The Summer Day is Done

by Mary Jane Staples

  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?’

  ‘Yes, Karita.’

  She reconciled herself. He would not let her down again. Would he? She looked at him. He was all affection, his smile reassuring.

  ‘Very well, monsieur,’ she said. ‘Oh, I have something for you. Her Highness the Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna asked me to give it to you after we left.’

  She gave him a little flat package. He opened it as the carriage swayed and jostled over the road. It was a snapshot in a small gilt frame, a snapshot of Olga and Tatiana in the gardens of Livadia. Tatiana looked gay and alive, even in sepia. Olga’s shy smile peeped amid her flowing hair. The sun caught it, the picture flashed and danced. She had written across the bottom of the photograph.

  ‘So that you shan’t forget us – Olga Nicolaievna.’

  He had not realized just how much he loved her until that moment.

  Olga was sobbing her heart out. Only Tatiana, closest and dearest to her, found her. She lay full length on leafy ground amid the trees, face down, her head pillowed on her arms, the sobs racking her.

  ‘Olga, oh dearest, sweetest sister, what is it, what is it?’

  ‘Tasha … oh, I’m in such pain.’

  ‘See, don’t move. I’ll run for Doctor Botkin.’

  ‘Oh no, do not. Don’t bring anyone, please.’

  ‘Then don’t cry so, you’ll break my heart. Do you want to break my heart?’ Tatiana was in anxiety and distress. ‘Olga, don’t. Tell me what it is, tell me.’

  The slim, rounded body shuddered and still the sobs came.

  ‘Tasha, don’t tell anyone, please don’t.’

  ‘Dear dear Olga, never, never.’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’ She strove to check her despair. ‘I’m better – better already.’

  ‘There, we’ll go to Monsieur Gilliard together in a moment. He’ll be pleased Ivan Ivanovich has gone, not because he doesn’t like him but because we’ll attend better to our French lessons now.’

  ‘Tatiana?’

  ‘Oh, sweet sister, do you think I don’t know? I’m not as young as all that.’

  She lay quiet then. She turned and sat up in a while. She was pale beneath her creamy tan, her face streaked with tears. She dabbed at them with a tiny handkerchief already soaked.

  ‘Tasha, he didn’t say goodbye to me, he didn’t say one word to me, not one.’

  ‘He did. Oh, you silly, he did.’ Tatiana was earnestly comforting. ‘He said goodbye to all of us, all of us together. He couldn’t say anything specially to you, he couldn’t. You know he couldn’t. He’s not like the very proper Englishmen we hear about, he is proper in the very nicest way. Listen, yesterday I said to him, “Ivan, who is the fairest of us all?” And he laughed and said, “Tatiana Nicolaievna is the fairest, of course, Anastasia the cheekiest and Marie the nicest.” So you see?’

  ‘See?’ Olga could only see that he had gone lightly and left her in pain.

  ‘He wouldn’t even say your name, and that’s it, don’t you understand? Oh, you goose, it’s in his eyes all the time, the way he looks at you and he’s always looking at you. When we’re both old and our husbands are rather bald and fat, we’ll tell our grandchildren all about a handsome English prince who adored you and danced at your birthday ball with you.’

  ‘Our grandchildren?’ Olga’s laugh was fragile, half-hearted. ‘Tasha, he talked of his grandchildren. But he’s not a prince.’

  ‘He’s our prince, dearest sister, yours to remember and mine to talk to you about. There, we’ll always have each other, always.’

  She was consoled but the pain was still there.

  He had gone and Livadia had lost its enchantment.

  Chapter Seven

  Kiev, capital of the Ukraine, had been of fascinating interest to Kirby on previous visits. It had lost its interest for him now. Now it was only a cloudy city harbouring a man called Spirokof, and until he located this man Kiev imprisoned him.

  He missed Karita, missed her busy concern for his daily life. He missed all the familiarities of the new existence
Empress Alexandra had created for him, the children, the laughter, the tranquillity of evenings bathed by red-gold. He missed Olga. He could not think of how far apart she was from him in every way without emptiness forming like a gaping darkness in his mind.

  But he had an assignment to pursue in Kiev. It was a grey, monotonous pursuit to engage in. Its only redemption was in its connection with the Tsar.

  He seemed detached from reality in Kiev, for what he had thought very unreal, his regard for a daughter of Nicholas, had come home to roost as an unarguable fact. It was unreal to emerge into light each day and not be able to see her.

  He found friends he had made on earlier trips to Kiev, and one by one he renewed contact with men he had used years ago for obtaining information. It was a slow, tedious business. It meant the renewal of goodwill, the re-establishment of their confidence in him and the asking of questions. The questions brought blank faces, lifted eyebrows, or even a glance over a shoulder and an excuse to leave. Spirokof? Who was he?

  It took weeks, it took what seemed like an eternity. But in the end there was a man whose acquisitiveness was more obsessive than his caution, and who silently put out his hand and flexed covetous fingers. It was only a question of how much, after that. Kirby went to a bank. It was not his inclination to haggle on this occasion, nor was it part of any personal fortune he was giving away.

  He checked the information and sent to Anstruther a description of a man whom he saw entering and leaving a house twice in one day. Anstruther telegraphed an affirmative. Kirby had no intention of visiting the Okhrana, the secret police, to give them the information himself. They would ask questions of their own, scrutinize his passport, his background, enquire after his reasons and remember his face. He sent them the information in block letters on plain paper. For his own amusement he signed it in Lenin’s name.

  Then he left Kiev and returned to the Crimea, going to Karinshka. It was quiet there, the best of autumn gone. But Karita was golden and glowing, enormously happy to see him. Old Amarov shook his head and said he wondered what it was all coming to. Kirby went with Karita to her home in the village of Karka and there he met her parents, the most dignified people he had ever known. They talked with him, they did not mention Karita directly but spoke circuitously about the mutual responsibilities of servant and master. It seemed to Kirby after a while that the responsibilities of the latter far exceeded those of the former.

  He had to sign a document. When this was done they at last smiled, touched their foreheads with clasped fingertips and bowed in acknowledgement of the fact that they had given Karita into his service and care, providing Princess Karinshka also signed the document.

  ‘Now,’ said Karita, who had said nothing at all so far, ‘you are my father and mother, Ivan Ivanovich.’

  ‘And in time you will return her to us as good and as unspoiled as she is today,’ said her father.

  Kirby put his hand on the document and inclined his head. He knew what was meant by unspoiled.

  All the way to St Petersburg Kirby tried to teach Karita the basics of English. They had a first-class compartment but not a private coach. The other passengers became extremely curious and put Karita in some embarrassment. Not so her new master. He was quite himself all the time. Karita thought there were occasions when he gave the impression that the world belonged to him, that it had been made for his convenience, except that this was not to inconvenience others.

  He did not actually ignore the fascinated audience but certainly he did not let anyone distract him. And of course it wasn’t long before some of them wanted to join in, and then it was very distracting and rather like turmoil. However, Kirby assured them it was all a very serious business and that if Karita Katerinova Sergova did not know the difference in English between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ by the time they reached St Petersburg, her life there would become intolerable with confusion and complexity. This so impressed the other passengers that they were nearly models of rectitude and co-operation from then on, except for the times when her flummoxed pronunciation brought gales of Russian laughter from them.

  Karita bore this with dignity. It did not matter who laughed at her as long as Ivan Ivanovich didn’t.

  It became colder as the train steamed farther and farther north-west and when they reached St Petersburg it was snowing. Karita was entranced but shocked. Entranced by the huge, drifting flakes, shocked by the damp cold. They procured a droshky, Karita wrapped in all the coats she had. Porters loaded the luggage.

  ‘We can’t have this,’ said Kirby, seeing her nose turn pink and observing her little shivers.

  ‘Ivan Ivanovich, it’s dreadful,’ she gasped, blowing flakes from her lips.

  He wore a warm check cape over his suit and a soft check hat.

  ‘It isn’t like Livadia very much, is it?’ he said, and had the droshky driver take them to the shops.

  The afternoon was already darkening, the white city was damp rather than sharp. The lights began to go on and almost at once the leaden flakes became spiralling swirls of glittering white. It was a bright wintry revelation to the Crimean girl.

  They stopped adjacent a shop whose windows were a splendour of shining furs. Kirby took her in, Karita numb in more ways than one. She was to have a fur coat and hat, he said. She crimsoned.

  ‘Monsieur, I can’t, you can’t, it isn’t proper,’ she whispered frantically at the approach of a gowned assistant. But how warm the shop was, how enormous, and how ready he was to take no notice of her dismay.

  ‘You can, I can and we must,’ he said. ‘If you freeze, sweet child, what will be said about me?’ He spoke to the assistant, who seemed grander than the Empress in her manner. Whatever it was he said to her, her grandness melted. She looked at Karita, smiled in totally committed admiration of the girl’s colouring and led her up three carpeted steps to a wide, deep alcove sumptuous with padded chairs and tall mirrors. The next thing Karita knew was that she was being helped into a thick sable coat, deeply, glossily black. Oh, the warmth, the enclosing warmth and richness, the sensation of comfort and elegance. Kirby did not ask the price. It was not that kind of establishment. He merely said it would do very nicely.

  ‘That is, if it will also do for you, Karita. Will it?’

  Every mirror told her it would, and her shining brown eyes told him. She was gold and black. Madame herself joined them and was enraptured. She had a girl bring fur hats and they found one to match the sable coat. Karita pulled it on over her braided hair. The sable coat and the Cossack-style hat eliminated Karita the maid and presented her as a vivid, radiant beauty. Kirby felt an immense pleasure.

  ‘Ivan Ivanovich?’ she said faintly and in entreaty.

  ‘Look at yourself,’ he smiled, and she turned and the mirrors reflected the rich, glossy picture that was herself.

  ‘Beautiful, oh so beautiful,’ said the gowned assistant.

  ‘Enchantée, enchantée,’ said Madame, to show she was on speaking terms with the nobility. She clapped her hands discreetly and the inevitable samovar appeared. The hot, steaming tea was drunk and the transaction settled most congenially, the cost not being mentioned until the very last moment and then confided in no more than a murmur. Karita was dumb now as well as numb. She was to keep the sable on, her damp coats carefully wrapped and put into a silver-coloured box.

  They went to another shop and he bought her warm winter boots. And when they were in the droshky again, Karita, booted and furred, was warm and beautifully snug, except for the tip of her nose. But the cold on her face was an exhilarating tingle now that she was so warm everywhere else.

  However, her situation needed thinking about. She was not a simple girl and the Karinshka Palace had never been a rest home for the purely conventional. Princess Aleka and her guests had always been far from that. Karita knew that when some men gave expensive gifts to girls it was not in unconditional benefaction. What she did not know was whether the Englishman would require payment for gifts rendered.

  If
he turned out to be such a man as that she would rather give the gifts back. And it would never be the same after that.

  The droshky swished over the snow, the horse’s clop-clopping muffled. The city was alive now, bright with lights, a white fairyland under a black sky. People walked about in brisk defiance of the cold.

  ‘Karita, are you all right?’

  ‘I’m in amazement at you, Ivan Ivanovich.’

  ‘Are you really, now. Will you tell me why it’s monsieur one moment and Ivan Ivanovich the next?’

  ‘It’s new to me to have you for my father and mother,’ she said, ‘I’m not used to it yet.’

  ‘Naturally, it doesn’t confuse me,’ he said. ‘What are you in amazement at, about me?’

  ‘You’ve spent a fortune on me,’ she said.

  ‘Well, as your father and mother I’ve a right to. And you look lovely, little pink nose.’

  Her eyes shone, the flakes melting as they touched her lashes. The droshky went on to the east side of the Neva, taking them to the apartment which his people had selected and rented for him. The driver pulled up outside the tall, five-storey building, its many windows soft with curtained light. As Kirby helped Karita descend to the pavement a closed carriage came along. Its passenger, a woman, peered through the falling snow. She called out and the carriage braked to a halt, the horse slithering a little. The door swung open, she almost leapt from the vehicle and came swiftly over the snow, her furs glistening, her pale face alight.

  ‘Ivan! Oh, Ivan Ivanovich!’

  Ignoring Karita and caring nothing for the droshky driver, who had descended to help with the luggage, she flung herself into Kirby’s arms. She pressed close, her dark eyes like black shadows, her auburn hair enclosed by her fur hat.

  ‘Well I never,’ said Kirby, ‘my good fortune, I presume, Highness?’

  ‘Devil, monster!’ cried joyful Princess Aleka and kissed him resoundingly. Her mouth was warm from her closed carriage, his had been touched by the damp cold, and the contact was a tingling, emotive sensation for each. ‘Oh, how happy I am, Russia has reclaimed you, I’ve reclaimed you. Russia and I are both irresistible. I—’ She broke off, conscious now that the person she had ignored was a girl in a rich black sable coat. ‘Who is this?’ she asked disgustedly.