Eva Ibbotson - The Star of Kazan

‘I didn’t know there were so many dentists in the world,’ said Annika.

On the road outside the station a large closed carriage with two horses was waiting. It was painted black and on the side Annika could just make out the von Tannenberg crest — the same crest that had been on her mother’s handkerchief.

The carriage was old, with a musty smell and leather seats. The coachman was old too and when he had raised his hat and nodded to Annika he fell silent. People did not seem to talk so much here in the north.

They left the town behind them and drove for more than an hour in the gathering dusk. Annika could just make out the same clumps of gnarled and wind-blown trees; the same patches of wind-ruffled water. Then it became too dark to see and she leaned back against the cushions and closed her eyes.

She was woken by the rumbling of the carriage over a stone bridge spanning a river; then came a second bridge, a smaller wooden one, over a moat, and they drove into a large courtyard. A single lantern came bobbing towards them and she remembered what the Eggharts’ great-aunt had said about arriving at the home of the Russian count — the hundred flares held up to welcome them. But those were Russians. Russians were different, and it was long ago.

‘Good evening, gnädige Frau,’ said the old woman who held the lantern, and she bobbed a curtsy.

‘Bertha, this is my daughter, Annika,’ said Frau Edeltraut, and the old servant curtsied again to Annika. It was the first time anyone had curtsied to her and she wished it had not been someone so old whose knees were stiff.

They followed Bertha through a heavy oak door which led from the courtyard into the main part of the house, down a long stone corridor to a flight of steps.

‘I think my daughter will want to go straight to bed,’ said Frau Edeltraut, and Bertha nodded.

‘I’ve put a warming pan in her bed. Shall I bring up some hot milk?’

‘I expect she’ll just want to go to sleep right away, won’t you, dear?’

‘Yes,’ said Annika obediently, though she would have loved something hot to drink.

Her mother bent down and kissed her cheek. ‘I am happy to have you under my roof,’ she said formally.

‘And I am happy to be here,’ said Annika — and followed the old servant up the curving stone stairs.

In the very early hours she was woken by an explosion and for a moment she thought she was back in Vienna and it was the emperor’s birthday. They always let off fireworks in the city on that day.

Then she saw the outline of the room, cavernous and strange, and got up and went to the window with its heavy iron bars. Moored on the bank of the long reedy lake that stretched away in front of the house she could just make out a flat-bottomed boat and a man crouched in it, holding a gun. A flock of birds, black against the grey sky, came over. Wild duck, she thought. There were two more bangs, and two birds fell into the water.

Annika went back to bed. When she woke again it was light and she saw the room she had slept in clearly.

She had never dreamed that she would wake in such a room and know that it was hers. The walls were covered in brocade hangings, dark and heavy, embroidered with the kind of battle scenes which Uncle Emil had shown her to explain the movements of the Lipizzaners. There were two crossed swords nailed to one wall; a table with heavy carved legs and a chair with a high leather-covered back stood in the middle of the room, and on the headboard of her enormous bed were carvings of people in helmets trampling on other people whose helmets had come off.

But there were things that surprised her. The rugs on the floor were threadbare, the curtains were frayed and the pelmets hung crooked. The tiled stove had gone out — or perhaps it had not been lit the night before; her toes as she put them to the ground curled up with cold, and there were bare discoloured patches on the wall where pictures had been removed.

She dressed quickly, washing in cold water in the basin high on its stand. The von Tannenbergs must all be tall, and clearly they were strong and hardy. They weren’t pampered and spoilt as she had been in Vienna, waking in a warm room, washing in warm water.

Feeling for a moment rather desolate, she went to the window — and suddenly her mood changed, and she thought, No, it’s going to be all right, it’s going to be good. For she had almost forgotten one of the best things about her new life. She had almost forgotten Hermann.

Now she saw a boy riding bareback across the fields beside the house. He was galloping, letting the black horse go full out. But what she could see even from the distance was the ease and enjoyment with which he rode.

Perhaps Hermann would teach her to ride? Perhaps — no, there was no ‘perhaps’ about it — she and Hermann would be the greatest of friends. Sometimes you see someone even quite far off and know he will become part of your life.

‘I have a brother,’ said Annika aloud — and she turned from the window and hurried down the stairs.

She found herself in a square hall with a stone-flagged floor. A heavy wooden chest stood against one wall, and above it, fixed to the walls, were a number of glass cases containing stuffed fish: stuffed pike, stuffed roach, stuffed perch… all carefully labelled. In one corner stood an enormous brass gong; beside it was a stand holding a broadsword, a cutlass and a battleaxe.

Several doors led off the hall. Which one should she take?

Then from a corridor on the left, she smelt coffee and, making her way along it, she opened a door.

She’d been right — the door she now opened led to the kitchen.

It was much bigger than Ellie’s kitchen in Vienna, and darker, with its high, barred window, but at once she felt at home. There was a scrubbed table, an iron range, a set of copper dishes on the dresser — and it was warm! An old woman was stirring something on the stove. It was Bertha, who had let them in last night, and now in the daylight Annika could see how old and wrinkled she was, how tired. She must have begged to be allowed to stay at Spittal; there were servants who couldn’t face that they had come to the end of their working life.

‘Good morning,’ said Annika.

Old Bertha swivelled round. ‘Good heavens, miss, you mustn’t come in here. This is the kitchen.’

Her Norrland dialect was hard for Annika to understand.

‘Yes, I know it’s the kitchen. Can I help you to take anything through into the dining room?’

‘No! No! What would Frau Edeltraut say, her daughter helping in the kitchen! Go back down the corridor, and into the hall. The dining room is the second door on the right. Quickly — go, go, or I’ll be in trouble.’

The dining room faced north over the lake. It was huge with a long, dark table, and pictures of a number of von Tannenbergs on the walls, but here too there were spaces where some ancestors were missing and the wallpaper was stained with damp. After the warm kitchen it seemed very cold.

Her mother was sitting at one end of the table, buttering a piece of bread. She was wearing a morning robe of green brocade, and her thick, dark hair was loose down her back. Annika, filled with pride, ran up to her for a good-morning kiss and it was only then that she really took in that there was another person in the room: a large man with red hair, a red beard, and a long scar running down his left cheek. He wore corduroy breeches and a green loden jacket, and a small feather was caught in his beard. A duck feather it seemed to be. This then must be the man she had seen in the punt.

‘This is my brother-in-law, Herr von Seltzer. You may call him Uncle Oswald,’ said Frau Edeltraut, and explained that he was the husband of her sister, Mathilde, who lived near by and that he came over most mornings to shoot. Then she turned to him. ‘Well, this is my Annika, what do you think of her?’