The Firebird

‘Yes, he did. And he has never called me less, I will admit it. But my father was no more than his half-brother, and my blood is more diluted still.’

‘I do not share his blood at all,’ said Anna, ‘yet he treats me on a level with his daughters, and has always done so.’

‘Does he?’ Charles said the words so rashly that he seemed to want them back, because he paused before he asked, ‘Did he send Nan to fetch his letters from the Custom House? Or Mary?’

It was obvious he hadn’t, so she didn’t bother answering.

‘Of course he didn’t.’ Charles’s tone implied that was the end of the discussion.

They had reached the western limits of the Admiralty and crossed together into the tight maze of streets where many of the British lived. Already the November afternoon was growing dark, and soon the watchmen would be coming out to start their long patrols and climb their towers, ever vigilant against the sliding shadow of a thief, or the bright flicker of a flame that might again engulf the houses that were springing up so quickly all around, their wooden walls daubed thick with plaster to present a fine appearance that, in spite of every effort, could not yet withstand the frost and every spring gave way to cracks and imperfections.

Like the families who lived in them, Anna thought. She said to Charles, ‘You know him not at all.’

‘I know that blood is blood, and I am certain that, for all the love the vice admiral might bear me, I am yet one more unsought responsibility he well could do without.’

She thought on this so deeply that she did not realise they had reached the front door of her house until Charles stopped and placed a hand upon her shoulder, keeping her from walking on. She roused herself, and looked at him. ‘Will not you come inside?’

‘No.’ To her disappointed face, he added, ‘I have somewhere I must be.’

She nodded, if a little wistfully. ‘I’ll tell him that I met you.’

‘Yes, you do that.’ He looked at her a moment with what might have been regret. Or even pity. Then he added, ‘You may give him my affection.’ His kiss warmed her cheek as he bent down. ‘And mind that you tell him how dashing I looked in my new regimentals.’

Inside, the lobby of the house was in near darkness, and she had to stand a moment till her vision had adjusted. It was early yet, she knew, to light the candles, but she saw the warm glow spilling through the partly opened door of the vice admiral’s room, beyond the antechamber, and she gladly shed her cold wool wraps and went to give his letters to him.

Nan and Mary were upstairs. She heard their cheerful voices rise and fall in conversation like a song, and knew that if she were to join them she’d be happily included, but she wanted Gordon’s company, just now.

He was in bed, as he had been these past two days, yet she was pleased to see that he was sitting up and reading, with his pipe in hand, and there was nothing of that whistle in his breathing that there could be when these bouts of asthma laid him low.

‘I have your letters,’ she announced, and leaning in exchanged them for a kiss that landed just where Charles had kissed her, so she added, ‘I met Charles near the Admiralty. He walked me back. He would have come inside, but he did not have leave to be so long away from duty, though he said to give you his affection.’

‘Did he?’ The vice admiral, looking pleased, set his book and his pipe down and started to open his letters.

‘He looked very well,’ she remarked. ‘And quite dashing, in his regimentals.’

‘No doubt.’ He’d unfolded the first letter, and with his eyes on it, asked in an offhand way, ‘Why did you need Charles to walk you back? Where was Gregor?’

‘Gregor fell ill at the Custom House.’ Anna schooled her face to look convincing. ‘Mr Taylor very kindly walked me back across the river, and Charles saw me the rest of the way.’

That earned her a brief glance above the letter’s edge. ‘Mr Taylor of the Factory?’

‘Yes.’

Returning to his reading, he said, ‘Ah.’

She might have felt exasperation at his obvious amusement had she not been quite so pleased to see his sense of humour surfacing again, after what had been, in her view, too long an absence.

He’d had more to bear these past few years than many lesser men could have endured, and that he’d borne it strongly and with minimal complaint had been a model others facing so much loss might aim to follow, but she’d seen his grief in private and she knew that the events had left their mark.

The first had been the foolish, needless death of his son William, in a youthful drunken brawl in faraway Gibraltar, cruel news that had reached them in the first cold winter they had spent here. Then had come the even crueller death of his beloved wife, who’d fallen ill not long after she’d come across to join them in St Petersburg. And this past spring she’d been followed by her daughter Jane, the vice admiral’s stepdaughter, whose decline and death had also been a bitter loss to Anna, who had nursed Jane in her lodgings for those final wrenching months.

They had shared much in common, she and Jane – both loving the vice admiral and belonging to him in a way, yet neither one his own.

I know that blood is blood. So Charles had said, and Anna in her heart knew he was right.

‘What troubles you?’ asked Gordon. ‘Usually you do not keep so quiet.’

Anna saw no need to weigh her words. ‘Am I a burden to you?’