The Lost Daughter
Page 41
There is no evidence that he wrote to Olga once the family were under house arrest but she got word of him in April 1918, writing in her diary, “Kupov wrote a letter. He saw Mitya in Petrograd. He sent us regards.” We can only imagine her dejection that he only sent “regards”! It doesn’t sound very loving. Olga suffered from depression during the family’s sixteen months in captivity and perhaps his coldness was one cause.
We are not sure what happened to Mitya after 1918: he may have fought with the White Army who were trying to overthrow the Bolsheviks; he may have ended up in a Soviet labor camp; or he could have escaped into exile. But I bet he never expected to be remembered a hundred years later for his romance with a Romanov grand duchess.
Tatiana also had a favorite among the officers at the hospital—Dmitri Malama. In the first week of the war he was wounded in the leg while rescuing a fellow officer under fire and was awarded for gallantry. She soon became very attached to him, writing in her diary, “After dinner Malama came over . . . I was terribly glad to see him, he was very sweet.” He clearly liked her too, because he bought her a gift of a French bulldog, whom she called Ortipo, the same name as his cavalry horse. Alexandra invited him to lunch at the palace in 1915 and later wrote to Nicholas, “I have to admit, he would make an excellent son-in-law. Why are foreign princes not like him?”
Malama, who is the subject of my novel The Secret Wife (spoiler alert if you haven’t read it), did his best to save his country from the Bolsheviks, fighting valiantly with the White Army. He died at the battle of Tsaritsyn in June 1919, by which time he probably suspected that his sweetheart, Tatiana, might be dead, although he could not have known for sure.
Maria, who was fifteen at the outbreak of war, had a crush on an officer in the Guards Equipage called Nikolai Demenkov, known to all as Kolya. He was slightly chubby, as was she, and her sisters teased her by calling him “Fat Kolya.” In her diary she referred to herself as “Mrs. Demenkov” so she clearly had strong feelings for him, but she was not to see him again after a meeting in March 1916. We know that she corresponded with him while the family was under house arrest. In one postcard sent from Tobolsk on November 22, 1917, she writes, “May you have all the best in life. So sad that we have not heard from you in so long . . . We reminisce about the happy times, the games . . . May God keep you.” Demenkov managed to escape from Soviet Russia in 1920, going first to Constantinople and then to Paris, where he lived until 1950 and was of great help to Romanov family historians.
Anastasia was only fifteen when the family was placed under house arrest. She was a tomboy, a boisterous child, so there is no documented love affair, but she was fond of her friend Katya’s brother, Viktor Zborovsky, who was nursed at Tsarskoe Selo after being wounded in the war. In one letter to Katya in June 1917 Anastasia reminisced about a time when they had water fights with Viktor in their garden. Could her feelings for him have developed into something deeper had she lived?
All the girls’ romances were innocent, giddy crushes that never had the chance to blossom, but they are poignant for the insights they give into these very normal girls with their keenly felt passions.
There’s one more poignant thought: had Olga or Tatiana been engaged or married to a European royal before 1917, surely the country concerned would have been honor-bound to rescue the Romanovs from their Bolshevik captors? I imagined a proposal from Prince Louis of Battenberg in the “deleted scene” in this PS section but, while there is evidence he liked Maria, no such letter existed. Perhaps if the Romanovs had not held out for love matches but had opted for traditional arranged marriages with members of other royal dynasties, they could all have survived.
Reading Group Questions
Do you think a marriage could work between a couple with such opposite backgrounds as Maria and Peter? They came from different social classes, in an era when that meant a whole lot more than it does now; he was far less educated than she in the academic sense; he did not believe in the religion that meant so much to her; and his political beliefs were at odds with her family’s heritage. Did the relationship convince you in the novel?
Both Maria and Val believed that they grew stronger over the years. Do you think their characters developed through the course of the novel? Or did they just learn to cope with adversity through necessity?
Val’s experience of a violent marriage is quite common: many domestic abuse survivors say that the worst violence occurred in the early days, and after that they were scared and did all they could to avoid confrontation. Why do so many women stay in such marriages and only leave in order to protect their children? Is it to do with low self-esteem? Lack of money? Because they still love the men despite everything?
Is Tony simply a monster or do you get a sense of why he is violent and controlling? Can you understand why Val married him?
There are many different locations in this book. Which one was the most vivid for you?
Was there enough explanation of Russian history for those who did not know much about it before? Some readers Google as they go along, and that’s fine, but ideally the book should stand alone without any additional explanation.
The siege of Leningrad was one of the most harrowing aspects of the Second World War, yet little was written about it for several decades afterward. The Soviet government discouraged discussion, simply saying, “Life was hard for Leningraders,” and it is only recently that historians have collected and published oral testimonies from those who lived through it. Did you feel you got a sense of the developing tragedy from the novel?
Did the novel make you consider how you would survive in a police state? Would you inform on your neighbors and/or work colleagues to protect your children, for example?
We get only glimpses of the complex character of Val’s father, and most of these are damning. Did the priest’s words make you reevaluate him?
One theme of the novel is fatherhood: What it means to be a good or a bad father. What do you think makes a good father? How does it affect children if they have a bad father?
Stepan resembles Peter in his character and his moral outlook although he is not his biological son. Would he have been a different person if he had been raised by Anatoly? In other words, is nurture more important than nature?
Why do you think so many people claimed to be Romanovs after the family’s disappearance? Were they doing it for attention? In the hope of claiming the family fortune? Or were they deranged and actually believed it themselves?
If one of the Romanov children had survived, would we ever find out?
Did you read The Secret Wife before this? If so, compare the two books. Which do you prefer, and why?
Praise for The Lost Daughter
“I devoured The Lost Daughter in two days. I adored it. Gill Paul makes complex history so accessible. So real. . . . It was truly exceptional.”
—Louise Beech, award-winning author of The Lion Tamer Who Lost
“Another brilliant read from Gill Paul. Two gripping stories entwine and kept me captivated till the last page. Kept me looking forward to getting back to it each evening.”
—Tracy Rees, author of Darling Blue
“With The Lost Daughter, [Gill] has returned to the tragic Romanovs, creating another fascinating story that asks the haunting question: ‘What if one of them escaped?’ A pleasure to dive into.”
—Kate Riordan, author of The Stranger
“Fascinating! Gill captures this family and this period of history so vividly. Such a wonderful book.”
—Hazel Gaynor, New York Times bestselling author of The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter
“A wonderful sweeping tale that totally captivated me and had me on the edge of my seat, clutching my hanky. The story is bold and powerful, filled with emotion, tension and vivid characters in a setting that is rich in historical detail. . . . And the love story? Intense and passionate, it will grip your heart. I loved it.”
—Kate Furnivall, New York Times bestselling author of The
Italian Wife
“An enthralling story: the heartbreak genuine, the research brilliant. I love the way the present narrative throws light on the past story.”
—Dinah Jefferies, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Missing Sister
“A marvelous story: gripping, romantic and evocative of a turbulent and fascinating time.”
—Lulu Taylor, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Winter Secret
“With great verve and a smattering of delicious fictional license, Gill evokes the events and characters of two eras. Conspiracy theories abound, providing fertile ground for Gill’s undoubted storytelling talents. Delightful.”
—Liz Trenow, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Soldiers
“This engrossing, heart-wrenching novel moves between the decades, combining history with fiction to portray the tragic events of the Russian Revolution.”
—Sunday Express (UK)
“Meticulously researched and evocatively written, this sweeping story will keep a tight hold on your heartstrings until the final page.”
—Iona Grey, author of Letters to the Lost
“Gill Paul has crafted a beautiful book. . . . I felt as if I was living in the pages myself. I adored it.”
—Amanda Jennings, author of The Cliff House
“This is an intriguing and involving book that explores a really fascinating period in time in a clever and highly enjoyable way. I was hooked into both timelines from the start.”
—Joanna Courtney, author of the Queens of Conquest series
By Gill Paul
Women and Children First
The Affair
No Place for a Lady
The Secret Wife
Another Woman’s Husband
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE LOST DAUGHTER. Copyright © 2018 by Gill Paul. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover design by Yeon Kim
Cover photograph © Nicole Wells/Arcangel (woman); © Loop Images Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo (Pavillion)
Originally published as The Lost Daughter in Great Britain in 2018 by Headline Review.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Paul, Gill, 1960– author.
Title: The Lost Daughter : a novel / Gill Paul.
Description: New York, NY : William Morrow Paperbacks, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018059051| ISBN 9780062843272 (paperback) | ISBN 0062843273 (trade paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Marii͡a Nikolaevna, Grand Duchess, daughter of Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 1899–1918—Fiction. | Princesses—Russia—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Family Life. | FICTION / Biographical. | GSAFD: Historical fiction. | Biographical fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6116.A863 L67 2019 | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018059051
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Digital Edition AUGUST 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-284328-9
Version 06292019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-284327-2
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