The Summer Queen

by Margaret Pemberton

  Two days later, news of the tragedy came before it was even fully daylight.

  ‘Forty dead! Possibly even fifty,’ Vladimir announced grimly, marching in while Nicky was still having breakfast. ‘I told Sergei he’d need every possible policeman there.’

  ‘What? Where?’ A totally bewildered Nicky stumbled to his feet.

  ‘Khodynka Field. You and Alicky are due to make an appearance there this afternoon. With luck, the bodies will have been removed by then, but all the same . . . it’s going to be seen as a bad-luck omen.’

  ‘I still don’t understand. How can forty or fifty people be dead?’ The blood drained from Nicky’s face. ‘Was it a bomb, which was meant for me and Alicky and exploded early?’

  ‘No. People had been allowed to gather there all through the night, and by dawn there were apparently more than a hundred thousand of them in the field, all wanting to be early and first in line for the beer and souvenir coronation mugs that were to be given out. Some fool said there wasn’t going to be enough beer and mugs to go round, and a stampede started to be first in line for them.’

  ‘Yes, but even so . . .’

  ‘Being an old army training field, Khodynka is full of trenches and troughs. In the dark, people fell into them and then more people fell on top of them. Is there coffee in that pot? I’m glad it’s all down to Sergei to sort out, not me.’

  Fifteen minutes later the telephone rang. Nicky answered it and Vladimir heard him say, ‘More than two hundred, Sergei? Two hundred?’

  ‘Holy Mother of God!’ Vladimir blanched. ‘You had better break the news to Alicky. Your visit to the field this afternoon is going to have to be called off.’

  When Alicky was told of the disaster, her horrified reaction was that if more than two hundred people had been crushed to death in the dark, hundreds more must have been injured.

  ‘What arrangements have been made for the injured to be taken to hospital?’ she asked Vladimir, feeling sick at the horror of it all. ‘Are the fire services helping?’

  ‘Yes. No. Probably.’

  ‘Probably?’ The criminal enormity of his indifference to her question robbed her of breath. Knowing that she would never want anything to do with him ever again, she turned to Nicky. ‘We must go down to the hospitals immediately. We must comfort the wounded.’

  Nicky nodded in instant agreement.

  Vladimir stared at them as if they had lost their minds.

  A footman entered with a message on a silver salver, and Nicky snatched it and tore open the envelope.

  Sergei had written only one sentence: Death toll now over a thousand.

  Nicky sank down on the nearest chair. ‘Dear God in heaven,’ he whispered, showing the message to Alicky, his face ashen.

  She laid her hand on his shoulder and said urgently, ‘We can do nothing now for the dead, but we must waste no more time in visiting the wounded. They have to know how deeply we care. Everyone has to know how deeply we care!’

  Nicky nodded, rose to his feet and swiftly they left the room, a mutual support group of two.

  Vladimir stared after them in disbelief. The first action of any other tsar would have been to issue orders making sure the bodies were shunted into a mass grave. Then communicate that only a modest number were acknowledged as having been crushed to death, and that the day’s celebrations would go ahead as planned. Instead, and thanks to Alicky, Nicky was on his way to visit the hospitals, bringing the most public attention possible to what had happened.

  It was utter madness, and if he had ever doubted Alicky’s influence over Nicky before, he did so no longer. To make matters worse, the French Ambassador was giving a ball that night in Nicky and Alicky’s honour. Silver plate and tapestry had been shipped in from Versailles, as had one hundred thousand roses from the South of France. And from what he had just seen, Alicky would convince Nicky that, because of the death toll, it would be inappropriate for them to attend, which would be seen as a great insult by their French visitors.

  He needed Sergei and Paul’s help to change Nicky’s mind. Together they would be able to hammer home to their nephew the necessity of acting as his late father would have done. But what of the next time Alicky gave Nicky bad advice? And the next time? And all the times after that?

  He strode out of the palace, boiling with anger and frustration, hardly able to believe that Sergei had been such a fool as to think that he was going to have complete control over their new rulers. It was a belief that had been a mirage – and now, God help them, they were going to have to live with the consequences.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  JUNE 1897, YORK COTTAGE

  May was seated in a basketwork chair on the lawn of York Cottage, a writing pad on her knee as she tried to catch up on her correspondence while at the same time enjoying the summer sun.

  She was disturbed by George – her days of thinking of him as Georgie were long over – striding down from the house towards her, a telegram in his hand. ‘News from Nicky.’ He handed her the telegram. ‘Alicky has had the baby. It’s a girl. Tatiana. With all the pressure on them to give Russia an heir, he and Alicky must be crushed with disappointment.’

  ‘Yes.’ May was aware of prayers not answered. ‘They must be.’

  His errand accomplished, he said, ‘Don’t stay out in the sun too long. It will give you one of your headaches.’ And having shown what he felt was husbandly concern, he stomped back to the house and his waiting stamp collection.

  May closed her eyes. Another girl. The Russians would no doubt begin saying that Alicky was a woman who bred only girls, but they would be wrong. A letter from Alicky, written just over a year ago, meant that she, May, knew differently. It had been a letter stained with tears, which Alicky had written in shaky handwriting:

  I have to share this news with you, or I will go mad. I had a miscarriage less than a week after the coronation – and that I did isn’t surprising, my coronation robes being so heavy that I could barely move in them and, once I was crowned, my crown was so heavy I thought my neck was going to break. How I endured the weight of it all, I truly don’t know; and then afterwards there was a celebration dinner – again hours and hours long – at which Nicky and I were still wearing robes and crowns, and then a ball. It was utterly exhausting for someone in my condition. Whether I would have had the miscarriage four days later, even if the Khodynka Field tragedy hadn’t happened, I don’t know, but what I do know is that the horror was on such a scale – the final death toll was more than three thousand – that it will live with me until my dying day. Nicky and I went immediately down to the hospitals, and oh, the sight of the children, May. It would have broken your heart.

  And then, on top of everything, the grand-uncles (Vladimir, Sergei and Paul) absolutely insisted that Nicky and I put in an appearance at a ball that had been arranged in our honour at the French Embassy. We argued and argued with them, but not even Sergei would have it any other way. As we left it, our carriage was spat at in the street and then, when we finally arrived back at the Kremlin Palace, I began to bleed and half an hour later I miscarried what the doctor (sworn on his life to secrecy) said was a boy.

  The grief of it is almost more than I can bear. Please pray that my next child will also be a boy, May. I have become so unpopular (and unfairly so) that only if I give the country a boy am I likely ever to have the chance of becoming the kind of popular empress and tsarina I so long to be.

  Your more than heartbroken Kindred Spirit, Alicky

  May stared at the dismal view in front of her. There was more lawn and then a small lake, or a large pond. Either description would have fitted. It wasn’t a pretty water feature, being ringed on its near side by reeds and on its far side by thickets of laurel, its only decoration being a lead pelican.

  It was, however, better than the alternative view, for if she sat facing in the opposite direction she would be looking towards the house. York Cottage – her home. Even after four years she wasn’t able to look at it with
out a flinch of distaste, for the name ‘York Cottage’ was a complete misnomer. When Dolly had first seen it, he’d given her a fit of the giggles by saying it reminded him of three Merrie England pubs joined together. It had originally been built as overflow accommodation for Sandringham’s male shooting-party guests, and although screened from the Big House by huge swathes of rhododendron, it was only a hundred yards’ walk away from it. Without asking her opinion, and blind to York Cottage’s architectural hideousness, George had asked his father if they could make it their marital home.

  His reason for doing so had been that his mother now spent nearly all her time at Sandringham, her deafness so total that Marlborough House and London society had lost all charm for her. It meant that George could pop into Sandringham House and see her whenever he wanted, and that his mother could pop into York Cottage whenever the fancy took her. And it took her often.

  May regarded such intrusions as both rude and insensitive. George was always simply overjoyed to see her.

  If she had been given free rein in the decoration and furnishing of York Cottage – or even if she and George had been able to come to an agreement on how it should be decorated and furnished – she might well have begun to feel differently about it, but she had had no say in the matter.

  Before their marriage, and without telling her, George had supervised a decoration scheme of various shades of brown and tan, relieved only by the decor of his study, where the walls were covered in hideous dark-red cloth. Ignoring all the beautiful furniture he could have cherry-picked from royal store-rooms, he had ordered factory-built furniture from the Maples department store in Oxford Street. The real travesty, though, was that not one piece of the artwork he had chosen for York Cottage was original. In a family that owned as many original paintings as May’s favourite galleries, George had opted for reproductions. Nothing else could have shown more clearly the difference in their tastes and interests. Hers were all cultural: art, music and books. His were shooting – it was another of the reasons he so liked living on the Sandringham Estate – and stamp-collecting.

  ‘Cooee, May!’

  At Ducky’s familiar voice, May slid her half-finished letter into her writing case and sprang to her feet, happy to have an end to her depressing train of thought.

  ‘I didn’t know you were in England,’ she said, turning to greet Ducky as, despite the narrowness of her ankle-length skirt, Ducky walked across the grass at remarkable speed.

  ‘I’m an early arrival for Granny Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. I wanted to speak with her before all the brouhaha starts. Unfortunately, we didn’t part on good terms, and so I couldn’t very well ask for Windsor bed and board. Uncle Bertie had been Windsor-visiting as well and, as he was leaving, he suggested that I keep him company and take the opportunity of a surprise reunion with Aunt Alix, Toria and Maudie. And yourself, of course. And so here I am, seeing you first, as you might well expect.’

  They hugged and kissed each other on the cheek.

  Ducky flopped down into one of the basket-chairs. ‘While I was at Windsor a telegram arrived with news that Alicky and Nicky had had another girl. Because of the Ernie situation, Alicky and I no longer get along too well – it’s obvious her sympathies lie with her brother – but even so, I feel sorry for her. She’s begun suffering quite badly from sciatica, and being pregnant so often doesn’t help.’ She quirked a glossy dark eyebrow and changed the subject. ‘Do you know about Ernie’s sexual preference for Hussars, footmen and valets?’

  May wondered what it would be like to be as bluntly outspoken as Ducky, but found it too much of a stretch of her imagination.

  ‘Yes, Ducky. You’ve been quite vocal about it. I think everyone in the family now knows.’

  ‘As I want to have a divorce, I’ve had to be quite vocal about it. However, I’m not getting anywhere on that front.’ She let her arms hang loosely over the basketwork sides of her chair and, with closed eyes, raised her face to the sun. ‘It’s why I so desperately needed to see Granny Queen. She was the one who was keen for me and Ernie to marry, and so you would think – her judgement having been proved so wrong, when it comes to my husband’s suitability for marriage – that she would at least have the decency to allow me to divorce him. But she won’t. She says Ernie will grow out of his “odd little ways” in time, and that I must be patient.’

  For the life of her, May couldn’t think of anything encouraging to say. Compared to Ducky’s marital difficulties and Cousin Marie-Louise’s marital difficulties – which were the same as Ducky’s, except that Aribert was a nasty piece of work, something Ernie most definitely was not – her own difficulties with George were trifling.

  Ducky sat up straight and opened her eyes. ‘And I have been patient, May, but I can’t be patient much longer; not when I’m still so in love with Kyril.’

  ‘Oh, Ducky dear, I hadn’t realized!’ May’s eyebrows flew so high they nearly disappeared into her fringe of tight curls. ‘I thought that was over long ago.’

  ‘No,’ Ducky rummaged in the small beaded purse that hung from the waistband of her skirt and withdrew a slim silver cigarette case. ‘My feelings for Kyril have never changed, May. They never will.’ She held out the case so that May could take a Russian Sobranie. ‘He’s always had a pash for me as well, although it’s only since I’ve been married to Ernie that he’s admitted it.’ She lit their cigarettes and blew a plume of smoke skywards. ‘And if he had been quicker off the mark, it really wouldn’t have made much difference – not when the Romanov ban on first-cousin marriage still holds.’

  Ever practical, May said, ‘And so what difference would a divorce from Ernie make?’

  ‘We could marry, if we did so without Nicky’s consent – which he would never give in a million years – and if we did so in a country where first-cousin marriage is allowed, and if we lived as exiles afterwards.’

  ‘But, Ducky darling, even if you were able to get a divorce without her consent, Granny Queen would never agree to you marrying again!’

  ‘Perhaps not, but she’s seventy-eight and it can’t be long before Uncle Bertie succeeds her and is King-Emperor. And with Uncle Bertie’s long history of marital infidelity, he’s bound to look at my situation sympathetically. And when he does – and when I have my divorce – Kyril won’t waste his breath asking Nicky if he can marry me. He’ll leave Russia and we will marry in Paris and live happily ever after.’

  She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘It’s time I showed my face at Sandringham House – but only because I’d like to catch up with Maudie, who I’m assuming will by now have arrived there from Denmark, in readiness for the Jubilee celebrations.’ Ducky rose to her feet. ‘Is her marriage to Carl of Denmark a happy one? It would be nice to have one cousin – other than yourself, of course – who is happily married, and as her marriage to Carl wasn’t one of Granny Queen’s arranged marriages, I’m assuming it was a love match.’

  ‘It was. It is. They share the same Danish grandparents, so there has never been a time when they haven’t known each other.’

  She began walking Ducky back to York Cottage and the path leading to Sandringham House, vividly remembering Maudie’s happiness when she had confided in her that Cousin Carl had asked for her hand in marriage.

  ‘I never, ever thought I would love anyone as much as I once loved Frank,’ Maudie had said to her, ‘and this is such a different sort of love, May, that at first I didn’t recognize it for what it was. When I was in love with Frank, it was all fireworks and rockets going off, and feeling that every time we parted I would die if I didn’t see him again soon. With Carl, it is all sweetness and security, and a feeling that when we are together all is right with the world.’

  She had hesitated, two spots of warm colour flooding her cheeks.

  ‘After he had asked me to marry him, and before I accepted his proposal, I told Carl of how I had once thought myself in love when I was much younger, and of how I was what is referred to as “damaged goods”. He wa
s quiet, and for so long that I thought I had destroyed all my future happiness. And then he took my hands in his and said how much my honesty meant to him; that it showed him, more than anything else could have, that there would never be any secrets between us – only pure, shining trust. And he said he hoped I would be forgiving of a couple of long-regretted incidents in his own past. I knew then how different the love we shared was from anything I had experienced before, and what a very, very special kind of person he was.’

  When May had waved Ducky goodbye, she stepped into the coolness of the house. From the direction of the nursery came the sound of her eldest two children, three-year-old David and eighteen-month-old Bertie, playing under the watchful eye of their nanny. There was no sound from the direction of eight-week-old baby Mary’s nursery, and she decided not to disturb the peace and quiet by looking in on her and perhaps waking her up.

  Bypassing the closed door of George’s stamp room, she walked upstairs to her own inner sanctum, her boudoir. It was what her German father would have described as gemütlich – cosy – and yet elegant at the same time. As was the habit among all Granny Queen’s offspring, framed family photographs occupied every available surface.

  Her desk faced the window and she sat down at it. On it stood a photograph of George in naval uniform. It had been a long time since George had captained a ship, but he still felt more comfortable in uniform than he did out of it. Next to it was a photograph of David, awkwardly clutching hold of Bertie.

  There was a photograph of Dolly on his wedding to Margaret Grosvenor, and another of Alicky, Nicky and baby Olga that had been taken on their most recent visit to Balmoral. There was a photograph of her mother and, looking at it, May felt a flare of anxiety, for her mother had not been well of late. And there was a photograph of Granny Queen. On May’s marriage to George, when the Queen had told her that she was no longer to refer to her as ‘Aunt Queen’ but as ‘Granny Queen’, that – of all the many privileges that had come with her marriage to George – was the one that had given her the most satisfaction.