Sisi, page 26
But when Sisi had arrived at Windsor Castle at midday on Sunday, having sent word ahead that she had selected that day to pay her respects, she was quickly made to understand that her hostess was displeased with having to receive a visitor on a Sunday, a day usually reserved for church services and private family time.
As Sisi was announced into Victoria’s formal receiving room, a dark-paneled chamber that seemed to creak and groan with age, she bowed and flashed her widest smile, hoping to offset any offense she had unintentionally inflicted. The clock in the room ticked unusually loudly as it kept time. Victoria looked up from where she sat, her ample, black-clad frame filling the entirety of her upholstered armchair. She spoke with the tone of a disapproving grandmother addressing her unruly offspring. “Elisabeth, it is good of you to come, at last.”
Sisi took the chair offered to her and nodded to accept a service of tea. She raved about England, mentioning numerous times that she was there on a trip of leisure and not in any official capacity, sprinkling in copious compliments to the beauty of Victoria’s countryside and the hospitality of her people.
The unsmiling English matriarch replied by mentioning multiple times that she had had to have her parish minister cut short his sermon so that she could be back at Windsor Castle in time to receive Sisi on her ill-considered Sunday visit. Hearing this, Sisi determined to make the visit quick so as not to disrupt any more of her hostess’s day—a decision that was made easier by Victoria’s frosty demeanor.
When the clouds outside turned ominous, dropping a slick rain on the thick-paned windows that threatened to turn into a late-spring ice, Sisi determined it best to travel back to Easton Neston before the route became more difficult. She declined Victoria’s very tepid invitation to stay on for luncheon. “I won’t keep you any longer, Your Majesty, as I’m certain that you would like to enjoy the rest of your Sunday in peace.”
All of these were miscalculations, Sisi learned when she spotted the newspaper reports the next morning. Sisi had offended Victoria in everything from her selection of the day of the visit, to the time of the visit, to the short duration of the visit, to the topics of conversation she had discussed while paying said visit. Franz was no doubt at his desk in Vienna this very minute penning an exasperated note to his wife, begging her once more to return to his court before she could do any more damage at home and abroad.
Bay, having clearly seen the reports himself, now made a joke of them as they rode out ahead of the others. “I see that things got quite chilly at Windsor Castle yesterday, and I don’t refer to the freezing rain.”
Sisi couldn’t help but frown at this, her eyes looking straight ahead but, for once, not enjoying the lush English scenery before her. The last thing she wanted was for the burdens of her official duties to tarnish this free time out in the fields; this was supposed to be the one place where she was not bothered by all of that.
But Bay continued: “The reports say you’ve declined not one but two of old Vicky’s dinner invitations? And so then you called on Her Majesty yesterday, rather unexpectedly, and angered her even further by declining luncheon?”
Sisi didn’t respond, and Bay at last seemed to pick up on the annoyance he had caused. “I’m only teasing, Sisi.” He glanced at her, but she avoided his gaze. “But one thing confuses me: rather than make such a scandal, why didn’t you just stay for luncheon? Or accept on one of the nights when she invited you to a formal state dinner?”
She turned to Bay now, wondering how she could explain. How could anyone possibly understand how sacred her time away was, how hard she had fought to carve out these stolen moments in which she was free of the crushing burdens of the empire? How she had loved, these past weeks, sitting down to simple meals with friends and not having protocol dictate the order in which they could cut into their meat, which topics she might discuss; not fearing, always, that she had somehow offended someone by veering off a script that so often eluded and confounded her? And how, now that she’d finally found a glimmer of happiness and freedom for just these few months, she wanted to cling to her liberty, her privacy, however selfish or impolite that made her appear?
She couldn’t make Bay, or Franz, or anyone understand; she didn’t even want to waste any more of her time that day trying to explain. She didn’t wish to defend or justify her actions, not here, and she didn’t want to be asked to do so. So instead, all she said was: “That sort of thing bores me. If I wanted state dinners, I’d return to Vienna.”
Bay, as expected, didn’t understand the depth of her exasperation. “Why do you loathe Vienna so?”
She sighed. “Bay, please, let’s not talk about it.”
“Fine,” he said, his tone turning lighthearted. “Well, you’re the empress. You tell me what we shall talk about.”
So she did. She filled the hours telling Bay about Possenhofen and Bavaria and her father. She confessed that, since arriving in England and riding hard every day as she had as a girl, she had been dreaming of her father with startling regularity. Recalling their time together in the riding ring and out in the countryside. She found herself missing him in a way she never had before. She confessed to Bay how strained her relationship with her father had become. Once so close to him because of their shared passion for horses, Sisi had given up on her father after his years of dissolution, philandering, and excessive drinking.
Bay didn’t try to calm Sisi or urge her to assume mastery over her emotions, as Franz would have. Nor did he try to offer some sensitive advice, to fix it for her, as Andrássy would have. He did neither; he said nothing. He simply listened, nodding occasionally. And then, when her confessions were over, he shrugged and changed the subject. It was odd, an unusual way to react, and yet, something about it soothed Sisi. It was all so simple. He didn’t dismiss her troubles, but he didn’t dwell on them, either. And she knew, somehow, that everything she told him was safe in his confidence. And she found it unusual and refreshing that his face showed no reaction—no judgment. It made her want to keep confiding in him.
So she spoke about Hungary, too. She described the hunting season there, outlining how different it was in the wilds outside of Budapest from the shires of Northamptonshire. She explained how the woods and forests around Gödöllő allowed the fox to escape, often making it difficult for the hounds to track the scent. She explained that the jumping there was more often over ditches than pasture fences and lush hedges.
“You’ll have to come and see a Hungarian hunting season for yourself, Bay,” she said one afternoon in late spring. “Would you like that?”
“If you were there, Sisi, then yes, I’d like it very much.”
She nodded at this, twisting the reins in her hands as she tried not to smile.
“But am I invited?” Bay asked, turning sideways to glance at her.
“I think I just invited you.”
“Then I think I just accepted the invitation.”
As spring ripened into full, glorious English summer, Sisi knew that her time abroad was drawing to a close, and she faced the grim reality of returning to Vienna with a sense of deepening melancholy. She dreaded resuming her official role beside Franz at formal state dinners, making small talk with stiff ministers and gossipy courtiers. She dreaded the thought of confronting Rudolf’s debauched behavior, and facing the vicious Viennese press, so angry with her for the prolonged absence. She grew so anxious about it all that soon even her time in the saddle surrounded by the green and glorious shires failed to lift her spirits.
Bay, sensing her unhappiness, proposed a grand celebration before her departure, something to which she might look forward. “You should host a steeplechase.” When Sisi didn’t respond, Bay continued: “Easton Neston has plenty of land for a course.”
“A steeplechase?” Sisi was pulled from her unhappy daydreams as she turned to Bay to repeat his suggestion.
“Yes. With riders, and a prize, and a fun lawn party. Invite everyone you’ve met in England. You can present a cup to the winner.”
“But I wouldn’t know the first thing about setting up a steeplechase course.”
“I’ll help you,” Bay said. “It’ll be quite fun.”
And so, with Bay’s enthusiastic support and Lord Spencer’s dependable assistance, Sisi declared her intention to host a race that she named the Grafton Hunt Steeplechase. As the day of her departure drew closer, the course was set up over the park grounds of Easton Neston, and Sisi invited the entire population of Northamptonshire.
After a week of fog and drizzle, the morning of the steeplechase dawned clear and warm, a perfect day for racing and lawn-party revelry. Sisi had ordered a tent put up in the garden, and there in the shade, she served champagne to the hundreds of guests who came. She had made the invitation open, and many who had participated in one of the hunts with her or worked in the surrounding grand homes turned out for the day. As Sisi greeted her guests, her hair pulled back in a loose coronet, her gown sheathing her frame in lightweight lilac silk, she realized just how many local faces she now recognized. All of her visitors expressed their fondness for her, and they thanked her profusely for honoring their shire with such a prolonged stay.
“It is I who must thank all of you for making me feel so at home,” Sisi said, repeating herself throughout the day.
Marie Larisch giggled with Lord and Lady Spencer, having thoroughly charmed them both with her questions about English fashion and customs. Valerie smiled at the guests, clapping happily as she watched the horses assembling for the races. More champagne bottles were ordered and popped, and as Sisi looked around, she knew that the party was an undeniable success. But the high point of the event came when the crowd assembled around the course for the steeplechase. Bay, riding his thoroughbred Musketeer, took the lead just at the last jump and won handily. Sisi couldn’t help but beam when he joined her at the front dais, erected especially for the day, to receive the trophy from her hands. The crowd clapped and hollered, yelling out her name and Bay’s. So loud was the applause that Sisi was certain only Bay heard her when she leaned toward him and said, “I didn’t want anyone to win but you, Bay.”
Bay didn’t pause a moment before offering his reply: “Empress, I’ve got the invitation to come see you in Hungary this autumn. I’ve already won.”
IX
Our dreams are always fairer when they are not realized.
—EMPRESS SISI OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
CHAPTER 9
Gödöllő Palace, Hungary
Autumn 1876
Franz posed the question to Sisi over breakfast on the morning of Bay’s scheduled arrival to Hungary. “He’s only a commoner, this Captain Middleton. And an unmarried one at that. He’ll be happy in one of the outbuilding cottages, won’t he?” Outside the air was sunny and brisk, with the earliest scent of fall tingeing the gentle breeze. A perfect day for traveling, Sisi thought, her own spirits as bright and clear as the weather.
Inside Gödöllő Palace, the imperial household hummed and hustled as efficiently as on any other day, the tasks of making up spare bedrooms and airing out guest cottages easily managed by the emperor’s large staff of servants. Only Sisi seemed to feel, with the imminent arrival of Bay and Lord Spencer and the rest of her guests, that it was a day far different from any other. How would Bay like Gödöllő? How would it be, riding with him here, where it was so unlike Northamptonshire?
“Well? What do you think?” Franz interrupted his wife’s reverie, gazing at her across a table heaped with breakfast sausages, steamed fruit, and wispy pastries. “Shall one of the cottages suit your much-lauded cavalry rider? I don’t think it’s appropriate to have him sleep in the castle, given that he’s of the common class, if that’s all right with you.”
Sisi nodded her absentminded consent. “Certainly, yes. Bay—Captain Middleton—will be perfectly happy in one of the guest cottages.” She looked back at the table, sipping her glass of milk but abstaining from the platters of food, her nerves leaving no room for an appetite.
Franz thought of Bay as he would a stable groom or riding instructor, that much was evident. Keenly aware as he was of how caste and the social order governed habits and people, Franz couldn’t understand how a man of nonnoble birth had found himself in such proximity to the likes of Lord Spencer—or, even more surprisingly, Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary—unless he interacted with them as a servant would.
It was a good thing that Franz saw it that way, Sisi had reminded herself when he had expressed his confusion as to how Bay had secured an invitation to her hunting party. It was what had prevented Franz from experiencing even a scrap of jealousy when Sisi had raved about Bay’s skill in the saddle and insisted that the English sportsman join them at Gödöllő. Confused as he might have been, Franz would never have felt anything even close to suspicion on hearing that his wife, an empress, spent so much time with someone who functioned like any other nonnoble attendant. At best, perhaps he thought of Bay as some sort of elevated riding instructor.
But if Bay hadn’t been an attendant or an instructor, what had he been? Sisi wasn’t sure that she could have answered that question, even to herself. Empresses did not have friends, let alone male friends with whom they rode unchaperoned and unattended. So, if he hadn’t been a friend, and he wasn’t a nobleman in her retinue, and he wasn’t an attendant, what was Bay Middleton?
In her world, where everyone knew their place and everyone understood the rules that dictated each interaction, Bay somehow existed outside of such a framework. It had been fine—pleasant, really—when Sisi had been allowed to exist outside of the framework, as well. It hadn’t mattered in the relaxed, free-form environment of the shires, where she had been the mistress of her own home, without Franz or the court or protocol to answer to. But how Bay’s relationship with her would translate here, into the imperial household, Sisi didn’t know. All she knew was how eager she was to see Bay once more—and how fluttery her stomach had been all morning in anticipation of his arrival.
“Ah, you’ll wish to see this,” Franz said, fanning out the morning’s journal and pulling Sisi’s focus back to the breakfast table. “Ludwig’s latest success.”
“Hmm?” Sisi leaned forward to look at the paper.
Franz read aloud now. “Richard Wagner’s new operatic masterpiece, the Ring Cycle, opened to popular and critical acclaim in Bayreuth, Bavaria, in a brand-new theater made possible by the generosity and patronage of Bavaria’s King Ludwig. The king was so involved, in fact, that even His Majesty’s horse was featured in the production, appearing onstage to the delight of all present.”
Sisi grumbled, “Of course, now that Wagner’s show is a smashing success, everyone is in a flurry to offer the highest praise to Ludwig, when just months ago they were lambasting him as a spendthrift and an eccentric.”
Franz took a sip of coffee, still studying the paper. “Well, the man knows his operas and castles, that much I will concede. Even if I can’t agree with the millions he has thrown away on them.” Franz placed his coffee cup back in its saucer and picked up a roll. “But then again, they criticize me similarly for how much I spend on your horses and your trips abroad.”
Sisi bristled at this, throwing a sharp look toward her husband. Though she had defended Ludwig in the previous breath, she didn’t appreciate the comparison Franz now made between her and her cousin. Certainly, the Austrian papers had excoriated her for the length of her trips abroad and the sums she had required for them. But she spent a mere fraction of what Ludwig dispensed on his ventures. She inhaled, preparing to defend herself, but instead, she sighed audibly, brushing her irritation aside. Bay and Spencer would arrive in just a matter of hours, and she had the prospect of a Hungarian hunting season before her, in their company, and she wouldn’t let anything spoil her mood this morning. Especially not a quarrel with Franz.
Sisi stood between Franz and the ladies of her household as she greeted her guests, listening to the giggles of Larisch even as she kept her own expression poised and appropriately regal. A series of carriages rolled up to Gödöllő to drop off the invitees, all arriving in time to dine that evening before officially beginning the weeks-long hunting party the next morning. Nicky Esterházy arrived first, bringing with him a cheerful friend named Rudi Liechtenstein who professed to love horses as much as Esterházy and the empress.
“Well, then you’ve come to the right place,” Sisi said, greeting the newcomer warmly.
“Good to see you again.” Nicky flashed a self-assured wink as he stepped in front of his friend and bowed before Sisi.
“You, too, Nicky.”
Next came Rudolf, looking haggard and pale after what had most likely been a raucous few days in nearby Budapest. Sisi heard Franz sigh beside her when he saw his son approach, when he noted Rudolf’s disheveled hair and tired, bloodshot eyes.
“Father, hello.”
“Son,” Franz said, nodding at the young man who looked nothing like him, resembling only his mother in his build and coloring.
Rudolf turned next with a slack expression toward Sisi. “Mother, good to see you.”
“Hello, dear. Now let me see my boy.” Sisi looked her son up and down, noticing two things as she did so. The first was that Rudolf wore his military tunic over the navy pants of the infantry officer, a direct challenge to his father, who always wore the red from his own days in the cavalry and who had been rebuffed in his request that his son follow in his footsteps into the cavalry. The second thing that Sisi noticed was that Franz, seeing the taunt, scowled, looking barely happy to welcome his son and heir.
“It’s good to see you, Rudolf.” Sisi forced a smile, already aware of the tension that would now fill the house, seeping outward from both father and son. She just hoped she could remain as removed from it as possible, and spare Bay from it entirely.
“So who is this Middleton fellow?” Rudolf asked. “I’m all for welcoming an Englishman, but shouldn’t it be the Prince of Wales, and not some common officer?”
