The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra(19)

Alexandra spent Nicholas’s absence at Livadia in the Crimea, where he rejoined her on 9 October, but it was the end of the month before his mother heard the news: ‘I am now in a position to tell you, dear Mama, that with God’s help – we expect a new happy event next May.’ But, he added:

She begs you not to talk about it yet, although I think this is an unnecessary precaution, because such news always spreads very quickly. Surely everyone here is guessing it already, for we have both stopped lunching and dining in the common dining room and Alix does not go driving any more, twice she fainted during Mass – everybody notices all this, of course.23

Privately, Alexandra was apprehensive not just about the sex of her unborn child, but the physical suffering to come: ‘I never like





48


693GG_TXT.indd 48

29/10/2013 16:17

MY GOD! WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT! . . .

making plans’, she told Grandmama in England. ‘God knows how it will all end.’24 Fits of giddiness and severe nausea forced her to spend much of her third pregnancy lying down, or sitting on the balcony of the palace at Livadia. Her husband’s devotion to her was exemplary; he pushed his wife around in her bath chair and read to her daily and at length: first War and Peace and then a history of Alexander I. They remained in Livadia until 16 December. Till now managing only with a temporary nanny, Alexandra had set about finding a permanent one. Her cousin Thora’s lady-in- waiting Emily Loch had good contacts in England and knew whom to ask and in December wrote to Alexandra recommending a Miss Margaretta Eagar. The thirty-six-year-old Irish Protestant came with good domestic skills as cook, housekeeper and needlewoman, as well as considerable experience in looking after children. She had trained as a medical nurse in Belfast and had worked as matron of a girls’

orphanage in Ireland and was the older sister of one of Emily Loch’s friends. Emily sent a personal report on Miss Eagar to Alexandra, emphasizing that she was straightforward and unsophisticated, with no interest in court intrigues. When approached about the position, Margaretta had hesitated at first, fearful of the responsibility of looking after a newborn baby in addition to two small children. But as one of ten herself – seven of them girls – she had had plenty of experience looking after younger female siblings and took some additional training with babies before travelling to Russia.25 Her life there would, however, be extremely sheltered. She would have no opportunity of sharing her experiences with other British nannies and governesses, of whom there were many in St Petersburg. Any excursions with the children, and even on her own, would be strictly monitored by the tsar’s security police, allowing her little or no opportunity to see anything of ‘the land of the Czar’ beyond the confines of the imperial residences.26

On 2 February 1899, Margaretta Eagar arrived at the Winter Palace by train from Berlin. After resting, she was taken by Alexandra to see her new charges. It was the feast of the Purification of the Virgin and Olga and Tatiana were exquisitely dressed ‘in transparent white muslin dresses trimmed with Brussels lace, and worn over pale-blue satin slips. Pale-blue sashes and shoulder ribbons completed 49

693GG_TXT.indd 49

29/10/2013 16:17

FOUR SISTERS

their costumes.’ ‘Innumerable Russian nurses and chambermaids’

would of course assist Margaretta in her duties, including trained children’s nurse Mariya Vishnyakova who had been hired in May 1897. Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna* recalled how the nursery staff at Tsarskoe Selo wore uniforms, ‘all in white, with small nurse-caps of white tulle. With this exception: two of their Russian nurses were peasants and wore the magnificent native peasant costumes.’27

Maria and her brother Dmitri (the children of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich), who were a few years older than Olga and Tatiana, were among the first playmates the girls had within the Romanov family. Maria remembered how pleasant the ambience of the girls’

apartments was: ‘The rooms, light and spacious, were hung with flowered cretonne and furnished throughout with polished lemonwood’, which she found ‘luxurious, yet peaceful and comfortable’.

After playing upstairs, the children would have an early supper in the nursery and then be taken down to see Nicholas and Alexandra, where they would be greeted and kissed ‘and the Empress would take from the nurse’s arms her youngest daughter, keeping the baby beside her on the chaise-longue’. The older children would sit and look at photograph albums ‘of which there was at least one on every table’. Everything was extremely relaxed; Nicholas sitting opening and reading his sealed dispatches, as Alexandra passed round the glasses of tea.28

Although Alexandra’s attitude to family life was unusually informal for an empress, she was certainly glad of Miss Eagar’s presence; for by March 1899 her pregnancy was proving extremely uncomfortable.

The baby was lying in an awkward position that aggravated her sciatica; yet again she was spending most of her pregnancy in a bath chair.29 On 9 May the family left Tsarskoe Selo for Peterhof to await the arrival of the new member of the family, which was mercifully quick and straightforward. At 12.10 p.m. on 14 June 1899 another robust girl was born, weighing 10 lb (4.5 kg). They called her Maria, * Maria (or Marie) Pavlovna was often referred to as ‘the younger’ in order to differentiate her from Maria Pavlovna ‘the elder’, the wife of Grand Duke Vladimir.