The Summer Day is Done (24 page)

‘Well, there’s Andrei,’ he said.

She drew back. She looked angry, offended.

‘What is he to do with it? He and I are only very dear friends.’

‘Yes, I know. And I’m an officer and a gentleman now. I can’t let Andrei down without staining the honour of the regiment.’

‘Oh, how amusing you are,’ she said cuttingly. ‘I am the one who is being let down if Andrei has talked about me.’ Her smile was sweetly bitter. ‘Is that why I’m distasteful to you, because of Andrei, because of other lovers?’

‘Andrei hasn’t said a word about you.’

‘Then you’re only guessing.’

‘And you aren’t at all distasteful, my sweet,’ he said.

‘I’m sure some people would think you a prig,’ said Aleka, ‘but I think you are much more than you seem. Are you, Ivan?’

‘I wonder about you too sometimes,’ he said.

Their smiles clashed a little.

‘You treat me very badly, you know,’ said Aleka. ‘I don’t ask you how many women you’ve made love to, but you, ah, you’re saying a woman has to be a virgin if you’re to grace her immaculate bed. That’s just like a man. What does it matter what Andrei and I do? It need not be anything to do with you and me. Kiss me and you will see.’

He kissed her. It took his mind off so much else. Aleka murmured and melted. The telephone rang. She let it ring, her arms around his
neck. He infuriated her by disengaging to get up and answer it himself. It was Karita. For him.

‘There’s a man here, an Englishman,’ she said, ‘and he says he’s going to wait for you. He says his name is Brown. I told him I didn’t know when you’d be back but he’s waiting all the same, so I thought I’d telephone you.’

‘Of course, Karita. Tell him I’ll be there in twenty minutes. If he wishes it, give him something to drink.’

Aleka vibrated as he put the telephone back into its cradle.

‘You wouldn’t dare to go now,’ she said.

He stooped, he kissed her affectionately but without passion. She stared up at him, dark eyes smouldering.

‘Perhaps another time, dear Princess?’ he said.

‘What a swine you are,’ she said.

The man Brown turned out to be Anstruther.

‘I used my manager’s name,’ he said, ‘I thought it better. One never knows. I didn’t mind waiting. I’m not sure that the uniform wouldn’t have looked more impressive if we’d arranged for you to wear a few medals with it, but it’s difficult sometimes to think of everything. We can talk here, I suppose? Your maid is charming but not unsuspicious.’

‘You’re safe,’ said Kirby, ‘she scorns keyholes.’

‘Good,’ said Anstruther. He settled himself comfortably in his chair and crossed his legs. ‘I must say, we seem to have fixed you up very comfortably here. When do the Russian manoeuvres take place?’

‘April, as you know.’

‘Yes.’ Anstruther pursed his lips. He thought and then he said, ‘It seems you’ll have to get rid of your beard. Do you mind?’

‘I’ll miss it, naturally, I’ve had it a long time.’

‘Well, at least it’s had a good run,’ said Anstruther. ‘But Brigadier Rollinson doesn’t like it and to save him the embarrassment of quoting regulations to you and spoiling the
esprit de corps
of the mission, we thought you might volunteer a sacrifice. Otherwise the brigadier may insist that you be transferred back to the Navy. I know you’ve never been in the Navy, but he’s convinced that you have and that there’s some hanky-panky going on. Look, Kirby, my boy, you can keep the moustache, just take the beard off. Now, there’s just one thing more. It’s something else we’d like to help the Russians with. You did excellent work in Kiev, excellent. Do you think you’re up to doing something quite different?’

‘What is something quite different?’ Kirby knew by now that Anstruther’s brown fatherliness covered a multitude of whimsies that weren’t fatherly at all.

‘It’s the question of your engagement to the Princess Karinshka.’

‘I think I’ll have a brandy,’ said Kirby, ‘what would you like?’

‘A brandy will be excellent,’ said Anstruther gratefully, ‘your maid gave me wine which, unfortunately, was corked.’

Kirby did not bother to hide his smile. He poured brandies. Anstruther took his with murmured thanks. He began to explain. It
was to do with co-operation, to help relieve the Russians of a minor embarrassment in the shape of Princess Karinshka. It was necessary to destroy her credibility as a serious socialist. Indeed, she was more than a socialist. She posed as that but she was, in fact, a committed revolutionary. Had she ever mentioned a trip to England and France?

‘Yes,’ said Kirby, ‘the police wanted her out of the way for a while, so she looked around Europe. She wasn’t very impressed.’

‘Wasn’t she? For most of that time she was with Lenin and other revolutionaries.’ Anstruther sipped his brandy but did not miss Kirby’s faint grimace.

It was necessary, Anstruther pointed out, to do something about the lady. She was attracting too much attention as a reformer. On the surface she appeared to be a political dilettante. This was merely a smokescreen hiding the fact that she was secretly working with the most dangerous people. There was always Siberia, but to send her there would enhance her standing as a genuine radical. It would never do to advertise that an aristocrat of her rank was so strongly opposed to Tsarism that she had to be removed to Siberia. It would be better to convince the people, especially her revolutionary friends, that she was a fake.

‘And the best way to do that,’ said Anstruther, ‘would be to announce her engagement to you, Colonel Kirby, an English aristocrat serving in His Majesty’s Imperial Forces and a personal friend of the Tsar himself. Nicholas would be
delighted at the news. The princess is a great embarrassment to him at times.’

‘No more than you are to me,’ said Kirby, ‘and dammit, you don’t expect me to agree to this, do you? She won’t get sent to Siberia, she’s been kind to the Empress and the Empress doesn’t forget kindnesses.’

‘Really, Kirby,’ said Anstruther, shaking his head. ‘The Empress hasn’t seen the latest report on her activities. She’s in touch with the most dedicated of the exiled revolutionaries. If the Empress thought the princess was herself just as dedicated to destroying Tsarism, nothing could save her. Naturally, you’ll want to do your best for her. There have been rumours that you might marry her, you know. We hear she’s extremely attached to you. Perhaps I didn’t make it clear that you don’t have to ask her. We arrange a fait accompli by having the newspapers announce the engagement with some interesting personal details. It will be a surprise to you as well as to her, although it’s possible, from what we’ve heard, that she may consider it a happy surprise.’

‘Do you know the princess?’

‘Not socially,’ said Anstruther, ‘but in other fields. However, she has her weaknesses. There’s a chance that you’re one of them. We feel she won’t rush to deny the announcement, she may in the way of a woman even be blind at first to its political consequences, which will destroy her reputation as a serious revolutionary. Because of her background, that’s always been suspect. You, of course, will neither deny nor confirm the announcement. To all enquirers you’ll be
non-committal. You’ll talk to her. You may come to a happy arrangement with her. I must point out that we aren’t actually asking that you marry her, but who knows? She may be delighted to consider it.’

‘She’ll scream my head off,’ said Kirby.

‘Oh, I don’t know. You can play an extremely civilized and gallant part, and if it saves her from Siberia think how pleased you’ll be. What we’re after is convincing people that by her engagement to an English aristocrat the princess has reverted to type. You’ll then have helped the Tsar by discrediting a revolutionary and you’ll also have helped a friend. She is your friend, isn’t she?’

‘Spasmodically. By the way, I’m not an aristocrat.’

‘You will be when the engagement is announced and the details printed,’ said Anstruther. ‘Leave it all to us and our Russian colleagues.’

‘There’s one thing I’ve always been sure of,’ said Kirby, ‘this isn’t the gentlemen’s branch of the service.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Anstruther, ‘never serve their King and country in the same way that we do, my dear Kirby.’

The announcement appeared two days later. There were photographs, one of Princess Aleka, one of himself. The one of himself had been taken on the Prospekt Nevskiy, but who had taken it he did not know. Karita saw the papers and when she brought them in with his breakfast her congratulations seemed to carry reservations.

‘You don’t sound completely happy for us, Karita,’ he said. He looked at her, she returned his gaze quite composedly. In her position with him Karita had come to understand her rights, and one of her rights was to speak her mind without, of course, being impertinent.

‘Ivan Ivanovich,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure if you and Her Highness are suited. She is very lovely, of course, and very kind, but you are both very different.’

‘I see,’ he said, ‘you mean I’m neither lovely nor kind.’

‘You are very deceiving,’ said Karita, trim and attractive in dark blue. ‘All this time you’ve told me you’re not an English lord, but in the papers it says you are.’

He glanced through a paragraph or two.

‘It doesn’t say that at all,’ he said.

‘It says you’re an aristocrat, that’s the same thing, isn’t it?’ Karita even shook her finger at him. ‘A fine time I’ve had trying to tell people who you are when you’ve confused me so, and now look, everyone will say the papers know more about you than I do.’

He laughed. She never lost her quaintness. The St Petersburg winter had given her a glow that freshened her honeyed Crimean look. She was not only an extremely personable part of his daily life now, she was also entirely entertaining.

‘Run along, chicken,’ he said.

He ate his breakfast leisurely, waiting for Aleka to telephone. She normally slept late or rose late, but this morning she came through well before
he’d finished his meal. She was in a husky-voiced frenzy.

‘Ivan, what is this? You’ve seen it? It’s damnable, I’m going to kill somebody.’

‘I don’t blame you—’

‘Shut up. I’ll do the talking. How dare you do such a thing, how dare you have it put in the papers! You’re always making a fool of me and this is the worst kind of way.’

‘I’m as innocent—’

‘Shut up. I am coming round to your place to kick and scream. I woke up feeling lovely and now I have a shocking headache, everything is going thump, thump. Ah, it’s you who will look the bigger fool and have a bigger headache when I have done with you.’

‘Yes, come round and we’ll talk about it.’

‘Talk? I am going to shoot you.’

She arrived in an hour, fur-clad and magnificently dramatic. She stormed past Karita and met Kirby face to face in the drawing room as he emerged from the bedroom. He wore a dressing gown. This enraged her. He had not even bothered to dress decently to receive her, she could have been anybody. Then she stared at his face. He was freshly shaved and had just taken his beard off, leaving only a moustache. He looked younger, but the now undisguised line of his chin was strong, masculine.

‘You ridiculous man,’ she shouted, ‘did you take your beard off because you were afraid I’d pull it out bit by bit?’

‘Oh, they’re just a bit fussy about beards in our army,’ he said. ‘Do sit down, my sweet.’

‘You cad,’ she cried and began to stride and swish about. She was quite alarming for a few minutes. He let her get on with it, knowing how much she was enjoying herself. One had to admire her performance, she was really not far short of superb if one discounted the occasional Russian swear word that lowered the tone a little. She flung her fur coat over a chair and rampaged around again in a long, high-waisted black dress with its short train sweeping the floor angrily.

‘It’s your doing, every word of it,’ she said.

‘Upon my soul, Aleka love, I’m as innocent as you are,’ he said. ‘Indeed, I thought at first it was your doing.’

‘Mine?’ She subjected him to flashing scorn. ‘Are you mad? If I wanted to marry a man I’d ask him, not tell the papers.’

‘What an interesting woman you are, Aleka.’

She sat down. She got up again. She chose another chair. She looked up at him. A slightly malicious smile curved her lips.

‘Are you suggesting someone has made a fool of both of us?’ she said.

‘I swear to you I’m sure of it,’ he said, and was able to look completely convincing.

She mused a little on this, her lashes flickering.

‘Imagine that,’ she said.

‘You do have some very unconventional friends,’ he said, ‘and in high places.’

‘Yes. And what sort of friends do you have?’ Her smile was sweet.

‘Well, I wonder about that now,’ he said.

‘Mm,’ she said. ‘What are we going to do about it?’

‘Don’t you know? I’d have thought you’d have known immediately what we must do. Nothing. We’ll let the announcement stand.’

She stared. She laughed. It came bubbling.

‘But of course,’ she said. ‘Oh, my clever Ivan. We will stun them all. We will be engaged. And we’ll do the laughing. Of course, this isn’t to suppose that we ourselves are serious, that you wish to marry me?’

‘My dearest Princess,’ he said, ‘it need only mean we can be engaged for as long as you think the joke can last or perhaps until you find a good Ukrainian socialist farmer—’

‘Don’t spoil yourself,’ she said. ‘So, we are engaged, then?’

‘While at the same time you remain perfectly free not to marry me.’

She mused on that too.

‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘I might wish to. But at least, now we’re engaged we can be lovers. I think we would be exciting lovers, Ivan.’

‘We’ll talk about it.’

‘Talk?’ She pealed a trill of ironic laughter. ‘Talking isn’t loving, you fool.’

He thought of Olga. Talking was loving. It was listening, observing, hearing and communicating. It was taking pleasure in the sight and sound of her. Love to Aleka meant bodies exquisitely juxtaposed in a bed. That could be fleetingly, tenderly beautiful, but it was not love itself, it was the ultimate consequence and the final consummation of love, a physical transience that
had far less meaning than the desire to protect, to cherish, to hold. It would not be mirrored in the mind with the same unfading clarity as the memory of a fallen summer hat being replaced on a chestnut-blonde head while blue eyes smiled in shy wonder at life.