Under a Charm. Vol. III
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"Hedwiga is right," spoke Count Morynski. "I cannot remain, and she will not. The marriage with your father brought nothing but evil to her, Waldemar, and it seems to me, as though no union between a Nordeck and a Morynska could be productive of happiness. The disastrous cause of discord, which proved so fatal to your parents, exists in your case also. Wanda, too, is a child of our people. She cannot renounce her race any more than you can yours. You are entering upon a hazardous experiment in this marriage, but you have willed it, both of you–I make no further opposition."
This was no very happy betrothal for the young pair. The mother's suddenly announced departure, the father's resignation and ominous warnings, cast a deep shade over the hour which generally fills two youthful hearts with brightest sunshine. It really seemed as though this passion, which had fought so hard a fight, had triumphed over so many obstacles, were destined to know no joy.
"Come, Bronislaus," said the Princess, taking her brother's arm. "You are wearied to death with the hasty ride and the agitation of the last few days. You must rest till morning, if you are to find strength to continue your journey. We will leave these two alone. They have hardly spoken to each other yet, and they have so much to say!"
She left the room with the Count. Hardly had the door closed upon them when the shadow vanished. With quick, impetuous tenderness Waldemar threw his arms round his betrothed, and clasped her to his breast. He had won her at last!
Fabian and his wife were still in the next room. Gretchen seemed much put out, and cast many melancholy glances at the tea-table.
"How can people give way to their romantic feelings so as to forget all the decent, orderly routine of life?" she observed. "The anxiety and excitement are over now, and the joy of their first meeting too; they might quietly sit down to table, but such an idea never occurs to one of them. I could not persuade the Princess or Count Morynski to touch a thing, but Countess Wanda must and shall have a cup of tea. I have just made some fresh–she shall have it, whether she likes it or not. I will just see whether she and Herr Nordeck are still in there in the salon. You stay here, Emile."
Emile remained obediently in his place near the tea-urn, but the time seemed rather long to him, for ten minutes, at least, elapsed, and his wife did not return. The Professor began to feel uncomfortable; he felt his presence to be quite superfluous, and yet he would so gladly have made himself useful, like Gretchen, whose practical nature was never at a loss; in order to be doing something, he took the ready filled cup of tea, and carried it into the adjoining drawing-room. To his surprise, he found it untenanted, except by his wife, who was standing before, and very near to, the closed door of the Princess's study.
"Dear Gretchen," said Fabian, balancing the cup in his hand with as much anxious care, as if it had contained the most precious life-elixir. "Dear Gretchen, I have brought the tea. I was afraid it might be getting cold, if this went on much longer."
The young lady had narrowly escaped being caught in a most suspicious attitude, namely, that of bending down with her eye to the keyhole. Luckily, she had had time to raise herself quickly as her husband came in. She took hold of him, cup and all, and led him back into the outer room.
"Never mind, Emile. The Countess won't want any tea, and it will go on ever so much longer. But you need not make yourself unhappy about your beloved Waldemar any more. Things are going very well with him in there, very well indeed. I'll own I did him a wrong–he has a heart after all. That cold, stiff Nordeck is really capable of going down on his knees and uttering the most ardent words of love. I never could have believed it!"
"But, how do you know all this, dear child?" asked the Professor, who in his innocence and erudition had never had anything to do with keyholes. "You were outside."
Gretchen blushed crimson, but she recovered herself quickly, and said with much decision–
"You know nothing about it, Emile, and it is not necessary you should. As the tea is here all ready, we had better drink it ourselves."
CHAPTER XVI
Out at sea the mild spring night was yielding before the approach of day. Faint stars still twinkled in the sky, but the distant horizon gleamed with the first streaks of dawn, and the slumbering waves murmured softly, as in a dream.
Over the waters, through the ever strengthening morning twilight, a ship was speeding. On board her were Count Morynski, his daughter, and Waldemar. They had left the port of S– about midnight, but it had taken them some hours to steam through the vast river-mouth, and they were only now issuing forth into the open sea. Wanda had not found courage to part from her father so immediately after their reunion; she had insisted on going with him, at least so far as the port of embarkation, and Waldemar had yielded to her earnest entreaties. There could hardly be danger in the plan; indeed, the journey to S– might perhaps be performed more safely in the company of a lady. The Princess Baratowska would remain at Rakowicz for the present. As her son had rightly foreseen, the Count's escape was attributed to her sole agency. She alone was suspected, and any possible investigation of the matter would be directed against her and her place of residence. Wanda's absence was scarcely remarked; besides which, it had been arranged that she should return from Altenhof in the course of a few days under Waldemar's escort.
Old Squire Witold's estate, now the property of his adopted son, lay near the coast along which the outward-bound ship must pass, and the plan decided on was that the young people should bear the fugitive company so far on his way. Count Morynski intended to await in England the arrival of the Princess, who would stay on at Rakowicz some weeks longer to be present at the marriage of her son and niece, setting out immediately after it to join her brother. On meeting in England, they would concert together as to the choice of their future place of abode.
Gradually day had dawned. Its first chill rays of early light played on the broad surface of the sea, but colourless as yet, and conveying no warmth. Now, as the coast receded and the open sea lay before the traveller, the parting could no longer be deferred. Yonder stretched the shore which bounded the domain of Altenhof, and, in close proximity to the vessel, now slackening her speed, fenced in by a wall of white morning mist, lay the Beech Holm. The leave-taking on deck was short and pathetic. Count Morynski suffered most from the keen pain of it. Strive as he might to retain his composure, he broke down utterly as he placed his daughter in the arms of her future husband. Waldemar saw that the torture of this moment must not be prolonged. He quickly lifted his betrothed into the boat lying off in readiness, and in a few minutes it bore them over to the Beech Holm, while the ship was once more set in motion. A white handkerchief fluttered from the deck, the farewell signal was returned from the Holm, then the distance grew greater and greater between the traveller and the dear ones left behind. The ship steamed off at full speed towards the North.
Wanda sank down on one of the large fragments of stone strewn beneath the beeches, and gave vent to an outburst of passionate grief. Waldemar, standing by her side, was mastered by no emotion, but his face was very grave, saddened by the pain of that parting hour.
"Wanda," he said, laying his hand on hers. "This separation is not to be a lasting one. If your father may not again set foot on his native soil, nothing will hinder us from going to him. In a year you shall see him again–I promise you."
Wanda shook her head sadly. "If I may yet find him! He has suffered too much and too bitterly ever to regain health and an interest in life. It seems to me that I have felt his arms round me for the last time."
Nordeck was silent. The same apprehension had forced itself on his mind in that hour of parting. Count Morynski might rally from the effects of his wounds and long confinement, but the defeat of that cause, to which he had dedicated his life, was a blow but too likely to prove mortal. When, years before, he had gone out into banishment, he could oppose to his fate the mental and physical strength of a man in his prime; but now that strength was sapped and failing–who could tell how long the last remnants of it might hold good!
"Your father will not be alone," returned Waldemar, at last. "My mother is going to him, and I only now begin to see all that we owe her for this resolution of hers. It takes a heavy care from both of us. You know her love for her only brother; she will be the staff and support he needs."
Wanda's gaze was still riveted on the ship, now a mere speck in the far-off distance.
"And you are to lose the mother you have so lately found?" said she, in a low voice.
His brow clouded over at the remembrance.
"You do not think that is a light matter to me? No; yet I fear she is right. Our natures are too similar for one willingly to bend to the other, and were we to live together, concessions must be made. Were I of her people, or she of mine, there would be need of none; she would take pride then in all that I undertook. My success would be hers–I should be carrying out her wishes as well as my own–as it is, I should find her will constantly opposed to mine. To clear a path for new institutions at Wilicza, I must begin by breaking down those she has set up. We can stretch out our hands to each other across the gap, and feel at last that we are mother and son; we cannot walk on side by side through life. She has seen this more clearly than I, and has chosen what is best for us. The decision, to which she has come, will alone insure our lasting reconciliation."
The young Countess raised her dark tearful eyes to his face. "Have you forgotten my father's warning? The unhappy national feud, that cause of dissension which has hitherto torn our family into two, exists between us also. It made your parents miserable."
"Because they had no love for each other," replied Waldemar, "because cold calculation on either side had bound them together by the closest tie which can connect two human beings. How could peace come of such a union? The old strife was sure to blaze out anew, more hotly than ever. But we can bring other forces into the field. I have won my bride in the teeth of this national hostility, and I shall be able to defend my happiness from its influence. If our marriage is really a venture, it is a venture we may fearlessly make."
The light morning clouds sailing over the heavens became more and more lucent, and the East flushed radiant with the dawn. A rosy glow spread over the whole horizon, and the waves shone as though edged with liquid gold. Then came one bright sudden flash, the first herald of the rising sun, and immediately following it, the great luminous planet rose from the waves, mounting slowly higher and higher, until it orbed itself above them, appearing in clear and perfect majesty. Rose-tinted rays quivered in the chill, pure morning air, and the surface of the water, a minute ago so dark and drear, gained a deep, wonderful blue. With the sunrise light and life streamed forth over earth and sea.
The first beams fell on the Beech Holm, dispersing the remnants of white mist which still hovered between the trees; they sank on to the dew-covered grass, they fluttered off into the forest, until nothing was left of them but a light vaporous gauze, thin as air. The wind rustled among the crests of the mighty beeches, which gently bent before it, murmuring softly to each other. On this occasion they whispered no gloomy complaint of decay and death as on that memorable day by the forest lake–memorable, for was it not there, mid the autumnal woods, in the falling twilight, out of the bosom of the shadowy mists, that the dream vision had arisen, faint picture of that scene which now appeared in glowing reality, the sea-washed Beech Holm of poetic story, lying bathed in the golden sunlight?
Waldemar and Wanda again stood on the spot where they had stood together years before–he, the wild, impetuous boy who fancied he had only to stretch forth his hand to take undisputed possession of that which had aroused his first passion; she, the giddy, light-hearted child who had played with that passion in her thoughtless vanity. At that time they had neither of them known anything of life and its tasks. Since then they had had experience of it in all its fearful earnest, had been drawn into its bitterest conflicts. Every obstacle that can divide two human beings had been raised between them, but the old sea-legend had spoken truly. Since the hour in which the spell had woven itself round their two youthful hearts, the charm had worked continuously, had preserved its hold upon them, spite of estrangement and separation, had drawn them irresistibly together while all around them blazed the hot flame of strife and hatred, had brought them triumphantly through all the array of hostile influences to this the hour of fulfilment.
Waldemar had put his arm round his betrothed, and was looking searchingly into her eyes.
"Do you think now that a Nordeck and a Morynska may be happy together?" he asked. "We will dispel the shadow which has lain on their union hitherto."
Wanda leaned her head against his shoulder. "You will have much to bear with, and much to overcome. Your wife will not be able to renounce all that has so long been dear and sacred to her. Do not sever me altogether from my people, Waldemar. Part of my life is rooted there."
"Have I ever been hard to you?" Waldemar's voice was full of that strange gentleness which but one human being on earth had had power to win from that cold, inflexible man. "Those eyes could teach the wild, headstrong boy docility–they will be able to hold the man in curb. I know that the shadow will often fall between us, that it will cost you many tears, and me many a struggle; but I know too that at any critical moment my Wanda will stand where she stood once before, when danger was threatening me, and where henceforth her place will be–at my, at her husband's side."
The ship, which was bearing the fugitive away from his fatherland, disappeared in the cloud-like distance. All around, the sapphire sea rippled and murmured–the Beech Holm lay flooded in golden sunlight. Once again the waves sang the old, old melody, the chant of billow and breeze combined, while in the pauses came a faint, mysterious music like the chiming of bells–Vineta's spirit-greeting from beneath the waters.
THE END