CHAPTER NINETEEN The Ring
The White Dining Room was empty. The remains of the general’s unfinished meal were still on the table, Sophie’s chair still on its side. But where were Delphine and Marianne?
Sophie ran to the nursery and pushed open the door to see her friends sitting on her bed by the window. Masha was pouring them tea from a samovar on the table.
“We heard shots!” Marianne ran toward her. “We were so frightened.”
“Masha brought us here,” Delphine said. She smiled at the girl, who blushed. “She’s Dmitri’s sister.”
“Dmitri so brave!” Masha said as she handed Sophie a glass of tea. “General say he must shoot wolves!” Her eyes were round. “But Dmitri spit on general’s boots!”
“And the other wolf?” Sophie whispered. “The wolf that escaped?”
Masha shook her head. She turned away.
“What happened?” Marianne asked. They all sat together on the bed. “Honestly, Sophie, we’re worried. It’s all gone weird.”
Delphine stroked Sophie’s arm. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.
“We need to leave.” As if everything had suddenly been decided in the saying of those words, she ran to the dresser and started pulling out sweaters, jeans, a pile of underwear, moving as fast as if she risked missing a train.
“Let’s just pack up everything. Come on, Marianne!
You too, Sophie. Let’s just get ready and tell her she has to send us back to Saint Petersburg! ”
Marianne, looking stunned, blinked up at Delphine. “I don’t want to go to Saint Petersburg,” she said slowly. “I want to go back to London … I want to go home!”
Delphine refolded T-shirts. “Fine. We’ll go home. Just get a move on!”
“But …” Sophie swung her legs down onto the floor. Was this how it was going to end? The princess wasn’t the person she appeared to be, she had let them down, but she was still in terrible trouble. “She asked for help.”
“But that’s just it,” Marianne sighed. She looked crumpled, as if someone needed to shake all the creases out of her. “We can’t help her.”
“But just to leave her with the general …”
“It’s not safe for us to stay.” Delphine’s voice was firm.
They would be like the Volkonsky princess, then, Sophie thought … fleeing the palace …
“Delphine’s right.” Marianne bent down and pulled her rucksack from underneath her bed. “We need to get out of here.”
It was as if none of them wanted to voice the problem in this apparently simple solution: How? How would they leave the palace? They packed the rest of their things silently.
Sophie, sitting on her bed, pulled the pencil box out of her rucksack. She opened it and took out the diamond ring. A gift from a Volkonsky princess. She would return it. Even if the princess did not think it so valuable, it might buy her some time with the general.
“Where did you get that?” Delphine’s hand shot out, and before Sophie realized it, she had the ring on her finger. “Is it real?” she asked.
“Let me see,” said Marianne.
Reluctantly, Delphine slid it off her finger and handed it to her. Marianne took it to the window and scratched it against the glass.
“What are you doing?” Sophie protested.
“Pretty it may be,” Marianne said, offering it back to Sophie, “but a real diamond would have cut the glass.”
Sophie put it carefully back in the pencil box.
Somehow she wasn’t surprised. And she didn’t mind, not really.
It was just odd, she reflected, how she had brought her piece of glass here to remind her of her father, but she would be taking back another to England to remind her of Dmitri, the wolves, and the Volkonskys.
Delphine, her beautiful tweed coat over her shoulders, announced, “Let’s find the princess.”
From the top of the staircase they could hear the general’s voice in the atrium.
“Ann-aaaa!” They looked over the balustrade.
He was standing as he had when he had arrived, legs planted apart.
There was a pile of carpets and paintings heaped in the middle of the floor.
He threw a battered silver samovar onto the heap.
“Don’t sulk, little girls!” His voice made them jump. “Don’t hide in the shadows! Show yourselves!”
“He’s seen us!” Delphine gasped. “What do we do?”
“Come on!” Sophie said, forcing herself to sound determined and sure. “He’s a bully. Like Natalie Bates at school. You just have to stand up to him.”
Marianne pulled on her sleeve. “Are you mad? No one ever gets the better of Natalie Bates. You’re better off just walking away.”
But they descended the staircase slowly.
“So. A delegation! What could you possibly want, dressed in your coats, carrying your bags?”
Sophie cleared her throat.
“Not you!” the man snapped. “I’m not interested in what you’ve got to say! You’ve had your chance … and you wasted it!”
Sophie was so shocked she took a step backward. Marianne was right. You never won against people like this man. They could always make you feel weak and desperate, and in that split second of feeling unsure, they’d finish you off.
“We want to leave,” said Delphine, very bravely. “We were just going to tell the princess.”
“We really do have to go!” Marianne blurted out. She shifted her battered rucksack a little higher on her shoulder.
The man looked at them and nodded, as if he were considering their request. Then he clapped his hands together. “Of course!” He smiled broadly and checked his watch. “You must leave! You are bored. You are wanting to return to Saint Petersburg. You must accompany me on my train!”
“We won’t go with you!” Sophie said.
“There is no other way to leave!” the general said. “But it’s up to you.”
Sophie looked at her friends. They seemed desperate. It was as if she felt the palace collapsing around her. The general was right; they had no idea where they were. Their phones didn’t work. They were at his mercy.
“Ivan will take us to the train in the vozok,” he added with a sly smile.
Sophie felt Marianne and Delphine sigh with relief. Yes, Ivan would make sure they were all right. He would get them home. The vozok could be outside right now! They would be bundled into it and they would be gone.
The princess appeared at the top of the stairs.
“I am leaving,” the general said to her.
The princess looked distraught. She ran to him. “No, Grigor, no. I can find them. Don’t leave.”
“I have taken anything of any worth.”
“No, Grigor,” the princess whimpered. “Please. Take me with you.”
“Why? You are worth nothing.” He pushed her away. “You disappoint me, Anna. You should have taken that shot — made the kill, as I asked you to. It makes me think you are weak. Come, girls!” he cried then. “Let us get into the vozok — let us all go home!”
He ushered Marianne and Delphine toward the door. Sophie stayed where she was. The princess had asked for her help. She was in tears. How could Sophie leave her?