The Secret Wife(37)
We are staying on the steamer for now because the Governor’s House, where we are to be accommodated, was recently used as a barracks and is in desperate need of cleaning and refitting. We are able to walk around the town and I have found the people curious but friendly. Everyone asks why we girls have short hair, thinking it is some new fashion in St Petersburg, and they don’t know what to say when I tell them the real reason, that we have been ill.
I will mail this letter quickly in the hope that you will come to join us in this little hamlet. I wish I could say more to recommend it, but as you know we will make the most of it. I require little to make me happy: merely to know that my family – and that includes you – are safe and well.
Tenderest love from Your T
The letter reached Dmitri in Tsarskoe Selo two weeks later and he went straight to Malevich’s lodgings. Rather than reveal the truth he told him he had heard from some contacts about the Romanovs’ latest location.
‘Why Siberia?’ Dmitri worried. ‘It’s the landlocked dead centre of the country. They obviously don’t plan to send the family overseas any time soon.’
‘I suspect they don’t know what to do now the British have refused to take them. But why couldn’t they could go to Denmark, where Nicholas’s mother hails from?’
‘If the government won’t do it, then we must try to get them there. I will travel to Tobolsk, look at the lie of the land, and see what can be done.’
Malevich agreed. ‘And I’ll stay in St Petersburg and find comrades prepared to help. We can communicate by telegram. But be careful what you say, because there is no doubt it will be read by the new power-crazed authorities. Let’s pretend to be businessmen and refer to the family as cargo.’ Dmitri flinched. ‘Yes, I know it’s insensitive, but needs must …’
The thought of a Siberian winter filled Dmitri with gloom but he packed a bag with snowshoes and his wolfskin coat and hat and set off for the long journey to Tobolsk by train and then river steamer. His only consolation was that each mile brought him a mile closer to his beloved wife.
As he walked up from the docks on the Irtysh River the skies were leaden, although the temperature was sweltering. He asked directions to the Governor’s House, assuming the family would be installed there now, and was directed to a square, white building of two storeys, in the classical style, with a courtyard around it bordered by a ten-foot fence. A couple of guards stood by the gate. There was no sign of the family, but he caught a glimpse of movement by a first-floor window that made his heart lurch. Was that Tatiana? If only she would glance out. He ached to see her.
Dmitri hung around until the guards were beginning to eye him with suspicion, whereupon he wandered round a corner and was overjoyed to encounter Trina, the ladies’ maid, coming up the hill with a basket.
‘Thank goodness you’re here!’ he cried. ‘I’ve just arrived. Are the family well?’
‘As well as can be expected,’ she told him. ‘The Tsar is frustrated by the lack of space for outdoor activity; you can walk round that yard in three minutes or less and there’s nowhere he can plant his vegetables. The Tsarina has made a chapel in the old ballroom and prays there daily, but otherwise keeps to her bedchamber. And the girls and Alexei are bored. They’re only allowed into the yard between eleven and twelve, and then from two until dusk.’
‘Are you able to pass letters to Tatiana? The guards don’t search you?’
She nodded. ‘Of course. I’m staying in a house down the hill so walk up here every morning at seven-thirty, and I often come up and down on errands.’
‘I’ll bring you a letter each day at seven-thirty. Bless you for your loyalty.’ He clasped his hands together. What would he do without Trina as a conduit? She must have guessed they were lovers but had been utterly discreet.
‘If you like, I’ll ask Grand Duchess Tatiana to come out onto the balcony and wave to you,’ she offered.
‘Is that safe? Won’t the guards notice?’
‘The girls often sit on the balcony and watch people go by. Come at a quarter to two.’
At twenty to two Dmitri walked up the hill, trying to appear as if he was strolling casually. From afar he could see the silhouette of Tatiana on the balcony: she was taller, more slender than her sisters, and she held her head high, almost like a ballet dancer. As if she felt his gaze, she turned and saw him and they stood for a few moments watching each other from afar. It was intensely moving for Dmitri. To know she was safe, to see it with his own eyes, was overwhelming and he realised that throughout the journey to Tobolsk he had been afraid of arriving to find her dead. The example of the king and queen guillotined after the French Revolution was stuck in his head. On the one hand he was sure no loyal Russians would kill their imperial family, but this spirit of revolution that had been unleashed was volatile and unpredictable.
The guards did not appear to be watching, so Dmitri sauntered along the road bordering the garden, glancing up whenever he thought it safe. Tatiana touched her fingers to her lips then clasped her hands to her heart.
He wanted to walk past again, but a guard turned to watch him so he crossed the road as if he had just remembered some errand. If he were careful, he would be able to catch a glimpse of Tatiana every day; that was something to look forward to. Goodness knows what these guards would do if their marriage was revealed; he would probably be arrested on the spot.