Chapter One
The shy northern sun had already set by teatime when three of the Tsar’s
gendarmes took up positions at the gates of the Smolny Institute for Noble
Girls. The end of term at the finest girls’ boarding school in St.
Petersburg was no place for policemen but there they were, unmistakable in
their smart navy-blue tunics with white trimming, shiny sabers, and
lambskin helmets with sultan-spikes. One clicked his fingers impatiently,
another opened and closed the leather holster of his Mauser revolver and
the third stood stolidly, legs wide, with his thumbs stuck into his belt.
Behind them waited a traffic jam of horse-drawn sleighs, emblazoned gold
and crimson with family crests, and a couple of gleaming limousines. The
slow, slanting snowfall was visible only in the flickering halo of
streetlights and the amber lamps of touring cars.
It was the third winter of the Great War and it seemed the darkest and the
longest so far. Through the black gates, down the paved avenue, the white
splendor of the pillared Institute rose out of the early twilight like an
ocean liner adrift in the mist. Even this boarding school, of which the
Empress herself was patron and which was filled with the daughters of
aristocrats and war profiteers, could no longer feed its girls or heat its
dormitories. Term was ending prematurely. The shortages had reached even
the rich. Few could now afford the fuel to run a car, and horsepower was
fashionable again.
The winter darkness in wartime St. Petersburg had a sticky arctic gloom
all of its own. The feathery snow muffled the sounds of horses and engines
but the burning cold made the smells sharper: gasoline, horse dung, the
alcohol on the breath of the snoring postilions, the acrid cologne and
cigarettes of chauffeurs in yellow- and red-trimmed uniforms, and the
flowery perfumes on the throats of the waiting women.
Inside the burgundy leather compartment of a Delaunay-Belleville
landaulet, a serious young woman with a heart-shaped face sat with an
English novel on her lap, lit by a naphtha lamp. Audrey Lewis – Mrs.
Lewis to her employers and Lala to her beloved charge – was cold. She
pulled the bushy lambskin up over her lap; her hands were gloved, and she
wore a wolf-fur hat and a thick coat. But still she shivered. She ignored
the driver, Pantameilion, when he climbed into his seat, flicking his
cigarette into the snow. Her brown eyes never left the door of the school.
“Hurry up, Sashenka!” Lala muttered to herself in English. She checked the
brass clock set into the glass division that kept the chauffeur at bay.
“Not long now!”
A maternal glow of anticipation spread across her chest: she imagined
Sashenka’s long-limbed figure running toward her across the snow. Few
mothers picked up their children from the Smolny Institute, and almost no
fathers. But Lala, the governess, always collected Sashenka.
Just a few minutes, my child, she thought; my adorable, clever, solemn
child.
The lanterns shining through the delicate tracery of ice on the dim car
windows bore her away to her childhood home in Pegsdon, a village in
Hertfordshire. She had not seen England for six years and she wondered if
she would ever see her family again. But if she had stayed there, she
would never have known her darling Sashenka. Six years ago, she had
accepted a position in the household of Baron and Baroness Zeitlin and a
new life in the Russian capital, St. Petersburg. Six years ago, a young
girl in a sailor suit had greeted her coolly, examined her searchingly and
then offered the Englishwoman her hand, as if presenting a bouquet. The
new governess spoke scarcely a word of Russian but she knelt on one knee
and enclosed that small hot hand in her own palms. The girl, at first
hesitantly then with growing pressure, leaned against her, finally laying
her head on Lala’s shoulder.
“Mne zavout Mrs. Lewis,” said the Englishwoman in bad Russian.
“Greetings to a bespoke guest, Lala! I am be-named Sashenka,” replied the
child in appalling English. And that had been that: Mrs. Lewis was
henceforth “be-named” Lala. The need met the moment. They loved each other
on sight.
“It’s two minutes to five,” said the chauffeur tinnily through the
speaking tube.
The governess sat forward, unhooked her own speaking tube and spoke into
the brass cup in excellent Russian (though with an English intonation).
“Thank you, Pantameilion.”
“What are the pharaohs doing here?” said the driver. Everyone used the
slang term for the political police, the Gendarmerie. He chuckled. “Maybe
the schoolgirls are hiding German codes in their petticoats?”
Lala was not going to discuss such matters with a chauffeur.
“Pantameilion, I’ll need you to come in and get her trunk,” she said
sternly. But why were the gendarmes there? she wondered.
The girls always came out on time. Madame Buxhoeven, the headmistress,
known to the girls as Grand-maman, ran the Institute like a Prussian
barracks – but in French. Lala knew that Grand-maman was a favorite of
the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna and the reigning Empress Alexandra.
A cavalry officer and a gaggle of schoolboys and students in gold-buttoned
uniforms and caps walked through the gates to meet their sweethearts. In
Russia, even schoolboys had uniforms. When they saw the three gendarmes,
they started, then walked on, glancing back: what were the political
police doing at a boarding school for noble girls?
Waiting to convey their masters’ daughters home, the coachmen, in
ankle-length padded robes lined with thick white lamb’s fur, red sashes
and bowler hats, stamped their feet and attended to their horses. They too
observed the gendarmes.
Five o’clock. The double doors of the Smolny swung open, casting a ribbon
of canary light down the steps toward the gates.
“Ah, here they come!” Lala tossed her book aside.
At the top of the steps, Madame Buxhoeven, severe in her black cape, serge
dress and high white collar, appeared in the tent of light – as if on
wheels like a sentry on a Swiss clock, thought Lala. Grand-maman’s mottled
bosom, as broad as an escarpment, was visible even at this distance – and
her ringing soprano could crack ice at a hundred paces. Even though it was
freezing, Lala pulled down her window and peered out, excitement rising.
She thought of Sashenka’s favorite tea awaiting her in the little salon,
and the cookies she had bought specially from the English Shop on the
Embankment. The tin of Huntley & Palmers was perched beside her on the
burgundy leather seat.
The coachmen clambered up onto their creaking conveyances and settled
themselves, whips in hand. Pantameilion pulled on a beribboned cap and
jacket trimmed in scarlet and gold and, stroking a well-waxed mustache,
winked at Lala. Why do men expect us to fall in love with them just
because they can start a motorcar? Lala wondered, as the engine chugged,
spluttered and burst into life.
Pantameilion smiled, revealing a mouthful of rotten fangs. His voice came
breathily through the speaking tube. “So where’s our little fox then! Soon
I’ll have two beauties in the car.”
Lala shook her head. “Hurry now, Pantameilion. A trunk and a valise, both
marked Aspreys of London. Bistro! Quick!”
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Sashenka
by Simon Montefiore
Copyright © 2008 by Simon Montefiore.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Simon & Schuster
Copyright © 2008
Simon Montefiore
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4165-9554-0
