Maria Pia Oelker - A Woman In The Shadows

In the moments of greatest tension of the frenetic preparations, I compared that far-away and unknown archduke, not particularly handsome, to my dark-haired lover with his large bright eyes, smiling mouth and musical voice and I believed I would explode with resentment towards everyone who had always decided on my life. Then I regretted it and tried to reason objectively and be resigned to it. I did not manage it very well, but I tried.

It was then that I swore to myself that, however things went, I would never pretend again in my life.

Now I can say with absolute certainty that I have maintained that vow.

One morning, in the month of June, while I was in the garden enjoying the coolness of the trees and the gushing fountain, a letter arrived for me.

It was from my future husband.

I opened it a bit annoyed, expecting rhetorical and formal words, that would have irritated me with their empty and dull sweetness.

The butler who brought it to me said that the prince had sent the message strictly in private by means of a trusted ambassador, who had implored him to only deliver it to me by hand.

I smiled condescendingly: it figures! A scene good enough to convince only fools. I was in a bad mood that morning and I was bound to judge anyone in a manner more than severe, almost acid and perhaps a bit cruel.

Anyway, I continued with the game and, graciously, sent away also my personal-ladies-in-waiting. They were bursting with curiosity about what was written, I knew, and I was maliciously pleased to delude them. I had no intention of telling them anything, not even later. In fact, after having read the message, I would not want to have shared the contents with anyone, but not for spite this time, for a sense of modesty. For the joy of keeping it only for myself, as a precious memory and token. Peter Leopold’s letter was kind, full of concern for me, of feelings so delicate that one could have said they had been written by a woman and not by a haughty Imperial prince. It was clear that he was as curious and anxious as me to have the decisive meeting, but also in anguish, nervous and insecure. Behind the courteous, but not formal, words, there was a sense of a desperate need to understand, realise and imagine the future. To justify what in reality did not need to be justified, because even he had had to accept, without any say in the matter, decisions which came down from on high.

Two closely-written pages with small handwriting, slanting and not too flowery. Well-balanced enough except for some individual letters that, here and there, seemed to have got out of control.

At the end, a little before the closing, there were some phrases that froze my heart for a moment, which already seemed to be a little calmed and cheered up at the evident discovery of a character so unusually sensitive.

Short but significant phrases: - “Do not give credit, I beg you, to what they say about my amorous adventures and above all about my love affair with Miss Erdody. By now the past, and what it meant for me, both in joy and the deepest and bitterest pain, no longer counts and I swear to you that I believe I will be your sincere servant.” -

Who was that lady? I had never heard her name, but evidently Leopold took for granted that some bad-mouthed person had told me about her. And why ever would I have had to be told about her. I did not have time to reply to him, because any letter of mine would have arrived about the same time as me and therefore it was better to keep back my questions for a more intimate and personal meeting, even though I doubted that I would have been able to overcome my shyness to ask him certain questions. On the other hand, I did not want to ask anyone else for particulars of that episode which he had mentioned, I did not like malicious gossip and Leopold had put so much shame and pain in that statement that I did not feel like expressing any kind of criticism.

Should I have rather confessed to him also “my” adolescent love for Don Felipe?

I finished reading that long letter, refolded it carefully and put it away in a pocket of my dress. I would not have shown it to anyone, not even my usual affectionate confidants.

It was for me only, I considered it almost a token of love. Although I knew that there really was not even one word of love in it, I wanted to delude myself that he who had written it had wanted to implicitly declare to me at least the full willingness to open his heart to me.

I was nineteen and a half years old and not a naive little girl by that time, although life at court, so easy and alien to any awareness of the real world, had not prepared me at all for future married life. Some wound not yet completely healed in my heart, by nature borne to give too much space to fantasies and feelings, anyway put me on the defensive.

In the evening, while in the suffocating heat of the bedroom I tried in vain to go to sleep, I looked out of the open window, through the light screen of the curtains, at the piece of starry sky above the patio and asked myself if the same stars shone in Austria and, with a smile: - Who knows if Leopold, not being able to sleep through agitation, is looking at them like me? -

I felt like a fool, but I also thought that that would have been the first thing that I would have told him.

I got up and went to the window to breathe in the strong and heady aromas of the garden in full summer flowering. I thought that it was one of the last nights that I would spend there and started to cry without knowing why. I called one of my personal maids and begged her to light the lamp on the small table.

- “Couldn’t you get to sleep, your Highness?” - she asked - “Do you want me to bring you something?”

- “No, thank you, I don’t need anything.” I’m just a little nervous, that’s all.”

She carried out graciously the task that I had requested and, before going away, asked me again if I really did not need anything to drink.

She was a woman of a certain age who had always been with me since I was a little baby who played thoughtlessly in the palaces and the Neapolitan villas, looking at the sea through the windows and enjoying the music which at times seemed to come out of nothing through the streets of Portici. I would have liked to take her with me, but she was not in the list of people of my entourage, who, in truth, would then have abandoned me at Genoa after the entry into the port and would not have followed me to Florence.

I decided that the next day, for the first time in my life, I would have an amazing tantrum to get what I wanted: a ladies’ personal companion to take to Italy. I was certain that my father would have satisfied me, I do not know why, but I was sure to succeed.

- “Would you be happy to come with me to Italy?”

- “Oh, your highness, certainly, but they have said that no Spanish lady will follow you.”

- “Right - I noticed a certain bitterness - nevertheless - anyway not to Naples, to Tuscany.”

- “I don’t know where it is, but if your Highness will be there, I would want to be there also.”

I knew that she sincerely liked me and I also, notwithstanding she was only an old governess, liked her. She was the only one with whom I could speak Italian with that Neapolitan accent of mine, so terrible for my teachers and thus dear to my heart.

- “I’ll try to have you placed on the list of my entourage, but I don’t know if I will succeed.”

She smiled.

- “you’ll be a delightful wife and Archduke Leopold will be a happy man.”

I thought: - “Not necessarily”. On the contrary, he probably won’t think so at all. Who knows if, when he sees me, he will compare me with his lost lover? Perhaps he will dislike me for having occupied a position that he would have wanted for another woman.