To Dream of Snow Read online

  ‘Well, that’s something, I suppose,’ Jeanne commented. ‘But the armed guards won’t be with us.’

  ‘The coachmen will be armed,’ Marguerite replied reassuringly. ‘Now if you’ve all finished eating let’s get going without further delay.’

  The seamstresses split up to ride in the two enclosed sledges allotted to them and tucked under heaped furs to keep warm as the fiercely bearded coachmen cracked whips and the runners sped swiftly along the snowy streets out of the city.

  The countryside was dazzlingly beautiful in its winter cloak and hoar frost had robed the trees in diamonds. Frozen lakes gleamed blue and grey and silver while the sky was palest amber as if the fallen snow of the previous night must have come from some other source.

  Now and again the sledges drove through poor-looking villages, the dwellings all built of log and wattle, a finger of wood-smoke arising from each. The inhabitants scurried out of their path while others paused in whatever they were doing to gaze at the brightly hued sledges shooting by. As with all peasants the men were bearded and most of them wore fur hats, and although some of the women did likewise the rest had bright scarves tied about their heads. Nearly all were clad in sheepskin coats tied with a leather belt or a length of rope around their waists, high boots on their feet. As for the little children, they looked like balls of clothes running about, their faces little round moons of laughter or shy curiosity. Yet many of the villagers had an emaciated look. Marguerite pitied them for their hard life, knowing that every one of them was some master’s serf and owned body and soul like a chattel.

  It intrigued the Frenchwomen when now and again they saw peasants sliding over the snow on what appeared to be long, narrow boards, a stout stick in hand to aid their speedy progress, but there was little else to relieve the monotony. In many ways this final stage of the journey was the hardest. In spite of the quick changing of the horses the journey still took almost four weeks. As well as the frequent heavy snowstorms that caused delays, there was the sheer boredom of travel day after day with nothing to occupy their minds other than gazing at the passing white-blanketed landscape. Christmas day would have passed unnoticed if they had not remembered previously to buy small gifts for each other.

  By now they had lost interest in all their previous pastimes and a village or very occasionally a town looked the same as any other under its blanket of snow. It made them disagreeable and tired, quick to snap and to quarrel. They grumbled about everything. It added to their ill temper that most of their nights were spent in uncomfortable lodgings and often the food was barely edible. Once Violette and Jeanne came to clawing at each other and had to be separated for the rest of the way. It took all Marguerite’s efforts to keep the peace as much as possible. Isabelle was the only one who never complained and Marguerite appreciated her loyalty.

  The new year of 1753 was two days old on the moonlit evening when the sledges passed into the city of St Petersburg, wall lanterns illuminating the wide streets and windows pouring out golden light from chandeliers. Here and there the braziers of the city’s watchmen glowed red and gold and the whiff of hot charcoal hung in the air.

  The seamstresses looked from side to side in wonder and strained their necks to look up at the great mansions, silvery in the moon’s glow and all grandly ornamented, many with balconies and each with the look of a palace. It was obvious that by day these would be pastel-coloured, which would add to the charm of the architecture, and everywhere the spires and onion-domes of the churches soared into the stars. Linking everything were the wide sweeping curves of the great River Neva that presently lay frozen and austere with reflected light adding flickers of gilt to its opal surface. It was easy to see from branching canals that this was a city of waterways.

  They all gave a spontaneous cheer as they reached the end of their long journey. They had arrived at the Imperial Winter Palace, which reared up before them like a beautiful cake of great size, every window aglow. The sledges came to a standstill by what they knew was the domestic entrance in spite of its magnificently carved portal and great door. Both coachmen sprang down from their seats, pulling away the thick scarves that had covered the lower half of their faces, but their beards, eyebrows and lashes were frosted white by their own breath. One man thrust open the door and disappeared into the glow of candle-lamps within while the other began to unload the baggage.

  One by one the seamstresses alighted. They were all stiff and tired as well as being extremely hungry. Marguerite, equally fatigued, led the way indoors, and the others followed her wearily. There was an inner door to insulate against the cold outside and then they passed through a tiled vestibule before entering a wide hallway with doors on all sides, one of which stood open. There the coachman was talking rapidly in Russian to a thin-faced, severe-looking woman wearing a black gown and a lace apron and cap. She listened attentively to all he had to say, nodding her head, and then waved him back to his duties with an impatient gesture. Closing the door behind her as if denying admittance, she took a couple of steps forward and looked steadily at the Frenchwomen.

  ‘I am Madame Rostova,’ she announced imperiously. ‘French is spoken throughout the domestic quarters as well as in Court circles. You need have no fear that you will not be understood. The coachman has already told me that you are seamstresses from Paris.’

  Marguerite experienced a sense of foreboding, but did not show it as she introduced herself and her companions. The woman’s expression did not relax.

  ‘Your names mean nothing to me,’ she replied crisply, ‘and I have had no notification of your coming. We already have sewing quarters in the Palace with a full staff of needlewomen.’

  ‘But we’re here at the request of the Empress herself.’

  ‘Request? What insolence! Her Imperial Majesty does not request! She commands! You have papers endorsing such orders?’

  ‘No. It was all arranged through the Comtesse d’Oinville, the wife of a French diplomat here in St Petersburg.’

  ‘That name is unknown to me too. There are so many foreigners coming and going at court. This Comtesse must either present herself to the right official to speak on your behalf or else you must obtain an authorized statement from her without delay.’

  ‘But she isn’t here! There was a change of plan and she left us in Riga to join the Comte d’Oinville in Moscow!’

  ‘Then nothing can be done at the present time. You must leave this palace at once.’

  Behind Marguerite the seamstresses groaned loudly in despair and Isabelle’s face crumpled as she began to weep silently. But Marguerite had no intention of being turned away. ‘No! You have no right to go against your Empress’s expressed wish that I should come here with some of the best needlewomen in all France to make her the loveliest gowns that have ever been seen in this city!’

  A shade of uncertainty passed across the woman’s eyes. The Empress was like her father, Peter the Great, in bringing the most unlikely foreigners from far distances to do some specialized work for her. It was highly likely that these Frenchwomen were the result of an imperial whim. What was most important was that she knew what her own fate would be if she sent them away in error. She dared not risk it.

  ‘Tell me how it all came about,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘The Empress admired gowns worn by the Comtesse and wanted the talents of whose who had made them. Couldn’t word of our arrival be taken to the Empress?’

  Madame Rostova looked astounded at the suggestion. ‘Certainly not! I need to make inquiries and discover if you are truly expected or if a great mistake has been made. However, out of charity I shall allow you all to stay here tonight.’ She frowned as the drivers began bringing in the baggage from the sleighs and she indicated that everything should be set down in the hall. ‘You may take out what you need from your travelling boxes tonight, but they must remain here until the matter of your presence under this roof is settled one way or the other.’

  She turned sharply, her back very straight, and reo
pened the door to lead the way into a vast kitchen that was one of a series of kitchens, each opening through a wide archway into another as far as the eye could see. All the servants present looked at them, but carried on with their tasks. Two of the maids, who were folding cloths, were called forward.

  ‘Take these Frenchwomen to one of the empty bedrooms in the servants’ quarters and also show them where the privies are. See that the beds are made up and the stove lit. Then bring them back here.’

  ‘Yes, Madame Rostova.’

  The maids took lamps and led the new arrivals out of the kitchen. Immediately they showed a friendlier side as well as being full of curiosity. Although their French had a strong Russian accent they were fluent in the language.

  ‘Have you come to work here? Don’t be scared of that old scarecrow. She thinks she’s as important as the Empress herself when she is on duty. Are you really here to sew for Her Imperial Majesty? How long has it taken you to get here?’

  Marguerite and the others answered their questions up two flights of stairs and along many corridors until they were shown into a narrow, comfortless room with beds hung with simple draperies and with a rolled-up feather mattress at the end of each one. A crimson-tiled, floor-to-ceiling stove was in one corner and there were two washstands with ewers and basins, but in spite of the curtained windows the room was icy cold. Sophie moaned, shivering with cold as she rubbed her arms and sank down on the bare boards of the nearest bed.

  ‘We’re going to die of hunger or freeze to death before morning.’

  ‘Don’t fret,’ the younger maid said cheerfully, going towards the stove with a tinderbox. ‘You’ll be given some supper and it will be hot in here in no time. If you stoke up the stove before you go to sleep it will still be warm in the morning. You’ll all be as snug as bugs in a rug.’

  Almost at once a fire was roaring behind the grating and soon afterwards a lackey arrived with a large basket full of logs, which he set down before leaving again.

  Warmth was radiating pleasantly around the room by the time the maids finished making up the beds and led the way downstairs again. In one of the kitchens the Frenchwomen sat down to enjoy a thick and tasty bean soup with chunks of good bread and a light beer to drink. Well fed and tired in every limb they all slept as soon as they had climbed into bed.

  Marguerite was the first to wake in the morning at a pounding on the door and a voice shouting that it was time to get up. Some of the women stirred, but tucked down again. She slipped out of bed and stoked up the stove, which crackled as the embers leapt into flames around the logs. There was no telling what time it was, but the window, in spite of a web of frost, enabled her to see out. The skyline of the city was almost ethereal in the dawn light.

  ‘I’m here,’ she whispered triumphantly, ‘and here I’m going to stay!’

  Five

  It was not good news that awaited Marguerite after breakfast. Madame Rostova informed her that in spite of extensive inquiries nobody knew anything about seamstresses coming from Paris.

  ‘Until you have made contact with the Comtesse d’Oinville nothing can be done. You must all leave now. Come back when you have a declaration from her.’

  Marguerite made a last appeal. ‘At least allow me to visit the French Embassy before we leave! I could ask when the Comte and Comtesse are expected to return and perhaps gain some help in this matter.’

  The Russian woman hesitated. In her own mind, knowing the Empress’s passion for clothes, she was certain now that these Frenchwomen were here at an imperial whim, but she had to have proof. She glanced around at the seamstresses. Apart from Marguerite, who was standing her ground, they were a dejected-looking bunch, one girl red-eyed and dissolving again into soundless tears.

  ‘Very well,’ she conceded reluctantly, ‘and since you don’t know your way about the city I’ll let you have one of the lackeys as a guide.’

  He was a cheerful lad named Igor with a swagger to his walk. Fifteen years old, he had worked at the Palace since he was eight.

  ‘Anything you want to know just ask me,’ he said with supreme confidence as Marguerite went with him from the Palace.

  In spite of her present troubles Marguerite was keenly interested to see the city by day, but they had not gone far when she paused to look back at the Winter Palace. It was not as large as the Palace of Versailles, but with its many windows and pale walls it looked almost luminous in the snow-bright morning light.

  ‘It’s a very fine building,’ she commented admiringly.

  ‘Yes, but we’ve heard that all those buildings are to be demolished to clear a site for a new, far larger Winter Palace. You can be sure that it will be even grander than the present one when it is finished.’

  She looked in the direction that he was pointing in. A palace as large as Versailles could be built on the vast site, where it would be facing the Neva. ‘It will be an enormous building project.’

  ‘It’s said that some part of it will be the Empress’s new hermitage, where she can entertain friends privately and without fuss.’

  ‘Her new hermitage?’ Marguerite asked with interest as they continued on their way. ‘Have there been others?’

  ‘Yes, but her father, Peter the Great, built the first one at Peterhof out in the country at Tsarskoe Selo. They say he got the idea from your country when he toured Europe.’

  Marguerite thought that was probably true. The late Louis XIV had had a retreat, as did the present King Louis XV, but those were away from the hub of Versailles and also not in the heart of a city, as this new palace would be.

  She looked about eagerly as they walked along, enjoying the sight in daylight of the pastel-coloured mansions, pinks, blues, greens, yellows, amber and apricot. Igor made sure that he kept her well out of harm’s way, for although the streets were wide the passing traffic paid little heed to pedestrians. Often coachmen and other drivers drove so arrogantly that people were forced to press themselves against walls to keep out of danger. On the frozen surface of the Neva branches of trees had been laid to make routes for traffic to use and there the sledges and carriages and troikas passed one another with great frequency. Farther up the frozen river there was a fair, music drifting from it. Here and there on the ice high mounds of snow had been built up and children and adults paid a man-in-charge to slide on tray-like objects down the twisting route to land laughing at the bottom.

  Marguerite smiled at their pleasure, but there was something else she wanted to ask the lad. ‘Why wouldn’t Madame Rostova have word sent direct to the Empress about our arrival?’

  Igor gave a snort of laughter and explained. ‘Nobody would do that without some evidence to show our grand lady, because if she’d been drunk at the time of sending for you she wouldn’t remember anything about it.’

  ‘Does she drink heavily?’

  ‘Not all the time, but too often for her own good. She would be furious if reminded of something she’d done that she couldn’t recall. I’ve only seen her in a temper once and luckily I was at a safe distance. Once in a rage she had the tongues cut out of two ladies of her own court, because she thought they had plotted together against her! So you’d better not put a stitch wrong if ever you do get to sew anything for her.’

  ‘At least I can thank you for the warning,’ Marguerite remarked wryly. ‘If all goes well we’ll be sewing for the Grand Duchess Catherine too. Is she as temperamental?’

  ‘No! You’ve nothing to worry about there. She’s as different from the Empress as she could be. She’s never shouted at anyone and is a kind lady, but she has dangerous enemies at Court. Her life isn’t easy.’

  ‘Why should that be?’

  ‘All sorts of reasons. Worst of all for her must be having Grand Duke Peter for a husband. He’s strange in all his ways, dancing jigs and shouting and laughing when nobody else has even a smile.’ He shook his head in sympathy with the unfortunate Catherine. ‘All he wants to do is to play at being a soldier.’

  ‘Do you mean he
is childlike?’

  ‘In some ways, but not in others. Far from it! He makes no secret of hating the Empress and wanting to be Tsar. Yet I’m sure he’s frightened of her too.’ He grimaced soberly. ‘Well, everybody’s scared of her.’

  ‘I was told that before I left Paris,’ Marguerite replied, recalling the Comtesse’s warning. ‘I can see that life must be hard for the Grand Duchess.’

  ‘Yes, but she never shows it. She and the Grand Duke have their own court for those more their age and there are always parties and balls and entertainments. For a while now one of the chamberlains, Sergei Saltykov, has been paying her a deal of attention, but so have lots of men before him without success.’

  Marguerite glanced at him with raised eyebrows. ‘Is there anything you don’t know?’

  He grinned widely. ‘We get to find out everything sooner or later in the domestic quarters. Those upstairs in the salons and private apartments have no idea how much we who wait on them see and hear.’

  The French Embassy was located on Vasilievsky Island that split the Neva into two forks. They crossed the ice along a marked path and there was easy access up to the island’s wharf. From there they followed the street that would take them to the gates of the Embassy, passing on the way many more great mansions, and all were pastel-coloured like those in the city itself.

  ‘You should feel at home here on this island,’ Igor remarked with a grin. ‘This is where German and particularly French people settle when they come to St Petersburg.’ He indicated their immediate surroundings. ‘You’d find your fellow countrymen and women living in all these streets in this section. As for the English, they live in an area on the mainland that spreads out from the embankment and that’s a close-knit community too. The Italians have their own area as do the Dutch, but in the tailoring section of the city, there’s every nationality under the sun that’s able to cut cloth and wield a needle.’