The large clock downstairs chimed five. It would be hours before breakfast time. Returning to my room and quietly getting dressed, I decided to sneak out to speak with Dr. Kruglevski. Whatever was wrong with the girls, surely he would be the best man to examine my cousin and the other patients.
The large front hall was dark and quiet. The heavy front door locked from within and was guarded by an elderly doorman, who still wore his faded black uniform from his younger days in the regiments. I waited until he left his post to make his rounds, then quietly unlocked the door and slipped outside.
The late-January morning was bitterly cold, but I did not mind. The Smolny Gardens were beautiful in their icy barrenness. I skipped past them and turned down Slonovaya Ulitsa. Crossing through the Peski District, I passed sleeping town houses and newly constructed apartment buildings. There were few sleighs about this early in the morning. I hoped I looked like some poor factory girl on her way to work. Nobody bothered me.
The Oldenburg Hospital was just beyond the Greek church. Dr. Kruglevski liked to make rounds on his patients before going to his research lab every morning.
The nurses, in their flowing white habits, did not look happy to see me. A stout, grim-faced nurse met me at the front door. “Our patients are sleeping! Come back during visiting hours!” she told me.
I shook my head, teeth chattering. “I am here to see Dr. Kruglevski.”
“Are you ill, child? Where are your parents?”
I wasn’t sure if being the daughter of the hospital’s patron would help me or hinder me at this time of the day. I coughed a little. “Please, madam, I am from the Smolny Institute. I’ve been feverish and restless all night.” I had no idea who would be maddest when they discovered my charade: the nurses, my parents, or the headmistress at Smolny. I shivered.
The nurse noticed and quickly hurried me inside. “Come along, then. It’s much warmer in here, by the stove. Dr. Kruglevski is already making rounds. He can see you in just a moment.” She sat me by the fire, wrapped me in a woolen blanket, and handed me a hot mug of tea before bustling off to take care of the patients on the ward.
The doctor recognized me instantly. “Duchess! What in heavens are you doing here at such an hour?” he asked. “Is your mother well?”
Drawing the blanket closer around me, I said, “Doctor, some of the students at Smolny have been afflicted with the strangest illness. I’ve come to beg for your assistance.”
The doctor took a cup of tea one of the nurses handed him, and sat in the chair opposite me. “A strange illness? Tell me of the symptoms.”
“It starts with stomach pains and general malaise, followed within several hours by coldness in the extremities and muscle weakness,” I said. “So far only four girls have become sick, including two servants.”
I’d spent my entire study hour the day before trying to discover what the sick servants had in common with Aurora and Dariya. Something that would explain why they were the only four in the school who were ill. I’d not been able to come up with anything.
“It could be food poisoning,” the doctor mused, stirring his tea thoughtfully.
“But the illness seems to strike randomly. Madame Metcherskey called for Dr. Gallitzin but he thinks it is a touch of influenza.”
“Bah! Gallitzin is a fool. Believes leeches can still cure everything.”
I nodded in agreement. The man wasn’t open to modern thoughts or treatments.
“Very well, I will come and examine your sick friends. What did your cousin eat last?”
I struggled to think. She had walked with me in the gardens, where we had eaten pieces of rock candy, and then we’d had cold mutton and borscht and lemon tarts for our welcome-back dinner. Dariya had eaten with the rest of us, but she and the others had not become ill until the morning—and had not come into direct contact with any of the other sick girls until they were all confined to the sickroom.
“Come, let us check on your Dariya Yevgenievna,” the doctor said. He gave the head nurse instructions to call for his carriage. “I must say it is perplexing,” he told me as we waited by the front door. “None of my patients at the hospital have presented with quite the same symptoms that you describe.”
The sun was just beginning to come up as we raced through St. Petersburg. I knew Madame Tomilov would frown upon me for leaving the school grounds with no chaperone. I hoped, though, that if my parents were informed, Papa would not be too angry. Sick people needed proper medical care. And there was no way they would get it without my interference.
Madame Metcherskey and Madame Orbellani both met us at the front gate. Madame Metcherskey looked contemptuous, her upper lip curling in disapproval as I hastened out of the carriage. Madame Orbellani, however, seemed relieved to see me. “Katerina Alexandrovna, thank goodness, we have been so worried about you,” she said, embracing me before Madame Metcherskey could say anything.
Madame Metcherskey’s eyes widened as she saw Dr. Kruglevski exit the carriage. “Young lady, what is the meaning of this?” she asked.
I stepped forward and introduced the doctor to my instructor. “He is Papa’s favorite doctor,” I said. “I’m sure he can discover what is wrong with Dariya Yevgenievna and the others.”
“Please forgive this foolish girl, Doctor, for disturbing you,” Madame Metcherskey said, glaring at me. I knew I was going to be punished for this stunt. Severely. But I did not mind, as long as Dariya got better. I had faith that Dr. Kruglevski would know exactly what to do.
“There is nothing to forgive, madame,” Dr. Kruglevski said. “If there are ill students within this institute, I must be allowed to examine them. Or I shall consult the tsar to ask permission, and tell him I was denied entrance. Will you be so kind as to take me to them right away?”
Madame Metcherskey began to retort something but closed her mouth into a thin line and turned around. “Follow me, then, if you please. Madame Orbellani, take Katerina to the headmistress’s office, if you will.”
Madame Orbellani laid a hand on my arm as the doctor followed Madame Metcherskey. “Oh, Katerina, why would you run off and do such a crazy thing? Running down the streets of the city before sunrise? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking of my sick cousin, and a doctor who I know can help her.”
Madame Orbellani sighed as she led me to the mauve sitting room to wait for my scolding. I glanced up at the large portraits hanging in this room. Many princesses had been educated here, and the halls were covered with their likenesses. In this room was a picture of a very young Madame Metcherskey, in her court gown. She had been a beauty when she was younger, and had been a lady-in-waiting for the dowager empress Alexandra Feodorovna. My great-grandmother.
I hated not being with my cousin while Dr. Kruglevski examined her. I was anxious to learn his diagnosis. And what his recommendations for treatment would be.
I glanced at the golden clock on Madame Tomilov’s desk, anxious most of all about my scolding. The longer I waited, the more I was convinced that I would be expelled from Smolny. Thoroughly disgraced, my family would send me away to the South of France and I would never have to worry about Danilo or his sisters again.
A sudden thought struck me.
Perhaps there was a school of medicine that accepted women somewhere in the South of France? Somehow, exile from Russia did not sound so bad.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Now, Katerina Alexandrovna,” Madame Tomilov said, sweeping into the room with her black skirts swishing noisily. “I have been informed of your reckless actions of this morning.” The heels of her boots clicked against the wooden floor as she hurried over to the windows and threw open the curtains, letting in the bright midmorning sun.
“Please, madame, could you tell me what Dr. Kruglevski discovered about Dariya?”
“I would not presume to know,” she said. “The doctor has deemed it prudent to admit your cousin at the hospital for further examinations.”
“Oh! Please let me see her!” I begged. “She will be so frightened in the hospital by herself.”
“Certainly not. I have already sent word to Dariya’s family. In the meantime, we must discuss your
