Friendship's Bond Read Online Free Page A

about their business; most had shrugged, shaken their heads and moved on, others had simply walked past without a glance. So it had taken what seemed like hours but at last she had found her way.
    ‘ Sankt Peterburgsky Morskoy Vokzal ,’ a guttural voice had muttered at her as she stood staring about a wide square whose right side was graced with a pair of small identical crown-headed towers. ‘ Morskoy Vokzal .’ A lined face had frowned beneath an astrakhan hat, a gloved finger pointing towards an impressive archway inscribed on which were more mysterious letters.
    She had thanked him, though his information had done nothing to help, then the sound of a horn blasting the air made her realise he had been telling her she was standing at the entrance to the port. The man had hurried on his way but she had stood, suitcase in hand, while a sound other than those of the streets and the port surfaced in her mind.
    ‘ . . . they asked I take into my keeping their most precious possession . . . do it . . . keep my promise for me. ’
    Her father’s words. Ann swallowed hard. He had made a promise but could not keep it; his dying words entreated her to do it for him. She had not been able to tell him she would, but she had murmured it as she held his dead body close. In the days which followed she had searched each of the rooms of that small house but found nothing she would remotely have termed precious. Maybe the officials at the embassy would be able to help, perhaps the item her father had been requested to take charge of had been deposited there, so he could bring it away with him when his service finally ended.
    Oblivious to the hiss and clatter of the kettle, Ann walked again through wide streets flanked by buildings fighting to outdo each other in architectural splendour.
    How long had she walked? Time had ceased to exist, the beauty and grandeur of the city sweeping everything else from her mind until the bells of the many churches and cathedrals filled the air with a symphony of music.
    The medley of chimes had released her from the narcotic pull of her surroundings but where was she? Despite the strangeness of the lettering she managed to read a sign placed high on a wall. ‘Suvorova’. She had seen that word before. Think! She had urged her brain to function but it was not until her eyes lighted on the gigantic statue of a classical warrior complete with plumed helmet, raised sword and shield that recognition dawned. The statue was a dedication to the celebrated General Suvorov of whom she had read in those many hours spent alone in the house.
    Suvorova Square. Relief had rushed in a warm flood along her veins. Those same books had told her this was where she would find the British embassy. She had caught her breath at sight of a building entirely occupying the further side. She had also read of this and now she was looking at it, the Saltykov Palace. She had been in no way prepared for what greeted her, for the sheer resplendence of such a vision in stone.
    Confident in their own cream-white beauty, a façade of graceful arches topped with enormous windows each intersecting with elegant semi-circular double columns of the same white stone stared majestically back at her.
    How different to the Angliskaya Embankment where people like her father, the porters, postal workers, clerks and lower administrative staff in the employ of the embassy were housed. No doubt those buildings too had once been the elegant homes of nobility but being subdivided as they now were had robbed them of that former glory.
    It had taken several moments to gather courage enough to approach and a few more to tug that heavy iron bell pull. Beyond an ornate railing the door of a small gatehouse had opened.
    ‘Them pots don’t be like to wash theirselves! Be you a goin’ to stand maudlin’ all day, wench?’
    ‘What!’ Ann frowned.
    ‘I says be you goin’ to stand all day admirin’ o’ that there kettle!’
    Ann struggled with a voice