She wanted to hold back time, to say: Now I am in Celle. Now I am merely the Princess Sophia Dorothea. Something will happen and this dreadful thing will not come to pass after all.
But the hours slipped by and no miracle came to Celle that morning.
Into the chapel she went just as the first rumble of thunder was heard in the distance and the rain began to hit the castle walls, and there was gloom outside and gloom in the hearts of the bride and her mother.
Sophia Dorothea looked at Eléonore, calm, restrained yet tragic. Their eyes met and her mother smiled as though she were saying: ‘I shall always love you, darling. You will always be the dearest in my life; and we shall never be far apart. You are marrying this man, but his home is only twenty miles from Celle. Remember that.’ ‘Oh, Maman, Maman,’ whispered Sophia Dorothea to herself, ‘I will remember. It is all I want to think of now.’
Her sullen bridegroom scarcely looked at her. He mumbled the words required of him; his hand was clammy and listless. He disliked this as much as she did.
She shivered and then the lightning lit up the chapel and a half second later the thunder broke as though it would shatter the foundations of the castle. Guests looked at each other, Eléonore’s eyes were on her daughter. An omen?
But the castle stood firm against the storm. The ceremony continued and Sophia Dorothea of Celle became the wife of George Lewis of Hanover.
Overhead the storm grew fainter; but the rain fell relentlessly and outside it was dark as night.
Sophia Dorothea sat at the banquet, her husband beside her. He glanced at her, summing her up. She was pretty, he could not deny it. Too slender for his tastes and she’d be finicky, he guessed, and know nothing. Still, she was pretty.
He smiled at her and although she shivered she was glad he had at last seemed a little friendly.
She turned from him and watched the dancing and revelry of those who could enjoy them, because, after all, they were not being married.
In the state coach drawn by six magnificent horses, cream in colour, sat the bride and bridegroom. They had traversed the miles from Celle and were on the outskirts of Hanover; and now they were aware of the welcome that town was about to give them.
The people filled the streets; banners had been hung from windows and sweet music filled the air.
‘Long live the bride!’ cried the people. ‘Oh, but she is lovely!’
Sophia Dorothea could not help being touched by their welcome; their obvious admiration reminded her of her father’s subjects of Celle, and for the first time since she knew she was to marry her spirits lifted a little.
She smiled and waved her hand as she had at home and the people were enchanted with her.
It was a good marriage, they said, because it united Celle and Hanover and this enchantingly beautiful girl was bringing much needed wealth to Hanover.
‘Long live the lovely Princess!’ they shouted.
Clara watched the arrival from a window of the Alte Palais.
She was angry because her sister Marie had received orders to leave, and although her husband was to become a Baron, and she of course, would revel in the title of Baroness, she was foiled because her sister would not be able to guide George Lewis.
He would have no mistress for a while! That meant of course no important mistress. And Marie – sister of Clara – had received marching orders.
‘Don’t go,’ she had said to Marie. ‘Why should you? Once that Celle creature is here we shall know how to deal with her. I do not see why we should allow her to dictate to us. I will speak to Ernest Augustus as soon as I have a chance and you shall stay, rest assured.’
So Marie had disobeyed the order to leave and now stood with her sister at the window to watch the arrival.
Here they came – in the state coach with its cream-coloured horses, her lover, George Lewis, and his bride. Marie drew aside the hangings and leaned out of the window as Sophia Dorothea was stepping from the coach, George Lewis awkwardly helping her out. Now they had turned to come into the palace and George Lewis looked up and saw Marie. So did Sophia Dorothea. And in that moment, instinctively she knew.
She turned to one of the attendants and said: ‘Who are the ladies at the window?’
She was told that they were Madame von Platen and her sister Madame von dem Bussche.
Calmly she entered the castle.
‘Welcome to Hanover,’ said the Duchess Sophia who had returned a little ahead of the married pair to Hanover that she might be there to receive them when they arrived.
‘Thank you,’ said Sophia Dorothea haughtily, ‘but I see that what was promised has not been carried out.’
The Duchess Sophia was startled. The young bride seemed to have acquired a new authority.
‘I regret that you should have cause to complain,’ said the Duchess, ‘but pray tell me to what you refer?’
‘I am told that Madame von dem Bussche is in the palace although it was arranged that she should leave before I arrived.’
‘So she is still here!’ The Duchess Sophia looked angry. ‘I regret this. But she shall be gone before the hour is out.’
Sophia Dorothea bowed her head and requested to be shown her apartments, and to these the Duchess Sophia personally conducted her.
In her room Marie von dem Bussche was feverishly preparing to leave.
‘This is disastrous!’ she cried, between her sobs of anger. ‘I thought you said …’
‘I had no opportunity to speak to Ernest Augustus,’ replied Clara. ‘You should not have stood at the window. Then no one would have known you were here.’
‘She would have discovered in time. I thought you said she was a stupid girl whom you would be able to handle.’
‘She is merely not so stupid, but I shall be able to handle her!’ replied Clara grimly.
‘And then …?’
‘You shall come back and hold your old position with him. Don’t fret. She’ll not satisfy him. He doesn’t want a French doll however pretty. He wants a lusty woman.’
‘So you think everything will be … as it was… .’
‘Give him a little time with his bride. Then you shall come back. I’ll see to it. Madame Sophia Dorothea will have to learn who rules this court.’
Clara said goodbye to her sister and then went down to the banquet hall where she would be presented to the new bride – not, of course, as her father-in-law’s mistress, but as the wife of his first minister.
Sophia Dorothea listened to the wheels of the coach which were carrying her. husband’s mistress far away. It was her first little triumph.
And George Lewis? He was far from prepossessing; he did not fill the rôle of romantic hero; but in his clumsy way he was not unkind; and he was far from being the ogre of her childhood.
She must accept her new life. The happy childhood was over. But when she sat at her window and looked out in the direction of Celle she thought of her mother who would certainly be thinking of her at this moment; only a few miles separated them; and soon perhaps she would have a child of her own.
This was not the happy marriage she had dreamed of; life had changed abruptly and cruelly; but with each new phase the shock grew less acute.
When I have a child, thought Sophia Dorothea, perhaps I shall not mind so much.
‘Mirror, Mirror on the Wall’
SOPHIA DOROTHEA WAS surprised how quickly she became reconciled to her new life. It was not that she fell romantically in love with her husband – far from it. She found him quite crude and coarse; but the rough awakening to the knowledge that she could not have all her own way had strengthened her, had made her realize a toughness in her character which no one – least of all herself – had expected.