Tempting Fate (57 page)

“Laisha,” Ragoczy said as he stopped playing the Haydn sonata she had asked to hear earlier that day, “what is the matter?” He fingered the keys lightly, ripples of music cascading from the ormolu-decorated Erard grand piano.

She shrugged, her face sullen. She did not often complain to her guardian, but she was determined to do so. “Nothing ever happens here,” she said when she had thought about it sufficiently to be deeply aggrieved.

“How unfortunate,” Ragoczy remarked, showing an infuriating lack of fighting spirit. He played a few bars of the opening section of Mussorgsky’s
Pictures at an Exhibition,
his small hands stretching to accommodate the extended chords. It was a difficult piece for him, one he played more for the challenge of it than because he did it well.

“Yes, it is.” She folded her arms, her face closed and unrevealing.

“What would you rather do?” He repeated the ninth and tenth measures, then went on. “The snow makes it difficult to travel, but it is not impossible. With the telephone out of order because of the broken wires, it will take a little time to make arrangements, if you have something you wish to do instead of stay here.”

She answered him immediately this time. “I’ve never been anywhere. You’re always going off to France and Italy and Sweden, and you leave me here like a sack of old groceries.” Her chin was squared, determined and grudging.

“Not a sack of old groceries,” he protested gently. “At the very least, overly-formal clothes.” His smile softened his eyes, and it was all he could do to keep from chuckling. After so many years, he had become a doting father.

“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “I am left here, with my tutors and horses, and Roger and Nikolai to guard me.”

“Would you prefer to be sent away to school?” He had considered it before, but she had always wanted to remain with him, and it had been recommended that with her background, boarding school might not be best for her. Ragoczy had been secretly pleased with that decision that kept her with him, where he could watch her grow, learning, maturing. He saw her now as the overgrown, bony girl she was, but he had encountered her sort many times before. His Laisha was the sort of girl who would be lanky and graceless until she was twenty or so and then, she would suddenly develop dignity and elegance and grace which would last her through all her life. He tried to picture her as a grown woman, tried to imagine her suitors, her husband, her children. Did all fathers feel as he did, that only the most understanding, the most gifted and sensitive of men would be worthy of her?

“No, of course not. School would be too … strange. If I am able to pass the examinations for the university, and Rosel says that I will be able to, and so does Professor Vögel, then why should I bother? I remember what that cousin of Olympie’s said of her school, how they had to sleep in drafty dormatories and never argued with the teachers. I
always
argue,” she said, as if it were a point of honor.

“So I understand,” Ragoczy said gently. “I think that is part of learning, don’t you?” He was playing an air by Handel now, paying little attention to the embellishments of the familiar melody.

“Yes.” Again the touch of defiance lifted her chin and brightened her eyes. “That’s why I want to travel.”

“To Paris or Stockholm?” he inquired. “My next trip will be to Wien, and then, in April, I will go to Venezia. Would you like to spend your birthday on the Grand Canal?” They had arbitrarily assigned the day of their meeting, April 17, as her birthday, and she had been pleased with this.

“The Grand Canal? In a gondola?” Her dissatisfaction had faded and she grinned at him. “Would you let me?”

He nodded, and began to play a song he had not sung for more than three hundred years. “‘Colla febre di gioia mi manca./ Ma piu bramo la pace per il mio cor,/ Or’ senza speranza e senza rancor.’” Quite suddenly he stopped playing.

“Papa? What is it?” She had seen that flash of pain that occasionally crossed Ragoczy’s features.

“I was remembering a friend. He’s dead now. He sang that song one autumn morning, not long before he died.” He got up from the piano, knowing that he would not be able to play for a while.

“What was his name?” Neither she nor Ragoczy spoke much of the past: she recalled so little of it, and he found it too difficult, or so she feared.

“His name was Lauro.” He said it quietly, with so little emotion that Laisha knew he had not yet ceased to miss his friend.

“Italian?”

“Florentine.” He turned back toward her. “I have a house in Venezia. You might like to stay there for a few months. I will arrange for tutors there, or you may take Miss Speits and Miss Arrild with you.”

“Would you be there?” She was anxious to go, but dreaded the thought of being left alone in an unknown, foreign city.

“Part of the time. I have business in Milano and Roma, and I would go there, and to Lausanne. Would two months be enough for you?” He saw her enthusiasm and her caution. “You needn’t make up your mind at once. With the snow so deep, I will not be going far at the moment. By March I will have to make plans.”

“Oh, by March I should be able to be ready.” The regal disdain with which she spoke was so unexpected and so inappropriate that Ragoczy, in spite of himself, laughed.

“My child,” he assured her a bit later, “you must not be angry with me. I have known Princesses who would have given their jewels to be able to behave as you just did.” With an affectionate smile, he came across the room to her. “You’re my treasure, Laisha.”

“No matter who I am?” There it was, in that trembling question, all her fear, her doubts that would probably never have answers.

“No matter who you are,” he said, making a vow of it. “You are my daughter—”

“Your ward,” she corrected him sadly.

“My daughter. If the man and woman who gave you birth came through that door at this instant”—he gestured toward the music-room door—“you would still be my daughter in everything but … blood.” He hesitated. “And that, well, that you will never be, and so we will not be concerned with it.”

She sighed. “I sometimes wonder if I have brothers or sisters? What if I am the child of a servant who was dressing up in the noble children’s clothes? What if one of those who burned the manor found the dress and put it on his own child?” She had heard many times the tale of how Ragoczy came to find her, and each time she was filled with such questions.

“You’re tormenting yourself needlessly, Laisha,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It would matter to Nikolai,” she said with certainty. “He … he reminded me that I was a noble and he a peasant.” For the previous five months, Laisha had had an intense crush on Nikolai Rozoh which had been as short-lived as it was ardent.

“It was kind of him to say that,” Ragoczy told her. He had had two interviews with Nikolai, who had feared that he would be dismissed because of Laisha’s obvious attachment to him. At the time he had assured Ragoczy that he had done nothing to bring this on himself, and that fond as he was of the child, he was much too old for the girl, had done his best to convince her of this, but she had known him for enough time to think …

“Yes. I see that it was,” she said in a stifled tone. “I didn’t know he minded that much. I just thought that he wanted to show me what I felt wasn’t enough for him, since he’s older and has lived through so much.” Her head lowered and her cheeks darkened to red.

“Laisha, my dear, you will feel this again—” Ragoczy began, but she interrupted him.

“I know better than that now.”

“But it’s not your mind, your intellect, that does this. You’re a bright student, with real gifts and an active curiosity. But you are also becoming a woman, and your body does things to you. Your mind is not isolated from your body. With the greatest determination in the world, you can’t escape the consequences of maturing.” He was aware that she did not entirely believe him, that she thought this was a reassuring and polite lie invented for her.

“Did you feel that way, when you were my age?” This time she was more forlorn than defiant.

“Well, I am male,” he said, evading the question. “And it was … a long time ago.” Would he ever tell her of those nearly four thousand years? When she was older, he might, or so he promised himself when faced with her inquiries.

“And you don’t remember?” Her voice caught.

“Very little,” he admitted. “Enough to know that for two or three years I baffled myself. In my homeland, there were customs and rituals to modify the transition, and there was war, so that when I could stand it no longer, it was possible to take up arms rather than battle myself.” He had ridden with his father’s warriors five times before they had been overcome by the stronger, better-armed southerners. The god, in whose service he was promised at birth, led them, his speed and strength setting an enviable example to those who fought with him. Ragoczy had gained that speed and endurance but had also learned caution. As a youth, he had been reckless to the point of folly.

“Why is it that I’m always being told I’ll understand when I’m older, or I’ll be ready, or tolerant, or all the rest of it?” She was not complaining now, but asking a weary question with as little emotion as possible. “I
do
want to know, Papa.”

“Yes, Laisha.” Ragoczy went to her side, brushing the soft wool of her jacket as he gave her a fleeting hug. “Part of it is that it is true. Many things are not understood until age gives them a perspective. Eventually that difference becomes … less important. The rest of it … there are many things adults have no more comprehension of than an infant. There are things that frighten us. Miss Speits cannot talk about anything having to do with dissection because of her fear of such things. Her uncle was a butcher, did you know? They used to bring the children to watch the slaughter so that they would know where their food came from. Miss Speits becomes ill if asked to eat lamb.” He breathed deeply. “No one is immune from such fears, and it is strange to see how ashamed people are of them. You saw what this can do when you asked Miss Arrild to tell you why she would not step into the new telephone box at the station in Hausham, if she wished privacy. At the time, she gave you an unconvincing response and later would not discuss it with you, claiming she would explain it to you when you were old enough to understand, which means that she does not intend to discuss it at all, and is depending on you to forget the incident and her promise. There are many people who cannot endure small, closed places, and she is one. If you were forty instead of fourteen, Miss Arrild could not tell you why she fears this, but it makes it less painful for her to postpone the entire, matter.”

Laisha had been watching him with a guarded expression. “Do I not remember because of fear?” The question was flung out defiantly, impetuously.

Ragoczy turned toward her, compassion in his dark eyes that contrasted with the carefully flippant tone of his answer. “Are you certain you don’t want to wait until you’re older to examine that?”

She set her hands on her hips, determined to be angry, but she could not stop the spurt of laughter that shook her. “You can’t stop me.”

“I don’t wish to stop you,” he said gravely. “But you must forgive me, my child, for not wanting to see you hurt.”

“Do you think I would be?” she demanded.

“Do you think you wouldn’t?” He went back to the piano. “Laisha, if you wish to be aided to regain your memory, I will do whatever I can for you. There are alienists and other physicians who work with such cases, and I will put you in their care. If it were safe to do so, I would take you back to Latvia so that you might see what has happened there. At the moment that is a great risk, but in time conditions will alter, and then, should you wish it, I will see that you have the chance to go there.” His face was somber now and he did not make any attempt to conceal the depth of his concern. “The reason I hesitate is that once that path is chosen, it is difficult and often impossible to leave it. You must be quite certain that you wish to learn these things.”

“I think I am,” she said, with emphasis on “think.”

His left hand picked out a few notes at random. “As you wish. If you tell me the same thing in one week, I will make whatever arrangements are necessary.” Before she could object, he explained. “You’ve said that you are bored this afternoon, and you have just been through a … trying few days. A week isn’t long to wait, Laisha. There is no dishonor in changing your mind. What you want is a hard-won thing, and for that reason, all I ask is that you be certain. Will you do that much for me?”

Laisha wanted to find out why Ragoczy had suggested such circumspection, but did not quite have the determination to ask him. She pulled at her untidy hair and moved closer to the piano. “A week of this snow … In a week, let us talk again.”

“We may talk before then, if you wish it,” he said quietly. “I am … a trifle old to be a father for the first time, Laisha, and so I must ask you to bear with me.”

“But you
will
do it, if I say I want it?” She was not able to hide how deeply she wanted his consent.

“Yes, provided you understand what you’re doing. This isn’t something you should attempt on a whim.” He was silent for a little time while Laisha bit her lower lip. “If there were a way I could simply wave a magic wand and restore your memory to you, intact, painless, I would do it in an instant. But I think it might take much time and great anguish to bring back what you have lost. You did not forget from caprice, but from some emotion or event so … overwhelming”—he could not say “hurtful” or “terrible,” for that would bring more concern to her—“that you shut it away. You must face that now, and be prepared to learn the reason for it. I’m not saying this to threaten you, Laisha, please believe this. Your suffering hurts me as well; to cause you more without reason…”

Laisha could not express herself now, as he turned toward her. Her confusion was too complete. How wonderful it was to know that he did have so much love for her, and how baffling. She had done nothing to deserve it, or so her tutors had insisted on many occasions. She had been instructed in the right manner she should display toward her guardian, whose generosity was remarkable. Her behavior was not in the approved style, and yet it had gained her more than she had known was there for her. “Miss Arrild says I shouldn’t…” she blurted out, and swallowed hard against the knot in her throat.