Gwendoline Butler - The Red Staircase

‘But why me?’ I was amused, but also amazed at the conviction in her voice. ‘Why should you think I was worth bringing all the way from Scotland on the chance I could do that?’ If you truly did, I thought – because I still believed Dolly Denisov to be very much her own mistress and much more likely to follow her own will than the old Princess’s, emeralds or no.

She looked mysterious. ‘Ah, but you see it was foretold. In the cards. I set great store by the cards and they never let me down. I was told again and again that a girl like you would come from far away, and that through her I would be given great comfort, and that I would not die until she left. So that’s easy: you will not leave.’

I looked at her, half exasperated, half laughing. ‘My sister also foretold my future, although not from the cards. She foretold great happiness, wealth and a tragedy for me, but I don’t happen to believe it.’

Then Princess Irene clapped her hands. ‘Confirmation! The forces which one can only respect – ’ and here she crossed herself – ‘are interested in you. They communicate with each other.’

‘On the other hand, the forces didn’t happen to mention you ,’ I pointed out cruelly.

‘But that doesn’t matter, naturally they would only speak of that to me . A great fortune for you, did you say, and yet a tragedy? Hmm. I wonder what that means? One can’t always take these things at their face value.’ She was laughing at me, mocking me, the old devil. ‘There are fortunes and fortunes. Anyway, you won’t go away and leave me to die, will you now? You couldn’t do it. I can see you’re a girl of affections. Sympathy, even.’

‘I won’t go before I have to; I certainly wouldn’t like your death on my head.’

‘Ah now you’re laughing at me!’ She clapped her hands. ‘The little moth flutters in the web. Good. That is what I like to see. Laugh on.’

‘Only a very little laugh.’

‘Well, promise me to stay. Promise?’ She was openly wheedling me now.

‘I promise.’ I held out my hand, and she held out hers, and we exchanged handshakes.

‘A bargain,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘Supposing I should live to be a hundred – without pain, of course. Here, give me that hand-mirror and let me look at my face.’ Silently I handed over the small silver object whose back was studded with sapphires. She looked at herself. ‘Yes, I think I shall do it. You’ve done me good already. I can see it in my face.’ And she pinched her cheeks to make the blood run. ‘Look at the colour there.’

‘There was colour in your cheeks before,’ I said.

‘Painted on. You are laughing at me again.’ She lay back on her pillows, determined to teach me a lesson. ‘Oh, that pain. It’s the pain when it comes that will kill me. You can stop the pain.’ Her voice was rising. ‘When it comes, it comes here, over my heart. It’s coming now. Take it away from me.’

Through the door behind her bed appeared the small, squat figure of an elderly woman wearing a long, dark blue dress and white apron. Her hair was braided all over her head in tiny little plaits, and on top of them she wore a white cap like a little scarf.

With a hostile look at me and a ‘Go away, Baryna,’ she hurried over to the bed. ‘Mistress, mistress, speak to your Anna. You will make yourself ill.’

‘I am ill, you fool. Go away, I tell you. Rose, Rose Gowrie, come here.’

I did not move. Not one step would I take.

‘Do what her Excellency says, Baryna,’ ordered Anna sullenly.

‘She’s not ill,’ I said. ‘She’s just pretending.’

The old lady stopped her moans and lay back on the pillows, staring at me.

‘You can’t deceive me,’ I said. ‘I know whether you are in pain or not. And the pain, when it comes, is not in your heart, but deeper down in your guts.’

Anna gave a shocked little cluck at my bluntness. The Princess coughed, her shoulders heaving, but with laughter. I had passed some sort of test. All the same, she was a sick woman and my trained eye detected and interpreted the great pulse banging away in her throat.

‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘And no more tricks, or you will be ill.’ She was running a risk, staging little scenes like this.

‘Anna, bring me a drink.’

‘Water only,’ I said severely.

The Princess pulled a face. ‘Did you think I would ask for vodka? Only peasant women drink vodka.’ She accepted a tall glass from Anna and sipped it serenely. But since the glass was coloured deep blue, I was unable to see if the liquid it contained was water. I doubted it.

‘About that great fortune you are to have.’

‘A solid, heavy fortune, I think my sister called it,’ I said, remembering.

‘Well, you must not expect it from me.’

Indignantly, I said: ‘I never thought of such a thing for a moment. That would be detestable. Stupid, too.’

‘No, as you say. And yet people do think such things. Such a thought comes into the mind without much effort. It is true I am a rich woman, but my fortune must devolve upon my great-niece and nephew. There remain the jewels which my lover gave me, but those too are promised to Dolly. So you see, you can have no hopes from me.’

‘I don’t think nature intended me to be rich,’ I said soberly.

‘No, it might not be a material inheritance that was meant. There are spiritual ones,’ said the Princess, with an intent look. ‘You have the face of a girl who might have a serious spiritual journey to make.’ She was talking, half to herself, hardly at all to me. I heard her murmur: ‘Child, in your prayers be all my sins remembered.’

Of course,’ I whispered, anxious to reassure. ‘But are they so many?’

‘Yes.’ The word ended on a gasp. I saw the vein in her throat grow and become purple like a grape. ‘More than you know. I have been a wicked woman.’

Urgently I said: ‘Where is your medicine? You have some drops to take?’ She couldn’t answer. I turned to the old maid. ‘Anna, you know, I’m sure. Fetch me her medicine.’

At once Anna produced from a capacious pocket a tiny glass phial. I looked at it, assessed its contents as amyl-nitrate, and snapped it between my fingers and held it under the Princess’s nose so that she could inhale the fumes. All the time I could hear Anna’s jealous voice grumbling away.

As the vapours rose and entered her lungs, so the Princess relaxed; it was very quick, in a minute she was breathing easily.

‘Well, that’s better. So that’s the pain, is it?’

‘One of them,’ she managed, and even smiled wryly. ‘I have several devils that torment me.’

Angina, I thought, and the pain coming because her heart muscle is short of oxygen. But I also thought that she had another and more serious ailment, an obstruction of the gut somewhere which caused even more prolonged pain. And yet I doubted if she would die of either just yet. She was tough.

‘You have violet eyes,’ she murmured, staring up into them as I bent over her. ‘Women with violet eyes always have a sad destiny.’ She was an inveterate romantic.

‘Cheer up. In our family violet eyes turn to a dark grey as we grow older, so you see I shall end up happy.’

She even managed to laugh.

‘That’s better. Goodbye now. And don’t let that old maid of yours bully you.’

‘ She bully me?’

‘I think she does.’

Anna managed to bang into me as I stood there, giving my hip a thump with the great bunch of keys she carried suspended from her waist. ‘Oh, the wickedness,’ she muttered. ‘She should be beaten. I’d beat her. Take no notice of her, Princess. Old Anna is the one who knows.’

‘Be quiet, you are an illiterate old woman and know nothing about anything,’ commanded her mistress. ‘I think this girl is very wise. From your face I see I can expect a greater pain. Is that what I must look for, then? More pain?’