The Accidental Empress (72 page)

Andrássy lifted his hands and formed a square shape with his fingers, framing her profile in them. “If I could have this scene painted, I would stare at it every day. The river, so blue in the background. And the foreground, well, that’s the most beautiful part.”

“What are you doing, Andrássy?” The bluntness of her question jarred them both as she turned to look in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” He sat up, dropping his hands.

“What is happening?” She waved her hands between them. “What is this? How can you expect me to go on like this?” Her voice sounded wild now, and she was certain her expression matched it.

Andrássy lowered his eyes, his shoulders sagging. He nodded. “I know.”

“Do you? Because you seem perfectly fine.”

“Sisi.”

“How do you do it? How do you stare at love like this and not allow it to either overcome you, or else, break you?”

He closed his eyes, and his face did not show the customary calm that Sisi had always found in him. His voice was quiet when he answered. “It is difficult for me, too.”

But Sisi felt like hitting him, railing against him until he offered more of a confession. “I asked you to kiss me. You looked as though you wanted to. You always look as though you want to. And yet, you refuse.”

“I cannot say what is in my heart,” he said, his voice still quiet, controlled. “Any more than I can ask you now what’s in yours.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” She laughed, a bitter laugh.

“Yes, it’s glaringly obvious. But I cannot say it.”

“Why not?”

“It would be treason.” He took her hands in his, trying to calm her, but she resisted. That was not the touch of his for which she ached; it was not enough.

“Look at me, Sisi. Please, look at me.”

She gave in, staring into his dark eyes for several minutes, seeing her own anguish reflected back to her in them. Before she could control them, tears began to rise in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks. She succumbed to the tears, allowing herself to cry with all the force she had used to hold them in for so long. Andrássy wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into an embrace.

She allowed herself to rest on his shoulders. Through her tears, she gasped out her words. “It’s so cruel. It’s all been so cruel.”

“I know.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “I know.”

He allowed her to cry until she felt she had no tears left. “We can be strong, Sisi.”

She pulled away from him, looking up at him through the film of tears. “Must we be strong, Andrássy? What if we decided instead to be honest? To be happy?”

“Shhh.” He pressed a finger to her lips, blocking further words from utterance. “I will not put you in danger. I will not. I will not be the cause of your marriage’s failure or your reputation’s ruination.”

She laughed at this. As if Andrássy would be to blame for her marriage’s failure.

“I cannot tell you what I long to tell you.” He removed his finger from her lips and slipped it under her chin. She loved it when he took her face in his hands like this. She loved it when he angled her face close to his. If only it could be followed with the kiss she craved.

“I once told you,” he said, his breath landing gently on her face, “whatever it is that I wish to say, I find that Goethe has already found a way to say it better. Well, I don’t think that quoting a little bit of Goethe is treason, is it?”

Andrássy pulled a small book from his pocket, opening it to a page that was folded over. She saw his familiar, elegant cursive scribbled in the margins and knew that he had pored over this passage many times. At the bottom of a long passage he had scrawled, in clear, capital letters:
SISI
. Her heart lurched.

Andrássy cleared his throat and began to read the passage:

“To be loved for what one is, that is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him; their own selves, their version of him . . .”

Her heart hurled itself at her rib cage as he read on.

“This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love this way. That no one could ever have loved so before us. And that no one will ever love in the same way after us.”

He paused when it was over, taking a slow, deep breath. When he looked up at her, she saw that he, too, wept.

XVIII.

For three centuries we have tried faith. Time and again we have tried hope, till only one possibility remained, that the nation should be able to fall in love with some member of the reigning house from the depths of the heart.

—Former Hungarian separatist, writing about Sisi

June 1867

Chapter Eighteen

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

JUNE 1867

Sisi did not
know how she would tell Andrássy that she was pregnant. She had not even told Franz, and she supposed that he, as the father, ought to be the first to know. And yet, the conversation she thought about most was the one during which she would have to break the news to Andrássy. Every time she thought about him, she recalled the last time they’d been together. The afternoon they had spent together on the banks of the Danube. The afternoon when he had told her that Hungary would be free and that he loved her.

Sisi had arrived for the coronation in Hungary’s capital in triumph, the people lining the boulevards, their cheers of “Long live Elisabeth” so thunderous that she thought she saw the buildings tremble. Flowers rained down on her as the coach sped uphill, bound for the castle on Buda’s heights. Her coronation would be the proudest of her moments as empress, for she would be officially recognized by the people she loved. Both they—and she—knew that it was Sisi who had brought this dual monarchy about.

And yet, when left alone to get settled into her apartments in Buda’s castle, Sisi grew nervous and agitated. She did not know why she suffered from this guilt, this fear of telling Andrássy that she had returned to her husband’s bed. It had been one night only, the night she had pressed Franz to compromise on the issue of Hungarian autonomy. Franz, who had so seldom been assertive in their marriage, had asserted his husbandly influence that one night, and to such a dramatic effect. It was odd, that a child could have been made in that brief, unremarkable matter of minutes.

The baby had just barely begun to show the first signs of its presence—just a small swell in her belly, noticeable only because the rest of her frame was so narrow. While traveling, she had concealed her belly by dressing in roomy cloaks and free-flowing gowns. Ida had already taken out the seams of the gown Sisi intended to wear to the coronation. Sisi had sworn Ida to secrecy, so that when she arrived in Hungary, only Ida and Marie knew.

Sophie, who was increasingly unwell and flatly opposed to the purpose of the trip, had chosen not to travel with her son to the Hungarian coronation. Just as well, Sisi thought, though it would have given her satisfaction to see Sophie’s face as the Hungarians venerated their beloved queen.

Andrássy welcomed them with a formal banquet the first week in June, attended by hundreds of Hungarian statesmen, ministers, and noblemen. Outside the walled castle, the city was in a state of ongoing revelry, the Habsburgs having donated barrels of wine and ale in honor of their own celebrations. The days were at their longest and the meandering streets of the Buda hillside were aglow as sunlight mingled with candlelight. The people danced and sang, playing an unceasing chorus of Hungarian czardas and Gypsy music. Spontaneous cheers erupted, lauding “Sisi, the Hungarian Queen!” Word had spread that the beautiful queen had been their champion in the Hofburg, and Sisi had secured her place in the Hungarian imagination as the most popular Habsburg. Some even whispered that the queen had fallen in love with the handsome Andrássy, and he with her. Who, it was asked, could blame either one of them?

Inside Buda Castle the mood was merry but more subdued. Sisi saw Andrássy throughout the dinner, smiled as he introduced her to an endless stream of faces as “Our Queen of Hungary, Elisabeth.”

But it was not until after dinner, when she strolled the castle complex alone, that Sisi hoped to speak with him in private. She had slipped him the note at the end of dinner, and hoped he would come.

Midnight sounded at the nearby cathedral of St. Matthew without a sign of Andrássy. Fortunately the evening was a warm one. Sisi paced the stone paths, listening to the gurgling of the fountain as she both dreaded and longed for the moment when she would see his face emerge into the dark garden.

They had written since their last encounter, but their communication had primarily been to discuss the coronation and the plans for Sisi’s trip. He had not again implied, or outright spoken of, his love for her. Until his most recent letter. He had closed that note by saying:
Know that I think of that Goethe passage daily, for the beautiful truth it makes plain
. Sisi had kept it, along with every other letter he had ever written her, in a locked drawer of her escritoire.

“Sisi.” She heard his voice now and her eyes flew in his direction.

“Andrássy.” She ran toward him, her gown belling out in the breeze. She wore a flowing dress of filmy vanilla chiffon with gold trim on the neck and sleeves. A cape of the same pattern draped over her shoulders. On her head rested a delicate tiara encrusted with hundreds of small, brilliant diamonds.

“There’s my queen.” Andrássy took her gloved hands in his and raised them to his lips. “Sisi.” He smiled at her, his dark eyes happy. “Sisi, you are as radiant as ever. They love you, just as I knew they would.”

She smiled up at him, her anxiety dissipating as she sensed the love
he
felt for her, too. “Andrássy.” All she could do was say his name.

Andrássy, still holding her hands in his, looked down at her. “You are every bit the queen we have prayed for.”

She gulped. How could she tell him?

“And tomorrow shall be a day . . . oh, do you know what they call you?”

She shrugged her shoulders, no.

“They call you
Hungary’s Beautiful Providence.”

She smiled, but still did not speak. She had never gotten comfortable with the blurred line between the divinity ascribed to her and her own awareness of her many glaring faults.

“Can you believe we did it? Hungarian autonomy! A dual monarchy.” Andrássy was overcome for a moment and did not speak as he stared at her. After a moment, he hooked his arm in hers. “Shall we walk, or sit? I was so happy that you wished to see me.”

Andrássy moved to walk with her through the dark, quiet garden.

“Wait one moment.” Sisi paused. The first hint of uneasiness was audible now in her voice. “Andrássy, I must tell you something.”

Andrássy turned to face her. “Yes?” He sensed her tone. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

She hesitated, angling her body away from his.

“Sisi, you know you can tell me anything.”

“I know.” Sisi dropped his hand and turned her back on him.

“You are frightening me.” Andrássy put a hand on her shoulder. “Please.”

Steeling herself with a deep breath, she slipped from his grasp. She stepped into a puddle of moonlight where it spilled into the courtyard through an opening in the trees. There, she slipped the cape off her shoulders and turned, looking at him in profile.