Désirée (51 page)

"Mama, the gentlemen say that my name is now Duke of Södermanland," said Oscar, his cheeks flushed with excitement.

"Marie—the child may not have undiluted wine," I said. "Add some water to Oscar's glass." But Marie had vanished. La Flotte took Oscar's glass, with a curtsy to boot. " Why Duke of Södermanland, darling?"

"In Sweden the brother of the Crown Prince usually has
this title," young Baron Friesendorff explained eagerly. "But in this case—" he stopped and blushed.

"But since the Crown Prince won't be taking his brother with him to Sweden, his son will be given this title," said Jean-Baptiste quietly. "My brother lives in Pau. I wouldn't want him to move from his home."

"I thought Your Royal Highness had no brothers," declared Count Brahe.

"I urged my brother to study law, so that he wouldn't be a clerk all his life like my late papa. My brother is a lawyer, gentlemen."

At that point Oscar asked, "Will you enjoy Sweden, Mama?"

Silence all around me. They all wanted to hear my answer. Waiting for me—no, they can't expect that. This is my home, I am still a Frenchwoman, I . . . Then I remembered. Jean-Baptiste wishes us to relinquish our French citizenship. I am the Crown Princess of a country I know nothing of, in which there is a very old and genuine nobility, not like the parvenus of France. I'd seen how they smiled when Oscar said my papa was a silk merchant. Only Count von Essen didn't smile, he'd been ashamed. Ashamed for the Swedish court . . .

"Tell me that you'll like it, Mama," Oscar insisted.

"I don't know Sweden yet, Oscar," I said. "But I'm looking forward to seeing it."

"The Swedish people can ask no more, Your Royal Highness," said Count von Essen gravely.

His harsh accent reminded me of Persson. I wanted so much to say something friendly. "Someone I knew in my youth lives in Stockholm. His name is Persson and he's a silk merchant. Do you happen to know him, Field Marshal?"

"I regret not, Your Royal Highness." Very curt.

"Perhaps you know him, Baron Friesendorff?"

"I deplore it, Your Royal Highness."

"Possibly Count Brahe knows a silk merchant named Persson in Stockholm?"

At least Count Brahe smiled. "Truly not, Your Royal Highness."

I persisted. "And Mons. Mörner?" Mörner, Jean-Baptiste's first friend in Sweden, would surely help me.

"There are many Perssons in Sweden, Your Royal Highness. It's a very common name there."

Someone put out the candles and pulled back the curtains. The sun had long since risen. Jean-Baptiste's marshal's uniform sparkled. "I wouldn't think of signing a manifesto of any party, Colonel Wrede," he declared, "not even the Unionist Party."

Next to Wrede, stood Mörner, dirty and dishevelled. "But Your Royal Highness said in Lübeck . . ."

"Yes, that Norway and Sweden constitute a geographical entity. We must strive to achieve a union. It's the concern of the entire Swedish Government, not that of a single party. In addition, the Crown Prince is above all parties. Good night, or rather, good morning, gentlemen."

I don't remember how I got up to my bedroom. Perhaps Jean-Baptiste carried me upstairs. Or Marie, with Fernand's help. "You shouldn't have spoken so gruffly to your new subjects, Jean-Baptiste."

My eyes were closed, but I sensed he was there, beside my bed. "Try to pronounce 'Karl Johan,'" he urged.

"Why?"

"That's what I'll be called. Karl after my adoptive father the Swedish King, and Johan is the Swedish form of Jean. Charles Jean in our language." He rolled the words around on his tongue happily. "Karl Johan . . . Karl XIV Johan. On coins, it will be Karolus Johannes. And Crown Princess Desideria."

I sat up with a start. "You—that's too much! I won't be called Desideria. Under any circumstances whatever, do you understand?"

"It is the wish of the Swedish Queen, your adoptive mother- in-law. Désirée is too French for her. Besides, Desideria sounds more impressive. That you must admit."

I fell back on my pillow. "Do you believe one can suddenly forget who one is, what one was, and completely deny one's
real self? Go to Sweden—and play Crown Princess? Jean-Baptiste, I think I'm going to be very unhappy."

But he wasn't listening. Just kept playing with new names. "Crown Princess Desideria— In Latin, Desideria means, the desired one. Could there be a more beautiful name for a crown princess whom the people themselves chose?"

"No, Jean-Baptiste, the Swedes didn't choose me. They need a strong man. But a weak woman, who is also the daughter of a silk merchant, and knows only a M. Persson—no, I am sure they could not want me."

Jean-Baptiste got up. "Now I'll take a cold bath and dictate my request to the Emperor." I didn't move. "Look at me, Désirée—look at me. I shall ask that my wife and my son and I be permitted to relinquish our French citizenship. In order to become Swedish subjects. You agree to this, don't you?"

I didn't answer. Didn't even look at him.

"Désirée—I won't do this if you're against it. Don't you hear me?"

I still gave no answer.

"Désirée, do you realize what's at stake?"

At that I looked at him. As though for the first time. The wise forehead, over which his dark curly hair tumbled. The large bold nose, the deep-set eyes, searching yet confident. The small passionate mouth. I thought of the leather volumes in which a former sergeant studied law, of the tariff laws in Hanover, which meant its survival.

"He fished his crown out of the gutter. Yours is offered by a nation, now ruled by a king," I said slowly. "Yes, Jean-Baptiste, I know what's at stake."

And you will come with me and Oscar to Sweden?"

"If I'm really—desired. And—" At last I found his hand, at last I held it to my cheek. How I love him, how very much I love him! "And if you'll swear to me never to call me Desideria!"

I swear, my darling."

Then please permit the Crown Princess of Icicle-land to
continue her interrupted night's sleep, and proceed to your cold bath, Karl Johan."

"Try Charles Jean first. I'll have to get used to Karl Johan slowly."

"If I know you, you'll get used to it quickly. And kiss me again. I'd love to know how a crown prince kisses."

"—And how does a crown prince kiss?"

"Marvellously well. Just like my old Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte."

I slept long but restlessly. And woke up feeling that something terrible had happened. Two said the clock on my night table. Two o'clock. Two o'clock at night or two in the afternoon? I heard Oscar's voice in the garden, then a strange man's voice. Through the closed shutters, daylight filtered in. Why have I slept all this time? My heart felt heavy. Something had happened but—what?

I rang. La Flotte and my reader rushed in together. Collapsed into a curtsy. "Your Royal Highness wishes?"

I remembered everything.

Go on sleeping, I thought in despair. Knowing nothing, thinking nothing, asleep.

"The Queens of Spain and Holland have asked when Your Royal Highness will receive them," said Mme la Flotte.

"Where is my husband?"

"His Royal Highness has closed himself in his study with the Swedish gentlemen."

"With whom is Oscar playing in the garden?"

"The Duke is playing ball with Count Brahe."

"Count Brahe?"

"The young Swedish Count." Mme la Flotte was smiling and obviously impressed.

"Oscar broke a windowpane in the dining room," my reader added.

"Broken glass means luck," Mme la Flotte said quickly.

"I am terribly hungry," I remarked.

My reader curtsied again and disappeared.

"What shall I tell the Queens of Spain and Holland?" Mme la Flotte persisted.

"I have a headache and I'm hungry, and I won't see anyone but my sister. So tell the Queen of Holland . . . You think of something to tell her. And now I want to be alone."

La Flotte dropped into a curtsy.

These knee-bendings drive me mad. I shall forbid them.

After breakfast or lunch, I don't know what to call a meal at this hour, I got up. Yvette bowed herself in and I said, "Get out." Then I put on the simplest dress I own, and sat down at the dressing table.

Desideria, Crown Princess of Sweden. Originally daughter of a silk merchant from Marseilles, wife of a former French general. Everything dear and familiar seems suddenly to belong to the past. In two months I will be thirty years old. Do I look it?

My face is smooth and round. Too round, maybe. I'll eat no more whipped cream. Around my eyes are tiny wrinkles. I hope they're laughter lines. I twisted my mouth in an effort to laugh. The wrinkles deepened. Desideria. I laughed. Desideria! A hideous name. I never knew my real mother-in-law. But mothers-in-law are said to be insoluble problems. Are adoptive mothers-in-law pleasanter? I don't even know my adoptive mother-in-law's name. Nor exactly why the Swedes chose Jean-Baptiste their Crown Prince. . . . I opened the shutters and looked down into the garden.

"You're aiming directly at Mama's roses, Count," Oscar shouted.

"No, Your Royal Highness must catch the ball—here it comes!" cried young Brahe. Brahe threw hard.

Oscar lurched as he caught the ball. But— he caught it. Do you think I'll ever win battles like Papa?" Oscar called across the lawn.

"Throw back the ball, aim straight," Brahe commanded. Oscar hurled the ball at his chest. Brahe caught it. "Your Highness throws straight," he said approvingly, and threw back the ball. It landed in my yellow roses. Huge, autumnal, fading roses, their leaves wilting. I know each rose, love them.

"Mama will be very angry," Oscar declared, and looked up anxiously at my windows. He saw me. "Slept out, Mama?"

Young Count Brahe bowed.

"I should like to talk to you, Count Brahe. Have you time?"

"We broke a windowpane in the dining room, Highness," he confessed.

"I hope the Swedish State will be responsible for the repairs," I laughed.

Count Brahe clicked his heels together. "Sad to say, the Swedish State is practically bankrupt."

"So I thought." It just slipped out. "Wait, I'll come down to the garden."

I sat between the young Count and Oscar on the little white bench in front of the arbor. The wan September sun caressed me. All at once I felt much better. Oscar asked, "Can't you talk to the Count later, Mama? We're having such fun. "

"No. I want you to listen carefully." Out from the house came the sound of men's voices, Jean-Baptiste's decisive and very loud.

"Field Marshal Count von Essen, the members of the Embassy, return to Sweden today, to deliver the answer of His Royal Highness," Count Brahe told me. "Mörner is staying here. His Royal Highness has appointed him as his aide-de camp. Naturally, we have already sent a special courier to Stockholm."

I nodded, seeking desperately for a way to begin. But I found no inspiration and burst out with, "Please tell me honestly, dear Count, just why Sweden has offered the crown to my husband."

"His Majesty, King Charles XIII is childless, and we have for years admired the great ability and administrative powers of His Royal Highness and . . ."

I interrupted. "I've been told that one king was deposed because people believed him mad. Is he really mad?"

Count Brahe concentrated on a dying leaf and said, "We assume so."

"Why?"

"His father, King Gustavus III, had some very queer ideas. He wanted to re-establish Sweden as a Great Power, and so
he attacked Russia. The nobles and all the officers were against it. And to prove to the nobility that the King alone could decide on war or peace, he turned to the—the, uh, lower classes and—"

"To whom?"

"To tradesmen, the craftsmen, the peasants. Actually to the commoners."

"He turned to the commoners. Then what happened?"

"Well, Parliament, in which only the third and fourth estate were represented, voted him extensive powers, and the King marched against Russia. At the time, Sweden was deeply in debt and unable to pay for all this rearming. So the aristocracy had to intervene and—" Count Brahe became quite vivacious —"and then something extremely interesting happened. At a masquerade, the King was suddenly surrounded by men in black masks, and shot. He collapsed, mortally wounded, and Field Marshal von Essen—" Brahe waved in the general direction of the hum of voices from the house—"yes, the loyal Essen caught him in his arms. After his death, his brother, our present King, became Regent. When young Gustavus IV came of age, he ascended the throne. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that Gustavus is mad. . . ."

"This is also the King who considered himself appointed by God to destroy the Emperor of the French?"

Count Brahe nodded, and looked harder than ever at the dying leaf.

"Why didn't he revenge the murder of his papa?" Oscar inquired.

Even a madman must realize that one doesn't seek revenge from one's own class in a time of crisis," said Brahe. "Aristocrats must stand together."