Karita was in splendid spirits. Kirby had written to her and she had gone to the convalescent retreat to join him. Paul Kateroff was astonished and angry. When he realized there was no thought in her mind of not going he told her that her subservience degraded her. She put her chin up.
‘Is it subservient to do what one wants to do?’ she said.
‘You’re no better than a serf, running when he says run, going when he says go—’
‘We are family, he’s my mother and father,’ said Karita.
‘You stupid girl, what does that mean except a lot of archaic nonsense?’
‘It means that I would rather be family with him than stay here and pull your silly nose,’ said Karita.
Paul was so bitter that he made the mistake of saying things that made her blood rush and her body burn. But she let him finish, she was only thankful that Ivan Ivanovich was not present himself to hear what was said.
Then she spoke. ‘I thought you better than some of the others, but when you insist on listening to so many lies and so much hatred it’s to be expected that you end up speaking obscenities yourself.’
He had lost his golden-haired girl. He never saw her again. He died in the revolution, executed by Bolsheviks because he opposed their denial of free speech to all.
On the estate given over by a patriotic landowner for accommodating convalescing officers, Karita lived among other servants. She was sad at times because the war was going so badly for her beloved Russia. But she would not have been less sad elsewhere, and elsewhere she would not have had her moments of warm satisfaction. Ivan Ivanovich was frankly delighted to have her there. He was so generous in his appreciation of all she did for him, her attentions liberally augmenting the cursory ministrations of the limited medical staff, that Karita was almost embarrassed.
‘There’s no need to thank me so much for everything,’ she said, ‘after all, we are really family.’
She had begun to say things like that. It amused him, endeared her to him. He laughed.
‘Karita, little one,’ he said, ‘I adore you.’
‘Oh, not improperly, I hope,’ said Karita.
He shook with laughter.
Karita was not only his comfort, she was his ally. He needed one here. The Russian armies were being battered and pounded on every front in the west, and the Russian officers were becoming bitter. Colonel Kirby was English and therefore the natural target for their bitterness. What was England doing apart from allowing Russia to make nearly all the sacrifices? The British sat safely in their French trenches and no doubt gambled only with cards while Russia lost thousands of lives a day. It was no wonder England could always win the last battle when every preceding battle was fought by her allies. Kirby used maps to try and explain the British case, he used population figures to show why Britain could not put such massive armies into the field as Germany or Russia. But he knew he sounded apologetic rather than convincing. Karita soon became aware of how he was being assailed by her countrymen and showed her resentment by actually arguing with them. They were astonished at first, then always they roared with laughter, smacked her on the bottom and told her to go and put ribbons in her hair. Karita was tempted to smack some of them back but one could not do that to men who had lost an eye, an arm, a leg. But they were very unfair. She knew that her Englishman loved Russia as much as they did.
Kirby was using a crutch. He hopped about on this like a wooden-legged sailor, she said. She also said he was not to take too much notice of what the Russian officers said.
‘They’re trying to blame you,’ she said, ‘and you couldn’t have done more for Russia unless you had been blown completely to bits. Oh, why are people so stupid? And why is it the Germans are winning? It’s very sad, isn’t it?’
‘It isn’t because the Germans are better or braver, Karita,’ he said, as they sat together on a terrace overlooking a landscape of brown fields, ‘it’s because we’ve cared less about guns than they have.’
‘Why do you say we? You aren’t a Russian, it isn’t your fault.’
‘We all hide from reality if we can, we all tend to say it was the other fellow.’ His expression was sombre. ‘I may not be a Russian but I’ve had everything from Russia a man could want.’
‘Oh, you are nice to say that,’ she said. ‘So many people say terrible things about their own, but I’ve never heard you say anything at all terrible. And there’s so much trouble again, so much of people throwing bombs again. We put Peter Prolofski into a hole but there are more like him every day, all coming up out of different holes.’
It was the first time she had mentioned Prolofski since that dark night at Livadia. They shared the secret very easily and with a great deal of mutual respect.
‘I remember Prolofski, Karita,’ he said, and put his arm around her shoulders. It made her feel warm and wanted. It was an extraordinarily nice feeling. ‘Now the Tsar is going to take over command of his armies from Grand Duke Nicholas. What do you think of that, Karita?’
They looked out over the landscape of sunlit brown. It was pleasant enough, but without the colours and contours of the Crimea. The war was not so far away here. The Germans had overrun Poland. The atmosphere was unhappy.
‘The Tsar will beat them, you see,’ said Karita.
‘Perhaps, if they’ll give him guns and shells,’ said Kirby. She looked at his profile. She had never seen him so sombre. Her heart sank. If Ivan Ivanovich could not smile any more, what had happened to Russia? What was happening to it?
‘I wish he’d take you with him,’ she said, ‘you could think how to beat them.’
He turned his head. Her brown eyes were full of trust in his infallibility. He shook his head. He laughed. Karita smiled in return. Anything was better than to have him gloomy.
‘Karita, I know nothing of how to move armies, I’m really only a desk soldier,’ he said. ‘All I know at the moment is that I don’t like the Tsar being so committed to isolation from his capital. Every enemy he has will move against him.’
They were moving, but not so much against Nicholas as Alexandra. Totally unequipped to take on the role of autocratic regent, Alexandra nevertheless attempted it. Immediately she was attacked on all sides, and the attacks were venomous. Particularly hateful to her were the renewed accusations that she was pro-German. The slanders that attached implications to her relationship with Rasputin were unbearably crude and vicious. But because of her faith in the holy man and her devotion to God, she suffered every calumny with a spiritual strength that was unbreakable.
The Russian retreat slowed down and a defensive line was established. But the loss of Poland had been a shock, and it was one from which the armies and the nation never really recovered. Alexandra did nothing to improve morale at home. All that she did do seemed to worsen things, yet she was utterly sincere in her conviction that all she did was for the good of Imperial Russia.
Meanwhile Kirby found an ally with a more authoritative voice than Karita’s. Major Kolchak suddenly arrived. He seemed to have one shoulder awkwardly lower than the other and his arm threatened to be permanently stiff. He had the look of a man who had nearly been hanged. He was delighted to renew his acquaintance with Kirby, and on his first visit to the mess listened with his square, rugged face gradually darkening as fellow officers attacked Kirby for England’s shortcomings.
‘Gentlemen!’ Major Kolchak’s voice startled them all into silence. ‘You’re forgetting yourselves. Colonel Kirby is our guest. He’s also my friend. Shall we talk of women we have known?’
Yet in his own way Major Kolchak was the bitterest of them all. He directed his anger not against the Allies, however, but against Russian incompetence and corruption. He foresaw more than the possibility of Russia’s defeat, he foresaw the complete collapse of civil administration and the plunge into revolution. He had long conversations with Kirby. He was convinced that the first to go would be the Tsar himself.
‘Those who hate Nicholas or are envious of him include certain Romanovs,’ he said. ‘But if they contrive to destroy him then they themselves will be eliminated by the revolutionaries. The revolutionaries, once they have got rid of the reigning Romanov, will make sure they aren’t saddled with another. What an inglorious mess we’re in, my friend. And look at me, I’ll be lucky if I can draw a pistol in defence of the Tsar, let alone fire it.’
‘Stand behind me,’ said Kirby, ‘I’ll fire for both of us – but with my eyes shut.’
Major Kolchak liked that.
‘Ah, we are two of a kind,’ he said, ‘I am a coward too, by God. And a useless one now.’
But the human body being the resilient machine it is, Major Kolchak was declared fit enough to return to his unit in August. And not long afterwards Kirby returned to Petrograd.
Alexandra, on one of her periodical visits to headquarters, casually mentioned what a remarkable recovery Colonel Kirby had made. He had written to Alexis, telling the Tsarevich he would soon be back in Petrograd where he expected to receive orders that would return him to the British military staff at headquarters.
‘I couldn’t be more pleased,’ said Nicholas. The strain of his new responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief showed in the new lines around his eyes. But he seemed relaxed at the moment. He always enjoyed Alexandra’s visits. To the stark militarism of Stavka she brought the luxury of trivialities, the news of friends or relatives. There was no time during their married lives when these two people were not happy to see each other, no time when Nicholas did not listen attentively to her ingenuous opinion of a minister’s failings or her homely recital of a domestic happening.
‘Colonel Kirby is a fine man,’ she said, then went on to talk about the children. She touched on Anastasia’s tendency to favour things that made her fat, then on the wretchedness of circumstances that were spoiling the most exciting years of Olga’s life. ‘She works so hard, Nicky, and is under so much strain with her nursing. She will do more than she should. It’s such a shame that it should all be like this at a time when life ought to be at its sweetest for her. We must do all we can to see that the most important things don’t pass her by.’
‘Marriage, for instance?’ Nicholas mused on that subject, always a complicated one, always governed as much by politics as anything else where any of his children were concerned. ‘I don’t think she’s in any great hurry, my love, and I don’t think she will be while we’re still at war.’
‘Oh, my dear,’ said Alexandra, close to him in the austere comfort of his railway coach, ‘I only feel we shouldn’t use the war as an excuse to overlook the matter or we may find we shan’t want to lose her at all. We must be fair to her.’
‘My feeling is that Olga would prefer us to leave it to happen rather than have us contrive it,’ said Nicholas. He could not quite see the point of Alexandra’s concern. There were simply no eligible suitors in the offing with the war situation as it was. Indeed, most of such suitors were on the side of the enemy.
‘But it would be unwise and unfortunate if she wanted us to leave it for the wrong reasons,’ said Alexandra. Never in the best of health now, she too had her other worries. There were dark shadows under her eyes.
‘Well, there’s little we can do except pray for victory and peace,’ said Nicholas in his philosophic way. For Nicholas there was always the hope that things would be better tomorrow. ‘Nobody will be happier then than Olga. She’ll think of marriage then, my love.’
‘I pray to God for victory, peace and Olga’s happiness,’ said Alexandra earnestly. Then for some reason she said, ‘As to Colonel Kirby, I’m sure he’ll be fretting for more active service when he returns from convalescence. It would be nice to be able to help him. What a pity we can only do so indirectly. If he were in the Russian army we could do so much more for him.’
Nicholas’s smile brought back some of his youthful charm. He was forty-seven and beginning to age. But his smile was still irresistible.
‘No, my sweet Alix, I can’t make him a general. That’s only been a joke between us. He knows it.’
‘My love, I know it too,’ said Alexandra. She was still as slender as she had been as a young woman, still used reserve to armour her shyness. ‘I only meant that when he’s quite fit again he might relish a new role. He’s always said how much he’d like to serve you, Nicky, and he could do this very well as a staff officer in our own army. It only needs a word from you to the British authorities to have this arranged.’
‘Mmm,’ said Nicholas. He rubbed his beard. ‘He could come back here. He’s uncommonly useful to have around and the most congenial chap as well.’
Alexandra observed very pleasantly that she had actually been thinking just how much Colonel Kirby might appreciate a complete change of scenery, and that to keep him close to them might be considered rather selfish and indulgent. Everyone liked him immensely and they themselves ought not to make too much claim on his company.
This time the Tsar’s smile was a rather wan recognition of the roundabout way Alexandra had travelled to make her point. He knew she suspected Olga of forming a totally unwise attachment which could prejudice his eldest daughter’s outlook when the possibility of a suitable alliance did arise.
‘Mmm,’ murmured Nicholas again, ‘I wonder if he’d like to come over to us? We could use him in Armenia with our Caucasian army. He’d be very useful there, especially with the British operation in the Dardanelles going on.’
‘Armenia?’ Alexandra measured the distance in her mind’s eye. She smiled gratefully. ‘I’m sure that’s an excellent place for him to be, darling. You know, you always arrange things so well when you’re not being harassed by others. It’s a great pity that so many people think they’re being helpful when they’re only interfering. I know this is only a minor matter but it still needed thinking about.’
Nicholas knew it was not a minor matter to her. He leaned forward and caressed her cheek with his fingertips.
‘I’ll have a word with our British friends,’ he said.
Kirby was back in Petrograd. He limped a bit and there were furrows in his right arm deep enough to carry rivers of water when he was in the bath. But his convalescence had browned him, he looked fit again and the limp would go in time with exercise.
As soon as he and Karita arrived in the capital he received a visit from a spruce senior Russian officer. He had come from the War Ministry and wished a few friendly words with Kirby. In short, His Imperial Highness the Tsar sent his felicitations on Colonel Kirby’s recovery and wondered if Kirby would care to serve him more directly. A rank equivalent to his British one awaited him at Third Corps headquarters in Kars on their southern Caucasian front, where it was hoped the Russians would in due course link up with the British when the latter forced the Dardanelles. Did Colonel Kirby think that a suitable appointment? His Imperial Highness would consider it an honour if he agreed. The British authorities had signified their approval of the transfer. What did Colonel Kirby think?
Kirby knew exactly what to think.
He could either go to Kars, south of the Caucasus, as an officer in the Imperial Russian army or decline and almost certainly be returned to the United Kingdom. There was no other alternative when one knew what must have actuated the offer.
Kirby accepted. For one reason alone. He wanted to stay in Russia. He had to maintain some communication with Olga, even if only that of treading the same soil, even though they would be a thousand miles apart. Having accepted, he received orders to proceed to Kars on Monday. It was now Saturday. He had two days’ grace. Karita was nearly speechless. What were they doing with him, sending him there, bringing him here and now this? He was just being ordered about. He was to join the Russian army? But why? It was absurd. Now he’d be ordered about by the Russians as well as the British. Aunt Charlotte would never stand for it.
‘Yes, I am simply speechless,’ she said.
‘Are you?’ he said. ‘When?’
He told her the British would no longer have the right to give him orders. Just the Russians. Karita said orders from some of the Russians she knew would confuse the saints themselves. Kirby told her to stay in Petrograd if she wished.
‘Oh, no, you’re not going to try that again,’ she said. She would go with him to this place wherever it was. He told her that Kars was nearer to her home in the Crimea than Petrograd was. It was in Armenia. Karita shuddered. Armenia was the end of the world. It was where you froze to death in the winter and scorched to death in summer. Its people were still barbarians. Nevertheless, as he had to go she would go with him. Her mother would certainly insist on it and it was no use arguing.
‘I know that,’ he said, ‘I’m wiser now.’
The following day, Sunday, he went to the Alexander Palace, arriving there at a time when he felt the Imperial family would have returned from morning service. Tsarskoe Selo seemed at peace, the palace in quiet, majestic contemplation of the Sabbath. He asked for audience with the Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna. His own name brought a flicker of acknowledgement from a court official. He did not know the man, but the man seemed to have heard of him, and no doubt in association with Olga. It would be this sort of thing that would bother Alexandra.
He did not have to wait long before he was escorted through the palace to one of the drawing rooms. Olga was there, and imprudently or not, she was quite alone, without any lady-in-waiting. She wore a dress of purest Sunday white, satin-sashed, and her hair, caught by the light of the windows, was as bright as if the sun had poured gold into it. If the realities and tragedies of war had awakened her consciousness of the world as it truly was, yet they had also given her complete maturity, turning a sensitive girl into a compassionate woman. She was a girl no longer. But never, he thought, would she ever lose for him that which had first come to his eyes. The enchantment of unkissed innocence.
She was a little tense, a little pale, but as he came towards her the warm blood quickened and her eyes shone. He was so brown again, so much himself once more, despite a slight limp as if his leg had a stiffness to it. He took the hand she extended.
‘I haven’t been so long this time, have I?’ he said, smiling.
‘Dear Colonel Kirby, no, not long at all,’ she said, a little breathless and very happy. ‘Oh, it’s good to see you looking so well again, you cannot imagine how pleased I am.’ Her hand trembled in his, she curled her fingers tightly to steady them. They looked at each other. Her mouth began its betrayal, her bottom lip would not be still. He felt the urgency of his desire to kiss her, to lay his lips on the soft bed of her mouth. Each time he saw her it became harder to deny the urge. Now it was frightening. She was emotional, the long lashes quivering, wanting to hide what was in her eyes. They flickered, fell and lifted again. He knew he must not, she knew he must not, but her mouth was tremulous with appeal, her clasp tighter.
The door opened, the moment of danger precipitately broken as Tatiana came in. Olga drew hastily back, her face burning as she turned to hide herself, her hand on the heavy curtain drawn back from the bright window.
‘Ivan Ivanovich! They said you were here and you are! Oh, how lovely!’ And Tatiana swooped and flew to him. ‘Olga, may I?’ She threw her arms around Kirby’s neck and kissed him in glad, impulsive welcome. Olga swung round and a little gasp broke from her. The despair of being denied that which Tatiana took so uninhibitedly showed in her stricken expression.
‘Oh, Tasha,’ she said in pain, ‘am I to say you may not?’ Tatiana, oblivious of her sister’s distress, drew back to survey Kirby with shining delight.
‘There, you see,’ she said, ‘you’re put together again and even better than before. Oh, how grand you look, Ivan. Olga, whoever would think he had been so knocked about. Are we to sit, may we talk?’
‘Shall I go or stay?’ said Olga.
Tatiana turned, saw that Olga was in some way hurt and went swiftly to her.
‘Dearest, I’m sorry,’ she whispered, ‘but I was so excited. Let me stay a minute or two, let us all talk for just a little while.’
Olga could never resist Tatiana. The three of them sat and talked. At first it was all about what each of them had been doing, then about the war. The war could not be escaped from. The Grand Duchesses had their own anxieties about it and were all too obvious in their desire to hear Kirby say the situation was not really serious, that the Allies would ensure it would all be over by Christmas at least. He could not paint that kind of picture, especially not for them. He could only suggest that time was on the side of the Allies, although he knew that time by itself was likely to be tragically expensive for Russia.
Olga began to wonder. There was something about him that made her suspicious. Had he come to only say goodbye again? Men were always doing that in wartime. Worse, he had a tendency to do it all the time. A little fierceness took hold of her. When Tatiana said she must go, it did not surprise Olga in the least to hear him say he was going away tomorrow. But she was astonished, and so was Tatiana, when he said he had accepted a commission in the Russian army.
‘But, Ivan,’ cried Tatiana, ‘how ridiculous! Oh, and how famous. You’re really going to fight for Papa and all of us?’
‘It isn’t a bit famous,’ said Olga, ‘but it is ridiculous. What does it mean, does it mean something good?’
He told them it meant he was to join the army of the Caucasus.
‘The Caucasus? Oh, do you call that good?’ Olga sounded angry. Tatiana wondered if Olga realized there was an implied possessiveness about her attitude that was regrettable.
‘Nothing is very good for anyone in this kind of war, is it?’ said Kirby. Tatiana liked him so much, he refused to get emotional or dramatic, he kept things as matter-of-fact as he could even though she knew he cared deeply for Olga.
Olga rose. The Caucasus? That was a million miles away.
‘It’s an utterly beastly war,’ said Tatiana as she and Kirby rose too, ‘but you have all our blessings, all our prayers, and when it’s over there’ll be a wonderful victory ball. We’ll be there and so will you. Ivan, make it come to an end soon. It’s not so bad for us but it’s dreadful for our soldiers. Don’t be away too long, come back to us. Dearest Ivan, God bless you.’ She kissed him, squeezed his arm and went quickly from the room.
Olga, pale with accusation, faced him.
‘Why have you done this?’ she asked. ‘Why have you joined the Russian army and volunteered for the Caucasus? Do you know how far away that is?’
‘Olga,’ he said, ‘Russia has been good to me and I owe her a great deal. The Emperor has given me trust and friendship and I owe him even more. If this is the best way I can serve him—’
‘If?’ Olga’s suspicions clarified into conviction. ‘I see,’ she said, ‘it’s someone else’s idea. And you have consented to it. Colonel Kirby, I never thought you would let them send you to the Caucasus without fighting them a little.’
‘But you see, Olga,’ he said, ‘being sent to the Caucasus is for me infinitely preferable to being sent back to England. I want to stay in Russia, I want to see the war through here.’
‘The Caucasus isn’t here!’ Olga was so upset that she turned her back on him. ‘Colonel Kirby, you’re going to make me so unhappy. We need our friends, we need them close to us.’
‘Olga, you have thousands of friends in Petrograd alone.’ He saw that her back was very straight and felt a pride in her.
‘Have we? Tatiana and I are beginning to wonder about that.’ She moved to the window, looked out over the summer-dry grass. ‘I mean true friends. Oh, you are the unkindest of men to do this.’
‘What?’ he said in astonishment.
‘You are.’ Her voice was muffled, defensive. ‘You know I can’t bear goodbyes, yet you’re always forcing them on me. That’s unkind, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, my dear sweet Olga,’ he said impulsively and tenderly. It did little to steady her nerves. Desperately she kept her eyes on the view, though she saw nothing of it. She was close to betraying her parents’ trust. ‘Olga, do you think I like goodbyes any more than you do?’
‘No, but—’ She lapsed into helplessness. She turned to him. She tried to smile. ‘Oh, I do have bad moments, don’t I?’ she said. ‘It’s I who am being unkind. And I’m complaining about something thousands of people face every day. Please forgive me. But it would be heavenly to live in a world where there were no goodbyes, where one’s friends were always close. Don’t you think so?’
‘I expect a few of us would still find something to complain about,’ he smiled. ‘Probably about how our friends were always on our doorstep.’
‘Yes,’ she said. She seemed unconvinced. She twisted the sapphire ring she wore. ‘I’m very selfish, aren’t I?’
‘No, you are not,’ he said firmly.
‘I am, you know.’ She tried another smile. It was not a great success. ‘I want things I can’t have. That is selfish in a Grand Duchess, isn’t it, when so many other people are in far greater need, when they have so little of what I take for granted, like bread? Please, you’ll ignore my little tantrum, will you not? You must go to the Caucasus, you must go wherever you’re sent, of course you must. Only—only I do wish you did not seem to be saying goodbye so often.’
‘There have been different times, Olga, especially at Livadia.’
It was in her eyes then, the memory of golden days and laughing children.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. She went on in her softest voice. ‘Colonel Kirby, please don’t think me too foolish, but I have so cherished our friendship, so treasured all those times. You made Livadia so happy for us. It isn’t wrong, even for me, is it, to cherish a friendship?’
‘Or for me?’ he said gently.
‘Oh, it’s so difficult,’ she whispered. Suddenly he saw the brightness of tears unbearable to him. ‘But I wish there were other words, not just the ones to do with goodbye. I wish there were.’
He shook his head, unable for a moment to speak. Then he said, ‘There aren’t so many other words, Olga, only these. I shouldn’t say them but I must. I love you, I love you with all my heart. I loved you the day I first saw you, I loved you when you were sixteen. I love you now. I will always love you.’
She flamed into rich, radiant colour. She trembled, she put her hands to her face, pressed her eyelids with her fingertips. Her head bent, her hair fell forward. She fought emotions that threatened everything for which she was predestined by heritage. She searched her being for words of her own. She lifted her head, uncovered her eyes and looked up into his face.
‘Now, whatever happens,’ she said, ‘nothing can take that away from me. Now I shall always be happy. Now I shall never be a Crown Princess, there’s no Crown Prince I could ever love because all the love I have is already given. Now you and I will always be the dearest of friends, as we said before, but now the very dearest. And we shall never forget each other, shall we? Oh, I would so like it if you would always remember me, wherever we are, whatever happens.’
‘I can never forget Livadia, and you are Livadia,’ he said.
Olga smiled then, her eyes moistly brilliant. They had spoken their words. There were no more. She put out both hands. He took them, he raised each to his lips in turn. And that was all they had, Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna of Imperial Russia and John Kirby of England. That and all they had shared in the tranquillity of Livadia.
If, apart from her nursing work, Olga’s life was confined and sequestered, if she lived mostly in guarded security, this did not make her an unimaginative or shallow Grand Duchess. She was always herself, thoughtful, observant and understanding, longing to love and be loved. She was the personification of all that was best in the graciousness of her disappearing world. Because she was herself she kept her promise to her mother, she kept faith with her father. All that John Kirby ever touched of her were her hands, all he ever kissed were her fingertips. She was true to her heritage.
It was only her heart she denied.
Tatiana slipped back into the room when he had gone. Olga was at the window, gazing out at the sunshine wherein danced all her dreams.
‘Olga? Don’t be sad, dearest,’ whispered Tatiana, cherishing and envying the wonder of her sister’s love.
Olga turned her head. Tatiana saw the reflected dreams.
‘Sad? Oh no, Tasha, I’m not sad. You don’t know how beautiful it is to be loved. I have almost everything I can have now, and it doesn’t matter how often or how far they send him away, he’ll always be where we are, always.’
‘No, darling, he’ll always be where you are.’