‘I could take her with me, when I leave,’ he said simply. ‘Find her a nice home, a loving family. No one need know.’
There was silence as the four of them digested this plan.
‘Yes,’ agreed Militza. ‘Take her! Take her away and no one need know.’
‘But what do we say? We will need to say something, something by way of explanation?’ said Stana.
‘A miscarriage? A stillbirth?’ Brana shrugged. ‘It happens all the time.’
‘Yes,’ nodded Philippe, warming to the idea. ‘Nature is so wasteful, so cruel, the poor Tsarina, the nation will mourn with her, all the mothers of Russia will mourn; their Mother Russia suffers like they do, they will take to the streets in sympathy, they will fill the churches and weep for her… But a fifth daughter…’ He shook his head. ‘No one rejoices for a fifth daughter. No one fires a cannon or rings a church bell for another girl.’ He shuddered. ‘That doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘It’s agreed,’ said Militza.
‘But what do we say to Ott and Girsh?’ asked Stana. ‘They will want to see something?’
They all looked at each other. Each hoping the other would say something; do something to make the situation better. The baby on the bed began to cry and Alix moaned slightly in response; the effects of the chloroform were beginning to wear off. Whatever decision they came to, they would have to act quickly.
‘Right,’ said Militza, briskly drying her bloodied hands on a towel. ‘You,’ she pointed to Brana, ‘cut the cord. You,’ she nodded to her sister, ‘stay here and look after Alix. I will go and inform the Tsar and you and Brana had better keep that baby quiet and sort something out.’
Militza left the room and, smoothing down her crimson-stained apron, she walked slowly downstairs to the Tsar’s office. On her way she passed several members of the household hanging around in the hall, awaiting the news. As they raised their eyes expectantly, Militza dropped her gaze as if preparing them for bad news. She knocked on the office door and Nicky opened it. She could tell by the expression on his face he knew something was wrong. Had the child been a healthy boy, the shouts of joy would have reverberated around the house so loudly and wildly, you would have heard them on the beach and in the Gulf of Finland beyond. Instead there’d been silence.
‘It’s a girl,’ Militza said softly.
‘How?’ he asked, collapsing into a chair. ‘How can it be?’ He sniffed as tears of desperate disappointment welled up in his exhausted eyes. ‘She believed in Philippe this time; we have prayed to God, we have never stopped praying to God; we have begged and pleaded and been on our knees asking for his help and forgiveness, asking for a son. And now this?’
‘I know,’ soothed Militza, sitting down next to him and taking his hands. ‘I know, I know.’ He rested his head on her shoulder as he sobbed. ‘Listen,’ said Militza as she comforted him with a gentle embrace. ‘I think you know what I am going to say, even if you don’t want to hear it.’ She paused and steadied herself. ‘Russia will not take another daughter. Alix cannot have another daughter. The court won’t accept it, St Petersburg won’t; in the Provinces, the countryside, they will never forgive her. They already think she is a German spy sent to destroy the house of Romanov. You know I am telling you the truth. I am only sorry you have to hear it from me.’
Nicky stopped crying and raised his head, staring at her. He was so close she could taste his warm breath on her lips.
‘Philippe will take her away. He will take her to France. He will need money of course, but you can give him that. But he must go and he must take her with him. And he must go as soon as possible.’
‘But what will Alix say?’
‘Alix is not quite conscious. But we will tell her when she is well. And she will be grateful. She will be pleased we have helped her. She will be happy we have saved her from the mob. But it must be a secret. It must all be a secret. Who knows what would happen if it was ever discovered that there was another girl? You’d have to divorce her and she’d be banished and hounded out of the country. If she even got that far…’
Nicky just stared at her. It was all too much to take in. He looked haunted, scared; he was indecisive at the best of times, but Militza was asking him to make a decision right here and now. And it pained him so much to think about it.
‘Whatever you think is best,’ he mumbled finally.
It was Philippe who christened the baby girl Suzanna. It was his idea to give her such a decidedly French-sounding name, so that no one would suspect where she was truly from. The day they left for Paris was one Militza would never forget.
It was cold and dank and a miserable, thick, fog hung heavy over the dacha. It chilled the bone and made you shiver as if someone was striding over your grave.
Only the Tsar, the Tsarina and the two sisters saw them off. No one else, except Brana, even knew the baby existed. The clean-up had been thorough and organized. Doctors Ott and Girsh were the first to be convinced. By chance, Brana, who had uncharacteristically sharp eyes for a crone, noticed a walnut-sized ovule nestling in the blood and sheets as she cleaned up after the birth. This was hastily retrieved and duly presented to the doctors by way of explaining the ‘miscarriage’. Fortunately, when examined under a microscope it proved to be a dead fertilized egg of around four-week gestation and so they sadly confirmed the Tsarina’s terrible news: an appalling miscarriage that had manifested as a phantom pregnancy. There was simply no child at all. The Dowager Empress was informed, and then the court. Rumours, naturally, abounded. Alix was said to have given birth to an animal with horns, a creature so frightful, so hideous, the spawn of the Devil himself that they were forced to execute it at birth. Others saw the premature death of the baby and the lack of the long-awaited son as a form of divine retribution for the appalling tragedy at Khodynka Field. Despite Philippe’s prediction, very few were sympathetic. However, all this was preferable to the reality. If the truth ever got out, the birth of a fifth daughter? That would destroy them all.
It was decided that Philippe and Suzanna should travel through Finland and then by train to Paris, where Philippe would be met by a trusted colleague of his: Leendert Johannes Hemmes. Leendert and Philippe had been friends for a long time and were of the same Martinist religion. His loyalty was discussed long into the night, as Militza and Philippe plotted and planned. Leendert also possessed psychic powers, which he used to diagnose sickness in the urine of the unwell. He could be trusted. He had to be trusted. The child could not stay in Russia.
‘We shall be fine,’ Philippe assured Alix, as she stood in the cold fog, her grey eyes glazed, her expression blank. ‘It is not a long journey. And we will write.’
‘No,’ Alix replied. ‘No contact. No news. It is the only way. The secret police are everywhere. And I can’t vouch that any news won’t send me insane. The wound needs to be cauterized. Suzanna is dead. She is with May, eating baked apples…’
Philippe nodded. In his arms, he held the silent, sallow, sickly looking Suzanna who already seemed to know her fate.
‘Would you like to…’ He held the baby up.
‘Be sure to keep her warm,’ whispered Alix.
She reached out a thin, shaking hand to touch her daughter for the last time. Her trembling fingers hovered over the baby and she looked as though she was going to bless her child, commend it to God, but she withdrew slowly, clearly thinking better of it.