It was too late. Despite her size and condition, Alix sank slowly to the floor. Surrounded by paper, she slowly picked each sheet up and examined it, if only briefly, before letting it drop from her limp hand.
‘Oh, my darling,’ she said eventually, her huge blue eyes looking up from the floor, ‘say it is not true.’
‘It is not true,’ repeated Nicky, with the brightest of smiles. ‘How can it be? Look at you! You are pregnant. Pregnant with our son!’
‘Yes,’ she sobbed, ‘I am.’
‘I am getting rid of the file, I am getting rid of the man who wrote the file,’ he said, bending down towards her and offering her his hand.
‘Yes,’ she nodded, sniffing. ‘Let’s get rid of them.’ She took his hand. ‘Let’s get rid of them all, including the person who commissioned the investigation.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Nicky. ‘Let’s get rid of them all.’
It was only when he pulled her up off the floor that they all saw what had happened.
‘Blood!’ stated Stana
‘A pool,’ whispered Militza.
‘Someone get Dr Philippe,’ said Alix, as she swooned into her husband’s arms.
It took several minutes to carry Alix upstairs and place her in the blue and white bedroom. Militza propped up her listless, marble-white face with pillows while Stana went to find Dr Philippe, commanding the servants to fetch water, towels and Brana. There was chaos and shouting and the sound of running feet as panic spread through the palace; everyone had been caught completely off guard.
The first to arrive was Dr Philippe. Flushed and fresh from the beach, his face was bright pink and he was sweating and short of breath.
‘How is the patient?’ he huffed as he arrived at the top of the stairs, running his thumbs around his tight, damp trouser waistband. ‘Has her time come?’
‘There’s blood,’ replied Militza, whispering with concern. ‘Quite a lot of it.’
‘Oh! Blood is like vomit,’ he replied boldly. ‘There always looks like more than there actually is.’
‘She’ll be all right, won’t she?’ asked Nicky.
‘She has done it a few times before,’ declared Philippe. ‘I am sure she’ll be fine. God is looking after her.’
‘I know, but it is always such a dangerous time. What it is to be a woman,’ Nicky sighed, his brow furrowed with anxiety. ‘And I do love her so very much.’
Dr Philippe patted the back of Nicky’s hand and then entered the brightly lit room. The afternoon sun was pouring in through the open curtains and the seagulls were screaming outside.
‘There, there,’ said Philippe as he sat himself down the edge of her bed. He took hold of Alix’s cold, damp hand. ‘How are you feeling?’
Alix opened her eyes; her mouth was dry and she was clearly in some pain. ‘Well,’ she said quietly, ‘all will be well, now that you are here.’
‘Do you feel that it is time?’ asked Philippe, his hands on the edge of the sheets, preparing to pull them back.
‘Not yet,’ replied Alix, wincing slightly.
Suddenly there was a loud bustle and commotion down in the hall and the sound of footsteps bounding up the stairs.
‘Dr Ott? Dr Girsh?’ said Militza, standing between the two agitated middle-aged gentlemen and the bedchamber. ‘Why on earth are you here?’
‘We were called,’ Dr Ott replied smartly. ‘As the court physician I am expected to attend every imperial birth.’
‘We have been standing by for the last ten days at Peterhof, waiting to be summoned,’ added Dr Girsh, the slimmer of the two, with significantly more hair.
‘And who summoned you?’ asked Militza.
‘I did,’ came a voice from the bottom of the stairs.
They all turned to see the Nanny, Margaretta Eagar, standing somewhat stiffly at the bottom of the stairs. Dressed in a simple grey frock and a white frilled apron, her reddish blond hair piled high on the top of her head, her small piercing blue eyes were defiantly determined. Militza looked down on her from the landing. She had never liked this bossy former matron of an orphanage in Belfast, whose Limerick accent was so thick, even a fluent English speaker like Militza struggled to understand her.
‘You?’
‘Yes, Imperial Highness.’ Margaretta may have curtsied, but Militza sensed her seething anger even from this distance. Militza said nothing. ‘As a former trained medical nurse,’ Margaretta began, ‘I thought her Imperial Majesty might require her physician.’ Her head shuddered from side to side as she tried to control her emotions.
‘I’m not sure if washing bandages and changing bedpans in Ireland qualifies you for much, my dear, but seeing as you are here…’ Militza turned to the two gentlemen on the landing, ‘I shall inform the Empress.’
Back in the bedroom, Philippe had closed the curtains and the atmosphere was a little calmer.
‘I have been chanting and using a little hypnosis and she seems a bit more settled,’ said Philippe as Militza approached the bed.
‘Alix?’ she said. ‘Dr Ott and Dr Girsh are outside.’ She spoke slowly. ‘They said they’d like to examine you?’
‘No!’ Alix replied, shifting in the bed. ‘Tell them no. Tell them to go away. I don’t want them to examine me. Those two buffoons only deliver daughters.’
The bleeding stemmed and it was four days later before full labour began. Initially, Alix took the pains and moans in her stride. During the hours of the early evening she held on to the bedpost, with both hands, moaning and lowing as she rode the waves of each of the contractions, while Philippe, Militza and Stana stood by, occasionally mopping her brow and murmuring words of encouragement. But by midnight she was growing weak and was laid to rest in her bed, with Brana offering little sips of Madeira laced with laudanum to help her through. By now the bed sheets were sodden with blood and her cries echoed around the palace. Militza had her hands between Alix’s legs, her fingerstips slipped inside, as she desperately tried to free the baby’s head. As she pushed and kneaded, Alix moaned plaintively and pathetically with pain. It was patently clear there was not much time left.
‘We need chloroform and forceps – this baby appears to be coming out face first,’ pronounced Militza.
‘Here,’ said Philippe. He rattled around in a box and handed over a small glass bottle and handkerchief. ‘But we have no forceps.’
The struggle was immense and the loss of blood obscene as Militza fought, up to her forearms, desperately trying to ease the baby out. Alix battled against the pain and the chloroform, slipping in and out of consciousness. And then finally, at around 4.00 a.m., just as the sun was coming up over the sea, an exhausted, small, rather skinny baby was born.
Stana stared at the red, wriggling creature on the bed.
‘It’s a girl.’
Such was the shock that no one bothered to swaddle it; they all simply stood there, unable to believe their eyes. A girl. Another girl. How could this be? The Tsarina had believed Philippe wholeheartedly. They all had. And now there was a girl. A fifth daughter.
‘We could kill it?’ suggested Brana, looking at the baby with utter contempt. ‘A little bit of chloroform?’
‘No,’ said Militza.
‘Get rid of it,’ proposed Stana. ‘It has to go. She can’t have a fifth daughter.’ She shook her head. ‘But how?’
They all turned to Philippe, who was so traumatized by what he had seen and what had just happened, he was unable to respond. He stood, motionless and emotionless, staring at the child on the bed, still attached to its mother by a pulsating cord, his whole life clearly flashing before him, for he knew, here and now, that his work in Russia was done. Not even he, the cat with nine lives, the master who could calm storms and hypnotize almost anyone, not even he was capable of coming back from this. A fifth daughter? His life was ruined.