The Accidental Empress (5 page)

Sisi saw two emotions battling for supremacy on her mother’s face: in one moment there appeared sympathy for a shy, scholarly daughter. A daughter who remained quiet whenever in the presence of more than just the smallest of crowds. But then, there it was: the stronger of the two emotions chased sympathy away, and her mother’s face set with a look of stony resolve. One must do one’s duty. How many times had Sisi heard those words uttered by her mother’s lips? A lady must accept the role that is required of her. Hadn’t she, a duchess of Bavaria, always lived according to that creed, however unpleasant Papa had made it for her? This was how things were done.

When she spoke next, Mamma had regained her composure. “Helene, it’s a noble idea. But the eldest daughter of the duke of Bavaria will
not
be allowed to waste away behind the walls of a nunnery. One does not simply send the emperor packing. You will marry Franz Joseph and you will be empress—it has been decided between our two houses.”

“Just let her come round to the idea, Ludovika.” Her father, Sisi could see, had grown bored of this discussion. “She’s such a shy, scared little thing. Imagine if we married her off to some rough Prussian Count von Something or other . . . she wouldn’t last a fortnight.” Experience had shown the duke time and again that women would do what was expected of them. With an air of finality, he took a swig from his wine cup.

But Helene now lifted a hand to her face, concealing a fresh sob that set her narrow frame atremble. “God, why must I . . .”

The duchess put a hand on Helene’s shoulder, though her face maintained a mask of composure. “My girl Néné, there now. No more tears, please. You have always been an obedient girl. You will see. You will love Vienna.”

Lowering her hand, Helene looked up: “But I love it
here
, Mamma.”

Sisi saw an instant’s hesitation, a flickering hint of softness in her mother’s eyes; the duchess was stricken. But Ludovika pushed that aside with masterful self-control. With a sigh, she pulled her hand from her daughter’s shoulder and stood up taller, her shoulders drawing back. “We all must do our duty.”

The two men continued their dinner while the duchess returned to her seat, her face pale but expressionless as she picked up her own fork. Sisi had lost her appetite. So, too, had Helene.

“There now, Helene,” their mother said, breaking the taut silence. “I haven’t told you the second part of the news.”

“I don’t wish to hear any more news, Mamma.”

“But this you shall wish to hear. You shall not be going to court alone.”

Now Helene looked up.

“Wouldn’t you like a companion at court?” Ludovika’s eyes darted from her eldest daughter to Sisi, who sat beside her, still clutching her hand. Sisi looked to her mother, her heart suddenly pounding as she felt the faintest embers of hope.

“Sisi and I shall accompany you.” Their mother said, her voice upbeat. “Won’t that make you feel better?”

Helene considered this and, after a long pause, nodded.

For her part, the thought thrilled Sisi, sending her heart on a gallop within her breast that made it hard to breathe. Leaving Possi. Traveling to the imperial court: a place of power and fashion and courtiers who exemplified both. A world entirely unlike her simple life in Bavaria. It was petrifying news, but it delighted her.

“How does that sound, Sisi?” The duchess looked at her younger daughter.

“I’d love to go,” Sisi answered, her voice too eager, too full of enthusiasm. She squirmed in her chair, leaning toward Helene now. “Oh, Néné, won’t we have fun together?”

“Fun?”
Her mother knit her brows together, her tone turning to sternness. “Elisabeth, this is not some adventure for you, like those romances you read about.”

Sisi felt her joy retreat, just slightly, at the bite in her mother’s tone.

“You understand that your role at court shall be to help your sister settle in. You will serve her as a lady-in-waiting serves a queen, do you understand?”

Sisi nodded, suppressing the smile that wanted to tug her lips upward. “Yes, Mamma.” But inside, her heart leapt. She was to accompany Helene to her new life. Helene, Empress of Austria! She, Sisi, would be there to witness it.

“You must always make Helene look good,” the duchess continued. “Do you understand?”

“I can do that,” Sisi promised, wrapping her arms around Helene’s thin, spindly shoulders. “Helene, do you hear that? I will be there with you!” The sisters held one another, and for the first time since the announcement, Helene managed a feeble smile.

“And”—the duchess leaned close to her younger daughter now— “I hope I do not need to remind you that there are plenty of ways to get into trouble at court, Elisabeth. Aunt Sophie is far less indulgent than I am, and she will be watching. You shall be there to serve your sister, and that is all. I do not wish to hear that you have fallen in love with some Hungarian count.” The duchess frowned and Sisi flushed, avoiding Karl’s burning gaze.

“I will be watching you, Elisabeth.”

“I understand, Mamma.”

“Good girl.” Duchess Ludovika nodded, her stern expression softening into an approving smile. “No suitors for you. At least, not until you have helped your sister settle into her role.”

Helene was excused from dinner and Sisi allowed to retire to the bedroom with her. They climbed the stairs in silence, both of them sorting through a tangle of thoughts and questions.

The Habsburg Court! For Sisi, the news had quickened her curiosity and stirred her restless spirit. Her mind raced into the imaginary scenes she’d witness beside her sister, the empress—the high-ceilinged halls where the waltz had been invented, the banquets, the dances attended by women in skirts so wide they looked like the bells of a cathedral. And her, Sisi, experiencing it all at the age of only fifteen.

“What a relief that you shall come with me.” Helene clutched her sister’s hand as they reached the top of the stairs and walked the candlelit hallway to their bedroom. Her sister’s thoughts, Sisi noticed, seemed of a much less enthusiastic variety.

“Shall I call Agata for some wine?” Sisi pushed the heavy bedroom door, leaving it slightly ajar.

“No, Sisi. Just sit with me for a moment.” Helene lowered herself onto the large mahogany bed that they shared. “I am in such a state of shock.”

“I will be with you, Néné.” Sisi opened the curtains, allowing in the last delicate rays of summer sun. She stared out the window, looking over the quiet dusk that settled over Possenhofen. The woods beyond the meadow, skirting the border of Lake Starnberg, glowed an indigo blue under the descending veil of night. In the meadow, a farmer cut a slow path toward the village, pulling a tired horse beside him. The smoke of distant hearths coiled skyward in the background, issuing from the barely visible homes that dotted the wooded foothills of the Bavarian Alps. It was such a familiar tapestry; a beloved view, one Sisi could have re-created with her eyes shut. And tonight, knowing that she would be going far away, she savored it with a newfound affection. How many more times might she behold this view? Sisi wondered.

“You’ll only be with me until you get a husband of your own. Then what happens?” Helene’s worry tugged Sisi from her twilight reverie, and she turned back to her sister and the darkening bedroom. “He’ll probably insist on taking you back to his own palace in Prussia or Saxony or Hungary. Then what shall I do?” Helene’s lip quivered with the threat of fresh tears.

“You heard Mamma”—Sisi walked toward her sister—“I will be at court to attend to you. I promise, I won’t even
think
of marriage until you are settled and happy with at least half a dozen fat little Austrian crown princes and princesses.” This promise appeared to temporarily assuage Helene’s panic. But only for a moment.

“Marriage does sound awful, doesn’t it?” Helene thought aloud, slipping out of her heavy dinner gown and allowing it to drop to the floor. Sisi couldn’t help but notice her sister’s figure, now exposed in just a thin shift and undergarments. It looked so pale and thin and fragile. And yet this would be the body that would be tasked with producing Austria’s next emperor.

As if on cue, Karl appeared at the bedroom door, which Sisi chided herself for having left ajar.

“So that’s the emperor’s view on the wedding night?” Sensing that the power dynamics had somehow shifted in the household, Karl appeared reluctant to too directly challenge his sisters, but rather hovered at the threshold of their bedchamber.

“I heard you talking about your husband.” He grinned at the partially undressed Helene, who quickly retreated behind a dressing screen.

“Go away, Gackl,” Sisi snapped, tossing Helene’s discarded shoe in his direction.

Karl ducked the shoe but remained in his spot in the doorway. “No, not me. It’s you two who are going away. Helene is off to Vienna to get pricked by Franz Joseph’s Austrian wiener.” Karl sniggered. “Poor innocent little Helene will likely catch syphilis from one of Franz’s palace whores.”

Sisi ignored her brother, speaking only to Helene. “And Gackl will probably never prick a single girl in his life. Who would ever want his pockmarked face and sour beer breath?”

This insult only further enraged Karl, who struck back. “I wouldn’t look forward to my wedding night if I were you, Helene. Franz Joseph is the emperor, you know, and therefore he gets whatever he wants. How do you think
you
shall compare to one of his well-practiced courtesans?” The sight of Sisi wincing seemed to encourage Karl. “And Sisi, who knows who you’ll get plucked by? Neither one of you even knows what must happen, do you? Why do you think Mamma always talks about how she cried on her wedding night?”

Cowed, but even more so infuriated, Sisi stood to her full height and crossed the bedroom toward Karl. When she spoke, it was with more authority than she actually felt. “And how do you suppose the emperor will look upon the brother who has tormented his beloved bride? I will be sure to tell him about our brother, named after a rooster, and deserving of a good pecking.”

Surprised by the vehemence of her anger, by the command in her voice, Karl turned and left their room.

“Who taught him to be so vile?” Sisi wondered aloud, slowly unclenhing her fists as Karl’s figure receded. She heard the sound of faint whimpering behind the dressing screen. “For goodness’ sake, Néné, come out from behind that screen.” Sisi flopped onto the bed, already exhausted in the role of supporting her sister. It would be a demanding position at court. “Do not take a word of that to heart—Karl is just jealous that we have an invitation from the emperor, while he’s stuck here with the babies.”

Helene emerged from behind the dressing screen, her black eyes round with horror. “It does sound awful, though, doesn’t it?”

“What does? Ruling an empire? Wearing the finest crowns and gowns in all of Europe? Dancing to the imperial violins all night?” Sisi ran her fingers through her hair, removing her braids and allowing her heavy waves to tumble loose around her shoulders.

“No. What Karl said . . . the wedding night,” Helene whispered.

“I don’t know.” Sisi paused. Their mother had only ever implied things, offering scanty scraps about what the ordeal of the wedding night actually entailed. Insinuations that both frightened and confused Sisi. Words such as “duty” and “submission.” Actions that required “forbearance,” that must be “endured for the sake of one’s husband and family.” But then the maid had given Sisi quite a different account. “Agata tells me that she’s heard that it can be . . . well,
nice
. That it’s not all bad.”

“How did she hear that?” Helene asked, eyes widening.

“Oh, they talk about that sort of stuff all the time in the kitchen. It’s only those of us in the front of the house who know nothing about it.” A ludicrous arrangement, Sisi thought, when it was the girls in the front of the house whose bodies were burdened with the important duties of dynasty-making.

Helene thought about this. “Karl seems to know an awful lot.”

Sisi tilted her head. “Not from experience, of that much we can be certain.”

Helene allowed a pinched laugh before once more deflating. “Do you think, when I become Franz’s wife, that I will have to . . . you know . . . ?”

“Yes, Helene,” Sisi said, toneless. “You will.”

Helene appeared freshly demoralized. “I hope we have a very long engagement.”

Sisi attempted a cheerful manner, speaking as she undressed for bed. “Don’t fret. You won’t have to do it much, Helene. Just until you give Franz some sons.”

Helene considered this. “Think about our family—there’s me, you, Karl, Marie, Mathilde, Sophie-Charlotte, and baby Max. Can you believe that Mamma and Papa have done it
seven
times?” Helene asked.

“No, that shocks me,” Sisi answered, shaking her head, and the two of them erupted in giggles.

“Well, I’m glad to see you two girls in good spirits once more.” Duchess Ludovika appeared at the doorway with fresh candles for her daughters. “Hopefully you’ve resigned yourself to the ghastly fate of marrying an emperor, Néné?”

“Mamma!” Sisi waved their mother into the bedroom. The duchess deposited the candles on the nightstand and kissed each of her daughters on the forehead. “Don’t stay up too late, girls.” She made her way to the door, pulling its handle as she exited. “And don’t forget.”