The Grand Duchess of Nowhere

by Laurie Graham

  I wasn’t at all anxious about them. They were out at Tsarskoe Selo, probably playing Go Fish with Peach.

  There was then some discussion as to whether, in times of civil unrest, it was safer to be in the country or the city.

  Bertie Stopford said, ‘Oh, the city, every time. The trouble with the country is one never knows what’s lurking in the forest. The Alexander Palace for instance. It’s frightfully exposed. In my opinion the Empress should think of moving somewhere that’s easier to guard.’

  And someone, I don’t know who, said very quietly, ‘Yes. Germany sounds about right.’

  Cuddy Thornhill escorted me home. I’m sure there was no necessity but Georgie Buchanan insisted on it. It was about four o’clock and starting to grow dark. As we walked along the Moika we heard a strange popping sound, like distant fireworks. Thornhill didn’t say anything, but I noticed he slid his hand inside his greatcoat.

  I said, ‘Was that gunfire?’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said.

  ‘And you’re armed?’

  ‘Webley.’

  I was pretty good with a shotgun when I was a girl. Miles better than my brother. Pa used sometimes to let me use his second-best Purdey. But I’ve never even tried a handgun.

  I said, ‘Do you think we should all arm ourselves? I do. I think I may get a pistol. What do you recommend?’

  ‘A little Derringer,’ he said.

  Cuddy Thornhill, a man of few words. It was the most I ever heard him say.

  The telephone was ringing. None of the servants would ever answer the damned thing. They’d just look at it and look at it and wait for it to fall silent. It was Masha.

  ‘When are you coming home?’

  I said, ‘Maybe tomorrow. If the trains are running. If it’s safe to travel.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be safe?’

  ‘Because some people are misbehaving and guns are being fired.’

  ‘What kind of misbehaving? I want to come and see them.’

  I said, ‘That’s a silly thing to say. Daddy would want you to stay out of harm’s way. Let me speak to Peach.’

  ‘She’s not here. She’s in the kitchen, talking to Kuzma.’

  ‘Then how did you make this call if Peach wasn’t there to help you?’

  She said, ‘Mummy, I’m ten. Besides, anyone can make a telephone call. Even Granny Miechen.’

  Kira wished to speak to me.

  ‘I don’t like Peach any more.’

  ‘Did you misbehave?’

  ‘Definitely not. I’ve been as good as gold. What’s a bloody revolution?’

  26

  That night wasn’t like previous nights. The marchers didn’t go home. Many of them stayed on to drink and sing and light fires. It was like a party. But there were some who could never go home because they lay dead in the street. The shots Cuddy Thornhill and I had heard had come from Nevsky Prospekt. Uncle Paul said it wasn’t clear which regiment had done the shooting. The Pavlovsky and the Volinsky had both sent out companies but there was a rumour going about that they’d disobeyed the order to shoot, that they’d mutinied and shot their commanding officers instead. But marchers had been killed too. Someone had shot them.

  Uncle Paul was very agitated. He said, ‘Nicky should be here. He should come home at once and be seen to take charge. Well, perhaps he’s on his way. They say he’s being kept informed.’

  Emperor Nicky wasn’t on his way at all. He simply promised to send more troops, men who really were needed at the Front, who might arrive in two days, or two weeks, or never. He also issued an order that the Duma was to cease sitting until further notice.

  Brother-in-law Boris dropped in. He was on his way to Betsy Trubetskoy’s and thought I might like to go with him. Dinner and cards. But I didn’t think it seemed right, to have a party when people were being shot.

  ‘Ducky,’ he said, ‘those people had due warning. Disperse or face the consequences. So now they know we mean it. Everything’ll be back to normal in the morning, you’ll see.’

  Still, I didn’t go with him. Betsy always kept her rooms so dreadfully hot.

  I slept fitfully. Every time I woke I got up to look out of the window but there was nothing to see. Glinka Street was deserted. I had in mind to go out to Tsarskoe Selo directly after breakfast, except when morning came there was no breakfast, only tea and jam. All the bakeries were closed. Neither were there any cabs to take me to the station, nor any trains leaving the station. I was cross. It seemed the excitement was all over but I was stuck in town for another day. In the country I could at least have gone for a ride.

  But as it turned out, the excitement was far from over. Uncle Paul telephoned to say that under no circumstances should I venture out onto the street. The Petrograd garrison had deserted their post and joined the marchers. The Volinsky regiment had been the first to come out, then the Litovsky and the Izmailovsky.

  I remember saying, ‘But not the Preobrazhensky.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Even the Preobrazhensky.’

  It was unthinkable. It was like the Household Cavalry deserting old Grandma Queen. On Liteiny Prospekt the Law Courts were burning, and so was the prison on Shpalernaya Street.

  I said, ‘Are there prisoners trapped inside?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The prisoners are out on the street. They’re the ones who put the torch to it.’

  It was a day of fires. Some were just street-corner braziers for people to warm themselves. Most were government buildings. Even with the windows closed the smell of scorched paper reached me. Georgie Buchanan said she could see smoke rising from Petrograd side too.

  ‘But the flag’s still flying over the Peter Paul Fortress,’ she said. ‘Sit tight, Ducky. We hear Grand Duke Michael is on his way in from Gatchina. Perhaps he’ll take charge in the Tsar’s absence.’

  I said, ‘But where is the Tsar?’

  No one seemed to know. And what could Misha do? The people hardly knew him. The Emperor’s brother who led an irregular life and was rarely mentioned. Why would anyone listen to him?

  Georgie said, ‘Of course it may be too late anyway. The city’s in uproar. Have you spoken to your husband?’

  ‘He’s still in Murmansk, as far as I know.’

  ‘Is he, dear?’ she said. ‘Shall I ask General Knox if he can send one of those nice English boys round to you, if you’re feeling nervous?’

  But I wasn’t feeling nervous at all. I was cold and hungry and bored. I went down to the kitchen. There was no sign of Anna, nor of the girl who helped her. The only person I could find was Anna’s old mother, leaning rather pointlessly against the unlit stove, groaning and nursing a swollen cheek.

  ‘Zoobnaya bol,’ was all I got out of her. ‘Aiee, aiee, zoobnaya bol.’

  Toothache. As to the whereabouts of my kitchen staff, she just waved her hand. She was just one of those unavoidable presences in a Russian household. Whoever you employed, you had better be prepared to take in their mother and their grandmother and their second cousin once removed.

  I poked around a little. Kitchens were a mystery to me then. Less so now. Since we’ve been in Haikko, I’ve learned to make meatballs and herrings with mashed potato. But that morning all I could find were mysterious items like cornflour and Liebig’s Extract of Meat. There were cans of Crosse & Blackwell peas too. My mouth quite watered at that prospect, but I didn’t know how to get them out of their tin and no amount of miming got me any help from the old groaner. So I breakfasted on piccalilli and a packet of malted baby rusks that must have been seven years old at the very least. Then I tried to make a call to the Alexander Palace.

  In truth, I didn’t expect to get through so I had no idea what I was going to say. I just had the strongest feeling that I wanted to make things all right between me and Sunny.

  ‘Ducky!’ she said. ‘You just caught me. It’s such a beautiful morning I’m going out for a little walk. I’ve been so cooped up.’

  I said, ‘You must be anxious.’

&
nbsp; ‘I have been,’ she said, ‘but you know Botkin is an excellent doctor, and of course our Beloved Friend watches over us in spirit. Olga’s a little better today, and Botkin thinks Alyosha is over the worst.’

  We were quite at cross purposes. Her children had measles and she thought I’d called to see how they were getting on. Nothing was said of shootings or mutinies or burning buildings because Sunny appeared not to know what was going on in town. Well, I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

  ‘So kind of you to telephone,’ she said. ‘Is it true you’re expecting another happy event?’

  I was about to say that I worried about bringing another child into such an unsettled world but then I thought better of it. Her world wasn’t unsettled that morning. The sun was shining, her children were recovering and she had reason to hope that Nicky was on his way home from the Stavka.

  ‘We’re lucky to have such loving husbands, Ducky,’ she said.

  Bertie Stopford came by later that morning. He’d brought me a packet of Peek Frean bourbons. Somehow Bertie always managed to obtain things. He always had news too though I sometimes felt he coloured in the gaps in his information with piquant inventions. Just so long as the story held one’s attention.

  He said the Duma had ignored the Tsar’s order to suspend its business and was still sitting.

  ‘And just as well,’ he said. ‘Because Protopopov’s resigned. So that’s the last of the Tsar’s men gone. The Duma is all that remains. That and the hordes in the street. I wonder if Protopopov will shoot himself? Perhaps not. I think that kind of gesture has gone out of fashion.’

  ‘So the Duma’s in charge? They have things under control?’

  He said, ‘Highness Ducky, I don’t think anyone’s in control. There are machine guns on the Siniy Bridge but I couldn’t work out who had charge of them. There were even women there. Fearsome-looking women.’

  So by lunchtime the Duma was all that remained of any kind of authority in Petrograd. The law was what anyone cared to say it was, prisoners were walking free on the streets and still no one quite knew the whereabouts of Emperor Nicky.

  *

  Around four o’clock Georgie Buchanan telephoned again, not her usual calm self at all.

  ‘It’s gone, Ducky,’ she said. ‘The Imperial standard has gone. They’ve pulled it down and now there’s a red flag flying over the Peter Paul Fortress. We can see it from here.’

  At five I heard a commotion downstairs. Doors banging and a voice saying, ‘Lock it and bolt it and bloody well keep it that way.’

  I thought it must be Boris come by for the latest news and a drink, but it was Cyril. The Vladimirovichi men all sound the same. He was unshaven and grey with fatigue. He’d been travelling for more than a day without sleep.

  ‘What in heaven’s name are you thinking of?’

  Those were his first words.

  ‘I rush home, fearing for your safety and I find the street door wide open. You have lights blazing from every window. It looks for all the world like the Yusupovs’ on New Year’s Eve. And by the way, our doorman is drunk. Dead drunk.’

  I said, ‘This morning we didn’t even have a doorman. Welcome home.’

  My resolution had been to push La Karsavina from my mind. To give my husband the benefit of the doubt. Miechen was so often wrong. But his crossness brought everything back. He hadn’t even greeted me with a kiss.

  27

  Whatever other faults he found, Cyril at least thought I’d done the right thing sending the girls out to Tsarskoe Selo while things were so unsettled in town.

  I said, ‘Bertie Stopford says we’re terribly vulnerable out there. All that parkland and forest. If the people really turn against Nicky, the Alexander Palace would be easy to attack. We all would.’

  ‘Stopford!’ he said. ‘What does that perfumed little jack-o-dandy know about ambushes? No, I’m perfectly satisfied the girls should stay in the country. And you should be with them. It won’t be for long. This will soon be over.’

  ‘You mean, like the war?’

  ‘Don’t be facetious. These marchers are just caught up in the moment. They’ll come to their senses when there’s no food to be had.’

  ‘Speaking of which, our own cupboard is rather bare. Perhaps we could eat at Donon’s tonight?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘good idea,’ and promptly fell asleep where he sat. He hadn’t even taken off his Fleet overcoat. I sat still as death and let him sleep for an hour or so but the very moment I stood up he was wide awake.

  ‘Donon’s, then?’ he said. ‘I’m surprised they’re open. What are they finding to serve these days? Grilled sparrows? Telephone still working?’

  It was. First he called the girls. Kira asked him if he’d brought them anything. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a bristly chin and a valise full of dirty socks.’

  I said, ‘I really think Peach will have to go.’

  ‘Not that again,’ he said. ‘This is hardly the time.’

  ‘Well, she’s already reminded me she’s a governess, not a nursery maid. And there are times when she’s quite insolent. I think she actually sympathises with these people who’re blocking the streets. We don’t want her filling the girls’ heads with silly ideas, do we? Also, she’s always chatting to the other servants. Whenever I telephone, Masha says Peach is in the kitchen with Kuzma.’

  He said, ‘We should be thankful she isn’t panicking and demanding to be shipped home to England.’

  He also called Boris, who didn’t answer, and Uncle Paul, who did. I heard a great deal of sighing. Also the name ‘Kerensky’. It was a name I’d heard before though I couldn’t place it.

  ‘Well,’ he said when he got off the telephone. ‘It appears that Nicky’s Imperial Cabinet are all hunkered down at the Tauride Palace wetting their breeches. Nicky himself may be on his way back to Petrograd. On the other hand, he may not.’

  ‘Who’s Kerensky?’

  ‘Deputy in the Duma. Lawyer. Clever bugger.’

  ‘Do we like him?’

  ‘He’s hard to gauge. He speaks very well, very persuasive. I’d say he could carry a meeting. He’s in the Trudoviki Party, though anyone less like a toiler one can’t imagine. Immaculate fingernails. So whether the unwashed will pay any heed to him remains to be seen.’

  ‘What about Misha?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He was supposed to come to Petrograd this morning, to take charge of things until Nicky gets back. Uncle Paul said he might even replace Nicky as Emperor.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks!’ he said. ‘No one’s in the mood for a new Emperor. No Emperor at all is what they’re talking about. The rule of the people. Kerensky’s got Nicky’s old ministers in one room and a bunch of mutineers in another. Factory workers, wet nurses, you name it. Convicted forgers too, I shouldn’t be surprised. Suddenly everyone thinks they know how to rule Russia. If Kerensky can hold everything together something workable might come of it, but I suspect he’s on a sled pulled by two-headed dogs.’

  ‘Where does that leave us?’

  ‘In the long run? Who can say? But presently, it leaves us without dinner. Chvanovsky’s might be safer than Donon’s though. More discreet. He’ll give us a table in the back. But no finery, Ducky, no feathers. You must disguise yourself as a tired old washerwoman.’

  I found I could do that without much difficulty.

  I’d never been to Chvanovsky’s. We took a long way round, along the Catherine Canal and then up a narrow alley that emerged on Kazanskaya Street. Cyril seemed to know exactly where he was going. We were challenged only once, as we crossed Voznesensky Prospekt. A group of men called out to us but they were so full of drink that they seemed not to notice Cyril’s comical attempt at sounding like a labourer.

  ‘Doloy nyemka!’ they shouted. I could follow that much. I’d heard it often enough. ‘Down with the German woman.’

  And Cyril, to my great astonishment, laughed and bantered with them. They offered him a swig from their bottl
e but he declined. He said something and they roared and thumped him on the back.

  I said, ‘Translation, please.’

  ‘Oh, nothing really,’ he said.

  ‘They meant Sunny. Down with Sunny. I got that much.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You seemed to be agreeing with them?’

  ‘One rather had to. One must be practical.’

  ‘And what made them laugh so much, when you wouldn’t drink from their bottle?’

  ‘Told them I had the pox.’

  I said, ‘I suppose I should make more of an effort, to learn Russian.’

  ‘Bit late now,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you’ll never go far wrong with English.’

  Chvanovsky’s was open but there were very few people dining. The maître d’ seemed to know Cyril awfully well.

  I said, ‘I suppose this is where you bring La Karsavina.’

  ‘Ducky,’ he said. ‘Not that silliness again.’

  Perhaps it was silliness. I couldn’t be sure. I still can’t.

  It was a limited menu. We could have an omelette, with onions or without. There was no shortage of wine though. Cyril ordered an Haut-Brion.

  ‘Might as well,’ he said. ‘I’d hate the rude mechanicals to get their hands on this little beauty.’

  He was very quiet, preoccupied.

  I said, ‘What do you think is going to happen?’

  ‘Impossible to say. It might fizzle out. Pity it’s not a bit earlier in the year. A good blizzard would soon clear the streets. But Nicky’s handled things very badly. I’m disappointed in him. I can’t imagine who he’s listening to. Actually, I don’t think he’s listening to anyone.’

  He said he’d be going out to Kronstadt first thing in the morning, to talk to the ratings. Then he’d collect me from Glinka Street and we’d go out to Tsarskoe Selo.

  ‘To see my girls,’ he said. ‘They’re growing up far too fast.’

  He hadn’t once asked me how I was, even when I didn’t finish my omelette.

  I said, ‘I wonder if we’ll get a boy this time.’

  ‘Oh God, Ducky,’ he said. ‘I’d completely forgotten. Fatigue. Worry. But still, unforgiveable. Utterly. How are you, old thing?’