Under a Charm. Vol. I

The Doctor might be thirty or thereabouts. He was of middle height, but his stooping attitude made him appear short of stature. His face was not exactly unhandsome, but it wore too evident a look of sickliness, and of the depression bred of a painful position in life, to prove attractive. His complexion was pale and unhealthy, his brow deeply lined, and his eyes had that abstracted, uncertain expression peculiar to those who seldom, if ever, bring their thoughts altogether to bear on the realities around them. His black attire was ordered with scrupulous care; and there was an air of anxious timidity about the man's whole being, betraying itself in his voice, as he replied in a low tone–

"You know, Herr Witold, that I never apply to you, save in an extreme case. This time I must call upon you to use your authority. I am at my wits' end."

"What has Waldemar been doing now?" asked the master of the house, impatiently. "I know he is unmanageable as well as you do, but I can't help you in the matter. The boy got far beyond my control long ago. He will obey no one now, not even me. He runs away from your books, and prefers to be off with his gun, does he? Tut! I was no better at his age. They could never ram all their learned stuff into my head. He has no manners, has not he? Well, he does not want them. We live here among ourselves, and when we do have a neighbourly meeting now and again, we don't make much ceremony about it. You know that well enough, Doctor. You always take to your heels, and escape from our shooting parties and drinking bouts."

"But, only think," objected the tutor, "if Waldemar with his rough wild ways were, later in life, to be thrown into another sphere; if he were to marry …"

"Marry!" exclaimed Witold, absolutely hurt by such a supposition. "He will never do such a thing. What should he marry for? I have remained a bachelor all my life, and find myself uncommonly comfortable; and poor Nordeck would have done better to keep single. No, thank God, there is no fear of our Waldemar! Why, he runs off at the sight of a petticoat, and he is right."

So saying, Waldemar's guardian leaned back in his chair with an air of much contentment. The Doctor drew a step nearer.

"But to return to the point from which we set out," said he, hesitatingly. "You yourself admit that my pupil will no longer be guided by me. It must therefore be high time to send him to the University."

Herr Witold sprang up from his seat so suddenly that the tutor beat a hasty retreat.

"Did not I think something of the sort was coming! I have, heard nothing else from you for the last month. What should Waldemar go to the University for? To have his head stuffed with learning by the professors? I should think you have taken good care to do that for him by this time. All that an honest country gentleman needs to know, he knows. He is as great an authority about the land and the farm business as my inspector. He keeps the people in their place far more effectually than I can, and there is not a better man in the saddle or in the field. He is a splendid young fellow!"

The tutor did not appear to share this enthusiastic view of his pupil's merits. He hardly ventured to express so much in words, but summoned up all his evidently slender stock of courage for the timid reply.

"But, sir, the heir of Wilicza requires, after all, something more than the qualifications which go to make a good inspector or land-steward. Some higher culture, some academical study, appear to me extremely desirable."

"They don't appear desirable to me at all," retorted Herr Witold. "Isn't it enough that, by-and-by, I shall have to let the boy, who is the very apple of my eye, go from me, just because his property lies in that cursed land of Polacks? Must I part from him now to send him to the University against his will? I'll do nothing of the sort, I tell you, nothing of the sort. He shall stay here until he goes to Wilicza."

With this, he puffed so savagely at his pipe that for several minutes his face disappeared behind the clouds of smoke. The tutor sighed, and was silent. His quiet resignation touched the tyrannical Squire.

"Don't trouble your mind any more about the University, Doctor," said he, in quite a changed tone; "you will never persuade Waldemar to consent to the plan as long as you live. And for yourself, too, it is better that you should stay at Altenhof. Here you are just in the midst of your tumuli and your Runic stones, or whatever you call the rubbish you are after all day long. I can't understand, for my own part, what you can see so remarkable in the old heathen lumber; but the heart of man must take delight in something, and I am right glad you can find any pleasure to satisfy you, for you have often a hard time of it with Waldemar–and with me into the bargain."

The Doctor, much confused, made a deprecatory gesture. "Oh, Herr Witold!"

"Don't put yourself out," said the other, good-naturedly. "I know that in your secret soul you look upon our life here as a godless business, and that you would have run away from us long ago, if it had not been for the heathen rubbish you have grown so fond of, and which you can't bring yourself to part from. Well, I am not such a bad fellow after all, you know, though I do fly out in a passion occasionally; and as you are always pottering about among the pagans, you must be just in your element here with us. I have heard say that people in those days had no manners at all. They used to fight and murder each other out of pure friendship."

The historical information displayed by Herr Witold appeared to the Doctor to have a dangerous tendency. Possibly he feared some practical illustration of it on his own person, for he backed by almost imperceptible degrees behind the sofa.

"Excuse me, the old Teutons …"

"Were not cut out after your pattern, Doctor," cried the Squire with a shout of laughter, for the manœuvre had not escaped him. "I know that much, at all events. I think, of us all, Waldemar comes the nearest to them, so I can't make out what fault you can find with him."

"But, Herr Witold, in the nineteenth century …" The Doctor got no further in his dissertation, for at that moment the crack of a shot was heard–of a shot fired close to the open window. A bullet whistled through the room, and the great stag's antlers, which hung over the bureau, fell down with a crash.

The Squire jumped up from his seat. "Waldemar! What does this mean? Is the boy taking to shoot into the very rooms? Wait a moment; I'll put a stop to that work!"

He would have hurried out, but was stopped at the entrance by a young man, who pushed, or rather flung, open the door, letting it fall to on its hinges again with a bang. He wore a shooting suit, and carried in his hand the gun which had caused the late report, while at his side stalked a great pointer. Without any sort of greeting, or of excuse for this violent mode of making his appearance, he went up to Witold, placed himself right before him, and asked triumphantly–

"Now, which of us was right, you or I?"

The Squire was really angry. "Is that the way to behave, shooting over people's heads?" he cried, testily. "One is not sure of one's life with you now. Do you want to put the Doctor and me out of the world?"

Waldemar shrugged his shoulders. "Where was the harm? I wanted to win my wager. You declared yesterday I should not hit that nail, where the twelve-year-old hung, from outside. There's my ball, up there."

He pointed to the wall. Witold followed the direction.

"It really is!" said he, full of admiration, and altogether appeased. "Doctor, just look–but what is the matter with you?"

"Doctor Fabian has got another of his nervous attacks, no doubt," said Waldemar ironically, laying aside his gun, but making no attempt to succour his teacher, who had sunk back on the sofa, half fainting with the fright, and was still trembling from head to foot. The good-natured Witold raised him up, and encouraged him to the best of his ability.

"Come, come, who would think of fainting because a little powder went off! Why, it is not worth speaking of. We had laid the wager, that is quite true; but how was I to know the young madcap would set to work in such a senseless fashion? Instead of calling us out, that we might look on quietly, he makes no more ado, but takes his aim straight over our heads. Are you better now? Ah, that's right, thank God!"

Doctor Fabian had risen, and was striving to master his emotion; but as yet he could not quite succeed.

"You might have shot us, Waldemar," said he, with pale and trembling lips.

"No, Doctor, I might not," answered Waldemar, in a tone the reverse of reverential. "You and my uncle were standing to the right, and I aimed over there to the left, at least five paces off. You know I never miss."

"No matter, you will let it alone in future," declared Witold, with an attempt at asserting his authority as guardian. "The deuce himself may be playing tricks with the balls, and then there will be an accident. Once for all, I forbid you to shoot anywhere near the house."

The young man crossed his arms defiantly. "You can forbid me, uncle, as much as you like, but I shan't obey. I shall shoot if I choose."

He stood confronting his guardian, the very incarnation of rebellious wilfulness. Waldemar Nordeck's whole appearance was of the true Germanic type; no single feature of his bore evidence to the fact that his mother had come of another race. His tall, almost gigantic, figure towered several inches above even Witold's portly form; but his frame lacked symmetry, every line in it was sharp and angular. His light hair seemed in its overabundance to be quite a troublesome load on his head, for it fell low down over his brow, whence it was tossed back every now and then with an impatient gesture. His blue eyes had a sombre and, in moments of excitement like the present, almost a fierce expression. His face was decidedly plain. Here, too, the lines were sharp and unformed; all the boy's softer contours had vanished, and were not as yet replaced by the set features of the man. In the case of this young man, the transition stage was so marked as to be almost repulsive; and the uncouthness of his manners, his complete disdain of all polite forms, did not tend to diminish the unfavourable impression created by his appearance.

Herr Witold was evidently one of those men whose person and bearing seem to argue an energy of which, in reality, they possess not a particle. Instead of meeting his ward's defiant rudeness with steady resolution, the guardian thought proper to give way.

"I told you so, Doctor; the boy won't mind me any longer," said he, with an equanimity which showed that this was the usual outcome of such differences, and that, whenever it should please the young gentleman to be in earnest, the uncle would be found powerless as the tutor.

Waldemar took no further notice of either of them. He threw himself at full length on the sofa, without the least regard to the fact that his boots, completely soaked by a journey through the marshes, were coming in contact with the cushions; while the pointer, who had also been in the water, followed his master's example, and, with equal recklessness, settled himself down comfortably on the carpet.

A rather awkward pause ensued. The Squire, grumbling to himself, tried to light his pipe, which had gone out in the interval. Dr. Fabian had taken refuge by the window, and, gazing out, cast a look towards heaven which said more plainly than any words that, truly, he did consider the way of life here to be 'a godless sort of business.'

The Squire had meanwhile been hunting for his tobacco pouch, which was at last happily discovered on the bureau, under the spurs and riding-whips. As he drew it out, an unopened envelope fell close by his hand. He took it up.

"I had nearly forgotten that. Waldemar, there is a letter for you."

"For me?" asked Waldemar, indifferently, and yet with that touch of surprise called up by an event of rare occurrence.

"Yes. There's a coronet on the seal, and a coat of arms with all sorts of heraldic beasts. From the Princess Baratowska, I presume. It is a long time since we have been honoured with her Highness's gracious autograph."

Young Nordeck broke open the letter, and glanced through it. It seemed to contain but a few lines; nevertheless, a heavy cloud gathered on the reader's brow.

"Well, what is it?" asked Witold. "Are the conspirators still hatching their plots in Paris? I did not look at the postmark."

"The Princess and her son are out yonder at C–," reported Waldemar. He seemed purposely to avoid the names of mother and brother. "She wishes to see me. I shall ride over to-morrow morning."

"You will do nothing of the kind," said the Squire. "Your princely relatives have not troubled themselves about you for years, and they need not begin now. We want nothing of them. Stay where you are."

"Uncle, I have had enough of being ordered about and forbidden to do this and that!" Waldemar broke out, with such sudden vehemence that the Squire stared at him open-mouthed. "Am I a schoolboy that I need ask your leave at every step? Have not I the right, at one and twenty, to decide whether I will see my mother or not? I have decided, and to-morrow morning I shall ride over to C–."

"Well, don't put yourself in a passion, and be so bearish," said Witold, more astonished than angry at this outburst of fury, which was quite inexplicable to him. "Go where you like, so far as I am concerned; but I'll have nothing to do with the Polish lot–that I tell you."

Waldemar wrapped himself in sullen silence. He took his gun, whistled to his dog, and left the room. His guardian looked after him, and shook his head. All at once a thought seemed to strike him. He took up the letter, which Waldemar had carelessly left lying on the table, and read it through. Now it was Herr Witold's turn to knit his brow and frown more and more ominously, until at last the storm broke.

"I thought so!" he cried, thumping with his fist on the table. "It is just like my fine madam. In six lines she stirs the boy up to rebel against me. That is the reason he turned so cantankerous all in a minute. Listen to this delightful letter, Doctor: 'My son,–Years have passed, during which you have given no sign of life.'–As if she had given us any!–'I only know through strangers that you are living at Altenhof with your guardian. I am staying at C– just now, and should rejoice to see you here, and to have an opportunity of introducing your brother to you. I know not, indeed,'–listen, Doctor, this is where she pricks him,–'I know not, indeed, whether you will be free to pay me this visit. I hear that, notwithstanding you have attained your majority, you are still quite subject to your guardian's will.'–Doctor, you are witness of how the boy tramples on us both day after day!–'Of your readiness to come I make no doubt; but I do not feel so sure that Herr Witold will grant his permission. I have therefore preferred to address myself directly to you, that I may see whether you possess sufficient strength of character to comply with this, the first wish your mother has ever expressed to you, or whether you dare not accede even to this request of hers.'–The 'dare' is underlined. –'If I am right in the former supposition, I shall expect to see you shortly. Your brother joins me in love.–Your mother.'"

Herr Witold was so exasperated that he dashed the letter to the ground. "There's a thing for a man to read! Cleverly managed of the lady mother, that! She knows as well as I do what a pig-headed fellow Waldemar is, and if she had studied him for years she could not have hit on his weak side better. The mere thought of restraint being placed on him makes him mad. I may move heaven and earth now to keep him; he will go just to show me he can have his own way. What do you say to the business?"

Doctor Fabian seemed sufficiently initiated in the family affairs to look upon the approaching meeting with alarm equal to the Squire's, though proceeding from a far different cause.

"Dear me! dear me!" he said, anxiously. "If Waldemar goes over to C– and behaves in his usual rough, unmannerly fashion, if the Princess sees him so, what will she think of him?"

"Think he has taken after his father, and not after her," was the Squire's emphatic reply. "That is just how she ought to see Waldemar; then it will be made evident to her that he will be no docile instrument to serve her intrigues–for that there are intrigues on foot again, I'd wager my head. Either the princely purse is empty–I fancy it never was too full–or there is some neat little State conspiracy concocting again, and Wilicza lies handy for it, being so close to the frontier."

"But, Herr Witold," remonstrated the Doctor, "why try to widen the unhappy breach in the family, now that the mother gives proof of a conciliatory spirit? Would it not be better to make peace at last?"

"You don't understand, Doctor," said Witold, with a bitterness quite unusual to him. "There is no peace to be made with that woman, unless one surrenders one's own will, and consents to be ruled entirely by her; it was because poor Nordeck would not do so that she led him the life of hell at home. Now, I won't exonerate him altogether. He had some nasty faults, and could make things hard for a woman; but all the troubles came of his taking this Morynska for a wife. Another girl might have led him, might perhaps have changed some things in him; but, for such a task, a little heart would have been needed, and of that article Madam Hedwiga never had much to show. Well, the 'degradation,' as they call it, of her first marriage has been made good by the second. It was only a pity that the Princess Baratowska, with her son and spouse, could not take up her residence at Wilicza. She could never get over that; but luckily the will drew the bolt there, and we have taken care to bring up Waldemar in such a way that he is not likely to undo its work by any act of folly."

"We!" exclaimed the Doctor, much shocked. "Herr Witold, I have given my lessons conscientiously, according to my instructions. I have unfortunately never been able to influence my pupil's mind and character, or …" he hesitated.

"Or he would have been different from what he is," added Witold, laughing. "The youngster suits me as he is, in spite of his wild ways. If you like it better, I have brought him up. If the result does not fit in with the Baratowskis' plots and plans, I shall be right glad; and if my education and their Parisian breeding get fairly by the ears to-morrow, I shall be still better pleased. Then we shall be quits, at least, for that spiteful letter yonder."

With these words the Squire left the room. The Doctor stooped to pick up the letter, which still lay on the floor. He took it up, folded it carefully together, and said, with a profound sigh–

"And one day people will say, 'It was a Dr. Fabian who brought up the young heir.' Oh, just Heaven!"

CHAPTER III

The domain of Wilicza, to which Waldemar Nordeck was heir, was situated in one of the eastern provinces of the country, and consisted of a vast agglomeration of estates, whereof the central point was the old castle Wilicza, with the lands of the same name. To tell how the late Herr Nordeck obtained possession of this domain, and subsequently won for himself the hand of a Countess Morynska, would be to add a fresh chapter to that tale, so oft repeated in our days, of the fall of ancient families, once rich and influential, and the rise of a middle-class element which, with the wealth, acquires the power that was formerly claimed by the nobility as their exclusive privilege.

Count Morynski and his sister were early left orphans, and lived under the guardianship of their relations. Hedwiga was educated in a convent; on leaving it, she found that her hand was already disposed of. This was assuredly nothing unusual in the noble circles to which she belonged, and the young Countess would have acquiesced unconditionally, had her destined husband been of equal birth with herself–had he been one of her own people; but she had been chosen as the instrument to work out the family plans, which, at all costs, must be carried into execution.

Some few years ago, in the neighbourhood where lay the property of most of the Morynski family, a certain Nordeck had arisen–a German, of low birth, but who had attained to great wealth, and had settled in that part of the country. The condition of the province at that time made it easy for a foreign element to graft itself on the soil, whereas, under ordinary circumstances, every hindrance would have been opposed to it. The after-throes of the last rebellion, which, though it had actually broken out beyond the frontier, had awakened a fellow-feeling throughout the German provinces, made themselves everywhere felt. Half the nobility had fled, or were impoverished by the sacrifices they had been eager to make in the cause of their fatherland; it was, therefore, not difficult for Nordeck to buy up the debt-laden estates at a tithe of their value, and, by degrees, to obtain possession of a domain which insured him a position among the first landed proprietors of the country.

The intruder was, it is true, wanting in breeding, and of most unprepossessing appearance; moreover, it soon became evident that he had neither mind nor character to recommend him. Yet his immense property gave him a weight in the land which was but too speedily recognised, especially as, with determined hostility to all connected with the Polish faction, his influence was invariably thrown into the opposite scale. This may possibly have been his revenge for the fact that the exclusively aristocratic and Slavonic neighbourhood held him at a distance, and treated him with unconcealed, nay, very openly manifested contempt. Whether imprudencies had been committed on the side of the disaffected, or whether the cunning stranger had played the spy on his own account, suffice it to say that he gained an insight into certain party machinations. This made him a most formidable adversary. To secure his goodwill became a necessity of the situation.

The man must be won over at any cost, and it had long been known that such winning over was possible. As a millionaire, he was naturally inaccessible to bribery; his vulnerable point, therefore, was his vanity, which made him look on an alliance with one of the old noble Polish families with a favourable eye. Perhaps the circumstance that, half a century before, Wilicza had been in the possession of the Morynskis directed the choice to the granddaughter of the last proprietor; perhaps no other house was ready to offer up a daughter or a sister, to exact from them the obedience now demanded of the poor dependent orphan. It flattered the rough parvenu to think that the hand of a Countess Morynska was within his grasp. A dowry was no object to him, so he entered into the plan with great zest; and thus, at her first entrance into the world, Hedwiga found herself face to face with a destiny against which her whole being revolted.

Her first step was decidedly to refuse compliance; but what availed the 'no' of a girl of seventeen when opposed to a family resolve dictated by urgent necessity? Commands and threats proving of no effect, recourse was had to persuasion. The young relation was shown the brilliant rôle she would have to play as mistress of Wilicza, the unlimited ascendancy she would assuredly exercise over a man to whose level she stooped so low. Much was said of the satisfaction a Morynska would feel on once more obtaining control over property torn from her ancestors; much, too, of the pressing need existing of converting the dreaded adversary into a ductile tool for the furtherance of their own plans. It was required of her that she should hold Wilicza, and the enormous revenues at the disposal of its master, in the interests of her party–and where compulsion had failed, argument succeeded. The rôle of a poor relation was by no means to the young Countess's taste. She was glowing with ambition. The heart's needs and affections were unknown to her; and when, at sight of her, Nordeck betrayed some fleeting spark of passion, she too believed that her dominion over him would be unbounded. So she yielded, and the marriage took place.

But the plans, the selfish calculations of both parties were alike to be brought to nought. His neighbours had been mistaken in their estimate of this man. Instead of bowing to his young wife's will, he now showed himself as lord and master, impervious to all influence, regardless of her superior rank; his passing fancy for his bride being soon transformed into hatred when he discovered that she only desired to make use of him and of his fortune to serve her own ends and those of her family. The birth of a son made no change in their relations to each other; if anything, the gulf between husband and wife seemed to be only widened by it. Nordeck's character was not one to inspire a woman with esteem; and this woman displayed the contempt she felt for him in a way that would have stung any man to fury. Fearful scenes ensued; after one of which the young mistress of Wilicza left the castle, and fled to her brother for protection.