Chapter Ten

Kirby was up the next day. All his belongings had arrived from Karinshka and because one could always be so informal at Livadia and the day was so warm, he was comfortably attired in a cream cotton shirt and brown trousers. His arm was in a sling. He went down and out on to the terrace, Karita with him and fussing just a little.

‘You’re like an old hen,’ he said.

‘An old hen looking after an old goose,’ she said.

They were coming to understand each other, these two. Each was necessary to the other. To Kirby her services were indispensable, her companionship a pleasure. To Karita his protective ownership of her gave her a satisfying sense of belonging. In the palace of Princess Karinshka she had only been one of many servants. With Ivan Ivanovich there was no one to argue her rights or her standing, she alone commanded his welfare. But she was neither possessive nor jealous. Instinctively she felt Ivan Ivanovich would be as loyal to her as she was to him.

She accompanied him into the gardens. There were a few people about, strolling with heads together and in weighty converse. The Imperial family kept guests to a minimum at Livadia, but there were always some notabilities around, some persons of ministerial or diplomatic consequence.

Kirby found a table and chairs on the quietest of the velvet lawns. Karita saw him settled into one of the chairs before leaving him.

‘Now you can enjoy the sun and your book,’ she said. ‘I’ll know when the Grand Duchesses have found you because then there’ll be so much noise.’

‘If you can’t sleep, put a pillow over your head,’ he said.

Karita flirted the skirt of her dress at him, then whisked away.

It was quiet. He relaxed. He supposed the children were with Pierre Gilliard. The tranquillity, so much a part of Livadia, gave it an Arcadian remoteness from the economic and political storms of the Empire. It nurtured unreality in a world where existence for so many was an unending struggle against suffering and poverty. It was an oasis of plenty in a desert of fruitless, arid autocracy. Always there were promises of reforms, always bitter political quarrels about how to achieve them. There were the people looking to their Father Tsar for inspiration, and there was Nicholas loving his people but dedicated to the perpetuation of divine rights.

And there was Alexandra, assuring Nicholas that he alone was ordained by God to lead and guide Russia. More than ever, because of Rasputin’s allusion to the security of the Empire going hand in hand with the preservation of Tsarism, she confirmed Nicholas’s belief that concessions to radicals would undermine his God-given absolutism. Concessions, said Alexandra, were wanted only by self-seeking politicians, not by the people. The people were devoted and loyal.

But concessions must come. Kirby thought they might happen when the children were older, when Alexis was a man and he and his sisters, in their adult compassion, would see what their parents would not. They would exercise an influence which Alexandra and Nicholas, because of their love for their children, would be unable to dismiss.

There was a sigh in the air, a soft rustle, and his reverie was broken. Suddenly they were there. They had seen him, stolen silently up on him, and now they were around him, laughing and clapping their hands: Anastasia, Marie and Tatiana, young and lovely in pinafore dresses swirling in the sunshine. Marie salaamed and Anastasia indulged in a curtsey so extravagant that a slight nudge from Tatiana sent her sprawling on to the grass.

‘Well,’ gasped Anastasia, her blue eyes as wide as Olga’s, ‘did you see that, Ivan Ivanovich?’

‘Yes, and I thought you did it beautifully,’ said Kirby.

‘We’ve decided, you see,’ said Tatiana, ‘that Stasha must be your slave while you’re here, and it’s only proper for any slave to be prostrate in the presence of her master. Oh, Ivan, how good to see you. We’re all shockingly unbridled about it.’

‘I am not,’ said Marie, ‘I am quite excited. Tatiana, what is shockingly unbridled?’

‘Oh, just abandonedly blissful,’ said Tatiana. She was nearly sixteen. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘who is to kiss him first? Mama won’t approve if we all do it together.’

‘Here’s Alexis,’ said Marie, ‘he should be the first and then we can all talk about how we’re going to look after Ivan’s sad misfortunes. Oh, I hope your arm doesn’t still hurt you.’ She bent to peer solicitously at Kirby’s arm as Alexis arrived, carried by Nagorny, a sailor deputed with his comrade Derevenko to watch constantly over the Tsarevich.

Alexis was a little drawn. His left leg seemed crippled. He was taking a long time to recover from that fall, when he had been so critically ill that his parents thought there was little they could do except watch him die. Rasputin had interceded from afar, had sent a message saying Alexis would live. Alexis had lived. How, therefore, could anyone convince Alexandra that Rasputin was not a living saint?

Nagorny set the boy gently down in a chair. Alexis smiled at Kirby. He was not a youngster to feel eternally sorry for himself.

‘Isn’t it a nuisance, Ivan Ivanovich,’ he said, ‘you with a crooked arm and me with a crooked leg? But it’s awfully nice to see you, how d’you do?’

Kirby got up to shake Alexis by the hand. ‘Well, what’s an arm and a leg? We can manage, I’ll wager.’ The boy pulled at his hand, Kirby stooped and Alexis kissed him. Kirby sat down again and the Grand Duchesses simply insisted on taking their turn.

‘Oh, Lord,’ said Alexis, ‘you’re in for it now. Those girls, they’re always kissing someone or something. They’re always kissing me and I can tell you, it makes a fellow feel quite knocked out.’

‘We’re only going to let Ivan Ivanovich see how nice it is to have him here again,’ said Marie.

‘What do you think, now he has no beard?’ asked Anastasia of Marie in an audible aside.

‘Well, it’s not like kissing Papa,’ said Marie.

A dress whispered behind Kirby. He knew they were all there then, the enchantment of Livadia indivisible from their completeness as a group.

‘Children,’ said Olga, ‘what did Mama say?’

‘Mama said I’m so perfect I make up for all her disappointments,’ said Anastasia, seating herself on the grass with Marie.

‘Mama said to take care with Colonel Kirby,’ said Olga, ‘which meant you weren’t to climb all over him.’ She came round from behind his chair. She was in a dress of pale blue, her long hair plaited and tied by ribbons of matching blue. ‘Good morning, Colonel Kirby,’ she smiled, ‘I trust you continue to improve?’

‘Oh, help,’ murmured Anastasia.

‘Your Highness,’ said Kirby, rising to bow low to Olga, ‘I’m remarkably vigorous today.’

‘Oh, your Magnificence,’ said Olga, dipping in gracefully exaggerated curtsey, ‘how exalted we are to hear it.’

The younger Grand Duchesses groaned. Anastasia and Marie stood up to join with Tatiana in similar exaggerations, much to the delight of Alexis.

‘Oh, your Eminence,’ sighed Tatiana to Marie.

‘Oh, your Graciousness,’ murmured Marie to Tatiana.

‘Oh, your Good Heavens Above,’ said Anastasia to no one in particular.

‘I trust you are getting over your spots?’ said Tatiana to Anastasia.

‘Goodness, yes,’ said Anastasia, ‘what a dreadful shame that yours still show.’

Alexis shook with laughter, then said to Olga, ‘You needn’t worry about Ivan, he and I can manage but we shan’t do any drill yet.’

‘No, of course not, darling,’ said Olga. The others were gay, she was happy. Colonel Kirby wasn’t going to marry Aleka Petrovna, he didn’t have to go back to Karinshka, he could stay.

‘Yes, Ivan, you’re excused all parades,’ said Tatiana, ‘and you don’t have to do a single thing for yourself. Anastasia will run about and fetch and carry for you.’

‘I’m his slave, you see,’ Anastasia explained to Olga, ‘and I’ll probably be thrown to the lions unless I’m a proper minion.’

‘Improper minions will certainly be thrown to the lions,’ said Kirby.

‘I should be sorry for the lions,’ said Olga, at which Anastasia began an impersonation of a Christian being devoured in a Roman arena. Marie said it sounded awful and begged her to desist.

‘Oh, I’d be happy to,’ said Anastasia, ‘but I only take orders from Ivan Ivanovich.’

‘Throw her to the lions,’ said Kirby.

The uproar was compounded of shrieks and yells as Tatiana and Marie laid hands on Anastasia, pushing her towards Alexis who leaned forward and in simulation of a hungry lion aimed bites at her. Anna Vyrubova appeared, fulsome white garments accentuating her plumpness.

‘Children, such a commotion,’ she said, ‘whatever is going on?’

‘Oh, only some shocking pandemonium,’ said Tatiana, ‘you know how it is when Ivan Ivanovich is here, he always provokes the most riotous behaviour.’

It was a magical morning. They sat around him, they talked, they listened, they laughed. He had never known children so addicted to laughter. They told him how they had spent their winter, he told them how he had spent his. They were awfully upset that he had had this accident and said his bruised head must be dreadfully painful. Alexis said he often had bruises like that himself and if they hurt Ivan as much as they hurt him, it was quite rotten.

Olga winced at this, knowing how often Alexis had been in agony, sometimes because of the most trifling knocks. But Alexis looked happy now, absorbed in all his good-humoured Ivan Ivanovich had to say.

Colonel Kirby had such a way with all of them, she thought. He reached out to them, delighted them, laughed with them. He did not seek the company of other men, compete for the attentions of some of the court ladies, he seemed more than happy whenever he was at Livadia to be with them.

Olga had thought Easter at Livadia might not be as lovely this year.

But now it promised to be the loveliest.

Kirby wondered, as he listened to Anastasia describing the things she kept in her room at Tsarskoe Selo, if Anstruther had received his message. If he had it would have arrived like a bolt from the blue. Very likely he would return the compliment. He would have Kirby out of Livadia quicker than a shell from a gun.

It had not taken Kirby long to find out what Aleka had meant. He had checked the only possible source of information. It was all neatly fitted into his hairbrush. The wafer-thin cards had been moved, their angle of lodgement different from that which he always used. And the cards contained in code brief but telling intelligence on agents and contacts in Russia. He did not doubt that the cards had been removed long enough for the data to be collated and the code broken. Not only had he, in complacent overconfidence, placed himself in jeopardy but so many other people too.

His only hope was that if Aleka’s revolutionary friends wanted to use him they would hold their information over his head. They had little practical interest in espionage agents, it would be a matter of indifference to them whether the Okhrana knew or not. Information on such agents was for using, not divulging.

Nevertheless, Easter for Kirby promised only days of uneasiness and anxiety.

The complicated creed of Russian Orthodoxy was something that Kirby, only a conventionally religious man, had never been enquiring about. He had always been far more interested in the schisms of Russian politics than in those of religion. There were innumerable political parties and every party suffered its secessionists like an inevitable disease. It was left to the church to bring the people together at Easter, to unite dissident Russia in celebration of Christ’s resurrection.

For the Tsar and his family it was the holiest and most joyful of occasions, Alexandra immersing herself body and soul in the rites. In her devotion to God and her ecstatic adoption of her husband’s faith, Alexandra found celestial happiness in the way Russian Orthodoxy celebrated the meaning of Easter.

Kirby was at the cathedral for the service. He knew the Imperial family took it for granted that he would attend, that he would participate when the Metropolitan, the highest Russian archbishop, would lead the whole congregation in a midnight search for the risen Son of God. He was accompanied by Karita, herself in rapt exaltation. They saw the Imperial family in their places at the forefront, the Grand Duchesses vestmented in the white garments of Easter. Members of the court and officers of the Imperial Guard brought the splendour of high places to the crowded pews. The service was moving, impressive, and the choral litanies were sung with unrestrained joy and devotion. At midnight Kirby joined with all the other worshippers when the whole congregation took up lighted candles and in the measured wake of the Metropolitan circled the cathedral, re-entered it and there heard the Metropolitan announce the rediscovery of Christ.

Kirby could not help being impressed. And he was intrigued anew by the character of Russia. It was entirely typical of its people to be irreconcilably divided politically and socially and completely integrated on such religious occasions as this. He wondered what a hundred million Russians would do in a moment of supreme national crisis, whether they would form an indivisible whole or each turn a different way, each choose any path but that of his neighbour.

On Easter Day the Imperial Palace was thrown open to hundreds. Peace and tranquillity happily made way for feasting and celebrating. Livadia swarmed with the Emperor’s subjects. Nicholas was delighted and Alexandra, never more content than when the people showed their love and esteem, was a fount of hospitality. She was always happier among the people than among the aristocrats. Catching Kirby’s eye when she was dispensing the little Easter cakes to yet one more contingent of children, she smiled. He was talking to other children, shy village children, and the noise and the activities had set his head thumping. He interpreted Alexandra’s smile as a request and went to her. She was in flowing white with a single necklace, elegantly beautiful. Always she gave him the impression that she associated majesty with humility.

‘Imperial Highness?’ he said.

‘Colonel Kirby, Ivan,’ she said, ‘you’ve been so good, helping to look after so many of the children. I wish others might be as kind.’ He knew she referred to courtiers who were inclined to be too easily bored by ‘the people’. ‘But you’ve done enough – yes, you have, I can see you have. You’re excused. You’re to go and sit outside and I’ll have tea sent out to you.’

‘I’m not quite as done up as that, am I?’ he smiled.

‘Enough for you to be excused, so you are not to argue.’ She returned his smile. He could not remember any time when Alexandra had not shown him kindness and graciousness. Whatever their faults, he believed in Alexandra and Nicholas.

He was, in fact, pleased to leave the festivities for a while. His head was a swine. The bruise had lost its external ugliness but occasionally, as now, it thumped out its sensitive reaction to noise. He went out into the gardens, found chairs and a table by one of the massed rose beds, the table under the shade of a tree. He sank into a chair, the palace behind him rising in strata of tall, shining windows and sparkling white stone. The noise slipped away and there was only the warm tranquillity he loved.

‘Tea, O Lord of a missing slave?’

That could only be Tatiana and it was. She herself had brought a samovar down on a tray, with a plate of Easter cakes. It would not be long, he thought, before undiminishable beauty invested Tatiana. She had a quicksilver grace now, grey eyes that were forever laughing, and the endearing enchantment of youth. He had a special affection for Tatiana, so responsive in her humour, so close to Olga.

‘Tatiana Nicolaievna, how did you know I was in need?’ he asked.

‘Mama told me,’ said Tatiana, setting the tray down on the table. ‘Oh, it’s no bother to slave for you, Ivan, especially when your official slave is so dreadfully busy flirting with boys. I’m to tell you that, you know, because then I can tell Stasha whether you’re atrociously jealous. You’d better be, she’ll be alarmingly put out if you aren’t.’

He looked up at her. He was very amused. She thought him devastatingly English with his lean, brown look, his military moustache and the smile that was always so quick to show in his eyes.

‘Tell Anastasia I’m so jealous that I’m the one who’s alarmingly put out,’ he said.

‘Oh, fiddle,’ said Tatiana, ‘it’s just not fair to favour her when we’re all equally devoted to you. Actually, I’m the most devoted.’

‘Tatiana, is it permitted to say I love you all very much?’

She lost her teasing look. She knew that he was far from teasing. She felt as if there were strange shadows falling.

‘Ivan, we would all be terribly miserable if you did not,’ she said. She looked down at her hands. She said, ‘Oh, if only you were a Crown Prince.’

‘Fat or thin?’ he said.

‘It’s not a joke, Ivan,’ said Tatiana, ‘you know it’s not, don’t you?’

‘Tatiana?’ He was vaguely disturbed. Tatiana looked up. There was just the suspicion of tears. This was alarming. She knew. He supposed there were moments when his love for Olga must have been obvious to someone as observant as Tatiana. There was nothing he could do, no declaration or denial he could make. Either would be futile. He shook his head. ‘One doesn’t have to be a Crown Prince to love you all, does one, Tatiana?’

‘No,’ she said wistfully, ‘but—’

‘I should be a great joke as a Crown Prince, I can’t even stay on a horse,’ he said lightly. He saw there were two glasses with the samovar, two plates with the cakes. ‘Are you staying to drink tea with me?’

‘I’d like to very much,’ said Tatiana, ‘but Mama wishes me to do a hundred things for a million people and I must simply fly. I think someone older and more entertaining is coming to keep you company.’

‘General Sikorski?’

‘Do you wish him? Then I’ll see. You are the dearest man, Ivan.’ And she bent to kiss his cheek before hurrying away. She met Olga coming round from the terrace. Olga was flying. She checked her pace when she saw Tatiana.

Alexandra had called her and said, ‘Olga sweet, I’ve sent Colonel Kirby to have some tea in the gardens. He’s been doing too much. But I think he might like a little company. If you can spare some time would you like to join him for a while?’

It had been difficult for Olga not to show pleasure. But she managed a little restraint as she said, ‘Mama, I think I could spare a little time.’

Alexandra smiled. Olga was as readable as an open book. But it was Easter Day, a time for giving, not denying.

‘Well, you deserve a rest too before the evening. Go along, darling.’

Olga knew it was even more difficult to disguise her feelings from Tatiana. Her sister would know why she had been hurrying.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Tatiana, ‘it’s you. He said he was looking forward to seeing General Sikorski.’

‘Tatiana? Who said that?’

‘Ivan. I’ve just taken tea to him. Mama asked me to, she said she would see if you could spare time to sit with him. Imagine him preferring General Sikorski.’

Olga assumed a complete innocence of what it was all about. She patted her sister’s cheek and said, ‘You mustn’t go on so, darling, you’ll wear your tongue out one day. I shouldn’t mind too much but you would miss it dreadfully.’

Tatiana laughed in delight. Olga was delicious at times. Oh, how remiss of Ivan Ivanovich not to have been born a Crown Prince. It would have put her dearest sister in heaven. Tatiana went back into the palace in sighing wistfulness while Olga went on to join Colonel Kirby.

She was in a dress of Easter white, the sun caressing her and enhancing the golden overtones of her chestnut hair. He rose, his arm in a black silk sling.

‘We received your message,’ said Olga, ‘but General Sikorski couldn’t come, he’s fallen asleep in a dish of cream cheese. So I came instead. Now I expect you’ll fall asleep too. But I’ll pour the tea first.’ She was demure in her humour. She began to fill a glass.

‘General Sikorski? Well, I don’t know. Olga, you look—’ He checked himself. So often he almost committed the error of using words that Alexandra would consider unfortunately presumptuous. He could flatter Olga as others did, meaninglessly. He could not go beyond that.

‘Oh, I look, do I?’ Olga was smiling. ‘I know what you mean, but I’ve been rushing madly about. There are so many people being received and I suppose I do look rather like a broom in the wind.’

He imagined the right meaningless response to that would be to tell her she looked as if she’d been sweeping them all off their feet. Instead he said, ‘I was going to say you look better at serving tea than General Sikorski.’ That was just as meaningless. He smiled wryly to himself.

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘you are as gallant as anyone, Colonel Kirby.’

Her smile was not a mere pleasantry. It had its message. Because she was so young, seventeen, he sometimes forgot how intelligent she was. He knew that she knew his gallantry was meaningless. Safe. She did not mind. She understood.

‘You aren’t going to take tea standing up, are you?’ she said. She waited until he sat down again, then seated herself at the opposite side of the table. ‘Isn’t it lovely out here? We’re in the best place, are we not? It’s become so hot inside. Are you very tired?’

‘Not a bit,’ he said, ‘I’d just begun to creak a little, that’s all.’

They laughed together at that. He relaxed over the tea. She pushed back a wandering tress of hair. Their eyes met and held. She was quite still, her back to the sun, her face softly shadowed. Time seemed in suspense. Suddenly she was suffused with colour, she dropped her eyes and stared unseeingly at her clasped hands. A bird called, sweet and piping. The scent of flowers magically distilled the air. Olga’s head was bent, her hair a cascading curtain.

‘Olga?’ he said. She looked up. He felt pain. Her eyes were brimming.

‘It’s nothing.’ She shook her head. ‘It was just a little hurt that caught me. But nothing, really. Will it relax you if I read to you? I have my Shakespeare with me.’ She indicated the white bag she had brought.

‘That would be very pleasant as well as peaceful,’ he said.

She took the black-bound volume from her bag, opened it up and rifled through the pages.

‘I haven’t read all the plays yet,’ she said, ‘or even half of them. I like The Merchant of Venice. Shall I read something from that? Or there is The Prince of Denmark, which Monsieur Gilliard says is very highly favoured by the theatre.’

‘Make it a surprise,’ he smiled, ‘read from that page where you have your hand.’

She lifted her hand from the page she had flattened, looked at it and said, ‘I don’t know if you’d like this, it’s Romeo and Juliet, which is all about terribly young people suffering miserably because of love.’

‘Mmm, yes,’ he murmured, ‘hardly the thing for terribly old people like you and me, Olga.’

‘Well, you will see,’ she said. The breeze lifted a strand of her hair and it brushed across her face. She pushed it back. ‘If it isn’t to your liking,’ she said, ‘it will be your own fault for choosing so indiscriminately.’

‘Am I to be read to or not, young madam?’

‘Don’t be impatient,’ she said, ‘it will only make me nervous.’ She regarded the written word and he regarded her soft, wide mouth. ‘This is to do with Juliet’s nurse,’ she said, ‘in conversation with Juliet, and I shan’t mind if you fall asleep.’

‘Good,’ he said.

‘Oh, you had better not,’ said Olga. ‘It’s the nurse speaking, she’s just returned to Juliet with a message from Romeo but all she says is,

I am aweary, give me leave awhile,

Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunce have I had!

‘Then here, a little further on, taking no notice of Juliet’s anxieties, she says,

Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I!

It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.

My back o’ t’other side; O, my back, my back!

Beshrew your heart for sending me about,

To catch my death with jauncing up and down.

‘All this while poor Juliet is dreadfully desperate to hear about Romeo and saying, let me see – yes –

Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?

‘And what does the exasperating old thing say to that? She says,

O! God’s lady dear,

Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow,

Is this the poultice for my aching bones?

Henceforward do your messages yourself.

‘There, Colonel Kirby, what do you think of that for a most tantalizing nurse and an indiscriminate choice?’

She looked up from the book. Kirby, entranced by her delicious humour, saw her smile. He had not known it possible to love a girl as he loved this one.

‘Lovely,’ he said, and he knew that if Tatiana had been present she would have guessed he was not talking about Shakespeare.

‘Well, at least you didn’t fall asleep,’ said Olga. ‘Now I insist on The Merchant of Venice, I’ll read you how Portia addressed Bassanio when he made the correct choice of caskets. It was a tender part of the play I liked very much.’

She turned the pages, found the extract she wanted and said, ‘See, this is what she says to Bassanio.

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,

Such as I am: though for myself alone

I would not be ambitious in my wish,

To wish myself much better; yet, for you

I would be trebled twenty times myself;

A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;

That only to stand high in your account,

I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,

Exceed account: but the full sum of me

Is sum of nothing; which, to term in gross,

Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised;

Happy in this, she is not yet so old

But she may learn; happier than this,

She is not bred so dull but she can learn;

Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit

Commits itself to yours to be directed,

As from her lord, her governor, her king.

Myself and what is mine to you and yours

Is now converted: but now I was the lord

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,

Queen o’er myself; and even now, but now,

This house, these servants and this same myself

Are yours, my lord. I give them with this ring;

Which when you part from, lose or give away,

Let it presage the ruin of your love,

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.’

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.’

‘We think not, comrade,’ said Prolofski. ‘You’ll take the chance of reassuring Olga Nicolaievna that you acted for the best, even though you may have been mistaken.’

‘I see.’ Kirby still sounded calm. ‘But I must have time to think this out. When I leave Livadia I shan’t be a free agent, I’m under the orders of my senior officer and have no idea when I might be in Tsarskoe Selo at the same time as Rasputin.’

‘All that is nothing.’ Prolofski rolled spit. ‘You’re still under the orders of your friends in London, who are now pursuing a policy of co-operation with Russia. Your friendship with the Romanovs is encouraged, you may arrange to see them whenever you like as far as London is concerned. If you are simple, we aren’t. However, we’ll give you twenty-four hours to make up your mind. Come here tomorrow at the same time, spell out your decision and outline your own plan for this service to Russia. We’ll want to know every detail and when Rasputin is back in St Petersburg again, we’ll arrange the day with you. You might try arranging it with Olga Nicolaievna. Who knows, she might not look at the world in quite the way you think.’

Was the man as stupid as he sounded? No, thought Kirby, there was no stupidity here. Rasputin was to be executed and by an Englishman close to the Imperial family. The complicity of Olga, real or suggested, was unnecessary, superfluous. It was meant only to show him that if he wished to offer a reason for the killing, this was the one that, with Rasputin’s reputation, had the basis of authentic possibility to it. It was also the one that would provide him with his best chance of escaping a charge of murder. Except that Olga would not, even to save his neck, support a story she knew to be horrifyingly untrue.

This was what did not fall into place. Simple as Prolofski had said it all was, this was not how Olga was to be used. They had some other role for her, some other tale of complicity that would involve her far more subtly and fix Rasputin’s murder far more securely to the door of the Romanovs.

‘I’ve never done this kind of work,’ he said, ‘and must tell you I may not be very good at it. I must think it over and see you again this time tomorrow.’

They let him go, they watched him go. It was dark now. Prolofski did not mind the dark as long as he could turn his moon face up to the sky.

‘He has gone out?’ Olga could not believe she had heard aright. ‘He can’t have.’

‘Your Highness,’ said Karita, ‘he has gone for a walk.’

‘A walk? Tonight?’ Something very close to angry resentment manifested itself in the young Grand Duchess. ‘If that is true – oh, it had better not be. Let me see.’

‘Your Highness—’

‘Karita!’

Karita, in an unaccustomed fluster at the temper of the most equable of the Grand Duchesses, hastily moved aside to let Olga inspect the suite for herself. Olga simply swept in and Karita thought her quite sweetly magnificent. But what had come over her? She was never like this. Following her into the empty drawing room, Karita heard the sound of footsteps approaching the suite. She turned, saw Kirby entering through the still open door and hastened in a silent rush to him.

‘What you have done I don’t know,’ she whispered, ‘but Her Highness the Grand Duchess Olga is here and seems very put out. Whatever it’s about, you will need to think quickly.’

Olga had gone through the drawing room and was rapping on the bedroom door before the sound of voices in the entrance to the suite reached her ears. She swung round and met Kirby face to face in the drawing room. Karita vanished, leaving the Tsar’s daughter to deal with the Englishman in her own way. Karita had a feeling that whatever the cause of the confrontation, it was Ivan Ivanovich who was going to come off worse.

It would do him good.

Olga regarded Kirby with fierce resentment. While everyone else had taken so much trouble, he was quite indifferent to the occasion. He was dressed so casually in flannel trousers and an old velvet jacket it was almost an impertinence.

He saw there was no diffidence of any kind about her, she was angry, she was beautiful, and her pride and her tiara gave her a tallness. He would have spoken but with a gesture of her hand Olga made it very clear that she would speak first.

‘Colonel Kirby,’ she said, ‘will you tell me what has happened that you can’t attend on us tonight? Will you tell me why it’s safer for you to go out walking than it is to come to the ball?’

‘Your Highness—’

‘Oh!’ For the first time in her life Olga stamped her foot. She did not like him like this, he was dark, serious and had no smile for her, none at all. She was near to tears but her anger saved them from spilling. ‘Oh, to call me that! Now I see, we are not to be friends, then. I have done something quite shocking and so you go walking in the night to be out of my way and call me Highness when you do see me!’

‘That was only because—’

‘I don’t care to hear why! What does the reason matter? You wish to be formal.’ Olga was surprising herself and Kirby even more. ‘Very well, we will both be formal. I can be so as much as you, and you are commanded, do you hear? You are commanded to attend on me. I will wait while you suitably attire yourself.’

His darkness was transfigured into astonished delight. His shy Grand Duchess was actually being imperious. There was something new to be discovered about her every day.

‘Suitably attire myself?’ he said, his eyes mirroring the delight he felt. ‘I am commanded? I am commanded, Olga?’

‘Colonel Kirby,’ she said, ‘are you laughing at me?’

‘Indeed I’m not,’ he said, ‘I’m in great admiration of you. Am I in such positive disgrace because I cried off? Well, there was this arm of mine and there are always so many young officers devoted to you. I thought it a night for you to dance with them—’

‘Oh!’ Again she stamped her foot. She disliked his words intensely. Not only did they amount to no real excuse at all, but they had connotations of horribly dismaying condescension. Young officers! As if she were no older than Tatiana. ‘Am I not able to please myself? Are you to tell me you know what is best for me? Oh, I have done something worse than shocking, that is very clear!’

Karita was right, Olga was very put out. He had not seen her so upset. He had asked Alexandra to excuse him because of his arm, but the real reason had been connected with the message he had received. There was, however, also the fact that he knew Alexandra wished him to exercise restraint in his relationship with Olga. Restraint was one thing, hurting her was another.

‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s I who have offended, Olga. I have hurt you. I am very sorry, will you forgive me?’

Olga caught at a lip that was suddenly trembling. There was something more than contrition in his expression, something that reached out to her. She could not maintain a demeanour so foreign to her, not when he looked like that, not when she was so unhappy. She melted in desperate appeal.

‘Oh, you aren’t commanded, but please come. Dear Colonel Kirby, what is the ball to Tatiana and me if you aren’t there? We have saved dances for you but you need not dance at all, we can walk in the gardens instead or watch Tatiana. You’ve no idea how lovely she looks tonight, her hair is up and she’ll never forgive you if you stay away, if you don’t see her in her new gown, if you don’t tell her how nice she looks. And see?’ She was running on, breathlessly outside her limits now as with gestures of her gloved hands she drew his attention to her own gown, to her hair and her jewels. ‘This is all for you, I took so much care—’

It was a rush into silence then, and the uncontrollable colour surged as she realized what she had said. He could not help himself, he had to tell her that the care she had taken had not been wasted.

‘Olga, you are always lovely,’ he said, ‘and now, look, you are more than that. You are quite beautiful tonight, has no one told you so? And of course I’ll come, since if Tatiana looks only half as splendid as her sister it would never do to miss her.’ He smiled as he went on, ‘I’ll suitably attire myself, then, but you shouldn’t wait, I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

She was aflame with vivid colour, with the unspoiled richness of youth and innocence.

‘I am not going without you, I am not,’ she whispered.

‘You should, you know.’

‘Colonel Kirby, it isn’t what one should do but what one does that really matters.’

They went together in the end. He wore a white jacket and black evening trousers. Uniforms did not impress Olga a great deal, except that she thought her father looked Imperially handsome in his. The gaiety of the ball had become infectious and Olga was radiant now. Cossack officers were dancing, their sabres floored, the music compelling blood to take fire, the men spinning and leaping. Tatiana came in shimmering swiftness, her face alight to see Kirby.

‘Oh, Ivan Ivanovich, you’re disgraceful,’ she cried happily. She gave him her hand, he kissed it. ‘But how maddeningly gallant you look with your wounded arm and wooden leg, and how nice that you’re here at last. Even Papa says his chicks are doleful without you. Tell me, do you like my gown, do you like my hair up, am I quite the loveliest thing?’

Tatiana, with her tiara adorning her gleaming auburn head, seemed crowned by silver and gold. Dear Heaven, thought Kirby, the beauty of this Imperial family. He would have spoken lightly, joked a little, and Tatiana’s eyes were bright with laughing suspicion that he would indeed make fun.

Instead he said, ‘Yes, Tatiana, you are. Quite the very loveliest.’

Tatiana laughed in delight. People were looking, people who found the Grand Duchesses’ preoccupation with the Englishman much more intriguing than the dancing Cossacks. If Olga was sensitively aware of this, Tatiana did not give a fig.

‘Olga,’ she said, ‘do you think he meant that, do you think he’s serious?’

‘I’m sure he’s doing his very best, darling,’ said Olga.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Tatiana, ‘he has a lot to make up for, staying away from us for hours and hours.’

‘Let Alexis give me a good talking-to tomorrow,’ said Kirby, ‘I can face up to it better when it’s man to man.’

Olga thought that richly amusing. And Tatiana thought how much more easily joy and laughter came to Olga when it was Ivan Ivanovich she was in company with. They watched the dancers. Tatiana slipped her arm through Kirby’s.

‘You’re such good fun, Ivan,’ she murmured, ‘and the one we all love the best.’

‘I shall always love Livadia, Tatiana, always love the Imperial family.’

Tatiana glanced up at him. He was smiling but his eyes were strangely dark.

‘I know,’ she said softly.

Olga, on the other side of Kirby, could not hear their murmured talk above the noise of the stamping dance. But she saw that Tatiana had her arm in his and was exchanging the most affectionate of smiles with him.

Kirby danced, after all. He said that now he was here he was going to be extravagantly active. He took the cards of the Grand Duchesses. There were several vacant numbers on each card. He signed for two dances on each. Olga said nothing for the moment but when she returned to him after a mazurka with an elastic-limbed young guardsman, she remarked how safe his choice had been.

‘Safe?’

‘Why, yes,’ said Olga, ‘if you choose to dance twice with me and twice with Tatiana, that’s very safe, isn’t it?’

‘I didn’t think about it being safe, only rather greedy. Have I asked for too much?’

She framed a word with her mouth. He was sure it was ‘Coward’. Olga had grown up. He danced with her. His arm was no real problem. Olga was light and graceful, but she became a little concerned about the necessity of avoiding other dancers. He might get his arm knocked by some ruffian of a young officer, she said. The kind, she said, that he had thought she would like to dance the ball through with.

‘Did I say that?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it was very clear that you were disposing of me in just that way,’ said Olga. ‘Colonel Kirby, please keep to the outside. If anything happens I don’t know what Dr Botkin will say. Not until he takes your plaster off can you be considered yourself again, then you can fling your arm about as much as you like.’

She whirled, returned to him, whirled and returned again. He said, ‘I’ll have to be back in St Petersburg soon, they’ll take my plaster off there.’

She would not let him disturb her happiness. She said, ‘I’ll speak to Papa, you’ll see. We are not permitting you to be in St Petersburg while we are still at Livadia.’

He danced with a lady-in-waiting who had a fondness for him because he liked the Imperial children so much. He danced with Tatiana, who thought he managed extremely well.

‘Oh, goodness,’ she gasped as they circled, ‘for a man with a crooked arm and a wooden leg, Ivan, you are so adaptable.’

‘What’s this about a wooden leg?’

Tatiana, unsparing of vitality on a night as gay as this, took in air before answering, then said, ‘Well, a crooked arm is no excuse for not coming to a ball, so it must be that you’ve got a wooden leg as well.’

‘Tatiana, you are very endearing.’

‘And you are just a little dark yourself, do you know that?’

‘Surrounded by youth I have lost my own.’

‘Oh, poor old bones,’ said Tatiana. ‘Ivan, isn’t Olga just beautiful tonight?’

They circled amid others. He said, ‘Preciously beautiful, Tatiana.’

It was far into the night when the ball reached the final number. The orchestra sighed its way into the opening chords. Kirby, not engaged for the waltz, was talking to old General Sikorski. Tatiana appeared. Had the general forgotten he was obligated to her? The old soldier begged her forgiveness for his remissness, Tatiana put her hand on his arm and he led her proudly on to the shining floor. Tatiana had denied a score of young gallants and happily given the privilege of the last dance to the general. It was entirely within character.

Olga was talking to her father, Nicholas still resplendent and genial. He signalled to Kirby and Kirby went over. Officers were in attendance behind the Tsar.

‘Ah, my dear fellow,’ said Nicholas.

‘Your Highness?’

‘It’s been splendid, don’t you think? So many delightful young people.’

‘Completely delightful, sir.’

‘But I shall be glad to get to bed.’

This was friendly but meaningless. Kirby looked at Olga. She had her eyes on the dancers, on the colour and magic of the waltz. She should be dancing herself. He had thoughtfully avoided signing her card for the final number. He did not want Alexandra to shake her head. The Empress would be bound to ask.

Olga had one white slipper thrust forward, it was tapping. Kirby looked at the Tsar’s officers. They were relaxed but oblivious.

‘Highness?’

Olga turned her head. Her look plainly told him what she thought of that. He put out his hand, she laid her gloved fingers on his arm.

‘With your permission, sir?’ he said to Nicholas.

‘Tatiana tells me you dance divinely for a man with a wooden leg,’ said Nicholas and burst into laughter.

Kirby faced Olga preparatory to leading her into the rhythm.

‘I thought,’ he began but Olga shook her shining head.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said calmly, ‘it’s dreadfully risky to dance three times with me and only twice with Tatiana. I wrote your name in for the waltz. Do you think I’m a Grand Duchess for nothing?’

They danced the waltz. The light from the chandeliers, seemingly reflected by a million jewels, soared in final brilliance as the flame of a candle soars just before dying. It bathed the dancers in incandescence. But Olga’s radiance was muted, her lustrous head bent, her eyes lowered. She said nothing to all his attempts at light converse.

‘Olga?’

She did not answer.

‘Olga?’

Her hand tightened on his shoulder. They stopped. She took her hand from his shoulder and rested it on his arm, her eyes on the open glass doors that led to the terraces and down to the gardens. They walked from the heat of the ballroom into the cool quietness of the night. There was no moon, there was only darkness and silence. The palace was warm with light behind them, Livadia velvet with night before them. Still she said nothing, but he felt her gloved hand moving down his arm. He took her hand, her fingers closed around his and clung.

‘Olga, are you unhappy?’

She spoke very softly then.

‘I am never unhappy when you are here.’ She hesitated and suddenly rushed into words jerky and impulsive. ‘But we were dancing and the ball was nearly over. I thought how you had been in such neglect of us, you wouldn’t have come if— oh, did you think I’d consent to let you stay away, did you think I’d consent to dance the waltz with someone else? Papa had his own way of showing you that until I’m a Crown Princess I’m free to dance with whom I most wish to. You did not dare to let me stand neglected in front of him.’

He could not speak. The clasp of her fingers, the break in her voice and the intensity of his love bound his tongue. His arm was touching her shoulder. He was close, too close, to the warmth and softness of her.

‘Colonel Kirby? Please?’ Her voice was a whisper.

He looked down at her upturned face. The glitter of her tiara was subdued by the night, outshone by the glitter of her tears.

‘What is it, Olga, what must I say?’

‘That you’ll never neglect me again, I cannot bear it.’

He had hurt her more than he had realized.

‘Neglect you? Olga, I love Russia as much as I love my own country, and I cherish the Imperial family more than any other. I shall come to see you and your sisters get married, I’ll be there to see you become the loveliest Crown Princess of all. I shall be there on all these occasions, whether I’m invited or not. I can’t be neglectful, Olga, though I can be imperfect.’

She did not respond to that for a moment, then she said shakily, ‘And if I don’t choose to become a Crown Princess?’

‘Then you’ll play another part for your country. I shall watch you grow into a most stately Grand Duchess, I’ll come to all your birthday balls, and you’ll still be dancing even when you’re old – but only with those whom you most wish to. By then I’ll probably have two wooden legs.’

Her smile was tremulous. It flickered, was gone, and came again.

‘Yes, perhaps we’ll both become very old and doddering, but we shall still have fun, we shall still laugh together, and we will always be the dearest friends, will we not?’

‘Always, Olga.’

They walked in the night gardens and they talked until Olga was happy again. They stood on the terrace to watch the carriages drawing up to take away departing guests, and when the palace was finally quiet they went in. The Tsar was just retiring with Tatiana, but Tatiana broke away to go swiftly and affectionately to her sister, saying, ‘Olga, how exciting it all was, but now, whew! I’m quite done up.’ She hugged Olga’s arm and glanced up at Kirby. He smiled. It was the tenderest and warmest of smiles. And Olga was smiling too. But Tatiana thought her eyes were suspiciously bright.

Kirby went up the wide, shining staircase with them, Tatiana slipping her arm through his and talking her tongue away. The familiarity of the gesture, harmless though it was, gave Olga queer hurt. Kirby said goodnight to them. Tatiana extended her hand in the grand manner, he bowed and kissed her gloved fingers.

‘Oh, you are quite delicious, Ivan,’ laughed Tatiana and came up on tiptoe to kiss his face. Olga turned away.

In their bedroom, simply furnished by comparison with guest rooms, Olga took her sister by the shoulders.

‘Tasha, how you can dare I do not know!’

‘But, Olga, what is it I can’t dare?’

‘You know what. To truly hurt me. Oh, you’re so much prettier than I am.’

Tatiana stared.

Oh, goodness, Olga was unhappy again.

‘Olga, oh, you silly, you must stop this,’ she said. ‘You should have heard what everyone, just everyone, said about you tonight, then you’d know who was prettier. And your Colonel Kirby, as you will call him, simply adores you, he said so.’

The betraying crimson surged to Olga’s face. She trembled, she gasped, ‘Oh, I told you, Tatiana, he could not – he must not – Mama will send him away.’

‘Goose, he isn’t going to say anything to Mama. Shall I tell you what he said?’

‘No!’ Olga was desperate. It was all coming dangerously close to a confrontation with her mother. Tomorrow her mother would know that Colonel Kirby had attended, after all, she would ask affectionately phrased questions and perhaps discover that she, Olga, had gone to his suite to persuade him to attend. Then there would be a kind but firm talk with Colonel Kirby and the following day he would announce he had been recalled to St Petersburg or even to England.

‘I’ll keep it to myself, then,’ said Tatiana, ‘but no one else shall know, I promise. But how you can’t want to know yourself, I simply—’

‘Tell me. Tatiana, tell me!’

‘It was lovely. I asked him what he thought of you and he said you were preciously beautiful. Preciously! There!’

‘That isn’t— Tatiana, that isn’t to say he loves me.’

‘Oh, what a goose you are,’ sighed Tatiana, ‘you are afraid of him loving you, aren’t you? You are afraid because of how worried it would make Mama.’

‘You are the goose,’ said Olga quietly, ‘it isn’t his feelings I’m afraid of. Tasha, how wonderful it must be to be free to be loved.’

Tatiana seemed to wake up almost as soon as she fell asleep. The dark bedroom was quiet. Why had she woken?

Because it wasn’t quiet.

In the other bed Olga was weeping into her pillow.

Love, thought Tatiana, must be awful.

He lay in bed, deep in thought. The light was without sun this morning, the sky cloudy. Karita brought him a late breakfast, singing to herself. Karita often sang to herself at Livadia. It was a divinely satisfying life here. At Karinshka there had often been so little to do for a good part of the year and then it would become all rush, confusion and scramble to see to the arrival of Princess Aleka Petrovna and to the wants of innumerable noisy guests.

She was full of pride and pleasure because Ivan Ivanovich stood so high in the affections of the Imperial family, and their regard for him was reflected in the friendly way they treated her.

She could speak quite a lot of English now and he never laughed at her when she pronounced a word wrongly. He only tried a mild correction.

‘Not singk, Karita. Sing. Sing.’

‘Yes, I said that, singk.’

‘Well, you singk very sweetly, Karita.’

He was very droll. She was so glad she had not married Oravio. It was far nicer to be with Colonel Kirby. Whenever he was especially pleased with her or she said something to make him laugh, he would put his hand under her chin and kiss her. That was always very nice.

But he did not seem especially pleased with her this morning. He lay there saying nothing, looking up at the decorative ceiling. He was dark and frowning. Well, it wasn’t her fault if he had drunk too much at the ball last night and had got to bed too late. But she would have to bear the brunt, she supposed. She knew aristocrats. Whenever they woke up liverish they would groan, and show how they disliked other human beings, especially servants. Ivan Ivanovich wasn’t groaning, but he was brooding and far away. This was very unusual in him but she supposed it had to happen sometime. The first thing that he would do would be to tell her to take his breakfast away. She would do no such thing. She liked to battle with Ivan Ivanovich. Besides, she herself had helped to prepare it in the palace kitchens.

‘Do you wish breakfast?’ she asked, having drawn back the curtains to let in the cloudy light.

He blinked. Then he smiled. It took some of his darkness away.

‘Hello, Karita. I didn’t hear you come in.’

‘But you have been looking at me when you weren’t looking at the ceiling.’

‘Oh, really? Well, that’s a mark against me. How fresh you look. You make me feel jaded. How old are you, Karita?’

‘Twenty,’ said Karita. He lay there with his right arm folded under his head, his mending left arm over his chest. She began to set out his breakfast on a glass-topped picture tray. When his magnificence was ready he would sit up.

‘What happened between you and Oravio?’ he asked.

‘I told you, he found someone much more suitable.’

‘Did he, by God? I’d like to have a look at her, then. Karita, never mind about that, just pour me some coffee. Is it late?’

‘It’s the middle of the morning. Their Imperial Highnesses are up and so are the children. You are probably the only one still in bed. The Tsarevich said someone ought to pour cold water over you, he said that is how to get lazy soldiers up. He’s so sweet, isn’t he? Here’s your coffee. No, you can’t drink it unless you sit up.’ He sat up. He took the coffee. ‘The Grand Duchesses are all talking about the ball. How gay it was, I was allowed to peep in.’

He looked at her. She would have graced the occasion in a ballgown of her own. But she never seemed to want more than life bestowed on her.

‘Karita,’ he said, ‘would it distress you if ever the Tsar and his family were in trouble?’

‘No one who knew them could not be distressed,’ she said.

‘Sit here,’ he said and she sat on the side of the bed. Once she would have considered that improper. She knew more now about what was and what wasn’t. He regarded her thoughtfully, speculatively. ‘What do your own people think of the Tsar?’

‘Most of them love him, as they should,’ she said. ‘The Tartar chiefs are all proud to be under his protection. Their ancestors were mine too, but now our family is Christian, the Khan and the chiefs and their people are Muslims. But all of us live together in friendship because of the Tsar, who is father to us all. And now that I know him I am as proud as the chiefs.’

‘The Crimeans are the best of the Russians,’ said Kirby. ‘Karita, do you know this man called Prolofski?’

‘He’s not a Crimean,’ said Karita, turning up her nose, ‘he’s from the Urals where they’re always making trouble. He’s in the Crimea to make trouble here. He’s against everyone who is better than he is, he’s against everything that’s above him, even the stars. He’d pull them all out of the sky if he could and make dust of them. Once he came to see the Princess Karinshka. That was the day they brought you here.’

‘If Prolofski conceived a way of pulling down the Tsar and his family, what would you do, Karita?’

Karita did not take long to think about that one.

‘I’d have him put into a hole in the ground and keep him there, if he could be caught. But they call Prolofski the slippery one. He’s never where you think he is.’ She wondered what this was about. Ivan Ivanovich was very serious this morning. ‘You went for a long walk last night,’ she said.

‘And her young Highness did not think too much of me for it,’ he said, but he did not smile. Karita began to feel disturbed.

‘Ivan Ivanovich,’ she said, ‘if this man Prolofski is a bother I’ll tell you something. If a time and a place were known and he came to that place at that time, I could catch him for you. Is he to be killed?’

She asked the question so calmly that he thought she could not know what she was saying. But her brown eyes were steady, cool and knowledgeable. It was a knowledge of men like Prolofski.

‘I haven’t killed anyone yet, Karita, nor have you. Have you?’ She shook her head. ‘Do you really say you could catch them? There will be two.’

‘Two?’

‘I’m sure of it. What shall we do with both of them? Prolofski is the prosecution, the other one the executioner.’

‘We’ll find a hole for both,’ said Karita. ‘Abadah Khan will see to it. When are we to catch them?’

‘Tonight. Don’t you want to know why?’

Karita stood up. There was a strange burning in her eyes but she was still quite calm.

‘If you say the Tsar and his family are in danger, then they are,’ she said. ‘If you say this or that is so, then it is. If you say Prolofski must be put away, then he will be. You would not take me to England if I asked too many questions. But you must tell me everything I need to know about the time and the place, everything that Abadah Khan needs to know. Then I must hurry or there won’t be time to find him and have him arrange things.’

Kirby told her of the woodman’s hut on the estate and how he was meeting Prolofski there half an hour after sunset. He told her how he would signal the moment for action. He did not tell her why he was meeting the man, nor did Karita ask why. But he did say, ‘You can be in good conscience over this, Karita, I swear. Will you be back before sunset?’

‘I shall be with Abadah Khan and his men,’ she said, ‘I shall only come back here if for some reason Abadah Khan can’t help us. But if I can reach him in time he will, I know he will. If not, then you’ll have to arrange another meeting with Prolofski.’

‘That might be difficult,’ he said with a grimace. ‘How will you travel?’

‘By motor car. Simeon Baroskovich will drive me. He’s one of the chauffeurs, he’ll get one of the motor cars out for me, you see, or I’ll ask General Sikorski if I can borrow his and his chauffeur, though I like Simeon better. He is fond of me too, so it will be a nice surprise for him to have the day off with me, but he’ll know nothing about Prolofski. If you’ll tell his Imperial Highness I must go to see my mother, he’ll give Simeon the day off to take me.’

‘Karita, do you run the Livadia Palace?’

‘I only look after you,’ she said. He reached out a hand, she stooped and he kissed her warmly on the lips. Karita responded with an impulsive pressure of her mouth. His kiss was in gratitude, her response was simply because she liked being kissed.

‘Be careful,’ he said.

‘You’re the one to be careful,’ she said, ‘you’re to meet Prolofski.’ She went but turned at the door, a little smile on her mouth. ‘Why do you kiss me here but not in St Petersburg?’ she asked.

‘In St Petersburg,’ he said solemnly, ‘it would not be proper, little one.’

He went into Yalta later. When he returned he had what he had never carried before. A pistol.

While he was away Alexis wanted to know why he had gone at all.

‘I haven’t seen him to ask him,’ said Olga, ‘but when he does come back you can give him a good talking-to.’

‘He’ll only say something to make me laugh,’ said Alexis, his leg still awkwardly stiff, ‘it’s awfully difficult giving Ivan a good talking-to.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Olga, feeling the day was a little empty.

It wasn’t until evening when she was going with Tatiana to dinner that she saw him. He was not dressed for dinner himself, he wore his good-tempered velvet jacket and brown trousers. His arm was in his sling. He was going to meet someone, he said, and had been excused taking the meal.

‘Don’t tell me her name,’ said Tatiana, ‘or I shall be disastrously jealous and stick pins into her.’

‘No, it’s just a man I know,’ he said.

‘Papa will not say no if you wish to meet your friends here,’ said Olga.

‘He is not a friend,’ said Kirby.

‘I must tell you,’ said Olga, ‘that when Alexis sees you tomorrow he’s going to try to give you a good talking-to.’

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘For neglecting us,’ said Olga and her eyes held his to remind him of words he had spoken.

‘I shan’t be too long,’ he said, ‘and when I come back will you play some Bach for me?’

‘Olga,’ said Tatiana, ‘is dreadful at Bach, Ivan.’

‘Not to me she isn’t,’ he said.

He whistled softly as he went, a tune Olga had heard before. It wasn’t Bach. She smiled.

It was dusk as he approached the hut along the track. It stood in a clearing amid woodlands. Prolofski, standing in the doorway, watched him come, a tall shadow emerging from the trees. It had been cloudy all day and the dusk was a dark grey blanket. Prolofski stepped silently aside to let Kirby enter the hut. A few moments later another shadow emerged from the same trees. Prolofski stepped from the hut to meet him.

‘He came by himself, there are no others,’ said the newcomer.

Prolofski shrugged. He entered the hut, the other man following.

‘You must permit this,’ said Prolofski and Kirby stood unmoving as the other man searched him, running quick hands over him in the darkness. He smiled sarcastically at Prolofski, whose round face shone white beneath his black hat. Prolofski shrugged again. It was to say a man with a broken arm could still carry a weapon and could still use it. The searcher straightened up and gave a satisfied grunt. Prolofski listened. There was only the quietness of the grave outside. ‘In these times,’ he said, ‘a man has to make sure.’

‘I understand,’ said Kirby.

‘Can you? You can observe and you can pass opinions. But you’re English, so how can you understand? It takes centuries and you have to be Russian. What have you decided?’

‘First,’ said Kirby, ‘you must convince me you know enough about me.’

‘I’m to show you something? A piece of paper?’ Prolofski’s moon face was expressive of faint disgust. ‘My friend, I do not carry papers. It’s all up here.’ He tapped his forehead under his hat. ‘It’s committed and can’t be forgotten.’

‘What you carry in your head isn’t proof,’ said Kirby. ‘Remember my stake in this. It could be my life.’

‘Not if you kill Rasputin, only if you refuse to. As a spy they would shoot you because you’ve deceived Nicholas the Bloody himself. That, my friend, they’ll consider unpardonable. To convince you that you must work for us I’ll open my mind to you and speak the names of colleagues you have in Russia. First, there’s a man called Anstruther of Yalta – though he is elsewhere now, comrade – and then there is a man called Burroughs of Moscow, also Borodin Jacovich of the same place—’

‘They’re enough,’ said Kirby.

‘It wasn’t a difficult code and it’s all up here.’ He tapped his forehead again. Almost he smiled. ‘She has the piece of paper. You are doubly covered, my friend. By my head and her piece of paper.’

‘Princess Karinshka?’ said Kirby. ‘Is she involved in this?’

‘Not in this. She is useful in some ways, but is a woman with a woman’s limitations. She won’t be at your back, but I will. Now, Rasputin.’

‘Yes, Rasputin,’ said Kirby. On the face of it, Prolofski represented the biggest risk. He was merciless, Aleka temperamental. And Aleka did not yet know about the disposal of Rasputin. Or did she? Who could trust anything Prolofski said? Well, he would have to risk it. Prolofski had the names locked in his head. Aleka had them on a piece of paper. What would she do if she heard no more from Prolofski, if Prolofski disappeared into a hole in the ground? She was a risk too, but she was not Prolofski. ‘This is how I propose to do it,’ he said and extracted a paper from his breast pocket. The watchful shadow moved. There was, thought Kirby, a familiarity about him. But he wore a cap, pulled well down over his forehead, and the hut was dark. Kirby unfolded the paper awkwardly, using his one hand.

‘Am I a bat?’ asked Prolofski.

‘I know the interior of the Alexander Palace,’ said Kirby, who in fact did not, ‘and I must be sure you approve of what I suggest, because with a little luck I can kill him close to the bedroom of the Grand Duchess. The difficulty is that she shares this room with her sister. But look.’ He laid the paper on a rough table under the window of the hut. He took a box of matches and a thin wax taper from the right-hand pocket of his jacket. Using his left hand that emerged from his plaster cast and his sling, he struck a match and lit the taper. The dark bodyguard muttered. ‘There are no soldiers in this area,’ said Kirby.

‘Even so, I don’t like lights,’ said Prolofski. He bent over the table as Kirby played the light on the sheet of paper. The taper was in his left hand. Prolofski peered, and shielded by his body from the watchful shadow, Kirby slid his right hand under the table and withdrew the Colt automatic from its web of thread there. He stepped back. Prolofski looked up, the other man came forward and both saw the weapon at the same time.

‘You are a fool,’ said Prolofski coldly.

‘I brought it here earlier this evening,’ said Kirby. ‘Don’t move. I will certainly shoot. I will have to.’

‘It won’t save you.’

The other man swore. The lighted taper in Kirby’s left hand shone at the window. He kept it there. The gun glinted, pointing at Prolofski’s stomach. It was steady but Kirby knew the other man would not hold back indefinitely. He did not want to fire, but there was always the chance that Karita and Abadah Khan had not arrived. Also, if they had arrived, at the first sounds of their rush Prolofski and his shadow, without the threat of the Colt to restrain them, might in the darkness slip the net.

It was infinitely preferable not to use the weapon. The sound would carry and on the Tsar’s estate there were always patrols at night, although mainly around the perimeter.

Prolofski turned on the other man.

‘If there were others and you missed them, fool—’

‘I followed him as you told me to, he came alone,’ said the capped man, and suddenly in the light of the taper Kirby saw his face. It was Oravio, as unpleasant as he had always seemed pleasant. And Oravio shifted, poising himself on the balls of his feet.

At the doorway a voice spoke, a girl’s voice.

‘We are here, Ivan Ivanovich.’

Prolofski turned slowly, deliberately. Oravio swung round. In the doorway, dark against the background of descending night, stood Karita, a rifle in her hands, a scarf about her golden head.

‘Welcome, little one,’ said Kirby and sighed.

Karita moved and into the hut poured dark, soundless men. The round white face of Prolofski was a mask of icy rage. He spat as they took him. Oravio struggled with a fury born of having been tricked. But they held him. Karita saw him, her mouth tightened, her eyes burned and she walked up to him.

‘What did they ever do to hurt you?’ she said.

‘They oppress and murder my brothers,’ shouted Oravio, ‘and that’s enough for any man.’ He spat. It flecked her dark blouse. ‘And it’s more than enough for me.’

Karita struck him across the mouth.

‘You? Who are you?’ she said. ‘Who made you their judge? You, you are only fit to live in a hole with the other assassins. Say no more or these good people will cut out your tongue and his too.’

‘Our comrades will remember you, whore!’ roared Oravio.

Kirby took off his sling and stuffed it into the man’s mouth. The dark men completed the gagging and they bound him. They gagged and bound Prolofski too. The black hat fell off. He was as whitely bald as the moon itself. For a moment he resisted dementedly, then suddenly quietened. The cold, protuberant eyes became blank and with his hands tied and his mouth stuffed he was taken with Oravio from the hut.

‘Deliver them to Abadah Khan as quickly and as quietly as you can,’ said Karita. The dark men smiled. Kirby saw teeth flash. But none of them spoke. They vanished into the wooded depths with their captives, taking with them the rifle Karita had borrowed. Kirby extinguished the taper.

‘We waited a long time,’ said Karita. ‘We thought you were never going to show the light, we thought perhaps things had gone wrong for you. It was very worrying.’

‘In my selfishness,’ said Kirby, ‘I wanted to find out first how much of my life Prolofski commanded. I’m still not sure. I’ll tell you about it one day.’

‘It was good to catch him,’ said Karita, ‘he’s an assassin, did you know? He doesn’t care if he blows up ten innocent people as long as he gets the one he is after. Now he’ll live in a hole with Oravio for as long as you wish. Abadah Khan will only let them out when you say. You are the Tsar’s friend, therefore Abadah Khan says you have only to ask and his services are yours. You would like Abadah Khan, he is always laughing. You are all right?’

‘I’m fine. You’re extraordinary. Would you have used that rifle?’

‘Of course.’ She sounded surprised that he should ask. ‘I was very worried about you. Prolofski isn’t a nice man and you had only one arm to use.’

‘That was a help, it put them off their guard a little, I think.’

‘I didn’t want anything to happen to you,’ said Karita as they began to make their way along the dark track. ‘What would happen to me? I could not go back to Karinshka to work, I shouldn’t like it there now.’

‘They’ll wonder why Oravio doesn’t go back.’

‘Nobody will find him, he’ll have disappeared.’ Karita had only an incurable contempt for Oravio now. ‘We had better hurry, I have so many things to see to—’

‘You’ve nothing to see to.’ He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Karita, you are lovely. You are my pride and treasure. You’ve helped the Imperial family and you’ve helped me. Tremendously. Thank you.’

He squeezed her shoulders. He began his soft whistle. Karita felt immensely pleased with herself. It was so satisfying to be regarded as a treasure and to walk with him along the winding track, the darkness a friendly embrace rather than a hindrance. He did not kiss her to show his gratitude for what she had done. She knew that here, where they were very much alone, would not be the proper place for him to do so. He would wait until they were back in the palace. But even then he did not do so. As she removed her scarf in his suite and shook out her flattened hair he passed his hand over her soft, silky tresses and said again, ‘You are lovely, Karita. Thank you very much.’

It gave her a nice feeling. But she would still have liked to be kissed.

He went down to the music room. It was empty. Square, spacious, with its upright chairs and its grand piano, it was put to frequent use in the evenings. Sometimes such evenings were informally family when the Grand Duchesses played, sometimes ambitious when everyone would gather to hear a maestro play. Kirby had heard the elder Grand Duchesses at the piano on occasions. Tatiana had talent, Olga had creditable application. Old General Sikorski was surprisingly good with a violin tucked beneath his chin.

Kirby sat down at the piano. There was music on the stand. Bach. He smiled. He tapped out a light tune with one finger. He felt mentally relaxed, his mind free of its dark burden. Karita really was extraordinary, and more indispensable than ever.

Olga heard the tiny tinkling. She came and stood in the doorway. He did not see her, he was sitting at the piano, tapping single notes but making a tune, nevertheless. She watched him, her blue eyes soft, smiling to herself because he did not know she was there. How fit he looked again. And Mama had not been difficult, after all. She had heard all about the ball, had sighed gently at the mention of Colonel Kirby, but dearest Tatiana had quickly said how she and Olga had simply insisted on his attendance. And Mama had said, ‘Well, then, how could he refuse? And so he managed to dance, did he?’

‘Not only with us,’ said Tatiana, ‘but with other ladies. Everyone likes him so much, he’s so nice to have around. I wish you might invite him to Tsarskoe Selo, we could skate with him in the winter.’

‘I think Colonel Kirby would always prefer Livadia,’ said Alexandra.

‘Yes, Mama, perhaps he would,’ said Olga. She did not dare press Tsarskoe Selo.

She wondered now how much longer he would be at Livadia, how much longer his British superiors would allow him to stay.

He looked up then and saw her. He smiled and Olga experienced a sensation of both pleasure and relief. Whatever had been troubling him, making him seem so remote, had gone.

‘I am not disturbing you?’ she said, entering the room a little diffidently.

‘How can you be?’ he said, rising. ‘This is your piano, Olga, and I thought you’d be playing Bach.’

‘You were longer than we thought you’d be,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘is it too late for music now?’

‘No, of course not. What is that tune you were playing? I’ve heard you whistling it.’

‘Oh, it’s something we sang when I was very young and at school.’

‘Sing it now,’ said Olga, standing by the piano.

‘I’m dreadful at singing,’ he said.

‘As I am at Bach,’ she smiled.

He sat down again, saying, ‘Well, I’ll do the best I can. But I can’t play, either.’

‘Well, do the best you can with that too,’ she said.

He played the tune with one hand. He could not sing, as he had said, but he did his best and Olga thought his voice passably pleasant considering. She listened to the song.

What is her name, this maid so fair

With flowers in her golden hair?

Her name is Mary Out-of-doors,

She has a cat called Pussy Claws.

Where does she live, this pretty maid

With eyes like bluebells in the shade?

In a house by Dingle Dell,

Though where that is I cannot tell.

What does she do, this maid so sweet

With slippers green upon her feet?

She dances with the butterflies

And that to me is no surprise.

Whom will she wed, this maid so fair

With flowers in her golden hair?

She’ll wed a country boy, you see,

And give her Pussy Claws to me.

‘Colonel Kirby!’ Olga clapped her hands in delight. ‘Oh, that is a delicious song. Again, please.’

‘Together,’ he said.

‘I will if you’ll write the words down,’ said Olga.

He wrote the words on the back of a music sheet. She took the sheet, he did his best at the piano and they sang it together. Her voice was shy at first, but he didn’t care how his sounded so she began not to mind about hers, either. Hers became clear and melodious then and they sang it through.

They laughed in triumph.

Olga was rapturous.

Kirby, looking up into her delighted eyes, was in hopeless longing.