Valerie's Russia Read Online Free PDF Page A

the architecture, Mr Lees explained, and it was his fantastic style that now decorated the many spires and towers and onion domes with the their colours of yellow, and sky blue, and Venetian red.
    ‘And, of course, the green of the Winter Palace,’ he said, ‘where you will be going tomorrow night.’
     
    The following evening Mrs Lees and Dashka spent over two hours helping Valerie to dress.
    ‘I wish your dear mother were alive to see you here today,’ said the banker’s wife, her pale eyes awash with tears. ‘And to know that you are a friend of Grand Duchess Olga, and have been invited to the Grand Ball, which opens the season in St Petersburg. How very proud she would be.’
    ‘I shall write to Father and tell him all my news,’ said Valerie. Although she didn’t think her elderly, over-worked father would understand what she was trying to explain.
    Russia was a dramatic land filled with vibrant colours, snow, furs, and biting cold. It was quite impossible for a weary vicar in grey old Putney to comprehend unless he was the possessor of a vivid imagination, and imagination was something Reverend Marsh had always lacked.
    ‘You look like a princess,’ declared Mrs Lees, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. ‘Now do take care, Valerie, and don’t trip over that train going up and down stairs, will you, dear?’
    Valerie smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Lees, Grand Duchess Olga taught me how to hold the train properly when I sit down, and when I dance, and I shall be very well escorted, besides.’
    Dashka was not accompanying Valerie to the Ball and Mrs Lees felt happy with the arrangement made by the Tsar. If Tsar Nicholas considered it correct for Count Silakov to escortValerie that evening, then who was she, a mere commoner, to query the Imperial decision?
    Let
him
be proud of me, Valerie prayed, as a man servant knocked and announced that Count Silakov awaited them below.
    Pyotr looked more handsome than ever when she went down to greet him in the hall, wearing full-dress uniform of scarlet jacket and immaculate elk-skin breeches. And she saw at once what a good impression the young officer was making on the English couple.
    Valerie was also making an impact on the count in her ravishing white satin gown, and he wondered what Andrei Odarka’s reaction would be on seeing her so attired. Gone was the dowdy Miss Marsh, and in her place was a stunning beauty with soft brown hair piled high on top of her small head, crowned with a diadem of pearls.
    Little curls danced across her forehead, and her body looked deliciously slim and supple in its clinging satin. Valerie’s waist was so narrow he could easily have encircled it with his hands, and around it she wore a rope of pearls caught on her hip with a buckle of diamonds.
    Olga Nicolaievna had played a large part in this transformation, Pyotr decided, as he placed a long black velvet cloak around Valerie’s shoulders.
    After he had helped her into the waiting carriage and seated himself beside her, the coachman gave them extra furs to put over their knees for it was a freezing night. Then the man heaved himself up onto the high seat behind the horses, looking like an enormous shaggy bear, and they were off.
    The Winter Palace, which took up three vast blocks along the waterfront, was suffused with light and Valerie saw that it was indeed all green and white as Mr Lees had told her. Baroque in style, it had an ornamental balustrade running along the front, topped by various white statues and urns.
    In front of the palace, braziers were burning around the base of a tall, pink granite column erected in memory of Alexander 1, which was surmounted by the statue of a winged angel holding a cross.
    Valerie’s eyes danced with excitement as their carriage took its place in the line of many others, all waiting to present their occupants at the main entrance.
    ‘I am glad there will be dancing,’ Pyotr said, looking down at his companion in the semi-darkness