‘Olga, my lamb, you always seem to be looking for someone or something.’
Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna turned from the rail of the Standart, the Imperial yacht. She had been observing the movements of people she could see on other vessels anchored at Reval on the Baltic coast. It was June, eight months and more since her birthday ball at Livadia. Always distinctive in the sincerity of her feelings, she was more physically distinctive now. She was a little taller, a little shapelier, and she had acquired a poise that gave a soft dignity to her charm. She smiled unaffectedly at Anna Vyrubova.
‘Oh, I was just looking at people,’ she said, ‘there’s always something to see about people.’
In a blue and white yachting dress, with a round white hat banded in blue, she looked fresh and lovely, her skin creamy from the sun.
‘Almost we’re deserted,’ said Anna, ‘everyone has gone aboard the Hohenzollern to drink champagne with Emperor William.’
The German Emperor had spent three days in Reval, inflicting his boisterous personality on Nicholas and becoming egoistically expansive in the welcome Reval had given him. Olga considered him well-meaning but overpowering. He wanted to manage everyone and everything.
There was a British yacht stately at anchor some distance away.
‘See, that one is from England,’ said Anna, pointing.
‘Yes, I noticed,’ said Olga.
‘Perhaps our Mr Kirby is aboard,’ said Anna. ‘Do you remember him? He was the Englishman who bought me this parasol and was so nice with Alexis.’
‘Mr Kirby? Oh, yes.’ Olga did not affect a great deal of interest. ‘He played a lot of tennis with Papa. They’re all very gay aboard the Hohenzollern, Anna, you can hear them.’
Kaiser William’s white and gold yacht was anchored close to the Standart. A hum of revelry buzzed from it. The sun, rising to its midday peak, brought lustre to the vessel’s immaculate brightness. But Olga was proud of the Standart, which outshone the Hohenzollern in almost every way. It was the most graceful, the most beautiful vessel afloat.
‘I should really be on my way to join your mama under the awning,’ said Anna.
‘Well, of course, Anna. You mustn’t let me keep you.’
Anna went. Tatiana stole softly up on her sister. Graceful and willowy at fifteen, Tatiana was a physical echo of her elegant mother but her temperamental opposite. She had a gay and inexhaustible vitality, a lively mind and a teasing approach to all her sisters, especially to Olga. But it did not prevent the two of them being as close as they could be. They could not have enough of each other’s company.
‘Boo, goose,’ said Tatiana. Olga, elbows on rail, chin in hands, her round white hat on the back of her head, only said, ‘Go away, child.’
‘Oh, listen to grandmamma,’ said Tatiana. ‘What are you doing? You’re dreaming again.’
‘I’m looking,’ said Olga.
‘What at?’
‘There, where Russia is dancing,’ said Olga.
‘I knew it,’ said Tatiana, ‘you are dreaming.’
‘But see,’ said Olga, ‘everything is reflected in the sea and everything is dancing. That shows I am looking, that I’m not dreaming.’
But she was.
‘Yes, but it’s only reflections of yachts and things,’ said Tatiana. She surveyed the sunlit, sparkling waters and then saw what Olga had seen. The waters were a dancing reflection of heaven and earth. ‘Olga, you’re so strange sometimes.’ She put an arm around her. Adoring Olga, she could not bear to be shut out.
‘You silly, it isn’t strange to see things in waters,’ said Olga, ‘you can see them in fires too. I think I’ll go down to the piano and practise my Bach. I’m dreadful at Bach.’
‘You’re dreadful at Tchaikovsky and all the others too,’ said Tatiana.
‘That,’ said Olga, ‘isn’t as bad as being dreadful all over, as you are, Tatiana Nicolaievna.’
Tatiana laughed. It was always a happiness when Olga was being droll. Suddenly, animatedly, she rushed into an item of news. ‘Olga, listen. I heard Mama say that Crown Prince Carol of Rumania has asked if he might have a photograph of you. He’s seen your picture in a paper and is most terribly impressed. I hope it wasn’t the one where your hat was over your face. But what do you think, do you think he’ll ask to come and meet you?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Olga quietly.
The sun was a golden glow, the harbour gay with flags and bunting. Somewhere a ship’s orchestra was playing. But Olga Nicolaievna was pale beneath her summer tan, cold inside her fluttering dress.
The weeks were long, the months interminable. England did not help a bit. Kirby wasted his six months of leave doing nothing worth remembering. His Aunt Charlotte, formidably acute for all her reactionary Victorianism, offered the opinion that his restlessness was a natural consequence of rushing all over the globe and that more rushing would only make it worse. His best course was to settle down in a worthwhile job. A cousin of hers could probably find him a very worthwhile one in the Admiralty. Alternatively, he could get married. It would not be before time.
He was saved from the Admiralty and from wedlock by being sent to Germany when his leave was up. They thought he could be useful there. Everything that was anything was happening in Germany at the moment. He went to Berlin. There he discovered he was one of so many that there was an air of duplication about his every movement. He traded with contacts who, he suspected, had already traded with shadowy colleagues of his. He could not help feeling that the quantity of agents in Berlin was more obvious than their quality. Inevitably the Germans would come to feel the Wilhelmstrasse was being invaded.
He avoided buying the Russian newspapers that were available on the bookstands. He could not, however, avoid seeing reports in German papers of the Kaiser’s visit to the Russian Baltic. In one he was suddenly confronted with a picture of the Russian Imperial family going aboard the Hohenzollern. Out of the black and white came the face of Grand Duchess Olga, seen over the shoulder of a sister and crowned by a white round hat.
She was smiling.
He put the paper down, left it on a bench in the Tiergarten.
His suspicions that his own people were overplaying their hand crystallized into fact. He received a message.
‘We think they’re on to you. Come home.’
He returned to England. They told him to remain on call. He met a girl, Felicity Dawes, whose dark eyes and rich silks reminded him of Princess Aleka. He had written a letter of grateful thanks to the princess. She had not replied. He became fairly involved with Felicity, who took him to Berkshire to meet her parents. They were charming. Felicity was charming too, but occasionally intense. He made love to her. She was very intense and passionately delighted to be compromised. She took it to mean they were engaged. Kirby, temporarily released from the accumulated pressures of a celibacy a man of his age found unnatural, did not, however, feel ecstatic enough to be as honourable as that. Felicity, fulminating against his elusiveness, wrote him a letter and had it delivered by hand.
It was an ultimatum and he might have reconsidered in her favour had it not coincided with the arrival of a letter from the Empress Alexandra.
He could not believe it.
The Imperial family intended to go to Livadia earlier this year, they had to be in Poland in the autumn. Would he care to join them if he was free? The Empress wrote in her usual staccato style.
‘It is a long way for you – but if you can come please do – all will be delighted to see you again – the children especially – we shall be there only for three weeks – this has been such a busy year—’
It was not a long letter but its sincerity shone.
He wondered how she had got hold of his Walton address. She had, perhaps, enquired of Princess Aleka.
He went, leaving behind a bewildered and outraged Felicity.
They gave him leave, they seemed interested that he was going to Russia again. He arrived three days after the Imperial family had inst
alled themselves. He was received by a member of the Tsar’s suite. Nicholas was on an outdoor excursion with the children, and Alexandra, troubled by sciatica, was resting. Taken up to the rooms he had occupied last year, the first person he saw in his suite was Karita.
‘No,’ he said disbelievingly.
‘But yes, monsieur.’ Her eyes were shining, she swooped into a glad curtsey. ‘You are back and at Livadia. Oh, everything is so nice. It was the Empress herself who arranged for me to come from Karinshka. She said you could not do without me.’
She was golden, her braided hair a gleaming casque.
‘How very nice, Karita,’ he said, ‘how very nice indeed.’
The spacious suite was in impeccable order, the sun diffused its light warmly over comfort and graciousness. The tall windows of the drawing room stood open on to the gleaming white balcony. Karita in excited happiness began to unpack his luggage.
‘Karita,’ he called from the open windows. She went to him. He was just the same, and already the sun was putting the familiar flecks of gold into his trim brown beard. His eyes showed pleasure, kindness, affection. He put his arm around her shoulders and looked at the view with her, at the blues, the reds, the greens, and at the melting transience of horizons. ‘It’s been the best part of a year, Karita. I’ve missed you, I’ve missed Russia.’
‘It is awfully agreeable that you’re back again,’ she said.
‘It’s more agreeable to see you, little one.’ He kissed her. Karita accepted it naturally but it was still disturbing. It made her face flame. She returned to the unpacking. He followed her into the bedroom. ‘Princess Aleka, how is she?’ he asked.
‘She hasn’t been to Karinshka yet, monsieur. She’s been everywhere else and has let others use her palace. It’s full of them now. They’re all very gay and enjoying themselves very much, but it isn’t the same without her Highness. She is very gay herself but you don’t hear her as much as you hear her friends. Oh, it is so nice to be here.’
‘I see.’ He watched her. She was unpacking carefully as if treasuring each moment of the task. She was in her Karinshka blue and white. He thought that in a year or two she would be quite lovely. She had character, grace and smooth, fine-boned features. ‘They’ve been running you off your feet, have they?’
‘Oh, it’s only been busy for me. It’s old Amarov who is having headaches. He keeps asking what is Russia coming to when the nobility behave so loudly and so irresponsibly in someone else’s house. But then he’s always saying that about everybody. He is a lovely old man.’
He heard noises, the sound of scampering feet and youthful voices, and then into the suite ran the children. Alexis, Anastasia, Marie and Tatiana, sun-flushed and heated from their excursion with the Tsar, but still with the unlimited energy of the young and joyful. There were delighted shrieks.
‘Ivan Ivanovich!’
They surrounded him, touched him, hugged his arms, laughed up at him.
He had never had such a welcome. Its effect momentarily robbed him of speech. Karita, glancing at him, had the oddest feeling that Ivan Ivanovich was painfully overwhelmed. Then lightly he said to the excited children, ‘Let me see, who are you? Were you here before? Are you new children?’
‘Ivan Ivanovich! It is us! See, this is me, Alexis!’
‘And me, I’m Marie, you know I’m Marie.’
‘My word,’ said Tatiana to Anastasia, ‘he’s shockingly forgetful when you consider how beautiful we all are. At least, I am.’
‘Oh, yes, goodness gracious me,’ said eleven-year-old Anastasia, trying to sound like her mother in surprise.
‘Why, of course,’ said Kirby, ‘now I know you. Good Lord, here you all are. What a coincidence.’ He shook hands with Anastasia. ‘How are you, General Sikorski?’
Anastasia doubled up.
‘She’s not him,’ cried Alexis, hopping about in delight, ‘she’s Stasha.’
‘No, go on,’ said Kirby, ‘well, I never.’ He smiled at Tatiana. ‘Ah, Irena Vladinova, I can’t mistake you, at least. You never change.’
Marie and Anastasia shrieked. Irena Vladinova worked in the kitchens. She was very jolly. She was also very fat.
‘Oh, Ivan Ivanovich, you wretch,’ cried Tatiana. Then she sighed, ‘Oh, you’re still so scandalously endangering to a fair maid.’
‘I’m what?’
‘Oh, they’re just some words I picked up,’ said Tatiana, already strikingly attractive. She was fifteen.
‘Well, try not to pick up too many more,’ he said.
They romped around him. They took Karita by the hand and made her join in. A lady-in-waiting looked in to see what all the noise was about. Karita blushed. She suggested their young Highnesses should go down to the gardens and he would join them there soon. They begged him not to be long and danced out. Karita said that people who said unkind things about them deserved to bite out their own tongues.
‘It’s a habit of centuries for the best to be stoned by the worst, Karita.’
‘Oh, everyone is so happy now that you’re back,’ she said, and then for some reason hurried out, leaving the unpacking only half done. It did not bother him, he began to attend to it himself. He looked up at a new sound. It was the merest whispering rustle. He saw her, the one who hadn’t come with the others, the one so much on his mind. She was at the open door, but holding back as if her entrance would be an intrusion. She had one hand on the door frame, from the other hung a white straw hat. Her dress was a soft, waisted whiteness. Her chestnut-blonde hair seemed a deep, burnished gold. Olga Nicolaievna was almost seventeen, she was not afraid of life but she could still be shy.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘well.’ She thought that very English. A Russian friend would have offered a prolific flourish of words at seeing her again after so long an absence.
‘The children ran back,’ she said, ‘Papa and I walked.’
‘And here you are,’ he said. ‘Highness, I’m having a day of the nicest surprises.’
‘Are you?’ Her voice was a little unsure of itself. ‘I didn’t know if you— that is, Mama received your telegram but no one knew if you’d really come.’
‘But I sent another telegram from Moscow as soon as I got there.’
‘Did you? Oh yes.’ She seemed to be searching for words. She found some. ‘Papa would have stayed out all day if Tatiana and I hadn’t reminded him we should miss your arrival. I expect you’re awfully fatigued, you’ve had such a tiring journey.’
He had been affected by the exuberant joy of the others. He was just as affected by Olga’s quiet diffidence.
‘To arrive at Livadia makes any journey worthwhile.’
‘You’ve been in England,’ she said, and then saw the open and unopened luggage. ‘Isn’t there anyone to help you? Shall I?’
She came in then. Unlike the others she did not look heated from the excursion, she was cool and fresh, as if she had washed her face and brushed her hair. And changed her dress.
‘Highness—’
‘It isn’t necessary to call me that,’ she said, clicking open the locks of a case, ‘it’s only in public that I’m supposed to be grand.’
‘Olga Nicolaievna, you’re very grand in the very best way, but Karita will be back to attend to this.’
‘Mr Kirby, I’m not incapable, you know.’ She was still a little unsure of herself, her shyness obvious. And she knew it was obvious and that made it worse. To overcome her self-consciousness she took out a white shirt and held it up against her front, saying lightly, ‘See, this is what you wear when you’re playing tennis with Papa, isn’t it?’
‘And when I fall about,’ he smiled.
She shot him a quick glance. He was just the same, so relaxed. He was always able to say something that eased her out of her restraint. She suddenly found confidence in herself.
‘Mr Kirby, oh, I’m so happy you could come. We all are. It will be such fun again.’
Her smile was impulsive, full of the winning charm of her fathe
r’s. She was lovelier, more endearing than ever.
He hid an intensely emotional reaction by saying, ‘Karita won’t think so when she sees the state of these things.’ He indicated the contents of the newly opened case. The clothes were tumbled and creased.
‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ said Olga, ‘it’s only important that you’ve come all this way to see us again. Papa will be delighted.’
Karita returned. She was dismayed to see the Grand Duchess actually unpacking clothes. The Grand Duchess even appeared to be happy about it, but it was the improperest activity for her young Imperial Highness. It was even more improper for Mr Kirby to stand by and let her.
‘Your Highness—’
‘Karita, I’m not in the way, am I?’ said Olga. ‘I’m not at all busy and can help, really. Are you seeing to refreshment? Mr Kirby has creaking bones, you know, and I expect all of them are aching shockingly after his journey. And look, just see how he’s packed some of his things. You should look after him always and go to England with him, and then you’ll be able to see he doesn’t stay away from us so long. Think, he’s been away nearly a whole year and didn’t write to us once. Isn’t that terrible?’
‘I did write to her Imperial Majesty,’ said Kirby.
‘Oh yes, to Mama,’ said Olga as if that was of no account at all.
‘But he has made up for it now,’ said Karita, taking things as Olga unpacked them. She put aside items that needed pressing and hung others in the capacious wardrobe or placed them on shelves.
‘Yes, but you should still go with him next time,’ said Olga, ‘no one could look after him better than you, Karita.’
‘Would you like to do that?’ asked Kirby.
Karita stood in open-mouthed astonishment.
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