Alexandra describes first meeting her future husband, and falling in love with his family life:
He sat next to me and shyly apologised to me in
English for not speaking German very well, and I said I didn’t mind because I
generally preferred to speak English anyway and I was just relieved that Serge
had been teasing me, and I wasn’t expected to speak French after all.
‘Sometimes I speak French to Mama,’ Nicky said, ‘but Papa likes us to be Russian and not so old-fashioned-like.’
.....It’s no wonder really that I couldn’t sleep - I went
to bed feeling sort of mixed-up and excited with everything I’d seen – and as
for Nicky! – Well, it was the first time I’d sat and talked at a grown-up
dinner table with a strange boy, so it was bound to have quite an effect. Young
as I was, I fell immediately under the spell of those deep expressive eyes!
....There was a maypole on the beach with canvas
loops suspended from it on ropes – the first time I’d seen such a thing. We ran
round and round it with the loops round our waists and then launched ourselves
into the air, flying freely on the ropes for a few minutes before coming to
rest in a flurry of wet sand. I remember Xenia tearing around with her skirts
hitched inside her knickers and being reminded by Irène in her new role as
eldest unmarried sister that ‘Xenia is only nine and you should not contemplate
such a thing any more, at your age!’ – as if I would have done anyway!
Time after time I would find Nicky sitting next to me at dinner – I started to think it couldn’t always be coincidence and I used to get the strangest hot feeling in my tummy when I saw him coming! One day he wrote me a letter from his schoolroom, which was delivered to me personally in our rooms at the big palace. Papa, Ernie, Irène – all of them saw it arrive, and they all looked at each other with smiles and sparkling eyes and teased me dreadfully. The thing is, they didn’t actually know which of the Grand Dukes had written it! – But I can’t imagine Georgy doing such a thing, anyway. He was great fun but really a very naughty boy who strutted around the park with a huge green parrot on his shoulder, uttering raucous cat-calls when he saw Ernie and Nicky and me lying on the nets telling each other secrets with rather flushed faces....Just occasionally Uncle Sasha would seize a hosepipe from one of the flowerbeds and direct it at his children if he thought they were getting out of hand, but they just laughed at this and leaped about dodging the jet of water. Really, they were such a happy family, it was wonderful to be around them and so very different to Granny’s prejudiced ideas.
We spent a lot of time exploring all the various
buildings around the Peterhof park – starting with the dear Italian house down
on the shore at
Engagement to Nicholas is a turmoil of emotions, as events begin to spiral:
Most mornings
began with breakfast outside in the garden with Granny. As often as not I used
to have go and summon Nicky through the window of his rooms, because of that
penchant he had then for sleeping in. – Funny how well he’s disciplined himself
out of that. Sometimes he had the right to be tired; he was invited to
regimental dinners by British soldiers and didn’t get back until late, and then
I would insist on sitting up and talking and kissing all alone until the early
hours, because it was the only time we could be really private. There was a
certain frisson in that, of course, and it led to dreams that would have
shocked poor Granny to the core! – She did tell us off, and she asked
......We
came to white-washed settlements, where Tartar peoples would come out to look
at us, the women heavily veiled. Each chieftain would take his place on
horseback in front of our carriage and gallop ahead of us until we’d left the
village behind. There were also Russian people in the
‘The Heir! The Heir!’
The trials of rearing her son:
Alexei by nature is not necessarily
any more difficult than any of his sisters (none of whom are angels): however,
his unique circumstances have at times made his character impossibly tough to
manage. When he was tiny he was terribly spoiled in the nursery by Mary
Vishniakova: because of her anxiety about his illness, she couldn’t bring
herself to say no to him. And then of course he was aware very early of who he
was: at one year old he went to military reviews with us and the soldiers
cheered him, and he clapped his hands and shouted ‘Hurrah!’ back at them, which
delighted everyone present.
....... In some ways, of
course, it was easier to cure his arrogance than it had been in Olga’s case,
because he was the youngest. Whatever he might be to the public, at home he was
Alexei Romanov, ‘number five’, and his sisters sat on him very firmly when he
was obnoxious.
At
times it was
embarrassing: I remember him spotting his little friend Kiril (the ‘English baby’ of Tsarskoe) when out
driving, and asking for the automobile to stop so the child could get
in. Marie
and Anastasia were asked to move over to make room, and they brusquely
refused.
Alexei repeated the demand, the three of them had a loud argument, and
he leapt
out of the car and raced away into his friend’s garden, shouting
and yelling,
in full view of several passers-by.
Nature of course had other ways of reminding our poor Little One that he was not a demi-god. When he was small, he was well most of the time: his worst problem was the big blue bruises which could make him look frightful, particularly when they affected the face. The strain in these years was on Nicky and me: living in a constant state of alertness and mild anxiety in case something serious happened to him.
.......His toys were very extravagant: it was necessary to
give him things that would distract him from wild games. Thus the model railway
in the nursery had moving figures on it; he just had to flip a switch to set
them off. The signals and scenery were terribly elaborate. In quiet moments on
wet afternoons, Nicky and he would play with this for hours.
There were also battleships and aeroplanes, a tepee like his Aunt Xenia had long ago in ’84, and regiments and regiments of toy soldiers. He liked to line them up and drill them and dream about being a medieval tsar leading his troops into battle: then Anastasia would race into the room and kick over several rows and there’d be screams and tantrums and fights again.
....Late 1907 was when the muscle bleeds started;
when I felt for the first time the true spiritual impact of what I’d done to my
son, and I’d sit and comfort him and hold him while he cried: my perfect baby,
my beautiful chubby little boy, tall and strong and rosy – wailing in misery
and incomprehension against the disease I’d transmitted. And Nicky stood next
to me and touched my cheek, and walked with the girls and came back to me with
sweet little stories of their games in the park while their brother suffered,
and knelt down before me while I looked into those eyes that are like a window
into heaven, full of purity and love and gentleness; eyes that have never for a
second blamed me for what his child was going through, for bringing a torment
like the outside world into this little home that was his refuge, that was so
perfect. .....Darling Angel, you don’t know
what you are to me, how much and how often I pray to be worthy of your love.
Forgive me if ever I have grieved you, and believe me deary it was not
willingly done.