‘You cannot stay here,’ went on George William. ‘This must be a short visit … nothing more. Even a long stay would result in gossip.’
Her mother had risen; there was anger in her eyes; but Sophia Dorothea caught her hand. She felt that the decision had been made. There was no going back now. Whatever was to happen in the future had been decided in this moment.
‘Do not plead for me, Maman,’ she said. ‘I should not wish to stay where I am not wanted.’
Eléonore cried: ‘George William, this is our own beloved daughter… .’
He did not look at them; he was afraid that if he did he would become weak, for he loved them, and like his daughter he would have been happy to go back to the old days of peace and contentment. But they had governed him then. He had been lazy, giving way to everything, a laughing-stock of his brother’s court and of his own. He had to play the man, the head of the house whose word was law.
‘I have told you,’ he said. ‘This is a short visit. Next week Sophia Dorothea must return to Hanover and her husband. And if he takes a mistress …’ George William shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is a common habit. And she must look to her own shortcomings and not run to Celle to complain to us.’
With that he left them.
They did not speak; they merely looked at each other. Then Sophia threw herself into her mother’s arms. Eléonore did her best to comfort her daughter. She suffered with her – the same torment and desolation.
Deserted by my own family! thought Sophia Dorothea. That was something she could never have believed possible. The familiar rooms had lost their charm. They were no longer that haven she had always believed them to be. There was a sinister atmosphere in what had once seemed so dear to her. She hated them, she told herself, even more than her apartments at Hanover. At least there she had not expected to find peace and comfort.
Her mother did her best to comfort her. She must go back to Hanover, she pointed out. She must try to be happy.
Try to be happy? How could one … married to George Lewis. Oh, it was not that her mother did not understand, only that she, like Sophia Dorothea, knew herself to be defeated.
She would have given her life for her daughter but what could she give but advice? She was no less hurt and bewildered by George William’s conduct than her daughter was.
‘We must leave here,’ Sophia Dorothea told Eléonore von Kneseback, ‘and the sooner the better. It was a mistake to come. I have only found fresh unhappiness here.’
Eléonore von Knesebeck made her preparations. Sophia Dorothea took a cool farewell of her father and a warm one of her mother and holding her head proudly high stepped into her coach with the children, Eléonore von Knesebeck and the few servants she had brought with her.
The Duchess of Celle watched the coach until she could no longer see it and then went to her apartments and remained there. In his study George William buried his face in his hands. He too was unhappy; but he was right, he insisted. The alliance with Hanover could not be broken for the whim of a spoilt child.
The distance between Hanover and Celle was not great and during it the travellers must pass Herrenhausen. As the castle came in sight the guards pulled up the carriage and told Sophia Dorothea that the Duke and Duchess were obviously in residence there and that the trumpeter was already announcing their arrival.
Sophia Dorothea lay back against the upholstered coach and closed her eyes. They would know that she had appealed to her parents to let her stay with them; and they would know that she had been refused. She pictured the sly looks of Clara von Platen, the stern ones of the Duchess Sophia, and she knew that in her present heartbroken state she could not face them.
‘Drive on,’ she cried. ‘Straight on to Hanover.’
The driver whipped up the horses. On they went. Sophia Dorothea closed her eyes and did not look at Herrenhausen as they passed.
‘It’s an insult!’ cried Clara. ‘She is deliberately flouting you.’
Ernest Augustus frowned. He had been inclined to favour the girl because she was so pretty, but his feelings had changed towards her since the Mölcke affair.
He did not in his heart believe she would be guilty of conspiracy to murder him; but she had been a friend of Mölcke and Maximilian. And now she was making trouble with George Lewis. George Lewis had all but murdered her, but she must have provoked the attack. And then she must run home to her parents and ask them to shelter her.
She was troublesome, that girl, and he did not care for trouble.
He shrugged his shoulders, but Clara, watching him closely and knowing him so well, followed his line of thought.
Rejected by her parents. Out of favour with Ernest Augustus. Disliked by her husband. Königsmarck far away. Sophia Dorothea had never been so vulnerable as she was now.
Was this the time to strike?
Given the opportunity, Clara would be ready.
Gossip in Dresden
LIFE AT HANOVER was intolerable with Königsmarck or without him. Sophia Dorothea came to this sudden decision. Previously she had been sustained by the thought that if her life with George Lewis became unendurable she could fly to Celle – now she knew that that escape was denied to her. Perhaps this was the greatest shock she had received so far. To be repudiated by her own father was something which would have seemed to her impossible. She knew that he had forced her to this marriage, but she had convinced herself that he had done so only because he had believed it would be good for her. But now he turned his back on her. Her mother was the only one in the world – with the exception of her lover – on whom she could rely; and her mother was in the power of her father.
Dearest Philip, she thought, you are the only person who can help me.
She would not stay here. She would leave Hanover; and if her parents would not have her there, there must be someone else.
She discussed her plight hourly with Eléonore von Knesebeck. She wrote passionate letters to her lover. Königsmarck replied that he understood that she could not continue in her present state. He thought that a flight to France might be possible. After all she was half French; if she became a Catholic she would be well received there; he would join her and as George Lewis would certainly divorce her, they would be married.
‘There are the children!’ cried Sophia Dorothea distractedly. ‘I should lose them for ever.’
No, she dared not cut herself off completely from the House of Brunswick-Lüneberg; in such a way would she lose her mother too. There must be another way. The answer was surely Wolfenbüttel. Why could she not throw herself at the mercy of her kinsman? Maximilian was already there. She would be among friends; she could take her children with her.
She talked constantly of this project to Eléonore von Knesebeck and letters came back and forth between herself and Königsmarck.
One of the most licentious men in Europe was Frederick Augustus the new Elector of Saxony, and, delighted to find himself in power, he very quickly began to show his subjects the sort of man he was. The court at Dresden was going to rival Versailles, not be a mere shadow of it; Dresden itself was going to have buildings to equal in splendour those of the Roi Soleil. He already had his seraglio but he was going to increase that; he intended to live like a sultan of the Arabian Nights.
He welcomed his friend Königsmarck, and when he found him melancholy, laughed at him and told him that the pleasures of Dresden would soon disperse his sadness.
Königsmarck was a compulsive talker who could never restrain a desire to amuse; it was for this reason that Frederick Augustus enjoyed his company. At the extravagant banquets he would often have him at his side and make efforts to turn him into the gay companion he had once been.