Part 9 (1/2)

11.

For a time, news of Madame Volkonsky's arrest helped set the seal on further contact with the clinic and the women who worked there. In the days that followed her detention a sharp knock on the door or raised voices in the street sent a chill down Frederick Hadfield's spine and he would wait with bated breath for the police to burst into the room.

But life went on as always, his hospital duties consuming more of his time, his list of well-to-do patients longer by the day. He had been treated with new respect at the Nikolaevsky since the closure of Department 10. Colleagues were grateful for the opportunity to share their problems with him, even when he was manifestly unqualified to solve them. And it proved to be a welcome distraction, a chance to make new friends and cement relations with old ones. A week pa.s.sed, then two, and fear of arrest and the pain it would cause his family slipped away to be replaced by a dull ache that pressed heavier on his spirit. At empty moments of the day and at night, he was unable to free himself from thoughts of Anna, her small rough hands, the frown lines on her brow, the ice blue sparkle of her eyes, the timbre of her voice and their awkward parting. Of course, it had been foolish to press her about her friends.h.i.+p with this 'Alexander' and downright impertinent to wring from her the admission that she was married. It was apparent from the embarra.s.sed silence that had followed the revelation that she deeply regretted it and was in no mood to confide more. A hasty and confused goodbye, and a feeling on his part at least that their paths were unlikely to cross again. But he had a duty to the clinic. If he dropped his Sunday commitment it would be evident to Anna he was more interested in her than his patients and that was something he did not want to admit, even to himself.

So on a hot July Sunday Hadfield took a cab to the dusty square in front of St Boris and St Gleb once more. Gazing through the tangle of scaffolding, it seemed to him that not a brick had been added to the church in the month since his last visit. The filthy streets were oppressive with the stench of human waste familiar to those tied by poverty or duty to the city in summer. In the waiting room of the clinic, the dvornik was patrolling the crowded benches as before, grumbling officiously about the noise and the mess the children were making of his floor. 'Can I help you?' A well built middle-aged woman in a starched white headscarf and pinafore bustled up to him.

'Dr Hadfield. I work here sometimes.'

'Oh?' She looked puzzled. 'I wasn't told you were coming.'

'Is Miss Kovalenko here?'

'No.' Miss Kovalenko was not at the clinic. Miss Kovalenko was visiting her mother near Kharkov. Miss Kovalenko's mother was very ill. No one was sure when she would return or if she was intending to do so.

'And Miss Figner?' he asked. 'Is she also visiting her sick mother?'

The nurse coloured a little. 'I don't know a Miss Figner, Doctor.'

No one knew more or would say. Hadfield had met none of the four women on duty at the clinic before but they knew of him, and he felt obliged to stay. Trudging back to the square at the end of the day, he felt relief, even satisfaction, that he had managed to clear the benches. It had helped to take the edge off the disappointment of knowing Anna was not at his side. Perhaps the attraction, the strange connection he felt between them, would break and she would drift away until it was impossible to imagine the curve of her hips or the line of her face or the precise blue of her eyes.

This dull thought was with him through the week, and the following Sunday he made his way to the clinic again. The same four women were there but they had heard no word from Anna. And as he ministered to his patients' cuts and infections, the diseases of hunger and neglect, he reflected that while it was often simple to treat the body, the mind was almost always a lost cause.

The Glen family were at their dacha near a spa town on the Gulf of Riga, where the general was taking the waters to ease his arthritis. Hadfield had declined an invitation to join them. Lady Dufferin had left for England and was not expected to return to St Petersburg before the autumn. In her absence, the third secretary at the emba.s.sy had taken on the role of master of revels to alleviate the boredom and isolation of those left in the city. Hadfield found himself pressed into a 'diplomatic theatrical', a new piece called La Belle de Venise written in French and Russian. Dobson was taking a part, too, and for a week or so they dined together then rehea.r.s.ed rather drunkenly in the correspondent's apartment. Neither of them made an effort with their lines until it became clear Lord Dufferin was taking the occasion rather more seriously and had invited a number of amba.s.sadors and senior government figures to the performance.

'd.a.m.n it, enough of this nonsense!' said Dobson, throwing his script on to the couch. Both men were dressed for dinner after an expensive evening at the Palkin, although the correspondent had discarded his frock coat 'the better to perform'. 'What possessed Hamilton to choose this drivel? And why do I have to play the butler?'

'Because you're an inky hack, George,' Hadfield replied with a tipsy grin. He was slumped in a leather armchair in front of the journalist's desk, with a gla.s.s of brandy in one hand and his lines in the other.

'You sn.o.b, Hadfield. Your egalitarian principles are skin deep, aren't they?'

'Grub street reporters are in a cla.s.s of their own.'

Dobson grunted and turned to pluck the brandy bottle from a silver drinks tray balanced on a table beside the fire.

'You know, I have it on good authority that Count von Plehve will be at the emba.s.sy,' he said, flopping on to the couch. 'It will be worth playing a fool if I can inveigle myself into his circle.'

'Von Plehve?'

'Don't you read the papers? He's the chief prosecutor,' said Dobson. 'Tipped to be a government minister in time. And absolutely the man to tell me more about this new nihilist group.'

'Is there one?'

Lifting a plump thigh on to the couch, the correspondent shuffled round to face Hadfield, his eyes sparkling with interest. 'Narodnaya Volya. ”The People's Will”. An army friend introduced me to a comrade of his called Barclay, a major in the gendarmes, who told me there was a gathering of revolutionaries in Voronezh last month and the militants I thought they were all militant but it appears not the militants have united behind a new banner ”The People's Will”. Barclay says the police are expecting more outrages. d.a.m.n thing is I can't print a word of it.' Dobson shook his head angrily. 'The b.l.o.o.d.y censor. When they decide the time is ripe everybody will get it the Russians, the Germans, even that lazy hack from the Daily Telegraph.'

'What is the point of cultivating this von Plehve if you can't print what he says?'

Dobson gave an almost Russian shrug. 'You never know.'

But the next time Hadfield saw the correspondent he was to judge from the stream of invective he launched at the wardrobe master feeling less philosophical about life's vicissitudes.

'For G.o.d's sake, man, haven't you got something that fits?'

The dresser from the Mikhailovsky Theatre was struggling with the butler's b.u.t.tons. The drinks tray was close by and Hadfield gestured to it.

'A stiff nip to help with first and last night nerves? Remember your Count von Plehve is in the audience.'

'Ha b.l.o.o.d.y ha, Hadfield.'

The performance was managed with just enough aplomb, and the audience entered into the spirit by applauding buffoonery whether it was intended or not. 'Wonderfully British,' the amba.s.sador declared in his vote of thanks. The loudest applause was reserved for the young master of revels, Lord Frederick Hamilton, who had played the part of the fierce grey-haired 'Countess Gorgonzola' with great panache.

A light supper was then served in the splendour of the emba.s.sy's White Hall, where Tsar Alexander I had danced the quadrille before meeting his generals to plan the defeat of La Grande Armee. A masterpiece of the Russian baroque in white and gold, fit for the visit of the heir to Byzantium, the tall pier gla.s.ses reflected an exuberant plaster tableau of 'Plenty'.

'Magnificent,' said Dobson, gazing at the life-size carvings of Pan's followers above the frieze. 'I doubt there is anything to touch it in England.'

'And a fine view to the Peter and Paul Fortress too,' said Hadfield, waving his champagne gla.s.s at the windows.

'What a joy you are to be with, old boy. You should have left your socialist baggage at the door. Look,' he said, nudging Hadfield lightly with his elbow, 'there's that wily old bird Gortchakov.'

The grey head of the Russian foreign minister was bent in conversation a few feet from them, peering at the amba.s.sador over his spectacles like an indulgent father. He wore a broad blue sash across his chest and diamond stars on his coat, the glittering honours of twenty years' service in the courts of Europe.

'A shocking flirt, you know,' Hadfield whispered. 'He likes to know if a new amba.s.sador has a pretty wife. If the answer's no, then he says the amba.s.sador will fail at court because he's already lost the most important argument.'

'Goodness, patients tell their physicians everything, don't they,' said Dobson with a cynical little shake of the head. 'And does he think Lady Dufferin pretty or is your source silent on the subject?'

'She's the wife of the British amba.s.sador. Of course he thinks she's pretty. Don't you?'

Dobson laughed: 'You're wasted in the medical profession.'

'Quite right. A born actor,' said Hamilton, stepping up to them with a broad smile. 'It went swimmingly, don't you think?'

'You looked very comfortable in that dress, Your Lords.h.i.+p,' Dobson replied.

Hamilton inclined his head graciously. The young third secretary was a little effeminate, tall, curly-haired, strikingly handsome and amiable enough, if rather too full of his family connections.

'A jolly good turnout,' he declared, with an extravagant flourish to the room. 'French, German and Italian amba.s.sadors, Baron de Budberg, and over there,' he nodded discreetly at an elderly gentleman sitting serenely by the window, 'Prince Davidov he was educated in Edinburgh. He knew Walter Scott. A little deaf.'

The creme de la creme of summer society drifting with the practised ease of profession and cla.s.s about the hall. Ladies in black satin dresses and diamonds, the men in a glittering array of court uniforms and frock coats, the murmur of diplomatic French, the clink of champagne flutes and the comfort of a small string orchestra: counts, princes, grand dukes and barons, a timeless display of wealth and privilege. As the third secretary rattled through the names of more guests, Hadfield wondered why a doctor, the son of a doctor, had been invited.

It became clear enough minutes later when Lord Dufferin touched his arm. 'There's someone I would like you to meet, Hadfield,' he said, and led him across the ballroom to where a man with the gold Star of the Order of St Vladimir at his breast was confidently holding forth to a lady.

'Your Highness, here is the gentleman I was speaking of,' said Dufferin with a little bow. 'My wife is adamant he's the best young doctor in the city.' And turning to Hadfield: 'The Princess of Oldenburg and Count von Plehve.'

Hadfield bent low over the gloved hand the princess offered him then gave a stiff bow to the count.