by Norah Lofts
She began to tell him about the death of the old Queen Mother; of her visit that morning; the trend their talk had taken. Then she broke off and said, “You must speak. This is supposed to be a consultation.”
He said, “There is absolutely no reason for you to blame yourself. It is far more likely that her determination to talk to you kept her alive for twenty-four hours. Look at it that way. In any case, her course was run.”
“That is exactly what Alice said.” As she said that, Caroline deliberately raised her voice a little and spoke toward the door.
Alice, on the other side of it, heard, out of the mumbled blur, that one distinct reference to herself and hoped that what they were talking about was the folly of spoiling children; unless someone was firm this pair would soon be out of hand.
“But she frightened me too. To think that so soon, with nothing, nothing to go upon...”
He was also slightly unnerved; but for years now it had been his part to console and hearten, to make light of the sinister little symptom: and on this afternoon he slipped into the part the more easily because he loved her and had it been possible would have prevented her from ever entertaining another sad or worrying thought as long as she lived.
“It was guesswork,” he said, and his voice held its habitual professional assurance. “Guesses are like bets, make enough and sooner or later one comes near the mark. I forbid you to worry.”
She looked toward the door and said quietly, “This has lasted long enough.”
“All we have to do, Your Majesty,” he said, moving toward the door, “is to be careful.”
“I assure you, Dr. Struensee, we shall be very careful.”
“In the meantime,” he said—and they were now through the door and into the room where Alice waited, with two quelled little boys awaiting their supper—”I think that I am upon the verge of a very important discovery. If my investigations lead to the result that I hope for, I trust that Your Majesty will be pleased.”
“Any discovery that you may make, Dr. Struensee, will be of absorbing interest to me.”
Alice thought, skeptically, that Dr. Struensee’s next discovery would probably be that a child could escape whooping cough by spending a night in a shed with a bullock that suffered from husk. She quite liked him, but she had no patience with his theories; the one thing which he needed to understand and did not was that with children the flat of the hand applied to the bum worked wonders. He was a fool, but the world was full of them, and he was a harmless fool; he had done Princess Caroline a good turn in getting her boy back; that was his one great meritorious act, in Alice’s eyes. Most of his other ideas were rubbish. But he was Princess Caroline’s friend; and if nobody else understood that friendship between a man and a woman was possible, Alice did. Look at her and William Smith...
LÜNEBERG; AUGUST 1770
The Princess Dowager embraced her daughter and knew that it was true; the rumors were justified. A woman in love and loved in return carried something about her, indefinable but unmistakable as a flower scent; bones receded, flesh triumphed. With such a feast spread, any beggar—even a mother—was welcome to the crumbs, some closeness of embrace, some warmth of kiss...Oh dear, it was true!
When the first horrid rumor had reached her, the Princess Dowager had discounted it, telling herself that Caroline had perhaps been a little indiscreet and that the world—hating all those too good for it—was putting the worst possible interpretation upon her behavior.
She had at once written to Augusta, asking her, almost ordering her, to make a visit to Caroline and investigate. Augusta replied that she had no time and that if half of what she heard was true she would prefer not to involve herself. The Princess had then considered going herself, but there again, she knew the world; the visit would arouse suspicion; she had not gone when Caroline was pregnant, nor later to see her grandson. Why now? Nobody would trouble to remember how ill poor Louise had been.
She wrote to Caroline, not very frankly since it was unwise to put much in writing, but Caroline understood and included in her next letter the remark, “You, of all people, should know how poisonous gossip can be.”
The Princess then appealed to God, asking Him to send her some adequate reason for going to Hanover. Many of her prayers in the past had been unanswered, but the response to this one was swift. Under George III, the first of his line to prefer England to Hanover, the Hanoverians were feeling neglected and seized upon the celebration of some old forgotten battle date to invite the King, or some member of the Roy Family, to attend the festivities. “I will go,” the Princess volunteered almost before George had finished explaining.
She was fifty-six and no longer in the best of health, but she did not spare herself. There were parades in which it seemed that millions of men marched past; she diverted her mind by thinking that if the threatening trouble in America ever broke, here was a splendid reservoir of armed force; she sat through interminable banquets and attended several balls. Now she was in Lüneberg, on her way home, and it was natural enough for Caroline to join her there.
Feeling the dread certainty in her heart she held her child at arms’ length and studied her. She looked so well, and so beautiful; every promise of her girlhood had been fulfilled; happiness and fulfillment lay on her like the bloom of a grape. It was hard to know that one must destroy...On the other hand, it could not be allowed to go on, and hundreds of women never knew this particular happiness at all. Caroline must do her duty—and live on her memories.
The time and the place for a stern private talk were not easily come by, but she managed it on the second day, choosing a seat in the center of some formal flower beds, so that nothing should be overhead.
Now that the actual moment had come, she felt curiously diffident and she began the attack with less decision than she had intended.
“I think you know what I have to say, Caroline. Even allowing for exaggeration, you appear to have been acting with a singular lack of discretion.”
“In what way, Mamma?”
“In such a way that everybody is saying that Doctor Struensee is your lover.”
“And does that make him so?”
She was prepared to hedge, to lie outright; but the last word sent a warm, weakening current through her bones. He had used it, that first night, in the dark, with tenderness and triumph, “Now I am your lover.” He was her lover, the most wonderful, exciting, completely loving lover any woman ever had. The word, even spoken in that cool, denunciatory voice, had a magic all its own.
“If he is not,” Mamma said, “such talk is dangerous. But I feel, I fear that he is. And you have not even been careful,” Again the old woman’s world-weary voice and cynical attitude, love if you must, but be careful.
And they had been, extremely; neither of them was blind to the risk.
“I do not admit, Mamma, that there is anything to be careful about: but it would interest me to know why you accuse me of lack of discretion.”
“On more than one occasion you have allowed Doctor Struensee to sit beside you on a sofa.”
“And that makes him my lover!” She laughed; not in the way her mother remembered, the innocent, girlish tinkle, nor with the false gaiety which Madame had recognized as misery in disguise; this was a hearty laugh, tinged with mockery. And with relief, too; if that was the most revealing thing she had done...But there, turned toward her was her mother’s face, graven by time and anxiety, needing comfort.
“Mamma, when Doctor Struensee attends a drawing room he is often tired. Being Christian’s physician is no easy job, but it has not distracted him from other work. He is active politically; he will ride, any day, ten miles to look at an interesting medical case; he is writing a book about the merit of inoculation. Knowing this—and since he is often late—I invite him to sit, and he is glad to do so.”
“When he is not on the sofa beside you,” Mamma said, “you follow him about with your eyes. Is that correct behavior?”
“It is sometime
s necessary. Christian is...in a poor state of health. Doctor Struensee administers palliatives, sometimes effective, sometimes not, and if the room is crowded and I cannot ask, I look and he gives me a sign.”
“And could you not ascertain your husband’s condition for yourself?”
“There are times when the sight of me sends Christian into a frenzy. Mamma, this is not generally known and we hope to conceal it for as long as possible. Christian is mad; and getting worse.”
The Princess moved her hand, which in the last year had grown lean and marked with liver-colored blemishes, and took Caroline by the wrist.
“It has not been easy for you. Christian impressed me most unfavorably. But you have your child. You must think of him. When Christian’s state of mind can no longer be concealed, you must be ready to step forward, a woman in an unassailable position with an unblemished reputation. My dear, you must give him up.”
Deal with this, here and now, dismiss for the moment the thought that had come and grown and loomed when Caroline said that Christian was mad. Christian and George were first cousins and unlike as they were in every way, there had been times in the last month or two when something in George’s quickened speech and the repetition of it had reminded her of Christian, talking, talking at her table. Push that thought aside; God could not be so unkind. Who would be a mother? Constantly threatened.
The warm August day was moving toward sunset; from close-set beds of heliotrope and mignonette scent arose. And for Caroline, like every other pleasant scent or sound of touch it connected itself with Struensee. Give him up? Never. But here was Mamma with her anxious face.
“Mamma, what am I to give up? Friendship with a man who has befriended me. I was ill, he cured me. Christian and I were at odds, he brought about a reconciliation, superficial, but enough. Are you one of those who believe that friendship between a man and a woman is impossible?” She could ask that with a certain authority, for besides being lovers they were friends; minds as well as bodies attuned. She was convinced that had he been an old woman in a bonnet, she would have loved him; and that he would have loved her had she been an old man on a crutch. That was the beauty of it.
The Princess Dowager had recovered herself. She withdrew her hand.
“You know best what is to be given up, Caroline. But mind this. A woman with a lover cannot afford to fritter away her good name. Reputation is like money; a heavy debt forbids minor extravagances.”
Echo after echo of old Sophia’s death-bed talk. Mamma so prim, so precise, paying the heavy debt, counting pennies in other ways. Lord Bute!
“You may think,” the Princess Dowager said, looking straight ahead to where a fountain threw up its rainbow-tinted spray, “that this is something that only happens once in a hundred years, that for this you were born. That is nonsense. Any rutting deer, any cat on the tiles. It is all the same, as you will learn. You may regard me as an interfering old woman, paying too much attention to gossip. But I am your mother; it grieves me beyond words to see you throwing away your good name because of an infatuation.”
She was making no progress. She shifted her ground.
“Have you thought of the danger? Suppose these rumors reached Christian’s ears—while he is still sane enough to take action?”
“Since they have reached England, they are probably rife in the Christiansborg. Christian trusts Doctor Struensee absolutely.”
There was nothing for it but to fall back upon an appeal to sentiment.
“This may well be our last meeting in this world, Caroline. I know you. When this affair has run its course and I am in my grave, you will suffer remorse that, because of your lack of frankness, our last meeting was so unsatisfactory.”
That weakened her defenses, but only temporarily. It was essential that no one should know, no one. Not even Alice. Even Providence seemed to have conspired to keep their secret. Johann’s bedroom was immediately above hers, and, judging by the windows, should have been the same size; but it was not, and poking about to discover what accounted for the discrepancy, he had found an old secret stairway, all twists and turns which ended in Caroline’s bedroom. It was full of cobwebs, so old that they were almost as substantial as muslin. A stairway for lovers long since dead. In Johann’s room the head of it was hidden behind a silk panel, in hers its foot lay behind one of the mirrors. To Caroline, euphoric with first love, it had seemed like a gift from God.
“It is very difficult to be frank when combatting rumor. It is like fighting a breeze. Will it comfort you if I promise not to allow Doctor Struensee to sit beside me on a sofa, and to avoid looking at him?”
“That, at least, would be wise.” Really, summed up like that the total of offenses seemed ridiculously small. But there was something else. Something that had made her think that Caroline had lost all sense of seemliness. Ah, yes...
“This riding astride. That also must stop.” Riding astride like a man, in leather netherhose, Augusta had said.
“I suffer,” Caroline said, “from an almost permanent stitch in the side, which some postures aggravate. Riding sidesaddle is one of them. So I changed over. And if whoever told you that mentioned the breeches, there is reason for them too. They are better than bunching up a skirt and exposing an immodest amount of leg. The Holstein Guards gave me a complete uniform when they made me their colonel in chief. They are flattered that I wear at least half of it regularly.”
By chance she had diverted her mother’s attention. How long had she suffered this stitch in the side; where exactly did it lie; had she asked medical advice? The girl appeared to be in such splendid health—but then who could have looked better or seemed more spirited than poor Edward just before his Grand Tour? Trouble upon trouble, worry after worry.
They parted amiably; and on her tedious journey home the Princess, greatly in need of comfort, took refuge in an unusual self-deception. I talked to Caroline, and she admitted nothing. For every action that has been criticized, she had a most reasonable explanation. The whole thing has been grossly exaggerated.
Once out of sight of Caroline, this was not so difficult to believe, and by the time the Princess Dowager had said it, and written it a dozen times, she had succeeded in convincing herself.
CHRISTIANSBORG; NOVEMBER 1770—JULY 1771
Knut said, “If I had coveted a seat on the Council, I could have had it years ago.”
It was no longer called the Council, but the Cabinet, and Struensee, as head of it was called Prime Minister; and he had just offered Knut a place in it, and Knut, like an experienced rat, shied away from the bait.
Struensee, to Knut’s surprise, changed the subject.
“I imagine that you would remember Heer Reventil?”
“He was the only tutor who did not believe boys brains were in their bums.”
“Well put. So I heard. We’ve reached now the point where he needs constant supervision. He once mentioned Heer Reventil to me, with a certain fondness. He would make a good keeper?”
“Up to a point. He’s about so high...and frail.” And they both knew how strong Christian could be when, emerging from apathy, he became violent.
“He could have an assistant. I saw one of the old Queen Mother’s discarded blacks begging in the street yesterday.”
“That sounds sensible,” Knut said, and he waited.
“His growing infirmity,” Struensee said, “worries me in another way. The boy is strong and healthy, but he is only one.
Croup, measles, whooping cough carry off hundreds of children every year, and there is no known cure or preventive. I think it would be as well if His Majesty—before he is quite demented—begot another child.”
Now we come to it!
“It would be as well. Why not suggest it? You’re his doctor.”
“Yes. But when I had some hope that his health and sanity could be saved, I did advise continency. And when I some days ago spoke to him of his duty to the Queen and to his dynasty, he reminded me of that advice.”
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sp; “Yes. I can see, you are in an awkward position. The real trouble lies, of course, in his aversion to the Queen. He never liked fair women and she is very fair. He once compared her hair to that of an old man’s beard.” Knut drew a breath and said, “This prejudice I do not share. The woman I wish to I marry is a veritable snowmaiden. But there are difficulties. I am—it is no secret—of low birth. Nothing but an Honor would make me even half acceptable in her father’s eyes.”
Struensee had already done so much; he might be able to manipulate the statutes of the Order of Danneborg...even of the Elephant.
Now we come to it.
“A new Order, very exclusive, twenty-four members only is about to be instituted,” Struensee said, hating himself, and the necessity to cajole. “It is confined to those who deserve particular recognition from Her Majesty.”
Knut had earned this and much more by his timely intervention; but his peasant blood assured him that everything must be earned again and again, and his passion for manipulating puppets rose up and clamored for a chance.
“It could be managed,” he said. “Her Majesty would have to wear a wig.” He smiled, relishing Struensee’s bewilderment. “He might be persuaded to perform, with a dark-headed girl, and if he thought he was getting the better of you all.”
“I hate it,” Struensee said, “especially the connivance with Holmstrupp. But I see no other way. The gossip goes on and though Holmstrupp has sometimes said that marital relations were normal, he knows, so must many others, that it is not true.”
“I more than hate it; it is repulsive.”
“It involves being seen in his bed. I will guarantee that he will be asleep almost before he is in the bed. Trust me, darling.”
“What I hate is having to push something so splendid and right out of sight as though it were a filthy rag. It comes over me at times, I want to stand up and shout, this is the man I love, the man who loves me; and I shall bear his child.”
“You’d be run out of Copenhagen on a hurdle.”
