A Stairs - Eva Ibbotson

‘For what, then?’ asked Leo, surprised. ‘Or do you not wish to tell me?’

‘It isn’t that I don’t want to, sir. But… well, I have this plan and I don’t really want to involve anyone else. It’s a very…peculiar plan.’

‘You are trying to help someone else?’

‘You could say that.’ There was a pause. ‘Things couldn’t be worse at Mersham, sir. Lady Westerholme, well she’s at her wits end and Mr Rupert - his lordship, I mean - I saw him in hospital when they first brought him over from France and he looked better than he does this morning. And Anna’s gone—’

Leo smiled. ‘You heard what happened at the ball?’

Proom inclined his head. ‘Yes, sir. The account gave great pleasure to all the staff. But it was what was done to Win,’ he continued, ‘that made me think anything was worth trying.’

·Win? Who is Win?’ enquired Leo.

Proom told him the story, while Leo made Central European noises of sympathy.

‘If I tell you what I mean to do, sir,’ said Proom, realizing how unfair it was to ask for help without giving his confidence, ‘I’m afraid you’ll think I’ve taken leave of my senses.’

Carefully, much embarrassed by its theatricality, h explained his plan. When he had finished, Leo looked at him incredulously.

‘Your plan will not succeed, I think; there are too many people who will foil to act as you hope. But if it does, don’t you see, you are destroying also yourself? The financial consequences to Mersham would be disastrous. ‘

‘I know, sir. But… well, I taught Mr Rupert to ride a bicycle. There wasn’t the fuss made of him there was of Lord George, but there’s no doubt which was the finer gentleman. And seeing him like this…’

There was a pause. Then Leo nodded. ‘You shall have the money, Mr Proom. Immediately. And in cash.’

- - - -*

Anna, meanwhile, was fine. She was very well. She had, as she frequently informed Pinny, never felt better in her life.

‘I don’t doubt it, dear,’ said Pinny. ‘All I said was that I wish you’d eat something. You’ve been home twenty-four hours and you haven’t touched a thing.’

Anna gazed obediently at the breakfast table set out in the little parlour, took hold of a piece of toast and conveyed it to her mouth.

‘It doesn’t go down,’ she said in a puzzled voice, exactly as she had done when she was five years old and sickening for quinsy.

Pinny’s heart contracted with pity and helplessness. From Anna’s account of Mersham, which seemed to be inhabited by absolutely everyone except its owner, she had drawn her own conclusions.

‘I have been thinking,’ said Anna, ‘and I believe it would be best if I went to Paris. Kira has said she can find work for me in her salon - selling perfumes and such things. It would,’ she added bleakly, ‘be very interesting.’

Since none of them had the fare to Pimlico, let alone to Paris, Pinny felt free to agree that it did indeed sound a fascinating way of life.

‘Ah, no, my little flea,’ said the countess, patting her daughter’s hand. ‘Paris is so far! Something will come along soon, you see. Dounia has a new plan,’ she continued, referring to her irrepressible sister-in-law, the Princess Chirkovsky. ‘We are to make very much kvass in Miss King’s kitchen - she has permitted it - and sell it to the teashops of the Lyons because nobody in England knows at all about kvass —’

‘Luckily for them,’ said Pinny under her breath.

Anna tried to smile. But added to the ceaseless, searing pain about Rupert, there was another anxiety now about Sergei. If she could not find suitable work soon and help her family, Sergei might well sacrifice himself and marry Larissa Rakov and a loveless marriage seemed to Anna, in her present state, to be a hell like no other.

‘There are always good things happening,’ said the countess, determined to divert her daughter. ‘For example, have you heard about Pupsik?’

‘No?’ This time Anna’s smile was not assumed. The troubles of the Baroness de Wodzka were very close to her heart. ‘Has he…?’

‘No,’ said the countess. ‘He has not. But the daughter of Colonel Terek has married a very rich man with many factories, and of course the Colonel has always had a tendresse for the baroness ever since she came from the Smolny, so he has sent Pupsik to a very expensive clinic in ‘arley Street and they have made Rontgen rays and found absolutely clear the Rastrelli diamond in some part of him that begins, I think, with a “c”.’

‘That’s marvellous! So now they will be able to operate?’

They will be able,’ admitted the countess. ‘But they will not, because the baroness does not permit that Pupsik should suffer and has taken instead a job where she receives the washing parcels in a laundry in, I think, Clapham. But you see how there are always wonderful things.’

‘Yes, Mama,’ said Anna tenderly, getting up to kiss her.

She wandered over to the window. In three hours, Rupert and Muriel would be man and wife. ‘Help me to endure it,’ she prayed. ‘Oh, help me, please.’

‘There are many wonderful things,’ her mother had said. Well, she would have to find them somehow. Even in this wedding, perhaps. And suddenly, unbidden, she did find something. Ollie’s pride and joy as she walked down the aisle in her pink dress, holding up Muriel’s train. For Ollie would be all right now. Anna, slipping upstairs, meaning to say goodbye to Ollie, had seen Muriel go into the child’s room carrying a most beautiful doll. Clearly Muriel was sorry for what she had said and had come to make sure that nothing spoiled the little girl’s joy on her big day.

Lost in reverie, Anna did not at first pay any attention to the huge, black car which had drawn up in front of the house. A car with a pennant on the bonnet and two serious-looking men in dark suits in the back. Men who now descended to allow the chauffeur to hand out a figure wrapped in innumerable shawls… an old woman in a kerchief…

Anna gave a gasp. ‘Mama! Pinny!’

But when they reached her she could not speak and it was the countess, tears running down her cheek, who cried: ‘It’s Niannka! Dear God, it’s Niannka come back!’

- - - -*

The men from the Foreign Office had left, pointing out sternly that while they were delivering this old woman she was in fact stateless, without papers or permits, and that the authorities would be in touch. Nor was then-departure attended by any expressions of gratitude on the part of Old Niannka herself, who clearly felt that in collecting her from the Orient Express and whisking her through customs, they had done no more than their duty. Now she sat on the sofa, emitting the familiar smell of camphor and oiled wool; toothless, emaciated, fierce as an eagle - and in her hoarse, Georgian dialect, told them her story.

She had been arrested on the way to their rendezvous in one of those pointless raids that were so much a feature of the times. For three weeks she and a haphazard collection of unfortunates scooped off the streets had been kept behind barbed wire in a detain-ment camp near Chudvo. From there, some wretches were marched off to permanent imprisonment or death, others, arbitrarily, were released, given back their ragged bundles and sent on their way.

Niannka was released, but when she reached Chudvo station to meet her employers, the Grazinskys had gone.

Since they themselves had hot been certain of their destination, she thought the only thing to do was to go back to the palace in Petersburg and wait for news.

The Grazinsky palace, however, had been taken over by the Metal Plate Workers’ Union - an organization which made it clear that she had better remove herself, and fast. When she wouldn’t leave, they sent for the Red Guard. The first time the soldiers escorted her over the Anchikov Bridge they were friendly, cracking jokes with the old woman. The second time they were not amused. The third time they told her that if she attempted to return to the palace she would be shot.