‘Yes,’ agreed Eléonore, her teeth chattering.
‘I could endure it no more.’
‘No. You have endured too much. But there will be such a scandal.’
‘I no longer care.’
The jewels were packed into a case which Fraulein Knesebeck would carry.
‘Let us lie down,’ said Sophia Dorothea. ‘I feel exhausted and yet wide awake. You lie down with me … and we’ll talk as we used to when we were little.’
They talked of the next day. They would be in readiness, waiting until the message from Königsmarck arrived; and then they would put on two of Eléonore’s oldest cloaks and slip out of the palace. The coach would be waiting for them and in it Königsmarck. And as soon as they were safely inside … away to Wolfenbüttel.
‘There are strange noises in the palace tonight,’ said Eléonore von Knesebeck.
‘You are never awake at this hour, that’s why you notice them.’
‘What should they be doing in corridors by night?’
‘You are dreaming, Knesebeck. You’re half asleep.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes. Go to sleep. I shan’t. I shan’t sleep until I’m in Wolfenbüttel.’
How long the morning seemed. At every sound they started up. But no messenger came, and the morning passed and they were still waiting.
It was afternoon.
‘Something has gone wrong,’ said Sophia Dorothea. ‘He said he would send for us in the morning. It would have been easier to slip out then.’
‘He will send in the afternoon,’ consoled Fraulein von Knesebeck.
‘The children will be here for their daily visit soon,’ said Sophia Dorothea.
‘If the message comes while they are here we shall wait till they have left.’
‘I shall be tempted to take them with me.’
Eléonore von Knesebeck shivered.
But the children did not come and there was no message; and by the time the afternoon was over they knew that something was wrong.
Where is Königsmarck? It was the question which was being asked all over Hanover. His servants had not seen him. They had not been alarmed when he had not returned home that night because he often indulged in night adventures. But now he had been missing for two nights and not one of his household knew where he was.
Hildebrand, Königsmarck’s faithful secretary, was very anxious because he was aware that his master had been making plans to leave Hanover and that the Princess Sophia Dorothea was involved in them.
He would send to Dresden, he said, for it might be that some news of him could be found there. Königsmarck’s sister Aurora was now beginning to be very disturbed; she herself would visit Dresden for, she said, she was determined to find her brother.
In her apartments Sophia Dorothea was both heartbroken and terrified.
‘I am afraid,’ she said to Eléonore, ‘that the greatest tragedy of my life is about to happen.’
Even at that moment Ernest Augustus had sent his guards to search Königsmarck’s apartments in the hope, he said, that some clue might be found which would explain his disappearance.
Ernest Augustus was staring at the papers which lay before him on the table. Watching him intently were the Platens and the Duchess Sophia.
‘So they were going to Wolfenbüttel,’ said the Elector. ‘They were going to our enemies.’
‘Traitors – both of them!’ cried Clara.
‘The Duchess Sophia said nothing; she sat back in her chair, her hands folded on her lap, her lips tight. The daughter of that woman who had supplanted her all those years ago was in utter disgrace from which she could never extricate herself. Sophia at least would do nothing to help her. She would show George William what a fool he had been to refuse the daughter of Kings and take a commoner to wife. This slut, this French-woman’s brat, had disgraced her parents and she should never again set foot in the court of Hanover if the Duchess Sophia could help it.
‘Ernest Augustus was angry. To elope to Wolfenbüttel – that stronghold of traitors! It was too much. If she had merely taken a lover he would have forgiven her. God knew she had had enough provocation, and he was not the man to condemn others for weaknesses which he himself possessed. But in planning to go to Wolfenbüttel, she had forfeited all claim to his, sympathy and help. And there it all was in the papers found in Königsmarck’s apartments. No, he would have no mercy for Sophia Dorothea.
‘Her parents should be informed of her guilt,’ said the Duchess Sophia.
‘Without delay, I think, Your Highness,’ agreed Clara.
The two women nodded to each other. There was no rancour between them; they were agreed on this. They both urgently desired the ruin of Sophia Dorothea.
‘She walked about her apartments in a daze. She took no heed of time. She did not know now how many days had passed. There was only one thing she knew: her heart was broken, for some terrible tragedy had overtaken her lover; it was the only reason why he would desert her.
She had lost him; some intuition told her she would never look on his face again; and she was alone … staring disaster in the face.
‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’ she demanded of a terrified Fraulein von Knesebeck.
But the Confidante had no answer for her.
There was Celle. There was her mother.
‘My mother is the only one left to me, Knesebeck. She would never desert me. She will come for me. She will take me home now.’
The Duchess Eléonore was in tears. ‘She must come home. I will look after her. This is lies … all of it is lies. She has been indiscreet … but never wicked. She is incapable of wickedness.’
George William looked in astonishment at his wife.
‘Have you read these letters? Her guilt is plain. She has been Königsmarck’s mistress. She was going to elope with him … to Wolfenbüttel.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘You must believe your own eyes. Read these letters … in her handwriting. They will make you blush with shame. Your daughter so to conduct herself!’
‘She was driven to it. Oh, God, I foresaw this… . On that morning … that birthday morning… . Life was so wonderful before that. And you gave her away as though she were nothing more than a piece of land. Your own daughter! My daughter! Now she must come back to me. I will nurse her back to health. I will make her happy again.’
‘She shall not come here.’
They faced each other. He had been primed by Bernstorff, for Clara and the Duchess Sophia had determined that the Princess was not going back to her mother. Oh no! She had sinned and they were going to see that she was punished. Not back to Celle to be petted and pampered by the Frenchwoman – that clot of dirt, who doubtless thought it was amusing that Princes should be deceived.
George William must be a man in his own house.
‘I have made up my mind,’ he said.
‘If you close your door to her my heart is closed to you forever,’ she told him.
But he would not give way. He was older now, more selfish. Her approval was not so necessary to him as that of his brother the Elector.
Her beautiful face was set in a stony expression as she said: ‘I no longer care for anyone but my daughter and my grandchildren. And all the years of happiness I had with you are without meaning, for I was mistaken when I gave my love to a man who could so heartlessly treat his own daughter.’
She turned and left him and he almost ran to her crying out that he wanted it to be as it was in the beginning. They would have their daughter back; they would be together as they were in the days of Sophia Dorothea’s childhood when the whole world meant nothing to them and their happiness was in each other.
But even as he moved he could hear the mocking laughter of Hanover – his brother’s supercilious chuckle, the sneer of the Platen woman, the scorn of the Duchess Sophia; and his pride was stronger than his love.