The Grand Duchess of Nowhere (12 page)

Though Sunny hardly ever came into society she did have her own little circle, her Ladies. Anna Vyrubova, Nastinka Hendrikova, Isa Buxhoeveden. Sunny went nowhere without them. Vyrubova was her particular favourite. Practically like a sister, Miechen said.

‘A sister, with slow glands. A devoted little heifer, mooing along in Sunny’s shadow.’

St Petersburg wasn’t like Darmstadt, where everyone dined politely with everyone else, whatever their real opinions of each other, and it wasn’t like Paris, where everything was free and easy and no one dined with anyone unless they really wanted to. In St Petersburg there were social obligations but there were also undisguised opinions and factions and I had married into the faction that was the most feared and admired. Miechen’s set were ruthless. If you didn’t glitter, if you didn’t dress fabulously and give wonderful parties you didn’t belong. We were the Vladimirovichi and we outshone Empress Sunny’s drab little coterie without even trying. It didn’t come naturally to me. I hate changing my clothes three times a day. But I was finding my feet in St Petersburg and Miechen was not to be let down.

Cyril had been promised a command. He talked it up and put on a brave face but I knew he dreaded it. No matter how many times he went to sea, no matter how he tried to master his terrors, he’s never overcome them. He still has his
Petropavlovsk
nightmare. Eventually they recognised the problem and found him a desk job
at the Admiralty. Well, why not? He’d served his country. He’d volunteered to go back into action against the Japanese when he might easily have been declared an invalid. And we had a young family. I’m sure he had nothing to feel ashamed about.

*

Miechen took the house on Glinka Street for us, our city home for the Season 1910-1911, and directed its decoration. Furnishings don’t much interest me. I like a comfortable chair and a bed to suit my long legs, but the finer points of gilding and marquetry escape me. I’d have borrowed again from the Bachelor Uncles but Miechen wouldn’t allow it.

‘Shabbiness can be charming in the country,’ she said. ‘But in town you must remember your position.’

It was Miechen’s doing that Peach came to live with us too. She said I must get an English nanny for the girls. She’d already given us Nanya, who had been Cyril’s old nurse, but Nanya was of great age and girth, more in need of being cared for herself than she was able to help me. Masha and Kira ran her ragged.

Miechen said, ‘You must get someone from Norland. They’re the absolute best. You want one in her thirties and plain. Any older than that, she’ll be too set in her ways. Any younger, there’s always the danger … Well, I don’t need to spell it out. Cyril’s pretty steady but no sense in inviting trouble.’

So it was actually Miechen who selected Ethel Peach from the list of applicants. She was a thirty-seven-year-old spinster – ‘too old for any mischief’, according to Miechen, and she came with excellent references from diplomatic families in Paris and Shanghai. Miechen felt that was also a sign in her favour. It meant Miss Peach was a restless soul who moved on. She wouldn’t be hanging about our necks in her old age, expecting a pension and accommodations.

In fact Ethel Peach turned out to be quite personable for
thirty-seven, but she’d come all that way to St Petersburg so I didn’t have the heart to send her back on the grounds that she had dimples. Anyway, Masha and Kira seemed to take to her and there is much to be said for a quiet life. They liked her name, of course. And when Masha discovered Peach had a sister, Ida, who was married to a man called William Notion, she fairly screamed for joy. So Peach stayed, in spite of Miechen’s reservations.

‘Feed her up,’ Miechen said. ‘You must get rid of that enviable little waist of hers before it causes any problems.’

It can be a difficult thing, to have a mother-in-law living just around the corner, and doubly so when she’s your aunt, but I daren’t complain too much.

I did warn you
, Mother wrote.
Well, you must be firm. You must put your own mark on your household. Never forget, Miechen is only a Mecklenburg. You are a granddaughter of Queen Victoria
.

Fond as I was of Miechen, she did interfere. I must go to Druce’s for my soap and to Treumann’s to get my cards printed, and I must get Cyril’s cloudberry jam from Yeliseev’s and nowhere else. Her friends took me up too, Zinaida Yusupov and Betsy Trubetskoy. She instructed them to. It took me a while to widen my own little circle and dare to include people who weren’t quite up to the Vladimirovichi mark of smartness. The Obolenskys, who lived at Tsarskoe Selo. The Nabokovs on Morskaya Street. Moritz and Henny Lenz who had a house on Vasilievsky and Gitta Radloss who lived Vyborg side. Best of all, I’d only been a year in Russia when the George Buchanans were posted to St Petersburg. Sir George and Lady Georgie had been dear friends in Darmstadt. They were such welcome, familiar faces. And then there were the Bachelor Uncles with their repository of spare couches and unimportant paintings.

Some of the people we call Uncle aren’t really our uncles, and one of the Bachelor Uncles isn’t strictly speaking a bachelor, but
in the great sprawl of the Romanov family it’s essential to have signposts of some kind.

The true bachelors are Uncle Bimbo, that is to say Grand Duke Uncle Nikolai Mikhailovich, and Uncle Seryozha, whose title is Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich. However, Seryozha is rumoured to have been one of the many who’ve sampled Mathilde Kschessinskaya’s attractions so perhaps that places him in a special category. I once asked Cyril if he thought Uncle Seryozha could be the father of La Kschessinskaya’s son. He smiled.

‘One candidate in a very long line,’ he said.

Uncle Gogi is in a special category too. He’s been married, still is married I suppose, but his wife doesn’t like him or Russia so she ran away, many years ago, and took their little girls with her, to England I believe. After they left Uncle Gogi moved himself and his coin collection into the Mikhailovsky Palace to live with Uncle Bimbo and Uncle Seryozha.

They’re all tall and thin, the Bachelor Uncles. You’d know them at once for brothers. And the Mikhailovsky Palace always smells of their cigarettes. I like that. It reminds me of Mother and Pa. My sister Missy is convinced that smoking brought on Pa’s bad throat and caused his death but his doctors had always recommended it. They said it invigorated the lungs.

The Bachelors rattle around the Mikhailovsky in their separate apartments. I’m surprised they never moved in together, in one wing. It would have been much cosier. Perhaps they’ll have to now these Housing Allocation Committees are dictating how many rooms people can have.

Whenever we were in town, I used to call on the Uncles. First Uncle Bimbo, then he’d take Masha and Kira on the crossbar of his Raleigh bicycle and I’d trot along behind. They’d go wobbling off down the corridor to Uncle Gogi’s apartments, to find out if
he was at home and see whether he had any caramels in his pocket. Gogi has always been so kind to my girls. They must be a painful reminder of his own daughters but he never speaks of that. Perhaps he was like Ernie, not really cut out for marriage.

I wonder how they’re all managing now? Bimbo, Seryozha, Gogi. I hope the Bolsheviks aren’t being too hateful to them. Maybe they’ve left Russia too. We get no news. Perhaps if the war really does end this year letters will become easier.

By 1912 I was so settled it was as though I’d been in Russia all my life. Everything that had gone before seemed like a bad dream.

‘Can you believe what we went through?’ I’d say to Cyril.

‘Told you it would work out,’ he’d say. ‘Our patience was rewarded.’

Here’s how we parsed out our Russian year. We’d spend Christmas in the country. There was usually some good hunting to be had. Cyril gave me a young steppe borzoi for my first Russian birthday. Strela, which means ‘arrow’. It was a fitting name for her.

Cyril said, ‘A Don hunter and a borzoi. Now you’re a real Russian Grand Duchess.’

The Imperial Hunt was based at Gatchina but one of our neighbours, Timofei Ivanov, kept a smaller establishment at Tsarskoe Selo so I boarded Strela in his kennels and rode out with his pack as often as I could, to train her.

I looked forward to hunt days. I loved the silence at the start, waiting for a wolf to run. Just the creak of the snow under the weight of the horses and the occasional gentle whinny. Strela whimpered the first time I took her out but I had two of Timofei Ivanov’s old hounds on leashes either side of her and they soon taught her to wait in silence until the leash was slipped. I enjoyed the chase too. That’s the best part. It was just the kill I didn’t care
for. I’ve no great love for wolves. We lost so many deer to them at Wolfsgarten. But it’s still a sad thing to see so powerful a creature brought low. A wolf never admits defeat. He snarls and threatens even when his situation is quite hopeless. As I wrote those words I found the image of Nicky came to me. Not that there’s anything of the wolf about him – Ernie Hesse used to characterise him as a spaniel – but he’s certainly been brought low. The Emperor of All the Russias confined to walking in circles in a small patch of garden.

But I was telling you about the pattern of our year. From the middle of January we lived mainly in town. We’d take the girls for sleigh rides on the Neva and Peach helped them make an ice slide in our yard. The ball season began directly after the Blessing of the Waters and lasted until the beginning of Lent. We might go to two, even three, in a week and the fact that we had no ballroom of our own at Glinka Street didn’t matter because Miechen flew the Vladimirovichi flag.

‘She waves it all the more wildly since Father passed away,’ Cyril used to say. ‘Father dreaded his own ball. No escape, you see.’

Maslenitsa Week marked the end of the Season. We’d stay in town for the carousels and the bonfires and Uncle Bimbo’s pancake party, and then, as soon as Lent began, we’d move back to Tsarskoe Selo, to live a quieter life. One was supposed to fast, of course. No meat, no cheese, no wine, but we only kept the fast for the first week and then for Holy Week. ‘Part-timers’, Aunt Ella called us. She’d become terribly pi, considering she was raised a Lutheran. So had Sunny. Mother said converts often went that way. I didn’t.

We kept Easter, Paskha, as I learned to call it, at Tsarskoe Selo. Emperor Nicky was having a cathedral built for Sunny but it seemed to be an endless project. I preferred to go to Our Lady of the Sign and the Botkin children came with us sometimes, but not their father. Wherever the Imperial family celebrated Paskha,
Genya Botkin felt obliged to follow. All those hours standing in church. What if Empress Sunny had a fainting fit?

Peach wasn’t a religious person, not at all. In fact she once announced that she thought it all so much rot, a new word Kira picked up with relish. But wherever Peach lived, she liked to follow the local traditions, just so long as it didn’t involve making the sign of the cross. It was at her urging that we learned how to colour eggs with onion skins. It was Peach who took our girls to the Botkins’ house, to watch Tanya Botkin and their cook make
kulich
.

Miechen said, ‘Great heavens, what for? Doesn’t she understand that they’re Grand Duchesses? What does she think? That they’re going to be domestics?’

But as Peach said, Masha and Kira were growing up in Russia. They should be familiar with its customs.

‘And I don’t think it hurts anyone to know how to cook,’ she said. ‘Not even a Grand Duchess.’

How those words have come back to me lately.

We’d close up Glinka Street entirely for the summer. No one stayed in town, except the Uncles, who seemed not to be troubled by the airless heat. Uncle Bimbo would come out quite often to Tsarskoe Selo though and dine with us. He always had some project in hand in the Imperial hothouses. A seedless tangerine was one of them.

Masha said, ‘But if it has no seeds how will it grow more tangerines?’

‘Aha,’ he said, and tapped the side of his nose. Perhaps he didn’t know the answer.

He used to take Peach and Masha and Kira butterflying in the Park, ‘Hoping to see a Lesser Purple Emperor,’ he’d say. ‘And who knows, if we don’t see a butterfly perhaps we’ll catch ourselves a real Emperor instead. I hear our Imperial Majesty is at home.’

Uncle Bimbo loves our girls but I think he was a little sweet on Peach too, for a while.

Sometimes even Tsarskoe Selo was too stifling and we’d go away in search of fresh air. Cyril’s favourite place was Lake Ladoga but the mosquitoes there tormented me, so after we got to know the von Etters we took up their invitation to stay with them here, at Haikko in Finland. We’d generally stay well into September, until we’d been mushroom picking at least once. And now here we are. Except this isn’t a summer holiday and I don’t know when the von Etters will ever be rid of us. When the Bolsheviks run out of steam? When Russia begs Misha to be its new Emperor and all us Romanovs can safely go home?

In October we’d return to St Petersburg, open up Glinka Street and take the dust sheets off the furniture. Miechen would begin her plans for the Season. There were gowns to be ordered or altered, furs to have brought out of storage, chandeliers to be cleaned and Christmas gifts to be bought. She kept it very simple. She’d choose one item for the women, perhaps a hat pin or a pill box, and one item for the men. Then she’d order a quantity of them from Cartier, by the dozen, just as one might buy breakfast rolls. As I recall, 1912 was the Christmas of lapis cufflinks and 1913 was enamelled cigarette cases with different-coloured tinder cords. That was a very special year, of course, an anniversary. Three hundred years of Romanovs ruling Russia. It was also the year Grand Duke Uncle Paul was allowed to come home.

It happened very suddenly.

Cyril said, ‘There’s to be no fuss. Just a discreet return. That is, if Paul chooses to come back. Olga always seemed very happy in Paris. He may just tell Emperor Nicky what to do with his largesse.’

Miechen said largesse was nothing to do with it. She was right. Grand Duke Misha was the reason the door had been opened for
Uncle Paul. In the space of just a few weeks the Imperials had suffered two crises. Misha had run off to Vienna and married Countess Brasova and Tsesarevich Alexis had had a bleeding episode so serious that they’d feared for his life. Emperor Nicky was starting to panic about the succession. He needed dear, steady Uncle Paul closer to hand.

The Imperials had been on their summer holidays at Spala in Poland when Alyosha’s attack happened. A tumble, a knock, that’s all it took. But Sunny’s miracle-working monk wasn’t with them. He was taking a holiday too, in Siberia. A wire was sent to him, a reply came by return that all would be well and sure enough Alyosha pulled back from the grave’s edge. Can miracles be performed by telegram? Or was the poor boy already on the road to recovery? I once asked Genya Botkin his opinion but he wouldn’t be drawn. If Empress Sunny believed Grigory Rasputin had saved Alyosha’s life, she was not to be contradicted.

That autumn of 1912 there was a quiet change of the Romanov guard. Uncle Paul slipped back into Russia with his wife and children and Olga was granted a title. She was to be known as Princess Olga Paley and her children were to be Paleys too, to emphasise the distinction between them and Uncle Paul’s older children, Dmitri and Marie, who had the Imperial seal of approval.

Miechen said, ‘What a small mind our Emperor has. As if anyone cares what Paul’s children call themselves.’

As Uncle Paul returned, Grand Duke Michael exited, or rather was forbidden to come home from a trip to France. He was banished for the unforgiveable crime of marrying the mother of his child. Just as Miechen had predicted, Misha had found a way. He’d petitioned Emperor Nicky to be allowed to go to Cannes for a holiday and after some hesitation Nicky had agreed. If he sent his secret police to follow Misha and make sure no wedding took place,
Misha and Natalya managed to outwit them. They pretended to be heading south, then jinked back to Vienna and were married before any Imperial snoops could catch up with them. Misha knew it would mean exile. He must love Natalya very much. Everyone thought they’d settle in Paris but in fact they chose England.

‘Like the little weathermen on a barometer,’ Cyril said. ‘Paul comes in, Misha goes out.’

Uncle Paul’s return made little difference to the line of succession. He could no more become Tsar, with his unapproved Paley wife and his inconvenient Paley children, than could Cyril. What we all watched to see was how things would be managed with regard to Dmitri. Would they all become one big happy family? Marie was out of the picture. She’d married one of the Swedish princes, Wilhelm. Not a happy match. But Dmitri was another matter. Empress Sunny was very attached to him, very proprietorial. She’d had a hand in raising him, after all. I thought she’d do everything she could to keep him away from the Paleys. If she tried, she failed. Dmitri Pavlovich and Vova Paley became more than half-brothers. They’ve become unlikely friends.

Dmitri loves a party. He’s a night-owl. He and Felix Yusupov were practically part of the furniture at the Akvarium Café. When Uncle Paul came home to St Petersburg, Vova Paley was about fifteen, too young for strong drink and naked tableaux and, anyway, he was the kind of boy who preferred to stay quietly in his room and compose verses. Nevertheless he and Dmitri became very close. As for Uncle Paul’s wife, I think Sunny simply pretended she didn’t exist.

As Cyril said, ‘Easy enough. It isn’t as though she and Olga Paley are likely to bump into each other at the fishmonger’s.’