Niannka was released, but when she reached Chudvo Station to meet her employers, the Grazinskys had gone. Since they themselves had not been certain of their destination, she thought the only thing to do was to go back to the palace in Petersburg and wait for news.

The Grazinsky Palace, however, had been taken over by the Metal Plate Workers’ Union — an organization which made it clear that she had better remove herself, and fast. When she wouldn’t leave, they sent for the Red Guard. The first time the soldiers escorted her over the Anchikov Bridge they were friendly, cracking jokes with the old woman. The second time they were not amused. The third time they told her that if she attempted to return to the palace she would be shot.

‘So I went home, Baryna,’ said Niannka now, shrugging aside the ten day journey in an unspeakable train across a war-torn country, the trek across the mountains without food.

Her relatives were not overjoyed to see her, but Niannka commandeered an adjoining cave, stowed her bundles and prepared to wait till the Little Father should be back on his throne and the Grazinskys return.

It was a hard time, she said, but she had done what she could to make herself useful, requisitioning the new babies as soon as they were born and preventing her pig of a brother-in-law from putting dead cats in the shashlik.

Then one day, a party of English with mules and porters had come to the village. Leading them was a tall man like a stork, who had begun to question her. At first she had laughed so much at his extraordinary Russian that she couldn’t hear what he said, but when she gathered that he knew where the Grazinskys were she stopped laughing very soon.

‘Even so, I was not stupid,’ she said, tapping the side of her nose. ‘“How do I know you are telling me the truth?” I said to him.’

But then, continued the old woman, he had described the Grazinskys — but most particularly Annoushka — in such amazing detail that her doubts were soon stilled. ‘For he knew everything, doushenka,’ she said, turning to Anna. ‘The way your hair jumps out from behind your ears and the way there are freckles only on the top of your nose and even the place where the chicken made a hole in your thumb, do you remember?’

So as soon as she had gone to the monastery to thank St Nino, she packed her belongings and prepared for the mule journey across the valley to where she could catch a train to England. And here, said Niannka, shaking her head, the Englishman had proved himself very slow in the uptake, not realizing that of course it was necessary for her to set off at once, that there was no question of her waiting till the expedition was ready to return. She had had to sit for several days actually on the bag of tools he was using for his digging to make this clear. But at last he had got the message and taken her down to Batumi and sent many telegrams and put her on the boat to Constantinople…

‘So now I am here,’ she finished, ‘and ready to work.’ Her fierce eyes swept the tiny room, looking for the missing icon. ‘But first, Baryna, I must ask for your forgiveness.’

And with tears springing to her eyes again, she began to apologize. She had not, she said, been able to bring the Crown of Kazan. It was so cumbersome and heavy that it would certainly have attracted suspicion, so she had buried it under some rocks just before she reached her village. She could remember the exact spot and would take them there as soon as the Little Father returned, if only the baryna would not be angry. Everything else, of course, she had brought.

‘Everything else?’ said the countess faintly.

Niannka bent down to the malodorous, mudstained carpetbag which had been lying like a sick animal against her skirts. Then she rose, carried it over to the green baize card table and, watched in a silence that even embraced Miss Pinfold’s sister’s budgerigar, began to unpack. She drew out a pair of woollen stockings, a flannel petticoat, a crucifix… There followed a wooden comb, a rolled up daguerrotype of St Xavier the Bleeding Heart… Then a large, flat piece of felting, stiffened with cardboard, the false bottom of the case. Then crumpled up newspaper, a great deal of it. Once more her hand came out, this time cradling a lake, a dazzling pool of blue…

‘My sapphires,’ cried the countess. ‘Oh, Niannka, my sapphires!’

Niannka nodded and turned back to her rooting. Then, with a grunt of satisfaction, she let fall on the green baize table the translucent, shimmering snake that was the famous triple row of pearls. Quite impervious to their exclamations and the countess’s tears, she unpacked the Potemkin pendant, a diamond tiara, a butterfly brooch, three pairs of earrings… There followed the Empress Sophia’s pectoral cross and the rubies that had been Anna’s christening present from her godmother. And lastly, laying the stones down respectfully but without undue excitement, as one completing delivery of a useful batch of groceries, what was arguably the most valuable set of jewellery in Christendom: the emerald parure.

15

Baskerville woke first on the morning of the wedding. Woke, stretched and yawned in the small room in the bachelor’s wing which Rupert still occupied for this last night. Woke and padded over to the two suitcases, strapped and labelled for Switzerland and howled as dogs have howled at their master’s luggage for centuries.

And after Baskerville, came Proom.

Proom had seen to the arrangement of the trestle tables for the tenantry and the timing of the cars to go to church. He had supervised the setting out of the striped awning and the strip of red carpet that led from the front door down the steps. He had seen that the telegrams were laid out on a silver salver by the best man’s chair and that the Damascus steel knife from the Topkapi Palace was in place next to the wedding cake. He had even procured five pounds of rice from Mrs Park and ordered it to be parcelled out and delivered to the villagers, who, in the matter of spontaneous festive gestures, could not, where this particular wedding was concerned, be relied upon.

No one seeing him would believe how heavy his heart was, for his plan had not succeeded. He had wasted Rabinovitch’s money. He had failed.

It had been necessary to take the old-established servants into his confidence and they had played their parts to a man. By the time Proom, the previous night, had gone to Dr Lightbody’s room and requested a private interview with that eminent eugenicist, everything was ready. But though Proom had been able to substantiate his disclosures, though the doctor had been violently agitated and upset, he had not acted. ‘He hasn’t slept a wink,’ Sid, who had brought up his shaving water, had just reported, ‘but he hasn’t done a thing.’

And now it was too late.

‘No luck, then?’ enquired Mr Potter, fetching the white ribbons to tie on the Daimler — a query echoed with increasing hopelessness by Louise, directing the extra village women hired to carry the jellies and syllabubs, the patés and terrines upstairs, by James, busy with the wine coolers, by Mr Cameron, bringing in the corsage for the dowager and the buttonholes for the bridegroom and the guests…

By eleven o’clock no one even asked any more, and on the instructions of Mr Proom they went upstairs to change for church. But when the maids came down in their polka dot muslins and cherry trimmed hats, they found Mrs Park still in her overalls.

‘I’m not going to the church,’ she said with finality. ‘I can’t leave Win.’ The little kitchen maid whom Mrs Park had put in her own bed was slowly recovering, but she was still very weak.

‘Oh, Mrs Park,’ wailed Peggy. ‘And your new foulard and all!’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Mrs Park. ‘I’m not keen. It’s just Miss Ollie I’d like to have seen.’

Upstairs, the dowager’s Alice was lowering Mrs Bunford’s powder blue silk over her employer’s head. ‘It’s not too bad,’ she said. ‘Except for the sleeves, of course.’ She sighed, noticing the dowager’s shadowed eyes, the lines of strain round her mouth. Well, there was nothing to be done. They were packed and ready to go to the Mill House on the following day and a damp, dark hole it seemed to Alice and the worst place you could think of for her rheumatism, but where Lady Westerholme went there Alice Spinks would follow. ‘Mr Cameron’s waiting, my lady, with your corsage. He wanted to give it to you himself.’

‘Oh, Mr Cameron, how beautiful! It’s got your new rose in it!’ The dowager’s eyes misted. The garden at the Mill House was small and overshadowed, and she and this dour old Scotsman had shared thirty years of delight in flowers. ‘Have you found a name for it yet?’ she asked into his ear-trumpet which had proved staunchly Muriel-proof. ‘Anna said you were thinking of naming it for Miss Hardwicke?’

The old man’s face broke into a crafty smile. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I’m calling it “Countess”.’

‘Just “Countess”?’ said the dowager, puzzled.

The gardener nodded and began to wheeze with his special brand of private laughter. ‘Just “Countess”,’ he said — and took his leave.

‘It’s time to go, my lady,’ said Alice gently.

‘Yes.’

Well, at least, thought the dowager, letting Alice adjust her hat, I’ve been spared the Herrings.

For Proom, sent to settle the Herrings’ outstanding fares and bring them back to Mersham, had returned empty-handed. The Herrings, it seemed, had taken umbrage and returned to Birmingham. God did that sometimes, the dowager had observed. Pushed you to the limit and then gave you just one little bonus: in this case, a wedding without Melvyn, Myrtle and the twins.