Ken Follett - The Man From St. Petersburg

Leaving the doors open, Feliks went from the flower room, through the gun room, and into the library, feeling his way in the dark, holding his unlit candle in his hand. He sat on the floor in the library behind a big leather sofa and counted slowly to one thousand. Nobody came. The sentry was not the cautious type.

He went back into the gun room and lit the candle. The windows were heavily curtained here-there had been no curtains in the flower room. He went cautiously into the flower room, took the knife he had seen over the rack, came back into the gun room and bent over the gun rack. He used the blade of the knife to undo the screws that held the bracket to the wood of the rack. The wood was old and hard, but eventually the screws came loose and he was able to unchain the guns.

There were three cupboards in the room. One held bottles of brandy and whiskey, together with glasses. Another held bound copies of a magazine called Horse and Hound and a huge leather-bound ledger marked GAME BOOK. The third was locked: that must be where the ammunition was kept.

Feliks broke the lock with the garden knife.

Of the three types of guns available-Winchester, shotgun or elephant gun-he preferred the Winchester. However, as he searched through the boxes of ammunition he realized there were no cartridges here either for the Winchester or for the elephant gun: those weapons must have been kept as souvenirs. He had to be content with a shotgun. All three pairs were twelve-bore, and all the ammunition consisted of cartridges of number-six shot. To be sure of killing his man he would have to fire at close range-no more than twenty yards, to be absolutely certain. And he would have only two shots before reloading.

Still, he thought, I only want to kill two people.

The image of Lydia lying on the nursery floor kept coming back to him. When he thought of how they had made love, he felt exultant. He no longer felt the fatalism which had gripped him immediately afterward. Why should I die? he thought. And when I have killed Walden, who knows what might happen then?

He loaded the gun

And now, Lydia thought, I shall have to kill myself.

She saw no other possibility. She had descended to the depths of depravity for the second time in her life. All her years of self-discipline had come to nothing, just because Feliks had returned. She could not live with the knowledge of what she was. She wanted to die, now.

She considered how it might be done. What could she take that was poisonous? There must be rat poison somewhere on the premises, but of course she did not know where. An overdose of laudanum? She was not sure she had enough. You could kill yourself with gas, she recalled, but Stephen had converted the house to electric light. She wondered whether the top stories were high enough for her to die by jumping from a window. She was afraid she might merely break her back and be paralyzed for years. She did not think she had the courage to slash her wrists; and besides, it would take so long to bleed to death. The quickest way would be to shoot herself. She thought she could probably load a gun and fire it: she had seen it done innumerable times. But, she remembered, the guns were locked up.

Then she thought of the lake. Yes, that was the answer. She would go to her room and put on a robe; then she would leave the house by a side door, so that the policemen should not see her; and she would walk across the west side of the park, beside the rhododendrons, and through the woods until she came to the water’s edge; then she would just keep walking, until the cool water closed over her head; then she would open her mouth, and a minute or so later it would be all over.

She left the nursery and walked along the corridor in the dark. She saw a light under Charlotte’s door, and hesitated. She wanted to see her little girl one last time. The key was in the lock on the outside. She unlocked the door and went in.

Charlotte sat in a chair by the window, fully dressed but asleep. Her face was pale but for the redness around her eyes. She had unpinned her hair. Lydia closed the door and went over to her. Charlotte opened her eyes.

“What’s happened?” she said.

“Nothing,” Lydia said. She sat down.

Charlotte said: “Do you remember when Nannie went away?”

“Yes. You were old enough for a governess, and I didn’t have another baby.”

“I had forgotten all about it for years. I’ve just remembered. You never knew, did you, that I thought Nannie was my mother?”

“I don’t know… did you think so? You always called me Mama, and her Nannie…”

“Yes.” Charlotte spoke slowly, almost desultorily, as if she were lost in the fog of distant memory. “You were Mama, and Nannie was Nannie, but everybody had a mother, you see, and when Nannie said you were my mother, I said don’t be silly, Nannie, you are my mother. And Nannie just laughed. Then you sent her away. I was broken-hearted.”

“I never realized…”

“Marya never told you, of course-what governess would?”

Charlotte was just repeating the memory, not accusing her mother, just explaining something. She went on: “So you see, I have the wrong mother, and now I have the wrong father, too. The new thing made me remember the old, I suppose.”

Lydia said: “You must hate me. I understand. I hate myself.”

“I don’t hate you, Mama. I’ve been dreadfully angry toward you, but I’ve never hated you.”

“But you think I’m a hypocrite.”

“Not even that.”

A feeling of peace came over Lydia.

Charlotte said: “I’m beginning to understand why you’re so fiercely respectable, why you were so determined that I should never know anything of sex… you just wanted to save me from what happened to you. And I’ve found out that there are hard decisions, and that sometimes one can’t tell what’s good and right to do; and I think I’ve judged you harshly, when I had no right to judge you at all… and I’m not very proud of myself.”

“Do you know that I love you?”

“Yes… and I love you, Mama, and that’s why I feel so wretched.”

Lydia was dazed. This was the last thing she had expected. After all that had happened-the lies, the treachery, the anger, the bitterness-Charlotte still loved her. She was suffused with a kind of tranquil joy. Kill myself? she thought. Why should I kill myself?

“We should have talked like this before,” Lydia said.

“Oh, you’ve no idea how much I wanted to,” Charlotte said. “You were always so good at telling me how to curtsy, and carry my train, and sit down gracefully, and put up my hair… and I longed for you to explain important things to me in the same way-about falling in love and having babies-but you never did.”

“I never could,” Lydia said. “I don’t know why.”

Charlotte yawned. “I think I’ll sleep now.” She stood up.

Lydia kissed her cheek, then embraced her.

Charlotte said: “I love Feliks, too, you know; that hasn’t changed.”

“I understand,” said Lydia. “I do, too.”

“Good night, Mama.”

“Good night.”

Lydia went out quickly and closed the door behind her. She hesitated outside. What would Charlotte do if the door were left unlocked? Lydia decided to save her the anxiety of the decision. She turned the key in the lock.

She went down the stairs, heading for her own room. She was so glad she had talked to Charlotte. Perhaps, she thought, this family could be mended, after all; I’ve no idea how, but surely it might be done. She went into her room.

“Where have you been?” said Stephen.

Now that Feliks had a weapon, all he had to do was get Orlov out of his room. He knew how to do that. He was going to burn the house down.