Read To Kill a Tsar for Free Online

collective sigh.
    A smartly dressed woman in her fifties glided across the carpet to greet him. ‘Have we met before?’ Her voice was high pitched and imperious.
    ‘Doctor Frederick Hadfield, madame.’
    ‘Vera Nikolaevna’s English friend?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Yuliya Sergeyovna offered him her hand but not her name, presuming with the assurance of her class that he would know it already. She was short and gamine, her face startlingly thin – her sallow skin hung in folds from her cheekbones – a high forehead, bottle-black hair pinned and parted in the centre and small restless hands. She was wearing a fine emerald green skirt with fashionable pleated frills and ruching and a matching jacket: clothes she might choose for a tea salon at the imperial court.
    The drawing room was large and rectangular in shape, dimlylit by gas sconces, and the blinds were pulled down conspiratorially over the windows at the far end. There were perhaps forty people chatting in small groups, drinking tea and smoking, some standing, some perched uncomfortably on gilded French sofas and fauteuils. Most were men in their twenties, dressed informally in short jackets, some with open-necked shirts. Lounging at the large marble fireplace, a group of students in the high collared uniforms the authorities required all who studied at the university to wear. From infancy to dotage, it seemed to Hadfield, there was a uniform for every age, every occupation in the empire. He had mentioned it to one of his colleagues at the hospital who told him with a resigned shrug that the country hung from a thread of braid because a Russian only knew his place if he was in uniform. Doctors were the exception to this rule and Hadfield considered it fortunate the only uniform he was obliged to wear was a hospital coat.
    Madame Volkonsky led him through the gathering to the opposite end of the room where three young women were bent together in close conversation, their faces in silhouette against the dim light of a window: ‘Vera, dear . . . your English friend . . .’
    Instinctively they stepped away from each other like children caught sharing a guilty secret.
    ‘You’re late, Frederick,’ Vera said, holding out her hand to him, small and cold to the touch, ‘I’d almost given up on you.’
    It was four years since they had met last but her manner was as cool and matter-of-fact as if she had seen him only that morning and had been waiting a little impatiently to go to one of the lectures they used to attend in Zurich.
    ‘How are you, Verochka?’
    ‘Quite well. As you can see,’ and her hands fluttered gracefully down her black dress. More than well, he thought, she was even more beautiful than he remembered her: chestnut-brown hair tied in a bun, finely cut features, almond-shapedeyes and full lips that turned down a little disdainfully at the corners. A small intimidating frown played constantly between her dark eyebrows. It was a severe beauty. Poor Alexei Filippov: Vera’s husband was a provincial lawyer with decidedly conservative views. It was the most unlikely of marriages. Hadfield had watched Filippov trailing around Zurich in Vera’s wake, pink with embarrassment and irritation as the eyes of a hundred adoring students followed her hungrily about the medical faculty.
    ‘And Alexei?’ Hadfield asked. ‘Is your husband with you?’
    ‘We’re no longer together,’ she said coolly.
    ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ ‘Don’t be. It was the right thing to do. I’m Vera Figner again.’
    Madame Volkonsky began to twitter nervously about freedom from domestic drudgery and the importance of educating young women. Her views were muddled and it seemed to Hadfield she was paying no more than lip service to the rights of women out of polite deference to Vera. After a few uncomfortable minutes she made an excuse and slipped away.
    ‘Yuliya Sergeyovna is a sentimental supporter,’ said Vera in a low voice. ‘One of her uncles took part in the Decembrist revolt