Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [420]
‘Yes. It was, wasn’t it?’
‘But what shall I do now?’ Nicolai asked urgently. ‘I can’t just give up. Should I go to another village, do you think, and try to raise the peasants there?’
To his disappointment, however, Popov shook his head. ‘For the moment, Nicolai,’ he said, ‘I want you to stay in the house and do just as your father asks.’ And when Nicolai began to protest, he stopped him. ‘The fact is, my friend, I have some business to attend to at Russka and your being here gives me just the cover I need. So do cooperate, there’s a good fellow.’
‘If you think that’s best,’ Nicolai said reluctantly. He looked at Popov curiously. ‘What are you up to?’
For several moments Popov did not answer. Then, rather thoughtfully, he remarked: ‘He’s right of course, your father.’
‘Is he? What about?’
‘The peasants. They won’t follow us.’
‘Perhaps in time,’ Nicolai suggested.
There was a silence.
‘God, how I despise them,’ Popov murmured.
Which left Nicolai rather confused.
Two weeks had passed since Nicolai’s attempt to start the revolution, and in the village of Bobrovo everything was quiet.
No one had set eyes on Nicolai Bobrov. It was known that he was up at the manor house. The serfs up there said he sometimes went for walks in the woods above the house; the rest of the time he seemed to rest or read books.
As for his friend Popov, he was often to be seen nowadays, wandering about with a notebook and sketch pad. Somewhere in the Bobrov house he had found an ancient, wide-brimmed hat that had once belonged to Ilya and which gave him the look of an artist; the people at Bobrovo would often see him wandering over the little bridge to sketch the village from the footpath on the other side of the river. Frequently, too, he would take the lane through the woods to Russka and draw the monastery or the town. And if anyone asked him about Nicolai Bobrov he would shake his head sadly and say: ‘Poor fellow. Let us hope he will recover soon.’
If the village was deceived, however, Arina was not. She said nothing, but she knew very well that Nicolai wasn’t ill. As for Popov: What is he up to, that evil one? she would ask herself. As the days went by, Arina several times confided to her daughter: ‘Something bad’s going to happen, Varya.’ But when asked what, she could only shake her head and say: ‘I don’t know.’
Perhaps, she realized, it was her own family troubles that gave her a sense of foreboding. Things were looking bad for the Romanovs. Young Boris and his wife were gone, and already she could see the strain was telling on Timofei. All alone now, the peasant’s simple face looked pale and abstracted, as if he were suffering pain. The money Natalia brought from the factory was a help, but there was something about the girl recently which made Arina wonder if she was reliable. I don’t like the look of her, she thought. She’ll run away or do something stupid. Varya’s pregnancy was not agreeing with her either. She was looking pale and unwell; and once when the two of them had gone into the woods to pick mushrooms, and the younger woman had tripped on a root and fallen face down on the ground, she had just lain there instead of getting up and moaned: ‘This baby’s going to kill me, Mother. I know it.’
As she considered these matters, it seemed clearer than ever to Arina that when it was born, the baby must be disposed of. It’s easier to be hard when you get old, she considered. You see things as they are. And if anything confirmed her in this view, it was the interview which took place between Natalia and the family one evening.
Natalia was rather proud of herself when she made the announcement.
In a way, she had reason to be: for her courtship of Grigory had been successful.
Right up to the end, it had been hard work. His reluctance and shyness had remained a constant challenge. Overcoming them had become a game she played with herself each day, and even Natalia was