Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [402]
It was just before he fell asleep that a possible solution to the puzzle concerning his familiar guest occurred to Misha Bobrov.
Devil take it, he thought. Didn’t the young fellow say his patronymic was Pavlovich? And didn’t that horrid old priest at Russka, with the red hair, have a son called Paul Popov – a petty official of some kind in Moscow. Could this ginger-haired fellow be the priest’s grandson, then?
It was an amusing thought. He decided to ask him in the morning.
Yet when morning came, and Misha descended to the dining room where he expected to find the two young men at breakfast, he was greeted by his manservant with a most curious bit of news.
‘Mister Nicolai went out with his friend just before dawn, sir,’ the fellow said.
‘Before dawn? Where to?’
‘Down to the village, Mikhail Alexeevich.’ And then, with obvious disapproval: ‘They were dressed as peasants, sir.’
Misha looked at the man. He was not usually given to inventing stories.
‘Why the devil should they be doing that?’ he demanded.
‘I can’t understand it, sir,’ he replied. ‘They said,’ he hesitated for an instant, ‘they said, sir, that they were going to look for work.’
And Misha Bobrov could only wonder what on earth this could mean.
Grigory was nineteen, with a pinched face and long, oily black hair which was parted, rather sadly, down the middle. He was not strong physically, and God had cursed him with teeth which gave him pain almost every day. But he was determined, in his quiet way. Determined to survive.
He was also frightened of Natalia Romanov, who loved him.
He had been one of a family of eight. His father had been a household serf who had drifted into casual labour in Vladimir and who, as soon as they were ten, had sent his children out to work. About once a month he had tied Grigory to a wooden bench and flogged him with birch twigs which he had thoughtfully wetted first. Yet, despite this, Grigory had been fond of him.
His father had not minded when, at the age of thirteen, Grigory had said he wanted to leave home. Indeed, Grigory had the impression that his parents were rather glad to get rid of him. But before he left, his father had given him one piece of advice to take with him on his road through life.
‘Take what you can from women, Grigory. But watch out. Sometimes they seem kind, but deep down, they want to hurt you. Remember that.’
He always had.
And now this girl. What did she see in him? She was pretty, lively; her father had his own holding: by Grigory’s standards, the Romanovs were rich. He could make her laugh: but then, with his sharp, rather cruel humour, he could make almost anyone laugh. He could make people laugh who hated him, and whom he hated.
So what could she want with him?
And why, in the name of the Lord, had she, that last night, asked him to marry her? He had looked at her with suspicious astonishment before gruffly replying: ‘I’ll have to think about that.’
When the two young men dressed as peasants appeared in the village that morning, nobody at first knew who they were – until Arina, coming out of the house took one look and called out: ‘Holy Master Nicolai, how you’ve grown!’ And a moment later, at the old woman’s insistence, they were inside the Romanov izba sitting by the big warm stove and eating sweetmeats.
When the family heard that Nicolai and his friend wanted to work in the village, they were mystified. Who could fathom the mind of a noble? But when Timofei cautiously enquired if they wanted to be paid, and was told they did not, his eyes opened wide at this stroke of good luck. ‘Go no further, Nicolai Mikhailovich,’ he said. ‘I can give you just what you want.’
And so it was, two hours later, that a puzzled Misha Bobrov encountered his son and young Popov quietly helping the peasant at the edge of a large field and, wise enough not to interfere, shook his head in amusement at the strange eccentricities of young people and returned to his house. ‘They’ll be hungry tonight,’ he remarked to his wife, and went to read a book.
Natalia watched the two visitors with curiosity too.