Countess Helen von Hagendorf entered the breakfast room with a distinctive spring in her step and a letter in her hand. Her family and her stepdaughter were gathered at the table enjoying the first meal of the day.
“Why so chipper this morning, my dear?” asked Ludwig von Hagendorf, her husband, with a humorous gleam in his eyes. He smiled at the other four occupants at the table, only to lose his smile when his eyes landed on his daughter’s sullen expression. He turned his gaze to his wife again, waiting for her to explain what had caused her exceptional good mood.
“I’ve just received a letter from my cousin Henry,” Helen announced happily. “He confirms that he and his family are delighted to accept the invitation to Emma’s wedding.”
Surprised, Emma asked, “Is this the same cousin you haven’t seen in over twenty years, Mother?”
“What does that have to do with anything, dear?” her mother asked sharply.
“Nothing. Sorry.”
“Anyway,” Helen waved her off, “he confirmed that he and his family are looking forward to their time in Vienna. They are going to reside at the Palais Schelling over the summer.”
“That sounds wonderful, my dear,” Ludwig said, wiping his mouth with his napkin before he got up from the table. He kissed his wife’s cheek and left to get ready to leave for his office.
The count was already putting on his gloves when his oldest daughter Sophie caught up with him in the hall.
“Father, I would like to have a word with you. Sophie von Hagendorf stood in front of her father, making it impossible for him to leave without being rude. Ludwig groaned at his daughter’s insistent manner; he knew what this was regarding, but there was nothing he could do about the whole matter.
“Can’t this wait until after dinner? I really need to get to the office.”
“Very well.” Sophie relented upon seeing her father’s resigned ex-pression.
She watched him leave before turning on her heel to climb the stairs to her rooms, grateful that she had plenty of space to herself on the floor where she spent most of her time. From her sitting room or bedroom or her comfortable parlour or any number of other rooms, she could cry or rage or stamp her feet and no one would even notice.
Sophie knew there was no point in arguing about her sister Emma’s impending wedding to Count Siegfried von Bernthal, but she couldn’t help herself. She felt compelled to talk about her misgivings about the transaction. Because that is what it was, at least in her eyes.
Her sister was a mere pawn in a men’s game, fully supported by her stepmother who saw her own ambitions finally fulfilled. Sophie was afraid that no matter what she said, her father would not change his mind about the wedding. She decided to leave her work behind and take a ride to clear her head. To get some distance between herself and the house she hadn’t called a home for years.
Limping her way out of the house using her favourite cane, she made her way to the stables. Before she was halfway there, Sophie’s stepbrother caught up with her.
“Sophie, wait! Please!”
Anton was hot on her heels, his shock of dark hair in wild disarray from the breeze. Sophie couldn’t help but smirk at him. Her stepmother hadn’t been able to cause a rift between her and Anton although she had tried her best. Their bond couldn’t have been stronger if they had had the same parents. She considered him her brother.
“I am sorry, Anton,” Sophie said. “Tonight, I will speak to father, I promise.”
“But it will not change a thing, will it?” Anton said angrily, his hands balled into tight fists at his side. Sophie opened her mouth to disagree with her brother’s assessment, but she found no words because everything she could say would be a lie and they knew it. She hung her head in shame and frustration. This was 1903, a new century, for goodness’ sake; things such as this should not happen anymore. But Sophie knew the sense of progress to be an illusion. Despite all the political activism, women were still treated like property.
She was stirred from her thoughts by a hand grasping one of her own.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Sophie.” Anton tried to comfort her by saying, “It’s not your fault.”
“Still, I . . .” Sophie felt tears of anger and frustration prick her eyes. She feared her quest to free her sister from an abominable future was a lost cause after all. Her father had made a decision a long time ago; Emma’s engagement to the count had been a grand affair last year. Nothing could prevent it. So why did she think she could stop the wedding now?
And it wasn’t as if her sister was happy that she was trying to prevent her wedding, on the contrary. Emma was miffed that Sophie kept on agitating against her fiancé, who was only a year younger than their father.
Anton let go of her hand. She knew he had to get ready for university and must return to the house, but as he left, he cast a last glance at her. He was hoping as much as she was that she would find a way to call off Emma’s farce.
Sophie felt even worse now that her brother obviously trusted her to find a way out of this, but she was failing. Pleading with her father was the only resource she could come up with as a possible solution.
The stable hand brought Sophie’s horse, and though she was capable of managing her way onto Capri’s back by herself, she allowed the lad to help her mount. Capri’s dark brown coat shone in the sun. Her black mane and tail were just as perfectly groomed as her coat. Her gentle nature and sometimes naughty streak were her most endearing traits. But right now, neither Capri nor Sophie could wait to stretch their legs.
Sophie took the reins and left the yard at a leisurely pace. They continued their slow pace until she spotted the first trees of the Prater, the largest park in Vienna, and she finally let go, racing over the meadows, enjoying the fast and reckless ride.
She knew she should be more careful but what was the worst that could happen? Nothing much after all. Since she had already experienced a quite horrible riding accident when she was fourteen years old, there was nothing she was afraid of anymore when on the back of a horse. If anything, ever since that time, she felt free and strong astride Capri, quite the opposite of how she felt when standing on her own two feet.
After her forceful ride, Sophie let her horse amble at a more sombre pace to cool down. When she reached her favourite spot, she climbed down to let Capri graze. Sophie took hold of her silver-handled cane to walk to the fallen tree where she sat down and took out a silver cigarette holder from her vest pocket. She put one of her favourite cigarettes between her lips and lit it with a match. Sophie took a deep breath from the cigarette before she ruefully shook her head at this bad habit. This very unwomanly behaviour would shock her stepmother into apoplexy if she were to see her smoking. But the truth was, Sophie had never been very decorous, not the way women as her stepmother expected her to be.
She preferred men’s attire and reform clothes, and she abhorred those silly novels Helen used to read and all the more those completely useless conversations Helen had with her friends. Sophie shuddered at the thought of these shallow, superficial, uninspired society women whose only care was to marry off their daughters as well as possible and to gossip about those who were the same as Sophie, who were supposedly not that “fortunate.”
At the age of thirty-two she was too old to be married off profitably, and she clearly wasn’t viewed as desirable with the awful limp and a scar running from the middle of her forehead around her eye, across her cheek and ending near the corner of her mouth. Sophie used to curse her fate for the accident that caused the injuries, but at such times she was glad to have dodged the prison called marriage.
Even if her shortcomings weren’t that obvious, the accident had caused her to be infertile which was reason enough for any eligible bachelor to shy away from marrying her. Not that she had ever been attracted to the opposite sex anyway. Sophie had long ago realised that her heart beat exclusively for the fairer sex. Women were so much more intriguing, sensual, beautiful, and desirable.
She took the last drag from her cigarette before stubbing it out in a small travelling ashtray she always carried with her. She whistled and Capri came trotting towards her. Sophie climbed on the mare’s back and guided her back the way they had come. A lot of work waited for her at home.
Dinner was comfortable because Sophie knew there was no point in bringing up the marriage topic and aggravating her stepmother. She would speak with her father afterwards.
Later she followed him into his study. He offered her a glass of sherry which Sophie graciously accepted. As he poured, her father gestured at one of the chairs in front of the hearth for her to take a seat, then joined her with glasses of sherry for both of them. After he had handed Sophie her drink, the count took a seat and waited for his daughter to begin their dreaded conversation.
“I suppose you know what this is all about, Father—”
“I might.”
“Please, Father, tell me there is a way you might reconsider this whole wedding.”
“I am afraid there is nothing to be done. The terms of your sister’s marriage to Count von Bernthal have been agreed upon. Your step-mother has already sent out all the invitations.”
“But that’s the point, Father,” Sophie insisted passionately. “No contract has been signed, no vow has been spoken. You could still put a hold to this business.”
The count drained his glass in one gulp, his expression became dark. He got up and poured himself another drink, something stronger than the first one which he also swallowed in one swig.
“Emma is a girl of seventeen years who still has so much to see, learn, and experience. Don’t do that to her! The Count is fifty years old. He was already married twice and is in dire need of an heir, which I suppose is the only reason for wanting to marry her. And you know as well as I do what happened to Josefine.”
Her father rounded his desk and put his glass down with a loud thump. He glared at his daughter with a furious gaze. Never in her life had Sophie seen her father so agitated.
“Listen to me and listen carefully, Sophie! This is the last time we will speak about this matter. Your sister will marry Count von Bernthal as it has been agreed, period. Do I make myself clear?” When there was no answer from his daughter, the count shouted, “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father. Perfectly.” Sophie set her glass on the side-table and without another word, she left her father’s study.
Sophie returned to her rooms, where she retreated to her study. With a soft grunt, she sat behind her desk. Since she was the sole occupant of the whole fourth floor of the palais and members of the family seldom came here, she was fairly certain nobody would disturb her for the rest of the evening. For comfort, she had opened the first two buttons of her shirt and put on her reading glasses when a soft knock came at the door to the study.
“Come in!”
Her elderly maid opened the door and curtsied. In a quiet voice, Martha asked “Is there something you need, Countess?”
“No, thank you, Martha. You can go to bed. Good night.”
“Don’t stay up too late now.” She sounded worried.
“I won’t, I promise.”
When the door closed behind Martha, Sophie thought about the role her faithful servant had played in the family’s life. Sophie’s mother, the young Karoline von Wilczek, had married Count von Hagendorf, and Martha had been at her side at Sophie’s birth and afterwards.
But then a placental abruption while pregnant with Sophie’s brother caused Karoline’s death at the age of twenty-five. The family doctor had waved off the early signs as a type of common bleeding, and his advice had been to lie down and stop being hysterical. But the bleeding didn’t stop, and when he finally returned in haste, it was too late. He could do nothing more than sign the death certificate for mother and son.
Losing her beloved mother had been horrible for seven-year-old Sophie, but under Martha’s loving care, she eventually came to terms with it, though nightmares of her mother standing bleeding in the middle of the drawing room troubled Sophie for years. If Sophie woke up crying in the night after such a dream, Martha would spend as much time as was needed to calm her down until she could fall asleep again.
Ever since Sophie’s riding accident and her unhappy love affair with Elisabeth von Meiningen, Sophie knew Martha often worried about her and missed the light-heartedness that used to surround them. She thought Martha was probably still worried about her, even though Sophie was a full-grown woman.
She sighed and leaned down to concentrate on the manuscript in front of her. The silence was short-lived because soon after Martha’s departure, the door to her study flew open. A seething Emma stomped towards Sophie’s desk, demanding her sister’s attention with a furious demeanour and commanding tone.
“Who made you my guardian? I can’t remember asking you to interfere with my wedding to Count von Bernthal. Who gave you the right to ask Papa to cancel it?”
“I thought—” Sophie wanted to explain her actions to her sister but was cut off.
“You thought what, Sophie? That you were doing me a favour? It might come as a surprise to you, but you weren’t. Has it ever occurred to you that I might be fond of my fiancé and not view it as an ordeal to become his wife?”
“What would you know about being married to the man?” Sophie asked.
“Just as much as you, I suppose. Nothing.” Emma’s voice was full of venom. “I have no intention of spending my life knitting or with em-broidery and gossiping about other people’s lives. Or do you expect me to become one of those unnatural women like you?”
“What do you mean?” Sophie asked, her voice hoarse with emotion.
“You and Elisabeth, of course.”
Sophie stood, grasping her cane like a vise as she went to the table with the cognac tumbler. Sophie carefully leaned the cane against the table and poured herself a healthy glass which she emptied in one gulp.
“I knew all along what was going on between the two of you,” Emma said. “I’m not stupid. But Elisabeth preferred the safety of marriage to spending the rest of her life as your companion. She was right. Whatever it was you two did, it wasn’t right, and she realised it before it was too late and she, too, was ruined.”
Sophie advanced towards her sister, staring at her as if seeing Emma for the first time. Never in her wildest dreams had she thought her sister would despise her. Ever since Emma and Anton were born, Sophie had been the proud older sister, loving both of them.
Coming to a stop in front of her sister, she said, “Do you really hate me that much, Emma?”
“I don’t hate you,” Emma said with a frown. “I simply don’t understand you. You behave and dress against every convention. People let you get away with it because they pity you for your mishap. I don’t care if you ruin your life as long as it doesn’t interfere with mine. Any scandal you cause could reflect badly on me, so please keep out of my life as much as possible.”
“Does it not bother you that your fiancé saw it appropriate to rape and abuse one of our maids while celebrating your engagement?” Sophie played her last trump card only to be laughed in the face by her sister.
“Oh, please,” Emma sniffed haughtily. “That little slut. You know full well how these people are.”
“No, I don’t. Enlighten me, please.”
“If anyone should know, Sophie, it’s you. After all, you’re the one who spends two evenings a week in working-class homes teaching them proper German. What such behaviour leads to, you have seen in the last year. They forget their station, have trysts with the footmen or stable hands, and when they are caught in the act, they make up ridiculous stories about the higher classes in hopes of making money.”
Sophie couldn’t believe her ears. This young woman in front of her looked like her sister, she sounded like her sister, but the words coming out of her mouth transformed her into a complete stranger. Was this the person she had spent half her life with? What had happened to the Emma she knew? When had she become the self-righteous, bigoted, and arrogant woman in front of her?
Sophie said, “The fact that it was me who saw him leave the premises afterwards does not in the least bother you?”
“Why should it? It does not prove anything. Neither do the wild accusations of a mere parlour maid.”
“I see.” Head spinning, Sophie moved back to her desk and slumped in her chair with her cane nearby. “I will honour your wishes of course. Now would you please leave me alone. I simply must finish this before tomorrow.”
Emma merely nodded and turned on her heel, storming out of the room without so much as a good night. After her sister’s departure Sophie tried to go back to work but so much was tumbling through her head that she finally took off her glasses and threw them on the papers. She rubbed her tired eyes, still shaking in frustration and anger from Emma’s words. Sophie hadn’t known her sister held so much disdain for her nor had she known Emma was aware of the real nature of her relationship with Elisabeth.
Despite Elisabeth’s promises and spoken words of love in the heat of the moment, she had made it perfectly clear in the end that nothing would ever come of their love. Whereas Sophie had loved Elisabeth deeply and without restraint, Elisabeth had regarded their love affair as nothing but a convenient dalliance before a “real” relationship developed with some future husband.
After Elisabeth broke her heart so carelessly, Sophie vowed to herself that no woman would ever come so near to touching her heart at all. So far, she had kept this promise to herself.
Emma did not have to worry about any repercussions of a possible societal misconduct by her. The matter of their former maid, who had been ravished was, on the other hand, far more serious, and the disregard with which Emma had spoken about the incident worried Sophie more than she was ready to admit to anyone else.
Josefine had been thirteen when she came to work for the count and his family which was not unusual at all. She was from the country, same as most of the servants in Vienna, and like most of the women and girls who were sent to the capital city, she could barely write or read. She was a pretty girl, though, with good manners and a sunny nature.
The previous year, during the celebration of Emma’s engagement to Count von Bernthal, Josefine, then fifteen and well-schooled as a maid, was ordered to serve during the festivities. That was when the count’s interest in the young girl had peaked.
Sophie remembered the sheer expression of fear and terror in the face of the young girl when she stumbled into her arms in the courtyard. Josefine’s uniform was torn, hair in wild disarray, nose bleeding, and her lip split from a vicious slap. Sophie saw the count exiting the stable with a malicious grin on his face.
After much coercing, Josefine told her what had happened, and Sophie still could not forgive herself for urging her to tell everything to her father and stepmother, hoping they would take action on her behalf. Actions they did take, oh yes.
On the very same day Josefine finally found the courage to tell the count and his wife what happened, they threw her out without references and kept her last wages. If Sophie hadn’t been to Salzburg for her cousin’s birthday, she would have prevented the sacking and Josefine’s fate. But as luck would have it, she had only been able to right one wrong for the girl. Like many other female servants, without work in a household Josefine couldn’t go back home. Her parents wouldn’t have believed her claims, just as the count and his wife did not. So, she did the only thing left to do; she resorted to prostitution to earn her living.
A short time later, Sophie ran into Josefine after one of her lectures at the homes for the factory workers. She had decided to stroll and get a breath of fresh air before she fetched a carriage to take her back home. She was dressed in her usual masculine-looking attire, and a young prostitute approached and offered her services.
Sophie recognised Josefine and bought her a decent meal in one of the coffeehouses nearby. Feeling responsible for what had happened to the former maid, Sophie made arrangements for Josefine to get a ticket for the next train to Salzburg where she found a place in her aunt’s household.
She smarted from the unfairness Josefine had encountered and still didn’t believe she had done enough for the girl. And she didn’t believe she could ever forgive her stepmother.