The Accidental Empress, page 42
“Elisa, of course I regret that you were hurt, but if you would only . . .”
“Elisa?”
“It’s not as though you’ve been blameless,” Franz said, a rare tinge of emotion—irritation, perhaps?—apparent in his voice. “You were gone, long before. And then you outright left us. I wondered how you could stay away as long as you did. It struck me as highly . . . unnatural.”
“Unnatural? And what was natural about our arrangement for me? Losing my children? Spending my days haunted by that . . . that woman, Countess Esterházy?”
“Elisabeth, please—”
“Why would I come back? To share you with all of the other women? Your mother, first among them. And then God knows who else?”
“Enough”—Franz winced—“please.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is it too vile? These things may be done, but just not spoken of, is that how it happens? What did you call it? Repräsentazions-pflicht. ‘Keeping up a fine front.’ That’s what you told me on our wedding day, wasn’t it?”
“I shall not even try logic, Elisabeth.” His frustration, his condescension—he sounded so much like Sophie.
“What logic?” she asked, her tone bitter.
“That . . .” Franz paused. “That for an emperor to have a . . . to have companions . . . is a perfectly natural custom. A custom as old as time itself. Especially after you withdrew from me. You never seemed to acknowledge it, but I do have certain . . . rights . . . as emperor. Everyone seems to understand it but you.” His hand gripped the napkin, twisting it, as his eyes avoided hers. “It says nothing about how I feel about you, Elisabeth. Nothing. Surely you know that?”
Sisi exhaled an angry laugh. “You’ll have to forgive me, Franz. I never did quite catch on to the Habsburg manner of doing things.”
They sat opposite one another in a tense stillness. Eventually Franz served himself a second helping of veal. Sisi could barely look at her plate: so rich, so heavy, so Austrian.
After he had finished a second serving of dinner and several glasses of wine, Franz broke the silence. “I truly regret how things happened between us.”
Sisi didn’t answer. Let him offer more than that, she thought, sipping a glass of cold water.
Franz put his forearms on the table, propping himself up. “I do hope, now that you’re home, that things might improve between us.”
Sisi looked at her husband, head cocked. “How so, Franz?”
“Well, you are still my wife.” Franz folded his hands and let the words hang between them. When Sisi did not reply, he took a long sip of wine and continued, “I’ve put a lot of thought into this.” He waved his hands toward her then back toward himself. “I’ve asked myself: What’s best for both of us? What’s best for the children?”
Sisi stared at him, her eyes unblinking.
“Elisabeth, I’d very much like to return to how things used to be between us. Give . . . this . . . another try. If you would be willing to do that.”
Sisi thought about this: to return to how things used to be between us. But she was not the girl he had married. She no longer loved him. In fact, she no longer believed herself capable of loving any man. And that was through no lack of effort on her part; that was his doing.
“Return to how things used to be between us?” She looked up at him, her eyes cold as she repeated the proposition.
“Yes.” Franz pushed himself back in his chair, his full belly now pressing against the restricting confines of his starched military jacket. “You are still my wife. And I’m still very fond of you.” His eyes wandered down toward her exposed shoulders, her bare arms. Sisi repressed the urge to shudder.
When she spoke next, her tone was light. She could not offend him until she had the guarantee of seeing her children. “I’m here, Franz, aren’t I? I plan to take up my duties as empress once more. I plan to take up my duties as mother. What else do you envision happening?”
His eyelids appeared to be growing droopy, perhaps from too much wine and meat. “I had hoped that you might be willing to . . . return to the marriage.”
Sisi knew how to put him off. “So you are offering to give up your mistresses?”
Franz lowered his gaze, his elbows propping himself up on the table, and Sisi confirmed what she had expected: that he did not expect to have to part with any of his companions. Emperors always had mistresses, didn’t they? That was what her mother had told her when Sisi had wept over her husband’s discovered infidelity. The fact that Franz had waited so many years to take a mistress had been testament to his deep love for his empress. Hadn’t Sisi’s own father, a mere duke, produced bastards all over his duchy?
Franz switched to port now, pouring himself a full glass. “Please don’t be vulgar, Elisabeth.”
Franz was not the soft, sensitive boy who had fallen in love with her. He was not the reckless young suitor who had asked her to dance and then presented her with a bouquet of flowers at a ball in Bad Ischl. He was not the love-struck groom who had whispered to her on their wedding day. Sisi saw that. Years of power and pressure had hardened him: years at war, years spent arguing in the council of ministers, years spent bedding pliant lovers.
He was somehow impenetrable now. Haughty, requiring others’ submission. More stiff and more certain of his exalted status as Emperor Franz Joseph.
Seeing that she would not answer him on his proposition, Franz changed topics. “Rudolf reminds me of you, Elisabeth. You ought to see him.”
Sisi did not answer, but her heart faltered in her chest.
“What? You do wish to see your children, do you not?” He looked up from his port.
“I long to see them with an aching more severe than you know, Franz.” Sisi clutched the table and leaned forward. “Please, tell me when.”
He nodded, taken aback by the intensity of her response. “I have no doubt that once you see little Rudy, you will join me in longing for more children. More sons, especially.”
Sisi winced and Franz noticed. “Oh. Is that such a painful thought to you?”
The thought of having more children petrified Sisi. She would not do it. She could not. And not just for the reasons Franz might have expected: hurt feelings, resentment over her separation from the first three. No, Sisi doubted that she could physically carry more children. She had enlisted the services of her own doctor, a Doctor Fischer, while in Bavaria to help her understand why she often went months without having her cycle. Marie told her it was on account of her strict diet and long hours spent riding and hiking. But that mattered not. She had done her duty—she had produced an heir. She had no further desire to share a bed with her husband, not when he had invited other women into their union. He was the one who had severed that tie, not Sisi.
“Franz, just please promise me that I may see the children.”
Franz drained his glass and placed it down on the table, his movements tired. “You may see them, Elisabeth.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“Come back here in the morning, following breakfast. I will arrange for them to visit me instead of taking their lessons.”
“Please.” Sisi’s voice cracked. “Please just them. Not your mother.”
Franz sighed, as if to say: This again? But he nodded his agreement.
“Thank you, Franz.”
They finished dinner with cordial chatter. Sisi was determined not to anger Franz lest he retract his offer to let her visit the children. And Franz was sleepy from too much dinner and wine.
The gardens outside grew dark and quiet, the only sound wafting through the windows was that of the fountains humming in a low gurgle. Sisi yawned, eager to be asleep so that tomorrow might come sooner.
“You’ve had a long day of travel, Franz. Perhaps I ought to let you retire.”
“Thank you, I think that is best.” Franz pushed himself away from the table and rose to a stand, not helping Sisi this time. They exchanged a casual kiss on the cheek before heading for opposite doors.
Franz paused on the far side of the room, hovering for a moment. Sisi turned.
“Good night, Elisabeth.”
“Good night, Franz.” As Sisi left the room, she could not help but overhear the order given by her husband to his nearby valet. “Fetch the carriage. I shall go and visit Frau Anna Nahowski.”
Sisi walked briskly down the long, candlelit hallway, her heels landing in angry stomps on the varnished floor. Her mind was spinning. Just minutes after proposing a marital reunion between the two of them, Franz was off to visit some woman. Did he spend every night with this woman, just as he had once slept in Sisi’s bed every night? She shivered as she pictured his once-familiar body twisted up in the sheets, his arms around some other body. She had known that he spent time with other women; she had even arrived at some sort of resignation, if not acceptance of it. So then why did it torture her so to hear it confirmed?
Sisi was fuming, and grateful that the halls before her stretched dark and empty. She passed no one but an alarmed footman, lighting the row of chandeliers that lined the hallway. “Empress.” The man bowed quickly, nearly dropping his candles. Sisi kept marching past. Alone. Scurrying through the hallways alone.
It was late in the evening. Their dinner had gone so long that the rest of the court would have retired to private apartments by now: laughing over card games, singing songs over the piano, seeking out lovers for surreptitious trysts. How she missed Possenhofen and its quiet, dark familiarity. There, where she was more likely to be woken by the distant howl of a wolf than the giggle of a young, champagne-drunk duchess returning from her lover’s apartments.
Sisi didn’t notice the man approaching, not until she nearly bumped into him. “Excuse me,” she stammered, startled by the tall outline, the figure obscured in the dim shadows where the footman and his candles had not yet reached. “I didn’t see anybody there.”
“Your Majesty?” The voice was deep, laced with an accent that Sisi immediately recognized as Hungarian.
“Yes?” Sisi narrowed her eyes and looked up into the face opposite her, her eyes still adjusting to the dark. “Count Andrássy?”
“At your service, Empress Elisabeth.” Andrássy swept her gloved hand up in his and placed a kiss on it, bending into a deep bow before her.
“Hello, Count Andrássy.” Sisi completed a perfunctory curtsy before realizing that, as Empress, she need not bow to him.
“It’s a surprise to see you, Empress. And a pleasure.”
“And you, Count.” Andrássy was her husband’s former rival, the leader of the Hungarians who had clamored for independence. What was he doing at Schönbrunn?
“Many people are happy to have you back, Empress.”
“Back? But how long have you been here—I am surprised to find you at court, Count Andrássy.”
Andrássy laughed at her bluntness. “Why is that, Empress? We Hungarians and Austrians are friends now, are we not?”
Sisi thought about this. “Are we?”
“I certainly hope so. After all, it was your husband and I who worked so very hard to ensure that we would be.” Andrássy smiled at her, his dark eyes catching the flecks of the distant candlelight. Now he whispered, “As long as I keep my hopes quiet that someday my country will be free.”
“Ah.” Sisi looked over her shoulder out of habit before smiling, leaning toward him and whispering: “I love those who yearn for the impossible.”
Andrássy cocked his eyebrows, impressed. “I had forgotten that Your Majesty reads Goethe.”
“Daily,” Sisi responded, equally impressed that he recognized it. She began to walk, continuing on toward her apartments. Andrássy fell in step beside her.
“Then in that case, I must insist that we be friends.”
“Good,” Sisi responded, turning a sideways glance toward him. Her eyes had adjusted now, and she saw that Andrássy looked as handsome as he had that night in Budapest, years earlier. He wore a simple black suit that was just a shade darker than his hair and neat mustache. He kept his hair longer than most men in the court, and it fell around his ears in thick, unruly waves. “I am glad of that, Count Andrássy. You are far too agreeable to despise.”
“But did you really despise me?” He asked, his eyes darting toward hers with a merry smile.
“Only until I met you, I suppose.”
He nodded, accepting that answer. After a pause, he spoke: “You look very well, Empress.”
“Thank you, Count.”
“I hope that your trip served its purpose? And that you feel recovered from whatever it was that ailed you?”
Sisi bit her lower lip but did not answer. She was grateful for Andrássy’s perception; he quickly changed the topic. “I had heard that you returned several days ago. Tell me, did you receive the bottles of wines I delivered to your suite?”
“The wine!” Sisi said, bringing a hand to her lips, remembering the crate that Herr Lobkowitz had brought in earlier that day. “You must think me so impolite. Yes, I did receive them. Thank you, Count.”
“But of course,” Andrássy said. “The gift comes not from me alone, but from all Hungarians. We have missed you at court. I think I speak for the entire nation when I say that you have become a sort of champion in our collective imagination.” He whispered this last part, “You are the most popular Habsburg in Hungary.”
She felt her cheeks growing warm.
Andrássy lifted his eyebrows in a playful expression. “Dare I say, the only popular Habsburg in Hungary?”
“But the least popular Habsburg among the Habsburgs,” Sisi answered. They both laughed.
“They are the same wines we served at my dinner party.” Andrássy leaned close to her, as if they were in a crowded room and not an abandoned hallway. “The night you honored me with a dance.” Now his dark eyes twinkled with mischief, and Sisi forced herself to look away.
“I’m afraid that fact went right over my head, Count. You give me too much credit when in fact I know very little about wine.”
“In that case, why don’t I speak to the cooks and plan a tasting for us tomorrow at luncheon? You have a Hungarian countess, Marie Festetics, in your household, do you not? It could be good fun for us, and the emperor should join us as well, if he is available.”
Sisi shook her head. “Tomorrow will not be possible, Count. I plan to see my children in the morning, and if everything goes as I hope it will, the meeting won’t be over by luncheon.”
“But of course that is your main priority, Empress.” Andrássy nodded knowingly. “I am sure they have missed their mother almost as much as you have missed them.”
Sisi thought about this, pausing her steps. “I fear not,” she said, surprised at the overwhelming need to confess. “I fear that there is no place left where I might find a foothold in their little hearts.”
Andrássy paused opposite Sisi, looking at her as he considered this. “But no one can ever fill the role of a mother, Empress. I am sure it is just a matter of time. Now that you are back they will get to know you and fall in love with you, as all who know you do.”
Sisi looked up at Andrássy, grateful for his kind words, even if he was merely being polite. They continued along in silence, Sisi stealing one more sideways glance toward Andrássy. He really did cut a striking figure beside her, so tall and strong and dark. But it was the intangible characteristic that made him truly attractive: his calm, unassuming self-confidence. Andrássy’s was a self-assurance that came not from a military uniform or a title, but a deeper, more immutable aspect. He was a well-liked and respected leader, a good man, and he knew it. He knew it without needing it validated—a truly rare trait in this court.
“Thank you for saying that,” Sisi said eventually, her tone quiet.
“I try to make it a duty to speak the truth,” Andrássy answered.
“And how about you—have you been well, Count?”
“Indeed.” Andrássy nodded, reaching into a pocket and retrieving a small portrait, which he offered to Sisi. “I’ve recently been married. Here is my Katinka.”
Sisi looked down into the face of a serious, square-jawed woman with dark waves and a plain, sensible bun. She wore a jeweled gown, surely her wedding dress. She looked older than Andrássy, and less spirited.
“My congratulations to you, Count.” And then, to be polite, Sisi added: “She is beautiful.”
“Thank you, Empress Elisabeth.” Andrássy tucked the miniature likeness back into his pocket and looked back at Sisi. “She remains in Hungary.”
“You must long for your new bride while you are here in Vienna.”
“I have been busy,” Andrássy said. Sisi studied him, noticing no warmth or husbandly pride in Andrássy’s tone as he spoke of his wife.
“She does not wish to see the court? I would welcome her gladly. She could join my household, if you wished that for her.”
“A truly generous offer, Empress.” Andrássy frowned. “And I thank you for it. But Katinka has little interest in policy or travel.” Turning to her, he said, “You have been quite the traveler of late, have you not?”
“Yes.”
“Madeira. Greece. Corfu. I followed your progress as best I could. It sounds as though you’ve been to some savage places.”
“None as savage as this court, I can assure you, Count Andrássy.”
Andrássy laughed and Sisi joined him.
“Do you plan to leave again soon, or will you stay some time in Vienna?”
“I plan to stay here as long as I can tolerate it.”
“That is how I plan my stays in Vienna as well, Empress.”
They continued to walk beside one another in a comfortable silence. After several moments, Andrássy spoke. “Well, you should know that you are always most welcome in Budapest. It is, after all, your kingdom. Please do let me know if you should ever like to travel there, and I’d be happy to arrange it.”
Sisi paused, looking toward him. She remembered the freedom she had felt racing across the plains, hugging the Danube River on horseback. It felt as if it had been in another life. It had been.
