Polonaise (9 page)

An odd phrase, surely? Jenny smiled dismissively at the boy who tried to take the little valise that held her money, clinging to it a little more tightly as she followed Olga along the side of the house, aware of sounds of merry-making from within. Now she was not so sure that she was glad to find their involuntary host entertaining. What kind of party was it? ‘Women's quarters'? It was only men's voices she was hearing, the voices of men free of female constraints. Now someone was singing, a song she had heard before, but always surreptitiously, a phrase now and then, quickly suppressed. As she listened, more voices joined in, exulting, triumphant.

‘What is it?' she asked Olga, who was listening, too, eagerly.

‘Dombrowski's March,' the girl told her. ‘The march of the heroes of Poland. They sang it when they won the battle of Lodi for Bonaparte; it is our national song now.'

‘What is this place, Olga?' Jenny stopped in the doorway. ‘Why have you brought me here?'

‘Because it is my duty,' said Olga. ‘You should be proud, Englishwoman, to have this chance to help Poland in her fight for freedom.'

‘How do you mean, help?'

‘You'll see. Or rather, you will be told. Now, come; no more questions.' She put a firm arm through Jenny's and drew her into a big kitchen where two women were busy at an immense stove while others worked, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, at a long table that ran down the centre of the room. One of these left her work to come forward and speak rapidly to Olga.

‘We are in good time.' Olga turned to Jenny, ‘I thought we must be when I heard them singing. The meeting has not yet begun. There is all the ritual to be gone through before they are ready to see you.'

‘What in the world do you mean?' Jenny felt her command of German slipping away. ‘What is this place?'

‘It was once a hunting lodge belonging to Stanislas Augustus. When he died it was forgotten. It's our headquarters now.' Proudly. ‘These ladies keep it ready for our meetings. It's an easy ride from Warsaw. A hunting trip – any excuse. No questions to be asked or answered. Don't fret yourself, you will be sent for when they are ready for you. They will explain what they need of you, pani.'

‘They? Who?'
Pani
meant lady, she had learned.

‘The freedom fighters. The Free –' She stopped, as the woman who had greeted them made a warning gesture. ‘You'll see,' she said again.

Jenny looked about her. Josef, who was supposed to protect her, had vanished, undoubtedly part of the plot. What naïve fools she and George Richards had been. Was she glad or sorry that she had refused the little pistol he had offered her in a moment of extra anxiety? Well, he had been right to be anxious, but what use would one little pistol be now, among this group of Amazons? She must rely on her wits. And, as she thought this, the talk and laughter in the next room stopped suddenly.

‘Soon now,' Olga said. ‘You must do exactly what They tell you, or we'll both suffer for it.'

‘You're frightened!'

‘So should you be. These are powerful men. Their arm stretches as far as Paris or Petersburg; make Them your enemy and there is nowhere for you to hide.'

‘Who are They?'

‘It's not for me to tell you.' She turned as the door to the next room opened and a hooded figure appeared.

‘Be silent, and follow me,' he told Jenny in French. ‘If you value your life, you will speak only to answer questions. It is a rare honour for a woman to appear before the Brotherhood.'

‘It is not one for which I asked,' said Jenny.

‘Princess!' Once again, she lay in his arms, smiling up at him, and the nights when Marta had not come for him were black holes in his memory. ‘Princess!' Why was it that he still could not bring himself to call her Isobel?

‘Yes?' She raised a lazy hand to trace the line of his mouth. ‘So serious, Mr. Rendel?' They had made love, frantically at first, tearing each other's clothes off the moment Marta left them alone. He had never known anything like this, like her … In the daytime, she was the Princess Sobieska still, treating him just as she did Jan, as a valued guest and friend, but at night … He was consumed by her. ‘Marry me!' He got it out at last. ‘I can't let you sacrifice yourself to this old man who comes so slowly to his wedding. To an idea, a chimera, an illusion about Poland! Marry me, come back to England with me, I'll make a life for you there, a good one, and for our children, I promise it. With you beside me, what could I not do, what not become?'

‘First Minister? But I am a Princess of Poland.' The smile was tender now, the hand gentle. ‘You do me great honour to ask me, and I thank you from my heart, but you must know that I cannot do it.'

‘Cannot, or will not?'

‘Metaphysics, Mr. Rendel? Perhaps a little of both.'

‘Call me Glynde, for God's sake! Speak to me as your equal, Isobel, just this once.' Had he already ceased to hope?

‘No, Mr. Rendel.' Her hand, busy among the short curls at the back of his neck, took the sting out of it. ‘You are no fool; that's why you are here. You know as well as I do that that is the way to discovery. In some moment of relaxation, in public, I call you Glynde or you call me Isobel. And then …'

‘Then you marry me, Isobel. Then our child –' Why was he so sure there would be a child? ‘– will be a freeborn Englishman.'

‘The greatest creature on God's earth?' But the laughter in
her voice was loving. ‘Dear Glynde, I could so very easily love you.' She stirred in his arms, her whole body an enticement, and he roused into flame with her, forgetting the future in the imperious now. Much later, aware that at any moment, Marta must come to take him away, he tried again. ‘Marry me, beloved. Please? If you wish it, let me stay here and be your consort, help you rear our child for a great future, perhaps to be King of Poland.'

‘With you for his father?' It was unanswerable, and the light kiss that went with the words did little to lessen their sting. ‘But I do thank you for offering. I shall never forget you. Nor that, once in my life, I have been happy. You will always be somewhere warm about my heart. I shall not be able to tell my son of his father, but I promise he will be a son for you to be proud of.'

‘Don't speak as if this was goodbye!' He pulled her closer, kissing her angrily, trying to possess her whole. ‘There are still tomorrows before this reluctant wooer of yours arrives to claim you.'

‘Yes, there are still tomorrows, but today, Marta will be waiting for you. Goodnight, my dear love, sleep well, and dream of me.'

‘Goodnight, Isobel.' This was a quiet kiss, and something about it frightened him. ‘You'll send tomorrow?'

‘If I can.'

Following their hooded guide into the main room of the hunting lodge, Jenny saw that it had been turned into a meeting hall by the construction of a small platform opposite the main door. Three hooded figures sat there in heavy, armed chairs facing the equally anonymous crowd, close-packed on wooden benches. Entering from the kitchen, she and Olga found themselves standing just in front of the dais, intensely aware of secret eyes on their backs.

The silence was absolute. Jenny had never been so angry in her life. Standing here, unmasked, before all these hooded figures, she might have been naked in front of them. Meant to frighten, it merely enraged her. She felt the men behind her summing up her small figure, dismissing her as unattractive, negligible, and the more she felt it, the angrier she got. Aware
ness of Olga's terror merely increased her rage. What promises, what threats had made Olga bring her here?

The silence drew out. At last, the man in the central chair rose slowly to this feet, anonymous like the rest, except for the small, ceremonial leather apron tied round his loose robe. Jenny took a deep, furious breath. She knew something about the mysterious order of Freemasons. Her father had been invited to join them by a fellow clergyman who promised great things, promotion in the church, maybe even a political post, a state pension. He had told her about it once, when her mother was ill and they were dining alone. ‘I might be a Bishop now.' He had drunk deep, missing his wife's attentive ear. ‘If I'd joined them. But they don't believe in God! They speak of the “Great Architect of the Universe”.' Was he regretting his decision? ‘And if you tell anyone I told you that, it may cost me more than my vicarage. I don't know. My life, perhaps.' He had refilled his glass and gone on to tell her about the initiation meeting to which he had innocently gone, so that she recognised this one. ‘And they're revolutionaries, too, like those madmen in France. Talked about liberty and fraternity and all that trash. How could I join them?'

That had been years ago, but Mr. Peverel had never got promotion in the church. Remembering this now, Jenny stood very still and stared at the man in the ridiculous hood and apron. Ridiculous. That was the way to think.

He spoke at last. ‘You are Jennifer Peverel, an Englishwoman, on your way to servitude with the Princess Sobieska.' It was not a question. Was she supposed to be too frightened to reply?

‘Janet Peverel, as a matter of fact.' Speaking French, like him, she made her voice cool, steady. ‘Yes, I am on my way to visit the Princess. Nobody mentioned servitude. And may I ask by what right you have had me brought here?'

‘I ask the questions, woman. You are here because we think we can use you. If we find you an unhandy tool, it will be the worse for you.'

‘Then you had better tell me what you want of me.' Jenny had not thought she could do the aristocratic English lady's voice so well. ‘Nothing you have said or done so far much inclines me to help you; but the fact remains that if, as I
assume, you are conspiring in this curious way for the freedom of Poland, then you most certainly have my sympathy. What I can do for you, I will.'

‘Insolence!' A voice from behind her somewhere. And at the same moment hands snatched the valise from her. She had expected this, but it made her angrier still. ‘I did not take you for thieves,' she told them. ‘If you really want me to act as your agent at Rendomierz, you will have to leave me funds to get there.'

‘The woman talks sense.' This was the man on the right of the first speaker. ‘She has promised to help us, and if she is to do so she must get to Rendomierz in the ordinary way, as if none of this had happened. She has spoken up for herself boldly, Brothers; I think we owe her an explanation. But, first, Grand Master, should you not administer the oath?'

‘As to a man?'

‘If we honour her by asking her to help us, I think we must treat her like one of ourselves. But not the other woman. Has she not served her purpose? I propose that she be rewarded and dismissed, and that the rest of the Brotherhood adjourn to their supper while we go into private session and explain to our guest what it is we ask of her. The night is going on, and those of us who need to be back in Warsaw by morning must not linger.'

There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd, doubtless aware, as Jenny was, of savoury smells from the kitchen. ‘May I speak?' She pitched her voice above the buzz of the crowd.

‘Yes?' Impatiently, from the first speaker.

‘My companion – Olga. You speak of dismissing her. I hope you will not do so until you have told me more. It seems to me that I shall need her both to add respectability to my arrival at Rendomierz and as a messenger between you and me. She told me a tale of a brother at Sandomierz. It may even by true. Surely this could be useful?'

‘Very well.' He raised his voice once more to address the crowd who were beginning to dissolve into murmuring groups. ‘Brother Katowice, you will look after the woman, Olga. Brother Lublin, you will count the Englishwoman's money and hold yourself responsible for it. Brother Poznan, you will preside over the supper tables and make sure that all the
Brothers leave here in good time and good order. We will retire and confer further with the Englishwoman, and you will all of you remember that from this day forward, she is our known friend to be helped in all things, whether small or great, until such time as we, your Brothers and your Masters, tell you otherwise.' He raised an imperious hand for silence, got it, absolute, and spoke for the first time in Polish, what sounded like a long catechism, to which the crowd replied in sonorous ritual. Beside her, Jenny was aware of Olga, silent, rigid with terror at what she was hearing, and was glad she had spoken up for her. It would be useful, later, to find out just what was being said.

‘Come.' The speaker reached down a hand to help Jenny up on to the dais. ‘We will leave them to their supper. Your servant will be cared for in the kitchen. It was well thought of, that.'

Resisting the temptation to say that it had seemed obvious enough to her, Jenny accepted his arm, muscular under the folds of black cloth, and let him lead her through a door at the back of the dais to a small room beyond, where refreshments were laid out on a round table. A door to the right must lead to the kitchens and another one, facing them, presumably straight out into the forest, for secret exits and entrances.

‘This is our conference chamber.' He seated her on his right. ‘You would probably prefer wine to vodka?'

‘Yes please, and I wish you would do me the courtesy of removing your hoods.'

Angry exclamations, and ‘Impossible,' said the leader. ‘If you value your life, Miss Peverel, you will not even think of attempting to identify us. You would merely compel us to have you killed, which, believe me, we do not at all wish to do.'

‘You had much best stop playing the society host and administer the oath, Brother,' said the man who had not previously spoken. He sounded older than the other two, Jenny thought, and a man of authority, so that she was surprised he did not act as leader.

‘Well advised, Brother Vilno. We are glad to have you with us at last.' He turned to Jenny. ‘You will repeat after me, and from your heart, Miss Peverel. It will seem a strong oath to
you, but as you take it, remember the strong griefs Poland suffers, and be glad of this chance to help her.'