Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Six
A nna tapped softly on the door. There was silence and she walked into a salon where tall windows at one end formed a bow flooding the room with light. Large rugs covered the floor between green-upholstered sofas and tables crowded with small objects. There was no sign of Nicholas so she sat down, going over in her mind what had happened the night before.
How wrong she had been to think Nicholas was cold and aloof. He had made love to her with a tenderness that touched her soul. Anna was stirred by the way he held her through the night, never letting her go. When he accompanied her back to her room, he had stoked the stove, then knelt beside the bed and cradled her in his arms. She had no idea it would be like this – the sense of peace he gave her and aching longing to be with him again. Last night had been a revelation. She felt she had been split open and Nicholas had seen the person she really was. He had knowledge of her – as they said in the Bible. Such intimacy could be mistaken for love, she thought. I vowed never to fall in love again. I must be careful.
Anna looked out to the garden where a blanket of snow lay over the flowerbeds and lawn. Branches of birch trees sparkled with a fine layer of ice, and red squirrels were scampering on the ground, scattering the powdery snow.
‘Do you approve of my home?’
Anna jumped at the sound of Nicholas’s voice. He had come in quietly, dressed in a frock coat, breeches and boots. He walked over with his long, easy stride and she blushed despite herself.
‘From what I’ve seen, it’s delightful…’
Anna stopped as Nicholas went down on one knee.
‘Will you marry me, Anna Ivanova?’
He was joking! Anna stared at him. Had he gone mad? He didn’t look mad. He looked calm and there was no mockery in his eyes.
‘I’m honour-bound to propose to you after—’
‘No, you’re not!’ she cut in quickly. ‘I told you I’m never going to marry.’
‘That was before. Not now…’
‘It makes no difference.’
‘What happens if you fall pregnant?’
Anna had pushed the thought to the back of her mind. The chances were slight. She shrugged. ‘It’s very unlikely… I’m sure we could come to an arrangement…’
‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know. Whatever you do with your other women.’
As she said the words, Anna knew she had made a mistake. She was flustered by his proposal, but it was no excuse to be flippant. This was no slight matter. Nicholas had asked her to marry him, and she had refused without a moment’s thought. He doesn’t believe in love, she told herself. He only proposed out of a sense of duty.
Nicholas let her hand go and came to his feet, his expression stiffening. ‘What happened to you, Anna? Did Dashkovy break your heart?’
‘No! I never loved him!’ She shook her head so hard that she heard hair pins fall and clatter onto the floor.
‘So why have you changed?’
Anna didn’t know what he meant. Nicholas put his hand under her chin so she was forced to look into his face. She felt he was peering into the corners of her mind, his gaze so intense that goose pimples pricked the back of her neck. Then, as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud, he gave a rueful smile and let her go.
‘I accept your refusal, Anna Ivanova. And now, I would like to show you Davinka.’
‘The visitors are here, sir.’ Liev was standing at the door. ‘Shall I take them to the study or the business room?’
‘Take them to my business room, please. Can you find Ludmilla and ask her to give Miss Anna a tour of the house.’ Nicholas frowned as he looked back to Anna. ‘My guests have arrived early. I’m sorry – but you’re in good hands with Ludmilla. She knows Davinka as well as I do.’
*
Davinka was a pretty, three-storey house with the main rooms at the front. At one end, there was a ballroom with tall mirrors and a grand piano; at the other, a formal drawing room furnished in polished mahogany. The scent of birch and pine filtered through the house from logs burning inside the great stoves, and on the windowsills were jardinières filled with flowering bulbs. Parquet covered the floor, designed in different patterns for different rooms, dark for the dining-room and lighter in the library which was stocked with hundreds of books. Soft lights glowed on tables and in almost every room were divans that could be made up into beds as easily as a shakedown of straw.
‘In the country, you never know when someone will arrive or how long they’ll stay,’ Ludmilla explained. ‘They could be here for a night or a month.’
Anna liked the cosiness and informality at Davinka. Far away from the bustle of the city, time passed at a slower pace and at the heart of the house was a kitchen full of chattering life. On their way, they passed the open door of a sewing room where two girls were singing as their spindles whirled. Someone was strumming a balalaika. In the kitchen, Galina was busy cooking, her face was red from heat as she made pancakes on the range. A large crock of buckwheat batter sat at the side and she worked along a row of small, thick pans, moving deftly from one to the other, pouring in melted butter and then liquid. When she came to the last, she returned to the first and flipped the pancake over. There was already a pile of them on a plate, light and delicious, and Anna helped herself, eating as she drank coffee.
Ludmilla showed her storerooms with high poles hung with hams, sausages and cheese. The shelves that reached from floor to ceiling were packed with sacks of wheat and rye and below them stood barrels of salted apples, pears and cucumbers. There were dried vegetables and casks of salt, pots of honey, vats of butter, flour and sugar. Outside the back door, a courtyard was given over to pigs, chickens and a cow with a calf.
‘Davinka has all we need to be self-sufficient throughout the winter,’ Ludmilla declared proudly. ‘When Count Nicolay freed his serfs, he wanted us to depend on no one but ourselves.’
‘Yet you still work for him?’ Anna asked.
‘He gave us our homes and we take care of Davinka in return.’
Ludmilla found Anna an apron and gave her a knife to help peel potatoes.
‘We believed we were born serfs because we’d sinned and God was angry with us. The count put us right about that. He told us that it’s propaganda put about by rich men and God has nothing to do with it. The land belongs to him but he doesn’t pay for our labour. We work the farms and keep most of the profit from the harvest. Some people round here don’t like his new-fangled ideas – but Count Nicolay’s a great man. He’s changed our lives, God bless him.’