The Grand Duchess of Nowhere by Laurie Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

little, it made everything else bearable.
    I said, ‘I’ve always liked you.’
    ‘And I you,’ he said. ‘How silly that we only just got round to admitting it.’
    I said, ‘Perhaps we can write? I’d like to know where you are.’
    He said I’d find him an erratic correspondent but he’d certainly try. And then the dancing started up again and he partnered me for the mazurka and a waltz. He was a superb dancer. It’s been too long since we danced.
    He said, ‘I long to kiss you, Ducky, darling. I can’t, of course, but I just wanted you to know.’
    That was when I really knew that Things weren’t right with Ernie. He’d never, ever said anything so delicious.
    It was dawn when we drove the short way back to the Governor’s house. The streets were empty and the shops were still shuttered although you could smell that the bakers were already at work. Ernie was tipsy. I was on air. I imagined I could still feel the press of Cyril’s hand on my back.
    Ernie said, ‘Bloody excellent people, the Yusupovs. Bloody fine party. We should give parties like that.’
    There were lamps burning in the library. Ernie made a terrible racket stumbling and crashing up the stairs and Uncle Serge came out and told him off. Aunt Ella had been home for hours and was asleep. Uncle Serge had little prospect of going to bed himself. At Khodynka there were still unburied dead. Emperor Nicky’s gesture was all very well, but it wasn’t so easy for Uncle Serge to find so many pine coffins at short notice.
    ‘Sleep well,’ he said.
    And I did, a very contented sleep till late in the morning, but when I woke I found things didn’t look as rosy as they had the night before. Cyril Vladimirovich was nineteen years old and just starting out on his naval career. He’d see the world, meet beautiful women,and eventually he’d marry. More than likely I’d be expected to attend his wedding. And all the silliness of the night before, all the talk of ‘if only’ and of forbidden kisses, was absolutely meaningless because I was stuck with Ernie and Darmstadt. I was in a hateful mood all day.
    Ernie said, ‘You’re always disagreeable when you’ve been drinking champagne.’
    He went out with the nurses again, when they took the children to the Gardens. He was a child himself, really. That was the day he came home with the idea of building a waterslide, at Wolfsgarten.
    I was called to the telephone. Missy.
    ‘Well?’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting all morning to hear from you. Can you talk? Just answer yes or no. Did Cyril declare himself?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I knew he would! Was it divine dancing with him?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Are you happy?’
    ‘No.’
    Missy felt I had the wrong attitude to men.
    ‘You take it all too seriously,’ she’d say. ‘It’s nothing to do with marriage and babies and all that. Marriage is the sago pudding we’re obliged to eat. Now you need a little jam.’
    Missy enjoyed flirtations. She began them and the very moment they started to pall she looked around for the next one.
    She said, ‘By the by, did Cyril happen to say anything about me? In relation to Boris? I believe I’ve taken his fancy.’
    I said, ‘Missy, you’re here with your husband and your children.’
    ‘So?’ she said. ‘I’m only talking about a little holiday diversion. I do hope Boris will be coming out to Arkhangelskoe.’
    When the Coronation celebrations were finished and the last of the Khodynka dead had been buried, we were all going tothe country estates. Ernie and I were to stay with Aunt Ella and Uncle Serge at Ilyinskoe. Missy and Nando would be put up by the Yusupovs at Arkhangelskoe. There was to be no summer in the country for Cyril though. He was leaving to join his ship at Kronstadt.
    I said, ‘I hardly think Boris is the type for a country house party full of marrieds and their children. And anyway, doesn’t he keep a ballerina?’
    Missy said, ‘Of course he keeps a ballerina. What’s that to do with