Free The House by the Dvina by Eugenie Fraser Page B

followed a close friendship developed between the two women.
    What Margaretha never realised, nor for that matter Eugene nor anyone else, was that from Kaluga there came an influx of fresh blood from a young, healthy peasant girl, which was essential for the health of future generations in a close-knit society, especially amongst those of foreign origin where a great deal of intermarriage took place between close relatives, who, like Royalty, preferred to marry within their own tight circle. It was as if someone had flung open a window and allowed a cool fresh wind to clear away the stale air from a room that had been closed for too long.
    Not long after Eugene and his young wife settled down in their house, EugeneТs sister, Amelia Louise, married a young timber merchant, Franz Scholts. The name, of course, is of German origin. The family may have come from Riga, a port which had many connections in the timber trade with Archangel. This union must have pleased the great matriarch Margaretha.
    She may now have consoled herself with the thought that what she had lost in her son she regained in her daughter. Although there was not even the faintest trace of blue blood coursing through the veins of her son-in-law, he had something of far greater importance, namely money. The Scholts family had been in the timber trade for generations and had gradually acquired considerable wealth. They belonged to that group of merchants who had the necessary qualities to achieve this affluence. They were shrewd, hardheaded and industrious. Archangel and the vast surrounding district had always been a land which offered opportunities to everyone, including the peasant, in trading and many branches of business.
    In this great expanse of forests, rivers and marshes, there had never been any serfs, or souls as they were named, who could be sold, bartered and gambled away over a gaming table. The dreaded words of “to the stable”, the place where the peasant was sent by the landowner to be whipped by the knout for some real or imagined misdemeanour, were never heard in this part of Russia. Poor or rich, the peasant was free.
    The north, in spite of many hardships, was unique in this respect.The woods abounded in game and animals, the skins of which were in great demand. The peasant fished in the river and the rich White Sea and sold his produce in the market. The people in our parts were referred to as the “Bielomori”, meaning those of the White Sea, or, in a more derogative term, the “Treskoyedi” Ч the “Cod-eaters”. Certainly this was the land of the famous fish pies. In this great province too could be found the true Russian Slavs, with all their ancient customs and manner of speech, for there had never been any contact with the Tartars who, in the 13th century, like an evil black cloud of locusts, overran the holy land of Russia but never advanced as far as the distant north.
    Amelia and Franz also settled in the Maimaksa region near all the sawmills. Amelia, a tall, well-built young woman like the other members of the family, was very devoted to her brother. They had always been a united family, and now, living within reach of each other, there was a constant coming and going between the two houses. Their numerous children grew up side by side. Eugene and Anna had four sons and three daughters. Amelia and Franz were likewise blessed by a large family of sons and daughters.
    Every christening, every birthday, every nameday, not only of all the children, but of parents, grannies, great-grannies, aunts and uncles, was an excuse for a party and a gathering of all the relations.
    Anna became completely accepted by the family. She was especially popular with all the children. I remember an old great-aunt recalling the times when they were children; how they loved nothing better than when Tyotya Annushka Ч Aunty Annushka, as they called her, would dance and sing to them and join in all the games that she herself played as a child in her