The Grand Duchess of Nowhere

by Laurie Graham

‘Bloody fine match,’ he kept saying. ‘I used to think Nicky was a bit of a nitwit but he’s handled Sunny very well. He’s been patient, been persistent. Slowly reeled her in. Think of it, Ducky. Someday you’ll be sister-in-law to the Empress of Russia.’

  We played rummy and Mansion of Bliss until midnight. Then Ernie said, ‘Well, Ducky, dear, I don’t think we can put it off any longer.’

  We went to bed. And yet again my sister proved to have been an unreliable tutor. Far from being over in a minute, The Thing seemed to take forever and when Ernie fell asleep I was by no means certain whether it had concluded satisfactorily or was to be resumed after an intermission, like Act II of an operetta.

  4

  It had never been discussed how things would be arranged between Sunny and me. She was accustomed to running Ernie’s household and she regarded me as a child. She’d told me so. But heavens, I wasn’t the one who still consulted my nanny on everything, and anyway, Ernie had made me his wife and his Duchess and I was determined Sunny shouldn’t trespass on my territory. As Missy said, ‘Let her go off and marry little Nicky, if she wants to play House.’

  I rather hoped Sunny would move out to one of the shooting lodges for the duration of her engagement and leave us in peace, but then something even better was decided. She was to go to England, to stay with her sister, Vicky Battenberg. Vicky would instruct her in the rudiments of Married Life, and Grandma Queen would advise her on how to conduct herself as a future Empress. She was gone for three blissful months and by August, when she returned, I had quite established myself with the people of Hesse. They cheered and took off their hats when they saw my carriage. I even started a fashion for wearing mauve.

  But back Sunny did come, and as stony-faced as ever. Worse still, everyone was predicting a long engagement because she was still digging in her heels about converting to the Orthodox Church.

  Ernie said, ‘She knows she’ll have to do it, so she might just as well get on with it. The Russians won’t tolerate a Lutheran Empress. Ella did it when she married Serge and I don’t remember her making such a fuss.’

  But Sunny continued weeping and trembling and wringing her hands. It was all too boring. Anyone would really have thought the Romanovs were asking her to sacrifice a goat.

  For weeks, the three of us played a variation of Musical Chairs. Musical Residences. When Ernie and I were in Darmstadt, Sunny stayed in the country and whenever we went out to Schloss Wolfsgarten she would come to town. On one occasion our carriages actually crossed on the road. It was the best we could manage. Ernie, of course, didn’t care to hear a word of criticism of Sunny from me. He reserved that privilege for himself.

  ‘She’s a thoroughly sweet girl,’ he’d say. ‘A bit nervy, that’s all. You’re just not seeing her at her best.’

  To add to my burden, I had, somewhat amazingly, fallen pregnant. I was as sick as a dog and whilst I didn’t mind Ernie giving up all pretence of sharing my bed, I’d have appreciated a little husbandly tenderness.

  ‘Splendid work, Ducky,’ was all he said. ‘How terribly clever of us to hit the bull’s-eye, first try practically.’

  I thought it was because of me, you see? The way Ernie had to work so hard to get to the point, the way he came to our bed looking like a man who’s about to have a tooth pulled. Missy said Nando came back for seconds. Ernie just seemed relieved when it was over.

  I did ask him, once, if there was something I did wrong.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Not at all. Perfect wife. Couldn’t ask for better.’ For a while I thought perhaps Missy was to blame for my expectations. I should have liked to ask someone else, but who? There was no one. One could hardly ask one’s maid.

  Ernie and I still did other things together: received well-wishers, cut ribbons, decided where to place the many vases we’d been given. We didn’t quarrel and we generally dined together. But if we didn’t have company, Ernie would go out directly after dessert and always to somewhere wives weren’t invited. The sketching club, the glee club, the Three Thistles club. I threatened to set up my own club, strictly for girls, and Ernie said, ‘I hardly think that would be a success, Ducky. Girls don’t go in for chumming.’

  The evenings dragged. I used to wander along the passages, opening doors that didn’t particularly interest me, listening to ticking clocks that were eating up the minutes of my life. I longed for a visit from Missy but there was no hope of that. She was unimaginably far away and had just given birth to another child. Mother said I should apply myself to embroidering my own baby’s layette and writing thank-you letters for our wedding presents but I just couldn’t summon the will. I was seventeen and it seemed my life was over.

  But then in October, when my spirits were low at the prospect of the winter that stretched before me, a crisis broke the monotony. Emperor Uncle Sasha became so ill that Tsesarevich Nicky wrote to Sunny and begged her to come to Russia at once, to be his comfort and support.

  Ernie said, ‘The chap’s in a perfect funk. He writes, “If the Tsar should die”. Well of course he’s going to die. His kidneys are in ruins. And it’s not as though someone just sprung this on Nicky. It was only ever a matter of time until he succeeded. Sometimes I wonder if he’s made of the right stuff to be Emperor.’

  Sunny and her beloved Nanny Orchard left immediately for Simferopol, in the Crimea. They were to be met at the station there and taken on by carriage to Livadia, where the Imperial family was gathered. Every morning Ernie looked for news and Sunny’s first letter was quite cheerful. Far from being on his death bed, Emperor Uncle Sasha had been up and dressed when she arrived. He’d come out to the front step to greet her and kiss her hand.

  Ernie said, ‘So typical of Nicky, panicking like a mouse in a cat’s paw.’

  I said, ‘You’ve changed your tune. You told me Uncle Sasha was certainly dying.’

  ‘We’re all dying, Ducky,’ he said. ‘But Sasha’s a strong man. He could come through this, live a little longer. However, as Sunny has travelled all that way they may as well have the wedding while she’s there, don’t you think? No sense trundling to and fro, and it seems Nicky desperately needs her at his side. She’ll put some spine into him.’

  Emperor Uncle Sasha may have been up and dressed when Sunny arrived, but it was his last great effort. Ten days later he was dead and Tsar Nicholas II was in pieces. He’d never wanted to be Emperor, he didn’t know how to be Emperor. In sum, he was a blubbing wreck. This I had from Mother whose report came from her brother, Uncle Vladimir. He and the other uncles were all at Livadia, trying to make a man of Tsar Nicky.

  Sunny’s version of things, in her letter to Ernie, was rather different. Emperor Uncle Sasha’s doctors hadn’t kept Nicky properly informed, the government ministers ignored him in a most disrespectful way, and the uncles were now intimidating him. Furthermore, Dowager Empress Aunt Minnie was being horrid to her, aloof, and not welcoming at all.

  As Ernie pointed out in his reply, the Dowager Empress perhaps had more important things on her mind, such as burying her beloved husband. He advised Sunny to be mindful of Aunt Minnie’s grief, to put an end to her wavering and be received into the Orthodox Church. Above all, to stay in Russia and be married to Nicky as soon as possible.

  I’ll come to you there, he wrote, never fear. You may always depend on me, but you must now be brave, grow up and help Nicky to face his destiny. I very much doubt he can be a resolute Tsar without your help.

  It was rather comical to see Ernie lecturing others on the need to grow up, but it was a good letter. I did have something of a hand in its composition. And by the time Sunny received it she had anticipated Ernie’s advice and converted. Princess Alexandra of Hesse became Grand Duchess Alexandra Fyodorovna and the wedding was fixed to take place one week after Uncle Sasha’s funeral.

  Ernie’s trunk was packed in haste. We agreed it was best if I didn’t make the long journey to Petersburg, given my condition, and so I spent my eighteenth birthday alone, rattling around in Sc
hloss Darmstadt, eating too much cake and trying different, slenderising styles of pinning up my hair. My consolation was that Russia was very distant and its Empresses travel very little. The thorn of Sunny had been removed from my side, permanently. Or so I thought.

  5

  Our little daughter, Elisabeth, was born on 11th March 1895. All the church bells in Darmstadt rang out to greet her and if she had been a boy I’m sure they could not have rung louder. Ernie was in and out of the nursery all day long, lifting her out of her cradle and driving the nurses to distraction. Mother said she’d never seen a man so devoted. She hinted that I was luckier than Missy. That Ernie was considerate, unlike Nando who showed no interest in his children and grew quite resentful when a confinement put Missy hors de combat in the bedroom.

  ‘You see?’ she said to me. ‘It wasn’t so very bad, was it? And things have worked out perfectly well with Ernie, just as I said they would. If only you’d give the child a different name. It’s going to be so confusing.’

  Mother’s objection was that she now had two granddaughters named Elisabeth and, as Missy had used the name first, that Ernie and I should be the ones to back down and choose something else.

  ‘Marie’s a pretty name,’ she suggested. ‘Or Vicky, or Alice.’

  We compromised. Our Elisabeth Marie Alice Victoria would be known as Elli, to distinguish her from any other Elisabeths in the family.

  Mother said, ‘And you’ll have a boy next. I feel it in my bones.

  It’s no bad thing for a boy to have an older sister. I’ve often thought Affie would have done better if he hadn’t been my first.’

  My brother, Affie, was a puzzle. Around us girls he was quite the little lord of creation, but in anyone else’s company he’d grow sly and wary, like a dog that had been beaten. I don’t think he had been beaten, certainly no more than any other boy. At one point he was supposed to be engaged to one of the Württemburg girls but nothing ever came of it. Mother believed he suffered from extreme nervous debility of unknown provenance. She thought a spell at Baden-Baden would do him good. Pa said, bugger Baden-Baden. What Affie needed was a kick up the BTM.

  Elli was a very pretty baby. She fed well and thrived and her first summer was bliss. I took her to England to show her to Grandma Queen and Missy, who by some miracle wasn’t expecting again, took advantage of the fact and joined us there with her two little ones. Ernie elected to stay at home.

  Missy and I rendezvoused in London first and did heaps of shopping. Marshall and Snelgrove, Gamages, Swan and Edgar. Gowns, shoes, hats, unmentionables, all ready-made. It was jolly hard work but much more fun than endless fittings and waiting for dressmakers. We used to pause at three o’clock and go to Lyons for tea and buns which was the greatest adventure, to feel one was out and about with the ordinary people. After tea, we’d do more shopping. Missy could be rather a slave-driver, but I could see it was essential. The poor dear couldn’t get anything in Bucharest. As she said, childbearing had ruined her line so her trousseau was good for nothing and she was dressed practically in flour sacks. Not that Darmstadt was much better. There was so little choice there, unless one settled for cloth that looked like the cover for an old couch.

  After London, our next stop was Windsor. We were there in time for Ascot Week which gave us a splendid opportunity to wear some of our new togs. Missy had a good eye for the difference an extra feather would make, or louder buttons, and we easily outshone the rest of the party. I’m sure that was why certain people took against us. I’m sure that’s why we were accused of ‘unbecoming behaviour’.

  It was too silly. All Missy did was nudge Uncle Bertie Wales’s topper off his head with the tip of her parasol. He didn’t mind. He enjoyed the joke. But everyone else put on their lemon lips and said the man in the street didn’t come to Ascot to see the future Queen of Romania and the Grand Duchess of Hesse behaving like children. Which was true, though not as they meant it. It seemed to me the man in the street came to Ascot to have a rare holiday from his work and to see the finest horse flesh in action. I must say Missy and I were quite unrepentant. We were married women, not infants. What were they going to do? Send us to bed without supper?

  From Windsor, Missy and I moved on to Osborne House and had the most heavenly time. The whole month of July. Our sister Sandra joined us for a week. Pa had reluctantly agreed to her engagement to Ernst Hohenlohe-Langenberg so she was eager for information about Married Life. There was to be another Ernie in the family.

  ‘Bit of a non-entity’ was Pa’s opinion of him, but that was because Ernst Hohenlohe was actually something of an intellectual. It was a quality Pa always mistrusted in a man.

  Missy, Sandra and I were put up in the Albert Cottage at Osborne, so that the noise of the children shouldn’t disturb the peace of Grandma Queen. But she loved to see them every afternoon, for twenty minutes or so, and she remembered their names and the exact dates they were born. Great-grandchildren! What must that feel like? Grandma was so ancient. Seventy-six. And yet she seemed never to have changed, within our memory at least, unlike Uncle Bertie Wales who had aged hugely. And what must that feel like? To watch your own child grow old? We felt sorry for Uncle Bertie, hanging about like the Twelfth Man all those years of waiting to be king, pads strapped on but not sure of ever being called to the crease.

  I didn’t want that month to end. The thought of going back to Darmstadt, to Ernie who dandled Elli all day and then stayed out all night and never, ever came to my bed, was more than I could bear. Missy could have been more sympathetic.

  She said, ‘I do miss you, obviously, but I rather like Romania, now I’m accustomed to it. You’ll love it too when you come to visit. And things are a lot better since Mother had a word with Nando. He’s made his own arrangements and, you know, I’ll probably do the same, in a year or two.’

  Missy was planning to have affairs. I was so shocked.

  ‘Well, why not?’ she said. ‘I’ve done my duty. And I might even do it again, if I could be sure of having another boy, so as to give them a spare, you know? But I’m sure I’m entitled to a little adventure now. You too. Well, perhaps you’d better give Ernie a son first. But after that.’

  That was when I told her about Ernie. How he seemed positively to dislike doing The Thing and actually had stopped doing it at all since Elli was born. Then it was her turn to be shocked.

  ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘And he’s so very handsome. How disappointing. Did you do something to put him off his stride, Ducky? Did you scream in pain or make a terrible fuss?’

  I said, ‘Absolutely not. And he says I’m a perfect wife.’

  ‘Really?’ she said. ‘How very odd. Generally speaking husbands don’t say such things. Do you suppose he’s a pansy? Pa always called him one.’

  Pa called a lot of people ‘pansy’.

  She said, ‘You’re sure you’ve done everything you can to encourage him?’

  I did wonder, obviously, if there were something more I should be doing. Missy said, ‘Remember that gelding we had when we lived at Devonport? All the coaxing we had to do to get him to take the saddle? Rewards. Apples and humbugs. We got there in the end, and once we’d convinced him he became an absolute enthusiast. First into the yard every time, looking for his humbug.’

  I didn’t see how the apple and humbug method could be adapted to Ernie’s case. Missy said I could be very obtuse.

  She said, ‘Well, he’s your husband. I’d say it’s your job to find out what he wants. It’s not a problem I ever had with Nando. He’d just leap aboard and gallop to the winning post. And now he has his ballerina he hardly troubles me at all. So, you know, sauce for the gander and all that?’

  Missy said she had plenty of admirers. She said Romania was full of divinely good-looking men.

  I said, ‘But what if you fall pregnant?’

  ‘I shall be careful not to,’ she said. ‘Mainly, I’ll just allow them to kiss my neck and bring me roses. Now who can we find to bring you roses? Darmstadt’s
so tame. We may have to look a little further afield. If you could only come to stay with me. I’d find you a lover in five minutes. What’s your type, would you say?’

  I didn’t tell her about Cyril until we were lying in the dark. She got up at once and re-lit the lamp. She said she had to see my face, to know if I could possibly be serious.

  ‘Cousin Cyril?’ she said. ‘Cyril Vladimirovich? It’s a joke. Tell me it’s a joke. I mean, I know you had a little pash for him when we were younger, but he’s such a stuffed-shirt. Ernie’s much more fun.’

  That’s what everyone said. Ernie is such fun.

  As soon as I’d told Missy about my feelings for Cyril I regretted it. I swore her to secrecy, especially from Mother.

  ‘Mother?’ she said. ‘Of course I won’t tell Mother. She’d have a fit. After all the trouble she went to getting you Ernie.’

  July ended and Missy and I started our homeward journeys. She came back with me to Darmstadt for a few days.

  ‘Honestly, Ducky,’ she kept saying. ‘I’m sure Ernie doesn’t mean to neglect you. One has to look at the positives. He’s such a stitch, and he’s so good with Elli. Could it be a case of low vitality? Maybe he needs an iron tonic?’

  No one understood, not even my sister. I began to wish she’d stop patronising me and go home, and then when it was time for her to go, I wished she could stay. Any company was better than none. The best Missy and I could hope for was to meet up again in Russia, at Nicky and Sunny’s coronation, but that was nearly a year off.

  ‘Chin up, darling,’ she said. ‘Ernie may just be a slow starter. I predict he’s going to become much more attentive. And don’t worry about the Cyril thing. My lips are sealed. Absolutely.’

  But Missy’s lips were never entirely sealed. How else did Cyril get wind of my feelings?

  6

  My sister Sandra was married to Ernst Hohenlohe in the spring of ’96. Mother seemed a good deal more satisfied with the match than Pa did.