The Summer Day is Done (12 page)

‘Oh, Mr Kirby! Papa!’ She was in pure merriment. Kirby disentangled himself and sat up. He saw her in a white dress, the waist sashed with wide red ribbon, and her hair was a cascading brightness, flowing to her shoulders. He smiled, not at all discomfited. It was worth ten falls to see the Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna in such merriment.

‘Hm, that you should have come at so significant a moment for Mr Kirby,’ said Nicholas to his delighted daughter. ‘Who’s going to pick him up?’ He advanced to the net, laughingly extending a helping hand over it. Kirby got to his feet, brushed his flannels. ‘You’re not hurt, I hope,
my dear fellow? Good. And there’s no damage to the net. It was a splendid effort and all because of such a bad shot of mine. Did you see my bad shot, Olga?’

‘Papa,’ said Olga demurely, ‘I only saw Mr Kirby dive gallantly into the net.’ Kirby regarded her in pretended admonition. She responded with the happiest of smiles. ‘Well, it was so funny, you see,’ she explained.

‘Your Highness,’ he said, ‘I don’t do it for every Grand Duchess I meet, only for those celebrating a sixteenth birthday.’

‘Oh, that is
very
gallant,’ she said. Then, ‘Papa, I’ll stay and pick up the balls for you and Mr Kirby, shall I?’

The Tsar looked at his watch.

‘Return to Monsieur Gilliard for a little longer, my love, otherwise he’ll come shaking his head at all of us.’

‘Papa, you’re dreadfully hard on me sometimes,’ said Olga, but she went. She stopped, turned round and said to Kirby, ‘Did you bring the parasol?’

‘I did, Highness,’ he said.

‘Now Anna will think she’s had a birthday too,’ said Grand Duchess Olga.

He met all the children later, all five of them. Alexis, the Tsarevich, was an extraordinarily attractive boy of seven, his grey-blue eyes always eager, it seemed, to discover new entertainments. It was as if he sensed his life would be short and that he must enjoy all that he could while he could. Anastasia, gifted and tomboyish,
was ten and still chubby with puppy fat. Marie was twelve, apple-cheeked, blue-eyed, pretty and already desperately romantic. Tatiana was fourteen, slender and vivacious, with impish grey eyes and beautiful auburn hair. Such was her zest for life, such the irresistible nature of her personality, that even at fourteen she was inclined to outshine and dominate Olga, her closest and dearest sister. Olga, the eldest, was to outsiders the quietest and shyest of the Grand Duchesses, but within her family and to her friends she had all the most endearing qualities: wit, charm, compassion and the same infinite capacity for loving as her mother.

They were all intensely interested in the tall Englishman. Alexis, always boyishly interested in military matters, asked him if he would have time to do some drilling.

‘I’m quite good at all the commands, you know,’ he said.

‘Well, I should think I could spare some time,’ said Kirby. He sat in a white garden chair, the children sat on the lawn around him, all except Olga who, having recently grown up, had decided it was more decorous to repose in a chair of her own. She had said she did not want to look part of the hooligan element. At which her sisters had threatened to plop her into a pool. It did not ruffle Olga. She was happy. She was always happy at Livadia. She was a reflection of its tranquillity. ‘Yes,’ Kirby continued, ‘I ought to do some drill, I’ve never done any at all. It should do me the world of good as long as I can sit down in between.’

‘Oh, that’s jolly decent of you,’ said Alexis, elated at the prospect.

‘Not at all,’ said Kirby.

‘Well, you’ve asked for it now,’ said Marie, ‘Alexis is simply dreadful when he’s got someone he can drill, he simply never never stops.’

‘General Sikorski says he’s insatiable,’ said Tatiana, ‘he orders his victims about night and day. You’ll never get time to sit down at all.’

‘Oh, pooh,’ said Alexis, ‘they’re just girls and they’re awful at drill, they just fall about.’

‘I’ve a shocking feeling,’ said Kirby, ‘that as I’m new to it I’ll probably fall about myself.’

Alexis rocked with laughter, Marie giggled. Anastasia got up and very solemnly said, ‘Here is Ivan Ivanovich being drilled by Alexis and falling about.’ She began to stagger and reel around, and Anna Vyrubova came to see what all the hysterics were about.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

‘It’s only Stasha being herself,’ said Olga.

‘Stasha, love, get up,’ said Anna. Anastasia was rolling on the grass. ‘What
are
you doing?’

‘I’m doing Ivan Ivanovich falling about.’ They were already using his Russian names.

‘Actually,’ said Tatiana, ‘I think you’re doing him falling down.’

They wandered with him through the gardens and along cloistered avenues where the grapevines wound and curled. They were delighted with him, at his interest in everything, at his interest in them, at his responsiveness to their chatter. Alexis said he was going to make Ivan Ivanovich one of his very best friends.

‘Olga,’ whispered Tatiana, taking her elder sister by the arm while the others showed Kirby the fish in a sunlit pool, ‘you are shockingly close, you didn’t say a word about what he was like, only that you danced with him and that Mama and Papa were very taken with him. And he’s the handsomest man.’

‘Do you think so?’ Olga was offhand. ‘I hadn’t really noticed – well, yes, he’s quite nice, I suppose.’

Tatiana looked in curiosity at her sister. There was something new about Olga. She was not herself, she was apart from the rest of them. Her long, shining hair had been recently brushed and she held herself more carefully than usual. That was it, she was not romping with them as she normally did, she was sixteen and simulating the behaviour of a young woman, not a girl. Tatiana’s eyes danced.

‘Of course,’ she said seriously, ‘he’s rather old—’

‘He is not!’ Olga’s whispered denial was too quick, too impulsive. She knew it, she coloured up.

‘Why, Olga, you’re blushing,’ Tatiana teased, but she relented quickly and added, ‘Anyway, who cares how old he is? He is rather delicious, I think, don’t you?’

‘Tasha, he’ll hear you,’ said Olga a little desperately. She glanced at Kirby. He was down on one knee at the edge of the pool, his hand on the shoulder of Alexis, who was pointing out the fish. Marie and Anastasia were both talking to him at once. He seemed completely at ease.

‘When tea is served I shall make eyes at him over the bread and butter,’ said Tatiana, ‘I’ll be the first one ever to make bread and butter romantic.’

‘Tasha, little one,’ said Olga, ‘you are not to.’

‘I’m almost as big as you,’ said Tatiana, ‘and what am I not to do?’

‘You are not to be so forward.’

Tatiana gurgled. Olga was so absurdly sensitive, she felt the mistakes of all of them.

‘But, Olga, he’s Mama’s own guest and we simply can’t neglect him, we must make the nicest fuss of him.’

Olga smiled. Tatiana was irresistible.

They left the pool. Kirby sat under the trees, on the grass, his back against a broad trunk. Alexis showed him his personal possessions, including very useful bits of string, an onyx button and a glossy, shining chestnut. One never knew, he said, when a chestnut might not be just the thing. As man to man, Kirby agreed. If another chestnut could be found, then there’d be enough to play conkers. It was a game, he informed them, that everyone in England played with chestnuts. And in the warm sunshine of the afternoon Kirby came to know the children of the Tsar. He thought them utterly natural, uninhibited and unspoiled. They took as much pleasure in simple things as all other children. This was how their parents governed their formative years.

Tatiana dropped to her knees, unable to resist the temptation of claiming his attention. Olga remained standing, quietly absorbed, looking when she knew his eyes were elsewhere and
wondering how he came to be so brown and sinewy, so much in command of situations. His teeth were white when he smiled and he smiled often. He made Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia giggle until they were having fits.

‘It can’t be,’ Tatiana was saying.

‘Yes, it’s what they call a bunny-wobble,’ he said.

‘What is?’ asked Olga, who had missed the previous exchanges in her absorption of other things.

‘What I was describing to Tatiana,’ he said, ‘a bustle on a stout lady at Ascot.’

Marie shrieked, Anastasia rolled about.

‘Ivan Ivanovich,’ cried Tatiana, ‘you’re dreadful.’

‘Bustles,’ said Olga, ‘aren’t worn any more, not by any ladies.’

‘Well, you see,’ he said, ‘it was the bunny-wobble look that did that.’

He glanced up at her. She was standing in light and shade, the light caressing her, the shade softening her. Her blue eyes were bright with laughter, her face golden from the sun and framed by her shining hair. He had never seen a girl so young and so beautiful. Girls of sixteen were usually sweet but awkward, hesitating between youth and maturity. Olga was bewitching.

‘Mr Kirby,’ she said, ‘I don’t think you’ve ever seen a bustle.’

‘Nor have I,’ said Alexis, ‘but uniforms are much better and I’ve seen heaps of those. Of course,’ he said to Kirby, ‘we don’t have to be
with girls all the time, you know. They can go and have their tea, we can have ours here.’

‘Alexis.’ A calm, modulated voice broke in. It was the Empress, cool in white linen, her parasol shading her from the sun. She was rarely without her parasol at Livadia, though her daughters lifted their faces to the sun day in, day out. ‘Alexis, where is Derevenko?’

Derevenko was a sailor whose one duty was to watch over the Tsarevich and prevent him tumbling and chasing about too energetically. The slightest knock could produce a haemophiliac condition of agonizing duration.

‘He’s over there, Mama,’ said Alexis. Kirby had risen and Alexis took his hand to establish proprietary rights over their new friend. Alexandra did not miss the gesture. She smiled.

‘Were you teasing your sisters, Aleky?’ she asked.

‘Only a little,’ the boy said, and he made it sound as if not every person his size could get the better of four girls all bigger than he was.

‘And the girls were teasing you, I suppose, Mr Kirby?’ said Alexandra.

‘Only a little,’ he said.

‘Come, let’s all have tea,’ said Alexandra.

It was served on one of the lawns. The Tsar joined them, so did Anna. Nicholas regaled his family with an amusing account of how Mr Kirby had fallen into the tennis net. Olga, a hand smothering her mirth, caught Kirby’s glance. He seemed as amused as any of them. She thought him the most agreeable and good-humoured of men.

Afterwards she managed to find him as he wandered around the rose beds.

‘Mr Kirby, there you are.’

‘Your Highness? Am I wanted?’

‘Wanted? Oh, no,’ she said, ‘it’s only that Papa is perhaps not very kind to make everyone laugh at your expense, but he doesn’t mean to be. Truly, he couldn’t be unkind to anyone.’

‘I know.’ He put out a hand and touched the richness of a red rosebud. ‘I didn’t mind a bit.’

‘I think,’ she began and left it at that. She looked at the rose he was touching.

‘What is it you think, Highness?’

‘That it’s nice you’re here,’ she said, and was immediately in hot confusion at so committing her feelings. ‘Well,’ she hastened on, ‘the children are all going to watch Alexis drilling you tomorrow and—’

‘And that should be very nice,’ he smiled. ‘That is,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘how nice will it be for me? Are there penalties involved for incompetence, do you know? Imagine being incompetent in front of Grand Duchesses.’

Grand Duchess Olga permitted herself an impulsive indulgence. ‘And Anna too,’ she said, ‘as well as General Sikorski, Monsieur Gilliard and Countess Borodinsky. Alexis is inviting everyone to be there, Mama and Papa too.’

‘Oh good heavens,’ he said.

‘Mr Kirby,’ she said, ‘you simply can’t be incompetent now, can you?’

‘Not in front of General Sikorski, at least,’ he said. She was looking away, leaning a little in closer inspection of the red roses. ‘Your
Highness, can you look me in the eye and tell me you’re not pulling my leg?’

Olga straightened up. She was laughing.

‘Oh, I’m awful, I couldn’t resist it,’ she said. The evening sunlight touched her hair with red-gold fire. Then she said, ‘Did Princess Aleka Petrovna mind that you came? Mama invited her too but of course she could not leave her guests.’

‘She didn’t mind a bit,’ he said.

‘She is very beautiful,’ said Olga.

‘Very,’ he said. She glimpsed his teeth as he smiled. ‘Frighteningly,’ he added.

Somehow she thought he was laughing at himself.

He found himself at dinner that evening with the Imperial family, in their own private dining room. He knew this was a compliment, for apart from Anna Vyrubova he was the only outsider present. And Anna was not an outsider herself, she seemed one with the family. The younger children had had their supper and were at prayers before going to bed, only Olga being at dinner. But she was sixteen and incontestably a young lady, in a gown of deep purple.

The meal was a pleasant surprise to Kirby after the sumptuous menus of Karinshka. The Tsar liked the plainest Russian dishes, soups, fish, bread and fruit. The conversation was simple and unaffected, and laughter was easily come by.

‘Papa,’ said Olga demurely, ‘will General Sikorski be better tomorrow?’

‘My love,’ said Nicholas, ‘the general has said that while there’s a younger man to run about on
the other side of the court, he’d prefer to rest his aching bones.’

‘My aching bones are at your service, sir,’ said Kirby.

‘You can’t deceive me like that, my dear fellow,’ said Nicholas, ‘you mean to have your revenge tomorrow. But you’ll see, Olga, there’s always some way to beat the enemy.’

‘Yes, I know, Papa, I’ve already seen your way,’ said Olga, ‘you play the most dreadful shot and he turns somersaults trying to get it back.’

‘My dear,’ said Nicholas to Alexandra, ‘do you hear that from our own child?’

‘I’m not quite sure what it all means,’ said Alexandra, ‘but it sounds very unfair to poor Mr Kirby.’

‘I think,’ said Kirby in a theatrical aside to Anna, ‘that I now know why General Sikorski keeps out of the way.’