The Accidental Empress (50 page)

“Go out, go out,” Franz said. It was an afternoon in late May. “At least one of us ought to enjoy this day, and it won’t be me. Not with this pile of papers.”

The windows of the study were open, and the sunlight splashing into the dark-paneled room made Sisi long to heed his advice.

“I hate to leave you.”

“Go, speak with the tradesmen, accept flowers from the children. Your charms are just as integral in shoring up support as any discussion I engage in back here.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. Go, go. You know I can’t work when you are restless in here.”

With that assurance, Sisi rose from her chair beside her husband and kissed him farewell. “I’ll be back for dinner. If you see the girls, tell them I’ll bring them flowers.”

Once outdoors, she knew instantly that she had made the right decision to quit Franz’s dark study. She loved the colors of Budapest in late spring. Vibrant shades seemed to burst forth from every patch of earth—the unruly gardens, the wildflower-laden meadows along the Danube, the blue expanse of sky that spanned overhead, interrupted only by the tall stone bridges and the spires of Mátyás templom. Even the small bouquets presented to her by the brightly clothed schoolchildren and the smiling, wrinkled Gypsy ladies.

Everything about their sojourn in Budapest had been a success. Sisi hadn’t seen Andrássy again—mercifully, she told herself, blushing when she remembered how he had coerced her into that dance—but the dinner with him had advanced discussions between Franz and the Hungarian opposition. The little Austrian princesses had become national heroines, prayed for every week at mass and held up before classrooms of Hungarian schoolchildren as paragons of childish virtue. Warnings such as “Little Princess Sophie
always
obeys her father and mother, and so should you” had become commonplace throughout Budapest.

And the empress had become a sort of deity in the Hungarian imagination: approachable and familiar, yet without the human flaws with which mortals wrestled. The tales Marie repeated to her were so grand and exaggerated that Sisi could not help but laugh when she heard them.

Empress Sisi’s hair is so long that it reaches the floor when she walks.

Empress Sisi is the best horsewoman in all of Europe.

Empress Sisi never raises her voice at her daughters.

Empress Sisi bathes in olive oil and warm milk.

Her likeness was everywhere—the portrait that she had posed for just after her wedding had been re-created and dispersed throughout Hungary. In it she sat, hair pulled back in a loose bun that framed a face with bright hazel eyes and a coquettish, innocent grin. Miniatures of this portrait were sold in the merchants’ shops, hung over the hearths of the Hungarian housewives, adorned churches and schools and offices and train stations. By the end of May, Sisi had seen this portrait so often that she sometimes forgot that it was her own likeness when she came across it.

The love and loyalty she had felt emanating from the Hungarian people had restored her, given her a new joy in life, matched only by the renewed love she felt from her husband and daughters. But could it last?

Franz promised her that they would stay happy; that they could somehow bottle up these feelings of love and contentment and bring them back with them to Vienna at the end of their summer’s travels. And Sisi, finding the other alternative intolerable, forced herself to believe him. Even though Franz refused to give his word that he would keep his mother away from the girls. Even when he refused to explain
how
Sisi would retain control of their upbringing, she believed him. She had no choice, for the thought of returning to her previous misery was a burden too heavy for her to carry.

Sisi found the palace dark and eerily quiet when she returned home that afternoon. When the door closed behind her, shutting her into the empty front hall, she felt goose bumps pushing up beneath the skin of her arms, but she could not have said why. Something felt amiss, out of balance.

And then she noticed the curtains. They were drawn to shut out the soft light of the spring evening. As a morning dove cooed, a feeling of dread settled over Sisi’s body, sliding deep into her bones like the winter’s coldest, dampest chill.

Franz had been in his study, so she walked toward that room, calling out his name. “Franz?” But before she had reached it, she found Marie, her short, round frame doubled over as the lady wept. Sisi went numb.

“What has happened, Marie? Is it Franz? Is it the girls?” Sisi dropped the dozen tulips from her hand. “Speak, now! I beg you, Marie.”

Marie’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy when she looked up at her mistress. “Empress.”

“Has something happened to Franz?”

Marie shook her head.

Sisi pulled a hand to her breast, barely managing a whisper. “The girls?”

All Marie offered as a reply was a fresh set of tears. Sisi took off at a sprint down the hallway, running toward the stairs. “Where are they?”

“In the nursery.” Marie followed behind, climbing the stairs with her.

Sisi burst into the nursery. The room was dark, the curtains drawn, and the sour odor that greeted her was an instant assault on the senses. She swallowed hard, pushing aside the urge to be sick.

In the corner of the room sat a heap of soiled sheets—the source of the intolerable stench in the room. Agata was on the further of the two beds, huddled over a small shape.

“Sophie.” Sisi ran toward the bed. “Agata, have you called for the doctor?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Agata rose from the bed, making room so that the mother could sit beside her unmoving daughter. Sisi took Sophie’s little hand in her own. It was as cold as death.

“Sophie, darling, can you hear me?” Sophie now turned her head slightly, tilting her eyes so that they rested momentarily on her mother before listing, wildly, in the other direction.

“It’s as though she doesn’t even see me.” Sisi pressed her hand to her daughter’s cold, clammy cheek.

“The fever is severe,” Agata said.

“Where is Gisela?” But Sisi knew, for when she turned, she spotted her baby girl in a similarly supine position, resting in the nearby cradle.

“What has happened, Agata?”

“I don’t know, Your Majesty. They woke up in good enough spirits from their naps, but just a bit ago Princess Sophie began to wail something horrible. When we tried to find the problem, the princess only wept more furiously.”

Sisi looked at the mess of soiled sheets.

“I put them both to bed, noticing the fever that gripped them. That was when they both began to be sick in their beds.” Agata’s face was terror-stricken.

“You poor little darling,” Sisi pressed her palm once more into Sophie’s colorless cheek.

“Empress, they’ve been very ill all afternoon, making a mess of the sheets even quicker than I have a chance to change them.”

“Open these windows, Marie, all of them, now. We can’t have them breathing in this sickness. It will make them worse.”

Marie obeyed, making quick work of the windows, but the rush of fresh air had little impact on the sickening stench hovering throughout the nursery.

“There, there, my little darling girls. All will be well, Mamma is here.” Sisi rose and moved to Gisela’s bed, looking on at her baby. “Agata, remove the mess of sheets.”

“Yes, Madame.”

Just as Agata was picking up the pile of sheets to run them to the laundress, Sophie was sick in her bed once more. Exhausted and uncomfortable and sitting in her own mess, Sophie began to cry.

Sisi rushed back to her elder daughter. “There, there, my darling girl, Mamma will clean you up.” Turning toward Agata, Sisi said: “I will change her nightgown, you take these soiled linens away from us. And why isn’t the doctor here? And where is Franz? Marie, run and fetch the emperor from his study immediately.”

The next few hours passed in an odd ebbing and flowing of time. Everything seemed to take an eternity—the wait for the doctor, the wait for Franz, the wait for the water to heat so that they might bathe the little princesses.

But then, before Sisi knew it, it was dark, and she had not noticed the vanishing of the sun, the descent into nighttime.

“What could it be?” Franz stared at the doctor, his hands clutching Gisela’s clammy palms.

The doctor was feeling Sophie’s cheeks. “The fever worries me. Princess Gisela’s seems to have abated somewhat, but I fear that Princess Sophie’s has not.”

“What can we do?” Sisi asked, her voice hoarse with exhaustion and worry. They had sat, awake, all night.

“I think that the best thing Your Majesties can do now is take care of yourselves. Have some breakfast, rest. You’ve been sitting in this sickroom for hours.”

“I’m not leaving,” Sisi replied, toneless.

The doctor persisted. “I must say that it poses a threat to Your Majesties’ health, being exposed to the illness.”

“Elisa, we ought to listen to the doctor. We can be of no help to the girls if we ourselves fall sick.”

“I don’t care! Let me be exposed—if they are sick, then I wish to suffer with them.” Sisi climbed into bed beside Sophie, cradling her daughter’s cold little body against her own in the hopes that her motherly touch might break the fever.

“My darling girl, my darling girl, Mamma is here.” Sisi rocked her daughter back and forth in her arms, ignoring the whispers passing between the doctor and her husband. Ignoring the distressed, fretful gaze of Marie, who was terrified at the thought of her queen being so exposed to the fever. Sisi’s eyes tuned out every figure in the room except for Sophie. The hours passed.

“My darling girl, my darling girl, Mamma is here.” She repeated the phrase, finding some small comfort in its rhythmic regularity. Night fell once more and Sisi ordered the candles lit, refusing when Marie encouraged her to eat some supper.

Sophie kept her eyes open, occasionally looking toward her mother, but the two glassy blue circles of her eyes did not seem to hold on to anything before her.

“My darling, I am here.” Sisi kissed her daughter’s damp forehead. Surely Sophie had to feel this, even if she didn’t respond.

As day broke once more, Gisela was removed to a separate bedroom, declared by the doctor to be on the mend. Inside the nursery, it seemed that the gulf separating Sophie from her mother widened. The fever was both overpowering and all-consuming—it would not allow its little victim to focus on anything, not on the hugs, the kisses, the tears that splashed her cheeks as they fell from her mother’s eyes.

The following night, with Franz sitting on the floor beside them, Sisi noticed that her daughter’s breathing had become labored, even slow.

“Doctor! Doctor, come here!” Sisi shifted away for the first time all night, allowing the doctor to get close to Sophie’s frame. “What’s the matter? Why is she having trouble breathing?”

The doctor’s hands roved along Sophie’s neck and chest, searching for an explanation. Sisi watched him, clutching her stomach as she waited to breathe. She would not breathe her next breath until her daughter did the same.

But when the doctor turned to Sisi, she saw instantly that his face had shifted from a tight knot of worry to a resigned, sagging sadness.
No
, Sisi thought,
don’t say it
.
Do not say the words, that is an order
. But her orders would fall powerless against a subject as determined as death itself, that much she knew.

The doctor spoke to his assistant first. “Mark the time. Location is Buda Castle, Budapest, Hungary.”

Then he turned to Sisi, her breath still suspended, her heart pumping cold blood through her veins. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. The Princess is an angel now.”