An Extra Chapter from The Romanov Brides

WHILE COMPOSING MY NOVEL ABOUT THE ROYAL SISTERS OF HESSE-DARMSTADT, I WROTE OVER TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND WORDS. SEVERAL CHAPTERS INEVITABLY ENDED UP ON THE CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR.  HERE’S AN EARLY ONE, RECOUNTING THE FOUR MONTHS DIRECTLY AFTER THE DEATH OF PRINCESS ALICE, MOTHER OF THE FOUR GIRLS.

The Queen Presides     

Osborne House, the Isle of Wight, January 1879

      To the public Grandmama is the indominable queen, presiding over a vast empire from her mighty throne. But here, in the privacy of Osborne House, her favorite home, she is a small woman wringing a lace handkerchief in tiny hands, bewailing fate. Her usual imperious expression is erased, her doughy face tearstained, and her protuberant pale blue eyes look childlike in distress. Over and over, she repeats how crushed she is by Mama’s death, how she wishes she had died instead, how Ella and Victoria and the other children left behind will miss Mama more as time goes by, not less. And baby May! An angel plucked from their midst! Their lives are forever blighted and their loss incalculable. They must strive now to be as unselfish, faithful, and humble as their mother was, although this will be dreadfully difficult with darling Mama is gone.   

    Grandmama expects Ella and Victoria to remain at her side, as she sits on a low chair in front of the bow window, her back to the commanding view of the sloping grounds and distant Solent. Aunt Beatrice, Mama’s youngest sister, occupies a small sofa, crocheting lace on two clicking silver needles, saying little. The blinds in this upstairs sitting room are half-drawn, the windows closed against the January cold, the small tables are covered with bric-a-brac, and gloomy family portraits—several of Grandpapa who died years ago—hang in weighty gold frames.

       To Ella it feels as if the family had been all walking across some muddy field together, struggling to find firm footing, and Mama stepped on the softest, least stable patch, and the earth gave way and their mother slipped down out of sight forever. As the gloomy hours tick by, Ella remembers Mama’s firm faith, and longs to rely on such belief herself to relieve her despair. But how to find it? Might it settle upon you after earnest prayer? Should you perform selfless acts? She’d like to discuss this with her elder sister, but Victoria prefers to cope by acting not talking. She is the family drill master—directing the little ones to eat well, play outside, do some lessons. If life is that muddy field Ella imagines, through which they now must slog motherless, it is Victoria who marches beside her, holding her under the elbow, insisting she keep on. Ella appreciates her sister’s resolve, and admires her strength, but feels lonely without being able to confide in her more.

     Here at Osborne Victoria prefers to spend time with Uncle Leo, the youngest of Mama’s brothers. Ella watches him whispering to Victoria during meals, his hand cupped up to her ear, making her laugh. They play chess, exchange books, go out on jaunts. Now aged 26, pale, slender, with scant, receding hair, Leo recently graduated from Oxford, and he hopes to get married and find a proper job. But Grandmama won’t allow any of this on account of Uncle Leo’s poor health. If cut he will bleed copiously, bruises appear on his skin after the slightest bump, and blood pools inside his joints. For a long while he has not been able to properly straighten his right knee and must use a stick to walk.

       Sweet little Frittie, their brother now departed, suffered from a similar ailment—his blood vessels lacked the correct adhesiveness Mama explained. He died after a fall when he was only two. The days following Frittie’s death were grim, but for Ella the double blow of losing Mama and May is nothing less than a reordering of the earthly stage, a collapse of the scenery surrounding her.

      And she can’t help but wonder: Why is it that they, the grand duchal family of Hesse, are particularly ill-fated? Mama always said they counted as the poor relations in the wide web of royal relations. Now, certainly, their circumstances render them also most to be pitied.

    One drizzly afternoon Grandmama announces she has business to discuss with Uncle Bertie and Ella and Victoria are free to do what they wish. In the room they share, .Ella shovels more coal into the grate, pushes an armchair close to the fire, and unties her portfolio intending to do some sketching. She’s inspired by a statue of a woman in classical costume, meant to be Grandmama in younger days, which stands on the ground floor in a special gold-leafed niche.

     Victoria bursts in through the door.

      “Aren’t you going with Uncle Leo to Whippington?” Ella asks, startled.

     “I was, I may still, but Leo received a telegram and needs to compose the answer. Waiting for him outside the Horn room, I heard something extraordinary.”

    “Which is?”

    “Uncle Bertie and Grandmama have decided Papa must marry Aunt Beatrice!”

    Ella stares at her sister, incredulous. Papa marry? Now? To their aunt? Beatrice is barely older than they are.

     “She’s six years my senior,” says Victoria, reading Ella’s thought.  

    “Grandmama and Uncle Bertie were telling Papa this?”

    “No, no,” Victoria shakes her head, impatient. “Papa wasn’t there.”

    “But hasn’t Grandmama always said Beatrice is her ‘Baby’ and she’s to stay home and help her forever?”

    “Yes, but Grandmama worries Papa can never manage alone with the five of us. And what if he falls under questionable influences and choose an unsuitable wife?”

      Victoria adds, in Grandmama’s exact voice, “Imagine the disgrace!”

      Not once has it occurred to Ella that Papa might remarry. And yet he is only 41, and already lonely without Mama.

     “Also, Grandmama doesn’t want us to live in Darmstadt any longer, but here, in England, with her,” Victoria says. “Beatrice can help with her work and also be married to Papa.”

     “That Papa will never agree to,” Ella retorts. “His English isn’t good! He’d miss his friends and army Kamaraden. Also, his duties—Grandmama expects him to just ignore these?”

      Their father, a cavalry officer by training, became Grand Duke of Hesse when his uncle died childless two years ago now. 

       “Yes, he won’t agree to move from Darmstadt,” Victoria says. “But he might if Grandmama presses, marry Beatrice. He’s so miserable.”  She plants both palms against her eyes, and shakes her head in dismay.

       “And Uncle Bertie likes this idea, too?” Ella asks.

       “I gather uncle doesn’t want his sister left a spinster, and because Grandmamma worries about Papa, why not have Beatrice marry him?” Victoria drops her hands and looks at Ella bleakly.  

     “I really can’t conceive of it,” Ella says.

     “Imagine having aunt attempt to be our mother? Gruesome! Also, she has no energy. None of crusading spirit Mam brought to be Grand Duchess.  It would be disastrous and I would hate it!” says Victoria, her voice rising.

     “And isn’t it rather soon?” asks Ella.

    “Yes,” Victoria says fiercely. “They’re heartless.”

     Grandmama, as Queen, is the stern guardian of family honor. But Uncle Bertie? He’d cavalierly marry off his younger sister to a widower 20 years her senior?

    “They must think it’s better for Ernie and Alix,” Ella concedes.

    “Nonsense! Why would it be?” Victoria’s eyes flash.

    “Of course, Aunt could never be our mother, but for those two….

     Ella trails off. Victoria, hands on her hips, glares at her. “I—we—can take care of Ernie and Alix perfectly well ourselves.” 

     “But imagine if Papa does marry someone, eventually,” says Ella.  “Some stranger? That could be worse.”

    Victoria shakes her head. “Not only do I hate the idea of Beatrice taking Mama’s place, I think it very unfair to Papa. Let the poor man grieve, and recover and then he can make his own decisions.”

    Ella sighs. “I suppose.”

    “Stop! No supposing, no considering, you’re always too willing to go along with things, Ella.”

    “Fine for you to say,” she counters, hotly. “As you expect me to follow your lead in every instance!”

     Victoria smiles. “That’s because I am always right.”

    “Hardly,” Ella answers.

    “All I’m saying that we must do something to prevent this, not stand passively by.” 

    “But what can we do?”  

    “Something will occur to me. Right now, I’m going out, while it’s still light, with or without uncle. I need to breathe the fresh air!”

       Off she goes, banging the door closed behind her.

     Over the next few days Victoria and Ella look for signs the scheme is moving forward. Beatrice placidly goes about her usual business—mending, crocheting, helping Grandmama with her letters, accompanying her on short strolls or excursions in the pony cart. Plain, with a short neck and smooth brown hair braided and pinned up under a simple white net, Beatrice is mousy and mostly silent. Ella can’t tell: Has she no hopes for the future? No dreams of a life of her own, with her own home, husband and children?

   Victoria is dismissive. “Aunt Beatrice lacks backbone. No wonder Uncle Bertie and Grandmamma assume she’ll do exactly as they say.”

    “You really believe if Grandmamma instructs her so, she’ll marry Papa, straightaway?”

    “Of course! Defy the command of her mother, who is also her sovereign? Never!”

    “Maybe so,” Ella admits, then she has a thought. “Might we ask Papa?”

    “Directly? Say we’ve heard there’s a plan afoot to marry you off to the dullest woman imaginable who happens to be our aunt and nearly our age—and by the way you must refuse?”

     “Something like that.”

    Victoria sighs. “Papa won’t want more upset at the moment, and Grandmama presides here.” Victoria sweeps her hand wide, as if including the house, the grounds, the island—perhaps the entirety of England—in one sphere. “Only when we get away, can we speak to him seriously.”  

       On Saturday, Uncle Bertie’s two sons arrive for a visit. The elder, Eddy, is tall and thin with dark, doleful eyes, and the younger, Georgy, has a fair complexion, soft blonde hair, and short, stocky legs. Ella remembers a visit they made to Windsor when they all romping wildly in the broad corridors with these boy cousins and their little sisters, until a page came bringing a message from Grandmama to say she would not have so much noise.

     Now Eddy and Georgy are naval cadets at Dartmouth. They wear identical gold-buttoned blue uniforms, black ties, and white-billed blue caps. While close to Ella in age—she is 14 and they are 15 and 13—the Wales boys seem younger. And rather cowed by the Queen. Peppered with questions at luncheon by their grandmother, the boys invariably reply, “Yes Grandmama,” or “No Grandmama.”

     “Let’s escape,” Uncle Leo says quietly, coming up behind Ella and Victoria as they leave the dining room. “Leave Irène and Ernie to entertain the small fry, and we’ll drive over to call on Mr. Dashwood at Ryde Castle.”

      “Mr Dashwood?” asks Ella.

      “A friend. He has some lovely pictures to show us,” says Uncle Leo.

      “Wonderful,” says Victoria, beaming

      “Shouldn’t we ask Papa?” Ella asks.

      “We needn’t bother him,” says Victoria. “And Uncle Leo’s right, what a bore to be stuck here with the children.”

      Ella, who suspects they still count amongst the children, nonetheless ten minutes later is climbing into the barouche, taking a place next to Victoria. Uncle Leo clambers up using his stick, and sits down opposite, his back to the horses. He winces as he extends his right leg as far as it will go, his face white with effort. It’s an hour’s drive to Ryde. Is this expedition a good idea?

    But after a few minutes their uncle brightens, and he and Victoria begin to chat about the Wales family. Uncle Bertie has a Danish-born wife—another Alix—and besides his two sons, three daughters, Louise, Toria, and Maud.

      “Such bad luck—not one amongst that litter is the least bit clever,” Leo says. 

      “The heir especially unimpressive,” adds her sister

      He and Victoria burst out laughing, which disturbs Ella. Eddy, as the Prince of Wales’s eldest son, is next in line for the crown after their uncle.

     “Eddy seems nice,” Ella says, defending a boy she barely knows.

     “Nice? Even Tum-tum despairs!” Uncle Leo declares.

      “Tum-tum?” Ella asks.

      Victoria shoots her a mischievous look. “People call Uncle Bertie that behind his back, in society.”

     “I suppose he has become rather stout,” Ella says, hesitantly.

     “He’s a man of large and varied appetites,” puts in their uncle.

     Leo and Victoria laugh merrily again, leaving Ella perplexed. What exactly is so amusing?

    “Should we tell Ella about Tum-tum’s friend?” her sister says, in an odd sing-song voice.

    “Perhaps Ella doesn’t want to hear?” Uncle Leo says.

    “I do!”

    “Uncle Bertie has an attachment,” announces Victoria.

    “An attachment?”

    “A woman whom a man lives with instead of, or in addition to, his wife.” Victoria says, impatiently. “You know, a mistress, like the French kings had, like Madame de Pompadour.”

    “Uncle Bertie has a second house with another woman?”

    “No, silly, nothing to do with houses. His relations with his mistress are those between a husband and wife.”

    Ella is shocked. When Ella’s monthly courses started last year, Mama explained how babies begin. That the husband must plant a seed in his wife sounded rather alarming to Ella. A bit repellent even. And certainly nothing to be spoken of aloud, casually.

     “The lady poses for artists,” Victoria continues. “Uncle Bertie saw a painting of her and demanded to be introduced,” adds Victoria.

     “She’s charming as well as beautiful, the wife of an Irish yachtsman, Mr. Langtry. Her first name is Lillie,” says Leo.

    “Poor Aunt Alix!” Ella exclaims.

    “Yes, indeed. Although she feigns ignorance, and remains dignified, as ever,” their uncle says.

    “Everyone knows? Grandmama, the Wales boys, the rest of the family? Even Papa?” Ella asks.

    “I doubt anyone has dared tell Mama,” Leo says. “Eddy and Georgy will be unaware, which is as it should be. Your father may not know, but a man of the world, it wouldn’t surprise him.”

     Ella feels a bit sick, and not from the motion of the carriage. Uncle Bertie’s benevolent smile, so like Mama’s, is it always false? She turns to her sister. “It is very wrong to speak of this.”

     Victoria flushes. “Why shouldn’t we? Uncle Bertie is wicked to try and interfere with our lives, with Papa’s life, when he himself behaves disgracefully and dishonors the family.”

     “But imagine Mama hearing us talk about such matters, laughing about uncle, about aunt shamed—"

      “Don’t be a prig, Ella!” exclaims Victoria.

      Is she that? Ella feels crushed.

      “Are you truly so pious as to imagine everyone in the world behaves well? All the time?” her sister demands.

      Ella lifts her chin. “Decorum is expected of ladies in our position. And gossip is invidious. Mama always said it.” She wishes her voice didn’t quaver.

      “How conceited you sound,” says Victoria.

      “I should never have come on this frivolous jaunt,” Ella answers, stung. “I should have stayed behind to help with the children!”

       “Don’t you see! It’s vital to know the truth about people,” Victoria insists.

       “No need to lay it on with a trowel, Victoria,” Uncle Leo says sharply, and turning to Ella says: “I beg your pardon, Ella. I see now that I acted badly. Very badly. I told your sister about Mrs Langtry at a weak moment, after Bertie refused to support me during a screaming row with Mama over my future.”

       “I’m glad you told me!” says Victoria, leaning forward, cheeks flushed. “I hate being treated like a delicate flower, left in ignorance because everyone thinks the sensibilities of a young woman mustn’t be offended.”

     Uncle Leo shakes his head. “Gossip is invidious. Ella is absolutely right. And I should never speak of such matters in mixed company, especially with younger members of the family.”

     Ella pulls a handkerchief from her pocket and blows her nose.

      “I apologize for offending you, Ella,” their uncle continues. “Please don’t weep. I will say, in fairness, that my brother is an affectionate husband and father despite, how shall we call it, his mis-adventuring. He copes quite well with Mama although he—like the rest of us—must watch her treat her servant John Brown with far more tenderness than she ever does any of her own sons.”

      Ella is not mollified. Uncle Leo repeats salacious stories about his brother, and then tries to praise him? That’s two-faced.

     “Won’t you forgive me?” he asks. “Please?”

      His voice is full of such pleading sincerity, she nods. But inside she’s still indignant, and hurt that Victoria, showing off for Uncle Leo, would condemn her as a prig.

      “Your mother was so proud of you both,” their uncle continues. “Alice admired cleverness, Victoria, yes, but even more so the pure of heart. She, herself, never indulged in malicious tittle-tattle.”

    “Still, it doesn’t do to be naive,” Victoria argues. “We can’t afford to be. In order to look out for ourselves and the other children we need to know what’s happening.”

     “And behave as Mama would never want us to behave?” says Ella.

     “You are so exasperating,” Victoria hisses.

     “Please, please, you two have always been good friends and staunch allies, and God knows it’s vital that you remain so,” says Uncle Leo.

     Victoria doesn’t respond, so neither does Ella. 

   “I wish you didn’t live so far away,” Leo adds, softly. “Please remember I will always be available to advise you. As Alice did me.”

     More silence.

     “By the way, I’ve looked into it,” Uncle Leo’s says in a crisper tone. “Bertie’s scheme for your father is likely not viable—there’s an old law, still in force, that prohibits a man from marrying the sister of his dead wife.”

     “Good,” says Victoria sharply, and folds her arms in front of her chest.

    “So now a more cheerful topic please,” Leo proposes.

    “Miss Priss here won’t listen to anything interesting,” Victoria gripes.    

      Leo shakes his head. “Let peace reign. And meanwhile I shall tell you how I first met Dashwood.”

      Their uncle’s story, which had Mr Dashwood mistaking Uncle Leo for an Oxford chum called Charles Barrett at London gallery, is not gripping. Nor is the man at home when they reach Ryde. They hang about in the castle’s chill drawing room, Leo refusing a fire until their host arrives, before giving up and setting out to return to Osborne House.

       On this journey, Leo, meditative, gazes out the window. Victoria stares straight ahead, her mouth in a tight line. Ella, to her distress, can’t keep tears from leaking out of her eyes all the way back. 

    For several days, she and Victoria barely speak.

    One night, Ella dreams of Mama. She is sitting, as she so often did, at her mahogany desk with its curved legs. Neck bent, she’s studying a heap of papers piled on the brown leather writing pad. 

    “I’m learning to be dead,” says Mama, looking up.

    “Is it difficult?” Ella asks.

    “To do correctly, yes.” 

    “Harder than being alive?”

    “Living is easy, dear girl!” Mama says, smiling. “Make others happy. Think of yourself last of all.”

     Waking with a start, Ella can just discern the blanketed hump of slumbering Victoria in the other bed. Dim light shines faintly around the edges of the drawn blinds. How might she make others happy? Ella supposes she could apologize to Victoria, but she wasn’t in the wrong.

     At breakfast she notices Irène’s thin, pale face across the table. Poor Irène. Mama always worried her third daughter lacked confidence, feeling herself not as quick as her two older sisters. Whenever she heard Victoria and Ella making a place their mother would plead: “Won’t you include Irène?”

       Now Ella asks Irène perhaps to help her redecorate a small room on the upper floor of the Swiss Cottage. Ella proposes they paint a mural of a medieval town, a bit like the center of Darmstadt.

    Irène, thrilled to be asked, is eager to start. That morning Ella leads by sketching the outline in pencil, and Irène carefully fills in color at her direction.

    Ella is always happiest making pictures.

    In the afternoon Ella and Irène take Ernie and Alix out for a walk to the beach. The air is faintly warm, the first hint of the year tilting toward spring. The two little ones run ahead, down the hill towards the sea—Alix’s blonde head bobbing alongside Ernie’s darker one.  They look as carefree as any other children, Ella thinks, children untouched by grievous loss.

     On the empty beach, the gulls caw and wheel above. The sky is a pale and silent vastness. Across the ruffled Solent, with its small hills and vales of water, its scuffs of white foam, Ella can spy the green-and-brown cliffs of Hampshire, the neat edge of England.  How beautiful is God’s creation. On this day of timid sun Ella feels Him near. Please, she prays silently, let the future contain some happiness for me, and for us all.

     “Bad news,” says Victoria. She’s called Ella downstairs on the second day of mural-making in the Swiss Cottage. At a glance, Ella sees she’s forgiven. Victoria’s large heavy-lidded blue eyes look directly into hers, in mournful appeal. Who else, her expression seems to say, do I really have but you?

    “No one’s ill?” Ella asks.

    “No. But Leo’s learned about a new bill coming up in Parliament. The Deceased Wife’s Sister Act.”

    “Which means?”

    “Just as it sounds, to end to the ban on men marrying a sister of their dead wife,” she says grimly.

    “Grandmama made this happen?”

    “The sovereign can’t propose bills, you should know that, Ella,” Victoria says, reprovingly.

    “Don’t instruct, explain.”

    “Well, it seems Uncle Bertie asked a member of parliament to sponsor a bill which will be voted upon on the House of Commons next month.”

      “Uncle Leo believes the House will favor the bill?”  Ella asks, alarmed.

    “He doesn’t know. Should it get through the Commons, it’s not law until the House of Lords also passes it. Britain has a bicameral system—you remember that, don’t you?”

     “Yes, of course.”  In fact, she doesn’t. Politics don’t interest her.

     “Church of England bishops sit in the Lords, and apparently the churchmen object.”

     “And will stop it?”

    “Impossible to be sure. Uncle Leo wrote to Uncle Bertie asking him why he’s supporting this bill, and in reply Tum-tum said only that it’s bigots who want to keep the law in place and is Leo a bigot?”

    “Not nice at all!” 

     “I think Leo’s accustomed to such from Tum-tum.” Victoria says.

   Ella shakes her head sadly. “So, it’s still possible that Aunt Beatrice will become our step-mother?”

   “Not if I can help it. We must, must get Papa away from here,” says Victoria. She looks at Ella a bit sheepishly. “I hope you don’t mind. I told him that you and I both long to return home to Darmstadt.”

    “Mind? I’m happy. How did he reply?”

    “He declared that, in that case, we must leave on Monday.” Victoria smiles broadly.

    Ella smiles in return. “Maybe he’ll be safe there away from Grandmama and uncle’s schemes.”

    “We can only hope.”

     Back in Hesse, Papa decides the Neues Palais is too full of sad associations and takes them to live at the Jagdschloss Wolfsgarten, an old hunting lodge built around a grassy quadrangle, surrounded by woods and meadows some twelve miles outside Darmstadt.

    At breakfast one morning in May, Ella watches Victoria slice open an envelope with a silver paperknife. Her sister unfolds the sheet of heavy paper within, and out flutters a newspaper cutting. Once Victoria has examined at both, she looks up at Ella, and grins. She tips her head, to tell her without a word, they must slip away and talk out in the passageway.

    “Uncle Leo sends this story from the Times,” Victoria says. “From three days ago. Look.”

     Victoria holds the cutting under Ella’s eyes. In the dim light Ella can barely make out the headline: “Marriage Bill Defeated Upon Second Reading in the Lords.”

     “You know what this means?” her sister prods.

     “That Papa and Beatrice can never marry?”

     “Precisely,” Victoria answers. “Despite Tum-tum turning up and making a speech to Parliament in support of the bill and bringing along a petition signed by, let me see—” She refers to the clipping. “Three thousand two hundred and fifty-eight farmers from his home county of Norfolk.”

    “It made no difference?”

    “None. The bill was thrown out. As Leo predicted, the bishops were adamantly opposed.”

    “Papa, saved by a group of English churchmen!”

    “He may never know how close his escape was!” They both laugh.

     Orchie calls: “Victoria? Ella? Where have you gone?”

     A chair scrape, the sound of small running feet, and Alix appears in the passageway. “You big girls are not to get down from the table just like that. Come back this moment,” she scolds, arms folded in front of her chest, her little face scowling. 

    Which only makes them laugh harder.