Natalie Tereshchenko - The Other Side
Page 19
"Nicholas was seen as a weak leader with bad judgement," said Nan, as though reading my mind. "He certainly let too many people do things in his name, including Alexandra. And as for the generals, they blamed all their military failings on him. After the thwarted 1905 revolution, he was persuaded to start the Dumas, a kind of parliament, so the people had some illusion of a say in the government. But they were not fooled, they wanted control, revolution, to overthrow the monarchy completely."
* * *
We moved on, and reached a bright room, with a bay window at the far end. There were shredded rags of curtains through which shafts of early afternoon sun lit a haze of floating dust, and revealed boxes and broken furniture strewn haphazardly around. Empty shelves along two walls showed that it had once been a library.
"This is one of the small libraries," Nan told me. "This is where I used to work on the day's correspondence with Tatiana. We were in here on the day that changed all our lives forever, when we received the news that Nicholas had abdicated, and that started the chain of terrible events that ended with their deaths. Tatiana and I were sitting over there, at a table near the window, when her mother called for her to tell her about the abdication."
She was quiet for a while, deep in her thoughts, looking around the room, seeing ghosts.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
She nodded, sadly, "I have realised that it is a mistake to try to relive the past, it can never be the same."
"You only have to do as much as you want to, you know" I said.
She hugged me. "Thank you dear, I'm fine. It has just been rather a shock to see it all in such a state."
Then she seemed to gather herself. "Shall I show you where my rooms were?"
I nodded, still more concerned about her welfare, and we walked along a corridor between Nicholas's rooms until we reached a rear staircase. "There are lifts between all the floors," she explained, "Nicholas had them installed when the family moved here from the Winter Palace. They wouldn't work now, of course, there is no electricity. This stairway was used by the staff to reach Alexandra's or Nicholas's quarters."
"Ladies, please," Sergey interrupted, anxiously, as we were about to mount the first step.
I had forgotten for a moment that he was still with us.
"It is not good. If you are fall, I am trouble."
"Sergey, darling," Nan replied, "I have travelled hundreds of miles for this. I understand your concern, but I will not be put off."
He looked sad and worried, but said no more.
We started up the stairs, treading carefully in the almost total darkness, guided by a faint light ahead. Some of the steps creaked ominously, but they felt firm enough underfoot, until about we reached a huge hole where they had collapsed completely. Something heavy had fallen from somewhere above and taken the stairs on its way through. The glow we had seen was light seeping down from windows in the floor above us. There was no way onward, so we turned back and retraced our steps through the Tsar's rooms, back to the stairs near the entrance hall that we had passed on our way in. These were more substantial, stone steps, dusty, but safe.
At the top, we turned left and then right, stirring up eddies of dust as we moved, with poor Sergey following glumly a few paces behind. Our way was lit, though barely, by sunlight threading through holes in the ceiling where the roof had weakened, allowing water to leak in and damage the plaster. Eventually, Nan led us into a straight, empty corridor. On the left and right at regular intervals were doorways, though all the doors appeared to be either open or missing or hanging at strange angles.
"This," she said, softly, "is where the maid's quarters were."
We walked a few steps and looked into the first doorway on our left, which led to the shared bathroom. The senior maids, Nan told me, took turns to have a hot bath each day; supposedly according to a rota based upon their order of precedence, but it was frequently overridden by necessity. After them, the junior maids got in when they could. The walls and floor were tiled a hideous green, and a white, cast-iron bath, with ornate, gold-painted feet, still stood in the centre of the room. There was a radiator and a bulbous Dutch stove against one wall, and a pedestal wash basin on another wall. A small window, high in the remaining wall, gave a little light.
Continuing along the corridor, we reached the next doorway. This accessed a small apartment that, Nan informed me, belonged to Elizabeth Ersberg, one of the Empress's personal maids. Elizabeth had come to Russia with Alexandra from Germany when the royal couple were married. Through the broken door that hung drunkenly across the entrance, we could see into the distressed bedroom beyond. It was bare, but for debris from a roof fall that was scattered over the floor.
Slowly, we proceeded to the third doorway. There, Nan stopped and turned to me, afraid for a moment to look. I heard Sergey clump to a halt behind us.
"These were my rooms" she said, and I noticed real nervousness in her voice and saw anxiety on her face. "I was given my own suite when Tatiana made me her Lady-in-Waiting. Before that, I shared with Rada and Polya, in a room further down the corridor, there." She pointed. "But, although it was a great privilege to have my own rooms, I missed the company, and spent as much time as I could with the twins in their room."
The door was open, but she still hesitated, as though afraid of what she would find inside, then, with an air of determination, walked in, then paused to wait for me
We stood in a small entrance vestibule, with a dusty maroon velvet wall covering, which hung in shreds. A door to the right revealed a tiny wash-room, with a small pedestal basin, while another doorway, straight ahead, led to the bedroom.
Amazingly, her bed was still there: a beautifull, brass, four-poster, now covered with dust and debris, and broken in half by a huge piece of timber that had fallen from the roof and lay across it. As we edged carefully into the room, I tried to imagine it as she had known it, bright and comfortable. I tried to see the young Natalie, asleep in that bed, but the present, with its dust and rubble, was too pervasive. The remains of lace and velvet curtains sagged and trailed downwards over the bed like rags of clothing on an ancient skeleton. A small table with carved legs was laying, crushed, on the floor beside the bed, with the pieces of a decorated porcelain wash jug and bowl scattered around it. There was a small window to our left, the glass broken, which looked out, past the colonnaded palace entrance, over the parkland surrounding the palace. Wires hung from the ceiling where there had once been a light fitting. It all smelt musty, with a hint of burnt wood from somewhere.
We stood in silence for several minutes, then she whispered "Elizabeth, I would like to leave now, please."
I looked at her face, and her eyes were filled with tears. "This was a mistake," she said sadly. "I should have kept my memories; they may not have all been good, but they had colour and life. Now I shall remember only this, the crushed bones of what my life once was."
We retraced our steps, down the stairs and out to the car. She did not speak again as we took our seats and the car moved off, but I could see that her mind was busy. Her lips would twitch or press tightly together, her eyebrows raise, as thoughts occurred and were processed. I spoke to her once or twice, trying to assess her mood, but her answers were vague. I feared that she was again sinking into depression.
She broke the silence when we were once again speeding along the motorway. With a smile, she suddenly turned to me and said: "I met him again in London, you know ~ Frederick, my Swedish Prince ..."
~ Not The End ~
~ Not The Beginning ~
Natalie Tereshchenko ~ Lady In Waiting
~~~~
Russia, a country shrouded in secrecy, staggering under an oppressive, warmongering ruler ~ while the citizens die of cold and starvation, the royal family lives in opulence. But revolution is in the air, and things are about to change.
Although Natalie Tereshchenko works for Tatiana, second eldest of the daughters of Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra, she is no ordinary
Lady In Waiting ~ she is a niece of the Tsar himself, but it is a secret that no-one will admit.
As the Russian monarchy collapses, Natalie travels with them into exile, revealing her own insecurities and longings, her friendships, the men who loved her and the one who deceived her. When the family is slaughtered, she discovers that she cannot escape her past, and is driven to make an agonising decision.
~~~~
Also by Elizabeth Audrey Mills …
A Song For Joey
~~~~
A gift of love, a promise that reaches beyond the grave. An emotional, nostalgic saga of love and hate, played against the background of Britain as it emerges from World War Two.
When your father has deserted you, and your mother died giving birth to you, when you are homeless, drugged and beaten, and someone is out to kill you, you may find that the best person to have beside you is the ghost of the boy you loved like a brother.
Meet Paolo and Rita, reluctant parents, and Rita's mother, Gladys, who picks up the pieces.
Then get to know Belinda, a girl with a wonderful gift, and Joey, the boy who helps her to survive on the streets when she is made homeless. But Joey has a terminal illness, and after he dies, Belinda makes a solemn promise at his graveside to one day give him what is then beyond her reach.
With Joey watching over her, Belinda overcomes heartache and dreadful abuse in her quest to become a successful pop singer and to keep her promise. On the way, she learns that love has many forms; she meets Connor, a gay man who becomes her best friend, and Oliver, her lover. But her past catches up with her, and a man she thought she had escaped threatens revenge in a terrible and brutal way.
~~~~
~ The Tapestry Capricorn books for young teens of all ages … ~
Feline Secret Agent
~~~~
When undesirables start to flood across the dimensional boundary into Earth, a special agent is sent to deal with them. But an agent alone, even a shape-shifting cat, sometimes needs an assistant or two. Tapestry Capricorn enlists a bunch of unlikely allies to help her destroy the portal and send the rats back to their home world.
Reptilla
~~~~
Suddenly, it all becomes deadly serious.
Once again Tapestry Capricorn is called upon to deal with dangerous, dimension-crossing aliens. This time she faces an army of humanoid reptiles, led by a megalomaniacal lizard calling himself King Sah-Seh-Sah of Reptilla. With only a small white dog called Kong to help her, is she out of her depth this time?
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