CHAPTER EIGHT The Stranger
Sophie stepped out onto the platform. The moonlight made everything glitter and a light flurry of snow danced about in the dying wind.
All around were the narrow, dark triangles of pine trees, each branch laden with snow, waiting like passengers for something to happen.
Every so often, the weight of the snow would be too much for one of the branches and the snow would suddenly slide off and land with a satisfying thud, sending up a white cloud of snowy dust. Then the branch would spring up, light again at last.
The air was cold, and it made her catch her breath.
There was a brisk scent of pine needles as well as the softer smell of snow.
Sophie’s face was already tingling. She knew she should be anxious — she had fallen asleep when it was her turn to listen for the train, after all — but seeing this forest coated in thick drifts of snow and moonlight, breathing air so clear it seemed to sparkle inside her lungs, made her feel full of excitement.
This was not like the silver forest her father had taken her to in her dreams. But then, that would be impossible.
Marianne and Delphine stumbled out of the hut, both in their coats, bleary-eyed.
“Oh, you are clever, Sophie!” Marianne said.
“Am I?” Sophie dragged her gaze away from the trees to look at her friend.
“We knew you wouldn’t let us down,” Delphine cried, clapping her hands.
“Really?” Sophie was puzzled. What were they talking about? Then, seeing her friends staring into the forest behind her, she turned to look.
In the distance, coming toward them on tracks she couldn’t have seen due to the deep drifts of snow, was a magnificent white steam train, with two enormous lights, like twin moons, at its front. She felt momentarily disoriented.
“But it’s coming from the wrong direction …”
The others were too excited to listen. They were jumping up and down on the platform, yelling.
There was a long blast on the whistle, an accompanying joyous screech of metal, and the train slowed down and finally stopped right where they were standing. A cloud of steam enveloped them.
And then, as they laughed with relief, the door of the engine opened and out stepped a man as tall as a bear, with black hair and beard.
He was dressed in a white tunic with a black belt around the middle and gold buttons across one shoulder and all down one side.
His black trousers were tucked into long black boots.
He walked toward the girls through the folding, spiraling steam, then bowed. As he stood upright again, he smiled broadly, showing square, white teeth. His eyes crinkled at the edges as if he were about to tell them a tremendous joke.
“At last!” he said over the hissing of the engine. “Marianne, Delphine, and my dear, dear Sophie! You are safely here at last!” His voice sounded exactly as Sophie thought a Russian voice should sound. Fat and roly-poly, the words knocking into each other like bowling pins.
The man bowed once more. “I am sorry I was not here to meet your train. Russian blizzards …” He shrugged. “But you were comfortable?” he went on anxiously. “You found the hut? I prepared everything in advance.”
The girls nodded, then looked at each other.
It was as if they were each waiting for one of the others to say something.
Sophie, who had felt so comfortable in the hut, now felt less sure about what to do.
It felt rude to have a discussion in front of the man about whether they should go with him or not, but then … they didn’t know him!
The man opened another carriage door and stood to one side, holding it with one hand, the other stretched out toward them. “But make haste! We must get out of the cold. Frost bites more deeply than the wolf!”
Through the steam, Sophie saw the head of an animal painted in silver on the side of the train. Mouth open, teeth bared, as if about to snap its fierce jaws shut on the soft body of its prey. A wolf.
“My luggage …” said Delphine.
“I will dig it out!” said the man.
His openness and assurance appeared to give Delphine confidence. She stepped toward him. “Come on!” she called over her shoulder as she took the man’s hand and climbed up the step.
“He knows who we are, but who is he?” Marianne whispered.
“I don’t know,” Sophie replied.
“I’m not sure we should go.”
“Well, we can’t stay here.”
“But we shouldn’t go with him if we don’t know who he is.”
“Please do not delay,” the man said, looking more serious and glancing at the sky. “The blizzard will soon return.”
Marianne looked back at the hut. “What about the cat?” she asked.
“He belongs here,” Sophie answered. “And we don’t.”
Somehow that seemed to make up both their minds and Marianne and Sophie allowed themselves to be steered up the steps of the train and into an old-fashioned carriage.
As she stepped inside, Sophie gasped in delight.
Yes, this was the train she had imagined while wearing Rosemary’s mink jacket, sleeping in that chilly spare room!
The sort of train that began adventures.
There was a pretty chandelier hanging from the ceiling, silver-gray banquettes with deep-set buttons, wooden cupboards above, and heavy, lace-edged blinds at the window. Sophie noticed that, although it was all very beautiful, many of the fabrics looked fragile and worn, like pieces in a museum.
Marianne stood uncertainly by the window and watched the man pluck the luggage out of the snow. He threw the suitcases up into the driver’s cabin as easily as if they were empty, slammed their carriage door shut, and walked to the front of the train.
“We still don’t know where we’re going,” Marianne said.
“Back to Saint Petersburg!” Delphine said. “You heard him!”
Marianne shook her head. “He didn’t say anything about Saint Petersburg.”
“And the train came from the other direction,” added Sophie.
Steam billowed past the windows, there was the screech of iron wheels on track, and the train shunted forward. The chandelier tinkled and sprinkled light over them.
“He’s been sent to fetch us,” Delphine said firmly. “He knows our names. Where else would he be taking us?”
The train gathered pace and slipped into the snow-covered forest.
“I’ve lost my ticket,” Marianne said, slumping down onto a banquette. “I hope he doesn’t ask to see it.”
Before the girls could say anything more, the man reappeared.
He seemed even taller and larger now that he was in the daintily appointed carriage.
He rubbed his hands together and said, “It is very cold in the forest. I must make sure that you are kept warm.” He turned and took three pale fur traveling rugs from a wooden cupboard.
He gestured to Sophie to sit down. “You must be tired after your long journey,” he said, tucking the fur under her knees and then turning his attention to the other girls.
Marianne bit her nails and glanced out of the window as if she might still try to get off.
The man seemed unaware of her anxiety. “I must first attend to the furnace in the driver’s cabin,” he said. “A matter of moments, only.”
“You’re the driver, too?” Marianne looked dazed.
“The train almost takes care of itself.” The man smiled. “Which means I will have time to serve you a midnight picnic and your first glass of proper Russian tea. I will prepare the samovar!”
He rubbed his hands together and beamed at the girls as if he had just given them a present.
“Miss Ellis definitely got confused,” Delphine whispered once the man had left the carriage. They could hear him singing cheerfully, and the sound of cutlery and plates being placed on a tray.
“Or Dr. Starova didn’t explain things properly,” Marianne added.
An image of the woman in the tapestry coat sipping coffee and checking the station clock dropped into Sophie’s mind.
Dr. Starova struck her as the sort of woman who knew exactly what she was doing.
She thought of her visit to the school — her certainty at wanting Sophie to do the tour, her deftness in taking Sophie’s photograph in the playground.
And then looking around her room, asking about her father …
In Sophie’s memory, there seemed to be a point to all that the woman had done that day, to her waiting in the station café until the last possible moment at the station, although Sophie still could not understand what that point was.
“Perhaps …” Sophie started to say, just as the man reappeared with a small dish of pancakes.
“Blinis!” he said proudly. Each pancake had a dollop of thick white cream and pearls of pale gray on top. “With caviar!”
There was a question to which they desperately needed the answer, but none of them had had the courage to ask it.
Sophie wished that Marianne wouldn’t go quiet in these situations; her reticence, as she sat observing everything like a little owl, had its drawbacks.
And Delphine was sometimes a bit too forthright.
“Would you mind telling us …” Sophie felt heat sliding over her cheeks.
The man smiled encouragement as he handed them each a plate with a blini.
Delphine, using her most sophisticated voice, finished Sophie’s sentence. “… who you are?”
The man took a second to answer, as if he might be translating what they had said into Russian.
And then he burst out laughing. “The journey to fetch you has made me forgetful!” He took a deep breath, bowed deeply to each of the girls in turn, and then said, in solemn tones, “I am Ivan Ivanovich, majordomo at the Volkonsky Winter Palace!”
Delphine simply nodded, as if she had known this all along. Sophie thought she might have laughed if she didn’t feel so confused.
Marianne turned to Sophie with a questioning look and mouthed, “What?”
Delphine was still nodding. “This palace place …” she said. “Is it in Saint Petersburg?”
The man shook his head. “Why, no!”
“Oh!” Delphine frowned and stopped nodding.