The Summer Day is Done (21 page)

‘Love is one thing,’ said Andrei, ‘to be devoured is another. Is there some champagne?’

A liveried servant, self-trained to telepathic perfection for moments like this, bore down on them with a tray of filled glasses. They each took a glass. The golden liquid popped around the rims.

Not until the food had gone did the guests depart. They were as loquacious as ever and for minutes the street outside was full of loud voices, and then all was quiet. Aleka slumped into a chair, stretched her legs in ecstasy. The room was littered. Cigarette smoke curled lazily around walls and ceiling. The roaring fire had subsided.

‘Open a window,’ said Aleka.

Andrei paled.

A servant appeared, parted vast hanging curtains and opened a window. Damp, icy air rushed madly in to heat itself. Andrei shivered. Aleka breathed deeply. Earrings ruby red depended from her pierced lobes and three strands of matching stones rested like fire around her neck and over her bosom. Kirby put his head out of the window. The Prospekt Nevskiy was a cold, brilliant white.

‘Man’s inhumanity to man is a sad thing,’ said Andrei, and retreated from the incoming cold to stand with his back to the fire.

‘You can shut it now,’ said Aleka. Kirby closed the window. ‘Well, Ivan, what did you think of my guests?’

‘Didn’t I meet most of them at Karinshka last year?’ he said.

‘Are you mad?’ she said.

‘They sounded the same.’

‘Andrei, did you hear that?’ She was reclining in feline content. ‘That is our Ivan come back to us, isn’t it? Andrei, isn’t he precious? How did we ever manage to be amused without him?’

‘I haven’t been amused,’ said Andrei, ‘not with everyone so distressingly agitated about everyone else. No one is taking the time to enjoy life, everyone is in a hurry to make things respectably dismal for the rest of us. They are all talking about saving Russia. Ah, poor innocents, in saving it their way they’ll destroy it, and then they’ll say, “What happened?”’

‘Andrei, you see,’ smiled Aleka, ‘is at last becoming involved. He’s actually beginning to talk. We will all talk. It is nice now, just the three of us. Ivan, socialism is getting stronger all the time. We shall yet have it while we’re still young.’

‘You won’t like it,’ said Kirby.

‘Oh, you are a Tsarist, of course. You can’t see any good in socialism.’

‘I can see it would work for others,’ he said, ‘but not for you, Aleka.’

‘Because I’m a Boyar and wealthy? Pooh,’ she said, ‘you think I wish to remain privileged? I am for a socialist Russia and I can’t make conditions to preserve this for myself or that for myself. I wouldn’t want to. If I have to I’ll work. I would not be ashamed to. I will work for the state.’

She never could, thought Kirby. It would drive her mad. She would die if she were chained, and she had no idea of what work entailed, even less idea of what work for the state meant. Others could accept it, would accept it. Aleka could not. She wanted to think she could, but it would stupefy
her, destroy her. She was born to invigorate people, to amuse, to shock, to entertain. When Rome burned, aristocrats turned to their fiddles. Socialists did away with fiddles. Cromwell did away with them in England. The people hated it.

Before Aleka could endure it in practice, socialism would have to become sophisticated. It would have to grow up.

There was only one way she could work for the state. In the theatre. There she would make the workers laugh and cry.

‘Become an actress,’ he suggested.

‘My dear man,’ said Andrei, ‘she is already a prima donna.’

‘You see how Ivan can dislike me at times?’ said Aleka. ‘I don’t mind being beggared for the cause, but I do mind being disposed of. He’d dispose of me by putting me to work in the decadent theatre. That’s all he thinks I’m good for, to paint my face, put on costume and prance about. I should hope I was more invaluable to socialism than that. You see what love has done for him, Andrei? It’s made him sour. Poor Ivan, did you find her in love with another?’

Kirby thought of Felicity Dawes.

‘I had an aberration,’ he said, ‘and now I daren’t look her in the face again.’

‘How fortuitous,’ said Andrei, ‘and how convenient. But that, of course, is what aberrations are for. I have had a hundred.’

Karita was extremely impressed by St Petersburg. It was so different from any Crimean town, so
much more expansive and inspiring. The snow might be cold and damp at the moment but by the turn of the year the atmosphere would become clear, sparkling and brilliant.

Kirby introduced his glowing, excited servant to the city, and Karita, snug and warm in her new furs, rode with him in droshkies or sleighs that sped over every fresh fall of snow to set her face tingling. The centre of the city was dominated by the ancient Admiralty buildings, constructed under the guiding hand of Peter the Great, and the wide streets radiated in long, straight prospect from this focal point. The theatres and opera houses were cultural monuments to the city’s greatness, and Karita’s eyes opened wide at their magnificent exteriors. She liked it best at night, when the frozen snow sparkled with a million eyes of reflected light under the lamps, when the capital came to glittering life and its privileged aristocracy rode on their swift, jingling sleighs to theatres, restaurants and clubs.

She did not mind the cold. She was healthy, the blood of her Tartar ancestors warm in her veins. In her fur hat and sable coat, her golden skin glowing, her brown eyes alive, she looked young, eager and beautiful. Kirby thought her the most attractive and companionable of persons. More, he found her interest in St Petersburg a channel into which he could pour the attention he could not give to Olga. Sometimes she even reminded him of Olga. That was when she was lost in wonder and curiosity, and when, because St Petersburg contained so much that was awe-inspiring, she was a little unsure of herself.
Sometimes she even seemed shy. Not in quite the way that Olga was, but in the way that many girls of the era were.

He had a tendency to tease her. Karita did not mind that a bit. He teased her because she always insisted on bringing breakfast to him in bed. Karita had never known any member of the nobility who got up for breakfast at Karinshka, and so she blushed at his suggestion that it would be easier and more convenient if they breakfasted together in the kitchen.

‘But that would never do, never,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘It’s not proper to start with. It would look very odd.’

‘What else?’

‘People would think I was neglecting my duties if you had to get up to eat.’

‘Very well,’ he said from the comfort of his bed, ‘from now on I’ll take lunch and dinner in bed in addition to breakfast. We can’t have people talking about you.’

‘Lunch and dinner aren’t the same thing at all,’ said Karita primly, ‘and it’s no good looking down your nose, I know when you’re teasing me.’

She was very upset one day at his suggestion that it might be desirable to engage a second servant, perhaps a cook.

‘I’m not satisfactory? I cannot cook?’

‘You’re very satisfactory, and you cook beautifully. But you do every bit of the work.’

‘But you make no work, only a little,’ she said. ‘Is it because I’ve done something wrong?’

‘No, little treasure, it’s because you ought to
have company,’ he said, ‘I leave you alone too much at night. At Karinshka you were never alone.’

But she was sure he had found some fault in her. She did not mind too much if he engaged another servant, but she would mind very much if it was because she was inadequate in some way.

‘But I’ve made friends with other servants in the other apartments,’ she said, ‘and we often sit together in the evenings. However, monsieur, you must decide, of course.’

He smiled. Monsieur was how she now addressed him when she was on her dignity. He put his hand under her chin, lifting her face. It was a familiar gesture of affection. It turned Karita rosy. He was going to kiss her.

‘No, Karita, you decide,’ he said, ‘and if ever you want another servant to help with the work, I’ll engage one. I’m more than happy to leave it to you. Are you moderately happy?’

‘Oh, I’m very happy, Ivan Ivanovich,’ said Karita.

He smiled. But he didn’t kiss her, after all. Nor had he ever said anything about her sable coat to indicate that she was expected to be generous herself.

The following day, in response to a message, he went to the offices of the Imperial Import & Export Company. Reflecting on the fact that the undercover administration of his trade was so often established behind the façade of this kind of business, he felt he couldn’t be the only one
who realized this. The manager, a man from Hampshire called Brown, received him genially, took him into another office and there he was welcomed in fatherly fashion by Anstruther.

‘My, dear sir,’ said Kirby, ‘have you been promoted or demoted?’

‘You will have your little joke,’ said Anstruther. St Petersburg’s winter had paled his brown face somewhat, but to compensate he wore a chocolate-brown suit. ‘So you’re interesting yourself in politics?’

‘I’ve been meeting people while waiting for someone to call me,’ said Kirby, ‘but I’ve never been interested in politics. Politics benefit only politicians. I like people myself.’

‘Dear me,’ said Anstruther, ‘it’s not like you to sound depressed.’

‘Dear me,’ said Kirby.

‘But I agree with you, of course. Politicians must have their games to play. You and I are safer on the sidelines. Politics are made up of Utopian promises and unsatisfactory consequences. I must tell you that they think you’re doing an excellent piece of liaison work with the socialists here, but no one can trace the source of the assignment.’

‘It’s not an assignment, as you well know. I’ve merely attended some receptions given by the Princess Karinshka. They’ve been very wearing.’

Anstruther looked sympathetic.

‘Yes, I can understand that,’ he said. ‘But interesting, all the same. And a fine piece of freelance work. Write us a report, will you? It
will be useful to know the current opinions of the radicals, it might give us some idea of whose side they’ll be on in the event of an international crisis.’

‘What opinions d’you think I hear? People at a Russian reception all talk at once. You couldn’t hear a bomb drop.’

‘Oh, come now,’ said Anstruther, toying with a sample tin of export pink salmon, ‘you must know what they’re saying. Every little helps, you know. And it’s for the benefit of the people in the long run. We’ll expect something from you in a couple of days. Meanwhile, comfort yourself with some personally good news. You’ve been gazetted into the army. It’s in
The Times
. In the spring you’ll join our mission of military observers at the Russian manoeuvres and so on. You’ll like the fact that it’s an entirely straightforward job, aside from the opportunity you’ll have of checking certain aspects of that armament and munitions report we had from you. You’ll make an ideal observer and we hope you’ll like the uniform. We’re committed now to being as friendly as possible towards Russia. We look upon them as our future allies. You can be nice to them without feeling the pangs of deceit. By the way, they’ve made you a colonel. There’ll be red tabs as well. Your home regiment is the 14th Hussars. I don’t suppose you’ll quibble at that. I’ll let you know when the uniform is ready. Until then just let us have a report now and again on how the radicals are thinking. I don’t think we want a revolution here at the moment. It could drastically affect the balance of power.’

‘I feel,’ said Kirby, ‘that you’ve been reading all that from
The Boys’ Friend
. It’s full of good clean fun and adventure. You don’t, I suppose, know what happens in the next chapter?’

‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ said Anstruther briskly. ‘Is your apartment satisfactory? It was the best we could get.’

‘My servant thought a house overlooking the river would have been better.’

‘H’m,’ said Anstruther, ‘your servant must think you’re a lord.’

‘She does,’ said Kirby, ‘I told you that before.’

Princess Aleka was endeavouring to lionize him. He was her new interest for the moment, and she felt he was intriguing enough to do justice to her talent for finding social lions. He soon realized what she was up to. She was lionizing herself. On one occasion she introduced him to a circle of acquaintances and hangers-on as an Englishman who had rubbed shoulders with radical notabilities like George Bernard Shaw.

He drew her aside.

‘I’ve never met George Bernard Shaw and he wouldn’t want to meet me.’

‘Don’t be so modest,’ she said, ‘and please don’t shout.’

‘Why not? Everybody else does.’

‘Don’t be tiresome, darling.’ She was cool and decorous in light grey, high-necked. ‘What’s the matter with you? Do you wish me to find you a woman?’

‘I’m still trying to find you a man.’

‘You are an absolute pig,’ she said. ‘Everything could so easily be perfect, we could make devastating love together, but no, you avoid me, you leave as soon as my receptions are over. Ivan, you aren’t a bit nice to me.’

He surveyed her grey-clad elegance. She was as sly and as fascinating as a red-headed witch at the moment. It was an afternoon salon, her guests mostly radical intellectuals who were already launched into their habitual monologues. The buzz began to rise and fall.

He had brought Karita with him. She was helping to look after the guests. Intellectuals were the most ravenous of them all. Karita’s main responsibility, however, was to use any excuse she could to get her master away by five o’clock.

‘Aleka,’ he said, ‘I can’t make devastating love to a woman who passes me around.’

‘Oh, don’t be so bourgeois, you’re acting like a shopkeeper who goes home at night to be respectable. And I’m not passing you round, I’m having you meet people who matter. Please, darling, be a little intelligent this afternoon, there are people here who are dying to hear all about Sidney and Beatrice from you.’

‘Sidney and Beatrice?’

‘Yes, you know, the Webbs of London. They’ve written books about a new social order and are very expert on the principles of gradual socialism. They are greatly admired here, so I said, of course, that you’d talk about them.’