Under a Charm. Vol. II

The road now left the open lands and turned into the woods which it had hitherto skirted. Here in the sheltered forest path, the snow lay so thick that the horses could only advance at a foot-pace. The driver loosed the reins which up to this time he had held so tightly, and their giddy, rapid flight was changed into a gentle, gliding onward movement. The dark fir-trees on either side bowed under their load of snow. One of the low-hanging branches brushed against Waldemar's head, and a perfect cloud of white flakes was showered down on him and his companion. She half-turned now for the first time and said, pointing to the trees–

"The road to Wilicza lies all the way through a forest as thick as this."

Waldemar smiled slightly.

"That is nothing new to me. I pass along it often enough."

"But not on foot and at dusk! Do you not know, or will you not own to yourself, that there is danger for you in these journeys?"

The smile vanished from Nordeck's face, giving way to its accustomed gravity. "If I had had any doubt of that, I should have been enlightened by the bullet which, not long ago, as I was coming home from the border-station, sped so close by my head that it ruffled my hair. The marksman did not show himself. He was probably ashamed of his–unskilfulness."

"Well, after such an experience, it is really challenging danger to ride out so constantly quite alone," cried Wanda, who could not altogether conceal her alarm at this news.

"I never go unarmed," replied Waldemar, "and no companion could protect me against a shot fired in ambush. In the present state of affairs at Wilicza, my personal ascendancy is the one influence which still avails. If I show fear and take all sorts of precautionary measures, there will be an end to my authority. If I continue to face all their attacks alone, they will desist from them."

"But suppose that bullet had not missed," said Wanda, with a little quiver in her voice. "You see how near the danger was."

The young man bent half over her seat.

"Was it a desire to avert from me some such peril as this which made you insist on my coming with you?"

"Yes," was the hardly audible reply.

An earnest rejoinder was on his lips; but some sudden remembrance flashing through his mind, he suddenly drew himself erect and, grasping the reins more firmly, said with a rush of the old bitterness–

"You will find it hard to justify such a desire in the eyes of your party, Countess Morynska."

She turned completely round to him now, and her eye met his.

"It may be so, for you have openly avowed yourself our enemy. It lay with you to make peace; instead of that you have declared war upon us."

"I did what necessity compelled me to do. You forget that my father was a German."

"And your mother is a Pole."

"Ah, you need not remind me of it in that reproachful tone," said Waldemar. "The unhappy division of interests has cost me too much for me ever to lose sight of it for an instant. It was the cause of my parents' separation. It poisoned my childhood, embittered my youth, and robbed me of my mother. She would perhaps have loved me as she loves her Leo if I had been a Baratowski. That I was my father's son has been my gravest offence in her eyes. If now we stand politically opposed to each other, that is only a consequence of past events."

"Which you logically, inexorably, carry out to its extreme limits," cried Wanda, flashing into anger. "Any other man would have sought for some means of reconciliation, some compromise, which must have been possible between mother and son."

"Perhaps between any other mother and son, but not between the Princess Baratowska and me. She gave me the choice of surrendering Wilicza and myself, bound hand and foot, into her hands to serve her interests, or to declare myself at war with her. I chose the latter alternative, and she takes good care that there shall be no truce, not even for a day. Were it not that the contest for dominion is still going on, she would long since have left me. She certainly does not stay on my account."

Wanda made no reply. She knew he was right, and the conviction was now forcing itself on her mind that this man, held on all sides to be cold and unfeeling, was in reality most keenly and bitterly sensitive to all that was painful in his position towards his mother. In the rare moments when he disclosed his secret feelings, this subject always came uppermost. The thought of his mother's indifference to himself and of her boundless love for her younger son had stung the boy's soul years ago; it rankled yet in the heart of the man.

They soon emerged from the forest, and the horses quickly resuming their former swift pace, Rakowicz shortly afterwards appeared in the distance. Waldemar would have turned into the main road which led thither, but Wanda pointed in another direction.

"Please let me get out at the entrance to the village. I shall like the little walk home, and you can go straight on to Wilicza."

Nordeck looked at her a moment in silence. "That means, you do not venture to appear at Rakowicz in my company. I was forgetting that the people about would never forgive you for it. To be sure–we are enemies."

"We are so through your fault alone," declared Wanda. "No one compelled you to act as our foe. Our struggle is not with your country or countrymen, it will be fought out yonder on foreign soil."

"And supposing your party to be victorious on that soil," asked Waldemar, slowly and pointedly, "whose turn will it be next?"

The young Countess was silent.

"Well, we will not discuss that," said Nordeck, resignedly. "It may have been some secret necessity of Nature which drove your father and Leo into the fight; but the same necessity urges me to resistance. My brother's task is indeed easier than mine. One way has been marked out for him, both by birth and family tradition, and he has gone that way without the pain of making a choice, or of causing dissension. Neither of these troubles has been spared me. It is not in my nature to vacillate between two contending parties without giving in my adhesion to one or to the other. I must declare myself friend or foe to a cause. What the choice has cost me, none need know. No matter, I have chosen; and where I have once taken my stand, I will remain. Leo throws himself into the struggle full of glowing enthusiasm; his highest ideal is before him; he is supported by the love and admiration of his friends. I stand alone at my post, where possibly death by assassination, where surely hatred awaits me, a hatred in which all Wilicza, my mother and brother–and you, too, unite, Wanda. The lots have been unevenly divided; but I have never been spoiled by over much love and affection. I shall be able to bear it. So go on hating me, Wanda. It is perhaps best for us both."

While speaking, he had driven forward in the prescribed direction, and now drew up just at the entrance to the village, which lay before them still and, as it were, lifeless. Swinging himself from his seat, he would have helped the young Countess to alight; but she waved his hand away, and got out of the sledge without assistance. No single word of leave-taking passed her tightly closed lips. She merely bowed her head in mute farewell.

Waldemar had drawn back. Once again the deep lines of pain showed plainly on his face, and the hand which grasped the reins was clenched convulsively. Her repulse evidently wounded him to the quick.

"I will send the sledge back to-morrow," said he in a cold and distant tone–"with my thanks, if you will not decline them, as you decline my slightest service."

Wanda appeared to be struggling with herself. She half turned as though to go; but lingered yet an instant.

"Herr Nordeck."

"What is your pleasure, Countess Morynska?"

"I … You must promise me not again wilfully to challenge danger as you would have done to-day. You are right, the hatred of all Wilicza is directed against you at the present time. Do not give your enemies so good a chance–do not, I entreat of you."

A deep flush overspread Waldemar's face at these words. He cast one look at her, one single look; but at that glance all the bitterness went out from him.

"I will be more prudent," he answered, in a low voice.

"Good-bye, then."

She turned from him and took the path leading to the village. Nordeck gazed after her until she disappeared behind one of the nearest farm-buildings, then he swung himself into the sledge again, and drove off swiftly in the direction of Wilicza, the road soon taking him back into the forest. He had drawn his pistol from his breast-pocket and laid it within easy reach; and, whilst he handled the reins with unaccustomed caution, his eye kept a vigilant watch between the trees. This defiant, inflexible man, who knew no fear, had suddenly grown careful and prudent; he had promised to be so, and he had now learned that there was one being who trembled for his life also, who longed to avert danger from him.

CHAPTER X

Rakowicz, the residence of Count Morynski, could in no respect compare with Wilicza. Quite apart from the fact that the latter property covered ten times as much ground, and contained three or four separate leased-off estates, each of an extent equal to the Morynski domain, the magnificent forests, the Castle and noble park were all wanting here. Rakowicz lay in an open country about three miles from L–, and differed little or nothing from the other gentlemen's seats scattered about the province.

Since her father's departure Wanda had lived on at home alone. Though, under other circumstances, her removal to Wilicza would have appeared a matter of course, it now seemed very natural that Count Morynski's daughter should avoid the Castle, its master having assumed an attitude of avowed hostility to her friends and their cause. Even the Princess's continued stay at her son's house excited some wonder. As has been said, the latter lady often came over to Rakowicz to see her niece; she was there now on a visit of several days. No mention had as yet been made of Wanda's accidental meeting with Waldemar, her aunt having only arrived on the evening following her return from that expedition. Two days later, the ladies were sitting together in the young Countess's morning-room. They had just received news from the seat of war, and still held the letters open in their hands; but there appeared to be little in them of a joyful nature, for Wanda looked very grave, and the Princess's face was overcast and full of care as she at last laid down the missives from her brother and Leo.

"Repulsed again!" said she, with repressed emotion. "They had reached the heart of the land, and now they are on the borders once more. Never anything decisive, no success worth mentioning. It almost makes one despair!"

Wanda, too, laid down the letter she had been reading. "My father writes in a very gloomy strain," she answered; "he is almost worn out with the perpetual efforts to hold in check all the conflicting elements in his army. Everybody will command, no one will obey–there is growing disunion among the leaders. How will it all end!"

"Your father allows himself to be influenced by the melancholy which forms part of his character," said the Princess, more calmly. "After all, it is natural to suppose that a host of volunteers, hurrying under arms at the first call, cannot possess the order and discipline of a well-trained army. Time and practice are necessary for that."

Wanda shook her head sadly. "The struggle has lasted three months, and for every successful encounter we may count three defeats. Now I understand my father's great emotion at parting from us; it was not only the separation which moved him–he went without any real hope of victory."

"Bronislaus has always looked on the dark side," persisted the Princess. "I hoped more from Leo's constant companionship, and from his influence over his uncle. He, as yet, has all the elasticity and enthusiasm of youth; he looks on every doubt as to the ultimate triumph of our cause as treason. I wish he could communicate some of his unbounded confidence to the other–they both have need of it."

She drew her son's letter out, and looked through it again. "Leo is happy, no doubt, in spite of everything. My brother has at last yielded to his entreaties, and entrusted him with an independent command. He is stationed with his troop only a couple of leagues from the frontier, and his mother and affianced wife cannot see him even for an instant!"

"For Heaven's sake, do not put such thoughts into Leo's mind," exclaimed Wanda. "He would be capable of committing the rashest, the maddest acts in order to bring about a meeting."

"There is no fear of that," replied the Princess, gravely. "He has strict orders not to stir from his post; he will, therefore, remain at it. But what does he say to you? His letter to me is very short and written in haste. Yours appears to contain much more."

"It contains very little," declared the young Countess, with visible impatience. "He hardly touches on that which to us, who are forced to await the result here in inaction, is the one subject of importance. Leo prefers to write pages about his love for me, and finds leisure in the very midst of the war to torment me with his jealousy."

"A singular reproach from the mouth of his betrothed," remarked the Princess, with a sneer. "Most women would be happy and proud to know that their lover's thoughts were given to them at such a time."

"We are engaged in a life and death struggle, and I require deeds from a man, not vows of love," said Wanda, energetically.

The Princess's brow grew dark. "He will not be wanting in deeds when the occasion for them presents itself; but perhaps you think coldness and taciturnity are their inseparable adjuncts."

Wanda rose and walked to the window. She knew at what those words were aimed; but she could not, would not continually be made to render account of herself to those penetrating eyes which rested on her face with so inexorable a scrutiny, as though they would detect the innermost movements of her being. The Princess observed towards her niece the same line of conduct she had adopted towards Waldemar. She had spoken openly once, and that was enough. Repeated warnings were, in her opinion, useless as they were dangerous. Since the evening on which she had judged it necessary to open the young Countess's eyes, no word had passed between them on the subject then alluded to; but Wanda well knew that every word, every look of hers was weighed in the balance, and this consciousness often made her feel insecure and ill at ease in her intercourse with her aunt.

That lady had meanwhile folded and laid together the letters from her brother and her son.

"To all appearances, we may expect some fighting close to the frontier in the course of a few days," she began again. "What Wilicza might have been to us at such a time, and what it is!"

The young Countess turned round, and fixed her dark eyes on the speaker.

"Wilicza?" she repeated. "Aunt, I understand the necessity which keeps you there; but I should not be equal to the task! Any other sacrifice I could make; but it would be impossible to me to live day by day with any one on the terms existing between you and your son."

"No one else would find it so bearable as it is to us," said the Princess, with bitter irony. "I bear you testimony, Wanda, that you were right in your estimate of Waldemar. I expected the contest would have proved an easier one. Instead of tiring, him out, it is I who am almost ready to yield. He is more than a match for me."

"He is your son," said Wanda; "you always lose sight of that fact."

The Princess sat leaning her head on her hand.

"He takes care that I shall not forget it; he shows me every day of my life what the last four years have done for him. I never should have believed that he could have worked his way up with such wonderful energy from the rough semi-savage condition of his younger days. He has learned to control himself, and therefore he can control others in spite of enmity and opposition. Already I find it more difficult to get my orders obeyed when he sets his will against them, and yet the people are as devoted to me as ever. He awes them with his indomitable spirit, with his tone of command. They fear his eye more than they have ever feared me. I wish Nordeck had left me the boy. I would have brought him up for our cause. He would have been worth much to us, I think–not merely as master of Wilicza. As it is, he belongs altogether to his father's people, and he will maintain his place in the enemy's ranks, though the highest offers should be made to him by our side. I know him well enough to be sure of that. It has been a misfortune that I could never be a real mother to him. We have both to pay the penalty for it now."

There was something almost of self-accusation, of sorrowful regret, in her words. The tone was quite a new one in the Princess's mouth when referring to her elder son. Those tenderer impulses, which at rare intervals would gain the mastery over her, had hitherto invariably been stirred within her by love for her youngest-born alone, and even now she put the passing weakness from her with a strong hand. Rising abruptly, as though to end the discussion, she said in a stern voice–

"No matter, we are enemies, and enemies we shall remain. That must be borne, like so much else."

They were here interrupted. A servant came in with the announcement that the house-steward of Wilicza had just arrived, and begged to be allowed to speak to his mistress. The Princess looked up.

"Pawlick? Then something must have happened. Send him in at once."

Hardly a minute had elapsed when Pawlick entered. He had been Prince Baratowski's servant, had accompanied the family into exile, and now filled the office of major-domo at the Castle. The old man seemed excited and in haste; yet he omitted none of those marks of respect with which he was wont to approach his liege lady.

"That will do, that will do," said the Princess, impatiently. "What brings you here? What has happened at Wilicza?"

"Nothing at Wilicza itself," reported Pawlick; "but at the border-station on the frontier …"

"Well?"

"There have been some squabbles with the military again, as has often been the case of late. The ranger and his men have placed every possible difficulty in the way of the patrols, have even insulted them at last–it nearly came to an open fight."

An exclamation of extreme displeasure escaped the Princess's lips. "Must our plans always, invariably, be thwarted by the folly of our subordinates! Just now, when everything depends upon diverting attention from the station, they absolutely challenge observation. Did I not expressly command Osiecki to keep quiet, and to hold his men in check! A messenger must be sent over at once to repeat the order in the most strenuous terms."

Wanda had drawn nearer to listen. The border-station, as it was commonly called, because it was the last forester's post on the Nordeck property and lay within half a league of the frontier, seemed to have a great interest for her also.

"Unfortunately, Herr Nordeck has been beforehand with us," went on Pawlick, hesitatingly. "He has twice warned the forester, and threatened to punish him. On this last occasion he has sent him instructions to clear out of the station, and to come over to that of Wilicza. For the present, one of the steward's German inspectors is to be sent to the frontier, until a substitute is found."

"And what has Osiecki done?" interrupted the Princess, hastily.

"He has positively refused to obey, and sent word to the master that he has been placed at the border-station, and there he shall remain–if any one wants to drive him from it he may come and try."

The importance of the event described must have been greater than would appear. On the Princess's face were signs of unmistakable alarm.

"And what has my son determined to do?"

"Herr Nordeck declared that he would ride over himself this afternoon."

"Alone?" exclaimed Wanda.

Pawlick shrugged his shoulders. "The master always rides alone."

The Princess seemed hardly to have heard the last words. She roused herself from her meditations.

"See that the horses are put to at once, Pawlick. You will accompany me back to Wilicza. I must be on the spot if any events are preparing there. Go."

Pawlick obeyed. He had hardly closed the door behind him when Countess Morynska stood at her aunt's side.

"Did you hear, aunt? He is going over to the border-station."

"Well?" replied the Princess, "what of it?"

"What of it? Do you think Osiecki will comply?"

"No, he must not comply, come what may. His station is of the greatest importance to us, doubly important in view of what the next few days may bring forth. We must have people there we can trust. The madmen, to risk losing us the post just at this time!"

"They have lost it us," cried Wanda, hastily. "Waldemar will compel them to obey."

"In this particular case he will not use compulsion," replied the Princess. "He avoids all acts of violence. I know that the President himself has specially begged him to do so, and he has given his promise. In L– they fear nothing so much as a revolt on this side the frontier. Osiecki and his men will yield to nothing short of force; and to that, Waldemar will not resort. You hear he is going over alone."

"But you will not allow that," interposed the young Countess, eagerly. "You are going to Wilicza to warn him, to hold him back?"

The Princess looked at her niece with eyes of astonishment. "What are you thinking of? A warning from my mouth would betray all to Waldemar, and at once convince him that my orders are obeyed at the station, and not his. He would then inexorably insist upon Osiecki's leaving, which may perhaps yet be averted, which indeed must be averted, cost what it may."

"And you think your son will submit to be thus openly defied? It is the first time that such flagrant rebellion has appeared at Wilicza. Aunt, you know this wild fellow, this Osiecki, is capable of anything, and that his men are no better than he!"

"Waldemar knows it too," returned the Princess, with perfect calm, "and therefore he will be careful not to irritate him. He has learned such admirable coolness and prudence, there is no fear now of his being carried away when he really desires to control himself; and in his dealings with his subordinates he is invariably calm and collected."

"They hate him," said Wanda, with trembling lips. "They have already fired at, and missed, him on the road to the border-station. The second time they will take better aim."

The Princess started. "How do you know that?"

"One of my people brought the news from Wilicza," replied Wanda, quickly bethinking herself.

"A mere tale," said the Princess, contemptuously. "Probably invented by his anxious friend, Dr. Fabian. The poor man has, no doubt, heard an innocent shot fired in the woods at some bird, and has taken it for a murderous attempt on the life of his beloved pupil. He is constantly trembling for his safety. Waldemar is my son–that will ensure him against any attack."

"When their passions are once fully roused, that will no longer protect him," cried Wanda, imprudently allowing her apprehensions to get the better of her caution again. "You had given the forester orders to keep quiet, and you see how he has respected them."

The Princess turned a menacing look on her niece. "Would it not be better to reserve this exaggerated solicitude for our own friends? I think it might be far more suitably expended. You seem quite to forget that Leo is daily exposed to such dangers!"

"If we knew that it lay in our power to rescue him, should we lose an instant in hastening to his side?" broke forth the young Countess, passionately; "and wherever Leo may be, he is always at the head of his troops. Waldemar stands alone against that wild unruly band of men whom you yourself have stimulated into hatred of him, and who will not hesitate to turn their arms against their own master if he provokes them."

"Quite true–if he provokes them; but he will have sense enough not to do that, for he knows the danger, which in times like ours is not to be trifled with. Should he, notwithstanding this, risk the venture–should he have recourse to some act of violence–the consequences must be on his own bead."