Gwendoline Butler - The Red Staircase

‘Money from Heaven, then, I suppose,’ observed Grizel. ‘For I never knew the Grahams had a rich uncle.’

‘Ach, no, he was paid.’ Alec was all man of the world.

There was a moment of complete silence.

‘Paid?’ It was my voice I heard.

‘Yes, to go away,’ continued Alec through his tea.

‘Well, that’s an odd thing,’ observed Tibby in a temperate voice. ‘And how much did they pay him?’

‘Three thousand pounds, Jeannie says,’ went on Alec, quite oblivious of the effect he was having. ‘Or it might have been more, she’s not quite sure. She couldn’t hear very well.’

‘Why not? How was she hearing them?’

‘Through the crack in the door. You do not suppose they were telling her?’ asked Alec with fine scorn. He looked up, and for the first time he seemed to take in the audience he had. ‘What are you all staring at me like that for?’

‘You may be jumping to the wrong conclusion,’ said Tibby, giving me a straight look over Alec’s head. ‘It may not be at all what it seems.’

‘I’m sure of it. Don’t look at me like that, Tibby, I know I’m right; it was worth three thousand to Patrick to break his engagement to me. So now I know my price. Three thousand pounds, give or take a few more pounds that Jeannie could not precisely hear.’

‘But whoever was it that paid him? And why?’ asked Grizel wonderingly.

Events then followed with a naturalness that made acceptance of them inevitable.

I was wretched at Jordansjoy, an object of interest to all the neighbourhood as the girl who had been jilted. Very nearly on the steps of the altar, too. Former generations of Gowries had been the focus for gossip and hints of scandal, and now I had revived the fire with my shame. For it was shame of a sort. Even those who took my part assumed it was my fault that Patrick Graham had been ‘put off, although he had, of course, ‘behaved disgracefully’. I kept my head high, but it was a bad time.

When the letter came from St Petersburg, it seemed to contain an answer to prayer.

About eighty years or so earlier, a Gowrie had gone to St Petersburg as a merchant and banker, had prospered and settled there. His family stayed on, and the next generation, until by now they were as much Russian as Scottish, except in blood – because they always married among the large Anglo-Scottish community in the capital.

The most eminent among them was Erskine Gowrie, a grandson of the original settler. He was my godfather and had given me a handsome piece of Russian silver as a christening present. He had not attended the christening in person; but I had been told that he did come to Scotland on a visit while I was a child and had taken a great liking to me. I had a vague memory of being bounced on the knee of some gentleman with a beard, and of hearing him pronounce that I had my grandfather’s eyes. Erskine Gowrie had a large factory in the industrial suburbs of St Petersburg where I had been told he manufactured chemicals of some sort. We gathered that Erskine Gowrie had grown old, rich and cantankerous, and by means of this triple and difficult combination had succeeded in quarrelling with all his Russian relatives. Not all of them were rich, and one, Emma Gowrie, whom we called our cousin and who kept us in touch with the St Petersburg Gowries by letter, had been Erskine’s secretary for a time before working for a Countess Dolly Denisov. Through Emma, Countess Denisov had heard of me, and now wrote offering me work in St Petersburg with her and her daughter. Young Russian girls of the nobility are never allowed to go anywhere without a companion, it seemed. But there was more to it than that, because Dolly Denisov had heard from Miss Gowrie that I was interested in medicine, and she wanted me to help train the peasant women on her country estate to look after their own health better. Perhaps I should be able to create a small clinic or hospital at Shereshevo.

‘It’s very tempting to me,’ I said, pushing the letter across to Tibby. ‘Mind you, I don’t like the idea of being a companion.’

‘It’s a good offer,’ said Tibby, raising her eyes from the letter. ‘They don’t ask much from you as a companion except English conversation and friendliness, and they pay well.’

‘Of course, the girl may be a horror.’

‘She sounds nice; seventeen, speaks a bit of English already, likes animals. And what a pretty face!’

I picked up the photograph that had come with the letter. ‘Yes, charming little face, isn’t it? I don’t suppose she’s as innocent as she looks. Oh yes, I’ll go, Tibby. I think I’d go anywhere to get away. And I do like the prospect this offers of advancement. I might get to be a medical pioneer yet.’ I felt a kind of dreamy optimism.

‘You’d be rash to turn it down, I’ll say that.’ She pursed up her lips. ‘The letter says that if you take passage on the John Evelyn , leaving the Surrey Docks on May 2nd, you may have the support of a Major Lacey who is travelling out to see his sister. The Denisovs have Russian friends in London, too, that they name.’ She shook her head. ‘They have planned ahead. You are much wanted to go.’

She gave me the letter back; I remember holding it in my hand. By rights it ought to have burnt my fingers off.

The wind was blowing in my face, a cold wind blowing across the waters of the Baltic to where I stood on the deck of the John Evelyn . It seemed to go right through my clothes. Ahead I could see the docks and quays of St Petersburg. It was May, we were the first ship into the Gulf of Finland since the winter ice had melted. The wind was cold, and my future lay spread before me on the horizon, and suddenly the prospect frightened me. But it was already more than a prospect; it was upon me. Even now the trunks were being piled on deck ready for arrival, and I could see my own box, black leather with my name on it in white: The Honble Rose Gowrie.

Tentatively I looked up at the man standing beside me, Edward Lacey, late of His Majesty’s Scots Guards, and my travelling companion. I had begun by hating his bland sophistication and his cool English voice. I hated all men, anyway – and pour cause , as our dominie used to say. But he proved kind and considerate during the journey, and relations had improved, though I still found him rather opaque. Now he turned to me with that ever courteous smile. ‘Nearly there, Miss Gowrie.’

We had boarded the small cargo ship, the John Evelyn , going out on the evening tide. The captain had bowed as he passed us on the deck. I was a passenger of special quality on the John Evelyn because I had been seen off by no less a person than Prince Michael Melikov. To my surprise he had been waiting at the Surrey Docks when I arrived. I knew who he must be; Edward Lacey – whom I had met for the first time the evening before, at the London hotel where I was booked for a single night – had told me of the Prince’s presence in London, and that he was a long-standing friend of both the Countess Denisov and my cousin Emma Gowrie. He was wearing a deep violet velvet overcoat. I never saw a man wear coloured velvet before, but on him it looked sombre and rich and yet correct.

He had bent his head to me politely and introduced himself in his deep, sweet voice. ‘And so here I am to see you off, Miss Gowrie. I could never excuse myself to that good lady, your cousin, when we next met in St Petersburg, if I did not see you safely aboard.’

Behind his friendly brown eyes was nothing, he had no real feeling for me. I sensed it without knowing why.

‘I’m looking forward to meeting her,’ I said. ‘I never have, you know. I believe she came once to see us at Jordansjoy but it was years ago, when my parents were not long married and I was only a child. She was old then.’ And must be older now by my twenty years. It was 1912. ‘Our Russian cousin, we call her, but she is as Scots as I am in blood , although four generations of Gowries have lived in St Petersburg now.’ I was talking nervously, for there was something about Prince Michael’s empty eyes that alarmed me.