The Tsarina's Daughter (Reading Group Gold)

by Carolly Erickson

  “Thank you for the tea, Alix. We will be seeing you at the race trials, I trust?”

  “Of course.”

  “I fear the Meteor will have the advantage, as usual.”

  “I put my faith in the New Britannia, mother dear. Especially since we are in British waters.”

  “Would you care to place a small wager, Your Imperial Highness?” Mr. Schmidt asked. “Say five pounds?”

  “I’m afraid I have only rubles, Mr. Schmidt. And I am not a betting woman.”

  “I am,” Grandma Minnie interjected. “Five pounds on the New Britannia, on Alix’s behalf.”

  “Done. We can settle up after the race.”

  They walked out, Mr. Schmidt supporting Grandma Minnie, leaning close to her so that their heads were very near as they talked. I followed them out onto the deck where the ladies were being helped into the waiting launches. I lingered near, pretending to talk with one of the sailors but actually listening to the casual conversations around me.

  “She’s as beautiful as they say, but she has such a strong under-look, as if she distrusts everyone.”

  “She seems more English than Russian to me. They say she’s obsessed with the occult. I can believe it.”

  “I hear Nicky adores her. But there’s something not quite right about her, if you know what I mean.”

  I knew they were talking about mama, and I wished I could make them stop. I moved closer to Grandma Minnie and Mr. Schmidt.

  “Well, what did you think?” Grandma Minnie was asking.

  “An interesting case,” Mr. Schmidt responded. “Severe repression, melancholic in the extreme. If she didn’t have so many children I would say she was suffering from frigidity. I think she could be helped.”

  “So she isn’t as disturbed as I thought,” Grandma Minnie said, sounding, it seemed to me, disappointed.

  “Oh she’s quite mad all right. Mad as a hatter, to use your English expression. Oh yes, there’s no doubt about that.”

  Fourteen

  Papa was very happy as the day of the yacht race approached, riding along with the crews of the Meteor and the New Britannia on their trials, inviting cousin Willy and Uncle Bertie aboard the Standart afterward, visiting the Royal Yacht Squadron and staying there until very late at night. He was happy—but mama was upset, and eager to go back to Russia. I heard them quarreling over when they were going to return.

  “We can’t stay any longer. Alexei’s leg is stiffening up—and I’m nervous about being too far from Father Gregory in case we need him. I’ve been feeling a bad migraine coming on—you know how your mother upsets me, and I can’t escape her here the way I can at home.”

  “But Alix, it’s safe here. I know no one is going to shoot me or blow me up with a bomb. I don’t have to watch where I go or what I do.”

  “There are assassins everywhere, Nicky. Grandma Victoria was shot at several times, right here in England.”

  “But she lived to be ninety-three, or some such ancient age, and she died in her bed!”

  “It was eighty-one, not ninety-three, and she was lucky. Can we go please? It’s time.”

  “We can’t very well leave before the yacht race.”

  “Why not? We’re not racing the Standart.”

  “Oh, Alix, please, you know why not. It wouldn’t be right. Bertie would never forgive us—or your cousin Willy, much as you dislike him. Besides, what about your sisters? What about young Adalbert? He’s taken quite a liking to our Tania, you know. All the sailors on the Meteor were talking about it.”

  I blushed to hear this. I hadn’t realized that Adalbert and I were so closely watched while we were on the Meteor.

  “Nicky, she’s only twelve years old!”

  “Royal girls have been married at twelve—and younger.”

  “Not a daughter of mine. And not to a son of that madman Willy!”

  Mama continued to say that she wanted to leave, but papa decided to stay. She complained, especially when he went out at night to the Royal Yacht Squadron or to the Villa Violetta, Uncle Bertie’s private cottage on the beach, where, it was said, the king entertained actresses and dancers from London and invited his men friends to join him.

  Olga claimed to know, from papa’s valet Chemodurov, what went on at the Villa Violetta.

  “They do the tango,” she told me, her eyes agleam. “The new dance from Argentina. I learned it from Felipe on the Standart.” Felipe was her favorite sailor, the one we called her “flirt.” She began to glide across the floor, her angular body contorted and graceless, as she demonstrated the bizarre steps of the dance.

  “One, two, one-two-three. One, two, one-two-three.” I thought her movements were revolting, though I didn’t tell her so, any more than I told her about what Mr. Schmidt—who I had come to realize was really Dr. Freud—had said to Grandma Minnie about mama’s being mad as a hatter.

  It had not taken me long to guess who the soothing Mr. Schmidt really was. That he was the celebrated Viennese doctor Grandma Minnie had told Monsieur Gilliard about.

  She had said she would try to convince this Dr. Freud to treat Alix. Had he been treating her that day aboard the Standart, I wondered, or merely getting to know her? All he did was talk to her, ask her questions. Was this all he intended to do? I meant to watch all closely, to make certain mama was not alone with this Mr. Schmidt.

  “And that’s not all they do,” Olga was going on. “They slide down the banisters on tea trays, and bump each other off the sofas when they sit down, and giggle like children, and light the servants’ whiskers on fire. And they drink a lot, and go upstairs to the bedrooms with the actresses and don’t come down again for a long time.”

  I was beginning to learn the ways of the world. How men acted when they were away from their wives. How they egged each other on to do things they would not think of doing when they were sober. I did not like imagining that papa was one of those men, but of course he was. He had to be. He was the tsar.

  “Did Chemodurov say that Adalbert was at the Villa Violetta?”

  “No! The Germans are not invited. Besides, he says the Germans do other things. Worse things. They gather at their own private retreats and bring in young boys dressed up like girls, or the men dress up like women. Then they drink and carry on.”

  “Cousin Willy too?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I did not like to think of handsome blond Adalbert, with his delicate moustaches, dressing like a girl.

  Alexei came down with a cough and mama took that as her excuse to leave Cowes aboard her sister Irene’s yacht, taking Marie and Anastasia with her but allowing Olga and me to stay on, at papa’s insistence, to watch the race and then return to Russia with him on the Standart. In truth I was glad to stay, as I was enjoying myself with all the balls and parties to attend and all the freedom we had to come and go without fear. The English seemed to me quaint and stuffy, but trustworthy, and at times very amusing, while the Germans, for all their bluster (the men tended to talk too loudly, I thought—except for Adalbert—and were always shouting orders), were courtly and charming. I felt that when the time came, I would be sorry to leave, and I grew to like fat Uncle Bertie and his son Prince George, who everyone said would be king soon, as Uncle Bertie was old and in failing health.

  Race day finally arrived, and the New Britannia, the Meteor, and the three other yachts—the Genesta, with an Italian at the helm, the Lady Hermione, with a German crew under the Baron von Buch, and the Corsair from New Zealand—prepared to set out along the thirteen-mile course.

  At precisely two o’clock in the afternoon the flag was raised over the Royal Yacht Squadron and the cannon fired a deafening salute. A military band played the British, German and Russian national anthems while the spectators removed their hats and stood at attention.

  Then, at a signal, the boats were off.

  A warm sun shone down on rough waters as the wind, capricious and changeable, sped the sleek vessels toward the start line. Cheers went up as
the New Britannia sprinted into the lead, the Corsair in pursuit. Olga and I stood at the rail of the Standart with papa, watching intently, shading our eyes against the bright sun. By the time they reached the first buoy in the triangular course my attention had begun to wander and I felt sleepy. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open.

  Then I heard papa shout. “Foul! It’s a foul!” The sailors took up the cry and I could hear shouts from on shore as well.

  “Look! He’s hoisting illegal canvas! The villain! The wretch!”

  It was the Meteor, I gathered, putting out more sail than the racing rules allowed. She shot across in front of the Genesta, nearly overturning the Italian boat with her wake, and took the lead as the vessels turned downwind.

  “She should be disqualified,” papa said. “Bertie will be furious.”

  The Lady Hermione, which had fallen behind the others almost from the start, dropped out when her tiller lines broke, but the New Britannia soldiered on, through rising winds and more challenging waves, until the final turn into the wind for the tack to the finish line.

  By this time the cheering had become loud and raucous, with horns, whistles and bells added to the cacophony of voices. A strident chant of “Mete-or! Mete-or!” was all but drowned out by the singing of “Rule Britannia” in which Olga and I joined, singing as lustily as we could though the strengthening wind carried our voices away and I had to hold onto my hat to keep it from blowing off.

  The Meteor reached the finish line first, but not by many feet, and the German victory was clearly tainted. Papa swore and went ashore to lodge a formal complaint with the judges. Olga and I had our supper in our cabin, feeling somewhat let down, and wondering aloud what the newspapers would say about the race.

  It was a good thing we were to leave the following day, because there was an outcry about the extra canvas put aboard the Meteor illegally, not only in the newspapers but at the luncheon tables and tea tables in the Royal Squadron.

  “They will make it a casus belli,” papa said, his own anger having subsided into wry humor. “But then, Bertie ought to know by now that Willy does not play fair. Your mama could have told him that—in fact she probably did, before she left.”

  We missed mama, and Alexei and Marie and Anastasia, and were glad to be going home. I said my goodbyes to all the relatives, the fat king and his beautiful queen and their plain daughters, Prince George who kissed my hand and said that he would miss me, the Kaiser who looked even more stern in victory than he had before the race began, all the aunts and uncles and cousins—and especially Adalbert, who took me aside and said he hoped I knew that he had had nothing to do with his father’s flaunting of the racing rules. I assured him that I believed him.

  “May I write to you, Tania?” he asked. His eyes were very blue and very sincere.

  “Yes, of course. As a friend.”

  “Soon you will be old enough to be more than a friend.” And he pressed my hand. “One day before long we will see each other again, I’m sure of it. Perhaps sooner than you imagine. Until then, may I give you a cousinly kiss?”

  I did not know what to say. I could not look at Adalbert. I looked down.

  With gentle warm fingers he lifted my chin and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Goodbye, little Tania.”

  “Goodbye, Adalbert.” He stepped into the launch and waved a final goodbye, and I waved back, until all I could see of him was a small white figure against the dark blue water.

  And then we were off, as cannons boomed a farewell salute from the shore, the Standart cutting into the waves in the Solent, headed outward toward the open sea and home.

  Fifteen

  Sometimes, when life became too confusing, I would go and talk to the elephant.

  The dusty, shaggy old beast was a comfort to me in a way. He was by far the oldest creature at Tsarskoe Selo, and I felt that he had endured many, many years of loneliness and sadness. For how could he not be sad, taken away from the land of his birth and all his relatives? Hardly anyone paid attention to him except his mahout, the Indian servant who spoke very little Russian and occupied himself with caring for the elephant and napping in the little lean-to adjacent to the great beast’s cage.

  My sisters teased me about my visits to the elephant.

  “Maybe you’re going to marry him,” Anastasia said, smiling impishly and running off.

  “You’ll be sad when he dies,” Marie said solemnly. “You’ll be sorry you were his friend.”

  “Only crazy people have conversations with animals,” Olga announced. “It’s a sign you’re losing your mind.”

  But of course I was not losing my mind, I was merely growing up. I know it now, looking back. Then, however, I was just attempting to make sense of all the many parts of my life that didn’t fit together: the great wealth and magnificence of my father’s palaces, the squalor of Smokestack Town, the fear we felt from seen and unseen assassins and the cocoon of protection in which we were forced to live, the strong family bonds that joined us and the hostility of Grandma Minnie toward mama and all of us girls—for as Marie and Anastasia got older it was clear that she disapproved of them almost as much as she disapproved of Olga and me. And then there was the constant worry over my brother: would he die, as everyone but mama expected? And if he did, would one of Uncle Vladimir’s sons become the tsarevich, causing further ill feeling within the family? It was understood that papa’s younger brother Uncle Michael could not rule, not after he had disgraced himself and the family by marrying Dina the commoner.

  The elephant heard it all, and appeared to nod his wrinkled old head from time to time, or to trumpet his disagreement. I took comfort from his company.

  But of course I had little time to spend in idle conversation. I was kept busy by Monsieur Gilliard learning the untidy forms of irregular French verbs, and reading about Russian history, and acting in plays, and by my dancing master Professor Leitfelter learning the steps of the Hesitation Waltz (not the tango, the dance of night clubs and low taverns), and by mama, who had taught me to knit and was encouraging me to produce blankets and caps and mittens to be sold at her charity bazaars.

  As often as I dared I met Avdokia the milk woman at dawn and went with her to the slums of the Vyborg district, where I was drawn into the circle of those who lived in Daria’s crowded apartment and welcomed as one of them, though my exact identity remained a mystery—a mystery they did not seem to care very much to solve.

  My thirteenth birthday was approaching, and I was growing out of my clothes. All my skirts were too short. When the couturier Lamanov came to the palace for my fittings he remarked on how tall I was becoming.

  “Tall and elegant, just like your mother,” he said. “Willowy. Slender. A nymph. A charming blond nymph.”

  I outgrew the peasant skirt papa had bought me and Niuta made me another, which I wore whenever I went to Smokestack Town. I had a new pair of peasant boots for my lengthening feet and womanly caps to cover my hair. Altogether I looked like a young girl from Pokrovsky, or so Niuta told me, and even Daria reluctantly agreed.

  Daria continued to live in the palace, in one corner of Niuta’s attic room, her little dog curled in a basket on the floor. She worked in the ironing room, continuing to lift heavy trunks of clothes, wield the metal iron for hours at a time and go up and down many flights of stairs each day despite her very advanced pregnancy.

  “What will she do when she goes into labor?” I asked Niuta, feeling very grown-up because I knew, or believed that I knew, so much about how babies were born. “Will you call a midwife? Or Dr. Korovin?” Dr. Korovin was still Alexei’s doctor, and the principal court physician.

  “Oh no, he would never be summoned to treat a servant. No, there is a Workers’ Clinic in Petersburg. We will take her there. They have midwives and doctors there. The workers are treated for free.”

  I did not think very much about this at the time, as Niuta seemed so certain about what she would do and where she would go when Daria needed he
lp delivering her baby. Besides, something else happened to occupy my thoughts—and even to give me nightmares.

  Papa, mama and the five of us children (when Alexei was well enough) went each Sunday, and sometimes during the week, to attend divine service at the church of the Holy Innocents near Tsarskoe Selo. One Sunday morning we got down from our carriage near the church steps, our protective guardsmen making a cordon around us to ensure there were no would-be assassins in the waiting crowd. We paused, as we usually did, to wave to the people gathered there to see us. On this day there were more people than usual, and we soon realized why.

  In the center of the small square in front of the church a young woman sat on the ground, her dark skirts spread around her, a shawl draped over her thin shoulders. I stared at her pale face with its downcast eyes but could see no emotion there, and that dismayed me. Who was she and what was she doing there, all alone, with so many others watching her, as if waiting for something to happen?

  Then I saw the open tin of kerosene on the ground beside her.

  Calmly, her movement slow and her arm steady, she reached for the tin and poured the contents over her head, letting it flow down her back and over her blouse and shawl, then onto her wide skirt. Her hand seemed to tremble as she reached for the box of matches in the pocket of her skirt, and she shook her head once, as if to keep the kerosene from flowing into her eyes. Then before anyone could stop her she lit a match and touched it to her skirt.

  “No! Stop her! Someone stop her! Bring water!” came shouts from the onlookers, most of whom could do little but gasp, the women covering their mouths, the men frowning in frustrated anger.

  The woman’s skirt flared up at once, then her shawl caught fire and soon she was engulfed in a ball of flame. I did not hear her scream, but others said later that they did, or so it was reported in the newspapers, and that she did not die right away but writhed and clawed at herself and even called for help before the flames turned her body into a charred lump of blackened flesh.