Shooting The Past...2

Shot then. By the past, that is.

The story unfolds thus. Earlier you will - or will not - have read the story of 'Anastasia's Doll'.

The doll in question is a somewhat raggedy affair, plain of dress and look. The head is its only remarkable aspect in that it can be turned to one of three looks: she smiles, she cries, she sleeps. A baby in total really, all about that there is to say or note.

Of a German style we are told. Early Twentieth century they say. Well, they are right about the period for sure. This we know, for we also know that this doll was once the toy of no less personage than Princess Anastasia of Romanov fame and fate.

Gosh, you might well say. You are in possession of a doll once owned by the poor lost child who died - or not - when her family were slaughtered by the Bolsheviks? Yes, we would reply, we are.

Hot stuff indeed and the very making of our temporal fortune it would be. Had we the proof of provenance that is. Our proof is a narrative that we find both truthful and plausible.

There was once an ancient Auntie Margaret, spinster not just of this parish but of the entire County in that her beneficence and kindly ways supported not merely the poor of her immediate community but the semi-destitute far and wide. I am not suggesting, of course, that is a necessary prerequisite of saintly care for others that one should be both female and unmarried. (Being neither, indeed, I do not fear I am entirely excluded from such sanctity, though perhaps lacking in the necessary performance. For others to judge of course.)

But if not a necessity, it is certain that of disposition there was - one would hope will continue to be - once a generation of unmarried women for whom the world as they knew it was their family to nurture and love. A big ask, one might say as indeed it is. Big heart, strong arms and endless patience. Nothing less will carry one on and through indeed. Auntie Margaret had all three, mercifully, throughout a long life.

There were many then who mourned her passing some ten years back - 'promoted to Glory' she would say of others and certain we said it of her - we not the least of them.

From that demise followed in due order an inheritance. Part of a house and all of its contents. Among the effects was the doll. Had it not been the note that lay in the tatty shoebox with it, the doll should have not been of any great note.

But note there was and what a story that note told. In brief it was this.

A friend within the sisterhood of spinsterdom, not content with being spinsterly and goodly at home chose to venture abroad to serve as a nanny to whomsoever would have her. And as an English nanny much was she in demand in her chosen foreign land - Russia.

Russia of 1910. Pre-War, pre-revolutionary Russia. Imperialist Russia. An Imperial family much desiring a nanny, Auntie Margaret's chum was chosen for the post. Nanny to Anastasia.

Some years passed. Happy years perhaps, though with sufficient dark portents no doubt. Come the War, then came the Revolution. Time little enough for the English nanny to leave, seek safety in her own land. Or else perish with the Romanovs could have been her fate.

So she came home, and in leaving was gifted a present from her charge. The doll, Anastasia's favourite. And with the gift our note:

"Dear X, Thank you so very much for caring for me. I shall miss you. I hope we can see each other again after this is all over. Would you like me to come to England? Anastasia."

The doll and the note came home with the nanny, but never the child.

Some will say - have said - that our small note is but too light a thing to carry such a weight. But we have believed and now, the past having shot us, we also know.

How we know is to come....