Scarlet in the Snow Read online

  She looked at me and for a moment I thought she was about to refuse. Then she nodded. ‘Is there a mirror in your bedroom?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘on my wardrobe door.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I will speak to you at midnight tonight. Now I must go. Farewell, Natasha, and may good luck go with you.’

  ‘It is not “farewell” but “till we meet again”,’ I said, but my words were carried on the empty air, for she had already vanished.

  I took a deep breath, then picked up my bag, walked up the steps and rapped on the front door. A moment later, I heard Sveta’s slippered shuffling and the door opened, revealing her large, rosy-cheeked, surprised face under its untidy grey bun.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ she cried, embracing me. ‘Oh, Natashka! Oh, my little dove! You’re back! Oh, what a surprise! What about your job? And oh ho, someone’s been working on that sleigh, eh? And how well the horses look!’ And without drawing breath or waiting for my comments, she clumped outside and shouted for Oleg to come at once and take the horses and the sleigh to the barn. ‘And what, my girl, is that?’ she said, pointing at the basket.

  ‘That, dear Sveta,’ I said affectionately, ‘is to help fill the larder. Professor Feyovin’s housekeeper was most insistent I should bring it.’

  ‘The very idea,’ grumbled Sveta. ‘As if my housekeeping isn’t good enough.’ But she took the basket cheerfully enough when I handed it to her, and said, ‘Well, I suppose with you back, my little dove, we’ll need more food on the table. You always did have a better appetite than your sisters. Come on, come on, no good standing around in the cold as if this was some stranger’s home and not your very own!’

  ‘It’s good to be home, Sveta,’ I said, laughing. After greeting Oleg, who had just arrived, panting, from around the side of the house, I followed her in. ‘I’ve missed you. I’ve missed everyone.’

  ‘And so I should think,’ said Sveta, puffing as she carried the laden basket. ‘A young girl like you having to work for a kaldir, with all those bad smells and bangs and explosions and heaven knows what. It’s not right. I remember Dr ter Zhaber’s servant Mina saying that she always expected the house would come down on their heads one day, what with all that poking and prying into the most jumpy kind of magic there is!’

  At that moment, the door to the sitting-room opened and my mother came out, frowning a little. ‘Sveta, what is the meaning of this hullabaloo?’ Then she caught sight of me and gave a little cry. ‘Oh, Natasha! My darling! What’s happened? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘it’s just that Professor Feyovin has given me a short holiday as he has to go to Byeloka on business, so I’m home, Mama!’

  She hugged me. ‘Oh, that is very good! I’m so glad to see you.’

  ‘Me too, Mama,’ I said, hugging her back.

  ‘And just you look at this,’ put in Sveta, gruffly, holding out the basket. ‘This professor of hers thought she might starve, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Mama, peering into the basket. ‘Look! There’s a jar of the best caviar! And quails’ eggs! Oh, and the finest smoked herring and salmon from the north! And Byeloka ham! And such colourful bonbons, and oh, look, the most beautiful crystallised cumquats, and cherries and apricots! Oh my, oh my! This is so generous, so very generous, I hardly know what to say. Surely we cannot accept such bounty – it is too much!’

  ‘Mama, you would greatly offend the professor if you refused,’ I said hurriedly. ‘And even more his housekeeper, Madame Luel, and believe me, that lady is a force of nature and not likely to take no for an answer!’

  ‘Oh,’ said my mother, ‘then of course we must accept and we are very grateful, very grateful indeed. I will write and thank them both myself this very day. Now, let us go into the sitting-room and have a cup of tea; it’s freshly made. Liza! Anya!’ she called, as we passed the stairs. ‘Come down, girls, and see who has come back!’

  As we went into the sitting-room, I couldn’t help glancing at the mirror above the mantelpiece, half-thinking that I might catch a glimpse of the enchanted mansion in it. But of course, all I saw was the reflection of our own cosy sitting-room, with its cheerfully burning fire, big old shabby comfortable chairs, silver-framed photographs on the dresser and the usual untidy clutter of half-read books and magazines and other bits and pieces on the little side table. Everything was just the same as before, and though I was very glad to be back, it also gave me a weird feeling. After all that had happened to me, it felt strange that nothing should have changed here, that life should have gone on in just the same ordinary pattern as before.

  Except, of course, it hadn’t, for our prospects had changed due to what Mama called ‘the miraculous legacy of Dr ter Zhaber’. When Liza and Anya came sailing into the room a few minutes later, greeting me with the casual pleasure of sisters, I saw that the joy of that discovery still lingered with them, far outweighing any genuine curiosity they might have had about my enigmatic employer, who they’d already decided was some kind of crotchety old eccentric. It made things a good deal easier for me. Oh, they were delighted with the petticoats, as was Mama with her shawl, though Mama shook her head and said I should not have spent so much of my wages on gifts for others.

  Over a delicious light lunch of dill soup and freshly poached eggs with smoked salmon, the talk soon turned from my adventures at Professor Feyovin’s – or rather, my lack of adventures, as I was at pains to point out, describing imaginary days spent transcribing spidery scrawls into clear print – to my family’s plans for renting a house in Byeloka. My sisters had already pored over the brochures and each had a firm favourite; now I was invited to look at the brochures myself and pick which house I thought best. I didn’t care much one way or the other. I was glad to see my sisters happy, but the thought of going back to the city wasn’t particularly attractive to me, and the thought of the ball season even less so. In the end I rather mischievously pointed to a completely different house to the ones they’d set their hearts on, and so of course that set them off on a new round of bickering till Mama declared she’d had quite enough of our nonsense and took herself off to her studio to paint.

  I too left Liza and Anya to their squabbles, going off to unpack in my familiar but suddenly strange room. When I’d finished, I sat on my bed and took out the notebook. I hadn’t shown it to anyone and wasn’t intending to. It felt too private, something I shrank from sharing. Apart from me, it was only Ivan who knew my story existed. As I opened the book, the fragrance of the rose petal reached my nostrils and I was struck by a sudden urge to weep. I could see Ivan in my mind’s eye, sitting in that light-filled room, listening to my story. I could hear his soft words, and I felt a pang as intense as it was disconcerting. Why had he sent me away so abruptly? I couldn’t understand it. We were starting to become real friends, beginning to understand each other. I had told him the truth about what I had seen. Why then did he cut me off so quickly, so harshly? Yes, I knew what he had said about wanting to give me a choice, and it moved me greatly. But I could have waited. I’d been willing to wait, to discover more about him so I could work out the best way to try to break the spell. As it was, right now I had so little to go on . . .

  Cupping the petal in my warm hands, I inhaled its fragrance, remembering how even that very first day, that terrifying day, I had felt instinctively that a place where such a rose could grow in winter could not be bad. There must be a good light within it, a spirit that loved beauty and sweetness for its own sake. That spirit, I knew now, was Ivan’s.

  My scalp prickled. It was Ivan’s spirit that had brought the rosebud to life, despite the dreadful torture he’d been put through. And that gave me hope and a new idea. There was a way I could help him, even before I went back. Facts are a good deal easier to come by when you are not shut away from the world but can consult such things as newspapers and libraries. First thing tomorrow, I would begin my search.

  Placing the petal carefully into my finest handkerchief,
I folded over the corners and hid it in the depths of my drawers. Then I sat down and mentally ticked off what I already knew about Ivan: he’d been a painter, he was twenty-one years old and was a foreigner. His enemy was both powerful and dangerous. And possibly their paths had crossed during a visit Ivan had made to Palume, which he’d travelled to on the Golden Express. The last item I was less sure of, but still intended investigating.

  The most significant fact I had learned, I thought, was that Ivan had been a painter. That meant there was something I could do right now, even before starting my research in town. Closing the door of my room behind me, I went to find my mother in her studio, and sat watching as she worked on a beautiful, glowing still life of fruit and eggs on a wooden plate. It was not a commission but something she was doing for herself, she’d said, for she was hoping to create enough paintings for an exhibition in Byeloka in the summer, her first for many a year. And then, quite naturally, she gave me the opening I’d been hoping for, as she stopped, looked at me. ‘You know, Natasha, there are those who say that my way of earning a living is not suitable for a lady, but what would have become of us if I had not been granted some talent with the brush?’

  ‘We would have been homeless and begging for alms,’ I said warmly. ‘And all those who say that earning your living with the brush is not suitable for a lady would be passing us by with their noses in the air, so I do not think we need to care about them. And besides, Mama, a painter must paint or wither away inside, is that not so?’

  ‘It is, Natashka,’ she said softly, ‘just as a writer must write or a musician play. Without the core of our being, what are any of us fit for? Even those we love may suffer from it. I think that after I lost your father, I could not have been a true mother to you if I had not been able to paint, if my gift had deserted me at a time of such terrible pain.’

  I hugged her tightly. ‘You have always been a true mother to us.’

  ‘I am glad you think so, my darling,’ she smiled. ‘And it was also your love, your presence, which kept my art alive.’

  ‘Oh, Mama, I think it must be such a terrible thing, the very worst thing for an artist, to be unable to paint, through accident or sickness or ma– or anything else.’ I’d been about to say ‘magic’ but changed my mind at the last moment, just in case.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘it would be a terrible fate indeed. When I was a child my art tutor suffered just such a tragedy when he broke his hands in a riding accident. The surgeon did not set the bones properly, and so he lost the full use of his hands, unable to hold a paintbrush or a pencil. The poor man went to pieces.’

  ‘Oh, that’s so sad.’

  ‘And there was that case – when was it – three, four years ago? That famous painter, now what was his name? He wasn’t from Ruvenya but from some foreign country.’ She frowned, trying to remember. I hardly dared to breathe. ‘Yes, that’s right, from Almain.’

  ‘From Almain? Oh.’ It wasn’t where I’d deduced Ivan came from, but after all, I didn’t know that for sure, did I? ‘What happened to him?’ I prompted. ‘Did he have an accident too?’

  ‘No, not an accident. Something harder to fight, in a way. Especially at his age.’

  ‘His age? Was he very young, Mama?’ I said, struggling to keep the excitement from my voice.

  ‘Young? Oh no, darling. He was about fifty. Gelden. Timon Gelden was his name, that’s right. He’d had a long and distinguished career and was still most active,’ she went on, not noticing my crestfallen expression. ‘Until the scandal, of course.’

  ‘What scandal, Mama?’ I asked mechanically, knowing now this would not be of any use.

  ‘Oh, he tried to punch a critic who said that Gelden was well past his best. Trouble was, it was the critic who floored him. Gelden was made to look both ridiculous and ill-mannered. And then somehow everyone decided the critic was right, that Gelden’s work was bad, and he just went to ground and vanished from sight. I heard later that he’d gone into a monastery.’

  It was nothing like Ivan’s story, I thought, disappointed, but trying not to show it. Oh well. I hadn’t really expected it to come so easily, had I?

  The rest of the day passed peacefully and uneventfully, but by dinnertime I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open during the excellent meal, and excused myself immediately afterwards to go to bed. I set my alarm clock for half-past eleven and put it under my pillow, where only I would hear it. I fell asleep straightaway and into a dream where I was running down a long tree-lined path, one I recognised at once for it was the one that led to the enchanted house. I could see a tall figure at the end of the path, and I knew it was Ivan and that he was standing there watching me. But the faster I ran, the less ground I made, so that Ivan’s figure grew further and further away. It was frustrating and upsetting, and in my dream I kept trying to call out to him to come towards me but my words were snatched away on the wind and he did not hear.

  Finally, I was rudely jerked awake by the insistent peal of my alarm clock’s bell. Leaping out of bed like a jack-in-the-box, I pulled on my dressing-gown and sat shivering by the last embers of the fire, waiting for midnight.

  At length it came, the clock striking each chime slowly as I peered into the long wardrobe mirror, waiting for Luel to appear. Nothing happened till the final chime died away – and suddenly there she was, whispering my name.

  ‘I’m here, I’m here,’ I said, peering deeper into the mirror, for it was disconcerting to be talking to a disembodied voice in what looked like an empty room. I knew why it was like that – because Luel had no reflection – but it was still strange and a little uncomfortable. ‘How is he? Is everything well?’

  ‘All is well,’ she whispered, ‘but my lord is restless and I hear him pacing his room tonight.’

  ‘Did you tell him you were speaking to me?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I did not think it a good idea.’

  ‘Please, please tell him you did. That I am glad to be home. But I do not forget him. Tell him. Won’t you, Luel?’

  ‘I will see,’ she murmured. ‘If I think it right. And now it is time I went.’

  ‘Wait, wait! Promise me you’ll contact me again soon,’ I said desperately. But it was too late, for the picture of the cellar room had already flickered out and all that was left was the dimly lit reflection of my own room.

  Slowly, I went back to bed. It took me a long time to get warm again, and almost as long as that to finally drop off into a heavy, exhausted sleep, with a multitude of jagged dreams I could not remember in the morning.

  I did not even have to make up an excuse to go to town, for Mama announced at breakfast that she had decided on the house we were going to rent in Byeloka and would go in to arrange things with the agent. Of course then my sisters wanted to know which house, and when it proved to be a small but charming one set on a canal not far from the central square, but also one neither of them had put high on their list, they made a bit of a fuss before admitting that it wasn’t too bad. And when Mama said that she also intended to begin choosing furnishings and curtains from the agent’s order books, they jumped at the chance to be part of it, laughing at me for saying I didn’t mind leaving it all to their good taste, as I had some research I’d promised to do for Professor Feyovin in the library.

  ‘You want to watch out you don’t turn into some dusty bespectacled old body just like him,’ said Anya.

  ‘With holes in your stockings and blotches on your nose,’ added Liza, teasingly.

  Mama told them both sternly that they should be ashamed of themselves, that Professor Feyovin was obviously a good and generous man, who had done us proud in every way, and that furthermore she respected my loyalty and dedication and that if Liza and Anya didn’t apologise immediately, they could stay home and help Sveta with the chickens. Of course they did exactly as she said, though Liza couldn’t resist whispering to me, as we were going up the stairs, ‘Scribble, scribble, scribble! When did that ever make the world go round?’
/>   I gave her a haughty look. ‘What, so you think you know more of the world than me?’

  ‘Much more, I’d say, than someone with her nose always stuck in a book,’ she retorted.

  ‘Ha! Little do you know,’ I said crossly. ‘You’ve just been here while I –’

  ‘While you what?’ she said sharply, as I cursed myself inwardly for my imprudence.

  ‘While I learned about really important things,’ I said quickly, ‘like the . . . the formula for levitation, and a gadget that may help us to understand the speech of animals, and –’

  ‘Pooh!’ scoffed Liza. ‘Who cares? Magicians are always going on about their great works that will change the world for ever, but I’ve yet to hear of one who did anything worthwhile, like make money grow on trees, for instance, or roast ducks that fly straight onto your plate.’

  I couldn’t help smiling, thinking of Luel doing that very thing.

  Liza gave me a sharp look. ‘What are you hiding, Natasha? What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I hurried to say, ‘I just think it’s funny you can’t see what’s right in front of your nose. For wasn’t Dr ter Zhaber a magician, and didn’t his legacy make exactly the kind of magic for us that you speak of?’

  Liza looked startled for a moment, then exclaimed crossly, ‘Oh, you’ve always got to have the last word!’

  ‘No, that’s you,’ I said teasingly, and she laughed.

  ‘Honestly, Natasha, you can be impossible sometimes!’

  I had successfully managed to evade her suspicions, but it had taught me a lesson. If I was to keep my secret, I had to guard my tongue a little more carefully.

  It was market day in Kolorgrod and the town was very busy. Oleg, who had driven us in, had to drop us off in the main square and go to find somewhere else to park the sleigh, for there was no room in the usual spots. Mama arranged for him to meet us at midday, which gave me just over two hours for my search. I left Mama and my sisters in front of the agent’s office and hurried to the newspaper office a few doors down. A surly young woman at the entrance desk told me reluctantly that, yes, they did have an archive, and yes, the public might consult it, but first I had to get permission from the editor, who was away on an assignment and not expected to return for a day or two.