A Cossack Spring Read online




  A Cossack Spring

  The Tsar’s Dragons: Book Four

  Catrin Collier

  When Alexei Beletsky brings John Hughes news of an impending pogrom planned by Misha, a captain in the Cossack regiment, he conceals more than he tells him.

  Engaged to a Jewess, Ruth, Alexei is aware that Captain Misha Razin has been motivated by more than the age-old hatred of the Cossacks for the Jews. Misha is in love with Alexei’s cousin Sonya, but Sonya has already given her heart to a Jew, who dare not declare his love for a Christian because he cannot bear the prospect of being shunned by his people and his religion.

  John, Glyn, Richard, and Alexei enlist the assistance of the local orthodox priest, Father Grigor, and the commandant of the Cossacks. They devise a plan – one which they hope will avoid a massacre. But can they dissuade Misha and save an entire community, or will blood run in the streets of the shtetl as it has done so many times before?

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter One

  Beletsky Mansion, Hughesovka

  December 1870

  ‘A little girl, a perfect little girl. Just too small to live or draw breath. God bless and keep her.’ Yelena made the sign of the cross before taking the tiny body from the bowl of water and wrapping it in a towel.

  ‘Please, let me see her.’ Sarah begged. It was standard medical practice to remove stillborn babies and miscarriages from the mother as soon as possible ‘for the mother’s sake’ but she desperately wanted to see her and Peter’s child.

  Nathan took the tiny bundle from Yelena, uncovered the baby’s face, and placed it gently in Sarah’s outstretched arms. Oblivious to the tears falling from her eyes, she cradled the corpse.

  Unable to bear the sight of Sarah’s grief Yelena picked up the bowl and carried it out.

  ‘Would you like your daughter to be buried in the same coffin as your husband?’ Nathan asked.

  Sarah didn’t look away from the child’s face. ‘Could you … would you arrange it, please. I know it’s illogical but I can’t bear the thought of her lying alone and abandoned in unconsecrated ground.’

  ‘If those are your wishes, Mrs Edwards, I’m certain Father Grigor will do his best to accommodate them.’ Nathan took a loaded syringe from the side table.

  ‘Morphine?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘You need rest.’

  ‘I need to bury my dead.’

  ‘For that you need strength.’ He gave her the injection.

  Yelena returned and busied herself bundling the soiled linen together. He spoke to her in Russian. ‘After you’ve carried that out, please sit with Mrs Edwards. Call me if there’s any change in her condition.’

  Yelena watched Sarah’s eyelids drop and her body relax in drug-induced torpor. ‘The child?’

  Nathan eased the tiny bundle from Sarah’s limp arms and covered the baby’s face again. ‘I’ll take it to her husband. Alexei and Mr Hughes are making arrangements for the funerals.’

  ‘I knew it. I knew there’d be deaths this morning when a bird perched on the kitchen windowsill of Mr Edwards’ house. Not content to sit there, it tapped the window with its beak. You know what that means?’

  ‘The bird wanted whoever had been feeding it to put out crumbs?’ The shtetl was as rife with superstition as Alexandrovka, and Nathan abhorred old wives’ tales.

  ‘No one had been feeding it,’ Yelena retorted. ‘I won’t allow anyone to put out food for the birds. They are harbingers of death. As soon as the wretched creature tapped the glass I knew someone in the house would be laid in their coffin before the next sun dawned. But I didn’t expect it to be two people and an unborn child.’ She shook her head. ‘People should stay where God put them. They have no right to travel. These foreigners should never have come to Mother Russia. They are not wanted here. This is just the beginning. They will all die for breaking God’s laws … you wait and see …’

  ‘That’s complete nonsense, Mother Razin.’ Unequal to dealing with Yelena’s irrational beliefs as well as the unfolding tragedy, Nathan carried the dead child to the door. He collided with a slight figure in the corridor.

  ‘I’m Anna, Dr Kharber.’

  ‘I know who you are, Anna. You work alongside my sister, Ruth.’

  ‘You wouldn’t let me sit with my brother Richard. Please, can I stay with Mrs Edwards?’

  Nathan looked at the girl’s white pinched face and recalled ordering her out of the men’s room. He sympathised with her. Her only relative in Russia, her brother, could die at any moment. Two of the men who lived in the same house as her were already dead. The nurse who was training her had lost her child. Could there be something in Cossack superstition after all? Were the newcomers cursed?

  He pushed the thought from his mind. Exhaustion had driven him to the borders of sanity. If he wasn’t careful he’d find himself on the lunatic side. ‘You can stay with Mrs Edwards, Anna. Find me when she wakes.’

  Anna crept past him into the room.

  He watched her sit beside the bed and reach for Sarah’s hand. Sarah had lost everything but still had her life. He couldn’t help feeling the remaining patients in his care might not be as fortunate.

  Alexei found John studying maps in the drawing room.

  ‘I’ve sent two grooms to Alexandrovka and the shtetl and asked them to bring carpenters back to measure the dead for their coffins, sir. I also asked them to bring any ready-made coffins they have. I doubt either carpenter will have more than one or two in stock.’

  John sat back in his chair. ‘It’s been a long night for all of us, but especially you. My sympathies and condolences, Alexei.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, but I can’t think about my mother and sisters now. There’s too much to be done.’

  John recognised Alexei’s need to delay his mourning. He knew from painful experience the loss of a loved one rarely registered until after the observance of funeral rituals.

  A maid knocked the door and brought in a tray of coffee and sweet rolls.

  ‘Four cups?’

  ‘I asked my grandmother and Dr Kharber to come down. They’re exhausted and all the patients are sleeping. There are enough people upstairs to watch over them and fetch Dr Kharber if he’s needed.’ Alexei went to the window and opened the drapes. The gardens were bathed in the icy clear grey light of dawn.

  ‘You feel dawn shouldn’t break?’

  Alexei turned. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve experienced loss. Not as much as you in one night. But I know what it feels like to lose your parents, sisters – and your children.’

  ‘I can’t believe my mother and four of my sisters have gone. I keep expecting the maid to walk into my bedroom with my morning tea to wake me.’

  ‘How is your grandmother?’

  ‘Since Mrs Edwards collapsed she’s taken it upon herself to help Nathan.’

  ‘As soon as the sun’s risen I’ll check the sites we’ve marked as possible company cemeteries. It’ll be with a heavy heart. I didn’t think I’d need to look so soon.’

  ‘I’ll go with you after I’ve spoken to the carpenters.’

  ‘You don’t have to, Alexei.’

  Alexei’s eyes burned bright. ‘I can’t think of anything else I should be doing, Mr Hughes.’

  John poured the coffee. He handed Alexei a cup. ‘I’ll order my driver to bring round the carriage. We’ll leave as soon as we’ve seen the carpenters.’

  Beletsky family graveyard, Hughesovka

  December 1870

  Two days after the death of Countess Olga Beletsky and f
our of her daughters, Catherine, Alexei, Sonya, John, Father Grigor, Mr Dmitri, and Nicholas attended their private funeral. The ceremony was ‘invitation only’ at Nicholas’s insistence, although he hadn’t been able to prevent the Cossacks, caps doffed in respect, from lining the road between the house and the cemetery.

  After the last coffin had been lowered into the vault and Father Grigor had said the final ‘Amen’, Nicholas walked to the gate. He shook hands with the priest, without removing his gloves, studiously ignored Alexei, and waylaid Catherine.

  ‘I have pressing business in St Petersburg.’

  She inclined her head to show that she’d heard him.

  ‘From there I will travel to East Prussia and Allenstein to see the boys. I don’t want them to find out about the death of their mother and sisters from a letter.’

  ‘Your surviving daughters, Katya and Kira? Do you intend to visit them before you leave?’ Catherine enquired.

  ‘Katya’s contagious and Kira’s a baby. There’s no point in my seeing them. As soon as the house is free from patients and has been disinfected, I’ve ordered my lawyer to find tenants for it. Perhaps you could suggest its suitability as a home to Mr Hughes?’

  ‘You want me to discuss renting out Olga’s home at her funeral?’ Catherine’s voice was brittle.

  ‘Obviously not now or I would have spoken to him myself.’

  ‘Katya and Kira?’

  ‘Are your granddaughters. I trust you will offer them a home.’ He didn’t wait for her to reply. ‘This is not the funeral I would have wanted for my wife and daughters. It seems wrong to bury the dead so quickly.’

  ‘Not when they died of cholera.’

  ‘The manager of the hotel told me there hasn’t been a new case for twenty-four hours. Does that mean the epidemic is over?’

  ‘I’m not a medical expert, Nicholas. You’d have to ask Dr Kharber that question.’

  ‘Dr Kharber …’

  ‘Is a qualified practitioner.’

  ‘Qualified … he killed Olga, the girls, the English doctor, and the others as well as Pavlo Razin …’

  ‘I’ve no time to listen to your anti-Semitic ranting, Nicholas, when I’ve just buried my daughter and four of my granddaughters. I wish to mourn in peace. Alexei?’

  ‘Grandmother?’

  ‘Escort me and Sonya to our carriage, please.’ She walked past Nicholas. Alexei handed her and Sonya into the carriage, and climbed in beside them.

  ‘Your father …’

  ‘I heard everything, Grandmother.’

  ‘We’re better off with him in St Petersburg. Don’t let him upset you.’

  ‘My father hasn’t upset me. I’m worried about Katya, Mr Edwards, and the others.’

  ‘We’re all worried about them, Alexei, but everything that can be done for them is being done. Katya was sitting up in a chair this morning. She looked well. Pray God the worst is over.’ Catherine grasped his hand, lifted it to her lips, and kissed it.

  ‘I hope so.’ He looked out of the window. ‘I really hope so,’ he echoed.

  Beletsky Mansion, Hughesovka

  December 1870

  ‘John told me about Peter and the baby. You shouldn’t be here, Sarah,’ Glyn protested when she sank down, pale and gaunt on a chair beside his bed.

  ‘I had to see you.’ She clasped his hand.

  ‘You shouldn’t touch me …’

  ‘I’m a nurse. We’re immune to infection.’

  ‘Sarah, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I’m sorry for us both, Glyn. I know how close you and Peter were.’

  ‘Not always.’

  ‘It was only physical distance that separated you. Peter felt he’d really come to know and appreciate you on the journey here.’

  ‘I should never have talked you into coming to Russia.’

  ‘If you hadn’t, Peter could have died in an epidemic in London, or Merthyr. Dr Kharber told me you blamed yourself for Peter’s death. Please don’t. Peter knew the risks of the profession when he chose to become a doctor.’

  ‘The risks of the profession don’t include travelling to Russia and drinking contaminated cordial.’

  ‘There’s as much contaminated water and fruit in Wales and England.’ Sarah’s eyes were dry, dead, her voice devoid of emotion. ‘Concentrate on getting well. Mr Hughes needs you. We all do.’

  ‘That’s if Mr Hughes intends to continue with his plans to build a works here.’

  ‘You said the New Russia Company couldn’t afford to fail.’

  ‘It can’t, but I can’t bear the thought of carrying on …’

  She cut him short, ‘Only because you’re sick and weak. When you recover you’ll feel differently. Things can never be the same for you, or me, Glyn, but we have to think how Peter would feel. This was his dream of a better life for every working man and his family.’

  ‘A dream that’s in tatters.’

  ‘Only for Peter and us, Glyn.’ She glanced across to the bed where Richard was sleeping. ‘We owe it to Peter and Huw to do all we can to keep the dream alive for Mr Hughes and those who’ll follow us.’

  ‘What are you doing out of bed, Mrs Edwards?’ Nathan strode in.

  ‘Checking your patients are receiving the correct nursing care, Dr Kharber.’ She squeezed Glyn’s hand before relinquishing it. ‘Please let Anna know when Richard wakes, Dr Kharber. She’s worried about him.’

  ‘He needs sleep.’

  ‘So does Anna. She’s asleep now. If she hadn’t been I wouldn’t have been able to leave my bed. How are the other patients?’

  ‘All seem to be recovering.’

  The ‘seem to’ burned in Sarah’s mind when she returned to her room. As she’d told Nathan, the deaths of the patients she’d lost when they appeared to be making a full recovery had been the hardest to bear.

  Catherine walked through the front door of the Beletsky mansion ahead of the mourners, entered the hall, and took the letters from the tray the butler handed her. ‘Have you laid out refreshments?’

  ‘Cold meat, cake, and salads in the dining room, Madam.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She slit the envelope open with an ornamental dagger. It didn’t take her long to read the single sheet of paper. She saw Alexei watching her. ‘A condolence note.’

  ‘That one is from my father’s solicitor.’ Alexei recognised his clerk’s writing.

  Catherine opened it. ‘It’s a formal eviction notice asking everyone residing in this house to leave within four weeks so arrangement can be made to disinfect the place before advertising for a tenant.’

  ‘What about Kira, and what if Katya, Mr Edwards, and the others are still sick?’

  ‘Your father will expect them to pay rent.’

  ‘Miss Smith and the servants?’

  ‘The solicitor makes no mention of them. Make enquiries for me please, Alexei. Ask if they’ve received payment in lieu of wages or been given notice .’

  ‘I will. What about a plaque commemorating my mother and sisters on the family vault?’

  ‘There’s no mention of a monument. I trust your father won’t interfere in any arrangements you and I make.’

  The butler showed John, Father Grigor, and Mr Dmitri into the hall.

  Catherine greeted them. ‘Thank you so much for your support in our time of sorrow. It is much appreciated.’

  John handed the butler his coat before kissing Catherine’s hand. ‘The least we can do, Mrs Ignatova.’

  ‘My son-in-law wants to do business today of all days, Mr Hughes. He wishes you to know that he intends to rent out this house.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt the company will be able to make use of it when the next influx of workers arrive.’

  ‘If you gentlemen will excuse me, I must enquire after our patients. Alexei, please take the mourners into the dining room and see everyone has everything they need. Sonya, please come with me.’

  Alexei was talking to Father Grigor when Sonya came looking for him.

  ‘I’m
sorry, Alexei. It’s Katya. There’s nothing Nathan Kharber or Mrs Edwards can do for her. Your grandmother is with her. She sent me to get you.’

  Chapter Two

  British cemetery, Hughesovka

  January 1871

  John ordered the driver to stop his sleigh outside the gate of the company cemetery. Sarah sat on the bench seat opposite him, swathed in Olga Beletsky’s sable cloak. Catherine had given the furs to her, insisting Sarah would do her the favour by taking them, as the Beletsky mansion had to be emptied before it could be rented and she couldn’t bear to throw out her daughter and granddaughters’ clothes, or store them at the Dower House.

  Catherine had used the same excuse when she’d passed Katya’s furs and clothes on to Anna, but it had taken all of Sarah and the older woman’s powers of persuasion to overcome the reluctance Mary had instilled in Anna to accept ‘charity’.

  Sarah was grateful for the sable. It was the first time she’d ventured out of doors since she’d lost her child. The air temperature was fifteen degrees below freezing and the snow that lay three feet thick was frosted by ice.

  ‘You don’t have to leave the carriage, Mrs Edwards. I can put those flowers on Peter’s grave for you,’ John offered.

  Sarah picked up the bouquet of white roses Alexei had cut for her in his grandmother’s hothouse.

  ‘You’re very kind, Mr Hughes, but as I wasn’t well enough to attend their funeral I need to do it.’

  The driver opened the door. John left the sleigh and handed Sarah out. He allowed her to walk ahead of him.

  Hay had been scattered on a path that had been dug to a row of simple wooden crosses in a corner of the field. Each bore a name. Sarah stopped in front of the one carved with Dr Peter Alfred Edwards 1842-1870 and daughter. She brushed a layer of crystallised snow from the top and arms of the cross, knelt beside it, and set the roses on the mound of snow.

  She pictured what would never be. A family life in a house that was hers and Peter’s; meal and play times with the daughter they would never know. She felt cheated, angry, mourning as much for the future she’d lost, as her husband and child.