Under a Charm. Vol. I
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"You were in a tremendous fright, I suppose," said Leo, banteringly.
Wanda tossed her head. "In a fright? I? You ought to know by this time that I am not timid. Another girl would have probably fled precipitately, but I kept my ground, and asked the way to the Beech Holm. Though I repeated the question twice, I got no answer. Instead of replying, the spectre stood as though rooted to the ground, and stared at me with its great wild eyes without uttering a sound. Then I did begin to feel uncomfortable, and turned to go, when in a moment, with two strides, he was at my side, pointing to the right, and showing an unmistakable intention of acting as my guide."
"But not by pantomime alone?" interposed Leo. "Waldemar spoke to you, surely."
"Oh yes, he spoke; he honoured me in all with six or seven words, certainly not more. On joining company with him, I heard something like 'We must take to the right;' and on parting, 'Yonder lies the Beech Holm.' During the half-hour's interval, there reigned an impressive silence which I did not venture to break. And what a way it was we took! First we went straight into the very midst of the thicket, my amiable guide walking on ahead of me, trampling and crushing down the bushes like a bear. I believe he destroyed half the forest to make some sort of a passage for me. Then we came to a clearing, then to a bog. I expected we should plunge right into it; but, marvellous to say, we stopped on the brink. All this time not a word passed between us; but my singular companion stuck close to my side, and whenever I looked up I met his eyes, which seemed to grow more and more uncanny every minute. I now inclined decidedly to the opinion that he had risen from one of the ancient tumuli, and was prowling about in search of some human being whom he would straightway drag off to one of the old heathen altars, and there immolate. Just as I was preparing for my approaching end, I saw the blue sea glistening through the branches, and at once recognised the neighbourhood of the Beech Holm. My wonderful cavalier came to a halt, fixed his great eyes on me once more, as though he would eat me up on the spot, and seemed hardly to hear that I was thanking him. Next minute I was on the shore, where I caught sight of your boat. Think of my astonishment when I came in to-day and found my wood-demon–my giant of primeval times, whom I thought long since buried in some deep cavern of the earth–in my aunt's reception room, and when the said ghostly vision was introduced to me as 'Cousin Waldemar.' It is true, he conducted himself in the most approved style; he even took me in to dinner. But, goodness me! how funnily he set about it! I believe it was the first time in his life he ever offered a lady his arm. Did you see how he bowed, how he behaved at table? Don't be offended, Leo; but this new brother of yours belongs rightly to the wilderness, and to the furthest depths of it, too! There he has at least something awe-inspiring about him; but when he comes out among civilised men, he simply convulses one with laughter. And to think that he should be the future lord of Wilicza!"
At heart, Leo shared this opinion; but he thought it incumbent on him to take his brother's part. He felt how infinitely superior to young Nordeck he himself was, both in appearance and bearing, and this made it easy to be generous.
"But it is not Waldemar's fault that his education has been so entirely neglected," said he; "mamma thinks that his guardian has let him run wild systematically."
"Well, all I can say is, he is a monster," decided the young lady. "I herewith solemnly declare that if I have to go in to dinner with him again, I will impose a voluntary fast on myself, and not appear at table."
During their talk, Wanda's handkerchief, with which she had been fanning herself, had slipped down, and now lay at some distance below them in the ivy which crept round the balcony. Leo noticed this, and gallantly bent to reach it. He was obliged almost to go down on his knees. In this position, he picked up the handkerchief, and restored it to his cousin. Instead of thanking him, she burst out into a peal of laughter. The young Prince sprang to his feet.
"You are laughing?"
"Oh, not at you, Leo. It only struck me how unutterably comic your brother would have looked in such a situation."
"Waldemar? Yes, indeed; but you will hardly have that satisfaction. He will never bend the knee before a lady, certainly not before you."
"Certainly not before me!" repeated Wanda, in a tone of pique. "Oh, you think I am still such a child, it is not worth while kneeling to me. I have a great mind to prove to you the contrary."
"How?" asked Leo, laughing. "By bringing Waldemar to your feet, perhaps?"
The girl pouted. "And suppose I undertook to do it?"
"Well, try your power on my brother, if you like," said he, touchily. "Perhaps that will give you a better notion of what you can do, and what you can't."
Wanda sprang up with the eagerness of a child who sees a new toy before it.
"I agree. What shall we wager?"
"But it must be done in earnest, Wanda. It must not be a mere act of politeness, like mine just now."
"Of course not," assented the young Countess. "You laugh; you think such a thing is quite beyond the range of possibility. Well, we shall see who wins. You shall behold Waldemar on his knees before we leave. I only make one condition; you must give him no hint of it. I think it would rouse all the bear in him if he were to hear we had presumed to make his lordship the object of a wager."
"I won't say a word," declared Leo, carried away by her mischievous eagerness, and joining in the frolic. "We shan't escape an outburst of his Berserker wrath, though, when you laugh out at him at last, and tell him the truth. But perhaps you mean to say yes?"
Both the children–for children they still were with their respective sixteen and seventeen years–joked and made merry over their conceit, as such thoughtless young creatures will. Accustomed constantly to tease and torment each other, they had no misgivings about including a third person in their sport. They never reflected how little Waldemar's stern, unbending character was suited to such trifling, or to what bitter earnest he might turn the play imagined by them in the foolish gaiety of their hearts.
CHAPTER VI
Some weeks had passed. The summer was drawing to an end, and all hands at Altenhof were busy with the harvest. The Squire, who had spent his whole morning in the fields, looking after the men and directing the work, had come home weary and exhausted, and was settling himself down for his well-earned after-dinner nap. Whilst making his preparations for it, he looked round every now and then, half angrily, half admiringly, at his adopted son, who was standing by the window dressed in his usual riding gear, waiting for his horse to be brought round.
"So you are really going over to C– in the heat of the day?" asked Herr Witold. "I wish you joy of your two hours' ride. There is not a bit of shade all the way. You will be getting a sunstroke–but you don't seem able to live now without paying your respects to your mother at least three or four times a week."
The young man frowned. "I can't refuse to go if my mother wishes to see me. Now that we are so near each other she has a right to require that I should pay her some visits."
"Well, she makes a famous use of the right," said Witold; "but I should like to know how she has contrived to turn you into an obedient son. I have tried in vain for nearly twenty years. She managed it in a single day; she certainly always had the knack of governing people."
"You ought to know that I do not allow myself to be governed, uncle," replied Waldemar, in a tone of irritation. "My mother met me in a conciliatory spirit, and I neither can nor will repulse her advances roughly, as you did whilst I was under your guardianship."
"They tell you often enough that you are under it no longer, I'll be bound," interrupted his uncle. "You have laid great stress on that for the last few weeks; but it is quite unnecessary, my boy. You have, I am sorry to say, never done anything but just what pleased you, and often acted in opposition to my will. Your coming of age is a mere form, for me, at least, though not for the Baratowskis. They best know what use they mean to make of it, and why they are continually reminding you of your freedom."
"What is the good of these perpetual suspicions?" cried Waldemar, in a passion. "Am I to give up all intercourse with my relations for no other reason but because you dislike them?"
"I wish you could put your dear relations' tenderness to the test," said Witold, ironically. "They would not trouble themselves so much about you, if you did not happen to be master of Wilicza. Now, now, don't fly out again. We have had quarrels enough about it of late, I am not going to spoil my nap to-day. This confounded bathing season will be over soon, and then we shall be quit of them all."
A short pause followed, Waldemar pacing impatiently up and down the room.
"I can't think what they are about in the stables. I ordered Norman to be saddled–the men seem to have gone to sleep over it."
"You are in a terrible hurry to get away, are not you?" asked the Squire, drily. "I really believe they have given you some philtre over in C–, which will not allow you to rest anywhere else. You can hardly bear to wait until it is time for you to be in the saddle."
Waldemar made no reply. He began to whistle and to crack his whip in the air.
"The Princess is going back to Paris, I presume?" asked Witold all at once.
"I don't know. It is not decided yet where Leo is to finish his studies. His mother will no doubt be guided by that in the choice of her future home."
"I wish he would go and study in Constantinople, and that his lady mother would be guided by that, and take herself off with him to the land of the Turks; then, at all events, they could not be back for some time," said Herr Witold, spitefully. "That young Baratowski must be a perfect prodigy of learning. You are always talking of his studies."
"Leo has learned a great deal more than I, yet he is four years younger," said Waldemar, in a grumbling voice.
"His mother has kept him to his books, no doubt. That boy has kept the same tutor all the while, you may be sure; while six have decamped from here, and the seventh only stays on with you because he can't very well help himself."
"And why was not I kept to my books?" asked young Nordeck, suddenly, crossing his arms defiantly and going up close to his guardian. The latter stared at him in astonishment.
"I do believe the boy is going to reproach me with giving him his own way in everything," he cried, in wrathful indignation.
"No," replied Waldemar, briefly. "You meant well, uncle; but you don't know how I feel when I see that Leo is before me in everything, and hear constantly of the necessity of further advantages for him, while I stand by and … But there shall be an end of it. I'll go to the University, too."
Herr Witold, in his fright, nearly let fall the sofa cushion he was comfortably adjusting.
"To the University?" he repeated.
"Yes, certainly. Dr. Fabian has been talking of it for months."
"And for months you have refused to go.
"That was before … I have changed my mind now. Leo is to go to the University next year, and if he is ready for it at eighteen, it must be high time for me to be there. I am not going to be outdone always by my younger brother. I shall talk to Dr. Fabian about it to-morrow. And now I'll go round to the stables myself, and see whether Norman is saddled at last. My patience is pretty well worn out."
With these words he took up his hat from the table, and hurried out of the room, full of eagerness to be gone. Herr Witold sat still on the sofa, holding the cushion. He did not think of laying it straight now. It was all over with his noonday rest.
"What has come to the boy, Doctor? What have you been doing to the boy?" he cried, angrily, as that inoffensive individual came into the room.
"I?" asked the Doctor, in alarm. "Nothing! Why, he has but just left you.
"Well, well, I don't mean you exactly," said the Squire, peevishly. "I mean the Baratowski people. There has been no managing him since they got him into their hands. Just fancy, he says now he wants to go to the University."
"No? Really?" cried the Doctor, in delight.
This reply roused Herr Witold to still greater ire.
"Yes, it will be a matter of rejoicing to you," he grumbled. "You will be enchanted to get away from here, and to leave me at Altenhof without a soul to keep me company."
"You know that I have always advocated his going to the University. I have unfortunately never found a hearing; and, if it really be the Princess who has prevailed upon Waldemar to take this step, I can only regard her influence as most beneficial."
"Deuce take her beneficial influence!" stormed the Squire, flinging the unhappy sofa cushion into the middle of the room. "We shall soon see what it all means. Something has happened to the boy. He wanders about as if he were dreaming in broad daylight, takes no interest in anything, and when one asks him a question he answers at cross purposes. When he goes out shooting, he comes back with an empty bag–he, who never used to miss a shot; and now he has all at once taken to study, and there is no getting him from his books. I must find out what has brought about this change in him, and you will have to help me, Doctor. You must go over to C– one of these days."
"No, for Heaven's sake, no!" protested Dr. Fabian. "What should I do there?"
"See how the land lies," said the Squire, emphatically, "and bring me back word. Something is going on there, of that I am certain. I can't go over myself, for I am, so to speak, on a war-footing with the Princess, and when we two come together there is sure to be a row. I can't tolerate her spiteful ways, and she can't put up with my plain speaking; but you, Doctor, stand as a neutral in the business. You are the right man."
The Doctor with all his might resisted the requirement made of him.
"But I understand nothing of such matters," he complained. "You know, too, how absent and ill at ease I am in my intercourse with strangers. I should be especially so with the Princess. Besides, Waldemar would never consent to my going with him."
"It is all of no use," interrupted Witold, dictatorially. "Go over to C– you must. You are the only creature in whom I have confidence, Doctor. You won't desert me now?" With this he broke into such a flood of argument, reproaches, and entreaties, that the poor Doctor, half stunned by so much eloquence, surrendered at last, and promised all that was asked of him.
The sound of hoofs was heard outside, and Waldemar, already mounted, trotted past the window, then gave his horse the rein, and galloped away without once looking back.
"Off he goes," said Witold, half grumbling, and yet brimming over anew with admiration for his adopted son. "Just see how the boy sits his horse. They might be cast in bronze! and it is no trifle to keep the Norman well in hand."
"Waldemar has a singular mania for riding young horses which are only half broken in," said the Doctor, anxiously. "I cannot understand why he has selected Norman for his favourite. He is the most unmanageable, the most restive, animal in the stables."
"That is the very reason," returned the Squire, laughing. "You know he must have something to curb and master, or he finds no pleasure in the game. But now, come here, Doctor; we must consider about this mission of yours. You must set to work diplomatically, you know."
So saying, he grasped the Doctor's arm and dragged him off to the sofa. Poor Fabian went docilely enough. He had resigned himself to his fate, and only murmured occasionally, in doleful accents, "I a diplomatist, Herr Witold? Mercy on me! la diplomatist!"
The Baratowski family had never taken much part in the gay doings of the C– season, and latterly they had withdrawn from them more and more. Waldemar, who now paid them such frequent visits, always found the family party alone. Count Morynski alone was wanting to it. He had left a few days before the scene above described. It had been his intention to take his daughter away with him; but the Princess discovered that a longer stay at the seaside was essential to Wanda's health, and prevailed on her brother to consent to a prolonged separation. He yielded to his sister's wish, and set out on his solitary way towards Rakowicz, where business matters required his presence.
In spite of the noonday heat, young Nordeck had ridden over from Altenhof at full speed. On his arrival he entered the Princess's room, where he found her sitting at her writing-table. Had Leo come to her thus, glowing and overheated, she would certainly have met him with some word of remonstrance, of motherly solicitude; but Waldemar's appearance, though possibly not unnoticed by her, excited no remark.
It was a singular fact that, although mother and son now saw each other so frequently, no intimacy had taken root between them. The Princess always treated Waldemar with the utmost consideration, and he strove to tone down the harshness of his demeanour towards her; but in this mutual endeavour to preserve a good understanding, there was not a spark of warm, genuine feeling. They could not cross the invisible gulf which lay between them, though, for the time being, an extraneous power had bridged it over. The greeting on either side was just as cool as on the occasion of their first meeting; but Waldemar's eyes now roved round the parlour with an uneasy, questioning glance.
"You are looking for Leo and Wanda?" said the Princess. "They have gone down to the shore, and will wait for you there. You have planned a boating excursion together, I think?"
"Yes. I will go and look for the others at once." Waldemar made a hasty movement towards the door, but his mother laid her hand on his arm.
"I must claim your attention for a few minutes first. I have something important to discuss with you."
"Won't it do later?" asked Waldemar, impatiently. "I should like before …"
"I particularly wish to speak to you alone," the Princess interrupted him. "You will still be in time for the sail. You can all very well put it off for a quarter of an hour."
Young Nordeck looked annoyed at being thus detained, and obeyed with evident reluctance when invited to sit down. There seemed little prospect of his attention being given to the matter in hand, for his eyes wandered off continually to the window near him which opened on to the shore.
"Our stay in C– is drawing to an end," said the Princess; "we must soon begin to think of our departure."
Waldemar gave a start almost of dismay.
"So soon? September promises to be fine, why not spend it here?"
"I cannot, on Wanda's account. I can hardly expect my brother to do without his darling any longer. It was very unwillingly, and only by my especial wish, that he consented to leave her behind. I promised him in return that I would myself take her to Rakowicz."
"Rakowicz is not far from Wilicza, is it?" asked Waldemar, quickly.
"Only two or three miles; about half as far as Altenhof from this."
The young man was silent. He looked anxiously through the window again: the shore seemed to have an unusual interest for him to-day.
"Speaking of Wilicza," said the Princess, negligently, "you will be taking possession of your property soon, I suppose, now that you are of age. When do you think of going there?"
"It was fixed for next spring," said Waldemar, absently, still absorbed by his outdoor observations. "I wanted to stay on with my uncle through the winter; but all that will be changed now, for I mean to go to the University."
His mother bent her head approvingly.
"I can but applaud such a resolution. I have never disguised from you that the essentially practical education you have received at your guardian's has been, in my opinion, too one-sided. For such a position as yours, some higher culture is indispensable."
"I should rather like to see Wilicza first, though." Waldemar made a dash at his object. "I have not been there since my childhood, and … You will make a long stay at Rakowicz, will you not?"
"I do not know," replied the Princess. "For the present I shall certainly accept the refuge offered by my brother to me and to my son. Time will show whether we must make a permanent claim on his generosity."
Young Nordeck looked up. "Refuge? Generosity? What do you mean, mother?"
The Princess's lips twitched nervously, the only sign she gave that the step she was about to take was one painful to her. With this exception her face remained unmoved as she answered–
"Hitherto I have concealed the state of our circumstances from the world, and I intend still to do so. To you, I neither can nor will make a secret of our position. Yes, I am compelled to seek a refuge with my brother. You know something of the events which happened during the term of my second marriage. I stood at my husband's side when the storm of revolution swept him down. I followed him into banishment, and for ten long years I shared his exile. Our fortune was sacrificed to the cause; for some time there has been a hopeless discrepancy between the claims of our position and the means at our command. A cursory inspection of our affairs, made since the Prince's death, has convinced me that I must give up the struggle. We are at the end of our resources."
Waldemar would have spoken. His mother raised her hand to silence him.
"You can understand what it costs me to make these disclosures to you, and that I never should have entered on the subject if I myself had been alone in question; but as a mother, I must look to my son's interests. Every other consideration must give way to that. Leo stands on the threshold of life, of his career. I do not fear for him the privations of poverty, but its humiliations, for I know that he will not be able to bear them. Fate has willed it that you should be rich; henceforth, your wealth will be at your unlimited disposal. I confide your brother's future to your generosity, and to your sense of honour."
Any other woman would have felt, and shown she felt, it keenly mortifying thus to sue for help from the son of the man she had fled from in scorn and hatred; but this woman so carried herself that the painful step she had to take was in no degree lowering to her, and wrought no prejudice to her dignity. Her bearing, as she stood before her son, was not that of a supplicant. She made appeal neither to his filial feeling, nor to an affection which, as she well knew, did not exist. The mother with her rights stepped, for the time being, into the background. She did not take her stand on them; but she demanded from the elder brother's sense of justice that he should befriend the younger–and it soon appeared that she had not erred in her judgment of Waldemar. He sprang up quickly.
"And you only tell me this now, today? Why did I not hear of it sooner?"
The Princess's eyes met his gravely and steadily.
"What answer would you have made me if, on our first meeting after our long separation, I had made this communication to you?"
Waldemar looked down; he very well remembered the insulting manner in which he had asked his mother what it was she wanted with him.
"You are mistaken in me," he replied, hastily. "I should never have consented to your seeking help from any one but me. What! I am to be master of Wilicza and allow my mother and brother to live in a state of dependence! You are mistaken in me, mother; I have not deserved such distrust!"
"I was not distrustful of you, my son, but only of that influence which has guided you so far, and may perhaps be your guide even now. I do not even know whether your friends will permit you to offer us an asylum."
Again she pricked him with a goad which never failed in its effect, and which the mother was always ready to apply at the right moment. As usual, it stung the young man's pride into arms.
"I think I have shown you that I can assert my own independence," he replied, shortly. "Now tell me, what am I to do? I am ready for anything."
The Princess felt she was about to hazard a bold stroke, but she went on steadily, straight to her aim.
"We can only accept your help in one form, so that it shall not be made a humiliation to us," said she. "You are master of Wilicza–would it not seem natural that your mother and brother should be your guests in your own house?"