Polonaise (14 page)

Alexander was indeed shocked and furious. He put his court into mourning for the murdered Duke and recalled his Ambassador from Paris, but the rest of Europe had learned to fear the formidable First Consul. Reaction in England was violent, but elsewhere the protests were surprisingly muted. And Alexander's own protest had met with a disconcerting reply. Bonaparte's Foreign Minister, Talleyrand, pointed out that so far as he knew, no one had ever been punished for the murder of Alexander's own father, the Emperor Paul. And when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor, a couple of months later, in May 1804, with the Pope looking on, Europe once again stirred uneasily and did nothing.

‘But I really believe it has opened my master's eyes at last to the true character of the upstart Bonaparte.' The Russian Foreign Minister, Adam Czartoryski, had found he could speak freely with Glynde and Jan, and made no secret of his own Polish sympathies. ‘My hopes for an independent Kingdom of Poland are rising,' he went on. ‘The Emperor begins to see the need for it as a buffer state between him and that madman in France.'

‘You think the Tsar might really allow Poland its independence?' asked Glynde.

‘With a King of his choosing? Yes.' Unspoken between the three of them was the chance that Czartoryski might be that chosen King.

‘Czartoryski is related to the last Polish King, Stanislas Augustus, after all,' said Jan back at the Hôtel de Londres.

‘For what that is worth. Stanislas Augustus was the Empress Catherine's appointment, remember, but not much good came of it in the end.'

‘Poland had almost thirty years of quite remarkably humane rule under him.'

‘The tyrant from whom your mother fled?'

‘You've got me there! Whatever else you say about Polish history, you do have to admit it's complicated. But, surely, Glynde, anything would be better than its abject state today. To have even the shadow of independence! If only there were a real rallying point, but you know as well as I do that Adam Czartoryski is practically a Russian by now. He was only in his twenties when they brought him here as a hostage for his family's behaviour ten years ago. And look what a friend of the Tsar's he has become!'

‘But he fought gallantly against the Russians in 1794.'

‘A long time ago. If the Poles do remember, do you think they will forgive him for all his collaboration with the Russians since?'

‘Collaboration's an ugly word. We know how he has stood his country's friend with the Tsar.' But Glynde was thinking of something else, of the little Prince Casimir Ovinski, now a year old, scion of two royal Polish houses, a planned rallying point. ‘Have the Richards heard anything from Miss Peverel?' he asked now, surprising Jan.

‘Not for a while. The posts are quicker between Petersburg and London, they say, than between here and Rendomierz.'

‘And more reliable, I expect, since they doubtless send by British merchantmen. But there's not been one yet, has there, since the Neva thawed?'

‘No. Richards thinks there should be one any day. I just hope it's not from the United States, with a letter from my papa demanding my instant return.'

‘I should think he must be beginning to find you quite useful to him here.' Jan had made firm friends with George Richards,
was spending a good deal of time with him and obviously enjoying this rather informal apprenticeship in the world of business.

‘George says Mr. Addington's government is bound to fall,' Jan said now. ‘He's a little anxious about what Mr. Pitt's war party may do to trade, when they get in.'

‘He says “when” not “if'?' Glynde had developed a considerable respect for George Richards' judgment. If Pitt came back to power, so, surely would his own friend Canning, and his roving commission might turn into something more official – what he had always hoped for. If not, it was time he went home, stopped enraging himself by watching Prince Ovinski and his series of exquisite mistresses.

But when news finally came of the new British government formed in May, Canning's name was not listed among the members of Mr. Pitt's cabinet. ‘Your friend's still out of favour, it appears,' said Jan. ‘Richards seems to think it is all for the best. But he believes that Canning's friend Lord Granville Leveson Gower may replace Sir John Warren as Ambassador here. Do you know him too?'

‘Yes, indeed. We were at school together.' Glynde laughed. ‘He'll cut quite a swathe among the Petersburg ladies, I can tell you. If Lady Bessborough lets him come, that is.'

‘Lady Bessborough? How does she come into it.'

‘She's been his very good friend for years. But I hope he comes; I'm sure he could do more in a week to persuade the Tsar to ally himself with us than Sir John has done in all his years of grovelling flattery. He's a straight talker, and a very persuasive man, Granville.'

A letter from Canning later that summer, confirmed Granville Leveson Gower's appointment and asked Glynde to put himself at the new Ambassador's disposal. ‘He counts on you rather than Warren to point his way in Petersburg society.'

‘So you'll stay?' Jan was delighted. His father had decided that he should continue in Petersburg as his representative to explore the increasing possibilities of trade between the United States and Russia. ‘Then how about moving out of this hotel? George Richards knows of a good little house to let on the English Quay. What do you think? I'm sick to death of hotel life.'

‘We'd be robbed blind by our servants.'

‘No more so than we are here. And you'd not be everlastingly worrying about my free tongue.'

Glynde laughed. ‘Am I such a bore? I warn you, there will be a spy among our servants just as much there as here, but I agree with you. Some domestic life would be a pleasant change.'

The negotiations for the house took time, and they finally moved in just before it became necessary to put up the double windows and hermetically seal themselves in for the winter. Granville Leveson Gower reached Petersburg shortly afterwards and was soon very much at home in the snug little house on the English Quay, describing the palace in which he was staying until Sir John and Lady Warren left as an intolerable barracks of a place. He was also soon allowing himself the relief of telling them what he thought of Sir John himself. The previous Ambassador had not been pleased at being recalled, and relations between the two men were frigid throughout the necessary formalities of the handover.

‘Three bows for an Ambassador, two for a Chargé d'Affaires,' Granville told Glynde and Jan. ‘And one should take one's own yardstick, to get the depth just right, or risk precipitating a diplomatic incident! I begin to wonder if I was really cut out for the diplomatic service. I had to ride forty miles to her country palace the other day to pay my respects to the Empress Mother, and then translate my pretty speeches into diplomatic French, all in the third person. Now that I do really call work!'

‘But you know you are enjoying it,' said Glynde.

‘Now the Warrens are gone, yes, I begin to. She was the proudest woman it's been my misfortune to encounter for a long time.'

‘And so little to be proud about,' said Glynde.

‘Well, birth, I suppose. You are laughing, Mr. Warrington?'

‘I was thinking how restful to be an American.'

‘Where you make no distinction between classes? I might call on you and confidently expect to sit next to a black gentleman at table?'

‘You have me there!' Jan threw out a hand. ‘But we do not treat our slaves as badly as the Russians do their serfs!'

‘And yet the serfs seem devoted to their masters. Is that true of the Polish peasants, too?'

‘The Princess's certainly were.' Granville had learned that so far as Glynde and Jan were concerned, there was only one Polish Princess.

‘I long to meet your Princess Ovinska,' he said now. ‘I've seen her husband often enough, and his
belle amie
the Princess Landowska. I rather think that if I were the Princess Ovinska, I would come to Petersburg and present my son to the Tsar. What news do you have from Rendomierz?'

‘None directly,' said Jan. ‘But my friend Mrs. Richards corresponds with Miss Peverel, the Princess's companion.' A touch of defiance in his tone suggested that he had taken to heart the remarks about pride of birth and knew that a merchant's wife would not seem a very elegant acquaintance to his two companions. How strange it was to find himself associating on these easy terms with an Ambassador, who was also a lord. He was afraid his father would be delighted.

‘A letter from Mrs. Richards in Petersburg?' Princess Isobel was playing with her stalwart little black-haired son in the garden, and looked up smiling as Jenny joined her.

‘Yes. It's taken for ever to get here.' She bent to pick up the toy soldier Prince Casimir had dropped and hand it back to him.

‘Well, at least it got here! What news from Petersburg?' She had had only a few brief letters from her husband in the two years since he had returned to Russia.

‘George Richards and Jan Warrington seem to be thick as thieves. I am so pleased. Mr. Warrington is to stay another year at least at Petersburg, and so, she thinks, will Mr. Rendel. He's an old friend of the new British Ambassador. They went to school together.'

‘Those very important English school-friendships. Then I have no doubt Mr. Rendel will stay.'

‘Yes. He and Jan Warrington have taken a house together. On the English Quay, wherever that is.'

‘On the River Neva, and very pleasant, I should think. What's the matter, Jenny? Something is troubling you?'

‘Not precisely. It's something Mary Richards says. It almost reads like a message.'

‘A message?'

‘For you. Jan told her, she says, that the new Ambassador, this Lord Granville Leveson Gower … what a name!'

‘I believe you pronounce it Lewson Gore,' said the Princess.

‘Well, however you pronounce it, Mary says he was talking about you, and –' she blushed crimson ‘– about the Prince.'

‘And also, no doubt, about the Princess Irene Landowska? Don't look so wretched, Jenny, I've friends in Petersburg too. What else did he say?'

‘Well … He asked Mr. Warrington if he was in touch with us here, and went on to say that if he were you – forgive me, Princess – he thought he would take Prince Casimir to Petersburg and present him to the Tsar.'

‘Did he so?' said the Princess thoughtfully. ‘Now I wonder just what he intended by that? And whether it was good advice?'

Jenny wondered, too. She had had very similar instructions from the Brotherhood only the other day. They had left her in peace for a long while after Glynde and Jan had gone, then, at Christmas, she had had a message by way of Olga. ‘They want to know all about the little Prince; how he goes on; what he is like.'

Her hand had gone automatically to the scar that still lifted the corner of her mouth. ‘Prince Casimir? Do they so?' But in fact it confirmed what she had always thought about those sinister, hooded figures. Their methods might be savage, but their aim was one with which she could only sympathise: freedom for Poland. She was glad that she had never thought of trying to betray them, despite the brutal, unnecessary attack on her. And it was a pleasure to let them know what a bright, promising child Prince Casimir was. An expert aunt, she could report him as advanced in every stage of his development, a great hope for the future. She had done so, and had had, just the other day, further instructions through Olga. ‘You are to urge the Princess to send for her husband, no matter what the pretext.'

Ever since the Brotherhood's messages had begun again, Jenny had felt she ought to tell the Princess the whole story.
Shameful to be afraid to. But now, she knew, the time had come. She waited until the Princess was changing for dinner. ‘Princess.' She was in the big closet, selecting a white dress.

‘Yes?' The Princess was at the glass, brushing her long hair.

‘There's something I ought to tell you. Should have long ago.'

‘Oh?' The Princess's eyes met Jenny's anxious ones in the glass. She stood up, finger on lips, moved forward, took Jenny's hand and led her through to the boudoir, all in silence. Then, ‘Close the door, Jenny, would you? I'm tired; I feel the draught.'

‘It's been a long day.' There was no draught, but Jenny moved obediently to close the door into the dressing-room, and saw the Princess move to the other door into the corridor, open, look out, and close it.

‘No one,' she said. ‘What is it, Jenny?'

It was most absolutely terrifying to have her own fears thus confirmed by the Princess's caution. ‘You think that even here?' The Princess had seated herself on a chaise longue in the centre of the room and motioned her to join her.

‘Everywhere.' Quietly. ‘I am glad you are going to tell me at last, Jenny.'

‘You knew?'

‘I'm not always stupid. What happened to you, Jenny?'

‘It was before I even got here.' She poured out the story of her first meeting with the Brotherhood and ended by telling of their new order, so oddly like Mary Richards' message.

‘So!' The Princess thought about it for a moment. Then, ‘You're a brave girl, Jenny. I'm glad you are here. And have told me. What do you think it means?'

Here was a question. What use beating about the bush? There had never been any secret about the dynastic reason for the Princess's marriage. ‘Don't you think, maybe, that they want to make double sure? Time for you and the Prince to meet. Two little Princes better than one? Two hopes for the future? What's the matter?'

Princess Isobel was laughing, quietly, desperately. ‘Do you think there is a branch of the Brotherhood in Petersburg too? That they are urging the Prince to come to Poland?'

‘I expect so,' said Jenny. ‘Don't you?'