The Grand Duchess of Nowhere

The Grand Duchess of Nowhere Read Free

Book: The Grand Duchess of Nowhere Read Free
Author: Laurie Graham
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day that passed. Ernie didn’t avoid me, not at all. He just didn’t ask me to marry him.
    I began to think there must be something wrong with me. I studied myself in a hand mirror and found quite a number of imperfections. My face is rather long. My complexion has a slightly sallow cast. Then Aunt Louise arrived and weighed up the situation at once.
    She said, ‘You’re not the problem, darling. You’re stunning and Ernie needs to grow up.’
    Aunt Louise was Pa’s sister. We were supposed not to approve of her and I’m sure if Mother had known she’d be in the Balmoral party, I wouldn’t have been allowed to attend. The charge againstAunt Louise was that she was over-endowed with an artistic temperament that marriage had done nothing to tame. It can happen in the best of families.
    ‘No regard for the proprieties,’ Mother said.
    We’d been denied any further explanation but Missy’s guess was that Aunt Louise misbehaved with men. After all, if the problem were one of insanity she would have been put away. And being artistic wasn’t in itself a bad thing. We were all encouraged to produce a watercolour or two. We were forced to the conclusion that our aunt received gentlemen callers when her husband wasn’t at home. Missy grew quite excited at the thought of an aunt behaving so outrageously. I just loved the way Aunt Louise narrowed her eyes when she thought someone was talking tosh. Even Grandma Queen.
    Aunt Louise was alone at the breakfast table one morning when I went in.
    ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Just the girl I want to talk to. Tell me about the Ernie situation.’
    I told her how things stood. Grandma Queen wanted it. Mother wanted it. Ernie wasn’t against it. It just never seemed to progress.
    ‘And what do you want?’ she said.
    Really, I just wanted to go home. I wanted people to stop discussing me.
    ‘Quite right,’ she said. ‘You’re still so young. What’s the hurry? Where are you in the succession? Absolutely nowhere. Pass the butter dish.’
    I said, ‘Ernie’s very nice.’
    ‘Yes?’ she said. I wasn’t sure she was agreeing with me.
    ‘The main thing, Ducky,’ she said, ‘is to marry someone you can rub along with. I did. Look, the sky didn’t fall on my head. The ravens haven’t left the Tower.’
    Aunt Louise was married to Lorne. He was just a Marquess in those days. Later on he became Duke of Argyll. Now he’s dead.
    She was playing with the butter, shaping it into a little human head.
    She said, ‘What do you want to do with your life?’
    It was a question I’d never considered. Surely we all did what we were ordained to do. The army, in the case of my brother, Affie. Marry suitably, in the case of myself and my sisters.
    She said, ‘You’re a bright girl, healthy and able. What are your dreams? What do you hope to achieve?’
    Dreams, hopes, achievements. One began to see why Mother avoided Aunt Louise. But there was no escape. It was just me, my aunt and two inscrutable footmen stationed at either end of the sideboard. I felt an obligation to give some kind of answer, and quickly. I told her I hoped to get my three-year-old jumping over poles by the end of the year.
    She narrowed her eyes but I believe she was just judging her sculpture.
    ‘Well, that’s something,’ she said. ‘But you don’t yearn to write books or cross the Sahara desert?’
    These were not options I had realised might be open to me, as Aunt Louise understood from my gaping mouth.
    ‘Those are merely examples I plucked out of the air,’ she said. ‘When I was your age, I’d already decided to be an artist.’
    My breakfast kipper lay cooling on the plate. I felt I was a disappointment to my aunt.
    ‘Some people know at once what they want to do,’ she said. ‘Others take longer. And some, of course, never want to do anything. The main thing is not to tie yourself to a husband before you know. Imagine discovering you have a passion to explore theAmazon rainforests but you can’t

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