The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [71]
“Misha had built a schoolhouse and paid the klassnaya dama, and he helped the brightest children with scholarships to a school in Moscow; he built them a clinic and paid the doctor, and he fought for the peasants’ rights in the Duma, the Parliament. He did his best to convince Tsar Nicholas to do something to help them; he told him that everything he and Tsar Nicholas did for the people on their own estates, the tsar must do for all of Russia.”
Missie shrugged and added with a sigh, “But of course the tsar’s mind was on many other things. His son was desperately ill, and the Tsarina Alexandra believed only the mad monk, Rasputin, could cure him. Would that he could, then the tsar might have been free to devote his time to his country, and the whole history of Russia might have been changed.”
She paused for a minute, thinking about her story, and then went on. “Anouska and Misha adored their children, Alexei and Xenia. By the time he was six, Misha had taught young Alexei to ride and to swim and even how to handle a rifle properly, and Alexei was devoted to him. The children were allowed to come rushing into his study no matter who was there or how important the meeting. If he was too busy, their father would kiss them and give them a piece of candy from the special Fabergé silver dish with the trick lid; it was shaped like a small hill with a palm tree on top and a little monkey hidden in the grass. If they pressed a special button the monkey ran up the tree and when he reached the top the lid opened. I remember Misha loved to watch the amazement on their faces. They could never figure out how it worked and it would always make him laugh.
“Alexei looked like his father: the same eyes, the same dark-blond hair and strong features. And Xenia was a beauty like her mother. Her hair was lighter, flaxen rather than gold, and her eyes were the bright bronze of enamel: I always thought they looked like the color of tropical butterfly wings. She had Anouska’s lovely golden skin with the faint bloom on it. And she had her mother’s temperament.
“Anouska Ivanoff was never still for a minute. She dashed between Paris and St. Petersburg, Varishnya and Deauville, Monte Carlo, London, and Yalta, as if she were afraid to rest. And whenever she got where she was going, after a few weeks, or even days, she would become bored and off she would go again. The children were used to her absences and she always made a fuss over them when she came back, and of course they loved it because then there were always parties and the house was full of people again.
“Anouska bought all her clothes from Paris couturiers, and in winter she wore sumptuous furs, sable and arctic fox, and her shoes were made specially for her in London and in Rome. In each of the houses she had an enormous safe lined with soft gray suede where she kept all her fabulous jewelry: whole sets of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds like an Aladdin’s cave. She adored violets and the parfumiers at Grasse in southern France created a scent especially for her. Of course it was called ‘Anouska,’ and nobody else in the whole world ever used it. And she always wore a bunch of violets pinned to her dress or her furs, so she always seemed to smell of springtime.”
She fell silent, remembering. “Please go on,” Anna urged.
Missie smiled at her and picked up her story again. “Varishnya was especially beautiful in the snow. Guests came on the Ivanoff train to the special little station at Ivanovsk and were picked up by liveried coachmen and driven by dog sled to the house. We always knew they were arriving by the jingling of the sleighbells, and we would rush outside to greet them. And of course the greatest favorite of all with the children and adults alike was the Dowager Princess Sofia Ivanoff, your great-grandmother.
“It was Princess Sofia who told me