The Empress Chronicles (24 page)

It was well after midnight when the gala concluded, and I left the grand ballroom wetter than a doused rat from perspiration, my sister and mother leading the way back to our rooms. The whole evening was a blur, my cotillion dance with the emperor included.

Poor Nené could barely contain her disappointment, for not only had he not invited her to the dance floor—nobody had. My dear sister sat in her chair the entire night, carrying on conversations with the archduchess and being introduced as “my dearest niece” when well-wishers came by to pay their respects. The only consolation for Duchess Helene was that, sitting in such proximity to her aunt, she received the gusts of breeze from the attendants as they fanned the emperor’s mother, and thus stayed as fresh as the moment she walked into the ballroom.

I, however, was less so.

There had been four couples on the floor when the emperor and I had danced. Weckbecker and two other in the privy of Franz Joseph, with an equal number of ladies of the court. Oh, how I loved waltzing from partner to partner, the pattern and rhythm of it, so much like riding a quadrille on horseback. Though the emperor had barely paid me mind during the cotillion itself, as soon as the music died, he’d plucked his boutonniere from his uniform and, after kissing my wrist, he gathered both of my hands and presented me the single red rose, as though inserting a pearl back into an oyster. His face was ever so handsome, but I did not allow myself to gaze upon it. Instead, I envisioned my count’s face upon every man with whom I danced.

I did not look upon the crowd, for fear of embarrassing my sister who, I was certain, would also receive a flower before the night was done. Perhaps he would offer Nené a nosegay proper?

Once having tasted the movement to the music, I found it hard to sit back down and twiddle my thumbs while others danced. Good fortune followed as Weckbecker introduced me to a series of young men thereafter, and I danced nearly every dance.

The end of the ball had come too soon, and Mummi bade we take our leave, thanking the archduchess and the emperor personally, but he was entangled in some other matter with his privy, so it was only his mother for whom we’d curtseyed before leaving.

Then the archduchess did the most curious thing. She took both of my hands in her own, looked me in the eye, and said, “Elisabeth, I have misjudged you. Your grace on the dance floor, the way you unfold like a rose in the sun, well, it took my breath away.”

I kissed her ring, and stuttered out a “Your Grace,” and then the three of us Wittelsbachs were escorted out by the ancient gentlemen, who’d all but disappeared until this moment and who smelled of herring and pipe smoke.

We were left to attend to our nighttime rituals, with the directive that we were to join the emperor and his mother for a birthday luncheon on the day following. Oh, how I wished I could just sink into the bed and not face what I knew I was about to face.

Whereas my sister had stomped and stormed and hissed and spit the day previous, now she merely lay down on the bed and wept. And not the angry weeping of a girl who did not get her way—this was a deeper, sadder, more egregious sorrow. It was as though someone had died and, of all of us, I would know most how the tentacles of grief reached within a heart and squeezed its life away. Had I not been bolstered by the thought of reuniting with Count Sebastian, I, too, would be aggrieved.

Mummi stroked Nené’s back, and I joined them on the bed. “Do not give up, dear sister,” I offered. “We do not know what tomorrow will bring.”

With those words my sister sprang bolt upright, as though awoken from a dream, and in one death grip of strength she pulled hard the locket, breaking the chain, and hurled the keepsake floorward. The fancy wing of the timepiece resembled a soaring eagle bound for a fish as my keepsake hit the wood.

“Oh, my!” said Mummi.

“I should have given that stupid necklace to the attendant!”

Attendant?

I picked the locket up. Inside, the same uniformed emperor stared out into the room, his countenance taking on an unapologetic demeanor, as though he were actually with us in the flesh. I was curious. “Why would you give my necklace to an attendant?”

“A lady who admired it. She asked me if I would trade it for some silk gloves. I should have done so.”

This puzzled me, briefly, and then I queried, “This lady, what did she look like? What did she say?”

Before she could respond, there was the sound of a rough knock at the door. The knock I knew so well, for it was the same I’d heard lo these past dozen years. Baroness Wilhelmine.

I opened the heavy door and there stood our governess, bearing a large, shrouded frame. “Help me in with this, Sisi,” she said. “I cannot wait to hear! How went the ball?”

As soon as this inquiry slipped out into the room, it propelled a new round of sobs from Nené. Mummi pointed to her eldest daughter and, turning to face the baroness, she mouthed,
Not so well
.

I aided my governess in sliding her burden, the giant painting of Duchess Helene, across the floor and over to the window, and Baroness Wilhelmine scolded because I remained off-balance while I was still holding the locket. “What little bauble have you there, Sisi?” she asked. “Can you not put down your toys for one minute?”

I held up the locket, tick-tocking it by its severed chain. “We had a little mishap.”

The baroness scrunched her eyes and her brow became one long line. “Your locket!” she said. “So. What happened, exactly?”

I offered my account of the evening, and Mummi edited my version, and then Nené overwrote both of our accounts of what had transpired, and all the while our governess shook her head.

She muttered quietly under her breath, and perhaps I was the only one to hear her utter, “Lola Montez is up to no good.”

So she knows
. Perhaps Little Ludwig and Amalie were not mad, after all. Lola’s warning continued to sound in my head. Her dictate to go along with any event in Bad Ischl. But how could I be reunited with the count if the emperor chose me over my sister? I turned back to the matter at hand. “Let us look at that painting,” I suggested, peeling the blanket back.

It still smelled of oil and turpentine, and in the heat, I sensed it was still somewhat tacky, but the wrapping had been carefully stretched to the frame, two pieces of intersecting balsa wood protecting the fresh paint. Now unveiled, Nené’s portrait loomed menacingly in the semi-dark of the room, and the “X” made by the wood pieces amplified the less-than-flattering likeness, so that, if one were being honest, it looked as though the duchess were being negated, the intersecting balsa covering her bosom.

“It’s fetching,” I lied. “I cannot wait to see the emperor’s face when we present this on the morrow.”

Anew, my dear sister sobbed.

The whole evening had been a disaster. My sister was being snubbed by the emperor, the necklace was broken, and Lola, it seemed, was not to be trusted. And worst of all, I was beginning to believe that I would never be reunited with the count. I, too, wished to bury my face in my hands and weep unceasingly.

Mummi sensed our collective exhaustion, and certainly could see our sorrow. Thankfully, she suggested, “It is late. Let us all get some sleep and see what tomorrow will bring.”

I awoke to the sound of cracking thunder and streaks of lightning outside the tall windows of our room. If the previous day had been stifling, today’s weather, just to fool with us, was the clear opposite. It promised to be one of those dark summer days, where night never really takes its leave.

Conjuring Lola’s demand sent me into a puzzlement over my now-fractured keepsake. Not only had the chain snapped, but the very tip of the wing had cracked as well. Whatever magic this locket possessed might now have been altered. I wound the timepiece just the same, wishing to restore order. Hoping to make time tick forward nonetheless.

The rest of my family was already in the drawing room taking breakfast when I arose. Nené’s portrait had been moved, and now it lay against a windowsill, still offering its charmless posture. If only my sister, who was always thought to be the beautiful one among us, could learn to bring joy and fascination into the lines of her face. If I were the artist, I surmised, I would have painted a mirth-filled expression upon her; I would have given Duchess Helene at least a half smile. Something.

I joined my sister and mother at the table, and all was quiet with us Wittelsbachs, while the sky outside broke open with rain and continual thunder. The mood suited. We would soon enough be summoned to take part in the emperor’s birthday luncheon. I wondered how we would keep Nené’s portrait dry with all of the rain in the air.

“He will make a formal announcement for your hand today,” Mummi declared, smoothing her eldest daughter’s oily hair. “I can feel it.”

My sister narrowed her eyes. She picked at her quail egg as though it were chicken dung.

The tension wafting off Nené’s being was such that I could not stand to share the room. I had been puzzling through a verse since the gala. On the dance floor I’d closed my eyes and imagined Count Sebastian gliding me along the parquet. Wings beneath my feet. That was the title of my verse. With my mother and sister laboring over breakfast and the coming day, I took my leave and retired to the adjoining cabinet, where I’d sequestered my journal under yet another insufferable needlepoint.

Thunder cracked in low waves as I made my way to the tiny room. There, a music composition book lay open on a podium. Ink and implement beside it.
Wings beneath my feet
, I thought.
Soaring, gliding, diving down.
So many ways to conjure the grace of flight.

Checking over my shoulder one last time, I pulled the diary from underneath the stitching and hoop. Pen in hand, I paged beyond my last entry and set ink to paper.

But when I looked down at the page, someone had sullied my most private book with scribble. A child’s bad cursive, a jumble of words, had trespassed beneath my hand. I felt the urge to scream aloud. How dare anyone write in my book! But by the power of the graces I managed to stifle my yelp. The words, strung together inelegantly, spelled out some sort of alarm:

Sisi, do not obey as Lola commands.

Leave at once.

No to the wedding.

You won’t make happy as empress.

Who could have written this? Baroness Wilhelmine? My stomach curdled as I closed the book and tucked it back. Thunder cracked louder, and competing with that, in the anteroom where my sister and mother still breakfasted was a strong rap at the door.

I returned to the room just as the door burst open. In marched the archduchess, uncharacteristically devoid of attendants and fancy coiffure. In fact, it seemed she still wore her nightgown under a velvet robe. She stomped up to our mother and announced, “Ludovica, a word.”

Mummi followed her sister into the bedchamber, leaving Nené and me sitting alone.

“What have you done now, Sisi?” Nené queried through sore, puffy eyes.

We heard muffled sounds behind the door. Thunder and lightning further obscured the voices of our mother and our aunt. I worried my locket, which was nestled in the pocket of my morning frock.
Who wrote in my journal? Who?
And how did they know about Lola?

My sister nibbled her soft-boiled egg. I poured some tea. Carriages came and went beneath the window, no doubt delivering the emperor’s favorite foods.

Time passed.

More time passed.

At last the door opened, and the two sisters walked through. Mummi with her worried face, the archduchess with a frown.

“I will leave you to this task, Ludovica.”

My sister and I stood, curtseyed, and chorused, “Your Grace,” as she left the room. Our heads then turned to Mummi.

“Oh, how I wish my dear spaniels were by my side, for now is when I need some reassurance,” said our mother.

“What is it?” Nené asked.

Mummi took in a breath, held it for as long as it took to tie one’s boots, and then let it out ever so slowly.

“Sit, girls,” she said. “For there has been a development.”

We sat.

“You see, well, there is no easy way to say this. And understand, I am still in shock myself.”

Thunder. Rain pelting. Wagons and carts and lightning.

“The emperor. He has made his intentions known to his mother.”

“Sidonie …” Nené whimpered.

“No, Helene. Not Sidonie,” Mummi said.

I knew, of course. My stomach curdled, and a deep dread rose up into my throat. I wished for a chamber pot in which to cough up the contents of my stomach. Karl, the locket, Lola, the scribbles in my journal— they’d all prophesied this outcome and I had chosen to turn my back on it. I’d chosen, arrogantly, to think that my actions could influence a different outcome. The man who’d danced the cotillion with me only a few hours earlier, Franz Joseph I, by the grace of God Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, had chosen the younger of the teenaged Wittelsbach daughters for his bride.