Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [235]
It was strange, given her parents, that she was so plain. From Andrei she had inherited dark hair, and from her mother a certain grace of movement. But that was all. Her face was pale; her nose, by general consent, was too long; she had a slight squint and there was a small wart on the left side of her chin. This lack of physical beauty, however, was modified by the fact that, when she allowed herself to show it, she had a smile of extraordinary sweetness.
To compensate for her shameful birth, Elena had brought her up very strictly. Grandmother and granddaughter would always be seen, at every possible church service in Dirty Place, Russka or in the monastery, hurrying quietly by, their kerchiefs over their bowed heads, scarcely even looking up to speak as they crossed themselves before the doorway of the church, and again inside; they would light candles before every icon, and say a prayer.
Above all, Arina loved to sing in the little wooden church in Dirty Place, with what became, by her fifteenth year, a beautiful contralto voice, so that the priest there would say: ‘She is our nightingale.’ And often he would remind the village people: ‘See how God, though He has not chosen to give this girl good looks, has instead given her a voice and a spirit of great beauty, by which He is praised.’
It was as well that Arina should have a religious nature, for as her grandmother told her bluntly: ‘You will never be married.’ She saw it only too clearly. Thanks to the war with Poland, there were five women to every man in the district around Russka. ‘And of all the girls, I’m afraid you’d be the last to be chosen anyway,’ Elena said, ‘so you may as well get used to the idea.’
If Arina ever felt bitter about any aspect of her fate, she never showed it. ‘I thank God,’ Elena would say to people in the girl’s presence, ‘I thank God, at least, that she isn’t headstrong like her mother.’ Submission, her grandmother taught her, submission and obedience were her only hope.
When she was a little girl, Arina had often wondered about her mother. What sort of person had she been?
Fortunately, old Elena would often talk about Maryushka. She had loved her so much that she couldn’t help it. Indeed, the memory of the vanished girl still, after all these years, seemed to exercise a fascination over the stout old woman. ‘She was a beauty, there’s no denying it,’ she would say to Arina, with a shake of her head.
Her mother’s crime, Arina discovered, was not so much her affair with the Cossack. Such things were wrong, of course, but they happened. Her crime was being headstrong.
‘The steward, you see, he didn’t know he wasn’t your father. Not at first,’ Elena explained. He might never have known if he had not continually beat Maryushka.
‘Whenever something annoyed him, he’d take it out on her,’ Elena remembered sadly. ‘He used to hit her with his fist. She should have just taken it like most women do, but no, she had to lose her temper one day, just after you were weaned. She told him what she thought of him. Then she told him he wasn’t your father.’
She sighed. ‘Ah, Maryushka, my poor dove. “I’ve done it now,” she says to me. “You have,” I said. “He’ll bide his time,” she says, “then he’ll kill me. I know him.” “Yes,” I said, “I think you’re right.” “So will you take Arina?” she says. And then, next morning, without even saying goodbye to me, she’s gone.’
So had begun Elena’s life with the steward. He had told her bluntly that since her daughter had left him like this, she had better look after him. And since he had power over her family, she had agreed. ‘But don’t you try hitting me, though,’ she had warned. ‘I’m not your wife.’
Even then, the village assumed that wild Maryushka had run away because of the steward’s cruelty, and no one would have known about the Cossack if the steward himself, in his occasional drunken rages, had not