Mary Nichols - The Kirilov Star

He let himself in the house and dropped his case on the floor to pick up the pile of post from the table in the hall, put there by Mrs Hurst, who came in to keep an eye on the place when he was away. He rifled through the envelopes quickly to pick out what was important. There was a letter from Sir Edward, whom he had not seen since Lydia’s twenty-first birthday party. He put the rest down and wandered into the kitchen to put the kettle on. While it boiled he slit open the letter and began to read.

I don’t know where you are but I assume you will come home at some time and find this, Sir Edward had written. Lydia has run off to Russia with Nikolay Andropov. I am at my wits’ end and Margaret is distraught. Ring me, if you can.

He looked at the date on the letter and realised with horror it had been written three months before. He switched off the kettle and picked up the telephone.

‘Good of you to come,’ Sir Edward said, leading the way into the drawing room of Balfour Place where they had arranged to meet. ‘Sit down, my boy. Have you eaten?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ He sat down and watched as Edward poured brandy into two large glasses. ‘Tell me what happened. Who is Nikolay Andropov?’

‘A young Russian she met in Paris when we were on holiday last year.’ He handed Alex a glass and went to a bureau to extract Lydia’s letter, which he gave to him to read. ‘As you can see from that, she had some strange idea that her parents were not dead after all and might not know she is alive too.’

‘My father was convinced they had died. Didn’t she believe him?’

‘I always thought she did, but apparently not. I am sure Andropov put the idea into her head, but what his motive was, I’ve no idea.’

‘Why would she believe him rather than us?’

‘I don’t know. He can be very charming and I suppose she was bowled over by him.’

‘She says she is going to marry him.’ Alex read on, hiding his dismay under a calm exterior, something he had learnt to do over the years. No one knew exactly what he was thinking. ‘Do you think she has?’

‘I have no way of knowing. I didn’t know she was still seeing him or I would have taken steps to put a stop to it.’

‘If she was determined, it would have been difficult to stop,’ Alex said. ‘She is twenty-two, after all.’

‘I could have bought him off.’

‘Perhaps. Do you think he is genuinely fond of her?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If it were me, no amount of money would make me give her up.’

‘But it is not you. I wish to God it were. I had hoped—’ He stopped suddenly and gulped a mouthful of brandy.

‘We cannot choose our children’s life partners, Sir Edward.’ It was said evenly, though his heart was racing. Lydia, his love, was in Russia, where all foreigners were viewed with suspicion and her background would be enough to condemn her. It was a terrifying thought. But he must not let Sir Edward see his disquiet; the poor man was worried enough as it was. ‘What do you know about Andropov?’

‘Nothing but what he told us. He escaped the Civil War with his mother after his father was killed fighting with the Whites. She subsequently died and he has been on his own, living in Paris ever since. Having similar backgrounds was bound to attract them towards each other. I didn’t even know he had come to England. How could she be so secretive? You think you are doing your best for your children…’ His voice tailed off.

‘But you did. No child could have had a better father. She has grown into a lovely young woman and I am sure she loves you and appreciates all you and Lady Stoneleigh have done for her.’ He paused, clinging onto hope. ‘I suppose she really did go?’

‘I think she must have. Her letter was written months ago. I have written to her at Kirilhor over and over again, but have had no reply. Maybe she’s gone somewhere else; she wouldn’t have ignored my letters, would she?’

‘No, of course not. Maybe they have been kept from her.’

‘That’s what terrifies me. I contacted the Foreign Office, but there’s nothing they can do if she went of her own free will. I’ve also been in touch with Lord Chilston at the British Embassy in Moscow, but he can’t do much. The embassy staff are not free to travel about as much as they were and diplomatic relations are difficult.’ He smiled a little stiffly. ‘But you know all that. I even tried the headquarters of the British Communist Party, but they were not very helpful.’

‘I’ll go back,’ Alex said. ‘I’ve got to report to the Foreign Office first to be debriefed after my last trip, and it would be a good idea to have an official reason for being in Russia again so that I have proper entry papers. That might take a little time to arrange, but I’ll go the minute I can.’

‘It’s a lot to ask. Too much perhaps. I’d go myself, but Margaret is sick with worry and to have two of us in Russia would be too much for her to cope with.’

‘I know. You mustn’t think of it. Leave it to me.’

‘Bless you.’ He held up the decanter, but Alex declined a second glass. He needed a clear head. ‘Margaret will be relieved to know you are going,’ Edward went on. ‘But if you should meet her before you go, don’t say too much to her about the difficulties and dangers.’

The difficulties and dangers would be considerable, Alex knew, especially as he risked arrest on the grounds that he was his father’s son and the Bolsheviks had a tendency to assume guilt by association. But nothing on earth would prevent him from going. Lydia had always been his especial concern, ever since his mother had told him to be kind to her on the train to Yalta. He had watched her grow from a frightened toddler who had lost the power of speech, through childhood to womanhood, and had loved her all the way. He had not recognised it as love to begin with, it was simply a feeling he ought to protect her and he still felt that, but now it was more than that, the feeling had blossomed, as she had blossomed, into something far deeper and more complex. He found himself wondering how she would have reacted if she had known that. Would it have prevented her from going off with Andropov? He had never met the man but already he disliked him intensely.

‘When you find her,’ Edward went on. ‘Tell her how much she is loved and missed and persuade her to come home. I want her here, even if it means recognising Andropov as a son-in-law, much as I should dislike it.’

Sir Edward would not dislike it any more than he would, Alex decided, but for different reasons. But it would not stop him trying to rescue her from her own folly.

7th April 1939

‘Push, for goodness’ sake,’ Olga said. ‘It’ll never be born if you don’t do something to help yourself.’

Lydia grunted through the pain and tried to do as she was told. It was Good Friday, a day of suffering and mourning in the Christian calendar, but she did not think anyone in Russia commemorated the fact, unless it was secretly. She should have been eagerly looking forward to the birth of her child, buying baby clothes, shawls, nappies, a cot and a pram, deciding on names. But it hadn’t been like that. The moment she realised a baby was on the way, she knew her hope of returning to England in the foreseeable future had faded to nothing. She didn’t want this child. She had hated the lump growing inside her all through the months of pregnancy. The bump was a symbol of her folly and there was no going back, no undoing what had been done. She felt trapped.

To make matters worse, the love she thought Kolya had for her had turned out to be nothing more than a delusion. His political loyalties seemed to change with the wind and she never knew what he really thought or believed; he never confided in her and more recently hardly troubled to talk to her at all. The day, soon after they arrived, she had overheard him discussing her with Grigori had been a real shock and very frightening. She had come upon them in the coach house pulling the old carriage apart. Battered and broken it had stood gathering dust and woodworm ever since that fateful day when her parents had sent her to Yalta. Someone must have returned it; she supposed it had been Grigori. It was of no use to anyone; its wheels and shafts had already been plundered for firewood. She wondered what they were looking for and had stood in the shadows watching. They evidently had not seen her.

‘Do you think I haven’t looked there before?’ Grigori said, watching Kolya throw the cushions off the seats. They had been nibbled by mice and the stuffing was bursting out of them. He pulled them apart, throwing the wadding behind him and coughing on the dust that flew out. ‘There’s nothing there, I tell you,’ Grigori went on. ‘Everything they had on them when they were arrested was confiscated. There was only a tiny diamond and one small ruby.’

‘You can’t persuade me that was all they had. They’d have hidden the rest somewhere and they wouldn’t have given the most valuable pieces to the children. The Kirilov Star was only the tip of the iceberg. There’s more hidden here somewhere. What about the droshky?’

‘The same. It’s all been searched. More than once. Every inch of the house too. If there had been any valuables left here during the Civil War, they’d have been found years ago.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Kolya said. ‘Bits of the Romanov jewels are still turning up in odd places: down wells, in chimneys, buried in gardens. I believe it’s the same with the Kirilov treasures.’

So Kolya was on a treasure hunt. It was then she realised with a dreadful shock that he had been using her to come and look for wealth. He had no feelings for her at all, nor any loyalty except to himself. He had no interest in kulak uprisings or the Communist Party. It was all a sham. Everything about him was a sham. The realisation had made her feel sick, more sick than her pregnancy ever had.

‘I’m not happy about you being here,’ Grigori had gone on. ‘You’ve been searching for days now and found nothing. I thought you knew where to look. Doesn’t that wife of yours know what happened to it?’

‘No, she was too young to remember.’

‘You could try jogging her memory. And if that doesn’t work, the best thing you can do is get rid of her. Having her here is putting us all in danger, you included.’

Lydia had put her hand to her mouth to stop herself crying out and betraying her presence. Were they considering murdering her? No, not even Kolya would stoop so low. But if they did, no one would ever know. They could bury her body in the forest and she would sink into oblivion, unmourned, not even by Sir Edward who had answered none of her letters. But who could blame him? She must be a dreadful disappointment to him and she was filled with shame.

‘I’ll try and get something out of her,’ Kolya had said. ‘If that doesn’t work, you can denounce her to the NKVD, but not until after I’m safely away.’

Lydia had crept silently away and gone back to her attic room where she sat on the bed, shaking with fright. She really was on her own.

The following day had been the beginning of day after day of interrogation by Kolya. It began slowly, with loving words and gentle hints, but when she told him she didn’t remember, he had pressed her more forcefully, and when that hadn’t worked, with shouts and threats. She had decided it might be better to pretend to remember odd little things, places the jewels might have been hidden. He would rush off searching wherever she had suggested: cupboards, drawers, nooks and crannies in the old house, outbuildings, troughs, water butts, up in the attics among the accumulated rubbish, but when he found nothing, he came back and the questions started again. She became good at acting a part, forgetting and then accidentally letting something slip, a faint memory which might be a clue. She felt relatively safe while he still thought there was something to be found, but sooner or later, he would give up and then she would be in mortal danger.

When she told him she was pregnant he had laughed, but it was not a happy laugh. She had no idea where he was now; she had been left to the ministrations of Olga because they dare not call in a doctor or a midwife for fear of being arrested. A surge of pain filled her body and she pushed for all she was worth, anxious to rid herself of this lump which had caused her so much grief.

‘It’s coming,’ Olga cried triumphantly. ‘I can see the head. One more push and you will have your baby.’

It took more than one, but suddenly it slid out into Olga’s waiting hands. Lydia sank back in exhaustion and shut her eyes, but the wail of an infant made her open them again. Olga was wiping mucous from the baby’s face. ‘It’s a boy,’ she said, wrapping him in a towel and putting him into Lydia’s arms. ‘Here, hold him while I see to the afterbirth.’