The Grand Duchess of Nowhere

by Laurie Graham

  The Grand Duchess of Nowhere

  Laurie Graham

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also by Laurie Graham

  Dedication

  Family Tree

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  The Roll Call of Ducky’s Disappeared World

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Quercus

  This edition first published in 2014 by

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  55 Baker Street

  7th Floor, South Block

  London

  W1U 8EW

  Copyright © 2014 by Laurie Graham

  The moral right of Laurie Graham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Family tree by Jeff Edwards

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 78206 972 0

  Print ISBN 978 1 78206 970 6

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  You can find this and many other great books at

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  Also by Laurie Graham

  The Man for the Job

  The Ten O’Clock Horses

  Perfect Meringues

  The Dress Circle

  Dog Days, Glenn Miller Nights

  The Future Homemakers of America

  The Unfortunates

  Mr Starlight

  Gone With the Windsors

  The Importance of Being Kennedy

  Life According to Lubka

  At Sea

  A Humble Companion

  The Liar’s Daughter

  To Ernest Pig,

  Gloucester Old Spot sans pareil,

  and to his humans

  1

  I can’t say I remember the first time I saw Cyril Vladimirovich. Somehow he’s always been around, just one of our many cousins. But I do know the first time I noticed him. It was at Aunt Aline’s funeral. That was 1891, so we were both nearly fifteen and he was dressed in his new midshipman’s uniform, back straight, eyes front.

  It was a long way to travel, from Coburg to Russia, for the funeral of an aunt we’d hardly known, but Mother had her reasons. My sister Missy was sixteen so it was time for her to enter the parade ring and catch the eye of a good husband and, as Mother said, everyone who was anyone would be in Petersburg for Aunt Aline’s obsequies. We’re supposed to call it Petrograd now, not Petersburg. Too German-sounding, you see, now we’re at war. Petrograd. I don’t think I shall ever get accustomed to that.

  Aunt Aline had died in childbirth. After childbirth, to be quite accurate. She was safely delivered of her second child, a baby boy, and then she just fell asleep and didn’t wake up. Grand Duke Uncle Paul was beside himself with grief, left alone with two little ones to raise.

  I was so innocent then, about babies and husbands and the facts of life, but my sister Missy thought she knew how it all worked.

  She said, ‘Ducky, it’s too horrendous. The baby comes out of your BTM and if it’s a very big baby, you just go pop.’

  So I went to Aunt Aline’s funeral rather under the impression that she might have burst, like a rubber balloon, but when I saw her in her casket she looked perfectly lovely and peaceful and not at all deflated. Grand Duke Uncle Paul cried and cried and seemed to want to jump into the grave and join her until Mother took him by the elbow and gave him A Talking To. She saw it as her duty. Mother was Uncle Paul’s big sister.

  After the tragedy of Aunt Aline, Missy swore she was never going to have babies. I must remind her of that next time I see her. If I ever see her again. As I recall things, at the time I was more interested in how the baby got in than how it got out.

  Missy said, ‘Oh, that’s disgusting too. The man does The Thing. He makes a pee pee inside you and it turns into a baby. But first you have to have a wedding.’

  It all sounded improbable to me but Missy insisted she had it from no lesser authority than one of our daily maids when we lived in England, at Devonport. Pa was in the Navy then, in the years before he had to be a Grand Duke and rule Coburg. But what ignoramuses Missy and I were. Mother thought it was better that way, to enter marriage unburdened by gruesome information. Why lose sleep, after all, over the unavoidable?

  Aunt Aline’s funeral wasn’t the first time we’d been to Russia. Mother took us as often as she could, usually just Missy and me. Our baby sisters stayed at home with their nurses. Mother wished us to grow up knowing our Russian relatives even though she seemed not to like many of them. She never shrank from unpleasant duties. I think, though, the principal reason she took us to Russia so frequently was to annoy Grandma Queen, who had the lowest possible opinion of the Romanovs and all things Russian.

  Some ladies like to press flowers or do crewelwork. Mother’s favourite pastime was infuriating Grandma Queen. Whenever we were obliged to go to Windsor or to Osborne House she brought extra supplies of her black cigarettes, so as always to be seen smoking, and she’d pile on her jewels, far too many and too brilliant for a simple English house party, but she loved to remind Grandma of her rank and her superior jewellery. Mother, you see, is the daughter of a Russian Emperor. Grandma Queen was merely the daughter of a Duke of Kent. The more I think of it, the more certain I am the only reason Grandma had herself declared Empress of India was to try and overhaul Mother. They never actually quarrelled. Well, hardly ever. It was more a silent battle of wills and rank, and I will say Mother could out-scowl Grandma Queen any day.

  I adored our visits to Russia even when they were supposed to be sad occasions. We seemed to attend more funerals than weddings, but even a Russian funeral was superior to anything in grey old England or stodgy old Coburg. Gold was golder and red seemed redder in Russia. Emperor Uncle Sasha rumbled about like a friendly bear and Empress Aunt Minnie was quicker and prettier and better dressed than any of our English aunts.

  So, as I said, I began to notice Cyril at Aunt Aline’s funeral and he certainly noticed me. I could tell by the way he made such a display of ignoring me. Mother got wind of my interest though and soon trampled on my dreams.

  ‘You can forget Cyril Vladimirovich,’ she said. ‘Romanovs do not marry their f
irst cousins.’

  That was a sly dig at Grandma Queen who thought it the most sensible thing in the world for cousins to marry. She believed that it somehow enriched the blood and she clung to the idea long after the evidence seemed to indicate quite the opposite. We’re hardly the healthiest family. We have the bleeding disease for one thing. I don’t know of any other family that has it.

  So Cyril Vladimirovich, who was turning out to be tall and broad-shouldered and rather handsome, was not even to be considered as a future husband and, in any event, the question of a husband for me wasn’t uppermost in Mother’s mind. Missy had to be matched first and Grandma Queen was promoting the cause of another cousin, Georgie Wales. Grandma Queen spent many happy hours studying our family tree and designing matches between her grandchildren.

  Georgie Wales was a second-born son so just like Pa he wasn’t likely to be required for the succession. He’d been allowed to join the Navy.

  ‘And what could be more fitting,’ Grandma said, ‘than for a Royal sailor to marry a Royal sailor’s daughter?’

  We actually knew Georgie Wales quite well. He’d served under Pa’s command when we were stationed in Malta. Missy had no particular objection to him, but Mother wouldn’t countenance the match. She knew what it was to be a Navy wife, posted here, there and everywhere. She said it would be a terrible waste of Missy’s great beauty. I think she rather held Georgie’s stamp collecting against him too, though I’m sure there are worse vices in a husband.

  Mother had her heart set on a German Crown Prince for Missy and after going through the Almanach very thoroughly she settled on Nando Hohenzollern. He seemed pleasant enough, though very bashful. How mistaken first impressions can be. Everyone said Nando was very keen on Missy but you would never have known it. His eyes were always directed at the floor. The only point Missy found against him was the unfortunate size and set of his ears but that was trumped by the fact that he was his Uncle Carol’s heir. Romania had a rather threadbare line of succession and had had to call in Hohenzollern reinforcements. If Missy married Nando, it meant she’d be Queen of Romania someday. Of course as things turned out Eddie Wales expired quite unexpectedly which bumped Georgie up the succession. So if Missy had married him, she’d have ended up Queen of England. One simply never knows.

  Anyway, Nando bid for Missy’s hand and won it. Grandma Queen said if Missy must make such a mistaken match she had better at least be properly married at Windsor. Mother said, over her dead body. Missy would be married in Coburg. And then, after a start had been made on preparations, Nando’s family announced that we couldn’t possibly expect a Hohenzollern to traipse all the way to Coburg to be married. The bride must go to them. And so we struggled through snowdrifts to Sigmaringen, Missy and Nando were married in the Hohenzollern chapel, so cold you could see their breath as they made their vows, and then they left at once for Romania.

  Missy and I had never been apart before. Even when we had scarlatina or the measles, we’d always done it together. Parting from her was too awful. We all went to the station to wave them off. Missy looked pale but very beautiful in her new fox collar, Nando’s considerable ears were bright red and Mother cried, which I thought was pretty galling. The whole affair was of her creation, after all.

  And the last thing Missy whispered to me was, ‘You’re next.’

  2

  We are a vast tribe. One winter afternoon I tried to count my first cousins, living and dead. I got to forty-seven and then someone brought in tea, so I gave up.

  Mother was the only girl in a large family of Romanov boys. Pa was Prince Alfred, number three in Grandma Queen’s brood of nine. He was Duke of Edinburgh, Admiral of the Fleet and Commander in Chief at Plymouth until one of his uncles died of an unmentionable condition and we were obliged to go to Coburg so Pa could become its new Grand Duke. It wasn’t a job he’d particularly expected and I believe he’d have much preferred to remain in the Navy.

  Mother and Pa had five children. Affie was the only boy. I’ll tell you about him presently. After Affie came Missy, then me, then Sandra and Baby Bee. Some fathers enjoy life in a houseful of petticoats, but not Pa. He was perpetually cross. Mother’s way was to ignore it – even when he threw her copy of Washington Square at the cat – or to leave the room with more gaiety than was natural in the circumstances, which made him crosser than ever. I have some experience of husbands now myself. I could never emulate Mother. Any husband who throws a book at my cat may expect a cigar box by return of serve.

  So, with Missy settled, it came my turn to be found a husband, and Grandma Queen and Mother, in agreement for probably the first time in their lives, had already decided who it should be. Ernie Hesse. I was rather surprised. First of all, he was just as much my cousin as Cyril Vladimirovich.

  Mother said, ‘Don’t quibble with me, Ducky.’

  I suppose you may wonder at my name. By baptism, I’m Victoria Melita but everyone calls me Ducky. They always have. No one can remember why. Pa swore that Mother started it and Mother denies all responsibility. I don’t care. I’m perfectly happy to be Ducky.

  So Ernie Hesse was proposed as a possible husband, in spite of being a first cousin.

  Mother said, ‘There are other considerations.’

  She had her eye on his Grand Duchy.

  The idea of Ernie for a husband wasn’t an unpleasant one. Not at all. He was the greatest japester and terrifically good-looking, handsomer even than Cyril Vladimirovich. But I’d never thought of Ernie as husband material. If I’d thought of him at all, it was as a mad cousin who refused to grow up.

  I said, ‘Has Ernie asked for me?’

  Mother said, ‘Asked for you? What are you, a salt cellar? He doesn’t yet have permission to ask for you.’

  ‘Will he be given permission?’

  ‘That is for me to decide and your father to give. You ask too many questions. It isn’t becoming and you’d do well to break yourself of the habit before you marry. No husband likes to be quizzed.’

  A kind of balance sheet was being drawn up. Ernie had just succeeded as Grand Duke of Hesse. He had a decent palace in Darmstadt and several country houses, all with good parks. On the other hand, the Hesses were not thought to have any jewels except perhaps some mediocre diamonds parsed out among Ernie’s sisters. They didn’t enter into Mother’s calculations.

  She said, ‘Whomever you marry, you can always depend on Mother for your diamonds.’

  We were summoned to Osborne House, directly after Easter. Ernie had already arrived.

  ‘Hello, Ducky, dear,’ he said. ‘I’m under orders from GQ. I have to behave sensibly, act my age and converse with you soberly.’

  He had ravishing blue eyes.

  He said, ‘Under no circumstances am I to act the fool, play pranks or by any means amuse you.’

  Then he squirted me with water from the joke daisy he was wearing in his lapel.

  We went for a walk, the first of many, many walks that week though it rained every day. Grandma Queen encouraged it. She thought every stroll must bring us closer to an announcement. She also liked us to sit with her for an hour each afternoon – ‘my handsomest grandchildren’, she called us. Those afternoons were a terrible strain because Ernie would do everything in his power to make me laugh.

  The problem was Beppo, Grandma’s white Pomeranian. Beppo was reputed to suffer from digestive disorders but Ernie planted the idea that Beppo might not always be to blame for those soft little explosions and the rich smell that followed.

  ‘Observation,’ he said. ‘Beppo seems a civil enough mutt to me. The kind of doggie chap who’d have the decency to step out of the room. I’m afraid I think GQ may be exercising a bit of Royal licence here.’

  Ever after that, when the smell occurred, he’d look at me, then at Grandma, then at Beppo, and raise an eyebrow, and I would have to bite hard on the inside of my cheek.

  We did talk about marriage, in a roundabout way.

  He said, ‘I realise I have to do
it one of these days. Keep the Hesse line going and so forth. I just don’t think I’m quite ready.’

  He was twenty-four.

  He said, ‘Don’t take it personally, Ducky. You’re a terrific girl. But you’re not even seventeen, so I reckon we can drag it out a bit, don’t you?’

  It suited me. I really had other things on my mind. Missy had allowed Nando to do The Thing and she was expecting a baby. I was terrified that she’d die, like Aunt Aline. Mother assured me she would go all the way to Romania and take some proper German doctors with her too, to stay by Missy’s side and prevent any such tragedy.

  Missy’s condition also distracted Mother from the question of Ernie, for a while.

  All she said was, ‘He doesn’t seem very ardent. I hope you haven’t said anything to discourage him?’

  I said we were good friends. Well, we were.

  ‘Friends?’ she said. ‘Friends! What a caution you are. Well, if Ernie doesn’t put in a little more effort I shall look for someone else, when I get back from Romania.’

  Ernie was given another chance to declare himself that September, at Balmoral. Pa was going there to shoot grouse and I was to go with him.

  ‘Now, Ducky,’ Mother said, before I left for Scotland, ‘if you’re offered a saddle horse there’s to be no galloping madly about. A gentle hack is more conducive to conversation. And please, no sitting with your nose in a book either. There’ll be time enough for reading when you’re married and have your confinements. Your job now is to give Ernie a little encouragement. But only a little.’

  Ernie actually came to Ballater station to meet us which everyone mistakenly thought was a sign of his blossoming ardour.

  ‘Welcome to Midge Heaven,’ he said.

  ‘You should smoke Navy Cut,’ Pa said. ‘Navy Cut keeps the buggers at bay. Forget those pansy foreign cigarettes. How’s the shooting? Decent bags?’

  Ernie couldn’t say. He hadn’t been out with the guns. He was eager to tell me about a new game he’d devised. It was called Tartan Nightmare and the aim was to design ever more hideous Balmoral accommodations.