It was mid-January and the season was in full swing. Alive and invigorating at this time of the year, St Petersburg was a capital full of people in search of culture and pleasure. Its aristocrats were either oblivious of the country’s unrest or untroubled by it. Any unrest in the city itself was always dealt with so speedily by the authorities that it was never more than a temporary headline. The power of the Okhrana, with its vast army of servants and informers active throughout Russia, was such that potential agitations and demonstrations were crushed before they could be publicly organized. The nobles were confident too that the Tsar, when he eventually came to his senses, would disband the Duma once and for all. Indeed, if he would only instruct its president, Rodzianko, then Rodzianko would smother it by the sheer formidability of his will and his weight. Rodzianko was an aristocrat of great size and competence.
Unfortunately, he was not altogether in favour with Alexandra.
He did not like Rasputin.
The holy man had prophesied that while he lived the Tsar and the throne would be safe. Whether he said this out of genuine mystic conviction or to keep people like Rodzianko off his back, only Rasputin knew. Nothing he did or said made clear, practical sense: there was always an element of ambivalence, of ‘I alone know what I and God are talking about.’
The only thing that was obvious about him was his uncomplicated passion for women. Single-mindedly, unashamedly, he bore down on them like a bull. They were either seduced or ravished, overwhelmed or numbed. Some of them enjoyed it immensely.
However, he was not in St Petersburg at the moment and the city felt the better for his absence. On a white glittering night, clear and tinglingly sharp, the Imperial Opera House drew into its tiered auditorium patrons who had been privileged to acquire tickets for Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake. The critics in their tendentious search for the vague and abstract scorned the traditional appeal of Swan Lake. They proclaimed it rubbish, thus following in the footsteps of equally enlightened critics who had declared many of Beethoven’s works to be garbage. The people, in their simple rusticity, took Beethoven to their bosom and, in this later era, adored Swan Lake.
The Tsar was there that night with his two elder daughters (Alexandra rarely went to the opera or theatre). When he entered the Imperial box, the girls following, every member of the audience rose. The enthusiasm was emotional, the acclamation put a flush on the faces of the Grand Duchesses. The national anthem was sung with roaring Russian fervour, and at the end the Tsar responded with smiling gestures and this evoked more enthusiasm. Not until he sat down did the brilliantly dressed audience subside. He looked handsome, happy and resplendent in his uniform, and Olga and Tatiana were almost tearfully proud.
They sat one on each side of him, behind them a small, select entourage. Tatiana was eager, alive. In her sixteenth year her elegance was superb. In white gown, long white gloves, her auburn hair up and crowned with a tiara, she responded to looks and stares with unselfconscious smiles and nods. Olga was also gowned in shimmering white, with a tiara in her bright hair. Outwardly she seemed composed but the pink began to tint her cheeks at the attention focused on her. Whereas Tatiana looked around, hugely enjoying the atmosphere, her face expressive of her excitement, Olga took refuge in her programme, and because of her genuine interest in the ballet soon became absorbed in the notes.
The lights faded, the overture began. And when the curtain rose to admit the audience to the ballet’s magical world, Tatiana became entranced. Olga too lost herself heart and soul in the heaven of Tchaikovsky’s music, and as the story of Odette unfolded her blue eyes dreamed and she was utterly still.
At the interval the Imperial party retired from their box to the reception room where Nicholas, never free from social trivia on occasions like this, received the manager of the Opera House and various members of the company before enjoying some refreshment. He was in his usual good form, charming everyone and showing not the faintest sign that his Empire, as always, was rocking.
Returning to their box Tatiana acknowledged a gesture from the box opposite with a little wave of her hand.
‘Who is it you’re waving to?’ asked Olga.
‘Aleka Petrovna,’ said Tatiana, seating herself, ‘she’s here tonight with friends.’
The lights were fading as Olga glanced across. Princess Aleka was very much there, her silvery gown worn with risqué abandon off her shoulders. There was another woman and some men, but the lights dimmed to leave the box in semi-darkness as the curtain went up. Olga sought her opera glasses but was too shy to use them until the audience had become absorbed again in the ballet. Indeed, she had never used glasses on an audience, only to magnify a stage view. Within the shadows of the box she raised the glasses to her eyes and picked out the ballerina, a fantasy of spinning pas seul. Olga held the magnified image of light and grace, the brilliance of the fixed stage smile, and then briefly focused the glasses on the opposite box. The profile of Aleka Petrovna emerged from the half shadows, relaxed and engrossed. But during the short seconds of her observation Olga could not distinguish who the men were.
When the ballet reached its melodic, haunting end, Tatiana emitted an ecstatic sigh. Olga sat in pure, dreamy bliss, and only when the bouquets were being presented to the prima ballerina and the audience was still noisy with rapturous applause did she glance again at the box opposite. There were three men. She did not know any of them.
Tsarskoe Selo, some fifteen miles south of St Petersburg, was where the Imperial family spent most of the winter season. Removed from the life, opulence and political atmosphere of the capital, they created their own world of parochial detachment in well-guarded seclusion. At Tsarskoe Selo the antics of the Duma, the discontent of the people and the noise of revolutionaries were not intrusive. Here the family lived in united harmony, and the sounds of Olga or Tatiana at the piano created the atmosphere of happy Sundays in a middle-class home. The warmth and the peace within kept at bay the snow and the cold outside.
There were two palaces at Tsarskoe Selo. These were surrounded by the Imperial Park, and around the high iron railings of the park scarlet-clad Cossacks patrolled in mounted vigilance night and day.
The old structure, the Catherine Palace, was a hugely ornate edifice. It was entirely characteristic of its flamboyant builder, Catherine the Great. The Alexander Palace, the smaller of the two, had been erected by Alexander I on a less pretentious scale, and it was typical of the modest Nicholas to use the smaller and simpler building. Even so, the Alexander Palace had more than one hundred rooms, each one exquisitely furnished. Porcelain stoves heated the rooms, the stoves fed with timber. And throughout the winter Empress Alexandra kept the palace fragrant with a multitude of flowers, many of which were brought by train from her beloved Crimea.
Beyond the Imperial Park were the houses and mansions of the court nobility, making of Tsarskoe Selo an expansive Tsarist suburb.
It was warm, it was family in the Alexander Palace.
‘Olga, there you are,’ said Tatiana, entering the music room. Olga was sitting at the piano. Her elbows were on depressed keys, her chin cupped in her hands, and there was an open book propped on the music stand. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I am practising Bach,’ said Olga.
‘Do you think you’re better at it when you play with your elbows?’
‘I couldn’t be worse,’ said Olga.
‘But you aren’t playing, you’re reading. Move up.’ Tatiana pushed and made room for herself on the piano stool, achieving a precarious equality for both of them. ‘What is it you’re reading?’ She reached for the book. Olga reacted too late. Sisterly companionship turned into a whirl and scurry as Tatiana fled around the room with the book, Olga in pursuit.
‘Tatiana! Give it back!’
Tatiana hared back to the piano, ducked behind it and feigned to go first one way, then the other. Olga darted. Tatiana emerged, Olga swooped. She caught her sister by the hair. Tatiana yelled, astonished that Olga could be so fierce.
‘Olga, no! Oh, here is your old book, then, and could I please have my hair back?’
‘There.’ Olga, no longer agitated now that she had retrieved the book, ruffled her sister’s hair. The gesture was forgiving, affectionate.
‘Such a fuss,’ said Tatiana, ‘and it’s only that old Shakespeare of yours.’
‘It’s my new Shakespeare, if you must know.’
‘Is it?’ Tatiana sounded most interested. ‘So it is. Who would have thought Gregor would give you such a worldly book as that?’
‘Gregor? Gregor Rasputin?’ Olga knew she was being teased but for once she could not take it lightly. She tolerated Rasputin, she could not like him. Her mother passionately believed in his godliness, looked upon him as saintly and was sure it was by his hand that Alexis had recovered from the critical haemorrhage contracted in Poland during the autumn. Alexandra was Rasputin’s most ardent disciple. And because of his son’s weakness, that only Rasputin seemed to understand, and his wife’s belief, Nicholas accepted him too. A man regarded as a saintly friend by their parents had also of course a right to the friendship of the four Grand Duchesses. And Rasputin could be amusing. But he could also be coarse and familiar. He had often been at Tsarskoe Selo and, taking typically uncouth advantage of his influence with Alexandra, roamed in and out of every room as if he owned not only the palace but the Imperial family as well. He made remarks that shocked Marie, turned Anastasia pink, induced coolness in Tatiana and coldness in Olga. But because of their parents they bore with him. Olga only suffered him. He had once attempted to stroke her arm, she had removed herself immediately.
For all else that has been said about him, Rasputin was a fool. He made no secret of his belief that he was smarter than anyone else and that he had more foresight than presidents and prime ministers. Yet he could not see that as much as the health of Alexis and the security of Tsarism depended on him, he was even more dependent for his life and fortunes on the prestige and standing of the Emperor and Empress. For all his belief in his own superiority, he was too obtuse to realize that he himself was slowly destroying the reputation and credibility of the Imperial couple. In his stupidity he had even seduced the Grand Duchesses’ nurse. Alexandra refused to believe the woman and Nicholas would not even attempt to weigh the woman’s word against his wife’s convictions. But St Petersburg would and did, and it was Alexandra and Nicholas they found wanting.
None of Rasputin’s faults contributed more to the tragic turn of events than his stupidity.
And none of Tatiana’s teasing made Olga more unresponsive than that which touched on Rasputin.
‘You’re having one of your silly days,’ she said quietly.
Tatiana always knew when Olga was hurt. She felt the pangs of immediate contrition.
‘Olga – oh, you’re so sensitive, you know I didn’t mean it, you mustn’t get cross. You know I know Gregor wouldn’t give you any kind of book, he’s never read one himself in his life, he wouldn’t know the difference between a book and a candle. He’s just as likely to light the book and read the candle.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Olga.
Tatiana felt she would like to cry a little. Olga was growing up so, on her dignity so, trying to be old while she was still young. It was ridiculous. Sometimes when the sunshine was on the snow and they could all romp and frolic in its frosty softness, Olga would shake and brush the snow from her coat and say something about being too old for that sort of thing. It took all the enthusiasm of the others to make her rejoin the fun.
Tatiana knew why Olga desperately wanted to be a woman. But Olga herself should know one couldn’t hurry the process, and one shouldn’t try to when it was for an illusion. It would only make it worse, not better.
‘Olga,’ said Tatiana tenderly, ‘let me see.’ She put out a hand. Olga hesitated, then gave her the book. Tatiana opened it up and saw the inscribed flyleaf.
To Olga Nicolaievna, in gratitude for so much sunshine – J. Kirby, Livadia 1912.
‘You know,’ said Tatiana, ‘I think Ivan Ivanovich is so very much nicer than Gregor, but don’t tell—’
‘No, don’t tell Mama you said so,’ smiled Olga, and Tatiana smiled too. ‘Marie and Stasha are out with the sledge, shall we go too?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Tatiana, ‘and, Olga, please please don’t grow up without me.’
‘You’ll grow up before any of us,’ said Olga. ‘Go on, darling, I’ll follow you out in a moment.’
Tatiana went, happy to join her sisters in the crisp February sunshine, happy that Olga would follow. Olga tidied up the sheets of music on the piano. It was nearly March, Easter wasn’t so far away, and at Easter they always went to Livadia. She did not think it would be quite so lovely this time.
Leaving the music room she walked through polished, shining rooms and then came out into a corridor. Advancing towards her was all the panoply of what was certainly an official presentation. There were braided court dignitaries, Russian officers in full dress and British officers too. The panoply was martial, boots gleaming, sword scabbards clinking, and the khaki uniforms of the British were adorned with red shoulder tabs, their caps red-banded, tucked under their arms. As they approached the Grand Duchess the Russian officers acknowledged her. Olga’s response was a shy smile.
There was a smile too from one of the British officers. She caught it, she looked. She stopped, they all passed her. She gazed after them, at the officer who had smiled. He was taller than his colleagues. Her eyes were incredulous. But disbelief was in almost immediate conflict with delight, and disbelief lost. She hitched the skirt of her dress, the corridor was empty and Olga ran. It did not take her long to find out from the court chamberlain’s office what she wanted to know.
A British military mission was to be presented to the Tsar.
The Tsar received them in formal but friendly splendour, in uniform himself. With his own officers at his back he shook hands with each member of the British team. One of them was tall, bearded, and with deep grey eyes. Nicholas recognized him immediately. He beamed, he clapped him on the shoulder.
‘My dear fellow,’ he said, then shook Kirby’s hand heartily. ‘My dear fellow, I couldn’t be more pleased. This is excellent.’
‘It’s excellent to see you, sir,’ said Kirby.
‘Have you come to see how my generals play the game of war?’ Nicholas laughed. The other British officers looked on in great curiosity. No one had said that this new fellow, Colonel Kirby, was on speaking terms with the Russian Emperor. ‘That reminds me,’ Nicholas went on, ‘I always felt you would make a general yourself, but I didn’t see how I could arrange it. There would have been such jealousy, my dear chap. However, I now see that His Majesty has recognized your talents, although he’s been more cautious than I’d have been. So, you’re a colonel now. Ah, you’re an intriguing fellow, we had no idea we’d see you in the British army. A capital step, capital.’
The senior British officer, Brigadier Rollinson, muttered to his aide-de-camp, ‘Well, I’m damned.’ Major Gerard, the aide-de-camp, knew that could have meant anything and was best responded to by a sound from the back of the throat. Still, it was a rum go with this Kirby chap. He had popped up out of the blue. No one had ever heard of him before. Odds on he was somebody’s precious relative. Or somebody’s embarrassment. He might have been shoved off on this Russian beano in order to keep him out of the way for a while. But where the fellow was all wrong was in having a beard. It showed he was out of the blue all right, he must have upset an admiral’s daughter and been transferred from the Navy. Never been known before. Already Brigadier Rollinson had looked at his beard with a cold eye. It would have to come off sooner or later.
It did not offend Nicholas, of course. He clapped Kirby on the shoulder again and said, ‘Delighted to have met you again, we must play some more tennis, eh? But not in this weather.’
He was affable to all the British officers. Any of them who had preconceived ideas about autocrats were forced to revise them. Nicholas radiated good humour and kindness. The reception became one of easy informality, Russian officers mixing with the British and Nicholas moving around to talk to everyone. After the reception the Russians took charge of the British, having arranged to entertain them during the evening. They withdrew at the prescribed time, leaving the state room to pass through an anteroom.
There was a girl standing by one of the windows overlooking the white carpet of the snow-covered park. She wore a cream linen dress. The sun, slanting in through the window, etched her within its winter framework of sharp light. She turned as the officers came from the state room. Kirby saw her at once. He hesitated, then murmured an excuse to Brigadier Rollinson and broke away. As he came towards her Olga thought him taller than ever in his tailored uniform, but he was no different really. The smile was the same, his air of easy assurance the same.
And if she was a little taller herself and a little shapelier, she still had shyness and diffidence, there was still a shy desire that he speak first.
‘Your Highness, how lovely.’ He took her extended hand, bent and put his lips to her ring. ‘You are more the Grand Duchess than ever.’
‘Mr Kirby, I was in such surprise to see you.’ Her voice had its inimitable touch of breathlessness, her face its inevitable touch of pink. ‘And in uniform – I didn’t know you were in the British army.’
‘It was a surprise to me too when it happened,’ he smiled, ‘but one must be of service to one’s country sometimes. Am I not very agreeable in uniform?’
Impulsively she said, ‘Oh, you look—’ She checked herself. ‘You look very correct.’
‘I don’t think our senior officer quite agrees with that, he’s given me the oddest looks.’ He glanced out of the window and saw three winter-clad girls pulling a sledge over the snow. ‘That looks like your sisters, I wish I had the time to join them.’
‘They’d love it if you could.’ But she knew he couldn’t stay long.
‘I was so sorry to hear about Alexis,’ he said. ‘Is he better now?’
‘He’s better but not quite himself yet,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell him I saw you. Mr Kirby – oh, I suppose that isn’t right now –’
‘Colonel, then,’ he said. It was difficult to smile into her eyes without giving something of his feelings away.
‘Colonel Kirby,’ she said with an effort, ‘it will be Easter soon.’
‘Yes, I suppose it will.’
Her shyness was so intense that she sounded breathless as she whispered, ‘Oh, come to Livadia … come to Livadia …’
‘Is it just as beautiful at Easter?’ His longing was as intense as her shyness. And the hopelessness of it all was a pain.
‘Oh, more so,’ she breathed, ‘but for us, for all of us, it’s so much nicer when you’re there, and it would cheer Alexis so.’
Didn’t she realize that it was her mother who must ask him? He doubted if Alexandra would. However well disposed she was towards him, she was not likely to encourage any further association with Olga.
‘Highness—’
‘Why do you call me that?’ she said, a little hurt.
‘It can’t be helped at times, you know,’ he smiled. ‘Easter at Livadia would be wonderful but I’m not my own master now, Olga. I have to take orders. I must go, I’ll be keeping them waiting. Forgive me? But remember me to the children, tell them I miss them. I’ll think of you at Easter and be very envious. I’d like nothing better than to be there.’ He took her hand again. He put his lips to her fingertips. He heard her whisper breathlessly again.
‘Come to Livadia … please, Colonel Kirby.’
She did not go out to join the others, she returned to the music room. She tried to practise Bach. She was awful. She had the wish, the will, but she did not have Tatiana’s gifted fluency. And she could not read the music properly. It kept blurring.
Anna Vyrubova came. She found Olga sitting at the piano but not playing.
‘Have you heard?’ said Anna. ‘Our friend Ivan Ivanovich has been with other British officers. Would you believe it, he’s in the army and is a colonel. Your papa said it was very remiss of King George not to have made him a general.’
‘Did he?’ said Olga, looking hard at the music. ‘And what did Mama say?’
‘Only that it was very interesting.’
‘Anna,’ said Olga unhappily, ‘I am more dreadful at Bach all the time.’
‘What nonsense,’ said Anna, ‘you are very good. Your mama says she will listen to you and Tatiana Nicolaievna later.’
‘Perhaps Tatiana had better play Bach and I’ll play Beethoven.’
She played Beethoven very well later but thought all the time of Livadia.
Princess Aleka was hysterical with laughter.
‘Oh, Ivan Ivanovich! Andrei, come and see, they’ve made a soldier of him. How dashing, how sublime, how ridiculous! Andrei!’
Andrei entered the room, lazily casual in trousers and ruffed shirt. He looked at Kirby, groped for a chair and subsided astonished into it.
‘Sweet angels,’ he murmured, ‘is it really you, dear man?’
‘I thought you’d both approve,’ said Kirby, ‘I’m on honeymoon with the Russian army later and this is my going-away outfit.’
‘Your bride will be enraptured,’ said Aleka, ‘you are deliciously irresistible, isn’t he, Andrei?’
‘Not to me,’ said Andrei. ‘That is one deviation I can fight against. Ah,’ he said more cheerfully as a servant came to announce that his carriage was below, ‘that means I can go home and recover. You’ve been a shock to me, Ivan.’
It took him ten minutes to prepare for departure. When he had gone Aleka sighed.
‘There, you see,’ she said, ‘Andrei feels as I do. You’re a disappointment to both of us, Ivan. Armies, darling, are horribly anathematic. They’re a perpetual menace to people. Now you’re farther away from me than ever.’
‘It’s only so that I can officially observe Russian manoeuvres,’ said Kirby, ‘I shall remain with you in spirit, dear Princess.’
‘There’s no need to be like that now,’ she said, ‘come and sit with me.’ She was in soft black, chiffon-like, and disposed over a blue and gold chaise longue. He sat beside her, her scent delicately exotic. ‘Ivan?’ She moved closer and traced his left eyebrow with a cool white finger. ‘Why won’t you love me?’
‘Well, there’s Andrei,’ he said.
She drew back. She looked angry, offended.
‘What is he to do with it? He and I are only very dear friends.’
‘Yes, I know. And I’m an officer and a gentleman now. I can’t let Andrei down without staining the honour of the regiment.’
‘Oh, how amusing you are,’ she said cuttingly. ‘I am the one who is being let down if Andrei has talked about me.’ Her smile was sweetly bitter. ‘Is that why I’m distasteful to you, because of Andrei, because of other lovers?’
‘Andrei hasn’t said a word about you.’
‘Then you’re only guessing.’
‘And you aren’t at all distasteful, my sweet,’ he said.
‘I’m sure some people would think you a prig,’ said Aleka, ‘but I think you are much more than you seem. Are you, Ivan?’
‘I wonder about you too sometimes,’ he said.
Their smiles clashed a little.
‘You treat me very badly, you know,’ said Aleka. ‘I don’t ask you how many women you’ve made love to, but you, ah, you’re saying a woman has to be a virgin if you’re to grace her immaculate bed. That’s just like a man. What does it matter what Andrei and I do? It need not be anything to do with you and me. Kiss me and you will see.’
He kissed her. It took his mind off so much else. Aleka murmured and melted. The telephone rang. She let it ring, her arms around his neck. He infuriated her by disengaging to get up and answer it himself. It was Karita. For him.
‘There’s a man here, an Englishman,’ she said, ‘and he says he’s going to wait for you. He says his name is Brown. I told him I didn’t know when you’d be back but he’s waiting all the same, so I thought I’d telephone you.’
‘Of course, Karita. Tell him I’ll be there in twenty minutes. If he wishes it, give him something to drink.’
Aleka vibrated as he put the telephone back into its cradle.
‘You wouldn’t dare to go now,’ she said.
He stooped, he kissed her affectionately but without passion. She stared up at him, dark eyes smouldering.
‘Perhaps another time, dear Princess?’ he said.
‘What a swine you are,’ she said.
The man Brown turned out to be Anstruther.
‘I used my manager’s name,’ he said, ‘I thought it better. One never knows. I didn’t mind waiting. I’m not sure that the uniform wouldn’t have looked more impressive if we’d arranged for you to wear a few medals with it, but it’s difficult sometimes to think of everything. We can talk here, I suppose? Your maid is charming but not unsuspicious.’
‘You’re safe,’ said Kirby, ‘she scorns keyholes.’
‘Good,’ said Anstruther. He settled himself comfortably in his chair and crossed his legs. ‘I must say, we seem to have fixed you up very comfortably here. When do the Russian manoeuvres take place?’
‘Yes.’ Anstruther pursed his lips. He thought and then he said, ‘It seems you’ll have to get rid of your beard. Do you mind?’
‘I’ll miss it, naturally, I’ve had it a long time.’
‘Well, at least it’s had a good run,’ said Anstruther. ‘But Brigadier Rollinson doesn’t like it and to save him the embarrassment of quoting regulations to you and spoiling the esprit de corps of the mission, we thought you might volunteer a sacrifice. Otherwise the brigadier may insist that you be transferred back to the Navy. I know you’ve never been in the Navy, but he’s convinced that you have and that there’s some hanky-panky going on. Look, Kirby, my boy, you can keep the moustache, just take the beard off. Now, there’s just one thing more. It’s something else we’d like to help the Russians with. You did excellent work in Kiev, excellent. Do you think you’re up to doing something quite different?’
‘What is something quite different?’ Kirby knew by now that Anstruther’s brown fatherliness covered a multitude of whimsies that weren’t fatherly at all.
‘It’s the question of your engagement to the Princess Karinshka.’
‘I think I’ll have a brandy,’ said Kirby, ‘what would you like?’
‘A brandy will be excellent,’ said Anstruther gratefully, ‘your maid gave me wine which, unfortunately, was corked.’
Kirby did not bother to hide his smile. He poured brandies. Anstruther took his with murmured thanks. He began to explain. It was to do with co-operation, to help relieve the Russians of a minor embarrassment in the shape of Princess Karinshka. It was necessary to destroy her credibility as a serious socialist. Indeed, she was more than a socialist. She posed as that but she was, in fact, a committed revolutionary. Had she ever mentioned a trip to England and France?
‘Yes,’ said Kirby, ‘the police wanted her out of the way for a while, so she looked around Europe. She wasn’t very impressed.’
‘Wasn’t she? For most of that time she was with Lenin and other revolutionaries.’ Anstruther sipped his brandy but did not miss Kirby’s faint grimace.
It was necessary, Anstruther pointed out, to do something about the lady. She was attracting too much attention as a reformer. On the surface she appeared to be a political dilettante. This was merely a smokescreen hiding the fact that she was secretly working with the most dangerous people. There was always Siberia, but to send her there would enhance her standing as a genuine radical. It would never do to advertise that an aristocrat of her rank was so strongly opposed to Tsarism that she had to be removed to Siberia. It would be better to convince the people, especially her revolutionary friends, that she was a fake.
‘And the best way to do that,’ said Anstruther, ‘would be to announce her engagement to you, Colonel Kirby, an English aristocrat serving in His Majesty’s Imperial Forces and a personal friend of the Tsar himself. Nicholas would be delighted at the news. The princess is a great embarrassment to him at times.’
‘No more than you are to me,’ said Kirby, ‘and dammit, you don’t expect me to agree to this, do you? She won’t get sent to Siberia, she’s been kind to the Empress and the Empress doesn’t forget kindnesses.’
‘Really, Kirby,’ said Anstruther, shaking his head. ‘The Empress hasn’t seen the latest report on her activities. She’s in touch with the most dedicated of the exiled revolutionaries. If the Empress thought the princess was herself just as dedicated to destroying Tsarism, nothing could save her. Naturally, you’ll want to do your best for her. There have been rumours that you might marry her, you know. We hear she’s extremely attached to you. Perhaps I didn’t make it clear that you don’t have to ask her. We arrange a fait accompli by having the newspapers announce the engagement with some interesting personal details. It will be a surprise to you as well as to her, although it’s possible, from what we’ve heard, that she may consider it a happy surprise.’
‘Do you know the princess?’
‘Not socially,’ said Anstruther, ‘but in other fields. However, she has her weaknesses. There’s a chance that you’re one of them. We feel she won’t rush to deny the announcement, she may in the way of a woman even be blind at first to its political consequences, which will destroy her reputation as a serious revolutionary. Because of her background, that’s always been suspect. You, of course, will neither deny nor confirm the announcement. To all enquirers you’ll be non-committal. You’ll talk to her. You may come to a happy arrangement with her. I must point out that we aren’t actually asking that you marry her, but who knows? She may be delighted to consider it.’
‘She’ll scream my head off,’ said Kirby.
‘Oh, I don’t know. You can play an extremely civilized and gallant part, and if it saves her from Siberia think how pleased you’ll be. What we’re after is convincing people that by her engagement to an English aristocrat the princess has reverted to type. You’ll then have helped the Tsar by discrediting a revolutionary and you’ll also have helped a friend. She is your friend, isn’t she?’
‘Spasmodically. By the way, I’m not an aristocrat.’
‘You will be when the engagement is announced and the details printed,’ said Anstruther. ‘Leave it all to us and our Russian colleagues.’
‘There’s one thing I’ve always been sure of,’ said Kirby, ‘this isn’t the gentlemen’s branch of the service.’
‘Gentlemen,’ said Anstruther, ‘never serve their King and country in the same way that we do, my dear Kirby.’
The announcement appeared two days later. There were photographs, one of Princess Aleka, one of himself. The one of himself had been taken on the Prospekt Nevskiy, but who had taken it he did not know. Karita saw the papers and when she brought them in with his breakfast her congratulations seemed to carry reservations.
‘You don’t sound completely happy for us, Karita,’ he said. He looked at her, she returned his gaze quite composedly. In her position with him Karita had come to understand her rights, and one of her rights was to speak her mind without, of course, being impertinent.
‘Ivan Ivanovich,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure if you and Her Highness are suited. She is very lovely, of course, and very kind, but you are both very different.’
‘I see,’ he said, ‘you mean I’m neither lovely nor kind.’
‘You are very deceiving,’ said Karita, trim and attractive in dark blue. ‘All this time you’ve told me you’re not an English lord, but in the papers it says you are.’
He glanced through a paragraph or two.
‘It doesn’t say that at all,’ he said.
‘It says you’re an aristocrat, that’s the same thing, isn’t it?’ Karita even shook her finger at him. ‘A fine time I’ve had trying to tell people who you are when you’ve confused me so, and now look, everyone will say the papers know more about you than I do.’
He laughed. She never lost her quaintness. The St Petersburg winter had given her a glow that freshened her honeyed Crimean look. She was not only an extremely personable part of his daily life now, she was also entirely entertaining.
‘Run along, chicken,’ he said.
He ate his breakfast leisurely, waiting for Aleka to telephone. She normally slept late or rose late, but this morning she came through well before he’d finished his meal. She was in a husky-voiced frenzy.
‘Ivan, what is this? You’ve seen it? It’s damnable, I’m going to kill somebody.’
‘I don’t blame you—’
‘Shut up. I’ll do the talking. How dare you do such a thing, how dare you have it put in the papers! You’re always making a fool of me and this is the worst kind of way.’
‘I’m as innocent—’
‘Shut up. I am coming round to your place to kick and scream. I woke up feeling lovely and now I have a shocking headache, everything is going thump, thump. Ah, it’s you who will look the bigger fool and have a bigger headache when I have done with you.’
‘Yes, come round and we’ll talk about it.’
‘Talk? I am going to shoot you.’
She arrived in an hour, fur-clad and magnificently dramatic. She stormed past Karita and met Kirby face to face in the drawing room as he emerged from the bedroom. He wore a dressing gown. This enraged her. He had not even bothered to dress decently to receive her, she could have been anybody. Then she stared at his face. He was freshly shaved and had just taken his beard off, leaving only a moustache. He looked younger, but the now undisguised line of his chin was strong, masculine.
‘You ridiculous man,’ she shouted, ‘did you take your beard off because you were afraid I’d pull it out bit by bit?’
‘Oh, they’re just a bit fussy about beards in our army,’ he said. ‘Do sit down, my sweet.’
‘You cad,’ she cried and began to stride and swish about. She was quite alarming for a few minutes. He let her get on with it, knowing how much she was enjoying herself. One had to admire her performance, she was really not far short of superb if one discounted the occasional Russian swear word that lowered the tone a little. She flung her fur coat over a chair and rampaged around again in a long, high-waisted black dress with its short train sweeping the floor angrily.
‘It’s your doing, every word of it,’ she said.
‘Upon my soul, Aleka love, I’m as innocent as you are,’ he said. ‘Indeed, I thought at first it was your doing.’
‘Mine?’ She subjected him to flashing scorn. ‘Are you mad? If I wanted to marry a man I’d ask him, not tell the papers.’
‘What an interesting woman you are, Aleka.’
She sat down. She got up again. She chose another chair. She looked up at him. A slightly malicious smile curved her lips.
‘Are you suggesting someone has made a fool of both of us?’ she said.
‘I swear to you I’m sure of it,’ he said, and was able to look completely convincing.
She mused a little on this, her lashes flickering.
‘Imagine that,’ she said.
‘You do have some very unconventional friends,’ he said, ‘and in high places.’
‘Yes. And what sort of friends do you have?’ Her smile was sweet.
‘Well, I wonder about that now,’ he said.
‘Mm,’ she said. ‘What are we going to do about it?’
‘Don’t you know? I’d have thought you’d have known immediately what we must do. Nothing. We’ll let the announcement stand.’
She stared. She laughed. It came bubbling.
‘But of course,’ she said. ‘Oh, my clever Ivan. We will stun them all. We will be engaged. And we’ll do the laughing. Of course, this isn’t to suppose that we ourselves are serious, that you wish to marry me?’
‘My dearest Princess,’ he said, ‘it need only mean we can be engaged for as long as you think the joke can last or perhaps until you find a good Ukrainian socialist farmer—’
‘Don’t spoil yourself,’ she said. ‘So, we are engaged, then?’
‘While at the same time you remain perfectly free not to marry me.’
She mused on that too.
‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘I might wish to. But at least, now we’re engaged we can be lovers. I think we would be exciting lovers, Ivan.’
‘We’ll talk about it.’
‘Talk?’ She pealed a trill of ironic laughter. ‘Talking isn’t loving, you fool.’
He thought of Olga. Talking was loving. It was listening, observing, hearing and communicating. It was taking pleasure in the sight and sound of her. Love to Aleka meant bodies exquisitely juxtaposed in a bed. That could be fleetingly, tenderly beautiful, but it was not love itself, it was the ultimate consequence and the final consummation of love, a physical transience that had far less meaning than the desire to protect, to cherish, to hold. It would not be mirrored in the mind with the same unfading clarity as the memory of a fallen summer hat being replaced on a chestnut-blonde head while blue eyes smiled in shy wonder at life.
I am, he thought, ridiculously in love.
‘Talking will at least lead us to bed,’ he said, ‘but you’re under no obligation, Aleka.’
‘How superbly English you are,’ she smiled, ‘it’s only the English who would speak of love and obligation together. Darling, love in this context is not an obligation, it’s a condition of being engaged. And if we are to laugh louder than the jokers, our engagement must be complete and ecstatic. I’m not utterly consumed by impatience, however, and can wait until tonight. How clean and dashing you look without your beard. Shall we say tonight, then?’
‘If you’ve nothing else on,’ he said.
‘Darling, I shall have nothing on at all. Come at eleven. Andrei,’ she said, her smile a little malicious again, ‘will be gone by then.’
But as Aleka drove out that afternoon on her way to an undisclosed rendezvous, a bitter and disillusioned student threw a bomb at her carriage. It wrecked the carriage, injured two passing women – innocent limbs are always expendable for a cause – and shattered the horse to death. Aleka was pulled bleeding and unconscious from the smashed carriage and taken to hospital. She was bruised, cut, concussed and badly shocked. And extremely lucky. Kirby went to see her each day. On the third day she was sitting up, surrounded by flowers sent by Andrei, and receiving Kirby with a smile. Her head and forehead were bandaged. She looked palely lovely. Rather like a nun in a state of beatitude, he thought.
‘Did someone think I was the prime minister?’ she said.
He winced a little. She must surely by now have realized the political implications of her engagement to him. No one would believe she championed the rights of workers now.
‘They’re holding a student,’ he said.
‘The silly boy,’ she said. ‘Tell me, how do I look?’
‘Not as if you’d had a bomb thrown at you. Quite lovely, in fact. Karita sends you her most respectful wishes and blessings. She’s a little angry. She doesn’t like bomb-throwers, whoever they are.’
‘How sweet of her, but tell her I’m not angry so there’s no need for her to be.’ Aleka, after two days of dulled and numbed nerves, sounded as if she had recovered enough to be charitable. ‘Ivan, you’re almost depressingly healthy. Andrei comes in looking wan and nervous. You are always indecently equable. Can’t you be just a little bit wan yourself? It would cheer me up enormously.’
‘Who has been to see you?’ he asked.
‘Oh, you and Andrei and people,’ she said. ‘It’s too risky for some of my real friends. Isn’t this an awfully despotic country when true patriots can only come out at night?’
‘It is when students start throwing bombs at you.’
‘We’re still engaged?’ she said with the ghost of a smile.
‘Yes, if you think we’re still the ones who are laughing.’
‘Well, of course we are. Kiss me.’
He leaned and put his mouth to hers. Hers was cool, soft and cleanly antiseptic. He stayed a while and they talked. She did not mention the bomb. She did mention his uniform. She didn’t like it. It classed him as an aggressive tool of imperialism, she said. There should only be workers’ armies.
‘They’ll probably be just as aggressive,’ he said.
‘But with more justification,’ said Aleka. ‘I shall soon be home again and then you must buy me a ring. Our laugh at the expense of whoever was responsible for our engagement will cost you an awful lot of money, darling.’
‘I’m sure it will be worth it,’ he said, kissing her goodbye.
The snow was beginning to disappear. There were spears of green grass pricking the fading white surface. Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna stood at the window of the music room, her face a little sombre in its expression, her eyes darkly blue.
Easter would soon be here. They would go to Livadia.
She put her mouth to the cold window. A little circle of mist formed. She erased it with her hand. Tatiana came in. Tatiana was always looking for her, always watching her elder sister. She put an arm around Olga’s waist.
‘It’s gloomy outside today,’ she said. ‘Mama says that if you’d condescend, she’d like you to help her with some embroidery. I said I’d see how condescending you were.’
‘Oh, I’m excessively so today.’
‘Isn’t it sad about Aleka Petrovna?’ said Tatiana. ‘But already she’s much better, Mama says. Mama says it was only by the grace of God she wasn’t killed. Can you think why people should be so wicked?’
‘I can think that people have a right to be angry sometimes,’ said Olga, keeping her eyes on the park, ‘I can’t think they have a right to kill, however angry. Poor Aleka Petrovna, but how glad she must be that she escaped.’
‘Yes, she’s the kindest person and so amusing,’ said Tatiana. ‘She has promised to help me meet the nicest people when I make my debut and go out into society.’
‘You won’t need any help,’ said Olga, ‘and isn’t it to be supposed that she’ll be in England with Colonel Kirby when you are in society?’
Tatiana essayed a cautious look at her sister. Olga’s face, in profile, was soft with shadows. She had not been at all gay lately.
‘Olga,’ said Tatiana, ‘don’t you think we should all send Aleka Petrovna and Colonel Kirby our best wishes and felicitations?’
‘Yes,’ said Olga evenly, ‘perhaps we should. We’ll speak to Mama.’
The snow was very much thinner. But it looked colder. It was because the skies were so grey.
He would not come to Livadia now.