Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [308]
Sometimes these questions amused him. But after a time they began to annoy him. How much did the mountains of wood for the stoves cost? Why did they have so many carriages they never used? Shouldn’t they go and inspect their estates?
‘Your father gave us plenty of money. We’ve no need to worry,’ he would assure her.
Indeed, Tatiana’s father had discovered Alexander’s financial position soon after the marriage, and although Tatiana’s dowry had been ample to pay all his debts and leave them an estate to spare, the Baltic nobleman had not been best pleased, and the relationship between him and Alexander was cool thereafter.
So Alexander could not help suspecting that her father’s influence was at work when, one day just before she discovered she was pregnant, she had astounded him by remarking: ‘Don’t you think, Alexander, that you should give me some accounting of how you have spent my dowry?’
It was a calculated insult! She was his wife, and barely seventeen years old to boot. What impertinence! Furiously he had burst out: ‘You damned foreigners! You Germans – the Dutch and English are just the same – you count every kopek. Why,’ he searched for an insult, ‘you’re like so many Jews!’ But he could see that, despite the fact that she submissively bowed her head, she was not satisfied.
Besides, there was something he could not tell her.
The costs of the Masonic Press were considerable. The publishing programme was ambitious. And, it had to be admitted, the professor was sometimes a little vague about keeping accurate accounts. Already, at the time of his marriage and in addition to the contributions to the Brotherhood, Alexander had been asked to help support the Press. How could he refuse, when men like the prince were contributing handsomely? Indeed, he had been amazed to discover that some students of higher Masonry were prepared to consecrate almost their entire fortunes to the cause. He certainly did not want to lose face before his new friends. So it had been with some satisfaction that, soon after his marriage, he had announced: ‘I shall be able to make a contribution.’
Tatiana would have been surprised indeed to know, when Alexander left for Moscow just after she became pregnant, that he was going to see the professor at his estate; that he was hoping for a reconciliation with his mentor; and that with him he was taking a further contribution, which amounted to nearly a fifth of her dowry. Had she known it, she might indeed have concluded that, if the professor was her friend, he was also her enemy.
1789
It was on a raw, dull day in March in that year so fateful in the history of the world, when the ice on the Neva was still solid, that Alexander Bobrov the gambler struck a last bargain with God. It was not the deal he had wanted; but it seemed to be the best he could get at the time.
The morning was grey: a faint wind, on its way westwards from the icy waters of Siberia, hissed through the huge open squares of St Petersburg. In the big salon of their house, Alexander was facing his wife. He had not returned home until dawn that morning, but they were not speaking of that. He was sitting, and Tatiana was standing, to ease her back: for she was eight months pregnant with their second child. And he was glowering at her.
Damn her! Didn’t she trust him? How dare she defy him?
She trembled for a moment, but did not reply. Damn her! Damn her a thousand times. Or was she taunting him deliberately, because of Adelaide?
Tatiana stood quite still, holding on to the back of a chair for support. If she did not speak for a moment, it was because she was having to prepare herself, and she was nervous. Why did all these things have to come to a head when she was so pregnant?
Did he love her? It was not only the Frenchwoman: there were those unexplained disappearances to Moscow and these mysterious evenings out in St Petersburg. What was she to make of it?
Strangely, she did not hate Adelaide de Ronville. Sometimes she would meet her rival at Countess Turova’s. The Frenchwoman was always polite and never made the