Виктория Холт - Queen in waiting

The Electress had begged her not to delay her visit to Hanover; she knew for what reason; and because she was so lonely she decided to make plans to go at once.

The pain in her throat had grown more acute and in addition the bouts of discomfort had been more frequent. She could see the change in her appearance and wondered whether others noticed it.

The weather was particularly cold that January and Marie von Pollnitz advised her against traveling until later.

"Shall I wait till Caroline returns?" she demanded. "Why then I shall not want to leave Lutzenburg. No, I shall go now, and by the time I return perhaps she will be with me."

So inspite of the weather she went on making her preparations.

The King protested. Why the hurry? he wanted to know. She could visit her mother in the spring. Did she guess what the roads were like?

She shrugged aside his warnings. She had promised to pay this visit. They were expecting her and nothing would induce her to postpone it.

Sophia Charlotte and her retinue set out from Berlin one bitterly cold day and began the journey to Hanover. She had been feeling increasingly ill before she started and as they trundled along the frozen roads and the icy wind penetrated her carriage she became exhausted.

The pain in her throat had increased and was now almost perpetual. She was finding it difficult to swallow and consequently avoided eating; and by the time they reached Magdeburg she knew that she would have to stop and rest awhile.

Marie von Pollnitz begged her to stay there until the spring but she merely shrugged the suggestions aside.

"There is so much to do/' she said.

"But it can be done later."

"No," said Sophia Charlotte, "I have a feeling that what has to be done must be done now."

Marie looked alarmed and Sophia Charlotte turned from her; she put her hand involuntarily to her throat. She could now definitely feel the obstruction there.

A few days later, although her condition had worsened if anything, they set out for Hanover.

The Electress Sophia was worried at the condition of her daughter. She put her to bed immediately and sent for her doctors. The diagnosis was terrifying. The Queen of Prussia was suffering from a tumour of the throat and there was no hope of recovery: in fact her end was imminent.

Sophia could not believe it. Her daughter was thirty-seven years old; it was too young to die, particularly as a short while ago she had seemed in perfect health.

"There is a mistake," she declared, and called in more doctors; but the answer they gave after examination was the same.

"We must save her," cried Sophia. "She can't die like this ... at her age."

But she knew that the doctors were right. The change in her beloved daughter was horrifying. In a short time she seemed to grow emaciated and her once lovely complexion had turned dull yellow.

She talked to her eldest son, George Lewis, who had been the Elector since the death of his father Ernest Augustus. "Your sister has come home to die."

"Better if she'd decided to do it in her own home," he muttered.

"This is her home. The only thing for which I am grateful is that she has come home to die."

George Lewis turned away; he was not a man to waste words. He would stick to his opinion and his mother could have hers; he still thought that a death at the Palace was an inconvenience—particularly when it should by rights have happened somewhere else.

"You're an insensitive oaf, George Lewis," she told him, for once forgetting his rank, for which she always had a great respect, and treating him as the child in the nursery whom she had never been able to love. "Don't you care for anyone but your tall malkin and your fat hen."

George Lewis received these references to his two favourite mistresses with unconcern. He muttered: "She should have stayed in Berlin."

The Electress Sophia was too distressed to quarrel with her son. She wondered then as she had so many times before how she could have borne such a son.

And he went on living and her dearest Sophia Charlotte ... but it would not bear thinking of even for an old stoic like herself. She had lost three sons and now all that was left to her were George Lewis with whom she could well have done without, Maximilian who was a rebel and a constant cause for anxiety because he was continually in conflict with his brother who had sent him into exile, and her youngest named after his father, Ernest Augustus. Three sons and one beloved daughter. It seemed her fate that her best loved children would be taken from her.

That cherished project of marrying Caroline to George Augustus must be shelved. They had death on their minds instead of marriage.

Gone were all those pleasant plans for the future—frequent journeyings between Hanover and Berlin, Sophia to gain a granddaughter, her own beloved daughter's daughter.

But thus it had always been, thought Sophia. How many times had she thought to reaUze a cherished dream to find it snatched from her?

It was life; and must be borne. She, an old woman, knew that well.

As it became more and more apparent that there was no hope of saving her daughter's life, Sophia was so stricken with grief that she became ill, and had to keep to her bed.

It was as well, said her servants, for the death bed scene with this daughter whom she loved best in the world would have tortured her beyond endurance.

Sophia Charlotte lay back on her pillows. In spite of her suffering there was a look of contentment on her face. A short while before, when she knew death was close, she had talked to her mother of Caroline, and Sophia had promised that she would do all she could to take her daughter's place with the girl. Sophia had talked of her plan to bring Caroline to Hanover. "There," said Sophia, "she shall be as my own daughter."

"Let her take my place with you," begged Sophia Charlotte.

"That is yours and no one can have it," answered Sophia. "But I already love her and would always care for her."

"For my sake," murmured Sophia Charlotte.

The Electress was so distressed by this conversation that Sophia Charlotte had been unable to continue with it; but that did not matter for she had the reassurance she needed.

And afterwards the old Electress, having to face the fact that death was imminent, broke down. Her stoicism deserted her. She could accept misfortune but not this greatest tragedy of all.

Now as Sophia Charlotte's life was slipping away she said goodbye to her brothers, George Lewis and Ernest Augustus. The latter wept; the former regarded her expressionlessly, and she remembered them so well from nursery days. George Lewis who never needed their companionship, who was content to be alone playing with his soldiers, who refused to learn to bow or converse graciously. Poor George Lewis—unloved by his family and not caring ... only wanting soldiers, real ones now, and of course women. And Ernest Augustus the baby who was always pushed aside because he was too young to join in; she remembered his standing by wistfully pleading with his eyes to be allowed to join the game and finally out of pity being given the humblest part to play. And Max ... dear gay mischievous Max, who was far away now because he hated his brother and could never resist the opportunity of plotting against him. There was another member of the family whom she had known for a while—poor sad Sophia Dorothea, her sister-in-law, who had had the misfortune to be chosen as the wife of George Lewis. They had not been great friends; she had found the lovely elegant Sophia Dorothea too frivolous for her, but she had been an enchanting creature. How could George Lewis condemn hei to a lonely prison because she had taken a lover?

But that was the old life—a new adventure lay before her. In a short time now she would face the unknown.

"You are sorry for me," she said to those about her bed. "Why? I have always wanted to satisfy my curiosity about life after death. My friends ... even Leibniz ... could not explain that to me. Now I am going to find out. There is nothing to weep for."

"We have sent word to the King of Prussia," said George Lewis.

She tried to smile. "He will give me a splendid funeral," she said. "And although it will not matter to me, it will please him for he loves pomp and ceremony."

She saw her nephew and niece by her bedside—George Augustus and pretty young Sophia Dorothea named after her ill-fated mother.

"I hope you will be happy," she said and held out a hand to the girl. Sophia Dorothea, so pretty and so like her mother, came forward, took it and kissed it.

"Bless you, my dear child," said Sophia Charlotte. "I wish you a happy life. And you too, George Augustus. May you find a good wife and live as happily as is possible on this earth."

Marie von Pollnitz had brought a chaplain into the room. And Sophia Charlotte asked him what he wanted.

He said that he had come to pray with her.

"Let me die without quarrelling with you," she said. "For years I have studied religious questions. You can tell me nothing that I don't know already. And I die in peace."

"Your Highness in the sight of God, Kings and Queens are mortally equal with all men," said the chaplain.

"I know it well," she answered.

Then she closed her eyes.

She was smiling serenely as she passed into the unknown.

Caroline saw the riders coming into Ansbach. She ran down to greet them for she believed they would have letters from Sophia Charlotte.

She stood impatiently in the hall of the Ansbach Palace under the Glorification of Karl the Wild as the messengers approached, and wondered why they looked so sombre.

"Your Serene Highness," said one, "there is bad news from Hanover."

"What news?" she demanded.

"The Queen of Prussia has died on a visit to her mother "

"Dead! " She heard the word but was not sure who had said it. She was aware of a rushing in her eyes, a sudden dizziness. This was not true. This was a nightmare. There was not such misery possible in the whole of the world.

She gripped the statue of the Margrave to steady herself. And she said again in a voice of utter desolation: "Dead! " There was nothing more to say. Her world was shattered; there was no reason for making decisions, for caring what became of her; there was nothing more in life to live for.

When the greatest catastrophe imaginable struck, one did not sit down and weep senseless tears, at least not if one were the Electress Sophia of Hanover. There was only one way of living and that was to become busily occupied in some new project.

There must be an attempt to fill the emptiness left by the irreplaceable. One must look for substitutes.

The Princess Caroline, herself emotionally crippled, could help Sophia bear a grief which they shared. That they would have in common and so much more.

Finding no comfort in prayer—either, as Sophia said, reproaching, or pleading for better treatment from, a Divine Being—she tried to set in motion a plan which, if it materialized, would at least make life tolerable.

If she could bring Caroline to Hanover, she would soothe her grief, give herself a new interest in life, and so continue living for the years which were left to her.

Poor Caroline! No one now would plan for her happiness as Sophia Charlotte had done. She was not a weak young fool, but she was without powerful friends.

The sooner I can marry her to George Augustus the better, thought the Electress Sophia; and set herself to work out a scheme for doing this.

It was exasperating to think that she had first to get George Lewis's permission. In fact it was the same in everything. He was the master now; and what a different place he had made of the court at Hanover since his father's death! He had all his father's lechery and none of his wit; although of course during the lifetime of Ernest Augustus she had had to endure the reign of the notorious Clara von Platen who had been his maitresse en titre for so many years.

George Lewis at least had had the wisdom or the luck to choose stupid women for his mistresses. They would never interfere in politics as Clara von Platen had done. George Lewis was like a lumbering great ox; he had no finesses such as his father had; he was without sensitivity; but he kept his women in order, and when he beckoned to one she immediately rose and followed him; and the others dared not protest. He made it clear that women for him were of use in one place only and that was the bedchamber.