by Jean Plaidy
It was all so pleasant to listen to. Her mother had talked so often of France and never had she met anyone who knew that country so well; even her mother had been long exiled from it. But all this conversation was leading towards that inevitable end. She contemplated it and shivered, for once it had been reached there was no turning back. She thought of her mother who believed that husbands and wives must be faithful to each other and had brought her up to believe the same. But then her mother had married a good and charming man who had loved her deeply; theirs had been as romantic a story as any could be. It had been easy for her mother. But how would she have fared married to a man like George Lewis who, in Naples, was no doubt playing the usual role of unfaithful husband.
But his affairs had no bearing on hers. She was excited by this man; and although she drew back from taking the plunge, it was very pleasant to stand on the brink contemplating it.
‘A letter,’ said Eléonore von Knesebeck, giggling happily. ‘No need to ask whence that came.’
‘He has dared to write to me!’
‘He would dare anything,’ cried Eléonore sighing.
‘I believe you are in love with him.’
‘It would be easy to fall in love with such a man.’
‘If my mother could hear you, Fraulein von Knesebeck.’
‘If she could see you, Madame la Princesse …’
They laughed together. Eléonore von Knesebeck was a good companion, a good friend, they had grown up together and she could not imagine her life without her, but was she wise, was she discreet? She was the sort who would go along with her mistress in an affair like this, urging her on to recklessness. Such a thought sobered Sophia Dorothea.
‘Sometimes,’ she said, rather breathlessly, ‘I am a little frightened. Where is this leading?’
‘Why should you not enjoy your life? Others do. Look at Baroness von Platen. She has a good time.’
‘I should not care to be like her,’ said Sophia Dorothea.
‘Oh she is wicked they say. Do you know what they call her in Hanover: Die Böse Platen. They know it. There was that poor girl Ilse.’
‘Yes, I heard about Ilse. No, I should not care to be like the Baroness von Platen.’
‘Are you going to read this letter?’
Sophia Dorothea took it. It was written in flowery terms, and was both eager and hopeful.
She thought: If we progress at this rate in a week he will be my lover.
Before Fraulein von Knesebeck’s astonished eyes she tore up the letter.
She was aware that Clara was watching her … hopefully. Did Clara want her to become the mistress of the Marquis de Lassaye? Why? Was it because she wanted to bring her down to her level? Was it because she hated her so much that she wanted to make trouble?
Sophia Dorothea was frightened. Die Böse Platen indeed! Was it not Clara who had presented the Marquis to her?
She was cool to him when he approached her. He was wounded, but she could not explain to him – nor had she any wish to. She wanted to leave Rome, and was suddenly filled with a desire to see her son.
Perhaps she had been too long away.
The Marquis was more than hurt; he was angry. He was not accustomed to being so slighted, and he had wagered with Clara that the Princess would be his mistress in a matter of weeks.
That girl is sly, thought Clara. Too cautious to take a lover. Well, we shall see what happens when the right one comes along.
Meanwhile Ernest Augustus was restless. State matters called him back to Hanover and he could not stay away indefinitely.
He told Clara to make ready for the journey home and apologised to Sophia Dorothea for taking her away from her pleasures.
‘I have a fondness for Hanover,’ she told him; ‘and I long to see little George Augustus.’
Not George Lewis, Ernest Augustus noticed; for his son should be back in Hanover by the time they returned. Well, who could blame her for that? She would be more dissatisfied with her husband than ever now she had seen how charmingly and gracefully some people behaved.
But she had her son. He hoped she would soon have more. He told her that it had been a pleasant sojourn and her company had given him pleasure.
It delighted him to have a beautiful daughter-in-law whose dowry had made him so rich.
So back they came to Hanover and life went on as though there had been no interruption.
Very soon Sophia Dorothea became pregnant and in due course her daughter was born.
A daughter was a great disappointment and there was not the ceremony that attended the birth of George Augustus, but Sophia Dorothea was delighted with the child.
She was named after her mother who gave herself up entirely to the care of little George Augustus and Sophia Dorothea.
George Lewis found no pleasure in his wife’s society, nor she in his. After their separation she seemed more remote than ever and he to her more coarse.
She was less docile than she had been and often did not hide the repulsion he aroused in her. She allowed it to be known that she found him coarse and uneducated. Clara saw that her comments always reached him.
Thus during the months which followed the birth of little Sophia Dorothea relations between the Crown Prince and Princess of Hanover became very strained.
Schulenburg Selected
ELÉONORE, DUCHESS OF CELLE, was writing to her daughter when one of her servants came to tell her that a woman had come to the castle and begged an interview.
‘Madame, she is so persistent and refuses to be sent away.’
‘In any case she should not be sent away,’ said the Duchess. ‘Bring her to me.’
The young woman was brought to her and Eléonore saw at once that although she appeared thin and was clearly wretched, she had at one time been good-looking.
As soon as she was brought to Eléonore, she fell to her knees and remained there.
‘You are in need?’ asked Eléonore gently.
‘Dire need, Madame.’
‘Well, they shall give you food.’
‘Madame, I want more than food. I want a chance to tell you how I came to be in these circumstances. I could tell you so much about … Hanover and the Princess and …’
‘What are you saying?’ asked the Duchess.
‘That I was in the service of the Baroness von Platen and there I knew something of the intrigues which went on around the Crown Princess, your daughter.’
‘Your name?’ asked Eléonore.
‘It is Ilse, Madame. I was falsely imprisoned by the Baroness because the Duke of Hanover noticed me. Since then I have been persecuted.’
‘First you shall eat,’ said Eléonore. ‘Then you may tell me your story.’
So it was that Eléonore learned how Ilse was imprisoned and drummed out of Hanover through the wickedness of the Baroness von Platen. But what interested her more was Ilse’s certainty that the Baroness was working against her daughter and was jealous of the Duke’s friendship for her.
Sophia Dorothea was so innocent she might not recognize wickedness when she saw it. She must be warned against this woman.
Eléonore gleaned all she could from Ilse and offered the girl a place in her household which Ilse gratefully accepted.
News travelled quickly between Celle and Hanover and Clara had her spies planted in every branch of the Celle household; so she soon knew that Ilse was installed there and was moreover betraying to the Duchess of Celle details of the private life of Clara von Platen.
From Herrenhausen, the Duchess Sophia looked on world affairs and the centre of these for her was England. Ever since as a child she had listened to her mother talk of England she had dreamed of herself as Queen of that country. Although she had never seen it she could picture it all so clearly. Whitehall in sunshine or the steamy mist of the nearby river; Hampton which Wolsey had first made sumptuous and then passed over to his King; Kensington; crowded streets which had been made merry during Charles’s reign with milkmaids and maypoles and la
dies and gallants. She read in English in order to keep herself fluent; she talked with the English ambassadors; and visitors from that country were made especially welcome.
During the last years her excitement had increased because Charles had died and James his brother had been turned from the throne by William of Orange and James’s own daughter Mary, because the people of England refused to have a Catholic monarch. Sophia herself was thankful that she was a Protestant. For religion itself she had little feeling. It was useful to keep those less intelligent than herself in order; therefore it served a good purpose. But she would have been like Elizabeth of England ready to adjust herself, or Henri Quatre of France who had declared Paris to be worth a Mass. They were the wise ones. And what ruler had served England better than Elizabeth? What King had served France better than Henri Quatre? Louis – le Roi Soleil – could not compare with his great ancestor for all his magnificence and grandiose schemes of conquests.
England, that mecca, had become less remote in the last years. Sophia felt that she was approaching that moment when she might reach out her hand and take it. For William and Mary seemed unable to produce an heir. Neither was healthy and the Princess Anne was almost an invalid. All that was needed was for these people to die without heirs and since the English would not tolerate a Catholic monarch the Duchess Sophia would be the next in succession.
One day messengers might come to Hanover, kneel before her and say: ‘Your Majesty …’
Queen of England. Ruler of that island which had filled her dreams since she was a small child!
But there was one fear: encroaching age. How ironical if that call came when she was too old and infirm to leave Hanover! Then the honour would go to one who would have no appreciation of it: George Lewis.
And how would George Lewis fare in England? He had already given some indication when he had gone to woo the Princess Anne and had returned so ignobly.
This German custom of making the eldest son sole heir was sometimes an infuriating one. It would be impossible of course to give to any of her other sons the honour of the English throne if it ever came to that. The line of succession could not be tampered with. But how she wished that George Lewis was not the eldest. Frederick Augustus was more attractive; Maximilian was charming and amusing, though mischievous; and Charles Philip the next in age was a delightful boy. He had more of a sense of duty; his manners were good. She loved her children – with the exception of George Lewis, and Heaven knew she had tried enough to love him but he made it difficult – but of them all Charles Philip was the favourite. He was now in his mid-teens, a handsome boy who could be grave as well as gay.
Why, oh why had not Charles been the first-born! She believed that she could have faced with serenity the prospect of seeing herself too old to ascend the throne of England if she could have contemplated Charles taking her place.
When the boys talked to her contemptuously of their eldest brother, when they deplored the fact that the bulk of their father’s possessions would go to him, they were very dissatisfied, and how could she help but commiserate with them?
If Sophia Dorothea found her husband growing more and more uncongenial, at least she found pleasure in the society of his brothers. Her two special friends were Charles, who was the most charming, and Max, who was amusing; and she enjoyed entertaining these two in her apartments.
It was no use trying to hide from them that she suffered from the boorish treatment of her husband. They knew and condemned his behaviour.
‘Where he picked up his manners I can’t imagine,’ said Charles.
‘In the army,’ answered Maximilian, springing to his feet, saluting and marching round the apartment managing to look so much like George Lewis they were all helpless with laughter.
‘Max … you shouldn’t!’ reproved Sophia Dorothea, for of course they were not entirely alone; they never were, and in the antechamber some of her women and the Prince’s servants would be together. Eléonore von Knesebeck was with them too although very often she sat with her mistress, being no ordinary attendant, but, as Sophia Dorothea called her, ‘the confidante’. No one was more indignant about the behaviour of George Lewis than Fraulein von Knesebeck and she was apt to complain – not always with discretion – about it to people who would delight in carrying tales either to the spies of Clara von Platen or to the friends of George Lewis.
‘I made you laugh at least,’ retorted Maximilian, settling himself on a stool and looking up at her. ‘And to think that he will one day be the ruler of us all. We will be nothing and be forced to obey him … George Lewis!’
‘You talk too much, Max,’ Charles warned him.
‘It’s my open nature. There are intrigues going on all about us. Why shouldn’t we talk of them? Grievances should be brought out of the dark places and examined. How otherwise can we have the remotest chance of rectifying them?’
‘How can you rectify the law of the land?’ asked Sophia Dorothea.
‘Sweet sister,’ cried Maximilian, kissing her hand, ‘it has been done.’
‘My mother would be with us, I believe,’ said Charles.
‘Depend upon it!’ replied Maximilian. ‘Whither her sweet Charles goes there would she be.’
‘Indeed she would not – if she felt him to be in the wrong.’
‘Would she fight for her rights?’ asked Maximilian. ‘She accepts die böse Platen almost as a friend.’
‘She is watchful,’ suggested Charles.
‘Yes, but to see the way that woman leads our father would infuriate most wives.’
‘Our mother is not merely our father’s wife.’
‘No, no! Whisper it. She may be the future Queen of England!’
‘Hush. Indeed you talk too much, Max.’
‘Very well, we will leave our mother and talk of Platen. I would like to see her put away. Who would not? She is clever. Sometimes I think that there are women who far exceed our sex in cleverness. My mother, cultured, shrewd, aloof. I am sure she rarely fails to get her way. And Platen, that painted whore of Babylon … that …’
‘Hush!’
‘I will not hush, brother. Is she not painted? Is she not a whore? And has she not made a Babylon of Hanover? It is not even that she is our father’s faithful mistress. She is the one to watch. She blooms most youthfully. Have you noticed how her complexion grows ruddier and ruddier … and more like a rose every day.’
‘She becomes raddled,’ said Charles.
‘Yet she would have us believe it is just the glory of youth. They say though that a good test of whether a lady be rouged or not is to apply water in which peas have been boiled to her cheeks. The water is squirted into the victim’s face and the rouge immediately turns to green or some such shade.’
‘What nonsense!’ cried Sophia Dorothea laughing. ‘And why put to the test what we well know to be truth.’
‘To discountenance a fiend who has done her best to harm a sweet princess,’ cried Max, bowing low and kissing the hand of his sister-in-law.
‘I advise you not to incur the anger of Madame Platen. Have you never heard what happened to a serving girl of hers named Ilse?’
‘Sweet sister, I am no serving girl. I am a Prince of Hanover who is about to be robbed of his rights because of some old custom of our land. Now if I were passing over my inheritance to our handsome Charles here perhaps I should not be so enraged . . or should I? Who shall know because I am not. I am passing it to George Lewis … who, Madam, although he be your husband, an honour which he has done nothing to deserve, I find the most loathsome toad in Hanover.’
‘Stop making speeches, Max,’ commanded Charles. ‘I will call some of them to make up a card party.’
There was a large assembly in the great hall. Supper was over and there would be some dancing and games of ombre or quadrille. Clara was magnificently gowned and behaved as though she were the Duchess, for neither Ernest Augustus nor the Duchess Sophia were present. As for the Crown Prince and Princess, Clara had little rega
rd for them, and since everyone knew by now that if they wished for any concessions it was well to obtain them through the Platens – which meant through the Baroness naturally – they were all prepared to pay her homage.
Her velvet and satin gown was of a deep scarlet shade which made her dark hair look magnificent; she was certainly the most colourful woman in the room, her cheeks aflame, her eyes blackened, her lips scarlet.
George Lewis had arrived with his wife, but he was soon slouching in a corner having no desire either to dance or play cards.
Sophia Dorothea had decided to play and was settling down with Fraulein von Knesebeck and Charles Philip when Maximilian approached Clara. Clara was unsure of Maximilian. She suspected him of being an enemy and tales of his disrespectful comments concerning herself had been brought to her.
He bowed over her hand, and lifting eyes which were full of mischief cried: ‘How beautiful you are tonight, Baroness!’
‘Thank you,’ she answered cautiously.
‘Such blooming health. Tell me how do you acquire it? I should dearly love to know.’
Then lifting his right hand in which he was holding a bottle he squirted what she believed to be water into her face.
There was a tense silence through the hall. Sophia Dorothea had half risen in her chair and murmured: ‘Oh no, Max …’
‘A little test,’ Maximilian was saying. ‘Pea water, Madam, which I found in the kitchen.’
Clara put her hand to her face and hurriedly left. As she went she heard the irrepressible titters; she ran to her apartment eager to shut out the roar of laughter which she knew must be filling the hall.
She faced Ernest Augustus.
‘I have been insulted by that boy. I’ll not endure it. Pea water! And right in my face! My dress is ruined. He must be severely punished for this.’
