Drowsy from their meal and tired after the excitement of arrival, Marianne and Sophie undressed quietly. Delphine took off the silversarafanand laid it on Sophie’s bed.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “Although I’m not sure it made any difference.” She gave Sophie an appraising look. “The princess and you … I can’t figure it out.”
Sophie climbed into her narrow bed. “I like it here,” she said. The sheets had little specks of black on them, damp spots, although they were clean and well aired. “I know it’s not grand anymore … but that makes it feel more like a home.”
“I wonder how big it is,” Marianne yawned. “I can’t get my bearings.”
On the wall next to Sophie’s bed were sheaves of paper glued to the wall. They were covered in Russian handwriting and had been placed there randomly, mostly overlapping each other. They looked as if they had been torn from a child’s exercise book. Of course! Ivan had said this was the palace nursery. Perhaps this was the writing of one of the Volkonsky children.
A few of the pages around the edges were coming unstuck, and Sophie couldn’t resist sticking her nail underneath the edge and trying to peel them back. She traced the letters: C, O, and then an O with a line through it, and a back-to-front N and R. CO???.What on earth did that mean?
Behind the pages were splints of pale wood and then something black: a large hole. So the pages had been stuck there for a practical purpose. A draft sighed through the gaps and rustled the corners of the pages she had pulled away. Sophie wondered where in the palace it came from. There must be so many rooms beyond this one. All of them locked. All of them forgotten.
“Do you think the princess is lonely?” Sophie asked the others. “Living here on her own like this?”
“I’m not sure about lonely,” Delphine said. “But she must be bored. There’s nothing to do!”
“Apart from the skating and the picnics by moonlight and the rides into the forest?” Sophie suggested.
“If you like snow,” Delphine muttered. “Which you do. I miss the south of France.”
“But don’t you think it’s interesting to be staying somewhere with such a history?” Sophie said.
Marianne frowned. “I’m not sure. Terrible things happened here, Sophie.”
“But good things happened, too …” Sophie felt the words tumble out of her. She knew she was speaking too quickly. “The last prince saved his family!”
Modern life seemed so limited, so ordinary, so small, when compared to the lives of the last Volkonskys. Yes, it wastragic(how she loved that word) but surely not as tragic as living a life where nothing much happened? Just going along in the same boring way, never risking anything — would that not be more of a waste of this one marvelous life she’d been given? She didn’t want to die like the prince, but she knew in that moment that she wanted a life filled with love and courage. How wonderful for the princess to be related to someone so brave and noble!
There was a knock at the door. Marianne gasped. “Who is it?”
The princess appeared in the doorway, carrying two large books. She had changed into a heavily sequined dress. As she crossed the room, moving quickly, Sophie had the impression that she was made from sequins.
“I have trouble sleeping, my little English girls, and so, at night, I walk through the palace. I have brought you some treasures.” She went to Marianne’s bed. “For you, a book on cosmology, written by Prince Anton Volkonsky. He built the observatory on this estate.”
“You have an observatory here?” Marianne’s eyes lit up. She took the large book and opened it reverently.
“Of course!” the princess answered nonchalantly. “Would you like to visit it? I sent for new telescope lenses from Saint Petersburg.”
Marianne nodded eagerly, turning the first page with extreme care.
“The skies are dark and a winter long this far north,” the princess said. “The Volkonsky princes always had time to examine the stars.”
She turned to Delphine, who smoothed her hair. “And for you, Delphine, I have brought some early fashion plates, engravings of the dresses the Princess Maria Volkonskaya wore in the 1850s.” She put the leather-bound volume on Delphine’s lap. “She was just a poor peasant girl, but she danced like an angel. Prince Alexey gave up his position at court to marry her. He built the theater … sadly the roof was blown off, but it was noted for its painted ceiling. She danced for him every night. She was considered a flaming beauty, with a waist the prince could encircle with his hands, and she was much admired by the Tsar.”
The pages crackled as Delphine turned them. She gasped as she saw four evening dresses on one page.
“Some of these dresses are probably still in the attics. They wouldn’t have interested the soldiers who stole so much. We could go and look for them, if you like?”
“I’d love to,” Delphine breathed, gently lifting another leaf of tissue paper guarding the illustrations.
The princess approached Sophie’s bed. The voluptuous scent of tuberose made everything around her seem richer; even the water-stained wallpapers looked like moiré silk. She sat down on the edge of the bed and spoke very quietly, so the other girls could not hear. “I puzzled over what to bring you. I was not sure what you would like. I feel as if I should get to know you a little better …” She glanced at the other girls, who were now engrossed in their books. “Can I trust you?”
“Yes!” Sophie felt a rush of excitement. It wasn’t just that she had been invited to stay with a Russian princess whose world seemed at once glamorous and mysterious. The way the princess spoke to her made her feel special. Sophie wondered if this was why her father had wanted to take her to different places — to meet people as extraordinary as the Princess Anna Feodorovna.
The princess played with the gray diamond rings on her finger, then slipped one off and slid it onto Sophie’s middle finger.
“I can’t!” Sophie said. “I can’t possibly accept anything so valuable!” She felt panicky. What would Rosemary say? What would her friends think? They knew she had nothing of value to her name. They might think … oh it would be horrid … that she had stolen the ring! No. Better not to take such things.
