*
It was bliss to get away to France. Cyril stayed at an hotel in Cannes and motored over to see me every day for a week. Mother never received him. She contrived always to be out or resting when he called for me.
‘Nothing happened. And anyway I didn’t see it.’ That was Mother’s way of being both disapproving and a little lenient.
Cyril and I were simply cousins who both happened to be wintering in France. That was the position Mother had decided to take, and she made sure we had no opportunity to become lovers by insisting that I take Baby Bee with me wherever I went. Darling Bee. For the price of an ice cream she’d make herself scarce for half an hour so Cyril and I could park somewhere secluded and kiss. It was exquisite agony.
‘Steady on, old thing,’ he’d say. ‘One’s desperately trying to be a gentleman.’
I asked him once if he was a virgin.
‘Ducky!’ he said. ‘What kind of a question is that?’
I took the answer to be No. Well, these things are different for men.
There was so much to talk about. Uncle Bertie’s coronation wasn’t to take place for another year and a half. We decided we couldn’t possibly wait so long and if I knew Uncle Bertie he wouldn’t expect us to. In a family as enormous as ours there would always be some reason the timing was inappropriate. Someone would die and there’d be Court mourning. Or there’d be a wedding that mustn’t be overshadowed. No, we must just get on with it.
I was to ask Ernie for a divorce towards the end of the year. Cyril was concerned that he might refuse, that he might insist on holding on to me until I’d given him an heir.
I said, ‘But Ernie knows where babies come from. He never makes the least effort to make one. I think he’s given up on Hesse. When he reaches the end of his days they’ll just have to scrape the barrel for a successor.’
I believed it could all be managed very discreetly. Uncle Bertie would be amenable, Ernie would be a gentleman and Cyril and I would be married, quietly. We’d live in St Petersburg, to be near Cyril’s base at Kronstadt, and Elli would go to Darmstadt each summer for three months, to see Ernie. What a child I was, thinking all these things would come to pass, just because I wished it.
*
In June of that year Empress Sunny gave birth to another girl. Anastasia.
So much for the French doctor, wrote Aunt Miechen. He’s been dismissed. One does begin to feel sorry for Sunny. An heir is really the very least we ask of her.
In August Cyril received orders for the Pacific Squadron. I saw the hand of Sunny in his sudden transfer. I was sure Ernie must have written to her, to warn her that Cyril and I were determined to be married. He didn’t deny it. He just laughed.
He said, ‘How very self-absorbed you’ve become, Ducky. Do you really think Sunny has any power over where the Russian Navy sends its men? And do you really think she could care less about you and Sailor Cyril?’
I said, ‘I know Sunny would move heaven and earth if she thought it would make you happy.’
‘Make me happy?’ he said. ‘I’m completely indifferent to Cyril Vladimirovich’s movements and so had you better be if you insist on pursuing this idiotic pash. That’s the life a Navy wife must expect.’
Cyril was transferred to the battleship Peresvet and sailed for Port Arthur, Manchuria, immediately. It would be a year, at least a year, he said, before he’d see me again and I must be brave and patient. Well, I managed two months of patience and bravery and then I did the only thing I could think of. I went home to Mother.
Ernie didn’t ask how long I expected to be away. Perhaps he guessed I wasn’t coming back. If I’d taken Elli with me he’d have wanted to know every particular of my plans, but I didn’t. I left her in Darmstadt until I was sure of my next step. I anticipated there would be a great deal of shouting and weeping when I got to Coburg and told Mother my intentions. It would be no scene for a six-year-old to witness.
Mother went on the attack at once. I was twenty-four years old. I had a husband, a child and a Duchy to consider. Why must I be so selfish and infantile? What had she ever done to deserve two such silly daughters as Missy and me? And then the sharpest barb of all: if I had really left my husband why hadn’t I brought my child with me?
She said, ‘What kind of mother are you?’
That broke me. I’d been nursing that pain all the way from Elli’s nursery door to Mother’s drawing room. It was a fair question. What kind of mother leaves her child? I cried so noisily that Mother held her fire and sat in stunned silence.
When my cries had subsided to silent sobs a cup of chocolate was rung for. Mother went to the door and waited for it to be brought from the kitchens. She was determined that no servants should witness the state I was in.
I said, ‘I have to tell you something. It’s something I couldn’t allow Elli to hear.’
‘That was no reason not to bring her here,’ she said. ‘She could have been taken out for a walk in the park. And I hope this isn’t about Cyril Vladimirovich.’
I said, ‘No, it’s about Ernie’s perversion. He prefers to have relations with men.’
Then she listened.
I told her about the scene I’d stumbled on that afternoon at Wolfsgarten, about Hubert and Dieter and heaven knows how many other boys, and how I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times Ernie had shared my bed since Elli was born.
She said nothing for the longest time. When I looked at her, to try and gauge her mood, I thought how very old she looked. Eventually she said, ‘I seem to have made a bad job of choosing husbands for my daughters.’
I said, ‘Sandra seems happy.’
Mother said, ‘Sandra chose her own husband.’
I was exhausted.
She said, ‘If only your father had lived, or dear Affie. They’d have given Ernie Hesse the thrashing he deserves.’
The idea of my brother giving anyone a thrashing introduced a welcome note of comedy to that grim afternoon. Mother took my hand. Her skin was so thin and papery.
‘My poor child,’ she said. ‘One hears of such things, of course. But in Russia we don’t have it, and I don’t think Germans suffer from it either, not real Germans. Is it an English disease? I think it must be. Well now, don’t worry. Mother will see to everything. There must be an annulment, of course, not the other thing. An annulment is so much more elegant. But the first thing you must do is send for Elli. Think what she might witness if she spends another moment in that house of depravity. Her nurse must bring her here at once. You and she shall always, always find a home in Coburg.’
*
Later she said, ‘I suppose you still have thoughts of Cyril Vladimirovich?’
I told her that Cyril loved me and when my marriage to Ernie was dissolved I intended to marry him. She sighed.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘at least he won’t run around with boys. But I must warn you, Ducky, Romanov men don’t always make devoted husbands. They can be very hot-tempered. And they will spend money on their ballerinas. Apartments, furs.’
I said, ‘Emperor Nicky doesn’t.’
‘Perhaps not now,’ she said. ‘But only because Sunny keeps him on a short tether. I’m sure he’d still go to that Kschessinskaya creature twice a week if he could.’
I was astonished. Mathilde Kschessinskaya was one of those women whose name was linked to several Grand Dukes. But Nicky! He’d always been so ardent for Sunny. I could only think he’d gone to La Kschessinskaya to learn the ropes, so to speak. I’d never seen her. I don’t know if she was a great beauty or just very obliging, but she seemed to be a kind of shared Romanov utility. Like a good tailor.
Mother recovered very quickly from the grenade I’d tossed into her life.
She said, ‘Of course if you do marry Cyril Vladimirovich, you’ll make your home in Coburg. You could have Schloss Rosenau.’
I said, ‘No. We’ll live in St Petersburg.’
‘Darling,’ she said, ‘don’t be silly. Do you really thi
nk Sunny will have you there after you’ve exposed her brother? She’ll defend him, you’ll see, and she’ll make sure she never has to see you. You’ll be just another Navy wife, always on the move. You’ll be posted to Vladivostock, and then I shall never see you, never see my grandchild. No, if you’re determined to have Cyril he’ll have to leave the Russian Navy and settle here. We can find something for him to do. Does he shoot?’
Everything Mother said made sense. An annulment, not a divorce. People would be so much kinder about that. And then a home in Germany where Elli’s occasional visits to Darmstadt would be easy to arrange. I slept very well that night and felt so full of energy when I woke the next morning. I wrote to Ernie. My tone, I thought, was practical and reasonable.
A week passed and I’d had no reply. I began to think my letter hadn’t reached him.
Mother said, ‘Of course it reached him. He’s up to something. He’s scheming how to make you the villain in all this. Your name will be mud in Hesse.’
I said, ‘But the people there love me.’
‘Do you really think so?’ she said. ‘Just see how quickly they’ll forget you.’
On the tenth day Ernie’s reply came. A cold, scornful letter. An annulment? On what grounds? Was I completely out of my wits? Divorce was the only option and it must be made clear to the world that I was the instigator of the suit. His terms were that Elli must spend at least half of every year with him in Darmstadt and return to live there permanently when she came of age. That was it. No sorrow, no regret. Mother said his demands were ridiculous. What did a man know about raising a daughter? Particularly a man with Ernie’s tendencies. A little girl needed to be with her mother, not a succession of catamites.
I said, ‘What if Elli doesn’t want to live with me? She’s such a daddy’s girl.’
Mother said, ‘Want? She’s a child. What she wants isn’t the point. You must stop being so feeble, Ducky. Think! What if Ernie marries again? He probably will. He’ll find some dupe. Are you going to allow another woman to raise your child for six months of the year? No, it’s quite unacceptable. Elli must live here, with you. Ernie can visit.’
Ernie’s note signalled the start of open season on my reputation. Letters flew between England and Russia and Germany. Aunts and in-laws and cousins and second cousins. The men kept quiet on the whole, perhaps anxious to keep the lid on their own little peccadilloes, but the womenfolk had plenty to say. Baby Bee became my listening post.
‘General opinion seems to be that you’ve lost your mind. Aunt Ella hopes time will heal. Irene finds it all most perplexing and Empress Sunny wishes you were dead. I must say, Ducky, I hope all this isn’t going to ruin things for me.’
‘Did Sunny actually say she wished I were dead?’
‘Not actually. She said it would have been better for Ernie to be widowed than be dragged through the horror of the D thing. Amounts to the same thing though, doesn’t it?’
Better death than divorce. Grandma Queen’s opinion precisely. Perhaps when one is Empress it comes naturally to move untidy lives and inconveniences around like pieces on a chess board.
Others, who at least didn’t wish for my early death, suggested the only course of action was for me to take the veil, to go into some closed order and never be spoken of again. Ernie’s sister, dear Vicky Battenberg, wrote that she would always remember me fondly, which made me feel that perhaps I was dead. Aunt Louise sent a postcard with the single word Coraggio!
One good thing happened. The more the world raged against me the more staunch Mother was in my defence. She vowed never, ever to have me put away. I’d always known she loved me but it was the first time in my life I felt the warmth of her love. Cyril’s mother, Aunt Miechen, stayed wisely but very unusually silent.
The grounds for an annulment were problematical. Not impossible, but likely to proceed at a snail’s pace. There was the little matter of Elli. Clearly our marriage had been consummated. Even Mother conceded that I’d be an old woman before an annulment freed me to marry Cyril.
My marriage to Ernie ended on 21st December 1901. We were granted a divorce on the grounds of invincible mutual antipathy. It was a bleak phrase that ignored what good friends we’d been and what good times we’d had before we were laced into marriage, but it saved the public washing of any soiled linen.
Ernie and Elli spent Christmas in Kiel with Irene and her children, then Ernie brought her to Coburg, to spend a month with me.
‘But I don’t want to stay here,’ Elli said, even when I told her about the new pony. She glowered at me and clung to Ernie’s leg.
‘I don’t want a new pony,’ she grizzled. ‘I want to go home with Pappi. Mamma’s cross with me.’
I said, ‘I’m not cross with you at all.’
‘Well, you look cross,’ she said. ‘Always.’
People said that. Missy always looked gay and I always looked stern. It was so unfair.
Mother suggested that Ernie stay on for a few days, to help Elli settle in.
‘Not sure I care to,’ he said. ‘I suppose Sailor Cyril’s in town?’
I said, ‘He’s in the Pacific.’
‘Really?’ he said. ‘Gosh. Poor old Ducky. All divorced and nowhere to go.’
I said, ‘Cyril was nothing to do with our divorce.’
He sniggered.
He said, ‘Honestly, who do you imagine you’re fooling? Everyone knows about you and Cyril. When will his tour finish?’
I didn’t know.
‘Oh, Ducky,’ he said. ‘You don’t know? I do hope Cyril Vladimirovich hasn’t taken fright now you’re a free woman. I do hope you haven’t thrown out the baby with the bath water.’
*
Ernie stayed on in Coburg for three ghastly days, with Elli constantly begging to go home. So I let them go. What was the point of making the child miserable? Mother said this was a grave error, that I should have forced Elli to spend more time with me until she grew accustomed to our new situation. I don’t know. I only ever wanted her to be happy. I did tell her so.
I said, ‘And you know you may come to me as often as you like. You have your own room here and no one else shall ever sleep in it.’
‘I don’t much like that room,’ she said. ‘I like my room at home.’
I said, ‘Then we’ll change it to your liking. You can draw me a picture of how you’d like it to be. Pappi will put it in the post for you.’
She said, ‘Why are you crying?’
I said, ‘I’m going to miss you.’
‘Then why are you staying here?’ she said. ‘Why don’t you just come home with me and Pappi?’
Which made it all the harder. I could have gone back to Darmstadt. I’m sure Ernie would have agreed to it. But I needed Cyril more. That’s what I chose.
*
The last thing Ernie said to me was, ‘By the by, once you’re a Navy wife, don’t imagine I’m going to let you spirit Elli off to Manchuria or wherever for years on end. Not bally likely. She’ll stay with me.’
13
I waited four years for Cyril Vladimirovich. Four years of looking out for letters and listening to the ticking of the clock. The Grand Duchess of Hesse was reduced to being Ducky, living under her mother’s roof again, like a child. Elli gradually thawed enough to visit me – she still asked me when I’d be going home – but her life was elsewhere and Ernie was its centre. I suppose I became more like an aunt than a mother. I over-indulged her, anything to be liked. I didn’t see that clearly until later, until I was a proper mother again.
Why didn’t Cyril come galloping up to the gates of Rosenau and carry me off at once? Because Cyril is Cyril. There’s nothing impetuous about him. Everything he does: accounts, morning toilette, affairs of the heart, they are all attended to carefully and methodically. I never doubted his love for me, only his judgement, sometimes.
The first time he got shore leave after my divorce he went to see Emperor Nicky, to talk to him man to man. We had agreed that it would be far b
etter to marry with Nicky’s blessing than without it. I thought the outcome of their meeting was ambiguous but Cyril put a positive gloss on it. Nicky, he wrote, expressed every hope that with time things will straighten themselves out. So hold fast, my love! We’ll do things correctly and all will be well.
With time things will straighten themselves out. Cyril took this to mean that Sunny might eventually accept the fact of my divorce.
Mother said, ‘It doesn’t mean that at all. It means that Nicky hopes if he drags it out for long enough Cyril will forget about you and marry someone more acceptable. Which he may well do.’
Sometimes, when a week passed without a letter, I feared Mother was right. Other times, like the summer of 1903 when Cyril was on furlough and rushed to be with me, my hopes were raised. We bought a Richard-Brasier and went on a little motoring holiday. That was when I taught myself to drive. We stayed in pensions as Mr and Mrs Brown and if anyone suspected we were lovers, no one showed it. The French don’t get so excited about such things.
How do men learn to please women? I didn’t know Cyril’s history or what he did when he was away from me and I didn’t want to know, but he seemed quite confident. And so enthusiastic. Cyril didn’t waste time cracking jokes or horsing around as Ernie always had. At last, a man who couldn’t wait for me to slide between the sheets. Of course Cyril wasn’t the type to murmur endearments. He’s a military man, after all. But I felt adored and sometimes, I will admit, rather wild. I began to understand Missy’s taste for adventurettes, if that was how a man could make one feel.
It was such a happy summer, but it came to an end and we were still no further forward. Cyril went back to Kronstadt to await his next posting and I went back to Coburg, the divorced daughter, the absent mother. So much for patience and doing things correctly. Before he left Cyril promised me he’d speak to Nicky again.
The Grand Duchess of Nowhere Page 9
