The Ice King (11 page)

“And what do you think of this?" he asked, lifting another tiara from the case and carefully setting it on Tanya's dark hair.

“Oh!" she gasped. It was very light and deceptively simple, just half a dozen ears of barley and a few star-like flowers on fine stalks, spraying up from each side to meet at the front. It was made of gold and set closely with small diamonds, and Tanya thought it the most beautiful piece of jewellery that she had ever seen. After staring at it enraptured in the mirror, she looked at Prince Nikolai's reflection, and suddenly realised that he was looking at her mirrored image. Their eyes met, and that transforming smile lit up his face. "That one, I think," he said.

“May I really?" Tanya could hardly believe it. "I'll take the greatest care of it.”

Prince Nikolai put it back in its case and set it apart from the others, and then opened the remaining case, which was much larger than the others.

“I thought you might like to see the Volkhov emeralds," he said. The case appeared to be full of vivid green fire, flashing and sparkling in the light. He took the pieces out one by one and put them on Tanya. There was a tiara formed of half-hoops of small emeralds, with a large one suspended in the centre of each of the hoops, which increased in size from sides to front. As Tanya moved her head, the suspended stones swung and flashed most effectively.

Next came two wide bracelets of great square stones set in
pave
on a gold ground, and then a brooch in the form of a bow of small stones with one very large one hanging from it, and finally a necklace of large square stones, each simply set in gold and linked to the next by a small gold circle set with
a
round stone.

Tanya regarded herself in this glittering array in the mirror, looking very serious, and said thoughtfully, "It doesn't look like me at all."

“You look like a Grand Duchess, at least!" Marisha said, wide-eyed and overwhelmed.

“You could certainly carry them off," Prince Nikolai said reflectively. "But not tomorrow, I think. Aunt Elizaveta wouldn't approve at all."

“Oh. Nikolai!" Countess Maria obviously missed the unaccustomed glint of laughter in his eyes and thought he was serious. "She couldn't ever wear them! There can't be any others like them in the whole world!"

“No, I don't suppose anyone would have any doubts . . ." Prince Nikolai replied, moving around to inspect Tanya from another angle. "Green is certainly your colour."

“But not in quite such an extravagant form!" Tanya laughed.

Prince Nikolai looked over her head at his father's portrait and remarked, "I think he approves. He's looking quite benevolent," but Countess Maria thought the old Prince looked just as fierce and formidable as ever he did in life, and doubted if he had even known how to look benevolent.

Marisha was invited to try on some of the jewels, which she obviously enjoyed, but Countess Maria declined regretfully, as she was wearing a pretty lace cap and was uncertain whether her hair was quite tidy underneath it.

When all the cases had been repacked and closed, Prince Nikolai suggested that they might now like to see the ballroom, but Marisha's ringlets had been considerably dishevelled in trying on tiaras, so she and her mother stayed for a few minutes to tidy them, while Prince Nikolai and Tanya started to walk slowly along the gallery.

The salon and the ballroom were at opposite sides of the house, so there was some distance to go. Near the head of the stairs was an alcove containing a table bearing several figurines from the Gardner Factory in Moscow, and somehow they slowed to a halt beside it, as if to inspect the figures, but Prince Nikolai turned towards Tanya instead, and said softly, "You looked like a fairy-tale princess in that tiara.”

Tanya caught her breath, feeling the beginnings of a tremor inside herself, which was becoming almost a familiar sensation.

“
Cendrillon,
perhaps?" she asked, with an attempt at lightness.

“You've no ugly sisters," Prince Nikolai replied gravely. "I thought more of
La Belle au Bois Dormant,
but with the roles reversed." He was watching her face with an undecided, almost apprehensive expression.

“But . . ." Tanya began, startled, her mind grappling with the implications. "I mean . . . you're not ... haven't . . ."

“Shall we say that you've begun to hack a way in through the briars?" he replied. "Perhaps you won't find the task worth your while." He reached out one hand and gently followed the line of Tanya's brow and cheek with one finger, as lightly as the touch of a moth. He was not wearing gloves,and Tanya felt as if the line he traced was etched on her skin with molten gold.

“Well, of course," she got out in a breathless stammer, "I – I mean . . . you've been so ki . . . so v-very
obliging
tome .. . If . . . if there is anything I can . . . Oh, you're such a good, kind man! I think it's abominable that you've been made so wretched and unhappy! I wish there was something I could do to help you . . .”

Prince Nikolai's hand fell to his side, and the shutter once more closed down over his face.

“You mistake me," he said quietly and bitterly. "I'm not a saint or a martyr! I've done things in the past, out of sheer selfishness, that were as hurtful to other people as anything that Anna ever did to me. Worse, in fact – I didn't lose my life for her pleasure!”

He was silent, looking down at his feet, and Tanya, conscious that she had said entirely the wrong thing, desperately looked round for some means to break the tension that had risen so painfully between them. She caught sight of the figures on the table and seized on the distraction they provided.

“Oh, what charming pieces!" she said, in an agitated tone far removed from the meaning of her words. As she bent to look closely at a bearded coachman in a fur cap and caped greatcoat, Prince Nikolai unconsciously resumed his role as the attentive host and picked it up to hold it for her to sec more conveniently, making a comment about it as he took up another in his other hand, without looking to see what it was. Marisha and her mother came from the salon at that moment and joined them, and the Countess pointed out a pair of dancers, the girl with her nose in the air, swishing her skirts, and the boy crouched down and obviously about to leap up with a suitably wild shout.

“The Ukranian girl is very pretty," Marisha volunteered. "Look, the embroidery on her blouse and skirt is modelled, not just painted on."

“That one is charming too," Tanya said, indicating the figure in Prince Nikolai's other hand as he put the coachman down. "The basket looks just like woven rushes!”

Prince Nikolai looked at it for the first time since he had picked it up, and visibly stiffened as he stared at it. It was a peasant girl in a neat blue dress, with a shawl over her head and a basket of flowers on her arm.

“Oh, God forgive me!" the Prince murmured in Russian, his voice quite raw with pain, as if he was looking at something horrifying. Somehow, the figure slipped from his fingers and crashed on the marble floor.

The three ladies cried out in horror, and Tanya dropped down on her knees and began to pick up the pieces. "Oh, what a shame!" she exclaimed. "It's quite beyond repair, I'm afraid."

“It's of no consequence," Prince Nikolai said in a tight, hard voice. "I can always get another." There was a bitter, savage undertone to the words which made Tanya look up at him anxiously, but he leaned down to help her rise and said in a more gentle tone, "You mustn't mind it. Come and see the ballroom.”

Already a footman had appeared with a brush and a basket to clear away the pieces, and they went on along the gallery, Tanya glancing back once and saying sadly, "It's a great shame, though. I hate to see anything broken.”

Prince Nikolai made no reply, and Tanya, after an anxious look at his lifeless, melancholy face, cast an appealing glance at Countess Maria. She shook her head gently, but whether to discourage Tanya from pursuing the subject or to signify that she did not understand what had happened either, was not clear.

Tanya thought about it while they continued on their way in silence, and wondered if there was some association between the Prince's implied self-accusation of causing someone's death by his selfishness and the figurine of the peasant girl. Had such a girl died as the result of something he had done? If so, his reaction was understandable, and it might well be that his frozen unhappiness was due in part to that, and not only to the behaviour of his wife.

Whatever could it have been? Nothing deliberate, she was quite certain, without consciously reasoning why. She could not imagine the Prince ever making a deliberate attempt toharm someone. She was so wrapped up in these thoughts that it was quite a surprise to find herself walking through a door into the ballroom.

The ballroom was a depressing sight, for the floor was covered by a huge sheet of something which looked like canvas, and the six enormous chandeliers were swathed in muslin and hung like ghosts from a ceiling painted with clouds and patches of blue sky. It was quite dark outside by now, and in any case, the shutters were closed, but a number of tall candlestands had been placed about the room with
a
dozen candles in each, which
a
footman had just finished lighting. He bowed himself out through another door as his master and his guests entered and stood looking about them.

“Now, do look at the cornice," Countess Maria said, afraid that Tanya might otherwise miss it. Tanya obediently looked up, and saw that it had been painted with the skyline of St. Petersburg as it had been when the house was built.

“What a novel idea!" she exclaimed. "It must be a very beautiful room when it's . . ." She hesitated, and Prince Nikolai said quietly, "Awake.”

There was a pause, and then the Prince said to Marisha, "What do you think?"

“I'd be delighted to have a ball at all," she replied, "but here, in this wonderful room . . . Oh, I can just imagine how it will look with all the people, and the lights and the music! I don't know how to thank you, Cousin Nikolai!"

“No need," the Prince replied rather shortly, and crossed to the far wall to examine a piece of the white moire silk covering which seemed to be coming loose. "I'll have the place prepared," he said as he returned, "and arrange details, and the day — or night, rather — with you, Maria.”

It was soon time for the ladies to return home, and Prince Nikolai again came out to the carriage, this time to see them off. Countess Maria and her daughter chattered excitedly about the proposed ball all the way home, but Tanya, nursing the case containing the tiara on her knees, looked out of the window and was very quiet. The others probably thought she was sightseeing, but in fact she hardly saw anything of the lamplit streets, for her mind was in a strangely confused state, a turmoil of "Perhaps" and "Impossible", a great deal of "If only . . ." and almost as much "Don't be absurd!”

None of it was coherent, and she was not really clear what she was thinking about, except that it mainly concerned Prince Nikolai.

As the carriage negotiated the ramp down to the ice in order to cross the river, she made an attempt to pay attention to the scene outside the window, where hundreds of lanterns showed the lines of the embankments of the river, or bobbed about as the people carrying them crossed over or moved up or down-river on the ice on foot or skates, sledges and carriages, but before they were halfway across, she was searching her memory for the story of
La Belle au Bois Dormant.

There was something about a wicked fairy, who put a spell on the Princess so that when . . . when what? When something or other happened, she would fall asleep for a hundred years, and . . . and someone else – another fairy – had changed the spell, so that the whole palace and all the people fell asleep too. Then, after a century, a prince had come, and somehow found his way in . . . Yes, by cutting through the briars, that was it! . . . and woken the Princess . . . how? She shook her head, for it hardly mattered. Obviously Prince Nikolai had implied, when he said that the roles were reversed, that he was the one under the spell, and she had somehow started whatever process was needed to break it. Well, she was very glad if she had inadvertently done something to help him find a new meaning in life, but that didn't necessarily mean that he .. .

Her hand went unconsciously to her face and followed the line his finger had traced. She could easily imagine that she could still feel it there, burning. That was something a man might do in flirting, she thought uncertainly, wishing she knew more about the ways of gentlemen and the rules of flirtation. She could imagine Boris doing something like that – a minor kind of caress for someone he knew very well, not exceptionable or improper, surely? But she couldn't imagine Prince Nikolai flirting, for that was something careless and lighthearted, which he was certainly not!

“You're being very foolish!" she told herself severely."You're trying to convince yourself that it meant something important, but it was really only just a ... a sort of compliment, a careless thing, no more meaningful than . . . than kissing hands. Oh, if only . . .!”

This was becoming dangerous ground, so she switched her thoughts hastily to the Prince's admission of guilt of some kind, and the curious incident of the porcelain figure. Her knowledge of the oriental habits of some of the provincial landlords of her great-uncle's acquaintance, and their attitude towards their female serfs rapidly supplied her with several lurid and unpleasant ways in which a peasant girl's death might result from her owner's indulgence in his selfish pleasures, but she could not believe that anyone as Westernised as the Prince would ever have amused himself with multiple rape, or hunting serfs with wolfhounds.

She was recalled to present realities, however, when Countess Maria progressed from talking about the ball to the more immediate future, and said, "What do you mean to wear tomorrow, Tanya?"

“I don't really know. What do you think?" she replied, and the discussion which followed lasted the rest of the way home.

She eventually decided to wear a very dark green silk gown, which had been cleverly adapted from one of Countess Maria's by taking it in and adding a deep flounce of pale green dotted with tiny flowers, and a swathing of the same about the bodice. When the Kirovs reached Princess Elizaveta Dolgorova's house and took off their outdoor clothes, Tanya gave her skirts a discreet shake and glanced sidelong in a convenient mirror to check that the tiara was on straight. Even to her own critical eyes, she looked passably well and not at all like a poor relation.