The Firebird

As if aware of her thoughts, Mrs Lacy smiled. ‘I have endured this a great many times, Mistress Jamieson. ’Tis but a small price to pay for so rich a reward,’ she remarked in her beautifully accented English. ‘I gather you did meet my children, earlier this morning?’

‘Yes, I did. They were most charming.’

‘And most secretive,’ she said, ‘about the details of your meeting, but I see you have emerged unscathed.’

The general asked, ‘You met them all at once? Brave girl.’

‘She seems to have impressed them,’ Mrs Lacy told her husband. ‘Katie asked if we could keep her.’

‘Well, then.’ General Lacy, in amusement, said, ‘Perhaps we shall.’

There were two other places set at table – one across from Anna, and one to her left, to show that more guests were expected. One arrived a minute later.

‘Father Dominic,’ the general introduced the middle-aged Franciscan friar, whose brown robe and tonsured head evoked a stir of memories. The Franciscans were not Capuchins, though Capuchins did count themselves as members of that order, having splintered from the main Franciscan body some two centuries ago. There had been Capuchins here in St Petersburg till lately, and the sight of their long hoods and beards had always raised the thought of Father Graeme in her mind, but there’d been quarrels between them and the Franciscans, and the Tsar had, in an edict that had been one of his last, ordered the Capuchins to leave, just this past January.

That left only the Franciscans now to serve the small community of Catholics in St Petersburg, some preaching at the Catholic church in Greek Street and the chapel for the French on Vasilievsky Island, while others could be found, like Father Dominic, with private families, serving there as tutors for the children, and as chaplains.

Father Dominic, like all his order, was clean-shaven, and his eyes, though not unkind, held none of Father Graeme’s humour.

When they’d waited some few minutes longer for the final guest, the general gave the nod of one accustomed to decision-making. ‘Father, will you say the blessing, please?’

‘Of course.’

The blessing was a lengthy one, but Anna kept her head discreetly bent, as did the others. When the floorboards creaked behind her she thought little of it, until a man’s leg came suddenly into the edge of her vision – a strong-looking leg clad in black woollen breeches, a black stocking rolled up and over the kneeband, the fall of a black coat pushed out of the way as the man slid with stealth onto the chair beside her own.

Not wanting to put a foot wrong on her first day, she kept her gaze downcast until Father Dominic said his ‘Amen’. Only then did she give rein to her curiosity, glancing sideways and up at the newcomer, who with his own head respectfully bent was just finishing crossing himself.

His head lifted. His eyes briefly angled to hers, and he winked before looking away as the general’s wife brightly said, ‘Edmund, I thought you had forgotten us.’

The general smiled. ‘No kin of mine,’ he told his wife, ‘would think to miss his dinner.’

‘No, indeed.’ The man at Anna’s side spoke easily, without a hint of deference in his tone. ‘And never during Lent. If you’ll forgive me, Father.’

Father Dominic asked lightly, ‘Have you been committing some new sin?’

‘I have not, as it happens. I’ve been caring for a bird, and surely even your St Francis would approve of that? He preached to the birds, did he not?’

Mrs Lacy replied, ‘Yes, he certainly did. Mistress Jamieson, may I present Mr Edmund O’Connor, my husband’s relation, who lately has journeyed from Spain.’

Anna somehow remembered her manners, and nodded her head and said, ‘Mr O’Connor.’

His dark eyes were not disrespectful, exactly, but neither were they like the eyes of a gentleman. More like the eyes of a rogue. ‘Mistress Jamieson,’ he said. ‘Your servant.’ The stress on that final word, meant just for her ears, was clearly intentional.

Not paying heed to the charge in the air, Mrs Lacy asked, ‘What sort of bird was it, Edmund?’

Anna thought he paused before replying, and she wondered whether that was because Mrs Lacy, being from Livonia, might share the superstitions of the Russians when it came to hooded crows.

The pause was not a long one. Smoothly he replied, ‘An injured one. It took a while to find a place to keep it, where it would be safe.’

‘And what,’ Mrs Lacy went on, ‘did you use for a cage?’

‘The same cage that we used for the rabbits.’

The general reminded him, ‘We ate the rabbits.’

‘Aye, that’s why I’ve hidden the bird,’ came the dry answer.

Wine was poured. Father Dominic, keeping to water and bread for his Lenten meals, would not take any, but Anna was glad of it, passing her cup out of habit across the small glass bowl of water set out at her side before taking her first sip, a gesture that did not escape General Lacy’s keen eye.

‘Mistress Jamieson, I see you drink to the health of the King who lives over the water,’ he said.

Anna lowered her cup. ‘General, I drink the health of the only true king.’

‘Ah.’ The general looked down the long table as he passed his own wine cup over his water bowl. ‘One more for our side,’ he said to his wife.

Beside Anna, the dark eyes of Edmund O’Connor held innocent as he remarked, ‘Aye, if ever the King is in need of a birdcatcher, your Mistress Jamieson here will do well for him.’