At that moment there was scratching at the door and one of the pages announced that General and Madame Ilten had arrived at Hanover from Venice and the Duchess Sophia knew that the Crown Princess would wish to welcome them.
‘Well,’ said Sophia Dorothea, when the page had left, ‘now perhaps we shall have a little gaiety in the Leine Schloss or even at Herrenhausen.’
And she went down to greet the General and his lady.
When she heard what news they brought she was at first astonished and then delighted.
Duke Ernest Augustus thought that she must be feeling a little lonely at Hanover with so much of the court absent and that she must be in need of a little holiday. He wished her to prepare at once to leave Hanover in the company of the General and his wife and come to Italy where he would be most happy to see her. There was another reason why he wished her to be there: George Lewis had arrived from the army and would naturally be eager to see his wife.
She had never before been very far from Celle or Hanover, and the prospect of visiting a foreign city and one reputed to be as beautiful and romantic as Venice was exciting.
She turned and hugged Eléonore von Knesebeck. ‘What are you looking so glum about? Of course you’ll come with me!’
She threw herself into a fever of preparation. The dresses she would need! The jewels!
But after the first excitement had worn off a little she thought of the less pleasant side of this adventure. She would leave her baby in Hanover, she would be far from her mother, and there would be reunion with George Lewis; she remembered it was almost a year since she had last seen him.
Sophia Dorothea was discovering herself as well as Venice. She was meant to be gay. How different was this city – a group of islands rising from the sea – compared with Hanover. The weather was clement; every day she awoke to see the sun bathing the buildings in a golden light – usually at midday, for she retired late after the balls and banquets which her father-in-law gave in his palazzo on the Grand Canal.
How excited she was by all the exotic sights! She would gaze in rapture at the marble palaces on the water’s edge, at the gondolas gliding past on the Grand Canal, at the Rialto where on more than one occasion, masked and wrapped in a concealing cloak, she and Eléonore von Knesebeck had wandered together.
Ernest Augustus was delighted with her excitement.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘I feel I am seeing it for the first time through fresh young eyes. I did not know how jaded I had become.’
He would have her with him as much as possible – his honoured little guest.
Clara was watching carefully. She would soon have to take action against Madame Sophia Dorothea. She had been enjoying Venice until the girl had come, for Venice was a city for adventure. She had had her Venetian lovers and would have others. Each day brought new promise of excitement; and now here was this girl to delight Ernest Augustus with her naïve pleasure in foreign places!
She gleefully noticed that the resumed relationship between husband and wife was an uneasy one. It had never been one of passionate devotion, certainly, rather of compromise – and now they were both a little older (Sophia Dorothea must be nineteen) and compromise was not good enough. George Lewis had returned from the army where doubtless he had indulged in many a ribald adventure and was even more coarse than when he had been away; as for Sophia Dorothea she had had a year free from his unwanted embraces and was showing even less inclination for them than before. She had not become less fastidious – but more so.
George Lewis often looked sullen when his eyes rested on his wife. She was undoubtedly lovely, but he was unappreciative of her sort of beauty. The beautiful paintings in the palaces here and the architecture meant little to him. They were just pictures and buildings; and the charm of the Piazza San Marco was solely the opportunity of finding a willing woman there.
Sophia Dorothea was different. What could be expected of one brought up by the cultured Duchess of Celle? She was deeply aware of the beauty of Venice, but at the same time she was willing to throw herself, with all her newly awakened youthful zest, into the enjoyment of a life hitherto unknown to her.
The carnival was in full progress. Sophia Dorothea blossomed in the thrill of it all. Ernest Augustus bought her a Venetian gown and Venetian jewels because he wanted everyone to appreciate the beauty of his daughter-in-law. Why not, thought Clara, it was her money he was spending, though no one would have thought it, so magnanimously did he bestow his gifts, so charmingly and gratefully did Sophia Dorothea receive them.
Clara observed that Sophia Dorothea was something of a coquette. And why not? The Venetians were well versed in the arts of flattery – something of which George Lewis had never heard. This intricate preamble of flirtation and invitation was unknown to him, and Sophia Dorothea would naturally find it as exciting as all the novelties she was experiencing.
Perhaps, mused Clara, it would be possible to bring about the downfall of Sophia Dorothea through a lover.
While she was pondering this George Lewis had to leave for Naples and Ernest Augustus decided that before he himself returned to Hanover, which state matters demanded he should before long, he would like to show his daughter-in-law Rome.
Thus while George Lewis travelled to Naples, Ernest Augustus and his party went to Rome.
Sophia Dorothea found Rome as enthralling as Venice and it was Ernest Augustus’s great pleasure to show her this city. Clara looked on with disgust. He was like a boy, riding in his magnificent carriage through the streets with his excited daughter-in-law beside him. Of course this role was a minor one in the days of Ernest Augustus. He must entertain lavishly wherever he went – and since the Celle marriage he had money to spend. He had come to Italy on state affairs naturally and had arranged that troops of his soldiers should work for the Venetians; he had charged a high price, for the Hanoverian armies had a good reputation; and now he felt affluent and he had always been a man who, having money, liked to spend it.
So the entertainments he gave in Rome were every bit as splendid as those he had given in Venice, and Clara had ample opportunity of trying out a little experiment she had planned for the downfall of the girl who was in her thoughts too often for her peace of mind.
There could be no doubt that the most admired woman in the party from Hanover was the Crown Princess Sophia Dorothea, and all Clara’s splendid jewel-decked gowns and cosmetics could not alter this.
There was a man – not particularly young for he must be approaching forty – in Rome at this time who was noted for the gay life he led; he was tremendously wealthy and spent his life going from one adventure – mostly amatory – to another. But at the same time his wit and his bravery were a legend.
Clara, dancing with him at one of Ernest Augustus’s balls, noticed with inward anger that although he paid her delicate compliments and might be prepared to spend a few hours of the night with her if she pressed the matter, his attention was not with her. He might deceive others by his burning looks and flattering compliments but she was as skilled in this art as he was and she could not be deluded.
There was someone else on whom attention was directed and she could guess who it was.
‘You have noticed out little beauty,’ she said.
He answered: ‘How happy you must be to have such an enchanting creature at your court.’
‘But naturally,’ answered Clara. ‘It gives us all great pleasure merely to look at the pretty creature.’
‘So fresh … so vestal.’
‘Oh, she is a mother, so she scarcely qualifies for that description. Did you ever see anyone so abandonedly joyful?’