The Grand Duchess of Nowhere

by Laurie Graham

  She said, ‘Ducky, this is probably a good moment for us to talk about jewels.’

  She explained the terms of her will. Her diamonds would go to Cyril’s sister, Elena, who was the only girl in the family. Elena was married to Greek Nicky who apparently had two thrones he might inherit, those of Greece and Denmark, but hardly a sou to his name.

  The rest of Miechen’s jewel collection was to be divided as follows: Boris would inherit the suite of emeralds, Andrei the rubies and Cyril would get the pearl parure, or rather I would.

  ‘Though not the garland tiara,’ Miechen said, ‘because it has diamonds as well as pearls and I’m afraid, darling, that diamonds trump pearls. But do borrow it for my ball. Elena won’t be here and anyway she wouldn’t mind.’

  I did borrow it too.

  ‘Ravishing,’ Cyril said. ‘What a bloody lucky chap I am.’

  That was the difference between Ernie and Cyril. Ernie would express very valuable opinions about what I should wear – he was the one who first got me to try lilac – but he’d never take me in his arms and tell me he wished we could miss the ball and go to bed.

  The official celebrations of the tercentenary began at the end of February with a Divine Liturgy and a molyeben of Thanksgiving in the Kazan Cathedral. Another marathon of worship and we all had to be in our places at least half an hour before the Imperial suite arrived. The wait was enlivened for some by a little incident that I regret to say I missed. One of my shoe buttons popped off and I was bent over, looking for it.

  Cyril was laughing. ‘See that?’ he said.

  I’d seen nothing.

  ‘Sunny’s holy man,’ he said. ‘Just got ejected. Must have helped himself to somebody’s seat. Nicky’s probably! Serve the bugger right.’

  I looked and looked but I couldn’t see any holy man. Of course I wasn’t sure what I was looking for and Cyril couldn’t even say what colour shirt he’d been wearing. He’s hopeless at colours. I was so cross. I’d been dying to see this famous miracle-worker.

  I often passed his house on Gorokhovaya Street. Women went there to ask for his advice or for healing. There were always cars lined up outside his building, with the drivers standing in huddles smoking, waiting for their ladies to come out. I suppose he had a waiting room, just like a doctor. And if you were important enough he made house calls. Grand Duke Uncle Nikolasha’s wife, Stana, often had him round to meet her friends and cure their ills.

  Miechen used to say, ‘Miracles! In a drawing room! Can you imagine? Does one serve tea before or after, I wonder?’ The word around St Petersburg was that even if you didn’t require an actual miracle, if you just needed a little help say, for your son’s career or your husband’s preferment, Grigory Rasputin could open doors too. But that day I missed him. And I never found my shoe button.

  The Imperial procession arrived, at long last. I thought how tired Nicky looked. I can’t imagine why. He certainly hadn’t been attending any parties. Sunny was wearing pale blue, a pretty shade but a mistake because it made her look stout especially when she stood beside Dowager Empress Minnie who still has the neatest waist. Tsesarevich Alexis was wearing his usual sailor suit and he was walking unaided, very proud, quite the little man. You would never have thought he’d been so very ill. Really you wouldn’t have believed there was anything wrong with him at all.

  The daughters were all in white. Olga wasn’t really ‘out’ yet. Seventeen. Missy was married by that age. But the only suitors we’d heard mentioned for Grand Duchess Olga were Missy’s son, Carol, or my brother-in-law, Boris. Both entirely unsuitable.

  Prince Carol’s suit was soon dismissed. He didn’t like Olga’s looks and she didn’t like anything about him. Neither do I. He may be my nephew but I find there’s something quite repellent about him. Missy has overindulged him. As for Boris, I’m afraid that was just another of Miechen’s fantasies, that one of her sons would marry one of Nicky’s daughters and burrow a tunnel closer to the throne. Boris was far too old and jaded for Olga Nikolaevna. She’s twenty-two now and still she’s not matched. The Imperials have more important things on their minds. Well, I hope she finds someone who’ll be kind to her, and soon. If she’s left on the shelf it could hold things up for her sisters.

  St Petersburg was ablaze with parties that week but Nicky and Sunny only put in the briefest of appearances. She pleaded nervous fatigue and he didn’t like to go anywhere without her. The Vladimirovichi were not impressed. They thought Sunny should behave like an Empress. They thought Nicky should insist.

  ‘And if she’d only crack her face with a smile,’ people said. That was the problem. They’d have been more sympathetic about her aches and pains and her worries over Alyosha if she didn’t always look so cross.

  ‘Doesn’t she like us?’ they said.

  I confess I felt some sympathy for her when I heard that. Men aren’t expected always to be smiling so why should we be? Sunny just has one of those faces. So do I.

  There was a pause in the festivities during Lent, but directly after Paskha, Emperor Nicky and his family set off on a kind of Imperial progress, sailing along the Volga, from Nizhny Novgorod to Yaroslav and Kostroma and then by train to Moscow for the grand finale of the celebrations. There was a huge parade in Red Square and a service in the Arkhangelsky Cathedral. Aunt Ella said the city went wild, people lining the streets and cheering.

  Such displays of affection and loyalty, she wrote. It was very touching to see, after some of the troubles we’ve had. I believe we have turned a corner. If only my dear Serge had lived to see it.

  Grand Duke Sandro accompanied the Imperials on their tour. He’s married to Nicky’s sister Xenia.

  Uncle Bimbo said, ‘Had a chat with Sandro. Emperor Nicky’s delighted with the success of the tour. Rolling up his sleeves to start the next three hundred years. But, between you and me, I don’t like the look of the Tsesarevich. The poor lad’s clearly an invalid. I can’t see him lasting long enough to reign. And where will that leave us?’

  Where indeed?

  18

  In the spring of 1914 Mother came to St Petersburg. It was the first time she’d seen me in my new home. She found several things to make her sigh – the country house smelled of horses, the town house had no ballroom and I allowed Uncle Bimbo to take my daughters and their governess tapping for birch juice.

  ‘Like ragamuffins,’ Mother said. ‘And Bimbo is as mad as a brush. Always was.’

  I said, ‘But we’re happy, Uncle Bimbo is a darling, and Cyril is a wonderful husband.’

  ‘If you say so, dear,’ she said.

  The official reason for Mother’s visit was to attend the wedding of the year, no, the wedding of the century. Uncle Sandro and Aunt Xenia’s daughter, Irina, married Felix Yusupov. Xenia’s only a year older than me, and to have a daughter married! It made me feel old, and sad, to think of my Elli’s wasted little life. I remember Irina when she was a baby, and Felix when he was just a boy, playing with Elli in the garden at Ilyinskoe. And now they’re married.

  Some people, actually quite a lot of people, thought the marriage was doomed, though that didn’t deter them from attending the wedding and enjoying the festivities. Felix had a certain reputation. He was no quiet stay-at-home. Uncle Sandro even hinted that Felix might suffer from the same tendencies as Ernie Hesse. He’d attended Oxford University, after all, a place famous for corrupting healthy young men.

  Uncle Sandro said, ‘But Rina insists on having him, so what am I to do about it?’

  ‘Forbid it, you fool,’ Mother said. ‘That’s what you must do. Prevent another tragedy before it’s too late. Look at what happened to poor Ducky.’

  But Miechen said, ‘How can you speak of Ducky that way? She’s quite recovered from the Ernie episode. My son has made sure of that. Poor Ducky indeed! And anyway, think of all that lovely Yusupov money Rina will have at her disposal. I’m sure that would help a wife live with any number of tendencies.’

  Whatever anyone thought, Rina did m
arry Felix. They made the handsomest couple. Rina’s gown was white satin, very slender and simple, très moderne. Her veil was antique French and Felix had commissioned her tiara from Cartier: platinum, rock crystal and diamonds. Lots of diamonds. Something old, something new.

  Mother stayed with us until June, then she travelled on to Romania to inspect Missy’s latest baby, a boy, Mircea. I asked if the child was Nando’s.

  ‘Of course he’s Nando’s,’ Mother said. ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘I thought it might be another of Missy’s muddles.’

  ‘If your sister suffers from muddles, we certainly don’t speak of them. But I pray this will be her last confinement. Six is more than enough. At Missy’s age one never recovers one’s silhouette.’

  I promised to bring Kira and Masha to Coburg later in the summer.

  ‘Yes,’ Mother said. ‘Please do. I’m not getting any younger, you know.’

  For some reason we didn’t come to Haikko that year. I don’t remember why. Instead we cruised a little in the Baltic. All we did was swim and walk and ride. Peach took the girls shrimping and built a fire on the beach, to boil their catch in a bailing bucket. The girls still talk about it.

  The plan was that Cyril would go back to St Petersburg towards the end of August and I would take the girls on to Coburg. We made our way to Riga for a last few days together, and that’s where we were when war was declared.

  We’d known about Archduke Franz Ferdinand, of course. We’d heard the news of his murder before we left for our holiday, but it hadn’t seemed any affair of ours. I’m sure he and his wife were perfectly sweet people, but we didn’t know them. To think what it has led to. Cyril blames Cousin Kaiser Willie. He thinks Willie could have told the Hapsburgs to stop being so belligerent, then everything would have calmed down. But Cousin Willie was apparently in the mood for a fight too.

  Cyril and I were at dinner when a man came into the restaurant and shouted, ‘It’s war!’ Some people ordered champagne. Some left in a hurry. I thought we should leave too. I wanted to see if any trains were still running to Germany. Cyril called me a fool. Actually he called me a bloody fool.

  ‘You won’t be going to Coburg,’ he said. ‘Don’t you understand? We’re at war. Germany’s the enemy now.’

  He said we must go home immediately, which was easier said than done. We were obliged to take a public train and Peach had to stand almost all the way. It seemed as though the whole world was on the move and when we eventually got back to St Petersburg the streets were impassable because of the wagons and horses and soldiers heading to the railway stations. We took the girls straight out to Tsarskoe Selo and Cyril telephoned around for the latest news.

  Felix and Rina Yusupov were away, still on their honeymoon and believed to be somewhere in Germany. Grand Duke Misha had already booked passage on a ship out of Newcastle. Emperor Nicky had given him permission to come home, to do his patriotic duty.

  Cyril said, ‘If Misha’s got any sense, he’ll bring his wife and child with him. Make the most of the open door before Sunny kicks it shut again.’

  Misha did just that. He and Natalya set up home again in Gatchina, just far enough out of town to be invisible to those who didn’t wish to see them.

  Nicky and Sunny went to Moscow to ask God’s blessing on the war. Uncle Bimbo said it would perforce be a rather one-sided conversation but it was a Russian tradition that must be honoured. Meanwhile England pledged support for us, and so did France.

  ‘It’ll all be over in a month,’ Cyril said.

  Italy followed France and came in for Russia. Romania seemed not to have declared.

  I said, ‘If Missy has anything to do with it, they’ll fight on our side.’

  Cyril said, ‘Missy? You don’t imagine anyone listens to her, do you? Anyway, the old king there is as much German as any other breed. He’s probably more German than Kaiser Willie, so if he’s going to take any position I hardly think it’ll be with us.’

  It was all such a hateful mess. War with Japan had been one thing. Asiatics are a different, distant type of people. But Germans were our kind. Grandpa in Heaven was German. So were May Teck and Miechen. Empress Sunny was half German. And then there was Mother. I was very concerned for her, half Russian and living right in the enemy heart of Germany.

  Cyril said, ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about your mother. She went native years ago.’

  Miechen agreed with him.

  She said, ‘I’m more Russian than she is these days. But I’ll tell you how we can end this war immediately. They should put your mother and the Kaiser in a small room and lock the door. A fight to the death. We all know who the victor would be. Marie will kill anyone who prevents her from travelling to Cannes for the winter.’

  A good many conflicts might be resolved that way but no one ever consulted Miechen on the quickest path to peace.

  When Emperor Nicky got back from talking to God in Moscow he did two extraordinary things. First, he banned the selling of vodka for the duration of the war.

  Uncle Bimbo said, ‘What a chump. Doesn’t he realise how much money it brings in?’

  Miechen was worried that the new law would have other consequences.

  She said, ‘Not for ourselves, you understand. We have plenty of champagne. But the ordinary people may grow rebellious again if they can’t get their drink.’

  But Uncle Bimbo said nothing would prevent a Russian from getting his vodka. If it couldn’t be bought he’d simply make it himself.

  ‘Even if he has to brew it from his own slippers,’ he said.

  The second thing Emperor Nicky did was much more profound. At least I thought so. He changed the name of the city. St Petersburg became Petrograd. Cyril thought it was no great matter but people like the Lenzes did. After the German Embassy was attacked they changed their name to Lensky and Gitta Radloss swapped her two Ss for a more Russian V.

  ‘Better safe than sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m Gitta Radlova until you hear to the contrary.’

  And then there was Empress Sunny. If you listened to her devoted coterie she was Russia’s beloved Little Mother, their matushka. According to Peach who wandered all over the city on her half-day, even as far as horrid, dirty streets like Ligovskaya, the Empress was now widely referred to as ‘The German’. So what would people make of me, a mongrel mix of English, Russian and German? Cyril said I should always emphasise my Englishness.

  ‘Everyone loves the English,’ he said. ‘Fair play, the straight bat and all that.’

  My greatest fear, after war was declared, was that Cyril would get orders to go to sea. I knew his nerves would never survive it. He’d been tense enough cruising close to shore on our holidays. But when Grand Duke Uncle Nikolasha was made commander-in-chief he kindly asked for Cyril to be appointed to his naval staff. It was a planning job at headquarters, at the Stavka as we called it, at Baranovichi in Poland. Cyril had his valet pack his bags immediately.

  He said, ‘Now, darling, you know what you have to do?’

  In times of war it was customary for Grand Duchesses to set up hospitals. Dowager Empress Minnie led the way at once and donated the Anichkov Palace. She was rarely there anyway. She preferred to live in Kiev. Empress Sunny ordered the Catherine Palace to be prepared to receive the wounded and for a wing of the Winter Palace to be equipped for surgery. Genya Botkin was despatched to the Crimea to set up a hospital there in her name. We all wondered how Sunny would manage without Botkin visiting her twice a day but of course she still had Grigory Rasputin and anyway she found, as many women did, that war made her feel stronger.

  I could have gone into hospitalling. Our house on Glinka Street wasn’t particularly suitable but Georgie Buchanan was searching for premises for what she called her English Hospital. I could have joined forces with her. But I doubted I had what it took to be a nurse or a counter of feeding cups and crutches. I remembered Aunt Louise’s words.

  What do you want to do with your life?

  I d
ecided to do what I liked best: driving. I’d form my own ambulance unit and take it to the battlefront. A few cars, perhaps a motorised van or two if someone were generous enough to donate them, and half a dozen drivers. We’d go as close to the action as we could get. Betsy Trubetskoy declared it was the maddest, most dangerous idea she had ever heard. I set about it at once.

  I owned a Delaunay in those days, so that was the first vehicle in my fleet. Masha and Kira thought it hugely exciting that they’d have to ride around on the electric trams while my motor went to war. My second acquisition was Miechen’s Pierce Arrow. I didn’t press her to give up her Daimler too. It was enough for people to know she’d donated her touring car for the duration. Wherever Miechen led her friends generally followed. But it was the tradespeople who were the most generous, the mill owners and boilermakers who gave us the motorised wagons we really needed.

  By the beginning of September I had five motor cars, three half-ton delivery lorries and ten volunteer drivers. Some of them had never been behind a steering wheel but as they soon realised, it was a good deal easier than riding or driving a cart. Unlike a horse or a donkey, a motor vehicle has no wicked designs or sly ambitions of its own.

  Semyon Petrovich Malkov was the kind of Russian volunteer who stepped forward. He was one of the estate workers from Tsarskoe Selo, too old for the army, too young to sit at home and do nothing. Three strapping, cheerful English girls volunteered too. I’d have taken more if I could have found them but not every Petrograd family was willing to give up its English governess. I’d never realised how many English girls there were in town, and they all seemed to be acquainted with one another, from attending the English church. Peach, being a thorough sceptic, had never shown any interest in going there.

  ‘If I wanted to sing hymns and go to cocoa socials,’ she said, ‘I’d have stayed in Somerset.’

  She never asked to be released from her position either, not then at least. She never expressed any wish to do war work. On the day I left, I told the girls they must behave for Peach. She was in charge in my absence.