn ate sparingly and when Sergei urged her to take more, told him of the first large dinner she had attended in Petrograd when she had assumed that the zakuski constituted the entire meal and, smothering her astonishment that the Russians dined on their feet, she had eaten all she could, only to be faced with an entire dinner half an hour later. He laughed, but she felt that half his amusement at least was directed at the odder customs of his people and so she did not mind it.

  ‘It must have been difficult, finding yourself in the middle of a society like the Suvarovs’when you were accustomed to something very different.’ She looked up at him, silently blessing him for his understanding.

  ‘Yes, Sergei Ivanovitch, it was very difficult. There were so many things I did not understand and could not ask.’

  ‘But it is better now?’

  ‘Much better,’ she said with feeling. ‘It’s not only that I know a little of your language now and so I don’t feel quite so helpless outside the house or with the servants here; it is partly that I understand so much more of the way my cousins live and wh
y things are done as they are. Have you ever been in England?’

  ‘No. My only contact with your country has been through Andrei Alexandrovitch.’

  He noticed her involuntary shiver and asked: ‘Are you afraid of him? Surely not?’

  ‘It is ungrateful, I know,’ she answered, ‘but, yes, I am. You see I never know how he is going to react – some days he will listen to the twins ranting at each other and only smile; at other times Piotr has only to open his mouth and his father will shout at him and send him out of the room.’ She looked speculatively at Sergei and decided to trust him. ‘It is almost as though he were a tiger or something; one goes into his cage not knowing whether he will want to be stroked and purr peacefully or whether he will bite. It’s very unsettling.’

  By the time Evelyn reached the end of that little speech, Sergei was laughing again.

  ‘But, my dear Miss Markham, I do not believe he would ever bite you. Why should you be frightened of what he may say – or do – to his sons?’

  She looked up at him in surprise.

  ‘It is not that I’m afraid exactly, but … but … Well, I suppose it is just that I’m not used to it. Neither of my parents ever speaks like that. I mean, if my brothers or I did something wrong, they would just talk to us quietly and show us why we should never do it again.’

  ‘And did you always obey?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, that is charming. But I do not think that Andrei Suvarov would control those twins of his by such means. They …’ For once Evelyn interrupted without thinking how rude she was being:

  ‘But perhaps they would have done if they had not been accustomed to his temper. If he had practised some restraint himself, then perhaps they would have accepted his authority.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ he said, his voice dry. ‘And now if you will forgive me for a moment, I must speak to my aunt.’

  Evelyn watched him go, wondering why he should have slipped away, and whether she had insulted him by her criticism of Andrei Alexandrovitch, but Sergei soon returned.

  ‘That’s settled,’ he said with a dazzling smile.

  ‘But what have you done, Sergei Ivanovitch?’

  ‘Don’t look so worried, Miss … Oh, why should we be so formal when you are my aunt’s niece by marriage? Will you let me call you Evelyn?’

  The girl blushed again, and he thought how much the colour improved her rather severe beauty.

  ‘Well?’ he prompted.

  ‘Of course, Sergei Ivanovitch, if that is what you want.’

  ‘Good. Well, Evelyn, all I was doing was persuading my aunt to change the seating plan for tonight’s dinner. Having discovered you, I do not want to be stuck miles away down the table talking to one of these dull Russian girls I have known all my life.’

  A sort of glow rose within Evelyn and just for an instant, as she tucked her full lower lip under her white teeth and looked up at him through her eyelashes, there was an almost mischievous glint in her smile. Whether it was the romantic unconventionality of his action, or the compliment of his preferring her over those Russian girls, she was not sure. All she knew was that this dashing, heroic, handsome man had picked her out of the whole glittering company to sit beside him. She caught sight of Dindin and smiled at her in welcome. When the girl came up to her, Evelyn said warmly:

  ‘You were quite right, Dindin, about your cousin.’

  Dina laughed and kissed Sergei and, holding one of his hands against her rosy cheek, said:

  ‘Yes, but, Evie, you must be careful. This wicked cousin of mine is a terrible breaker of hearts. Aren’t you, Seriosha?’

  He pulled his hand away from her clasp to tweak her dimpled chin.

  ‘What a cheeky little cousin you are, Dina Andreievna. And how do you know about broken hearts? You should be in your schoolroom, you bad girl.’ Dina laughed and turned her back on them, looking over her shoulder to fire her parting shot.

  ‘Oh, cousin, I know all about your love affairs and the hearts you have played with. He’s dangerous, Evie.’

  Evelyn suddenly sobered and said in a voice so sad that it rebuked her flirtatious cousin:

  ‘I am in no danger.’

  She did not see the narrowing of Sergei’s eyes, nor the unmistakable gesture or dismissal he sent to Dina, but she heard the change in his voice.

  ‘Don’t mistake Dindin’s nonsense for unkindness, Evelyn.’ At that she looked at him again.

  ‘I don’t. And there is no reason why my sorrow should blacken her happiness. How did you know?’ she asked.

  ‘I asked Natalia Petrovna – I hope you will forgive me: it was not just curiosity.’ A gesture of her elegant hands brushed aside his apology, and he went on: ‘There was something about your lovely eyes that looked so sad when I first saw you that I had to find out what had hurt you so much.’

  ‘And she told you about Johnnie.’ There was an indescribable relief in saying his name. She had not spoken it aloud since she had left England, but Sergei understood; he had shared John’s ordeal and there was no danger in showing him her sorrow and fear. He could understand and would never mock her, she was sure. Sergei touched her thin, blue-veined wrist again and she knew that her trust had not been misplaced.

  The footmen coming in at that moment with place cards for all the guests put an end to their moment of shared emotion. She discovered that Sergei had been placed on her left and so she turned correctly to the man on her right as the servants brought in the first course. She had met him several times before and when she had greeted him and enquired about his wife’s health, she chatted politely until the plates were removed. Then she turned back to Sergei with a feeling of release, for the first time recognising an impatience with the conventions that ruled her life.

  Later she could not remember what it was that they had spoken about, but she knew that at last in Russia she had found someone who understood what she was going through, and who shared her passionate desire for victory over the Prussians. It was not that they talked about the war, for they did not; it was just something in Sergei’s eyes and the sympathy in his voice that told her he thought as she did.

  The only reference either made to the fighting was after dinner when the expensive orchestra Natalia Petrovna had hired struck up ‘The Blue Danube’and Sergei begged her to dance with him. She looked at him in reproach and said softly:

  ‘Sergei Ivanovitch, I cannot dance while … while my brother and Johnnie …’ Even to him, she discovered, she could not quite say everything she thought. But he brushed her protests away and took both her hands, bending his extraordinarily handsome face towards hers and saying almost under his breath:

  ‘Even to give this poor soldier a taste of paradise before he goes back into Hell?’

  How could she refuse such a request? As he straightened up and put out his arms, she walked into his embrace and allowed him to lead her on to the dance floor.

  Chapter Two

  During the six days between Christmas Day and the end of Sergei’s leave Evelyn was happier than she had ever expected to be in Russia. It was partly that he was so attentive to her, of course. There was something in the way that he got up from his chair and turned to greet her whenever she entered a room, no matter whom he was with or what he was doing, that warmed her. He seemed to have a special smile for her, too, and one much kinder than those of the twins. Unlike them, he never turned from her in irritation, and he even allowed her to ask him questions about the war. He listened to her accounts of John, too, and tried to comfort her by talking about either the nobility of sacrifice or the number of men who had been wounded and lost their memories only to be restored to health months or even years later.

  Such talk did comfort her, and fed her desperate need to be in some way involved with the great struggle. The twins had made it quite clear that they considered that the war had been imposed on Russia by the Allies and that, as Piotr had once said, ‘The Allies are fighting to the last drop of Russian blood.’ He and Georg
ii were only interested in what was to happen in Russia and when or how the Tsar could be persuaded to introduce some form of democratic government, and Evelyn was shocked at their selfish insularity. She could almost have clapped at dinner on Sergei’s last evening, when Piotr had said something to that effect and Sergei had looked down the table, an expression of severity in his dramatically beautiful eyes, and said:

  ‘Piotr Andreivitch, all such preoccupations must be set aside until the war is won.’

  Piotr’s thin face grew bleak and determined.

  ‘Face facts, Sergei Ivanovitch, how can it be? You know, if you would only admit it, that without at least one gun to every man and adequate ammunition, there is no hope of winning. And the fight is bleeding Russia white. It has to stop.’

  All the other conversations around the table stopped. Evelyn looked towards Andrei Suvarov, feeling sick and nervous as she wondered when he would stop the talk, and who would be the object of his wrath. But nothing happened; it was as though Sergei somehow defused all the quarrels and difficulties of the household. Natalia Petrovna and Dina adored him and perhaps it was for their sake that Andrei Alexandrovitch curbed his temper. Or perhaps it was because of the way in which Sergei smiled at Piotr and refused to be ruffled. Evelyn looked back across the table at Sergei, silently thanking him for bringing this new peace to the Suvarovs.

  He caught her eye, and a tremulous smile broke across her face as she read the expression in his handsome face. He looked at her for a long moment. Then he turned back to his cousin.

  ‘We’ll never agree, Piotr Andreivitch,’ he said at last. ‘You see, you live here as a student, free, safe and comfortable, in Petrograd; how can you know the determination felt by everyone at the Front to thrash those d—— I beg your pardon, Natalia Petrovna, the Prussians?’ Then, without waiting for the boy to answer, Sergei turned to his host and asked some question about the labour troubles he and every other manufacturer was facing. Evelyn sighed in relief and turned back to her interrupted conversation with Georgii, and dinner progressed on its way.