The Red Staircase. Gwendoline Butler

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СКАЧАТЬ still hung onto my hand. ‘Ah, how do you know? Do you see what I see, then? Let’s have some tea,’ he announced, ringing a little silver bell. ‘Good strong Scotch tea, not this weak Russian stuff.’ His eyes closed.

      ‘He’ll drop off in a minute,’ said Emma, with irritation. ‘And he hasn’t gone into things nearly enough.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I’ve said quite enough,’ said Erskine Gowrie, opening his eyes. ‘Inside myself, at least.’

      ‘What’s the good of that to us?’ demanded Emma, her irritation in no way appeased. ‘Here have I brought Rose to you, and you do nothing but go to sleep.’

      ‘You always were a fool, Emma Gowrie. I have done enough, and Rose has done everything.’

      ‘Rose Gowrie has done nothing,’ I said.

      He patted my hand. ‘Exactly what was required of you, my dear. Just to be.’

      ‘Oh Godfather.’ To myself I thought: ‘And that is the hardest thing in the world – just to be. Perhaps I should have handled Patrick better if I had had the knack of it.’ I was beginning to blame myself for Patrick, you see. Guilt has to be apportioned for such a tragedy as his, and I had to bear my share.

      ‘Where’s my tea?’ Erskine Gowrie demanded, dropping my hand and apparently forgetting me.

      ‘Tea, you live on tea,’ said Emma, pouring him a cup.

      But after one long gulp he set the cup down and closed his eyes. It seemed time to leave, and I followed Emma silently to the door. But before I got there he called me back.

      ‘Rose.’

      ‘Yes, Godfather?’

      ‘Come here.’

      He had a struggle for breath then, and I had to wait for him to speak. ‘Come back in a week’s time,’ he whispered. ‘And without that old witch if you can. She listens to everything and then talks about it to everyone else.’

      ‘I will come if I can.’

      ‘Promise. Because you see, there is something I wish to do, something I must …’ The words were hard for him.

      ‘Don’t talk any more,’ I said gently. ‘I’ll be back.’

      ‘Not longer than a week, mind.’ To himself he said: ‘A week will just do it.’

      When I returned to Emma she said: ‘What did he want?’

      ‘He wants me to come back next week.’

      ‘Without me?’

      ‘You heard?’ I said.

      ‘Erskine’s whispers are not exactly inaudible,’ she said drily, but not with any air of displeasure.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

      ‘Oh don’t be, dear, don’t be. Things work out for the best.’ And she sounded quite pleased.

      As she accompanied me down to the street, I said: ‘I wonder if he gets enough to eat.’

      ‘My dear, he’s a rich man.’ Now she was shocked.

      ‘No, but you say he lives mainly on tea, and I expect it’s true. I dare say he does live on soft, sweet, mushy things because they are easy to eat. Whereas I have an idea old people ought to get lots of good nourishing food. It could be that a lot of his weakness and loss of brain power is malnutrition. What do you think?’

      ‘Oh, I don’t think, my dear,’ she said briskly. ‘Not about that.’

      ‘What does he make in those factories of his?’

      ‘Armaments,’ she said slowly. ‘Shells, bombs and grenades for war. And the explosives to go with them.’

      I was silent, then I said: ‘Yes, you could get rich that way, but I suppose it is a trade to pray for. Death comes as its end, after all. How sad.’ It seemed the antithesis of my life, which I hoped to turn to healing. ‘But Madame Denisov told me it was an engineering works. Does she know?’

      Emma laughed. ‘Oh, of course she knows. Erskine Gowrie’s works are famous. But I suppose she didn’t like to say. Russians can be like that. Devious, one might say; but it’s really a form of politeness.’

      We parted without much more conversation, although before I was once again tucked into the Denisov carriage Emma gave me a hearty kiss in farewell. Like the kiss you might give to a good child, was my quick comparison.

      Because my first visit to my godfather had been so short, I was home long before Dolly and her party could be expected back, so there I was alone, with time to spare and a burden of interesting thoughts. I looked at my watch. An hour until luncheon. I might amuse or bore myself as I chose. Not that one was ever alone in that house, for a servant was always within call. Watching too, I supposed – knew, indeed. They anticipated one’s wants so finely that they must be keeping a very sharp eye on all that went on. One of the little modernisations put in by Madame Denisov’s father had been an arrangement of speaking-tubes, through which it was apparently possible to hiss a request to a servant waiting in a room below. They were never used, for as Dolly Denisov said, you had only to clap your hands here and a servant appeared. ‘I did use one once,’ she had said, with a peal of laughter, ‘and then the silly creature only shouted back.’ She added: ‘My father would have had him flogged for it, but one doesn’t do that sort of thing now, of course.’

      There was one of these speaking-tubes just before me now, in the library, its beautifully designed mouthpiece of ivory and bronze protruding from the wall. Dolly Denisov had told me that all the work had been done by one of her father’s servants, an ex-serf who was a skilled craftsman. Much of the furniture in the house had also been built by the carpenters and ciselleurs on their estate. It gave one a new idea of what the serfs had been, not all peasants by any means. Our dominie in the village near Jordansjoy, dear old Dr Rathmpre, had been a fine Greek scholar in his day, with a degree in the Humanities from St Andrews University, and he had instructed us in classical history, so that I saw one might draw a parallel between the slaves of Greece and Rome – where not all the servile had been illiterate labourers, but some had been men of infinite skill – and the serfs of Imperial Russia. One does not like to think that the Parthenon was built by slaves, but it might have been so. It was certainly true that many of the beautiful pieces of furniture and bronzes that I had already seen in some of the great houses in St Petersburg had been made by unfree hands.

      I picked up the speaking-tube and blew down it. I heard my whistle go travelling through its length. Then distantly, distantly, a tiny little echo spoke back.

      The echo, so remote yet so clear, startled me. I gave a gasp and the exhalation of my breath travelled down the tube and then back to me again. Some trick of the law of physics had produced an echo for me. Experimentally, I tried again. ‘Rose here,’ I called. This time I didn’t get an answer. There was only dead silence. Just as well, really, as it was rather spooky. After waiting a minute more I replaced the plug that stopped the mouth of the tube; I saw that it was decorated with a lion cut in low relief in bronze, and bore the initials of the СКАЧАТЬ