by Norah Lofts
“Christian,” his grandmother said, rather heavily, “is kind at heart. And good, and anxious to please.” There had been a period when he had spent some time with her regularly and she had indulged in some grandmaternal spoiling, of which the silly little boy had taken advantage and given Juliana good reason to say that after a visit to his grandmother Christian was always more unruly than ever. It was to this that she had referred when speaking of being the last to know anything—she had been obliged to send to ask if the boy was ill that he had not come on the usual day. He was stupid, but not bad; it was Juliana who had made him bad.
Juliana said, “Christian is kind at heart; and good and anxious to please. I entirely agree. But I should hate Caroline to be deluded into thinking that he is a poet.”
“How would you know?” the old woman said with sudden savagery. “So far he’s had no reason to be. He was delighted when he saw...Matilda, you heard what Frederick said; he thought she looked like a rose and she did come from the west, so he simply wrote down what was in his heart and it turned into a poem.”
“Perhaps he grew the roses, too,” Juliana said, satirically.
“So he did, in a manner of speaking. Vidborg was his property until that rapscallion talked his way to it. And in my opinion it still is, with everything that grows in it and on it.”
Suddenly all their differences were forgotten, the moss-grown grievances pushed aside as they allied together to attack Holmstrupp, taking turns to warn Caroline against him. Much of what they said was libelous and would have been more so but that both women stopped a little short of complete frankness out of respect for Caroline’s youth and innocence. As it was, they managed to convey a picture of someone without honesty, or honor, with no respect for himself or anyone else, a self-seeking, immoral liar and cheat who had such ascendancy over the King that, as the grandmother said, “he’d sign his own death warrant if Holmstrupp wrote it out and told him to.”
This was rather worse than when they were launching little darts at one another and Caroline couldn’t help thinking that there must be some truth in what they said; their sudden unity was impressive. The pleasure that the flowers and the verse—and the thought which had led to them—had aroused in her slowly dwindled. This attack on Holmstrupp—she connected the name with the handsome young man in the mulberry jacket who had walked out of the Roskilde hall by Christian’s side—had the effect of making Christian, her husband, the King, somehow ludicrous and pitiable, hardly a man, and certainly less than a person.
She tried to interrupt tactfully. She asked where Vidborg was, and that evoked a description of the beautiful old house now in the possession of two old peasants who were using even the hothouses for profit and would have had pigs in the hall and fowls in the long gallery had their son not forbidden such practices.
It was the more embarrassing because of the presence of the little African behind Sophia’s chair. He stood still and upright as a statue, his eyes fixed on the far wall; but he had ears.
In any case, Caroline disapproved of silver-collar boys who were becoming fashionable in England, too. Mamma deplored the custom of acquiring them young, treating them as pets, and then when they were too big to be decorative any longer, turning them into the street to starve or take to crime. Lord Bute also disapproved the fashion and his friend Lord Mansfield went further and said the keeping of slaves was illegal in England, and one day he would prove it.
As the antiphonal castigation of Count Holmstrupp went on, Caroline glanced uneasily at the child behind the chair and the old woman, intercepting one of these glances, paused and laughed and said, “Oh, you need not worry about Peppo. He is from Senegal and understands nothing but French. I’ve had him almost two years and he knows that if I ever caught him learning anything else I’d have his tongue cut out.” As she said this, she craned her head round and looked at the boy with possessive affection. Then she leaned forward and broke one of the pastries which had been served with hot chocolate as soon as she and Juliana had arrived. She popped it into his mouth, exactly as one would give a dog a tidbit,
But at least the subject had changed. Sophia said, grumbling, that no matter what you did they would grow. Schnapps was supposed to check growth, so was sleeping in a cupboard where it was impossible to stretch out at full length; but these were myths; all her Peppos had drunk up to a pint of schnapps a day, and slept in a cupboard; this one grew a little more slowly than the others, but he was growing and would soon have to be replaced.
“If you would like one, I’ll see to it for you. My merchant is very reliable; they’re all guaranteed to be sound and without vice.”
The alliance had broken down with the change of subject and Juliana said that she, for one, didn’t care much for black boys, they all stank.
Peppo stood so immobile that he seemed not even to blink. The pastry that had been pushed into his mouth lay wadded between his upper teeth and his tongue; he would remove it when he was no longer the subject of talk and had been forgotten.
He understood Danish and German and in the last year had picked up a working knowledge of English from a god called Smith who was in charge of Count Bernstorff’s stables. Something rather more than a year ago Peppo had carried a message and taking a short cut across a pasture fallen in with Smith who had a horse on a long rein. He’d stopped and stared; he loved horses and this was a particularly handsome one. The man looked at him, not very kindly, but Peppo was not disturbed by that; nothing much could happen to him while he wore the Queen Mother’s collar. The man said something in a completely unknown tongue; then he spoke in Danish, “Who’re you spying for?” Peppo was not supposed to know any Danish, so he went on staring at the beautiful horse, so much more beautiful than the man whose face was all puckers and whose legs were very bowed. Then the man laughed, picked Peppo up and threw him on to the horse’s back, saying something in that unknown tongue, half laughing, half jeering; Peppo recognized the tone, he was accustomed to having jokes played on him. Sooner or later She always punished the jokers; and she would punish this one, if Peppo lived to tell, and for a second or two he was not sure if he would. For the man, with a word and a jerk on the rein, set the horse in motion. Peppo grasped with both hands at the animal’s mane and put his head down, at the same time clenching his small legs against the smoothly groomed, terribly slippery bare hide. It was like clinging to the side of a moving mountain; terrifying at first, and then, as he found that he could maintain his grip with hands and knees, suddenly enjoyable. But Mon Dieu, when She heard about this joke, the man would be punished.
She was never told about it; for when the man halted the horse and lifted Peppo down, his whole manner had changed; he patted Peppo on the back, started to speak in the strange tongue, switched to Danish, telling Peppo that he was a natural-born rider and he’d like to see him in a saddle. Come back any time. Peppo maintained his blank, uncomprehending face, patted the horse which was sweating lightly and walked away. He did not even say, “Merci, Monsieur,” lest the man should guess that he had understood the invitation.
But he went back, again and again. The Queen Mother, his mistress, always slept from two in the afternoon to four and sometimes there were whole days when the stiffness in her joints kept her in bed and she did not need Peppo to lean upon. All his free time he spent with the man Smith, learning about horses, learning English. He now knew that there was a place called England—from which Smith had come—and in England a place called Newmarket, and in Newmarket a man called Sir William Craven who had servants, specially privileged, called jockeys. Being black did not matter if you could ride and didn’t weigh too much. One day, when he had learned all that the god Smith had to teach and didn’t weigh too much, Peppo would be a jockey in Newmarket.
Cake was bad. They were talking about something else now and not looking at him, so he slipped the moist wad into the palm of his hand and put it into the pocket of the peacock blue breeches. It would leave a mark and She would scold, but it hardly mat
tered; one lived for the future.
Frau von Plessen came back, bearing in her hands a silver bowl for the roses. She looked rather diffidently at the two Queen Mothers and said that Madame Brisson had arrived to make the first fitting.
“A fitting. For what?” Caroline said.
There was a little stunned silence. Sophia, reaching for the shoulder of her little black boy, said, “What did I say? Nobody tells anyone anything. It is always the way. Your wedding dress, Matilda, your wedding dress.”
“I brought it. The one I wore in London. It is quite beautiful, satin and lace and pearls. It cost a great deal. I wore it only once. Would it not serve again?”
She had already started, in her mind, a letter to Edward, describing the country as she saw it, the cottages mere mud huts, the great houses in decay, the cattle emaciated, inns on the main road, post houses, without so much as a looking glass. And as she planned this honest, but not critical letter, she had thought with complacency that she brought a good dowry, and had clothes and jewels enough. She would not be an expense to them. Christian’s remark that burghers could afford to lay up their clothes in pepper had seemed to contradict her observations; so had the palace of Fredericksborg, so much more up-to-date and ornate than any royal residence in England; so had the clothes and the jewels of the two Queen Mothers; but the impression she had gained along the road had not been entirely erased.
Juliana laughed and said, “We are so nationalistic these days that you would hardly be regarded as legally married unless you wore a dress of silk, woven in Milan certainly, but bought by a Danish merchant, shipped in a Danish ship to a Danish mercer and sewn by Danish hands.”
“Madame Brisson is not a Dane,” Sophia said promptly. “She is a religious refugee from France. A Huguenot. She has suffered for her religion. And she has worked for Madame de Pompadour.”
They took their leave and went away. Both had been amiable to her but they had spoiled her pleasure in Christian’s tribute, and they left her feeling the mental equivalent of having stroked velvet the wrong way, a prickling unease. They would be, naturally, her closest associates; they were, strange to think, her family now, but she felt that to please one would be to displease the other; or she might, like that unfortunate young man, displease both and then they would combine against her. A frightening prospect.
And that, she thought, as she picked up her poem and went into her bedroom to submit herself to Madame Bris-son’s hands, was a silly way to think. How could they harm her? One elderly, one old woman who had not had the benefit of Mamma’s upbringing: “I will not tolerate bickering, and innuendoes are detestable; if you have a grudge, say so, openly.” Mamma had also said, “Friendly to all, intimate with none.” That rule must be applied to the two Dowager Queens.
Deliberately she switched her mind from the subject. She would send, in verse, a reply to Christian; something hinged on the contrast between the cold of yesterday and the warmth of his welcome and the hope that the wind from the west was blowing his illness away. Verse writing had been very prevalent at Kew at Christmas and on birthdays. Edward’s were best; his lines “To my Brother upon the Occasion of His Coronation,” likening George to a Colossus with one foot in the Far East and one in the Far West and at the same time likening him to Atlas who bore the world on his shoulders, had moved George almost to tears.
She must write some verse for Christian; she must write to Edward while her impressions of Denmark were still sharp and fresh; she must be busy and not brood...
CHRISTIANSBORG; NOVEMBER 8, 1766
She had kept busy and she had not brooded. The week, which might have been a lagging vacuum, passed in no time. The fittings alone took vast tracts of time because every now and then Madame Brisson would retreat to the farthest distance the room allowed and there sit down on the floor, cupping her chin in her hands and studying Caroline who stood in a garment that seemed to be made completely of pins as though she were some strange animal. Finally, in her yellowish face her purplish lips would move and give an order and one or the other of the two young women who always came with her would adjust a pin or two. It seemed to Caroline that the dress, when completed, would not be so pretty or so becoming as her first wedding dress; but when she said so, obeying Mamma’s command to speak out openly, Madame Brisson went into a kind of convulsion and presently gasped out that the aim of this dress was not to be pretty, it was to be splendid; Her Majesty would go to her wedding in a gown of unsurpassed splendor. It would also be, Caroline felt, as fitting followed fitting, of unsurpassed weight; padded, wadded, boned, embroidered and bejeweled, it assumed every day more and more the quality of a suit of armor. It could have stood alone.
Christian’s sister, the Princess of Hesse, came to visit her; her manner was rather chill and formal, but her conversation was amiable. Caroline had tried at various times to recall Christian’s features, but at Roskilde she had not been calm enough to observe very exactly and whenever she visualized him, she seemed to be able to recall only the red-rimmed eyes, the heavy-lipped mouth. Now, confronted by his sister who closely resembled him, she remembered what she seemed not to have noticed, the high, squarish forehead, the straight eyebrows, the aquiline nose—all of which could be handsome on a man, but were less kind to a female. Both brother and sister had inherited the famous so-called “white eyes” of mother’s family, eyes of so pale a blue, yet opaque, that they might have been made from moonstones.
After the Princess, came other ladies, the wives and daughters of the great families; they welcomed her to Denmark, expressed their wishes that she should be happy, and, if they were old enough, spoke fondly of her aunt, Queen Louise. Then, in every case, conversation languished, almost every topic dying on the block of the monosyllabic reply. Offer refreshment, a great many of them chose tea—a gesture to her nationality: and she discovered, to her dismay, that none of them rode. “No, Your Majesty.” “Never, Your Majesty.” Finally she asked why not and Countess Rantzau said apologetically, “In Denmark it has not been considered correct for ladies to ride horseback.” She added hastily, “For Your Majesty, naturally, it will be different; whatever the Queen does will be correct. And as you will be honorary colonel of the Holstein Guards and probably other regiments, there will be occasions when it will be necessary for you to sit on a horse.”
“I wish to do more than sit. Riding is one of my greatest pleasures.”
Countess von Moltke, a lady of great dignity and splendor contrived to look quite timid and shy as she said that her husband, Commander in Chief, would have great pleasure in providing a suitable mount and an escort for Her Majesty, How large an escort would Her Majesty wish? Two, Caroline said, choosing the minimum possible. Countess von Moltke’s neck reddened, a sure sign that behind the paint and powder on her face, she was blushing.
“If I may be permitted, Your Majesty...so great an honor should not be so much restricted. Dare I suggest six?”
The timidity, the constant repetition of “may I be permitted,” “dare I,” “if Your Majesty would allow” contributed to an uneasy atmosphere; as though, Caroline reflected, she were a very large dog of uncertain temper, constantly to be placated. In England people in close contact with George and Charlotte behaved with respect, but nobody acted as though they were expected to bite. Manners were different here; or perhaps the extreme stiffness was because she was strange and would wear off when they knew her better. She sincerely hoped so.
Her brother Henry, Duke of Cumberland, had given her as his parting present a fine new saddle of chestnut-colored leather, mounted with silver. Her riding habit was of dark green cloth and with it she wore a little hat, turned up at one side and on the other brimmed with a swoop of cock’s feathers, tawny, green and blue which curved down over her ear. It was, of all the outfits she owned, or was to own, the most basically becoming; and the prospect of riding again, of trying her fine new saddle for the first time, of being out in the winter sunshine—it was a mild, still day, “a weather-breeder,”
Frau von Plessen said, and snow would soon fall, God send not before the eighth, the wedding day—gave a sparkle to her eyes and a spring to her step. As she came down the steps and smiled at the six young men who saluted her, two of them fell romantically and irrevocably in love.
Seven grooms held the heads of seven horses. Six were matched, all black, shining like ebony, restless and lively. The seventh was a kind of muted strawberry roan, heavy, thick, immobile, old. It lacked only the rockers and the nailed on red-felt saddle to be the replica of the horse in the Kew nursery—Good Dobbin.
It wore her fine new saddle.
She stopped on the lowest step and said, “Oh no,” in English, and then in German, looking at the horse with distaste.
One of the brilliantly uniformed young men stepped forward and bowed.
“Allow me to assure Your Majesty, it is a good, safe horse. It is the horse of the drum major. It has a gentle pace and is impervious to noise or any other sudden disturbance such as rabbits.”
She remembered Countess von Moltke’s word, “a suitable mount.” This was what they deemed suitable for her—one of the best, if not the best horsewoman in England. It was an insult—not intended, she realized that; their motives were of the best; but it simply would not do; they must learn.
“I don’t want a good safe hobbyhorse.” She ran her eye over the six matched blacks and chose the most restive. “I want that one.”
Young Baron de Schimmelmann, who was in charge of the party, and whose horse it was, turned pale. Sweyn was not easily handled, he himself had fought him, daily, before gaining mastery, and with a woman on his back, he’d be up to his old tricks again. He’d throw her, or run away, break her neck.
He said, “Your Majesty, that is an evil horse. Permit me to say that I dare not...”
“Trust me with him? No ill will come to him. See...”
She walked down the last step, went to the horse, pushed the groom away and put her face close to, but not touching the horse’s muzzle. She breathed out, puffing into the distended, twitching nostrils. A trick of great antiquity, a carefully guarded secret known to few. In England she would have said, softly, “I am your friend. Do you accept me?” for that was part of the ritual. But this was a Danish horse. So she merely breathed on him and he stood still, without a finger on the bridle, while the saddles were changed.
