Under a Charm. Vol. I

Little Waldemar, then barely a year old, was left with his father. Nordeck, enraged at his wife's flight, imperiously demanded her return. Bronislaus did what he could to protect his sister; and the quarrel between him and his brother-in-law might have been productive of the worst consequences, had not death unexpectedly stepped in and loosed the bonds of this short-lived, but most unhappy, union. Nordeck, who was a keen and reckless sportsman, met with an accident while out hunting. His horse fell with its rider, and the latter sustained injuries to which he shortly after succumbed; but on his deathbed he had strength enough, both of mind and body, to dictate a will excluding his wife from all share alike in his fortune and in the education of his child. Her flight from his house gave him the right so to exclude her, and he used it unsparingly. Waldemar was entrusted to the guardianship of an old school friend and distant connection, and the latter was endowed with unbounded authority. The widow tried, indeed, to resist; but the new guardian proved his friendship to the dead man by carrying out the provisions of the will with utter disregard to her feelings, and rejected all her claims. Already owner of Altenhof, Witold had no intention of remaining at Wilicza, or of leaving his ward behind him there. He took the boy with him to his own home. Nordeck's latest instructions had been to the effect that his son was to be entirely removed from his mother's influence and family; and these instructions were so strictly observed that, during the years of his minority, the young heir only paid a few flying visits to his estates, always in the company of his guardian. All his youth was spent at Altenhof.

As for the enormous revenues of Wilicza, of which at present no use could be made, they were suffered to accumulate, and went to swell the capital; so that Waldemar Nordeck, on coming of age, found himself in possession of wealth such as but few indeed could boast.

The future lord of Wilicza's mother lived on at first in the house of her brother, who meanwhile had also married; but she did not long remain there. One of the Count's most intimate friends, Prince Baratowski, fell passionately in love with the young, clever, and beautiful widow, who, so soon as the year of her mourning was out, bestowed her hand upon him. This second marriage was in all respects a happy one. People said, indeed, that the Prince, though a gallant gentleman, was not of a very energetic temperament, and that he bowed submissively to his wife's sceptre. However this may have been, he loved both her and the son she bore him, tenderly and devotedly.

But the happiness of this union was not long to remain untroubled. This time, however, the storms came from without. Leo was still a child when that revolutionary epoch arrived which set half Europe in a blaze. The rebellion, so often quelled, broke out with renewed violence in the Polish provinces. Morynski and Baratowski were true sons of their fatherland. They threw themselves with ardent enthusiasm into the struggle from which they hoped the salvation of their country and the restoration of its greatness. The insurrection ended, as so many of its predecessors had ended, in hopeless defeat. It was forcibly suppressed, and on this occasion much severity was displayed towards the rebel districts. Prince Baratowski and his brother-in-law fled to Paris, whither their wives and children followed them. Countess Morynska, a delicate, fragile woman, did not long endure the sojourn in a foreign land. She died in the following year, and Bronislaus then gave his child into his sister's charge. He himself could no longer bear to stay in Paris, where everything reminded him of the wife he had loved so ardently, and lost. He lived a restless, wandering life, roving from place to place, returning every now and then to see his daughter. At last, an amnesty being proclaimed, he was free to go back to his native country, where, through the death of a relation, he had lately succeeded to the estate of Rakowicz. He now settled down on his new property. Matters stood far otherwise with Prince Baratowski, who was excluded from the amnesty. He had been one of the leaders of the rebellion, and had taken a prominent part in the movement. Return was not to be thought of for him, and his wife and son shared his exile, until his death removed all barriers, and they too became free to make their future home where they would.

CHAPTER IV

It was early in the forenoon, and the morning room of the villa in C–, occupied by the Baratowski family, was, for the time being, tenanted by the Princess alone. She was absorbed in the study of a letter which she had received an hour before, and which contained an announcement from Waldemar that he intended coming over that day, and should follow quickly on his messenger's steps. The mother gazed as fixedly at the missive as though from the short cold words, or from the handwriting, she were trying to discern the character of the son who had grown so complete a stranger to her. Since her second marriage she had seen him but at rare intervals; and during the latter years she had spent in France, communication between them had almost entirely ceased. The picture she still bore fresh in mind of the boy at the age of ten was unprepossessing enough, and the accounts she heard of the youth coincided but too well with it. Nevertheless, it was necessary, at any cost, to secure an influence over him; and the Princess, though she in no way attempted to disguise from herself the difficulties in her path, was not the woman to recoil from the task she had undertaken. She had risen and was pacing up and down the room, musing deeply, when a quick loud step was heard without. It halted in the anteroom. Next minute Pawlick opened the door, and announced "Herr Waldemar Nordeck." The visitor entered, the door closed behind him, and mother and son stood face to face.

Waldemar came forward a few steps, and then suddenly stopped. The Princess, in the act of going to meet him, paused in her turn. In the very moment of their meeting a bridgeless chasm seemed to yawn open between them; all the estrangement and enmity of former years rose up again mighty as ever. That pause, that silence of a second, spoke more plainly than words. It showed that the voice of natural affection was mute in the mother's heart, as in the son's. The Princess was the first to dissimulate that instinctive movement of reserve.

"I thank you for coming, my son," said she, and held out her hand to him.

Waldemar drew near slowly. He just touched the offered hand, and then let it drop. No attempt at an embrace was made on either side. The Princess's figure, notwithstanding her dusky mourning robes, was very beautiful and imposing as she stood there in the bright sunlight; but it appeared to make no impression on the young man, albeit he kept his eyes steadily fixed on her.

The mother's gaze was riveted on his face; but she sought in vain there for any reflection of her own features, for any trace which should recall herself. Nothing met her view but a speaking likeness to the man she hated even in death. The father stood before her portrayed in his son, trait for trait.

"I counted upon your visit," went on the Princess, as she sat down and, with a slight wave of her hand, assigned to him a place at her side.

Waldemar did not move.

"Will you not be seated?" The question was put quietly, but it admitted of no refusal, and reminded young Nordeck that he could not conveniently remain standing during the whole of his visit. He took no notice of her repeated gesture, however; but drew forward a chair, and sat down opposite his mother, leaving the place at her side empty.

The demonstration was unmistakable. For one moment the Princess's lips tightened, but otherwise her face remained unmoved. Waldemar, too, now sat in the full daylight. He again wore his shooting clothes, which, though on this occasion they certainly bore no marks of recent sport, yet betrayed no special care, and were worlds apart from anything approaching a correct equestrian costume. In his left hand, ungloved like its fellow, he held his round hat and whip. His boots were covered with the dust of a two hours' ride, the rider not having thought fit to shake it off; and his very manner of sitting down showed him to be altogether unused to drawing-room etiquette. His mother saw all this at a glance; but she also saw the inflexible defiance with which her son had armed himself. Her task was no easy one, she felt.

"We have grown strangers to one another, Waldemar," she began; "and on this our first meeting, I can hardly expect to receive from you a son's affectionate greeting. From your early childhood I have been forced to give you into other hands. I have never been allowed to exercise a mother's rights, to fulfil a mother's duties towards you."

"I have wanted for nothing at my uncle Witold's," replied Waldemar, curtly; "and I have certainly been more at home there than I should have been in Prince Baratowski's house."

He laid a bitter emphasis on the name which did not escape the Princess.

"Prince Baratowski is dead," said she, gravely. "You are in the presence of his widow."

Waldemar looked up, and appeared now for the first time to notice her mourning garb. "I am sorry for it–for your sake," he answered, coldly.

His mother put the subject from her with a wave of the hand. "Let us say no more. You never knew the Prince, and I cannot expect you to feel any kindliness towards the man who was my husband. I do not disguise from myself that the loss I have sustained, cruel though it has been, has done away with the barrier which stood between, and held us apart. You have always looked on me exclusively as the Princess Baratowska. Perhaps now you will recall to mind that I am also your mother, and your father's widow."

At these last words Waldemar started up so hastily that his chair was thrown to the ground. "I think we had better not touch on that. I have come in order to show you that I am under no restraint, that I do just what I choose. You wished to speak to me–here I am. What is it you want with me?"

All the young man's rough recklessness, his utter disregard of the feelings of others, spoke in these words. The allusion to his father had evidently stung him; but the Princess had now risen in her turn, and was standing opposite him.

"What I want with you? I want to break through that charmed circle which an influence hostile to me has drawn around you. I want to remind you that it is now time for you to see things with your own eyes, to let your own judgment have free play, instead of blindly adopting the views which other people have forced upon you. You have been taught to hate your mother. I have long known it. Try first whether she deserves your hatred, and then decide for yourself. That is what I want with you, my son, since you compel me to answer such a question."

This was said with so much quiet energy, such loftiness of look and tone, that it could not fail to have its effect upon Waldemar. He felt he had insulted his mother; but he felt also that the insult glanced off from her, powerless to wound, and that appeal to his independence had not fallen on deaf ears.

"I bear you no hatred, mother," said he. It was the first time he had pronounced that name.

"But you have no confidence in me," she answered; "yet that is the first thing I must ask of you. It will not be easy to you to put faith in me, I know. From your earliest childhood the seeds of distrust have been sown in your soul. Your guardian has done all in his power to alienate you from me, and to bind you solely to himself. I only fear that he, of all men, was least fitted to bring up the heir of Wilicza!"

Her eyes took a rapid survey of the young man as she spoke, and the look completed her meaning; unfortunately Waldemar understood both look and words, and was roused by them to a pitch of extreme irritation.

"I will not have a word said against my uncle," he exclaimed, in a sudden outburst of anger. "He has been a second father to me; and if I was only sent for here to listen to attacks against him, I had better go back again at once. We shall never understand each other."

The Princess saw the mistake she had made in giving the reins to her animosity against that detested guardian, but the thing was done. To yield now was to compromise her whole authority. She felt that on no account must she recede; yet everything depended on Waldemar's staying.

Suddenly help came to her from a quarter whence she least expected it. At this critical moment a side door was opened, and Wanda, who had just returned from a walk with her father, and had no idea that a visitor had arrived in her absence, came into the room.

Waldemar, who had turned to leave it, stopped all at once, as though rooted to the ground. A flame of fire seemed to shoot up into his face, so rapid, so deep was the crimson that dyed it. The anger and defiance which an instant before had shone in his eyes, vanished as by enchantment; and, for a moment, he remained transfixed, with his eyes riveted on the young Countess. The latter was about to retire, on seeing a stranger in her aunt's company; but when the stranger turned his face towards her, a half-uttered exclamation of surprise escaped her also. She, however, preserved all her presence of mind; and, far from being overtaken by any confusion, was apparently seized by a violent temptation to laugh which it cost her much trouble to subdue. It was too late to go back now, so she shut the door and went up to her aunt.

"My son, Waldemar Nordeck; my niece, Countess Morynska," said the Princess, looking first at Waldemar with considerable astonishment, and then casting a questioning glance at the young girl.

Wanda had quickly overcome the childish impulse to merriment, remembering that she was now a grown-up lady. Her graceful courtesy was so correct that the severest mistress of deportment could have found no fault with it; but there came a traitorous little twitch about the youthful lips again as Waldemar returned her salutation by a movement which he no doubt intended for a bow, but which certainly had a very strange effect. Once again his mother scanned his face, as though she would read his most secret thoughts. "It seems you know your cousin already?" she said, with a peculiar emphasis. Her allusion to the relationship between himself and the new-comer only increased the young man's discomfiture.

"I don't know," he replied, in extreme embarrassment. "I did … certainly … some days ago …"

"Herr Nordeck was so good as to act as my guide when I lost my way in the forest," interposed Wanda. "It was the day before yesterday, when we made our excursion to the Beech Holm."

At the time the Princess had described this walk as a rebellious and highly improper freak; but now she had not a word of blame for it. Her tone was almost sweet as she replied–

"Indeed! a singular meeting. But why behave to each other as though you were strangers? Between relations etiquette need not be so strictly observed. You may certainly offer your cousin your hand, Wanda."

Wanda obeyed, holding out her hand in a frank, unembarrassed way. Cousin Leo was already gallant enough to kiss it when she gave it him in token of reconciliation after a quarrel; his elder brother, unfortunately, appeared to possess none of this chivalry. He took the delicate little fingers, shyly and hesitatingly at first, as though he hardly dared to touch them, then all at once pressed them so tightly between his own that the girl almost cried out with the pain. Of this new cousin she knew as little as Leo, nay, still less; she had therefore looked forward to his announced visit with proportionable curiosity. Her disenchantment knew no bounds.

The Princess had stood by, a silent though keen observer. Her eye never quitted Waldemar's face.

"So you met each other in the forest?" said she again. "Was no name mentioned on either side to enlighten you?"

"Well, I unluckily took Herr Nordeck for a wood demon," burst out Wanda, paying no heed to her aunt's grave, reproving glance, "and he did his best to strengthen me in the belief. You can't imagine, aunt, what an interesting interview we had. During the half hour we were together, he never let me find out whether he really belonged to the present race of men, or to the old fabulous ages. Under these circumstances, a formal introduction was out of the question, of course."

This little speech was made in a tone of impertinent, half-mocking jest; but, strangely enough, Waldemar, who had recently shown himself so irritable, did not appear in the least offended by it. His eyes were still fixed on the young girl, and he hardly seemed to hear her stinging little pleasantries.

The Princess, however, thought it time to put a stop to Wanda's pertness. She turned to her son with calm as perfect as though the previous scene between them had never taken place.

"You have not yet seen your brother, Waldemar, nor your uncle either; I will take you to them. You will spend the day with us?" She spoke the last words in an airy, assured tone, as though his staying were a thing of course.

"If you wish it." This was said irresolutely, hesitatingly, but with none of the fierce defiance of his former answers. Evidently Waldemar no longer thought of going.

"Certainly I wish it. You would not leave us so abruptly on the occasion of your first visit. Come, dear Wanda."

Young Nordeck wavered yet a moment; but as Wanda obeyed the summons, his decision was taken. He laid the hat and riding-whip, to which he had hitherto persistently clung, down on the chair he had a little while before upset in his sudden blaze of anger, and meekly followed the ladies as they led the way. A scarcely perceptible smile of triumph played about the Princess's lips. She was too clever an observer not to know that she had the game in her own hands. It is true that accident had befriended her.

CHAPTER V

Count Morynski and Leo were together in the drawing-room. They had already heard from Pawlick of Waldemar's arrival, but had not wished to disturb the first meeting between mother and son. The Count looked a little surprised, as Wanda, whom he believed to be in her room, came in with them; but he did not put the question which was on his lips. For the moment young Nordeck engaged his whole attention. The Princess took her younger son by the hand, and led him to the elder. "You do not know each other yet," she said, significantly; "but to-day, at last, the satisfaction of bringing you together is granted me. Leo is ready to meet you with a brother's love, Waldemar. Let me hope that he may find the same in you."

Waldemar, with a rapid glance, took the measure of the new-found brother standing before him. There was no hostility in his manner now. The young Prince's handsome face took him captive on the spot, so much was evident; perhaps, too, he had been won over to a milder mood by that which had passed, for when Leo, still with some shy reserve, held out his hand to him, he grasped it warmly.

Count Morynski now drew near to address some words of courtesy to his sister's son. The latter answered chiefly in monosyllables, and the conversation, which, on Waldemar's account, was carried on exclusively in German, would have been forced and languid, had not the Princess guided it with truly masterly tact. She steered clear of every rock ahead, she avoided every painful allusion, and skilfully contrived that her brother, her sons, and Wanda should by turns be drawn into the general talk, so as, for half an hour, really to conjure up an illusion of the most perfect harmony reigning among the different members of the family.

Leo stood close to Waldemar's chair, and the contrast between the brothers was thus brought into strongest relief. The young Prince himself had hardly emerged from boyhood; he no more than his neighbour had yet ripened to man's estate. But how different was the transition here! Waldemar had never appeared to greater disadvantage than by the side of this slender, supple form, where there was symmetry in every line–by this youthful aristocrat, with his easy, assured bearing, his graceful gestures and ideally beautiful head. Young Nordeck's sharp, angular figure, his irregular features and sombre eyes, looking out from under a tangle of light hair, justified but too fully the mother's feelings, as her gaze rested on them both–on her darling, her handsome boy, so full of life and animation, and on that other, who was also her son, but to whom she was linked by no single outward trait, by no impulse of the heart. There was something in Waldemar's manner to-day which showed him in a more than usually unfavourable light. The short, imperious tone that was habitual to him, though unattractive enough, was yet consistent with his general appearance, and lent to it a character of its own. This tone he had maintained throughout the interview with his mother; but, from the moment of the young Countess Morynska's entrance, it had deserted him. For the first time in his life he appeared shy and under restraint; for the first time he seemed to feel the influence of society in every way superior to himself, and the novelty of his position robbed him, not only of his defiance, but visibly of his self-confidence also. He had come prepared to face a hostile camp, and his resolution had armed him with a certain rugged dignity. Now he had given up the fight, and his dignity had vanished. He was awkward, abstracted, and Morynski's surprised look seemed now and then to ask whether this really could be the Waldemar as to whom such alarming reports had been made. When they had sat and talked for about half an hour, Pawlick came in and announced that dinner was ready.

"Leo, you must resign your office to your brother, and let him take Wanda in to-day," said the Princess, as she rose and, passing her hand through her brother's arm, went on first with him to the dining-room.

"Well," asked the Count in a low voice, and in Polish, "how do matters stand? What was the result of the interview?"

The Princess only smiled. She gave one rapid glance back at Waldemar, who was just going up to Wanda, and then answered, also in Polish, "Make your mind easy. He will comply. I will answer for it."

It was nearly evening when young Nordeck set out on his homeward journey. Leo went with his brother to the gate of the villa, and then returned to the drawing-room. The Princess and Count Morynski were no longer there, but Wanda still stood on the balcony, watching the departing horseman.

"Good gracious, what a monster that Waldemar is!" cried Wanda to her cousin as he came in. "However did you manage to keep serious all the time, Leo? Look here, I have nearly bitten my handkerchief to pieces, trying to hide that I was laughing; but I can't keep it down any longer, or I shall suffocate!" and, falling on to one of the balcony chairs, Wanda broke into a violent burst of merriment, which plainly showed what severe restraint she must hitherto have placed on herself.

"We were prepared to find Waldemar odd," said Leo, half apologetically. "After all we had heard of him, I, to tell the truth, expected he would be much rougher and more disagreeable than he is."

"Oh, you only saw him in company dress to-day," jested Wanda; "but when one has had the good fortune to admire him, as I did, in all his primeval grandeur, it is hard to recover from the overpowering effect of the savage's first appearance. I yet think with awe of our meeting in the forest."

"Yes, you owe me an account of that meeting still," put in Leo. "So it was Waldemar who showed you the way to the Beech Holm the day before yesterday? I have gathered this much from your discourse, but I really do not understand why you make such a mystery of the matter."

"I only did that to torment you," replied the young lady with great candour. "You grew so angry when I told you of my interesting adventure with a stranger. You naturally believed some fascinating cavalier had escorted me, and I left you in that belief. Now, Leo"–here her gaiety got the better of her again–"now you see it was not a very dangerous affair."

"Well, yes, I see that," assented the young Prince, laughing; "but Waldemar must have had some knightly instinct, or he would not have condescended to act as your guide."

"Possibly; but I shall remember his escort as long as I live. Just fancy, Leo; all in a minute I lost the path I had so often taken, and which I thought I knew so well. At every attempt to find it I got deeper and deeper into the forest, until at last I strayed into regions quite unknown to me. I could not even tell in which direction the Beech Holm or the sea lay, for there was not a breath of wind, and not a murmur of the waves reached me. I stood still, not knowing what to do, and was just on the point of turning back, when something broke through the bushes as violently as though the woods were being beaten for a battue. Suddenly the figure of a man stood before me, whom I really could take for none other than the wood-demon in person. He was up to his knees in mud. A freshly killed doe was thrown over his shoulder, quite regardless of the fact that blood was dripping from the animal down on to his clothes and staining them. The enormous yellow mane, which serves him for hair, had been roughly used by the bushes, and was hanging down over his face. He stood there with a gun in his hand, and a growling, snarling dog at his side, who showed his teeth as he looked at me. I ask you if it was possible to take this monster of the woods for a human being bent on sport."