‘Yes, we have tomorrow,’ he said, ‘we at least have survived.’
‘God has been very good to you and me,’ said Karita.
He was not sure of God’s benefaction, not now.
His arm tightened around her shoulders. She pressed closer. They stayed there, oblivious of other people slowly drifting away to find warmer places or places where they might weep unseen. They stayed there with the sea wind tugging at their worn, belted coats, watching the wake of the steel ship as it took them from Russia and carried them home.
Everyone was on deck again to see new shores and to get in the way of the crew. The December afternoon was misty bright, the winter sun drawing up the vapours of melting frost. They saw the land, the greens as deep as those of the Crimea, they saw a multitude of anchored ships of war. In an hour they would step ashore.
‘I’m so glad to be here,’ said Karita.
‘Because it’s here that I don’t shout at you?’ said Kirby.
‘Oh, no,’ she said.
They heard the laughter of men above the buzz of excited refugees. Princess Aleka Petrovna was delighting some of the ship’s officers. She was fur-clad, she was brilliant and beautiful. She had bought the fur from a woman who had little else. She had received half a dozen proposals. She had laughed at all of them. She had loved only two men and one of them was dead. The other she had lost, she knew she had lost and restlessly she looked for other stimulants. Officers would do for the time being. But at a pause in the laughter she excused herself and made her way over to Karita and Kirby.
‘Ivan,’ she said, ‘we’re to see each other in London? You’ll not desert me altogether?’
‘We’ll always be the best of friends, Aleka.’
‘I wish you’d stop saying that,’ she said. She smiled, her dark eyes sly. ‘I’ve arranged to buy a house in London. You must visit me often. Whenever you need love and not friendship I’ll be happy to make you happy, darling.’
Karita clenched her teeth.
‘You must think of yourself, Aleka, not of me, said Kirby. He owed Aleka something she did not realize. She had led him to Olga Nicolaievna. He would not desert her altogether.
‘I am thinking of myself, you fool,’ said Aleka. ‘But I shan’t sit around waiting on your magnificence, I shall join the British Socialist Party.’
‘Good God,’ said Kirby. He was a little sly himself as he added, ‘You must get to meet Sidney and Beatrice.’
She laughed. It was too spontaneous, he thought. Too brittle. The dark smoky eyes recaptured for him the moment when he had first met her at Nikolayev. But they were not the same eyes. And he knew she was haunted too. But not by the same things, the same people, as he was. She was haunted by disillusionment, by having lost all and gained nothing. Her revolution had lacked manners. That she could neither forget nor forgive.
She turned to Karita. Impulsively she put her arms around her, embraced her and whispered, ‘Oh, don’t be angry with me for ever, Karita, you don’t know how lonely I am, how I envy you.’ She pressed her mouth to Karita’s cheek and then went back to the stimulation of the officers. She was merry in moments.
‘Aleka Petrovna is laughing again,’ said Karita.
‘No,’ said Kirby, ‘she isn’t. We all lost something, Karita.’
‘But the war is over now, now we have tomorrow, don’t we?’
It was over, except in Russia, where they still fought each other and murdered each other. Here in England and Europe the politicians were already preparing to write their memoirs, which would be full of reasons why it was all someone else’s fault. Pageantry and glitter had gone, empires had disintegrated. Republicanism in a plain suit was claiming its turn. There would be less privilege, more equality.
There would be less poverty, less oppression and less blindness.
The beauty and the graciousness had been too expensive.
The world would be painfully reborn.
The land was closer, they could see the harbour, the rooftops, everything soft and hazy in the winter sunshine.
‘Ivan,’ said Karita, her eyes on the flowing sea, ‘did Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna love you?’
The pain was there, the longing, the sadness.
‘She wasn’t an ordinary girl, Karita, she wasn’t allowed to love like other people.’
‘That’s not an answer,’ said Karita, ‘but I didn’t really need to ask. You’re luckier than so many men, aren’t you? Olga Nicolaievna did love you. There were so many things that I saw but didn’t think about at the time. And Aunt Charlotte loves you. I love you. And Aleka Petrovna wants you.’
‘Karita, my sweet,’ he said in affectionate concern.
‘Oh, I would so like to be loved myself,’ she said.
Heedless of the crowded deck he turned her, he lifted her face up to his. He felt shock. Karita Katerinova, with whom he had shared so much, endured so much, and to whom he owed so much, was crying.
‘Karita, can you think I don’t care for you? We have been together so long, you and I, shared joys and sorrows, tragedies and love. When I look at you I see everything I’ve had from life, everything I’ve had from Russia. In you I see Russia, I see Livadia and yes, even Olga. You are everything I love about your country, you’re my life, my happiness, my tomorrow. In you I see the sun and the snow, I hear the children of the Tsar, I hear their songs and your songs, I see Russia as I loved it, as I still love it. I dearly wish you’d marry me, Karita. If not, then I’ll have nothing, no beauty, no peace, no tomorrow. What Olga meant to me was a cherishing of innocence, what you mean to me is yourself. Karita, my little one, I love you very very much.’
Karita was sobbing as if all the tears of Russia were drowning her. People were looking, gaping.
‘Karita, will you marry me?’
The grey warship was gliding through calm, sunlit waters. Karita’s golden head lifted and she smiled through her tears.
‘Oh, I would like to so very much,’ she said, ‘we should be such a proper family then.’
He kissed her on the lips.
Aleka Petrovna saw. She winced.
Kirby took Karita’s hand as they stood side by side and watched England come to meet them. He did love her. She was very dear to him. He would never tell her how close Olga would always be to him, however, never tell her how Olga would always be first in his heart. He would live with that and in such a way that he would not cheat Karita of love.
Her hand was warm, her fingers long and slim, loving and possessive.
He looked into the sun, and it was Olga’s hand, soft and clinging, that he felt around his.
She came out of the sun, her blue eyes dancing, her lustrous hair tipped with gold.
‘Colonel Kirby, you have been a very long time again …’
THE END
About the Author
Mary Jane Staples was born, bred and educated in Walworth, and is the author of many bestselling novels including the ever-popular cockney sagas featuring the Adams family.
Also by Mary Jane Staples:
The Adams Books
Down Lambeth Way
Our Emily
King of Camberwell
On Mother Brown’s Doorstep
A Family Affair
Missing Person
Pride of Walworth
Echoes of Yesterday
The Young Ones
The Camberwell Raid
The Last Summer
The Family at War
Fire Over London
Churchill’s People
Bright Day, Dark Night
Tomorrow is Another Day
The Way Ahead
Year of Victory
The Homecoming
Sons and Daughters
Appointment at the Palace
Changing Times
Spreading Wings
Family Fortunes
A Girl Next Door
Ups and Downs
Out of the Shadows
A Sign of the Times
The Soldier’s Girl
Other titles in order of publication
Two for Three Farthings
The Lodger
Rising Summer
The Pearly Queen
Sergeant Joe
The Trap
The Ghost of Whitechapel
Escape to London
The Price of Freedom
A Wartime Marriage
Katernia’s Secret
The Longest Winter
Natasha’s Dream
Nurse Anna’s War
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THE SUMMER DAY IS DONE
A CORGI BOOK: 9780552150934
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781446488089
First published in Great Britain in 1976 by
Souvenir Press Ltd under the name Robert Tyler Stevens
Corgi edition published 2009
Copyright © Robert Tyler Stevens 1976
Mary Jane Staples has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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