The Mysterious Alexandra Tarasova-Yusupov Read online

  “That foolish boy,” she screamed inwardly.

  “Have you some sort of understanding about marriage with Prince Boris, Anna?”

  “Yes, I am with child.”

  “You know it is from Prince Boris?”

  “I was a virgin. He is the only one.”

  “I am sure you are a good girl, but I am also sure that this marriage can never happen. You are aware of the difference between your family and this one, Anna?”

  “My mother told me. My father told me that I should have kept my legs together, and it is my fault. He will kill me if I am not married to Prince Boris before the baby comes.”

  “Dieu a paradis!” Tatiana muttered to herself.

  “What are we to do?” Anna asked pragmatically as if it were now Anna Evgenovna and Tatiana Alexandrovna against the world, against all the norms, against all tradition.

  “We must first speak to my husband, the prince. Then, we will find a solution,” she said more hopefully than she felt.

  Tatiana left Anna to cool her heels in the most sumptuous room the girl had ever been in and hurried to find Nikolai. He was in his library studying reports on the drought in central Russia.

  “Sorry to interrupt, husband; but we have a serious matter to attend to.”

  “Your face looks serious. Is someone sick? Has there been an accident?”

  “Neither of those, Niki, but just as bad.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I have a peasant girl named Anna in my office, Niki. She tells me that she is with child, and the father-to-be is none other than our first born.”

  “Our child has made a child! Can this be possible?!” Prince Nikolai growled, making a concerted effort not to shout at his wife, knowing that she was not the problem.

  “It would seem so. Now what?”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “Oh, yes; and so will you when you see her. She is too simple and innocent to be lying. I am sure of that.”

  “What does she want? Money? Land? What?”

  “She is deathly afraid of her father. She says he will kill her if she is not married before the baby arrives.”

  “And I suppose that is also believable, Tati?”

  “I am convinced. We cannot let that happen.”

  “Of course not, but what can we do. I need your common sense.”

  “Although she does not really know what all is involved, she wants to marry Boris and in a matter of days, if not hours.”

  Nikolai steepled his fingers against his forehead and was lost in thought for a few moments.

  Frowning, he said, “There is no good solution; however, this is one time when our power must provide the answer. You deal with the girl. I will deal with our errant son and the girl’s parents.”

  He walked to where the servant’s cord hung and pulled on it twice, an indication that the need was pressing.

  In less than a minute, two young men dressed in Yusupov livery—a handsome classic Greenwich style knee-length frock coat of scarlet red and military style detail. The cloth was of evenly died moleskin and lined with satin. The gold cuffs and full-length collars had golden buttons set in red darts. The men wore black trousers and soft slipper-like opera shoes. They had brilliantly white long blouses and lace edged neck ties. They bowed stiffly and awaited orders.

  “Ivan, you are to accompany the princess and find out where the young girl’s father and mother are and bring them to me as quickly as possible. Have them clean up as well as possible.”

  “Georg, you are to bring Prince Boris to my library; and under no circumstances is anyone to see him enter the palace. This is of paramount importance; do you understand?”

  “Yes, my Prince,” Georg replied promptly.

  “Questions, Ivan ?”

  “One, Prince Nikolai Borisovich. Am I authorized to use force?”

  “Only if absolutely necessary. Take two Cossacks but keep them in check.”

  “I will.”

  “Go, then; report to me when you return. Be quick about it.”

  In three seconds both men were gone.

  “Now, Tati, we will go to see this Anna who has brought such a stir into the household.”

  Anna sat primly on the settee in Tatiana’s office, and had fully regained her composure and sense of purpose. When the prince and princess entered the room, she quickly stood and made her best imitation of a curtsey.

  “Anna, this is Prince Nikolai, the head of the house of Yusupov.”

  “Your majesty,” Anna said, “it is an honor.”

  Boris was not in the mood for any idle chatter.

  “Anna, the princess tells me that you are with child, and that you believe the father is young Prince Boris. Is that right?”

  “Yes, your majesty.”

  She was so resolute and yet so innocent looking him in the eyes and calling him “your majesty” that he had to control himself from laughing.

  “When did this happen, my girl?”

  “Several times, but the one that made the baby was eight months and a half ago. It took place in the forest near my family’s house.”

  “Do I understand correctly that your parents know about this?”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “What do they want from us? What do you want from us?”

  “I am to be married to Prince Boris before the baby comes. That is what all of us want. If I am not a married woman when I have the baby, my father will kill me and my child. My mother is afraid of him and will not protect me.”

  Nikolai groaned inwardly.

  “Obviously,” he thought, “I cannot let this happen. This girl must be protected, and there cannot be any marriage into the Yusupov family.”

  Tatiana tugged at Nicolai’s sleeve.

  Nikolai looked down at his wife’s earnest face. She motioned to him to come with her.

  “What is it, Tati?” he asked.

  “Just come.”

  “All right. Anna, the princess and I will leave you for a few minutes. When we come back we will have a solution.”

  “Good,” the peasant girl said in a tone that bordered on being brash.

  Nikolai would never have tolerated a member of his household or a peasant he encountered in the countryside to have used that tone with him; but, for some reason, he rather admired her courage, and let it go.

  Fifty feet down the hall, Tatiana stopped him, and said, “Niki, I believe I have a solution that solves all of the problems this girl presents. Please hear me out before you interrupt.”

  “By all means, give me a solution. I always trust in your wealth of common sense, Tati.”

  “First, you have the parents coming to the palace. You can speak kindly to them, or you can treat them as serfs with you as the master, whatever is necessary. You offer them a sum of money enough for them to buy a larger parcel of land near our estate in Moscow and forgive any taxes in perpetuity. Second, you tell them that you will arrange a marriage to a successful servant in our household in Moscow. Third, you tell them that there will never be another offer or an additional offer, Niki. We cannot allow ourselves to be blackmailed. Fourth, they sign a document in which we and they promise never to reveal what has taken place. If they do divulge the secret, all of the gifts we offer will be rescinded, and they will be banished from our land and sent to Novonikolaevsk or Vladivostok for the rest of their lives. Their daughter will be sent to work as a char woman in the Novodevichy Convent.”

  “I can make all of that happen.”

  “For my part, I will find her a husband in Moscow before the week is out.”

  “Good. You tell Anna, and I will meet with her parents. Our boys should be back with them any minute.”

  Anna wept bitterly, but she was an intelligent and pragmatic girl, enough to know that no girl without any title–who was going to have a baby with no father–would have a chance in the world. The offer made by Princess Tatiana was the best that could ever happen…but only if her stubborn father did not refuse. Every pea
sant in Russia knew that people like the Yusupovs could have their family killed without any repercussions. It was the reality of life. She agreed to cooperate, and Tatiana agreed to help persuade her parents and to find her a suitable husband.

  Prince Nikolai sat impatiently in his library waiting for the confrontation with Anna Evgenovna’s parents. The coach bearing the two parents, the two servants, and the two Cossacks raced up to the rear entry to the library; and the entire entourage barged into Nikolai’s library—something that could not have happened on any ordinary day.

  Nikolai remained seated, and the servants escorted the roughly dressed peasants over to where the lord and master of the household—it might as well have been the universe, so far as the Petrovs were concerned—sat on the Yusupov throne.

  “My Prince, this is Yvegeni and Sacha Petrov.”

  “Yvegeni, Natasha, I am pleased that you have come to see me today,” Nikolai said, using the formal name for the woman, which pleased her.

  “We had no choice, Prince,” growled the brutish man, obviously angry and did not care who knew it.

  Ivan, the liveried servant swatted the insolent man sharply across the side of his head.

  “Try again, fool,” Ivan ordered.

  Yvegeni ground his teeth, but he controlled his temper, “thank you for seeing us to discuss our problem. Both of our problems, my Prince.”

  He gave a small reluctant bow.

  “Good of you to do so. Please tell me simply what your problem is.”

  It was very unusual for any business matter to be brought up abruptly, much less one between a serf and a master; and Yvegeni was put off guard by the prince’s directness.

  “Uh, hmmh…Sir, your Lordship…we have a problem with our daughter which is now a problem that involves your son, Prince Boris; so, you also have a part of this problem.”

  He paused trying to determine what to say next, knowing that his life may depend on not only what he said, but how he said it.

  “Sir, our daughter is with child and will have the baby very soon. It would be ruination for our family if she were not to be married when she does. Your son and our daughter…uh, hmmh…need to get married…quietly within the week…Sir. If you please.”

  “My wife and I have talked to your Anna, and she appears to be an honest girl. We believe what she says, and I will deal with my son in my own way today. However, you are no fool. You are well aware that such a marriage can never happen.”

  Yvegeni started to speak, but Nikolai held up his hand to stop him.

  “Please let me finish. This condition your daughter finds herself in may not be such a bad thing as we all might think at the beginning. She and my son have committed a grievous sin, but it need not bring harm to them or to their families. I can make this into good news, if I can count on your good sense and your realization of how I can benefit you as a friend. I am a bad enemy, as you might imagine, Yvegeni. I implore you to come to agreement with me.”

  “How long do I have to decide?”

  “Here and now.”

  Yvegeni nodded in the affirmative, but his face showed his disinclination. He held his piece.

  Nikolai presented the plan Tatiana had suggested in full, and the Petroves listened with ill-concealed pleasure. When Nikolai finished, he knew he had won by what Yvegeni had to say.

  “How much?”

  Nikolai suppressed a smile, waited a moment to organize his thoughts, then made a nonnegotiable offer of 1000 rubles, ten hectares of fertile land, freedom from taxes for life, and a stipend for Anna and the baby of 100 rubles a year for the remainder of their lives.

  The offer was princely, but Yvegeni had the mind of a peasant.

  “Our family is growing, my Prince, we will need more land to support them than ten hectares, Sir.”

  Ivan drew back his hand as if to strike the greedy peasant, but Nikolai stopped him.

  “Speak your mind, Yvgeni, but be mindful of what you ask so that I do not come to believe that you have come to my home to…shall we say…steal from me.”

  “Oh, no, Sir. I would never…I was thinking another ten hectares would help us to get by.”

  “You know, Yevgeni, I was quite impressed by the strength and courage of your Anna. Agree to a total, one time offer of twenty-five hectares, and an agreement between us that no one outside this room—and Anna, of course—will ever know of our arrangement. I have people everywhere who keep me informed. Do not treat Anna or her new husband with cruelty…ever. I will know of it. If you do, you will come to understand that you have just made the worst mistake of your entire life. If you maintain a good farm, and bring the girl, her husband, and their children into your family in good faith, you will find me to be a generous friend. Ponimayu?”

  Yevgeni nodded that he understood, and Ivan and Georg took the Petroves out the way they came in with assurances that Prince Nikolai of the Yusupovs was an absolute man of his word.

  After they left, Nikolai had his secretary arrange for the State Commercial Bank in Moscow to make the payments as promised and to organize the purchase of a twenty-five hectare plot of good farm land near the Yusupov estate within the Moscow gubernia [administrative province]. Tatiana telegraphed her instructions and her generosity to the manager of the Saint Petersburg estate via electromagnetic telegraph which resulted in a marriage in the family church there two days before the delivery of a healthy baby boy. She and Nikolai thanked God for Baron Pavel L’vovitch Schilling, the inventor of the machinery that enabled such remarkably rapid modern communication.

  The day was only half over; and now, it was Boris Nikolaiovich’s turn to pay for the little problem caused by his indiscretions.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A LIFE-CHANGING DAY

  “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”

  —Dostoevsky,

  Crime and Punishment.

  The Yusupov Palace on the Moika River, Saint Petersburg, August 14, 1863, afternoon

  Boris was having a great day riding with Vlad around the hillsides east of the Moika Palace, hooping and yelling like a battle crazed Cossack. He was sweaty, happy, and content. His future as a military officer was assured, and he could scarcely contain himself long enough to get into a combat officer’s role. With the troubles stirring on the Crimea, he knew it would not be long before his ambitions would begin to be realized.

  It was only a little discomfiting to see a hard-riding Cossack boy racing towards where he and Vlad were taking a well-earned cat-nap under the birches.

  The boy halted from a full gallop and ran to Boris yelling, “Prince Boris, you are ordered by Prince Nikolai to come to see him in his library at once. Vlad, sir, you are not to accompany the prince.”

  That was highly unusual and put something of a damper on Boris’s enthusiasm for life he was enjoying up to them. He mounted Kryzhu and raced off towards the Moika Palace behind the Cossack boy. Sensing urgency, Boris walked swiftly to his father’s library.

  “Father, you sent for me,” he said to his father who was standing with his back to the entryway gazing at the row of latest European science books that arrived the previous day.

  Boris knew he had been heard; so, he waited.

  Prince Nikolai turned and looked at Boris, his expression as inscrutable as a natriyevo-vzlomshchik [soda-cracker].

  “Take a seat.”

  Boris sat in front of the huge desk. His father took his seat behind the desk instead of sitting beside his son as he usually did.

  “Boris, my son, you have disappointed me,” Nikolai said quietly.

  It was liked being stabbed with an ice pick.

  “How, Father. I truly do not know.”

  “Yes, you do, Son. I have met with a peasant girl named Anna Evgenovna Petrove and her parents, Yvegeni and Natasha. Do you recognize the names?”

  A bridge collapsed on his head, and it took a moment for Boris to clear himself from the wreckage.

  “Only Anna. I know only know Anna, not he
r patronymic or her surname or the names of her parents, Sir.”

  His eyes fixed on the seams between the hard wood planks of the floor.

  Nikolai spoke very quietly, almost in a whisper.

  “You do not even have the decency to know the names of the mother of your child or anything about her background. You disgust me.”

  “I…regret…I…I… mean, I am sorry, Father, so terribly sorry to have brought shame upon the House of Yusupov.”

  “At least you have the decency to recognize the gravity of what you have done, foolish boy. Your fine mother and I have taken care of the problem. But you must pay.”

  “Anything, Father. I will submit to anything you order.”

  “Yes, you will. This is what will happen to you, and it will happen today. I will assemble the family and our serfs. You will be tied to a stake and lashed for your sin and for your foolishness. I will apply the whip. Then, you will face all the men you have been training in the Cossack military arts and confess in every detail why you have been whipped like a slave. Then you will beg their forgiveness and release every one of them from your personal service. Finally, you will beg them to come back to your service because you and any men you can muster will leave for the eastern region of Crimea at sunrise tomorrow. It seems that there has been another wicked riot in the ancient city of Kersh by Crimean Tatars. You will quell it under the orders of your godfather and general, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich Romanov.

  “Should you succeed, you will regain your place, be made a permanent captain, and begin your education in the Tzar’s General Staff Academy. Should you fail, you will never be heard from again, and there will be no record of you as having ever been part of the House of Yusupov. Now, get out of my sight. Stand on the rear porch at five o’clock and watch the construction of the whipping post.”

  Princess Tatiana clenched her teeth and observed the punishment meted out by her husband. The worst of it was the humiliation in front of the serfs. Her son was demeaned down to their level.

  Boris did as his father ordered. He stoically endured the pain of the whipping and never uttered a sound. After the acute pain was over, he maintained a flat expression and without begging or whining or making excuses, he debased himself to the family servants. It was growing dusk when he finally got to the point of asking for volunteers from among his would-be Cossacks.