Polonaise (45 page)

‘I don't. What would have happened, do you think, that day we met the Russian convoy?'

‘Attempted murder? You're quite right. We might none of us have survived. I thought it was touch and go at the time.'

‘So did I.' Curiously, they had never discussed it. ‘I wish we could get rid of young Karol.'

‘The Princess won't hear of it. I put it to her before she left for Warsaw. She says Casimir must learn to fight his own battles.'

‘A pity he's half a head shorter than the enemy. But he'll manage,' said Glynde comfortably. ‘I have great confidence in Casimir. Tell me, Jenny, did you get the impression that Miriam was as eager for us to leave as you and I were?'

‘Lord, yes.' She laughed. ‘I was beginning to be afraid the Princess might notice. She did say once that she had forgotten how uncomfortable that wooden palace was. I was hard put to it not to burst out laughing and tell her that none of the stoves drew properly and there was a remarkable number of strange new draughts from windows and doors that used to be perfectly weather-tight before.'

‘But you didn't?'

‘No. I've got some sense. Did you hate it there as much as I did?'

‘Quite as much, I should think. I'm sure you never woke up in the morning to find that your window had mysteriously come open a crack in the night and everything was freezing around you.'

‘No! Did you? And still you didn't tell the Princess?'

‘Of course not. I wanted to leave just as badly as Miriam wanted us to go.' He had stopped writing anything but the merest trivialities to Jan. Fortunately, Adam Czartoryski had given him what he said was a totally reliable address in Petersburg, so he was now sending his information there in the elaborate code that had been worked out for him by his Foreign Office contact. Aunt meant the Tsar, or Russia. Uncle meant Napoleon, or France. And so forth. He could write what was apparently a family letter and convey a remarkable
amount of international news. But he had had no answers to any of the letters, whether sent by the east or by the west.

‘I wish I would hear from England,' he said now.

‘You've still had nothing?'

‘Not a word in all the time I've been here. It's over two years! I know my aunt will have written.' The man from the Foreign Office had undertaken to get her letters through, though warning that it would take time. ‘Have you heard anything?'

‘No, but I hardly expect to.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You're here at last!' Miriam welcomed Jan formally, then led him swiftly to her own rooms in their separate wing, talking all the time. ‘I thought you'd never get here! But I didn't dare send until she had actually left; there was always the chance she would change her mind.' She laughed. ‘I think Glynde Rendel was beginning to suspect something towards the end, and I'm quite sure Jenny Peverel was, but she's got more sense than to say anything. It took a week to make the house habitable again after they did go!'

‘You weren't afraid a serf might say something?'

‘Lord, no. They know when they are well off. It's odd to remember how they hated me at first. Oh, I'm not pretending they love me now, but they know me for the lesser evil. It does make one think, Jan. If only the Tsar, or Napoleon, or anyone would give them the chance to live like human beings, they'd take it with both hands. Just look at the difference, since I've been treating them like reasonable people.'

‘I'm looking at you, my love.' Safe in her room at last, he was slowly, lovingly undoing buttons down the front of her silk tunic. ‘It's been too long!'

‘Much too long.' She was helping him now, impatient as he. Their clothes fell in a heap to the floor. ‘I've missed you so!'

‘And I you. You're so beautiful.' He was kissing the remaining pock marks on her cheek, gently at first, then hungrily, his lips travelling her body as it arched to meet his.

‘Much too long,' he said again, an uncounted length of time later, when she lay at last, relaxed in his arm. ‘I love you, you do know that?'

She smiled up at him. ‘You do contrive to give me that impression. I love you, too. I didn't know what the word meant, before. I'm – grateful to you. I'd not have missed it for anything.'

‘Don't talk like that.' He kissed her again, almost angrily. ‘As if it was something passing, something that would end.'

‘But it is.' She touched his lips with a finger. ‘I've always believed in facing facts. It's something we Jews have to learn early in life, if we are to survive. Don't think me shameless, Jan, if I take this happiness with both hands. I'm making the most of it. While it lasts.'

‘It's going to last all our lives. Our lives together. If only I could marry you now, take you back to Petersburg with me, but we need you here. What is it? What's the matter?'

‘Did you say marry?'

‘Of course I did.'

‘But, Jan, you can't, you mustn't. You know about me.'

‘That you were married before, in your own eyes, and God's. And that I love you. But, forgive me, I'm ashamed. I should have asked you.' He caught the hand that was now playing in his black curls and held it to his lips. ‘Pani Miriam, will you do me the great honour of becoming my wife?'

‘Oh, Jan!' She lay quiet for a moment. ‘You've made me so happy. But I mustn't. Your family, your father, your sister. What will they say?'

‘They'll say: “Welcome to America, Mrs. Warrington.” They'll love you, Miriam.'

‘If I could only believe that. But, Jan, a Jewess, an ugly woman with a past.'

‘A beautiful woman, with a tragic past. And, I promise you, love, it's different for Jews in our United States of America. We're going to have sons, Miriam, you and I. Don't think I ever forget the boys you lost. I've loved you most of all when I've seen you so good to Casimir. And, do you know, I don't think it has ever struck the Princess what a heroine you are being.'

‘I'm not a person to her. Just the Jewess, Miriam. But Jenny knows. Jan, when war comes, what's going to happen to Jenny.'

‘I worry about her. But it may not come, love.' He settled her more comfortably in his arm. ‘It's time we talked business, you and I.'

‘Yes.' She snuggled against him, her dark hair brushing his chin. ‘Tell me all the news, I'm starved for it.'

‘It's none of it good. But none of it quite so bad as I feared. Napoleon and the Tsar are both talking peace in loud voices and arming as fast as they can. But I don't think it's going to come to blows, not for this year at least. The Tsar won't start the war. I believe that. He may alarm Napoleon into starting it; he won't strike the first blow. But, my darling, will you promise me something? I deeply believe that nothing will happen this year, since neither Emperor is ready, but if it should by any wild chance … If you should hear that the French are massing beyond the Niemen, you'll pack your things and come east at once, to Petersburg, and me?'

‘Leaving the Princess's estate, and all her serfs, exposed in the front line?'

‘What do you owe the Princess?'

‘Nothing. But to the serfs I owe a great deal.'

‘Yes,' he said thoughtfully. ‘I was thinking about that. There was an ear at the Princess's keyhole, was there not?'

‘Not the keyhole exactly, but, yes, of course.'

‘And none, here, today?'

‘No. These are my private apartments. I had the spyhole blocked up. I've got a letter for you, by the way, from Glynde Rendel, written the day they left. He sent another one to an address Czartoryski gave him; I thought it best to let it go.'

‘I'm sure you were right. I'd trust your instinct before I did my own.' He read the letter quickly. ‘This doesn't tell me much that I didn't know already. Of course the Russians are arming along the border; they'd be mad not to.'

‘Jan!'

‘Yes, my darling?'

‘There's so much secrecy; so much mystification. Sometimes, this last winter, I've been worried, frightened … Jan, it is Poland we are working for, isn't it?'

‘Of course it is! Poland herself again, a free country, free to trade with the world. With ports on the Baltic and a clear way down to the Black Sea.'

‘And freedom for all?'

He smiled down at her lovingly. ‘You really care about your serfs, don't you? Yes, in the end, I'm sure of it, but it's not something that can be promised at this stage. We'd lose so
much support from the nobles. It's hard enough keeping them together as it is.'

‘Yes, I do see that. What I don't understand is why you don't trust Glynde Rendel more fully. Granted you're on the same side.'

‘But are we? That's something I haven't told you, love. Everything's changed in England. The old King's declared mad at last, and his son is Prince Regent. God knows what will happen next; very likely a Whig government that will make peace with Napoleon. And then, what hope for Poland?'

‘Our only hope a war that will destroy more homes, more farmland, kill and starve more thousands? It's horrible, Jan.' She shivered in his arms.

‘What's worth having, is worth fighting for.' He pulled her closer. ‘You're cold, my darling.' His hand played loving music on the delicate bones of her spine.

‘No, Jan, I'm afraid.'

‘Don't be. I'll look after you. Always. Believe that?'

‘I do.' She smiled up at him, as he bent to kiss her and they plunged back together, everything else forgotten.

At Petersburg, they dedicated the huge new Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan that mild September of 1811, on the tenth anniversary of the Tsar's accession to the throne, and everyone was there for the three-and-a-half-hour service. Jan went to watch the brief parade of troops that preceded it, and met the American Ambassador, John Quincy Adams, on his way to the new Cathedral.

‘I'm glad to see you back.' Adams paused to greet him. ‘Tell me, what is the news from the border?'

‘Not good. But not desperate. No war this year, I think. But is it true that Napoleon made the Russian Ambassador, Prince Kurakin, another of his scenes on the occasion of his birthday?'

‘So I hear. Madness. If he thinks to frighten the Tsar into submission, he much mistakes his man. Are you coming to the service?'

‘No, alas, I do not qualify for admission.'

‘I'm not sure whether I should absolutely condole with you,' said Adams drily. ‘But duty calls … Come and see me, Mr. Warrington, and tell me more about how things go on at
Vilno, and at Drissa, where I believe, there are fortifications being built.'

‘Yes, though I cannot for the life of me understand what purpose they are intended to serve. But, if you have a moment, tell me, Mr. Adams, is it true that the French are stopping and searching our merchant ships more drastically than ever?'

‘I am afraid so. I have tried in vain to explain to Count Lauriston that there is no way we can prevent the British from using our colours as camouflage, but that I, personally, can vouch for the
bona fides
of the American ships that make the dangerous journey here to Kronstadt and Petersburg.'

‘And what did Lauriston say to that?'

‘Nothing to the purpose. He's a mouthpiece for Napoleon, no more. Caulaincourt was worth ten of him. And his master understands nothing about the realities of trade, how should he? I hope you have no vessels bound this way before the freeze-up. Frankly, there is no way I can guarantee their safety. And we both know how long, and what a struggle it takes to release a cargo once it has been confiscated by the French.'

‘I do indeed. But, Mr. Adams, ‘I've had no English news since I got back. Has the Prince of Wales, now he is Regent, not turned out the Tory government he hates and sent for his old friends the Whigs? And will that not mean they make peace with France, and everything is changed?'

‘Ah, you've not heard.' He looked over to the imposing curved colonnade of the Cathedral, where people were still pushing their way in. ‘I've a moment still. The Prince Regent has surprised everyone. Wrote a civil letter to Mr. Perceval, the First Minister, telling him he felt he owed it to his father to keep the Tories in office. His Whig friends are furious, I understand.'

‘So it's business as usual?'

‘Yes, the war goes on. Lord Wellington is still giving the French as good as he gets in Spain.' He looked quickly around to make sure there was no possible English speaker within earshot. ‘I've even heard rumours that there are feelers out again between here and England, despite the state of war that technically exists between the two countries. So it may be all change again one of these days. But for goodness' sake keep that under your hat, Mr. Warrington.' He moved away a few
steps, turned back. ‘Oh, two other pieces of news that will interest you. Lord Granville Leveson Gower is married, and Lord Ringmer is dead. Isn't he father of a friend of yours?'

‘Yes. His brother succeeds, and he will be next in line. Thank you for telling me.' He went back to the little house on the English Quay that he had once shared with Glynde Rendel and wrote a long letter to Miriam.

The second
Sejm
, or Parliament, in the history of the new Duchy of Warsaw was to be held that winter of 1811, and the King of Saxony came to open it with traditional pomp, and hear the swearing-in of the new members for the six departments acquired from Austria two years before. ‘If I was only a man,' said the Princess, as she left Rendomierz to attend the ceremony, ‘I would be among the nobles there.'

She reached Warsaw early in September, a few days before the King, and went straight to call on her friend Anna Potocka. They had a great deal to talk about. Anna had been at the Potocki estates in Russian-held Bialystok that summer, just as Isobel had been at Vinsk. ‘Do you think it has done any good?' she asked. ‘You saw Adam Czartoryski did you not? What hopes does he hold out of tolerance from his master the Tsar?'