Kitabı oku: «Under a Charm. Vol. I»

PART THE FIRST

CHAPTER I

The hot summer day was drawing to its close. The sun had already set; but the rosy flush of evening still lingered on the horizon, casting a radiant glow over the sea, which lay calm, scarce moved by a ripple, reflecting the last splendour of the departing day.

Close to the shore on the outskirts of C–, the fashionable watering-place, but at some little distance from the promenade, which at this hour was thronged by a brilliant, many-coloured crowd of visitors, stood a plain country house. Unpretending in appearance, compared with the other, for the most part, far larger and grander houses and villas of the place, it was remarkable for nothing save only for the beauty of its situation, its windows commanding a limitless view over the sea. Otherwise it stood there secluded, almost solitary, and could certainly only be preferred by such guests as wished rather to avoid, than to court, the noisy, busy life of C– during the bathing season.

At the open glass-door, which led out on to the balcony, stood a lady dressed in deep mourning. She was tall and imposing of stature, and might still pass for beautiful, although she had more than reached life's meridian. That face, with its clear regular lines, had, it is true, never possessed the charms of grace and loveliness; but, for that very reason, years had taken nothing from the cold severe beauty it still triumphantly retained. The black attire, the crape veil shading her brow, seemed to point to some heavy, and probably recent, loss; but one looked in vain for the trace of past tears in those eyes, for a touch of softness in those features so indicative of energy. If sorrow had really drawn nigh this woman, she had either not felt it very deeply, or had already overcome its pangs.

At her side stood a gentleman, like herself, of distinguished and noble carriage. He might, in reality, be only a few years older than his fair neighbour; but he looked as though more than a decade lay between them, for time had not passed by him with so light a hand. His grave face, very full of character, with its sharp, deeply marked features, had plainly weathered many a storm in life's journey; his thick dark hair was here and there streaked with grey; line upon line furrowed his brow, and there was a sombre melancholy in his eyes which communicated itself to the man's whole countenance.

"Still nothing to be seen! They will hardly return before sunset."

"You should have sent us word of your arrival," said the lady. "We only expected you in a few days. Besides, the boat does not come in sight until it has rounded that wooded promontory yonder, and then in a very few minutes it is here."

She stepped back into the room, and turned to a servant who was in the act of carrying some travelling wraps into one of the adjoining rooms.

"Go down to the shore, Pawlick," said she, "and directly the boat comes to land, tell my son and my niece that Count Morynski has arrived."

The servant withdrew in compliance with the order received. Count Morynski left his post on the balcony, and came into the room, seating himself by the lady's side.

"Forgive my impatience," he said. "The meeting with my sister ought to suffice me for the present; but it is a whole year since I last saw my child."

The lady smiled. "You will not see much more of the 'child.' A year makes a great change at her age, and Wanda gives promise of beauty."

"And her mental development? In your letters you have ever expressed yourself satisfied on that head."

"Certainly; she always outstrips her tasks. I have rather to restrain than to stimulate her ardour. In that respect I have nothing to wish for; but there is one point on which much is to be desired. Wanda has a strong, a most decided will of her own, and she is disposed to assert it passionately. I have sometimes been obliged to enforce the obedience she was greatly inclined to refuse me."

A fleeting smile brightened the father's face, as he replied, "A singular reproach from your lips! To have a will and to assert it under all circumstances is a prominent trait of your character–a family trait with us, indeed, I may say."

"Which, however, is not to be tolerated in a girl of sixteen, for there it only shows itself as defiance and caprice," his sister interrupted him. "I tell you beforehand, you yourself will have frequent occasion to combat it."

It seemed as though the turn taken by the conversation were not specially agreeable to the Count.

"I know that I could not give my child into better hands than yours," he said, evading the subject; "and for that reason I am doubly glad that, though I am about to claim Wanda for myself, she will not have to do without you altogether. I did not think you would make up your mind to return so soon after your husband's death. I expected you would stay in Paris, at all events until Leo had completed his studies."

The lady shook her head. "I never felt at home in Paris, in spite of the years we spent there. The emigrant's fate is no enviable one–you know it by experience. Prince Baratowski, indeed, could not again set foot in his own country; but no one can prevent his widow and son from returning, so I resolved to come without delay. Leo must be allowed to breathe his native air once more, so that he may feel himself truly a son of the soil. On him now rest all the hopes of our race. He is still very young, no doubt; but he must learn to outrun his years, and to make himself acquainted with those duties and tasks which have now devolved on him through his father's death."

"And where do you think of taking up your abode?" asked Count Morynski. "You know that my house is at all times …"

"I know it," the Princess interrupted him; "but no, thanks. For me the all-important point now is to assure Leo's future, and to give him the means of maintaining his name and position before the world. This has been hard enough for us of late, and now it has become a perfect impossibility. You know our circumstances, and are aware what sacrifices our banishment has imposed on us. Something must be done. For my son's sake I have decided upon a step which, for myself alone, I never would have taken. Do you guess why I chose C– for our place of sojourn this summer?"

"No; but I was surprised at it. Witold's estate lies within five or six miles of this, and I thought you would rather have avoided the neighbourhood. But perhaps you are in communication with Waldemar again?"

"No," said the Princess, coldly. "I have not seen him since we left for France, and since then have hardly had a line from him. During all these years he has had no thought for his mother."

"Nor his mother for him," observed the Count, parenthetically.

"Was I to expose myself to a rebuff, to a humiliation?" asked the Princess with some warmth. "This Witold has always been hostile to me; he has exercised his unlimited authority as guardian in the most offensive manner, setting me completely at nought. I am powerless as opposed to him."

"He would hardly have ventured to cut off all intercourse between you and Waldemar. A mother's rights are too sacred to be thus put aside, had you but insisted on them with your usual resolution. That, however, was never the case, to my knowledge, for–be candid, Hedwiga–you never had any love for your eldest son."

Hedwiga made no reply to this reproach. She rested her head on her hand in silence.

"I can understand that he does not take the first place in your heart," went on the Count. "He is the son of a husband whom you did not love, who was forced upon you–the living reminder of a marriage you cannot yet think of without bitterness. Leo is the child of your heart, of your affections …"

"His father never gave me cause for a word of complaint," the Princess added, emphatically.

The Count shrugged his shoulders slightly. "You ruled Baratowski completely; but that is not the question now. You have a plan; do you intend to renew former, half-forgotten relations with Witold and his ward?"

"I intend, at last, to assert those rights of which I was robbed by Nordeck's will–that unjust will, every line of which was dictated by hatred of me, which deprived alike the widow and the mother of her due. Hitherto it has remained in full force; but its provisions fixed Waldemar's majority at the age of one and twenty. He attained that age on his last birthday, and he is now his own master. I wish to see whether he will suffer things to go so far that his mother must seek an asylum with her relations, while he reckons among the richest landowners of the country, and it would cost him but a word to assure me and his brother a suitable position and means of existence on one of the estates."

Morynski shook his head doubtfully.

"You count upon finding natural filial affection in this son of yours. I am afraid you are deceiving yourself. He has been severed from you since his earliest childhood, and love for his mother will hardly have been inculcated on him as a duty. I never saw him but as a child, when, I own, he made the most unfavourable impression upon me. One thing I know for certain, he was the reverse of tractable."

"I know it too," returned the Princess with equanimity. "He is his father's son, and, like him, rough, unmanageable, and incapable of all higher culture. Even as a boy he resembled him, trait for trait; and, with such a guardian as Witold, education will have given the finishing touches to Nature's work. I do not deceive myself as to Waldemar's character; but, nevertheless, there will be a way of leading him. Minds of an inferior order always yield in the end to intellectual superiority. Everything depends upon making it properly felt."

"Were you able to lead his father?" asked her brother, gravely.

"You forget, Bronislaus, that I was then but a girl of seventeen, without experience, altogether unversed in the ways of the world. I should now be able to compass even such a character as his, and should certainly gain an ascendancy over him. Besides this, with Waldemar, I shall have on my side the weight of my authority as his mother. He will bend to it."

The Count looked very incredulous at these words, spoken in a tone of great decision. He had no time to reply, for a light, rapid step was now heard in the anteroom. The door was flung open with impetuous haste, and a young girl, rushing in, threw herself into the arms of Morynski, who sprang up and clasped his daughter to his breast with passionate tenderness.

The Princess had risen also. She did not seem quite to approve of so stormy a greeting on the part of the young lady; she said nothing, however, but turned to her son, who came in at that moment.

"You stayed out a long time, Leo. We have been expecting you for the last hour."

"Forgive us, mamma. The sunset on the sea was so beautiful, we could not bear to lose a minute of it."

With these words, Leo Baratowski went up to his mother. He was, indeed, very young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years of age. One look in his face was sufficient to show that his features were modelled on those of the Princess. The resemblance was striking, as it only can be between mother and son; and yet the latter's fine youthful head, with its dark, curly hair, bore quite another stamp from hers. The cold, severe expression was wanting. Here all was fire and life; all the passion of a glowing, and as yet unbridled, temperament blazed in the dark eyes, and his whole appearance was such an impersonation of adolescent strength and beauty, it was not difficult to understand the pride with which the Princess took her son's hand to lead him to his uncle.

"Leo has no father now," she said, gravely. "I shall look to you for help, Bronislaus, when the counsel and guidance of a man become necessary to him in his career."

The Count embraced his nephew with heartfelt warmth, but in a far quieter fashion than that in which he had received his daughter. The sight of her seemed for the present to drive all else into the background. His looks continually wandered back to the young girl, who, in this last year during which he had been separated from her, had almost grown to maiden's estate.

Wanda was not in the least like her father. If the likeness between Leo and his mother were striking in the extreme, here, between father and daughter, such resemblance was altogether wanting. The young Countess Morynska was, indeed, like no one but herself. Her slender, graceful figure was as yet unformed, and she had evidently not attained to her full height. The face, too, was childlike, though her features already justified the Princess's claim on their behalf. A rather pale face it was, the cheeks being tinged only by faintest pink; but there was nothing sickly in this paleness, and it in no way diminished the impression of fresh and healthful vigour. Her luxuriant, raven-black hair set the whiteness of her complexion in still stronger relief, and dark dewy eyes were hid beneath the long black lashes. Wanda did indeed give promise of beauty. As yet she had it not; but, on the other hand, she possessed that peculiar charm which belongs to many a girlish figure, standing on the boundary line between child and maiden hood. There was about her a pretty blending of the child's petulance and artlessness with the graver demeanour of the young lady, who, at every turn, calls to mind her sixteen years; while the bloom of early youth, of the blossom budding forth, invested her whole person with a special grace of its own, and made her doubly charming.

When the first emotion of the meeting was over, the conversation flowed in calmer channels. Count Morynski had drawn his daughter down on to a seat near him, and was jestingly reproaching her for her late return.

"I knew nothing of your arrival, papa," Wanda said in self-defence; "and, besides, I had an adventure in the forest."

"In the forest?" interrupted her aunt. "Were you not on the water, with Leo?"

"Only coming back, aunt. We intended to sail back to the Beech Holm, as had been agreed; but Leo declared, and persisted in it, that the way by sea was far nearer than by the footpath through the wood. I maintained the contrary. We argued about it for some time, and at last decided upon each proving we were right. Leo sailed alone, and I set off through the forest."

"And reached the Beech Holm quite safely a good half-hour after me," said Leo, triumphantly.

"I had lost my way," asserted the young lady, warmly; "and I should very likely be in the forest still if I had not been put right."

"And who put you right?" asked the Count.

Wanda laughed mischievously. "A wood-demon, one of the old giants who are said to wander about here at times. But don't ask me any more now, papa. Leo is burning with curiosity to know all about it. He has been teasing me with questions the whole way back, and therefore he shall not hear a syllable."

"It is all an invention," cried Leo, laughing, "a pretext to explain your late arrival. You would rather make up a long story than acknowledge I was right for once."

Wanda was about to retort in the same tone, when the Princess interfered.

"Pretext or not," said she, sharply, "this solitary walk, taken without consulting any one, was to the last degree improper. I had given you permission to go for a short sail in Leo's company, and I cannot understand how he could leave you in the woods for hours, by yourself."

"But Wanda would go," said Leo, by way of excuse. "She wanted to have our dispute about the distance settled."

"Yes, dear aunt, I would go" (the young lady laid greater stress on the word than she would have ventured to do, had her father not been protectingly at hand), "and Leo knew very well it was useless to try and hold me back."

Here was a fresh instance of the girl's wilfulness, requiring to be severely dealt with.

The Princess was about to deliver a serious reprimand, when her brother quickly interposed.

"You will allow me to take Wanda with me?" said he. "I feel rather tired from the journey, and should like to go to my room. Good-bye for the present." With this he rose, took his daughter's arm, and left the room with her.

"My uncle seems in raptures at the sight of Wanda," remarked Leo, as the two disappeared.

The Princess looked after them in silence. "He will overlook it," she said at last, under her breath; "he will worship her with blind adoration, such as he lavished formerly on her mother, and Wanda will soon know her power and learn to use it. This was what I feared from a return to her father. The very first hour shows that I was right. What is this story about an adventure in the forest, Leo?"

Leo shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Probably one of Wanda's teasing jokes. She made me curious at first with all sorts of hints, and then obstinately refused to tell me more, taking great delight in my vexation. You know her way."

"Yes, I know her way." There was a slight frown on the Princess's brow. "Wanda likes to play with every one and everything, to let all who come near her feel her arbitrary humour. You should not make it so easy to her, Leo, at least so far as you yourself are concerned."

The young Prince crimsoned to the temples. "I, mamma? Why, I am always quarrelling with Wanda!"

"And always submitting in the end to be led by her caprices. Do not tell me, my son–I know who invariably triumphs when a contest arises between you two; but, for the present, this is all childishness. I wanted to speak to you of something serious. Shut the balcony door, and come here to me."

Leo obeyed. His face showed that he was offended, less, perhaps, by the reproof administered to him, than by the expression 'childishness.'

The Princess, however, took not the slightest notice of his mood.

"You know," she began, "that I had been married before I bestowed my hand on your father, and that a son of that first marriage still lives. You know, too, that he has been reared and educated in Germany; but up to this time you have never seen him. A meeting between you will now take place. You are to make his acquaintance."

Leo sprang up, his eyes sparkling with eagerness and liveliest surprise.

"My brother Waldemar?"

"Waldemar Nordeck, yes." The emphasis laid on the latter name conveyed a perhaps unintentional, but most decided, protest against this relationship between a Nordeck and a Baratowski. "He lives in this neighbourhood on his guardian's estate. I have sent him word of our presence here, and I expect he will come over one of these days."

Leo's previous ill-humour had vanished. The subject was evidently one of the greatest interest to him. "Mamma," said he, hesitatingly, "may I not hear something more of these sad family affairs? All I know is that your marriage was an unhappy one, that you are at variance with Waldemar's relations, and with his guardian. Even this I have only learned from my uncle's allusions, and from hints dropped by old servants of our house. I have never ventured to ask a question, either of you or of my father. I saw that it would hurt him, and make you angry. You both seemed anxious to banish the remembrance from your mind."

A singularly hard expression came over the Princess's features, and the tone of her voice was hard too, as she replied, "Certainly, old mortifications and humiliations are best hidden from view and forgotten, and that unhappy union was fertile in both. Do not ask me about it now, Leo. You know the events that happened. Let that suffice you. I neither can nor will take you, step by step, through a family drama, of which I cannot think even now without a feeling of hatred for the dead rising up within me. I thought to efface those three years altogether from my life, and little dreamed that I should one day be compelled myself to call up the memory of them."

"And what compels you?" asked Leo, quickly. "Not our return? We are going to my uncle's, at Rakowicz, are we not?"

"No, my son, we are going to Wilicza."

"To Wilicza!" repeated Leo, in surprise. "Why, that is … that is Waldemar's place!"

"It would have been my dower-house, but for the will which ejected me," said the Princess, in a cutting tone; "now it is the property of my son. Room will certainly be found there for his mother."

Leo started back with an impetuous gesture. "What does it mean?" he asked, hotly. "Are you going to lower yourself before this Waldemar, to ask a favour of him? I know that we are poor; but I would bear anything, do without anything, rather than consent that, for my sake, you …"

The Princess rose suddenly. Her look and attitude were so commanding that the boy stopped short in the midst of his passionate protest.

"Do you suppose that your mother is capable of lowering herself? Have you so little knowledge of her? Leave to me the care of upholding my dignity–and yours. It really is not needful that you should point out to me the limits to which I may go. It is for me alone to judge of them."

Leo was silent, and looked down. His mother went up to him, and took his hand.

"Will this hot head of yours never learn to reason quietly?" said she, more gently. "Yet calm reflection will be so necessary to it in life? My plans with regard to Waldemar I shall carry out myself, alone. If there be bitterness attaching to them, you, my Leo, shall feel nothing of it. You must keep your sight unclouded, your spirit fresh and valiant for the future which is in store for you. That is your task. Mine is to assure you that future at any cost. Trust your mother."

With a dumb prayer for forgiveness, her son raised her hand to his lips. She drew him to her; and, as she bent down to kiss the handsome, animated face, it became manifest that this cold, austere woman had a mother's heart, and that, in spite of the severity with which she treated him, Leo was that heart's idol.