The Grand Duchess of Nowhere Read Free Page B

lady, because he’s quite out of the question.’
    I promised her I’d never given a thought for Cyril, which wasn’t strictly true. I also omitted to mention my conversation with Aunt Louise.
    ‘Well,’ she said, ‘Ernie Hesse has had his last chance. As soon as Missy is well enough to spare me I shall come home and reconsider the Bourbons.’
    Pa never talked about husbands. He usually left that side of things to Mother, but the very moment she’d left he sent for me.
    He said, ‘No flim-flam, Ducky. A straight yes or no. If Ernie Hesse asks for you, will you have him?’
    I said I would.
    Pa said, ‘Then I’m going to write to your grandmamma and seal the affair, once and for all. If I don’t, your mother will have you spliced to one of those Spanish buffoons and I’ll never see you again. Bad enough business about Missy. Bloody Romania.’
    It was the first time my father had ever hinted that he’d mind not seeing me if marriage took me far away. I began to cry.
    ‘Now, now,’ he said. ‘No need for any of that nonsense. Hesseseems a bit of a lightweight to me but he has many points in his favour. Raised by English nurses, so he should be pretty sound. He has a nice establishment in Darmstadt. Comfortable, plain. Not filled with silly drapery. And I’ve heard he has excellent shooting at Wolfsgarten, though from what one observed of him at Balmoral it may be rather wasted on him. But whatever, this stalling cannot continue. It makes your mother irritable and whatever discommodes her discommodes me. It seems someone has to put some resolve into the little pansy and the person to do it is Her Majesty.’
    And that was how it happened. Pa wrote to Grandma Queen, she wrote to Ernie and Ernie came to Coburg for my seventeenth birthday. He brought me a Cairngorm pin, to remind me of the fun we’d had at Balmoral.
    He said, ‘I’ll try not to make you unhappy, Ducky.’

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    Mother was jolly cross when she found everything had been settled in her absence.
    I said, ‘But I thought you wanted me to marry Ernie?’
    ‘I did,’ she said, ‘but not if he had to be dragooned into it by that interfering old woman. Your father had no business meddling. I had everything in hand. And a Cairngorm brooch! What kind of an engagement token is that? Such an unattractive stone, especially for someone with your colouring. He should have given you amethysts, at the very least.’
    It wasn’t an auspicious start. Mother was begrudging, Ernie was glum and Grandma Queen was at her most bullying. The wedding must be in April, she said. Not inconsiderately in the middle of winter, as Missy’s had been, and not in the summer when the heat of Coburg would certainly kill her. She would arrive on 16th April and we should therefore have the wedding three days later, after she’d had time to recover from her journey. That was how our wedding date was set.
    Mother had given me diamonds and pearls, but then Emperor Uncle Sasha and Aunt Minnie sent an emerald pendant, so Mother, never one to be outdone, added an emerald diadem to my wedding jewels. Then Ernie said he’d very much like me to wear his dear,departed mother’s veil and I of course agreed and walked into my first conflict with his sister, Alexandra. Sunny.
    She said, ‘You might have asked me before you presumed.’
    I said, ‘But I didn’t presume. It was Ernie’s wish, that’s all. I really couldn’t care less what veil I wear. It’s just a piece of lace, and I’m only borrowing it for an hour.’
    She said, ‘It’s not just a piece of lace. It’s the finest Honiton and it was our dear mother’s. I do hope you’ll take proper care of it.’
    What did she think? That I was going to tear it up for a jelly bag?
    ‘Taking it all the way to Coburg,’ she said. ‘It poses such a risk.’
    The family call her Sunny. I’ve never understood why. Frosty would suit her better. Or Cloudy.
    Ernie had three darling sisters, Vicky, Irene and Ella, all long married,