The Accidental Empress (54 page)

Sophie, who looked cowed before her sister’s erect frame, fidgeted, not answering.

“Do you hear me, Sophie? Because if not, I may need to summon Franz in here and have
him
explain. If only your son knew the way his wife has suffered. Blaming herself. Elisabeth almost lost this baby once. If she
does
lose it . . .” Ludovika crossed herself now. “Well, that’s the future heir of which we speak. So we
all
must do what we can to make her comfortable and safe. Do you understand?”

Sophie still did not answer.

“I asked: Do you hear me?” Ludovika somehow looked even taller than she had a moment ago.

“I heard you, Ludie. You certainly spoke loud enough.”

“Good. Now, starting today, Gisela will be permitted to visit with her Mamma. Every day. We’ll have no more of this separation. It’s not good for Elisabeth to miss her daughter so, and it won’t be good for the unborn baby to have a mother who is so sad. Do I have your agreement on this?”

“You have my agreement,” Sophie answered, her mind clearly distracted with trying to make sense of what had just occurred.

“Good. Then that is settled.” Ludovika turned from her sister, sitting back at the table and calmly scooping herself a spoonful of broth, as if they had just agreed on the lovely weather outside. “And besides, I’d like to visit with my granddaughter.”

Whether it was Ludovika’s stern warning or her own superstition that she risked upsetting the baby growing inside Sisi’s belly, Archduchess Sophie behaved entirely differently for the remainder of the pregnancy. She was politely distant—sending gifts and pieces of fruit as she had in the previous two pregnancies. She pulled Countess Esterházy from her post in Sisi’s suite, telling the gray-haired woman that the empress wanted privacy with her mother. She advised Franz to visit with his wife, which he did. And she willingly granted the request that Sisi be given time to visit with her daughter each afternoon.

Ludovika was quickly smitten with Gisela. “She looks just like you did, Sisi. Look at these chestnut ringlets. We must order some new bows for them immediately.”

“That’s what Franz has always said, that Gisela reminds him of me.” Sisi shifted in her seat, delicately balancing her growing belly with her squirming toddler.

“She is truly your daughter.” Ludovika smiled.

“Down, Mamma,” Gisela asked quietly, sliding herself off her mother’s lap. Sisi noticed with a sharp tinge of sadness that the little girl never wished to stay in her mother’s arms for long.

They were outdoors in the gardens; a picnic sprawled before them on the
tapis d’herbe
, the neatly clipped carpet of lawn. Gisela wobbled tenuously off the blanket, putting one slippered foot on the grass before turning back for reassurance.

“Go on, darling, you may walk. We will watch you.” Sisi laughed as her unsteady daughter clutched a bush for support.

“Flowers!” Gisela pointed a chubby finger at the beds of nearby tulips, the parterres brimming with vibrant red and yellow petals.

“Flowers, that’s right.” Ludovika smiled at her granddaughter, rising from her own seat on the blanket. “Shall we walk over to the flowers and find some butterflies, my little dear?”

Gisela spotted her grandmother walking toward her and ran back to her mother, collapsing into Sisi’s skirts. “Where’s Grandmamma?” she asked, her little lip quivering.

“Afraid of Grandmother Ludovika?” The duchess leaned her head to the side, staring at the bashful toddler. “She is so shy. In that way she is unlike you, Sisi, you were not shy. A bit dreamy. Sometimes a bit moody. But not timid.”

“That’s Franz,” Sisi said, sweeping her daughter up into her arms for a kiss.

“Indeed.” Ludovika agreed. “He was such a timid little boy, I remember that. Of course, Sophie has that effect on most people.”

Sisi shifted in her chair. “I wish you had met little Sophie, Mamma. She was so . . .”

“I wish that, too, my love.” Ludovika put a hand on her daughter’s, noticing how Sisi swallowed hard, fighting the urge to cry.

“But you mustn’t let the grief for that lost child prevent you from loving this perfect little girl in front of you.”

“Do you think Gisela will remember her sister? Will she even recall how she loved her?”

Ludovika’s eyes softened, reflecting her daughter’s sadness. “Perhaps she will. And perhaps she will not. But she will certainly know this baby.” Ludovika gestured toward her daughter’s belly. “And the siblings to come after.”

Sisi sighed, fingering the Sophie-shaped charm she wore on her wrist. After a long silence, she asked: “When does it stop?”

“When does what stop, Sisi?”

“The pain. Of losing a child. When does it stop hurting like this?”

Ludovika’s face sagged, her shoulders rising and then falling with a slow exhale. “It never stops.”

“But I don’t ever remember you suffering like this, Mamma. Even after you lost . . .”

Ludovika winced and Sisi let the question wither, unfinished. Eventually, her mother spoke.

“It becomes something that you learn to live with. You carry it, always, but you learn to enjoy the life that you still have before you. You learn that a beautiful summer day in the garden with your daughter is a gift from God, meant to be enjoyed. And so that’s what you do—you enjoy it.”

These times, with three generations of Wittelspach women—Ludovika, Sisi, and Gisela—were sweet times for Sisi. Her mother’s presence cast a protective cocoon around the three of them, like a holy relic whose presence wards off the haunting presence of dark spirits. Sisi felt at ease, safe in her rooms once more. She found that her days were once again busy: she answered the many letters she had cast aside, she ordered new dresses for after the birth, she walked outside the palace to give alms and attend mass, and she looked forward to the afternoon visits with Gisela.

Franz had started visiting their suite again, and even though he rarely spent the night, Ludovika had moved into a bedchamber adjacent to her daughter’s rooms, deeming it appropriate to give her daughter privacy for when the emperor did visit.

Fortunately, though she was installed in a separate suite of rooms, Ludovika was able to hear Sisi’s groans on the night in late summer when the labor began.

“Is it time?” Ludovika flew into the room, her hair wrapped in curling papers, her eyes alert.

“It’s time.” Sisi winced, fighting through a sharp spasm. “Mamma, fetch the doctor.”

Agata, Marie, and Ludovika remained by Sisi’s side for the entirety of the labor, while Franz paced nervously in the antechamber, surrounded by his ministers, his mother, and a carafe of port. When the baby emerged into the world hours later, a pink, screaming ball of black-haired fury, Sisi heard the words she had been too fearful to hope for.

“A son. You are delivered of a son, Your Majesty!” Doctor Seeburger held the baby high for Sisi to see, as if proffering the screaming body as proof. “A healthy baby boy. Long live the Crown Prince.”

Ludovika and Marie erupted in celebratory cheers, clutching one another as they bounced up and down. Sisi allowed her head to drop back onto the pillow, indulging in an exhausted, contented laugh.

“A son,” Sisi gasped, closing her eyes to thank God. “A son. A son. A son. Please, someone, fetch my husband.”

Agata ran for the door to the antechamber. A moment later, Franz burst into the bedroom, his face taut and his hair unkempt. “What is it? Is it a boy?” He looked from his wife to the doctor.

Doctor Seeburger held forth the tiny, plaintive bundle. “Congratulations, Emperor Franz Joseph. Your wife has just delivered your heir.”

“My heir?” Franz repeated it with a tinge of incredulity. Doctor Seeburger, usually so stoic, couldn’t help but smile as he nodded. Franz approached. At the doctor’s urging, Franz took the baby in his hands, clutching the body and staring down without a word. The little legs looked tiny as they flailed in Franz’s trembling hands. Sisi took it in, looking on as her husband stared down at his son, beholding his face for the first time.

“Well, hello there, my son.” Franz’s eyes roved over every inch of newborn flesh to ensure that all was as it should be. “Is he healthy? Is he strong?”

“Indeed, Majesty.” Doctor Seeburger nodded, a satisfied grin on his usually stern face. “A healthy little boy if I’ve ever seen one.”

Franz laughed, turning back to his son’s pink little face. “A son!”

“Empress Elisabeth did a commendable job, Majesty,” the doctor said, perhaps noting the yearning look in Sisi’s eyes. “It was a very difficult labor. Perhaps the hardest one yet. But both mother and son should soon be in perfectly good health.”

“Thank you, Elisa!” Franz ran to his wife, holding the baby forward so that his exhausted wife might see her child.

“We have a son.” Sisi did not struggle with the tears, but rather let them stream out. “Thank you, God, thank you.”

A holiday was declared and the entire empire was ordered to commence a three-day festival, paid for by the Habsburgs. Wine, beer, sausage, fireworks, and more beer were gifted throughout every town in the name of the new heir. Crown Prince Rudolf’s first gift to his people. Those who did not partake in the days-long consumption of Habsburg beer and wine attended masses, held in churches and cathedrals throughout the empire, to pray for the health of the new prince and his recovering mother.

Sisi heard it when the birth was announced to the city of Vienna—one hundred and one guns firing off a salute to the tiny Habsburg heir. One hundred and one more years of Habsburg rule. The roar of the rifles ripped through the hot August night like a rainless summer thunderstorm.

“Long live Crown Prince Rudolf!”

“Cheers to Empress Elisabeth!”

“God bless the Empress and the Crown Prince!”

“Listen to that, my little Rudy.” The pop of the guns, trailed by the raucous yelps of the mob that stood carousing outside the palace gates, sailed in through Sisi’s open bedroom windows and rattled the frame of her bed. Rudolf simpered, irritated by the noisy disruption to his evening meal, and he balled up his little fists and pounded them angrily on his mother’s chest. Sisi, at that moment nursing Rudolf, could not help but laugh at her son’s temper.

“Those cheers are for you, my prince. They are for you.” Sisi kissed his soft, downy little forehead, savoring his clean, baby smell and the rhythmic pulsing of his tiny lips as he drank from her tender breast.

Ludovika sat, sentrylike, at the door to the suite, ready to call out a warning should Sophie approach to see her new grandson. But Sophie would not come tonight. She was with Franz and the rest of his advisors, celebrating and toasting the new prince with the rest of the court. A celebration that Sisi gladly declined in order to have this private moment with her new baby.

“Long live Empress Sisi!”
Another cry of revelry drifted in on the warm current, and Sisi smiled; they were using her nickname. The love of her people was now as certain as the continuation of the Habsburg line. The entire empire, it seemed, had exhaled a collective sigh of relief at the birth of Crown Prince Rudolf. And so, too, could Sisi.

Rudolf’s birth had been long and taxing, and so Sisi did not argue when her mother offered to take him so that she might have a chance to sleep.

“You must rest, my Sisi. You’ve done your part. You sleep soundly, knowing that Rudolf is safe with his grandmother.”

“Don’t give him to Sophie. Mamma, you promise?”

“I promise, my Sisi. I will not let him out of my arms. Now sleep.”

“I think I shall, yes . . .” Sisi yawned, softening willingly into the pillows as she shut her eyes. She knew that her son would be there when she awoke. And that her husband would be back to visit. And that her mother was near. And that knowledge was so wonderful that even the thunderclap of the fireworks and the increasing volume of the revelers outside could not prevent her from slipping into a deep and restorative slumber.

She awoke to brilliant summer sunshine and total silence; Vienna, having sated itself with merrymaking, had turned in to sleep off its excesses.

She had a son. A healthy, hungry, rosy little son. The realization washed over Sisi, bringing with it a wave of fresh happiness, and she called out for her mother to bring Rudolf to her.