Fighting for breath between each word, he formally welcomed Alicky, telling her that although she was German by birth, on her marriage to Nicky she would become Russian by adoption. Just as his Danish-born wife had become Russian by adoption. And then, as she and Nicky kneeled before him, he had valiantly given them his blessing.
For the next few days Alicky rarely saw Nicky. That his distraught mother and his dying father needed his presence was something she understood. But it meant she had no one, other than Ella, to help her accustom herself to a foreign court – one that was in uproar and in a near-hysterical state of panic.
‘Bertie and Alix have been sent for,’ Ella said to her. ‘Minny needs Alix at a time like this. As sisters, they have always been close. And Bertie will bring a sense of order to things.’
That it was going to be up to English Uncle Bertie to bring order to a disarrayed Russian court bewildered Alicky and she felt indignant, on Nicky’s behalf, that Ella should think Uncle Bertie was needed.
It didn’t take long, however, for her to begin seeing things differently, for although it was obvious to everyone that Nicky would be the Tsar within days – possibly hours – no one treated him with the respect that, as his father’s heir, was his due. Instead of coming to him with the latest findings on his father’s condition, the doctors bypassed him and gave their reports to Minny. Government officials also ignored him, bringing state papers to Minny and not to him. Even Sergei didn’t seek Nicky out in the way Alicky felt he should have, and neither did the Tsar’s other two brothers, Vladimir and Paul. Instead, the three of them were constantly to be found in close, secretive huddles, always falling silent if anyone walked too near them. Whatever Alicky had expected on her long journey to Livadia, it hadn’t been that she would be sidelined when she arrived; and that Nicky would be equally sidelined shocked her deeply.
Her shock showed, as did her feelings concerning the doctor’s attitude towards Nicky and his uncles’ attitude towards him. Before long her presence at Livadia became very unwelcome and, as the Tsar’s condition continued to deteriorate, the superstitious Russian household blamed Alicky, muttering amongst themselves that she had brought bad luck into the country with her.
Three days later, and without the doctor’s attitude or that of his uncles towards Nicky having changed, Tsar Alexander kissed his wife, took a last agonized breath and slid from this world into the next.
If things in the palace had been chaotic before, they were even more chaotic now that the giant who had ruled Russia so ably was there to do so no longer. Nicky was shattered by grief and in despair. Over and over again he said, ‘I’m not ready to be Tsar, Alicky. I’ve never wanted to become Tsar. I don’t know how to become Tsar!’
‘Yes, you do, my darling.’ She was as firm as, only a few months ago, Willy had been with her. ‘God’s plan has always been for you to be Tsar. Becoming Tsar is your God-given destiny, Nicky. You must put your trust in Him, as I do, and all will be well.’
Uncle Vladimir burst in on them.
‘There’s no coffin!’ he said explosively. ‘For weeks Sasha has been slowly dying and yet there’s no coffin and no embalming arrangements in place.’
As Nicky frantically tried to get his head around all the arrangements that it now seemed were up to him and not, as he had imagined they would be, up to the Minister of the Imperial Court, Uncle Alexis put his head round the door. ‘Everything is ready for the oath of allegiance, Nicky,’ he said tersely. ‘The priests have had a field altar set up in the garden. Household staff, officials and courtiers are already assembled and the family are now on their way down.’
Nicky sucked in a deep, steadying breath. This was it – this was the moment he had dreaded all his life, and which he had hoped he wouldn’t have to face for another couple of decades. His eyes met Alicky’s and, drawing strength from the total love he saw in their blue-grey depths, and with her at his side, he walked out of the room and out of the palace.
It was twilight and, beneath a blood-red sky, priests in golden robes faced a large group of family and courtiers. From nearby Yalta came the sound of the guns of the Russian fleet booming a tribute. Livadia’s church bells tolled.
Alicky came to a halt beside Minny. A white-faced Nicky took his place in front of Father Yanishev, his father’s confessor. The guns fell silent and, as Father Yanishev administered the oath, Minny could be heard stifling a sob.
In deepening twilight Nicky repeated the words of the oath and as he was proclaimed ‘His Imperial Majesty The Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias!’ distant thunder rolled far out at sea.
‘Holy God,’ Sergei muttered to Vladimir. ‘A storm is coming. What an omen! The less said about it when we reach St Petersburg, the better.’
‘And no pointing out that our new Tsarina will be heading to her wedding behind a coffin,’ Vladimir added grimly. ‘You know how superstitious people are. If that unpleasant truth takes hold, Alicky will never be seen as anything other than an ill-luck bride bringing bad fortune to Russia. And then where will we be?’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
NOVEMBER 1894, LIVADIA
For Alicky, the following week was made survivable only by the arrival of Uncle Bertie and Aunt Alix. Under Bertie’s imposing, forceful direction the atmosphere at the palace changed, for no one, not even Nicky’s uncles, wanted to appear panicked and inept in front of England’s firmly capable Prince of Wales.
Within a few short hours of his arrival, order was once again mercifully established. Aware that Nicky was far too grief-stricken to make even the slightest of decisions and that no funeral arrangements were yet in place, he suggested that perhaps it would be useful if he, Bertie, began making them.
‘Dear God, please do!’ Nicky was fervently grateful. ‘I’ll be forever in your debt, Bertie.’
Wreathed in cigar smoke, Bertie organized the coffin, the embalming and the travel arrangements for the transportation of the coffin to Moscow. There it would lie in state for three days, before the onward travel to St Petersburg, where the funeral service and burial would take place.
While he was doing this, Nicky – inspired by Bertie’s smooth efficiency – arranged that Alicky be received immediately into the Russian Orthodox Church.
‘Because until you are, we can’t marry.’ He paused. ‘And I want us to marry here, at Livadia. I can’t bear the thought of having to wait until the funeral has taken place in St Petersburg.’
Feeling the exciting hardness of his body against hers, Alicky was no more willing to wait than he was.
Nicky’s uncles thought differently.
‘Preposterous idea!’ Vladimir said to Nicky, as if Nicky was merely a badly behaved nephew. ‘A tsar’s wedding is as great a national event as his coronation.’
Sergei and Alexis were equally adamant that marrying in the Crimea would be the very worst way for him to start his rule as Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias.
It was only when Bertie said, ‘Your uncles are speaking sense, Nicky. Go ahead with Alicky’s confirmation, but wait to be married until you are in St Petersburg and then you can follow Romanov tradition by being married in the Winter Palace’, that Nicky reluctantly abandoned the idea of a quiet Livadia wedding.
Alicky wrote in violet ink to May:
But my confirmation into the Orthodox Church went ahead, with close family present and with everyone dressed in black. It was wonderful how utterly calm I was, and how sure I was that I was doing the right thing. Nicky’s first official act as Tsar was to sign a decree confirming me in my new faith, along with my new name, which is Alexandra Feodorovna. Nicky has begun calling me Alix (but to friends and family I will always be Alicky).
The transporting of Uncle Sasha’s body from Livadia to St Petersburg took nearly two weeks, as the funeral train stopped at town after town so that city dignitaries could pay their respects. In Moscow, people filed past the open coffin all night long, with many people kissing Uncle Sasha’s embalmed lips. How Uncle B
ertie survived it all, I don’t know, but he never let a hint of distaste or impatience show, and I and Nicky will always be grateful to him.
Once in St Petersburg, there was another long procession through snow-covered streets to the Cathedral of St Peter and Paul. Ernie is here for the funeral, but he arrived without Ducky, who is four months pregnant and continually being sick. Kyril Vladimirovich (Nicky’s Uncle Vladimir’s eldest son) asked after her. I thought it an odd thing for him to have done, for he could hardly have expected me to update him on her pregnancy! Nicky said their being first cousins explained it, and that Kyril – who is by far the handsomest of Nicky’s many cousins – is a law unto himself. Like everyone else, he is staying on after the funeral for the wedding, which, at Nicky’s insistence, is to take place in just over a week’s time.
There is no question but that I will once again have thousands and thousands of pairs of eyes upon me, but I will survive it by blocking everything from my consciousness, other than my beloved Nicky and our vows, as we are bound together body and soul for what I know will be eternity. I only wish Granny Queen hadn’t taken the view that there were enough English royals leaving England for St Petersburg, without you leaving your darling baby to add to their number. Ever since Georgie has arrived, he has looked as if he is missing you – as I know that, in similar circumstances, my beloved Nicky would be missing me.
Just as Georgie and Nicky were constantly mistaken for each other when we were in England in the summer, so the same thing is happening now, here in St Petersburg. Because of their being so alike – the same height, same build, same piercing blue eyes, same hair colour, same identical moustaches and trim Van Dyke beards – family we don’t meet up with very often, such as the Serbian royals and the Swedish royals, regularly chat to Nicky, thinking he is Georgie; and to Georgie, thinking he is Nicky. It leads to all sorts of comical situations, which Nicky and Georgie naughtily encourage.
And now I really must finish. A wedding that would normally take months of preparation is going to take place in eight days’ time – and it is only because it falls on Aunt Minny’s birthday that court mourning will be suspended.
Lots and lots of love to you and to Baby, your loving Kindred Spirit, Alicky
‘There’s no need to worry about Ducky, Alicky,’ Ernie said, when they managed to speak together on their own without an army of relations chipping in and interrupting them. ‘Wretchedly sick, of course, but the doctors say that will come to an end before very long.’
‘And what about the bedroom situation?’ Well-bred unmarried young women were kept in ignorance about the nuts and bolts of marriage until their wedding night, but thanks to Birds-and-Bees chats with their progressively-minded married sister Vicky, Alicky prided herself on being exceptionally knowledgeable.
‘Dash it all, Alicky!’ Ernie fumbled for his cigarette case and lighter. ‘That’s not the kind of thing a girl should be asking her brother. All you need to know – all anyone needs to know – is that I’ve done my duty and that, in a few months’ time, Hesse and by Rhine will have an heir! And that is what you should be putting your mind to. Giving Russia an heir, not hounding me about Ducky.’
Next day Alicky stood by a weeping Nicky as his father’s heavy coffin was lowered slowly into the family vault.
‘And now that Nicky is Emperor,’ Sergei said to her, as they stood on the hard-packed snow outside the cathedral, waiting for her carriage to roll up and take its place in the procession back to the Winter Palace, ‘he is going to need all the help in ruling Russia that I – along with Vladimir and Alexis – can give him.’
Beneath her black mourning veil, Alicky’s forehead creased in a frown. Sergei was the Governor-General of Moscow. Vladimir was Commander of the Imperial Guard. Alexis was the Grand Admiral of the Fleet. Paul, Nicky’s good-looking youngest uncle, was only eight years older than Nicky, and his not holding an important position was presumably why Sergei hadn’t mentioned him. She remembered Kindred Spirit Willy saying to her that when Nicky became Tsar, his uncles would try and dominate him and rule through him, and that Nicky needed her at his side to make sure they didn’t succeed in doing so.
‘Nicky will always be glad of your support, Sergei, and of Uncle Vladimir’s and Uncle Alexis’s, but the Tsar is answerable to no one but God and so needs no help in ruling. I remember you teaching me that when I was a child.’
It was so far from being the reaction he was expecting that Sergei’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Recovering himself swiftly, he said, ‘Forgive me, Alicky, but you haven’t yet been at Nicky’s side long enough to appreciate how completely ignorant he is of anything to do with affairs of state. Sasha believed he still had decades left in which to introduce Nicky to the business of ruling. It’s something he was tragically wrong about and, as a consequence, Nicky is totally unfamiliar with state papers and hasn’t even headed a committee. He knows no more than a child about the business of ruling.’
Her carriage, in which traditionally – as a bride-to-be – she was to ride in unaccompanied, had come to a halt in front of them. ‘Even though you are his uncle,’ Alicky said, moving to step into it, ‘that is not how you should now refer to Nicky. He isn’t a child. He is twenty-six. And as he is the Tsar, God will help him with whatever it is that he doesn’t yet know.’
And with great dignity, as if already an empress, she settled herself in the carriage. As it joined the long line of carriages now rolling away from the cathedral, Alicky kept her eyes fixed firmly forwards, resolutely not looking back to where Sergei was staring after her, a look of shocked disbelief on his face.
‘Who the devil does she think she is?’ Vladimir exploded, when Sergei told him of the reaction he had had from Alicky. ‘Does she have a lust for power? Because God help Russia if she has! How can a young woman from a tadpole-sized duchy like Hesse and by Rhine imagine she can give Nicky the help he’s going to need to rule the largest country on earth? The boy couldn’t even organize a coffin for his father’s funeral!’
Paul said mildly, ‘You said you’d been laying the groundwork for this moment for years, Sergei; that if, and when, she became Empress, she would be eating out of your hand and that consequently Nicky would be, too.’
‘And I believed it – and it’s how things are going to be. I spoke without thinking and didn’t gauge the moment right. Things will be different when she realizes how inept Nicky is.’
‘They had better be!’ Veins stood out like cords on Vladimir’s bull-like neck. ‘Nicky’s as weak as water. Someone has to put some spine into him, and that someone isn’t going to be an adoring wife who will never see past his charming good looks and their bedroom door. For the sake of Russia, it has to be me, you and Alexis. We have to be the power behind the throne! Not a chit of a girl from Darmstadt.’
‘That our wedding ceremony is to take place in the chapel of the Winter Palace and not in St Isaac’s Cathedral, as it would have if my father hadn’t died,’ Nicky said as he and Alicky snatched a rare precious moment of privacy together, ‘means that although there will be a lot of the pomp and ceremony you so dislike, there won’t be quite as much as there might have been.’
He hugged her tight, as mad with desire for her as she was for him.
‘And am I to leave for the Winter Palace from Sergei and Ella’s palace on Nevsky Prospekt and accompanied by your mama?’
‘Yes, but not in your wedding gown. Being dressed in your wedding gown is a ceremony in itself and takes place in the Winter Palace’s Malachite Hall. Mama has asked me to warn you how heavy everything will be, for a cloth-of-gold mantle is worn over the gown, and a train yards and yards long will be attached to your shoulders. And then of course there is the weight of the jewels you will be wearing. Mama said that on her processional walk from the Malachite Hall to the chapel her knees buckled more than once.’
Alicky fought down rising panic. Fiercely she told herself that if she did as she had decided to do, and blocked out of her consciousness everyth
ing but Nicky and the vows they would make to each other, then the ordeal was one she could, and would, survive – and oh, how worthwhile surviving it would be.
‘Just think, dearest love,’ she whispered, close and safe in the comfort of his arms, ‘after the ceremony we will never need to spend a single night apart. No matter what each day brings, at the end of it will be the utter, utter bliss of lying in each other’s arms in a vast soft bed in our own private world – and for that blessing I will pay any price.’
The heat in Nicky’s eyes as he lowered his head to hers told her how passion-filled those nights would be.
Although there were a dozen maids fluttering around in Alicky’s bedroom on the morning of her wedding day, it was Ella who was assisting her with her toilette.
‘As you stayed beneath my palace roof last night, and as I am your older sister, there is no one who can tell me it is not royal etiquette for me to be doing so,’ she said, applying a faint touch of rouge to Alicky’s cheeks. ‘And I want to do it. It reminds me of when, after Mama died, I did so much of the looking after you.’
A light dusting of powder followed the rouge. Ella stood back from her handiwork and surveyed it in the dressing table’s large triple mirror. ‘I think you should wear a little lip colour as well, Alicky. Not much. Just a smidgeon.’
A few seconds later she said, ‘There, pet lamb. I have been very delicate.’
Alicky looked in the mirror. Was the face looking back at her the face of a woman about to become Empress of Russia? She didn’t know, but she did know that she’d had years of practice in concealing her inner fears and anxieties. She resolved that whatever fears and anxieties she met with in the future, no one, apart from Nicky, would ever know of them; not the crowds that would always be wanting a glimpse of her; or the hundreds of courtiers in the Winter Palace, the Anitchkov Palace, the palace at Peterhof and the palace at Livadia.
The Summer Queen Page 30
