The Summer Day is Done (35 page)

‘I think Colonel Kirby would always prefer Livadia,’ said Alexandra.

‘Yes, Mama, perhaps he would,’ said Olga. She did not dare press Tsarskoe Selo.

She wondered now how much longer he would be at Livadia, how much longer his British superiors would allow him to stay.

He looked up then and saw her. He smiled and Olga experienced a sensation of both pleasure and relief. Whatever had been troubling him, making him seem so remote, had gone.

‘I am not disturbing you?’ she said, entering the room a little diffidently.

‘How can you be?’ he said, rising. ‘This is your piano, Olga, and I thought you’d be playing Bach.’

‘You were longer than we thought you’d be,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘is it too late for music now?’

‘No, of course not. What is that tune you were playing? I’ve heard you whistling it.’

‘Oh, it’s something we sang when I was very young and at school.’

‘Sing it now,’ said Olga, standing by the piano.

‘I’m dreadful at singing,’ he said.

‘As I am at Bach,’ she smiled.

He sat down again, saying, ‘Well, I’ll do the best I can. But I can’t play, either.’

‘Well, do the best you can with that too,’ she said.

He played the tune with one hand. He could not sing, as he had said, but he did his best and Olga thought his voice passably pleasant considering. She listened to the song.

What is her name, this maid so fair

With flowers in her golden hair?

Her name is Mary Out-of-doors
,

She has a cat called Pussy Claws
.

Where does she live, this pretty maid

With eyes like bluebells in the shade?

In a house by Dingle Dell
,

Though where that is I cannot tell
.

What does she do, this maid so sweet

With slippers green upon her feet?

She dances with the butterflies

And that to me is no surprise
.

Whom will she wed, this maid so fair

With flowers in her golden hair?

She’ll wed a country boy, you see
,

And give her Pussy Claws to me
.

‘Colonel Kirby!’ Olga clapped her hands in delight. ‘Oh, that is a delicious song. Again, please.’

‘Together,’ he said.

‘I will if you’ll write the words down,’ said Olga.

He wrote the words on the back of a music sheet. She took the sheet, he did his best at the piano and they sang it together. Her voice was shy at first, but he didn’t care how his sounded so she began not to mind about hers, either. Hers became clear and melodious then and they sang it through.

They laughed in triumph.

Olga was rapturous.

Kirby, looking up into her delighted eyes, was in hopeless longing.

The clouds had gone the next day. Olga, with books under her arm, was about to leave her room to see her tutor when a lady-in-waiting came to ask her if she would please see her mother. Alexandra, writing letters in her boudoir, looked up with a smile as Olga came in.

How her eldest daughter was growing. And she was acquiring a quiet maturity that was entirely charming. She was for loving, cherishing, Alexandra thought. That wasn’t difficult, to love her. Olga herself asked for no more than that.

‘Olga, there, my sweet.’ Alexandra’s voice was tender. ‘How summery you look. The sun is beginning to kiss you. Now, what is it I wanted to see you about? Oh, yes, Colonel Kirby – Ivan.’

‘Mama?’ In a little apprehension at her mother’s gentleness, Olga’s sunny look dimmed a little. ‘He is not going away?’

‘Not until we return to St Petersburg ourselves, perhaps.’ Alexandra was reassuring and rueful together. Olga was as transparent as the bright windows. ‘He’s been to ask if you would care to ride into Yalta with him today. Would you like
to go, darling? If so, I’m sure Monsieur Gilliard will excuse you. I am assured by Ivan that he’ll take the greatest care of you.’

‘Oh, Mama, I—’ Olga was about to say she would adore to go. She must not commit her feelings so. ‘Mama, that would really be very nice.’

Alexandra did not know why she had consented to this at all. Unless it was that she trusted Colonel Kirby. But there was always the worry that the more Olga was in company with him the more impossible her dreams became. Yet how could she deny Olga the sweet pleasures youth was entitled to before adult responsibilities turned those golden years into wistful memories?

‘Then you may go, darling,’ she said.

‘Oh, how nice you are,’ said Olga, ‘it is such a lovely day to go for a drive anywhere. Am I to go now? Is he waiting for me?’

‘I expect so. Shall you take Sophia Boriovna with you?’

‘Mama,’ said Olga carefully, ‘if Colonel Kirby has promised to take the greatest care of me, a lady-in-waiting might imply by her presence that we did not think he was able to.’

Alexandra laughed.

‘Well, you do make the suggestion sound stuffy, sweet. We had better trust Ivan Ivanovich, hadn’t we? You’re to have lunch in Yalta and be back this afternoon. Do you wish to change your dress? If so, don’t be too long or by the time you’re ready he
will
be waiting. And I should wear your spring coat, it may be cooler in Yalta than you think.’

She permitted herself a little shake of the head as Olga flowed happily away. But perhaps
it would all be over in a year or two when eligible suitors came courting her eldest. Olga would not expect her prospects to be less than her own. She herself had only been a minor Princess of Hesse and yet had married Nicholas, heir to the throne of All the Russias. Olga as the eldest daughter of the Tsar would not expect to become less than a queen. Future excitement would exorcize her present dream.

A question reached Olga as she was changing. Karita came to ask it. Would her Imperial Highness prefer to make the journey in a carriage or a motor car? Colonel Kirby wished to know.

‘Oh, in a—’ Olga stopped to think. A carriage complemented idyllic Crimea in springtime, the ride would be leisurely and peaceful. Motor cars were exciting but so noisy. She supposed, however, that Colonel Kirby would be bound to have a man’s interest in motor cars and all the young people she knew said that a carriage was dull compared with a motor car. ‘Oh, I don’t mind, Karita, tell Colonel Kirby he is to decide.’

He was waiting on the drive below as she came down the steps from the palace. She was clad in the palest blue dress with spring coat to match and carried a blue parasol. He walked up a few steps to meet her, she put her hand on his arm and let him escort her.

‘You’ve ordered a carriage,’ she said, looking at the waiting landau, ‘I thought you would prefer a motor car.’

‘I was sure you would prefer a carriage,’ he said.

Her smile told him how she appreciated that
courtesy. He was in uniform, looking very smart. He wore no sling, he had managed to get his plastered arm into a sleeve. He seemed quite himself again. He handed her up, she seated herself in the open landau. Then she said, ‘Oh.’ There was another carriage in evidence. Sophia Boriovna was in it, and another lady-in-waiting, together with two officers of the household. So, her mother had decided that some protocol was to be observed. They were to have escorts. Sophia and the others would not intrude, they would simply be at hand if needed, and serve to remind Olga that a Grand Duchess of her age was not permitted to wander at will in the company of any man.

She did not speak until he had settled himself and the carriage was moving. Then she said, ‘You must know that I am quite overwhelmed, Colonel Kirby. I mean, I have actually been invited. Why am I so favoured today?’

‘Perhaps because I neglected you all yesterday,’ he said. ‘I thought that as I had to go to Yalta today it would be more enjoyable if I had company. But General Sikorski said his back was stiff, Tatiana couldn’t come, Marie was too busy and I couldn’t find Anastasia. Alexis wanted to but still has his bad leg and so I thought, well, there’s still Olga—’

‘Oh, how mean you are!’ she exclaimed. He had not seated himself beside her but opposite her and his eyes were laughing under his peaked cap. ‘That is not a bit gallant.’

‘But it has turned out very well for me,’ he said. ‘The sun is out, the day is fine and here I
am riding with the Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna who, the newspapers reported, looked most charming in blue despite a smut of wood ash on her nose.’

‘Oh no, it can’t be!’ Olga was mortified.

‘But as usual you can never believe what the papers say.’

‘Colonel Kirby, you are teasing me abominably.’

‘I know. It’s going to be that kind of a day, Olga. It’s lovely.’

She laughed. The horses trotted in equable togetherness. The carriage wheels sang. The vistas were glimmering with gold. To the right of the road the blue sea sparkled.

‘Oh, I don’t mind, you may tease me all you wish, it’s so nice to be out,’ she said happily. ‘Thank you for asking Mama. I didn’t think she – well, you see—’

‘Well, you see,’ he said, helping her out, ‘I told her I’d take the greatest care of you in every way. You are a very priceless Grand Duchess.’

She flushed. It was not that she felt shy, only emotional. She was in his care. She was priceless. That mattered very much. He did not have to tell her she was a Grand Duchess, though. She knew that only too well, and if he was trying to say that that was the foremost factor in their relationship, he must know that that was unnecessary too. She turned her gaze on lushly bursting magnolia blooms spraying flung branches. Spring was calling to summer in the Crimea, where the rich land knew little of man’s despoiling ways.

‘Tell me about England,’ she said.

‘Again? I’ve told you so much,’ he said.

‘Tell me more, tell me exactly what it’s like where you live. We were at the Isle of Wight once when I was very young, and Mama and Papa had the most sumptuous time with King Edward. It was beautiful, I remember. Is it beautiful where you live? It must be because Mama was enchanted by it.’

He told her about Walton, just a riverside village, where the swans glided by on the evening waters and boats were lazily rowed or punted to summer picnic spots overhung by willows. He told her about his Georgian cottage and his Aunt Charlotte who lived there and her sister Emma who had died, and how they had taken the place of his dead parents.

‘They wanted someone to love,’ said Olga. ‘No one can do without love, can they?’

‘No one,’ he agreed. ‘Love is a necessity and a creator. It inspires careless rapture in the young and is precious to the old. But it can also be very painful.’

‘How do you know that?’ she asked, her eyes in absorbed wonder. ‘You have been painfully in love? Oh, I see – you did love Aleka Petrovna—’

He laughed.

‘Aleka Petrovna? Oh, Olga, that would be like loving a beautiful grasshopper.’

‘You mean butterfly,’ she said.

‘Grasshoppers talk,’ he said.

‘We should not be unkind about Aleka Petrovna, I am sure she isn’t as happy as she might be,’ said Olga. She wanted to know whom he had been painfully in love with, but if he
wouldn’t tell her it was not in her to ask questions. However, there was one question that need not commit him to telling things he did not want to. ‘Was she very beautiful, Colonel Kirby?’

‘Aleka Petrovna? But you know her.’

‘No, I mean the girl you found so painful to love,’ said Olga.

He laughed again.

‘Olga, how delightful you are,’ he said. ‘Who is this girl you’ve conjured up for me?’

‘Well, that’s a fine thing, I must say,’ said Olga, ‘it was you who said—Well, I’m sure I just don’t know what we are talking about now. Perhaps we had better talk about something else, and I’d like it if you were not so vague and I did not get so confused.’

He enjoyed that. They laughed. The horses clip-clopped in tireless rhythm and the carriage swayed on gently jostling springs. The other carriage was fifty yards behind them, but Olga neither heard it nor thought about it. She asked Kirby what his Aunt Charlotte was like.

‘Matriarchal,’ he said. ‘She regards me as an unfulfilled person afflicted with wanderlust. Each time I return home I’m expected to arrive with a wife in my baggage. Aunt Charlotte supervises my unpacking and I know what she’s looking for.’

‘Colonel Kirby, that is a dreadful way of talking about wives and baggage,’ said Olga.

‘Oh?’

‘All the same, it sounds deliciously funny,’ she said. ‘But one day perhaps you’ll give your Aunt Charlotte a very nice surprise.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said. It was difficult to think seriously about nice surprises for Aunt Charlotte at this moment. Olga was lovely in the sunshine, as her hair flowed and rippled in the light breeze.

In Yalta they dismissed the coachman and groom for a few hours. Kirby explained he had to call again on a Mr Anstruther. Olga did not mind what they did as long as he did not leave her standing outside in the street.

‘You see,’ she said, ‘I should not like you to be forgetful of me.’

‘I can’t add that to being neglectful,’ he said, ‘that would be terrible.’

‘Shockingly so,’ laughed Olga.

She waited happily and without fuss in the little office, as she had before, while Kirby went in to see Anstruther. Anstruther was not so brown, he was wearing a black jacket and striped trousers. That must mean something, thought Kirby.

‘Thank you for coming,’ said Anstruther.

‘Thank you for making your message so cordial,’ said Kirby.

‘I got back here yesterday.’

‘I wrote you in St Petersburg,’ said Kirby, ‘I didn’t hear from you.’

Anstruther looked at his fingernails.

‘I received some disturbing news from you, if that’s what you mean,’ he said. ‘Apparently you were careless enough to have your pocket picked.’

‘You could call it that, yes,’ said Kirby. ‘A man called Peter Prolofski broke the code.’

‘Yes, we’ve heard of him,’ said Anstruther. He
polished a nail. ‘That, my dear Kirby, makes it more than disturbing. It’s calamitous. I expected it when I first heard from you. But Prolofski, hum. The cat is amongst the pigeons with a vengeance. There’s no telling what a man like that will do.’