The Summer Day is Done (18 page)

‘No one could say your Russian references aren’t of the highest,’ he said.

‘Do you mind if we don’t discuss that?’ said
Kirby. ‘I’m not on a social visit. I had a letter from you. What is it you want?’

‘Do sit down. I won’t keep you long in view of the young lady waiting. But don’t mistake me, let me explain my outlook. They say things about the Tsar in England and elsewhere and it’s taught me to be careful about offering opinions on people I don’t know personally. In my position as a very minor civil servant I’ve never been close to the Imperial family, but I know a little about them. I envy you. I wish I had your capacity for making friends, and I don’t necessarily mean influential friends.’

‘Don’t be apologetic, it’s making me feel uncomfortable,’ said Kirby, ‘but thanks all the same. Now, what have you brought me here for?’

‘I hope you’re not going to be touchy,’ said Anstruther reprovingly. ‘They aren’t going to ask too much of you. You know Kiev well. There’s a man there the Russians want and we’d like to do them a favour. We’d like to tell them where they can pick him up. You have friends and contacts in Kiev. The man’s name is Spirokof. We know he’s in Kiev. We don’t know exactly where. They want you to go there, talk to people and find out.’

‘That’s not my branch of the profession,’ said Kirby, ‘I’m an observer, not an informer.’

Anstruther tried his most fatherly smile.

‘Spirokof,’ he said, ‘is a maker and thrower of bombs. He intends to make one for the Tsar. He’s going to Poland in October. So is the Tsar. The Russians will be watching for Spirokof there but it would do us the world of good if we helped them to pick him up in Kiev.’

‘Damn it,’ said Kirby.

‘Good, you’ll go, then? Good. Then they’d like you to remain in Russia for a while, in St Petersburg. You could do your best work from now on. You get on with Russians, and with the international situation as it is we need people like you. You’ll probably be instructed in St Petersburg to make love to the whole nation. I wish,’ Anstruther concluded drily, ‘I had your ability and your job.’

‘You can have my job. You have your own qualifications.’ Kirby made for the door. ‘You’ll excuse my hurry. With the international situation as it is I’d be out of my mind if I kept the Tsar’s eldest daughter waiting any longer.’

‘Good luck in Kiev,’ said Anstruther.

Olga had composed herself to a patient wait and Kirby’s reappearance came as a happy surprise. He did not seem to have been long at all. She rose with a smile.

‘Just an extension to my passport,’ said Kirby. The clerk jumped up to open the door. Olga’s smile entranced him. He bowed. It delighted her because she knew he did not know who she was. Therefore the bow was for herself. Out in the street she walked by Kirby’s side, a girl in a flowing white dress and parasol, with a grace that made people look.

She loved shops. She forgot all her self-consciousness in the pleasure of knowing the Yalta shops better than he did. They looked in windows, they entered cool, shady interiors.

‘First,’ he said, ‘something for your mother.’

‘Why, a book,’ she said, forgetting that that
was what she had said she wanted to buy.

Kirby did not intend to be ostentatious, to go in search of the expensive. That would impress neither Olga nor her parents. It was the suitable, not the expensive, they would appreciate. He and Olga did not discuss prices at all, they simply looked at everything that was interesting. Finally, on Olga’s earnest recommendation, he bought Alexandra a book of English poetry.

‘Mama will love that,’ she said as it was being wrapped, ‘and I shall enjoy it too, so it’s really a present for both of us.’

‘Well, one present for two people is as good as two presents for the price of one,’ he said. ‘What a very invaluable start, Olga.’

‘Oh, pray don’t mention it,’ she said gravely but with a smile peeping.

He smiled too and began softly to whistle that tune. He looked very tall under the low ceiling of the bookshop. They went into other shops. He bought a new tennis racquet for the Tsar, again with Olga’s approval.

‘That will please Papa immensely,’ she said, ‘he just uses any old racquet that comes to hand, sometimes one with a broken string. He says he can’t afford a new one.’

For Marie they chose a glass ball which when shaken showed a snowstorm in London. It was colourful and fascinating, and Olga said it would be a gift from England. For Alexis they chose a boy’s peaked blue cap of canvas and linen, for Anastasia a bright headscarf to protect her hair from the dust. For Tatiana a pair of winter gloves made of sealskin.

Then he said to Olga, who was enjoying it all so much, ‘And what for you, Olga Nicolaievna?’ They were in a shop full of glass cabinets containing Crimean wood carvings and pottery, much of it religious. Olga was absorbed in the contents of one cabinet.

‘Oh, but there’s Mama’s book,’ she said, ‘it’s for both of us as we agreed.’

‘I didn’t agree.’

Suddenly she was pink. He turned away, not wanting to embarrass her more. He looked at a wall lined with shelves, each shelf full of beautifully bound books. Some were prayer books. His eyes passed them over. The Imperial family were deeply religious, their observance of evening prayers had not escaped him. It was not uncommon in the evenings to see one or more of the children with a prayer book. He did not think, therefore, that Olga was in need of more religion.

‘Olga, do you have a Shakespeare?’ he asked.

She turned from the cabinet. He was holding a book bound in soft black leather, a volume of Shakespeare’s plays in English. There was a Shakespeare at Tsarskoe Selo. It belonged to the family, not to her. Olga, well-read in the classics, had not yet become serious about Shakespeare. She removed her gloves, took the book from him, opened it and glanced through the preface pages. It was English, it had been printed and bound in England.

She lifted shining blue eyes to his. The pink was there, a warm blissful pink.

‘Oh, I’d like something from England,’ she
said, ‘especially this. I would cherish it, truly I would.’

‘Then have it, won’t you?’

She nodded, not knowing what else to say in her delight. There were people who said the Imperial family had the wealth of Croesus. He wondered what they would say to see Olga in such glowing pleasure over this gift of a book. He paid for it. Olga did not want it wrapped, she would take it as it was, except that she drew Kirby aside and shyly whispered, ‘Please, will you write in it for me?’

He took a fountain pen from his inside pocket, laid the book on top of a cabinet and opened it up. On the blank flyleaf he wrote, ‘
To Olga Nicolaievna, in gratitude for so much sunshine – J. Kirby, Livadia 1912
.’ She read it. He had not put Ivan Ivanovich. He had put himself. He understood, he was not Ivan Ivanovich to her because he was not Russian. She did not ask for him to be Russian or to behave other than as an Englishman.

She wanted to thank him very much but the right words eluded her. Her dark lashes blinked away her sentiment as they emerged from the shade of the shop into the bright day. She stopped and he took the book from her to let her put up her parasol. Her parasol up, she happily took the book back from him. ‘Mr Kirby, I— oh, you are so kind.’ Then suddenly the right words came. She smiled up at him from beneath the parasol. ‘It isn’t at all surprising that Tatiana is so passionately devoted to you.’

‘Great Scott,’ he said, ‘hasn’t that all blown over yet?’

‘Oh, she’s quite incurable at the moment,’ said Olga. Her eyes sparkled and they walked together down the street to pick up their carriage, to return to Livadia, he with the other gifts swinging from fingers hooked inside strings. Then she said, ‘Oh, how forgetful I am, I came to buy Mama a book and you have bought it instead. Never mind, I’ll buy her an embroidery cover. Do you have some money I might borrow? I forgot that too. I’ll pay you back, I promise.’

‘Olga Nicolaievna,’ he said, ‘just how forgetful are you?’

‘Well, if I do forget to pay you back,’ said Olga, ‘I suppose you could say I was shockingly remiss.’

He loved her for that. He loved everything about her. He went with her to make her purchase. Olga was quick. She selected a pattern of primroses and forget-me-nots. He laughed at the forget-me-nots. So did Olga.

They talked easily on the drive back. Occasionally Olga pointed out a white gleaming house or palace and told him who owned it. He took in, as he had many times before, the warm lushness of grass, the wild, untouched slopes, the scent of the ever-present roses and the purity of the air that mingled with the dancing wind from the sea. And he took in too the enchantment of a girl unspoiled and precious.

Lunch awaited them at the Imperial Palace. They were late but no one minded. They were crowded by the children, their meal interrupted, and Kirby gave them their presents. They were overwhelmed.

They played their last games with their friend Ivan Ivanovich that afternoon, but in the spiritedly resilient way of the young they did not let their regret at his imminent departure mitigate their enthusiasms of the moment. The Empress and Anna were there, needlework on their laps. Alexandra’s eyes turned oftenest on Alexis. He had the energy of two normal boys. Few people knew of the Tsarevich’s inherited weakness. It was something Alexandra did not want people to know.

She had been delighted with the book of poetry, requesting Kirby to inscribe the flyleaf with his name and the date. The Tsar had beamed at the acquisition of a new racquet.

‘Absolutely capital, my dear fellow,’ he said, ‘and be sure that although I’m plagued with reports today, I’ll find time for a set or two later. You are the most generous chap.’

Olga stood near, sharing her father’s pleasure. She was closer to Nicholas than any of his other children.

The white palace was touched by a pink glow as that bright day turned into evening and the sun reddened. The long afternoon was over, the lawns, the gardens, the cloistered walks and the courtyards became silent. The laughter, the play, the high voices and deep voices, the fluttering dresses, the young and the adult, all had retreated, vanished. The white chairs were empty, the garden tables brushed clean, and only lengthening shadows came to invade the green grass that had known so many dancing feet.

Life itself seemed suspended. But where an
old thick vine curled and crept over a high wall and the path was a tiled surface of soft colour, a girl in a white dress walked alone. Her face was wistful, her eyes full of dreams. A young officer emerged from the palace and came looking for her.

‘Olga Nicolaievna, it’s evening time and they’re wondering where you are.’

‘Yes, the day has gone, Vasily. It could not last, could it?’

‘It will be the same tomorrow.’

He had said goodbye to the Tsar and now the rest of the family were at the top of the steps to see him on his way, as they had last year. Karita was with him, composed and self-possessed, but just a little sad.

‘Come again, Ivan, come again!’ The children were as exuberant in their goodbyes as in their play. ‘Come to Tsarskoe Selo, you must!’

He thanked Alexandra in simple terms, putting his lips to the hand she extended. Olga, by her mother’s side and apart from the noisy children, was very quiet, her hands clasped in front of her. The children were around him again, delaying him with further goodbyes.

‘Don’t crowd him so,’ said Olga, ‘you’re all such ruffians.’

He glanced up from them and smiled at her. Then he teased Marie’s curls, winked at Alexis.

‘Farewell, then, children, sweet ruffians, grand Grand Duchesses, all,’ he said.

‘Oh, must you go, must you?’ cried Anastasia.

‘I must,’ he said, ‘I’m quite done up.’

It was a favourite expression of Olga’s. They burst into final hilarious laughter and waved and called to him as with Karita he went down to the carriage put at his disposal. He turned at the bottom, waved his responses and then assisted Karita into the carriage.

Olga, eyes wide and incredulous, trembled. Alexandra slid her hand inside her daughter’s arm, gently restraining her from an impulsive flight downwards.

‘Mama, oh, Mama,’ gasped Olga, ‘he did not say goodbye to me.’

‘Yes, he did, my love,’ murmured Alexandra, ‘in his own way.’

Olga did not wait to see the carriage drive off, she turned and ran along the terrace and into the gardens. Alexandra sighed. Olga’s dream was over, as many of her own dreams had been over when she herself was a romantic girl. But Olga would recover. She would forget. There would be so many other things.

She lifted her hand, her white lawn handkerchief fluttering in goodbye to the moving carriage.

Karita was quite mutinous. Ivan Ivanovich was to go to Kiev for a while. Without her. She was to be dropped off at Karinshka, he to take the carriage on to Yalta and proceed from there to Sevastopol and Kiev. He would return to Karinshka when he could and take her to St Petersburg then, where they would see Princess Aleka together and discuss her release from the princess’s service.

‘That is not what was agreed,’ said Karita. She
felt horribly disappointed and let down. They would laugh at her at Karinshka, for she had spoken on the telephone to old Amarov and it had been understood she would not be coming back.

‘Then let’s make a new agreement,’ said Kirby. He looked quiet and sombre, and for once was not alive to all that they passed. ‘I’m sorry, Karita, but it’s only for a while, then I promise to come and fetch you from Karinshka, see your parents and take you to St Petersburg.’

‘It is not what was said,’ she insisted.

‘Oh dear,’ said Kirby.

‘Monsieur, it makes me look so foolish.’

He understood then. He took her hand. She stiffened, sat very upright.

‘I’m sorry, Karita, forgive me,’ he said, ‘but let us have this new agreement. If you feel foolish, I feel unhappy. So we’re both suffering together. But you and I can’t fall out, that would never do. Karita?’

Her profile was extraordinarily sweet, but her mouth was set. She looked straight in front of her. He saw her swallow.

Then she said, ‘You promise, monsieur? You’ll come for me later?’