Ken Follett - The Man From St. Petersburg

“Why have you changed your clothes?” Feliks asked.

“Oh, everybody has to change all the time here. Every hour of the day has its appropriate clothes, you see. You must show your shoulders at dinnertime but not at lunch. You must wear a corset for dinner but not for tea. You can’t wear an indoor gown outside. You can wear woolen stockings in the library but not in the morning room. You can’t imagine the rules I have to remember.”

He nodded. He was no longer capable of being surprised by the degeneracy of the ruling class.

She handed him her sketches, and he became businesslike again. He studied them. “Where are the guns kept?” he said.

She touched his arm. “Don’t be so abrupt,” she said. “I’m on your side-remember?”

Suddenly she was grown-up again. Feliks smiled ruefully. “I had forgotten,” he said.

“The guns are kept in the gun room.” She pointed it out on the plan. “You really did have an affair with Mama.”

“Yes.”

“I find it so hard to believe that she would do such a thing.”

“She was very wild, then. She still is, but she pretends otherwise.”

“You really think she’s still like that?”

“I know it.”

“Everything, everything turns out to be different from how I thought it was.”

“That’s called growing up.”

She was pensive. “What should I call you, I wonder.”

“What do you mean?”

“I should feel very strange, calling you Father.”

“Feliks will do for now. You need time to get used to the idea of me as your father.”

“Shall I have time?”

Her young face was so grave that he held her hand. “Why not?”

“What will you do when you have Aleks?”

He looked away so that she should not see the guilt in his eyes. “That depends just how and when I kidnap him, but most likely I’ll keep him tied up right here. You’ll have to bring us food, and you’ll have to send a telegram to my friends in Geneva, in code, telling them what has happened. Then, when the news has achieved what we want it to achieve, we’ll let Orlov go.”

“And then?”

“They will look for me in London, so I’ll go north. There seem to be some big towns-Birmingham, Manchester, Hull-where I could lose myself. After a few weeks I’ll make my way back to Switzerland, then eventually to St. Petersburg-that’s the place to be, that’s where the revolution will start.”

“So I’ll never see you again.”

You won’t want to, he thought. He said: “Why not? I may come back to London. You may go to St. Petersburg. We might meet in Paris. Who can tell? If there is such a thing as Fate, it seems determined to bring us together.” I wish I could believe this. I wish I could.

“That’s true,” she said with a brittle smile, and he saw that she did not believe it either. She got to her feet. “Now I must get you some water to wash in.”

“Don’t bother. I’ve been a good deal dirtier than this. I don’t mind.”

“But I do. You smell awful. I’ll be back in a minute.”

With that she went out.

It was the dreariest luncheon Walden could remember in years. Lydia was in some kind of daze. teristically nervy, dropping her cutlery and knocking over a glass. Thomson was taciturn. Sir Arthur Langley attempted to be convivial but nobody responded. Walden himself was withdrawn, obsessed by the puzzle of how Feliks had found out that Aleks was at Walden Hall. He was tortured by the ugly suspicion that it had something to do with Lydia. After all, Lydia had told Feliks that Aleks was at the Savoy Hotel; and she had admitted that Feliks was “vaguely familiar” from St. Petersburg days. Could it be that Feliks had some kind of hold on her? She had been behaving oddly, as if distracted, all summer. And now, as he thought about Lydia in a detached way for the first time in nineteen years, he admitted to himself that she was sexually lukewarm. Of course, well-bred women were supposed to be like that; but he knew perfectly well that this was a polite fiction, and that women generally suffered the same longings as men. Was it that Lydia longed for someone else, someone from her past? That would explain all sorts of things which until now had not seemed to need explanation. It was perfectly horrible, he found, to look at his lifetime companion and see a stranger.

After lunch Sir Arthur went back to the Octagon, where he had set up his headquarters. Walden and Thomson put on their hats and took their cigars out onto the terrace. The park looked lovely in the sunshine, as always. From the distant drawing room came the crashing opening chords of the Tchaikovsky piano concerto: Lydia was playing. Walden felt sad. Then the music was drowned by the roar of a motorcycle as another messenger came to report the progress of the search to Sir Arthur. So far there had been no news.

A footman served coffee, then left them alone. Thomson said: “I didn’t want to say this in front of Lady Walden, but I think we may have a clue to the identity of the traitor.”

Walden went cold.

Thomson said: “Last night I interviewed Bridget Callahan, the Cork Street landlady. I’m afraid I got nothing out of her. However, I left my men to search her house. This morning they showed me what they had found.” He took from his pocket an envelope which had been torn in half, and handed the two pieces to Walden.

Walden saw with a shock that the envelope bore the Walden Hall crest.

Thomson said: “Do you recognize the handwriting?”

Walden turned the pieces over. The envelope was addressed:

Mr. F. Kschessinsky c/o 19 Cork Street London, N.

Walden said: “Oh, dear God, not Charlotte.” He wanted to cry.

Thomson was silent.

“She led him here,” Walden said. “My own daughter.” He stared at the envelope, willing it to disappear. The handwriting was quite unmistakable, like a juvenile version of his own script.

“Look at the postmark,” Thomson said. “She wrote it as soon as she arrived here. It was mailed from the village.”

“How could this happen?” Walden said.

Thomson made no reply.

“Feliks was the man in the tweed cap,” Walden said. “It all fits.” He felt hopelessly sad, almost bereaved, as if someone dear to him had died. He looked out over his park, at trees planted fifty years ago by his father, at a lawn that had been cared for by his family for a hundred years, and it all seemed worthless, worthless. He said quietly: “You fight for your country, and you are betrayed from within by socialists and revolutionists; you fight for your class, and you’re betrayed by Liberals; you fight for your family, and even they betray you. Charlotte! Why, Charlotte, why?” He felt a choking sensation. “What a damnable life this is, Thomson. What a damnable life.”

“I’ll have to interview her,” Thomson said.

“So will I.” Walden stood up. He looked at his cigar. It had gone out. He threw it away. “Let’s go in.”

They went in.

In the hall Walden stopped a maid. “Do you know where Lady Charlotte is?”

“I believe she’s in her room, my lord. Shall I go and see?”

“Yes. Tell her I wish to speak to her in her room immediately.”

“Very good, m’lord.”

Thomson and Walden waited in the hall. Walden looked around. The marble floor, the carved staircase, the stucco ceiling, the perfect proportions-worthless. A footman drifted by silently, eyes lowered. A motorcycle messenger came in and headed for the Octagon. Pritchard crossed the hall and picked up the letters for posting from the hall table, just as he must have the day Charlotte’s treacherous letter to Feliks was written. The maid came down the stairs.

“Lady Charlotte is ready to see you, my lord.”

Walden and Thomson went up.