Sisi, page 32
“Empress Elisabeth.” The man bowed before her, his voice so quiet that Sisi barely heard it.
Out in the field, Rivers-Bulkeley proved to be a fine enough horseman. Spencer wouldn’t have paired her with him otherwise. But that was where the similarities between Rivers-Bulkeley and Bay ceased. He was as dull as Sisi had feared he would be. Either nervous in her presence or simply nervous by nature, he proved unwilling to call out to her. Whereas Bay was constantly whooping and shouting, guiding Sisi over the obstacles with his booming voice and irreverent humor, Rivers-Bulkeley seemed too timid to address her directly.
So, as they approached fences and ditches, places where Bay would have cried out, his voice roaring with exhilarated gusto—Take it full on, Sisi! Lean into it! Don’t embarrass me!—Rivers-Bulkeley muttered tentative, barely audible statements: “I shall take it full on, Empress.”
After several such declarations, Sisi deduced that Rivers-Bulkeley meant these statements as his piloting calls and that she should do what he said he would do, as well. These pinch-lipped statements were as close as he could come to issuing her advice or orders. A few times she didn’t even hear his words and barked out in frustration that he needed to speak up. Rivers-Bulkeley seemed as uncomfortable with the arrangement as Sisi was. The afternoon passed as a tense and unenjoyable few hours, as depressing as the weather overhead. For the first time since coming to Britain, Sisi longed for the day’s hunt to be over.
—
The next day, rather than face another outing like the previous day’s, Sisi remained in bed, declaring that she was ill and not up for riding. “Tell Spencer that they may go on without me.”
“Empress, we must keep you warm.” Ida hovered by Sisi’s bed, spreading out another covering. “Never in all of your years coming to England have you skipped a day of riding.”
“I’m not well.”
“Shall I fetch the doctor?”
“No.”
“What ails you, Madame?”
How could Sisi explain—how could she answer that question? She couldn’t, so she didn’t try. She simply rolled over and, eyes wide open, wondered what Bay was doing in that moment. Did he long to be here with her? She shut her eyes and begged sleep to steal her away for a few hours.
—
As if to compound her melancholy, the bitter February weather hovered in and around Combermere, keeping the earth locked in a deep freeze as the wind howled down the abbey’s ancient stone hallways. The home, once so cozy and welcoming to Sisi, began to feel like the haunted house that the locals claimed it to be. Yet even a dark, haunted house was preferable to the hunting fields without Bay beside her. So Sisi skipped many days, blaming the weather, though a bit of wind and cold had never been considerations for her in the past.
Spencer, seeming to pick up on Sisi’s melancholy, invited her often to his lodgings to dine with him and the Rothschilds, whose company Sisi had so enjoyed in previous seasons. Sisi declined as often as was acceptable without being rude. Even Spencer’s merry dinner table somehow felt dull to her without Bay sitting at it.
She kept thinking, hoping, that Bay would come. Each morning that she arrived at the hunt, dressed in her finest silk and fur riding habits—just in case this was the day that he finally appeared—she’d face a fresh tide of despair as she’d spy Rivers-Bulkeley waiting for her, his timid face tilting downward. The poor man—it wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t Bay. She didn’t blame him, even if she did hate to see him each time. And she was grateful to him for one thing; she was grateful that Rivers-Bulkeley always looked away rather than staring directly at the empress, as Bay had done. This way, the man didn’t see the tears that warmed Sisi’s cheeks before freezing in the biting wind, stiffening into hard, stiff patches on her pale, unsmiling face.
As the days passed, Sisi became ever more resolved that she couldn’t leave England without at least seeing Bay once. He would be married soon—and then, surely, she’d never see him. This might be her last chance. But how could she get him here when he was not permitted to ride with her? She decided she’d host a grand dinner party, a gathering to mark her last night in England. She’d send an invitation to Bay, and should he decide to bring his fiancée with him, fine. All that mattered was that she had to see him.
Sisi threw herself into the plans for the dinner party with the same zeal with which she’d approached her riding in the past seasons. She had no use for her saddle now, but the thought of seeing Bay filled her with a small flicker of hope. Would he come? Panicked that he might decline, Sisi asked Spencer to implore him on her behalf. Spencer reported back that Bay had been honored by the invitation and that he would indeed be there. “Like a moth to the flame, he shall come, Empress,” Spencer predicted, smiling kindly.
Knowing that Bay would be there, Sisi spent the afternoon preparing herself for the reunion. She hesitated before her wardrobe for nearly an hour before selecting the most dazzling gown she had brought with her, a violet dress of wispy crepe de chine. She had Franziska wash her hair and perfume it with rose water before pulling it back in a loose chignon trimmed with diamonds and crystal. Sapphires dripped from her ears and around her neck, and she colored her pale cheeks with rouge.
When she spotted Bay that evening, she felt herself trembling with relief. He had come alone, without Charlotte. “Bay.” She smiled at him, keeping her voice low.
“Sisi.” He was here. Charlotte, wherever she was, was most likely furious, but he was here.
“How I’ve missed you. You have been so unkind to stay away.”
Bay’s eyes held hers, his gaze as direct and intense as she remembered it. “And I have missed you.” He looked her over approvingly, and she felt her entire face flush with heat.
“I might have to be incredibly cross with you, Bay.” She remembered then what he had once said, how he loved the way his name sounded on her lips.
“Please don’t be cross with me.”
He leaned forward, and she absorbed the fact of his closeness, feeling as if her entire body had surged back to life in his presence. You bloom whenever Bay is present.
“I’ve suffered enough, Sisi, simply by being kept away from you. If you punish me, I might not survive.”
She lowered her eyes at his statement, dizzy with relief to hear that she was not the only one who had suffered these past weeks.
—
Like a moth to the flame, he shall come. That was how Spencer had called it, and he had been correct. The time apart had seemed only to intensify the magnetic pull between them. Bay remained close to Sisi’s side the entire night, at times allowing his hands to accidentally brush the bare skin of her arms, to quickly graze her waist or back as he hovered in such close proximity. Each time she felt the warmth of him so close to her, she went almost light-headed with the loveliest fog of desire. She seated him beside her at dinner and focused her conversation entirely on him, not caring in the slightest what her ladies or the Spencers or the Rothschilds thought of her negligence as a hostess.
After dinner, as the others retired to the drawing room for Marie Festetics to play music, Sisi and Bay, made restless by the reality that the dinner party would soon be over, strolled the hallways of Combermere Abbey. “Shall we go and find William of Orange?” Bay asked, his gaze sliding sideways toward Sisi. She nodded her agreement.
It was a dark, chilly night, and the abbey seemed to groan around them, its ancient bones creaking against the relentless English wind. Sisi did not mind the cold. Her footsteps clicked and echoed off of the ancient walls as the two of them meandered down the candlelit passageways, laughing as they recalled Marie Festetics’s past horror over Bay’s ghost talk. “Besides, if old William did bother to raise up his old carcass to come a-haunting, I doubt it’d be Marie he’d wish to visit. No doubt he’d want a glimpse of you, Sisi.”
Whenever they shared a laugh, whenever their eyes met in loaded, meaningful stares, Sisi longed for him to take her hand in his. She wanted him to take her in his arms and pull her into any one of these shadowy, private rooms and lay her down and…She blinked, pausing her steps to steady herself on the wall. Bay paused beside her. “Are you all right?”
“Fine…” she said, smiling weakly at him. “Just a bit dizzy. Perhaps I had too much wine at dinner.”
He nodded, half a grin pulling his lips apart. “Yes, perhaps it was the wine.”
As they resumed walking, Bay resumed his scattered and restless chatter, telling Sisi about a new horse he had acquired, a thoroughbred named Domino. Sisi didn’t care about his horses, not now. “How is Charlotte?” she asked eventually, her jealousy gaining mastery of her. She wanted to see his reaction. Wanted to exorcise the ghost of Charlotte that stood between them, knowing it would remain a menace until she confronted it.
Bay’s response to his fiancée’s name being spoken aloud was curious. He paused and shut his eyes a moment and then, opening them, turned to Sisi. His voice without emotion, he said, “She’s cross with me at the moment.”
Sisi resumed walking, and Bay fell into step beside her. “I hope the disagreement is not a serious one?” Sisi stared straight ahead down the shadowed hallway, holding her breath as she awaited his reply.
Bay shook his head. “She will forgive me. She is a very patient and forbearing girl.” And then he turned to Sisi, waving his hand back and forth between the two of them. “Clearly.”
Sisi found the comment odd, and it gave her heart a jolt. Did Bay mean that he knew there was something—something wonderful and undeniable—between the two of them and that poor, patient Charlotte Baird knew it, too? Or did he mean that what they were doing was wrong, filling him with guilt over how he misused the forgiving girl? Sisi didn’t know what he thought or how he felt—about her, about Charlotte, about himself. They’d been so close all of these years, and yet he had never revealed that to her.
She swallowed hard now, forcing her voice to remain calm as she asked: “So tomorrow you shall return to your bride and beg her forgiveness?”
Bay nodded once, stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets.
Sisi stopped midstep and leaned her back against the wall. The stone felt cold on the bare flesh of her arms and shoulders and neck. Overhead, a candle’s flame quivered, setting the world atremble, and Sisi shut her eyes. Her throat constricting, she pulled her hands to cover her face as a shudder of tears overtook her self-control.
Bay, apparently at a loss, said nothing as she began to weep.
After a moment, Sisi continued. “And tomorrow,” she said, fighting to contain the tears, “tomorrow, I shall return to captivity.”
Bay angled his body so that he faced her squarely now, standing opposite her where she leaned into the cold wall. He didn’t speak, and he didn’t touch her, but his body was so close that, even with her eyes shut behind her hands, she sensed him there, felt how near he stood. After several moments, she lowered her hands, wiping aside her tears and opening her eyes. Bay stood before her with his arms raised, his hands pressing against the wall behind her so that he fenced her in, his intense expression holding hers from just inches away. She stared back at him through the gloss of her tears.
Bay spoke first. “If it were in my power…If I could, I would…” He sighed, changing courses. “Are you really so upset?”
“I’m always sad to leave.” She paused, wiping at the moisture on her cheeks. “But at least in the past I have left with wonderful memories, enough of a reserve to get me through the gloom that awaits me back in Vienna.” She inhaled, willing herself not to resume crying. “But this year, without you, I didn’t even have that.”
“Sisi, what do you expect from me?” He groaned, running a hand through his rust-colored hair. He still stood just inches from her, but his eyes drifted down, from her face to her body. “It’s been years.” His tone was heavy, loaded with—what was that? Longing? Frustration? He looked back into her eyes now. “We know what we can be for each other…and what we can’t be. How much longer do you expect me to keep this up?”
He was right, and she knew it. She was married to the emperor, and he was engaged to Charlotte Baird. Their…friendship…had become untenable. Of course she must release him to live his life. How could she explain the depths of her selfishness? To explain that, even though she couldn’t have him and wouldn’t give herself to him, she didn’t want anyone else to take him from her? It wasn’t fair, and she knew it. And yet, how could she let him go? “Bay, these months are…” How could she say that she lived her entire year for these few stolen months with him? “These months are what get me through my year.”
Bay thought about this, puffing his cheeks full of air before breathing out an audible sigh. “Sisi, I can’t live my life for a few stolen months each year.”
The words hit Sisi like a blow, just as a gust of drafty wind skittered down the hallway, extinguishing the candle that flickered overhead. She shut her eyes and absorbed his meaning, the shadows now encasing them in the quiet, darkened hallway. What they had—this dangerous dance with which they had been deluding themselves—was no longer enough for him, and so he was determined to find more. He’d take Charlotte Baird as his wife, and she, Sisi, would recede from his life like an ocean wave that had crested and now had no more power remaining. He’d choose the path that could give him contentment and satisfaction and an agreeable life. But she, she had no hope of doing the same. Her decisions had been made decades ago; her life was set, and on a course that she had never truly understood.
Sisi was jealous now, not only of Charlotte Baird, but of Bay as well. Bay would move on from her. He could and he would, while she had no such freedom. She looked over his shoulder, down the darkened hallway of the abbey that spread out in both directions. A vast maze of corridors, ancient and mysterious, trod by the feet of both the living and the dead. Sisi began to shiver as she realized that perhaps it wasn’t only in this house that, from now on, she would feel haunted.
XII
Geneva, Switzerland
September 1898
AS HE STANDS VIGIL OUTSIDE her hotel, the Swiss night turning ever darker, he thinks back to a time years ago. He’s seen her, he realizes. Once before. It was on a dusty road across eastern France. He didn’t know who she was at the time, only that she was a noble lady, well dressed and surrounded by a cadre of self-important attendants. They met on a road where he’d been working as part of a labor crew digging a ditch. She’d been strolling—for pleasure. Because everything that the poor do out of necessity, the rich do for pleasure. Probably on one of her lavish trips, journeys where she rented castles and rode horses through the countryside.
He stepped forward to approach her as she passed him by on the lane. Extended his hand and begged: “Madame, a coin so that I may get something to eat? My work here is done, and I have no more wages.”
She stopped, frozen, looking at him with soft, slanted eyes. Eyes the color of honey. Warm, even. But before she had the chance to answer, a haughty guard stepped forward, arm lifted for a blow. “Back, scum!”
A lady shuffled in front of her, uttering something about continuing onward. “These local beggars show no respect.” And she nodded, absentmindedly, to the lady. Sped on, continuing briskly up the road without glancing back at him.
He wished in that moment that she’d starve. Someday, that she’d know hunger as he did. That all of them—the haughty attendant, the brutish guard, even the pretty lady with the kind, honey-colored eyes—that the lot of them would know pain and deprivation. What right did they have to the riches that filled their lives? What hard work had they ever done? What food had they earned? No, no, no. Only those who work should eat.
CHAPTER 12
Schönbrunn Summer Palace, Vienna
Spring 1884
“I can’t eat,” Sisi sighed, waving her hand at the table. “You might as well take the breakfast away.”
Sisi sat in her “Riding Chapel,” a good-sized receiving room off of her bedchamber that she had converted into a sort of private shrine or museum. In this space Sisi had collected the various mementos from her happy, bygone days in England and Ireland. The walls were lined with portraits of her English hunters and thoroughbreds, as well as landscapes of the lush fields across which she had raced. There were also the journals she’d kept, as well as small keepsakes—her riding gloves, the pressed four-leaf clover Bay had given her.
Bay. No portrait of his hung on any of the walls, and yet, his presence loomed large over this sacred space. Perhaps it was just as much an altar to consecrate him as it was a shrine to commemorate those blissful days riding to the British hounds. It was to remind Sisi that, yes, Bay Middleton had existed. Bay, whose loss meant that now England, too, was lost to her. She couldn’t go back, not without him. Not when Bay had made Charlotte Baird into Charlotte Middleton.
“Come now, Empress Elisabeth, I can’t abide seeing you in such low spirits.” Marie Festetics shuffled about the room, busying herself with the small chores of tidying the books, dusting the gilded frames. “It’s a lovely day out there. How about we take a walk through the Tiergarten? You love that park in the spring, when everything is in bloom.” As if to invite in the mood-lifting influence of spring, Marie crossed the Riding Chapel and opened one of the full-length windows, allowing in the gentlest of breezes.
Sisi turned to her lady-in-waiting, smiling appreciatively but offering a feeble shake of her head. “I just can’t bear the thought of it…the crush of people. All of them pointing and staring and crying out vulgar things.”
“We could take the covered coach and go to—” But Marie’s suggestion was cut short as, just then, they heard a loud noise, like the pop of gunfire, come in through the opened window. It was followed by what sounded like the horrifying shriek of a child or a cat, and then several more rounds of gunfire mingled with a man’s raspy yell. Sisi rose from her chair and flew to the window to see the cause of the disturbance below. It was one thing to hear the ever-present imperial guards in their marching or in their changing of shifts, but she was not accustomed to such a barrage of erratic and bloodcurdling noises.
