by David Elias
“I want to thank you, William, for everything you’re doing,” I told him one evening. We were in my study, where we were allowed to enjoy each other’s company in private under the guise of a mutual interest in such dispassionate pursuits as literature and astronomy. “I know it cannot be easy for you.”
“It is the easiest thing I have ever done, Madam.” We were seated across from each other before a small fire in the hearth. My chair had a table set by piled with books and artefacts, where I liked to retire of an evening to study and be about my own private pastimes. I treasured quiet and solitude to a degree others found confounding and at times even insulting, but it was in my nature to be so and I saw no reason to run counter to it.
“You stay when you might just as well go back and see to your holdings,” I said, my hands folded over my lap, “and all the while insist on furnishing me with these generous gifts, but it shall not be forever. Soon enough my wealth shall be restored when I assume the life of Queen Mother to the reinstated Elector in Prague. Then you shall be free of this burden.”
“It is one I would bear eagerly for as long as I might be allowed, the better to see first-hand to your comfort and happiness.”
The air of guarded reservation that tended to pervade our conversations seemed to suit both of us, but on this occasion I was determined to cast aside formality and get to the heart of the matter.
I rose to stand before the fire. “You speak of happiness even as I withhold from you that which you most desire.”
“Madam.” He got up from his chair and stood to face me. “You have made it clear that decorum must be preserved.”
“And what if each of us was free to do entirely as he wished?”
“Then I should seek this instant to take you in my arms and kiss you.”
“Very well, I give you leave to do so.”
“Madam?”
“If it will give you satisfaction.”
“It can do no less and a great deal more.”
“Proceed, if you will.”
He stepped forward, grasped me by the shoulders and kissed me stiffly upon the lips. It was neither as long nor as warm as I might have expected.
He stepped back a little. “Madam, you have made me the happiest man on Earth.” He made this last statement with an unexpected air of finality.
“You would you have nothing more of me?”
“More?”
“Surely a kiss is but a prelude to favours of the flesh that come after.”
“I seek no such favour.”
“But how can you say so? Did this kiss not stir something in you? Another man might seek to undo these stays” — I pulled gently at one of the laces on my bodice — “and help himself to more.”
“You mock me.”
“I do not mean to. Will you put your hands on me?”
“Madam, I will not.”
“But why?”
“Pray, what would you have of me?”
“To see you satisfied. Or shall I use other means?” I brought my hand down to his breeches.
He swept it away and stepped back. “Madam, this is unseemly.”
“But surely you want me for a lover?”
“It were better to refrain.”
“Then why not seek out a younger woman who can give you children and not one that has already borne thirteen?”
“You think me peculiar.”
“I find it peculiar that those few times in my life when I have practically thrown myself at a man I have been rebuffed.”
“I have made my peace that ours must be a courtly love.”
“Do you think we shall be the better for it?”
“For my part I am ever improved in your company.”
“Then I am happy to provide it.”
Lord Craven seemed relieved at this exchange. He raised my hand to his lips, as he would on a more formal occasion, and took his leave. We had come to an agreement that should hardly have satisfied another couple. But such is the nature of circumstance when two people find a way to serve each other that only they understand.
***
And so the years went by and those considerations I have already named multiplied as the children saw their education take them to various colleges, universities, and lecture palaces so that there was always something that needed to be paid for. I took pains to see my girls turned into elegant young ladies, armed them with all the weapons they would need to survive the subterfuge and duplicity of courtly life, and made sure they were ready before I allowed them to enter that treacherous arena. I introduced them to admirers both suitable and unworthy, that under my supervision they might by degrees learn to judge between the two, and so marry with the promise of means and surety. If they thought me overbearing and calculating, I maintained the unspoken conviction that they would thank me later. Naive!
When I commissioned painters to fashion their portraits, I chose those artists who promised neither to flatter nor offend. If my daughters had not the features of classic beauty, I did not want them made to look that way. They had each of them a certain poise, a vivacity not easily rendered on canvas. I suppose it is only natural they should have wished to be envisaged in the best possible light, but in such matters care must be taken lest the meaning be lost. Suppose it should come to pass in some distant future that we should be granted the capability to render endless likenesses of ourselves, and then be allowed choose from among them only the most flattering public for display? Better to leave off such embellishments in matters of appearance, for true beauty will ever seek its own way out. I suppose it is easy enough for me to utter such sentiments, because my daughters are not unattractive. Their portraits hang even now in halls and rooms where mine are doubtless no longer to be found.
Did my daughters marry for love? Lady Anne would have insisted it is a romantic notion best left to the fancy of playwrights and poets. Perhaps, but in any case I had no such ambitions for them. Do I believe such a thing really exists? I do, but as is the case with everything else in this world, it suffers at the hands of impermanence. Nothing lasts. My daughter Henrietta married in May and died unexpectedly in September. Her husband died a few months later. So much for love.
Rather than dote on my daughters I sought to discover in them any special aptitude or talent they might possess and thereafter urge them as much as possible to pursue it. I saw to it that all my children were educated and trained in the fine arts, and from a young age took note of their talent. My daughter Louise, for an instance, turned out to be to a very fine painter and artist. I managed to obtain the services of none other than Gerard van Honthorst, fresh from the house of Medici in Italy, as her teacher. I was not surprised when he later saw fit to attribute her finer works to himself, after trying to bed her as well as myself, not to mention any other woman in court who might have him. In this regard he was just like any other artist. My daughter was soon sought after for her paintings and became known as Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate. She never married but took herself instead to Paris, where she entered a convent.
As for the boys, they were as handsome in their own way as the girls were in theirs. Besides Rupert and Charles there was also Edward, who married a French princess who turned out to be Italian, and Philip Frederick, who was the only one of my sons to fight a duel over me, though it wasn’t the first time a young man had deigned to do so. In this case I’d seen fit to accept an exiled young French Lieutenant Colonel at court for a time, who had a habit of drinking to excess. One night he made a loud boast to everyone at the dinner table that he had bedded my daughter Louise. That was bad enough, but thereafter he insisted he had accomplished as much with me as well. He should have been roundly dismissed as a drunken fool by those about the table and the matter should have ended there, but my hot-tempered son took exception to his remarks and would not be assuaged. He challenged the drunken Colonel to a duel, w
hich Lord Craven managed to quell at least for a time. But the two young men met up again a few nights later and agreed to fight a duel outside the grounds of the palace. Philip suffered a slight wound in the ensuing contest, but thereafter fatally stabbed the young Frenchman with his sword. He was called to answer for it by the authorities and had to leave the country, after which he hired himself out as a mercenary, not unlike Captain Hume, whom he had always idolized. The whole thing was a terrible mess, and for what? As it turned out the Frenchman’s scandalous assertions were only half-right.
And then there was my daughter Elisabeth, who was altogether different from her siblings in the way she talked to me. Rather than outright defiance or provocation, her utterances offered a disconcerting mixture of subtle dismissal and flagrant truthfulness. Our attempts at meaningful conversation inevitably lapsed into mutual aggravation, if not outright paroxysms of temper. Just like my other daughters, she had spent her formative years elsewhere, in education and refinement, so that I did not see a great deal of her until the time came for her to return to The Hague and be introduced to the court. It was she, more than any other, whose future I wanted a hand in shaping, notwithstanding that she was loath to be persuaded of anything merely for the sake of contenting her mother. Her will was as strong as mine, not to mention that she could outthink me, outlast me, and by the age of fifteen was already better educated than I could ever hope to be. She thought her sisters vain and shallow and hardly worthy of her time, though she humoured them to a greater degree than she did me, for whom she invariably saved her harshest reproach.
She had been going to school in Leyden, where I had attended a number of times to see to matters of placement. It had served as the former residence of those ardent Calvinists who had set sail for the New World and who continued yet to do so. When I discovered that they sometimes allowed those of lesser religious conviction to take passage on those same ships, I was tempted to cast aside everything and sail away from all my troubles, start over again in the place I had always longed to travel to, but of course I never acted upon these impulses and no one knew they existed in me.
Perhaps I might have cobbled together an entirely different life for myself there. It was ever little more than a fantasy, but I left instructions with Lord Craven that any monies forthcoming from my estate, such as it was, should go toward the financing of an expedition to the New World. My son Rupert had been contemplating such an undertaking for some time, the better to explore the possibility of establishing trade with the natives at Hudson Bay. I sent him word about a ship that had come to my attention which might suffice for the voyage. It was called the Nonsuch and I thought it would do nicely.
For a time I entertained the notion that Elisabeth might be the one to do what I never had, and sail for the New World. I should certainly have encouraged her to do it, but she was too interested in education to take herself to such a primitive place. It seemed wherever I sent her it was never long before she became unruly and disobedient. I even resorted for a time to having her stay with her grandmother Juliana at her country home not far from Heidelberg, where she was sure to receive proper discipline, but the more I thought about her there the more it rankled me, and so I sent for her to return to me in The Hague. One evening I had her brought to me in my presence chamber, which was where I generally took an audience with those of my children I wanted to advise or inspect on one matter or another. They were not allowed inside of my privy chamber, let alone my bedchamber. These I reserved for myself alone and those servants who had by necessity to carry out tasks for me, though I was very self-sufficient and didn’t like to be handled.
Elisabeth came in and stood before me dressed in a modest gown, her hair in ringlets and a simple string of pearls about her neck. While perhaps not as accomplished in appearance as her sisters, she was by far the most intelligent and her demeanour had about it an air of proud forbearance. She could seldom be bothered to go to the trouble her sisters did to make themselves look remarkable, and this occasion was no exception.
“Good evening, Madam.” She sat down across from me, neither too far into her chair nor out of it, and straightened down the front of her dress.
“Good even, Elisabeth. I’m glad to have you back home at last.”
“Home.” She looked down at her hands, then back up at me. “I had hardly thought of it that way.”
“It has ever been something other than home to me as well.” I felt myself off balance already.
“Well, then.” My daughter’s composure seemed unassailable, her words expressionless. “In that arena we are of one mind.”
“How was your stay in Silesia with your grandmother? Did she treat you well? She tells me you have a particular aptitude for languages.”
“I am in constant study, and so by necessity must learn those tongues in which the important books have been written.”
“And do you have a favourite?”
“Book?”
“I meant language.”
“I have a great fondness for Latin.”
“Your grandfather, King James, forbad me to learn it. He said it made a woman more cunning.”
“I wonder what he meant by that.”
“You can be sure it leaned toward intolerance.”
“I never knew him.”
“Nor I.”
“And yet he was a king.”
She offered a wry smile and I wanted to fill the silence with something so I carried on: “They tell me you had a nickname at school. They called you ‘La Grecque.’ Was it a term of endearment or did they mean to taunt you?”
“I suppose it must have been a little of both. They were adolescent young women after all, fatuous and easily harried by their peers.”
“Nevertheless you were known for your studies.”
“If I must be known for something, then all the better I earn my reputation.”
“Tell me, what do you study these days?”
“History, geography, and mathematics for the pragmatic disciplines, then there are painting and dance, though I should be happy to spend that time on the study of philosophy. And of late I have been pursuing a detailed examination of poetry with Lady Vere. It was she who schooled me in the social graces that I might at last be fit to come into your regal presence.”
I determined to disregard the provocation obvious in that last remark. “I am happy to have you back here at last.”
“Are you?” She looked at me with a steady and unwavering gaze.
“I have been eager to sit in conversation with you, but not about such small details as we are bound to annoy each other with, for this will always be the way of a mother and daughter — that each should seek to slay the other with a thousand pinpricks.”
“I should prefer a nice juicy stab wound myself.”
“Then here is your chance.” My blood was up. “I give you leave to unsheathe your dagger and have at me.”
“You will parry, no doubt.”
“I stand at ease. Wound me how you will.”
Elisabeth held her body rigid, back very straight, shoulders forward and legs tensed, as though she might spring up at any second from her chair. She fixed her eyes intently on mine, stared beyond them as though into my very core. I watched her expression change several times, one thought grappling with the next, fighting for control of her tongue.
“You are my mother, and there are certain things you shall not hear me utter. I will say this much. I hope you have not brought me back here on the pretext that I will entertain the niggling intrigues of those courtiers without.”
“I am no less fond of it than you,” I countered, “but I am forced to engage if I want to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.”
“As for me, what need have I to feign interest in such matters when I know for a fact you are under negotiations even now with the House of Poland, where a certain prince has expr
essed interest in my hand.”
“Where have you heard this?”
“I even know his name, Wladislaw. He’s a Catholic. You would see me follow the same path as you did, and your mother before you.”
“I have no such intention. It is only that these are delicate negotiations and I must take care not to offend anyone.”
“How perfectly awful it must be to spend your days in such a manner.” Elisabeth fixed me with a cold stare.
“There is much I do not by choice but by necessity.”
“You should give it up. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I do what I have to and I don’t apologize for it.”
“Many a mother has hidden behind that justification for the small and petty treatment of her offspring.”
“If it qualifies as an excuse it also serves as the truth. And let me present another. If you consider it your bad luck to be born into this family of misfortune, think how many would yet trade places with you.”
“Best I keep my mouth shut, then.”
Even as I held myself back from lashing out at her I thought of myself at that age, mature beyond my years and yet so childish.
“I am tired,” she said at last, “and would take to my bed, if you will allow it, Madam.”
Was it relief I felt as she rose from her chair, or disappointment?
“Good night,” she said, and took herself out of the room.
“Good night,” I called after her, but she had already gone.
***
So it was that the days flowed into one another and the two of us floundered about, looking for a way to co-exist within the same confines of that sorry estate, money dwindling slowly down to a trickle, Lord Craven able to procure what he could out of an increasingly unstable situation in England. He could not be sure of his lands, and even his funds were here and there being confiscated. But he always managed to come through, and in the midst of it all I set aside every penny I could to further Elisabeth’s education. I had determined that in spite of all our differences, in spite of the fact that she thought so little of me, it was more important than ever to provide her with every opportunity to succeed on her own terms.