The Red Staircase by Gwendoline Butler

Author:Gwendoline Butler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Madame Titov came hurrying towards us. ‘Oh, I am so pleased to see you. How kind of you to make such good time.’ The smile of welcome faded from her face. ‘But things are very bad here. The boy has been ill. The Heir, I mean. You understand me.’ Her voice trembled. ‘But thank goodness, today things look better.’ She led us into a comfortable sitting-room, where a small fire burned in the hearth; it was cool here, within the purlieus of the great forest. ‘The poor child. If you saw how he suffered and heard his agony, your heart would break. Even I can hardly bear it, and I have trained myself to show nothing. Of course, you won’t repeat this, you know we never talk of it.’ In the dim light her face looked white and drawn. ‘You’d like some supper; I’ll order it.’ And she went to the bell-pull.

‘We’re travel-stained,’ said Dolly. ‘I must wash and make myself orderly.’ More eau de cologne, I thought; but possibly the water in her old friend’s house could be trusted.

‘Dolly, of course. Stupid of me. I’m so troubled, you see. It drives every other thought straight out of my mind. I’ll take you up myself.’ And she bustled forward. ‘I’ve taken a risk in summoning you,’ she said as we followed. ‘All off my own bat. Took my own line in asking you here. Naturally I am allowed my own guests, and you come here in that guise, but the truth is that anything Scottish has a great appeal for them all; the Grand Duchesses are reading Sir Walter Scott at the moment, and I thought Miss Gowrie would be a great diversion for them. I know they want to see you.’ She was rattling away, incoherent and embarrassed, as if she wanted to explain why we – in particular – had been asked and yet could not manage it. ‘And of course, the Grand Duchess Olga is so interested in nursing and medicine. I think she wants to talk to you, Miss Gowrie. Or anyway see you – sometimes they don’t talk a lot …’ So I’m to be a sort of exhibit, I thought, to amuse them, to be looked at, but not spoken to. I thought I could bear it. ‘… But the boy is in just the state of recovery now when a little visit will entertain him.’

‘Is the boy ill often?’ I asked, remembering that slender child in the bookshop with his eager look.

Madame Titov shook her head sadly. ‘We hope he will grow out of it.’

I was just about to ask what the name of his illness was when she changed the subject abruptly. ‘Now, up these stairs here and your rooms are on the right. We are very simple here, but comfortable.’

Briskly she escorted Dolly and me upstairs before returning to her sitting-room with the polite remark that a meal would be served when we were ready. I was not surprised when, on going down again, I heard her and Dolly talking, and realized that they were talking about me.

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