CHAPTER SEVEN: CHARLOTTE-GEORGINA’S ROMANOV RAMBLINGS

By the time the Donottar Castle docked in Tilbury I nearly had to be stretchered off the boat by Atash and Fahran. By contrast, Violet Gratham had a spring in her step that spoke volumes, to me at least. That, thanks to me, her technique between the sheets had improved beyond measure over the preceding ten days almost goes without saying. Quite how she would explain to Willy G her change from modest English maiden to rampant Haymarket houri was not something that kept me awake, although it may have had that effect on the old boy. In any event he was dead (probably of exhaustion) within the month and Violet, so I heard in the Verulam and as was confirmed by Searcy, had moved into the Dower House at Downton where she’d retained the services of a handsome Irish coachman.

Meanwhile, on my return to Stratton Street I found it full of C-G’s time in Russia, a subject that dominated our conversation for the next couple of days. I won’t trouble my readers with an account of the new Lieven-Speedicut blobs, but you may be interested to hear the inside story of the bizarre goings-on at the House of Romanov.

“You know I really don’t think that the Imperial family has recovered from the death of Tsar Alexander,”55 or my Presentation to the Tsar and Tsarina at Dorothea’s wedding, I thought,56 as C-G wittered on over breakfast the morning after I’d returned. You see, after twelve hours talk of nappies and nurses – including, to my considerable distress, during our re-union coupling - I’d banned all talk of Dorothea’s new offspring, the Princesses Tatiana and Anastasia Lieven, so this was a new tack for C-G and she was feeling her way.

“Really, m’dear?” I said disinterestedly from the other end of the table, as Crichton removed the remains of the excellent kippered herrings I’d just eaten and placed a steaming rack of fresh toast in front of me. I spread a large amount of butter and Patum Peperium on a slice,57 whilst at the same time telling Crichton to bring me a fresh cup of tea.

“The Tsar’s unexpected death from kidney failure at such a young age was bad enough,” she sighed.

“You don’t say,” I said non-committedly, as I picked up a freshly ironed copy of The Times that Searcy had just brought in.

“Well, it propelled the weak, ill-prepared and reluctant young Tsarevitch Nicholas onto the throne, so the Dowager Empress confided to me. You know, that letter of introduction from the dear Princess of Wales was really better than a passport…”

“There are worse places to be than a throne,” I said reflectively, as I sipped some tea.

“Thankfully, so the Dowager Empress said, the new Tsar’s has his wife to strengthen his resolve;58 although the Dowager Empress also said that the Russian peasants mutter that she came to her wedding behind a coffin.59 Such silly superstition,” C-G rambled on. “She seems to me to be a level-headed girl and she is, of course, our own dear Queen’s favourite niece,”

“Alicky Hesse may have had the good sense to turn down Eddy Clarence,” I said quietly, turning to the Court Circular, “but she’s a bloody-minded harpy from what I hear.”

“What’s that?” said C-G rather sharply. She couldn’t abide any criticism of her ‘blood relations’, as she called them, no matter how distant.

“I said that the new Empress benefits from the blood of Hanover.”

“Hesse-Darmstadt and by Rhine, actually,” corrected C-G, whose bedtime reading was the Almanac de Gotha. “Anyway, so the Dowager Empress told me, they had a really awful time with the late Tsar’s Lying-in-State. The dear Princess of Wales was there, but she won’t speak of it.”

“Really?” I said, as I got to grips with the latest goings-on in Society.

“As you know, the Tsar died at Livadia in the Crimea…”

“I’m not surprised. In my experience it’s a simply dreadful place,” I said, as I turned back to the foreign news, where my own scribblings had so recently been published.

“But you’ve never been to the Imperial palace at Livadia, Jasper.”

“No, but I’ve spent enough time in the Crimea to know that I never want to go there again,” I said, as I caught up with the progress – or lack of it – of the war in Mashonaland. C-G decided to ignore my views on the dubious delights of the Black Sea resort and ploughed on.

“He died in November. The weather was still mild and he was placed in an open coffin…”

“Barbarous tradition,” I mumbled, as I flicked through the domestic news and reached for another slice of toast.

“Possibly, but it’s the way they do things in Russia. Anyway, twice a day there was a Requiem Mass sung over the coffin attended by the Imperial Family, who each had to kiss the dead Tsar’s lips as a mark of respect. You won’t believe it, but they had to do this at every Mass until the poor man was buried.”

“Disgusting: I said they were barbarians,” I grunted, as I picked up a copy of Sporting Life. Bertie had a fancied runner the following day and my thoughts were now wholly focussed on having a sizeable punt.

“That’s as may be, but it’s what they do. Of course, most bodies are buried well within the week, so it’s not a problem, even in high summer.”

“Fetch some more Patum Peperium would you, Crichton?” I said, not listening.

“I can’t think why you like that stuff, Jasper. It smells like rotting fish to me.”

“That’s the attraction, m’dear,” I said, without further explanation.

“Unfortunately,” she continued back onto the subject of the moment, “Tsars have to be buried in St Petersburg, preceded by a Lying-in-State at the Kremlin in Moscow. So, it was eventually decided to embalm the dead Tsar, by which time his face had turned black.”

“Really? I thought the horse was a bay - is there any more butter, Crichton?” I muttered to our butler, reaching for the last piece of toast in the rack in front of me, discarding Sporting Life and turning my full attention to the latest edition of The Spectator. C-G relentlessly carried on with her tale.

“But there was worse to come, for the embalming was badly done and the body started to decompose.”

“I didn’t know the Tsar was musical.”

“He wasn’t. You know, Jasper, I think you’re becoming rather deaf.”

“Nonsense, m’dear, I’ve heard every word you’ve said.” Heard, but not listened to, I added to myself as I turned to an article about a defenestration in Montenegro.

“Hmm,” she said giving a disbelieving sniff and then rambled on. “Well, the Dowager Empress said that by the time he was buried in the Fortress of Peter & Paul on the seventeenth day the stench was simply appalling.”

“I know: the political situation in the Balkans has deteriorated dreadfully.”

“Are you listening to what I’m saying, Jasper?”

“Certainly, m’dear,” I said shoving the last bit of toast, butter and Patum Peperium into my mouth. Then, to avoid a row, I put down the political rag I was reading and finally gave C-G and her story my full attention.

“Well the worst of it, so the Dowager Empress said, was during the funeral…”

“Nor surprising, m’dear, funerals are dismal affairs which women shouldn’t attend.”

“… when, having taken a deep breath to avoid the awful smell, Her Imperial Majesty approached the coffin - just before they screwed down the lid – and for the last time had to kiss the Tsar’s rotting lips.”

I was out of the dining room and into the water closet in the hall faster than if Ndebele tribesmen had been on my heels. It was several minutes before I felt able to emerge, at least an hour before I got my colour back – and, the following morning, I switched to marmalade with my toast for breakfast.

But this was not the last I was to hear of the Romanovs, for C-G had also attended the Coronation of the new Tsar and was even fuller of it over luncheon than her breakfast-time account of rotting absolute rulers of the type favoured by Baden-Powell. Speaking of whom, a few days after the breakfast incident I was reading The Illustrated London News at the club when I turned the page to be confronted with a photograph of Emperor Franz Josef, gun in hand, surrounded by mountains of dead game, with an absurd Tyrolean hat on his head and wearing leather shorts that exposed his knobbly knees. It was not a pretty sight. But what was uppermost in my mind at that moment was the thought that B-P must have promoted scouting in Austria; if I was correct, he’d never mentioned it to me.

Anyway, Russia remained top of Charlotte-Georgina’s news agenda for some time and, like it or not, my duty was to listen attentively to her reminiscences and comment appropriately, something which I’d signally (and unfortunately) failed to do with regard to the late Tsar’s obsequies. There had been a brief truce during luncheon on that second day, when C-G had the grace to ask me about my ‘time in the bush’; I gave her a full account of my African adventure but – needless to say - omitted any reference to ‘the bush’ on the voyage home. C-G’s Russian offensive resumed over dinner that night.

“Dorothea wasn’t able to travel because of the twi…” I raised my hand and she swerved back to the red carpet, “so I went to Moscow with the Lievens. The whole city had been freshly whitewashed and there were garlands of fir around every door and window, with flags hanging from every balcony. It was all very colourful – if rather malodorous - and made more so by the crowds of unwashed Russian peasants who had converged on Moscow from every corner of the Empire in their local costumes. You know, Jasper, I particularly liked the Cossacks in their fancy coats and astrakhan hats.” I wondered where this was all leading.

“Of course, only members of the government, the Imperial Family and the most senior members of the nobility – including the Lievens - were able to ride in the procession and attend the actual Coronation in the Ouspensky Cathedral. But dear Father Stradorodsky had arranged for me to have a ring-side seat for the Tsar’s entry into Moscow in the well-appointed house of a perfectly charming prima ballerina from the Imperial Ballet.

“Naturally, in England it would have been quite impossible for me to accept such an invitation from someone on the stage, but I asked the Lievens if it was alright and they said that Madame Kschessinska was a great favourite with the Imperial Family.”60

That was one was of putting it, I thought. The last I’d heard of Miss Matilde she’d been the night time comforter – and, by all accounts, a highly skilled one at that – of half the Imperial Family at the same time, including the former Tsarevich with whom she’d romped right up to the point he was frog-marched down the aisle by the ghastly Alicky Hesse.

“The processional route was four miles long and lined, two-deep, its entire length by troops…”

“Good grief,” I exclaimed, “we can barely line The Mall one-deep.”

“And, in addition, there were Regiment upon Regiment of soldiers in the procession which was led by the Imperial Guard cavalry, who looked quite as good as our own Household Cavalry.” I harrumphed but said nothing. “Then came simply hordes of Cossacks uniformed in red and purple. They were followed by the nobility and dear Anatole actually waved to me as he rode past our balcony; at least, I think it was me to whom he waved but it might, I suppose, have been Madame Kschessinska, who anyway blew him a kiss in return.” Silly bint! Of course he was waving to Matilde not her - and for a damned good reason too.

“The next group were all on foot and really looked most out of place amidst the mounted military and the aristocracy.”

“Who were they?”

“The Court Orchestra, the Imperial Hunt and a party of elderly Court Chamberlains! They looked so comical I very nearly laughed but, thank goodness, I was able to restrain myself for they were immediately followed by the Tsar, dressed in a simple Army tunic and riding a pale grey horse. The poor man, who looks just like his cousin Georgie York,61 was obviously under great strain and didn’t smile at all: he just kept his right hand up at the salute. How he didn’t get a terrible cramp, I’ll never know.

“Madame Kschessinska actually cried as he passed us. You know I can’t think why she did that, although she muttered something about him never belonging to her. I should think not: he belongs to the whole of Russia.” For a sophisticated woman-of-a-certain-age, my wife could be painfully naïve (or perhaps ill-informed) at times.

“The Tsar was followed by another mounted group comprising his uncles, his brother Michael (such a handsome man) and all the foreign royalties including our own dear Prince of Wales looking most distinguished in his Field Marshal’s uniform and riding an elegant black.”

I found both assertions hard to believe. At this time, portly Bertie looked like a sausage stuffed into a Christmas stocking and needed a Percheron to carry his weight.

“Behind them came the Dowager Empress, in a vast gold carriage pulled by eight greys, followed by the new Tsarina in her own slightly smaller coach also with eight greys in harness. And that was it – at least for that day. On the following morning…” And so she rabbited on.

I have to confess that by the time she’d got to the Coronation itself, which she had witnessed from a stand outside the Cathedral along with Father Whatisname, my attention had started to falter and I think I dozed through her description of the Coronation Banquet and the Court Ball which ended the day. I do, though, seem to remember her saying that the Coronation ceremony lasted five hours and that, at the Coronation Banquet, she and a thousand other guests dined on borstch, sturgeon, lamb, pheasant, asparagus, poached fruit and ice cream. For the Court Ball C-G wore the Yi Concubine’s pearls, along with the best Whitehall fender, but apparently they were made to look positively insignificant by the huge ropes of diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds worn by the Russian men and women at the ball.

However, it was the events of the next day, and C-G’s unwitting but disastrous involvement in them, that really made me sit up. According to my wife, it was traditional for a new Tsar to lay-on a free bun fight for his so-called loyal subjects (most of whom were nascent Nihilists) the day after the Coronation. The only site big enough for this bean feast was the training ground for the Moscow garrison, a large expanse of grass called the Khodynka Meadow. Unfortunately, because of its primary function, this expanse of turf was criss-crossed with ditches and trenches. To cut a long story short, the great unwashed took it into their lice-infested pates that there wasn’t enough free beer to go around, there was a stampede for the open-air bars, the Squadron of Cossacks on hand for crowd control were swept aside and hundreds of people who’d turned out for free booze and nosh were trampled to death and thousands more were injured. That was definitely not an auspicious start to the reign of His Imperial Majesty Tsar Nicholas II. When the news of what had happened filtered back to the Kremlin, the Tsar said he would cut the Froggy Ambassador’s Ball that night and, instead, retreat to a monastery, don a hair shirt and pray for the souls of the fallen. So far, so sensible.

At this point Charlotte-Georgina entered the picture. When the news filtered in, she was at the Moscow residence of her God-botherer of the moment, who also happened to be the Grand Duke Serge’s confessor. 62 The cleric asked her for her opinion. I think that what she would have said was that what the Tsar proposed was sensible. However, at the critical moment, the man who - as Governor of Moscow - had to take responsibility for the tragedy, the self-same Grand Duke Serge, appeared. Disastrously for the House of Romanov, C-G was (and is) prone to losing all her common sense in the presence of foreign royalty - at least royalty of the standing of the Romanovs and the Grand Duke Serge in particular, who was a tall, languid, absurdly well-dressed and improbably married cove, for whom – given that he was always surrounded by handsome youths - I think she had a distinctly misplaced soft spot. As she related:

“‘Lady Charlotte-Georgina,’ lisped Serge, ‘have you heard about the terrible events of this morning?’”

“‘I have, indeed, Your Imperial Highness,’ ” said C-G as she disappeared through the pile of the Turkey rug in a full Court curtsey.

“‘And you are aware that His Imperial Majesty is proposing, in consequence, not to attend the Marquis de Montebello’s ball?’ ”63 C-G said that she had heard something of the sort. “‘It would,’ he went on, ‘be a great mistake were he to take that course of action.’” C-G asked him why.

“‘Because, first, the French Ambassador has gone to a great deal of trouble and expense, including importing furnishing and silver from Versailles and a hundred thousand roses from the Midi. More importantly, France is our only serious ally in Europe. For my nephew not to attend the ball would cause great offense.’ ” The limp wristed Romanov then made a bad mistake: “‘But what do you think, Lady Charlotte-Georgina?’”

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I said that, under those circumstances, perhaps Their Imperial Majesties should make a brief appearance at the ball and then proceed to the Cathedral to pray for the souls of the dead. And I added that Their Imperial Majesties the following day might tour the hospitals to comfort the wounded - and establish a fund for the injured and the families of the dead.”

“That sounds thoroughly sensible advice to me,” I said. “What happened then?”

“Well, the Grand Duke seemed to think that as a foreigner – and a distant cousin of both of Their Imperial Majesties…”

“A very distant cousin,” I interjected. C-G sniffed and ploughed on.

“… that it would have more impact if I was to convey my views to the Tsar and Tsarina direct.”

“So did you?”

“Yes. The dear Grand Duke swept me off in his carriage to the Kremlin and we were shown straight into the Imperial Presence. Their Imperial Majesties looked completely woebegone; I would be willing to swear that the Tsarina had been crying and the Tsar looked close to tears. We spoke in English, which they both speak very well, and they listened intently to first the Grand Duke and then me.”

“What did the Tsar say to all that?”

“At first he said nothing. Eventually, he said that he was grateful for our advice but that his mind was made up.”

“So how was it that they attended the ball, danced the night away and, in consequence, brought down on their heads the opprobrium of the whole of the Russian populace – those at least that can read?”

“The Empress intervened: ‘Nicky, you must be strong. Lady Charlotte-Georgina makes a very good point: it would not do to offend our French allies.’ Actually, it wasn’t me who’d said that but the Grand Duke. ‘Furthermore, the people will respect you more if you carry on as normal. Duty is the watchword of monarchy, as Aunt England always told me, and if you give in to your emotions now, where will it end?’”

“What did he say to that?” I asked.

“He seemed to brace up a bit. Then he turned to me. ‘Do you agree with my wife, Lady Charlotte-Georgina?’ Well, what could I say? I said that I personally had always put duty before all else and that seemed to make up his mind. ‘Very well, Uncle Sergei, we will attend the ball. But I want you to make arrangements – at my expense - for the dead to be buried in separate coffins, not in the customary mass grave, and for every family to receive a thousand roubles from the Imperial Purse.’ And that was it.”

“Up to a point, m’dear. If I remember rightly, the uncensored foreign press had a field day with the story – and, so Dorothea has written – the Tsar is now seen in Russia as being heartless and totally under the thumb of his wife, who even le gratin are referring to as ‘the German woman’. I seem to remember that that particular soubriquet was applied to another Consort at the end of the last century. Let’s hope it’s not an omen. Speaking of which, it’s just as well for the safety of the twins that they are blamin’ the Tsarina, not a certain Englishwoman of my acquaintance.” For an extremely rare moment Charlotte-Georgina was actually speechless. And that was the last I heard of the Russian Imperial Family, at least for a week or two.

Meanwhile, I was soon plunged back into the merry-go-round of London parties, some shooting, a little gentle hunting and the odd bit of corridor creeping at the better managed house parties (usually those where Bertie was the principal guest). Speaking of whom, those of my less senile readers may remember that I’d once had a romp with London’s merriest widow of 1895, Jenny Churchill.64 One session with that panther was quite enough, even for me, and not because Miss Jerome was a lousy lay; quite the opposite in fact. No. The reason was that, shortly after we’d damned nearly broken the Cadogan Hotel’s best bedsprings, she’d had ‘Reserved for Royalty’ tattooed over the entrance to her tunnel of love. I knew that it wouldn’t be conducive to my general health and happiness if it were to be found that I’d been trespassing on what had become royal property: Bertie had all kinds of ways to make his rivals’ lives a misery. Anyway, from that moment on, I’d steered clear of any further close encounters with Her Randy Ladyship. Nonetheless, she’d occasionally given me one of her ‘come-and-get-me-if-you-dare’ stares when we’d met in or around the Marlborough House set. So it was not really as former lovers that we found ourselves sitting next to one another at a dinner for Bertie, given by the Kinskys’ at their Embassy.65

“Have you met my son, Winston?” 66 she purred as the pike and paprika quenelles were cleared away.