Alexandra (5 page)

What neither the queen nor Eddy knew was that Alix had acquired a Russian language exercise book, and was applying herself to learning Russian in preparation for her forthcoming visit to Ella
– a visit
during which, she was certain, she would see a great deal of her cousin Nicky.

Thick ice crusted the Neva in January of 1890, and deep snowdrifts lined the long, straight boulevard of Nevsky Prospekt where Ella and Serge’s massive red palace stood, squat and
four-square, opposite the far grander Anitchkov Palace where the tsar and his family were in residence for the season. The city was in darkness most of the time; a feeble sun rose just above the
horizon for a few hours at midday, but its pale wintry light, glowing on the snow, was almost spectral, and in order to provide enough light along the canals and walkways, lanterns had to be kept
lit even at noon.

Horses slipped on the icy streets, the jingling of their harness bells a constant noise from morning until late into the night. For St Petersburg in winter came alive in the evening, when the
city’s elite, elegantly gowned and jewelled, drove to one another’s mansions to attend grand soirées. Lines of carriages filled Nevsky Prospekt every night, jostling as they
clogged the broad avenue, the drivers in their thick greatcoats shouting and swearing and urging the horses forwards, the thick reins clutched in gloved hands.

Foreign observers noted a carnival atmosphere among the crowds at St Petersburg dances and receptions, a spirited gaiety that distinguished the highborn Russians from the decorous, ponderous
Germans or the homely albeit ceremonious British. The Russians had style, bravado, dash; their mansions, their clothing, their banquets, the very livery of their servants had a splendour that was
almost gaudy by comparison with the high society of Western capitals. It was, in part, a lavishness of scale; everything in Russia was large, in keeping with the vast land itself – the
fortunes, the aristocratic estates, the style of living. Extravagance and profligacy, among the aristocratic class, were all but taken for granted, an exception being the eccentric tsar himself,
who lived quite modestly in his grand palaces and had raised his children on plain food and amid simple furnishings.

When Alix, her brother and father arrived in the imperial capital the social season was under way, and Ella, an eager hostess who
particularly enjoyed giving balls,
entertained often. Taking her younger sister under her wing, she showed Alix off in the best drawing rooms and ballrooms of the city, and often took her to the dances given by the tsarina, Maria
Feodorovna (‘Minnie’) at the Anitchkov Palace.

Alix was content to follow her sister’s lead, despite her dislike of crowds and her wariness among strangers. She was aware that she was being studied and judged, especially by Minnie and
the tsar himself, and their scrutiny must have made her self-conscious; she knew that she did not truly fit in, that her manners were considered provincial and her inexpensive clothes almost shabby
beside the elaborate gowns of the Russian court ladies. To an extent she lost her self-consciousness when sitting in the theatre, enjoying the delights of the ballet and especially the opera, where
she was swept away by the grandeur of the music. But every time she was introduced to new people or stood in a long reception line, her unease was apparent to those around her. They took note of
her clumsy curtsy, her inability to make light conversation, her stiffness and uncontrollable blushing. They called her a haughty German, and dismissed her from their thoughts.

If the reception of the Petersburgers caused Alix strain, the continued pressure she felt to agree to marry her cousin Eddy was an equal source of stress. Throughout the winter of 1890 Queen
Victoria kept up her campaign to bring about the match, writing letters to Alix herself and to other family members. Far away though she was, the queen maintained a nervous watch on Alix in Russia,
aided by letters from Minnie to her sister the Princess of Wales, Bertie’s wife Alexandra. (Minnie and Alexandra were Danish princesses, daughters of King Christian IX.)

What Minnie told Alexandra was uncompromising and rather harsh. A wife would soon have to be found for Nicky, Minnie told her sister in England, but it would not be Alix. For one thing, it would
never do for the youngest daughter of an undistinguished grand duke to marry the heir to the Russian throne. Besides, Alix was not personally suited to be tsarina. She was too hard, she
lacked grace and tact, she did not have the gift of making people like her.

Alexandra passed on to her mother-in-law Queen Victoria all that Minnie told her, adding that Minnie was ‘very annoyed’ that an attachment had been allowed to develop between Alix
and Nicky. She had in mind another young woman to be Nicky’s wife: Hélène, daughter of the Count of Paris, who was the pretender to the French throne. Hélène would
be preferable in every way, and a Franco-Russian union would reinforce prevailing diplomatic currents.

While their elders worried and schemed, Alix and Nicky met frequently, often when Ella brought them together at social gatherings. For if the Russian sovereigns and Queen Victoria were
vehemently opposed to any thought of marriage between the two young people, Ella and Serge were enthusiastically in favour of it.
¹⁵
Nicky and
Alix skated together, sometimes battling winds so forceful that they could hardly move. They met at tea parties, they attended church services together. They played badminton, built snow
fortresses, and slid down immense ice hills on sledges. Ella staged a performance of
Eugene Onegin
at her private theatre and persuaded Nicky to play a small part; whether Alix had a part
is unknown, but doubtless she watched the rehearsals and chatted with Nicky during them.
¹⁶

Alix and Nicky were falling in love. For Alix it was a deepening of the feeling she had cherished for five years, while Nicky’s desire for his beautiful cousin grew ‘stronger and
more tender’, he afterwards wrote, during their winter in St Petersburg. The fact that both were being strongly influenced to choose other marriage partners must have intensified their bond,
and made it more romantic.

On the last Sunday of the carnival season, a small end-of-season party was held at Tsarskoe Selo, the imperial estate some thirteen miles south of St Petersburg, for Nicky’s family and
close friends. The dancing began in the afternoon, followed by a dinner of blinis with fresh caviar, then a cotillion, with gifts for all the guests and more dancing until late into the evening.
Most likely Alix was not able to dance all evening, her legs were not strong enough, and
knowing that she would soon be leaving Russia may have saddened her.

Carnival was in its last waning hours and Lent, the long season of austerity, was about to begin. At midnight a signal was given and immediately the musicians stopped playing and the dance floor
cleared. The mood in the ballroom turned solemn. The dancers sat down to a Fasting Meal of mushrooms, cabbage and potatoes, their minds adjusting to the swift change of atmosphere.

For Alix and Nicky, who had spent so many intense hours in each other’s company, it was almost their last evening together. A long season of deprivation had begun.

S
hortly after she returned home to Darmstadt, in April or May of 1890, Alix sat down to write a letter to her cousin Eddy. She knew that she had to
give him a final, definitive answer. In her own mind, there was nothing but certainty that Nicky was the one she wanted to marry – though after her disapproving reception by his parents
during her stay in St Petersburg, she must have wondered if her hopes were futile.

Alix told Eddy, in kind but firm language, that although it ‘pained her to pain him’, she had to say once and for all that she could not marry him. She was sure that they would not
be happy together. She urged him to put her out of his mind, assured him of her cousinly affection, and closed her letter.
¹

To her grandmother she put her case somewhat differently, saying that if she were ‘forced’ by the family to go against her inclinations and her better judgment, she would do her duty
and marry Eddy, but that if she did, in the end both of them would be miserable.

The queen, who was after all humane and reasonable, was apparently convinced that Alix was right, or at least that she was unshakable in her feelings and opinions, and gave in, though her
disappointment and that of Eddy’s parents was considerable, and Eddy himself was crushed. She decided that Alix had shown ‘great strength of character’ in holding firm against so
much family persuasion, though she thought it a shame that her stubborn granddaughter was refusing what she considered ‘the greatest position there is’.
²

Alix was headstrong, Ella was very eager for her to marry in Russia, Nicky was lovesick: it was all but inevitable that Alix would return to Russia, and soon.

As for Alix’s father Louis, although Queen Victoria admonished him to be ‘strong and firm’ in directing his daughter’s future, he was at best passive; he had become an
unhappy man, and was unwell. After his disastrous marriage to Alexandrine von Kolemine (a marriage quickly annulled, with Madame von Kolemine given a large cheque and sent away), Louis was scorned
by all his in-laws and lonely in Darmstadt. He took refuge with Queen Victoria in England for a while, but even there he was harassed by his former mistress, and could find no peace.
³
Russia was one of the few places where he was beyond the reach of the vengeful Alexandrine von Kolemine, and was not made to feel a pariah. Thus when Ella
invited him to return there, to stay with her and Serge at their country estate of Illinsky near Moscow, he was only too glad to accept her invitation.

When Alix, her brother and father arrived once again in Russia in the summer of 1890 the snow had melted and, in the immense expanses of agricultural land around Moscow, fields of green flax and
golden wheat stretched away towards the horizon. The vast stretches of meadow and plain were broken here and there by groves of birch and deep pine forests, and as the travellers made their way
along the rutted roads, they passed through dozens of small villages. Each village, it seemed, had its own blue-domed church, its own pond or stream; the small wooden houses, many of them
intricately carved with patterns of stars and flowers, garlands and arches, clustered along a single narrow unpaved refuse-clogged street. Here and there along the road, planks were laid down to
cover deep mudholes. In some places the wooden bridges crossing streams had been swept away by swollen waters, and the travellers had to take long detours.

The quiet of the countryside, the long stretches of road between villages and the expansive forest glades, where the white trunks of the birches rose out of clumps of blooming forget-me-nots,
moss and thick grass, were soothing to the spirit; Alix, who craved quiet
and solitude, must have felt refreshed by her surroundings, despite her nervousness at the
prospect of seeing Nicky again.

Ella and Serge’s summer house at Illinsky was a rambling, rustic structure with wide balconies skirting the large inner rooms. Light, flowery English prints covered the furniture and
curtained the windows, and fresh flowers brightened the wood-panelled rooms. They kept open house; friends came and went, sometimes staying for weeks at a time. The atmosphere was informal, and on
fine days everyone stayed outside as much as possible, taking a picnic lunch into the forest, hunting for mushrooms, swimming in the cool ponds or simply reading in the shade of a large tree. The
long hours of daylight encouraged wakefulness. Sometimes, on warm starry nights, gypsy choruses came to serenade in the garden, and all the neighbours gathered to listen, afterwards waiting up
together to watch for the break of dawn.

Always in the background of Alix’s thoughts was what Ella had told her, that Nicky would probably come to Illinsky to join the rest of the family in celebrating Ella’s name day,
September 18. She daydreamed about him, longing for September to come. Yet in her soberer moments she ‘thought she would never get him’, and must have confided her anxieties to
Ella.
⁴

Meanwhile Nicky had told his father that he was in love with Alix and wanted to marry her, and was fighting an urge to go to Illinsky even earlier than Ella’s name day celebration. He was
prevented from going, for the time being, by having to be present for army manoeuvres, but he confided to his diary that if he didn’t go, he would miss his chance to see her and would have to
‘wait a whole year, and that’s hard!!!’
⁵

As heir to the throne Nicky was not free to go where he liked, when he liked. His parents guarded his movements, as they kept close watch on whom he saw and where he went. They were still
pressuring him to marry the French princess Hélène, and he was still resisting. And there was a new complication in his emotional life. His father, thinking that it was time his
twenty-two-year-old son had a mistress, arranged for Nicky to meet the eighteen-year-
old Matilda Kchessinsky, the newest star graduate of the Imperial Ballet School. The
dark, lithe Matilda, vibrant and charming, immediately appealed to Nicky, who fell ‘passionately in love’ with her while at the military camp in the summer of 1890. They were not yet
lovers – that would come in time – but, much to Nicky’s surprise, he now cherished two loves at once.