Mary Nichols - The Kirilov Star

‘You look beautiful,’ he said, bending to kiss the tip of her nose. ‘Now, does Tonya have her instructions?’

‘I don’t know. I forgot whether I told her to lock the bedroom door when they stop at the hotel tonight. You never know…’

‘Countess, you have told me a hundred times,’ Tonya put in. ‘And you have told me what to order for supper and what to say to my parents and not to let Andrei out of my sight for a minute. As if I would! And Lydia is to wear all her petticoats and her warmest dress and the seal fur coat you made for her out of your old one…’

‘I am sorry I am such a fusspot,’ Anna said. ‘Of course you know all that. And we shall be together again tomorrow night, so I do not know what I am worrying about. Come, children, sit with us a moment and then we must go.’ They all sat quietly as was the custom before undertaking a journey, but there was no time for lengthy contemplation of what lay before them and it was better not to think of it. Seconds later, she flung her arms about Andrei and hugged him so tight he squirmed to be free. ‘Be good for Tonya and Ivan and look after your sister, won’t you?’

‘Course I will. I’m twelve, nearly a man.’

‘So you are, and I am proud of you.’ She reached for Lydia. ‘Kiss me goodbye, little one, and then I must go. Papa is waiting.’ She had managed to remain dry-eyed, but now the tears started to flow again. It felt as if she were saying goodbye to her children for ever, when it was not her children she might never see again, but her husband. Mikhail was going to see them all onto the boat at Yalta and then there would be real goodbyes. She must not think of that. She had two days to persuade him to travel with them; he had never refused her anything before and she could not believe that he would continue to hold out against her pleas. She brightened and kissed Lydia. ‘Until tomorrow, my darling. Be good.’ Then she drew on her gloves and picked up her muff and followed her husband out to where the carriage waited with the old horse in the shafts.

Tonya, Lydia and Andrei went to the door and watched as the count helped the countess into the carriage and tucked the rug about her before climbing onto the driving seat and flicking the reins over the rump of the old horse. It pricked up its ears and, with a jingle of harness, obeyed the command, ‘Forward!’ They stayed at the door watching and waving until the vehicle was out of sight, while the snow swirled about them and landed on the doormat.

Lydia was loath to move. She did not understand what was happening, but seeing her mother cry had worried her. Mama was a grown-up and never cried. There was more to this trip than either of her parents had admitted. Why all the secrecy and the jewels sewn into their clothes and Mama and Papa going off separately? Papa had said they would be together again tomorrow, but something inside her, a huge dark lump in her breast, stopped her from breathing properly and frightened her.

‘Come back inside, Lidushka,’ Tonya said, taking her hand. ‘They have gone. You can’t see them anymore.’ It sounded like a prophesy.

‘Now, my cherubs,’ she went on, drawing the children back indoors. ‘We must get ready to go too. Go and make sure you have everything, while I pack some food to take with us. We shall have a picnic, eh?’

‘In a snowstorm!’ Andrei laughed, as he scampered up the stairs. He accepted what his father said without question and was treating the whole thing as a great adventure.

‘Do you think we shall ever come back here again?’ Lydia asked him as they reached the landing.

‘Course we will, one day. This is our home. It has belonged to the Kirilovs for hundreds of years. One day it will be mine because I am the heir.’

Lydia looked about her at the carpets and curtains and her bed with its thick hangings to keep out the draughts, though now they were moth-eaten. She felt less sure than Andrei. Everything was changing, like summer suddenly ending and the snow starting, except that the snow would one day melt and spring would come again. But something in her bones, in her soul, told her that this was different and that the springs and summers to come would be nothing like those that had gone before, and it made her anxious.

‘Hurry up!’ Tonya called from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Ivan Ivanovich is back and the droshky is at the door.’

Ivan had said goodbye to Sima and his children and now he was anxious to be off. They picked up the bags Tonya had packed for them and hurried down to the kitchen where Ivan was stamping the snow off his boots on the doormat. He took their bags from them and herded them out to the vehicle. The sight of it with a huge black carthorse in the shafts made Andrei giggle. ‘Do you think you can make it gallop?’ he asked Ivan.

‘Let us hope we do not have to,’ he said curtly, while he stowed the bags inside, lifted Lydia up and deposited her on the long fore and aft seat with her legs on either side, before turning to help Tonya up behind her.

‘I’m going to sit behind you, Ivan Ivanovich,’ Andrei said, moving the shotgun that lay on the seat and putting it on the floor at his feet.

‘Do you think I should have fastened the shutters?’ Tonya asked, looking back at the house.

‘No, we do not want to let everyone know we are fleeing, do we?’ Ivan said. ‘Leave everything looking normal.’

‘Normal!’ She gave a cracked laugh as the big horse began to pull. It was used to shunting heavy engines and the droshky was feather-light by comparison. ‘How can you say normal? I don’t know what that means anymore. All this hole-and-corner stuff. You’d think we were criminals…’

‘In the eyes of the Soviet, we are.’

They reached the end of the drive and turned south towards Petrovsk. It was only one straggling muddy street, lined with crooked wooden houses, which had thatched roofs and painted decorations around the doors and windows. The local Party headquarters on the square was built of brick, and so was the library and the school which was on the far side of the town. The railway station was only a rough wooden building but it also housed the telegraph and post office. There were a few people about, all known to them, and they called out a greeting as they passed. ‘Good day to you, Ivan Ivanovich,’ they said, laughing at the plodding horse. ‘What have you got there? A sledgehammer to crack a nut?’

‘Andrei Mikhailovich must be taken to school,’ he called back. ‘And Mikhail Mikhailovich needed the carriage to visit Grigori Stefanovich on business.’

‘What’s wrong with their legs?’

‘Nothing. It is snowing, or had you not noticed?’

‘Pshaw, they should walk like the rest of us.’

Ivan did not answer but urged the horse to go faster to take them past the hecklers, but it was used to its own steady pace and ignored him. At the school, he drew up. ‘Am I to go in?’ Andrei asked.

‘No, but we will pretend you have. Get out and run round to the back, then cross the field. I will be waiting the other side.’

‘I never heard such nonsense,’ Tonya said. ‘For goodness’ sake, can’t we take the children where we like without all this fuss?’

‘No, we can’t. It’s the count’s orders. Off you go, Andrei, and don’t stop to speak to anyone.’

Andrei believed every word his father had said and had no doubt they would meet at Tonya’s parents’ house and was unworried. ‘I’m going with him,’ the governess said, as he jumped down. ‘I gave my word I would not let him out of my sight. If I’m stopped I shall say I have a message from Anna Yurievna for the teacher.’

Lydia was frightened and clung to Tonya’s hand. ‘You go on with Ivan Ivanovich,’ Tonya said, gently disengaging herself. ‘I shall only be a minute.’