Chapter Forty Alix
Chapter Forty
Alix
The Stadtkirche, the Lutheran church of Darmstadt, was only a stone’s throw from the ducal manor; Alix could see her own front door through the stained glass.
The window depicted a pastoral Jesus, holding a shepherd’s staff and surrounded by sheep.
When Alix got restless as a child, her mother used to walk her over to the window, where she would press her daughter’s chubby toddler hands to the glass.
Red, blue, yellow, her mother would murmur, naming the colors as Alix touched each one—and then again in German, rot, blau, gelb, and then in French, rouge, bleu, jaune.
Alix could hear the echo of her mother’s voice even now, whispering past the stone font where Alix had been baptized, past the tarnished bronze candlesticks and the faded Gobelins tapestry on the wall.
Looking around the chapel, Alix felt that she could see the entire circle of her existence.
This wedding probably seemed quaint to some of the wedding guests—to Aunt Marie in her furs and glittering tiara; or to Aunt Vicky and the cousins from Prussia.
Or to May and George, who sat near Uncle Bertie in one of the front pews, both oddly subdued and seeming to avoid each other’s gaze.
George wore a black armband on his sleeve, and May’s gown was the pale lavender of half mourning, as if anyone here was in danger of forgetting that they were still grieving Eddy.
According to the official narrative, that shared grief was what had drawn them together.
Their own wedding was set for later this year—though they didn’t seem especially lovestruck to Alix.
Alix glanced a few rows back, to where Hélène sat with her parents.
She was so surprised, and grateful, that her friend had made the trip from Normandy.
I needed to see where you grew up! Hélène had exclaimed last night, when they stayed up far too late, exchanging stories about the past months.
Besides, Hélène had added, with a ghost of her old playfulness, it was getting a teensy bit boring, being in the country.
There’s only so much apple picking one can do.
Darmstadt was hardly a great urban destination, but Hélène didn’t seem to mind. After the wedding, the Orléans family was going on an extended tour of Italy. The sunshine would do Hélène some good, Alix thought—though she suspected, in some small way, that her friend was already healing.
She looked to where Ernie stood at the altar, waiting for the ceremony to begin. Alix saw him glance at the church’s main double doors—then he stared at Alix, his eyes bright with concern.
Somehow, even before she turned, she knew she would see Nicholas.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. Alix’s sister Ella had come from St. Petersburg a few days ago, along with her husband Sergei, who had given the couple a wedding gift on behalf of the Romanovs.
Yet here was Nicholas, achingly handsome in his uniform and knee-high boots.
He met Alix’s gaze as he settled on the bride’s side of the church. Which was only fair, since Ducky was his first cousin.
The wedding passed in a blur. Alix felt like her heart was hammering the entire time, her body tingling with awareness at Nicholas’s nearness.
Before she realized it, the priest was intoning the final blessing and Ernie and Ducky were walking down the aisle, amid applause and a crescendo of organ music.
As the guests began filing out of the Stadtkirche, a hand brushed Alix’s elbow.
“Please, Alix,” Nicholas said softly. “Walk with me?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and gestured toward the back of the church.
Its pillars were wreathed in ivy and rosemary—there should have been white roses, except that it was impossible to get roses in Germany this early in the year.
Beneath the flagstones lay the crypt where her entire family was buried: her grandparents, her brother Frittie. Her mother.
“Nicholas, I—”
“I came to—”
They had both spoken at the same time, clumsy and flushing. Alix held out a hand, gesturing that he should go first.
“It was a lovely wedding,” Nicholas began, seeming unsure of himself.
“You didn’t need to come.”
He flinched at her bluntness. “Of course I came. I wanted to see you.” He hesitated, then added, “Is it true, about you and Maximilian of Baden?”
“We were courting, but I ended things.”
Nicholas’s deep blue eyes met hers, cautious, hopeful.
“Dare I hope…Is it because of me that you broke it off?”
Of course it is, Alix thought, tears rising to her eyes. Everything is because of you. No matter how hard I try to forget you, no matter how easy things were with Maximilian, I keep running back here. To you.
“Yes,” she said simply.
Nicholas stepped forward then. He seized Alix’s shoulders with both hands—roughly, almost desperately—and lowered his mouth to hers.
Alix felt like she’d been hibernating all these months without him. Like she’d been half dreaming, and now she’d been brutally shaken awake.
She still loved Nicholas. She would probably always love him, with a love that terrified her, and thrilled her, and shook her to the core.
When they pulled apart, Nicholas fell to one knee, dust motes dancing around his head in the afternoon light.
“I love you,” he said fiercely. “Please, marry me.”
Alix stared at him. Misreading her silence, he kept talking.
“I know that I am asking a lot of you. I wish that I were an ordinary man, and loving me was simple and uncomplicated.” He gestured to his uniform, with its sash and brass buttons and high Romanov collar.
“But I was born into this family and these responsibilities. My future, narrow as it is, was laid out for me the moment I was born. You, of course, are still free to make a different choice. Selfishly, I hope that you don’t. ”
Alix tugged him to his feet. “But—your parents. Did you convince them to change their minds?”
“You did that,” Nicholas said proudly. At her confused look, he explained. “My father is very ill, Alix. The doctors say it is kidney disease.”
“What is the treatment?”
Nicholas’s expression faltered. “There is no treatment. He might live weeks, perhaps months, but we are saying our goodbyes.”
“Oh, Nicholas. I’m sorry.”
The tsar was so formidable, a bear of a man: it seemed impossible that he could be struck down by illness like any ordinary mortal. Surely he could only be killed by some mythical weapon that was guarded by dragons.
Now, though, Alix understood why the tsar had gone to Baden-Baden. He wasn’t just taking the waters; he’d been searching for a miracle cure.
“After we left the regatta last summer, I told my parents that I refused to marry Hélène. That I refused to marry anyone but you, actually. I said I would remain a bachelor forever, and the Romanov line could continue through Misha. I think I was starting to wear them down,” Nicholas admitted, “until I heard about you and Maximilian.”
He sighed, staring down at his shoes. “I know how much you love your home. He seemed so perfect for you, and I thought—you deserved to be happy, even if that happiness was not with me.”
Alix reached a hand instinctively toward Nicholas, and he laced their fingers gratefully, as if she were a lifeline.
“I told myself that the right thing to do was to let you go. That I was being noble by staying away,” Nicholas went on. “But I couldn’t stop loving you, and wanting you, and missing you. Even if I knew that you belonged with Maximilian, in a life that made you happy.”
“You make me happy,” Alix assured him.
“My father must have taken a turn for the worse, because he called me into his room and gave me this.” Nicholas let go of her hand so that he could withdraw a velvet pouch from his jacket pocket. “He said I should give it to you, that you would know what it meant.”
Alix took the pouch from Nicholas and slid its contents onto her palm. She realized, startled, that it was the tsarina’s pearl necklace. The pearls gleamed an unearthly blue-gray in the dim light.
“Father told me that he saw you in Baden-Baden. He said that he and Mother talked to you, asked about you and Maximilian—I’m sorry about that, by the way,” Nicholas added, wincing.
“Father told me that you stood up to him. Did you really shout that you aren’t his subject, and he couldn’t tell you what to do? ”
“I’m not sure I shouted, exactly.” Alix let the pearls slide through her fingers, the stones cool and heavy. Nicholas didn’t seem to know that his parents had tried to bribe her, but she decided not to mention it.
“My father was impressed. He said that I was right about you—that you’re made of stronger stuff than he had realized. Go get her, he told me. I’d like to see you married before I die.”
Nicholas spoke of his father’s death so matter-of-factly that Alix couldn’t help it. She threw her arms around him, pulling him into a hug.
How strange that Alix’s impertinence, her sheer rudeness, was the reason she finally got the Romanovs’ blessing. But then, wasn’t that what people said about bullies—that they only responded to a show of strength?
“Please, Alix.” Nicholas murmured into her ear. “I wish I could undo all my mistakes. I should have fought harder for us; I should never have taken you for granted. I know I don’t deserve you, but also—I don’t know how to face any of this without you.”
Alix was still holding the pearls, balled up in one hand. It hit her then, in a way it hadn’t before: how deeply permanent this decision was. How absolutely certain she needed to be.
Nicholas would be tsar. Not someday, but soon.
Choosing him meant an entirely new life, leaving behind everything that felt safe and familiar.
Moving to Russia. Taking on public appearances, which always triggered her episodes.
Learning a new religion, a new language; organizing grand court balls and visiting the sick, and doing it all in a country she knew nothing about.
Alix looked at Nicholas’s face, so handsome and hopeful, and she knew that she would do anything—make any sacrifice—to be with him. It simply wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Nicholas braced his arms beneath her and lifted her into the air, spinning her around and around so that her skirts belled out around her.
“You mean it?” he exclaimed, covering her face with kisses.
“Yes!” Alix’s smile mirrored his own, and she repeated the word over and over again, for the sheer joy of saying it. “Yes, yes, I will marry you!”
The tapers flickered, making Nicholas’s smile shimmer; it was as if the candles themselves were celebratory. Alix couldn’t help thinking that her mother was present. She could feel Alice here, as surely as if her mother’s arms were wrapped around her.
Her mother was here, and Nicholas was here; and in this moment, Alix felt utterly surrounded by love.