Free The Grand Duchess of Nowhere by Laurie Graham

God knows where, playing battleships. How can there be any future in that?’
    That’s how easy it was to tell him. Ernie didn’t take anything seriously.
    On the Monday afternoon Grandma Queen came into town from Windsor. Cyril’s train was delayed because Her Majesty’s arrival brought everything at Paddington Station to a halt but he arrived just in time to dress for dinner. I wore grey silk and my amethysts, Cyril greeted me in an impeccably cousin-like way and I kept my poise in spite of Ernie’s beastly efforts at unsettling me with his imitations of Cyril’s military bearing.
    ‘He’s like a heron,’ he said. ‘A heron in a tailcoat. Having recently swallowed a bad fish.’
    *
    The next day was a public holiday to celebrate the Jubilee. There was a carriage procession to St Paul’s. Pa and Cyril and Ernie were all part of the mounted escort, and brother Affie too, though he didn’t look at all well. ‘Costive,’ Mother said. ‘He needs Syrup of Figs.’
    She and I were consigned to one of the rearmost landaus. Mother swore she really couldn’t have cared less.
    ‘Call that a procession?’ she said. ‘Her Majesty’s Lord Chamberlain should go to Russia to see how a procession should be done.’
    Because of Grandma Queen’s great age, the Te Deum was sung outside the cathedral, to save her the effort of climbing all those steps. She was still possessed of a sharp mind but at seventy-eight, which of us wouldn’t be relieved to be able to stay in the comfort of our carriage?
    There was a luncheon afterwards, at Buckingham Palace. That was when I first got the chance of a quiet word with Cyril.
    I said, ‘Ernie knows.’
    ‘Knows what?’ he said. ‘There’s nothing for him to know.’
    That wasn’t what he was supposed to say.
    I said, ‘What I mean is, I told him that you and I have feelings for each other and he doesn’t mind in the least. As long as he can carry on as he pleases he doesn’t care what I do.’
    Cyril said, ‘Doesn’t care? The bounder. But I care, Ducky.
Bozhe moy
, another man’s wife! I mean to say, it’s unthinkable. You’d be ruined.’
    I said, ‘But I’m already ruined. I’m a laughing stock. Ernie goes with boys and the whole household knows about it.’
    ‘Even so,’ he said. ‘If word of this were to go any further. Our names linked. It could be damned awkward.’
    It was a sickening moment. Cyril thought I was about to faint. He helped me to a chair.
    He said, ‘I suppose this is my fault. I shouldn’t have confessed my feelings. It’s unsettled you. But you must see, it’s a futile case. Best to forget we ever spoke. Put it behind us. Not that there ever was anything.’
    I said, ‘But what if someday I were free?’
    He turned rather pale.
    He said, ‘Ducky, much as I adore you, I’m not prepared to fight a duel over you.’
    I managed a laugh.
    I said, ‘No one fights duels any more, you noodle.’
    He said, ‘Then what can you mean by “free”? Is Ernie unwell? He looks perfectly healthy.’
    I said, ‘It’s very simple. I’m going to talk to Grandma Queen. I’m going to ask her permission for Ernie and me to divorce.’
    Then I thought
he
might faint.
    ‘No, Ducky,’ he said. ‘Never, never. Our kind of people don’t divorce.’
    Our kind of people.
    I said, ‘So if I did get a divorce, you wouldn’t marry me?’
    He groaned.
    ‘And if I’m divorced and you marry someone else, I’ll be the kind of woman you won’t allow your wife to meet. So whatever I do I’m doomed to wretchedness. And you don’t care, so long as I don’t create a scandal.’
    ‘Ducky, Ducky,’ he said. He touched my hair. He began to walk away, then he came back.
    ‘Please stop and think,’ he said. ‘If you have any regard for Her Majesty, don’t trouble her with this. It will kill her.’
    I said, ‘That was Ernie’s excuse for doing nothing too, but I imagine he just doesn’t want her to know about his stable-boys.’
    ‘And quite right