Gwendoline Butler - The Red Staircase

Yeliseyeff’s, as I was to discover, was a large provision store filled with exotic delicacies from all over the world: great jars of crystallised apricots and plums, drums of mysterious marrons glacés , bowls of strawberries and peaches, sacks of dark brown nuts. Seasons had no place in Yeliseyeff’s calendar, any fruit could be had at any time.

Ariadne ordered the little game birds for her mother from a smiling assistant, added to it the request for a box of praliné almonds for herself, and then led me to the grand treat of the morning. ‘Coffee and ices at Berrin’s,’ she announced.

Berrin’s was the French confiserie in Morskaya Street, just off the great Nevsky Avenue, and thither we were driven in the car which had all this time been following us at a discreet distance. There, at a round mahogany table in the window, we ate tiny sponge cakes and ice-cream served to us by a tall Frenchwoman dressed in brown and black, a colour combination I had never seen before – and it would certainly have looked dowdy enough at Jordansjoy – but which I now realized was of great elegance.

‘If this is to be my life in St Petersburg,’ I thought, ‘I am on Easy Street.’

An indeed, during those first few days in St Petersburg I was beginning to see a little of what lay behind Edward Lacey’s reservations about Russian society; it would be easy to be corrupted, to sink back into a comfortable, idle life. I do not deny that for a little while I indulged myself with daydreams about what it would be like to be a femme du monde like Dolly Denisov, with nothing to do except mind my clothes and my appearance. Delicious fantasies they were, too, but not for long. I delighted in Dolly Denisov, but I did not wish to be her, it was not in my nature to live like that. Besides, even Dolly had a conscience. Had she not asked me to come here to help with the health of her peasants? So before long I asked, rather shyly, if I could be introduced to this side of my duties.

‘Oh, aren’t you happy with Ariadne, then?’ she asked in some surprise.

‘But very. She’s a delightful girl, and I love going about the town with her. But I long to get on with the medical work,’ I said eagerly.

‘Yes of course, I can understand that.’ She gave a severe look at one of her own beautifully manicured hands, as if that hand was anxious to get out and cleanse wounds and tie bandages. ‘But it’s difficult till we go to Shereshevo, which will not be until a little later. It is there you will work, you see. Still, I don’t see why you couldn’t make a start.’ She considered. ‘Would you like to go and see one of the great St Petersburg hospitals?’

‘Oh, I would.’

‘Then I’ll arrange it. Let me see, tomorrow won’t do; I’m fully engaged. Nor the day after ― fittings, you know, for one or two new little dresses. But the day after that .’ She consulted her diary. ‘Yes, the morning of that day will do beautifully. Would you like to see the hospital of St George? I know the doctor, the medical administrator there, and he will arrange it for us.’

It wasn’t quite what I had had in mind; from my Edinburgh experience I knew that hospital inspections by a fashionable party of people, even those blessed by the noblest of motives, were not relished by busy doctors and nurses. Nor much by the sick themselves, I suspected. ‘If it’s all right,’ I said doubtfully.

‘You mean, for the doctors, the patients?’ Dolly’s eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘Oh, but they will love it.’

And when we got there I found to my surprise that this was true, at least of the patients. They really did enjoy being visited; my first intimation – one among many – of the differences between the Russian spirit and what I was used to at home.

We drove out to the hospital in Dolly’s car, travelling for about half an hour, first through the prosperous heart of the city with its great shops and palaces, then into a more working-class district. I looked about me with interest.

‘Well?’ said Dolly, adding with some irony: ‘A charming area, is it not?’

‘It looks poor enough,’ I said bluntly, ‘and it reminds me more of Glasgow than Edinburgh, with its great tenement blocks alternating with factories.’

‘Yes, there is a lot of industry here.’ Dolly put her hand on my arm. ‘Over there is a factory that should interest you.’ We were passing a high brick wall which protected a bleak stone building with few windows and those set high. ‘It belongs to your godfather, Erskine Gowrie.’

I stared at it as we sped past. ‘What do they make there? What kind of factory is it?’

After a moment’s pause, Dolly said: ‘Some sort of engineering factory, I believe.’

‘Engineering, is it? I thought I was told it was a chemical factory.’

‘I may have got it wrong,’ said Dolly easily. ‘It’s the sort of thing I do get wrong.’

‘I wonder if I could see over it.’

‘So you are interested in factories as well as hospitals?’ said Dolly, with a glint of amusement.

‘In that one, anyway, as it belongs to my godfather. He might let me in. Although he seems to have forgotten my existence,’ I added.

‘I believe he sees no one and is quite withdrawn. Senile, you know. With some people old age goes to the legs, and with some the mind.’

As the factory disappeared from my sight I had time to wonder who ran the factory if my godfather was beyond doing so. I was just about to ask Dolly this question when she said: ‘And here is the hospital.’

As far as looks went, there was not much to choose between my godfather’s factory and the hospital, for both were bleak, grey buildings nestling behind high walls; the hospital had more windows, that was all. But in my limited experience all hospitals looked like that outside, more or less; it was the inside that counted and showed its quality.

This hospital was simple enough inside, but well run. Armed with my introduction from Dolly, I was made welcome and taken to the dispensary, where drugs and equipment were laid out for me to see. I made a quick list of what was easily available and what I could order. They seemed to have most of the medicines I would have used at home. But what struck me about the hospital was a looseness of discipline; the staff and patients seemed almost jolly, I actually heard laughter and singing. When I thought about it I could see that happiness must promote healing. I was learning fast about the strange country that was Russia. I could see already that in many ways it was a harsh society, and yet there were always the unexpected things – the gaiety of the people, their charm – that delighted me. And somehow distracted me, too, from focusing on the grimmer realities.

On the way back home we drove by a different route and did not pass my godfather’s factory, which disappointed me. That was all I felt then – curiosity, and disappointment. But perhaps there were already questions forming in my mind: What does this forbidding place produce? What connection to me, exactly, is Erskine Gowrie? Am I to meet him? And if not, why not? Perhaps there was already growing in me a faint unease.

If so, it may well have been sharpened by an incident with Mademoiselle Laure.

I had seen Mademoiselle several times now, and tried to catch her eye, but she always turned away. On purpose, I thought. And I was right. One day I came upon her in the Denisovs’ library. I was determined to talk to her. I went to stand beside her – and inadvertently put my hand on hers, a personal touch I should have avoided. She wrenched it away.

‘I am sorry; your hand is cold,’ she excused herself.

But I refused to be put off. ‘We ought to understand each other, you and I. We take the same place in the household.’