The Grand Duchess of Nowhere

by Laurie Graham

  Kira said, ‘But where are you going?’

  ‘To Poland, to help our soldiers.’

  ‘Will you get killed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ll be careful.’

  Masha said, ‘Peach says there shouldn’t even be a war. Peach says all it’ll do is make a lot of people dead and a few people rich.’

  19

  We drove in convoy towards Galicia. Two of the English girls, Florrie Marsh and Lil Lanham, came with me in the Delaunay and we took turns at the wheel, all very jolly. You’d hardly have thought we were going to war. There was just the problem of my title. After a few hours of being Highness’d I could stand it no more. I asked them to call me ‘Ducky’.

  Florrie Marsh asked if I’d always been a Grand Duchess. I had to think. It was a complicated story.

  I said, ‘I was a Royal Highness to start with. Princess Victoria Melita. But when you’re a child it doesn’t really signify. It was just a name. Then I married Ernie, so I became Grand Duchess of Hesse and Darmstadt. Then I got divorced so I suppose I reverted to Princess, but no one invited me anywhere or talked about me so titles didn’t matter. I was The Unmentionable. And then I married Cyril Vladimirovich, so I became an Imperial Grand Duchess.’

  Florrie said, ‘Is that a step up, then? Imperial Grand Duchess?’

  I said, ‘It depends on your point of view. But you know I was always Ducky. Even Grandma Queen used to call me that, and the funny thing is, no one can remember who started it or why.’

  She whistled.

  ‘Grandma Queen,’ she said. ‘Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs.’

  *

  I was only on the road with my ambulances for two months and yet it seemed like a lifetime, another thrilling lifetime. Isn’t that strange? As each day dawned we had no idea where we’d be going or what we’d be asked to do. There were no rules, no routines. Sometimes we transported the wounded from a Clearing Station to the Base Hospital or from hospital to a Red Cross train. Sometimes we went closer to the action and drove nurses to the Advance Dressing Stations. Very occasionally there were days when we weren’t needed to drive anyone anywhere. That was when we slept.

  Sleep became our great obsession, after we’d learned to stop thinking about food. Black bread, weak tea, a hardboiled egg if we were lucky. Florrie Marsh did come back from one night transport with a couple of dead rabbits.

  ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell ye no lies,’ she said, and they went into the stew pot, but generally food became something to consume quickly, without longing or reflection. But sleep. I became a connoisseur of sleep. That autumn I slept in a potato field and a forest clearing and an apple orchard. I slept under canvas, under the stars, on tarpaulin, on borrowed wheat straw. Pine needles are the best. I’d happily spend another night beneath a pine tree. There were times when I felt I’d slept while I was driving but as I never did any worse damage than clip the wheel of a baggage cart, I think I must have imagined that.

  The war was going to be over by Christmas. Everybody said so. Our army in the field was much bigger than Germany’s. But Russia had another enemy: its own disorganised haste. When our troops pressed into Galicia no account had been taken of the terrain. Men may march over anything, as long as they have decent boots, but supply wagons must go by road and in many places there were no roads, just narrow, sandy tracks. So the wagons were left far behind, men went hungry and the horses weren’t fed.

  Florrie Marsh said, ‘The top brass, they couldn’t organise a Sunday school picnic. They should put you in charge, Ducky. Or me. Or even Lil Lanham. We couldn’t do any worse. Well, you’re the one who has the connections. You should tell them, the powers that be. Can you not write a letter? I would if the Tsar was my cousin. I’d soon tell him.’

  It was a funny notion she had of our family, that she thought Nicky would even read a letter from me. The best I could do was talk to Cyril, to tell him about some of the sad, silly messes I’d witnessed. If I ever saw Cyril again.

  When I set off for Poland, I hadn’t had a plan. To take my ambulances to a place they could be useful, then go back to St Petersburg to organise more of the same, or to stay with my fleet? I suppose I thought things would become clear once I got there. They didn’t. Once we got close to the ever-shifting Front I had little time to think. When I lay down to sleep I always prayed for Masha and Kira and Cyril to be kept safe but somehow I never stayed awake long enough to get to the end of my prayer. I knew I couldn’t stay away from home indefinitely but the days raced by and for the first time in my life I felt I was doing something useful. I wished Aunt Louise could see me.

  I had in mind to go back to Petrograd in December. Even if the war wasn’t over, the fighting was sure to subside once the snows came. I’d go home in time for Christmas. Then a letter came, dogeared and redirected. It had been to Krasnobród and Lublin before it found me at Młodych. Kira had the measles.

  Peach wrote, She’s not in any danger, but I thought you’d want to know.

  There was no date on her letter.

  I asked Semyon Petrovich to drive me to the railhead at Brest-Litovsk. Everyone kept saying, ‘Of course you must go, but don’t fret. Children are stronger than you think. A pound to a penny she’ll be over the worst by the time you get there.’

  But they didn’t know I’d already buried one daughter.

  The roads were crowded, even at night. Troops were moving towards the Front and villagers were hurrying away from it. Once we were at a complete standstill while a battalion of infantry came through. Sometimes the road was quite blocked with slow-moving refugees. Even when Semyon sounded our horn they hardly moved. Perhaps they were sleep-walking.

  The things people take with them, the things they choose when they realise they had better run. I saw a girl, not much bigger than Masha, carrying a basket of hens, and an old man with a bible the size of a doorstep. There was a family sitting by the roadside with a harmonium. Their horse, all skin and bone, lay dead and their cart was on its side in the ditch but there they lingered, as if they couldn’t bring themselves to leave behind that one piece of home. I wonder what became of them and their harmonium. I’ve often thought of that scene these recent weeks.

  At Brest-Litovsk the trains were impossible.

  ‘There is a war on, you know?’ they said.

  They said I’d have a better chance starting out from Warsaw but our fuel tank was running low and petrol was impossible too. A telephone call to Petrograd? Out of the question. So was sending a wire.

  Semyon Petrovich said, ‘This here is the Grand Duchess Victoria Fyodorovna.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said the telegraph clerk. ‘And I’m Kaiser Wilhelm.’

  I couldn’t really blame the man. In my leathers and my sheepskin soul-warmer I didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a Grand Duchess. And then there was my hair, cut off in mortal fear of catching lice. Lil Lanham had done it with her nail scissors.

  She’d said, ‘I’m no stylist but never mind, it’ll grow back right enough. Just don’t look in any pocket mirrors.’

  I had peeped, of course. I couldn’t resist. And I’d discovered that I looked like one of those Black Orpington hens Mother used to keep when we lived in Devonport. A Black Orpington halfway through its moult, claiming to be a Grand Duchess. I suppose I must count myself lucky that the sanitars weren’t sent for to escort me to an institution for the insane. If I’d mentioned that my sister was the Queen of Romania I’m sure I’d have been taken to one at once.

  After two desperate days when no trains came in, through or out of Brest-Litovsk, there was a sudden flurry of Red Cross activity and I managed to squeeze onto a hospital train bound for Petrograd via Riga. Trying to climb aboard seemed a hopeless exercise but then I was pushed up from behind by an old man who had made pushing people onto trains his war work. He was rather good at it. If he deemed you worthy of his help he would put his all into getting you aboard a train, and your chan
ces were particularly good if you had a female derrière.

  It was after midnight when we reached Petrograd. There were no trains running to Tsarskoe Selo. I took a droshky. The driver was a woman. I asked her if her husband was in the army. She shook her head.

  ‘V balnitse,’ she said. ‘In the hospital. Fell off a tram. Tak, nyet deneg. No money coming in.’

  I told her my daughter had measles. Korevoy.

  ‘Bozhe moy,’ she said, and she crossed herself.

  *

  The house lights were burning. It seemed a good sign. Cyril’s terrier, Krot, worked itself into a frenzy of barking even when I took off my scarves so it could see my face and hear my voice. It never was the brightest of dogs. Peach was in her dressing gown.

  I said, ‘I came the minute I got your note. How is she?’

  ‘Kira’s over it,’ she said. ‘Masha’s got it now, much worse.’

  The infection had gone to Masha’s chest. I could hear the rattle of her breathing even from outside her bedroom door. Miechen had sent a Dr Lukin to treat her.

  ‘Waste of money,’ Peach said. ‘Steam inhalations and her room kept dark. I could have told him that.’

  I sent Peach to bed. She looked all in.

  She said, ‘What happened to your hair?’

  ‘Cut it off. Practicalities.’

  ‘You should keep it that way. It takes years off you.’

  I believe I’ve always looked older than my true age, but Peach was the first person to hint that I was ageing. She also failed to call me Madam, I noticed. Something had shifted between us.

  I sat by Masha and dozed, on and off. She was burning hot. At one point she clung to my arm though I’m not sure she knew me. Half awake, I saw a little girl in a nightgown standing in the doorway and I spoke to her. She sneezed. Then I was properly awake.

  She said, ‘Why did you call me Elli?’

  It was Kira.

  I said, ‘I was dreaming. Come here and let me kiss you.’

  She hung back.

  She said, ‘Why is your face so dirty?’

  ‘I came on a train.’

  ‘Are you going away again?’

  ‘No, never. I missed you. Did you miss me?’

  You can depend on children for the truth.

  ‘Not terribly,’ she said. ‘Granny Miechen bought us new dresses and Uncle Bimbo took us mushrooming. Is Masha going to die?’

  ‘No,’ I said, although I knew she might. ‘Show me your new dress.’

  She came back wearing it over her nightclothes. Blue velveteen, shirred bodice, bishop sleeves and a ribbon sash. Very Miechen.

  ‘Masha’s is red,’ she said. ‘But I like mine better. I did miss you, really.’

  Masha’s fever broke the following night. She slept peacefully for an hour then she sat up and scowled at me.

  ‘I didn’t know you were here,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t creep up on a person.’

  I was still wearing my ambulance breeches. Underneath them my skin looked grey. All those weeks of washing in splashes of pump water, or not washing at all. I sat in a hip bath and had Nanya pour hot water over me until the grey turned to pink. Then I put on a gown, ate two slices of soft, white bread with butter, and fell asleep.

  *

  Miechen telephoned. She was in Livadia.

  I said, ‘Masha’s out of danger. She’ll be fine now.’

  ‘Oh, I knew she would be,’ she said. ‘Dr Lukin is the absolute best. And is Cyril home yet?’

  Miechen had written to Uncle Nikolasha and told him Cyril must be allowed home at once, to see his sick children.

  ‘Especially,’ she said, ‘considering the heroic work you’ve been doing.’

  I could imagine Grand Duke Nikolasha snorting at the word ‘heroic’.

  I said, ‘Cyril isn’t here. I don’t think his movements are up to Uncle Nikolasha.’

  ‘Of course they are,’ she said. ‘What’s the point of having the Commander-in-Chief in the family if he can’t manage a little courtesy like that for you? If Cyril doesn’t arrive this week, I shall telephone the Emperor. When I think of what my family has done for this country.’

  I said, ‘Miechen, please don’t. Anyway Nicky doesn’t receive telephone calls, you know that.’

  ‘Then I shall plague him day and night until he does,’ she said. ‘Great heavens, even Dowager Minnie isn’t afraid of the telephone.’

  Cyril didn’t come home, not even for Christmas. It was altogether a rather dismal time. There was no opera, no ballet. A performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio was cancelled. ‘Inappropriate,’ they said. ‘Too German.’ And of course even the Yusupovs didn’t dare to give a party. Actually, particularly the Yusupovs. Like everyone with a wing to spare, they’d offered part of their palace for use as a military hospital but Felix was still in bad odour. He’d pleaded ‘only son’ exemption from active service and snagged himself a safe little job at the Peter Paul Fortress, as a map librarian or some such. Rina was expecting so it was nice for her to know Felix wasn’t in any danger, but still rather shaming to have him come home to dine every evening when all the other men were away, doing their duty.

  Cyril’s brothers, Boris and Andrei, both had commands. Uncle Bimbo was in Kiev, as a kind of Imperial inspector of hospitals, Uncle Seryozha was in the far north inspecting munitions factories and Uncle Gogi was about to go east, to confer with the Japanese. That was the stupidity of war. One could almost understand Peach’s point of view. Japan, which had been our mortal enemy just a few years before, Japan which cost us so much, not least my husband’s health, was now our ally.

  Peach and I did what we could to give Kira and Masha a gay time. We had our own little party and the girls wore their Miechen dresses. I suggested they put on a little display for me, to show me what they’d been learning at their ballet class, but Peach had prepared something else. They were to act out the story of someone called Stenka Razin. The name meant nothing to me.

  Masha said, ‘Gosh, but everyone knows about Stenka Razin.’

  Peach said, ‘Russia’s Robin Hood.’

  She didn’t trouble to hide her disdain at my ignorance.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kira. ‘He helped the poor people because the rich people were so beastly and selfish.’

  ‘Not all of them, I’m sure,’ I said.

  Masha said, ‘I hope you’re not going to spoil our play.’

  We made treacle toffee to send to Cyril and built a magnificent snow hill. We were outside, sledding, when I saw an express-letter delivery go to Genya Botkin’s house. I guessed at once what it was. In wartime no one with a family member at the Front wants to receive an urgent letter and I knew only Tanya was at home. It was the hour when Botkin made his daily call on Empress Sunny. I went in to Tanya. The dear girl was as white as a bone and she hadn’t even opened the envelope.

  ‘Should I, do you think?’ she said. ‘I would normally. Since Mama went away I deal with everything. I just don’t like the look of this.’

  We opened it together. It was as I’d feared. I telephoned the Alexander Palace but the switchboard couldn’t connect me to either of Their Imperial Majesties, or wouldn’t. I told the Botkins’ sloozhanka to give Tanya strong, sweet tea and then I set off on Tanya’s bicycle. The Imperial Guard gave me no difficulty. I always waved to them when I rode past the gates so they knew me well. Chief Steward Taneyev was a different matter. Perhaps it was the sight of my jodhpurs that flustered him. But when I whispered my reason for being there he agreed to take me to Nicky directly.

  He was in the playroom with Alyosha. Marie was there too and Anastasia. How those girls studied me. The aunt who had abandoned their darling Uncle Ernie.

  The Emperor of All the Russias was sitting at the top of a wooden slide. He was wearing an army undress tunic.

  ‘Ducky,’ he said. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’

  And slid down onto the pile of cushions.

  He enquired after my health, and Cyril’s.

 
I said, ‘Cyril Vladimirovich is at the Stavka. I think he’s well. I hope he is. You’d know more than I do.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

  But he offered me no news. I told him why I was there. That young Mitya Botkin had been killed in action at Limanowa and Tanya needed her father to go home to her at once.

  Nicky rang a bell and lit a cigarette. I took one from his case while it was open. Marie and Anastasia were still examining me. I felt like an interesting exhibit in a zoological garden. Warning: this animal may bite. So I was rather pleased to be able to give them a talking point to take to Empress Sunny. Not only is Aunt Ducky divorced, but she wears men’s trousers and smokes too. Actually I rather needed that cigarette.

  ‘Sad business,’ Nicky said. ‘Botkin’s other boys? Are they …?’

  Yuri Botkin had just gone off for basic training, Gleb was too young for the army but raring to follow his brothers. I made the observation that there’d be many families learning to dread the sound of the postman at the door. I think I also mentioned that there was no Mrs Botkin at home, just Tanya and the servants. I don’t remember.

  Alyosha was studying me. He’s still very small for his age, but he knows how to play his part.

  He said, ‘I’m the Tsesarevich.’

  I said, ‘I know. And I’m your Aunt Ducky.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’

  I suppose no one corrects your manners when you’re the Heir. Well, I’m afraid those Bolsheviks will soon put him in his place. They don’t give a fig for any person’s bloodline.

  Then he asked me, ‘Do you have any boys?’

  He wasn’t a likeable child, but was it any wonder? There was little that was normal in his life, watched over every minute, cooped up with Sunny and all those fussing sisters and doctors. No one to play with but his sailor-nurses and Emperor Nicky. He needed his corners smoothed.

  I said, ‘No boys. I have two girls, but they’re younger than you. Five and seven.’

  Did they have bicycles, he wanted to know. They did, of course.