The Grand Duchess of Nowhere

by Laurie Graham

  I said, ‘And what about her revolutionary sentiments?’

  ‘Revolutionary sentiments!’ he said. ‘A few days on cold kasha will cure her of those. No, the more I think of it, the more Kuzma is my concern. He knows every door and window of this house. Took a set of keys too, I shouldn’t be surprised. Well, if his Red friends decide they want a Romanov sacrificed it’s not going to be one from this household. We’ll all shift to town as soon as possible. We’ll take Nanya with us, and Serafim.’

  ‘But we have Mefody on the door at Glinka Street.’

  ‘Mefody’s an old sot. He’s asleep half the time. One of these days he won’t wake up. Serafim can prepare to take over from him.’

  So it was all settled.

  I said, ‘Christos voskrese, dearest.’

  He said, ‘Now you’re going all Russian on us! Voistinoo voskrese, darling! Christ is risen indeed! Absolutely.’

  31

  We were to leave Tsarskoe Selo without fuss and without great quantities of luggage.

  Cyril said, ‘If people ask, you’re just going to town for a week or two. Nothing out of the ordinary.’

  But everything I did felt like a true leave-taking. I walked across to the Catherine Palace hospital to find Tanya Botkin. She was working there as a nursing aide.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ she said. ‘But I’m so sad to say goodbye to you. You’ve been a kind neighbour.’

  I said, ‘It’s not goodbye. It’s just for a few weeks. Ethel Peach left us so we’re sending Kira to the Annenschule. Once she’s settled in I’m sure we’ll be back.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the thing is I’m not likely to be here much longer. When Their Majesties get away to England, Daddy plans to go with them. You know how the Empress depends on him. So my brother and I will go too. We have to stay together.’

  She asked me what England is like.

  I said, ‘I’m no expert. I only lived there for a few years, and I was a child. All I remember are the horses we had there, and our lovely garden. You’ll certainly find it calmer than here. The English don’t go in much for revolutions. They did have one, but it never caught on.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘now it’s been decided, I just wish they’d hurry up and send for us.’

  Uncle Paul was my next stop. He promised, if anything should happen, if it should turn out that we didn’t come back to Tsarskoe Selo, that he’d take Masha and Kira’s ponies for his girls. Also my hunter.

  He said, ‘Are you closing the house completely? Permanently?’

  I said, ‘I’m supposed to say no.’

  ‘Understood,’ he said. ‘But what about Cyril’s little dog?’

  There had been so much to think about Cyril and I hadn’t discussed what should be done with Krot. We could hardly take him to Glinka Street. His sole mission in life was to dig and chew. Uncle Paul said he’d take him.

  ‘Good little ratter, I imagine. I’ll tell Olga I’m borrowing him, to deal with our vermin. But if you happen to see her before you go, please don’t tell her you’re leaving. She’s jittery enough.’

  I said, ‘You don’t plan on going?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I feel I should stay and see Nicky and Sunny safely on their way. Olga does understand that. I wanted to send her and the children down to Kiev but she refuses to go anywhere without me.’

  I went for a walk that last morning, by the Ponds, past the Catherine Palace and back along Dvortsovaya. It was so mild I only wore a short jacket and a headscarf. That scarf was my passport. I tied it Russian-style and no one gave me a second look. There was quite a crowd pressed against the Alexander Palace gates, some guards, some estate workers, shouting and laughing. I stopped to see what was amusing them. It was just the Imperial Family taking the air, going round and round their small permitted circuit. They were exhibits, amusing new arrivals in the People’s zoological garden. Nicky was wheeling Sunny in an invalid carriage. She’s grown very stout. Two of the girls were with them, Tatiana, I think, and Anastasia. I didn’t linger to see if Alyosha and the other girls came out. It was too shaming to see them so reduced.

  Serafim, very eager to make a good impression since his promotion, had everything ready for our departure. Old Nanya was nowhere to be found. When I’d told her she was going with us to Glinka Street, she’d made me her usual low bow and then slipped away. I suppose she preferred to stay in the country with her chickens. That was the Russian way. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ they say, ‘whatever the barina wishes,’ when really they mean ‘when pigs fly’.

  So we set off, minus Nanya. I knew I mustn’t look back. I concentrated on cultivating a mood of forced jollity, for the girls’ sake. Eventually Masha said, ‘Mummy, why do you keep saying “isn’t this fun!”? We’re only going to Glinka Street.’

  And in town I found the atmosphere quite changed. People had ceased breaking windows and setting fires. The new fad was debating. Two men might be walking along and meet a third and, before you knew it, one of them would be standing on a fire hydrant delivering a speech.

  As Cyril said, ‘Wherever two or three are gathered together.’

  Uncle Bimbo said they were being encouraged by various hotheads, agitators who’d been living in exile and now seized the opportunity to slip back into Petrograd.

  ‘Just what we need!’ he said. ‘Clever types who don’t know anything useful. The kind who can’t tie their own bootlaces without consulting a book or conducting a debate.’

  Still, it was a relief that people were doing nothing worse than talking. I began to feel we’d panicked unnecessarily, leaving Tsarskoe Selo. Cyril said better safe than sorry. He felt there were various phases we were obliged to go through and this was the latest. It was nothing to worry about. One of the armchair revolutionaries had tried to address the Assembly at the Tauride Palace and had to stop because of the jeering.

  ‘You should have heard him. “Russian soldiers have no business fighting their German comrades. The true enemy is the bourgeoisie.”’

  ‘Who are the bourgeoisie?’

  ‘Anyone who isn’t a horny-handed son of toil. Rather comical really. According to Kerensky that particular buffoon never worked a day in his life. Still, I felt sorry for the chap in a way. He got such a barracking from the deputies and he’s obviously not quite right in the head.’

  That was Vladimir Lenin. We were soon hearing his name a lot. People said he was mad, he was a joke, he was a devil. He’d soon choke on his own tail and be gone. But he moved into Mathilde Kschessinskaya’s abandoned palace and declared it his Headquarters, his Stavka. He was driven around in a purloined Talbot tourer with a red pennant flying, like some army bigwig.

  ‘Straight out of a comic opera,’ Cyril said. ‘One of Mr Gilbert’s creations if ever I saw one.’

  Well, Vladimir Lenin doesn’t seem like such a buffoon now.

  *

  Our telephone still wasn’t working. As soon as we were settled at Glinka Street I walked round to the British Embassy to see the Buchanans. I wasn’t shown upstairs. Georgie came down.

  ‘Ducky,’ she said. She looked at her feet. ‘This is rather awkward.’

  For a moment I misunderstood.

  I said, ‘Of course, you’re busy. I just wanted you to know I’m back in town. Let’s have tea soon.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not that. It’s the situation, the diplomatic situation. Sir George is in a difficult position.’

  I said, ‘But Britain has recognised the new government.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s not that. It’s really more about George personally. Some of these new government people think he was too close to the Imperial family. Well, he did try terribly hard with the Tsar, you know, to make him see how things were going. Just in a fatherly way. But times have changed. People seem to put such mischievous interpretations on the most innocent things nowadays. So we’re advised to avoid contact with all members of the Romanov family. For the time being. It’s so silly, but I know you’ll und
erstand.’

  I didn’t understand. Not at all. I still don’t. And it wasn’t just Georgie Buchanan. I saw Henny Lensky in the street. She pretended not to see me at first.

  I said, ‘I have the children at Glinka Street. Would Tamara like to come and play?’

  She looked horrified.

  ‘After what your husband has done?’ she said. ‘Traitors!’

  People were staring. It was too awful.

  So some people wouldn’t speak to us because Cyril had been the first to give up on Emperor Nicky, and others wouldn’t speak to us because, when all was said and done, we were still Romanovs. We were pariahs. The only friendly words I heard that week were from Felix Yusupov. He was back in Petrograd ‘lightly disguised’ as he put it, as a friend of the Revolution. He was wearing a disgusting old coachman’s coat and a red cockade but there was no mistaking his elegant walk. He, on the other hand, didn’t recognise me.

  ‘Christmas!’ he said. ‘Ducky, is that really you? I wouldn’t have known you at all, dressed à la citoyenne.’

  He asked me for drinks that evening.

  ‘Best not to talk in the street,’ he said. ‘But come in through the back, through the garden. The gate’s on Pirogova.’

  I’d never even heard of Pirogova Lane, let alone walked along it. It was so dark and narrow. The whole point of any Yusupov palace was the glittering splendour of its front entrance but it felt quite thrilling to creep up to its garden entrance.

  Felix was alone. Rina and Bébé had stayed in the south while he came to Petrograd to check on the state of the house.

  ‘A cracked pane or two. Nothing serious,’ he said. ‘We’ve been lucky. I gather the Count Frederickses got practically burned to the ground.’

  He said he’d seen Miechen who was safe and well but furious with Cyril for throwing in his lot with the new government.

  ‘Incandescent actually,’ he said, ‘but, entre nous, I think anger is good for her health. The foolishness of others keeps the blood coursing furiously through her veins.’

  I said, ‘Do you think Cyril’s been foolish?’

  Felix just looked at me.

  I said, ‘They were shooting admirals out at Kronstadt, you know? And anyway, Miechen always said Nicky should step aside. She never had any confidence in him. She can hardly complain now it’s happened.’

  ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘Miechen rather feels Cyril has lopped off the branch she was sitting on. And she isn’t the only one who thinks so.’

  He meant his father-in-law, Grand Duke Uncle Sandro.

  I said, ‘And there are some who feel Cyril did the only sensible thing. It’s all very well for you people who weren’t here. Cyril was on the spot. He had to be decisive. Most of the Grand Dukes are behind him now. As a matter of fact they’re rather grateful he had the courage to lead the way.’

  That told him.

  ‘Well, anyhow,’ he said, ‘what’s done is done. The aforementioned branch was creaking, I will admit. But tell me about the Imperials? Are they still here? And what do we call them now? The Nicholas Egalités?’

  I said, ‘They’re confined to the Alexander Palace. Waiting for a ship to England.’

  ‘That’ll be a come-down,’ he said. ‘From the Winter Palace to a little grace-and-favour at Windsor. But you know, it may suit them. I always found them terribly suburban, didn’t you? Nicky’ll be able to join one of those motoring clubs.’

  Felix said he planned to leave Petrograd the next day.

  ‘The very minute I’ve tidied up here. I have a little housekeeping to do. A few loose ends. One must work on the assumption that we won’t be coming back.’

  ‘What, ever?’

  ‘Ever,’ he said. ‘It’s all up for the likes of us, Ducky, you must surely see that. You and Cyril do have an exit plan?’

  ‘Sort of. I keep a couple of bags packed.’

  ‘That’s the ticket,’ he said. ‘Are you all right for money?’

  I had no idea. Cyril always had cash in the house but I didn’t know how much or where he kept it.

  Felix said, ‘Not that it’ll be worth anything once this new lot start printing treasury notes. Jewellery’s worth taking, though. And anything else you can carry. Don’t you have a rather nice little Corot etching?’

  I said, ‘You know we do. Your mother gave it to us as a wedding present.’

  ‘Take it out of its frame,’ he said. ‘Seriously. Hide it between your nightgowns. I have our Rembrandts rolled up in my riding boots.’

  I’d never been close to Felix. He was good fun but one never really knew him. A piece of froth. You couldn’t quite catch hold of him. Even fatherhood doesn’t seem to have changed him. But that evening, when it was time for me to leave, I felt so very sad, as though we were saying goodbye for ever. He felt it too. He hugged me in a most un-Felix-like way.

  He said, ‘Do watch out for yourself, Ducky, and for your girls. Cyril’s taking a huge gamble but you don’t have to stay for the next spin of the wheel. Come south. Everyone else has.’

  32

  I told Cyril what Felix’s advice had been.

  ‘Bloody typical,’ he said. ‘Directing operations from under the counterpane. What the hell does he know? He’s been down at Livadia tending his roses.’

  ‘So you don’t think it’s all up for us?’

  ‘Ducky,’ he said, ‘do you really think we’d still be here if I did? This new government, they just need time and a bit of guidance. Kerensky’s a sensible fellow. I believe I can work with him.’

  ‘And what work will that be?’

  ‘When I say “work”, I mean assist him in establishing a proper government. But yes, afterwards he’ll probably find something for me. Something in an advisory capacity, possibly. Naval, military. I’m sure he recognises my value.’

  ‘But I thought the point of this new system is no more jobs for Romanovs.’

  ‘Leave this to me, dear,’ he said. ‘It’s more complex than you realise, but I have everything under control.’

  That was the day a tiny voice whispered that I shouldn’t necessarily accept everything Cyril said. Some people find it hard to admit they’ve made a mistake.

  I said, ‘Felix and Rina are hoping to settle in Paris when the war’s over.’

  ‘Paris!’ he snorted. ‘Yes, that’s about Yusupov’s mark. That’s his kind of place. Well, good luck to them.’

  I said, ‘You and I were very happy in Paris.’

  He looked at me. For a moment it was as though he’d forgotten.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we were. And now we’re happy here. Don’t go all droopy on me, Ducky. I need you to be rock solid. I begin to wish you hadn’t gone for drinks with him. Not to be depended upon, friend Felix. Not sound at all.’

  I reminded him that Felix was the one who had rid us of Grigory Rasputin. He laughed.

  ‘You don’t really believe Felix fired a shot, do you? Honestly, Ducky, do think.’

  ‘It happened in his house.’

  ‘Mr Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre,’ he said, ‘but we know Mr Ford didn’t have a hand in it. Darling, all Felix did was to provide the mise-en-scène. That’s what he does. Everything’s theatre for the Yusupovs and Felix always has to be on stage, even if he’s only playing the butler.’

  ‘So, do you think Dmitri did it?’

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that provision was made for the deed to be done, to be finished off at least, by someone who could be trusted not to lose their nerve.’

  ‘But who? Was it Oswald Rayner? I’ve heard that suggested.’

  ‘I really don’t know. Was he even in town? The only thing as sure as the dawn is that it wasn’t Felix. Shoot a man? I’d say not. Too messy. I’ll bet he had his good rugs taken up before the reptile arrived that night.’

  In spite of Cyril’s scorn for Felix’s advice, I did take the Corot out of its frame. I packed it in a photograph album. My pearls I stuffed into the bone channels of an old corset, my emeralds I stitched
into the hem of my hunting apron. I don’t know if they’ll be much help to us. They say the market is flooded with Romanov gems.

  ‘Don’t sell now,’ people say. ‘Wait for better times.’

  All very well but when one has children to feed, waiting for better times may not be an option. Miechen might manage to hold on. There’s actually a bit of a story about her jewels. She’d taken some of them with her when she went south, but only second-best pieces. There was no imperative to dazzle in Kiev and in Crimea she always dressed very simply. Three pearl strands at most. So her collection was mainly still in Petrograd though I’m sure Cyril hadn’t given it a thought.

  *

  We were on our way to the Summer Gardens one afternoon, the girls and I, when Kira said, ‘Here comes Uncle Boris. What is he wearing?’

  Two grimy workmen were walking towards us, carrying tool bags, but Kira was quite right, one of them was Boris Vladimirovich. The other, astonishingly, was Bertie Stopford.

  ‘Don’t stop. Keep walking. You don’t know us,’ Boris said, as we drew close. ‘We’re going to clean the boilers at the Vladimir Palace. Which is now the property of the People.’

  They turned down Mramorny Lane. Kira wanted to follow them. She thought they were going to a costume party. But Masha understood we should do as Boris said. She knew Petrograd had become a place where strange things happened and some of them ended badly.

  She said, ‘Kira, I think Uncle Boris is doing war work. Top secret. We have to pretend we didn’t see him.’

  We had a few more questions from Kira. Was cleaning boilers war work? Why wasn’t Granny Miechen’s boilerman doing it? And what did ‘Property of the People’ mean?’

  Eventually she said, ‘What fun to wear a disguise! How old do you have to be to do war work?’

  *

  Cyril knew nothing of what Boris might have been up to at Miechen’s palace. He just held up his hands.