‘Soon,’ he said. ‘The very moment the time seems right.’
I remember saying, ‘We could just do it. We could be married tomorrow, before you leave. Once it’s done Nicky can’t unmarry us.’
‘True,’ he said, ‘but he could make things pretty unpleasant for us. Better to wait for his blessing. I’m confident our patience will be rewarded.’
And off he went. I had no idea when I’d see him again, and when my very great hour of need came I wasn’t even certain where in the world he was.
The first telegram arrived as Mother and I were sitting at breakfast.
ELLI SICK. DON’T WORRY, BUT SUGGEST COME. ERNIE.
He’d taken Elli to Poland, to the Skierniewice hunting lodge for a holiday with Nicky and Sunny and their girls. Mother and I were still at table, discussing train times when a second wire was delivered.
FEVER WORSE. COME AT ONCE.
I couldn’t think what I needed to take with me or how, precisely, I was going to get to Skierniewice. I ran about, achieving nothing. Mother was perfectly calm.
‘Sit down and collect yourself,’ she said. ‘Amsel will pack your bags. That’s what maids are for. And Kuster will go with you. You can’t travel all that way without protection. Anything might happen.’
Kuster was Mother’s steward. A mountain of a man who only spoke when spoken to. I was glad to think I could leave the particulars of the journey to him. From Coburg we had to go to Leipzig, from Leipzig to Dresden, then to Breslau and finally to Lodz. So many trains. At Breslau Kuster was to wire Ernie to tell him what time to meet us.
Amsel was already in the carriage and Kuster was strapping on the last bag when another telegram arrived. I don’t remember reading it. I suppose I must have. Mother collapsed. She had her prayer book in her hand.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, no, no.’
There was no point in travelling to Skierniewice. Elli was already on her way home to Darmstadt, in a silver coffin.
Typhoid, they said. Perhaps from the water, they said. But why my child and not one of Sunny’s and Nicky’s girls? They must all have drunk from the same well. I found I went over every event, every fork in the road that might have changed things. If Ernie and I hadn’t divorced, would Elli have gone to Skierniewice? Probably not. The idea of being cooped up in a small lodge in the middle of Poland with Sunny and Nicky wouldn’t have appealed to me. But then, if we had gone and if I had been there, would Elli have clung more fiercely to life? No. She was always Ernie’s girl. If she could have lived she would have done, for his sake.
I travelled to Darmstadt in a kind of fog. People’s voices seemed muffled, their questions seemed idiotic. Did I want tea? Did I want a blanket? I wanted nothing, except for everyone to go away, but the more I said that the more they crowded around me. What did they think? That I’d throw myself from the train?
The thing I dreaded most was seeing Ernie. I thought he’d rage at me, I don’t know why. But Ernie was too broken to rage.
‘The sun’s gone out,’ he said. ‘My life’s over.’
Which has turned out not to be entirely the case because he remarried two years later and forced himself to carry out the disagreeable chore of fathering two sons. But in that first week it really seemed that he might die of grief. He wandered about the house and lay on Elli’s bed.
‘Sunny’s taken this terribly hard,’ he said to me one evening. ‘You know how she is. She feels everything so.’
Sunny! I didn’t see what business it was of hers to suffer. She had four healthy daughters and mine was dead.
Elli would be twenty-three now, had she lived. I wonder what ill-advised marriage Mother might have canvassed for her? Or has she learned her lesson. This war has changed everything. Half of those cousins are on the wrong side now.
We took Elli to the mausoleum at Rosenhohe, to be buried with all the other Hesses. Mother urged me to go in and look at her before the casket was closed. She said it would help me to accept. It didn’t, not at all. But I did put my Hesse medallion into her cold little hands. After all, I wasn’t their Grand Duchess any more, and I hoped, I hope never to see Darmstadt again as long as I live.
She looked like a wax doll. Only her black curls seemed real. One little drink of water. What a stupid, stupid waste.
Cyril wrote to me but he didn’t rush to my side. He was in Palermo.
Tricky situation, he wrote, with regard to Ernie. I don’t wish to intrude at such a sad time, but, darling, I do think of you every waking minute.
I don’t know how one calculates the decent period to stay away from a bereaved lover. Cyril left it two months. Then he came to Coburg and asked if he might stay for Christmas. Baby Bee persuaded Mother to allow it.
She said, ‘Ducky’s had such a sad year. And how is Cyril ever to propose if he never sees her for more than five minutes?’
Mother said, ‘Cyril Vladimirovich has had ample opportunity to propose. He may stay in the Callenberg shooting box. If he desires the greater comfort of my house he knows what he must do.’
Cyril didn’t take the hint. Marriage wasn’t mentioned. Not once. He says now that it wouldn’t have been proper, during a time of mourning. I disagree. I wasn’t looking for the fuss of a betrothal and a public announcement. I just wanted Cyril’s reassurance. I wanted a private pledge and a date. Missy said I should give him an ultimatum. Her letters were full of advice but I’d grown to see that Missy wasn’t particularly brilliant at managing her own affairs, let alone telling others what to do.
Do you know whom I have to thank for the wedding ring on my hand? Admiral Togo of the Japanese Imperial Navy.
*
The Japanese attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur and war was declared. Cyril was still at Rosenau when we heard the news. He said he should leave for Petersburg at once, to report for duty. I think I cried more that night than I did when Elli died. Well, they were a different kind of tears. When a child dies a worm of pain buries itself in your heart and never goes away. It sits there and every day, without fail, it flexes its hateful little body and gives you an aching reminder. But when a man goes away to war without leaving you the promise of a firm wedding date, the tears are fierce and angry.
Mother said I should forget Cyril.
She said, ‘I regret to say it of my own people but Russians have no sense of urgency. “Tomorrow will do,” they say. But tomorrow never comes.’
Cyril was posted to Port Arthur. Manchuria. It’s the other side of the world. His letters took weeks to arrive and by the time I heard that the Petropavlovsk had sunk, he was already back in Petersburg, recovering from his injuries. It was the beginning of May 1904. Aunt Miechen wrote to Mother. Cyril needed a place to recuperate. Would Mother consent to his coming to Rosenau? Mother sniffed and put Aunt Miechen’s letter aside. Then, after a calculated period of silence for which only she knew the formula, she agreed. She said that as Cyril clearly had no intention of marrying me I might as well help nurse him. He was my cousin, after all. And it would help prepare me for the life of lonely spinsterhood and good works that was now clearly my destiny.
Baby Bee and I went to the station to meet him. At first sight he seemed unchanged. It was only when he moved that it was obvious he was in pain. His back was burned, but it was healing well. His mind had a different kind of injury that couldn’t be dressed. He suffered from nightmares when everything came back to him in terrifying detail. He told me about it, eventually.
His boat had been on a night sortie. Port Arthur had been blockaded by the Japanese Navy so every night a convoy of Russian destroyers ventured out to report on any change in the Japanese positions.
‘It was almost dawn,’ he said. ‘We were heading back into Port Arthur. I was on the bridge with Captain Yakovlev. It was snowing.’
The Petropavlovsk had hit a mine. Cyril remembers being thrown into the air.
‘And then I came back down, with a thump. Yakovlev was dead. He was cut almost in two. I couldn’t hear a thing. E
ars refused to function. Eyes still working though. Just as well. We were sinking fast. So I went overboard. Water was bloody freezing. Took my breath away. Then I thought best to pull myself together and move away from the wreck sharpish. Vessel that size goes down, Ducky, it can drag you with it. There were men in the water. I told them to swim for it. Don’t know if they heard me. Then down she went.’
That’s the worst part of his nightmare, being under the water and powerless to rise to the surface. But he did get to the surface.
‘God tossed me back up,’ he says. ‘And thoughtfully provided me with a piece of flotsam to keep me afloat.’
He was nearly dead from the cold when a Russian torpedo boat plucked him out of the water.
‘Extraordinary thing,’ he told me. ‘Brother Boris witnessed the whole incident. He was inspecting a battery on the ridge above the harbour, saw the explosion, felt sorry for the poor buggers who’d caught it, never realising I was one of them.’
*
Cyril stayed with us at Rosenau all through that summer. His burns healed and he began to be active again. Only the nightmares persisted. One day, a perfect summer’s day, we were sitting by the Princes’ Pond watching the swallows drinking on the wing and he said, ‘That’s exactly like death. It felt like something brushing over me, when I was in the water. Like a bird’s wing. But then it passed on. So I suppose it wasn’t my time.’
I said, ‘Doesn’t that make life seem doubly precious?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said, and he took my hand. ‘That’s why nothing will prevent me from marrying you.’
It was what I’d longed to hear, of course. I suggested we do it immediately, while he was in Coburg, but Cyril’s moment of poetry, birds’ wings and all that, had passed.
‘Inauspicious time, darling,’ he said. ‘What with Elli’s death, and the war. Wedding during a time of mourning. Not quite the thing. But as soon as this damned war’s over.’
That’s Cyril all over. Not yet. Not quite the thing. As for the war, I was perfectly prepared to be a war bride. Lots of girls did it. Then, in the middle of August we received wonderful news. Empress Sunny had at last produced a baby boy. Alexis. It meant that Cyril and his brothers were pushed reassuringly down the line of succession. Tsesarevich Alexis would succeed after Nicky, so who Cyril married was really no longer of any concern. We were free to do as we pleased.
Aunt Miechen wrote that Emperor Nicky was like a little dog with two tails and Sunny, boy produced and duty done, had retired to a day bed.
When Cyril went back to Petersburg, to re-enter the war effort, it seemed the perfect time to inform Nicky of our plans. We could ride on his wave of joy at fathering an heir. Furthermore, Cyril was a war hero, wounded but returning to do his patriotic duty. Nicky could not possibly raise any objections. Cyril, though, let the moment slip. He spent the rest of the year as Nicky’s aide. He dined with him almost every night, but he never brought up his wish to marry me. Missy told me I was a perfect fool. Aunt Miechen wrote that Cyril never was one to be chivvied, even as a child; he got there but in his own good time.
Then the year turned, and so did Emperor Nicky’s mood. Port Arthur surrendered to the Japanese. The war was going against Russia, so many lives lost and what had they gained? The factory owners were richer, that was all. Workers’ strikes were called. Aunt Ella wrote to Mother that Uncle Serge was struggling to keep order in Moscow and thought of resigning and handing over to an abler man. In St Petersburg men were milling about on the streets, gathering around anyone who chose to stand on a box and speak. Then a march was got up, the Sunday after the Blessing of the Waters, to go to the Winter Palace and petition the Emperor. And what did the marchers want from him? Everything, according to Aunt Miechen. Higher wages, a vote for every man, free education.
Mother said, ‘Russians are like children at a birthday party. Give them everything they ask for and they’ll make themselves sick. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.’
The Sunday march ended badly. Some of the marchers were shot, to prevent them from getting too close to the Winter Palace. I don’t know why. Emperor Nicky wasn’t even at the Palace. He was at Tsarskoe Selo building a snowman for his daughters. Some people say fifty marchers died, some say thousands. I still don’t know what to believe. But I do know that it was the start of a run of bad things. Three weeks later, in Moscow, Grand Duke Uncle Serge was killed.
He and Aunt Ella had just had lunch and he was on his way back to his office. She heard the windows rattle and she guessed that it was an explosion. She said she knew at once that Uncle Serge was dead. A bomb had been tossed into his coupé. Uncle Paul’s Dmitri and Marie were in the house and Aunt Ella’s first thought was that they shouldn’t see anything of the carnage. She ran down to the street herself, to cover what was left of Uncle Serge with blankets. His driver was still breathing, though he died later too. The assassin survived long enough to be hanged.
‘Just like they did to our dear father,’ Mother said. ‘Russians. They always kill the good men.’
Uncle Serge was one of Mother’s baby brothers. Grandpa Emperor Alexander had been killed by a bomb too. I know that now but when it happened it wasn’t spoken of in our nursery. We were told only that he had passed away. Missy claims to remember him. She says he was seven feet tall.
After Uncle Serge’s murder, Aunt Ella was very concerned for the safety of Grand Duke Uncle Paul’s children. Dmitri Pavlovich was nearly fourteen and quite old enough, as Mother said, for those lawless savages to harm him too. So he and Marie were sent to St Petersburg, to live with Emperor Nicky and enjoy the greater protection of the Imperial Guard. If you ask me they should have been sent to Paris to live with their father, or better still, Grand Duke Uncle Paul should have been allowed to go home to Russia and make a proper home for those poor children, but nobody asked my opinion.
Mother mourned Uncle Serge’s death in a quiet, stoic way. I never saw her weep for him. But she did greet me one morning with a grim face and a letter in her hand.
‘So,’ she said, ‘Ernie Hesse has pipped you to the post. He got married last week. He didn’t waste much time, did he? When I think how he dragged his heels asking for your hand, it’s pretty infuriating.’
I said, ‘He needs an heir.’
‘Pah!’ she said. ‘He could have had an heir of you if he’d only concentrated.’
It wasn’t that I minded. I just thought Ernie might have warned me. And actually he did try but his letter was misdirected and didn’t arrive until several days later. His bride was Onor Solms-Hohensolms. Missy used to call her The Tongue-Twister. I remembered her well from Darmstadt, a dull, stocky little creature with thin lips. Her family must have despaired of ever getting her off their hands. But she’d landed Grand Duke Ernie, no less. Well, in a way it was a good match. Ernie was desperate for a son and the Tongue-Twister was just plain desperate.
In apple blossom time, when Cyril should have come to Coburg and married me, he accepted another posting to the Pacific. The Baltic Fleet were on their way east, to support the Pacific Squadron.
Mother said, ‘I won’t trouble to say what I think. I’ve already wasted enough breath on the subject.’
Missy wrote, ‘Now will you concede that Cyril has no intention of marrying you? Come to Romania. I’ll find you a dozen husbands.’
It was my lowest moment. Though I was too ashamed to say it, I thought I had made a mistake. Several, actually. I’d divorced Ernie and there was no turning back. My reputation was stained. And I’d allowed Cyril to share my bed though he delayed and delayed our marrying. I thought of disappearing. That would show him. But I didn’t know how to go about it. I thought of Aunt Louise and her ‘what do you want to do with your life?’ I still had no idea. I’d allowed everything to depend on Cyril. I felt foolish and useless and took to my bed under the pretext of a chill. It was the dark hour before the dawn.
14
The war with Japan ended in May. Cyril didn’t see any more act
ion. While he was still on the train to Vladivostock, the Baltic Fleet had entered the Straits of Tsushima and found the Japanese lying in wait for them. Those ships that weren’t sunk surrendered and for Russians it felt as though it had all been for nothing. The Japanese were the victors.
Cyril came to Coburg directly.
‘Darling,’ he said, ‘name the day. We’ve waited quite long enough.’
I thought he must have talked to Emperor Nicky.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not a good time. War lost. Strikes everywhere. Sailors mutinying. Poor Nicky has quite enough on his plate. Somehow it’s never a good time. We’ll just get married and then I’ll tell him.’
I remember asking him if he was sure.
‘Of course I’m sure, you muggins,’ he said. ‘You were always the girl for me.’
I was so happy. All my doubts disappeared, even when Mother seemed less than joyful at our news.
‘Joyful?’ she said. ‘One has rather gone beyond that. Relieved, certainly. You’ll be married discreetly, of course, and immediately.’
It wasn’t so simple. There was the difficulty of finding a priest. I’d have been happy for anyone to marry us, but Cyril said we must be married according to the rite of the Orthodox Church because he was still in the line of succession, albeit only fourth. But what Russian priest would marry us without the Tsar’s permission? Mother saved the day.
She said, ‘Father Arseny will do it.’
He was Mother’s confessor.
‘But how can he? What about Nicky’s permission?’
‘Father Arseny will do it,’ Mother said, ‘because I shall tell him to. And not here. Somewhere quieter. Bavaria is still pleasant at this time of autumn. Yes, Tegernsee would be perfect. We’ll use the Adlerbergs’ old house. There’s no one in it. Neutral territory.’
Anyone would have thought we were signing the Treaty of Portsmouth, not celebrating a marriage.
Missy couldn’t be there. Boris didn’t even know of our plans. Nor did Aunt Miechen and Grand Duke Uncle Vladimir. Cyril was still being cautious and Mother understood why, but she didn’t interfere. I think she just wanted us to get married and leave her in peace.
The Grand Duchess of Nowhere Page 10
