The Summer Day is Done (31 page)

Olga read the passage slowly, evenly, ensuring no mistakes or hesitations to spoil the rhythm
of the verse, although there was a catch in her voice that imparted a little breathlessness to the last line. Then the silence was soft. She glanced up. He was still, his eyes fixed on distant trees, newly verdant, his expression so sombre that she thought he was locked in sadness. She trembled. Her teeth caught on a quivering lip and stilled it. When Kirby turned his head and looked at her she smiled brightly.

‘You see, you were nearly asleep,’ she said.

‘Bassanio, of course,’ he said, ‘knew he was undeserving of a love like that. So is any man. Olga, how well you read Shakespeare.’

She closed the volume. And the only thing she could think of to say then was, ‘We heard you aren’t to marry Aleka Petrovna, after all. I am so sorry.’ She had not mentioned the broken engagement to him at all until now. She did not know why she did so then. Perhaps because of Bassanio and Portia.

‘It isn’t a matter to be sorry about,’ said Kirby, smiling. ‘We weren’t in love. It was a mutually happy parting. It’s something better done before than left too late to be done at all.’

‘Aleka Petrovna could not have been as happy as that,’ said Olga quietly, ‘and you have to think about the future if you’re to have grandchildren eventually.’

‘Olga, there are always other people’s grandchildren to talk to. Do you think about your future or is it all written out for Grand Duchesses when they’re born?’

‘My future? Oh, I don’t think about it at all,’ she said. ‘Well, I don’t think about being a Crown
Princess, I think about how happy I am now. It really is quite delicious to— well it is.’

‘What is delicious?’

‘To read Shakespeare to you and almost send you to sleep.’

In the quietness of the gardens, in the sunshine that caressed a happy Grand Duchess, a man and a girl laughed.

Alexandra observed the glow in Olga’s eyes, the enchantment life held for her each day. But Alexandra said nothing. And when savage revolution struck its most terrifying blow perhaps Alexandra blessed her own forbearance in letting Olga, the most sensitive and modest of her daughters, have her limited happiness.

There was an Easter ball and Livadia that evening was crowded with brilliance and people. Both Olga and Tatiana attended. Olga, her shapely figure gowned in white, her diamond tiara regal on her piled hair, looked softly beautiful. Tatiana, also with her hair up and her tiara catching fire, wore a ballgown of pale, lambent green. The state dining room, its chandeliers ablaze, was glittering. The more exalted officers competed for the privilege of dancing with the Grand Duchesses, but neither Olga nor Tatiana permitted their cards to be filled.

Olga’s eyes kept searching everywhere. When she was dancing and when she was not she was looking into corners.

‘Tatiana,’ she said when they were pausing for breath after one dance, ‘isn’t it strange that
Colonel Kirby is missing? I can’t see him anywhere.’

‘It’s worse than strange,’ said Tatiana, fluttering her fan, ‘it’s shockingly neglectful. I’ve saved him three dances and he isn’t here for any. All my irresistible allure is being wasted on officers who want to introduce me to their favourite horses. There’s one quite nice young man, but he’s so overcome by my unsurpassed loveliness that his mouth is open all the time.’

‘Well, be careful he doesn’t swallow you,’ said Olga, ‘you are very unsurpassed tonight, sweet. Which dances have you saved?’ They compared cards, their jewelled heads close. ‘Tasha, no! You’re to dance the last with someone else, I’ve already promised that Colonel Kirby shall engage himself to me for that.’

‘How could you have if he isn’t here?’

‘Tatiana, you are not to argue.’

Tatiana did not miss her sister’s rising pink, but she only said with sighing woe, ‘Ah me, and I did imagine myself divinely waltzing with him. And Ivan wouldn’t just have his mouth open, he’d say the most deliciously immortal things about my bewitching beauty. Oh well, with his arm still in plaster perhaps he couldn’t manage to dance, anyway. Or perhaps the awful wretch has forgotten the ball is tonight and will appear tomorrow instead?’

‘Darling, go and ask Mama,’ said Olga, ‘she’ll know why he isn’t here.’

Tatiana eyed her sister. Olga looked adorable. Colonel Kirby really was a wretch. Olga had
spent ages preparing for the ball and he wasn’t here to appreciate it.

‘Very well,’ said Tatiana, ‘and perhaps it’s better that I ask.’

Alexandra, seated because her limbs ached so, smiled as Tatiana approached. How beautiful the girl was tonight.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘you look quite the prettiest young lady, Papa and I are so proud of you and Olga.’

‘Yes, I am rather divine tonight,’ said Tatiana. ‘Mama, where is Colonel Kirby?’

Alexandra looked round. Her ladies-in-waiting were, however, chatteringly engaged with the Tsar’s suite of officers. She did not want too much curiosity evoked about Colonel Kirby. There was enough of it already.

‘My love,’ she said, ‘he has begged to be excused because of his arm. He felt he could only stand about and look out of place.’

‘But, Mama,’ said Tatiana, ‘he was playing in the gardens with us this afternoon and throwing a ball about. He wasn’t standing about at all.’

‘Darling, he has begged to be excused and I could not refuse.’ Alexandra spoke with gentle finality. ‘I shall be going up soon, I’m a little tired and Papa says we aren’t too formal tonight. Will you and Olga come up with me to say goodnight? Then you may return and enjoy yourselves and Papa will keep an eye on you. He says if he doesn’t both of you are quite likely to be carried off.’

‘Papa is sweet,’ said Tatiana. She did not quite know what Olga was going to say now. Her sister
had made herself as inconspicuous as possible near the buffet so that she could still keep her dance card free.

‘Tasha?’ She was a little anxious. ‘What did Mama say?’

‘It’s just as I thought,’ said Tatiana, ‘it’s his arm. He thinks he would only be awkward with it, so he begged Mama to excuse him.’

Olga looked incredulous.

‘He’s not attending at all?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Tatiana gently, ‘it’s because he isn’t thinking of himself but Mama. Mama knows you’ve spent an awful lot of time with him and perhaps—’

‘I see,’ said Olga quietly, ‘I see.’

She danced. She smiled as she danced. So many people said how lovely she had become this last year, how modest she was, how unflirtatious. When Alexandra retired both her daughters accompanied her to her suite. Despite her aching limbs she moved gracefully through the state hall, acknowledging bows and curtseys with her nervous smile.

The three of them peeped in on Alexis. The Tsarevich was wrapped in childish slumber, peaceful and without pain. Alexandra stooped to press the lightest kiss on his hair. In her boudoir she said goodnight to her daughters, enjoining them to return to the festive ball. They kissed her warmly, affectionately.

Olga was very quiet as she and Tatiana left Alexandra’s boudoir, she said nothing as they traversed a shining corridor. Tatiana put an arm around her.

‘Sister, don’t be doleful, it’s such a splendid ball,’ she said. ‘And it isn’t as bad as you think, Ivan is only trying to do what’s right. Olga, you simply mustn’t think about him so much. He is being good, you must be good too.’

‘Good?’ Olga’s whisper was almost fierce. ‘Is it being good to neglect us so, to stay away without even telling us? He didn’t have to dance, he could have attended.’

‘Olga,’ said Tatiana, ‘he’s doing this because it’s sensible.’

‘Sensible?’ Olga stopped as they reached a wide, shining landing. The noise of the ball reached them as a muted agglomeration of sounds and echoes. ‘Oh, that is a stupid, useless word!’

‘You are going to get shockingly upset in a moment, I know you are,’ said Tatiana. ‘Olga, sweetest, dearest, he’s doing it because – oh, because he’s so much in love with you that he’ll do nothing to make things impossible. You must help him, you must dance all night with everyone else—’

‘Tasha, did he say that?’ Olga trembled so violently that Tatiana caught her by the arms. ‘Did he tell you that he — no, he didn’t, he could not, he must not.’

‘Darling, he didn’t tell me anything, but he adores you, it’s the most obvious thing I’ve ever seen.’ Tatiana gently squeezed her sister. ‘You must be happy with that, he’ll never hurt you, never do anything to spoil what there is. That’s why Mama lets him stay, she trusts him. Darling, a ball is very romantic, it can weaken two people awfully—’

‘I am not going to dance with everyone else,’ said Olga. She was very still now, her blue eyes dark. ‘I am not. You go on, darling, I’ll come soon, I promise.’

Karita answered the light tapping on the door of Kirby’s suite. She opened her eyes wide to see Grand Duchess Olga, beautiful in her white ballgown, superb in her composed regality.

‘Karita, where is Colonel Kirby?’

‘Your Highness,’ said Karita apologetically, ‘he has gone out.’

The light was failing by the time Kirby reached a woodman’s hut half a mile from the palace. But half a mile was little in the vastness of the Imperial estate. A man called Peter Prolofski was there, a man in a dark blouse, black trousers and black hat. His white face was round. The black hat looked as if it sat on a shining moon. Kirby was aware of a second man, a shadowy figure in the background of the dim hut.

‘You’re late,’ said Prolofski. His voice was flat, toneless. Kirby sensed that here was a man who did not care very much for people as they were or for the world as it was.

‘Once I leave the palace to look for a place like this I’m a stranger to the estate,’ said Kirby, ‘and your message did not give me much time.’ The message had been handed to him by a blank-faced male servant. ‘What is it you want?’

Prolofski had no time for preliminaries, for unnecessary words.

‘I want Gregor Rasputin,’ he said.

‘Take him for all I care, I’m not his keeper,’ said Kirby.

‘Don’t waste my time,’ said Prolofski, his pale face expressionless, ‘you’re here to listen, to receive orders. Rasputin is the protector of Nicholas the Bloody. He doesn’t realize to what extent, but he is. The peasants believe in Rasputin the holy man, the holy man believes in the preservation of Tsarism. He believes in it because it enhances his own power. Without Tsarism he’d be nothing. But what Rasputin believes in the peasants believe in likewise. They’re proud that a holy man who is also a peasant has the Tsar’s favour. Therefore Rasputin must go. Therefore you, comrade, must see that he goes.’

‘I’m a small pebble, Rasputin is a mountain,’ said Kirby. ‘Tell me how a pebble can bring down a mountain. No, I’ll do other work for you, find out things for you, but I can’t touch Rasputin. My talent is for acquiring information.’

The darkening hut smelt dry and woody. Prolofski smelt of soap and leather. He also smelt of cold fanaticism. He did not need information. The stupidity of such a suggestion made him softly spit.

‘His death,’ he said, contemptuous of anything else, ‘must be seen as an act of the Romanovs. When the Romanovs eliminate Rasputin, the peasants will eliminate the Romanovs.’

‘That’s not a fact, that’s surmise,’ said Kirby. ‘I’m not a Russian, but I don’t think anyone can correctly guess what the people would do under any given set of circumstances, or even
guarantee that what they would do one day they would follow the next.’

‘You are a wriggler,’ said Prolofski. ‘We will see to the peasants, you will see to Rasputin. You will kill him with the good reasons of an Englishman, when you catch him attempting to outrage one of the Romanovs.’

Kirby went cold and rigid. The round moon of a face was blank, so were the eyes. They were like the eyes of a dead fish, as Karita had said.

‘Which Romanov is this?’ he asked.

‘There’s only one who will suit our purpose,’ said Prolofski, ‘one whom Rasputin has looked at often enough. Olga Nicolaievna.’

‘Yes?’ Perhaps his voice gave away his desire to do murder here and now, for the shadow in the background stirred.

‘You’re very close to the Romanovs,’ continued black-hatted moonface, ‘and can arrange matters for us better than anyone else. It can be done any time when Rasputin is in St Petersburg again, visiting his German harlot.’

‘Who is she?’ He surprised himself at his calmness, considering the heat and violence of the hammer in his head.

‘Alexandra the whore. If you say your talent is for acquiring information,’ sneered Prolofski, ‘you must have had your nose shortened recently. Or perhaps she has—’

‘Don’t say it. We need to work amicably. Go on with the relevancies.’

‘Simply, comrade, you’ll kill Rasputin when you find him attempting to outrage Olga Nicolaievna. You’ll hear her screams, go in,
chase him out, catch him and kill him. That is all that is relevant, except that you’ll need a pistol. Don’t try throttling him or you won’t live to see the revolution.’

‘What you mean,’ said Kirby, ‘is that I’ll wait for him somewhere in the Alexander Palace and shoot him in the back. He doesn’t have to be anywhere near the Grand Duchess.’

‘Of course.’ Prolofski permitted himself a shrug. ‘You aren’t a complete fool, are you? Where you kill him won’t matter, inside or outside the palace. What matters is the story, the reason. Olga Nicolaievna may perhaps deny it, she’s the type to prefer denial of truth or fiction rather than place herself in the public eye. Everyone knows this. Nothing will happen to you, Nicholas will be grateful to you whatever he thinks of Rasputin. The German whore will scream her head off, but you will be a hero. Who likes Rasputin apart from her?’ He spat again. ‘The peasants will be told that the creature died because of a lying Romanov, since we will do the telling. It would be convenient if you could persuade Olga Nicolaievna to forget her prudishness and co-operate. If she dislikes Rasputin, she doesn’t dislike you.’

Kirby felt a savage desire to blot out the face of the moon.

‘You think that the alternative of having the Imperial family know about me would be worse than this?’ he said. ‘You can forget about any possibility of the Grand Duchess co-operating in a plot to kill a man. She looks at the world in her own way and that sets her apart from people
like you and me. When I tell my story of why I killed Rasputin she’ll know I’m lying. You know that she’ll know. So I might as well accept the alternative.’