“What?”
“He can open it later. Let’s go.”
Downstairs, Hugo dozed in his chair, not stirring at all as we slipped through the front door, trying not to let in any more of the frigid air than necessary.
When we got outside, I noticed a man across the street standing in a doorway. I couldn’t make out his features but I could see the glowing tip of his cigarette. I wanted to bolt back inside. I turned away, not wanting the man to see my face, and then I noticed that, as usual, Hap didn’t have on a hat. Standing under the streetlamp in front of the theater, his red hair was practically a beacon, and when he and Miles began talking about the party in English, their voices carried in the quiet night air.
“Find us a ride,” I said to Hap in Russian so he’d stop talking, even though I was sure that if the man was there to watch us, he would have already noticed everything about us that stood out.
I pretended to listen to Miles while we waited, and nearly pushed them both in the sleigh when it drew up, glad Hap had managed to find something big enough for all three of us.
We pulled away and I resisted the urge to turn around, though my shoulders tightened as if I could feel the man still watching us.
“Lottie, you aren’t listening,” Miles said.
“What?”
“I said, how are you going to answer Elder Red?” Miles’s voice was raspy. It always was after he spent any length of time in a smoky room.
“What?” I asked again. Elder Red was what the boys called our grandmother, our father’s mother. I didn’t understand why Miles was asking about her at that particular moment. When we received our infrequent letters, I responded, though her letters were a litany of complaints. She’d hated my mother, and I was never sure she even wanted us as grandchildren.
Miles coughed, but got it under control fairly easily. “Didn’t you get a letter too? Elder Red said she was writing to you in the one she sent to us. Ours was full of fire and brimstone, even more than usual.”
Hap threw his fur onto Miles. “Here, I don’t need this. It’s not that cold. Charlotte, we decided you’re going to have to be the one to write her back and tell her we aren’t coming.”
“Wait. She wants us to come visit her?” The few times we had seen her, she could barely contain her irritation at our existence. She never came to accept that her son had married a young actress he’d met on a business trip to France instead of marrying someone from an approved “good” family, and had then had the audacity to produce three grandchildren without impeccable pedigrees.
“No, she wants us to come live in America,” Miles said. “Our letter was full of dire predictions about our futures if we stayed here. You’ll tell her no, of course, but find a way where she won’t cut us out of the will.”
“Start over,” I said. “You must be leaving out some parts.”
“We’re not,” Hap said, repeating Miles’s version of the letter.
The sleigh pulled up in front of the house and Hap jumped out. “Don’t just sit there,” he said. “Pay the man.”
I followed them inside and they threw off their coats and their felt boots and were racing upstairs in the time it took me to unbutton my own coat.
“Has the tutor come home yet?” I asked Osip, trying to keep my voice casual. I had more than my grandmother’s letter to worry about.
“No, he’s not back. You have a letter. I’m sorry I forgot to give it to you earlier.” Osip went over to a hall table and brought me an envelope that had been lying on a tray.
“Thank you. Good night, Osip,” I said as I went upstairs. The letter felt heavy in my hand. A familiar pang of pain hit my right temple, one that happened every time I faced a letter of hers. Once in my room I decided just to get it over with, so I ripped the envelope open.
My grandmother’s handwriting was tiny and precise.
Dear Charlotte,
I don’t wish to be so blunt, but I see no other choice. Your desire to be present as your half sisters grow up is admirable, but there are others who can oversee their upbringing. You only have a few years as an eligible young woman, and you shouldn’t waste them in such a foreign place.
I was shocked to hear of your plans to go to medical school. What kind of influences are you under to come up with such a scheme? You will doom yourself to a life of toil, and no man will want to marry a doctor. It is beyond absurd. Nursing is fine for young women in time of war, and again, admirable, but it is not meant as a career for the women of this family. If your father were alive, I’m sure he would not approve.
I must insist you make plans for your immediate removal from Russia. I allowed you to stay in the aftermath of your mother’s death because I thought you needed time in a familiar place to deal with your grief. But it’s been over a year now, and it’s time for you three to move on with the rest of your lives.
I fear you will resist this, so I am going to have to make this an ultimatum in the hopes you will come to realize that what I am doing is for your own good. Come back to the United States or I will remove you and your brothers from my will. I’m sure your mother wasted the rather substantial fortune that your father left her, but I don’t want to see my grandchildren suffer from her poor decisions. Come back to the United States and we will make suitable arrangements for your and your brothers’ education. If you want to go to an appropriate women’s college, that can be arranged.
Think over this letter carefully before you respond. I know you have inherited your mother’s stubbornness. You must work to overcome that.
Your affectionate grandmother,
Elizabeth Mason
I threw the letter down, my head throbbing so much I could barely see. I didn’t care about her money. I could support myself as a doctor. I certainly wasn’t going to go back to the United States so that a grandmother I didn’t know could control my life.
I would tell her I wasn’t coming but I would not speak for my brothers. They were going to have to do that themselves.
I went to the window and looked out. No sign of Dmitri. I stayed there for a long time until the cold drove me to my bed.
Chapter Eight
WHEN I WOKE, I jumped up and went back to the window. There was no one standing outside. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign. It could have meant the secret police had already decided that since we’d been at the Tamms’, we were definitely on the list as agitators.
I needed to know when Dmitri had gotten home. Had he left the party with the actress? Where had they gone? I ran through some possibilities in my head until I realized how ridiculous those thoughts were. I should have been far more worried that Dmitri had gone somewhere to report the presence of potential anti-czarists at the party. The Horse Guard, after all, was one of the most loyal of the czar’s regiments. It was time to get more information about Dmitri Antonovich.
When I went downstairs, I heard Osip and Archer arguing in the dining room.
“You are a lazy good-for-nothing!” Archer said in a loud voice. “You should have been done polishing the silver yesterday. You’re ruining the whole schedule.”
“I was busy polishing the brass,” Osip said in an equally loud voice. “There are not enough people to do all the work here anymore. I don’t want to do a maid’s job. Vladislav says we should only have to work eight hours a day and be paid enough so we can drink champagne just like the rich.”