Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [8]
Before Lent was over, a letter was delivered. The three of us were resting after our supper in the parlor, where the fire burned brightly and my mother’s aging cat purred asthmatically in her lap. My mother was knitting, and Eugenia worked on an estimate for the next planting season. When the letter was brought to us, my mother grew agitated at the sight of the imperial seal, convinced that the emperor wanted to honor poor dead Papa in some extravagant fashion; I suspected the emperor had finally recovered from the verbal lashing he had received from Eugenia (the letter was addressed to her), and had come up with a deserving repartee three months later.
I was closer to the truth—the envelope contained two items. The first one was a new ukaz, which Eugenia glanced at briefly and then read more closely. She let out a great whoop of joy. “Ha!” she yelled, jumping up and twirling in the most undignified manner. “The old goat listened! Look at this—‘St. Petersburg University welcomes young ladies from noble families among its hallowed walls . . . ’ Nonsense and circumstance . . . ‘to be housed in the newly remodeled dormitories at the Vasilyevsky Island . . . chaperons . . . ’ ” She looked at me brightly and laughed. “Well, you get the idea.”
I did, and felt a little nauseated as I eyed the second piece of paper that Eugenia let drop to the floor in her haste to read the imperial ukaz. Presently, Eugenia picked it up and glanced at it, her grin growing even wider. “This is for you,” she told me, sly. I took the letter with trembling fingers, and stared at the list of the first ten noble young ladies to occupy the newly renovated dormitory come next August. I recognized most of the names—Golitsyna and Obolonskaya, and Dasha Muravieva was there as well. But my main consternation was directed at the last line—Trubetskaya, Alexandra.
“Why, Sasha, that’s you.” My mother pointed over my shoulder and beamed; I was not certain if she fully realized what was happening and why I felt simultaneously terrified and elated, but she smiled, Eugenia smiled, and somehow I felt quite certain that the positives would outweigh the sheer terror of having to attend the university—something I frankly had not previously considered but evidently acquiesced to.
I was not the only one with apprehensions, as it turned out—five out of ten young ladies named as the occupants of the newly renovated dormitories expressed their gratitude but turned down the appointments, citing various obligations and excuses, from a case of nerves to the impending matrimony. “Same thing, really,” Eugenia judged. “Cowards.”
I did not allow myself to feel bad about my lack of matrimonial prospects, and spent the summer focusing on my education. Miss Chartwell felt her reputation was at risk, and she spent entirely too many lovely summer days making me conjugate English verbs and calculate derivatives (my hatred for Herr von Leibnitz I could not describe), with an occasional foray into Spinosa or Pushkin.
By the time my departure for the university had arrived, my head felt as if it had swollen three sizes. I suspected, with a hint of wistfulness, that I would probably never be as smart again—and it was all thanks to dear old Miss Chartwell.
The Englishwoman had grown resigned to my leaving, and she came with the rest of the household to bid me goodbye. Her eyes had turned suspiciously red-rimmed and she kept swiping at them with her handkerchief—for her, it was a display of emotion much more extreme than my mother’s unabashed keening.
I felt my eyes water as well