Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Barque of Frailty

“Very well,” I said, and wished I had time enough for the brewing of tea in the interval.

Manon quitted the house, as was proper, by the servants’ entrance at the rear; and in a few moments I glimpsed her striding confidently towards the green. The clock on Eliza’s mantel chimed seven; the Russian woman had escaped from her quarters on Hans Place at an early hour. For an instant I considered of her present existence: surrounded by powerful men — Prince Pirov and his followers — who kept their own servants and undoubtedly regarded

Druschka as a pitiful old retainer, not worth the slightest consideration. Even her grief should be read as an offence — the Druschkas of the world were not allowed to feel. It was hardly wonderful that she sought comfort in solitary rambles.

Manon’s mother, Madame Bigeon, was audibly moving about the kitchen; I ventured towards that region of the house and saw to my relief that tea was already in the pot. Madame Bigeon poured me out a cup, and offered me bread and jam, which I gratefully accepted.

“I am going out for a walk,” I said brightly. “The weather is so very fine!” The old woman gave a brief nod of the head, and returned to preparing Eliza’s breakfast tray. Several fowls lay upon a scrubbed oak table, ready for the plucking, and the sight of their limp necks instantly recalled to mind the Princess Tscholikova. I averted my gaze, the bread and jam lodging uncomfortably in my throat, and made my way to the servants’ door.

THERE WERE TRADESMEN ENOUGH THE LENGTH OF Sloane Street, but Cadogan Place was empty of life. The children of Hans Town preferred eggs and toast in the nursery to the early chill of an April morning. I did not immediately discover Manon and her Russian acquaintance; but a brisk stroll the length of the square’s north and east sides revealed them to be established on a stone bench, all but hidden by greenery, their heads together in close conversation.

I pursued my solitary way as tho’ I had not observed them; but in drawing abreast of the pair, exclaimed, “What is this, Manon! Have you leave to desert your mistress at such an hour? You had better be building up the fires, and attending Madame Henri in her dressing room!”

Manon sprang to her feet as if conscious of her error, then bobbed a curtsey. “I beg your pardon, mademoiselle — indeed I beg it most earnestly — but I could not ignore such misery in one who may claim my friendship. You who are so wise — who possess the friends in high places — you cannot fail to pity poor Druschka, when you have heard all.”

“Druschka?” I repeated as I studied the Russian woman, whose eyes met mine unflinchingly. She rose from her seat, and stood humbly clutching a leather-bound book to her bosom as tho’ it were her dearest child. “You are the Princess Tscholikova’s maid, I think?”

The words required no translator.

“I was,” she said in her guttural way, then muttered a few hurried French words of farewell to Manon.

“Restez,” Manon commanded, and grasped the Russian’s arm. “If it is justice you seek, you must talk to Mademoiselle Austen. She, too, does not credit the tale of suicide; and for reasons of her own she has sought the advice of a lawyer, look you. A powerful man who might discover the truth. Mademoiselle will help you. But you must trust her. I will speak the words you cannot. It is understood?”

Druschka stiffened, and for an instant I feared she might bolt as swift as a hare across the open stretch of green, her precious book hurled to the winds. Then resolve seemed to break in her, and she sank down once more on the stone bench.

“Pray ask her, Manon, why her mistress was embarrassed for funds in the last days before her death.”

The question was put, and the answer came in a shrug. The Princess had never wanted for money before; her income was disbursed each quarter by her bankers, and in London this was the firm of Coutts. The sum was made over by her brother; the Princess’s husband did not utter her name aloud, tho’ he had certainly kept all the wealth she had brought to her marriage.

“Was the Princess a gamester?”

Druschka shook her head emphatically: No.

I glanced at Manon, perplexed; perhaps the rumour of indebtedness was unfounded. Yet the Princess had certainly sought my brother’s aid, and not her own banker’s. That surely bespoke a measure of desperation, or deceit. I attempted another approach.

“Was the Princess’s behaviour all that it should be, in the days leading up to her death?”

Manon translated the reply. “My lady was beside herself; she was nearly out of her mind. I have never seen her so. And when I asked her the reason, she would not confide in me. I knew, then, that the trouble was very bad. Hours and hours she spent at her desk, writing her letters — a madness in the paper and ink — and then I would find the ashes of what she had burned. None of them sent.”

I could not help but think of Lord Castlereagh, and the salacious correspondence published in the Morning Post. Was this the proof of all his lordship would deny?

“Letters to whom?” I demanded.

Druschka lifted up her hands.

“She cannot read,” Manon explained.

I glanced down at the leather-bound volume the maid still clutched close to her heart. “Why, then, is this book so precious?”

“It is her mistress’s journal,” Manon replied. “This, alone, Tscholikova failed to burn. Druschka has been guarding it against the brother — Prince Pirov — for fear he will destroy it. She brought it to me in the hope I might decipher the words — tell her why her mistress died. The Princess wrote in French, voyez-vous. Druschka speaks that tongue, but the letters are foreign to her … ”

I held Manon’s gaze. “And this the Princess did not burn. Good God! What we might find there … ”

Manon crouched near the Russian maid, and spoke softly to her in French. Druschka cradled her head in her hands, the book sliding unheeded to the ground. A broken phrase fell from her lips.

“What can women hope,” Manon translated, “against all the power of the Tsar?”

“The Tsar!” I cried.

Druschka stared at me in horror, as tho’ I had uttered an oath aloud.

“But what has he to do, pray, with the death of Princess Tscholikova?” I pressed. And so she began her tale.

IT WAS A MEANDERING STORY, FULL OF INCIDENT and memory: the Princess as a child, consigned to her English governess from the age of seven and ignored by her bitter father; the Princess’s mother, dead in childbirth of a stillborn son; the elder brother, Prince Pirov, attached to the St. Petersburg Court, a glittering and distant figure, close to the young Tsar. Evgenia buried in the country, lonely but for her dolls. The wolfhounds by the fire of an evening; the sound of hunting horns in the freezing early dusk. Druschka was her nursemaid, banished by the young woman who journeyed all the way from London to instruct the Princess in French and Italian, watercolours and the use of the globes; but the Englishwoman was unhappy — she was a cold creature, colder than the steppes — and it was to Druschka the Princess came for stories at bedtime, Druschka who tended Evgenia when she was ill.

I watched as a few tears slid from the aged eyes, Manon’s voice a quiet whisper above Druschka’s own; the brisk wind of spring toyed with my bonnet strings and I shuddered, as tho’ I, too, felt the cold of the steppes in my blood.

When the old Prince died, Evgenia was summoned to St. Petersburg and the English governess was sent packing back home, no companion being necessary for a girl of fifteen on the point of her debut; Evgenia would live with her brother now, in the grand palace on the Neva, and her brother’s wife — a haughty woman with vast estates in her dowry, for all she was only a countess — would introduce the child to Society, and find her a husband. Druschka expected her young mistress to leap with joy at the prospect — she did not think the girl could pack her trunks fast enough — but to her dismay, Evgenia was afraid. She bore her brother no love and his wife even less; she feared that she might fail them — too stupid, too ugly, too maladroit.