Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [344]
But he was not interested. ‘Who would run it after I am gone?’ he demanded. ‘Alexis? He’s a soldier. Ilya? He’d be incapable.’ He shook his head. ‘Far better to build up the estates for them than get into risky projects none of us understand. Besides,’ he would remind her, ‘it’s far simpler to let the serfs do it all: we get our reward by taking their profits in obrok payments.’ And when she was still unsatisfied, he remarked wearily: ‘You’re just a German.’
Tatiana had long supposed that she knew Savva; yet it was only a year before that she had fully realized the secret passion that drove him. It came to light one day when she was quizzing him gently about his personal life. The two Suvorins, as well as being entrepreneurs, were highly unusual in another way too: they were both single. Savva’s father was a widower. But Savva himself, though thirty-three now, was still unmarried. It was unheard of. The priest at Russka had spoken to him about it many times; Bobrov had threatened to force him to marry. But he had been strangely evasive. And only then had he at last confessed to Tatiana: ‘I’ll never marry until I’m free. I’d sooner go into the monastery.’
‘Who will you marry?’ she had asked.
‘A merchant’s daughter,’ he replied. ‘But no merchant will let his daughter marry a serf, since then she becomes a serf too.’
So that was it. He wanted to buy his freedom. Several times already he had approached Bobrov on the subject, but the landlord had waved him away. ‘Every landlord has a price though,’ he told Tatiana. ‘And then …’ Then she suspected he would do great things.
And so Tatiana had formed her plan. It was very simple, if somewhat unusual. And it rested on the perfect understanding which she now reached with Savva.
At first Alexander Bobrov was puzzled by his wife’s desire that he should sell Savva and his father their freedom. ‘What’s it to you?’ he would enquire. But weeks and months went by, and she continued to badger him: ‘Let them go, Alexander Prokofievich. You say you want to put money by. Take your profit now then, and sell them their freedom.’
‘I sometimes think you prefer those serfs to your own family,’ he would remark drily.
But still she had persisted until, just a week ago, and in order to get some peace, he had at last promised wearily: ‘Very well. But if they want their freedom, they can pay me fifteen thousand roubles for it and nothing less.’ After bleeding them white for so many years, he calculated, there was no possibility of their raising such a sum.
At which Tatiana only smiled.
Her understanding with Savva was very straightforward. ‘I shall persuade Alexander Prokofievich to sell you your freedom, Savva. I will also lend you the money you need, free of any interest. A year after you get your freedom, however, whenever that may be, you will repay me exactly twice what I lent you. Is that agreed?’ He had bowed low. ‘Very well then,’ she had told him. ‘Leave it to me. But tell no one.’
It might be highly unorthodox for a lady to concern herself with a serf like this – especially behind her husband’s back – but the plan was entirely sensible. Suvorin would get his freedom; Bobrov a substantial sum of money to pass on; and she would discreetly increase the little nest-egg she was building up for Sergei.
And though the sum Bobrov had demanded for the Suvorins’ freedom was huge, she had faith in the serf. It might take time, but he would find it.
Already she had lent him a thousand roubles. Now, this bright January morning, she had come into Russka with more – another thousand. ‘Take it to Moscow and use it well,’ she told him.
And as he mounted the sled and bowed again, she did not know that Savva had another secret, that he was concealing from her. He would have enough money now, to buy his