The Diamond Horse. Stacy Gregg
beauty. The black stripes of her arched eyebrows reminded Anna of the kohl brows her mother drew on as part of her make-up for dinner parties.
She had never told her mother about what had happened the night she tried on the necklace. She had put the black diamond hastily back in its case, and since then the stone had remained there. The next time it was brought out, her mother would place it round Anna’s neck herself. However, that moment would not bring Anna the joy that she expected. Instead, it was the worst moment of her life.
Winter had set in at the Khrenovsky estate. Snow covered the topiary on the palace lawn and the gilt cages were draped in heavy tarpaulins to provide some shelter for the animals within. The bears and the foxes were in hibernation. The tigers, who lived snowbound for most of the year in the wild, took it in their stride. Inside the palace, the exotic creatures were kept warm by the roaring stoves, the fires stoked constantly.
“We must bundle you up,” the Countess would tell Anna as she wrapped her in woollens and furs before she was allowed outside, “otherwise you shall fall ill.”
However, it was not Anna but the Countess who succumbed to sickness. In the week before Anna’s tenth birthday her mother developed a raging fever that drove her to bed. By the third day, when the Countess was still bedridden, Anna began to worry.
“We should send for the doctors,” she told Ivan. “Mama is getting worse. It might be pneumonia.”
“So you have diagnosed her yourself?” her older brother sneered. “Well, we don’t need the doctors now, do we?”
“Ivan!” Anna said. “This is serious.”
Ivan rolled his eyes. “The snowfall is too heavy – the doctors will never come in this weather. Let the housemaids do some work for once and care for her.”
Anna couldn’t help but think that her brother secretly delighted in their mother’s illness. With their father away at sea fighting the Turks, Ivan considered himself in charge. With the Countess confined to her room and Katia in constant attendance on her, Ivan demanded the kitchen should throw away the dinner they had made and produce his favourite meatballs instead. When the food came he pushed aside his cutlery and ate greedily with his hands, smearing grease on his shirt front.
“Come on, Anna,” he taunted her. “Let’s have some fun for once. How about a swordfight?”
“No, thanks.” Anna tried to leave the table.
“Where do you think you are going?” Ivan’s mood shifted suddenly from playful to threatening. “If you won’t play, you can at least stay and keep me company.”
And so she was forced to sit in her chair while he grabbed his sabre and leapt around on the dining-room table, skidding in his jackboots on the polished wood, kicking plates and glasses aside so that they crashed to the floor, laughing like a madman.
Anna watched her brother anxiously and felt gnawing panic rise in her. While Ivan played master, their mother’s health was growing worse by the hour.
“We need to send for doctors,” Anna tried insisting again.
“All right!” Ivan groaned. “Only will you stop complaining? You are giving me a sore head.”
By the time the physicians arrived the situation was grave.
“Send a messenger to your father, Count Orlov,” Anna overheard the head physician telling Ivan. “He must return immediately if he wants to see his wife alive.”
As the Countess’s condition deteriorated Katia was a constant presence at her mistress’s side, mopping the Countess’s brow and holding her hand to ease the pain.
It was Katia who came to Anna, her face ashen, and told her that her mother was asking for her. Anna found herself walking as if in a dream, towards her mother’s chambers. The Countess looked so thin and frail from her illness, but still beautiful.
“Is that you, milochka?” Anna’s mother raised her head from the pillow and put out her hand to clasp her daughter’s fingers.
“It’s me, Mama,” Anna said, her voice trembling.
The Countess smiled. “Dearest one. Come here and take my hand.”
Anna was surprised by the coldness of her mother’s fingers, like icicles against her skin.
“Milochka,” her mother instructed. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything, Mama.”
“My black diamond necklace. You will find it in the top drawer of my dresser. Bring it to me?”
Anna did as her mother instructed, carrying over the necklace in its velvet case and placing it on the bedside.
“Open the box,” the Countess instructed.
Anna carefully prised it open and the Countess reached in and took out the priceless jewel. “The Orlov Diamond,” she said, “has been in our family for many centuries. My mother gave it to me and her mother before her …” She turned to Anna.
“And now milochka, it will be yours.”
Anna’s eyes filled with tears. “No, Mama, I do not want it any more.”
“Anna.” Her mother’s voice was gentle. “Please, let me see how it looks on you.”
Not knowing what else to do, Anna bowed her head in obedience as the Countess weakly raised herself up off the pillows to clasp the necklace round her daughter’s pale neck.
“So beautiful!” the Countess breathed. And then she added, “But it is not the first time you have worn it, is it? That night in my room. You tried it on.”
Anna nodded. “I did.”
“So you already know that this is no ordinary necklace.” The Countess nodded wisely. “Well, know this too, dear one. You must never seek to understand its power, and do not try to control it. Past and present and future all lie within this necklace, but it is the stone that decides what you will see.”
The Countess looked very sad, and then gripped her daughter’s hand even more tightly. “Anna,” the Countess said. “Your father …”
“He is coming, Mama,” Anna tried to reassure her. “We have sent for him, he is on his way!”
The Countess shook her head. “No, my dear one, I know he is not. He will not come for me.” The Countess’s expression was dark. “I know your brother too. He is so different from you, Anna. I wonder how it is that I could have raised two children, one so lovely and one so …” the Countess drew a sharp breath and began to cough. Anna had to help her sit up, adjusting the pillows so that she could breathe again.
“Look to Katia,” the Countess whispered the words. “Katia will care for you. If you are ever in any doubt about what to do, go to her. You can trust her with your life …”
“Mama …” The tears rolled down Anna’s cheeks. “Please do not talk like this. You are going to be fine, you will get well again …”
It was Katia who found them.
Anna was slumped and sobbing, still clutching her mother’s cool hand. Katia raised the white sheet of death over the Countess’s face and hugged and comforted Anna. Ivan was nowhere to be found.
“I went hunting,” he told Anna when she asked where he had been. “It would have made no difference if I had been here, would it? It was always you that she loved.”
Anna was shocked. “Do you really think Mama didn’t love you?”
Ivan laughed harshly. “What do I care? Anyway it was a good hunt. I bagged a deer. So don’t try and make me feel guilty about it.”
“You do not care that she died without you or father beside her?”