Free The Romanov Sisters (Four Sisters) by Helen Rappaport Page A

the roadside in the rain. And
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    FOUR SISTERS
    there on the doorstep was Grandmama waiting to greet them,
    surrounded by many of her extended family.
    Everyone at Balmoral was charmed by the chubby and happy
    ten-month-old Olga, including her admiring great-grandmother.
    ‘The baby is magnificent’, she told her eldest daughter Vicky in
    Berlin; all in all she was ‘a lovely, lively grandchild’.62 ‘Oh, you never saw such a darling as she is,’ wrote the queen’s lady-in-waiting Lady Lytton, ‘a very broad face, very fat, in a lovely high Sir Joshua baby bonnet – but with bright intelligent eyes, a wee mouth and so happy
    – contented the whole day.’ Lady Lytton thought Olga ‘quite an
    old person already – bursting with life and happiness and a perfect
    knowledge how to behave’.63 The British press remarked on
    Alexandra’s ‘pride and joy at having a little daughter to bring with
    her’ as being ‘almost pathetic to witness’.64 ‘The tiny Grand Duchess takes very kindly to her new surroundings,’ reported the Yorkshire Herald , ‘and it is said that the moment she saw her great-grandmother she delighted that august lady by adopting her as her first and most
    willing slave.’65 Queen Victoria was so smitten that she even went
    to see Olga taking her bath, as did other members of the royal
    household, all of whom admired a happy and informal Russian
    empress enjoying the pleasure of her child – so totally in contrast
    to her normal stiff and haughty manner.
    Nicholas meanwhile was having rather a miserable time of it,
    suffering from neuralgia and a swollen face – caused by the decayed
    stump of a tooth (he was fearful of the dentist). He complained
    during the visit that he saw even less of Alix than at home, because
    his uncle Bertie insisted on dragging him out grouse- shooting and
    deer-stalking all day in the cold, wind and rain. ‘I am totally exhausted from clambering up hills and standing for ages . . . inside mounds
    of earth’, he wrote in his diary.66
    During their stay baby Olga had been trying to take her first
    steps and her two-year-old cousin David – son of the Duke of York
    and the future Edward VIII – had taken a shine to her, going to
    see her daily and offering an encouraging hand, so that by the time
    the family left, Olga was able to toddle across the drawing room
    holding his hand. Queen Victoria noted the children together with
    marked interest. It was a pretty pairing; ‘La Belle Alliance’, she is 40
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    said to have approvingly remarked to Nicholas. The imagination of
    the British press quickly ran riot, with claims even of an informal
    betrothal.67
    On one of the finer days of their visit the first and only cine-
    matograph film of Nicholas and Alexandra with Queen Victoria was
    made in the courtyard at Balmoral, filmed by William Downey, the
    royal photographer. Before leaving, the couple planted a tree to
    commemorate their visit. Alexandra had enjoyed being back in
    Scotland and was sad to go: ‘It has been such a very short stay and
    I leave dear kind Grandmama with a heavy heart’, she told her old
    governess Madge Jackson. ‘Who knows when we may meet again
    and where?’68
    *
    On 3 October (NS) the imperial family took the train south to
    Portsmouth where they boarded the Polyarnaya zvezda for a five-day state visit to France. From Cherbourg to Paris, they were greeted
    by huge crowds lining the streets, and arrived in the capital to a
    grand reception at the Elysée Palace hosted by President Faure.
    The French were fascinated that such distinguished monarchs should
    have their baby on tour with them rather than leave her behind in
    the nursery. Olga was so adaptable and had such a placid tempera-
    ment that she travelled well, sitting on her nurse’s lap in an open
    landau. Her smiling presence, with her nurse helping her wave her
    hand to the crowd and