The Princess of Celle: (Georgian Series) (9 page)

‘I will go to the Princess,’ she said. ‘She has been so good to us and her advice will help me make up my mind.’

The Princess received her with pleasure; she read Sophia’s letter.

‘My dear Eléonore,’ she cried, ‘of course you must go to Osnabrück. This letter means that Duchess Sophia accepts you – and if she does so will every German. This is telling you that although you cannot be his legal wife because of contracts he has made preventing his marrying, in every other way you will be treated as such.’

‘You … you almost persuade me.’

The Princess laughed. ‘My dear
demoiselle d’honneur.
You know you have made up your mind. You love this man. Don’t be afraid of love, my child.’

Eléonore went solemnly back to her father’s lodgings. The Marquis and Angelique looked at her expectantly.

‘I shall write to the Duchess Sophia at once,’ she said. ‘And now … I am going to prepare for the journey to Osnabrück.’

The Marquis’s expression relaxed. Angelique flew at her sister.

‘Oh, Eléonore … how we are going to miss you!’

‘You, Angelique, will not. I am to be treated with all honour. Therefore I need my own
demoiselle d’honneur.
Who better to fill the rôle than my own sister?’

Angelique burst into tears of joy and when Eléonore glanced at her father she saw that he too was weeping.

Tears of joy! Tears of relief! Eléonore herself could have joined in. The decision was made. I will never be parted from him again as long as I shall live, she thought.

George William stood beside the Duchess Sophia at the foot of the great staircase in the Castle of Iburg, his eyes bright with pleasure and emotion. She seemed more beautiful than she had
in Breda; there was a serenity in the lovely dark eyes and when they met his he knew without a doubt that she truly loved him.

This is the happiest moment of my life, he thought; and then immediately: It would have been happier if I had been receiving her at Celle, if I could have offered her a true marriage.

But she had come to him at last – and he was thankful. He vowed to himself that he would spend the rest of his life making her so happy that she would not notice what she lacked.

Sophia’s pleasant smile hid her rancour. Oh yes, she thought, she is beautiful. I don’t believe I have ever seen a woman more so. If she had been offered to him in the first place he would never have handed her over to his brother.

‘Welcome to Osnabrück, Mademoiselle d’Olbreuse,’ said Sophia in good French.

Eléonore made a graceful curtsey. Everything she does she does perfectly, thought George William. A haughty piece for all her good manners, Sophia was thinking. Well, Mademoiselle, now you are here, you will have to learn your place. Fancy French manners won’t have the same effect on me as they do on my besotted brother-in-law.

George William had taken Eléonore’s hands and embraced her before them all and Sophia was aware that those watching were softened by the scene. All the world loved lovers – except Sophia and Ernest Augustus. And beauty and charm such as this French woman possessed could always arouse interest and sympathy – unless of course they had the opposite effect and stirred up envy.

Eléonore presented Angelique to Sophia who gave the young girl a smile and told her that she was pleased she had accompanied her sister to Osnabrück. And now she would take Eléonore to her own apartments that they might talk together for a short while before she conducted her guest to those which had been prepared for her.

In Sophia’s private chamber coffee and salt biscuits were served. This intimate tête-à-tête was an honour Sophia reserved for her friends. It was a sign, George William was able to tell
Eléonore afterwards, that Sophia had taken a fancy to her and wanted everyone in the castle to know it.

Afterwards Eléonore was conducted to her own apartments where Angelique was already waiting for her. When they were alone Angelique sat on the bed laughing.

‘Oh, Eléonore,’ she cried, ‘I’m so glad we came. These Germans … so plump …
so slow
. George William is not like one of them. He is different. But I like them, sister. I am so glad that we are here.’

Eléonore smiled at her sister’s exuberance. She too was glad they had come.

Those were happy days. George William rode with her in the countryside, walked with her in the gardens of the palace, and they talked incessantly of the future.

There was to be no delay in the ceremony, which, George William declared, should be like an ordinary marriage. He had documents drafted and redrafted until they pleased him, then he showed them to Eléonore.

‘I want all the world to know that the only reason this is not in every sense a true marriage is because I have given my oath not to marry.’

She was gratified, but she was also deeply in love, and there were occasions when she wanted to have done with documents and ceremonies and go away with her lover.

Sophia helped a great deal during those days, often inviting Eléonore to her chamber for coffee and salt biscuits when she made her talk of France and her childhood and she herself talked of England … the country which she had never visited but to which, she assured Eléonore, she belonged more than to any other. She spoke fluent English. Her French was good but her English better. ‘My mother was English … an English
Princess
before she became
Queen
of Bohemia. It is in my blood … this affinity with England. And when the blood is royal …’ There were times when Eléonore suspected that Sophia was trying to underline the difference between them. Then she thought she was mistaken and George William’s devotion would make her forget everything else.

Ernest Augustus insisted on studying the marriage documents with his lawyer.

‘No loopholes mind,’ he cried. ‘His renunciation stands.’

‘There is no intention to evade it, your Highness,’ he was told.

‘Make sure there is none … make doubly sure. My brother has always kept his word, but he was never before devoted to a woman as he is to that one. He’s capable of anything for her sake.’

Sophia joined him. She was of his opinion. Carefully she studied the papers.

‘Well, my dear,’ she confided to Ernest Augustus, ‘I would call this in the language of the lady herself an anti-
contract de mariage
!’

Ernest Augustus laughed with her. They saw eye to eye over this matter as naturally they should. George William was not going to be allowed to evade his agreement by one line; and George Lewis was destined to be the heir of Brunswick-Lüneberg.

And so the morganatic marriage took place and the married pair continued at Osnabrück.

‘It is as well,’ said George William, ‘to do so for a while. It will stabilize your position.’

Eléonore agreed.

‘Madame von Harburg!’ said Sophia. ‘Well, it is as good a name as any for a woman who, call herself what she will, is still not his wife.’

‘He wants her to have a title and he has an estate of that name,’ pointed out Ernest Augustus.

‘I am aware of that. But it makes no difference to me. She is Mademoiselle d’Olbreuse.’

‘I hope you will not call her by that name. It would cause trouble with George William if you did.’

‘My dear husband, I have no wish to let George William know my true feelings. That would indeed put him on his guard. We have to be careful.’

‘And he is as much in love with her as he ever was.’

‘Give him time to fall out of love!’ said Sophia with a snort of laughter.

‘Sometimes I wonder whether he ever will. He is not the man he once was. I scarcely recognize him as the carefree fellow who used to accompany me on my journeyings.’

‘You’ve both changed,’ Sophia reminded him.

It was true. George William had once been the leader, now he was proving himself a man with a soft and sentimental streak in his nature. Ernest Augustus had changed too. The young man who had adored his brother and was eager to follow him in every way was learning to despise the one-time hero. Ernest Augustus would never love anyone to such an extent that he was ready to sacrifice everything. Sophia suspected that George William would do just that for his Eléonore and, illogically, while she applauded the growing shrewdness of Ernest Augustus, she longed for the devotion of which George William was capable.

When George William presented his wife with a carriage drawn by six horses, Sophia declared that she must take firm action.

‘Why,’ she complained to Ernest Augustus, ‘when she rides out she appears to be finer than we are.’

‘It is George William’s wish.’

‘I can see that, and we shall have to show people that whatever fine jewels she wears, even if she has a carriage drawn by
twelve
horses she is not royal – nor can we treat her as such.’

When Sophia drove out she never allowed Eléonore to ride in her carriage; and she explained when there were others present: ‘You see, my dear, you are not the Duchess of Celle; and therefore the people would not expect to see you ride with us. I am sure you will understand.’

Eléonore, whose pride was great, was beginning to resent Sophia’s allusions and to wonder whether she was after all the good friend she had once pretended to be. George William was growing more and more devoted as the weeks passed, but he still believed that they should continue at Osnabrück for a while. In fact, when he remembered how antagonistic his subjects had been when he had brought home his Venetian servants,
he felt very uneasy as to how they would receive his French wife. It was so much better, he pointed out to Eléonore, that they remain under the protection of Ernest Augustus for as long as possible.

Eléonore yearned to have her own household. She found the manners of this court crude; she could not bear the smell of the food they ate and when the bowls of greasy sausages were served on masses of red cabbage she felt nauseated. She turned from the cloudy ale which they so much enjoyed and as a compromise she had set up a little kitchen in her own apartments where she and Angelique cooked some dainty dishes.

Even so she must appear at meals and as she listened to the champing of jaws and saw the eyes alight with greed and the grease running down the chins of the eaters she turned away in disgust.

Sophia had pointed out to her, most graciously, that they could not sit at the table with herself, Ernest Augustus and George William, for naturally the people would object.

‘You and your little sister will sit at another table. I am sure you will understand.’

Eléonore was inwardly incensed, but she said nothing and agreed to sit at the table indicated.

Sophia had made one special concession. ‘You may remain seated while we eat,’ she had said. ‘The rest of the company must stand and not eat until we have finished. But in view of the great esteem in which we all hold you, we should not expect you to stand.’

Eléonore often wondered afterwards how she endured such slights. George William would watch her unhappily, and she knew that never had he regretted so much his folly in signing away his birthright. She had no wish to make him more unhappy on that score, so she pretended that this treatment did not upset her as much as it did.

Sophia came to her apartment after having eaten sausages and red cabbage to inspect the dishes which Angelique was cooking.

She sniffed with amusement. ‘So that, I suppose, is what you call French cooking.’

‘It
is
French cooking, Madame,’ answered Eléonore with dignity.

‘And you are going to eat that!’

‘To us it seems as good as greasy sausages do to you.’

‘French tastes!’ laughed Sophia; and ever afterwards when she had finished eating she would nod in Eléonore’s direction and cry: ‘Now, my dear, you may be off to help your little sister with the saucepans.’

Several months passed and the vague slights which were heaped upon Eléonore were bearable only because she was beginning to know her husband better than ever and what she discovered delighted her.

There came the day when she was certain that she was pregnant.

Everything seemed to change for her then. She had accepted insults for herself, but she never would for her child.
She
had changed; she had not become less proud but far more shrewd and she knew these people were her enemies – and George William’s. They gloated over their triumph. They were determined that she should remain a woman without status, her child illegitimate; and she was going to fight with all her might for the sake of this unborn child.

‘George William,’ she said, ‘our child must not be born here. That would be an evil omen. He must be born under his own roof. I have heard the Castle of Celle is very beautiful. Take me there. Let me be in my own home for these months of waiting.’

George William agreed with her that the time had come to move; in any case his greatest wish was to please her.

So they left Osnabrück for Celle and when she saw the yellow walls of the old castle her spirits rose and as they came into the courtyard and the tame pigeons fluttered round them, Eléonore was happier than she had ever been.

‘I feel,’ she said, ‘that I have come home.’

On a golden September day her child was born.

‘The most beautiful little girl in the world,’ declared George William.

The child was brought to its mother and she examined it eagerly. Perfect in every detail!

‘George William,’ said Eléonore, ‘the bells should be ringing throughout Celle.’

‘I shall order it to be done.’

‘You should bestow gifts on your subjects. Give an entertainment … a ball … a banquet. I want them all to know what a great occasion this is.’

‘We will do it.’

‘I am so happy. I shall lie here thinking how happy I am … and how all Germany must know what an important event this is.’

‘What name have you decided on? I should like her called after you.’

Eléonore smiled. ‘No, that would never do. She must have a German name. I thought of Dorothea after your eldest brother’s wife … and Sophia … because so many in the family are Sophia.’

‘After the Duchess Sophia who was our hostess for so long. It is a graceful gesture.’